Late evening-
As Adam cast a shoe this morning & no time to remedy the circumstance, there was naught to do but walk, as Little Dorrit is not yet broke to the Carriage. I had managed to round up a wagon for the Multitudes but the women of that party declined such a rough amenity & then C was stricken with the Headache. All this whittled our party to Nephew & the lad & myself. Knowing that A had looked forward eagerly to the occasion, I asked C if I might take her along. C was lying on the chaise & did not turn her head. As you please, she said.
The lad who seldom utters a sound became a regular magpie along the route.
Do ye have th’ Wee Folk? he says, casting his gaze about in the hedges. He wore his stubbed shoes slung about his neck by means of the laces tied together.
I’m afraid I don’t believe in Wee Folk, I say.
He looks at me with astonishment, then recovers himself & says deferentially, They’re there nonetheless.
We walk on & he says, Aren’t they, Aoife?
A looks at me, suppressing a smile. I wager she believes in them.
Twas the peach frock she wore & the shoes her Father made.
23 September
God have mercy. The wee drop that accompanied Fiona was a wagon load piled to the heavens. I have never seen such a look on C’s face as the whole of it appeared in the lane pulled by a horse nearly dead from privation. Then came more than several of the Missus Keegan’s women friends & their children skipping along behind with a passel of dogs & a pig at the rear.
I insisted C leave the surgery & rest herself in our Bedchamber.
I cannot, she said, the oul Flanagan Sisters have waited since early morning & the Bailey infant has a miserable case of Thrush. She stood rigid as a broom handle, but I persisted, for the wagon load & all the rest would soon be spilling into the little room near the Surgery, surely provoking another of her Headaches.
Send A to see me through, I said & wondered at the look she gave me for the relief I offered.
God help us, there is no strength to tell the rest of it-a farce if ever there was one. The jumble is forced into the small room as a sausage into a casing-one might fear to open the door lest the flotsam of cupboards & coat pegs & crockeries spew forth & strike one down.
Arrival of the Passiflora anxiously awaited. Though found to be salubrious in Philadelphia, Valerian & Peppermint Oil now have but weak effect.
A now complaining of blisters raised by the wearing of shoes on Wedding Day.
They’re from your father’s own last, I chide. Tis a discredit to fling about the talk of blisters.
I am lately persuaded that we are overly insular here-I have no Discourse with anyone save Keegan & our patients. C has but A for company & the work of two upon her shoulders, though I pray the Missus Keegan will lift the burthen. There remains the issue however, of the several unfinished guestchambers. Thus if more guests are attracted than we can immediately handle, we’ll be hanging them up by a horseshoe nail.
In any case we must somehow introduce Society into the halls of Cathair Mohr.
Day following
Fog heavy o’er the Lough
Rose McFee came late yesterday with a basket of Burdock Root, & Nettles which she calls Devils Claw. She named her price for something I had not asked for nor required.
Why, Rose McFee, I say, how can ye charge a man who eased your pain & dunned ye nary a penny for the service?
That sarvice, she says, was paid by what I fixed on your neighbor.
I gave her a coin which she grabbed from my hand while instructing me in the proper use of her gleanings. I turned the raw stuff over to Aoife with a request to make a tea of the Burdock, as Rose attests it will unblock the sweat glands & urinary system which may help with the Headache.
It never arises in conversation, yet Nephew is clearly pleased to be my Heir. He swaggers about as if he owns the place in advance of my demise, suggesting where the pig sty be located & giving Keegan the business. Keegan gives it back. Th’ Young Bladder, Keegan calls him, being full of th’ piss, he says, tells us the goat is a most profitable animal & we should buy a flock of two hundred to begin. Keegan stalks away without a word & Young Bladder tells me Keegan must be dismissed-God have mercy. It is Nephew & his flock of hungry mouths who must be dismissed. I wonder at the numerous mistakes I have made here-chief among them, accepting land from a man who is no Christian neighbor, & now the issue of Nephew as heir to Cathair Mohr. It was the right thing to do, to pass my estate to the eldest son of my eldest brother & my Namesake into the bargain. I only wished to do as had been done unto me by Uncle. I will soon discuss the matter with my Solicitor.
Fiona on duty at an early hour-I have never heard such Rattle & Bang as she commandeers the arrangement of the kitchen to suit her taste. I’m told by a patient that the Missus Keegan can bottle a full Orchard in a day. A has fled to her family til the morrow, barefoot as any waif.
I did not return home to be a man of Show yet I require a horse for Keegan so that he needn’t take Adam when he goes about my business. And then I must provide a Carriage for C’s ministrations among the people, for oft times we are called out separately in any wether & she has her monthly rounds of near twenty miles, to boot. A could do with a cart & pony to visit her family & make the occasional call on a patient.
There is as well the problem of sheep & cattle-all these things I am able to see clearly now the house is liveable & the long labor essentially done. One wants a bit of mutton & beef for the table without dashing about to fetch it from others. And how then shall we have cattle when the pastures of Cathair Mohr are so long overgrown? And how then shall we manure the fields to restore their vitality if we have not cattle?
At the end, I am a town man lacking even the heart for tramping about in neglected fields wounding the Game. My father was a Sawyer whose husbandry ran to cultivating a patch of Turnips & keeping a bay mare, & no use to look for the bucolic influence from Uncle, a gentleman chiefly disposed to business, an interest in architecture, & the private life. Clearly I must furnish myself with a man to oversee further Improvements here. Keegan bright enough & industrious but not one to grasp the Long Picture.
I am reminded that Balfour employs roughly twenty or more men and women, tis a factory over there to feed and keep but three people, though I hear their entertaining of guests is near constant.
One concludes that it is not enough to have a comfortable house & a roof over one’s equipage-the monstrous thing begets itself like the common hare, adding up to the full Plantation & rendering a man as impoverished as his neighbor in the windowless cot.
Day following
Mackerel skies
Nephew & his legions departing day after tomorrow, thanks to God.
The lad says to me this morning, How do you cut off a leg?
I say to him, Why do you ask?
He says, I seen Danny Moore’s stump. He shown it to me, took th’ wrap off it.
Aye, I say, he likes to do that.
How do you cut off a leg? he says again.
A sharp knife for the flesh & muscle, I say, & a saw for the bone.
I have never seen a more solemn look on a young face.
I’d like to do that when I’m a man, he says.
Are you sure of it? There’s blood & guts to cutting into people, it’s a messy business & neither Doctor nor Patient relishes a minute of it.
I should like to do it, he says, very firm. Well, then, I must go out in the carriage tomorrow. Would you like to come along?
He thinks about this. Thoughts move over his face like shifting clouds reflected on the lough.
Yis, he says. Yis, sir.
Very well. Twill be raining cats & dogs & we’ll get a good soaking in & out of the carriage.