The Hamiltons of Ballydown (3 page)

‘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.’

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
out beyond the sitting-room windows. Each time she visited that elegant room with its high ceilings and tall windows, she marvelled at the good fortune which had come to them out of the darkest of days.

This year she felt it more than ever as she caught John sheepishly eyeing his two pretty daughters, Hannah, cool and slim, full of a gentle grace, Sarah, in her new flowered lawn dress, as tall as her sister and as dark as Hannah was fair, her eyes sparkling with excitement, totally absorbed in all that was going on around her.

She couldn’t help but smile when she saw how comfortably John now stood beside James Sinton, their backs to the marble fireplace, the hearth glowing only with the bright colours of summer flowers. Now in his mid-forties, with grey hair at his temples, he carried himself as well as when he’d bought a coat in Dublin to wear at his wedding in Kerry.

She looked from John to Sam. He was more like his father than Jamie, broad-shouldered and fuller in the body. He preferred to listen rather than talk. Red-headed and lighter in build, Jamie was much more ready to put himself forward, always talkative with people who could answer his questions. He was busy telling James about the recent big orders at the yard which were sure to lead to further expansion. The chance of a manager’s job when he finished his time in the drawing office was looking better than
ever. Sam smiled, pleased his brother would succeed in getting what he so much wanted, but content enough himself. He already had what he’d wanted since ever he could remember.

A perfect day, in every way, Rose and Mary agreed, their family party strung out ahead of them, as they strolled under the shade of the trees on The Mall. Sunlight poured down on the dazzling white figures moving back and forth over the smooth turf of the cricket pitch and the groups of men and boys watching from the long grass by the boundary.

In front, Hannah and her particular friend, Helen, a year older and more than a head taller, had their arms round each others’ waists their heads close together in talk while they pushed Mary and James’s longed-for young son in his elegant perambulator. Sam was strolling shyly with Susie Sinton, just turned thirteen and clearly impressed by Sam’s broad shoulders and smart turn out. Behind them, she heard Jamie’s voice once again deep in conversation with James Sinton. Sarah and little Mary, the youngest of the Sinton girls, were standing on the low wall that divided the shady walk from the road beyond, so that John could point out the library where Rose had borrowed books for him when they lived at Salter’s Grange.

Sarah and Mary knew the library perfectly well. It was John who’d never noticed that, whenever they happened to pass the small, elegant building, Sarah
always asked the same question,
Was that where Ma used to go for the books?
She knew perfectly well he’d happily tell the story of how her mother had met James Sinton in the reading room one day, after the disaster, and how he’d found them all a new home and a new job with Uncle Hugh and how they’d all become friends and had a party every year ever after to celebrate their escape.

The fine weather that blessed them on ‘the big day’, continued all through July and August with only a handful of cool, showery days to interrupt it. When Elizabeth and Hugh went off to Manchester for an important Quaker Conference, John had two weeks holiday. Jamie, who now got quite upset if anyone called him James, had his annual holiday at the same time. The first week he went on a cycling tour with his friends from work, the second, he came home. He and John cut the meadow behind the house, repaired the unused stable and visited the Armagh Horse Fair. They arrived home well pleased, having bought a good-natured chestnut mare called Dolly for the new trap. It was all very well, said John, for Hugh to go and order a motor carriage while he was in Manchester, but for the moment a pony and trap would do very nicely at Ballydown.

At weekends and on the long summer evenings the new trap took them further afield than they’d been before. While John was at work, Rose drove
Hannah and Sarah to picnic by the little loughs set amidst the green hills. They walked round the old church at Magherally and tried to read the oldest of the weathered tombstones. They went down to their own parish church of Holy Trinity and studied the memorials and monuments in its cool interior. After visiting Dromore cathedral, they stared up at the viaduct nearby marvelling at the graceful soaring arches that carried the railway from Belfast southwards. After a long moment, Sarah declared it was too difficult to sketch. What she wanted was a photographic camera like Mr Blennerhasset’s, the guest at Currane Lodge who’d sent her parents an album of photographs of their wedding.

The fine weather faded gently into a mild autumn, the leaves lingering in tones of gold and russet with neither wind nor frost to loosen them and send them drifting under hedgerows. The mornings were misty and the evenings shorter, but there was no cold, no challenge from rain or wind to make the daily tasks a burden.

When Hannah and Sarah went back to school and Dolly was left to lean over the five barred gate and wonder where they’d gone, Rose felt it strange to be alone again. For a few days she missed Sarah’s bright ideas and enthusiasms and the liveliness of her two daughters, but then she realised quite suddenly she was grateful for the quiet.

‘Well, what’s new in the world today,’ she asked
with a smile, as John settled himself for a bite of lunch on a pleasant September day.

‘Oh, nothing good, according to Hugh,’ he said wryly. ‘He says he’d three copies of
The Times
to read last night full of the trouble in South Africa. The Boers are determined to have their way and rule themselves and our government is just as determined not to let them. He thinks there’ll be a war out of it if someone doesn’t talk sense to both sides.’

‘Do you think the Quakers will intervene?’ she asked, as she fetched bowls from the dresser and took them to the stove.

‘Like when they went to the Czar to try to stop the war in the Crimea,’ he replied, nodding to himself. ‘They’re certainly thinkin’ about it from what I hear. All the Monthly Meetings in Ireland are charged to consider what to do an’ they’ve written letters to Friends in America and in Europe forby. There’s not all that many of them, I know, but most of them’s educated people. You’d admire them for the trouble they put themselves to,’ he added, as she put a bowl of soup in front of him.

‘But you don’t think it’ll do much good?’ she said, looking over her shoulder as she filled her own bowl.

‘Ach, when one’s as bad as the other, there’s no come and go,’ he said shortly. ‘The Boers say they’ve the right to their own country after the trek they made to get away from the British. The British say
they have no right to run against the law, keeping slaves and suchlike. But sure it all boils down to whose goin’ to benefit from the diamond mines. Whoever comes out top it won’t be the ordinary Africans,’ he said, sadly.

Rose shook her head and buttered a slice of wheaten bread. James and Hugh Sinton read their newspapers assiduously. So for that matter did Elizabeth. She’d been surprised to find how much attention they paid to events on the other side of the globe.

‘You can’t run a business any more as if it were a local matter,’ Hugh explained, one evening when Rose asked him why he read the London papers so carefully. ‘Take what happened in the sixties, during the American Civil War. No raw cotton coming in to Lancashire, so the mills had to close. Mill owners were ruined and thousands of workers turned off. There were whole families where every one of them worked at the mill, so there wasn’t the price of a loaf coming in. There must have been poor souls who starved, though we’ll never know the extent of it. You don’t just get famine when the potato crop fails,’ he said shortly. ‘And while they suffered in Lancashire, we benefited here in Banbridge.’

‘Why was that?’

Sarah, had been sitting so quietly on a low stool by her father’s chair that Rose hadn’t noticed it was well past her bedtime.

‘How could
we
benefit?’ she demanded, her dark eyes wide as she stared at Hugh and waited.

‘Manufacturers needed cloth, Sarah,’ he said, looking at her calmly. ‘They always need cloth. When they couldn’t get cotton they came to us for linen. The mills here were overwhelmed with orders, they couldn’t expand fast enough. They were so desperate for labour that even children of ten were taken on without too many questions being asked.’

‘Hannah’s ten and Sam’s nearly ten,’ she said, glancing at her brother and sister. ‘Would they have had to work in the mills?’

‘If their family was poor and encouraged them to,’ he said honestly.

‘Are we poor?’ she asked abruptly, looking at Hannah and Sam. ‘Ma, are we poor?’ she went on, her voice rising ominously.

Rose had got to her feet and picked her up, feeling her small body stiffen as she twisted in her arms and turned back to stare at Hugh and Elizabeth sitting with her father by the stove.

‘No, Sarah dear, we’re not poor,’ she said soothingly. ‘You needn’t worry about that,’ she went on, as she carried her upstairs to bed.

Hugh had come down the next day as soon as the children had gone to school to ask if Sarah had slept properly.

‘It was thoughtless of me to mention the children working in the mills, Rose,’ he said with a sigh.
‘You know we Quakers favour plain speaking even with children, and I know you think it a good thing yourself, but I should have been more careful. She’s too young to have to face the truth about such hardship. She’ll learn all about it soon enough.’

‘She’s fine this morning, Hugh,’ she replied warmly, touched by his concern. ‘She was chattering away at breakfast about a nativity play they’re rehearsing at school. But it’s a warning to me,’ she added ruefully. ‘I know she listens to everything that goes on, but sometimes I forget, because she always looks as if she’s not paying the slightest attention. No harm done, Hugh, but I’ll make sure I have the fire lit in the parlour next time you come down and we’ll leave the children the kitchen table for their games till bedtime.’

‘Lovely drop of soup, Rose,’ John said enthusiastically as he tipped his bowl to spoon up the last of it.

‘Would you like some more?’ she said, beaming. ‘There’s plenty.’

He smiled and shook his head. He always ate lightly at lunch time even when he was very hungry. Bending over a model or working at the anvil in the afternoon could give you bad wind if you’d eaten too well.

‘D’you remember, Rose,’ he said thoughtfully, as he munched the rest of his wheaten bread, ‘yer Ma once told you that when she thought of yer father,
God rest him, she always said to herself how pleased he’d be to know you were all well, that you’d enough to eat and weren’t in want?’

‘I’d forgotten that,’ Rose admitted, shaking her head. ‘You’ve a great memory. I never know what you’re going to come out with next.’

‘Ach, I forget plenty,’ he said, laughing quietly. ‘But I often think of what yer Ma said when I see you put out more bread or more butter. I know how your father musta felt. He lived through desperit hard times,’ he said, shaking his head at the thought of it. ‘We’ve had our share, I know, but nothin’ as bad as your Ma and Da. We’ve had great luck.’

‘Some might call it luck,’ she said sharply, as she stood up and pulled the kettle forward on the stove to make them a pot of tea. ‘You’ve worked for your luck. If you hadn’t studied so hard those years when you were with Thomas and then at the mill, you’d not be much use to Hugh.’

‘An’ what about all the wee dresses that kept us alive when the Orangemen took their work away from Thomas an’ me because we wouldn’t go out drillin’ with them?’ he retorted promptly.

Rose smiled across at him and raised her eyebrows as she reached a hand up to the mantelpiece for the tea caddy. She heard the scrape of his chair as he moved from the table to his comfortable armchair.

‘Goodness, I forgot,’ she said suddenly, as she
put the tea caddy back. ‘You’ve a letter. It came yesterday and I forgot all about it. I’m amazed Sarah didn’t spot it,’ she added, as she handed it down from its place by the clock. ‘At least we know it’s not the landlord putting us out.’

John turned the envelope over, read the return address and smiled.

‘No, indeed it is
not
,’ he said firmly. ‘I know what this is and it might be the price of a new dress,’ he said, beaming at her. ‘It’s the Patent Office in London,’ he said, ripping open the envelope.

She watched his face as he unfolded a stiff sheet of notepaper and extracted a slip of paper. She felt a sudden stab of anxiety as his eyes scanned whatever message it bore, his lips moving soundlessly.

‘What is it, John?’ she said urgently.

He looked up at her, his eyes dilated, his mouth open. He handed her the slip of paper and sat back in his chair, the letter still in his hand.

‘What d’you say to that then?’ he asked, the first glimmer of a smile touching his lips.

She set the teapot down again, came across to his chair, put her arms round him and kissed him.

‘I’d say,
Congratulations, John Hamilton,’
she said softly, the cheque he’d passed across to her still clutched in her hand. ‘I just wish your mother were alive to see this,’ she added, aware that tears were now streaming down her face.