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Tuesday, when I was in Fellburn, 201 I happened to run into Pattie.`

`You never told me.`

`No. No, I didn't. I know you drop in there from time to time and I thought, well, I would leave it to her to put it to you. But it's just this, in a nutshell. She can get you a post; at least, after you've taken a short course. And, as she put it, if you want to get married soon, you'll do it quicker from her end than you will from this. Now, now`--she held up her hand--`wait a moment, wait a moment. I know what you're going to say: the farm would fall to pieces without you. Well, very likely, but this is how I see it at the moment.

If you weren't here he would just have to pull his socks up or we'd all find ourselves out on the road, and not much better than we would have been if it had happened across the water; in fact, worse, because it'd be hard to find another country to take us in, wouldn't it?` She smiled broadly now. Ànd I really think, I do, although I'd be making one of the biggest sacrifices of me own life, that if you went, it would bring him to his senses. Now, don't say anything. I know what you're going to come out with, that you're not going to leave me and the children,

and there's no way he will alter, not for the good. I know it all, Daniel, before you say it. But I also know this: you've got a life of your own ahead of you, and that girl is ready for marriage, as you are yourself, ripe for it.`

He found he could not prevent the red flush rising to his hair nor his mind endorsing every word she said: at least about marriage; he was ripe for it. But what he said was, `You're asking me to leave you and the children in the hope that things will improve with my absence or that they will remain stable, and you are going to have another child, and he as much interested as if you were a calving cow, for let's face it, he pays no attention to the children, to none of them, not even to Bridget, and she's still in your arms. Do you know I've never seen that man romp with one of his own, not once. But then he never romped with Pattie or me; a pat on the head was as far as it went. Look, Moira, as you say, I'm ripe for marriage and I don't deny it, but I've thought out something recently that'll serve all purposes. I could get married and we could live here but apart; I could do up the old wing. What is it used for? Only storing. Well, there's barns and sheds outside. But in there are four rooms; in fact, the hall is all of twenty-five feet 203 long. That could be turned into what it once was, a living-room, and a staircase could be built to replace the old ladder. Oh, it isn't the day or yesterday that I've thought of what could be done in that old wing. And the stonework's splendid. The walls are all of two foot depth.

And the arched windows are a picture. So you can tell Pattie, or I'll tell her myself, that I can make my own arrangements for my future. Not that I don't appreciate her efforts to help me; I do. I'm very fond of Pattie and John, and I wish I could see them more often, because they seem to be living in a different world, and in touch with the doings of the day; but there--` He rose to his feet and, going round the small table and bending over her, he said, `There you are, Mother Moira, you're not getting rid of me. Those are my plans. And come Sunday I will put them to ... the other party, and I know she'll see eye to eye with me.`

`Do you think so?`

`Think so?` He straightened up. Ì'm sure of it. Now come on out of this room; to me, it always smells of wet clothing; I'm sure you

patch the lads pants before they are dry.`

She laughed softly as she took his hand and they went out together, high hopes in one, the reality of life in the other.

3

Altogether, it had been a wet summer. They had been very fortunate in getting in the corn during the only dry couple of weeks. For the past week it seemed to have rained all day and most of the night and the land was like a quagmire. So Daniel's horse was almost up to its forelocks when it stepped into a hole in the road that was camouflaged by the running water.

When he reached the Talbots' yard, Luke shouted to him from the barn, `You must be out of your mind attempting that road the day. Bring it in here.`

Daniel dismounted in the barn and, taking off his hat and cape, he shook them, saying, Ìt never ceases.

How are your fields?`

`Same as yours, I should say, with stuff ruined; but then it's a good job we managed to get the main crop up before it started in earnest again. Still, there's a lot of damage done. How about you?` 205

`Much the same. Is your father in?`

`Yes. Yes, why do you ask?`

`Well--` Daniel grinned, pursed his lips, then said, Ì want a word with him.`

Òh. Oh`--Luke arched his eyebrows-- `that kind of a word? Well, between you and me, Daniel, don't expect to be greeted with open arms.` Luke's voice was serious. Ì'm telling you, forewarned is forearmed. Now if it was me I would say, go ahead, but ... but then I'm a soft-headed youth, so he tells me.`

`Has he been discussing us ... I mean, Frances and me?`

Òh, you'd be surprised. He never seems to talk about anything else to her.`

Ìt's as bad as that, is it?`

When Luke didn't answer, only made a movement with his shoulder, Daniel said, `Well, thanks, anyway, for telling me what I'm to expect. But it makes no difference, you know, not to me or her. By the way, where is he?`

`Well, if he hasn't gone upstairs to bed yet, he should be in his den. Herè--he lifted up Daniel's cape from where it lay over

an empty barrel--Ì'd put that over you again before you make a run for it; and I'll dry him down for you.`

He patted the horse's rump.

`Thanks, Luke.`

Daniel ran from the barn to the house, where, after ringing the bell, he had to wait a moment or so before the door was opened by Frances, surprise showing on her face as she said, Òh, you must have had a job to get through in this.` She glanced quickly to either side of her, then reached up and kissed him, saying now, `Mother's in the sitting-room,ànd in a whisper, `Father's in his room. He'll soon be going upstairs, then we can have it to ourselves.` She smiled a secret smile, which he did not return. What he said now was, Ì want to have a word with your father.`

À word? What about?` Her voice was still a whisper.

Àbout us, of course.` His voice too was a whisper now, but harsh: Ì want to tell him we're to be officially engaged at Christmas.Às though she had been slighted, she said, `Without asking my permission?`

`Yes, miss, without asking your permission. Don't you think it's about time? Anyway, we've talked it out, haven't we?` 207

Her whole attitude changing now, she said, `He's ... he's not for it, Daniel, so be prepared.`

This, however, did not prompt him to say anything further, but he squeezed her hand, and she pointed towards the passage and in a low voice she said, `The second door down.`

He knocked on the door, but wasn't bidden to come in. Instead, the door was pulled open and there stood Mr Talbot, saying, Òh! it's you. Nobody knocks on doors in this house. What's brought you here on a day like this? It would drown a duck. But then, need I ask? Come in.`

The room was small and its space was taken up with a table that served as a desk, on which were scattered various papers; a bookcase on one wall was devoid of books, although each shelf held what looked like newspapers and slim magazines. There was only one chair and that was behind the table. Mr Talbot seated his stocky form in it and, looking up at Daniel, he said, `Well, I don't suppose you've come to ask after my health, have you?`

`No, not quite.`

`Well, get on with it.`

`Well, sir ... Mr Talbot, I would like to become officially engaged to Frances, say at Christmas?`

Òh`--the blunt head wagged--`you would, would you? Well, now, that's a straight question, but I won't give it a straight answer; instead, I'll ask you another question. What have you to offer my daughter? If she became engaged to you at Christmas, which would mean the promise of marriage later on, what can you offer her, I say?`

Yes, what could he offer her? Not much, so far as he could see at the moment. But in the future? Yes, the future. The renovated block at the end of the house.

Thinking about it now the prospect didn't seem bright even to himself, but he said, Ì'm thinking about renovating the old part of the house. It would make a good habitation and ... and the farm will prosper.`

`That's enough.` Mr Talbot was on his feet now, his arm thrust out, his wagging finger almost touching Daniel's chest. `You've got a nerve, I'll say that. You come here and ask to be engaged to my daughter and tell me you're going

to stick her in a byre at the end of your 209 house.`

Ìt's no byre.`

`Don't you shout at me in my own house, young man; I know what it is, it's the original part of that place, and it's mouldy and has been used as a store for years; ever since your grandfather's time, in fact. He stuck stuff in there when I was a lad. And you propose putting my daughter into that? And you talk about a prosperous farm? Who owns the farm? Your father does, and by the time he's finished with his drinking there'll be nothing left of it. It's been galloping downhill for years. Then there's his fat Irish wife with her brood running wild. Prosperous farm, indeed! when his two little sons are put to work on it. Now you get yourself away; and you may come back and ask to become engaged to my daughter when you have some prospects. You told her a while back that your sister could get you a decent job in the town; well, if I were you, I'd think on that, because as long as that father of yours is alive I can see no prospect there for you and definitely not for her.`

Just as he'd had the urge to hit his father, so now

the same feeling almost overwhelmed him, urging him to take his fist and land it in the square face; if not that, to lash him with his tongue and tell him that he was a little ignorant nobody, a smallholder who had come into the district little more than a squatter, riding on a flat cart with his mother and father, their belongings around them, and for the following ten years of his life had lived in Willow Cottage down by the river, a place that had since dropped to bits with mould and rot.

He took neither of these paths; instead, he turned and marched from the room, to be met by Frances and her mother in the hallway. And as he grabbed up his cape from the chair, Mrs Talbot said under her breath, `Don't worry, Daniel, don't worry.` Then turning to her daughter, she muttered quickly, `Put your coat over your head and go with Daniel to the barn.Às Frances ran by his side across the yard to the barn, she cried, `What happened? He was yelling.

What happened?`

Daniel could not answer her, for he was too burnt up inside.

Luke wasn't in the barn, and Daniel went straight to his horse and for a moment he leant against the saddle, his hands gripping it. 211

Frances now demanded, `Look! Tell me what happened. What did he say?`

He turned to her, his voice bitter. `Too much,` he said; `far too much. He forgets himself, your father. Do you know that? He forgets what he once was. Speaking to me as if I was dirt beneath his feet. I nearly reminded him of his beginnings. Yes, I did.`

`What do you mean, by his beginnings?` Frances was on her dignity now.

`Just that he's got nothing to brag about, that's all.`

`Well, you have nothing to brag about either, I mean, not the way the farm is now.`

`The farm hasn't always been like it is, nor has my father, nor his father. They were the big names around here. But if I'd been some dumbhead from the village asking for your hand I couldn't have had a worse reception. He asked what I had to offer you and I told him I ... I meant to get the old house put right for us.`

`You told him that! That old storehouse at the end? ... oh!`

Ìt wasn't always an old storehouse. In

fact, it never was a storehouse, and it could be made into a fine house, as it once was.`

She stepped back now from him, saying, `Well, I can understand how he reacted to that. If you had told me of your plans for our future, I could have saved you the trouble of putting that proposition to him, because you wouldn't get me living in that place while that woman and her horde live in your grand house.`

`That woman, by the way, is my stepmother, and she is Mrs Stewart.`

Ì don't care what she is called, she's still just an Irish woman, and a very ordinary Irish woman.`

`She is no ordinary Irish woman. She's an Irish lady who was brought up in a castle ...`

Why was he saying these things? What was happening between them? He turned once again to the saddle and, as if addressing it, he said, Òh, Frances, Frances, what's come over us? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.`

However, she wasn't to be placated and in a still voice she said, `You look down on my father, don't you?`

He swung round towards her. Ì 213 look down on no-one, Frances; but it was the way he went for me, how he made me feel as if I was someone who had come crawling, as if I were nobody--`

`He could stop me seeing you. Do you know that?`

`He won't. I would see you somehow. And anyway, when you're twenty-one he can do nothing about it.`

She was almost shouting now when she said, `But I'm not twenty-one, and won't be for another year or more. And you're not twenty-one either.`

`No.` He hung his head. `You're right, I'm not twenty-one; but I feel thirty-one, forty-one, especially when I think of you.`

His head was raised now and he took two steps towards her. But he didn't touch her and his voice was thick as he muttered, Ì love you, Frances. I love you so much it's eating me up. And if I could only know that some time in the future we would come together ... Oh God!` He swung away from her and, moving quickly to the half-open barn door, he dragged it closed. Then swinging her about, he took her into his arms and so fierce was his kissing that she fell back against the door, and he held her tightly until her kissing and her body responded to his.

When on a gasp his hold slackened on her and he muttered, Ì love you. I love you, and I need you,` she too muttered, Ì do too, Daniel. Oh yes, I do too. If only ... if only we could be married.`