The Ludlow Ladies Society

by Ann O'Loughlin

  “Bill, why are you calling me?”

  “Amy said you were in Ireland. I am in London; it is only a short flight away. Can I come visit?”

  “She should not have told you anything.”

  “Connie, we need to talk.”

  “And then I will get my family back, I suppose.”

  Her teeth ground together; tears flowed down her cheeks. She wanted to howl in agony. She cut him off.

  She only realised she had been shouting into the phone when she turned and saw the café owner looking down at her. The woman having tea opposite nodded to Connie before gathering up her shopping and making for the till. Leaning her head against the coldness of the rough stone wall, she closed her eyes, thinking that if she banged hard enough she might pierce her brain, so she was no longer able to feel. She might even die.

  His voice was the same: strong and reassuring.

  She loved him. She had then, she did now.

  When she had asked him to stay away, he respected her wishes, though she knew he wanted to rush to comfort her. Was she ready yet to allow him back in her life? Honestly, she did not know if she ever would be.

  Under the pretence of clearing a table, the café owner came close.

  “Mrs Carter, are you all right? You don’t look very well,” she said gently.

  Connie, dragging her hands across her face to wipe away the tears, pulled out a five-euro note, slipping it onto the table.

  The owner pushed the note back. “Don’t worry about it, we can run to a cup of coffee. You sit and get yourself sorted before going out on the street. You don’t want to be feeding the gossips.”

  Gently, she pushed Connie back into her seat, before disappearing behind the counter and noisily changing the coffee filter.

  Connie sat, not thinking, not feeling, examining the wall. Bill rang again.

  Quickly, she turned down the volume of the phone, watching it as it pulsated and shivered across the table. She was not being fair on him, she knew that, but then none of this was fair. Gathering up her things, she again tried to leave the five-euro note on the counter, but the woman stopped her.

  “You will be in another day. Look after yourself,” she said, lightly tapping Connie’s hand.

  Not wanting to return to Ludlow Hall yet, Connie got in her car and headed for Arklow, to call on the estate agent.

  Roger Greene greeted her with a strong handshake.

  “I am not sure what I can do for you, Mrs Carter, but I will be of whatever assistance I can. You told me to take Ludlow Hall off the market; we have done so,” Roger Greene said, ushering her to sit on a chair in front of his desk.

  “Please, tell me why my husband bought Ludlow.”

  Roger Greene looked taken aback. “I was very sorry to hear of Mr Carter’s death. What a shock.”

  Connie did not answer.

  “Mr Carter, I believe, had big plans for the development of the land around the house.”

  “How was he going to do that?”

  “Mr Carter was a man in a rush but he was stymied before he even had a chance to fail. We did advise him that the planning process here can be quite drawn out.”

  “Why build on those fields? It would ruin the estate.”

  “A lot of people in these parts thought so too, lodged objection after objection. The effect of it all was to delay everything; the longer it went on, the more stressed Mr Carter became.” Roger Greene shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “He had no patience, said he was running out of money before he even started.”

  “Do you think he intended to move his family here?”

  Roger Greene carefully flattened beads of sweat on his temple with his fingers. “Mrs Carter, this may come as a shock to you, but Mr Carter never mentioned a family.”

  The estate agent fiddled with a pen, rolling it through his fingers until it leaked ink, staining his thumbs. Throwing the pen to the side, he rubbed his hands together, before looking directly at Connie. He settled himself back into his chair and cleared his throat.

  “Mr Carter phoned up out of the blue asking about Ludlow. We wanted to arrange a viewing, but he said he did not need to. He offered the asking price there and then. He was determined to own Ludlow Hall.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. He never even came over to visit the place. For somebody who was so determined to own Ludlow, he made no attempt to get to know it or Rosdaniel. I said to him, would you not come over, get to know people, maybe do up the Hall, even as a holiday home. He gave me an odd answer: ‘I hate the place, I only ever bought it to tear it down. Why would I ever want to stay in the place?’

  “To him, it was about the money. He said it had sapped everything from him. He said it was bleeding every last cent from him. He fought it all, if I may say so, took it all a bit personally; it sapped money and energy from him. ‘There’s not even the consolation of making a quick buck,’ he said. Finally, defeated and running out of money, he told me to put it back on the market and make sure I got a good price for it.”

  “Why would he want to tear down Ludlow Hall?”

  “He said it was personal.”

  “Personal?”

  “I did not enquire further. Every week after that he rang me for a progress report, until the calls stopped coming.” Roger Greene, worried he might have said too much, shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  Connie buckled, her shoulders hunched, tears taking over. Pain pulsed through her. She held herself, her arms wrapped tight around her body, almost as if there was a danger that if she did not, the pain would split her open like an axe on a lump of wood.

  Roger Greene opened a file on his desk and pretended to study it.

  “None of it makes sense,” she whispered.

  Roger Greene scratched his bald head fiercely.

  “That is pretty much it. The country was gone down the tubes and nobody was buying or selling property, but Mr Carter thought somebody out there was going to fork out millions for a dilapidated mansion beside a small town.” He straightened in his seat. “There is still the question of the outstanding bill, Mrs Carter. We could come to some arrangement.”

  “I don’t have any money, Mr Greene. Whatever bit I have, I intend to put into Ludlow Hall.”

  “Maybe you will think of this office if you ever decide to divest yourself of Ludlow Hall.”

  Connie stood up. “I have taken up too much of your time, Mr Greene.”

  She moved to the door as the estate agent rushed around from his side of the desk and grabbed her hand in a strong handshake. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She ignored it.

  Once out on the street, she walked across the bridge, down the quays, picking a seat so she could look across the harbour to the sea.

  A text message beeped.

  We need to talk, clear the air. I am coming to see you.

  She did not need to enquire as to how he knew where in Ireland she was. He would turn up at Ludlow Hall; Amy was going to make sure of that. Her phone vibrated. Connie accepted the call, already shouting.

  “Why did you tell Bill where I was?”

  Amy, taken aback at the strength of her sister’s aggression, waited a few seconds before answering.

  “I didn’t exactly. I said it was Ludlow Hall, Ireland. He did the rest himself. None of this is his fault, Connie. You can’t keep avoiding him. He deserves a chance, you both do.”

  “I am not dealing with this right now.”

  “Or ever, Connie? It is time to start building a new life. He loves you, Connie, he understands.”

  “Understands the loneliness, the raw pain that I would trade him in a minute to have things different? I don’t think so.”

  Amy sighed loudly, the tears choking the words in her throat. “Connie, let some light in, please,” she said, her voice wobbly with emotion.

  Connie cut off the call, letting her phone drop, bounce and spin across the ground. An elderly man walking his dog bent down and picked it up.

  “Another
foot and it was gone into the sea.”

  When she did not take the phone, he placed it on the seat beside her.

  “Things can’t be that bad for a beautiful young woman like yourself.”

  She did not answer. Suspecting he was intruding, he called his dog and headed off to where the trawlers were tied up at the far end of the harbour.

  Connie sat, her hands punched into her pockets, looking out to sea, the only sound the water as it gently chafed the harbour wall, making the smaller boats further down lean to one side. The elderly man, passing back again, his dog running ahead of him, stopped beside her.

  “Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but are you all right?”

  “Not really.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Connie jumped up, staring at the man.

  “Bring my child back from the dead?”

  Picking up the phone, she bolted for her car. She did not turn around to see the shock on his face, the concern as he quickened his pace behind her. What could he or anybody else do? She‘d had over one thousand, eight hundred and eighty-nine days with Molly. All she wanted was one more day, even half a day, to hold her, talk to her, play with her, be with her. She desperately wanted to change the ending, tormenting herself with what might or could have been.

  The man tried to flag her down as she reversed the car, but she ignored him, driving up the quays towards the bridge, where she turned right for Rosdaniel.

  *

  The first meeting back of the Ludlow Ladies’ Society at Ludlow Hall lasted over two hours. Hetty had to go to a doctor’s appointment after tea, so one of the other women did the wash and tidy-up, while the rest sat around the kitchen table talking and sewing until gone three o’clock.

  “I had forgotten what a lovely house this is,” Rebecca Fleming whispered, flinching when she was elbowed in the side.

  Eve laughed. “This was my home for so long, but no longer. They are calling it the new reality, whatever that means. I am no better or no worse off than a lot of people. We are in different times.”

  Rebecca peered over her glasses. “Very true, Eve, but not everybody was the innocent bystander, like yourself.”

  “When it comes to the end, that matters little to the bank: they are there to get their money back at all costs.”

  “At least you are not like Hannah Humphries.”

  “Hannah Humphries?”

  “She lived the other side of Rosdaniel; I think she came to the Society once or twice.”

  Eve remembered well the small, stout woman, blonde hair clipped into a tight bun at the back of her head.

  Everybody turned to Rebecca Fleming. Not usually one to impart gossip, they knew the story was bound to be good if Rebecca felt she had to share it. She blushed, her voice squeaky, as she felt the pressure of the others listening.

  “Poor woman, they had paid off their home mortgage years ago, but their son remortgaged the place to finance his business. Her name was on the remortgage along with that son of hers. It all went belly-up. He went off to Australia and has not been heard from since. The bastard left his mother trying to deal with the banks. Eventually, she gave up. Her health failed. She was in and out of hospital, had chemotherapy, the whole lot.”

  When a few of the women around the table sighed, Rebecca Fleming, now relishing being the centre of attention, pitched her voice higher, so she could more easily be heard.

  “Hannah told me herself she stopped opening her post, let it pile up rather than be frightened when she read yet another nasty threat from the bank. She was at her wits’ end over it all. It was when she was recovering at her sister’s house in Arklow, after another bout of chemotherapy, that they came and repossessed her home. All her personal belongings were thrown in a skip.”

  Marcella Lyons put her hand up, like she was at a meeting. “They hardly threw out her furniture. How could they do that?”

  “The banks can do anything they like, we all know that,” Eve said, and the others murmured in agreement.

  Rebecca Fleming, afraid she would not be allowed to finish the story if the conversation shifted, cleared her throat loudly.

  “Cute enough, they threw any piece of furniture that might be worth selling in the back of a van. All the personal stuff, that was only precious to Hannah, was chucked in the skip: books, clothes, photographs. The neighbours phoned Hannah’s sister, but by the time they made it up from Arklow, her whole life was piled high in the skip.”

  “I suppose I should count myself lucky the same did not happen here,” Eve said.

  Not noticing or deliberately ignoring the sarcasm behind Eve’s comment, Rebecca Fleming continued.

  “The worst thing was when Hannah in her dressing gown and slippers got out of the car roaring and shouting, calling for her husband, John. Everybody thought the fright had badly affected her: John had been dead four years. It turned out the silver and gold urn containing John’s ashes had been dumped with everything else. Even the plaque she had specially made, saying ‘John Humphries. Gone, But Never Forgotten’ was ripped from the wooden mantelpiece.”

  “Jesus, don’t tell me this is true,” Eve said.

  Rebecca Fleming looked around the table, taking in the shocked faces.

  “The urn and plaque were gone. They must have been tipped into the skip along with everything else.”

  “What did Hannah do?”

  “What could she do? Her only hope was that the urn might have broken and John’s ashes were scattered along the garden and road they loved. She clings on to that thought. She is in the last stages of cancer now, and she has made it clear she wants to be cremated and her ashes scattered on the same lane and the garden of the old family home.”

  “The new owners might have something to say about that.”

  “She says even if it is done in secret or under cover of darkness, she does not care: her only wish is to reunite with her husband.”

  Those around the table fell silent for a while.

  “Maybe she should be scattered over the dump, to be sure,” Dana Marshall said quietly.

  Others began to snigger, the sniggers turning into snorts of laughter, followed by loud guffaws. Laughter rippled from one woman to another, until they were all heaving, thinking of the Humphries on the dump.

  “They could name the dump after them,” Eithne Hall guffawed.

  Chortling, the ladies’ shoulders shuddered at the misfortune of Hannah Humphries.

  “After that, maybe we had better go, in case Connie thinks we are laughing at her expense,” Eve said, and the women bustled about, tidying up the kitchen, putting everything back as the American would like it.

  “Before you pack up, remember we need to be super organised by next week. We may even have to schedule two meetings, so we can plot the quilts and decide on patterns,” Kathryn Rodgers said, raising her voice over the noise of the women chatting and tidying up.

  “Did anybody have a cookie?” Eve asked. The others shook their heads and Eve picked a few out of the jar. “Just so she doesn’t think we are too high and mighty to be eating her biscuits.” She pushed them in her pocket.

  “Who is going to offer Eve a lift?” Kathryn Rodgers piped up and Eve, already making to open the front door, put up her two hands, as if to hush an audience.

  “I am going to walk back. I might wait a bit for Connie, to thank her.”

  Nobody said anything, but they all knew Eve was finding it hard to leave Ludlow Hall.

  They were right: she was. After the last woman said her goodbyes, Eve leaned against the door, tears rolling down her cheeks. How often before had she been keen to have them gone so she could have the house to herself? She did now, but these walls were hers no more, the pain inside her unbearable. She might have stopped Hetty leading a prying expedition, but she really wanted to peep in the study. Hesitating at the door, she knew she could not bear to think anything could change there. It was Arnold’s room, and she had not been there in so long.
Even after she found him in the barn and later had to go through his things, she could not bear to throw any of it out. Even then she had not sat at Arnold’s desk, and now a stranger was going to clear the room out.

  Turning swiftly away, she moved to the drawing room to sit by the fireplace. Sinking into the velvet armchair, her feet exactly fitted the slight indentation in the carpet. Examining the painting over the fireplace, she was cold in her assessment. She didn’t want it. The day it was painted had not been a happy day. Arnold insisted she wear that dress. She felt uncomfortable, wanting instead to wear her own choice.

  “What is it with you, Eve? This is a beautiful dress from Bloomingdale’s, New York. You won’t get finer this side of the Atlantic. It cost me a bomb.”

  “For this occasion, I want to wear something more representative of me. Not something picked by a fancy shop assistant who does not know one thing about me.”

  “And what about me? Has your husband no say in this?”

  When he presented her with the beautifully wrapped box, she found it hard to rustle up any excitement. Somehow, she could not see Arnold going in Bloomingdale’s on his own to buy her a dress. When she questioned him on it, he became cross.

  “Why the inquisition? I buy something different and get the third degree.”

  Arnold, in all his trips to the US, had only ever brought her back jewellery, pieces that were more his taste than hers, though she would never say that to him. Jewellery for him was a safe, small option. Initially, she wore the pieces, regardless of whether she liked them or not, but later she did not bother, thinking her husband did not notice.

  “I am damned if I do, damned if I don’t, Eve. You hardly ever wear the jewellery I select for you, now you turn your nose up at a beautiful dress. Pardon me if I am fed up of my wife not dressing as she should. It reflects badly on me and on Ludlow Hall.”

  “You know you are being unfair, Arnold. I run this estate more and more. I can’t be expected to do that and look like a model every day.”

  “My mother seemed to be able to do it well enough.”