Toward the Sea of Freedom (5 page)

While the villagers were still discussing what had happened, Kathleen ran down to the river. She did not really have much hope that Michael was hiding in their love nest in the cold, but she had to try to find him. When she passed Jonny’s oak, no bird call sounded, but she heard voices as soon as she got closer to their hiding place.

“So little?” asked Billy Rafferty, complaining. “Four pounds? You can’t be serious. I thought we were splitting it fifty-fifty.”

“I did want to,” Michael said, sighing. “But they wouldn’t pay more than twelve. And I need eight pounds. With my savings, that will do for passage. And Kathleen and I—”

“Oh, Kathleen and you? But what about me? No golden shores of America for Billy boy? That wasn’t the plan, Michael.” Rafferty’s voice sounded threatening.

“Billy, I did tell you! You get my job as the distributor. Starting next week, the whiskey will be flowing again—and of a quality like it hasn’t been in years. Rye and barley, Billy. Otherwise, they only work with fermented potatoes, my friend. Anyway, you’ll be able to supply the best taverns; you’ll make a fortune.” Michael spoke with an angel’s tongue.

“Then why don’t you do it yourself?” Rafferty asked.

“Well, because I have to leave, Billy. Kathleen . . .”

Kathleen’s heart pounded. Was he going to spill their secret now? Though these two young men likely shared darker secrets than that of her child.

She could not help herself; she stepped out of the thicket of reeds.

“Is it true, Michael? For whiskey? You stole the grain so whiskey could be made from it? While children starve all around you?”

Michael and Billy jumped. They looked at Kathleen—at once guilty and defiant.

“Where else should I have sold it?” asked Michael. “They would have caught me right away if I’d tried anywhere else. The men in the mountains, they keep their mouths shut; never fear. They won’t tell their lordships. They have their honor, Kathleen. No one talks; no one is betrayed.”

“Except for Billy Rafferty,” Billy grumbled. “You can do as you like with me.”

“Oh, shut your mouth, Billy!” Michael yelled at him. “You’ve gotten plenty of money for loading three sacks of grain on a mule. I did the rest, as you know. Now pack your things and think about your tidy profit this weekend in Wicklow. You can take over this very Saturday. But think up a good excuse. Can’t you play the tin whistle? Just say I got you a job playing music in the tavern.”

Reluctantly, Rafferty withdrew. He would have liked to haggle for more money, but he did not like the thunderclouds in Kathleen’s eyes. A woman’s scolding was the last thing he needed. And besides, he felt more like celebrating than fighting. Four good English pounds in his hand! He was rich. Billy Rafferty forgot his anger and strolled back to the village, whistling.

“You want to send this idiot to Wicklow with whiskey?” Kathleen asked, horrified. “Michael, he’ll give the scheme away as soon as he unpacks the stuff. If he doesn’t choke drinking it all down on the way. Fine, it doesn’t bother me if Billy Rafferty makes himself miserable. But you and I, Michael, we can’t let Trevallion throw the families in the village out on the street.”

Kathleen told him about Trevallion’s appearance in front of the church.

Michael bit his lip. “He won’t really do it,” he mused. “But you’re right—we ought to make ourselves scarce before someone suspects something and talks. The best thing would be to disappear tonight.” Michael tried to put his arm around her.

Kathleen shook him off indignantly. “And if Trevallion does do it?” she yelled at him, disgusted at his cold-bloodedness. “Especially if I run out on him too. He has hopes—likely more than I supposed if I’ve understood Father O’Brien right. It’ll put him in a rage if I up and vanish. Then he’ll do even worse to the village.”

Michael shook his head. “No. When I’ve vanished, he’ll know who stole the grain. So he won’t need to punish the others.” His eyes flashed. “I’ll just drop off a bottle of whiskey in the barn for him. As a thank you.” He laughed.

Kathleen did not find any of it funny. “Michael, it’s no good. We can’t make our happiness off the unhappiness of others. Where would the villagers go? There’s no work anywhere. It’s bad enough you stole, and worse Trevallion’s grain ended up in an illegal distiller’s vat instead of the children’s stomachs.”

Michael shrugged. “I’ll confess it,” he assured her. “Sometime. But Kathleen, I’m thinking of our baby before anything. It ought to grow up in a better country where it needn’t starve. I can’t get the grain back from the vat and into the sacks. So, do you want to go with me now or not?” He wrapped her in his arms.

Kathleen briefly gave in to Michael’s tender, comforting embrace. But then she found her way back to reality.

“Of course I’m coming with you!” she said. “But not right away. Not this week, when the village and Trevallion’s head are cooking hotter than those distiller’s vats. Father O’Brien’s right: I should play nice with Trevallion. Try to distract him, make him think of other things. Yes, we’ll do it that way; that’s how we can save the village. You’ll disappear before the week’s out. Go with your idiot friend to Wicklow on Saturday and just stay there. Then people will suspect you, and the tenants will be out of the woods.”

“And you?” he asked. “I’m supposed to leave you alone with Trevallion?”

Kathleen rolled her eyes. “God almighty, Michael, I’m not going to just give myself to him. I’ll walk with him through the village, butter him up a bit, give him some hope . . . and then I’ll come to Wicklow as soon as things have settled down. Just tell me where to find you.”

Kathleen felt better having made this plan. This would work. But only if Michael played along.

Michael chewed thoughtfully on his upper lip. He liked his plan much better. But the village was also his home. The people there were close to his heart. His mother and his siblings . . . but they’d be driven out of house and home anyway when the villagers pointed their fingers at Michael. That hurt Michael—but his mother knew where his father was waiting for them. True, she would no longer be able to pray at church every day, but in exchange, the children would surely get more to eat in the mountains.

“All right, fine,” he said reluctantly. “A week, Kathleen, but not a day more. You’ll find me at Barney’s Tavern. It’s a bar on High Street; can’t miss it.”

Trevallion used the “Week of Truth,” as he called it, to thoroughly mistreat the tenants. In the winter, there was little farm work to do, and the famine had so weakened the people that one could hardly ask anything of them. But that week, Trevallion made them all line up. They had to clean out the stables, haul rocks to expand the fences around the fields, and chop wood for the manor’s fireplace.

“The fires need to be stoked, whether the lord’s here or not,” Trevallion explained. “Otherwise, mold will form in the walls. And the house can’t be allowed to cool down, lest His Lordship decide to spend Christmas here after all.”

That had never happened, but now the villagers almost wished for it. Lord Wetherby might be more amenable to reason than his overzealous steward. Gráinne claimed the lady, at least, was reasonable. Indeed, Kathleen, too, had come to know the young noblewoman as a superficial but ultimately good-natured creature. Surely she would not sit idly by while her farmers’ children starved.

Saturday evening, Michael was half-frozen and exhausted from breaking rocks in the cold when he finally fetched the gardener’s donkey. A few of the farmers watched him in silence, noting that this time Billy Rafferty was climbing onto the beast behind him.

“Where do you think you’re going, Rafferty?” Ron Flannigan asked suspiciously. “A tour through the pubs in Wicklow? Do you have money to drink away, boy?”

Michael shook his head and, pointing to the tin whistle in Billy’s pocket, answered for his friend. “I need him for the band, Ron. There’s more money to be made together. They hardly pay a fiddler on his own.”

Flannigan furrowed his brow. “And so you take the worst whistle player? Who’s going to pay Billy for his playing? More like they’ll give him something to stop.”

The farmers laughed.

Michael laughed along. “People like the sound to be a bit rough around the edges,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

Ron Flannigan watched as they rode off. “Do you, now?” he finally murmured.

Kathleen had a hard time flirting, but she forced herself to do just that with Trevallion. She smiled at him when he walked into church on Sunday. Father O’Brien preached about forgiveness and clemency. In the end, he concluded, only God was the true judge, and no sinner could escape him, even if he avoided worldly judgment. The old priest even winked at Kathleen when she joined Trevallion immediately after Mass and spoke to him amicably. Did he thereby make himself guilty of the sin of procurement?

It amused Kathleen. She tried to maintain the light in her eyes, the smile on her lips, and the slight blush of her cheeks for Trevallion. For the first time, she allowed him to take her strolling all around the village without her parents by her side. She agreed with him in flattering terms as he described again and again how useful he was to his lord, how sure his station as steward was, and how respected the woman he took for his wife would be.

Kathleen was exhausted from all the smiling and lying when Trevallion finally delivered her to her parents’ house. During the stroll she had experienced a strange sensation. It was almost as if she had not been alone with the steward, as if she were being watched. Had Michael sent Jonny to follow her?

That might have been the case. It had been hard getting her beloved to accept her mission with Trevallion. And for her part, Kathleen worried about Michael. Billy Rafferty had been at Mass that morning. He kneeled, visibly tired, next to his mother, who seemed rather perturbed. Kathleen could understand. Particularly in times like these, it was considered disgraceful to get drunk. Michael had never come to church on Sunday mornings any the worse for wear. Of course, the tavern owner would give the musicians a beer or two, but whoever got drunk on whiskey did not keep his job long.

Billy Rafferty did not seem to think that far ahead. Any form of strategy was foreign to him; Kathleen still thought him the worst choice for Michael’s successor in the whiskey business.

But for Michael’s sake, Billy’s headache might not prove such a bad thing. The priest and the other villagers would assume that Michael, too, had been drinking the night before and thus had not come to Mass. Not until work on Monday morning would they finally note his absence.

In front of the O’Donnells’ house, Trevallion handed Kathleen another sack of flour. “I know you won’t take it, Mary Kathleen,” he said formally. “You want to be sure no one will think you’re for sale. But I do wish you would someday feel enough for me that my gifts would appear meaningless compared to my kiss.”

The steward approached her, but Kathleen stepped back, startled. She felt panic at the idea of Trevallion’s kiss—and not just because the thought of his lips on hers disgusted her. It was also because she was afraid of whoever might be following her. Little Jonny would not do anything dangerous. Nothing more could be expected from him than some stupid boyish prank, like a shot from his sling. He never hit anyway. But what if it was Brian who was following her?

What if it was Michael himself?

Kathleen lowered her eyes. “Mr. Trevallion,” she said quietly. “Please, please, sir, I’m only sixteen. That’s, that’s too young for love.” She blushed.

Trevallion smiled. “Oh, of course. I forgot myself.”

Kathleen did not know if he meant it with affection or scorn.

“Then it’s surely only a rumor that you have feelings for that village boy?” It sounded threatening.

Kathleen tried to lower her head even more demurely—and only then raised her eyes. She even managed a mischievous smile.

“My feelings might tend elsewhere, sir,” she said. “But my mother instructed me to keep my eye on the pantry, too, when thinking of love.”

Trevallion laughed resoundingly. “My, but you’re a charming maid, Mary Kathleen.”

He reached into his bag and added a packet of sugar to the sack of flour. “Here. Though it can’t be sweeter than your lips.”

Kathleen thanked heaven when she was finally able to flee into her family’s small house. She knew they would be waiting impatiently, and that they would be ecstatic over Trevallion’s wooing.

Sugar and flour. Now Kathleen could bake scones herself, though she feared they would taste bitter because of how she’d come by the ingredients.