She grabbed the harp from the startled girl and dashed it against the balustrade, trying to smash it to pieces in her anger. Splinters of polished wood flew from the instrument. The strings shrieked in a tortured cacophany as she raised it again and again, chipping the beautiful marquetry, attempting to break its back. But the harp refused to die.
Erin freed herself from Caroline and made to stop Helena, but only succeeded in receiving a blow from the harp, and fell back holding a hand to her cut head.
‘You fiend!’ Brimming with hysteria, witnessing her friend’s hurt was the last straw. With a sudden dash, Caroline placed her hands against Helena’s back and pushed.
The banging stopped. All that was to be heard was Helena’s scream as she toppled over the balustrade and soared towards the tiled floor below. At that same moment Roland opened the front door and sucked in his breath, staring into his wife’s terrified maw as she flew towards him, her skirts rippling and billowing above the lace-trimmed drawers, and landed with a ghastly thud at his feet.
So quiet; quiet as death. Roland looked up at the tableau on the landing, where Alice peered over the broken balcony, her hands clasped to her cheeks, and Caroline’s eyes shone blue and round in the white, white face. Then his gaze slowly fell to his wife.
Erin, the first to regain her senses, stepped tentatively down the staircase and regarded Helena’s prostrate form. Then, stooping, she gripped the harp which had fallen with its attacker and tugged it free of the body. She moved her eyes from Helena to examine its battered frame. Though terribly scarred and sporting half a dozen broken strings, the harp still lived. Erin folded her arms around it and held it defensively to her breast.
Alice prodded herself from her immobility and, leading a benumbed Caroline after her, came slowly down the stairs as Roland searched for Helena’s pulse, but found none.
‘I did it,’ whispered Caroline disbelievingly.
Roland looked sharply at Alice, who answered: ‘Miss Caroline doesn’t know what she’s sayin’, sir. She’s a bit shocked-like. It was an accident. The mistress leaned too far over the banisters and toppled over. Me an’ Erin saw it, didn’t we?’
Erin looked at Caroline, who seemed to be in some sort of trance, then supported Alice’s claim. ‘Yes, sir, it was an accident.’
Roland stared at the maids’ divided faces and hoped that an inquest jury would find them more convincing than be did. He looked down at his wife again, and felt, apart from the shock, a wonderful sense of release.
Caroline stood as if paralysed, gazing down at the beautiful corpse. The coroner would understand if Roland suggested that his daughter be spared the ordeal. The maids’ evidence should be sufficient.
‘Thank you, Alice,’ he said quietly.
‘What for, sir?’ she asked innocently. ‘Like I said, it was an accident. Now, you come along wi’ me, Miss Caroline, let’s get yer tucked into bed wi’ a nice cup o’ chocolate an’ you’ll feel lots better.’ She took the girl’s arm and gently but firmly steered her towards the staircase.
Roland turned his attention to Erin who was watching Caroline ascend the stairs. He laid a heavy arm across her shoulders. ‘I regret that your time in this house has not been a happy one. I hold myself to blame for that, and for the unhappiness of your family.’ He felt Erin’s big blue eyes on his face but could not look into them. ‘If you should see your mama, tell her…’ — Tell her what? That he was sorry he had ruined her life? He suddenly fished in his pocket then, not finding any money, disappeared into the drawing room and came back with three sovereigns. ‘Would you allow me to give you these?’
Erin made no move to take the coins. ‘I don’t think my father will accept them, sir.’
‘They are not for your father,’ he told her. ‘They are for you, to repair your harp. It is such a beautiful instrument and deserves better than to be scarred for life.’
‘Then I accept, thank you, sir.’ She folded the coins into her pinafore and twisted it into a knot. ‘And now I must go, for me Dad will be angry if I’m missing when he gets back.’
Roland opened the door and shouted to a passing youth to go fetch a cab, rewarding him with a sixpence on his return. He helped Erin to board the cab and passed a coin to the driver.
‘Take this young lady wherever she wishes to go.’
The cabbie doffed his hat and flicked the reins. As the cab drove away, Erin heard Roland address the youth again.
‘Go to Doctor Haines’ residence, will you, boy? Tell him there has been an accident at the Cummings’ house.’
* * *
Patrick rattled the doorknob, then attacked the door itself. ‘Erin, open up!’
Dickie grappled with the key and opened the door.
‘Where’s your sister?’ Patrick staggered in, kicked the door shut and, flopping into a chair, reached for the jug of poteen.
The boys dared say nothing, but were saved from further interrogation by the sound of Erin’s arrival in the hansom. It was a sound that was out of place in their street, and Nelly Peabody’s curtains moved slightly as Erin alighted and paused on the pavement as the horse clattered off towards the city centre. What a field day Nelly had had. There had been enough ammunition today to arm her tittle-tattle for the rest of the year.
At Erin’s entry the boys vanished up the stairs. Patrick lowered the jug and observed the harp with an apathetic, bloodshot eye.
‘I thought I’d made me views clear?’ he slurred.
Erin held her chin high. ‘What are ye going to do about it? Hit me like ye hit Mam?’
‘Why, you impertinent…’ He thrust aside the jug of poteen, spilling the remains over the carpet and came upon her, arm upraised.
Erin flung up her arm to stave off the attack and cried the first words that came into her mouth. ‘She’s dead!’
He paled. She couldn’t be! Had he not just seen her half an hour ago? He grabbed his daughter roughly by the arms. ‘What d’ye mean, dead? How? When?’ He started to shake her. ‘For pity’s sake, tell me, child!’
She stuttered out her story, and watched the colour return to his cheeks as he realised that she had been referring to Helena.
‘Good riddance,’ he snarled callously, and slouched to the scullery for another jug of liquor. ‘May the devil rot her evil carcase.’
‘Oh, Dad,’ reproved Erin. ‘Ye shouldn’t oughta speak so of the dead.’
He waved his hand deprecatingly. ‘Ah, away off to bed with ye an’ leave me in peace.’
Erin crept up to her bedroom. After she had undressed, she knelt before the wooden crucifix which had been her mother’s, prayed for her father’s forgiveness, her mother’s return, and Helena’s soul.
Chapter Fifty-five
The summer died. Swallows congregating on the telegraph wires for their winter migration draped the countryside in twittering necklaces. In the hedgerows and forests hedgehogs rooted for a warm hollow in which to spend their winter sleep. Even the house itself seemed to have entered into a state of hibernation, as if waiting for Thomasin’s return.
Though Erin had done her best to rekindle the feeling of home, rising early to bake the bread and provide a welcoming blaze for the boys to come down to, neither the mouthwatering smell of baking nor the wholesome meals that awaited them could mask the sour smell of their father’s unwashed body which greeted them on a morning. The place stank like a tap-room. Each day they rose to face the obstacle of his drunken form slumped across the furniture, one finger still hooked unconsciously around the jug handle, clinging to the one friend he had left.
For the first two weeks after Thomasin’s departure it was a hard enough task to get through to him, let alone persuade him to go to work. The chair had become his world; he would not move from its womb except to stagger into the yard to relieve himself. A permanent feature of this world was the jug of poteen which was replenished at waking intervals. Once, Erin had tipped the whole stock of liquor down the drain, but she had succeeded only in driving him fro
m the house and into the taverns where the last of his money was swallowed away, leaving her only Roland’s sovereigns to fall back on for food. It seemed that the harp was destined to remain silent.
It was dreadful, trying to do the housework with him sitting by the hearth all day. She would bang and clatter the dustpan round the tiles, knock his ankles with her brush, hoping for something more than the usual unresponsive grunt; but there was nothing. He was so insensible that when she rose on a morning she would even find mice droppings scattered on his chest, where the creatures had picnicked on the crumbs which stuck to his clothes.
If anyone had tried to ask Patrick to voice his feelings he would have told them: ‘I was once lost in a fog, back home ye know. Thick and dense it was, almost like a stirabout that ye’d eat for breakfast. Ye couldn’t see five yards in front of ye, and held your hands up to feel your way like a blind man, using them to cut through the mist, hoping ye wouldn’t fall into any bogs. I didn’t know where I was going, couldn’t hear one friendly sound. The mist crept into my ears and plugged them up. Then all of a sudden, I came upon this little man. I was a bit wary at first, ’cause I took him for one o’ the little people. ’Twas only when I got right up to him that I found he was made of stone; a lump of granite that had dropped off the mountain.
‘He had moss-green clothes and a perky, lichen hat with a sprig of broom growing out like a feather, and he sat there looking at me out of his chiselled, weathered face with the stirabout lapping all around him.
‘Twelve times I came upon that little fella, as I laboured through the mist. He seemed to be following me wherever I went, laughing at me, like. It got to be very unnerving. ’Twas only when the mist lifted that I realised that ’twas not him who had been moving, but me who’d been going in circles.
I was only twenty yards from where I’d started, but the mist had set a worm in my brain so that I could not move any way but round.
‘’Tis like that now. I’m in a fog, coming across the same landmark again and again. Only this time ’tis no little green man I’m seeing, but Thomasin. The harder I try to fight my way through that mist, the more I find myself coming back to her.’
Eventually Patrick was able to claw his way to the edge of the mist, not quite escaping, yet coming far enough out to save himself from falling into the bottomless abyss that lay beneath the fog. He had been that way before, and had no wish to return.
Erin’s fervent prayers to the Holy Mother were rewarded by Patrick’s return to work. Not to his old job, for that had been filled by someone more reliable, but nevertheless a job, which meant that Erin need no longer worry about the elasticity of her sovereigns.
But still she had worries of another kind. Though Dickie, now that he had sampled Erin’s new-style cooking, was not too unhappy, Sonny was taking his mother’s absence very badly. He and his father would have terrible fights over Thomasin, well, not so much fights as Sonny taking the part of a worrisome mosquito and Patrick the enraged horse, which always ended with Sonny in tears and Patrick disappearing to the ale-house.
On one such evening, when Patrick had flown into a rage, Erin went upstairs to find Sonny tying up his belongings in a large ’kerchief.
‘I’m running away,’ he told Erin sulkily when she asked. ‘I’m off to find me Mam.’
‘She’ll not take much finding,’ answered Erin calmly. ‘She’s at Grandma’s.’
‘How d’ye know?’ he asked eagerly, dropping his bundle. ‘Have ye seen her?’
‘No, but where else would she be? Look,’ she took the ’kerchief and laid his possessions on top of a chest of drawers, ‘even if she is, what good will it do if ye go up there? Me Dad’ll only fetch ye back.’
‘I’ll fight him,’ boasted Sonny.
‘A lot o’ good that’ll do,’ replied his sister. ‘Jeez, ye’re like a couple o’ fightin’ cocks, the pair o’ ye. I don’t know how I keep sane. D’ye think he’s going to stand there an’ let ye clout him? No, he’ll drag ye off home and then we’ll be back where we started.’
‘Then I’ll keep running away till he gets tired of it,’ replied Sonny, beginning to pack his things again.
‘Look, will ye put that lot away an’ come down?’ said Erin forcefully. ‘There’s things I want to say to you an’ Dickie. Important things, like how we can get me Mam to come back.’
Later the three of them sat with mugs of tea and slices of toast round the fire, discussing the best way of dealing with their troublesome parents.
‘What we need,’ said Erin, ‘is a plan of attack. Any suggestions?’
Dickie raised his hand and the others turned to him expectantly. ‘Can I have the last piece of toast?’
Erin cuffed him. ‘We’re trying to discuss something of the greatest import an’ all you can think about is your guts. Are ye not bothered about seeing your Mammy again?’
‘’Course I am,’ he protested. ‘But sure, I cannot think on an empty stomach. Me Mam’d let me have it if she was here.’
‘Well, she’s not, greedy swine,’ said Sonny angrily.
‘Sonny, such language!’ chided his sister. ‘Come on now, be serious. We’ll have to think of something that’ll get Mam an’ Dad back together. I can’t stand much more o’ Dad’s goings-on.’
‘Nor can I,’ said Dickie, watching the piece of toast. ‘He stinks.’
‘So do you!’ argued Sonny.
‘Sonny, please!’
‘Well, somebody has to stick up for me Dad,’ replied Sonny.
‘I like that,’ said Erin. ‘’Tis you who’ve been calling him the worst names.’
‘All right, shurrup.’ Sonny calmed down. ‘I’m trying to think.’ He wrinkled his brow and twitched his nose from side to side. ‘What about if one of us goes to me Mam an’ says me Dad’s had an accident?’
‘Won’t work,’ replied Erin, playing with the tufts of her hair. ‘I shouldn’t think me Mam’d give a mouldy sprout about himself after what he’s done to her. Still, you’re on the right lines. Now, if we were to go to her and say one of us had had an accident, then go to me Dad and say the same thing, then I’ll bet both of them would come running. Once they were together and saw the joke they might decide to patch things up. What d’ye say?’
Sonny leaned forward. ‘Which one of us is going to have the accident? I reckon it should be me, ’cause I’m Mam’s favourite.’
The others laughed scornfully at his arrogance, then Erin said: ‘Perhaps you’re right, but let’s make a proper plan. Sonny, you’re supposed to have been knocked over and nearly dying. I’ll go to the place where me Mam works and tell her, while Dickie goes to me Dad’s site and tells him. Now, we’ve got to get the timing right so’s they both arrive together.’
Sonny giggled. ‘By, won’t they laugh when they find out I’m really all right.’
‘Well, let’s hope they’re not disappointed,’ retorted Erin. ‘Right, let’s go through it once more before me Dad gets home.’
* * *
After leaving Roland, Thomasin had gone straight to her parents’ home, where she had fallen into a deep state of shock. For the next couple of days she had been tucked up in bed, shivering violently between two hot water bottles, forced to listen to her mother’s prattling about Patrick’s cruel treatment, about the Irish being a race of drunken ruffians and, ‘Oh, what is to become of those children with that brute?’
William, naturally, had been more understanding, even though he was extremely annoyed at Patrick’s treatment of his daughter.
‘Come on, Tommy,’ he had said. ‘Everything’ll work out, you’ll see. Why, in t’mornin’ Pat’ll forget all about whatever it is that’s upset ’im an’ he’ll be round here first thing to tek thee ’ome.’
But he didn’t. Thomasin now lying peacefully in her bed knew that he would never forgive her. The tears came. She let them take their course, then angrily she wiped her eyes and dressed. What was the point of lying in bed thinking about it? She would have to earn a living if
the worst came to the worst and she had to live here permanently. So she had better make a start now. But oh, the children…
* * *
Mr Penny, the grocer, was shocked at Thomasin’s appearance as she bade him a solemn good morning and apologised for her absence.
‘Eh, you shouldn’t have come here in a state like that.’
‘Thank you, that’s made me feel a whole lot better.’ She took off her shawl and turned the Closed sign to Open.
‘Nay, I didn’t mean, I meant… Oh, hell, sit down and tell me what happened.’ He pulled up a crate and planted himself firmly on it.
‘Nowt much to tell.’ She began to refill the shelves which had been sadly neglected in her absence.
‘Come on,’ he coaxed. ‘It must’ve been summat serious judging by that face. Away, put t’kettle on an’ tell me all about it over a cup o’ coffee.’
Between sips, Thomasin told him the whole story. It seemed easier to unburden her mind on someone who was not a member of her family.
‘Well, I can’t say as I blame him,’ said Arnold Penny, when she had done. ‘I daresay I’d have done the same if you were my wife.’ He looked at his coffee cup. ‘By, Thomasin, you’ve really shocked me, you have. I’d never have thought you the type to do unseemly things like that.’ He shook his head and sighed.
‘Yer don’t have to tell me I’ve been a fool,’ she said sadly. ‘But I were that desperate I didn’t know how to raise t’money.’
‘Eh, lass,’ he covered her small hand with his gnarled one, ‘what are we going to do with you? I’ll tell you what we’re going to do, we’re going to forget all about it, that’s what. Happen I’ve done some worse things in my time, who am I to condemn you for trying to save your husband? All things considered, that husband o’ yours ought to think himself lucky that he’s got someone to care for him like you.’
She was grateful for the wafer of comfort, but doubted that Patrick would think so.
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