‘I’d love to come, you know that. It’s just that… well, I’m worried about the way it would look to Gramps. He’s getting very possessive. Maybe if you were to grumble at him, make it look as though it’s your idea for me to come, then he wouldn’t mind so much.’
And poor Sonny had unwittingly provided her with the chance to get away, telephoning Patrick to say he would like to see his children this weekend. Similarly duped, Patrick had said, ‘Why wait for the weekend?’ Being in the company of her little sisters might be just the tonic to take her mind off Rabb – though he had not stated this to Sonny. ‘Nick’s at the store, but Rosie could come tomorrow. I’m sure Josie’ll be delighted to spend a day shopping in Leeds.’ Not to mention that it would lessen the strain on himself, give him a chance to unwind… though it appeared that wasn’t going to last long.
‘Gramps, I haven’t much time before I leave for university,’ Belle reminded him when there were just the two of them in the drawing room after breakfast.
Patrick smiled up from his book, ‘I shall miss ye,’ then retrained his eyes on the print.
‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’ At her accusing tone he looked up, perplexed. She clicked her tongue. ‘You promised to take me to the slums. This will be our last chance.’
He sighed his incomprehension, then closed the book, though he did leave his thumb in to mark the place. ‘You’re not still going on about that, are ye? I thought maybe it was the magic of the night putting words in your mouth.’ He knew how the beauty of a deep purple evening could carry one away.
‘How else will I be able to help them if I don’t go there?’ He resigned himself to finding a proper bookmark and laid the tome aside. ‘Belle…’
She anticipated the excuse. ‘You promised!’
‘I know… but on reflection I don’t think it’s a very sensible idea, darlin’. ’Tis a rough hole to get cornered in. Some o’ these people could be violent.’
‘These people? How patronising you sound, Grandfather. They’re your people. You lived with them, ate with them, slept with them, your first wife died with them.’
‘I’d no mind to sound pompous an’ it isn’t that I’m afraid to go meself, just that I’d sooner you didn’t see it.’
‘I have seen it! And I want to see it again. I won’t be put off. If you don’t take me I shall go alone.’
He threw up his hands. ‘What’s a man to do in the face of such bullying? Have it your way – but don’t be surprised if ye encounter a great deal of bad feeling.’
‘I’m going to help them, so why should they be antagonistic?’
‘Some folk don’t like busybodies.’ He glared at her pointedly. She only laughed, then asked if they could go to the courtroom first as a way of introduction to the problem. When he complained that her mother would take his skin for a new pair of boots if she knew about this, she exclaimed, ‘That’s what we can tell her if she asks where we’ve been – to have me measured for a new pair of boots! These are getting too small anyway, so it wouldn’t have to be a lie.’
‘Oh God, the things I get into… Away then, get your accoutrements while I fetch me swordstick an’ write me will.’
To make their excuse plausible the two did indeed visit the shoemaker where Belle was measured for new footwear. Then Patrick directed the manservant to drive the carriage to St Helen’s Square and soon after he and Belle were seated in the apartment of the Guildhall devoted to legal proceedings, waiting for the first case to approach the bench.
This involved two twelve-year-old boys accused of stealing lead from a church roof. Belle stared intently at the bowed heads of the transgressors. They looked so pitiable in their dirty, over-large trousers gathered by a belt at the waist and rolled up to the required leg length. After listening to their case the Lord Mayor asked their accompanying mothers what their response to the crime was.
‘He’s brought shame on a respectable household, yer worship,’ declared one of them. ‘I might tell you his father kicked seven kettles out of him when the policeman come. ’Course,’ a derisory glance for her neighbour, ‘it’s t’other that led him to bad ways.’
The other woman set up an argument at which the magistrate wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘Kindly cease this disgraceful bickering! This is a court of law.’ He asked the second woman if she had any explanation for her son’s behaviour.
‘None, yer honour,’ she replied flatly. ‘I’m at me wits’ end with him. If I try to clout him he just holds me at arms’ length an’ laughs. Well, he’s such a lump. How can I be expected to control him?’
‘Have you no man?’ The woman replied that she had not. ‘Very well, I order that this boy receive six strokes of the birch, the other’s father having already meted out retribution. And in future kindly try to keep your children in order. Next case!’
Belle was horrified at such violence and even more so at the indifferent manner in which it had been delivered. Yet the woman seemed pleased. She asked her grandfather why.
‘Probably ’cause they didn’t have to fork out a fine,’ he hazarded, then placed a finger to his lips as the next case, an old pauper woman, entered the court.
Her clothes and skin were filthy. On her feet was a pair of men’s boots, the battered uppers threatening to part company with the soles. As a token of the importance in which she held this court appearance she had perched upon her head a tiny, moth-eaten bonnet which looked as though she had sat on it for half an hour before feeling able to wear it. The female child who accompanied her wore no shoes and very few clothes; a grubby shift ripped in many places.
The Lord Mayor leaned forward curiously. ‘Has this woman been before me on another occasion? I seem to know her face.’
Molly Flaherty widened her eyes – mere slits in the dirt-encrusted face – assuming a look of innocence. ‘Who, me, yer Mayorship? Most definitely not. ’Tis all a terrible mistake. As abstemious a body as your own dear mother.’ She smiled sweetly, hugging the child to her hip.
The magistrate harrumphed and wagged his pen to indicate that the case proceed. The court heard that Mary Carmel Bridget Flaherty had been at the nucleus of a drunken affray which had begun in the King William and continued into the public highway where passers-by were josded and insulted by the defendant. On the arrival of the police one of the rioters seized an officer by the nose while Flaherty exhorted the crowd to further violence. On being requested by an officer of the law to go home she had resorted to insulting language and was subsequently arrested.
‘Flaherty, do you dispute any of the evidence the court has just heard?’
‘I do, yer worship. ’Tis a wicked lie. I was only tryin’ to break up the fight before any o’ them good policemens got hurt.’
‘Do you deny that you were the worse for drink?’
‘Never touched a drop in me life.’
‘Come, come, Flaherty, we have heard several witnesses to substantiate the case for the prosecution.’
‘Well, ye see, yer Excellence,’ Molly pulled a rag from her sleeve and used it to mop at her eyes. ‘I’ve just lost me poor man an’ I was seeking to drown me sorrows in a dram – ye know how ye do. Just a little one, y’understand? What with my circumstances I couldn’t afford more than the one, yer honour. Then this big slob of a steamroller picked a fight with one o’ my lads. Twice Brendan’s size he was, a giant. Well, I tried me best to stop it ’cause our Brendan has a very poor constitution, any excitation an’ he’ll be off quicker than…’ She thought better of using the rude analogy. ‘Ten children he has. This is one of his girls here. I couldn’t let him take a throttlin’. Then when that bruiser come,’ she pointed accusingly at a police officer whose nose bore evidence of the fracas, ‘everybody scattered an’ left me to take the blame. Me, the essence of immaculate womanhood.’
The Lord Mayor asked if this was her first offence.
‘First an’ last, yer Mayorship. I’ll never allow another drop past me lips.’
Patrick shook his he
ad at his incorrigible old friend, and it was at that point she spotted him. ‘Oh, Pat, Pat! Look, yer honour, that gentleman there will vouch for me character, won’t ye, Pat? God love ye.’
All eyes turned to Patrick who pulled embarrassedly at his chin on being asked to speak in his friend’s defence when he knew the Prosecution likely told the truth. He sought for words that would sound convincing without actually making a liar of him. ‘Well, sir, I’ve known the lady for some years an’ can verify that, as she herself told the court, she lost her husband’ – he thought it prudent not to mention that Jimmy Flaherty’s demise had taken place twenty-three years ago – ‘and that her circumstances are very unfortunate indeed.’
The Lord Mayor nodded sympathetically and conferred with his colleagues, all agreeing on a small fine. ‘Well now, Mrs Flaherty, I am going to show leniency.’
‘Oh, thank ye, sir. You’re a beautiful man, so y’are.’ Before issuing the fine the Lord Mayor asked the attendant Chief Constable if anything was known about Mrs Flaherty. The senior officer obviously took great delight in his answer that Flaherty had sixty-five previous convictions for drunkenness, wiping the look of compassion from the magistrate’s face.
‘So, Flaherty, you sought to escape justice by feeding us a tissue of lies!’ He wasted no further words. ‘One month’s imprisonment – and you, sir!’ He pointed at Patrick. ‘Think yourself fortunate you were not on oath otherwise you should find yourself facing a charge of perjury.’
Patrick rose amid the hilarity that had rippled through the ancient chamber at the police officer’s information. ‘I did not lie! What I told ye was the truth; she has no husband.’
‘Sit down!’ cried the Lord Mayor. ‘Take that woman away. We shall hear no more of this.’
Molly struggled and cursed as two policemen escorted her from the courtroom, the child clinging to her skirts. ‘Thank you very much, y’ould bugger, an’ I hope your nose drops off.’
Patrick flashed a helpless look at his grand-daughter who patted his hand comfortingly. ‘You couldn’t help it, Gramps.’
‘God, she’s her own worst enemy is Molly,’ he groaned. ‘If it’d been a fine I coulda helped her…’
After the disturbance had died down the next case was brought before the bench: another young boy, who was eventually fined one shilling for knocking on doors and running away. Following this came a case of embezzlement and then one which really aroused Belle’s interest.
‘Phelan O’Connor, you are charged that in April of this year you did wilfully steal two loaves of bread, the property of Sidney Rydale, baker, of Fossgate. Do you wish to plead Guilty or Not Guilty?’
The dishevelled young man in the dock looked blankly at his accuser.
The Lord Mayor sighed. ‘O’Connor, when you are addressed you will please answer. Guilty or Not Guilty?’ O’Connor replied that he thought he was Guilty. ‘Is that the way you wish to plead?’ asked the Lord Mayor hopefully.
‘I didn’t steal it, yer honour,’ answered the man.
‘O’Connel, how old are you?’
‘Er, I’m… forty-five, sir.’ This was plainly ridiculous but the magistrate let it pass.
‘Then you are obviously old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.’
‘I am, sir. I didn’t steal it, sir.’
‘Then if that is so you must plead Not Guilty, do you understand?’ He mouthed the words as to an idiot.
‘Yes, sir. Not Guilty, sir.’
‘Very well. Proceed.’
During the case it transpired that O’Connor had little command of English. Recently arrived from County Mayo he had come to join his family who lived in Bedern. It also became increasingly clear from his answers that the questions fired from all angles of the room were confusing him. Patrick, still nettled over the previous case, shook his head and muttered an aside to Belle. ‘They’re getting the lad all mixed up with their folderol language. He hardly knows what time o’ day it is.’
This was borne out by the following exchange. ‘You tell us that at the time of the theft, O’Casey, you were at work.’
‘I was.’ After a slight hesitation he had realised the man was speaking to him.
‘And what time would that be?’
O’Connor faltered, then decided. ‘Four of the clock, yer honour.’
‘Would that be four p.m. or four a.m.?’
Pause. ‘A.m., sir.’
‘Are we to believe, O’Connor,’ – miracle of miracles, thought Pat, he’s hit on the right one, – ‘that an Irishman starts his work at four o’clock in the morning?’
‘I told ye he didn’t know what time o’ day it was,’ hissed Patrick to his grand-daughter.
‘So, your working day commences at four in the morning, Mr O’Connely. At what hour does work cease?’
Hesitation. ‘Four of the clock sir.’
‘Is that the afternoon or the morning?’ came the lighthearted query.
‘The mornin’, sir.’ There were giggles.
Patrick could stand this no longer. ‘This boy doesn’t understand what you’re telling him!’
‘Silence in the gallery!’
‘He doesn’t even know what he’s accused of!’ Patrick began to speak in Irish to O’Connor who smiled in eager recognition of his language and nodded rapidly.
The magistrate rapped for order. ‘Sir, we have heard enough of you already! If you persist with your interruptions I shall have you ejected.’
‘Your honour, I’m just attempting to help the boy,’ entreated Patrick. ‘He’s only recently come from a place where little English is spoken…’
‘Sit down! Sit down!’
Fuming, Patrick flopped into his seat muttering all the while to Belle. ‘The poor wretch is getting himself in deeper an’ deeper. All this lot want is a good laugh to round the morning off.’
‘Is there nothing you can do, Grandfather?’
‘Wait, let’s see what happens.’
‘Conroy,’ the case for the Prosecution went on, ‘a moment ago you told us your working day commenced at four o’clock in the morning and terminated at the same time. I understand that the Irish see little merit in work but surely that must be the shortest working day in the history of mankind.’ More titters. ‘And what is the nature of your employment, Conroy?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’ The man’s face burned with humiliation.
‘Are you a labourer, a hawker… ?’
O’Connor thought. ‘A hawker, sir.’
‘And what do you sell?’
Confusion. ‘Sure, I don’t sell nuthin’, sir.’
‘Such is the manner of O’Connery’s employment that he begins the day the same time as he finishes it and retails invisible goods. I trust when sentence is issued you will not offer to pay the fine with invisible money?’ The court exploded with mirth.
‘This is outrageous!’ Patrick leapt up, his face suffused with colour. ‘If the honourable gentleman wishes to amuse himself he should do as normal folk do which is visit a circus, not squeeze his sadistic humour from a poor unfortunate wretch who’s been denied the means to defend himself. Why, ye can’t even get the boy’s bloody name right.’
Enacting his earlier warning to have Patrick ejected if he persisted, the Lord Mayor sent a posse into the affray. Grabbing an arm each they manhandled Patrick to the exit amid boos and catcalls, his worried grandchild hobbling after them.
‘Are you hurt, Gramps?’ Belle tended him solicitously where he had been deposited and was still recovering from the exertion.
Patrick ran his fingers through his hair and breathed deeply. ‘The devils! The varmints. If I were twenty years younger…’
An anxious Belle waited for him to recover his breath, which he did, if not his good humour. ‘I wonder what sentence the poor devil got. I hope I didn’t make it the heavier for him through trying to help.’
‘I’m sure they wouldn’t be that harsh.’
‘You’re surer than I am, then.’ He
sought her assistance in rising. ‘My interfering didn’t do much good, did it?’
‘You tried.’ She almost toppled over as the weight of him took her off-balance.
He leant against a wall. ‘Trying’s obviously not enough. God, the villains! All they wanted was a good laugh. I mean, ye’d think they’d get him somebody to speak on his behalf who understood him.’
‘Did you discover what really happened?’ asked Belle as he shouldered himself from the wall and set off.
Patrick shook his head. ‘Ah, not really. From what I gathered he witnessed another fella pinch the bread an’ when he saw the policeman arrive decided to run away himself. They caught him.’
‘So he’s going to be fined or imprisoned for something he didn’t do?’
A shrug. ‘That appears to be the way of it.’
They moved into the tunnel that would lead them back to St Helen’s Square and were about halfway along it when Patrick’s look of woe disappeared at the sight of the tiny weeping figure that Belle almost stumbled over. ‘Isn’t this the child that was with Molly?’
‘Poor little mite.’ Belle, not renowned for her soft heart, was touched by the pathetic sight and probably influenced also by what she had just seen in the Guildhall. She bent down beside the crying child. ‘Don’t distress yourself, dear, your grandmother will be all right, I’m sure.’
The girl, about six years old, looked up with red eyes, her nose encrusted with mucus. ‘I don’t know ’ow to get ’ome,’ she sniffed. ‘Vey chucked me out an’ left me.’
‘Well, that’s nothing to cry about,’ answered Belle cheerfully. ‘My grandfather and I will escort you home. Come,’ she pulled herself into a standing position with the aid of the cold wall and the girl warily accepted her hand.
Erin’s Child Page 46