Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars

by Jean Grainger

  I miss ye both. And St Bart’s and home and Mammy’s cooking and my own bed. I’m finding it harder than I thought to be honest. The lads here are nice enough, but a good few of them all came from the same schools and know each other already so I’m at a bit of a loss. I’m sure I’ll make friends though. I joined the hurling team, I wasn’t that good in St Bart’s, but that was up against the cream of Cork, the best hurling county in Ireland, so maybe I won’t be too bad here. We’ve had a few training sessions, and I’m not the worst and at least it gets me chatting to some of my fellow students. I know ye both are dying to know what life is like here, so I’ll try to explain it.

  I mentioned that I was in the clerical outfitters when your one took a shine to me, well I was getting a soutane if you don’t mind! All students here dress as clerics from the first day. It feels wrong somehow, but it’s the law. (There are about a thousand laws, a lot of them to do with smoking, I don’t mind telling you, so you pair of chimneys would be in right trouble.)

  There are 600 seminarians here altogether, 106 in my class all walking around in soutanes and white collars, we even wear them over our jerseys and togs when we’re training or playing a match. We don’t play in them in case you’re imagining a load of hurlers in full soutanes, but we tog off on the side-lines. We must look a right sight. Apparently, when the college plays matches against other universities, like UCC or UCD or wherever, all the girls come to support their team and wear jerseys and college scarves, while we’ve only priest supporters. Some of the fellas find the fact that it’s all men here a bit hard to take, I don’t mind though, I’m used to it from St Bart’s, I suppose. The only females in the whole college here are the women who work in the kitchens and serve the grub, and they’re not likely to be considered an occasion of sin if you get my meaning.

  Most of the lads are country fellas, and maybe a bit innocent if anything, but I don’t know about one or two of the others. They seem very interested in the ladies for lads training for the priesthood. There’s a big mix here, I suppose.

  We study hard, I’ve picked English and History, I suppose to be a teacher maybe, and then us lads interested in going abroad have extra classes in things like language and culture in Africa and India and places like that. I’m really hoping to go on the missions. Remember that time Brother Aiden came to the school with the slides of Mali? Well, ever since then I thought I’d love to go somewhere like that. Imagine me, Liam Tobin from Chapel Street out in one of those foreign places.

  None of it would be possible without your help, Hugo, so don’t think I ever take your generosity for granted. I remember when Daddy and I, God rest his soul, used to go down the docks to see the big ships tied up, and he used to bring a little book with all the flags of the world in it. We’d see what flag was on the fore and aft to see where she’d been or where she was going to. I can’t believe that someday, if I study hard and don’t mess it up, I might get to go to some of those places and spread the word of the Lord.

  Speaking of which, we do have prayers every day and Mass, of course, but the emphasis is all about getting the degree it seems, at first, anyway. I thought we’d be doing theology, learning the trade as it were but no, it’s all Shakespeare and the Tudors and those lads. I enjoy it though, and I even like doing the assignments. The library here is amazing, about ten times bigger than St Bart’s so you can find out anything you want to know. Wait till ye hear this, you don’t even have this in Greyrock, Hugo. There’s a heated swimming pool! Of course, I can’t swim, a fact some of the fellas here find incredible, but trying to explain that swimming lessons were not exactly the norm in Chapel Street and you’d want your head read to swim in the river, is a waste of time. Some fellas used to out by the Shaky Bridge, remember? But Mammy always said they were very rough so I was never allowed down there, the precious little flower that I am!

  Once again, I find myself surrounded by fellas from much wealthier backgrounds than mine but without my two best friends to make me feel less of an oddball. It’s strange, but I suppose I’ll get used to it. I avoid the Clancys, which isn’t very priest-like I know, but honestly, they are exactly the same here as they were in school, throwing their weight about. They ignore me, thankfully, probably mortified that someone as poor as me went to the same school as them. Whatever the reason, I say a prayer of thanks that they behave like I don’t exist.

  There are a few lads who are musicians and a good few nice singers as well so there are often music sessions in the rec room, where I’m writing this now. Other nights, we just sit around chatting, with cups of tea and often a cake that some lad’s mother sent in, but the debates at those nights often get a bit heated, especially with the fellas from the North, going on about civil rights and the IRA and all that. If they’re not talking about that, it’s about the curse of emigration. I don’t really have strong feelings about that kind of thing, politics and all that, but you’d be eaten alive if you said that of some of the more radical fellas here, I don’t know what kind of priests they’ll make, but probably more dynamic than me anyway.

  The first week we were brought to the chapel and told to meditate. I hate to say it, Hugo, but maybe I’m wasting your money up here. All I could think about was how Mammy gets her brown cake to be so nice compared to the dry old sawdusty stuff they give us here. I fear I don’t have the necessary piety to be a priest, but I’m trying as hard as I can. It’s just when I’m supposed to be thinking elevated holy thoughts I can’t stop my mind filling with brown cake and hurling matches and missing the craic we had in St Bart’s.

  I can’t believe I’m not going to see ye until Christmas. You aren’t really allowed out of here, well you are, but it must be for a very sick parent or something like that. Unfortunately, skites with pals don’t class as an emergency in the eyes of the dean. So we’ll have to wait till then to be back under da Goldie Fish! Write back straight away with all the news. How’s the job going, Patrick? I hope you’re not spending all your money entertaining the ladies! And Hugo, what’s it like being back at Greyrock? Is your mam gone back to England permanently like you thought she would? I hope you’re not too lonely, it must be strange after living with all the lads in St Bart’s, with not a square inch to yourself, to be rattling around your mansion all day! Just joking, I know you’re very busy.

  And, Hugo, thanks again. I have to pinch myself some days to make sure this is really happening.

  God bless,

  Liam.

  Chapter 16

  ‘Master Hugo, the farrier is here and he needs to speak to you about Delia.’ Martha’s voice cut through his daydream as he gazed out of the drawing room windows at the green fields, speckled with munching cattle that eventually gave way to the pounding Atlantic Ocean. He was contemplating once again how such an expanse of land and sea and sky could be so restrictive. He felt again the familiar conflict. He loved his home and he felt privileged to be its custodian, but mostly, he felt trapped.

  He frequently recalled a conversation he had with his father shortly before his death. Being home made him feel closer somehow. He sat with him in his room in the afternoons just talking, and when his father was too weak, Hugo would read the racing results out of the paper. He cherished those memories. One day, his father told him to put away the paper and to sit beside him.

  ‘You are only twelve, Hugo, and I wish I could stay around to help you grow into this position that you have by birth, but it’s looking increasingly unlikely. You will do wonderfully when the time comes, I know you will, I see it in you already, the love of this place. But remember this, you don’t own the land, the land owns you. You have a duty to protect it, nourish it, and support all those who rely on it for their livelihoods.’

  He died a week later.

  Hugo blinked back a tear, surprised at how the memory could affect him so many years on. He would never leave Greyrock, he knew that, even if he could. Despite all his trappings of wealth and privilege, he was as stuck as the Friesians in the
fields below. His fate as determined, as immovable.

  ‘Oh, Martha, yes I’m sorry, of course, send him up.’

  Martha withdrew, and Hugo was once again alone. He had long ago become accustomed to this arrangement though at first it did not sit comfortably. There was only a matter of weeks between Hugo and Martha in age, and it seemed hard to imagine when she was serving at table in her uniform that they had grown up together, the entire estate their vast playground. Martha’s mother died when she was only five and so when Hugo’s father died, she understood. They would talk for hours in a tree house they made when they were much younger. His parents never minded his friendship with Martha though he knew from conversations with the children of his parents’ friends that it wasn’t the proper thing to be friends with someone from the lower orders. His parents never gave a hoot about those kinds of conventions. Hugo remembered his mother giving them lots of treasures from Greyrock for the tree house. Hugo smiled at the memory; it must have been the only treehouse in the world decorated with ancient silk rugs and fine bone china.

  He remembered how he’d reacted to the news that Martha was going to work as a maid in the house. Hugo was so cross with his mother for thinking that his only childhood friend should be a maid. He couldn’t understand how she could have done that.

  Hugo recalled his mother’s hurt when he confronted her in anger.

  ‘Hugo, what would you have me do? Allow her to take the boat to England like so many others? Of course, we would have paid for her to go to secondary school, but Tom is a proud and stubborn man and he wouldn’t hear of it, anyway, I don’t think she really wanted to go. It was the best option for her, it was what she wanted, and she’s happy to be working here. You are the only person with a problem.’

  The first summer he came home she met him in the tree house, though not when she was supposed to be working. Mrs Duggan, the housekeeper, was a stickler for efficiency and would tolerate no tardiness or lack of application from any of the staff, even if they were best friends with Master Hugo.

  ‘Look, Hugo,’ Martha explained reasonably, ‘I know this is weird for you, it is a bit for me as well, but you know as well as I do that I hated all those old sums and verbs and all that rubbish. I know I could have gone to the secondary if I’d really wanted it, my Dad said he’d take the money from your mother if it was what I really wanted, but I honestly didn’t. I love working here, it’s my home, where I grew up, and sure, don’t we all have to work somewhere? You’ll be working running this place one day, and I’ll be working downstairs, and Daddy works in the yard and Mrs Duggan works as a housekeeper, Mrs O’Brien is a cook, what is it really, only geography.’

  She could always make him laugh, and he realised, not for the first time, that despite her lack of interest in school, Martha Courtney was a very smart girl.

  And so they settled into their roles at Greyrock, all awkwardness gone. They met most days in the corridor or the dining room and exchanged a few words, but they were both conscious of how it would look to everyone else so they kept it brief.

  His thoughts were interrupted by her reappearance with the farrier behind her, his cap in his hands.

  He looked at her now, thinking how little she’d changed. Unruly blond curls corkscrewed around her face despite her uniform cap, and her blue eyes sparkled. She was such a tomboy, better than him at climbing trees, riding the horses faster than him; she could gut fish and help cattle when they were calving.

  ‘Thank you, Martha,’ he said as she withdrew, leaving him alone with the farrier who’d been coming to Greyrock for decades.

  ‘Ah, Mr Cotter! How nice to see you,’ Hugo crossed the room to greet him.

  ‘Hello, Master Hugo, I’m sorry to disturb you now, sir, but there’s a problem with the mare, Delia. I looked in on her this morning, just to make sure the new shoes were all right on her, she’s pushing on the years, like us all. But anyway, she’s not right at all, Master Hugo. I’d put my house on swamp flu, I’m sorry to say.’

  Hugo’s heart sank. He’d learned to ride on Delia, so gentle you could put a baby on her back and it would be quite safe. He had a flashback to the terrified face of Liam on that first visit to Greyrock, and how Delia carried him so carefully. Swamp flu was an equine disease that spread rapidly and any infected animal would have to be destroyed immediately.

  ‘Will we get McGregor, sir?’ Mr Cotter asked.

  ‘No, Mr Cotter, he’s in Lismore lambing today and tomorrow, we can’t afford to wait for him. Anyway, you know more about horses than anyone so if you say its swamp flu then that’s what it is. I’m very fond of her, that’s the trouble, but we’ll have to put her out of her misery. I’m right in saying there’s no cure?’

  Hugo hated the prospect of putting her down but his father always did the really unpleasant jobs himself and Hugo would do the same.

  ‘No, sir. Nothing to be done and I’m sure that’s what it is. Will I do it for you, sir? If you don’t want to…or Tom could.’ The old farrier was kind and knew Hugo since he was a baby. He knew that to kill anything was against his nature.

  Hugo sighed and got up. ‘Thank you, Mr Cotter, that is kind of you to offer, but I’ll do it myself. My father showed me how. We might as well go down now, there’s no point in letting her suffer. ’

  Both men went downstairs and round to the stables together. Tom Courtney was in the yard, shotgun slung over his shoulder, and he walked silently with them to the stable.

  Hugo knew the moment he saw poor old Delia’s eyes that she was in pain, she barely raised her head when he entered the stable. The farrier and Tom watched on as Hugo spoke gently to her and kissed the white star between her eyes.

  Hugo rested his head on the big old horse, brushing her forelock from her big brown eyes.

  ‘I know you are in pain, my love, don’t worry it will be over soon,’ he whispered. Delia whickered weakly. ‘Thank you, Delia, thank you for being so lovely, goodbye, my old friend.’ He kissed her gently and rubbed her muzzle, wiping a tear from his eye.

  ‘Are you all right with this, Master Hugo?’ Tom asked. ‘I’ll do it if you want.’

  Hugo cleared his throat. ‘Thanks, Tom, I know you would, but I’ll do it myself. I remember Father teaching me when a young filly broke her leg in two places when we were hunting. There was no vet so he showed me what to do. Draw an imaginary cross between ears and eyes and where they intersect, aim one half inch above that. It goes right into the brain and death is instantaneous and painless.’ He spoke as much to himself as them, ensuring he would cause the animal no further distress. Tom cocked the gun and handed it to Hugo.

  He took it and spoke soothingly to Delia as she looked trustingly into his eyes, her long lashes closing softly. Nobody rode her anymore, she was too old, but she had a lovely retirement with the best of care. She trusted Hugo completely, and he knew what he had to do.

  He took a breath to steady himself, all the time murmuring softly to the mare whose legs seemed so stiff she could barely move; she whickered in distress. Hugo felt her big brown eyes, pleading with him.

  He did it in a moment, in the exact spot, and Delia fell instantly to the ground. Hugo leant beside her to ensure there was no sign of life and then he closed her eyes, kissing the blaze on her sweet face as he did so. Handing the gun back to Tom, he walked out of the yard, not trusting himself to speak.

  He spotted Martha coming out the kitchen door as he approached the main entrance. She must have heard the shot.

  ‘Hugo?’ she asked as he walked past her, head down. ‘What’s the matter? What happened?’

  He looked up, ashamed of the tears that shone in his eyes. His father loved animals and was always kind to them but he was stoic about what needed to be done. Hugo had done the same today, but it broke his heart.

  ‘Come on, I’m finished now anyway, it’s my half day.’ Martha coaxed him away from the house in the direction of the small copse of trees where they had built their tree house
so many years earlier. Wordlessly, he allowed her to lead him through the trees and eventually they reached the huge copper beech. The treehouse was a bit battered but was still there, so they hauled themselves up and in the door, six feet off the ground. Amazingly, it was dry inside, all of their childhood things dusty but untouched. Martha opened the wooden chest that contained rugs and pillows in plastic bags. Hugo remembered his mother insisting they put everything in plastic for fear of becoming damp; she was terrified of him getting sick. He smiled at the memory.

  As they made themselves comfortable, they realised it was the first time they’d had any real time together since Hugo had come home for good. They chatted about general things every day but always in the house and often with other staff milling about. Suddenly, Hugo felt strange, panic set in. Why did Martha bring him here?

  ‘So, what’s wrong?’ she asked directly, plonking down on a cushion.

  ‘Delia, she got swamp flu, I had to put her down.’ His voice sounded leaden to his ears.

  ‘Oh Hugo, poor you, and poor old Delia, that’s awful.’ Martha knew how much the old mare meant to him. ‘Do you remember when your dad taught us to ride on her? That must have been horrible. I couldn’t have done it, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I don’t know, I hated doing it, but she was in such pain, and McGregor is in Lismore all day so she’d have had to wait…’ his voice tapered off.

  ‘Sure McGregor wouldn’t have been able to do anything anyway, only put her down, and your father showed you, so you did the kindest thing. He’d have been proud of you today, Hugo.’ She nudged his foot with hers, smiling, trying to raise his spirits.