The Girl from Galloway. Anne Doughty
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.
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,