“You can’t travel with Shona,” Lucinda said. “What of the voyage, the weather, the famine.”
Lucinda’s objections only cemented her resolve. “Shona will be better off with me. I’m not leaving her in the care of a wet nurse. I promise you that I will protect her.” She ran a finger around her daughter’s chubby pink face. “We have the money to bring them here. I’ll find food, and I’ll protect my child.” She held out her hand to her sister. “Father and Rory need us.”
Lucinda only shook her head. “I think it’s the most foolish action you’ve ever contemplated, and you’ve done some ill-advised things in your life.”
Briana looked past her sister to the sunlight splashing upon the brick building across the lane. The wind shook the still-naked branches of the lone maple that rose from the sidewalk. Puffy white clouds breezed across a sterling blue sky.
A sudden calm descended upon her, putting her at ease despite her sister’s objection. “No, I have to return to Ireland. Rory and Father need me.” She walked to the window with the baby and looked to the bright western sky. “I’ll bring them back to America.”
“Your optimism never ceases, does it?” She got up from the bed and stirred the embers in the fireplace. Licks of flame sprouted under the birch logs. “It may sound selfish, but I don’t want to leave my job. Quinlin needs care, and someone has to pay the Colemans. I don’t want to lose our room to another tenant.”
Briana stepped toward her. “You know that all I’ve ever wanted is for all of us to be together. For so long I thought our family could only find joy at Lear House, but now I think we could be happy here. If you can find it in your heart to look after the boy, I, and Addy, would be most grateful.” She smiled. “But there’s another reason you should stay on, sister. . . . Your suitor.”
Lucinda’s eyes brightened and her cheeks flushed at the mention of Dr. Scott. “I would hardly call him a suitor. We see each other now and then.”
“Now and then! You’ve seen the good doctor at least twice a week since Shona’s birth, and I don’t think there’s any disputing that he cares for you.”
Her sister came to her side. “Am I not allowed? Am I to remain a spinster for the duration of my life because my sister is married?”
“No, of course not. I believe your life is here in Boston. Why return? You’ve never been as fond of Ireland as I have.”
Lucinda sat at the desk, folded her hands, and sighed. “I suppose you’re right. My job with the Carlisles is not one to sniff at, and they have been more than kind to us. And Mr. Peters has given you free rein at the trades office, so there’s no reason you can’t leave.” She lowered her gaze to the inkwell and paper on the desk. “I am fond of Dr. Scott. I think he values my intelligence rather than my beauty, though. You were always the pretty one.”
Briana stood behind Lucinda. “You are beautiful, my sister, but you’ve lavished your affection upon one man who doesn’t deserve it.”
Lucinda reached back and grasped Briana’s hand. “Then you shall go and I shall remain here, awaiting your return with Father and your husband.” She got up and embraced her.
“It will be for the best.” Shona wriggled in her arms. “Now we must find a ship to take me home.”
* * *
Three days later, Briana had booked a reservation on a commercial steamer that had resumed Atlantic passage now that spring had blossomed. Mr. Peters was able to convert enough of Quinlin’s bank notes to Irish currency for the voyage over and passage back for three people when he heard that Briana was going to take care of her father. He assured her that when she returned, a position would be waiting for her at the Building Trades.
It took only a day to pack what she needed for the baby and herself before she began her good-byes.
The boy clutched at her dress and cried from the steps of the house in South Cove the day she departed. Lucinda assured him that Briana would one day return to Boston. Her last memory of her American home was Lucinda, Quinlin, and Mrs. Coleman standing on the steps while patches of sun fell on their shoulders. She settled in the carriage seat with Shona in her arms, her bag packed with provisions. The open sea and the lurking specter of the famine awaited.
CHAPTER 23
“What’s going on?” Quinn peered through the kitchen window one morning in early April, looking east toward the hill that rose toward the village.
Rory, always keeping the Constabulary in mind, rushed to his side. A line of white dots descended the rise and then split apart as two black specks skirted around them.
“Sheep, by God,” Rory said with a sense of wonder. “Sir Thomas is bringing in what he promised.” The animals’ muffled bleats sounded through the window.
Quinn turned, a fearful look in his eyes. “They’ll eject us from the house.”
“Not if they don’t know we’re here,” Rory said. “Keep quiet. They can’t get in if we bolt the kitchen door.” He adjusted the flue on the stove so the fire used for breakfast would die and the smoke would cease to rise through the chimney.
It didn’t take long for the sheep to find their way through the destroyed tenant farms. Soon they were grazing on the turf around the potato ridges. The two men accompanying the animals called off their black-and-white dogs with a series of sharp whistles, and the flock settled across the land in a listless pack. The burly men leaned against the ruins of a sod wall, smoked their pipes, and ate from their packs. Rory didn’t know where they had come from. He knew most everyone who remained in the village, and these men were not from Carrowteige. Most likely they were hands hired by Sir Thomas to herd the sheep, purchased from another landowner, to the grounds of Lear House.
Throughout the afternoon, the men worked on building a crude fence of stone and turf around the central grazing area. The work and the enclosure caused Rory no alarm; however, two other prospects did. First, what if the men explored the exterior of Lear House and found the unchained kitchen door? Second, the animals’ appearance might mean that more sheep and other workers would follow.
Their discovery at the manor would be imminent. That disturbing prospect left him shaken. If they were arrested, which by law the owner had every right to do, they would spend time in prison or be transported to another country. If they left Lear House, they would be homeless with few available possibilities for shelter. Perhaps the Molly sympathizer at Geesala, where they had stored the grain and silver, would take them in, or the farmer at Glencastle where Orange had been hiding might welcome them. But in these times with everyone struggling, options were scarce.
In either case, arrest or abandonment, the letter he had posted to Briana that listed his address as Lear House might mislead her. If she arrived to find no one at the manor, they would miss each other altogether, or she might assume the worst—that he and her father were dead.
By sunset the men, apparently pleased with their work, left the sheep and walked up the hill with their dogs. Rory suspected they had somehow procured lodging with one of the villagers. How long would it be before the men knew they were living in Lear House?
The setting sun broke through the clouds and cast long shadows across the turf. Now and then a bleat from one of the animals penetrated the window. How delectable a lamb feast might be to a starving stomach. It also might mean a rope around his neck. Starvation or hanging, either manner of death would be a dismal choice.
For the next few days, the men watched over the sheep even when the rain poured down upon them. Rory had little sympathy for them but found his heart in his throat when one circled the manor grounds.
He closed the kitchen shutter as the man started toward them. He had time to herd Quinn and Brian into the dark hallway. The back door creaked and shook, but it held firm. Certainly the man noticed that the door was not padlocked from the outside, unlike the front door. He cupped his hand over Brian’s mouth until he was sure the man was gone. He and Quinn breathed a sigh of relief and debated whether to leave under cover of darkness the next evening.
/> That night, an awful crack, like the breaking of bone, awakened Rory.
Quinn started as well, calling out Brian’s name. He was the first to get to the man’s side in the hall. “He’s bleeding,” he called out to Rory, who sprang from his bed. “He’s hit his head.”
Rory lit a candle and found Quinn hunched over his father-in-law. A gash on the left side of Brian’s face spewed blood on the floor. He returned to the kitchen, dipped a cloth in a bucket of fresh water, and then instructed the poet to apply it against the wound while he went for towels. He found them in the bathroom upstairs.
They wrapped Brian’s head in cloth and carried him to his bed. His breathing was shallow, his face a sickly white in the yellow candlelight.
“Oh, God, make him well,” Rory entreated, his voice tinged with sadness. There was no doctor to go for, nothing to do except watch and wait. He looked down at the bloodied head of his father-in-law and prayed that Briana was on her way to Ireland.
Quinn muttered a prayer over his friend’s body and then repeated the words, “There’s no justice in this world.”
They watched over him as the night turned to day.
* * *
The Atlantic had been cruel on the voyage to Liverpool, and, much of the time, Briana was locked in her cabin in dizzy solitude with Shona. The steamer shivered and moaned across the waves but made good time because of the westerly gales. Even the channel crossings stabbed at her tender stomach; food was plentiful but hard to keep down because of the turbulent seas. Shona adapted to the waves. The ship’s motion often rocked her to sleep.
Briana touched Irish soil at Belmullet for the first time in eight months when she completed the final portion of her journey. Her legs wobbled a bit as she walked along the quay. A kind porter took pity on her, carried her bag, and secured a carriage for her journey to Lear House. A thousand questions tormented her as she stared out the cab window with Shona mewling in her arms. Nestled in the carriage, the baby was the least of her concerns at the moment. What would come after she reached Lear House? Where would she go if Rory and her father weren’t there?
The landscape shifted into the familiar greenish brown hills of the bog. The silence that fell upon the land when the plague burst forth still remained. Nothing moved, no bird sang. The eerie feeling made her skin crawl.
Dreadful memories burst into her head when the carriage crossed the shallows where she’d seen the first starving family so long ago. As she looked out at the rushing blue waters, her heart pounded with a hopeful excitement that, ahead, she would find her husband and father. Uttering soothing words, she lifted Shona to the glass so her daughter could glimpse the land Briana loved.
Her joy was muted, however, when the carriage rolled through Carrowteige. The once tidy homes had fallen into disrepair, and some had even been destroyed. No one walked the streets, no one stirred in the silent windows.
The carriage topped the ridge, and she looked down upon Lear House and the grounds where the tenant farms had once stood. She gasped, her breath fleeing from her lungs. The homes had been reduced to muddy mounds. Lear House still stood looking out over the bay like a rock fortress, but its windows were shuttered, the manor as silent and deserted as the village. Sheep grazed on lands once occupied by hundreds of farmers, but no men tended the animals.
She clutched Shona and a tear dropped from her eye. The destruction was worse than she had imagined.
The coachman stopped in the lane leading up to the entrance of Lear House.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” he asked as he lifted her bag from the carriage.
“Very sure,” she replied. The wind cut around her, ruffling her skirt. She breathed in the clean freshness of the air and took in the broad expanse of the bay. How she had missed her home!
“It’s grand, but it looks empty to me,” he said. “I’d hate to leave a lady stranded, but I must return to Belmullet.”
“Would you mind waiting a few minutes? I have the return fare if need be.”
“Of course. It’ll give me a chance to water my horses.”
“The cistern is up the hill.” She covered Shona with her blanket and walked to the front door. The rusty padlock and chain that hung from the gate covering the front door looked as if they hadn’t been touched in months.
Briana skirted the east side of the house, following the carriage as the driver urged his horses up the hill. She spotted something—the figure of a man—moving behind the kitchen window, behind a shutter that looked askew.
When she turned the corner, he was standing there, his hands clenched at his sides. She rushed to him, but he thrust out his arms, begging her to stop.
Rory stepped toward her. “I want to be sure this isn’t a dream. I want to know that you and my child are real.” He brought his hands to his mouth.
She stopped. The baby cried in her arms.
He ambled like an old man, his frame thinner, much more fragile than when she had left those months ago. Above his clasped hands and the growth of beard, his weary face showed thick creases. But it was Rory, and her heart leapt with joy. He was alive!
He stumbled against her and collapsed at her feet. She knelt beside him and covered his face with kisses, her tears flowing.
“Your daughter,” she said, and handed the baby to him.
Rory cradled her in his arms, parted the blanket covering her, and looked down lovingly upon his daughter’s face. “What’s her name?”
“Shona.”
“A beautiful name.” He pulled his daughter close and sobbed into the blanket.
“I’m home,” she said. “And I’m never leaving you again.”
The driver appeared by her side. “So this is the right place.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be staying.”
Briana never heard the carriage leave as she and Rory melted into each other’s arms.
Daniel Quinn’s voice finally broke their embrace.
* * *
They slept upstairs in Blakely’s bed behind a closed door. They lay against each other, savoring their precious time together, freed from carnal needs, with their daughter safely settled between them. There was another reason they clung to each other. Sorrow. Brian Walsh had died three days earlier.
Rory had dug a shallow grave next to Brian’s wife the night after the death. Quinn had helped him place the body over a pony, which Rory led to the community graveyard. After much sweat and tears, the deed was done. Father O’Kirwin, still at the post across the bay, wasn’t notified, for Rory wanted no attention drawn to Lear House. So his father-in-law went into the ground without the benefit of the priest’s prayers. Rory stood looking at the bare earth high on the hillside. The rain came in off the Atlantic as he made his way back to the manor.
Rory took Briana to the gravesite the morning after she arrived. Shona was bundled against her mother’s warm bosom. Slate-colored clouds swept in from the Atlantic. The wind buffeted them as they stood by the spaded earth.
“We almost left Lear House after he died,” Rory said, “but something told me stay.”
“I’m glad you did,” she said, and pulled her shawl around her shoulders and head. “I don’t think he would have liked America. He’ll be happier here, buried next to Mother.”
“He didn’t suffer much after the fall,” Rory said. “His spirit had already been broken. . . .”
“By everything,” Briana said, and turned her back to the wind. Her tears had already been spent when she learned of her father’s passing, but now she trembled at the thought of Death touching her with its cold hands. She was tired of thinking about the famine, tired of remembering the bodies along the road, the starving children, the men and women of County Mayo dressed in rags with nothing to eat and no hope for the future.
Now that she was back in Ireland she understood clearly what America had to offer. With her father gone and Lear House shuttered, there was no reason to stay. For all she cared, the poet could make his residence at the manor. As
much as she loved her home and her country, the birth of her daughter had changed her thinking. Shona was three months old and deserved more than Ireland could offer.
She turned and snuggled against Rory, using his body to block the chill, the baby pressed between them.
“Could you live in America?” she asked him.
He gazed down the hillside at the jumbled remains of the farms, the grazing sheep, the shepherds, and was silent for a time before he spoke. “My brother and his family are gone, and our friends are scattered to the four winds.” He stopped, his voice choking, and then spaded the earth on Brian’s grave with his hand. He rose and kissed her. “As much as I don’t want to believe it, there’s nothing to keep us here. Shona and you are more important to me than any country.”
She returned his kiss, and they walked down the precarious trail on the west side of Lear House, taking care not to be seen by the men guarding the sheep. As they neared the kitchen door, she said, “You saved my mother’s crucifix. I’m returning it to her.”
That afternoon she sneaked out of the house and carried the crucifix to the graves and placed it as a marker. “Dust to dust,” she said, knowing that within in a few years it would crumble and disintegrate on the turf.
* * *
Late that same day, Rory was the first to spot the carriage hurtling like a crow over the top of the hill. The black coach traversed the slope with haste, making a speedy descent toward Lear House.
“Close the shutters,” Rory shouted to Quinn as he dashed past him on his way to find Briana upstairs. The stairwell was dark, but he knew it well enough to find Blakely’s bedroom. There, Briana lay with Shona on the bed as the muted light of day filtered in through the slats.
“He’s here,” Rory shouted. “It has to be him.”
“It can’t be.” Briana jumped from the bed, leaving the baby concealed by the blankets. She peered through the slats, hoping to see the carriage. “He’s at least a month ahead of schedule. What’s he doing here?”
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