Chapter 11
“Girls!” Bernie exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Frannie and I are so happy you had a change of heart. Aren’t we, Fran?”
“I can’t believe it,” Frannie said. “And I know Mary Helen is up there dancing in heaven. It’s truly an answer to her prayers. And ours.”
Maeve and Therese exchanged a look. “We’re glad you’re glad,” Maeve said. “But we could use some help with this family tree you gave us. Like, who exactly brought our painting over here from Ireland?”
Bernie rooted around in her overflowing pocketbook, mumbling to herself. “Now, where did I put that doggone thing?”
“Oh Lord, no telling,” Frances said.
“I got it!”
Bernie slapped a plastic-wrapped vintage postcard on the kitchen tabletop.
“It kinda looks like the pictures of the Titanic that I’ve seen,” Maeve said.
“But I bet Great-Grandma Kathleen wasn’t up there dancing in the ballroom with Kate Winslet, and all the aristocrats and nouveau riche,” Therese said, peering down at the postcard.
“Probably not,” Frannie agreed. “She came over in steerage. I think I read somewhere they had sort of bunk rooms for the passengers down there. During the years of the potato famine, so many people died of disease making that trip over, they used to call them ‘coffin ships.’ But I think it was a lot better by the time Kathleen came over.”
“And she came in through Ellis Island?” Therese asked. “I took the Circle Line Ferry out there when I was living in New York. I remember they had a sort of museum in the main building, where immigrants would be processed, and there was this huge stack of old trunks and leather suitcases.”
“That’s right,” Bernie agreed. “According to what we found, Kathleen was an orphan. We don’t know who would have paid her ship’s passage, which was only about five pounds, but that was a lot of money back then.”
“Do we know where in Ireland the family came from, Aunt Fran?”
In answer, Bernie unfolded a much-creased map of Ireland and spread it out on the table.
“Here,” she said, pointing to a spot. “The Wicklow Mountains. County Wicklow. Your nana always said her mother’s people were tenant farmers. They had nothing. Didn’t even own the land they lived on. Kathleen had a rough life over there, poor girl.”
“The potato famine?” Therese asked.
“No, no, that was over by 1852,” Bernie said. “What I meant was, Kathleen’s ma, pa, and baby sisters died in a terrible fire that destroyed their little farmhouse. According to Nana, Kathleen’s little brother was the only one who got out of the house alive.”
“What about Kathleen?”
“She didn’t live in the farmhouse with the rest of the family,” Frannie put in.
“Nana didn’t really know why, but Kathleen was taken in, as a very young girl, by this rich spinster lady who lived in the estate, Tarrymore House.
Those people, some Lord something or other and his family, they owned the land Kathleen’s people farmed. ”
“Interesting,” Therese said. “How old was Kathleen when she left Ireland?”
“The ship’s manifest says she was eighteen,” Fran said.
“But when I was over there in Ireland, I went to the church where her people, the Sherlocks, which was what Kathleen’s mother’s maiden name was, had attended.
I found her parents’ marriage certificate, and the baptism records for her brother Tommy, and the two little sisters, but I could never find a baptism certificate for Kathleen.
“Maybe you and Maeve can find the answers when you get over there,” Bernie said. “I can’t help but think what a shame it is that your mom can’t go with you girls.”
“She wanted to do the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry,” Frannie added, with a faraway look in her eyes. “But Mary Helen ran out of time, you know? Got sick, lost her marbles, and it was too late. The times her mind was right, she’d talk about the trip.”
“She really wanted you girls to go,” Bernie repeated.
“And that’s what we’re going to do,” Maeve assured her aunts. “But we could use a little information before we go tearing off to Ireland. Especially about Lady Geraldine.”
“Who?” Frannie asked.
“The painting. You know, the one Mama said was our ancestor?” Therese said. “I’ve done some research. There really was a Lady Geraldine, and the artist who painted the portrait was famous. He’s exhibited in museums all over the world.”
“Is that right?” Bernie jiggled the ice cubes in her glass.
“I just always assumed Mary Helen made up that story about the painting. You know how she did. She wasn’t a liar, not really.
Your mom just couldn’t resist making up stories.
And if the story happened to be true, okay.
But Mary Helen always wanted to make it funnier, bigger, scarier.
” She grabbed her sister’s hand for validation. “Right, Fran?”
“That was Mary Helen,” Frannie agreed, nodding. “Larger than life.”
“Okay, but maybe this time it wasn’t all just a story,” Therese said.
“According to what I could find out, Lady Geraldine died in 1902, which was way before Kathleen would have been born, but her family’s estate was called Tarrymore.
In County Wicklow. Could that have been the fancy house where Kathleen was raised? ”
“Maybe,” Frannie conceded. “Now that you mention it, I think I saw the signs for the turnoff for that house when we were over there. It’s maybe like a museum or one of those houses they have open, so you can tour and look at everything?
We didn’t stop, because you know your uncle Butch wasn’t interested in seeing some crumbling old mansion.
But it’s been so long I couldn’t say for sure. ”
Maeve held her phone in her hand, typing into the search engine. She waited a moment, then looked up. “You’re right, Frannie. Says here Tarrymore House is a stately manor owned by the National Trust. But the family has retained part of the estate as a private residence.”
“Then that’s our first stop,” Therese said. “Tarrymore House.”