by Anne Doughty
‘Hannah, is it you?’ he asked, as she tramped the last few yards. ‘I was thinking of you not five minutes ago.’
‘Well, I’m here now and I think I’ve got some answers to our questions, which no doubt will lead to yet more questions, but we’ll not let that trouble us, will we?’ she said encouragingly, as she sat down beside him.
The sun was intermittent but the morning was now both calm and mild. They were able to stay outside and carry on with their talk and it wasn’t long before they’d agreed there was everything still to hope for provided they could just keep the school going for the next month or so. But clearly the question of John’s character troubled Daniel, as much as where they would get the money to pay him.
‘Daniel, there’s nothing wrong with his Irish,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I let him go on speaking Irish till the children came in. He’s as fluent in Irish as he is in English. I do think he’s got a personal problem with his attitude towards English, but I can tell you about that another time. Do you still want to keep quiet about your own command of English?’ she asked.
‘Well, you could probably say I was another one with a personal problem with my English,’ he said wryly, ‘so, yes, I’d prefer it if we could keep that piece of information between ourselves.’
‘Why not?’ said Hannah laughing. ‘It might be a dreadful shock to your admirers up and down the valley if you, of all people, were to start speaking English, but I think John himself may need an English speaker to help him get started with teaching it. He may be absolutely fluent but he has never taught before. If you like, I could come two or three mornings in the week to help him get going. I haven’t even asked him yet if he can deal with number work and writing, but I’m fairly hopeful. He is very quick on the uptake, as they say in my part of the world.’
Daniel beamed, delighted by the prospect.
‘It’s good of you to give up your time, Hannah, when you know I can’t pay you, at least not yet. And indeed that’s another task you’ve taken on for me, writing to the solicitor in Richhill, forby those orders for books and notebooks to Dublin. And what about your sewing? Have you had any time for that at all?’
‘No, to be honest I haven’t, and I don’t expect to have much in the near future, but it’s only for month or two. We’ll have to see where we are at the end of that time.’
The sun, which had been blotted out by sudden clouds, re-emerged. It beamed down on them so strongly they both closed their eyes and looked upwards, feeling the unexpected warmth on their faces. Through the gap in the windblown trees and hawthorn bushes, her eyes still half-closed, Hannah saw the sparkle on the waters of Lough Gartan.
Suddenly, she felt her heart lift. She was sure it would be all right. John would find his way in teaching and the school would survive. But there was now the small matter of finding him lodgings and the fact that the poor soul hadn’t a penny to his name, though after what her new Quaker friend had said, she was sure payment for his teaching would eventually appear, even if it were delayed for some weeks. Now, it was just Daniel himself who was left with the anxiety of the school’s debt to Marie and his own penury. She wondered just how he had managed to feed himself when he hadn’t even the produce of a potato garden to help him.
She fell silent as she began to think what could be done. She still had all of her napkin money from last month and Patrick had given her most of what he’d earned in Tullygobegley. There were now only three of them to feed and the early potatoes would soon be ready to dig. She did a quick calculation, did it again, then laughed at herself.
She was almost sure Daniel’s pension would eventually be restored. This situation would not create an unforeseen expense. This was merely a loan. Even if the money held in reserve in the cracked teapot on the dresser was not enough, she was quite prepared to go under the bed and bring out one of the sovereigns her father had sent as a gift to her and the children.
‘I take it you’re having a think,’ Daniel said, turning towards her.
‘And how did you know that?’ she asked lightly.
‘I think you could say it was the dense quality of the silence, heavy with moment. I hope your deliberations were satisfactory,’ he said.
She laughed and put her hand on his. ‘Yes, I think you’ll be pleased with the outcome, but I ought to be getting back shortly to the children. I’m thinking about John. Sam was in his questioning mode, which, as you know, can be taxing,’ she said wryly, ‘and you and I haven’t discussed the books yet for that order.’
‘Well, there is still tomorrow, not even started yet,’ he said philosophically.
‘There is indeed, but I think we should do the books if we can before I go. We’re certainly a bit further on today. I’ve worked out that I can lend you the money to pay Marie and get back to normal yourself for a month or two, at least till the pension is restored.’
‘And what if it isn’t?’
‘We’ll meet that when we come to it,’ she said. ‘I feel sure it will be restored, but if it isn’t, we can apply to the Quakers for a salary for you as master. They would think that only fair. It might even be more than your original pension was. You never know.’
‘Well, with your luck it probably would be. As long as it’s enough to pay you back, that’s all I would ask.’
*
Hannah walked slowly on the way back, needing the space to think what she would do about John, but by the time she arrived in Ardtur and met Sophie’s visitor just leaving, she had a plan.
She turned aside and stopped at Sophie’s open door.
‘Hannah, come in, come in. I heard all about your visitor from Sam. Is he keeping an eye on the childer for you?’
‘He is, Sophie. It will be good practice for him. That young man is going to be Daniel’s assistant at the school.’
‘Ach, sure good. Poor Marie will be so relieved. I heard she was more cut up about letting Daniel down than about breaking her leg.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said Hannah, shaking her head. ‘She’s very good-hearted and the children were fond of her, but, of course, she’d have been leaving anyway and there would still be the problem of replacing her. It would be a shame if we lost the school for want of a teacher, wouldn’t it?’
‘Aye, it would that,’ agreed Sophie vigorously. ‘Sure, I never went to school m’self and I’d give anythin’ to be able to write. I can read a bit, an’ I can listen to the news being read to me till the cows come home, as the sayin’ is, but I can barely write my name. An’ it takes me a good couple o’ minutes.’ A smile crinkled her lined and weather-beaten face.
Hannah beamed at her, delighted by her easy manner. Sophie may not have been educated, but she paid attention to everything going on around her and had an incredible memory for people and places she had visited, or even simply heard about.
‘I’ve come to ask a favour, Sophie,’ Hannah began hesitantly.
‘Ah, sure, ask away. If I can I will, that’s for sure.’
‘I think our young visitor is going to need somewhere to stay. He’s with the priest over at Churchill, but that’s too far away for school at nine o’clock in the morning, even if the priest would think of having him permanently. Do you think maybe, Sophie, he could have Jamsey’s room while he’s away? You’d get paid, of course, but it might take a wee while to come through. I thought if you don’t want the bother of a meal in the evening, he could come to me for that. So long as he has his breakfast with you while I’m getting Rose and Sam off, oh and a piece for lunchtime. I’d be surprised if he couldn’t make it himself for he seems very down to earth for all he’s been so well educated.’
‘An’ sure, why not?’ she replied promptly. ‘He might even read me a bit from the paper in the evening,’ she went on cheerfully. ‘Though, mind you, I’d not talk to him if he had exercises to correct at the table. I could just do my bit of sewing over by the fire an’ he could have the lamp.’
Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. That was half the probl
em solved. She would go home now and make a meal for them all and then consult John about his lodgings when the children went to bed. If he could come and stay with Sophie, then working out how they were to teach English together would be so much easier.
*
It was long past mid-day when she walked across to her own front door and heard John reading to them. He stopped the minute she appeared, stood up and asked her if all was well.
‘Yes, John it is. I hope you’ll be pleased, but I take it you’ve not had a bite to eat?’
‘We did have glasses of milk, Ma, but there was no bread,’ said Rose. ‘I knew we should have offered,’ she added, looking uneasy.
‘You did quite right, and it’s not your fault. Could you all eat a plate of champ if I made one for us? We can have some bread to our supper if I bake later …’
Sam rolled his eyes and rubbed his tummy. ‘I’m so hungry, Ma,’ he said, so vigorously that they all laughed.
‘It will take another half hour, I’m afraid,’ she said, taking her potato knife from the drawer. ‘Would you like to take John down to the lake and see if there are any new cygnets? Would you mind a walk, John?’ she asked.
‘It would be a great pleasure,’ he said promptly. ‘I’m used to the sea and the city, but mountainy countryside like this is totally new to me. I’d be so happy if I could stay,’ he added, a slight hesitance in his voice that spoke to Hannah of anxiety.
‘Well, I think I have good news about that, but we can talk later,’ she said, selecting potatoes from the creel by the door. ‘Enjoy your walk.’
*
‘So you think it’s a good idea, John?’ Hannah asked, as they came back from a brief visit to Sophie, leaving the children reading to her. John had tired them out searching the lake for cygnets, so they seemed happy to sit quietly reading the papers to their neighbour.
John nodded vigorously. ‘Sophie’s a very thoughtful lady,’ he replied, ‘and there’s nothing wrong with her memory, is there? I’d enjoy listening to her and reading the newspaper to her. May I ask where she gets them from?’
‘You may indeed, John, but I’ve never found out myself for sure,’ Hannah replied, laughing. ‘My best guess is from one of her many nieces who works in a hotel in Ballybofey – rather a posh place that gets a lot of English visitors. I think that must be how we come by The Times and the Illustrated London News. Often they’re months old, so they’ve probably been passed round long before they get here, but I suspect they originally get left behind in the hotel bedrooms.
‘Now, John dear,’ she continued, ‘you are looking tired and you have a long walk back to your lodging tonight. It’s been a busy day and you’ve clearly made a big impression on Sam and Rose. Can you manage if I ask you some questions about teaching before you go?’
He nodded and smiled shyly. ‘I do so want to teach Irish children. I’m even more keen now I’ve seen how much they can learn from a man like Mr McGee. I’d learn so much myself from just listening to him.’
‘Have you always wanted to teach, John?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said suddenly. ‘My father wanted me to go into the Coastguard Service; that’s why he sent me away to school. And I tried to want what he wanted for me. I really did try, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to leave my home and family and go off to England, or Scotland, and live among strangers. I just couldn’t bear the thought,’ he said, looking distraught.
‘But, John,’ she protested gently, ‘we are all strangers here, in this valley, on a mountainside in Donegal.’
‘Yes, but you are my own people. You speak Irish and you help each other and you don’t always think about getting rich and having big estates and driving poor people out of their homes. I can’t bear what the English have done to our country. I hate them all, every last one of them.’
‘And the Quakers who are going to give us books and paper and pay you a salary? Aren’t they English?’
‘Yes, of course they are,’ he said, ‘but they are an exception to the rule.’
‘And what about the Scots?’
‘I’ve never met any till I met you, and you speak Irish.’
‘John dear, I can see you’ve not been very fortunate in your experience of the English,’ she said slowly. ‘Would you believe me if I said there are many good, kind English people who would do so much to help us here if only they could? You could ask Sophie – she’s far better informed than I am about matters political.’
‘Yes, I could, but I don’t see why it matters. I’m here and I know I’ll be happy here.’
‘It matters, John, because Daniel has a project. He would understand completely how you feel, but he wants his pupils to learn English. He sees it as something that will help them earn a living, if they work seasonally in England, or Scotland, like my husband, or if they emigrate, or if they are apprenticed to merchants. You can see how committed he is to all things Irish, but he needs you and me to teach English.’
‘You and me?’ he asked, his face brightening.
‘Yes, John. I used to teach in my own old school in Galloway, and English, or Scotch, as the haymakers call it, is my first language. I learnt Irish from my husband and I taught him to read and write and speak English. Many, many people in Donegal speak Scotch, like all those who take the boat from Derry every springtime.’
She paused, suddenly feeling weary, and waited to see what he would say.
‘If it’s what you and Mr McGee think best for the school then I’ll do all I can. But you’ll have to help me,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m well used to children. I have five sisters and dozens of cousins and I get on fine with most of them. Teaching English was the last thing I could ever have imagined doing. But then, that was back in Galway and I’m in Donegal now.’
Chapter 9
Hannah slept badly on the Sunday night following young John McCreedy’s second visit to Ardtur, her dreams haunted by a red-headed man with a beard, who refused to speak any Irish, even when his wife and all his many relatives spoke little or no English. She wondered if John’s father came from a Covenanter background, as firm in his convictions as her own father had once been in his.
Her own father had softened with age and her sisters had told her that he was a different man by the time she knew him, kinder and less rigid in his beliefs, able at last to appreciate the men who had been coming to work for him for years, though they were of a different religion and spoke a different language.
As she woke up on Monday morning, she found herself thinking of her father, and her brothers and sisters, none of whom she had now seen for the ten years of her marriage. It was bad enough to feel so far away from all of them, but at times she felt that their loss made it even harder to bear the absence of her own dear Patrick for at least half the months of the year.
She and Patrick had spoken often enough of how he might find work that would let them be together all year, either here in Donegal, or together in Scotland, but as Patrick so often said himself, he was not an educated man. The only jobs he could find would be labouring work and he would be hard put to find better than what he already had with her father. Providing a home for her and the children in another part of the British Isles would be more than the modest income from his work could sustain.
Waking so early, she had time to reread Patrick’s recent letter before the children woke up. She realised as she unfolded the small blue sheets that she already knew it by heart. But it was all she had. At times like this, she felt so lonely. No father, no mother, no sisters, no brothers. Just letters that were sometimes infrequent. She had never regretted marrying Patrick but she had not realised how solitary she would feel when there was no one there to share the problems, when there was only herself to care for Rose and Sam.
As she got out of bed, she reminded herself that the first weeks of Patrick’s absence were always the worst. Things should be easier now that some of the problems over the school had been solved. She realised that she was actually looking forward to teach
ing again, something she had so enjoyed in the schoolroom back in Galloway and indeed in the kitchen of her home, where her father’s harvesters had spread out their exercise books on the well-scrubbed kitchen table they normally had their meals at.
She gathered herself for the morning routine. Today, Monday, she would send Rose and Sam off to school with John. He had now brought his meagre bag of possessions over from the priest’s house in Churchill and had taken possession of Jamsey’s empty bed, a very short distance away in Sophie’s house.
Having John nearby would give her a little extra time this morning, but given she had offered to work with him three mornings in school, she had a lot to do within it. She was going to have to bake an extra day’s bread, do the weekly washing, make a start on that letter to the solicitor in Richhill, and copy out neatly the list of books and stationery that Jonathan Hancock had said she should send to the Quaker Central Committee in Dublin. They would forward it to the Committee that dealt with books and education for which they provided money.
It did look as if there would be no time left for sewing napkins and she began to wonder if she might lose her distribution if she fell behind with her quota. At that point she stopped herself sharply. There was no point thinking about that today. The draper would not be here for a month at least. Many things could change in that time.
Sam and Rose sat quiet over breakfast but were clearly pleased when they heard John’s foot on the doorstep.
Hannah exchanged glances with John and could see he was in the best of spirits.
‘I’m afraid you and I will have homework to do tonight, John, after supper. Did you tell Sophie that we were both going to work tomorrow?’
‘Oh yes, I did and she’s pleased to hear it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But she hopes that some nights I’ll be able to read to her if I don’t go up to Daniel’s to listen to his stories.’