by Anne Doughty
When Mary and John Hamilton said their goodbyes on the steps of Drumsollen on the last day of June, the sky a perfect blue, the breeze warm even at the early hour of their departure, they had secured a promise from Clare and Andrew to come and visit them in Norfolk at the first possible opportunity. It was a promise happily given. After three days in which they’d shared every hour they could spare with their ‘family guests’, they felt they’d made a friendship that would extend far into the future.
‘My goodness, can you believe all that’s happened in six months?’ Clare said, turning to Andrew as the little car disappeared round the bend in the drive. ‘Have you time to walk up to the summerhouse with me? I’m not on breakfast duty this morning.’
‘Fine. Nothing waiting for me that won’t wait a bit longer,’ Andrew replied. ‘Besides, it’s only eight o’clock. Charles never gets in before ten.’
‘I was thinking of how awful it was in January,’ Clare went on, ‘those frozen pipes we thought might burst and the awful chill of the empty bedrooms and corridors. Do you remember how dangerous the car park was and how we slithered and slid and worried about the few visitors we did have?’
‘I seem to remember you consulting me about our proprietor’s liability, which I had to go and read up. Not my department at all,’ he said, looking at her sideways. ‘My dear, beloved Clare,’ he began, shaking his head. ‘Can you please tell me why, on this glorious morning, you are thinking about the most God awful winter anyone in these parts can ever remember?’
Clare laughed and nodded.
‘I’m not actually being negative, you know. I’m celebrating the way things can come good even if they’ve been grim. Oh, I suppose it goes the other way too, but I keep thinking of this last week. First the good news about breaking even, then Mary and John arriving and all the splendid talk we had with them. Like the sun coming out, suddenly life is brighter and easier and it’s wonderful. Don’t you think?’
When he didn’t reply, she assumed he was just as much out of breath as she was. In their enthusiasm to gaze out over the luxuriant green countryside and scan the mountains of Tyrone and Donegal, they had climbed the steep steps far too quickly.
‘Andrew?’ she prompted.
‘Do you really think we can make a go of it?’ he asked. ‘I mean, like we had planned.’
The tight tone and the tell-tale creases at the corners of his mouth, sure signs of anxiety, warned her to tread cautiously.
‘Well, yes, I do. Weren’t you happy with the figures when I showed them to you?’
He made a visible effort to collect himself.
‘Oh yes, absolutely,’ he said quickly. ‘I just haven’t taken it all in yet I suppose. You really think I could give up the job in another year or so?’
‘Unless the situation changes markedly,’ she replied. ‘There are no signs of that at the moment. So we have to proceed on the assumption that it won’t. If it does, that’ll be the time to take stock and think again.’
‘What shall we do to celebrate?’ he asked, suddenly sounding more cheerful.
‘Bit early in the day for champagne,’ she said, keeping an absolutely straight face and hoping to make him laugh.
To her delight, he did. She breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever dark shadow had moved up towards consciousness it had vanished as quickly as it had come.
‘I was taking a more long-term view,’ he said, successfully mimicking their accountant, who was full of his own importance and inclined to be pompous. ‘What about the other half of the parterre, or the left-hand rose bed by any other name? I’m sure it’s not the right time for planting roses but they come in containers these days which must make a difference. I’ve seen them in the market in Armagh. Could we afford fifty? If you bargain for them I’m sure we could.’
‘What a lovely idea, Andrew,’ she replied, beaming at him. ‘Like the chandelier,’ she went on. ‘A gesture, a palpable gesture. Let’s do it. We can plant them ourselves, this time, now there are two of us.’
‘And then we’ll have a weekend away,’ he added, glancing at his watch. ‘No. I’m not joking. I have a plan. Tell you tonight,’ he said, kissing her quickly and setting off briskly down the steps, a smile on his face as he disappeared round the side of the house.
Throughout the arc of the summer, days of bright sunshine and brilliant blue sky alternated with days when heavy clouds piled up on the green hills, the air grew thick and oppressive, before giving way to sudden drenching showers accompanied by the occasional rumble of thunder.
According to Charlie Running, the regulars at his favourite pub in Loughgall had been predicting a summer as extreme in its sunshine and warmth as the winter had been in its snow, ice and bitter cold. They were wrong and their disappointment was obvious.
‘Shure there’ll be no good stories out of a summer like this,’ Charlie explained on one of Clare’s regular visits. ‘What ye need for these boys is the apples so thick the branches are near breaking, the hay three feet high, the dahlias the size of dinner plates and the roses like wee cabbages.’
Whatever the disappointment for Charlie’s drinking companions there was none for Clare and Andrew. Whether it was rain or shine, the weeks of that summer were memorable, filled with a pleasure and delight they were sure they would never forget.
However long and demanding the day had been and however late it was by the time they’d completed the day’s tasks, evening after evening, they walked down the front steps and round their garden in the lingering dusk. Ostensibly, they were keeping an eye on the newly-planted roses, but what they were really doing was celebrating all that had happened to so encourage them in their hopes and plans for the coming year.
‘But how can we go away, Andrew, even for a weekend, never mind a week?’ she protested, when he first spoke about the possibility. ‘You know we’re understaffed. If we’re not here to fill in the gaps evenings and weekends, goods and services break down.’
‘Absolutely true,’ he nodded, looking pleased with himself. ‘But you would agree there’s nothing we do that is highly skilled, apart from you masterminding our finance. Anyone can make beds or run the washing machines or clear out the drain when it blocks. June and Helen could cook a full house of breakfasts, if ever we were to need it.’
‘But they can’t do all the jobs we do as well as what they do already,’ Clare protested.
‘Of course not. But if we take the first week in October, Helen won’t have gone back to Queens, nor will Jennifer have started and John has two weeks due to him from Robinsons’ farm. He’s saving up to change his car. He says he’d be well pleased to do a whole week here.’
‘So we’d have FOUR Wileys instead of two and a bit,’ said Clare thoughtfully. ‘Well, we do advertise ourselves as a family business. We don’t have to say which family runs the place.’
‘So you agree?’
‘Well, I can now see it is possible, but where did you think we could afford to go?’
‘A small but stately home in Fermanagh, with its own extensive gardens, woodland and a lake. With a boat. And Great-Uncle Hector who has been pestering me for three years now to bring my beautiful bride to Killydrennan.’
‘Killydrennan, what a lovely name,’ she said, her eyes lighting up. ‘What does it mean?’
‘Mean? I haven’t the faintest idea. I thought it was just a name. But you would like it, I’m sure you would. And Hector is a good sort. Bit of a ladies’ man in his youth, married three times apparently, but he’s been a widower for thirty years.’
‘Andrew,’ she gasped. ‘What age is he now?’
‘Getting on for ninety as far as I know, but he’s got all his marbles,’ he added reassuringly. ‘I’d love us to go.’
To her surprise, Clare caught a distinct hint of wistfulness in Andrew’s tone. She remembered he’d visited Fermanagh several times while she’d still been at Queens, because there’d been some complicated dispute over land. Whether it was his uncle’s land or a neighbour’s, she couldn’t now
remember. She had no idea either who Great-Uncle Hector was and how he fitted in to the Richardson side of the family but Andrew had got on really well with him.
‘Right then, we’ll go. What do I have to pack for a stately home?’
‘Anything you like by day,’ he said, smiling, ‘and we’ll need weather gear for the paths down to the lake and the boat, but I do have to tell you Hector still dresses for dinner. I’m sure he’d love it if you dressed up for him.’
‘Shall I take the emeralds?’
‘Why not,’ he laughed, ‘and that short dress that matches them so well. Maybe your wedding dress too, if you’ve done what you planned to do to it. Pity not to wear some of your lovely Paris creations. I’m afraid I don’t provide many opportunities for dressing up, apart from the Hospitals Dance in Armagh every New Year.’
‘Once a year does very nicely, thank you, until we’re further on. Going off together is such a lovely thought. The more I think about it, the better I like it. I’m looking forward to it already.’
Once Andrew had cleared the outskirts of Dungannon and picked up the good main road to Ballygawley, Clare unfolded her map.
‘I do actually know the way,’ he said helpfully, as he glanced briefly down at her lap.
‘Of course you do,’ she replied, laughing. ‘But I don’t. And if I haven’t got a map I’m sure to miss some place whose name I heard long ago, or I’ve met in my reading.’
She paused, while she carefully consulted the next fold in the sheet she was holding.
‘We are now in Tyrone,’ she declared. ‘Did you know that Tyrone is known as Tyrone among the bushes?’
‘Does your map tell you that?’
‘Of course it doesn’t, silly, but it does have many old Irish names and they always tell you something about the land. Most of the names about here, though, seem to be Scots or English.’
She pointed to a signpost they were passing.
‘Fivemiletown, you see. One of my uncles is the station sergeant there. He was posted from Moy just recently. We passed his old barracks just before the egg packing station. I was going to point it out to you, but you were stuck behind that ancient tractor and trying to pass.’
‘How do you know all this about place names?’ he asked, without taking his eyes off the road.
‘Charlie is working on a place name project. He says it’s a way of keeping up his Irish. No one now speaks it round the Grange. He told me the old names describe features of the land. Like Inishbane. That’s Inish, an island, and bane, white. So, white island. Probably white with blackthorn. So if you study thousands of names you keep up a lot of information about the past.
‘Isn’t your Uncle Alex doing some research as well?’
‘Oh yes. He’s got two strings to his bow,’ she replied, laughing. ‘The export of orphans, like himself. You know about that. But he’s working on family history as well. Mary and John told me he’s been contacting Hamiltons all over the place and then he writes to them and tells them what he’s found out. All kinds of fascinating things turn up.’
‘So you get your family news via Australia?’
‘And America. Via Dublin. Aunt Emily has a friend in Dublin, a bookseller called Brendan McGinley and he’s in touch with the New York McGinleys, the nephews and nieces of Rose, my great-grandmother . . .’
Clare broke off as the road narrowed and they found themselves driving between tall hedgerows. Overhead, the mature trees met and almost touched. The sunlight splashed down through the canopy they created and threw bright, shimmering patches on the road ahead.
‘Oh Andrew, aren’t these trees marvellous? The chestnuts here are far further on than ours at home.’
She looked up through the arching branches into the clear blue of the early October day. At last they were on their way, just the two of them, driving south and west to Fermanagh, for a week, a whole week with nothing to do but be good guests at Killydrennan. She felt her spirits lift yet further as if this memorable autumn day were a sign that all would be well and their best hopes come to pass.
‘I though you said it was small,’ Clare protested, as they emerged from a driveway that ran between mature trees and dense shrubbery. Ahead of them lay a wide gravelled area in front of a handsome house, the main part Georgian, but with later additions sprawling untidily to left and right. It stood on a slight rise and overlooked parkland with clumps of trees and a distant view of mountains.
‘It’s small enough, as these things go around here. Think of Castle Coole or Florence Court,’ he said, glancing round as they slowed to a standstill. ‘It has only twenty bedrooms or so. You should have seen the one that was burnt down,’ he added wryly, as he switched off the engine. ‘It had fifty or sixty, I’m told. I think this one was built originally as a dower house but added on to in the last century to accommodate a proliferating family. Hector lived here with his first wife and he never liked the big house. He didn’t shed any tears about it when it went up in flames, but he’d had good warning which gave him time to move out all the stuff that really mattered to him.’
Clare stared at him in amazement.
‘Do you mean the big house was deliberately burnt down?’
‘Oh yes. During the Troubles. Lots of the big houses were torched, but as Hector was well-liked and had Catholics as well as Protestants on his staff, someone tipped the wink to a parlourmaid and the family got out with their valuables . . . and their lives. Not everyone was so lucky,’ he added, as he got out and went round to open the boot of the car.
‘Andrew, there’s someone watching you,’ Clare whispered as she came to join him, her hand poised for the nearest suitcase.
‘Is that Uncle Hector?’ she asked, as Andrew glanced towards the small, dark figure who’d strode out of the pillared entrance and was now standing firmly to attention at the top of the wide stone steps.
Andrew looked up, smiled and raised a hand in greeting.
‘That’s Russell, Hector’s butler,’ he replied. ‘He’s getting on a bit too. Don’t touch the cases. If he’s come out, he’ll send a boy,’ he said quietly. ‘Just take your handbag.’
‘Russell, how splendid to see you. Keeping well, I hope,’ said Andrew as they climbed the steps to meet him. ‘This is my wife, Clare.’
‘You are welcome to Killydrennan, ma’am,’ said Russell with a deep bow. ‘My Lord sends his apologies that he is not here to greet you. He had an early morning engagement and is taking a short rest before dinner. I have ordered tea to be served in Lady Rothwell’s sitting-room. I shall lead the way.’
Clare murmured her thanks and noted that a young man had descended upon the car and was now disappearing round the back of the house loaded with suitcases and grips. She had never in her life travelled with more than one suitcase, but then she’d never in her life been greeted by a butler and addressed as ma’am.
Russell marched them briskly through the entrance hall. The sunlight poured down from a domed cupola high above, the walls were hung with spears and guns, the gleaming marble floor spread with richly coloured rugs. He strode ahead, swept open the door to the sitting room and stood holding it in place until they caught up. A log fire blazed in the hearth. On a low table between two pink and gold armchairs an array of gleaming silver covers suggested there were scones and cake to welcome family guests.
‘Should you require anything, sir, the bell is to the right of the fireplace. Dinner is at eight o’clock and the dressing bell is at seven thirty.’
With a small bow, Russell disappeared, leaving Clare amazed and delighted as she gazed round a room entirely decorated in toning shades of deep pink offset by the gold of mouldings and massive, carved picture frames. It was filled with paintings and objets d’art that would leave Harry green with envy and longing to acquire them for the gallery. As they walked together towards the welcoming fire she saw their reflection in the huge gold overmantel. It was a moment she was sure she would never forget.
Despite the picnic lunch they’d e
njoyed under a tree in a quiet side road overlooking one of the many small loughs not even named on Clare’s map, they were grateful for the generous spread. Andrew appeared to be ravenous, ate appreciatively and then jumped to his feet, his long legs stiff from the drive. Clare found herself watching him as he stood in front of the fire, teacup in hand, now appearing very much at ease.
‘You look as if you owned the place,’ she said, half serious, half teasing him.
‘The next Lord Rothwell, you mean?’ he said soberly, as he put his cup down, picked up the teapot and poured more tea for both of them.
‘Where did the name Rothwell come from?’ she asked. ‘I know Hector is a Richardson but I’m puzzled as to how Lords get their labels. Do they choose them? Oh, I know they get handed down, but somewhere in the mists of time there must have been a first Richardson who became Lord Rothwell. How did he get the Rothwell?’
‘Yes, there was a first one. A Richardson from Yorkshire, that is. As far as we know, he came over with Cromwell, was given land in payment for services rendered, then made a lot of money. I don’t know exactly how he did it, investing in merchant venturing, I suspect, but it takes a lot of money to get a Lordship. Clearly, he managed it. Rothwell is a village in North Yorkshire. Perhaps it was his old home. Seems unlikely that was where he made his money. His son made his money in Kenya, hence all the wild beasties in the hall. The Richardsons have had a Kenya connection since goodness knows when.’
‘Andrew, why have you never told me any of this?’
‘You never asked.’
‘Andrew, that won’t do,’ she retorted, trying not to be cross. ‘I have tried to find out about your family, but the first time I ever heard ANYTHING very much was when you told Mary and John about that nice Aunt Joan in Wiveton. I knew you had an aunt, because you went over once and painted her kitchen, but that was Aunt Bee who died and you’d never mentioned Joan. I know I made a joke about you and family history when Mary and John were with us, but there’s something here that isn’t funny. It’s important, Andrew. I want to know properly why you’ve never talked about your family.’
