The day was one of those lovely lazy summer afternoons where everything seemed to hang, the sunlight suspended above them, fluffy white clouds floating above the city in the distance. The boys had found some cricket equipment and one had even brought a football out. They had shaken off their gowns and were in various states of undress that the Headmaster would not approve of, some in short trousers, all in shirtsleeves, some even barefoot. They ran and shouted around the cricket pitches, and some waited anxiously by the pool side.
Madeleine stood at the head of the hill. Her chaperone had gone for tea and one of the boys had led her down here when she asked after her brother. She could see him bowling to another boy. He was a fast bowler -just like her- and at that moment she heard a loud “Howzat!” as his ball made contact with the stumps. The bales went flying and for a moment, like everything else, seemed to remain hanging in the air for a moment before falling on the grass. Fred was patted on the back, his golden red curls -just like hers- bouncing as he went to retrieve the ball.
“Fred!” she called, and he looked up at the sound of his name.
“Maddy!” he said, running up to her and giving her a bear-hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, we came to Dublin to find me a new dress, and we thought we might as well visit you.”
“We being?”
“Me and Miss Chaucer. She’s quite alright really. Gone to have tea with Matron.”
“Well, the boys will be glad. You shall create quite a stir in your new summer frock.”
She smoothed down her front. “Mother highly disapproves, but it’s all the rage across the water.”
“And you’re still following London fashion after-”
“Fashion holds no prisoners Fred. Rather like the British in fact.” She looked around at the boys. “You seem rather diminished, or are some people still indoors?”
Fred shook his head, tossing the cricket ball from hand to hand uneasily. “No. They went to enlist. Ben’s left.”
Madeleine bit her lip, shocked. “Ben? But he can’t be eighteen yet. He’s only a few months older than us.”
“He isn’t. But you know Ben. When he’s set on something, he’ll go through with it.”
“Fred, that’s perfectly awful. If he should-”
Fred nodded. “I’m sorry. I know you were soft on him.”
Madeleine blushed. “You shouldn’t say things like that. Tongues will wag.”
“And do you honestly mind? After the scandal at the Hunt Ball.”
She laughed, the memory coming to life. “There was no scandal, I honestly twisted my ankle and Robert was helping me.”
Fred nodded, his gold eyes glinting in the sunlight. “That’s what they all say. Madeleine Fitzsimmons, twisting her ankle? Did you happen to see any flying pigs outside when Robert went to help you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Robert’s gone too,” Fred said softly.
Madeleine paused. “Robert… he wasn’t far off eighteen when I last saw him, but he supported Pearse, I remember that. He wanted to be a Volunteer.”
“They all went. The Volunteers. Ninety thousand of them. And Robert too. And Ben. Last count, forty seven of the school left. And Mr. Tracey.”
“Oh, Fred,” Madeleine said. “It’s terrible. All these boys are going off to France without a clue what will happen to them. There are the most awful stories about it all over there, and they’re shooting at others who would be us if they didn’t speak German. And poor Mr. Pearse being executed, those school boys aren’t far from here, they’re at a loss of what to do without him. Connolly too, and he couldn’t even walk.”
“And they all fight for what they believe,” Fred said. His twin immediately noticed the bitterness in his voice.
“Freddie, you’re not honestly thinking like that are you?” she asked, putting an arm around him. He shook her off.
“You don’t know what it’s like Maddy. They’ve all gone off, and they’re all doing something. How do you think I feel when my best friend’s enlisted, and I’m too much of a coward to?”
“You’re not a coward. In any case, you’re not British, you have no obligation-”
“I’m British. So are you. What happened at Easter was inspiring, but it doesn’t change anything. I should still be fighting. I just didn’t have the guts to.”
She placed a tentative hand on his arm. His fingers clenched the leather and wood ball until they were white at the knuckles.
“There are all kinds of bravery,” she said quietly.
“Were you glad to see your hero Markievicz survive?” Fred asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Not really. She wanted to go with them all. Just because she’s a woman, she shouldn’t have had any special treatment?”
“Ah. So we still have a suffragette in the family do we?” he asked, a smile forming around his mouth easily, his face breaking into its usual laughing self.
“Indeed we do!” she said happily. “Miss Chaucer doesn’t realise why I chose lilac and green for my new dress. Mother won’t notice either.”
“You heard about Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington’s husband I take it? He was killed too.”
“What’s this?” asked a booming voice behind them. Madeleine turned to see a huge boy with a mop of black hair. “Those suffragettes are a lark aren’t they?”
Fred coughed uneasily. “Um, may I present my sister, Madeleine. Maddy, this is my school chum, Henry Oliver.”
“The wonderful Madeleine Fitzsimmons. I’ve heard things about you,” he said suggestively, waggling his huge eyebrows as he shook her hand.
“And they’re all false,” she said coldly, immediately disliking him. “In any case, we were just discussing how much respect Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington should command, not to forget, of course, those remarkable sisters across the water.”
Henry gave a bellow of laughter. “Come now. Boys, come and look at this!”
Some of the boys abandoned their various games. Madeleine recognised some faces, but most were entirely new to her as she realised with a pang, most familiar ones were gone.
“Fitzsimmon’s sister thinks she should get the vote!”
“And why shouldn’t I?” Madeleine asked. “I daresay I am at least twice as bright as you, not to mention a far better cricket player. Why shouldn’t I have a voice in the running of the world?”
“Everybody knows all girls are good for is to marry a good strong man and keep him warm at night,” Henry said. There was some laughter, but a lot of the boys frowned at this, disagreeing.
Madeleine bit her lip, and looked to the cricket stumps.
“Shall we have a game boys?” she asked. Somebody whistled.
Shoving a pin further into her hair to keep a ringlet back, she kicked off her shoes and grabbed the ball out of Fred’s hands. The grass was soft and dry beneath her feet. She hitched her skirts up and walked to the stumps.
Henry Oliver laughed and held one huge hand out for a bat. It was passed to him. He positioned himself at the other end of the strip.
“Perhaps you would like to come closer,” he said to her. “That might be too far for you.”
Ignoring this, she paced slowly backwards, counting her footsteps. She could feel the boys watching her, and sincerely hoped that Matron served good tea so that Miss Chaucer wouldn’t see her down here.
“Come on Maddy!” Fred shouted. “Show him the best bowler in Wexford!”
She rotated her arms around, stretching them, then took a deep breath, pressed the ball firmly between her fingers and ran. Her arm swung round in the natural feeling arc, dead straight, and the ball went flying, spinning its way. Henry swung… and with a resounding thwack, the bales were hanging, then dropping to the ground.
“Howzat!” Fred cried. “That’s my girl!”
He ran down to her while the others crowded around Henry to jeer him.
“I thoroughly dislike that boy. I shall never dance with him. In any case, his feet are far too big.”
“He’s English,” Fred said. “His parents sent him here in January. That’s what he says. Truth be told, I think he came so that he need not endure the tension in Britain, that he won’t be given any white feathers.”
Madeleine contemplated this, then grinned.
“What?” Fred asked.
“You said Britain,” she said. “You don’t think we’re in Britain, do you?”
Fred blushed and shrugged. “Well…”
Madeleine laughed. “Oh I miss you Fred. All I get is the most horrible tedium of Mother discussing balls and dresses and tea.”
It was Fred’s turn to laugh. “Whereas you would much rather be here?”
“I would,” she said sincerely. “Seems like so much fun. I think I could endure the beatings.”
“And the fagging?”
“Oh yes, because I’d soon be at the top, and I’d be the one getting the First Formers to clean my shoes.”
Fred smiled. “You’re a brave girl Maddy.”
She looked into his eyes. “You see? I was right.”
He shook his head. “I don’t quite-”
“Henry Oliver is a coward in some respects, and he’s an arrogant prune,” she added. “But he’s brave in others. He isn’t brave enough to go to war, but he’s brave enough to leave his country to avoid it.”
Fred raised one eyebrow, something Madeleine could never achieve. “That sounds like cowardice to me.”
“It isn’t,” she said, and took his arm, leading him around the swimming pool. “Padraig Pearse, telling Britain we were independent, that was certainly brave. But going up to them and admitting defeat, accepting death? That was even braver. Constance Markievicz, not only a rebel, but a woman too, who is so brave she would much rather die than be treated specially? That’s brave. Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, and all those others fighting for us to have a voice? Even the ones who make the banners are brave.”
“But don’t you see?” Fred interrupted. “They’ve all done something. Made sacrifices. Whereas we?”
“I’m not finished,” Madeleine said. “All those are brave things, but so is going up to Henry Oliver and taking a risk at trying to bowl him out. And so is waving goodbye to Ben, and Robert, and all the others. That takes a ton of bravery.”
Fred shook his head. “All I’m doing is being a coward in school.”
“Then stop being a coward in school,” Madeleine said simply, angry at how her brother didn’t see it. “Be brave at school. And live, so that you can be brave in the future for everybody who’s finished being brave.”
Fred smiled. “Sometimes you don’t make any sense Maddy.”
“I’m making sense to me, that’s all that counts. All that’s ever counted.”
Fred looked down at their bare feet. “You really don’t think I’m a coward?”
She shook her head fervently. “No. And you know how I know? You’re my brother. That’s got to be one of the bravest occupations on the planet.”
She looked over to where the cricket games were beginning again. A ball whizzed and landed at their feet.
“Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stay behind,” she said. “Sometimes it’s a lot harder to say farewell to your loved ones and continue on as if nothing has happened than it is to go and fight. Sometimes… being a coward is the bravest thing you can do.”
Fred looked deep into her eyes, the gold flickering again in the brilliant afternoon. Shouts reached them, asking for the ball back. He nodded to her, understanding, then picked up the ball and tossed it back to the game.
Author's Note: this is a bit all over the place, I just wanted to try my hand at it. There are probably a dozen inaccuracies, all waiting to be corrected! It was inspired when I learnt my school swimming pool was built during World War I, and we were lying on the grass beside it- on the cricket pitch, when another of the girls said "This is such a summer day. Everything is just sort of hanging." And out of that came... this.
Comments, critiques, compliments and criticism are -as always- begged for!
That's pretty sad isn't it. Anyway, I honestly couldn't find anything wrong with it.. Keep up the good work.
That's it, looking forward to more!
I think you could have shown what the field and the other boys looked like, but what you did was well enough.
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