by Anne Bennett
She wished she could talk over her concerns with someone, but her father had said that Celia’s name was not to be spoken of and though Norah might have sneaked a quiet word with Dermot he was off to America shortly and she felt it unfair to load a problem on him when he could do nothing about it.
She knew the only solution was to travel to Birmingham and somehow find her sister, though she had no idea how to get there in the first place and once there how she was going to go about finding her sister in the busy bustling city she imagined Birmingham to be. She had money her parents knew nothing about, sent to her by her brother, Jim, when the plan had been that she was to join him in America.
Keep the dollars I have enclosed in this letter to buy yourself some decent clothes almost as soon as you land. Tell you I felt like a right country bumpkin at first and I imagine it’s worse for a woman.
Norah smiled at her brother’s thoughtfulness and, without saying a word about it, hid the letter with the folded dollars inside it in her underwear drawer. So she had more than enough money to travel to Birmingham. But what then? She knew she was more or less responsible for her sister making the journey in the first place; Celia would never have gone without her encouragement and making the arrangements and all. It would have been better to let her go to America. She would have got over McCadden in time as apparently she had in Birmingham and at least she would be looked after and safe and still in contact with the family as Jim was.
The harvest was in and everyone was drafted in to help with that. A fine harvest it was too and Sammy was taken to the peat bogs to collect the peat for the winter for the first time. Dermot smiled as he watched him standing in the cold earth in his bare feet, seeing the black water ooze between his toes, for he remembered doing the self-same thing when he was Sammy’s age. It was strange to think that it would be the last time he would collect the turf.
All the jobs he had previously done automatically had a certain poignancy now for it was the last time he would clean out the well with lime, renew any worn thatch and give the farmhouse and barns a coat of whitewash, and with each passing day his excitement grew. He tried to hide it from Norah, quite unsuccessfully for she saw it almost bubbling inside him and his glowing eyes when he spoke and she pushed her resentment way down so that she could speak naturally to her young brother, knowing full well it wasn’t Dermot’s fault she had been such a fool.
And then a window of opportunity opened up for Norah to leave the farm unnoticed. To get to America from the north of Ireland Dermot would have to go first to the pier in Moville in Inishowan, where he would await the tender to take him out to the big liners bound for America that would be anchored out in the deeper waters of Lough Foyle. Inishowan was a fair distance away and Greencastle, where her sister Katie lived with her husband and son, was the next village to Moville.
No one had been able to visit Katie since the wedding because of the distance and Peggy decided that she would seize the chance to see her daughter as well. Provided Tom could cope, they could all go and stop at Katie’s for a day or two once they had set Dermot on his way. Norah was overjoyed to hear this, but told her mother she would stay behind and say goodbye to Dermot in the house.
‘But don’t you want to see your sister?’ Peggy asked.
Norah certainly did want to meet Katie and see how she was and play with her baby son, Brendon, but she was seriously concerned for Celia and knew she could not pass up this chance of slipping away and making for England. And so she said to her mother, ‘I’d love to see Katie, but I think I would be upset seeing Dermot boarding that ship and sailing off to America. I would hate to make a holy show of you all.’
‘Leave the girl be if that’s how she feels,’ Dan said when Peggy told him this as they prepared for bed. ‘It was supposed to be her sailing off for the States, not Dermot, and she is bound to feel it.’
So Norah’s explanation for her decision was accepted and so over the next few days until they would leave Norah made her own preparations. She wrote the letter she intended posting when she reached Belfast, telling her parents what she was doing and why, and her clothes she took out a bit at a time and put them into a bass bag she had hidden in a hollow tree just past the head of the lane. Tom had to think she had changed her mind and gone with the family so that he wouldn’t miss her too early. She waited until the last night to tell him, offering to help with the milking and cleaning out the byre, as that was the only way she was more or less guaranteed to get him on his own. Her parents thought she was being considerate because there were a lot of last-minute things still to do, but Norah knew they wouldn’t feel the same about her when they discovered what she had done, but she knew she had to carry out her plan of action for the sake of her sister.
They were nearly finished in the byre before she told Tom that she had decided to go with her parents to Moville to see Dermot off after all.
‘You do right,’ Tom said. ‘I can understand that it might give you a pang to see Dermot making for the country you really wanted to see, but moping around here will not help. Going to see Katie afterwards will probably take your mind off it a bit too and Dermot will go with an easier heart, for he knows how much he has upset you and it has concerned him.’
That gave Norah a bit of a jolt, for she hadn’t fully appreciated how her decision had affected her brother, and she decided that she would tell him the real reason she couldn’t go with the family to see him off. The point that he would be unable to do anything about it seemed suddenly to matter less than him thinking badly of her.
So, after they had eaten the meal and she had helped Ellie wash the dishes, she asked Dermot if he wanted a last look at the farm to see what he was leaving behind. He hadn’t thought about it and knew by the wink Norah gave him, which no one else saw, that it wasn’t to do with that – she wanted him on his own. He had felt sore that she wasn’t coming to see him off and hoped she was going to tell him why and so he stepped into the black night readily enough, only stopping to lift his thick jacket from the back of the door.
The air was icily cold and there was no moon but the stars were twinkling merrily once they were away from the lights of the farmhouse, showing the lack of cloud in the midnight sky and auguring a cold morning the following day, not an ideal day to be crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, not a good night to be abroad either and Norah gave a sudden shiver and wrapped her shawl around her tighter as Dermot said sneeringly, ‘Come on then, out with it. I know you wanted to get me on my own. “Bon voyage” might be good, but that’s probably beyond you?’
‘Don’t be like this, Dermot,’ Norah said. ‘Or I will regret trying to give you some sort of explanation. I do wish you well, but I have far more to say than bon voyage.’ For the first time she told him everything about helping Celia to flee that time and about the sighting of them in Liverpool by Seamus Docherty, which he hadn’t known about, and the strange letter McCadden had sent to his family.
‘You see how worried I am?’ Norah said. ‘When Seamus saw them they were together and just a few months later Andy writes a letter and doesn’t mention her at all.’
‘I see that’s a bit odd, right enough.’
‘It’s more than odd,’ Norah said. ‘I am worried sick that something has happened to her and because it’s my fault she’s there I have to go to Birmingham to find her, using the trip to see you off to cover my tracks. For with us not being able to mention Celia’s name, I can’t just come out with it in the general way and ask for permission to try and seek her out.’
‘No, I see that,’ Dermot said. ‘And I think Daddy is wrong to put a blanket ban on talking about Celia. Well I mean, all right, she did wrong but not to be allowed to say her name is like she never existed.’
‘I agree.’
‘And they were harsh, locking her in her room the way they did,’ Dermot went on. ‘Make anyone want to take off, that would, and what’s wrong with this bloke McCadden anyway?’
‘Essentially nothing,’ Norah s
aid. ‘He’s like you or Jim or Sammy. He is the second son of a farmer and, as his older brother inherits the farm, he was making his way as Jim is and you must.’
‘So what’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing and if Daddy was to lose some of his stiff-necked pride and stop trying to live our lives for us, he might have talked to McCadden instead of fighting him. Then he might have found that he’s not the devil incarnate, but a hireling man through no fault of his own, who cares for Celia. If that had been done this might not have happened because Celia never wanted to leave Ireland.’
She looked at Dermot, though it was too dark to see his face as she went on, ‘There’s the rub though. I gave Celia into his keeping and at the time I would have staked my life on the fact that he loved her and would care for her always.’
‘So if she’s not under his protection …’
‘I need to find out where she is and check that she is safe,’ Norah said. ‘Do you see that, Dermot?’
‘Of course I see,’ Dermot said. ‘I’m not a child and you are doing the right thing, the only thing, and I only wish that I was not going to America just yet and I could come with you and help you.’
‘Daddy would never allow it.’
Dermot smiled ruefully and, though Norah couldn’t see it, she could hear it in his voice as they turned back to the house. He said, ‘Mad, isn’t it? I am allowed, encouraged even, to leave my home and go to another continent entirely, because my father wishes it, and yet not allowed to search for a sister in England who might be in trouble.’
‘When we inherit the world and all the old ones have died off we may be able to change things,’ Norah said. ‘Till then we are stuck with their rules and can only try and bend them if we disagree. Now though, as we are both up very early tomorrow morning, I think we had better hit the sack.’
Dermot had no problem with that but before they went in he turned to Norah and said, ‘Will you write and tell me how you get on? I know I’m miles away but I’d like to know and you can write what you like for Jim says Aunt Maria gives him any letter unopened.’
‘I will, Dermot, I promise,’ Norah said. ‘As soon as I have news.’
It was hard for Norah to say goodbye to Dermot the following morning and she shed bitter tears as she hugged him tight and so did he and she could only be glad that Tom, after saying his goodbyes and wishing Dermot ‘Godspeed’, had gone out to the field to collect up the cows for the milking, or he might think it odd that Norah was so upset when she had told him she’d be going to see Dermot off with the family.
Dan had put the canvas cover over the cart in case of inclement weather and to keep them a bit warmer and there was a flurry of activity as Peggy, the children and the luggage were packed inside. Dermot took a moment to look back at the farmhouse before climbing up beside his father and they were off, the cart rattling along the cobbles pulled by the sturdy horse, Bess. Tom came out of the byre to give a last wave, unaware because of the darkness and the cover that Norah wasn’t aboard with the others, but hidden away waiting till Tom returned to the byre and she could steal away.
It worked like clockwork and so, only minutes after the family had left, Norah, dressed in her warmest clothes and with her thickest shawl and strong boots, crept down the lane, collected her bag and set off to Donegal Town. There was no moon to help to light her way and she felt frost scrunch beneath her boots. She had to watch her step for she had no desire to slip and spread her length on the frozen ground.
She was glad to reach the town still in one piece and there the going got easier, but as she made her way to the station she was quite dismayed to see that the town seemed to have a fair few Black and Tans looming out of the darkness, even at that early hour. They were meant to be intimidating and they were and so even if a person had done nothing wrong, they were made nervous by their presence – and with reason, Norah thought.
She hoped that none of them would stop and question her, though they had no reason to, not that that mattered. She couldn’t help feeling nervous as she passed them, though she tried not to show it even when she felt their eyes boring into her back as she went down to the station.
However, she reached it without incident and as she bought her ticket for Letterkenny she expected a barrage of questions about where she was going and why from the old stationmaster who knew all the Mulligans and therefore thought he had a perfect right to know their business. She was ready with a tale of some fictitious relative taken ill in Letterkenny, but it wasn’t needed, for the lad who issued the tickets that morning was someone Norah had never seen before. He seemed half asleep and not a bit interested in the few passengers who were travelling that time in the morning in early December.
They had a little wait for the rail bus and Norah kept a low profile as she would have hated to bump into someone who knew her, but she was relieved when she realised not one of the handful of passengers was known to her. By the time the rail bus pulled into the station she felt butterflies start in her stomach. She paid no heed to them and boarded the rail bus and took a seat as if she had been doing it every day of her life. For good or bad, on this day, Saturday 4th December, she was making for England.
Henry had written a letter to his parents telling them all about the baby, Grace Catherine, and said he was awaiting their instructions regarding the child’s future. Meanwhile, despite the doctor’s misgivings, the child, while still small, thrived for though Celia was inex-perienced she loved the child as if she were her own and cared for her tenderly.
She felt such compassion for the child, growing up without a proper mother, and for Annabel, who was not there to see the child developing as the weeks passed. Janey and particularly Sadie, who had delivered her, took a great interest in her and even the doctor came a couple of times to check on her and yet no news came from the Lewishams. As for Henry himself, he was intrigued by the baby, but she was so small and delicate-looking he was afraid to handle her, though he spent a lot of time in the nursery. He was there one evening when she was five weeks old and she smiled for the first time. Celia had just finished feeding her and she was still lying in her arms when it happened. It was a heart-stopping moment and Henry was amazed how it affected him and for the first time he saw Annabel’s baby as a little person.
‘She is lovely, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘She’s so helpless and vulnerable.’
‘She is,’ Celia agreed. ‘And she’s such a good little baby.’
‘Don’t you think it odd that my parents, even my mother, are not the slightest bit curious about her?’
‘Not really,’ Celia said. ‘I think that they are pretending she doesn’t exist just like they did with her mother. They seem totally disinterested in the whole thing and I think you have to come to terms with the fact that they have no intention of coming here to see the baby.’
‘Well then,’ declared Henry. ‘If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, the mountain must go to Mohammed.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Well in this instance it means that we must take the baby to my parents. If I just left her there, they would have to at least acknowledge her.’
‘And then what?’ Celia demanded. ‘What’s to stop them having her delivered post-haste to the nearest children’s home? You have said yourself that she is helpless and vulnerable. Leaving her with your parents after they have indicated they want nothing to do with her is like throwing her to the wolves.’
‘Do you think they would send her to a children’s home?’ Henry said. ‘Oh surely not. After all, Grace is their granddaughter.’
‘They won’t see it that way if they have already disowned their own daughter,’ Celia almost said but stopped herself as Henry went on, ‘We’ll go up on Sunday mid-morning when they will have returned from any church they might attend. We’re more or less sure to get them together then – unless you think Grace too young yet?’
‘She is young and small certainly, but I suppose if she is well wrapped up she will probabl
y be all right.’
‘Well dress her in her finery and when my parents see her I bet they will be as smitten as the rest of us,’ Henry declared.
SIXTEEN
In all the churches in Ireland, many times they cited the foolhardiness of young girls leaving their homes alone for England, especially without any job or respectable place to stay organised, which Norah thought was exactly what she was doing. Grave danger lay in wait for such young women, they had been told: men on the lookout for naïve, country girls to lure them under the guise of friendship to a life of immorality there was often no escape from. Or there were even reports of girls that had disappeared altogether and it had been assumed they had been abducted for the white slave trade.
Had Norah been a nervous type of girl, she might have been a little frightened by these alarmist predictions, but she was made of sterner stuff. She thought girls mad to go off with perfect strangers anywhere, however friendly they appeared, and that they deserved all they got. She decided the safest plan was not to look as if you didn’t know what you were doing or where you were going, even if it was a sham – as it would be in her case. She had had a good deal of time to think as she took the train from Letterkenny to Belfast and eventually she decided the best thing was to make for a Catholic church and ask the priest’s advice about respectable lodgings. She knew that he would also have to be told some tale as to why she was there and on her own and that it couldn’t be the truth.
She was slightly unnerved by the teeming docks at Belfast, but told herself Birmingham would likely be larger, noisier and even more hectic. As she had a wait for the ferry, she forced herself to leave the docks and go out into the streets. She had at any rate to find a post box to send the fateful letter to her parents that she’d promised herself she would post in Belfast.