Although Mrs Ffrench told people that every child was always welcome at Bruckless House, few ever called. Yet she never visited the Goold Verschoyle household without seeing village urchins wandering freely about the tennis court or sitting with Eva in the old coach house, taking turns to use her paints and brushes, laughing with their hands streaked in watercolours. Eva quickly became the centre of the party now, not even conscious of how she drew the children into the games she suggested. Perhaps it was her size, with many children towering over her. Or maybe it was her aura. At fifteen, Eva was older than her years in some respects, yet far younger in others.
Soon Mrs Ffrench found herself peripheral to her own party, a bystander who would love to swing a four-year-old girl around like Eva did or have toddlers cluster about her skirt while she told stories. She kept trying to mingle and talk to each guest but a glass wall existed with the village children that she could not break down.
Still, she loved the sounds of laughter and was delighted at having risked holding the party outdoors during the few hours of winter sunlight. There was real Baha’i happiness by the end as children relaxed with each other. Village children waved as they walked away in clusters, with the Protestants being collected in ponies and traps. Finally only she and Eva were left, excitedly discussing the party on a sofa in the library while, outside, serving girls cleared away the mess on the lawn.
She offered to have her man drive Eva home, but Eva insisted that she loved the two-mile walk in twilight. Mrs Ffrench knew that she would be safe because something about the child’s innocence suggested that Eva could not be hurt so long as she never left Donegal. Eva sympathised at how lonely Christmas would be in Bruckless House with Mr Ffrench away and asked would the Hawkins family ever come back to visit.
‘I suspect not, dear. Bruckless holds too many memories. These days a lot of ghosts sit on empty chairs at dinner. It would be hard for them not to keep seeing Oliver in their minds swimming down at our pier.’
Mrs Ffrench stopped, surprised by her tears. Grief was a sly thief always waiting in ambush. She had thought she was over the worst of the anguish at losing her two brothers, but last month’s news that her sister’s husband had also been killed had brought back her dreams of blood. When she woke some nights now she was afraid to touch the sheets, having dreamt that they were saturated in blood. She hated the three-card-trickery of these insidious dreams. In them she could be back with her brothers in their nursery, watching them play with boxes of tin soldiers. Next moment they would be wading through barbed wire and foxholes where dying men screamed, still only boys holding their tin soldiers, oblivious to danger. Then they would become her own unborn sons walking towards the German guns, not hearing her screaming to warn them until they were shot and fell. She always woke with a start from such dreams, her hand instinctively reaching down between her legs where she bled every month whether her husband was home on leave or not. Five years of marriage, stained by unwelcome blood. The Commodore had devised a code so that she could send him news after each visit home. They had names chosen if it was a boy or a girl and a locked room set aside to be a nursery. At thirty-one she was still young enough. When his victory at Murmansk was achieved, he would come home for them to try again, as often and with as much passion as it took. To compensate for all the deaths, her first child would be a boy.
Mrs Ffrench became aware of tears also in Eva’s eyes.
‘Don’t mind me being silly, dear.’ She put her hand on the young girl’s arm.
‘Sometimes I blame myself for Oliver dying,’ the girl said. ‘You see, Mrs Ffrench, I didn’t want his family to come back because of Beatrice. I wanted to keep Art to myself. It’s just too terrible how I got my wish.’
‘You can’t blame yourself, child. Thousands of boys are slaughtered every week. Men will have to answer to God for this one day, but you have nothing to answer for.’
Something about the wide-eyed fifteen-year-old reminded Mrs Ffrench of herself at that age. Eva would also be a seeker after truth. Mrs Ffrench remembered how isolated she had felt as a girl until she stumbled by seeming chance upon a reference to Abdul-Baha and his beliefs. Now she knew that The Master had been guiding her life on a quest to find a man sufficiently open to embrace her beliefs. Her conversion of the Commodore meant that there were now four Baha’is in Ireland. She wanted to thrust copies of World Fellowship and other Baha’i publications into Eva’s hands but each seeker needed to find their own path. Instead she decided to let the girl share The Master’s work in a different way.
‘Will you help me light my lamps?’ she asked, knowing that Eva loved this task.
‘Yes, please,’ the girl replied.
Dusk had set in already. The lamps could not be seen from the road where they would attract attention but any walker by the pier would see them shine in eleven windows. This was a vital task and some nights Mrs Ffrench woke, fearful that one might have burnt out while she slept.
The greatest moment of her life was travelling to London this spring to meet Abdul-Baha in person. She could still see the Master’s piercing eyes as he announced that she could cause the illumination of all Ireland if she lit four thousand lamps in one year. Mrs Ffrench had broken this down to mean eleven lamps to be lit on three hundred and sixty days and just eight lamps on the last five nights. Initially she felt foolish, knowing that the servants considered her behaviour odd, but recently they seemed to understand because they smiled when passing her each evening, as if silent conspirators. She took it as a sign that the Master was right. If the lamps were having this effect in her home, then perhaps they were spreading harmony in other houses across Ireland without her knowledge. The maids knew to fill each lamp full of oil but never to light them. That was her strangely comforting task. But tonight she let Eva help, walking from room to room through the empty house.
Finally the task was finished and Mrs Ffrench saw her guest to the door, knowing that Eva would pause on the lawn to count each lamp that beckoned to her and to Ireland and across the seas to where her husband knew that they were being lit. Eva said good night and Mrs Ffrench had to resist a impulse to embrace her. The thought of all the marvellous Goold Verschoyle children being home for Christmas filled her with hope. She would carefully choose presents for each one, making sure that they knew her door was always open. Sometimes she imagined a fantasy where young Brendan was trapped here by a snowfall and she was able to mind him for some days until the road cleared.
Mrs Ffrench stood in her doorway until Eva was out of sight and there was nothing for it but to close the door. Lizzy, the parlourmaid, was descending the stairs. Mrs Ffrench smiled to put her at ease.
‘That was a good day, Lizzy.’
‘It was indeed, mam.’
‘The party went well.’
‘Yes, mam. Will there be anything else, mam?’
‘No.’
The girl hesitated. Mrs Ffrench suspected that some servants, including Lizzy, might feel happier in a house where the mistress never addressed them except with an order.
‘Have you the lamps lit, mam?’
‘Yes, Lizzy.’
‘We do the same for you, mam.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mrs Ffrench was puzzled.
‘If we’re passing the church, the other maids and me always light a candle for you. That’s what us Catholics do for special intentions. All of us are praying that when the Commodore comes home things will go well for you and it will be a boy.’
Mrs Ffrench was momentarily too shocked to speak.
Suddenly aware that she had been too forward, the maid went to apologise, then realised that this could only make matters worse.
‘I light my lamps for a different reason,’ Mrs Ffrench replied icily.
‘Yes, mam. I wouldn’t know, mam.’
‘Your Master and I…’ Mrs Ffrench stopped in time, shocked that she was explaining herself in front of a servant. ‘That will be all, Lizzy.’
‘Yes, mam.’
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bsp; The girl curtsied and scurried away. Mrs Ffrench entered the library that was in darkness except for the lamp in the window. They would be whispering about her in the kitchen like they always whispered. She had tried to create a household where servants were not in dread of their mistress, but she had never envisaged that they would feel pity for her. She hoped that no maid would come in to stoke the fire. She wanted to be alone. She had never felt so utterly alone. Mrs Ffrench took a deep breath. This war would pass. Her husband would return from Murmansk as a hero, having fought off the menace of Bolshevism. Her bed linen would be stained with blood, only this time good cleansing blood from her labours in childbirth. She would welcome every wave of pain, every push that it took. She would be made whole then, she would illuminate Ireland and her child would illuminate her life. The Master had ordained this ordeal to test her faith, but she would be strong and learn to be patient. Rocking herself softly back and forth, Mrs Ffrench waited for her true life to begin.
FOUR
The Motor
Donegal, August 1919
Maud was surprised at the ease with which she discovered the location of the remote cottage being used as a temporary headquarters by the local IRA commander. A mark of how the villagers trusted the family was that it only took Art five minutes to emerge from the smoky gloom of MacShane’s public house with directions and a respectful warning that he might be found with a bullet in his head if he did not keep his mouth shut. But it had not gone unnoticed how the family had so far declined to contact the constabulary about last night’s incident, which had begun when Brendan announced at dinner that he could see men moving about in the coach house. They had all watched from the window as four armed strangers pushed the family’s battered Ford across the yard to the gate, then cranked up the starting handle, climbed in and drove off.
Father had placed a hand on Maud’s shoulder when sensing her about to intervene. Last year his cousin the Countess became the first woman ever elected to the British House of Commons. She refused to take her seat however, setting up an illegal assembly in Dublin with other Sinn Fein MPs instead, which proclaimed the right of its volunteers to use arms. Donegal had seen little of this new lawlessness, but remote police barracks were being attacked, and there had been raids on Big Houses by masked men seeking weapons.
Locals knew that Father didn’t hold a gun licence, so last night’s raid was confined to the outbuildings. But Maud was determined to recover the motor. Father had no idea about this expedition but Father rarely bothered to use the motor, whereas, since finishing school, Maud had become at eighteen the first female in Donegal to drive. Learning was not easy, because Father, himself an infrequent driver, had been nervous about teaching her. But after Art was given permission to drive the motor, there had been no way in which Maud was going to be forbidden. Now, having fought for that right, she was simply not going to simply see their motor stolen. She did not wish to bring Art, but after divulging the address he had refused to let her cycle up into the hills alone.
Although she thought she knew the area, Maud would have been lost by now except that Art had a mental map of every sheep track for miles around. The sixteen-year-old rarely paused for bearings, but cycled up the negotiable parts of the steep track and carried his bicycle over stretches potholed beyond repair. By now they were probably being watched. The IRA lookout would think them picnickers at first, only growing alarmed as their destination became clear. Maud knew that she was taking a huge risk and their informant in the village might be in danger too. Yet all she could think about was the damage surely inflicted on the motor when it was driven up this rough boreen. Branches on both sides must have destroyed the paintwork.
Art stopped to scan the hilltop where, beneath a clump of trees, there was the entrance to a cottage.
‘Do you think they’re really there?’ he asked.
‘They will have seen us coming for miles.’ Maud looked back down the steep hill. Having left Dunkineely fuelled by righteousness, she was now apprehensive, sensing that the respect she was accustomed to might be absent in this new world of desperadoes. Would they be locals whose faces she knew, or strangers? Which would be the most dangerous? It was whispered that flying columns rarely stayed under one roof for more than a few nights. Their chief weapon against the army was inconspicuousness, the ability to blend back into the local populace. So few motors existed in Donegal that using one would be a death warrant for such a column, making their movements easy to track. But perhaps it had been stolen for use in a one-off attack.
‘You stay here,’ Art said. ‘This is men’s work.’
His remark banished uncertainty from Maud’s mind.
‘You stay,’ she retorted. ‘This is for grown-ups.’ In the end they raced each other up to the farmyard. Only when they swung through the gate did the two armed men stand up. It was hard to see their faces beneath the caps. Maud knew they would not shoot her, but Art might be a different matter. She tried to control her fear and dismounted, speaking authoritatively.
‘I want to speak to whoever is in charge.’
‘What are you doing here?’ a man snapped back.
‘I will speak only to whoever is in charge.’
‘He’s off about his business,’ the older man replied.
‘I’ll wait.’
‘Aye, you’d better do that.’
They lowered their guns, reluctant to aim at a young woman and a boy. Maud was relieved that Art stayed silent, because Marlborough College had eroded any trace of an Irish accent. He nudged her elbow, nodding to a hastily constructed turf rick beside the cottage, which could not conceal the car parked behind it. The men glanced at each other, uncertain of what to do.
‘Would you be Miss Goold Verschoyle?’ the first one asked.
‘I am,’ Maud replied.
‘Step inside the cottage like a good woman and bring the young master with you. Who told you where to find us?’
‘We followed a trail of broken branches. It would be easy enough for the military to do likewise.’
‘What have you told the military?’ the man demanded.
‘We told them nothing.’ Art spoke for the first time. ‘We’re all Irishmen together.’
The men said nothing, looking amused.
‘We don’t need to tell them,’ Maud added quickly. ‘A motor car is a big object. It will be as hard for us to hide the fact of not having one as it is for you to hide the fact that you do.’
‘That’s what I told him,’ the first man hissed to his comrade. ‘The damn yoke is a stone around our necks.’
‘That’s enough.’ The second man nodded towards the cottage door. ‘Step indoors and if there’s any sign of the military you’d best run for it like us because they only start questioning when they’re finished shooting.’
A small fire provided some light in the gloom of the cottage. The thatch was discoloured, the whitewash long faded. An elderly couple stood up as they entered and silently beckoned for them to take the two chairs, ignoring their protestations. The old man went outside and Maud heard low voices through the doorway before the youngest volunteer mounted Art’s bicycle and set off down the rutted lane. The old woman was making strong tea for them, tasting of peat. She paused to take a bottle of clear liquid from the mantelpiece and added a sup of illicit whiskey to Art’s cup. Then she disappeared, leaving brother and sister alone.
Being close did not prevent Art and Maud from frequently quarrelling. They were both so strong-willed that conflict was inevitable – especially if Eva was not present as peacemaker. Now however they were united by unease, each wishing they had come alone to prevent the other being exposed to danger. But neither had been willing to be left behind and allow the other to act as de facto head of the family.
It would be some hours before the others realised they were missing. Mr Ffrench was expected back from naval service at any time. Mother would think that they had cycled over to Mrs Ffrench who found the strain of awaiting her husband’s final homec
oming very difficult. Father would be in his study, preoccupied with deciding what to do. Last month a respected police sergeant had been shot dead in front of his children in Donegal town. Father was among the small attendance at his burial, with local mourners warned off. Perhaps this had attracted the IRA’s attention. Maud didn’t know who had ordered the theft of their motor, just that worse trouble might ensue if Father felt obliged to report it.
Eventually they heard the bicycle’s return. Maud thought that the volunteer had gone to notify his superior, but she was mistaken because, as if watching out for the bicycle, the old man re-appeared in the doorway with a wind-up gramophone which he placed on the stone flags near the fire. The volunteer entered, breathless, carrying a bag over his shoulder.
‘You’ll be a while waiting yet,’ he panted. ‘We thought these might pass the time for you.’
Maud had no idea where he had found the records but they included several very scratched Protestant hymns. The old man put one on and smiled at Maud, with his wife momentarily appearing to claim her share in this gesture of hospitality.
‘That’s lovely,’ Maud said. ‘I could listen to it all day.’
‘You might have to,’ the volunteer replied grimly. ‘I’ll be outside, mam, if there’s anything you’d be needing.’
The hymns sounded strange in this dark, smoky cottage. Perhaps some Protestant family in the hills had left them behind when they packed up and left, grieving the loss of a son in France. The second time Maud played them Art joined in the singing, his clear voice soaring over the crackling record as she began to sing too. Each record was played five times before she heard voices outside. The new arrival had a strong Cork accent. Maud felt suddenly petrified. The Donegal men’s hospitality could have been a ruse to keep them here so that they could be held as hostages to secure the release of Republican prisoners. Art rose, ready to face whoever entered, but Maud remained seated, reciting a quiet prayer. The stranger was a tall stocky man, possessing a confident authority. He laughed and kicked the gramophone lightly, knocking the needle to the end of the record.
The Family on Paradise Pier Page 6