Chapter Twenty-Six
Rynn had only the haziest of memories of the next few weeks. On the second day after Thomas’s death, after his family had
been told and while arrangements were still being made for the collection of his body, she, too, was taken ill. Her battle
with Thomas’s killer lasted eleven days. Had it not been for the devoted nursing of Granny, who rushed to her side as soon
as she could get to Ballyshannon Court, Rynn suspected she might have died, too.
But she didn’t. She woke up on a sunny afternoon in an elaborate canopied bed in one of the big bedrooms at the front of the
house. She knew where she was—the view out the nearest window of the manicured front lawn sweeping down to the road left her
in no doubt—and the sight of the small, indomitable figure of Granny bustling around the room was immediately reassuring.
But her head swam and her mouth was dry and . . . and . . .
“Thomas?” was the first thing that came out of her mouth. Through the fog in her brain burst an indelible memory even as she
asked the question. “Dear God, is he . . . ?” She took a breath. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“He is. He was buried four days ago at Ashtonbury Park, in the family cemetery.” Granny was matter-of-fact as she came to stand beside the bed. She did not believe in coddling her granddaughters, or anyone. In her worldview, you had to be strong to survive.
“Ah.” As the memories came rushing back, the pain Rynn felt was indescribable. Gritting her teeth against it, she closed her
eyes and sank deeper into the pillows propping her up.
“You’re going to be all right, my dotey pet. It’s a great grief, I’ve no doubt, but you must turn your thoughts to regaining
your strength.”
It was a slow process. Another week passed before she could reliably move farther than the armchair near the bed, and it was
two weeks after that before she felt strong enough to dress and go downstairs. Copies of the Donegal Vindicator, a local newspaper, had been allowed to pile up on a table in the library. Picking one up, Rynn’s breath was stolen away by
its lead story. Under the headline “The Dread Scourge Influenza is Back,” the article spoke of the thousand who had died of
the illness in County Donegal alone since the previous year, and ended with “The Angel of Death has gathered into its fold
three more of the inhabitants of the place.” Thomas was one of the three listed.
Heartsick, Rynn put the paper down and went back upstairs to bed.
Mrs. Frampton, bless her, had never left, working loyally through Thomas’s illness and her own, while taking every precaution
to avoid infection. Cyril, too, had stayed on. With the return of Anna and Lynette—Higdon having taken up a position in Dublin—the
house resumed a semblance of normality. The heartache that was Thomas’s death Rynn set herself to endure, because there was
simply no other choice. All the tears and all the grief in the world wouldn’t bring him back. But the flu had left her physically
weakened, and that, coupled with a lack of appetite and an inability to sleep, took its toll on her.
“You’re pale as a ghost,” Glenna exclaimed one afternoon when she came upon Rynn sitting before a crackling fire in the music room.
It was late summer, and still warm, but Rynn could not shake the bone-deep chill that her illness had left her with.
Having led her tin-whistling students through the various victory parades, Glenna had rushed back home to be at Rynn’s side, but Granny had kept her away until she judged the risk of infection was nonexistent.
Since then, Glenna visited several times a week while she prepared for another school year.
“I’m always pale,” Rynn retorted, looking at her rosy-cheeked sister in her airy linen blouse and skirt. Glenna was blooming,
the very picture of good health. And happiness. Never in her life had Rynn envied her sister, but she felt a twinge of it
now.
“Not like this.” Glenna looked her up and down. “And you’re way too thin. Are you eating at all?”
“Yes, of course,” Rynn said. But she knew Glenna was right. Her cheekbones and collarbone were more prominent than they’d
ever been. When she was undressed, the outline of her ribs was visible, and her hipbones showed through her skin. Her fine-boned
features were almost chiseled now in their sharpness, making her eyes appear huge and shadowed and her mouth too wide. Her
usual clothes hung on her, and, while the widow’s weeds she’d had made up fit better, the stark black of the long-sleeved,
high-necked dresses only emphasized her weight loss and pallor.
“Come on, we’re getting you outside. It can’t be good for you to stay in like this.” Glenna tugged Rynn to her feet, and then,
casting a quick glance over her sister, added, “You’re not going to keel over on me, are you? Should I go get a wheelchair?”
“No.” Her answer was sharper than the question called for, but Glenna’s suggestion had immediately conjured up Thomas for her, and the resulting stab of pain had caught her by surprise.
His chair, his sticks, everything he’d brought with him was still in the bedroom they’d shared.
She’d caught a glimpse of them when Anna had opened the door and windows to air the room out and had been swamped by a wave of grief so strong she’d had to sit down on the top of the stairs.
Since then, the door was kept closed. Rynn didn’t think she would ever be able to look at a wheelchair with equanimity again.
Glenna’s contrite expression told Rynn her sister understood her reaction, but what Glenna said was a brisk “Fine. If you
get tired, you can lean on me.”
They went outside and, arms entwined, walked across the lawn and around through the kitchen garden and came in the door there.
It was the first time she’d been out of the house since the day she and Thomas had arrived, and she took care to steer away
from the path they’d taken. But the sunshine and fresh air did her good, and she was glad her sister had insisted.
After that, she made it a point to go outside on every fine day. At first her walks were short—it was all she had the strength
for—and they usually ended in the kitchen garden, where she sat on the bench near the door and communed with the cabbages
and cucumbers and parsnips and scallions that grew there. The cliff walk with its breathtaking views increasingly called to
her, and she finally summoned the physical and spiritual strength to venture along the path she and Thomas had taken on that
last day before he fell ill.
She didn’t go far, and the pain the memory conjured up as she retraced their steps made her almost regret going at all.
But the next day she went farther, and the day after that farther still.
When she finally made it all the way to the overlook, and stopped where they had stopped, and looked out over the wide golden crescent of the Strand and the rolling whitecaps of the bay to the wild Atlantic, she had the notion that Thomas was there with her.
The sense of his presence beside her was both incredibly sad and comforting at the same time.
She took in the beauty of the sea and sky with the uncanny feeling that he was seeing it through her eyes and found herself aching with grief even as she was suddenly, fiercely grateful to be alive.
“I miss you,” she said to Thomas aloud. As the wind carried the words away, she felt that he heard, and understood.
From then on, she walked the cliff path almost every afternoon until she reached the Point, where she would stand for a while
taking in the view. The tourists crowding the beach, the bathers frolicking in the surf, the boats in the bay, the larger
ships farther out to sea—all were reminders that life went on. She rarely went any farther from the house than the grounds
and the cliff walk. There was no need, as everything was provided for her. On the handful of occasions when she ventured into
the village, she was surprised by how many British soldiers she saw. The streets, the sidewalks, the shops and pubs—everywhere
she looked was a veritable sea of khaki. Her presence in the village elicited a mix of reactions. At first, she was overwhelmed
with condolences. Friends, neighbors, acquaintances, shopkeepers—nearly everyone she’d ever met, it seemed, wanted to express
their sorrow for her loss. The weight of all that sympathy was crushing. Responding to the well wishes, to the commiserating
looks, she sometimes felt like she couldn’t breathe. An awkward encounter right in the middle of Main Street with Donal’s
mother, Brigid, and sister Sarah left her feeling like she’d lost their friendship. They clearly begrudged the fact that she’d
married Thomas instead of Donal even as they said how sorry they were to hear of her husband’s death.
Then the Irish Republican Army, as the militant arm of the rebels was newly christened after the Dail Eireann decreed that the Volunteers and the IRB and all those fighting on their side should take an oath of allegiance to the new Irish republic, ambushed a contingent of British soldiers in Fermoy, County Cork, and the British retaliated by sending two hundred soldiers to attack the town.
The fallout raised the temperature of the conflict to fever pitch.
After that, more than a few of those she encountered seemed ill at ease in her presence, as though they didn’t know quite
how to react to her now that she was no longer “our Rynn” but the widow of a member of the British aristocracy and thus, by
default, one of the hated Ascendancy. Mrs. Cheadle, the greengrocer’s wife who was working behind the counter one morning
when Rynn stopped by, spelled it out for her after two girls Rynn had once gone to school with scuttled off with no more than
a muttered “good day” to her.
“What it is, you see, is that no one knows for sure any longer where your allegiance lies,” Mrs. Cheadle said. Another woman