House of Memories by Alice; Taylor Page B

had been his father’s chair, and since his death Danny had found that if he sat in any other chair, the image of his father was still in this chair.
    “Have you any memory of Furze Hill before it got grown over?” he asked Jack eagerly.
    “Strange thing is that if you had asked me that a week ago Iwould have said no, but when I was here last Sunday…”
    “Were you here last Sunday?” he asked in surprise.
    “I was, I’m ashamed to say,” Jack told him, “but I wanted to walk around and try to work out some kind of a feasible plan before you came to me. The peculiar thing was that when I stood outside the old gate down there a memory came back to me of standing in the same spot with my mother when I must have been a garsoon and looking in across a lovely garden at an ivy-clad house.”
    “God, imagine that!” Danny said with delight. “So it was lovely. Nana always said that it was a beautiful place, but I sometimes wondered if it was wishful thinking on her part.”
    “Oh, it was no wishful thinking,” Jack assured him. “Your grandmother was not one for wishful thinking. She was a strong, factual woman who weathered some storms in her day.”
    “What was she like when she was younger?” he asked curiously.
    “A beauty, with red hair like Kitty. But she was completely spoilt and stubborn as a mule. Molly was an only child and there was no shortage of money, so she got everything that she wanted. She was born when your great-grandparents were pushing on a bit, so when she began to go a bit wild she was more than they could handle. But, of course, marrying your grandfather turned her whole life upside down.”
    “He was very mean to her?” Danny asked hesitantly.
    “Dog rough! The Barrys were fine people and the Conways were rough,” Jack proclaimed, and then as if to soften his pronouncement, he continued, “but don’t you ever forget, Danny, that the blood of the Barrys runs through your veins.”
    “And what about the Conway side of the house?” Dannyasked.
    “You’re a Barry,” Jack told him firmly. “You even look like them. The same fine, tall cut of them with the same rich, red hair. But Rory is all Conway — swarthy, black and mean. Some of the others are probably a mixture, but you are a Barry; always remember that.”
    “Jack, are you very interested in bloodlines?” Danny asked tentatively.
    “I suppose I am,” Jack admitted, smiling ruefully. “Comes with the territory, because in farming you are for ever watching pedigree and breeding in pure-bred cows and horses, and it always tells in the end. You can’t make a racehorse out of a donkey, Danny. If it was Rory was here now, I would not even bother to cross the river, because it wouldn’t be worth my while. It would be your father all over again.”
    “Rory is my other worry,” Danny told him, “because, as you probably guessed, I don’t own this place, and he is the only one who wants to make trouble. All the others have signed off their claim, but not him. So I’m going to have trouble with Rory, and because he’s the oldest he feels that he is entitled to the place.”
    “Well, laddie, let’s take it step by step. As old man Phelan used to tell me, ‘Worries are often overcome by events.’ So the first step is to get this place up and running.”
    “No small job,” Danny sighed. “I seem to be crawling at a snail’s pace here, and I look across the river and see you all galloping ahead over in Mossgrove. Though Kate said that there were hard times over there as well and that you pulled them through.”
    “Sometimes Kate thinks that I’m better than I am, but thetruth is that old man Phelan had solid foundations laid in Mossgrove, and when things collapsed they were always beneath us.”
    “No such foundations here,” Danny told him bitterly.
    “You are wrong there, laddie,” Jack said quietly.
    “I am?” he asked in surprise.
    “The Barrys laid foundations, and we must take Furze Hill back to the