“So you saw no people along the road, living in burrows, emaciated, starving? Or lines of folk in Westport, clamoring for food? Did you smell the stench of rotting corpses?”
“Father, really!” Horror spread across Lucinda’s face.
“I do remember seeing a crowd of people hovering near the inn as I arrived in Westport,” Sir Thomas replied casually and smiled. “But that’s not unusual in Ireland, is it? You Irishmen are always looking for a drink.” He put his thumb and forefinger under his nose and pinched his nostrils. “I also carry snuff to protect me from country smells. It’s quite pleasant, really. You should try it.”
Briana’s neck bristled from a building rage. She fought to keep her anger in check knowing it would be best to do so for her father’s sake.
“What we have seen is not usual,” Brian countered. “I realize now, after hearing you, Sir Thomas, that most Englishmen have no idea of what is taking place here.”
The landlord leaned forward over his plate of cold fish. “The Prime Minister has said nothing, nor has, for that matter, our young queen, Victoria. We English have taken to the new way of modern life and industry. The mills and the rails are uniting the disparate regions of our nation. Prosperity seems assured. Yes, we read of rival factions within the government, but it’s the usual stuff of politics. Nothing about Ireland has drawn our attention.” He smiled with a self-assurance that bordered on a smirk, pushed back in his chair, and studied Brian with cautious eyes. “If you have bad news, get on with it.”
Briana looked at the fish on her plate, also cold and untouched. Her appetite was fleeing along with her resolve to hold her tongue.
“When word of the famine arrives, it will be the Irish who suffer, not the English,” her father said. “The laws your government lords over mine are not equitable. They favor one over the other—you don’t have to think hard to discern which nation earns the indulgence of the Queen.” Her father quaffed his brandy and then started for another. He stopped mid-reach. “No, I want to be sober when I say these words.” He put his glass on the table. “Lear House is bankrupt.”
Sir Thomas stiffened, the ruddy cheeks drained to a pale ash, and the swaggering confidence he had carried in his demeanor softened.
Briana, buoyed by her father’s words, could hold back no longer. “We have no money and only a few days of food left in this kitchen.”
Her father raised his hand, signaling her not to speak. “What my daughter says is true. You are welcome to review the accounts tomorrow. All will be laid out before you. Every tenant on the estate is in arrears. The grain has been sold, the potatoes are gone. The tenants have little to eat. Lear House has been lucky—we have been among the last to see the effects of the famine, but soon we will be as desperate as the rest of Mayo.”
“Why was I not . . . informed?” His austere expression transformed into one of disbelief.
“Perhaps you were . . . by two letters,” Briana said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sir Thomas snapped.
From his angry expression, Briana surmised that either the landlord was unaware of the letters she and her sister had sent, or he had been caught in a lie.
“You weren’t informed for precisely the reason I told you,” Brian continued. “We were the last to know. Over the past few months the famine has gotten worse rather than better. We prayed that God would look upon us with fortune, but that has not happened. The spring has been wet. Some say the blight comes from the rain and wind. If the summer is rainy and cold, the August crop may fail as well. It will be a disaster for Ireland.”
Sir Thomas rose from his chair and walked to the large window that looked east toward the sloping heath and the village. Briana followed his line of sight as well. Beyond the lawn, the tenant farms concealed most of the potato ridges, now cradling the young crop. In the distance, the surrounding hills turned greenish black in the fading light. The color reminded her of turbulent summer storms that had lashed the estate with pitchforks of lightning, blasts of thunder, and torrents of rain. The owner stood silent for several minutes with his back to them before he turned.
“If Lear House has no money, I’m afraid you are in trouble.” He directed his words at Brian, a hint of menace in his eyes. “There are not enough funds to support this estate and the house in Manchester. If you cannot find the money, you will lose your home—it’s as simple as that. I will have to vacate Lear House and eject its inhabitants.”
Lucinda’s face turned a sickly gray as she reached for her water and gulped it down.
Briana looked at her meal, still untouched, and then at her hands. They were not as pretty or as supple as they were when she was younger. She tried to think of anything but the landlord’s words: cleaning the cottage, feeding the pig, preparing corn meal, mending Rory’s breeches and shirt, helping her father at Lear House. But her mind was ablaze with dire thoughts and few words.
Sir Thomas had issued an ultimatum—one she thought unfair after the years they had given him. Dirt had collected under her nails. She’d had no time to clean them after preparing the mackerel. Her fingers grew cold in her lap.
“I’ve had enough to digest for one night,” Sir Thomas said. He moved to his chair, gripping its back with his hands. “I bid you a good night. I’ll look at the books first thing in the morning—after breakfast.” His thin sardonic smile brought some color back to his cheeks. “If we have enough food for breakfast.”
Lucinda, who had kept her head bowed during the conversation, looked up and nodded. “I’m sorry, Sir Thomas. I hope this in no way affects our working relationship.”
He breezed by the table, saying as he passed, “That’s a subject for another day.” He stopped at the door and turned back to them. “Oh, there is the matter of my guests. I suggest we find a way to feed them when they arrive. Until tomorrow.” He turned into the hall.
Her father stroked his chin and then said to Briana, “Thank you, daughter, for preparing this meal. It shouldn’t go to waste. We can divide Sir Thomas’s portion.”
They ate in silence as the finality of the owner’s words sank in.
CHAPTER 10
From his vantage point in a hollow to the east of Lear House, Rory watched as the Englishman rose from his chair and moved to the dining room window. What was going through Sir Thomas’s mind? Crouched in the shadows near a makeshift fence, Rory wasn’t close enough to judge the owner’s mental state, but the landlord’s motionless figure revealed his displeasure.
Rory moved like an Irish fox, taking advantage of the deep shadows cast by the setting sun. He wished to steal closer to see a dinner he considered an exercise in forced opulence. Imagine a feast for the Englishman while his countrymen starved! But time was short—soon even Lear House would be in similar peril. He tried to rid his mind of that troubling thought, but the famine’s inevitability came crushing down upon him.
Perhaps he had been too hard on his wife and her wish to keep the landlord happy, but damn it all, why cater to the whims of the oppressor? He and many other Mollies believed that Irish silence and English law were conspiring to starve the country. But how close would disaster come? What if the tenants were evicted? Would revenge, even violence, be visited upon Sir Thomas and the Walsh family? He remembered the note tacked to the manor door and the horrifying heights that his imagination had taken him: the burning manor, the bodies of Brian and his daughters hung from the cornices. But Briana was his wife now, and things were different. He would protect her at the cost of his life—that was as certain as the tides in Broadhaven Bay.
He had sheltered his wife from something else as well. His trip to Belmullet to arrange for the last supply delivery had so nearly broken his spirit, he had confided in his father-in-law when he returned.
“Are you ill?” Brian had asked after Rory found him alone in the cottage.
Rory shook his head. “What I’ve seen . . . I’ve barely the words to talk about it.” He lowered his head, rested in a chair,
and sighed. The thought of telling Brian what he had seen exhausted him.
“Tell me,” Brian said. “You made arrangements for the Indian corn. What else is troubling you?”
Rory lifted his head and looked at him, ashamed that he was on the verge of tears. Brian was a tough man—he had seen death and disease and many bouts of misfortune during his life—but Rory was certain the man had never seen anything like what he had witnessed.
“The money you gave me from your savings is gone,” Rory said. “I had to use it all to get the twenty sacks. The Captain and the dragoons each took their cut.” He gazed at Brian through damp eyes. “I nearly worked the pony to death to get past the starving along the road. They reached for me, clawed at me, begging for food.
“They’re pouring out of the hills looking for anything to save them. At first I couldn’t tell what was speckling the road among the ash and alder trees, but when I stopped my horse, I discovered the truth. Bodies lay in burrows, scattered in the bogs, dogs eating them. The stench . . . even the wind couldn’t knock it away.” He slumped in a chair, surrendering to despair. “Promise me that you’ll never tell your daughters what I’ve told you. We must spare them from more sadness.”
Brian winced but nodded in support of the promise.
Good. Brian needed to know the truth, to know what he was implicitly, silently, supporting by earning his livelihood as the landlord’s agent.
Brian crossed himself.
“You know what will happen next,” Rory said. “The pig will go, then the farm animals, then all the food will be gone. If we can’t fish, what will we eat? Seaweed? A frog? Birds’ eggs? There’ll be nothing left.” He lowered his head again, averting his eyes from his father-in-law, certain that no man had answers to his questions.
Brian got up from his chair and put his hands on Rory’s shoulders. He had never felt so helpless, and he welcomed his father-in-law’s comforting touch. “Come to Lear House and see what I’ve done. I’ve shored up the larder so the rats can’t get into it,” he said. It was a small gesture designed to take his mind off his troubles.
He blinked away the memory of that awful trip as he watched Sir Thomas walk from the window to the dining room door, then vanish after turning the corner.
Rory rubbed his arms and trod down the lane toward the bay. From there, he could get a better view of the Lear House façade. The chilly air bit at his body as it quickened off the Atlantic. He watched as an oil lamp moved across the large window above the center of the house—the owner’s bedroom.
As he watched the light, he was surprised at the angry, violent thoughts that popped into his head. How easy it would be to fire a shot into the window. Everything would be over. The Walsh family would be free of their controlling landlord and with his death their responsibility to Lear House. The notion frightened him, and he sprinted down the lane. He couldn’t believe he was thinking like an assassin, a common murderer, capable of acts he’d never have imagined in more tranquil times.
“Murder can’t be that easy,” he said to the air. “It will only bring trouble down upon us all.”
“Who wants more trouble?” The question came out of the gloom. Rory pivoted and found Connor Donlon standing a few yards away near the path that led to the beach.
Rory bit his tongue for thinking aloud.
Connor strode up beside him. “So, the Master has arrived.”
“My only master is God,” Rory said. “I don’t want to give the landlord more power over us than he already has . . . and that he has in his capacity to evict.”
Connor’s face reflected the pink afterglow of the setting sun, shadows darkening the circles beneath his eyes and his sunken cheekbones. The strain of feeding a family of six had taken its toll upon his friend. “Have you been eating?” Rory asked.
His friend didn’t answer immediately but looked toward a potato ridge that extended down from a farm. Connor bent over, swiped his hand across the ridge, and muttered what sounded like a prayer. He looked up at Rory. “I pray that these tubers come up healthy and strong by August. They look as if they may.” He pointed to the young leaves, green amongst the black sod.
“I hope you’re right,” he responded, trying to erase the skepticism from his voice.
Connor straightened. “My wife and children come first.”
Rory had never known Connor to approach anything from a position of weakness. Now that the famine had seized the estate, all the tenants were struggling for their lives. He understood the man’s willingness to make a sacrifice, but he also knew that Sheila and the children couldn’t manage without the family provider. More trouble, more death. When will it end?
They watched from afar as the lamp crossed the window a second time. Even though the shades were drawn, they could make out the landlord’s shadowy form.
“How easy it would be,” Connor said to the air.
“Don’t speak ill,” Rory said, culpable of the same thought minutes earlier. He shivered, knowing their minds were following a similar murderous path.
“It won’t be me, but it would be easy,” Connor said. He put his hand on Rory’s shoulder. “I saw you walking down the hill. I came to remind you of the meeting tomorrow night.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” He wondered how the discussion might differ from previous meetings now that Sir Thomas had taken up summer residence at the manor. Would the threat to Lear House gather momentum? He looked toward the manor, where the stone was turning from gray to black in the gathering dusk, its windows dull and blank now that the lamps had been extinguished.
“Were you invited to dinner?” Connor asked.
Rory groaned. “I had no stomach for it.” He shook hands with his friend. “I’ve got to get home before my wife. I craved a walk—that’s all.”
Connor left his side. “Whatever you say, my friend. I’ll see you tomorrow at the meeting place.”
They walked together in silence from the bay and headed east along the hillside until they parted.
* * *
Brian Walsh sat in the chair facing what was, on most days, his desk. He threaded his fingers together and absentmindedly rotated his thumbs. These were the worst hours he had ever experienced, with the possible exception of the day his wife died. Even that horrible time was tempered by the knowledge that she had been delivered from the pain and suffering of her illness. The outpouring of grief from the smallholders, from friends in Carrowteige, the soothing words from Father O’Kirwin, had also eased that day’s sting. As far as he could tell, today held no such promise.
Even breakfast had been a disaster. The landlord had expressed his displeasure at the tiny oatcakes he had been served a few hours before. There was hardly enough sugar and butter to make them palatable, he told Lucinda, his reluctant server. Briana had returned to her husband after making the cakes.
Sir Thomas now sat behind the desk, leaning forward, his eyes moving over the neatly formed lines of figures entered by Brian under the categories of land, occupiers, annual value, rate, arrears, totals, and observations. He closed one ledger and opened another. After a brief time, he shut it as well.
The stale odor of aging paper wafted through the library. The books were already old when he had started working on them, passed down as they were from the previous agent.
“Most distressing.” The landlord sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“The point is . . .” Brian felt it almost unnecessary to say more. The landlord had already told him what would happen if the rents weren’t paid. Why fight the inevitable? He screwed up his courage and continued, “What can be done? We will take the necessary steps to save Lear House.”
The owner pushed back his chair and studied the crammed oak bookcases that lined the room. Brian took in the profile of his employer and the erect posture of his authority. With a full head of black, curly hair; sideburns extending to muttonchops; and a sharp, aquiline nose, the landlord did indeed cut an aristocratic figure. He understood how Lucinda found him handsom
e and charming, but considering her lineage as the daughter of an Irish land agent, and the seemingly endless bounty of young, highborn ladies who filled Manchester and its countryside, her chances of marriage to Sir Thomas were slim. But who was to say where a heart could make its home? Witness the marriage of Briana to a tenant farmer. He was an organized man, and over the course of the year, life had become messier than he wished. As one grew older, living was supposed to be simpler, not studded with complications that led to matters of life and death.
Sir Thomas picked up the quill pen and tapped its feather against his cheek. He retained this position for several minutes, keeping Brian in suspense while awaiting an answer to his question.
Finally, the landlord turned slightly, his face framed in the window’s half light, and spoke. “I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done. The house will have to close at summer’s end. Perhaps even before that. I pray that somehow I may extend courtesies to my guests, but what are we to eat when there is no food to be found? If I’m lucky, I can wrangle something from the local Constabulary or a ship at Belmullet. Of course, that will require money.” He thrust the quill toward Brian in an accusing manner. “I hold you responsible for letting the accounts fall to such a disastrous level. If you had been doing your job, this would not have happened.”
In dismay, Brian stared at the scarred oak floor.
The landlord came up with questions of his own. “How do we get food? How do we support the estate when there is no money to be had?”
Flushed from the accusation that he was responsible for the misfortune, he took some time to construct an answer before responding. “Surely I cannot be blamed for an act of God. I assume a plan for food applies only to you and your guests? Are there no extra funds from Manchester to support Lear House?” He thought of the landlord’s guests savoring fine dishes while the tenants starved.
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