You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore. - William Faulkner
October 4, 1919
Irish Sea
Edith stood by the rail of the Cambria, watching her native land recede and wondering if she had truly lost her mind. The wind was brisk and the spray churned up by the choppy waters of the Irish Sea froze as it hit her face, but she did not notice. Nor did she notice that she was one of the few passengers who had braved the October cold to come up on deck and bid England goodbye. She liked it that way. Edith was often alone, and she had come to think of solitude as her friend. It did not judge; it allowed her room for her thoughts. And right now her thoughts were hardly presentable.
Her heart felt tight, as if it were too large for her chest. It hammered against her rib cage, threatening to burst out and read her the riot act. 'What were you thinking?' it demanded. 'I'm not safe here! I could be hurt!' Her mind was a mass of twisting snakes, coiling and hissing in disapproval. Her stomach…
Edith abruptly bent over the rail and lost the contents of said stomach. Well, now she knew where that part of her anatomy stood on the subject of this trip! Her entire body stood firmly in the "don't go to Ireland" camp.
And then a small voice in her mind struggled its way to the surface. It was calm, quiet, and it stilled the clamor of the other voices, shaming them for their fear and cowardice.
'You were not meant to waste away in that huge manor. It was not you. You were meant to experience things, to see the world. You are allowed to be happy. You are allowed to live.'
Edith smiled. With a last look, she turned away from the rail to walk to the front of the ferry. A large lump of land, still just a mass of grey on the horizon, was growing larger. It called to her, telling her that it was real, and beautiful, and waiting. Have courage, it said. I am the new horizon that you have been seeking. Remember me? I am Ireland.
The feeling of calm lasted until the ferry bumped against the pier. The jolt brought all the misgivings up again, paralyzing her where she stood in the queue waiting to disembark.
"Excuse me, miss, the queue is moving," said an impatient Irish voice behind her. "Are you planning to get off?"
"No!" she heard herself say, and then, "Yes, of course. I'm sorry."
"Well, then, you should consider moving forward. With your feet." Titters arose at the speaker's wit, and Edith flushed.
"You go ahead; I have to check on my trunk," she said, as she stepped out of the queue. A member of the crew, overhearing, came over.
"Your trunk is already ashore, Miss. "It's safe. Come now, you can't stand here."
Like a child, Edith let herself be guided back into line, feeling herself go numb as she was pushed forward by the crowd eager to disembark. This is what always happens, she thought in despair. I always let myself be pushed along, whether I want to go there or not. Tears gathered behind her lashes and threatened to overflow. Nothing ever changed. It probably never would.
She sighed, trying to remember that she was a Crawley, straightening her posture as she had been taught by innumerable governesses. She moved to the head of the gangplank, eyes locked forward as if she were going to her execution. Edith remembered an outing when she had been about eight and Mama had taken all three girls to London to see JM Barrie's new play, Peter Pan. She'd been so frightened for Wendy when Captain Hook had almost made her walk the plank.
Well, Wendy, my girl, she thought, I finally know how you felt. Only, there would be no little green-cloaked boy to fly in and rescue Lady Edith Crawley. She was on her own. The only thing that kept her going forward down that gangway was the thought of returning to England, a failure. Going back to Mary's sniping and the stultifying life laid out for her there. No! she thought. She was not going back. She was going to have an adventure.
As she reached the quayside, Edith saw that the wharf was thronged with people and motor cars. First class passengers like herself had been disembarked first, and many were being met by well-dressed ladies and gentlemen and hustled into luxurious motors. She couldn't see Sybil or Tom anywhere.
"Lady Edith?" An Irish voice, like Tom's but with a bit more of a lilt, like Tom's would be if he hadn't spent six years in England. She turned to find herself gazing upon the most gorgeous man she had ever seen in her life. Impossibly blue eyes twinkled at her out of a face that belonged on a cathedral fresco. Blond hair fell carelessly across his forehead, and the smile he bestowed on her took her breath away. She felt her heart skip and her stomach flutter. Was he actually talking to her? She had never seen this man before, and yet something about him seemed familiar.
"Don't you remember me?" he asked. "I guess I was a pretty picture at the wedding, with the bruises and swelling and all. I'm Patrick."
October 5, 1919
Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Dublin
Sybil wiped her face with the corner of her apron and sighed. Why did things always seem to happen at once? First, she'd burned the toast again this morning, when she had been trying so hard to impress Edith on the first day of her visit. Tom, bless him, was becoming adept at pretending he liked his toast black. Then she'd nearly missed the tram, which would have made her look incompetent to Dr. Walsh, whom she adored. And now, as soon as she'd gotten in to work, the war had come to call.
The war this time took the form of a small boy with a fractured kneecap. Small boys frequently came in to the hospital with broken bones, but it wasn't usually because they'd been shot.
She stood in the quiet hospital room, so far removed from the horrors of men who were trying to kill each other in the name of God and country, and stared at the small figure in the bed. His eyes were closed, dark circles that should never have existed in one so young exposed under his stubby blond eyelashes. He couldn't be more than twelve years old, she thought in sudden anger. More than four years of nursing injuries that could shrink the heart, and she was still appalled by the evidence of man's inhumanity to his fellow man.
She had been told that this lad had been caught in a shooting at Thurles racetrack yesterday…a murder, actually. Two IRA soldiers had followed DI Michael Hunt, chief intelligence officer for the district, and fired two rounds at close range, killing him instantly. The third bullet had gone into the crowd, striking the child in the kneecap. She shook her head; the violence on both sides was becoming so commonplace that it attracted spectators, and sometimes the innocent suffered for their curiosity. But a child!
"Mum?" a small voice spoke from the bed. "Where am I?" Sybil crossed and took his hand in her own. It was a tiny hand, covered by thin, blue-veined flesh that would seem more at home on the hand of an aged person than a child. Poverty. She wonderd how often the child had a decent meal.
"You're in Dublin, in the hospital, dear. We're going to take really good care of you."
"Did they gi' me ma breeches?" the boy demanded in a panicked voice.
Of all the questions she had been asked by patients, this one ranked right up there with the weirdest. Breeches?
"I-I'm not sure." Sybil squeezed his hand. "I'll check."
"They was gonna gi' me new breeches!" The child began to cry, deep gulping sobs shaking his small frame. "Two pair! I saw 'em! The Brits was gonna gi' me two pair o' new breeches for m'old ones, and m' brothers wouldn't let them! I never had new breeches before, and they was gonna gi' me two pair!" He clenched his fists in impotent rage, leaving Sybil shaking her head in confusion.
What was he going on about? This child had been shot; he was going to need surgery if he were ever to walk again, and all he cared about was breeches?
She leaned down and whispered in the lad's ear, stroking the long scraggly hair away from his face. "You'll get your breeches, darling. I promise. Now, what's your name?"
"D-Danny, mum. Danny Maher."
Sybil had never met a male patient who could resist her, and this one was no different. His wails subsided into sniffles and he clutched her hand. By the time she had taken his vital signs and left the room, a pair of wide, adoring eyes following her out the door, she had added another heart to her collection.
That evening, over a dinner of under-cooked potatoes and charred bacon, Sybil told Tom the story of Danny Maher and the breeches.
"Seems Danny's brothers were carrying him to the Dublin train because the doctor couldn't remove the bullet and he needed an x-ray at the Mater. When his father and some of his uncles got him to the station, the RIC were waiting, demanding that Danny's bloody breeches with the bullet hole be surrendered as evidence.
Tom took a break from gnawing at his potato and asked, "But he'd be half naked, wouldn't he?"
"Exactly. How are your potatoes, darling?"
"Mmmph, oh, grand, they are."
Sybil pinned him with a suspicious glare, and then went on. "Anyway, there was a stand-off while the RIC discussed whether it was right to strip a child of his short pants, and eventually one of the officers was sent away to buy him a new pair of breeches. He came back with two."
"So all's well that ends well," said Tom. "Poor kid probably only had the one pair to his name, before."
"But that's just it!" said Sybil. "The stubborn uncles refused to back down and give them Danny's ruined pants, so the constables eventually let him keep them and go on his way. Poor kid had to watch his new breeches disappear from sight as the train pulled away. He's devastated. Sometimes you Irish are so hard-headed!"
Tom, whose wife was the most hard-headed woman he'd ever known, deemed it wise to keep his counsel, and continued to crunch his bacon.
"Well, he ventured finally, "that's a real shame."
"Not really, darling," his wife answered with a serene smile. "We're buying him two pairs of breeches."
October 6, 1919
Murphy's Pub
Evan Langdon sat with his chin cupped in his hands, staring. He knew he was staring, knew it was inappropriate, but he couldn't help it. The girl was just so lovely! Evan had been haunting Murphy's every time he could get away from his duties at the barracks, after the first time when some of his friends had told him that the beer here was great and the proprietor treated soldiers better than most in Dublin.
The barkeep might have treated British soldiers fairly, but the same couldn't be said for his beautiful barmaid. She didn't go so far as to insult them, but she made her feelings evident enough. I'm Irish, her tight lips said as she took their orders. We don't want your kind here, her brilliant blue eyes announced as she plunked their orders down with a little more force than necessary and flounced away, her long chestnut hair flying.
Evan knew he didn't stand a chance with her. He was everything she so obviously hated, and he understood. He had been posted here to help keep Ireland safe, according to the recruiters. That was the reason he had joined the army in the first place—to fight the Great War, to keep the world safe. His mind cringed at his naiveté.
Evan Langdon was one of history's misfits—a soldier who was an idealist. He had been training to be a doctor back home in Cornwall, working long hours and volunteering at the local hospital when he could. He would have been content to continue an academic life…until his younger brother enlisted in the army and went off to France. George was killed in the first months of the fighting, one of the nameless thousands who bled out their young lives on the fields of the Somne. The day Evan got the news he put his books away and joined up, determined to make his brother's sacrifice mean something.
And he had. He had joined the medical corps and worked in the field hospital, sometimes driving the ambulance that picked up the injured on the battlefield. Every one of those men might have been his brother, he thought, and he wasn't leaving one of them behind. It was dangerous but useful work, and he'd gotten a reputation as a man who could be counted on, someone who had his comrades' backs when the going got rough. When the war ended, he had stayed on. He had seen too much to go back to his books and his sleepy little village. He believed in his country and in her army.
And then he'd been posted to Ireland. The Irish were being victimized by radicals, vicious criminals who vandalized their own people and killed for the pure enjoyment of it, his superiors said. The Irish people would welcome the British army, he was assured—maybe not at first but when they came to understand how much Britain could do for their battered country.
He should have known better, of course. He was a scholar; he'd read about the way the Irish had been treated by his country during the potato famine less than a hundred years before. What made him think attitudes on either side would have changed since then? What had his countrymen done to change them? Most of his fellow soldiers looked down on the people of this beautiful island, considered them inferior creatures who deserved little respect. And the Irish looked back with unconcealed hatred.
As for the so-called radicals—the IRA—he had seen no evidence of wanton destruction or cruelty to their own people—quite the contrary. In his opinion they were patriots, pushed to the limits of their endurance and fueled by pride in their culture, their language and their fervent desire to be left alone to run their own country. They were fighting for their very existence as Irishmen. He rather admired them.
Of course, he could say nothing of these thoughts to his fellow soldiers. He kept to himself and went about his duties, but he kept his eyes open. And he hated what he saw. When his tour of duty was up, he was leaving Ireland and the army. It had soured for him and he was through. He would go back to Cornwall, finish his training, and become a doctor.
But that was before he had seen the true beauty of Ireland, in the person of one feisty barmaid at Murphy's Pub. Now he was not so sure about leaving. He wished he was just another bloke who was free to talk with her, get her name, earn that wonderful smile she awarded the locals who teased and flirted with her. She never got too close, even with them, but at least she gave them the time of day. He would never get that, not so long as he wore this uniform and spoke with a British accent.
He sighed, and put his chin in his hands again. A man could dream though, couldn't he?
Maire bustled from table to table, seemingly unaware of the scrutiny from the young man at the corner table. But she was female, and a girl always knows when she's being watched. She sneaked a look out of the corner of her eye. Yes, he was staring at her. Again. Damn British lout! He was in here an awful lot, usually by himself. And he was polite, she had to admit that. And actually quite handsome—for a Brit. When she thumped his beer down in front of him, he ignored the hostility and thanked her softly, always giving her a smile to answer her frown. He had a lovely smile, and his hazel eyes crinkled at the corners when…
Jaysus! What was wrong with her! He was the enemy! She had no business noticing his eyes, or his smile. She shook herself, remembering the last time she had fallen for a nice-looking face and a charming smile, and hardened her heart. He was a man, and he was British. That was enough to damn him to eternity in her book.
A/N: In December of 1904, JM Barrie premiered his new stage play, Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, in London. The story of the baby who fell out of his pram and flew off to NeverLand to live among pirates, mermaids, fairies, Indians and lost boys became an instant sensation, and Barrie later adapted his play into a novel, published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy. Edith Crawley and her sisters might very well have attended the play as children.
The story of Danny Maher and the breeches is true, although it happened four months earlier than in this story. It was reported in the Irish Times as one of the most bizarre stand-offs of the Irish War of Independence. And Danny was indeed treated at the Mater. Personally, I'd like to think Sybil was his nurse!
Pronunciation Guide:
Maire - my + ra
