Ship of Brides Read Online Free PDF

turned it to begin each painstaking manoeuvre again.
    ‘Maggie!’
    At one point it bucked. Letty’s heart lurched and her hand flew to her mouth. But the rider was neither unseated nor concerned, and merely booted the animal forwards, muttering something that might or might not have been an admonishment.
    ‘For God’s sake, Maggie, will you get over here!’
    The brim of the hat lifted and a hand was raised in greeting. The horse was steered round and walked towards the gate, its head low. ‘Been there long, Letty?’ she called.
    ‘Are you insane, girl? What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ She could see her niece’s broad grin under the brim of the hat.
    ‘Just a bit of schooling. Dad’s too big to ride her and the boys are useless with her, so there’s only me. Moody old girl, isn’t she?’
    Letty shook her head, exasperated, and motioned for Margaret to dismount. ‘For goodness’ sake, child. Do you want a hand getting off?’
    ‘Hah! No, I’m fine. Is it lunchtime yet? I put some stew on earlier, but I don’t know what time they’ll be in. They’re moving the calves down to Yarrawa Creek, and they can be all day down there.’
    ‘They’ll not be all day in this weather,’ Letty responded, as Margaret clambered down inelegantly from the horse and landed heavily on her feet. ‘Unless they’re as insane as you are.’
    ‘Ah, don’t fuss. She looks worse than she is.’
    ‘You’re soaked. Look at you! I can’t believe you’d even consider riding out in this weather. Good gracious, Maggie, I don’t know what you think you’re doing . . . What your dear mother would say, God only knows.’
    There was a brief pause.
    ‘I know . . .’ Margaret wrinkled her nose as she reached up to undo the girth.
    Letty wondered if she had said too much. She hesitated, then bit back the awkward apology that had sprung to her lips. ‘I didn’t mean—’
    ‘Forget it. You’re right, Letty,’ said the girl, as she swung the saddle easily under her arm. ‘She wouldn’t have had this mare doing circles to balance her up. She’d have put her in a pair of side reins and be done with it.’
    The men returned shortly before one o’clock, arriving in a thunderous cluster of wet overshoes and dripping hats, shedding their coats at the door. Margaret had set the table and was dishing up steaming bowls of beef stew.
    ‘Colm, you’ve still got mud all the way up the back of your heels,’ said Letty, and the young man obligingly kicked off his boots on the mat rather than waste time trying to clean them.
    ‘Got any bread with that?’
    ‘Give us a chance, boys. I’m going as fast as I can.’
    ‘Maggie, your dog’s asleep in Dad’s old hat,’ said Daniel, grinning. ‘Dad says if he gets fleas off it he’ll shoot her.’
    ‘I said no such thing, eejit child. How are you, Letty? Did you get up to town yesterday?’ Murray Donleavy, a towering, angular man whose freckles and pale eyes signalled his Celtic origins, sat down at the head of the table and, without comment, began to work his way through a hunk of bread that his sister-in-law had sliced for him.
    ‘I did, Murray.’
    ‘Any post for us?’
    ‘I’ll bring it out after you’ve eaten.’ Otherwise, the way these men sat at a table, the letters would be splashed with gravy and fingered with greasemarks. Noreen had never seemed to mind.
    Margaret had had her lunch already, and was sitting on the easy chair by the larder, her socked feet on a footstool. Letty watched the men settle, with private satisfaction, as they lowered their heads to eat. Not many families, these days, could boast five men round a table with three of them having been in the services. As Murray muttered to Daniel, his youngest, to pass more bread, Letty could still detect a hint of the Irish accent with which he had arrived in the country. Her sister had occasionally mocked it good-humouredly. ‘That one!’ she’d say, her accent curled round a poor