The Blacksmith's Wife

by Anne Doughty

  Surrounded by neighbours known and unknown, Billy and Jamsey and young Billy, the two black-coated figures who had arrived with the coffin and the robust woman who had put Granny into her shroud, Sarah felt even more alone than she ever did arriving back to an empty house after visiting Mary-Anne or going into Armagh. She wondered if losing John would ever be easier to bear or whether she would learn to think of something else, or teach herself not to feel the ache of loneliness when she was surrounded by people, but without John at her side.

  In the meantime, she simply had to play her part: make tea, or collect up cups to wash, or exchange friendly words with other visitors. It was some comfort that she now had a real friend, one who had helped her at her own bad time, now in need herself.

  For Mary-Anne, she would most certainly set aside her own sad thoughts and do whatever would help and support her for the two evenings before the funeral. For the moment she gave thanks that this one was, thankfully, already drawing to a close. She would face up to tomorrow when tomorrow came.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Granny’s funeral came and went, but the anxiety about the potato blight continued day after day, until finally, by the middle of September, it was clear that not every crop had been affected in the same way. Before that, there had been much hasty digging to try to save what remained of the potatoes grown for the winter, but those who held back or, like Billy, had too large a planting to simply dig it all up, discovered that the rot had not spread as expected by those who remembered the bad year of 1838.

  Now, in 1845, many potato fields and potato gardens had indeed been affected, but only in part. A few fortunate farms were actually completely unaffected, but in others farmers had still harvested three-quarters or two-thirds of the crop they expected. A few optimistic individuals had waited to see what would happen next. When there was no sign of the blight spreading further through their fields or gardens they had then dug up only the affected plants, allowing the rest to come to maturity. The extended growth period meant in terms of weight that they had almost as good a crop as the previous year.

  Sarah gave thanks when she found that Billy had lost less than a fifth of his planting. As he and his sons had made such a big effort to bring more pasture under cultivation, there was no possibility they could dig the whole crop, even with the help of their neighbours that dreadful evening when all anyone could think about were those first signs of limp leaves and slimy stalks. Billy had indeed, like many others, inspected the planting anxiously each day, but by the middle of September, when there was no further outbreak, the Halligans simply dug out all the damaged potatoes and began to harvest the more mature and better-sized ones from their earliest plantings. They got a good price for them in the weekly market in Armagh.

  Much of Billy’s crop was bought by the Armagh Workhouse when they discovered they could buy better quality potatoes from him than from some of the farmers with whom they had contracts. Later, they decided not to renew their individual potato contracts with specific farmers, but to buy in the market for the best value they could find. Billy now benefitted from reliable buyers and a large crop ready to be dug.

  Sarah was amazed at the change in Billy. She remembered the shock Sam and Scottie had suffered when Ben made his first joke, now she had to laugh at herself when Billy welcomed her like a long-lost friend on an evening visit to Mary-Anne. He sat down opposite her, smiled broadly and asked her for all the news from the forge.

  His hard work had paid off and the effects were obvious. Mary-Anne stopped looking so anxious: she began to relax a little after all the extra work caring for Granny and appeared regularly at Sarah’s fireside as the temperature of the September evenings dropped down yet more quickly.

  Sarah brought the lamps down from their shelf, cleaned them and gave them new wicks. It was a job John had always done and it was one of many simple tasks, now hers, that brought home to her most forcefully her feelings for the evenings ahead. She freely admitted she was dreading the long nights.

  The white envelope which Mary-Anne had mentioned anxiously on the day that Granny died duly arrived. Sarah had indeed forgotten when the bill was due, but she hadn’t forgotten the bill itself. After the postman had made his delivery, she took out her jotter and saw she’d long ago made allowance for this twice-yearly payment. Now she was making it for the fifth time, but this time there was no John to sign the document; the stiff white sheet in her hand had now been drawn up in her own name.

  September was a pleasant month with warm afternoons and chilly evenings, mist rising from the quiet land even before it got dark. Whether she had Mary-Anne’s company or not, Sarah got on with her sewing, turning over in her mind the possibility of how she might sell the products of her work directly.

  She was well aware that the middlemen who distributed work to women, like the one who had brought napkins to her sister-in-law, Alice, before the family emigrated, paid as little as possible. The women knew they were being exploited, but had no idea what they could do about it. If women like Alice were to complain about how many hours they put in for a few coppers, they might well lose the only bit of cash income the family had now that so many weavers, like her husband, George, had entirely lost their market for webs of cloth.

  The tide of emigration which had begun in May reached a peak as the last summer sailings departed. At many a fireside the only news was of neighbours reporting on an ‘American wake’. What was supposed to be a happy farewell party for some member of the family, with music and dancing, often failed to bring the expected pleasure of such a gathering.

  While everyone present tried to give the young man, or woman, or family, a fine send-off before escorting them the next morning to the temporary rail terminus a few miles short of Armagh, it was impossible not to be aware they would cross the Atlantic and most likely never come back. The few who couldn’t write would disappear immediately as if they had never existed; a worse loss for many a mother or father than if the departed one had died of illness, or in an accident. But there were also others who could write perfectly well but, once away, wanted to forget a hard life with little joy in it and devote themselves entirely to making a better future for themselves. They too disappeared from view and never returned.

  Sarah herself wept with relief when within the one week in mid-September she had letters from both her dearest old friend Helen and Ben, dear Ben Hutchinson, who wrote at length and reminded her of the promise he had drawn from her that she would write to him when he had an address to send her.

  Now, after forty-three days at sea and a long stay in quarantine at St John’s because his ship, the Anne of Donegal, with ninety-six passengers on board was carrying four emigrants who were ill, he had finally been allowed to move on. He’d ended up in a small settlement called Scott’s Plains in Ontario where he’d found work with a farmer.

  For the moment, he said, it was mostly farm work, but the farmer himself was a go-ahead man and had plans to use the new machinery now becoming available. In the meantime, there were horses to shoe and tools to mend and he had dollars in his pocket, apart from a few he enclosed with a request that Sarah give them to Scottie, who had never had any money whatever for himself however hard he worked.

  As for Helen’s letter, though Sarah was delighted and relieved to have news at last, she was utterly distressed by what her friend had suffered because her own letter, written shortly after John’s death in late April, had not arrived until the beginning of September.

  Helen explained that the envelope had clearly been immersed in water and then dried out, but neither her postman, nor the local Post Office, could offer any explanation. The ink was smudged and some pages were stuck together, but to anyone familiar with Sarah’s well-formed script it was still entirely possible to read her account of John’s death and her confession of how much she missed the dear friend with whom she had shared her thoughts and feelings since they’d been children, sitting beside each other in their schoolroom or in her grandmother’s own tiny sit
ting room.

  Sarah immediately took out her writing materials and wrote long letters to them both, remembering as she did how much she’d once enjoyed writing letters and how little she’d written since she’d completed the wearying task of thanking people for their condolences and the thoughts and prayers directed towards her after John’s death.

  As September proceeded, it seemed that the lovely month with plenty of sunshine and none of that humid weather which had so dominated the summer was to be the bringer of good news. It looked as if County Armagh had got off relatively lightly in terms of blight and all the signs were that the harvest would be a good one.

  Sarah had to smile when each week the local paper managed a paragraph about some record breaking crop: a single cup potato, something Sarah had never heard of before, had produced seventy-six potatoes weighing a total of twelve and a half pounds and a bean, grown near Portadown, had managed three stalks, yielding a total of one hundred bean pods, ‘each containing from three to four beans’.

  But the record was taken by neither of these events. That was reported by Mary-Anne in person when she arrived one evening, her sewing in a bag, Sarah’s newspaper under her arm.

  ‘Big news from the Archbishop’s Palace,’ she said confidentially, as she sat down by the fire and handed Sarah her Armagh Guardian.

  ‘Oh yes?’ replied Sarah, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Ye’ll niver believe this. Sure didn’t the gardener bring a carrot inta the kitchen there an’ it weighed fourteen poun’s.’

  For both Sarah and Mary-Anne the autumn was a good time where they could sometimes laugh together after the sadness and anxiety they’d both suffered over the summer. They shared their problems and concerns and gave thanks they’d been spared the dreadful times spoken of with such anxiety by men and women, only a little older than themselves, when the blight had appeared at the end of August.

  The weather stayed fair for the harvest and yields were high, all that had been hoped for, especially the crops of flax and wheat. The Armagh Guardian reported good trading in the local markets and fairs. The newly founded Agricultural Societies in local villages were holding lectures and hosting competitions. The resident landlords, who’d been active in setting them up, now provided prizes and visited tenants, actively encouraging good practice among them. There was no increase in the number of admissions to the workhouse. This was an item of information reported each week in the newspaper, always a marker of good times and bad.

  Until the middle of October, all went well for both women, then within a week they were again called upon to gather up all the strength they could muster and cope with the next set of problems: first, Sam Keenan, and then, Billy Halligan himself, became ill.

  Sam hadn’t had a day off work in all the years he’d worked at the forge, so said Mary-Anne, but it looked as if he had pneumonia. He had indeed had a soaking one Saturday night on his way home from work, but that was nothing new. The doctor, who was sent for on Monday morning when he couldn’t get out of bed, asked his wife, Selina, if he’d lost weight recently. Selina had replied that he had, though he’d no loss of appetite, in fact these days he was always hungry and looking for more.

  The doctor had looked grave, pronounced the need for bed rest and said he’d come again in a week’s time. Only later did Sarah find out that the doctor was concerned Sam might have tuberculosis; the underlying condition would make him more vulnerable to the pneumonia which he’d had several times before. Meantime, it looked as if it would be weeks, if not months, before he could come back to work.

  As for Billy, chest pains had begun to keep him off his feet and off the land, the latter making him irritable and anxious. Though Jamsey and young Billy were well able to do what was necessary, even without their father’s supervision, Billy had never been a man to sit around. Mary-Anne, worn out with his complaints and anxious as to whether it was indeed his heart, sent for the doctor herself and was roundly abused for doing so.

  ‘But what else could you do, Mary-Anne?’ asked Sarah, when her friend appeared the next morning with eggs and buttermilk.

  ‘Try tellin’ Billy that,’ she replied wearily. ‘He’s afeerd it’s his heart, but shure the pain comes an’ goes, an’ when it goes he’s back at work, an’ that brings it on again. There’s no talkin’ to him,’ she said, shaking her head, as Sarah lifted the kettle, ready to make her tea. ‘No, love, I can’t stay,’ she said quickly, shaking her head. ‘I need to be there when yer doctor man comes fer I can’t trust Billy to tell me what he says. I’ll come up the night, all bein’ well,’ she said, as she hurried off.

  Meantime, Sarah knew she would have Scottie to deal with as soon as he came back from Sam’s home in Ballytyrone. It being Friday and no one waiting with a horse at the forge, she’d sent him over with Sam’s wages, knowing only too well as she put them in an envelope that, unlike Sir George Molyneux who was so good to his injured blacksmith, she’d be in no position to go on paying him with only Scottie working unaided in the forge at the quietest time of the year.

  Scottie had been distraught when he came to work on Monday morning and found no Sam. It was an hour or two before Sam’s oldest boy, a bright-eyed nine-year-old appeared at the front door with a note from Sam’s wife in Ballytyrone. No detail in that first note except that the doctor had said bed rest for a week.

  Over the long summer months without Ben’s presence, Scottie had taken on more of his work. Sam was pleased with his progress in the forge and Sarah had watched him move from being a boy who ran across the fields, squeezing through hawthorn hedges to make a shortcut from Greenan to her back door, to him becoming a young man. Now seventeen and almost as tall as Sam himself he strode round by the lane and the road, whistling to himself and looking around him as if not wanting to miss any detail of bird, tree or bush.

  When Monday’s note came to Sarah, he stood waiting anxiously while she read it. When she told him what it said, his eyes filled with tears and he shook his head. For what seemed a long time, he was quite unable to tell her why he was so upset, other than his obvious concern for Sam and his family.

  But Scottie had never been able, or perhaps he had never wanted, to keep his feelings from her. It wasn’t long before she realised that it was not simply his fear of having no work to go to, but the fear of having no contact with her or the life the forge had given him. As Scottie saw it, if the forge went, his whole life – apart from the burden of his grandmother – went with it. The thought clearly appalled him and from what Sarah had heard of his grandmother, she might well have felt the same in his position.

  In her solitary hours by the fire that evening she wondered why it was that some older people became so bitter and hostile. She thought often of her own dear grandmother who, even when vexed or overtired, could always say something helpful or even make a little joke to share the current problem.

  Evening after evening, for the next two weeks, Sarah puzzled backwards and forwards wondering what she could do if Sam remained unwell for any length of time. If the forge went out of business, then not only Sam’s job and Scottie’s apprenticeship would disappear, but also her own home.

  Without a home she could hardly earn a living by sewing even if her plans in that direction were further on. She had taught a small group of children in Lisnagarvey when her grandmother became too poorly to continue, but she had no qualification that would serve in one of the new national schools, besides which all the local ones, according to Mary-Anne, were already well-supplied with teachers.

  Time and time again she looked at the jotter that held her calculations. What bills could be delayed, what further economies could be made? There had been no progress on selling the trap though there had been one unacceptable bid for poor Daisy. For the moment, Daisy was out to grass, so was costing nothing to feed, but soon hay would be needed to get her through the winter. Thanks to Ben and Scottie’s efforts before Ben went to Canada, she and Scottie would not run short of potatoes, but oats would have to be bought whe
n the crock needed refilling.

  Setting aside the costs of running the forge, whether there was any income or not, the only other regular expense apart from milk, buttermilk and eggs from the Halligan’s and groceries from Armagh, was the rent to Sir George Molyneux, paid half-yearly and due in October.

  There was no way round it. Even if Sam were able to come back in a few weeks’ time, the only income foreseeable in the next months running up to Christmas was a weekly withdrawal from the small remains of the savings they’d made before John died. The depleted bank book in the old brown handbag was the last resource. It might just last till Christmas if Sam got back on his feet and there was enough work coming to the forge to pay them both. But what after that?

  She was no further on when some two weeks later with no sign of Sam’s return to work, Mary-Anne arrived with some good news.

  ‘Ye’ll niver guess what’s happened,’ she began, looking cross, though decidedly cheerful in her manner.

  ‘No, I’m sure I’ll never guess. I’ve got too much guesswork in my life at the moment and not making much headway with it, so please just tell me,’ Sarah replied, with a lightness she certainly did not feel.

  ‘Billy’s cured. Just like that,’ Mary-Anne replied, snapping her fingers smartly. She settled herself by the fire, took out her sewing and took a deep breath. ‘D’ye remember me tellin’ you Billy’s brother said there was a man over by Cabragh way had a charm for pains in the chest,’ she began, ‘well he finally went over las’ night to see him, said he’d tried everythin’ else so he might as well try him. An’ he came back full o’ beans, an’ as bright as a button.’ She paused and threaded her needle, which needed her total concentration, while Sarah waited, totally intrigued. Sarah herself had heard many a story of people who had gifts or ‘charms’ before she left Lisnagarvey, but she’d never been close to such a happening herself.