The Cowboy's Tempestuous Irish Bride (4 page)

“It looks like a bad one,” Rowan said, his hands on his hips as he observed the movements of the clouds. “It’s a good day to be on solid land,” he looked back at her and grinned.

Philomena sent up a prayer of thanks. Rowan Cleary, dark and handsome, was a good man with an unfortunate occupation as far as Philomena was concerned. She would rather have had him working in the shipbuilding yards than be on a ship out at sea for the greater part of his life, away from her.
 

Philomena had vowed never to fall in love with a sailor when she had seen the wreck it had made of her grandmother’s life. She was always waiting by the door or window to see if her Cullen was walking up the street on his way home, polishing his boots every two weeks and placing them by the door, hording tobacco as a gift for him and knitting endless jumpers in sailor blue.
 

Grandma was sixty three now and Cullen hadn’t come home in thirty years, but she still maintained that he would return someday for her, his best girl, his flame-haired beauty, even though her face was now deeply lined, her hair wisps of the purest white. Her youth had gone but her heart still bled for the man she had lost to the sea.

It had always saddened Philomena how dependent love made you, but when she had met Rowan, tall and strapping, his curls shading his gleeful brown eyes and that irresistible smile on his face Philomena knew that resisting would be no use. She had been a girl of sixteen when they had married and she’d been with him a handful of months since then. It was only at nineteen that she had finally conceived and Rowan hadn’t been there for the birth or the Christening.
 

This was the longest he’d been with them. Six months. Alby and his Dada were inseparable and Philomena dreaded the day the money would run out or his need for adventure would call and Rowan would be on his way, out with the tide that would take him far from her again. But more than her, she worried about Alby. Alby had gotten so close to his father and he was forceful about what he wanted for a one-year-old. And how was Philomena supposed to go get his Da when he was miles out at sea?

“You should really consider the shipyards,” Philomena said tentatively. She had been trying to persuade Rowan to take a job making ships. He had been around and on ships his whole life and would be an asset to any builder. But Rowan had been tetchy on the topic.

“And watch men go and adventure on the ships I build?” Rowan asked testily and Philomena wished she hadn’t broached the subject. Alby sensed the tension in the air and nuzzled closer to his mother.

“Well, I best get to the market before it starts pouring,” Philomena said, patting Alby’s head. “The fish aren’t going to walk up to the house are they? And then what will my Alby have for supper?”

“Can’t it wait?” Rowan asked, appeasing her as he took Alby in his arms. “Spend the morning in bed with us, go on.”

“If I lose an hour in the morning,” Philomena gave a lopsided grin, “I’ll be looking for it all day. You have a lie in. You work hard enough.”

He grinned at her obvious lie. Since he had been on land he had hardly done a day’s work. A week at the docks helping unload a ship from the States, a couple of days painting the new general store and that was about it. He didn’t lift a finger around the home. Why would he? It was woman’s work. Yet, she couldn’t complain. The latest trip had brought him back wealth that they had never experienced before. That was why he didn’t need to work. At present.
 

She stood up on tiptoe and gave his chin a kiss.

“Be good for Mummy,” she said to Alby, tickling him under the chin.

Coming down the stairs she could hear the frightful chatter of her mother and sisters. Grandma sat in the corner by the window on her rickety rocking chair gazing out the window. She clutched the half knitted jumper in her gnarled hands.

“The sheets hadn’t dried out yet,” Bertha complained. Sallow skin that burnt easily, she had the striking red hair their grandmother used to have. Her nose was large and hooked and if it weren’t for that enormity on her face she would have been quite pretty. As it was, she was a bitter spinster of twenty-six, always flirting with Rowan when she thought no one was listening. “You should have left them out longer. Honestly, Mena, you’re frazzled whenever Rowan comes around.”

“The weather’s fierce out and the sheets needed to be indoors,” Philomena said airily. She lined the wicker basket with some newspaper. “And the last time I left it to you to bring in the washing, you left it out to get drenched in the rain.”

Bertha blushed a deep crimson.

“It’s alright,” Trudy piped up. Strawberry blonde and pretty for her fifteen years, Trudy was the baby of the family. Alby adored her. She was sweet, unassuming, if a little vain. But she was hardworking and always looking to please. “I’ll just heat the iron and get to work on them. It’ll dry the sheets right out.”

“To think that my daughters are arguing over something as silly as washing,” Gertrude scoffed. Her auburn hair was streaked with grey. She had hunched shoulders and a lazy eye but that didn’t deter from her beauty. Sweat drizzled down her temples as she tended the fire and pulled out buns from the oven. “Just spread the sheets in Grannie’s room to dry out.”

“But the iron,” Trudy insisted.
 

“You’ll not go about ironing wet sheets,” Gertrude chided. “Now go and do something useful. Dig up some potatoes and peel them. Pick a few basil leaves as well.”

Trudy left by the back door. Philomena tied her bonnet and followed after her, the wicker basket on her arm.

“Get us a big catch,” Gertrude called from the house. “And a few mussels while you’re at it.”

Philomena waved in acknowledgement. The wind howled and nearly took the bonnet with it. Philomena reminded herself to buy some hatpins. She saw a pair of faces in the upstairs window and blew a kiss at her son’s cherubic smile. Rowan caught it and blew one right back.
 

The house was conveniently situated between the city walls of Cork and Blamey Castle. It was a picturesque home amongst many hovels. Her grandfather, Cullen McCormack, had purchased it from an Englishman who’d had enough of what he saw as the barbaric Catholics of the country and wanted to get the first ship back home. Cullen had set up his wife Sarah McCormack and his son Davey in the Englishman’s house and gone out to sea. He had never returned to take any comfort from it.

The path led down the slope and to the marsh where a gaggle of children were playing. Geese honked at Philomena’s passing skirts and the washerwoman called a greeting, her heavy arms wet to the elbows. The smell of salt and watery depths came billowing on the wind and Philomena felt a modicum of what drew Rowan and men like him out to sea. It was a heady adventure.

Philomena kicked at a few stones on the path, her mind on things to do during the day, the ironing, the cooking, the dusting and then at last the darkness of the night in which to go to her husband’s arms, little Alby snoring in his crib like the angel he was. Philomena didn’t think she could ever grow tired of Rowan, the touch of his hand and the warmth of his breath.

“Hello, Da,” Philomena called to the few headstones in the cemetery behind the church. Her father, Davey, was buried there and she said a cursory hello whenever she was passing by. She liked to think Davey McCormack was waving back, gossiping with old Mrs. River, three graves over.
 

Her father had been an insatiable gossip when he had been alive, his trade of dressmaker and haberdasher in the city providing him ample sources of the rumors running around, many direct from the horse’s mouth. He had died peacefully in bed one fine day, no warning, nothing. He went to bed one night and never woke up again. Philomena still missed him and his infectious laughter. His shop had gone to his apprentice William Darley. It was no secret that Davey and William had both hoped that Philomena would marry William, if only to keep the business in the family. Rowan had ruined those plans with his fancy talk of exotic places and hopeless good looks. What woman could resist? William Darley had never gotten over it to be fair. He had married, but she had heard that she was a hard, cruel woman. William had just jumped at the first woman available, and Philomena was sorry for that. But a woman’s heart was not a thing that she could control.
 

The fishmongers all called out greetings and a few lewd jokes as Philomena passed by, but she ignored them all. She had long made alliances with Blind Billy and purchased fish only from him, and because of this patronage Blind Billy saved the freshest and choicest fish for her.

“There’s a nice cod,” Blind Billy said, the grubby patch on his left eye quivering a little as he talked. “Also some halibut.” He was a man in his late forties with crooked teeth, a grizzled beard and the tanned skin of someone who hadn’t seen any shade for most of his life. His one good eye was bright blue and piercing. He had lost the other in some drunken brawl in a dockside bar in Bristol. But it hadn’t held him back. He was a resourceful man and those in the know always came to Billy for their fish.
 

“I’ll have the halibut,” Philomena said, “and a few handfuls of mussels if you have them.”

“I do indeed,” Blind Billy smiled, his crooked teeth yellow and his bulbous nose bearing the pockmarks he had survived as a child. Everything about Blind Billy screamed survival. He wrapped the halibut in paper before using a trowel to scoop mussels into her basket. “How’s the babe?”

“Stuck to his Da like feathers to tar,” Philomena said and Blind Billy laughed uproariously. “How are your lads?”

“Ah, they’re fine,” Blind Billy said with pride. “My Finn caught that there halibut, he did.”

“It’s a relief when they turn out useful isn’t it?”
 

“Ah, yours’ll grow to be a fine gentleman, have no doubt about that,” Billy grinned.

“Not if he takes after his father,” Philomena muttered.

“Well it’s a fine thing being a sailor,” Blind Billy swatted at the flies with a newspaper cut to ribbons, “you get to see the world. Don’t you want your son to see the world?”

“Yes, but not in the steam room lugging coal into the burner,” Philomena said hotly and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry Billy. It’s just that I know Rowan’s time at home will be over soon and I’m not ready to see him go.”

“I can understand,” Billy said. “My sons sail close to home and I don’t go a single day without seeing them. They don’t tread out too far and are weary of storms. They play it safe and I am lucky that they do. But come on girl, the ships they build now aren’t the pieces of wood our grandfathers sailed on. Your Rowan is safe at sea. As safe as he probably is at home right now.”
 

“I expect you’re right,” Philomena said handing him the money for the fish. “Thank you for the sage advice,” she winked. “And the fish.”

“Get on with you!” Billy laughed.

Philomena felt lighter on her way back home. Her talks with Blind Billy were always cathartic. She was glad she had a friend like him to air all her grievances with. Billy always set her right.
 

“Bye, Da,” she called to the cemetery on her way back. The wind was whipping fiercely through the eaves and leaves went skittering along the path. The air smelt of rain and coppery thunder and a hint of smoke.

The scent of smoke got denser as she neared her home and Philomena puzzled where it could be coming from. Surely not the sea. The children were no longer playing in the marshes, the washerwoman’s clothes lay discarded in pools of soapy water.

Where had everyone gone? Philomena wondered as she hurried home, a deep sense of foreboding building in her chest as she went. There was a great noise coming from the direction of home. Philomena broke into a run and reeled back in shock when she turned the corner and found her home ablaze.

“Water!” someone was screaming. “We need to put it out before it spreads!”

Philomena must have fallen to her knees because everyone seemed a giant to her. She saw, as if in a daze, people rushing about with buckets of water from the well and the marshes but it didn’t seem to make a difference to the flames pouring out of the front door.
 

Philomena whimpered. Grandmother wasn’t at the window. She was always at the window watching out for big Cullen McCormack. Philomena glanced up at her bedroom window where Alby and Rowan had been last and as she watched the windows burst and the glass rain down on the people below.

“Alby,” Philomena screamed. Like a woman being chased by the hounds of hell, she scrambled to her feet and ran towards the flames. Someone caught her below the ribs and held her back. She struggled, bit and scratched and begged but the arms didn’t let her go. “Alby!”

The next thing she remembered, was a crack of lightning across the black sky and a boom of thunder before the heavens broke and wept alongside her.