Last Port of Call: The Queenstown Series

by Jean Grainger

  They’d had no more conversation on the matter. Her mother just said they would meet him and see what he had to say and that speculation based on no information whatsoever was pointless. Harp knew she was right, but it was still hard not to worry.

  ‘All right, let’s do it.’ JohnJoe had put the envelope in his pocket and gone to the kitchen. Rose was down in the town ordering provisions for delivery. They were full most nights, so food was being ordered daily now and business was booming. Queenstown was a popular holiday destination as well as being a port. Rose was even looking into providing picnic lunches for guests who wanted to explore the castles, beaches and places of natural beauty in the surrounding area. JohnJoe was a great help. The kitchen garden he’d planted would give great yield once it got established; he’d set every fruit and vegetable they might need. He also served at the table and carried guests’ bags to their rooms. Harp and Rose wondered how they would ever manage without him.

  Harp lifted the heavy kettle onto the range, and together they waited for it to boil. It seemed to take hours, though in reality it was just a few minutes. Carefully, Harp held the seal of the envelope over the steam, trying not to soak the paper. Several times she tried to pull the flap open, but at points the gum seemed stuck hard and they didn’t dare risk tearing it. Eventually the gum melted, though the paper was by now rather soggy.

  ‘We can dry it out in the sun. It will be fine,’ Harp assured a worried-looking JohnJoe. ‘This letter has come all the way from America – it is bound to be a bit battered.’

  Together they carefully peeled back the flap and extracted the two folded pages. They went upstairs to the nook on the turn of the stairs, used at one stage for servants to hide from the Devereaux family if they happened to pass by. It wouldn’t do for someone as high and mighty as a Devereaux to lay their eyes on a servant. Those lesser mortals were meant to be neither seen nor heard. Now it was where they stored cleaning things, saving dragging everything upstairs every day.

  Harp handed it to JohnJoe, who shook his head. ‘You read it – you’re better at reading.’

  ‘No, JohnJoe. You’ve been getting so much better, and in such a short space of time too. Read it yourself.’

  He took it and read it aloud, slowly but correctly. ‘Danny, what the hell you doing? I sent you over there to get the kid, and now you tell me some guy put you in the hospital. You never saw him coming? I thought you were faster than that, Dannyboy.

  ‘OK, look, just get yourself and the kid back here pronto – I need you here. Stuff is going down and I’m having to take care of things myself. Our neighbours need management and I got Jimmy and Dodo on it, but you know how that works. Subtle they are not. On top of that, our friend uptown is getting too uppity to get his hands dirty, so he’ll need a reminder too.

  ‘So get on a ship as soon as you can. Bring the kid. I’m looking forward to meeting him. Kathy is getting a room ready for him – books, clothes, a bicycle, the whole nine yards. I told her he’s fourteen, not a baby, but you know how she gets. Should have thought of this years ago, when my sister died.

  ‘Good that you say he’s smart and a nice kid, not a total knucklehead like his old man. I guess you met him, huh? He’s a piece of work. What Sheila was thinking there, I’ll never know. Johnny O’Dwyer was behind the door when they gave out the brains.

  ‘I’ll wire some more dough to the account we usually use. Pat.’

  Harp and JohnJoe gazed at each other.

  ‘What do you think that’s all about?’ JohnJoe said breathily.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Harp answered truthfully. ‘But it sounds like they’re looking forward to meeting you. Kathy must be your aunt and she’s getting things ready for you, so that sounds nice, doesn’t it?’

  JohnJoe nodded uncertainly. ‘It does, but…what does the rest of it mean?’

  ‘Look, it’s addressed to Danny and he said he worked for your uncle, so I suppose it’s to do with the business or something?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ JohnJoe said. ‘Books and clothes sound nice, and do you think they really got me a bicycle?’ His eyes shone with the prospect.

  ‘It sounds like it.’ Harp grinned. She knew the day was coming when they would leave and she hated the thought of losing her only friend, but this new life he had ahead of him did sound wonderful. And Danny was very nice, so the uncle probably was too.

  ‘You will write now, won’t you?’ she asked, feeling suddenly very lonely. ‘Though you can send me drawings too, of course.’ She had a whole scrapbook of drawings of birds he’d seen in the garden. She’d labelled them, and they were remarkably good. It had been her mammy’s birthday last week, and JohnJoe had given Rose a lovely drawing of Harp as a gift, framed and everything. Rose loved it.

  ‘Of course. Every day if they let me.’ JohnJoe smiled. ‘Though my writing and reading won’t ever be as good as yours. You can do it like an adult. But now I can go over there with my head up and not feel so stupid. You should be a teacher, Harp. You managed to get me reading and writing in just a few weeks when the brothers couldn’t do it over years and years.’

  ‘You’re clever, JohnJoe. They were teaching you badly. I liked it. I never had a friend before,’ Harp admitted sadly. ‘I’m happy for you, but I’ll miss you too.’

  JohnJoe took her hand. ‘I never had a friend either, Harp, and I’ll miss you too. Maybe when we’re grown up we can visit each other? I could come back here or you could come to America?’

  ‘I’d love that.’ She smiled.

  Chapter 26

  Rose and Harp stood on the quayside, waving. They didn’t normally come down to wave anyone off as they were too busy preparing for the next guests, but Danny was recovered enough to travel and it was time for him and JohnJoe to go.

  The man and boy hung over the railings of the liner, which was small enough to be berthed by the quayside, dressed in their finest, and Danny looked none the worse for his ordeal, smiling and laughing as Harp tried hard not to cry. It was still summer holidays, but in a few weeks she would return to school. Her mother had taken on a local woman to help in the kitchen and with the laundry. In one sense she was looking forward to formal lessons again, but in another she dreaded it, especially seeing Emmet Kelly every day. Even Brian Quinn was now finished with school and going off to study at the university in Cork, so she would have nobody at all.

  Her home life had changed so much in the last few months, what with losing Mr Devereaux and then setting up the guest house, but school would remain unchanged. The thought of sitting in there day after day, listening to Kelly and the rest of them haltingly reading and making a mockery of the teacher, was a horrid prospect, but she told herself it was a means to an end. She loved the guest house, but it wasn’t her future.

  The guests were from all walks of life, and sometimes they got to know some of them a little bit. They came by train from all over Ireland and spent their last night at the Cliff House, and then it was time to go – to New York, Boston, some to Quebec or Montreal, and even a few to Sydney, Australia. Their sense of adventure was infectious; if they could go, so too could she. She wanted more than a lifetime of cooking and laundry. She wanted to get away, to see the world.

  Before they left, JohnJoe and Danny had gone into the town and they’d brought her and her mother back beautiful gifts.

  ‘From Uncle Pat.’ Danny smiled and handed Rose the beautifully wrapped package. ‘He wants you to know how grateful he is, you takin’ care of JJ like you did. I hope you like it. And he said to tell you, if you ever need anything, you just call on him, that he owes you one.’

  It was a silk scarf that had been made in Italy, a beautiful thing in shades of peach and pink that glided through her hands. It must have cost a fortune.

  ‘Oh, Danny, there was no need. JohnJoe was such a help. I don’t know what we’ll do without him.’ Rose ruffled the boy’s hair and he blushed pink.

  Then JohnJoe handed Harp her present shyly. She opened the brown paper wrapping an
d was delighted. It was an exquisite leather-bound notebook, with her initials engraved on the front. Inside he’d written an inscription in his childish hand.

  August 1912

  To Harp,

  My first and dearest friend. I got you this because you said you wanted to write the stories of the interesting people who came to stay at your lovely house. The engraving matches your pen. Thank you for all you did for me. I will never forget you.

  Love,

  JohnJoe

  ‘I’ll treasure it,’ Harp said, and hugged him.

  The foghorn sounded and the ship began to pull away from the quayside. The passengers could hear the brass band playing a merry tune in the park to send them on their way. Rose and Harp waved until they could no longer see Danny and JohnJoe, then they turned for home.

  The cheque for the auction of the paintings had been lodged that morning, and for the first time in their lives, they were in a solid financial position. Mr Quinn was helping them find a reliable building firm to take on the renovations, but not until the end of the season.

  ‘The house will seem so empty without him, won’t it, Mammy?’ Harp asked as they turned up the stone staircase between the greengrocer’s and the shoemaker’s.

  ‘It seems strange to say that, considering how many people sleep under our roof every night, but yes, it will. I hope life is kind to him.’

  ‘So do I,’ Harp said, taking her mother’s hand. She was a bit big for hand-holding these days, but today she felt young and sad and lonely and needed the comfort of her mother’s touch.

  They climbed up the steps, stopping halfway for a breather and to admire the ship now under full steam ahead out of the harbour, the ship that would carry JohnJoe O’Dwyer off to his new life, whatever that might be.

  As they came to their gate, they paused.

  ‘Will we go up?’ Harp asked. They had not been to the grave together since the day she ran away from school, but she knew her mother went there alone, often very early in the morning.

  Rose nodded and kept on climbing. She shoved the gate of the churchyard hard, and it opened.

  The Protestant graveyard was a riot of blood-red and royal-purple fuchsia and flame-orange montbretia. Some gravestones, listing names of dead gentry, leaned to one side, some had fallen over completely with time, and others were perfectly upright.

  ‘So do you think he can see us, Mammy?’ Harp asked as they wound their way around the small narrow path between the graves.

  ‘I don’t know, Harp, truly I don’t. Henry didn’t believe any of it, you know that, but he wasn’t right about everything.’ Rose smiled and ran her hand lovingly across the words newly engraved on the black stone: Henry Devereaux, 1860–1912.

  ‘He was right about most things, though,’ Harp replied.

  ‘True.’

  ‘I sense him. When I play his favourite music, or when I open a book to find a note he’s made in the text. But he would say it’s just memory.’

  ‘Maybe, but maybe not.’ Rose smiled again. ‘Nobody ever came back, so how can anyone be sure? It’s a lovely grave, though, isn’t it, with the angel protecting them and everything. Someone back along in the Devereaux family must have been fanciful to put up something so nice.’ She touched the foot of the life-size angel that stood guard over the dead generations of Devereauxes.

  ‘It’s the nicest one in the whole churchyard,’ Harp said. ‘I like the ones that have inscriptions, though, not just names.’

  ‘I do too,’ Rose agreed. ‘I remember a grave beside our parish church at home where I grew up. My mother used to take us past it when we went for a walk, and she always remarked how she wished she could afford it on her grave. “May God grant you always a sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering angel so nothing can harm you, laughter to cheer you, faithful friends near you, and whenever you pray, for heaven to hear you.”’

  ‘That’s lovely, Mammy. She must have been nice if she wished that on people.’ There was a note of hope in Harp’s voice. She knew her mother felt that she could never go back to where she came from, but Harp knew only one relative in the whole world, her mother, and she would like at least the chance to meet her grandparents. She could never raise it, not wishing to hurt her mother, but she wondered often what they were like.

  ‘She had her moments,’ Rose said cryptically.

  ‘You never talk about them, your parents, or your siblings.’ Harp said as she sat on the edge of the grave and pulled at a few stray weeds. Sometimes Harp wondered if she really was only twelve years old; she often felt like an old person. People had told her in her life that she was an old soul, and she felt it. She knew she was. It was what allowed her to relate to her mother as another person, not just as a parent.

  Rose sighed. ‘I suppose I don’t. I had two brothers and a sister, all younger than me. My parents were nice, good, decent people, but they were appalled at the idea of me having a child out of wedlock, let alone with a member of the Protestant gentry. They were like everyone, very religious, very poor, and on top of that, my father was political, my brothers too. They believed in a free Ireland and hated the English and everything they stood for. So when I went back, expecting the child of what he saw as the enemy, they threw me out.’

  ‘And what did you do?’ Harp asked.

  ‘The only thing I could do. I came back to the Cliff House, and Mrs Devereaux let me stay, knowing you were Ralph’s child. But I had to promise not to ever tell anyone in return for our bed and board.’

  ‘And did your parents ever make contact again?’ Harp heard the note of hope in her voice.

  Rose shook her head sadly.

  ‘So they don’t know whatever became of you?’ Harp was shocked at their cruelty. ‘Surely they would want to know you were all right, even if they couldn’t support you?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘I doubt it. They were not demonstrative people. They worked hard, believed in God and the absolute power of the Church and the rules and thought of little beyond that.’

  ‘But your mother – I mean, you were her daughter. Imagine if I came back like you, would you throw me out?’ Harp asked.

  Rose looked shocked at the prospect. ‘That would never happen because you know that no matter what happens, you can come to me. I would never turn my back on you.’ Rose’s eyes burned with intensity, and Harp knew her mother was telling the truth.

  ‘Do you think my grandparents ever wonder about me?’ Harp heard the words come out of her mouth before she’d decided to voice them.

  Rose gave her a look that was hard to read.

  ‘Say it,’ Harp said.

  ‘They…’ Rose exhaled, trying to find the right words. ‘Don’t romanticise them in your head, Harp, just because you’ve never met them, imagining some lovely family reunion, because it just wouldn’t be like that. They would never accept you, being Ralph’s child, and us never married, and I won’t ever put you in a position where they could reject you. So I know you feel like an adult, and in so many ways you’ve had to become one, but trust me on this – it would not end well.’

  ‘So it’s just you and me then,’ Harp said, leaning back against the plinth that held the angel, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  ‘Yes, just you and me.’

  ‘Are you very worried about Ralph?’

  ‘No. Well, yes and no. I trust Mr Smythe despite his foppish demeanour.’ They’d often joked about how Algernon Smythe was better dressed than any woman in Queenstown. ‘But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some sleepless nights. If we have to take him on legally, a single woman and a child against someone of his class with powerful connections, I wouldn’t like to bet on our chances.’

  Harp sat on the kerb, rested her head on the headstone and allowed the sun to warm her face. Her blue serge dress would probably be creased and even soiled from sitting there, but she didn’t care. Her mother sat on the other side, doing the same.

  ‘I think it will be all right,’ Harp declared. ‘W
e’ll keep the money from the paintings we found, and if we need to spend that money engaging Mr Smythe to fight for us to keep the house, then we can. The roof can wait. We’ve lived with the leaks this long. Another while won’t kill us.’

  Rose laughed affectionately, a sound Harp would never grow tired of. ‘It was a lucky day the day you came to me, Harp Delaney. Henry was absolutely right – you are one of a kind.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’ Harp smiled.

  ‘And no matter what the future holds for us, Harp, I don’t want you to worry. We can weather it together.’ Rose reached over and took her daughter’s hand.

  Harp squeezed her mother’s hand in return and smiled without opening her eyes. ‘“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves”,’ she quoted.

  Rose smiled. ‘Sherlock Holmes?’

  ‘No, William Shakespeare.’ Harp chuckled.

  They sat in silence for a minute, enjoying the silent companionship and the warm sun, but they both opened their eyes as a shadow crossed their faces. Rose swallowed.

  He was older certainly, and bit heavier around the middle. His dark hair was grey now at the temples, and his skin was burnished with a dark tan from years of the Indian sun no doubt. But it was him for sure. He was dressed in an expensive-looking cream silk suit more suited to the tropics than Ireland, and on his waistcoat he wore a very expensive looking, gold triple-chain Hunter pocket watch. Harp could smell his floral cologne. He was still good-looking, but there was something intimidating about him.

  ‘Well, isn’t this the touching scene. The family grieving at the graveside,’ Ralph said pleasantly. ‘Rose, you’re looking well, and this must be the famous Harp.’

  Rose scrambled to her feet, dusting down her skirt, clearly wrong-footed. ‘Ralph, I…I wasn’t expecting you,’ she managed.

  Harp noticed her normally confident mother pale beneath his cool gaze. ‘Yes, I’m Harp,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm.’ He turned his eyes from her mother to her and eyed her up and down. Then he turned his attention back to her mother. ‘Well, Rose, I must say, you’ve lost none of your allure in the intervening years. No wonder my poor hapless brother was smitten. I can certainly see why.’ Ralph’s voice dripped like honey.