Chapter Twenty-Six #2
in the shop, Mrs. O’Toole, who Rynn knew from years of patronizing her husband’s fish shop, nodded her head in vigorous agreement.
“Husband’s a sodding Brit, father’s a sodding Brit,” Rynn heard another woman whisper as she was leaving. “She’s not one I’d
be trusting, is all I’ll say.”
Once her eyes were opened to it, Rynn saw suspicion in the faces of enough of those she encountered that she was both angry
and hurt.
Taken altogether, it was too much to face, so she simply didn’t. Anyway, the truth was, she had no desire to visit the village
or, indeed, to be in company. As long as she stayed inside the protective bubble that was Ballyshannon Court, nothing that
had happened—Thomas’s death, her own illness, the increasing acts of violence that seemed to strike like lightning bolts in
random bursts across the country—felt entirely real. False as it was, that illusion was a far more comfortable state than
facing up to the harsh truth.
With Mrs. Frampton and the other servants living full-time on the property, which kept Rynn from being alone, Glenna chose to stay in their cottage in the village, which was only a short walk from her school, although Rynn offered her and Granny rooms at Ballyshannon Court.
Given the increased presence of British soldiers in the town and the heightened tension that went along with that, Granny spent her nights in the cottage with Glenna while visiting Rynn most days.
Although a lawyer representing Thomas’s estate had come down from London bearing many documents for her to sign along with the news that, having inherited all his property including a family interest in Ballyshannon Court, she was a wealthy woman and could live anywhere she chose, Rynn did not yet feel ready to leave this place that Thomas had loved, and where he had died.
She would get there, she knew, but what she needed was time.
As November rolled around, the wind blowing in from the sea grew brisk, and the paddlers in the bay and sunbathers on the
Strand went home. The summer visitors in the hotels and big houses disappeared as well. What was left behind were ghosts:
of Thomas, of Molly Kincaid, of Paddy, of others she’d loved and lost. She tried not to dwell on those who were gone, instead
choosing to remember happier times. She was out on her daily walk, focused on memories of herself and Glenna when they were
little and spent many an afternoon wading in the surf gathering up winkles in their skirts as a way of keeping less cheerful
thoughts at bay, when without warning, the world seemed to fall away and she saw herself as if from a distance. Standing atop
the Point high above the Strand, wrapped snuggly in the fringed black shawl she’d acquired as part of her mourning clothes
since Thomas’s death, her hair torn loose from its pins and blowing in the wind, she was looking out to sea. The brisk air
nipped at her cheeks and the smell of salt was all around and, far below, the waves pounded the shore.
And her heart ached with loss.
As quickly as it happened, the out-of-body sensation was gone. She stood there, shivering a little as the world around her
came back into focus. Realizing that she’d seen herself exactly as she was in that moment only from a distance, as if through
an objective observer’s eyes, was as puzzling as it was disorienting.
Then she was hit by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.
She’d seen herself in precisely that way before, on the night in her bedroom when she’d decided to make her marriage to Thomas
a real one. She’d been contemplating her future—
The black shawl, her too-pale face, the ache in her heart—had her vision that night been a portent of what was to come?
Was it possible that Granny was right, and she had the Sight after all?
Her instant reaction was denial. From what she’d seen of the Sight—and she’d observed it in Granny over a lifetime—it was
far more curse than blessing. Its revelations were too vague to be of any practical use. If it became known you possessed
it, you were marked as different. You were avoided, or scorned, or feared, or simply eyed askance. She’d learned that from a lifetime with Granny, too.
But that night in her bedroom, had she truly been shown her future?
The idea unnerved her. She whipped around in utter rejection of it and walked quickly away, only to see a man coming along
the cliff path toward her.
Her steps slowed. Instinctively wary of an unknown man in this time of trouble, she stopped and raised her hand to shade her eyes against the golden rays of the setting sun as she sought to identify him.
He was dressed plainly in a gray jacket and black trousers.
A flat cap pulled down low over his eyes cast a shadow over his features.
But his height, and his stride, and the set of his shoulders—she knew him: Maguire.
She wouldn’t have thought it, had not in fact thought of him in months, but recognizing him now brought a surge of gladness with it.
As he reached her and stopped, she looked up to meet those incongruously light eyes and felt something that had been wound tight and hard inside her ease.
“Where have you been?” was how she greeted him. Quite crossly, too. As if she’d been expecting him for a while. As if she
had the right to know.
“France,” he said, as easily as if they had last spoken the day before. “America. London. I only just heard about Thomas.
I’m deeply sorry. He was a good man.”
She nodded. “That’s what he said about you.”
He smiled, but his eyes were grave. “I’d have come sooner if I’d known. I hear you were ill as well. Ill enough that your
granny summoned the priest.”
She wrapped the shawl more tightly around herself. The vague memory she had of Father Doherty praying over her sick bed was
enough to give her cold chills. How close had she come to dying? She hadn’t asked, and Granny hadn’t said. All she knew, and
this was because Granny had told her, was that even in that hour of extremis she’d summoned the presence of mind to ask Father
Doherty to have prayers said for Thomas’s soul.
“Who told you that?”
“My sister. You remember Moira? Her farm’s not too far from here. Her boy Tim drove down from Dublin with me and I dropped
him off with her before I came on here. She said she’d thought about calling on you once she heard you were better, but you’ve
been keeping yourself to yourself and no one wants to disturb you in your grief.”
Rynn made a face. “Am I the talk of the village, then?”
“Not only the village. Every sailor who’s passed this way in the last few months is raving on about a beautiful woman dressed head to toe in black—long black hair blowing in the wind, long black dress doing the same—that stands on the Point looking out to sea around sunset on fine days.
I admit, I was skeptical until I drove up and there she was, just like they said.
If I hadn’t known it was you, I probably would have turned tail and run.
Most of them think you’re a haunt, or a witch, or a harbinger of disaster to come.
The Banshee of Bundoran, they’re calling you. ”
She looked at him suspiciously. “You’re making that up.”
“Devil a bit, I give you my word. I first heard of it on the ferry as we crossed to Dublin, and then again as tales of it
were being bandied about on the wharf when we docked. How does it feel to know that brave men quail at the sight of you, and
more than one boat has changed course to avoid the bad luck you’re said to bring?”
“Now I know you’re making it up.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head. But he was smiling a little, and something about his smile, about having him there, a friend,
strong and dependable, someone who knew all about her and Thomas and how it had all come about and now how it had ended, blew
away the fog of grief so she could see clearly for the first time in what seemed like forever.
It took her a moment to realize she hadn’t replied, that she was simply standing there looking at him as they faced each other
on the path, with the cliff dropping away to the sparkling blue waters of the bay on one side and the tall grass that had
grown up almost as high as her waist on the other. And that he was standing there silently looking at her, too.
“Are you staying with your sister, then?” she asked, to fill the silence, and started to walk.
He fell in beside her. “Her house is too crowded as it is. I’d be bunking in with my nephews, and I’m too old for that. I
stay at the Great Northern Hotel when I come.”
“Tell me about France. What were you doing there?”
So he told her about France, about his efforts to get the representatives from the thirty-two countries at the Paris Peace Conference to throw their support behind an independent Ireland.
As one of the Big Four, Britain scuttled that effort by refusing to allow it to come to a vote, so he set sail for America to join de Valera, now president of the Irish republic, in his effort to raise funds to support the cause of Irish independence and to cultivate support among the American public, many of whom had Irish roots.
“I must admit I did a little business along the way,” he said as they reached the end of the trail and turned toward the house.
“America’s new law prohibiting the sale of alcohol is set to take effect this coming January, and that’s caused a panic among
all the bar owners in the country. Boston, New York, Detroit, Chicago—once they heard we had the goods they want, and had
secure distribution channels locked down, they were all eager to make deals to acquire the very best in illegal liquor.”
“How very opportunistic of you,” she said, and he laughed.
“Money is power,” he said. “And it’s far better to have it than not. Even war respects the rich, while the poor, as we have
learned to our cost, are the ones who fight and die in overwhelming numbers.”
“Will there be war, then? Here?” At the prospect her stomach pitted.
“I pray not. Dev is working hard to negotiate our peaceful separation from Britain. But there are hotheads among us that feel
no settlement is possible and fighting our way to freedom through armed conflict is the only answer. And Churchill, who I
saw while I was in London, by the way, says he has no more time to waste on a ragtag bunch of ungrateful Irishmen. He’s breathing
fire to unloose the full force of the British Army on us and be done with it so Britain can move on to more important matters.”
“Can we win a war with Britain?” Her heart beat a little faster at the thought. The history of eight hundred years said otherwise.
“Don’t fight if you can’t win, eh? Seems like a sound philosophy. The honest answer is, I don’t know.”
That didn’t make her feel any better. She did her best to put the prospect of war out of her mind.
“Did you see . . . my father-in-law or any of the family while you were in London?” There was a catch in her voice as she
spoke of the Duke. He had telephoned several weeks after Thomas’s death to tell her that the lawyer would be coming, adding
that the Duchess was prostrate with grief. From the sound of his voice, he’d been in little better case himself. All the family
had sent letters of condolence, and she’d sent letters of her own, but other than that she hadn’t heard from them, or they
from her.
Their mutual loss was still too raw and painful for it to be shared.
Maguire shook his head. “From all accounts, he and his wife are holed up at Ashtonbury Park.” Glancing down at her, he seemed
to hesitate. “I did see your sister Penelope. She’s mourning a loss as well. Her mother, Lady Somerset, succumbed to the flu
not long after Thomas did. It seems they attended the Victory Day parade and Lady Somerset was stricken soon afterward, as
were many others.”
“Oh, no. How terrible. I’m so sorry. How is Penelope holding up?”
“As well as can be expected, I’d say. She’s a strong girl. Very determined.”
By then they’d almost reached the house. His car, a big Vauxhall, was pulled around to the side.
“Will you come in? I can give you a meal. Mrs. Frampton is an amazing cook.”
He shook his head. “I can’t stay. I have to drive on to Killybegs for a meeting.
There’s a boat I’d like to acquire, and this is the only night the captain, her owner, will be in port.
I’ll be back this way tomorrow, though, around this same time and if the meal’s still on offer I’ll take you up on it. ”
“It is.” She smiled at him. The thought that he’d be back the next day lifted her spirits to a surprising degree.
“I’ll look forward to it, then.” He stopped beside his car and turned to give her a serious look. “I hear you’ve only a few
servants living with you.”
She nodded. “What of it?”
“There’s a considerable amount of unrest hereabouts lately. You’d be safer in the village.”
“I’m safe enough. And if that changes, I’ll move.”
“If you say so.” His lips compressed, but he didn’t argue. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Watching as he drove away, she realized that she was sorry to see him go.