The Hamiltons of Ballydown (7 page)

He put his arms round her and lifted her as if she’d been a child, her face against his shoulder, her long, dark hair clinging to his jacket as they piled up the pillows, settled her back against them and tucked a blanket over her shoulders.

When she heard sounds outside, Sarah stuck her head out of the window.

‘It’s him. The one we saw yesterday. Hugh’s with him.’

They stood back from the bed as they heard the heavy tread of feet on the stairs and the doctor appeared, his riding cape still in place.

A small, squarish man in his late fifties, he nodded curtly to John and ignored Elizabeth and Hannah. Sarah had stepped behind the door to let him pass. Re-emerging, she stood watching him with a fixed, steely glint in her eyes as he parked his leather bag and took out his stethoscope.

He examined Rose’s chest, pressing the cold metal against her warm skin and listening, his lips pressed tightly together. He looked at her and shook his head.

‘Do you have other family nearby?’

John stared at him uncomprehendingly and said nothing.

‘My brother works in Belfast,’ said Hannah quietly.

‘Better send for him right away. The chest is filling up. There’s nothing I can do,’ he said abruptly, folding up the stethoscope, dropping it in the bag and snapping it shut.

‘Is there nothin’ at all you can do fer the poor woman?’ John asked desperately, jumping to his feet, his eyes dilated, his face tight with anxiety.

‘No, I fear not,’ he said coolly. ‘There is an infection for which we have no treatment. She might be more comfortable lying down,’ he added, with a slight backward glance as he picked up his bag and made his way downstairs.

Hugh had ensured that his fee awaited him on the table.

‘I did warn you the journey might be wasted,’ he said, as he picked up the coins and put them in his trouser pocket. ‘Good evening, Mr Sinton,’ he added politely, as he let himself out.

Hugh had been standing awkwardly in front of the stove, fidgeting restlessly and casting his eyes round the empty kitchen. At his words he dropped down into John’s armchair and buried his head in his hands, unable to fend off the weariness of the day and the strain of these last hours any longer. His body ached from the effort of riding, mounting and dismounting in snow with one leg always liable to give way under him. Being civil to a man whom he’d found it hard not to dislike, and trying desperately to set aside his own anxiety for Rose and the family had left him spent and discouraged.

His situation he now acknowledged. He was exhausted. But exhaustion was no cause for despair. Not only had he been taught that despair was a sin, but long ago he’d proved to his own satisfaction that despair leads nowhere. Even sitting on a chair, too tired to move, there must be some way he could help his friends. It was up to him to find it.

‘Tea, Hugh?’

He looked up into Sam’s face and saw someone
he hardly recognised, his face ash white, his voice little above a whisper. Sam the carefree one, the lad who always had a smile and an easy word had disappeared. It had probably happened the moment he’d stepped over the threshold of his parent’s room and seen his mother laid out on the bed.

‘Is the Doctor still with her?’ Sam asked, as he poured tea awkwardly from a very large pot.

‘No, he’s gone.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing to help us, Sam,’ replied Hugh, honestly. He took a long drink from his mug of tea, made up his mind and got to his feet. ‘I’m going up the hill to get Elizabeth. If there’s anything to be done, she’ll do it. Will you give me a hand up on the mare?’

‘Elizabeth’s here,’ said Sam shortly. ‘Sarah went for her. She’s been upstairs since just before the doctor came.’

‘Thank God for that, Sam,’ he said, with a huge sigh of relief, as he subsided again gratefully. ‘I’ll wait and see what she wants me to do. Stay or go, or fetch something, whatever would help, before I see to the mare. Now, come on, Sam, pour some of that tea for yourself and sit down with me here till we’re called for. Elizabeth knows what she’s about. I’m the living proof of that,’ he added encouragingly.

Rose was tired. Very tired. She’d spent all day scrubbing and cleaning and now it was nearly dark. She couldn’t go and leave it all behind, the garden Granny Sarah had cherished for so many years. Perhaps, if she made the effort to go out into the fresh night air she might feel less exhausted. The air in the house was unpleasant, moist and humid. There was a smell too, like what you got in hot weather when you had to boil towels, or working clothes stained with grease or oil. Not a very pleasant smell at all.

‘Come on now, Rose, another breath or two and you’ll feel better.’

She didn’t recognise the voice and she didn’t feel better. She would just lie back in her chair for a minute and close her eyes.

Granny Sarah was making lavender bags. Rose watched her. She’d laid out the stems to dry on the sideboard in the parlour and now she’d brought them back into the kitchen to draw the dry blooms from the shrivelled stems. The whole room was full of the spicy smell as she freed the purple flowers into a bowl ready to dish them out into the little bags she’d made. The pieces of ribbon to tie them were cut and waiting.

‘Lavender lifts the spirits,’ she said, looking across at her, her eyes twinkling.

Rose smiled to herself. If only that noisy machine outside would stop its thumping she probably
would feel better. It must be Robinson’s thresher. If it was, it would go on till darkness fell. But then she’d sleep. All she wanted to do was sleep.

Elizabeth looked from Rose’s colourless face to John’s gaunt and tear-stained one. Then she glanced at Hannah and Sarah. Above the harsh, effortfull rhythm of Rose’s breathing, she could hear the murmur of voices downstairs, but not what was being said. The front door closed, feet tramped the churned up path. The high pitched whinny was most certainly the doctor’s horse. He was gone and with him what hope he might have brought. She was in little doubt now that whatever she herself might do the outcome was between Rose and her Maker.

‘Hannah,’ she said softly, ‘I need a bowl of hot water, a towel and the Friar’s Balsam from my basket. I also need you to start making a hot meal. I had some supper with Mrs Lappin, but no one else here has had a proper meal all day. Can you manage that?’

Hannah nodded silently and was out of the room in moments.

‘What can I do?’ demanded Sarah.

‘Go and tell Hugh to make up some brandy and hot water for your father. And then see what you can do to help Hannah. There’ll be vegetables to prepare.’

John opened his mouth to protest and then
closed it again. One look at Elizabeth’s face told him she’d not give up hope till all was lost. He gathered himself and waited to see what part she had for him.

‘I’ll need you to help me when the balsam is ready,’ she said steadily, ‘but please go down and speak a word to Hugh. He’ll be exhausted by now and maybe not able to keep up heart. Encourage him,’ she said, as she put her hand on Rose’s forehead and smoothed back her tangled hair.

In the few moments when she was alone with Rose, Elizabeth prayed. Once, in her schooldays, in an account of the English Civil War, she’d read the prayer one of the commanders was supposed to have offered up before a major battle. She’d never forgotten the simple words. ‘Lord, if I forget You this day, do not Thou forget me.’ Her own prayer was not much longer, but there was a difference. She was in no danger of forgetting God, for she was sure that He was Rose’s only hope. Her own part was simply to do His will. So she asked for guidance at all times through the evening and through the long night which might lie ahead.

When she opened her eyes, Hannah was coming through the door with a steaming bowl of water, a towel over her arm. Sarah followed behind with the bottle of Friar’s Balsam.

‘Da wants to know what you think we should do about Jamie?’ Hannah began, as she set the bowl down on Rose’s dressing table. ‘Hugh says he’ll go
up to Belfast on the train and bring him back. Sam says he’ll go. He heard this afternoon there’s no snow in Belfast. They could be back together on the last train.’

Elizabeth stood up and counted drops into the boiling water.

‘Tell your father, I’d rather Sam went. I might need Hugh here. And I need one of them now, while you girls make the meal. See you give Sam something he can eat on the train,’ she said quickly, as she stirred her mixture. ‘Hurry now, I need John or Hugh. Either of them.’

The hours passed. In the bedroom, Elizabeth worked out a routine that she hoped might ease the rough, noisy breathing. Friar’s Balsam to keep the upper chest moist and open. Lavender to comfort her distress. It was Charles who had given her the idea of using lavender. He’d insisted that a body was much more likely to give up its struggle if it felt there was no comfort to be had. For want of it, he’d seen unhappy women die in a difficult labour where others in greater straits had pulled through. Even on the battlefield, he’d read, a man with a sweetheart, a wife, or a family, could often sustain a wound that brought death to another, but he did need support and comfort.

By ten o’clock the heat from the gas lamps and the steam from bowls of boiling water had made the
bedroom moist and warm. Elizabeth was pleased that Rose was warmer to the touch, but she herself found the damp warmth was making her sleepy.

‘John, I need a breath of fresh air,’ she said quietly, as she stood up. ‘I’ll only be gone a few minutes. Is that all right?’

‘Aye. She seems steady enough, even if she’s no better,’ he said calmly.

‘It’s a long journey, John, if she can make it. Every hour is an achievement.’

She closed the door gently behind her and went downstairs. Hugh was sitting by the blazing fire, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes fixed on the carved American clock on the wall by the dairy door. Hannah was in her mother’s chair opposite him, sewing. Only the set of her shoulders told her she was making an effort for the sake of Sarah, who was sitting on a low chair, staring into the fire and yawning hugely.

Hugh was praying, of course. That was how he always prayed when he had a need and there were people present.

She went out through the diary and across the back of the house to the privy. From the stable, she heard the small movements of Dolly and Hugh’s mare, Bess. Black as night was Bess, hence her name. And tonight
was
black. No moon, the stars lost beyond thick cloud.

She stood for a moment in the cold, frosty air,
drawing the freshness into her lungs, relaxing the tension in her shoulders and stretching her legs, cramped with sitting for so long, so close to the bed. She had no way of knowing if fluid was still gathering in Rose’s lungs and she knew no way of stopping it if it was. Only one more remedy still sat in her basket. A large jar of sprigs of dried rosemary.

‘Rose and Mary,’ she said aloud, suddenly seeing the familiar name as two names. The herb that grew so prolifically in the sunniest part of the garden at Rathdrum was named for Rose herself and for her dear friend Mary, who had died in the Armagh disaster.

‘Life and death, such close companions,’ she whispered to herself, as she stared up at the starless sky. As they would be tonight. She wondered if John, or Hannah, or Sam, knew how significant the later small hours would be, the hours when the body’s reserves were at their lowest and the spirit most likely to slip away.

Across the valley beyond Dolly’s field, she saw a point of light in the deep darkness. Somewhere in the hamlet of Lisnaree, there were people not yet abed. Perhaps the family of that child Hugh had told her about, the one he’d driven to the dispensary when Sarah came running to fetch him. Poor child. Whatever ailed it, it stood small chance of living, so frail its little body. So Sarah had said. Wide-eyed and angry she’d been, Hugh had told her, later that
evening. She’d blamed him for the woman’s need to walk to Rathdrum to fetch a ticket.

Poor Hugh, it had vexed him to see Sarah so upset. She’d meant to talk to Rose about it this morning. Ask her what best to do. How they could explain things to Sarah and comfort Hugh. All that was irrelevant now. Their hurt would be as nothing if they were both to lose Rose.

She took one more deep breath to clear her head of sleep, shivered, and went back to meet whatever the night might bring.

Elizabeth didn’t know what time the last train left Belfast for Banbridge, but it stopped at all the stations on the way and there was a two mile walk at the end of it, so it might well be midnight before Sam and Jamie arrived back at Ballydown. With the main road icy and the snow cover on the hill now freezing, it could be even later. She sighed and went back into the house.

After the deep darkness of the night, it took some moments to adjust to the dazzle of light from the gas lamps. Three pairs of eyes looked up expectantly as she came into the kitchen. She paused by the table, looked around and saw her basket had been placed carefully on a chair by the door. She stepped across and brought it into the light.

‘Hannah dear, I’d like you to make up a mixture of elderflower wine and honey. It needs to be warm but not hot, sweet but not sickly. A cupful would do to begin with. And a small teaspoon. Good girl,’ she added encouragingly, as Hannah rolled up her
sewing, got to her feet and took the bottle and jar from her hands.

Poor girl. She saw how pale and immobile Hannah’s face had become, but Sarah looked even worse. Even paler than her sister, she had great dark circles under her eyes. She had jumped up from her chair the moment she’d appeared, ready to do whatever she might ask.

‘Sarah, I need two people to sit with me all night. Your father will be one, for I know he won’t leave your mother, but it may be a long night, so I shall ask Hannah to sit with us until Sam and Jamie get back. I’ll send Hannah to rest then. I’ll need you about two o’clock. Then we’ll start all over again,’ she explained quietly. ‘What I want you to do now is go to bed and sleep, so you’ll be fresh when everyone else is tired. If Ma gets worse I’ll call you immediately, you’re only a step away.’

To her great surprise, Sarah came and hugged her, kissed her sleepily and went upstairs without another word.

Hannah had taken the elderflower and honey out to the dairy where the mixture would be easier to make on the gas ring. Through the open door, Elizabeth could hear her small body movements as she fetched a saucepan and struck a match. There was a tiny chink from a spoon as she measured the liquid from the bottle and jar.

‘And what of me, Elizabeth?’ said Hugh softly,
his eyes upon her, full of all the questions he would not put into words.

She smiled warmly and touched his cheek, grateful to share her burden if only for a single moment.

‘You’ve been doing just what I wanted,’ she said, softer still. ‘Pray for me too, that my strength will serve.’

‘Is there
any
hope?’

‘Just what we make for her, for the moment,’ she said quickly, moving away from him and sorting items from her basket as Hannah came back into the room.

‘Hugh, I want you to make up a rub,’ she said, in as normal a voice as she could manage, taking out a large jar full of tiny, dried sprigs. ‘Put the rosemary in the oven till its well warm, but not hot. Then crush it in a dish with the back of a spoon. Mix it with this,’ she added, producing a small jar of goose fat. ‘It’s the oil you need, not the little spikes themselves, so pick out as many as you can after you’ve mixed it. One of us will come down for it later when we’ve tried the elderflower and honey,’ she added, as he pushed himself awkwardly to his feet.

Sam had been in Belfast a number of times, both with his father and with Hugh, but he’d never travelled to the city on his own, nor visited his brother at
his recently acquired lodgings. Before he left the house, he wrote down the new address carefully, even though he’d memorised it as soon as Jamie told them about his move. He’d also extracted some battered notes from the shiny, new leather wallet in the top pocket of his best jacket where he kept his savings until he felt it was worth the trouble of taking them to the bank.

The Belfast carriers had told him there was no snow in the city, and they were right, but as he came out onto the steps of the Great Northern Station, he reckoned it was colder in the city than in Banbridge. A bitter wind gusted down over the edge of the Antrim Hills and poured along the empty streets like floodwater, sweeping up the fragments of straw from horses nosebags and the torn fragments of posters once attached to walls and doors.

When he crossed Great Victoria Street from the station, to his amazement, there wasn’t a soul in sight. He’d walked almost the whole way to the White Linen Hall before he met a scurrying figure who was able to tell him where he could find the nearest cab rank.

It was a long, cold wait before he heard the clatter of hooves and exchanged words with a cloaked figure hunched up on the box.

‘Ye’d have been quicker taking the tram from Carlisle Circus,’ said the driver, looking down at Sam.

‘I might,’ said Sam agreeably, grateful to see the prospect of progress at last, ‘but I don’t know the city well. And forby, I need ye to wait to bring my brother and me back to catch the last train for Banbridge.’

‘Aye well,’ said the man, not committing himself. ‘It’s a fair step to the place ye want. It’ll cost ye a bit.’

Sam nodded. He’d been warned about cab drivers who overcharged, but he hadn’t time to argue. He urged him to make speed, got into the cab and sat down.

He’d never been in a hire cab before and he was not impressed. It bumped and creaked over the rough surface of the road. Worse still, it moved so slowly, he became more and more anxious, for the journey seemed to be taking an enormous length of time. Jamie had said his digs were convenient for the shipyard and the trams ran regularly from a terminus nearby. Sam could now make out the dark tracery of masts and rigging of ships towering over the shops as they crossed a bridge but he saw no sign of tramlines.

There were rows of worker’s houses, small and close together, the lights from their windows spilling out into empty, silent streets. Here and there, a mill building rose like a cliff, its dark face pierced with square patches of light, the noise of looms so loud he could feel their vibration on the cold, heavy air.

Adrift in the middle of a city, travelling from one unknown place to another, with no familiar landmark anywhere to be seen, Sam felt desolate. He wished now he’d let Hugh come. Maybe there was nothing he could do for his mother at home, but he wished passionately he’d never left her. He could be standing in a corner of the bedroom where she lay, her face deathly pale, her slight shoulders moving with the harshness of her breathing, her long, dark hair falling limp around her.

When he was a little boy, he used to comb her hair. He could still remember the first day Hannah asked if she could comb Ma’s hair. Ma had said yes, so he’d asked too. She’d laughed and said, ‘
Why not. Am I not the lucky one to have two assistants to dress my hair, when Lady Anne herself has only one?
’

Sam wiped his tears absently with his sleeve and looked at his watch. It was already after nine o’clock and the cab was going yet more slowly because of the steepness of the road.

‘There yar. Fifty-six. There’s no lights on. I hafta charge for waitin.’

‘I’ll only be a minute or two,’ Sam reassured him, as he jumped down and made for the tall, brick house sitting behind a privet hedge.

He knocked and waited. Then knocked again. Surely there must be someone at home. The fanlight above his head produced a faint gleam as a light
went on somewhere within. The letterbox rattled and from within came a thin, querulous voice.

‘Who is it? Have you forgotten your key?’ a woman asked.

Through the panels of roughened glass, Sam could see she was bending her mouth to the open letterbox.

‘My name’s Sam Hamilton. I want to speak to my brother Jamie. Is he in?’ he asked, bending down to the small aperture.

‘No, he’s not.’

‘Well, where’s he gone? Tell me where I can find him,’ Sam went on, a note of desperation creeping into his voice.

‘Sure how would I know? I mind my own business,’ she said huffily. ‘Why do you want him at this hour when respectable people are in bed?’

‘Our mother’s ill. Very ill. The doctor said to get him. If I don’t get him soon, I’ll miss the last train back to Banbridge.’

‘Banbridge, dear save us,’ she said, her careful pronunciation falling foul of her surprise at the thought of such a journey. ‘Well, I’m sorry for you, young man, but I can’t help. He and some of the other lads he works with have gone out. They go off regular every few Fridays but whether it’s the pub, or gaming, or what, I don’t know. They don’t tell me. But he’ll not be back for an hour or more, I’d say.’

‘Will ye give him a message?’ Sam asked, suddenly aware of the minutes ticking away.

‘I will.’

‘Tell him Sam says “Get the first train home in the mornin’.”’

‘Is that all?’

‘Aye.’

He straightened up as the letterbox dropped shut, then tramped down the path to where the cab waited, the horse blowing in the cold air.

‘Back to the station as fast as ye can, like a good man. I must catch that train,’ he said urgently to the driver.

‘Did ye not get him?’

‘No, I didn’t. So I must get back m’self. Do your best for me an’ I’ll see ye right,’ he said, as he jumped in and buried his face in his hands.

It wasn’t reasonable at all to be annoyed that Jamie was out with his friends and had told no one where he was going, but Sam didn’t feel reasonable. He didn’t know why, but for the first time in his life he felt angry with Jamie, the big brother he had always loved and admired. If he missed that train and couldn’t get back home he’d be angrier still.

There was no response at all when Elizabeth tried Rose with a little of Hannah’s mixture on a spoon. Her lips were stiff. She was so far away in her
thoughts they responded neither to the warmth nor the sweetness. The mixture simply trickled out of the edge of her mouth to be wiped gently away with a damp cloth.

Her breathing seemed to have lost a little of its harshness, but the fact that it was a little quieter was no comfort to the three who kept watch. It was also a little slower. John and Hannah could see for themselves perfectly well what Elizabeth knew already. Rose was tiring. Breathing was such an effort, it had become slower and shallower.

‘I think we’ll try the rosemary now,’ she said steadily, when two further hourly applications of balsam and lavender appeared to have made no significant improvement.

They moved all the pillows. While John supported Rose, Hannah and Elizabeth undid her nightgown and left her back and chest exposed. There was no danger of Rose feeling cold for the room was too warm for the comfort of those who sat by the bed. John regularly wiped sweat from his forehead and Hannah’s paleness was hidden by a rosy flush.

Elizabeth rolled up her sleeves, lathered her hands and began massaging shoulders and upper chest alternately. Such narrow shoulders to carry all the weight of a family’s need, not undernourished, simply lightly made, the small breasts shapely and still firm, the waist so narrow it was no more
than the handspans of the skirt she’d worn at her wedding.

She thought of the child who’d held her baby brother in the straw-lined cart when her parents walked away from the wreckage of their home in Ardtur. Rose had told her how they’d survived the bitter cold of that late April day and the weeks that followed when their home was a kind neighbour’s barn. Rose had survived that hardship, she reflected, but then the infection attacking her chest was a very different enemy. It couldn’t be escaped by taking to the road and seeking shelter elsewhere.

From downstairs, the click of a door latch and the sound of voices echoed up through the stairwell. John and Hannah listened intently as Elizabeth concentrated on what she was doing, easing the tightened muscles of the shoulders, drawing her long fingers up over the rib cage and encouraging the weary chest muscles to continue their work. Neither Hannah nor John said a word till she’d wiped the remaining traces of the rub from Rose’s warm skin and fastened up her nightgown.

‘That’s Sam back,’ said Hannah, ‘but I don’t hear Jamie.’

‘John, will you hold Rose forward till I get the pillows ready?’

He took her in his arms again. Elizabeth arranged the pillows and waited. For several minutes she
stood silent, watching him, thinking he might not be able to let her go, but then, very gently, he kissed her cheeks and placed her against the mound of pillows that kept her upright.

‘Go down and see Sam and stretch your legs, John,’ she said quietly. ‘She’s all right for the moment.’

Rose couldn’t think why for the life of her she’d come. Her feet were sore and bleeding and she was so out of breath there was pain in her chest with every gasp she took, but now she was here she might as well look.

‘Just where Owen said it would be,’ she whispered to herself.

The dark, square castle rose on a promontory jutting out into the lough, the only building in the whole long valley. A road ran close to the loughside, a dusty, beige line cutting through the greens and browns of the shore and the clumps of vegetation growing by the water’s edge. Around the castle itself, there were trees and a walled garden. As she watched, a carriage appeared, moving briskly along the new road until it reached the castle itself. It turned into the great open space by the main entrance and stopped. Grooms and footmen came running out to attend to horses and passengers.

‘So you’ve come back too,’ said a voice at her side.

‘Owen Friel,’ she gasped, startled and amazed. ‘I thought you were in America with Danny Lawn.’

To her surprise, he didn’t reply, he just stood looking down at the castle. Long, long ago, when they were both children, she’d climbed the mountain to see the castle, but it hadn’t even been built then. She’d been so exhausted after the climb, Owen had carried her part of the way home.

‘That’s Her Ladyship,’ he said abruptly, as a woman emerged from the coach. ‘Adair’s dead ten years or more and they say she loves this place. She’s good to the tenants and takes care of them. Not much good to us now, Rose. Or Danny either.’

Danny was standing on her other side. He’d been a big, awkward lad, no use at schoolwork, but physically strong and so good-natured he’d do anything for anybody. He seemed little changed since she’d last seen him more than thirty years ago, except for the strange clothes he wore. A two piece suit of rough, beige coloured cloth with markings on it she couldn’t make out. It was a bit like a uniform, but not as well made. He stared out over the lough, apparently unaware of her presence.