Beyond the Green Hills (9 page)

‘Eh bien, I hear Andrew is taking you off to Canada. And what will become of your delightful accent there?’ Mrs Richardson began, speaking in French.

‘As I shall probably be teaching French, I’m sure I can manage to keep it up,’ Clare replied, quite amazed that the old woman should revert once again to the language of her youth. For decades, she’d used it only when there were things to be said that servants must not hear.

‘Well, I hope he makes a better job of farming than he has of law. I don’t hear great reports from Belfast,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘But then, Andrew always did favour his mother’s side. Charming girl, Adeline, just as pretty as you are. Full of ideas. Loved animals. My son William simply adored her. I expect that’s where Andrew gets it from, this farming business. His father was more realistic, always did what was required of him. But that’s not the fashion any more. Young people do as they please these days.’

‘And what about Deauville?’

Clare was surprised at herself. The words seemed to have popped out entirely unbidden.

‘Touché, Clare, touché,’ she replied, her worn and lined face breaking into an unexpected smile. ‘What
you lack in experience, you’ve always made up for in courage. But I doubt if you’ll do much with Andrew. He has no ambition. Just like his father.’

She paused, and signalled with her hand to a middle-aged man hovering nearby, clearly the next occupant of the low chair.

‘Will you be married in the parish church?’

‘Yes. As soon as we can arrange our passages.’

‘You will be welcome to use Drumsollen afterwards, whether I’m fit to come downstairs or not. Is that clear?’

‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

To her surprise, the Missus offered her a bony hand and smiled warmly when she took it gently.

‘Make sure you come and see me before you leave for Canada. That little gift I spoke of last year is now with my solicitors. I shall send for it tomorrow.’

At last, the large rooms were empty. The Missus had retired to bed, Barney had taken Helen and Ginny back to Caledon. Andrew and John Wiley were working together, packing up the trestle tables used for serving tea and restoring the rooms to their normal state. They replaced the heavy dustcovers over the furniture, the light fabric that covered the portraits and paintings, the plastic sheeting that protected the carpets. When all was as it should be, they pulled across the heavy wooden shutters and slotted in the iron bars which held them firmly in place, a defence against insurgents, as potent in troubled times as the iron grilles on the windows of the basement rooms.

Down there, in the friendly company of June Wiley and Elsie Clark, Clare had changed into flat shoes, donned a large apron and was helping with the washing up. They talked as they worked, three women so practised, they could proceed with only a fraction of their minds upon it.

‘The Missus is powerful failed since last I saw her,’ said Elsie Clark, as she stacked dirty cups on the draining board within June’s reach.

‘It’s a brave while since ye saw her now, isn’t it?’ replied June. ‘Shure it’s six years come October since Mr Edward died.’

‘Ach, I suppose it is. The time goes that quick. Sure, here’s Clare was only a schoolgirl when we came the day of his funeral. D’ye mind you hurt your ankle? D’ye have any bother with it?’

‘No, not a bit, thank goodness, but then I got a charm from an’ oul fella over Cabragh way. Did ye know Johnsie George, Clare?’ asked June, looking sideways at her.

‘Is he the one that ran away to sea when he was a boy?’

‘The very one. Fancy you mindin’ that.’

Clare smiled and took a tray of clean cups to the cupboard. ‘The forge was a great place for hearing life stories,’ she said, as she put the cups back in their places.

As June washed and Elsie dried, Clare smiled to herself. With this team at work, feeding the five thousand might still be a problem, but washing up afterwards would be no trouble at all.

‘Have ye been past the forge recently, Clare?’ asked
June cautiously.

‘I have, indeed,’ she replied sadly. ‘Andrew and I were up in April. I could hardly believe it.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’ asked Elsie.

‘Ach, it’s this new landlord, Elsie,’ June began. ‘Hutchinson, his name is. He’s a great man for makin’ money. He has the forge knocked down that was there fer generations. All the good trees down an’ away too. They say he plans to build a house where the forge was an’ a couple more forby. Ach, it’s a disgrace an’ a shame.’

‘Ah, dear a dear, isn’t that desperate,’ said Elsie sympathetically. ‘An’ sure aren’t your plans all upset again with poor Master Edward dying,’ she said, looking mournfully at Clare, as she brought another trayful of dirty cups from table to sink.

‘How do you mean, Elsie?’

‘Well, yer weddin’ and goin’ off to Canada an’ so on.’

‘Oh, we’re not delaying the wedding,’ said Clare, relieved. ‘Mrs Moore and Virginia want us to go ahead. It’ll be a very quiet wedding anyway.’

‘Aye, I’m sure they wouden stan’ in yer way, nor woud young Edward either, God rest him,’ Elsie replied agreeably. ‘But I’m thinkin’ there’ll be no Canada for Andrew now. Sure how could he go, an’ all the property at Caledon and Drumsollen his now to see after?’

Clare never knew how she got through the hours that followed, the goodbyes to June Wiley and John, the drive back to Caledon with Elsie chattering away in the back seat, the changing of clothes, the
making of plans. Even more goodbyes as they prepared to go back to Belfast.

‘I’d never have managed without you, Clare,’ Ginny said, tears springing to her eyes, as they walked out together to the car. ‘I shall miss you so.’

Clare put her arms round her, careful not to press on her heavily bandaged arm. She’d always liked Ginny, enjoyed her company, appreciated her elegance and humour, but in these last few days, talking together, sharing the loss of Edward, weeping together, some quite new bond had been forged between them.

‘I’ll miss you too, Ginny,’ she said sadly. ‘We managed it together. Edward would have been proud of us.’

‘Get in the car, Clare. Go quickly. I’m about to bawl again,’ said Ginny urgently. ‘Andrew doesn’t know how lucky he is to have you.’

She kissed Clare’s cheek and ran indoors, just as a rattle of thunder echoed away in the west. Large, warm spots of rain the size of sixpences spattered down.

Barney opened the car door for Clare. ‘Thanks for everything,’ he said, bending to kiss her cheek. ‘Helen and I couldn’t have done without you. We’ll come up and see you before the wedding, when she’s a bit steadier.’

He went round to Andrew’s side. ‘Drive carefully now,’ he said. ‘The roads will be greasy enough once this rain gets on them, after all the heat and dryness.’

They made their way slowly down the drive, the rain already streaming across the windscreen, turning
their parting view of the lawns and herbaceous border into an impressionist blur of brilliant colours.

Before they reached Armagh, it was lashing down so fiercely that they had to pull in and stop, because the wipers just couldn’t cope. There was a sudden blinding flash and a shattering crash of thunder right overhead. However anxious she might be, this was not the moment to speak about Canada or anything else. Just getting back to Belfast was going to be an achievement.

When they were able to go on again, lightning still lit up the sky; the noise of thunder and the swish of the tyres through the water now lying on the road was enough to make talk impossible anyway. Only as they approached Belfast itself did the storm move away and even the rain had eased when, at last, they stopped in Elmwood Avenue.

She looked at Andrew. In the lamplight, his face was drawn and white with exhaustion.

‘You must go home and go straight to bed. You’ve got to go to work tomorrow,’ she said, managing a firmness she certainly didn’t feel. ‘And don’t get out to help me. I can manage.’

Thankfully, he leaned his head and arms on the steering wheel while she got her suitcase out of the boot and shut it firmly.

‘I’ll come up tomorrow, as soon as I can get away,’ he said wearily. ‘Thanks for being so wonderful. I don’t deserve it.’

She
watched him drive off and turned towards the house, grateful to see it was in darkness. The kind enquiries of Mrs McGregor were more than she
could bear tonight. She tiptoed quietly upstairs in the glow from the street lamp, dropped her suitcase inside her door, peeled off her jacket and went straight across to light the gas fire. She sat and held out her hands to the glow, though the room was warm and muggy.

‘It’s not going to work after all,’ she said, surprised to find her voice quite steady and matter-of-fact. ‘I knew it was too good to be true. Every time I’m happy, every time I have someone to love and a home of my own, it’s taken away. First there was Mummy and Daddy, then there was Granda Scott. Now it’s Andrew.’

She thought of the roomfuls of Richardsons, all doing what they had to do, what they’d always done. The way Andrew had simply stepped into the place appointed without question, shouldered all the arrangements. Then she thought of what the Missus had said about him. Now she knew why Andrew wasn’t welcome at Drumsollen. He was like his mother. Full of ideas. Yet it was she, city born as she was, who had run the farm and cared for the animals, while husband and father-in-law did what they had to do at Stormont and at Westminster.

But hadn’t the Missus got it wrong? She’d said Andrew wasn’t like his father. ‘His father was more realistic. Always did what had to be done.’ Those were her words. But wasn’t that precisely what Andrew
had
done, the moment Edward died?

She sat on the edge of her chair, unaware of the pain in her back or the ache in her head. She went through it all again. Andrew was now the head
of the family, heir to the bankrupt estate of Drumsollen and whatever additional burden had fallen upon Edward. It was really all so simple. A one-way choice. Was
he going to marry her and go to Canada and make a home with her? Or was he going to follow the tradition, now and forever more, doing what was expected of him by anyone who could make the remotest claim upon him?

She looked down at her pretty ring with its tiny diamond and winking red stones. Thought again of the joyous moment when it slipped on to her finger, a perfect fit.

‘The ball is over, Cinderella,’ she said to the empty room. ‘Unless the Prince carries you off to a new life and a new world, you’ll have to start all over again.’

She turned out the fire, pulled off her clothes, tossed away the cushions on her bed, crawled under the bedclothes and cried herself to sleep.

M
orning came, grey and sodden. The trees dripped heavily on the pavements, though the rain itself had stopped. Oppressed by the aqueous gloom which surrounded her, she switched on the red-shaded lamps that Ronnie had made out of old wine bottles. They glowed dimly and made no impression at all upon the room itself. In the even dimmer kitchen she made tea and toast, put it on a tray, brought it back up to her table by the window and sat down in Robert’s chair.

The house was so quiet. In the week since Edward died, all the other students had gone away, off to holiday jobs, to travel abroad, or back home to the country to help on the farm. It was a relief. The less goodbyes to say the better. All she wanted to do now was to slip away. Leave behind the remains of a life Edward’s death had taken from her.

She’d no appetite for her toast, but she was very thirsty. She sat drinking tea and trying to decide how best to fill the hours before Andrew came, when she would know for sure if she were right. She ran her eye around the room, paused at the large calendar produced by the engineering firm Uncle Jack now worked for. Bright with flags and bunting,
the white-hulled ship had been an encouragement all through these last weeks. With a shock, she registered the red stars marking the days of her exams. Then it was May and now it was June.

She got up, tore off the weeks already consigned to history and stared at the pattern of squares revealed. Below the picture of a Viscount flying in a clear, blue sky, three entries were written in.

‘See Rector about wedding,’ she read aloud. ‘Pack up books for store. Move out into flat.’

She went on staring at the numbered squares, searching for the one that marked the day when Edward died, an unexceptional square, no different from its companions, the square after which her life had fallen to pieces, yet once more – just like the day Granda Scott slipped down beside his anvil and lay there in the silent forge till Jamsey came looking for him.

‘All things pass, however pleasant or unpleasant,’ she reminded herself, smiling a little, hearing the echo of Aunt Sarah’s voice; words which had proved their truth, time and time again.

She took a deep breath, got up and carried her breakfast tray back to the kitchen. She washed up, left everything tidy, went upstairs again and began to sort her books into piles, some to be sold in the Union shop, some to go to charity, and some to be stored against a future which was now entirely open.

It seemed to take a very long time but she kept at it, bagging up the ones for the Union shop and walking over with them. Books were not
just
inanimate objects. Books were your history. The wearying record of exams to be passed or the reminder of past joys and present loves. Stories that once opened new worlds. Poetry which stayed on in the mind. The books you acquired told you something about who you were, who you once had been.

It was early evening and she was standing by the window when Andrew appeared, unexpectedly early and on foot. For a moment, she hardly recognised him. She peered out and watched him stride along the damp pavement, his raincoat open over his dark suit, his face pale and shadowed. Only when he rang the bell did she collect herself and run downstairs to let him in.

‘You’ve been busy,’ he said, as she held out her hand for his coat.

He stood in front of the gas fire while she hung the coat on the back of the door and came back to the fireplace to sit down. It wasn’t the first time he’d appeared in the dark suit the firm insisted upon, but tonight it was hard to bear. He looked as if he’d come straight out of the roomful of Richardsons in their funeral weeds. As out of place here in her room as she had felt when she donned Ginny’s black costume in a room full of patterned fabrics and much-loved soft toys.

‘Time has moved on while we’ve been away,’ she said matter-of-factly, doing her best to keep her voice steady, to speak of what was ordinary. ‘Mrs McGregor has a new tenant coming at the end of
next week. She was lucky to get a summer let.’

But nothing was ordinary anymore. Anything they talked about raised questions that couldn’t be answered till she had the answer to the one big question.

‘Andrew, I think there’s something you have to tell me. I think I know, but I need you to tell me.’

The words struck a chord. They sounded so familiar. Surely she must have said them before. Suddenly, it came to her. The day they sat in the sunshine on Cannon Hill and he confessed he hated the job. The day they decided to go to Canada.

Andrew smiled bleakly and looked down at his very well-polished shoes.

‘Edward’s affairs are in rather a mess,’ he began, as if reluctant to have to speak Edward’s name. ‘There’s a massive bill for death duties still outstanding since Uncle Edward died and now there’ll be more, unless something can be arranged. The Lodge might have to go …’

He broke off as if he hoped he needn’t say more, but Clare was determined he should. She sat silent, waiting.

‘Clare, I know you’ll be so disappointed, but I can’t possibly go to Canada in the circumstances. We might be able to manage it, given a year or two, but not now.’

She nodded silently. As she had known in her heart, the Prince was not going to carry her off to live happily ever after.

‘Yes, I
am
disappointed, Andrew.’

To her amazement, she heard the words shape
themselves quite fluently, as if they had been so long practised she couldn’t possibly stumble.

‘I could face making a life with you in Canada, whatever hardship that might bring, but I can’t do it here. If you won’t come with me, I can’t marry you. I’m sure you’ll be disappointed too, Andrew, that I can’t stay to help.’

There. It was spoken. No more blows to fall.

‘But, Clare …’

‘But what?’ she said wearily, smitten by the look of despair on his face as he turned towards her.

‘We don’t have to throw it
all
up, surely, all that we’ve had. Don’t you love me any more?’

‘Yes, probably I do, but that’s not the really important question. Not now. You’ve said “yes” to a life I can’t share. Canada, yes, however tough, but not the Richardson circus. Ronnie’s right. He said we should get out of Ulster. Get out into the fresh air. But you want to go back into the old, tight airless box, don’t you?’

‘It’s not like that. Clare. It’s not like that at all. You’ve got it all wrong,’ he retorted, stung by her words. ‘I’ve no more time for that crowd than you have. But there are things that have to be seen to. Do you want Helen and Ginny to be homeless, like you were? Do you think it’s any easier being chucked out of a “gentleman’s residence” than out of the house by the forge? Have you thought about June and John Wiley, if Drumsollen goes. Elsie and Olive Clark and the other folk at Caledon, if The Lodge goes? Or are you only thinking of yourself?’

‘Sometimes one has to think only of one’s self,
Andrew. Especially when other people let you down. When they make you promises they feel free to break. Is there a hierarchy of promises in your code? Who comes at the top? Who gets priority? Not the wee blacksmith’s granddaughter from the Grange, I’m sure,’ she ended, unable to control the bitterness in her voice.

‘Clare, you’re not thinking straight,’ he said harshly. ‘What about
your
promise to me? Our engagement? Have I changed into someone you can’t love, because I accept obligations that no one else can deal with? Must you always come first, no matter what’s at issue?’

‘No, not always, Andrew. I’m not as selfish as you’re trying to make me out. But there’s a limit to what anyone can cope with and I’ve reached it. No more waiting. No more hoping. No more struggling. No more depending on anyone else. I’ve had enough of being let down. I want a life that’s not made out of someone else’s expectations. It’s a life I want to share with you. But if I can’t have it with you, then I’ll have to make it on my own.’

By the time she gasped out the last words, her whole body was shaking with fury.

‘Then there’s no more to be said.’

He stood up, walked across the room and unhooked his raincoat from the back of the door. For a moment, she thought he would go without another word. She wondered if she would have the strength not to run after him. But he turned and came back to the fireplace and stood looking down at her. ‘I think something’s wrong between us, Clare,
and it needs sorting out, but this isn’t the way to do it.’

‘Will you go to Canada with me?’ she said, as lightly as if she were saying, ‘Shall we have a day out tomorrow?’

‘No, Clare, I won’t. I’m not free to go to Canada or anywhere else.’

She put her hand to her mouth and moistened her engagement ring. It was such a good fit that it took her a few moments to twist it off. She held it out to him.

‘I’m sorry, Andrew. It was such a lovely dream.’

‘No it wasn’t,’ he said, sharply. ‘We were friends for five years and lovers for a year now. Doesn’t that count for anything?’

‘I could ask you the same.’

‘Put your ring back on, Clare, and let’s see what we can do to make things better,’ he said quietly, his eyes on the tiny glinting stones that were catching the light from the fire, his hands firmly in his pockets.

‘Will you take me to Canada?’

He stood, looking at her in amazement, and then his face crumpled into despair.

‘I can’t do what you want, Clare,’ he said, his voice choking on the words. ‘I just can’t.’

She looked up at him, his face drawn, his eyes dark-circled, and wondered if this was really happening. She decided it was. That she’d always known it would.

‘And I can’t do what you want either,’ she said firmly, standing up and holding out the ring towards him.

For a moment he looked at her blankly, then he turned on his heel and walked to the door.

‘Keep it, or throw it away. No one else will ever wear it. You know where to find me if you change your mind.’

The door shut behind him. She heard his feet running down the stairs and the bang of the front door. She didn’t go to the window. She just sat on in the growing darkness, weeping, wondering if she would ever see him again.

The week that followed was a busy one. She made a long list of all she had to do and worked her way steadily down it. Each day, she made a point of writing some letters, packing some of the books she wanted to keep, making some more arrangements. The variation was designed to keep her mind alert, but despite all her efforts she felt her progress was painfully slow. She was tired all the time, couldn’t shake herself from sleep in the mornings, found she was only wide awake during the small hours of the night.

The first thing she did was go and see Harry. She had to tell him why she couldn’t come back to work in the gallery as she’d promised.

He’d been so kind, looked so sad when she told him about Andrew. He listened so attentively when she explained what she was planning to do. When she came to the end, there was a moment’s silence, then he said: ‘What would you like me to do
with the rings, then?’

She was flustered and confused by his words. The
only ring she could think of was her engagement ring.

‘What rings, Harry? I haven’t got any rings.’

‘Oh yes you have,’ he replied gently. ‘Don’t you remember? The ones you found when you cleared out the forge house.’

She shook her head and laughed at herself.

‘I’m all through myself, Harry. I knew there was something I had to ask you about.’

She’d hadn’t really forgotten them, the two gold rings she’d found under the old settle when she and Jack had pulled it out from the wall. They’d lain secure in Harry’s safe for the last four years. Now she knew exactly what she was going to do with them.

‘I thought for a minute you must mean this one,’ she said awkwardly, as she fished out the small box from her handbag and gave it to him. ‘Would you give it to Andrew when you see him?’

He nodded abruptly and put it in his pocket.

‘I wondered if you could offer me a price for the gold rings, Harry,’ she began shyly. ‘They’re not quite your sort of thing, but they’re fairly old, aren’t they?’

‘Hold on a minute an’ I’ll tell you,’ he said quickly, as he pulled out files from his desk drawer. ‘I sent them to old Fienstein at Kaitcer’s ages ago and I kept meaning to tell you what he said. He’s the man for marks on gold.’

He scuffled through a whole folder of papers, pulled out a single sheet, muttered about Troy weight and then read aloud. ‘Two rings, both clearly marked from the same source. We suggest a date of 1790.’

‘As old as that?’ she said, surprised. ‘Things were very troubled in Armagh in the nineties. That’s when the United Irishmen were active. I always wondered if they’d been lost, or whether that was their hiding place and the owners never came back. We’ll probably never know.’

‘The antique business is full of mysteries, Clare. Sometimes I can hardly credit what turns up in places you’d never expect,’ he said abstractedly. ‘Would a hundred pounds do?’

‘A hundred?’ she gasped. ‘They’re never worth that, Harry,’ she protested, shocked he should make such an excessive offer.

‘No, they’re not,’ he agreed. ‘Not yet. But you need the money now. If you want them in a year or two, you can pay me back. If you don’t, I’ll bide my time and sell them at a profit. In this trade, it’s just a matter of biding one’s time. You know that as well as I do.’

Yes, she did. She’d been very willing to learn, and Harry was a good teacher. One of the first things he’d taught her was the way fashion ebbed and flowed continuously. The successful dealer was the one who could predict the way the tide was running or spread his activities wide enough to cover whichever way it ran.

Harry was very good at the job, but even he made mistakes. ‘If you don’t make mistakes, you don’t make anything,’ he often said, philosophically. ‘It’s all
part of life.’

Jessie wasn’t at all philosophical when Clare went up to Braeside later that day to tell her all that had
happened. She was even more distressed and upset than Clare had expected.

‘Yer mad, Clare. Absolutely mad. Sure Andrew’s dying about you,’ she protested. ‘What are ye thinkin’ about? Sure Canada isn’t the be all an’ end all of things? Isn’t Andrew more important than that? Could ye not wait a year or two an’ then go?’