Page 48 of Road Trip
“Yes,” Maeve said, sitting beside her sister. “It’s our first visit to Ireland, and we wanted to find out more about our mother’s side of the family.”
“That’s nice,” the old lady said. She pointed at the bag on Therese’s lap. “What’s that you’ve got there? Sweeties, I hope? I do love sweeties!”
“Yes!” Therese said, extracting a box of shortbread cookies. “Maeve and I love sweets too. It must be a family trait.”
“My dad loved a good pudding,” Isabel said, getting a faraway look. “He’s passed now, you know. Mum too. And the boys. All gone.” Her tiny clawlike fingers scrabbled ineffectively at the cookie packet.
“Can I help?” Maeve took the package and slit the cellophane outer wrapper with her fingernail before handing it back.
“Lovely,” Isabel said, taking a cookie and breaking off a piece. She chewed slowly, a blissful expression on her face.
“Miss Isabel,” Therese said, “we were wondering about Kathleen. We know she didn’t live on the family farm with her brother Tommy and their little sisters.”
“Oh no, Kathleen lived up at the manor house,” Isabel said,reaching for another cookie. “From the time she was very young, is what I heard.”
“Do you know why that was?” Therese asked.
The old woman glanced around, as if to see if anyone was listening. “It was a secret, you know,” she said, her tone hushed. “But people talk, don’t they? Even after years and years have passed, and everyone is dead and gone, they talk.”
“I imagine so, in a small village,” Maeve agreed.
“The rest of them, their little sisters, his mum and his dad, they all perished in a terrible fire,” Isabel said. Tears glittered in her eyes. “Dad was all alone after that. Another family, the Boylans, took him in. They had all girls, you see, and needed a strong back to help out on the farm. After the First World War started, Mr. Boylan went off and got himself killed. Infantry, he was. Then Tommy was the man of the house, see, and him still a boy. Worked him hard, they did. After he came back from his war, Dad said he never wanted to see a lamb or a chicken or a plow again, as long as he lived.”
“About our great-grandmother, Kathleen,” Therese said, trying to redirect the conversation. “You said how you heard why she went to live with the Rossingtons? I know you said it was a secret, but surely, now that everyone has passed away, you could tell us. As family, right?”
Isabel’s fingers worked nervously at the buttons of her cardigan. “They said Kathleen had a different dad than Tommy and the girls.”
Maeve glanced over at Therese. “Who was Kathleen’s father, then?”
“I shouldn’t say,” Isabel whispered. “It’s not very nice, is it?”
Therese held the old woman’s hand in hers, lightly stroking it. “Your dad’s dead, and Kathleen is long gone too. We’re not here to judge. We’re family.”
Isabel put her hand over Therese’s. “Bridget, my dad’s mom, Kathleen’s too, she would have been just a young girl back then, but a real head-turner, so they said. She was helping out, you see, with her mum’s butter and egg business, and somehow she caught the eye ofLord Edward. Wild as a hare, he was, always getting into scrapes. You can guess what happened next. Poor little Bridget is in a family way, and a scandal is brewing. Back then, the parish priest’s word was law. Father McGinty had a word with one of the suitable lads in the village, John Connor, and they up and married quick-like. Seven months later, Kathleen comes along. I’ve seen the family pictures, and I must say, a prettier baby there never was.”
Maeve and Therese exchanged a subtle glance.
“Lord Rossington had a sister who was by way of being a maiden lady,” Isabel continued. “Lady Delia her name was. People talk, you see, and she heard about the baby, of course, and as soon as she set eyes on Kathleen, she made up her mind that the little girl should be raised up at Tarrymore. Lady Delia knocked heads with Father McGinty over the matter, or so the story goes, but in the end, the parish church got a new roof, and the Connors suddenly had a fine new horse. Which is all a way of saying that Lady Delia got her way and Kathleen came to the big house to live. As Delia’s ‘protégé.’”
“Just like that?” Maeve’s eyes widened. “They took Kathleen away from her mother?”
“It was a different time,” Isabel said. “My dad’s people, the Connors, had nothing, you see. Nobody did. Shanty Irish, they were called. Billy goat Irish, some said. The Rossingtons were the law. They owned the land Kathleen’s family farmed. The cottage too.”
Her narrow shoulders sagged a bit. “Dad said Lady Delia promised Kathleen would be raised proper. Go to school, have all the nice things. She even promised Kathleen could go to Mass on Sundays, be raised right like the good Catholic she was.”
“Why did Kathleen decide to go to America? How did that even happen?” Maeve asked.
“I don’t rightly know,” Isabel admitted. “Only that it was real sudden-like. Dad told me that one night, the Rossingtons’ stable man, Donovan, drove up in his truck. Kathleen got out, told my dad she was leaving for America. He wanted to go with her, of course, but there was no question of that. She kissed himgoodbye, promised to write, and that was it. He never laid eyes on his sister again.”
The old lady’s fingertips touched the collar of her sweater. “She gave him this little pin. To remember her by. Lady Delia gave it to her, because it had belonged toherfather.”
She sighed and shook her head. “That poor lady. Terrible what happened to her.”
“What did happen?” Maeve asked.
“Killed, she was. Stabbed to death, the very night Kathleen left. The family, Lady Fiona and her sons, a wicked lot they were, put it out that it was Kathleen that had done it! Said she’d stolen money and valuable jewelry too and fled the country.”
Her rheumy eyes flashed with indignation. “And why would she kill the lady who’d done her such kindness? Dad never did forgive that family for blackening the Connor name.” She ran her fingertips over the pin again.
