by Anne Doughty
She’d had some strange dreams last night and now images began to float back to her. She imagined she could smell hawthorn, the May blossom, and the touch of the rug on her shoulders felt like the delicious warmth when one could stand in the doorway, back to the sun and feel the kindly heat taking away the ache produced by heavy buckets and tending to the fire on the hearth.
She laughed at herself as her bare feet got cold, pulled on her clothes and ran downstairs to stir the fire and make porridge.
She worked all morning and marvelled that the sense of pleasure simply did not fade with the passing hours. When the postman came into the kitchen and placed a fat letter on the table, she simply assumed that Jonathan had been able to spend a whole evening by his own fireside. This was how he always tried to share it with her.
After the postman left she went upstairs, washed and changed, the letter sitting on the table like a child’s promised treat, only to be savoured when the appropriate things had been done. Laughing at herself for her imaginings, she made up the fire, peeled vegetables for the midday meal and finally sat down at the table to open the envelope and smooth out the multiple sheets.
My dearest Sarah,
How I wish I could take you in my arms and whisper in your ear, for what I have to tell you makes me so hesitant and so anxious, lest you should think me in any way unfeeling. I know not where to begin, alternately overcome by joy, and then by the frustration of not being able to speak directly to you.
My dear one, I have just received two letters both of which I should have received several weeks ago. One of them contained a death certificate for my wife issued by Dr Leslie, the medical attendant at both the workhouse and The Retreat, plus an account for funeral expenses. It also enclosed a letter in which I was informed officially by the director of The Retreat that my wife died only three days after I left you.
You will indeed remember only too well that she had fever. It seems the advice I was given when it was diagnosed was not alarmist, as we might have thought. Burial was required immediately because of the nature of the fever she had. There was simply no question of informing me, so that I could make appropriate arrangements or return to attend the funeral.
The second letter, which I received at the same time, was a note from my brother-in-law written some days after the funeral itself. A man considerably older than myself, he is somewhat reserved, so what he said took me aback completely. I shall copy it for you just as he wrote it:
‘Jonathan,’ he began, ‘you have done your part. You said you could provide well for my sister when you married her and you have done that. You have ensured that she wanted for nothing, “in sickness and in health” as we Anglicans avow. Now, she has no more earthly needs once the funeral expenses are settled.
If I may be so bold, I would like to tell you that if you were to engage with some other woman and want to make her your wife, then none of us would wish to see you delay making a new life for yourself. It may well be a custom in your faith group to show respect for the lost one by delaying any other potential marriage, but I hope you will not feel bound by this tradition at the expense of your own happiness.’
My own happiness, my love, my Sarah. He may or may not have found out that we are friends, but his words are sincerely meant and they contain a gift I could not have dared hope for.
You gave me your promise last year, beneath the summer-leafed trees on The Mall, may I now ask you, in all humility, to make me the happiest man alive and name a day, as soon as maybe, when we can become man and wife?
Please write as soon as you can. I am not sure I can contain my excitement or my joy till I have your letter in my hand.
My love and thoughts are ever with you,
Jonathan
POSTSCRIPT
The Irish Famine was not said to be over for several more years and the huge number of casualties is still being argued over in the twenty-first century.
It is certainly true that a million or more died, though probably more from illness than from starvation. A million or more emigrated, a process that has continued ever since.
Some of the characters in this novel are historical persons. Sir George Molyneux mourned his ten-year-old son in March 1847 when this little boy, his eldest son and heir, died of scarlet fever. Sir George himself died a year later, aged thirty-five, his wife, Lady Emma, marrying in England a year after that.
But five million people survived, including many of those recreated in this novel, a fiction that tries to be true to the facts and to the courage of those like Sarah and Jonathan who ‘did what they could, did it in love and saw that often it was even more than they could have hoped’.
Their descendants are still doing just that in 2016.
Anne Doughty,
Belfast
We hope you enjoyed this book.
Do you want to know about our other great reads, download free extracts and enter competitions?
If so, visit our website www.allisonandbusby.com.
Sign up to our monthly newsletter (www.allisonandbusby.com/newsletter) for exclusive content and offers, news of our brand new releases, upcoming events with your favourite authors and much more.
And why not click to follow us on Facebook (AllisonandBusbyBooks)
and Twitter (@AllisonandBusby)?
We’d love to hear from you!
About the Author
ANNE DOUGHTY was born in Armagh, Northern Ireland. She is the author of twelve novels including A Few Late Roses which was longlisted for the Irish Times fiction prize. After many years living in England she returned to Belfast in 1998 and wrote the first of the novels that make up the Hamiltons series.
By Anne Doughty
The Woman from Kerry
The Hamiltons of Ballydown
The Hawthorns Bloom in May
A Girl Called Rosie
For Many a Long Day
Shadow on the Land
On a Clear Day
Beyond the Green Hills
The Blacksmith’s Wife
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
12 Fitzroy Mews
London W1T 6DW
www.allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain in 2016.
This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2016.
Copyright © 2016 by ANNE DOUGHTY
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2086–6
