Free The True and Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters by Michelle Lovric Page A

adversity. Her face was rhomboid rather than heart-shaped, with spare folds where there should be none. Nor was Pertilly gifted with wit, a subject on which Darcy now expanded at length.
    ‘Pertilly’s an ignoramush!’ Ida chipped in joyfully, and then clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry so,’ she whispered to Pertilly.
    Over Pertilly’s tears, Darcy instructed Annora to sew us seven new black silk shawls, also to emphasise the pallor of our complexions and the whiteness of our forearms.
    ‘What in the earthly world are you thinking, Darcy? With what money shall I be paying for black silk shawls?’ whined Annora. ‘ New , is it?’
    We had never in our lives worn clothes that had been made for us.
    ‘With credit money. I’ll pay it back with interest after the first show.’
    ‘ First show?’ whimpered Ida. ‘But—’
    Annora protested, ‘Haven’t I been trying to tell you that the credit is at the tether’s end? Silk’s an awful price. And what if—’
    ‘Away with your what-ifs, you stupid woman!’ thundered Darcy. ‘And aren’t there six or seven pewter dishes just begging to be sold? It wouldn’t hurt you to take in a few extra sheets for mending either.’
    ‘Is that your manners, girl? She’s a terrible girl for manners! She has a snake’s manners. It is not her fault, no. But she is the Dark One’s snaky minion, the serpent that she is, with that sharp tooth on her for biting at you.’ Annora crossed herself and bent over her needle, invoking seamstress saints in tearful whispers.
    ‘Is this a good stitching?’ she’d moan, answering herself, ‘Faith it is no such thing: it is very poor, the creature. It is the Dunlavin banshee who has put her cold hand on my fingers.’
    Despite her Catholic faith, a staunch belief in fairies coexisted in Annora’s confused and beaten heart. To hear her tell it, our fields were thick with fairy forts, fairy stones, fairy trees that must be scrupulously avoided. She frequently insisted Ida’s ‘airy fits’ were brought on by the Little People who were known to infest the air, earth and water around Gormanstown Hill. Or she blamed the elfin spirits of Ratharigid and the fairies of the moat at Tournant who regularly put a dangerous excitement on the herds at Dunlavin. The two tribes of Little Folk were constantly at war; droplets of red blood would be found on the roadway after their battles. In the evil February wind – or when Darcy raged – Annora always swore she heard the cries of the banshee of Dunlavin, an ancient crone who combed her hair and pronounced scintillating curses, especially on laundresses and seamstresses. On All Souls Day, the time when the other world was deemed to be closest to ours, Annora spent every daylight hour on her knees praying for mercy on the souls in Purgatory, alternating with whispered asides begging mercy from the Sidhe of Gormanstown on their rampages.
    While Annora chanted hymns to save her stitching from the Dunlavin banshee, Darcy wrenched the lice and the lice-nymphs and egg casings from our hair with the wooden comb, boiling the kettle so it whistled to cover our screams in case a constable happened to pass by. The face of the Eileen O’Reilly at the window grew round-eyed and pale as a laundered sheet.
    Darcy announced our first show was to be two Monday evenings hence in nearby Kilcullen’s down-at-heel Ladysmildew Hall. She ensured that a snowfall of handouts lay thick about the streets the week before. She had us up all night copying them from an example she fixed to the larder door.
    THE SWINEY GODIVAS
    SEVEN BEAUTEOUS FLOWERS OF OLD IRELAND
    In Their Very First Bloom
    Songs to open your heart
    Tresses and faces never to forget . . .
    Annora begged some dye from Mrs Godlin. The uniform black hid the patches on our worsted bodices. She sponged the grease and mould from our Sunday skirts with holy water. Enda, who had a natural way with these things, showed us all how to tie the black shawls in