Ruby Flynn (18 page)

‘God in heaven, no one would ever ask me to do that,’ said Jane. ‘I can’t even write my own name, never mind anyone else’s.’

Ruby had stood and begun idly wandering around the linen room, opening drawers in the press and bending down to peep inside, while Jane sat on her chair, swinging her legs. Ruby had to resist the urge to wriggle her nose. Jane often smelt and sometimes, like today, the smell was stronger than at others. Daily wash-downs at the sink and a belief that cleanliness is next to godliness were essentials at the convent. Ruby was amazed by how little contact the staff at Ballyford appeared to have with the bathtub.

Ruby was impressed with the standard of tidiness in the linen room, though. Shelf upon shelf of sheets, pillowcases and towels, all folded to the same size with the creases neatly lined up. The precision of the stacking, the whiteness of the sheets took her breath away.

‘Don’t touch the press, Ruby,’ said Jane with a hint of concern.

But Ruby couldn’t help herself and if it hadn’t been for her love of order, the pleasure in the brilliantly white sheets, rotated carefully every week, she never would have spotted it. It was the slightest of bulges, some way above her head.

Ruby could only just reach the outer sheet and as she pushed hard on the bulge with her fingertips she felt something firm resist her touch.

‘Would ye stop!’ Jane almost screamed, jumping to her feet and placing her cup down on the tray. ‘No one is allowed to touch the linen, only me and Mrs McKinnon and she’ll kill ye she will, favourite or not. Stop!’

But it was too late. Ruby tugged hard and quick and before Jane had finished speaking, the sheet pulled free of the press to fall down at Ruby’s feet.

‘Oh, Jesus, Holy Mary Mother of God!’ In a flash Jane had scooped the sheet up from the floor and was trying desperately to restore its precise and perfect folded lines.

‘Help me, will ye?’ she hissed.

Ruby looked up at the gap that had now appeared and spotted what had caused the bulge; she could just make out the outline of a hessian sack.

‘Help me instead, will you?’ she said to Jane. ‘Look, I can see something hidden behind there.’

‘Feck, no,’ Jane shouted at her. ‘What are ye doing, are ye mad? Mr and Mrs McKinnon only allow us in here if we touch nothing. I do the laundry and even I can’t do that. They will have me shot for this.’

‘Ah, go on,’ Ruby pleaded. ‘I promise we will leave everything exactly as it was and they will never know.’

‘We can’t leave it as it was, because it is already different. I need to get this sheet pushed back in, before the others fall down. Now, get out of my way Ruby, ye fecking eejit.’

But before Jane could protest any further, Ruby dragged the upturned basket over to the press and pushing her toes into the wicker, she scrambled on top. Just in the nick of time, Jane quickly grabbed the plate of half-eaten brack before it fell.

The wicker crackled and snapped in objection and Ruby wobbled slightly as she grabbed hold of the shelf on the press. Now she was at eye level with the gap in the sheets and could see the hessian bag clearly.

‘I see it,’ she hissed down to Jane.

Jane had worked at the castle since she was eight years old. She had been trained by Amy and Mrs McKinnon. She knew the value of her job. She had been told by her own mammy a hundred times that the Holy Father had blessed her and ensured she was warm and fed. But she also knew how useless she was and how close she often came to losing her job. If it hadn’t been for Amy, who had saved her neck time and time again, she surely would have done so by now.

Jane felt sure now that she was about to faint and if she hadn’t been rooted to the spot she would have run down the stairs, screaming, to Amy. She had been told very clearly by Mr McKinnon, ‘One more false step Jane, and you are out. We need workers here, not people who create work.’ She had known for sure, he was deadly serious.

Once again, Ruby tugged at the sack and was surprised at the resistance. She wobbled. Jane put her hands out and grabbed at Ruby’s feet. She could see in her mind’s eye Ruby flat out on the floor with a broken neck.

‘Get fecking down now, or I swear by all that is holy, I shall run down the stairs and fetch Mrs McKinnon.’

Jane’s threat was cut short by the sound of the hessian sack and its contents landing on top of the basket with a thud. Ruby put one hand on the basket to steady herself and leapt down nimbly, her feet barely making a sound on the wooden floor.

For a second, both girls stood and looked at each other. Jane was wondering what in heaven was happening and how much trouble she would be in and Ruby was asking herself which side of the line Jane would fall on. There had been the same division at the convent. There were those who, like Ruby, pushed at the boundaries of authority, and those like Jane, who would obey the rules with their dying breath.

‘Look,’ Ruby whispered, ‘it’s tied up in a knot and I’m going to undo it, have a look and then tie it back up and put it back exactly where I found it, so stop panicking. You want to know what is in there, now, as much as I do. Don’t lie.’

Jane said nothing. It was a sin to lie.

Ruby picked and picked away at the knot.

‘I have it,’ she said, tipping the sack upside down.

Out fell a very old, dark wooden box. With relief Ruby saw that it had a clasp, not a lock.

‘Oh, Jesus, put it back.’ Jane was almost in tears. She had now turned a ghastly shade of white and was obviously truly afraid. ‘I have a bad feeling,’ she said from between the fingers she had clasped across her eyes. ‘This isn’t right, there’s something bad about it. Please Ruby, there are stories and I will tell you about them, but now please, just put it back. Me legs are shaking, Ruby, please.’

The
please
was more cried than spoken, and then Ruby heard a sound like trickling water. She looked around, confused, and then it dawned on her. Jane had wet herself.

Ruby knew she had to be quick now. Lifting the brass clasp, she looked inside and then gently, tipped up the box, so that Jane too could see. A knitted shawl, large enough to wrap a baby in and a once white linen baby dress, now grey with age flopped out onto the top of the basket.

‘God, would ye look at that,’ said Jane, whose colour had slowly returned. ‘None of the lady’s babies were ever dressed in that. I used to help with the washing, ’twas my first job when I came and I did the baby clothes too, God rest their souls.’ Jane blessed herself. ‘I washed them all, I did and I never washed those. They are so old, more like what we use in the cottages than in the castle.’

‘Whose are they, then?’ asked Ruby.

‘I don’t know, but they’re definitely not from here. God, have you seen the cut of the clothes the lady dressed the babies in? That’s them in that press there, but ye can’t look, I forbid ye.’

Jane bravely pointed to a smaller press, and although Ruby was curious to see and felt almost challenged by the word ‘forbid’, she concentrated on the job in hand.

She opened the lid of the box wider, but inside it was empty. She picked it up and studied it, to see if there was a name written on the side and it was then that she noticed a carved indentation in the wood. Slipping her fingers in, she found that it was the handle of a small drawer. Ruby pulled, the drawer resisted. It was not going to open easily.

Her earlier audacity was now fading and she realized time was slipping on.
Shall I leave it and come back another day?
she thought, but just at that moment the drawer surrendered to her pressure.

‘Oh, here’s a letter,’ she squealed.

‘Well, that’s no fecking use, I can’t read,’ said Jane who was now very intrigued. She moved towards the door, turned the handle and popped her head outside, to check if anyone was looking for them.

‘It’s all clear,’ she whispered as she tiptoed back. ‘But please, Ruby, hurry up will ye, for God’s sake. I’m near having a fit here.’

Ruby opened the letter and read quickly, muttering to herself as she did so, but Jane could not understand a word she was saying. She was surprised to see how the blood left Ruby’s face as she read.

‘What does it say?’ asked Jane nervously, not sure that she wanted to know.

A feeling of dread had crept into the room and Jane was afraid as she looked to Ruby for an answer.

Ruby gave Jane a hard look, but said, ‘I will read it to you, but first bring me a chair, please.’

Jane grabbed two chairs and pulled them over to the press. ‘Well, go on then. Jesus we don’t have another five minutes, let alone all day.’ She was trying hard to be brave, and almost, but not quite succeeding. ‘Ruby, will ye stop. Ye are scaring me now, just bloody get on with it.’

Ruby picked up the paper and began.

To Lord FitzDeane

I leave this baby in your stable. She is well wrapped and warm in the hay and I know she will be safe until she is found.

She is the first daughter of Ballyford. Long ago, her ancestors were once of Ballyford too. Her line may broken and long forgotten, but this child belongs with you. Care for her. Make her as your own, for always. Only she can right the wrong of the past. Should her line be broken, should she be cast out or disowned, Ballyford shall pay a terrible price. The sins of your fathers are not forgotten.

‘Merciful God, you are a great one for the reading, Ruby. What does it all mean? Is that the curse the storyteller talks of? Ruby?’

‘How would I know?’ Ruby replied sharply. ‘I have never heard the story. It’s from someone who can write and not many on the farms can, can they? So, I don’t believe it could be anyone from around these parts. I don’t know if it’s a curse or not. The babies here, they’ve all died, haven’t they?’

‘Well, not all, Ruby. Lord Charles is here, isn’t he? But it is true, there has been a lot of sadness here. Some of the boys from the estate went to fight in the war, in the same regiment they were and fought in the same battle and none of them came back. Everyone cried for weeks. ’Twas the only time Mrs McKinnon has ever taken to her bed, so they say. Lord Charles’s daddy, he died not long after that, so he did, but I get confused between them all. There are tales about the castle, Ruby. Of the child that was found, but I can’t talk about that because ’tis bad so it is. No one speaks of it and now I’m wondering, were these her clothes? But Mrs McKinnon, she was here then, although she was probably the age we are now. This box and all, it cannot be her clothes, can it? You should come down to the cottages when the storyteller comes, he knows everything, him and Amy’s mammy, she’s the fortune teller, and Miss McAndrew, they know everything they do.’

Ruby sat looking at the letter and was surprised at how her hands trembled. Putting the folded sheet on top of the basket, she picked up the baby clothes and pressed them to her face inhaling deeply the lingering smell of something she could not place. She failed to prevent tears springing to her eyes, as a powerful sense of something already seen and known possessed her.

Jane did not like the expression on Ruby’s face. She found the tears in her eyes alarming and the atmosphere in the linen room oppressive.

‘Quick, would ye be here now,’ she said snatching the shawl and dress out of Ruby’s hands. She began to fold the baby clothes and replace them carefully in the box. ‘Come on, Ruby, would ye, or we will both be thrown out of our jobs and onto our arses.’

Ruby gently slid the letter back into the darkness of the hidden drawer and the box into its place of hiding. She tied up the string, then without haste climbed onto the basket and put the sack back into place. She covered it with the sheet, just as it had been before and pushed the wicker basket back in, covering the damp patch on the floorboards.

Jane picked up the plate and made towards the door with Ruby following.

‘Anyway, I never got to tell ye why I wanted us to meet in here,’ Jane said. She wanted to dispel the atmosphere as quickly as possible. Ruby was acting very odd and Jane didn’t want to discuss the letter any further. ‘I heard a man called at the castle and he was asking about ye. Said that Jack had told him he had taken a girl himself from the convent to the castle and her name was Ruby. He was from Doohoma and I heard him tell Lord FitzDeane that he was the man who rescued you from the storm and took you to the convent in the first place. He wanted to see you. Anyway you could have knocked me down, because Lord FitzDeane had a very long chat with him, so he did.’

Ruby stopped in her tracks and looked at Jane.

‘Did he now?’ she said, walking towards the door. ‘And no one thought to tell me? We will see about that then.’ She stormed out of the door, it swung back and knocked the plate Jane carrying clean out of her hands.

‘Merciful God, Ruby, has the devil himself got into ye today?’ Fortunately, the plate had bounced off the rug without breaking. Jane dropped to her knees and picked the crumbs up from the rug one by one, then pushed those remaining into the carpet with her fingers. ‘Don’t ye be cursing anyone today now,’ she said as she rubbed. ‘There’s been enough curses around here I’m thinking.’

But Ruby did not answer. She was marching straight towards Lord FitzDeane’s study.

Amy stood at the range and stirred the soup in the huge, black, cast iron cauldron that hung on the crane. It would be served at midday to the staff, along with the bread she and Mary had made earlier that morning. As Amy stirred she pondered her situation. She knew that life had passed her by, just as it had many women in rural Ireland who earned a living, or rather existed, in domestic servitude.

‘It’s not that I mind not having had the children,’ she confided in Mrs McKinnon, ‘but I wish I’d had a bit of the other a few more times than I have.’

‘Heavens above, you should thank your lucky stars you got away scot-free, if you have indulged already outside marriage,’ Mrs McKinnon replied. ‘I hope you went to confession? Think yourself lucky, Amy, there’s no joy in the creation of excuses and feigning headaches and bad backs half of your life, I can tell you. The novelty soon wears off.’

‘Away with ye.’ Amy waved her wooden spoon at Mrs McKinnon. ‘I’ve heard that bed of yours groaning for dear life, there’s no excuses you can make that I would believe.’