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Kitabı oku: «The Girl from Galloway: A stunning historical novel of love, family and overcoming the odds», sayfa 4
Chapter 4
‘Daniel, I’ll only be a moment or two,’ said Hannah quickly, as she stood up. ‘I’m just going to see what the children are up to now school’s over. I expect Marie will be leaving soon to go to her mother’s.’
She hurried across to the door of the cottage, preoccupied with what he had just said about needing a miracle. She was dazzled by the strong light reflecting off the whitewashed walls, her mind racing as she wondered what she could possibly say to him in reply.
She peered into the shadowy room. Marie was nowhere to be seen, but over by the back window where the light was best, Rose was sitting on a chair reading to her brother. Sam sat cross-legged on the floor, looking up at his sister with a solemn face. He was listening to every word.
‘Well, are they reading?’ asked Daniel, as she came and sat down again on his right side – the best position for catching the gleams of light from the lough and an occasional sight of the swans.
‘Yes, they are,’ she replied. ‘And a very good advertisement for your school, they are too,’ she added firmly. ‘I’m quite amazed to see Sam listening so attentively and I did think Rose was reading rather well.’
‘Well, like their mother, they’re bright,’ he said. ‘A pity this country of ours can’t offer them somewhat more in the way of schooling,’ he went on, an unusual note of bitterness creeping into his voice.
‘I owe you some explanations, Hannah,’ he said directly, before she had time to reply. ‘When I told you of my plan to set up a school some years back, I said I had a pension from an estate where I once worked. That wasn’t strictly true. It was my mother who worked for the estate. She was a servant, lovely to look at by all accounts and foolish enough not to resist the advances of a very affluent young man. He was my father, of whom we will not speak,’ he said abruptly, pausing and staring away towards the far horizon.
‘It was his father, and not him, who made some attempt at reparations to my mother’s family when she died in childbirth and I lost what little sight I might ever have had. He provided for me in childhood, sending me first to school and later to live with my aunt, Marie’s grandmother. It was he who set up a pension for my lifetime.’
Hannah realised suddenly that she did know something of Daniel’s background but it had seemed such a long time since he’d told her that his mother had died at his birth and that he’d been brought up by her older sister. She cast her mind back, trying to remember details of what had not seemed all that important at the time.
‘It was that pension and your encouragement that let me set up this school in the first place,’ Daniel continued. ‘Without his provision and your good sense, the children you saw today would have no possibility of betterment. I do have hopes for them and whether my hopes succeed or fail, I’d still like to share them with you as I did in the first place.’
Hannah was about to say she had done very little to help him apart from listen and write a few letters on his behalf, but he did not even pause. Staring away across the rocky path that led down to the lake, he went on quickly, his voice softer.
‘Do you remember the story you told me one of those afternoons when I came to see you, when I first talked about starting the school? You told me of your father’s family being evicted from Strathnaver and the way your father and uncle travelled the length of Scotland on “burn water and the kindness of the poor”.’ He turned towards her and dropped his voice as he quoted her exact words.
For a moment, Hannah couldn’t speak, tears jumping unbidden to her eyes. How could she ever forget that story, one her father had told over and over again?
Daniel was repeating the words ‘burn water and the kindness of the poor’ to himself, as if they had some special significance for him. When he spoke to her again, his tone was firmer.
‘If I can somehow find the resources to go on with the school, I have a project in mind as ambitious as your father’s wanting to own a farm,’ he announced firmly. ‘I want to teach these children English. Or Scotch, as they call it in these parts,’ he added, laughing wryly, ‘so that, whether they go, or stay, they’ll have more possibilities open to them than they have at present.’
‘But how would you do that, Daniel?’ she asked, baffled at the very idea of it.
‘Very easily, my friend, if I still had a school to teach in.’ He hesitated and then went on: ‘If I’ve had the foolishness to deny all knowledge of English, and indeed of having been educated, because of the nationalistic fervour of my youth, then I think it’s time I found some way of reversing that limiting decision.’
Hannah was completely taken aback. He had switched to English, had spoken firmly, and fluently, when she’d never heard him speak anything other than a soft and eloquent Irish. To her amazement, he had moved completely away from the captivating, melodic voice so admired by all who gathered nightly to listen to his stories and poems. He was speaking just as fluently as he spoke in Irish, but his English was more formal in tone and had a much sharper edge than anything she had ever heard him say in Irish. But the real shock for Hannah was that she recognised an accent rarely to be heard in the hills of Donegal.
She thought how the villagers or even her own dear Patrick might react if he heard someone speak in this manner.
‘Sure, he’s gentry at the least and maybe some lord or other. I’ve only heard one man talk like that and he was a lord, some visitor or other from England to Stewart of Ards,’ she imagined her husband saying.
‘You can see there would be a problem for me,’ Daniel went on quickly, before she had recovered herself. ‘My change of approach to the language of our overlords could cause problems with people who have known me for a long time. They might find it hard to accommodate their view of me to my new way of speaking.’
‘But would you feel you had to speak English outside the classroom?’ she asked, now moving to English herself.
It would be a shock indeed for all the friends and neighbours who were just as unaware of this part of Daniel’s history as she had been herself.
To her surprise, he did not answer her question directly. Instead, he began to explain how this state of affairs had come about.
‘My pension comes from the estate of an English lord you’ll probably never have heard of. His family once had land in Donegal, but sold it off at the turn of the last century to concentrate on their English lands. Some of the family are well known for their interest in agriculture and the improvements and innovations they’ve made and written about.
‘Over the years of my life those estates have been divided up between a number of sons. Some flourished, some didn’t. Last week, I had a letter telling me that as the pension I received was discretionary and in the gift of the title holder, now deceased, I would have to provide evidence “of my right to continue receiving the aforementioned sum”,’ he said, the now familiar sharpness of his tone moving towards real bitterness.
‘You know yourself, Hannah, that these days, between trying to improve their land and not always getting their rents, any more than the landlords here, English landlords are looking for savings on their outgoings just as much as the ones in Ireland are. I would imagine it’s not even a personal thing. It’s probably just some man of business looking to see where economies could be made for his employer.’
‘So you could lose your pension?’ she asked anxiously.
‘To be strictly accurate, I’ve already lost it. It has been suspended for the moment, until I make an appeal. Meantime, I can afford a bite to eat, but I may not have enough to pay the quarter’s rent and it’s due at the end of the month.’
Hannah took a deep breath, utterly distressed at the thought of Daniel being without money.
‘Don’t distress yourself, my dear,’ he said quickly, his voice softening, as he moved back to speaking Irish. ‘Much worse things have been happening to my countrymen for several centuries now. If all else fails I would at least be eligible for the new workhouse in Dunfanaghy where I could continue speaking Irish and thereby keep hidden the secret of my unfortunate birth.’
Hannah worried about Daniel and the future of the school. It had been very discouraging to begin with, but they had persisted in their efforts and eventually one trader in Dunfanaghy produced a sum of money quite beyond their expectations. At the very same time, Marie finished her training as a teacher and decided that instead of staying in Dublin as she had planned, she would come home to be near the young man with whom she’d fallen in love. At that point, Marie and Daniel had made their plans, had decided to travel hopefully, and things had gone rather well.
It was a very different situation now. Marie was going and without Daniel’s pension there was not enough money to support a master, never mind an assistant. Keeping the school going looked almost impossible and the project of teaching English seemed highly doubtful, if not already condemned to failure.
*
Apart from Sam saying that he was hungry, and very thirsty, neither of the children said very much on the way home. The temperature was dropping rapidly as the sun fell yet lower behind the mountain, but the late afternoon was still bright.
Hannah knew she was preoccupied with all she and Daniel had talked about, but now as she picked her way along the rocky path overlooking the lough, she remembered she hadn’t had time before school to fetch water from the well. There might be some left in the bucket but even if there was, there was only the remains of yesterday’s bread and neither jam nor butter to put on it.
She felt suddenly tired as they turned off the broad track and began to make their way up the well-trodden path to the main group of cottages and outbuildings. The door of their own cottage was open and for a moment she was alarmed.
One of the many things she had to learn when she first arrived in Ardtur was that there were no locks on doors. Neither were there any thieves. Patrick’s explanation was that there was nothing worth stealing, but her nearest neighbour, Sophie O’Donovan, had explained more fully that if there was no one at home a neighbour might come to leave something on the table, an item they had borrowed, or a jug of milk, or butter that had been asked for. As often as not, in a village of open doors, they did not close the door behind them unless it was raining hard or the wind had got up.
There was indeed something sitting on the table as they came in together. Three things, in fact. As the children hung up their schoolbags she lifted the lid on a familiar covered dish and found a large pat of butter.
‘You’re in luck, children,’ she cried. ‘Aunt Mary’s sent us down our butter. Shall we make some toast with yesterday’s bread?’ she asked, as she peered at the other large item, her own baking bowl that contained chopped-up potatoes.
For a moment she was puzzled. The potatoes were not peeled but they had been cut in pieces.
‘Of course,’ she said to herself, smiling as she remembered the message Daniel had made the two boys memorise earlier in the day when they’d sat in the sun at playtime. She tried to recall it: You’ve divided up a whole lot of numbers and planted some rows of words … if your potatoes do as well you’ll have plenty to put aside for the winter… Well, something like that, she decided, as Sam asked if he could fill the kettle for her and Rose began to fetch mugs from the dresser.
A moment later, Patrick appeared at the door, his face streaked with sweat, a second, slightly smaller baking bowl in his hands.
‘Da, are ye plantin’?’ cried Rose.
‘Can I come and help you, Da? asked Sam. ‘When we’ve had our tea and toast,’ he added quickly.
Patrick kissed them all and then met Hannah’s gaze.
‘We got finished quicker than we thought and yer man let us go early,’ he explained, ‘an’ I foun’ yer father’s letter waitin’ on the table. Ye’ve not looked at it yet,’ he went on, glancing at the brown envelope, sitting just where he had left it. ‘He wants us at the end of next week.’
Hannah’s heart sank. ‘So soon?
‘Aye, well it’s not far off the usual. The season’s a wee bit earlier in your part of the world, but I thought I’d better make a start on the tatties, seein’ we’ve a wee bit more groun’ since old Hughie died.’
She nodded and took the water bucket from Sam who had fetched it from the cupboard. There was just about a kettle full left in the bottom. The seed potatoes and the plans for next week could all wait till they’d stirred up the fire, made the tea and sat round the table exchanging the news of the day from Casheltown and Tullygobegley, over toast and Aunt Mary’s butter.
Chapter 5
Cutting the seed potatoes to create an ‘eye’ in each portion was not a very skilled job, but Patrick, always cautious by nature, and knowing the children would want to help as soon as they came home, had made sure they were done properly by cutting the pieces himself and leaving them ready on the table.
Now, when he went back to the work of planting the main crop, Rose and Sam followed him, knowing exactly what they had to do. As he turned over the soil, they would place the cut portions, eye side up, where he pointed. Without their help the continuous bending would have made the job both painful and exhausting.
Hannah was grateful that the children were now old enough to help him with the planting. As she began to clear the table and think what needed doing next, she was equally grateful that she had an empty kitchen. There was quite enough to do to catch up on the day’s tasks, but now she also had to give her mind to all the extra things that needed doing to get ready for Patrick’s departure.
Part of her mind was indeed focused on what had to be done right now – making up the fire, fetching drinking water and washing water and making champ for their supper – but, try as she might, she could not stop thinking about the experiences of the morning.
She had been quite amazed at Daniel’s capacity to teach so effectively despite his disability. She’d always assumed Marie had done most of the work and Daniel had confined himself to Irish history and storytelling. Then she thought of how amazed she’d been to find he had such a command of English. But, most of all, what simply would not leave her mind was the unbearable thought that should he not manage to get his pension reinstated, he’d not only have to give up the school, and his dream of teaching his pupils English, but he might have no option but to go into the workhouse.
And then her eyes fell on the napkins, still waiting to be hemmed.
The napkins were the least of her worries. It was true that the draper, expected tomorrow, would not pay for an incomplete dozen, but given the rest of her month’s work, baled and wrapped ready in the dust and smoke-free safety of the bedroom, that was no cause for worry. She’d almost finished her full assignment. He would take all she had done, make a note of the missing four and pay her for that complete dozen when he came next time.
When he handed over the money for this month’s work, she’d already have enough to pay for the meal and flour they bought regularly, the milk from her neighbour and the butter from Aunt Mary. The delayed income on the final dozen would not leave her short this month.
She took a deep breath and tried to collect herself. She reminded herself that it was not just a question of money. She always felt anxious and unsettled when Patrick was going away and this was the way it usually showed itself. She’d simply worry quite unnecessarily about something or other.
‘Surely, after all these years, I should be used to it,’ she said aloud in the empty kitchen.
Of the two of them, she was the more practical one. She was certainly better at ensuring they always had enough money for food and the essential clothing for Patrick she couldn’t make herself, the heavy trousers and the underwear he needed till the weather got warmer, the boots that got such hard wear, the cap he wore both winter and summer.
Compared to most of their neighbours, especially those with five or six children, they were well off. She saved in the summer when Patrick sent home money every week and had it by her if there was no work for him over the winter. Of course, this last winter there had actually been some work on the roof of the farmhouse at Tullygobegley so she had not had to dip into so much of last summer’s savings.
Sometimes too, her father sent her a gift of money after the harvest, but this she never used. The gold coins rested in a small fabric bag she’d made for them and were kept in a box that had a place in the hard earth under their bed.
Patrick had smiled and shaken his head some years back when she’d asked him to dig a hole to hide the old wooden box. Sometimes, since then, he would make her laugh by suggesting some extravagance like a new dress for her, or a waistcoat for himself. Then, knowing he was joking, she would say: ‘But if I did that I’d have to get you to dig under the bed.’
She smiled, feeling easier, as she peeled the last of the potatoes for supper and went outside for the handful of scallions to chop up and mix in with them when they were cooked and mashed with Aunt Mary’s butter.
‘Come on, Hannah,’ she said to herself, as she waved to Patrick and the children at the far end of the garden. ‘Why don’t you just accept that you wish he didn’t have to go, so you could share your bed every night and have the comfort of his arms?’
*
Supper was later than usual that evening and both children were so tired they could hardly keep their eyes open while they ate. They’d done very well, Patrick insisted. Sure, they were nearly half the way down one side and now they had the whole weekend ahead of them. There was no school and he would have his two helpers for both days. Sure, wasn’t that just great?
Rose and Sam smiled at him wearily, looked pleased and made no protests whatever about going to bed.
‘I don’t think we’ll be far behind them,’ said Patrick, as she came back from tucking them in.
‘You’re right there, love. I don’t think I could thread a needle this evening, never mind hem another napkin.’
‘Aye, ye look tired. Did ye have a busy day?’ he said gently. ‘I wondered where ye were when the house was empty for ye said last night ye’d a batch to finish.’
She looked across at him. His face was still tanned even after the winter, his hair as dark as his eyes that looked straight at her, as they always did, with that gentleness she remembered from their very first meeting when she was only seventeen.
‘I’m going to miss you so much, my love,’ she said, suddenly, surprising herself.
‘An’ sure, d’ye not think I’m goin’ to miss you just as much?’ he replied briskly. ‘It wou’dn’t be much good, wou’d it, if it didn’t matter all that much one way or another?’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘You’re quite right, but I’d love to have you home all the year round.’
‘Aye, well. I’d need no persuadin’, but sure what is there by way of work here? An’ even if we were in Scotland an’ me not an educated man, I’d still have to travel about the place,’ he said, his voice dropping.
‘Being educated is not the be all and end all of a man. There are other things just as important,’ she said firmly.
He just looked at her as he bent down to the hearth to smoor the fire with turves, so it would stay alight all night.
She watched him placing the turves methodically with his habitual look of total concentration, then got to her feet and lit the small oil lamp to take them to bed.
*
In the end she told him the whole story of Daniel and the school and how he wanted to teach his pupils English. Sitting by the fire, on their few remaining evenings, she didn’t even put out her hand for her sewing bag, but sat enjoying a mug of tea with him as she waited to see if he had yet more questions to ask.
‘An’ if he could get his pension back, wou’d he be able to pay an assistant to take the place o’ Marie?’
‘Well, it would be a start, but then the income from the children is very variable,’ she said steadily. ‘You know Rose and Sam have their two pennies each, every week, and the turf’s not a problem, but there are other children who would be less regular and there must be some can only pay at certain times of the year when there’s less flour and meal to buy.’
‘Aye, it depends, doesn’t it?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘An’ if yer man were to put the rent up, sure that has to come first, or the family’s out on the street! Have ye any idea what to do to help him? Sure, you’re far better at these things than I am. I wou’dn’t have any idea what to do.’
His face was a picture of distress and she longed to be able to tell him it was all going to be all right. But she couldn’t do that. He’d been honest and she would try to do the same.
‘Well, I can certainly write letters for him. But I’d need to know who to write to and what to say,’ she began, laughing. ‘It’s not so much my command of Irish as having to use the right legal phrases and so on. I thought I’d ask our friends in Ramelton. Joseph and Catriona know all the professional people, the doctor, and the land steward, and the minister. I’m sure there must be a solicitor they know as well who would be able to tell me how to go about it.’
‘Ye might have to go under the bed for that,’ he said promptly, a small smile flickering across his face. ‘But it might be worth it. Wou’d ye like to go back to the teachin’ yerself, like ye did afore I stole ye away?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it before,’ she confessed. ‘But like I told you Daniel hoped I might be able to help him out.’
‘I know what yer father wou’d say,’ he went on quickly. ‘That money is meant for you, Hannah, to use in any way you want.’ He looked at her, his usually mobile face almost stiff with concentration, his eyes sharply focused on her. ‘Say the word and I’ll dig it out fer you in the morning.’
‘But, Patrick, we might need that money,’ she protested. ‘What would we do if one of the children needed a doctor? Or if you had an accident, heaven forbid, and couldn’t work …’
‘Hannah, you know I’m not a religious man an’ I only go to Mass now an’ again to keep Aunt Mary and the priest happy, but I think you always know what wou’d be the right thing. Just you send up a wee prayer and you’ll not go far wrong. An’ I’ll do all I can to help, for Daniel’s a good man and I know you’re a great teacher yerself … sure, didn’t you teach me an’ those other young fellas who were with me then long years ago at the farm? Some o’ them had never even held a pencil, or a pen, in their lives before.’
To her great distress, Hannah felt tears stream down her face. She wondered if perhaps, in the firelight, they might not show, but what Patrick did next was unambiguous. He came and put his arms round her, took out his large, crumpled handkerchief, wiped away her tears and held her close.
‘Not a word now,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll go and sleep on it and see what the light of day shows us in the mornin’. You do the lamp an’ I’ll see to the fire.’
*
The remaining days flew by. The potatoes were planted, the draper came and collected Hannah’s consignment of napkins and left her a bale of new ones. Before she’d even counted them, she mended the older pair of Patrick’s working trousers and reinforced the new pair he’d bought in Derry on his way home last autumn. She baked wheaten bread and oatcakes that would supplement what food the men could buy on the journey and threaded new shoelaces into well-polished boots.
Patrick himself went round the house looking for jobs that might need doing. He borrowed a ladder and replaced some worn straw rope on the thatch of the roof ridge just to be sure it would not suffer with summer storms, then he took the donkey and cart and collected turf from his piece of bog to replenish the stack by the gable and build it up as high as it would go in case of bad weather.
One morning he got up very early indeed. He needed to walk over to Churchill to look for the carrier he knew there and catch him before he set out on his day’s work. For some years now, Keiran Murphy had brought his wagon over to the old churchyard by St Columbkille’s tiny, ruined church at the head of Lough Gartan. There he waited till the men from round about who were bound for the Derry boat came with their families. It was the custom when the men were going off for many long months for the family to walk with them and keep them company as far as the church, join with them in asking a blessing and then say their goodbyes.
Now, Patrick paid Keiran a deposit out of the money his father-in-law had sent him and when the day and time were agreed, walked back to Ardtur knowing it would not be long before Hannah would be back there with him to say their farewells.
Hannah had always found both parting and the accompanying rituals hard to bear. She agreed bidding goodbye to the men bound for Scotland was not as sad as when families went to a place like The Bridge of Tears at the back of Muckish, to say what would probably be a final farewell to immigrants bound for America, but she still found the parting weighed heavy, surrounded by weeping women and distraught children.
Patrick had long ago agreed with her that the children should not come, but would go to school as usual, but she knew he needed her to be there with him, particularly so she could meet all his workmates, some of whom were going for the first time. These men and boys would be his constant companions for the next six or seven months. So she would go, she would try not to cry, but as the time grew shorter she longed for the parting to be safely over and Patrick’s first letter to her, written on the Derry boat, secure in the pocket of her apron.
*
The April departure day was cloudy with the odd drifting shower, but there was no cold and the air was so still that the early evening crossing from Derry would probably be flat calm.
As Hannah walked back alone from the stone-built oratory where each man had laid a tiny item on the altar – a coin, or a woven cross, or a card with a prayer on it – she felt a dragging weariness. She blamed it on the early rise and the long walk, but a mile or so from the ancient churchyard she felt a familiar dampness between her legs.
She sighed and knew the first thing she had to do when she got home was to fold a pad of old, torn fabric from the supply she kept in the bedroom and put her stained knickers to soak in cold water before she tried to wash them.
She was glad the door was still closed when she walked wearily up the last rocky slope. No letter on the table, no offering from a neighbour, nothing to prevent her making herself comfortable and then sitting by the fire with a mug of tea.
She did what was necessary and sat down gratefully. Comfortable now, the pain in her back eased by a cushion carefully placed, she sat looking into the fire and found herself overwhelmed with sadness. For days now she’d been aware that her monthly bleeding was late. She’d had to keep reminding herself not to tell Patrick. If she had told him, he would have been so pleased, and so hopeful, for he had long wanted them to add to their small family. But it was not to be. At least she had not raised his hopes. There was no harm done.
Patrick’s wish to add to their family was not the familiar pressure of a man wanting sons, like her father had, it was a longing for the family he himself had never had. His mother had died in childbirth and he had been brought up an only child, by his Aunt Mary, who had never married. He had longed for brothers and sisters then. It was some time after they were married before Rose and Sam appeared and he had been so delighted.
But their arrival had not happened easily. There were delays and difficulties. Hannah had miscarried several times. She had been reassured by friends and neighbours that miscarrying once, twice, or even three times, before a first child was not unusual. But when that happened to her, Patrick was beside himself with distress.
Sadly, even after the safe arrivals of Rose and Sam there were further miscarriages. That was why she’d been so hoping for this last week or more, that she might carry a third child while Patrick was in Scotland. That would have been such good news to share in their letters. But the stain had made it clear. She was simply late. There was no pregnancy to celebrate.
Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed with weariness and sadness, feeling the emptiness of the house and the long months ahead before Patrick’s return. Whatever this year of 1845 might bring she could now be sure it would not bring the longed-for third child.
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