In the Time of Famine

by Michael Grant

“Yes, I’ll be fine. I’ll just rest here a bit.”

  To take her mind off the child’s death, she concentrated on trying to sort out what was going on. How did this happen? Why were so many people dying? In her less lucid moments, she imagined that all this was some kind of giant, cosmic puzzle—that there had to be an answer somewhere. If she could only discover it, she could stop the dying and the misery. But then reality returned and she knew that there was no answer to what was going on here in Ireland. There were so many things for which she had no answer. But one thing she did know for certain. She could not go back into the hospital again. Ever.

  A shadow passed in front of her face and a pleasant voice said, “Perhaps thee can help me?”

  Startled, Emily looked up. A young man dressed all in black and wearing a wide flat-brimmed hat was standing before her. He had straight, longish blond hair, cobalt blue eyes, and an honest smile that seemed immune to misery.

  “My name is Marcus Goodbody, good lady. Perhaps thee can help me?”

  Looking askance at the stranger in the queer costume, Nora brought the tea service into the library.

  As she poured, Emily said, “Mr. Goodbody, please explain your mission to my father.”

  Goodbody took a cup from Nora. “I thank thee.”

  Thee? Nora shot him a perplexed look, but said nothing.

  “The Society of Friends—most know us as Quakers—is desirous of opening soup kitchens throughout Ireland.”

  Somerville stirred his tea. “An admirable undertaking, sir. What can I do to help?”

  “Mr. Goodbody needs a place to set up his kitchen, Father.”

  “I have a barn and an empty stable. God knows they’re of no use now. You are welcome to them, Mr. Goodbody.”

  “I thank thee. There is one more thing. Thy daughter has volunteered to assist me, but I will require the services of a few men as well. Dost thee know where I might find such men?”

  “Yes, I do. Nora, would you fetch John Ranahan and his sons?”

  Five minutes later Nora was back with the Ranahan men.

  Hat in hand, Da stood rigidly at attention as Mr. Goodbody explained his mission. Dermot, who’d never been inside the Somerville Manor, couldn’t stop gawking at the books and paintings. Michael couldn’t stop looking at Emily, who couldn’t stop stirring her tea even after the cup was half empty.

  “I will not be able to pay thee wages,” Goodbody explained. “But I can provide food for thee and thy family.”

  Da’s heart thumped in his chest. Feeding his family was all he thought about day and night. The little money he and his sons earned on the Public Works was not enough to keep up with the rising cost of food. And now this man, who dressed so oddly and spoke so queer, was offering food. No, more than food. He was offering survival. Yet, in spite of his joy, his pride intervened and he heard himself say, “I cannot accept charity, sir.”

  “It will not be charity, Mr. Ranahan. Rest assured, the hours will be long and the work arduous for thee and thy sons.”

  Da exhaled in relief. “A Ranahan has never been afraid of hard work, sir.”

  Somerville stood up. “Good. Then that’s settled. Is there anything else we can do for you Mr. Goodbody?”

  Goodbody turned to Da. “Mr. Ranahan, perhaps one of thy sons could show me what conditions are like in the countryside?”

  Emily put her cup on the silver tray. “I’ll be glad to show you, Mr. Goodbody.”

  Michael saw her smile at this strange man and felt a sting of jealousy. “I’d better go, too,” he said quickly.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Emily said coolly.

  She was still angry at Michael, whose behavior, in her opinion, seesawed maddeningly from a certain rustic charm to infuriating condescension.

  That day she’d spotted him across the road from the Fever Hospital, she knew he’d been watching her. She’d seen him on three prior occasions, but not once did he approach her. Was he shy? Indifferent? That’s why she’d crossed the road and approached him. To find out for herself. They’d had a pleasant enough conversation, even if all he could manage to say was “aye.”

  Then there was that scene in front of that redheaded man’s cottage where he deigned to lecture her on the evils of the class system. The insufferable, patronizing fool.

  “There are desperate men afoot on the roads these days your lordship,” Michael said.

  “I do believe he’s right,” Somerville said. “Young Ranahan will go with you.”

  “Very well.” Emily didn’t look at all happy. “Please get the trap ready.”

  Michael bridled at the dismissive tone in her voice, but he held his tongue.

  Inside the barn, Michael harnessed the only horse left in the stable. She was so old even the gombeen man wouldn’t buy her. As he led the horse out of the barn, he saw Emily and Goodbody came out of the manor house. They seemed to be having a grand time together.

  After Goodbody inspected the barn, Emily said, “Will the barn serve your purpose, Mr. Goodbody?”

  “It will indeed, Mistress Somerville. I would be pleased if thee would call me by my Christian name, Marcus.”

  “Very well. But only if you call me Emily.”

  Michael yanked at the harness straps, getting angrier by the minute. He studied the man in his queer hat and long black coat. He was almost as tall as Michael and judging from the breath of his back and the way he moved he was used to hard work. He had a ready smile and he didn’t put on airs like most of the young sons of the gentry. In short, he was the kind of man Michael could take a liking to. So why, he asked himself, was he feeling this great dislike for a man he barely knew?

  His eyes went to Emily. Will you look at her? She can’t take her eyes off the man. She’s shameless.

  “So you live in London, Marcus?”

  “I do.”

  “Oh, do tell me, what’s playing in the theaters? It’s been so long.”

  “I would not know, Emily. We are a plain people and do not go in for entertainments and such.”

  “Oh, really? Why—”

  “The trap is ready,” Michael said brusquely.

  They looked at him as though they’d forgotten he was there, and that made him even angrier.

  Emily handed him a hamper filled with bread. “Please take care of this.”

  There was that dismissive tone again. Michael slammed the hamper under the seat and climbed up onto the trap.

  Emily climbed into the trap and sat between Goodbody and Michael.

  In a foul, black humor, Michael guided the horse through back roads that only the tenant farmers used. Emily, pointing to a field of ripened corn, said, “I don’t understand. Why don’t the farmers eat the corn?”

  “Because it’s the crop that pays the rent,” Michael snapped. “They eat that and they’ll be thrown off the land for sure.”

  “There’s no need to take that tone,” Emily said, irritated by his petulance.“You asked and I told you.” Michael knew he’d gone too far and that made his black humor even blacker.

  They traveled in tense silence for a while and then, as they came around a bend, they saw five men chasing a cow across a field. One of the men threw a rope around the animal’s neck. Then, while two men held the terrified animal still, another made a quick incision in the cow’s neck. The fourth man held a bowl under the incision to catch the blood. When the bowl was filled, the third man stuffed a clump of grass in the wound and they released the animal.

  “What in the world are they doing?” Emily asked, horrified.

  “Collectin’ the blood,” Michael said. “They’ll mix it with a bit of corn meal and fry it. It’s not very tasty, but it does fill the belly. Of course it’s not somethin’ you’d have at one of your grand dinners.”

  Emily, thoroughly exasperated by Michael’s irritable behavior, turned in her seat to face him. “Mr. Ranahan, if it is your purpose to be uncivil you are succeeding admirably.”

  Michael pulled his cap down over his eyes and
snapped the reins. The trap lurched forward. Eejit, he said to himself. Can you not shut your gub for one minute?

  A mile up the road they passed a cluster of cottages that were in such a state of disrepair that Goodbody assumed they must surely be abandoned. But then they saw thin plumes of smoke rising from several chimneys.

  “Do people still live there do you think?” Goodbody asked.

  Michael reined in the horse. “It would seem so.”

  The Quaker pointed at the most dilapidated of the cottages. “Might we speak to the people inside, do you think?”

  Michael noted the cracked walls, the sagging roof. No self-respecting tenant would allow his home be in such disrepair, even in these times. If anyone lived there, they had to be sick. Maybe even dead. He’d heard stories of entire families being found dead in their cottages. Weakened by the fever, they died one by one until the whole family was gone.

  “I don’t think you’ll be wantin’ to do that. It won’t be a pretty sight.”

  “Mr. Ranahan, that is why I am here. How else am I to know what must be done?”

  Michael studied Goodbody’s honest face and saw anxiety flicker in those blue eyes. Clearly, he didn’t want to go into the cottage, but he was prepared to do his duty. Despite his own conflicted feeling about the man, Michael had to grudgingly admire that kind of courage.

  “Right. Let’s go.”

  Emily started to get out of the trap. “It’s best you stay here,” Michael said.

  “Please don’t tell me what to do, Mr. Ranahan.”

  “I think Mr. Ranahan is right, Emily. Perhaps you should remain in the trap.”

  Emily stood up and put her hands on her hips, now infuriated with both men. “I want you both to stop treating me like a child. I’ve worked in the Fever Hospital. Surely there is nothing that I have not already seen. Michael, get the hamper.”

  Still fuming at her superior tone—get the hamper—Michael knocked on the door and listened. There was no sound inside. He pushed the door open and he and Goodbody involuntarily stepped back, staggered by the overwhelming, putrid stench of decaying flesh. To their astonishment, Emily pushed past them and stepped through the door as though it were the most natural thing in the world. They put their hands to their noses and followed her inside.

  The only source of light inside the gloomy cabin came from a smoldering turf fire. In a corner Michael saw three heads half-hidden by a tattered horse blanket. He pulled the blanket aside and saw the cause of the stench—a man’s decomposing body. To either side of the body, two skeleton-thin children gazed up at him with dull, rheumy eyes.

  “Their Da must have died,” Michael said. “And these little ones are too sick to even get out of the bed.”

  Emily let out a gasp and Michael turned to see what she was looking at. There, by the fire, sitting on the floor, was a figure, hardly human. It was a half-naked woman, her eyes wild with madness, rocking back and forth.

  Emily knelt down beside her and offered her a loaf of bread. The woman stared at it but didn’t move.

  “Her mind’s gone,” Michael said. “She doesn’t even recognize food.”

  Emily put the bread in her lap and Michael led Emily and Goodbody outside. Goodbody staggered a step and vomited against the cottage wall.

  Suddenly, they were surrounded by a cluster of gaunt men, women, and children. Scrawny hands clutched at them feebly.

  “Somethin’ for the hunger, your honor, before I perish from want…”

  “A bit of bread please…”

  “Some food to keep the life in me…”

  Michael pulled Emily and Goodbody away from the groping hands and pushed them into the trap. Then he distributed the bread to outstretched hands, saving the last two loaves.

  He pulled aside two of the healthier men and gave them the loaves. To the first man he said, “See that the man inside is given a decent burial.” To the other he said, “Get the wife and the little ones to the Fever Hospital. Will you do that for me?”

  The men took the loaves. “We will, your honor. God bless you.”

  For a long time while they rode back to the Manor, no one spoke. Finally, Goodbody broke the strained silence. “If we did not happen upon those people in that hovel what would have become of them?”

  “They’d have died,” Michael said. “Then the neighbors, if they had the strength, would have tumbled the cottage down on them. Their home would become their grave. That’s how we bury people nowadays.”

  They rode into the village of Ballyross. In the two years since the first blight, there had been dramatic changes. O’Mally’s bakeshop, along with several other shops, stood abandoned and boarded up. Today was Saturday, market day. In better times the road would have been crowded with farmers bringing animals and produce to market. But now it was deserted, except for a solitary dog padding up the center of the dirt road.

  Emily watched the dog coming towards them. “Well at least he looks well fed.”

  She saw Michael and Goodbody exchange a quick glance. Then she remembered all the dead bodies that they’d seen lining the sides of the road.

  “Stop!”

  Even before Michael could bring the trap to a halt, Emily jumped off. She staggered to the side of the road and retched. As she crouched by the ditch, her head swimming and her stomach clenching, she realized she’d been wrong. There were still some things that she had not seen.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  When Emily and the Ranahan men came into Somerville’s barn at first light the next morning, Mr. Goodbody was already at work. He’d already unloaded his kitchen utensils and was in the process of lighting a fire under one of several large cauldrons.

  Emily, not used to rising at this hour, stifled a yawn. “What do you want us to do?” she asked.

  Not accustomed to giving orders, especially to a beautiful young woman, he looked at her flustered, almost shy. “Oh, perhaps thee could tend the fire?”

  “And what do you want us to do?” Michael asked.

  “Well… Mr. Ranahan, perhaps thee would take charge of washing the soup bowls.”

  The three Ranahan men stared at each other. “Which Ranahan are you talkin’ to?” Michael asked.

  Goodbody rubbed his hand together, perplexed. “This is most difficult. I do not know thee well enough to call thee by thy Christian names.”

  Michael took Goodbody’s hand and shook it. “Marcus, I’m Michael.” He nodded to his father and brother. “And this is Da and this is Dermot. Do you think now you know us well enough to call us by our Christian names?”

  Goodbody grinned shyly. “Very well. Perhaps Da will wash the bowls and Dermot could hand out and collect the bowls. Michael, perhaps thee and Emily will help me dispense the soup. If”—he added apologetically—“none of thee would object.”

  Emily answered for all of them. “This is your soup kitchen, Marcus. We will do whatever you ask.”

  With not a little concern, Michael watched Goodbody stirring a huge cauldron that contained enough soup to feed the entire village of Ballyross. “What if no one comes?” he asked, wondering what they would do with all that soup if no one came. “Do you think we should go on to the roads and into the village and tell people we’ve soup for them.”

  “There’s no need,” Goodbody said with great certainty. “They’ll know.”

  Michael thought he was daft. How would they know there was soup here if no one told them? He went outside, intent on going into the village himself—but then he saw them coming. Trudging up the road in groups of twos and threes—indeed, whole families—they appeared out of the fog like ghostly apparitions. And Michael wondered, how did they know? Later, when Michael put that question to Goodbody, the Quaker responded, “I do not know. But I’ve seen it happen many, many times. I don’t know how they know. They just do. Perhaps God speaks to them.”

  Michael recognized some of the people standing in line waiting for the soup. They lived in the valley and attended the same old church he did. Oth
ers were strangers, passing through and going God knows where. The sight filled him with an overwhelming sadness. These men, at least the ones he knew, had once been strong men of the land. They’d withstood rain, blight, hunger, death, and the wrath of capricious landlords. But now, these tough, proud men shuffled into their place in the line, standing silent, docile, beaten, their eyes fixed on the muddy road at their feet.

  All day long they came. And the sights were pitiful. One man was so weak he couldn’t hold the bread he’d been given. Leaning against a tree, he put the piece between his knees and, as he leaned forward to take a bite, he let out a small cry and fell over dead. Later that day, an incident occurred that convinced Michael, if he ever needed more convincing, that the growing famine was causing otherwise sane men to do insane things. He had just taken a boiling cauldron of soup off the fire and placed it on the serving table. A man about his father’s age, so weakened by hunger that he could barely stand, lunged at the cauldron. Before Michael could stop him, he plunged his hands into the scalding soup. He was so crazed with hunger that he felt no pain as he scooped handfuls of boiling soup into his mouth. There was nothing they could do for the man who died within minutes. After that horrific event, Dermot’s job was to stand in front of the soup cauldron to prevent anyone one else from doing the same thing.

  Finally, at sunset, they fed the last of them and Goodbody announced that they were done for the day. Now it was time to clean up. At Goodbody’s gentle direction, they went about their assigned tasks. Michael scrubbed the tables. Emily and Goodbody washed the bowls. Da, determined to earn his keep for the food he’d gotten this day, wanted to do everything. But, Emily, concerned for the old man’s health, insisted that he go home after the last feeding. As soon as Da left, Dermot saw his opportunity and slipped out of the barn and went off to find his friends.

  Doing as he was told, a perplexed Michael scrubbed the tables with scalding hot water and brown soap. As far as he was concerned, brushing the odd crumb of bread onto the ground and wiping up the odd spill was enough, but Goodbody had this peculiar notion that the fever was spread by contact and he insisted that everything be scrubbed clean. Michael thought it a daft idea, but he did it nevertheless, unable to resist Goodbody’s sincerity. In spite of himself, he’d begun to like this man who dressed and spoke so queer.