‘I don’t know what Sam is involved in, probably nothing,’ Sarah said. ‘And what’s more, I’m not going to worry about it. I think he is just concerned about the injured men from the war and feels England were wrong to drag Irish men into a struggle that isn’t theirs. To an extent, he has a point, and I can feel as incensed as he can over the loss of life. But sure, Sam’s all talk,’ Sarah went on. ‘Wind and water, Mammy calls him, and she’s not far wrong.’
It was hardly reassuring, but Rosie told herself whatever Sam was into, it couldn’t affect Phelan and Niall. Dear God, they were barely fourteen. No society, organisation or whatever would use boys, surely to God?
She resolved to put it from her mind. She had plenty to occupy herself and plenty in her life to be happy about, especially Danny and their darling baby.
On Saturdays, Chrissie would come over, and sometimes even Geraldine was allowed to come with her. They usually brought Dermot too, for his temper if Minnie tried to stop him was tremendous, Chrissie told Rosie. ‘Course he’s never been told no all the days of his life, so it’s hard for him to take.’
Rosie knew that, yet Dermot couldn’t be faulted in his love for Bernadette and she remembered on her weekly visit home how he galloped from school in an effort to reach the farmhouse before Rosie left. He seldom made it as the nights began to draw in and Geraldine told her he would cry broken-heartedly if she’d left before he arrived.
As the baby grew, so that Rosie wasn’t feeding her every few minutes, Connie would insist that Rosie take a trip to town with her sisters as she had before. Someone had to go in once a week anyway to sell their surplus and collect supplies for the house, but after Rosie had the baby, Sarah or Elizabeth would usually do this. Connie seldom left the farm, often saying her gallivanting days were over.
Rosie and her sisters enjoyed the jaunts in on the cart. Even if they bought little, they met friends and exchanged news and gossip. And, as Christmas approached, Rosie was glad of the opportunity to buy some wee presents for the family.
This Christmas would be the first with a baby in the house, and Rosie couldn’t help feeling excited about it. Bernadette was a happy and contented child, now struggling to sit up. She had a smile for everyone and would lie for some time in her cradle, babbling to herself rather than crying. Rosie told herself she was truly well blessed.
By March 1916 it was obvious, and not only to the people in the Walsh household, that something strange was afoot in the country. Women standing around the church doors after Mass talked of their sons and husbands and brothers in whispers. Eventually, Father McNally condemned all secret societies planning subversive activities. He said from the pulpit they were evil and against God. He even read out a letter from the Bishop in the same vein, but personally Rosie felt that it would make little difference.
She was tired. God, they were all tired. The lambing had been difficult that year and a few of the ewes, especially those who’d begun to lamb too early before the snow had cleared in February, had died giving birth. More than once, Rosie had found an orphaned lamb in a box before the fire that she’d have to feed with a bottle.
Bernadette, now crawling, loved the baby lambs and took more interest in them than the rag doll Connie had bought her for Christmas, or the rocking horse Danny had made for her.
Once the lambing was over, the spring planting began, and Danny, Phelan and Matt were out most of the daylight hours and Phelan’s evening jaunts were severely curtailed. Yet, Rosie sensed a tension in the air she’d never felt before.
She’d tried a few times to talk to Phelan again, but he’d always managed to avoid being alone with her. Maybe, she thought, he regretted saying so much to her in the first place. It could have been that, but just as easily it could be the reticence of a boy on the verge of manhood, unsure and a bit nervous of the changes he would be starting to notice in his body. His voice had definitely changed. He’d gone through the embarrassing squeaks and gruffness and the times he’d begun to speak in a high voice and it had dropped an octave, or vice versa, but now it had settled down to a level that marked his childhood as being almost over.
Then, one beautiful mid-April day, there came a pounding on Connie’s door. Few people knocked on the door and Rosie, coming from the room where she’d just laid the baby down for a nap, glanced quickly at Connie who was stirring a pot above the fire. She left off and crossed the room.
Dermot almost fell in the door as she opened it. His face was scarlet, his breath coming in short gasps as he struggled for air. It was obvious he’d been running for some time and fear clutched at Rosie. ‘What is it? What’s happened? Is it Mammy?’
‘No. No,’ Dermot spluttered between gulps of air. ‘It’s nobody. Nothing like that.’
‘Then what…?’
‘You must come, Rosie,’ he said, pulling at her skirts. ‘You must come and see.’ He was jumping from one foot to the other in agitation.
‘See what?’
His eyes slithered over to Connie and he muttered, ‘I can’t tell you. You must come.’
Connie was amused. ‘Go on with the child. See what is so important,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about the baby, I’ll see to her if she should wake.’
Rosie only waited to grab her shawl from the room before taking Dermot’s hand. She was grateful for the shawl Connie had given her for Christmas in these chilly spring months. It was of the softest wool, not thick but warm despite that, and it was a deep russet colour. ‘Coats are all very well,’ Connie had told her on the quiet, ‘for Mass and all, and it sets you apart, but a shawl is much easier for carrying a baby or a small wean.’
And how right she was, Rosie thought. Her arms were nearly pulled from their sockets carrying her child to her mother’s and she’d thought she would have to leave her behind soon and make her visits briefer until Bernadette was able to walk the distance. But with a shawl she could have her on her back, the shawl around the both of them and tied securely at the front to keep Bernadette safe.
Now she wrapped her shawl around her as she followed Dermot. She had no idea where she was being taken. ‘Why aren’t you at school, anyway?’ she asked her little brother as he led her around the edge of the fields.
‘It’s holidays,’ Dermot told her indignantly. ‘For Easter. We broke up yesterday.’
‘Oh, right. Well, where are you taking me then?’
‘I’m not saying. You have to see it for yourself.’
Phelan, digging over one of the fields, watched the progress of the two with narrowed eyes. He wondered what had brought Dermot pell-mell to the cottage door and where he was taking Rosie, for it was obvious from the direction they were going in he was not making for his own place. Dermot had never come to the farm before without at least acknowledging Phelan and usually tagged along beside him. That morning Dermot had seemed preoccupied with something else and hadn’t even seen Phelan’s hand lifted in greeting. Something was up and prickles of alarm ran down Phelan’s spine.
He lifted his head. His father and Danny were over planting in another field behind the tall hedge and Phelan threw his spade down with such force it sliced into the moist earth, and he set off to follow Rosie and Dermot.
They toiled up the hillside, too breathless to speak much, and suddenly Rosie guessed where they were heading. Somehow, Dermot had found Danny’s secret hideaway, the one Danny had told her about, the one Sarah had recently mentioned. She wondered if he’d left treasures behind, things a young boy would value, and that was what had excited Dermot.
And yet, she recalled it hadn’t been delight on Dermot’s face when he’d hammered on the door. There had been something else there…Trepidation. Even fear.
She turned to ask