A Woman Undefeated (2 page)

He had been a good man, a good husband and father. He hardly ever touched the drink, not like some of the men in the area, when sometimes it could be days before their wives would see them again. But that had been in the days before the famine came. Not many could afford to frequent a tavern now.

Her Pa had worked hard for his family, wresting a living from the ungrateful earth, or fishing from the small boat that belonged cooperatively to the people of Killala, or sold on some of their
produce at the market and helped his neighbours when they needed a hand.

Maggie looked down sadly at Mairi, her mother. The woman lay on her palliasse waiting for death to release her from a cruel and heartbreaking world. She’d been a clean living and God fearing woman, who had only lived for her husband and family. Each Sunday she’d insisted that they all made the hazardous trek to Inishpoint across the headland, where they worshipped in a little church overlooking the dark Atlantic. Waves crashed onto the shore below, leaving seaweed and debris in its wake and fascinating them all, as they picked their way carefully along the narrow coastal path.

In those days Bernie, Maggie’s young brother had been with them. He had always been a happy boisterous child, constantly getting up to mischief and setting Mairi’s heart across her, when he ran too near the cliff edge. The cliff was dangerously eroded due to centuries of battering by the sea. They would attend Mass with the other “cottiers”, peasants renting small pieces of land. The staff from the Big House and farmers who were tenants on acreage belonging to the local landlord worshipped alongside them, all united in the purpose of worshipping the God who had given them their living and their homes. After church they’d wend their way back home for Sunday dinner, where tatties roasted slowly in pig fat and a rabbit simmered gently in the big pot hanging over the fire.

Mairi began to stir, which brought her daughter back swiftly from her happy memories. She looked upon Maggie with hollow shadowed eyes.

“Will you get me some water, child?” she said with some difficulty, in a voice so low that her daughter had to bend closer to hear her.

Maggie gave her a drop of water from the stone pitcher.

“Only a little now, Mammy. Just to dampen yer throat, too much will start yer belly aching again.”

“Me belly’s aching already, Maggie,” Mairi replied, a rueful smile playing on her cracked and swollen lips. Then trying to prop
herself up on one elbow, she tried to see how Molly was, who was still sleeping somewhat fitfully nearby.

“Molly’s doing fine now, Mammy. Yer to lie back, yer need yer strength. I’m here to see to me sister if she needs me.”

“Yer a good girl, Maggie,” her mother said. “I couldn’t ’ave wished for a better daughter, but I’ll not be getting up from this bed again, I’ll soon be joinin’ yer Pa.”

“Hush, Mammy, don’t speak like that. You’re sure to get better, I promise.”

Maggie’s words were meant to be comforting, but her heart felt full of despair.

Mairi sank back thankfully onto her straw filled palliasse. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she went to join her husband in Heaven. She wasn’t afraid of death, she welcomed it. Just the thought of seeing Pat’s face again made her beating heart race. She knew she was being selfish, she should make an effort, try to eat, or her daughters would be left without her. But her thoughts were constantly with him, as she drifted in and out of consciousness. He was waiting, she could feel his presence. He was waiting to guide her to a pain free place.

Did Pat remember when she had been a young maid in Sligo? In the days when they’d been carefree, but he’d had itchy feet and an urge to see the world. He’d been good looking, a man any girl could fall for and follow to the ends of the earth. He was seventeen and had left his parents’ land to seek out pastures new. The work on the land was just enough for his Pa and a younger brother, so his aim was a passage to one of the new colonies. But first he had to work to get some money for his fare. Any odd job he could set his hands to.

Seeing Mairi was Pat’s downfall. He spied her as she scurried through her master’s kitchen with her box of polishes and cloths. He looked up from where he was fixing a wobbly table leg and his heart was smitten. Pat thought she was the most beautiful colleen he had ever seen. One look at her pink rosy cheeks and her warm velvety eyes and he forgot his reason for being there. Mairi was
impressed by Pat’s handsome looks and boyish smile and decided to throw her lot in with this charming stranger. They were married three months later, from her parents’ home in Sligo.

The couple still could have gone to the Americas if Mairi had been willing, but she was a home loving girl and from what she had heard about his home in Killala, it sounded much like what she had been used to before. She was welcomed heartily into Pat’s family, especially as their marriage had brought the wandering son home. His father spoke up for Pat to the landlord’s bailiff, so a turf cabin was built on an acre of land. The neighbours brought gifts: a piglet, a chicken and a barrel of seed potatoes to give the newly weds a good start.

They lived quite well. The pig was, in fact, a sow, and was always getting in the family way by the trotter from next door. Pat was a good shot with his father’s gun and game was prolific; there was also a surplus of wheat in Ireland that kept flour prices low.

Life was good and Pat was happy to have settled down.

Mairi gave birth to Maggie in 1830, followed by the birth of Bernard in 1832. Then, Mairi remembered sadly, things started to go badly wrong. Another fine boy was delivered a year later, but three months on he died. There seemed to be no reason for his death. She had put him in the little wooden cot that Pat had made, when Maggie was born and the next morning when the family awoke, the poor little soul had gone. Her mother-in-law had said that it was just the will of God. Perhaps there was a shortage of cherubs in Heaven and the boy had been called to help out up there!

Mairi was not comforted by the thought. She believed it was the foul air in the cabin that had killed him, now that there were five people sharing and no window to let in fresh air.

From that day on, she kept Pat at bay when the urge to make babies came upon him.

The pain of losing a child decided her against being caught again. If it meant roasting in Hell for eternity, she wasn’t going to go through all that pain again. Then as time passed by and she saw
that Maggie and Bernie were growing into fine and healthy children, she welcomed Pat back to share her palliasse. A year later Mairi gave birth to twin girls, Collina and Bridie.

They wondered what on earth they had ever done to deserve the next tragedy. The family had tramped home in the pouring rain from their weekly trip to Mass. Both babies were well wrapped up, one in Mairi’s shawl, the other in Pat’s oilskin, but within a day of each other, two small souls had gone. She could still remember the tearing pain in her heart, as the two little coffins were lowered into the grave, on top of the coffin that held her tiny boy. Their loss affected her deeply. She lost weight and her pink cheeks were replaced with a pallor, her beautiful chestnut tresses hung limply around her shoulders and her eyes took on the look of deep despair.

Mairi felt guilty now, as she thought back to how she had put all the blame on Pat. She had blamed him for giving her children that so easily died; blamed him for his attitude that those dear little children could be easily replaced, if she didn’t freeze in his arms when he came upon her. Then blamed him again when he gave her too much poteen at that ceilidh dance they had gone to. He had taken advantage of her befuddled state, so that she found to her horror she was expecting again. It had been the final straw. Mairi had raged at Pat, then wouldn’t speak to him for days.

Now that he had gone, she wished that she had told him that she had been glad when little Molly had been placed into her arms. There had been so many tragedies in their marriage, so few good times. Now she longed to be with Pat again, to tell him how much she had cared. A tear trickled down her thin cheek and she whispered, “T’will soon be time.”

Maggie was doing her best to keep her small family together. She constantly prayed for a miracle. A miracle that would save her country from the cruel ravage of famine; or a miracle to bring her mother back from the brink of death: or a miracle that would bring her brother, Bernie, back home to Killala as he was needed so desperately.

He had run away to sea six months before, and Maggie blamed him for her Pa dying the way he had. It was all Bernie’s fault and she felt bitter. Her brother should have been there, facing up to his responsibilities.

Bernie had got a bee in his bonnet about becoming a sailor and traveling the seven seas. He had listened with growing excitement, as his Pa had told him tales of the beautiful clipper ships that sailed from the port of Sligo. He was green with envy when he heard that his Pa had almost sailed on one, to take him to a new life in the Americas. He couldn’t believe that his father had wasted his opportunity, preferring to settle in the back of beyond, boring and predictable, living a quiet life and raising another generation there. The nearest Bernie had got to sailing on the ocean was when a neighbour, “Old Joe”, had taken him up the River Moy in a fishing boat. They had touched the Atlantic as they rounded Inishpoint and Bernie’s heart had beaten madly, when Joe told him that if they sailed and sailed for a thousand miles across the vast and turbulent ocean, that they would reach the America’s. A land that was there for the taking, where riches could be made by pioneers.

After a heated argument with his father one night, when Bernie asserted that at fourteen he was old enough to leave home, the boy had gone. He had sneaked out of the cabin door at night while the family lay sleeping. Mairi had worried and worried, so much so that Pat had thought her mind was becoming unhinged, so he tramped through pouring rain and hostile countryside, over damp peat land and boggy marsh, to look for their son. It took him three days to make it to Sligo. A fool’s errand. His inquiries came to nothing. There were many young boys begging to be taken on by the packet steam companies. They were two a penny. Ocean life was far better than the poverty they had at home.

Pat returned to Killala a stricken man. He had lost his only son and for good measure he had caught a severe chill. The fever raged for many days, sending Mairi demented, as she treated him with her potions and kept vigil at his bed. Pat recovered, but was never
strong again. For his family’s sake he forced himself to plant a few rows of potatoes, but the work had nearly broken him and he took to his bed again.

Maggie was not at home at that time. She had been given the job of kitchen maid and general servant at the Filbey farm which was a mile up the track, near Ballalina. She was worked hard, but she ate well. Though the potato yield had been affected there too, it was not the farmer’s main crop. He made his money from the barley he grew, which was sent to feed the people of England.

Home in Killala was like any other in the hamlet, a windowless dwelling made of turf blocks, small and mean, not airy and spacious like the Filbey farm. It had large hole in the sod roof that let the smoke from the fire through. The floor was made of hard packed earth and a rug that Mairi had once woven, which was worn thin with age. The fireplace was the focal point of the cabin. Built into a deep alcove at the far end of the construction, it had wooden beams supporting an arch. Baked earth served as a hearth and upon it sat a primitive fire. Above this, dangling from an iron contraption knocked into the earth, was a heavy cooking pot suspended by smoke blackened chains. Nearby sat a big iron kettle that could also be suspended over the peat block fire.

The family slept on palliasses stuffed with straw, which in the daytime were neatly stacked to give more room for moving around. In the evening they were dragged out and positioned near the fire. It had been Pat’s job to keep the straw of the palliasses free from bugs, by changing it regularly. Now the job had fallen to Maggie and as she sat by her mother’s side, she could hear the whisper of insects creeping.

Her stomach began to rumble loudly, but she knew that there was nothing left in the place to eat. Her last meal, if you didn’t count a taste of the broth from Jack’s mother, had been eaten the day before, when she had stewed a bunch of nettle leaves that she had found growing near the cabin door. Drinking water filled her belly, but she couldn’t be troubled to reach for the jar.

Maggie wondered idly if she should stir herself, maybe make
it up the hill to the Filbey’s farm? Her legs, though, were feeling wobbly and her eyes kept closing, as if her body wanted to shut itself down. She couldn’t be sure of a welcome. There’d been no quarter given, when she’d begged time off from the mistress, after Pat had been put in his grave. She’d been told to consider where her duty lay, just follow the coffin and be back for milking time. Perhaps she’d been missed, perhaps Mistress Filbey would show her some mercy, give a little food, or pay her the wages that she was still owed.

Maggie’s sister began to murmur anxiously, her tiny face crumpling in dismay.

“Want to go, Maggie. I nearly done it, but I know it will make you cross if I do.”

“Don’t worry little one, I’ll help yer over,” Maggie replied, relieved that her sister had woken and was able to speak. A stone pot was near at hand for use by the two invalids and with great effort, Molly managed to sit herself upon it.

Maggie began to feel guilty as she looked at the state of her sister. Her long hair was matted from lying in her cot for days and her calico bed gown was twisted and dirty, but to keep her clean meant walking to the well to fetch more water. Something that Maggie hadn’t had the energy to do.

Maggie shivered as she tucked her sister back under the thin covering of an old shawl, another possession that had grown sparse and worn with age. The fire was smouldering, giving little warmth, and smoke caused no doubt by the earlier wind that had got up, was whirling around the hole in the roof. She reflected that Jack would be a fool, if he attempted to put to sea before the weather settled.