Read The Hawthorns Bloom in May Online
Authors: Anne Doughty
‘No, it might not, but the roads would likely be open. We’d have to take a chance on that.’
‘How would I know your cousin Alex?’ he asked, abruptly.
Sam laughed, the strong lines of his face softening.
‘He looks a bit like my father an’ he has a Canadian accent, but ask him who gave me my cards when I wouldn’t join the lodge. He’ll tell you all right. I’m hopin’ he’ll come with me. If my Uncle Sam wants to come back as well, that’s four and luggage. Far too much for one motor.’
‘Aye, an’ ye might find a shortage of petrol too,’ Billy warned him. ‘Ye’d be advised to take a few cans with you for the way back.’
Sam nodded and stood up.
‘You’re a busy man
Mister
Auld, so yer woman out there tells me,’ he said grinning. ‘D’ye mind the day ye went for my Ma to see me drivin’ the new Fowler for the first time.’
‘Ah do indeed, Sam,’ he said, smiling, as he looked around his office and as he got up and
walked with him to the door. ‘We’ve both come on a bit since then, haven’t we?’
‘Tell Alex, I’ll be expectin’ him,’ he said, dropping his voice as they came out of the general’s office. ‘An’ good luck, Sam.’
‘Thanks, Billy. You’re a good friend. I’ll let you know how it goes.’
He strode out through the main door, climbed up into the parked vehicle and headed out the road to Ballydown.
Rose finished turning the heel of her sock and took a deep breath. However often she turned a heel, she felt sure it wouldn’t go right if she didn’t give it her full attention. This morning, she’d felt so preoccupied she’d been thoroughly irritated by having to concentrate so hard. Now the critical bit was over she could relax.
She sighed and glanced at the clock. No use whatever thinking Sarah might arrive as early as this. Even if she’d got an early train from Dublin, it was nearly three hours to Portadown and then at least another hour to get the local train and drive out in a cab from the station. Mid-afternoon was a more likely time. But she was sure to be back sometime today and it would be so good to see her.
She knew she was going to miss her so much, but then she’d always had a feeling Sarah would go. Indeed, she felt she’d have gone long ago, if she
hadn’t married Hugh. But that was as it should be. A woman must make her way. If she clings to her mother and her life as a girl, she’ll never become the full woman she should be. That was what her own mother had said to her, sitting in their tiny room at Currane Lodge, drinking tea by the fire, when she confessed she’d said ‘yes’ to John.
She got up suddenly and went to the dresser. Among the delph and china they used every day there was one cup and saucer more delicate than the rest that had its place but was never used. Rose picked it up and smiled to herself as she found it was full of dust. By right it should be in the china cabinet in the new parlour, but she’d always kept it on this shelf where she could see it, for it was her only tangible link with her own past.
Her mother had given her the pretty cup and saucer the last time she’d seen her, the night before she was married. She’d told her that her own mother had given it to her night before
her
wedding. As she turned it in her hand, her mother’s words came back to her.
‘I want you to take it with you. And maybe, sometimes, if things go a bit hard with you, you’ll sit down by yourself and drink from the cup, even if it were only spring water you had.’
Rose took the cup and saucer out into the dairy to rinse them under the tap. She dried the fragile
pieces carefully on a clean tea towel and carried them back to their place.
Yes, she’d drunk from the cup herself, more than once, but for the most part life had been good to her. She had her family, her home and a man she loved. Now what she most wanted was Sarah to marry the man she loved and move into a world which would give her scope for all her qualities to blossom.
She had just set the cup and saucer carefully back on the shelf when she heard the scrape of boots on the doorstep.
‘John and Alex. What a surprise. I was just going to make tea in the wee pot,’ she said beaming delightedly as they came and kissed her.
‘Ach, we thought you might feel lonesome,’ said John casually.
‘And we knew we’d get cake if we came,’ added Alex, knowing it would make her laugh.
It was not completely unknown for John and Alex to walk down from Rathdrum for a cup of tea if Sarah were away, but it didn’t happen often, and today Rose was grateful for their company.
‘Did you enjoy the Easter Monday dance, Alex?’ she asked, as they settled by the fire.
‘Well,’ he replied cautiously, ‘I haven’t really got the hang of it yet. Emily says I’ve got two left feet.’
‘Never worry, Alex,’ said John vigorously. ‘Shure isn’t dancing only an excuse to get your arms round a girl.’
‘John!’ Rose expostulated. ‘Do you think Alex would need an excuse if he found the right girl? He’s more up to date than you were, you know.’
Alex blushed slightly but John laughed heartily.
‘Aye, I diden have much idea in those days, but I caught on quick once I got a bit of encouragement.’
‘God bless all here.’
‘Ach, son, we diden hear you coming,’ said John, getting to his feet, a broad smile on his face as Sam walked across the threshold. ‘Are you delivering in the town?’
‘Aye. Brookmount,’ he said, as he bent down to kiss his mother.
‘That’s a fair bit out,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Aye, it is, but Piele’s given me the half day to come and see you,’ he replied quietly, as Rose fetched another mug from the dresser and cut more cake.
She stopped in the middle of pouring tea and looked at him steadily.
‘Sam, something’s wrong. You’ve bad news to tell us?’
‘No, Ma.
Not
bad news as far as I know,’ he responded, with an effort at a smile. ‘But I came before you might see somethin’ in the
Banbridge Chronicle
tonight that’d upset you.
‘I know you were expecting Sarah yesterday,’ he went on, ‘but she’ll not be home today either.
There’s trouble in Dublin, bad trouble. In fact, she may not get home till I go for her.’
‘What sort of trouble, son,’ asked John shortly, his face grim and drawn.
‘It seems there’s been a rebellion,’ Sam replied bluntly. ‘There’s Volunteers in green all round the place. They were there at Jacobs on Monday when Mickey and I went to deliver an’ we were lucky to get away before the roads was barricaded. On the way back, I saw a party goin’ to pull up railway lines to keep the troops from comin’ in.’
‘But why is there no news of this in the papers, Sam?’ asked Rose, her face suddenly pale.
‘All the ordinary telephone lines are cut, but I went to our friend of ours and found there’s some still working and he’s heard the army’s been sent for, so there’ll be fighting before it’s over. He told me the rebels have set up their headquarters in the GPO. Where would that be, Ma, from where our Sarah is?’
‘Not far enough, Sam,’ she said calmly. ‘A nice wee walk up past Trinity College and over O’Connell Bridge into Sackville Street if you’ve a letter to post.’
‘There’s no post either,’ Sam added.
‘Oh dear,’ said Rose with a sigh, ‘and I forwarded her a letter from Simon that came the morning they left.’
‘So when are we going down, Sam?’ said Alex,
who’d already worked out that Sam would need help.
‘Now ye can’t talk about goin’ yet,’ John broke in. ‘If there’s trouble, it’ll get worse before it gets better. Sarah is sensible and they have Uncle Sam with them and he knows the ins and outs of Dublin from when he lived there. If there’s dangerous places, he’ll know. Whose this friend ye mentioned, son?’
He smiled.
‘An important gentleman who sends you his regards, Ma. The postmaster in Banbridge, no less. Wee Billy Auld.’
‘An’ ye mean to say wee Billy knows what’s goin’ on an’ none of the rest of us do?’ John came back at him.
‘Indeed I do. He said it’s highly confidential, so we keep it to ourselves. If it got out he’d lose his job, but if Alex calls in each day he’ll give us the word when things improve enough for us to chance it.’
‘Well that’s good of him, indeed it is. We’ve known wee Billy since he was Sam’s flagman, ach, twenty years ago, an’ he’s always been good-hearted,’ John explained to Alex. ‘But this is very decent of him. Very decent indeed.’
‘And you think you ought to go down and fetch Sarah?’ Rose asked.
‘Aye, I do. It might be a while before the trains is running.’
‘And you’d go with him, Alex?’ Rose continued calmly.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Alex promptly. ‘I’ll be glad to go. She’s told me I can use her motor anytime she doesn’t need it.’
‘Even with the British Army and the rebels sniping at each other?’ Rose went on, a warning tone in her voice.
‘We’ll know from Billy when the worst is over, Ma,’ Sam said reassuringly. ‘It’ll be safe enough by the time we go.’
But Rose knew perfectly well that however careful they might be the situation was bound to be a dangerous one. She felt herself shiver despite the warmth of the stove. In the days ahead, just like all the women around her, she would have to live with the knowledge that her dear ones were at risk.
Sarah’s eyes opened with a jerk as her fountain pen fell from her hand and dropped to the floor with a small thud on the very worn carpet. She was amazed she’d fallen asleep despite the firing which had started up again from St Stephen’s Green and from Grafton Street.
She picked up her pen and looked anxiously across the dim room. Helen was still fast asleep. Even the crack of machine gun fire hadn’t awoken her. Fatigue, or familiarity perhaps, she thought. In the feeble light of the single candle reflected from the white ceiling, she could just make out her long, dark lashes, so sharp a contrast with her pale, shadowed face.
Sarah looked down at her letter and smiled. At the point where she’d fallen asleep a word was half finished and a small trail of ink marked the pen’s departure.
One of the few comforts she’d found in these long, weary days was writing to Simon after Helen was asleep. It didn’t matter that he might not receive what she wrote for a long time, simply writing to him brought him close to her and gave her the steadiness she needed to face the night. It would be a long night and there might be little possibility of sleep before the end of it.
Suddenly, her mother’s words came back to her. She’d spoken of her long letters to Uncle Sam, when he was in Pennsylvania.
‘When I write to him, I have to shape my own thoughts, to make up my mind what I think and be prepared to argue with him if he doesn’t agree.’
They made such sense now. Focusing on someone a long way away, and doing your best to share what is happening to you is a very powerful tool for coming to terms with them yourself.
Not that Simon was likely to
disagree
with what she was writing. She was simply telling him what was happening. Could he read the half-written letter at her hand, the only thing that would matter to him was her safety. The rights and wrongs of what was going on outside the shuttered windows would not have been uppermost in his mind.
She picked up the letter and re-read the previous paragraphs, trying to reconnect with her train of thought before she had nodded off.
We have been shut up indoors now since Monday afternoon when the first troops began to engage the rebel positions nearby. Our only outing is a somewhat perilous but mercifully brief journey to the Royal Hibernian, further up Dawson Street where Lily and Sam are well known. The Manager has taken pity on us. They give us a very good lunch each day and fill a small basket with bread, a little cold meat and some milk to keep us going overnight. Today, there were two oranges for the children which were most appreciated.
Lily has a great friend staying at the hotel, a Mrs Norway, whom my dear Helen has twice called Mrs Sweden! The poor woman lost her elder son in France some months ago. He was only nineteen. She and her husband moved into the hotel because she couldn’t bear their house in Blackrock after the news came of his death, for he and his younger brother, Nevil, had so loved it. Her husband is the head of the post office in Ireland and has had a very dangerous time trying to get to and from Dublin Castle and Phoenix Park, to take council with his superiors. Fortunately, he was not in the GPO when it was taken by the rebels as he would most likely have been shot.
We were formally advised by proclamation to stay indoors yesterday and indeed it is good advice. Several people were shot dead in the Shelbourne Hotel, a short distance away, while simply looking out of the window. We sit with the front shutters closed and have heard the odd bullet ricochet from our brickwork. It is remarkable how one adapts to the situation, finding it for the most part boring rather than frightening. Though that may co …
Sarah straightened the wick of the candle with an unburnt end of matchstick, for the flame was in danger of drowning in a pool of wax. She tilted it carefully and allowed the wax to flow down into the candle holder. Immediately, the flame rose up again.
She picked up her pen, completed the word ‘come’ and prepared to continue. There’d been a whole box of candles in the pantry on Monday when she and Sam had surveyed their resources, but now, even with undressing in the dark or the meagre light from the unshuttered back windows, the box was more than half empty.
These three days have seemed incredibly long, though the children have been so good and complained very little about their imprisonment. Hugh, of course, wants
to go out with Uncle Sam and see what is happening. Sam has persuaded me he himself is perfectly safe as he knows exactly where the rebel positions are and how to avoid them, but properly refuses to allow Hugh to go with him. He says the streets are full of sightseers, as well as the looters, who are having the time of their lives.
He brings back the most extraordinary rumours which, as he says, ‘proliferate in this loquacious city,’ and equally extraordinary stories, which help to amuse us. The story I liked best was about an old woman who had made up a great bundle of shoes of all kinds and then another of clothes. She couldn’t carry both, so while she was carrying away the clothes, she’d had to leave the shoes waiting on the pavement. When she came back and found they’d gone, she complained bitterly that there was no justice in the place and not a soul to look after a poor old woman’s belongings!
Lily encourages Helen with her water colours. I wish she’d been able to teach for she has a real gift and Helen has responded so enthusiastically. Hugh reads continuously but he did have a stroke of real good fortune. Mrs Norway’s son, Nevil, who is seventeen and on holiday from Shrewsbury School, is keen on aeronautics. He has lent Hugh
his entire collection of books because he has offered his services to the Red Cross as a stretcher-bearer, for they have been overwhelmed by the number of casualties, military and civilian.
I have never taken much pride in my competence as a seamstress, though my mother taught me most carefully, but yesterday I found some real pleasure in deploying my skills. Lily and I spent the day making a flag for the Red Cross. Sadly, the white flag is no longer respected. Both military and rebels have been fired on when bringing out wounded. I think we may have to make another tomorrow, but while we have plenty of white sheets, I know Mrs Norway is anxious lest we are unable to find enough bright red material for the cross.
Dearest Simon, how extraordinary it seems to write to you about sewing at such a time. No, it is not an evasion. There is danger and I am aware of it. A large part of the city is on fire, which is why I am sitting up till two o’clock, when Uncle Sam will take over my duties. It depends on the wind whether we will have to leave the house and find shelter somewhere else.
We’ve been told the fire began with looters in a toy shop letting off fireworks,
but the rebels prevented the Fire Brigade from dealing with it, so it has spread, gaining ground all day. From the attic we can see the whole sky alight with a red glow, flames rising hundreds of feet with great swathes of sparks almost like a firework display. It is a most dramatic and awesome sight. Beautiful almost. I go up to the attic every hour to see if there is any sign of the flames leaping towards us. And here I must pause, my dear, for an hour has passed since I sat down to share my thoughts with you. It is only ten o’clock, so I have plenty of time to continue, if all is well.
Sarah slipped out on to the landing, her hand carefully shielding the candle flame from the effects of her movement. She left the bedroom door ajar because the loud click it made when it closed might well waken Helen.
The house itself was silent and dark, but the roar of artillery hammered on her eardrums so furiously as she moved along the landing and up the narrow flight of stairs towards the roof, she felt she just wanted to turn and run away. She could hardly believe that this all-enveloping sound was what the soldiers at the front had to endure, day after day, as well as the actual danger of the shells that fell on them. Only the shelter of solid walls and
the knowledge that it would stop soon had kept her going since the Army had first deployed its field guns and a patrol boat began firing from the Liffey.
Despite the noise outside, she still tried to move quietly. Lily had gone to her room early to save her eyes from candlelight. Sam had lain down, fully dressed, at the same time as Hugh, his clock set for two in the morning. Adjusted to the continuing noise outside, an unexpected sound from within the house might wake any of them.
The stairs to the attic were narrow and uncarpeted. The bare boards creaked underfoot, as she made her way up through the enveloping darkness. Pushing open the small door into the attic room and bending under its low lintel, she gasped for breath. Beneath the low ceiling, the whole room was lit by the red glow of the fires and the air around her vibrated with the gunfire, the sound now filtered only by the roof slates and not by the stout walls of the old house. From near at hand, almost as if it were in the next room, came the sudden crack of rifle fire.
She paused, her heart racing, the shock of sound and light making her hand shake. The candle flickered and went out, but it made little difference. The light pouring through the one small window and the skylight in the roof was more than enough to reveal the passage to the window she’d cleared earlier in the day, through the trunks and boxes untouched since Lily came to the house.
She put the candlestick down on the edge of a large chest and was about to make her way towards it, when she heard footsteps and a scrabbling sound overhead. The red glow disappeared from the skylight above her. A few flakes of ceiling plaster floated down as it was thrown open and a dark figure prepared to lower itself into the attic.
She stood rooted to the spot as a pair of legs swung back and forth and watched in amazement as she saw one hand reach up to lower the skylight window till it rested gently on the hand that still clutched the wooden frame, bearing the entire weight of the young man’s body.
A moment later, the skylight fell back into place and the figure dropped the short distance to the floor, knocked over an old umbrella stand and fell headlong onto a pile of discarded curtains.
‘Shhhh … you’ll wake the children,’ she said, the noise of his landing temporarily blocking out the boom of artillery.
There was a long moment while he rolled over, unslung his rifle and sat up. Bright eyes peered at her from a blackened face.
‘What are ye doin’ up here?’ he asked.
His voice was calm, though puzzled, his accent certainly not a Dublin one. It seemed somehow familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
‘I’m checking on the fires to see if we’ve to get out,’ she replied, returning his gaze as he studied
her closely in the strong, flickering light.
‘Ye’ll be all right,’ he said shortly, as he leant back wearily against a chest of drawers and made himself more comfortable. ‘The wind’s gone round and there’s spits of rain on it. There’s a real good view from behind your chimney stack.’
‘Have you been up there all day?’ she asked, remembering the lunch time talk at the hotel of a sniper who’d survived all attempts to remove him.
‘Yes. Two days in fact, but last night was fairly quiet. I got a good soaking, but I’m none the worse. Lad with me had to go to hospital this morning. I think he’s got pneumonia.’
‘How on earth did you get him to hospital?’ Sarah asked in amazement.
‘Half-carried him to the College of Surgeons by the back alleys. There’s two or three houses where we can come in the back and go out the front and a few has tunnels to the next one,’ he explained when he saw the look on her face. ‘I took him to one of Madam’s girls and she went for the Red Cross.’
‘Madam?’
‘Aye. The Countess Markewitz. Some calls her Madam, some Connie. She’s quite a character. Wants us all to fight for Ahland,’ he said, mimicking the lady’s aristocratic accent. ‘Quite willing to have a go herself.’
For a moment, Sarah couldn’t think why the Countess should want them to fight for Ahland.
Then it dawned on her. Of course, it had to be Ireland. Lily said she was a mad rebel fighting for Ahland.
That had been on Monday afternoon, after they’d finished what passed for lunch. Helen gave Lily an account of the day’s adventures and described ‘a lady dressed like a man’ with guns in her belt they’d seen in the park.
‘Oh, that’ll be Connie,’ Lily interrupted, laughing. ‘The Countess Markewitz. Connie married a Polish count. Casimir. Lovely man. But he went back to Poland. They’re still friends, as far as I know, but I can’t imagine anyone being able to live with Connie. I knew her when I was at the Slade.’
Lily always enjoyed talking about the enormous number of people in Dublin she appeared to know.
‘Mad keen Republican. Her father was a Gore-Booth,’ she added helpfully, as if Sam and Sarah were sure to know who he was. ‘They have huge estates in Sligo. Poor dear man, both his daughters were rebels. Eva, the younger one, lives in Manchester and campaigns for Women’s Rights. I think she might even be a suffragette.’
A soft voice brought her sharply back to the present.
‘I don’t think you remember me, Sarah.’
Startled at the use of her name, she looked more
closely at the reclining figure, who seemed almost at ease on his pile of curtains. She supposed he’d blackened his face to be a less visible target, but even thus disguised there
was
something familiar about him, particularly the bright eyes, the leisurely way of speaking and the soft accent.
‘It’s many a long day since we played football in the back field at Creeslough,’ he said, his eyes twinkling.
‘Brendan!’
‘The very one. I hope I didn’t frighten you,’ he said, looking at her with a grin. ‘But you’re not easily frightened. Never were.’
‘I am if it’s the children,’ she said honestly.
‘Sure so you should be. Are they both all right?’
She nodded, touched by his concern.
‘We’re sleeping at the back, Helen’s with me and Hugh has moved in with Uncle Sam. Lily refuses to move anywhere, she won’t even close her shutters, but so far we’re all right. What about you?’ she said shortly.