Heart of the Lonely Exile (18 page)

He deserved a good wife, a wife who would love him with all her heart, who would be a comfort to him and an asset to him.

A wife with a true passion for him. The kind of emotional
and
physical passion Nora did not feel. She loved him as a
brother,
treasured him as a friend. But she had no true passion for him—no burning desire in her heart to share his life, no desire in her flesh to share his bed.

She felt her skin heat. Perhaps she shouldn't even be thinking in such a way. Perhaps a lack of physical desire should have no bearing whatsoever on her decision.

But without that desire, wouldn't she be cheating him? It would be an unforgivable deceit to wed him and deprive him of shared desire. If she married him, it would be a choice made out of need and weakness, rather than out of strength and love.

Yet, such a marriage
could
work
,
could it not? There was a great deal to be said, after all, for having friendship at the very foundation of a marriage. Indeed, wasn't friendship the very thing that sometimes led to a deeper caring, a special love?

Nora suddenly wished she could talk with Evan. He might not have answers for her questions, but at least he would listen. He would care and understand and try to help.

At the thought of Evan, she smiled. Somehow the thought of Evan
always
made her smile. His gentleness, his concerned, caring manner made her feel cherished, valued. She remembered the warmth of his closeness as she had stood, her arm linked in his, outside the theater. Her mind
flashed an image of the look in his eyes as she was putting on his glove—a look of…what?

Of love?

Nora laughed aloud at the absurdity of the idea. Impossible—a cultured English gentleman and a country Irish widow-woman. Sure, and that was as likely a match as an immigrant Irish policeman with a society lady like Sara Farmington.

With another restless sigh, Nora pressed her cheek against the cold glass of the window. The night's excitement and turmoil had left its mark. She knew she would not sleep for hours. Her body was rigid with nerves, her mind filled with questions.

Questions without answers.

She stood looking out for another moment. Suddenly a movement caught her eye—there! Across the lawn near the trees, a solitary figure walked, one hand clutching the front of his coat, the other sleeve, empty, moving with the wind.

Evan!

A thought struck Nora like a physical blow. Her heart pounded wildly, and her pulse quickened. Could the man, also sleepless, be walking abroad on this bitter cold night—thinking of her? She watched as he paused, looking upward at her window, staring hard. At last he turned and walked back toward his cottage, just as Nora reached out to him, leaving her fingerprints on the frosty windowpane.

18

O,
inspired giantl shall we e'er behold,
In our own time,
One fit to speak your spirit on the wold,
Or seize your rhyme?

THOMAS D'ARCY MCGEE (1825–1868)

Belfast

T
he Belfast Music Hall was grim, as always: a mean place, smoke-filled and noisy, the atmosphere hostile. Twice in the past hour the police had intervened to keep order, but their efforts had, for the most part, proven futile.

To Morgan's frustration, the crowd had scarcely heard O'Brien's speech at all. The man's patrician demeanor, his evident nobility, worked against him in a rough place such as this.

McGee and Mitchel had hardly fared better, what with the rattles and catcalls and out-and-out threats. Only Meagher, with his strong sense of stage presence as an orator, had been able to triumph over the opposition and heckling, making himself at least heard, if not entirely welcomed with enthusiasm.

The hall was filled with Old Irelanders, shrieking, whistling, stamping, and swearing in the barbaric accents of Ulster. Of all Ireland, Morgan favored the North least, mostly because of its grimness and hovering phantom of intolerance. He would be vastly relieved when all this was over and they could leave for home. As much as he wanted away from Belfast, even more did he want shut of all this talk of revolution.

While Smith O'Brien was still holding back from any planned peasant rising, Mitchel's speech had left little doubt as to
his
intentions. The man had a vision of the tenants rising as one, bursting their bonds, raising the green flag, and finally sweeping the British into the sea.

That was no vision, Morgan reminded himself. It was delusion. Amid them all, O'Brien was the only voice for sanity. And yet the voice was growing dimmer, Morgan feared. Smith O'Brien was tilting more and more toward Mitchel, toward armed rebellion.

When the pathetic attempts at speech making were done, someone raised Morgan's name, and soon a weak chant from the back of the room began to swell. Vexed, Morgan shook his head firmly. O'Brien tried to persuade him to speak, and Morgan snapped at him, more harshly than was usually his manner. “This mob is in no mood to hear a voice for reason, only the rattle of drums and the sound of muskets! What I mean to do is get us away, before things turn even nastier!”

Even as Morgan spoke he began to press O'Brien and the others from the hall. He had been witness to riots before, and he did not doubt but what they were only moments away from one.

Glaring back in the direction of the group chanting his name, he lifted a hand in protest, then continued to urge the other Young Irelanders through the crowd. Only O'Brien went with him; Mitchel and the others insisted on staying behind to debate with a group of mill workers.

They found the street outside almost as loud and raucous as the hall. Swarms of hard-looking men stood huddled in front of the dismal buildings, gathered around fires rising out of barrels, as they warmed their hands and grumbled, condemning both Ireland and the Queen in the same breath.

Tough-looking youths seemed to be everywhere, both lads and lassies, ragged and dirty and miserably thin. Most were running wild in the street. Others were begging money or food from the passers-by. Morgan thought again, as he had before, that Belfast's children were born old and desperate and hard.

In front of one building milled a group of women. Wives of those inside, more than likely, fearful for their husbands, more anxious still for the wages they knew would be spent on the drink once things got rowdy.

“Not exactly a resounding triumph, eh, Fitzgerald?” said O'Brien with a sardonic smile.

“Had you really thought it would be anything other than a failure?” Morgan bit out. At the moment, he was altogether irritated with O'Brien, Belfast, and politics.

Smith O'Brien shrugged lamely and put a hand to Morgan's shoulder. “I'm sorry, old friend. I should never have asked you to come. It wasn't worth any of our efforts, that's certain. The fault is mine, but I'm nevertheless grateful for your loyalty.”

“'Tis done, and that's what matters,” Morgan said, relenting somewhat. ‘The thing to do now is to leave this abominable place. I tell you, no other place in the world sets my teeth on edge as much as mean old Belfast.”

“Yes,” O'Brien agreed with a sigh, “it's not one of my favorite cities, I admit. Still, if we could have made any progress at all, it would have seemed worth—”

O'Brien stopped, both he and Morgan whirling around when someone behind them shouted a warning.

From out of nowhere, or so it seemed, came a squad of burly, mean-faced men charging toward them. Dressed in the rough clothing of laborers, they were waving bludgeons and roaring curses as they came.

Keeping his voice low, Morgan grabbed O'Brien by the arm.
“Run, William! Now!”

For an instant, Smith O'Brien seemed transfixed, frozen. Not waiting, Morgan began to drag him into the street, hoping they could lose themselves in the crowd before their attackers could reach them.

But they were too late. The mob was upon them, fists flying, clubs coming down hard.

“Get away!” Morgan shouted at O'Brien. “Go for help!”

He could not hear his own voice for the cries around them. Their attackers were roaring, spitting out curses and threats, while all around them the swelling cries of the spectators in the street drowned out Morgan's and O'Brien's pleas for help.

Morgan snapped his big body back and forth like a whip, holding one assailant after another off O'Brien, who had all he could do to stand.

Around them the street had exploded into a full-blown riot, men fighting, women shrieking, children screaming. Morgan's blood raged with a blazing anger, yet his spirit was seized with a terrible coldness at the palpable presence of evil hemming them in. The swell of madness closing in on them seemed borne of demons rather than men.

His breath came hard and ragged. Pain sent flames of light streaking before his eyes, yet he dug his feet into the street and went on fighting. He caught a fleeting sense of savage faces, dark with hate and intent on blood.

He felt the metallic taste of his own blood as it tracked his cheeks to his mouth, heard the fabric of his shirt give and tear. His legs were lead, his chest caught in a vise of pain. He felt himself weakening, and he fought to stand. He was trapped, walled in, about to die.

Suddenly, the darkness shattered, rent to pieces by a thunderous explosion. A fire broke out in Morgan's spine, hurling his feet out from under him. A hot blaze of pain went roaring up the length of his body, and he toppled, hitting the cobbles with a terrible crash and a fierce, terrified scream.

“
God deliver me
!”

A final groan of protest ripped from his throat. Then the clamor of the night faded to silence.

By the time the other three Young Irelanders reached them, the police had managed to break up the mob of attackers, arresting all who did not escape.

Smith O'Brien was mostly scratched and battered, but not badly hurt.

Morgan Fitzgerald lay motionless. His face was bludgeoned and bleeding, his right eye cut from brow to cheekbone. He lay in a pool of his own blood. To those gathered near, the life seemed to be pouring out of his big body from the gunshot wound at the small of his back.

He was alive, but barely.

Annie Delaney had seen it all, from the ruckus inside the Music Hall to the attack on the two men—and then the shooting.

Her wee size had enabled her to sneak into the hall earlier without being seen. She had high hopes of engaging the sympathies of some of the better class of lads inside—of which there had proven to be few.

On a good night she would have been able to beg enough to see her through a week or more. This had not been a good night. She'd been
leaving the hall almost empty-handed when the chant for
Morgan Fitzgerald
began,
stopping her in her tracks.

Oh, she knew who the Fitzgerald was, Annie did! The other street sweepers might scoff all they liked when she claimed to be able to read, but she
could
read, and that was the truth! She might be but a lassie, and she might be on her own keeping—but she was not ignorant. Not Annie Delaney.

Before her real da had passed on and left her mum to take up with old Frank Tully, he had taught her to read some, enough to make out the news and the articles in
The Nation
he left lying about.

Of course, once Da was gone the lessons were finished, but Annie had not left off the reading. Even when she ran off, leaving her mum to old Tully, she took her clippings from
The Nation
with her.

Annie would not have left her mum except for Tully. The ape could not keep his filthy hands off her, and Mum wouldn't listen when Annie tried to tell her what her new husband was really up to.

Until the last bad incident with the dirty-minded sot, Annie had been able to fend him off by a swift kick where it hurt most or by simply darting past him and running off. He was clumsy and slow, and no match for her once she took off.

But one evening when her mum was working late at the linen mill, Tully climbed the ladder to where Annie slept. She was lying on her cot, reading. Worse luck for her, Tully wasn't so drunk this time that he hadn't the wits to block the doorway with his bulk. Her attempt to squeeze past him failed.

Annie screamed and fought like a wild thing, clawing at his eyes, kicking and biting. In the end she managed to escape before he could work his unspeakable acts on her—but not before his hands had turned savage. He went after her like a lunatic, pounding on her and tearing at her clothing, all the while shouting such depraved filth that Annie thought she would feel dirty and spoiled forever.

Finally, she managed to land a fierce blow against his throat, winding him enough that she got away and bolted down the ladder. By then he had pummeled her so hard with his fists that she carried the bruises and the soreness for weeks.

She knew she would carry the disgusting memories much longer.

She had run straight to the mill to wait for her mum's shift to end. But
when Annie told her what Tully had done—even though she could see for herself how he'd beat on her—Mum had stopped just short of blaming Annie for the entire episode.

“Well, you're growing up is all,” she muttered nervously, looking everywhere else but at Annie. “And Tully is no different from any other man when he's been at the bottle. It makes a man weak in the flesh. You'll just have to stay out of his way, you will! I can't say a word to him, or he'll be after beating up on the both of us.”

Annie realized then that her mum was terribly afraid of Tully and would go on ignoring his wickedness—no matter what it might mean for her daughter.

Annie left the flat that night and never went back. She tied her few pieces of clothing on a stick, and went on the streets, carrying all her treasures in a small poke. Her da's books were her treasures—them and the verses of one Morgan Fitzgerald.