Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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letters, which she put in her pocket for later, and then drew the mystery card towards her. The envelope was of the best quality and she caught a whiff of the scent on it as she slit it open. The card itself was silk and depicted a beautiful girl in a flowing dress in a garden awash with flowers.
‘Golly, who’s that from?’ Cathy breathed in admiration.
‘Mind your own business, Cathy,’ Nellie said reprovingly.
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Molly said, looking up from reading the card with a smile. ‘Anyone would want to know. It’s not the normal run-of-the-mill card, after all, and it is from Dad’s old employer, Paul Simmons. You remember I told you about my father saving his life in the war and how he got a job working with him?’
‘Kind of him to send you a card, and all.’
‘Oh, he sent more than a card,’ Molly said, pulling out a five-shilling postal order. ‘He has written a little note here. Apparently he has set up a fund for me and Kevin to mature when we are twenty-one, but he says twenty-one seems a lifetime away when you are only fourteen and so from now on there will be five shillings a week coming from his solicitors.’
There was a gasp from the family. ‘Isn’t that the very devil’s own luck, Molly?’ Jack said.
‘Aye, and about time some good fortune happened to you,’ said Nellie sincerely. ‘And I am as pleased as if it was myself, for it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.’
‘Yes,’ said Cathy in impatient excitement. ‘But what are you going to do with all that money?’
‘Save it,’ Molly said decisively. ‘You know I intend to leave this place and I think Mr Simmons maybe knows that. He didn’t like my grandmother one bit – anyone could see that – but it didn’t surprise me because most normal people don’t.’
‘I don’t blame him either,’ Nellie said. ‘He sounds a wonderful man, so he does.’
‘He is,’ Molly agreed happily. ‘I knew nothing of any fund until this moment, and it will be lovely to have a bit of money when I am an adult, but I will not bide here until I am twenty-one. But to move anywhere, you need money behind you and I will save up all these five-shilling postal orders.’
‘Will I open you an account with the Post Office, Molly?’ Nellie said. ‘It will be safest, especially if I keep the book for you.’
Molly nodded. ‘I was going to ask you, because it wouldn’t be wise to keep anything at the farm.’
‘Do you destroy the letters or keep them?’ Cathy said.
‘I can’t bring myself to destroy them yet,’ Molly admitted, ‘though I know it would be safer. I daren’t keep them in my room either; my grandmother isn’t above snooping around. But I have found a box behind all the bales of hay right at the back of the barn where my grandmother never goes. I keep all the stationery items there too and just smuggle in what I need, but I wouldn’t like money kept out there as well.’
‘Does Tom know about it?’
‘I’ve told my uncle nothing.’
‘Why?’ Nellie said. ‘Surely you know that Tom would never betray you?’
‘He wouldn’t mean to,’ Molly said. ‘But even though he has broken out a little and does stick up for me and himself a bit, he is still very much under his mother’s thumb in many ways. He is unnerved by her rages and when you are not fully in control of yourself, you can sometimes let things slip out. If he doesn’t know, then he can’t tell.’ She hesitated and then went on, ‘I don’t intend to tell him about the money either. I mean, I am really fond of Uncle Tom, but what if we should be talking about it and she overheard or something? I know with absolute certainty that if my grandmother got one sniff of this money she would have every penny piece off me. This will be my passport to freedom and I’d really rather no one but us in this room knew anything about the postal orders.’
‘You needn’t fret yourself, Molly,’ Nellie said ‘It is your business and that’s how it will stay.’ Cathy also promised and Nellie said, ‘Jack, you hear that?’
‘Course I hear it, and don’t you be pointing the finger at me,’ Jack said. ‘I can keep my own counsel the same as the next man.’
‘Even when the beer loosens your tongue, I mean?’
‘Even then,’ Jack said. He turned to Molly. ‘No one will hear a dicky bird from me of the events of this afternoon, I promise you faithfully.’
Molly sighed in relief. ‘Thanks, Jack – thanks, all of you. The first letter I shall write will be to Mr Simmons to thank him. But,’ she added playfully to Jack, ‘I can afford my own stamps and all now.’
‘I should think so,’ Jack said, matching her mood. ‘And about time too, I think.’
‘Come on,’ Nellie said. ‘There is a party tea awaiting us set out in the room. Let’s go in and do it justice.’
Father Finlay was becoming worried about Molly and he was not the only one.
‘It dates back to what happened years ago,’ Nellie told the priest, who called at the post office, knowing that she probably knew more about the girl and what was going on in the home than anyone else in the parish. Nellie told the priest all about Nuala and the father’s heart attack when he received the fateful letter.
‘I think she is making Molly sort of pay for what her mother did,’ Nellie said. ‘The child is nearly a prisoner on that farm, and from what Tom tells me, does far more than the lion’s share of work on it. And … I hesitate to say this, Father, for I deplore gossip, and had I not seen it myself I would not say a word about it, but Biddy is far too free with her fists.’
The priest frowned a little, disturbed by what Nellie said. Normally, he had no problem with physical punishment and he knew of many bold children – usually boys, he had to admit – that had been stopped from going off the rails altogether by the power of their fathers’ belts, or a few strokes from a stick. Molly, however, didn’t seem the type of girl to need such stringent punishment, certainly not at the age she was. ‘You are sure of this?’
‘I have seen it with my own eyes, Father.’
‘Dear, dear. What is to be done?’
‘Nothing about that, Father, I fear,’ Nellie said. ‘For knowing the type of woman Biddy is, I feel that if anything were said, things might be worse for Molly later.’
‘What of Tom in all this?’
‘Molly is very fond of Tom,’ Nellie said. ‘It would be hard not to be, but sure, the man cannot be everywhere.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘What Molly would really like, Father, for she has told my own daughter Cathy, is to come to Buncrana perhaps on a Saturday a time or two. Tom and Biddy come every week, but Molly is never allowed after the one time she was here.’
‘Why not?’
Nellie shrugged. ‘You must ask her that, Father, because to my knowledge she has been given no explanation.’
‘If she was to come in with them, it would solve another problem I have and that is confession,’ the priest said. ‘There are weeks between each one Molly makes, and she comes to the church either Thursday or Friday evening, when the chores are done at home and Tom has time to bring her down, for her grandmother forbids her to go alone. This much she has told me when I asked her. The point is, I hear Biddy and Tom’s confession every two weeks on Saturday morning when they are in Buncrana anyway, and surely it would do the child good to do the same thing.’
‘You’d think so, Father,’ Nellie said. ‘Maybe you could use that as a lever.’
‘Maybe I could indeed. I will certainly give the matter some thought.’
Before the priest