Heart of the Lonely Exile

by BJ Hoff

  “Fitzgerald, I must admit that until now I found it near impossible to imagine you in such opulent surroundings. Yet seeing you here, like this—” His gaze swept the room in appreciation. “I declare you almost look to the manor born.”

  Morgan curled his lip, waiting until Smith O’Brien sat down before lowering his own long frame into the chair across from him. “Hideous, isn’t it?” he said, giving a disparaging lift of one hand. “This is the only room in the entire mausoleum that doesn’t cause my nerves to rise up and scream in protest.”

  O’Brien smiled. “You’re just missing the open road, you old tinker.” He smoothed the front of his waistcoat, settling himself into the chair. “How’s your grandfather, Morgan? I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

  “He’s off to London at present. Making what he refers to as his ‘last visit.’”

  O’Brien frowned. “Has he failed so much, then?”

  “Aye, he grows dangerously frail these days,” Morgan answered. In truth, he was greatly worried about his English grandfather—the old man had been looking pale and drawn and even slightly ill just before he left for London. “I did my best to dissuade him from leaving, but he insisted he had affairs that must be settled.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, how are the two of you getting on by now?”

  Morgan waited until an elderly male servant had laid out tea and left the room before replying. “The old man is a tolerant sort,” he said. “I’m sure I try his patience to the limit with my restlessness, but he continues to urge me to stay on. This is his idea, as you know,” he added sourly, “not mine. Although I’ll admit I’ve grown fond of him. In truth, I find myself missing him—a fact that would surprise him very much, I’m sure.”

  “Your staying here must mean a great deal to Sir Richard,” O’Brien responded. Stirring his tea in thoughtful silence, he darted an uncertain glance at Morgan. “I was sorry to hear about your niece. That was a hard thing.”

  Morgan gave a short nod, swallowing against the knot that rose in his throat. He had received Daniel John’s letter only a few weeks past, notifying him that Katie Frances had died in New York City. He had been partial to the wee, frail lass, and it still pained him to think of her gone.

  “You’ve suffered great loss over the past months,” O’Brien remarked, his expression solemn.

  Morgan glanced away. “No more so than others in Ireland,” he replied. “Less than many. It has been a year of terrible loss for the entire country.”

  Staring into the fire, O’Brien nodded. “And only God knows when it will end—or if it ever will.”

  For a long time they didn’t speak, but simply sat drinking their tea and watching the flames leap and dance over the logs. Finally O’Brien broke the silence. “I trust your writing goes well,” he said, watching Morgan refill their cups with fresh tea. “Your last piece for The Nation was excellent.”

  Morgan gave a short laugh and helped himself to a biscuit. “Mitchel hated it. I think he fears I’ve turned traitor with my recent insistence on caution.”

  O’Brien’s patrician mouth turned down. “Mitchel is wasting himself with his obsessive attachment to Lalor and his erratic visions of sweeping England into the sea.”

  Morgan shrugged, swallowing the last bit of biscuit. “Mitchel’s convinced the country must rise. Some are listening. He’s greatly admired, you know. There’s no denying his good intentions, that’s certain. Mitchel is a patriot to the death.”

  “He’s also wildly impractical,” O’Brien pointed out, placing his cup carefully on the table. “He’s become a fanatic, and the both of us know where that can lead.”

  Again there was silence. Morgan did not want to follow this path in the conversation. More and more lately he sensed the approach of yet another cataclysm for Ireland. His country was dying, his people starving to death by the thousands. Yet in the midst of the horror, certain voices demanded rebellion. “The people must rise,” they were saying. “They must defy their English landlords and reclaim the land for Ireland.”

  As Morgan saw it, the first job of the people was to survive. At this moment in Ireland’s tragedy, the best they could hope for was life itself. Food was far more vital to a starving people than ideology, jobs and education more important than political rhetoric. Perhaps freedom from England’s iron boot would come, one day. But for now it was little more than a wild-eyed patriot’s dream.

  He looked over at O’Brien. “You’re still going to Belfast, I assume?” he asked bluntly, knowing the answer.

  Smith O’Brien nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. “And you?”

  Morgan shrugged. “I told you I would go. I think it’s a daft idea, but I will go.”

  O’Brien eyed him with dry amusement. “You really do detest Belfast, don’t you?”

  Morgan leaned back in his chair. “It is a terrible, grim city, you must admit.”

  “Morgan, I know you’re only going to watch my back—”

  “Now that’s the truth.”

  O’Brien shot a quick glance at Morgan. “But I think these meetings are important to the movement, and in spite of your reservations, I believe you’ll agree, once we’re there. I do wish you’d plan to speak, along with the rest of us.”

  Nobody in Belfast has a mind to listen to a gentleman like O’Brien, Morgan thought testily. Much less would they heed a redheaded poet’s plea for peace and reason. He already knew he would not open his mouth in Belfast, but it seemed important to O’Brien that he go, so he said only, “We will see once we’re there.”

  As if he realized the subject was distasteful to Morgan, Smith O’Brien moved to break the tension. “Good enough.” He smiled and shifted in his chair. “Tell me, have you given any thought to what you’ll do once your grandfather is gone? Will you stay here, at Nelson Hall, do you think?”

  Stirred from his disgruntled mood, Morgan looked at him. “Stay?” He shook his head. “No, I’ll not stay. At least, not year-round. The place annoys me. I’d soon grow soft and lazy here. No,” he said again, this time even more firmly, “this life is not for me. You know I must be on the road, at least a part of the time.”

  “But you are Sir Richard’s heir,” O’Brien pointed out. “He means for you to have his entire estate, isn’t that so?”

  “Aye, he does, and I already have plans for this place,” Morgan said, locking his hands behind his head. “I haven’t discussed my ideas with the old man yet, but I suppose in good conscience I should, and soon.”

  Smith O’Brien looked interested. “Ideas? What sort of ideas?”

  “I’m thinking of turning the place into a school,” Morgan replied, smiling. The simple act of voicing his plan made his blood run a little faster with excitement.

  “A school!” O’Brien repeated, leaning forward. “Nelson Hall?”

  “Aye,” said Morgan, his smile widening as he savored the thought anew. “It’s ideal for it, don’t you see? All those moldy old rooms above, the rambling hallways, the excellent grounds—think of the scholars it would hold!”

  “A classical academy, then—is that what you’re planning?”

  “In a way. I intend it to be an academy for all ages,” Morgan explained, perching forward on his chair and gripping his knees. “Perhaps even for older lads who might not have been able to manage much education. I want to open doors to those who sincerely crave an education but haven’t the means to get into one of the established academies. And there will be no restrictions based on religion,” he added emphatically. “It will be a school where both Catholic and Protestant can come and learn together. And live together.”

  O’Brien stared at him. “What an extraordinary idea! But a quite wonderful one,” he added quickly. “You’ll serve as the master yourself, of course?”

  Giving full vent to his enthusiasm, Morgan rose and went to stand with his back to the fire. “When I’m here. But I’m committed to the writing, you know—and to do it justice, I must have the freedom to travel, to keep in
touch with the country. I hope to find one or two scholars to do the job when I’m away.”

  O’Brien laced his fingers together, nodding thoughtfully. “I think it’s an absolutely splendid plan! You don’t think Sir Richard will object, do you?”

  “No, not at all,” Morgan said with a faint smile. “As a matter of fact, I think he’ll be every bit as enthusiastic about it as I am.” His expression sobered for a moment. “I’m just a bit hesitant to bring it up, you see, since it would involve a mention of his passing.”

  “You could wait,” O’Brien said. “After all, if you intend nothing until he’s gone—”

  Morgan shook his head. “I can’t do that. I know he’s made me his heir, but none of this is mine, don’t you see? I feel a stranger to it all. No,” he repeated, turning to face the fire, “I will tell him what I plan. It just seems a bit awkward, that’s the thing.”

  For a moment he stood, relishing the heat from the flames. Too many winters spent on the road in years past had left him with a chronic ache that plagued his legs and his shoulders without mercy. He almost dreaded the thought of November coming on. An open fire in every room was a continual delight for him, one of the few features at Nelson Hall that gave him any real pleasure.

  Turning to face Smith O’Brien, he said, “You will stay the night, I hope? I’ve been planning an evening of chess ever since I learned you were coming.”

  “Ah, yes, I’m looking forward to it!” Smith O’Brien got to his feet and joined Morgan in front of the fire. “Who knows when we’ll next find time for a quiet evening such as this.”

  Morgan searched his old friend’s features. “Aye, and that’s the truth, William. From what I am hearing, things may not be quiet with you much longer.”

  O’Brien met his eyes, but said nothing. Morgan puzzled over the expression he encountered there, convinced it couldn’t be fear he was seeing. In all the years they had been friends, he had never seen a glimmer of panic in Smith O’Brien’s steady, piercing gaze. Yet tonight he could swear that an unfamiliar look akin to dread lurked behind that carefully controlled expression.

  Smith O’Brien watched Fitzgerald’s face. He was suddenly tempted to confide his dream. Just as quickly, he dismissed the idea. He and his old friend had been apart for months, had not enjoyed a leisurely, companionable time like this for what seemed an age. He would do nothing to mar the pleasure of the evening; only God knew when such a time would come again.

  Besides, it was only a dream. He had never been given to foolish notions and flutters about such things, and he recoiled at the very idea that the big, granite-visaged Fitzgerald might think him womanish if he were to reveal his apprehension. No, he would keep his silence.

  It was just that it always seemed so real—so dreadfully, chillingly real. And it came more and more often lately. It must have invaded his sleep a dozen times over the past few months.

  First there would come the mist, dense and cold and dark. Then, as if rising up out of the ground itself, a ring of black-shawled women and youths would appear, their wraps draped over their heads as they bemoaned something in their midst, something just beyond the dreamer’s range of vision. Their whispers would rise until they began to keen and shriek, as if teetering on the very edge of madness.

  He would approach them. Slowly, ever so slowly, he would creep up to the outer fringe of their circle, unwilling to see what distressed them so, yet unable not to look. As he neared the ring of shadowed, faceless women, the woman nearest him would turn, step out, and face him.

  Always, it was the same woman. Standing so close he could feel her breath on his face—a cold, vile breath, as if corrupted—she would freeze him in the path of her crazed eyes and begin to chant in a hoarse, thick whisper, “Have you heard about Fitzgerald? He is fallen…Fitzgerald is fallen…”

  Almost immediately, the other black-garbed women would stop their moaning and turn to face O’Brien, staring at him with eyes filled with horror. One after another they would take up the chant, whispering, then wailing, splitting the night mist with a near-deafening madness, filling O’Brien’s head with a dangerous pounding.

  “Have you heard about Fitzgerald? He is fallen…Fitzgerald is fallen….”

  With a shudder, O’Brien lurched toward the library table, his hand trembling as he attempted to refill his cup. He could feel Fitzgerald’s eyes on his back. Swallowing hard, he hesitated until his composure returned enough that he could face his friend.

  Killala

  In his room, Joseph Mahon penned the last few words of the day’s journal entry.

  His hand was stiff, his knuckles gnarled from long years of enduring the cold, wet Atlantic winds. Like many of his fellow priests, he had kept a journal for years. Before the Hunger, he had been lax in keeping it upto-date; now he attempted to make an entry every night.

  He felt he had little time remaining to chronicle the events of the famine; he was besieged these days with a near disabling weakness. But as one of the few in the village who could read and write, he sensed a keen responsibility to record the horrors in his parish as long as he had the strength to hold a pen.

  Earlier in the year he had exacted a promise by way of correspondence with Morgan Fitzgerald that the younger man would claim the journal once Joseph was gone, Morgan had agreed to see to it that Killala’s tragedy, at least as Joseph had been able to record it, would be preserved. And Fitzgerald had promised to add his own recollections from his time spent in Mayo, as well.

  The dread famine, with its accompanying plague of disease that had felled most of Ireland, had been particularly vicious in this remote western corner of the island. What had happened here must not be forgotten. Like numerous priests who sacrificed precious moments of sleep in order to detail the suffering of their parishes, Joseph Mahon would write the truth as he saw it—so long as his God gave him the strength to write at all.

  Today I performed last rites for three children. The Hagen lad died of consumption, but Mary Stevens and Liam Connors literally starved to death. By tomorrow the Connors’ baby girl will also be dead.

  The village is at its lowest point in two years. There was no sign of blight this summer, but owing to the lack of seed potatoes, the acreage planted was miserably small—not nearly enough to help the poor people. Besides, they are far too weak and sick to harvest even the scantiest of crops. All relief works and soup kitchens are now shut down. There is no recourse left to the people except to starve.

  Yet, even now, Trevelyan—who has virtually dictated all relief measures—is insisting the crops are “wonderful” this year and, as always, maintains that the exports of corn and other grain should continue as usual. The rest of the corn, of course, is claimed by the landlords for their rent.

  With O’Connell dead, and Smith O’Brien only beginning to gain any authority with Young Ireland, there is no one to speak for the people. Except, of course, for Morgan Fitzgerald. Unfortunately for the masses, his commonsense approach and appeal for caution is not what most of the so-called leaders wish to hear. They prefer Lalor, with his impossible doctrines, and Mitchel, with his visions of insurrection….

  Joseph paused, the pen trembling as he was gripped by a terrible, sinful wave of hopelessness. His entire body shook as he penned his last words for the day:

  May God have mercy on our souls, for we are trapped by an Evil too vile to imagine. Our entire country would seem to be host to an Enemy far more inhuman than the English, more savage than Bloody Cromwell. We are captives of an ageless Adversary.

  God help us all, for hell has loosed its demons on all of Ireland.

  6

  The Church in Paradise Square

  It is an easy thing to pray,

  No want or sorrow knowing—

  It is an easy thing to say,

  “I praise God for bestowing.”

  But try to pray and try to love,

  Pain wrung and soul’degraded—

  The Lord God judges “crime” above,

 
But not as man has weighed it.

  MARY KELLY (1825–1910)

  These days, Sara Farmington spent two Sabbath evenings a month worshiping in a tent. No doubt it would astonish most members of her uptown congregation to learn that these informal church services in the Five Points slum ranked high among her favorite—and most meaningful—worship experiences.

  Jess Dalton had wasted no time in taking the Word to the slums of New York City, targeting Five Points as his “Number One Mission.” A large, sturdy tent had been hurriedly erected in the center of Paradise Square—the ludicrous name of the triangular space into which the five major streets of Five Points converged. In addition to Pastor Dalton, two Roman Catholic priests and a Baptist minister took turns offering outdoor services on Sunday evenings.

  Already dubbed the “Big Tent” by local residents, it was only a temporary arrangement until an adequate, affordable building could be located. In the meantime, the crowds increased with each service.

  This Sunday evening was no exception; the “Big Tent” was filled to overflowing. Because of the growing number of supplicants after services—underprivileged residents of the slum who stayed to beg for food or clothing or, in some cases, nothing more than some human warmth and kindness—Sara had fallen into the routine of accompanying the Daltons on their Sunday evenings. Most times Nora and Evan Whittaker came, too, but today Sara’s father was treating them and the Fitzgerald children to a ferryboat ride and a tour of Staten Island.

  This evening, as was always the case, not everyone in the service had come to worship. There were the usual number who wandered in and out of the tent merely to satisfy their curiosity or ease their boredom. Others arrived intoxicated. Whatever their circumstances or motivation, however, none would be turned away.

  By now Sara knew what to expect. Should anyone prove disruptive, Pastor Dalton would simply halt his sermon and wait for a nearby policeman to remove the troublemaker from the tent. After the service, however, he would have a private conversation with the offending party. Although nobody seemed to know the gist of these discussions, it was observed that, more times than not, the mischief-maker would show up the following Sunday, seemingly penitent and respectful.