“The newspapers. You’re all over them. Poisoning babies. Murdering them. How could you?” Her voice shook again.
“Have you heard from Christy?” She was wondering if he’d been reading the papers too.
“Christy?” said Mrs. McHugh. “Did he put you up to this?”
She shrugged again. “If you’re talking to him will you tell him to come and see me?”
“I won’t be talking to him.”
Silence.
“I need to know. I need you to tell me. About Mick?”
No shrug. Instead, the Nanny turned her head and stared at the cell wall.
Mrs. McHugh began to tremble.
“They’re going to hang you.”
Another shrug.
“What is wrong with you? How could you do that? To little babies? What is wrong with you?”
The Nanny turned her head to look at Mrs. McHugh.
“Babies die every day. Women are beaten and punched, little girls burnt to death, scalded. Every day. What difference does any of it make?”
“Who do you think you are, taking babies like that? Taking my Mick?”
Mrs. McHugh stepped forward, the points of her cheeks red, her whole body shaking with rage.
“Who are any of us?” said the Nanny, turning to face the wall again.
Mrs. McHugh banged on the door and the guard came, his keys sounding on the other side.
“If you see Christy, tell him I’m waiting on him. Tell him I’ll see him as soon as I’m out.”
Mrs. McHugh shook her head in disbelief. As the guard locked the door, she looked at the Nanny framed through the spy hatch, sitting, arms folded, a pleasant look on her face. Always the trace of a smirk.
Outside the police station stood William D. Thomas, a perambulator under his hands, a pale and wide-eyed Anna Genevieve tapping at a rattle that hung from the hood.
“Well, did you ... did she …?”
Mrs. McHugh nodded her head.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, fighting back tears. “Let’s go back home and we’ll talk about it again. I’m not able for it right now.”
They walked up the street, away from the police station where the Nanny was being held until the upcoming assize.
It was a short walk, past children playing in the street, boys kicking a can, girls sitting watching.
They crossed West Street in silence, both thinking about the escape Anna Genevieve had, about Mick and how he had not been so lucky.
“This is my fault,” said William. “If I’d never hired her, none of this would have happened.”
“You can’t blame yourself. This is on her ... and my brother.”
“We will never get over this,” said William.
“No,” said Mrs. McHugh. “But we will get on with things. For her sake.”
She nodded at the baby.
At Laurence Street, Mrs. McHugh took over pushing the pram, Anna Genevieve lying back peacefully against her blankets.
Mr. Thomas walked beside her, his hand on hers where she grasped the handle, squeezing it gently.
They walked like that, hand over hand on the pram, not noticing the heads that turned to watch, or the whispers as they passed, or the fingers that pointed at Mr. Thomas and his bonny baby, his poor housekeeper and her husband not long passed, all the way back to Number 43 Laurence Street.
Chapter 43
The Aftermath
A ladybird climbed the wood, slowly, barely moving, red and black on the shiny oak.
The man and woman stood, side by side, looking at the thick-set cross.
“Lovely carving,” said the woman.
“He did a fine job.”
“And he wouldn’t take any money for it?”
“No, said it was a gift, from the parish, to us.”
“It’s so kind of them.”
“Will we say a prayer?”
“Maybe a decade?”
The man began, leading the opening part of the prayer, the woman finishing in hurried, mumbled tones. They prayed over the cross, their backs to the house, where their children looked out the window at their parents who had gone to see what the carpenter had done in the garden.
When they had finished, they bowed their heads and walked back through their garden, past the sunken beds where the potatoes should have been flourishing and ready for harvesting about now.
When they got inside, the woman went to her son and took him in her arms.
Outside a sudden gust of wind moved the ladybird and threatened to upend it and send it tumbling into the soil.
But it stopped, waited and held fast and when the wind was gone, it continued moving, gripping the wood, climbing up the cross toward the lavender sky.
An Invitation
_______________________________________
You are cordially invited to the launch of
FROM MY WINDOW
A collection of stories and musings
Taken from the Journals of Betty Farley
24 November 1880
Mayoralty House, North Quay, Drogheda
Refreshments will be served
Also on the evening the Anna Winchester
Memorial Cup will be launched.
A charity event in aid of the Dockers’ Union of Drogheda
RSVP to 43 Laurence Street
______________________________________
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