Danny Boy. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ pulled away reluctantly, though his groin ached with desire. He had to be strong and sensible for both of them. He was four years older than Rosie, and he had to be the one to put on the brakes, for she seemed incapable of it. He didn’t want her disgraced, her family dragged through the mud with her, the wedding rushed and baby born a scant six months later and all claiming it was premature. He’d seen that enough times and didn’t want it for his Rosie.

      After that though, their courtship became more ardent and their lovemaking more and more intimate, until there were few places on Rosie’s body Danny hadn’t explored. Rosie, with Danny’s urging, had touched him too, feeling his strong muscles move beneath her hands and she had even felt the throbbing hardness of his manhood.

      Each time, Danny would pull away from Rosie with difficulty and she would return home frustrated and filled with desire. She didn’t know what it cost Danny to resist, for he was burning up himself.

      ‘Oh God, Danny,’ Rosie said breathlessly one evening at the farm gate, as Danny pulled away from a passionate embrace. ‘Christ, I can’t stand this much longer.’

      Danny too felt they had waited long enough. ‘Rosie, do you love me, as I love you with all your heart and soul?’

      ‘I love you with all my being,’ Rosie told him earnestly. ‘Danny, I’d need a lifetime to show you how much.’

      ‘Then you’ll have a lifetime,’ Danny said emphatically. ‘Rosie, will you marry me?’

      ‘Oh Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes.’

      ‘Then my darling, we’ll talk to your parents tomorrow evening’ Danny promised.

      But, despite Minnie’s indifference to her daughter, she had seen Rosie come home flustered time and enough and knew what ailed her. She hoped Danny Walsh had respect for Rosie and that Rosie had worn her sensible head when she was with him, for she knew well enough what could happen to young couples allowed out alone. So she was relieved and pleased that Danny came to see them and asked for permission to marry Rosie and readily gave their permission. Connie and Matt weren’t averse to this either, for they weren’t fools and had seen the way things were going for some time and the wedding was set for October 1914, a month after Rosie’s seventeenth birthday.

      

      Rosie began sitting by the fire each evening that she didn’t see Danny, sewing things for her bottom drawer. Geraldine was an accomplished seamstress and helped her, but Chrissie had no interest in it at all. Rosie looked at the cobbled mess Chrissie had made of the sheets she’d offered to hem and knew she’d have to unpick the stitches and begin again. She knew Chrissie had tried though and said nothing to her.

      Not so their mother. ‘Who in God’s name would marry a woman who barely knows how to thread a needle?’ she demanded, giving Chrissie a cuff across the head so hard that it knocked her from the stool. Chrissie’s face burned but her eyes remained dry. She said not a word to her mother, but once she’d left the room she whispered to her sisters, ‘Am I worried? I don’t think so. There are more ways of satisfying a man than sewing a button on his shirt.’

      ‘Chrissie,’ Rosie cried shocked. ‘Take care, Mammy would take the strap to you if she heard such talk.’

      ‘That’s why I’m not telling her,’ Chrissie said, with a defiant toss of her head and the three girls giggled together.

      But, although Rosie had help with the basic sewing, she embroidered the night gowns and pillowslips by herself, for she had a knack for it and eventually a week later, with her wedding only days away, she said with satisfaction, ‘No-one could have a better bottom drawer than me.’

      Chrissie had watched Rosie finish the last rosebud on the neck of the cambric gown, and snip off the thread and said, ‘Aye, it’s a fine nightdress right enough. And now, with all the work you’ve done on it, don’t you let Danny tear it from your back. Tell him to go slow.’

      ‘Chrissie!’

      Chrissie paled instantly. She’d not heard her mother come into the room and now she watched her approach with dread. The first slap snapped her neck back, but the second on the other cheek with the back of the hand, scored a line down Chrissie’s cheek from Minnie’s rings. ‘We’ll have no more of that sort of dirty talk. You can just be thankful your father is out.’

      Chrissie’s face with the scarlet handprint on one cheek and the other oozing blood from the deep graze had wiped the smiles from Rosie and Geraldine’s faces. Rosie wondered if she should say something – intervene, but in the past when she had tried that, it had only made things worse.

      She wouldn’t risk it and waited till her mother left the room again before reaching for Chrissie’s hand. ‘I don’t care,’ Chrissie said defiantly as tears she wouldn’t let fall, glistened in her eyes. ‘I hate her! She’s a cow.’

      ‘Hush, oh hush,’ Rosie said putting her arms around her distraught sister. ‘Never say things like that, Chrissie. Think them if you must, but never say them. Mammy would kill you if she heard. But I’ll tell you what,’ she added, hoping to turn the subject from their mother, ‘Danny can remove the nightdress in any way he chooses and if he’s too slow, I’ll help him, so I will.’

      Chrissie’s smile was tremulous, but it was at least a smile and both Rosie and Geraldine were glad to see it. Rosie gave her sister another hug and returned to her seat before her mother should come in

      

      Connie had offered Rosie the loan of her wedding dress, to save the young couple money and when Rosie had seen it, shimmering satin with an overdress of lace and a large train, she felt her eyes fill with tears at her generosity. A neighbour woman ran up dresses of white satin for Rosie and Danny’s sisters on her treadle sewing machine and they were decorated by Sarah and Elizabeth with beads and little pink and blue rosebuds.

      Then, Minnie announced she was going to Dublin to buy clothes for Seamus and Dermot. ‘The trousers on the suit your father wears for Mass have worn thin. They’re always shining on the knees and don’t hold the crease for five minutes and the jacket is downright shabby.’

      Rosie knew she was right, but she worried at the expense of it, what with them already paying out for the reception although it was being held at Danny’s house as it was bigger ‘Oh Mammy, Daddy will be fine in what he has,’ she protested. ‘Don’t be spending money like this.’

      ‘Och, sure aren’t you the first to be married?’ Minnie said and a rare smile touched her lips for a moment. ‘We’ll do the job properly or not at all.’

      ‘But Dermot, Mammy. He’s just a wee boy. What does he need?’

      ‘I want him in a sailor suit,’ Minnie said. ‘In the paper it said they were the talk of the place in England. Won’t he look a little dote in one. Of course you’d get nothing like that in this town, but I’m sure to find something in the fine shops in Dublin.’

      Rosie knew then why her mother was making the trip. It wasn’t for her father’s suit at all. The material could have been bought at the drapers’ in the town and run up by a seamstress the way it was always done, but, Dermot had to be dressed as a wee sailor on her wedding day. She said nothing, she had no wish to argue with her mother now and anyway there was little point. Her mother was blind and deaf to reason where the child was concerned.

      Dermot didn’t care whether he had a sailor suit or not. He didn’t СКАЧАТЬ