by Anne Doughty
She laughed and thought again of the drunken men from the valley who had sent home an even larger donation than most of Jonathan’s offerings. She hadn’t felt she could share the story with anyone in the valley, but, thanks to those men, they could indeed buy envelopes and post them anywhere in the world where they had a name and an address for someone who had once lived in this valley.
Chapter 22
Hannah was indeed grateful when holiday school ended and she once again had time to catch up on both household tasks and on her untouched pile of napkins, but although she’d been looking forward to making amends for her unusually short, and often intermittent, letters to Patrick and her other correspondents, she admitted freely as July moved on that now she did have time to herself, she was feeling lonely.
She smiled wryly and looked around the empty kitchen. Rose and Sam had long since departed to play with the Friels and the other new friends they’d made in the first two weeks of July. There was no doubt it did look as if the holiday school had been a great success from the point of view of the children’s new activities and the new friendships they had all made.
As for herself, as the later weeks of July moved slowly on, she admitted she was missing the daily contact with John, and Daniel, and indeed Bridget, who’d become such an active presence in all they did. But it was the lively atmosphere that had been created she missed most of all. Without the buzz of activity and the excitement of small successes that seemed to make the days fly by, she found herself thinking continuously of all the poor people who had not enough to eat and of those who were afraid they’d be turned out when they couldn’t pay the rent. Families were being parted. Everyone knew how seldom any emigrant ever came back, even if they survived the long and perilous journeys that lay ahead of them.
Absorbed in her thoughts, she took a fresh napkin from the pile and made sure it had no flaws. It was never worth spending time hemming a napkin if it was going to be rejected by the checker. The small completion fee due would only be deducted from the next monthly payment.
She reflected again on that the second week of holiday school. It had been even busier than the first and it had managed to generate yet more problems, but despite that, it was full of a liveliness and excitement she now sadly missed. At the time, that liveliness and excitement had meant that none of the staff seemed to mind all the extra effort their activities had generated.
When they sent out a request for the names and addresses of people who might like to receive a picture of somewhere they’d once known so very well, they’d had a huge response from the families throughout the valley. Hannah had to smile as she thought of it. She’d never imagined the problems there could be just trying to make sense of a list of names!
To begin with, so many people had the same name. The list was full of McGinleys. She had heard a little about the McGinleys from Patrick and was prepared to find quite a few of them, but what she couldn’t tell, when she studied the list, was if these were really all different people. She was familiar enough with nicknames, but how could she know what the person’s official name was, if she also knew that no one ever used it? It had also occurred to her to wonder what use a nickname might be to a postman in Boston, or New York or Peterborough, Ontario.
Daniel, who had correctly predicted the problems with the children collecting addresses, had begun each of the first two sessions of the second week, by teaching them how to memorise and repeat the names they’d been given, as faithfully as they could. They had done their best. But if it hadn’t been for Dermot Donnelly, who had by now got to know everyone on his delivery route for meal and flour, the task might have proved impossible.
Reading from Dermot’s list mid-week, when they tried to make sure that no one from the valley had been forgotten, or confused with someone else, Hannah saw exactly what John had meant when he reminded her that County Donegal had precious little literacy. Only one in five, she’d been told. She had been interested in the figures and the difference between counties but she just hadn’t grasped how few people that would mean in the length and breadth of the Lough Gartan valley.
On the other hand, she now understood more clearly why Daniel had wanted to run a school. Fifteen pupils might seem only a tiny drop in a large pool. It was a gesture, but over this last year she had come to see that small gestures could open the way for much bigger things.
With Dermot’s help and much good humour, they finally got the list sorted. Daniel then composed and dictated a brief but warm-hearted message telling all the recipients they were not forgotten and their friends and family back in Donegal would be so pleased to hear from them, in Irish, or in English, whenever they had time to write. He ended his message with some words from an Irish blessing he was sure most of them would know.
As they had all agreed, what he made no mention of at all, was the present state of both hunger and illness, increasing week by week all over Ireland.
Daniel’s message was written down by John and then copied out carefully by a few of their older pupils, and more laboriously, by any of the other children who could manage it. John and Hannah then made up the number of additional copies needed, inserted the names of the recipients, and took care of the packaging and addressing.
On Saturday morning, while Hannah was giving Rose and Sam their breakfast and Dermot was harnessing Neddy, John appeared with his small suitcase. It seemed strange to be parting so early, and so briefly, while Dermot loaded the carefully stacked packages, but once those packages were despatched, John would be setting out on his own long journey back to Galway, not knowing what he would find when he got there.
For Hannah that Saturday passed slowly indeed. She alternated her sewing with baking bread and fetching turf and water. It was a long time since she’d had to fetch either turf or water, for it was part of John’s daily routine, a way of thanking her for making his supper every evening.
As the morning passed, she thought of him on his long journey. The worst part was not knowing what he would find. He’d replied to his sister’s letter immediately, but they knew that even if she replied by return there was little hope of a letter arriving before he left. Together, they’d tried to face the best, and worst, that might emerge. They’d agreed the best plan would be to go to his grandparents’ house first for news of his father before he even thought of going home.
Rose and Sam then appeared for lunch, in good spirits, full of news and questions. Sam, in particular, had started watching out for the blackberry crop, usually better further down the valley than close to home. Clearly, he wasn’t impressed with the tight, red berries he’d seen today on the bushes down near the lake. What he wanted were large, black, juicy ones. Now that he was a little taller, and felt much more grown up, he had great plans for filling his bowl even faster than last year when the blackberry pickers set off after school for the first gathering.
*
‘Are ye all on yer lone, Hannah?’ asked Dermot, later that day, brushing the rain off his shoulders before stepping into the kitchen. ‘Where’s the wee’uns?’
‘They went back down to play with the Friels a while ago,’ Hannah replied, putting down her napkin and waving him over to the fire. ‘I expect Deirdre Friel is hoping the rain will go over so she can send them home dry … What are the chances?’ she asked, doubtfully.
‘Not great, not great,’ he said, spreading his damp hands out over the comforting blaze. ‘I think the rain’s set in for the evenin’ but sure you’d think we’d be used ta it by now. There’s some says it’s this weather that’s brought the blight.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard Bridget at school say that,’ she agreed. ‘But I’ve heard some other versions as well,’ she went on. ‘Daniel, of course, says that when nobody knows, you can have as many theories as you like.’
He shook his head wearily. ‘Well, at least we’ve got your holiday job done. I don’t think wee Sheila in the post office had ever seen so much mail for away, all at the one time, that is. Are ye hopin’ to raise m
ore money?’ he asked, looking at her very directly.
‘I don’t know, Dermot,’ she said honestly. ‘We talked about it, but in the end we decided we didn’t want to ask for money just at the moment. But we did decide what we needed to do was make contact. I don’t think any of us had realised before how many people don’t write home, because, of course, they can’t. Perhaps what we’ve done is more “casting bread on the water”, if you know that expression. It seemed the right thing to do, to bring the valley back to the people who must miss it, and bring them back to their families, if only in thought. We’re just hoping some good might come out of it. Perhaps something to lift spirits. And, yes,’ she added nodding, ‘if the odd few dollars are sent home to some of the families, it will leave more in the School Fund for those with nobody to help them out except the Quakers.’
‘Like m’self, Hannah,’ he said, quickly. ‘What wou’d I be doin’ by now if I hadn’t had the few shillin’s every week for the deliverin’ of the meal and flour an’ that money I had a while back from our Johnny’s wee pictures. He managed a brave few more these las’ two weeks, didn’t he?’ he said, with a sudden smile.
‘He did indeed,’ she agreed. ‘And, even better, he got some of the newcomers really going. Did he tell you we were able to give everyone who wanted it some paper and paints, to take home on the last day? Maybe, indeed if things don’t improve soon,’ she added sadly, ‘those wee ones might help us to raise funds like Johnny did. It’s amazing how generous people can be once they realise there’s a need.’
‘Yer right there,’ he said. ‘A man was tellin’ me yesterday that some newspaper he sees has a column where people can say thank you, for stuff they’ve received. Barrels of meal, and clothes, forby money,’ he added quickly. ‘An’ sure on that list there was women from Derry an’ women from Belfast, an’ they knows the place all right an’ what’s goin’ on here, but sure, wasn’t there also some woman in a female seminary, whatever that is, in Washington, Pennsylvania, who can’t know much about us at all, an’ she’d sent thirty-one barrels of kiln-dried Indian meal.’
He paused, watching her face as she smiled and nodded her head gently.
‘Any more word of the fishin’ boats?’ he said abruptly, suddenly focusing on the news that would most affect him.
‘Not yet, Dermot,’ she said, ‘but I’m expecting Jonathan Hancock before the month’s out. The first boat is nearly ready, as you know, but there’s been some delay agreeing the money for the other two. Are you short at all?’
‘No, thanks be t’God, we’ve more than most. It’s just me wantin’ full-time work. I’d like fine to be back at the fishin’. I’m sure yer Patrick woud be jus’ the same if he were in my shoes.’
She nodded and stood up.
‘Every bit the same,’ she said, as she picked up the kettle. ‘I need a mug of tea. I hope you do too.’
He smiled. ‘Wou’d I ever refuse a mug o’tea in this house?’
*
When the damp, overcast weather continued in August and darkness came earlier each evening, people began to pass on rumours about it being a sign there would be a bad winter. Fortunately, there were also some pieces of good news, which were passed around just as vigorously.
When Hannah’s neighbour, Sophie, was given a new batch of newspapers by her nieces she went through them slowly and carefully, now that John was no longer able to pave the way for her, as she called it. She was the first to share the news that a new Women’s Group in Belfast had sent money to Connaught where things were much worse than in Donegal. She also found out, via John, that the priest with whom he’d stayed when he first arrived from Galway, had recently been given half the value of a cheque received by the local Presbyterian minister in Dunfanaghy.
There were many generous acts recorded in both local and national papers, but it was little to set against the overall picture. The local workhouse was almost full and more and more cases of fever were being reported. A fever hospital was being built near the workhouse in Dunfanaghy, but in other parts of Ireland the need had been so urgent that ‘fever sheds’ had been hastily erected. Even they were not enough. What was more troubling still was that it now seemed that even people who did have enough to eat were getting ill. From many areas the death lists included both doctors and priests, and those gentry who tried to take an interest in their tenants.
Now, it was no longer just the poor, or the hungry who died. Suddenly, no one was safe.
Chapter 23
As the days of that damp and sunless summer of 1846 passed slowly by, Hannah did her best to keep busy and to stay as cheerful as she could. She told herself regularly that she had no cause to be either lonely, or apprehensive, but however hard she tried, she did feel oppressed.
Yet what had she to complain about? Unlike many people she knew, she had enough food. She had friends and a good fire on the hearth as well as a husband she loved and two lively children. She could go and visit Sophie, or Daniel, or any of her neighbours and would be welcomed. She could sit and write to Patrick as often as she wanted, and pass the time of day with Dermot when he arrived back with Neddy at the end of his day’s work.
But try as she would, she still felt lonely and dispirited. She thought longingly of days long gone when she had her sisters for company, school friends to play with, her father coming and going from the fields, saying little, but a positive presence, sunshine and sea all around them.
Suddenly, sitting by the fire on a dim August morning she found herself in tears. She thought of Patrick working away with her father in those same gently sloping fields. When she shut her eyes she could almost feel the warmth of the sunshine on her skin, in her ears the soft ripple of tiny waves breaking on the wet sand, rolling fragments of shell up the beach, then sliding back again down into the dazzling expanse of the Solway Firth.
Why now? Why, after all these years when she had made this valley her home, cherishing the modest cottage on which Patrick had worked so hard to make it both robust and weather-proof, the whitewash gleaming, the thatch well mended every season, the eaves trimmed, the gutters below gravelled and sloped to ensure the rainwater ran away from the walls.
Yes, she missed him, but the more she missed him, the more aware she was of the passing months; almost five months gone, and only something over two months to go till the time of his return. Eleven years now since they’d said goodbye to her father and set out from the farm, now man and wife, when she was just twenty.
There was no romantic honeymoon like those she’d read of in the novels her sisters and their friends passed around between them. They had travelled back to Derry with the rest of the harvesters, finding on the way whatever lodgings, or shelter, they could. Only on one night did they share a double bed. That was when they had visited her brother in Port William. They had laughed together that night as they lay naked on clean sheets, remembering the corner of a dusty barn where they had made love, on the very first night of their long journey from Dundrennan to Ardtur.
Perhaps it was the weather, she thought suddenly. Was that why she felt such longing for sunshine and sea? There was so little sunshine this year that everyone looked pale. The sharp lines of the mountain were always muted, the lake misty, and for the first time in all her years in Ardtur, the handful of flowers she grew in the old pots she’d found in the barn had barely begun to open before they simply dropped their blooms to wilt on the damp grass.
Suddenly, she remembered the red geranium. Despite her hasty planting, it had grown and flowered. Perhaps that was the trouble. At the moment, she felt she could grow nothing, neither plants, nor ideas. Her life was confined to the everyday, the baking and cooking, the cleaning and washing, the hemming of napkins that ensured they would have food enough for the winter.
Even if Patrick could find no work when he came home and had only a half of the income from the delivery round Dermot had been doing since Patrick went away, she would still be able to provide food for the family from what she’d saved f
rom his wages and what the draper paid her each month for her assignment.
She folded the napkin she had just finished, wiped her eyes and stood up. There was enough oatmeal left to make a batch of those biscuits Bridget had made for prize-giving at the end of the holiday school. If she made a batch this morning she could take some to Daniel when she went to see him this afternoon. Rose and Sam would certainly be delighted with such a treat at teatime.
*
‘Hannah dear, is it yourself?’ Daniel asked, even before she’d knocked on the open door of his cottage.
She laughed as she greeted him. ‘Now, how did you know that? And me as quiet as a mouse?’ she asked, as she walked across to the fire, pressed his hand and kissed his cheek.
‘Well, maybe there was a bit of wishful thinking in my enhanced perception. Is it still drizzling?’
‘Does it ever stop,’ she asked vigorously. ‘I think I would even welcome a storm. Anything to blow this weather away,’ she said, as she drew up the other armchair to the fire. ‘How are you, Daniel?’ she asked, studying his face, and the set of his body.
‘Sadly in need of distraction,’ he replied. ‘There’s only so much time one can contemplate the human condition without becoming seriously critical of the whole enterprise.’
Hannah laughed again. However truthful and perceptive Daniel’s responses might be, he had a practised irony, which seldom failed to raise her spirits.
He enquired about Patrick, about Rose and Sam, and about Sam’s current ambition to be the best and fastest of the blackberry pickers. He then waved casually to the mantelpiece where she saw a couple of envelopes. Invoices for school materials awaiting her, or John, to deal with, she thought, glancing at them.
‘Those are probably for you,’ he said dismissively. ‘But much more to the point,’ he went on, his tone softening, ‘have you had any further communication from our young friend in Galway?’