The Hawthorns Bloom in May Read Online Free PDF Page B

no money to find for her milk and eggs and as far as I know the farm has no mortgage on it, though it was in a bad way when Joe got it. An’ forby that Sam is workin’ all the hours there are, but for Sunday mornin’. He told me he earns a brave bit from the repairs and suchlike.’
    Rose shivered and drew the car rug closer over her knees.
    ‘Are ye cold, love?’
    ‘No, I was just thinking of Selina’s bright fire and her young Isabel running out to meet us. She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she? Though I can never look at her without thinking of wee Sophie.’
    ‘Aye. That should niver have happened,’ said John sharply, for he still felt angry over her death. A rabid dog had bitten the three-year old and ended her short life, because the police hadn’t taken the trouble to hunt it down when it was reported.
    ‘I thought at the time Thomas wou’d niver get over it, but then Ned came along and then wee Isabel. Sure he’s had a second family with Selina and its healed many a hurt that Mary-Anne laid on him.’
    John fell silent and the harsh and bitter words she’d once endured from Thomas’s first wife came back into Rose’s mind. A woman firm in her Christian views and active in her Bible reading but totally devoid of love or compassion. She’d shadowed many a good day when they’d lived in the house opposite Thomas’s forge. Putting Mary-Anne firmly out of mind, Rose gazed round at the silent countryside as the evening shadows were lengthened moment by moment. The air was cooling fast beneath a clear sky. Later, there would be a mass of stars and probably a touch of frost before dawn.
    ‘Did ye notice when I asked Thomas if young Ned was thinkin’ of goin’ to America, that he diden mention
his
eldest boy? He’s been in America for years now and I was waitin’ for Thomas to say how he was doin’ an’ where he was. But Thomas niver said a word about him. D’ye think young James Scott might be like another James we know?’ he asked, glancing across at her.
    Rose took a deep breath. It wasn’t often John mentioned their eldest son and it made her sad he still felt so hurt by the way James had rejected them, turning his back on the whole family, because he thought their Catholic relatives might somehow get in the way of his ambitions.
    ‘Well, it’s about the only reason I can think of why Thomas wouldn’t talk about him,’ she saidslowly. ‘We can’t talk about our James either, even if we wanted to. What could we say? He’s probably still with Harland and Wolff. I’m sure he’s a manager or better, but he never let us know. We know he’s married, but whether or not he has children we’ve never found out. It looks as if Thomas is in the same boat.’
    ‘I suppose it happens in all families,’ said John thoughtfully. ‘Sure, look at my two brothers. When they went to America they wrote for a wee while and then that was that. My mother kept goin’ for a bit longer and then she gave up. Maybe they just wanted to forget where they came from. Like our James. I’ve been told there’s a brave few does that.’
    Rose fell silent as he concentrated on the hill, drove to the top, turned in the wide space outside the gates of Rathdrum House and came slowly back down to park alongside their own wall. She was tired. Despite the pleasure of the visit to the forge house, she felt oppressed by what she’d seen at Liskeyborough.
    While John lit the gas lamps, she stirred up the fire. It had almost burnt itself out, so she encouraged it with small sticks and fragments of turf. She thought back to the talk she’d had with Selina when Thomas and John stepped down to the forge to look at a new rotary drill and they’d laid the tea table together.
    ‘What would you do, Selina?’ she asked, as she spread the crisp, crocheted cloth. ‘You’d be heart sore if you saw the wee ones barefoot in the cold weather. I’m sure you went barefoot as a child and so did I, but times have changed, thank God. I