Then Danny went to Rosie who was standing twisting her hands together agitatedly and he looked into her eyes and saw the fear in them. Oh God, he thought, how I love this woman and our child, and yet he knew what he had to do, and he saw by Rosie’s face that she knew too. ‘I must go, Rosie.’
Rosie wanted to plead with him, remind him he had a wife, a child, responsibilities. He wasn’t to do this. She wouldn’t let him. By Christ, what was he thinking of, even suggesting it? But she said none of this. She heard the gulping sobs of Connie and the keening of Sarah, who’d sunk to her knees before the mat as if her legs could no longer hold her up.
Her mouth went very dry as Danny pulled her close. ‘The boy’s not fifteen until July,’ he said. ‘I’ll look for Sam and Shay too and try and make them see sense, but Phelan will come home if I have to drag him every step of the way. By Christ, when I get hold of him I’ll knock the bloody head from his shoulders.’
Rosie laid her head against Danny, too distressed to even cry. ‘When will you go?’ she asked him brokenly.
‘As soon as possible. If Dermot has only just found the letter, they might not have gone far and I might catch up with him before he even gets to Dublin.’
Dermot felt guilty at Danny’s words. Danny was hoping to find Phelan on the road somewhere. The reality was he’d probably marched with the Brotherhood all the night long, armed with all the rifles and pistols from the cottage, and they were now positioned in Dublin town and up to any manner of things.
He could say none of this. He’d made a promise to Phelan and yet he was sad to see how upset everyone was. They didn’t see the glory in the fight that Phelan had seen and Suddenly Dermot didn’t know who was right. ‘I’m sorry,’ he spluttered.
‘God, child, sure it’s not your fault,’ Connie said, wiping her eyes again. ‘Come up to the table and have a cup of buttermilk and a wee slab of barnbrack. You’re a good boy, so you are.’
Dermot felt anything but good, but he did as he was bid.
Struggling to control her voice, willing it not to break, Rosie said to Danny, ‘I’ll put some of your clothes in a bundle.’
‘I’ll not need…’
‘It might take longer than you think,’ Rosie insisted.
She almost stumbled away from him and when she reached the relative privacy of her own room, she leaned her head against the door and let the tears fall at last. She and Dermot knew what no-one else was aware of: the cache of arms. She would bet that hole in the cottage was empty now. This would never do. She wiped the tears from her eyes impatiently and began to sort out fresh clothes for Danny to take with him. She had no illusions about her young brother-in-law, though she knew Danny thought Phelan had just taken off on some half-brained idea of joining some revolutionary group while in actual fact she knew he’d been involved for some time and she had little doubt that whenever he’d left he’d had a rifle in his hands and bullets in his pocket. They intended to kill and maim. She wanted her Danny nowhere near that. But Phelan was just a boy and she knew Danny, as his elder brother, had to try and save him from himself.
‘How long d’you think he’ll be?’ Connie asked Matt.
‘How should I know,’ Matt answered shortly, anxiety for his younger son’s disappearance and his elder son’s mission to find him making him tetchy and his voice sharp. ‘It’s a tidy walk to Dublin, you know, if he doesn’t catch up with him on the road somewhere. And that’s not the whole of it. Dublin’s not like Blessington, a wee small place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Sure, I would say there are numerous places there where a young man not wishing to be found could hide out.’
So that’s it, Rosie thought. Could take any time at all. It was like asking how long was a piece of string. She sighed, the burden of what she knew about the hidden arms weighing heavily on her, and she wondered for the umpteenth time if she should tell them. But for what? She doubted that knowledge would make them feel better and she remembered Phelan’s warnings well enough. There was no way she would risk bringing further danger or sorrow on this family.
The following day she wrapped Bernadette in her shawl, picked up the chocolates and sweets she had bought as presents, and went across the fields to her parents’ house. Bernadette was becoming more beautiful every day. Now her fair hair was beginning to curl as she grew, just like Dermot’s, much to his delight. Her eyes, though, were a deep lilac-blue, ringed with dark lashes, while her nose was a cute button. Her mouth was wide and when she smiled you could see her four little teeth at the front. She was going on for ten months old now and could say some words and pull herself up on the furniture. Rosie loved the very bones of her, as did all the Walshes and Rosie’s sisters, while Dermot continued to be enchanted by her every word or action.
Rosie’s parents took little notice of their only grandchild and Rosie tried not to mind, telling herself it was only what she’d come to expect, but she’d have loved to discuss the baby’s progress with her mother, or laugh together at something she did.
But all Minnie was interested in now was Dermot having sneaked away to their house the previous day. ‘And with not so much as a by-your-leave,’ she cried, indicating the boy standing before her, his face flushed and shuffling his feet on the stone floor of the cottage.
Rosie knew he’d told his parents nothing about the letter, either before he delivered it or after, and she was pleased. Connie had advised Rosie to say nothing of Phelan’s disappearing and Danny in pursuit if Dermot hadn’t already. ‘Sure, we don’t want half the county alerted,’ she’d said. ‘They might be back before we realise they’ve gone and least said, you know…’
So Rosie didn’t enlighten her parents to the reason for Dermot’s visit the previous day, but stung by their indifference to her child and by the discoloured bruise on Geraldine’s cheek, she cried out, ‘Why shouldn’t he come and see me, his own sister, and the wee baby he’s uncle to? As for not asking permission, if you’d let him come when he wants, he’d not have to sneak away.’
‘When I want advice on how to bring up my own son, I’ll ask you,’ Minnie snapped back.
‘Aye,’ Rosie commented wryly. ‘That’ll be the day, but I’m warning you now, tying the boy to your apron strings is not the way to go on. No wonder he deceives you.’
Never had Rosie spoken in such a way to her mother and she looked at Minnie’s outraged face after her outburst and wondered if she’d order her from the house. ‘Look,’ she continued in a conciliatory way. ‘Let’s not quarrel. Never mind what Dermot did yesterday. Today is a new day. Let’s sit down to the fine meal Chrissie and Geraldine have got ready, and after it I’ll share the sweets and chocolates I have with me.’
‘Well,’ Minnie said at last. ‘I’ve never been spoken to in such a way before. I hope you don’t think, Rosie, because you’re a married woman you can show such lack of respect for your parents. We’ll say nothing about it this time, but I’d like you to remember it for the future.’
Rosie bit her lip and took the rebuke without any retort. She heard her sisters’ small sighs of relief and saw the look of gratitude Dermot flashed her.
The next day, the Walsh girls, returning to work after the Bank Holiday, came home in a state of great agitation. ‘There’s been a rebel uprising in Dublin,’ Sarah said. ‘I hope to God Sam and Phelan aren’t mixed up in it.’
‘What did you say?’ Matt asked, shocked.
‘An uprising, Daddy. It’s the talk of the place. We brought you the Dublin Express to see for yourself,’ Sarah told him, handing her father the paper. The main picture showed Dublin’s