When Rosie alighted from the Dublin tram at Blessington it was nearly two o’clock and she felt more wearied by the news she had to impart than the journey itself. She had not notified Connie and Matt of her return and so didn’t expect to be met, but she didn’t mind the walk out to the farmhouse. She’d done it often enough.
However, she had just left the depot when she was hailed, and she turned to see Willie Ferguson approaching her in his pony and trap. ‘Were you sent to meet me?’ she asked.
‘Not exactly,’ Willie said, helping her into the seat beside him. ‘But I knew where you’d gone. God, half the county knew and as I was going into Blessington anyway, I told Matt I’d wait on a bit to meet a few trams. They thought you might be back today.’ Seeing Rosie’s white, drawn face and fearing what she would tell him, he asked gently, ‘Did you find Danny?’
‘Aye,’ Rosie said with a sigh. ‘He’s in Kilmainham Jail. Shay’s with him too and Sarah’s Sam. I didn’t see them, I was just allowed to see Danny, but he told me.’
‘Thank God!’
‘Don’t be so quick to thank the Almighty,’ Rosie said sharply. ‘Some of the leaders are to be court-martialled today. The rumour is they’ll be shot first and the ordinary men will follow after.’
‘Does Danny feel that?’
‘Aye, and he’s not the only one. I’m not telling Connie and Matt, and I’d be obliged if you’ll say nothing. They have enough to worry about as it is, without my telling them that too.’
Willie nodded. He understood that and then he asked, ‘Was he injured at all?’
‘Not in the uprising,’ Rosie said. ‘But now his face is black and blue, and he shambled into the room like a man three times his age, bent over and his manacled arms wrapped across his stomach.’
‘Beaten up?’
‘Could be nothing else. He could tell me little with the guard in the room the whole time.’
‘You do well not to tell Connie about any of this,’ Willie said. ‘I’ll say nothing, never fear, nor will I give the whole story to my own wife.’
Most people in the village now knew where Rosie had been heading the day before and shopkeepers and shoppers alike stood in the street to watch and wave. Some called out a greeting, but Willie didn’t stop and Rosie was grateful. She had too much on her mind to answer inquisitive villagers and anyway, apart from Willie Ferguson, she really thought Matt and Connie should hear first.
‘I don’t know how I’m going to tell them,’ she confided as the road stretched out before them. ‘Although essentially, of course, it isn’t the worst news. It’s the best we could hope for in the circumstances. It’s just with this court martial and all…’
‘Who told you they were to be executed?’ Willie asked.
‘There’s Franciscan monks that visit the prisoners,’ Rosie explained. ‘Good job they do with the Catholic Church speaking out against the uprising, even from the pulpit. The prisoners would get scant help or sympathy from that source and God knows when you are set to meet your maker, then you need all the spiritual help you can get. Sister Cuthbert said these Capuchin monks are sort of an independent order and I say Thank God for them. But even Father Joe, who went with me to Kilmainham Jail, thought they would all be executed in time. He didn’t come straight out with it, I had to press him, but that’s what he thought.’
‘I’ll take myself up there and see my boy myself,’ Willie said after a moment’s reflection. ‘I’m ashamed that I let you go up and see first.’
‘I was the only person that could go. Daddy is already rushed off his feet as it is,’ Rosie said.
‘Well, I am rushed right enough and Niall is as good as useless at the moment. This business has hit him and Phelan harder than they’re letting on, I think.’
‘Don’t ask me to feel sorry for them,’ Rosie said through tight lips.
‘Aye, I know, lass, you don’t have to say it,’ Willie said. ‘And I’ve a debt to your man that it may take a lifetime to repay, for I know if it hadn’t been for him offering to take Niall’s place, I might have two sons in jail now, or one in jail and one blown to Kingdom Come.’
Rosie said nothing. Willie was right – her Danny had sacrificed freedom and maybe his life for Willie’s son and his own brother but suddenly she felt resentful at him doing that. Did she and Bernadette count for nothing? But then how could he have come home and left two mere boys to their fate? How could he have faced his mother, held his head up, if he’d saved his own skin while his brother was blown to pieces or was incarcerated in a jail, awaiting his turn to be shot? She knew he could never have done that. She knew the manner of man she married yet she knew she would suffer all the days of her life because of his values.
But she didn’t berate Willie, or blame him in any way. No-one could have turned Phelan or Niall from a cause they believed in, however misguided, and no one could have talked Danny out of trying to save Phelan from himself. She imagined it would have been much the same way in the Ferguson household, the man, Shay, and the boy, Niall, would go their own way.
The sigh she gave, though, spoke volumes and made Willie feel immensely sorry for her. He had no words to express how he felt and so, when he dropped her at the head of the lane there had been an uneasy silence between them for some time, and Rosie was glad to reach the farmhouse gate, despite the news she had to impart.
She thanked Willie warmly and stood for a moment watching him pull away before turning to walk towards the cottage. Rosie spied Matt working in the field alongside Phelan, shading his eyes from the sun as he scanned the road. The minute he saw Rosie alighting from the cart he gave a cry to Phelan and both left their work and came scurrying to meet her.
Connie too had spotted Rosie through the window as she crossed to the fire, and catching Bernadette up in her arms she ran up the lane as Matt and Phelan raced across the fields.
Connie’s mind was awash with questions, but she saw the exhaustion Rosie tried so valiantly to hide and she told Matt to wait till Rosie was in and resting herself before pestering the life out of her.
Anyway, the moment belonged to Bernadette who was holding out her arms to the mammy she’d so surely missed. ‘Mammy, Mammy!’
Rosie took the child from Connie, passing Connie her bag, and she cuddled Bernadette close, burying her face for a moment in her soft, sweet smelling, golden curls. She took comfort in her small daughter, as yet unaware that she might have no father to take joy in her growing up, and she hugged her all the tighter.
And so Rosie was soon divested of her coat and sat before the fire, her child on her knee and a cup of tea beside her. And then she told them all straight what had happened to Danny, that he was alive but in jail.
‘Oh, thank God,’ Connie said. Rosie didn’t check her as she had done with Willie. She had a mental picture in her head of Danny, beaten and bruised and half-starved, and tears sprang to her eyes but she bent her head towards Bernadette to hide her face while she swallowed back the lump in her throat.
‘Did you see him just the once?’ Connie asked.
Rosie nodded. ‘He didn’t want me to visit further,’ she said. ‘It’s a godawful place, Kilmainham. Father Joe advised me to write.’
That, at least, was something Connie could do for him. ‘Well, if that’s what he wants, we’ll all send him a letter, so we will.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be grateful,’ Rosie said, and then she decided to change the subject because the sadness of remembering how Danny had been and what might yet happen to him, a sadness she was unable to share, was dragging her down.
Instead, she said, ‘Dublin was a sight, you’d never believe it, the damage was colossal when you think the insurrection was all over in six days.’
‘You told us none of this, Phelan,’ Connie said, almost accusingly.
Phelan shrugged. ‘I was more worried about Danny. But, Rosie’s right, the whole centre of Dublin seemed to be on fire at one point.’
‘Dear God,’ Connie said. ‘For this to happen, just a few miles from us.’
‘The food situation was worse,’ Rosie said. ‘Dublin was being starved to death.’
‘Aye,’ Phelan said. ‘Me and Niall could get barely anything at all to eat. A lot of roads you couldn’t go into either, even to search for food, for the army was taking potshots at anything, or anyone that moved.’
Rosie shot around to look at the boy and fixed him with a glare, her eyes sparking with anger. ‘You deserved all that and more,’ she snapped. ‘You chose to go and put your life in danger and take the lives of others. I’m talking here of innocent people, people who had no hand in any uprising of any kind and had no wish, other than to go about their daily business and feed their families.
‘Open my bag, Mam,’ she demanded swinging around to Connie. ‘See what the nuns gave me for the journey and what they will have to eat today as well.’
‘Dry bread?’ Connie said, opening the linen cloth bundles.
‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘Yesterday evening, they only had potatoes and salt until I shared with them the food you packed for me. Dinner was only better because some kind person had given them a sack of vegetables. That bread you have in your hands we had to travel nearly the length of Dublin and then queue for hours to get. Some people with families, small children and the like, must be worse off. The nuns are liked and respected and looked after by the Dublin people, but I tell you times are hard just now for everyone there. You would scarcely believe it. And for what?’
It was a challenge she threw open to Phelan and one he wasn’t able to answer. He’d been eaten up with shame since Danny had ordered him home and with some of the shame came the realisation once he was out of the house, away from the noise and the shooting and the killing, that he’d wanted to go. He was relieved there was a ‘get out’ clause for him. But he’d shared these thoughts with no-one, for he wasn’t stupid.
When he’d reached home and saw how distressed Rosie and his mother were, he felt guilt dragging him down. Now Rosie was back, had seen for herself the horror and had found Danny and the others alive, but for how long God alone knew. Sometimes, when he realised what he’d done, he could scarcely live with himself.
Rosie, who he’d once thought so much of, now looked at him as if he were a slug, something she’d found under a stone. Well he deserved nothing more than her scorn and he lowered his head, hiding his face, which had flushed crimson with embarrassment at her scrutiny.
Connie felt sorry for Rosie, sorry for them all, but Phelan, she was sure, had just been caught up in the glory of it: he’d not thought deeply of the consequences. Why would he, he was just a boy, fourteen years old? But Rosie blamed him, and who could wonder at that either. She hated the feeling between them, when they had been so friendly in the past.
Matt, trying to be peacemaker, turned the attention from Phelan and the ruination of Dublin and remarked, ‘Dermot will be here as soon as dinner is over. He’ll be like a dog with two tails to have you back.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘How do I know what? That he’ll be up here, or that he’ll be happy to see you?’
‘Both,’ Rosie said with a thin smile.
‘Well, the child wasn’t far away from the house from dinnertime yesterday,’ Matt said. ‘We told him it would likely be at least today before you got back, but nothing would do him but wait until it got dark to see if you were coming home. Mark my words, he’ll be here.’
‘Maybe you should pop and see your mother when you’ve had a bite?’ Connie said.
‘She wouldn’t be a whit interested, Mam.’
‘Even so, she is your mother after all.’
Rosie would make no promises. ‘I’ll see how I feel when I’ve eaten. At the moment I’m jiggered, not just tired, bone-weary, but I might perk up if I eat. I’ll just pop Bernadette into the bedroom,’ she said, lifting the child who’d fallen fast asleep against her shoulder.
‘Aye, there’s another glad to have you back,’ Connie remarked, stroking the child’s curls gently. ‘Mind you, she’s not been a bit of bother, but there’s no-one like their mammy at that age.’
Pity she may have no daddy soon, Rosie wanted to fling at Phelan, but she wouldn’t go down that road again. Some things were best left unsaid and she didn’t want to upset Connie further so she smiled at her and carried Bernadette across the room, saying, ‘I’ll help you get a meal together when I’ve settled her.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Connie said. ‘There’s just the four of us, and I can knock up a bite for us in no time at all. You sit and rest yourself.’
But Rosie, though tired, was unused to sitting still, and she had no desire to do so now because she wanted no more time to sit and think. God knows she’d done enough of that when she’d been in the tram coming home.
She stood in the room for a moment looking at her child sleeping in the cradle, her thumb in her mouth, and felt her heart turn over with the fierce love she had for her. She was such a delight and joy to bring up, and one day, she promised herself, she’d tell her about her daddy and the great man he’d been. She bent and kissed Bernadette gently on the cheek and then went back into the kitchen, closing the door behind her gently.
Matt was right: Rosie had barely finished her dinner when she saw Dermot run past the window. He didn’t even make a cursory knock on the door, but opened the latch and walked straight in. He flew across the room when he caught sight of Rosie and threw himself against her. ‘Oh, Rosie, I’m so glad you’re back.’
Rosie couldn’t help but be deeply touched by the child’s arms tight around her and the relief in his voice. ‘I’m glad to be back too, Dermot.’
‘Did you find Danny?’
‘Aye, I found him,’ Rosie said.
‘In jail, and Shay Ferguson and Sarah’s boyfriend Sam Flaherty with him.’
‘And…Is he all right?’
Rosie felt she could tell Dermot even less than Connie – he was only a young boy – and so she forced a light note into her voice and said, ‘He’s grand.’
‘Oh, I’m glad,’ Dermot said fervently. ‘Will he be in prison long?’
It was hard to remain positive so Rosie said, ‘I don’t know, Dermot. I imagine he’ll have to go to trial.’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, they did do wrong, pet. They’ll have to be punished.’
Dermot shot a look at Phelan. ‘Did you know it was wrong?’
Phelan shrugged. ‘I didn’t think that when I marched off with the Brotherhood. I know now all right.’
Dermot digested this. He remembered Phelan telling him how he was fighting for Home Rule and independence for Ireland and it had sounded a fine thing to do. Dermot had wished fervently he could be part of it. And now, here was Phelan looking downhearted and defeated, saying he knew the whole uprising had been wrong. And Danny was in jail.
It was confusing, but then a lot of things confused him, and he remembered the promise he’d made Geraldine. ‘Will you come down to the house? Geraldine wanted to come with me to see if you were back, but Mammy wouldn’t let her.’
‘Did she let you out?’
Dermot shook his head. ‘No, but I got away. She keeps Geraldine hard at it.’
Rosie could guess that. She knew exactly what Geraldine’s life was like under her mother’s thumb, but she was surprised Dermot not only saw that but was ready to give voice to it. She shook her head. ‘I can’t just up and come like that, Dermot,’ she said. ‘There’s dishes to be washed and Bernadette is asleep in the bedroom and…’
‘Go with the child and see your parents and your sister,’ Connie urged. ‘I’ll soon see to these few things and I’m here if Bernadette should wake.’
‘Ah, Mam, I hate to ask you after you’ve been seeing to her while I was in Dublin.’
‘It’s a pleasure to me, Rosie. Go on now.’
‘Aye, Connie’s right,’ Matt said. ‘They’ll be concerned for you. It’s only right you should see them, let them know you’re all right.’
So Rosie allowed herself to be persuaded and later, as she sat in her parents’ house with a cup of tea and a slice of cake Geraldine pressed upon her, she knew if it hadn’t been for her brother and sisters, she’d never have gone over the threshold of the place.
Minnie and Seamus had been scathing and scornful about the rebellion from the start, but they were worse now. They wouldn’t stop going on about it and had no sympathy about Danny going off to Dublin in search of his young brother. ‘The boy shouldn’t have been allowed to get involved in the first place,’ Minnie said. ‘I’d soon put a stop to Dermot doing such a thing.’
Rosie said nothing. She’d have valued a measure of sympathy, a comforting arm around her shoulders, but knew she’d get nothing like that from the cold pair before her. But even as she thought this, she knew from the lift of Dermot’s chin and the look in his eyes at Minnie’s words that Dermot would go his own way when the time came.
She didn’t stay long. She couldn’t, even for her sisters’ sake, and using Bernadette as an excuse was soon on her way back home, glad to leave the depressing house where she had been born and reared for seventeen years, but which had never ever felt like home.
Later that same day, as Connie laid the table for dinner and Rosie attempted to feed egg yolk and bread and butter to Bernadette, Sarah and Elizabeth came in waving the Dublin Express. Pleased though they were to see Rosie back safe and sound, they had news of their own. The fifteen leaders of the Easter Uprising had been condemned to death. The leader of the rebels, Padraic Pearce, was one of the ones to be executed the following day, while his brother Willie and Joseph Plunkett were amongst those to be killed later that week.
Rosie, remembering the name, wondered if Joseph Plunkett had married his sweetheart and if he had what earthly good it had done either him or her.
‘The two Pearce men,’ Matt said. ‘They only have the two. God, wouldn’t that just tear the heart out of you, losing two sons?’
‘Listen to yourself,’ Connie said scornfully, as she tipped a pan of potatoes into a dish on the table. ‘Sure, just one son killed would tear the heart out of you. But at least they’ll have the benefit of the last rites and will have died cleanly and respectably.’
But privately she wondered to herself whether it would matter that much how and where a mother lost her son. True, a person might have a grave to tend to show him that he would never be forgotten but, if Danny were to be shot because of his part in the uprising, the sadness and horror of it would stay with her for ever and so would the guilt that she had sent him to his death by charging him to find Phelan and bring him home. God Almighty! No wonder Rosie could barely look at the lad, never mind speak to him. It was a wonder that she didn’t lay some of the blame on her shoulders as well, for Rosie’s loss and Bernadette’s were as great as Connie’s own.
Rosie thought the same way as Connie, but she was even more sorrow-laden, for she was positive that Danny would suffer the same fate as the leaders in time and she also faced the terrible realisation that they might never know. The rebel leaders had made history so their names would be published in the press. They were newsworthy. If they reported on the execution of the others at all, they’d hardly bother printing the names and so her husband could be shot at any time and tipped into a pauper’s grave, along with other prison inmates, and she might never even find out where he’d been buried.
The pain of these thoughts never left her as the executions in the stone-breaker’s yard of the jail went on and it was a pain she could share with no one, for she hadn’t told Connie what Father Joe and Danny thought would happen and couldn’t load it on her now.
Only one of the leaders had been pardoned and that was Eamon de Valera. Matt read the news out of the Express one evening after the meal. ‘It’s been reduced to a life sentence,’ he said.
‘How come?’ Phelan asked. ‘He was as involved as any other.’
‘He has an American passport – he was born in New York, it says here,’ Matt said.
Rosie shivered. The thought of spending her life in a tiny cell and only being let out to break big stones into smaller ones every day of her natural life didn’t bear thinking about. She thought she’d rather be dead.
Rosie knew Danny wouldn’t be able to stand being shut up for life like de Valera, and she also knew he would have no choice in the matter, and neither would she.