A Woman Undefeated (3 page)

She looked down upon her dozing sister, wondering how they were going to manage once her mother had gone to her grave. Would the farmer give Molly shelter if she managed to get her job back again? Molly wasn’t any trouble, she was gentle, trusting and loving and could probably help in some small way, little though she was.

But what was she doing, sitting there in a great depression, wallowing in uncertainty, when she should be trying to find food to make Molly well again? She got up quickly, then sat down, her head light with the sudden movement. Despondently, she muttered a prayer to be given strength to overcome all hardship.

The sound of Jack’s voice came floating into the cabin, as he passed by with his father and brother on the way to their cottage. Alice, his mother, would no doubt have a fish to cook. Home for the Haine’s family was not in a mean cabin like the rest of the hamlet. It was a small tied cottage on the boundary, still belonging to the local estate. A blessed two windowed place with a slate roof, leaving Maggie at pains to see, why they should want to uproot themselves.

Michael Haine’s job as a ghillie was a good one. The family lived well. At least they hadn’t been reliant on the potato crop and with Jack, his son, working too, there was plenty of money for bread. There had been turnips and kale aplenty in the Haines’ field, until starving marauders had helped themselves one night. Had that made their minds up for them? Were they thinking now that the place wasn’t safe?

She couldn’t understand why Jack was being so persistent in taking her with them. Did he imagine that she would leave the place where she had grown and go with him and his family to a strange and heathen land? He had no right to interfere with her future. They were of no relation and she meant to keep it that way. Let him move out if he wanted, but she’d take her chances in Killala, which was where she was meant to be.

The thought of Jack trying to arrange her future spurred her into action. If she took it slow, stopped for a rest on the way up the hill, she’d be at the farm before nightfall. Filbey, the farmer, was a good man and he would help her if he could.

She checked that both her mother and sister were sleeping, tamped down the fire with ashes, then staggered along the track that led to Ballina. She could see by the watery sun that it wouldn’t be long before dusk came, as it always came earlier at the latter
part of the year. There was the risk of landing in a peat bog, as the well worn path was easy to follow only in daylight, and Maggie shuddered to think what would happen, without a lantern to guide her back. Her stomach started gurgling, reminding her of the reason for her journey. Physically weak she may be, but her determined spirit would push her on.

She pulled herself up a hilly incline, then paused for breath as her heart began to pound with the effort and her lungs worked overtime to drag in extra air. She rested on a grassy hummock, then looked down onto the headland where tillage land ran at the back of the dwellings. Normally at this time of the year, she would have seen the potato fields mounded into drills, in readiness for the next planting. All their pits would have been filled to the top, with enough newly picked potatoes to last the families until the next lifting, if used sparingly.

But now the haulms with the parasitic fungus, that had caused the crop to putrefy in a stinking black slime, stared back at her. The cottiers had been so certain that they would fill their pits to the top again. There had been hardship the year before, when there had been what the experts had called a partial crop failure, but with hope in their hearts and many prayers, they had looked forward to a healthy crop this time.

Each cabin was built about twenty feet from the next one, giving enough space to keep a pig or a chicken run. The hamlet was enclosed by a drystone wall, at the back of which ran the track to Inishpoint, the only way for the cottiers to get to church.

It could be bitterly cold on that headland, for all its shelter of the Oweniny Hills. The north east wind blew constantly in the winter, whooshing down to Killala Bay from the Atlantic and bringing with it icy pelting rain. Then the inhabitants of the lowly dwellings would huddle by their firesides, only stirring to replenish fuel or visit their potato pit waiting for the wind to change.

Maggie dragged her eyes away from the devastation and focused on the view to her left. The village of Killala, was away in the distance, where a row of fishermen’s cottages could be seen
perched on a hill. She gazed upon a derelict tower nearby. The structure had been a lookout for invaders, centuries ago. It had been out of bounds to the cottier children, its perilous position giving cause for concern. Parents had invented tales of the place being haunted, to keep their inquisitive offspring away. The ghost of a longshipman from Norseland lived there, they said, waiting for his vessel to return.

Bernie, her brother, had once spent a chilly night within that round enclosure, as a dare by his friends. He had boasted loudly that he hadn’t been scared, because the longshipman must have gone back home!

Thinking of Bernie brought her hastily to her feet. Sitting there dreaming wasn’t going to help in anyway. It had started to drizzle and she began to feel the damp seeping through her poorly clad body as she trudged along. The thick black shawl over her thin calico bodice and long black skirt was no barrier to the elements and the boots that she wore had belonged to her smaller footed mother, causing blisters to form on her uncovered toes. Normally Maggie went barefoot, as she couldn’t abide her feet being enclosed, but her mistress was fussy about newly cleaned floors and liked her to wear boots while she worked up there.

Beyond a dense thicket nearby, lay a deep pool that was fed from a fast flowing stream. She could hear the sound of it chuckling and gurgling, as the water came gushing down the hill. This was where the children of the area would come in hot summer weather, to swim in the cool clear water, carefree and naked, posting a lookout for the parish priest in case he came wandering by.

She remembered with nostalgia, back to one summer evening when she would have been eleven or twelve. It had still been warm, when Maggie and her family finally finished their work for the day. They had been weeding between the rows of potatoes, which was back breaking and sweaty work. On impulse her mother had suggested that she and Maggie cool off in the “Giant’s Tub”, as the pool had been nicknamed.

Usually her mother tried to maintain a certain dignity, when it came to showing off her private bits to her family, but that day she had thrown caution to the wind, when she saw that there was no one around. She was like a young girl again, splashing and frolicking with Maggie, like two sisters in a bath tub.

The fun was never repeated. Maybe her mother had later thought she had done something wrong? If she had felt it was sinful to show her daughter her naked body, all that had had to change. Now Maggie washed her in cool water from the well, with Mairi shivering throughout the ordeal. With her sunken breasts and the skin of her belly, hanging in folds over her piteous frame, Mairi was glad to return to the warmth of her blanket and wished that she could be left alone. There were bugs in the cabin, the air was filled with hidden dangers and she didn’t want to feel pleasant and clean.

Maggie felt her tears begin to well, as she stopped for a moment to rest under the branches of an ancient oak tree. Tears were never far away, when she thought about the state that her family was in. Her heart felt heavy, unease began to grip her mind. What if the Filbey’s turned her away?

Across the track were a row of fine cottages. These were proper stone built ones with grey slate roofs, the building materials having been carted from Foxford Quarries. They were sturdy and attractive with whitewashed walls and lattice windows. They had been built forty years before to house the farm workers, by a previous Filbey who had compassion for the men he employed. Not that they were lived in by farmhands nowadays. All had gone, taking their families on hazardous journeys to pastures new. Only one cottage was still occupied and that was by a woman called Widow Dockerty. She had no need to earn a living, she had two sons and a small income that helped her to survive.

One of the previous occupants of the cottages was Maggie’s friend, Bridget Mulligan. Her family were the first to pack up their possessions and head for the port of Sligo, where they paid for
quarters in steerage and took a chance on returning to Ireland as millionaires! That’s what Bridget told her, as the two girls had hugged each other tearfully. The family was off to Chicago to join their Uncle Frank, who had emigrated five years before. They weren’t sure what part of the city he was living in, but they’d find him. Chicago was probably as big as Ballina and they knew most of the people in that small town.

The cottage gardens had become unkempt, with the lack of attention that had normally been given to them. All except the end one. That garden was immaculately tended, with roses and honeysuckle- fronds growing round the door. Widow Dockerty lived in that cottage, a foreigner to those parts, but always ready for a chat with Maggie on her journeys to and from the Filbeys’ farm.

Maggie stood under the tree, debating whether to continue her journey or tap on the widow’s door. She felt the need to talk and possibly be told of a way that would help her and her family to survive.

The decision was made for her, as the cottage door opened and a small slender woman, dressed in a black long sleeved gown, with her silver hair caught back into a bun at the nape of her neck, beckoned her over.

“The kettle’s just boiled and I made a lardy cake this morning,” Widow Dockerty said, as Maggie hurried into the cottage to get out of the rain.

“Must have known you were coming, Maggie, though I’m surprised to see you on such a wet day. Take that damp shawl off and put it near the fire to dry or you’ll not feel the benefit when you go out again....Muirnin, whatever is the matter? Come over and sit yourself in this nice comfy chair.”

Maggie felt overwhelmed by the widow’s kindness and felt the tears began to flow. It was good to feel weak and childlike, whilst the woman listened to her sorrowful tale.

“It’s me mammy,” Maggie managed. “Accordin’ to the priest she hasn’t got long. If I could just make her a bit more comfy......get her to eat.... I’ve done me best, the good Lord knows I have. Then Molly went down with somethin’ ..... That’s why I was passin’. I’m off to the Filbey’s, ter see if I can get some help from them.”

“There, there, Muirnin,” the widow crooned, bending over
Maggie, using her pinny which was hanging over a chair, to wipe away the tears. “Sit there and I’ll get you a drink to warm you, and you’ll eat a slice of my cake as well, my dear.”

Maggie drank from a pretty china cup a little later, feeling somewhat better than she had before. The slice of cake had been disposed of in seconds and she eyed the plate hungrily that held the rest.

“You can have some more if you want it,” said the widow, cutting another slice, after seeing the longing on her visitor’s face. “I baked it for Johnny, but there’s more than plenty and he’s not expected for a day or two.”

Johnny, Widow Dockerty’s eldest, was a sea- faring captain on the cattle run.

“The last time I saw you, you were following your father’s coffin to the grave side.” Widow Dockerty said, breaking into Maggie’s thoughts, as she briefly pictured the handsome young man that had just been spoken of.

“Was it after that your mother took ill?”

Maggie nodded dully.

“Is there anything that I can do to help you, I have a little money tucked away?”

Maggie shook her head.

“I’m hopin’ that Mistress Filbey will come up with the wages she owes me, though she seemed rather angry on the day I left. She said I was ter go to me father’s funeral and be back that evening, but it nearly killed me mammy, all that traipsing backwards and forwards when she was feeling so weak. I couldn’t just up and leave her, or leave her to look after Molly. If I can just get me wages, they’ll tide us over ‘til I can think of what next ter do.”

“Perhaps your Aunt could care for Molly, just until you’ve sorted yourself out.”

“Aunt Tess is to go and live with her sister in Sligo, though she may take Molly if I ask her to. She’s the last of father’s family now, the others left the land about two years ago.”

Maggie stood up quickly, suddenly anxious to be gone. Talk of Molly reminded her of where her duty lay. There was nothing to be gained by pouring her heart out further to Widow Dockerty, but when she reached for her boots she found that her feet had swollen from the warmth of the fire.

She began to hobble around the room, gathering up her shawl and dragging her fingers through her hair in an effort to appear more tidy. Mistress Filbey was bound to scold if she saw what she thought was an untidy girl.

“Oh, it’s goin’ ter be dark before I know it,” Maggie cried frantically. “I’ve stayed too long. Forgive me fer burdening you with me troubles. I’ll have ter go. Oh, damn these boots.”

She fled from the cottage door, barefoot. Her cheeks felt red as she realised that she had sworn. The widow hurried after the girl, shouting that she must return to borrow a lantern later. From the look of the clouds and the gathering gloom, darkness wouldn’t be long. Then she went indoors, deciding to make a start on a nourishing stew that she could send back with Maggie for the invalids. She would be certain to stop by to collect the lantern, as the path to Killala could be treacherous at night.