Cecilia tugged at her sleeve. ‘Come on, Mary,’ she whispered, ‘there’s no point.’
She moved out of the queue, clutching her new bundles of handkerchiefs and tablecloths, and shed tears of bitterness and frustration. She wanted to dash the bundles on to the cobbles, dance them into the muck with her boots. But Cecilia was right, there was no point. She forced herself to be calm; her rage was making her sister’s helpless face whiter by the minute.
‘Aye, you’re right. I know there’s no bloody point. That’s what makes me boil, so it does.’
Mary’s anger continued to burn over the next several weeks. It was new to her, new and unwelcome, this raging sense of impotence and injustice. She and Cecilia began to hear stories of a Miss Galway, a lady who’d formed a union for women workers. She didn’t just help those in the mill, they said, but the homeworkers, too. Mary watched as Cecilia’s face grew worried. She had no difficulty reading her sister’s expression. She feared Mary’s new anger, feared that she might lose her to Mary Galway and the battles that none of them would ever win.
Silently, Mary wished the woman well, but she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Trade unions meant trouble; Mary had seen enough of it in Watson, Valentine and Company. The men in the weaving shed, mostly, fighting against unjust fines, demanding covers for their dangerous shuttles, things like that. Mary’s memory of most disputes was the men silently filing back to their looms, sullen, angry, defeated; sometimes worse off than before. Whoever owned the mills in this city had no mercy. Power, yes; but no mercy.
In the early days of Mary’s homeworking, the sisters loved being together, sitting over the tiny table in the parlour, piles of fabric covering every surface in the room. It was the closest they had come in years to being happy. Mary would describe each piece to Cecilia as she sewed – the scalloped edges of fine linen tablecloths, the embroidered flowers on matching napkins, the intertwined initials of a bridal couple on sheets and pillowcases. Most pieces were heavily ornamented, hard on the fingers and eyes. Mary grew used to the headaches brought on by sprigging, as her eyes strained over complicated patterns, often requiring hundreds of tiny stitches to complete each stem or petal.
Cecilia would make up stories to amuse Mary as she worked, stories about the big houses where all these pieces were to be used. She tried to imagine the luxury of the rooms, the duties of the servants, the quality of an existence which meant sleeping on smooth, fine sheets, rather than ripped-up flour-sacks. But, just as suddenly as she had begun to make up these stories, she stopped. Mary said nothing. She knew that her sister’s sightless eyes had made her inner life all the more vivid. Eventually, the imagined pictures became a cruel reminder, day after day, of what she would never be, never have, never see again.
During the first year, Cecilia learned all the finishing touches Mary could teach her. She used the tips of her fingers to check for knots and stray threads on the reverse side of each piece: she was delicate and accurate, learning by touch how to snip away the loose ends and make each side of the embroidered fabric virtually indistinguishable from the other. She became adept at spotting gaps or unevenness in the stitching, passing the pieces back to Mary, who worked quickly, neatly, confident that any mistakes would be detected by her finisher. Cecilia had even learned to iron and fold the smaller pieces, watched carefully by Mary. At first, she had been terrified that Cecilia would burn herself. She would heat the flat iron on the fire to the right temperature, and watch as Cecilia measured the distance from cloth to iron, using her hands to see. Mary had admired her sister’s deftness: whatever else had been forgotten from Cecilia’s other life, the skills of needlework were remembered by her hands, which were still strong and beautiful. The only part of her, Mary reflected bitterly, that hadn’t been damaged beyond repair. It took Cecilia some time to grow accustomed to using the iron without her eyes to guide her. There had been scalds and burns in the early days, but not enough to quench her determination, her enthusiasm to be useful.
They survived. Mary divided everything they earned into individual piles of coin. Three shillings for rent, a shilling for food, sixpence towards material for a new skirt, or fixing their boots, or perhaps just a tram ride to the Botanic Gardens on a Sunday. She tried to save, as well, not telling Cecilia what she was saving for. Every week, she calculated how much she would need to put by for Cecilia, for the doctor, for medicines. She knew that the day was coming.
Mary had been aware of its approach for months, watched its stealthy, shadowy progress. First the loss of appetite, then the weariness when it seemed that Cecilia no longer had the strength to use her arms. Her head seemed to have grown more fragile, yet heavier too: for long stretches of each day, she could not summon the strength to lift it. Her face had grown paler, skin stretched tight across the cheekbones. Mary could trace the fine network of tiny blue veins underneath the opalescent surface. A death sentence, written in blue ink on the parchment of her face. The blank, empty eyes became bigger and bigger.
Neither of them spoke of it. Mary stayed bright, cheerful, allowing herself to worry only when she was alone. Cecilia slept more and more during the day now, and Mary worked downstairs, ears constantly on the alert for any restless murmurings from the bedroom above. The younger girl had taken to talking in her sleep, becoming more and more agitated until she would finally struggle into wakefulness, clawing at something invisible, fighting for breath. Mary would open the window then, and they would sit together on the edge of the bed, Cecilia gulping lungfuls of the dirty night air until, gradually, the panic subsided. These assaults had become more and more frequent over the past few months, and Mary felt frightened.
And now, almost three years after Cecilia’s attack, Mary watched as her sister seemed to grow smaller with each passing day. She seemed to become separate from everything around her; it was as though her very presence was gradually diminishing. Finally, she no longer wanted to eat. Her face was ghastly against the white pillowcase which Mary had embroidered for her, the swirling, silky letters of ‘Cecilia’ stretching all across its cool surface.
‘C’mon, love,’ Mary said tenderly, trying to spoon some clear soup into Cecilia’s reluctant mouth. She turned away, her face to the wall.
‘Leave me alone,’ was all she’d say.
Then the fever came back. Mary sat with her for three nights, bathing her forehead, reminded cruelly of the first forty-eight hours after the attack. Then, it had been the loss of Cecilia’s sight which had terrified her; now, she knew that the slow disappearance of her sister’s spirit, her will to fight, was a far more serious loss. Mary sent Myles to ask Dr Torrens to come, as soon as he could. Exhausted, she sat with her sister until the chill, grim hours of dawn, falling herself into an uneasy, dream-filled doze which brought her no rest.
On the third morning, Cecilia’s eyes would not open. By the time Dr Torrens arrived, she had slipped away, her body already cold to the touch, unresponsive to the warmth of her sister’s weeping.
Myles comforted her as best he could. Everybody came to the wake, bringing food and drink, overwhelming Mary with their generosity. Kindness was everywhere. But there was no relief for her. She had become obsessed by the vision of her whole family leaving this place: first her brothers, then three coffins: lives all blighted and blunted, each in its own way, by this unforgiving city. Myles watched over the storms of Mary’s grief and waited for what he thought was a decent interval.
‘Marry me, Mary,’ he said, a week after Cecilia’s funeral. ‘Let me take care of you, like I wanted to before. There’s nothin’ stoppin’ us.’
He was sitting in Mary’s house, watching the speed of her needle, admiring the ease with which she embroidered a crisp linen tray cloth. Her stitches filled in the outline of a large basket containing dozens of what looked like sprigs of lavender. It had hurt him that she had had to go back to working so soon after her sister’s death. Mary looked at him, his hands callused and blackened by years of oil and soot, his face streaked
with grime. She had refused to discuss marriage with him, for as long as Cecilia survived. Now she knew she could put him off no longer. Underneath, she could see his anxiety, and one part of her wanted to say ‘yes’, wanted to be relieved of responsibility, to be taken care of. But the days after Cecilia’s death had brought with them the harshness of realization. If she stayed here, and married solid, decent Myles, her life would never change. This house, this street, held too many memories for her. Da, Ma and now Cecilia. It was a nonsense to feel she would be looked after, even for a while. Her life, and the lives of those around her, were not built for ease or rest.
Mrs McNiff was still ailing, in need of care. ‘The creakin’ door’, Ma used to call people like her. Always ill, but always surviving; she’d see all of them six feet under, while she went on to complain and creak and groan well into her nineties, just like her own mother had. There were years and years left in her, Mary knew, when she would need looking after.
She had been ashamed of her selfishness the first time she had had the thought: but it wouldn’t leave her alone. It fought for space inside her head along with grief for Cecilia, anger at the hand life had dealt her, and the lonely certainty that she did not want to live like this for ever. She couldn’t tell all of this to Myles: he wouldn’t understand. He would probably despise her for her callousness, her betrayal of all she had known, and he might be right.
Cecilia’s stories of big houses and servants and crystal and china had awoken something in Mary, some instinct which had returned to poke and prod at her over the last week to give her no peace. She wanted to be surrounded by something other than the grim streets around Carrick Hill, their ugliness and struggle. She wanted warmth and security, even if it had to be under some stranger’s roof. She wanted to hide herself away where things were different, to work and sleep, sleep and work until each day ran numbly into the next and she could begin to bear her life again without Cecilia.
‘I can’t, Myles; I’m sorry.’
She almost crumbled then, as his eyes clouded over with hurt and bewilderment.
‘I’ll be good to ye, I’ll look after ye. I’d’ve looked after wee Cecilia too, if ye’d only let me.’
She shook her head.
‘I know, I know. I just can’t stay here any longer.’
His face darkened, became closed to her.
‘Is it someone else that ye have in mind?’
She didn’t know what he meant for a moment.
‘Jesus, no. There’s nobody. I just want out o’ here. I need to go . . . somewhere else. There’s nothin’ for me to stay for.’
She hadn’t meant it like that, never meant to hurt him. But there was no easy way to do this. At the same time as she spoke and watched his eyes fill, a small, panicked voice inside her was asking Are you sure? You’re burnin’ yer boats, you know. What else is out there for the likes o’ you?
Myles stood up. He spoke softly.
‘That’s grief talk. I’ll not let ye go that easy. But I’ll not trouble ye any longer the night.’
He began to walk towards the door. His quiet step had a heartbreaking dignity to it, and Mary had to stop herself from running after him, from throwing her arms around his neck, and begging him to forgive her. The words were there already, formed in her mind, waiting for her signal. They would come if she bade them, falling gratefully from her tongue. Myles would do his best to keep her safe, her life predictable, surrounded by all that was familiar. And who could know? Wasn’t there a chance he might even succeed?
She kept her feet firmly rooted to the floor, standing her ground. Her hands were clenched by her sides, her mouth closed tight, all her senses controlled. She feared that some look, some gesture would succeed in betraying her while she wasn’t watching. Then the door clicked to and he was gone.
Mary made herself tea in the kitchen and brought her mug up to bed. She sipped at it until the trembling stopped. Then she quenched the candle and lay down in the darkness.
Her head was whirling, buzzing with what she had just done. She felt cold and bereft. She stretched her hand out to where Cecilia’s warm shape should be. The cold roughness of the sheet brought the tears then, and she cried until she was empty.
PART TWO: 1896–1900
Eleanor’s Journal
I WAS MUCH older before I found out what had transpired behind closed doors between Mama, Papa and Hannah on the day they brought her home from school. And by then, of course, everything was very different. Nevertheless, with a fourteen-year-old’s heightened fear of change, I knew that nothing was ever going to be the same for our household again. I have always known that grown-ups pay very little attention to the children around them in times of crisis. The common perception seems to be that children do not understand what is happening – that they are somehow impervious to grief, or suffering, or calamity. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know that I got through those days feeling as though I were living with the inside of my skin turned out: I felt the impact of the conflict and the turmoil around me with an acute sensitivity that was akin to physical pain.
And it was not the first time I had lived like that. A full five years earlier, at the too tender age of nine, I had met similar upheaval and suffering in our house in Belfast, and I soaked up the residue like a sponge. I had learned then that shame and betrayal are no respecters of social position or comfort or contentment: they strike where they will. It was a lesson I was becoming practised in learning, one I was never to forget.
When Hannah would not look at me that day, the day they brought her home from school, I feared that, once again, catastrophe had chosen our unfortunate household. I remember I sat on the staircase outside the drawing room, trying desperately to catch anything of the animated conversation going on inside. I tried to squeeze my head between the wooden spindles, and then became frightened that I might become stuck there. I think I would have been prepared to pay the price if I could have provided a welcome distraction for my sister – and for myself. All I could do was feel the anguish of the situation: I didn’t even have May by my side for some sharing of comfort. I could hear Hannah’s voice, but I could not make out the words. I was too terrified to move from my step, to go any closer to the drawing room – I knew that if I put my ear to the door, it would suddenly be wrenched open and I should be discovered. Mama always had an uncanny instinct for misbehaviours such as that.
When Hannah emerged, tall and angry, I was relieved. There were no tears; to my childish eyes, that meant that nothing could be really badly wrong. As she passed me on the staircase she put one hand gently on the top of my head. I remember that I understood what that gesture was saying: not now, Ellie, not now. Of course, our conversations since then may well have influenced that particular memory, but I know distinctly that I felt reassured, included again.
It was the last time for some weeks that I was to feel anything loving from Hannah. She locked herself away, and would see no one, not even me or May. I thought she would never come out of her room, never eat, never cease weeping. I was terrified that she would starve, waste away to nothing. With my passion for ghost stories at that time, I imagined that we would break down her door one day and discover her wasted body on the bed. Her restless, unhappy spirit would return to haunt us, torturing us for ever for our lack of kindness to her. I don’t remember when I was told, or discovered for myself, the cause of her grief. I seem to have absorbed the information somehow, perhaps by instinctively putting two and two together, or, more likely, by listening at doors – a bad habit which took me many years of self-discipline to cure.
Mary: Spring 1896
MARY COULDN’T STAND it any longer. The house without Cecilia was too sad, too empty, yet still full of her. Everywhere she looked, she could see her sister: brewing tea in the kitchen, seeing her way by her fingertips to the tea caddy, the spoon, the mugs; standing by the fire ironing handkerchiefs, her strong hands smoothing the fine linen; sitting in the small parlour, across the table from Mary,
checking cloths for stray threads and imperfections. Even the bed felt too big to Mary.
Myles had come back again and again, as she’d been afraid he might. Sometimes, he waited for her in the mornings, accompanied her to her tram. In the evenings, he would find some excuse to come and visit. Each time, it got harder to send him away. Each time, Mary was conscious of what it looked like to the neighbours: she was keeping company with Myles as far as they were concerned, accepting his attentions, behaving in every way as a bride-to-be.
‘We can look for a wee house somewheres else, Mary – we don’t have to stay around Carrick Hill.’
He was sitting by the fire, his long frame almost folded into the small armchair. Mary was ironing tablecloths. Not for the first time, the comfortable domesticity of this scene threatened to weaken her resolve. Myles was being his usual solid, reasonable self – picking off her arguments one by one.
‘Your mother’d never move, Myles – an’ it wouldn’t be fair to ask her.’
He shrugged.
‘We wouldn’t be able to go at once, but the day would come, soon enough.’
Mary was suddenly horrified. He was a good son, Myles was, a good man – and here he was, as good as wishing his mother dead on her account. This was wrong: she didn’t even want to be having these conversations. She’d already made up her mind, but he didn’t seem to be listening. Every word she said he filled with hope, heard what he wanted to hear. She was going to have to bolt her door against him. They could not be friends, not now.
She had to put a stop to it, and soon.
Father MacVeigh listened to her, as she knew he would. He made no comment until she was finished.
‘You must be sure about this, Mary. There’d be no going back.’
She nodded.
‘Aye, that’s what I want, Father – a clean break. I wanted to do it while Cecilia was alive, but – we never got the chance.’
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