The Irishman's Daughter Read online

  Briana peered around him. He appeared to be alone. His chestnut mare was tethered to a post near the cabin.

  “We’d be more comfortable outside,” Rory said, and stood up from the bed.

  “I’d prefer to talk in private, if you don’t mind.” The man stepped into the cabin. He offered his hand to Rory. “Edmond Davitt, Constable at Belmullet.”

  Rory had heard the name before but never met the man. He shook his hand. “Rory Caulfield.”

  Briana’s stomach turned over because she was certain that the constable had come to arrest her husband.

  Davitt took off his coat and surveyed the room. “Please sit down, Mrs. Caulfield . . . that’s right, isn’t it?”

  Briana nodded. She and Rory sat on the dried stalks that made up their bed while Davitt took his place on the wooden stool.

  He reached into his pocket for his pipe, lit the tobacco, and focused his weary eyes upon them. “I won’t take much of your time, because I was up early this morning and I have plenty to keep me busy in Belmullet.” He turned his gaze to Rory. “But I want to hear your story.”

  “So Blakely turned me in to the Constabulary,” Rory said with a scornful smile. He’d rushed to the aid of the ungrateful landlord!

  Davitt nodded. “He cried all the way to the Commissioner at Westport. Frankly, the Commissioner has more important things on his mind—like protecting food from looters and making sure that the port runs smoothly.” He clasped his hands together and leaned toward them. “He sent me to investigate rather than bother sending his men on a trip to Carrowteige. We’re stretched thin as it is.” His lips pursed. “The Commissioner was put off—Blakely’s wound hardly looked more than one rough boy would give another with a switch.”

  “My husband rushed to assist him,” Briana blurted out. “Without his help, Sir Thomas might have died.”

  Rory held up his hand. “Please excuse my wife, Mr. Davitt.” He shot a “be quiet” look to her. “I think the constable can make up his own mind about what happened.”

  “Can I see the pistol that was given to you by the Captain?”

  Briana had no choice but to remain silent. Sir Thomas had given a thorough report to the officer.

  “Captain Miller gave it to me in case we might have to protect ourselves while transporting supplies to Lear House,” Rory said. He retrieved the pistol from the bag and handed it to the constable.

  The man examined it for several minutes, carefully turning it over and upside down and smelling the remains of the spent powder before handing it back to Rory. “I imagine this was the weapon,” he said.

  “It was fired the night Sir Thomas was shot,” Rory explained, “but I had nothing to do with it. Someone came into our cabin, took the pistol, and fired it.” He then recounted the night of the shooting, leaving out any mention of Lucinda or her eavesdropping.

  “Do you have anything to offer regarding your husband’s story?” the constable asked Briana.

  “He had sand on his feet,” she said.

  “From his walk on the beach,” the officer replied.

  “Yes, he’s telling the truth.”

  “Do you have any idea who would want to shoot Sir Thomas?” Davitt asked Rory.

  Briana suppressed her desire to interrupt. Why didn’t Rory go along with Lucinda’s alibi that she was with him when Sir Thomas was shot?

  “No,” Rory responded. Briana knew that answer was a half truth at best. Noel had showed Connor and Rory how to shoot the weapon, and any disgruntled Mollie might have taken a shot at the landlord the night of the ball. His eyes shifted to Briana and then back to the officer. “Several months ago, a note was tacked to the Lear House door. It threatened Brian Walsh, the landlord’s agent, and the rest of the family, including my wife. I suspected that it might have been the work of a Molly Maguire, but we never found out who did it.”

  “We?” the officer asked with renewed interest.

  “Yes, I’m a Maguire, but I’ve helped keep the peace at Lear House. My father-in-law is the agent here. I wish him and the family no harm.”

  “I see,” the constable said, rising from the stool. “I’ve a long ride back to Belmullet.” He lifted his arms and then stretched them behind his back. “I’ve no fondness for the Englishman in this matter, but I do have a duty to the law that transcends my love for my countrymen. Unfortunate as it may be, Mr. Caulfield, you are under suspicion for the attempted murder of Sir Thomas Blakely and you are not to leave County Mayo under any circumstances without notifying me. I will make sure the Constabulary has your name and description at every office and every port. If you impede this investigation in any manner, or attempt to flee, you will be arrested. Do you understand?”

  Rory nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  The officer reached for his coat and hat. “The owner’s ego appears to have been scarred more than his body, but the law prescribes its own remedies no matter how slight the wound.” He pointed to the weapon. “If I were you, I’d keep that pistol out of sight and end your relationship with the Maguires.”

  “Thank you, constable, for that advice,” Rory said, rising to shake the man’s hand.

  Briana relaxed a bit as Davitt headed toward the door. She and Rory watched as he slipped the reins from the post, mounted the horse, and turned it east.

  Before goading the animal, he said, “By the way, the bodies of a young couple, the Kilbanes, were found a few days ago. What was left of them was found in the bog behind their cottage. They’d been shot with a pistol owned by Frankie Kilbane. We found it buried behind the house. That find, Mr. Caulfield, saved you from being more of a suspect than you are. Be careful what you do.” He tipped his hat, buttoned his coat, and spurred the horse with his heels. It trotted off down the road under the thick overcast.

  Her heart racing, Briana stood rooted in the door thinking of her husband’s temporary escape from imprisonment.

  After Davitt disappeared, Rory collapsed against her. “I’ve never been so scared,” he said.

  She fought her own paralyzing fear and wrapped her arms around her husband. “You were so calm. I’m shaking now.”

  Rory breathed a subdued sigh of relief. “I have nothing to hide from Davitt, but I’m terrified of not being able to protect you and our baby.” He kissed her cheek and then hugged her trembling body. “We were going to America—but that’s changed. Damn him!”

  She sank against him, thanking God that her husband was still with her.

  The wash pot popped and hissed as a few raindrops splattered on the red-hot metal. Washing clothes. Mending shirts and breeches. Making meals. They were such mundane acts, but ones she performed with love knowing that her days with Rory might be growing short.

  * * *

  “You’ll go?” Briana leaned forward with her elbows on the table, astonished by the possibility.

  Lucinda lifted the spoon, tasted the mush, and then spat it back in the bowl. Her sister threw the utensil on the table, her lips quivering as she struggled to express her feelings. “Yes, I’ll go. I can’t abide this any longer. America is surely better. If I don’t leave Ireland, I’ll die.”

  Brian cupped his hands around his bowl and lamented, “America is a beautiful country, I hear, but what else do we know of it? You may be exchanging one ill for another.” His tone indicated that he was far from convinced.

  Briana lit the candles dotting the room as the light faded in her father’s cottage. She opened the door so the smoke and heat would escape into the evening air. The breeze swirled around her face, and it soothed and saddened her at the same time, for how much longer would Ireland’s air caress her?

  On Sunday next week, the SS Warton, a six-masted steamer, would be sailing from Westport for the United States with ports of call in Boston and New York. She and her sister intended to be on it. The news of the ship had come from Connor Donlon on his way to Dublin with his family. Connor had met a man returning to Carrowteige who promised to give Rory the news.

  “I can’t go t
o America, but I’m happy you’ve agreed to accompany my wife,” Rory said to Lucinda. “I’ll feel better knowing you are with Briana.”

  “I wish we could all go, but I must remain with the remaining tenants,” Brian said. “I want no bloodshed when the dragoons and Constabulary arrive for the . . .” Her father’s voice faded as she returned to the table, but Briana knew what he was going to say—eviction. But there was something else he didn’t express—his love of Ireland and his desire not to leave his home.

  Since Constable Davitt had visited the week before, scores of tenants had left their farms looking for work and food. “There’s hardly anyone about now,” Briana said. She looked at her sister, who bowed her head glumly over the table. “We’re doing the right thing—the only thing we can do. Soon there’ll be no one here but Rory, Father, and Jarlath and his family.”

  “We’re lucky that Jarlath can fish and that your father has the blood money from an Englishman to tide us over,” Rory said.

  Brian put his hand over Rory’s. “Hush about that! I, for one, am grateful for the generosity the man has seen fit to give us.” He then lowered his gaze as well, as if it was humiliating to speak of charity after so many years of service to the owner. “At least my daughters will be on their way to America aboard a ship that has some comfort thanks to him.”

  Her father spoke the truth. Rory had told her of commercial ships that hauled lumber across the Atlantic from Canada and then returned to North America from England and Ireland. Those going back were crammed with Irish emigrants who had no choice but to book a cheap fare that often they could barely afford. Disease and death ran rampant on the filthy decks up top and in the sweltering, cramped, quarters below. Some had called them “coffin ships.” The dead, overcome by starvation and dysentery, were stripped of their clothes and tossed overboard, their bodies delivered to an unsympathetic ocean.

  Rory had made it clear that Briana and Lucinda would not be traveling aboard those terrible ships. There was too much at stake for his wife and the unborn child who grew in her belly.

  Briana placed her hand on the mound below her stomach, giving it a gentle pat. God be with us.

  Her father observed the sweep of her hand over her abdomen. “So it’s settled. Rory and I and Jarlath will remain on the estate until we can stay no longer. God knows where we’ll end up, but if He is kind we might find work in Castlebar or Westport. When the time comes, God willing, we will join you in America.”

  Despite his halfhearted attempt to smile, she doubted her father had any intention of leaving the estate. They would bury him in the small cemetery between Lear House and Carrowteige, where her mother lay at peace. A deep sadness stabbed her soul, causing her to wince in pain. She put her hands on the table and attempted to get up, but the tears flowed fast and her arms buckled underneath her.

  Rory rushed to her side and lifted her up. She nestled against him, her eyes blinded by grief.

  Lucinda dashed to her side as well and put her hand on Briana’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, sister. We’ll be strong together. That’s what you’ve always told me—to be strong. We’ll make our journey an adventure.”

  Her insides shook, thinking of all that could go wrong. What if she never saw her father again? Once the ship left Westport, there would be no returning to Ireland before spring because of winter weather in the North Atlantic. What if they didn’t have enough money to return? What if something went wrong with her pregnancy? Rory would be an ocean away, unable to help her. She would be a prisoner in Boston, in a foreign land with only what they could carry in a suitcase. It would never work.

  Memories of spring at Lear House, when the desperate and dying came in search of food, filled her head. The sound of the keening woman whose son had died in her arms would never leave her ears. But those days had passed. She was blessed to have what she did. Those now living, destined to die as the famine raged on, would never see the opportunity she had been given. Despite her fears, the hope of gratitude filled her.

  As Rory led her from the table, she stopped to clutch her sister’s hand. “You’re right,” she said. “We will be strong together.”

  The candles illuminated the dampness in her sister’s eyes.

  There was no turning back.

  * * *

  On Friday, the seventh of August, Briana said good-bye to Lear House.

  Rory loaded their bags into a cart they’d rented from a neighbor, to be pulled by the two workhorses left on the estate. Briana was concerned that the animals might not make it to Westport. With oats and other grains gone, the skinny beasts had been munching on the sparse heath grass. The horses also weren’t as agile as the bog trotters they had ridden previously to Westport, so the going would be slower.

  Covered by a blanket and tarp, Briana, Rory, and Lucinda planned to sleep overnight in the cart or on the ground.

  Briana had urged Lucinda to pack lightly, but her sister was irritated by what she had to leave behind. Lucinda had packed two dresses, in addition to the one she was wearing, leaving many others at the cottage. “So much that I worked for. . . . I don’t know if I will ever see my books or good dresses again,” she said.

  They had hugged each other, and Briana said, “Nothing can be done about that.”

  Her father, and Jarlath, along with his wife and son, stood at the end of the path leading to Lear House. Briana, from her seat in the cart next to Rory, looked down upon the four figures standing between her and the manor. They seemed small, helpless, diminished by the famine’s life-changing power. In less than a year, her own life had shifted dramatically: She and her family had gone from relative plenty to nothing. And, as she looked at Lucinda, squirming uncomfortably next to the bags, she acknowledged how much her sister’s life had changed as well. Lucinda had fallen in status from a governess for a wealthy English family to an unemployed woman with no job or marriage prospects in sight. Her sister had never owned the wealth she enjoyed in England, but being around it had enlivened her. All that was gone.

  Briana had made her mind up not to cry when she said good-bye, because too many tears had already been shed. She had kissed and hugged her father and her in-laws before she climbed onto the cart, wanting to cut short her sad departure.

  “You have the money I gave you?” Brian yelled to Rory as her husband took his place at the reins. “And the testimonial letter for American customs. They’ll need it for—”

  Rory cut him off. “Yes, Father, for their passage, a room at The Black Ram, and some food for my return—if I can get it.” He nodded and patted his coat pocket. “Letter and fifty pounds here. Protected.” He pulled at the straps. “We should be going. The weather may hold tonight if we’re lucky. I’ll be back by next Wednesday, God willing.”

  Rory had told her that the trip would be rough going in the cart. The pistol, which she now hated because of its history, was concealed in Rory’s travel bag. Her husband had insisted on bringing it along for protection, and she had disagreed.

  Briana stared at the lane that would lead them through the village and then on the road to Westport. The few tenants who remained stood near their homes, offering feeble waves of good-bye. She shifted her gaze to the bay. Golden shafts of light punched through the overcast sky, streaking the blue-gray waters with glittering silver facets. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, the sparkling diamonds vanished as the sun disappeared behind the clouds. She wanted one last look at Lear House but didn’t dare for fear she would run back to it and never leave, regardless of whether she could enter its rooms. She clutched her husband’s arm. “Let’s be off before I change my mind.” She stole a quick look at Lucinda, who huddled in the cart bed with her head against her knees.

  Rory shook the reins, and the horses wobbled forward. The animals’ tails flipped in time with the sway of their bony flanks.

  Her father and Jarlath’s family called after them. She avoided looking back, at the manor, at the cottage, or even at their cabin as they rumbled up the hill.


  I will come home to Ireland. I will see Lear House again. She repeated these words in her head as she held on to the flimsy hand rail bolted to the plank seat. With each bump and sway, she clutched her belly to keep the baby from rocking in her womb.

  After a few hours’ travel, they encountered a young man embracing his tearful wife at the river crossing. Briana recognized them as residents of Carrowteige. Their frayed, dirty clothes hung like rags upon their bodies as they clung to each other. Compared to the dress the young woman wore, Briana and her sister were clothed in splendor. The young man, his thin legs showing through the holes in his grimy pants, soon was left behind. His bony toes had punched holes in his shoes.

  Seeing the young couple at the river of sorrows, Briana grew dispirited as well. She did, however, count her blessings. She and her sister were able to ride in a cart rather than walk to Westport, and the clothes they wore were in good repair. She wondered if the woman who stood on the bank carried a child as well.

  “I wish we could offer him a ride, but the horses couldn’t handle another body,” Rory told her as they moved on.

  As the wagon traveled south past the stony waters of Carrowmore Lake, the ochre hues of the Nephin Beg and the green bog lands came into view. Briana was amazed by the silence that surrounded them. No smoke arose from the hillsides; now deserted cabins had fused with the earth. The sceilps that had sheltered the starving had long been abandoned. A disturbing quiet came after the people vanished, the land empty. Apart from the occasional chirp of a bird, she heard nothing but the creaking cart as it rolled toward Bangor and Ballycroy.