“Killing us. Clearing the land of us.” Máire mimicked Jackson’s flat north of Ireland accent, and we heard the mad hatred under the words.
“‘We must thank Providence, sir,’ Jackson would say. ‘As Mr. Trevelyan said, “God is doing what man couldn’t.” The Lord God of Hosts is sweeping from Ireland the mendacious, the rebellious, the immoral, the slothful, the violent.’ That was Jackson’s dinner table chat,” Máire said, “how we’d all be carried down into the deepest and hottest regions of hell.”
Mam crossed herself. Da shook his head. Joseph, Dennis, and Hughie looked down. Michael took my hand. Hard for the children to hear this, though I suppose Máire’s sons knew this rant only too well.
“Well, at first,” Máire went on, “the Master was taken aback. Pleasure is the Pykes’ only religion, and neither the old Major nor the Mistress wanted to think much about fire and brimstone. The old Major told Jackson he’d been spending too much time with Reverend Smithson and the church mission people. But little by little, Jackson took control. He started watching me: ‘I’ll catch you stealing, and then it’s Australia for you, and none to save you,’ he’d say.
“‘Say what you like,’ I’d tell Jackson, trying not to let him see my fear: ‘Robert Pyke’s left me with another wee Pyke in my belly and two walking and talking, so I’m protected.’”
“And you were eating,” I said.
“I was, Honora, and aware of it, truly. But how would me not eating help you or any of the others who were starving?”
“Go on, Máire,” Da said.
“You were a holy martyr for your sister, and neither she nor anyone in the family will forget it,” Mam said.
“I wonder,” said Máire.
“You saved our baby,” Michael said, staring at me.
“And I’m so thankful. Go on, Máire,” I said.
“Well,” Máire said, giving me a “we’re not finished yet” look, “Gracie was born in February. The old Major and Mistress planned to leave for London. They feared catching some disease, with fever all around us. Jackson was going with them to get them settled and attend to the old Major’s business affairs. So I was packing for the Mistress and telling her that I’d take care of the house and things while they were gone, thinking that I could finally get food to you. I dosed the Mistress with medicine and I went to bed in my room behind the kitchen. And then here was Robert Pyke yelling, ‘Wake up, Máire! Wake up now!’ Standing over the bed in uniform, his greatcoat still smelling of horses and the outdoors. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked him. All he said was, ‘Get up!’ The baby began crying. So I started feeding her, and then I saw the old Major standing in the door. He said to Robert, ‘Look at her. A sow with her piglets.’
“Robert said, ‘My father wants to see the children.’ I didn’t understand. I said to him, ‘Your father has seen the children every day of their lives.’ Then the old Major said to me, ‘I don’t look carefully at the servants’ children. I want to look now. Names, ages,’ he said. They lined up like little soldiers: ‘Here’s Johnny Og, seven; Thomas, five; Daniel, three; and Gracie, two months,’ I told him.”
I looked over at Máire’s boys—no expression on their faces, bodies fed but spirits bruised, I thought. Afraid.
Máire was saying that both men were drunk. “Robert’s humoring him, I told myself. He’s afraid of his father, truth be told. Robert pointed to Johnny Og and said, ‘He’s not mine.’ And the old Major said, ‘Of course not—look at the protruding jaw, the apelike slant of the cheekbones, the nose turning up.’” Máire took off the old Major’s accent, the drawling tone, the slurred words. “But then he called Thomas to him. ‘Plenty of good Anglo-Saxon in him, that nose—like your mother’s,’ he told Robert. He said the reason he’d married the Mistress was to get some of her solid plodding blood. Rather than doing what most Galway tribesmen did—marry cousins or in-laws—he’d snared a real Englishwoman with a great deal of money, and that’s what Robert would do one day. But, just in case, they would take Thomas with them. They wouldn’t take Daniel—too much of the Celt in him. ‘See the red tone of the skin?’ the old Major said, and he asked Robert if he was sure Daniel was his.
“And then I spoke up. ‘He knows the boys are his sons and your grandsons, and this baby Grace his daughter,’ I said. And what did the scoundrel say but was I sure of that? Maybe the wee baby was Robert’s sister and her half-brothers’ aunt! The old Major told Robert that we’d . . . that I’d . . .”
“The dirty scoundrel,” Da said.
“That’s what Robert called him. And the old Major laughed and said he was only having a bit of fun. But they would only take one child, and Thomas would be the one. I was to be turned out. The old Major said if they left me in the house, I’d be passing out food before the carriage got to Spiddal. They would have to get rid of me. I begged, God forgive me. I told Robert how I loved him and couldn’t I go as a servant to London. Anything to be with my son. I cried, and that pleased the old Major no end—‘The proud Pearl a whingeing pauper like all the others in this cursed country,’ he said. I was to get Thomas ready and bring him to the library, but thank God and His Blessed Mother the old Major and Robert got drunker and fell asleep. So I packed up what I could fit into the turf basket and got out.”
“Oh, Máire, weren’t you afraid?” I said.
“Terrified. But the boys helped, and Jackson lives in the village with the Smithsons, so he wasn’t in the house. We made our way down the road in the dark and hid among the rocks on that empty stretch of strand near Furbo until later in the morning. Johnny Og kept watch and told me when the Pykes’ carriage passed by. I was worried they might look for Thomas in Bearna though I doubted if the mistress would let them stop to search and risk being contaminated.”
“No one came,” Da said.
“Good,” Máire said. “Still better I came to Knocnacurdh.”
“But won’t Jackson come looking for you?” I asked.
“He’ll not be back for months and months, and by that time I’ll be in New York.”
“Máire!”
She reached down into the waistband of her skirt and pulled out a handkerchief. She opened it to show us a big pile of gold sovereigns. No one said anything. I don’t care if she stole the money. I only hope there’s enough for us to go with her and that Michael will agree to leave.
“I didn’t steal it,” she said. “Robert passed it to me. He didn’t want his children to starve to death. And that’s more than you can say for other landlords who have fathered many a child.”
“When?” I said.
“When what?” Máire said.
“When are you leaving?”
“As soon as we can find a ship.”
We. Amerikay.
T
HAT’S THE
Cushlamacree
,” I said to Máire, pointing down at the three-masted ship moving along Galway Bay below us. “Going to Amerikay.”
It was the middle of May now, a month since Máire’d come home. The Scoundrel Pykes and Jackson hadn’t returned. Many of the landlords had left. Owen Mulloy had said that the landlords were leaving management of their estates to their agents. “Off to London or Dublin where they won’t see their tenant’s dead bodies lying on the road. Offends their sen-si-bil-i-ty,” he told us.
The Mulloys and the other neighbors had welcomed Máire very kindly. Shunning and judging belonged to another time.
The two of us sat on the boulder near the cottage, nursing our babies, as if Máire’d never been away. My milk was flowing now because of the food Michael had bought with some of Máire’s money. Plenty of Indian corn, rice, and peas in the market, and cheap, Michael said. Lucky for us, but most people had no money or the means to get it.
Why didn’t the relief committees just buy up loads of food and give it away? Priests could hand it out, or the police, or even the soldiers. Enough of them around the place. We’d been able to give food to Mam and the Mulloys and our neighbors, but for how long?
A fresh breeze filled the tiered white sails, pushing the big vessel forward.
“Please God, we’ll be on our way soon,” I said to Máire. “I wish Mam and Da and the boys would stay up here at Knocnacuradh, away from the fever, until we can sort out our passage, decide what ship and when we’re going.” I held Stephen up to her. “Stephen’s put on weight. By the middle of June he’ll be able for the journey.”
But Máire was shaking her head. “Catch yourself on, Honora. There’ll be no journey. You and I are the only ones want to go to Amerikay. Mam and Da don’t, and neither does Michael.”
“That’s not true. Michael’s considering it. He needs a bit more convincing, but . . .”
“A bit more? You’re driving him mad, holding those advertisements from the
Vindicator
up in front of his face, showing him drawings of ships, asking him which one he likes.”
“But they’re all different. That one, below us in the Bay, the
Cushla-macree
, has room for three hundred, but the
Erin Queen
is smaller.”
“Michael doesn’t care, Honora. He doesn’t want to go on
any
ship.”
“What if I tell him we’d leave from Liverpool on an American ship? They’re faster and safer, but cost more. I suppose we shouldn’t spend all of your eighty pounds of money on the passage. Should have something when we land in Amerikay.”
“Stop it, Honora. You’re whistling in the dark. Michael won’t leave Ireland, not while there’s any hope things will get better. Neither will Mam and Da, and a lovely day like this makes me want to stay, too.” A drizzly morning had become a sunny afternoon. “To see the yellow whin bushes blooming against the green of the fields, feel the sun . . . Oh, look, Honora, a rainbow.”
A faint arc—blue, green, yellow, and pink—stretched across the sky over Galway Bay.
“A rainbow all right,” I said. “But see where it is? Out to the west with the
Cushlamachree
sailing under it, going to Amerikay.”
“Mam! Auntie Máire!”
Paddy came running up with the rest of the pack behind him. Food had revived my children, who were happy to play with these new cousins. Michael came chasing after the boys, carrying Bridget on his back.
“The Giant! The Giant!” Johnny Og shouted as they all tried to hide around Máire and me.
“Amadáns,” Máire said. “You’ll scare Gracie and Stephen.”
But she was laughing and so was I as the boys flung themselves down and started rolling around on the grass. Only Thomas stood apart. Michael put Bridget down next to me.
“Been a long time since we rollicked around,” Michael said. “Thank you, Máire.”
“Nice for my lads,” Máire said. “Not much fun where we’ve been.”
“Uncle Michael let us help him weed the fields, Mam,” Johnny Og was telling Máire. “Paddy and I have our own potato patch to take care of.”
“So?” said Jamesy. “Daniel and I are Da’s special helpers, aren’t we, Daniel?”
Máire’s youngest boy nodded. Three and a half but not much of a talker. Jamesy will teach him.
“Thomas did
nothing
,” Paddy told me. “Said his da was a lord and he didn’t have to work.”
“Is that so?” Máire said. “Would you like a royal clout on your bottom, Sir Thomas?” She reached for him with one hand while cradling Gracie in the other arm—awkward. Thomas ducked away. But I had Stephen tucked close and could grab Thomas. He looked at me. That beak of a nose takes up his whole face, poor little fellow. He’s only five years old.
“Now, Thomas, there’s lords and there’s lords,” I said. “Tonight I’ll tell you the story about Silken Thomas Fitzgerald, a Norman lord like the Pykes, who worked very hard for Ireland. Would you like that?”
He nodded.
“And you’ll help in the fields tomorrow,” Máire said to him.
“But why, Mam, if the blight’s going to come and kill all the potatoes?”
Now Máire did clout Thomas. Jamesy started to cry, and Daniel bawled along with him.
Michael clapped his hands. “Enough!” he shouted. “The cold winter killed the blight, and there’ll be mounds of pratties
if
we take care of our fields. Now,” he said, picking up Bridget, “I’m off to bring water to Champion and her foal. Who wants to come?”
Off they all went, Thomas included.
“I’m sorry, Honora,” Máire said. “He’s no manners. A Pyke in that way.”
“He only put words to what we’re all dreading.”
“Michael seems very sure the blight won’t return.”
“He does,” I said.
“He won’t go to Amerikay, Honora, unless you force him to. Should you?”
“I don’t know. Do you think I want to leave? I love every blade of grass in our fields, every wave on Galway Bay, but if the potatoes do fail . . . Maybe your money would sustain us, but how could we eat while our neighbors starved to death? Then there’s all manner of sickness and the fever. . . . Oh, Máire, I prayed so hard that an American letter from Patrick would deliver us, and then you came to save us once again. But now . . .” Stephen started crying. I’ll be weeping next. I stood up and jiggled him in my arms. “Whist, whist, it’s all right.”
“Ask him would he like a sip of the good stuff—Auntie Máire’s milk.”
I laughed, as she knew I would, and we walked into the cottage together.
That night after the children were asleep, Máire and Michael and I sat by the fire. “Michael,” I said, “Máire says you don’t want to go to Amerikay but won’t tell me straight out.”
“Jesus, Honora,” Máire said, “you don’t have to blurt it out like that. Michael will think I’m talking about him behind his back.”
“Honora and I talked about this at Christmas,” Michael said to Máire. “Of course I want to stay. But if we have to leave, we have to leave. Your money, Máire, makes it possible. Still, by a kind of miracle, the fields are planted. We’re not sick. Maybe if we have just a bit more faith, hold on a little longer . . . Think of it, Honora. If we go, we’ll never see Ireland again. Hard to imagine.”
“Patrick went,” I said.
“He’s coming back.”
“That’s right, to free us.”
“What are you talking about?” Máire asked.
We’d no chance to answer, because Owen Mulloy came in through the door. “He’s dead. Daniel O’Connell is dead.” He held up the
Galway Vindicator
. Heavy black lines divided the columns. In bold type the headline read:
THE LIBERATOR IS DEAD.
“He died of a broken heart, and your Young Ireland fellows bear a share of the blame,” Owen said to Michael, “going against the fellow who did more for Ireland than any other.”