The Blacksmith's Wife

by Anne Doughty

  As she moved towards the door, the figure became visible in the spill from the lamp.

  ‘Sarah, are you all right? I’ve been so worried when you didn’t write. Tell me you are well,’ he said, stepping towards her.

  For one strange moment, she thought he was going to put his arms around her, but then he drew back a little and stood looking at her.

  ‘Jonathan,’ she said, as if she couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘I’m perfectly well, just very tired,’ she added, collecting herself.

  ‘But you haven’t been at work for several days.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ she asked, even more surprised, as she waved him to the armchair opposite hers.

  ‘I went looking for you at Castle Dillon and the blacksmith told me you’d had to go home several days ago. I’ve been so concerned. I kept hoping for a letter so we could plan to meet,’ he went on hurriedly. ‘There’s nothing wrong between us, is there? You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if I said or did something to upset you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I would,’ she replied easily. ‘We’ve both been brought up to speak what’s in our heart and say what we think to be true. I was so sad not to be able to write to you, but you forgot to include your address. You said you would in that second letter you sent from Dublin but you must have forgotten and I haven’t got a Yorkshire address where it might have been forwarded to you.’

  ‘And would you have written if you’d had my Yorkshire address?’

  ‘Yes, of course I would.’

  He sighed and took a deep breath, the lines of stress moving from his face. ‘You’re not angry are you, that I should feel so bereft when deprived of your letters?’

  She looked across at him, sitting in John’s chair and was reminded of John’s phrase: ‘He’s not sayin’ the half of it.’ He was, however, saying as much as he deemed proper, but only someone totally unthinking and insensitive could fail to see the warmth in his manner, the affection in his eyes. To her surprise, she had a sudden urge to put her arms around him and reassure him.

  ‘I’m delighted to see you,’ she said honestly. ‘I’m just so glad I was here; I’ve been with Mary-Anne for four days now. She’s lost her husband, Billy, which is why I had to come home from work on Monday. I’ll be back at work tomorrow.’

  ‘And Saturday?’

  ‘Only to collect the post to bring home,’ she said easily. ‘When Sir George is away he leaves me free to come and go as I please, so long as I check for anything urgent. There seldom is – just the same kind of things all the time, most of which I can handle for him.’

  ‘So you could come and have lunch with me in the Charlemont Arms Hotel on Saturday before I go back to Yorkshire?’

  ‘Yes, I could,’ she said smiling. ‘I’ve had news from Toronto, which might please you. I can tell you all about it then.’

  He smiled and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I’ve never seen you tired before, you must go straight to bed and sleep well,’ he said, standing up.

  ‘Jonathan, how did you get here? Have you a driver waiting?’

  ‘No, there were none available,’ he said easily. ‘All needed, I was told, to collect people for some event in the Tontine Rooms. So I walked,’ he added, as they reached the front door.

  He turned towards her, touched her hand lightly and said: ‘But I shall enjoy the walk back with a lighter heart. It will probably seem to be no distance at all.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Sarah woke early on Saturday morning; a shaft of sunlight fell, like a pointer across the floor, through the gap left in the curtains where she’d drawn them wearily the previous evening. She admitted freely as she got to her feet that she was still tired after the long days of Billy’s departure and the unexpected pile of letters and queries that had awaited her the previous day at Castle Dillon. There were some items she still had to deal with but she smiled as she drew the curtains back on sunlit fields and thought of Jonathan and their meeting at lunchtime in Armagh.

  There were household tasks from yesterday to be completed as well as those that waited on the desk, so she did her morning chores, ate breakfast with Scottie and told him she’d be going to work at the usual time. When he just nodded, she wondered why he was so uncharacteristically silent. Usually, over breakfast, he told her about the people who’d come to the forge the previous day or gave her an account of his most recent visit to his friend in Loughgall, old Mr McMahon, who had been a teacher all his working life.

  Harry McMahon, she had discovered, now spent his time and his small pension on whatever books he could lay his hands on when he made his visits to Belfast. His younger sister lived within walking distance of Smithfield, a market where you could find a strange and varied collection of things to buy. Harry was well-known in all the second-hand bookshops and well accustomed to bargaining, so his very limited means would stretch further. Scottie, like Ben before him, was now working his way through the library Harry had managed to accumulate.

  But Scottie continued to drink his tea in silence. He stood up as soon as he had finished with a muttered ‘Thank you’, as he went out to harness Daisy and make sure the trap was ready for Sarah’s departure.

  Sarah washed and changed her clothes with half her mind on Scottie. She decided that when he handed over the reins she really must ask him if all was well at home.

  But it was Sam Keenan who was standing tightening the girths on Daisy’s harness when she was ready to go. As he helped her up into the trap, she asked him where Scottie was.

  ‘Ach, ah think it’s the oul lady, the granny. He ast me if I’d mine if he went back home for an hour or two to see to her. I sez it was all right with me but shou’den he away an’ tell you. But he jus’ shakes the head an’ says “Sure she’ll understan’.” Ah hope I did right,’ he added, looking uneasy. ‘We sometimes do be busy of a Saturday.’

  ‘You did the right thing, Sam,’ Sarah replied reassuringly. ‘Scottie is no good at asking for what he needs. If there’s a horse comes you’d rather not shoe yourself, let them come back on Monday. We’re not so hard-pressed we can’t risk losing a job if the poor woman isn’t well. I’ll be back early, sometime this afternoon. Make sure you take a rest and go and make yourself tea at lunchtime,’ she said, shaking the reins, much to Daisy’s satisfaction.

  Sam smiled, much relieved and amused by the way Daisy tossed her head. They both knew she was not an animal that liked standing waiting once she was in harness.

  The August morning would have been warm, but for a robust breeze that caught up dried leaves from the side of the road and blew them swirling from one grass verge to the other. Some of them were papery and dry already. The season, which came early and brought harvest a month ahead of what was usual, was continuing to come early. As she turned along the now familiar stretch of road leading to the back entrance, she looked up, saw gold and pink leaves on the chestnuts and immediately thought of John and how he used to say the signs of the coming season were always there well in advance if you had eyes to look in the right places.

  It would be the second autumn without John. She wondered if she would always remember the sayings they’d shared, the trees and hedgerows they’d scanned on their walks together, enjoying the quiet and the fresh air after the long day’s work, looking for familiar things: the tangle of honeysuckle working its way along the top of a hedge; the stone-built gateposts; the entrance to a long-abandoned farmhouse, wreathed in a prolific rambling rose now grown wild from what was once the small front garden; a young tree growing out of the decaying chimney stack, getting bigger each year.

  Knowing the enormity of need since the failure of the potato crop, not just on Billy Halligan’s farm or merely here in Ulster, but all over Ireland, she sometimes felt that the only comfort to be found lay in plants and flowers that went on blooming: a symbol of hope, that when growth began again there might once more be enough food for everyone.

  It was a pleasant thought but she had to admit that most of the ti
me she felt the weight of information coming into Castle Dillon, by way of newspapers and documents, was simply reinforcing the view that Ireland would never be the same again, whatever happened next. The prospects for the coming year looked grim in the extreme with little in the way of relief works underway and no outdoor relief other than the generosity of individuals and small groups.

  As if a great black cloud had obscured the sun, her memories of John, instead of being gentle and fond, became an aching sense of loss. She wondered if all widows kept somewhere in their hearts the idea that one morning they would wake up with the dear, familiar figure still asleep beside them. She knew perfectly well in her head that it could not be so, but a part of her heart still ached with longing for something she felt she could never have again.

  The morning’s work challenged and absorbed her, but the sense of loss that had come upon her on the way to work did not dissolve. It only moved away until a further challenge presented itself.

  ‘I’ve brought yer tea … Sarah,’ Annie said, as she held the tray one-handed, closed the door behind her with the other and walked steadily across the room to the desk.

  Sarah smiled. After many months, Annie had finally managed to call her by her first name when she was alone, but neither of them had forgotten their very first meeting when Annie had addressed her anxiously as ‘My lady’. For Sarah, it was one of the pleasures of coming to work: seeing the way the anxious and lonely girl from the workhouse had gained in confidence and skill, very much as Scottie had. She had come a long way from the emaciated and trembling girl in the ill-fitting black dress and the starched white apron.

  Annie put the tray down carefully on the one remaining space on the desk and stood watching her, knowing that sometimes if she was in the middle of a document she’d have to finish it before she lost track of what it was saying. She stood now waiting patiently until Sarah put the piece of paper down, looked up at her and smiled.

  Sarah was taken aback, not only was Annie looking well-fed, she was positively blooming, a kind of radiance glowing all round her.

  ‘I missed you on Monday and every day after, till I heard what happened to your poor friend,’ she began. ‘I was waitin’ for you to tell you somethin’ nobody else knows. I’m engaged t’ be married,’ she said, beaming.

  ‘Oh Annie, how lovely,’ Sarah replied, anxious about just what age Annie might be. She certainly couldn’t be more than sixteen. ‘Do I know the lucky man?’ she asked, wondering if it was wise to encourage what might be a real problem to Bridget Carey, who could dismiss her if she thought fit.

  ‘Aye, surely ye know him. James, the footman. He’s three years older than me but he says we’ll have to wait a while and it’ll be better to keep it secret. Except fer you. He said I could tell you, but no one else. And I was disappointed on Monday when you’d had to go home,’ she added, her smile disappearing.

  ‘My goodness, Annie, this is a real surprise,’ said Sarah, touched by the confidence, but anxious lest there was disappointment to come. ‘Can I ask what age you are?’

  ‘I’m almost sixteen, but Jimmy … I mean, James, says I’m sensible beyond m’ years. I don’t mind havin’ t’ wait, or to keep it secret, so long as I know I’ll have someone belongin’ to me one day. I’m not on m’ lone any more an’ nor is he, even though he has a father who has nothin’ to do with him, except gettin’ him this job. He niver speaks to him except to correct him in front of others, an’ he lets no one know he’s anythin’ to do with him.’

  ‘You mean James’s father is here on the staff?’ Sarah asked, wondering how such a secret could ever have been kept.

  ‘Aye, he’s the big bossy butler,’ she said sharply, ‘but James is not one bit like him. He mus’ take after his mother. The poor wumman died when he was born, jus’ like mine,’ she said sadly.

  ‘How little we know about each other,’ Sarah said thoughtfully, thinking of John and his phrase about ‘not telling her the half of it’. ‘But perhaps, Annie,’ she went on, ‘some secrets are better than others. Do you think you and James can keep your secret? How will you meet? If you even go for a walk, it’ll be all around the servants’ hall by the morning.’

  To her surprise, Annie grinned happily.

  ‘We’ve foun’ somewhere nobody knows about. It’s in one of the old barns, a loft that’s empty an’ had no ladder up. James foun’ it an’ got a ladder an’ hid the ladder nearby. We never go together an’ we always go by different ways, but once we’re there we can talk till our heart’s content. James is learnin’ me how to write so he can leave me messages when he gets kep’ back, if yer man says he’s needed,’ she added crossly. ‘But I don’t hafta worry about him. I know I’ll see him at work an’ know he’s all right, even though we niver look at each other unless there’s no one about.’

  Sarah shared her biscuits as she always did and finished her tea, knowing that Annie would be missed the moment preparations were begun for lunch.

  ‘Give James my congratulations,’ she said smiling. ‘I wish you joy,’ she added quickly, motioning for Annie to hurry away.

  The second the door closed behind her, she took out her hanky and wiped the tears that had spilt down her face the moment Annie picked up the tray and turned her back. She wondered what might lie in store for two young people with so little to help them beyond the status and income of very junior household servants.

  But at least they had that, she told herself, as she set about clearing her desk and leaving it ready for Monday morning. They would not starve like the millions of others throughout Ireland no longer able to afford the last of the surviving potatoes held in store by middlemen waiting to get the best possible price. Nor would they die of neglect were they to become ill, for Sir George would never tolerate that. But life could be so hard for those with no sheltering arms to protect them. She would do what she could and hope against hope that life would be kind to them.

  The stiff breeze had dropped to a whisper as she turned out of the back entrance and drove the three odd miles into Armagh; the sky a vivid blue except where the heat of midday had built up huge castles of white cloud beyond the low, green hills. All was quiet on the road but she expected it to be busy in Armagh, for despite the increase in poverty, there were still many townspeople and larger farmers who had enough for their needs, and gentry who had always shopped locally.

  It was these people who had patronised the stall she and Mary-Anne had set up in the weekly clothes market, missing out only this last week in almost a year of successful trading. That work would go on giving Mary-Anne a much-needed income along with the network of women, now well-established, who were happy to produce whatever they asked for.

  It was still but a drop in a sea of poverty, but it was as much as she could manage for the moment.

  She told herself she ought to give thanks and take strength from the good things: for the happiness of Annie and James, for Sam Keenan’s complete recovery from an illness that had carried off many a more robust-looking man, for her own regular income and the many friendships she had made. She was lonely only for John, but she could not now say, like Annie had once said, that she was on her lone with no one belongin’ to her – that simply wasn’t true any more.

  Determined to cheer up before she met Jonathan, she took Daisy to the stables behind the Charlemont Arms and greeted Davy, the stable boy, whom she’d got to know on her regular visits to buy groceries or go to the Ulster Bank for Sir George.

  ‘Here you are, Davy, your friend Daisy,’ she said, as Davy took her reins and helped her down.

  ‘Do you know how long ye’ll be?’ he asked politely, eyeing the full stalls and parked traps.

  ‘Not as long as usual, probably. I’ve just come for lunch with a friend,’ she said honestly.

  ‘We’re busy today, Mrs Hamilton,’ he explained. ‘Ah don’t think I can take any more. Ye’ll certainly be the last one yourself if it’s anither trap that comes,’ he went on. ‘I could fit in a horseman, but ye see yerse
lf I couldn’t do a trap. Would yer friend be comin’ in a trap or maybe a carriage?’

  ‘Do you know, Davy, I’ve no idea. He’s staying in the hotel here but he may well have hired a trap. What would he have to do then?’

  ‘Well, if he’s stayin’ here I’ll hafta to fit him in somehow. Maybe if someone’s had their lunch early, they’ll be goin’ home soon,’ he said, beaming at her as she gave him a small coin, knowing he always took good care of Daisy.

  She smoothed out her skirt and walked slowly round to the front of the hotel. English Street was busy and there seemed to be something on across the road at the Tontine Rooms. As there was no sign of Jonathan, she decided he must be waiting for her in the dining room.

  The dining room was crowded and noisy, stuffy with the heat from the traditional fire. She’d heard from one of the waiters that if they left the fire unlit in summer some regular was sure to complain, so the best they could do was not bank it up with logs as they did in winter.

  It was still unpleasantly warm and as she looked around the crowded tables, she could see only one small table unoccupied. Of Jonathan there was no sign at all.

  Poised uneasily at the open door, she wondered what could have happened. Like reliable yeas and nays, they both knew that the time of a meeting required strict punctuality even if it had not been plain good manners.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t seem to have a table for one left.’

  ‘Actually it’s for two,’ she said, smiling patiently at the young waiter who was sweating visibly. ‘I’m meeting a friend, but I think he must have been delayed.’

  ‘Would that be a Mr Hancock from York, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ she replied, surprised and wondering how he could possibly know.

  ‘He asked me this morning to ensure that the small table by the window was available for 12.30 p.m. He said he had dined there before and particularly liked it. We don’t normally accept bookings,’ he added, as he led her between the tables by the most uncongested route. ‘Will you order, ma’am, or would you prefer to wait?’ he asked, lowering a large menu into the space in front of her.