The oblivion was followed by a buzzing noise, then a low mumbling and an acrid smell. She coughed and pushed away the smelling salts, fighting her way dizzily to her feet. They clustered round her, all eager to lend a helping hand. She took a deep breath, then permitted herself to be placed onto the chair that one of her attendants had procured.
‘Well, you certainly know how to time your entrance,’ she breathed, staring at the apparition in front of her. Seeing him on the street she would have had to look twice to recognise him as her son. In her mind he had remained the gangling eighteen year old, tall and slim, but the affluent-looking man before her would be three years older, and his frame had filled out to be more like his brother’s. Sonny – it came as a jolt. What was Sonny going to say when he knew?
Her son smiled widely. ‘Well, aren’t ye going to welcome home the prodigal?’
‘I get the impression that you’ve just helped yourself to the fatted calf.’ She shook her head, unable to digest his presence even now. Then she threw her arms about him. ‘You’re alive! Oh, God you’re alive!’
‘Alive an’ kicking.’ He showed surprise at her welcome.
She wiped her eyes with a gloved hand, laughing and crying. ‘Oh, but you’ve changed,’ she breathed, examining every new line on his face.
He grinned. ‘So have you.’ His eyes roved about the hair that peeped from under the kingfisher-blue hat. Like most auburn hair past its prime it had not undergone the gradual and unattractive greying process, but had turned pure, gleaming white in a relatively short period. The only hint that her hair had ever been otherwise was in the pale russet tips that lay hidden within the chignon, as if reluctant to let go of the last shreds of youth.
She raised self-conscious fingers to her temple, then her voice hardened as she suddenly realised that if he was alive that meant he had been walking around for the last three years without ever a word to his family. ‘Can you wonder? Can you? All these years of thinking you were dead …’
‘Ah, I’m sorry about that,’ offered her son.
‘Oh, you look extremely sorry, I’m sure,’ whispered Thomasin as the crowd around them diplomatically thinned. ‘You stand there in your finery, having put me and your father through not months but years of uncertainty and expect me to be satisfied with “Sorry”?’
‘I’m so …’ He laughed and held out his hands. ‘Well, there’s not much else I can say.’
‘Oh yes there is –and you’re going to say it!’ She seized his arm and piloted him to the exit. ‘If you think you can just appear as if from nowhere and fob me off with an "I’m sorry” you must have lost your memory while you’ve been away. I want to know the full story. Why, why did you not let us know you were safe, for pity’s sake?’
The grin was still there. ‘Shall we wait until Father’s present before we kick off on explanations? ’Tis a long story an’ wouldn’t bear telling twice.’
She frowned, still shaken, then once on the pavement, allowed him to hail a cab and assist her inside. ‘It’d better be good,’ she warned as the carriage pulled away.
He smiled and crossed his palms over the knob of his cane. ‘Oh, I should think it’ll be quite illuminating.’
By an act of Fate every single member of the family was present in the dining room that lunchtime. Patrick, rained off again, was seated at the head of the table with Sonny on his right and Peggy to his left, the children by her side where she could keep their table manners in check. Josie, aided by Abigail, was serving out the meal. They all looked up expectantly as Thomasin entered. Patrick and Sonny pushed back their chairs.
‘Did ye get it?’ they both asked simultaneously, laughed, then looked serious again at her odd expression. Josie noticed it too and sent Abigail off for another place setting.
‘Sorry … what? Oh, no. No, I didn’t get it,’ replied Thomasin absently, then looked directly at Patrick. ‘You know that prosperous-looking stranger you were singing about the other night? Well, prepare yourself for a shock.’
She stepped aside and waited for the outburst at Dickie’s sweeping entrance. Yet, oddly, there was none. Not a sound. Patrick returned the gaze of the elegant-looking man who had taken off his hat and now balanced it on his cane.
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ exclaimed Thomasin slowly, at Patrick’s refusal to shake his son’s offered hand. He steered his pale-blue eyes upon her and she read them true. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ she breathed. ‘You knew all along he was alive and you didn’t tell me.’
‘I didn’t tell ye, Tommy because I was ashamed. Disgraced by his dastardly behaviour.’ He watched his elder son as he spoke. ‘Did he tell ye what occurred on the day he went missing?’
‘No, but I wish somebody would.’ She wheeled to take in Dickie.
‘Are you going to tell your mother, or will I?’ asked Patrick darkly.
‘Oh, pray continue,’ said Dickie, seemingly unmoved.
Patrick’s jaw muscle twitched. His eyes still on his son, he revealed the details of Dickie’s cowardice. ‘The Fallon boys told me they had it in mind to force Dickie to do right by their sister. However, when they cornered him, d’ye know what he did? He pissed his pants! That cowardly, irresponsible wastrel pissed his pants an’ then he fainted. Quite understandably the Fallons wanted nothin’ more to do with him after that. What took place afterwards was of his own making. The one truism is that he allowed us to think he’d been abducted or killed so’s he could escape from his other responsibilites at home.’
Dickie threw up his hands in a helpless gesture to ward off the host of scandalised glares then, indicating Peggy with a nod, said, ‘Well, it looks as if everything turned out for the best.’
Sonny blew up. ‘How you’ve got the nerve to show your face in here after the most abject cowardice … do you fully grasp what you’ve put everyone through? Can you imagine what it was like for Father being asked to identify a body he thought to be his son’s? Can you? And was this what it was all for?’ He slapped Dickie’s shoulder with the back of his hand. ‘A set of fancy clothes that makes you look like some popinjay.’ His scornful eyes washed over the brocade waistcoat under the immaculately-tailored green suit. ‘Always a touch flamboyant for my taste.’ He roughly pushed his brother round to examine his back view. ‘D’you not think the colour a mite ostentatious? Green and yellow.’ He simulated repentance at his brother’s puzzlement. ‘Oh, sorry! Sorry – I thought that yellow streak down the back was part of the outfit.’
Dickie took the baiting in good part, and turned to face his brother again. ‘That’s cruel, Son – but I expect it was coming to me. Is it too much to ask that ye accept my apologies for all the damage I’ve done ye?’
‘You’re damn right it is!’ Sonny whirled away to comfort Nicholas who had begun to whimper at the harsh voices. Rosanna retained a lively interest.
Dickie noticed now that there were two children at the table with Peggy. He moved after his brother. ‘Which …’ he began, then stopped himself.
‘Which one’s yours, you were going to say,’ said Sonny cuttingly.
‘I meant no harm,’ mollified Dickie. ‘I’d just like to thank ye for stepping in for me. Ye make a much better father than I would.’
‘Well, that’s one thing on which we can agree!’ Sonny’s voice was raised again. ‘And while you’re thanking me for looking after one you can thank me for taking the other one in, too. Aye!’ He nodded at Dickie’s bafflement. ‘That one’s yours as well. Regular little industry, aren’t you?’
Dickie frowned at the children, trying to decipher the riddle. Thomasin solved it for him. ‘The little girl is the child you fathered on Lucy Fallon,’ she said coldly. ‘Your father rescued her and brought her home where she’d be properly treated – not that I’d expect you to be interested in her welfare. Sonny agreed to adopt her.’
Dickie’s glib tongue deserted him on this occasion. In fact he was quite touched at his brother’s compassion. ‘You’re a good man, Son, looking after my
children,’ he said quietly.
‘Don’t you dare refer to them as your children!’ shouted Sonny. ‘You relinquished any claim on them when you deserted them.’
‘That’s a bit strong,’ complained Dickie concernedly. ‘They weren’t even born then.’
‘Oh well, that makes it all right for you to walk out on them,’ came the sarcastic response. ‘It doesn’t matter about walking out on embryos.’
Dickie decided to call a halt to what he considered calumny, and backed away murmuring, ‘Well, thank ye anyway …’
But the battle was not over. ‘God dammit I don’t want your bloody thanks, you leech!’ hurled Sonny. ‘And I wish everybody’d stop telling me how noble I’ve been. I married Peggy because I love her – something you’d never understand.’ He spoke now to Thomasin. ‘Mother, I know this is your house and I can’t stop you bringing into it whoever you like – you made that very clear. But if he isn’t gone by the time I get back, then I must tell you I’ll never enter it again.’ He aimed one last stab at Dickie. ‘And while you’re here, just keep your hands off my wife or this time – I will kill you!’ He stormed out.
‘And how’s Peggy?’ asked Dickie, injecting his voice with a false lightness.
Peggy scowled and gathered up the children. ‘Josie, set three places in the kitchen – there’s something about this room that makes me lose my appetite.’
‘Sure, it’d do ye no harm to lose a couple o’ pounds!’ shouted Dickie as the door slammed. ‘Well,’ he smiled tightly as he was left alone with his parents, ‘I never expected to see the bunting out, but I wasn’t prepared for all this. May I sit down to recover?’
‘Ye might as well,’ growled his father. ‘We’re due an explanation, young man an’ if it’s going to be as long as I suspect we’d all better sit down.’
Dickie laid his hat on the table but kept his cane with him as he settled in a chair. His fingers played with the ivory handle, composed of a hand clasping a snake. ‘It’ll not be very interesting, ye know.’
‘Oh, I don’t expect the one we’re going to hear will be,’ agreed his mother, adding shrewdly, ‘but I’ll bet the true one would interest us greatly – if we were ever privy to hear it.’
He laughed then and leaned back, the old Dickie grin on his tanned face. ‘Tut, tut, Mother! Are ye making out I’d string ye a pack o’ lies?’ He stalled another rebuke. ‘No matter – I can see ye’ll not settle till I’ve told ye. So, will ye all gather round an’ I’ll tell yese me tale!’
* * *
When Dickie had awoken from that life-saving swoon to find himself cold but virtually unscathed, he had seen it not as a miraculous intervention by his guardian angel and a warning to change his lifestyle, but as a means of solving all his problems. He had hidden in a disused pigsty until dark – he was too well-known around these parts to risk being seen in daylight and must make his ‘kidnap’ look convincing.
When dusk had fallen he had exchanged his hideout for one nearer the marketplace where the following day would see the Martinmas Hirings. With a little Irish luck he would be hired to some out-of-town gentry and by mid-morning be well on the way to forging a new identity.
He cursed the recklessness that had made him hand over all his cash to the Fallons; when examined, the pocket of his trousers yielded nothing more lucrative than a farthing that had escaped his panicked fingers. The urine had dried to a stiff and stinking patch that chafed at the insides of his thighs. They had taken his topcoat as well, the bastards. He shivered and gripped his upper arms to ward off the freezing cold. He must get some money from somewhere if he was to survive the night. The very thought of food set his stomach immediately a-rumble.
On reaching Pavement, which verged on the marketplace, he searched for a place to spend the night and found it in the ancient church of St Crux. It was the safest place he could think of, being an extremely unlikely venue for any of his Catholic acquaintances. The pew on which he laid his punished frame could not compare with his comfortable bed at home, and the church was like an icehouse. His fingers were drawn to his forehead, which felt strangely tight, and they found a patch of encrusted blood. He hoped they hadn’t scarred his face too badly. Finally he dozed off.
His slumber ended prematurely sometime before three o’clock when he awoke shivering, his fingers and toes numb with cold. Dragging his stiff body from the pew he stumbled up the aisle tucking his hands into his armpits in an effort to thaw the blood. Perhaps there might be some garment, anything, that he could borrow till morning. The only items of clothing to be found were the clergyman’s vestments which Dickie had no compunction in donning forthwith, though the light cotton surplice and flowing cassock made a negligible difference to his state.
He fumbled about in the darkness for something more substantial and his hand fell on a trunk. It was locked. He groped around for something with which to open it and in his search came across a candle and a box of matches. With a little more grubbling and the added illumination Dickie found a key, inexpertly secreted over the sacristy door lintel. He unlocked the trunk and threw back the lid, holding the candle over its contents and drawing in his breath as the glint of gold struck him in the eye. A blob of wax from the guttering candle fell onto the treasure and burnt a hole through his trance. Placing the candle on a ledge he tucked his hands into the trunk and cupped them around a golden chalice whose bowl was encrusted with precious stones. There were several such items in the chest, all of which were in turn reverently handled.
For one heart-thudding moment Dickie entertained the idea of prising loose one of the stones; it would be foolishness to steal the whole chalice but a missing stone would pass unnoticed for maybe months. He was searching for some way of removing the stone when a faint noise from the direction of the main door alerted him and he hurriedly piled the treasure back into the trunk. Locking it he replaced the key in its original place.
He listened with his ear to the door. After that initial sound there had been only silence. In his avaricious fantasy, the coldness had been momentarily forgotten, but now once again the freezing draught began to rise from the stone floor. He beat his hands about himself. This was no good at all. He would have to find some cover for himself even if he had to borrow the altar-cloth. What irony to escape the wrath of two fiery tinkers then freeze to death in a place of sanctuary.
With great caution, Dickie turned the iron ring on the door and re-entered the main body of the church. His boots made hollow echoes as he slowly advanced on the altar. His eyes had fallen on the curtains at the altar-rail which looked as though they might allow him a decent rest for the remainder of the night. Purposefully, he strode towards them, laid his hands upon the brass curtain-rings that secured one of them to the rail and began to unhook it. His frozen digits were all thumbs and he swore under his breath. He pulled and tugged at the curtain badtemperedly. With a sudden rent it parted company with the brass rings and hung limply in his hand.
But Dickie had lost all interest in the curtain. He was transfixed by the ghostly face which loomed out at him as the curtain fell away. He gulped in a breastful of cold air and backed away, his free hand held out before him to ward off the evil-eye.
‘Oh, forgive me, Reverend!’ The girl leapt from her hiding-place and threw herself at his feet, clutching at the hem of his cassock and making his palpitations ever more erratic. ‘I didn’t mean no harm. It’s such a cold night out there. I didn’t mean to steal owt, honest.’ She knelt at his feet, looking up with pleading blue eyes.
Dickie’s heartbeat gradually regulated itself as he realised that this was no spectre. He laughed at himself for being so easily scared. Like as not he wouldn’t be needing that curtain now; here was some real flesh and blood to warm him. He adopted a saintly expression and, bending, extricated the girl’s fingers from his vestments. He pulled her to her feet before she had time to notice his unReverend-like boots.
‘Oh, Reverend – you’ve hurt yourself!’ She pointed to his forehead.
>
‘Ah, ’tis nothing, my child. I bashed my head on a low lintel.’
But she insisted on tending it, cracking the thin veil of ice on the font and dipping in the rag that she pulled from her sleeve. She dabbed tentatively until the encrusted blood fell away. ‘It’s left a nasty mark,’ she told him. ‘An odd shape; just like the letter L.’
Dickie shrank and closed his eyes. L for Lecher. He opened them again and smiled. ‘That must surely be a mark of God’s love – seeing as how it was a lintel in the church I banged it on.’ He laughed and surreptitiously pulled the cassock over his boots which were once more in danger of giving him away.
But in the end it was not so much his boots that revealed him as his irreverent behaviour during the remainder of the small hours. By daybreak the poor girl, worn out with fighting off his numerous attempts on her chastity, huddled like a bedraggled sparrow in a corner and watched the handsome imposter with heavy-lidded eyes. ‘What’s your name?’ she mumbled as he yawned noisily and scratched his ribs under the crimson curtain.
‘Didn’t I tell ye? The Reverend O’Donnel.’ He arched his back away from the hard pew.
‘You’re the queerest parson I’ve ever known,’ came the sceptical reply.
He threw off the curtain and put his boots to the stone floor, grinning. ‘Don’t ye know us priests are worse than any normal man? We’re the very devil when it comes to women an’ liquor.’ He stepped from the pew into the aisle and in his sleep-befuddled state automatically genuflected to the altar, crossing himself.
‘There, I knew it!’ She sprang from her corner. ‘No vicar I ever saw did that. Them’s papist ways. Right! I’m off to the police station an’ tell them there’s an imposter here who’s masqueradin’ as a clergyman so’s he can steal the silver an’ ravish the congregation. You probably murdered the poor vicar an’ all.’
For My Brother’s Sins Page 51