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Clare smiled, relieved and delighted that Jessie seemed to have fully recovered her old self after the hard time she’d had with her second child.
‘How’s Fiona?’ she asked, as she turned back to the mirror.
‘Oh, driving us mad,’ she said calmly. ‘I sent Harry to walk her up and down and tire her out a bit before Ma tries to get the dress on. She can talk about nothin’ but Auntie Clare and Uncle Andrew. Does it not make you feel old?’
‘No. Old is not what I feel today,’ she said lightly. ‘Blessed, I think is the word, as long as you don’t think I’ve gone pious,’ she added quickly. ‘It’s not just Andrew. It’s being home and having family. It’s you and Harry and wee Fiona and your mother and all the people who’ll come to the church. Even the ones that come to stand at the gate, because they go to all the weddings, or because they remember Granda Scott.’
‘Aye, there’ll be a brave few nosey ones around,’ Jessie added promptly. ‘Ma says she heard your dress was made by yer man Dior himself.’
Clare laughed, stood up and reached out for the hem of the gleaming, silk gown hanging from the picture rail.
‘Look Jessie, I only found it this morning.’
Jessie leaned over and looked closely at the inside hem. ‘Good luck, Bonne chance, Buenos . . . something or other . . . and there are names as well. Ach, isn’t that lovely? All the way round. Who did that?’ she demanded, her voice hoarse, her eyes sparkling with tears.
‘The girls in the work room. I knew them all, because I had to have so many suits and dresses, but when I had the last fitting there was nothing there. I’m sure I’d have noticed.’
‘So you’ll have luck all round ye and in whatever language takes your fancy . . .
Clare nodded, her own eyes moistening at the thought of all the little seamstresses taking it in turns to embroider their name and their message. She paused as she slipped the dress from its hanger and took a deep breath. The last thing she must do was shed a tear. Whatever it said on the packaging she had never found a mascara that didn’t run if provoked by tears. Tears of joy would be just as much of a disaster as any other kind.
The crowd of women and children gathered round the churchyard gates were not expecting very much. They knew it was to be a small affair with only close family. In fact, there were those who thought there couldn’t even be much in the way of close family if June Wiley, the housekeeper, her husband John and their girls were to be among the guests, even if June had once been Andrew Richardson’s nurse. They certainly did not expect any ‘great style’ from anyone except the bride. Even that was a matter of some doubt as rumour had it she’d bought her dress on the way home from Paris and arrived with it at the Rowentrees in a cardboard box.
The first guests to arrive did little to disperse their expectations. Jack Hamilton drove up in a well-polished, but elderly Hillman Minx. He was accompanied by his father, Sam, now in his eighties, who got out of the car with some difficulty, but once on his feet, smiled warmly at the waiting crowd, pushed back his once powerful shoulders and tramped steadily enough up to the church door.
Charlie Running, old friend of Robert Scott, walked briskly up the hill from his cousin’s house and said, ‘How are ye?’ to the gathered spectators, for Charlie knew everyone in the whole townland. Before going inside he tramped round the side of the church to pay his respects to Robert.
Next to arrive were the Wileys. June, John and all three girls, as expected. No style there. Not even a new hat or dress among them. Just their Sunday best. Charles Creaney, Andrew’s colleague and best man, parked his almost new A40 under the churchyard wall somewhat out of sight of the twin clusters of onlookers by the gates. Andrew and the two ushers got out and the four of them strode off, two by two, heading for the church door without a glance at the women in aprons or the children fidgeting at their sides.
Moments later, a small handful of husbands and wives, some of them clearly from ‘across the water’, arrived by taxi. But there was no one among them to excite more than a brief speculation as to who they might be. Only the need to view the bride and to have the relevant news to pass on in the week ahead kept some of the women from going back to their abandoned Saturday morning chores.
Then, to their surprise and amazement, one of Loudan’s smaller limousines, polished so you could see yourself in its black bodywork, and bedecked with satin ribbons, drove up and slid gently to a halt. The driver opened the passenger door, touched his cap, offered his hand and a woman stepped out into the morning sunshine, a pleasant smile on her face. In the total silence that followed her arrival, she walked slowly towards the church door.
Salters Grange had its own version of ‘great style’, but they had never seen anything to equal the poise and presentation of Marie-Claude St Clair. Her couturier would have been charmed.
‘I think she’s a film star,’ said the first woman to find her voice. ‘She’s like somethin’ ye’d see on the front of Vogue.’
‘I’m sure I’ve seen her on our new telly.’
‘Young Helen Wiley said there was a French woman and her daughter staying at the Charlemont in Armagh. Would that be her?’
‘Where’s the daughter then?’
It was then that Loudan’s largest limousine appeared, driven by none other than Loudan himself. It drew to a halt in front of the gates. From the front passenger seat, a small man in immaculate morning dress stepped out, drew himself to his full height and waited attentively until first one lovely young woman and then another was assisted by the bowler-hatted Loudan to alight from the back seat.
Robert Lafarge bowed to them both and then offered his arm to the older one. So it was that, Cinderella no more, Clare Hamilton entered Grange Church on the arm of an eminent French banker, attended by a smiling young woman, whom she had cared for in her student days as an au pair on the sands at Deauville.
As the quips and comments flew back and forth across the gravel driveway it was clear the wait had not been in vain.
‘Did ye ever see the like of it? Was that necklace emeralds?’
‘How would I know? But I can tell you somethin’. That dress was such a fit you’d not buy that in some shop. An’ her that slim. Shure it must have been made for her, and those wee pearl beads round the skirt with the green and gold threadwork in-between to match the necklace.’
‘Was it silk or brocade? It was white all right, but there was green in it somewhere when she moved.’
‘Who was the wee man giving her away?’
‘They say that’s Robert Scott’s younger brother, the one that went to America an’ niver came back.’
‘Well, he doesn’t look like a Scott to me, that’s for sure. Sure he’s only knee high to a daisy. Robert was a fair-sized man in his day . . .’
While the women of Church Hill speculated on the past and future of Clare Hamilton, granddaughter of their former blacksmith, and of Andrew Richardson, sole surviving member of the once wealthy family who had lived in the parish since the seventeenth century and served in the Government since it was first set up 1921, the two individuals themselves stood together on the newly-replaced red carpet of the chancel and exchanged rings.
In the September sunshine filtering through the windows on the south aisle, the two rings gleamed just as they had when Clare found them in the dust and fluff under the wooden couch by the stove in the forge house. As the smaller one, once bound with human hair inside the larger one, was slipped on her finger, Clare feared for her mascara once again. She had found the rings a mere fortnight after her grandfather’s death. Then, she had lost both her grandfather and her home and had only a student room to call her own. Now, so much had been given back. Someone to love who loved her as dearly. A home that was theirs, Andrew’s family home, the place he had longed to be for most of his life.
With hands joined and heads bowed for the blessing, they both felt the touch of gold. The rings that had lain in the dust for a hundred years or more had emerged untarnished. Engraved on each of them were the initials EGB. It was a message of hope: in Irish, Erin Go Bragh; in English, Ireland Forever. Or better, the words the minister had used earlier . . . for as long as you both shall live.
Three (#ulink_916c1e66-f47d-5f25-877e-fce499381129)
The first day of January 1961 was dull and overcast in Armagh. Clare stood at the bedroom window and looked out across the lawn and over the curve of Drumsollen’s own low hill. Even under a grey sky the grass was a vibrant green and shaggy with growth. So far this winter there had been no severe weather and no snow at all, but spring was still a long time away.
After breakfast, Andrew stepped out into the early morning, left crumbs on the bird table and came back in again looking pleased. The wind was light and from the south-east. Echoing a phrase of her grandfather’s, he announced: ‘There’s no cold.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Clare laughed, as she carried their breakfast dishes to the draining board. ‘It’ll be draughty enough by the lake at Castledillon without a cold wind as well,’ she declared, as he shrugged his shoulders into his ancient waxed jacket and took his binoculars from a drawer under the work surface.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind me going, Clare? We were supposed to have a holiday today and you’re left with all the work,’ he added, a hint of anxiety creeping into his voice.
‘Oh Andrew, don’t be silly,’ she responded, giving him a hug, ‘We BOTH work so hard. You must take some time to do the things you want to do. You go and help with the count and get a look at the heronries. Another day when YOU are at work, I’ll go and see what Charlie’s added to his archive and talk local history with him. Fair shares for all, as your mother would say.’
They went upstairs and crossed the dim entrance hall where a small collection of ancestors still stared gloomily around them as if they had mislaid something they needed. A light breeze blew in their faces as Andrew opened the double glass doors into the porch, stepped through and swung the heavy outer door back into its daytime position. He put an arm round her shoulders as they walked across the stone terrace and down the broad sandstone steps to the driveway.
‘I’ll be back by twelve,’ he said, kissing her. ‘If you do start on Seven you can have my paintbrush ready. Don’t do too much while I’m gone.’
‘I promise. I’ll have your lunch ready. You’ll be starving. You always are. It’ll only be a toasted sandwich,’ she warned, as he opened the car door.
She went back indoors and ran upstairs to their bedroom. The kitchen had been warm from the Aga but the unheated bedroom was cold. Not as cold as her old bedroom at the forge house had been in winter but bad enough to make her grateful for the thick wool sweater she pulled out from a deep drawer below the handsome rosewood wardrobe.
She retrieved the hot water bottles from under the bedclothes, made the bed and took the bottles into the adjoining bathroom to empty them. The plasterwork was still drying out and the acres of white tile and gleaming taps made it feel even colder than the bedroom. She did a quick wipe of the hand basin and turned back gratefully into the room once used by The Missus.
Unlike the cold linoleum of the forge house, this room had always had the comfort and pleasure of a carpet but when they moved in they found it was so full of holes it would have to be replaced before they handed it over to the guests they hoped to welcome in April. Given the new bathroom, they had assumed this would be their best room until they realized the state of the carpet. She was still trying to decide what to do about it when their good friend Harry spotted a carpet when he was buying antique furniture in a house scheduled for demolition. He’d tipped the workmen to carry it to his van, brought it up to them and stayed to help them cut up old one up.
Harry said the ‘new’ carpet was probably older than the one they’d just carried to the compost heap. It was full of dust and dirty from the tramp of workmen’s feet but it showed very little signs of wear. They’d spent the best part of a warm, autumn weekend beating it, vacuuming it and sponging it. By the time they’d managed to lay it they were exhausted, but the carpet with its exotic birds and plants transformed the room. It even matched the faded curtains so well they decided they’d not replace them after all.
The bed made, the room tidied, Clare sat down at her dressing-table and began her make-up. For weeks after their brief honeymoon, she had applied only moisturizer, but as day followed day and she spent most of her time sorting, cleaning, or gloss painting, dressed in the oldest of old clothes, she began to feel something was wrong. The day before the surveyor came to estimate for the new central heating system she made up her mind. Cheap jeans from the cut-price shop in Portadown and well-worn shirts that could go in the machine would be fine for the job in hand, but she needed her go-to-work face to keep up spirits. To her surprise, that simple decision steadied her when she was presented with the enormity of the surveyor’s estimate next day.
She smiled to herself as she applied powder with a sable brush just as her dear friend Louise had taught her when they’d first shared an office in Paris. She missed Louise. She missed Paris. She missed that whole other world where she had been mostly happy and certainly successful. But now she and Andrew had each other and a life they could make together. You can’t have everything and she knew she had chosen what she really wanted.
She thought again of that sunlit October morning when the surveyor had presented his estimate. It brought back memories of all the meetings she’d sat through with Robert Lafarge, listening to companies putting forward plans, projects and requests for loans. She had smiled at him, given him coffee in the kitchen and negotiated the price. By suggesting the project be spread over the winter period when the company would be short of work, she’d secured a substantial discount. Andrew laughed when she told him. What delighted him was the thought of the unsuspecting surveyor coming face to face with a woman who had once been party to negotiating sums in seven figures.
By Christmas Eve, three of the five large bedrooms on the first floor had been freshened up or completely redecorated. Apart from the high ceilings and cornices, they’d done all the painting themselves. While Andrew was at work, Clare did as much of the brushwork as she could while supervising the installing of the two new bathrooms. When Andrew got home from work, he’d hang his suit over the bedroom chair, pull on his dungarees and take over her brush while she prepared a meal. Afterwards, they’d share the day’s news over coffee and then go back together to where he’d left off.
‘What do we tackle next?’ he asked, as they put up a holly wreath on the front door and looked forward to a few days holiday from paint.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she said honestly. ‘A double brings in double the money and there’s only one set of bed linen to launder, but the single rooms will be cheaper and might attract more business. The five singles on the top floor could be very important. It all depends on who we manage to attract.’
‘Some of each, then?’ he suggested. ‘Doing a single would take us half the time it’s taken for the doubles. And we could do our own ceilings up there. Or rather I could do them.’
Clare pulled the bedroom door shut behind her and headed for the top floor, turned along the narrow corridor and stopped at a door with a dim and worn brass number seven. This was the largest of the upper bedrooms with a view over the garden. She stepped into the almost empty room and smiled to herself. It was in a much better state than she’d remembered.
Back in October, she and June had cleaned all the rooms in the house, getting rid of anything that could not be restored or reused. The windows on both floors had stood open for long, sunny days till finally the odour of damp and neglect had been overwhelmed by the faint perfume of lavender polish, the fresh smell of emulsion paint and the strange odour of the new rose-coloured carpet in two of the double bedrooms. Tomorrow, when June came back to work she must ask her who had slept in number seven when she had arrived straight from Grange School to begin her service at Drumsollen.
‘Dust sheets,’ she said aloud, as she tried to remember where the nearest pile of clean ones might be.
She looked more closely at the window frame. ‘And sandpaper,’ she added, wearily. You could paint over fine cracks but loose flakes like these came off on the brush. It was more trouble than it was worth trying to take a short cut.
It was just as she was about to go in search of her materials that a movement caught her eye, a glint, or a gleam from a vehicle just coming into view. She looked down in amazement and watched as a large black taxi drew up at the foot of the steps.
Could it possibly be someone who had misread their opening date? She’d been advertising in a whole variety of newspapers and magazines but she’d stressed: Springtime in the countryside. Special offers for our first guests from April the First. Bookings now accepted.
She peered down. She could see the driver perfectly well as he opened his door, strode round to the boot and took out a large and heavy suitcase, but she couldn’t get a good look at the figure emerging from the front passenger seat.
She ran along the top corridor and hurried downstairs. As she strode across the entrance hall, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure through the glass panels of the porch door. It can’t be, she’s supposed to be in America, she said to herself, as she pulled them open. But there was no mistaking that red hair. It was Ginny, whom she hadn’t seen since they’d met in a hotel in Park Lane just over a year ago.
‘Clare, I’m sorry, I haven’t any money,’ Ginny said bleakly, as she walked round the vehicle, her face pale, her eyes red rimmed.
Clare threw her arms round her and hugged her. She could feel Ginny’s shoulders trembling ominously. Something was dreadfully wrong.
‘How much is it?’ Clare asked as steadily as she could manage, stepping back and smiling rather too brightly at the taxi man.
She was completely taken aback by the sum he named. She wasn’t sure she had that amount of money in the house, even with the reserve she still kept in Granda Scott’s old Bible.
‘Hold on a moment, will you. My handbag is probably upstairs,’ she said quickly. ‘Perhaps you could bring in my friend’s suitcase.’
‘Right y’ar,’ he replied agreeably, eyeing the well-swept steps and the heavy, white-painted front door.
Clare ran upstairs, emptied her handbag on to the bed. There was a wallet and a purse and some loose silver she’d dropped in when she was in a hurry. Putting it all together, she was still well short of the taxi fare even if she added the pound notes from the Bible and the bread man’s money from the kitchen drawer.
‘Where on earth has Ginny come from?’ she asked herself. Not Armagh certainly. Not since the railway had been closed down. And hardly Portadown to chalk up a bill like that. She stood breathless, a handful of pound notes in her hand and looked around the room as if an answer might lie there somewhere if only she could think of it.
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she gasped, as she remembered Andrew’s wallet in the top drawer of his bedside table.
It was empty, as usual, but all was not lost. Not yet. She unzipped an inner compartment. There sat the balance of the fare. She ran back downstairs triumphant, delighted by the irony that the reserve she insisted he carry for emergencies was what had saved the situation for her.
‘Thank you very much, ma’am,’ the taxi driver said, as he folded the notes away into his back pocket. ‘I think this young lady had a rough crossing last night,’ he added kindly, nodding at Ginny, as he took a battered card from his pocket. ‘If I can be of service, give us a ring. Distance no object,’ he added, raising a hand in salute to them both as he drove off.
‘That smells good,’ said Andrew as he tramped into the kitchen and struggled out of his jacket. ‘I thought you said a toasted sandwich,’ he went on cheerfully. He ran his eye across the large wooden table. The end nearest the Aga sported a red checked cloth, three place settings and a bottle of wine. ‘Has Harry found us another carpet?’
Clare pushed a covered dish into the bottom oven, closed the door, straightened up and shook her head. His eyes flickered away from her face as he caught her sober look.
‘Don’t tell me the bailiff has arrived before we’ve even started?’ he said, trying to sound light.
Clare knew the tone only too well. He was going to be upset, but there was nothing for it but to tell him the truth.
‘Ginny arrived a couple of hours ago, by taxi. She came over on the Ulster Queen from Liverpool. Mark’s gone off with an American heiress.’
‘But they were supposed to be getting married last year,’ Andrew protested, as he dropped down into the nearest chair. ‘In June, wasn’t it? But his father was ill, so they had to postpone it. And then they weren’t able to come to our wedding, because of something else. Some big job came up in America and he couldn’t say “No” to it. Wasn’t that what she told us?’
Clare nodded. ‘I though it sounded funny at the time, but I can see it all now. Ginny tried to cover up for him. He lost a lot of money on the Stock Market. She said they couldn’t even afford her fare to come to the wedding. There was something came up in America, so she gave him all she had in the bank for his airfare. But nothing came of it. At least, that’s what he said when he came back. Apparently he thought she’d got a lot more money somewhere and he kept on asking her to help him out.’
‘But what made him think Ginny had money? The bit she gets from Grandfather Barbour’s shares goes down all the time. It’s hardly more than pocket money. She had a job, didn’t she? Did it pay well?’
‘I really don’t know. But remember she was living with your aunt in Knightsbridge while she had her plastic surgery. You know what a splendid house that is and how much you had to raise for the Clinic. It must have looked as if there was a lot of money around.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘She found a letter from this American woman. She thinks he left it lying around deliberately. They had a terrible row. He was planning to fly out next week. Told her he wasn’t cut out for poverty. Sorry and all that. They’d had some good times. But it was over.’
‘God Almighty! Where is she now?’
‘Asleep on our bed under a couple of rugs. There isn’t a bed made up. Anyway, ours is the only room that gets any heat from below. That’s why you chose it. Remember?’
Andrew leaned his arms on the table and dropped his head in his hands. For one moment, she thought he might be crying. He’d always been fond of Ginny. At one time, while she was in Paris, she’d thought there was something between them. Harry had said he’d seen them together quite often, but it turned out it was simply Andrew trying to get her back on her feet after Edward was killed.
Ginny had been driving when they were hit by the speeding lorry and his death had left emotional scars as well as the obvious physical ones. She’d needed a psychiatrist as well as a plastic surgeon. Andrew had raised the money by mortgaging their family home at Caledon which he’d inherited, but that had left him in serious financial difficulties because he couldn’t pay the death duties owed by the estate.
‘So what do we do?’ he asked steadily, lifting his head, a hint of a smile on his face. ‘There’s two of us this time, isn’t there?’
She nodded reassuringly, bent down and kissed his cold cheek and put her arm round his shoulders.
‘There might be some brandy left from that bottle Harry and Jessie gave you for your birthday,’ she said softly, ‘I seem to remember Ginny doesn’t like whiskey.’
‘I’ll go up and see,’ he said briskly, as he got to his feet and headed for the morning room, now their own small sitting-room.
Clare took a deep breath and felt herself relax. She’d been dreading telling him what had happened because she was so anxious about how he would react. He was always so responsible. Far too responsible. For the moment she would keep to herself the fact that Ginny thought she might be pregnant.
‘So you’re quite sure, Ginny?
‘Yes,’ she replied, beaming, as she closed the door behind her and sat down by the sitting-room fire. ‘I feel awful and I’ve got through half that packet of Tampax you gave me yesterday, but I don’t feel sick any more. I think I was just sick with worry, Clare. What would I have done without you and Andrew?’
‘Unhelpful speculation,’ Clare replied easily, as she closed her account book, got up from her desk and came over to sit opposite her in front of the comforting blaze. ‘I can’t say I’m not relieved, though we’d have managed somehow.’
‘I feel I’ve been such a fool. I’ve made such a mess of things after all the hard work Andrew put in to help me,’ she began, throwing out her hands in a typical Ginny manner.
Clare looked at her pale face and listened, comforted by the fact that she seemed so much herself again only a week after her flight from London. Exhausted she had been and still was, but the gestures, the eye movements, the toss of her head, all said this was the Ginny she had known since that wonderful summer she and Andrew had stayed with his cousins at The Lodge.
Since she’d taken up decorating herself, Clare often found herself thinking of that happy summer when they’d all painted the big sitting-room at Caledon. Ginny’s mother had made sketches of all four of them and Edward designed extraordinary games of skill for them to play in their free time. She still found herself thinking of Teddy and the long conversations they had about Irish history, which was his great passion.
He’d told her it was high time Ireland sorted out what actually happened from all the myths that had been invented. Whether you looked at 1690, or 1847, or 1916, there were facts to be had. What he wanted to do was put the record straight, one way or another, so that this group or that could not select their version of events and use them to justify the unjustifiable, nor to prop up corrupt or idle governments, North or South.
