Flight of the Earls (13 page)

“Well,” Pierce said. “Should we wait for another ship?”

“I'm afraid if we don't get on now, we'll never go,” Clare said.

A woman's voice railed from the deck, and Muriel waved a red handkerchief. “Hurry,” she shouted, and others beside her were beckoning them as well. Some of the crew were beginning to untie the mooring. They were out of time.

“Let's go,” Pierce said.

Suddenly, Clare's apprehension gave way to concern of whether they could force their way through the horde of well-wishers before the ship launched.

Pierce led the way and took the brunt of disgruntled looks and cursing as he shoved people out of the way. Clare tried to apologize to each of them as she followed but soon abandoned it in futility. Finally they arrived at the walkway leading to the ship just as the gate was being closed.

“Wait for us!” Pierce shouted.

The porter at the gate wore a ragged blue shipmate's uniform that was inadequate in containing his belly. His face looked as if it had been crammed into a glass jar. “All right. Three of you? Thirty pounds.”

“Thirty?” Pierce said with exasperation, and Clare could tell he was calculating what he had. “Fine.” He threw down his bag and fished out his money, fumbled through his bills, and handed it somewhat reluctantly to the outstretched hand.

They lifted their bags, and with both relief and defeat, they started forward when the porter raised his hand.

“The lass. Why is she scratching?”

Clare glanced around in expectation he was speaking to someone else.

“Yes. You. Come here.”

Reluctantly, Clare moved forward and the man with cracked, stubby fingers lifted the back of her hair and leaned in with bulbous eyes to examine her. Clare's body writhed inside in embarrassment and with a sense of violation.

“Hmmm.” The porter's brow wrinkled and he pursed his lips.

“What is it?” Pierce asked.

“She needs to shave her head,” the porter said.

“What?” Clare took a step back.

“You're teeming with head bugs, my dear. Captain's orders. No one comes on board with lice. The health and safety of our passengers, you know.”

“She's not shaving a single hair on her head,” Pierce spat out.

The porter handed the money back. “Do you want it all back, or just for the lady's passage?”

Why this? Why me? Clare resisted the temptation to scratch her hair, but now with the knowledge of her affliction, her scalped burned brighter. Her mind flashed back to her stay at the Wayfarer's Inn and that mold-specked filthy pillow.

There was a part of Clare that wanted to shave it all off and be rid of the parasites. But the idea of losing her hair? How long would it take to grow back? She fought back a sob. Would this ruin any chance she had of meeting the man she dreamed would share her life?

The tension of the moment gave Clare little time to think, and she began to panic. It was clear the ship would leave without her—and soon if she didn't make a decision.

She took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Where do I go?” she asked the porter in a wavering voice.

He pointed to a short distance down the dock where a man was sweeping up hair. She left without delay.

“Clare, no!” Pierce shouted behind her.

“You don't need to do this,” Seamus said. Clare wasn't expecting to hear from her brother.

She worked her way along the edge of the pier, and the barber greeted her with a nod as she slunk into his chair, streams of tears coursing down her face.

Without a word he came around behind her and started with scissors, grinding as close to her scalp as possible, presumably to preserve the length of her hair to sell at its highest value. Then he lathered up her stubble and skillfully drew a blade from one end to the other.

Clare closed her eyes and tried to imagine the faces of Caitlin, Ronan, and Davin to keep her mind off of the agony and shame of the moment. Not only was she pained by the idea of being stripped of her dignity in such a public fashion, but with each cut, Clare felt the barber was taking away much of who she was. How could she feel that way? She had always believed herself to be above the shackles of vanity.

Then she felt warm water, the patting of a towel, and it was done.

“Did you want to see, child?” the barber asked gently, with a looking glass in his hand.

“No,” she whispered. She reached her hand to the top of her head and felt the smoothness of flesh, still warm from the washing. Wiping away her tears, she saw a familiar face peering at her.

“How much did they pay for your hair, Miss Clare?”

“Pence.” She laughed and cried at the same time, glad to see the boy.

He tilted his head. “Pence preferred you with less skin.”

He made her smile, which she was in desperate need of. “I'm afraid we owe you money we haven't to pay.”

“No matter, Miss Clare.”

“I wish you were coming with us.”

“Maybe Pence will go next time.”

She gave him a hug as if he were her own Davin, her own Ronan. “Be well, Pence. You are a fine, young gentleman.”

Clare felt an arm on her shoulder. She turned to see Seamus with an expression of gratitude and compassion she had never seen from him before. He took off his hat and placed it on her head.

“Are you ready for a new journey?” His eyes were beginning to show life again. “I know I am.”

In a matter of moments they were on board. The ship was lurching away from the slip, and with seeming complaints from every plank of wood, the old vessel pressed away from shore as passengers and those they were leaving behind waved tearfully and exchanged hearty cheers and whistles.

As the ship drifted beyond the vision of their loved ones and the island they called home began to diminish against the horizon, somberness came over the passengers. A remnant of elation remained about the idea of seeking out a place unknown, a better life, and world of opportunity. But also sinking in was the permanence of a decision to surrender to the arms of the ocean and the fates before them, and that their lives would never be the same.

A man with a fiddle began to play tunes of Ireland, tunes of joy and the unshakable resolution of its people. They sang and some danced, lifting their skirts, locking arms, and spinning as the crew trimmed the sails and looked down from above.

A small girl dragged her grandmother by the hand and began to dance with the others. The girl spun and hopped with a face so full of bliss, she charmed all of those around her, who smiled and clapped as much for the gray-haired woman who labored to keep up with her grandchild's mirth.

Not comprehending why, Clare felt a sense of relief in the expression of joyful anticipation of the journey ahead. There was power in the idea there would be no turning back, and it helped erase the pain she faced in getting here today.

But before long, the only music being requested were the sad songs of a broken people with a history of shattered dreams in a world of cruelty and disappointment, and the melancholy returned.

In earshot of the music but out of sight of the others, Clare leaned up against the rails and peered into the infinite sea before her, as the wind lapped against her face, drying the tears of remorse from her eyes.

She mourned the fleeting Emerald Isle that was now but a thin, black strip barely above the water's edge. Clare blinked, and the ocean swallowed up what remained of the land and life behind her.

They were off to America.

Chapter 12

The Whale's Belly

Merely two weeks into the transatlantic voyage aboard the
Sea Mist
, Clare discovered the iniquities of the life she hoped she left behind had followed her aboard the ship.

There were those who lived above and those who dwelled below.

When they weren't sequestered in their tiny cabins, the few privileged passengers hovered in the restricted forecastle area at the front of the ship, clinging to the modicum of pretension and entitlement available. In a ship originally designed for open sea battles, there were few luxuries retrofitted in the vessel, with perhaps the most treasured being the boundary between the general citizenry and the impoverished ones in the bowels of the steerage section.

Down below in the stench-filled cargo hull, a rumor was spreading there was sunshine above, something distributed as scarcely during this winter journey as food and water.

As fleeting as this chance for fresh air and needed chores could be, a scramble was afoot. In the dim light of rationed candles, the cramped passengers pushed their way to the ladder leading above, with curses and raised fists. They gathered soiled clothing, overflowing chamber pots, and food to cook on the few stoves available above deck.

They funneled through the narrow aisle, with three rows of wooden shelves protruding from the walls on either side, serving as crude bed frames. Filthy straw mattresses lay on them, as well as scattered clothing and moth-eaten blankets. In the knotting of scurrying legs, Clare tripped and bumped into the back of an older gentleman. “Beg your pardon.”

“Mind your step!” There was anger in his gray-browed eyes, but down below, in such tight and miserable quarters, they were all ill-tempered, rats in a cage baring their teeth.

“Watch your tone with the lady.” Clare turned to see Pierce pressing behind her.

Seamus was farther back in the crowd. He held up a few potatoes and shouted to them. “Get us in line for a boil.”

“You'll wait for hours,” grumbled a woman next to Clare. She held up a bag. “Might as well eat these oats raw. We could chew on the biscuits they give us, if we had no intentions for keeping our teeth.”

Up front there was a shout and a clearing in the crowd.

As the line stopped, Pierce was now being shoved into Clare. “What happened?”

The woman turned and pinched her nose. “Oh, dear me. Someone spilled a stench pot. Ah, curse the life in the belly of the whale. That mad captain of ours deserves to be hung for this.”

Pierce shouted up to those crawling up the ladder through the hatch to daylight. “Get up with you. Let us out.”

A voice hollered back, “That's good on you, boy. I'll have one of these boots greet you when you come up.”

Clare rubbed her temples, her head now aching from the anxiety and foulness in the air. Her only hope for comfort was for the days to pass quickly.

Several mornings later, well before dawn, Clare suffered such discomfort from the hardness of her cot, her back throbbed with pain. After turning dozens of times through the hours of the night and unable to find relief, she decided to go above deck.

She crept past the snores of the masses below and guided herself only by memory and the feel of her feet along the creaking floorboards. Clare finally reached out to the ladder and climbed up through the hatch, which moaned as it lifted. Above, in a moonless night, with a scattering of brilliant stars, she felt invigorated by this rare moment of aloneness.

The creaks of the masts, the flaps of the sails and the bending of the rigging in the wind, and the lapping of the waves added to an ambience that sent chills through her body. The cold of the night caused her to wrap her arms tightly around her chest. So silly. She should have brought a blanket.

In the background, as figures moving in the shadows, a small crew labored above and around her in silence, spiders moving among the web. At times, she would catch a face or see arms trimming a sail, and they would pass each other and converse. Clare reveled in the fact she had eluded their notice.

Looking over the port side, her thoughts meandered with the rise and fall of the ship in the massive emptiness of the dark waters. When had she ever felt so alive with freedom?

The smell of the ocean transported Clare back to a time in her youth. In happier days, she enjoyed a rare family excursion to the sea cliffs of Galway. Although she was only four at the time, the memory remained rich. Cool and crisp salted air, the craggy, moss-covered boulders, and endless views beyond a deep tapestry of churning blue.