A Sister’s Promise

She knew her uncle would be there to meet them with a horse and cart, to save them having to take the train the last step of the way. Molly was so travel worn and weary that she was immensely glad when she saw the man waiting for them, the shaggy-footed horse standing patiently between the shafts of the farm cart.

Tom knew he would never forget that meeting. It was like his sister Nuala had returned to him, but never had he seen his sister so disheartened and sad, nor her eyes with blue smudges beneath them and her face bleached white. He felt suddenly very sorry for the girl and went towards her with a smile.

‘Welcome to Ireland, Molly,’ he said, taking her limp hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘It is a pity that we are not meeting under happier circumstances. I was sorry to hear about the death of your parents and I’m sure you will miss them very much.’

Molly’s eyes filled with tears at her uncle’s words and the compassion in his face, and she knew that he was the antithesis of his mother.

Then Biddy, watching this scene, commented sarcastically, ‘Very touching. Now stop your stupid blethering, can’t you, and get this luggage into the cart.’

Molly saw the sag of her uncle’s shoulders at his mother’s words. ‘And welcome home to you too, Mammy,’ he said with a sigh, throwing up the bags and cases as he did so. He helped his mother up on to the seat beside him and then he turned to Molly with a smile. ‘Now you,’ he said, lifting her with ease. ‘And Dobbin here will have us home in a jiffy.’

It wasn’t quite a jiffy, for the horse wasn’t built for speed, but Molly took the opportunity to look around her. Once outside of the town, most of the farmhouses seemed to be white, squat, single-storey dwellings, with thick dark yellow roofs, and all the protruding chimneys had smoke curling upwards from them.

‘That’s your typical Irish cottage,’ Tom said, seeing Molly’s preoccupation.

‘Mom described them to me,’ Molly said, ‘but I’ve never see roofs like those. We had grey slate.’

Tom smiled. ‘That’s called thatch, Molly,’ he said. ‘It’s made of flax that we grow in the fields and then weave it together.’

They passed small towns and villages, and Molly noted the names of them. Springtown was the first, and then Burnfoot. It was as they neared a place called Fahan that Tom said, ‘Did your mammy tell you much about this place?’

‘Some,’ Molly said. ‘I mean, I knew she lived near Lough Swilly and that it was a saltwater lough because it fed out to the sea. In Birmingham most people have never seen the sea. It is just too far away. When we were on the boat was the first time I had seen it and then I was too sick to take in the expanse of it really.’

She stopped and then went on more hesitantly, ‘I once asked Mom if she missed the place, because she always said how beautiful it was, but she said that it was a funny thing but seldom does a person really value where they are born and reared. Anyway, she always said people were more important than places.’

Tom, noting Molly’s exhausted face and her eyes glittering with tears, said, ‘Not long now, at any rate. Buncrana is next, but I will skirt the town this evening because the farm is beyond it in a district called Cockhill, and we will pass St Mary’s, the Catholic church, this way.’

St Mary’s was quite an impressive place, though it wasn’t that large. It was made of stone and had a high and ornate belfry to the front of it. The church was approached through a wrought-iron gate and along a gravel path with graves either side.

‘Why was the church built so far out of Buncrana?’ Molly asked as they passed it. ‘It seems silly.’

‘That was because at the time when St Mary’s was built, the English said all Catholic churches had to be built at least a mile outside the town or village, and England controlled Ireland then,’ Tom told her.

‘That was what the Troubles were over that Mom spoke of?’ Molly said. ‘To get rid of English rule.’

‘Aye,’ Tom said, ‘that was it right enough. Anyway, while the English could tell the Catholic Church where to put the building, they couldn’t tell them what to put in it. In that church, above the altar is the most amazing picture of the Nativity painted by an Italian artist who was specially commissioned. You’ll see it on Sunday and be able to judge for yourself how lovely it is.’

They went on a little way past the church, past hedges bordering the fields, and then the horse determinedly turned into a narrow lane almost, Molly noticed, without her uncle needing to touch the reins at all.

‘Old Dobbin knows the way home, all right,’ Tom remarked, seeing her noticing. ‘I really think he could do it blindfold.’

Molly looked about her with more interest, noting that the narrow lane was just wide enough for the cart to pass down with thick hawthorn hedges in both sides. She could see beyond the hedges because of the height of the cart seat. Fields stretched for miles, some cultivated, others with cows in them, and some of these were milling around the five-barred gate set into the hedge.

‘Waiting to be milked,’ Tom explained with a nod. ‘Bit early yet, though.’

Molly looked at the cows’ distended udders and, though she knew that was where milk came from, because her mother had told her, she would have preferred to get it from the Co-op milkman.

The lane led to a cobbled yard that seemed full of pecking chickens. Tom drew the horse to a halt in front of a thatched whitewashed cottage with the dark red door that looked as if it opened in two halves.

‘This is it,’ he said to Molly, hauling the luggage from the cart. ‘What do you think?’

Before Molly was able to reply, two black and white dogs, which Tom greeted as Skip and Fly, came to meet them, barking a welcome. Molly was not used to animals, for she and Kevin had had no pets, and the dogs unnerved her a little.

‘They’re saying hallo just,’ Tom said reassuringly, seeing that Molly was a little edgy. ‘Let them sniff your hand and then they’ll know you are a friend.’

Molly would rather not have done any such thing, but she knew that dogs were an important part of any farm and she would have to get used to them. So she extended her hand and let the dogs sniff. When she met her grandmother’s malevolent gaze, she said in a voice she willed not to shake, ‘My mother was always saying that what can’t be cured must be endured and I suppose that is what she would think about this situation. I haven’t chosen to come here, but now I have arrived, I suppose I will like it well enough in time.’

She saw her grandmother seemed almost disappointed, but Tom clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Well said, young Molly. Come away in and see the place.’

In all her life, Molly had never seen anything quite like it. She stepped into a low room, the flagged floor covered with rugs. To her left was a door that she learned later housed the two bedrooms, hers first and then beyond that Tom’s. Next to a dresser displaying plates and bowls and cups was a large bin that she was to learn was where the oaten meal was stored. A cupboard and a sideboard stood against the back wall next to a heavily curtained area that Tom told her closed off the bed her grandmother slept in.

To her right was a stool with one bucket of water standing on it and one bucket of water beneath it. There were no taps here and all water had to be fetched from the spring well halfway up the lane, which Tom had pointed out to her as they passed. Beside that was a large scrubbed wooden table with chairs grouped around it.

‘That doesn’t look very comfy,’ Molly said, pointing to the wooden bench seat bedecked with cushions and set beneath the window.

‘That’s a settle,’ Tom said. ‘It opens to a bed that the children can sleep in when the house is full. I have used it a time or two, but you are right, it is very uncomfortable to sit on. The easy chairs before the fire are better.’

There were two, and when Tom said, ‘We’ll have to think about getting another for you,’ Biddy snapped, ‘You won’t need to bother. I aim to see to it that that girl isn’t going to have much time for sitting resting herself and for the times she is allowed to sit, a creepie will do her.’

‘A creepie is way too low for her, Mammy,’ Tom said. A creepie, Molly was to learn, was a very low seat made of bog oak. ‘And if you want Molly to work hard, then she has to have time to rest too. I have an easy chair in my room and as it is only to put my clothes on, a wooden kitchen chair will do the job well enough.’ And at this he gave Molly a wink.

‘Molly and I understand each other,’ Biddy said with a sardonic smile. ‘She knows that if she doesn’t work effectively, then she doesn’t eat – and thinking of eating, I am famished. The meal on the boat I have brought back up. What have you in?’

‘I bought ham and tomatoes in the town,’ Tom said. ‘And I have the potatoes scrubbed and in the pot, ready to be put on.’

‘Well, put them on. What are you waiting for?’ Biddy snapped, and Molly wondered how the potatoes were to be cooked, because she had seen no cooker. Tom, however, went towards the open fire and pulled out a bracket with hooks on of different lengths. He hung the black pot he had ready on one of these hooks before giving the fire a poke and throwing something on it that looked like little more than lumps of dirt.

When her grandmother saw Molly staring, she shrieked, ‘Don’t just stand there, girl. I told you this was no rest cure. Away to the room and take off your coat, then lay the table at the very least.’

It was one of the most uncomfortable meals that Molly had endured. While eating it, Biddy regaled Tom with tales about Birmingham. She hadn’t a good word to say about it, and fairly ripped into the character of Molly’s parents and her grandfather. Many times, Molly was going to leap to the defence of those she loved, but the first time she opened her mouth to do this, she felt the pressure of Tom’s foot on hers and when she looked up quizzically, he made an almost imperceptible shake of his head. So she let her grandmother’s words wash over her, because really she was too tired to argue.

After the meal, Tom fetched the chair from his room as he had said he would, then said, ‘Right, that’s that, then. Now, I’ll bring the cows in for milking.’

‘Wait,’ said Biddy. ‘Molly will go with you.’

Both Molly and Tom looked at Biddy as if they couldn’t believe their ears. Molly was so weary she was having trouble functioning and she had been wondering how soon she would be allowed to go to bed, but now this. She couldn’t do this. She barely knew one end of a cow from the other and hadn’t dreamed that milking them would be part of her duties.

Tom had no idea of Molly’s rising panic, but he had noted her exhausted state and said. ‘There is no need for this, Mammy. I don’t need anyone to help me. Haven’t I been doing it alone for a fair few years anyway?’

‘Aye, but there is no need for you to do it alone now. You have help.’

‘Can’t you see the child is worn out?’ Tom said. ‘She has been travelling all the day.’

‘I have told Molly there is no place for passengers on a farm, and the sooner she is made aware of this, the better it will be for everybody,’ Biddy said with some satisfaction.

Molly wanted to say she had never had any desire to milk a cow and didn’t particularly want to learn either, but she had already decided that she would show no weakness in front of this woman. So, turning to Tom, she said, ‘You will have to show me how it is done.’

Biddy may have been disappointed with Molly’s response, but Tom was full of admiration. ‘There is nothing to it,’ he said. ‘You’ll pick it up in no time. Let’s whistle up the dogs to help bring them down.’