The Hamiltons of Ballydown

by Anne Doughty

  I was so busy taking pictures I didn’t get anything to eat, but when I stopped Hugh appeared with a huge plate of all my favourite things and a glass of wine. He said if I wanted to take more pictures I was to sip it slowly with the food. A good thing he said that. I was terribly thirsty by then. I could easily have drunk it all up. What would your dear Teddy say if I had camera shake from drinking wine?

  I took pictures of everybody, but no big groups. One of Ma, straightening Elizabeth’s dress, one of Richard talking to Da and Hugh. That sort of thing. Not those awful groups that get made into postcards. I’d hate to be stamped on the back and dropped through a letter box.

  Sam is well and still loves his new job. Da bought him a bicycle for getting to work and last time he came home he asked me to go over some weekend, so we could go riding round that part of the world. I didn’t know I could take my bicycle on the train, but I can. Now the weather is so much better I can start taking pictures again.

  I also must tell you that I have been offered a job! I am so delighted. I don’t get any pay, but I’ll have all my expenses plus a small fee. Hugh wants me to start work on the four mills, building up a picture of each of them. Not just the machinery and the buildings themselves, but the people and the things they do.

  He keeps mentioning that picture I took at Ashley Hall of the oldest gardener picking the peach. He says he wants the equivalent with all the different processes. Unfortunately, he also wants written notes to accompany the pictures which is a bit too much like school, but never mind. It means I can have all the film I need and lots of practice. Do tell Teddy I’m going to save up for a plate camera. He is quite right, there are some things it does very well that you can’t manage with a Kodak.

  I can hardly believe it’s only six weeks till you set out for home. I’m longing to see you, even if it is for such a short time. Will Teddy be able to come and meet you in London before you come on here? And have you finally fixed the date? If it has to be September, I shall play truant. I simply cannot miss your wedding. Give my love to Marianne. I owe her a letter. I’ve ordered extra prints of Elizabeth’s wedding. If they arrive soon, I’ll put them into her letter and you can share them. Write soon,

  Fondest love from us all, but especially from me, to both of you,

  Sarah

  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.

  ‘Aye, it’s due, from the last I heerd of it,’ John replied steadily.

  ‘Jamie’s ship, I’ve always called it,’ Hugh said, tightening his lips.

  He remembered the summer day in ’96 when they’d all climbed the wall to watch Sam steaming past in the new Fowler. Delighted by Sam’s achievement, he’d thought immediately of Jamie. ‘We’ll have to do better than a wall to stand on when they launch Jamie’s ship,’ he’d said then.

  ‘Maybe there’ll be one waiting for you at lunchtime,’ he went on quickly.

  John shook his head.

  ‘Ach, I don’t think it’s very likely, Hugh. Sure it’s sixteen months now since we last saw him. We’ve had no word at all. Not so much as a wee note to his mother for the Christmas present and the two birthday presents she’s sent him. Even if there were an invitation, I wouldn’t have the heart to go, unless there were a letter from Jamie himself alongside of it.’

  ‘I really can’t think why I’ve been invited.’

  ‘Sure all the big manufacturers has likely been asked,’ John replied. ‘There’ll be a lot of publicity for it, an’ people over from England and abroad. Ye ought to go Hugh,’ he added more firmly. ‘It’s a historic occasion. She’s a fine ship and a credit to Ulster. Don’t let our sorrow put you off. Sure life has to go on,’ he said, getting up from his chair and heading back for the workshop.

  ‘John, it says and party, maximum four,’ Hugh added, as he caught up with him. ‘Would you and Rose, and Sarah, not come with me if you don’t get an invitation of your own. You’re quite right, it is a historic occasion. It would be something for Sarah to tell her grandchildren about. See what Rose says and I’ll maybe walk down tonight to see what you’ve decided,’ he ended, as he took up his drawings and collected his thoughts.

  There was no launch invitation among the morning’s post at Ballydown, just a postcard from Hannah, a note from Elizabeth and a letter for Sarah from Marianne.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ John asked, as they sat down together.

  ‘I don’t think we should go,’ she said quietly. ‘It wouldn’t do any of us any good if we met up by accident,’ she went on, shaking her head. ‘But it’d be a pity if Hugh doesn’t go. He’s quite right about it being an important occasion. It’s the world’s biggest ship, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, it is. They say she’ll beat the German one on the Atlantic run when she’s finished. And there’s others comin’ on behind her. D’ye think Sarah wou’d enjoy that?’

  ‘Well, there’s no harm in asking, as the saying is,’ said Rose laughing. ‘Maybe we should let Hugh ask her himself, if he has a mind to. Will he be down tonight?’

  ‘He said he might, but I’ll have to walk up this afternoon some time. I left my spectacles on the workbench. Sure I can’t read the newspaper now wi’out them,’ he added ruefully. ‘I’ll tell him what ye’ve said and leave it up to him.’

  The first week of January 1899 was wild and stormy but not particularly cold, but the following week the storms died down and on the second Saturday in the month, the day of the launch, the air was bright and dry with hints of sun and no threat of rain.

  Hugh had asked Sarah if she would like to go and Sarah had jumped at the chance. Rose noted that she was looking forward to the outing with a great deal more anticipation than she had to the school dance.

  As Hugh had lost no time at all in claiming his tickets, they were directed to seats half way up the specially constructed grandstand alongside the Victoria channel. From where they sat, not only could they see the huge, elegant shape of the ship almost directly in front of them, but also the smaller, beflagged and bedecked pavilion a little distance awa
y, where the lords and ladies, distinguished guests and foreign visitors, would take their seats.

  ‘Hugh, isn’t this exciting?’ Sarah exclaimed, as they sat down and she took in the scene with one long-sweeping glance.

  ‘Yes, I have to admit it is,’ he replied laughing. ‘There’s an extraordinary atmosphere. I must say I hadn’t expected so many people. No wonder we had to wait so long for a cab at the station.’

  ‘Special trains from all over Ulster,’ she replied promptly, running her eyes over the gleaming hull. ‘What time does it happen?’ she went on as she studied the tiny figures on the deck above.

  ‘Eleven, I think. But nothing will happen till all those seats are full,’ he said, smiling and nodding towards the pavilion.

  ‘I don’t think I can do much in the way of a picture,’ she said, opening up her camera. ‘She’s too big. But I’d like to take some pictures of the crowd and I might just catch the wave. Do you know about displacement waves?’

  ‘No,’ said Hugh grinning. ‘But I’m sure you do. I’m listening,’ he said, as he sat back in his seat and waited.

  She laughed up at him, thinking what a lovely smile he had when he was happy. She’d observed that Hugh wasn’t always happy. In fact, she had come to the conclusion that he was often rather unhappy though he concealed it awfully well. If ever she dropped into the workshop unexpectedly she’d catch a look in his eyes that made her wonder if he was as bored with machines and running mills as she was with school. She also noticed how quickly the look disappeared because he seemed always so pleased to see her. Which was nice. But it didn’t mean that the sad look wasn’t there when there was no one to distract him.

  On the still air, voices carried long distances. They heard instructions being given to the shipwrights by megaphone and picked up the witty comments of those in the crowd who were impatient for proceedings to begin. At regular intervals, there were great booming explosions which turned out to be salutes in honour of the small parties of distinguished guests arriving at the pavilion to their left.