SHE LOVED MACDONAGH so much, perhaps too much at times. As their relationship deepened Muriel could not imagine her life without him. She kept a photograph of him under her pillow, secretly kissing it morning and night. She had given him a studio portrait she’d had taken wearing a cream lace dress, and she cut a lock of her red hair and tied it with a green satin ribbon for him to keep under his pillow.
Her heart sang when he gave or sent her pages of his new plays and poems to read, entrusting his words and thoughts to her. Muriel carefully read every line and word so that she could offer an informed opinion, aware that she was sharing his innermost thoughts and emotions. He had gained his Masters degree and was desperately trying to find a university job.
MacDonagh wrote to her every day; sometimes the letters came twice or even three times a day. Muriel tried to intercept the postman before her parents or someone else in the house noticed. She would write by return, her heart racing as she poured her words and feelings for him on to the page. Father eventually became puzzled by how many times the poor postman came to 8 Temple Villas.
They met as often as they could, for she longed to see and speak to him and found it unbearable to be without him. She wrote and asked him to wear his kilt when they met, for it pleased her so. Was it possible to love someone so much, she wondered as she wrote to him secretly by candlelight or moonlight, then sealing each precious letter to him.
She worried about her mother and father’s reaction to her romantic involvement. They would most certainly disapprove. Mother would forbid such a relationship with a man who was not only a Roman Catholic and financially insecure, but also committed to the nationalist cause and an Irish speaker. MacDonagh’s family might also be very upset at his involvement with a Protestant, as his sister Mary had become a Catholic nun, taking the name Sister Francesca.
‘Your family will all get used to it,’ he soothed her. ‘You told me your father is Catholic and your sister Kate’s husband is Catholic too, so why should they object to us when I love you so much?’
In October MacDonagh proposed to her. First he wrote her a testament declaring his intention to marry her and included a lock of his thick brown hair and a penny with a hole in it. She cried with happiness. This was all she wanted, all she had dreamed of.
Then he took her out for dinner and, as they walked home, his face serious, he stopped under a golden avenue of trees and asked Muriel to marry him. She could barely speak with happiness as he kissed her and promised to love her always. He gave her the most beautiful ring, slipping it on to her finger. He had had it designed for her, along with a silver and blue enamelled cross with a moonstone at its centre and designs of the alpha and omega, a dove and flowers. No other man would conceive of such a piece and she loved him for it. With his ring on her finger, the two of them were now linked for ever.
‘Muriel, I will come and talk to your father about my intentions and our plans to marry. Tell him that we will, however, wait to wed until my prospects improve and I am more financially secure and able to provide for you.’
‘I don’t care a toss about money,’ she reassured him.
She knew that MacDonagh considered himself poor and that he worried for the future. He even talked of going to America, lecturing there and trying to find a job in a school, as Padraig couldn’t afford to increase his wages.
‘But please wait to talk to my father and let me judge the time to break the news to them,’ she implored. ‘You do not know how old-fashioned and staid and strict they really are.’
He gently kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I do not believe such a kind beauty could have such ogres of parents.’
Muriel was happier than she had ever been before. Touching the beautiful ring he had had made, she felt as if he was holding her fingers. Soon she would be married to the man she loved. Mrs Thomas MacDonagh – she liked the sound of it. But what if Mother tried to prevent them marrying? She couldn’t bear it. But she loved MacDonagh and she was determined that she would marry him whether they approved or not …