Chapter Eleven
“Major Maguire, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to meet Mrs. Shaughnessy and her granddaughters, Miss Rynn Carmichael
and Miss Glenna Carmichael,” Trena said to him.
Maguire’s face could have been carved from stone for all the expression it showed as he tipped his hat to the three of them.
“Ladies.” His gaze was no more particular as it touched on Rynn than it was as he looked at Glenna and Granny. Rynn, who feared
her face would betray her at every turn, had to give him points for that.
“And these are my children,” Mrs. Clary said. “Tim, who’s learning the shipping trade under Owen, Alfie, James, Joseph, Maeve
and Grace.”
Each of the younger children bobbed their heads politely as they were introduced. Tim’s face grew redder than ever.
Maguire looked at his sister. “I’m sorry to pull you away, but we need to be going if you’re to make the four-forty, especially
if you still want to stop and say hello to Mrs. Walsh.”
The four-forty, as everyone knew, referred to the train that left Bundoran daily at that time for Dublin.
And Mrs. Walsh was the elderly widow who’d once been head of the local branch of the Irish Women’s Suffrage Society, for which, among the females at least, there was a great deal of enthusiastic support, especially since, in a tremendous victory in the last election for which the Suffrage Society took much credit, the vote had at last been granted to women over thirty.
“Oh, I must. She’ll be so excited about Countess Markievicz’s election to Parliament,” Mrs. Clary said. “The first woman,
fancy that! And her one of our own, too!”
“She can’t take her seat. She’s in prison,” the second-oldest Clary boy, Alfie, said, sotto voce. His mother waved that reminder
away.
“I didn’t know you had plans to go to Dublin.” Trena looked at her in surprise.
“It was just decided yesterday. You know my late husband’s people live there. They’ve been after me to come visit. And to
bring the children, of course. So now that the holidays are over that’s what we’re going to do. Although I hate to leave you
at such a time. You know you’ll be in my prayers. As will Fergus. And everyone.”
“Moira—” Maguire tilted his head toward his sister. But before he could say anything else, another woman hurried up to them:
Mrs. Cheadle, a sturdy forty-year-old whose husband owned the greengrocer. From the look of her, she was big with news.
She cast a quick glance around as though to gauge who was close enough to overhear, then leaned in. Voice lowered, she said,
“Did you hear? Cara O’Reilly has been taken to the Garda station for questioning. They think she knows more about what Seamus
was up to than she’s telling.”
Cara O’Reilly was Seamus’s mother. Rynn went cold all over.
“What?”
“No!”
“A grieving mother! The bloody buggers!”
“Are there no depths to which they won’t sink?”
Outrage shimmered in the air.
“We must go,” Maguire said quietly to his sister under cover of the furious chatter. As Mrs. Clary nodded and turned away, with Tim and the younger ones following and Maguire bringing up the rear, Rynn stepped back to let them get through the now tightly packed crowd.
“You’d be wise to go visiting out of town for a few weeks yourself,” Maguire said in her ear as he passed.
It took a moment for his words to sink in. Looking after his tall form as he made his way toward the road, she felt a thrill
of horror when finally they did. He was warning her that all those close to the suspects might be taken in for questioning.
She might be taken in for questioning.
The possibility made her insides twist.
Of them all, she had the most to hide.
Something of what she was feeling must have been apparent in her face, because Granny frowned at her.
“Are you unwell, then?” Granny’s quiet question acted on Rynn like a dash of cold water, reminding her of where she was and
who might be watching and, most importantly, of the secrets she was bound to keep.
Taking advantage of the excuse Granny had inadvertently offered, Rynn nodded.
“I’ve a bit of a headache.” She spoke loudly enough so that anyone paying her any particular attention could overhear.
“I do, too,” Glenna chimed in unexpectedly. “I could do with some tea, and to get out of this wind.”
“Couldn’t we all,” Granny agreed.
With that, and murmured goodbyes to those around them, the three of them left.
Glenna drove them home in the pony trap that had brought her and Granny to the service—Rynn had ridden her own bicycle in from Ballyshannon Court, the “borrowed” one from that ill-fated night still lying hidden in the stable as she was afraid to even go near it—and went on around to the shed where both the shaggy Connemara pony and bright blue trap were kept to put them up.
Walking with Granny into the small stone cottage that had been home to the three of them for almost as long she could remember,
Rynn felt some of her tension ease. It stood alone at the end of the lane, with farmland reaching to the Dartry Mountains
on the one side and on the other the bay acting out all its moods in sight. She took in the thatched roof, the faded blue
door, the huge old beech tree, leafless now with winter upon them, that stood sentinel in the yard, and felt comforted by
the knowledge that some things, at least, hadn’t changed. Inside, the small sitting room with its pungent peat fire burning
low in the hearth, the well-scrubbed kitchen where they automatically headed to make tea on the old black range, the narrow
staircase that led upstairs to the two tiny bedrooms that had sheltered boarders in the lean days and, now that Rynn and Glenna
were both earning and able to contribute to the family coffers, provided Granny and Glenna with the luxury of having rooms
of their own, brought more comfort. The East End, formerly the separate village of Single Street, might be the poor side of
Bundoran, the seat of the “hardscrabble Irish” as opposed to the more affluent West Enders, but it had given her her roots
and her strength and she was proud to claim it.
As Granny put the kettle on, Rynn took off her outer garments and hung them and the ones Granny had shed with the others on
the hooks by the back door.
“It’s something bad, I take it,” Granny said out of nowhere as she busied herself about the stove.
“What do you mean?” In the process of getting out the bread to slice and toast and serve with the tea, Rynn almost dropped the loaf. Neat as a pin in her well-worn black dress, Granny never even turned around. Rynn found herself blinking at the back of her head with its low white bun.
“Do you think I can’t tell when you’re keeping something in?” Granny’s tone was scornful. “It’ll ease you to tell me, I’ve
no doubt. Just as I’ve no doubt that it’s concerning that jackeen, Donal O’Reilly. Some people are born to find trouble, and
that young fellah is one.”
“How can you talk about him like that, when he’s . . .” Rynn let her voice trail off, unable to complete the lie. Granny was
no fan of Donal’s, at least not as a husband for her granddaughter. She’d made that clear long ago. With the faraway look
she got when the Sight was supposedly upon her, she’d told Rynn that she could see no happy future for her with him.
Rynn’s lips compressed as she realized that once again, Granny had been right.
Rynn was no real believer in the Sight, but at times, Granny could be eerily accurate.
“Drowned?” Granny finished for her, looking around with a cocked eyebrow. Then Granny shook her head. Picking up the tea canister,
she carried it to the table. “Not he. As they say, those born to hang will never drown. Now why don’t you tell me what’s the
truth of it while we’ve a minute to ourselves?”
Rynn only realized that she was staring at her grandmother with the knife suspended in midair over the bread when she heard
the thud of the front door slamming shut followed by Glenna calling out “Granny! Rynn!” in a panic. Rynn’s eyes widened. Setting
the knife on the table, she pivoted toward the kitchen door just as Glenna sent it bouncing back on its hinges by shoving
through it.
“There’s a motorbike just pulled up. With Constable O’Shea.” That’s all Glenna managed to get out before a sharp knock on the front door was immediately followed by the sound of it being opened without so much as a by-your-leave. Heavy footsteps crossed the sitting room.
“Are you here looking for your lost manners, then, Titus O’Shea?” Eyes snapping, Granny greeted the middle-aged man who walked
boldly into her kitchen. Just as she knew everyone in the village, Granny had known him practically since his birth.
“I’ve come on official business.” Despite his blustering tone, O’Shea snatched his cap from his head. Looking uncomfortable,
he shifted his gaze to Rynn. “I’ve been ordered to bring Miss Carmichael to the Garda station.”
Rynn froze. Her pulse, having begun to race as soon as Glenna burst into the kitchen, thundered in her ears.
“You’re here for Rynn?” Glenna gasped.
“For what purpose?” Rynn desperately, desperately fought for calm.
“They want to ask you some questions.”
Bristling like a banty rooster, Granny stepped between her and the constable.
“You, Titus O’Shea, will take yourself out of my house this minute. And you can be sure I’ll be speaking to your mam about
this.”
“It’s no use.” O’Shea sounded, and looked, miserable. “I have orders. If Miss Carmichael doesn’t come with me, they’ll send
soldiers to fetch her. And they’re Brits.” They all knew what that meant: rough and crude, no respecters of women, prone to
violence at the least excuse. He looked at Rynn. “It’s best that you come with me, Miss Carmichael. Really, it is.”
“Questions about what?” Rynn asked, although she knew the answer. Her voice was commendably untroubled, she thought. She only
hoped that her expression was as well. No matter how icily afraid she felt, to let it show could be fatal. Her fingers had