For Many a Long Day

by Anne Doughty

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘You’re asking me if I think you and me would make a good pair,’ he said, his blue eyes entirely concentrated on her face.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, yes we would, but that would mean you’d have to marry me.’

  She looked him steadily in the eye and said nothing.

  ‘D’you mean, you’re sayin’ you’ll marry me?’

  ‘Yes, I do. If that’s a proposal, then the answer is yes.’

  For a moment he sat stunned, unable to grasp his good fortune. His father had told him to wait. His Granny had told him not to hurry her. And he’d waited as best he could, knowing he would always love this woman whether she would have him or not. And now she’d said she’d have him. With Ellie, there’d be no going back.

  He slipped his arm round her and kissed her.

  ‘Ellie, I want to tell the whole world. Do you mind?’

  For a moment, she didn’t quite grasp what he meant, but then he took her by the hand and led her downstairs back into the ballroom. It began to dawn on her as he looked around, found the person he wanted, led her across to him and bent to speak into his ear.

  Ellie was amused to see the slow smile and the bright gleam in his eye. Such a proper little man, the Club Secretary, so formal and yet so good-natured, he was now composing his features as the dance ended and the music stopped.

  ‘Stay right where you both are,’ he said firmly, patting Ellie on the arm before he ran lightly up the steps onto the platform, spoke to the large Master-of-Ceremonies and had the microphone lowered by at least a foot.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, in his usual slightly clipped and precise tone, ‘you are aware that, for our Annual Dance this year we have been forced to break with tradition. Instead of being May, we are now in September. I am, however, glad to tell you that we appear to have established an important new tradition,’ he continued, pausing for effect.

  ‘Last year, the band, who have given us such pleasure, kindly agreed to play requests from the floor. I am happy to be able to make the first request myself. I should like them to play again this year; ‘If you were the only girl in the world,’ this time to celebrate the engagement of Ellie Scott and Sam Hamilton.’

  Ellie thought she would never till the end of her life forget the shouts and cheers and clapping that completely drowned out the band for the first bars of the song. The floor cleared, as it had for Daisy and Frank, and she and Sam stepped out together, moving as they always did, as if they’d been dancing together all their lives.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Of all the people who heard the news of Ellie and Sam’s engagement in the days that followed the Annual Dance, there was only one who was not truly delighted. Charlie Freeburn expressed the most genuine of good wishes and did his best to feel pleased at what was clearly a happy match, but he found it hard to do other than regret that Ellie Scott would no longer brighten his life with her quiet presence, her smiles and gentle gaiety.

  He did feel somewhat comforted when she said it would probably be some time before they could afford to get married and he felt better still when she went on to say they had the usual problem of having nowhere to live.

  ‘I think I might be able to be of some assistance to you there, Miss Scott,’ he said, brightening visibly. ‘Do you know Edward Street?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she replied, wondering what could possibly be coming next.

  ‘I have quite recently purchased a couple of properties there,’ he said in a rather casual fashion, as if not to make too much of the fact that he was now buying property, ‘three in fact, adjoining each other. They do all have what are known as ‘sitting tenants’, he explained, ‘but one family is definitely finding the house too small and looking for something larger. One is occupied by a very elderly lady and one by a young couple planning to emigrate next year. I think we could be sure of finding something for you, if you thought the property suitable.’

  Ellie did. A well-built brick terrace house, small, but with a yard at the back, the windows on that side looking out over playing fields. At the front, a wide, little-used street running between Cathedral Road and Abbey Street and only a short walk from both the shops and Sleators garage.

  ‘Of course, all these properties have been somewhat neglected,’ he went on, ‘they do need to be repaired and redecorated, which is my responsibility, of course. Perhaps that is actually a good thing,’ he said, smiling as the thought occurred to him, ‘then you can chose your own colours for paint and wallpaper.’

  Ellie could hardly wait to tell Sam. It would make up entirely for the very bad time he’d given himself after two days of going round excitedly sharing his good news with any friend or acquaintance that crossed his path.

  ‘Ellie, I’ve some terrible bad news for ye,’ he said, as they got out of sight of the forge and headed for the lane leading up to Church Hill.

  She looked at him, startled, but failed to imagine anything that could have occurred since Friday night to make him look so distraught.

  ‘You married someone else yesterday?’ she said quickly.

  ‘Oh Ellie, it’s not a joke. I should have told you before you said yes. Ellie, I’ve no money.’

  Ellie laughed.

  ‘Sam, I wasn’t actually marrying you for your money, but just as a matter of interest, what have you been doing with it all?’

  ‘Well, you know about the bike, and that’s still worth not far off what I paid for it, but all the rest I’d saved up for that furniture I told you about, I gave to Emily and Kevin to help them get the business started,’ he said, with a great sigh.

  ‘Good for you,’ she said promptly. ‘I nearly gave my savings to Daisy when we thought the bailiffs were coming, only I knew it wasn’t enough anyway. How much do you have?’

  She laughed again when he told her.

  ‘Oh, Sam dear, that still seems an awful lot to me. When did you start saving again?’

  ‘The night you said I’d be in with a chance.’

  ‘You’ve done awfully well,’ she said honestly. ‘I’ve got about the same, but it’s taken me four years. It’s only in the last year since my salary was raised that its grown a bit faster. If I did another year, we wouldn’t be so badly off at all.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t mind having to work another year?’

  Ellie turned and looked at him full in the face.

  ‘Sam Hamilton, the only thing I’ll mind for the rest of my life is not being with you. But if we could both manage to save for a year it would give us a better start, wouldn’t it?’

  Ellie and Sam’s wedding a year later was an even smaller affair than Daisy and Frank’s had been, but it was an equally happy occasion and the joy of the young couple as they welcomed their guests to their own new home in Edward Street was clear to everyone.

  They had worked so hard on the house, helped well beyond the call of duty by their landlord. Weeks before the wedding, they had already recreated Ellie’s garden in the narrow backyard. For the marriage service itself, she was able to make her posy with Hamilton’s Pink, creamy-white carnations and two shades of heather and the bows and streamers she had saved from Daisy’s own bouquet.

  There was one big difference, however, between their respective weddings. While Daisy and Frank had spent only two nights in a hotel in Bangor, before setting off for Fivemiletown, Ellie and Sam drove off from Edward Street in a gleaming blue, three-seater Lagonda for a week’s touring in the west of Ireland.

  They had certainly not planned such an adventure, but a month before the wedding a present arrived from Rose. They found enclosed in the carefully packed box of china, the tea set she herself had used for thirty years and an envelope addressed to Sam containing a note and a cheque.

  My dear Sam,

  As I know you both quite separately, as grandson and as dear friend, I decided you ought to receive TWO wedding presents. Then I had a better idea. I may be somewhat forgetful at time
s but I’m very grateful that my mind does still function perfectly well.

  My dear Ellie has never seen what I call a proper mountain and more particularly she has never seen MY mountains. Kerry, I know, is too far away for a week’s holiday, but you could take her to Donegal and then down to Sligo where my Lady Anne’s husband owned so much land and then perhaps you might go on to Clare and watch the sun go down on Galway Bay, as the song has it.

  The enclosed cheque would serve to hire a motor. I would love to think of Sam driving something he could never afford to buy like my dear John did when we finally went to Kerry. I remember it was a Lagonda, though I confess I still know very little about motors however much I did try to grasp all I was told over many years.

  Please, to humour me, go and enjoy the freedom of not counting your pennies. It’s only for a week and perhaps the only time in your life you will not have to count pennies. Please do bring back something special, an object, a particular memory, something you will always have.

  I shall think of you on your special day and on your travels and hope to see you soon after you come back

  With the most loving good wishes to you both,

  Rose

  At last Ellie understood just why Rose loved her mountains so much. Donegal was magnificent in October, the heather still bright on the hillsides, the valleys a rich green, the moving clouds changing the mountain slopes from sombre masses into glowing rock faces as the sun came and went. The sea was ever with them, the Atlantic itself, only a name in a battered atlas, now sometimes a brilliant blue or turquoise, now a wild, heaving mass dashing against cliffs, throwing spray so high that they saw rainbows before the brilliant drops fell back again into the water below, now so calm the sea birds rode on it like little celluloid toys.

  Sam drove and drove and enjoyed every mile, pressing on as much as Ellie would let him. He took joy in her delight with each new vista, the varied colour and texture of a part of Ireland of which she had only read.

  At the end of their fourth day, full of wind and sun, they got as far as the Cliffs of Moher. Everyone had said that if they got as far as County Clare they must see the famous cliffs. They parked in a rough space with a single strand of barbed wire to prevent them from falling over the precipitous edge. They stared across at the layers of rock piled up like thick pages in a book and gazed up at the wide sky arcing from the land behind them to the furthest horizon. In the middle distance the Aran Islands lay quiet in the westering sun, their whitewashed cottages and pale stone walls reflected the light back so strongly they were visible across miles of dark blue ocean.

  In a field nearby, less dramatic than the shadowy cliffs, they spread a rug, poured tea from a flask, ate the last piece of their wedding cake and gazed out towards the setting sun.

  ‘Well, we can tell Granny we did it. We got as far as Clare and we watched the sun go down on Galway Bay,’ Sam said quietly. ‘Are you happy, Ellie?’

  ‘I’ve never been so happy in all my life,’ she said simply.

  For a long time they sat quiet, then Sam reminded her they would have to go soon for they still had to find a place to spend the night. Tomorrow they’d have to turn for home.

  ‘Sam, do you remember Rose asked us to bring something special back, an object, or a memory …’

  ‘Aye, I do. We’ll have a lot of memories, won’t we?’

  She nodded happily, slipping her arm round his neck.

  ‘Sam, I’d like to bring this back, you and me here, looking out into the far distance.’ She paused. ‘Do you know what else I’d like?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If we have a wee girl, I’d like to call her Clare, then we’ll have this day, all day and every day as long as we live.’

  Sam nodded slowly.

  ‘I think that’s a great idea, just great,’ he said taking her in his arms.

  By one of those coincidences which often happen but which many people refuse to believe, their first child was born almost a year later on the day of her parent’s first wedding anniversary, the eighth of October, 1936.

  It was a long labour and having had to leave her in the Nursing Home on The Mall, late in the evening, Sam was beside himself with lack of sleep when at 7.30 next morning, he heard the bars of a bicycle scrape against the wall next to the front door as he stood drinking a cup of tea by way of breakfast.

  ‘It’s a wee girl, Sam,’ said the elderly woman standing on the doorstep, ‘she’s a brave girl, your Ellie. It was hard, but she’s all right,’ she added quickly, seeing the look on his face. ‘About half an hour ago. She’s asleep, but you can come down from work an’ see her then. I’m away home to m’bed.’

  ‘Thank you, Nurse, thank you. It was good of you to come up here out of your way.’

  ‘Not at all. Now away man and eat a good breakfast, for you look just dreadful,’ she said, wheeling her bicycle into the street and riding off.

  Sam was so unable to collect his wits that he went and asked John Sleator for the day off. He came home, cut a posy of flowers for Ellie and left them at the nursing home, then collected change for the telephone in the Post Office. He rang Freeburns and spoke to Susie. Rang Irish Road Motors and told his father. Rang Cranmore Park and asked for Rose.

  ‘She’s not just feeling too good, Mr Hamilton. Mr James has sent for the Doctor. Could you perhaps ring again or can we ring you?’ the housekeeper said. ‘It’s lovely news and she’ll be delighted, but she’s asleep at the moment.’

  A shadow passed across Sam’s mind, but he set it aside, got out his bicycle and made the forge in record time.

  ‘Ach dear,’ said Robert, ‘an’ both well?’

  ‘Aye fine,’ Sam reassured him. ‘Nurse herself came an’ told me on her way home from night duty.’

  ‘Have ye any ideas about what’ll ye’ll call the wee lassie?’ asked Robert suddenly, rubbing at something he seemed to have got in his eye.

  ‘Indeed yes, we have the name ready. Clare. And Alison as well, just in case she doesn’t like Clare when she grows up. That gives her a choice.’

  ‘Clare Hamilton,’ said Robert nodding. ‘That sounds nice. Just wait till I tell Charlie Running I’m a Granda with a wee girl.’

  It was obvious to everyone that Rose was fading. She slept a lot, though she was still perfectly coherent when she was awake, but she was having great difficulty getting out of bed.

  Sam and Ellie took it in turns to telephone James, Sam from work, Ellie from the call box at the Court House where she could watch the sleeping child through the glass panes.

  After two weeks, by which time Ellie looked less pale and Clare was already waving small fists in the air, they decided they must go and see Rose. Richard Sleator, the kindest of friends, brought his motor round on Sunday morning having placed extra rugs in the back to make sure there would be no draughts to trouble either mother or child on the drive to Belfast.

  Rose was in her bedroom, but she was sitting in her armchair by the window. She was not dressed, but this was not obvious for she had replaced her slippers with shoes and wore over the collar of her dressing-gown a pretty silk scarf. Her hair was brushed back from her face and caught up gently in a clasp at the back.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she called, as James pushed open the door and stood back to let them past.

  ‘Ellie and Sam and Clare,’ she said carefully, as if to make sure she did not forget there were now three of them and that she had acquired yet one more great-grandchild.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ she said, as she took the child in her arms. ‘But aren’t they all? Was there ever such a thing as an ugly baby?’ she asked, never lifting her eyes from the small moving scrap in her arms. ‘You did so well, Ellie, to manage first time. I miscarried twice or even three times, I forget which, and my poor John was out of his mind with anxiety before I managed to produce James. But it did get easier,’ she said quickly, seeing the stricken look on Sam’s face.

  Although Rose looked so easy and happy, James had warned them how
she would suddenly become tired. It would be a pity to spoil such a happy meeting by staying too long, so after an hour they stood up to go just as the November sun was setting and a slight mist had begun to rise from the grass in the park opposite.

  ‘I’ve just been thinking, and you must correct me if my arithmetic is wrong, but if little Clare lives as long as I have lived, she will end her life in another century. Imagine that! I was born in the nineteenth century, you dear children in the twentieth, but little Clare Hamilton, may well see the twenty-first.’

  There were kisses and hugs and goodbyes. As they parted with James in the hallway Ellie knew they would not see Rose again.

  She had quietly said her goodbye in her own inimitable way. She had left them with the wish that they would be happy together for many a long day.

  NEXT IN THE SERIES

  SHADOW ON THE LAND

  It is 1942, and the Second World War has been going on for three wearying years. Although outside the bombing area of German planes, the quiet countryside of County Down is far from peaceful. The textile mills around Banbridge are running on 24 hour shifts and Alex Hamilton is struggling to keep over-worked machinery going with no prospect of getting replacements and pressure rising all the time for fabric, uniforms, and woven equipment, all so desperately needed.

  At the same time, his wife Emily struggles with rationing and shortages of both food and fuel, to provide food and comfort not only for their own son and daughters, but for the many young American soldiers stationed nearby, far from home and suffering loneliness.

  Bad news comes daily, but throughout the most desperate of times there is still a welcome for friends and strangers, and moments of unexpected happiness at even the darkest of times.

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