Anne Bennett - Danny Boy

In fact, she thought about Danny nearly every waking minute and dreamed of him every night. With every passing hour and day, she loved Danny Walsh more and knew she would do anything in the world to please him.

One Sunday afternoon in late June, they climbed the Wicklow Hills. They’d been before, but never so high and eventually, Danny called a halt, hauling Rosie up to join him. They stood and looked about them, the lake shimmering blue in the sunshine that lit up the hillside. ‘Have you ever been up there?’ Danny said, pointing his hand way into the distance. It was a clear day and they could see for miles.

‘Sugar Loaf Mountain?’ Rosie said, recognising its distinctive granite summit where it was said nothing grew at all, although it was miles away. She shivered. ‘No. I’d be afraid. They say the Devil walks there at will.’

‘Jesus, Rosie, you can’t believe that?’ Danny cried. ‘It’s a tale put about to frighten the weans. Shay and I always promised ourselves we’d go there one day and stay the night, just to prove there was nothing to be scared of, but we never did get around to it.’

Rosie liked Shay Ferguson. The Walshes and Fergusons were good friends and Shay and Danny had been inseparable since their school days, just as Shay’s brother Niall was with Phelan now. ‘We used to get up to some high jinks as lads,’ Danny said. ‘We even had a den. Don’t know if I could find it now, if it’s still standing that is. It was an old shepherds’ shelter, but we thought it a grand place. We became blood brothers together there, slicing our fingers with our pen knives to mingle the blood.’

Danny gave a short laugh at the memory. ‘Little wonder we didn’t bleed to death, or get an infection,’

He put his arm protectively around Rosie. ‘There’s no need though for you to fear anything any more, Rosie McMullen for I will never let anything harm you in all your life.’

‘Oh Danny.’

‘Do you love me, Rosie?’

‘Oh yes, I haven’t enough words to tell you how much.’

Danny sank to the ground and Rosie was glad to sit beside him on the springy turf, for her legs had begun to tremble. They lay together clasped tight and when Danny began kissing Rosie, she felt those strange yearnings beginning in her body which she barely understood. Danny fumbled at her top until her breasts were partly exposed and as his tongue gently parted her lips, she felt such excitement and pleasure, she could no more tell him to stop, than she could prevent the sun from shining.

Dear God! She knew right from wrong, but never knew about this, this passion that could rise up in you. When Danny’s lips began to nuzzle at her breasts, she pressed him closer her whole yearning for him. Yes. Oh yes, and she pushed her fist in her mouth to prevent her saying the words aloud.

But she couldn’t help the cry escape her when Danny slid his hands between her legs. She felt she’d died with happiness and she cried. ‘Go on. Oh Danny, please go on.’

And how much Danny wanted to. God, he loved Rosie so much it hurt and he knew now, this minute, she would stop him doing nothing and that she wanted for them to be truly together as much as he did.

He pulled away reluctantly, though his groin ached with desire. He had to be strong and sensible for both of them. He was four years older than Rosie, and he had to be the one to put on the brakes, for she seemed incapable of it. He didn’t want her disgraced, her family dragged through the mud with her, the wedding rushed and baby born a scant six months later and all claiming it was premature. He’d seen that enough times and didn’t want it for his Rosie.

After that though, their courtship became more ardent and their lovemaking more and more intimate, until there were few places on Rosie’s body Danny hadn’t explored. Rosie, with Danny’s urging, had touched him too, feeling his strong muscles move beneath her hands and she had even felt the throbbing hardness of his manhood.

Each time, Danny would pull away from Rosie with difficulty and she would return home frustrated and filled with desire. She didn’t know what it cost Danny to resist, for he was burning up himself.

‘Oh God, Danny,’ Rosie said breathlessly one evening at the farm gate, as Danny pulled away from a passionate embrace. ‘Christ, I can’t stand this much longer.’

Danny too felt they had waited long enough. ‘Rosie, do you love me, as I love you with all your heart and soul?’

‘I love you with all my being,’ Rosie told him earnestly. ‘Danny, I’d need a lifetime to show you how much.’

‘Then you’ll have a lifetime,’ Danny said emphatically. ‘Rosie, will you marry me?’

‘Oh Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes.’

‘Then my darling, we’ll talk to your parents tomorrow evening’ Danny promised.

But, despite Minnie’s indifference to her daughter, she had seen Rosie come home flustered time and enough and knew what ailed her. She hoped Danny Walsh had respect for Rosie and that Rosie had worn her sensible head when she was with him, for she knew well enough what could happen to young couples allowed out alone. So she was relieved and pleased that Danny came to see them and asked for permission to marry Rosie and readily gave their permission. Connie and Matt weren’t averse to this either, for they weren’t fools and had seen the way things were going for some time and the wedding was set for October 1914, a month after Rosie’s seventeenth birthday.

Rosie began sitting by the fire each evening that she didn’t see Danny, sewing things for her bottom drawer. Geraldine was an accomplished seamstress and helped her, but Chrissie had no interest in it at all. Rosie looked at the cobbled mess Chrissie had made of the sheets she’d offered to hem and knew she’d have to unpick the stitches and begin again. She knew Chrissie had tried though and said nothing to her.

Not so their mother. ‘Who in God’s name would marry a woman who barely knows how to thread a needle?’ she demanded, giving Chrissie a cuff across the head so hard that it knocked her from the stool. Chrissie’s face burned but her eyes remained dry. She said not a word to her mother, but once she’d left the room she whispered to her sisters, ‘Am I worried? I don’t think so. There are more ways of satisfying a man than sewing a button on his shirt.’

‘Chrissie,’ Rosie cried shocked. ‘Take care, Mammy would take the strap to you if she heard such talk.’

‘That’s why I’m not telling her,’ Chrissie said, with a defiant toss of her head and the three girls giggled together.

But, although Rosie had help with the basic sewing, she embroidered the night gowns and pillowslips by herself, for she had a knack for it and eventually a week later, with her wedding only days away, she said with satisfaction, ‘No-one could have a better bottom drawer than me.’

Chrissie had watched Rosie finish the last rosebud on the neck of the cambric gown, and snip off the thread and said, ‘Aye, it’s a fine nightdress right enough. And now, with all the work you’ve done on it, don’t you let Danny tear it from your back. Tell him to go slow.’

‘Chrissie!’

Chrissie paled instantly. She’d not heard her mother come into the room and now she watched her approach with dread. The first slap snapped her neck back, but the second on the other cheek with the back of the hand, scored a line down Chrissie’s cheek from Minnie’s rings. ‘We’ll have no more of that sort of dirty talk. You can just be thankful your father is out.’

Chrissie’s face with the scarlet handprint on one cheek and the other oozing blood from the deep graze had wiped the smiles from Rosie and Geraldine’s faces. Rosie wondered if she should say something – intervene, but in the past when she had tried that, it had only made things worse.