Letters From a Patchwork Quilt

by Clare Flynn

  He tried to pretend he hadn’t heard her - but she didn’t stop. ‘I saw you. You can’t help looking at her. Do you think she’s pretty? Prettier than me?’

  Jack moved away from her by shuffling sideways in the pew, desperate for her father to come back and take up his place between them. She edged towards him, closing the gap again.

  ‘Please, Miss MacBride, your father doesn’t want me talking to you.’

  ‘How can I not talk to you when we’re living in the same house?’

  ‘We’re in church. No one’s meant to be talking.’

  A woman in the row in front looked around pointedly, but Mary Ellen continued to whisper in Jack’s ear. ‘She’s poor you know, that teacher. Not a penny to her name. But then you’re poor too, aren’t you? It must be dreadful to be poor. We’re not poor. Papa is immensely rich.’

  It dawned on Jack for the first time that there was something not entirely right about Mary Ellen MacBride: a slowness of wit, an absence of sensitivity. At that moment, her father returned and she bowed her head devoutly and clasped her hands in silent prayer.

  When the congregation spilled outside, Jack looked around, trying to locate Miss Hewlett, but there was no sign of her. Mr MacBride was talking to the priest and summoned Jack over to join them, while Mary Ellen stood to one side, looking bored.

  ‘I’ve parish business to attend to with Father O’Driscoll. Walk my daughter straight home, Mr Brennan. And mind you remember what we talked about last week. You’re on your honour, lad.’

  Jack was surprised and not altogether happy. He had hoped to be free to go for a walk and explore the neighbourhood and if he were being entirely honest with himself, he was hoping Miss Hewlett would be taking a walk around the parish too and he might come upon her, but he knew better than to refuse MacBride’s request.

  As they left the churchyard and turned the corner to walk back to Virginia Lodge, Mary Ellen said, ‘Aren’t you going to offer me your arm? I know you’re common and poor but you should still have manners.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  Jack held his elbow toward her and she rested her arm on his. He felt awkward and ill-matched walking beside her. She was almost the same height as him and walked with an uneven gait that caused him to keep changing pace.

  ‘People will think we’re courting,’ she said.

  Jack blushed to the roots. ‘I don’t see why.’

  She stopped abruptly and pulled her arm away. Her face crumpled. He thought she was about to cry and he tried to recover the situation quickly, saying, ‘I mean people might presume us to be brother and sister.’

  She glared at him, looking him up and down and curling her lip at his threadbare jacket and shabby shoes. ‘That’s not likely.’

  They walked on in silence. After a while she stopped again and said, ‘Don’t you like me?’

  ‘I hardly know you, Miss, but you seem a very amiable lady,’ he lied.

  ‘But you like her better than me?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss.’

  ‘I told you to call me Mary Ellen. Well? Do you like her better? The teacher.’

  ‘I barely know her.’

  ‘But you were looking at her during Mass when you should have been concentrating on the blessed sacrament.’

  He didn’t know how to respond, so chose silence.

  ‘Would you like to marry me?’

  He laughed a nervous laugh, overcome with embarrassment, then wondered if she was trying to make a joke at his expense, but the face that looked back at him was earnest, as though she had asked a perfectly reasonable question.

  ‘I think we’d better hurry back. Your father won’t be happy if we dawdle too much.’

  ‘Papa is an old grump. He’s always finding fault with me. Ever since Mama died. It’s not fair. He doesn’t understand how lonely I am. I wish I was married. I want to go away and live in my own house with a husband and have lots and lots of children. But no one has asked to marry me yet. That’s why I wondered if you’d like to marry me. I know you’re poor but I might say yes if you ask Papa.’

  He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe what he had heard, but there was no mistake. He struggled to cover his embarrassment. Did wealthy ladies always speak their minds like this? He doubted it. There was something about Mary Ellen MacBride that he had never encountered before. Most people said what they thought people would want to hear, but she said exactly what she was thinking. And then he wondered if she was toying with him, teasing him. He looked at her face and did not believe she was dissembling. She was clearly waiting for his reply, her eyes fixed on him eagerly. If he were to treat what she had said as a joke he knew she would be offended. He swallowed, blushed and tried to look sincere and serious.

  ‘I’m not ready to marry anybody yet’ he said. ‘I’m only eighteen. I’ve to make my way in the world first.’

  ‘I’m twenty-nine. I’m almost an old maid and soon everyone will laugh at me. You’re laughing at me now aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course I’m not, but this is not a very appropriate conversation, Miss MacBride. We’ve only just met. I don’t think your father or Father O’Driscoll would be very happy about you discussing marriage.’

  ‘That old devil.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You heard me. Father O’Driscoll’s an old devil. A bad man.’

  ‘But he’s the priest. He can’t be a bad man.’

  She snorted in derision. ‘You think you’re cleverer than me, Jack Brennan, but you know nothing. Nothing.’

  They had reached the house and when they crossed the threshold, Mary Ellen flung her gloves onto the hall stand and ran upstairs, leaving Jack alone and puzzled in the empty hall.

  5

  An Object Lesson

  Jack was conducting an object lesson. He held up an empty glass jar and asked the children two questions: what it was and how it was made. There were only a few raised hands for the former and a resounding silence for the latter. He chalked up an explanation of the essential ingredients and processes involved in glassmaking on the blackboard as the boys copied the notes into their exercise books. He was about to embark on a discourse on glassblowing, the various applications for glass, its impact on society and its contribution to history, when the schoolroom door opened and Sister Callista came in. She nodded to him and waved her hand to indicate that he was to continue the lesson and took a seat at the back. The pupils were unperturbed – it seemed the nun was a familiar interloper in the schoolroom – but Jack was overcome with nerves, stuttering and struggling to breathe, his voice rising and turning shrill like a badly played violin.

  The nun smiled encouragement at him, but he was lost. The room began spinning and he could sense the children shuffling in their seats. Everything moved in slow motion. The pupils merged into a single hostile mass like a lump of cold, hard clay that was resistant to being shaped. The headmistress towered over them like the angel of death and Jack wished that the past few days had been a dream and he would wake up back in Derby on the badly-stuffed straw palliasse with his baby brother’s chubby arm around his neck. Glass. Sand. Silica. Blowing. No. Not Silica. Something else. Why did it matter? What did he know anyway? He was telling them about a process he had never seen. Why hadn’t he told them instead about mixing plaster? His father and Kenneth had furnished him with enough raw material to talk for twenty undiluted minutes. He coughed. He shuffled his papers. He looked up and saw Sister Callista smiling encouragement. He took a deep breath. Then another. In slowly, out slowly. And then he carried on.

  This time the words flowed. He turned to the blackboard and chalked up diagrams and spelled out words and was gratified to see the boys copying them down and to hear the scratch of the younger boys’ slate pencils scraping across their slate boards and the scratch of the older boys’ pens as they tried to write without smudging their copy books.

  At the end of the lesson the boys filed
out and Sister Callista dismissed the monitors too.

  ‘You deserve an early finish, Mr Brennan. That was a first class lesson. Well done. I’m very happy with your performance and with the conduct of the class. Mr Quinn was right to have faith in you. I will be making a very favourable report to Mr MacBride, Father O’Driscoll and the other governors.’ With that, she swept out of the schoolroom and Jack’s grin was as wide as the Bristol Channel.

  He didn’t go straight home. Instead he sat at the teacher’s desk and penned a letter to his mother. He would send it care of Mr Quinn. He wanted her to know he was safe, but conscious of the need to avoid putting her at risk from one of his father’s drunken outbursts, he decided to keep his location secret, merely reassuring his mother that he was safe, living in a Catholic household and pursuing a teaching career.

  So absorbed was he in the writing, it was only when he was shaking the sand to blot the ink that he looked up and saw Miss Hewlett sitting at one of the desks at the back of the room. He hadn’t heard her enter.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Hewlett,’ he stammered, then realised he sounded like the children greeting their teacher in unison. He felt the blood rush to his face and was aware that his heart was hammering against his ribcage.

  She smiled at him, ‘I understand you’re an expert on the art of blowing glass, Mr Brennan.’

  He felt a fool. She was trifling with him. But being trifled with by Miss Hewlett was a punishment he would gladly suffer.

  He got up from the desk and walked towards her. ‘Are you interested in glassblowing, Miss Hewlett?’

  ‘Not at all. Are you, Mr Brennan?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘So what are you interested in?’

  ‘Poetry. I like to write poetry.’

  ‘Love poetry?’

  He felt his face grow hot. ‘I haven’t tried that yet. Mostly I write about nature. About life.’

  ‘Isn’t love a part of life?’

  ‘I suppose it is. But not something I have had experience of… yet.’

  ‘And do you suppose I have?’

  Her voice was flirtatious and he wondered if the heat of his skin meant his face was red.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t. But I think I should like to.’

  ‘I would too.’

  She smiled and it lit up her whole face. ‘I must be getting home. Good night, Mr Brennan.’

  He moved towards her, his natural hesitancy overwhelmed by the need to be close to her and a sudden determination not to let her leave.

  ‘May I walk you home, Miss Hewlett?’

  She hesitated then said, ‘I suppose I can’t really stop you.’

  ‘Do you want to stop me?’ His voice was hesitant, fearing her reply. ‘I don’t want you to walk with me just because you think you have no choice in the matter.’

  ‘Oh, I always have a choice, Mr Brennan. As it happens you must pass by my house on your way home to the MacBrides.’

  ‘You know that I’m staying with the MacBrides?’

  Did that mean she had taken the trouble to find out?.

  She looked slightly scornful at his widened eyes. ‘Everyone in this parish knows everything about everybody.’ She moved towards the door, then hesitated. ‘Well? Are you coming?’

  Jack needed no more encouragement. He grabbed his parcel of books and followed her out of the schoolroom.

  He fell into step beside her, surprised that she had a brisk walk. It occurred to him that they were taking the same route that he had walked on Sunday with Mary Ellen beside him. Remembering her comment that he had been rude in failing to offer his arm, he proffered an elbow to Miss Hewlett. Instead of resting her arm on his, she linked hers through his as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘So, are you going to let me read them?’

  ‘Read what?’ he said, though he knew exactly what she meant.

  ‘Your poems. I should very much like to.’

  ‘They’re not up to much. I’ve not shown them to anyone before. Apart from my sister, who read them without asking and told me they were stupid.’

  ‘Stupid? How cruel!’

  ‘She said they were too soft. She doesn’t have much appreciation for nature.’

  ‘You said they were about life too. What about life?’

  ‘Just daft stuff. My hopes and dreams.’

  ‘Why’s that daft?’

  ‘Well, that’s what our Cecily reckoned. She’s my sister. She told my parents I’d been writing about wanting to be a teacher and there was a big row.’

  He paused, swallowed, then on a hunch, decided to tell her everything. ‘They expected me to be a priest and I didn’t want to, so I ran away. I was lucky enough to be recommended for this post.’

  ‘A priest.’ She looked amused. ‘Can’t see that myself. You look far too worldly for a life of prayer and devotion.’

  Jack wondered if that was meant to be a compliment or an insult, but decided not to ask. ‘What about you?’ he asked instead.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Did you want to be a teacher? Or did you just fall into it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did rather fall into it. I certainly didn’t want to be a nun, if that’s what you mean.’ She laughed. ‘I didn’t have to worry about upsetting my parents as I don’t have any.’

  He looked sideways at her, wondering if she was joking again.

  ‘They’re dead. My mother died giving birth to me, and my father was killed on the docks when I was thirteen.’

  Jack wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her, but she didn’t look as though she wanted to be comforted. She was walking along beside him, swinging her bag of books and looking as though she hadn’t a care in the world. He thought about the enormity of being left alone at age thirteen. It was hard to contemplate - he had always taken for granted being a member of a large tribe.

  Unable to help himself, he squeezed her arm. ‘What happened to you? Who took care of you?’

  ‘My stepmother at first. But she married again last year. Now I have a lodging with a family in the parish. Sister Callista helped me. She persuaded Father O’Driscoll that I should be taken on as a teacher, even though I don’t have the qualifications. She’s a kind woman.’

  ‘You have no other family?’

  She shook her head. Then she stopped and squeezed his arm back. ‘But now I have you to be my friend, Mr Brennan. At least I hope I do.’

  Jack’s face lit up as he grinned at her. ‘You certainly do. And I think that means you must call me Jack.’

  ‘Then you must call me Eliza.’ She held her hand out towards him and he took it, feeling her small and delicate fingers through her gloves.

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Friends,’ she replied.

  Perhaps it was because Jack had begun to feel he would not see his family again, and because Eliza had nobody herself, that the friendship between them deepened so rapidly. She waited behind after her class had gone home and appeared at the schoolroom door each evening as soon as he had completed the monitors’ lessons, which kept him for two hours after she finished with the infants. Then they would talk for a while in the empty classroom before walking home together.

  When the weather grew finer, during the school dinner break, they took to meeting in a nearby park, where they sat side by side under the shelter of the empty bandstand, holding hands and throwing bread crusts to the ducks.

  Jack was reticent about sharing his poetry, his experiences with his sister still being raw, but one dinner hour when they were sitting together in the park, Eliza eventually prevailed upon him to let her read the poems. Jack shuffled his feet as she read, unable to control his nerves and anxious about her verdict.

  ‘You’ve been on a train journey, Jack?’ She looked up from her study of the pages he handed to her. ‘I’d love to travel on a railway, to see the world flying by through the windows.’ She read one of the poems aloud, ending with the lines:


  ‘I gazed through the carriage window’s dirty glass

  At the kilns and factories, fields and sheep.

  I wondered what my life would bring to pass

  And hoped that love, not disappointment, would I reap.

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t write about love, Jack?’

  ‘It’s not about love. It’s just about the hope of it.’

  ‘I think it’s nice. I can picture you staring through the dirty window as the landscape rushes by, not knowing what the future would bring you. But why did you think it might disappoint you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe because I hadn’t met you yet.’ He didn’t look at her, but stared down at his shoes as he scuffed them against the ground.

  ‘Are you teasing me or flirting with me?

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jack Brennan. Sometimes I find you hard to read.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that if I’d any idea I’d be meeting someone like you when I got to Bristol I’d not have had a doubt in my head. I’d have been singing like a song thrush all the way here.’

  She pushed her shoulder against his. ‘You daft ha’peth.’

  He grinned at her. ‘I’m daft on you. That’s for sure.’

  ‘I think you should send these to a publisher or to one of the newspapers.’

  ‘Now who’s being daft?’ he said.

  ‘Why not? You have to believe in yourself, Jack. They’re as good as any I’ve read. Why shouldn’t you get them published? Wouldn’t you like that?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘Then send them off.’

  He closed the notebook and put it in his coat pocket, saying nothing.

  Eliza shook her head and he could tell she was frustrated by him. He didn’t want to do as she suggested. He couldn’t bear the thought of failing, of someone telling him he wasn’t good enough. Better to keep the poems to himself and never risk that.