The dew was still heavy on the tangled grass as Rose followed in John’s footsteps to the door of the old house next morning. The brambles had sprung back already on the rough path he had beaten a few days earlier. They tore at her skirt as she waited anxiously for him to open the door.
It wasn’t locked, but there was a dense mass of weeds growing against it and half covering the broad stone door step.
‘There,’ he said, stepping aside and letting her go ahead of him into the empty room. ‘Can we do anythin’ with it at all, d’ye think?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Yes,’ she said promptly, even before she had run her eye right round the main room, for the air was sweet, a fresh current moving across the room from a broken window at the front to one at the back. The place was cool, silent, and very dirty. Tattered rags of curtains still hung at the windows and a scatter of sticks on the hearth told her birds had been nesting in the wide chimney. A few runners of ivy had penetrated the window frame of the back window and run diagonally up the walls, their leaves pale from lack of sunlight.
The whole empty space was filled with a strange greenish light. Nettles, tall plants of angelica and shrubby bushes of elderberry had sprung up all around, so completely masking the small windows at the back only a little light filtered through to make dappled patterns on the stone floor.
‘I’ll see if I can let a bit more light in.’
John strode across to the back door and pulled it open. Sunlight spilt across the floor and picked out his damp footprints in the dust. From somewhere nearby, they heard a lark sing. He turned to look at her, a half smile on his face as she stood watching him.
‘Have you been in the other room?’ she asked, smiling herself as she saw him cock his ear to the cascade of notes falling into the silence of the abandoned kitchen.
He came back to her side, prised away a bit of board wedged into place in front of the broken panes and leant it against the wall.
‘No, I hadn’t the heart,’ he said, as another patch of sunlight fell on the dusty floor.
‘Come on then, we’ll go in together,’ she said, moving towards a small, brown painted door to the right of the huge fireplace. It had a handsome brass knob, much in need of polishing. Pinned to the lintel with a horseshoe nail, a woven rush cross, faded to the colour of straw, reminded her of making crosses with Aunt Mary, long ago in Ardtur, to celebrate St Bridget’s Eve and the coming of spring. She pushed open the door and went through, her boots echoing loudly on bare wooden boards.
‘You can just see the forge,’ she said, peering through the one corner of the front window that wasn’t covered up by the ivy.
They huddled together as they peeped through. Almost opposite was the high pitched gable and the well-used path which ran from the forge to Robinson’s farm and on, up the shady lane skirting the orchard until it emerged onto Church Hill.
They inspected the wooden partitions that divided the space into three parts. Two small rooms about seven feet square with a tiny window at the back of each had been separated off, leaving about fourteen feet by nine for the main room.
‘It’s bigger than I thought,’ said John cautiously.
‘We could maybe put Sarah’s good sideboard in the bedroom,’ Rose said thoughtfully. ‘And the floors are stone and wood,’ she added. ‘We had earth floors at Ardtur.’
They heard the scrape of boots on the doorstep and turned to see Thomas stooping under the low lintel of the bedroom.
‘Well, what d’ye think? Could ye make do for a bit?’ he asked, straightened up and looking from one to another.
‘Ach, Thomas, you were right,’ said John, smiling wryly. ‘I should have told Rose on Tuesday. I wasn’t thinkin’ straight at all. Many a man would be grateful to have as good a roof over his head.’
‘Sure there’s no harm done,’ said Thomas reassuringly. ‘It’s not what you’ve been used to at all, Rose, but it’s better than nothing.’
‘Far better indeed, Thomas,’ she replied. ‘I was reared in a house like this one, but it had earth floors. I wasn’t expecting anything better.’
‘Were you not now?’ Thomas asked, his eyes bright. ‘Sure I thought yer man here had stole you from some big house,’ he said teasingly.
John grinned and looked sheepish.
‘Ah told Thomas on Tuesday I couldn’t ask ye to live in a place like this, even if it were all fixed up an’ decent lookin’.
‘Never mind,’ she said, taking his arm. ‘But we have a bit of a job in front of us to make it fit to sleep in tomorrow night. We’ll have to contact the landlord first and get his permission. Who is the landlord, Thomas? Is it you?’ she asked, turning to the older man.
He threw back his head and laughed.
‘Ach no. I’m just a tenant like yourselves,’ he said, ‘though there’s been Scotts here for a brave while. But I’d say you’d have no difficulty. The landlord is Sir Capel, same as meself. He’s not a hard man to deal with, as you well know. Ye may away over an’ see him right away, John. He’ll maybe give ye a bit of help to get fixed up. An’ ye’ll want to agree the rent an’ get some agreement drawn up.’
He shook his head. ‘After what’s happened to the pair o’ you, I’d better go in to Monroe’s m’self and see what m’own lease says. Ye wouldn’t find a house with a forge so handy,’ he said, shaking his head ruefully. ‘Away on now, John, an’ see Sir Capel.’
‘I hope he’s not gone to Dublin.’
‘Well, he was here a few days ago when Sammy came to get the black stallion shod,’ he said quickly. ‘Sure he won’t let anybody but John shoe him,’ he added turning to Rose. ‘Did he iver tell ye that?’
‘I think there’s a fair amount he doesn’t tell me, Thomas,’ she said, laughing gently, ‘but I’ll be able to keep a better eye on him now.’
‘I can’t go off an’ leave ye like this, Thomas,’ John said, as they all stepped out into the sunshine. ‘What about our work? Sure we’re up to our eyes.’
‘Aye, we are,’ he agreed. ‘A couple of hours will be neither here nor there in a hundred years,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘I’ll light the fire to show we’re still in business an’ then I’ll get my great new scythe and cut in as far as the windows to give Rose daylight. Ah see ye brought yer broom an’ yer buckets with ye.’
‘We did indeed, and a piece for my lunch,’ she replied. ‘I think I’m going to need it, don’t you?’
‘Aye, ye’ve yer work cut out for ye,’ he said, as he turned on his heel with an awkward laugh and headed for the forge. ‘I’ll be back over when I’ve the fire lit.’
‘That’s one good friend we have,’ she said, as she saw him stoop under the doorway of the forge and disappear into the darkness.
‘Aye, and Mary Wylie another,’ John added, thinking of the children. He hesitated, then came and put his arm round her and kissed her. ‘I’m sorry, Rose for the heartache I’ve caused ye. But I’ll make it up ye. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
The day grew hotter as the sun rose higher in a cloudless sky. Rose worked methodically, pulling down cobwebs, sweeping the two small bedrooms out into the larger one, rubbing the unbroken windowpanes with a piece of torn curtain to remove the layers of grime. By the time she started sweeping the main room, Thomas had cleared the rampant growth from around all the windows and the smell of cut grass flowed through the open doors. It helped to offset the choking dust from the floors, but after a couple of hours, she was not only tired, but gasping with thirst, her bottle of cold tea long gone.
The well was in the big orchard behind Thomas’s house, but she wasn’t sure where. As it served the needs of the forge and of Thomas’s wife and three children, she reckoned there’d be a well-worn path visible once she crossed the piece of common that ran between the two houses.
The heat struck her bare arms as she stepped out of the cool interior of the cottage. She stood by the back door, drawing in deep breaths of the clean air. It was full of the heavy scent of elderflower. Everywhere she looked, plants grew and flowered. There were creamy heads of meadowsweet and the bright spikes of purple loosestrife in the damp bottom of the hedgerow. Tall, branching stems of buttercup and pink flowering willow herb stood in drifts, towering over the shorter grass with its clusters of daisies and clover. Here and there, where the grass grew a little longer, were the delicate spikes of Irish orchid, one of her favourite flowers, some pink and speckled, some varying in colour from pink to mauve and lavender.
She smiled to herself. Once, long ago, when Miss Pringle threatened to stop Lady Anne riding if she didn’t produce at least an attempt at watercolour by the next day, she’d gone out and sketched and painted them for herself. She’d been amazed at how much you saw in a flower when you really looked at it and even more amazed she’d turned out something that pleased Miss Pringle enough to keep Lady Anne out of one more piece of trouble.
From where she rested, propped against the windowsill by the back door, she could see there’d once been a sizeable garden behind the house. An overgrown stone wall on two sides and a hedgerow on the other enclosed a space humped and hollowed with the regular lines of spade rigs. In one corner, there were some fruit bushes almost completely overwhelmed by convolvulus, large white trumpets shimmering in the bright light.
She stood up, stretched her aching back and tramped around cautiously, the ground so uneven it would have been easy to twist an ankle. She smiled in delight when she found an old briar rose had grown outwards over the low wall into a small triangle of land with two or three old apple trees. Untended for years, it formed a dense thicket covered with a mass of tiny pink blooms. From the scuffles her movement had set off, the sudden vigorous shaking of sprays of bloom, it had to be home to a couple of bird’s nests at least, if not something larger.
Completing her circuit of the old garden, she squeezed through a gap in the hedge where a single rotting post might once have supported a garden gate and stepped down onto the broad, grassy cart track that led to three small fields with no direct access from the main road.
‘I’ll just have a quick look at what’s down the common,’ she said to herself, when a glance towards Thomas’s house failed to reveal the path to the well.
The soft, rich grass brushed the hem of her heavy, working skirt as she turned down the cart track, the grass soft on her now bare feet.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ she gasped, as she came out of the shadow of the trees overspreading the common and saw all three fields were in flax. Waving gently in the light breeze, the blue flowers swayed like an inland sea, ripples of wind flowing across the rich crop like eddies on a lake.
Suddenly, Currane lake came to mind and the darker blue waters of Ballinskelligs Bay. For one painful moment, she was overcome with such a longing to be there again, to stand on her hillside once more, with a view south to Eagle Mountain or west to the Atlantic. Then, quite suddenly, a lark rose into the still air, above her head, his song indifferent to the hum of insects in the hedgerow behind her and the muted ring of hammer on anvil as Thomas worked on through the heat of the day.
She brought herself back firmly to the present. Blessings she’d had, and despite all the heartache of the last week, blessings she still had. It was up to her what she made of them.
Refreshed by her walk and the cool shade of the orchard where she drank from the well and filled up her bottle, she took up her broom and pulled open the door of the small outbuilding placed at right angles to the back of the house. To her surprise, the floor had been brushed, but it looked as if it had been done rather hastily. The corners of the stone-floored wash house were still full of feathers and dried chicken droppings. The small window was tightly shut and the smell was horrible.
‘Oh dear,’ Rose said aloud, as the sharp stench enveloped her.
Intensified by the heat of the day, it made her eyes water. She struggled with the window but couldn’t shift it. Then she realised a nail sticking out of the window frame had actually been driven right through it to prevent the window being opened. She sighed and thought she’d go and borrow a claw hammer from Thomas. Lever it out and let the air in. But she decided against it. Thomas was such a kind man he’d almost certainly put aside his work and come and do it for her and he’d had enough interruptions for one day.
She went outside, took a few breaths of fresh air, then started to pull down cobwebs and feathers as quickly as she could. She brushed out the corners one by one and carried the sweepings to the far end of the garden.
‘Rose, where are you?’
Delighted to hear John’s voice, she wiped her damp face on her apron and hurried back into the house. He turned towards her, the beam on his face telling her all she needed to know. Beside him stood a little gnome of a man almost half his own height.
‘Rose, this is Sammy Hutchinson from Ballynick. He’s come to fix the windows for us.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Sammy, I’ve heard about you many a time,’ she said, as Sammy pulled off his cap and offered her a wizened brown hand.
‘Nothing bad I hope,’ he said, eyeing her sideways.
‘Nothing but compliments,’ she replied, laughing. ‘But I’ve a poor welcome for you,’ she went on apologetically. ‘I can’t even offer you a cup of tea and you’ve come all the way from Sir Capel’s.’
‘Ach, never worry yerself, Missus dear, ye’ve had enough to worry about, the pair of you, losing the old lady and then bein’ given notice. All in the one week forby,’ he said, shaking his had slowly. ‘Sir Capel was not well pleased when he heard what had happened to ye’s,’ he went on, as he dropped his tool bag beside the nearest window and eyed up the broken panes and rotting frame. ‘There’s a few of these boyos around has made money one way an’ other. Now they’re buying land and puttin’ people out. It’s a bad thing losin’ good people out of the place. That’s what Sir Capel says, an’ I agree with him. Sure, emigration has been the detriment an’ destruction of this island. An’ it’ll start up again as bad as iver if young folk can’t get work and homes.’
With a fierce nod towards them, he turned to the window and started scraping away the remains of dried and broken putty.
‘How’re ye gettin’ on, Rose?’ John said quietly as he cast his eyes round the clean, empty room, now filled with sunlight.
‘Not bad. The wash house could do with a wash itself,’ she said, waving a hand towards the open door. She led the way out to the back, glad to have an excuse to speak to him on his own. ‘How did it go, John?’
‘The best at all. Half the rent Thomas pays for his dwelling house an’ he’ll put in proper new windows an’ renew the thatch before the winter, unless we can find somewhere better,’ he said, as he stepped into the wash house.
‘Rose, dear, the smell here’s awful. Why didn’t ye leave it for me?’
‘I left you a nail in the window,’ she said laughing, as he stepped quickly out again. ‘If you could shift that, the draught would get the smell out.’
‘Aye, it would. But ye shouldn’t have cleaned it yourself wi’ that smell. I’d have done it,’ he said.
She smiled at him.
‘I know you would, but you mustn’t take any more time from the forge. Thomas cut all the nettles and weeds for us and he hasn’t taken a break all day.’
‘Did Mary-Anne not bring him a bite to the forge?’
‘Not that I saw,’ she said.
It suddenly struck her that she’d seen no sign of her neighbour in the course of the long morning, either going up the orchard for water or passing across the front of the house on her way to the privy.
‘An’ did she not come over an’ say a word to you?’
‘No, she didn’t,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘Did you think she would?’ she went on when she saw the puzzled look on his face.
‘Well, it woulda been neighbourly,’ he said quickly. ‘Am sure Mary Wylie or Hannah Running woud’ve come to see ye, aye an’ given ye a hand,’ he said sharply, ‘had ye been movin’ in next door to them.’
‘Maybe she wants to let us get settled. And I’m not exactly dressed for receiving visitors, am I?’ she said laughing, as she did up a button on her blouse, below which she wore neither chemise nor stays. ‘Now away an’ get that hammer. I don’t think I can face washing the place out till there’s some fresh air in there to breathe.’