The Hawthorns Bloom in May (10 page)

She looked out on the October morning. It was soft and grey, the sky overcast, but not sombre. The first drifts of leaves had accumulated against the garden wall, pale gold from the limes in the avenue mixed with a scattering of bronze and copper from the large beech tree in the garden itself.

As she awaited his coming, she realised she had no idea at all what she was going to say to the young man whose arrival seemed to have brightened life for everyone but herself.

‘Good mornin’ ma’am,’ he said, shutting the glass door carefully behind him. ‘This is a pretty place,’ he added, his eyes moving round the broad windowsills where geraniums still bloomed prolifically.

‘I’m not much of a gardener really,’ Sarah said easily, ‘but my sister-in-law always had it so nice, I’ve tried not to let her down. My mother’s the
gardener in the family, as you know. She keeps me right,’ she went on, as she filled his mug and handed him a plate of Mrs Beatty’s biscuits. ‘Most of these are cuttings from her. Do you like flowers?’

‘Yes,’ he said, looking round him again. ‘I worked for a couple once where the wife had a little summerhouse. The man was a hard man and a lot older and she was young and loved pretty things. Sometimes I’d bring her wildflowers from the field where we were working, but I had to creep in so your man didn’t see me. He’d have beaten me black and blue if he’d caught me,’ he said matter-of-factly, as he crunched a biscuit between his teeth.

‘What age were you then?’

‘Nine,’ he said, without any hesitation. ‘It was my first job. That’s when I learnt to speak English.’

‘To speak English?’ Sarah repeated in amazement. ‘So what had you spoken before?’

‘French. It’s all French on the farms in Quebec.’

‘And was your mother French?’

‘No … she was English … or rather she spoke English,’ he went on, flustered. ‘But after she died, I had to speak French. I forgot my English. I was only four or five,’ he added hastily, a slight flush appearing on his cheekbones.

Sarah turned this over as she offered him more tea. She was quite sure her mother had told her he was seven when his mother died.

‘What I like best is trees,’ he said suddenly,
looking out towards the garden. ‘Up in the Laurel Highlands, the colour is wonderful in the fall. Here the colours aren’t as bright, but the fields are greener. It sets the trees off better. It’s just as beautiful, but different.’

‘You must find a lot of things different,’ she said, filling in the space, wondering what she could say next.

He was so open, so direct in his way of speaking. Only when his mother, or his family were mentioned did his candid gaze flicker and fail. Despite herself, she found she liked the man.

‘Yes, and everything better than I could have hoped,’ he said, smiling, the warm smile that even Mrs Beatty had commented on. ‘It’s been like a homecoming.’

‘But surely it
is
a homecoming,’ replied Sarah quickly. ‘You’ve found your family. Isn’t home where one’s family is? Or is home where one feels “at home”? What do you think?’

He paused, looked out across the cobbles and moved awkwardly in his chair.

‘I think, ma’am, home is where you feel right in yourself. A place where you can do your best and not always have other people telling you what to do all the time and never a kind word when you do it.’

It was Sarah’s turn to look away. While Hugh was alive, the work they did was hard, but
rewarding. They supported each other. Now he was gone, she could no longer do her best. Her heart had gone out of it. She could not bear the anger, the hostility, she saw all around her, in the mills, in the town, out in the countryside of marching feet. She could put up with the boredom of papers and orders and countersigning documents, but more and more she felt alone, looking out at a world that no longer had a place for her. The feeling seemed to be getting worse, not better.

‘I ought to be getting back to my work, ma’am. That was very nice indeed, thank you,’ Alex said, getting to his feet.

‘No, don’t go yet,’ Sarah said hastily, aware that she had fallen silent. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’

He sat down again awkwardly, his large frame filling the woven conservatory chair.

‘Is Alexander Hamilton your real name?’ she asked softly.

‘Yes, ma’am. It is,’ he said firmly, looking her full in the face.

She met his gaze and said nothing. She waited, a tension growing she could not explain.

‘But you’re right,’ he said at last, his shoulders drooping. ‘You’re the only one who’s seen the lie I told,’ he said sadly, his face the picture of misery. ‘My name’s the only thing I
do
possess. I have neither mother nor father. I was an orphan on a ship
out of Liverpool to Quebec. I remember the grey of the sea and being sick. I remember the label tied to the collar of my coat scratching my neck. And I remember working for the orphanage for all those years till I was sent out to work on a farm. I’ve tried to forget it. Pretend it happened to someone else. And maybe I could if I could stay here and be Alex Hamilton. But that’s not to be, is it?’

‘Why shouldn’t it be,’ said Sarah, close to tears, the bare details of his story unrolling in her mind.

‘Because you know I’m a liar, and you’ll tell your parents and they’ll throw me out, just like I’ve always been thrown out from anywhere I found a place that was kind,’ he said, two bright tears shining in the corners of his eyes.

‘You are
not
a liar, Alex,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s the trouble. If you
were
a liar, you wouldn’t have made mistakes. You’d have your story off pat. And you
do
have a mother and father. We just don’t know who they were. Who knows but you’re one of the Scottish Hamiltons. It doesn’t matter to me.’

‘It doesn’t?’ he said, his voice breaking slightly.

‘No, it doesn’t matter who your family are, or were. I just needed to know the truth.’

‘And you’ll not say anything to anyone?’ he asked slowly, after a long silence.

‘Not a word,’ she said smiling. ‘Our secret,’ she added, holding out her hand. ‘Like children when they promise eternal friendship.’

He looked puzzled but took her offered hand and shook it firmly.

‘I’m sorry, Alex,’ she said, guessing what the problem was. ‘You probably didn’t have much of children’s promises and that kind of thing in your childhood,’ she said quickly. ‘I was lucky. I had good parents and Hannah, and Sam, and friends at school. And there was always Elizabeth and there was Hugh, long, long before I married him. I had no idea how much love there was in my life until I heard your story. Now it’s my turn to feel I’m on my own,’ she said, her voice faltering unexpectedly.

Alex stared at her uncomprehendingly, his good spirits vanished in a flash.

‘But how is that, ma’am?’

Sarah hoped that the tears which had sprung to her eyes would disappear if she blinked a few times, but they didn’t and the look of concern on Alex’s sombre face made it even worse.

As they trickled down her face she wiped them with the back of her wrist.

‘You’ve been honest with me, Alex, but I’ve not been honest with you,’ she began, taking a great deep breath.

‘I love my parents dearly, and my children, and this house and even this garden, but the light went out of my life when Hugh died,’ she began steadily enough. ‘I tried to keep up his work, our work it had been, but now I dread going to the mills,
I can’t bear the squabbles and the bitterness, the marching men and the shouting women. I thought I would spend my life here, working to improve social conditions and particularly the lot of women, but everywhere I look I see exploitation by the privileged and disagreement and discontent among those who ought to stand together and help each other and I have no heart to fight it anymore. I just wish I could go away, far away, like you’ve done, to somewhere I could be myself again.’

She paused, overcome by the enormity of what she had admitted.

‘I think perhaps I envy you, Alex,’ she said, collecting herself. ‘You’ve had a hard time, but you’ve been brave. It was a very brave thing to come to Ireland with nothing but a slender hope,’ she continued firmly when she saw him look doubtful.

‘You’ve had your homecoming. I wonder if I will ever have mine,’ she ended, as she wiped her eyes again with her wrist and began to search for her handkerchief in the pockets of her skirt.

‘If it’s a matter of courage, you’ll make it,’ he said, so promptly that she stopped her search and stared at him.

‘You don’t lack courage, from all I hear,’ he went on. ‘I know you’ve a good mother, but sometimes what we need most is a friend we can tell our secrets to,’ he added softly, as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘I used to pretend I had a big brother, a
really
big
one,’ he said smiling at her. ‘He’d beat up all the boys that ganged up on me and never split on me when I got into trouble. He’d be on my side whatever I did.’

She nodded sadly.

‘I even had a big brother,’ she admitted, with a shake of her head. ‘Two of them, in fact. But I’ve lost them too.’

‘Yes, I know about James. And I know about Sam and Martha and about Hannah too. Rose talks to me a lot about them. She talks about you too, but she doesn’t know what’s making you so unhappy.’

‘No, and I can’t tell her. Not yet. Not until I can see someway ahead. Not until someone says “Annacramp” and I decide to go, like you did when you met Uncle Sam in German Township. Then I’ll have to tell her. And that will be hard, because we’ve been so close.’

‘It might be easier when the time comes,’ he said kindly. ‘We always think the future will be like the past, but it can be utterly different from what we imagined. I couldn’t ever have imagined what’s happened since I got off that boat in Belfast.’

She thought of the cross channel ferry tied up at the quay. Of the many times she’d crossed to England to visit Hannah or Lady Anne, taking the children to see their cousins, or travelling with Hugh to meet Lord Altrincham.

‘I’ll have to go too, Alex,’ she said sadly. ‘You promise you won’t tell anyone, will you?’

‘I’ll promise all right,’ he said, nodding vigorously. ‘We’ve both got a secret. Perhaps,’ he went on, very tentatively, ‘we might be able to help each other.’

She nodded encouragingly and waited to see what he might say.

‘I’m not an educated man. I wish I was,’ he began, speaking quickly. ‘You’d have to explain all these different parties and factions to me and all these problems at the mills, but if you did, I could maybe encourage you a bit with the work you have to do. The way your brother Sam might do if he were still at home,’ he suggested gently.

Sarah smiled, thinking of how little Sam would actually be able to help her these days, except by his gentle presence, but Alex was a different matter. He had a quick mind and he listened to everything anyone said, absorbing it instantly, avid for the knowledge and experience his hard working life had denied him. She would never have to explain anything to him a second time.

‘It might be very boring,’ she said promptly.

‘I’ll take a chance on that,’ he said cheerfully, looking her straight in the face again.

She returned his gaze. He looked so enormously pleased with himself she couldn’t help laughing.

‘Why are you so pleased?’ she asked.

‘Well, Sarah,’ he began cautiously, as if she might suddenly bridle at the use of her name, ‘I always imagined a big brother. I never in all my dreams thought I might have a big sister.’

‘“Life is full of surprises, Alex. And some of them are nice.” That’s what Da always says. He had it once in a copybook, but he never paid any heed to what it meant until Ma reminded him. She’d had the same copybook at the other end of Ireland.’

They rose together, knowing there was work to be done and the morning was moving on.

‘Alex,’ she said, as he put his hand on the door. ‘Would you come with me to see Sam on Saturday afternoon? He’s your cousin after all,’ she added smiling. ‘It’s time you met him. And besides, I can’t stand Martha, and I never know what to say to her. Will you come?’

‘Yes, I’ll come. Any time you want me, I’ll come. Just say the word,’ he said easily, as he shut the door behind him and strode across the cobbles.

As she drove through the quiet autumn countryside on a sunlit October afternoon, Sarah felt her spirits rise and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was just so good to be away from both house and work and to have someone she could talk about matters other than the everyday business of the mills. What amused and delighted her and fed into the lightness of her mood were Alex’s honest and often unexpected responses to her questions.

‘But why was it, Alex, that you hit upon Annacramp?’ she asked, as they passed through Richhill village, where a dog lay asleep in the sunshine, the only other vehicle in the broad main street a horse-drawn baker’s cart.

‘I think Annacramp hit
me
,’ he said, laughing. ‘When your Uncle Sam made that remark about Hamilton being a good Ulster name, I had this sudden, strange feeling he was about to say
something of enormous importance to me. It was almost as if I’d heard it all before, but hadn’t been paying attention. Have you ever had a feeling like that?’ he asked, looking at her directly.

‘Don’t think so,’ she said shortly, as she manoeuvred the motor across the deeply rutted surface where the heavily-laden road engines had swung round on their way down to the railway station.

‘Well, it was like getting a telegram,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘I know it sounds peculiar, but the minute he said “Annacramp”, I thought
that’s it, that’s where I have to go
.’

‘So you just went?’

‘Not quite,’ he said, shaking his head ruefully. ‘There was the small matter of the fare and I had nothing but working clothes. I couldn’t turn up looking like a tramp, could I?’ he said, smiling suddenly.

She glanced at him briefly as they moved between high hedgerows, the almost leafless hawthorns glowing red with a mass of berries.

‘So how did you manage the money?’

‘Got a second job,’ he replied promptly. ‘Worked on a farm by day and wrote letters at night. Writing letters actually paid better than the farm work.’

‘But what sort of letters did you write that you got paid for?’ she asked, turning to look at him, for the lane was quite empty.

‘Emigrant letters,’ he replied with a sigh. ‘Telling the folks back in Ireland, or Scotland, or France, or Germany, how well they were doing, what a great place Pennsylvania is, how good the weather, the food, the profits from the shop, or the farm. Asking for all the family and the neighbours by name and for the news from home.’

‘But why didn’t they write themselves?’

‘Some couldn’t. Illiteracy is high outside the towns,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Some could manage a pen perfectly well but didn’t know what to say. Once I’d thought about it, it was easy. They all wanted to say the same thing, whichever country they’d come from. We’re doing great, why don’t you come over too? But in the meantime we need to feel part of the life we left behind. So tell us how everybody is and how life goes on with you.’

‘And were they doing great?’ she asked, picking up a sadness in his tone that surprised her.

‘No, not always, but the less successful they were the less they admitted it. No one ever said in a letter that they were homesick or wished they’d made a different choice, but you should have seen the relief on their faces when I suggested a few phrases that sounded good without actually telling a lie.’

‘So you were a professional letter writer?’ she said, shaking her head and smiling to herself. ‘In English
and
French?’ she asked, looking at him again briefly.

‘And German,’ he added, looking away as she changed gear and manoeuvred carefully through the entrance to the yard.

The whole area in front of the low set farmhouse was full of children who made her anxious by dashing towards her as she drew to a halt. Before she had even pulled on the handbrake, the back doors of the motor had been thrown open and two boys had hopped up into the back seat, followed more slowly by a small boy whose legs weren’t long enough to step up on the running board and a little girl who pushed him from behind in her haste to follow him.

Before Sarah had time to protest, Sam emerged from the barn. He looked once at the back seat, then waited silently while the boys climbed down and the two smaller children tried to look as if they’d just been standing there quietly all the time.

‘Hello, Sarah. Alex. You’re very welcome,’ he said, giving his sister a kiss and holding out his hand to Alex. ‘Ma dropped me a line to say ye were comin’, so I made sure I was here. I’m afraid all the boys are motor mad. It must run in the family,’ he said agreeably, turning to Alex. ‘I hear Da has you working on the new stenters.’

Alex smiled warmly. There was something about the way the two men greeted each other, something about the set of the shoulders, the ease with which they acknowledged each other, that made Sarah ask
herself yet again if Alex might not be their cousin after all.

A figure appeared in the doorway. Martha was holding a small baby awkwardly against her already swollen stomach.

‘Martha, this is our cousin Alexander Hamilton,’ Sam said as Alex stepped forward and held out his hand.

‘Pleased t’ meet ye,’ she said without enthusiasm, her glance taking in both Alex and Sarah in one calculating sweep. ‘D’ye want a cup of tea now or before they go?’ she asked, addressing herself to Sam. ‘I have the calves to feed.’

‘Well then, we’ll have a look at the workshop, till it suits you,’ he said steadily. ‘Send one of the children to tell us when it’s ready,’ he added, as she turned on her heel with the sleeping child.

Sarah did her best to show an interest in the workshop but the sight of Martha’s sharp little face and the screams of the children running around on the tramped earth of the yard had totally dispersed her good spirits. Sam seemed unperturbed, however, enjoying his conversation with Alex, demonstrating some of his newly-acquired equipment and listening attentively when Alex described the kinds of machinery he was familiar with in Pennsylvania.

They were in the midst of an extended exploration of the merits of tractors as opposed to ploughing engines when a small child appeared.

Barefoot, with dark hair and dark, sparkling eyes, Sarah watched her as she went straight to Sam, who picked her up and held her close without interrupting for a moment what he was saying.

Sarah saw a small arm encircle his neck as the child whispered a word in his ear. She leant her head against her father’s cheek, kept silent and observed the visitors with interest from her vantage point.

‘Time to go and have a cup of tea, Rose,’ Sam said, lowering her gently to the ground some minutes later.

He reached out for a piece of cotton waste to wipe some traces of oil from his fingers and had almost finished when Rose, who’d been looking up at Alex, questioned him in her small, clear voice.

‘Are you Aunt Sarah’s new man then?’

Sarah had been watching Sam as he wiped his fingers slowly and methodically. It was such a Sam-like gesture, slow, steady and effective, but when Rose spoke, she saw a look on his face quite unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Sam was angry, furiously angry, but with an enormous effort of control, he was holding on to his temper.

‘No, Rose dear, I’m nobody’s man,’ Alex replied, dropping down on his hunkers to look her straight in the eye. ‘I haven’t even got a Ma and Da like you have,’ he added quietly.

‘What happened them?’

‘I’m afraid they both died when I was small.’

‘As small as me?’ Rose continued, her eyes fixed firmly on Alex’s face.

‘Yes, as small as you, Rose,’ Alex said, with a confidence Sarah had not heard before.

‘Run on over to the house, Rose,’ said Sam, quietly. ‘Tell Ma we’re comin’ right now.’

The child turned on her heel and shot off immediately. As the three adults came out of the workshop Sarah saw her skipping across the yard and disappearing into the house. In silence, they followed her.

To Sarah’s great amazement, Martha had laid the table with a clean cloth and set out four places. There was bread and butter, two small dishes of jam, a plate of scones and a fruitcake. A lavish spread for so early in the afternoon and an unheard of effort on Martha’s part.

‘There y’are. Sit down now, it’s ready,’ she said, without looking at them, her whole attention focused on a large teapot which she lifted from the corner of the stove.

She waved the visitors to their places, began pouring tea, but made no effort to engage them in conversation or sit down with them. A few moments later, they heard the scrape of boots at the door.

‘I’ve poured your tea, Uncle Joe. Come and sit down,’ she said briskly.

Joe glared at the assembled company, dragged
out the empty chair and threw his cap on the floor at his feet as he sat down. He produced his hand reluctantly when Sam introduced ‘our cousin, Alex’ who was sitting on his right. Sarah, on his left, he dismissed with a glance as he addressed himself to the plate of wheaten bread. Having poured tea for herself, Martha now retreated to an armchair by the stove where she could watch her guests without having to be any part of the company.

In the uneasy silence that followed, Joe made short work of a couple of slices of bread and jam while Sarah was still doing her best to eat a scone. There was nothing wrong with the scone, but the atmosphere in the room made her wish she could run out to the motor and drive straight home.

‘Ye must find things here a bit differen to yer way of goin’,’ Joe threw out sharply, addressing himself to Alex.

‘Yes, very different in one way,’ said Alex nodding agreeably, ‘but the work’s not so different and I’ve been made very welcome.’

‘Aye, so ah see,’ said Joe unpleasantly, as he looked from Alex to Sarah and back again. ‘Did yer
cousin
drive you into Banbridge in her motor to sign the covenant?’

‘No, sir. I didn’t think the covenant was any of my business.’

‘Ah, ye’ll do well then with the Hamiltons,’ he said, nodding across the room to where Martha sat
watching them. ‘Shure there’s not one of them has any time for anyone but themselves and making money. Either that or they don’t know how to write their names,’ he added, laughing at his own joke. ‘Yer sittin’ beside two of them, Alexander. Brother and sister, an’ neither of them one bit loyal. An’ the father an’ mother the same.’

‘Loyalty, as you call it, is a personal matter, Joe,’ said Sam quietly.

Sarah was startled, for there was a firmness and a coldness in his tone she’d never heard before and what he said next surprised her even more.

‘There are higher loyalties than membership of any political party.’

‘Aye, well, joining the Quakers is yer excuse, Sam, an’ Martha an’ I are well sick of it,’ said Joe, reaching for another scone. ‘What about yer sister then, what’s her excuse?’ he asked, without so much as a glance at Sarah.

Sarah had abandoned her scone and was silently watching the grimaces of Joe’s dirty, lined face, as he scrunched it up into yet further unpleasant gestures. Were it not for Sam she most certainly wouldn’t sit at this table for another moment. But this was Sam’s home, and Martha, who was watching Joe’s performance with barely concealed pleasure, was Sam’s wife.

‘I don’t need an
excuse
, Joe, for anything I do, or don’t do,’ she said, as coolly as she could manage.
‘I need a
reason
and I have one, just as Sam has.’

‘Oh aye, Sam’s a great man for reason,’ he agreed, nodding his head at Sam, as he swallowed a large mouthful of tea and rattled his cup for Martha to come and refill it.

‘He gives Martha an’ me plenty of benefit of his reason,’ he went on in the same sour querulous tone, glancing up at her as she came to pour it for him. ‘What he’ll do and what he’ll not do. It’s a great life when ye can get others to work for ye an’ put a roof over yer head and spread up a table for yer comp’ny like they was gentry.’

He reached across the table for a slice of cake and turned towards Alex.

‘Maybe, they’d like ye t’think they were someone, but let me tell you somethin’,’ he continued, adopting a confidential tone, ‘Yer man Sam’s mother was a servin’ girl down in the south an’ her brother had t’ get away overseas outa trouble with the pollis. An’ now he’s back lukin’ for more trouble, up an’ down to Dublin from Donegal. That’s where all their Papish connection live.’

He paused, drained his mug at one go, snatched up his cap from the floor and stood up abruptly.

‘Irish Volunteers they call themselves. Nothing but a lot of Shinners. An’ now Sam McGinley’s in the thick of them. God knows what he’s up to. Just watch yourself, Alexander,’ Joe said, his voice
lingering sarcastically on the full name he insisted on using, as he paused in the doorway. ‘That’s my advice to ye. Ye don’t know these people and the shifts of them. Ye cou’den be up to them with all their fancy ways. They’ll have ye as bad as they are if ye don’t watch out,’ he threw back over his shoulder, as he pulled open the lower portion of the half door and banged it closed behind him.

For what seemed to Sarah like a very long time, no one spoke. Then Sam got to his feet, picked up her teacup, walked to the door and threw the cold, unpleasant-looking contents into the drain that took the rainwater away from the front of the house.

‘Is there still a drop of tea in the pot, Martha?’ he asked, as he came back into the room and held out the empty cup in front of her.

‘Shure there’s half a potful. Didn’t ye say to use the big teapot,’ she said shortly as she filled the empty cup.

‘Here ye are, Sarah,’ he said quietly as he put the cup back in her saucer. ‘What about you Alex?’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Alex said. ‘That was a very nice tea,’ he said, looking over at Martha. ‘Lovely fruit cake.’

‘Does Rose not give you fruitcake for your tea?’ Martha asked, a sarcastic note in her voice.

‘I’m sure she would if I ever went for tea,’ said Alex cheerfully, ‘but I’m at work all week and I give Michael Jackson a hand on Sundays. I find
I miss farm work, now I spend all my days with machinery.’

‘Ye wou’dn’t miss it if ye were here, that’s for sure,’ Martha replied sharply. ‘I’ve the milkin’ to do,’ she went on, getting to her feet. ‘The two wee ones are asleep in the room, Sam. Ye may give them a bottle if they wake up,’ she added quickly, as she left the kitchen without a word of farewell.