by Anne Doughty
After she had finally persuaded Mary-Anne to go back to her family, that she was perfectly all right, just a bit shaky on her feet, the postman was her first caller. He came, saw the front door propped open as usual, tramped down the short corridor to the kitchen door and found her sitting at the table, surrounded by papers, account books and an open cash box.
‘A powerful crowd at the funeral,’ he began awkwardly, not meeting her eyes.
‘Yes, I was amazed the church was so full,’ she replied, trying to make him easier, ‘but then John and his family have been here a long time and he knew everyone, didn’t he?’
‘Aye, he did that and a good word for everyone. Sure you’ll miss him sorely. Whit’ll ye do?’ he finally asked, plucking up courage and looking at her for the first time.
‘Well, I’ll try to keep things going as best I can, but I don’t know how I’ll manage. I’ll have to see what can be done …’
He saw her look at the papers and the cash box and shook his head.
‘I’m afeerd I’m not the bringer of help. I wisht I was,’ he said forcefully, as he took a large white envelope from his battered mailbag and handed it to her. ‘I think I maybe know what thon is, an’ sure cou’d they not ’ave waited a wee while?’ he added sharply.
‘Well, it has to be done; it’s someone’s job to send it out,’ she said opening it, aware that he was watching, his face creased with concern.
‘Is it what I think it is?’ he asked, his tone so soft she felt herself close to tears.
The single sheet of paper with its engraved heading was difficult to unfold, but the black figure for John’s burial was even stiffer than she might have imagined. She handed it to him and smiled.
‘I’ll have to sell my jewels, won’t I?’
‘D’ye have any?’ he asked, a trace of relief breaking into his voice.
She shook her head, smiling. ‘My grandmother used to tell me I didn’t need jewels, I had jewels hanging on the hawthorns every time we got sun after rain. And then she’d say “But we do have some tea in the caddy.” Will you have a cup with me while I have it?’
He thanked her but had to say no. He’d a long round to do, it being Saturday, but he wished her good luck and said he’d hope he had something better in his mailbag for her next week.
She heard his boots on the floor of the corridor and saw his short, sturdy figure cross the cobbles to the gate, which now stood open. A few minutes later, she heard hammering from the forge. Everyday life had begun again for all their friends and neighbours, but nothing would ever be the same for her. She put the bill in the empty cash box and closed it firmly. She now had six days, not seven, to find her way. The bill was one more mountain to climb.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sarah couldn’t imagine why she had gone back to the old brown handbag belonging to John’s grandmother. She remembered clearly that she’d found a single battered note there on Friday morning when she’d tried to make up Sam’s wages and the small sums due to Ben and Scottie. As she sat down at the kitchen table with the worn and battered object, she told herself she was being silly, wasting time when the morning tasks were still only half completed and there was dinner to make for Scottie and Ben at midday and bread to bake for their evening meal.
In the end, she just laughed at herself as she picked up the handbag and struggled with the broken catch, then tipped out the familiar contents on the table. Bright beams of sunlight fell on packets of faded parchment and lit up the swirling curlicues and flowing text of manuscript writers who made a living from copying documents of all kinds.
‘Rent book, bank book, copy of lease,’ she recited, as if by speaking the words she could persuade herself more effectively that there was no money there.
She was, of course, quite right. Neither banknote, nor coin, half-crown, florin nor shilling, slipped from between the folded and only recently disturbed packets that held the birth certificates of both John and his elder brother, George, and the death certificates of his two sisters and those of his mother and his father. She had once looked at John’s birth certificate and saw a name she now recognised as that of Mary-Anne’s mother, the midwife, who as midwives often did had registered the birth herself to make sure it was actually done.
She set aside the most recent document, their own marriage certificate, without unfolding it and took up the packet of death certificates she’d never looked at. Now she drew them out of a torn and yellowed envelope, surprised at how thick the four single page documents appeared to be. That was when she found a tiny book, not unlike the bank book, though much slimmer. It was what made the envelope fatter than she’d expected. It’s pale, faded, printed cover declared it was the official record of the Friendly Society Burial Fund.
Curious about something she had never heard of, she opened it, saw the names of John’s parents of the townland of Ardrea and Parish of Salter’s Grange. The print was so small she was glad of the strong light as she began to read the requirements of the society and the terms under which they would provide a burial fund for their members.
Intrigued, she worked her way through the agreements and exclusions and noted the premiums which she’d now been informed could be paid weekly, monthly or yearly. The same hand had recorded the tiny amounts of money on line after line, page after page, from the 1780s to the 1830s when John’s parents had died within a few months of each other. Two pages, each with a single diagonal stroke and the words ‘Paid up’ recorded sums of money that seemed surprisingly large considering the smallness of the premiums.
The few remaining pages in the slim booklet were blank but for a slip of paper which said in a quite different hand: Documents for sons of deceased held by Ulster Bank, Armagh. Premiums paid half-yearly by arrangement.
She had no idea what arrangement that might be, but she knew where she might be able to find out. She opened the bank book she’d looked at the previous day – the one she’d used herself many times in the last two years. There, leafing back to the beginning of John’s own account with the bank in Armagh was the record ‘F. S.’ every six months. A small amount, so small and so infrequent she wasn’t sure she noticed it herself. If she had, she certainly didn’t remember asking him who, or what, F. S. was when she was first trying to get a picture of their income and expenses.
The most recent entry for F. S. was January 1845, so the next was due in July, except that John was gone. Like both his parents, a strong, dark line would be drawn diagonally across the unfinished page. Without question there would be an amount far greater than the bill now shut up in the cash box in the top left-hand drawer of the dresser.
For some unknown reason she could not begin to understand, she found herself in tears and discovered once again she had no handkerchief in her skirt pocket.
It was Sunday afternoon before she came back to the kitchen table with the hasty calculations she’d made the previous day. Now, on an equally sunlit April day, the sun high in a blue sky, the countryside springing to life, the newly leafed trees bending in a fierce wind, she sat down with all her account books and the cash box containing the largest bill she had ever seen.
The wind was so strong it made the doors rattle and earlier she’d had to rescue the water buckets as they rolled across the cobbles. She knew the noise would stop her from concentrating so she left them anchored with a big stone knowing she’d need them later.
She’d have to go to the Ulster Bank tomorrow morning. Until she did, she could neither do her delayed weekly visit to the grocer’s shop in English Street for tea and sugar, yeast and table salt, nor to the Guardian office in English Street to collect their weekly newspaper, which would still be waiting for their Saturday visit together.
Until she got to the bank she would not know exactly the amount to be paid out, but at a time when interest rates were steady she had already worked out a likely number based on the final figures for the two payments made in respect of John’s parents.
She took the grocer’s calendar from the
kitchen wall and studied the pattern of weeks till the end of the harvest in September. Today was Sunday 27th April, the month nearly gone. Then she opened her own still new-looking account books, their marbled covers fresh and bright, and studied the weekly totals for the same period, May to September for 1843 and 1844.
In both their years together, they had been able to put away enough money in those summer months to help them through the colder months of the year when the forge was often quiet and extra turf and coal was needed in the house. Last week, she had not been anxious about the small amount in the brown handbag because she’d known the balance in the bank was enough to see them through May and into the much busier time that continued until after the harvest. All being well.
But all had not been well. John was gone. Only one time-served smith now worked the forge and there were two apprentices to be fed and paid small weekly sums, unless, of course, John’s death should have broken that contract. Probably she ought to find out, but it had not occurred to her, any more than it would to John, to use a legal right to avoid doing what she thought was fair, keeping the boys on to finish what had been promised.
The truth was she could not predict what the forge’s income might be with only Sam and the two boys. Sam was a good worker and skilful enough, but she knew there were jobs John always did himself. The only figures she could be sure of were: the outgoings; the weekly envelopes for Sam, Ben and Scottie; the cost of feeding Ben, Scottie, herself and Daisy, the mare, in winter; and the regular recurring cost of metal and nails, lubricant and tools, like the load shed down in Ballybrannan.
That would be another bill arriving soon, usually with a month’s grace, but at least almost every item John had loaded on the trap was now where it ought to be in its place in the forge. Once the people in Ballybrannan had found out from Sam and Mary-Anne’s husband, Billy, and son, Jamsey, what had happened, it had all been brought back, in bits and pieces, whenever a trap, or a carrier cart, or even the bread man, was found to be coming up to the top of Drumilly Hill, a fair way to carry long, heavy pieces of angle iron, or the sacks of horseshoe nails retrieved from the stream below the road.
She remembered the slightly startled look on Sam’s face when she’d spoken lightly of selling her jewels, but it certainly hadn’t taken her long to check if there were any items at all whose value might help out. No, there was nothing of value except, perhaps, poor Daisy herself who was already pining for her master. Then there was the trap, once John’s pride and joy, now badly damaged and quite unusable.
The visit to Armagh was not an easy one. Sarah had been prepared for people in shops and in the Ulster Bank, to offer condolences and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t shed tears. What she had not expected was the difficulty she encountered on her very first visit which, of course, with not a penny in her purse, had to be to the bank.
There behind the counter was a young man she did not know; from his bearing clearly not a new employee, but someone older, smart and well presented. His smile was mechanical; he addressed her as ‘Madam’, looked dubiously at the Friendly Society book and shook his head, explaining patiently as to someone not very familiar with the dealings of a bank, that they could not release funds from the Friendly Society without a death certificate and obviously she could not draw money from a joint account if the joint account holder was deceased.
It did not surprise her at all that the burial fund would require the presentation of a death certificate, nor that it might even take some time for the amount to be calculated and paid out, but what did surprise her was the fact he appeared not to know that a death certificate had to be paid for. It would be one of the first expenses to be met from the burial fund. At that point, she asked for the manager by name, was told he was on holiday and would return next week when he, no doubt, would be happy to deal with her claim.
She had turned on her heel, walked out without a word, tears of anger and frustration falling unheeded on the pale blue fabric of her second-best dress. She tramped down Russell Street without seeing either its handsome houses or the wrought-iron railings of the Presbyterian Church, crossed the road at its foot and sat on a stone seat under a tree on the Mall where she wept silently and asked for help.
Her grandmother had always taught her that in our greatest need help will come, but we must ask for it and then wait patiently. Whatever her own difficulties with the rigid rules of the Quakers in the Lisnagarvey Meeting, she had always felt that what her grandmother believed had sustained her throughout a long and often hard life. The old woman believed that ‘all would be well and all manner of thing would be well’, a quote, she said, from a good lady in Norwich called Julian. As a little girl, Sarah had been puzzled by a lady with a man’s name, but she’d come to understand that things being well was a matter of acceptance. Until you accept what has happened you can’t do anything about it.
Had John not died she would not have been in the bank on such business; had the kind and friendly manager not been taking leave, no doubt before the end of the financial year, she would not have had to deal with a young man, clearly an aspiring manager, certainly not a local. The manager, who had known John for years and herself for two, would have treated her with sympathy the moment she produced the burial fund book, an errand always difficult, even if the person involved had not suffered the loss of a beloved young husband.
But accepting that still left the question of being without a penny. She could not now pay the undertaker as she had planned, nor purchase the required death certificate. She couldn’t even buy tea and sugar, both of which were about to run out. Then she remembered the newspapers, last week’s and today’s, both of which would be waiting on a shelf behind the small counter of the Guardian office where she regularly bought nibs and ink as well as the new account books.
Well, she could at least apologise to her grocer for not being able to pay last week’s bill nor buy any of her usual supplies this week. ‘Paying last week’s bill,’ was one of the puzzling things John had to explain to her when she first came to Armagh and they went together into town for her first weekly shop.
It seemed that you always went to the same grocer, in John’s case, Cousers, where his parents had shopped. You could say you ‘dealt’ with a particular grocer because you were always a week behind with your payment. He explained that the ‘indebtedness’ was a kind of contract. If someone told you that they were ‘paying their bill’, it meant there’d been some falling out and they were taking their custom elsewhere.
She smiled for the first time that morning and thought of the friendly assistants in Cousers. They all knew her now, whether John was able to bring her in the trap as he so liked to do, or she had to walk into town by herself when he was too busy to leave the forge. At least she could assure them she was not taking her custom elsewhere. That would be something to set against the distress she had felt in the bank.
She walked in to the dim interior and was touched by the familiar smells of spices and fresh sawdust on the floor, grateful for a continuing thing in a world where suddenly everything seemed to be different, bleaker, sadder and unfamiliar.
The shop was quiet, no other customers in sight, but the moment she appeared the tall, angular figure of the senior assistant caught sight of her, excused himself from where he stood instructing two of the young lads on the weighing of dry goods and hurried round to her side of the counter with one of the tall counter-height chairs they provided for their customers.
‘Mrs Hamilton, dear, sit down,’ he said warmly. ‘Did ye walk it or was one of yer neighbours comin’ in an’ lifted ye?’
‘No, Harry, I walked it. It’s a lovely morning and I was glad to see the sun and the trees,’ she replied, suddenly finding tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
‘Ach now, don’t mind the tears, missus dear, shure wasn’t many a one shed in here when we got the news from yer neighbour, Mrs Halligan. Yer good man, an’ a good man he was, shure, he had a kine word for everyone. What’ll ye do wi
’out him? Will ye go back to yer own people? We’ll be heart sorry to lose ye,’ he said, bending towards her, his body placed firmly between her and a customer who had just stepped through the door.
‘I have no people, Harry,’ she said honestly, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. ‘I’ve a brother in Lurgan, but we were orphans. Our grandmother took me in, but he lived with friends of my mother and father. They died of fever when I was small. This is my home now,’ she said, managing a smile.
‘An’ whit about the forge an’ all? How will ye manage?’ he asked, a look of concern on his lined face, his bushy white eyebrows raised in puzzlement. ‘John was no great han’ at accounts, I know that; a great smith I heerd tell, but he useta laugh about it himsel’, said he diden know how I could tot up a bill in my head an’ it always right. Did you take them over?’
‘I did indeed,’ she replied easily. ‘I was brought up with accounts,’ she explained, ‘it was simply part of what my grandmother taught her “wee scholars”, as she called them. Many of their parents would have been in business, like my brother.’
‘An’ woud he maybe be able to help ye out,’ he asked tentatively, his face full of concern.
‘No, Harry, he couldn’t,’ she shook her head sadly. ‘He has a textile business in Lurgan, still going, but times are hard in textiles, as you know, with competition from overseas. He supports the old couple who took him in when our parents died. He has his hands full, as they say,’ she added, giving him a weak smile.
‘If there is anythin’ at all I can do t’ help ye, will ye tell me? Shure hard times comes til’ us all an’ aren’t we bound to help each other?’
She nodded, grateful for his kindness, but afraid tears might let her down again if she spoke. Then she remembered she’d come to tell him that she couldn’t pay last week’s bill.
