‘In time, Robert. These things shouldn’t be rushed,’ she told him.
His brows drew together for a brief second. ‘The children are so pleased to meet you at last, Mother.’
Mrs Munroe clasped her hands together on her substantial bosom. ‘Oh, Robert, they are utterly delightful,’ she replied. ‘And so many - Ellen has certainly done her duty by you.’
The private smile moved across Robert’s face. ‘She certainly has.’
His mother had observed, during her work with the League for the Moral Improvement of the Poor, that the lower classes seemed able to produce a child a year without the slightest problems whereas her poor daughter, Hermione, after six years of marriage and many miscarriages still struggled to become a mother at all.
‘Robina is very like you,’ she continued. ‘The same broad forehead and dark eyes.’
Robert beamed. ‘And she is so clever. I wouldn’t be surprised if she
became
the first woman doctor in England.’
Anxiety fluttered through Mrs Munroe. ‘You do not want to tax the ‘girl’s intellect too much, not as she approaches that difficult age.’
Robert gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t worry, Mother, I can assure you that education has no detrimental effect on girls, even when they are on the verge of womanhood.’
Mrs Munroe winced. She supposed that Robert’s profession caused him to give voice to such matters without regard to delicacy. Although she would be the last to say that women were without natural scholarly ability, she believed their energies and talents should be channelled towards practical feminine pursuits to equip them to be wives and mothers. She failed to see how calculus and science would assist that. She dreaded to think what would become of society if young women started to look outside their God-given domestic sphere for fulfilment.
‘Now George is such a fine son, Robert. Upright and strong, confident too.’ A burst of joy rose up in her. ‘Do you know he marched right up to me yesterday and told me all about his toy soldiers? Have you seen how precisely he arranges them into regiments and battalions? I am convinced he has inherited your uncle’s love of the military.’ She took out her handkerchief and dabbed the corner of her eye as she had done for the past thirty years. ‘Had he survived Waterloo, I know dear Rob would have been a field marshal, maybe even the commander in chief by now.’ She fixed Robert with an intense stare. ‘You must send George to Oxford. You will have a much better chance of securing him a commission in the cavalry if you do.’
‘There is time yet, Mother. He doesn’t start at Charterhouse until September.’ He drained the last mouthful of coffee and put his cup back on the tray. ‘Well, Mother, pleasant though this is, I do have more work to complete so, if you would excuse me . . .’ He began rising from his chair, but Mrs Munroe stayed put and continued talking.
‘I was surprised to see that Miss O’Casey came back from America with you,’ she said in what she hoped was a noncommittal voice.
Robert sighed and sat down again. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I thought that you . . . that she . . . she might be married by now.’
‘Ellen and I hoped so, too, but it wasn’t to be.’
‘I suppose she was pining for this missing Patrick creature who, now it seems, has been alive and well all this time,’ she answered with a sniff. ‘He sounds like a real scoundrel to me.’
‘I would never describe Patrick Nolan as a scoundrel. Josie and Patrick were very young sweethearts and sometimes these things fade with time. I am just thankful he and his family are well.’
Mrs Munroe shifted in her chair. ‘In view of their previous entanglement, I am surprised that you allow her to visit his family.’
‘I would hardly call a youthful crush an entanglement and I can’t see the harm in her visiting her old school friend Mattie and helping with her wedding preparations. Josie has not been without young men eager to speak to me if only she had given them the word.’ The frown left his forehead. ‘I’m sure she’ll find the right young man soon.’
‘I pray it is so. She is already losing her bloom and passing the age when most other young women are married,’ Mrs Munroe said. ‘Couldn’t you introduce her to some young man, some shopkeeper or clerk who might take her fancy? She is striking enough, which should make up for her lack of money.’
‘Josie is not without money, Mother,’ Robert said. ‘I will settle four hundred pounds on her and allow her a further two hundred per annum when she marries.’
Mrs Munroe’s mouth dropped open. ‘Two hundred pounds a year? But she is not even your daughter—’
‘I regard Josie as much my daughter as Bobby and Lottie,’ he replied coolly, ‘and I would be grateful if
you
would accept her as such.’
Mrs Munroe stifled her annoyance. ‘Miss O’Casey is a delightful girl,’ she answered carefully. ‘A little impetuous and high spirited, but she has many talents. I have complimented her several times on her fine needlework. It’s just that her association with this Nolan family - and in particular chasing after this Patrick - might damage your own daughters’ reputations. Think of the shame, Robert. Think of the scandal.’
Robert laughed. ‘Mother, this is 1844 not 1804. Bobby is twelve and Lottie just ten; it will be many years before young men start asking me for their hands in marriage.’
Mrs Munroe rose to her feet and faced her son. Although Robert was an inch over six-foot and she was fast approaching her seventy-second birthday, she could almost look him in the eye.
‘This might be 1844, Robert, but can I remind you that because of the scandal surrounding your involvement in Danny Donovan’s trial and your much publicised liaison with Ellen before you were actually wed,
you
have been forced to practise your profession in America these past twelve years and only now can you return. What if the whole scandal were revived? If Miss O’Casey’s feelings for this Nolan man resurface, her impetuous ways might lead her into folly. How many decades do you think you may need to spend in America next time, Robert?’
Annie watched her father take off his coat and hook it on the peg at the back of the door. He smiled at her, then lowered himself into the threadbare armchair. Mickey abandoned the toy ship he was sailing across the rug and climbed up to his father’s lap. Patrick snuggled him under his arm and Mickey stuck his thumb in his mouth.
‘Had a good day at school?’ he asked.
‘We studied India today and I told Miss Porritt that you’d been there,’ Annie answered. ‘Do you want a mug of tea, Pa?’
‘I could murder for one,’ he replied and Annie giggled.
She couldn’t imagine her pa, who had nursed her through scarlet fever and rushed Mickey to the casualty ward at the hospital when he’d slashed his leg on a rusty hinge, hurting anyone. But she knew he could because the boys at school told her their fathers rated hers as a hard man. Even so, Annie still couldn’t see it at all. Even the best parents gave their children the odd back-hander when they were out of line but, as far as she could remember, her pa had never laid a finger on either her or Mickey.
‘Gran said supper’d be ready soon,’ Annie said, picking up the lamp from the mantelshelf and taking it to the table before going over to the fire and making the tea. That done, she took her father’s special mug, and hers and Mickey’s, together with the brewing tea, to the table. Patrick pulled out a packet from his shirt pocket and gave it to his daughter.
‘Spillage,’ he said as she took it from him.
Her pa had told her that bargemen were allowed to keep a part of their cargo if it burst or spilled onto their boats. It was a tradition. She didn’t quite know what he meant exactly, but she did know it meant a full bucket of coal in the winter and sweet tea from time to time.
Sometimes, if there was a lot, the bargemen would sell it to the local shops. When she went shopping with Gran, things weren’t always on display but, if asked for, they would appear from under the counter - unless, of course, one of the local police happened to be walking by.
Annie placed her father’s tea in front of him and Mickey jumped off Patrick’s lap to sit cross-legged on the floor. Annie handed her brother’s tea down to him and he slurped at it noisily and took up his sailing ship again.
‘Tell me where you got that cup, Pa,’ Annie said, watching her father’s large hands cradle the pictures that ran around the bowl.
‘I stole if from a maharaja,’ he said. ‘I crept into his palace one night when he and all his court were asleep and I whipped it out from under his very nose.’ He winked. ‘Of course, I had to fight off his tigers.’
‘Oh, Pa, you do tell ’em,’ Annie laughed. She loved it when her father joked, which he seemed to do more often latterly, especially after one of Miss Josie’s visits. ‘Last time you said you were given it by a chief on a South Sea island.’
‘That was the tea pot,’ Patrick said, an exaggerated look of outrage on his face.
Annie laughed again. ‘Where did you get that?’ she asked again.
‘Well now, let me see, there was this Chinaman in—’
Mickey abandoned his toy and sat back on his heels. ‘Pa! I bet you can’t even remember how you got it.’
Her father studied the china mug for a moment and then looked back at his children.
‘I’d been at sea for about two years when we shipped out of London. It was a terrible voyage, the worst I’d ever known before or since. There were times when I thought the waves crashing over the deck would take us straight to the bottom. We fought day and night but, finally, with the arms almost torn from our shoulders and the skin nearly gone from our hands, we made it to port. And there on the side of the quay was the prettiest girl I ever saw waiting for me. I’ll never forget what she looked like, with her deep brown hair tied up in a green bow and her bright smile. It had been my nineteenth birthday a month before and, as I staggered towards her on my sea legs, she gave me this.’ He held up the mug.
Annie turned her face up to him. ‘It was Ma, wasn’t it? That pretty girl waiting for you.’
Her father gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Of course it was.’
Annie knew it wasn’t. She could hardly remember her mother. In fact she couldn’t remember anything clearly before she arrived at Gran’s house; otherwise it was just vague shadows and fears.
Gran and Aunt Mattie occasionally referred to her mother as ‘her’, when they thought she couldn’t hear, and crossed themselves swiftly after. Annie couldn’t understand why until one day she overheard Aunt Mattie saying that it was ‘wicked how she had treated Patrick’. What had her mother done that had been so wicked? She didn’t know, but she knew it made her pa very, very unhappy and she didn’t like that.
‘Miss Josie’s very pretty, isn’t she?’ she asked, watching her father closely.
‘Yes, she is,’ he replied, an expression Annie couldn’t understand flitting across his face. ‘Very pretty.’
‘She bought me and Mickey a candy twist today,’ Annie told him.
Mickey looked up from his ship. ‘It made my tongue go blue,’ he said, sticking it out to emphasise his point.
Patrick ruffled his son’s hair. ‘Don’t do that to Gran or she’ll fetch you one.’
‘When Miss Josie was here yesterday she helped me cut out a shirt for Michael and she says she’ll help me sew it properly.’
‘That is very kind of her,’ her father said.
‘Did Ma make your shirts, Pa?’ Annie asked.
The relaxed expression on her father’s face was replaced by the same taut look he always wore when her mother was mentioned.
‘She wasn’t too good with a needle,’ he replied in a flat tone. Then his face brightened. ‘But with Josie’s help you’ll be like your Aunt Mattie soon and she can sure whip up a shirt in the blink of an eye.’
Annie noticed the change in her father’s voice as he said Josie’s name. It had a warmth about it that she rarely heard. She got off the chair and took her father’s empty cup from him.
‘Aunt Mattie told us that you and Miss Josie used to be sweethearts, before she went to live in America,’ Annie said in a conversational tone.
‘Did she now?’ He stretched his legs and settled back in the chair, letting his head rest on the back.