The Molyneux coach with its well-matched greys, its experienced coachman, its newly-married groom and its two passengers, Lady Ishbel Molyneux and Mrs Rose Hamilton, made good time on the journey to Dublin, but once there, the uncertainty as to what was to happen next grew wearisome. The departure for the north depended upon Sir Capel’s business in the capital and Lady Ishbel’s decision whether to stay in Dublin, or return home ahead of him.
Rose longed to complete this longest of journeys. Until she reached her new home, her life was suspended. Though no longer a servant, she was still entirely dependent on the decisions of others and although Lady Ishbel treated her very courteously, it was her nature to be very demanding. Throughout each day of the journey from Currane Lodge to Dublin she’d talked continuously. Sometimes interestingly, at other times her monologues filled up with minute details of people and places quite unknown to Rose. She’d responded as best she could, but the effort wearied her. It was particularly hard to bear when all she wanted to do was sit quietly and absorb the passing countryside, storing it up, delighting in its newness, its variety, its difference from all she had yet experienced.
There was a more personal reason too. The short nights spent in different hostelries on the long road brought pleasure and joy. John was as tender and passionate a lover as she imagined he would be. Sometimes when Lady Ishbel was in full flight and only required an attentive appearance, the occasional nod, she smiled to think she was separated from her lover only by the thin walls of a coach and the interminable chatter of an old woman who found travel tedious and boring.
After a week of delays in Merrion Square, only partly offset by visiting the sights of the city, Lady Ishbel made the decision to remain in Dublin. Anxious for John to return to his own work on the estate, Sir Capel decided to send them north by train, an unexpected gift which delighted them both.
‘So where are we now, John?’ Rose asked, as they stopped at a small station, somewhere beyond Portadown. There they’d left the great gleaming express gathering steam for the last stretch of its run into Belfast, while they made their way in the opposite direction on a small local train bound for Armagh, Monaghan and Cavan.
‘Sure we’re nearly home, Rose,’ he said softly. ‘This is Richhill.’
Rose glanced at the small station and gazed up the lane she could see running between the end of the platform and a nearby goods shed. A girl with ginger hair was leading a horse on a rope away from them, up the rising slope of the lane between high hedges. A dozen yards away, a handful of cows crossed the lane itself, moving slowly towards a long, low building, whitewashed, its thatched roof recently patched with new straw that caught the long fingers of evening sun filtering through the nearby trees.
‘It’s not a very big village, is it?’ she said cautiously, as she watched John smile contentedly as he ran his eye over the familiar place.
The cows were followed by a man with a stick. As the whistle blew and the train creaked, vibrated and began to move, he spotted John, raised his stick and waved it in a vigorous salute. John lowered the window and leant out.
‘Good evenin’, Tom. Are ye well?’
‘Aye, the best at all. An’ yerself, an’ the wife?’ he asked, a broad beam on his face.
‘Grand. Grand. We’re on our way home,’ he shouted, as the whistle blew again, the train now gathering speed, a cloud of smoke and steam enveloping their carriage.
By the time John had pulled up the window, the grey-white cloud had dissolved and they were once again moving between green fields and orchards, the railway banks bright with ox-eye daisies, long-stemmed buttercups and the rusty spikes of sorrel and dockon.
‘That was Tom Loney,’ John explained. ‘His brother James works for Sir Capel. He’s a forester.’
‘And that was Richhill?’ Rose prompted him.
‘Ach no, that’s only Richhill Station. Richhill is a mile or more away.’
‘That’s not much good if you live in Richhill,’ said Rose, laughing.
‘It’d be worse if it weren’t here at all,’ he replied promptly. ‘Sure when the line was built, talk was there was to be no station at all between Portadown and Armagh, but some of the big business people had their say. There’s fruit growing all round this area,’ he explained. ‘A lot of farmers send boxes of apples and soft fruits up to Belfast in the season forby the milk and eggs that goes every day. There’s a tannery too and furniture workshops at Stonebridge. Sure it’s goods the railways makes their money on, not the likes of you an’ me travelling around the place,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘I’ll be quite glad to stop travelling around the place, John. It seems such a long time since we walked down our path to the lake and had a place to call our own.’ She poked him gently in the ribs and said, accusingly, ‘And we never did hear that nightingale of yours.’
‘Aye, but we heard your lark sing the few afternoons we had,’ he reminded her gently.
She fell silent, her eyes closing, weary from the brightness of the light. All day she’d peered through soot-stained windows to see as much of the passing country as she could, for there was little likelihood of her ever seeing any of it again.
‘Look, John, look,’ she’d whispered, when the carriage was still full of people as they made their way towards Drogheda. ‘Wouldn’t that just be Lady Anne?’
They looked down on a wide, empty beach, the blue water creating a leisurely fringe of white wavelets. A girl on horseback raced along it, clods of damp sand thrown back from the hooves of her mount. Following her, a black dog, tried to keep pace with her, its pink tongue just visible.
‘Them’s the wee hills I told you about,’ he whispered, a little later, nodding towards the window on the other side of the train.
Rose studied the smooth, rounded hill that occupied the foreground, its summit outlined by a planting of young trees. A pleasing shape indeed, as if a giant hand had taken its time to mould the countryside, finding curving hillsides more appealing than low lying fields, however rich or productive.
The low hills came and went again. They rattled over a railway bridge and realised they had crossed the Boyne, a harmless stream far below them, emptying itself into an estuary lined with tall, stone warehouses and smaller rows of houses. Soon afterward, the carriage now empty of fellow passengers, they’d picked out the Mournes, their south-facing slopes pale in bright sunlight as they swept down to the shores of Carlingford Lough.
As they drew nearer to the mountains, the train slackened speed and they found themselves travelling more slowly through country rougher and wilder than any they’d yet encountered. Here the fields were no longer green and pleasant, but rough and filled with rushes, invaded by bracken and bramble. The farms looked poor and mean and even on such a lovely summer day there was a bleak, windswept look about the place. This much closer now, the Mournes turned their northern faces towards them, sombre, pitted with deep gullies, full of dark blue shadows.
‘Well, yer in Ulster now, Rose. Old Tom says it’s always been different t’ the rest of Ireland, but I can’t see it myself. Sure it’s the same wee hills, the same folk out workin’ on their land. Can ye see a difference?’
‘Ask me again when I’ve got my feet on the ground,’ she began.
‘It’s different from Kerry all right. But looks aren’t everything. It’s the people that make a place different.’
‘Sure you’ll find nothing but welcome where we’re goin’. My mother’s that excited she’d have had the whole house decorated for ye comin’ if I hadn’t written an’ told her to hold her horses till she’d ask ye what ye’d like. She’s been lonely since the father died. An’ forby, she always wanted a girl, an’ didn’t she have all boys, poor woman.’
‘Well, if they were all like you, she maybe didn’t do so bad. Were they like you?’
‘Ye may ask her that yerself for I was young enough when they upped sticks for Canada,’ he began. ‘I always remember George, the eldest, said he’d never work in a forge. He was kinda particular. He said it was too dirty for him. When he left school he went and served his time in Elliott’s of Thomas Street. They were grocers and thought themselves very superior. Nothing but the best. They brought in their own cigars and had a special whiskey. But he said he was fed up with the airs and graces of the customers. James always wanted to do what George did, but he couldn’t get a place in a grocer’s, though there’s plenty of them in Armagh, so he ended up in Gillis Mill watchin’ the looms, but sure he couldn’t stan’ the noise.’
The evening light was beginning to fade a little and the shadows were lengthening. In the orchards, every tree cast its outline on the long grass, the pale unripe fruit catching the light against dark foliage. The train slowed once again and came to a halt at an even smaller station. Here there was no building of any kind, just a platform and a sign. It said: The Retreat.
John helped her down, handed her the small bags and parcels they’d brought with them, the items Rose would need to keep her going till the coach came up from Dublin with the rest of her possessions and the wedding gifts they’d had from the staff and guests at Currane Lodge.
‘Are yez right?’ called the guard.
‘Grand, thank ye,’ replied John.
She stood looking round her as he banged the carriage door shut and waved to the guard who was watching to see them safely landed. Somewhere a blackbird was singing his heart out. He sounded just like the one who perched on the point of the eaves above the stable yard clock opposite the rooms she’d shared with her mother for so long. For a moment she felt so utterly desolate, a small figure in a completely unknown world. Then John put an arm round her and moved her away from the train as it began to make steam. They stood together on the rough stones by the track and watched it move slowly away from them, disappearing into a cutting where the line curved southwards before its next stop in Armagh.
‘There now, love, it’s not far now. There’s a bit of a shortcut across the field here and then its about half a mile on the road.’
With one arm firmly round her, the other carrying their bags, a couple of parcels wedged under his arm, he set out across the field, humming quietly to himself.
They walked in silence for a little, grateful to be moving on their own feet, their limbs full of the weariness of the day, the crowded carriages of the Dublin train, the hard wooden seats in the Portadown waiting room, the creak and rattle of the elderly carriages on the local train.
Rose drew a deep breath of the fresh evening air, caught the aroma of turf smoke and found herself suddenly back in her childhood, sitting by the fire with her brothers and sister, her mother cooking bread on a griddle hung on a chain over the glowing embers.
How remote it all seemed, those far-off days. How much her world had changed. How widely they were scattered. She had come to Armagh while Mary stayed in Donegal. Michael was in Scotland and Patrick had settled in Nova Scotia. Her mother and Sam were back in Kerry, separated not so much by the distance between them, but by the expense of getting there.
They’d all survived, but not her sister Rose whose name she carried on, nor her eldest brother Sam, buried side by side in the sloping churchyard that looked out over Lough Gartan, close by the remains of Columbkille’s small stone church. They lay among friends and neighbours whose names she could still bring to mind. Not so her father, lying in a churchyard in Galloway, surrounded by good Presbyterians, every one a stranger.
She felt tears well up in her eyes and blinked them away so that John would not see. How could anyone ever have imagined what would become of the little family gathered by that glowing fire? And now, she was setting out, just as her mother had done, travelling to an unknown place, a good and loving man by her side. For a moment, she was aware just how enormous a step she’d taken, but before fear or anxiety could touch her, she heard the sound of John’s voice and her sense of loneliness and isolation dissolved. As her mother had said, she’d chosen a good man. That was all that mattered. What would come, would come. Together they would face it.
‘There now,’ he said, drawing her through a field gate and releasing her for a moment to shut it behind them. ‘Yer so close now ye might even smell it,’ he said, beaming down at her.
‘No, not a sign of garlic,’ she said, laughing up at him. ‘All I can smell is turf smoke and mown hay … and flowers, but I’m not sure what flowers.’
‘Ah, ye’ll smell flowers all right when I get you home, sure it’s only a wee bit now. Are your eyes all right?’ he asked, looking at her closely.
‘Its just the smoke and the brightness,’ she said, lightly, not wanting to dampen his good spirits. ‘I could do with washing my face,’ she said, laughing.
The road was narrow but well-used, the cart ruts mended with loose stones. On one side, tall trees shaded the worn surface from the setting sun, on the other, beyond low hedges and tumbled stone walls, fields and water meadows were still bathed in golden light.
Rose noticed John was walking faster, but she said nothing and saved her breath for keeping up with his lengthening strides.
‘There ye are,’ he said, nodding, his arms fully occupied.
Ahead of them they saw the gable end of a sturdy, two-storey house partly sheltered by trees. As they drew closer, the light glinted from small paned windows and glanced off the fresh whitewash. A trim little house, well-thatched and solid. Very much as he had described it to her sitting by Currane lake.
As they stepped off the road, through a small gate onto a cobbled path leading to the front door, she gasped in delight.
‘John, you never told me about the garden.’
‘Ach, I had to keep a wee surprise. My mother has great hands for plants. She can grown anything.’
Rose walked slowly up the path, the perfume of roses and the heavy scent of lilies lying on the cooling air, the blending colours of delphiniums and foxgloves, rich blues, mauves and pinks, a joy to the eye. Tired as she was, she could have stood and looked at the two broad herbaceous borders for long enough had the front door not been thrown opened, and a small, stooped woman with a stick moved awkwardly towards them.
‘Ach Rose dear, I’m so glad to see you,’ she said, throwing out her arms and embracing her. ‘Sure you’ve had a long, long journey and you’ll be thinkin’ strange. Come away in an’ have a bite to eat an’ rest yourself.’
‘Hullo, Ma,’ said John quizzically, as he watched the two women embrace.
‘Hullo, yourself,’ Sarah Hamilton said, laughing up at him, as he bent down to kiss her. ‘Aren’t you the lucky one. Didn’t I always say you were the one that would land on yer feet whether you were rich or poor?’
It took Rose only a few minutes to grasp that her new mother-in-law was simply an older, female version of her son. She had the same openness of manner, the same humour, and the same unwillingness to be bound by solemnity. Despite her obvious physical difficulties, she swept them into the house, despatched them with their bags to the largest bedroom and had a pot of tea waiting for them when they came down.
‘Goodness knows when you last got a bite,’ she said, waving them to their seats at a laden table.
On an embroidered linen cloth she’d laid out plates of fresh baked bread, soda and wheaten, tiny scones, and slices of fruit cake. She put the heavy teapot beside John and bade him keep the teacups filled while she plied them both with questions about their wedding and their journey north.
‘Sure it’ll take me days to hear all I want to hear and the both of you tired out. I just wish I could’ve seen the pair of you in all your glory. I knew you must be the right woman, Rose, when he went out and bought a coat. I’ve been tryin’ for years to get him to buy somethin’ decent for a Sunday but I might as well have talked to the wall,’ she ended cheerfully.
‘Well, you will see us. But it’ll be a wee while,’ said Rose warmly. ‘One of the guests, Mr Blennerhassett, had a photographic camera. He’d been practising on the family and he insisted on taking pictures outside the church. He promised us that our pictures would be his wedding present to us when he’d developed them.’
‘Isn’t that great. I was nearly goin’ to ask you to go to Loudan’s in Armagh and get them to do a picture for me, but isn’t this far better? An’ I’ll see your mother and brother as well, will I?’
‘Oh yes, he did us, then us with my family, us with Sir Capel and Lady Caroline, us and Lady Anne and Lord Harrington. In fact, I think he managed to get the whole staff in one picture. I don’t know what he’ll send, of course, but he’s a very nice man and he said it was the first time he’d ever experimented with a wedding, so we may get more than just the one of us.’
‘Oh, I hope so,’ said Sarah, clapping her hands together in delight. ‘Wouldn’t I just love to see all the people John wrote to me about! You know, Rose, they did teach him to write at Grange School, but you’d never have guessed it,’ she declared. ‘I’ve never known him lay pen to paper till he met you. Even the postman came in to ask me was everything all right with my son when the letters started comin’. And now, of course, tell the postman and the whole world knows what a happy man he is,’ she said, turning to Rose, and patting her hand.
Sarah, Rose and John sat over their meal and talked till it was so dark they could hardly see each other’s faces. When John lit the lamp they sat on by the fire until finally Sarah stood up and said she’d talked far too long, and wasn’t there all of tomorrow to talk, a long day and it not even started yet.
‘I’ll show you the parlour in the mornin’, Rose dear. It’s a nice enough wee room, but sure we never used it, so I’ve had my bed moved down. That’ll give ye more room upstairs. Now away till yer beds children dear. Aren’t ye worn out wi’ all my talk.’
There was no need for the candle they’d lit to take them to bed for the room was full of bright moonlight. It cast the shadow of the window frame on the pale quilt. Even by its light, Rose could see that it had been made by hand, the fine white material sprayed with flowers and then quilted onto some firmer backing.
‘Look John, look,’ she cried softly, pointing to the centre of the spread, as she moved across to her side of the bed.
‘Ach indeed,’ he said quietly. ‘She must have been at that from when I first told her.’
In the midst of a heart-shaped garland of tiny roses, the two initials J and R were lovingly entwined.