Promised Land (6 page)

‘Nothing will change Ella, honest!’ broached her brother, trying to hug her awkwardly, as they walked outside in front of the solicitor’s office. ‘Fintra’s your home. I know that and so do you. I
have
no objections to you living with Carmel and me.’

She could see the look of triumph flicker in his eyes, hear it in his voice. He was his father’s son inheriting his property as generations of sons had done before. Daughters when it came to it didn’t count for much! Bile rose in her stomach and throat and she felt like she was going to be sick.

Carmel’s eyes were shining with happiness and anticipation as she linked her arm through Liam’s. Uncle Jack was already involved in some sort of serious discussion with her brother and only in her aunt’s eyes was there any sympathy. Strangers pushed past them en route to the bank and shops and along the quays, totally oblivious to her situation. What did Liam mean saying ‘nothing will change’! Everything would change, everything had changed already, her father had seen to that.

Chapter Six

INHERITANCE HAD CHANGED
everything, shifting and altering the delicate relationship between herself and her brother. Liam had become the winner, which meant that she was the loser. Carmel and he were beside themselves with joy at their good fortune, at finding themselves now the owners of Fintra and all its adjoining lands. Ella was sick to her soul with the unfairness of it all. She was no hypocrite and could not bear the pretence of letting on she was pleased for them. In secret she scoured the house hoping to find another will that her father might have written and hidden away. Her search was to no avail, and she had to accept that the farm and house were no longer hers no matter what her late father had promised. His words had meant nothing when that treacherous legal document had been left safe in his solicitor’s office, disinheriting her from all she loved.

‘This is your home, Ella!’ Liam repeated over
and
over again, but somehow she chose not to believe him.

‘Liam and I are happy to have you here living with us Ella, honest we are,’ her sister-in-law had added, an earnest expression in those blue eyes of hers. ‘Sure you know more about running the farm than either of us! We’d be lost without you. Fintra will always be your home no matter what happens.’

She had bitten her tongue, and swallowed her pride. She had nowhere else to go for the moment and was too upset to even begin to think straight about her future. At times, looking at her brother she felt a deep hatred for him and wished that she had never sent the letter that had brought him home, but of course that would still not have altered the contents of her father’s will. She had no intention of staying under their roof, a spinster sister dependent on them for her livelihood. She couldn’t bear it. He and his bride were ensconced in her parents’ bedroom, the old dressing table from the spare room placed near the window and a new set of bed linen and pillows purchased. Day by day Carmel was taking more of a role in the running of the house. She’d already moved some of Ella’s mother’s furniture and ornaments around and had taken over the shopping and housekeeping.

‘I think a nice piece of lamb for the dinner on Sunday, Ella, and I must get another bag each of sugar and flour from the shop, and remind me to order some of that nice pickle that Liam likes from Nolan’s.’

Ella didn’t say a word, as her position of mistress of Fintra was now usurped.

On the farm things were different too. Liam had all sorts of plans and notions about modernizing the farm. Their father was barely cold in his grave when he wanted to go and change things, run things his own way.

He had insisted on sowing barley down by the lake field.

‘Daddy was going to put turnips there!’ she reminded him.

‘Well Daddy’s not here now, Ella, and I’m telling you that barley’s the thing for that field.’

Ella sighed to herself, remembering how the field had flooded two years previously and they’d lost an expensive crop, the ground remaining marshy for months after. Liam had even told her to cut back on the amount of meal she fed the hens with, as it was expensive. Already she could see a slight drop in their laying and wondered if her brother had noticed it too. She had to bite her tongue constantly trying not to argue with him and asking herself what would a man who’d been away at sea for years know about farming anyway. Why, he was even talking about getting rid of their cattle and switching over to a bigger dairy herd.

‘Uncle Jack does well with that dairy herd of theirs, maybe I should be considering it.’

‘Daddy always kept cattle,’ she’d reminded him. ‘He made good money from cattle.’

Ella could see that her brother wasn’t really
willing
to listen to advice from anyone, leastways his younger sister. He wanted to put his own mark on the farm. Ella longed to give him a good clout on the head and tell him to have a bit of sense.

‘Carmel and I are going into town to see the solicitor Mr Sweeney; will you keep an eye on the place, Ella? I want to go to the bank too, and have a word with the manager about taking out a small loan.’

‘Liam, Daddy always said that you should be lodging money into the bank, not trying to borrow it from them.’ She remembered the time when her father had gone cap in hand to the bank manager and had been turned down, making up his mind only to use the services of the bank for the safe keeping of his money and nothing else.

‘I don’t give a damn what he said, this is Carmel’s and my business. We don’t have a nest egg of money sitting in an account like some people. If we want to run this place we’ll have to borrow!’

Ella ignored the jibe, watching angrily as they drove away from the farm and in towards town. She hoped that the bank manager would turn them down.

She was out in the yard sweeping when Sean Flanagan pulled in on a tractor.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked matter-of-factly.

She kicked at the straw and dirt and wished that she was wearing something a bit better than her thick old cardigan and a washed-out-looking cotton skirt. Her hair was pulled up and pinned to the top of her head.

‘Grand!’ she lied. She had scarcely seen him since the funeral and was annoyed with him for avoiding her.

‘Yeah! They look it! Where’s the brother?’

‘Gone to town to see the solicitor,’ she said, swallowing hard.

Sean had silenced the tractor and climbed off.

‘I heard about that,’ he said gently.

‘Who told you?’

‘My da.’

‘I suppose the whole bloody place knows by now what Daddy did!’

‘Aye.’

A heavy silence fell between them.

‘Listen Ella, I’m sorry about the farm. I know how much this place means to you.’

Ella looked across at the outhouses. She wasn’t going to break down and cry in front of Sean, no matter how she felt. She longed for him to put his arms round her and say it didn’t matter at all, that nothing mattered except the two of them, but he didn’t. She could see the unease in his face, and almost recoiled when he took her hand, dropping the yard brush to the ground.

‘We’ve got to talk, Ella, you and I.’ His voice
was
serious and she wondered what he wanted to talk to her about.

‘Come into the house then,’ she suggested, walking ahead of him. ‘Liam and Carmel won’t be back for ages.’

She pushed open the back door and led him into the warm kitchen, washing her hands at the sink. He came up behind her and embraced her, pulling her close to him. She could feel his hot breath on her neck, and out of instinct let herself lean against him. He turned her round swiftly and catching her chin in his hands bent down and began to kiss her. She responded eagerly, relieved that at least the attraction between them had not changed. She returned his kiss, breathless and excited. They kissed and kissed for what seemed like an hour, neither of them wanting to talk, only interested in being as physically close as they could. He pulled her onto his lap as he sat in the fireside chair, his fingers pulling at the buttons of her cardigan and underblouse. She could barely wait for his mouth to touch her breasts as she stroked his chest and ribs.

Ella wrapped herself in his embrace, not caring that his hand had slipped under her ruched-up skirt and was stroking the inside of her thighs; she longed to rub herself against the base of his thumb. She began to tug at the belt of his trousers, loosening them. For a second he held her hand, then pushed it away, reclosing his belt, pushing the metal prong back into its hole. Stunned and confused she stopped, looking up at him.

‘I’m sorry, Ella. I shouldn’t have let things go so far,’ he breathed out heavily.

Embarrassed and rejected, she tried to straighten herself up on his lap. She tried to pull away and stand up, but he had a firm grip on her wrists.

‘Don’t!’

She blazed red. She didn’t understand him at all.

‘Ella, this isn’t the right time or place for this to happen between us … honest it’s not!’

‘Why? What are you talking about, Sean? Don’t you want me as much as I want you?’

‘You know that I do.’

‘Then what the hell is it, Sean?’

He stared down at the ground.

‘Is this about the farm, Sean, is that what this is all about?’

His eyes immediately flew to hers and she could see truth there.

‘Well that’s bloody it!’ she said, furious, jumping away from him. ‘I’m not quite the catch that you thought now that I’ve no farm or land of my own!’

‘No, Ella,’ he said, trying to grab hold of her. ‘It’s not that. Don’t say such things!’

‘Let go of me, you bastard! Let go!’

‘Not till you calm down and listen to me, Ella.’

He was too strong for her to fight against and seemed impervious to the kick she gave him in the heel.

‘Listen Ella, how could I ever ask you to marry me, when I have no place or land of my own? Jim is getting the farm, I’ve always known that. I’ve no
money
, no savings, no land, I couldn’t afford to marry you at the moment no matter how much I want to.’

‘Ask me anyway,’ she whispered, so soft she wondered if he’d heard.

‘How can I?’ he said slowly. ‘Where would we live? What could I offer you?’

‘Offer me! I wasn’t expecting you to offer me anything but yourself, Sean Flanagan! Obviously you were the one expecting more. Well, I’m sorry for your bloody disappointment, about not getting this farm, but if that’s all you care about, you can shag off out of here!’

‘Ella stop! I love you, you know that,’ he said, trying to calm her down. ‘Maybe if I go away and work and save, eventually we’ll be able to …’

‘People who love each other get by Sean, they find a way to be together.’

She stood there facing him. If he’d said to her, there and then, to come upstairs and lie down and let him prove his love for her, she’d have gone with him. If he’d asked her to walk out of the farm door and travel ten thousand miles to the furthest corner of the earth with him, she’d have done it. For she loved him.

Instead he got up politely and began to tuck his shirt back into his trousers.

‘Get out!’ she shouted. ‘Get out of my house!’ She began to laugh almost hysterically. ‘I mean get out of my brother’s house, Sean Flanagan!’

She banged the kitchen door closed after him
and
stood still, listening as a few minutes later he started up the tractor engine out in the yard, leaving her alone in the old farmhouse.

It was almost nine o’clock that night when Monty lifted his head and began to bark as her brother’s car pulled up outside. Ella sighed to herself; she was still upset after her fight with Sean and their arrival seemed almost an intrusion. Carmel came in first with her parcels of groceries. Ella made no attempt to get up and help her, and pretended to be engrossed in the newspaper she was reading. Liam followed in a minute later. It only took a minute for her to get the strong smell of porter off her brother.

‘We stopped off for a pint,’ he said, slurring his words.

Ella didn’t give a damn what he did.

‘Liam’s a bit upset,’ murmured Carmel, a worried expression making her frown.

‘The bloody bastards in the bank!’

‘They wouldn’t give him a loan today,’ added Carmel. ‘They told him to come back in a few months’ time.’

‘Bastards!’ shouted her brother. ‘Money men, my arse! Misers more like! I’ve got this place now but oh no, they wouldn’t listen to me. I’ll show those fellahs what I think of them, by God I will!’

‘Liam, I think it’s time you went to bed,’ suggested Carmel, putting away the few bits of groceries and heating a mug of warm milk for herself. ‘I’m away to bed anyways!’

Ella waited for her brother to argue back, but instead he sat down in the chair and refused to budge.

‘I’ll stay up all bloody night if I want!’

She sat quiet in the chair opposite, watching him. His eyes were staring into the firelight, when suddenly he sat up, running his fingers through his hair like he always did when he was nervous, and glanced in her direction.

‘Ella, you could give me a loan,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that you have hundreds of pounds just sitting in a bank account, money you’re not even using, and I need capital to run this farm.’

‘That’s my money, Liam. Daddy left it to me. It’s all I have, you know that! You’re the one got the house and the land.’

‘What good is the land if I don’t have the money to farm it and keep going? I’ll pay you the same interest as the bank gives.’

Ella thought about it, knowing all the plans her brother was making. She wasn’t even sure if she’d consider him a good investment.

‘Liam, sell me some of the land, a few acres will do, and I’ll make over so much of the money to you.’

‘No!’ She could see his expression change to one of fury. ‘This farm’s mine now Ella and don’t you forget it!’ he shouted angrily. ‘I’ll not go fecking breaking it up or give a piece of it away, leastways to you! You can piss off with your money and keep it!’

She could see there was absolutely no point arguing with him. Besides, he was drunk.

‘We’ll talk about this again,’ she ventured.