The Good People (15 page)

‘Only a little forge water, Áine. Your man was good enough to give me some.’

‘Did he now. I suppose I shouldn’t be asking what you want that for?’ Áine gave a wry smile and patted the stool beside her. ‘Sit you down. Would you like something to eat?’

‘Go on with your washing, Áine. I don’t mean to stop you.’

‘Sure, ’twould be a poor thing if I did.’ Áine picked up a cold potato and gave it to Nance. ‘How are you keeping?’

‘I’m still alive, which is enough.’

‘Are you prepared for the winter? Isn’t it awful bitter out? And not even December.’

‘Pure bitter. I see you and John are well.’

‘Well enough.’

Nance gestured to the bucket of forge water at her feet. ‘Protection. I thought Brigid Lynch might be in need of it. Her time is coming.’ She peeled the potato and glanced at Áine. The woman was looking intently at the puckered skin on her fingers, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.

‘Why don’t you come see me?’ Nance heard herself asking.

Áine feigned surprise. ‘See you, Nance?’

‘I can help you.’

Áine blushed. ‘And for what? The mouth sore is gone from me now. You gave me the cure and I thank you for it.’

‘I don’t mean the sore.’ Nance took a bite of the cold potato and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘It can’t be easy, seeing the women of this place full of children and you having none yourself.’

Áine gave a strange, wan smile. Her voice was soft. ‘Oh, that. Sure, it can’t be helped, Nance.’

‘There are ways, Áine. For every ill thing set upon this world, there is a cure.’

Áine shook her head. ‘
An rud nach féidir ní féidir é
. What can’t be done, can’t be done. I have made my peace with it.’

‘You poor unfortunate.’ Nance dropped the rest of the potato in her lap and took Áine’s hands. The woman smiled at her, but as Nance continued to hold her fingers Áine’s face tightened and her chin trembled.

‘Have you truly made your peace with it? With your quiet house?’

‘Don’t,’ she whispered.

‘Áine.’

‘Please, Nance. You’re a good woman. Don’t be upsetting . . . Please.’

Nance pulled Áine closer to her, until their foreheads were almost touching. ‘Children are the curse of this country,’ she whispered, gripping Áine’s hands. ‘Especially when you don’t have any.’

Áine laughed, but pulled away to hastily wipe her eyes.

‘Come and see me,’ Nance whispered. ‘You know where I am.’

Shuffling back to her cabin, the narrow handle of her water pail cutting into her hand, Nance thought about what had come over her. She didn’t normally like to pry into others’ business. Maggie had always taught her to stay away until she was summoned.

‘The cure will always work best for those who seek it,’ she had said. ‘Those who look are those who find.’

But in that moment Nance had felt a quiet summoning to speak to Áine. There was a hesitation. A look of raw longing. That’s how it was with most people. All that private pain kept out of sight, but sometimes, in the space of one breath, something opened and you could see the heart of things before the door was shut again. It was as good as a vision. A murmur of vulnerability. A tremor in the soil, before all was still.

How hidden the heart, Nance thought. How frightened we are of being known, and yet how desperately we long for it.

Father Healy was waiting for Nance outside her cabin, his stark figure cutting a black line against the rising alder. He stood still, watching her walk the path with his arms folded in front of him, and then, noticing the heavy pail she carried, stepped forward and took it from her.

‘Thank you, Father.’

They walked in silence to the muddy ground before Nance’s cabin, where he set the pail of forge water down and faced her.

‘’Tis Nance Roche they call you?’

‘’Tis.’

‘I want time with you, then.’

‘Time with me, is it, Father? What an honour.’ Nance bent her aching fingers back. ‘And how can I help you?’

‘Help me?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve come to tell you to help yourself, woman. I’ve come to tell you to stop your ways.’

‘My ways, now. What ways would they be?’ Nance put her hands on her hips and tried to catch her breath. Her chest felt dry and tight from lugging the water across the valley. All she wanted to do was return inside and rest.

‘Word has travelled that you were keening at Martin Leahy’s wake.’

Nance frowned. ‘So I was. And what of it?’

‘The synod forbids professional keeners wailing at wakes as an unchristian practice. It is a heathenish custom and abhorrent to God.’

‘Abhorrent to God? I find it hard to believe, Father, that God does not understand sorrow. Sure, Christ died on a cross surrounded by his keeners.’

Father Healy gave a tight smile. ‘’Tis not the same at all. I have been told that you make it your
trade
to cry at burials.’

‘What is the harm in that?’

‘Your sorrow is artificial, Nance. Rather than comfort those who are afflicted, you live upon their dead.’

Nance shook her head. ‘I do not, Father. That’s not it at all. I feel their sorrow. I give voice to the grief of others when they have not a voice for it themselves.’

‘But they pay you for it.’

‘’Tis not money.’

‘Food then. Drink. Payment in kind for immoderate, false sadness.’ The man gave a sad laugh. ‘Nance, listen to me now. You can’t be taking money – or anything like it – for keening. The church won’t stand for it, and neither will I.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘When I heard about the keening I asked about you.’

‘Is that so, Father?’

‘People tell me that you drink. You take the pipe. You don’t come to Mass.’

Nance laughed. ‘If you’re after visiting all them that don’t go to Mass, you’ll be out on that donkey of yours the whole week long.’

Father Healy pinked a little. ‘Yes. I mean to correct the lack of religious feeling here.’

‘But the people here do be having a spiritual temper, Father. Sure, we all have faith in the things of the invisible world. We’re a most religious people. Come now, Father. Would you not care for a drink? Look, the sky is turning.’

The priest hesitated, and then followed Nance into her cabin, glancing around the dark room in uncertainty.

‘Be so kind as to sit yourself down on that creepie there. Make yourself easy. I’ll have the water on the boil now.’

Father Healy lowered himself down on the stool, his knees sticking out at angles. He gestured to the dried herbs hanging from the rafters. ‘William O’Hare tells me that you act the charlatan.’

‘The schoolmaster? What would he know? He’s never visited me in his life.’

‘Aye, him. He says you live by keening and quackery. That you lure the people of this parish with false promises of healing.’

‘Some folk here . . . Well, we don’t agree together.’

‘So, ’tis not just the money-taking for the false bawling, but you act the
bean leighis
too?’

‘Act?’ Nance handed the priest a steaming cup. He regarded it with suspicion. ‘Father. People come to me of their own accord and I use the knowledge that has been given me to help them. They leave me gifts in thanks for it. I am no thief.’

‘Well, now, see, this puts me in some state of confusion!’ The priest ran a hand through his hair. ‘For Seán Lynch tells me you prey on the trust of others and try to get something for nothing.’

Nance sucked her gums. ‘I help them. I am a doctor to them.’

‘Oh yes, so I have heard. Like the Dublin doctors, so you are. O’Hare said that you forced a gander’s beak down his wife’s throat when she came to you for thrush.’

‘Ah, Éilís? ’Tis an old cure. Did it not heal her?’

‘William did not say.’

‘It healed her alright. Éilís O’Hare might be thinking she’s above herself now, married to a Killarney man. But she’s a liar if she says I never healed her. That woman would be in the ground if it weren’t for me.’

‘No one dies of thrush.’

‘I healed her all the same.’

The priest peered at his tea and put it firmly on the ground. ‘Can you not see that I am trying to help you?’

Nance smiled. ‘I respect you, Father. Sure, you’re a good and holy man with a heart for the people. But you should know that Father O’Reilly, God rest him, saw I had the gift. He sent folk to me. Drink your tea.’

‘I won’t, if ’tis all the same to you.’ The priest looked up again at the herbs. ‘I know the likes of you. I know the poor turn their hand to whatever living they can make. The vulnerable.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘There’s still a need in this parish for the . . .’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘
Handy woman
. For the mothers. Give up the keening and the herbs and charms and all the pagan superstitions, and make an honest living by that.’

Nance sighed. ‘Father, as little as the wren needs, it must gather it. ’Tis by the cures and keening or my heart would break in hunger, but ’tis more than that. I have the
knowledge
given to me by the Good People and I must use it for the people here or ’twould leave me.’

There was a moment of silence. The jackdaws disturbed the trees outside.

‘’Tis not the fairies you’re talking of. No, I won’t have that.’

‘Do you not believe in the Good People, Father?’

The priest rose to his feet. ‘Nance Roche. I take no pleasure in being here. I take no pleasure in harsh words. But do you think of your stomach or your soul?’

‘Ah, you’re no believer. But I tell you, Father, ’twas the Good People that led me out of my misery on the roads and led me to this valley and to Father O’Reilly. ’Twas the Good People who saw me safe and not starving in Killarney when my family were gone and I alone with no man or money to my name. ’Twas Them that gave me the knowledge to cure folk and bring the fairy dart out of them and –’

‘’Tis pagan to say they exist at all.’ The priest’s face suddenly took on a look of pity, and Nance felt a wave of anger at the condescension in his expression.

‘Well, God be praised. A priest who is against the curing of the sick. God knows ’tis hard I work for the bit I have, and ’tis poor I am and always have been, but never have I begged from any Christian in this valley, and haven’t I always meant well? And haven’t I cured the priest before you, and him always seeing the good in all?’

Father Healy shook his head. ‘And to the bad he turned his eye. You know what they say, woman? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’

‘And the road to Heaven is well signposted, Father . . .’ Nance smiled. ‘But badly lit at night.’

The priest snorted. ‘I’ll not have keening, and I’ll not have women seeking to swindle the sick with talk of fairies. By all means, be a handy woman to those in need, but I’ll not have this parish riddled with superstition by those who mean to profit by it.’

‘Oh, you’re a wonderful great man, taking our money and counting out sins in exchange, and not letting an honest woman have her bit in return for all the good she does.’

‘I’ve tried to do right by you, Nance Roche. I came here to lead you to the better path. But if ’tis stubborn you are, I would see you leave this place.’

‘The people would not let you drive me out. They need me. You will see that they need me.’

‘Well, now. I don’t think it will go well with you, Nance Roche, despite what you think.’ The priest ducked his head under the cabin door and strode to his donkey, which was grazing beside the woods. Nance followed, watching as he mounted and gave it a hearty kick with his heels. He looked back at her as he rode towards the lane. ‘Go on, Nance. Stop it with the keening and the fairy talk. You want a long spoon when supping with the Devil.’

PART TWO

A Mouth of Ivy, A Heart of Holly

Beul eidhin a's croidhe cuilinn

1825–1826