9,59 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: The Hamiltons Series
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
In the closing years of the nineteenth century the Hamilton family have much to be thankful for. As well as the new-found security of living in their own home at Ballydown, John is a respected employee and friend of mill owner Hugh Sinton, and Rose has a new, much-valued friend in Elizabeth Sinton, Hugh's sister. The women's close bond is a source of comfort and strength to both of them, and Rose has every reason to be happy with her lot, after years of hardship and poverty. As Rose and John watch their children, James, Sam, Hannah and their last-born, strong-willed Sarah, make their own choices and mistakes they must draw on inner reserves of courage and steadfastness to face both pain and joy as all their futures unfold.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 547
Ähnliche
The Hamiltons of Ballydown
ANNE DOUGHTY
For all my readers who ask for my novels in libraries with thanks for their encouragement
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
Ballydown, June 1896
The rain came in the night, sweeping in from the south, pattering softly on the bedroom windows. Rose stirred briefly and listened to the gentle, persistent beat on the thatch and the steady drip into the stone gutters below. The garden needed it and the neighbouring farmers would be grateful, she thought, as she drifted back into sleep.
It was still raining when Rose knelt to rouse the banked up fire and boil the kettle for breakfast. Great swags of low cloud made the kitchen dim and the stove sulky, even with the front door propped open to improve the draught.
‘That was a good drop we had in the night,’ John said, as he tramped downstairs and paused in the doorway, his tall, broad-shouldered frame cutting off the misty light.
‘You’ll all get wet on the way to work,’ Rose laughed, as she moved back and forth across the low-ceilinged room bringing the teapot from the dresser and fresh bread and butter from the small, chilly outshot beyond the kitchen, an addition to the house when it had been a farmhouse with enough cattle to need a dairy.
‘Well, Sam and I might get wet, but I think it’ll clear,’ said John thoughtfully. ‘There’s a bit of a lightness out to the west. Give it another hour,’ he advised, as he dropped into his armchair by the stove and pulled on his boots. ‘Will I give Sam another shout?’ he asked, as the kettle began to sing and she reached up to the mantelpiece for the tea caddy.
Rose paused and listened. After a moment or two they heard the heavy tread of stockinged feet on the wooden stairs. A robust figure, already as tall as his father, Sam glanced silently out at the rain, disappeared into the cupboard on the window side of the stove and emerged clutching his own well-polished boots.
‘Boiled egg, Sam?’ Rose asked, as he drew up his chair to the table.
He nodded, half-asleep, the soft skin of his face shining from the touch of cold water. He’d washed so quickly, there were still traces of soap behind his ear. He looked younger than his almost sixteen years.
‘Are you for town today, love?’ John asked, as she poured tea and cut them thick slices of the previous day’s baking.
‘No,’ she said, looking out at the rain and shaking her head gently. ‘I might have gone in, but I want to get on with Sarah’s dress. Only a week now to her birthday,’ she added smiling.
There was no danger whatever of anyone forgetting Sarah’s birthday. At thirteen, she was quite capable of reminding them all of the event, but she never failed to point out that her day was also her mother’s day. She’d been born on Rose’s thirtieth birthday in the house in County Armagh when they lived with John’s mother, Granny Sarah.
Rose dropped the eggs neatly into John and Sam’s waiting egg cups, filled up their mugs and went to the foot of the stairs.
‘Hannah, Sarah,’ she called firmly. ‘Time to get up.’
The voice that replied was Hannah’s. It usually was. Hannah was often awake long before anyone else. She would lie and listen to the familiar morning sounds, enjoying the quiet and the warmth of her own bed with her own special quilt, the one she’d designed when her mother and her friend, Elizabeth Sinton, had offered to make it for her.
Rose turned away from the steep, twisty staircase. If Hannah was awake, she’d make sure Sarah got up. Not always an easy job, but Hannah had the measure of it. She listened for another moment to the footsteps overhead, then, satisfied, she turned to Sam.
‘I have cheese or cold bacon and baker’s loaf,’ she began. ‘Or you could have some of each.’
He smiled sheepishly and nodded. Sam always had a good appetite. When his lunch box came back in the evening there wasn’t so much as a crumb to throw to the birds. She watched him scrape out the very last morsel of his egg, invert the empty shell in his egg cup and stab it with his spoon before she turned away to the dairy.
‘Well, the fairies never sail far in your egg-shells,’ John laughed, as he looked across the table. ‘But I’m afraid we’ve left it too late. They’re gone. That’s the fault of those that neglected their egg-shells.’
‘Is there any more tea in the pot?’ Sam asked, hopefully.
‘Aye, there is. Plenty.’
‘Are ye still workin’ on the stenters?’ he asked, glancing up at the clock, as his father refilled both their mugs.
‘No, we got them sorted out. I’m not sure what Hugh has in mind today. We might even get lookin’ at those drawin’s I told you about. Ivery time he goes to lay a hand on them doesn’t someone arrive with trouble at one mill or t’other.’
‘Here you are, Sam, and a big piece of cake too.’
He got up from the table, bent down and kissed her and took the lunch box from her hands.
‘You’ve got a grey hair, Ma,’ he said suddenly, as he straightened up.
‘Only one, Sam?’ she said, throwing her soft morning plait of dark hair back over her shoulder and laughing up at him. ‘I’m glad you can’t count. I’ve had to stop pulling them out or I’d have no hair left.’
‘Ach sure what’s a few grey hairs between friends,’ said John, stroking the crown of his head as he stood up and reached for his cap on the row of hooks by the door. ‘Better grey than nay. I’m beginnin’ to feel the draught rightly wi’out m’ cap these days.’
He moved across to the foot of the staircase, stepped up the two bottom treads, his head bent in the low stairwell. ‘Cheerio, Hannah. Cheerio, Sarah. See you tonight.’
A small chorus returned his greeting.
‘Will I see you midday?’ Rose asked, as she handed him his jacket.
He slipped an arm round her waist and kissed her.
‘All bein’ well,’ he said cheerfully over his shoulder as he and Sam stepped out into the swirling mist and tramped down the garden path.
John was right about the rain. By the time Hannah and Sarah finished their breakfast, collected what they needed for school and wheeled their bicycles round to the front of the house, the fine drizzle had stopped. As she followed them to the gate, Rose caught the first glimpse of the sun gleaming sporadically through cloud from which only the finest beading of moisture swirled around them as they freewheeled down the steep hill.
She stood at the garden gate, watching them go, Hannah’s slim, composed figure following more cautiously as Sarah wove her way expertly between the potholes on the unmade road. Dark haired, with startling blue eyes and pale skin, her chin jutting forward as she pedalled, Sarah was always in the lead. Hannah might be four years older and almost ready to leave school, but these days it was Sarah who led the way, just as James had done when he and Sam went everywhere together.
Rose cleared the remains of breakfast, washed up in the deep Belfast sink in the dairy, cleaned the Modern Mistress stove with black lead and emery paper and scrubbed the long wooden table. She swept the floor and added the crumbs from the bread board to those she’d flicked on to the garden path where the small birds could carry them off to the fledglings that chirped and squeaked in the nearby bushes and trees.
She paused a moment and drew back in the doorway, floor brush in hand, to watch a blackbird, a robin and a thrush swoop down one after another and disappear with full beaks. Though it was only the first week of June, their bright summer plumage looked worn and faded already, so hard did they work raising their broods.
By mid-morning, the first beam of sunlight glanced across the large, white-washed room. It threw reflections of the south-facing windows across the floor, lit up the solid legs of the table and caught the fine motes of flour dust hanging in the air as she slid cakes of wheaten and soda bread into the oven. She wiped her hands on her apron, moved lightly across the flagged floor and leant against the doorpost, her eyes half closed in the brightness. She turned sideways to let the sunlight play on her shoulders, always stiff and sometimes sore after the effort of cleaning the stove and kneading the bread. The deep warmth was like an embrace, reassuring and comforting.
The last of the mistiness had gone and the sky was patched with blue. She drew in a deep breath of the rain-washed air, full of the mixed scents of summer. Cut grass from their own meadow behind the house, pollen carried on the light breeze from the mature lime trees in the avenue of Rathdrum, the handsome gentleman’s residence at the top of the hill, and the mixed perfumes from the deep herbaceous border that followed the line of her own garden path.
Almost seven years now since they’d moved, the best of their old furniture carefully loaded on Sinton’s dray. There was Granny Sarah’s sideboard, the dresser they’d bought when she died and they’d had to sell the rest of her well-loved pieces, because their landlord was able to turn them out of the house at Annacramp. There’d been no space for fine pieces in the abandoned two-room cottage opposite Thomas Scott’s forge.
What excitement there’d been that day, driving fifteen miles into unknown country and a new home only John had seen. A new place with new neighbours. For the four children, it was the longest journey any of them had ever made. Once she’d settled them in, she’d begun planting her garden, trusting her cherished cuttings to a different soil, a changed aspect and a slightly different climate. As she walked the length of the path, nipping off dead leaves and the odd faded bloom from the flourishing border, she nodded to the old friends who’d come with her, tiny fragments when they arrived, now vigorous plants or thriving bushes.
Down by the gate, she leant over a clump of foxgloves and dropped her handful of bits into the old bucket carefully hidden among the luxuriant growth. Everything she’d planted had grown and flourished. ‘And so have we all, thank God,’ she whispered.
She rested against the gate and gazed out across the broad lane that ran up and over Rathdrum Hill. The fields they owned on the southern slopes below the lane were rented out to a neighbouring farmer, but John himself made sure the hawthorn hedges were cut low each autumn so that nothing interrupted her outlook over the rich lowlands of the Bann valley.
The low hills here were steeper than those in Armagh, but they had just the same gently curving shape. One behind another, like eggs lying in a basket, they ran away into the distance as far as she could see, until the now familiar outline of the Mourne mountains rose on the horizon, sharp and clearly drawn against the sky, the miles between so reduced in the clear light, she felt she could stretch out her hand and touch them.
The bright sunlight bathed the richness of the new growth, the hedgerows and trees fully leafed, but not yet quite mature, the whole countryside a sea of green, rippled and dimpled. No wonder the people who came in their carriages to visit Banbridge said that only now did they understand why Ireland was called the Emerald Isle.
‘All this and mountains too,’ she said aloud.
Until she’d married John and travelled north to Ulster, there’d always been mountains in her life. As a child, born in Donegal, she’d lived with the Derryveagh mountains all around her. She could still remember setting off one day to climb the long ridge that ran along their valley, because she’d so wanted to see what was on the other side. Later, when she and her mother had lived in Kerry, she never tired of climbing the lowest of the mountains near Currane Lake so she could stand under the vast expanse of the sky, the mountains around her, the Atlantic beyond.
She still thought of her mother so often. At times, she wrote letters in her head, telling her all the news, just as she’d done after she and John were married in the little estate church close to Currane Lodge and he’d taken her away to a new life in a far country. Hannah and Rose had served the Molyneux family for so many years, Sir Capel made her wedding day a holiday. She’d had gifts from servants and family alike and been seen off with her John in a cloud of good wishes. That she’d never see her mother again was the last thing she’d ever imagined.
Over the years, she often saw herself back in the housekeeper’s quarters, drinking tea and sharing her news. Even now that Hannah had long lain in the shadow of the church tower, she did it still, calling up her mother’s steady gaze as she would listen so carefully to all she had to say and respond with the shrewd, kindly wisdom so much a part of her.
Could she or Hannah have foreseen that Rose would own a two storey house with ten acres of land, the gift of a wealthy man, James Sinton, because she’d saved his life and those of his wife and children?
Night after night, after the rail disaster outside Armagh, from which the Sintons, Rose and the children had all escaped unscathed, she’d woken up gasping for breath, struggling to get back to them, running and running and making no headway, calling to them and they never hearing. It was only when she tried to find words to tell her mother what had happened that Rose found comfort. The more she let her mind move back into that room where they’d shared so much of their daily life, the more she was sure Hannah would have said that some good may come from even the most heartbreaking events, if only you have the courage to accept what has happened.
Events had proved how right Hannah would have been. That event, the cruel and bitter disaster, which tore the heart out of a community and left no one free from grief or anxiety, had actually lifted Rose and John out of a hard and limiting life and set them down in a brighter world, full of hope and possibility for them and their children.
She smiled to herself, thinking how pleased her mother would be if she knew John was too busy repairing and inventing textile machinery to shoe horses. Not only did his employer pay him handsomely, but he’d encouraged him to put down his first patents. Already, they’d yielded more than his year’s earnings when he’d worked in Drumcairn mill.
Hannah might have smiled with pleasure at their good fortune, but John’s own mother would have laughed out loud.
‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’ she’d have said.
She could still hear Granny Sarah’s voice. Arriving in her home, a new bride, weary from a long journey, her mind full of images of countryside she’d never seen before, Sarah made her laugh the moment she crossed the threshold, welcoming her son with an irreverent gaiety.
‘Sure he always lands on his feet.’
And indeed, it was true. Although they’d had hardship enough before they came to Ballydown, John had certainly landed on his feet once again. She’d never known him happier in his work.
‘And what about the children, Rose?’
She saw again the closely written pages in the flowing copperplate which Hannah had perfected to record the accounts of Currane Lodge.
The last letter she’d written to her mother was the week before she died. Sarah had just started school, Hannah was able to sew the baby’s dresses Rose had made for years to boost their income. James was eleven years old, taller than Rose and he and Sam were mad about engines.
‘Your grandson James is apprenticed in Belfast now, Ma. He’s with Harland and Wolff, the biggest shipbuilder in the world,’ Rose said aloud. ‘He’s taller than John, but not as broad. And he likes to be called Jamie.’
Rose turned her head and glanced up the hill to where Rathdrum House lay hidden behind its avenue of limes. Sometimes when the air was very still, or the wind in the right direction, she could hear the ring of a hammer from the workshop attached to the stable block. She could always tell whether it was John or Hugh Sinton at the anvil. John’s stroke was steady and strong, but punctuated with the small, dancing rhythm all blacksmith’s use. Hugh’s stroke was rapid, persistent and unvaried in pace, full of a pent up energy, just like the man himself.
This morning all was silent. She could imagine the pair of them peering at some model they’d made, a design for an improved system of energy transfer, a more efficient method of performing some process in one of his linen mills. Hugh had inherited four of them. Millbrook spun the linen thread, Lenaderg wove the cloth, Seapatrick specialised in hemstitching and the largest mill of all, nearby Ballievy, right on the river Bann itself, did the bleaching and finishing.
Since they’d come to County Down, she’d learnt a whole new language. She knew all about the spinning and the weaving and the finishing of linen, but she had to admit she wasn’t always sure exactly how the machines worked.
No doubt she could have found out more, but unlike Sarah, she was reluctant to interrupt Hugh, or his sister, Elizabeth, when they came to Ballydown and talked about the everyday business of the mills and their work people. If Sarah wanted to know something she’d ask and go on asking until she understood. Rose shook her head wryly. Sarah’s first meeting with Elizabeth the day they arrived was one she’d never forget.
‘Good day and welcome Rose and John. I’m Elizabeth Sinton. I’m sorry Hugh couldn’t be here. He had to go over to Millbrook.’
The tall, angular woman who emerged from the front door of their new home was dressed rather severely in a dark skirt and a plain white blouse that accentuated her height, her already grey hair and her rather forbidding countenance. She shook hands with Rose and John warmly enough, ran her eyes over the children, a slight frown on her face and then greeted each one correctly by name as she shook hands with them.
‘Good day, James. Good day, Sam. I’ve heard a lot about you. You must come up and see the workshop as soon as you’ve settled in. I hear you are both keen on engines. Good day, Hannah. Good day, Sarah. And who is this?’ she asked, kneeling down unexpectedly on the garden path where she was face to face with Ganny, Sarah’s constant companion.
‘This is Ganny,’ said Sarah, promptly. ‘My granny made her for me. She was grey like you, but you’re much bigger.’
‘You mean ‘taller’, Sarah, don’t you?’ said Rose awkwardly.
‘No, I said bigger,’ retorted Sarah shortly.
Rose felt herself blush, but Elizabeth Sinton didn’t appear to be in the slightest offended. Entirely focused on Sarah, she smiled warmly, her strong, plain face suddenly transformed, her grey eyes sparkling.
‘I hope you’ll bring Ganny when you and Hannah come to visit me. I’ll show you a doll my grandmother made for me,’ she said, her rather formal way of speaking softening as she laid a finger on Ganny’s grey woollen hair.
‘I’ve taken the liberty, Rose, of making up the two new beds that arrived earlier in the week, in case any of you needed to lie down,’ she said, as she stood up. ‘Please don’t trouble to return the sheets. Hugh brings me so many to try out for him I could furnish one of Miss Nightingale’s wards,’ she added with a little laugh. ‘Now I shall leave you in peace. The dray will probably take at least another hour, but I’ve left some refreshments ready. Good day to you all.’
‘Funny lady,’ said Sarah, before Elizabeth Sinton had even closed the garden gate behind her. ‘I like her,’ she added decisively, as she yawned hugely and marched towards the open front door.
But if Sarah’s reaction to Elizabeth Sinton had embarrassed Rose, worse was to come. While Hannah admitted she was tired out after being up so early and having had such a busy morning, even before the journey, Sarah refused to make use of the other bed. She tramped round the house, looked into every room, opened built in cupboards, turned the tap on and off in the room beyond the kitchen, explored the garden and climbed up on the fence to look over into the field where her father said they could keep a mare if they decided to have a trap.
When she heard an unfamiliar voice in the big kitchen, she shot back inside and stood staring at Hugh Sinton as he welcomed her parents and shook hands with James and Sam.
‘Good day, Sarah,’ he said, as soon as his eye lighted upon her.
He moved forward to shake hands with her, his body awkward and ungainly as he hunched his left shoulder to enable him to swing his left leg forward. He held out his hand and smiled at her, his handsome, tanned face marred by a white scar that ran diagonally across one cheek, reappeared on his forehead and disappeared into his thick, dark hair.
‘Did a horse kick you?’ Sarah enquired. ‘Our friend Thomas has a scar like yours. He nearly died, only Ma and George Robinson took him to the Infirmary in Armagh. Did you nearly die too?’
Before Rose had time to draw breath, Hugh had released Sarah’s hand and nodded.
‘Yes. I was ill a long time. Elizabeth nursed me for months. But the horse didn’t kick me. It fell and threw me in our own yard. There was a piece of metal lying on the ground and it cut off the front of my knee, so it doesn’t work very well.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Yes, it does sometimes,’ he said easily. ‘But I’m still here, God be praised,’ he added strongly, as he straightened himself up again.
‘I think it’s time Sarah was in bed,’ said Rose apologetically.
Hugh had given her a smile she would never forget. Sudden and full of an unexpected warmth, it showed her what a handsome young man he still was. John had been quite right. Hugh was just as kind and as considerate as his older brother James, even if he lacked James’s graciousness.
‘You’ve all had a long day and need your rest,’ he said gently, as Rose picked her up. ‘Sleep well, Sarah.’
He swung his bad leg into action over the stone floor. ‘God bless you all,’ he added, pausing in the doorway, before disappearing at speed down the garden path with a strange rocking motion.
The sun had risen towards its zenith and the mountains were now less clear as the heat shimmered on their rocky slopes. Rose shut the garden gate behind her, crossed the lane and leant on the five-barred gate in the low hawthorn hedge opposite. Michael MacMurray’s cattle had retreated to a patch of shadow where a well-grown ash tree raised its leafy crown above the line of the eastern boundary of the rich, sloping meadow. She studied the familiar countryside from this new perspective, delighting in the richness of full leaf. In as little as a week’s time, though still beautiful, the foliage would no longer be translucent to the light.
She listened to the familiar sounds of a summer’s day. The distant rush of water from the tail race of the bleach mill, the sudden scream of the swallows swooping low over the field in front of her, the creak of a cart on the road below and the bark of a dog somewhere across the river.
Sometimes the days were so full, she could pass a whole week without ever having time to stand here and give thanks for the good fortune that had brought them to this place where they’d settled so happily. So many of her worries for the family were a thing of the past, as John would say. The children were growing up, they were well and healthy, and there was money in the bank to help them on their way. What woman could ask for more?
On the still air, she caught a sound that was not familiar. To begin with she couldn’t even describe it to herself. Persistent and throbbing, a little like the distant thud of beetling hammers. No, not hammers, a rougher sound. More erratic and more turbulent. As she listened it seemed to be getting louder and coming closer all the time.
‘Missus Hamilton … Missus Hamilton …’
She spun round as she heard her name called and found a young lad running up the hill towards her. Without pausing for breath, he jerked his head towards the top of the hill. ‘C’mon quick, it’s Sam,’ he called over his shoulder, as he ran past her.
‘Sam?’ she gasped, as she turned to follow him, her breath caught with sudden anxiety. What could possibly be wrong? And how could Sam be up the hill when his workplace was down in Tullyconnaught not far from the mill itself?
She’d never seen this lad before, yet he knew who she was and had obviously been sent to look for her. She followed as quickly as she could, anxious lest the retreating figure disappear from sight. As she reached the less steep gradient beyond the crest of the hill, she saw the slight figure swerve through the open gate into the avenue leading to Rathmore House.
By the time she reached the driveway, gasping for breath, perspiration trickling down her face, she could see Elizabeth directing the lad to the workshop and hurrying after him. Rose struggled on and arrived at the gable of the house just in time to see the young lad, a rolled, red flag clutched in his right hand, spill out his message to John and Hugh.
‘Ach, good man yourself,’ said John, clapping him on the shoulder.
She slowed down, a stitch in her side and walked as quickly as she could towards them. John turned and caught sight of her. He was smiling. She felt such a relief. It must be all right if he was smiling.
The throbbing noise had grown louder, louder even than the pounding of her own heart.
‘Down to the stable wall, Elizabeth,’ called Hugh, as he jerked his bad leg into action and hurried away from them.
John came towards her and slipped an arm round her waist.
‘Yer all outa breath,’ he said quietly.
‘I’m all right now,’ she said, drawing a great gasp of air into her small chest. ‘I thought there was something wrong. What’s happening?’
‘D’ye not hear?’
‘I hear a noise, but I don’t know what it is.’
‘C’mon. Hugh’s right. The stable wall’s the best place.’
Hugh had fetched a ladder to make it easy for Rose and Elizabeth to climb up. They stood in a line on top of the solid wall and looked down on the stretch of main road that ran along the foot of the hill towards Corbet and Katesbridge. The road was empty, its rough surface a pale gash through the green countryside.
‘Will you not get into trouble, Billy, for leaving him without a flagman?’ asked Hugh coolly, addressing the boy who stood beside him, shading his eyes against the light.
‘Ach no. Wait till ye see. There’s no need for me.’
It was only when she caught the smell of smoke on the clear air that Rose guessed what they were waiting for.
‘Can ye feel the vibrations?’ John asked her quietly.
Rose wasn’t sure. She was still hot and shaking after the effort she’d made, but before she had time to answer, a man waving a red flag appeared. Yards behind him, with a cloud of smoke and steam swirling round them, not one, but three, highly polished road engines steamed steadily along the highway below, each one hauling three loaded wagons.
‘Is that the new Fowler then?’ asked Hugh, leaning forward, his eyes pinned to the foremost engine. ‘I think your Da’s going to have to walk a bit faster, Billy,’ he added, as the flagman leading the procession caught sight of them and waved his red flag up at them.
‘D’you see whose up front, Rose?’
It was some moments before the smoke parted and Rose saw a familiar figure. For a moment he appeared to be quite unaware of his audience, but then the flagman checked the road ahead, turned back and called up to him. With a great beaming smile, young Sam Hamilton wiped his brow with the back of his arm and raised it in salute to the little group of spectators on the hillside above.
They waved back and stood watching till the last engine had passed and the only movement below was Billy taking a shortcut to catch up with the convoy when it paused to take on more water at Corbet Lough.
‘Well, Rose, what do you think of that?’ asked Hugh, his voice barely concealing his excitement. ‘The new engine and him not turned sixteen. Are you not proud of him?’
‘I am, Hugh, I am,’ she nodded, tears springing to her eyes. ‘I can hardly believe he’s grown up so quickly,’ she said, trying to blink them away. ‘It’s just the smoke,’ she said feebly. ‘It makes my eyes water.’
‘Just wait till young Jamie launches his first ship,’ he said, nodding sympathetically and turning his head away to give her time to recover. ‘We’ll have to do better than a wall to stand on that day.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘What about a cup of tea or a glass of lemonade by way of celebration?’ Elizabeth asked, as she climbed down from the wall and turned to watch John swing Rose lightly to the ground beside her.
Hugh ignored the ladder and slithered from the wall to land on his good leg. He smiled sheepishly across at his sister. ‘Sounds good, Elizabeth,’ he began, ‘but we’ve only just got to those drawings.’
Elizabeth waved a hand in the air. ‘Well, it’s always polite to ask,’ she said, looking from Hugh to John. ‘A refusal never offends.’
They all laughed. Almost every shop in Banbridge had a notice, handwritten or printed and clearly displayed behind the main counter, which said: Please do not ask for credit, as a refusal often offends.
‘What about you, Rose?’
‘You know I love your lemonade,’ Rose replied, still laughing, ‘but I dashed off with the front door wide open and my baking things all over the table.’
‘And who do you think would steal your baking things, Rose?’ Hugh asked, his tone light and teasing.
‘No one at all, Hugh,’ she agreed, shaking her head. ‘I’m sure there hasn’t been a soul past the house all morning, but there was a jug of milk should’ve gone back to the dairy. And there’s bread in the oven,’ she added, finally remembering what was prompting her to go straight home. ‘But I’ll be up tomorrow, as we planned,’ she called over her shoulder, as she turned on her heel. ‘If I don’t have to bake more bread, that is.’
She walked steadily along the lime avenue, grateful for the cool shade and the soothing murmur of myriads of insects at work in the green canopy above her head. The light dazzled her as she emerged from the leafy tunnel, but as she turned down the hill a whisper of breeze threw tendrils of hair gently across her perspiring forehead.
She was grateful for the breeze. She still hadn’t quite recovered from trying to run uphill after Billy, her heart in her mouth, sure that something dreadful had happened to Sam. It ought to teach her a lesson not to assume the worst. Not to worry so much about her children, particularly when they weren’t children any more.
They’d certainly seemed like children when they arrived at Ballydown. But each year since had brought such changes. James was a young man now, set out upon his own life in Belfast. ‘Little’ six-year-old Sarah was thirteen, a full two years older than the boys and girls who left school as soon as the law permitted to go and work in the mills.
Perhaps all mothers worried about their children. Was it a habit that grew up when children were young and vulnerable and stayed with you when they became sons and daughters, well-grown and with every appearance of good health? Or was it the knowledge that life is perilous, that loss is part of life and simply has to be borne?
So many children died young, not just stillborn infants, or babies who didn’t thrive, but lively young toddlers who caught whooping cough or diphtheria. Older children who died of tuberculosis. She’d heard of plenty of those as well as her own friend’s child. She would never forget Jane Wylie, only nine years old.
She walked faster, her stride increasing with the thrust of her thoughts, her eyes searching the fields and hedgerows as if they had the answer to her questions. There were carpets of buttercups in the meadows, a creamy froth of cow parsley lining the sides of the road, dusky pink spikes of valerian sprouting from the tops of the stone walls.
She took in the colour and the light. What a pity to spoil such a lovely day with such anxious thoughts. Yet she sensed it was the day itself that made her so uneasy. Life had been so good since they’d come to Ballydown. Just like a summer day. But summer is a short season. Like the challenge of winter, the years ahead might make a demand upon her she’d be hard pressed to meet.
‘Come on Rose,’ she said aloud, ‘You must do better than this.’
Rather than worrying herself about the future, she ought to be giving thanks for all the good things the last seven years had brought. How silly to let such sad thoughts cloud Sam’s big day.
The smile he’d sent winging up the hill had so delighted her. It was that same slow, warm smile he’d give her when he came back from the Tullyconnaught Haulage Company while he was still at school, his eyes bright, his forearms streaked with axle oil. He’d spent as many Saturdays and holidays as he could down at their maintenance sheds. Since he was a little boy, he’d wanted to drive an engine, a railway engine, or a road engine, he didn’t mind which and he made himself so useful down at the sheds, a job was waiting for him the moment he left school.
It was their good friend James Sinton who’d persuaded him he needed to stay at school till he was thirteen, however, and then do a proper apprenticeship. Now, three years later, he’d done it. He was not just a young man who could drive an engine, he understood them. He could service them and maintain them, coax and persuade them to work to their greatest capacity without strain. That’s how he came to be trusted with the precious new Fowler this morning. No wonder William Auld, the senior flagman, sent his son to tell them all to look out for Sam.
A few minutes later Rose was back in her kitchen, giving her full attention to the bread. She tapped the soda and wheaten with a practised finger. The dull, hollow sound told her they’d taken no harm. The bread might be a touch drier than usual, but that was no great mischief when there was plenty of butter to spread on it.
She set the cakes to cool in the dairy, wiped the kitchen table and washed up her mixing bowl and measure. Although the stove was still alight, it was pleasantly cool in the big kitchen, the shadows on the floor visibly shortened now the sun had reached its highest point. If the weather settled in as warm as this, she could leave the stove unlit and do her cooking on the gas rings at the far end of the dairy.
The gas had been laid on when the house belonged to the manager at Ballievy Mill, piped all the way down from Hugh’s own gas plant at Rathdrum. He’d set it up as an experiment while he was still in his teens and it had been such a success, he’d been encouraged to introduce gaslight in all his mills.
She thought back to the days when they’d lived in the cottage opposite the forge. It hadn’t even got a stove. There were times she’d come home from shopping in Armagh and find the banked up fire on the hearth had burnt itself out. If the children were home before her, they’d have to sit in the dark because she couldn’t let them light the Tilley lamp. She couldn’t even make a cup of tea till she’d coaxed the turf back to life, just when she was tired and aching to sit down. If the stove was really slow these days, there was the gas to fall back on and after dark there’d be the soft glow of the lamps on either side of the mantelpiece.
The lamps were the first thing Hannah noticed on the day they arrived. While Sarah was fascinated by the tap in the dairy, turning it on and off and watching the water gurgle down the plughole in the deep white sink, Hannah was examining the delicately engraved shades and the fine wire chains that hung below them. They were so easy and safe to get going even Sarah had been allowed to take her turn lighting them.
But then, she thought, any gas lamp Hugh chose would be simple and safe.
‘Simplicity and safety, those are the most important things with anything new,’ she’d heard him insist a dozen times. ‘When you’ve hundreds of work people, most of them quite unfamiliar with any kind of technology, some of them very young, it has to be within their grasp, otherwise it’s simply a source of danger.’
Nevertheless, accidents there were, for all his awareness of danger and his efforts to protect his workers. Hardly a week passed without some report in the Banbridge Chronicle of a serious injury or death.
Rose looked up at the clock. After the excitements of the morning and the need to study the new drawings, it would probably be another hour before John appeared for a bite of lunch. She carried her small sewing table over to the window, fetched the bodice of Sarah’s dress from the cupboard and spread it out on her knee. The machining had been done on Elizabeth’s new Singer, the delicate shirring and decorating of the bodice was left for her own practised hand.
She ran her eye over the pretty patterned fabric and threaded her needle. She so hoped Sarah would like it. The trouble was, she was often so unpredictable. It was one of the many contradictions in her character that, though she loved colour and texture, she paid not the slightest attention to fashion and was usually totally indifferent to what she was wearing. The only dress she’d ever said she liked was Rose’s best silk. She’d insisted that one day she would have one just like it.
Shopping together in Robinson Cleaver’s new store in Belfast for material to make the birthday dress, it was Elizabeth who put her hand out to the fine lawn fabric draped on a display stand.
‘Do you think she might like this one, Rose?’ she said, smiling broadly. ‘It’s not exactly silk,’ she went on, ‘but the feel of it is so soft and the little flowers are so pretty.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right. It is soft, isn’t it? Let’s go and look at patterns and see how many yards I’ll need?’
She smiled to herself, recalling the moment. Elizabeth was kind to all the children, but Rose had always known that Sarah was her favourite. Whenever she heard of her latest enthusiasm and the difficulties into which it had inevitably led her, the warmth of the response, the hint of a smile in the voice, so regularly gave her away.
Though Sarah was not given to expressing her feelings very obviously towards those closest to her, Rose knew the feeling was mutual. She’d accepted Elizabeth and Hugh from their very first meeting, making up her mind in an instant, whereas Hannah had taken her time to make up her mind. Polite and responsive as Hannah always was, it was weeks before Rose could be sure she was completely at ease with them.
For herself, it had been a pleasure getting to know Elizabeth. She was one of those women who spoke her mind readily enough, but seldom said anything sharp, or unpleasant. They had slipped easily into what had rapidly become a very close intimacy, each openly grateful for the presence of a like-minded woman friend so close by. While Elizabeth had aunts and cousins a-plenty, they were widely dispersed around the countryside and she seldom visited away from home, for although she had a competent and trusted housekeeper who would see to her brother’s needs, she knew how often Hugh could be overcome with loneliness or discouragement. Despite his firm convictions that he must always do his best for his fellow creatures, he didn’t apply his convictions to himself. He took little thought for his own comfort or peace of mind and allowed himself little leisure or pleasure.
Sitting side by side in the conservatory of Rathdrum House, one pleasant October morning, a pile of quilting pieces between them, some months after they’d become close friends, Elizabeth had put down her work and looked thoughtfully at her friend.
‘I’ve never really told you about that evening you arrived, have I?’ she said, peering at her over the top of her spectacles.
‘How do you mean?’ Rose asked, as she finished off the square she was working on. ‘Do you mean the shock you got when we all arrived, and you found out who you’d have for neighbours?’ she asked, teasing her, simply for the pleasure of seeing her smile.
‘No, I wasn’t too concerned about that,’ Elizabeth replied laughing. ‘Your dear John talked about you and the children the day James brought him to meet Hugh. I had a fairly good idea from the man himself that you and I would be friends. What didn’t occur to me was what a happy thing your coming would be for Hugh. Having you and the family has made such a difference to him.’
‘Has it?’ asked Rose, genuinely puzzled.
Hugh had always been a kind neighbour, thoughtful and helpful, somewhat hasty at times and occasionally rather short-tempered but Rose had certainly not observed any difference in his behaviour over the months since their first meeting.
‘That evening you arrived I kept supper late, so he could go down and see you,’ Elizabeth began. ‘When he came back he was in such good spirits I couldn’t quite believe it. Usually in the evening he’s so tired and his knee aches so persistently I can hardly get a word out of him, but that night I could see he was full of something he couldn’t wait to tell me. To tell you the truth, Rose,’ she went on, with a slight, wry laugh, ‘I was expecting to hear about a piston, or a drive shaft, or something I hadn’t even heard of before. But no. He dropped into a chair and said, “I’ve found the daughter I might have had. She has beauty like Florence had, but she has my own mother’s candour. It’s a rare quality.”’
Elizabeth smiled sadly before she went on.
‘Hugh was about to be married when he had his accident. Florence was a very attractive girl, well-educated and from a Quaker family like ourselves. Our local meeting had been only too delighted to grant them permission to marry. But after the accident, she visited Hugh just once. Within months, while he was still struggling to be able to walk again, she married out of unity.’
‘Out of unity?’ Rose repeated quietly.
‘She married a man who wasn’t a Quaker,’ Elizabeth explained. ‘It was an awful blow to her family. They were fond of Hugh and very strict about such matters, but she showed no more feeling for her family than compassion for Hugh.’
Rose was overcome by a sudden sadness. She liked Hugh, enjoyed his company, appreciated his easy relationship with John and his pleasure in the activities of the children. Despite his disability, at twenty-four he was a lively and attractive man. She wondered often enough why he hadn’t married and why he appeared to have no thoughts of doing so.
‘To be honest, Rose, though I’ve not said this to anyone,’ Elizabeth confided, her work lying idle in her lap, ‘I’ve often thought what she did hurt Hugh far more than the edge of metal lying on the cobbles.’
Rose nodded. ‘Being let down would be hard at any time,’ she began, ‘but when he was lying there wondering if he would walk again …’ Her voice trailed away into silence, as she shook her head. ‘If you really love a man, you don’t let a misfortune like Hugh’s get in the way, do you?’
‘No, you don’t. You wouldn’t and I wouldn’t,’ agreed Elizabeth quickly. ‘Hugh was alive and would have mended. All the quicker, had he had her wishing him well and encouraging him to be better. I love Hugh dearly, but the love of a half-sister doesn’t compare with the love of a sweetheart. I often think he would have willingly died, but he thought it a sin not to struggle for life when he had so many responsibilities.’
‘Responsibilities?’ Rose asked, surprised.
Surely Hugh didn’t think of Elizabeth as a responsibility when she was so capable of running her own life as well as his. From her very first meeting with them, she’d seen how much Hugh admired his older sister. He always treated her as an equal and regularly asked for her opinion.
‘My father married twice, Rose. My own mother, Hester Pearson, died shortly after I was born, when James was only five. Father didn’t want us brought up by nannies, so he married Agnes Barbour. It wasn’t a love match, but she and Father seemed happy enough together and she was good to James and me. There was nothing of the wicked step-mother about Agnes, but when Hugh was born, she absolutely adored him. She wanted another child to be closer to him in age than we were, but for many years she didn’t conceive. Hugh was twelve when she became pregnant again. She was in her forties then and a rather delicate woman. Her little girl was born dead and a week later Agnes died too.’
Rose put down her work and looked at Elizabeth’s sad face. Now in her mid-thirties, some three years younger than herself, she had the smooth skin of a young woman, but her fair hair was already threaded with grey. Only when she smiled was Rose aware of a young woman with sparkling grey eyes who must certainly have seemed beautiful to some young man, but that was not the story Elizabeth wanted to tell. Not yet.
‘Agnes had just inherited the Banbridge mills from her father and uncle,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘Of course, when her will was read, she’d left everything she possessed to Hugh. Poor boy, he’d been taught from childhood that those who have been given privileges, like wealth or intellect, have the greatest responsibility. So as a boy of twelve, he faced up to the responsibilities of being a mill owner.’
Elizabeth paused, smiling.
‘When he left school, he went into the manager’s office at Seapatrick to learn the business. He hated it.’ She shook her head. ‘He had a perfectly good grasp of mathematics, but he had no feel for buying and selling. He loathed being shut up indoors. He couldn’t bear the noise of the machines, but he couldn’t admit it, could he? He was the boss. Poor Hugh, if he could have given it all away he would, but as he and the family saw it, it was God’s will he do his best for the people who depended on him. James and I knew he was unhappy. We tried to get him to talk to Father, but Hugh felt that wouldn’t be right. It was his burden. He had to learn how best to carry it.’
‘So what happened? How did he get out of the office?’
‘Well, it was Father who found the way in the end. He knew as well as we did Hugh wasn’t happy. He was sorry for it, but to begin with he could see no way to help him. Then, one Sunday morning in the silence of the Meeting House he asked for guidance. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked, but as he said afterwards, his faith had not been strong enough.’
She paused and glanced at her friend over her spectacles.
‘You remember, Rose, that Quakers don’t sing or pray aloud?’
‘Yes, I remember. You explained about the Inner Light and trying to find it for yourself.’
‘Well, as father sat in the deep silence, he became aware of the tick of his own fob watch. It seemed to get louder and louder. He tried to ignore it, because it was distracting him from opening his mind to God. As the minutes passed, he became convinced the ticking was so loud it was surely disturbing the other worshippers. “Something must be wrong with it, I’ll have to give it to Hugh to fix,” he said to himself. And the moment he thought of Hugh, the ticking faded to a murmur.’
Elizabeth beamed at her. ‘Father told the story against himself, time and time again, to make the point that we’re so busy asking for answers, we don’t hear them when they come. But that was the turning point for Hugh. You see, Father knew Hugh could never bear to see things left broken. First, he’d do his best to mend them, then while he was about it, he’d see if he could get them to work better.’
‘So what happened after that?’
‘Well, usually after a sign, the person involved has to consult their conscience to see how the answer fits with the situation. Father admitted it all fell into place by the time they’d eaten the midday meal, but he waited a few days to see if further enlightenment might be given. Then he sent for Hugh and made some suggestions. He told Hugh that, as he was not well fitted to the office, he should develop his talent for repairing and improving machinery. Then it would be proper to leave the buying and selling and the running of the mills to men who had the talent and the experience to do it much better than he could.
‘Father said that when God lays a burden on one of his servants he also gives them the strength and the wisdom to carry it,’ Elizabeth explained, taking up her work again. ‘If a burden seems too heavy, that’s because there’s something to be learnt to help you carry it. You need to ask for insight. From your friends, from your conscience, from God.’
‘And so Hugh was able to use his talent and not feel guilty about running the mills.’
‘Well, not quite,’ said Elizabeth quietly. ‘Hugh is hard on himself, too hard. But I know he gives thanks every day when he steps out into the workshop with John for company.’
She paused thoughtfully for a few moments before she went on.
‘When Father died, he left his drapery business to James, with the provision of an income for me. Hugh already owned the Banbridge mills. Four hundred workers, Rose, nearer five with the new bleach works. And no wife to support him,’ she ended sadly. ‘Perhaps now you see why I’m so grateful for you and for your dear John,’ she added, smiling warmly. ‘Hugh’s been so much happier since we’ve had Hamiltons at Ballydown.’
It was well after one o’clock before Rose heard the click of the garden gate and the tramp of John’s boots on the flagged path.
‘Did ye think I’d fell and forgot?’ he said cheerfully.
‘No, I guessed you’d be late,’ she said, putting her sewing into its linen wrapper. ‘Hugh had a look about him. He wasn’t going to leave off till he’d made a start on those drawings.’
‘Aye, ye’re right there. If Elizabeth hadn’t come out to him, he’d have clean forgot about a bite of lunch.’
‘Are you starving?’ she asked, smiling at him, as she took away the cloth she’d draped over the bread and the cheese. ‘Buttermilk or tea?’
‘A mug of tea would go down well. It’s got very warm,’ he replied, wiping his forehead with a bare arm, his shirtsleeves rolled up above his elbows. ‘The workshop’s cool enough, but it fairly hits you when you come out from under the trees.’
‘There was a wee breeze earlier, but it’s gone very still now. Not the sound of a bird,’ she said softly. ‘I think they’re all hiding from the heat.’
‘Was your bread all right?’ he asked, as he cut himself a slice of cheese and added it to his plate.
‘Well, you’re about to eat it,’ she replied, bringing the teapot to the table and pouring for them both. ‘You might need a bit more butter. But we have plenty.’
There was something in the tone of her voice made him look up from his plate. She’d laughed when she’d told him he was about to eat the morning’s bread, but now, as she sat down opposite him, her face looked sad, her eyes downcast.
‘Did ye fright yerself over Sam this mornin’?’ he asked cautiously.
She nodded and said nothing.
‘Sure it’s only a week now,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t you always think the worst about things this time o’year?’
‘Not just this time of year, John,’ she replied quickly. ‘I could understand it if it was just this week, or even this month. I’ll never forget how hot it was up on that railway bank and walking back across the fields. But I can worry now any month of the year. I thought something awful had happened to Sam when that wee lad came running up the hill.’
John looked down at the crumbs on his plate and reached for another slice of wheaten. He had an idea women worried more than men and it wasn’t a good thing. But what could you do about it? What did you say?
‘Ach, I’m sorry ye were upset. Were ye not pleased at the cut of him?’
‘Yes, I was,’ she said warmly. ‘It was just great. I’m more annoyed with myself. I have a kind of feeling we’ve been too lucky, too blessed, that maybe we’ve hard times ahead of us.’
‘And why shou’d that be?’
‘It’s just a feeling, John. I wish I could put it away from me.’
She smiled across at him, knowing in her heart he couldn’t help her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, but on the few occasions she’d seen him depressed he’d been unable to do anything for himself, so she could hardly expect him to help her now.
‘Maybe you’re right about it being June,’ she said with an effort. ‘I try every year not to go over it all in my mind, but what might have happened if our carriage door had been locked still haunts me, or if James hadn’t spoken up and told me there were no brakes to stop us.’
She got up abruptly and went to the stove for the teapot.
‘Aye, ye might all be dead like poor Mary Wylie an’ the boys,’ he said baldly. ‘An’ sure what kind of a way wou’d I be alive if ye were? But ye’re not lyin’ there in the churchyard wi’ the children and the rest of them. You’re alive an’ well with one son just finished his apprenticeship an’ another one well on his way at Harland’s. Would any o’ that have come about but for what happened that day? Wou’d we be sittin’ here with plenty o’ butter on your good bread, an’ money in the bank?’
He paused and gathered himself for several minutes before he went on in an unexpectedly solemn voice.
‘Rose, the workin’ o’ these things is beyond me. Aye, an’ I think they’re beyond James, an’ Elizabeth, an’ Hugh, for all they’re educated people and think about suchlike things. None of us knows what’s roun’ the corner. We just have to enjoy what we have an’ be strong to face the future when it comes.’
He paused, surprised at himself and sat looking rather sheepish.
‘You’re right, love,’ Rose said, getting to her feet and bending down to kiss him. ‘You’ve got it worked out as well as any of our educated friends might have. I know you’re right. Develop strength of spirit to shield you in adversity. Wasn’t that one of the lines in that copy book we used to talk about? And you can’t strengthen your spirit if you don’t make use of all the good things. And we have so many.’
CHAPTER THREE
The summer that followed Sam’s first day as leading driver for the Tullyconnaught Haulage Company turned out to be a long and happy one with Rose and Sarah’s joint birthday the overture to a season full of new and unexpected pleasures.
Back in the spring of 1890 James Sinton himself had suggested to Rose that the two families should join together on the nearest Saturday to their special day in happy remembrance of their miraculous escape. Seven meetings had come and gone, the annual event was now looked forward to as much as Christmas. Even Jamie Hamilton, who preferred to spend most weekends in Belfast, made the effort to catch the first train to Armagh at the end of his Saturday morning’s work to be present at the celebration lunch.
The eighth family party was one of the happiest days Rose had ever spent. She loved the spacious house in Armagh, the well-planted garden Mary had created, the rich green of the tree-lined Mall spread
