by Anne Doughty
Five
Unlike the twenty-first of June 1961, two years ago to the very day, when Sam Hamilton was laid to rest in the green space surrounding the Friends Meeting House in Richhill, full of cloudy skies and sudden heavy showers, the twenty-first of June 1963 promised to be fine and dry, the sun already beaming down on Drumsollen long before the smell of cooked breakfasts wafted up from the basement.
Clare walked out to the garage with Andrew, wished him well for a court hearing in Belfast and turned back purposefully into the silent house. She collected a bucket and secateurs, caught the front door back on its chain and ran down the steps to begin her favourite Friday morning task, choosing roses for the tall, cut glass vase that sat all summer through on the polished oak table in the centre of the entrance hall.
As she moved slowly round the flourishing rosebed, Andrews parterre, she breathed the cool morning air and listened for the distant sounds vibrating in the stillness. There was a tractor on a neighbour’s farm, a milk float, its crates of bottles chinking as it passed their own gates, and then the heavy throb of an Ulster Transport bus making the first journey of the day with people going to work in Armagh.
As she leaned over and felt the warmth of the sun on her back she remembered the quiet September evening she’d had to search the small bushes for enough blooms to make a wedding bouquet for herself. All the ones with long stems were already in the church, but she had managed to find the few buds she needed. She’d mixed them with sprays from the honeysuckle up by the summerhouse and tied them with ribbon. After the wedding pictures had been taken, she’d walked round the side of the church and left the little bouquet on Granda’s Scott’s grave, the buds now open in the sunshine.
When the time came, as she knew it would, she had made a similar bouquet for Granda Hamilton. She’d picked white roses for him, but she chose only those with a touch of pink on the outer petals. White flowers were considered very suitable for a wreath and white lilies the most suitably sombre of all, but Granda Hamilton did not approve of such demonstrations. Death was part of life, he always said. He was not troubled by its coming, nor by his own going. That was why she’d not worn black at his funeral.
She wondered why she should miss him so very much when she’d not seen him all that often over the years. But, then, she’d always known he was there, going about his work in that steady, unhurried way of his. Often these days, when she got agitated herself, upset by the problems that descended upon her like falling leaves, she would sit at her desk and stare at the face of his gold watch. Its tiny rhythmic tick comforted her and reminded her that whatever the problem was, it would pass in time, as all things passed. It was she who must learn how to keep steady through the bad times and make sure she took the good of whatever pleasure and achievement the better times might bring.
She moved carefully between the flourishing bushes and found there were plenty of blooms to choose from. Despite the harsh winter that got going immediately after Christmas, the spring and early summer had been kind to the roses. There were more in bloom this year, at this time, than she’d ever seen before, the opening buds more vibrant than usual. ‘No, not yellow after all,’ she said quietly, as she looked down into her bucket, ‘more gold than yellow.’
As she came in through the front door and moved across the entrance hall, she thought of Ginny and smiled to herself. Ginny had covered herself with glory in the months she’d spent with them, working with a will and setting her hand to anything she saw in need of attention. She began by solving the problem of the bleak, bare spaces the missing ancestors had left on the walls when Andrew had been forced to sell them.
On her first day ‘at work’ she’d walked round the public rooms and proposed they move the remaining pictures out of the entrance hall, redeploying them to cover up the spaces in the dining-room and on the stairs. She then suggested that she use a colour wash on the pale bits in the entrance hall till she got a match with the remaining faded, but warm-toned wallpaper. She’d spent hours mixing paint and applying it, layer on layer, working in small patches so that the ancient, time-darkened paper didn’t bubble or peel off. Having greatly improved the light level, she then tackled the handsome flock material below the gold-painted dado with stale bread.
Clare would never forget the look on June’s face the first morning Ginny raided the bread bin, but June was the first to say what ‘a real good job’ she’d done. The total effect was splendid, so much so, that when Ginny went on to suggest having the chandelier professionally cleaned, Clare couldn’t bring herself to say No. She felt sure they couldn’t afford it, but at least they could go as far as asking for an estimate. It was as intimidating as she’d expected, but in the end she and Andrew agreed they would find the money. It would be an act of faith to make so grand a gesture, the one single, extravagant thing they’d done to set against all the hard work and careful budgeting.
When the chandelier was rehung after the cleaning, the effect was stunning. Not only did it sparkle as if it was made of cut diamonds, but freed of the grime of almost two centuries the glittering pieces of glass now rotated in the currents of air from the open door, making tiny, delightful tinkles. Every newly-arrived guest caught the sound, looked around them for its source and smiled with delight when they found it glittering above their heads.
The telephone was ringing as Clare strode across the hall towards the small room, once the estate office, where all the cleaning and gardening equipment was kept. She almost laughed aloud as the telephone stopped abruptly. What a relief it was not to have to stop whatever she was doing and dash for the receiver lest she missed a precious booking. Probably Helen had answered it. June hated the phone, but Helen, who was helping out for the summer while waiting for her exam results, had no such problem. Now there were phones down in the basement and on the landings of both the upper floors, as well as in Headquarters, it made life easier for everyone.
She wondered if the early caller might be Harry, ringing before he opened the gallery, following up on things they had spoken about last evening. Then, as she thought about his most recent visit, she realized her real concern was Jessie. Harry had taken to visiting them regularly, on his way back from buying trips. He was always so welcome, so full of good stories about the extraordinary things that turned up at auctions and house clearances, but although their meetings were always easy and lively, she’d grown increasingly anxious because he had so little to say about Jessie. Fine, just fine, was all she ever got now in answer to her questions about her and the children.
Last night, she’d asked him if he wanted to phone Jessie to tell her where he was and when he’d be home but he’d only laughed and said that she wasn’t expecting him till she saw him.
Remembering how distressed Harry was when Jessie had been seriously depressed before the birth of their son, Clare made a point of telling him how sorry she was she couldn’t get up to Belfast to see her at this high point in the holiday season. To her great surprise, he had nodded abruptly and said he’d thought about that. He’d offered to buy Jessie a small car for her birthday, but she’d refused, saying she’d no need of a car, for sure didn’t the bus run past their door.
Shortly after, he’d got up to go and they’d walked out with him into the warm, golden dusk. They stood on the steps and waved till he was out of sight. To her surprise, it was Andrew who spoke first.
‘D’you think Jessie’s all right?’
‘No, I don’t, but I can’t see what to do. I do phone her, but either she isn’t at home or she doesn’t answer,’ she said sadly. ‘When I do get her, she tells me nothing, makes some excuse about something she has to do, or says: Sure you know I don’t like the phone anyway.’
‘Perhaps I should just call when I’m next in court and see if I can get any idea,’ he suggested, as he put an arm round her. ‘If she wasn’t expecting me, I might find out more. If she knows you’re coming, she’ll be all prepared, won’t she?’
The morning was busy. Four couples and
a commercial traveller came to pay their bills. The couples all said how much they had enjoyed their stay and three of them assured her they would be coming again. Two of the husbands said the local literature and notes on places of interest they’d found left out for them had been most useful. One of the wives commented on the tea tray with fresh scones brought to their room when they arrived, another asked for details of the formidable gentleman in ermine trimmed robes hanging on the bend on the staircase. As for the young man, he simply said: ‘See you again soon.’
She enjoyed talking to guests, but she was glad enough when they went and she could get back to the week’s accounts. She had just got started when a good-looking young man with dark hair and eyes and a pair of brown overalls tapped at her half-open door and handed her a crumpled invoice from the Fuel Oil Depot in Armagh. His colleague, he said, had just pumped their delivery into their tanks round the back. They were pretty low, like she’d said on the phone, but that was a good thing for she’d get the summer reduction on every gallon over the first hundred.
The postman arrived next, needing a signature on a book Louise Pirelli had sent her from Paris. She sorted the rest of the post quickly, set aside the brown envelopes, almost certainly bills, looked at the postmarks on the white ones with handwritten addresses, which might be friends, or family, or even a returning guest. One envelope was neither white nor brown. It was gold and she guessed immediately what it was. She was just about to open it when there was another tap at the half-open door.
‘Helen, come in. Did you give the two Matts a lemonade?’
‘We did indeed,’ Helen replied, parking herself comfortably against the door frame. ‘Aren’t they a right pair? One old, one young, one fat and bald, the other dark and good-looking. And both of them Matthew.’
‘And one Catholic and one Protestant. Did you know that?’
‘Yes, Ma told me. She said she wished there were more like them. But maybe things would be better now Brookeborough’s gone.’
‘Yes, that’s what Andrew says too. Any change has to be good news. I take it you haven’t had any news yet?’
‘No, I’d have come and told you first thing. The suspense continues. Ma sent me up to ask if you want me to go to the Ulster Bank.’
‘Oh goodness, I forgot,’ Clare gasped, catching a hand to her mouth. ‘And there is a lot of cash this week. But I haven’t made up the lodgement yet. If everyone that’s going has gone, I might get time to do it now,’ she said laughing, as she reached down into the deepest drawer of her desk for the cash box.
‘Will I bring your coffee up here then?’ asked Helen helpfully.
‘Good idea. But give me ten minutes’ start to get the lodgement sorted. Will you go on the bike or will you take your Da’s car?’
‘I’ll use the bike, if it’s all right with you. Car looks quicker, but it’s sometimes hard to get parked anywhere handy on a Friday morning.’
‘Bike’s fine by me. I was only going to remind you that if you use the family car you’re to make a note in the Petty Cash book for mileage. Only fair. Your petrol costs money.’
‘Fresh scone and butter?’ Helen asked, raising her eyebrows.
‘Yes, please. Breakfast feels as if it was a week ago,’ she replied, as she drew a lodgement slip from one of the pigeon holes in her desk and turned the cash box upside down in front of her.
As Clare stood on the steps saying a few friendly words to the delivery man who had brought a case of wine from Robert Lafarge and had carried it cheerfully all the way down to the basement, she saw Helen come round the side of the house and cycle off down the drive.
She smiled as Helen disappeared from view, remembering the outcome of just such a similar journey to the Ulster Bank made by Ginny while she was staying with them. She hurried back into Headquarters, took up the gold envelope, opened it carefully, took out the oblong of stiff card and beamed.
Mr and Mrs Moore of Sea View, Rostrevor request the pleasure of the company of Mr and Mrs Andrew Richardson at the marriage of their daughter, Virginia, to David Midhurst.
The story of how Ginny met her husband-to-be was one of her happiest memories of the time Ginny had worked with them at Drumsollen. It was the first Friday morning in 1961 when there was enough money in the cash box to merit a journey to the bank. On her return, Ginny had burst into Headquarters, radiant with excitement.
‘Clare, Clare, you’ll never guess what’s happened,’ she gasped, pushing wide the half-open door so fiercely that some small receipts on the desk fluttered to the floor in the breeze she’d created. ‘I’m going riding this afternoon . . . if you can spare me, that is,’ she added hastily.
‘But of course I can spare you, after all the work you’ve been doing,’ Clare expostulated. ‘That’s wonderful. How did this happen?’
‘Well, I was turning out of the gate and I heard hooves,’ Ginny began quickly. ‘I didn’t believe it at first. Then I looked over my shoulder and there was this lovely chestnut, just like Conker, my beloved Conker. You remember Conker, don’t you?’ she demanded, as if she had totally forgotten that it was on Conker she had taught Clare to ride. ‘I thought I was hallucinating. But I wasn’t. I rode on very slowly wondering what on earth I was going to do. I knew I just had to do something before the Mill Row and the Asylum Hill,’ she went on, collapsing breathless into one of the fireside chairs.
Clare abandoned her desk and came and sat down opposite her.
‘Well, finally, just before the end of the trees, I just stopped and put my bicycle against the hedge bank and waited,’ she went on. ‘And then as they came up to me I said quite politely: Do you think I could possibly say good morning to your horse.’
‘So there was a rider on the horse?’
‘Well, yes, of course there was, silly. She was being road trained. But he didn’t seem to mind stopping too much and I stood and talked to her and stroked her nose. Oh Clare, she is lovely, just lovely, and she seemed perfectly happy with me. He actually said: She seems to like you, so I thought I’d better explain that I’d had a chestnut very like her and at times I felt heartbroken at having had to part with her and he said he was sure it must have been difficult but why did I have to do that.’
‘And you told him?’
‘Well, yes, I did, sort of. And then I asked him if he was a Cope or a Cowdy and he laughed and said, How did I know that? and I said they were the only horsey people around these parts except for some farmers who kept horses for competing in ploughing matches. He said, Yes, my mother is a cousin of one of the Cowdys. I’ve forgotten which one. He’s over from England.’
‘And did this gentleman give you a name?’
‘Oh yes, he did,’ she said beaming happily. ‘She’s Princess Tara of Ardrea by Prince Connor out of Lady Grannia, but his cousin calls her Blaze. She has the loveliest little white bit on her nose. He said his cousin thought it looked like that mark on Superman’s vest.’
In the remaining two weeks of his visit to Loughgall, Ginny did manage to register David Midhurst’s name. In fact, as she transferred her attention from Princess Tara to her rider, she rather made up for her initial indifference by deciding she was in love with him.
‘Yes, Clare, I admit it, you’re right,’ she agreed, as the final days of his stay slipped away. ‘He’s the man for me, but I’m not going to marry him. At least not yet,’ she added, hesitating. ‘I made such a nonsense last time.’
‘Has he asked you to marry him?’ Clare asked, somewhat surprised at the speed with which events had moved.
‘Oh yes, he asked me last week and I said no. So he said that was fine, he’d ask me every week on Fridays until I said yes.’
Clare propped the wedding invitation on her desk and turned gratefully to the tray Helen had brought. She poured her coffee and munched her scone enthusiastically.
Some months after David went back to the Cotswold village where he was setting up a riding school, specializing in cross country trekking, Ginny admitted sheepishly she was
pining for him even more than for Princess Tara. Would they mind if she went off to join him? She’d asked Ginny then when she had actually said yes to David, but Ginny couldn’t remember. She was already absorbed in the details of cross-country trekking and the prospect of a whole new life in England.
After the excitements and activity of the morning, the afternoon hours remained quiet and uninterrupted. Apart from Andrew ringing to tell her he’d be back by six, the phone was blissfully silent. At lunchtime she asked Helen to deal with any guests who might turn up in the course of the afternoon. It wasn’t very likely anyone would appear until much later on such a splendid day, but having alerted Helen meant she could shut her door and make a start on the end-of-year figures.
The thirtieth of June still felt the most unlikely of times to have a financial end of year, but the reason was simple. July the first, 1960, was the day she and Andrew had set up Drumsollen House as a limited company. Even though she was still in Paris, by doing so, Andrew could get his hands on the money he so badly needed for the most urgent repairs. Now, there were only nine days till the end of the month and the end of their third year of trading. Today’s crop of bills had been deducted in her ledger, the cheques already in their envelopes for the post. There was a predictable amount coming in from next week’s bookings, but even if the amount she’d pencilled in proved to be an overestimate, a few pounds either way wasn’t going to make any difference to what she had in mind.
The afternoon grew steadily hotter as she entered up the monthly figures and collated them with the Ulster Bank lodgement book. As she worked away steadily, she thought of the last time she’d met their accountant. He’d told her his senior clerks were experimenting with automated calculating machines. The sooner the better, Clare thought, as she totted up a huge column of figures. She looked at the result, then did the sum all over again, because the figure was so encouraging she had to be sure she’d not made a mistake.
