The Hamiltons of Ballydown (22 page)

Sarah was delighted. She hadn’t touched her camera since she’d taken a picture of Sam on crutches, to use the one remaining exposure on the roll for the journey home from Ashley Park. Now, she took it out again, loaded it up and began to practice. She wanted to be sure her hand was steady and her eye was in, for she’d decided she would make an album for Elizabeth and Richard. Just like Mr Blennerhasset had for Ma and Da all those years ago.

Hannah arrived home via London, glowing and self-possessed and for most of July gathered Sarah up into their old habits of riding and walking, before going back to Ashley Park to prepare for her wedding in late August. Sam appeared frequently on Saturday afternoons, bringing his bicycle so he could swoop off early on Monday morning and get back to Richhill in time for work.

Throughout the fine weather there were visits to Elizabeth and Richard in Dromore, John driving Rose in the trap and Sarah keeping Hugh company in the brougham. Hugh himself became a much more frequent visitor at Ballydown, walking down the hill several evenings in the week after his solitary supper. Sometimes, on a Saturday afternoon, he’d ask Sarah if she’d like to drive over to one of the mills instead of going on her bicycle. While she was taking her pictures, he said, he could cast his own eye around without being very much noticed.

Long before summer came, she’d drawn up a list of what she wanted to photograph in and around the four mills. It was only when she got started, she discovered it wasn’t as simple as she thought it would be. Before you can choose what you need to record, you have to make yourself familiar with the whole set of processes involved in production, from the growing of the flax right through to the boxing up of the finished linen for export around the world. With her usual enthusiasm, she began questioning both Hugh and her father. She spent yet more time in the local library and poring over prints spread out on the kitchen table for minute and critical study.

Rose breathed a sigh of relief as the characteristic frown reappeared. In another person, a sign of irritability or bad temper, with Sarah, a sure sign of complete absorption and the surest sign that she was happy.

‘I think maybe we’re over the worst with Sarah,’ Rose said to John one August evening when they walked out along the Katesbridge road.

‘Aye, she seems more settled,’ he said easily. ‘Are ye not afeerd that wi’ the excitement of the weddin’, she’ll find it hard back at school?’

‘There’s bound to be a bit of a come down, but she’ll have her pictures to work on,’ she replied reassuringly. ‘She’s so delighted that Hannah and Teddy want her to take their wedding pictures when they could’ve had a society photographer down from London,’ she went on. ‘I daresay they’ll go and have portraits done when they’re up in town, but when you look at Elizabeth and Richard’s pictures, you can see why Hannah was so keen. I think she has real talent, John.’

‘Aye, so does Hugh,’ he responded promptly. ‘He says you should just see the way she goes about things when she gets onto the weaving floor or down with the beetlers, eyeing things up from all angles. What gets him is the way she goes up to people and says “
Will you do this, will you do that?
” with that big smile of hers. He says he’s waitin’ for the day anyone has the heart to say no to her.’

She laughed and they walked on in silence, the evening quiet but for the distant noise of a cow lowing, a dog barking at a passing stranger.

‘Do you think Hugh is missing Elizabeth?’ she asked quietly.

‘Not as bad as I thought he would,’ he answered after a moment’s thought. ‘But he said he’d think of movin’ into town if it weren’t for us. Dromore most likely, to be near Elizabeth and Richard. But he says he never feels lonesome knowing we’re just down the hill.’

‘He’s been a great encouragement to Sarah. Do you think it’s just his kindness, or does he really want to collect up all these pictures?’

‘I think maybe it’s a bit a both. He says he’s foun’ out more about workin’ practices since Sarah was walkin’ about with her camera than he’s ever learnt from the mill managers. She doesn’t miss much, an’ she tells him everythin’. I’m amazed at what he comes out with sometimes. She’s been at him to start a co-operative shop. He’d bring in the stuff in bulk an’ the workers wou’d get it near cost. Any profit goes back into stock for parcels at Christmas or when people are sick.’

‘Sounds like a very good idea,’ said Rose enthusiastically.

‘Aye, so Hugh thinks,’ John replied, nodding. ‘But he’s a crafty one. He’s goin’ to pursue it, but he’s not told
her
that. He’s told her he has a problem and he wants to know what he’s goin’ to do about it. So she’s away to work that out.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ asked Rose, intrigued.

‘What he does about the shopkeepers who’ll complain he’s takin’ away their livelihood.’

‘But he’s not taking away their livelihood,’ protested Rose.

‘No, I know that and you know that, but the shopkeepers will probably have a go at him anyways. Hugh wants to test her out to see if she can come up with somethin’. He’s serious you know about her comin’ on the Board when she’s
twenty-one
,’ he added suddenly.

‘My goodness, love, can you remember her tramping up the path at Ballydown with Ganny under her arm?’

‘Ach it seems no time ago. It moves so fast these days and there’s so much change goin’ on ye can hardly keep up with it, what with things so bad in South Africa and the Russians eyeing up China and all this disturbance here with the anniversary of 1798, forby our own family …’

He broke off suddenly. She knew at once he was thinking of Jamie.

‘D’you think we’ll ever see him again, Rose?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I sometimes think he’ll come to his senses and remember he has a family. And then I think, if he does, he’ll be so ashamed at what he said and what he’s done, he’ll be too proud to come back. Sometimes I try to imagine what it might take to bring him back, but I don’t
expect
anything. I try to accept he’s gone, as they’ll all go. I don’t dwell on the manner of his going.’

‘Ach, you’re wiser me, Rose. Ye take that from your mother. Aye an’ ye’ve passed it on to Hannah. It takes a lot to ruffle our Hannah. Sarah’s different, now. I don’t know where she comes from at all.’

She laughed as they turned at their usual spot. Down here on the road, the sun was already hidden behind the trees, but as they went back up the hill it would re-appear. They’d pause at their own gate and watch it sink. This early in June it was light till after ten but by the time they came back from Ashley Park the evenings would have shrunk enough for neighbours to say, ‘The nights are drawing in,’ a phrase that made Rose feel sad. Ultimately, life drew in, like the days from June to December. It became shorter, more limited, until it finally disappeared altogether.

She took John’s arm as they began the steep part of the climb and pushed away such sombre thoughts. A week today, they’d be travelling with Sarah and Sam to Hannah’s wedding. Surely that was joy enough to sustain them through the dark of winter.

The days shortened, but the weather stayed remarkably mild as life settled back to its autumn routine and Hannah and Teddy drove south to Italy on their wedding journey. As her mother had predicted, Sarah was so absorbed with her work on their pictures she had difficulty fitting in the visits
she wanted to make to the mills. When there wasn’t schoolwork she read volumes from Hugh’s library on the complexities of spinning and weaving to help her with her notes for the pictures she’d already taken.

As long as she was complaining of not having enough time for all she wanted to do, Rose could relax and enjoy the extra hours she had for herself now she’d but two to look after. She took up her reading and sewing gratefully and made Sarah a new dress for her first school dance.

So long awaited and so much anticipated by the other girls in Sarah’s year, this great occasion came and went in early December. Clearly she enjoyed the dressing up, being bowed to by Hugh, when he chanced to call just before she departed, being driven down in the trap by her father, and listening to the very good band, but the opportunity to dance with her contemporaries filled her with no great enthusiasm.

‘Most of them can’t think of two words to say to you,’ she summed up next morning, when she came down to a late breakfast. ‘The best thing was the supper,’ she added, as she buttered more toast.

Rose enquired about one or two boys she’d mentioned occasionally and the handsome,
red-headed
lad, eldest son of the Jacksons who’d recently moved into MacMurray’s empty farmhouse at the foot of the hill.

‘Oh yes, I danced with all of them. I danced with
nearly everyone. Peter Jackson’s not a bad dancer, but the only one I like dancing with is Kenny Taylor and he’s stupid.’

‘So why do you like dancing with him?’

‘He’s a marvellous dancer,’ she said coolly, as she munched steadily. ‘He’s so light on his feet, I sometimes think we’ll take off and fly,’ she said, her eyes lighting up. ‘And I don’t have to bother talking to him. He’s so lost in the music, it puts him off his step if I say anything.’

‘What’s Kenny going to do when he leaves school?’ Rose asked casually, wondering what she really meant by ‘stupid’.

‘Oh, he’ll be a solicitor like his father,’ she replied, indifferently.

‘You have to be quite clever to be a solicitor.’

‘I suppose so. That sort of clever he can manage, but he says such stupid things. He keeps asking me to go for walks with him. Honestly, as if I hadn’t better things to do,’ she added, as Rose turned away towards the stove to hide her smile.

It was later that same morning when the postman delivered an invitation to Hugh which he certainly had not been expecting. Standing in the kitchen finishing a quick mug of tea with John, he flicked through the handful of envelopes parked on the table. Out of pure curiosity, he opened the only one he couldn’t immediately identify.

‘Good gracious,’ he said, as he drew an elegant card from its equally elegant envelope.

John glanced across at him, caught sight of the stiff, gold-rimmed communication and laughed.

‘Are ye for London or Dublin, then?’

‘Neither,’ said Hugh, his tone strangely sad as he examined the printed text with greater care. ‘It’s an invitation to the launch of the
Oceanic
,’ he said awkwardly, as he dropped card and envelope on the table.