A Daughter’s Secret. Anne Bennett

FOUR

      The clock beside Aggie’s bed said twenty past ten when she began to dress. Tom, in the room beyond, listening intently, heard Aggie, and slid out of bed carefully so as not to wake Joe or Finn. When he had followed his two brothers to bed an hour before, he had thought to get undressed was a waste of time, but if Finn or Joe were to wake, they might be very interested as to why he had got into bed with all his clothes on and the least people knew about this the better for Aggie. He eased the window up and the blast of cold air caused Finn to mumble in his sleep and turn over. He didn’t wake, though, and Tom was through the window in seconds, pausing only to close it again because the night air was piercingly cold.

      The sky was clear, the stars twinkling silver while the moon, like a golden orb, lighted the way up the lane enabling Tom to see to keep a sensible distance between him and his sister.

      Aggie, unaware of this, reached the road and looked about her anxiously. What if the man didn’t come? She bit her lip in agitation and the next minute felt strong arms encircle her as Bernie stepped out of the shadows.

      ‘Leave go of me,’ Aggie said, twisting out of his grasp.

      ‘What’s up with you?’ McAllister demanded. ‘Last time you couldn’t get enough of it, so don’t come the innocent with me.’

      ‘Stop it, Bernie,’ Aggie said. ‘You know that just isn’t true. Anyway, you had me filled with poteen. When you left me, I could barely make it home.’

      ‘The poteen was just to release your natural desires,’ McAllister maintained.

      Aggie shook her head. ‘I was filled with shame afterwards.’

      ‘That was afterwards and the way the Church has you,’ McAllister said.

      ‘And what purpose was the punch in the face?’ Aggie said bitterly.

      ‘Without the poteen you were too hidebound by the Church to enjoy it at all,’ McAllister said. ‘And you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t do as you were told. Admit it. After you drank plenty, you put up no resistance at all.’

      Every word McAllister spoke hammered into Aggie’s heart. She knew she hadn’t struggled enough. Some girls would rather die than give in to a man the way she had.

      By the light of the moon, McAllister watched Aggie’s face, saw the shame and recognised the guilt that she hadn’t struggled enough. ‘You probably wouldn’t admit it in a million years,’ he said, ‘but you enjoyed it as much as me.’

      His words inflamed Aggie. She wasn’t going to take all the blame. All right, maybe there was a flaw in her make-up, but there was a great, damaged slash in his.

      ‘Are you mad?’ she cried. ‘Dear God, you must be some sort of deranged creature if you think that I enjoyed one minute of that rape. And that is what it was, Bernie, rape. You forced me to have sex with you and when I would not submit to you willingly, you got me so drunk that I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Did you not wonder what my parents would do when I arrived at their door as drunk as a lord, with the dress almost ripped from me and my stockings in my hand? Did you not worry that my father would come up to the house and beat you to pulp?’

      ‘I knew the likelihood was that your father wouldn’t be there,’ McAllister said. ‘I popped into Grant’s Bar before I went over to the church hall and your father was there celebrating the sale of a bull, and to all intents and purposes set to make a night of it.’

      ‘There was always my mother.’

      ‘You are a resourceful girl,’ McAllister said. ‘I was sure you would think of something. If you hadn’t I would have had to tell your mother the brazen hussy you had become.’

      ‘She … she wouldn’t have believed you.’

      ‘Oh, yes, she would,’ McAllister insisted confidently. ‘The way I would tell it she would believe it. But in the end that wasn’t necessary. She told Philomena the following Saturday that she had been at some neighbour’s house that night helping with a birth till nearly eleven. She said you had the measles too and wouldn’t be at any Christmas concert. So, you see, you got away with your waywardness.’

      Aggie opened her mouth to say there was no waywardness on her part, but she shut it again, for what did it matter what he thought? They had to deal with the consequences of that night. She said, ‘I haven’t come to bandy words with you. How I behaved that night is neither here nor there, but what is important is the fact that I am carrying your child.’

      She let the words sink in and though she could see little of his face she saw his eyes flash in the moonlight and heard his sudden intake of breath.

      ‘And now I want to know what you are going to do about it,’ Aggie added.

      ‘What d’you want me to do?’ McAllister demanded harshly. ‘Surely, this is your problem?’

      ‘It takes two, Bernie,’ Aggie cried. ‘I didn’t do it on my own.’

      ‘You offered it on a plate,’ McAllister said. ‘A man cannot be blamed for taking what is offered so willingly.’

      ‘Stop that talk,’ Aggie said. ‘It’s solutions I need now.’

      ‘What do you expect me to do? You’re pregnant and that’s that.’

      ‘Isn’t there some way of having it taken away?’

      ‘There are some places but it is illegal and dangerous.’

      ‘I don’t care how dangerous it is,’ Aggie declared. ‘You must help me, Bernie.’

      McAllister shook his head. ‘I don’t have to do anything,’ he said. ‘When it becomes apparent, I could easily tell your father how you begged for it and how I tried to fight you off and eventually could hold off no longer. He will believe me. He would know how a man has no defence against a wanton woman so determined. He will wonder what sort of girl he has reared and then send for the priest.’

      ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about how my father would react,’ Aggie said stoutly. ‘He has great feeling for me, and after fifteen years surely he knows the kind of daughter he has? I should be careful, if I were you, for he might come for you some fine night.’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ McAllister said almost mockingly. ‘And whatever feeling he has for you, would it extend to rearing your bastard child? You would drag your family through the mud with you. They would never be able to hold up their heads again.’

      Aggie knew McAllister was right. She imagined her father’s face filled with shock and reproach and then disgust, and she knew she could not do that to him. The disgrace of it all would surely kill him.

      ‘And then of course there’s your mother,’ McAllister said, and, despite the darkness, saw the shudder that ran all through Aggie’s body as he added, ‘There are places you can be sent to, run by the nuns.’

      ‘Aye, and I would rather die than enter such a place,’ Aggie said fiercely and desperately. ‘Listen to me, for every word I speak is the truth: the river is where I will end my life if you refuse to help me.’

      ‘A little melodramatic, don’t you think?’ McAllister replied superciliously.

      Aggie wondered why she had ever thought the man in any way attractive. When he reached out and tried to pull her closer, she shook him off. ‘Don’t even try to touch me! I am not being melodramatic. Far from it. I mean every word I say.’

      ‘So, what do you want me to do?’ McAllister cried. ‘I can’t work miracles even if I wanted to.’

      ‘Do you know someone who would get rid of it for me?’

      ‘Do you know what you are asking? You could be locked up if the police got wind of this. And as for such places themselves … you could die, Aggie.’

      ‘I’m