Irish Chain

by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  I didn’t really want to talk about this now. I felt weary and talking made my throat raw, but there was something I’d wanted to ask Ernest for the longest time. My fever must be addling my brain, I thought, as I threw all caution to the wind. “Ernest, do the letters in words jump around on you when you’re looking at them? Numbers, too?”

  “Jump around? What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes I look at a word and it’s spelled one way, and when I look at it another time, it’s spelled differently, as if someone moved the letters around.”

  “You’re nuts, Rose,” Ernest said. “Letters jumping around . . .”

  I wished I hadn’t said anything to him. Was I the only one who had letters move around on her? Was I nuts?

  “You look funny. More so than usual. You sick?” Ernest asked.

  I nodded. “The principal sent me home.”

  “I wonder if I could catch it before this afternoon. You think Sister Frances is bad, you should have Brother Simon. He’s always cracking his stick across my desk. ‘Mr. Dunlea,’ he yells. I just about jump out of my skin.” Ernest groaned and grabbed his throat. “Sneeze on me, Rose. Make me sick, too.”

  I knew he was trying to make up for calling me slow and nuts, so I smiled and forgave him. He could make me madder than anyone I know, yet he could also make me laugh the hardest.

  We went through the gate and walked to the back of the house and into the kitchen. The sudden warmth enveloped me and I gave a small shudder of pleasure. I didn’t ever want to leave here. For a moment I entertained the fantasy of never having to go back to St. Joseph’s School. I would stay home and help Mam with the chores. I already could knead bread into a perfect, glistening loaf and Da always praised my currant biscuits. In the afternoon, chores done, Mam and I would sit together and darn Ernest’s and Frederick’s socks. She said they made holes faster than she could mend them. I swallowed and my sore throat brought my fantasy to an abrupt halt. Da would never let me stay home. He was dead stuck on us all getting an education.

  “Rose,” Mam exclaimed. She straightened from taking a loaf of bread out of the oven and glanced at the clock beside the cups and saucers on the hutch. “I thought maybe I’d lost track of the time, but you’re early.”

  “I’m not feeling well,” I said.

  Mam swept over and placed a hand on my forehead. “You’re not well, indeed. Upstairs with you and into bed.” She looked at Ernest and Bertie and sighed. “I expect you’ll just be the first. No doubt everyone will catch it and I’ll have a house full of sick people to tend. Go on, now.” She gave me a tiny push toward the stairs. “Put on your nightgown. I’ll be up in a while with a bit of broth.”

  I wearily climbed the stairs. My head ached fiercely now and bed sounded good.

  “Ernest,” Mam said in the kitchen below, “you go to the corner and meet Winnie and walk her the rest of the way home from school.”

  “Aw, Mam . . .” Ernest protested.

  “Do as I say, now, and you can take Bertie with you. It’ll keep him from underfoot while I finish with the meal.”

  I must have slept, because next thing I knew Mam was bent over me, gently shaking my shoulder.

  “I have some hot soup for you,” she said.

  I pushed myself into a sitting position and pulled the blankets about my shoulders against the chill of the bedroom.

  “Are you cold?” Mam asked.

  I nodded, reached for the spoon and dipped it into the broth. I enjoyed the trickle of warmth soothing my raw throat.

  “I’ll get the quilt, then.” Mam left the room.

  The Irish Chain quilt. Truth is, I would have said I was cold even if it was a heat wave in the middle of July, for a chance to lie under the Irish Chain quilt. It was special, only brought out to drape over the sofa when the priest came to call, or when one of us children was ill. Mam’s mother had made it when she was a young woman from patches of material she’d begged and scrounged from her Irish kin. The patches ran diagonally from the top of the quilt to the bottom, looking like links in a chain. And that was what they were—each scrap of material a link to Grandma’s home, Ireland, and all those folk gone before her. She’d point to each patch and tell me the story that belonged to it. I never tired of hearing those stories. When she died five years ago, the Irish Chain quilt came to Mam.

  Mam returned and spread the quilt over the bed. I burrowed beneath it. Having the quilt over me instantly made me feel better, like being hugged by all the people in the world who loved me. I traced a finger around a feathered swirl of stitching.

  “Now you get some rest and stay warm,” Mam said. “I think it’s just a cold you have, but Mrs. Connelly’s twins across the way have diphtheria. I saw the quarantine sign on their door this morning.” Her forehead creased. “You’ve not been over there playing with them, have you?”

  “No, Mam. Though Winnie might have.”

  “I’ll check her throat as soon as she’s back from the store.” She turned to leave the room.

  “Mam,” I said quickly.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you tell me a story—from the quilt?”

  “Oh, Rose,” Mam scolded softly. “I just got Bertie down for a nap and there’s ironing to do and the supper to start.”

  “Please, Mam,” I pleaded. “Just a short one.”

  “You’ve heard those stories a hundred times,” Mam pointed out.

  “I know. I like them is all.”

  Mam rolled her eyes to the ceiling. I knew right then she’d tell me a story.

  “Mam,” I said. “You’re beautiful. Your eyes are like emeralds.”

  If I had eyes like that, they would go a long way to make up for my red hair. Instead, I had Da’s hazel eyes. They could never find one colour to stick with—sometimes grey, sometimes blue, sometimes green.

  “Oh, go on with you. And where would you have been seeing emeralds?” Mam laughed but looked pleased. She came and sat on the side of the bed and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “So it’s a story you’re flattering me for. Very well, then. Which one?”

  I pointed to a faded patch of cream-coloured crepe.

  Chapter 3

  “That patch—again?” Mam exclaimed.

  I nodded. I liked a story from the beginning and, for me, the cream-coloured patch was the beginning.

  “My grandmother Rose’s wedding dress,” Mam said softly. Her fingers briefly caressed it. She sat back to gather her thoughts, then began.

  “Great-grandmother Rose lived in Donegal County, in Northern Ireland. The countryside was particularly beautiful that spring in 1833.”

  “Richly green and lush, filled with birdsong,” I added.

  Mam raised her eyebrows at me. “Yes, well,” she continued, “Rose lived on a small farm—”

  “With her Mam and Da and her beloved brother, Danny.”

  “Perhaps you should be telling the story since you know it so well,” Mam said.

  “No, you tell it.”

  “Well, only if you’re sure . . .” Mam teased. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, Rose. She was very beautiful—”

  “The beauty of the entire county,” I interrupted. “Like our Mary.”

  “Like herself,” Mam said emphatically. “Everyone has their own particular beauty. Now, either let me tell the story my way, or I’ll leave and you can sleep.”

  I clamped my mouth shut. This was one threat I knew Mam would keep.

  After a moment, she went on. “Most of the land in Ireland at that time was owned by English landlords, who possessed vast estates. They rented out small farms to Irish families. The potato crops were good and the people and the landlords were content.

  “Many men courted Rose, some quite prosperous with large holdings, but Rose only had eyes for one—a poor farmer barely eking out an existence on his small tenant farm. He wasn’t much to look at, being born with one shoulder higher than the other, and he limped, one leg being shorter than the other. Rose’s mother shook her
head in despair. ‘Why do you want this poor man?’ she asked.

  “‘Because he is kind,’ Rose told her. And Rose being Rose went her own way despite all those cautioning her. She visited with the poor man and came to know him and she liked what he was, then she loved what he was. And the poor man, though ugly on the outside, was beautiful on the inside, and though weak on the outside, was strong on the inside, and he had the courage to ask Rose to marry him. And Rose said yes.”

  Mam tapped me on the nose. “He became your great-grandfather Albert. In the early autumn, Rose and Albert were married, and that is the story of the patch from Rose’s wedding dress.”

  “Now the pink one,” I demanded. “The first baby.”

  “That will be for another day.” Mam leaned over and kissed my forehead. “You get some rest. I’ll have Winnie or Mary bring you tea later.”

  I snuggled beneath the quilt. “Mam. Do you remember Great-grandmother Rose?” I asked drowsily.

  “Not too well. I was just a little girl when she passed away. I wasn’t scared of her like I was some of the other grown-ups. She would scoop me up and set me on her knee and I didn’t mind at all. I remember her hands were red and twisted from a life of hard work.”

  “Why did you name me for her?” I asked.

  Mam tilted her head to one side as she thought. “I don’t know. I looked at you so tiny in my arms and thought, this baby’s name is Rose. My grandmother had a lovely smile, very like your own.”

  “I have a lovely smile?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes, you do and you could use it a bit more. So serious all the time.” Mam patted the bed covers in place and left the room.

  I closed my eyes, my thoughts drifting. I wished I had known my great-grandmother. My namesake. I also wished I could be like her—able to go my own way. I’d like someone to say that about me. And Rose being Rose went her own way. I knew God had made me the way I was, and that was fine, but it would have been nice if He’d just made me a bit braver and a bit smarter. And if He was going to the trouble to do all that, maybe He could have made me a little bit prettier.

  A drawer slammed and brought me up from the depths of a horrible fever dream all mixed up with Sister Frances and Patrick and too many sweets. I opened my eyes to see Mary, dressed in her corset, rapidly opening and shutting drawers in our dresser. She rummaged through the bottom one.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked. I sat up and pushed the quilt off me. My nightgown was soaked in sweat.

  “Oh, you’re awake.” Mary walked to the door and shouted downstairs. “Winnie, bring Rose’s tea.”

  She fluffed up the pillow behind my shoulders so I could sit upright. My head throbbed, but—I swallowed tentatively—my throat felt better. Still, I wasn’t about to tell Mary or Winnie that because they’d stop being so nice to me.

  “I’m looking for my new stockings,” Mary explained.

  “In a brown parcel?”

  “Yes.”

  “You put them in the chest.” I nodded toward a small oak chest standing against the wall beneath the window. It was cedar-lined against moths and held our winter woollens. It also held, pushed deep beneath the clothes, bits and pieces of material of pants and shirts and dresses I’d cut from my family’s cast-off, only-good-for-patches-now clothing. Someday, I hoped to make an Irish Chain quilt of my own.

  “I remember now,” Mary crowed. She rushed over, flipped open the chest lid and pulled her stockings from the brown paper. She ran her fingers over them checking for ladders, then sat on the edge of the bed and pulled one on. “I’m meeting Horace in an hour.”

  Winnie came in carrying a tray, and we pulled faces at each other behind Mary’s back.

  “Horace,” Winnie said. She plopped the tray down on my lap, spilling tea into the saucer. “That’s a dumb name.”

  “Don’t be so silly. A name is a name. That’s all.” Mary’s voice was sharp with annoyance. She wriggled into a dress.

  “No,” I said. “People suit their names. Ernest is someone who is eager, and our Ernest is definitely that. We call Frederick his full name when he’s being forgetful, but Fred when he’s working hard on the docks because he’s more a man than a boy then . . .”

  “What are you going on about?” Mary asked. Dress buttoned, she leaned in toward the mirror and pinched her cheeks to redden them.

  “Well, Winnie whines all the time,” I went on. “Winnie . . . whine. It suits her.”

  “I do not,” Winnie denied heatedly.

  “And you’re beautiful like the Virgin Mary who has your name,” I told Mary. She didn’t know it yet, but I was softening her up for a favour. “And Horace is a . . .” I cast around for a way to describe Horace that wouldn’t get me on Mary’s bad side. I couldn’t find one. “. . . Horace,” I finished lamely. I couldn’t very well tell her Horace meant a skinny, fussy, vexing man. That reminded me. “I saw Duncan today. He asked after you,” I added slyly.

  Mary’s face flushed slightly.

  “I told him you were well and working hard.” I hadn’t, but I probably would have if I’d thought of it at the time, so it wasn’t really a lie.

  “You don’t need to be talking to Duncan about me,” Mary said.

  She ran her hands down her dress, smoothing the skirt.

  “Well, he asked. It would be rude if I didn’t answer. He’s very handsome,” I added.

  “I wouldn’t know.” Mary grabbed up her coat and shrugged it on. “He’s just Duncan. So does he suit his name? Does Duncan mean a milk delivery boy?”

  “And what is wrong with Duncan delivering milk?” Mam stood in the doorway, frowning at Mary.

  “Nothing.” Mary rooted around in her pockets avoiding Mam’s gaze. “Just a silly game Rose was playing, about people suiting their names.”

  “Duncan is a hard-working boy. He’s learning his father’s dairy business from the bottom up so he’ll know it through and through when he takes over.”

  “I know that, Mam. It just means he’ll never leave here.” Mary spread her arms wide, embracing our room, but I knew she meant the north part of Halifax—Richmond, where we lived.

  Mary told me once in secret that she felt suffocated, by our house, the family, the neighbourhood. Her only escape was the bank. I’d only been downtown once, when Mary treated me to an afternoon in a tea room. The white linen and polished knives and forks had made me so anxious I’d upset my teacup. I’d been happy to get back home where I felt safe.

  Winnie and I held our breaths, waiting for Mam’s explosion. Mam didn’t get mad easily but when she did, we all cleared out of her way—fast. Even Mary looked wary now, but also determined.

  “Some of us have happy lives here,” Mam said mildly. “Your Da and me.”

  Mary opened her mouth, but Mam stopped her before she spoke. “Happiness doesn’t come from things you own or the place you live, but from inside you. Some people search far and wide for happiness all their lives, when all the time it was right under their nose. There’s nothing wrong with venturing out into the world, but don’t deny your home.”

  Mary shook her head defiantly. “I know what I want, Mam.”

  “Do you? Where are you off to, then?”

  “Horace is taking me to a play,” Mary said. “I’m meeting him downtown.”

  “Most young men come calling for their young women. They don’t meet them downtown.”

  “That was in the olden days, Mam. Things are different now.”

  “We’re having the family and a few friends in Saturday night. It would be nice if Horace could come,” Mam said calmly.

  “It’s a long way for him to travel . . .” Mary began.

  “I’m sure he’ll be happy to come if you ask him, and he does have his motor car.”

  And that was the end of that, though the air remained thick with unsaid words—words of Mary’s discontent, restlessness and wanting; Mam’s anger and hurt. I fancied I could see Mary impatiently pushing them aside as she made her way out of
the room.

  Mam strode over to the bed and felt my forehead. “You’re cooler now. Winnie, you’ll sleep with Mary tonight so Rose can have a good rest.”

  Winnie and I usually shared a bed, and I looked forward to the unaccustomed luxury of not having her limbs wrapped around me all night long. There were definite benefits to being sick. Mam left the room, taking the empty tray with her. I didn’t remember eating the bread or drinking the tea, but I must have. I suddenly grimaced. I’d forgotten to ask Mary for my favour.

  “Do you hurt somewhere?” Winnie asked. She threw herself down on Mary’s bed.

  “No, just remembered something I forgot,” I replied.

  “That doesn’t make sense. If you remembered it, then it’s not forgot,” she pointed out.

  “Never mind, Winnie.” The way she figured things out tied my brain up in knots.

  “Why did you tell Mam I’d been visiting the twins?” she demanded.

  “I thought you had,” I told her.

  “Well, I had been, but you didn’t need to tell her. She swabbed my throat out.”

  “She doesn’t want you getting their sickness.”

  “I never get sick,” Winnie announced. “Though I should,” she added thoughtfully. “You get your tea in bed, everyone being nice to you. And you get to have the Irish Chain quilt. I could pretend I’m sick.”

  “Mam would know and she’d swab your throat twice as much.”

  “Yes, she probably would,” Winnie admitted.

  “Martha Schultz was asking after you,” Winnie said after a moment.

  “I bet.” I sniffed.

  “She was,” Winnie insisted. “She said she might drop by tomorrow and see how you were.”

  “She could have asked me at school today,” I pointed out.

  “No, she couldn’t. She had to be with her Catherine and her friends.”

  My eyes felt hot with unshed tears. “But I’m her friend, too. Or I was.”

  “That was before you failed your grades. She can’t very well be friends with you at school now because then no one would talk to her. And there’s no point in both of you not being talked to.” Winnie’s skirt flew over her head as she jumped on Mary’s bed. I eyed her bouncing body enviously. The world was so black and white for her. She accepted everything the way it was. Maybe that was the secret to happiness.