A Family Cursed

by Elaine Crowley

Genres: Family Life; Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

When ruthless Michael McCarthy evicts the Cronins, tenants in the estate that is to become his son's, old Mag Cronin calls down the power of darkness on Michael and his descendants. At first the curse is laughed off, but in the next generation the McCarthys suffer a terrible toll of lives lost and blighted. Only handsome, young Michael, his father's pride and joy, seems to lead a charmed life, prospering as a barrister in Dublin with his wife and daughters. But slowly the workings of the curse are felt in a further generation. Molly, his first and favourite daughter, follows her foolishly trusting heart and marries a brutal soldier. Beautiful and gifted Francoise turns to a harsh, unrewarding career. Nell, born to be a wife and mother, loses her chance of happiness in the cruellest way possible. When a fourth child, Rory, is born unexpectedly, it is his fate to either carry the curse into another generation - or to break it.

Release date: July 25, 2013

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 430

Sample

1850

THERE were only two prosperous men in the small town of Ballydurkin: Michael McCarthy and Daniel O’Brien. Michael was a provisions merchant and Daniel a publican. During the recent famine both men had increased their fortunes. Michael had done so by charging the highest penny to anyone who during the terrible years could afford food, and buying from men and women in desperate circumstances whatever they had to sell: garden implements, spades and slanes, holy pictures, even the women’s wedding rings or their bedding such as it was, anything at all which he could get at the lowest price and sell on to dealers at a profit.

This business he conducted in a shed away from the shop where he catered for the local clergymen, a Protestant minister and the Catholic priest, and for the gentry who farmed in the area, supplying them with their hams and wines, sugar and tea, and all manner of delicacies brought down from Dublin. He sold snuff, white and brown, wax candles, dried and candied fruits, coffee and spices, cheese and chocolate. Anyone who entered the shop would remember its aroma for always.

Daniel O’Brien sold porter, stout and hard liquor. Even in the famine time he always had customers. Farmers on Fair Days, tinkers, destitute men who had earned a few shillings building on the relief schemes, putting up walls that guarded nothing, roads that went nowhere, all the schemes supposed to relieve their starvation. Once the money was in their hands their first port of call was the public house though their wives waited at home demented with worry as to where the next slice of bread was coming from.

Both men had a common ambition. They wanted to own land. They believed that once their families had owned great farms, before the English came to Ireland. So they made a match between Michael’s son, Peter, and Daniel’s daughter, Mary. With what Michael could put up and the dowry Mary would bring they knew how to get the land they so desired.

Living outside the town was a man called Nicholas Ashleigh, a Protestant landowner whose family had come over from England during the time of Cromwell, his ancestor being one of the General’s officers who, like many of his troops, was rewarded with a generous grant of land. Originally the first Ashleigh had had nearly a thousand acres. But poor management, profligate sons and his own generosity to tenants during the famine had reduced his fine farm to less than four hundred acres. But four hundred acres to an Irishman, whose ancestors may have owned much land in the long distant past but in the preceding centuries were lucky to be able to rent an acre on which to grow potatoes for their sole sustenance and enough grain to sell for rent, was considered a vast amount.

Besides the farm there was a fine stone Georgian house and good outbuildings. It would make an ideal home for the newlyweds.

‘He’ll sell it for a song,’ Michael told Daniel one evening as the two men sat in the room behind the public house bar.

‘How can you be sure of that?’ Daniel asked.

‘For one thing he hasn’t settled his bill this long time and that was never a habit of the Ashleighs. Though the same can’t be said for many a member of the gentry. For another, didn’t he let the rents run in the bad years? Not one tenant of Nicholas Ashleigh’s lost the roof over his head. The man is desperate. He wants rid of the place.’

‘Where will he go, so?’

‘That’s no concern of mine. So long as my son has the land he can go to Timbuctoo for all I care.’

‘’Twill be grand all right,’ said Daniel O’Brien. ‘And a great catch my Mary is.’

‘To be sure,’ agreed Michael. ‘A fine, lovely girl. A well-built girl who, please God, will give Peter fine sons to carry on when he and I and you have gone to our long rest.’

Michael’s wife came in to ask if there was anything the men wanted. A few sandwiches? Another bottle of whiskey? She was devoured with curiosity as to how things were going and hoping a careless word might be dropped. ‘Yerra, woman,’ said her husband, ‘if we want anything, haven’t we tongues in our head? Away out and mind the customers.’ Matchmaking and the buying of land wasn’t a woman’s business, he said after she closed the door.

They drank more whiskey, smoked their pipes and gazed at the fire. Then Daniel said, ‘Apart from the Cronins there’s no tenants to bother about on the land.’

‘All gone to America or the famine pit, thanks be to God.’ Michael took the pipe from his mouth, hawked his throat and spat into the fire. ‘That Mag Cronin will create a fuss for sure.’

‘She will that. Would you never consider letting her and John see out their time where they are? The field is no size at all. They’ve had a hard road. Four of their children died of the fever, and after their eldest girl disgraced herself it broke their hearts. A beautiful young girl she was, barely sixteen years. I do be often wondering who the man was.’ As he spoke he was studying Michael’s face, for rumour had it he was the father of the child. The girl Bridgid used to clean the rooms above the provisions shop, and someone had put up the money to pack her off to America. The priest had arranged the passage but where would he have laid hands on the money?

If Michael McCarthy was the child’s father his face betrayed no hint of it as he said, ‘Sure it could have been anyone. A fella passing through, a soldier from the barracks, any one of a dozen or more. As you say, I’m sorry for the Cronins but sorrow never buttered a cut of bread and it’s business we’re talking. They’ll have to go.’

‘We’ll be thought bad of. ’Tis one thing for the English landlords to evict, but for Irishmen to do it to Irishmen – I don’t like it, Michael. She’s crippled with the rheumatics and Johnny took paralysis after Bridgid disgraced herself. I’m telling you, they’re not long for this world. Couldn’t we wait them out?’ Daniel said.

‘We will not. The field has grown wild. They can’t see to it nor themselves. They’ll be looked after in the Workhouse. They’ll have food and shelter and medical attention. And besides, I don’t want anyone on that land except a McCarthy. Mag Cronin is a mad oul’ bitch. I remember Ashleigh once telling me she walked as many fields as she could every day of her life.’

‘What in God’s name would she do that for?’

‘Laying claim to them. Ashleigh told me himself. He had asked one day when he came upon her and she said to him: “These fields were the Cronins’ when your father’s people were ploughboys beyond in England. They were wrenched from us, the rightful owners.”’

‘Is that a fact? I never heard that before. How did Ashleigh take it?’

‘Sure he only smiled. Hadn’t her mother-in-law done the same thing in his father’s time, and going back beyond that? He knew well the answer he would get. But being a gentleman he could not pass her by in the field without a word of conversation. Well, she’ll not walk them any more. I’ll see to that.’

Mary O’Brien was a gentle dreamy girl, an only child adored by her mother who as she approached marriageable age felt many a pang of sadness, knowing well how her daughter’s head was filled with dreams of romance. Of meeting a man to fall in love with. A man like those Mary read of in her books of poetry.

Mary, unaware of her mother’s unease, continued to sew and work her bobbins, and if she wasn’t recalling the poetry she was thinking of romance and love. Of meeting a man of her choice, and the wonderful, romantic courtship that would follow. Of love and kisses, whispers, secret meetings. Standing against her parents’ wishes until finally all objections and resistance were overcome and with her mother’s and father’s blessing she and the handsome man were married and lived happily ever after.

Such things did happen. At least the poets wrote that they did, and there were stories told of such happenings and songs sung about them. And she used to dream when she was younger that they would also happen to her. But lately it had been brought home to her that real life was seldom how the songs or poems portrayed it. The man you married was chosen for you. Money and or stock changed hands. The money she brought to the McCarthys would buy land. In other cases the dowry was the means of the bridegroom’s sister finding a husband. The husband’s family used it to marry off one of their daughters. It was how the system worked. A way of ensuring that women could marry.

And because she was a biddable girl Mary accepted it as she would accept Peter McCarthy. Consoling herself that at least he wasn’t an old man as many bridegrooms were. Some old enough to be their bride’s father.

She would have chosen a dark-haired man, one with dash, one who could set her heart racing. Not that she knew such a one except in her dreams. And now she was grown up and such dreams must be cast aside and she be thankful that it wasn’t an old, bent man, with no hair and spindly legs, a widower with children older than herself, whom she was to marry.

The girl who had disgraced herself was Bridgid Cronin, a girl with wild, black curly hair and startlingly vivid blue eyes. After Bridgid’s complaining of feeling ill it took her mother Mag very little time and few questions to find out the cause. ‘Who was it?’ she screamed, and brandishing a stick, beat her daughter round the arms, shoulders, back and legs. ‘You hoor, who was it? Was it Michael McCarthy and you above doing the rooms over the shop? Answer me, you hoor’s melt, or I’ll kill you!’

Bridgid evaded as many blows as she could and remained silent. Her father John, hearing the commotion, came in from outside, a thin man bent double, able only to walk with difficulty because of arthritis. He tried to protect his daughter, so that the blows from the stick rained also on his frail body. ‘Leave the child alone,’ he implored his wife. ‘You’ll be the cause of killing her.’

‘Kill her I will if she doesn’t name the name. And a good riddance she’d be. Why was she spared and my other lovely innocent girls above in the famine pit? Lord have mercy on them.’

Not until Bridgid collapsed on the floor did her mother put down the stick, throw a basin of cold water over her and order her to stand up. ‘Get up,’ she ordered. ‘You’re coming to the priest, and if you won’t tell him Hell is staring you in the face.’

Father Clancy was no more successful than Mag Cronin had been in finding out the man’s name. He shook his head sorrowfully and told Mag not to worry, he would see to things. The girl wouldn’t stay in the parish to sully the Cronins’ good name.

‘Keep her in the house until you hear from me. Say nothing to no one. There’s homes run for fallen women by the nuns in Cork and Dublin, and further afield. I’ll fix it.’

‘It’s signed and sealed,’ the priest said when next he spoke to Mag Cronin. ‘There’s a convent across in New York. I’ve sent a letter to the Mother Superior explaining the predicament. I knew her well when I was a boy, there’ll be no bother at all, and a generous benefactor in the parish will pay Bridgid’s passage to America.’

The dirt bird, Michael McCarthy, Mag thought to herself. ’Tis him that’s the guilty party. Destroying my child and now sending her to the ends of the earth. But sure what can I do to the likes of him? And there’s no fear that the priest would offend him by making him do the decent thing and lose the money that McCarthy greases his paw with. God’s curse be on the pair of them! I’ll hold my tongue and live out the rest of my days in sorrow with neither chick nor child in my old age.

Bridgid was never let across the door except to relieve herself not far from the cottage where a clump of bushes grew. And it was to there that her cousin, Patty Cronin, crossed the fields from the next village, having heard as one heard everything that went on in the vicinity that Bridgid was leaving the next day. No one was sure exactly where she was going though there was a strong rumour as to why and who was the cause of her downfall.

It was early in the morning when Patty came and hid herself in a ditch to watch for Bridgid come to relieve herself. And when she did and was out of view of the cottage, Patty hissed, ‘Bridgid, ’tis me. I’ve come to say goodbye.’ And she rose from the ditch and, approaching the cousin she loved, threw her arms round her. ‘I’m that sorry for your trouble and I couldn’t let you go without taking my leave of you.’ The two girls wept in each other’s arms. And then Patty asked, ‘Where is it they’re sending you?’

‘To America.’

‘America! I’d get myself into trouble to go to America. Sure you’re made for life. What’s here in Ballydurkin, or Ireland for that matter? Dry your tears, girl. In America you’ll find a grand husband. I only wish I was in your shoes. Relieve yourself now and get back before your mother comes looking for you and takes a stick to both of us.’

‘I’ll send for you, Patty. I’ll send you the passage money when I’m on my feet,’ Bridgid promised as she rearranged her clothes and they embraced in farewell. ‘And I’ll tell you who the man was. Let me whisper it in your ear. But first you’ll have to promise never to let the secret cross your lips for I’d find out and not send the money.’

Patty promised and Bridgid whispered. Patty’s face paled when she heard. ‘May God love you,’ she said, ‘and I’ll never breathe a word of what you’ve told me.’
‘And I’ll send the passage money.’

Bridgid left the next morning before it was light. She had few possessions, so few that they made only a small bundle wrapped in her threadbare shawl. Along with them she took her baptismal lines and a sealed letter from Father Clancy to be handed to the Mother Superior when she arrived in New York. Tears washed her father’s face as he said his goodbyes. Her mother kept her back turned and not until Bridgid was walking away down the boreen did she go to the door and look after her. Her slip of a girl. Her beauty still with the marks of the famine hunger about her thin arms, legs, shoulders and immature breasts. Hatred for Michael McCarthy surged in Mag’s heart. Hatred and an overwhelming desire to avenge her daughter. And she knew there were ways and means of visiting vengeance on him. She would call upon her power to do it.

After a five-week voyage Bridgid arrived in New York on a roasting hot day. Momentarily she forgot why she was here, caught up in the excitement of the strange place. The smells from the warehouses that lined the quays. The sky with not a cloud in its brilliant blue. The burning dry heat. The crowds. Men with black faces. Men and women speaking in languages she didn’t understand.

But soon she came to her senses and found her way to the waiting nuns who held above their heads a banner with the name of the convent lettered on it. Here she was to wait until all passengers had disembarked. When they had and more girls and women had joined the group they set off in a straggly line with two nuns leading the column and two bringing up the rear to a tall forbidding-looking building behind the waterfront.

There the Mother Superior interviewed each arrival, read the letters they had brought from their parish priest and told the girls what their duties would be. They would work in the laundry until their babies were born. The children would be taken from them at the moment of birth, given to wet-nurses and afterwards put up for adoption.

Bridgid’s baby was born early in January 1850. The infant was a boy. She haemorrhaged and died without ever looking on the face of her son. He was baptized John Patrick, and when he was adopted his mother’s baptismal lines and his birth certificate were his only possessions.

Preparations for Peter and Mary’s wedding were made. Father Clancy would officiate. Months beforehand Mary and her mother went to Cork City to buy material for the wedding dress. They chose an expensive heavy oyster-coloured silk and a hat with ostrich plumes. The local dressmaker made the gown. Neither it nor the hat was the height of fashion but both were attractive. The wide-brimmed hat framed Mary’s face. The dress showed her tiny waist and was comfortable to walk in. Her only ornament was a gold cross and chain.

Two months before the wedding the Ashleighs’ land and house became Peter’s property and he set the eviction of Mag Cronin and her husband in process, having arranged that they should move into the Workhouse. On the morning that the cottage was to be vacated he arrived with the local sergeant of police and executed the order. John went quietly, but Mag stood her ground and cursed him and all belonging to him then went at a hare’s pace away over the fields, where she found shelter with relations.

The church was of recent origin and despite the luridly coloured statues and flowers placed in it by Mary’s mother there was a raw feel to it.

A girl from Limerick with whom Mary had gone to school was her bridesmaid and an acquaintance of Peter’s his best man. The guests for the most part were other strong farmers and publican friends of Mary’s father. Local people come to see a wedding filled the back seats.

Resignedly Mary went to the chapel and offered up her prayers that she would be a good wife to Peter, a good mother when God blessed her with children.

Her own mother wept openly, knowing that her gentle Mary should have married a man she was greatly in love with, and she prayed that Peter would be a considerate husband, go to his wedding bed reasonably sober and treat her daughter with consideration.

After the wedding breakfast, which finished in the late afternoon, the serious drinking began. Mrs O’Brien was relieved to see that Peter wasn’t amongst the drinkers, and that when the bridal couple left for their new home he was sober.

Mary had no idea what to expect when he came from an adjoining small room where he had undressed and shyly got into the bed beside her. They were both virgins and on their first night the marriage wasn’t properly consummated, Peter apologizing in an embarrassed voice that he was afraid of hurting her and saying things would improve with time. Eventually they did, but never to any great extent. But having nothing to compare their lovemaking with Mary enjoyed the kissing and accepted the rest as part of married life.

The next morning Peter was up early and out about the farm. Catti, who had worked for the Ashleighs, stayed on to work for Mary and another two young girls had been employed to work under her supervision. Catti was the same age as Mary, unmarried, from a big family, warm-hearted and good-natured. She and Mary had gone to the same infant school, the same chapel, and until Mary went away to school were always on good terms. Mary knew that they would get on well together.

When she came down to the kitchen, a very big room with an enormous table left by the Ashleighs, a dresser the length of a wall, many kitchen chairs and two wooden armchairs, one each side of the range, on which Catti had placed brightly coloured crocheted cushions she had made as a wedding present, Mary felt at home and that it was a good room in which she would be happy. And that Peter was right in deciding they wouldn’t for a long time use the cold dining-room and drawing-room. He had said when they looked over the house: ‘I wouldn’t feel that comfortable in them yet. But our children will, please God. Like the Ashleighs, they’ll be born to such a way of living.’

Catti put two new-laid boiled eggs and a plate of freshly baked soda bread in front of Mary and brought her the tea pot. The kitchen got the sun in the morning, dazzlingly bright, and Catti advised Mary to change places and sit with her back to it. ‘You’ve got all your wants now, Mrs Mac, so I’ll see what the two young girls are up to. You have to start them off on the right foot. I’ll only be a minute.’

It was only seconds after Catti left that Mary heard the voice and, going to the window, looked into the hate-filled face of Mag Cronin. The window was open and she clearly heard Mag’s voice, hoarse with rage, spit out the words.

‘That the malediction of God may fall on you and yours. That your children and theirs writhe in the agony mine did. That your cattle sicken and die and your crops wither. That you nor he may never prosper, know happiness or a contented mind. That every ill may befall you and yours. Your children and theirs and them that come after them. From the bottom of my heart, that’s my curse on you and this house for all eternity.’

Mary screamed and screamed and screamed. Catti came running followed by the servant girls. Streams of abuse still came from Mag’s foam-flecked lips and her arms waved wildly. Catti sent the girls to find Peter, told Mary to shut the window and herself went outside. When coaxing didn’t work, she dragged Mag away out of sight.

Peter and two of the hired hands arrived, bundling Mag into the pony and trap where one of the hired men restrained her. She was driven first to the Presbytery and from there, accompanied by Father Clancy, to the Workhouse where she was admitted.

‘The poor creature, she’s lost her mind,’ Catti said after the trap had driven away. Mary was still too shocked to say anything and Catti suggested she should have a little sup of whiskey or brandy to revive her. ‘Just a few teaspoons. I’ll sugar it and put in hot water, ‘twill do you a power of good.’

‘Maybe just a drop then,’ said Mary, and while Catti was preparing the drink, asked, ‘Did you hear the things she said?’

‘How could I and me outta the room?’

‘She cursed us. The most terrible things she wished on us. Terrible, terrible things.’

Catti put the tumbler in Mary’s trembling hand. She sipped a little before asking, ‘D’ye believe in curses, Catti?’

‘That I do not, Mrs Mac,’ said Catti, turning her back on Mary for she couldn’t meet her eyes while she lied. Instead she busied herself rearranging sheets that were airing on the clothes horse, wondering as she did so where had Mrs Mac been all her life? Wasn’t she born and reared here? Didn’t she know well that some have the power? More so them that had been sorely wronged. And if anyone was ever sorely wronged ’twas poor Mag Cronin.

‘That was grand,’ Mary said, getting up from her chair and placing the glass on the table. ‘I used to believe in curses and fairies, leprechauns and fairy forts, before I went away to school. But the nuns taught us sense. Old pishogues the lot of them, they told us. Not a word of truth in any of them, and moreover a sin for a Catholic to believe. Mag Cronin is only a poor old demented woman as you say. Amn’t I right, Catti?’

‘’Deed an’ you are, not a word of truth in any of them, Mrs Mac. They’ll be back any minute. I’d say Father Clancy will drop in to see how you are. Will I get out the whiskey again?’

‘Do,’ said Mary, ‘and I’ll go and tidy myself up.’

Peter and the priest had a drink and Catti made tea. Mary asked about Mag Cronin and the Workhouse. ‘There wasn’t a hig out of her. Went in like a lamb. She’ll be taken care of. Plenty to eat and drink and medical attention, which God knows she needs. The pity is she didn’t go in on the day John did instead of hiding in one place and another. Brooding over her imaginary wrongs, letting them fester, and coming here to blackguard you this morning. But you’re all right now?’ the priest said.

Peter went back to what he’d been doing when Mag caused the commotion. Catti poured another whiskey for Father Clancy and Mary began to cry. ‘What ails you?’ asked Catti.

‘I’ve tried and the whiskey helped at first but I can still hear the terrible things she said. I’ll never be able to forget them.’

The priest motioned to Catti to leave the kitchen and close the door, and when she had he pulled his chair closer to Mary. ‘Now you listen to me, child. That woman is a lunatic. Driven mad by the years of the hunger, the children who died …’

‘And,’ interrupted Mary, ‘being evicted.’

‘Ah, not at all. She was deranged long before that.’

‘And her daughter being destroyed by a man and sent to America.’

‘Before that as well her mind was gone. You mustn’t dwell on such things. And as for the eviction, wasn’t that an act of charity? Neither John nor Mag could look after theirselves, the cottage was gone to wrack and ruin. Sure John couldn’t dig a bed for the potatoes. No more could she. Nor bring in the turf from the bog. An act of charity, that’s what the eviction was. Left to their own devices, one day they’d have been found dead or set fire to theirselves trying to get a sod of damp turf going.’

Father Clancy drained his third glass of whiskey, wiped his florid fleshy face with a snow white handkerchief and lit a cigar. ‘Now, Mary, have I put your mind at rest?’

‘Supposing it’s true? Supposing what she wished on us happens?’

‘Well, well, I am surprised at you. I credited you with more sense. There’s no such things as curses. As a good Catholic you should know that. Didn’t the nuns drum that into you? The only danger in a curse is if you dwell on it. If you believe in it as the unfortunate savages do.

‘Of course,’ continued Father Clancy, ‘you’re not a savage. You’ve got your faith in God and His blessed mother. They are always watching over and protecting you. Promise me now you’ll put what happened this morning out of your mind, and I’ll bless the house again before I go.’

It took several days before the vision of Mag Cronin and the words she had spoken to fade a little from Mary’s memory. But gradually they diminished as she became involved in setting up house in her new home.

Still, once a week she sent Catti to the Workhouse with sweets and snuff for Mag Cronin and her husband and when, a few weeks later, John Cronin died, went to his funeral although terrified that Mag might be there and scream her curse again. But Mag wasn’t considered fit enough to attend. Mary found herself praying that God might call Mag, let her be reunited in Heaven with John and the children she had buried. But Mag lingered, clinging to life.

ONE day Peter came into the kitchen and announced that the first cow to be impregnated by Bennet’s bull was in calf. Mary thought how boyish he looked, his fair-skinned face flushed, his fine light hair tousled and his blue eyes shining. He was rarely demonstrative but today he came and slipped an arm round her. And she knew the thought in his mind. When will I hear news from you that we are to have a child?

She smiled at him, as much as to say: be patient for a little while longer. God will send us a child, many children.

Three months after the cow Mary knew that she too had conceived. She let several months pass before telling her mother, then Catti, and finally Peter.

He looked at her with great pride, his little lithe Mary with her cloud of dark hair, now doubly precious since she was carrying his child, but shyness and awkwardness and it not being the custom prevented him from gathering her into his arms, kissing her and dancing her round the kitchen. All he said was, ‘God has been good to us. Mind yourself now.’ And he was back to his cattle, almost all now in calf.

Mary was almost six months pregnant and the cow who had conceived first not far off her time. She was dozing by the fire when she heard a tapping on the window. Looking to it, she saw the hate-filled face of Mag Cronin, and though the window was only open a few inches, heard her screech out her curse again. Mary screamed and Catti came running in from the yard where she had been feeding the hens.

‘Oh, Mrs Mac, have your pains started and you not due for many a month yet?’

‘No, not my pains. Mag Cronin! She was here at the window. She cursed us again.’ Mary’s hands enfolded her belly, subconsciously protecting her baby which moved and kicked and made its presence felt.