The Rising of Bella Casey

by Mary Morrissy

  ‘Ladies present, boys, ladies present.’

  After dinner there would invariably be a sing-song. Gathered around the Cadby, they would take turns at their party pieces. Bella would sing ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls’, followed by Jack piping up with Foster’s ‘Hard Times’. Nick favoured ‘The Star of the County Down’, which always brought Bella back to that night in the kitchen in Innisfallen Parade when they had first met. Come seven, the men would disappear off to the pub and Bella would sit with the children and Mother and Jack around the fire, sinking into the sated torpor of the Sabbath and the easeful harmony of the hearth.

  Jack would always have his head in a book even though he was no longer in school. Mother had decreed he should be out earning and had called a halt to his schooling at fourteen, despite Bella’s protestations.

  ‘Pappie would have wanted him to finish his education. It will give him chances …’

  ‘You had your chances,’ Mother said, ‘And look what you did with them.’

  The only way she could help Jack was to school him for an interview at Hampton Leedom’s as an office boy and write him a letter of reference. She used the school address on Dominick Street, a deception but one in a good cause.

  ‘The Bearer,’ she wrote, ‘has been a pupil in the above school, during which time he has proved to be a truthful, honest and obedient boy. He has applied himself to his books and I am confident that in the matter of employment he would give perfect satisfaction.’ She signed it Isabella Beaver, School Teacher, using her married name so as to give no clue to their relation.

  It was a queer sensation to see herself as a teacher once more and it gave her authority, even though it was a false one. The imposture provoked a twinge of regret; it gave the lie momentarily to her housewifely achievements in the neat house with the indoor plumbing, the three children and a steady-earning husband. Not that Bella could imagine trading her place with this mythical ‘I. Beaver’ with her Marlborough College script and her smooth words of praise. Which in the end weren’t needed. Jack got the job because he was a Protestant, no questions asked.

  But when she tried to guide the boy in his reading, he’d argue against her.

  ‘Walter Scott,’ he’d snort, ‘he’s old hat.’

  As if she’d lost the right to influence him. It seemed the only distinction she had in her brother’s eyes was what she once had been, a school teacher who would never teach again. She could have told him that a mother was always teaching − right from wrong, left foot from right, the stars in the sky and the portion of love in her heart. But there was little room for literature when she had to rise in pitch darkness to get the fire going and have the kettle steaming on the hob. When there were the flags to scrub, pots and pans to scour, rugs to be beaten, windows to be cleaned, laundry to be done and clothes to be got dry under a louring sky. It was hard even for Bella to believe in the midst of blacking the stove or turning the mattresses that once her Monday mornings had been given over to the argument of the Second Book of Paradise Lost or sketching Milton’s delineation of Adam and Eve before their fall. But drudgery apart, she could at least say that her daily life was once again worthy of the Lord’s inspection. And to Bella that was worth a great deal.

  THE RELIEF OF LADYSMITH

  What was it only a date? One minute before midnight the big hand inching towards the twelve, the next, a paroxysm of time, a century turning. The thought of it was too big for Bella to contemplate, it made her feel her own smallness and it was not a sensation she liked, even though it was a Christian reminder that we are all only grains of sand in comparison to the Almighty. But Bella preferred to stick to the notion that it was another year waning, that was all. Only a date, she said, even as she kept the children up way past their bedtime so that they could see the fireworks peppering the night sky and bathing the city in a silvery munificence. The only chiming she felt with the dawning of 1 January 1900, with its two round globes at the end, was, that like her own new beginning seven years before, this was a fresh start for all. What she hadn’t bargained for was that the door flung open on a new century, also allowed the world, out there as she had always thought it, to infect her little household.

  Time and event seemed to twin and quicken. The Boer War was the beginning of it. Her brothers were called out of army reserves. Mick was sent to England, but Tom was shipped out to South Africa to fight in the Relief of Ladysmith. It sounded to Bella like they were engaged in defending the honour of a high-born woman rather than a place of battle. She remembered the day Tom left because she was still counting Valentine’s age in weeks. Jack accompanied his brother to the boat, carrying Tom’s rifle on his shoulder. Tom certainly looked the part with his plumed busby and dress uniform though there were bands of ruffians waving flags of the Transvaal along the route and sporting badges and pin buttons bearing the names of Kruger and Joubert, who booed at every passing red-coat. Or so Jack said. He came by Rutland Place on his way back all fired up from the hectic farewell. It reminded Bella of the day when he’d accompanied her to greet Nick coming home on his first leave. He had only been a child then. Now he was nineteen and a bit of a beanpole. But for a boy whom Mother feared would not outpace his childhood, his spurt of growth into manhood, his speckled jaw and lanky frame was a triumph. There was not much else to be triumphant about. He had been through two jobs, losing both through insubordination. That was the official version, though Bella suspected that he had been pilfering on the job. While he was working for Hampdon’s, tiny cargoes of matches, boxes of candles, borax, and night-lights found their way into Mother’s hands. Once he had come around to Bella, offering Goddard’s Plate Powder for Nick to polish his buttons.

  ‘Where did this come from?’ she demanded.

  ‘Ah Bella, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’

  ‘This is a respectable household and we won’t be taking things that are not rightly our due, thank you very much. So you can put that right back into those long pockets of yours.’

  Duly admonished, he had slunk away with his ill-gotten gains.

  On the foggy February night of Tom’s embarkation, it was well past ten when she opened the door to him. If Mick had made a social call at this hour Bella could be sure that he would be well-oiled, but Jack did not have his brothers’ weakness for the drop. He stood on the threshold in cloth cap and open collar, like a common labourer when, paradoxically, he was idle as a lord.

  ‘Will you have tea?’ she asked as he sat beside the fire and drew in close.

  She settled Valentine in the crook of the sofa and put the kettle on in the scullery, calling on Nick who was out the back with his birds. Lately, he had acquired a parrot, the only species she would tolerate inside the house once it was safely caged. There it sat, beady-eyed and beak agape.

  ‘There was a mighty crowd, alright,’ said Jack, ‘it was all the world like a magnificent procession. Die with joy, one woman shouted as the boys marched by.’

  ‘As it should be, Jack me boyo,’ said Nick coming in from the back yard, his jacket speckled with the fine mist that was falling.

  For Queen and Country, screeched the parrot for Nick had been grooming him.

  Nick bent down to the cage hanging off the mantel and made kissing sounds with his lips at the bird.

  ‘That’s all fine and well,’ Jack retorted. ‘But what is it our boys might be dying for out there beyond in the veldt?’

  ‘For Queen and country, what else?’ Nick said mildly and settled himself into the rocker.

  ‘For the diamond mines of Johannesburg, more like,’ Jack said, quick as gunfire, and there was a surly aspect to his face. ‘Sure it’s all just a grab for gold.’

  Who’s the pretty lady? the parrot cried.

  It pained Bella to see Nick and Jack at loggerheads like this, for they were the two closest to her heart. She lifted Valentine and moved him upstairs for fear of fireworks. In the few short minutes it took to put the child down, the temperature in the parlour had risen
. When she reached the last step of the stairs, Nick was standing with his back to the hearth and drawn to his full height.

  ‘I’ll not have such seditious talk in my house,’ he was saying.

  ‘Ask me arse,’ Jack said.

  ‘You watch your tongue, do you hear, I’ll remind you there’s a lady present.’

  ‘England’ll put the sign of death on Kruger and his gang,’ Nick said.

  ‘But it isn’t rightly our battle,’ Jack shot back, ‘to be siding against the Boer.’

  ‘And whose battle is it, then?’ Nick demanded. ‘Would you spit on the service of your brothers?’ For a moment they all fell into reflection for those recently departed.

  ‘They’re inoffensive peoples, the Boer, and closer to our plight than any Crown of England.’

  ‘Our?’ Nick exploded. ‘Our, who’s this our?’

  Who’s the pretty lady? the parrot repeated, sensing the rising tempers and mimicking the indignation. Like a third person in the argument and making as much sense as the other two, Bella thought.

  ‘Ireland,’ Jack said emphatically, ‘the Irish.’

  ‘And what about General Roberts and French and Kitchener – Irishmen all and fighting for Empire.’ Nick’s voice had risen to such a pitch that Bella feared he’d lose his temper.

  ‘Now, now,’ she tried to intercede.

  ‘This war divides our world against itself,’ Jack said warningly.

  ‘There’s no division in this house,’ Nick said, ‘is there, Bella?’

  There was no right answer to this question, but both of them looked to her.

  Bella, Bella, Bella, the parrot mocked.

  The mantel clock ticked.

  ‘All I want is for Mick and Tom to come home, alive and well,’ Bella said. But her words sounded plaintive, if not plain mealy-mouthed.

  Jack stood up and marched towards the door where he halted.

  ‘When England’s in a quandary, it’s our boys who do her bidding,’ he said. ‘That’s all we’re good for. Doing their dirty work for them.’

  ‘Would you have Mick or Tom die to prove your point?’ Bella asked him.

  ‘Divide and conquer, Bella, that’s how they do it,’ he said.

  Queen and Country, the parrot rejoiced as Jack exited, leaving a chilly backwash in his wake.

  ‘Do you know who that fella reminds me of, Bel,’ Nick said finally. ‘A certain Jimmy Connolly, a Liverpools’ man like myself. We did the death watch on Myles Joyce the night they hanged him.’

  ‘What did he do?’ Bella asked.

  ‘Slaughtered his entire family over a piece of land. Like some savage in a lair, he was, gabbling away in that Gaelic patois of his, no better than a wild Hottentot. He deserved to swing.’

  Nick got up and poked at the fire.

  ‘But this Connolly chap, he was all shook up about it. Turned out to be a right hothead, full of old claptrap about the history of injustice to the native Irish. Native is right, and he a Scotsman into the bargain and all too ready to whip up bad feeling against the English. And this when he himself was in regimentals!’

  Bella wondered how this pertained to Jack.

  ‘I should have reported him, rightly. A fellow could be drummed out for the things Connolly said that night.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘Different rules apply the night before a man swings. But I ask your pardon, Bel, what was a chap like that doing in the army in the first place – biting the hand that fed him?’

  ‘Whatever happened to this Connolly?’ she asked.

  ‘Deserted, so I heard,’ Nick said and laughed. ‘Not much surprise in that. That’s who that boy of yours reminds of – a yellow-bellied soldier.’

  Years later, Bella would hear the name James Connolly again when a bunch of firebrands made to take over on Easter Day 1916, turning Dublin to ruins and she would wonder if it was the same man, but by then it was too late to ask.

  Nick stood magisterially with his back to the dying grate.

  ‘I can tell you one thing for nothing, Bel. Jack Casey’s no longer one of us and he’s not welcome in this house. Not while I draw breath.’

  Bella railed inwardly against this injunction. True, she and Jack had had their rifts and rows, but she would have argued, the love between a brother and sister was dictated by blood, unlike the union of a man and wife that could be moulded to fit any shape. And blood cannot be denied, she could have told Nick. But she said nothing. Instead she worked covertly to come to an arrangement that would allow her to see her brother without openly defying her husband.

  An opportunity came along with the birth of the new baby Nicholas. With two small babies like steps of stairs, she found herself falling behind with the laundry. She hit upon a scheme to pay Mother – sixpence and a glass of porter for each load – to do the surfeit for her. The plan had the charm of killing two birds with the one stone. Mother’s circumstances had faltered with Mick and Tom again in colours and Jack idle so it was half-charity, though Mother never divined that intention in it.

  She had been forced to quit Hawthorn Terrace for a shabby house on Abercorn Road where they were reduced to two rooms upstairs and a privy in the yard. The worst of it was that Mother could not call the place her own. There was a family downstairs of the Other persuasion, all eight of them the progeny of a Mr Seamus Shields, a man who swept the streets.

  But when Bella would make her weekly visitations, Jack remained installed in the front room, as intent on boycotting Bella, as Nick was in barring him. When she enquired of Mother what kept him sequestered, she said haughtily:

  ‘He says he’s educating himself.’

  As if he’d never known a day’s schooling, Bella thought, and conveniently forgetting the many hours she had spent teaching him. Though now he was not trawling through Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress or Plutrarch’s Lives but O’Growney’s Simple Lessons in Irish. He had taken to learning the Gaelic, the argot of peasants and rowdies. Not only that but he was insisting on calling himself Seán, the Irish pidgin for his own proper name. Not that Bella would acquiesce to this. To her he would always be Jack Casey and she saw no earthly reason why she should call him anything else. Her dirty washing might have gained her proximity to him, but she felt she had never been further removed from his heart.

  Once started, the sickness for change seemed to spread. After several months of courtship, Isaac announced he was to wed Miss Johanna Fairtlough, a young Catholic lady. To add insult to injury, Isaac declared that along with his forthcoming nuptials he himself was being instructed in the Other Faith. He took the name of Joseph as if, like Jack, mere nomenclature could change his nature. Not enough that he had married out, but that he had converted too. Bella wondered what Pappie would have made of all of this since his life’s work had been devoted to conversion in the other direction. Mother was incandescent.

  ‘How could he do this?’ she asked. ‘To spite me, is it?’

  ‘He’s marrying into money, at least,’ Bella pointed out, thinking that such an argument might appeal. Johanna’s father was a merchant with a string of grocery shops to his name.

  It was a strange reversal that she should be the one speaking up for a despised suitor. At least her Nick had been of the right faith; he who had been once considered the worst that had been imposed on the Caseys.

  ‘Sure, Isaac never troubled himself with religious observance,’ Bella went on when Mother refused to be placated. ‘He’ll probably take to not attending chapel with the same indifference as he has done with church.’

  But neither reason nor disparagement would move Mother. She would never speak to Isaac again.

  In time, the family got invitations to afternoon tea at Isaac’s new abode on Gloucester Street. Mother, of course, would have none of it. She wouldn’t darken the door of a son who’d turned. But Bella conquered her qualms and brought Susan with her. She thought it would do Susan good to see refined company even if it was Johanna Fairtlough’s striving brand of it.
Johanna was a glossy, well-upholstered girl with the placid air of one who had seldom been disappointed and though she looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, she was firm-willed with it. She insisted that stiff collars and Sunday best be worn to her soireés, as she called them, though the French in her mouth came out much garbled. Swarries, Mick would call them behind Johanna’s back, though he suffered the dress code and the silver service in silence for when Johanna was done with her fingers of fruit cake and iced fancies, Isaac would produce the bottle and, thanks to his father-in-law, could afford a generous pour. Despite her new sister-in-law’s comical pretentions (a Catholic trying to ape her betters) Bella found herself sneakily admiring Johanna. She might have notions above her station, but she held her empty head high and everyone kow-towed to her.

  *

  Bella might have disapproved of Isaac’s choice but she could at least see that he had gained in prosperity what he had lost in faith. When Tom, newly returned from the war, followed in Isaac’s footsteps by becoming engaged to a certain Mary Kelly, Bella was mystified. Was it the absence of Pappie’s guiding hand, she wondered, or some ungovernable spirit that impelled the boys towards such unsuitable women?

  ‘Are all my sons intent on breaking my heart?’ Mother wailed when Tom’s news was broken.

  Poor Mary Kelly had neither looks nor wealth to recommend her; she was plain and thin with a sallow hue to her skin and a strange affliction where one eyelid drooped as if the leftover of a childhood palsy. Her dress was dowdy, bordering on the careless, and she had clearly never had the wit to get beyond First Standard. She worked as a char, which, more than anything else, marked her out as several notches below the Caseys.