by Anne Doughty
Rain came in the night, pouring down so heavily that Rosie wakened and lay listening to the drumming on the roof above and the gush of the rainwater flowing into the drain below. Bobby would be pleased. He said the land was too dry, the grass fading, the hay crop meagre. Rain was badly needed to encourage growth and then enough warmth to plump up the crops, especially the potatoes.
She put her hands behind her head and listened to the quiet. Back at the farm, the walls were thin. There was no Uncle Joe to snore next door, but Bobby was a restless sleeper. Even when the room was empty after Uncle Joe died it was never as quiet as this. There were goods trains rattling past in the middle of the night, the long lines of wagons clanking and banging as they went over the level crossing. From the space between the ceiling and the thatch came the scrabblings and scufflings of birds, or mice. Emily never noticed, she slept so soundly. Now she was so far away and Rosie was all alone in their room, the sounds seemed even louder.
Eventually, she fell asleep and woke to a sparkling morning. When she looked out, every bush and tree was threaded with raindrops that shone in the bright light, producing tiny shimmering rainbows until they evaporated in the full warmth of the sun.
‘That was a good drop of rain we had last night,’ her grandmother said, as she poured tea for them both at breakfast. ‘That was what John used to say. I’m going to be very boring, Rosie dear. I’m going to say all the things that he would say. Will you mind?’
‘Not if I can say some of them as well,’ she responded. ‘I often think of what he’d say when I’m at home, especially when I’m in the workshop with Da. It’s the smell that does it. Probably all my life I shall cheer up when I smell paraffin oil or hand cleaner, though I’m sure other people absolutely hate it.’
‘Yes, you’re right. Smells and tastes and tricks of the light and times of the year. They’re such an irresistible prompt to memory. Did I ever tell you about the fire at Lenaderg when Sarah rescued the wee lassie from the top floor of the mill? Every time I smell smoke from a bonfire, I see Sarah standing at the door, her hair grey, her eyes black. It must be twenty years or more ago, before she married Hugh, but the smell of the smoke brings it back as if it were last week.’
‘You’ve never told me about that, Granny.’
‘I was so sure I had. I must have imagined it. They say old people imagine things,’ she added, teasing, for Rosie would never allow her to say she was old.
‘But I’ve shown you Sarah’s albums haven’t I? The pictures she took when she was still at school.’
‘I think perhaps you did, but it seems a long time ago. Perhaps it was when Emily and I used to come for our holidays. I’d so like to see them again. Please.’
They ended up in the dining room, because it was easier to sit side by side at the table than to pass the heavy albums back and forth between the comfortable fireside chairs in the sitting room.
All morning they went through the volumes. Rosie had so many questions to ask and her grandmother so many stories to tell that they went straight back after lunch. The next one was the one that began with the double-page picture of Ashleigh House taken with a special camera whose name Rose couldn’t remember.
The picture that really intrigued Rosie followed a few pages later. There stood Auntie Hannah under a rose covered arch with Uncle Teddy, hand in hand. They looked very young and so very much in love.
‘She looks so beautiful.’
‘Yes, she does, doesn’t she? She was always a pretty girl but that summer she was radiant. Love does that to you, they say. She was only eighteen. Lady Anne and I agreed they could be engaged, but we arranged for her to have a year at a finishing school in Switzerland before they were married …’
Rose broke off, somewhat startled by a polite knock at the dining-room door.
‘Goodness, who can that be?’
‘Mrs Love?’
‘No, no, she’s in Belfast for the weekend.’
The door opened quietly. Richard P. looked from one to the other and began to laugh as he came into the room.
‘You realise, don’t you, that I’m a burglar? I’ve just packed up the family silver, your jewels and all the valuables in the house and am now about to drive off.’
Rose stood up laughing.
‘Oh Richard, how lovely to see you. Two visitors in one weekend,’ she said, kissing him. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘I wasn’t expecting to be free, but Father was feeling generous. Either that or he thinks no one is going to be ill this weekend. Mother said you’d be here,’ he added, smiling briefly at Rosie.
She smiled back, but could think of nothing to say. It seemed such a very long time since she’d seen him and somehow he was different.
‘Have you had lunch, Richard?’
‘Yes, I’ve been well fed today, Auntie Rose. Mother’s proper lunch. None of your sandwiches in a paper bag with stewed tea from one of the cottages. You know, they ought to teach you to drink stewed tea at medical school. It’s absolutely obligatory for practice as a country doctor.’
Rosie watched as Richard cast his eyes over the volumes of photographs piled up on the table, then turned to ask her grandmother how she was. To Rosie’s surprise, her grandmother’s answer was so brief and so totally reassuring that Richard seemed quite taken aback.
‘Good, good,’ was all he said as he sat down.
There was a moment’s pause. Rosie thought he was about to make some important announcement, but the moment passed. He looked towards the window and the bright prospect beyond the shadow of the house.
‘Actually, I thought you two ladies might like an outing,’ he began. ‘I wondered if Auntie Rose would like to go and look at her mountains more closely. Newcastle, perhaps?’ he added, looking from one to the other.
‘Oh Richard, what a kind thought,’ replied his godmother. ‘It’s such a beautiful day. I really shouldn’t keep Rosie shut up in a dim room.’
‘You didn’t keep me shut up, Granny. If anything, I kept you. We almost forgot to have lunch we were so busy.’
‘All right. I agree,’ said Rose smiling. ‘Six of one and half a dozen of the other. But Richard is quite right and it’s a lovely idea.’
She paused for a moment, a strange look on her face that Rosie couldn’t quite read.
‘What I’d really like, Richard dear, if you don’t mind, is to go down to Corbet Lough. We were talking about it this morning and I haven’t been there for years. I used to take Sarah and Hannah there to feed the swans when we first had a pony and trap. Dolly. You remember, there was a picture of her looking over the fence in the back field at Ballydown,’ she said, turning to Rosie, a slight, wistful look on her face.
‘Anywhere you wish, Auntie Rose. Yours to command.’
‘Is there any stale bread, Granny? Shall I go and look?’
‘Yes, I’m sure there is, the weather has been so warm.’
The lough was shining in the bright sunlight, the merest hint of a breeze flowing across its cool surface as they bumped over the broad grassy area between lough and road. The only other people in sight were a handful of fishermen parked at well-spaced intervals along the western shore.
‘I think there’s a path that runs part of the way round,’ Richard said as he helped Rosie out of the rather cramped back seat.
‘Yes, I think there is,’ agreed Rose, ‘where those fishermen are. But I shall sit in the sun. I’ve brought a book in case I get bored, which isn’t really likely.’
She cast her eyes round the small, man-made lake, created a century earlier to supply water to the River Bann should the level fall too low for the many mills dependant upon it. Lying between low, richly green hills, thickly grown with water-loving plants and small trees, it now looked as if it had always been there. Rose settled herself more comfortably in the passenger seat and looked away towards the fishermen.
‘Why don’t you see where it goes?’ she suggested.
‘Would you say that was a tactful way of getting rid of us?�
� Richard asked, as soon as they were out of earshot.
Rosie smiled and nodded vigorously, delighted at the change in his tone of voice. This was the Richard she remembered, not the rather too bright young man who’d appeared at the dining-room door.
‘Yes, I think she wants to be on her own. We talked such a lot this morning, she probably needs a rest.’
‘How do you think she is?’
She was just about to reply when he interrupted her.
‘And that is both a Richard question and a doctor question.’
Rosie laughed and told him about her arrival, their supper by the fire and the hours they’d spent talking about the pictures in the albums. She paused only when they had to navigate one of the tiny streams that flowed across the path on its way into the lough, though a convenient stepping-stone was usually provided.
He listened carefully to her detailed report and looked at her as often as the narrow path permitted.
‘Good news, Rosie. Good news,’ he declared, as she finished her account. ‘It was very unfortunate her being ill in England. She’s quite right, she needed to be here. And I think what she’s doing now is trying to reconnect. Thank goodness she has you to talk to.’
‘And what about you?’ she came back at him. ‘She says you’ve been over nearly every week.’
‘Yes, I do what I can, but it’s not what you’re doing. Perhaps it’s only a woman can speak to another woman’s grief. It’s something I need to know much more about, at any rate. There are some good books being published in that area, but I get very little time to read. What about you, Rosie?’
‘You mean time to read?’
‘No, I mean how are things at home? With your mother? With the family? Auntie Rose told me about this big job of your father’s. Sounds extraordinary.’
‘Yes, it is quite extraordinary. You know they still haven’t got to Richhill and they’ve been at it four weeks already. But Da seems to be enjoying it. The Boss’s son is with them. Work experience, I think they call it, and he’s rather nice. Apparently he’s a good cook. Da was amazed when he got stuck in the first night and produced something tasty. It means I don’t have to carry casseroles on the bar of the bike when Bobby and I go to see him.’
‘You mean the two of you go on one bicycle?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, amused by his look of horror. ‘Bobby is very strong and we walk up the lane and the steep bits. We’ve been doing it for years. We’re very clever at it now.’
‘Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing.’
She was surprised to hear so clear a note of anxiety in his voice, so unlike him.
‘How long will the job take?’ he continued.
‘They’ve no idea. Last week they had to divert a stream so the load could cross a field instead of keeping to the road, because there was other traffic on the road and it’s so narrow at that point the load fills it from side to side. And they’ve had to knock down a garden wall. Da’s helping to rebuild it in the evenings when the load’s not moving.’
‘Does it move at night?’
‘Sometimes. Depends on the road engines. They keep over-heating and breaking down with the strain. It needs at least two of them to get it moving. Going downhill is the worst. It’s so heavy, they have to get a fourth engine and use all four as a brake. Da says you never know what’s going to happen next. One of the lads had a very close call. A steel cable snapped and the whip just missed him. It only caught his hand, but he could have been killed. But the kind woman whose wall they’d knocked down used to be a nurse and bandaged him up. Poor Da, it’s a huge responsibility.’
‘I see what you mean. Though Auntie did say there were other problems as well …’
‘Well, we may be about to be made homeless,’ she said, surprised at how light her tone was and how easy with him she now felt as they walked along the far lough shore and talked, just as they’d always talked.
‘You did say something last August about doing a course in Belfast, Rosie. What happened about that?’
‘Overtaken by events, I think the phrase is. Da said he’d consider it, but then when Granda died there was the question of whether Granny could still afford it. Poor Granny was ill in England, so there was no question of asking her. Besides, Da was in a bad way after Granda, though he tried not to show it.’
‘So what are your plans now?’ he asked, his attention closely focused on a nearby fisherman who was reeling in.
‘I haven’t any,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Not till I see what’s happening over the farm. If we have to move, I’ll have to help Da. Goodness knows where we can go. I’m taking Da’s advice on the subject,’ she went on, turning to face him. ‘He says it’s vexatious to the spirit to dwell upon uncertainties. It undermines your ability to act when the time comes. I don’t know whether that is Da, or one of the Quaker writers. He does have a few books of essays and letters that he reads when he has time. Like you, that’s not often.’
‘But wise, whichever it is,’ he responded, suddenly thoughtful and rather sombre. ‘I would be inclined to fidget with a problem when it would be far better left to time to resolve it.’
The flatness in his voice had grown more marked. So different from his lively response to her stories. They walked in silence for some minutes until they found themselves exactly opposite the point where Richard’s Morris was parked by the water’s edge.
‘D’you think Granny can see us across the water?’
By way of answer, he took out a large white handkerchief and waved vigorously.
‘Yes. Look, she’s waving her scarf.’
‘Speaking of across the water,’ he began, ‘I have some news to share with you. I’ve been invited to do a year’s internship. Mother and Father think I should go. It would be good experience,’ he went on, watching her expression to judge how she took the news.
Rosie’s heart sank. First Emily. Then her Da. Now Richard. Soon, there’d be no one to help her carry the burden of loneliness she felt, running the house unaided with nothing to look forward to but more months and years of the same wearying jobs.
‘Where, across the water?’ she managed to say at last.
‘London. Guy’s Hospital. One of the best teaching hospitals in the country.’
Rosie nodded, but could think of nothing more to say just at that moment. If Dr Stewart and Aunt Elizabeth thought it was a good idea, then it most certainly was, but what filled her mind was the knowledge that Helen was in London and she was sure Helen would make Richard very welcome.
‘When would you go?’
‘End of the month.’
‘So soon?’
From somewhere at the back of her mind, she heard herself saying the same words to someone. That was it. The night the solicitor’s letter had come and then, on top of it, her father told her the news about the big load.
‘Sometimes things happen so quickly. You go on day after day doing very boring things. Nothing seems to change. Then suddenly, in a month, a week, a day even …’
She broke off. On the path ahead, between the luxuriant waterside vegetation, a swan stood staring at them. As they paused, it puffed up its chest, raised itself to its full height, flapped its great shining wings and emitted strange noises that oscillated between a hiss and a honk.
‘That hump of sticks must be the nest,’ he said quietly, taking her hand. ‘Let’s turn back. It’s not fair to frighten the poor thing. There may be eggs still hatching.
‘You were saying something about how quickly things can change,’ he prompted her as they hurried back along the path.
‘Yes. I was thinking about all the sudden changes in the last year,’ she replied, looking up at him and shaking her head. ‘Not a good idea. Vexatious to the spirit, as Da would say. Sometimes sudden changes are for the best. Like London. You really must go to London if you have the chance. It’s not just the hospital work. You could probably do that in several places. But London is special. It’s all those theatre
s and films and art galleries and the British Museum,’ she went on, ticking them off on her fingers. ‘I’m very envious,’ she added. ‘I’d so love to go there one day.’
‘I’m sure you will. Provided Emily doesn’t persuade you to go and join her in America.’
Again she was aware of an unfamiliar note in his voice she could not place.
‘She didn’t want to leave me behind when it came to parting,’ she admitted. ‘She knew I couldn’t leave just now, even if I had the fare and the obligatory fifty dollars, which I haven’t. But she reckons she can save what I need in a year. Faster, if I can get a job myself.’
‘Any hope of that?’ he asked, a little too casually.
‘No, none at the moment.’
They rounded the edge of the lough and saw the small, composed figure turned away from them, gazing out over the water to where a flotilla of swans were sailing leisurely past, a group of grubby-looking cygnets trying hard to keep up with them.
‘So, we can take Auntie Rose to the Mournes this time next year, all being well?’
‘We’ll have to ask her when the time comes, won’t we?’
After such an immensity of circumstance as would fill a whole year, she wondered where any of the three of them might be in twelve months’ time.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rosie was grateful when the second half of May began to produce the cloudy skies and the rain so much needed on the land. After a week of rain every day, followed by chilly nights, she and Bobby agreed that they’d had quite enough for the time being. Unfortunately, the wet, cool weather continued.
Day by day the skies remained cloudy, the nights unusually cool. There were regular showers and they were heavy. Towards the end of the month the showers gave way to violent rainstorms and one afternoon of bouncing hailstones. The apple blossom had just been coming into bloom on the sunny weekend when Rosie had walked with Richard by Corbet Lough. Tossed by brisk winds, the blossom began to fall before it was fully open. After the hailstorm, the long grass in the orchard was white with the fallen petals. It remained to be seen whether or not there’d been adequate pollination in the very short period when the blossom was still intact, but the outlook for the Bramleys was certainly not good.