1915-1917
MEGGIE 1On December 8th, 1915, Meggie Cleary had her fourth birthday. After the breakfast dishes were put away hermother silently thrust a brown paper parcel into her arms and ordered her outside. So Meggie squatted downbehind the gorse bush next to the front gate and tugged impatiently. Her fingers were clumsy, the wrappingheavy; it smelled faintly of the Wahine general store, which told her that whatever lay inside the parcel hadmiraculously been bought, not homemade or donated. Something fine and mistily gold began to poke through acorner; she attacked the paper faster, peeling it away in long, ragged strips. "Agnes! Oh, Agnes!" she saidlovingly, blinking at the doll lying there in a tattered nest. A miracle indeed. Only once in her life had Meggiebeen into Wahine; all the way back in May, because she had been a very good girl. So perched in the buggybeside her mother, on her best behavior, she had been too excited to see or remember much. Except for Agnes,the beautiful doll sitting on the store counter, dressed in a crinoline of pink satin with cream lace frills all over it.
Right then and there in her mind she had christened it Agnes, the only name she knew elegant enough for such apeerless creature. Yet over the en-3 suing months her yearning after Agnes contained nothing of hope; Meggiedidn't own a doll and had no idea little girls and dolls belonged together. She played happily with the whistlesand slingshots and battered soldiers her brothers discarded, got her hands dirty and her boots muddy. It neveroccurred to her that Agnes was to play with. Stroking the bright pink folds of the dress, grander than any she hadever seen on a human woman, she picked Agnes up tenderly. The doll had jointed arms and legs which could bemoved anywhere; even her neck and tiny, shapely waist were jointed. Her golden hair was exquisitely dressed ina high pompadour studded with pearls, her pale bosom peeped out of a foaming fichu of cream lace fastened witha pearl pin. The finely painted bone china face was beautiful, left unglazed to give the delicately tinted skin anatural matte texture. Astonishingly lifelike blue eyes shone between lashes of real hair, their irises streaked andcircled with a darker blue; fascinated, Meggie discovered that when Agnes lay back far enough, her eyes closed.
High on one faintly flushed cheek she had a black beauty mark, and her dusky mouth was parted slightly to showtiny white teeth. Meggie put the doll gently on her lap, crossed her feet under her comfortably, and sat justlooking. She was still sitting behind the gorse bush when Jack and Hughie came rustling through the grass whereit was too close to the fence to feel a scythe. Her hair was the typical Cleary beacon, all the Cleary children saveFrank being martyred by a thatch some shade of red; Jack nudged his brother and pointed gleefully. Theyseparated, grinning at each other, and pretended they were troopers after a Maori renegade. Meggie would nothave heard them anyway, so engrossed was she in Agnes, humming softly to herself. "What's that you've got,Meggie?" Jack shouted, pouncing. "Show us!" "Yes, show us!" Hughie giggled, outflanking her.
She clasped the doll against her chest and shook her head. "No, she's mine! I got her for my birthday!""Show us, go on! We just want to have a look."Pride and joy won out. She held the doll so her brothers could see. "Look, isn't she beautiful? Her name isAgnes.""Agnes? Agnes?" Jack gagged realistically. "What a soppy name! Why don't you call her Margaret or Betty?""Because she's Agnes!"Hughie noticed the joint in the doll's wrist, and whistled. "Hey, Jack, look! It can move its hand!""Where? Let's see.""No!" Meggie hugged the doll close again, tears forming. "No, you'll break her! Oh, Jack, don't take her awayyou'llbreak her!" "Pooh!" His dirty brown hands locked about her wrists, closing tightly. "Want a Chinese burn?
And don't be such a crybaby, or I'll tell Bob." He squeezed her skin in opposite directions until it stretchedwhitely, as Hughie got hold of the doll's skirts and pulled. "Gimme, or I'll do it really hard!""No! Don't, Jack, please don't! You'll break her, I know you will! Oh, please leave her alone! Don't take her,please!" In spite of the cruel grip on her wrists she clung to the doll, sobbing and kicking. "Got it" Hughiewhooped, as the doll slid under Meggie's crossed forearms. Jack and Hughie found her just as fascinating asMeggie had; off came the dress, the petticoats and long, frilly drawers. Agnes lay naked while the boys pushedand pulled at her, forcing one foot round the back of her head, making her look down her spine, every possiblecontortion they could think of. They took no notice of Meggie as she stood crying; it did not occur to her to seekhelp, for in the Cleary family those who could not fight their own battles got scant aid or sympathy, and thatwent for girls, too.
The doll's golden hair tumbled down, the pearls flew winking into the long grass and disappeared. A dusty bootcame down thoughtlessly on the abandoned dress, smearing grease from the smithy across its satin. Meggiedropped to her knees, scrabbling frantically to collect the miniature clothes before more damage was done them,then she began picking among the grass blades where she thought the pearls might have fallen. Her tears wereblinding her, the grief in her heart new, for until now she had never owned anything worth grieving for.
Frank threw the shoe hissing into cold water and straightened his back; it didn't ache these days, so perhaps hewas used to smithying. Not before time, his father would have said, after six months at it. But Frank knew verywell how long it was since his introduction to the forge and anvil; he had measured the time in hatred andresentment. Throwing the hammer into its box, he pushed the lank black hair off his brow with a trembling handand dragged the old leather apron from around his neck. His shirt lay on a heap of straw in the corner; he ploddedacross to it and stood for a moment staring at the splintering barn wall as if it did not exist, his black eyes wideand fixed. He was very small, not above five feet three inches, and thin still as striplings are, but the bareshoulders and arms had muscles already knotted from working with the hammer, and the pale, flawless skingleamed with sweat. The darkness of his hair and eyes had a foreign tang, his full-lipped mouth and wide-bridged nose not the usual family shape, but there was Maori blood on his mother's side and in him it showed. Hewas nearly sixteen years old, where Bob was barely eleven, Jack ten, Hughie nine, Stuart five and little Meggiethree. Then he remembered that today Meggie was four; it was December 8th. He put on his shirt and left thebarn.
The house lay on top of a small hill about one hundred feet higher than the barn and stables. Like all NewZealand houses, it was wooden, rambling over many squares and of one story only, on the theory that if anearthquake struck, some of it might be left standing. Around it gorse grew everywhere, at the moment smotheredin rich yellow flowers; the grass was green and luxuriant, like all New Zealand grass. Not even in the middle ofwinter, when the frost sometimes lay unmelted all day in the shade, did the grass turn brown, and the long, mildsummer only tinted it an even richer green. The rains fell gently without bruising the tender sweetness of allgrowing things, there was no snow, and the sun had just enough strength to cherish, never enough to sap. NewZealand's scourges thundered up out of the bowels of the earth rather than descended from the skies. There wasalways a suffocated sense of waiting, an intangible shuddering and thumping that actually transmitted itselfthrough the feet. For beneath the ground lay awesome power, power of such magnitude that thirty years before awhole towering mountain had disappeared; steam gushed howling out of cracks in the sides of innocent hills,volcanoes spurned smoke into the sky and the alpine streams ran warm. Huge lakes of mud boiled oilily, the seaslapped uncertainly at cliffs which might not be there to greet the next incoming tide, and in places the earth'scrust was only nine hundred feet thick. Yet it was a gentle, gracious land. Beyond the house stretched anundulating plain as green as the emerald in Fiona Cleary's engagement ring, dotted with thousands of creamybundles close proximity revealed as sheep. Where the curving hills scalloped the edge of the lightblue sky MountEgmont soared ten thousand feet, sloping into the clouds, its sides still white with snow, its symmetry so perfectthat even those like Frank who saw it every day of their lives never ceased to marvel.
It was quite a pull from the barn to the house, but Frank hurried because he knew he ought not to be going; hisfather's orders were explicit. Then as he rounded the corner of the house he saw the little group by the gorsebush.
Frank had driven his mother into Wahine to buy Meggie's doll, and he was still wondering what had promptedher to do it. She wasn't given to impractical birthday presents, there wasn't the money for them, and she hadnever given a toy to anyone before. They all got clothes; birthdays and Christmases replenished sparsewardrobes. But apparently Meggie had seen the doll on her one and only trip into town, and Fiona had notforgotten. When Frank questioned her, she muttered something about a girl needing a doll, and quickly changedthe subject.
Jack and Hughie had the doll between them on the front path, manipulating its joints callously. All Frank couldsee of Meggie was her back, as she stood watching her brothers desecrate Agnes. Her neat white socks hadslipped in crinkled folds around her little black boots, and the pink of her legs was visible for three or four inchesbelow the hem of her brown velvet Sunday dress. Down her back cascaded a mane of carefully curled hair,sparkling in the sun; not red and not gold, but somewhere in between. The white taffeta bow which held the frontcurls back from her face hung draggled and limp; dust smeared her dress. She held the doll's clothes tightly inone hand, the other pushing vainly at Hughie.
"You bloody little bastards!"Jack and Hughie scrambled to their feet and ran, the doll forgotten; when Frank swore it was politic to run.
"If I catch you flaming little twerps touching that doll again I'll brand your shitty little arses!" Frank yelled afterthem. He bent down and took Meggie's shoulders between his hands, shaking her gently.
"Here, here there's no need to cry! Come on now, they've gone and they'll never touch your dolly again, Ipromise. Give me a smile for your birthday, eh?"Her face was swollen, her eyes running; she stared at Frank out of grey eyes so large and full of tragedy that hefelt his throat tighten. Pulling a dirty rag from his breeches pocket, he rubbed it clumsily over her face, thenpinched her nose between its folds.
"Blow!"She did as she was told, hiccuping noisily as her tears dried. "Oh, Fruh-Fruh-Frank, they too-too-took Agnesaway from me!" She sniffled. "Her huh-huh-hair all failed down and she loh-loh-lost all the pretty widdle puhpuh-pearls in it! They all failed in the gruh-gruhgrass and I can't end them!"The tears welled up again, splashing on Frank's hand; he stared at his wet skin for a moment, then licked thedrops off.
"Well, we'll have to find them, won't we? But you can't find anything while you're crying, you know, and what'sall this baby talk? I haven't heard you say "widdle" instead of "little' for six months! Here, blow your nose againand then pick up poor . . . Agnes? If you don't put her clothes on, she'll get sunburned."He made her sit on the edge of the path and gave her the doll gently, then he crawled about searching the grassuntil he gave a triumphant whoop and held up a pearl.
"There! First one! We'll find them all, you wait and see."Meggie watched her oldest brother adoringly while he picked among the grass blades, holding up each pearl ashe found it; then she remembered how delicate Agnes's skin must be, how easily it must Burn, and bent herattention on clothing the doll. There did not seem any real injury. Her hair was tangled and loose, her arms andlegs dirty where the boys had pushed and pulled at them, but everything still worked. A tortoiseshell combnestled above each of Meggie's ears; she tugged at one until it came free, and began to comb Agnes's hair, whichwas genuine human hair, skillfully knotted onto a base of glue and gauze, and bleached until it was the color ofgilded straw. She was yanking inexpertly at a large knot when the dreadful thing happened. Off came the hair, allof it, dangling in a tousled clump from the teeth of the comb. Above Agnes's smooth broad brow there wasnothing; no head, no bald skull. Just an awful, yawning hole. Shivering in terror, Meggie leaned forward to peerinside the doll's cranium. The inverted contours of cheeks and chin showed dimly, light glittered between theparted lips with their teeth a black, animal silhouette, and above all this were Agnes's eyes, two horrible clickingballs speared by a wire rod that cruelly pierced her head.
Meggie's scream was high and thin, unchildlike; she flung Agnes away and went on screaming, hands coveringher face, shaking and shuddering. Then she felt Frank pull at her fingers and take her into his arms, pushing herface into the side of his neck. Wrapping her arms about him, she took comfort from him until his nearnesscalmed her enough to become aware of how nice he smelled, all horses and sweat and iron.
When she quietened, Frank made her tell him what was the matter; he picked up the doll and stared into itsempty head in wonder, trying to remember if his infant universe had been so beset by strange terrors. But hisunpleasant phantoms were of people and whispers and cold glances. Of his mother's face pinched and shrinking,her hand trembling as it held his, the set of her shoulders.
What had Meggie seen, to make her take on so? He fancied she would not have been nearly so upset if poorAgnes had only bled when she lost her hair. Bleeding was a fact; someone in the Cleary family bled copiously atleast once a week.
"Her eyes, her eyed" Meggie whispered, refusing to look at the doll.
"She's a bloody marvel, Meggie," he murmured, his face nuzzling into her hair. How fine it was, how rich andfull of color! It took him half an hour of cajoling to make her look at Agnes, and half an hour more elapsedbefore he could persuade her to peer into the scalped hole. He showed her how the eyes worked, how verycarefully they had been aligned to fit snugly yet swing easily opened or closed. "Come on now, it's time youwent inside," he told her, swinging her up into his arms and tucking the doll between his chest and hers. "We'llget Mum to fix her up, eh? We'll wash and iron her clothes, and glue on her hair again. I'll make you some properhairpins out of those pearls, too, so they can't fall out and you can do her hair in all sorts of ways."Fiona Cleary was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. She was a very handsome, very fair woman a little undermedium height, but rather hard-faced and stern; she had an excellent figure with a tiny waist which had notthickened, in spite of the six babies she had carried beneath it. Her dress was grey calico, its skirts brushing thespotless floor, its front protected by an enormous starched white apron that looped around her neck and tied inthe small of her spine with a crisp, perfect bow. From waking to sleeping she lived in the kitchen and backgarden, her stout black boots beating a circular path from stove to laundry to vegetable patch to clotheslines andthence to the stove again.
She put her knife on the table and stared at Frank and Meggie, the corners of her beautiful mouth turning down.
"Meggie, I let you put on your Sunday-best dress this morning on one condition, that you didn't get it dirty. Andlook at you! What a little grub you are!""Mum, it wasn't her fault," Frank protested. "Jack and Hughie took her dollaway to try and find out how the arms and legs worked. I promised we'd fix it up as good as new. We can, can'twe?""Let me see." Fee held out her hand for the doll. She was a silent woman, not given to spontaneousconversation. What she thought, no one ever knew, even her husband; she left the disciplining of the children tohim, and did whatever he commanded without comment or complaint unless the circumstances were mostunusual. Meggie had heard the boys whispering that she stood in as much awe of Daddy as they did, but if thatwas true she hid it under a veneer of impenetrable, slightly dour calm. She never laughed, nor did she ever loseher temper. Finished her inspection, Fee laid Agnes on the dresser near the stove and looked at Meggie.
"I'll wash her clothes tomorrow morning, and do her hair again. Frank can glue the hair on after tea tonight, Isuppose, and give her a bath." The words were matter-of-fact rather than comforting. Meggie nodded, smilinguncertainly; sometimes she wanted so badly to hear her mother laugh, but her mother never did. She sensed thatthey shared a special something not common to Daddy and the boys, but there was no reaching beyond that rigidback, those never still feet. Mum would nod absently and flip her voluminous skirts expertly from stove to tableas she continued working, working, working.
What none of the children save Frank could realize was that Fee was permanently, incurably tired. There was somuch to be done, hardly any money to do it with, not enough time, and only one pair of hands. She longed forthe day when Meggie would be old enough to help; already the child did simple tasks, but at barely four years ofage it couldn't possibly lighten the load. Six children, and only one of them, the youngest at that, a girl. All heracquaintances were simultaneously sympathetic and envious, but that didn't get the work done. Her sewingbasket had a mountain of socks in it still undarned, her knitting needles held yet another sock, and there wasHughie growing out of his sweaters and Jack not ready to hand his down.
Padraic Cleary was to home the week of Meggie's birthday, purely by chance. It was too early for the shearingseason, and he had work locally, plowing and planting. By profession he was a sheerer of sheep, a seasonaloccupation which lasted from the middle of summer to the end of winter, after which came lambing. Usually hemanaged to find plenty of work to tide him over spring and the first month of summer; helping with lambing,plowing, or spelling a local dairy farmer from his endless twice-a-day milking. Where there was work he went,leaving his family in the big old house to fend for themselves; not as harsh an action as it seemed. Unless onewas lucky enough to own land, that was what one had to do.
When he came in a little after sunset the lamps were lit, and shadows played flickering games around the highceiling. The boys were clustered on the back veranda playing with a frog, except for Frank; Padraic knew wherehe was, because he could hear the steady clocking of an axe from the direction of the woodheap. He paused onthe veranda only long enough to plant a kick on Jack's backside and clip Bob's ear.
"Go and help Frank with the wood, you lazy little scamps. And it had better be done before Mum has tea on thetable, or there'll be skin and hair flying."He nodded to Fiona, busy at the stove; he did not kiss or embrace her, for he regarded displays of affectionbetween husband and wife as something suitable only for the bedroom. As he used the jack to haul off his mud-caked boots, Meggie came skipping with his slippers, and he grinned down at the little girl with the curious senseof wonder he always knew at sight of her. She was so pretty, such beautiful hair; he picked up a curl and pulled itout straight, then let it go, just to see it jiggle and bounce as it settled back into place. Picking the child up, hewent to sit in the only comfortable chair the kitchen possessed, a Windsor chair with a cushion tied to its seat,drawn close to the fire. Sighing softly, he sat down in it and pulled out his pipe, carelessly tapping out the spentdottle of tobacco in its bowl onto the floor. Meggie cuddled down on his lap and wound her arms about his neck,her cool little face turned up to his as she played her nightly game of watching the light filter through his shortstubble of golden beard.
"How are you, Fee?" Padraic Cleary asked his wife. "All right, Paddy. Did you get the lower paddock donetoday?" "Yes, all done. I can start on the upper first thing in the morning. Lord, but I'm tired!""I'll bet. Did MacPherson give you the crotchety old mare again?" "Too right. You don't think he'd take theanimal himself to let me have the roan, do you? My arms feel as if they've been pulled out of their sockets. Iswear that mare has the hardest mouth in En Zed.""Never mind. Old Robertson's horses are all good, and you'll be there soon enough.""Can't be soon enough." He packed his pipe with coarse tobacco and pulled a taper from the big jar that stoodnear the stove. A quick flick inside the firebox door and it caught; he leaned back in his chair and sucked sodeeply the pipe made bubbling noises. "How's it feel to be four, Meggie?" he asked his daughter.
"Pretty good, Daddy.""Did Mum give you your present?""Oh, Daddy, how did you and Mum guess I wanted Agnes?" "Agnes?" He looked swiftly toward Fee, smilingand quizzing her with his eyebrows. "Is that her name, Agnes?""Yes. She's beautiful, Daddy. I want to look at her all day." "She's lucky to have anything to look at," Fee saidgrimly. "Jack and Hughie got hold of the doll before poor Meggie had a chance to see it properly.""Well, boys will be boys. Is the damage bad?" "Nothing that can't be mended. Frank caught them before it wenttoo far." "Frank? What was he doing down here? He was supposed to be at the forgeall day. Hunter wants his gates.""He was at the forge all day. He just came down for a tool of some sort," Fee answered quickly; Padraic was toohard on Frank. "Oh, Daddy, Frank is the best brother! He saved my Agnes from being killed, and he's going toglue her hair on again for me after tea.""That's good," her father said drowsily, leaning his head back in the chair and closing his eyes.
It was hot in front of the stove, but he didn't seem to notice; beads of sweat gathered on his forehead, glistening.
He put his arms behind his head and fell into a doze.
It was from Padraic Cleary that his children got their various shades of thick, waving red hair, though none hadinherited quite such an aggressively red head as his. He was a small man, all steel and springs in build, legsbowed from a lifetime among horses, arms elongated from years shearing sheep; his chest and arms werecovered in a matted golden fuzz which would have been ugly had he been dark. His eyes were bright blue,crinkled up into a permanent squint like a sailor's from gazing into the far distance, and his face was a pleasantone, with a whimsical smiling quality about it that made other men like him at a glance. His nose wasmagnificent, a true Roman nose which must have puzzled his Irish confreres, but Ireland has ever been ashipwreck coast. He still spoke with the soft quick slur of the Gal-15 way Irish, pronouncing his final t's asthis's, but almost twenty years in the Antipodes had forced a quaint overlay upon it, so that his a's came out as i'sand the speed of his speech had run down a little, like an old clock in need of a good winding. A happy man, hehad managed to weather his hard and drudging existence better than most, and though he was a rigiddisciplinarian with a heavy swing to his boot, all but one of his children adored him. If there was not enoughbread to go around, he went without; if it was a choice between new clothes for him or new clothes for one of hisoffspring, he went without. In its way, that was more reliable evidence of love than a million easy kisses. Histemper was very fiery, and he had killed a man once. Luck had been with him; the man was english, and therewas a ship in Dun Laoghaire harbor bound for New Zealand on the tide.
Fiona went to the back door and shouted, "Tea!" The boys trailed in gradually, Frank bringing up the rear withan armload of wood, which he dumped in the big box beside the stove. Padraic put Meggie down and walked tothe head of the non-company dining table at the far end of the kitchen, while the boys seated themselves aroundits sides and Meggie scrambled up on top of the wooden box her father put on the chair nearest to him.
Fee served the food directly onto dinner plates at her worktable, more quickly and efficiently than a waiter; shecarried them two at a time to her family, Paddy first, then Frank, and so on down to Meggie, with herself last.
"Erckle! Stew!" said Stuart, pulling faces as he picked up his knife and fork. "Why did you have to name meafter stew?" "Eat it," his father growled.
The plates were big ones, and they were literally heaped with food: boiled potatoes, lamb stew and beans cutthat day from the garden, ladled in huge portions. 16In spite of the muted groans and sounds of disgust, everyone including Stu polished his plate clean with bread,and ate several slices more spread thickly with butter and native gooseberry jam. Fee sat down and bolted hermeal, then got up at once to hurry to her worktable again, where into big soup plates she doled out greatquantities of biscuit made with plenty of sugar and laced all through with jam. A river of steaming hot custardsauce was poured over each, and again she plodded to the dining table with the plates, two at a time. Finally shesat down with a sigh; this she could eat at her leisure.
"Oh, goodie! Jam roly-poly!" Meggie exclaimed, slopping her spoon up and down in the custard until the jamseeped through to make pink streaks in the yellow.
"Well, Meggie girl, it's your birthday, so Mum made your favorite pudding," her father said, smiling.
There were no complaints this time; no matter what the pudding was, it was consumed with gusto. The Clearysall had a sweet tooth. No one carried a pound of superfluous flesh, in spite of the vast quantities of starchy food.
They expended every ounce they ate in work or play. Vegetables and fruit were eaten because they were good foryou, but it was the bread, potatoes, meat and hot floury puddings which staved off exhaustion.
After Fee had poured everyone a cup of tea from her giant pot, they stayed talking, drinking or reading for anhour or more, Paddy puffing on his pipe with his head in a library book, Fee continuously refilling cups, Bobimmersed in another library book, while the younger children made plans for the morrow. School had dispersedfor the long summer vacation; the boys were on the loose and eager to commence their allotted chores around thehouse and garden. Bob had to touch up the exterior paintwork where it was necessary, Jack and Hughie dealtwith the woodheap, outbuildings and milking, Stuart tended the vegetables; play compared to the horrors ofschool. From time to time Paddy lifted his head from his book to add another job to the list, but Fee said nothing,and Frank sat slumped tiredly, sipping cup after cup of tea.
Finally Fee beckoned Meggie to sit on a high stool, and did up her hair in its nightly rags before packing her offto bed with Stu and Hughie; Jack and Bob begged to be excused and went outside to feed the dogs; Frank tookMeggie's doll to the worktable and began to glue its hair on again. Stretching, Padraic closed his book and put hispipe into the huge iridescent paua shell which served him as an ashtray.
"Well, Mother, I'm off to bed.""Good night, Paddy."Fee cleared the dishes off the dining table and got a big galvanized iron tub down from its hook on the wall. Sheput it at the opposite end of the worktable from Frank, and lifting the massive cast-iron kettle off the stove, filledit with hot water. Cold water from an old kerosene tin served to cool the steaming bath; swishing soap confinedin a wire basket through it, she began to wash and rinse the dishes, stacking them against a cup. Frank worked onthe doll without raising his head, but as the pile of plates grew he got up silently to fetch a towel and began to drythem. Moving between the worktable and the dresser, he worked with the ease of long familiarity. It was afurtive, fearful game he and his mother played, for the most stringent rule in Paddy's domain concerned theproper delegation of duties. The house was woman's work, and that was that. No male member of the family wasto put his hand to a female task. But each night after Paddy went to bed Frank helped his mother, Fee aiding andabetting him by delaying her dishwashing until they heard the thump of Paddy's slippers hitting the floor. OncePaddy's slippers were off he never came back to the kitchen. Fee looked at Frank gently. "I don't know what I'd18 do without you, Frank. But you shouldn't. You'll be so tired in the morning.""It's all right, Mum. Drying a few dishes won't kill me. Little enough to make life easier for you.""It's my job, Frank. I don't mind.""I just wish we'd get rich one of these days, so you could have a maid." "That is wishful thinking!" She wipedher soapy red hands on the dishcloth and then pressed them into her sides, sighing. Her eyes as they rested on herson were vaguely worried, sensing his bitter discontent, more than the normal railing of a workingman againsthis lot. "Frank, don't get grand ideas. They only lead to trouble. We're working-class people, which means wedon't get rich or have maids. Be content with what you are and what you have. When you say things like thisyou're insulting Daddy, and he doesn't deserve it. You know that. He doesn't drink, he doesn't gamble, and heworks awfully hard for us. Not a penny he earns goes into his own pocket. It all comes to us." The muscularshoulders hunched impatiently, the dark face became harsh and grim. "But why should wanting more out of lifethan drudgery be so bad? I don't see what's wrong with wishing you had a maid.""It's wrong because it can't be! You know there's no money to keep you at school, and if you can't stay at schoolhow are you ever going to be anything better than a manual worker? Your accent, your clothes and your handsshow that you labor for a living. But it's no disgrace to have calluses on your hands. As Daddy says, when aman's hands are callused you know he's honest." Frank shrugged and said no more. The dishes were all put away;Fee got out her sewing basket and sat down in Paddy's chair by the fire, while Frank went back to the doll.
"Poor little Meggie!" he said suddenly.
"Today, when those wretched chaps were pulling her dolly about, she just stood there crying as if her wholeworld had fallen to bits." He looked down at the doll, which was wearing its hair again. "Agnes! Where on earthdid she get a name like that?" "She must have heard me talking about Agnes Fortescue-Smythe, I suppose.""When I gave her the doll back she looked into its head and nearly died of fright. Something scared her about itseyes; I don't know what." "Meggie's always seeing things that aren't there.""It............