Beyond the Green Hills (3 page)

Madeline Richardson asked a stream of questions without pausing for any reply: questions about places, particular buildings, a hotel where she’d once stayed, a small café where they’d had second breakfast after swimming. At last, she paused and looked at Clare expectantly.

‘Bien sur, Deauville est très agréable,’ she began. ‘My friend, Marie-Claude, used to go there as a child. She still visits the old woman who looked after her in those days. She says Deauville has changed remarkably little. Many of the places you’ve mentioned, I recognise at once. Some of the hotels have changed their names, but Marie-Claude says they haven’t changed their style. And people still promenade.’

The old woman pressed her hands together and cast her eyes towards the ceiling.

‘Oh, so. We had such
fun
in Deauville. Of course, we were chaperoned, but there were ways of communicating with young men that everyone knew. If a young man wished to meet you, he would find out where you were staying and send you a bouquet. There were always two cards with a bouquet, one that you handed to your chaperone with some suitable message and another concealed in the flowers. That one you read later.’

She paused and looked at Clare meaningfully, as if to make sure she understood. When Clare smiled broadly, she continued.

‘My cousin and I were taken to the Royal Hotel
by my great-aunt. She was a very strict lady, but even she was charmed when we came back from a morning walk and found the room full of flowers.’

She paused, considered, and then went on.

‘My cousin was very beautiful, you see. She also had the advantage of being rich.’

She smiled at Clare, confident she would appreciate the point.

‘I was never beautiful, but I was thought handsome by some. We both had our little adventures in Deauville.’

She paused once more, longer this time, as if she were still absorbed in the world she had known in another century, when she was young and her life opened before her, full of possibility and promise.

‘And will you go again this year, to Deauville, with your French family?’

‘No, I’m staying in Belfast this summer. I have a holiday job working at the gallery with my friend Jessie and her husband. His father has retired now and he’s expanding into new areas. It’s really very interesting.’

‘Ah, I see.’

Clare was not sure what it was she saw, but her next question made it clear.

‘I suppose you’re going to marry Andrew when you get your degree?’

‘Yes, I am.’

Clare was rather pleased at the coolness, the steadiness of her reply, but she was taken completely by surprise by the old woman’s
next words.

‘What a pity. You really could do so much better
for yourself. I’m sure he loves you, he always was such a loving child, but he’s got no money and no ambition. Love isn’t everything, you know. It wears badly with the rub of the years, especially when there’s no money. It’s women who pay the price for lack of means.’

Clare could hardly believe her ears. The irony was just too much for her. Four years ago, she’d first come to this house simply to earn twelve and sixpence extra a week, because her grandfather’s new landlord had doubled the rent of their house and forge. Now, she was being told by the lady of the house herself that her nephew wasn’t good enough for her.

Something in her words brought Clare up short, however. She wouldn’t listen to any criticism of Andrew, certainly not from this woman who had excluded him from her life as far as possible, but her final words echoed and re-echoed round the elegant room.

It’s women who pay the price for lack of means.

Clare saw herself, a little girl of nine, sitting at Granny Hamilton’s kitchen table. Auntie Polly was going back to Canada and wanted her to go with them, but she wanted to stay behind and live with Granda Scott at the forge.

She couldn’t recall Granny Hamilton’s exact words, but she’d warned her what a hard life it was for a girl, living in the country. Things might improve when bread was off the ration and when the electric came, but, even then, she should think twice before saying no to Canada. She’d need to
make up her mind on a clear day, Granny Hamilton had ended.

Clare glanced across the room to the four-poster bed with its draped velvet curtains, a matching velvet-covered couch at its foot. The rich colours might have faded, but the wallpaper and hangings, the curtains and carpets still had great elegance. The furniture was lighter in style and much more delicate than in the big rooms downstairs. Decorated in gold, it reminded her of what she’d seen in the salons of Versailles. Such a contrast with Granny’s stone-floored kitchen, its stove and scrubbed wood table.

Two lives, two women, so very different, yet they were saying the same things about the quality of life available to a woman, unless she marry a man of adequate means.

However much she might want to, Clare couldn’t dismiss the warning. After all, had she not had some experience of her own? Even when there was work available, Granda Scott had been too old to make much money at the forge, so they lived mainly on his pension, a struggle all the time to make ends meet. When her parents died, no one had provided an income for her, as Ginny’s grandfather had, for both Ginny and her mother, when her father died. Her life had been much harder than Jessie’s, for even after Jessie lost her father, there was an uncle who paid for her to go to secretarial college.

It’s women who pay the price for lack of means.

There was something more to it than that, but what it was she’d have to work out for herself.

‘And did you go to Châtelet, or the Opéra, when you were in Paris? What did you see?’

Clare realised she’d fallen silent. The older woman was deploying her well-practised skill in directing the conversation. The subject was being changed, firmly and positively.

‘
Swan
Lake
at Châtelet, Serge Lifar at the Opéra.’

As the question had been put to her in French, she replied in French. To Clare’s great surprise, she found herself overcome with compassion for this crippled, old woman who had tried to shape the world the way she wanted it and ended up alone and unloved.

Clare took a deep breath and told her exactly what it was like to see ballet for the first time. To step into a new world known only from books and music on the radio, to mingle with the crowds of Parisians in the theatre bar, watch the rich and famous and enjoy performances she had only dreamed of. She spared no detail, even when the Missus closed her eyes and sat so still Clare thought she must surely be asleep.

But she was not.

‘Remind me, Clare, to make a note before you go,’ she said abruptly, continuing to speak French as the door opened. ‘I have a gift for you. I do not have it here, but I am dispersing my remaining personal possessions. I need to make a note of my intentions, in case we do not meet again,’ she added firmly. ‘A souvenir from my days in Paris and Deauville,’ she ended, dropping her voice to a whisper.

‘Thank you, Mrs Wiley. I’m sure Andrew will
appreciate your efforts on his behalf,’ she said, in a voice so far removed from her previous tone that Clare was almost startled.

As June and Andrew collected up small tables from other parts of the room to accommodate the plates of scones and cake for a most sumptuous tea, Clare felt herself go pale, drained by some emotional effort she could neither grasp nor understand. It was all she could do to take the cup June handed her without spilling it. Deciding which of the sandwiches and savouries to begin with was quite beyond her.

But Madeline Richardson was undaunted. She dismissed June Wiley courteously, placed Andrew in charge of the teapot, directed his attention to the brownies made especially for his coming and proceeded to enquire about the health and activities of his uncle and family, his surviving aunt, her husband and daughters, and his great-aunt in Norfolk.

Clare was relieved to find that Andrew seemed perfectly relaxed, able to do justice to June’s tea while giving a proper account of his relatives. On one occasion, he even managed to make his grandmother laugh.

‘Poor old Julia, she got very nervous when they arrived at the Palace and were being lined up to be presented. She was convinced her knickers were going to fall down. So she asked for the loo. They told her to be terribly quick and sent her off with a footman in attendance. She says she walked miles! When they arrive, he throws open the door and
ushers her in and there’s the loo, on a raised dais with three steps up. She insists it was at least another fifty yards away.’

When the topic of Andrew’s relatives on his mother’s side had been exhausted, Mrs Richardson moved on to the family at Caledon, eliciting a detailed account of Aunt Helen’s new husband, the progress of Edward’s studies at Trinity and the latest developments in Virginia’s plan for setting up her own riding stables.

Of Andrew’s own activities, his plans, hopes and dreams, nothing whatever was asked. They said their goodbyes just after five and went down to the basement to help June Wiley with the washing up. Madeline Richardson remained in her large room, a sandwich and a glass of milk under a cloth on a side table. Until nine o’clock the next morning, she would be there alone, unable to walk further than her radio, or her commode. She had refused Edward’s offer of a telephone in her room. If she needed a phone, she declared, she would use the one in the study.

When at last they left the house, with June in the back seat, all Clare wanted was Andrew, the comfort of his arms and the relief of tears, but first there was the visit to the Wiley family. She’d been so looking forward to seeing John and the three girls. She couldn’t possibly let them down, but how she was going to get through the next few hours she had no idea whatever.

A
s they bumped their way along the narrow track, Clare noticed the grass growing up the middle became progressively much taller and more luxuriant. The potholes were much deeper too. Edward was trying to avoid the worst of them by swinging the car from side to side. Each time they swung to the left, she was able to look down into the clumps of yellow flag iris blooming on the bank of a deep, narrow river full of swift-flowing brown water. When they swung to the right, fresh green fronds of willow trailed the roof of the car and spilled through Ginny’s open window.

‘Do either of you two young gentlemen have the
slightest
idea where you’re going?’ Ginny demanded, as the car splashed across a broad wet area, a spring flowing from the steep hedge bank below the willows, a low green cliff, rich with the lush growth of high summer.

‘No, not the slightest,’ said Andrew cheerfully, as he folded up the one-inch map. ‘Terra Incognita, white on the map except for the drawings of sea beasts. You are now on a Richardson’s Mystery Tour. Right here by the oak tree, Edward.’

‘Clare, have
you
any idea where these idiots might
be taking us?’ Ginny went on. ‘I thought we had agreed to a picnic, not a cross-country rally.’

Clare laughed. ‘I might,’ she said slowly, not wanting to spoil the surprise. ‘But I don’t think we came this way last time.’

‘
Last time
! You mean you survived?’

‘Clare and I
almost
came here for our first date,’ said Andrew, leaning round from the front passenger seat to enjoy Ginny’s amazement. ‘But there were some difficulties.’

Clare gigged.

‘Difficulties!’ exclaimed Ginny. ‘Putting it mildly, I’d have thought. So, tell me, dear cousin, about your difficulties,’ she went on.

‘Well, I plucked up courage and asked Clare to go for a ride,’ Andrew began agreeably, ‘but she said no, she was sorry, she hadn’t got a horse. Then, next day, she told Jessie she was going for a ride with me, so Jessie gave her directions for a nice, quiet place about ten miles from Drumsollen. But unfortunately I hadn’t got a car.’

Edward began to chuckle, then to shake with laughter. As the car wobbled and bounced even more fiercely than before, Clare lay back in her seat laughing. It wasn’t just the memory of that first date, it was the look on Ginny’s face.

‘Teddy,’ Ginny remonstrated, ‘the only mystery about this tour is that we are still in one piece. Why don’t you let
me
drive?’

‘I need the practice,’ he gasped, when he could manage to stop laughing.

‘You can say
that
again.’

‘I need the practice,’ he repeated obligingly.

Ginny groaned and looked at Clare for solidarity, but she was laughing helplessly.

At that precise moment the car ran smoothly forward on to a broad, sandy ridge, green with new grass and dotted with daisies and tufts of purple and white clover. Edward chose the highest point of the site and stopped the car.

‘Now say you’re sorry, sister dear,’ he said triumphantly, waving his hand at the gleaming mass of Lough Neagh, blue and sparkling in the afternoon sun, the minute wavelets at its edge lapping on the fine, white sand only twenty yards away from where the car had come to rest.

They climbed out and stood looking around them, the sun warm on their shoulders and bare arms. To the east, a small wooden jetty, its irregular structure bleached white by sun and rain, projected into the waters of the lake. A couple of rowing boats were moored to a large, orange buoy. At the landward end of the jetty, a curtain of fishing nets hung suspended from an arrangement of poles, the twisted fibres dividing the brilliant sky into small, interlocking squares. All was quiet but for the hum of bees in the clover. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

‘How lovely,’ said Clare, her eyes gleaming with pleasure as she scanned the prospect before her, from the hazy hills of Tyrone to the wooded inlets of the Antrim shore. She’d seen the lough many times from various low hills around the Hamiltons’ farm, as well as from Cannon Hill, but she had never before stood on its shore.

‘Look,’ she said urgently, pointing towards the reedy sandbanks where the river they’d followed fanned out and poured its brown water into the lake only a short distance away.

A heron was fishing in the shallow water. At the sound of their voices it had taken off. They followed its leisurely flight across the sandy beach, shading their eyes as it headed out over the still water, its reflection a perfect mirror image. It landed on the edge of a small, tree-covered outcrop not far from the shore, a dazzling white mark against the dark background, its long bill dipped towards the gleaming water at its feet.

‘In view of your success, I withdraw my comments on your driving skills unreservedly, Teddy,’ Ginny said. ‘But I’m not sure you ought to make a habit of driving Harry’s car cross country,’ she went on more seriously. ‘I don’t think the suspension’s up to it.’

‘Whose car?’ retorted Edward.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Your
car, I mean. It
was
Harry’s for a very long time though, wasn’t it?’

‘I gather he didn’t want to sell it to you,’ said Andrew, turning to Edward as he opened the boot and began handing out the picnic things.

‘No, he said it was a liability. It would only cost me money.’

‘So how did you persuade him to let you have it?’ Clare asked, as she collected a basket and a rug.

She remembered Harry, a wiry, dungareed figure with a tool bag, usually engaged in fixing something. If there was no other transport available
at The Lodge, Andrew would collect her from the forge in the battered, blue Austin. Harry’s car had been elderly then, and that was three years ago.

Edward shrugged his shoulders.

‘I said it was all I could afford. I needed to get to the Bishop’s Library in Armagh for some work I’m doing. So he gave it to me on condition I let his brother-in-law do the repairs for me on the cheap.’

Clare smiled to herself. She wasn’t surprised. Harry had known the Richardsons since Edward was old enough to want to carry his nails and stand watching him work.

‘Would you like me to get the Primus going, Edward?’ Clare asked, as he took the box from the boot and stood looking at it doubtfully.

‘Oh, yes please. It always pops at me and goes out.’

‘It’ll be easy today, there’s no wind,’ she said, taking it from him.

‘Clare, it’s not just wind. I can’t even get the wretched thing to work on the kitchen table when there’s a power cut!’

‘My goodness, these smell good. What are they?’ demanded Ginny, who was opening greaseproof packets and laying out sandwiches and cake on faded willow-pattern plates.

‘Brownies,’ said Andrew over his shoulder, as he brought the teapot to Clare. ‘June made them for tea at Drumsollen and slipped us the rest in a doggy bag. The chocolate cake in the tin is hers as well.’

‘Aren’t brownies American?’

‘Mm. Mother got the recipe from an American girl she was at school with in Switzerland. I’ve
always loved them.’

‘I didn’t know your mother went to a finishing school,’ Clare said, as she poured boiling water into the teapot.

‘Oh yes, all nice gels went to finishing school. Ask Ginny about it.’

Ginny groaned.

‘You cannot possibly want to know anything about it, Clare.’

‘Yes, I do. Where did you go? What did they teach you?’ she asked, suddenly aware of a whole piece of Ginny’s life she knew nothing about.

‘Ghastly. Unspeakable. Boring. Mum couldn’t afford Switzerland so I went to this decaying mansion in the Wicklow Hills. The only good thing about it was the stables. That’s where I met Conker’s mother. Queen of Tara, by Pegasus, out of Pride of Kilkenny. She was lovely.’

‘But what did you do apart from ride, Ginny?’

‘We learnt to walk properly, how to pick up a handkerchief, how to arrange flowers for a dinner table. Really useful things like how to clean grease spots off silk and freshen your diamond necklace. How to talk to boring people who won’t say anything to help you.’

‘You’re pulling my leg, Ginny,’ said Clare, laughing, as she poured four cups of tea and handed one across to her.

‘No, I’m not. Truly.’

Ginny put down her half-eaten sandwich, sat up straight and folded her hands neatly in her lap. ‘Oh, you live in Scunthorpe, do you? How interesting. I
haven’t managed to visit Scunthorpe myself. Do you find the weather pleasant there? I expect it’s just as irritating as it is here, invariably fine when one is at work and horribly wet when one wants to be outdoors …’

Edward helped himself to a sandwich and passed the plate to Ginny, who took it daintily and offered it coyly to Andrew.

‘And did you have a pleasant stay in Caledon, Mr Richardson?’ she continued, her total attention focused upon him. ‘I hope your cousins were entertaining company and showed you something of the neighbourhood. I understand the countryside is rather varied and, of course, Armagh is quite historic, isn’t it?’

She smiled sweetly at him and then scowled.

‘I’d never have stuck it if it hadn’t been for Conker,’ she said with a huge sigh.

‘But you said you met Conker’s mother,’ said Clare, puzzled.

‘Mm. She was in foal. Mum promised if I stuck it out, they’d buy me the foal, providing he or she was all right. But it was ghastly. A complete waste of time if it hadn’t been for her.’

‘But don’t you find it useful, knowing how to freshen up your diamonds?’

‘My dear Clare, I’m so glad you reminded me about that. I had quite forgotten, and mine do need doing. They get so dusty at all these balls I’m obliged to attend.’

Ginny threw out her hands in an elegant gesture. ‘I did also learn how to cut a chocolate cake. I take
it you’ve brought the silver cake knife, Teddy.’

Edward dug his hand into his trouser pocket and offered her his penknife. She sighed dramatically and proceeded to cut four equally sized pieces without creating so much as a crumb.

Tea might not have been as sumptuous as June Wiley’s effort at Drumsollen, but there was plenty of it and they all ate heartily. There was much laughter and teasing. Afterwards, Ginny stretched out on the picnic rug while Edward brought his father’s binoculars from the car and trained them on Coney Island. Clare and Andrew took the chance to follow a thread of path that led them through a willow copse and into another small, sandy bay.

They found a tree trunk worn smooth by long immersion in the lake and sat side by side, their arms around each other.

‘I think I’ve fallen in love with your family as well,’ said Clare softly, as they disentangled themselves from a long, passionate kiss.

‘The feeling appears to be mutual,’ Andrew replied. ‘I’ve never known Ginny call Teddy ‘I’ve never known Ginny call Teddy “Teddybear”, or “Bear” in front of anyone except Uncle Edward and Aunty Helen, but she often does in front of you!  She certainly doesn’t do it  in front of Barney. Have you noticed?’

‘Yes, I have. I asked her about Barney one night when we sat up talking for ages. She said he’s all right, but she can’t get used to him being with her mother all the time. She admitted she’d been really annoyed when they first started going out together, but Edward told her she was being selfish. Anyone who made their mother happy again was a good idea,
even if they couldn’t stand him, was what he’d said.’

‘Good old Edward, that’s just like him. You’re fond of him, Clare, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am. If I could choose a brother, I’d choose Edward.’

‘What about me?’

‘No, no use as a brother,’ she said shaking her head vigorously. ‘But there are other possibilities.’

He raised an eyebrow and she laughed. They were silent for a little, watching the sunlight on the water, the dipping and bobbing of wagtails along the shore.

‘What are you thinking, Clare? A penny for your thoughts.’

‘I was wondering if we’d remember today when we’re old, and say to each other, “D’you remember that day we went for a picnic with Ginny and Edward?” And I was thinking of where we might be and what might have happened in the meantime, whether Edward will become an eminent historian, and Ginny breed horses and …’

‘And Clare and Andrew? What about them?’

‘I hadn’t got that far,’ she admitted. ‘But I think I shall always remember today because it feels as if I have a family again. Do you understand, Andrew?’

‘Yes, my love, I do. It’s been a great week and we still have one more evening. Shall we take Ginny and Edward to Cannon Hill and plan our futures up by the obelisk as the light goes?’

‘Oh Andrew, what a lovely idea. It’s going to be such a beautiful clear evening. I’ve only been to Cannon Hill once since the day we went together. I’d so love to go again.’