Sarah was grateful for the reassurance her calculations provided. Even her half of the very modest commission she and Mary-Anne took from the women who provided the varied garments they sold had accumulated in the year to a useful sum. That was good news, but even better was something she had completely forgotten about. She had to go and check with her bank book to convince herself she was not now misremembering.
No, she wasn’t imagining it. She was quite sure she had paid the half-yearly rent, but while Sir George had taken what she owed for her current six months’ rent, he had vigorously refused the sum owing since the day she had first come to Castle Dillon. She’d asked him then if she could delay the payment in order to try and get an income to support herself and help her keep the forge going. She had no idea what was going to happen on that day.
So, she had a year’s tiny weekly earnings made up of the various payments for her own sewing and the six months’ rent she had expected to pay. She added it up and smiled. She could now give Scottie a salary for the work he did distributing fabric from her brother’s factory, collecting finished goods from the women who sewed and taking them their earnings as soon as she’d them made up. Now, he could both look after himself and pay his rent. She’d have more than enough left to give Sam a small pay rise to make up for some extra hours he might need to work during Scottie’s occasional absences to collect or deliver. She would also be able to ensure now that Scottie had some decent clothes for when he was not at work in the forge.
Suddenly delighted with how unexpectedly easy it had been to find what she needed, she took out her writing materials and began her promised letter to Jonathan. She thought of him now, after his night crossing, travelling by coach from Heysham to the outskirts of York, a long journey she knew even without taking out her battered atlas to work it out in miles.
Somewhere on the outskirts of that city he would finally arrive home, welcomed by an elderly housekeeper and her son, who worked in the gardens. He so seldom spoke of his home that she wondered if White Hill House was a family residence he’d been obliged to take on when his elderly parents died, or whether perhaps it had sad memories of some kind. Not something to ask him in a letter, or at least not now. But since yesterday, it looked as if there would be time and opportunity for sharing much more than they’d already shared.
She was absorbed in her letter when she heard a knock at the door. To her amazement, it being Sunday, it was Sam Keenan, looking distressed.
‘Sam, what’s wrong?’
‘Ach it’s the wee lassie. She’s taken some sort of a fever. M’wife’s trying to keep her cool but we don’ know what to do. I don’t like to ask, but wou’d you lend me the trap or let me ride Daisy? By the time I would walk to the doctor in Armagh sure we might ’ave lost her, she’s that hot you cou’d feel the heat of her wi’out even touchin’ her.’
‘Take whichever you want, Sam – I’ll go down to Mary-Anne. She knows more about children than I do and she and I can go over to Selina in her trap. At least we could keep her company till you get back with the doctor. Mary-Anne might know what to do.’
She picked up her purse from the dresser as she walked to the door with him.
‘Sam, it might help if you had the doctor’s fee to hand to him when you see him, it being a Sunday. Take this,’ she said, giving him more than he would need. ‘You may need medicine as well. Now, not a word,’ she added, as he looked for a moment as if he might protest. ‘On second thoughts, take Daisy and the trap in case Halligan’s horse is out at grass and will have to be caught and saddled. You can drop me at the foot of the hill on your way.’
While Sam was harnessing Daisy, Sarah collected some milk and fresh bread and looked around the kitchen to see if there was anything else that might help. Selina’s children would be properly fed but might not have had any supper. She remembered a half fruit cake in the tin and wrapped it up for the other children. She knew little about these childhood fevers but Mary-Anne was a different story. She was often called upon by people with sudden illness.
There was nothing on the roads and lanes around Greenan and Mary-Anne’s young mare was clearly glad to be out, so they’d spoke of nothing except the youngest child on the short, speedy journey. Sarah reckoned the child must be about fifteen months old and remembered that Sam had once told her she was bonny.
She was indeed. They arrived to find her with her eyes closed, long eyelashes dark against dimpled cheeks, soft damp curls sticking to her head. The little face itself was beaded with sweat which Selina, torn with anxiety, kept wiping with her handkerchief, holding her as if she would never let her go. The older children stared wide-eyed at their mother from under the kitchen table, where the eldest girl, only seven years old herself, had told them to sit so they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way when Da came back with the doctor.
Sarah, her eyes filling with tears, looked at Mary-Anne and prayed there was something she could do. She looked around the clean and tidy kitchen, hopeful she could find something she herself could do. Were there any words of comfort to offer to Selina and what about the little girls and their older brother?
‘Perhaps, Selina, you’ve an old sheet I could use,’ Mary-Anne said, after one brief look at the child. ‘We need to wet it and wrap it roun’ the wee un, then maybe my friend, Sarah here, could make us a cup of tea. Sarah has brought us some cake. Do any of you like cake?’ she asked, raising her voice and looking down at the children under the table, as she took the child from Selina while she went and got a sheet.
The three pairs of eyes were taking in every detail of what was going on, as Sarah fetched the water bucket from under the dresser and helped Mary-Anne to soak the sheet and then wring it out. Selina wrapped it round the little one and said she could still feel the heat of the child through it.
All Sarah could think of was Sam coming back with the doctor, but she let Mary-Anne tell her what to do. She cut cake and talked to the children, who now seemed more interested in the cake than in the baby being wrapped in a wet sheet. Selina was silent but dry-eyed, her face pale with dark circles.
Time passed slowly. They changed the sheet three times whenever Selina felt it dry below her hands and then they heard the sound they’d all been waiting for: Daisy and the trap.
Selina stood up, looked through the window and handed the baby to Mary-Anne.
‘And no doctor in sight,’ she said to them both, as she went out to tell her husband that their youngest and bonniest was still with them, but still had her eyes tightly closed.
Some hours later, by which time the children had been put to bed and Sarah was aching from sitting patiently on a hard kitchen chair, Mary-Anne and Selina unwrapped the sheet once again. Sarah got up and she and Mary-Anne soaked it once more, squeezed it out ready to rewrap the inert child, when suddenly the little one began to cry and wave her arms around.
‘That’s good news, Selina,’ Mary-Anne said, feeling the small body all over. ‘One more damp sheet and we’ll see how she is.’
Half an hour later, the sheet still moist, the little one opened her eyes, looked around her, put her thumb in her mouth and promptly fell asleep.
‘Put her in her cradle now, Selina, and keep her warm, and don’t worry if she shivers. The fever has broke and she’ll likely mend but she might sleep the clock round. There’s no more any of us can do the night. It’s up to the man above,’ she added, as Sam and Selina crossed both themselves and the child.
It was not until they were back in Drumilly that Sarah was able to ask Mary-Anne what had happened to little Kathleen. Did she know what it was? Had she met it before when helping mothers before or after giving birth?
‘Ach, dear aye. It’s common enough but there’s no big medical name for it bar “fever”. It comes on sudden-like. Most doctors say there’s nothing they can do about it. They do all agree for certain there’s nothing to be done for the first night. If the child gets through that, there’s a chance for them, but a lot of them don’t. That’s why yer man in Armagh said he’d not come till tomorrow, tho’ no doubt he’d take his consultation fee handy enough if he’d come and he’d had a death certificate to sign.’
She paused and looked at Sarah who was listening attentively. ‘It just depends on the chile,’ she began, ‘if they’re poorly, or skinny, or jus’ not well fed, then they’ve no great chance, but that wee one was as bonny as Sam told you. He’s a good father is Sam and Selina thinks the world of them all. She tole me she was an only chile herself, and neglected forby. So she’s never goin’ to do that, is she?’
Sarah was so tired the next morning that she wondered how she would ever get through the day. Scottie didn’t appear for breakfast but she wrote him a short note to reassure him that he didn’t have to go back to Scotland unless he wanted to. She left his bowl of porridge over a saucepan of hot water in case he was just late. Though possibly he simply couldn’t come if his uncle had arrived.
Sam Keenan arrived as she was putting her note on the table under a fresh pot of jam so Scottie would be sure to notice it. Sam was wreathed in smiles.
‘Sure the wee one ate her breakfast with the rest of them but she fell asleep agin the minit Selina put the spoon down. Wou’d you mine if I walked down to Mrs Halligan to tell her the good news? Ah don’t know what we’d have done lass night wi’ out ye’s.’
‘Sure, Sam, she’ll be so glad to see you. Go ahead. I won’t be ready to go to work for a while. I need to bake bread for tonight in case Scottie comes for his meal and I have to change my clothes,’ she said, smiling, as she brushed ash off her skirt – the one she wore in the mornings till the fire was restored, the hearth swept and the coal bucket filled.
‘Aye,’ he replied, with a great beaming smile, his joy spilling out all around her. ‘There’s the quare difference in yer work clothes an’ mine, but yours wouldn’t do well in the forge with the soot and dust, an’ mine wou’den do well with the nice desk an’ all those clean pieces of paper!’
Sarah was grateful there was still no word of the Molyneux family’s return to Castle Dillon. She could manage her work perfectly well, but she was grateful not to have to answer questions or give an account of a document over which she’d had to puzzle.
She’d long ago got used to the way in which the gentry filled up the pages with courteous expressions of gratitude or good wishes for Sir George’s health, but she still found it just as tedious to have to extract the actual content of the letter, as it was to decipher the swirls and curlicues of the writer’s man of business.
She often thought of Jonathan’s clear copperplate and his direct way of speaking. Perhaps it was no surprise that there were now many successful Quaker businesses with a reputation for honest trading and an approach to their success that meant many less favoured individuals benefitted from their efforts.
It was only on Wednesday, after a second good night’s sleep that Sarah begin to feel more like herself. She managed a smile and friendly words for both Annie and James when they appeared separately with her morning tea and the day’s letters, and then she went and shared the lunch break with Bridget Carey, as she often did, instead of asking for her meal on a tray which she’d been so glad to do on the previous days.
‘It’s good to see you, Sarah. There’s not many I can talk to here, as you well know,’ Bridget said, welcoming her into the housekeeper’s room, the most spotless room Sarah had ever encountered. It was full of old, lovingly polished pieces of furniture, each piece with a story of who had given it to her, or how she’d rescued it from an attic, or even a bonfire.
‘Have you seen yesterday’s local paper yet?’ Bridget asked, pointing to the neatly folded Armagh Guardian in the magazine rack beside her own chair.
‘I glanced at it last night,’ Sarah replied, laughing, ‘but to tell you the truth I was so tired I had only looked at the front page when I decided I needed to get to bed.’
‘Aye, and there wouldn’t have been anything on that page to encourage sweet dreams,’ Bridget commented sharply. ‘Did you read the letters from Limerick and Kerry and the post-mortems on the two poor men that died from starvation? If the government don’t do something to help, they’ll soon be dying by the thousand. Sure there’s no food left. The people have no potatoes and no money for meal,’ she went on bitterly. ‘We don’t know how well off we are up here. I was born in Clare and things there are going from bad to worse. There are very few resident landlords to organise any help, not like our Sir George, just a few priests speaking out. But what money do priests have to give away?’
Sarah listened attentively. There was nothing new in what Bridget was saying, but hearing her soft Southern accent Sarah became more aware of the vast areas of countryside, far from any of the villages or towns, where there might be some help to be had. One of the men who had died had walked miles for some free food. Exhausted by the long walk, he had collapsed and died before he received it.
‘We’re all right, Sarah, food and plenty to spare and cartloads going out every day to people in need, but did you see this report about the gang of men in Armagh itself, last Saturday?’
Sarah shook her head as Bridget lifted up the paper, unfolded it, rifled through the inside pages and proceeded to read out an item about a group of men armed with sticks and cudgels, of menacing appearance, who had entered a bakery, threatened the baker, but gone away quietly when provided with bread.
‘What do you think of that, Sarah? And it can only get worse. There’s no cold in August or September, though you and I enjoy our fire in the evenings, but then between the linen going down and the blight finishing off the potatoes and winter yet to come, can we expect there to be any improvement in matters?’
There were indeed lovely autumn days in both August and September and even in October, but both August and September were stormier than usual, with a number of gales and sheet lightening, unusual in the Armagh area. It caused much distress at a time when many poor, hungry people were beginning to feel that ‘the wrath of God’, as preached to them by the more extreme evangelicals, both ministers and priests, was now being seen at work, his wrath cursing all around them.
By the end of August, the last hope of the late potato crop was gone. This time, unlike the previous year, it was not a partial failure. When Mary-Anne came up to see Sarah and to help prepare goods for their Thursday market, she admitted to her that at times she was almost glad that Billy had died when he did.
‘Sure I know it seems an awful thing to say, an’ I was heartbroken in m’own way when he went, but if he’d lived to see those fields he and the boys brought over from pasture juss las’ year, it wou’da been even harder to watch him. He’d juss have giv’ up. Young Billy wou’d be like that himself, but Jamsey is more like me; he’s not goin’ to lie down under it. He’s read that there’s organisations giving away seed for next year, turnip and swedes an’ suchlike, that can grow where the soil still maybe has the taint of the blight. Jamsey’ll turn his hand to anythin’ an’ where he goes Billy will follow. Billy’s a good worker, but he can’t find his own way. He’s been doing a lot o’ my work for me so I can do more sewing. D’you know he even baked bread lass week? And not much wrong with it, just a wee bit too hard in the crust.’
Mary-Anne was unambiguous in her support for marketing the handmade items. Jamsey and Scottie between them were now visiting the women in their homes, collecting and delivering as needed, and although the volume of garments continued to grow, the volume of sales more than kept pace. Sarah was always on the lookout for any drop in demand, but as she read somewhere, the poor had to rob their belly to clothe their back, and in fact she saw no drop in sales. It even went up when the first snow of what was to be a hard winter arrived towards the end of October.
In other parts of Ireland, there had been heavy emigration, especially in areas where landlords, knowing their rents would not be paid, simply evicted their hungry tenants so they could turn the land over to grazing and increase their acreages of oats and barley.
The Armagh Guardian reported regularly on the sale of firearms and there were frequent attacks on both rent collectors and carters taking grain to the ports. Relief committees were formed everywhere but many of them spent much of their time arguing about the nature of relief to be given. Even when a project was proposed and adopted, it could take months before any money was forthcoming to pay the wages of the men queuing up for paid work.
Meanwhile the weather worsened, so even where supplies of cheap grain were available, there was little chance of getting it to the remoter areas where they were needed.
True to his word, Sir George allowed Sarah to continue to take Thursday off each week and, if the weather was bad, to take work home on a Friday so she need not make up half a day or so on Saturday. He no longer chaired the workhouse committee but he still insisted on a copy of the minutes. He now brought her the news that fever had broken out in all parts of the house.
It was not till Lady Molyneux herself paid for the construction of fever sheds on some land she owned, nearer to Armagh than to Castle Dillon but a little distance from the workhouse itself, that the gross overcrowding of that building was eased.
But the success of the fever sheds in easing the pressure on workhouse staff was short-lived. Before the autumn turned into what Sir Norman Stronge called ‘the first real winter we’ve had’, a number of doctors, including the workhouse’s own doctor, died of the fever despite being well clothed and well fed. Now it seemed that no one was to be spared; no one was safe, not even the privileged owners and servants of the large Castle Dillon estate.