Bridget didn’t say no. Maybe that was a good sign. “I’m tired,” she said.
I took the plate from Grace and set it on the table. I peered into the picnic basket, on the chance that Grace had thought to bring plastic wrap, but the basket was empty.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” Grace said. Bridget began the snuffling sound that children make when they’re starting to cry. “It’s an awful thing,” Grace went on, “what happened to Dr. Malone, but you know he’d want you to find another doctor.” Bridget buried her face in the covers and continued to whimper and sniffle. Grace said, “Little Jimmie needs you. He needs his mother to be healthy. That’s what we all want. We want you to get your health back.”
Bridget dabbed at her eyes with the quilt. Still sniffling, she said, “I’m no good to Jimmie.”
“Oh, Bridget, love, you mustn’t think that,” Grace said, near tears herself.
It seemed a good time for me to go outside, to give them some privacy. I was surprised that Magdala followed, but when we were outdoors, she walked away from me, to a tree. From a pocket somewhere in her layers of clothing, she retrieved a pack of cigarettes, tapped out one for herself, and struck a match from a matchbook. She began to smoke, taking heavy draws on the cigarette that she held between her thumb and forefinger.
On the chance that she’d talk to me, I took a few steps toward her. She cast a suspicious look at me—or in my direction, the best I could tell, given her wandering eye—but I spoke anyway. “Does anyone live close by?”
She took another drag on her cigarette. After a moment, she grunted something that sounded like “Owen” and swung her thumb toward the path that continued on past her cottage.
Perhaps the same person who brought her cigarettes. It didn’t seem likely that Dr. Malone would provide cigarettes for her.
I noticed wood stacked against the house, not much, but it was May now. “Does Owen keep you in firewood through the winter?” Her nod was almost imperceptible.
So much for small talk. I stepped closer and said in a confidential voice, “Bridget needs a doctor.”
“He’s dead,” Magdala said.
“Dr. Malone is dead, but Grace and Colin can find another doctor,” I said.
A bird twittered in the tree above Magdala. We both looked up. Magdala said, “She has the medicine.”
“It won’t last,” I said. “She’ll have to find a doctor to give her more, and to give her the right kind of medicine. She needs to go home with Grace so she can get medical care. You’ve been kind to her. She trusts you. You might be able to persuade her.”
Magdala frowned at me again, and I wondered if she’d followed all of that. “The spirits watch her,” she said. She tossed her cigarette on the ground and stamped it out with her heavy shoe. “We have what we need.”
“Maybe you do, but Bridget is very sick. She needs medical attention, and she needs her family—her child.”
I had said too much. But it didn’t matter because Grace appeared in the doorway, wiping her eyes. The empty wicker basket swung on her arm as she stepped into the yard. “Let’s go,” she said to me. She looked at Magdala as if she wanted to say something, but Magdala turned toward the cottage. Grace and I went to the footpath.
CHAPTER 12
Back at Shepherds, we entered through the rear, the family’s entrance, and found Colin in the kitchen with Little Jimmie. The child was in his high chair eating chocolate ice cream, looking as if most of the ice cream had gone on his face and bib. Grace set down the wicker basket, kissed the top of her grandchild’s head, and said in a playful voice, “I can’t leave you and your granddad for a minute.”
“Nothing wrong with giving the boy ice cream,” Colin said.
I didn’t intend to stay. Grace would want to tell Colin about the afternoon. I asked if Colin had seen Alex, and he said he hadn’t. As I left the kitchen, Grace was saying in a sorrowful voice, “She wouldn’t come with me, Colin. I couldn’t persuade her to come home.”
“It’s me,” I said, knocking on Alex’s door. He told me to come in. He was on his bed with pillows propped behind him, reading a brochure.
“Are you all right?” I said. “I thought you might get out, this beautiful day.”
“I sat outside earlier,” he said.
“Are you all right?” I repeated.
“Just a little tired. I’m resting up for tomorrow.” This didn’t sound like Alex. He may have caught the worry in my face because he sounded more chipper as he said, “Ian and I talked about going to the Hedge School tomorrow. How does that sound to you?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. He flashed the brochure and began to tell about the site not far from Thurles that commemorated the secret hedge schools of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
I hadn’t been in Alex’s room. It was as orderly and uncluttered as I would have expected. One thing caught my eye, a clear plastic zip bag on his bedside table with what looked like half a dozen pill bottles. I didn’t know Alex took any medicine except the occasional nitroglycerine tablets when his angina flared up.
I interrupted his description of the Hedge School. “Alex, what are all of those pills for?” Immediately I regretted being so nosy. Maybe if I were his daughter I’d feel more obligated to know his business, but I was his niece, and he was—he was Alex.
I thought he’d be cross, but he chuckled. “Doctors have a pill for everything,” he said.
“So it seems,” I said, and I thought of Bridget’s paper bag full of pill bottles.
Letting the topic of pills drop, Alex suggested that we go into town for an early dinner. He sat up, swung his legs off the bed, and wriggled his feet into his slippers. “I think I’ll go downstairs and check some of the menus, unless you already have a restaurant in mind.”
“Whatever you choose is fine,” I said. “I think I’ll go to my room and try to call home.”
Meeting Bridget had made me want to talk to my own children. Catherine, especially, was on my mind. Just a year younger than Bridget, she was planning to spend the summer in Savannah, work part time for a doctor who was a long-time friend of our family, and volunteer at a free clinic some evenings. She was on the pre-med path, eager to make her way to med school. Bridget had wanted to be a nurse. Grace had said she had the temperament for it. It was hard to imagine that the frail, lethargic girl in Magdala’s cottage who said, “I’m no good to Jimmie,” had once volunteered in Dr. Malone’s office and dreamed of going into nursing.
“What a pleasant surprise!” I said when Julie answered the phone. “I’m glad I didn’t have to leave a message.”
“We’re both here,” Julie said. “Catherine is making breakfast. Pancakes from scratch, if you can believe it.”
“I’m impressed,” I said. “She hid that talent from me when she lived at home.”
“She’s not a bad cook,” Julie said. “Last night she made lasagna. She didn’t even use your recipe. Just threw some things together, and it was good. Oh—you had a call, and I can see why you’d go for that French accent.”
“Paul Broussard,” I said, trying not to give anything away with the words.
“I told him you were in Ireland. That’s all right, isn’t it? He said he hadn’t been able to reach you. Aren’t you getting his messages?”
“Thanks for the information, Julie.”
“What’s going on? He sounds very charming.”
“I don’t ask questions about the men in your life,” I said.
“The men in my life? Sure. As if I’ve had a date since I came back to Savannah.”
I jumped at the opportunity to change the subject. “I’ll bet some of your friends will be back in town this summer, don’t you think?”
She bemoaned the fact that her friends from high school who were now college graduates, as she was, all had real jobs in other cities. Poor Julie. She’d had a job in Santa Fe, where Claire lived, but due to a buyout, the newest employees were let go, and she was back home. It was a relief wh
en Catherine took the phone. Julie’s job situation was a sore spot.
“Guess who we saw on River Street last night,” Catherine chirped.
“The President,” I ventured.
“Mom!” My children had a way of dragging the word out, making it two syllables. “That’s not a real guess.”
“Why don’t you just tell me.”
“Uncle Drew. He came out of one the bars, with another guy that was older, probably even older than you, and they had a couple of very young women hanging all over them.” In the background I could hear Julie saying something. Catherine said, “Julie wonders if they were dancers from one of those show-bars. They were pretty but a little too made-up. Not the classy kind of women that Uncle Drew usually goes for.”
I let the even older than you part slide by, and I didn’t debate the classy women statement, either, though I knew my brother better than my daughters did.
“He didn’t introduce us, or the people with him. Couldn’t wait to move on. He hugged us and told us to be careful. It was kind of funny.”
Not that funny to me, but I said, “Let’s just hope, for my brother’s sake, that the very young women were at least eighteen.” On the bright side, Drew hadn’t called me even once with a business crisis, so I assumed he hadn’t run our company into the ground while I was gone.
Catherine was excited about reporting to the doctor’s office on Monday for her summer job, to meet with the office manager. “I don’t know yet what they’ll want me to do—maybe whatever anyone else doesn’t want to do—but I don’t care. Just as long as I get to be part of what’s going on in a doctor’s office.”
I thought of Bridget again. The image of her on that low, rumpled bed was replaying in my mind when Catherine asked how my trip was going.
So much to tell—and so little I could tell my daughters. Not about Bridget or the gunshot that had injured Ian or my concern over Alex’s health. Not about Paul Broussard.
“We’ve been to a castle and to the ruins of another castle, and last night we went to an amazing concert,” I said.
“Sounds like fun! Bring lots of photos,” Catherine said.
“Of course I will.” But then I had no photos from the concert, only memories of the extraordinary performance. How did you share that sort of thing when you went back home?
I asked about Winston, and Catherine assured me that my big, lovable, clumsy mutt was getting plenty of attention. We said goodbye and disconnected. These long-distance calls had an odd effect. As good as it was to hear voices from home, the conversations never seemed quite enough. You never said exactly what you’d like to say. It would be the same with Paul.
Breakfast was becoming a favorite time of the day. Besides the meal itself, the hearty Irish breakfast that Shepherds provided, morning was an occasion when all the guests showed up in the cozy breakfast room and discussed their plans for the day. Except for Mr. Sweeney. He was there, bending over his plate, shoveling in his food as if it were an obligation rather than a pleasure, but unless someone asked him a specific question, he was silent. He had his own car. Wherever he went or planned to go, he kept to himself. But all the others were eager to talk about their plans. Somewhat like a family.
“You must know about the hedge schools that came about as the result of the Penal Laws in the 1700s. The Curreeny Hedge School was one of many, all over Ireland,” Ian was saying. He shared a table with Molly and Doreen. Alex and I were at a table with Helen and Charles. Mr. Sweeney had chosen to sit by himself in the corner. Typical seating arrangement for our group. Sometimes the seven of us switched around, but not Mr. Sweeney. “Alex was kind enough to say I could go with him and Jordan to visit the memorial site. It’s not far from here,” Ian said.
“It’s too bad we can’t go along,” Doreen said. “Molly has another performance this afternoon, and rehearsal this morning.”
“For schoolchildren,” Molly added, her eyes bright as she gazed at Ian across the table.
“That’s a very good thing,” Ian said.
At our table, Helen announced, “I have at last persuaded Charles to go to Cashel today.”
“You won’t be sorry, Charles,” Alex said.
“I’m sure.” Charles shook his head to get his obnoxious shock of hair out of his eyes. “It isn’t that I haven’t wanted to go. I hear it’s a rather splendid site.”
“You haven’t wanted to miss a day of golf,” Helen said, rolling her eyes.
“That’s true. I won’t deny it.”
I wondered what was different about today, but I didn’t have to ask.
“You see, Lucas Riordan will be at the doctor’s funeral mass,” Helen said, addressing Alex and me, “so Charles would have to pay his own fees on the course if he played today.”
“Helen! What a thing to say! As if I didn’t pay my own fees yesterday.” Charles turned his gaze to Alex and me. “Is it so hard for my wife to believe I might want to show respect for Lucas’s family?”
“It’s quite impossible for me to believe that is why you’re not playing golf,” Helen said.
These two seemed to enjoy their bickering, especially when they could draw someone else into the middle. But for the someone-in-the-middle, it was awkward. Alex excused himself and went to the coffee urn for a refill. I smiled what must have been a vacuous smile, as if I had momentarily forgotten where we were in the conversation, and said, “I suppose the whole town will turn out for Dr. Malone’s mass.”
Grace had come in from the kitchen with the rolling cart. “Colin plans to go to the mass,” she said, loading a couple of empty platters onto the cart.
“I understand the wake was private,” Charles said.
“Apparently Dr. Malone’s wife wanted it that way, just a banquet room at one of the hotels for a little while last night,” Helen said.
“Not the typical Irish wake,” Grace said with a smile.
Helen leaned forward and spoke to me confidentially, “The doctor and his wife were separated. And with the murder investigation going on, you can imagine! Lucas told Charles that his sister was having a very hard time of it. I don’t blame her, really, for wanting her privacy.”
Grace said, “Does anyone need anything else?”
No one did. It was a good time to excuse myself.
Ian followed close on my heels. On the stairs, he said, “I’ve been thinking about the message on my website, and you’re right. I doubt the Guards can help, but I’ll go anyway when we get back from the Hedge School. They might surprise me with their computer skills.”
Repeating a line from Alex, I said, “It’s the twenty-first century everywhere.”
The drive to the Curreeny Heritage Hedge School took us through more narrow lanes edged in rock walls, past more emerald meadows dotted with sheep. Gradually, the landscape became more hilly. Ian, from the back seat, directed me as we twisted and turned and finally came to our destination atop a short, steep road. Alex gave a loud sigh and said, “Who needs a GPS?” For the first time since we rented the car in Dublin, I had tried to set the GPS and realized it wasn’t working properly. Most of the time Alex preferred a map anyway, but we didn’t have a map to the Hedge School, just sketchy directions from Alex’s brochure that Ian had managed to follow.
A small bus was parked in front of a simple church-like building. Children who looked to be middle-graders were coming out of the building. A woman with pretty red shoulder-length hair was apparently the teacher. Attractive as she was, she had that demanding school-mistress manner about her. A roundish man with gray hair and beard locked the door and came forward to meet us. His smile was welcoming, his blue eyes friendly. He was a Programme Specialist from LIT Tipperary, and these were children from a local school, here on a folklore field trip. Ian introduced himself as a teacher from a boys’ school in Dublin, and the two men chatted like old friends reunited, until all the children were loaded on the bus and the teacher was glaring from the bus door, her arms folded.
In the meantime, Alex w
ent back to the car for his jacket, and I took out my camera. Each photo op in Ireland seemed to surpass the one before. From this high vantage point, in the midst of green rolling hills, I could see the distant slopes of mountains. The valley below was a patchwork that must have been small farms, separated by hedgerows and rock walls. Alex returned, his windbreaker zipped up against the whispering breezes, cool and gusty. I had learned that layering was a necessity in Ireland. You could always pull off the heavier jacket. I’d worn one today, over a sweater, and I was glad.
Alex took a couple of photos, too, but not twenty—or more—as I had done. His camera was also digital, but he was as selective about his picture-taking as if he had a Kodak Brownie with film that was good for only thirty-six shots.
“Imagine children walking from their homes in those hills,” he said, “walking miles in rain or freezing temperatures—and the great risk to their families as well as the schoolmaster.”
I didn’t interrupt his reflective mood. His smile was wistful as he went on. “Though on a day like today, in a setting like this, I can see why the open-air classroom would have been more attractive than a computer room without windows.”
The bus had pulled away. I looked around for Ian. He was standing on a patch of ground with a monument at its center, a low rock wall around its perimeter.
Alex said, “That’s the memorial,” and we headed that way.
The monument was the bust of a schoolmaster, complete with jaunty cap, atop a slab of stone with an inscription in English and in Gaelic: Dedicated to all hedge schoolmasters who provided education in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If caught teaching they faced imprisonment or death.
After a moment, Ian spoke. “The laws were not just about prohibiting Catholic education, you know. The intent was clearly to demoralize Ireland. The English government schools were all about proselytizing, teaching Irish children to be good English citizens and know the true religion. They considered us a deluded people, you know,” he said. He looked at me as if he wanted to make sure I understood. I had read Alex’s brochure about the hedge schools, but I gave an encouraging nod, and Ian went on. “The Irish wanted their children to learn the language and the history of our country, to hear our music and stories, but it had to be accomplished in secret, in the shadow of hedges or in caves or ditches.” Ian turned his gaze back to the monument, and I thought his eyes were as hard as the stone face of the schoolmaster.
Secrets and Shamrocks Page 11