The Mersey Girls (38 page)

‘You’d be marryin’ land,’ Grandad said wistfully, whenever Peder’s name was mentioned. ‘A farmer’s girl should always marry land.’

Sometimes Lucy was tempted, there was no doubt about that. She enjoyed the work on the farm and in the house well enough, but she often felt lonely and realised that, when Caitlin went, she would feel lonelier still. Besides, as Peder’s wife she would have a position, a status, which she didn’t have as Padraig’s granddaughter, no matter how hard she worked. And with Padraig no longer able to tell them when to reap, sow, plant, plough, she had to ask the men or use her initiative.

I’m no good at the planning side of it, Lucy told herself, sitting by Grandad’s bed and trying to learn all the things she had spent her childhood trying to avoid and ignore. Why didn’t I listen when Grandad talked about sheep, cattle and crops?

But she hadn’t and now she was having to ask questions, guess, take a chance. Mr Kelly had always worked hard but had no ideas other than to do as he was told and Tom Flanagan was ill and old. Kellach was a good worker but he had never taken a decision in his life and had no faith in his own judgement.

‘Ask the ole feller,’ he would say, looking worried. ‘Mr Murphy will know, he knows all about it.’

So Lucy found herself alone, relying heavily on her workers to do the work whilst she tried to take decisions on matters of which she knew nothing. Padraig was a tower of strength, but she knew that he would not be here for her much longer and then what would she do? Marry Peder? Sell the farm and move away, to a town somewhere? There was no question of employing a manager, the farm could not, now, afford such a thing.

It’ll be Peder, she told herself heavily the day after the Stations, as she made Grandad’s early morning cup oftea. He loved the first cup of tea of the day and enjoyed it more than all the others, he said, because it had a special, first tea taste. So she made it carefully, carried it through, set the tray on the bedside table in the small parlour, went over to the window, drew back the curtains to let in the sunshine, the birdsong . . . stopped short . . .

He had not stirred. Very still he lay, propped up by the pillows, his expression serene, his hands with their knotted veins lightly clasped and lying outside the sheets. Lucy knew at once he was dead and pulled the sheet up over him. He died happy, Lucy told herself and she drew the curtains back across the window, shutting out the sunshine, the May blossom and the lilac and laburnum which he had loved to see. But she could not shut out the birdsong. As she went around seeing to all the things which a death makes necessary, she heard the birds singing their hearts out, as though they wanted to remind her that Padraig had loved them, would want the last sound he heard on this earth to be their songs.

And it comforted her.

Lucy and Mr Eamonn were in the solicitor’s office, on opposite sides of the big desk, trying to solve the mystery of Linnet Murphy. It was more than a month since Padraig had died and there had been no answers to the many advertisements which Maeve had placed in the New York newspapers, nor had her other enquiries borne fruit. And now Mr Eamonn was explaining the importance of all this to Lucy herself.

‘He’s left the farm to the two of ye, jointly. You and your twin sister, Linnet Murphy.’

‘Twin sister? Did you say
twin,
Mr Eamonn?’ Lucy’s voice came out high with astonishment.

‘Did ye not know?’ the solicitor looked at Lucy over the top of his glasses, then he nodded slowly to himself. ‘No, I see ye did not; Maeve didn’t like to mention it with the other one gone, I’d guess. But Linnet’s your twin, so she is, and until we find her nothing can be done. Oh, you can work the farm, but there’s money banked by your grandad which can’t be released until the two of you can sign papers. You can neither buy nor sell, you must pay the wages from whatever you earn, but you can’t pay into the bank or they’ll hold the money for probate. And despite my begging Paddy not to tie your hands in this way, he went right ahead. The old divil had done it and died before it could be undone. So try to think where your sister could be, alanna!’

‘I’m trying,’ Lucy said slowly. She wondered why Maeve had never told her she had a twin, but then remembered her own attitude. She hadn’t wanted to hear about Linnet, hadn’t encouraged anyone, even Grandad, to talk about her. And Maeve, who loved little Evie, would have hated explaining to Lucy that her mother had taken one twin and left the other. To part sisters was bad, but to part twins . . . well, it would not be easy to explain away. Then she saw that Mr Eamonn was still staring at her, waiting for her to answer, so she rushed into speech. ‘There must be something which would help, some clue Maeve hasn’t thought of . . .’

And suddenly, she remembered the letters, her mother’s letters to Maeve which she had found and read. She remembered, too, her own feeling that perhaps Linnet had never gone to New York in the first place. That she had stayed in Liverpool, left behind as once Lucy herself had been left.

If it was true, if her twin sister had never gone to New York, then there was little point in trying any harder to find her there. If she’s in Liverpool I could catch a ship and search for her myself, Lucy thought, and suddenly she knew just what she was going to do.

There was nothing she could do on the farm that the men couldn’t do every bit as well, and Caitlin could move in, for a wage, and look after the kitchen side of things whilst she was gone. And I can search for me sister me own self, and see a bit of the world at the same time, Lucy thought exultantly. But she was still in Mr Eamonnn’s office and he was still regarding her curiously over the top of his spectacles. Lucy cleared her throat.

‘Umm . . . you’ve made me think, Mr Eamonnn. I do believe I may have an idea where my sister could be. Is it possible to get sufficient money from the estate for me to go away for a week or two? Only I’d like to go myself, this time.’

‘But Maeve’s in New York, Lucy, she must know the place pretty well by now, and she’s had no luck,’ the solicitor objected. ‘Surely to go all that way . . .’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I should have explained. Years ago, I read some letters my mammy had sent Maeve, and it occurred to me then that little Evie wrote as though she was alone in America. And I thought that probably Linnet had never gone to New York when my mother did, but had stayed behind, in Liverpool. But I said nothing to Maeve, because it didn’tseem important. Only now . . . well, if I’m right she could be a lot easier to find!’

It proved easier to arrange than Lucy and Mr Eamonnn had anticipated, chiefly because when Maeve heard what her niece wanted to do she immediately sent a money order through the post which was sufficient to pay all Lucy’s travel and would also cover her living costs for around two weeks.

‘If you need more, telegraph,’ the accompanying letter said. ‘I’m so grateful to you, Luceen, for trying to find your sister. Losing her has been an ache in my conscience for many a long year.’

So Caitlin moved into the farmhouse and Lucy wrote long lists of instructions, got Peder to advise her on what she should tell Kellach to do on the farm in her absence, packed a bag no less than three times – once with her best clothes, then with her oldest, then with her best again – and finally booked her tickets.

‘I’m leaving on the first train tomorrow,’ she told Caitlin importantly the night before she left when the two of them were in the kitchen making last minute arrangements for the weeks to come. ‘I’m going to Dun Laoghaire to catch the ferry to Holyhead, then I’ll get on another train for Liverpool. And when I get to Liverpool Mr Eamonnn says I should stay for the first night or so at the big hotel just outside the station. Until I get me bearings. Oh, Caitlin, I’m so excited!’

‘Why, Luceen? Let’s face facts, I’ve never t’ought you had much time for that sister of yours. You were always quite rude about her – “silly name” you used to say whenever she was mentioned.’

‘Ye-es. I was a bit jealous, because Mammy took her and not me. It seemed like a slight, though I knew I was better off here with Maeve. And then when Maeve kept worrying about her – what she was doing, how she was managing – I felt jealous that she worried more about a girl she’d not seen since she was a tiny kid than she worried about me. I was just being selfish, really, but that’s how it was. But once I knew that me and Linnet were twins, I felt as if I’d been cheated, as if I was only half a person and hadn’t realised it till that minute.’

‘I’d have loved a sister of me own . . . but I t’ink I know what you mean,’ Caitlin said. She shot a sideways look at her friend. ‘When I first brought Declan to meet everyone . . . well, I kept hopin’ he didn’t have a fancy for blondes, that he liked dark girls best. If I’d had a twin I’d ha’ scratched her eyes out if she’d so much as glanced at him.’

‘There you are, then, you do understand,’ Lucy said triumphantly. ‘But now I’ve got to find Linnet because without her I can’t even begin to run Ivy Farm properly. Yet if I do find her, and bring her back . . . oh, I don’t know. Sharing isn’t – isn’t something I’ve done much of and I don’t know how I’ll take to it and that’s the truth. Why, the other day I found meself thinking I was glad Grandad wouldn’t be here just in case he doted on her more than he used to dote on me! Would you believe a person could be so small-minded?’

‘Marry Peder,’ Caitlin advised. ‘Then you can divide the farm. You can move in wit’ him and this twin of yours can try her hand at farming here.’

‘She won’t know anything about farming,’ Lucy objected. She went over to the pantry and took out a large tin with a picture of the English Houses of Parliament on the lid. Opening it to show the fine fruit cake within she added, ‘Give this to the fellers for their elevenses tomorrow, would you? It should last a day or so, and then you could bake another. There’s a tin of shortbread in there, though, so if you don’t get time to bake . . .’

‘Listen to the woman – as if I’d not spent the last few years in this kitchen alongside you, bakin’ and roastin’ and cleanin’ wit’ the best of ’em. Go and put the kettle on and we’ll relax over a nice cup of tea. And, Lucy . . .’

‘Yes?’ Lucy said, as the silence stretched. ‘Don’t be embarrassed; say what you want to say.’

‘We-ell, be nice to this girl Linnet, won’t you? You’ve been awful lucky compared with her, you know. You’ve had Maeve, the farm, your grandad, and now you’ve got Peder if you want him. ‘Tweren’t her fault that your mammy took her away when she left and she didn’t do all that well by her, seemingly. This sister of yours, she didn’t even have her mammy for very long; from what you’ve told me, she’s only had herself.’

‘It’s all right, I know,’ Lucy said gruffly. ‘I spent most of last night putting meself in her shoes and I’m going to be sweet as honey when we meet. But you can’t make yourself like someone, you know, and I don’t suppose I’m liable to like her after all these years. But I promise you, Cait, that she’ll never know it. And now let’s have that cup of tea, and we’ll take a slice of me beautiful fruit cake, too!’

When Lucy got off the train at Lime Street Station in Liverpool she was tired, travel-stained and aching in every limb. The first train journey had been quite enjoyable–she had seen new sights, had admired, or deplored, the meadows and fields through which she travelled with a farmerly eye, had chatted to folk in the train and exchanged titbits of information about Cahersiveen and the people who lived there.

The ferry might have been fun, an adventure, had there been two of them, but when you were on your own new experiences, Lucy discovered, tended to be nerve-racking rather than amusing. She had never been on a ship before either nor gone further, at home, than the mouth of the lough in a neighbour’s fishing boat. Now she was seeing waves of terrifying height and contrariness – she had imagined that out to sea waves behaved as they did nearer shore, but this proved to be anything but the case. The wind got up, the ship ploughed on, and the waves, instead of lining up neatly, seemed to attack the ship from every angle and to rear to impossible heights above the suddenly dangerous deck.

It was not long before Lucy, green of face and unsteady of foot, made her way below to cower in a corner, occasionally, alas, throwing up into a sturdy brown paper bag given to her by a sympathetic stewardess.

‘Happens to us all it does, love,’ the stewardess said in a strange, sing-song accent. ‘Better you will feel as soon as we dock. Now sit there and I’ll bring you some seltzer. That sometimes helps.’

Lucy drank the seltzer, which was just very fizzy water, but it didn’t help; well, it wasn’t down there long enough, Lucy thought ruefully, reaching for a replacement bag. The only comfort was that all around her horrid noises proved she was not alone. Most of her fellow voyagers were casting up accounts simultaneously, it seemed.

The journey took about four hours and by the end of that time Lucy felt like a rag doll whose stuffing had been removed. When they docked she couldn’t get off the wretched ship fast enough and onto dry land, but she felt too weak to make a break for the shore so simply allowed herself to be carried along by the crowds, and was soon standing apathetically in a line to climb aboard the train.

‘Come along there, we’re late,’ the ticket collector said as he directed people to empty compartments. ‘Ah, you gerrof at Crewe, queen. Tell someone in your carriage you want Crewe, you’re awful green still.’

‘Crewe? But I want to go to Liverpool,’ Lucy said thinly. All her excitement, her spirit of happy independence, was at the bottom of the Irish sea in a brown paper bag. Never had she so longed for home and a bed which didn’t move around! And her stomach ached with emptiness, yet she knew she would not be able to eat anything, probably for weeks. This is your fault, Linnet Murphy, she told her absent twin fiercely. If you’d not hidden away from us and then somehow got into Gramp’s head when he was dying, none of this would have happened. I’d have inherited the farm and married Peder and never, never crossed the sea to get to this horrible old land – I wish I were back at Ivy Farm so I do!

‘That’s right, you want Liverpool so change at Crewe,’ the ticket collector said patiently. She was just thinking him rather a nice man when he turned to the man behind her and said bitterly: ‘Bleedin’ ignorant bogtrotter! These micks are all de same – never ’eard of Crewe station, an’ it’s only de biggest in de world, just about.’