The Irish Earl

by Patricia Bray

  Felicity donned her blue riding habit. The hem had become frayed during the trip, but soon it would not matter. For this day they would reach her new home, and her traveling would be over.

  She pulled on her half boots, then checked her appearance one last time in the mirror. Surely there ought to be some sign that she had become a woman? Some outward sign that she had replaced her innocence with knowledge of desire? And yet try as she could, she could see no alteration in her appearance. She felt like a new person, but if the mirror were to be trusted, she looked the same as she always had.

  “Good morning,” Felicity said, as she pushed aside the curtain and entered the kitchen.

  “And a fine morning to you,” Mrs. Connolly said, turning from the fireplace. “Just sit yourself down, and I will have breakfast ready before you know it.”

  Felicity glanced over to the table, where Kilgarvan was seated. She briefly caught his eye and then looked away in confusion. How was one supposed to behave toward one’s husband, after the intimacies they had shared?

  Carefully she sat down across from him.

  “I trust you slept well?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, although indeed there had been very little sleep that occurred last night.

  She looked at the table and realized it was set for two. “Will not Mr. Connolly join us?” she asked.

  The question had been addressed to Kilgarvan, but it was Mrs. Connolly who replied. “Ah, that one,” she said. “Himself and our sons were awake hours ago. My sister Mary Kate made a fine breakfast for us all, and now they are up on the meadows, tending to the cattle.”

  “You should not have let me sleep so late,” Felicity said.

  Kilgarvan gave a slow smile, full of hidden meaning. “You seemed tired, after the…the excitement of yesterday,” he said smoothly. “I saw no harm in letting you sleep late this morning. From here it is an easy journey to Glenmore, and we will be there by afternoon.”

  Mrs. Connolly wrapped her apron around the handle of a frying pan, and then lifted it from the fire. Bringing the pan over to the table, she loaded their plates with a generous portion of eggs, bacon and fried potatoes, and then brought over a loaf of bread, cut into thick slices and spread with butter.

  Felicity fell to her meal with a ravenous hunger that she had not suspected till the food was laid in front of her.

  Mrs. O’Connell refused to join them, but instead kept up a steady stream of conversation as she busied herself around the kitchen. Felicity was grateful for her presence, for the cheerful chatter distracted her from any lingering awkwardness between her and Kilgarvan.

  “And it’s right glad I was to hear that the men would be hired on for fixing the road. Sure and there will be many a man who will be grateful for honest work,” Mrs. O’Connell remarked.

  Kilgarvan nodded, but instead of replying took a sip of his tea.

  After breakfast they bade farewell to Mrs. O’Connell, thanking her again for her hospitality. Then they mounted their horses and began the journey down into the valley.

  As soon as they were alone, Kilgarvan turned to Felicity. “I hope it is not too uncomfortable for you to ride?”

  “Oh! No,” she said, blushing as she realized his meaning. In truth she was a bit sore, but it was only a short distance to Glenmore.

  “Good. I was afraid we had been a trifle enthusiastic last night,” he said with a wicked grin.

  She felt the heat in her face, and wondered if she would ever feel comfortable discussing such a matter with her husband. Desperately she sought to change the subject. “Mrs. O’Connell mentioned something about fixing a road? And your offering employment to the men hereabouts?”

  “Surely after this last week, even you can see that the Cork road needs to be repaired. At least from here to Drisheen,” he said.

  “Of course. But why should we pay for its upkeep?” she asked, stressing the word we. “You don’t even own the property that it runs along. Should you not apply to the government to repair the roads?”

  His words were cold and clipped as he replied. “The government cares naught for a minor road in the uncivilized south. They will not pay a farthing for its upkeep. The condition of the road does not matter to them. But it does to me, and to the farmers of Kilgarvan. Nowadays they must take their butter and cattle to market in Nedeen, or even farther to Killarney. The journey is long, and the prices there are only half of what they could command in the great market at Cork. If we fix the road, the farmers can get a fair price for their goods. They will prosper, as will we. The investment in the road will pay for itself in a few years.”

  “You seem to have thought this out very well,” she said, seeing the logic in his words.

  “It was no mere whim when I offered the work yesterday,” he said.

  “I was not questioning your judgment,” she said. “Merely the timing of your announcement. You had days to share your plans with me, and yet I hear of this only today. If Mrs. Connolly had not spoken, when were you going to inform me?”

  There was a long pause. “I did not mean to exclude you,” Kilgarvan said. “I am not used to sharing my counsel with anyone. I will promise to do better.”

  “Thank you,” she said. There was a moment’s pause, and then when it became clear that Kilgarvan was not going to speak, she prompted him with, “And are there any other projects I should be informed of?”

  “My intentions are not yet fixed,” Kilgarvan replied. “There are various schemes that have been long considered, but I could not decide on any till I knew how much capital would be available to implement them.”

  She translated the sentence in her head, and realized he meant that his plans had been dependent on his obtaining a wife, and the size of her dowry. She nodded, encouraging him to go on.

  “I have sent for a friend of mine, to ask his help in starting a school for the children,” he began. “And written to several factory owners, to see about the possibility of starting a factory that would give year-round employment. Then there is the great house to set to rights, and decisions to be made on whether to repair the tenants’ cabins or simply tear them down and build anew. There were once weirs on the lake, to provide fish, and they could be built again. And of course the cattle herds are in a poor state, the best bulls having been sold off long ago. My agent, Dennis O’Connor, suggested sending to Killarney to purchase a fine bull, which could be set to stud. And then—”

  His face was animated, and he gestured enthusiastically as he began to describe the various schemes he had devised. Felicity admired his passion, but feared that he was letting his enthusiasm override his good sense. She did not see how one man could implement even half the schemes he proposed, and her dowry, while sizable, was not infinite.

  He seemed to sense her reservations, for he suddenly paused in his description of how a model town could be designed. “You must think me foolish,” he said.

  “No,” she said slowly. “But—”

  “But these things cannot be done overnight,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “It will take time, and patience, to do all I hope for. Still, it does no harm to have great dreams, even if the beginnings must be small.”

  The tension left her as she realized her fears had been foolish. She must remember to trust her husband’s judgment, as he would learn to trust hers. They were partners in this venture, after all. His was the land, and hers was the money that would make it prosper. And together they would see those dreams come to fruition.

  The strained atmosphere evaporated, and they spoke easily of the fine wedding, and the people she had met there. They made good progress, and the lake, which had appeared as a silver ribbon from the mountaintop, grew steadily larger, the sun sparkling off its dark waters. From time to time he pointed out sights to her. A stone cairn that marked the resting place of an ancient hero. The crumbling remains of cabins, deserted when their inhabitants could no longer pay the rent.

  Strangely there was no joy in his face when he poin
ted out the ancient oak tree that marked the border of Kilgarvan land. Given his impatience to reach home, she had expected him to rejoice, but instead he grew quiet, and his face became still and impenetrable.

  “Is there something wrong?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied quickly, but she did not believe him. There was tension in the set of his shoulders, and his expression was grim.

  She looked ahead, but could not see what had caused his sudden reserve. The road had leveled out as they reached the floor of the valley. Up ahead to the right lay the glistening waters of the lake. Not far from the lake there were a group of men laboring in a muddy field. They appeared to be making bricks, but when she asked Kilgarvan, she was informed that the men were cutting turf. So that was where the peat bricks that the Irish burned in their fires came from. She had never seen such a thing before, and promised herself she would return for a closer look someday soon.

  “Remember that Glenmore has fallen on hard times,” he said, his remarks addressed to the road before them, rather than his looking her in the eye.

  “Of course,” she said.

  As they rounded the southern end of the lake, she saw a cabin standing in a field. One wall of the cabin was crumbling, the front door was missing entirely and the straw thatch roof was a dull brown, a sure sign of disrepair. At first she thought it another abandoned residence, but as they drew closer she saw smoke coming from the chimney, and a few listless chickens scratching in the yard.

  Next to the cabin was a small patch of potatoes. A woman and a girl were weeding the field, but at the sound of the horses they looked up, and they both bobbed a curtsy as the woman called out a greeting in Gaelic.

  Kilgarvan merely nodded in acknowledgment. Felicity could not help noticing that both the woman and the child were barefoot, and the skirts they had looped up for working were little better than rags.

  No doubt some tragedy had overtaken this family, she told herself. But she could not contain her unease as they passed the next cottage, and another. Each was in as poor condition as the first.

  Dogs barked, and children ran out from the cabins as they reached the village of Glenmore. Village was too grand a name for it. A miserable collection of perhaps two dozen cabins lined either side of the road. None of them deserved to be called anything other than hovels.

  At the center of the village was a small green on which a pair of scrawny black cattle grazed. On one side of the green was a small chapel, and next to it was a two-story building of stone that might have been a store or an estate office once, but now sat idle. On the other side of the green was what appeared to be a blacksmith’s shop, though the forge was unlit. There were a couple of other buildings whose purpose was not immediately apparent.

  Past the green the road led up a small rise to where a great manor house stood. From here it appeared to be a grand establishment, and completely out of place when compared to the village.

  Kilgarvan stopped his horse on the green and dismounted, and Felicity did the same. A crowd gathered around them, calling greetings in Gaelic. The villagers seemed pleased to see Kilgarvan. There were many interested glances in her direction, and Felicity forced herself to smile back at the friendly faces, trying desperately to hide her shock.

  Never had she expected to see such misery. When Kilgarvan had told her his people were poor, she had imagined poverty as she had seen it in England, not this desperate privation. She had seen beggars walking the roads in England who appeared better clothed and fed than the residents of Glenmore.

  Not that the people were starved. She had seen starvation in India, and these people did not have that dreadful thinness or hollow, sunken gaze. But neither were they well fed, although observing the crowds she could see that while the adults were all lean and wiry, the children had rosy round cheeks and bright eyes.

  A young man, better dressed than any she had seen so far, called out to Kilgarvan, and the crowd parted to let him make his way through.

  He paused in front of them and made a bow that would have done credit in an English drawing room. “Welcome home, my lord,” he said. Then he turned his attention to her. “A thousand welcomes to you, Lady Felicity. It is pleased we are to have you here.”

  “Thank you,” Felicity said.

  “Felicity, this is my agent, Dennis O’Connor,” her husband said by way of introduction.

  “I am pleased to meet you, Mr. O’Connor.”

  Kilgarvan turned away from her as a laborer asked him a question in Gaelic. In a moment Mr. O’Connor was called into the discussion.

  Felicity looked around, feeling excluded. A young girl came up to her and shyly stroked the velvet embroidery on the sleeve of Felicity’s riding habit. Then the girl tipped her head up and asked a question.

  “I am sorry,” Felicity said with a shake of her head. “I do not speak Gaelic.”

  She glanced around, but while the faces appeared friendly enough, no one came forward with an offer to translate. She could feel the smile on her face growing stiff, but did not know what else she could do.

  Turning to her husband, she placed her hand on his sleeve. Kilgarvan turned and frowned as he recalled her presence.

  “I must take Felicity up to the house,” he informed Dennis O’Connor.

  Dennis nodded. “You’ll find everything that can be done has been done. Father Harrington told us you’d be arriving today, and my mother and sister are up there now.”

  “Good,” Kilgarvan said.

  He helped Felicity mount her horse, and then mounted his own. “I will meet you here in half an hour, and you can bring me up-to-date on how our plans are progressing,” he told Dennis. Then, after a few farewell exchanges to the villagers, he and Felicity resumed their journey.

  The end of her travels was within her grasp, yet she was no longer anxious for the journey to end. Glenmore had shocked her to her core, and she wondered what other surprises this land held for her.

  Thirteen

  Felicity had been horrified by her first sight of Glenmore. Kilgarvan had seen it in her face before she had time to don a polite social mask. But he could see the distress that lurked behind her gaze, and her shock upon discovering the true state of affairs. He had known that she would be dismayed by what she saw, but still he had felt a stab of betrayal as he witnessed her shock.

  He saw Glenmore as it must appear through her eyes. Everywhere there were signs of dire poverty: the dilapidated cabins, the tattered rags his people wore, the lack of industry. Where once the hillsides had been dotted with cattle, now there were only a few straggly beasts remaining, the rest having been sold off long ago to make the rent.

  Even the faces of the people were thinner than he remembered. He felt sick as he thought of the fine meals he had enjoyed in London, while his people were subsisting on potatoes and milk.

  He had known his people were poor, but now he realized that they stood on the edge of a catastrophe. It would take little to push them over into disaster. A crop failure, a summer with too much or too little rain, a cattle sickness. Any one of these would finish these people off.

  He cursed himself for his blindness. The decline had occurred gradually during his youth, and continued after his father’s death. He had seen that his people were poor, but like his father he had seen not what was, but what he dreamed could be. It had taken his absence in London, and then his return, to open his eyes to the plight of his people. And now he saw them as his new wife must, and he felt ashamed. No accusation that his wife could hurl at him could wound him as much as his own reproaches.

  This is not my fault, he had wanted to cry out, but his pride held him frozen in silence. He would not explain to her. Coming on this trip had been her idea. He had warned her that Glenmore was not fit for civilized company, and that she would be better off waiting until he could set things right before making a visit. But, damn her stubbornness, Felicity had insisted on making the journey, and upon her own head be it if she did not like what she had found.

&
nbsp; Politeness held her tongue while they were in company, but as soon as they were alone, he knew she would begin to question him. And he could not bear it. So he had bundled her quickly up to the main house, leaving her to the care of Dennis’s mother and sister, both of whom spoke fair English. She had asked to come with him, but he had refused, telling her that she would be better served inspecting the house and getting settled.

  He thought for a moment that she would refuse his command, but then she acceded. Or rather, it was not that she obeyed his wish, but found her own reasons to do as he said. Felicity had her own streak of stubbornness, and he knew that if she had thought it best, she was more than capable of insisting on following him.

  He needed time to think, so he left his horse at the stable and walked the mile back to the village. There he found Dennis O’Connor in quiet conversation with young Dan O’Sullivan, who was nephew to Thomas Connolly, their host from the previous day. As was the custom in Ireland, Thomas Connolly had rented a large property, and then in turn rented portions of this to his relations. The O’Sullivans were a large family, eleven children in all, with Dan being the eldest. While not as prosperous as their cousins, they did well, compared to their neighbors in Kilgarvan.

  But there were seven sons in the O’Sullivan family, and the land could not support them all. Even if Thomas Connolly was willing to further divide the land he rented, he had five sons of his own to provide for. The O’Sullivans, like most in the valley, faced a hard choice. They could remain, trying to eke out a meager living on a tiny patch of ground, supplementing their farming with a few days labor here and there.

  Or they could leave, seeking employment in England or emigrating to the Americas.

  It was a brutally hard choice, for those who emigrated never returned, and were counted as dead to their family.