On a Clear Day (30 page)

June made the tea and continued.

‘So I says to her, “Well, maybe if I had some help meself on a Saturday I coud do a dinner. But what about the rest of Martha’s work?” An’ I told her all the jobs Martha did while the Sunday dinner was cookin’ an’ in the afternoon forby. “What about them?”, says I.’

John watched as she poured him a mug of tea, a slow smile on his lips. He’d seen what was coming, but he’d not spoil her story.

‘I suppose we could get a girl in on Saturday to relieve you and do Martha’s jobs,’ she says to me. ‘Then you could make a casserole or a meat pudding, or something of that kind for Sunday.’

June grinned, poured herself a cup of tea and stood with her back to the stove drinking it.

‘So I shook my head an’ says, “Ach, sure gettin’ a girl on a Saturday will be desperit hard. Ye’ll
hardly get one for less than fifteen shilling.”’

John laughed and finished his tea.

‘She wouldn’t have liked that.’

‘No, not one bit. But by the time I’d finished she’d agreed to think about twelve and sixpence if only I coud find someone.’

John came and put his arm round her, gave her a kiss and a hug.

‘Yer a great girl, June. Ye’ve a head on yer shoulders an’ I don’ know where I’d be wi’out ye. An’ I’m as pleased for wee Clarey as I woud be if it were one of our own.’

‘Ach, it’s great to be able to do a good turn. Away down now, like a good man an’ tell her. Say, we may leave it a fortnight so I can make sure she’ll get her twelve and six. By then the Missus’ll be gettin’ real worried so there’ll be no bother about it at all.’

On the last Saturday in September, a glorious autumn morning, the sun melting the rime of frost on the long grass by the roadside, Clare cycled halfway into Armagh and parked her bicycle against the low wall where Andrew Richardson had once found it with subsiding tyres.

Her pause was only momentary. She opened the gates, wheeled her bicycle through, closed them behind her and pedalled slowly up the steep gravel drive that wove its way around the side of the smoothly contoured hill that all but concealed the house itself from those who passed by on the road beyond.

Both June and John had made sure she knew exactly where to turn off the driveway and on to the narrow path that led to the back of the house, where to leave her bicycle out of sight and where to find the stone steps leading down to the biggest of the basement rooms from which June Wiley now ran the entire establishment.

She passed tall, dusty windows protected by thick iron bars and found the heavy wooden door to the basement. She closed it behind her and stepped cautiously down the stone steps that
dropped steeply into a long, empty corridor. The sunlight threw bands of heavy shadow down the peeling, whitewashed walls and across the bare, echoing wooden floor which ran past all the basement rooms.

Clare felt like an intruder. She was grateful that her flat school shoes made no sound in the echoing space, her silent step penetrating the defences of a different world and moving her apprehensively towards an unknown objective.

‘Good girl yerself,’ said June, as Clare came into the big kitchen and took off her coat. ‘Yer in good time,’ she added, glancing up at the enormous clock which hung on the discoloured walls. ‘I’ll show you roun’ down here. If we’re lucky an’ they’re out this afternoon I can show you the big rooms. You’ll have to go up to do the beds, but use the back stairs an’ don’t stop to look roun’ ye,’ she warned. ‘At all costs don’t let anyone see you. I don’t understan’ the woman at all, but she’d like to pretend this house is run by itself. She can’t stan’ seein’ “staff” as she calls them, especially if its young ones. She can just about say a civil word to me because she knows she has to,’ she added, as she handed Clare a well-starched white apron, thin with age, and a cap that reminded her of Miss Muffet in a long-gone picture book.

The day passed slowly, though Clare was neither bored nor troubled by the tasks to be done.
She remembered other first days in her life and wondered if the strange extension in time was because everything was so new. Perhaps it made you more aware of each separate experience, the first time you changed the sheets on the huge four-poster bed in the south guest room, the first time you carpet swept the threadbare rugs in the upstairs corridor, the first time you cleaned windows with June’s own strange-smelling mixture of water, methylated spirit and vinegar.

John had told her how lovely the gardens had been before the war. She studied the dim outlines of paths and walkways as she polished the old window glass, so thickened in places it distorted the pattern of trees and shrubs which lay beyond, creating an impressionistic picture of colour and shape. There’d been a rose garden and a white garden and beyond both a pleasure garden with a little fountain and a pergola covered in scented honeysuckle. The flowers had gone during the war, replaced at first by plantings of potatoes and vegetables. After the war, as labour got even scarcer, the plots were grassed over or left to the buttercups and foxgloves. Some rose beds at the front of the house did survive. ‘For the benefit of visitors,’ said John wryly.

Clare wondered if Mr Richardson still kept up his interest in new varieties of garden plants or whether that too had gone with the economies
the last years had brought. As she worked her way round to the windows on the south front, she found her answer. Looking down through the cracked and green-stained panes of an ancient conservatory, she could see a prolific vine clinging to the walls of the house. Opposite, on a wooden work bench, where tools and bowls of compost sat ready to use, there was a blaze of bright colour from rows of plants arranged in order of height against the outer glass wall.

‘Clare’s Delight,’ she whispered to herself, as she began to dust.

She smiled as she thought of her window boxes, just beginning to show the sad effects of the chilly nights. But they were still in bloom, amongst them the fuchsias propagated from the one precious cutting she always referred to as ‘John Wiley’s ill-gotten gains’. With the seedlings of lobelia and alyssum Granny Hamilton had given her and cuttings from a pink geranium of Uncle Jack’s, the window boxes had been a delight all summer. It was such a pity the perennials would soon have to be repotted and go back to the window sills for the winter. She imagined Mr Richardson walking into his conservatory and seeing his precious plants in bloom even when there was snow on the ground outside.

She paused, intrigued by the vase of fine china flowers she’d picked up as she dusted her way
along the mantelpiece. The house was so full of objects. Every possible surface was covered with them, so she couldn’t dust or carpet sweep without moving something.

There were souvenirs from foreign travels, pieces of decorated brass and copper with swirling patterns and Arabic inscriptions, polished wood trays inlayed with mother of pearl and collections of exotic seashells. Other souvenirs came from nearer home. A collection of individual cups and saucers, all different, very prettily patterned and decorated in gold, small plates and vases in Belleek ware, china mugs with ‘A present from Dublin’ or ‘A present from Galway’. Then there were things made from wood, a Dutch windmill with sails that turned, a lacquered Saint Bernard dog complete with brandy barrel, a miniature cuckoo clock on a stand, a bowl of carved flowers painted in bright colours, an icon with Christ’s figure outlined in gold.

Just getting to the windows to clean them meant moving small writing tables, chairs with ladder backs, rotating bookcases and stools with worn tapestry seats, all beautiful pieces of furniture, the wood smooth, its colour mellowed by time. After dusting and polishing them, she’d felt quite upset to find modern magazine racks with shiny, black wooden legs and round, red plastic feet in some of the bedrooms.

‘This is Andrew’s real home’, she said, wondering which one of the many bedrooms he might have occupied as a little boy, before that ill-fated journey taking him to prep-school in England. Did he still have a room of his own, she asked herself, or was he given whichever one was currently available, when he visited?

How ironic that she should now be spending a whole day each week in the place where he so longed to be. But it would have to remain her secret. She’d tell him all the news of Drumsollen that was likely to come her way via John Wiley, just as she had done over the last year, but she’d not mention her job. It would be too unkind if he were feeling particularly homesick. Besides, it might be really painful for him to know she could see and touch the objects that had meaning for him when he himself was so far away.

She felt sad when she thought about Andrew and his love of Drumsollen. It was bad enough to have lost one’s parents, but it must be even harder to feel there was nowhere you belonged, nowhere you felt free to be yourself and do what you wanted to do. She had never forgotten those awful weeks in Belfast with no place of her own, no bedroom to run to when the tears wouldn’t stop, no orchard to hide in when everything went wrong, no kitchen to clean when action would ease the tension of anxiety, or the weariness of waiting upon events.

She wondered if there was anywhere Andrew could be himself. Cambridge, probably. But he hardly ever wrote about his studies. From what he had said his great-aunt in Norfolk sounded like a very sympathetic lady. But his Ulster family was more problematic. He was clearly fond of his grandfather and he wrote cheerfully of his cousins, Virginia and Edward, in Caledon, but when he had to visit his aunts in Fermanagh and Cavan he was clearly uneasy. His postcard from Dublin gave away the real distress of coping with his grandmother’s sister, a woman who seemed even more unbending in her approach to him than his grandmother herself.

‘Moved around like a parcel,’ she said aloud, as she moved a stack of boys’ annuals from in front of a bookcase, so she could run the Ewbank across the threadbare carpet and pick up the fluff that had fallen from it when she’d dusted.

‘You look real tired, Clarey,’ said June kindly, when Clare came back into the kitchen in the late afternoon.

‘More stairs than at the Grange,’ she replied, laughing. ‘I feel as if I’ve walked miles.’

She collapsed gratefully at the enormous scrubbed table where once half a dozen maids sat to prepare vegetables, or pastry, when the Richardsons had a shooting party or weekend guests.

‘Here, have a cup of tea.’

June poured her a cup and passed her the milk.

‘You can clean the silver when you’ve had a break. That’ll give you a sit down while I start this casserole for tomorrow.’

Clare shivered and sipped her tea gratefully. Despite having worked so hard, she’d got thoroughly cold in the unheated rooms. The warmth of the kitchen was so comforting. She was so tired, she could just lay her head down on the table and go to sleep on the spot.

‘When did you first come here, June?’ she asked, as much to help her keep awake as out of curiosity.

‘Ah, now yer askin’,’ June laughed, as she began to count on her fingers. ‘I’m forty this year and I came straight here from school as a house maid at fourteen. That woud be 1928 woudn’t it?’

Clare nodded and waited.

‘Oh, those were the great days,’ June began, a smile touching her lips. ‘Parties and outings and visits from all the big people, the Brookeboroughs and the O’Neills and the Donegalls. Senator Richardson knew them all. Aye and some of the folk from across the water. They useta like comin’ here. They said it was a whole differen’ world from London an’ the Home Counties, as they called them. Though they did laugh for they coulden understan’ some of the sayin’s the people here had. William and Edward were still both at
home, till Edward married in ’29. Great times,’ she said wistfully.

‘It wasn’t quite the same after they married. Edward bought his own place at Caledon but when William married in ’31 he brought his wife here. William was in Parliament by then and back an’ forth to Westminster as well as to Stormont, so William an’ his father ran the place between them. Or that was the idea. But Adeline loved the place as much as they did an’ she got that she’d take over if neither of them was about. It was amazin’ to everyone how a girl like her, brought up in London, cou’d take to farmin’ an’ have such a good idea of it. Mind you, she loved animals an’ though nothin’ of sittin’ up half the night with the cow man if there was some poor beast in labour. After her wee boy was born, she said she’d be happy to end her days here. She told me once she never missed London at all, except for seein’ her parents. Of course, they liked nothin’ better but to come over an’ see her and wee Andrew so she was very happy here.’

‘Why did they send Andrew to school in England?’

‘Ach, why indeed? Sure Adeline wanted him to go to school here. An’ if he had, sure they might all be alive yet, an’ this place the way it useta be,’ she said sadly, as she looked round the kitchen whose walls had not seen paint for many a year. ‘It was
the Missus that insisted. She said if Andrew went to school here, he’d end up talkin’ like a local. All the Richardsons had been sent away to school. Did they want the child to be a social outcast? That was what she said, for Adeline told me. Aye, she used to sit at that table just like you’re sittin’ now, drinkin tea an’ talkin’ to me. She was from a very good family herself, but she’d no time for all this business about accent. She just wanted wee Andrew to learn manners and to have a good education an’ she diden see why he needed to go out of Ireland for that. There were plenty of good schools here, she said.’

‘But the Missus got her way?’

‘She usually did,’ said June bitterly. ‘An’ she still does. More’s the pity,’ she added, as she took their teacups to the sink and collected the silver polish and the cleaning cloths from the cupboard nearby.

The week that followed Clare’s first Saturday at Drumsollen House was a busy one. Apart from fitting in the jobs she’d usually done on a Saturday morning before she went to Margaret’s, she had to get ahead with her homework so that Charlie could take them out. He’d insisted that a meal in a hotel was the only proper way to celebrate her seventeenth birthday.

Robert was very uneasy about the whole idea. He hadn’t been in a hotel for years and when
Charlie proposed The Beresford in Armagh, he immediately dismissed it as being too posh.

‘Ach, not at all man,’ Charlie retorted. ‘Sure can’t ye go where ye like these days if ye have the money. An’ it’s not out of the way expensive. My cousin’s wife works in the kitchen, she says the food’s great. Ach, come on Robert. It’s Clarey’s birthday.’

In the end, Charlie persuaded Robert to go and Clare persuaded him not to wear his stiff collar. They consumed a very good mixed grill followed by ice-cream with chocolate sauce and Robert got as far as a wee joke about the amount of cutlery provided. Afterwards, in the resident’s lounge, Charlie ordered Guinness for Robert and himself and suggested Clare had coffee. When it came and she tasted it, she wasn’t entirely sure she liked it, but she appreciated his thoughtfulness. It pleased her to have something she had never had before to mark the occasion.

‘We can’t quite run to champagne for the lady yet, Robert, but we can treat her to a coffee,’ said Charlie, as he handed over a small box which turned out to contain a very superior new fountain pen.

Clare was altogether delighted with her birthday and the lovely surprises it had brought. Auntie Polly sent another dress, Granny Hamilton remembered this time and bought her a new pair
of shoes, Ronnie sent a long letter and enclosed a ten dollar bill. Jessie gave her one of her own sketches, beautifully framed by Harry, and Aunt Sarah sent a blue and gold copy of
Pride and Prejudice
, one of Clare’s favourite novels. There were a few cards as well, one from Robert with a short but touching message in his shaky hand, one from Uncle Harold, who had retired with his wife to Newcastle, and one from Uncle Jack who’d got a new job in Belfast after the Richhill jam factory closed down. Most amazing of all, there was a card from Andrew. She was quite certain she’d never mentioned the date of her birthday in his hearing.