A Passionate Girl (31 page)

Gradually, I realized that my American identity was not a complete lie. It was part of me, and I was seeing Ireland with American eyes. I stood in the Cork library and stared disapprovingly at the years' worth of dust and dirt on plaster ceilings and walls. I gazed at the still uncompleted Catholic cathedral and listened impatiently to a priest explain that they were waiting for more money to arrive from America to finish it. I fumed when Dan informed me that the post office did not have money on hand to cash a five-pound order. I writhed when I overheard clerks in the stores fawning over English tourists, telling them how they went to London for their holidays. Everywhere I was dismayed or distressed by the lack of pride, energy, or enterprise among the people, both high and low.

The following day we hired a guide and rode out to Blarney Castle. The fellow must have kissed the stone every time he visited it. He never ceased talking, one story after another about this ruin and that house, all a jumble of historical events and names from a half dozen centuries, scrambled together. He was an ignoramus who depended on the ignorance of his visitors to escape challenge. He had St. Patrick fighting the Vikings and Brian Boru battling Queen Elizabeth and Red Hugh O'Donnell of the sixteenth century a friend of Wolfe Tone, Ireland's hero of the 1798. He was a monological example of a man who had lost touch with all but the scraps and tatters of his heritage, which he wore as lackadaisically as his patched coat and drooping trousers. Eventually he led us to the tower of Blarney Castle to enjoy the view and then to the turret where the small blue boulder lies embedded. I kissed it with more than ordinary emotion, hoping it would give me and Dan the powers of deceptive speech we needed to complete our mission. I was more and more shaken by my sight of Ireland with American eyes. I needed to draw fresh strength from something like this mystic stone.

The next day in a cold drizzle whipped by gusty March winds, we left Cork for Killarney in a battered old coach with the paint rubbed off. Our only companions were a morose British naval officer and a commercial traveler from a British hardware company. At least forty men in long ragged coats and battered steeple hats stood around, watching us depart as if it were some great event. The two Englishmen made no attempt to introduce themselves and spent their time damning the fate that had driven them to Ireland, which they agreed was the worst assignment in the empire. The steaming jungles of West Africa, the miseries of the Punjab, were nothing compared to the vexations of Irish indolence and stupidity.

The commercial traveler told of ordering some coals brought to his room to start a fire against the chill of the late afternoon. The servant girl arrived with the coals, not in a scuttle, but upon a plate. The naval officer told of a well-to-do Protestant Irishman who had fought a duel over some trifling political disagreement with a neighbor who lived in a house across the road. He lost and received a bad wound. In revenge, he tore down his house and built a castle, to “plague” his neighbor's house. In the process he went bankrupt, and the castle was now sliding into ruin.

At the village of Millstreet we stopped for lunch. A loaf of bread, a half cheese, and a huge piece of cold baked beef were set upon the table in the dirty barroom of the inn. Each went and cut for himself, filling mouth, hands, and pockets, if he chose. The Englishmen crammed all they could manage into these receptacles, as did Dan. As we returned to the coach, we were set upon by a band of beggars, who literally pleaded the food from Dan's hands.

“There's been a reign of terror hereabout,” the coachman told us. “One of the new breed of landlords, as they call themselves, has been evicting all who won't sign new leases, at double the rent.”

Leaving the town, we mounted a hill at a slow pace. As we approached the crest, about twenty or thirty people emerged from an old lime-kiln, where they had been sheltering themselves from the wind and rain. They were mere skeletons, wrapped in the coarsest rags. There was not a pair of shoes among them. They stretched out their lean hands, fastened upon arms of skin and bone, and turned their wan ghastly faces and sunken lifeless eyes imploringly up to us, with feeble words of entreaty. The Englishmen made some cold remarks about their indolence and worthlessness and gave them nothing. I flung them some coins, almost weeping with shame and vexation at the sight of them. Why did they accept their very deaths with such resignation? If they had to die, why didn't they at least go down striking a blow? Their passivity and hopelessness shrank the significance of my revenge to a small, selfish, possibly meaningless gesture.

We approached Killarney along a road that commanded a view of the famous lakes. In the evening light, the surrounding mountains were clothed in purple like kings in mourning; great heavy clouds were gathered round their heads. The main lake lay beneath us on the right, dark and blue, with mist-shrouded islands toward the center. We were met at Kenmare House by servants with blazing torches and by the usual swarm of beggars, urchins, and idlers. My thoughts had little to do with the scenery or the creature comforts of the hotel. I was obsessed with how to find my sister Mary and my mother, without exposing our true identities to them.

The next day I inquired at the desk if a girl named Mary Fitzmaurice was employed here, or at any neighboring hotel. I told the pompous little clerk she was the sister of a girl I had in my employ in America, and I had gifts for her. He said he knew no one by that name, and inquiries at other hotels produced no results. So we had to proceed to play the interested tourists for the next two days, while gazing in vain at every passing face for a glimpse of my mother or sister. Our guide, said to be the finest in Killarney, was Sir Richard Courtenay, a small, lean man of sixty, descended from the earls of Desmond. The bitter history of Ireland had deprived his family of lands and wealth, leaving him only his title. He was an educated man, spoke Gaelic fluently, and always had an appropriate bit of poetry on his lips, but there was a vein of sadness in everything he said and did. No wonder.

Sir Richard led us about the lakes in boats, telling us legends that swarmed on every hill and crag and island. The next day we ascended Mount Mangerton, riding surefooted little ponies that picked their way along the perilous path to the summit and the finest view in Ireland. Halfway up, we were assailed by a squad of girls in their teens and early twenties, seeking to sell goat's milk and poteen—Irish whiskey—to quench our thirst. It was clear from their deference to him that they were in Sir Richard's employ. With a desperation that may have been accentuated by the time of the year—a month or two before the start of the usual tourist season—they begged us to take a drink.

Each was uglier than the next, peasant types, with streaming hair and dirty skirts. I hesitated, glancing over the lot of them, and gasped with shock. At the rear of the squad, looking as forlorn as a creature in a fairy spell, was my sister Mary. The sadness on her face was enough to destroy me on the spot. I let the rest pursue the half dozen other tourists with us. Bridling my pony, I dropped back until I was abreast of Mary.

“Land's sakes, child,” I said in my American accent. “You don't look like you are enjoying this outing.”

“I'm feeling a bit weak, ma'am,” Mary said. “I've had nothing to eat since yesterday breakfast.”

“Why in the world not?” I asked.

“My ma is sick, and I'm giving as much of the little we've got to eat to her, to keep up her strength.”

“Have you taken her to a doctor?” I asked.

“We haven't the money. It's the weather. She caught cold when the warm winds left us, and we hadn't a penny for a bit of turf.”

“Oh, did you hear that, Mr. Stowecroft?” I said to Dan. “This poor girl—what's your name, dear?—hasn't a cent for a sick mother. Surely we can spare her something.”

“I'd be eternally grateful,” Mary said. “I'd pray for you for the rest of my life. My name is Mary Fitzmaurice, and I've two sisters and a brother in America.”

“Isn't that nice,” I said.

“Here,” Dan said, and handed her a five-pound note.

“Oh, dear God,” said Mary. “You can have all my whiskey and milk for that, twice over. I'll go down the mountain and get another serving.”

“Never mind,” I said. “What you have will do us nicely. Have you thought of going to America yourself?”

“I have. But now I'm not sure. I had a letter from my brother, Michael, just the other day, telling me the sad tale of what's become of my sisters.”

“I can't imagine,” I said.

“They're ruined women, ma'am, if you'll excuse such language,” Mary said. “Michael says America will do it to everyone who goes out. It's either that or working as a slavey for some rich family. 'Tis a better life by far in Ireland, he claims.”

“It's none of my business,” I said, “but your brother sounds like a fool.”

“With all due respect, ma'am,” Mary said, “I must resent that. He's fine and true. He went to America to rally the Irish there for Ireland. But he says there's no hope of it. They think of nothing but making money.”

I was in torment. I longed to fling aside my disguise and speak in my natural voice. Dan was glaring at me, already fearful that I had said too much. “Come on, Mother,” he said. “We're goin' to lose the view. Sir Richard's already there and talkin' a blue streak.”

He seized my pony's bridle and fairly dragged me up the path to the summit, where we admired the vistas in all directions, following Sir Richard Courtenay's gesticulating arm. To the west glittered Dingle Bay and the Bay of Kenmare; to the east, wild mountains and desolate glens, broken by numerous little lakes bespangling the landscape like stars in the firmament of heaven. Resting, we partook of Mary's milk and poteen, which she served and then stood at a respectful distance until we drank it.

“Don't say another word to her, Mother,” Dan muttered to me in his true voice.

“Go to hell, Father,” I said.

But what else could I say, without risking everything? Even if it were worth the risk, what would it accomplish? Would Mary take advice from her ruined sister, whom she had reason to envy and suspect, even before she heard the worst from Michael? What could I tell her, anyway? Come to America and marry Patrick Dolan? I had no such power to dispose of her or him.

Though it almost strangled me, I could do nothing but return the cup to her, express more sympathy for her plight, and descend the mountain, mute in my American identity. I did manage to inquire about her mother's illness and was dismayed to hear that she was coughing blood. I expressed some alarm, and Mary sighed hopelessly. “I suppose it's a charge against us, for the sins my sisters have committed,” she said. “God help them, is all I can say. When my mother goes, I hope to enter the convent in Limerick and give my life over to praying for them and the souls of her and my poor father.”

“How—noble of you,” I said in my American voice, while shame scalded my cold hating heart.

Back in our room overlooking the lake, Dan cursed and threw things. “I told you to stay away from her,” he said. “To look right past her if you saw her. She was eyein' you pretty strange by the time we got down that mountain. Why didn't you shut up when I told you?”

It was his fear speaking. I knew it, but I had lost my will to control it. “If you want to quit this, do it now,” I said. “I'll undertake it alone. Go back to New York and tell them why you ran out. Don't waste your breath on me.”

He glared at me with something close to hatred in his eyes. Gone was the lovely camaraderie of shipboard. Ireland was destroying my ability to play the passionate girl. “I made a deal,” he said. “I don't walk out on my promises.”

Except to women,
I thought bitterly, remembering the ragged woman on Priest's Leap. I suddenly saw her demonic face, screaming that curse at us in the wind. With a shudder I turned the memory aside. We made no attempt to console each other that night. I lay beside my “husband” in the big double bed and wept bitter silent tears.

We spent another day in Killarney, traveling through the Gap of Dunloe in jaunting carts, admiring the wild view and enduring a sudden hailstorm. The next day, harried by the usual swarm of beggars, we boarded another coach and headed for Limerick. Our hotel was in the new town—Newtown Pery, as it was called, after the man who owned the land. It fronted the handsome main street, which was a mile long and considered one of the most fashionable thoroughfares in Ireland. The houses were all bright red, and the street was full of carriages and chaises containing numerous well-dressed women. Along the sidewalk strutted dozens of young British officers, with tight waists and absurd brass shell epaulets on their absurd little frock coats. They stared at all the women, even one as old as I was supposed to be, with cold, nasty eyes.

The sight of the enemy uniform and the knowledge that Limerick was a major military base inspired me and Dan McCaffrey to forget our differences and concentrate on our roles. We leaned hard on our canes and tottered to our rooms croaking of our weariness.

The next day, still complaining of exhaustion, we confined ourselves to wandering about Limerick. At dinner we met two upstate New Yorkers, William Balch and Frederick Havemeyer, retired merchants on a tour similar to our own. Balch was small and exciteable, Havemeyer heavy and stolid. They were from Buffalo, a city with a large Irish population, and several Celtic friends had urged them to visit Ireland after touring England, Scotland, and Wales.

In the morning we all strolled from the new town into old Limerick, which is divided into Irish and English sections. In the Irish part Balch and Havemeyer gazed aghast down St. Giles, St. Mary's Gate, and other narrow streets. There were hundreds of people sprawled against the grimy buildings, or lying in the gutters, or staggering about bawling songs. Every second house was a gin, beer, or slop shop. On the faces was everything from smutty childhood to bloated dissipation to ruined old age.