by Anne Doughty
‘Billy went out t’ mend a hole in one of the hedges where the cattle could push out an’ get inta the next field where some o’ the new potato rigs are. They were all lookin’ as right as rain on Wednesday but when Billy went to the hole in the hedge t’ mend it about an hour ago he cou’d see it’s got the blight. An’ it’s not just that field but all what they’ve put in this year. The whole lot of it was just startin’ ti’ smell. I think Billy an’ the boys are heartbroke. Shure I couldn’t get a word outa one of them.’
There was very little Sarah could say. After Billy’s very slight losses the previous year, this was a whole different situation. With his cows producing milk and butter, and Sarah earning commission as well as selling her own work, they would certainly not starve, but that was not the point. Like being put out of work, there was still the dislocation and disruption of what had happened and the burden of paying the rent when there was so little cash coming in.
Sarah made tea, but neither of them could manage even a small slice from the fruit cake she’d made the previous evening.
Even before the Armagh Guardian published its report, the news had already circulated around the whole district. This time the failure was complete. None of the schemes for retrieving the good portions from damaged tubers the previous year would be of the slightest use this time. With this crop, the rotten tops led down to equally blackened and disintegrating messy potatoes.
This year there was nothing but a stinking mass, with a smell so distinctive it could not be mistaken.
For the next few weeks, people might still have some of last year’s potatoes stored in straw-lined clamps or dry potato houses, but they wouldn’t last long. Worse still, merchants who had good supplies they’d been holding for that period between old crop and new could now put up their prices even further. Once those were gone, the chances of getting another crop in the infected soil were exceedingly unlikely.
June, a month Sarah particularly loved, was very enjoyable as far as the weather went. There were none of the hot, humid days that had driven her in April to bring out her coolest dress. The long light evenings with still, golden sunsets and pleasant showers kept the ground moist but did not damage the growing crops. Sadly, however, the news of the spreading blight in every part of Ireland seemed to depress everyone, even those who had both money and food to feed their own families.
Sarah began to dread the arrival of the newspapers: the Armagh Guardian fetched by whichever of the Halligans had business in town on a Tuesday and The Times and London Illustrated News provided in Sir George’s library for anyone, visitor or servant, who chose to read them.
She read them all dutifully, fully aware that Sir George needed her to be well informed, but she found little comfort or prospect of help in any of them, for what was happening all around her, as poverty increased and the government increasingly argued, delayed and disagreed about ways of providing relief.
There were, however, more urgent pressures upon Sarah herself. Sir George, having agreed to accompany his wife to her parents’ home in Warwickshire with the children, left a note telling her that provided she acknowledged any incoming letters and quoted the date of his return to those requesting the favour of an immediate reply, she was free to spend the remaining time as she wished, whether at home or in his library.
He did ask, however, that she would oversee the financial side of the management of the household, paying staff and household bills as usual. He referred her to yet another pile of papers, sadly in need of sorting and filing, but the only records available to help her. Except, as she discovered, the incredible memory of Bridget Carey for even the smallest household items and a neatly copied-up notebook kept by Robert Ross detailing the needs of the stables.
The first week of Sir George’s absence was the most taxing she had ever spent, even remembering those first days when she had struggled to clear the backlog left by his departing man of business. She was so exhausted by the time she got home that she found two letters from Jonathan and had not the energy to respond to either.
When she read them for a second time the next day before setting out for Castle Dillon, she discovered that he’d been called to Dublin to report to the Yearly Meeting there. He said he would enclose his address in tomorrow’s letter. She read the second letter yet again but found no address. Sadly disappointed, she set about her morning chores with only half her mind upon them.
But the taxing week was not yet over. Halfway through the morning James, the footman, arrived with a note which had just been delivered. A young man was waiting for her in the stables, he said, and he had already spoken to Robert Ross and asked him to fetch Daisy.
‘Oh, no,’ Sarah said, as she scanned the hastily written message. ‘James, I’ll have to go home. Will you please apologise to Mrs Carey for me? We were to work together this afternoon but my neighbour has died.’
‘Ach dear, I’m sorry indeed. I’ll tell her all right. D’ye want me to run down and tell the young man yer comin’?’
‘Thank you, I’ve some papers to collect to take with me. But I’ll be as quick as I can,’ she said, noticing, despite her distress, that James had abandoned his usual formality and had spoken with a soft southern accent.
She concentrated on gathering together the documents that needed to go to the bank and putting them in her shopping bag. ‘Oh Mary-Anne, my dear friend,’ she said, as she picked up her notebook, ‘Whatever has happened, what’s happened at all?’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Despite Daisy’s willing co-operation, the short journey to the foot of Drumilly Hill seemed to take such a long time. Sarah felt tears run down her face and didn’t bother to wipe them. Only when her nose began to do the same, did she drive one-handed and take a handkerchief from her pocket to mop herself up.
The road was deserted, but as she came close to Halligan’s farm, she met a man on horseback riding in the opposite direction. She didn’t know the man himself, but from his neat dark suit and white shirt, she assumed he was the doctor.
Jamsey, hearing Daisy’s hooves on the hard-packed earth of the farmyard, came out to meet her.
‘How is she?’ Sarah asked, bending down towards him.
‘Waitin’ fer ye,’ he said shortly. ‘Go on in. The doctor’s just away,’ he added, as he took her reins, helped her down and moved the trap round the side of the house.
‘Sarah, thank God you’re here. I jus’ don’t know where t’ start.’
Mary-Anne, dry-eyed and wearing her working clothes, jumped up from her chair, came and threw her arms round Sarah and hugged her fiercely. She held her for a few moments as if she would never let her go.
‘I jus’ can’t think right,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Jamsey’s no better than meself and young Billy’s away into Armagh an’ dosen’ even know yet. How am ah goin’ ta tell him? Sure he an’ the father were two peas outa the one pod an’ not just in looks ither.’
‘What happened, Mary-Anne? Just tell me.’
Mary-Anne put the kettle down and poked up the fire, adding turf and small pieces of coal to hurry it up. Then she took a deep breath and began telling Sarah the whole story, her voice perfectly steady, her hands folded in her lap.
‘We were up at our usual time an’ Billy away out to see t’ the cows, while I went to wake the boys. He hardly said a word to me afore he went, but then he niver does. That’s jus’ his way an’ young Billy is jus’ the same,’ she added, drawing breath. ‘The boys like their porridge afore they go out, but my Billy is always out first thing and I wait an’ make his porridge with me own after I’ve put the place straight.’
Sarah nodded encouragingly, trying to be patient, knowing that by telling the story Mary-Anne was probably trying to get things sorted in her own mind. She tried to sit perfectly still though the tension she was feeling made her want to leap to her feet and do something.
‘Well, I looked at the clock an’ thought to meself, “time I had the porridge on”, so I gets it all ready an’
was jus goin’ to put it in the bowls when Jamsey came in lukin’ for somethin’ or other he needed. “Where’s yer father?”, I sez. “Does he not want his breakfast?”
‘Well, then he tole me he hadn’t seen him at all this mornin’ an’ I sez to him: “Well, where can he be?” It’s not as if we had a big farm o’ land. Shure its only twenty acres or so,’ she added, for Sarah’s benefit.
‘So the long an’ the short of it is the pair of us went out to look for him, for young Billy was away to Armagh, an’ Jamsey went one way and I went the ither an’ I found him lying dead in the hedge where he’d mended that hole a couple of weeks ago, that Friday night when he foun’ the blight. He musta been lukin’ over that bit that he’d mended, like he did on the Friday night, and he jus’ dropped down dead inta the hedge. The doctor says it was his heart. It must jus’ have give out. An’ sure I shou’den be surprised for he was heartbroke when he saw all that hard work on the potato fields lost, an’ not knowin what worse was in front of us,’ she said, standing up and bringing the teapot and mugs from the dresser to the table. She made tea from the steaming kettle which had been rattling its lid furiously as she finished her story.
‘Now drink up, Sarah, for you’re as white as a sheet. I’ll be all right now yer here. I know what we hafta do, I was jus’ all through m’self an’ I’m better now.’
Mary-Anne was as good as her word. She was not overwhelmed by grief but clearly the shock had affected her. Now she set too in her usual practical way, her only problem being money. She didn’t know if they had any, apart from what she kept in unlabelled jam pots in the bottom of the dresser, the different sizes holding sums for the various expenses she herself dealt with.
‘Does Billy keep money and papers somewhere safe?’ asked Sarah, remembering the brown handbag.
‘Aye, he’s got a blue folder tied with a bit of string. It nearly fell apart one day it was that full when he took it out from behind the Bible to look for somethin’. So I got him the piece of string an’ said maybe he needed anither folder for them to share the load. But sure he niver bothered.’
‘It’ll be up there,’ she went on, waving to a wall-hanging bookcase with a cretonne curtain to keep out the smoke from the hearth. ‘Don’t for any sakes try to move them books, they’re heavy as lead and dirty forby, for I can’t stan’ on a chair to dust them, me head gets that light,’ she explained, as she drew Sarah over to the alcove on one side of the hearth.
Sarah was taller than Mary-Anne and feared neither heights nor a wobbling chair on an uneven floor. The bulging blue folder was clearly visible behind a pile of Bible commentaries, the massive Bible itself and some account books with marbled covers.
Getting it out was hard on the back, but Sarah managed it and brought the cardboard folder to the table.
‘Do you mind if I look to see what I can find?’ Sarah asked cautiously.
‘Ach, away with yerself,’ replied Mary-Anne dismissively, ‘sure you an’ me has no secrets. I just hope you fine somethin’ so I can send for the undertaker. I’d not be one bit a good doin’ what hasta be done.’
The bulging file looked intimidating but on closer inspection the pieces of paper, many torn or discoloured at the edges, were actually in strict chronological order. They went back to the point where Billy’s father had signed over the farm to him some twenty years earlier. Most of the tattered papers were receipts, but leafing steadily through so that she would miss nothing, she found a Friendly Society paying-in book – just the same as the one she’d found in the brown handbag after John died.
Mary-Anne had disappeared at the sound of a trap, so Sarah stood up, stretched her aching shoulders and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been wondering how she could help Mary-Anne from her own savings and whether what she could manage would be enough, but now there was no need. The Friendly Society would pay for the funeral and the small collection of large papery fivers she’d found sandwiched together, all in the one place, between the receipts, would keep Mary-Anne’s jam pots topped up for a long time – even longer, if they went on selling clothes in the market as successfully as they had so far. Billy had no bank book. His life’s savings she held in her hand.
She felt totally overwhelmed by sadness. Billy was somewhere in his forties, a bit younger than Mary-Anne. He had worked hard all his life, asked for little and done his best for his sons. She wondered if it was actually the failure of the potato crop that had caused his heart failure; the sense of something he could not deal with by hard work defeating him completely.
Sarah went outside and, as she expected, she saw young Billy leaning against the trap, silent and white-faced. Mary-Anne stood near him, but did not touch him. Like father, like son, she’d once said, neither of them could give you a kiss or a hug. It just wasn’t in them.
They both looked at her, even Mary-Anne’s mobile face stiffened like her son’s.
‘I’m so sorry about your father, Billy. I didn’t know him that well, but John valued him highly. He said he couldn’t want a better neighbour.’
Billy glanced at her momentarily and then stood looking at his boots.
‘What should we do now, Sarah?’ Mary-Anne asked quietly.
‘Perhaps Billy and Jamsey could go to the undertaker in Armagh and bring us back some bread and cake at the same time, till we get our own baked tomorrow morning. I’ll write a notice for the Guardian while you make them a bite to eat now. If I put “funeral details to follow”, is that all right?’
‘Aye, as right as rain,’ said Mary-Anne.
To Sarah’s surprise, Billy managed to glance at her and nod his agreement.
Sometimes in the next three days, Sarah couldn’t quite believe what was happening. She had been through it all before. She thought at one point that the wake and the funeral was like a play in which everyone knew their lines: when to come and when to go, when to accept food and drink, when to decline politely. She realised she’d been given the part of Mary-Anne’s sister, so she did everything that a sister would do, just like the night after John’s funeral. Then, Mary-Anne had been a sister to her when she’d lost their unborn child.
Apart from a brief visit to Armagh with papers and rents from Castle Dillon for the bank and the task of opening of an account there for Mary-Anne, Sarah was seldom out of the house at the foot of the hill, except late at night when she went home to sleep and change her clothes. After four days, it was Mary-Anne who said, ‘Yer worn out, Sarah. Away home an’ forget all about me for a bit. I’ll come up when I’m more meself. I’m all right. After all ye’ve done fer me, I won’t be going back on meself. That’s a promise.’
Sarah smiled to herself. Mary-Anne’s word was as good as any Quaker yea or nay, and she knew she was longing for the quiet of her own fireside.
She set off up the hill hardly noticing the calm, golden evening now fading somewhat earlier into a soft and quiet dusk. The month had moved on. Tomorrow, Friday, would be the last day of July. She’d have to go into Armagh for groceries and money to pay both Sam and Scottie, who’d thoughtfully assured her there was no hurry.
The front door was closed, the house stuffy, but she was glad to find the fire carefully smoored and not out. She left the front door open, stirred the fire and put the kettle down. How long had it been since she’d had tea by her own fireside, since she’d sewn for her own pleasure, or read a newspaper? It had been four long days but it seemed longer; they were so full of people, and talk, and activity.
She took a great deep breath, eased her shoulders – which always ached when she was tired – sat down in her usual place and watched the stirred fire till it threw out tiny flames and set the kettle murmuring gently before it started to sing.
She sat for a long time drinking her tea and thinking about the life she now had. She missed John in so many ways and she wondered if she always would. When she was sewing, she could almost imagine him watching her as he’d always done. When she handed someone a mug of tea, she thought of his thank you, always i
n terms of some homely phrase rather than the bare words themselves. She dreamt of him often and couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t there when she woke in her empty bed.
Yet, despite her loneliness for John, she now recognised that she knew more people than she’d ever known in all her thirty-odd years: the staff at Castle Dillon to begin with, from the eminently practical Bridget Carey, to the good-looking, but uneasy, James, once the newest footman. All of them were on easy terms with her, as she was with them.
She was aware, too, that in the last four days she’d been treated as if she’d always been Mary-Anne’s friend and neighbour. She’d been given a place in the community so that, at one level, she was no longer on her own or ‘on her lone’, as Annie the housemaid had said to her on her first day in Sir George’s study, a day that now seemed a very long time ago.
She now had so much to make her happy, not least the work she did for Sir George and her contact with Jonathan: their regular letters, both public and private, and their occasional meetings. She had so missed his letters in this last week or so, and wondered if, for some reason, he’d sent them to Castle Dillon and they’d be waiting for her tomorrow. Even more, she’d missed writing to him, always knowing that he would read with attention whatever she laid in front of him and that he’d reply directly to any question she asked him.
It surprised her that she could miss someone so much when she hardly knew them and had spent only hours in their company. She stood up and peered at the clock, the room now dim and shadowy, except where the flicker of flames reflected from the glass doors of the dresser and bounced off china and glazed ware sitting on open shelves.
She had just trimmed the new wick in the lamp and had satisfied herself with its performance, when she heard a knock at the front door. Startled, because the door was still standing open and no one ever knocked it when it was open, she stood for a moment, trying to identify the dark figure that stood there.