And now she felt utterly depressed at the news she had to bring. She called her from the back room of her shop where she was doing some sewing on a dress for one of their customers. She looked so sad when she saw Tara.
“I have to tell you something which I hate doing. I’m afraid I’m going to have to lower your salary three shillings.”
Tara’s eyes widened. Didn’t Miss Rouche realize the implication of that.? Her salary was all they had to live on, and they barely had enough to live on with that.
“I’ve lost so many customers with the famine. I’m sure you noticed. I deal mostly with middle and upper class women who need a special dress for a special occasion. All that has stopped now. They are saving every shilling for bare necessities. It would be lovely if all my customers were as well to do as Mrs. Litchfield but, alas, that’s not the case. Plus fabric has doubled in price since the famine. If the situation doesn’t change with the potato crop come spring, I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go altogether, much to my regret, believe me.”
She had grown so fond of her. Not only was she a beautiful girl but also she was so kind and good. And who knows? Perhaps she and Captain Litchfield would marry, which would be wonderful. She was beginning to think of Tara as the daughter she never had and had plans to leave the shop to her when she died. But that wasn’t of much help now that they were in the midst of a famine.
Tara slumped down in the nearest chair.
“A dress shop like this is the last place I would have thought I would ever be in danger of losing my job because of the famine. So many wealthy people buy here.”
How would they ever get along? They lived on the barest essentials now.
“Well, we have to hope for the best next year. The famine can’t last forever.”
“Let me get back to work, Miss Rouche. I appreciate you keeping me on.”
Now Tara lived in a worse state of turmoil between worrying about McGuire and now this drastic decrease in her salary. She prayed every night God would also put an end to the terrible suffering she saw around her every day. If it hadn’t been for Patrick, who had discovered a spot the limpets were drawn to, and some mussels and nettles he was able to retrieve, still growing miraculously beneath the snow, or once in a while some birds’ nest eggs they would surely have starved, along with the loaf of bread she was still able to purchase each week. Then she discovered her rent, plus some money for extra food, was being paid by an anonymous donor. She knew, of course, it was Captain Litchfield and wrote him a letter thanking him for his charity, which she knew they needed desperately. But her guilt at accepting it never left her.
One evening when, as usual, she lay awake thinking of John and praying to God to keep him safe, she smelled something burning. She quickly ran to her father’s cot which was partially aflame and noticed his pipe on the floor. She grabbed a blanket and ran to his cot, smothering the flame. But it was too late and the fire was out of control as her father stood there, immobile, watching the flames.
She ran to Patrick’s cot, woke him up.
“The house is on fire! Ride to the fire brigade down the way as fast as you can. “He dressed in seconds, took a moment to see the blazing cot, and was gone.
It took quite a few minutes for the men on the brigade to dress and check that the water pumps were filled to capacity and harness the horses. When they arrived and used the giant fire pumps filled with water, the fire finally got under control.
After they left, Tara and Patrick stood there in disbelief, their father standing and staring, in his other world.
She began to cry.
With so much else on her mind, she had to cope with this fear as well, that he would inadvertently set another fire. She finally gained control.
“At least we have a roof over our heads and the damage isn’t that bad. But we were lucky this time. I think eventuaally we’ll have to build a shale like so many others and have to live in it. “It would have to be dug in the earth about ten feet and covered with woven branches to keep out the rain and cold.”
“I don’t think we’re at that point yet.”
“You’re right. I’m not thinking straight, Patrick.” She squeezed her forehead with her fingers. She thought of Captain Litchfield who was still paying their rent.
The neighbors who had gathered around at hearing the bell began to disperse to their cottages or shales.
She must think.
‘’Father Boyle! We know he has extra cots. He would surely take us in for the night.”
A sleepy-eyed Father Boyle answered his door.
“Oh, father, the worst thing has happened and my da’s cot got burned to a crisp. And his arms are all burned too.”
“Blessed Jesus! You are all to stay here tonight. I have some bread. Don’ t ask me how I got it but I’m sure the Lord will forgive me.”
He went to the back area of his cottage where he had a smalll kitchen and gave the three of them a good sized piece of bread, which they devoured.
Tara’s was to sleep in Father Boyle’s bed while Patrick and Liam could sleep on cots on the floor.
“Now all of you try to get some sleep. We’ll talk about this in the morning”
Later, Tara could hear her father snoring and see Patrick fast asleep, while she lay most of the night wondering what ever would become of them.
And then she made her decision.
At breakfast she told Sean of her fears of their father doing worse damage. And so, with much sadness in their hearts, they decided they must bring him to the lunatic asylum.
The lunatic asylum was in Armagh, not that far from where Tara lived and so they decided to walk. She packed her father’s bag with a few shirts, an extra pair of pants, and other basic necessities.
When they arrived at St. Theresa’s Lunatic Asylum, they were very impressed by its cleanliness. The gray stones it was comprised of were very clean as well as the windows.
They rang the bell and a nun answered.
“I’m Sister Bernadette. May I help you.” She had a lovely face, which looked like it had a permanent smile on it, and her wimple and other garments were spotless.
“We’d like to inquire if we can let our da stay here.”
“Won’t you come in?”
She led them to her office which was immaculately clean but possessed worn furniture.
“Would you mind waiting for us outside, Mr. O’Brien?”
Tara and Patrick’s father left the room, closed the door.
“Can you tell me what the problem seems to be?”
“Well,” Tara began. “I think it all started when our mother died, not too long ago. But da was able to go on because he had the potato crop to cope with. But then with the coming of the famine he seemed to go into a daze. He just sat on our tiny porch or the fence and stared into space. He also stopped talking, but we put up with it thinking once the famine was over he would come back to his senses. We were very lucky we had—a—friend who paid our rent and gave us money for food.”
“You certainly were,” she smiled.
“But then one night when I was in bed and couldn’t sleep, I smelled smoke. I ran to da’s bed and saw him sitting up watching the flames as the fire was burning his bed and bedclothes. We went to report the fire and while we waited filled buckets of water to try to douse the flames, But we couldn’t. Finally, thank the Lord, the fire truck arrived and put it out. It was then we knew we had to do something about da. The cottage could of burned down and we could of been burned to death. That’s when we decided with us not being home all the time, he had to go to the asylum. And he understood that.”
“I think you made a very wise choice.”
She stood up.
“Let me show you his room.”
She led them down the hall toward his room.
“I couldn’t help notice your beautiful d
affodils,” Tara commented. “And I see you have eight rose bushes scattered here and there. They’re my favorite. They should start to bloom before you know it.”
“Yes, we’re very lucky Sister Clementine seems to have a green thumb and really enjoys tending the garden area.”
They reached his room. She opened the door and they were very disappointed. The walls were a pea soup green and had many chips, the coverlet was faded from so many washings as was the pillow on the rocking chair. A plain lamp, which once looked as though it once had a flower design on it, sat on the worn dresser. Tara noticed there were a few holes in the now-faded flowered rug. There was a vase of daffodils on top of the dresser.
“I know you must be disappointed in the room. Everything is so worn. But you see we get so few donations to update things. Once people see the word “lunatic” they think of completely hopeless cases and I think they get a sense of fright as well. Of course we do have some seriously ill people in the south side of the building, but I can assure you we have had many cases of people who are able, after a time of good care, to come home again. It’s sad that people don’t think of mental illness as seriously as they do heart disease or gout, or the more common illnesses. If they could only know the suffering these poor souls go through.”
“I can tell you’re a very kind person, Sister. And I am very glad we spoke with you. I think my da will be treated very well here.”
“I thank you,” she smiled.
After they hugged, her father entered, and Sister Bernadette spoke with him a time,
“You can be sure we’ll visit him as much as we can to see how he progresses,” Patrick offered.
“That would be wonderful. So many of our patients never receive a visitor at all.”
Tara and Patrick left in a sad state, but they also knew they had done the right thing.
The morning began and they awoke to a glorious, atypical day. Cardinals and sparrows were chirping in the trees. The sun was beating down upon the emerald grass as well at Father’s Boyle’s cottage and Tara and Patrick paid him a visit. They even had a breakfast of a piece of bread, Tara feeling especially guilty because it would be one less piece for Father Boyle.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began, “Why don’t you take a cot from Maureen O’Flanagan’s cottage? It’s a wonder no one’s taken it over but I suppose she’ll eventually be back here again. And I know she wouldn’t mind. I keep hoping she’ll write to you, Tara, and you can tell us all the news of America. I hear America’s a wonderful place. And I know, with you being her best friend and the circumstances you’re in now, she’d be glad of it.”
“Father Boyle, you surely are a lifesaver. I can get Patrick and a few of his friends to carry it over to our cottage today.”
John McGuire was readying himself for another attack on a British ship. So far they had been unbelievably successful. Whoever would have thought as a little boy this would be his lot it life? His mother had been sweet and loving and when she died he missed her dearly. He thought about her almost every day and the abuse his drunken father put the four boys through after a night of drinking. Yet, they bore up to it. They had no choice. Their father had always thought they would all follow in his footsteps and become farmers as he had. That is exactly what happened, except for John. He wanted to travel and see the world. And so he had a variety of jobs for six years until he had enough saved to fulfill his dream., He had seen China, Japan, France, Germany, Switzerland and finally came to the conclusion there was not one place as appealing as the one he loved most, Ireland.
When he returned, he worked for a few years as an apprentice in a blacksmith shop and enjoyed the work; but he felt more and more drawn to an occupation where he could help people. Teaching was his first choice, but all those years of having to work to be certified did not appeal to him. When the famine struck, he had no thought of being actively involved with it; but as it became worse and worse, he finally realized what his calling was, though he had to idea how he would carry it out. One day he heard the man who was to become his best friend, Sean McConnell, making a speech about the British and their role in the famine. He knew from that moment on what his role should be. He introduced himself to McConnell and from then on they became the best of friends. He also found he had a gift of oratory, so strong he was able to move people to action by his words. And from those few speeches he arose to become the leader of the Irish rebellion against the British, finally to such a point he had to obtain three other men to be his bodyguards wherever he went. The work was extremely dangerous but he thrived on it, knowing he was helping the suffering and starving. So far he and his friends were very successful. His father had disowned him when he told him he had no interest in farming and was going to travel until he could finally get grounded in what he wanted to do with his life. When he met Tara, his thoughts of a single loner’s life were shattered. He would eventually, he hoped ironically, go back to the land—and with her.
McGuire and his bodyguards plus twenty other men who had joined their group had made an unbelievably successful raid on the “Queen Victoria” the week before and were now riding to Skibbereen. He had heard the very worst hardships were there so that was their target, to bring the pillow cases filled almost to the brim with meal to them, and most astoundingly, some had meat. They arrived in darkness.
“Remember,” McGuire said, “make the twenty families you distribute to take the oath that, in the name of Jesus Christ, they share it with as many families as possible.” And off they went. John usually hid in one of the cottages in Skibbereen, so that he did not draw attention for wherever he was seen crowds would surround him and want to shake his hand and thank him.
However, this time, he, along with Sean said, “I want to see for myself what’s happening here. I’ve heard so many stories of the conditions here and I want to see if they are true. I want to see with my own eyes the accounts that the starvation in the western part of the country are worse than the east. If so, we have to concentrate on there when we raid the British ships.”
They entered some of the hovels, or shales, and the scenes he and Sean saw were so horrible a tongue or pen could scarcely describe them. In the first shale he saw starving and horrifying skeletons, dead, huddled in a corner on dirty straw, their sole blanket ragged horsecloth, their thin legs laying naked above their knees. He then realized they were not quite dead, and as he approached with shock, found by the low moaning heard they were alive—four children, a woman and what had once been a man. He left the shale going to the others and saw at least two hundred men, children, and women, who looked like ghosts caused by famine or fever. Their calls for help echoed in his ears and he knew their ghastly images would be fixed in his brain always. Their clothes were mainly torn off as they tried to escape the pestilence around. They seized his neckcloth and he turned to face a woman with an infant just born. They opened a house, locked for many days and found two frozen corpses of her child, a girl about five, perfectly naked, leaving it on the ground, half covered with stones.
Deaths were occurring daily; almost two hundred Irish had died in the workhouse, and one hundred bodies had been eaten by rats.
Suddenly, John McGuire felt dizzy.
“Take me cross country to the safety of Father Boyle,” he said, “This is too much for me.”
Though Sean was just as depressed, he managed to go to the cottage where he distributed the food and told them they would be in touch. They must never see a weakness in their leader.
McGuire and McCullough rode slowly. John was breathing heavily when they arrived at Father Boyle’s. He let them in quickly, sensing the state McGuire was in.
“Father, John’s not doing his best,” Sean offered. “We’ve just come from Skibbereen.”
Father Boyle led him to the back room, laid him on a cot.
John’s eyes appeared glazed. He ran his fingers through his hair. “The things I saw in Skibbereen
.”
Father Boyle placed a light blanket over him. “They say that’s the most hit.”
“We brought them twenty bags of food.”
“I’m sure they’ll thank you forever for that.”
“But it’s hardly enough. Dear God, the things I saw. The things I saw.”
He sat up on the cot.
Father Boyle called Sean to the side.
“Try to explain the situation to Tara when she arrives. He needs to rest.”
Father Boyle and Sean came back into the room.
“Lie back down, John. Try to get some rest. You’ve completely overdone yourself.”
“The things I saw,” he moaned. “The things I saw.”
After a few minutes he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
Dr. Beel, a craggy faced, thin man with kind brown eyes and hanging jowls,” had been the family doctor in Monaghan for over thirty years now.
When it was Tara’s turn, which took over an hour since the office was always filled with patients, he took one look at her and asked her to remove her blouse and skirt. This surprised her because she had been feeling sick every morning and weak. She thought perhaps she was catching the flu, or a fever.
He examined her thoroughly.
“It’s not the famine fever, is it, doctor?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Tara, when did you have your last period?”
She blushed.
“I wondered about that. It’s been about three months, closer to four.”
“Yes, that makes sense. These times are so hard, I know. Nevertheless, I’m happy to tell you you’re going to have a baby.”
She felt she would fall off the cot she was lying on.
“Have you been feeling sick in the morning, not like yourself, with throwing up at times?”
“Yes, I have. But I thought it might be the beginning of the famine fever or a cold.”
An Irish Girl Page 8