Donovan's Station (23 page)

If you are writing to Min, please do not mention my
feelings about Father Roche. I am glad you are having
Lizzie
next year, for Min is very taken up with little Jimmy and now that her stepbrothers are gone, it is rather lonely for the poor child. I know you have offered to pay her school fees but if things work out with Mr. Neal I hope to contribute something out of my share of the profits. If Lizzie is to go to school with well-to-do girls, she must not be ashamed of her clothes, and I have no doubt that she will take advantage of the education she is being offered. When she entered Grade One at school, she was the only child in the class who could successfully add fifteen shillings to six shillings to make one pound one shilling. She will be a credit to us all.

If anything of significance happens here, I will send a cable to let you know but we realize that you will not be able to get away. I cannot tell you how it helps to be able to write openly to you about what is on my mind. Min is a great support but rather rigid in her ways at times. I may need your help in another matter in the coming months, but I know I can count on you as Min will listen to you when she will not listen to “baby sister”.

I was about to write that you will be in my prayers, but the truth is that I am so tired these days, I most often fall asleep without saying them. I remain, however, your loving and devoted sister,

Kate

Fine, blowy day. Kaiser William was on the track again and the engineer refused to stop, because of his name. Mr. Walsh says he will go to court over it. Mr. Reid offered to buy the carcass and sell it off to raise money for the new regiment. Mrs. Walsh has been in tears all day, says she wanted to change his name to Prince of Wales but wasn't sure how to go about it. Mumma worse. Doctor says it won't be long now.

I believe I have taken a turn for the worse, as the doctor was here. I thought it was just a dream, for I am so confused these days, but I can see the bottle of medicine on the table so I know he must have been here. I will not take it. I thought I could not move my limbs again, but when I finally made myself try to lift first my finger and then my hand, they both moved, but thinking about doing it wore me out and I have no wish to try again.

There is no cure but death for what is wrong with me, and medicine more often makes things worse, as it did for Paddy. I am quite ready to go, I think, though there was something I had on my mind to do that now escapes me. Everything is such a muddle in my head—my brain is moithered. Kate was reading me a letter from Johanna and I thought it was from the Bishop s sister who is dead and forgotten this long while. She was a dear little woman, not at all like my own Johanna but very capable
nevertheless. How I laughed when she told me about the time the Bishop stopped in the middle of one of his sermons when she was coughing her way through, the mass, and bawled out,”Johanna, go home out of it!”

Kate says she has sent for the parish priest, but for some reason it is Father Roche who is coming again instead. I cannot take to that man—he is too ambitious and too political, with none of dear Bishop Fleming's warmth or generosity. They say he is a sick man himself, almost as sick as Bishop Howley, and may not live to be consecrated. I don't know why the vicar-general would come all the way from St. Johns to bring the sacraments to an old woman when the parish priest is available. I wish it was Father Walsh I was to make my last confession to, for there is something I have forgotten and I know Father Roche will try to hurry me along, for even when I know exactly what I want to say, I am hardly able to string two words together to speak them aloud.

I'm very glad Father Roche was not my confessor after I married Mr. Donovan, for I don't think he would have laughed as Father Walsh did when I told him my first great sin.

Before Mr. Donovan came to Western Junction, I had read in the papers about the relief portraits of the Bishop done by the Irishman Hogan, and made a special trip into town to see them. Mrs. Smyth was busy with the shop and couldn't come up over the hill with me, so I went to the Cathedral by myself, and went in, and there was one portrait of him blessing Bishop Scallan as he died, and in the other he has his hand on the head of a child. They were both very nice, but they did not make me sad which I had somehow hoped they would. Then I went up to the altar rail to say a prayer for the dear Bishop s soul, for his crypt is beneath, and under the altar was The Redeemer in Death, and oh, I could hardly breathe, it was so beautiful, and I wept at that poor white figure, like a man frozen in the snow, so young and perfect.

The first time I saw Mr. Donovan, my beautiful new husband, in his natural state, so pale and handsome with his strong, long limbs, I wept, just as I had in the Cathedral. I did not confess my pleasure to Father Walsh, for as a married woman I had a right to that, though after those dreadful years with Paddy I had long ceased to expect it or even long for it. But I thought that to kiss my dear husband's feet and think of Our Redeemer was wrong. My only difficulty was in determining exactly what kind of a sin I had committed, for it was not exactly against the Second Commandment regarding the Lord's name, nor was it the third Deadly Sin of lust, nor was it obstinacy in transgression—the fifth sin against the Holy Ghost—and it was certainly none of the Sins Crying to Heaven for Vengeance. But a sin I was sure it was, and so I confessed it.

I do not know why Father Walsh should find it so funny that I thought my Mr. Donovan had the feet of the Dead Christ, but I was quite content that my penance was to go home and love my “fortunate” husband ‘til death should part us. Looking back now, I suppose it was not exactly the kind of sin he was used to hearing, nor perhaps the kind of remark the women of the parish might make about their husbands.

Oh, I didn't know where to look after I came out of the confessional and there were the three Norman girls with their mouths open, staring at me like sheep, and the fits of giggles still coming at intervals from behind the door of the priest's section. I have heard Mrs. Norman use her husband's name in conjunction with that of the Redeemer on many occasions and on none of them was she praising him. Still, I would not have cared to raise the matter with Father Roche, for he has such a rigid opinion on so many things, and if he were to smile it might crack his face as if it were already on a marble tablet next to Bishop Scallan and Bishop Fleming.

Ned Roche is here. He came into the room, with Kate creeping
in after him, and looked down at me and asked “Are you making your soul?” “Yes,” I said, “and are you making yours?” I did not mean to say it, but seeing that cold, arrogant face made it slip out. I do not know what came over me. I was right about him having no sense of humour. Kate tried not to laugh but I could see it was a struggle. Then he left me to examine my conscience and came back after supper.

I make light of Father Roche s visit, but I cannot catch my breath and I have a sense of dread that I have not felt in many years. He instructed me on the Devotions for Confessions and reminded me that as well as the Deadly Sins and Contrary Virtues, and the other personal transgressions against God and man, there are also nine ways of being accessory to another's sin. He gave me a meaningful look then, and Kate, who had come in at the door, turned white and pulled away as if she would hide behind the wallpaper if she could. Whatever he has on his mind, I do not know, but it is most disturbing.

There is something I have forgotten that is very important, something I meant to include in my confession. I am so confused. I believe it has something to do with Paddy, but I cannot recall what it was. I wish some other priest had come, so that I could ask to be helped with this, but Father Roche is not easy to speak to even for someone who has an obedient tongue. I have made my confession and been anointed, but it has brought me very little relief My agitation grows every moment, and though Father Roche said I must excite in my breast heartfelt sorrow for all sins, even those I have forgotten, I do not believe that I can be assured of redemption unless I can name the sin. It is on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot quite form the words.

Cold, wet day. Mumma was quite strong last evening when Father Roche annointed her
—
she told him clearly in front of Father Walsh that Bishop Fleming was no saint, but was better than a saint for he was just an extraordinarily good man
—
but she is slipping away today. She murmurs constantly about Papa.

Where have I put the shroud? I won't be waked in one of those nasty brown robes. I have had my plain linen shroud ready since Mr. Donovan died, washed and starched and ironed once a year since on the day of his death. I'm sure I must have told Kate where it is—in the bottom of the old Labrador box with that tin chicken she wore the paint off, and Johanna's christening dress, and my few precious bits and pieces. Did I give Mr. Conroy the deed to the farm?

But I must remind Kate about the shroud. I have the most horrible feeling, thinking about that—being laid for everyone to look at, like the Irish do. She will draw it over my face, I am sure.

I laid Paddy out in the shop, for I didn't want him upstairs with all those men traipsing in and out, and there was no space below except the kitchen. How did I get him down there? It's such a blur. It wasn't the apprentices that helped me, for they were all out getting drunk. I believe it must have been Judith.
“The only difference between a wake and a wedding is that there's one less drunk at a wake,” she said.

What a wake it was. I put a big stone on top of the salt meat to firm it up, and cooked up a huge pot of potatoes and cabbage and carrots from the garden in Petty Harbour. A group of the firefighters volunteered to sit up with him through the night so I could tend to the children, and it was worth the price of the tobacco and pipes to get a few hours sleep. One of the men fell asleep and they painted his face with green boot polish and he didn't discover it ‘til he got home and his wife gave a shriek at the sight of him, thought he'd caught the plague or something. Lord, what a racket they made. Paddy loved a good, rowdy wake. “There's no fun around here,” he'd say. “Nobody's dying!” Well, they had a bit of fun that night, though I think the only jig Paddy danced was when Judith was helping me take him down over the stairs.

Yes, it must have been Judith. She was as strong as a man from working on the docks, and she brought in her old hand-barrow to move him. We came down over the stairs, making the narrow turn, and the stiffness hadn't set in for his legs were dangling down at the knees, tapping out a jig on the steps like a dancing doll, and his head lolled back and forth in a most comical way. We set some boards over two puncheon tubs Judith hauled in from the road, and I stripped him down. He hadn't been shaved in weeks and I had a hard job taking the gingery whiskers off his cheeks without marking his face up.

Poor Judith. I remember now, Mr. Donovan made inquiries after we were married, and said she'd been found face down in the harbour. She was into something a lot bigger than she guessed, I suppose.

What was it Judith said about Paddy? Was it something rude about his manhood? I know I was shocked. I was pouring the water down over him, giving him a good scrub—he was in need of one, had the smell of rancid butter in his hair always—
and Judith remarked on the fine condition of his privates. Oh, I was so taken aback, looked her right in the eye and then, some-thing dreadful… I don't like to think about this. Judith said she didn't blame me, but she gave me such a look, half sorrowful and half frightened.

God Almighty, I think I understand now, it was the mercury. Judith had asked me when she went to get: the mercury if I needed the Rush's Pills or something for treating the Louis Venen, and I said I'd seen the sores, that he needed it for the clap. It wasn't exactly a lie, he might have had it, I just said it because I was angry at him. Judith got enough medicine for the two of us, for me and Paddy, but I didn't take it because I hadn't been with him since I hit Kate with the hat. When she saw him—saw his body—he was as clean as a newborn baby. She wouldn't look me in the eye after that—stayed with me through the wake, then more or less disappeared.

I shall never forgive myself for that, for hitting the poor little baby, and her blue with cold. I am glad Ned Roche reminded me, for I confessed it once, but the priest didn't listen, called me a foolish, trivial woman. I wish the Bishop was here, that I could confess to him, for then I could die with a clean conscience. My longing to confess is so great, and his longing to forgive was always written on his face, so that I feel I have only to say the words and…

Mumma died this afternoon. As she struggled to sit up, Dermot came forward to help me, and when he lifted her in his arms, she said a most piteous voice “I should never have hit Kate with that hat.” He stroked her hair as if she were a child and said “Don't worry, go to sleep.” Then she gave him the most sweet, beautiful smile and a few moments later she was gone. We will have the banns read after the funeral
—
we have waited long enough.

Sept. 6, 1914

Monsignor Emmet Murphy
All Hallows, Dublin

My Dear Emmet,

Thank you for your letter of August 26th. It arrived in record time and was waiting for me when I got back to St. John'a last night. You might wonder at my being absent from town at such a critical time, given the news from Europe, but I am cloaer to the pulae of government when in Topsail than you might think. For many decades now, Topaail has been more of a summer resort than a fishing and farming community. I am invited to say grace frequently, with our own leading families, of course, but also with those of the separated brethren, and three nights ago I even broke bread with a Hebrew shopkeeper who carved a boiled ham with surprising skill. One must extend one's influence whenever the occasion to do so arises. What might be frowned upon in town is tolerated, even encouraged, out here in the country where I have access to some of our most important politicians and merchants. Unlike at least one of my predecessors, when I “sup with the devil” I bring a very long spoon to table.