The Blacksmith's Wife

by Anne Doughty

  ‘And had she been taken ill that day we met and you had to leave immediately?’ she asked gently, remembering his distress and his hasty parting words when he said he hoped they would meet again.

  ‘Yes, you could say that,’ he replied soberly. ‘At times she has violent phases. I had visited her in the morning and she seemed quite stable, but as soon as I left there was a dramatic change. They thought I might be able to help.’

  ‘And were you?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. If anything, my presence made things worse. They asked me to leave and were sorry they’d sent for me,’ he said wryly.

  ‘And has she been at The Retreat for long?’ she asked cautiously, seeing how little he wanted to have to speak about it.

  ‘Since the second year of our marriage,’ he began, collecting himself. ‘Her family are landowners in Richhill. They said it would be more homely for her to be in care here, rather than in Yorkshire. I felt they wanted to be near her, so I agreed. She’s been there ten years.’

  ‘And you’ve been visiting all that time?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ he admitted wearily. ‘To be honest, having work to do for the Yearly Meeting when I come makes it easier for me. I’ve cousins in Lurgan and Lisburn, and another one in Donegal. I’ll be visiting them all while I’m over to seek their help with information from their own localities. Then I’ll be writing reports for the Yearly Meeting.’

  ‘But what about your own work?’ Sarah asked promptly. ‘You said you were a manufacturer.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ he agreed with a slight smile. ‘But if you can have absentee landlords then you can have absentee manufacturers,’ he said lightly. ‘I am privileged; I have good people, many of them fellow Friends working for me. The business is a large one and has always been diversified. Even in these hard times the productive ones can subsidise the weak ones, so no one is thrown out of work. We try to find ways of adapting.’

  ‘Like getting your women workers to turn to making cheap clothing from fabric you can’t sell?’

  ‘How did you hear about that?’ he asked, looking totally amazed.

  ‘I didn’t. But when I was trying to think of a way of making a living for myself and keeping the forge going, it came to me as an idea. My brother, Charles, runs a workshop in Lurgan for the elderly couple who brought him up when our parents died. He’s in the process of trying to sell up, but he gave me cloth when I told him what I was planning to do. He said it was a good idea, but he was so short of capital that he couldn’t do it himself. He’s thinking of going to America, but he hasn’t even got the money for his fare. I’ve started saving up for him.’

  They paused as a skinny girl in a black dress came and took their empty plates away. Sarah smiled encouragingly at her, thinking of Annie back at Castle Dillon, wondering if this girl too was an orphan who had been found a place where she’d ‘hafta mine her manners’.

  ‘There are so many in such need,’ Sarah said sadly, without quite thinking about it, as he offered her the menu to choose a dessert.

  ‘Does it sometimes burden you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, promptly. ‘Here am I with a lovely lunch and apple crumble as a treat, when many hard-working people will be lucky if they get a bowl of porridge tonight.’ She paused and then went on, ‘Even as a little girl, I worried about other people. My grandmother tried to help me because I got so upset when I saw great need and couldn’t do anything about it. She used to say: “Do what you can, do it in love and be sure that it will be more than you ever imagined.”’

  ‘Did she indeed?’ he replied immediately. ‘That was one of my mother’s sayings too. Do you know where it comes from?’

  ‘No. I’ve often wondered. I know it’s not the Bible. Could it be Shakespeare?’ she asked, as the thought struck her.

  ‘I don’t know Shakespeare well enough. There are plays like Coriolanus I’ve never even read,’ he said honestly. ‘But it doesn’t really matter where it comes from, does it? If something helps you on your way you just give thanks and use it, don’t you?’

  Although Sarah was always glad to see Mary-Anne, she was grateful she didn’t come up the hill that Saturday evening. When Scottie came to collect bread and a small casserole she’d made the previous day with a meal for herself, she did confess to him how tired she felt. He’d delighted her by the way he came back at her with a big grin and said that his news could keep as it was all good.

  It was not so much that she was physically tired, though she would admit that as well. It was more that she had so much on her mind after the hours she had spent in the Charlemont Arms. She just needed to be by herself in the quiet to let the events of the day settle.

  She moved slowly but made a beginning on the jobs left over from the morning. Then she brought out an old winter dress to wear on Sunday while her best dress was being ironed and freshened for Monday. She became aware that all the time she was working she kept thinking of ‘Do what you can … do it in love …’

  Like a catchy tune, or a well-loved verse of poetry, it repeated and repeated in her head, even when she finally got into bed and stretched out her weary body, ready for sleep.

  It was such a long time since she’d had a conversation of any length with a man. She tried in vain to think who there had ever been in her life, besides her own dear John, to whom she could speak as freely as she had today with Jonathan. Women, yes. Her dear friend Helen, and now Mary-Anne, but that was something different.

  She could say anything she wanted to John, any thought that passed through her mind. He would always respond. In the dark of the night, she could see the concentration on his brow, a slight movement of his lips, as if he were repeating her words, his total focus on her face. But John had not been educated beyond the local school and the age of twelve. He wrote a good hand and read his few books, but he was often so tired from the hard physical labour of the forge that he had little time or energy for broadening his mind, alert as it might be.

  The ache of longing for his presence came upon her, as it had so often in the long months since April. It had been a lovely spring day when he went to Armagh for supplies for the forge and now, tomorrow, Sunday, was the first of November. The dark of winter would rule for at least three months and perhaps far more.

  She shuddered at the thought, as if she was being asked to face those months without warm clothing or a bite to eat. But now, she reminded herself against this bleak prospect, there was someone else to whom she could talk. Not often and usually only by letter, but there was someone with whom she could share words and thoughts, if nothing more. It was a gift, totally unexpected, but still to be cherished.

  There were other gifts too and in the quiet of a dim, misty Sunday morning, Sarah stood at her ironing board and gave thanks. Sam Keenan had now fully recovered from his pneumonia and tomorrow there would be two hammers echoing from the forge as she left for work.

  Scottie had not only shot up in height during the summer but he seemed to have grown up disproportionately as well. To Sarah’s great surprise, he told her that he now kept in touch with Ben, who had made his way to Peterborough, Ontario, where he was working with a farmer anxious to promote mechanisation on his farm.

  Sarah had received some dollars from Ben many months back to be given to Scottie, but now it seemed he sent them direct whenever he could. He’d also introduced Scottie to the former teacher in Loughgall he’d visited so often himself. It now seemed a new friendship had been established and Scottie had an older man to support and encourage him, as well as having the support of Sarah herself.

  A gleam of sunlight penetrated the dim, low-ceilinged kitchen, catching the pile of papers she’d been sorting, among them her jotter and bank book. The still open page now showed the first deposit from her monthly salary cheque. The balance was still very low with winter to come but when she wrote to her brother this afternoon she would ask him for some more fabric and tell him that this time she would like to pay him for the previous lot as well. She wou
ld also tell him that, all being well, she could send him the price of his ticket. He’d need the money before the ice melted so as to get a passage once the St Lawrence Seaway was free of ice next May, if by then he still wanted to go.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Shure we can but try,’ said Mary-Anne, as they sat at Sarah’s kitchen table drinking tea after a long evening checking and folding the garments they’d worked on since midsummer when Sarah had first put the idea of the clothes market to her friend.

  ‘Of course, you’re right,’ Sarah replied, yawning deeply and then laughing at herself. ‘I’m sorry, Mary-Anne, at this moment I’m so tired, I couldn’t give you change of a sixpence.’

  Mary-Anne nodded ruefully, drained her mug of tea and stood up. ‘We’ve done our best an’ if it doesn’ work out shure there’s no great harm done. Ye’ll be as right as rain in the mornin’.’

  At the front door she paused, put her arms around Sarah, hugged her and kissed her cheek. ‘Jamsey will be up here in good time the morra an’ Scottie can give him a han’ t’ pack the trap. You can pick me up on the way past. I’ll be ready and I’ll have a bit of lunch in a bag; you’ll have enough to do without doin’ that as well. Now away to yer bed, like a good wumman,’ she said briskly, as she drew her shawl round her and stepped out into the damp and misty night.

  Sarah yawned yet again as she looked round the cluttered room. Garments were stacked, neatly tied up with strips of torn fabric or string to keep them in manageable bundles. They weren’t heavy, but they had to fit into the trap with both Mary-Anne and herself, as well as Jamsey, who’d offered to help them load and unload and take care of Daisy until whatever time they were ready for the homeward journey.

  Most of the garments were their own work, but some had been made by friends or neighbours. Those were the items Sarah was most anxious to sell. But standing looking at them wasn’t going to help. She could almost hear Mary-Anne scolding her as she stood staring at their stock when she should be seeing to the fire, laying the table for breakfast and getting herself off to bed.

  The next morning even the irrepressible Mary-Anne was quiet as they trotted briskly into town, Daisy clearly surprised at this change in direction. By nine o’clock, they had laid out their stall, chatted briefly to the traders on either side of them and were awaiting their first customer. They were both surprised and somewhat taken aback when a red-faced man came up to them and without any acknowledgement or greeting, started turning over garments and examining some of them.

  Sarah had just made up her mind to speak when he glanced at them dismissively. ‘I suppose the pair of you have a licence to sell this stuff?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sarah calmly, knowing without even looking at her that Mary-Anne was getting cross.

  ‘An’ where might I ask did ye get all this stuff?’ he went on, dropping a child’s dress in a crumpled heap on top of a row of neatly arranged garments.

  ‘You may indeed ask,’ said Sarah, ‘but we’re under no obligation to tell you,’ she said, picking up the child’s dress and refolding it neatly.

  He scowled at them, turned his back and walked away. A few minutes later their first customer arrived. She was impressed with the quality of the work and pleasantly surprised when they told her the price.

  She bought five items and Mary-Anne could hardly wait till she was out of earshot to say: ‘Diden I tell you so?’

  ‘Who does thon fat-faced fella think he is?’ she demanded, after their next customer had gone.

  Sarah herself had been wondering the same thing. Clearly, his nose was out of joint and if he wanted to know who they were it could only mean he must somehow see them as competition. In one respect they were indeed competition if he were one of the ‘drapers’ who handed out cloth and collected garments from home workers, paying them a pittance for their long hours of labour. Anyone else selling similar work would of course be a threat.

  They didn’t have long to wait for an answer to their questions. Around noon, although they’d remained busy all morning, there was a sudden lull. When Mary-Anne and Sarah observed their neighbours taking out their lunch, they produced their own.

  ‘I hope you had as good a morning as we’ve had,’ said Sarah, addressing a young woman far gone in pregnancy, who was sitting down gratefully on one of the rickety chairs provided with the stall itself.

  ‘Yes, it was good enough but I’m hoping the afternoon will be even better. I’ve my eye on your baby clothes if we make enough,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Ye’d be welcome to choose what ye want now an’ we’ll put it by for ye, till ye see how things go,’ said Mary-Anne promptly. ‘Come an’ have a look when ye’ve had a bit of a rest. It’s hard work standin’ an’ ye might miss what you particularly wanted if ye leave it too long.’

  ‘That’s very good of you,’ said a tall young man, clearly her husband, as he refolded heavy-duty work trousers and took dark-coloured linen shirts from a battered cardboard box stacked under the equally battered wooden stall itself. ‘I think Rachel here took a fancy to the baby’s dress your first customer didn’t buy.’

  ‘Did you know the gentleman in question?’ Sarah asked promptly.

  ‘Oh yes, we know him all right,’ said Rachel, looking up at her husband. ‘My mother used to do work for him until her eyes got bad. She used to say “he’s as mean as get out.”’

  Sarah had never heard the expression before but it was clear when Mary-Anne laughed aloud that she was entirely familiar with the comment. Clearly, it was not complimentary.

  Rachel and Joe were selling seconds of work clothes from a factory near Antrim. They worked on commission, but that was paid weekly in cash. It wasn’t a lot, they admitted, but they saved it for the rent which otherwise made a big hole in what Joe earned as a home weaver.

  Much encouraged by the friendliness of the young couple, Sarah and Mary-Anne brought out all the baby clothes they still had left and let Rachel choose what she wanted. Joe insisted that in another hour he’d know how much they could spend and there’d still be time to sell anything she’d chosen but couldn’t afford.

  ‘Isn’t it nice to meet nice people?’ Mary-Anne whispered to Sarah as they tidied up their lunch bags, straightened their stock and observed the people who were now reappearing from various eating places as well as shops and offices nearby.

  ‘Well now, will you at least take credit for the idea?’ said Mary-Anne, nudging her friend as they sat once again at Sarah’s kitchen table. ‘Wou’d ye have believed that much if I’d told you?’

  Mary-Anne waved her hand at the piles of coins they had just counted and put in saucers and bowls on the table, while Sarah made her notes and added up the total.

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without you, Mary-Anne. Are you sure we can keep going?’

  ‘Sure what’s t’ stop us. I ken see we’ve got t’fine more stuff in a hurry for next week, but sure when we deliver the money to the women that was tryin’ us out can’t we ask them if they’d do a bit extra this week till we see how much we’ll be needin’? If I know some of them, they’ll be only too glad to have the chance, especially those with husbands on short time or out of work. An’ I can do extra m’self. I can leave most of my jobs to the boys and do far more than I was doin’.’

  ‘Yes, but every week?’ Sarah said cautiously.

  ‘Every week we need stuff till we get a whole team together. Now we’ve shown we can do it, I’m tellin’ you they’ll be queuin’ up for a decent rate of pay. They’ve not had that before. Didn’t ye hear yerself what young Rachel said about what yer man giv’ t’ her mother whin she was workin’ for him? Sure it was next t’nothin’ an’ with a red nose like that, he must be on the bottle. Drinkin’ poor folks’ earnin’s!’ she ended up furiously.

  In spite of herself, Sarah laughed. Mary-Anne was so forthright, she seldom paused to think, but she was also so kind-hearted that it was only the likes of Mr Rednose, as they’d christened him, that got the rough end of her to
ngue. Sarah knew perfectly well that Mary-Anne was quite capable of finding women in need and getting them organised, provided Sarah herself did all the calculations of their earnings. Mary-Anne had confessed freely she was no good at sums. Her own housekeeping she managed with money in different sized jam pots so she could see where she was and which jar needed the egg money when it came.

  They agreed that tonight it was too late to make any more plans, but they’d made a start, had learnt a lot and made a tidy sum from both their own work and the modest commission they were charging to cover their expenses. Sarah was sure they would enjoy the activity even more when they’d had a bit of practice and a proper team they could rely on for creating their stock. Cheered as she was by their success, she couldn’t see how she could make time to sew, as well as all the other things she needed to do for the house or forge. But the pencilled figures in her battered jotter could not be argued away. The first day had been a great success.

  November proceeded damp and misty but with no hard weather. Sarah and Daisy were able to get to work without problems and once back in Sir George’s room she slowly began to get order into the piles of documents she’d now found in cupboards and drawers. To these new piles, she had to add a suitcase full of documents which Sir George presented her with after one of his visits to his Dublin house.

  Among the most welcome items to emerge from the Dublin suitcase was the Armagh out-letter file in which the letters Sir George had sent from Castle Dillon had been copied up in a flowing hand with a great many flourishes and squiggles.

  Sarah rather wondered if the young man who had abandoned Sir George without notice, leaving his letters and papers in such a state of disorder, had artistic pretensions. But she was still enormously grateful. The presence of the out-letter book meant she could now trace back letters and ongoing negotiations and tell Sir George what he’d said on previous occasions.