Beyond the Green Hills

by Anne Doughty

  Clare went up to her and put her arms round her. She sensed Barney slip away. As she stood holding Elsie, she felt the day had already been going on for ever. But it had only just begun.

  ‘There’ll have to be refreshments afterwards,’ Andrew said decisively, as they sat round the table eating the sandwiches Elsie had produced for lunch. ‘Some people are coming a long way. Edward’s Trinity friends may need to stay over. Johnny Keane is coming up from Limerick.’

  He looked doubtfully towards Clare.

  She took a deep breath. It had all happened before. Only six years ago when Edward’s father had died of a heart attack. She still remembered how angry she’d been when she’d heard The Missus complaining to June Wiley that her daughter-in-law couldn’t cope. They would have to have the overnight guests at Drumsollen. Clare hadn’t known Helen then, she’d just been sad for her, a woman who’d lost her husband, without any warning. Now she knew what a loving but vulnerable person Helen was, it made The Missus’s complaints appear even more unfeeling.

  Helen had been so happy the last few years. Barney was an old friend from childhood, long widowed and as lonely as she was. They’d met up again, begun to share their interest in horses, in gardens, in entertaining friends. Slowly, she’d come back to life. She’d even taken out the ‘smock of Monet colours’, and begun to paint again. Now Edward was gone, her world had collapsed around her yet again.

  ‘I think Elsie and Olive can manage two or three bedrooms here,’ Clare replied, as levelly as she could. ‘But there’s the problem of being so far away from the church when it comes to the refreshments. You probably remember last time.’ She looked at Andrew steadily.

  ‘Drumsollen?’

  ‘It might make it easier.’

  Barney looked puzzled. Andrew explained that they had used Drumsollen when Teddy’s father died. It was less than two miles from Grange Church, while Caledon was more like ten. And it meant that people wouldn’t have to go through Armagh to find their way back to The Lodge.

  ‘Sounds very sensible,’ said Barney, ‘but surely old Mrs Richardson won’t want it. She doesn’t seem a very approachable sort of lady.’

  ‘I think we should at least ask her,’ Andrew replied. ‘Otherwise we’d have to use a hotel in Armagh.’

  ‘I’m sure that would be even worse for Helen than having it here,’ said Clare firmly. ‘I think we should ask Virginia what she thinks. She and Helen are the two that matter most.’

  Andrew nodded briefly.

  ‘I know Ginny won’t want it here. She asked this morning if his body had to be brought back to The Lodge. She said she couldn’t bear the thought of that. She wants to remember Edward as he was, alive and happy.’

  Without another word he went out into the hall and picked up the telephone.

  ‘June, it’s Andrew.’

  Clare heard his voice soften momentarily as he spoke to her. Then he asked for his grandmother and stood waiting. And waiting. At last, she heard him speak. The conversation was brief and to the point.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll do as you ask. With Mrs Wiley’s help, I’m sure we can manage so that we don’t disturb you at all.’

  Three days later, on a sultry, overcast afternoon, Clare walked up the stone steps of Drumsollen, hand in hand with Virginia, who just couldn’t stop crying. As she stepped into the familiar hall and coaxed her towards the dining room, where Elsie Clark and June Wiley were already serving tea, Clare was sharply aware that she had passed through the elegant front door for the first time as a member of the Richardson family. It was a strange feeling that brought no joy. Would anything ever bring her joy again, she wondered.

  ‘Come on, Ginny dear, drink up,’ she said, as encouragingly as she could manage. Clare took Ginny’s saturated hanky, tucked it into her sling and put a china mug into her good hand. ‘Only another hour, love,’ she whispered. ‘Then we can cry all we want to. Please, please stop or you’ll start me off again.’

  Ginny looked down at her and smiled weakly, the stitched wounds on her forehead and cheeks livid against the pallor of her skin. Clare had forced herself to look and look again at Ginny’s face, until she could manage it without flinching at the cruel lines, seamed with black stitches, but when she was alone with Barney she wept again. ‘Every time Ginny looks in a mirror she’ll think of Edward.’

  ‘Miss Hamilton.’

  Clare turned away from the tea table to see an elderly man in mourning dress inclining his head towards her. His face was mottled, the loose skin flaked and dry, his nose red and bulbous. From beneath huge unkempt eyebrows, his watery eyes stared at her.

  ‘I think I do remember you from poor Edward’s funeral,’ he said jovially. ‘You brought me a second cup of tea. And now, I understand I must congratulate you.’

  He made a gesture of bright surprise, as if to say, ‘How jolly. What a jape.’

  Clare took an instant dislike to him. Beneath his apparently charming manner, he was looking her up and down as if she were a filly in the show ring. He’d made no attempt at all to greet Ginny, who was standing right beside her.

  ‘Mrs Richardson is an old friend of mine, a very “old” friend,’ he went on, nodding his head in amusement at his own joke. ‘She’s in the drawing room and wants to speak to you, so I’d better let you run along, hadn’t I?’

  Without a word, Clare turned her back on him and made for the door, her face flushed with anger. She paused in the empty hall and took several deep breaths. ‘I’d better let you run along,’ she repeated in a whisper. ‘No, Clare, don’t get angry. Today is not a day to feel, just a day to be survived.’

  At the entrance to the drawing room, she caught a glimpse of Andrew, talking to three young men she recognised immediately as Edward’s closest friends from Trinity. Dark-suited and stiffly formal, only the youthful outlines of their faces marked them out from the collection of their seniors who appeared not to have changed at all in the six years since they last stood here, after Uncle Edward’s funeral, enjoying June Wiley’s home baking and Clare’s own carefully cut sandwiches.

  ‘Thank God we’re going to Canada,’ she murmured, as she stood in the doorway, wondering where she would find the strength to cross it. The dark figures rocked on their heels and boomed at each other. Suddenly, a gap opened in the press of bodies. Beyond, she saw the wispy, snow-white hair of the Missus, barely visible above the black leather of her wheelchair. She took a deep breath, straightened her back, and stepped into the room.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Clare. Do sit down here, I can’t possibly hear you if you stand.’

  Clare recognised the chair from her last visit and lowered herself cautiously, only too aware of the damage her high heels would do to her nylons if she didn’t concentrate.

  ‘You look very well,’ she said approvingly.

  ‘Thank you.’ Clare almost managed to smile. Of course the Missus would think she looked very well. Dressed in Ginny’s beautifully cut black suit, tailored for her when she was at finishing school, how could she fail to look like one of them.

  ‘You can’t possibly go into Armagh and buy a suit, Clare,’ Ginny had protested, when she’d said she’d have to go shopping for something suitable. ‘It’ll cost you pounds. You can wear mine. It really doesn’t matter what I wear under all this bandaging. I certainly can’t get into a jacket.’

  Ginny insisted Clare try on the suit. They’d even managed to laugh at the length of the skirt on Clare’s shorter figure.

  ‘You look like Mother Hubbard. But apart from that, it fits beautifully. Stay there and I’ll get Elsie to pin it up for you. Edward would be furious if I let you spend money on a boring old black suit.’

  ‘Eh bien, I hear Andrew is taking you off to Canada. And what will become of your delightful accent there?’ Mrs Richardson began, speaking in French.

  ‘As I shall probably be teaching French, I’m sure I can manage to keep it up,’ Clare replied, quite amazed that the old woman should revert once again to the language of her
youth. For decades, she’d used it only when there were things to be said that servants must not hear.

  ‘Well, I hope he makes a better job of farming than he has of law. I don’t hear great reports from Belfast,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘But then, Andrew always did favour his mother’s side. Charming girl, Adeline, just as pretty as you are. Full of ideas. Loved animals. My son William simply adored her. I expect that’s where Andrew gets it from, this farming business. His father was more realistic, always did what was required of him. But that’s not the fashion any more. Young people do as they please these days.’

  ‘And what about Deauville?’

  Clare was surprised at herself. The words seemed to have popped out entirely unbidden.

  ‘Touché, Clare, touché,’ she replied, her worn and lined face breaking into an unexpected smile. ‘What you lack in experience, you’ve always made up for in courage. But I doubt if you’ll do much with Andrew. He has no ambition. Just like his father.’

  She paused, and signalled with her hand to a middle-aged man hovering nearby, clearly the next occupant of the low chair.

  ‘Will you be married in the parish church?’

  ‘Yes. As soon as we can arrange our passages.’

  ‘You will be welcome to use Drumsollen afterwards, whether I’m fit to come downstairs or not. Is that clear?’

  ‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

  To her surprise, the Missus offered her a bony hand and smiled warmly when she took it gently.

  ‘Make sure you come and see me before you leave for Canada. That little gift I spoke of last year is now with my solicitors. I shall send for it tomorrow.’

  At last, the large rooms were empty. The Missus had retired to bed, Barney had taken Helen and Ginny back to Caledon. Andrew and John Wiley were working together, packing up the trestle tables used for serving tea and restoring the rooms to their normal state. They replaced the heavy dustcovers over the furniture, the light fabric that covered the portraits and paintings, the plastic sheeting that protected the carpets. When all was as it should be, they pulled across the heavy wooden shutters and slotted in the iron bars which held them firmly in place, a defence against insurgents, as potent in troubled times as the iron grilles on the windows of the basement rooms.

  Down there, in the friendly company of June Wiley and Elsie Clark, Clare had changed into flat shoes, donned a large apron and was helping with the washing up. They talked as they worked, three women so practised, they could proceed with only a fraction of their minds upon it.

  ‘The Missus is powerful failed since last I saw her,’ said Elsie Clark, as she stacked dirty cups on the draining board within June’s reach.

  ‘It’s a brave while since ye saw her now, isn’t it?’ replied June. ‘Shure it’s six years come October since Mr Edward died.’

  ‘Ach, I suppose it is. The time goes that quick. Sure, here’s Clare was only a schoolgirl when we came the day of his funeral. D’ye mind you hurt your ankle? D’ye have any bother with it?’

  ‘No, not a bit, thank goodness, but then I got a charm from an’ oul fella over Cabragh way. Did ye know Johnsie George, Clare?’ asked June, looking sideways at her.

  ‘Is he the one that ran away to sea when he was a boy?’

  ‘The very one. Fancy you mindin’ that.’

  Clare smiled and took a tray of clean cups to the cupboard. ‘The forge was a great place for hearing life stories,’ she said, as she put the cups back in their places.

  As June washed and Elsie dried, Clare smiled to herself. With this team at work, feeding the five thousand might still be a problem, but washing up afterwards would be no trouble at all.

  ‘Have ye been past the forge recently, Clare?’ asked June cautiously.

  ‘I have, indeed,’ she replied sadly. ‘Andrew and I were up in April. I could hardly believe it.’

  ‘Why, what’s happened?’ asked Elsie.

  ‘Ach, it’s this new landlord, Elsie,’ June began. ‘Hutchinson, his name is. He’s a great man for makin’ money. He has the forge knocked down that was there fer generations. All the good trees down an’ away too. They say he plans to build a house where the forge was an’ a couple more forby. Ach, it’s a disgrace an’ a shame.’

  ‘Ah, dear a dear, isn’t that desperate,’ said Elsie sympathetically. ‘An’ sure aren’t your plans all upset again with poor Master Edward dying,’ she said, looking mournfully at Clare, as she brought another trayful of dirty cups from table to sink.

  ‘How do you mean, Elsie?’

  ‘Well, yer weddin’ and goin’ off to Canada an’ so on.’

  ‘Oh, we’re not delaying the wedding,’ said Clare, relieved. ‘Mrs Moore and Virginia want us to go ahead. It’ll be a very quiet wedding anyway.’

  ‘Aye, I’m sure they wouden stan’ in yer way, nor woud young Edward either, God rest him,’ Elsie replied agreeably. ‘But I’m thinkin’ there’ll be no Canada for Andrew now. Sure how could he go, an’ all the property at Caledon and Drumsollen his now to see after?’

  Clare never knew how she got through the hours that followed, the goodbyes to June Wiley and John, the drive back to Caledon with Elsie chattering away in the back seat, the changing of clothes, the making of plans. Even more goodbyes as they prepared to go back to Belfast.

  ‘I’d never have managed without you, Clare,’ Ginny said, tears springing to her eyes, as they walked out together to the car. ‘I shall miss you so.’

  Clare put her arms round her, careful not to press on her heavily bandaged arm. She’d always liked Ginny, enjoyed her company, appreciated her elegance and humour, but in these last few days, talking together, sharing the loss of Edward, weeping together, some quite new bond had been forged between them.

  ‘I’ll miss you too, Ginny,’ she said sadly. ‘We managed it together. Edward would have been proud of us.’

  ‘Get in the car, Clare. Go quickly. I’m about to bawl again,’ said Ginny urgently. ‘Andrew doesn’t know how lucky he is to have you.’

  She kissed Clare’s cheek and ran indoors, just as a rattle of thunder echoed away in the west. Large, warm spots of rain the size of sixpences spattered down.

  Barney opened the car door for Clare. ‘Thanks for everything,’ he said, bending to kiss her cheek. ‘Helen and I couldn’t have done without you. We’ll come up and see you before the wedding, when she’s a bit steadier.’

  He went round to Andrew’s side. ‘Drive carefully now,’ he said. ‘The roads will be greasy enough once this rain gets on them, after all the heat and dryness.’

  They made their way slowly down the drive, the rain already streaming across the windscreen, turning their parting view of the lawns and herbaceous border into an impressionist blur of brilliant colours.

  Before they reached Armagh, it was lashing down so fiercely that they had to pull in and stop, because the wipers just couldn’t cope. There was a sudden blinding flash and a shattering crash of thunder right overhead. However anxious she might be, this was not the moment to speak about Canada or anything else. Just getting back to Belfast was going to be an achievement.

  When they were able to go on again, lightning still lit up the sky; the noise of thunder and the swish of the tyres through the water now lying on the road was enough to make talk impossible anyway. Only as they approached Belfast itself did the storm move away and even the rain had eased when, at last, they stopped in Elmwood Avenue.

  She looked at Andrew. In the lamplight, his face was drawn and white with exhaustion.

  ‘You must go home and go straight to bed. You’ve got to go to work tomorrow,’ she said, managing a firmness she certainly didn’t feel. ‘And don’t get out to help me. I can manage.’

  Thankfully, he leaned his head and arms on the steering wheel while she got her suitcase out of the boot and shut it firmly.

  ‘I’ll come up tomorrow, as soon as I can get away,’ he said wearily. ‘Thanks for being so wonderful. I don’t deserve it.’

  She w
atched him drive off and turned towards the house, grateful to see it was in darkness. The kind enquiries of Mrs McGregor were more than she could bear tonight. She tiptoed quietly upstairs in the glow from the street lamp, dropped her suitcase inside her door, peeled off her jacket and went straight across to light the gas fire. She sat and held out her hands to the glow, though the room was warm and muggy.

  ‘It’s not going to work after all,’ she said, surprised to find her voice quite steady and matter-of-fact. ‘I knew it was too good to be true. Every time I’m happy, every time I have someone to love and a home of my own, it’s taken away. First there was Mummy and Daddy, then there was Granda Scott. Now it’s Andrew.’

  She thought of the roomfuls of Richardsons, all doing what they had to do, what they’d always done. The way Andrew had simply stepped into the place appointed without question, shouldered all the arrangements. Then she thought of what the Missus had said about him. Now she knew why Andrew wasn’t welcome at Drumsollen. He was like his mother. Full of ideas. Yet it was she, city born as she was, who had run the farm and cared for the animals, while husband and father-in-law did what they had to do at Stormont and at Westminster.

  But hadn’t the Missus got it wrong? She’d said Andrew wasn’t like his father. ‘His father was more realistic. Always did what had to be done.’ Those were her words. But wasn’t that precisely what Andrew had done, the moment Edward died?

  She sat on the edge of her chair, unaware of the pain in her back or the ache in her head. She went through it all again. Andrew was now the head of the family, heir to the bankrupt estate of Drumsollen and whatever additional burden had fallen upon Edward. It was really all so simple. A one-way choice. Was he going to marry her and go to Canada and make a home with her? Or was he going to follow the tradition, now and forever more, doing what was expected of him by anyone who could make the remotest claim upon him?

  She looked down at her pretty ring with its tiny diamond and winking red stones. Thought again of the joyous moment when it slipped on to her finger, a perfect fit.