The Hamiltons of Ballydown (6 page)

‘I expect the brougham will be back soon,’ he said, walking with them across the yard. ‘Don’t think Mr Sinton an’ yer Da could do any better on the hill than you. I’ve a space cleared ready for them.’

The sun had disappeared behind the trees that sheltered the MacMurray’s farm from the westerly winds and the light was beginning to fade as they tackled the hill. The snow lay much deeper than usual and Hannah soon began to tire.

‘I shall be glad to get home,’ she said breathlessly, as she stopped again to rest.

‘I’ll make you some toast,’ Sarah replied quickly, turning round and tramping back to encourage her sister with a warm smile. ‘There’s baker’s bread from yesterday. And
damson
jam,’ she added, rolling her eyes.

Hannah laughed and moved forward again, using the tracks Sarah had made.

‘Here, give me your hand,’ said Sarah, grabbing at her. ‘I’ll give you a tow up. It’s not very far now.’

Despite Sarah’s vigorous efforts, Hannah was even more breathless by the time they got to the garden gate. Her creamy skin looked paler than usual, while Sarah was bright-eyed, her cheeks rosy from exertion. She pushed open the gate as far as it would go against the snow and left Hannah to close
it as she clumped down the path to the front door. She threw it open and stopped dead. The kitchen was empty, dark and cold.

‘What’s wrong, Sarah?’ Hannah asked sharply, as she caught up with her. She peered past her and took in the empty room. ‘Where’s Ma?’

‘She’s not here. And the fire’s out,’ Sarah replied hastily, a note of alarm in her voice.

‘Perhaps she’s still up with Elizabeth,’ said Hannah soothingly.

‘But she knows we’re early today,’ Sarah protested. ‘Anyway we’re not early any more. It must be way after four by now,’ she went on, stepping over to the stove to peer up at the clock on the mantelpiece, its face just visible in the pale light reflected from the snow.

Hannah followed her gaze and registered sooner than she did that the clock had stopped. A bad sign, for she knew her mother wound it regularly every morning after they went to school. She scanned the room desperately for some explanation.

There was no note on the table, but in the dim light she recognised a familiar shape. Her mother’s basket was still sitting there, the corner of her well-wrapped sewing poking out. She took a deep breath and stopped herself from hurrying upstairs.

‘She had a bit of a headache this morning. Maybe she’s having a lie down,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ll go up and have a look while you light the lamps, Sarah.’

But Sarah wasn’t listening, she was flying upstairs and along the short landing to the largest bedroom. Hannah followed hastily and they arrived at the open door together.

Rose lay face down on the bedside rug, her everyday boots lying beside her. The bedspread had been thrown back and the covers opened, but she’d not succeeded in getting into bed. She’d caught at the bedspread as she fell and it was twisted round her slim body like a winding sheet.

It was almost completely dark by the time Hannah and Sarah managed to take off Rose’s dress and get her into bed. Her body was stone cold and only her hoarse breathing convinced them she was alive, for her eyes were shut and she seemed unaware of being moved.

‘Go and boil water on the gas, Sarah, and fill the stone jars while I get more blankets,’ Hannah said, the pallor of Rose’s face reducing her voice to a whisper.

‘Can I not go for the doctor?’ Sarah whispered back.

‘No,’ Hannah said firmly, desperately looking round for a reason to stop Sarah racing off into the night. ‘I need you to help me. We must get her warm again. Go on, get the kettle on, quickly.’

Hannah paused long enough to light the gas lamp before she brought extra blankets from the chest in Jamie’s room. She covered the still figure
and tucked them well in at her sides, then put her warm hands against her mother’s face. It felt colder than snow.

At the foot of the hill, John and Hugh manoeuvred the young mare out of the shafts of the brougham and noted the two bicycles parked against the wall of the barn.

‘I see the girls did the sensible thing,’ said John easily, as Michael MacMurray came up to join them.

‘Aye, the hill’s as bad as I’ve known it, but they’re safe home maybe an hour ago,’

‘A good night to be indoors,’ said Hugh agreeably, as Michael walked with them across the well-swept yard to the snowy road beyond.

‘Da, Da.’

John turned away to stare up the hill. Against the smooth dim surface a small figure raced headlong toward him, tripping and recovering itself by turns.

‘Sarah, what are ye doin’ out? What’s wrong at all?’

‘Ma’s sick. She was lying on the floor,’ she gasped, leaning against the gate for support. ‘We have to get the doctor.’

John stared at her, his eyes large in the light of Michael’s lantern. Distress written all over her, her chest heaving, her cape was covered in snow where she’d fallen in her haste to get help once Hannah let her go.

‘It’ll be quicker to ride the mare,’ Hugh said. ‘Can you lend me a saddle, Michael, and get me up on her?’ he said urgently. ‘You go up home, John. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

He urged John away with a gesture as Michael threw a saddle over the mare’s back and bent to tighten the girths.

Sarah followed John upstairs and saw him look at her mother’s inert figure. When she heard him speak to Hannah, his voice breaking with distress, she slipped downstairs and out into the night. Even if the doctor was in his dispensary and even if he came on his horse right away, she didn’t think he’d be much use. It was fully dark now and the wind was getting up, blowing fallen snow from the hedgerows in her face. It didn’t matter about the snow. It didn’t matter how many times she fell over, she would just keep going till she got there. The only person who might be any good was Elizabeth and she must fetch her.

Rose felt cold. Icy cold. Even in the barn where she slept curled in a blanket in the hay it was cold, but outside it was even colder.

When she heard her mother call, she ran across the farmyard to the tall, whitewashed pillars that supported the gate into the Ross’s farm. Ma was standing there with her friend Emily, and Emily’s husband, Walter. They were all looking up the road from Ramelton and waiting, the January sky a monotonous grey, the wind catching at Emily’s wispy hair.

Back in the barn, she’d been holding the sheepdog pups in her arms, small helpless creatures, their eyes not yet open, but their bodies fat and warm, well-fed and well-licked by their mother, a bright-eyed border collie, Walter’s best servant when he was working with the sheep. She longed to feel their warmth again.

‘Look, Rose, they’re coming.’

Rose stared into the distance and listened.
The tramping feet made a strange, rhythmic roar. As the straggling procession of figures drew closer she began to recognise faces. Friends and neighbours from Ardtur, children she’d been at school with before Adair turned them out of their home. She waved at Owen Friel and Danny Lawn who were walking side-by-side carrying a big bundle between them. As they passed, she saw it was a child, all hopped up in an old cloak. It was crying, but it made no sound. The rhythmic roar grew louder.

‘Come, we’ll go part of the way with them,’ Hannah said to Rose, taking her by the hand. ‘We’ll never lay eyes on them again,’ she added, turning to Emily, a bent old woman who leant wearily against one of the great white pillars with their conical tops. There was a stone sticking out of each pointed top to stop the fairies dancing on them and bringing bad luck to the house.

Walter stood under the other pillar. He didn’t believe in fairies. He read to them every night from his Bible. Some nights he read from King James’s Bible, some nights from the Gaelic Bible Ma gave him when they’d come to shelter in his barn. She could understand both. What she couldn’t understand was how Walter came to have King James’s Bible in the first place.

Even more puzzling now was the roar these people were making. They didn’t look as if they
were making a noise. Their lips weren’t moving. They weren’t speaking to each other, or shouting, or cheering, they just moved silently past, but the noise went on. It drowned out the sound of their tramping feet and it went on just as loudly even after they’d passed by.

‘They’re going to Gartan to say goodbye,’ explained Hannah. ‘We’ll follow them there and wish them luck.’

Gartan was their own lough, grey and still, in the morning light. But she knew it wasn’t to the lough itself they were going. They would be following the track well above the shore to the old ruined church with its graveyard and the Holy Well. The hill up to the church was steep and she was out of breath. If she hadn’t held on to her mother’s hand she’d never have got up that hill at all.

There were crowds and crowds of people everywhere, all round the church, most of them were crying. Men and women and young girls and boys. They knelt by graves and kissed the crosses that marked their family burying grounds. Many of them plucked grass and put it in their bundles or in their clothes. Some of the women wore only a shift. They didn’t even have a bundle. They wiped their tears on bare arms.

Rose stood listening to the roar they made as they lined up outside the tiny stone chapel Saint Columbkille had built. She watched as one by one
the figures went inside and lay down on a big flat tombstone.

‘What are they doing that for?’ she asked.

‘For forgetfulness.’

She stared at her mother baffled, her mouth open.

‘They say that lying on the saint’s stone will spare you memories,’ Hannah began. ‘If you’re going to Australia and may never come back, it would be best to forget the happiness and joy there was with the friends and family you’ll never see again. It would be a small mercy for the poor souls if it were so.’

‘Ma, what’s that noise?’ she asked, at last, as she watched the company forming up to take to the road again.

‘That’s a lament, the caoine, they call it.’

But whatever it was called, she still didn’t grasp how people could make such a noise if their lips never moved.

Sarah felt no cold at all as she struggled up the hill to Rathdrum, her face prickling with heat, her breath streaming round her in the frosty air. The breeze was strengthening. When it caught up snow from the hedgerows and threw small flurries in her face, she was glad of its cooling touch, wiping the moisture from her face with the back of one gloved hand.

She’d told herself as she set out that it didn’t matter if she fell in her haste to get to Rathdrum, but the first time her foot skidded on ice below the snow and she fell sprawling, she changed her mind. It wouldn’t be much use to Ma if she twisted her ankle and couldn’t get there. Better to slow down a bit however much she wanted to get there quickly.

‘Keep to the middle,’ she said aloud, as she picked herself up hurriedly and shook out her skirts.

Hugh’s mare would have left its tracks before the morning’s fall. If she could find them, there’d be only eight or nine inches of crisp undisturbed snow above them, while at the edges of the road in the shadow of the hedge, there’d be double that amount. What she had to avoid at all costs was blundering into the ditch, invisible where the faded grasses of winter masked the deep channel, freshly cleared and deepened to drain away the heavy rains of autumn.

There was no moon and the starlight was dimmed by fleeting wisps of low cloud. Only from the snow itself came a feeble gleam in the enveloping darkness. She knew the hill so well she could hardly believe it went on for so long. She was gasping for breath by the time the gradient evened out and she peered around for any sign of the square stone pillars that marked the entrance to Rathdrum.

She stood breathing heavily, unable to pierce the darkness. It had never occurred to her she might arrive at the top of the hill and not be able to find the entrance. It had to be to her right, but where exactly was it? If she were to leave the road at the wrong place, she’d be sure to end up in the ditch. Tears of anxiety and frustration sprang to her eyes.

‘Think, Sarah, think. Ask for help.’

She sent up a quick, incoherent prayer and stood quite still. Elizabeth always said there was no point asking God for help and not waiting for an answer. She stood and listened as intently as she knew how. Now she’d stopped struggling through the snow, the night was completely still. Far away, she heard a dog bark in the silence. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and very close at hand she heard a soft, rushing noise. A tree had shed part of its burden of snow only a few yards away and she knew the limes of the avenue were the only trees on this part of the hill.

She ran towards the sound and almost fell over again. As she straightened up, she saw the faint outline of a gatepost and much further away, the misty gleam of light spilling from the fanlight above the front door of Rathdrum. Between her and it, partly sheltered by the trees, the avenue had only half the snow she’d ploughed through on the hill.

She picked up her skirt, raced to the front door and banged the knocker vigorously. She’d never before knocked at the front door, but the light spilling from the sitting room showed her the piled up snow at the side of the house. Besides, it was nearer.

‘You must come quickly,’ she gasped breathlessly, as a startled Elizabeth opened the door.

‘What’s wrong, Sarah?’ Elizabeth asked, as calmly as she could, having taken one brief look at her distraught face.

‘Ma’s ill,’ she said, choking on the words. ‘Hugh’s gone for the doctor, but if he’s that man I saw yesterday, he’s no use. Please hurry,’ she pleaded. ‘Get your cape quickly. I’m so afraid she’ll die.’

‘All right, Sarah, I’ll come this minute,’ Elizabeth said reassuringly, ‘but I need to know what to bring. Now tell me quickly what happened.’

‘We came in from school and it was dark and the clock was stopped and her basket still on the table with her sewing,’ Sarah began hastily. ‘We thought she was here, but she was lying on the bedroom floor. She was as cold as ice.’

‘And what did you do?’

‘We put her in bed with stone bottles and blankets.’

Elizabeth nodded as she reached for her outdoor boots and sat down in the hallway to put them on. She swung her cape round her shoulders and
fastened it, then reached for a shopping basket.

‘What was her breathing like?’ she asked, as Sarah edged her towards the door. ‘Soft and whispery?’ she suggested, stopping firmly by the closed door.

‘No, it was loud, like when Da snores sometimes. It made a horrible noise in her chest. That was how we knew she wasn’t dead,’ she threw out, tears now streaming down her face.

‘Now then, don’t cry, there’s a good girl,’ Elizabeth said, hugging her. ‘We haven’t time to be upset. Go up to my bedroom. There’s a bottle of lavender water on my table. Bring it to me in the kitchen. On the way there, go to the sitting room cupboard. Bring me a bottle of elderflower wine and the brandy. Have you got Friar’s Balsam at home?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sarah, shaking her head in despair.

‘Never mind. I’ve got plenty. Now go on. Hurry.’

The long procession marched down the road. Letterkenny, Dublin, Southampton, Abyssinian. That’s where people said they were going. Abyssinian was a ship. People in Australia had sent them money to buy tickets and they were going there where it was warm. Even without a shawl Australia was warm. So she’d heard. She wondered if she would ever be warm, even if she was in Australia.

The sun had come out now. It was shining in a
clear blue sky. But it was still winter. There was snow on the ground and there was another procession of people coming towards her. They were making the same strange noise, a kind of rhythmic roar, up and down, up and down. But their lips didn’t move either.

She looked around her at this unknown place. Beside her, crowds of people had gathered to watch the procession. The people who approached were barefoot. They carried bundles and small children, their faces were reddish-brown and deeply lined by sun and wind. She looked carefully for a familiar face but she knew no one among these people.

Suddenly, she remembered who these people were.

‘Cherokee,’ she said aloud.

‘Good riddance,’ said a man in the watching crowd.

‘Look around you, Rose,’ said a soft, familiar voice at her elbow. ‘Look at the faces around you. Irish, English and Scots,’ he went on. ‘All the dispossessed who came to America to make a new life. Look at what they’ve done, greedy for gold and land. They’ve evicted the Cherokee.’

‘Sam,’ she cried, whirling round, longing to see her brother’s familiar face, his red hair and kindly eyes.

But there was no one there.

She turned back to the dejected column tramping onwards to new land far away. Many of them wouldn’t get there. Sam had told her four thousand died on that winter march to Indian Territory. Now she was seeing them herself. Individual men and women. Men carrying bundles of possessions, women with babies and children clinging to their skirts.

Great cold drops of water fell from the clear sky and burnt her chest and shoulders. Others dropped at her feet. As she watched, the ground moved and flowers pressed through and bloomed on the surface of the dead land.

Most of the Cherokee moved silently with their eyes on the ground ahead of them, stony ground, cold and hard on bare feet, but suddenly, one woman looked straight at her, her eyes like two black coals sunk in her withered face. She held out a hand as if begging for help.

‘Is there nothing at all ye can do fer the poor woman?’

Rose heard the voice, a man’s voice, somehow familiar among all these strangers asking her to help, but she knew she could do nothing to help the woman. She might die. Or her children might. Sam had told her the only memorial to this long, bitter journey was a flower, a rose with white petals and a gold centre. Everywhere these people had passed on their way to Oklahoma, the white rose had sprung
up to mark The Vale of Tears. The Cherokee Rose, he’d called it.

She looked down at her feet. The little roses were springing up all around her.

It took no more than five minutes for Elizabeth to collect up what she needed from the shelves and cupboards in her kitchen, but the few moments it took to wrap the bottles from bedroom and sitting-room in clean, spoilt cloth seemed interminable to Sarah. She’d flown through the familiar house, found what was asked for immediately and could think of nothing but getting back again to Ballydown. Every minute seemed like an hour, a delay she could not bear.

Elizabeth moved quickly enough on the avenue, but she couldn’t match Sarah’s speed on the hill. Nor could she risk dropping the basket full of the precious remedies she’d gathered together.

‘No sign of the doctor,’ Sarah said sharply, as they slithered in the well-tramped snow by the garden gate.

‘We’ll do what we can till he comes,’ Elizabeth said reassuringly as she used the gate post to steady herself.

Sarah ran ahead and opened the door. The kitchen was still stone cold, but both gas lamps were now lit. Sam rose from his knees by the stove, a box of matches in his hand, his face pale, a dirty
streak across his forehead. He stood staring silently, his body stiff with tension as he watched them take off their capes.

‘Could you make a pot of tea, Sam?’ Elizabeth asked gently, as she cast a long glance at him.

‘Aye, surely,’ he said, grateful to have something to do. He picked up a kettle from the newly-lit stove and went towards the dairy.

Elizabeth heard Rose before she saw her. The harsh breathing vibrated as far as the small landing outside the bedroom door. It confirmed her worst fears.

She came to the bedside where John sat, his head bowed, his face tear-stained, holding one of Rose’s hands. Hannah, held the other.

‘Rose might do better sitting up,’ Elizabeth said quietly. ‘We’ll need all the pillows you can find,’ she added, nodding at Hannah and Sarah. ‘While there’s life there’s hope, John,’ she said softly. ‘Can you lift her right up for me.’