by Rhys Bowen
“You’re sure she was a servant here, are you?”
“I was told by the orphanage in Cork that she had been placed here at fourteen, but I have no idea how long she stayed. It would have been many years ago, in the sixties.”
He frowned. “We have no servants currently employed who go back that far, Miss Delaney. We do have the house books, of course. They should indicate when she came and when and how she left us. Let us take a look. He searched among dusty ledgers and finally extracted one. His finger searched down columns of faded ink, names and dates written in a meticulous script.
“Ah, here we are,” he said at last. “Mary Ann Burke. You are correct.She was a servant here. And I have a date too: left employment July Eighteenth, 1873. No references requested or provided.” “Does it say where she went?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. There is no mention of her having left in disgrace. Possibly she left to get married, which was why she did not request a reference.”
“And there is nobody here from those days?”
“I regret that there isn’t,” he said. “It's not like it used to be, is it? Young people become dissatisfied with their lot and try their luck at the factories in the big cities. I understand that the Jacobs Biscuit Factory in Dublin employs thousands of young girls. I can’t personally see that such a life would be preferable to good food and fresh air, but to each his own, I suppose. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, Miss Delaney. Allow me to escort you back upstairs.”
He had just opened the baize door for me to pass through when I heard the crisp sound of boots on the marble floor and a young man came in through the front door. There was no mistaking the master of the house. He carried himself with the air of arrogance and authority of one brought up to privilege. He was dressed in riding gear, with a crop tucked under his arm, and mud from his boots left a trail across the white marble. He was halfway across the floor when he noticed us.
“I have a visitor, Phipps?” he asked, his eyes doing a swift examination of my person.
“No, sir. This is a young lady from America, a Miss Delaney, trying to trace a relative who was in service here once.”
“I see. And have you succeeded in locating her?” He looked me rather than Phipps.
“She is listed in your ledger but there is no indication as to where she went on leaving your service,” I said. “It was all such a long time ago, I’m afraid. She left in 1873.”
“I was only a small boy then,” he said. “I suppose we don’t have any servants who were employed here in those days, do we, Phipps?”
“I regret that we don’t, sir,” Phipps said.
“That's too bad. All the way from America, and we’re not able to help you,” he said, looking at me in a way that made me slightly uncomfortable. “Was this a close relative?”
“No, not very close. I was merely looking her up as a favor to an uncle,” I said. “Her name was Mary Ann Burke.”
His face lit up. “Mary Ann. I do remember a Mary Ann. She helped nanny in the nursery. I was very cross when she went away because she was much better at playing with me than Nanny was.”
“You don’t happen to remember anything about her departure?” I asked.
“Nanny said I wasn’t to speak of her anymore, so I got the feeling that she’d left in some kind of disgrace,” he said. “My sister would remember more than I. She was six years my senior and very fond of Mary Ann.”
“Your sister? Does she live nearby?”
“Good lord, no. She's married and very much the grande dame these days. Caught up in the social whirl. Divides her time between London and Paris and Dublin, so one hears. Very much the society lady. Patroness of the arts and all that bosh. Lady Ashburton. If she's in Dublin when you’re there, she may be able to help you—if you can track her down between her numerous committees and charities, that is.”
He gave what was intended to be a gracious smile, I suspect, but came across as a smirk.
“Thank you. I’ll try to do that,” I said.
Phipps coughed discretely. “Pardon me, sir, but shouldn’t you be getting changed? I understood that Miss Henrietta would be arriving for luncheon.”
“What? Oh yes, you’re right, Phipps. I had better go and change.” “Miss Henrietta?” I couldn’t resist asking, although it was incredibly rude of me.
“My fiancee,” he said. “She's meeting her brother from the ship. He's been in America too. You’ll excuse me if I beat a hasty retreat, won’t you, Miss Delaney?”
I managed to control my voice as I said, “Certainly, sir. I thank you for your time.”
I bobbed a poor attempt at a curtsey. I saw interest flicker in his eyes as I straightened up. Lucky that his fiancee was about to arrive, I decided. His fiancee whose name was Henrietta and whose brother was arriving home from America. I attempted to walk toward the front doorwith measured step and much dignity. I had taken a few steps when Toby Conroy called after me, “I’ve just thought of one thing, Miss De-laney. Old Harry. He lives on the estate. Used to be the head groom. He's been with the family all his life. He might remember where Mary Ann went. Phipps will direct you to his cottage.”
With that he bounded up the stairs, two at a time. And I only half listened to the directions that Phipps gave me on locating Old Harry's cottage. In truth I couldn’t wait to distance myself from that house. I told myself I was being silly and worried over nothing. It was surely too much of a coincidence that Sir Toby's fiancee's name was Henrietta and that her brother was arriving back from America. In any case, I wasn’t planning to linger around long enough to find out.
Sixteen
The result of not listening properly to Phipps's directions meant that I got hopelessly lost among the farm buildings and ended up with my shoes caked in mud and worse. At last I passed a
farm laborer who escorted me to old Harry's place. The old man was sitting in front of his fire and was very deaf, but at last he understood my question and nodded vigorously.
“I remember that well enough. Master was quite put out. So was mistress too. Rory was a good groom, you see. Great with the horses.”
“Rory?” I asked.
“The man she went off with,” Old Harry said, with a toothless grin. “They ran away together to get married?”
“So we heard. Never asked for permission or nothing. Just upped and left.”
“You don’t know where they went, by any chance?” I asked.
He leaned forward, confidentially. “I heard tell that Rory opened a blacksmith's shop in Tramore, down on the coast. But that was more than twenty years ago now. Whether he's still there, I couldn’t say.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been most helpful.”
He looked at me expectantly, and it suddenly occurred to me that he might be waiting for a tip. I fished in my purse and came out with a shilling. But when I handed it to him he closed my own fingers around it. “I don’t need your money, me darlin’,” he said. “You keep it for your trousseau. I don’t drink much no more. Don’t eat much either. I have noneeds except for a good fire to keep me warm and that's provided from the estate. No, I’m quite content, thank you.”
He was still holding my hand, his gnarled old fingers over mine. Impulsively I leaned forward and planted a kiss on his forehead. That made him chuckle.
“Now that kind of payment I’ll take anytime you like,” he said.
I came out smiling too, but as I started down the long drive, I found I was walking very fast, not wishing to encounter an arriving carriage maybe.
“This is ridiculous,” I told myself. “I can’t always be living in fear like this. What on earth do I have to be afraid of anyway? They know me as Mary Delaney and won’t give me another thought. I’ll remain Mary De-laney for the rest of my time in Ireland and I’ll have nothing to worry about.”
I started back in the direction of Waterford and soon picked up a ride on a farm wagon that moved at a painfully slow pace. After the farmer had turned of
f at his farm, I continued on foot, considerably more quickly, I might add. By asking at a general store, I found that I could make for Tramore cross-country without going back into Water-ford. I walked a little, then picked up another lift on a wagon, which deposited me on yet another quayside. It was a quaint and pretty little place with a whitewashed inn and several fishing boats bobbing in a peaceful ocean. I was directed to the blacksmith's shop and stood outside a ramshackle shed with the sign R. KELLY. BLACKSMITH tacked over the entrance to a dark interior. Inside I could see the silhouette of a large man, outlined against the glow of a fire, an enormous hammer rising and falling to the sound of rhythmic chinks.
I went inside.
“Mr. Kelly?” I asked.
“Yes. What do you want?”
He turned to face me, his large face running with sweat and streaked with dirt, his front covered in a filthy leather apron, the hammer still raised in his hand. I took an involuntary step back. “Are you Rory?” I asked. “Used to work for the Conroy family?”
“What if I am?” he demanded.
“I’m looking for the former Mary Ann Burke,” I said, “and I was given to understand that she might be married to you.”
He glared at me. “Mary Ann's been gone these many years,” he growled. “Long gone. Dead and buried. Dead, buried, and forgotten.”
He turned his back on me and sent sparks flying with a great crash of his hammer onto molten metal. I needed no urging to retreat into the open air. So that was that. I almost wept with frustration. To have tracked her this far, only to find that she had died—probably like so many women in childbirth. I realized I should have asked about children. It was possible that Tommy Burke might want to settle money on Mary Ann's offspring. I looked back into that glowing hellhole and at the mighty figure pounding away amid the sparks. Did I really have the nerve to face him again?
“You’re being paid to do a job,” I told myself sternly. “Not all jobs are pleasant or easy.” With that I took a deep breath and stepped back inside.
“I’m sorry to disturb you again, sir,” I said. I was about to tell him about Mary Ann's brother, but it occurred to me that this man might well be interested in news of a new and rich relative. The way he had spoken of her made me feel that he had little true affection for her, or her memory.
He looked up, the hammer poised in midair. “I meant to ask whether you and Mary Ann had any children. Her relatives in America would want to know.”
“No children,” he said. “She wasn’t even able to produce me an heir, useless bit of rubbish that she was. And she didn’t have any relatives either. She was an orphan, from the orphanage, so you’ve got the wrong person. Now get out of here and don’t come back.” He slammed down the hammer again.
I retreated for a second time and stood staring as the blows rained down on the metal. I didn’t envy Mary Ann her lot, married to such a one. I wondered what had made her leave the comparative ease and refinement of a stately home for such an existence. Rory must have been a handsome brute in his youth to have made her throw all caution to the winds. I asked and found that there was a train station nearby. With anyluck I could be back in Cork tonight and maybe Inspector Harris would release me to sail home to America.
Before I reached the train station, I realized I should have asked where her grave was. Tommy would want to know. I saw the spire of a simple gray stone church among the trees and found that there was a churchyard behind it, so I went in to look around.
I must have searched for a good hour and examined every stone without finding one with Mary Ann's name on it. I had just reluctantly abandoned my search and reached the lytch gate when I heard the scrunch of feet on gravel and an elderly priest came out of the church. He noticed me and came over.
“Good day,” he said. “Visiting our lovely churchyard, are you? Isn’t it a fine spot? I’ve often thought I’d like to be buried here myself some day. Was there a particular grave stone you were looking for?”
“There was, actually,” I said, “but I couldn’t find it. The blacksmith—Rory Kelly. It was his wife, Mary Ann, whose grave I was seeking. Do you happen to know if she's buried here?”
“Mary Ann Kelly?” He looked, if anything, amused.
“That's right.”
“He told you she was dead, did he? Yes, that sounds like him. That Rory and his wretched, stubborn pride. She's not dead at all, you know. She left him years ago. Ran off with the local schoolteacher, Terrence Moynihan. He was a gifted man right enough—poet, playwright, orator, passionate about all things Irish was our Terry. Wasted in a backwater like this, of course. No wonder Mary Ann preferred him to that drunken lout. I can’t say I blamed her for running off, even though as her priest I should have condemned it. But they upped and went to Dublin together, twenty years ago it would have been. I haven’t heard word of either of them since.”
“Dublin, you say?” I felt the surge of excitement as I said the words. In my youth I had dreamed of going to Dublin, of strolling down those wide streets like a fine lady. Now it seemed that at last this dream was going to come true. If Inspector Harris would let me go, I’d be off to Dublin in the morning.
Seventeen
Inspector Harris had no objection to my leaving for Dublin. The murder inquiry had stalled, and he was waiting for the Majestic to come back to Queenstown so that he could interview the stewards again. His current theory was that Rose might have had a flirtation going on with one of the ship's crew and invited him to Miss Sheehan's cabin when she knew it would be unoccupied. He then demanded more sexual favors from her than she was prepared to give and suffocated her by accident. That would explain the strange steward encountered by both Henry and myself. More believable than a passenger managing to obtain a steward's uniform and using it to gain access to a cabin. Also I got the feeling that this scenario suited him better than an unknown assailant sneaking in to kill Miss Sheehan. Servant girls are ten a penny, and a murder in the course of a rough sexual encounter would hardly be unknown among their class.
I didn’t go along with this theory myself. What steward would risk his job by meeting a servant girl in a first-class cabin? I still felt in my gut that the intended victim had been Oona Sheehan herself. If I’d been conducting the investigation, I would have had the New York police find out who might have posed any kind of threat to her and why she got off that ship in such a hurry. That, to me, was the key to the whole thing. She had all those trunks with her. She had clearly planned to travel, but aborted the trip at the last moment. Maybe the police were pursuing this approach and just not keeping me informed. At any rate, Iwasn’t about to challenge Inspector Harris's latest theory because it meant that I was no longer a suspect and free to travel.
I packed up my things and departed on the express train for Dublin. Even the fact that it was a gray and drizzly day did not dampen my spirits as the train pulled into Kingsbridge Station. I could scarcely contain my excitement as I came out of the station and found myself on the banks of the river Liffy. A strong wind was blowing in from the North Sea and I had a bag to carry, but I set off anyway on foot, keeping to the south bank of the river. I wasn’t about to be denied this first walk through the city of my dreams. I had decided that my first port of call should be the Shelbourne Hotel, to make sure that the trunks sent there in my name had been picked up. I didn’t want to find that I was liable for storage costs for such a massive amount of baggage, and, in truth, I wanted to have a peek at the place for myself. I knew it was one of Dublin's grand hotels where the rich and famous stayed. Naturally I didn’t think that such an establishment would be within my budget, but it would be exciting just to experience sweeping in through those doors and mingling with the fashionable set.
I started to walk along Victoria Quay. In fact I almost skipped, brimming over with excitement like a small child who can’t wait to get to a party. I was here, alone, in the city I had dreamed of visiting, with money in my pocket and the chance to track down my quarry and return home a h
eroine. The first building I passed was a disappointment, I must say. Behind a high wall loomed a monstrosity with chimneys belching out smoke. Not the elegant Dublin I had imagined, to be sure. An ironwork sign over the main gate announced it to be the Guinness Brewery. But it turned out to be the one eyesore, and after it the city that unfolded before me was the Dublin of my fantasies. Across the river a magnificent building with a great green dome of copper and columns like a Roman temple sat on the quayside. I had seen pictures of it and recognized it as the Four Courts, where English justice was handed out to Irish miscreants.
The distance proved longer than I had expected and that suitcase became heavier by the minute. I had no wish to appear sweating and disheveled at the Shelbourne Hotel, so I hailed a passing cab and admiredthe view as we went along at a gentle pace. On our side of the river we passed a great church.
“Christchurch Cathedral,” the cabby answered my question. “Church of Ireland, of course. They took over all the best churches for themselves, didn’t they?”
I had to agree, but I also agreed that it was a grand-looking building. Behind it I caught a glimpse of what had to be Dublin Castle. I knew about that place right enough—seat of the British government representative in Ireland, seat of English power and dominance, and also the place to incarcerate those who might oppose her rule. I shuddered as we drove past.
When at last we came to O’Connell Bridge and I saw the famous thoroughfare of Sackville Street running away to the north with Nelson's Column and the O’Connell Memorial in the middle of it, I made the cabby stop and I jumped down. I had to go out onto the bridge, just to pause and savor it all. To my right were the glowing yellow stone buildings of Trinity College. Farther along the quay were more bridges and more grand Georgian buildings. Dark waters swirled below me, but around me the city was full of merrier life. Horse-drawn trams clip-clopped slowly across the bridge. Students in their black gowns swept toward the college like flocks of blackbirds, shouting to one another. Elegant folk passed in their carriages. And I was here, among them.