Sunday morning found her bolting out the front door and racing up the yard to the toilets. As her stomach emptied, she was concerned by the length of time she was spending away from the cottage, and didn’t want to worry Francis; but she could not run the risk of leaving too early and having to suffer the embarrassment of having to make more trips back and forth. It was better that she stay put, she decided, and wished she had had time to put a heavy sweater on under her raincoat.
“What happened? Are you all right? Is the baby all right?” Francis asked with great concern as she entered the cottage.
“I’m fine. The baby is, too. It’s called morning sickness. It will pass.”
“When?”
“It’s difficult to say. A few weeks! It’s nothing to worry about.”
“You look so pale. Sit down. I’ll make you some tea. Is there anything I can get you?”
“I need something light to eat.”
“What would you like? I’ll go to the paper shop. They’re open on Sunday, and they sell a few food items.”
“That would be lovely. Some bread and cream crackers or any kind of crackers they might have.”
Francis hurried out to the paper store as though her time to deliver had come.
Later that day, after the movie, he invited her to a pub. When she explained that she would not drink while carrying the child, he chose a pub wherein they could have tea and a very good meal. That night she put the crackers on the small table by the bed, explaining as she did so that eating crackers before rising might keep the morning sickness at bay.
After leaving work on Monday, Kate spent almost twenty pounds on food, which she hoped to stretch out with good management. Since Francis ate his meals at the farm, she hoped to be able to take care of her needs. She was fast growing very attached to Francis, and whenever he felt comfortable with it, she would welcome his more intimate presence in the bed. She sensed he liked her, nay, might even love her. She now looked forward with more optimism to the baby’s birth and felt fortunate that this child would have such a good man as a father. Kate eagerly awaited Francis’s home-coming each day, and he was always happy to see her. Life in the cottage continued in a pleasant, comfortable manner.
Outside the cottage, however, she was not fully accepted. The men from the lane, on seeing Francis, stopped and discussed the soccer game, politics, or shared a joke or two with him, and the women approached Francis fondly, greeting him as one of their own as they stopped and chatted with him. All Kate ever received was a smile and a ‘good morning’ or ‘evening’ from the women and a tip of the cap from the men. None of them stopped to speak with her. She was an outsider in this very tight-knit village.
“Do you want to get married?” Francis asked one evening, about six weeks later, as they stood up to retire for the night. Taken by surprise that what she had been wondering about was now actually happening, Kate was without words.
“I believe you were willing to come here solely for the baby’s sake. I know you are used to much better than this,” he told her, indicating their surroundings. Before he could continue, she cut him off.
“Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”
His broad smile was reassuring.
“When you walked in that first day, I could hardly believe my good fortune. For weeks, I feared that arriving home one day I might find you had left. The time we’ve been together in this cottage has been for me the happiest of times, and I believe you are content here.”
He had not mentioned he loved her, but she knew that was what he meant, and it was as close as he could get to saying what he wished to convey.
“More than content, Francis. Happy, very happy.”
“Then we’ll do it,” and picking up the candle, he put his arm around her, as they walked into the bedroom.
CHAPTER 2
“It will be a small wedding, will it not?” Kate asked as they divided the newspaper the following evening.
“Whatever you want it to be, it will be. There’ll only be my uncle and aunt on my side.”
“Nobody from the lane invited?”
“It might be a bit confusing to these good people, Kate, to be inviting them to a wedding when they are assuming we’re already married.”
“Oh, yes. I’ll invite my cousin, Sheila, as my maid-of-honor.”
“Not your parents? You do have family, do you not?”
“Yes, my mother, two brothers and their wives, and my older brother’s two children, an uncle, two aunts, my grandfather, and some cousins. Since they don’t know I’m pregnant, I’d rather let them know after the fact—perhaps in a year or two.”
“Your mother would not approve of me?”
“She would not approve of the order in which I have proceeded. She would be horrified to find me pregnant, and my brothers, especially my younger brother, would have difficulty accepting my condition.”
“I’ve got to get you married fast,” Francis said with a devilish smile. “We could get married in the church I attend on Sundays with my uncle and aunt, and afterwards we could all go to the nearby hotel for lunch, if you wish.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“Incidentally, where did you get that wedding band you’ve been wearing?”
“In Woolworth’s. Fake gold for a faked marriage! I could not be pregnant without a wedding band on my finger!”
“Meet me at the Pillar House on Saturday after work, and I’ll buy you a wedding band.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Perhaps we can take a ride out and visit the priest next Sunday to get things rolling.”
“Yes.” After a moment’s hesitation, Kate asked, “What have you told your aunt and uncle about us?”
“Well, they know you’re pregnant and living here with me at the cottage. I believe they’ll be very happy to hear we’re going to get married regardless of what order we are doing it. ‘I’ll be a grand-aunt!’ said my aunt, who was very excited when I told her about the baby. Their only child died at birth, and she and Ned were never able to have another child. You’ll be able to meet them next Sunday when we go out to Swords to discuss our wedding with the priest.”
Francis and Kate attended mass in the church where they would be married, and the priest accepted Mary and Ned’s invitation, extended earlier in the week, to have dinner with them to discuss the wedding plans. Mary and Ned were two of the kindest people Kate had ever met. She felt completely at home with them and very happy that they would be part of her baby’s life. A moment of sadness clouded this happy occasion when she thought, if only, like Francis, she too, could tell her family about the baby. She could have told her father. He would have been disappointed but he would have stood by her, she believed, and have accepted the baby as his grandchild.
After she bought some groceries in the shops, Kate noticed the bright green telephone booth, like a beacon in a storm, a block away. She rushed toward it as fast as she could while she struggled with the bag of groceries and a floor mop.
Putting down everything she was carrying, she took out the coins she had received in change. She put one in the phone slot and dialed her cousin Sheila’s home. More coins! She dropped them in. She heard the phone ring on the other end and anxiously waited. It was not Sheila’s voice but Sheila’s mother’s voice she heard. It could not be! Yet it was. Aunt Jenny, who shunned the telephone, had picked up the receiver.
“Hello, I can’t hear you.”
Just in time, she stopped herself before exclaiming, ‘Aunt Jenny.’
“Hello. May I speak with Sheila?”
“She isn’t here now,” she answered and continued slowly from a prepared message. “Tell me your name and telephone number, and I’ll give it to her when she gets back.”
Aunt Jenny did not recognize her voice on the phone. Back from where? What name could she give that Sheila would be able to decipher.
“Back from where?”
“From her holidays, of course. She left last night for Malta. She’ll be
there for a fortnight and then will spend two days in London and be back on a Wednesday.”
That’s cutting it close, Kate thought. Sheila won’t be back until the Wednesday before the wedding.
“Please tell Sheila it is her friend who attended ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ with her.” Her aunt laboriously wrote down and repeated each word, while Kate kept dropping coins in the slot. She was about to thank her when her aunt spoke as though reading aloud.
“I must ask you for your telephone number?”
“I don’t have a telephone.”
“You’re speaking on the telephone.”
“Yes, but it is not my telephone.”
“Should you be using someone else’s telephone?” her aunt reprimanded.
“I’m using a coin-operated telephone. I’m phoning from one of the green boxes.” Her aunt was confused but now she understood.
Jenny, an unstoppable talker when face to face with a person, but not comfortable with a telephone, did not reply. Kate said goodbye and hung up.
On the day Sheila was expected back, Kate telephoned again and once more Sheila’s mother answered. Asking to speak with Sheila, a sad voice related that Sheila’s grandfather had died during the night. When she inquired further, Kate learned that her grandfather would be waked from Wednesday through Friday evening. On Saturday morning the funeral mass would be held followed by his burial.
Kate was shocked to learn of her grandfather’s death and stunned by the realization that his burial would take place on her wedding day. Though not superstitious, Kate had the haunting feeling it was a bad omen. She did not ask if her previous telephone call had been made known to Sheila. Sheila would not be at her wedding.
“Don’t go giving that shirt of mine any notions,” Francis said, as he watched Kate iron his only dress shirt later that evening. “It might expect to be ironed again the next time it’s washed.”
“Heavens forbid it should have such expectations,” Kate laughed.
“I’ll take it with me. When the chores are completed and I’ve cleaned up, I’ll put it on and look respectable for you.”
Kate brushed Francis’s blazer and wondered in what distant year it had been purchased.
“We must leave here at five o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Five?” Kate questioned. “The wedding isn’t until eleven o’clock!”
“Yes, but there are cows to milk and chores that must be done.”
“Then I’d better get myself to bed to be able to get up at four in the morning,” and taking the iron from the fire grate, she put it in the yard to cool off before going to bed.
In her fantasies as a young girl, she had never envisioned rising at four o’clock in the morning on her wedding day while her husband-to-be whistled a merry tune. No wedding gown! No friends gathering for a bridal tea! No family present for this happy occasion! She would wear one of the dresses she had purchased in that other life as a newly graduated nurse where she and her friends in carefree exuberance went shopping. Can a body be both happy and sad, she asked herself, happy to be marrying Francis, and sad that her family would not be sharing this very special occasion with her? Francis brought a cup of tea to her in bed and scattered her thoughts.
“Are you happy, Kate?”
“Yes, very happy.”
“No doubts?”
“None.”
Climbing into the bed, he encircled her in his arms and kissed her. “I’d like to stay in bed with you all day.”
“There are cows to be milked and chores to be done,” Kate mimicked.
“And a wedding ceremony to be performed,” Francis smiled, as he stood up. “We must leave in fifteen minutes.”
“I haven’t showered.”
“You can do that at the farm.”
“No breakfast?”
“No time.”
After hanging his shirt, trousers, blazer and Kate’s dress in the van, Francis waited while Kate hastily dressed and then stepped into the van. He suggested she get some sleep while he drove. She closed her eyes but sleep was out of the question.
Ned had already started the chores when they arrived. Francis stepped from the van and joined Ned while Kate and Mary went into the house, bringing the clothes with them. Mary prepared a hot bath for Kate from the water in the rain barrel into which Mary had placed a small mesh bag of aromatic herbs from her garden. The tub stood in a screened off section of the kitchen and the aroma of Mary’s baking, mixed with the scent of herbs, filled the spacious kitchen. This was her first precious luxury since she met Francis, and it relaxed every bone and fiber of her body as she soaked in its warmth and fragrance, transporting her beyond time and space. Heavenly!
Kate was sitting in the sun drying her hair when Ned came back to the house. From the kitchen door, Mary called out, “Where is Francis?”
“He finished up before me and left.”
“Well, since you’re here first, go ahead and bathe, so that the tub will be free when Francis gets here.”
About twenty minutes later, Francis returned carrying a bunch of wild flowers and green ferns.
“How beautiful,” Mary declared, as Francis handed Kate the flowers.
“Yes, absolutely beautiful,” Kate confirmed, as she flung her arms around her fiancé and kissed him.
“We must tie them up with ribbons. Come, Kate, and pick some ribbons from my basket.”
Since there were purple, blue and pale yellow flowers in the bunch, Kate chose a blue, a purple and a buttercup yellow ribbon and entwined them around the flowers and ferns, making the loveliest of bouquets.
Ned had cleaned and polished the old sidecar, and the women sat on each side as Francis and Ned rode up front and drove the horses.
The stone church where they were married had an aisle that was the length of two horses and carts, with wooden pews on each side and a small rail separating the sanctuary from the main body of the church. From the choir loft, the organist played as Francis and Ned came in by the side entrance close to the altar. Local people, neighbors, friends, and farmers and their wives rose when moments later, Kate and Mary entered the church.
One could have heard a match drop in the silence that befell the congregation when Francis and Kate professed their vows to each other before God and their fellowmen. As they walked down the aisle as husband and wife, Francis told Kate his parents were married in this church, as were Ned and Mary.
Back at the house, the neighbors arrived, as did a large soft package. Each woman brought her food specialty and placed it on the table. As the women uncovered plates, bowls and platters, Kate marveled at the large array of delicious foods. Soon everyone was eating, drinking, talking and laughing. When all had eaten, the women cleared the table while the fiddler tuned his violin. Then the package was placed on the table. Mary and Ned brought Kate and Francis forward as the people gathered around the table and waited for the newly wedded couple to open the parcel. Francis pulled the string off and Kate pulled back the paper to expose a most beautiful handmade quilt, a gift from Ned’s and Mary’s friends and neighbors. All eyes were on Kate to see her reaction. Her delight was in full bloom, and her gratitude at their kindness overwhelmed her. Mary explained that she and the women had met two nights a week, at each other’s houses, to bring their finished pieces and sew them together. Then the women took over and told how they had decided on a design. They related their mishaps, the fun they had in this endeavor, and who among them made each particular part of the quilt.
“Some of us were left on those evenings to do the washing up after supper,” Sean Coogan said, speaking for the men assembled.
“You got supper?” Mike Rafferty exclaimed to much laughter.
“Let’s not waste this good music,” one of the women spoke out bringing the joking to a close.
Ned and Mary obliged by being the first to dance, as encouragement to the others to do likewise. They received a round of applause. Then others joined in the dance.
Will Francis ask
me to dance? Does Francis know how to dance? Kate wondered. Nobody would dance with her, she knew, until Francis had done so. Kate stood looking at Ned and Mary, two perfectly matched people, as they enjoyed the dance, and had difficulty keeping her feet from stepping to the music.
I must not look too anxious. I must wait.
Kate could see Francis receiving congratulations as he talked and laughed with the men. Some wives claimed their husbands who followed them to the dance floor. Old and young and ages in between danced. Suddenly Francis stood beside her. She had not heard him approach.
“May I have this dance?” he asked.
“You most certainly may,” she answered. He led her onto the floor, the boards of which creaked under the feet of the dancers. As soon as Francis and Kate moved onto the dance floor, all other dancers immediately stopped and moved to the outer edges of the floor and stood in a circle.
She had never before danced with Francis. This was a new and exciting experience, being in his arms as they danced along to the fiddler’s tune, oblivious to all around them. How did a girl-shy man like Francis learn how to dance so well? Kate did not want the music to stop.
After they danced together, they sat down. They were no sooner seated than the fiddler played music to set dancing, and Francis and Kate were gently pulled back to the dance floor. Joining hands with others, they danced forward and back, as they crisscrossed, changed partners, passed through those opposite them and danced from one end of the room to the other like the waves of the sea.
Happy and exhausted, Francis and Kate stayed overnight at the farm. After a hearty breakfast the next morning, they left for home laden with food from the previous day’s feast. Francis surprised Kate with tickets for The Abbey Theatre, followed by dinner in the Grisham Hotel.
The Lane Page 2