by Anne Doughty
Neither of their grandchildren so much as glanced at them, and one look at John’s face told her his good spirits had evaporated like summer rain on a metalled road.
‘What does he mean, “Hayfoot, strawfoot”?’ she asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
‘Ach, he’s just repeatin’ what he’s heard,’ replied John abruptly. ‘Many o’ these Volunteers don’t know their right foot from their left. When they started to teach them to march, they had to tie hay and straw round their ankles till they got the hang of it. It’s not new to the U. V. F. though they’d tell you it is. Your brother Sam says the Americans invented it when they were trainin’ up raw recruits for the Civil War.’
The children had disappeared and still no one had appeared to greet them.
‘We may as well go on in,’ said Rose, nudging him encouragingly, as she pointed him towards the door and took his arm.
‘Good day, Joe, are you well?’ she asked, as she caught sight of a figure sitting close to the stove. She unlatched the lower part of the door and walked towards him.
‘Well, there’d not be much point complainin’ if I wasn’t,’ he replied ungraciously.
Unshaven and wearing his working clothes, Martha’s Uncle Joe lowered his paper, but neither rose to his feet nor bade them welcome.
‘Are you all alone?’ she went on pleasantly, casting her eyes round the empty room.
‘Aye. Martha’s away up to see me brother. Your Sam’s about the place somewhere. He’s likely in the barn. Shure he’s always in there fiddling with somethin’ or other while Martha an’ I are at our work,’ he said in a tone it was hard to misread.
Rose raised an eyebrow to John, who said nothing, but pulled out two kitchen chairs for them to sit on.
‘Ye’ve got a new coat of paint I see,’ said John casually, ‘Indoors as well,’ he added, looking round the newly decorated kitchen.
‘Aye. That was done a few weeks ago,’ Joe replied, looking back at his newspaper meaningfully.
Rose followed his gaze. The fresh paint made the room seem larger as well as pleasanter. After the gloom of that tiny house in Richhill’s main street, she could see why Martha had been so pleased when her uncle inherited the farm. He’d asked her to come with her family and help him run it and she’d jumped at the chance. Now Rose wondered if living with Uncle Joe still seemed as good an idea.
‘An’ the yards well improved too,’ continued John, who disliked Joe thoroughly, but did his best not to show it. ‘Ye’ve got rid of a lot of old rubbish.’
‘Aye. An’ it wasn’t before time.’
Silence fell and Rose wondered whether she should enquire about Martha or the children, or whether that would only make matters worse.
‘Ach, hello, Ma. Hello, Da,’ Sam said, crossing the room in a couple of strides. He kissed his mother and grasped his father’s hand. ‘Sure I didn’t hear the motor. I was sandin’ a bit o’ metal an’ it was only when I came out for a breath o’ fresh air, I saw her stanin’ there.’
‘Sure the only time you iver hear anythin’, Sam, is when you’re called to your tea,’ said Joe without taking his eyes away from his paper.
Rose stood up and smiled at Sam.
‘We were just admiring the new paint. It makes the room look so much bigger. Did you and Uncle Joe do it, or did you get help?’
‘Help?’ said Joe, staring up at her. ‘Sure it’s only gentry has “help”. We’ve to do everythin’ ourselves here. What way wou’d I get time for paintin’ and doin’ up the place wi’ a farm of land and animals to run.’
‘So Sam did it, then?’ said John quietly, looking Joe full in the face.
‘Sure he might as well. He’s no hans for the farm,’ he replied, as he turned away again.
John stood up and walked out into the sunshine.
‘Well, we’d better go and see what Sam does have hands for, Joe,’ said Rose, as she got up from the kitchen chair. ‘There must be something Lamb Brothers think he’s worth paying for,’ she added quietly as she followed Sam and his father out of the house.
‘Hayfoot, strawfoot, hayfoot, strawfoot.’
The three adults stopped outside the door as the three boys reappeared from their manoeuvre in the nearest field. Rose took a deep breath and watched anxiously to see what would happen.
Without a word, Sam walked out into the line of march, dropped on his hunkers in front of them and held out his hand for the billets of wood. Billy and Charley handed them over. He waited while they untied the bandoliers. Try as she would Rose could not hear what Sam said, so quiet was his tone, but she saw the two younger boys nod and make their way to the small orchard at the back of the house. The older boy looked uneasy, but made no reply to Sam’s quiet questioning. Suddenly, he too turned away, and went running out of the gate and up the road.
‘Who was the other wee boy?’ she asked, as they followed Sam into the barn.
‘Ach, that’s Danny. He’s one of the Hutchinson’s,’ he said, wiping a piece of cotton waste over a wooden bench so that she could sit down.
‘He’s a right wee lad, but the father’s desperit strong against Home Rule. No matter what subject ye’d be talkin’ about, whether it was motors, or factory work, or even the birds in the sky, he cou’d somehow bring it roun’ to Dublin and the Fenians an’ the Pope,’ he went on matter-of-factly. ‘Hasn’t a good word to say for any of them. He’s Master of the Lodge an’ he has them out drillin’ regular. That’s where the wee fella picked it up.’
‘What about your wee Sammy?’ Rose asked. ‘Did he not want to do what his older brothers do?’
‘Deed I’m sure he did, but young Hutchinson must have said he was too young. He’s away with Martha and Emily and the two wee ones up to Richhill.’
‘Ye’ve yerself well set up, son,’ said John, who’d been looking round him, inspecting the workbenches under the windows and the large space in the centre of the barn where a petrol-driven pump stood in pieces. ‘Ah knew ye cou’d weld, but ah didn’t know ye had weldin’ equipment. That set ye back a bit.’
‘Aye, it did, tho’ I got it second hand,’ Sam replied, sounding pleased. ‘But sure it’s near paid for isself already. The farmers roun’ here can’t afford new machinery, they just have to keep old stuff goin’, harrows and reapers, an’ suchlike. An’ there’s no smith near here since old Harry Pearson died over at Money. The nearest would be John Scott at Kildarton or our friends Thomas and Robert at Salter’s Grange. An’ that’s a brave step if yer in the middle of a job.’
‘So you’re kept busy, Sam. Do you not get a day of rest at all?’ Rose asked quietly.
‘Well, I take Sunday mornin’,’ he confessed sheepishly. ‘I’ve been goin’ over to the meetin’ in Richhill an’ after that I go on an’ meet a few friends down on the railway banks till dinnertime. We lie down there and talk about the news, aye, an’ put the world to rights, as the sayin’ is.’
‘What do you do when it’s wet?’ asked Rose promptly.
Sam laughed, his face lighting up with the sweet smile Rose used to know so well and hadn’t seen for a long time.
‘Ach, then it has to be the goods shed. Tommy Buckley has the key to it if we’re bate.’
Rose settled herself to listen as John and Sam began to talk about the pump he’d been working on. She’d listened to so many of their conversations over the years, she could follow most of what they said, but before they’d decided the next step in the process, a small figure came flying into the barn.
‘Granny, granny, yer here,’ cried Emily, scrambling up on Rose’s knee with all the energy of a five-year-old.
‘Hallo, Emily,’ Rose said, hugging her warmly. ‘Where’s Sammy?’
‘He’s comin’. He can’t run as fast as I can,’ she added proudly, as six year old Sammy appeared breathless, with eyes only for his grandfather.
‘CanIve a ride inthemotor?’ he gasped, fixing John with bright blue eyes.
John laughed and picked him up.
&nbs
p; ‘Maybe if you said hello to your Granny, we could manage something.’
‘Hello, Granny,’ said Sammy, so promptly that all the adults laughed.
‘And me,’ insisted Emily. ‘There’s room for me too, Granda.’
‘Come on then,’ John said, smiling at Rose and Sam as he took the two children by the hand.
Through the open doors of the barn, Rose watched him cross the yard, Emily swinging on his arm in her excitement, young Sammy talking nineteen to the dozen. She was about to comment on how much both children had grown since Christmas when she saw Martha come striding into the yard, the baby in the pram, young Rose perched across it.
‘I’ll away and say hello to Martha and the wee ones,’ she said, as she stood up and saw Sam now running a finger thoughtfully up and down a piece of metal.
‘Hello, Martha, how are you?’ she asked, as the younger woman lifted Rose from the pram.
Martha was heavily pregnant, but she swung the child to the ground with the greatest of ease.
‘I wasn’t expectin’ ye,’ Martha replied with a little laugh. ‘I’ve the cows to milk before I can make tea for anyone,’ she said sharply, looking down into the pram to make sure Bobby was asleep.
‘Oh, we’ll not stay for tea, Martha. You’ve enough to do,’ said Rose, reading the familiar signal. ‘We’ll be off as soon as John gives the children their ride in the motor.’
Martha turned the pram to face away from the lowering sun and looked down at little Rose who was sucking her thumb.
‘Here you are, Rose, here’s your Granny, come to see you,’ she said quickly. ‘She’ll play with you while Uncle Joe and I do our work,’ she added as she picked up the weary child and handed her to Rose.
Behind them, Uncle Joe came to the door and strode silently past on his way to bring in the four cows from the low field.
‘An’ ye mean t’ say that was all the conversation ye had wi’ her, an’ you hasn’t seen her or the childer since Christmas?’
John took his eyes off the empty road and glanced at her as if he couldn’t believe her words without seeing the look on her face.
‘That’s all, John,’ she said firmly. ‘I had a good deal more conversation with little Rose, for all she’s not three yet and there wasn’t so much as a doll or a wee toy for us to talk about. Sam hasn’t much time for making toys from what I can see,’ she added sharply.
‘Aye, ye’re right there,’ he said sadly.
He pressed his lips together and looked up at the clear sky, now paling from blue to palest yellow.
‘There’s a quare stretch on the evenin’s when ye get a good day to see it,’ he said, looking round him carefully as they turned on to the Banbridge road. ‘We did the right thing goin’ on to Thomas and Selina’s diden we?’ he said more cheerfully.
‘Yes, you were right, and I was wrong,’ she admitted laughing. ‘I know I said it was too near teatime to call, but they were so glad to see us, weren’t they? I think it did us both good to be made that welcome. Even if Selina had nothing but baker’s bread and shop jam, she’d have put it on the table. She’s a great baker, isn’t she?’ she went on, her mind still moving on the warm welcome they’d had from John’s old friend and his second wife.
‘You don’t think Martha and Sam are just very short of money?’ Rose asked, as she thought of the scones and cake so generously provided.
‘How would they be, Rose?’ John replied, a note of irritation in his tone. ‘Sam’s a skilled man. He’s earnin’ far more than I iver earned before we moved to Ballydown. She’s no money to find for her milk and eggs and as far as I know the farm has no mortgage on it, though it was in a bad way when Joe got it. An’ forby that Sam is workin’ all the hours there are, but for Sunday mornin’. He told me he earns a brave bit from the repairs and suchlike.’
Rose shivered and drew the car rug closer over her knees.
‘Are ye cold, love?’
‘No, I was just thinking of Selina’s bright fire and her young Isabel running out to meet us. She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she? Though I can never look at her without thinking of wee Sophie.’
‘Aye. That should niver have happened,’ said John sharply, for he still felt angry over her death. A rabid dog had bitten the three-year old and ended her short life, because the police hadn’t taken the trouble to hunt it down when it was reported.
‘I thought at the time Thomas wou’d niver get over it, but then Ned came along and then wee Isabel. Sure he’s had a second family with Selina and its healed many a hurt that Mary-Anne laid on him.’
John fell silent and the harsh and bitter words she’d once endured from Thomas’s first wife came back into Rose’s mind. A woman firm in her Christian views and active in her Bible reading but totally devoid of love or compassion. She’d shadowed many a good day when they’d lived in the house opposite Thomas’s forge. Putting Mary-Anne firmly out of mind, Rose gazed round at the silent countryside as the evening shadows were lengthened moment by moment. The air was cooling fast beneath a clear sky. Later, there would be a mass of stars and probably a touch of frost before dawn.
‘Did ye notice when I asked Thomas if young Ned was thinkin’ of goin’ to America, that he diden mention his eldest boy? He’s been in America for years now and I was waitin’ for Thomas to say how he was doin’ an’ where he was. But Thomas niver said a word about him. D’ye think young James Scott might be like another James we know?’ he asked, glancing across at her.
Rose took a deep breath. It wasn’t often John mentioned their eldest son and it made her sad he still felt so hurt by the way James had rejected them, turning his back on the whole family, because he thought their Catholic relatives might somehow get in the way of his ambitions.
‘Well, it’s about the only reason I can think of why Thomas wouldn’t talk about him,’ she said slowly. ‘We can’t talk about our James either, even if we wanted to. What could we say? He’s probably still with Harland and Wolff. I’m sure he’s a manager or better, but he never let us know. We know he’s married, but whether or not he has children we’ve never found out. It looks as if Thomas is in the same boat.’
‘I suppose it happens in all families,’ said John thoughtfully. ‘Sure, look at my two brothers. When they went to America they wrote for a wee while and then that was that. My mother kept goin’ for a bit longer and then she gave up. Maybe they just wanted to forget where they came from. Like our James. I’ve been told there’s a brave few does that.’
Rose fell silent as he concentrated on the hill, drove to the top, turned in the wide space outside the gates of Rathdrum House and came slowly back down to park alongside their own wall. She was tired. Despite the pleasure of the visit to the forge house, she felt oppressed by what she’d seen at Liskeyborough.
While John lit the gas lamps, she stirred up the fire. It had almost burnt itself out, so she encouraged it with small sticks and fragments of turf. She thought back to the talk she’d had with Selina when Thomas and John stepped down to the forge to look at a new rotary drill and they’d laid the tea table together.
‘What would you do, Selina?’ she asked, as she spread the crisp, crocheted cloth. ‘You’d be heart sore if you saw the wee ones barefoot in the cold weather. I’m sure you went barefoot as a child and so did I, but times have changed, thank God. I could help her out if she’s short, but she bought shoes and boots with the money I sent and she has them in the cupboard. She told Sam they were for Sunday, but today was Sunday and all I saw was bare feet.’
‘What about her mother, Rose? Is that the trouble?’
‘Her mother died some years ago, but she has two sisters. They’re both older, but neither are married. She seems fond of them. Certainly she’s always going up to see them when Sam’s at home.’
Selina paused and put down the china cups she was holding.
‘Poor Rose,’ she said smiling. ‘Thomas has always said how kind you were to him and how good you were to your own wee ones. It’ll be hard for you.
But there’s nothing you can do,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘Sam’s not chosen well, any more than I think our Robert has.’
‘Oh Selina, I wondered you didn’t mention him. He’s been married four or five years now, hasn’t he?’
‘Indeed he has. And I did my best to like the girl, but from the first day I met her she had something to complain about. Though in those days she made a joke of it,’ she added wryly, as she filled the sugar bowl from a jar she took out of the corner cupboard. ‘Well, it’s no joke now. When Robert comes down from Church Hill to see us, I think it’s the only peace and quiet he gets.’
‘So what do we do to help them?’
‘There’s nothing we can do, Rose,’ she replied steadily. ‘They have to make their own lives and their own mistakes. Hard as it is, we have to stand out of the way until such time as something might change.’
Rose looked across the table at the older woman and knew she was thinking of her dear Thomas and the loneliness he’d suffered when he was married to Mary-Anne. She nodded and agreed. It was something her own mother had always said, interference only made things worse.
The fire burnt up and the kettle began to sing just as John came back indoors after putting the tarpaulin cover over the motor.
‘Cup of tea, John?’
‘Aye, that would be great. I think we might have a frost.’
As she made the tea, Rose reflected that the prospect of either their Sam or young Robert Scott having a second chance to find happiness was remote indeed.
CHAPTER THREE
Rose put down her pen, rubbed her neck, stretched her shoulders and then read through her reply to her elder daughter’s most recent letter.
12th April, 1912
My dearest Hannah,
Your long letter was much appreciated. Please don’t apologise for the delay. If you’ve had workmen and decorators in your new London home, I’m amazed you can find a quiet moment at all, especially with both the boys on holiday from school and the two little ones becoming less little by the day.