by Anne Doughty
‘Was Law what he wanted to do?’
June removed a dead leaf from the spread of colour which would grace the font itself and looked at her daughter thoughtfully.
‘Maybe it wasn’t,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve often wondered about it, but I never had the heart to ask him,’ she went on. ‘When you got your scholarship to go up to Queens, it didn’t matter whether you did Geography, or History, or English. I know your teachers advised you, but it was you decided what you wanted to do. But then we’re only working people. If you’re a Richardson, it’s a different kettle of fish. The family will tell you what to do if you don’t already know what’s expected in the first place. As far as I can see there’s no two ways about it, you just have to do it.’
‘Well, there’s none of the family left, now The Missus is gone. There’s just Andrew and Clare. They can do what they like, can’t they?’ Helen responded cheerfully, her face lighting up with a great beaming smile.
‘Aye well, I suppose you’re right. But you needn’t think, Helen, that falling in love and getting married is all roses. You can’t know what’s up ahead and it may not turn out the way you hope.’
Helen nodded and said nothing. Her mother was always warning her against disappointment. There was no use arguing. She just didn’t seem to see how wonderful it was for Clare and Andrew to have found each other and to make such a marvellous plan for turning Drumsollen into a guest house. They were going to save up and buy back the land that had once made up the estate, then Andrew would give up his job and farm just as he had always wanted. Helen smiled to herself. It was exactly the sort of plan she’d make herself if she found someone she really loved.
‘Time we were gettin’ a move on, Helen,’ June said abruptly, as she turned round and saw her daughter gazing thoughtfully at a handful of rose leaves in the palm of her hand. ‘Yer Da’ll be home soon and no sign of his tea and we’ve both got to go back up to the house tonight to give them a hand.’
‘Right, Ma, what do you want me to carry?’ asked Helen quickly, as she dropped the petals in her pocket. One day, she thought, I’ll marry someone lovely and I’ll have a shower of rose petals as I come out of the church just like they have in films.
‘D’ye not think that neckline is a bit much for Salters Grange?’
Clare, who was dressed only in a low cut strapless bra and a slim petticoat, turned round from the dressing-table and laughed, as her friend Jessie pushed open the door of the bedroom, dropped down on the bed, and kicked off her elegant new shoes.
‘I hope ye slept well in my bed,’ Jessie continued. ‘I left ye my teddy-bear to tide you over till tonight,’ she went on, looking around the room that still had her watercolours and photographs covering all the available wall space.
‘Oh, I slept all right,’ replied Clare, as she dusted powder over foundation with a large brush. ‘By the time June and I had got all the food organized and the tables laid I could have slept on the floor. But your bed was much nicer. Thank you for the loan of it.’
‘Or the lend of it as we always said at school and got told off for.’
Clare smiled, relieved and delighted that Jessie seemed to have fully recovered her old self after the hard time she’d had with her second child.
‘How’s Fiona?’ she asked, as she turned back to the mirror.
‘Oh, driving us mad,’ she said calmly. ‘I sent Harry to walk her up and down and tire her out a bit before Ma tries to get the dress on. She can talk about nothin’ but Auntie Clare and Uncle Andrew. Does it not make you feel old?’
‘No. Old is not what I feel today,’ she said lightly. ‘Blessed, I think is the word, as long as you don’t think I’ve gone pious,’ she added quickly. ‘It’s not just Andrew. It’s being home and having family. It’s you and Harry and wee Fiona and your mother and all the people who’ll come to the church. Even the ones that come to stand at the gate, because they go to all the weddings, or because they remember Granda Scott.’
‘Aye, there’ll be a brave few nosey ones around,’ Jessie added promptly. ‘Ma says she heard your dress was made by yer man Dior himself.’
Clare laughed, stood up and reached out for the hem of the gleaming, silk gown hanging from the picture rail.
‘Look Jessie, I only found it this morning.’
Jessie leaned over and looked closely at the inside hem. ‘Good luck, Bonne chance, Buenos . . . something or other . . . and there are names as well. Ach, isn’t that lovely? All the way round. Who did that?’ she demanded, her voice hoarse, her eyes sparkling with tears.
‘The girls in the work room. I knew them all, because I had to have so many suits and dresses, but when I had the last fitting there was nothing there. I’m sure I’d have noticed.’
‘So you’ll have luck all round ye and in whatever language takes your fancy . . .
Clare nodded, her own eyes moistening at the thought of all the little seamstresses taking it in turns to embroider their name and their message. She paused as she slipped the dress from its hanger and took a deep breath. The last thing she must do was shed a tear. Whatever it said on the packaging she had never found a mascara that didn’t run if provoked by tears. Tears of joy would be just as much of a disaster as any other kind.
The crowd of women and children gathered round the churchyard gates were not expecting very much. They knew it was to be a small affair with only close family. In fact, there were those who thought there couldn’t even be much in the way of close family if June Wiley, the housekeeper, her husband John and their girls were to be among the guests, even if June had once been Andrew Richardson’s nurse. They certainly did not expect any ‘great style’ from anyone except the bride. Even that was a matter of some doubt as rumour had it she’d bought her dress on the way home from Paris and arrived with it at the Rowentrees in a cardboard box.
The first guests to arrive did little to disperse their expectations. Jack Hamilton drove up in a well-polished, but elderly Hillman Minx. He was accompanied by his father, Sam, now in his eighties, who got out of the car with some difficulty, but once on his feet, smiled warmly at the waiting crowd, pushed back his once powerful shoulders and tramped steadily enough up to the church door.
Charlie Running, old friend of Robert Scott, walked briskly up the hill from his cousin’s house and said, ‘How are ye?’ to the gathered spectators, for Charlie knew everyone in the whole townland. Before going inside he tramped round the side of the church to pay his respects to Robert.
Next to arrive were the Wileys. June, John and all three girls, as expected. No style there. Not even a new hat or dress among them. Just their Sunday best. Charles Creaney, Andrew’s colleague and best man, parked his almost new A40 under the churchyard wall somewhat out of sight of the twin clusters of onlookers by the gates. Andrew and the two ushers got out and the four of them strode off, two by two, heading for the church door without a glance at the women in aprons or the children fidgeting at their sides.
Moments later, a small handful of husbands and wives, some of them clearly from ‘across the water’, arrived by taxi. But there was no one among them to excite more than a brief speculation as to who they might be. Only the need to view the bride and to have the relevant news to pass on in the week ahead kept some of the women from going back to their abandoned Saturday morning chores.
Then, to their surprise and amazement, one of Loudan’s smaller limousines, polished so you could see yourself in its black bodywork, and bedecked with satin ribbons, drove up and slid gently to a halt. The driver opened the passenger door, touched his cap, offered his hand and a woman stepped out into the morning sunshine, a pleasant smile on her face. In the total silence that followed her arrival, she walked slowly towards the church door.
Salters Grange had its own version of ‘great style’, but they had never seen anything to equal the poise and presentation of Marie-Claude St Clair. Her couturier would have been charmed.
‘I think she’s a film star,’ said the first woman to
find her voice. ‘She’s like somethin’ ye’d see on the front of Vogue.’
‘I’m sure I’ve seen her on our new telly.’
‘Young Helen Wiley said there was a French woman and her daughter staying at the Charlemont in Armagh. Would that be her?’
‘Where’s the daughter then?’
It was then that Loudan’s largest limousine appeared, driven by none other than Loudan himself. It drew to a halt in front of the gates. From the front passenger seat, a small man in immaculate morning dress stepped out, drew himself to his full height and waited attentively until first one lovely young woman and then another was assisted by the bowler-hatted Loudan to alight from the back seat.
Robert Lafarge bowed to them both and then offered his arm to the older one. So it was that, Cinderella no more, Clare Hamilton entered Grange Church on the arm of an eminent French banker, attended by a smiling young woman, whom she had cared for in her student days as an au pair on the sands at Deauville.
As the quips and comments flew back and forth across the gravel driveway it was clear the wait had not been in vain.
‘Did ye ever see the like of it? Was that necklace emeralds?’
‘How would I know? But I can tell you somethin’. That dress was such a fit you’d not buy that in some shop. An’ her that slim. Shure it must have been made for her, and those wee pearl beads round the skirt with the green and gold threadwork in-between to match the necklace.’
‘Was it silk or brocade? It was white all right, but there was green in it somewhere when she moved.’
‘Who was the wee man giving her away?’
‘They say that’s Robert Scott’s younger brother, the one that went to America an’ niver came back.’
‘Well, he doesn’t look like a Scott to me, that’s for sure. Sure he’s only knee high to a daisy. Robert was a fair-sized man in his day . . .’
While the women of Church Hill speculated on the past and future of Clare Hamilton, granddaughter of their former blacksmith, and of Andrew Richardson, sole surviving member of the once wealthy family who had lived in the parish since the seventeenth century and served in the Government since it was first set up 1921, the two individuals themselves stood together on the newly-replaced red carpet of the chancel and exchanged rings.
In the September sunshine filtering through the windows on the south aisle, the two rings gleamed just as they had when Clare found them in the dust and fluff under the wooden couch by the stove in the forge house. As the smaller one, once bound with human hair inside the larger one, was slipped on her finger, Clare feared for her mascara once again. She had found the rings a mere fortnight after her grandfather’s death. Then, she had lost both her grandfather and her home and had only a student room to call her own. Now, so much had been given back. Someone to love who loved her as dearly. A home that was theirs, Andrew’s family home, the place he had longed to be for most of his life.
With hands joined and heads bowed for the blessing, they both felt the touch of gold. The rings that had lain in the dust for a hundred years or more had emerged untarnished. Engraved on each of them were the initials EGB. It was a message of hope: in Irish, Erin Go Bragh; in English, Ireland Forever. Or better, the words the minister had used earlier . . . for as long as you both shall live.
Three
The first day of January 1961 was dull and overcast in Armagh. Clare stood at the bedroom window and looked out across the lawn and over the curve of Drumsollen’s own low hill. Even under a grey sky the grass was a vibrant green and shaggy with growth. So far this winter there had been no severe weather and no snow at all, but spring was still a long time away.
After breakfast, Andrew stepped out into the early morning, left crumbs on the bird table and came back in again looking pleased. The wind was light and from the south-east. Echoing a phrase of her grandfather’s, he announced: ‘There’s no cold.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Clare laughed, as she carried their breakfast dishes to the draining board. ‘It’ll be draughty enough by the lake at Castledillon without a cold wind as well,’ she declared, as he shrugged his shoulders into his ancient waxed jacket and took his binoculars from a drawer under the work surface.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind me going, Clare? We were supposed to have a holiday today and you’re left with all the work,’ he added, a hint of anxiety creeping into his voice.
‘Oh Andrew, don’t be silly,’ she responded, giving him a hug, ‘We BOTH work so hard. You must take some time to do the things you want to do. You go and help with the count and get a look at the heronries. Another day when YOU are at work, I’ll go and see what Charlie’s added to his archive and talk local history with him. Fair shares for all, as your mother would say.’
They went upstairs and crossed the dim entrance hall where a small collection of ancestors still stared gloomily around them as if they had mislaid something they needed. A light breeze blew in their faces as Andrew opened the double glass doors into the porch, stepped through and swung the heavy outer door back into its daytime position. He put an arm round her shoulders as they walked across the stone terrace and down the broad sandstone steps to the driveway.
‘I’ll be back by twelve,’ he said, kissing her. ‘If you do start on Seven you can have my paintbrush ready. Don’t do too much while I’m gone.’
‘I promise. I’ll have your lunch ready. You’ll be starving. You always are. It’ll only be a toasted sandwich,’ she warned, as he opened the car door.
She went back indoors and ran upstairs to their bedroom. The kitchen had been warm from the Aga but the unheated bedroom was cold. Not as cold as her old bedroom at the forge house had been in winter but bad enough to make her grateful for the thick wool sweater she pulled out from a deep drawer below the handsome rosewood wardrobe.
She retrieved the hot water bottles from under the bedclothes, made the bed and took the bottles into the adjoining bathroom to empty them. The plasterwork was still drying out and the acres of white tile and gleaming taps made it feel even colder than the bedroom. She did a quick wipe of the hand basin and turned back gratefully into the room once used by The Missus.
Unlike the cold linoleum of the forge house, this room had always had the comfort and pleasure of a carpet but when they moved in they found it was so full of holes it would have to be replaced before they handed it over to the guests they hoped to welcome in April. Given the new bathroom, they had assumed this would be their best room until they realized the state of the carpet. She was still trying to decide what to do about it when their good friend Harry spotted a carpet when he was buying antique furniture in a house scheduled for demolition. He’d tipped the workmen to carry it to his van, brought it up to them and stayed to help them cut up old one up.
Harry said the ‘new’ carpet was probably older than the one they’d just carried to the compost heap. It was full of dust and dirty from the tramp of workmen’s feet but it showed very little signs of wear. They’d spent the best part of a warm, autumn weekend beating it, vacuuming it and sponging it. By the time they’d managed to lay it they were exhausted, but the carpet with its exotic birds and plants transformed the room. It even matched the faded curtains so well they decided they’d not replace them after all.
The bed made, the room tidied, Clare sat down at her dressing-table and began her make-up. For weeks after their brief honeymoon, she had applied only moisturizer, but as day followed day and she spent most of her time sorting, cleaning, or gloss painting, dressed in the oldest of old clothes, she began to feel something was wrong. The day before the surveyor came to estimate for the new central heating system she made up her mind. Cheap jeans from the cut-price shop in Portadown and well-worn shirts that could go in the machine would be fine for the job in hand, but she needed her go-to-work face to keep up spirits. To her surprise, that simple decision steadied her when she was presented with the enormity of the surveyor’s estimate next day.
She smiled to herself as she appli
ed powder with a sable brush just as her dear friend Louise had taught her when they’d first shared an office in Paris. She missed Louise. She missed Paris. She missed that whole other world where she had been mostly happy and certainly successful. But now she and Andrew had each other and a life they could make together. You can’t have everything and she knew she had chosen what she really wanted.
She thought again of that sunlit October morning when the surveyor had presented his estimate. It brought back memories of all the meetings she’d sat through with Robert Lafarge, listening to companies putting forward plans, projects and requests for loans. She had smiled at him, given him coffee in the kitchen and negotiated the price. By suggesting the project be spread over the winter period when the company would be short of work, she’d secured a substantial discount. Andrew laughed when she told him. What delighted him was the thought of the unsuspecting surveyor coming face to face with a woman who had once been party to negotiating sums in seven figures.
By Christmas Eve, three of the five large bedrooms on the first floor had been freshened up or completely redecorated. Apart from the high ceilings and cornices, they’d done all the painting themselves. While Andrew was at work, Clare did as much of the brushwork as she could while supervising the installing of the two new bathrooms. When Andrew got home from work, he’d hang his suit over the bedroom chair, pull on his dungarees and take over her brush while she prepared a meal. Afterwards, they’d share the day’s news over coffee and then go back together to where he’d left off.
‘What do we tackle next?’ he asked, as they put up a holly wreath on the front door and looked forward to a few days holiday from paint.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she said honestly. ‘A double brings in double the money and there’s only one set of bed linen to launder, but the single rooms will be cheaper and might attract more business. The five singles on the top floor could be very important. It all depends on who we manage to attract.’
