“It’s not that, exactly. Leprechauns might be part of the legend—often they are, and who’s to say, y’know? But I’m not writing fairy tales.”
The conversations around us that had hummed like soft music in the background seemed louder. Ian leaned in toward us. “The history’s the thing that I’m passionate about. One of the legends—if you care to hear—goes back to the 1650s.”
“Certainly we care to hear!” I said. Alex nodded his agreement.
“I’m not sure how much you know about Irish history, but that was the year Oliver Cromwell’s forces invaded Ireland.”
“I know a little about Cromwell,” Alex said. I had to suppress a smile, thinking about Alex’s professional career of more than forty years, teaching history at the university level.
“It was a brutal period in our country’s history. Catholics were forbidden to practice our religion in public. If priests were discovered conducting mass, they could be expelled from the country or executed.” As Ian found his storyteller’s voice, his words became more lyrical. “There was a man, a devout Catholic, who lived on a remote farm with his daughter. He had a spotted cow and a white one, and his neighbors knew that if only the white cow was grazing in the morning and the spotted cow was in the barn, the priest would be coming at noon to conduct secret mass.”
His attention shifted as a voice sounded: “Ah, will you look who’s here, Molly!”
Doreen, loud in her pronouncement, as Helen had said, stood beside Molly at our table. Ian stood and met them with a hearty greeting, somewhat more enthusiastic than the occasion seemed to warrant, but it made sense when I saw the shine in Molly’s eyes. Looked like her headache was much better. Looked like Ian was finished with his story for now.
Alex gave up his seat, darting a glance at me that I’d learned to read as Ready to go?
“We thought we’d have ourselves a drink before the walk home,” Doreen said.
“You’d be welcome to ride with us,” I said, standing, “but we’re going on now.”
Doreen gave a gesture of dismissal. “Thanks all the same. We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll see that the ladies get home safe and sound,” Ian said, sliding into the seat beside Molly.
We gave Finn a wave on our way out, and he called back, “Come again!” We said we would.
“Delightful!” Alex said as we stepped into the chilly night.
CHAPTER 3
The morning was gray, with a fine mist in the air that looked cold. Not a pleasant day for sightseeing. I wondered what Alex had in mind for our itinerary.
Molly was standing at the sideboard, stirring her tea, when I went down to breakfast—early, because I was hoping for this very opportunity, a chance to talk with her without Doreen’s overbearing presence. She greeted me with a bright “Good morning!” A different young woman from the one we’d dropped off at the Hayes Hotel last night, but not so different from the one at Finnegan’s, smiling at Ian Haverty. “Would you like tea?” she asked, the longest string of words I’d heard her speak.
“Ah, this is what I need.” I indicated the large coffee urn beside the samovar. “I do like tea, but I just have to have my coffee first thing in the morning,” I said, picking up a mug.
From the breakfast room, I could see Grace, Enya, and the baby in the kitchen. Little Jimmie sat in a high chair, focusing on his finger foods and sippie cup. Grace stood over the stove. Enya was loading up a rolling cart with platters.
Molly sat at one of the three four-top tables in the small breakfast room, and I joined her. “I was hoping to see you this morning,” I said. “I want to hear about your performance. You must be excited.”
“Are you coming to see us?” she asked with child-like eagerness.
“I’d love to,” I said. “How can I get tickets?”
“I can get tickets for you and your uncle,” she said.
“Please do. I know Alex would want to go, too. It’s this weekend?”
“Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday matinee,” she said. “We have two other performances Monday and Tuesday for schoolchildren, but I’m sure you’d be welcome to come to one of those.”
I thought I should check with Alex, but I said, “Saturday.”
Enya appeared with the rolling cart. We hadn’t been introduced, so I said, “I’m Jordan Mayfair. My uncle and I knew Colin and Grace a long time ago in Georgia.”
She nodded. “I’ve heard about you,” and proceeded to unload the trays.
The aromas made my stomach growl: bacon, eggs—the food smelled like breakfast everywhere, but I didn’t recognize a couple of the dishes she lined up on the buffet.
“You’re Enya,” I said.
“I am,” she said. I heard a crash and a couple of thumps from the kitchen and Grace’s voice, gently scolding. Little Jimmie had dropped his sippie cup on the floor. Enya pushed back a strand of her dark hair and sighed, as if her task was overwhelming. “I’ll bring more soda bread, but this will get you started,” she said, and rolled her empty cart back into the kitchen.
How could I be so hungry after last night’s meal? But I was.
Molly identified the dishes I didn’t know. Blood pudding, a type of sausage made with congealed pig’s blood and oatmeal. Mushrooms and tomatoes fried with bacon and butter. I recognized baked beans but had never had baked beans for breakfast. I tried a little bit of everything, even a few bites of the blood pudding. Not bad.
Molly and I had about ten minutes before the other guests came to breakfast. I learned that she was about to graduate from the UCD School of Music—University College of Dublin. She’d started playing the violin at age five. Her father taught music and played “every instrument you might think of,” Molly said, “or so they tell me. I don’t remember much about him.”
I thought of Stuart and the car wreck on a rainy night that took his life. I had tried to keep his memory alive for the children with photographs and stories—but it didn’t seem appropriate to bring up our family history at the moment. Nor did I feel I should ask more about Molly’s father. I said, “You must be incredibly talented to play in an ensemble for the college.”
A shy smile made its way across her face. “It’s my third year with the ensemble.”
“What are you going to do when you graduate?” I asked.
She gave a little shrug. “I’d like to teach music to children, but I don’t know.”
Her vague answer left me wondering if she really hadn’t made plans—surely she’d taken the required music education courses—or if she was waiting on some particular development that she wasn’t ready to talk about. Maybe it just wasn’t my business. Another topic I’d let go.
We heard voices, and Molly’s demeanor changed. She cut off a bite of sausage—blood pudding—and looked down at her plate as she chewed. Helen Prescott arrived with a younger-looking man whom she introduced as her husband, Charles. He had an annoying habit of jerking his head to get his hair out of his eyes. She’d said he was a golfer. I wondered how he managed his hair when he was making a shot on the golf course. They stood at our table for a minute, Helen doing most of the talking, until Charles said, with wry humor, “You need to let these ladies get on with their breakfast, Helen,” and excused himself, making a little bow.
“I suppose we should fill our plates as well,” Helen said.
Molly, who had looked up only once when Helen was making introductions, now turned her gaze to the doorway as Ian Haverty entered. He smiled our way—mostly Molly’s way—and said, “Good morning,” but went straight to the buffet. Molly kept darting nervous glances his way as he filled his plate. Oh, if she only knew how transparent she was. I could almost hear her school-girl heart beating, “Sit here, sit here, sit here.”
But the next person to come to breakfast was Doreen, and she came straight to our table, marking her spot with a brochure. “I thought we’d go to Kilkenny today,” she said. “You’ll be having rehearsal tomorrow, won’t you, love?”
Mol
ly’s nod was almost imperceptible. Doreen continued with her cheery chatter. “Where’s your uncle this morning?” she asked me.
“Sleeping in, maybe,” I said. “Or sometimes he gets up early to work on his book.”
“A good morning for sleeping,” she said, eyeing the square window. What had been a mist, I’d now call drizzle. “But you know what they say. The only thing predictable about the weather in Ireland is that it’s unpredictable. By noon, the sun could be shining bright.”
Helen Prescott, who was setting her plate at the table next to us, chimed in. “I do hope the sun comes out. Charles gets very grumpy when he doesn’t get to play golf.”
Charles and Ian chuckled as they joined Helen at the table. Molly’s disappointment was hard to miss. Her shoulders drooped. She looked down at her plate, toying with the eggs.
Grace brought more bread. “How do you like our Irish breakfast?” she asked me.
I said I’d have to watch myself or I wouldn’t fit into my clothes by the end of the trip.
In the kitchen, Enya removed the baby from his high chair and disappeared.
“Could I help you clean up the kitchen?” I asked Grace.
“Certainly not! But let’s have tea later and talk.” She touched my shoulder.
I caught snatches of conversation from the other table, Charles saying that he finished thirteenth in the Open in 2006, that he used to party with Lucas Riordan, and Helen adding that the Riordans were a very important family in Thurles.
Alex finally arrived. “I confess, I overslept!” he said.
“No need to confess. It’s not a sin,” Doreen said.
And then came the man who had to be Mr. Sweeney, I judged from what Helen had said on the previous afternoon. Thin hair slicked across his head. Sagging jowls. Distracted expression. He headed for the food, not bothering to glance our way. Our table was full, but he could have joined the Prescotts and Ian. Instead, he took a seat at the empty table, without a word or gesture of greeting. He wolfed down his breakfast and was the first to leave the room.
When everyone had cleared out except Alex and me, Grace did allow me to help her take away the last of the dishes. Alex followed us into the kitchen. “Where’s Colin?” he asked.
“The bank, or maybe the big house,” Grace said, making quotation marks in the air around big house. “He’s been trying to see Mr. Riordan for a month now, but they say he’s not well. I don’t know if it’s true. He hasn’t been to the bank. Colin wants to talk to him, not Lucas.”
The three of us sat around the small table where Helen had served tea the day before. Grace had made herself a cup of tea. Alex and I had our coffee.
“Riordan,” I repeated. “I heard the Prescotts say that name at breakfast.”
“The Riordans are a prominent family in the community. Liam Riordan, the old man, is not only rich, but he’s generous. He’s done a lot for the town, for the whole county. He helped Colin and me get our loan seven years ago, to buy this place. He’s a good man. The son, Lucas—let’s just say he’s nothing like his father.” Grace sipped her tea, and her tone was lighter as she said, “We have so much catching up to do. I know you’ve retired from the university, Alex.”
“Oh my goodness, yes,” he said. “More than a decade ago.”
“And you decided to become a world traveler,” Grace said.
“Alex was always a world traveler,” I said, remembering the tales about his adventures in his younger days. Berlin before the wall came down. Iran when the Shah was in power.
“I started writing for travel magazines after I retired, short pieces often with a food focus, and one thing led to another. Suddenly, I had a deal for a series of book-length travel guides.” He told about the first book, a guide to Provence, due to come out in the summer. “I try to get away from big hotels and ‘touristy’ spots, to play up the more intimate venues.”
“I hope you’ll be kind to Shepherds,” Grace said with that beguiling smile I remembered from so long ago, when Colin was first smitten. Her hair that used to be the color of cornsilk was a darker blonde, but she still wore it shoulder-length. She was still a pretty woman.
“You can count on it, my dear,” Alex said.
Grace asked about my family, and I tried to make it as brief as I could, with five children. “Holly, the oldest, lives in Nashville. She’s engaged, but they don’t seem to be planning the wedding yet,” I began. “Claire is a jewelry designer in Santa Fe, and she doesn’t tell me anything about her plans about anything. Julie is still trying to find herself, so to speak. She’s in Savannah, taking care of my dog, Winston Churchill, while I’m gone. And the twins, Michael and Catherine, are finishing their first year in college. Michael at Georgia Tech and Catherine at Emory,” I added because Grace was an Atlanta girl.
“Good for them!” she said. “You know, I go back to Atlanta every few years now. Colin hasn’t made the trip because we can’t both be away at once, but my parents have mellowed. They visited us once in Dublin. We’re finally on good terms. We Skype just about every week.”
I remembered how distraught her parents were when their debutante daughter, pregnant with Colin O’Toole’s child, married him.
“Skype.” Alex pursed his lips and nodded. “Ah, the wonders of technology.”
“I have to give it to Patrick. He told us Shepherds just had to have a presence on the Web, more than just a mention, if we were to make a go of it. We weren’t getting the business we needed to stay afloat, but Patrick developed our website. Much more attractive and user-friendly, and this season looks promising. We’re already filling up.” Grace looked into her cup, swirled the tea, and I thought she was about to say more, but she didn’t. I suspected there was something about their finances that was troublesome, from what she’d said about the Riordans.
“It must be wonderful for your parents to Skype with you,” I said, picking up that thread. “Especially with Little Jimmie. They can watch him grow.”
“Yes,” she said.
In that awkward moment, I realized that Grace was struggling with how much to tell us, or maybe she was trying to figure out how to tell us something. I didn’t want to appear nosy, but it seemed to me that Grace wanted—needed—to unburden herself. I was trying to think of a tactful opening when Alex said, “Grace, please tell me if I’m being meddlesome.” His voice was full of kindness, his eyes, too. He leaned slightly forward. “Yesterday—you must have had a good reason not to notify the authorities about Little Jimmie’s disappearance.”
Her eyes began to glisten, but she blinked a few times and went on, with a forced smile. “You must have thought we were all crazy! A baby kidnapped, and then we came home with him and everybody went on as if nothing had happened.”
That said it all, I thought, but I tried to dismiss the idea. “Just so glad he was all right.”
A long moment passed before Grace said, “I hate to draw you into our troubles.”
“You can tell us anything,” I said, “or not.”
She nodded, stirred her tea, and said, “There’s an old woman named Magdala who has a cottage in Red Stag Crossing, not too far from here. Hunters have tramped down some of the underbrush, but you still can’t get to Magdala’s cottage by car. Magdala looks like something out of an old folktale, bent over, missing teeth, dressed in rags, and she goes on about fairies and leprechauns. I don’t know how she lives out there, no electricity, no bathroom. The cottage must be same as it was two hundred years ago, maybe three hundred or more.” Grace paused to sip her tea. “It’s heartbreaking to think of the baby in that place, even for a little while.”
“Was that where you found him? In the old woman’s cottage?” Alex asked.
Grace nodded. “I know everyone thought the sensible thing to do was call the Guard, but we knew where he was.” She hesitated. I wasn’t sure she’d go on, but she did. “You see—that wasn’t the first time. It’s always the same. We knew Little Jimmie was all right. He’s a baby and won’t remember any o
f it, thank God.”
“How many times has this happened?” Alex asked. I thought this might be straying into meddlesome territory, but Grace gave no indication that she minded.
“The first time was a couple of months ago. It’s happened twice in the last week.”
“Are you saying it’s the old woman who takes the baby?” My voice was incredulous, and, I feared, judgmental, but Grace spoke before I could amend my question.
“Not Magdala,” she said. “Bridget. When she’s in one of her dark spells, she goes to Magdala’s cottage and won’t come home. The old woman gives her food and shelter, such as it is. Then Bridget gets it in her head that she wants the baby, that’s he’s in trouble, and she must save him”—Grace blinked hard a few times—“and she takes him.”
Neither Alex nor I asked who Bridget was.
“She’s our daughter,” Grace said. “She’s Little Jimmie’s mother.”
CHAPTER 4
The wind kicked up all at once. A branch scraped against the kitchen window. I jumped. I think we all jumped. Grace gave a little “Oh!” and went to the window. “What a nasty morning, for your first day here.” Turning back to us, she said, “But this will all blow over soon. That’s how the weather is here in Ireland.” Doreen had made a similar comment.
I hoped Grace would finish telling us about Bridget, but she seemed to need a moment. She made herself another cup of tea and asked us if we’d like more coffee. We said no. When she returned to the table, there was a distinct shift in her mood, no holding back now. A note of relief, I thought, sounded as she said, “Bridget is twenty. Colin and I thought Patrick would be our only child. We tried and hoped, and then, when we were resigned to having just one, we were blessed with Bridget. Such a happy child. A sweet girl, as she was growing up.”
A shadow of sadness crossed her face, but she seemed willing—even anxious—to go on. I was sure now that Grace wanted to unburden herself.
“Bridget was thirteen when we came out here from Dublin. Patrick had trained in computers. He was on his own, with a good job. Bridget hadn’t started high school yet. It seemed like a good time to make the change.” Grace hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know if it would have been different for Bridget if we’d stayed in Dublin. She was fine, here in Thurles. She made good grades, had friends, thought she wanted to be a nurse, and she had the right temperament for it. But things changed. When she was seventeen, she got pregnant.”
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