A Woman Undefeated (5 page)

“I wish you weren’t going, Mistress Filbey. What am I goin’ ter do when you’ve gone? Where are yer goin’ anyway?”

Maggie asked politely, not really interested in the answer, because now the mistress had said their boxes were going to Sligo, she was certainly going a long way away.

The woman’s answer was given huffily, giving Maggie the idea that she felt it wasn’t any of her business.

“We are staying with Sara, Filbey’s cousin in Sligo, just until our ship sails. We need all the money we can raise for our passage to Australia, though why he wants to go to some God forsaken place, full of convicts, murderers and fiends, I just don’t know. What’s wrong with the Americas, I keep asking? It’s not that far away, a few weeks at the most. But no, he wants us to travel to the other side of the world, six months in some tub of a boat, then grab some land and try to ape the gentry. He’s in his fifties, for heavens sake and I’m not so far behind him.”

She sank down onto the edge of the bed, put her face in her hands and began to cry.

Maggie felt hot with embarrassment. Her mistress breaking down before her. This proud, no nonsense woman, a hard, determined person who had never shown emotion of this kind to her before! She had seen her anger, felt the cold silences, even felt a cuff around her head if the Mistress had been in a bad mood.

But she waited silently, bereft of any pity, until the woman had a grip on herself again. At least she was getting away from here, at least she had plans for the future. She was going away with boxes of possessions, and with chicken in her belly.

The Mistress wiped her eyes with a delicate lace handkerchief she produced from a fold in her skirt. Maggie could see that she was annoyed with herself for breaking down in front of an audience, but as she was never going to set eyes on her servant again, did it really matter now?

She continued to speak, in a plaintive voice.

“Do you know how much they are asking for travel in steerage? Ten pounds. That’s for each of us and on top of that we have to pay extra for our water and food! Well, if Filbey doesn’t raise anymore money today, we’ll have to borrow it from his cousin. She did well for herself marrying a moneylender, best kind of person to be married to in these troubled times! I’m scared to death when I think of the journey. We’ve worked this farm for
nearly twenty years, barely making a living. The landlord’s rent has always been a trouble to find and we’ve suffered too with the blight, having to pay for feed for the animals......” Her eyes began to fill up with tears again.

“We’ve got to leave this place and take our chances in a world that we know nothing of. Who’s to say that we’ll even get there, with that great rolling ocean that goes on forever. We’ll probably end up at the bottom of the sea with the fishes and the mermaids. Better to die at home in poverty, than end up in a watery grave!”

Maggie, as she listened, began to lose her patience. Watery grave or not, at least the Filbey’s had the means to pay for their passage and time was running out. There was a large harvest moon showing clearly through the bedroom window and it didn’t look as if she was going to get a penny piece from the wages she was owed. There was no food in the farmhouse, so she wasn’t going to get even a bite of the left over chicken. So why was she standing there, having to put up with the mistress feeling sorry for herself? She decided to ask for assistance one more time and then she was leaving.

“Have you got any old clothes then? Perhaps I can sell them to the shop in Ballina?”

The Mistress answered sharply.

“All the clothes I’ve got, are either on my back or in the sea chest, Maggie. Why don’t you ask for help from that friend of yours in the cottages? You’ve always run in that direction before.”

“I don’t like to ask her,” Maggie replied defensively. “She’s done me enough favours and I don’t want to ask her for any more.”

“No, but you’ll come pestering me, not thinking how good I’ve been to you over these past few months. Your family would not have survived without the food you used to take home from here and that’s what I said you could have. Lord knows what else you’ve smuggled out of here!”

She glanced at Maggie quickly, after she had made that nasty remark. She knew it had been uncalled for, as her servant had been
an honest girl. The tension between them rose, with Maggie doing her best to curb her tongue.

Then a noise from below stopped them from saying what they were thinking.

“It’s Farmer Filbey,” the Mistress whispered quickly. “Mustn’t let him catch me weeping. He’s full of excitement and looking forward to his new life! Thinks I share in his quest for adventure. Downstairs with you Maggie and don’t you dare let on!”

They were greeted by the small, stockily built farmer, who nodded to Maggie, as if she was still working at the place.

“Colooney says he’ll give me four sovereigns, Bessie. I didn’t think I’d get so much. He must have taken pity on me. He said he wants to try the horse out before he gives me any money, so he’s offered to drive us in the cart to Sligo. That solves our transport problem. I told you things would be all right.”

Colooney, was also a tenant farmer renting his land from the same landlord. Unlike Filbey, he felt no need to quit the area, his family having been farmers for generations, used to facing ups and downs in fortune. They had got by when the potato blight hit in 1831, diversifying into buying up the possessions of those who were on their uppers, selling at inflated prices to the dwellers of the nearby towns.

Filbey looked at Maggie as he finished his tale, as if he suddenly wondered why she was standing there?

“Have yer come to say goodbye?” he asked, the light of happiness shining from his eyes “You’ve left it a bit late though, haven’t you? Did the Missis tell you where we’re going to go?”

His smile grew broad when Maggie nodded.

“A nice long sea voyage, plenty of rest, then ready to take up the tools again in the far blue yonder. Have yer got anything to eat, Bessie, my love? My belly’s fairly rumbling!”

He turned to his wife expectantly, then asked if Maggie would like to share a meal with them?

She could see from the frown on the Mistress’s face that she wasn’t welcome. The woman obviously had food tucked away, but
she wasn’t going to share her last crumbs with a servant.

“No, I’m just on me way, thought I’d come up to say goodbye”, she muttered, feeling despair that, after all her effort, she was going to leave empty handed.

“You must have loved working here then, for you to trail all this way in the pouring rain just to say goodbye to us. Was it the land agent who told yer we were leavin’? Oh no, Maggie.......!”

Filbey slapped his forehead with his hand,

“I’m sorry Maggie, I’d forgotten. Yer daddy, yer went home te bury yer dad.”

The farmer came over to where she was standing and put his arm around her shoulder.

“It won’t be easy for yer, now we’re going and what with him passing. How are yer managing Maggie? Yer won’t have any money coming in.”

“That’s why she’s here,” his wife chimed in. “Thinks we owe her wages. She’s not come all this way ter say goodbye.”

“And do we owe her wages, Bessie? Because if we do we must pay all our debts before we leave.”

“We don’t owe the girl a thing. Anyway, it’s taken all your time pestering folk to buy up our possessions, without us worrying about what we can do to help a servant girl. For God’s sake, Filbey, we’ve got to think how we’re going to manage. This money you’ve got us has to last a long time!”

“Perhaps we can help Maggie, in some small way?” came back his gentle reply.

He sat back down at the kitchen table, with silence hanging between them. Maggie fought back tears at the farmer’s kindly sympathy, but she could see that his wife was annoyed that he wasn’t taking her side.

“Me mammy’s dying as well.”

Maggie decided to give it one last try.

“She can’t cope now me daddy’s gone. After his funeral she took to her bed and all she is takin’ is water. She doesn’t want any food. And Molly’s been ill. She got the fever, but she’s better now and
managing to take a little soup. The agent said we’ll have to go, now that me daddy has gone and there’s no one to see to the rent. I won’t be able to pay it ‘cos you’re leavin’, so I’ll have no wages, will I?”

Maggie looked at the farmer expectantly, hoping that perhaps he could produce a magic wand.

“Oh, Maggie. Like I said, if we could help in anyway we would do so, but there’s no point in keeping the farm on. We’ve been having problems finding the rent as well, even our barley yield brought us little this time. There’s been a glut of it, so prices have fallen and you don’t need me to tell you that our potato crop has failed. No,” he shrugged his shoulders helplessly, “might as well do what others are doing and get out while we’ve still got strength in our limbs.”

He sat looking thoughtful, while his wife busied herself polishing the table angrily, no doubt thinking that precious time was being wasted on her ex-servant. Time that they needed for finishing off their packing for an early start the next day.

“I’ve got it!,” he suddenly shouted, making them jump at his words. “Bessie, what if we were to take Molly along? One less problem for Maggie and a nice addition to our family. What do you say to that? Bessie? Maggie? Would you agree?”

Maggie gaped at the farmer in shock at his words, but his wife suddenly had a huge smile on her face.

“Oh, Filbey!” she said. “That would be wonderful, a new life with our own little girl. What a perfect solution to Maggie’s problems.”

She turned a radiant face in Maggie’s direction, but could see from her expression that she wasn’t very keen on the idea. Once, in a moment of confidence, she had told Maggie that she had always wanted a family, but no babies had arrived for her and the farmer. After a few years she had given up hankering for what she couldn’t have. She would be seeing this now as a chance to bring up little Molly. She had met the child once, a pretty, angel faced little dote.

“Let Maggie speak first, Bessie,” Filbey’s face had taken on a
stern look. “Maybe it’s not what she wants. It’s only a suggestion, Maggie, but you know if we take her with us she’ll want for nothing. We can promise she would have the best of care.”

“Yeah, I know she would be treated well by both of you,” Maggie said, gritting her teeth, thinking that the Mistress could go to Hell in a handcart before she’d hand her sister over.

“It’s just that I don’t know what me plans are going to be. When me mammy goes I will only have Molly, though I don’t know how we’ll be managing. I’d be heart-sore to lose her if she went with you, especially to the other side of the world where I’d never see her again.”

She was beginning to feel tired and dispirited. She could hardly think for the moment, never mind the next few days.

“The problem is I don’t think she’d be fit fer travellin’ and I’d have to see what me mammy says.”

Mistress Filbey was, by now, really set on the idea of an adopted daughter and began to push any objections aside.

“We’ll not be traveling from Sligo ’til the end of the month and will be staying at Sara’s home ‘til then. We could go down to Killala tomorrow and collect the child. Then, if we wrap her up warmly in a shawl and get plenty of nourishing food inside her, she’ll be right as rain.”

She suddenly turned to Maggie, inquiring suspiciously.

“It isn’t infectious this illness she’s had? We don’t want to catch anything before we go on the boat!”

Maggie shook her head and answered that Molly had only caught a fever through a chill to her bones. Not having good food inside her and the poor conditions at home hadn’t helped either. Mistress Filbey seemed content with that, though Maggie had been tempted to lie and say her sister had caught the yellow fever. That would have put an end to the Mistress’s gallop.

“Give Maggie time to think on it, Bessie,” Filbey broke in quietly. “You can see the girl is upset enough without us pressuring her. Like Bessie says, we’ll walk down tomorrow and see how things stand. If you want us to take Molly, then we shall. Now, is
there anything we could do for you before you head back home, Maggie?”

She nodded her head slowly. She had been thinking during this discussion that it looked as if she was going to leave empty handed. The Mistress wasn’t going to be forthcoming with any food and she had made it clear that there weren’t going to be any wages. She felt cheated, her living had gone and there was to be no compensation for the Filbey’s emigration.

She wondered if her next request would be turned away by the old biddy, which is how she was beginning to think of Mistress Filbey, so she turned to speak to her more compassionate husband.

“Could yer give me that feather mattress from yer granddad’s room, Farmer Filbey? I’m only thinkin’ of me mammy....” she hurried on, thinking that perhaps she was asking for too much again.

“It would make her last few days comfortable and I won’t trouble you to help me. I can carry it down meself.”

Filbey seemed surprised, but nodded his head in agreement.

“Aye child, help yourself. If an old mattress will bring a little joy into those eyes of yours, you can have it with pleasure. You know where to find it, though it’s probably damp as it’s not been lain on for years. You’re welcome to it.”

Maggie took him at his word and flew up the stairs to the bedroom at the end of the farmhouse. He was right, the mattress did smell rather musty, but her spirits rose as she thought of the pleasure she would feel, when she saw her mammy lying in comfort. She dragged it off the bed, thinking that if the rain held off during her journey home, she could warm the mattress by the fire before letting her mammy lie on it.

She smiled to herself wryly, as she thought of her own accommodation when she had lived at the farm. She hadn’t been given a feather mattress to sleep on. Her mistress thought that servants shouldn’t be pampered, and had given her the storage room by the scullery, which was just big enough to hold a truckle bed with a straw filled palliasse on it. Sometimes when the mistress
was outdoors, she would creep upstairs and pretend that “granddad’s” room was her own room and would lie full stretched on the mattress to get the feel of it. She hadn’t been frightened like some would be, that old man Filbey had died upon it, but loved that drowsy, cosy feeling that washed over her on a sunny afternoon.