would make herself love him—she would try very hard. After all, he was a hard worker, honest and trustworthy, who would gladly help her family. They needed help desperately, now that the eight hundred pounds was nearly gone.
If only he had a bit of wit. If only he could see when she was only joking or when her imagination took flight. But perhaps in time she’d learn to love him, especially when he became father of the children she expected to have.
As she stood gazing pensively at the sea, she sensed Timothy’s gaze upon her, no doubt with that puppy-dog, full-of-love expression in his eyes. Stop that, she chastised herself. That he loved her, there could be no doubt. She shouldn’t be thinking unkind thoughts about him.
“What are you thinking?” Timothy asked. No doubt he’d seen the far-away look in her eyes.
“I’m thinking it’s a beautiful day.” He needn’t know what else she was thinking. “I should get back. Mama’s not feeling good, as well as... there are other problems.”
As they strolled home, Evleen still could not shake off the feeling of something not being right. Perhaps it wasn’t Timothy. Perhaps it was the state of the family finances that was causing her woeful state of mind. To say the least, their lives had not gone as Mama had expected when they moved from Dublin to the little stone cottage that overlooked the sea. She thought the eight hundred pounds she received from the sale of the townhouse would last forever, supplemented by the lessons in deportment, French, and watercolors she would give the local gentry.
What a rude awakening she received! What Mama failed to realize was that in this barren county with its rock-hard, unyielding soil, there was no local gentry, not to speak of, anyway. The vast majority of the citizens of County Clare lived a hand-to-mouth existence, eking barely enough sustenance from the sea and poor soil to stay alive. The ladies of County Clare did not spend their time planning balls, nor did they spend hours on fittings for fancy clothes or conduct “at homes” with liveried servants serving tea. Few had servants. There was hardly time to be a lady, either, because the women of County Clare were occupied with such matters as digging potatoes, cooking meals over an open fireplace, hauling water from the well, and cutting peat in the nearby bogs.
Evleen and Timothy approached her family’s cottage. Built of stone, with lime-washed walls, it faced directly west, high on a hill that provided a magnificent view of the sea. The view was the only good thing about the cottage. Evleen would never forget that awful day nine years ago when, during a rainstorm, their wagon pulled to a stop in front of the Englishman’s small, bleak plot of land. Nothing green was to be seen. No shrubbery, flowers or trees, just coarse brown grass broken here and there by low, stone walls, the stones not cemented but just piled up. The walls were not laid out in neat squares, but instead slanted this way and that, acting as wind breaks to retain the thin layer of arable soil. For no apparent reason, two walls ran far up the hill behind the cottage where a few sheep huddled to protect themselves against the rain and cold.
To Evleen’s relief, the house itself was a cut above most of the cottages they had passed, some of which were constructed of mud with only one room and no windows. The floors were of dirt, and the roofs were made of sod and earth, laid on timber rafters and covered with a thatch of straw. At least this cottage was of a fairly good size, two stories and six rooms altogether, lime-stone painted walls, several windows, and a reed-thatched roof, which was a cut above the straw. Still, it could hardly compare with their Dublin townhouse. The big room—one could hardly call it a drawing room—had simple, plastered walls, one of which consisted totally of a huge fireplace where the cooking, and most of the living, was done. Evleen had been shocked when she saw it. Her sisters were in tears. Mama was appalled.
“We cannot stay here, it has no kitchen,” she declared, her face grim. “We can surely afford better than this. We’ll stay here the night and then tomorrow we’ll go back to Ballyvaughn where I shall seek something better.”
That was nine years ago. They had yet to move. Mama, always frugal, realized early-on they could