Patricia Falvey - The Yellow House: A Novel

For my grandmother

Ellen Jane (Hayes) Toner

I would like to thank my agent, Denise Marcil, for her invaluable guidance throughout the development of this novel. I am deeply grateful for the way she challenged me to reach levels beyond which I believed myself capable. Her expertise, experience, practicality, and caring concern are everything an author could ever hope to find in an agent and more. In addition, I would like to thank Anne Marie OFarrell and Katie Kotchman of the Denise Marcil Literary Agency for their assistance and enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Christina Boys, my editor at Hachette Book Group, for her immediate and sustained enthusiasm for this book. Thanks also to her assistant, Whitney Luken. My appreciation and thanks also go to Alan Tucker, who edited this manuscript with courteous attention and elegant diligence. The manuscript was indeed ready to meet the queen when he was finished. Also thanks to Dr. John McCavitt, Northern Ireland historian and author of The Flight of the Earls , for sharing his expertise on Irish political and religious history. Thanks also to Dr. Marilyn Cohen, anthropologist, head of womens studies at St. Peters College in New Jersey, and author of Linen, Family and Community in Tullyish, County Down , for her insights into the social conditions in the linen industry in Northern Ireland. Thanks also to Rosemary Mulholland, president of the Bessbrook Historical Society, and Pat OKeefe, Irish musician, for generously assisting me with my research.

Thanks must also go to many friends scattered throughout the United States and abroad for their support and belief in my dream. They include the Good Eats and Luckys Gangs in Dallas; the Reno Crowd; Spa Sisters in New York and Pawleys Island; former colleagues at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP; and many, many others. I would especially like to thank Marjorie Jaffe, who introduced me to Denise Marcil and so was the reason it all started. Thanks also to my dear friend Susan Grissom for her unflagging optimism and encouragement and for her research assistance. A special thank-you to Bernard Silverman for his sustained caring and support and for all the jokes! And last but not least, my appreciation to my family, especially my beloved sister, Connie, who has kept the spirit of Ireland alive in me all these years.

CONTENTS

I remember the summers best, when the days rested in the long arms of the evening and the sounds around Slieve Gullion were as muted as benediction. Only the faint barking of distant dogs cut the stillness as farmers drove their cattle home. Smoke curled from cottage chimneys and children gulped down tea so they could return to play while time hovered between day and night like a gift from heaven.

On such an evening, when I was eight years old, I lay in the tall grass in front of our house with my ear pressed to the ground. If you listened hard enough, Da had told me, you could hear the fairies dancing down below. But this evening all was quiet. I sat up. My brother, Frankie, a year older than myself, was torturing the life out of a worm, hacking at it with a sharp stone.

Stop that, Frankie, I said.

Frankie shrugged. Im only trying to see if its true.

What?

That it grows itself back again if you cut it in two.

I sighed. Frankie was always doing things like thatcruel wee things. I put it down to his being a boy. I lay down on my back. A brown-and-orange butterfly circled above me. I put up my hands, lazily tracing its flight.

I wish Da was home, I said.

I heard his voice long before I saw him. His lovely sweet tenor carried from the distance, lilting across the fields that spread out below our house. I scrambled up and raced toward the road. Frankie dropped the worm and followed me. Our old Irish setter, Cuchulainn, pricked up his ears and barked. We shaded our eyes as we squinted into the setting sun. Da appeared at the brow of the hill. He stood up in the cart, his hands loosely holding the ponys reins. His crop of red hair glowed like a halo around his head as the fire of the sun caught it. I imagined him the great Irish warrior Hugh ONeill himself, returning from the battle, riding out of the sun. How I loved my da.

Das coming, Mammy, I shouted back to the house, Das coming.

Frankie and I ran toward the cart. Da stopped singing and waved at us.

Hello, darlins. Up with you now.

Da was a wiry man of medium height, with a face so full of life that it shone even on the dullest of days. He was dressed today, as always when he went to town, in a brown suit and a white cotton shirt with a clean starched collar. Dandy Tommy, the villagers called him. He wore no cap, and his curly hair sprang out around his head like a laurel wreath.

He slowed the pony and the cart stopped. Frankie and I clambered up, shoving each other to get in the seat beside Da. Da chucked the reins again, and the pony began to walk. She was a sweet little Connemara pony, gray and white, with eyes like silk.

On now with you, Rosie, Da said.

Mammy stood at the front door, holding my little sister, Lizzie, by the hand. Lizzie strained to get away.

Dada, Dada, she crowed.

She was lovely and fair as the Rose of the summer. Da crooned the words of The Rose of Tralee. It was his favorite song, one that he sang often to Mammy. The girl in the song was named Mary, the same as Ma, and Mammy always smiled when he sang it. The cart trundled through the gate that led to our farm. It had broken long ago and was never closed. Red summer roses clung stubbornly to the rotted, splintered wood, trailing down over the low stone walls on either side. They were Mammys roses. She loved flowers.

Whats this, Da? Frankie said. Whats in these buckets? Frankie tried to pry the lid off a tin bucket in the back of the cart.

Wait and see. Da laughed.

Rosie halted in front of the house and we climbed down. Ma came forward, still holding Lizzies hand. She looked down into the bed of the cart.

And what in the name of God have you there? she said. Mammys voice was always soft and slightly hoarse, as if she had a catch in her throat.

Paint, my lovely Mary Kathleen, said Da, jumping down from the cart.

Paint?

Aye, paint. Buckets of lucky yellow paint to mark the grand anniversary.

What are you talking about? Mammy dropped Lizzies hand, and the baby toddled forward and wrapped her arms around Das leg.

The anniversary of the day my grandda Hugh ONeill won back this house and the ONeill familys honor along with it. In 1805a hundred years ago this very day!

Frankie and I giggled, while Ma shook her head and sighed. Wisps of long black hair played around her face. She put up her hand to shove them back.

Will you go on with yourself, she said. Sure you have no notion of when or even how your grandfather got this house.

Da straightened his back and put on a look of mock outrage. Dont I know my own familys history, Mary? Didnt I hear the story manys a time from Hugh himself? He won this house back from the Sheridan family