Chapter Thirteen: ‘Pilgrimage to Portlaw’
It has often been said that ‘guilt’ is the most powerful of emotions that can lead to a significant change in one’s circumstances and future actions. Like a dray horse that is destined to work out its days pulling the cart, once guilt encourages one’s head to be placed inside the halter, the horse will obediently go without question, wherever the rein holder directs it.
For thousands of years, the Holy Roman Catholic Church has known the true power of ‘guilt’ whenever it involves a Catholic seeking personal redemption and atonement for past wrongs committed; whether by themselves or in their name. Having been indoctrinated in this penitential belief throughout her childhood, in the end, Margaret could always be relied upon to follow her conscience and to do what she felt to be right and proper.
For thousands of years, the Holy Roman Catholic Church has known the true power of ‘guilt’ whenever it involves a Catholic seeking personal redemption and atonement for past wrongs committed; whether by themselves or in their name. Having been indoctrinated in this penitential belief throughout her childhood, in the end, Margaret could always be relied upon to follow her conscience and to do what she felt to be right and proper.
After one day spent in the City of Waterford, I decided to hire a car and travel into Portlaw, some twelve miles away, where I hoped to learn more about Margaret’s present whereabouts and circumstances.
After arriving in the town, I called into one of the local pubs, and whilst there, I made discreet inquiries about Margaret after one of the customers at the bar bade me ‘Hello’ and asked if I hailed from these parts.
After arriving in the town, I called into one of the local pubs, and whilst there, I made discreet inquiries about Margaret after one of the customers at the bar bade me ‘Hello’ and asked if I hailed from these parts.
“"Are you a stranger to these parts?” I was asked by the man who worked at one of the local farms and who stank heavily of his daily toil. The farm worker still carried the smell of his labour soaked with sweat in the folds and crevices of his dirty work overalls.
“No!” I replied, adding, “I am on a brief holiday from West Yorkshire in England. I’ve always wanted to visit Southern Ireland. In fact, I knew a woman in Keighley, where I’m from, and she came from Portlaw. Her name is Margaret Poole and her family lived here, on William Street, I think. I believe her mother died a few years back.”
“No!” I replied, adding, “I am on a brief holiday from West Yorkshire in England. I’ve always wanted to visit Southern Ireland. In fact, I knew a woman in Keighley, where I’m from, and she came from Portlaw. Her name is Margaret Poole and her family lived here, on William Street, I think. I believe her mother died a few years back.”
“Aye, the Pooles. Maggie’s father, Roger, was himself buried not more than seven months ago,” the man told me. “After his wife passed away, he seemed to have no strength to carry on.”
“Now! Wasn’t the family home sold for €110,000 after Roger Poole died and the remaining daughter left to live in Cork with her sister?” he asked another customer beside him.
“That’s right, Paddy. Some say it was worth €140,000 and others said they’d have got the full price, had not the buyer been a Yank on the lookout for a bargain, with ready cash jangling in his pockets,” came the reply.
Further conversation led me to ask directly, “The woman I knew in Yorkshire had a teenage son called Timothy. Did they ever come back here?”
“Now! Wasn’t the family home sold for €110,000 after Roger Poole died and the remaining daughter left to live in Cork with her sister?” he asked another customer beside him.
“That’s right, Paddy. Some say it was worth €140,000 and others said they’d have got the full price, had not the buyer been a Yank on the lookout for a bargain, with ready cash jangling in his pockets,” came the reply.
Further conversation led me to ask directly, “The woman I knew in Yorkshire had a teenage son called Timothy. Did they ever come back here?”
The man looked at his drinking friend and smiled wryly, adding in jest, “Aye, she returned, along with the Squire’s bastard. If it’s she tha’ seeks, you’ll find her with her feet firmly planted under the table at the big house. I always said the Squire never raped her and that she lay down and lifted her skirt for him willingly!”
I couldn’t make head or tail of what was being said to me. I’d always been led to believe that it was the Squire’s son who’d spawned Timothy and not his father! And how had Magaret now come to live at the big house? None of what was said in the pub added up. I decided to find out the truth of the matter for myself at the earliest opportunity.
It was the following day before I decided to visit the Squire’s house and see for myself. I found it troubling and distressing to believe what was being presented to me as representing fact.
As I drove up the drive apprehensively, the sun shone down brightly and radiated the wild grass border area on each side of the car, highlighting the shadows of an avenue of oak trees and flowers that formed a floral passageway from entrance gate to front porch. The oak trees had been growing there for over one hundred years and they stood like sentries in regimented line; their sole purpose always having been to guide the traveller from common road to magnificent mansion.
As I drove up the drive apprehensively, the sun shone down brightly and radiated the wild grass border area on each side of the car, highlighting the shadows of an avenue of oak trees and flowers that formed a floral passageway from entrance gate to front porch. The oak trees had been growing there for over one hundred years and they stood like sentries in regimented line; their sole purpose always having been to guide the traveller from common road to magnificent mansion.
As I approached the big house, its grandeur exemplified the vast differences that had always existed between the wealth of the land owner and the poverty of its common folk. The mansion had one dozen steps and a porch of four corner pillars in the Grecian style to its entrance, along with an imposing solid oak door with iron knockers at its centre, shaped in the image of a lion.
I got out of the car and was about to knock on the door to announce my presence when I saw a woman in the near distance, walking back towards the house. She was pushing a wheelchair and its occupant back along the gravelled path. I looked hard and after looking again, while she had dyed her hair lighter since I last saw her, it was undoubtedly Margaret! The chair occupant's hair had turned grey with his traumatic deterioration over the years and he now looked to be twice the age of Margaret. The couple seemed to be smiling about something; a sight I found completely incongruous.
As Margaret approached near enough to recognise me, she was taken aback and said in a puzzled voice, “Bill! What… what are you doing here?”
“I’m holidaying in Waterford and having heard that you’d come back home after ‘Hawthorn’s’ went into receivership, I couldn’t be so close to Portlaw without looking you up.”
“But… how did you know that you’d find me here?” she asked in a puzzled voice.
“Oh… a chap at the pub told me!” I said.
I’d supplied my response to her question too quickly and without much forethought. The last thing I wanted to do was to give Margaret the impression that I’d made her the subject of common tap-room gossip among the locals.
While this brief exchange was taking place, I looked at the man she was pushing. He was far too young to have been the old Squire like I'd initially thought, having first seen the pair from a distance. I now assumed the occupant of the wheelchair to be Jerry Swales, the Squire’s son and heir, and father to Margaret’s boy, Timothy.
“But why was she pushing the ‘alleged’ rapist of her youth around the grounds of the Squire’s house?” I asked myself.
The man in the wheelchair didn’t speak or look at me directly. Instead, his face remained locked in focus towards the ground. When his face wasn't towards the ground, it looked to be in a permanently forced smile. His limbs hung over the wheelchair like a loose sack of spuds and his mouth drooled spit down his chin. Upon seeing this, Margaret took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth dry. Her sympathetic hand was lightly applied to the man’s mouth with a care that is rarely seen outside the action of genuine love or that of religious duty.
“I’ll place my husband back inside the house and then return. I’ll arrange for a pot of tea to be served. He needs to rest after his afternoon walk,” she said, adding, “or he becomes uncontrollably agitated.”
“I’m holidaying in Waterford and having heard that you’d come back home after ‘Hawthorn’s’ went into receivership, I couldn’t be so close to Portlaw without looking you up.”
“But… how did you know that you’d find me here?” she asked in a puzzled voice.
“Oh… a chap at the pub told me!” I said.
I’d supplied my response to her question too quickly and without much forethought. The last thing I wanted to do was to give Margaret the impression that I’d made her the subject of common tap-room gossip among the locals.
While this brief exchange was taking place, I looked at the man she was pushing. He was far too young to have been the old Squire like I'd initially thought, having first seen the pair from a distance. I now assumed the occupant of the wheelchair to be Jerry Swales, the Squire’s son and heir, and father to Margaret’s boy, Timothy.
“But why was she pushing the ‘alleged’ rapist of her youth around the grounds of the Squire’s house?” I asked myself.
The man in the wheelchair didn’t speak or look at me directly. Instead, his face remained locked in focus towards the ground. When his face wasn't towards the ground, it looked to be in a permanently forced smile. His limbs hung over the wheelchair like a loose sack of spuds and his mouth drooled spit down his chin. Upon seeing this, Margaret took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth dry. Her sympathetic hand was lightly applied to the man’s mouth with a care that is rarely seen outside the action of genuine love or that of religious duty.
“I’ll place my husband back inside the house and then return. I’ll arrange for a pot of tea to be served. He needs to rest after his afternoon walk,” she said, adding, “or he becomes uncontrollably agitated.”
As Margaret took the wheelchair occupant back inside the house, my mind could focus on no other words than those she’d last spoken, when she’d described the man in the wheelchair as, ‘my husband’. I’d simply no idea what could possibly have happened to make her marry the man she’d always said had raped and impregnated her!
Five minutes later Margaret returned and bade me to sit down at an outside table positioned near the edge of the lawn. Another few minutes passed before a maid arrived carrying a tray that contained a pot of tea and some buttered scones and jam. Margaret waited until the maid had poured the tea and then told her, “That will be fine, Browning. Thank you.”
She ordered the servant from our presence as though it was the type of instruction she’d been brought up to naturally give without raising an eyebrow.
Five minutes later Margaret returned and bade me to sit down at an outside table positioned near the edge of the lawn. Another few minutes passed before a maid arrived carrying a tray that contained a pot of tea and some buttered scones and jam. Margaret waited until the maid had poured the tea and then told her, “That will be fine, Browning. Thank you.”
She ordered the servant from our presence as though it was the type of instruction she’d been brought up to naturally give without raising an eyebrow.
Not knowing what to say, I waited for Margaret to speak first. To tell the truth, I didn’t know where to begin, having found myself in the middle of a moral maze with no compass bearings to show me the way out.
“You must be wondering what brings me back here? What I’m doing caring for the man who raped me, Bill?” she asked.
“You could say that,” I replied, somewhat sarcastically and uncharitably.
“I wouldn’t blame you for any confusion you might have or for thinking badly of me,Bill”, she said, adding, “but when I found out the extent of his injuries and how they happened to be caused, the more I thought about it, it was the only Christian and proper thing left for me to do!”
Margaret’s words confused me even more, and seeing me deep in puzzled thought, she explained further.
“Shortly before Alan died,” Margaret explained, “I learned for the first time all that he’d done, and the revenge he’d paid for and sought on my behalf. Before he died, one of the last things he told me was the part that Charles Dwight had played in the injuries inflicted on Jerry Swales for having raped me.”
“You must be wondering what brings me back here? What I’m doing caring for the man who raped me, Bill?” she asked.
“You could say that,” I replied, somewhat sarcastically and uncharitably.
“I wouldn’t blame you for any confusion you might have or for thinking badly of me,Bill”, she said, adding, “but when I found out the extent of his injuries and how they happened to be caused, the more I thought about it, it was the only Christian and proper thing left for me to do!”
Margaret’s words confused me even more, and seeing me deep in puzzled thought, she explained further.
“Shortly before Alan died,” Margaret explained, “I learned for the first time all that he’d done, and the revenge he’d paid for and sought on my behalf. Before he died, one of the last things he told me was the part that Charles Dwight had played in the injuries inflicted on Jerry Swales for having raped me.”
“At first, I was flattered to know that Alan had loved me enough to seek justice on my behalf, but all that changed when I returned to Portlaw for my da’s funeral and learned of the vegetative state that Dwight had left his victim in.”
“After discovering that the Squire’s son had developed a worsening brain condition that effectively rendered him no livelier than a human cabbage, what else was I to do to make good the harm caused in my name? How else was I ever to know peace of mind and redeem my soul?”
Margaret revealed that once she discovered that Jerry’s parents had died within weeks of each other, Alan’s revenge seemed too cruel an act for her to benefit from. Everything had changed. Jerry Swales may have been the new Squire of the Manor, but having no surviving relative to look after him, the new Squire was now destined to live out the rest of his days in a Sanatorium. So, Margaret acknowledged him as Timothy’s father and offered to marry and care for him.
“It was the least I could do in the circumstances, Bill,” she said. “Besides, it offered Timothy a sound financial future and myself the means of making atonement for the wrong Charles Dwight did on Alan’s commission, and in defence of my honour!”
“But…you can't possibly be happy, Margaret?” I asked her, adding, “How can you possibly be?”
“Happiness has a price all of its own, Bill. In my own way, I have secured as much peace of mind that I’m entitled to have under the circumstances,” she replied.
“But, need you have married the man?” I asked, adding, “You could still have atoned by nursing him; without committing yourself to marriage!”
“My poor parents would turn in their graves if I lived unwed beneath the same roof as a single man. Besides, what would life become if the good folk of Portlaw had nothing salacious to gossip about the Squire of the Manor, or his hussy of a wife, the gold digger, and their bastard son?”
“At first, I was flattered to know that Alan had loved me enough to seek justice on my behalf, but all that changed when I returned to Portlaw for my da’s funeral and learned of the vegetative state that Dwight had left his victim in.”
“After discovering that the Squire’s son had developed a worsening brain condition that effectively rendered him no livelier than a human cabbage, what else was I to do to make good the harm caused in my name? How else was I ever to know peace of mind and redeem my soul?”
Margaret revealed that once she discovered that Jerry’s parents had died within weeks of each other, Alan’s revenge seemed too cruel an act for her to benefit from. Everything had changed. Jerry Swales may have been the new Squire of the Manor, but having no surviving relative to look after him, the new Squire was now destined to live out the rest of his days in a Sanatorium. So, Margaret acknowledged him as Timothy’s father and offered to marry and care for him.
“It was the least I could do in the circumstances, Bill,” she said. “Besides, it offered Timothy a sound financial future and myself the means of making atonement for the wrong Charles Dwight did on Alan’s commission, and in defence of my honour!”
“But…you can't possibly be happy, Margaret?” I asked her, adding, “How can you possibly be?”
“Happiness has a price all of its own, Bill. In my own way, I have secured as much peace of mind that I’m entitled to have under the circumstances,” she replied.
“But, need you have married the man?” I asked, adding, “You could still have atoned by nursing him; without committing yourself to marriage!”
“My poor parents would turn in their graves if I lived unwed beneath the same roof as a single man. Besides, what would life become if the good folk of Portlaw had nothing salacious to gossip about the Squire of the Manor, or his hussy of a wife, the gold digger, and their bastard son?”
In truth, for the first time in my life I was angry with Margaret. I was inwardly furious at what she’d done; at the extreme lengths she’d gone to seek atonement and offer redress. I loved her, and although I’d never declared my love to her, she’d deeply wounded me. After the death of Alan, and a respectable period of mourning had passed, there was a part of me that hoped we might become better acquainted and move our relationship onto a more romantic footing. In my wildest of dreams, I even imagined that such advancement of my affections might include a period of settled courtship and perhaps, eventual marriage. Who knows what distance fate can travel in pursuit of true love’s dream?
“What is it, Bill?” Margaret asked when she saw the look of heavy disappointment appear across my face.
“I… I loved you too, Margaret, though I have never had the opportunity to tell you so before today,” I replied. “It’s just… it’s hard to take in the vast changes within so short a time, and to be frank, it’s difficult to get my head around how you could have married… him! I know we only knew each other a matter of a few weeks, but I gained the impression that there was… there could have been something between us,” I replied.
Margaret looked at me lovingly and tenderly and I could see a tear slowly make its way down her cheek from the corner of her eye.
“Who knows where life would have taken us, Bill, had circumstances been different,” she said.
I knew deep within that however much I loved her, Margaret’s love for me would never be more than a part of mine for her. My mind instantly went to the words of the poet W.H. Auden, ‘If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.’
“What is it, Bill?” Margaret asked when she saw the look of heavy disappointment appear across my face.
“I… I loved you too, Margaret, though I have never had the opportunity to tell you so before today,” I replied. “It’s just… it’s hard to take in the vast changes within so short a time, and to be frank, it’s difficult to get my head around how you could have married… him! I know we only knew each other a matter of a few weeks, but I gained the impression that there was… there could have been something between us,” I replied.
Margaret looked at me lovingly and tenderly and I could see a tear slowly make its way down her cheek from the corner of her eye.
“Who knows where life would have taken us, Bill, had circumstances been different,” she said.
I knew deep within that however much I loved her, Margaret’s love for me would never be more than a part of mine for her. My mind instantly went to the words of the poet W.H. Auden, ‘If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.’
I started to hurt inside too much and didn’t want to break down in her presence, so I quickly said my farewells to Margaret. As I drove down the long path away from the big house, I could see her reflection standing there in my mirror as I said silently, “Farewell, my love. Farewell!”
I left Ireland with a heavy heart and returned to my modest cottage in Keighley, England.
I left Ireland with a heavy heart and returned to my modest cottage in Keighley, England.
