by Anne Doughty
She wished she could say the same of herself. But she could not. Despite all the comforts of her life, of which she regularly reminded herself, admonishing herself for not being grateful for all she was blessed with, she found that, in winter in particularly, she felt herself enveloped in a thick, grey cloud. When that happened, she felt she would never have an interesting thought, or a good idea ever again.
At its worst, her grey cloud manifested itself as anxiety; at its best, it was simply a nagging sense that ‘something would happen’ to take away all the things she treasured, beginning with Patrick and the children and the child she was carrying.
The negative feelings had grown worse over the Christmas holiday and despite all her efforts she could find no hope or possibility in the thought of a New Year. But the actual New Year itself had passed without incident. Today was the fourth of January, there was work to do and colleagues with whom to share whatever news might arise from the children, or from Bridget, their school mother as Daniel now called her.
The day began with Daniel’s roll call. It was not the swift and automatic ticking of a printed document that Hannah remembered from her own school days. Daniel had his own technique. He called each individual name. When he received a reply, he then asked a question. Having listened to the answer and decided on the state of well-being of his respondent, he either announced ‘present’ in a firm voice, or asked a further question.
It was by way of Daniel’s roll call many months ago that they’d first discovered children who’d had no breakfast, those who had illness in the family, or those who had a father, or brother, away looking for work. Hannah had listened and watched, totally absorbed, as Daniel put together the clues he had, with only a voice to guide him.
Today the news was good. All fifteen pupils were present. All had had breakfast. There was no illness at home to report. It was as good a start to a New Year as one could wish for.
*
Two weeks later, at the same roll call, Hannah had to admit to the first piece of good news in a long time. Johnny Donnelly reported that his father had had a message the previous evening and had left early that morning on his way to Derry. He was going to Port William in Scotland, to collect a fishing boat destined for Dunfanaghy. Two young Scots fishermen were ‘being lent’ to him until he had trained up some Donegal lads, Johnny told the class. By the summer, there would be fish to sell to those who had some money, and for those who had none, fish to give away, courtesy of the Quakers.
‘And did you not think of going with your father, Johnny?’ asked Daniel, who had listened carefully to every word.
‘No, sir. My da asked me before the holidays if I’d like to come with him and learn to be a fisherman, but I said no. I don’t think I’d be very good at fishin’. I hate killing things and I’m afeerd of storms. An’ I’d miss paintin’ the wee pictures forby.’
‘I think you’ve done right, Johnny. What is right for one person isn’t necessarily right for another. Don’t forget that, children. You must try to think about you. Not in any selfish way, but because you are you and different from anyone else. If you don’t make up your mind about you, someone else may make up your mind for you. That’s not a good idea,’ he added firmly.
‘Johnny, I’m glad we’ll not be losing you and I hope you’ll go on helping the younger ones with their pictures. You did a great job at Christmas with the illustrations on the covers of the wee books we made. Present,’ he announced, as he made a tick on a sheet of paper for Hannah to copy to the official register later.
*
Despite the good work going on in school and the progress being made by their pupils, January and February continued to be physically taxing, bitterly cold and full of bad news.
John admitted to Hannah and Patrick one evening after supper when the children had gone to bed early, that what he’d been reading aloud to Sophie this last week or more was so dispiriting he needed to share it with someone. He said, awkwardly, that he still felt he should be able to cope with it himself.
To Hannah’s surprise, before she had collected her thoughts, she heard Patrick speak.
‘Ah, sure, John, there’s nothing wrong with feelin’ distress with the badness of things that happen,’ he said gently. ‘Sure, what sort of people would we be at all, if we weren’t upset sometimes. Tell us now, like a good man, what you’ve been readin’. I’m not sure that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, as I’ve heard people say, but I for sure tell Hannah my worries and I think, I hope,’ he said, pausing to look at her, ‘she tells me hers.’
Hannah nodded vigorously and was pleased when John smiled broadly.
‘Yes, John, Patrick is quite right,’ she said. ‘When times are hard, or one is feeling bad, you have to take any opportunity that comes to share. Now, do tell us what you’ve been reading about.’
‘Well you both know there’s been a wave of emigration, even this early in the year. I don’t know where Sophie’s copy of the Drogheda Argus came from, but I read it from cover to cover and I learnt a great deal about the place,’ he began. ‘I didn’t realise Drogheda is such a very busy port. Apparently, some 70,000 emigrants left in February. That’s bad news enough, whether they were heading for Liverpool, or hoping to go on to America, but what really got me was a report on women and children. It said they were “competing with cattle for pieces of raw turnip lying on Steam Packet Quay”.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Patrick, ‘That’s no worse than those poor souls not so far away who are still livin’ on seaweed. I hear the Quakers have sent a batch of big pots for making soup to a whole lot of places in Donegal. Creeslough has one, I hear tell, but the people organisin’ the soup haven’t got it goin’ yet. It’ll be a lot better than seaweed, even if it’s only the one bowl a day.’
*
Hannah had been following reports on all the local efforts to raise money for those who were in such need. Sometimes there were indeed things reported that did raise spirits and helped one to feel that there were many good people out there trying to do what they could.
She hadn’t had the chance to visit Catriona herself since the snow came, but when Patrick called with her to collect cash, she’d told him about finding knitters who could work on fishermen’s shirts. What she was hoping was that when they’d got used to knitting the shirts, they could try their hand on some of the fashionable craft items that would sell very well in England or America.
It was characteristic of Catriona that she would get on with something vigorously, while all the time looking out for something better. One of these days she’d have more good news from her, but in the meantime, Patrick did regularly hear from families in the valley who told him when they’d had a few dollars in the post and a note that had mentioned the ‘wee pictures from school’ that had gone out before Christmas.
But all these local activities were quite overtaken in the last week of February, in a way Hannah could never have imagined. Weeks later, she still had difficulty in believing what had come to carry them through the seemingly endless snow-filled winter, whose only variation so far had been ferocious gales and thunder and lightning.
‘There’s another letter for you and John with the same American stamps the boys came in and steamed off in my kitchen,’ said Bridget in school one day, as she handed them their lunchtime pieces on small plates. ‘Did you see it?’
‘When did it come?’ asked John, surprised.
‘Oh, it was a couple of days ago, but it was left in the house the other side of the big drift. I don’t know whether it was a postman brought it, or a neighbour. I do know our friend Dermot Donnelly always brings post if he’s comin’ home for a night or two. That and a bag of fish,’ she said, laughing.
They never had to ask when Dermot was home between sailings because they had fish in their pieces next day.
‘I left it in the usual place,’ Bridget went on, ‘but now I think of it, I forgot to tell Daniel. Maybe you’ve been so busy neither of you have even noticed it.’
>
‘I certainly haven’t seen it,’ said Hannah, ‘but then I only expect bills for supplies, not thank you letters or cards.’
‘Well, I’ll bring it out to yers when I go across for the children’s plates. Knowing those ones, over there,’ she said, nodding towards the closed door of Daniel’s cottage, ‘they’ll have finished by now, an’ not so much as even a crumb let fall on the floor!’
A little later she appeared, set down the piled-up plates ready to wash and took the letter from her pocket. She handed it to Hannah, who gazed at the colourful stamps as if they would tell her something.
But they didn’t. It was indeed a similar envelope to the one they’d had last year, but this time the postmark had been obliterated. It looked as if it had been rained on or caught in spray.
She opened it carefully, unfolded a single large sheet and set to one side a printed card that had been enclosed with it. She recognised the writing and the secretary’s name, James Doherty, and the engraving of the ship with the three masts. There were three sails on each tall mast.
As before, it was addressed to them both.
Dear Hannah McGinley and John McCreedy,
Owing to bad weather, we did not receive your very welcome Christmas message until some weeks ago. Everyone here was pleased to have both another illustration and the rhymes and poems in the booklet you sent. The chairman, Mr Donald McKay, asked me to put this recent offering on display with the picture you sent some months ago.
Knowing of the problems you are having in Ireland with the loss of the potato crop, he suggested that as a company we should send you a gift for the benefit of any people you know who may be affected.
I have to tell you that he then discovered that each of the major departments in this large enterprise had already started an Ireland Fund and been collecting weekly subscriptions for some months. We have included a note of the amounts collected in dollars in each department and are now writing to ask you for details of a bank that you use. Should you think the sum rather large for your school to deal with, perhaps you could provide us with the name of a suitable person, or organisation, who would ensure the money is well spent on your behalf.
Our contact with your pupils has given us great pleasure and we would wish to continue to support you while need arises.
I am,
On behalf of all at East Boston Shipyard,
Yours faithfully,
James Doherty
Hannah passed the letter over to John, silent tears running down her cheeks. He, having picked up the accompanying card was not surprised by her tears, but Bridget who had turned to look at them as Hannah read the letter, immediately came and put her arm round her.
‘Ah, Hannah dear, what’s the matter? Don’t cry, love. It can’t be that bad. Sure, whatever it is we’ll get over it.’
Hannah managed a smile as she searched for her handkerchief.
‘It’s not bad news, Bridget dear,’ she said, sniffing and then blowing her nose. ‘It’s the miracle we needed before Christmas. I don’t know how much it is, but it looks enormous … enough to feed all those poor people, all 2,300 of them.’
‘Somewhere over £20,000 at a quick calculation,’ said John, putting down the letter and looking again at the card. ‘But it might be even more.’
Hannah looked at him and saw an expression on his face she could not interpret. He looked desolate, as if the generosity of these unknown people, many of them Irish, was more than he could bear.
She held out her arms to both John and Bridget, hugged them both and then, still sniffing somewhat, said: ‘And how do you two propose we tell Daniel?’
Chapter 30
As far as Hannah and her colleagues were concerned, there was no problem at all about disposing of the money. Hannah suggested they ask for a small amount for the School Fund so that they could continue to do what they had been doing for the last year or more, providing lunches, breakfasts when needed and supplying meal and flour via Patrick to any families in the valley that were in need.
As for the bulk of that large sum, which John kept recalculating in case he had made a mistake, that must go to the Quakers who had provided the fishing boats and the soup cauldrons and had made money available for the most destitute families when they came in December. With this money now available to them, they could both sustain the work they had already begun in Donegal, launch two more fishing boats and extend their plans for providing seed to small tenants, so that there would be other sources of food apart from the potato.
It was only a matter of writing to Jonathan Hancock, telling him the good news and asking him which bank would be most convenient for them to supply their work in the area.
Meantime, Hannah wrote back to James Doherty in East Boston, telling him how amazed and delighted she and her colleagues were at their generosity. She asked him if he could send some pictures of the ships they made, so that all the children would know what a ‘clipper’ was, what it could do, and where it travelled.
She told him that she was about to contact a Quaker man who had already done a great deal to help them and who would now be delighted to have the resources to meet the urgent needs of people in other parts of Donegal as well as their immediate location.
When she’d finished writing, she reread her letter and wondered if it was too long. It seemed to her these generous people were offering more than their hard-earned money. She wondered if many of them still missed their native land and felt some longing to be ‘in touch’.
She thought of workers standing in the space outside the chairman’s suite, looking at a picture by a young Irish boy, of a lake in a valley, perhaps like one they had once known, or had heard spoken about by an older generation. And she wondered if there were other people on the staff with a name, like James Doherty himself, that would be entirely familiar to anyone from this part of the world.
She decided to wait a day or two before sending her letter to the post with Patrick. Given the bad weather and the slowness with which the American letter had come, a speedy reply would hardly be expected. What she needed was a chance to have a quiet talk to John in the lunch hour on her next school morning and to see what came to her as she did her chores and sewed napkins.
The problem was, she thought, not with saying thank you properly for such an incredibly generous gift, but of finding a way to offer in return something that would reconnect these people with what they were missing, the world they had once known themselves, directly or indirectly, through story and memory. That was what she wanted to do!
Meantime, she must write to Jonathan Hancock and tell him the wonderful news. She was surprised that she hadn’t heard from him since the New Year when he’d apologised for not being able to visit Ardtur. He had indeed been in Dunfanaghy with his colleagues, as she expected, but the weather was so bad they’d agreed they must move on if they hoped to be back with their families for Christmas. He had, of course, ensured that she’d had a copy of that important letter that authorised the fishing boats and their upkeep, as soon as money could be made available.
Try as she would, having done the morning chores, she could not settle herself to sew. She washed and changed into her everyday clothes, made up the fire and moved across to open the cottage door.
She’d grown so used to the door having to be kept shut that she automatically prepared herself for an icy blast. But there was none. The wind had dropped. It was still cold and damp, but for the first time in months she saw the snow was melting. Sodden patches of grass were emerging under the hedgerows and there were now large puddles beyond the doorstep. They had not been there when Rose and Sam went off to school. Grey clouds were moving at speed across the sky and for one single moment she saw a gleam of sunlight glint and fade on the wet thatch of the Friels’ cottage down at the foot of the slope.
She shivered, but still did not move. Standing there, she thought of all the times she had stood resting in the sunshine, turning her aching shoulders towards the comfort of its warmth a
fter she’d carried in the heavy buckets of water, or creels of turf. She felt as if she had almost forgotten what spring, or summer, could be like, her mind so filled with the snow and blizzards, the storms and wind of the last long hard months.
Spring would come again, but not yet. When it did, she and Patrick would already be waiting for her father’s letter. He would go back to Dundrennan and she would stay here. By the time he returned there would be a brother, or a sister, for Rose and Sam. All being well.
It was ten years now since she had carried Sam, though there had been two miscarriages during that intervening time. But it seemed her body had not forgotten its previous experiences.
She felt perfectly easy with the changes and discomforts she now observed. She’d even managed to smile when she had to let out the waist of her better ‘school’ skirt, and she was touched by Patrick’s gentle enquiries whenever they made love. July, or early August, as far as she could calculate. But she bore in mind Bridget Delaney’s good advice: ‘Just listen, an’ the wee one will give you due warnin’ if it’s in a hurry.’
She was grateful for Bridget, for her presence, her support and her encouragement. Daniel was right. She was their school mother. With a large family of her own, now scattered across England and far beyond, she mothered both staff and children alike with her a lively and robust manner. Sharp she might be, but no one could miss her kindness.
She shivered again and knew she should go back indoors, but just then there was a brightening in the clouds. She thought for a moment there was about to be another gleam of light. She stayed where she was watching the sky, hoping it might come.
But it wasn’t sunlight that suddenly caught her eye. At the very bottom of the track, a tall, dark-clad figure, wearing a hat, had just come into view. He was striding purposefully past the Friels’ cottage and looking up the slope towards her. A few minutes later, he waved.