A Girl Called Eilinora Read online

  ‘The boxty and chicken for yer breakfast are wrapped in a towel on the top of the basket, Lord Owen, and the bottles of cold tea are down the side.’ Distractedly, cook turned to Sam, one of the stable boys. ‘Don’t forget to make sure you put everything into the new carriage when you change at Galway. They will restock the basket fresh for me there, for the journey to Dublin and the boat. The food won’t be as good as from here like, but still, you won’t be hungry. You know the inn is run by Mary’s uncle, him being her mammy’s brother.’

  Owen smiled at Mary. He heard the same story every time he left Ballyford. Mrs Gibson now stood aside, having satisfied herself that the inside of the carriage was clean enough, that the rugs were folded properly and the wood polished. Nothing was too good for Lord Owen in Mrs Gibson’s eyes. He was her safeguard between life and death in a country the Lord appeared to have forsaken.

  ‘They know about the girl in the poor house and they are expecting her in Galway. I rode out yesterday and checked for myself,’ said Shevlin now. ‘Here is the letter you need from the priest and one from the magistrate. The driver will take her in and you won’t even have to step foot outside the carriage. You shan’t see her again after today.’

  Mrs Gibson bustled in front of Shevlin and slid the picnic basket onto the floor of the carriage, shrugging away his offer of help.

  ‘If it weren’t for the famine, I would take her myself,’ said Shevlin, his voice trailing away. ‘But with you gone, I don’t like to leave the castle.’

  Owen raised his hand. ‘Quite right, quite right. How is Liam doing? Is he fully recovered?’

  ‘Not yet, he has gone back down a little over the past day or so, but he will be, given time.’

  Owen nodded. It was barely safe for anyone to be on the roads, unless they were well armed. The police and the troops were everywhere and not best pleased by travellers of good standing making journeys for pleasure. It created extra work, which they didn’t need. The constabulary had a record of Owen’s travel plans and knew when to expect the carriage to return.

  Owen noticed that Sam had lifted Eilinora onto the seat of the carriage, next to the driver. Owen looked up at her. He felt guilty that he would be sitting in the warmth while she was outside in the damp night air.

  ‘Put her inside the carriage,’ he said quietly to Shevlin. He knew what effect this request would have.

  He was right. Both Shevlin and Mrs Gibson looked as though they had been struck dumb. Shevlin stared at Owen, his mouth half open as if to object, but then, thinking better of it, he lifted the girl down and without a word, helped her into the carriage.

  ‘You know how to make contact if you need me,’ said Owen. ‘There is work to be done in London to make the Government understand the horror of what is happening here. That is where I have to be.’

  Shevlin nodded but he held out no hope that the English politicians would come to their senses or understand the fate of the Irish. How could they? Hardly any of them had set foot in Mayo where the famine was at its worst.

  Mrs Gibson pulled her shawl around her shoulders and loudly sniffed her disapproval at the sight of Eilinora, inside the carriage, where she herself had never so much as set foot.

  Owen chose to ignore her. He was filled with excitement. He was breaking the rules. He was alone, sitting in close proximity to a beautiful woman who was not his wife. A woman who had captivated him since the day she had arrived. He didn’t recognize his own responses, and the direction of his thoughts made him nervous.

  The doors slammed, the whips cracked, the horses lifted their heads and danced on the spot, waiting for the whip and the voice of the driver telling them to trot on. The wheels turned and they were away. As they pulled away down the driveway, Owen turned to look out of the back window of the carriage.

  Shevlin and Mrs Gibson were walking together towards the yellow light falling from the kitchen door. Even at a distance, he could feel their disapproval and could imagine what they were saying to one another.

  *

  As they walked down the steps into the kitchen, Mrs Gibson shouted to Mary.

  ‘Get everyone down for supper. He’s gone. We can get back to normal now and clear that filthy mattress up from the floor.’

  ‘D’you think he’s gone mad?’ Shevlin asked.

  ‘What, for wanting to put that girl in the carriage? No, I don’t think it’s him that’s mad, but she is and she’s working her magic on him so she is. The only person she talks about is the master. Thank God her ladyship saw sense. Mind you, the poor house is going to be a shock for that young woman. She has never once shown a bit of gratitude for you and the master bringing her back here that night. When I told her what you had done, do you know what she said? She asked me, “Would you rather they had walked on? Would you prefer me to have been left behind?” Now what kind of question is that? And look how she took against Liam. I got him out of the kitchen and back down to his mother’s. That girl was not happy about the attention Lord Owen gave to the poor lad.’

  ‘She’s odd and that’s for sure,’ replied Shevlin. ‘What I don’t understand is how, in a house full of people who have been dead for weeks she was the only one still alive. How did she survive?’

  ‘Because ’tis true what Mary says, she is a witch.’ Mrs Gibson blessed herself and walked ahead into the kitchen, leaving Mary rooted to the spot.

  Mary’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I knew it,’ she gasped. ‘What will she do to me? I was the one who looked after her.’

  Shevlin disliked drama and pushed past Mrs Gibson to the press and poured three mugs of poteen.

  ‘I wish you had told me that before now, I would have got her out of the castle some way or other and drowned her in the river meself. What will happen to him? He’s alone with her now. Will he be all right?’

  Mrs Gibson took a large gulp of the poteen. ‘God, I hope so.’

  ‘Who told you?’ said Mary, pulling her face at the taste of the poteen.

  ‘I brought Mrs McAndrew up to see her one night, when ye were all away in yer beds. She said she was bad news and that you were right, Mary. She said we needed to be careful.’

  ‘What does Mrs McAndrew know?’ asked Shevlin with a snort.

  ‘Jesus, what a thing to say, fill that glass and I’ll tell ye.’ Mrs Gibson drained the last drop and as she held the tankard out to Shevlin, she continued. ‘Mrs McAndrew was born in the cottage she lives in, as was her own daddy. Her husband, long dead, worked at the castle all his life. She has delivered most of the babies outside of Belmullet and nursed everyone with everything, including three lords of this castle. No one would dare to get on the wrong side of Mrs McAndrew, she has a gift so she has and she knows something we don’t. She is mighty displeased that the girl has been sent away as she thinks it will bring us trouble. I have never seen her so worked up. I thought we were doing the right thing and now Mrs McAndrew says we should have sent the girl down to her. The woman is over a hundred, how would she have coped?’

  Mrs Gibson downed the second tankard of poteen and wiping her top lip with the back of her hand, she held out the tankard to Shevlin again.

  ‘We have no more, ’tis the last,’ he said, ‘and there will be no more until we start growing again.’

  Mary’s tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. She had wanted to speak but had been scared stiff by the knowledge that she had been nursing and talking to a real witch. Everyone knew Mrs McAndrew, who had brought Mary into the world and had administered every potion applied and taken all of her life. There was nothing Mrs McAndrew didn’t know. She was the wisest woman on the Atlantic coast. She handed her tankard over to Mrs Gibson to finish and whispered, ‘She said some funny things, she did.’

  ‘What things?’ barked Mrs Gibson. ‘Come on Mary, spit it out, is it something we should know? Should we send word on to Galway to Lord Owen?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure they mean much.’ Mary was searching her brain, trying to make sense of the things she had hea
rd Eilinora say.

  ‘Tell us, Mary. It’s probably nothing, but it is best we know.’

  ‘Well, she kept saying things about all the males and male children from Ballyford, but she was talking about future years, not now. I asked her one day, “What are you saying, Eilinora?” because she sometimes seemed confused, but she told me to not mind, that I was a girl and that I was just like her and I thought God, I hope not. She said that the future of Ballyford would be tainted by bad blood down the male line and that she would have retribution for the wrongs of the master. That’s what she said and to be honest, she said it more than once. I asked her, was it Lord Owen she was talking about, but she shook her head. She was making sure, she said, that she left her words behind at Ballyford to do their work, once she knew she was leaving for the poor house.’

  ‘Well, thank God Lord Owen only has one boy and he’s almost grown,’ said Mrs Gibson quietly. ‘There’s nothing she can do here now and as powerful as she thinks she may be, I know someone who we can get to wipe those words away. Let’s get this kitchen cleaned, Mary. We need to fetch Mrs McAndrew and get her in here. Shevlin, can you send Sam down to fetch her up and I’ll get the priest an’ all, once Mrs McAndrew has done her work. We will rid this place of her words.’

  As they busied around the kitchen, with Shevlin raking out the fire and Mrs Gibson and Mary laying the kitchen table for the staff breakfast, they heard Sam’s voice shouting in the kitchen garden. Mrs Gibson stood still and stared at the door. Her blood ran cold and her breath caught in her throat. Sam’s yells were frantic and garbled and they got louder the nearer he came. Shevlin stood up and laced his hands behind his neck, bracing himself. Mary folded her arms, in an unconscious gesture of protection. For a second, all three looked at each other with fear and dread in their eyes. The latch of the kitchen door was almost ripped off as Sam burst in and his words followed on the blast of cold air that filled the kitchen and made Mary shudder. ‘It’s Liam, Mrs Gibson, come quickly, he’s dead, he’s dead, he is. His mammy says he’s dead.’

  *

  In the carriage, Owen was wondering if he had done the right thing asking Shevlin to put Eilinora inside. He had rushed to finish the report and worked well into the previous night and now he was exhausted, but there was a tension in the air that prevented him from closing his eyes. He felt torn with guilt that the woman he had personally saved was now being sent to the poor house in Galway.

  Shevlin had said to him many times, ‘She’s trouble that one, I see no point in us having brought her here. Seems to me we would have done her a favour leaving her on the roadside.’ Such harshness and lack of compassion troubled Owen.

  Shevlin’s words kept Owen awake and preyed on his mind. She’s trouble that one. How wrong could Shevlin be? She was just a poor girl they had found half dead on the roadside. The suspicions and superstitions of the country folk dismayed him. He wished he had never written to his wife, but just taken the girl to London with him instead. He loved Lydia, but her sharpness and harshness, and her lack of charity often distressed him.

  Eventually he spoke. ‘I trust you’re feeling well enough for the journey?’

  She nodded and a slight smile played on her lips. To his surprise, she answered him. ‘I am well enough. Would you have brought me if I weren’t? Would you have thought again if I were sickening? Maybe you would have preferred to have left me behind on the roadside, where I belong?’

  And then he thought he heard her whisper, She’s trouble that one. He looked up sharply, had she? No, she was looking out of the window. It was his own thoughts he could hear.

  Owen was taken aback, but before he could think of a reply, she spoke again. ‘’Twas a full moon last night, and the sun will be high today. You will be safe. ’Tis the best time to travel in. But the moon will be back and ’twill be just as strong tonight.’

  Owen coughed. He felt intensely nervous and had no idea why, or what the relevance was of the strength of the moon.

  She smiled again, as though she knew something he didn’t. Something he should know, but that she withheld from him. He knew it and it scared him. He felt an impending doom and he sat back in the carriage and forced himself to close his eyes.

  I made a mistake asking Shevlin to lift her into the carriage, he thought to himself. I should have left her on the seat with the driver.

  ‘I am glad to be out of the wind and the damp air and to be here, in the warmth of the carriage. I did not wish to be on the driver’s seat. ’Twill be cold enough in the poor house,’ she said.

  Startled, he opened his eyes. Had he spoken his thoughts out loud?

  And there she was, looking at him, smiling that smile and holding his eyes with her own, not letting them go until she looked down and allowed him to escape.

  ‘Would you like some cold tea?’ he asked her to change the subject. ‘Although I dare say it may still be warm.’

  ‘I will pour it for you,’ she said, as in a flash she jumped out of her seat and opened the picnic hamper.

  He watched her movements unobserved. Her thinness had robbed her of a womanly shape but he noted she was still thin of waist and her hair hung loose down her back, and rather than the matted mess it had been when she had arrived, Mary had done a good job in grooming her to the point that her hair shone like silk.

  ‘Here, take this,’ she said as she handed him his tea. The lurch of the carriage had eased as they were now out onto the Galway Road.

  She sat back in the seat and watched him as he drank.

  ‘Are you having some,’ he enquired and felt foolish when she replied, ‘There was only one tankard.’

  When they arrived at the poor house, the driver opened the door and ordered his boy to take her in. Owen had made a donation to the poor house in advance and asked that the girl be given a room of her own and good food. He had promised a monthly donation for her upkeep. But this he had chosen not to tell Eilinora. She would find out soon enough.

  Owen busied himself with the bag, which held his reports and quills. He knew he had to say something before she left the carriage, but he did not know what.

  She glared at him, proud and defiant. Her blue eyes flashed at his, transfixing him. As she spoke, Owen felt his mouth dry as his heart beat faster. He could make no sense of what she said and there was nothing he could say to respond that would make any sense.

  ‘Our paths will cross again, both very soon and far, far into the future. ’Tis a bad day’s work ye do here and ye shall pay the price.’

  ‘I have provided for you,’ he replied, anxiously. ‘You will be looked after.’

  He was puzzled by the look she gave him, a look filled with resentment, despite all he had done for her, but then she was down the steps of the carriage and gone.

  He shivered and pulled his cloak around him. He was alone, and yet the atmosphere in the carriage was intense. He felt as though he were being watched. His emotions were conflicted. She had ensnared him with her beauty, distorted his judgement, and terrified him with her words. As he sat there with his eyes closed, he could smell the lingering aroma of peat and smoke and if he didn’t know better, he could have sworn she was still there in the carriage with him.

  The driver stopped at the inn four hours outside of Galway, to rest the horses before they continued on to Dublin the following morning. That evening, as he ate a supper of rabbit stew, Owen wondered how there were no shortages closer to Galway and Dublin and yet in Mayo people were starving to death on the streets. The situation was as abhorrent to him as it was to Mrs Gibson, although it would be almost impossible to convince her of this should he have tried.

  In his room, the fire and the candles had been lit, the water in the ewer was hot and outside, the moon had risen. He worked on his report by candlelight, applying the finishing touches until his eyes stung and he could work no more. He placed the report into its leather folder, safely inside his bag and hung it on the bedpost. He locked the chamber door and pulled the bolt across tight. He reaso
ned with himself that the report was an important document; he needed to keep it safe. But in truth, he knew that the feeling of foreboding which had pervaded the atmosphere since they left Galway was still there and it made him afraid. He got into bed and laid his head on the bolster, feeling his head spin, with a strange giddiness. It was a feeling that had been growing in intensity since breakfast in the carriage. I drank too much porter with my meal tonight, he thought to himself, as he closed his eyes and gave himself up to the unfamiliar sensation.

  *

  She came to him in his sleep. Her silken skin tingled against his own, as she slipped between the cool linen sheets and lay next to him. Her face was above him and his hands lifted upwards and slid into her long dark hair, which fell over his face and brushed across his chest. She pressed against him, her flesh, the length of her long limbs, greeting his own and he responded and pushed back in welcome. He felt her soft belly become taut in response to his touch as his hands explored and probed her deeply in a way they had never done with any woman before. Her kisses felt like they were on fire; her lips, in contrast to her body were hot and everywhere at once. At the same time as her tongue was in his mouth, her teeth were biting his nipples as she moved down. Her lips encased him, sending his senses reeling as her hair slipped and fanned out across his thighs, stroking each raw nerve. He felt her move, inhaled her own warm breath, smelt her peat smoke skin and he swayed with her, surrendering to her caresses, giving freely of his own.

  He was drunk. He was in heaven. He was asleep. He tried to roll her over, to own and order and possess her, but she gently pushed him back as in one flawless movement, her limbs slipped over and astride him. As he tried to enter her, she bent forward and whispered into his ear, She’s trouble that one.

  He opened his eyes, startled, but she forced him back and pulled herself up and away and pushing his chest with her hands, she pinned him against the bed as she moved across his body and down again. She buried her face into the nape of his neck. She bit the inside of his thighs and his senses conflicted and screamed out in confusion. It was too much. She was everywhere. She was nowhere. He breathed deeply and vacillated between awareness and sleep, between dreaming and a conscious readiness for what must surely come next.