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

graceful folds.
    Meanwhile, I pleaded with the Eileen O’Reilly not to come to our show, for I knew she’d never resist calling out some horror up at Darcy on the stage. Reluctantly, the Eileen O’Reilly agreed. ‘It would be hard for a body not to abuse Darcy Swiney and her setting herself up in all her great grandeur like a queen.’
    When the day came, Annora professed herself unable to attend. ‘It is destroyed by my nerves, I am.’
    She waved us off, murmuring, ‘God and Mary be with you. And the Holy Infant.’
    ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ demanded Darcy.
    Joe the seaweed boy jolted us in his cart towards Ladysmildew Hall. Somewhere between Harristown and Kilcullen the seven poor fatherless sisters became the Swiney Godivas, one of whom was half sick on a secret about a man on Harristown Bridge.

Chapter 9
    When it was all over, our round-bellied mayor tottered up to the stage and told us, ‘But that was the grand singing intirely! It done a body’s heart good just to be hearin’ the sound of it.’
    But everyone knew that what had made his knees shake so was not our voices but our hair and its long, slow tumble to the ground. We curtseyed until our knees rattled. Finally Darcy let us off the stage. We stood against the walls of the wings, panting. Only then did the audience straggle reluctantly from the Ladysmildew Hall, still looking over their shoulders.
    Pertilly swept our hair back into chignons. Enda retied our drooping shawls.
    When we came outside, we found Joe’s grin waiting for us. A great Irish rainbow had bloomed over all County Kildare with its fogdogs crouched right on the road back to Harristown.
    My sisters tumbled joyfully into the cart. They were full to the neck of the wanting looks they’d been given.
    ‘Did you see the face on the mayor at the end?’ asked Oona.
    Even my beloved Enda was alight with having herself eaten up by the eyes of men while she stood in her naked hair in front of them.
    We were not out of Kilcullen before the twins commenced to argue as to which of them had sung out of tune.
    ‘Next time you’ll both do it properly,’ said Darcy.
    Joe had to stop for Ida to vomit her bread-and-dripping in a hedge.
    Holding Ida’s head gently in her hands, Berenice wiped her face with a corner of black silk shawl and soothed, ‘It shall be well, it shall be well.’
    ‘No it shall not,’ Ida wept, the thick tears of a nine-year-old undiluted by compromise.
    I looked up at Darcy. ‘Ida does not want to do this again,’ I translated boldly. ‘And no more do I.’
    ‘The paper-worm Manticory doesn’t want to do it again?’ Darcy’s voice mocked mine. ‘Poor Manticory. ’Tis a pity so to vex her. Would she rather do something else to earn money then? Let me guess. Something with a man on a bridge?’
    She swished one hand in front of her and one behind. ‘Now get back in the cart. Ida! Berenice!’
    Oona worried, ‘What is all that about a man on a bridge, Darcy? And that’s not a nice way to be carrying on with your hand, is it, playing about your rear end like that, and for why are you crying, Manticory honey?’
    I could not unburden myself even to Oona’s tenderness or in the shelter of Enda’s arm that soon encircled me as we continued on our way back to Harristown. I did not want to tell anyone what had happened on Harristown Bridge, because I did not want it to have happened at all. I could not be going on breathing with the knowledge of it in the minds of all my sisters and the pity on their faces.
    I nodded to Darcy and she smiled. I had betrayed myself twofold. For Darcy had my obedience now and also the means to secure it any time she wanted it. I had dared to crunch God’s Body in the chapel, but I had seen the grave in the clover field and I had no means, hungry as I was, to devour my fear of my sister.
    I was too ashamed even to tell the truth to the Eileen O’Reilly when she asked me, ‘For why are you so sorry and heavy in yourself, Manticory