Alone in her compartment, she had cried for the first time since Madame had told her she was sending her home. Some instinct had made her steely, refusing that woman the pleasure of seeing her defeated. She had cried for most of the journey, and now she felt simply empty: as though some vital part of her had leached away during the night.
She had kept her eyes down for most of the ferry crossing to Belfast. A woman with a small child, then a well-dressed couple – May would respond to neither advance, watching with relief as they drifted away from her, the one looking upset, the others puzzled. She didn’t care how she appeared to the other passengers: she would never see them again. She wanted no talk, no kindness, no contact with anyone. They had all left her alone with her book. She had to remember to turn the pages from time to time to complete the impression of concentration, of a woman absorbed. The grey, freezing morning in Liverpool had seemed to her exactly right: somehow she wouldn’t have been able to bear it if the sun had shone.
She had gone out on deck as soon as she had heard the first booming warnings from the Reed Horn on East Twin Island. Fog, as usual. A thick, grey mass of it hung above the city; May could already smell the greasy fumes of factory chimneys, could feel the heavy air insinuate itself into her mouth, her nose, her lungs: she imagined it coating her insides with soot, layer after layer of it until she would become sick again, coughing and wheezing her way back to childhood.
She counted the buoys which now guided the ferry into port. All of them were lit, their misty beams rising and falling gently on the rolling swell. Eight black cans on the County Down side, nine red ones on the Antrim side. At some points along the Victoria Channel, all the buoys looked the same dark colour, with nothing to distinguish them in the murky water. They looked crusty, May thought, like dried blood.
The ferry announced its impending arrival, and it was as though all the sounds from the quayside were suddenly unleashed. As they drew closer, the shrill sound of sirens, the groans of distant machinery and the creaking of timber shattered the watery silence. It was as if all the looming shadows of cranes and gantries in Belfast’s shipyards had suddenly come to life, stretched themselves and roared into wakefulness. May was startled by the noise and the jostling and hurrying that now surrounded her on the deck. People were crowding against the railings, pointing and shouting at the vessels that lay side by side at the quay. Towering above them all, pushing against the grey skyline, was the huge hull of a ship under construction. May thought she had never seen anything so vast and terrifying in her life.
‘It’s the Celtic, it’s the Celtic!’
Excited voices were shouting to each other, forefingers jabbing the air in the direction of the monster. It seemed to her to be lying in wait – like some enormous beached whale hoping for the next tide. It made her feel dwarfed and vulnerable; looking up at the stocks made her dizzy and slightly sick. She wanted to be away from here, wanted to be safe within Hannah’s walls.
Quickly, she began to gather her things. Most of the other passengers were still facing the hull of the Celtic, unable to draw their eyes away from it. Belfast’s pride: a symbol of its growing industrial might. ‘The biggest ship in the world,’ she heard the men saying. ‘Aye, bigger even than the Oceania.’ Their voices congratulated each other on its vastness, as though their citizenship made them somehow personally responsible for this marvel. They kept repeating to each other over and over again what they must already know. She would take advantage of their distraction and make her way to the gangway. With any luck, she would not be delayed disembarking. She had her money and the piece of paper with Hannah’s address folded together inside her glove. She knew that Charles would come for her if he could, but she was not to wait if he were not there before her. In a way, she hoped he wouldn’t be. She wanted to look neither right nor left, but straight ahead to where Hannah’s last letter had promised a line of carriages would be waiting. She wasn’t ready for conversation and questions, not yet, no matter how kind. She just wanted to be with Hannah; that was home for now.
May welcomed the time alone on the last part of the journey to 107 High Street, Holywood. The small space inside the carriage was comforting, allowing her to disappear. It was as though the carriage became her carapace, protecting and sheltering her until she was able to compose her face and her thoughts for meeting her sister. She would tell her everything in time, of course, but this was Hannah’s moment, Hannah’s joy which must not be tainted.
Her sister was waiting for her. May smiled to herself when she saw her, imagined her standing in just that position since early morning. A swift movement of muslin at the porch window and the front door was suddenly flung open. And there she was, arms open wide. May hugged her sister wordlessly, realizing how fiercely she had missed both Hannah and Ellie, suddenly wanting never to be that long apart again.
‘May – welcome home!’
‘Oh, it’s so good to be back! Let me take a look at you!’
She held Hannah at arm’s length from her, the older girl looking suddenly shy. Her face was rounder, softer than before, her figure fuller. May thought the change suited her.
‘You look wonderful,’ she said softly. ‘And I can’t wait to see baby Eileen.’
‘Aren’t you tired?’ asked Hannah anxiously. She looked at her sister’s pale, strained face and May caught the sudden fear in her eyes. Hannah knew that there was something wrong – something more than the fatigue brought on by a long journey. This was not the moment. May shook her head vigorously.
‘That can wait. I can’t.’
She was already taking off her bonnet, shrugging her way out of her travelling coat. From behind, a pair of strong hands lifted the awkward garment and May found her arms slipped away easily from the imprisonment of the heavy sleeves.
She turned around to see who had helped her.
Hannah indicated a strong, capable-looking girl, whose expression instantly reminded May of Lily.
‘This is Mary. Mary, this is my sister, May.’
May saw that the girl’s face was at once young and somehow older than its years, her hair already lightly brushed with grey.
‘Thank you, Mary.’
The young woman smiled and nodded, and May liked the honesty and kindness she could read in her open features.
Hannah took her sister by the hand.
‘Will you ask Nurse to bring the baby to us in the drawing room, Mary?’
May only half heard Mary’s response, half caught the echo of the strong Belfast accent which was suddenly familiar to her again. Instead, she was looking around her in delight. In front of her was a dark mahogany double door, its solid panels lightened by the presence of large panes of stained glass. The vivid, glassy blues and reds and yellows brightened the wide hallway into which Hannah now led her. An imposing staircase lay to their right, and pieces of classical sculpture nestled in the curved niches to either side. Hannah’s last home in Stewarts Place had been nothing like this.
‘Hannah, what a beautiful house!’
Hannah opened the door into the drawing room and turned back to smile at her sister.
‘It is, isn’t it? I’ll show you the rest later.’
The fire was lit and the room mellow in weak, February sunshine.
‘I don’t need to ask if you’re happy,’ May smiled at her sister, feeling as though she were suddenly the older one. Hannah seemed to have recovered all her old freshness and contentment; May felt shadowy and embittered by comparison. She had a moment’s extreme envy – what she saw was a happy marriage, a baby, a beautiful home. All of the things which she had been so close to having for herself. And now she had nothing; it had all slipped away.
There was a soft tap at the door and an elderly woman entered, carrying what appeared to be a fat bundle of blankets. She handed the bundle to Hannah and murmured something about tea.
‘Of course! How stupid of me. And ask Mary for some scones, too, will you? Thank you, Nurse.’
May had stoo
d up at once and was gazing at the doll-like face surrounded by a lacy, frilly cap.
‘Take her,’ said Hannah.
May held the baby close, feeling some of the ache of recent months drain away as she watched the barely perceptible sucking movements of the small mouth, the tiny flailings of the perfect hands.
She couldn’t speak. She smiled at Hannah, her eyes full. Neither needed to say anything, and May was grateful for the silence.
May welcomed all the fuss and activity that surrounded the birth of her tiny niece. She was glad that such a small being had made everybody forget about her recent return from France. She was able to pass it off easily, expressing her delight at being home, at her new role as godmother to baby Eileen. She was half relieved to learn that her activities were of very little interest to anyone except her sisters, and marginally to Constance MacBride. No whisper of her fall from grace seemed to have crossed the sea with her. When this became apparent, she finally allowed herself to believe that she need not be so anxious about being found out. She could not bear the thought of anyone probing what was still an open wound.
‘Treated you well, the Ondarts, did they, my dear?’
Constance MacBride had fixed May with her stern eyes a few days after her arrival at Hannah’s home. May froze. The old lady’s sharp eye, her face full of intelligent curiosity, made May wonder if she suspected.
‘Yes, thank you, very well indeed,’ she had replied meekly, determined at first to give nothing away, filled with a sudden rush of feeling that she wanted done with the whole thing, that she never wanted to think about it again. If she ceased to remember, she would cease to feel pain. Mrs MacBride, then her mother – these were the only interrogations she need fear. She would not be drawn; she would show no sign of weakness.
‘Were you homesick, then? Is that what’s brought you back to us sooner than you’d planned?’
May made up her mind quickly. She looked around her, as though checking she could not be overheard. Constance MacBride’s eyes were instantly alight, and May knew that she had made the right choice. The woman loved a good gossip, she was sure of it. She leaned closer.
‘I’m not to say – I’m sure you understand – some little trouble over business.’
The older woman gasped.
‘But I understood Ondart to be – rock solid!’
May hoped she hadn’t gone too far.
‘And I assure you, he still is. That’s why they had to go to Marseilles at once: Monsieur wanted to handle everything personally.’
The older woman nodded, grimly.
‘The only way. Time out of number, I said to my husband . . .’
May breathed a small, silent sigh of relief. It would appear she had hit the right note; now, perhaps, she would be left alone. Constance MacBride was in full verbal flight, happily rehearsing all her certainties about life and business. She didn’t need an audience: the sound of her own voice delivering her favourite, familiar phrases was comfort enough for her. May sat with her politely, nodding from time to time, reminded of the day of Hannah’s engagement. On that afternoon, they had all had to endure the heat and the boredom of the MacBrides’ drawing room: but now she, May, was in her sister’s home. Perhaps she didn’t need to be so passively polite. She half listened to the torrent of recollections, waiting for the appropriate moment to make her escape. She hoped the older woman was sufficiently indignant not to ask the obvious question: why had May not gone to Marseilles with them? And then she heard the words ‘. . . an older son, I believe – did you ever meet him?’
May gave her full attention.
‘Monsieur Philippe, yes, I did meet him.’
Then she shook her head gravely.
‘Not at all like his father, I’m afraid.’
Constance MacBride nodded, satisfied.
‘That’s what I always thought. Don’t worry, my dear, I’ll say no more about it.’
Suddenly, May didn’t care. Time and distance would distort the truth anyway, if it were ever discovered, and now she wanted only to be with her family.
Richard arrived the night before the christening. He and Charles were distant cousins, close boyhood friends, and they had kept in touch throughout all of Charles’s years at sea. Richard was five or six years younger than his cousin, May thought, and perhaps a degree or two poorer. Her first impression was of a big man, with thoughtful and deliberate movements. His clothes looked ill at ease, as though they were not used to being worn; they hung, baggily, on his large frame. He had a shock of fair hair that kept falling across his forehead, and that he pushed back from time to time, with a hand rough-veined and callused by hard work. He was a farmer, he told May that night over dinner. Not a gentleman farmer, he said with a smile at Charles, but a real one, one who got his hands dirty and his boots muddy on a regular basis.
‘Aye – and never was there more truth to the phrase, “Happy as a pig in muck”!’ Charles teased him.
It was getting close to midnight, and May had watched as Charles became more and more expansive. Some of his hand gestures reminded her unwillingly of Monsieur Ondart, yet there was none of that man’s ill humour here. She noted with amusement that Hannah had moved the decanter of wine just out of her husband’s reach. It had been done discreetly, but she had caught May catching her and suppressed a smile with difficulty.
‘This man,’ Charles was saying, indicating Richard with a nod, ‘knows every blade of grass, every stone, and the peculiarities of every single animal at Abbotsford.’
He raised his glass.
‘Here’s to his father, who had the good sense to leave his land in such honest and capable hands.’
They raised their glasses.
‘If I may propose a toast now,’ said Richard, looking around the table. ‘To friends old and new, girl babies, and the honour of being . . . godparents.’
He said this last with a smile, turning to ask May’s permission with his eyes. She nodded, feeling strangely pleased to be included. She felt a welcome surge of freedom and ease as she sat around this table. Nobody knew. Her secret was invisible, she could keep it for as long as she liked. Charles’s and Richard’s animated conversation all evening had amused and entertained her: for the first time since she had met Philippe, she had a respite from extremes of emotion. She felt neither elated nor anguished. She was glad that Richard was such a calm and easy-going man. She had been afraid that she would have to make huge efforts for Hannah’s sake, had dreaded meeting this distant relative from County Meath. It was a relief to find he was such undemanding company. When all four rose to leave the table, it was well after one o’clock. May was surprised she didn’t feel more tired. In some strange way, Richard’s presence had made the thought of her parents’ arrival the next morning easier to bear. The beginnings of the sense of peace she had felt earlier were still with her as she went to bed. It was the first release from the torment of rejection which had made her fear, at times, for her sanity. She felt sleep creep up on her. She was suddenly deeply grateful to be home. France had never felt quite so far away.
She knew she would never get over Philippe, not ever. But it was good to have the edge taken off everything, just for a little while.
Richard had to return to the farm immediately the christening was over.
‘I can’t leave my animals any longer,’ May heard him say to Charles, ‘the Duggans have their own place to look after as well. It wouldn’t be fair.’
May had been gathering empty dishes and bowls from the dining room, bringing them across the hallway to the kitchen where Mary was keeping a watchful eye on two young girls up to their elbows in hot water. They could have been no more than thirteen, May thought with a pang, remembering the local girls brought in by Madame Ondart to help out at their weekend parties. May could still feel that sense of exclusion, when it was simply understood that she would keep to the kitchens or to her room – anywhere she chose, as long as she stayed out of sight.
A few moments before, Charles
and Richard had left the dining room together. Charles had opened the French windows and both men had stepped outside to light their pipes. They were standing at the top of the little flight of stone steps that led down into the terraced garden. May had stood there earlier that afternoon, glad to be away from the crowded drawing room for a moment, enjoying the blue glisten of the sea in the distance. Now she gathered up some more plates from the table and moved away from the open window in case it would appear that she had been eavesdropping. She didn’t hear Charles’s muffled reply, but sensed that both men had descended further into the garden. She could no longer smell their tobacco-smoke.
She felt a vague sense of disappointment. She loved being here in Holywood, an instant part of Hannah’s household, helping her welcome Mama, Papa and Ellie; she loved being godmother to baby Eileen, but the day of the christening had brought with it a deepening restlessness. She felt cast off, cut adrift from her own life, the one which she hadn’t fitted into yet. It was the same feeling she had had in France, waiting for Philippe to decide what they, what she, was going to do next. She felt now that she had no talents: her French had improved during her nine months away, but she was by no means fluent, not nearly good enough to teach. And she really did not want to go home to live with Mama and Papa again. Her longing to travel had brought her nothing but unhappiness – she wished Grandfather Delaney were still alive, so that he could give her courage, tell her again that she could do anything if she put her mind to it. At eighteen, her life had begun to feel very small and narrow, unlike those days when hopeful continents had opened up to her so many years ago in Grandfather’s study. The daring and piracy of Grace O’Malley, the rejection of constraints by such intrepid travellers as Lady Craven and Annie Boyle Hore, the gentle, ladylike travels of her grandmother – all seemed very far away from her now. Even her two sisters seemed far ahead of her. It seemed that Hannah’s earlier suffering was over – she looked happy, fulfilled. Papa and Mama had been right, after all. It was also clear that Ellie was taking charge of her own life – she had whispered about wanting to train as a nurse, striking out on her own, swearing both her sisters to secrecy for the moment, until the time was right.
Another Kind of Life Page 27