The Hawthorns Bloom in May (5 page)

Rose paused, grateful for the sniff that might have been the ghost of a laugh.

‘But now you’re so good, so grown up, so sensible, you’ve forgotten how to be sad or upset.’

‘But isn’t that what one’s supposed to do? When one has children and responsibilities?’ Sarah countered, as she blew her nose loudly.

‘Oh yes, we have to try,’ said Rose, whose back was aching furiously with bending over. ‘But how can we be comforted if we don’t admit our pain and hurt?’

‘I thought comfort was only for children,’ Sarah came back at her again as she wiped her face with Rose’s drier hanky.

‘But we’re all children when we’re hurt, Sarah,’ Rose said firmly, taking up her stone cold hands in her own warm ones.

‘Did you never see Hugh cry?’ she went on softly.

Sarah nodded silently, swallowed and blew her nose.

‘He was always ashamed when he cried,’ she said awkwardly.

‘That’s a great pity, Sarah,’ Rose nodded. ‘But it’s common enough. It was years before I persuaded your father that tears are nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘Da?’

‘Da, and my brother Sam, and Thomas Scott,’ she said firmly, ‘and the messenger who came whose cousin the boilermaker was lost.’

Sarah stared at her, her eyes red and swollen, her cheeks still damp.

‘Ma, what
am
I going to do? Some days I think I’m going mad.’

Sarah walked slowly back up the hill to Rathdrum, her gaze moving along the hedgerows and over the sloping fields as if she hadn’t laid eyes on them for a long time. The afternoon was sunny. Great patches of blue sky were scribbled with light cloud and the breeze was fresh but not chill. With the air clear, the mountains seemed so close, their familiar craggy shapes sharply outlined. She stopped on the steepest part of the hill and stared at them till her eyes blurred in the strong reflected light. Yes, that was it. It was as if a photographer had enhanced the outline with the slightest touch of Indian ink on a very fine brush.

To her surprise, she found herself thinking about the photographic studio in Belfast where she’d worked before she and Hugh were married. She could almost smell the sharp odour of fixer that greeted you at the top of the steep, narrow
stairs and hear the voice of her boss, that awful man, Abernethy. Photographing the great and the good was the mainstay of his business. She hadn’t had much time for most of them, but she’d learnt a lot about portraiture. She had pictures of Hugh and the children she was pleased with, though she hadn’t looked at them since he died.

The big chestnut that stretched its lower branches over the road at the entrance to the driveway was beginning to leaf. The sticky buds had burst. Still a pale, downy, grey-green, the delicate leaves were beginning to unfold. The driveway was adrift with outer coverings, sepals of pale brown and pink mixed up with the fading white blossoms from the flowering cherries they’d planted five years ago to replace two elderly limes lost in a winter gale.

Snow in Springtime, she thought, as she walked slowly towards the handsome front door that no one ever used.

‘Elizabeth, Elizabeth, come quick. Ma’s ill.’

Suddenly, she saw herself, a schoolgirl, running along this same drive, ploughing through deep snow, her heart pounding, gasping for breath, intent only on reaching that same front door where a gleam of light spilt out through the fanlight into the darkness of a winter day.

‘So very long ago,’ she thought. ‘And in another life.’

She and Hannah had tramped up the hill after school and found their mother lying icy cold on the bedroom floor. Hugh had gone for the doctor, but she’d met the doctor herself the previous day. She knew he’d be no good. The only hope was Elizabeth. Dear, sensible Elizabeth, Hugh’s sister, who’d collected brandy and herbs and friar’s balsam in her basket and saved her mother’s life.

But Elizabeth couldn’t save Hugh. Neither she nor Richard had been able to do anything but watch and hope. They had been so loving and so good to her, knowing her distress, but as the days passed they had warned her Hugh was weakening, his body no longer strong enough to fight the fever, and their honesty had given them one last night together.

She walked round to the kitchen door, pushed it open and called out a greeting to her housekeeper. Then she remembered she’d sent Mrs Beatty to Belfast to spend a night or two with her sister, to comfort her if her only daughter should have been lost with the
Titanic
. The house was silent. Even more silent than usual.

She put down her document case in the dining room where the big table was covered with neat piles of papers. Across the hallway, the door to the sitting room stood open, a pleasant room with its well-polished furniture and marble fireplace, now filled with sunlight, the grate laid ready with sticks
and fir cones. She moved back into the hallway, and stood for a moment, looking at the spill of brightness from the fanlight and the pattern it made on the carpet, unsure of what to do.

In all these months, she could not recall being completely alone in the house before. Elizabeth had stayed with her for a few days after the funeral. She herself had honoured the entertainment of Friends from various parts of England to whom Hugh had already offered hospitality. The children had come for holidays. Mrs Beatty had remained, steady and reliable, saying little, ensuring that she ate what she put in front of her.

Sarah made up her mind and walked quickly upstairs. She crossed the landing to the bedroom she and Hugh had shared, kicked off her shoes and lay down on her own side of the large, high bed. She closed her eyes, felt tears press through the lids and trickle past her ears.

The August night had been dark and airless, the windows open wide to catch any breath of air. Hugh lay motionless, beads of moisture on his forehead, his breathing shallow.

‘Now, Mrs Sinton, you must go and get some rest. I’ll come for you immediately if there’s the slightest change.’

The night nurse Richard had found for Hugh was both efficient and kind. Neither she nor Elizabeth ever tried to send her away when she sat
through the long hours of the day with Hugh. They just encouraged her to walk in the garden when he was deeply asleep and to eat her meals downstairs while they washed his fevering body and changed the sheets.

But that warm August night, despite her weariness, she could not sleep at all. Hugh was slipping away. Even without Richard and Elizabeth’s cautious words, she could see that for herself. His body was weary, flagging, bathed in sweat. There was nothing anyone could do. Nothing. No magic potion. No miracle.

She’d got up and dressed, gone to their bedroom, pushed open the door and seen the white-clad figure sitting by the bed, reading in a tiny pool of light. To her surprise, the nurse said nothing when she appeared, merely got up from her chair, nodded to her and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Very carefully, so as not to disturb him, Sarah had climbed on to the bed and moved herself slowly across till she was close enough to put her ice-cold hand on his hot, damp forehead.

‘Sarah, my love …’

‘Hush. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep,’ she said softly.

‘I don’t think I was asleep. Or perhaps I was dreaming of you. I was thinking of you. I’m so glad you’ve come.’

His voice was weak but perfectly clear. She sensed that each word was an effort, but an effort he chose to make.

‘Sarah, I have been so happy since we married,’ he said, turning his head slowly to look at her, as she took his hand. ‘I can hardly believe how happy. There is only one darkness on my spirit. Were it gone, I could go in peace, though it is not my will but God’s.’

‘What’s that, Hugh? What darkness?’ she asked quietly, as she gazed at his worn and ravaged face.

‘Your grief, Sarah,’ he said steadily. ‘I cannot bear the thought of your grief, but I cannot ask you not to grieve for what we have lost.’

He paused, as if to gather the little strength he had. ‘I would be so happy if you could promise me to live in hope,’ he continued, his voice now a whisper. ‘To love again wherever love is to be found.’

He stopped, totally exhausted by this longer effort. Sarah leant across his body to the bedside table, dipped her fingers in a glass of water, moistened his lips and then wiped the sweat from his brow.

‘I can never love anyone as I have loved you,’ she said honestly.

He pressed her hand weakly.

‘I know that,’ he said steadily. ‘But you are young and may have a long life ahead of you.
Think of Elizabeth. Think of me. We neither of us expected to find joy in a loved one. Please, my darling, promise me you will not turn away from what could bring you joy.’

Sarah could think of nothing in the whole world that could bring her joy without Hugh to share it, but his eyes were upon her, moist, red-rimmed, yet full of love. What could she possibly say? They had always been honest with each other. Even when she was very young she’d told him what she thought and he’d listened and pointed out other possibilities she might not have been aware of. But now there was neither time nor energy for argument or discussion. She could not be dishonest, but neither could she deny him anything that might comfort him.

‘I promise you I’ll not turn my back on the world, the good and the bad. If I could ever love anyone it would be because I’ve loved you for so long. You taught me what love was.’

‘You will love again, my dear. I know you will. And I bless the man you give your love to. Only I know how fortunate he will be.’

He closed his eyes and lay so very still she thought he’d fallen asleep, but a few moments later he opened them again and smiled.

‘Don’t go away, Sarah. Close your eyes and we’ll both have a little sleep. You’re tired too.’

And she had slept. With his hand in hers, she had
dozed off and not wakened till she heard the song of a blackbird through the open window. She had shivered slightly in the cool air of the early dawn and looked carefully at the sleeping figure beside her. He seemed paler and more deeply asleep.

She’d gone to the window and stretched, drawn in the freshness of the very early morning and returned to the nurse’s chair to take the cold hand that lay inert on the unruffled bedclothes. How long she sat watching him she could not measure, but she did know he died peacefully before the first sunlight had dispersed the shadows of the night.

She wiped her tears with the back of her wrist and lay looking out at the garden. Despite the cold, frosty nights, growth had begun. The same weeds that tempted her mother to start work would be springing up in the flowerbeds she and Hugh had tended together. It was one of the pleasures she’d encouraged him to enjoy. Something to set against the hard work, the endless pieces of paper, the decisions about what raw materials to buy, or what to charge for finished goods and how best to transport them to their far-flung customers.

She hadn’t set foot in the garden since Hugh died, as her mother had reminded her that very afternoon, as near to chiding her as she would ever come.

‘Sarah dear, we all have our work to do and sometimes it seems to take all the time and energy
there is, but you have to have other things too. Small pleasures. Little enjoyments, like flowers on the table. We need encouragements, even when we’re happy and things are going well for us. We need them even more when we’re unhappy.’

‘But what difference can it make, Ma?’ she’d thrown back at her. ‘Hugh was all the encouragement I ever needed and now he’s gone. What point is there in life at all, except his work, which I do for him?’

‘Sarah, what would Hugh say to you if you said there was no point in life, except work?’

Rose got up to make a fresh pot of tea for their two china mugs sat cold and untouched on the corners of the stove. She looked over her shoulder and saw Sarah glance down at her hands, her tears past now, her cheeks no longer streaked and puffy.

‘Hugh would say we’re given life to live to the best of our ability.’

‘And what about using one’s talents?’

To Rose’s great delight, her daughter laughed, recalling an old contention the two of them had argued about for years.

‘He said one had to use
all
ones gifts, not just the useful and everyday,’ Sarah began, her voice now quite steady. ‘Being able to love was a talent some women had in great measure. He’d been lucky. Before me, he’d had Elizabeth and you. He said you’d saved him from being a crotchety old
bachelor, just as Da had saved him from loneliness for want of a friend.’

‘Hugh was always so generous in his appreciation,’ Rose said, as she poured fresh mugs of tea. ‘I know Quakers speak out as their conscience dictates on important matters, but Hugh would speak out about quite ordinary things as well. If there was something good to say, he always said it.’

‘Ma, do you think the pain will ever heal?’ Sarah asked abruptly.

‘Sweetheart, I’ve never suffered such a loss as you have,’ Rose said quickly, as she put Sarah’s tea into her hand. ‘But I can tell you what my own mother said when I was old enough to ask her how she coped when your grandfather died. She said there was no point at all in trying to forget what had been, or to run away from the sadness. If you did that, you lost all the good things that would otherwise come to you and give you strength. Every time she put food on the table she thought how delighted our father would have been that we had enough to eat. It was the thought of his pleasure in all she now did, that finally comforted her.’

Sarah woke with a start, surprised she should have fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon. She swung her legs out of bed, walked in her stocking feet to the window and leant out, looking down at the garden. She was almost sure she could see the
bright faces of polyanthus at the edge of one of the flowerbeds.

Despite the fact she hadn’t worked in the garden since Hugh died, the little flowers had bloomed without any help or attention from her.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, she remembered a saying of their old friend Thomas Scott, one which her mother often quoted:

‘
Whatever way the world goes, the hawthorns bloom in May
.’

Strangely comforted she went on staring down at the small patches of colour, pushing up between the weeds.

‘Later,’ she said to herself, Thomas’s words still repeating in her mind, as she closed the window and put her shoes on. ‘There’ll be time to do a little bit before dark.’

She crossed the landing to the guest room where she had slept since Hugh had become ill, gathered up the comb and brush, the hand mirror and the bottles on her dressing table and carried them across the landing in her arms. Back and forth she went, carrying her underwear, her clothes and shoes, her hats and handbags, until the room was empty and the large double bed was covered with things to be put away.

When she had found a place for everything in the empty cupboards and drawers, she went to the linen cupboard and took down a carefully folded
bedspread wrapped in spoilt linen. She removed the crumpled bedspread on which she had fallen asleep, shook out the folds from the new one and spread it carefully over the bed. When it was straight and smooth, she looked at it and smiled. Made by her mother and Elizabeth with treasured fragments from dresses and blouses she could still remember, it had at its centre a beautifully embroidered diamond panel.

Sarah and Hugh, it said, within a circle of flowers.