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Would things return to what they were before, after his father married Moira Conelly, the Irish woman?

Perhaps she had money.

Everything seemed to depend on money. His father had to pay money to keep him at this school, and he had pointed out to him that he was lucky. He supposed he was.

This thought set him running and the dogs bounded away from his side and chased each other in the long grass.

The field ended where a stretch of woodland began, and he ran zig-zagging through this, the dogs at his heels now barking with excitement. Once

through the wood they were into ploughed land and 11 skirting the neat furrows. In the distance he could see Barney Dunlop unharnessing the horses from the plough. When he reached them, the old man turned and spoke as if he hadn't been made aware of his approach by the barking dogs, saying, `Why, there you are, Master Daniel. Where've you sprung from?`

`Granny Smith's Well.`

The old man and the boy now smiled knowingly at each other; for a long time this had been their usual greeting and answer. It was the answer Barney's wife always gave him when he asked her where she had been: `Down Granny Smith's Well,` she would say.

Granny Smith's Well was the deepest in the district and it was known never to have run dry, even in the season when no rain had fallen for weeks.

Àll ready for the morrow mornin', eh?`

`Yes, all ready, Barney.`

`Want to lead Princess? although she needs no leading, stone blind she could be an' still find her way. But Daisy, her daughter herè--he thumped the other horse on the rump now--`daft as a brush, she is, skittish she is, would be

off to the market in Fellburn, she would, if I wasn't keepin' an eye on her.Às Daniel walked by the head of the big shire horse and listened to the old man chattering away he experienced a feeling of contentment. He wasn't sure why he felt this way, but at this end of the estate life seemed to go on in a different pattern from the other end.

The farmyard was filled with noise and movement. Arthur Beaney was driving in the cows from the pasture; Alex Towney was carrying fodder for the horses, and at the far end of the long earth yard his father was talking to Bob Shearman, the shepherd, his hand waving as if he were angry.

He had reached the stable door and let go of Princess's halter and was turning to ask Barney if he could help him water the horses, when he saw that he too was looking to where the shepherd was now coming across the yard towards them. As he passed to go into the stable Bob Shearman hissed, `You know what now, Barney? he's bloody well telling me I've got to take Falcon into the market the morrow. I asked him why not one of the carriage horses. He told me to bloody-well mind me own business. But I told him I was a

horse man afore he put me on 13 shepherding and that Falcon isn't past it; he's still got a lot of jump in him yet and would burst a blood vessel to please him. But no, it's him that'll have to go; he must keep the carriage horses for his fancy piece that's comin'. I tell you, Barney, this place is goin' to hell quickly.`

`Be quiet! Be quiet!`

Bob Shearman glanced to where Barney was indicating the boy. And now he said, `What odds? he'll learn how the land lies soon enough. And when he should come into his own there'll be nowt to come in to. You mark my words.`

Daniel did not ask Barney if he could help water the horses, but he said, Ì'll say goodbye, Barney; I've got to go now.`

`Goodbye, Master Daniel. It won't be long afore I'll be seein' you again. Christmas isn't all that far off.

What's ten weeks or so?`

Without saying goodbye to Bob Shearman Daniel turned away; but as he walked through the wood he thought of the man's words, `When he should come into his own there'll be nowt to come in to.` Was this all because his mother's money had died with her, as Pattie had said? But what about the money his father got from selling the corn and the eggs and the vegetables and the milk, and of course the pigs and the sheep. That must come to a great deal, surely. What did he do with it? He couldn't ask him, so he supposed he'd never know.

Oh, well, he was glad he was going back to school tomorrow for there was so much to do there that you never had time to think about unpleasant things such as nothing to inherit when you grew up. He now called to the dogs and galloped with them through the wood.

2

Daniel didn't have to wait until the Christmas holidays to return home; he was granted three days' leave to attend his father's wedding. Over the past week he had become the centre of attraction in his House, after he had confided to Ray Melton, his friend, that his father was going to marry a lady from Ireland who lived in a castle and who was bringing her maid with her. Ray had, of course, passed this information on to the other boys in their dormitory, and consequently

Daniel found himself bombarded with questions after 15 lights out.

The lady would be his stepmother, wouldn't she?

Yes, she would.

Would he like that?

He didn't know yet.

Was she rich?

He wasn't sure.

Well, if she travelled with a maid she must be. You had to be really of the aristocracy to have a personal maid.

This last remark caused some controversy. Three of the boys claimed that they knew of friends of their parents who had personal maids.

This was topped by someone saying that his cousin visited a manor house in Northumberland where, with the butler and the footman, there were twelve indoor servants ... how many did Daniel have?

Daniel was aware that were he to be truthful and say, Òne,` his prestige would sink drastically. So he did not consider that he was really lying, when counting in the farmhands and their wives, he said, Èight.`

There were one or two murmurs of Òh! Oh!Èight seemed to be a satisfactory number on which to run a household to which an Irish lady was coming with her maid.

As Daniel settled down to sleep he told himself he must remember to explain to Ray how the eight servants were dispersed and that only one of them, Barney's wife, Rosie, worked in the house, because he had promised Ray he would invite him to tea during the coming holidays to see the farm, and, of course, the house. It was a very interesting house, one part of it being more than two hundred years old.

But in the meantime that was nothing to worry about, for Ray lived miles away in a place called Corbridge.

He could feel the change in the house before he entered the door. As he jumped down from the trap, which had brought him from the station, and made for the front door, the laughter seemed to flow out of it on a wave, and it caught him up and he rode in on it to the middle of the hall, where, stepping off the stairs, he saw his future stepmother. She wasn't as he remembered her; she looked younger and prettier and more plump. And when she leant forward and held her arms out to him, crying, `Why! Daniel, you are grown up. Come here. Come

here,` he did not rush towards her and 17 into her arms, but approached slowly, feeling that he should be polite and say, `How do you do?` But when her hands caught him and drew him to her breast he put his arms about her waist and looked up into her face and he laughed, and she laughed, and her laughter was almost in his ear, and it wasn't a tinkling laugh such as you would expect from a lady, but a jolly, rollicking one. And now, on loosening one arm from about him, she stretched it out and pointed to a fat, dark-haired woman now approaching from the kitchen, and said, `This is Maggie Ann, Daniel. And I'm warning you: beware of her, she practises magic and she casts spells.`

The big woman laughed and seemed to swim all over him as her plump hand gripped his chin and lifted his face towards hers. `So you're Daniel, are you?` she said, `God! but you're thin, boy. You'll never brave the lions' den, not until we get some flesh on your bones.` She smiled now, and he noticed that a number of her teeth were crooked and that her hair was very dark, as were her eyes.

When she let go of his chin she patted his cheek,

saying, `You'll do. You'll do. You'll shape up nicely. What d'you say, me dear?` She had turned to her mistress, to whom Daniel, too, turned; and she, her head on one side, surveyed him as if she had not seen him before. `He doesn't take after his father, not in looks anyway,` she said; `but he'll do splendidly for himself.`

`Who doesn't take after his father?`

Hector had entered the hall from a side door, and Moira, now turning a laughing face towards him, said

`Here's your son come home and never a greeting to him. Where have you been?`

Daniel watched his father come striding towards them and straight away put his arm around the waist of his future wife and hug her close, before turning to him and rumpling his hair, saying, `Well, here you are!

and I declare you've grown another inch in the last few weeks.`

`He's too thin by half.` This was Maggie Ann speaking, and when Hector made to answer, it wasn't in the free and easy tone he had just used, for his voice was cold even as he smiled at the woman and said,

`Well, you'll have to see that your culinary prowess in the kitchen outdoes Rosie's, won't you?` 19

But Maggie Ann's manner or tone didn't change as she addressed her new master: Òh, begod!` she said on a loud laugh, `Don't expect miracles in that quarter. And look, I don't want to get up the good Rosie's back again, for it's taken me these three weeks to stroke down her ruffled feathers by each day asking her to show me the ropes, and begod! I'd like to see the ropes I couldn't untangle meself, given time of course.`

Daniel watched his father stare hard at the woman before turning again to his future bride and, smiling now, say, Ì must go and change because I smell of the farmyard, and then I'll take you for that promised jaunt around the countryside and introduce you here and there.` With that he hugged her to him once more, then made for the stairs, taking them two at a time, as would a man half his age.

As if they had forgotten Daniel, the two women, talking in quick exchange, now walked to the door that opened into a corridor and what had once been the servant's quarters. At the end of it a sharp turning led to the back entrance to the kitchen. It was as Daniel entered the corridor to follow the women that he heard their voices coming from this passage. His future stepmother was saying in a tone that held no laughter, `Now I warned you, Maggie Ann, what it would be like ... Do you want to go home?`

The answer came: `Not without you. D'you want to go home?`

`Don't be silly, woman.`

`He's looking down his nose at me.`

`Well, to him you're a servant. I've explained it all to you.`

`Begod! I was a servant across the water and neither himself nor your ma ever tripped over themselves to tell me of me position. We worked together, we talked together, we ate together, the only thing we didn't do was sleep together, except for you, for you slept with me for years. So how d'you expect me to take this new situation, I ask you?`

`Maggie Ann. You've either got to take it or you go back across the water. Now I'm only repeating what I said to you before we came.`

Àye, I know. But then, I hadn't had a taste of what it was goin' to be like. Even that Rosie, the ploughman's wife, looks at me as if I am the slush running out of the cow byre.

And I have to lower meself and make 21 believe I'm a numskull of the first water and know nothing about a kitchen or a kale pot.`

Ì also told you, Maggie Ann, that they don't eat as we did, neither in food, nor ways.`

Àw, you've made that evident enough an' all. It's in the kitchen I've got to sit. Look, Miss Moira, himself, your own father, was from one of the best families that ever trod Irish soil and if he could sit down with me and me like and eat his food, then who the hell in England should think themselves any better!`

There was a long pause and Daniel was making for the hall again when he heard Moira, as he was thinking of her now, say, Ìt's not going to work, is it, Maggie Ann?`

This statement was followed by another silence before Maggie Ann, speaking quietly now, said, `You know damn fine I won't leave you. You've been me life from when you were born. So there's nothing for me but to stick it and make it work. I can tell you one thing, though, Miss Moira, you'll have to make it work an' all, because that young madam looks upon you almost in the same way as her father does on me.`

`That isn't news to me, Maggie Ann-- I'm well aware of that--and so it will be up to me to make her change her attitude. By tomorrow I shall be her stepmother and mistress of this house. Thanks be to God. Yes, mistress of a house. And I say again, Maggie Ann, thanks be to God. Now together we could make it work, but only if you watch your tongue and fall in with the new ways and remember that the English gentry are a different breed altogether from our lot.`

Àh!` Maggie Ann's voice came high now. `What you talking about, Miss Moira, with one mouldy servant in the house-- gentry? Huh! Even himself managed four, and he without a penny to his name. By the way, I'll ask you, do they know that?`

Moira's voice was low as she replied, `They know only what I choose to tell them, and that there's money coming, which is true enough.`

`Yes; God speed the dead.`

`Go on with you, Maggie Ann. I don't wish anybody dead. But come on, give me a smile, give me a laugh. It's pulled us through so far. As Mama used to say, keep your pecker up.` 23

Àye, and himself used to finish, "When the other hens are pinching your corn."`

Keep your pecker up while the other hens are pinching your corn. What a funny saying. But then they talked funny all the time.

When Daniel heard the rustle of their skirts he quickly went back into the hall and made for the main entrance to the kitchen.

Rosie Dunlop turned from the table where she was thumping a large mound of dough with her fist and said, Òh, hello there, Master Daniel. So you've got back.`

`Yes, Rosie. You baking?`

`Bakin'? I've never stopped for the last four days. A quiet weddin', your father said, and we're having breakfast at the hotel in Fellburn, he said, only to add, there'll be a few friends dropping in for the evening: you can knock something up for that, can't you? And I've been knockin' something up, as I said, for the last four days now: he wanted hare pie, brawn, spare ribs, a leg of pork, and that was just for starters. Just push it on the table, he said, where they can help themselves. Have you met them?`