by Anne Doughty
Smiling with delight, she dropped the sleeve she was working on with the blouse to which it was to be fitted. He was actually a bit later than she’d expected, but it would still be early enough when they’d eaten together for her to go to see Mary-Anne before she started making her evening meal for her husband, Billy and their two sons.
At first she couldn’t make any sense of what she saw. Daisy, the mare, was covered with sweat and was foaming from her mouth; her eyes were wild with fear and a long scrape on her side dripping blood onto the cobbles. The trap was empty, the reins trailing. There was no sign whatever of the materials John had gone to buy.
And there was no sign of John.
She stood there, her heart in her mouth. Something terrible had happened, she was sure, but there was nothing to tell her what it might have been. Or so she thought. It was Ben, Ben of all people, who spoke out when all three of them appeared from the dark doorway.
He stared at the trap as if transfixed, but then, almost unnoticed, he moved round to the other side of the well-polished and much cherished vehicle, John’s pride and joy, the first thing he had ever bought for himself, having saved up for years while working as a smith.
Ben stared at score marks on the side of the trap and then ran his hands over the rim.
‘What is it, man, what can ye see roun’ there?’ demanded Sam, when he glanced over at him and saw, to his total amazement, that tears were streaming down Ben’s cheeks.
‘They ran inta somethin’ about the height of anither trap only stronger like, a dray or a cart maybe. The mare musta took fright. She ran that fast the trap cowped over aginst somethin’ hard. Musta been a stone wall or suchlike an’ the boss got thrown out. We may away and luk fer him on the road,’ he said, turning his back and walking out between the great stone pillars which were the trademark of a working forge or a strong farm.
Sarah looked at Sam and knew from the expression on his face that what Ben had said made sense to him. Scottie hadn’t even heard; his head was buried in Daisy’s neck, his arms around her as he stroked her and comforted her. She was steady now, her eyes no longer bulging, her nostrils no longer dilated. As Sarah stared at the pair of them, she saw Daisy snuffle at Scottie’s familiar, warm work clothes. Comforted by his touch, his enfolding arms and his known voice, she tossed her head, stopped fidgeting and stood quite still.
‘Now don’t worry, missus,’ said Sam quickly, seeing the look of utter distress on her face. ‘Shure the boss is a fine, strong man. If he’s taken a bit of a fall, sure he’ll get over it. I’ll away after Ben and get some of the Halligans from below to give me a han’. We’ll fin’ him all right an’ bring him home straight away, niver ye fear.’
The lovely sunlit afternoon passed so slowly that at times Sarah was convinced the clock had stopped. She tried to occupy herself in the house knowing that Scottie was beside himself and wouldn’t know what to say to her. He’d taken Daisy from between the shafts of the damaged trap, rubbed her down and put her out to grass, making sure she had water and hay. The bleeding from her left flank had stopped so he left it alone, knowing that if he tried to clean the long gash, it might only start bleeding again.
‘A’ll away and watch fer them on the hill and tell ye when they’re comin’,’ he said, appearing unexpectedly, putting his head hastily round the kitchen door and running off without waiting for any answer.
She lifted her head from her sewing lying untouched in her lap and watched through the window as he climbed up the nine-barred gate and then scrambled precariously onto the pointed top of the right-hand gatepost, the one with the best view down Drumilly Hill. There, he settled himself, the light breeze blowing his unkempt red hair across the pale freckles on his cheeks.
It was a long time before he saw any movement at all on the road: a tinker woman plodding up the hill, a child on her back, a heavy case of her wares in one hand, a small boy holding the other.
Scottie watched her move slowly towards him, her back bent with the weight of her stock, both children silent with tiredness.
‘Missus in?’ she asked abruptly, as she drew level with the ever-open gate.
‘Not the day,’ he replied promptly. The missus knew the tinker woman and whether she bought anything or not, she’d always give her bread and tea and milk for the child and the baby.
Her face remained unchanged. Had Scottie paused to ask himself if she believed him, it would have given him no clue to anything she ever thought.
Time passed, the breeze strengthened, the shadows lengthened. His backside had grown numb with cold through the cast-off trousers someone had given to his granny, when finally he caught a movement on the road. It was minutes later before he could make out what it was. Neither cart, nor trap, nor ploughman with horses, but four men carrying a heavy burden between them, one at each corner of a door, on which lay a figure, a white bandage on its head, the booted legs hanging over the end of the makeshift carrier.
He watched as they drew closer, not knowing what to think, unable to see the face of the figure lying sprawled face upwards. It was Sam Keenan at the leading edge that looked up and caught sight of him. In one single gesture he told Scottie the last thing he ever wanted to hear. He simply shook his head.
CHAPTER THREE
Scottie didn’t know what to do. He sat on his precarious perch and watched as they carried the body of his much-loved boss through the gates and into the cobbled space in front of the house. All he could see of Sarah Hamilton was the speed with which she moved when she heard the sound of boots. She dropped to her knees, her back to him, leaning over the body of her husband.
The four men, having lowered their burden gently to the ground stood awkwardly, looking down at her as she touched John’s face, so clean and white, its year-round, open-air tan completely disappeared. She couldn’t quite grasp why he was so white or why his clothes were soaked through, but she saw immediately that he was dead.
For the last hour or more she had sat unmoving by the fire trying to accept that there had been an accident, that John might be injured, he might even be disabled. That would be a terrible thing to have to face. She had given no thought at all to his death for that was to give up hope and she had been taught long, long ago by her grandmother that one must never give up hope. Hope is God-given and we must cherish it and rely on His sheltering arms to find a way forward from the most heartbreaking of disasters.
‘Have you any idea what happened?’ she asked calmly, looking up, aware of the grief and unease of all four men; Sam Keenan, John’s everyday companion and friend, Ben Hutchison, his senior apprentice, Billy Halligan, his nearest neighbour and his elder son, Jamsey, now in his teens. John had known Jamsey since he and his brother were children coming up the hill after school to watch him working in the forge.
He had been fond of them both, slipped them the odd penny for sweets, listened to the news of their doings. Now Jamsey stood, like the others, as still as they could, muscles aching from the efforts of the last hour and the exhausting pull up the hill with their sad burden. Ben and Jamsey glanced from Sam Keenan’s grime-streaked face to Jamsey’s father wondering what either of the older men would say, what words of comfort they would offer a woman only two years a wife, a loving, hard-working wife whom they all knew John had worshipped.
It was Sam Keenan who spoke for them both.
‘We foun’ the load of iron and suchlike in the verge down in Ballybrannan. He wos on his way back from town. Somethin’ must’ve come towards him from th’other way, just on that bit where it narrows. The mare must’ave took a bad fright; the cart cowped up and John was throw’d out.’
He paused, watching her face, but she just waited for him to go on.
‘He might ’ave taken a fall an’ be none the worse of it, but by bad luck there wos a wee bit of a stream wi’ a stone bridge over it. He hit the stone and fell over inta the water.’
‘So he drowned?’
‘No, I don’ think so. We foun’ him in the water wi’
a gash on his head but it wasn’t bleedin’. It might be his neck’s broken.’
Sarah nodded and leant forward to loosen the white bandage. She wondered how and where the four men had found a white bandage: a proper bandage, not a piece of old, but clean linen or even someone’s handkerchief.
It fell away, revealing a long, deep gash across his forehead and temple. It was a purplish colour, but there was no blood whatsoever. It looked as if the bandage had no useful purpose, except perhaps to spare her the sight of that heartbreaking gash, which had cost him his life, one way or another.
She paused only a moment and then said, ‘You could all do with a cup of tea and a bite of cake. Could we take John into the sitting room?’
They all bent down together, grateful for activity and as they did Mary-Anne Halligan hurried through the gates, gasping for breath and wearing her best dress.
Without a word, and to Sarah’s great surprise, she threw her arms round her. ‘Ach, God love ye, I’d a been here sooner, but I was cleanin’ out the dairy an’ I was in my dishabels.’
Sarah smiled. Her beloved John was dead and here she was thinking that it was a long, long time since she had heard that word. Her grandmother had once explained to her that ‘dishabels’ was a corruption of the French word déshabillé, which, of course, meant old clothes, those not suitable for receiving company.
She glanced down at her own clothes, grateful she was wearing one of John’s favourite blouses with her second-best skirt. She was not in her dishabels. She was grateful for that and as she responded to Mary-Anne’s embrace, she asked, ‘Was it you put on the bandage?’
‘Aye, surely. But shure there’s no bandage to put on yer heart.’
‘No, there’s not, but I’ve other people to think about now,’ she said honestly, as the enormity of what had to be done began to print out in her mind.
‘Shure Billy an I will give ye a han’. Come on in and we’ll make a cup a tea an’ see what ye want us all to do.’
Mary-Anne and her family were as good as their word and, within a few hours, John’s brother, George, from nearby Grennan, arrived with his wife bringing tea, sugar, bread and cake for the visitors who would come when they heard the news. George paused only to greet Sarah and then drove into Armagh to summon the undertaker, leaving his wife, Alice, to keep her company along with Mary-Anne.
Visitors began to arrive within the hour and Alice and Mary-Anne made pot after pot of tea.
Sarah was amazed in the hours that followed at the outpouring of grief over her loss and the warmth and love directed towards her, something she would never have expected for a relative newcomer to a long-settled community where everyone knew each other and had known them all their lives.
She received their greetings, answered their questions and watched the practicalities disappear in front of her. By the end of that long day, John lay in his coffin looking trim in his best suit, only a much smaller, rectangular plaster now marring the face that had been so familiar to all who came to the forge. The funeral was arranged, as custom was, for two days after the day of death, long enough for everyone to pay their respects both at his home and in the churchyard.
Through it all, Sarah remained steady and smiling, welcoming all those who came, putting at ease men who had never met her before, women who felt obliged to cry, kind neighbours so anxious to help in any possible way.
She was so steady that neighbours nodded together and agreed that ‘sure it hadn’t hit her yet’. What Sarah herself thought was that she was not alone in her grief and that for now it was her task to comfort others; whether it was Scottie weeping in her arms when he finally came down from his perch on the gate pillar, or her own brother, Charles Gregson, who rode, white-faced, from Lurgan as soon as he got word via the stationmaster, who sent one of his porters to bring him the news in his factory on the outskirts of the town.
She hadn’t seen her brother since she and John had their very quiet ceremony almost two years ago in this same month of April. Now, in the churchyard surrounding that small grey church, built by an earlier Molyneux, the local landlord, John would lie in the family grave with the other Hamiltons who had lived and died in this parish in the last seventy-five years.
The hours of that long day passed and of the two that followed leaving only a passing impression of faces, known and unknown and regularly repeating phrases, ‘I’m sorry fer yer trouble, God love you.’ ‘Can I do anythin t’ help ye? Say the word, for John was a good fren’ to us all.’ ‘Ye couldn’t meet a straighter man. He wos that good-hearted he’d give ye his last sixp’nce.’
They sang his praises so that their words echoed and made a kind of litany in her head as she lay totally exhausted in her empty bed the night after the funeral. Wide-eyed for the most part, she occasionally drifted into sleep, saw John walk through the door, come and put his arm round her and draw her close. Then she woke in the silence and thought of all that she had to do, the letters to be written, the arrangements to be made.
She got up very early the next morning, a Friday, and found to her amazement that Mary-Anne had spent the night on the settle bed. She had the fire going and the porridge already bubbling.
‘Oh, Mary-Anne, you are too good to me. You’ve done so much to help and that settle bed is hard as nails.’
‘Not as hard as what ye’ve ti’ face.’ Mary-Anne replied promptly. ‘Shure it’s little any o’ us can do. An’ ye might have took bad in the night wi’ the shock of it all, standin’ by the grave an’ shaking hans wi’ half the world an’ a word for all o’ them, in yer condishun.’
For a moment, Sarah thought she meant her widowhood, then she looked at her face. No, that was clearly not what she meant.
‘Did ye not know?’ Mary-Anne asked, shaking her head.
‘I wondered,’ she replied honestly. ‘And we were hoping, but I couldn’t be sure.’
‘An’ when did ye last bleed?’
‘End of January.’
Mary-Anne shook her head again. ‘An’ you an educated wumman!’ she said, a wry smile on her face, as she counted the weeks aloud on her fingers. ‘A wee one due after the harvest and no forge and no money in yer purse. How are ye goin’ t’manage? Will yer brother be able to help ye out? Now come over to the table and eat yer porridge while there’s still oats in the crock.’
Sarah ate her porridge as obediently as a child. When she had finished, she thanked Mary-Anne for all she had done and insisted she go home to her menfolk. She asked her to come up anytime she felt like it, for she’d always be glad to see her, but she wasn’t to worry about her.
‘If I’m not well, I’ll send Scottie down for you, I promise. Just knowing you’re there will help me. Really it will.’
‘Ye’ll not have Scottie for long, wil’ye?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Shure there’s no one now to run the forge, they’ll have to find other work somewhere or other, an’ Sam Keenan has a wife and two childer an’ one on the way. He’ll be out lukin’ on Monday.’
Sarah felt a sharp stab of pain in her stomach but said nothing. She took a deep breath and was grateful when it subsided. But the full weight of Mary-Anne’s words did not subside. The picture of a silent forge came home to her. Loss upon loss. That was what faced her, her and her unborn child and these three men who’d become part of her life with John. He was gone, but they still lived and all three had family of one kind or another dependant on them.
‘Then I’ll have to run it,’ she began. ‘There’s three men depending on it as well as me, and a child, all being well,’ she went on, as calmly as she could manage, given that she had just this moment remembered it was Friday.
Friday was payday and she wasn’t sure what she might find in her purse. If anything.
She sat at the kitchen table with her empty bowl pushed away from her so she could lean her arms on its bare, well-scrubbed surface. She was thirsty and thought of making a pot of tea, but felt so tired the effort seemed too much for her
.
The forge was silent. It was almost as if the silence were louder than the familiar sounds had been. She had no idea what the day might bring. Unfamiliar with the local customs, she had not expected the procession of people known and unknown that flowed in and out for the two days and nights before the funeral and the equally unexpected sudden silence after the burial itself, when, apart from Mary-Anne, it seemed only the closest of relatives could visit.
She grasped the meaning of locking up the forge, the large padlock clearly visible from the gates, now closed for the first time since the solid thatched house had been her home. But what about Sam Keenan and his wages?
Normally, each Friday when she had done the morning jobs, she took out the cash box into which John had put the takings during the week. She’d made up Sam’s wage, the sum she and John had agreed was needed for the expenses of the house and the small sums both Ben and Scottie received, amounts laid down in the apprentice documents along with the agreements about food and clothing and the provision of appropriate bedding if required.
Scottie went home to his granny at night, using the shortcut across the fields, but Ben, who only went home on a Saturday night, slept in the loft over the forge, washed at the well each morning and came for his bowl, or his piece, as soon as John appeared in the forge to light the fire.
Her head was beginning to ache as she puzzled away at the total disruption to the well-organised system that now lay in ruins with John’s death.