The Woman from Kerry (13 page)

‘I woulden know, Rose,’ he said, shaking his head sadly. ‘I was working up in Doagh in the mill the time he died. I was only back for the funeral until I could find work here, so as to be company for m’mother. That was a couple o’ months later. But she never mentioned anything about names. We just paid the rent regular week by week as we always did, though in those days there was a man came and collected it every Saturday mornin’.’

He looked at her, his eyes wide, the whites made whiter by contrast with his still unwashed face.

‘Ye don’t think there’s anythin’ in it, d’ye? It can’t be right,’ he said desperately.

But Rose could not reassure him. The letter was explicit. Sarah was the last of the three named lives. With her death the lease expired. They would have to consult a solicitor, certainly, but it looked to her as if the writer of the letter knew exactly what he was talking about. She very much feared they’d have to leave their home in a week’s time and she had no idea where they could go.

Early next morning, John wrote a note to Thomas, left it in the silent forge and walked in to Armagh. Dressed in his Sunday clothes, he arrived at Samuel Monroe’s in Russell Street as the youngest clerk was polishing the brass plate on his door.

‘Is he in?’ asked John awkwardly.

‘He is,’ she replied, nodding towards a door at the end of the dark, narrow hall. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ she asked hurriedly, as John strode past.

John didn’t turn back. He knocked on the door, went in the moment he heard an answering sound and drew the letter from his pocket.

‘My wife brought this home to me yesterday, Mr Monroe. I’d like to know what you have to say about it.’

Monroe stood up, extended his hand, greeted John courteously and told him his fee for a consultation.

John simply nodded. Rose had warned him the
sum required would probably exceed his earnings in a good week. It would be a small price to pay if there was some way they could keep the home they loved.

Monroe peered at the letter, noticed that John was still standing, fidgeting anxiously, and bade him sit down.

‘I’m afraid I’m not hopeful, Mr Hamilton,’ he said, after a cursory reading of the single sheet. ‘Naturally, I shall call up the relevant deed which will be in our files, but unless the lessor has made a serious mistake and the lease has indeed been modified as required, then he is quite at liberty to give you a week’s notice,’ he began, reaching for a bell on his desk.

He wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to the clerk who had slipped quietly into the room.

‘Right away, please,’ he said crisply, as the young man glanced at what he had written.

‘The point about these leases, Mr Hamilton, is that, by specifying three lives and allowing for a renewal fine on the decease of a named life they actually become leases in perpetuity,’ he began. ‘If they are maintained and the fine paid for the addition of a new life, that is,’ he added, a hint of severity creeping into his voice. ‘What the lessor is indicating in his letter is that the three lives named in your lease – your grandfather, your father and your
mother, are all now deceased. Unless we find that some new name has been entered and the fine paid, then I fear nothing can be done, unless of course, we can assist you with the purchase of a new property,’ he ended, with an encouraging smile.

The young man reappeared with the lease, handed it to Monroe, and withdrew, shaking the dust from his hands as he went. Monroe untied the bindings, opened the document and scanned it.

From where he sat, John could see that the document hadn’t been opened for years. There was no sign of fresh ink anywhere on the faded parchment. He waited patiently, now he knew what was coming.

‘A great pity, Mr Hamilton. A great pity,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Do you remember when your grandfather died?’

‘Aye, it’s on his gravestone. 1845.’

‘That might explain it,’ said Monroe, nodding to himself. ‘The omission, I mean. Your grandmother may have been unaware of the terms of the lease, but it is even more likely in that very bad year, she was unable to pay the renewal fine in order to have a new life inserted. It could, of course, have been done subsequently. But I fear it was not.’

Monroe turned the document round so that John could read for himself the neat copperplate writing, now faded from black to grey and the red seal that bonded together the two signatures on the
document. The lease had been drawn up in 1785. Three generations of Hamiltons had lived for a hundred years in the same house. And now they were out on the street.

John stood up.

‘We can, of course, advise you about compensation for improvements. I’m sure the property has benefited by your family’s long residence,’ Monroe began.

John registered what he went on to say about his fees for such a service, but he couldn’t concentrate on the details.

‘Do you know this man Ludlow?’ he asked, abruptly.

‘We do collect his rents. Yes.’ replied Monroe, getting to his feet.

‘Would he give us a while to find a place?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t think so. He’s bought a fair amount of land round Annacramp and Ballybrannan and he’s been looking for a house for his son for some time now. I’m afraid your misfortune has been to his advantage. He’s not a man to be persuaded to kindliness.’

‘An’ what if we don’t go?’

Monroe shook his head and looked severe.

‘I’m afraid that would have very unpleasant consequences, Mr Hamilton. I would most strongly urge you not even to consider it as a course of action.’

John thrust his hand in his pocket and brought out the sovereign Rose had given him. He added a shilling to it and placed it on the desk, turned on his heel and strode out of the office, his head down, blinking his eyes blinking rapidly so that he could see where he was going. He walked the three miles home and strode into the kitchen before the sitting room clock struck ten.

‘Rose, where are you?’

‘I’m here, love. I’m here,’ Rose said, as she ran into the kitchen, drying her arms. ‘I was pounding clothes so I didn’t hear you. I wasn’t expecting you for a while yet.’

She took one look at his face and put her arms round him.

‘When do we have to go?’

‘Saturday. Four days time and the family here for a hundred years. Can ye credit it, Rose? That’s the date on the lease. 1785. The year my grandfather was married. What are we going to do at all?’ he asked, as he dropped down in an armchair by the fire and buried his head in his hands.

‘We’re going to have a cup of tea,’ she said firmly. ‘And you’re going to eat a bit of bread and jam for you took no breakfast. Then we’re going to take the children up to Mary so that I can go looking for somewhere for us while you’re at work,’ she went on. ‘Now away and change your clothes while I get you a bite to eat. Your job is to tell everyone that
comes to the forge that we’ve nowhere to go. Maybe someone will know of somewhere that’s empty.’

For two days, Rose tramped the roads and lanes of Grange parish, from Ardrea to Drumcairn, from Cabragh to Lisdonwilly. She even went as far as Loughgall and enquired at the Post Office if they knew of anywhere available to rent. But within a three mile radius of Church Hill, the most she reckoned young Sam could walk to and from the schoolroom there was nothing to be had.

John had no better news. Everyone who came to the forge said the same thing. A lot of old houses had fallen beyond repair, and there were no new ones being built because so many young people were going to work in Belfast or into local mills with houses provided. Farm servants and labourers usually lived in the few farm cottages left between Grange and Armagh, and they were all occupied.

On Thursday evening John arrived home late, tired and utterly distraught.

‘They can’t just put us out, Rose. How can they do that to us with children?’

Rose smiled wryly.

‘Of course they can, John. There’s no use pretending they can’t. They’ve been doing it for centuries. Don’t tell me you want the police and the bailiffs here to frighten the children?

‘No, of course I don’t,’ he said crossly.

‘Now eat your meal before it gets cold. We’ll think of something yet. We’re not destitute and it’s not winter,’ she said soothingly.

‘Aye, but we haven’t even got friends with a good barn we could sleep in like your parents had. There’s nothing for us but the hedgerows, like gypsies,’ he said bitterly. ‘Where will we put our furniture and all our good things? Your clothes and the children’s toys?’

He bent his head and ate hungrily. She watched, distressed and anxious herself, not so much out of fear of what was to come, but at his bitterness. Suddenly, she saw herself, a little girl, leaning against her mother’s knees by a turf fire in an old man’s cottage.

As she began to eat her own meal, she tried to recall his name. She’d heard her mother speak of him so often. An old man. Blind from birth. Yes, that was it. Daniel. As the name came back to her, she remembered he’d told stories that night after they’d been evicted, the big room packed with people, the dark rafters with the crosses high above her head.

She looked up at the whitewashed boards of the low ceiling, above the table where she and John had eaten food together for ten years. She had always been so grateful to have food and clothes and to be able to pay the rent. It had never occurred to her that in this new, more comfortable world she would once again be evicted.

She remembered now Daniel’s face and the way he greeted people he couldn’t see. What she most needed to recall was not the stories Daniel himself had told, but the story he’d called upon her mother to tell. About her father and her uncle turning their backs on their homeland after being evicted and walking the length of Scotland. But there was more to the story than that. Something Hannah had said that was very important for her, here and now.

‘Have ye written to yer mother yet,’ John asked flatly, as he wiped his plate with a piece of bread.

As he spoke, her mother’s words came back to her. Wise words about being bitter. She couldn’t remember them exactly but she felt again the deep hush in the cottage as she spoke. She’d said it was all right to shed tears and be sorry. To seek comfort for what had hurt you. But bitterness, she said, was a destroying thing. You mustn’t let bitterness get into you.

‘No, John, I haven’t. But I’ve been thinking what she’d say to us if she were here.’

She stood up and looked down at him.

‘Would you go up and see that Sarah hasn’t kicked all the covers off, while I make us a pot of tea. Then I’ll tell you.’

She drew the kettle forward on the stove and went across the narrow hall. She’d changed nothing in the room since the old woman’s death, a week earlier, except she’d refilled the vases with fresh
flowers. She went to the sideboard, bent down and reached back behind the best china for a single cup and saucer that had sat there, safe and undisturbed since it arrived from Kerry. She blew a little wood dust from the cup.

This time, she heard her mother’s words without any struggle of recollection.

Never before had she felt so alone. She wasn’t by herself, true, but she’d seldom been so anxious and perplexed and here was her dear John, so full of anger and bitterness. She’d tried to comfort him, but he wouldn’t be comforted. He had gone away into himself wrapping his misery around him. It frightened her, for the darkness of his mood and the bitterness of his outbursts seemed to take away her courage, her strength to keep up hope and act wisely for them.

She looked at the pretty cup and saucer in her hand and thought of the night before her wedding, when she and Hannah had sat by the fire in their
room together knowing it might be years before they would meet again. She heard John’s footsteps on the wooden stair, pushed the sideboard door shut and hurried back into the kitchen where the kettle was boiling furiously.

‘Were they all asleep?’ she asked as she poured John’s tea into his favourite mug.

‘Aye.’

She poured her own tea into the pretty china cup and sat sipping it slowly. The room was quiet, but for the tick of the clock and the faint murmuring of bees beyond the open window. A comfortable room, well-swept and always freshly whitewashed, the stone floor smooth with long wear, the embrasures of the windows full of geraniums, bright red in one, deep pink in the other.

As the silence deepened, she looked around, knowing that this was the last time she would sit in this room, the familiar objects in their proper places, the American clock on the wall, the brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece, one on each side, the two white dogs with black noses and the coronation tea caddy with a very young Queen Victoria. There were the curtains she and Sarah had made together, the saltbox in the alcove by the stove, the bookcase with the family bible and commentaries, and John’s books about engines and machines. Under the window was an old metal box full of the wooden toys John had made for the children.

She remembered that last morning in the old home in Ardtur and how she’d watched her mother go round the room touching things, taking a last long look at the place where she had lived for half her life. Yet for all the pain of loss there was no sadness on her face.

Rose finished her small cup of tea and poured another. John’s mug sat untouched as he stared into the fire. But still she did not speak. She was waiting. Hoping that something might come to her out of the silence and the depths of memory.

‘John,’ she said, breaking the silence at last, ‘What’s the worst thing that can happen to you?’

He looked at her in amazement.

‘Need ye ask,’ he said harshly.

‘I remember you once saying you’d give your life for me and the children. Have you changed your mind?’

‘What?’

She repeated what she’d said but he just shook his head, unable to make sense of what she was saying.

‘John, would you not think it worse if we lost the children? Or maybe if I were to die and leave you to mind them?’

‘Ach, Rose, what are ye saying?’ he cried. ‘Sure, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘Would it be worse than losing stones and mortar?’

‘But it’s not stones and mortar, Rose, it’s our home.’

Rose shook her head.

‘John dear,’ she said, her voice soft. ‘I’ve been thinking of that morning all those years ago back in Donegal when we were put out. I tried to remember what my mother did while we were waiting for the men to get to us. And it’s just come back to me.’

She paused and waited for him to lift his head and look at her.

‘Aye,’ he said flatly.

‘Will you listen, John, if I tell you what she did?’

He nodded but said nothing, his head still drooped on his chest.

‘She looked around her and gathered up her home into her head. I watched her do it, though I didn’t understand then what she was doing. When we walked down the track with the cart and the cow and our few bits and pieces, this cup and grandfather’s watch and the Gaelic Bible she gave to her friends in Ramelton, she had our home safe. She just needed somewhere to put it. Some bits of stones and mortar. Wherever we went, whether it was the barn in Donegal, or the servants quarters in Currane, she took out our home and brought it to life for us children, even after my father died.’