Songs of Love and War

by Santa Montefiore

  Bridie loved Kitty like the sister she had never had, but she did wonder sometimes if the girl wasn’t a bit ‘quare’ with her talk of ghosts. Perhaps she was driven to make-believe because she was so lonely hidden away in the nursery with only the grim Miss Grieve for company. Bridie shuddered to think that those ghosts might be real. ‘Don’t ye be forgetting to stir, Bridie,’ said her mother sharply, looking up from her sewing. Bridie hadn’t noticed her hand had stopped and sat up with a jolt.

  ‘She’s away with the fairies,’ Old Mrs Nagle tutted, shaking her head. Bridie didn’t think her grandmother would say that about her if she knew some of the things Kitty said.

  After tea Mrs Doyle announced it was time for prayer and Bridie knelt on the floor with her father and brothers, as she did every evening, elbows on the chair, fingers knitted, head bowed. Old Mrs Nagle remained seated in her chair and mumbled the words of the prayer through toothless gums. ‘Thou oh Lord will open my lips,’ said Mrs Doyle solemnly.

  ‘And my tongue shall announce thy praise,’ they all responded. Then Mrs Doyle recited the prayer she knew so well it might have been embossed on her heart. The tail ends were short: a hasty prayer for friends and family and for Lord and Lady Deverill, who were both benevolent and fair.

  After prayers the neighbours descended on the cottage, as they always did, with their fiddles and Old Badger Hanratty’s illegal poteen, distilled from potatoes in a disguised hay rick outside his cottage and of a surprisingly high quality. It wasn’t long before the singing began. Bridie loved to sit with her buttermilk, listening to the Irish folk songs and watching the sentimental old men reduced to tears as they wallowed in nostalgia. Sometimes they’d dance the ‘Siege of Ennis’ and her mother would shout, ‘Off ye go, lads, twice round the kitchen, and for God’s sake mind the dresser.’ Or her father would grab her mother and they’d dance to the foot-stamping and table-banging, round and round, until Mrs Doyle’s red face glowed with pleasure and she looked like a young girl being courted by an overzealous suitor.

  Bridie’s father was rough with coarse black hair and a thick black beard and she doubted she would recognize him if he returned home one day clean-shaven. He was short but as strong as a bull, and woe betide anyone who dared take him on in a fight. He’d won many a pub brawl and broken countless jaws and teeth in the process. He was quick to temper but just as quick to repent and the few times he’d struck his sons he’d fallen to his knees in a heap of regret, crossing himself profusely and promising the Holy Virgin Mary not to do it again. Drink was his curse but a good heart his blessing; it was simply a matter of finding a balance between the two.

  Suddenly her father weaved his way across the room towards her. She expected him to send her up to bed, but instead he took her hand and said, ‘Indeed and I’ll be dancing with my Bridie tonight.’ And he pulled her to her feet. Embarrassed that everyone was watching, she blushed the colour of a berry. But she needn’t have worried about the steps; she had seen the older girls dancing often enough. Her father swung her round and round the kitchen just like he did Mrs Doyle, and as she was swung she saw a sea of smiles and among them was her mother’s, a tender look softening the work-weary contours of her face. After that her brothers took turns and Bridie, so often the spectator, became the focus of their attention and her heart swelled with pleasure.

  That night Bridie could barely sleep for excitement. Her mind had drifted during the recital of the rosary because it had been such a joyous evening. She didn’t imagine Kitty had evenings like that, dancing with her father, and she rarely saw her brother who was at school in England. For a moment Bridie gave in to the superior feeling. She bathed in it, allowing her envy to be eclipsed by a warm sense of supremacy. She tried not to compare her life with Kitty’s, but recently Bridie had grown more aware of their differences. Perhaps it was due to her brother Michael’s resentful comments or maybe a result of the increasing amount of time they were now spending together; whichever the case, Bridie was being given a bigger window into Kitty’s life and a greater perspective, causing her to wonder why it was that Kitty had so much when she had so little.

  She could hear voices downstairs; her father and brothers playing cards, Mr Hanratty, drunk on his own poteen, snoring loudly from her mother’s rocking chair, and the longing in the lyrics of ‘Eileen a Roon’ sung to the haunting tones of a lone fiddle. It was a comforting and familiar lullaby, and Bridie soon drifted off to sleep.

  She awoke abruptly at dawn to the sound of loud knocking on the front door. It was still dark, but for a streak of red bleeding into the eastern sky. The knocking was insistent. She sat up and wondered who would come calling at this time of the morning. At length she heard her father’s heavy tread on the stairs and felt a cold sliver of wind, like one of the snakes St Patrick banished from Ireland, winding its way round her door and slipping into the room. She shivered and pulled the blanket tightly around her. A moment later the door slammed and the footsteps went back up the stairs. The house was silent again but for the chewing of a mouse beneath the floorboards under her bed, and the moaning of the wind outside.

  ‘Da, who was at the door this morning?’ she asked her father when she came down for breakfast.

  ‘No one,’ he replied, taking a loud slurp of tea.

  Old Mrs Nagle crossed herself. ‘’Tis the auld Banshee with the first of three knocks, God save us,’ she said darkly. Mrs Doyle blanched and crossed herself as well, sprinkling drops of holy water around the room from the little Norah Lemonade bottle by the door.

  ‘’T’was a tinker, more like,’ said Sean with a chuckle.

  ‘Whoever it was, he was off before I got to the door,’ Tomas Doyle continued. Bridie cut herself a hunk of soda bread upon which she spread a thick layer of butter. She didn’t like the frightened expression on her mother’s face and tried not to look at it.

  ‘’T’was the Banshee,’ said Old Mrs Nagle, crossing herself again.

  ‘Lord preserve us from the Banshee!’ muttered Mrs Doyle.

  ‘I tell you, woman, there was no one at the door. Sean’s right. It must have been a tinker in search of a warm hearth. Come, let’s not be late for Mass.’ Her father stood up.

  Bridie dismissed dark thoughts of the Banshee, who, as legend had it, was a fairy woman heard wailing when someone was about to die. Well, there had been no wailing, as far as she had heard, so her mother and grandmother were overreacting. As she walked down the street on the way to the school house she saw, to her relief, an old shabby horse pulling a cart full of grubby-faced children. There were skinny goats tethered to the back and one or two young ones inside the cart. The ragged children watched her with wary black eyes as she passed, but the mother was too busy shouting at her husband to even notice her. Tinkers, Bridie thought happily. Her father had been right. They’d probably spent half the night knocking on doors in search of a warm place to sleep. Bridie quickened her step. Her father had told her never to trust a tinker and never to look one in the eye.

  The school of Our Lady in Ballinakelly was run by the church but fortunately Father Quinn had little to do with the day-to-day teaching. Bridie’s teacher was a nun from Cork City called Sister Hannah who was softly spoken and kind. ‘It is through education that we better ourselves,’ she had once told Bridie’s class. ‘The only way out of poverty is through learning, so listen hard to what I’m teaching you. They can take everything you own but no one can take your heart or your mind or your love of God. They’re the only things that really matter.’ Bridie concentrated hard, but Jack O’Leary, who was in the boys’ class next door, just gazed out of the window and watched the birds.

  At the end of the day Bridie and Jack found Kitty in her usual place on the wall. However, this time she was standing on one leg, very still, like a heron. ‘What are you doing?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Balancing,’ she replied.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason. For fun, I suppose. It’s a challenge. What are you doing?’

 
‘Jack has to give a lesson about birds tomorrow in school,’ said Bridie. ‘A punishment for gazing out of the window during class.’

  ‘There’s no challenge in that,’ said Kitty. ‘There’s nothing Jack doesn’t know about plovers and cormorants!’

  ‘Indeed, and I’ll give Sister Margaret a lesson she’ll never forget.’ Jack laughed.

  ‘Doesn’t she know you’re an expert?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘She will tomorrow,’ said Bridie, flushing with admiration for Jack.

  ‘Come and balance with me,’ Kitty exclaimed. ‘It’s much harder than it looks. Come on!’ Jack scaled the wall like a monkey while Bridie struggled to find her footing. After a while Jack put out his hand and hauled her onto the top.

  ‘Don’t you go falling off now,’ he said to her and Bridie looked down anxiously.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do it,’ she said.

  ‘Course you can. Like this.’ And he lifted one foot. ‘Easy,’ he crowed. ‘Now you do it.’ But just as Bridie was about to raise her leg they heard voices in the trees behind them. Hastily they jumped down, even Bridie who was afraid of heights, and crouched out of sight.

  ‘Who is it?’ Jack hissed. ‘Did you see anyone?’

  Kitty and Jack raised themselves up so they could just see over the wall. There, sneaking in among the trees, was a ragged group of people trespassing on Lord Deverill’s land. Jack pulled Kitty down with him. ‘Tinkers,’ he snarled. ‘They were in town this morning.’

  ‘I saw them too,’ said Bridie, pleased to be able to add something to the conversation. ‘What do they want here?’

  ‘Game,’ said Kitty darkly. ‘They’re after anything they can eat.’

  ‘I’d say they’re after more than that. We have to warn Lord Deverill,’ said Jack excitedly.

  ‘Follow me,’ said Kitty. ‘I know a quick way to the castle.’

  The three children crept around the edge of the wall until they reached a farm entrance, which was easy to scale. They scampered eagerly up the dirt track until they reached the stables at the back of the Hunting Lodge.

  ‘What’s the matter with you three? Running from the Devil, are you?’ asked Mr Mills, who was busy in the stable yard with the horse and trap Lady Deverill had just brought back from her trip into town.

  ‘There are tinkers in the trees,’ gasped Kitty, catching her breath.

  ‘They’re up to no good, Mr Mills,’ Jack added.

  ‘We’ve come to tell Lord Deverill,’ Bridie joined in eagerly.

  ‘Slow down now. Tinkers in the trees, you say?’

  ‘Yes, we must tell Grandpa,’ Kitty insisted, hoping her grandfather would get his gun out and fire at them from his dressing-room window.

  ‘No need to bother Lord Deverill,’ said Mr Mills. ‘I’ll get some of the lads and we’ll deal with them ourselves. Now where are they?’

  ‘We’ll show you,’ said Kitty, hopping from foot to foot with excitement. ‘Hurry before they get away!’

  ‘Miss Kitty, you’d better stay here. It might be dangerous,’ said Mr Mills.

  ‘Then I must come!’ Kitty exclaimed. ‘I’m not afraid of a few tinkers.’

  ‘Your grandfather would not thank me if you came to harm.’

  Kitty pouted crossly. ‘But I want to come.’

  ‘You’re safer here,’ said Mr Mills firmly and Kitty was left with no alternative but to watch Jack, Bridie and Mr Mills set off towards the wood with Sean Doyle, Bridie’s brother, and some of the grooms and beaters, armed with sticks and hurleys.

  Bridie felt more courageous with her big brother by her side. Like her father, Sean wasn’t tall but he was strong and fearless and deeply loyal to the Deverills. If there was a thief on Lord Deverill’s land he’d be sure to see him off and give the man such a fright he’d be unlikely ever to come back. Now they walked through the walled vegetable garden, past Lady Deverill’s greenhouses and on out the other side to the paddock where some of the horses grazed lazily in the waning light. This way they came to the wood from the eastern side and worked their way towards where the children had seen the tinkers. It was dark among the trees and the air had turned cold and moist. They crept as quietly as cats, alert to every sound.

  Suddenly they came upon them, ragged, unwashed, wild-looking wanderers. The woman carried two pheasants and a partridge by the neck while the men were standing staring into a bush, presumably having spotted something worth poaching. Bridie noticed that one of the pheasants in the woman’s grasp looked like it was still alive, twitching every now and then in a vain attempt to escape. She glanced at Jack and saw his face contort with outrage. When the tinkers noticed Mr Mills and his men they swung round and froze to the spot like animals trapped with nowhere to run. There was no point hiding their spoils; they knew they’d been caught red-handed. Two skinny men and one woman were no match for Mr Mills and his burly boys. ‘You’re trespassing on Lord Deverill’s land,’ said Mr Mills sternly.

  ‘Lord Deverill’s land. Well, we didn’t know,’ said one of the men, grinning toothlessly.

  ‘I’ll kindly ask you to put down those birds and leave at once.’ The men narrowed their eyes and looked Mr Mills up and down as if calculating the risks involved in a fight. Sean held up his pitchfork and the look on his face left them in no doubt that they’d be the worse off. They scowled and ordered the woman to drop the birds.

  ‘Curse you!’ she screeched at Mr Mills, but he wasn’t alarmed by the feeble words of a tinker woman.

  ‘Be off with you now before we call the constabulary and have the three of you locked up,’ he said with the authority of a man who has the full weight of Lord Deverill behind him. The woman reluctantly threw the birds to the ground and the three of them slowly walked away.

  Mr Mills patted Jack on the head. ‘Good stuff, lad,’ he said. ‘And Bridie, where would she be got to?’ Mr Mills searched through the semi-dark for Bridie. When he saw her cowering behind her brother he nodded his appreciation. ‘You too, Bridie. I will tell Lord Deverill. I’m sure he will want to reward you.’ Bridie’s eyes widened and she caught Jack’s eye. ‘Now be off with you, too, before it gets too dark to see the end of your nose.’

  The night was drawing in, bringing with it bitterly cold winds. Jack and Bridie made their way back to Ballinakelly with a skip in their step. They had had quite an adventure and looked forward to a generous reward from Lord Deverill. When they reached the town they were horrified to find themselves face to face with the tinkers, preparing their horses for departure. Glancing about them they saw the street was quiet, except for the golden light inside O’Donovan’s public house opposite. Seeing the children the tinker woman pointed at them accusingly and shouted something in a dialect that neither Jack nor Bridie understood. Before Jack could register what was happening he felt a blow to his jaw and fell backwards in the mud as one of the men dealt him the full might of his fist. Bridie let out a scream, so loud and piercing that the pub door opened, throwing light across the place where Jack lay inert. A moment later Bridie’s father Tomas hurled himself into the street. Just as one of the tinkers pulled back his arm to give Bridie a similar blow, Tomas grabbed him by the shoulder and thumped him on the nose. Blood spouted from the tinker’s face and he recoiled, landing on his backside in the mud. But the other man came at Tomas from behind and he had a knife. With one thrust he dug the blade through Tomas’s ribs.

  Somewhere deep in the woods came the distant shriek of the Banshee, carried on the fairy wind that had suddenly risen.

  Chapter 6

  Ballinakelly was shaken to its foundations by the foul killing of Tomas Doyle. Mrs Doyle wailed so loudly she might easily have outdone the Banshee herself. ‘When I was a young girl at a regatta in Bantry,’ she said, pressing her handkerchief to her nose, ‘an old tinker woman told me my fortune and she said that my life would be a vale of tears. Never a truer word spoken, God help us.’ Bridie was devastated. Not only had she lost her darling da, but she believed she was to blame. If she hadn�
��t gone with Mr Mills and the boys the tinkers would never have seen her. If she hadn’t screamed so loudly her father might not have come out of O’Donovan’s. Oh, if only she hadn’t gone to find Kitty at the wall none of it would have happened and her father would still be alive. Sean comforted her as best he could, but she was inconsolable.

  Michael accused them both of recklessness. ‘You’re a pair of shoneens, the two of you! A few of Lord Deverill’s pheasants for the life of your da!’ he shouted, his dark face purple with rage. ‘Was it worth it? Didn’t he say never to look a tinker in the eye?’ Old Mrs Nagle’s eyes were dry for she had witnessed the deaths of so many during the potato famine that her tears had all been used up. However, beneath her scrawny chest her heart bled for her daughter and her loss. She wanted to know if anyone had said the Act of Contrition in Tomas’s ear before he went cold to ensure that he bypassed Purgatory on his way to Heaven, but there was no one to reassure her.

  The tinker responsible for the murder had been arrested at the scene of the crime and was likely to be sentenced to hang. But that was of little consolation to Mrs Doyle. ‘Hanging is too good for the likes of him,’ she said in a deep and quivering voice. ‘May the Devil take his soul and burn it in Hell for all eternity, God save us.’

  Tomas Doyle was laid out on the kitchen table for two days. Mrs Doyle had flung open the window to let out his spirit. Two old women known as the two Nellies, Miss Nellie Clifford and Miss Nellie Moxley, arrived in their white dresses and blue veils to wash the body clean and Father Quinn was called to do the anointing. He arrived in his thick robes, his grey hair blown about by a bitter wind, his face red with indignation that one of his flock should be taken by an inebriated thief. Being so tall he had to bend his head as he strode into the cottage. ‘He was a good man,’ he said to Mrs Doyle, kneeling by her side as she sat snivelling on her rocking chair beside the hearth, clutching her rosary beads. ‘He’s with the Lord now, Mariah. Indeed and the man who did this will rot for all eternity in the fires of Hell.’ His voice was surprisingly soft and tender and Bridie stopped crying with the shock of it. She watched her mother look up at the priest with big, shiny eyes and her face relaxed into a beatific smile, as if his words had literally lifted her grief out of her heart and replaced it with the certainty that her dear Tomas was with Mary and the Angels. If Father Quinn had said it, it must be true, for Father Quinn knew the mind of God.