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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: The Hamiltons Series
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
Now in her fifties and a grandmother, Rose Hamilton has much to be thankful for in the steady love of her husband John and their relative prosperity. But she is concerned for her children: Sarah, recently widowed, is burdened with grief and worried by signs of trade union discontent in the Sinton family mills. Sam, married to cold, selfish Martha, is struggling to bring up his six children. Only Hannah, happily married and living in England, causes Rose no worry, though she misses her dreadfully. As world events impinge on the family at Ballydown - the sinking of the Titanic and the outbreak of the First World War - Rose and Sarah face new challenges and tragedies in their daily lives.
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The Hawthorns Bloom in May
ANNE DOUGHTY
For Judith and Amanda without whom the story of the Hamilton family would never have seen the light of day
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
The winter of 1912 was not a severe one in Ballydown. There was very little snow and no long spells of bitter cold, though the regular hoar frosts iced the bare trees and left the straggling grass crisp and white in the morning sun. From the beginning of January, day followed day with cloud covered skies and sudden sleety showers. The small windows of the south-facing dwelling that looked out across the Down countryside towards the rugged mass of the Mourne Mountains rattled under the onslaught, then trickled with streams of raindrops that turned the green prospect into a smudged, watercolour landscape.
Rose had always felt the cold, even as a child. Now she gave thanks that February was over. The worst of the weather was certainly not past, no indeed, but with the evenings longer and the mornings less dark, there was at least a promise of spring. It would take time, months perhaps, before the edge went out of the wind, but the days would grow like the grey-green shoots of daffodils in the garden, and finally bloom into light and warmth.
Half way through the first morning in March, she walked back into the kitchen from the chilly wash house where she’d been struggling with a pair of John’s overalls. The clouds had dissolved, sun poured down from great patches of blue sky, the light was so brilliant it dazzled her. She was amazed at the sudden transformation.
She bent down, propped open the front door, then leant against the doorpost. She closed her eyes and held up her face to the sun. To her surprise there was real warmth in its rays and the air was still and mild. Everywhere the birds were active and a robin was singing its heart out in a fuchsia bush on the eastern boundary of the garden.
‘A pet day,’ she said to herself, smiling.
It wouldn’t last, not at this time of year, but it was lovely while it did. Something to be cherished, to be stored in the mind, to be taken out on the days when grey clouds again cut out the light and one’s own spirits fell so low that an effort had to be made just to keep going, doing the ordinary everyday things like keeping a welcome by the hearth for whoever might come, daughter or son, grandchild, neighbour, delivery man or stranger.
She stood quite still, a small, composed figure, her once dark hair now streaked with grey, her creamy skin marked with the lines of almost six decades of joys and sorrows, and the sudden laughter which so often came to her, a defence against solemnity and the dark thoughts that so often now came unbidden to occupy her mind.
‘But not today,’ she whispered to herself.
Today she would not think about the troubles and discontents filling the newspapers, the drilling and posturing that threatened the peace of the whole island, nor the grief in her own family, the death of her daughter Sarah’s husband, Hugh, and the burden his going had placed on the shoulders of both Sarah and her own dear John.
Despite her resolution, she felt tears trickle down her cheeks. Still, after all these months, she could not bear to think of the magnitude of Sarah’s loss. Hugh Sinton was older, of course, but he was a fine man and fit. He’d been their dear friend for years, John’s employer, then partner, and for ten years Sarah’s husband and her own son-in-law. Past his prime, one might say, but full of the joy his love for her had brought and devoted to their two children. It seemed that every aspect of his life, even the heavy responsibility of running four mills when the times were so volatile, had become something he relished. And now he was gone. The typhoid fever that had taken its toll of both spinners and weavers at the height of last summer had taken Hugh as well.
‘No, Rose, that’s not the way,’ she chided herself, as she wiped her tears on a corner of her apron. ‘You mustn’t dwell on what’s past or you’ll have no strength for the future.’
She gazed out over the familiar countryside and listened to the small familiar sounds that floated up to her on the still air, the muted pounding of the beetling hammers from Ballievy Mill, the bleat of sheep, the staccato bark of a sheepdog. From Rathdrum House further up the road at the top of the hill, where Hugh and John had worked together for so long and Sarah still lived, there was no sound at all.
As she stood listening, suddenly she detected a new sound, a rhythmic click that drew closer and then stopped. She opened her eyes promptly, just in time to see the postman prop his bicycle against the gate post and heave his sack of mail on to his shoulder.
‘Great day, Missus Hamilton,’ he greeted her easily, as he opened his sack. ‘It’s the quare while since I saw ye stanin’ at yer door.
‘That must be one of the we’ans,’ he went on cheerfully, as he handed her an envelope addressed in a large, childish hand which started well enough but then rapidly ran downhill.
She beamed at him. There were those who might think such a comment impertinent, but for Rose every word Dan Willis spoke was a pleasure. When he’d first got the job he was so shy and so uneasy he’d hardly been able to look at her.
Dan had lived on a remote farm with his mother for so long, seeing no one, visiting no one, that the world was a terrifying place for him. When she died their neighbours at the foot of the hill had come up to ask John if he could find something for Dan in one of the mills. The poor man was dying of loneliness, they said. John had indeed found him a place, but after years of working on the farm, Dan couldn’t bear being shut up indoors. It was Sarah who had found him a job he could manage. She’d gone to see an old friend of hers, Billy Auld, now postmaster at Banbridge post office and found that he needed another postman.
‘An’ there’s another forby,’ Dan continued, delving in his bag as Rose stood smiling down at the envelope she already held. It was from young Hugh, Sarah’s boy, writing from Friend’s School in Lisburn.
‘It’s from Donegal,’ he added, as he passed over a bulging envelope. ‘Full o’ news by the luk of it.’
‘It’ll be from my brother Sam. Do you remember him? You met him in the autumn when he stayed with us.’
‘Aye, I mind fine. Mister McGinley. The man with the red hair from New York. Nice man. He was goin’ up to stay with yer sister in Donegal afore he went back to Amerikay. He’ll likely be comin’ to see ye again afore he goes,’ he said reassuringly, as he humped his bag up on his back. ‘Have ye any message for Missus Sinton?’
‘Just the usual, Dan,’ she said warmly. ‘She’ll be down this afternoon when she’s finished her work.’
‘Aye, well,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I’ve a whole pile of stuff fer her. I hope it’ll not houl’ her back,’ he said, over his shoulder, as he picked up his bicycle and prepared to wheel it up the steepest part of the hill.
Rose hurried back indoors, fetched her spectacles from her workbox and tore open her brother’s letter. It was not that she was anxious about him, for her older sister, Mary, with whom he was staying, would have let her know if he’d been ill, but it was some weeks since he’d written and Sam was normally such a regular correspondent. Over the long years he’d been in America, there’d been seldom a week he’d not penned a few lines. He always said writing to her helped clear his mind. Indeed, her letters to him had become such a part of her own life that she’d missed her own weekly effort when he’d arrived last autumn.
‘Isn’t it silly, Sam. I’ve got you here and I can talk to you till the cows come home, but I actually miss writing to you?’ she said one afternoon as she sat sewing by the fire.
‘Not a bit of it,’ he replied promptly, looking up from the letters he was writing to his sons and daughters in New York and upstate Pennsylvania. ‘The written word serves many purposes. For the writer as well as the recipient. Sometimes we don’t know what we think till we write it down and look at it.’
She tore open the envelope and pulled out the thick wad of neatly written sheets.
My dearest Rose,
I hope you are sitting comfortably by your fireside as I propose to make up for my neglect of these past weeks. I really had not realised what an active life the Doherty’s have here in Creeslough. I had, of course, committed myself to helping where I could with the shop and the farm, but I had reckoned without the social life. It seems all our nephews and nieces have some musical talent, which must come from their father’s side, and consequently the house is never empty and certainly never quiet. I have had to excuse myself today from helping Michael with his drapery collection to find time and quiet to write.
Rose smiled to herself and breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever his news, at least she was sure he was well and in good spirits. She had quite forgotten to tell him how, one by one, Mary’s children had taken up some instrument, except for Brendan, the youngest, who needed nothing but his own light tenor voice.
I have come to a momentous decision and having come to it, I now feel somewhat sheepish about confessing. I have bought a farm of land. What a resonant phrase that is, A FARM OF LAND. Having done so, I have to face the fact that there is, after all, a peasant in me trying to get out. Despite all my education and my literary aspirations, I have purchased thirty acres of the most unprepossessing land I have ever surveyed. What madness can it be, Rose, that I, who have seen the richest land in North America and could have had a holding in Saskatchewan for the asking, return to visit my native shores and buy a slice of bog and mountain fit only for a few rigs of potatoes and a handful of intrepid sheep?
You know, of course, that Eva and I always planned to come on a long visit when the last of our six was settled, but when I lost her, I put the whole idea out of mind. I kept myself busy and travelled more than ever. That’s why I took on the contractsfor Western Canada. But I have to confess I found no rest from the loneliness that pursued me wherever I went until a few weeks ago when I stood in the rain on a hillside some six miles, as the raven flies, from our old home in Ardtur, a home which I have never even seen.
Rose blinked sharply. How long was it since the name Ardtur had entered her mind? Hardly surprising. It was more than fifty years since she’d held Sam in her arms, a red-headed baby wrapped in her mother’s shawl, crushed into a wooden cart as the family made their way along a mountainside, their home in ruins behind them. Evicted. Sent out into the bitter wind of late April on a day of sleet and showers.
Despite the warmth of the stove and the golden light falling in patches on the well-swept stone floor, she shivered as her mind moved back to Donegal, to Ardtur where she’d been born, to Creeslough, where her elder sister Mary had married a man who made a comfortable living from distributing and collecting the embroidery, the napkins and the hand-sewn shirts women worked in their own cottages.
Suddenly, she remembered a visit to Mary when Sarah was still a little girl. She’d met a man one evening, newly returned from America, who’d come to join the music making. A man in his sixties who’d once lived in Kerry and was so happy to talk to her of the places she too had once known. She’d enjoyed his songs and his remembrances of Kerry, but one thing he said to her often returned when she thought of her dear brother and read his letters.
‘It’s a strange thing, Rose, but there’s thousands go to America every year and we hear a lot about it. Sure the politicians are always talking about it. But you’d never hear of those that come back. They’re the ones that hear the calling. I’ve met dozens of them. And I’ve met hundreds who’ve heard the same calling and either can’t or won’t come, but they die with that longing upon them. But what is even stranger,’ he went on, leaning towards her, ‘And you can believe me, or believe me not, as the saying is, that the calling is not to be denied. If it’s not fulfilled in one generation, it passes to the next. We may not see it in our lives, Rose, but a time will come when the young will come back home, but they’ll not be the same young that went away.’
Of course, I should have begun by saying that I am not going back. I had decided to treat myself to a passage on this great new ship out of Belfast, but if I do go at all it won’t be this April. In a couple of years, I’ll go over and visit the family. Even if my piece of bog is a piece of fantasy that will not yieldto the light of reality and is totally unable to support me, I am in the happy position of being able to stay regardless. The hard work of my lonely years has left me very well provided.
Do you remember, Rose, when I travelled steerage on the Germanic before the Rail Disaster? You and John were thinking then of coming over and I advised you to try and afford second class as steerage would be so hard on the children. And now I can afford to travel First Class! Grand staircases and potted palms and a la carte restaurants in the French style. Can you believe it? I haven’t been able to decide whether my reluctance to book my passage was my inability to square my conscience with my former poverty, or my feeling that there was something here still to be done. But now the die is cast. I’ve answered the calling. Uncle Sam America no longer exists. I’m here for good. To be called no doubt by whatever name your grandchildren dream up for me.
Rose burst into tears and wept unashamedly. Apart from John and her own children, there was no one she loved more than Sam, the little brother whom she’d always cared for and been so proud of. Now he’d come home. It wouldn’t matter what he was doing, whether he was farming in Donegal or visiting Dublin, or their former home in Kerry, or renewing some of his old contacts in Belfast, or Limerick. What mattered was that he was here. In Ireland. No longer separated by the width of the Atlantic and the perils of ocean travel.
She sniffed and began to search for her handkerchief, finding one eventually in the pocket of her apron.
There is a farmhouse in keeping with the property. Small, rundown and neglected. The fuchsia bushes have grown so high they cut out all the light at the back of the house and getting round there is something of an obstacle race, the space full of rotting carts and rusting machinery. The roof, however, is slate and in remarkably good condition and despite the dirt and the debris the place is not actually damp.
So far, I have made no improvements except for removing a somewhat faded Virgin that dominated the downstairs room I propose to make my study. But I have beaten a path through the bushes to gain access to my stretch of mountain. You will notice the proprietorial tone has appeared even before the papers are signed!
Behind the house, outcropping some yards above roof level, is a slab of rock from which I can watch my rush-filled fields and the track that runs along the mountainside from Swillybrinnan towards Derrykeel. It is a noble prospect, dominated by the full rise of Muckish Mountain to my right and the inlet of Sheephaven to my left.
If I am in danger of being overcome by the beauties of my new abode I have only to remember the days not so very long gone when all this land belonged to one landlord and my job was to keep their evicted tenants from starving. There is no eviction now, but the poverty of the small farmers and the labourers is crushing. Perhaps there is still something useful I might do.
She paused. Surely he’d said that before. She leafed back through the neatly written sheets and found the phrase that echoed in her mind.
‘My feeling that there was something here still to be done.’
She read the words aloud and let the letter lie in her lap as she thought about them. Twenty years ago, Sam had been politically active, so committed to the rights of the tenant farmers and so involved with Michael Davitt and the Land League that she and John had feared for his safety. His visits to America had been part of his work for the League. He’d carried letters, contacted sympathisers and collected money. What she’d never really been sure about was whether he returned to America solely because of Eva, or because of his disillusion with Irish politics.
With a sense of growing unease she could not identify she picked up the letter again and continued.
Naturally I shall want you to visit me as soon as I have an establishment fit to be seen, but that will certainly not be before the summer. Even then, you may have to stay with Mary, who will be only too delighted to see you. She speaks of you so often that I have come to wonder if it is a feature of advancing age to cling to relationships that were given rather than made. You have often said that you and she were never close as children and yet she behaves as if you were. You certainly hold a place in her life that surprises me given the many years when you were not even in touch.
But that exploration is something for another time. I have written enough for one letter. I will let you digest this and write again quite soon for I should like to come and see you and John before the weather improvesand I give my mind to the cultivation of my native soil, or rather, my rush-filled fields and mountain bog!
There was a further page to the letter, enquiries about herself and John, her elder daughter, Hannah, and his nephew and namesake, her younger son, Sam Hamilton, and his growing family in County Armagh. She read on quickly, pausing only when he mentioned Sarah.
I feel for Sarah in her grief. It is hard for any man or woman to lose a beloved partner, but she is still young. That may make the pain sharper at the time, but perhaps it also makes healing more likely. If I were a praying man, which you know well I am not, I’d be asking for a young man to remind her there is still joy in the world even if Hugh has gone.
Take care of yourself and write when you can to your little brother who, despite his own sorrow, is so happy to be home at last.
Rose sat quite still, the folded sheets held lightly in her hand, her mind moving backwards and forwards across her brother’s life. She remembered how she had watched him, a toddler crawling round the housekeeper’s room in Currane Lodge, when her mother took them to Kerry after their father died. They’d gone to school with the children of the other servants and she’d helped him learn his letters. Sam was bright, picking up things so quickly that even before he became a stable boy on the estate, he’d been given permission to read the books in Sir Capel’s library. She’d encouraged him to read in whatever time he had and in the end, Sir Capel himself had sent him to train as a land agent. She had never entirely made up her mind whether to be glad or sorry that in Dublin, Sam had learnt more about land than its texture and quality, or its suitability for grazing, or cultivation.
Smiling, red-headed Sam, lightly-built, goodlooking and friendly, had changed radically during his time in the city. She laughed to herself when she remembered the seventeen year old who’d been wildly in love with Lady Lily, the prettiest of the Molyneux daughters. After three years in Dublin, he’d turned his back on the job awaiting him on the estate and chose instead to live on a pittance from the Land League. Now, at fifty-two, he was still a fit and good-looking man, even if his red hair had receded from his temples and was distinctly thinning on top. His passion for books remained with him and it looked as if his old passion for the land of Ireland had reasserted itself.
She shook her head slowly. It had never occurred to her that Sam might come back. But then, she said to herself, as she looked around the comfortable kitchen, most of the important things that had happened in her own life she had never expected either. Neither the good nor the bad.
‘Ah see ye’ve had a letter,’ said John, peering up at the mantelpiece as they moved over to the fire when they’d finished their lunch.
‘I have indeed, but you’d better read it this evening or you’ll be late for your meeting,’ she replied easily. ‘It’s my Sam, Uncle Sam America,’ she said laughing, ‘and it’s a big one. It took me half the morning to take it all in.’
‘Is he all right?’ John enquired anxiously.
‘Yes, of course, he’s fine,’ she said reassuringly. ‘He’s just been very busy. What made you think he mightn’t be all right?’
‘Ach, no reason at all,’ he said hastily, his eyes moving anxiously towards the clock.
‘What’s wrong, love?’ she asked quietly as she handed him his mug of tea. She looked closely at him as he took it without meeting her gaze. ‘Is there something amiss you haven’t told me?’
‘Shure I can’t get Hugh out of my mind,’ he said abruptly. ‘I see him beside me. I hear him. I can nearly tell you what he’s sayin’ when someone asks me somethin’. One day he’s there, happy and smilin’ and a couple of weeks later he’s dead and buried and our Sarah standing stiff as a post and the light gone from her eyes. I can’t get it outa my mind.’
‘Oh, John love, I’m sorry,’ she said, setting down her own mug on the edge of the stove. ‘You were with Hugh more than anyone, even Sarah, so it’s you misses him most.’
She stood up and was about to put her arms round him when she heard a step on the garden path and the scrape of boots on the doorstone.
‘Anybody at home?’
A figure stood in the doorway, the sunlight blocked by his broad shoulders and tall frame. Their younger son, Sam, smiled at her as he flicked off his cap and hung it up by the door. For one moment, she was totally taken aback. Sam’s bearing, his familiar gesture, his smile, was so like his father she couldn’t think what to say.
‘Hello, son, how are ye? What brings you here on a work day?’ John asked, a bleak smile crossing his face as he collected himself.
‘Handy delivery down in the town. It’ll take them a while to unload,’ he explained. ‘Young Mickey has a sister married up in Seapatrick. He’s away to see her. We agreed we’d take an hour and work later this evenin’.
‘It’s lovely to see you, Sam. There’s tea in the pot. Would you like a bite to eat?’
‘Just tea, Ma. I’ve had my piece.’
‘What about a bit of cake?’
‘Aye, well …’
John laughed and looked easier as Rose crossed to the dresser. She took her time finding the tin, the carving knife and a plate, listening as John asked questions about the job. She was grateful Sam seemed happy enough, despite the changes there’d been in the management of the company he worked for, especially their work schedules.
‘And how is Martha?’ she asked, as she poured tea and passed him his plate.
‘Oh, fine. Working away as always,’ he said, dropping his eyes to the wedge of fruit cake on his plate.
‘And the children?’
‘Great. They’re all well. Wee Rose looks more like you everyday, Ma, and young Emily’s walkin’. Inta everythin’. Oh, and one on the way,’ he added, as he munched appreciatively.
Rose nodded and smiled, but her heart sank. Another child. There were six already. Surely enough to keep on one man’s pay. She asked about each one in turn. Sam always answered her questions, told her about some childish illness safely passed or some story to make them smile, but she always felt his answers left her none the wiser about how he felt.
‘How do you like living on the farm, Sam?’ John went on.
‘Ach it’s all right,’ he said agreeably. ‘The old uncle’s a bit of a cross patch at times. Sharp with the children. But sure they have space to play themselves in the fields and the orchard. There was nowhere for them but the street in that wee house in Richhill. I’ve one of the barns Uncle Joe doesn’t use made inta a workshop and I do a bit of work for the neighbours in the evenings. It all helps.’
‘What about the shoes, Sam?’ Rose asked, as lightly as she could manage.
‘Just the same, Ma. I tried,’ he said steadily. ‘I gave her the money you sent me and she bought them all right, but she says they’re only for Sunday. None of the neighbours we’ans have shoes to go to school, she says, so why wou’d we make ours different. Her minds made up an’ I can see there’s no use goin’ on about it. That’s the way with Martha, but I did try like you said.’
‘I’m sure you did your best,’ Rose said, nodding vigorously to cover her disappointment.
John got to his feet, clapped Sam on the shoulder and looked up at the clock again.
‘I’m sorry to leave you, but there’s a meeting at two. Maybe we’ll take a run over one of these Sundays, Sam. Just for an hour or two,’ he added hastily as he caught Rose’s glance.
Martha had long ago made clear that she didn’t welcome visitors on a Sunday when Sam was at home to look after the children.
‘That wou’d be great, Da. I’d like fine to show you the workshop.’
‘Well, see ye make a date with your mother, I must away,’ he said quickly as he got up, kissed Rose, and headed off down the garden path.
‘Where has he the motor?’ asked Sam, puzzled.
‘Oh, he leaves it down at the farm when he knows he’s going back into Banbridge in the afternoon. It saves going up to Sarah’s to turn. I think actually he enjoys the odd word with Michael. I’m afraid he’s missing Hugh badly.’
Sam dropped his eyes to the remaining crumbs on his plate.
‘How’s Sarah?’ he said abruptly.
‘She’s bereft,’ Rose replied honestly. ‘I’ve not seen her shed a tear yet. I don’t know whether that’s a good sign or a bad. But she’s well enough in health, thank God, and she works hard.’
‘Thank God indeed,’ he said firmly. ‘Sometimes it’s a good thing to have your work to do every day. It stops you thinkin’ long,’ he added as he too got to his feet.
‘Sunday or Sunday week, maybe?’ she asked, as he picked up his cap and looked out into the sunshine.
‘Ach, yes. Just come,’ he said, turning back to face her.
He leant down and kissed her.
‘Sure I’m always there, even if Martha is away up to her father or visiting her friends. The we’ans ’ill be glad to see ye. Wee Sammy is lookin’ for a ride in the motor. Ye may warn my father he’ll give him no peace till he gets sittin’ in the front seat.’
She laughed and touched his arm as he stepped over the threshold.
He took a few long strides along the garden path and turned down the hill. Even before she stepped back into the empty room, the echo of his footsteps had gone.
She looked at the lunch table and the mugs parked on the corners of the stove and began to clear them up, but as she moved back and forth to the dairy and returned items to the dresser, all she could see was the small, bright face of Martha Loney the first time her son had brought her home. She’d been pleasant enough in manner and agreeable to whatever was suggested and pretty enough when she smiled. She’d been unsure then about the girl and about Sam’s haste to get married.
Sarah had had no such doubts about Martha. From that very first visit she’d declared that Martha Loney was more in love with the idea of marriage and a family than she was with her brother.
‘And she was right,’ Rose whispered to herself as she wiped the table with a damp cloth. ‘Our Sam’s made his bed and there’s little anyone can do to help him.’
She wondered which was the greater loss, the loss of a dear husband who had brought joy for some ten years, or the loss of a hope, the image of a smiling girl dissolving into a young woman so entirely taken up with her children, her own life and her own affairs, there was little place for the man who had fathered her children and now worked so hard to give his family the very best he could afford.
CHAPTER TWO
As Rose looked hopefully at her flowerbeds, seeking the first hint of colour in late March, she thought of all their neighbours anxiously watching the skies. Rainfall was always a problem at this time of year. A sudden dry spell would check the growth of the new grass. If that happened, animals would have to be fed hay, now both scarce and expensive. But if heavy rain came, sodden fields would delay ploughing and planting and wet conditions increase the risk of disease among the sheep and their young lambs.
As for the Sinton mills, seasonal storms could be bad enough to disrupt regular sailings across the Irish Sea, a serious matter when contracts were penalised for late delivery. Worse still, flooding was a danger on the low-lying mill sites and wet conditions meant more illness among the workers.
She sighed. Only one group of people seemed completely indifferent to the changes in the weather. Whether the day was bright and sunny, or teeming with rain, the early evening still light, or dipping towards dusk, the hundreds of local men who had recently joined the Ulster Volunteer Force were to be seen drilling. Outside Orange Halls, in open fields, or town squares, the sound of marching feet and shouted instructions was an everyday event.
Every weekend, she and John saw platoons tramping back to Banbridge along the local roads, or across the nearby fields, after some cross-country route march or exercise, heavy packs on their backs, a single billet of wood in their arms, the insignia of the Red Hand proudly displayed on their sleeves. When they met them on the hill outside the cottage or tramping across their back field, they could do little but step aside, nodding to those they knew, workers from the mills and lads from neighbouring farms, accompanied by their young officers, the sons of the manufacturers whose handsome houses dotted the Bann valley.
‘Ah see they’ve got rifles now,’ said John flatly one evening as he put down his newspaper and took off his spectacles.
‘No, John, you don’t mean it,’ Rose said, horrified, as she looked up from the jersey she was knitting for young Hugh.
He raised his eyebrows, put his spectacles on again and read her a paragraph from the Banbridge Chronicle. A local carpentry firm had landed on its feet, it said. Seeing its opportunity, it was now supplying replica rifles to the Volunteers, price one and eight pence each for pitch pine and one and sixpence for spruce.
She breathed a sigh of relief, but was not reassured by the look on John’s face.
‘Do you really think they’d turn against the government if Home Rule was granted?’
‘I’ve no doubt about it,’ he said promptly. ‘They mean business all right. Sure there’s tens of thousands of them now all over Ulster. The English papers can laugh all they like at them drillin’ with bits of wood, but they’re serious and there’s those encouragin’ them that’ll find the money for rifles. It’s only a matter of time. Even Hugh said that, an’ you know how he felt about takin’ up arms.’
‘Hugh always faced facts,’ she said quietly. ‘Whether he liked it or not, if he saw something, he spoke. Sarah never had any time for making things smooth or comfortable either. I often thought that was one of the great bonds between them.’
To her great surprise, John laughed.
She smiled herself, delighted to hear a sound so unfamiliar. She waited hopefully to see what he might say.
‘D’ye mind the first time she met Hugh?’ he began. ‘Sure she was only a wee thing, the night we arrived here with all our bits and pieces, an’ he still had the bad leg from the accident, an’ the scar. She looked up at him an’ asks him did a horse kick him. An’ then she wants to know did it hurt. Oh, she’d have gone on too till she’d found out the whole details,’ he broke off, shaking his head.
‘Aye, an’ sure she does it still,’ he continued easily. ‘Nothin’ gets past her. I sit at these board meetings an’ I listen mostly, but it’s Sarah asks the questions. Ach, ye’d be proud of her, Rose,’ he added shyly.
‘Yes, I am, John,’ she replied, still smiling at the recollection of that first meeting. ‘She has a sharp mind and great courage. I just don’t know where she gets it from. It would be different if she was religious, but she’s not. I know she went with Hugh to the Quaker meeting, and helped with the charity work and the visiting, but she never became a Friend.’
John nodded and folded up his paper. Whatever he might think himself about being religious, his mind had moved on.
‘Speaking of visitin’,’ he said abruptly. ‘Are we for Liskeyborough on Sunday?’
She looked across at him and saw the sudden animation had vanished.
‘Yes, I think we should,’ she replied, her tone as neutral as his. ‘It’s a long time since we’ve been. Sam likes to see us there.’
‘Why does Martha not like us, Rose? Tell me that an’ tell me no more, as the sayin’ is,’ he asked directly, his brow furrowed with a familiar frown.
Rose sighed. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t given thought to the behaviour of their daughter-in-law, but she found it difficult to explain.
‘I don’t think she actually dislikes us, John, she’s just indifferent. We don’t matter to her,’ she said steadily. ‘All that matters to Martha is the children and she’s good enough with them in her own way. After that, there’s her father and old Uncle Joe, her two sisters and her girl friends.’
‘An’ what about our Sam? Where does he come in?’
‘Well, they’ve six children and one on the way,’ she replied, her tone sharper than she’d intended.
John just looked at her, his face grim. He shook his head.
‘It’s beyond me, Rose. Tell me what we ought to do an’ we’ll do it.’
The first Sunday in April was a lovely spring-like day, the air mild, the sky a cloud-scribbled blue, and although there was no sign of the trees bursting into leaf, the hawthorns were well sprayed with soft, new leaves. As they drove along, Rose felt her spirits rise. In the cottage gardens they passed and along the roadsides verges themselves, daffodils bloomed everywhere. There were signs too that the birds were already nesting.
Rose could tell from the contented look on John’s face that the engine was running sweetly and he was enjoying every moment of the drive. He enjoyed keeping his own and Sarah’s motor in peak condition, but he seldom had time to do the job as well as he’d wish these days. She glanced sideways at him, delighted he was relaxed enough to point out new buildings that caught his eye and tell her a couple of amusing things that had happened at one mill or the other.
He was still in good spirits as he drove slowly down the steep and narrow lane leading to Richhill Station and turned off into the broad, well-swept yard of Joe Loney’s farm at Liskeyborough. Two half-barrels full of daffodils bloomed cheerfully, a vivid splash of gold against the newly whitewashed walls of the long, low dwelling, its small windows reflecting the light, the upper part of the half door wide open to the sunlight.
‘Place lookin’ well, isn’t it?’ he said, as he manoeuvred the motor and parked it with the bonnet facing outwards in the direction of the lane.
Rose nodded and looked around, surprised there was no sign of life, neither chicken, nor child. Stranger still, no one appeared at the door.
‘Hayfoot, strawfoot, hayfoot, strawfoot.’
They turned abruptly towards the barns behind them as Billy and Charley, the eldest of Martha and Sam’s children, marched into view, commanded by an unknown boy somewhat older than Billy’s ten summers. Both young Hamiltons carried billets of wood and both had tied a piece of old cloth round their waists as bandoliers.
‘Hayfoot, strawfoot, hayfoot, strawfoot,’ continued the sharp voice as he marched the two younger boys across the middle of the wide yard and into the nearby field.
Neither of their grandchildren so much as glanced at them, and one look at John’s face told her his good spirits had evaporated like summer rain on a metalled road.
‘What does he mean, “Hayfoot,strawfoot”?’ she asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
‘Ach, he’s just repeatin’ what he’s heard,’ replied John abruptly. ‘Many o’ these Volunteers don’t know their right foot from their left. When they started to teach them to march, they had to tie hay and straw round their ankles till they got the hang of it. It’s not new to the U. V. F. though they’d tell you it is. Your brother Sam says the Americans invented it when they were trainin’ up raw recruits for the Civil War.’
The children had disappeared and still no one had appeared to greet them.
‘We may as well go on in,’ said Rose, nudging him encouragingly, as she pointed him towards the door and took his arm.
‘Good day, Joe, are you well?’ she asked, as she caught sight of a figure sitting close to the stove. She unlatched the lower part of the door and walked towards him.
‘Well, there’d not be much point complainin’ if I wasn’t,’ he replied ungraciously.
Unshaven and wearing his working clothes, Martha’s Uncle Joe lowered his paper, but neither rose to his feet nor bade them welcome.
‘Are you all alone?’ she went on pleasantly, casting her eyes round the empty room.
‘Aye. Martha’s away up to see me brother. Your Sam’s about the place somewhere. He’s likely in the barn. Shure he’s always in there fiddling with somethin’ or other while Martha an’ I are at our work,’ he said in a tone it was hard to misread.
Rose raised an eyebrow to John, who said nothing, but pulled out two kitchen chairs for them to sit on.
‘Ye’ve got a new coat of paint I see,’ said John casually, ‘Indoors as well,’ he added, looking round the newly decorated kitchen.
‘Aye. That was done a few weeks ago,’ Joe replied, looking back at his newspaper meaningfully.
Rose followed his gaze. The fresh paint made the room seem larger as well as pleasanter. After the gloom of that tiny house in Richhill’s main street, she could see why Martha had been so pleased when her uncle inherited the farm. He’d asked her to come with her family and help him run it and she’d jumped at the chance. Now Rose wondered if living with Uncle Joe still seemed as good an idea.
‘An’ the yards well improved too,’ continued John, who disliked Joe thoroughly, but did his best not to show it. ‘Ye’ve got rid of a lot of old rubbish.’
‘Aye. An’ it wasn’t before time.’
Silence fell and Rose wondered whether she should enquire about Martha or the children, or whether that would only make matters worse.
‘Ach, hello, Ma. Hello, Da,’ Sam said, crossing the room in a couple of strides. He kissed his mother and grasped his father’s hand. ‘Sure I didn’t hear the motor. I was sandin’ a bit o’ metal an’ it was only when I came out for a breath o’ fresh air, I saw her stanin’ there.’
‘Sure the only time you iver hear anythin’, Sam, is when you’re called to your tea,’ said Joe without taking his eyes away from his paper.
Rose stood up and smiled at Sam.
‘We were just admiring the new paint. It makes the room look so much bigger. Did you and Uncle Joe do it, or did you get help?’
‘Help?’ said Joe, staring up at her. ‘Sure it’s only gentry has “help”. We’ve to do everythin’ ourselves here. What way wou’d I get time for paintin’ and doin’ up the place wi’ a farm of land and animals to run.’
‘So Sam did it, then?’ said John quietly, looking Joe full in the face.
‘Sure he might as well. He’s no hans for the farm,’ he replied, as he turned away again.
John stood up and walked out into the sunshine.
‘Well, we’d better go and see what Sam does have hands for, Joe,’ said Rose, as she got up from the kitchen chair. ‘There must be something Lamb Brothers think he’s worth paying for,’ she added quietly as she followed Sam and his father out of the house.
‘Hayfoot, strawfoot, hayfoot, strawfoot.’
The three adults stopped outside the door as the three boys reappeared from their manoeuvre in the nearest field. Rose took a deep breath and watched anxiously to see what would happen.
Without a word, Sam walked out into the line of march, dropped on his hunkers in front of them and held out his hand for the billets of wood. Billy and Charley handed them over. He waited while they untied the bandoliers. Try as she would Rose could not hear what Sam said, so quiet was his tone, but she saw the two younger boys nod and make their way to the small orchard at the back of the house. The older boy looked uneasy, but made no reply to Sam’s quiet questioning. Suddenly, he too turned away, and went running out of the gate and up the road.
‘Who was the other wee boy?’ she asked, as they followed Sam into the barn.
‘Ach, that’s Danny. He’s one of the Hutchinson’s,’ he said, wiping a piece of cotton waste over a wooden bench so that she could sit down.
‘He’s a right wee lad, but the father’s desperit strong against Home Rule. No matter what subject ye’d be talkin’ about, whether it was motors, or factory work, or even the birds in the sky, he cou’d somehow bring it roun’ to Dublin and the Fenians an’ the Pope,’ he went on matter-of-factly. ‘Hasn’t a good word to say for any of them. He’s Master of the Lodge an’ he has them out drillin’ regular. That’s where the wee fella picked it up.’
‘What about your wee Sammy?’ Rose asked. ‘Did he not want to do what his older brothers do?’
‘Deed I’m sure he did, but young Hutchinson must have said he was too young. He’s away with Martha and Emily and the two wee ones up to Richhill.’
‘Ye’ve yerself well set up, son,’ said John, who’d been looking round him, inspecting the workbenches under the windows and the large space in the centre of the barn where a petrol-driven pump stood in pieces. ‘Ah knew ye cou’d weld, but ah didn’t know ye had weldin’ equipment. That set ye back a bit.’
‘Aye, it did, tho’ I got it second hand,’ Sam replied, sounding pleased. ‘But sure it’s near paid for isself already. The farmers roun’ here can’t afford new machinery, they just have to keep old stuff goin’, harrows and reapers, an’ suchlike. An’ there’s no smith near here since old Harry Pearson died over at Money. The nearest would be John Scott at Kildarton or our friends Thomas and Robert at Salter’s Grange. An’ that’s a brave step if yer in the middle of a job.’
‘So you’re kept busy, Sam. Do you not get a day of rest at all?’ Rose asked quietly.
‘Well, I take Sunday mornin’,’ he confessed sheepishly. ‘I’ve been goin’ over to the meetin’ in Richhill an’ after that I go on an’ meet a few friends down on the railway banks till dinnertime. We lie down there and talk about the news, aye, an’ put the world to rights, as the sayin’ is.’
‘What do you do when it’s wet?’ asked Rose promptly.
Sam laughed, his face lighting up with the sweet smile Rose used to know so well and hadn’t seen for a long time.
‘Ach, then it has to be the goods shed. Tommy Buckley has the key to it if we’re bate.’
Rose settled herself to listen as John and Sam began to talk about the pump he’d been working on. She’d listened to so many of their conversations over the years, she could follow most of what they said, but before they’d decided the next step in the process, a small figure came flying into the barn.
‘Granny, granny, yer here,’ cried Emily, scrambling up on Rose’s knee with all the energy of a five-year-old.
‘Hallo, Emily,’ Rose said, hugging her warmly. ‘Where’s Sammy?’
‘He’s comin’. He can’t run as fast as I can,’ she added proudly, as six year old Sammy appeared breathless, with eyes only for his grandfather.
‘CanIve a ride inthemotor?’ he gasped, fixing John with bright blue eyes.
John laughed and picked him up.
‘Maybe if you said hello to your Granny, we could manage something.’
‘Hello, Granny,’ said Sammy, so promptly that all the adults laughed.
‘And me,’ insisted Emily. ‘There’s room for me too, Granda.’
‘Come on then,’ John said, smiling at Rose and Sam as he took the two children by the hand.
Through the open doors of the barn, Rose watched him cross the yard, Emily swinging on his arm in her excitement, young Sammy talking nineteen to the dozen. She was about to comment on how much both children had grown since Christmas when she saw Martha come striding into the yard, the baby in the pram, young Rose perched across it.
‘I’ll away and say hello to Martha and the wee ones,’ she said, as she stood up and saw Sam now running a finger thoughtfully up and down a piece of metal.
‘Hello, Martha, how are you?’ she asked, as the younger woman lifted Rose from the pram.
Martha was heavily pregnant, but she swung the child to the ground with the greatest of ease.
‘I wasn’t expectin’ ye,’ Martha replied with a little laugh. ‘I’ve the cows to milk before I can make tea for anyone,’ she said sharply, looking down into the pram to make sure Bobby was asleep.
‘Oh, we’ll not stay for tea, Martha. You’ve enough to do,’ said Rose, reading the familiar signal. ‘We’ll be off as soon as John gives the children their ride in the motor.’
Martha turned the pram to face away from the lowering sun and looked down at little Rose who was sucking her thumb.
‘Here you are, Rose, here’s your Granny, come to see you,’ she said quickly. ‘She’ll play with you while Uncle Joe and I do our work,’ she added as she picked up the weary child and handed her to Rose.
Behind them, Uncle Joe came to the door and strode silently past on his way to bring in the four cows from the low field.
‘An’ ye mean t’ say that was all the conversation ye had wi’ her, an’ you hasn’t seen her or the childer since Christmas?’
John took his eyes off the empty road and glanced at her as if he couldn’t believe her words without seeing the look on her face.
‘That’s all, John,’ she said firmly. ‘I had a good deal more conversation with little Rose, for all she’s not three yet and there wasn’t so much as a doll or a wee toy for us to talk about. Sam hasn’t much time for making toys from what I can see,’ she added sharply.
‘Aye, ye’re right there,’ he said sadly.
He pressed his lips together and looked up at the clear sky, now paling from blue to palest yellow.
‘There’s a quare stretch on the evenin’s when ye get a good day to see it,’ he said, looking round him carefully as they turned on to the Banbridge road. ‘We did the right thing goin’ on to Thomas and Selina’s diden we?’ he said more cheerfully.
‘Yes, you were right, and I was wrong,’ she admitted laughing. ‘I know I said it was too near teatime to call, but they were so glad to see us, weren’t they? I think it did us both good to be made that welcome. Even if Selina had nothing but baker’s bread and shop jam, she’d have put it on the table. She’s a great baker, isn’t she?’ she went on, her mind still moving on the warm welcome they’d had from John’s old friend and his second wife.
‘You don’t think Martha and Sam are just very short of money?’ Rose asked, as she thought of the scones and cake so generously provided.
‘How would they be, Rose?’ John replied, a note of irritation in his tone. ‘Sam’s a skilled man. He’s earnin’ far more than I iver earned before we moved to Ballydown. She’s no money to find for her milk and eggs and as far as I know the farm has no mortgage on it, though it was in a bad way when Joe got it. An’ forby that Sam is workin’ all the hours there are, but for Sunday mornin’. He told me he earns a brave bit from the repairs and suchlike.’
Rose shivered and drew the car rug closer over her knees.
‘Are ye cold, love?’
‘No, I was just thinking of Selina’s bright fire and her young Isabel running out to meet us. She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she? Though I can never look at her without thinking of wee Sophie.’
‘Aye. That should niver have happened,’ said John sharply, for he still felt angry over her death. A rabid dog had bitten the three-year old and ended her short life, because the police hadn’t taken the trouble to hunt it down when it was reported.
‘I thought at the time Thomas wou’d niver get over it, but then Ned came along and then wee Isabel. Sure he’s had a second family with Selina and its healed many a hurt that Mary-Anne laid on him.’
John fell silent and the harsh and bitter words she’d once endured from Thomas’s first wife came back into Rose’s mind. A woman firm in her Christian views and active in her Bible reading but totally devoid of love or compassion. She’d shadowed many a good day when they’d lived in the house opposite Thomas’s forge. Putting Mary-Anne firmly out of mind, Rose gazed round at the silent countryside as the evening shadows were lengthened moment by moment. The air was cooling fast beneath a clear sky. Later, there would be a mass of stars and probably a touch of frost before dawn.
‘Did ye notice when I asked Thomas if young Ned was thinkin’ of goin’ to America, that he diden mention his eldest boy? He’s been in America for years now and I was waitin’ for Thomas to say how he was doin’ an’ where he was. But Thomas niver said a word about him. D’ye think young James Scott might be like another James we know?’ he asked, glancing across at her.
Rose took a deep breath. It wasn’t often John mentioned their eldest son and it made her sad he still felt so hurt by the way James had rejected them, turning his back on the whole family, because he thought their Catholic relatives might somehow get in the way of his ambitions.
‘Well, it’s about the only reason I can think of why Thomas wouldn’t talk about him,’ she said slowly. ‘We can’t talk about our James either, even if we wanted to. What could we say? He’s probably still with Harland and Wolff. I’m sure he’s a manager or better, but he never let us know. We know he’s married, but whether or not he has children we’ve never found out. It looks as if Thomas is in the same boat.’
‘I suppose it happens in all families,’ said John thoughtfully. ‘Sure, look at my two brothers. When they went to America they wrote for a wee while and then that was that. My mother kept goin’ for a bit longer and then she gave up. Maybe they just wanted to forget where they came from. Like our James. I’ve been told there’s a brave few does that.’
Rose fell silent as he concentrated on the hill, drove to the top, turned in the wide space outside the gates of Rathdrum House and came slowly back down to park alongside their own wall. She was tired. Despite the pleasure of the visit to the forge house, she felt oppressed by what she’d seen at Liskeyborough.
While John lit the gas lamps, she stirred up the fire. It had almost burnt itself out, so she encouraged it with small sticks and fragments of turf. She thought back to the talk she’d had with Selina when Thomas and John stepped down to the forge to look at a new rotary drill and they’d laid the tea table together.
‘What would you do, Selina?’ she asked, as she spread the crisp, crocheted cloth. ‘You’d be heart sore if you saw the wee ones barefoot in the cold weather. I’m sure you went barefoot as a child and so did I, but times have changed, thank God. I could help her out if she’s short, but she bought shoes and boots with the money I sent and she has them in the cupboard. She told Sam they were for Sunday, but today was Sunday and all I saw was bare feet.’
‘What about her mother, Rose? Is that the trouble?’
‘Her mother died some years ago, but she has two sisters. They’re both older, but neither are married. She seems fond of them. Certainly she’s always going up to see them when Sam’s at home.’
Selina paused and put down the china cups she was holding.
‘Poor Rose,’ she said smiling. ‘Thomas has always said how kind you were to him and how good you were to your own wee ones. It’ll be hard for you. But there’s nothing you can do,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘Sam’s not chosen well, any more than I think our Robert has.’
‘Oh Selina, I wondered you didn’t mention him. He’s been married four or five years now, hasn’t he?’
‘Indeed he has. And I did my best to like the girl, but from the first day I met her she had something to complain about. Though in those days she made a joke of it,’ she added wryly, as she filled the sugar bowl from a jar she took out of the corner cupboard. ‘Well, it’s no joke now. When Robert comes down from Church Hill to see us, I think it’s the only peace and quiet he gets.’
‘So what do we do to help them?’
‘There’s nothing we can do, Rose,’ she replied steadily. ‘They have to make their own lives and their own mistakes. Hard as it is, we have to stand out of the way until such time as something might change.’
Rose looked across the table at the older woman and knew she was thinking of her dear Thomas and the loneliness he’d suffered when he was married to Mary-Anne. She nodded and agreed. It was something her own mother had always said, interference only made things worse.
The fire burnt up and the kettle began to sing just as John came back indoors after putting the tarpaulin cover over the motor.
‘Cup of tea, John?’
‘Aye, that would be great. I think we might have a frost.’
As she made the tea, Rose reflected that the prospect of either their Sam or young Robert Scott having a second chance to find happiness was remote indeed.
CHAPTER THREE
Rose put down her pen, rubbed her neck, stretched her shoulders and then read through her reply to her elder daughter’s most recent letter.
12th April, 1912
My dearest Hannah,
Your long letter was much appreciated. Please don’t apologise for the delay. If you’ve had workmen and decorators in your new London home, I’m amazed you can find a quiet moment at all, especially with both the boys on holiday from school and the two little ones becoming less little by the day.
