The Hamiltons of Ballydown (24 page)

Sam moved past her as she stood staring at the crossed off squares. She turned to watch him go, tramping cautiously between the abandoned spade rigs where their father had grown potatoes and vegetables for the family. She watched him head for the broad outer wall of the garden and suddenly remembered what he was looking for. He stopped, took out his knife and bent down. A few moments later, he came back into the house and handed her a long stem covered with dozens of tiny pink roses.

‘You won’t remember I’m sure, but we used to play weddings. Hannah was the bride and one of the wee Wylies cut her a bouquet of those roses. And then we took them to the station, because they were goin’ to emigrate. I can’t remember the name of the wee lassie. I think she died of TB,’ he said slowly.

‘Yes, she did. And her mother was killed in the rail disaster. It was Thomas found her body. Ma told me about it once.’

They fell silent and walked back into the kitchen side-by-side.

‘Nice bit of iron work,’ Sam said, swinging the crane out over the empty hearth and looking up at the dark crust of soot inside the chimney.

‘Of course it is. Da made it,’ she replied sharply.

He glanced at her and saw she was upset. He sighed to himself. You could never tell what was going to upset Sarah. He moved the crane carefully back against the chimney stack till it rested exactly where it had been for the last ten years and stood waiting till she made a move.

Sarah was so preoccupied with her thoughts on her homeward journey she almost forgot to collect her bicycle from the guard when she changed trains at Portadown. Sitting by the window of the Banbridge train, she watched the familiar countryside flow past, the evening light casting long shadows, summer flowers picked out in pools of sunlight, couples walking out, enjoying the first real warmth of summer.

Sam had asked her to go over to Richhill soon after he got his new job in the autumn of ’97 and they’d spoken of going to visit Thomas many times, but she’d never quite got round to it. Almost two
years later, she asked herself why she’d left it so long.

She could think of no reason that satisfied her, but she was sure the delay had made the day even more important. This month was the tenth anniversary of the disaster. It was now ten years since they’d moved to Ballydown. She’d been six, a child with a beloved companion under her arm. Next week, at the Annual Celebration she would be sixteen. Six to sixteen. Could any decade in one’s life bring so much change?

The thoughts and images swirled in her mind like the smoke and steam blown back from the engine as it puffed southwards. She saw Thomas’s face, bent over a piece of metal on the blackened workbench at the back of the forge where dancing sunlight gleamed through the dusty windows. A strong, kind face, marked by sorrow and joy, the scar of his injury faded, the comfort of Selina a palpable presence after the hard, loveless years with the unlamented Mary-Anne and the more recent loss of little Sophie, which none of them could bring themselves to mention.

How vulnerable men were, she thought, the ones who were supposed to be so strong and so capable. They were the ones who went out to work, who ran the business of the world, sat in Parliament, governed the country. Good men like her father and Thomas, James Sinton and Richard Stewart. But where would they be without the women beside
them, keeping up comfort and hope against all the hurt of the world?

Her mother had spoken often enough of Granny Sarah and the house at Annacramp. She’d explained why they’d had to leave. But only today, standing in that derelict house, had she begun to guess what it must have cost to make a life there after the loss that had come upon them.

She leant her head back on the lumpy upholstery of the carriage and studied the wide, faded prints of Irish beauty spots above the empty seats opposite. The Lakes of Killarney. The Glens of Antrim. The Giant’s Causeway. She was tired and her mind was racing. She knew what her mother would say; ‘Let it settle, Sarah. Give it time.’

She stepped down on to the platform, collected her bicycle, put the bag with her camera carefully into the front basket and freewheeled out of the station. The main road was crowded, as it always was on a Saturday evening. She turned down the hill and pedalled past the Crozier Monument. Couples were meeting below it, or waiting beside the polar bears who’d seen his ship trapped in the ice. They greeted each other, strolling off along the pavement outside the handsome house where Crozier himself had once lived, or turned back up the hill to a dance. Poor man, despite his monument, his heroic effort had no part in the thoughts of the Saturday night pleasure seekers. What he had achieved was soon
forgotten. Like the efforts of so many good men and women with no monument except a derelict house or a heap of tumbled stones.

The sun had disappeared behind the trees as she followed the main road home, but it re-emerged as she wheeled her bicycle up the hill. She was tired now, and so aware of being alone. Not anxious, or afraid, in this familiar place on such a lovely evening, but alone. Very much alone. A figure surrounded by space.

She paused to unlatch the garden gate and wondered if in the end the problem was the same for women as it was for men. They too could only manage their very best if they had someone to help them bear whatever life asked of them. Like Ma and Da at Salter’s Grange.

Sunday promised to be as bright and sunny as Saturday had been. The front door was propped open at breakfast time and throughout the morning sunlight spilt into the kitchen as Sarah and Rose made preparations for midday dinner.

‘Four plates, Ma?’ Sarah asked, as she put them on the rack above the stove to warm. ‘Is Hugh comin’ down?’

‘Yes. He gave Mrs Lappin the weekend to go and see her sister. I only found out yesterday. He won’t have had a hot meal since Friday night,’ she said, smiling, as she dropped down into the armchair for a rest.

‘Ma, Thomas said yesterday that “
you’d saved
his life more than the once
.” What did he mean?’

Rose looked thoughtful. She brushed some crumbs from the skirt of her second best dress and glanced across at her daughter.

‘Well, he probably didn’t mean it literally,’ she began. ‘He’s always insisted I saved his life when George Robinson and I took him to the hospital after his accident. But if he says I saved him more than once, he must be thinking of some of his bad times when your Da and I maybe helped him to keep his spirits up,’ she said slowly.

‘But he said
you
, Ma. I know he thinks the world of Da and it’s so obvious they got on well, but it’s you
who saved his life
. I think I know what he means, but I’m not sure.’

‘I’m not sure either, Sarah. Do you really want to know?’

‘Yes. I do. I’m trying to work something out for myself and I can’t get the bits to fit,’ she admitted.

‘All right then,’ her mother said, nodding and taking a deep breath. ‘Sometimes one loses hope. It happens to everyone sooner or later. You lose someone you love, a home, a job, a dream you had, your well-being, your health. When that happens, you need someone to encourage you. Not directly, perhaps. Sometimes it can happen just because someone is there, a friendly presence. Maybe what Thomas means is that when life was hard on him, somehow I cheered him.’

‘Young Robert says what he remembers is you singing. And speaking Irish to the girls from Robinsons. And laughing.’

Rose smiled.

‘We can’t always tell what we mean for others, Sarah. Poor little Robert had a hard time of it with his mother. Sometimes I wept when I heard her shouting at him for some wee thing any child might do. I hope maybe he’s forgotten for he was very young. Mary-Anne was very hard on them. But I know Selina loves them as if they were her own.’

‘And she lost her own little Sophie?’

‘She did,’ said Rose slowly. ‘Like I nearly lost you.’

‘Ma! You never told me.’

‘You never asked,’ Rose replied, laughing. ‘There’s so much to talk about in the present, the past sometimes gets forgotten. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s not.’

‘Thomas said it was Jamie who told you we had to get out of the train,’ Sarah went on, her mind following its own logic.

‘Yes, it was. Didn’t you know that?’

‘Maybe I did.’

Sarah looked down at her hands and studied the deeply etched lines as if she were expecting to find an answer to her question there.

‘Ma, it was so strange standing in that old house yesterday, trying to imagine what life was like for all of us. Were we very poor?’

‘It depends what you call poor. We never starved, though we were very short of money. The worst time was when the Orangemen boycotted the forge because Thomas and Da wouldn’t join the lodge. We ended up with me earning more from sewing than Da earned in a long week. That’s when he had to take the job in the mill. You know about that.’

‘Yes,’ she replied, sharply. ‘I’ve put him over it many times. I’m so very grateful he got out, but I just can’t forget about all those who are still in there. Getting lung diseases. Becoming deaf. Dying in what is supposed to be the prime of life. The figures are grim.’

She fidgeted restlessly, the light suddenly gone out of her eyes.

‘At least Hugh agrees with me,’ she said at last.

Rose looked across at the slim figure of her youngest daughter, the soft curls framing her creamy skin, her dark eyes clouded and sad. She could not tell what was going on in her mind. So often she could only sense a struggle, an effort to resolve something she felt would have been beyond her, even if Sarah had been able to put it into words.

‘Ma, when we came back from Ashley Park, two years ago, I was absolutely horrible, wasn’t I?’

Rose had to laugh.

‘You were very unhappy. And lonely. I know you missed Hannah badly,’ she said gently.

‘And Jamie,’ she added abruptly.

‘Jamie? Did you really miss Jamie?’

She blushed slightly and looked away.

‘No. I was glad he was gone. I was so angry with him I thought I hated him. But I felt guilty because you and Da were so sad.’

‘Oh, Sarah dear, I am
so
sorry.’

‘You’re sorry?’

‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry,’ said Rose warmly. ‘You had quite enough to bear without feeling guilty about Jamie. It wasn’t your fault. Did you think it was?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Oh dear, Elizabeth did say that might be part of the problem. I wish I’d paid more attention to her at the time,’ she confessed. ‘But it’s easy to be wise after the event. I thought it was mostly that you wanted your own life and that just wasn’t possible for a girl of fourteen. Not for the kind of things I think you’ll want to do.’

‘What do you think I want to do, Ma?’

‘I think you want to make changes,’ she replied promptly. ‘You see things you think aren’t right. You’re concerned about people being poor and overworked and underfed. You’ll want to find a way to make life better for people. I’ve no idea how you’ll do it, but I’m sure you’ll try.’

‘I haven’t any idea either.’

‘Don’t let that worry you,’ she said strongly. ‘You’re sixteen, not twenty-six or thirty-six. You’ve
got plenty of time,’ she added as she bent down to make sure the roast was sizzling merrily.

‘Ma, before we do the next bit, I want to say sorry,’ Sarah said, as Rose got to her feet.

‘But sorry what for?’ Rose asked, sitting down again.

‘I gave you and Da a really bad time over school,’ she said sadly. ‘I promise I’ll not say another word about it. It’s only another year now, but I promise I’ll make the best of it and not moan, and try to get a really good certificate,’ she declared, her eyes lighting up for the first time. ‘I can at least do that, even if I can do nothing about Jamie. I’m
so
sorry.’

‘Don’t dwell on it, love. Maybe Jamie will come back to us. If he does, we give thanks. If he doesn’t, we give thanks he’s alive and well and can make his own decisions. Don’t waste any time on regrets. You have far too much else to do. And now we
must
make a move, or there’ll be no lunch for two hungry men.’

Sarah was as good as her word, though she admitted often enough she found her last year at school no great hardship. Everything seemed easier when she knew the summer would finally bring her freedom. In the darkest days of winter she read widely, wrote to Hannah and Marianne, rehearsed for the Dramatic Society, worked on her pictures of the mills and the commentaries that went with them, and played hockey, all with the same vigour and energy.

As the worst of the winter weather passed and the first signs of spring became obvious, a long-awaited event occurred to delight everyone. Hugh’s motor carriage finally arrived, polished and gleaming and smelling of new leather. It was hard to tell whether he or her father was more excited by the prospects it opened up.

Sam had been spending more of his weekends in Richhill, but he promptly asked for a day off and arrived home one Friday night to study the
specifications and the instructions for the chauffeur. The following morning, a mild, April Saturday the first trial runs were made, Sarah sitting beside Hugh in the front seat, Sam and John listening for trouble, ready for action, in the back. They drove from the temporary motor house down at Jackson’s farm to Katesbridge and back with no worse mishap than frightening a few chickens and amazing two old men sitting dreamily in the morning sun.

By the time the elegant new vehicle was tuned and modified to cope with the steepest part of Rathdrum hill, summer was on the way and Sarah was already making plans for her future.

‘Hallo, Mrs Jackson,’ she said cheerfully, as she came into the kitchen by way of the dairy, her arms full of the contents of her school locker on the last day of June.

‘Hallo, Sarah,’ said the older woman, getting to her feet. ‘You’ve caught me gossiping to your mother and I only came in to rest my legs for five minutes when I brought the eggs.’

‘Don’t run away, Mrs Jackson. Help me celebrate. I was thinking of burning my school dress on a bonfire, but the trouble is I’m too sensible,’ she said laughing, as she leant over the table and allowed the top layers of her assorted possessions to slide across its bare surface.

‘We could always chop it up and use the pieces for quilting if that would give you any satisfaction,’
Rose offered, as she came over and kissed her cheek.

‘Before I forget,’ said Mrs Jackson, shaking her head to an offer of tea, ‘Congratulations. Peter told us you’d won Artist of the Year.’

She blushed and looked pleased.

‘I’m not sure I deserve it,’ she said honestly. ‘They created a special category for photography and I was the only one in it.’

‘Ah now, that’s not fair,’ said the older woman, waving a finger at her. ‘My Peter says she was far and away top in the voting,’ she went on turning to Rose. ‘It was
the others
who were lucky they made a special prize. He says every lunchtime there was a crowd in the Art Room looking at her pictures. You know, Mrs Hamilton,’ she added, in a confidential tone, ‘some of them at that school don’t know what the inside of a mill looks like. No, nor the wee cottages the workers live in.’

She paused, as if about to say more, then changed her mind abruptly.

‘I must away,’ she declared. ‘If those two boys of mine are back and I don’t go and keep an eye on them, the cake tin’ll be empty. I’ll take a wee run up again next week, Mrs Hamilton. Cheerio now.’

‘I’d planned to have our tea all ready today,’ said Rose, smiling ruefully, as their neighbour disappeared in a flurry of skirts beyond the garden gate. ‘Best cups and a plate of cake.’

‘She’s a bit of a gossip isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she is,’ Rose agreed. ‘But she’s never malicious. I think she gets lonely in a house full of men,’ she went on, as she pulled the kettle forward on the stove and warmed the teapot. ‘There are times it’s good to have another woman to talk to.’

‘Do you miss Elizabeth?’

‘Yes, I do,’ replied Rose honestly. ‘It’s not that I don’t see her almost as much, but it was so comforting having her just up the hill. I’m lucky to have you around for a wee while longer,’ she admitted, laughing, as Sarah pushed at her spreading possessions to leave a space for the cake tin she’d brought out from the dresser.

‘Mmm, this is good Ma. I was thinking about it all the way up the hill,’ she confessed, munching her fruit cake devotedly.

The late afternoon sun threw shadows diagonally across the floor as it moved westwards. There was silence in the room for a long moment.

‘Did you ever used to feel Ma that time would never pass?’ asked Sarah, at last.

‘Oh yes. Waiting is one of the hardest things we ever do. Especially when you’re young. And I don’t think it gets that much easier as you get older,’ Rose went on, putting out her hand to refill Sarah’s cup. ‘You become more reconciled to the need for it, but its still hard.’

‘Was being poor hard?’ Sarah asked, as she helped herself to a another piece of cake.

‘Whatever made you think of that?’ Rose replied, laughing at the unexpectedness of her daughter’s question.

‘The cake,’ she mumbled, having just taken a bite. ‘Mrs Jackson mentioned her cake tin and then I brought out ours. And I’m having a second piece, which is a bit greedy,’ she went on, with a slightly sheepish look. ‘I always think of Marie Antoinette when they told her the people had no bread. “
Then let them eat cake
,” she said. Do you remember?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘So when I eat cake, I always think of people who are poor. But I’ve never been poor. I try to understand what it might be like.’

Rose sat and thought how she might explain. She saw herself standing in the bedroom of the old house, counting shillings into her purse. She had always given thanks for having her own purse and money to put in it.

‘There was one very bad winter when I had to keep buying more turf,’ she began. ‘I’d saved up a little during the summer for clothes for the boys and boots for your father, but the weather was so bad I had to use it all up on fuel. There was only a shilling left in the account and that was just to keep it open. We had almost nothing coming in except for what my sewing made. In the deep winter weeks, sometimes the forge hardly paid for the milk and eggs.’

Sarah finished her cake and sat silent, listening intently.

‘Being poor is tiring. It’s exhausting,’ Rose continued with a great heaving sigh. ‘Because you have to think about everything. Nothing is simple. And all the time you wonder if you’re going to fail, because if life should deal you one more blow, you’ll find yourself without food, or fire, or shelter. I used to think I could bear being poor if it were just me, or just Da and me. What I couldn’t bear was you children going short.’

‘We never did,’ said Sarah slowly shaking her head.

‘No, thank God,’ Rose said, smiling. ‘But there were times when it came too close for comfort.’

Sarah hung her school dress in the wardrobe. Even if she wasn’t keen on the style and was heartily pleased to be rid of it, she could imagine many a young woman who would be glad of something so well-made.

‘No need to think about that now,’ she said aloud, as she worked her way through the pile of things she’d carried upstairs.

There were some books she’d chosen to keep, her indoor shoes, her sketch book and the portfolio she’d made to hold her best prints, especially enlarged for the end of year exhibition. By the time she’d found a place for everything, she heard water
running in the dairy. Her mother was washing the vegetables for supper.

‘Any post this morning, Ma?’ she asked, as she came behind her to take a peeling knife from the rack on the wall.

‘Goodness yes. I’m sorry, I forgot,’ she replied smiling. There’s one from Marianne. I could tell that handwriting anywhere. The other is local. Go and have a look if you want, there’s only the potatoes to do. I made a stew this morning.’

Sarah left her peeling knife on the draining board, went and lifted down her letters from the mantelpiece, put Marianne’s in her pocket to read later and tore open the other one.

‘Ma,’ she called out. ‘I’ve got a job.’

She ran back to the door of the dairy and leant against the doorpost as she read.

‘What? Already? I didn’t know you’d applied for any.’

‘I hadn’t. I just had an idea and went in to see them after school one day. It’s the new photographic studio. I asked the boss if he needed any help and he said yes, they needed someone downstairs in the shop and upstairs in the darkroom, but they hadn’t advertised it yet.’

‘So he’s offered it to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think you’ll like being in a shop?’ inquired Rose cautiously.

‘No, not much,’ Sarah replied. ‘But I need to learn developing and printing and enlarging. If I’m good enough at it, perhaps they’ll let me do more of it. Anyway, it’s a start.’

‘When do you start?’

‘Monday next, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.,’ she read out quickly. ‘One week’s holiday with pay after one year’s service. Bank Holidays. Half day off on Wednesday and Saturday alternately.’

‘And how much do they pay you, if it’s not a rude question?’

Sarah laughed and told her.

‘Not a lot, is it?’ Rose said quietly.

‘I’d say it was a pittance myself. How much would you like for my keep, Ma?’

‘Sarah!’ she expostulated. ‘As if I’d want anything when you’re earning so little. Don’t be silly,’ she said laughing.

‘But Sam paid for his keep when he stopped being an apprentice,’ she protested.

‘Of course he did, but he did have a decent income then,’ she replied. ‘Besides,’ she went on gently, ‘it made him feel good. I used it to open a bank account for him. It’s all there for him when he needs it. What you’re earning won’t keep you in stockings.’

‘Do you mind, Ma? Do you think I’m being silly?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Rose said firmly. ‘I think you know
exactly what you’re doing. I’m just so glad the money doesn’t matter. Your father will be pleased you’ve got something you want. In fact, he’s going to be delighted, given the little surprise he has for you. But I mustn’t say another word and spoil it,’ she added hurriedly. ‘Now go and find a clean tablecloth, will you, while I get these potatoes going.’

When John came in, they could see how tired he was by the way he hung up his hat and dropped his jacket over the back of his chair.

‘Sometimes I think a day’s work at the anvil is far easier than an afternoon sittin’ round a table,’ he said, as he came to the table, picked up his knife and fork gratefully and began his meal.

‘Ventilation again?’ asked Sarah quietly.

‘Aye,’ he said, nodding at her. ‘The people from Belfast specialise in drying equipment,’ he explained, turning to Rose. ‘Their big blowers are great if ye want to dry tons of tea in India, but we need to clean the air as well as move it. An’ there’s the problem of the heat generated as well. They’re comin’ again next week,’ he said with a wry laugh. ‘Remind me, Friday is the suit, not the corduroys.’

Rose laughed and was pleased to see him look easier.

‘Ach, sure I forgot,’ he said suddenly. ‘Haven’t we got a lady of leisure dinin’ with us tonight? So you’re all finished, Sarah?’

‘Yes. But I start work on Monday,’ she replied promptly.

‘You’re jokin’,’ he said, the lines of tension disappearing from his face.

‘No. No joke.’

‘Well you don’t let the grass grow under your feet,’ he said shaking his head. ‘Come on then, tell us all. Ma and I have a wee surprise for you and you’re definitely not havin’ it till you tell us what you’ve been up to. Isn’t she the sly one?’ he added, smiling across at Rose.

Sarah told her story and John nodded, as aware as Rose how useful this modest beginning would be. It was when Sarah mentioned the very small weekly wage that the lines of tiredness reappeared in his face.

‘I hope ye’ll not try to keep yourself on that, Sarah. Don’t for any sakes do what Jamie did, when you know there’s money in the bank.’

‘John,’ Rose said quietly, a note of warning in her voice.

‘Ach, I’m sorry. I shou’den have mentioned Jamie,’ he replied wearily. ‘Sure it wasn’t all about money, but that’s the part that sticks in my throat. An’ you’d never be like that, Sarah,’ he said looking at her directly. ‘You’re as different from Jamie as chalk and cheese.’

‘Will we tell Sarah where her wee surprise is?’ prompted Rose, as she took his plate away and stacked it.

‘Aye,’ he said, brightening visibly. ‘It’s in the parlour, under the table, with the chenille cloth pulled down over it. A right big box, quite heavy. It says “fragile” on it. Mind it doesn’t bite you,’ he added, winking at Rose, as Sarah hurried off to find it.

‘Put it down here, love,’ Rose said, folding the tablecloth back from the unoccupied end of the table.

John offered his penknife and she cut her way through the knotted string and the flaps of the substantial cardboard box. The top was full of squeezed-up newspaper. She paused and moved more slowly when she met long pieces of clean rag and the gleam of well-polished wood showed amidst the generous packing. Only when she removed the fabric that swathed the sides and revealed brass fittings and catches, did she begin to suspect what it was.

With a final effort to free the beautiful object, she thrust her hands underneath it and drew it out. Rose reached over and lifted the empty box onto the floor so Sarah could put her present on the table. She set it down gently, a few tatters of rag still clinging onto its grained surface, and stared at it.

‘My goodness,’ she whispered, suddenly afraid she was going to cry. ‘A plate camera. Isn’t it beautiful?’

She came round the table to kiss her mother and
then her father, tried to find words to thank them and failed completely.

‘I know they cost a fortune,’ she said anxiously.

‘Aye, they do,’ said John laughing. ‘But your Ma says we can afford it. Sure it’s
now
ye need it, not when ye’ve saved up for ten years,’ he said, beaming with delight, as she opened the front, drew out the bellows and adjusted the polished brass rim of the lens.

‘If it’s any help to you, love, we’ve put the same amount of money in Sam’s bank account,’ her mother said softly. ‘Da thinks a plate camera mightn’t do him much good, but he’ll be thinking of a motor in a few years when they come down in price.’