‘Surely you could manage to get the key when your grandfather’s asleep or something?’
‘Yes… yes, of course I could.’ She flung her arms round his neck. ‘Oh, Tim, won’t it be wonderful? We’ll be on our own at last.’ They both knew what that meant.
There was a darkening of his eye as his hands ran up under her jacket. ‘D’ye really and truly love me, Rosanna?’
‘Of course I do. Haven’t I said so?’ She allowed the hands to do as they willed. Everything seemed to have turned to jelly.
‘Did you get my flowers?’ he said out of the blue. ‘I’m sorry they were the only ones I could find.’
‘Oh, they were lovely. I’ve never had such a beautiful gift.’
‘That’s a lie,’ replied Tim. ‘I’ll bet your other beaux bring ye much more exotic presents.’
‘I haven’t any other beaux, Tim. I don’t want any.’
‘There may be a time when ye have no choice.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Well, they’re hardly going to let ye marry me, are they?’
‘Why not?’
‘Rosie, just look at the difference between us. They’ll be expecting someone better than me.’
‘There could never be anyone better than you, Tim.’
‘Ye might change your mind.’
‘Never! Never, never, never. I’m going to marry you.’ She pressed herself to him.
‘I don’t remember askin’ ye.’
She broke away. ‘But you…’ then saw the amused twinkle. ‘Oh, Timothy Rabb, I’ll kill you!’
A slight chuckle. ‘I’m thinking that’s what your grandfather will say when he finds out.’
‘Oh, please don’t keep putting obstacles in our way,’ begged Rosanna. ‘I love you, Timothy. I want you.’ She laid her face against his drab jacket. It carried the smell of his damp little hovel but she didn’t care. ‘Say you want me.’
‘You know I do.’ He cleaved her to him and kissed her fervently.
She came up for breath. ‘And you do love me, Tim, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Say it.’
‘I love you, Rosanna.’
‘How much do you love me?’
‘Be here on Sunday,’ he murmured thickly. ‘I’ll show you how much.’
They locked once more, then he made to pull away.
‘Don’t leave me yet!’
‘I must, there’s somebody coming. Look.’ He kept hold of her but nodded towards the field where a distant figure approached. Looking back into the flushed face he said, ‘You’ll come, won’t ye?’
She tried to keep hold of his hands as he moved away. ‘Oh yes! What time?’
‘Three?’
‘I’ll be here. I love you, Tim.’ It was like an amputation watching him go. I’ll never see him again, thought Rosanna, straining her eyes as he hared away over the dormant fields. He won’t be here on Sunday. I know he won’t.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A million lovers before her had experienced the same doubt: will Sunday never come? How Rosanna got through the week she would never know. But the hour that dragged the most was that of Sunday lunch. An hour of mixed feelings – excitement, fear, love, despair.
‘Are you sickening for something, Rosanna?’ asked her grandmother, watching the girl’s fork nudge her food around the plate. ‘I think we shall have to call in Abi with her brimstone and treacle.’
Rosanna awoke from her introspection. ‘Oh, no, I’m perfectly fit and well, thank you, Nan.’ She caught Nick’s subtle expression and wondered how on earth he knew. But then her brother always knew everyone else’s business – sometimes even before oneself. ‘Though I must admit I’m not very hungry today. It’s because I’ve had no fresh air, I suppose.’
‘Nonsense, you’ve had the same as everyone else,’ said Thomasin. ‘I thought the ride home from church was very bracing. Come on, eat up, I won’t have good food wasted at my table.’
‘We didn’t get much of a breather this morning, Tommy,’ put in her husband. ‘Fifteen minutes of the elements might suffice two old dodderers like us but sure, I always say Rosie needs ten times as much.’
To Rosanna’s gratitude her grandmother agreed. ‘Well, a breath of fresh air is as good a tonic as from any bottle – but do try to eat a bit more before you go.’
Rosanna began to stuff vegetables into her mouth, chewing feverishly. ‘I didn’t intend for you to break any records,’ said her grandmother disapprovingly. ‘It really isn’t becoming for a young lady to fill her mouth so.’
Rosanna offered an apologetic smile, a green stalk protruding from her lips, then plunged back to her task, finishing in seconds. ‘May I go now?’
‘Don’t you want any pudding?’ asked Thomasin.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Well, I must say for someone who professed not to have an appetite you certainly made short shrift of that. It seems a bit pointless to call on the properties of fresh air now.’
Rosanna suppressed a scream. ‘Oh, Nan, I’m beginning to agree with you that I shouldn’t rush my food. I feel quite giddy.’
‘For some reason, Rosanna, you seem intent on getting out into that garden.’
Patrick stepped to his grand-daughter’s aid once more. ‘Now, Tommy, ye know how Rosie hates to be cooped up. Run along child, I’m sure your Nan would hate ye to grog all over the dinner table.’
‘D’you know, this house is becoming like a public restaurant,’ replied Thomasin. ‘I’d never’ve been allowed to leave the table at will like these youngsters seem to think is their right. And if I’d left all that on my plate it would’ve been waiting for me at suppertime, I can tell you.’
‘Leave her be,’ answered Patrick, pouring white sauce on his pudding. ‘Ye know what she’s like.’
‘She’s even more like it than ever today. If she’d been going anywhere else but the garden I’d swear there was a man involved.’
Up in her room Rosie stripped off her outer garments, then sat on the bed staring at her reflection from afar. The face that presented itself was that of some nervous animal wanting desperately to drink from the waterhole but aware that if it did some wild beast might come along and pounce on it. The hands in the mirror came up to cover her breasts. She ripped off her bodice, and flexed her chest muscles, thrusting her bosom outwards. Her teeth played nervously with her lip, then off came the rest of her clothes to bring her naked to the mirror. Was Tim doing the same? Of course he wasn’t, that was stupid. And neither should you be, she told herself, or you’ll be too late to find out what he thinks of you. Hastily she donned clean underwear then tried on six outfits, flinging them all aside before deciding on a blue tartan dress that hugged her body, its grey sash showing off the slimness of her waist. Thrusting her feet into matching grey slippers she unpinned her hair, tugged a brush through its gleaming waves, then tried to rearrange it. The result was a failure. In desperation she rushed down to the kitchen to ask if Abigail would comb it up for her.
‘I don’t know why you want your hair doing in t’middle o’day,’ tutted Abi. ‘Where you thinking of going?’
‘Just in the garden.’
‘Just in t’garden an’ you drag me from me work…’
‘Oh, go on – I’ll let you borrow my blue necklace for your next day off if you oblige me.’
Abigail surrendered and, following Rosie up to her room, soon had the hair pinned into its required style. ‘I don’t know why you want to go to all this trouble,’ she remarked when it was finished. ‘Half an hour an’ it’ll look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’
‘Why should it?’ demanded the girl sharply.
‘’Cause you’re just that sort o’ person what never stays tidy, Miss Rosie,’ retorted the maid into her face. ‘I always said you ought to have been a lad.’
‘Oh, yes, I see what you mean,’ said Rosanna, relieved. If only you knew how unlike a boy I am, she thought to her
self.
When Abi departed Rosanna wrapped up against the cold then once again paused to stare at herself in the mirror. This was the last time she would look upon herself as a girl. When next she looked in that glass she would see a woman. Dabbing a little scent behind each ear she took a deep fortifying breath and went to her rendezvous.
‘Don’t stay out too long, muirneen,’ warned her grandfather as she encountered him on her way to the garden. ‘That wind’ll take lumps outta ye.’
She went hot as her fingers closed on the key in her pocket, wondering would he notice its absence. She passed through the french windows, fully expecting with each step to hear someone shout: ‘The game’s up!’ But the hundred miles to the bottom of the garden were attained with nary a whisper.
Fortunately the wall she needed to climb in order to escape was hidden from the house. There was no one to witness her ungainly ascent. She swore as her knee slipped and a hole appeared in her stocking, then dropped over to the other side. She was now in someone else’s garden. After clambering over another wall she found herself on the public highway. It was bitterly cold. There were no cabs about. She must travel on foot.
She had run most of the way. Now with pumping heart and flushed face she arrived at their meeting place. Tim wasn’t there, but then she was probably early. Going directly to the storehouse she inserted the key in the padlock, twisted it and let herself in.
The stove in the office was cold, but one of the men had prepared it for lighting on Monday morning. She found a match and lit it now, then sat back shivering, to wait. He’s not coming, I can feel it, I know. Stupid fool, of course he’ll come. He said he would, didn’t he? He won’t. I felt it when he left me. I know I’ll never see him again. Come, you’re just saying that hoping it to be true because you don’t want to… you-know-what. You’ll be relieved if he doesn’t come. Admit it. Oh, no! I want him, I do… but I know he won’t come.
The door opened suddenly to reveal Tim’s apprehensive face. ‘Tim,’ she said shyly, ‘I thought I might’ve missed you. I wasn’t sure what time it was,’ then stepped up to him, pressed her warm cheek to his cold one and pulled away again.
‘I didn’t think you’d be here,’ he confided. ‘I thought they’d somehow find out an’ stop ye.’
‘They couldn’t stop me. I’d still have come somehow. Have you got another job?’ He told her a friend had got him fixed up. ‘Good. Here, come by the stove, you look freezing.’ So polite. She had expected them to fall into each other’s arms and make spontaneous love, but here they were just talking, almost like strangers waiting for an omnibus. ‘Let me warm you.’ She took one of his hands between her own, loving the feel of him, sensing every whorl on his fingertips, every ingrained line, slipping one finger between two of his, moving it down to stroke the sensitive web of skin where the fingers forked.
Reaching up he took a pin from her hair, and another, draping it round her shoulders, working his fingers through it. He brought his eyelids slowly down over eyes suffused with longing, the lashes sweeping his cheeks, then opened them again. ‘Oh, Rosie.’ He reached for her and she came to him, touching her lips to his neck where the male smell made her dizzy, rubbling her nose behind the lobe of his ear.
‘I’ve been thinkin’ all week about this.’ His voice was muffled by the tangle of her hair. ‘Maybe… maybe it’s not right.’
‘You’ve changed your mind,’ she accused with a sudden prickle of tears.
Seizing her hand he forced it to lay on the hardness that strained to sink itself into her. ‘There! That’s how much I’ve changed my mind. Is that somebody who doesn’t want you?’
‘Oh!’ She attempted to pull her hand away.
‘See! It’s you who isn’t ready for this, Rosie,’ he said helplessly. ‘I want ye, oh yes I want ye, but you’ve got to be aware of what we’re doing, that if I should leave you with a baby… I’d not inflict that shame on ye.’
‘We’d get married.’
‘They wouldn’t let us an’ you know it. Rosie, don’t. Please don’t look at me like that else all my honourable notions are going to go clean out the window.’
‘Tim,’ she spoke earnestly into his face, ‘I’ve thought about nothing else all week – since I met you. I want you. If I pulled away just now it was just because I didn’t expect it to… well, to feel like that. Why is it hard?’ Familiar with Nick’s anatomy she knew this wasn’t normal.
‘That’s because I’m burning for ye, Rosie.’ It was painful even to talk. ‘It has to be stiff so’s we can do it.’
‘Oh, I see. Tim,’ a little laugh, ‘I’m not sure what to do, are you?’ In her discussions with her brother she had learned quite a lot, more than other girls her age she was sure, but that wasn’t much help now.
He hesitated, then nodded.
‘Oh, good. I mean, I know the main bit… oh, I feel so silly. But I do want you, Tim.’ Without hesitation she replaced the hand that had shown such nervousness, making him close his eyes and swallow. ‘There, that shows I do, doesn’t it?’ she whispered into his lips, then pressed her mouth to his. The cramp that she had experienced before in the pit of her belly came again as he ground his body into hers, hands searching. He broke away only to rip off his poor threadbare coat and throw it down for them to lie on.
‘Shall I take this off?’ she asked, pointing to her dress.
‘It’s cold… yes! Take it off, I want to see you.’
Struggling with the buttons she did as he asked. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much to look at.’ The layers came off. She clutched her left upper arm with her right hand, the action serving to cover her breasts.
He reached out, but drew back at the last minute. ‘Oh, you are. You are.’ He began to take off his own clothes. Rosanna gazed in wonder at his body. It made her eyes burn. The feeling in her stomach grew more intense, spreading to the cleft of her thighs. She stood while he pressed a cold palm to her breast. ‘Oh, sorry, sorry!’ He felt her shiver. ‘I should’ve warmed them.’
‘I’m not cold.’ Her legs buckled as his lips closed gently on a nipple. He caught her between the thighs. Ah, Jesus! Gently explored her. Tim, Tim, Tim. He pulled her down and lay on top of her, worked his way between her legs – then the most indescribable pain. ‘Tim! Stop, please, stop.’ But he held her more firmly to him, plunged, inflicting violent stabs of pain. Pain, no passion. His thrusting grew wilder. Oh, God, please stop. One final deep thrust, a tickling sensation deep inside her and it was over.
He flopped down with a great sigh and buried his face in her bare shoulder. It was better now he was still. She liked the feel of him inside her, the weight of his body on hers. But her disappointment was acute that it hadn’t been at all like she had expected. Her silence must have transmitted this to him and he raised himself on his elbows to look down at her, his eyes shades darker than she had ever seen them. ‘I hurt you.’
‘Just a bit. No!’ He had been about to slip out of her but she pulled him back. ‘Stay there. I like it.’ He put his head back on her shoulder and she stroked the back of his neck, fingering the fluff that grew from an untidy hairline.
‘I’m sorry I hurt you. I was too eager. They say ’tis better the second time.’
‘Was it your first time, too?’
‘Yes.’ His lips brushed her skin.
‘Did it hurt you as well?’
He drew his head up to look at her again. He was smiling. ‘No, it was luscious.’ He wriggled his bottom and snuggled his nose between her breasts.
The moment of disappointment past, she held him tightly, anticipating the next time. ‘I do love you so.’ Laughter. ‘I can’t stop saying it.’
For a while they lay there talking softly. But the time didn’t last. ‘Oh, Tim, I don’t want to go. When will I see you again?’
‘Can ye get away before next Sunday?’ A shake of the head. ‘Another dreaded seven days then.’
‘I’ll die.’
‘Look, we can’t meet here every time ei
ther,’ he mouthed into her ear, sending shivers through her. ‘Apart from the cold attacking my parts there’s a chance we may be discovered.’
‘Where else can we go?’ She traced her fingers down his spine and back again. His buttocks contracted in delight.
‘That’s no way to get rid o’ me,’ he groaned, then, ‘Did I say stop?’ After a moment of thought, he said, ‘We could go to Mr Dorgan’s. He’s not a man to throw a couple of lovers on the streets. I’d like you to meet him anyway, he’s a good friend o’ mine.’
‘Is he a Fenian?’ asked Rosanna.
His face was no longer soft. ‘Ye heard then?’ She nodded. ‘You’ll not tell?’
‘What sort of sneak d’you take me for?’ She could still feel his tenseness and sought to calm him. ‘Tim, I would never give away your secrets, you know that. Won’t you tell me about it?’
‘About what?’
‘Why can’t you trust me?’
‘Rosanna, it’s not just a matter o’ trust. I just don’t think you should be involved…’
‘I want to be involved! I want to know everything about you, everything you do. I want to share it, I love you.’
There was still a trace of reluctance. ‘Ye must promise not to repeat anything about this.’
She crossed her heart. ‘I swear.’
‘Well… you’ll maybe have heard there’s been a campaign to free Ireland from British rule for a long time now.’
‘Oh, yes, we hear quite a lot about it at home.’ She told him about her grandfather’s attempts to influence the Irish vote some years back. ‘But it didn’t turn out very well. I think he gave up.’
‘Your grandfather’s like all the rest of those well-off; overweight from the platitudes fed to him by his English masters.’ The words were not so fluent as when spoken by Dorgan but they made him sound knowledgeable in front of the girl.
‘I’m sorry to disagree, Tim, but my grandfather cares for Ireland.’
The young man shrugged. ‘’S easy to care when all he has to do is shove a piece o’ paper into a box… anyway, I’m not on about politics, Rosie, least not in that sense. There are some of us who feel the argument’s gone on long enough. It’s time for stronger persuasion. Slaves, that’s what we’ve been for hundreds o’ years, kept under the boot of one captor or the other. But I promise ye, Rosie, we’ll not put up with another century of it.’
Erin’s Child Page 40