Delaney. Part I

“It’s too hot, Sister.”

Delaney is accustomed to the rough dressing at the hands of Sister Mary Eunice who yanks the tattered wool sweater down over the seven-year-old’s raised arms, lifted as in surrender. Lamplight bounces from her cheeks which are flush like a furnace. It’s still dark, barely past five thirty. Her curly dark hair resists any accountability to the brush no matter how hard Sister Mary Eunice drags it through the tangles.

“T’will be cold when coming home.” The Sister tells her. The girls in the dorm room sleep soundly, oblivious to the whispered conversation as Sister readies Delaney for her first day as a chore maiden. Standing before her, the nun sweeps a hand down the girl’s dress briskly as if whipping the wrinkles out and onto the floor, but with little effect.

Mary Eunice is a pristine contrast to the disheveled child. Her habit and tunic are as stiff as her manner, and the immaculate black outer garments accent the glowing white of her coif making her look just like a photograph.

The lamp throws its light out in front of them as the Sister Mary Eunice takes the child by the hand from the room and down the hall. The lilting voices of the nuns echo lauds from the chapel in welcome to the day. Mary Eunice pulls Delaney into her office and sits down, pulling the child right up to her knees and looking her straight in the face.

“Now I want you to be respectful. You say, ‘yes mum’ and ‘no mum’ and ‘thank you mum’ but otherwise you don’t talk. Hear me? Do what you’re told, and they’ll surely have you back. The Ryan’s are good people. Poor as the beggars on Halpenny Lane, but good.”

Delaney has seen Mrs. Ryan plenty of times in town, her protruding womb making her difficult to miss in a small town and Delaney decided that Mrs. Ryan has a kind face. So it lightens her nerves a little to think that helping the Ryans will be her first experience as a chore maiden.

“They’ll likely pay your wages in sweet chestnuts. You can have a few along the way back, but I expect a full sack when you arrive at the convent tonight.”

“But the sack won’t be full if I have a few, Sister.” The girl is skilled in the art of legal defense. She is making calculations to prevent the smack of the ruler should the definition of “full sack” be in question.

“Shush! I’ll know if you’ve had more than you should.”

“But how, Sister?”

Sister Mary Eunice’s eyes drill into her.

“This is exactly the kind of back talk I don’t want you to be giving the Ryans. They won’t tolerate such indolence from an orphan.”

Delaney decides not to press further though her question is spoken without malice. She abandons hope of ever knowing the difference between a legitimate question and back talk.

“What will they have me do?” The initial excitement of being chosen as a chore maiden has eroded since first learning of her debut last afternoon. Now all she can think about is the overwhelming unpredictability of the day ahead.

“Won’t be nothing you haven’t done around the convent a thousand times. They’ve a new baby, just one, not a brood of them like the O’Connors. Mrs. Ryan has taken sick, so you’ll mind the child. Keep him from crying just like you’ve done with the babies we’ve taken in here. Maybe wash up the dishes, but I don’t expect you’ll be doing any sweeping. It’s a dirt floor. They know you’re only seven, child. Old enough to do plenty but they won’t have you out behind a plow.”

The sister rolls up a sleeve on the sweater. On the girl’s right forearm there are markings tattooed into the skin. Mary Eunice pulls a jar from her pocket and unscrews the lid. A peach-colored paste looks up at them and she takes two fingers full, rubbing the lotion over the tattoo until it is nearly covered.

“Keep this sweater on, and don’t roll up these sleeves. Keep these marks hidden. If you’re hot, just fan yourself with your hand.”

The girl’s eyes cling to the crucifix dangling from the nun’s neck, glittering in the lamplight. She has always been mesmerized by the crucifixion of Christ. One cannot take ten steps in the convent without encountering the suffering Jesus looking down upon her from some wall or peering at her from the altar. She wants to ask the Sister why Jesus was not hung by the neck like the others in the Dunleer town square, but she can see the woman is in a hurry to get her out the door and on the road.

“Now, you know the Ryan cottage, Delaney. It’s the third one after the Walsh farm. You’ve seen it a hundred times when we’ve come into town. If you see the pub, then you’ve gone too far, just turn around and head back. Mr. Ryan’ll be gone by the time you get there. He works as a hand on the corporate farm on the Walsh’s land and he’ll have started his day before sunrise. The missus will be expecting you.”

The road to the Ryan cottage is empty as a pocket and the seven-year-old is overcome with both a sense of freedom and of dread, though she is thankful of the coolness of the April morning. She takes the bread which Sister has folded into a cloth and put in the girl’s pocket, finishing it before she’d even gotten a kilometer down the road. Her mind is so filled with imaginings about the day ahead that when she looks down at the crumb-filled cloth she wonders if perhaps she has dropped the bread somewhere along the path.

When she finally stops before a cottage, she’s forgotten whether she’d counted two or three since passing the corporate farm, but Mrs. Ryan is looking out the window, and seeing the child steps to the door and opens it.

“Your name’s Delaney, am I right?”

“Yes mum.”

“Well, you’re at the right place.”

“Thank you, mum.”

Mrs. Ryan is barely 21. Her frequent miscarriages since marrying at sixteen years of age has served as a terrific source of heartache. But little Robert was born full term and without ailment. He appears quite ready to survive the precarious first few months of life. The Ryans are ready to believe that their curse has passed and the child will make the journey into toddlerhood.

“He’s sleeping just now. Just got done feeding him.” The woman is patting her breast in congratulation.

“I don’t expect he’ll be waking for a bit so we can sit and visit.”

Being a chore maiden needn’t have worried me so, the girl thinks. I won’t mind rising early just to come and chat each day with Mrs. Ryan.

The cottage is small and dank, and Delaney can smell the dirt floor, but the dingy surroundings are awash in the light of Mrs. Ryan’s countenance, as radiant as Saint Brigid. Her hair blooms a lively orange and Delaney can make out in the poor light the faded freckles which survived the winter and are following her into spring ready to be wakened.

“Have as much as you like.” And the woman is setting a dented tin cup of water in front of Delaney whom is sat before a crude table. “Farmer Walsh gives us the use of his pump. Much as we want, so we don’t have to go to the stream. Later today I’ll send you to fetch us some water so you can see for yourself.”

“Yes mum.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet as a blackberry?” The woman says after a wordless minute.

“Thank you, mum.” Delaney is attempting to keep to the letter of Sister Mary Eunice’s law regarding acceptable speech.

“Tell me now, were you born around here?”

“Yes mum.”

“Here in Dunleer?”

“Yes mum.”

“Well, do you know anything about your ma? Might I be knowing her from around town?”

Once a woman has born ten children, it was not uncommon to give subsequent children to the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.

“Yes mum.” The polite thing would be to say more, but this will deviate from the explicit orders about keeping to ‘yes mum, no mum and thank you mum.” The girl shifts in her seat and pulls at the neck of her sweater. And when she can take the agony of silence no longer, she adds,

“My ma lives above the tavern. Least she did when I was born.”

The rooms located above the tavern constitute the local brothel, and Mrs. Ryan indeed knows some of the women who work there.

“Do you know her name?”

“No mum. She didn’t want me coming ‘round to bother her I s’pose.”

“Well, never mind. You’ve a good home with the Sisters.”

“Yes mum.”

“Now, I’ve left some dishes for you to do up in the basin there. And when you’re done you can go up the road to the farmhouse. There’s a pump out front. You can fill both those pales in the corner if you think you can carry them. The baby will be fine here so long as he’s sleeping.”

“Yes mum.”

“I’ve spent myself already and the sun’s barely up. Can’t seem to go long before wearing myself out lately. I need a bit of a lie down. You let little Robert fuss a good deal before picking him up. It’s good for him to get used to being ignored. That’s what my ma told me, so as not to spoil him.” Mrs. Ryan points toward a bundle of rags in the corner. Delaney would have mistaken the child for a lump of old cloths if Mrs. Ryan hadn’t indicated there’s actually a baby among the rags. And without another word she ascends a ladder leading to an open loft and collapses onto a dirty mattress. With near miraculous speed the woman appears to have fallen fast asleep.

Delaney busies herself washing the few plates, along with a single pot and a pan which seem to be all the cookware the home can afford. She tries to do this quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping mother and child. She pours cold water gingerly from one of the pales into a washing basin and rubs the dirty dishes with a cloth. The pot has bits of oatmeal hardened onto the surface and the child cannot seem to scrub it off. She tries her thumbnail, but the oatmeal has become one with the pot, so she decides to let it soak.

Picking up the two empty pales she slips outside and heads toward the Walsh farm. She finds the pump just in front of the porch and requires nearly all the girl’s weight to pull the handle down to start the water splashing into the pale. She is not disturbed, though a woman, presumably Mrs. Walsh, glances out the screen door for a second.

The walk back to the cottage with full pales is much longer than the walk to the pump with empty ones, and Delaney stops every few dozen steps to rest. She fears her arms will be pulled right from their sockets by the time she gets back to the cottage. The sun is above the horizon now and is burning off the mist above the grass. Each time she stops she fans herself with her hand, just as Sister Mary Eunice told her to do, being careful not to pull her sleeves up. When she arrives at the cottage a third of the water seems to have leapt from the pales and the hem of her dress and feet are soaking wet.

She sets them down rubbing her shoulders. She can hear baby Robert rustling in the cloths which are swaddled around him and she looks over at the lump tentatively. Slowly she approaches, stretching her neck like a slow sunrise to peer at him, lest any sudden movement fully wake the infant. His eyes are closed but he is kicking himself free of the cocoon and his hands have escaped. They are grasping at air.

She can’t bear to see a squirming baby and Robert is now making little fussing noises as he fights with some invisible foe, thrusting legs and arms at them. Delaney determines that the 30 seconds of fussing constitutes “a good deal” and scoops the child up. Immediately he begins to cry, and Mrs. Ryan stirs in her loft bed.

“Shh,” she says as she takes him outside, “you’re gonna wake your ma.” But Robert doesn’t seem to care. In fact, he seems intent upon that very purpose. At least as much as a two-month-old can have sentient intentions, and Delaney supposes a hungry baby can very much intend, conscious or not, to wake his mother.

As his cries get louder Delaney takes the child further and further from the cottage, pleading desperately with Robert.

“You know your ma’s tired. She’s barely got to lying down. And she’s brought me here to give her a rest. Now you’re gonna get me sacked on my very first day of work.”

But Robert does not seem to care about Delaney’s job security. He’s wailing unreservedly, stopping only when the blanket rubs against his cheek, provoking a mad search for a breast to satisfy his urge to suck.

As the girl bounces the infant, she can hear the bleating of goats. She has walked all the way to the Walsh barn in an attempt to keep the child from waking his ma. At times the bleating of goats and the bleating of baby are nearly synchronous, and Delaney is drawn closer and closer to the sounds coming from the barn. Finally, driven by a desire to get out of the sun, the girl unlatches the barn door and enters.

Curiosity draws the goats to girl and infant, and there appears to be a competition to see who can cry loudest.

Delaney wants to cover her ears, but to do so she needs to put the baby down. So, she sits upon a stool with Robert on her lap. She is suffocating in that blasted sweater. Surely Sister Mary Eunice would not want to her suffocate, to expire of heat exhaustion on her first day of work. Besides, she can’t tend to the screaming child if she passes out and there’s no one around but goats. Nothing wrong with goats seeing her arm. So, she peels the thing off and tosses it to the hay-covered floor, bouncing the infant wildly on her legs.

Delaney’s picks up her sweater and sits on it when one of the goats begins to nibble at it.

“Don’t you.” She warns. “This is made from the coat of one of your friends. You don’t go eating your friend’s coat, do you?”

Then she spies the heavy udder hanging down from underneath the goat. The baby is wailing and clearly searching for a nipple. Driven by a childlike logic, she pulls the goat closer. Just as she lifts the child to the milk-laden teat the barn door bursts open. It is Mr. Ryan.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” He cries as he rushes to pull his newborn from the girl. “What do you think you’re doing?”