Till the Sun Shines Through (24 page)

‘Wasn't that a wrench for you?'

‘Och, not at all,' Tom assured her. ‘I haven't really been on the farm since I was twelve. I don't know that I could take to it again. And the place … It's so dead. Remember, first I was in Liverpool and now Birmingham. I like the city life and my work at the Mission and I love you and want you in my life, by my side, bearing my children.'

‘And I want it too,' Bridie said. ‘Oh, Tom more than anything in the world I want that. I want to shout it from the rooftops that I love you so, but I can't even tell my aunt and uncle until tomorrow, because all the lights are out, so they must be in bed.'

‘Never mind, my love,' Tom said. ‘We have a lifetime before us. Now I must save to buy you an engagement ring.'

‘I want no engagement ring,' Bridie said firmly, for she knew the price of them. ‘Your word is better than any engagement ring. I'll be proud to wear your wedding ring. It's the only one I need or want.'

‘Oh, Bridie, I love you so.'

‘And I love you, Tom. I'm sure of it now,' Bridie said and she stood again on tiptoe and placed her lips on Tom's.

There was a near explosion in Tom at Bridie's nearness, the feel of her arms around him, their lips touching and though he longed to go further, it was neither the time nor the place and so he reluctantly pulled away and bade Bridie goodnight.

Bridie went inside, closed the door and leaned against it. Her whole face was aglow, her eyes sparkling and she felt as if she was walking on air. She was in love and with a wonderful, wonderful man and now they were to be married. After all that had happened, God had given her another chance. And please God, she'd soon have a child conceived in love that she and Tom would take pleasure in rearing.

She didn't know how she reached the attic, for she had no recollection of mounting the stairs, but there she was. She told herself to try to sleep for then the morning would soon come and she could share her news with people who'd welcome it, but she lay for hours, wide-eyed, too excited and elated to sleep and went over every minute of that wonderful, wonderful evening.

Jimmy McCarthy, with the milking and breakfast over, leaned over the farm gate and took a long drag on his glowing pipe. Mid-May, he thought, and the countryside had never looked better. He should have been a contented man: the spring planting was done and the lambs had all been born fine and healthy. There was plenty of grazing for the sheep and cattle in the green fields and hillside pastures and the hay for the winter feed was already ripening in the sun. Everywhere he looked he saw evidence of life, everything growing and new and even the hedgerows a riot of colour.

Life should have been good for Jimmy McCarthy. But there was an ache in his heart that had developed that December day he had come running to the house, having heard Sarah's anguished cry. He had seen her holding a letter in her trembling fingers, her face chalk-white. His little lass, the light of his life, his workmate, the one he'd thought would always be there, or at least close to ease his twilight years, had run away.

She'd not just left like the others had, having discussed it and made plans, she'd fled in the dead of night as if she couldn't bear to live with them a minute longer. He blamed himself; Sarah had been right, the child couldn't cope on her own, and he'd not listened. If only she'd told him, confided in him, he would have got help in.

He hadn't realised himself the amount of work she did. In the early days, if it hadn't been for Francis and his sons Frank and Declan, he'd never have got through at all. Now that he had Willie things were easier, especially as Sarah had at last agreed to have his wife Beattie in to help her in the house. Sarah had kicked up wicked about that at first. Jimmy knew it was hard on her, seeing another woman not even kith or kin to help her in the kitchen. It had caused a bitterness towards Bridie that had never eased, for though the woman did her best, she was still a stranger. Beattie could also talk the hind leg off a donkey, but in comparison, there was little conversation to be had from Willie at all. Jimmy gave a sigh. He missed the lively chatter of his daughter and wished he could at least find some way of healing the breach between her and her mother.

Every Tuesday, a letter came from her, as regular as clockwork, and that's what Jimmy was waiting for that morning, though Sarah would barely ever look at it and certainly wouldn't reply. Jimmy often thought of writing a wee note himself, but he hadn't much of a hand for writing. Sarah had always dealt with that kind of thing and anyway, he knew she'd fly into a fine temper if she'd found out about it.

Abel Maloney, the postman, knew all about Bridie McCarthy and what she'd done, indeed the whole of the town and most of the county had heard something of it. It wasn't that she'd left: few could say that her workload was easy, though there was something about duty to parents. Didn't the Bible itself charge children to honour their father and mother? No one could argue reasonably that sneaking away in the middle of the night was an honour to anyone.

And yet the child wrote home every week. Abel was quick to tell people that, just as the postmistress was just as speedy at telling those interested that the McCarthys never wrote back. They wrote many letters to America, to Seamus and Johnnie and Terry, and to Ellen and Mary in Birmingham, but she handled no letter addressed to Bridie McCarthy. Now, you could make what you like of that, but she knew what she knew.

Some townsfolk thought it served the girl right, that any girl who'd run out on her parents didn't deserve to be considered a daughter. Other more charitable souls thought it a shame that Bridie wasn't forgiven.

Abel was of the latter. He felt sorry delivering Bridie's letter every week, knowing there was little hope of it being answered and, as he handed the letter to Jimmy, he said, ‘Here y'are then. Fine correspondent altogether, your Bridie is.'

‘Aye,' Jimmy said sadly, taking the letter from Abel's hand. ‘She is that all right.'

‘All right, is she?'

‘Aye. Aye. She's grand.'

‘Good, good, glad to hear it.' Still Abel lingered, anxious to hear any gossip which could be speculated over for weeks. ‘She's got a job there then?'

Without being rude, Jimmy couldn't refuse to reply to a question and run down the lane to rip open the envelope and read Bridie's letter as he longed to. He knew where Bridie worked, he had virtually memorised every word she wrote.

‘Aye,' he told Abel. ‘She has a grand job in a big store. A place called Woolworths. It sells everything for sixpence, so Bridie tells us.'

‘Well, would you credit that?' Abel said. ‘Sixpence, is it?'

Jimmy knew that that information would be all over town and county by the next morning. ‘It's what she said,' he declared. ‘And now I must be off. A farm doesn't run itself.'

‘No indeed,' Abel said, pleased with the information he'd extracted.

But had he been in the farmhouse later, he'd have been far more interested in the information Bridie had to give her parents.

Dear Mammy and Daddy

I really wish I knew whether you read my letters or not, because I have something to ask you. I have met a man called Tom Cassidy and we've fallen in love and wish to marry. He is a good Catholic man from Strabane, where his family own a farm, and he works for the Mission in Birmingham, which is a place that helps the poor and needy
.

If you were to meet him, I'm sure you would like him, but I'm not asking that of you. I need your permission to marry him though because I'm underage. Do please say yes. Aunt Ellen and Uncle Sam have both met him, and Mary and Eddie, and they all like him
.

Please, please say it will be all right to marry Tom, because I love him dearly. Maybe one day I could bring him home to see you both. There's not a day that goes by when I don't regret what I did that night nearly six months ago, as I've told you in every letter I've written. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me and give me your blessing to marry Tom? I hope so and look forward to hearing from you
.

Love Bridie

‘She wants to marry?' Jimmy said incredulously. It was the last thing he expected. She was his baby, his little girl. But he realised she wasn't any longer. She was nineteen years old and old enough to marry, but not old enough to do so without her parents' permission.

‘Aye,' Sarah said, and continued to poke at the fire as if her life depended on it.

‘Have you no opinion on it?'

Sarah stood up and faced her husband. ‘Why would I have an opinion on someone who is nothing to me?'

‘She's our daughter!'

‘She ceased to be that for me the night she left,' Sarah stated implacably.

‘Och, Sarah! For God's sake …' Jimmy began, but he got no further for Sarah approached him with the poker raised above her head. ‘One more word about it and I'll brain you,' she said fiercely.

Jimmy wasn't afraid of the poker or Sarah's threat of using it, but he was disturbed by her eyes glazed with pain, the deep lines scored in her face, and knew how she still suffered.

‘Away out of that, woman,' he said, but gently. ‘You strike me with that and it will be the last thing you ever do. I'm going out and maybe when you think on the letter, you may feel better able to reply to it.'

‘That will be the day,' Sarah said grimly.

Jimmy said nothing further, there was nothing to say. He took his jacket from the hook behind the door and went out. When the door slammed shut behind him, Sarah sank to her knees, the poker dropping from her fingers as she covered her face with her hands, and cried as if her heart was broken.

Each day, the first question Bridie asked when she arrived home from work was whether there had been any post.

There had been a reply from Terry, in the throes of his own wedding plans, but nothing from her parents and as time went by, Bridie seemed to sink a little further down into despondency. It was putting a further strain on her relationship with Tom which was under enough pressure anyway. And that was Bridie's fault too, for their lovemaking had proceeded little further than that first kiss. Any attempt Tom made to go further, to touch her in any way intimately, caused her to fight and struggle as the concerned and kind face of Tom would turn into her uncle's, leering and lustful.

Tom understood, but Bridie began to feel things between them would never be right. What difference would a piece of paper make? Damn all, in her opinion.

It didn't help that Tom had received an angry letter from his parents. He'd told them he'd found a girl he loved very much and wanted to marry her. He had said they were just waiting for permission from her parents to allow them to marry and had waited anxiously for their reply.

He knew it wouldn't be something they could condone easily; they'd scarcely got to grips with the bombshell that he was leaving the priesthood. He knew his parents and it was the loss of face and standing in the parish that they'd regret most. They'd no consideration of his personal happiness.

But now, to tell them he wanted to marry … While he'd been single and working with and under the direction of a Catholic priest, there was always the chance he'd come to his senses and go back to the seminary. Now, if he married, that chance was gone.

The tone of the letter shouldn't, therefore, have come as a surprise. His mother said she was beside herself, her dreams for her son lay in tatters and now for him to heap such humiliation on them. Did he want them destroyed altogether? And what sort of a girl was she to attach herself to a man promised to God from when he was but a child? She must be a desperate sort of girl altogether and not one to be welcomed into the family. Tom shouldn't, for pity's sake, ask them to be pleased about any of it or give any marriage between them their blessing.

Tom was affected by the letter. Though he knew he'd made the correct decision by leaving the priesthood, he felt he'd let his parents down. Though he had no intention of losing Bridie, he couldn't help feeling guilty.

Bridie knew as soon as she saw him that day that there was something up with Tom. ‘Did you hear anything from your mother?' Tom asked as they began walking along Bristol Street.

‘No,' Bridie said. ‘What about you?'

The evenings were light now until almost nine o'clock or even later and Bridie clearly saw the shadow pass across Tom's face before he replied, ‘Aye, I had a letter this morning.'

‘And did they blame me as I said they would?' Bride demanded.

Tom didn't know how expressive his face was, nor how bad he was at concealing the truth. While he protested that they didn't blame Bridie in the slightest, she knew differently.

‘You're lying, Tom!' she said accusingly. ‘Have you the letter with you? Let me see it.'

Tom did have the letter – it had come that morning as he was dashing out with some clothes they'd sorted out for some of the poorer families and he'd shoved it into his pocket so as to read it later on. He desperately didn't want Bridie to see it, but he was no match for her and when her hands dived into the pockets of his jacket, he knew he was done for.

Bridie read the letter and was completely silent as she scanned the words. Then she folded it carefully and gave it back to Tom. He saw her sad eyes and trembling mouth and said, ‘They don't understand, they've never met you. You were nothing to do with my decision to leave the priesthood.'

‘They'll never believe that.'

Tom had a sneaking suspicion that Bridie was right, but to agree would be madness. ‘Yes, they will. Time heals most things.'

‘Not in Irish towns and villages they don't,' Bridie protested. ‘Things are passed on by word of mouth, with usually a bit added to it, and they live on for generations.'