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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
County Armagh, 1845. Married to the local blacksmith, young Sarah Hamilton spends her days looking after John and his apprentices at the forge, and her happiness is strengthened by the steady love of her husband and the beautiful green landscape of her home on Drumilly Hill. But when tragedy strikes, her life is changed forever. As the crops across Ireland begin to fail and the textile industry struggles to adapt to new methods, Sarah isn't the only one enduring hardships. Along with her friends and neighbours, Sarah lives through loss and disappointment, but ultimately discovers courage, love and the longevity of hope.
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Seitenzahl: 455
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The Blacksmith’s Wife
ANNE DOUGHTY
For Peter Friend, editor, husband 29 November 1933 – 26 April 2013 As promised
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
Ardrea, County Armagh April, 1845
Sarah Hamilton opened her eyes suddenly, the traces of a pleasant dream fleeing like a mouse disappearing down a hole before she could grasp anything about it. She smiled to herself, got quietly out of bed and glanced down at the sleeping figure of her husband whom only a vigorous shake would waken.
She knew by the dim light filtering through the curtains on the small south-facing window that it was early. Still too dim to read the time on the clock on John’s side of their bed, but bright enough for her to tramp barefoot across the wooden floor. She peeped out at the small plantation of trees partly masking the small, humpy green hills that stretched away in all directions from their long, stone-built roadside dwelling; northwards to the low-lying fields and meadows bordering Lough Neagh; south through winding lanes and sloping orchards to the cathedral city of Armagh, their nearest market town.
She never knew why she troubled to move so quietly when John was so hard to wake. He had the gift of sound sleep. Whatever the troubles and frustrations of the day, however taxing and difficult the work in his forge which occupied the furthest end of the two-storey thatched house, he managed, almost childlike, to fall asleep the moment he got into bed, unless, of course, he turned towards her and took her in his arms, the gentleness of his lovemaking a sharp contrast with the strength and power of his body.
Sarah had always loved the early morning. As a child, brought up by her elderly grandmother on the outskirts of Lisnagarvey – a flourishing market town some eight miles from the growing port of Belfast – she had lost both her parents in the summer epidemic of typhoid; only months after her family had moved to Ulster from Yorkshire to take up a new opportunity in a flourishing textile business run by a former neighbour.
Her grandmother and one of her brothers had survived, but her sisters and other brothers had not, so Sarah remained in the care of the old woman. Sarah Lamie, who had lived with Sarah’s family for many years, had always been an early riser and young Sarah was already accustomed to being wakened at an early hour.
‘Sleepy head, still in bed,’ the old woman would say, laughing. ‘God’s given us a new day,’ she would go on, smiling with a joy Sarah had never seen displayed in others of her age.
The cottage, found for them by their former neighbours who had taken her brother Jonathan into their care, was tiny and sparsely furnished, but they wanted for nothing. Her great-grandparents had been among the first Quakers to come to Lisnagarvey from Yorkshire in the 1700s and it was part of their belief that no one should be neglected, neither for their talents, which might not be obvious to anyone, nor for their physical needs. When the potato store went low, someone would appear to refill it and there was always meal, or flour, in the heavy crock behind the kitchen door.
They had no money to speak of; the only income the willing gifts from the handful of parents whose children came each day and made up the small group her grandmother taught to read and write, to keep accounts and to mend the plain clothing that both men and women wore.
Sarah smiled to herself as she remembered the neat undecorated dresses: grey or black, or palest blue with large white collars, always neat and spotlessly clean. She had always longed for colour, for dresses with pretty floral designs, pinks and blues, with frills and decorations, or embroidery, but even after her grandmother died and she lived alone, taking over the old woman’s task of teaching the young, she respected the old woman’s memory by continuing to dress in the Quaker manner. Only in her embroidery and tapestry work, which helped her to be financially independent, did her passion for colour find an outlet.
The light was stronger now and the first pale gleams of sunlight were catching the rag rug she had laboured over in the dark nights of the recent winter. Full of colour, the fragments came from garments torn beyond repair and thrown away by the wealthy, collected up by the women in the workshop in Lurgan run by her brother – scraps of fabric to be shared out and used by those with the skill, patience and imagination to create from such meagre resources.
John had watched her evening after evening totally fascinated by the speed at which she sewed; the tiny needle caught the light of the lamp and the water-filled globe that stood close beside it, enhancing its gleam so she could see more easily for the intricate work.
‘Ah don’t know how ye have the patience for that,’ he said often enough, shaking his head. ‘Them wee stitches – shure I can hardly see them even when I know where to luk.’
‘And what about the patience for making a dozen horseshoes and every pair a match?’ she’d said, laughing. ‘Is it not the same thing?’
He’d nodded and agreed that it was a fair point, but he was not entirely convinced and remained amazed at what he saw as her great skill.
As the light strengthened and pale gleams began to touch the barely leafed trees in the nearest hedgerow, she saw that it had been raining in the night. From the tips of new leaves and on the long thorns of the slowly leafing hawthorns drops of water hung, shimmering in the tiny breeze which had sprung up.
She heard her grandmother’s voice as clearly as if the old woman were standing in the room behind her: ‘See, child, what need have we of jewels? Hasn’t God given us the jewels on the trees?’
It was just an early spring morning like this one that she had first met John. The memory of it still made her smile. It was market day in Lisnagarvey and in the afternoon she had finished her teaching early so she could go and buy threads and fabric from the traders who had laid out their goods in the square surrounding the Town Hall.
The whole place was thronged with people: noisy with men who bargained and then slapped hands, and hawkers who shouted out the virtues of their wares. The pavements were very crowded, but somewhat cleaner than the square itself where calves, sheep and some horses had changed hands in the course of the morning. She never knew quite how it happened, but suddenly she was struck a glancing blow on the side of her head. Not painful, but startling. It was so sudden and surprising enough for her to lose her balance, trip and fall on the edge of the pavement.
The next thing she knew was that a bolt of cloth had dropped down on the pavement beside her and a young man with blue-grey eyes was kneeling beside her, a look of total distress on his tanned face.
‘Ach, dear a dear, are ye hurted?’ he asked anxiously, looking round him as if he might find some resolution at hand to this totally distressing event. ‘The mare moved just as I was unloading the bolt,’ he explained, as if that might help him. ‘Are ye all right? Will I call a doctor to come and look at ye?’
He put his hand to her dishevelled hair, moved it back from her face and searched her cheek minutely for any sign of damage.
She had laughed then at the innocence of the man who, in his concern, had touched her as easily and gently as if he were her mother.
‘No, I’m not hurt at all,’ she replied, surprised at the slight shake in her voice. ‘It was more the suddeness of it. Do you often swing bolts around the place?’ she asked, smiling weakly.
‘Ach no,’ he said sheepishly. ‘Sure there’s a knack in it, I’m sure, but I haven’t the right way of it,’ he added, as he helped her to her feet.
‘What about your weaving? Has it come to any harm?’ she asked more steadily, as he retrieved her empty basket from between the feet of some bystanders, who had now paused to watch him from the corners of their eyes.
Paying not the slightest attention to the curious glances of people who passed by, he looked her up and down yet again as he handed the basket back. He’d not spared so much as a glance for the heavy roll of cloth still lying at their feet where it had fallen.
‘Never worry about that,’ he said, picking up the heavy bale as if it were a small parcel. He propped it on its end against the side of his pony and trap. ‘Would you come and drink a cup of something at the tavern? It might help ye.’
‘But what about selling your week’s work?’
‘Ah no, I’m not here to sell it. I’m just delivering it to a draper for m’ brother. He’s the weaver. Shure I can get a wee lad to watch it fer me while we go an’ have somethin’. They say sugar in tea is good for a shock. Did ye iver tell of that?’
‘Yes, I have indeed, but not everyone has sugar.’
‘Aye, yer right, but now say ye’ll walk over to the tavern wi’ me so I can make sure yer all right. It wou’d set m’ mind at rest,’ he added persuasively as he took her arm.
She had gone with him to the tavern and sat in the dark, smoky interior already thick with heat from a roaring log fire, the press of bodies and the smell of cooking food. It was there the draper found them. A good-natured man, he’d seen an unfamiliar pony and trap and an equally familiar-looking bale of cloth. He’d listened to the story the small boy had told him, gave him a threepenny bit, carried the bale to his own cart and come to the tavern to pay his debts.
As soon as he’d pocketed the money for his brother, the young man asked if he could drive her back home to save her the walk.
‘I’m afraid I still have all my messages to do,’ she said quietly. She would never forget the look of disappointment on his face when he had no choice but to let her go.
It was a week later when she once again walked the length of the market square and she realised she’d been watching for him. Now it was her turn to be disappointed for he was nowhere to be seen.
The sun was clear of the trees now and beams of light cast long shadows towards the house. They glinted on the diminishing hayrick that had provided for the mare during the winter months, turning the tousled strands they touched into threads of gold. She smiled to herself when she remembered how it had all been resolved.
After three weeks of hoping she might meet him again by chance, she had told herself firmly to stop being foolish. There were other markets for cloth, and besides he’d been delivering the cloth for his brother, so he wasn’t even a weaver himself. She had no idea how he earned his living. Absorbed in her own thoughts as she made her way along the crowded pavement, she was startled by his ‘Good day, ma’am.’ There he stood beside the pony and trap, waiting in exactly the same spot where he’d had his accident with the bolt of cloth.
As for John, he knew he’d no reason at all for going back to Lisnagarvey, but he still puzzled back and forth in his mind as to what he could do to see her again. He’d only taken the cloth for his brother so there’d be money to put food on the table while he was suffering with his chest. There’d be no bale of cloth to go to market till George was fit to work again. But if he was well enough to be back at his loom, then he’d be well enough to take the cloth himself.
John had to admit it was far too far to travel just for a market. Either Armagh or Richhill market could provide anything he needed for the forge, or for the house. But the thought of going to Lisnagarvey would not leave his mind. By the time he set out, some three weeks later, he knew he was going there simply to look for a tall girl in a pale blue dress with a smile in her eyes that seemed to be there all the time.
‘Are ye lookin’ for jewels on the tree?’
The voice was soft and full of sleep. She turned and saw him sitting on the side of the bed rubbing his eyes.
‘Yes, I was, but then I fell to thinking about a man who knocked me clean off my feet,’ she said honestly, as she came and sat beside him.
She could never quite get used to the fact that anything she ever told him, no matter about how long ago it was or how seemingly unimportant it might be, he would remember, sometimes quoting a phrase or a saying back to her, or asking her if he had indeed got the right way of it. Places he’d never been, people he never knew, it was all the same to him; they were parts of her world and she had shared them with him. So he remembered.
‘Are your feet not froz’n on the cauld floor?’ he asked, putting his arm round her. ‘Or did you mind to stan’ on the rug like I told ye?’
‘Yes, they are, and yes, I did,’ she said quickly. ‘But they’ll soon warm up when I’m getting the breakfast. I was just thinking I’d better wake you up for you said you’ve to go into Armagh today. Is it Hillock’s you’re for?’
‘Aye, we need angle iron again, and a lot of small stuff forby,’ he began. ‘But shure we cou’d warm your feet far better in the bed,’ he added, drawing her closer.
‘John, dear, I’d love to come back to bed, but do you remember you said you needed a word with Scottie? He’ll be expecting his bowl of porridge.’
‘Aye,’ he agreed, ‘he doesn’t get much at home in the mornings. The poor old Granny isn’t fit for it,’ he said, looking sad.
‘But there’ll be no Scottie tonight, will there?’ she said, stroking his cheek.
‘Indeed there won’t,’ he replied promptly, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. ‘Don’t tire yourself out now doin’ too much,’ he added, after kissing her vigorously.
‘And what about you coming back tired with carrying all that heavy stuff and going straight back to your own work in the forge?’
‘Never you think o’ that,’ he came back at her with a smile, as she slipped lightly from his arms and left the washstand to him.
She pulled on her working clothes over her shift, a hard-wearing dark skirt and one of her oldest blouses, pushed her feet into her shoes, ran a comb through her long, dark hair and stepped out onto the echoing wooden stairs that dropped steeply into the big kitchen below.
John had damped down the fire at bedtime. Now, she leant over the smoored fire and opened the hot centre, where a curl of blue smoke rose from the hot embers. Carefully, to avoid getting her fingers burnt, she placed small pieces of bone dry turf and sticks amid the glowing embers she’d uncovered. Straightening up from a task that always made her back ache, she brought bowls, plates and mugs from the dresser and began placing them on the scrubbed wooden table.
She turned away from the table the moment she heard the sticks crackle. Pleased with her efforts on the fire, which it had taken her a while to get used to after the tiny fireplace in her old home, she added pieces of coal with the tongs. Very soon there’d be a cheering blaze and she could hang the kettle over the leaping flames. It sat on the hearth, filled and left ready at bedtime.
The porridge she’d prepared herself the previous evening was cooked and ready for the early start. It just needed to be stirred thoroughly, reheated and served up with a jug of fresh milk from the larder on the north-facing wall just outside the back door.
She stepped out into the loveliest of April mornings: the sky blue, the air mild, the night’s rain on the tramped earth all around the house drying in the light breeze. She paused and stood looking for the most recent signs of the coming spring. As she turned back into the house she glimpsed a familiar figure climb through a gap in the hawthorn hedge and take a shortcut across the field to where she was standing.
‘You’re in good time, Scottie,’ she said, smiling as the boy, the younger of the two apprentices, came up to her, out of breath from hurrying. Although he was still shy and awkward with most people, he did manage to look at her and nod a greeting.
‘Boss said there’s horses due. He wants a word,’ he explained abruptly, his eyes darting to and fro, resting only briefly on her face.
Fourteen years old and lightly built, Scottie now had only a slight trace of the Galloway accent he’d had when he began his seven years’ apprenticeship with John Hamilton of Ardrea. His uncle, a farmer from near Dumfries, brought him to the adjoining townland of Greenan to live with his grandmother for this purpose.
‘Can ah see to the stirabout fer ye?’ he asked abruptly.
For all his awkwardness, he had always offered to help her. If he caught sight of her going to the well while he was in the forge, he’d ask John, or the journeyman, Sam Keenan, if he could go out and give her a hand with the heavy buckets. He was never refused, for both men knew he worshipped her, giving her the love he’d have given to his own mother if she hadn’t died giving birth to his younger brother.
‘Thank you, Scottie. I think I hear the kettle singing, so I can make the tea now and you can have the crook for the pot,’ she replied, as they went back into the kitchen where the sun was now just high enough to glint through the south-facing window.
She was spooning the stirabout into three bowls when John clumped down the stairs looking very clean, a fragment of shaving soap below one ear. He was wearing his ‘going to market’ suit, older and much worn, unlike the new suit he’d bought for the small gathering in Grange Church almost two years earlier.
Sarah eyed him carefully, noting the clean shirt and the well-polished boots. He was not a vain man, but as a young man his mother had always insisted that he dress for the task in hand. It was one thing, she had said, wearing much-mended and stained clothes in the forge, but that was no excuse for not being well-turned-out when there was no dirty work to be done.
Sarah felt sure she was a good woman, from all John had said about her, but one who had never had good health. Several of her children had died in infancy and she herself died soon after her much older husband, just as John, her youngest surviving son, had completed his apprenticeship with Robert Ross of Killuney. A hard time it had been for John taking over his father’s house and forge, trying to make enough money single-handedly to pay for his food as well as the rent to the local landlord, Molyneux of Castle Dillon, never mind learning to cook and bake bread with no woman in the house to do it for him.
Sarah had listened regularly to the stories he told against himself: about how he kept burning the spuds, tripping over the bread left to prove on the harnen stand on the hearth, or leaving the milk on the larder floor and finding their neighbour’s cat had got through the tiny window designed to let the air in and left its hair in the jug.
He was never angry or frustrated; he always laughed at his mistakes and never failed to admire her well-practised skills. That was when she’d first used the phrase: ‘And what about all the matching horseshoes?’ – words that had become a joke between them.
The chairs scraped on the stone floor as the two men stood up.
‘Thank you, Mrs Hamilton,’ said Scottie with a little nod, before he put his cap back on and disappeared out the back door, the way he’d come in.
John lingered a little longer, knowing it would take Scottie and Ben, the older apprentice, a few minutes to put the mare into the trap, check out the buckles and straps on her harness and make sure she had the nosebag she’d be needing before their return.
‘Is there anythin’ you need for the house? Tea or sugar or suchlike?’ he asked, slipping his arm round her.
‘No, we’re fine for provisions till we go in together on Saturday. You’ve enough to do today and plenty to carry. Will you be late?’
‘Ach no. Shure they know me and are well useta what I need. But it’ll be after dinnertime. Ye may give the boys their share and keep mine under a plate fer when I get in.’
‘I’ll keep ours for when you get in,’ she said, correcting him.
‘Aye well,’ he nodded, pleased. ‘Don’t go empty in the meantime. Have a bite to keep ye goin’. Sure goin’ empty might not be a good thing,’ he added, with a sly smile.
‘There’s no knowing, as the saying is,’ she replied, laughing, knowing what he was thinking.
She held him for a moment after he kissed her before they got to the front door. The pony and trap stood waiting in beside the great stone pillars that marked the house as a place of business and not just a home. She watched him as he walked out, stepped up lightly into the driver’s seat and took the reins from Scottie.
As the mare responded to his words, he raised a hand in salute and they moved off onto the roadway, turning right into the green sunlit countryside that spread out all around them, clear in the fresh morning air and visible for miles around from this high point on Drumilly Hill.
CHAPTER TWO
As the sun rose higher it bathed the hilly landscape in sunlight and cast short shadows beneath the hawthorn hedgerows. Sarah Hamilton went round the house, opened all the downstairs windows, ran upstairs to the bedroom, struggled with the window there – it had a habit of sticking – and then propped open the front and back doors with the heavy metal doorstops John had made as practice pieces when he was still an apprentice.
She was hoping to bring some freshness into the kitchen where she had baked bread for most of the morning and was now boiling potatoes for the midday meal. Standing for a moment at the front door, leaning her tired back against the doorpost, her eyes shaded from the bright light, she decided it was not just mild, it was actually warm, the first day of real warmth after the winter. Not that the winter had been a hard one, she reflected, but for days on end it had been so wet and dreary she would have welcomed snowfall for the bright reflected light and the patches of blue sky that had been absent for so long.
She paused only briefly before going back to her work, well aware that until she had done all the dusty and dirty jobs and no longer needed to lean over the griddle or the fire, she couldn’t go back upstairs with a bowl of hot water. Perspiring and uncomfortable, dusty from both flour and fine ash, she longed to wash and change from her working clothes. Indeed, as the morning proceeded, she realised it would be warm enough to wear the lighter of her two better skirts with one of her pretty handmade blouses that hadn’t seen daylight since the shortening September days had brought the first chilly mornings.
The last of her jobs was bringing water from the well just behind the forge. It was in no way a ‘dirty’ job, given the cobbles were not muddy and were already bone dry after the light showers in the night, but it was a job better done before she went upstairs to add her bowl of hot water to what remained in the jug on the washstand.
However careful you were balancing the two heavy buckets, it was easy enough to trip on a stray bit of metal and spill water all over your skirt and shoes. It was even more likely to spill when her back was as painful as it had become this morning.
As she stepped out of the door and moved along the whitewashed, south-facing front of the house, she heard Sam Keenan’s hammer beating on the anvil. Even if John hadn’t been in Armagh, she would have known it was Sam, the tall, angular journeyman. John had taken him on as his first employee when Sam had finished serving his time with one of the Rosses a couple of miles away at Mullanisilla.
His hammering was heavy and steady; the long, strong strokes were interspersed with lighter ones to disperse the tension built up in the body from the impact of the heavy blows. John’s hammering was much less dense and the small dancing pattern between the heavy blows, which all blacksmiths used to offset the vibrations of the weighty blows, was much lighter than Sam’s. She always felt there was almost a hint of gaiety in John’s rhythm and texture.
As for Scottie and Ben, it was easy to tell when they were at work. With both of them, despite the difference of two years in their apprenticeships, there was a hesitancy in the rhythm. That was something that would go, John had explained to her. By the time they had served their full seven years’ apprenticeship their muscles would be developed. By then they would each be able to lift the heavy anvil unaided. Only then would you hear the pattern that marked out the man, in the same way as his writing would, the way he signed his name, for example. That was, of course, if it was something he could do in the first place.
She had just removed the wooden cover from the well and was about to prime the pump from the jug of water kept under a bucket in the grass beside it, when Scottie dashed out of the forge and stopped abruptly beside her.
‘Let me do that, missus,’ he said quickly. ‘Ye shou’dnae carry them heavy buckets no more than ye shou’d pump up water,’ he said, without looking at her.
She smiled to herself, remembering sadly how protective he had been when briefly, last year, she had carried their first child.
John had been so delighted that as soon as they knew themselves he’d told the good news to all three workers in the forge. Sam, Ben and Scottie had all nodded. Sam and Scottie wished him joy. Sam, married with two children and one on the way, kept his thoughts to himself. When he saw Scottie dash off to carry her buckets, he just smiled knowingly. He had more idea of how a woman would cope when there was no one there to help her.
Ben, of course, despite his extra years of experience in the forge, was so overcome with shyness that he said nothing. To be honest he was silent most of the time. Unlike Scottie, who would have lifted even a sheet of paper if he thought it would help her, Ben seemed indifferent to other people, speaking only when he was spoken to and even then in a halting and stilted way.
Scottie was certainly the lively one of the three. He had a deftness of manner both with objects, like the pump or the bellows, and also with the handling of animals. Whenever there was a young horse, or one known to be nervous, due to be shod, John made sure Scottie was there to hold him, that Sam had not sent him to deliver a repaired or sharpened tool to some farmer who lived nearby, nor was he on some other errand like collecting a bag of turf for making the fire on the stone circle outside the forge when there was the broken hooping on a cartwheel to mend.
Ben had already begun shoeing horses and doing it quite well under John’s sharp eye, but John thought Scottie was still too young and too light of build to begin shoeing himself. He told her that he felt sure Scottie’s soothing manner with animals would make him a great success with the many horses and ponies that came to the forge.
Sure he was still only fourteen and had a bit yet to grow. It would be all the same to Scottie whether his clients were as different in temperament as the tall, nervous hunters kept by the local gentry and the heavy, plodding horses owned by the ploughmen who moved from farm to farm, working for more than one farmer. Scottie would settle them all.
‘Ther’yar,’ he said, opening the wooden lower doors of a tall, glass-fronted cupboard in the kitchen. He swung the buckets and set them down inside without spilling a drop on the recently scrubbed floor. ‘Ye need to mind yersel’,’ he added hastily, as he disappeared at speed back to the shears he’d been sharpening when they’d heard her footsteps on the cobbles.
Sarah sat down in the nearest chair, suddenly very weary, a shooting pain in her stomach momentarily taking her breath away.
‘Perhaps,’ she said to herself in a whisper as she put a hand to her sore back. ‘Perhaps John will have his wish.’
Early last week he’d dropped a shy hint that unless he was mistaken she’d not bled for a wee while now. She’d admitted that she’d been thinking that too, but she then told him the reason she hadn’t said anything was because she didn’t want to raise his spirits and then for him to be disappointed again.
They’d lost their first child after three or four months and John had been distraught, anxious during the day when she was poorly and in pain, and beside himself at night when she couldn’t sleep. Finally, the next day, he’d overruled all her protests and sent Sam to fetch the doctor from Armagh. He was so agitated when the man himself arrived that to begin with the doctor told him firmly he’d never yet lost a father to a miscarriage.
‘Look on it as a try-out,’ he’d added, more gently when he’d examined Sarah, told her what would happen next and gave her strict instructions as to what she was to do. ‘The body needs to be sure all is in order before it goes on,’ he insisted, addressing them both. ‘Don’t hurry to make up for this loss. Give yourselves time. Sure you’ve plenty of time for a fine, long family, if that’s what ye want. This is no setback at all in the longer view.’
But it was Sarah’s neighbour, Mary-Anne Halligan, at the foot of the hill, who had come to visit and spoken even more directly than the Armagh doctor. She was well-known as a midwife even though she’d never had any formal training except what her own mother and grandmother had taught her when she was old enough to help with their work.
‘I’ve hardly iver met a wumman who went the full way wi’ the first’un,’ she began, settling herself comfortably by the fire with a mug of tea and a fresh scone. ‘But the doctors wou’d niver tell ye that. Ach, I suppose they don’ want t’upset ye or get ye worryin’, but shure ask any wumman ye know an’ she’ll likely tell you it were the second, or the third, aye, or even the fourth, God help us, that brought a fine, healthy baby. Don’t pay one bit of attenshun to the Job’s comforters. Ye might well be a ma the nixt time, but give yerself a wee while first to let yer inside settle down. Just tell yer good man when it’s a bit chancy.’
Sarah had no idea what she meant and had to ask.
Mary-Anne looked at her in amazement: ‘Did yer ma niver tell you ’bout these things afore ye got married?’
She’d explained then how she’d lost both parents to the fever one summer long ago and how she’d been brought up by her grandmother who was actually her own mother’s nurse. The old woman had lived with the family for many years and had never married or had a child herself.
Mary-Anne had nodded, said ‘Ach, aye,’ and settled down to tell her how women that were neither rich, nor even well-off, managed to space their children at two-year intervals.
‘If ye don’t believe me, take a luk at the parish register,’ she went on, when Sarah had listened wide-eyed. ‘Clear as spring water, and written there for those that can read, a chile ivery two years for as many as ye want, if ye just keep to the safe times o’ the month. Am not sayin’ but there’s ither ways o’ doing it, an’ some wimen are glad just to say “no”, but shure if yer fond of other, like you and yer man, isn’t it a nicer way o’ doing it?’
Sarah thought over again what Mary-Anne had said as she went upstairs and peeled off her clothes. She stood naked, looking down at her body. Perhaps she was larger, but if she was, it hardly showed. She couldn’t be sure but she thought her nipples were larger and certainly they tingled very often like they had done the year previously. Despite all her doubts, the notebook she kept in the chest of drawers, with her underwear and the folded cloths she used every month, made one thing quite clear. The last time she’d bled was the end of January. It was now the third week in April.
She laughed suddenly. ‘Sure time will tell all,’ she said aloud.
It was a favourite expression of John’s. The logic of it was perfectly clear, but she always insisted that time itself wasn’t the problem. What was hard to deal with was the not knowing. So many things, she insisted, you could cope with, no matter how difficult they were, if you knew exactly what they were in the first place.
He had a way of looking at her, his face immobile, his eyes wide as he took in every word. Well, he was, of course, taking it all in. It was one of the first things she had noticed about him. He listened to what people were saying. If his responses were simple, or homely, it meant he was still thinking about it. Sooner or later, when he’d given his mind to it, he’d come back to the subject again and ask her what she thought of his conclusions.
John had been to school, could read and write, as most blacksmiths could, but as far as she could see it had been a very limited schooling. To her surprise, he knew very little of Irish history, though he had once recited for her the kings and queens of England. He possessed only a few books, but read the local newspapers avidly each week. When encouraged he could tell stories about local characters and events going back well into the previous century.
As she buttoned her blouse and straightened her skirt, which did indeed feel a little tighter on the waist, she remembered him describing in great detail the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598 and explaining why the lane connecting the road over Church Hill with the rectory to the east of it was called Bloody Lane.
She felt better as she glanced in the mirror and lifted the heavy jug from the washstand. She made her way down the steep stairs and threw the soapy water away outside the back door, but she left the jug sitting by the door instead of refilling it at the well. She didn’t want to distract Scottie again from his jobs. Sam and Ben might well cope with the extra work, but John was not due back till after dinner time.
She fried up chopped onions and mashed them into the potato with a generous lump of butter, ready to serve onto the three warm plates. Then remembering what John had said, she buttered a piece of fresh bread and poured a glass of milk for herself. She had just brought in a jug of buttermilk and another dish of butter for the table when she heard the scrape of boots outside the front door.
Sam took off his cap and led the way, sniffing appreciatively while Ben and Scottie sat down in their usual places.
‘Are ye off yer food, missus dear?’ asked Sam, dropping his cap on the floor by his chair and making sure the two apprentices had done likewise.
‘No, Sam, I’m not,’ she replied, realising she was indeed very hungry. ‘Boss’s orders. He said if I was going to have my meal with him when he came back I was to be sure and eat a bite to keep me going.’
‘Aye, he was right there,’ he nodded, glancing up at her as she brought the piled-up plates to the table.
She caught the glance and wondered. Sam was the family man and maybe saw what she could not see. Mary-Anne from the foot of the hill came up to see her now and again. She’d spoken more than once of the clues a woman might get if she did but notice them. She said men picked them up as well, but they noticed different things.
‘I mind once a man tellin’ me that he always knew when a wumman was “that way” as he called it, because she had a good colour. “Lit up”, wos what he said. “A brightness in the eyes and a spring in the step” … afore they got too big that wou’d be,’ she added, just to make things plain. ‘An’ indade, I think now he was right. I’ve often seen the signs that a wumman would be sending for me, long before she thought of it hersel’.’
They were all hungry and the food was tasty; all three men nodded when she looked at the cleaned plates and asked if they’d like to scrape the pot. She got up, brought the blackened pot to the table and shared out the remains between them, glad that, as always, she made sure there was plenty. Simple food it might be and very seldom was there meat or fish, but as her grandmother used to say when they sat down to food in their tiny cottage, ‘Isn’t hunger the best relish you could have, and how better to get it than to do your work well.’
There was no doubt the work in the forge made for clean plates.
It was an hour or two later, the dishes washed, two meals safe under enamel plates on the hearth, when Sarah took out her sewing and sat down gratefully by the fire. The morning tasks had been no different from other mornings but she admitted she felt more tired today than usual. Perhaps, she thought to herself, after John came home and they’d had their meal together, she’d walk down to see Mary-Anne while he changed his clothes and went back to the forge. But as she made up her mind that’s what she’d do, she heard a clatter on the cobbles outside.
Smiling with delight, she dropped the sleeve she was working on with the blouse to which it was to be fitted. He was actually a bit later than she’d expected, but it would still be early enough when they’d eaten together for her to go to see Mary-Anne before she started making her evening meal for her husband, Billy and their two sons.
At first she couldn’t make any sense of what she saw. Daisy, the mare, was covered with sweat and was foaming from her mouth; her eyes were wild with fear and a long scrape on her side dripping blood onto the cobbles. The trap was empty, the reins trailing. There was no sign whatever of the materials John had gone to buy.
And there was no sign of John.
She stood there, her heart in her mouth. Something terrible had happened, she was sure, but there was nothing to tell her what it might have been. Or so she thought. It was Ben, Ben of all people, who spoke out when all three of them appeared from the dark doorway.
He stared at the trap as if transfixed, but then, almost unnoticed, he moved round to the other side of the well-polished and much cherished vehicle, John’s pride and joy, the first thing he had ever bought for himself, having saved up for years while working as a smith.
Ben stared at score marks on the side of the trap and then ran his hands over the rim.
‘What is it, man, what can ye see roun’ there?’ demanded Sam, when he glanced over at him and saw, to his total amazement, that tears were streaming down Ben’s cheeks.
‘They ran inta somethin’ about the height of anither trap only stronger like, a dray or a cart maybe. The mare musta took fright. She ran that fast the trap cowped over aginst somethin’ hard. Musta been a stone wall or suchlike an’ the boss got thrown out. We may away and luk fer him on the road,’ he said, turning his back and walking out between the great stone pillars which were the trademark of a working forge or a strong farm.
Sarah looked at Sam and knew from the expression on his face that what Ben had said made sense to him. Scottie hadn’t even heard; his head was buried in Daisy’s neck, his arms around her as he stroked her and comforted her. She was steady now, her eyes no longer bulging, her nostrils no longer dilated. As Sarah stared at the pair of them, she saw Daisy snuffle at Scottie’s familiar, warm work clothes. Comforted by his touch, his enfolding arms and his known voice, she tossed her head, stopped fidgeting and stood quite still.
‘Now don’t worry, missus,’ said Sam quickly, seeing the look of utter distress on her face. ‘Shure the boss is a fine, strong man. If he’s taken a bit of a fall, sure he’ll get over it. I’ll away after Ben and get some of the Halligans from below to give me a han’. We’ll fin’ him all right an’ bring him home straight away, niver ye fear.’
The lovely sunlit afternoon passed so slowly that at times Sarah was convinced the clock had stopped. She tried to occupy herself in the house knowing that Scottie was beside himself and wouldn’t know what to say to her. He’d taken Daisy from between the shafts of the damaged trap, rubbed her down and put her out to grass, making sure she had water and hay. The bleeding from her left flank had stopped so he left it alone, knowing that if he tried to clean the long gash, it might only start bleeding again.
‘A’ll away and watch fer them on the hill and tell ye when they’re comin’,’ he said, appearing unexpectedly, putting his head hastily round the kitchen door and running off without waiting for any answer.
She lifted her head from her sewing lying untouched in her lap and watched through the window as he climbed up the nine-barred gate and then scrambled precariously onto the pointed top of the right-hand gatepost, the one with the best view down Drumilly Hill. There, he settled himself, the light breeze blowing his unkempt red hair across the pale freckles on his cheeks.
It was a long time before he saw any movement at all on the road: a tinker woman plodding up the hill, a child on her back, a heavy case of her wares in one hand, a small boy holding the other.
Scottie watched her move slowly towards him, her back bent with the weight of her stock, both children silent with tiredness.
‘Missus in?’ she asked abruptly, as she drew level with the ever-open gate.
‘Not the day,’ he replied promptly. The missus knew the tinker woman and whether she bought anything or not, she’d always give her bread and tea and milk for the child and the baby.
Her face remained unchanged. Had Scottie paused to ask himself if she believed him, it would have given him no clue to anything she ever thought.
Time passed, the breeze strengthened, the shadows lengthened. His backside had grown numb with cold through the cast-off trousers someone had given to his granny, when finally he caught a movement on the road. It was minutes later before he could make out what it was. Neither cart, nor trap, nor ploughman with horses, but four men carrying a heavy burden between them, one at each corner of a door, on which lay a figure, a white bandage on its head, the booted legs hanging over the end of the makeshift carrier.
He watched as they drew closer, not knowing what to think, unable to see the face of the figure lying sprawled face upwards. It was Sam Keenan at the leading edge that looked up and caught sight of him. In one single gesture he told Scottie the last thing he ever wanted to hear. He simply shook his head.
CHAPTER THREE
Scottie didn’t know what to do. He sat on his precarious perch and watched as they carried the body of his much-loved boss through the gates and into the cobbled space in front of the house. All he could see of Sarah Hamilton was the speed with which she moved when she heard the sound of boots. She dropped to her knees, her back to him, leaning over the body of her husband.
The four men, having lowered their burden gently to the ground stood awkwardly, looking down at her as she touched John’s face, so clean and white, its year-round, open-air tan completely disappeared. She couldn’t quite grasp why he was so white or why his clothes were soaked through, but she saw immediately that he was dead.
For the last hour or more she had sat unmoving by the fire trying to accept that there had been an accident, that John might be injured, he might even be disabled. That would be a terrible thing to have to face. She had given no thought at all to his death for that was to give up hope and she had been taught long, long ago by her grandmother that one must never give up hope. Hope is God-given and we must cherish it and rely on His sheltering arms to find a way forward from the most heartbreaking of disasters.
‘Have you any idea what happened?’ she asked calmly, looking up, aware of the grief and unease of all four men; Sam Keenan, John’s everyday companion and friend, Ben Hutchison, his senior apprentice, Billy Halligan, his nearest neighbour and his elder son, Jamsey, now in his teens. John had known Jamsey since he and his brother were children coming up the hill after school to watch him working in the forge.
He had been fond of them both, slipped them the odd penny for sweets, listened to the news of their doings. Now Jamsey stood, like the others, as still as they could, muscles aching from the efforts of the last hour and the exhausting pull up the hill with their sad burden. Ben and Jamsey glanced from Sam Keenan’s grime-streaked face to Jamsey’s father wondering what either of the older men would say, what words of comfort they would offer a woman only two years a wife, a loving, hard-working wife whom they all knew John had worshipped.
It was Sam Keenan who spoke for them both.
‘We foun’ the load of iron and suchlike in the verge down in Ballybrannan. He wos on his way back from town. Somethin’ must’ve come towards him from th’other way, just on that bit where it narrows. The mare must’ave took a bad fright; the cart cowped up and John was throw’d out.’
He paused, watching her face, but she just waited for him to go on.
‘He might ’ave taken a fall an’ be none the worse of it, but by bad luck there wos a wee bit of a stream wi’ a stone bridge over it. He hit the stone and fell over inta the water.’
‘So he drowned?’
‘No, I don’ think so. We foun’ him in the water wi’ a gash on his head but it wasn’t bleedin’. It might be his neck’s broken.’
Sarah nodded and leant forward to loosen the white bandage. She wondered how and where the four men had found a white bandage: a proper bandage, not a piece of old, but clean linen or even someone’s handkerchief.
It fell away, revealing a long, deep gash across his forehead and temple. It was a purplish colour, but there was no blood whatsoever. It looked as if the bandage had no useful purpose, except perhaps to spare her the sight of that heartbreaking gash, which had cost him his life, one way or another.
She paused only a moment and then said, ‘You could all do with a cup of tea and a bite of cake. Could we take John into the sitting room?’
They all bent down together, grateful for activity and as they did Mary-Anne Halligan hurried through the gates, gasping for breath and wearing her best dress.
Without a word, and to Sarah’s great surprise, she threw her arms round her. ‘Ach, God love ye, I’d a been here sooner, but I was cleanin’ out the dairy an’ I was in my dishabels.’
Sarah smiled. Her beloved John was dead and here she was thinking that it was a long, long time since she had heard that word. Her grandmother had once explained to her that ‘dishabels’ was a corruption of the French word déshabillé, which, of course, meant old clothes, those not suitable for receiving company.
She glanced down at her own clothes, grateful she was wearing one of John’s favourite blouses with her second-best skirt. She was not in her dishabels. She was grateful for that and as she responded to Mary-Anne’s embrace, she asked, ‘Was it you put on the bandage?’
‘Aye, surely. But shure there’s no bandage to put on yer heart.’
‘No, there’s not, but I’ve other people to think about now,’ she said honestly, as the enormity of what had to be done began to print out in her mind.
‘Shure Billy an I will give ye a han’. Come on in and we’ll make a cup a tea an’ see what ye want us all to do.’
Mary-Anne and her family were as good as their word and, within a few hours, John’s brother, George, from nearby Grennan, arrived with his wife bringing tea, sugar, bread and cake for the visitors who would come when they heard the news. George paused only to greet Sarah and then drove into Armagh to summon the undertaker, leaving his wife, Alice, to keep her company along with Mary-Anne.
Visitors began to arrive within the hour and Alice and Mary-Anne made pot after pot of tea.
Sarah was amazed in the hours that followed at the outpouring of grief over her loss and the warmth and love directed towards her, something she would never have expected for a relative newcomer to a long-settled community where everyone knew each other and had known them all their lives.
She received their greetings, answered their questions and watched the practicalities disappear in front of her. By the end of that long day, John lay in his coffin looking trim in his best suit, only a much smaller, rectangular plaster now marring the face that had been so familiar to all who came to the forge. The funeral was arranged, as custom was, for two days after the day of death, long enough for everyone to pay their respects both at his home and in the churchyard.
Through it all, Sarah remained steady and smiling, welcoming all those who came, putting at ease men who had never met her before, women who felt obliged to cry, kind neighbours so anxious to help in any possible way.
