With Love From Ma Maguire (45 page)

‘Yes?’

‘How did you . . . get this will? And when you did get it, how did you manage to read it?’

‘Are you doubting my word, Molly?’

‘No – but—’

‘Ah. An attack of the no-buts, is it? For your information, it took British justice many a long year to find me. In the end, a solicitor got hold of me on account of the marriage lines—’

‘But—’

‘But what?’

‘How did he find you? There’s a lot of Maguires and Gallaghers – and some of your family didn’t even know you’d come to England. If they’re spread out all over Ireland . . .’ Molly sighed. It was no use. Ma’s face was closed and bolted like an iron door with chains and padlocks holding it.

Behind the facade, Ma’s heart was beating erratically and she knew that a cold sweat had broken out on her brow. Could she go through with this? And if not, wasn’t this the time to get the linen washed? ‘Janet’s for Swainbank’s is she?’ The tone was deliberately light.

Molly jerked her head in acknowledgement. ‘She says Leatherbarrow’s is a bit old-fashioned. Mind, I’m hoping she’ll change her mind now and stop out of the mill altogether . . .’

‘Especially Swainbank’s?’

‘Not particularly. I don’t want her going in any mill at all . . .’

‘But she’s determined to make a weaver, Molly. Swainbank has some good sheds for training in.’

‘Yes.’

Ma glanced from Molly to the box and back again. With a blinding clarity of mind, she suddenly knew that this thing must be stopped, stopped now before the children heard about the shops, before hopes were raised and dashed . . . ‘He’s . . . lost his sons, I’m told. Didn’t they die in a motor accident?’

Molly’s hands were clenched tightly round the braided edges of her flowered wrapover apron. ‘Aye. A few weeks back.’

‘A terrible sad business.’

‘Yes.’

There followed a very long pause, then Ma reached and pulled the curtain aside as if to stare out into the street. ‘Is something troubling you, Molly?’

‘No more than usual. Joey’s had me fair flummoxed with that robbery and I’ve been worried past meself in case the old lady upped and died . . .’ Her voice tailed away.

‘You’re a very pretty woman still, Molly. The worry on your face will set in lines unless you share it out.’

‘I don’t set a lot of store in me looks, Ma. It’s what’s inside a body that counts.’

Ma dropped the curtain. ‘True enough. There’s many a blessing arrives disguised. Take young Joey. If he hadn’t failed with that burglary, who knows what might have become of him? There’s grief on his face, but inside he’s a much better person.’

‘Aye. Happen he is.’

Ma clicked her tongue impatiently. This was the hardest moment of her life so far, worse than Paddy’s birth, worse even than any loss by death, certainly harder than the stroke, than a million illnesses or shocks. ‘Tell me, girl! Tell me!’

‘Tell you what?’ Molly’s eyebrows shot upward. ‘What am I supposed to say?’

‘Either you say it or I will.’

Ma beat her breast with a closed fist before folding her arms as if to force back some rising inner tide. That two women could live together all these years with a shared secret that was not shared at all! Now there was himself to worry over. Swainbank might just choose to prove in spite of scandal that he had supported the twins, that they were his! Surely a mother had a right to such knowledge? If he came for the children – what then? There was Paddy who would throw a fit if he was sober, Molly with the shame to face all over again – not to mention a pair of youngsters who would find out that they were not Maguires at all.

But then again, he might not come. Perhaps he didn’t want the twins even now, even with the others dead. Why, he’d not be much more than forty – couldn’t he begin again? Whatever, Molly should know. And until she knew, the box and its contents would have to remain untouched.

‘I think you’re the troubled one, Ma.’

‘We’re both troubled. And it’s time we aired all the nonsense in this house.’ She paused, each hand gripping tightly on to the opposite elbow. ‘Molly, I know.’

‘What do you know?’ Her face was white and strained.

‘A story. About a young girl fresh as dew who fell into great difficulty. There were few she could turn to. Yet she has a wonderful family now, though she was for the streets not sixteen years ago. Or she would perhaps have been given a cottage by the man who brought her down. Who can say what might have become of her?’

Seconds passed. Molly slumped against the back of the chair, her face full of questions.

Ma took a deep breath. ‘I have always known, child. And yes, we are in some danger, for the deeds under that very bed are from him – or from his father. I fought for the sake of your unborn child, Molly. Rightly or wrongly—’ She blinked away the stinging tears. ‘If his sons had not died, then I would have stuck to my lies about an uncle. Perhaps I should have done that anyway. But I can’t. Suddenly, even after all the waiting and planning, I can’t. Not today . . .’

Molly jumped to her feet. ‘Paddy?’ she whispered, a hand to her mouth.

‘He knows nothing and seems to care even less. If he’d eyes in his head, wouldn’t he have seen that Joey is the image of the other feller? Molly, the time for truth between us has come . . .’

The younger woman backed slowly towards the door. ‘Money? You’ve took money and deeds for shops off . . . off him?’

‘For you, Molly! You deserved compensation! What would have happened to you without meself and Paddy? An orphanage for the children, no place for you to turn! Or would you rather have been a kept woman? I had to do it! If you were in my place, could you stand by and watch a daughter fall?’

‘I am not your daughter!’

‘Ah, but you are. I was there at your birth, I minded you after Edie died. When I looked at you I recognized my own self, no mother, no father to care should you live or die. Whatever I have done, good or bad, has been for you and your children.’

Molly’s eyes blazed with fury. ‘That is the most high-handed bloody thing I ever heard of in my life! All these years I’ve worried about you finding out! And you knew! Damn you, you bloody knew! And what about your son, eh? What about the way you’ve pulled the wool over his eyes? You made sure we got wed!’

‘Didn’t you deceive him too, Molly?’

‘There’s a difference between desperation and . . . and calculation! You saw a way for yourself, Ma Maguire! A bit of comfort, a few extras! You have used me and my twins to feather your own nest!’

‘That is not the case! I did it all for the love of you, Molly.’

‘Rubbish!’ She paced the floor, her arms flailing in the air. ‘You’ve laughed at me! All I cared about was that no-one should know! For years I’ve worried in case Paddy ever noticed that they don’t really look like either of us. And you’ve laughed up your bloody sleeve.’ She paused, her shoulders straightening. ‘Aye well. We’ll see about that, Missus. They say the last laugh is the longest! How could you? Taking money off Swainbank, giving him a hold on my family—’

‘The money has kept all of you—’

‘And it will take two of us away!’

‘How was I to know his children would die? And he may have others . . .’

‘Right! Shut up, will you? For once, shut your flaming gob! That box is going back where it belongs if I have to walk or crawl on hands and knees every inch from here to Blackburn. And I’ll pay him back the last penny! You’re not the only one as can work in a mill. I’ll get took on as a tenter, you’ll see. If it takes me to retirement, I’ll give him his money back!’ She covered her face with her hands. He knew! He knew about Janet and Joey!

‘So. You’ll see your children with their backs broken in mills and factories when they could have their own shop?’

Molly’s hands fell to her sides. ‘My children and my decision,’ she snapped quietly before bending to grab the box. ‘Don’t you ever forget that! And if you breathe a word of this to Janet or Joey, if I hear them going on about shops and the like, you’ll wish you had died with your stroke! What’s matter? Feels strange, does it, somebody shouting the odds at you for a change? Well, get used to it, because your reign’s over. You just abdicated, Ma Maguire!’

Molly flounced from the room, the box gripped tightly against her chest.

The four children watched in amazement while their mother rooted about under the dresser for her best shoes, dragged a comb through her hair, threw her apron to the floor and pulled on a coat. It was teatime. Where would she be going at teatime?

Daisy sidled along the table’s edge, hands and face covered in soil from the potatoes. ‘What are you going out for, Mam?’

Molly rounded on all of them. ‘Have you been listening at that door?’

Janet shook her head. ‘No. Joey’s only just in – he had to go for blacking. I’ve been in the wash-house doing brasses and these two were peeling in the scullery.’

Molly gazed hard at them. ‘Right. Well carry on minding your own business and you’ll not go far wrong.’ She picked up her shopping bag and pushed the box inside. ‘I’ve . . . I’ve got to go out. Janet, you get the tea and make sure your father eats something for a change. Don’t let him out, Joey. Hide his pants and braces – just keep him in. If you have to take a jug to the outdoor-licence, then do it. As long as he stops away from Bobby McMorrow.’

Janet placed the gleaming brasses in the centre of the table. ‘What’s the matter, Mam? And where are you going?’

‘Out! I don’t have to explain meself all the time, do I? Give her in there a tray – happen she’s still not up to sitting at the table.’

‘Mam! Have you had a row with Gran?’ Janet’s voice faded as Molly opened the door, stepped outside, then slammed the latch home loudly.

Joey pulled at his twin’s sleeve. ‘Let her go, lass. There’s been bother enough.’

She dragged herself away from him. ‘Yes. And you should know all about that!’

Joey pushed her through the scullery doorway. ‘Now listen, our Janet. I went up the hospital today and saw old Witchie . . . sorry . . . Miss Leason. She’s more than willing to forgive and forget and I’m going to look after her in the future. I thought you’d help me—’

‘Oh, if only I could believe you meant that, Joey Maguire.’

‘I do – honest! Cross me heart and hope to die. I don’t know what came over me, Janet. I just . . . well . . . thought about Dad and how useless he is, thought about slaving the rest of me life just to keep going on bread and marge. And yes, I took her money. It was wrong. I was wrong, but I stole it.’

‘And hit her!’

He hung his head. ‘No. I pulled the whip and she fell. If she can care enough about me not to tell the police, surely me own sister . . .’ He turned away from her, shoulders bent in an attitude of hopelessness.

Janet remained still and silent for several seconds as she thought about this. She would never trust him again, not completely. But for the sake of family peace – a peace that seemed to be growing more tenuous with each passing day – she concluded that an effort must be made. ‘OK. We’ll help her together. But you do anything like that ever again, our Joey—’

‘I won’t! I won’t!’

‘Right. Let’s get the tea going.’

He piled vegetables into a large blackened pan. ‘Hey, Janet?’

‘What?’

‘There’s something going on, isn’t there? Between Mam and Gran, I mean.’

‘I don’t know. They might be working out how to get Miss Leason’s money back to her—’

‘No. No, it’s something else, something just as big, though. I think they’ve had a fair old bust-up.’

She nodded. ‘Whatever it is, it’s got something to do with Mam going out all of a sudden like that. I’ve never known her go out at meal times before. She’d Gran’s private box with her and all.’

Ma Maguire lowered herself into a seat at the table, her eyes fixed on the open front door through which she could watch Michael and Daisy playing. She heard the two in the scullery talking and she called out now, ‘Mind you put some turnip with the carrots. There’s been no taste to anything just lately.’

Janet poked her head into the room. ‘All right, Gran?’

‘No, me darling – I’m still half left.’

‘Your jokes haven’t improved then?’

‘So fetch me snuff!’ And pray to God, she said silently, for your mammy not to do anything foolish. The hopes of a lifetime could be dashed this day. And not a thing could Ma Maguire do about it.

Molly began the long walk up the drive to the big house, her movements, still fuelled by temper, continuing swift and determined. She wasn’t going round the back, no – not bloody likely. Long enough she’d been a servant here, eating the leftovers that old Bea had allowed the minions, begging for a set of new pinnies, jumping every time a bell rang. Well, she was going to use the big doorbell this time like a proper visitor and she couldn’t care less if King George himself opened the door! Or Mrs Amelia, come to that! Aye, the time for worrying over what folk in this house thought was long past! She walked past terraced gardens and between the two crouching stone lions that guarded the paved path to the main entrance. God, the size of this house just for a family of three or four! Big enough for the Irish Guards including horses, it was.

She paused for a moment on the top step, just to make sure that the seams on her coarse stockings were straight. No fine hose for Molly Maguire, though the lady of this house probably bought such items by the drawerful. Not that Molly wanted fancy clothes and the like – oh no – all she wanted was her children. She rang the bell loud and long, feeling the hackles rising on her back, recognizing in herself the symptoms she often noticed in that daft dog at home when he was unsettled and the hair stood on end along his spine. Perhaps she should have brought him. He didn’t take kindly to strangers, didn’t Yorick, would have stuck up for her in his own dumb way. Yes, she was reacting just like an animal, though she could hardly compare herself to Ma’s canine friend, because at this moment, she felt more like a tigress ready to pounce when cubs were threatened. Not that the threat was visible – she’d no proof that Charlie might be interested in the twins. All the same, just to make sure, she’d let him know where he stood, she would that!