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  ‘She isn’t afraid of hard work, she’s just not used to this sort of work. I’m thinking her family must have had a maid or two. If her father is a senior clerk, perhaps he’s richer than I’d thought.’

  Another silence, then Patrick yawned and said, ‘So you’ll get her to write the letter while Fergus and I are at work?’

  Alana nodded. ‘I will. I’ve kept the one he screwed up. And I’ll post the letter too, so that he can’t stop me sending it.’

  She hesitated, then added, ‘Will you be sorry to leave the Railway Works?’

  ‘No. I’m getting a bit old for the heavy work. They’d have put me on light work soon and cut my wages. That’s another reason I’m glad to be going to Australia.’

  The following morning Alana showed Cara the crumpled letter Fergus had written and put aside, then explained what she and Patrick wanted.

  Cara looked at her in dismay. ‘I don’t think I should do that.’

  ‘We have to. It’s the only way we’ll get to Australia. Read out to me what Fergus wrote.’

  Alana listened carefully, asked for it to be read again, then shook her head sadly. ‘Oh, my! I can see why Fergus threw this away. He sounds so … surly. As if he doesn’t really want to go.’

  Cara had to agree with her. ‘I still don’t think we should do this behind his back. It’s for Mr Deagan to contact this Mr Largan … or not.’

  ‘He never will unless we push him into it. He’s taken a pride in earning a good living for his family, not owing a penny to anyone, and I can understand that he doesn’t want to go cap in hand to his brother. He’s quite a leader among the men, and was chosen to become an engineer’s assistant. We’re very proud of him. But the only way we’ll get to Australia is with help. There are just too many fares to pay. And we’ll need help when we get there too.’

  ‘What will Mr Deagan do for a job there?’

  ‘Call him Fergus. I can’t think of him as Mr Deagan. He’ll find something to do, I’m sure. He’s clever with his hands. Maybe he’ll work on the railways there, like he does here. That’d be the sensible thing, don’t you think?’ She gestured around them. ‘This house is one of the better ones round here, you know, because Fergus’s employers think well of him. A railway house, they call it. If he’d been born in this town, he’d have been apprenticed properly as a lad, and would have trained as an engineer.’

  ‘I’m still not sure I should write the letter. Perhaps he doesn’t want to go. He has a good job and you all have a good life here.’

  ‘Oh, Cara, please help us! You’re the only one who can. We need to go. Patrick and I are desperate to get away from our memories of Eileen or we’ll never be happy again.’ She shook her head, sniffing away a tear, unable to continue. ‘And Fergus isn’t himself. He needs a change, too. I know he does.’

  Cara had seen how deep the other woman’s sorrow about losing her daughter went. Clearing out the last of Eileen’s things the previous day had ended in Mrs Grady crying and wailing, with an anguish Cara would never forget. Such raw grief. She’d had to hold the older woman close while she sobbed her heart out. No one should bear such pain uncomforted. And the clothes had been left till today.

  ‘I’ll … think about it,’ was all she could offer.

  When they went back to sorting out the clothes, Mrs Grady studied her and said, ‘There’s a lot of wear in these still, and you’re very short of everyday clothes. I’ve seen you shivering with cold. Eileen was slender like you, but you’re a bit taller than she was. These would fit you if you put frills or borders on the bottoms of the skirts. I know you’re good with a needle. I’m sure you could do that.’ She indicated the small pile of better clothes. ‘Try them on.’

  ‘I can’t take them.’

  ‘You can so. You’re looking after her child, you gave the baby those lovely clothes, so Eileen would want you to have these as a thank you, I know she would.’

  ‘You’d better ask Mr Deagan first.’

  ‘I already did. He said they’re no use to him, so you can have them if you want.’

  What else could Cara do but accept the clothes, and with real gratitude? She was indeed lacking in possessions. You couldn’t fit much into the one portmanteau her father had allowed her to take with her. She pushed aside her memories of that terrifying day, the way she’d stumbled out on to the street and not known which way to walk.

  Sighing, she turned back to the business at hand.

  A little later, she stopped trying to do the right thing morally and agreed to what Mrs Grady wanted, because she couldn’t bear the way the other woman kept sighing and wiping her eyes. ‘Oh, very well. Once we’ve finished here, I’ll draw up a rough draft of a letter and we can work together on improving it.’

  ‘Ah, that’d be grand. Thank you, darlin’. I’ll keep an eye on the baby while you do it, shall I?’

  Cara did the best she could, clearing her throat when she’d finished to get Mrs Grady’s attention because the older woman was staring down at the baby with a loving expression, seeming oblivious to everything around her.

  When Mrs Grady looked up, Cara asked, ‘Shall I read my first draft to you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Dear Mr Largan

  I’m writing on behalf of my son-in-law, Fergus Deagan, to let you know that he needs help.

  Our daughter Eileen, his wife, died in childbirth a few weeks ago. Her dying wish was that he take his family to join his brother Bram and the other Deagan family members in Australia.

  Fergus now has two sons aged six and ten, and the new baby, who is a girl and is thriving. I’m afraid there are also my husband and myself needing help, because Eileen was our only child. Our grandchildren and Fergus are the only family we now have, and it’d break our hearts to be parted from them. Besides, he won’t go without us.

  Fergus doesn’t like to ask for the money, so a friend is helping me write to you. If you can get Bram to lend us enough to pay for our passages to Australia, we will do our utmost to pay him back one day. We are hard workers.

  Your obedient servant,

  X A

  Alana Grady (her mark)

  ‘You have a fine way with words, Cara darlin’. That sounds fine to me. Read it to me again.’

  She listened intently, then said, ‘Yes. Write it out neatly and we’ll send it.’

  ‘Are you sure? Shouldn’t we wait for Mr Grady to come home from work and let him read it too?’

  ‘He can’t read, any more than I can.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And he trusts you, we both do.’

  So Cara sat and wrote to Mr Kieran Largan of Shilmara in her best copperplate handwriting. She thought they’d got the letter right … Well, as right as they could manage, not knowing the man they were sending it to – not knowing Fergus’s brother, either.

  Afterwards Mrs Grady laboriously made her cross and wrote the letter A next to it at the bottom of the page.

  ‘Now we need an address to write on the envelope,’ Cara prompted.

  ‘It must be in these.’ Alana handed over the pieces of paper Fergus had shoved into the drawer.

  Cara sorted through them. ‘Yes, here it is. Just let me write it down … There. Shall I seal the envelope now?’

  ‘Yes. Do it. I’ll take it to the post office when I go out to buy food for dinner. I expect we’ll have to wait many months for a reply, because Mr Kieran will have to write to Bram in Australia. But at least we’ll have got the thing started.’

  ‘I’ll keep the rough copy of the letter, in case Fergus ever wants to see it, shall I?’

  ‘Yes. That’s a good idea.’ Alana put the envelope on the mantelpiece, staring at the lines of marks that made up the address. You could tell they were neatly written, even when you didn’t know what they meant. ‘It looks pretty. You must have had a very good education to write like that. You could be a teacher, maybe, afterwards.’

  ‘They’d want references about my character and education, and if I went bac
k to my parents or my old school to ask for references, I’d not even get the time of day from them, let alone any help.’ Cara’s voice was sharp as she added, ‘I’m a fallen woman now, aren’t I?’

  ‘No, you’re not a fallen woman. Stop calling yourself such horrible names. How many times do I have to tell you that? Anyway, we’ll think of some way to help you when we leave. There’s plenty of time to make plans because Niamh will need you for a few months yet. She’s had a slow start in life, but she’s beginning to put on weight nicely now, the little darlin’. We’ll need to wean her, though, before we leave for Australia.’

  She saw Cara’s face grow sad and decided it was best to face the truth. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I know you’re fond of her, but you mustn’t get too close. She’s not your child and unless this Mr Kieran is lying about Bram wanting his family to join him, we’ll definitely be leaving.’

  ‘She feels like mine, because Fergus never comes near her.’

  ‘He still blames himself for getting the baby on Eileen, and her dying.’

  Her father blamed other people when there were problems, Cara thought. Never himself. Why did she keep thinking of him? He’d cast her out, hadn’t he? She would never see him or speak to him again.

  She missed her sister greatly, however. She’d seen her mother and Leinie in the street one day, and her mother had stopped dead, with an anguished expression on her face. But she hadn’t taken even one step towards her daughter. Not one. And she’d drawn Leinie’s attention to something in the other direction, so her sister hadn’t even seen her. Then she’d moved on as if nothing was wrong.

  Oh, that had hurt so much!

  Cara’s aunt had written her a letter, saying how sorry she was about the baby dying, but maybe it was for the best. She’d put a guinea in it, which went straight into Cara’s savings.

  It wasn’t for the best that the baby had died. Bastard born or not, Cara would have loved Hannah. She sighed. Looking after little Niamh, living with these people, had shown her how much she had missed in her family. Oh, she’d had possessions, maids to wait on her, but no open shows of love, not even from her mother.

  Ma plonked a kiss on people’s cheeks regularly, or hugged them, or teased them. Even Cara.

  What would the future hold without these people? Cara couldn’t even begin to think about that, didn’t dare, because she’d be on her own again struggling to survive in a hard world.

  While she could, she’d look after dear little Niamh, yes, and love her too, whatever Ma said. Babies needed to be loved and she, heaven help her, needed someone to love.

  3

  To the two women’s astonishment, they got a reply back from Ireland by return of post, and within the week, too. A few days before Christmas, Ma heard an envelope drop through the iron letter flap on the front door and went to pick it up.

  She brought the envelope into the kitchen, staring at it as if it’d bite her. Such a rare occurrence, a letter. She held it out. ‘What does it say, Cara?’

  ‘It’s addressed to Fergus Deagan at this address. And on the back of the envelope it says it’s from Mr K. Largan.’ She read out both names and addresses. ‘We mustn’t open a letter addressed to Fergus,’ she added firmly.

  ‘You’re right. It’d be wrong for us to open a letter with his name writ on it in such big black letters. Like stealing. I’ll have to tell him what we did and then give it to him.’

  ‘I’ll take Niamh up into the bedroom while you tell him, if you like. Give you some privacy.’

  ‘No, no! Please stay. You’ll need to show him that copy of the letter you kept. And you’ll want to know what Mr Kieran says, because it’ll affect you too.’ Ma sniffed and blew her nose. ‘And anyway, I don’t want to be on my own when I tell him. Fergus has been so grim lately, I’m a bit afraid of what he’ll say to me.’

  ‘Won’t Mr Grady be here with you?’

  ‘Not tonight. After work he’s going to see an old friend who’s fallen on hard times, just to take him a bite to eat.’

  At the end of the afternoon, they heard the hooter at the railway works echoing across the town of Swindon to signal the end of the working day. It could be heard for miles and people set their clocks by it.

  The two women exchanged glances. That hooter meant that Fergus, like hundreds of other men, would be on his way home.

  Alana told her grandsons to go upstairs as soon as their father came in.

  ‘Why? Is something wrong?’ Sean asked at once.

  She hesitated, but they were both sensible lads and anyway, they’d overhear what was said. ‘Your father’s got a letter from Mr Kieran in Ireland. Only … well, your father doesn’t know it was me who wrote to ask Mr Kieran for help getting to Australia. So you’d be best keeping out of the way, in case he gets angry at me.’

  They nodded.

  ‘Is Australia a nice place to live, Gran?’ Mal asked.

  ‘People say so. Cara’s read me a book about it. It’s sunny there more often than in England, isn’t it Cara?’

  ‘That’s what the book says.’

  Ten minutes later they heard tramping feet along their street and knew that the men who worked in the railway yards were coming home. The boys hurried upstairs without being told again.

  When Fergus went into the house, he found a cup of tea already poured for him and his mother-in-law hovering near the table, looking apprehensive. He ignored the tea. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Wrong? Nothing. Well, not exactly.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You have a letter from Mr Kieran.’

  ‘Oh? He must have heard about Eileen. I wonder how?’

  ‘Um, it was me. I wrote to tell him about … the situation. I asked if he could write to Bram for us, help us get the money for the ship.’

  ‘What?’ Fergus glared at her. ‘How could you? I told you I didn’t want to ask my brother for help.’

  Ma lost her meekness. ‘Well, I think you’re being foolish, let alone you’re breaking your promise to Eileen. And her on her deathbed when you made it, too.’

  He opened his mouth then shut it again, but glared across at Cara. ‘I suppose you wrote the letter for her.’

  ‘I did.’

  Alana grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t be angry with her. She didn’t want to do it. I made her. Oh, Fergus love, we need a change. All of us do. Pa and me, we’re weighed down by sadness here, remembering Eileen, seeing her everywhere. I can’t bear it for much longer. I just … can’t.’ She began crying hard, tears rolling down her cheeks, loud sounds of grief filling the room.

  The baby immediately began crying too and Cara tried to shush her at the same time as getting up to put an arm round Alana.

  ‘Can’t you keep that damned child quiet?’ Fergus snapped.

  Cara gave him a disgusted look. ‘Niamh’s normally a very quiet baby. It was your loud voice which frightened her.’

  Fergus usually admired the calmness Cara seemed to carry around her like a second skin. He didn’t think she was always calm behind it, had sometimes seen tears well in her eyes, but she didn’t parade her emotions, which he found a relief. This time, however, she’d spoken more loudly than usual as she patted the baby’s back, and her eyes had flashed with anger.

  ‘You couldn’t find a better baby than Niamh, Mr Deagan, only you never look at her, so you wouldn’t know.’

  Her words shocked him. It wasn’t her place to scold him, dammit. She was just the wet nurse. He opened his mouth to tell her that, but didn’t say anything in the end, because she was right. He knew he was being unfair to the baby, yet he couldn’t seem to change how he behaved because the mere sight of his tiny daughter made him feel so guilty.

  Turning away from Cara’s scornful gaze, he looked back at his mother-in-law and his voice grew gentler. ‘Don’t cry, Ma. It’s done now. Where is the letter? Did Cara read it to you already? And what did you say in yours to him?’

  ‘We haven’t opened your letter, Fergus. We wouldn’t do that. Cara kept a copy of the one we sent to
Mr Kieran.’ She went to take the envelope from Ireland down from the mantelpiece, handed it to him, then pulled the piece of paper Cara had shown her out of the dresser drawer.

  ‘I’ll go up to the bedroom to read them in privacy,’ he said.

  ‘The boys are in there. You can go into our room. Patrick’s not back from work yet.’

  When Fergus had left without a word of thanks, slamming the door of the front room behind him, the two women looked at one another apprehensively.

  Alana put one finger on her lips, listening hard, hoping there wouldn’t be an explosion of anger after he’d read the letter. Fergus didn’t get angry very often, but when he did, he frightened her a little, and Eileen had said the same thing. Not that he’d ever struck Eileen, as some husbands did. No, he’d never done that. He wasn’t a bully. But you could push him too far.

  The men who worked with him respected him and he was a leader in the street when anything needed doing. A fine man, Fergus Deagan.

  At times, however, he seemed to withdraw into some unhappy place inside himself and then he became too quiet, so that you couldn’t get near him or work out what he was thinking. He was a clever man. She’d never understand him completely if she tried for a hundred years.

  He should never have married her Eileen, she’d come to realise as the years passed. Chalk and cheese, those two were. Her daughter wasn’t clever, couldn’t even manage her housekeeping money without help. And her prettiness had faded quickly with the cares of motherhood.

  Ah well, that was water under the bridge now. Eileen was gone and Ma was determined to help Fergus and her grandchildren. Oh yes, whatever it took, she’d do it. Even if it made him angry.

  Fergus stood in the front room and stared at the letter, not wanting to open it. He wished they hadn’t contacted Kieran, but it was done now, so he’d better find out what was going on.

  He read the letter to Mr Kieran first, surprised at how well Cara had summarised the situation. She’d managed not to make it sound like a begging letter, thank goodness. She must be well educated to write so well, and she had beautiful handwriting too. But oh, he hated being a supplicant and asking for money.