A Daughter's Secret (25 page)

‘Seems right, doesn’t it?’ Aggie said. ‘Snow on Christmas Day?’

‘Yeah,’ Lily agreed. ‘I think problem times are over for us at long last, so let’s look forward to 1919. All we’ve got to do is dodge this bloody flu.’

But the flu was a serous threat. As the year turned and more and more men were demobbed, the scale of the infection rose. People previously thought to be strong and healthy became ill, and a fair number of these did not recover. The government was in a panic. Theatres and cinemas closed and people were told to avoid crowded places. Though everyone was scared, as Lily said, people had jobs of work they had to go to and to reach those jobs many had to travel on crowded trams and omnibuses.

Ireland had its share of the flu too, of course, but as the number of Irish men and boys enlisting had been much less than in England, with even fewer returning, their problems were not as catastrophic as Britain’s. Anyway, Ireland had its own concerns. It was a very unstable country to be in at that time.

Nuala’s mistress was very jumpy about the regrouped IRA roaming the countryside, armed with guns. They began by attacking RIC barracks and shooting soldiers and others in positions of authority. When the British response was to take reprisals, killing men from surrounding towns and villages, the violence escalated as the IRA began forcing Unionists to leave their homes before setting light to them.

Lady Carrington spent a lot of time in the nursery and was scared to let the children out of her sight. Eventually, by the spring of 1919, her husband decided to take the family to their other house in England. This was on the outskirts of an area called Sutton Coldfield, which was a small market town just to the north of Birmingham.

Nanny Pritchard elected not to go. It was past her time to retire. Her employers agreed with her, but wanted to take Nuala with them as head nursery maid. Nuala was more than agreeable but didn’t think her parents would countenance the idea.

At first they didn’t, though Lord and Lady Carrington even went to the farm together one morning and in front of Biddy’s implacable face pleaded their case. They said how well Nuala was thought of and how the children loved her.

‘They are distressed enough to be leaving here,’ Lady Carrington said. ‘Ireland is all they have ever known and they are distraught that Nanny Pritchard is not coming with us. I don’t know how they would cope if they were to lose Nuala too. Nuala herself is agreeable to come with us and it will be a step up for her, for she will have a sizeable increase in wages and will be in charge of two junior nurserymaids working with her. Please think about it?’

‘There is nothing to think about,’ Biddy said. ‘I could not bear for my daughter to be so far away from me. The light would go out of our lives if Nuala was to leave here.’

‘We would care for her like one of our own,’ Lady Carrington said. ‘We are more than fond of the girl.’

Biddy shook her head. ‘No. I am sorry.’

The men had all been working in the lower field that day and hadn’t been aware of the visitors at all. When they came in for their dinner Biddy told them what the Carringtons wanted and her reaction to it. Thomas John was in full agreement with his wife, and Tom too was glad that his sister was to stay at home a wee while longer.

Joe expressed no opinion at first. Then he said, ‘Maybe you could reconsider.’

‘And just why would we do that?’

‘For Nuala’s own safety, maybe.’

‘What nonsense is this?’

‘Listen, Mammy,’ Joe said earnestly. ‘These are dangerous times and some of the fellers in the IRA are like madmen and would sacrifice their own mothers to further “The Cause”. I met up with a couple of them last Saturday in Buncrana. They had actually singled me out to give me a warning.’

‘A warning?’

‘Aye, for Nuala,’ Joe said. ‘They started by saying that all that were not for Home Rule were against it, and which side of the fence was this family on? I said that we wanted a united Ireland and the autonomy to rule our own country as much as the next man. They asked me, was I sure? One of them said we were Proddy sympathisers and reminded me that Finn had lost his life fighting
for the English. “And now,” he said, “that sister of yours is working in a Proddy house, kowtowing to the people who have taken her homeland from her.” I started protesting then that it was only a job and all, and the other one, this chap with hard, hooded eyes, said, “I would tell her to mind her back, if I was you.”

‘Course, I had the man by the throat at that, but the other threw me against the wall, nearly knocked the breath out of me and said not to try any of that. He said that I wouldn’t be much of a farmer with two busted kneecaps. They said they had come to give me a warning and it was up to me what I did about it.’

‘Why did you not say anything sooner?’

Joe shook his head. ‘I didn’t know what to do. To tell you the honest truth, I don’t want to be part of an Ireland that is won by terrorising and threatening young girls because they don’t approve of their place of work. In my rational moments I think that the whole thing is crazy, but then some of these men
are
crazy.’

‘So what do you think we should do?’ Thomas John asked, a frown creasing his brow.

‘Nuala has been given a lifeline,’ Joe said. ‘Let her take it and get her away from here until Ireland is a more stable place.’

Alarmed for the safety of their younger daughter, Biddy and Thomas John went up to the Big House that afternoon. Biddy was awed by the splendour of the room that they were shown into to wait and
she thought it would be a tragedy altogether if the place was set light to, though she knew in the present climate that could easily happen. Joe was right: Nuala was better out of the way altogether.

Lady Carrington saw them on her own, her husband having returned to work, and though she was pleased with their decision, she was horrified with what had been said to Joe in Buncrana.

‘Maybe it would be better not to tell her this,’ Thomas John said. ‘It would only frighten her and would serve no purpose.’

‘I understand that perfectly,’ Lady Carrington said. ‘My husband is making arrangements to travel as soon as possible.’

Thomas John felt a failure as a father and knew his life would have little meaning when Nuala moved out of it. As for Biddy, she felt an actual pain at the thought of Nuala living apart from them. She had adored and cosseted the child from the moment she was born. And that was why she had to let her go. It was better living anywhere than ending up dead in some ditch.

Although Nuala wanted to go to England, she shed bitter tears the day she left, knowing she would miss her family greatly and might not see any of them again for years. As Thomas John held his beloved child close, he felt again the pain in his heart that he had known often since Finn’s death. This was sharper than usual and he gasped.

Nuala was immediately concerned. ‘What is it, Daddy?’

‘Nothing, child, but the realisation that you are leaving us,’ Thomas John said.

Though Nuala was satisfied with that and kissed her father’s weathered cheek, Tom wasn’t convinced that that was all it was. He had heard his father give that sudden gasp before and each time the blood had drained from his face, as it had that time. He had tried asking him about it but got nowhere. Now wasn’t the time to go into it though, because the moment belonged to Nuala.

He lifted his sister onto the seat of the cart and sat up beside her to take her to the station at Derry where she would meet up with the family as there wasn’t room in the carriage for them all.

‘You’ll write, sure you will?’ Biddy asked as the cart began to roll across the cobbles.

‘I will, Mammy,’ Nuala said, ‘often, for I will miss you all so much.’

They waved till the cart reached the head of the lane, when they could see it no more, then Thomas John put an arm awkwardly around his wife and led her into the cottage.

Nuala wrote regularly as she promised, and she painted pictures for them of the place she lived in: the large house with many servants that was in the small market town of Sutton Coldfield, which was no bigger than Buncrana; and Holy Trinity Catholic Church, which the master had found for her and where she went every Sunday morning. The family were also close to a place called Sutton Park, which was, she said, beautiful.

‘If you ask me that girl thinks about boys too much,’ Biddy said darkly.

Joe hooted with laughter. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if she wasn’t thinking of boys then there would be something wrong with her. I know if you had your way you would have her tied to your apron strings all the days of her life.’

‘I will not have you speak to me in that way,’ Biddy said. ‘Thomas John, have you nothing to say to your son for the way he has just spoken to me?’

Thomas John thought Joe had a point. Although he loved Nuala with all his heart and soul, and his life was poorer without her in it, he had accepted that that was how it must be. He knew that one day she would surely marry and then another man would be the most important one in her life. Biddy, though, would like Nuala by her side all the time. That wasn’t going to happen and she had to come to that understanding. Besides, Thomas John had no wish to quarrel with another of his sons. He was often haunted by the thought that, had he not argued so much with Finn, the boy might not have enlisted.

He chose his words with care. ‘I don’t think
that he was being at all offensive, my dear,’ he said. ‘He was just making a point. As for the tone of Nuala’s letter, I don’t think she said anything untoward either. Both of us have to realise that Nuala is not a little girl any more.’

Biddy, though, was worried by the thought that Nuala might meet an English boy and marry him. If the child was to marry at all, she wanted it to be to a boy in Buncrana and for her to live down the road, where she could see her every day and have a big hand in raising any children she might have.

As far as Thomas John was concerned, Nuala was happy and that pleased him because he certainly didn’t want her to come back home yet. Ireland was in a worst shape than it had been when she had left it. The violence had escalated still further and so had the reprisal attacks. Nuala was much better off being left where she was for now.

Another letter told them of her first trip to a place called the Bull Ring in Birmingham city centre. She went on the tram for the first time and, knowing that none of her family would have seen anything like it, she wrote:

The Bull Ring, she said, was a big bustling place with a market hall ten times larger than the one in Buncrana, selling all manner of goods, and barrows grouped outside piled high too. She imagined anything a person wanted could be bought there.

She went on:

‘Seems to like it well enough,’ Biddy said after scanning the letter.

‘Isn’t that what we want?’ Thomas John said. ‘Wouldn’t we worry about her if she was unhappy?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Mammy is unhappy because she doesn’t say she misses us on every line,’ Joe said teasingly. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘Not every line,’ Biddy protested. ‘But she never mentioned it, not once.’

‘Mammy, what would have been the point?’ Tom said. ‘Can’t we take it as read that she misses us? Everything is different for her and she is making the best of it, that’s all. I’m with Daddy here. I’m glad that she is so happy.’

‘You can see the appeal to a young girl,’ Thomas John ventured, noticing Biddy purse her lips slightly at the tone of the letter. ‘She is doing nothing wrong and if she wants a bit of fun, where is the harm? Nuala is a good girl and knows right from wrong.’

‘Aye,’ Joe said. ‘Don’t spoil it for her, Mammy, writing censorious letters. Everyone needs a bit of fun in their lives now and again.’

So Nuala had her fun and it sprang from the pages of every letter she wrote, as she sampled all the delights the city centre had to offer in her evenings off, and wrote and told them all about it, including the dance halls where she said the girls wore shorter skirts than she was used to, and the music too was strange to her ears, but pleasant enough for all that. And she wrote that the other girls were teaching her to do the new dances from America, like the charleston and the shimmy, and that she was having the time of her life.

* * *

In the late autumn of 1920, Thomas John suddenly keeled over when he was working in the fields alongside his sons. They carried him to the house and Tom was dispatched to fetch the doctor. He told them that Thomas John had suffered a heart attack, quite a big one, and it hadn’t been his first.

‘He admitted that he has been having pains for some years,’ the doctor said.

Tom knew the attacks had been getting more common of late, but Thomas John had shaken off the concern that he and Joe expressed and forbade them to tell their mother.

So though Thomas John’s collapse and the doctor’s diagnosis weren’t a total surprise to his sons, Biddy was stunned, especially when the doctor went on to say that Thomas John was on borrowed time.