Anne Bennett - Till the Sun Shines Through

Then, with the family coming to terms with their loss, Seamus and Johnnie, unable to stand the guilt any longer, suggested going to their uncle Connor in New York in the autumn of 1919. Ireland was on the brink of civil war at the time and Bridie remembered her mother saying the boys had survived the war, as well as pulled round from the Spanish flu, and she didn’t want a British Tommy gun to end their lives and so she’d made no objection to them going and trying their luck in America.

Although Bridie barely remembered the two brothers she still got that blood was thicker than water when all was said and done and a brother was a brother. ‘I’m sure they’d be delighted if you were to join them,’ Rosalyn told Bridie. ‘They’d hardly refuse now, would they?’

‘Probably not,’ Bridie said, considering it. ‘But I don’t think I’d like America, not from what they say in their letters anyway. I’m not like you, Rosalyn, I’m happy here and Mammy and Daddy would hate me to leave.’

Rosalyn knew that was true. Bridie had been pampered all her life, being the baby of the family. After the deaths of Robert and Nuala, Sarah had taken even greater care of her youngest child. She was slight, very small, and Sarah thought she hadn’t the constitution or physique of the children she had left to rear.

She appeared incredibly frail, yet Bridie never sickened for anything. After Robert and Nuala died, Sarah worried constantly about her. The choicest cuts of meat were hers and there was always a newly laid egg and fresh milk whenever she wanted it. She was expected to do little in the house: Sarah said she did enough at school and encouraged her to go out into the sunshine, or sit by the fire to rest herself.

Rosalyn often resented the way Bridie was treated. Apart from her elder brother Frank, there were also four much younger weans at home: her mother had suffered a series of miscarriages after her birth and so she’d been eight when Declan was born, followed by Nora, Connie and Martin. She seldom had a minute to call her own and yet Bridie could swan around the place, being petted by everyone because she looked so sweet.

And she did, that was the very devil of it. She was elfin-looking with large, expressive, deepbrown eyes, ringed with long black lashes, which showed up against her creamy-coloured skin, and just a hint of pink dusted across her cheeks. Her nose was like a little button, and her mouth a perfect rosebud above a slightly pointed chin that showed how stubborn she could be at times, not that she was thwarted in many things she wanted. Bridie’s shining glory though was her hair. It was thick, the colour of deep mahogany, and hung in natural waves which were tied back with a ribbon, curling tendrils escaping and framing her pretty little face.

She was well loved, Bridie. Her parents were fair besotted by her and seemed to find it amazing that they had given life to this beautiful, fine-boned child and Mary and Terry petted and spoilt her too. She was also a favourite in Rosalyn’s own home and even Frank was gentle with her.

Yes, Bridie had a fine life, Rosalyn thought. Why ever would she want to leave? Yet a restlessness had begun to stir in Rosalyn and she knew Barnes More, which was just three miles away from Donegal Town in neighbouring Northern Ireland, would not be able to hold her for long. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I intend to go as soon as the opportunity arises. Mammy’s brother Aiden keeps talking about trying his luck in the States, but he hasn’t done anything about it yet. He’s sweet on Maria Flanagan and that’s what holding him, Mammy says. I don’t intend to get sweet on anyone over here. There are men galore in America. I’ll chance my arm there.’

‘It’s not your arm they’ll be looking at I’m thinking,’ Bridie said with a broad grin.

‘Bridie McCarthy,’ Rosalyn shrieked in mock indignation. ‘I’ll …’

But Bridie never found out what Rosalyn was going to say because just at that moment they heard Aunt Delia’s voice in the yard. ‘Rosalyn! You, Rosalyn!’

‘Oh, Dear God, now I’ll catch it,’ Rosalyn said with a groan, catching sight of her mother’s angry stance from the barn window as she stood in the yard below them.

Bridie watched her cousin run across the yard to her mother, feeling sorry for her. She had hardly any time to herself. Once, Bridie had asked her mother whether she thought her aunt Delia was unfair on Rosalyn.

‘Well, she has her hands full with four wee ones and all,’ Sarah had said. ‘And,’ she’d added, ‘Francis isn’t always easy. ’Course, your father won’t hear a word said against him.’

Bridie was familiar with the story of how her father Jimmy and his wee brother Francis were the only ones left after cholera had swept through their family. Female relations had arrived in droves to claim wee Francis who was but five. Jimmy had been twenty years old then and refused to let him go. Instead, he had farmed the land and reared the boy himself.

Jimmy had married Sarah when she was just seventeen and she helped in the rearing of Francis, who was by then twelve years old. Later, as a grown man, he had met and married Delia and Jimmy had helped him buy the farm beside them when it became vacant. Because of all this there was a special feeling between the brothers, though they were totally different both in looks and temperament, and the families saw a good deal of one another.

‘What’s wrong with Uncle Francis?’ Bridie had asked, intrigued, for she thought her uncle grand, full of fun and wit and always ready for a wee game or a laugh.

Sarah had given a sniff and with that sniff and from the look she also threw her, Bridie knew she was wasting her time asking. ‘Never you mind, Miss,’ Sarah had snapped. ‘Delia has her work cut out, that’s all I’m saying.’

Doesn’t need to take it all out on Rosalyn, Bridie thought now as she watched Rosalyn trailing behind her mother across the orchard that separated their house from her aunt and uncle’s. Rosalyn had her head down and Bridie guessed she was crying.

She wondered if she should have written and asked Mary if Rosalyn could come with her to Birmingham. But she really wanted Mary to herself. She doubted that Rosalyn would be let come anyway. How would her mother manage without her? Then there was the job she was starting soon in the shirt factory in town. She would be beginning that before Bridie had to go back to school.

At one point it seemed that even Bridie wouldn’t be able to go because Sarah didn’t want her travelling alone. Normally, Ellen would have come over like a shot to take her back, but she was struck down in bed with a bad attack of rheumatics and couldn’t make the trip.

But Bridie was desperate to go and when Terry offered to go with her as far as the boat and meet her from it on her return, Sarah reluctantly agreed. Bridie had grown very fond of Terry who’d been friendlier to her since Mary had left, knowing how much Bridie would miss her. Now the two got along well, even though Terry was seven years older than her.

Despite Bridie’s spirited claim that she could look after herself, she was glad Terry was beside her to negotiate rail buses and trains, especially when she saw the big port of Belfast where the ferry was waiting. Bridie suddenly wished Terry was coming all the way with her. Terry wished that too when he saw Bridie hanging over the deck rail, the case hurriedly borrowed from their uncle Francis beside her nearly as big as she was.

For two pins he’d have hopped up there with her and hang the consequences. He was at any rate heartily sick of the farm. But he knew he couldn’t do that to his father, not just leave him in the lurch that way. So he waved goodbye to his little sister as the boat set sail and hoped she’d remember what he’d said about changing trains at a place called Crewe.