The Hawthorns Bloom in May (18 page)

She paused and turned towards her sister, her eyes anxious and troubled. ‘What do
you
think?’

‘Well, yes. Now that you ask me, I think I have
to agree,’ Sarah replied quickly. ‘I’m not sure I’d actually come to that conclusion, but if I look back over the last months, that’s really what I’ve been doing, just making decisions from day to day and week to week.’

Sarah broke off. Hannah had always seemed so calm, so imperturbable. Something of the sense of stillness was still there, yes, but Hannah was no longer so composed. Why this should be so, she couldn’t yet tell, but what Hannah said next made it rather clearer.

‘Sarah dear, you’ve been so good and so brave since Hugh died. You never complain about the work at the mills and all these disputes and strike threats, but I’m not blind. I can read between the lines,’ she said, smiling wanly. ‘It’s not the life you planned for yourself and it’s never going to be. Not now. Not the way things have changed.’

‘Oh, it’s not so bad, Hannah,’ Sarah said abruptly. ‘The children are such good company. We had a wonderful time when we went to visit Lily. And Ma is always understanding when I get fed up …’

She broke off, saddened and distressed by the look on Hannah’s face.

‘I’m sorry, Hannah dear. You’re right, I’m not being honest with you,’ she said apologetically. ‘Perhaps I’m not being honest with myself,’ she added wryly. ‘I do my best, but apart from writing
to Simon and working in the garden, there’s not much joy in it. And not much prospect of it getting any better.’

‘I wouldn’t say that, Sarah. I wouldn’t say that at all,’ replied Hannah vigorously. ‘And if you really believed that was the case I don’t think you’d have come, would you?’

To Sarah’s surprise and chagrin she found herself blushing. She laughed and stood up, walked the length of the pretty sitting room, stretched her arms and shoulders and came back to stand looking down at her sister.

‘I have the feeling, sister dear, you have it in mind to give me some good advice,’ she said soberly, though her eyes were sparkling. ‘I’ve never been much good at taking advice, but seeing it’s you, I promise I shall listen carefully. In fact, since I’m being so honest, I’ve no idea
what
to do next. I’ve almost begun to dread seeing Simon again, because I’m so agitated about so many things.’

‘Well, in that case,’ began Hannah, smiling, ‘I think it’s rather fortunate that Lord Grey requires his services for a day or two, till we see what all these things might be. Now how about a little walk in the garden before the children have their supper?’

It was not until Thursday afternoon that a telephone call from Teddy in London announced that Simon
was at last free to travel down to Cleeve Hall that evening. Teddy was proposing to come with him, albeit accompanied by a large briefcase full of work to be done at the weekend.

Hannah was beaming when she came to find Sarah, who was reading to Elizabeth and Anne in the nursery on their governess’ afternoon off.

‘Are you still feeling anxious?’ Hannah asked, as the two little girls went off to play in the garden.

‘Yes,’ she said honestly. ‘Just as anxious, but in much better spirits. It really is a treat being here with you. Perhaps it’s because I do have Ma and Alex to talk to that I hadn’t realised how lonely I was.’

‘I know how you feel,’ Hannah replied. ‘I miss Teddy so badly when he’s up in town all week. And I hate it if he has to stay for the weekend as well. You and I make quite a pair don’t we?’

They laughed together and hugged each other, grateful for the time they’d had to spend together, glad too that the waiting was over and whatever was to happen next would soon emerge.

Sarah was alone in the sitting room when she heard the sound of wheels on the gravel. Not only was the train on time, but the single cab at the station had been available. Within moments, Simon had come upstairs and was crossing the room towards her.

‘Sarah, Sarah, my dear, I thought the days would never pass,’ he said as he took her hand.

For a moment, she thought he might kiss her, but she checked herself. Simon was not a man to presume. Whatever his feelings, he would not do anything that might distress her. However loving their letters might have become, nothing had yet been said between them to move them beyond warm friendship.

‘Simon, it’s so good to see you. I began to think Lord Grey would never part with you,’ she said laughing. ‘Are you exhausted?’

‘I was,’ he said, looking at her tenderly. ‘Teddy had to read his newspaper for entertainment all the way down, but I seem to be recovering remarkably rapidly.’

‘Poor Simon,’ she said sympathetically, as they moved towards the window seat and sat down together. ‘Hannah did explain about Lord Grey. Is it true he had you come all the way from Petersburg because he doesn’t trust telegrams or memoranda?’ she asked lightly.

There was a tension about Simon she had not experienced before, but she reminded herself she’d never encountered him after he’d just spent four days in continuous contact with officials at the Foreign Office and with Lord Grey in particular.

‘Lord Grey is a force to be reckoned with,’ he said wryly, ‘but I’ve got a more difficult assignment
than him on my mind at the moment. Sarah, what time is dinner?’

Sarah laughed.

‘Oh dear, are you starving? I’m afraid it’s a bit late. Hannah said nine o’clock, so Teddy could spend some time with the children.’

‘No, I’m not hungry at all,’ he said shaking his head emphatically and glancing at his watch, ‘but I ought to change and there’s something I must say to you. If I’m quick, could we go and walk in the garden? It’s still warm and rather nice.’

‘Yes, of course. I’ll wait for you here.’

The garden was lovely, the air warm and still, the grass paths bone dry, the varied perfumes of roses and flowering shrubs lying on the air. For once, however, Simon seemed quite indifferent to his surroundings as he walked them more quickly than usual till they were some way beyond the house.

Still puzzled by his behaviour, Sarah said nothing as they paused on a small terrace overlooking a lily pond. There was a conveniently placed seat where one could enjoy the reflections in the water and the pattern of ripples as the fish jumped, but Simon ignored it. He simply looked back towards the house, out of sight behind a small group of poplars and an enormous cedar with sweeping branches that almost touched the ground.

‘Simon dear, what is it?’ she said, unable to bear the tension for a moment longer.

He paused and took a deep breath.

‘Sarah, the kettle’s about to boil over,’ he said quickly. ‘Something is going to happen, if not tonight, tomorrow. If not tomorrow then in a few days time. And if it does, I shall have to go. Instantly.’

The look he turned towards her was so distraught it was all she could do not to put her arms round him and comfort him.

‘That would be so sad,’ she managed.

‘It would be disastrous, for me, at least.’

‘But why, Simon? Would you be in danger?’ she asked, suddenly anxious, wondering what kind of assignment might put him at risk.

‘Yes, indeed I would. You see, I’d be in danger of losing the love of my life. I’d hoped we’d have a fortnight together in July. Then I hoped we’d have a week here at Cleeve, but if the telephone were to ring right now, we’d have only the time it takes for Teddy to come and find us.’

‘We could go and hide behind the bushes,’ she said, trying to show a lightness she was so very far from feeling.

‘Oh Sarah, this isn’t the way it ought to be,’ he said with a bleak smile. ‘This is the only moment I’ve got.’

He turned to face her once more. ‘Sarah, I want
you to be my wife. I know there are difficulties for both of us, but I love you as I’ve never loved anyone before. If you can say
yes
I’ll be the happiest man alive. If it’s too soon, I hope you’ll forgive me and go on being my friend. I couldn’t bear life if I hadn’t you as my friend.’ He paused. ‘I’ll wait as long as you want,’ he added softly.

For one long moment, Sarah hesitated. She had no doubt in her mind she loved him, but there were so many other people she had to consider. Hannah had made her go through them all, reassuring her that she was not being selfish. That she had a right to happiness.

‘Simon dear, its not too soon to ask me if I love you,’ she said gently. ‘I
do
. I love you and I would dearly love to be your wife, but I think we may have to wait a little before we can be together, for both our sakes,’ she said, looking up at him.

‘Oh, Sarah, Sarah, dearest. How I wish I could run away with you,’ he exclaimed, catching her up in his arms and swinging her round him. ‘I am the happiest man alive.’

He put her gently back on her feet. ‘No, don’t repeat the warning. I will hear that
tomorrow
, but not tonight. Tonight the telephone hasn’t rung, we are here, now, together and you love me. What more could I ever ask?’ he said, drawing her into his arms.

It was the happiest of weekends. Hannah and Teddy were overjoyed by Simon’s ecstatic announcement. The weather was ideal, warm and sunny, so they could spend most of their time walking, talking about the life they could make when, as they put it,
the kettle boils dry
. However much they had to speak of the realities of work and family commitments, they did not allow them to break in upon the suddenness of their joy.

If they only had until Monday morning, then so it must be. Every hour was to be cherished. Whatever happened, they had now a hope and a possibility and the outline of a future that would give them strength for whatever would be asked of them in the months to come.

On Sunday, they all went to the little village church nearby where the vicar prayed for peace and shook hands with them all as they departed. He recognised Sarah and Simon as visitors and hoped he would see them again soon.

The telephone rang as they were finishing lunch. None of them heard it over the laughter and the rattle of dessert plates.

‘Telephone, sir,’ the housekeeper said, as she came quickly back into the dining room only moments after she’d brought the apple pie.

Teddy stood up at once. For a moment no one realised that Mrs Greenaway was shaking her head.

‘Please, sir, it’s for Mr Hadleigh.’

‘Come on now, finish your nice apple pie and you can go outside if you want,’ said Hannah firmly, as Elizabeth and Anne watched Simon go.

They had just left the room when he returned.

‘That’s it, my friends,’ he said slowly. ‘The kettle’s boiled over. Franz-Joseph and the Countess Sophie have been assassinated in Sarajevo.’

On Sunday afternoon, following Simon and Teddy’s hasty departure for London, Sarah and Hannah drove over to Ashleigh Court and spent a few days with Lady Anne. The three women enjoyed the short time they could spend together and there was much pleasure in sharing Sarah’s good news, but the days themselves were overhung by the growing tension in the country and by Anne’s anxiety about Harrington, who was now having some difficulty in walking.

When they parted on Wednesday, a sultry afternoon in that first week of July, they knew life was about to change for all of them. There were no tears, but the embraces at the foot of the great stone staircase at Ashleigh and at the small local station near to Cleeve Hall, a day later, were more heartfelt than usual.

As each day of that long month passed, the sense
of unease grew. Nothing in the newspapers gave the remotest sign of hope that the die had not been cast in a remote city in Bosnia that no one in Ulster had ever heard of before. On August the fifth, when the news reached Banbridge that war had been declared after a meeting of the Privy Council late the previous evening, there was a palpable sense of relief. Now that the worst had happened, at least everyone would soon know what might be demanded of them.

After hearing Sarah’s account of Harrington’s deterioration, Rose wanted to go and see her old friend, but from the moment the news of war had come, she could see the burden that had descended upon John. With the problems at the mills multiplying by the hour, she just couldn’t leave him to cope on his own, never mind worry about her safety, now that German submarines were reported in the Irish Sea.

‘Hallo love, I wasn’t expecting you,’ Rose said, when Sarah appeared in the doorway one crisp, pleasant morning in September. She put down her sewing, took off her spectacles and got to her feet. ‘I hope you’ve got some good news. I’ve had nothing but bad this morning.’

‘Oh dear,’ Sarah replied sympathetically. ‘Tell me your bad news first and then I’ll think if I can find anything good.’

‘Dan Willis, our postman,’ Rose said abruptly.
‘He applied to join up and they had to wait for a medical report, but it’s come through and he’s going. I’m not sure if it’s the Inniskillings or the Irish Rifles,’ she said abstractedly. ‘He mentioned both. He finishes on Friday. He’d nothing for us this morning but he came up anyway to ask me if I’d write to him in France. He says the few friends he has have already joined up and they’re in other regiments. He has no one at all to write to him. Isn’t that sad, Sarah?’

Sarah nodded and dropped down in her father’s chair as Rose pulled the kettle forward on the stove.

‘Cup of tea?’

‘Yes, I’d love one. I’m on the way to Lenaderg and I’m dreading it,’ she said honestly.

‘Oh Sarah, what now?’

Rose looked carefully at her daughter. She was quite composed on the surface, but couldn’t hide the anger beneath from so experienced an eye as her mother.

‘Nothing new really,’ Sarah replied with a sigh. ‘That recruiting drive we had in Banbridge last week was a great success. Lenaderg has lost a quarter of the workforce and the orders are piled high,’ she began. ‘No one asks how we weave cloth when the most experienced engine men and weavers go off to join up. There are even those who suggest our fall in production is
disloyal
, Ma. Disloyal! Can you believe it?’ she said furiously. ‘They just don’t
understand that you can’t run machines or human beings twenty-four hours a day non-stop.’

‘What about the new half-time women?’

‘Oh, that will help,’ Sarah agreed promptly.

‘Any pair of hands that can be trained will help, but it takes time. It’s at least two months before one of these new women can do the work of a young man that’s gone.’

‘More headaches for you and your father, Sarah.’ Rose said gently, as she brought out the cake tin and offered Sarah a slice.

‘Which reminds me,’ Sarah said, watching her cut the cake, ‘Did you hear that Peter Jackson’s going? Did Emily tell you?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Rose, with a sigh. ‘I haven’t seen Emily yet this week,’ she said with a weak smile, as she thought of her lively young neighbour. ‘She came up last Saturday afternoon. She says the studio is terribly busy with all these young men being photographed in their uniforms before they go off to camp or join their regiments. She’s late home most evenings.’

‘Doesn’t it seem funny to think of Emily working in the studio where I had my first job, Ma?’ Sarah said suddenly. ‘When you took the cake tin out, I suddenly thought of my last day at school. Do you remember?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Rose said, laughing. ‘I’d planned to have tea all ready for you coming home, best
china and cake on a plate ready,’ she continued, waving her hands towards an imaginary tray with an embroidered tray-cloth, ‘and then Mrs Jackson arrived and kept me talking. Poor woman, I must go down and see her. She can’t walk the hill now and she’s bound to be upset over Peter going and him with a wife and three little ones.’

‘Good thing she still has Emily at home,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘And Alex, of course. I know he’s only their lodger, but he seems so much part of the family. I know he helps Michael with the cattle and Emily told me that whenever he’s not studying, he always helps with jobs in the house.

Rose smiled. Alex was one of the good things in life and Emily was another. Though she didn’t see much of her these days, her visits to deliver eggs and milk and butter were always a pleasure. Emily standing smiling in the doorway reminded her of the days when Sarah came in from work, full of what she’d learnt in the darkroom, who’d had their picture taken and what she had to do the next day. A time that now seemed so long ago, it almost felt like a different life.

‘Any news from Petersberg?’ Rose asked shyly.

‘None at all,’ Sarah replied, laughing. ‘Petersberg no longer exists.’

‘What
do
you mean?’ Rose demanded, her alarm somewhat offset by Sarah’s amusement.

‘The powers that be have decided St Petersberg
is too Germanic a name for a Russian city,’ she began solemnly. ‘I must now address my missives to Petrograd. But, having said that, Simon is well. I just don’t know how he manages to write such lively letters when most of what he does he can’t mention, but we do have long discussions about books. I’ve read everything by the Russian authors in Banbridge Library and Hannah, bless her, has promised to find me some more recent ones when she’s got time to go to a bookshop in London.’

Sarah put down her empty mug and stood up, brushing crumbs from her skirt.

‘I must love you and leave you, Ma, as the saying is,’ she said, grinning. ‘But I do have
one
piece of good news. Your grandson, Hugh, has just been awarded his first big prize. The Pearson Memorial Cup for a sustained project,’ she said proudly, as she saw her mother’s face light up. ‘I had a letter from him yesterday.’

‘Was that what he was working on last term? The development of aeroplanes?’

Sarah nodded.

‘The projects were judged over the summer, but it seems the headmaster had to find an engineer to read it for him. He was pretty sure it was good, but he couldn’t claim knowledge of the subject himself. Apparently, the engineer was very impressed. Dear Hugh is so delighted.’

‘And so am I, love,’ said Rose, her face lighting
up. ‘I think this calls for a little extra pocket money. Is that all right with you?’

‘Perfectly all right, Ma,’ she said beaming. ‘I don’t have to worry about what he does with it. He
never
spends any on sweets. Books, books and more books. Though he did mention a slide rule,’ she added quickly. ‘Either ways, I’ve no worries about his teeth.’

‘I’ll write him a wee note after lunch,’ Rose said, standing up, and walking to the door with her.

‘Isn’t it a lovely morning,’ Sarah said, as they parted at the garden gate. ‘Sometimes you can almost forget what’s happening in France.’

Rose nodded. Sometimes indeed when the mountains looked their loveliest, when there were flowers to pick and birds to feed, and ordinary everyday things to talk about, one could banish the images of the burnt-out shells of French towns and the lines of trenches marching across the pleasant well-cultivated landscape of Flanders. Sometimes, but not often, and certainly not for very long.

As the warm, pleasant autumn moved on, so the focus of daily life changed and adapted to the new world of war. In August, the newspapers had reported Lord Grey’s comment that it would be ‘
business as usual
,’ but it was soon very clear this was not to be so. The 100,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force sent to France and the might of the Royal Navy would not be able to fight the war for the country while life continued unmodified at home.

As each month passed and Rose read the daily and weekly newspapers, she began to feel she was having to learn a new language. Like all those years ago, when they first came to Ballydown and
she’d had to ask what a stenter was, why beetling hammers jammed, what pouce was and why it was dangerous, she now had to master the language of war. Brigades and battalions, companies and platoons, fusiliers and lancers were all new to her, and the formal titles of regiments, their Battallion numbers and their nicknames, she found completely confusing.

It was during the retreat from Mons, always referred to as the ‘retirement,’ that she began to grasp the importance of every hump and hollow in the landscape, why a hill could be an important objective, and why trenches were such protection. She struggled to understand, as if by doing so she was supporting the men who crawled across stubble fields under shell fire and rifle fire, snatched rest wherever night found them, and lived on apples and damson from unharvested orchards when rations could no longer reach them.

There were no more marching columns in Ballydown now. The men who trained with wooden rifles in Edward Carson’s Ulster Volunteer Force he’d encouraged to join the British Army. John Redmond had encouraged the Irish Volunteers to do the same, each man assuming that the grateful British government would give them what they wanted when the war was over.

Thousands of men were now training. Some
from nearby Clandeboye, came home to Banbridge on leave at weekends, full of enthusiasm for their new life. They couldn’t wait to get to France. Their greatest fear, it seemed, was that the war would be over before they were called upon, but the war showed not the slightest signs of being over by Christmas, as had been so widely predicted, and the newspaper reports of local men lost grew ever larger.

‘Is there anyone we know?’ Rose would asked anxiously each week as John scanned the pages of the
Banbridge Chronicle
while she prepared to serve supper.

There were always names they knew. Sometimes a family name, known because the family had sent generations of spinners and weavers to the mills. At other times the loss came closer, brothers, fathers and husbands of women who now worked at the mills. The retirement from Mons had claimed the sons of a number of local farmers. In November, two young men from Seapatrick were killed, one from the Irish Guards, one from the Royal Irish Rifles.