A Daughter’s Secret. Anne Bennett

her and put her arms around him. Generally they weren’t a family that hugged and kissed, and such displays of affection would have embarrassed Tom in the normal way of things. That night, however, it seemed right. Tom hugged his sister back. He would always miss her. Hatred for McAllister burned in his soul.

      Twice the next day, Thomas John asked his daughter if she was all right because she couldn’t shift the melancholy that seemed to have settled around her, and each time she said she was fine.

      ‘You seem out of sorts,’ he had said the first time and she had assured him she felt all right.

      The second time he said, ‘Is there anything on your mind, Aggie? You look sad.’

      Aggie managed a watery smile for her father. ‘I can’t go round with a great grin plastered over my face all and every day,’ she said as light-heartedly as she could.

      Thomas John, however, mentioned his concerns to Biddy. She didn’t see Aggie as a person very often, just as an extra pair of hands, but when her husband brought it to her attention, she could see that something was amiss. ‘What’s up with you, girl?’

      Knowing her mother wasn’t the sort to fob off, Aggie muttered that she felt under the weather.

      ‘In what way?’

      ‘It’s hard to explain,’ Aggie said. ‘All at sixes and sevens.’

      Biddy looked at her daughter and saw her pinched white face, the blue bags beneath her eyes, and the fact that there was so little flesh on her bones. ‘Maybe your daddy was right and you needed a tonic after the measles, for you had it worse than any of the others. Must be that that has affected your monthlies too.’

      ‘Yes, that must be it,’ Aggie said in little more than a whisper.

      ‘Yes, well, that can make a person feel sluggish, I always think,’ Biddy said. ‘If you don’t pick up in the next few days I will get your daddy to take you into Buncrana to see the doctor.’

      Tom came in the door just as Biddy said this and heard her. His eyes met Aggie’s sorrow-laden ones across the table and he felt pity for her wash over him. Yet he knew that if she was determined to leave, then it was best to go as soon as she could. To delay at all would open a can of worms that would be much better left sealed.

      Aggie tried to lift her spirits for the rest of that day for the sake of her parents, but she knew she wasn’t very successful. Each passing moment meant she was one step nearer to leaving this house and her family for ever. She was glad to seek the solitude of her bedroom away from the watchful and concerned eyes of her father.

      She didn’t feel the slightest bit tired. Sitting down on the bed, she wished she could have embraced her father that night as she had Finn, until the child had complained that she was holding him too tight. She didn’t try it with Joe, or Tom either, for that would have certainly brought comment, and while Tom might have understood, Joe certainly would have been horrified at her girlish sloppiness. For her parents too there had been just the usual peck on the cheek, but she knew her disappearance would be a grievous blow for her father, for he had a soft spot for her.

      She would always miss them, not just her father but her mother too, though she could be sharp and unfair at times; the darling baby, Nuala; cheeky wee Finn, and Joe, who was always telling them the exotic places he would visit when he was a grown man; and her favourite and special brother, Tom.

      Everything was familiar: the cottage where she had been born and reared, where the hens pecked at the grit in the cobbled yard before the door. She would even miss the indolent, smelly pig in the sty beside the house, too fat to move easily and too lazy to care. Farmland stretched on every side, some fields filled with cows, with their big eyes and swollen udders as they placidly chewed the cud, while others were cultivated, and the hillsides were dotted with sheep.

      She had looked on the farm so many times without really appreciating the beauty of it as she did now. She knew that she was doing the only thing she could do to save her family’s disgrace, but it was hard and she was bloody scared stiff.

      She got up and took a turn around the room, which suddenly seemed very dear to her, and she touched each item in turn until she came to the crib. Then she looked down at her little sister’s podgy hands either side of her head in the total abandonment of sleep and traced her finger gently around one until the baby gave a sigh and her hand closed in a fist. Aggie leaned over the crib and gently kissed Nuala’s little pink cheek as the tears began. She tried to stifle them, but Tom, lying awake too, heard. He wished he could go in, but knew Aggie would probably be embarrassed. Eventually, awash with tears, she threw herself on the bed and closed her eyes.

      She awoke stiff and shivering with cold, and saw with horror the clock said the time was half-past two. She roused herself quickly and began to gather the things that she was taking with her. She decided to travel in her clothes for Mass as they were the smartest she had: woollen plaid dress, black stockings and button boots, a proper coat and matching bonnet. She had taken her mother’s large bag that she took when she went into Buncrana on Saturday, because she didn’t have anything else, and into it she put underwear and nightwear, her two everyday dresses and cardigan and her warmest thickest shawl.

      She had one last look around the room and then eased the window up gently and climbed through it. But, as quiet as she tried to be, Tom heard as he was lying wide-eyed on the bed, worry for his sister driving sleep from him, though he was aching with tiredness. He pulled the curtain aside and saw her walk by the window. Hurriedly he dressed and followed her.

      Aggie was glad when Tom fell into step beside her. She hadn’t expected it when he had to be up at five for the milking anyway, but she valued his company. They didn’t talk much. They had said all that needed to be said, but Aggie thought for her brother to be there walking by her side was comforting. Tom wished with all his heart that he was older, that he could care for Aggie, and if her parents wouldn’t let her stay at home then he would take her some other place and see to her. It seemed abhorrent to him that a young girl should travel so far completely alone and all because a man had taken advantage of her.

      McAllister was there waiting for her and impatient. ‘Where have you been?’ he hissed. ‘For this to work I must be back in Buncrana with the horse stabled before the place is awake. Come on now, get up and be quick about it.’

      Aggie handed McAllister her bag and turned to Tom. ‘Goodbye, then.’

      ‘Goodbye, Aggie,’ Tom said. ‘Look after yourself.’

      ‘I’ll try,’ Aggie said, putting her arms rather awkwardly around her brother.

      ‘We haven’t time for this,’ McAllister snarled.

      Aggie turned on him. ‘Listen here, you,’ she said. ‘Your life will not change in any way, shape or form because of that one night. I am leaving behind my home and all in it that I hold dear. I know that I will see none of them ever again and you dare complain because I spend a few minutes saying goodbye to my brother?’

      McAllister said no more, for he knew that Aggie had a point. She kissed Tom on the cheek before climbing in beside McAllister. The cart rolled down the road almost silently and Tom saw with surprise that the horse’s hoofs had been wrapped in cloths so that they would make little noise. He had to admit that that was a wise move, for the sound of hoofs on the road could be heard for miles in the still and quiet of the early hours.

      He yawned, weariness suddenly hitting him, and with the cart lost in the darkness he turned back to the farmhouse.

       FIVE

      ‘Have you anything to wrap around yourself?’ McAllister asked Aggie when they had gone a little way down the road. ‘You are shivering like a leaf.’

      ‘It isn’t with cold, or at least not that alone,’ Aggie said. ‘It’s mainly fear.’

      ‘Well, I can do nothing about the fear; you must combat that on your own,’ McAllister