Sarah could hardly believe that even before the end of April she could no longer wear either the plum dress or the newer sage green one which had sustained her through both autumn and winter. Both of them were already too warm, even in the large rooms and airy spaces of Castle Dillon. Everyone agreed, ‘Sure we’ve had no winter this year.’
Taking out her much-loved blue dress from the chest in her bedroom on the last Saturday in April 1846, Sarah shed tears. This was the dress she had made for her wedding in early April, three years ago. It was also the dress in which she’d driven to Castle Dillon to ask Sir George if he would allow her to postpone her rent for six months.
It was, of course, the dress in which she’d been approached by Jonathan Hancock in the library of Castle Dillon when Sir George had informed him that there was a woman ‘of his persuasion’ already waiting.
That was when he had first spoken of her as a ‘sensible woman’.
She smiled as she stood at the ironing board gently coaxing away the creases in the light fabric. She thought of both Sir George and Jonathan, now good friends in different ways. Sir George had refused her delayed payment when she’d offered it to him this very week. He’d said promptly that she could enter it in her records as a ‘bonus for effort beyond the call of duty’.
More than once, Sir George had insisted she’d saved his sanity and she’d had to admit when she thought back to those towers of papers and the missing documents to which they referred, that he did have a point. It would be wrong not to give thanks for her achievements and the appreciation it had brought her.
But on this lovely, warm April day, she still had to face the anniversary of John’s death. This year, the date fell on a Sunday, but whether it was the day or the date on the calendar, she doubted if she could ever forget that sunlit spring day he went off to Armagh, smiling and waving goodbye, and his return, a white-faced figure sprawled on a door carried by colleagues and neighbours.
She knew how that image had haunted poor Scottie who’d kept lookout from the pillar with the best view down the road. He had wept in her arms more than once, as the memory came back to him. There was little comfort she could give him except an attempt at reassurance that she would look after him.
Now Scottie, inches taller than this time last year and growing in confidence all the time, was part of the team running the marketing of handmade clothes. He had even found some women in need of work living in Loughgall, near the old schoolmaster who now enjoyed his visits as once he’d welcomed Ben.
Dear Ben. That was another event she’d never forget, when he’d found his voice and then amazed both Scottie and Sam Keenan. Ben wrote regularly both to her and to Scottie and sent what dollars he could spare to help Scottie take care of his granny. Ben’s own old nurse, whom he’d supported as best he could on an apprentice’s allowance, had indeed died shortly after his departure.
Things change and one must move with change, she reflected, thinking of her brother, now hard at work again in the Lurgan workshop and Jonathan Hancock, now very much her friend; Jonathan, who was currently in north Donegal looking at the possibility of improving the diet of the poorest people. Fish, he said, in his most recent letter, were very plentiful around their coasts, but only accessible in the best of weather when their flimsy curraghs were able to be put to sea. He’d told her then how he was looking for some Scottish fishermen who would come and teach them to use the new boats being bought for them by one of the wealthy landowners.
Suddenly, weary of being indoors when the sun was beaming golden shafts of light on the well-swept kitchen floor, she put her iron back to heat on the hearth and went and stood at the door, her eyes dazzled by the bright light.
‘Good mornin’, Mrs Hamilton. Are ye enjoyin’ the sun?’
The voice was familiar, the figure indistinct through watering eyes, but when she shaded them she beamed with pleasure. Paddy McCann, the good-hearted man who had offered her a good price for the mending of the damaged trap. And an impressive job he had made of it.
She insisted he come in for a mug of tea and a bit of cake while the edgy black stallion who pulled his own trap was shoed by Scottie, to whom Sam left all the shoeing these days.
He told her he was glad to see her looking so well, that he’d heard about her job at Castle Dillon as well as the good work she was doing for the home workers. He asked, predictably, if the trap was going well and she was glad to be able to tell him that in all honesty without his work on the trap the clothes market on a Thursday would never have happened, never mind her daily drives to Castle Dillon.
‘Ach, sure isn’t that great,’ he said beaming with pleasure. ‘D’ye mine you were lukin’ to sell it after poor John went? Isn’t it a mercy that no one was after it when you were a bit short o’ money? You couldn’t do either of yer jobs now wi’out it. Now, if it ever gives ye a problem, yer to send young Scottie straight over on Daisy an’ I’ll either come and fix it here, or I’ll lend ye my trap to put Daisy in, till I can see m’ way to do it. An’ there’ll be no charge,’ he added vigorously, as he drained his mug and stood up.
‘One good deed deserves another, an’ I’d not be much good with a needle an’ thread,’ he added, laughing, as Scottie appeared at the door to tell him he’d taken his horse for a drink at the trough and had left him tethered in the shade behind the forge.
Within days of Paddy’s visit, the weather had settled even finer and drier than in April. Already in the first week of May, the hawthorn blossom was weighing down the branches of the hedgerows and filling the air with its sweet perfume. When a brief, pleasant shower began to settle the dust round the entrance to the forge early one Sunday evening, Sarah put down her sewing and stepped outside to feel the warm rain on her face. She laughed at herself. When in her life had she ever celebrated a shower of rain?
But she was not the only one to celebrate. Two days later, the Armagh Guardian reported the brief shower of Sunday night saying, ‘more of which would be very desirable to the farmers’. It then went on to do a round-up of news from surrounding areas saying that the crops around the district of Moy and Charlemont looked remarkably well and healthy, and so ‘forward’ in that district was the season that a field of upland hay had already been cut and cocked.
Provisions of every sort are abundant, they added, and are comparatively cheap: potatoes three and a half pence to four and a half pence a stone, several samples of new ones having been brought to market. At Aughnacloy, the potato market on Wednesday was so very large that room could scarcely be found for all the carts.
Sarah reported this heartening news to Jonathan in Donegal adding that her neighbour, Billy, said he’d never seen such vigorous growth so early in the year.
Jonathan replied immediately saying it was splendid news – for with a generous crop the merchants could not afford to store potatoes till the price went up as they had the previous year. Provided the markets were full of sound potatoes, there was at least a source of food, the problem being the lack of the wherewithal to purchase for those with no cash income.
He had noted, he said, in the last set of minutes she’d copied out for him that the number of admissions to Armagh Workhouse had gone up. Despite the good weather and hopeful predictions, free emigration schemes were again being advertised by landowners who saw no prospect of receiving their rents.
Sarah read his letters avidly both for the information he shared with her and in the hope of getting some clue to his well-being. Although he wrote most regularly and with apparent enjoyment, she’d noticed at times a distinct hint of sadness in his letters. Perhaps, like herself, he got very tired and then could not lift his spirits. She wondered if he might have had bad news about his wife, of whom he never spoke, but she was almost sure that she’d not find out unless they could meet and talk face-to-face. She hoped they might meet sometime in May or June before he went back to Yorkshire.
In the meantime, the long, light days were filled with activity at Castle Dillon. For the first year, the extensive gardens around the house were in production. Fruit and vegetables were so prolific that the kitchen staff were overworked with bottling, jam-making and preserving. The outside staff, organised by Robert Ross, were responsible for delivering cartloads of produce to churches and chapels who had offered to deliver to those in greatest need.
Many of the gentry who sat on the Guardian’s Committee with Sir George made similar arrangements for simply giving food to those in need in their immediate area, despite the contrary arguments that charity did not solve the problems and only public works providing labour for men would resolve the situation.
As Sarah copied out details of discussions and disagreements to be sent to colleagues of Sir George, she felt her spirits falter. The more she knew about rents, and cess, and presentments, the more she saw the complexity of the situation. The ocean of need would not be resolved by the exceptional fine stems of heavy-eared wheat and oats brought into the Armagh Guardian office, nor the bumper crops they so happily predicted.
The whole situation however changed one Friday evening when Mary-Anne arrived so red in the face from hurrying that she had to sit down at the table and lean on its worn surface till she got her breath back.
‘What has happened, Mary-Anne? Is Billy or one of the boys ill? Tell me what I can do to help,’ Sarah said, pulling out the wooden chair beside her and catching at her hand.
Mary-Anne shook her head as tears welled up in her eyes.
‘Billy went out t’ mend a hole in one of the hedges where the cattle could push out an’ get inta the next field where some o’ the new potato rigs are. They were all lookin’ as right as rain on Wednesday but when Billy went to the hole in the hedge t’ mend it about an hour ago he cou’d see it’s got the blight. An’ it’s not just that field but all what they’ve put in this year. The whole lot of it was just startin’ ti’ smell. I think Billy an’ the boys are heartbroke. Shure I couldn’t get a word outa one of them.’
There was very little Sarah could say. After Billy’s very slight losses the previous year, this was a whole different situation. With his cows producing milk and butter, and Sarah earning commission as well as selling her own work, they would certainly not starve, but that was not the point. Like being put out of work, there was still the dislocation and disruption of what had happened and the burden of paying the rent when there was so little cash coming in.
Sarah made tea, but neither of them could manage even a small slice from the fruit cake she’d made the previous evening.
Even before the Armagh Guardian published its report, the news had already circulated around the whole district. This time the failure was complete. None of the schemes for retrieving the good portions from damaged tubers the previous year would be of the slightest use this time. With this crop, the rotten tops led down to equally blackened and disintegrating messy potatoes.
This year there was nothing but a stinking mass, with a smell so distinctive it could not be mistaken.
For the next few weeks, people might still have some of last year’s potatoes stored in straw-lined clamps or dry potato houses, but they wouldn’t last long. Worse still, merchants who had good supplies they’d been holding for that period between old crop and new could now put up their prices even further. Once those were gone, the chances of getting another crop in the infected soil were exceedingly unlikely.
June, a month Sarah particularly loved, was very enjoyable as far as the weather went. There were none of the hot, humid days that had driven her in April to bring out her coolest dress. The long light evenings with still, golden sunsets and pleasant showers kept the ground moist but did not damage the growing crops. Sadly, however, the news of the spreading blight in every part of Ireland seemed to depress everyone, even those who had both money and food to feed their own families.
Sarah began to dread the arrival of the newspapers: the Armagh Guardian fetched by whichever of the Halligans had business in town on a Tuesday and The Times and London Illustrated News provided in Sir George’s library for anyone, visitor or servant, who chose to read them.
She read them all dutifully, fully aware that Sir George needed her to be well informed, but she found little comfort or prospect of help in any of them, for what was happening all around her, as poverty increased and the government increasingly argued, delayed and disagreed about ways of providing relief.
There were, however, more urgent pressures upon Sarah herself. Sir George, having agreed to accompany his wife to her parents’ home in Warwickshire with the children, left a note telling her that provided she acknowledged any incoming letters and quoted the date of his return to those requesting the favour of an immediate reply, she was free to spend the remaining time as she wished, whether at home or in his library.
He did ask, however, that she would oversee the financial side of the management of the household, paying staff and household bills as usual. He referred her to yet another pile of papers, sadly in need of sorting and filing, but the only records available to help her. Except, as she discovered, the incredible memory of Bridget Carey for even the smallest household items and a neatly copied-up notebook kept by Robert Ross detailing the needs of the stables.
The first week of Sir George’s absence was the most taxing she had ever spent, even remembering those first days when she had struggled to clear the backlog left by his departing man of business. She was so exhausted by the time she got home that she found two letters from Jonathan and had not the energy to respond to either.
When she read them for a second time the next day before setting out for Castle Dillon, she discovered that he’d been called to Dublin to report to the Yearly Meeting there. He said he would enclose his address in tomorrow’s letter. She read the second letter yet again but found no address. Sadly disappointed, she set about her morning chores with only half her mind upon them.
But the taxing week was not yet over. Halfway through the morning James, the footman, arrived with a note which had just been delivered. A young man was waiting for her in the stables, he said, and he had already spoken to Robert Ross and asked him to fetch Daisy.
‘Oh, no,’ Sarah said, as she scanned the hastily written message. ‘James, I’ll have to go home. Will you please apologise to Mrs Carey for me? We were to work together this afternoon but my neighbour has died.’
‘Ach dear, I’m sorry indeed. I’ll tell her all right. D’ye want me to run down and tell the young man yer comin’?’
‘Thank you, I’ve some papers to collect to take with me. But I’ll be as quick as I can,’ she said, noticing, despite her distress, that James had abandoned his usual formality and had spoken with a soft southern accent.
She concentrated on gathering together the documents that needed to go to the bank and putting them in her shopping bag. ‘Oh Mary-Anne, my dear friend,’ she said, as she picked up her notebook, ‘Whatever has happened, what’s happened at all?’