Danny Boy

In fact, she thought about Danny nearly every waking minute and dreamed of him every night. With every passing hour and day, she loved Danny Walsh more and knew she would do anything in the world to please him.

One Sunday afternoon in late June, they climbed the Wicklow Hills. They’d been before, but never so high and eventually, Danny called a halt, hauling Rosie up to join him. They stood and looked about them, the lake shimmering blue in the sunshine that lit up the hillside. ‘Have you ever been up there?’ Danny said, pointing his hand way into the distance. It was a clear day and they could see for miles.

‘Sugar Loaf Mountain?’ Rosie said, recognising its distinctive granite summit where it was said nothing grew at all, although it was miles away. She shivered. ‘No. I’d be afraid. They say the Devil walks there at will.’

‘Jesus, Rosie, you can’t believe that?’ Danny cried. ‘It’s a tale put about to frighten the weans. Shay and I always promised ourselves we’d go there one day and stay the night, just to prove there was nothing to be scared of, but we never did get around to it.’

Rosie liked Shay Ferguson. The Walshes and Fergusons were good friends and Shay and Danny had been inseparable since their school days, just as Shay’s brother Niall was with Phelan now. ‘We used to get up to some high jinks as lads,’ Danny said. ‘We even had a den. Don’t know if I could find it now, if it’s still standing that is. It was an old shepherds’ shelter, but we thought it a grand place. We became blood brothers together there, slicing our fingers with our pen knives to mingle the blood.’

Danny gave a short laugh at the memory. ‘Little wonder we didn’t bleed to death, or get an infection,’

He put his arm protectively around Rosie. ‘There’s no need though for you to fear anything any more, Rosie McMullen for I will never let anything harm you in all your life.’

‘Oh Danny.’

‘Do you love me, Rosie?’

‘Oh yes, I haven’t enough words to tell you how much.’

Danny sank to the ground and Rosie was glad to sit beside him on the springy turf, for her legs had begun to tremble. They lay together clasped tight and when Danny began kissing Rosie, she felt those strange yearnings beginning in her body which she barely understood. Danny fumbled at her top until her breasts were partly exposed and as his tongue gently parted her lips, she felt such excitement and pleasure, she could no more tell him to stop, than she could prevent the sun from shining.

Dear God! She knew right from wrong, but never knew about this, this passion that could rise up in you. When Danny’s lips began to nuzzle at her breasts, she pressed him closer her whole yearning for him. Yes. Oh yes, and she pushed her fist in her mouth to prevent her saying the words aloud.

But she couldn’t help the cry escape her when Danny slid his hands between her legs. She felt she’d died with happiness and she cried. ‘Go on. Oh Danny, please go on.’

And how much Danny wanted to. God, he loved Rosie so much it hurt and he knew now, this minute, she would stop him doing nothing and that she wanted for them to be truly together as much as he did.

He 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 even want to go and see his Rosie marry a man who would be taking her away and he said so forcibly and shed so many and such bitter tears that Rosie felt immensely sorry for him. So little had been denied Dermot in his young life that he thought he just had to say that he didn’t want Rosie to go and she wouldn’t. It was a shock for him to realise that Rosie was going ahead with her plans, regardless of what he thought. ‘Don’t you love me any more? he asked plaintively.

‘Dermot, Of course I love you. I’ll always love you.’

‘Not as much as you love Danny Walsh.’

‘I love you differently,’ Rosie corrected. ‘It’s all part of growing up, getting married and leaving home. Nearly everyone does in the end and I’ll not be far away. You can come and visit as often as you are let.’

Dermot scrubbed at his wet cheeks with the sleeve of his jersey. ‘It won’t be the same.’

Rosie, moved by the sadness in Dermot’s face bent down and put her arms about him. ‘I know it won’t and I can’t do anything to make that better, but I want you to remember something always.’

‘What?’

‘That you are very, very special to me. My own wee brother and wherever I am you will always hold part of my heart.’

Dermot was only slightly mollified by Rosie’s words, but he did at least begin to see that whatever he did or said, would change nothing and the days rolled by one into another.

The day before the wedding, Rosie felt herself looking around her home, seeing her room, her sisters, her parents and little distressed Dermot in a new light, knowing soon she was leaving them behind her. She loved Danny and oh without a doubt she longed to be with him, longed to be his wife, longed for fulfilment and to be loved with intensity, but it was a big step nonetheless, whereas for Danny, little was changing. He’d have a wife certainly, but he would still be living at his own house and with his family still around him. It wouldn’t be the same wrench for him at all.

It wasn’t that Rosie disliked Danny’s parents or siblings and they’d gone out of their way to make her welcome in their home. It was just that she was nervous of leaving. Her home had never been a bed of roses and since Dermot’s birth, it had been liberally strewn with thorns, but it had been familiar and she knew she would miss her sisters greatly.

Minnie didn’t help her daughter’s unease at all, when she spoke to her the night before the wedding. She chose to talk to her after her sisters and Dermot had made their way to bed and Seamus was doing one last round of the farm before turning in. ‘There are things about marriage that women don’t talk about,’ she began.

There had been no lead up to the conversation. Rosie had stared at her mother slightly appalled and a little embarrassed. It was too late for this type of discussion.

Evidently, Minnie didn’t realise this, for she went on. ‘You must let your man do as he pleases once you are married. It’s what you’ll promise to do before the priest and congregation tomorrow. You don’t have to enjoy what he does, most women don’t, but you must endure it. He may hurt you at first, this fine husband of yours, but even if he does, you must let him have his way, for this is what marriage is all about.’

It seemed an eternity that Rosie sat before the dying fire that night after her mother’s words, looking into the turf settled into the grate with a hiss and lick of orange flame, while the wind gusted around the cottage, trepidation and fear of what was before her, driving away tiredness. And then, her father came in, the door torn from his grasp by the wind, so it slammed against the wall with a crash. He brought in with him the cold of the autumn night and Rosie, unable to sit any longer and make inane conversation, after the declaration her mother had made, took herself off to bed.

TWO

The next day, Rosie awakened to a silent house. The morning was a dark one but the clock said it was half past seven and she knew her father would have been up a few hours or more, milking the cows. Guiltily, she pulled herself away from the warmth of her sisters curled up together, and began to dress.

Her mother turned from the fire before which she was sitting as Rosie came in. ‘That was good timing,’ she said. ‘I was just about to call you.’ The plate she laid before Rosie almost took her breath away – there were rashers, an egg, fried tomatoes, potato cakes, white pudding and fried bread.

Rosie couldn’t remember the last time her mother had cooked her breakfast, never mind a feast like this. ‘Mammy, this is marvellous.’

‘All brides should have a good breakfast on their wedding day,’ Minnie said. ‘Sets you up for the day and Lord knows when you’ll ever have one so good again.’

‘It’s like giving a condemned man one last request, the way you put it,’ Rosie complained, but with a smile. However, when her eyes met those of her mother’s and she saw her tight-lipped, an icy thread of apprehension trailed down her spine.

It vanished at the church when she saw Danny waiting for her at the altar beside Shay Ferguson, his best man. She walked slowly down the familiar church on her father’s arm, her four bridesmaids coming behind, when really she wanted to fly into the arms of her beloved.

The church was full of neighbours and friends of the young couple and Rosie heard feet shuffling in the pews and a few coughs or sniffs as women sat dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs. She wanted to say, ‘Don’t cry, I’m happy, I’ve never been so happy.’

But, of course, she said nothing. She reached the altar at last and gave her bouquet to Chrissie, slipping her arm from her father’s to stand beside Danny. He turned to look at her, and she felt her heart nearly stop and gave a short gasp at how handsome he looked. As for Danny, he thought he’d never seen a girl so beautiful. He knew in Rosie he’d met his soul mate who he would love till the end of his days, and at that moment vowed never to do anything that would hurt her.

Rosie came out of the church later, blinking in the rays of the October sun, on the arm of her husband and as she smiled at the crowds milling around them cheering the young couple Rosie felt warmed by their good wishes.

The wedding breakfast was laid out in the farmhouse. Trestle tables with benches had been borrowed from the church hall to seat people. Rosie sat at the end table with Danny, their parents either side of them, and looked at the spread put on and knew Connie and her daughters must have worked for days and days to provide for so many. Though her parents had paid for the food, Rosie knew her mother had not done a hand’s turn to prepare it.

The two-tier wedding cake had been a present from the baker in the village. ‘You keep the top tier for the christening,’ he’d said, with a nudge to Rosie’s ribs and then laughed uproariously as her face flamed with embarrassment.

It was fortunate that the day was dry and warm enough for the dancing to take place outside, and this gave Connie and her daughters time and space to clear away the dirty things. Rosie’s offer to help was waved away. ‘Not on your wedding day, bonny girl,’ Connie said. ‘Away and dance with your man.’

And Rosie did dance with him. She was seldom off her feet as the accordion, fiddle and banjo played the familiar reels and jigs and polkas while the bodhran beat out the steady rhythm.

It was a wondrous, tremendous day, and when the revellers eventually made their way home – and not all of them terribly steady, either – Danny and Rosie stayed outside while the velvety darkness closed about them. Danny had his arm around Rosie and she leaned against him in absolute contentment.

‘Are you happy, Mrs Walsh?’ Danny asked her.

‘Deliriously so, Mr Walsh,’ Rosie replied with a smile.

‘Shall we go in?’

Rosie, remembering her mother’s words, couldn’t stop the slight shiver that ran through her. Danny guessed immediately what she was nervous of. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he told her. ‘Not of me. I’ll not hurt you. Trust me.’

And she did trust him, of course she did, this was Danny, her Danny, who she’d lay down her life for. ‘I do trust you, Danny,’ she said. ‘It was the night air causing me to feel chilly, that’s all. Let’s go in.’

Danny knew it was no night air but he kissed Rosie on the cheek, took her arm and led her indoors, where he found everyone had prudently taken themselves to bed.

Rosie knew that they would be living with Danny’s family for a while, maybe for years, until a house of their own could be built near to the farmhouse. Connie guessed Rosie might find this strange and could well understand it. She had put her arm around Rosie’s shoulder one evening a few days before the wedding and said, ‘I don’t want you to feel that this is someone else’s house you are living in when you come here. From now on, this will be your home.’

‘Thank you, you’re all so kind.’

‘We should be thanking you,’ Connie had said, ‘for making our son such a happy man. In you I really feel I have gained a daughter. We must decide what you are to call me, for I know it has been awkward at times.’

Rosie had blushed. She had not known what to call Connie. Mrs Walsh sounded too formal and Connie too familiar, but she hadn’t been aware that the woman had known of her dilemma. Connie had gone on, ‘It was the same with me and my mother-in-law at the start, yet in a way it was easier for me: my own mother was dead and so I just called her Mammy.’

Rosie had thought of the love she’d experienced in this house in just the few months she’d been coming there, more by far than she’d ever had in her own home. She couldn’t ever remember her mother putting her arm around her the way Connie did with ease. Even Matt would catch hold of her hand or pat her on the shoulder as he passed and she realised these good, kind people were better parents to her than her own would ever be. She had turned to Connie and had said, ‘I would love to call you Mammy.’

‘You would?’ Connie had asked. ‘You don’t think your own mammy will mind it?’

‘I don’t think she will give a tinker’s cuss for anything I do,’ Rosie had replied bitterly. ‘It used to upset me, but now I have Danny, a new home and a new life and to an extent a new family. To call you Mammy will just be part of it.’

Danny was pleased his mother and Rosie got on so well together for he knew if there was any sort of friction between them, living in such close proximity would be untenable and there was nowhere else he and Rosie could live for the present, although he was doing his best to give them a private bedroom at least. As in most farmhouses, the main bedrooms led straight off the kitchen-cum-living room. The first one was the room that Elizabeth and Sarah shared and you went through that to reach the one Danny had previously shared with Phelan, just as it had been in her own home while Connie and Matt had the one room in the loft, up the stairs to the back of the kitchen.

Underneath the stairs was another room that had been used for storage and that was the room Danny had chosen. He and his father had worked hard before the wedding, moving all the junk to the barn and making sure the place was watertight and damp free.

Now Rosie stood at the threshold of the door and looked around in delight as Danny lit the lamp.

Connie and Matt had bought them a new iron-framed bedstead and mattress, and Rosie looked at it made up with the sheets and blankets she’d brought with her, the embroidered pillowcases visible where the sheets were turned down, and one of her nightdresses draped over the coverlet.

She saw Connie had been busy. There were pictures on the walls and bright rag rugs on the stone-flagged floor, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus above their bed. Rosie and Danny had bought a new bedroom suite from a catalogue, but Rosie hadn’t seen it until now because it had been delivered to the Walshes’ farmhouse only a few days before the wedding. Now, Rosie saw someone had hung her clothes in the dark wood wardrobe and her personal things were laid out on the matching dressing table.

‘Oh Danny, it’s beautiful!’ she cried.

‘So are you and I can’t wait much longer,’ Danny said huskily, wrapping his arms around his young wife. ‘Oh God, Rosie, how I’ve longed for this moment. I love you and want you so much.’

The love in his voice melted Rosie’s apprehension and she allowed Danny to strip the wedding dress from her and let it fall in silken folds at her feet, her petticoats, corset and bloomers following as he laid her on the bed and removed her boots and stockings. She lay beneath the sheets, naked as she hadn’t been since she’d been a wee child, for she’d always been taught to dress and undress beneath her nightdress.

Suddenly, Danny, in his haste to divest himself of his clothes, kicked the chamber pot beneath the bed and the ringing sound reverberated throughout the house. Rosie put her hand across her mouth to still the giggles.

‘Shut up,’ Danny hissed, laughing himself. ‘This is no laughing matter, madam. Please conduct yourself with proper decorum.’

‘Aye, Mr Walsh, I will,’ Rosie said, gazing at her husband as she spoke and realising she was seeing a naked man for the very first time in her life. Danny snuffed out the light and slid in beside her.

After her mother’s words she’d imagined herself lying rigid in the bed in her pristine nightdress while Danny did unmentionable things to her that she had to submit to now that she was his wife. She imagined it hurting her so much she’d cry out and everyone would hear.

But it wasn’t a bit like that. Danny held her close and caressed her gently, while his tongue, darting in and out of her mouth, sent sharp shafts of desire flowing through her whole body as she let her hands explore his body too. When she came upon his hardened penis, she gave a gasp. Danny was nuzzling at her breasts and she cried, ‘Oh, Danny, please, please hurry.’