The Hamiltons of Ballydown by Anne Doughty

over her. So many kindnesses offered. But nothing had touched the hurt of the sudden, unexpected loss. Time had not healed the pain, it had only made the pain a familiar thing, like a physical pain that sometimes faded to a shadow and at other times leapt up, sharp and undiminished, like today.
    He had been so unsure of himself. She’d found it hard to grasp how confident he was in his medical practice, yet so awkward with her. As the weeks of her grandfather’s last illness progressed, he grew easier, able to talk to her about his work and his hopes for the future. He’d showed her how to watch for the early signs of distress and how to treat them before they became a trouble to the old man. They were watching together when he died, slipping away so peacefully that they embraced each other, dry-eyed and thankful, before setting about what had to be done.
    A year later, on a hot summer day, when she was working in the garden at Rathdrum, a messagehad arrived to say Charles had been taken ill in a village near Armagh where he’d gone to help the local doctor with an outbreak of cholera. Later that day, while she was making preparations to go and take care of him, a letter was delivered telling her he had died.
    She had taken care of others since. First her father, then Hugh. At one time, she’d thought of training to be a doctor, now that some medical schools were open to women, but it always seemed there was some more pressing need in her immediate surroundings. Now, surely, she had left it too long. Her place was here at Rathdrum, her consolation her friends and family, her dear friend Rose and her four young people.
    She picked up her morning’s letters and looked at them. An elderly aunt and uncle now living in the farm at Fruit Hill, a cousin in England, another in Canada, a brother of Charles who practised in Manchester and still wrote to her about his work and his family. A web of loving thoughts, spanning distance, weaving the past to the present. It was something to give thanks for. Something to set against the ache of loss, of what might have been if Charles had lived to be her cherished husband.
     
    The snow had stopped and a pale sun glinted feebly on the horizon as Hannah and Sarah cycled out of Banbridge on the wet and muddy strip of mainroad where the road engines had passed, their back wheel strakes scraping the fresh snow and leaving it to melt as they hauled in loads of coal for the mills and carried off webs of cloth to Newry and Belfast.
    Rathdrum Hill was a different matter. Stopping at the junction of their own road with the main road, Hannah looked at the deep, unmarked surface dubiously.
    ‘I think we’ll have to leave our bicycles at MacMurrays,’ she said, testing the depth with her front wheel.
    ‘We can carry them,’ said Sarah. ‘They’re not heavy.’
    ‘You’re quite right,’ Hannah agreed.
    If you wanted to get anywhere with Sarah it was best to begin by agreeing with her.
    ‘They’re not heavy at all, but if we slipped when we’re carrying them we could hurt ourselves quite badly. If we have our hands free, we might be able to save ourselves. Ma would be so upset if one of us had a bad fall, don’t you think?’
    Sarah nodded briskly and Hannah breathed a sigh of relief.
    ‘Then we’ll just have to be extra careful as far as MacMurray’s,’ she said briskly, lifting her bicycle clear of the snow and stepping cautiously towards the nearby farm entrance.
    The MacMurray’s had cleared their yard and one of their barns stood wide open. They parkedthe bicycles and greeted Michael MacMurray who was pitching fodder into the byre.
    ‘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