The Irishman's Daughter Page 23

  “In case?” Briana asked.

  He tilted his head, and his blue eyes shifted uneasily as if he didn’t want to respond. The rain ran down his cap onto his muttonchops. “Hardly proper to think about now, but in case the situation in Ireland should change. As of now, it’s impractical for me to keep two households.” He shifted his focus to Lucinda. “I’m sorry to say that the Wards have procured the services of another governess—one who is English.”

  Lucinda drew her hand to her mouth, stifling her shock.

  “I think their minds were quite made up after the ball,” the owner continued. “I’m sure you’ll find a post here. I’ll be happy to give you a reference.” His mouth arched in a harsh smile.

  “There are no jobs here,” Lucinda snapped. “People have neither the money nor the proclivity for education—”

  He cut her off with a wave of his right hand. “I’m sure there are jobs in Dublin or other Irish communities. Unfortunately, the matter is no longer my concern.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Briana said with equal vitriol.

  “Don’t say something you’ll regret, Mrs. Caulfield.” His mouth narrowed. “I do owe your father and husband a debt of gratitude for aiding in my recovery, but the plight of the Irish people is beyond my control. You should be pleased that I’ve seen fit to give your father one hundred pounds to keep him from starving. If you’re lucky, he’ll share it with you. But remember, Lear House is bankrupt. Those notes will have to last for . . . who knows how many years. Let’s pray it’s not long.” He tipped his hat again. “Good day, ladies. Until we meet again. I’m taking tea elsewhere this evening.”

  He walked away, disappearing in the rain along the western path to the cliffs.

  “Pompous twit,” Lucinda said, her words lost on the wind.

  Briana laughed at her sister’s observation but winced at the single tear that rolled down her pale cheek. She opened the door. “Let’s warm up. I have something to tell you.”

  “At least we’ll have a quiet evening—without him.” Lucinda shook the umbrella, closed it, and left it leaning against the frame.

  Their voices were muffled by the draped furniture; an eerie quiet had fallen upon the house. The gloom was broken only by the blaze that crackled in the library fireplace, chasing the damp chill from the room. Her father compiled papers behind the desk, while Rory, his back to the door, sat across from him. The two talked quietly as Briana and Lucinda passed by.

  In the kitchen, they shed their wet coats and then looked for something to prepare for the evening meal.

  “What shall we have tonight?” Lucinda asked in an airy manner. “Lamb chops with mint jelly, pottage with fish, potato stew, bread? And what for dessert? Bread pudding? Elderflower fool?”

  Briana’s stomach ached at the mention of such delicacies. She opened the larder door and pointed to the remaining bag of oats and meal. “How about oatmeal and water with a helping of mush?”

  “I’ll draw the water,” Lucinda offered, picking up a pan.

  Briana rubbed her belly as a wave of nausea roiled over her abdomen.

  Lucinda dropped the pan on the table, rushed to her side, and guided her to a chair. “What’s wrong? You look positively washed out.” Her sister kneeled beside her.

  Briana fanned herself with her hands as sweat broke out on her forehead. She relaxed in the chair and took her sister’s hands in hers. “I do have something to tell you. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad.”

  “What?” Her sister looked at her with curious eyes.

  “I’m going to have a child.”

  Lucinda looked like Briana felt. Her sister also didn’t know whether to be glad or horrified. Her eyes widened and she leaned back, rocking on her feet, stunned by the news. “I don’t know what to say.” Her mouth drooped in a frown. “How did this happen?”

  Briana couldn’t help but laugh. “How did it happen? Oh, sister, I’m afraid we need to have a long talk. Father has been remiss in his duties.”

  Lucinda blushed and shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t mean that. I mean—why did you decide to bear a child at this awful . . . time? How does Rory feel about this?”

  “We didn’t decide,” Briana said. “An accident happened, although I’m not going to think of my child that way.” She ran her hands over her stomach, feeling her belly, which was still lean despite her pregnancy. “We prayed about it, protected ourselves, even practiced abstinence . . . when we had the strength . . . but a child is coming, no doubt about it. We tried—we really did.” She lowered her gaze. “I’d say Rory was happy when I told him. He wants to make life good for all of us now that a baby is on the way, but we both have doubts about the future.”

  “What will the baby eat after your milk runs dry?” her sister asked. “Will you have enough nourishment? Where will you live with this child if we’re ejected?”

  “Draw up a chair and sit beside me,” Briana said. “I feel like I’m a queen and you’re my subject. All these questions are making me dizzy.”

  Lucinda got a chair, sat, and awaited the answers with glazed eyes, the seriousness of her questions etched into the lines of her face.

  “We’ve talked about it.” She found herself reluctant to tell her sister of Rory’s idea of leaving for America. Now that her sister had no job with the Wards, would she think that she and Rory were deserting the family? Could they all leave together? She still doubted her father would desert Ireland no matter what came their way. What if her father needed help after they had gone? She and Rory would not be around to look after him. Lucinda would be happy on the Continent, but she would need to find a job. The prospect of leaving Ireland brought up many more questions than she could answer. Shaken by the possibilities, she pressed her fingers to her temples.

  Lucinda looked on, concern filling her eyes.

  “We pray that the potato crop is bountiful in August,” Briana said. “If not, we shall all have to make a decision.”

  “Perhaps the lout will let the tenants live on the farms and Father and I in the cottage until that time.” Lucinda clutched her forehead. “I hate to think it, but he might evict us soon after Lear House is closed.”

  The lout? Her sister had changed her tune about the landlord. But Briana was convinced that if the Englishman showed any compassion, or offered any token of affection, her sister’s revulsion would fly out the window like a loose canary.

  “Perhaps,” Briana replied. “Father has money for food, but we’ve lost our connections and there’s nothing to buy.”

  Lucinda nodded. “That’s why I’m worried about your baby. Maybe we can all go to Dublin, or England . . . or America.”

  Briana rose from the chair and walked to the stove. “Rory heard of men who went to Dublin and England looking for work. He says the conditions there are as bad as Mayo . . . worse in some ways for Irishmen. America seems a better choice, but it would mean leaving everything—” She choked, wiped the tears forming in her eyes with the sleeve of her dress, and pointed to the peat stacked near the stove. “We might as well get started. None of these questions will get answered if we go hungry tonight.”

  Lucinda got up and opened the kitchen door. “I’ll look for some dandelion greens. Soon we’ll have to send the men out for birds’ eggs. If rabbits weren’t so scarce . . . the horses . . .” Her words trailed off, but Briana knew what she was thinking.

  Briana placed the peat in the stove and lit it. She yelled to her sister before she started out, “Don’t say anything yet to Father. He’s under enough strain.”

  Lucinda nodded and shut the door.

  * * *

  Sir Thomas put his booted feet on the scratched wooden table, sipped poteen from a scarred pewter cup, and marveled at his adaptability. He had walked in the rain, leaving the aging grandeur of Lear House to come to the welcoming arms of a woman who lived on the eastern edge of the village.

  The liquor warmed his gullet and numbed the lingering pain in his left shou
lder. He had drunk one healthy draft already and was now on his second. Despite the alcohol’s hazy heat, and the comfort provided by his companion, he was eager to be on the next morning’s carriage. How happy he would be to settle into the leather seat and be rid of Ireland—perhaps forever. Lear House would stand as it had for centuries before. That’s what he wanted to believe. But times did seem different from the past: tenuous and fraught with peril.

  He sipped his drink and his father came to mind—a stern man from West Yorkshire whose face reminded him of the marble busts of long-dead priests ensconced in moldy cathedrals—a man who would have whipped him within a lash of his life had he caught him in this situation. His father was a rock in the foundation of the Anglican Church and had little tolerance for humor and merry-making of any sort.

  She called herself Julia, but he wasn’t even sure it was her real name. In truth, he didn’t care. She used to be pretty when he first started visiting her several years earlier in her small cabin on the edge of Carrowteige, but that was before the famine struck. Tonight, she looked haggard, old, and worn like the starving people Brian had described. He had come for sex, but because of the sling supporting his aching shoulder, and his miserable attitude, the evening had turned to companionship. Previously, in Julia’s cabin, he hadn’t worried about pretense, privilege, or the financial dealings of Lear House. Tonight was different. Oddly enough, he found himself asking the same question that the Walsh family had voiced on many occasions since his return to Ireland: How could this terrible disaster have happened?

  “You haven’t been by much this year.” Julia sidled up to his chair, her back to the turf fire. “You’re the only man I entertain,” she said wistfully, as if she longed only for him.

  “I hardly believe that I’m a solitary customer,” he replied. “I’ve been busy with business matters.”

  “And entertaining English guests.” She threw her head back and laughed as her long, black curls fell about her shoulders. “I should slap you. Isn’t that what a lady of breeding does when she’s been insulted?”

  “Slap me and you won’t get your coin.” He studied her face and tried to look past the hardships that had aged her. A faded beauty shimmered on the tired skin. The rain dripped into the cabin at one end of the roof, but despite the nasty weather, the alcohol and conversation assuaged his troubles.

  “I’m no whore,” she said. “They would run me out of the village. Your money helps me get through the year.”

  “Well, supper certainly wasn’t worth it.” He downed another swig of poteen. His head felt pleasantly empty now; even his teeth felt numb.

  Julia glowered at him, taking offense to his statement. “Supper was fine. Food is hard to come by. I have to scramble for the bare essentials, and I’m doing better than most, I can tell you. There’s no seed potatoes left and the meat—”

  He cupped his hand over her mouth. “Stop. I don’t want to know.” He imagined that the stringy gray meat she had served him was horse, or worse yet, donkey.

  She pushed his hand away. “Goat, and I was lucky to get it.” She touched the sling covering his left arm and then gently massaged his forearm. “Not up for it tonight, heh?” Her brows rose as she thought of a question. “Who would shoot the likes of you?”

  “I don’t know, and I may never find out.”

  She leaned back, twirling a long strand of curls between her fingers, before giving him a broad smile. “I heard tell of a man at Lear House who got a pistol from a sea captain.”

  He started in his seat, and then leaned forward. “Who’s the bastard? Tell me who—as if I don’t know. Who told you this?”

  “Why does it matter? The truth is the truth.”

  “Get my coat,” he ordered. “Only one man’s been to see a captain that I know of.”

  She rose and retrieved his coat and hat from the peg near the cabin door. “No need to rush off. It gets lonely here being a single woman with the husband long dead.”

  He stood, swaying on his feet, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. “Here. More than enough for services rendered. I doubt I’ll see you next year.”

  She threw her arms around his shoulders and attempted to kiss him.

  He winced and pushed her aside. “Watch out. The shoulder is still raw.” He put on his hat and coat and stumbled out in the rain. He staggered a few steps and then looked back. Julia stood in the doorway, her dark form silhouetted by the light of the peat fire. She was a sad figure, he thought, and most likely to die within the year unless she left County Mayo. But where will she go? The idea pained him, yet he shrugged it off. Where Julia went was of no concern. He stumbled forward, on his way to find Rory Caulfield.

  * * *

  They sat down to a meager supper in the kitchen at Lear House. Little was said, and even the prayers over the meal were tinged with sadness. The thought on everyone’s mind was not if, but when, the Constabulary would start evictions. Briana and Rory had looked at each other and then broached the plan of moving to America, but her father would have none of it. “I can’t think about it on my last night in Lear House,” he said.

  “We do have one good bit of news to share,” Briana said, hoping to lift the mood. Lucinda shifted in her chair, deducing what was coming.

  “What’s that?” Brian asked in a gruff voice.

  “You’re going to be a grandfather.” Briana smiled, but only Rory returned her attempt at happiness. The announcement of a child was almost always a reason for rejoicing, but there was none of that in her father’s eyes or demeanor.

  “Congratulations,” he said tepidly, and then went back to eating his mush. Under his breath, he muttered, “Another mouth to feed.”

  She let her spoon and the subject drop.

  After the meal, Brian and Lucinda trudged back to the cottage, leaving her with Rory in the kitchen. The need to be alone, to take in her sadness, overcame Rory’s insistence that she should return home with him. Protesting her obstinacy, he stopped at the cabin as she continued up the lane toward Carrowteige.

  “I won’t be long,” she told him.

  Tomorrow it will all be over. Briana couldn’t bear the thought of losing the home she had known all her life as she walked toward the village to be alone with her grief. Her sister’s umbrella protected her from the showery gusts. The rain pelted the back of her coat as she topped the slope and the village came into view. The buildings she had known all her life looked small and insignificant under the thick, drab clouds. Here and there a sliver of light burst forth from a grimy window or between the cracks of battered doors. The sadness that had plagued her in recent days struck again. Holding on to the umbrella, she doubled over near a burrow that had served as a shelter for the starving. Briana rubbed her abdomen and hoped that what she was experiencing was related to the food she had eaten, not something serious regarding her pregnancy.

  She straightened, feeling slightly queasy, and started down the road.

  A man strode through the rain. As he drew closer, she recognized the figure of Sir Thomas, but his usually confident swagger was disrupted by an off-balance sway. She was tempted to hide behind a scrub brush but instead decided to face him. He appeared to be drunk and, in that state, would probably have little recollection of their conversation in the morning.

  He ambled through the darkness, his face as dull as his black clothing, and stopped a yard away, wobbling on his feet. “Who’s this?” he asked in a drowsy slur.

  His eyes were hidden by the tilt of his hat; all she could see was the occasional flash of white teeth between the lips. The acidic odor of poteen wafted from his mouth. She tilted the umbrella backward.

  “Ah, is it the fair Briana?” He took off his hat and teetered through a bow.

  “You sound like a drunken Shakespearean actor,” she said, repelled by his condition.

  “An astute observation. That may be, fair lady, but the disposition induced by your local drink has affected my temperament radically . . . altered my cours
e by the minute . . . as I tramped through the village of Carrowteige.” A giggle burst from his mouth. “I was ready to find the bastard and kill him—give him a dose of his own medicine. But now I have something else in mind.”

  His rambling speech puzzled her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Simply put, the man who shot me.” He stepped even closer to her—so close she could see the hate in his eyes. The mirthful talk that had bordered on flirtation disappeared.

  “I have no idea—”

  “Of course you do.”

  She waited, the rain pelting her from all sides.

  “It appears a tenant received a pistol from a sea captain. I know of only one man who has made such a journey since I’ve been at Lear House.”

  Briana knew it was useless to lie, and the disturbing image of her husband firing the pistol jumped into her head thanks to the owner’s accusation. More than the truth was at risk. They would all pay dearly if Rory was arrested.

  She kept quiet, protecting her husband from a landlord who wasn’t as drunk as she thought.

  “When I get to Belmullet, I’ll give word to the Royal Irish Constabulary,” Sir Thomas said. “They’ll get to the bottom of it. I’d like to see the villain spend time in prison or maybe get sent away—far, far, away from Ireland. What do they call it? ‘Transported,’ I believe.”

  In her mind, she recounted the specifics of the evening Sir Thomas was shot—details the landlord already knew. Rory had gone for a walk on the beach, he had heard the shot, and then rushed to the house. The sand was still on his feet. That much was true. But the pistol had been fired.

  “Should we visit your husband and see what he has to say?” He lumbered ahead, one boot slipping in the mud. He threw his right hand up, keeping his balance. “Damn this country! I’ve had enough.”

  She could hold her tongue no longer. “My husband didn’t shoot you. He saved your life.”

  Sir Thomas pointed to Lear House, dull and vacant on the slope. “He didn’t save my life. The wound wasn’t fatal. He came to my aid after the shot had been fired. His eagerness would lead one to believe that he was close by. Perhaps he’s a poor shot.”