A Sister’s Promise

‘Yeah,’ Molly said. ‘I agree with everything you say and, knowing the kind of woman your mother is, how are you going to get my grandmother to allow me to go to Cathy McEvoy’s on Sunday? If I thought it was actually going to happen then I would be excited, for all it’s days away, but every time I think of it my stomach curls up in knots because I know she will try to spoil it.’

Tom smiled. ‘Leave Mammy to me and you get just as excited as you want to be.’

‘That, of course, is if I survive till then,’ Molly said grimly, handing her uncle another bucket of milk.

‘There is that to consider too,’ Tom commented laconically.

When Molly opened her eyes the next morning, she thought her survival might be in doubt, for there wasn’t one bit of her that didn’t hurt in some way. When she got to her feet her taut muscles throbbed in protest but she suppressed the groan she would have liked to give voice to, lest her grandmother hear it. She dressed with difficulty and then went stiffly from the room to see to the fire.

When the milking was done and the breakfast eaten and tidied away, Biddy said, ‘Now I hope that you are feeling good and strong, Molly, for you have to churn for butter today.’

Molly just stared at her and so did Tom. The butter was churned on Thursdays. Molly’s arms still ached from the washing and ironing of the day before, and her body recoiled at the thought of more pain to come. However, when she looked into the old woman’s eyes and saw that she was enjoying her discomfort, she straightened her aching back, met her gaze levelly and silenced Tom, about to protest, with a small shake of her head.

Within minutes of starting the churning, the stabbing pains began, running from both shoulders to her fingertips. The ache between her shoulder blades grew in intensity, as did the one in her back, until even her legs were trembling with the effort of keeping going, up and down, up and down. Molly wanted to lie on the floor and weep, but she bit her lip to prevent any cry escaping her.

Biddy watched her, expecting that any minute she would say that she couldn’t go on, beg to be excused. Then she would really make her suffer.

Molly herself didn’t know what kept her upright and her arms moving as if of their own volition, but she went on and on, like some sort of machine.

When, in the end, Biddy tried to take the paddle from Molly she had to almost wrest it from her fists closed over it, and then Molly’s pain-glazed eyes met those of her grandmother before she sank to the floor in a faint, just as Tom came in the door.

Concern for his niece threw caution to the wind as he fixed his mother with a glare, demanding, ‘What have you done with her now, you malicious old witch?’ He crossed the room as he spoke and lifted Molly into his arms with ease.

‘Kindly don’t speak to me in that way,’ Biddy said. ‘And for your information, I did nothing to her. I had just taken the paddle from her when she collapsed.’

‘When you tried to work her half to death, you mean?’ Tom said contemptuously, kicking open Molly’s bedroom door as he spoke. He laid her unconscious form on the bed, where he took her small, limp hands between his own, rough and calloused though they were, and rubbed at them solicitously as he said, ‘Well, there is to be no more of it – not today at least, and not at all until she is fully recovered.’

‘And who, pray, is to do all the jobs around here?’

‘I should imagine the same one who did them before,’ Tom said. ‘Tell me, Mammy, when did you lose the power of your arms and legs, because since Molly first came here you have scarcely lifted a finger?’

‘I can’t do everything. I’m not as young as I was,’ Biddy said.

‘I know that,’ Tom said. ‘And I’m sure Molly would help you, but not this way, working her into the ground.’

Biddy was incensed, but at that moment Molly eyelids fluttered open. She was at first alarmed to find herself in bed in the middle of the day and her uncle and grandmother standing over her. She cast her mind back to the events of that morning, but could only remember the interminable churning.

‘What happened?’

‘You fainted,’ Tom told her. ‘From exhaustion, I would think, and so I want you to stay in bed today at least.’

Molly knew, though, who wielded the power in that house and so her eyes sought her grandmother’s, who after a nudge from her son, said grudgingly, ‘I suppose the one day would do no harm, as long as you don’t make a habit of it.’

Inside, Biddy’s mind was saying something entirely different. It was not to be borne, her son telling her what to do and criticising the way she was bringing up her granddaughter, when all she was doing was stopping her going the same way as her mother.

Molly felt quite strange when she woke the next morning and more rested than she had ever been since she had arrived at the house. She slipped quickly out of bed. Tom had already gone out to attend to the cows and, unusually, her grandmother was up. Immediately Molly felt flutters of nervousness begin in her stomach.

‘So,’ said Biddy sarcastically, ‘you have decided to arise from your bed today, have you?’

‘As you can see,’ Molly said, and saw Biddy nip her lip in annoyance at the way she had spoken to her.

‘Don’t think that you can get away with that tack every few days either,’ Biddy said. ‘I will not have you slacking.’

Molly stood up from the fire she had been poking into life and feeding with turf and said, ‘I have seldom had a free moment since I stepped over the threshold of this house. I do my share and more.’

The blow knocked her against the fireplace and this was followed by a hefty slap across her face as Biddy hissed, ‘You watch how you talk to me, girl. Your uncle is not here to fight your corner now, and I will knock that temper out of you if it is the last thing I do.’

Without a word, Molly hung the kettle above the fire and walked across the room. Once there, she looked back at her grandmother and said, ‘Pity the same thing wasn’t done to you,’ before escaping to the cowshed.

Her grandmother didn’t follow her and Molly imagined that was partly because Tom would be there. She knew, though, that Biddy wouldn’t forget and that she herself would probably pay dearly for that last remark. But she didn’t care. It had been worth it to see the look on her grandmother’s face.

She knew too that she couldn’t go running to Tom with a list of complaints every five minutes. For one thing, he would hate it, and for another, she could guess then her grandmother’s punishment, when Tom wasn’t around, would probably be worse, for she would be hitting out at him too, through her. So she said nothing about the altercation that morning and was glad the cowshed was dim enough to hide her cheek, which was stinging so much she knew it would be scarlet.

Molly’s assessment was right: the more Tom attempted to stick up for her, the greater was Biddy’s anger and subsequent retribution when they were alone.

But by Friday evening something else was playing on Molly’s mind, and that was the fact that she had had no reply to either of the letters she had sent. She never saw the postman for he always came when she and Tom were in the cowshed and sometimes when they went in for breakfast the post would be there on the table. It was mainly catalogues for feed stuffs or farm equipment, and Molly had also seen a letter from Joe in America.

‘I just can’t understand it,’ she said to Tom as they were at the evening milking. ‘I mean, they’d know I would be anxious for news of them. I expected an answer by return.’

Tom agreed. ‘I did think they would have written back by now,’ he said. ‘I caught the post last Saturday so, all things being equal, they would have received the letters on Monday, Tuesday at the latest. But then maybe we are being too hasty. Maybe they will come tomorrow, or early next week. Have you asked Mammy if any post has come for you?’

‘I speak to your mother as little as possible, Uncle Tom. You know that,’ Molly said. ‘Anyway, if she had any letters for me, wouldn’t she have told me, given them to me?’