The Irishman's Daughter Page 20

  “He’s given us the complete package,” Rory said in amazement while poking at the cleaning rods, flints, balls, and powder flask that had been concealed by the satin. He lifted each item and inspected them separately. He returned them to the cloth and said, “I’ve no idea how to use this.” He picked up the pistol and held it by its barrel. “I suppose I could hit someone over the head with it.”

  The sight of the weapon chilled her, and she wished the Captain had left it on his desk. She preferred not to imagine a scene conjured by the Captain: the starving grabbing at the horses or throwing themselves in front of them in an attempt to steal anything they had. Rory would have to load and fire and reload while people swarmed over them. She was familiar with the long guns passed down through inheritance to a few lucky tenants, but her father had never kept a hunting rifle, because there was no need. Lear House had provided all the food the family needed without having to hunt, and Sir Thomas was not a particular fan of the sport. “Please put that down,” she said. “What if it’s loaded? You could shoot yourself in the leg. Besides, the note says the pistol is for Sir Thomas.”

  “I might forget to give it to the owner. After all, it’s for our protection.” He maneuvered the pistol until it was aimed toward a port building on the horizon. “I think this has to be pulled back in order to fire.” He pointed to the hammer, but then flinched, apparently unnerved by the thought of suffering an injurious blast. He rewrapped the firearm and held it carefully in his lap.

  Soon they were ashore and the skiff was headed back to the Cutter. Rory fed a portion of the oats to the horses. Briana stashed the remaining grain and cheese in her saddlebag. The cheese was heavy and thick, and the aromatic scent of cultured milk made her mouth water.

  They shook the reins, and the horses trotted through the wooded lane until they arrived at The Black Ram. While they were stopped, Rory filled their leather flagons with water from the public house as the animals drank from a pail and munched on grass.

  The men who had crowded outside the establishment earlier had disappeared. Briana had no idea where they had gone. After a closer look, she spotted them in other doorways along the road, but shrunken, hidden like insects avoiding the heat of the day. In the short time she and her husband had been in Westport, the poor souls had withered to nothing, as if the additional hours with no nourishment had sapped their strength. These people had no fortitude left to stop ponies, let alone fight for food.

  Heading north, they left Westport behind. The animals picked up their pace, refreshed by the oats and water. The overcast lifted and the lighter skies cheered her, for she had no desire to spend another night in the Kilbanes’ cabin.

  “We can spend the night outside,” she suggested gently, hoping he would take the hint. She was more than willing to curl up with him and the animals under the stars. It would be uncomfortable but preferable to spending the evening in the cottage befouled by death. The pistol added little comfort, although it would be nearby if they needed it. Neither one of them knew how to fire it.

  Rory found a brook running southward through a level field a short distance from the Kilbanes’ home. He tethered the animals to the scrub brush that lined the water. The horses grazed while she and Rory ate cheese. Exhausted by the day’s ordeal, they curled up in the shelter of a grassy hillock. Now that night was falling, Briana couldn’t wait to get home. Still, the famine was foremost on her mind. How long could these trips to Belmullet and Westport continue before their luck ran out? Would they even have the strength to make more journeys?

  As night fell, she marveled at the luminous hooves of the horses, made that way by the bog insects crushed in their path. Sleep found her as she snuggled against Rory under the cover of their saddles, the horses close by.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night, Rory’s hand gripped hers. By the tightness of his fingers, Briana could tell the gesture wasn’t one of romance but rather one of alarm. Another finger crossed her lips, indicating that she should remain silent. As the cold night breeze swept over them, one of the horses snuffled. Rory stiffened as someone stepped coolly around the horses.

  A hand touched the tip of her toes, and she screamed.

  Rory lunged toward the intruder.

  Briana could see little in the dark, moonless night except the nebulous form of a man who staggered backward from her husband, apparently as shocked about the situation as they were.

  “Get away!” Rory said as he collared the man. Briana feared the intruder might be armed—the pistol the Captain had given them was lying between them. “Why are you sneaking around at this hour?” Rory berated the stranger as he cornered him.

  “I meant no harm,” the man said in a strangled voice.

  From his accent, Briana could tell he was from Mayo, not from Carrowteige but probably from the surrounding mountains. Briana jumped up, ready to defend her husband and to harangue the man for being a thief. She swiveled, suddenly aware of her surroundings. The land spread out in a flat, gray line to the black mountains. The only light came from the glow of the stars. What if he’s not alone? If only I knew how to use the pistol. She shuddered at a newly formed thought of using a weapon to protect herself and her family.

  “Who are you?” Rory demanded, and flung the man down on the sod, his dark form flailing like a leaf in the fall wind.

  The man steadied himself on his elbows and said, “Clan O’Keevane. Malachy O’Keevane. I’ve been wandering for days trying to get to Westport or Cork to board a ship to Liverpool. They say there’s railroad work in England. I had to leave my wife and children behind.” A coughing spasm ended his speech, and he rolled on his side, head to the ground.

  “Have you got the fever?” Rory asked, his tone gruff with suspicion.

  The man raised his head. “Not that I know of. I’ve felt cold of late.” He groaned and then straightened his body.

  “No food?” Rory asked.

  “I thought someone might be dead by these animals,” Malachy said. “One never knows these days. I was hoping to find food. If not, I thought I might kill me a horse.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t, Mr. O’Keevane. My wife and I need these horses to get back to Lear House.”

  “Lear House?” Malachy asked, astonished. “My traveling companion told me about Lear House.”

  The hairs on the back of Briana’s neck stood on end. She moved closer to the man.

  “This is my wife, Briana Walsh Caulfield,” Rory said. “We just came from Westport.”

  “Who is your companion?” Briana asked the man, trying to shake the flutter in her stomach.

  “He joined me yesterday on the road. At first I thought he was mad, but I think he’s only suffering like I am. He says he’s a poet living off what others have to offer, but no one has anything to offer these days. . . .”

  “Daniel Quinn,” Briana said, and Rory nodded. “There can be only one poet who knows Lear House. Where is he now?”

  “He’s not told me his name. He only calls himself the ‘poet.’ We’ve camped out in a deserted cabin up the road.” He pointed toward the Kilbanes’ cottage. “Nothing much is left there—a few old pots and pans that aren’t worth much if you have nothing to eat. A place to rest the head. That’s all. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d take a walk to keep my mind off me stomach.”

  “Go back to the cabin,” Rory said. “We know where it is. I promise, we’ll give you a bite of what we have in the morning.”

  The man rose and staggered toward them. “You do have food! Oh, praise the Saints. It would be wondrous to eat a meal again, something to tide me over until I can get to Westport.”

  Rory shook his head. “We have little. Get some sleep. We’ll stop by at daybreak.”

  The man left them, and Briana walked back to the hillock; Rory joined her after checking on the horses.

  She looked up at the white haze of stars arching overhead and thought of those sleeping in burrows with no food for their stomachs. How long did they have b
efore they collapsed from starvation? That question led her to wonder what it would be like to die. Would she be standing at the gates of heaven or hell? So much death surrounded them, but perhaps they could help this man and Daniel Quinn.

  She grasped Rory’s hand after he had settled beside her and said, “There’s one thing I want to do when we get home.”

  Her husband cuddled close and whispered, “Yes?”

  “Learn to shoot that pistol,” she said, half thinking it might be necessary.

  * * *

  After daybreak, they freshened up and then mounted the horses. Briana wasn’t looking forward to stopping at the Kilbanes’ cabin, but she wanted to help the man who had found them in the night.

  Malachy was sitting by the door when they arrived, puffing on an empty pipe. The sun cut across his face, and Briana was able to see his features clearly for the first time. His cropped, black hair fell forward on his head. He might have been in his thirties, but he looked older due to his sallow complexion, shrunken cheeks, and watery blue eyes set in their dark hollows.

  The man nodded and sucked in one last breath as Rory alighted from his horse. “No tobacco,” he said. “At least I can smell the old plug.” He took the pipe from his mouth and tapped it against his knee.

  “Is Quinn here?” Rory bent over Malachy, who answered with a nod and hitched his thumb toward the cottage.

  Briana wondered why he was so close to the man, but her husband soon turned and whispered, “No lice, no fever.” Rory ducked inside, leaving the door partially open. Briana was left with Malachy, who told her that his family came from the mountains east of Ballycroy. “Not a lovelier spot on this earth,” he was telling Briana when Rory reappeared.

  The early morning rays struck her husband, and she realized how much Rory had aged in the weeks they had been married. Flecks of gray dotted his red beard, his face had grown thinner, and his eyes were bleary and red from distress.

  “It’s Quinn, all right,” Rory said. “What’s left of him. He doesn’t have the fever, but he’s all skin and bones.”

  “He needs food and water,” Briana said, and reached for her satchel.

  “We all do,” Malachy said. “We hope God will provide.”

  She thought of the crucifix in her father’s room and her conversation with Father O’Kirwin before she and Rory were married. How much did God care about Ireland? The priest had expressed similar misgivings. Had the Creator deserted them? She supposed she would never understand why the famine had stricken them, any more than she could understand why the stars kept their places in the heavens.

  The morning light filtered through the door, partially erasing the gloom inside. Quinn, wrapped in a blanket near the fire pit, moaned and raised his hands to shield his eyes.

  Briana grasped four handfuls of oats from the satchel while Rory stoked the fire and collected water for boiling. Soon the cabin was filled with the smell of burning peat and the warm, toasty odor of simmering oatmeal. They had no buttermilk to pour on the oats, so they settled for hot water. Rory cut a thin slice of cheese for each of them, adding a little more sustenance to the meager meal.

  After a prayer, Malachy propped Quinn against the mud wall and fed him. The poet could hardly open his mouth to eat and several times he choked on the oats. Briana held his lips open as best she could as the man placed the spoon on Quinn’s tongue. Briana managed to get cool water down his throat. Finally, the poet could take no more, and he slumped to the floor despite Malachy’s continued urgings to eat.

  “He’s had enough,” Briana said. They finished their oats and cheese as she thought about the times at Lear House when Quinn had entertained the family with song and verse. How far he had fallen—this time further than all the previous bad times put together. He was a kind man who had been thrown out of his family at a young age for being “useless.” Briana’s father had been fascinated by the poet’s knowledge of Irish music and history; thus the two had struck up an intermittent friendship after meeting in a public house in Bangor.

  Soon, Malachy rose, thanked them, and strapped his small kit to his rope belt. “I’ve no idea what lies ahead, but it’s time to go.”

  Rory shook his hand. “Look for the Cutter and Captain Miller. Talk to the sailors and mention Sir Thomas Blakely. The name might not get you onboard, but it can’t hurt.”

  Malachy repeated the Captain’s and Blakely’s names. Briana noted a genuine note of happiness in his face, something her husband had lacked of late. “I thank you for your kindness,” he said, and ambled toward the door. He turned and looked back at Quinn, who had fallen into a fitful sleep on the blanket. “You will take care of him? He’s not a bad man, I think, just a bit mad from hunger.”

  Briana nodded. “We won’t desert him.”

  They watched from the door as Malachy headed south toward Westport. The man’s shadow flickered over the bog as he disappeared down the road. Briana pushed the hair back from her temples, poured warm water into a pot, and rubbed it over her hands; the dusty smell of burning peat covered her clothes and skin. A bath would be wonderful, but that would have to wait.

  She washed the pots while Rory tended the horses, making sure they were fed and watered. There was no reason to put out the turf fire; it would burn itself out in the pit. She placed the utensils on their hooks and straightened the few things left in the cabin, knowing that Aideen’s spirit, like any Irish woman, would be pleased by her tidiness. The chore was minor but left her feeling satisfied.

  Despite the poet’s presence, a shiver raced over her from the ghostly memory of the murdered family. She ran from the cabin and stopped near the road to catch her breath. Rory was nowhere to be seen. In a panic, she called out his name.

  He appeared, a few moments later, shoes in hand, from behind the cabin.

  “The bodies are still there—undisturbed.” Rory squinted in the sunlight. “Who would do such a thing? I’m sure they didn’t have much.”

  “Someone desperate,” Briana replied. “Get the poet. My father would never forgive me if we left him here to die.”

  Rory stepped into the cabin and returned with Quinn in his arms. “He’s light as a feather,” he said while positioning him over the horse’s back.

  Briana took another look at the cabin as she mounted her horse, flushed with the strange feeling that she would never again see the cabin as it stood now. If squatters didn’t make short work of it, the elements would, because without repair the sod walls would eventually crumble.

  The Kilbanes’ home dropped from sight as they rounded a curve in the road. Rory held on to Quinn’s back with his left hand and guided the pony with his right.

  Soon the sun and the rhythmic stride of her horse lulled her into a pleasant sense of security she wished would never end. Lear House was only a day’s journey ahead. Then the thought of Sir Thomas Blakely entertaining his English guests while others starved demolished her pleasure.

  CHAPTER 12

  June 1846

  Most days the rain poured off the manor’s slate roof, turning the rock walls a damp gray as bleak as the hours that dragged by. The weather was miserable for much of the late spring and early summer, keeping Sir Thomas’s guests housebound with little to do and much to complain about. The Andersons, the Rogerses, and the Wards, with their three sons, had arrived a few days after Briana and Rory had completed their trip to Westport. Nine guests now filled Lear House with an additional four to come—a quartet from Dublin hired to provide music for the planned ball in mid-June.

  In the ensuing weeks since their arrival, the Ward boys had kept Lucinda busy with tutoring duties, which she described to Briana as “mostly child’s play because they can’t keep their minds on anything except roaming the countryside.”

  Daniel Quinn had taken up residence in her father’s cottage, much to Lucinda’s chagrin. Her sister was put out not only by the children but by the fact that the “odd poet” had invaded her home. Quinn was gaining strength now that he could at least be fed
the scraps the Master and his guests didn’t want. But Briana had noted a big change in the poet’s personality. Formerly, he had been somewhat happy, despite being subject to creative melancholy. Now he was morose and kept to himself while wandering the cliffs or staring silently into the flames of the turf fire.

  Even though the famine raged around them, Briana was shocked by the amount of food Sir Thomas and his guests wasted, but it surprised her less when she considered English tastes and sensibilities. The guests were unaccustomed to being needy. Only her begging and Lucinda’s contriteness convinced Rory to sacrifice his pig to the cause of the landlord’s stomach. Rory, perturbed by the request, stated he knew the day would come, as he gutted the beast, and wished the animal had not been sacrificed upon the altar of Sir Thomas Blakely.

  Jarlath offered what fish he could catch for evening meals, but the foul weather and corresponding unfavorable seas kept his canoe onshore most days. Of all their food, the Indian corn was the least palatable and the most despised not only by Briana and her family but by the guests as well. No amount of preparation or fancying up the meal made it edible. Most of it was deemed unpalatable, returned uneaten, and served to the poet or the horses. The animals displayed their dislike as well, preferring to munch on the heather grasses and gorse seeds when they could.

  Even through judicious use, the supplies dwindled by the end of two weeks. Rory would soon have to make another trip to Westport if the landlord wished to feed his guests.

  “The next trip I’ll charge him ten pounds,” Rory said one night after they trudged to bed, exhausted by the day’s labors. The candle threw wavering circles of light on the ceiling.

  “Have you thought of a plan to save Lear House?” Briana asked, hoping to lift their conversation above despair.

  Rory pulled up the blanket and shook his head. “Nothing—and believe me, I think about it all the time. If there’s an easy way, I can’t find it.” He turned on his side toward her. “I don’t know what good ten pounds would do us. Even his money is useless here—there’s nothing to buy.”