'Til Morning Light

by Ann Moore

  “I’ll see you first,” she told him, her hand on the doorknob. “I’ve got to finish things up there, and see Enid settled. And, of course, you’ll need money.”

  Harry came to her side. “You’ve stood by us all a long, long time.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “You do whatever you think is best, and I’ll not stand in your way now. I’ve always loved you, Agnes. I’m sorry.”

  She did not look at him as he kissed her cheek, but stared out into the hallway. “Rent’s paid,” she said. “And you got that little Mulhoney brat to run to market for you.”

  He winced at the epithet but nodded.

  “See you in two weeks, then.”

  Harry stood at the door, watching until she’d disappeared down the stairwell, remembering how young and pretty she’d been when first they met, how puffed up with the importance of having been hired on at the big house. She was bold and exciting, but he was older and should have exercised greater control for her sake; the result of his impulsiveness was marriage on the quick and a son come early. He knew in his heart that she hadn’t wanted to marry, hadn’t wanted children yet, but she never complained, and oh, she adored that boy—Richard was the true love of her life, always her favorite, even after Enid and William had come along.

  In those days, he’d thought himself a lucky man for everything turning out as well as it was—even if she didn’t love him, Agnes respected Harry as her husband and the father of her children, and their home was a happy one. But then Richard—seventeen and full of yearning to see the world—joined the infantry, went to Ireland on foot, and came home again in a box. Agnes had taken to her bed and lain there for two months, waiting to die herself and would have—Harry was sure—if not for her sister, Vera, who came and tended her day and night until at last she got up. It was an answer to Harry’s fervent prayers, and he’d fulfilled his bargain with God by taking his family to the new land to begin a new life. Agnes had not wanted to go to Boston, had not wanted to leave her sister or the site of Richard’s grave, but Harry had insisted, thinking it the best thing for all of them. “Vera will tend the plot,” he’d promised, and she had, wanting Agnes to have a new and better life, wanting Agnes to send money home for when they would be together again.

  They weren’t in Boston a year when William began to sicken; he had seizures, the beginnings of palsy, perhaps it was consumption or tuberculosis—the doctors recommended a drier climate, though they couldn’t say exactly what it was that plagued the boy. When Agnes wouldn’t hear of going—Wills was, after all, a pale light compared to her Richard—Harry had gone quietly to the reverend, saying he was ready to answer God’s call to preach to the heathen Chinese out west. The reverend convinced Agnes to support her husband in this mission, and the church sent them by ship around the Horn. Harry had had great hopes for life in San Francisco and had begun his ministry with fire and enthusiasm, but William had only gotten worse instead of better; soon he could not control his limbs or his speech, and Agnes was sure he’d gone mad. She’d declared that caring for an imbecile was asking too much of her, and she begged Harry to put William in an asylum for such people.

  To keep the boy at home, Harry had finally agreed to give up his mission, to live in seclusion while Agnes and Enid took work first in a hotel and then with the wealthy Wakefields. They couldn’t know about Harry and Wills, Agnes had insisted; they wouldn’t want a married housekeeper with outside responsibilities, especially when the mistress of the house was an invalid and needed special attention. And so he had agreed, out of guilt—for getting her with child and allowing that child to go away from her and die, for moving her to a place full of mud, miners, and foreigners, and for saddling her with a palsied son who’d need her care the rest of his days. He agreed to everything, just as he would agree to her leaving, when the time came, though how they would cope, he did not know. As much as he loved Agnes, as much as he knew he owed her, he simply could not leave his beloved daughter in an arranged marriage and his son to suffer and die alone, with no one to tend the grave. He would cling to his faith, knowing that it was not God who had failed him, but he who had failed God. Young William Hopkins, only twenty years old, would be with God soon enough, and Harry was determined not to fail him in the end.

  There was a sound now from behind him, a groan he knew well, as he knew all of the groans that William made—a different one for cold, hunger, joy, sadness, just as a baby had its many cries, all the same to ears who knew it not, but never to those who loved it best.

  “Coming, Wills.” Harry closed the door on the chilly winter air, putting on a smile and rubbing his hands briskly as he turned to face his son. “Now, how about a meal for the two of us, eh? Looks like we’ve got a nice loaf here, and some cheese, apples—I’ll stew them for you!—and a lump of bacon. Even some eggs, Willy, old boy! How about a nice boiled egg for your tea?”

  Wills groaned and swayed from side to side, but it was no answer to the question; he wanted his father.

  Harry sat down beside the young man and put an arm around the wasted shoulders, pulling him close, kissing the clammy forehead.

  “I know you’re in there, Will Hopkins, and I’ll never leave you.” He smiled tenderly into eyes that were locked upon his own. “No matter where the road leads, we’ll go together, you and I. Even without her, we’ll be all right,” he vowed. “I promise you that, Wills, and I’ll not let you down.”

  Twenty-six

  There were three options, as far as Morgan could see: He could go overland, but he’d have to wait until after the spring rains when there would be plenty of fresh grass and water for his horse; he could sail the seventeen thousand miles around Cape Horn, which meant he could leave right away but would need to raise the 250 dollars passage, and it would still take anywhere from five to seven months before he arrived in San Francisco; or he could travel by small steamship to Panama, canoe up the Chagres River, take pack mules over rugged terrain, then try to book a large steamer out of Panama City to San Francisco—this would take at most two months but would cost nearly 400 dollars.

  “Can you work your way over on the ships?” Morgan asked at the breakfast table.

  The big man shook his head. “Only experienced sailors,” he said around a bite of fried bread. “And only if they’re shorthanded, which they never are. Everyone’s still trying to go west. Though they must be running out of gold by now, wouldn’t you think?”

  “’Tis more than gold draws them.” Tara poured more tea into her husband’s cup. “New lives, adventure, all that. They say women out there wear trousers,” she added.

  “Well, darling, they’re behind the times, ’cause haven’t you been wearing the pants round here for years now!” Ogue laughed and dodged the swat his wife aimed at him. “Isn’t that right, Caolon, my boy?”

  “Aye, Da!” The little boy grinned from his chair, then stopped when his eyes fell upon his mother’s frown. “I mean, no, Da,” he said soberly.

  Now they all laughed.

  “Your one is only a year older than Caolon here,” Tara pointed out to Morgan. “Jack, I mean. He’d’ve turned five last November.”

  Morgan studied the boy. “Big, for his age, young Caolon. Is Jack big, do you think?”

  “Well, we’ve not seen him since he was two, of course, but aye.” She nodded. “He was a good size. They’re all big here in America, long as they’re not fed that blue milk comes from the stables by the breweries. They add chalk to that, you know, and all manner of nasty stuff to make it white. Better to feed your own the way God intended.”

  Morgan thought about that. “How was Jack kept alive, with Grace not there to suckle him?”

  “They had a woman at the convent lost her own baby,” Ogue offered. “And later they used goat’s milk. Something wrong with his eyes, though. Sees well enough,” he added quickly. “The woman who kept him married a doctor who fixed him up. Wears spectacles now, he does. Looks like a right young scholar, does Jack.”

  Morgan nodded, trying to
take it all in. “Is Barbara still alive, then? My sister? She was a nun at the convent where Grace was meant to go.”

  “Oh, aye.” Tara was pleased to deliver the good news. “We didn’t find out until after Jack come, but Julia told us she married and moved to the west, to Galway.”

  “Barbara married? She left the order?”

  “Lot of them have done,” Ogue reported. “Left to their own, with so many dead, many just took up their old lives. She married a man called Alroy and they have twin boys, isn’t that right, Tara?”

  “Aye. Grace writes to them, as well.”

  “Barbara married Abban!” Morgan was delighted. “And they have sons! That’s grand. Just grand.” And then, to his embarrassment, his throat closed and tears came again to his eyes. He bowed his head.

  Tara reached across the table and covered his hand with her own. “Sure and ’tis a lot of news.” She comforted him. “Anyone’d be done in by it.”

  “Only I was thinking how right it was they found each other. Barbara and I … growing up as we did …” He stopped, still overcome. “And Abban. Fought side by side, we did, him saving my sorry behind more times than I can count.” Morgan smiled now, remembering. “There was one time me and Abban and Big Quinn were caught out by a patrol, and Abban, he—”

  “Big Quinn Sheehan?” Ogue interrupted. “From County Cork? Great head of hair and sings like one from the heavenly choir?”

  Morgan’s heart quickened. “Is he here, then? In the city?”

  Ogue and Tara exchanged a glance.

  “Blackwell’s Island,” Tara said hesitantly. “In the asylum.”

  “Got off the boat a year ago. A broken man already,” Ogue said. “Come round looking for Sean. Got himself a room, work on the night carts, but stayed to himself, even when drinking.”

  “Took him over, the drink.” Tara picked up the story. “One day he just didn’t get out of bed. Wanted to die, most like, but that failed him, as well. We heard he’d been taken out there to live with the paupers. Dugan went to see him.”

  “He’ll not be the way you remember,” Ogue warned. “Breaks stone for his keep, spends the rest of the time on his pallet with his face to the wall. Haunted, that one, like most of them out there.”

  Morgan stood at once. “Which way?”

  “Would you quit leaping all over the place, boy?” Ogue thumped the table. “These things take time, you know. You can’t just hike yourself on out there and make demands! There’s rules about who you can see and when you can see them. Took me nigh on a week last time!”

  “You called on that Mister O’Sullivan at the paper,” Tara reminded her husband. “Will you try him again?”

  “Aye.” Ogue nodded slowly. “He knew exactly what to do about getting me in. I’ll see him today, if I can.” He glanced at Morgan. “Take you with me, as well. He’ll be interested in you.”

  Morgan hesitated, then sat back down. “Why’d he be interested in me, then?”

  Ogue set his fork and knife down with a bang. “Son. I don’t think you realize who you are in the minds of your people. A hero, that’s what you are, the biggest hero come out of Ireland since Brian Boru. Isn’t that right, darling girl?” He looked to Tara for confirmation.

  “Go on with you.” Morgan turned sideways in his chair and crossed his arms. “Never heard anything so daft in all my life.”

  “Daft or no, ’tis true,” Ogue insisted. “You’ll have to sort it all out for yourself, but the tales they tell and the songs they sing have made you a legend, boy. A legend. And don’t go disappointing the people by making out otherwise,” he reproached. “Accept it. Get used to it. Enjoy it, for pity’s sake! Haven’t you earned it?”

  “Not more than any other man over there,” Morgan asserted. “All of us fought and starved together, died together.”

  “Yeah, well, the banner under which all those men stand is called McDonagh, and don’t go taking that away from us, Mister High and Mighty.” Ogue huffed.

  “Oh.” Morgan’s arms fell to his sides. “Well, I didn’t think of it that way. Maybe that’s right.”

  “Aye, ’tis,” Ogue swore. “That and a lot of other things, like getting out to Blackwell’s Island.”

  “Sorry, Dugan. Truly I am.” Morgan stood up again. “Will we go now to see your man O’Sullivan?”

  The barman sighed and looked at his wife, who shrugged her shoulders affectionately.

  “Let me finish my breakfast at least, will you?” Ogue shoveled the last of his eggs onto his bread, folded the slice in half, then put the whole thing in his mouth, swallowing it down with a full cup of tea. “Any more of that ham?” he asked Tara, then laughed at the expression on Morgan’s face. “Ah, I’m only pulling your leg. Let’s go.” He stood up and grabbed his hat. “You’re going to have to lighten up some, you know, boy, now you’re out of the woods.”

  It was three weeks before Morgan found himself being ferried out to Blackwell’s Island with Mister O’Sullivan at his side; three precious weeks, and yet the time had whirled by in a frenzy of receptions, dinners, and speaking engagements hosted by the Irish Emigrant Society and Tammany Hall, prominent Irish politicians and newsmen like Robert Bonner—immigrant printer turned entrepreneur—owner of the New York Ledger, and James G. Bennett, editor of the New York Herald. It was Bennett who told Morgan that Franklin Pierce had won the presidency of the United States over Millard Fillmore due in large part to the Irish who’d turned out in droves to support him; Fillmore had attached himself to the widespread nativist, anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, Know-Nothing movement, and it had cost him. The Irish, Bennett explained knowingly, were moving into politics with a sure hand now, and they knew how to organize. Sure, Hibernians were still depicted on the theater stage as ignorant, hot-tempered, drunken buffoons, but just look at what they’d accomplished with organizations such as the Laborers Union Benevolent Association, whose membership now topped six thousand, many of them famine refugees, and whose political weight was formidable.

  Morgan had been impressed with the fortitude of his countrymen, knowing full well from what they’d come, but he was sorry to have missed those Irishmen he’d known personally. Thomas Meagher was obviously enormously popular and had been issued a personal invitation to the presidential inauguration to be held on March fourth; now, however, Meagher was on the lecture circuit. It had been reported in all the papers that Thomas had been greeted by a militia unit named the Meagher Guard, and in Massachusetts was met with a twenty-one-gun salute along with the cheers of thousands of Irish factory workers. Smith O’Brien, Morgan learned, had been transported to Van Diemen’s Land, though it was rumored that men were escaping the place every day. John Mitchel’s mother was in Boston and subject of another rumor that had her meeting with Meagher and the presidentelect; Morgan could only hope that this new leader would come to the aid of the Irish rebels who’d been cast far and wide and wanted only to be restored to their homeland.

  Despite the outpouring of support and goodwill, Morgan yearned to escape the public eye and resume his private life—he wanted only to get to Grace, only to see Quinn. Although he’d said nothing to anyone, not even to Dugan or Tara, Morgan had come to a decision; if Sheehan was of reasonably sound mind and could be convinced to come, then Morgan would take him to Oregon, even if he had to carry Quinn on his back.

  O’Sullivan had finally got an appointment to see Sheehan privately this very afternoon, and he carried the paperwork in his jacket pocket. Quinn had been committed to the asylum but had gotten well enough to warrant a transfer to the workhouse, whose inmates were paupers and the destitute. He could be released for a series of payments; bribes, really, Morgan thought, but technically they were fines and remuneration for his care and housing at the asylum. How much, Morgan had no idea, but in his pocket was a wallet full of cash—every tip he’d made serving beer at Ogue’s, every dollar pressed into his hand by those who welcomed him to America, the money he’d got for his knife and his fox-fur ro
be, the odd bank check slipped into his pocket from some of these American women who’d whispered in his ear offers that made him blush. It was nearly one hundred dollars, and Morgan was prepared to use every penny, if that’s what it took to buy Quinn Sheehan’s freedom.

  The day was dark and the crossing rough; wind gusted against the side of the boat and sleet fell intermittently, soaking the ferry passengers, of which there were few. Everyone was silent, and there was no meeting of the eyes; one of the men was still bleeding from a gash to the cheek, and two of the women were noticeably pregnant.

  “Inmates,” O’Sullivan mouthed, and Morgan looked again at the swollen bellies of the two very young women.

  It was midafternoon by the time they landed on the bleak island, and it took them a moment to find their bearings.

  “Welcome to the grand experiment.” O’Sullivan removed his hat, dumping water from its brim. “Run by the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. Four thousand contributing members,” he continued. “Some of the wealthiest and most influential men in New York. All of them concerned with the well-being of the city’s unfortunates; translation—‘Get the beggars off the streets and out of the sight of decent citizens.’ Hence, a two-mile island.” He made a grand sweep with his arm. “Shall we go on?”

  Morgan nodded, a sense of foreboding having fallen upon him; this was a long way from evening clothes and fancy dinners, from wine and song and speech making. O’Sullivan kept on talking while he led the way up a winding path.

  “We’ll see the almshouse first, and you’ll be interested to know that nearly two-thirds of the seven thousand inmates there are Irish, many of whom were domestics, discharged after years of service, with no children to care for them in their old age.”

  “So they’re in prison?”

  “Not prison.” O’Sullivan corrected him. “They are considered the respectable poor and housed here as an alternative to Bellevue Hospital. Bellevue,” he added, “is nothing more than a rat-infested, lice-ridden hole with a mortality rate that is, at best, unnaturally high.”