by Anne Doughty
She stood and looked at the desk and its burden and wondered where to start. The sunlight was beaming through tall windows, pulling out the rich colour of the carpets. In contrast, far above her head, the smooth white ceiling was decorated with an elaborate plaster centrepiece which matched the architrave running round the whole room. It was full of flowers and intertwining leaves that created a sense of order and pattern in complete contrast with the room below, a room full of disorder, piles of books and overflowing boxes of paper heaped up on chairs and on the floor, making it difficult to move around even though the room itself was so large.
She made up her mind. What must come first was the surface of the desk, for it was clear that letters had been deposited for so long that, like sodden slopes in winter, it would need only a very little more deposited on top to start a landslide.
It was perfectly obvious the letters at the bottom of the piles had arrived before those in the middle, or at the top. She began creating new, less unstable, piles on the floor, a scribbled note from her jotter recording the dates of the arrival of items at the bottom and at the top. Some of the items went back a long way.
She had just revealed half of the handsome leather covering on the surface of the desk and was wondering where the nearest duster might be, when she heard the door open behind her. To her surprise, the person who entered was not Sir George, as she thought it might be, but a thin, pale girl in a black dress with her dark hair almost completely hidden under a crisp white cap. She carried a tray gingerly in both hands. It bore a silver teapot, a pretty china cup and saucer with a motif of garden flowers and a matching plate displaying a pretty arrangement of shortbread biscuits.
‘Your tea, my lady,’ the girl said, bobbing a curtsey, as soon as she had put the tray down on the newly revealed surface of the desk.
For a moment, Sarah was quite overwhelmed by the desire to laugh, but then she saw the painful unease on the girl’s face.
‘I’m not that sort of lady, I’m a servant just as you are,’ she said gently. ‘My name is Sarah Hamilton, what’s yours?’
‘Annie,’ she replied baldly, clearly still defeated by what to call this person in front of her.
‘And have you been at Castle Dillon long, Annie?’ she asked patiently, aware the girl was close to tears, though for what reason she could not guess.
‘Since yesterday.’
‘Then you are a day ahead of me,’ said Sarah, smiling. ‘This is my first day and I don’t know who anyone is, except Sir George and Mrs Carey and Robert the blacksmith.’
‘Mrs Carey said if I diden mine me manners they’d sen’ me back,’ Annie said, her voice wavering.
‘Back where?’ Sarah asked.
‘T’ th’ workhouse.’
The look of devastation on the girl’s face made Sarah think of all the negative things she had ever heard about that institution. What could she possibly say about it?
‘And are your mother and father still there?’ she asked, totally overwhelmed by the sadness and anxiety in the girl’s face.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’ve no mother an’ no father. I’ve no one belongin’ to me. I’m all on ma lone.’
For a moment, Sarah thought she heard steps approaching the door. She wondered if someone might appear to scold Annie for idling, but just as she’d had to find something to say to Scottie, she knew she had to do, or say, something to help this poor girl.
Once again, like both Scottie and herself, with only his elderly Granny ‘belongin” to him, was someone else with no sheltering arms to hold them, to enfold them and comfort them when they were in distress. No mother, no father, no sister, no brother, no husband, no wife. As Annie had put it so simply, they were ‘on their lone’.
‘Here,’ she said quickly, ‘put these in your pocket and we’ll see each other tomorrow. Call me “Mrs Hamilton” when anyone else is here. Call me “Sarah” when I’m on my own,’ she added, as she handed over two of the shortbread biscuits from the pretty china plate.
To her great delight, she saw a wisp of a smile as the fingers closed on what was clearly a rare treat. The thin, pale face was transformed for a single moment and in that moment Sarah saw Annie had the makings of a very pretty girl.
Time moved on and Sarah was summoned to lunch by the young man called James she’d met on her last visit. He escorted her to her place beside Mrs Carey at the top of the long table in the servants’ hall. The food was good and plentiful, but Sarah found it hard to enjoy while replying to Bridget Carey’s stream of questions above the noise of the large assembled company. She was so glad to get lunch over that she said a polite ‘No, thank you’ to tea in Mrs Carey’s sitting room on the grounds that she’d not managed a quarter of what needed doing today.
She was grateful for the enfolding quiet of Sir George’s study where the fire had been made up in her absence and someone had left a basket containing wax polish and cleaning materials probably in response to her question to James as to where she could find such things.
She sniffed the polish appreciatively and applied it sparingly to the half of the desk that stood empty and dusty. She was so encouraged by the wonderful effect it had on the leather surface she was sure she got through clearing the second half much faster than the first.
For the moment, she was not opening letters and looking at them unless they’d already been opened in the first place. Her sole concern was to create order, to have piles that were not so high they’d fall over. Sorting them for content, or urgency, she tried not to think about. Some of the envelopes looked very battered and worn as if they’d been around for a long time, but clearly all of them remained unanswered.
What could they be about? she wondered. She knew there were no letters in what she’d sorted from family and friends. These would be marked private and probably would be delivered straight to the family breakfast table, not stacked up in Sir George’s study. So what were all of these?
Finally, overcome by curiosity, she opened a letter that still looked fresh and recent. Despite its very small copperplate, she found the text consistent and legible. The writer began by insisting that it was a true copy of the minutes made this day of our Lord, 13th September 1845 at the request of Sir George Molyneux, Chairman of the said Committee of Governors of the Armagh Workhouse.
Fascinated, she read on and found that one of the topics under discussion was the eleven-year-old who had applied for permission to go and live with a Mr Hamilton. It seemed that Mary-Jane Gray had returned to the house rather than live in the country with the Hamilton family and it was proposed that the shoes and stockings given to Mary-Jane Gray on her going out to service were now to be given to this new applicant.
Sarah paused, wondering if Annie had had such a ‘going out’ present. Then her eye caught a list of punishments. Three young men were to have no supper for a week, two of them to have twenty-four lashes as well.
Distressed by the punishment for not working hard enough, Sarah was reluctant to read any further, but an item about illegitimate children caught her eye. Sadly, she read it and was reminded that Annie was only one of a large number, fifty-three in this report who had no one to protect them apart from the officers of the workhouse whose rules seemed harsh indeed.
The fire was burning low by the time the desk was clear and the piles on the carpet arranged chronologically. Sir George had not appeared and no one she’d spoken to in the course of the day seemed to have the slightest idea where he was. It was almost six o’clock when James appeared once more with two small bundles of post on a silver tray.
‘Mrs Carey said to tell you: “These came yesterday and these today and she knew there was no point sending them round till you’d sorted out the desk.”’
He bowed and placed the two small bundles on the wide stretch of gleaming leather.
‘Shall I ask for your conveyance to be brought to the servants’ door, ma’am?’ he asked, as the clock struck six.
‘No, thank you, James. I’l
l walk down to the stables when I’ve checked everything out. I’ll be going shortly,’ she replied, wondering why this young man always made her feel so uneasy.
She stood looking down at the desk. Clearing it had been her long day’s work. She touched the two small bundles, each tied in a bow with string from the kitchen. The earlier one had a white envelope on top.
She removed the string from both packets and picked out an envelope that looked somehow familiar. Suddenly it came to her that the message from The Retreat had arrived in such an envelope, bringing to an end her long wait in the library and her conversation with a Quaker man.
She turned it over but did not open it. She knew right away who it was from. He’d told her he would write to Sir George and he had. A man of his word, as all Quakers had been brought up to be.
‘Jonathan Hancock,’ she said to herself, smiling as she thought back to their meeting on Monday. ‘I wonder what business you have with Sir George Molyneux.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The colour was wonderful – a deep, rich plum – but Sarah couldn’t be sure what the fabric was. Not linen, or wool and certainly not velvet which would not wear well. She stood in John Wilson’s shop in English Street and stroked the rich fabric, totally absorbed with its intense colour and the possibility of making from it one of the new dresses she so badly needed.
After her first whole month as Sir George’s assistant she knew a great deal about many things previously unknown to her, but what she did not know was how she was going to find the time and energy to make the two extra dresses Sir George had suggested she would need.
‘Nice bit o’ cloth, Sarah, an’ good value inta the bargain.’
‘Hello, Lily, I haven’t seen you for ages,’ Sarah said, smiling warmly at the small figure who had so often amused both her and Mary-Anne by the welcoming fireside at the foot of the hill.
‘I’m afraid my new job keeps me busy,’ Sarah added apologetically. ‘I have to catch up with Mary-Anne in the evenings so she comes up and tells me the news while I bake or give myself a clean collar for the morning. How are you, Lily?’
‘Oh, busy as usual,’ Lily grinned, twisting her face in a wry smile. ‘There’s anither lock o’ girls settin’ up for Australia an’ I’ve the bonnets to do as per usual.’
Sarah laughed.
‘Yes, I thought you’d be busy. I have to copy up the minutes for the Workhouse Committee for a contact of Sir George so I thought about you when I saw that. And, of course, Wilson’s as well for the dresses.’
‘Aye, ye’d know all about it. An’ yer man,’ she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘makes a nice wee bit out of it wi’ the stuff fer dresses, an’ shawls forby. Oh aye, they set thim girls up well. Shure I suppose it’s cheaper than havin’ to feed thim fer years if they’ve bin deserted. Shure most of thim has nether far’er nor mor’er.’
Sarah nodded her agreement, but did not say that at the last count there were fifty-three illegitimate children in the workhouse, as well as a number whose fathers had deserted them, knowing their mothers would have no option but to go to the workhouse. The Guardians were pursuing the fathers but without much success.
‘That’s a good price,’ repeated Jilly, fingering the material. ‘I’d say yer man has bought out the stock from some puir soul goin’ broke. He’ll make a bob or two on it, that’s for sure.’
Sarah detected a note of hostility towards John Wilson, of whom she herself had never heard a bad word, so she changed the subject by asking Lily’s advice.
‘Do you think it would make up well?’
‘Aye, I’m sure it wou’d. Are ye makin’ it yerself?’ she asked sharply.
‘Well I’d like to, but if I can’t, I’ve been told there’s a good dressmaker at Castle Dillon.’
‘Aye, but ye’d hafta pay her,’ she said dismissively.
Sarah agreed that she would and was glad when John Wilson himself appeared at their side, looking amiable and asking if he could be of any assistance. To Sarah’s surprise Lily disappeared so quickly she had no time to say goodbye to her.
‘I’m admiring this lovely fabric, Mr Wilson. I hadn’t got as far as the price tag yet,’ she said laughing.
He nodded agreeably, told her the name of the mix of fibres, of which she had never heard and then added promptly: ‘We might, of course, make a special discount for a regular customer like yourself.’
Sarah smiled to herself. It was true, she visited the shop often on a Saturday if she came to town to buy groceries. But when she looked at fabric, mostly it was to see what she could buy for herself, or for Mary-Anne, to turn into garments they could sell in the market.
Since the late summer, they had both worked hard to build up stock ahead of next Thursday, when the first of her promised days off coincided with the cloth market held in a market yard at the back of the Scotch Street shops.
She made up her mind. The colour was lovely and she was now reassured that the fabric was robust enough for everyday wear.
‘Well that always helps, Mr Wilson,’ she said, as he took a pencil from behind his ear and made a scribble on the sales ticket.
‘Glad to be of service,’ he replied, signalling the young assistant to measure and cut as required and make up a parcel in strong brown paper.
As there was no sign of Lily anywhere, Sarah set off for the Charlemont Arms Hotel in English Street where she’d been able to leave Daisy and the trap, her other shopping already loaded earlier, to give her the chance to move freely in the crowded streets and to look rather than buy.
She was just about to turn down the side entrance to the stables behind the new inn when she heard her name. Surprised, she turned quickly and saw Jonathan Hancock hurrying towards her.
‘Greetings, Friend Sarah,’ he said smiling, and using the conventional greeting between Quakers.
She paused only a moment before returning it. He knew perfectly well since their first meeting that she was out of unity with the Quakers, but in no way out of love with the principles she’d learnt from her grandmother.
‘I got such a surprise when I got your letter on behalf of Sir George,’ he said, reaching out to take her parcel. ‘It’s almost lunchtime,’ he went on quickly. ‘Will you eat with me, please? There are so many things I want to ask you and the dining room here is quiet.’
She could think of no good reason why she should not, so they went together into the new dining room with its raftered ceiling and open fire.
‘Did you go to Sir George to ask for employment?’ he asked, his eyes bright, a small smile playing round his lips.
‘No, I went to ask him to forgive me my rent for six months to see if I could earn a living and keep my husband’s forge going.’
She saw the smile disappear as he registered that she must have been bereaved, but he paused only for a moment, and then went on.
‘And you ended up as his “woman of business”. How on earth did you manage that?’
She laughed and told him the whole story, watching with amusement the changing expressions on his very mobile face. He seemed younger than when they’d last met, but then, on that occasion, he’d been waiting to see Sir George for a long time, just as she had, but unlike her that very long morning, he’d probably had the journey by coach and ship from Yorkshire somewhere in the previous days.
Suddenly, she remembered the hand-delivered letter which had brought an end to their first conversation in Sir George’s library and the envelope of the same kind that appeared on a silver tray as she was about to leave after her exhausting first day in the study. She’d been so tired she’d not had the energy to open it. When she did apply the engraved, silver paper knife next morning, she found it was his courteous request to Sir George that they might speak about the Armagh Workhouse of which Sir George was now Chairman of the Guardian’s Committee.
Replying on behalf of Sir George, who said, somewhat to her surprise, that he would do all in his power to assist him ‘in such an admirable project�
��, was one of the very first tasks she’d undertaken at the handsome desk assigned to her, the one Sir George himself resolutely refused to use.
She’d wondered at the time exactly what the ‘admirable project’ was. Clearly Sir George had heard of it, but she assumed she’d just have to wait for a further exchange of letters to find out. Now, here she was, able to ask Jonathan himself any question she wanted.
They talked easily and at length while Jonathan explained how he’d been commissioned by their Yearly Meeting to join a group making a survey of the causes of poverty in Ireland. They had begun their work in 1838 during a period of famine. Now, in 1845, they felt that many of the causes of famine then were still present and not fully understood, even though the building of workhouses had been a step towards helping the poorest of the poor.
She understood now why Sir George had been so positive in his response. However irritable he might be about the paperwork which he so disliked and the people who regularly called upon him for both his time and his money, he was, as she had guessed after their first meeting, a kind-hearted man who was generous to both servants and tenants.
‘But why did you come to Armagh, Jonathan, or is it not just Armagh that you visit?’ she asked.
‘No, not just Armagh,’ he said, pausing visibly to collect himself. ‘I was already visiting Armagh regularly to see my wife, so they thought I might be able to extend those visits for the benefit of the ongoing work.’
‘Your wife?’ Sarah repeated, taken aback as she tried to make sense of the situation.
‘My wife lives at The Retreat. She’s been there for many years and no longer knows who I am.’
Sarah felt relief sweep over her. His behaviour had been so easy towards her, proper and yet very warm that, for a moment, she just couldn’t take in the fact that he could be married. As everyone knew, The Retreat was an alternative to the Armagh and District Lunatic Asylum, if you were wealthy enough to afford its charges.
