The House Where It Happened Read online

  “Isabel, you try my patience. Forget about Hamilton Lock. The idea of his ghost disturbing Mother is flim-flam. Nobody else saw a thing. Admit it, you saw nothing when you were with her.”

  “Sometimes I felt as if somebody walked on my grave.”

  “You ‘felt’. Never mind what you felt. What did you see? Nothing. A dying old woman conjured up the bogeyman, and you let yourself be taken in by it. I’m disappointed in you, latching on to her superstitions.”

  “It’s only natural this is where Hamilton Lock would come – didn’t he live here?”

  “He did no such thing.”

  “Not in Knowehead House, but his family farmed our land. Our barn was built where their cabin used to stand. Noah Spears told me so.”

  “Noah Spears should hold his tongue if he wants to keep his job tending our stock.”

  “Don’t be a crosspatch. Noah only spoke the truth. The Locks were moved off the land when your father became minister here. What’s ours was theirs before.”

  “Sir Moses Hill owned the land, not the Locks. He had every right to move them. My father came here by invitation, to tend to the spiritual needs of the landlord’s tenants.”

  “James, bring me and our children away from here. I’m begging you. Something isn’t right about this house.”

  “I’d sooner take leave of my senses than take leave of Knowehead. I’ll be damned if I quit this house any way except feet first.”

  “How can you swear at me? You promised on our wedding day you’d always treat me with kindness.”

  “Forgive me, Isabel. I lost my head. But you’re the only one who wants to leave. The children are happy here.”

  “Maybe before. But these past months have been hard on them. They had the night terrors when your mother lay dying. Sarah’s scared of her shadow now. And Jamesey’s all full of bluff and bluster, but I know he isn’t himself.”

  “The children are fine. If they heard things that frightened them, they’ll soon forget.”

  “Others won’t. Once your mother started using that name, tongues clacked. I told the servants I’d turn them out if they repeated anything Mistress Haltridge said. But the neighbours were in and out of the house, visiting her bedside. Word spreads. Folk have been saying an illness like hers couldn’t come from God. And that Hamilton Lock was a . . . was a . . .”

  “Spit it out.”

  “A messenger sent to bring her to his master the Devil!”

  “Damn them all to hell for their malice! I’d like to take the gossipmongers and shake them till their teeth fall out. Shame on you for listening to tittle-tattle. I thought you had more spirit. It makes me sick to the pit of my stomach to think anyone could spread vicious lies about a pious Christian who never did harm to anybody, her entire life!”

  “James, don’t upset yourself. Nobody thinks any of it was your mother’s fault. But we can’t pretend it didn’t happen. It was a warning to us.”

  “Can’t you see, we’d be giving them an excuse to spread even more rumours if we turned tail? We have to hold our heads high and weather this. The Haltridge name mustn’t be tainted. Not just for my sake, or Mother’s, but for Jamesey and Sarah. Isabel, sweetheart, I’m relying on you. You must support me in this.”

  “James, you were away a lot over the winter, while I was here. In the thick of it. Things happened in this house that made my blood run cold.”

  “What things?”

  “You know as well as I do. I’ve told you often enough. Things that sound stupid in the light of day, but they can’t be explained away. What about the time Sarah was pushed out of bed? Or the candle that was toppled, all but setting fire to the house. And once, when you were away, I felt an icy hand clamped to my mouth as I lay in bed, but when I struck a light there was no one.”

  “These things are accidents or imaginings. Every house has them, after dark.”

  “Why won’t you listen? What mischief has to overtake us before you see sense? You make me out to be a silly goose when I know in my bones something’s not right.”

  At that, she burst into tears, and my master was helpless against them.

  “There, there. Nobody’s calling you a silly goose. You’re the bonniest woman on Islandmagee. And I haven’t forgotten how you behaved like a daughter to my mother when she needed one. You were a blessing to her. Didn’t she leave you her pearl ring, when she could have said it should be put aside until Sarah was old enough to wear it? Hush, Isabel. Hush. Mother’s gone now, and all the upset is dead and buried along with her. Try to be brave for a day or two longer, and your cousin Mary will be here with you. The pair of you will be so delighted with each other’s company you’ll have no time for me when I get back from Dublin. Come here, sit on my knee and give me a kiss, and let’s have no more quarrelling.”

  My master preferred surfaces to be smooth. No matter what lay beneath. He was always inclined to escape from unpleasantness, counting on all being well when he returned. The funeral meats were not even finished before he saddled up and was gone. And our household of women and childer did what we do best. We waited.

  Mind you, I had plenty to occupy me, keeping the house and everybody in it warm and fed. No job too messy for me. I scooped out the ashes from their fireplaces, emptied their chamber pots, and wrung the necks of their chickens. My hands were like lumps of raw meat at the end of the day.

  It was no great odds – I was born to be a worker. From when I was no age, Ma told me I should thank the Good Lord for fashioning me hale and hearty, because a strong back would outlast a pretty visog. “It might outlast the face but not outshine it,” laughed Da, who melted at a pair of bright eyes, like most men. Ma always said to pay him no heed. “Your face is the way the Man Above intended it to be,” she used to say. “He drew it Himself, and He knew what He was about.”

  I can’t deny the Lord God drew my face, but He didn’t put His back into it the way He did when He tackled Mary Dunbar’s. Now, she had a face to linger in the memory. We all thought she was a gift from above sent to lift our spirits.

  Little did we know. She tested us sore, and no mistake. For a slender lass, she cast a long shadow.

  Chapter 2

  The mistress was worried Mary Dunbar’s coach might have to turn back on account of flooding, with the day being so wet, but she had to send Noah Spears in to Carrickfergus with the ass and cart anyway. Coaches didn’t venture out as far as Islandmagee. Noah was busy chopping wood, and grumbled about being taken from his work to ferry folk about, but I think secretly he liked an outing.

  Noah was a bachelor, with less hair on his head than a wee scaldy – and no wonder, because he was old when Adam was a boy. But lately I found myself watching him, wondering if he might be tempted to take a wife. Would a young woman in his bed make up for another man’s child in her belly? Best cross that bridge when I come to it, I told myself. I might escape the consequences of my sin yet. I tried not to think about whether he could be the answer to my problem as he carried in Mary Dunbar’s trunk.

  The young lady’s spirits were high despite the lashing rain she travelled through to reach us. She smiled at me, a dimple popping into each cheek, as I took her woollen cloak, heavy with water, to dry in front of the kitchen fire. She had a lambskin rug as well, to cover her knees on the journey, and it was soaked through. Behind her smile, you could see the visitor was tired after her journey – and no wonder, for she had to rise in the wee small hours to catch the coach on its way through Armagh. Them coaches stop and start at every turn round, between passengers getting on and off and letters and packets being collected at inns.

  The mistress was as excited as a bairn about having a guest. Islandmagee was lonesome for her taste – towns were Mistress Haltridge’s preference. “I can’t buy as much as a button without ordering the horse made ready,” she complained many’s the time. I suppose it was natural, for a glover’s daughter who grew up above the shop, used to constant hustle-bustle. That’s where she came by her taste for fine
plumage. Not that the island was the place to indulge it. The meeting-house was not meant for parading in showy bonnets, though it never stopped her.

  Islandmagee is no island, by the by. The master told me it was a – wait now till I think of the word – a peninsula, which means it is almost an island but not quite. A strip of land ties it to the mainland, the way a bonnet’s ribbons hold it on the head. May as well be an island, because we’re tucked out of the way here. And that’s how we like it.

  The mistress urged the visitor into my master’s leather-and-mahogany chair next to the fire, in the parlour, leaning behind her to plump the cushions. Then she called for a hot toddy to warm her cousin, in case she might have caught a chill. She made a show of telling me not to add the honey till the hot water was mixed with the whiskey, as though I was a simpleton. I daresay she wanted her cousin to think she ran a tight ship. They were yarning away, nineteen to the dozen, as I carried the tray through to the good room. This was a chamber the mistress was proud of, with its flagstoned floor. The rest were floorboards or clay covered with rushes.

  “I’m not so much tired as sore, Isabel, from being thrown round inside the coach. It almost overturned more than once. The roads were slippery from rain.”

  “James says the public thoroughfare has holes the size of a cartwheel. Only the other week, he spoke of going to our neighbours and taking up a subscription to have them repaired. Did you hear any news on the coach?”

  “There was talk of the Earl of Antrim’s marriage to an English lord’s daughter. And of an apothecary from Lisburn, deceased a year since, whose house and shop are being sold to the highest bidder because the heir can’t be tracked down.”

  The mistress fussed over her cousin, who was sitting there like a queen in her cap with lace lappets. If you ask me, only the promise of this visit kept her from taking to her bed after my master set off. I never knowed a woman so fond of her bed.

  I set the toddy on a table fornenst Mistress Haltridge, before crossing to the fire to build up a blaze. I took my time, so as to steal a closer look at the young lady.

  “I was sorry to hear about your mother-in-law passing over, Isabel.”

  “She’ll be missed. She was a great help with the children – at least until a few months ago.”

  “Mama said you wrote and told her she took some odd fancies towards the end.”

  I dropped the block of turf I was holding, and Mistress Haltridge flashed a warning with her eyes. Mary Dunbar looked from one of us to the other, peeping out through a mass of curly hair.

  “Never mind standing there swinging your arms, Ellen,” said the mistress. “Go and see about the children. They’ll want to come and bid their cousin welcome.”

  There was only a year between Master Jamesey and Missie Sarah. They were firm friends for the most part, though they could fight like cat and dog when the humour was on them. I was afraid this would be the very day they’d tear strips off each other, and them in their Sunday best, under strict instructions to keep their clothes clean. But they were good as gold, waiting in the nursery, the wee girl holding her babby-doll and her brother with a tin soldier in each hand. They ran at me in a rush of arms and legs when I opened the door.

  “Can we go down now?”

  “I’ll show her my soldiers.”

  I checked their hands were free of dirt before leading them downstairs. Then I waited by the parlour door while the childer approached the guest, Missie dropping a curtsey the way her mother had taught her, the young master tilting his body into a stiff bow.

  Mary Dunbar kissed them both. “I’ve made your acquaintance before, Jamesey, but you wouldn’t remember. You were still crawling.”

  “And me? Did you meet me?” asked Sarah.

  “No, this is our first time. But I can tell we’re going to be the best of friends. I’ve brought you a yard of ribbons from my father’s shop – I’m going to plait your hair in the latest fashion.”

  Sarah wriggled with delight. Mary Dunbar possessed the happy knack of being the centre of attention without doing anything to draw the eye.

  Back I went to the kitchen to discuss the newcomer with Peggy McGregor. She styled herself housekeeper, but cook was nearer the mark, and she was ancient, so the heavy duties fell to me. The Haltridges kept her on because she came to Islandmagee from Scotland with my master’s father when he was given the living in Kilcoan More. She was there long before the old minister brought his bride into the house. Peggy was a good cook, I’ll grant her that, but no help with the labour of scrubbing floors, drawing water from the well or beating the laundry clean. Lately, I even had to help with the cooking, because she was a right slowcoach and the meals would never be ready otherwise. I didn’t mind – cooking was a useful skill. In time, I hoped I might be taken on as the cook myself. I didn’t want to be a maid-of-all-work all my days.

  “Peggy, I could’n tear me eyes off her hand holdin’ the hot toddy glass. I never saw such totie wee fingers. They would’n be out of place on a child of ten summers.”

  Just then Mercy Hunter burst through the back door, all of a tizzy. She must have run the whole way from Ballymuldrough. Her news tumbled out of her.

  “This is on’y a flying visit. I cannae stop. The minister’s been called out to wrestle with sinners. Sammy Orr an’ Ruth Graham were discovered in a state of fornication.” She waited to see we were suitably shocked that a tenant farmer and his maid were found sinning. “They were caught ruttin’ in his stable like animals. Naked as a chicken ready for the pot, was Ruth Graham. At least he kep’ his shirt on. His wife came upon them an’ sent for my master.”

  I felt a giant fist take hold of my heart and wring it slowly.

  “I’d a thought Fanny Orr would be pleased at a break from child-bearin’. Is it six or seven she has now?” said Peggy.

  “Six wee Orrs. Three of each. Sammy never tried to deny it – how could he, with no britches to cover his arse? But he said he did’n know what come over him – he must a been tempted by God’s Ape. The minister says ’tis proof the Devil’s cloven hooves are clatterin’ about Islandmagee.” She widened her eyes, shuddering.

  “Well then, Mercy Hunter, I wonder at you riskin’ your immortal soul to step out to us.” Peggy had little patience with Mercy – even if she was as interested in her news as the rest of us. Oftentimes, she said Mercy Hunter had a tongue too long for her gob.

  “How so, Peggy McGregor?”

  “If Aul’ Nick is abroad an’ temptin’ folk, he might spot your apple cheeks as you go skitin’ across the fields an’ try his luck with you.”

  Those cheeks paled, but Mercy held her ground. She had more talking to do, and Peggy wasn’t going to put her out of her stride. She edged over to the fire to warm her nether regions. “Sammy Orr and Ruth Graham will be shamed afore the congregation, their sin named from the pulpit. They’ll be put on stools in front of everybody to make confession – it’ll take a month of Sundays afore the minister reckons them repented. Fornicators are his pet hate.”

  The giant fist gave my heart another squeeze.

  “Sammy’ll weather the storm. His wife’ll give him the could shoulder for a while, but that’s as much as she can do. Ruth’ll not get off so handy. She’ll be turned out of their service. And then what’s to become of her? If she goes home, she’ll be beat by her da till there bain’t an inch of flesh on her body. Still, maybe she’s as well takin’ the hidin’. After she losses her position, no mistress from these parts will touch her. She’ll have to go as far as Carrickfergus, maybe even Belfast, to look for work.” Mercy lifted the back of her skirts to let her legs have the benefit of the heat.

  I spoke up, wanting to believe Ruth had a chance of a future, even when it was clear she had no easy time ahead. “I hear there’s agencies that find you places. I saw one in a journal from Dublin my master give me, to practise reading.” My master taught me to read, and some lettering as well, when most maids can just about make their mark. Many’s the time I watched hi
m take out a penknife, choose a feather from a goose wing and fashion it into a quill.

  I produced the Dublin Intelligence from under the settle and read it aloud. “‘At the Blue Leg in Castle Street is kept the Intelligence Office, after the same manner as in London, where any Persons may be furnished with Men or Women Servants or Nurses. Likewise such Servants as can show Certificates of their Good Behaviour may be placed in Positions.’ You see? Thon place could maybes find Ruth a job.”

  “Hell will freeze over afore Fanny Orr gives Ruth a certificate of good behaviour after what she got up to with her Sammy,” said Mercy. “An’ Sammy Orr wud’n dare go agin her. Ruth’s reputation is lost now. She can never get it back.”

  Masters are hard to turn down, I thought. Every maid knows that – every mistress, too, even if she chooses to blame the maid. And then I thought: Pray God he has’n planted a child in her.

  The others stared at me, appalled. I hadn’t just thought it – I had spoken my fear aloud.

  Mercy and me, we knowed Ruth Graham all our lives – all three of us grew up together, tumbling in and out of each other’s cottages, and it was a struggle to imagine her with Sammy Orr. He was father to a brood of childer as thick in the neck as him, including the wee one savaged by the sheepdog turned wild. For Ruth to give herself willingly to a man who dribbled over his tankard of ale, and slapped any backside he could get away with handling, was a right waste. You could see it with a gentleman like my master, who changed his linen regularly and had coaxing ways to turn a girl’s head. Any maid could be forgiven for weakening under temptation from him. But Sammy Orr was another kettle of fish entirely. Satan’s hand was at work here, sure enough.