quickly, Flora, with this lot on your hands.’
‘We pray that he comes home safe, every morning and evening, Julia.’
Mamma’s voice was soft, as always, but Aunt Julia quietened after that. She was an odd one, Aunt Julia. I’ve met a few like her since, but when I was younger I didn’t understand her. She came, I now realise, from the Irish tradition of standing up for your rights, a tradition with no respect for authority (except that of the Church) because those in authority were the enemy English. She could be sharp-tongued and strident, and she demanded every scrap of what was due to her. But once she’d got it, she’d usually give it away again in warm-handed generosity. She caused a lot of trouble in my life, one way and another, but she was also very kind to me and I know she loved me.
Well, if the good Lord made us all alike it would be a boring world, no doubt.
***
For a couple of months after Papa left, I worked steadily away at my lessons. But without Papa to share the puzzle with, it was boring. By the time the drought broke, in April, I’d lost interest in everything but storybooks, and we had but few of those. It was another reason to be angry at Papa. He had taken all the fun out of learning, too. It’s so easy to blame others for our own faults—and much more enjoyable to snipe at them than to correct ourselves.
Mamma tried to take Papa’s place. She was much better educated than most women, and she could work with me on arithmetic and English composition. She even knew some history. She could teach Maggie and John easily, but Latin and Greek were beyond her.
‘Think of it as a challenge from Our Lord,’ Mamma suggested. ‘How eager are you to read his words in their original form?’
‘I don’t understand, Mamma.’
‘The Gospels, Mary. The Gospels were first written in Greek, and then translated into Latin. Wouldn’t you like to read the words of the Gospels as they were first written?’
Oh, yes, I would. I definitely would. There was something mysterious about the idea of the Gospels having been written in different words than the ones I was so familiar with. As though, if I read them in the original, I would be reading a different book. I knew how hard it was to translate even simple sentences. How hard would it have been to translate the word of God?
‘No doubt the Holy Spirit guided the translators,’ Mamma said reassuringly.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit had. But for me, it was more important that the fun of the puzzle had come back. Word by word, line by line, I worked through St Luke’s Gospel: Greek at my left hand, Latin at my right, and English in the middle.
But John wanted me to come out and play. Annie wanted me to dig up the vegetable patch to see if the radish seeds we had planted the day before had sprouted. Lexie—sitting up on her own, now—gurgled and reached for me. Mamma needed me to look after the little ones, and Bridget needed my help in the kitchen when Mamma was tired. And I could never forget that Papa had given them into my care.
Sometimes, when I stood up after putting Lexie into her cot, I could feel the weight of that shawl of responsibility, still resting on my shoulders. There was so much to do, and it seemed that much of it should have been done by Papa.
But whenever I had ten minutes to spare outside my regular lesson times, I went into Papa’s office. I used his desk—after all, Papa wasn’t using it. It gave me a dark satisfaction to, in a way, usurp him. I perched on his chair and traced the Greek letters, so different from the Roman alphabet, so hard to recognise and pronounce without Papa there to guide me.
Maggie would poke her head in from time to time, trying to get me outside.
‘You always stick your tongue out between your teeth when you’re doing that stupid Greek, Mary. You’ll get buck teeth like Mary Jane Dougherty.’ And she’d make a rabbit face to make me laugh.
By the time Lexie was walking, I had worked my way
‘We pray that he comes home safe, every morning and evening, Julia.’
Mamma’s voice was soft, as always, but Aunt Julia quietened after that. She was an odd one, Aunt Julia. I’ve met a few like her since, but when I was younger I didn’t understand her. She came, I now realise, from the Irish tradition of standing up for your rights, a tradition with no respect for authority (except that of the Church) because those in authority were the enemy English. She could be sharp-tongued and strident, and she demanded every scrap of what was due to her. But once she’d got it, she’d usually give it away again in warm-handed generosity. She caused a lot of trouble in my life, one way and another, but she was also very kind to me and I know she loved me.
Well, if the good Lord made us all alike it would be a boring world, no doubt.
***
For a couple of months after Papa left, I worked steadily away at my lessons. But without Papa to share the puzzle with, it was boring. By the time the drought broke, in April, I’d lost interest in everything but storybooks, and we had but few of those. It was another reason to be angry at Papa. He had taken all the fun out of learning, too. It’s so easy to blame others for our own faults—and much more enjoyable to snipe at them than to correct ourselves.
Mamma tried to take Papa’s place. She was much better educated than most women, and she could work with me on arithmetic and English composition. She even knew some history. She could teach Maggie and John easily, but Latin and Greek were beyond her.
‘Think of it as a challenge from Our Lord,’ Mamma suggested. ‘How eager are you to read his words in their original form?’
‘I don’t understand, Mamma.’
‘The Gospels, Mary. The Gospels were first written in Greek, and then translated into Latin. Wouldn’t you like to read the words of the Gospels as they were first written?’
Oh, yes, I would. I definitely would. There was something mysterious about the idea of the Gospels having been written in different words than the ones I was so familiar with. As though, if I read them in the original, I would be reading a different book. I knew how hard it was to translate even simple sentences. How hard would it have been to translate the word of God?
‘No doubt the Holy Spirit guided the translators,’ Mamma said reassuringly.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit had. But for me, it was more important that the fun of the puzzle had come back. Word by word, line by line, I worked through St Luke’s Gospel: Greek at my left hand, Latin at my right, and English in the middle.
But John wanted me to come out and play. Annie wanted me to dig up the vegetable patch to see if the radish seeds we had planted the day before had sprouted. Lexie—sitting up on her own, now—gurgled and reached for me. Mamma needed me to look after the little ones, and Bridget needed my help in the kitchen when Mamma was tired. And I could never forget that Papa had given them into my care.
Sometimes, when I stood up after putting Lexie into her cot, I could feel the weight of that shawl of responsibility, still resting on my shoulders. There was so much to do, and it seemed that much of it should have been done by Papa.
But whenever I had ten minutes to spare outside my regular lesson times, I went into Papa’s office. I used his desk—after all, Papa wasn’t using it. It gave me a dark satisfaction to, in a way, usurp him. I perched on his chair and traced the Greek letters, so different from the Roman alphabet, so hard to recognise and pronounce without Papa there to guide me.
Maggie would poke her head in from time to time, trying to get me outside.
‘You always stick your tongue out between your teeth when you’re doing that stupid Greek, Mary. You’ll get buck teeth like Mary Jane Dougherty.’ And she’d make a rabbit face to make me laugh.
By the time Lexie was walking, I had worked my way
Similar Books
