Bark! the Herald Angels Sing

by Roxanne St Claire

  Because no one was dying of boredom, or anything else. Not if Pru had a say in things. But Grandpa was still waiting for an explanation, his silver-blue eyes leveled on Pru like a man who rarely took no for an answer.

  “Because Christmas secrets are meant to stay secret, Grandpa,” she told him, mustering all her General Pru authority.

  But he lifted a brow. “You said wedding secrets.”

  Nope. Not happening. “So is it really a party, or is it a date with Bella?” Pru volleyed back.

  That made him chuckle and turn back to the fire without answering, lighting some newspaper and stoking the flames. “I’m sure your mother, father, and the wedding planner know about these wedding surprises.”

  “Mom gave us the job, with me in charge.”

  “And if you don’t mind, Prudence and I have work to do, lad. Unless you want to tell us about your date with Bella tonight.”

  “It’s not a…” He blew out a breath and stood to leave. Behind his back, Pru gave a thumbs-up to Gramma Finnie, the world’s greatest partner in crime.

  “I won’t be out late,” Grandpa said. “But you two are home alone, so I’d appreciate it if you’d take Rusty out before bed just in case I don’t make it home by eleven.”

  “Will do,” Pru promised, adding a good rub to Rusty’s belly, now exposed as he rolled onto his back next to her.

  “Thank you.” Grandpa bent over and kissed his mother’s head and then turned, bent more, and kissed Pru’s. “And whatever your surprise, I’m sure it will be wonderful.”

  “It will be,” she agreed. If he’d ever leave and let them work. “And thanks for the fire, Grandpa.”

  He glanced around the little room, which was almost as well-decorated with holiday cheer as the living room two stories below. “It does complete the atmosphere. Good night, you two. Have fun.”

  “And you, lad,” Gramma added with just enough of a tease in her brogue that Grandpa shot her one last look on the way out, making Pru giggle.

  Pru had done a lot of laughing the last few hours, so pleased with this turn of events, and the smile didn’t fade as she looked back at her laptop and skimmed the Pinterest page she’d opened about Irish wedding traditions.

  “You know, there’s a lot about horseshoes here, Gramma. I know it’s not Christmasy, but could we scare up a horseshoe?”

  Gramma looked up, her skin seeming to pale a little even in the warm firelight. “A horseshoe?” Her voice sounded strange.

  Did she not know the significance? Pru gestured to the screen. “It says that there should be a horseshoe at every Irish wedding for good luck. Otherwise, the marriage won’t last. Better not tell Shane and Chloe, Liam and Andi, or Garrett and Jessie. I don’t remember any horseshoes at their weddings, do you?”

  Pru looked up, surprised to see Gramma slowly pushing out of her rocker.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back in time,” she muttered. “Come, child. I have a perfect something old.”

  “You do?” Pru got up to follow Gramma to the open door that led to her bedroom, a sanctuary that was one of Pru’s favorite spaces in the whole house, maybe all of Waterford Farm.

  Situated at the corner of the third floor, this bedroom always had that faint scent of talcum, with the perfect amount of light either through the shutters or from the crystal lamps on either side of a lumpy double bed piled with pillows, all cross-stitched by Gramma over the years. The ancient white and brass bedframe was pressed into Pru’s earliest memories.

  Grandpa Seamus had died when Pru was a baby, and Gramma had moved back to Waterford Farm. With her mother studying and working for a degree in veterinary medicine, Pru had taken many naps on this bed, played peekaboo for hours, listened to a hundred stories, both real and fictional. Over the years, she’d forged a closeness with her sweet great-grandmother that probably shaped her as much as any relationship in her family.

  Gramma pulled open her ancient wardrobe—a heavy, ornate piece of furniture that had come and gone and come back again in popularity. It was the type of thing that would be painted and “distressed” now, but this old maple wood had aged as gracefully as its owner.

  Pru settled on the bed, watching as Gramma rooted through one of the drawers, then another, and finally pulled out a round, linen-covered box decorated with purple flowers embroidered all over it. For a long moment, she didn’t speak but held the box with total reverence, running one finger over the top, settling it on the button nestled in the tufted fabric.

  “It belonged to Mary Violet.”

  Pru frowned, digging back into those stories she’d heard in this room. Mary Violet? She’d never heard that name before. “Who was she?”

  “My sister,” Gramma whispered. “The most beautiful girl you’d ever lay your eyes on.”

  Pru sat up and seized this new piece of information. “You had a sister?” How on earth could she not know that? “A sister named Mary Violet?” How could Pru, the keeper of the family record, the person whose job it was to read every name in the Kilcannon family bible at baby Fiona’s christening last month, not know this?

  Granted, the family tree always leaned stronger toward the Kilcannon side, but Pru knew about the Brennans, from County Wexford on the southeast coast of Ireland. Knew they had a farm and that Gramma had three brothers—Patrick, Jack, and Edward—but a sister?

  “To be fair, her name was Mary Violet, but we called her Vi.”

  “Vi.” Pru breathed the single syllable, suddenly intrigued. “Tell me about her.”

  A little chill of anticipation crawled up Pru’s spine. She loved nothing more than Gramma’s stories, which had entertained and lulled her to sleep her entire life. Even if she’d told one a hundred times, the woman had the Irish gift of telling a story that always seemed to capture some deep human emotion.

  And even the telling of it was an experience. Gramma’s brogue grew thicker, her touch more tender, and the words she shared always transported Pru to another place and time.

  But Mary Violet? Pru had never been transported to anywhere that long-lost relative was.

  Gramma didn’t say anything, still holding the box as her shoulders rose and fell with a sigh.

  “Is that why there are violets on there?” Pru guessed.

  “Mmm.” She finally turned and joined Pru on the bed, laying the antique jewel box on the comforter between them. “’Tis why. I made it after…after…” She closed her eyes. “I made it to hold something dear.”

  “A horseshoe?” Pru guessed.

  “But not any horseshoe. This one was special.” The last word caught in her throat, making Pru lean closer. Gramma Finnie so rarely cried, it stunned her to think she might.

  “But it’s making you sad, Gramma. Maybe it’s not right for something old.”

  Finally, Gramma lifted her eyes from the box. “’Tis where you’re wrong, lass.” Instead of sadness, there was a radiance to her look. “It was Christmastime of 1943, and the world was black with war. Not my world, mind you, and not my war. Down in County Wexford, it was white with a snowfall, and being Irish, we were spared what they were enduring in Britain and on the Continent.”

  Pru zipped through her last semester of European history, always attuned to the role of the Irish in any major event. “Ireland was neutral during that war,” she said.

  “Neutral?” Gramma let out a sarcastic choke as her knotted fingers opened the box lid, revealing a bed of purple velvet. “Tell that to the thousands that sneaked off to join the war. Thousands of young men…”

  Pru leaned over to get a better look in the box, seeing a long stickpin with a horseshoe in the middle and a bright green shamrock attached to one side. The other side appeared to be broken metal, where something had fallen off.

  Gramma lifted the piece and placed it in her soft, pink palm. “Thousands of men and some women,” she sighed. “Some fearless, some feckless, some mere lassies searchin’ for an adventure. Aye.” She nodded, and her eyes misted. “They went to
war, too.”

  Chapter Four

  County Wexford, Ireland, 1943

  “Promise me, lass. Promise. Swear on our grandmother’s grave, Finola Brennan. You will not tell a soul.”

  “I’ll swear to no such thing, Vi.” Finnie Brennan pulled her woolen collar tighter against the cold December air, squinting at her oldest sibling and only sister, who somehow looked fresh and alive no matter the predawn hour or icy warning of more snow.

  Finnie had come to the barn to do her morning chores with nothing on her mind but the trip she’d make that day to John Brody’s market to help Mammy pick parsnips and brussels sprouts for tomorrow night’s Christmas Eve dinner. But when she turned the corner behind the hayloft, she came face-to-face with an equally shocked Mary Violet, all dressed and hitching up the cart to Alphonsus.

  The old horse clomped his hoof at the sight of Finnie, or maybe because he was being called to duty before the sun.

  “Where are you going?” Finnie insisted.

  Vi’s blue eyes—so dark you’d swear that’s where she got her middle name that everyone used to address her—flashed in warning.

  “Never you mind, Finnie.” She looked around, a wee bit nervous. “Just don’t tell anyone I’ve left. I’m beggin’ ye.”

  “Are you coming back before breakfast?”

  Violet didn’t answer, giving Finnie a bit of hope for a real treat.

  “Then can I have your biscuits?” If she didn’t claim them now, little Jack would steal every last morsel on the table.

  A smile threatened, but it was tempered by sadness. “They’re yours, lass. All of them.”

  Oh, something was not right with the world if Vi wasn’t going to at least save one biscuit for the bread pudding.

  “Are you sure?” Finnie pressed, not wanting to get too certain of her good biscuit fortune.

  Her sister’s only answer was a sigh that slipped through perfectly shaped ruby lips. Aye, Mary Violet Brennan was the prettiest girl in the county, and that wasn’t just Finnie’s twelve-year-old eyes seeing it. At eighteen, Vi was near past marrying age for these parts of rural Ireland, and most every boy from Enniscorthy to the port had noticed that, not that she cared.

  With cascading waves of hair the color of the mahogany dining table Mammy loved so much and perfect white teeth that reminded Finnie of the American movie stars they saw at the cinema house in town on Saturday mornings, Vi was a sight to behold. And when she laughed, well, it was like the angels themselves burst into song.

  But it wasn’t her fine bones or sweet voice that made Mary Violet beautiful. ’Twas a heart so pure and giving, she likely had saints in heaven moving sideways to make room for her already. Vi was gentle and kind to every sick person, but somehow fearless and fierce, too.

  After a year of making rounds with Dr. O’Connell, who tended to the country folk in these parts, Vi started working as a nurse at St. Aidan’s Hospital off Market Square in Enniscorthy, and somehow that role fit her perfectly. It was like she had a halo atop her shiny hair.

  But that halo would fall and choke her if Mammy and Da found their cart and best horse and the eldest Brennan all gone missing two days before Christmas.

  “When will you be back?” Finnie asked.

  “I won’t be home today.” There was a note in her voice, a little bittersweet, a little daring, that did something strange to Finnie’s heart.

  “But you’re takin’ the horse?”

  “I’ll leave the rig at Brody’s in Carrig Hill and get a transport to Wexford.”

  “You’re going clear out to Wexford?”

  Vi shrugged off the question. “You and Edward can hike out later when you get the parsnips and bring the rig and Alphonsus home.”

  Did she really think her brother would be free to do that and not tend the poor freezing pigs? “And what’ll I tell Mammy and Da?” Who’d surely strap Finnie raw if she went along with such a plan.

  Vi narrowed her eyes to thin blue slits. “Tell them lives depend on it.”

  Lives? “Whose?”

  “The men dyin’ in the war, child. They need nurses in England. They’re desperate for nurses in London, and I intend to be one.”

  London? Finnie almost fell over backward with each new bomb that fell on her exactly like they were falling in London. “’Tisn’t safe!”

  “Which is why they need nurses.”

  Finnie blinked and tried to understand this, but she couldn’t think for the blood rushing in her head. “You can’t go to London!” Her voice rose in panic. “How could you possibly get there?”

  “A boat from Dublin, which I will get after I take one from Wexford Port. I’ve got it all planned.”

  “But…people are dyin’ in London.” She couldn’t help the screech in her voice.

  “Hush.” Vi pulled her closer and put a hand over Finnie’s mouth. “Donchya be trying to stop me, lass. Why do you think I have to go? There’s need there.”

  “There’s need here,” Finnie shot back. “At the hospital and in the country. Folk need nurses here, but—”

  “Timothy is there. He’s written to me and asked me to come.” A soft flush rose on her cheeks. So maybe Vi did care about one of those young suiters. But this wasn’t just any boy from two farms over.

  Timothy Donovan had “disappeared” almost two years ago. Even Finnie knew what that meant. Like thousands of other young Irishmen who couldn’t stand Ireland’s “neutrality” one more day, he’d gone to fight alongside the British. And die alongside the British.

  “He’s in the RAF,” she whispered with an edge of excitement to her voice. “The 184th Squadron in Kingsnorth.”

  Finnie shuddered, the words so foreign, yet vaguely familiar from newsreels and hearing her brothers whisper about it. Softly, so Da didn’t hear. “And you’re going there?”

  “I can’t, but he’ll come to me in London, where I’ll work. We’re going to marry.”

  She’d truly lost all sense. “Da will never stand for you marryin’ a soldier.” She had heard her parents discuss this late at night when they thought she was asleep. Everyone knew. They knew where Timmy had gone and that it wouldn’t end well for him. When he came home—if he came home—he’d likely lose pay and privileges. All those boys who defied the country’s laws would.

  “No, Finnie. I’ll marry him the moment we see each other in London.”

  Her jaw dropped from the sheer lunacy of that rebelliousness. “How?”

  “I can’t worry about it now. I’ve got to get there first. The trip is long, two boat rides and a train from Liverpool to London. It’ll take days, perhaps a week even, but—”

  “Mary Violet Brennan!” Finnie’s words were sharp with fear. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “I’ve lost my heart,” she answered with one of her musical laughs. “I canna go one more month without him or doing something about this wretched war. We’re not neutral, Finnie. We’re Ireland, and we’re part of this world that is blowin’ up. I have to help. I have to. I promised Timmy I would. I canna break my word.”

  Finnie searched her face, emotion welling up, along with a deep and abiding respect for Vi that was bigger than anything she’d ever known. Would she do the same if she were eighteen years of age? She liked to think she’d run from the farm to a boy she loved for a cause she believed in. She longed to have that kind of spirit, like her sister. But, still, this was lunacy.

  “And how are you going to pay for this adventure, might I ask? You’ll need to book passage.”

  For a long moment, Vi said nothing, and then she dug into her pocket and pulled out a kerchief rolled into a tight ball. Finnie instantly recognized the linen and lace she’d embroidered with Vi’s initials two Christmases ago. “They have those carts that buy and sell goods near the port. I’ve seen them.” She unraveled the lace and spread it. “I think one of them will buy something from me.”

  Finnie gasped at the treasures in her hands. Two glistening earbobs, a crystal paperweight she remembe
red from her granddaddy’s workshop and… “Grandmammy’s horseshoe pin? ’Tis unthinkable to sell!”

  “’Tis mine to sell,” she shot back. “All of this is. Given to me when she died, fair and square, to do with what I liked. I’m not stealin’.”

  “But that brooch is for your wedding. For good luck.”

  “Are ye not listenin’ to me, lass? I’m marryin’ Timothy Donovan!”

  “But not with that brooch if it’s sold to some cart vendor at Wexford Port.”

  Vi covered her treasures with the lace kerchief. “There’s no wedding for me without Timothy, no matter how many of the local boys want to think differently.” Her voice cracked. “And there’s no luck for the Irish if we don’t do our holy duty and help win this war.”

  Finnie stared into the deep-blue eyes of a woman she loved and admired, a spark of passion flickering in her own chest. Vi was right. Timothy was right. Ireland shouldn’t be neutral, couldn’t be neutral in the face of the Nazis.

  “I’ll take you there.” The words slipped out before Finnie had a chance to let good sense stop her. “I’ll drive you to the port and bring the rig home after.”

  This time, it was Vi’s eyes that widened, making her thick lashes brush close to the delicate arches of her brows. “Da would kill us both.”

  Except Vi would be gone, so Finnie alone would be on the receiving end of Da’s wrath. But, what did a little strappin’ matter? “’Tis the only way, Vi. We should leave now, before one of the boys is out here, cause not one of them will go along with this.”

  Reaching out, Vi’s slender but strong fingers closed over Finnie’s wool sleeve, pressing hard. “You can’t drive to that place in the cart any more than you could fly to the moon. Tis much too far.”

  Finnie squared her shoulders. “If you can go to London, I can drive a cart to Wexford.”

  For a long moment, Vi’s eyes coasted over Finnie’s face, her eyes growing misty and warm. “You’re a fine lass, Finola. A fine lass.”