by Laer Carroll
At last she stood, caressing the rough side of the red-painted motor. She thought it a great beauty, inside and out, and told the engineer that. He was pleased, because he felt exactly the same way.
She could see that he was mollified, and accepted what she told him of minor problems with good grace. After all, if a supernatural creature of the sea, a selkie, said his engine was beautiful, who was he to disagree?
A last quick inspection of the shaft to the propeller found no problems and Mary went topside and reported to the Captain and to "Dame" Edith.
The Selkie spoke to the two of them. "Well, I'm back to the water. I wish you a bon voyage ."
The Dame sighed, playing her public role. "Always we see each other for such short times. Say that we'll have time to visit soon."
"I promise," the Selkie said, and with a leap and a twist of her body dove backward into the water.
A few minutes later she had passed under the ship and secretly re- entered the porthole to resume her Mary McCarthy persona.
Edith and Jane had come out on deck and were positioned by the forward rail out of the way of the crew. When Mary joined them Edith nodded at Mary, who waved at the Captain.
The Captain shouted for the first mate and cries rang out around the ship. The anchor came splashing up out of the depths into the late-morning sun, water and mud cascading down into the sea, and was brought aboard and stowed in its well, chains and anchor clashing until it was secured.
As the anchor came up the men were already setting the creamy triangular forward sails stretching from the mainmast to the spear-like bowsprit. The fabric went up in a practiced order that first pointed the ship east then began to fill the sails. They billowed and went full with the west wind, cracking loudly.
Then the sails on the main filled, and the ones on the mizzen behind it. The sails put more and more way on the Belle Rive , heeling her over slightly. The pitching of the ship eased as her speed went up and up.
The last set of sails went up and filled and the ship was well under way.
She sped southeast, her path pointing toward Le Havre in France then curving more and more toward the east and the Irish Sea between Ireland and England. The white skyward-pointing finger of the Roche Point lighthouse to port, at the entrance to the Cove harbor, began to recede behind them.
It was less than a quarter hour before they passed Power Head four English miles further along the coast. The Belle Rive was moving at fifteen knots then, and accelerating still more as the Captain fine-tuned the sails and their rigging, tested the stresses on the masts and the hull, he and his crew remembering yet again all the tiny details of their art and this specific ship.
An hour after sails-up they passed Ballycotton Point and its lighthouse. Another hour and Knockadoon Head was behind them and the Belle Rive was heading north into Youghal Bay where the great Blackwater River spilled into the ocean. The sails came down, the engine came on, and they swam into dock at Youghal City.
In a half-hour they had off-loaded cargo and received some. There was not a lot. Youghal was not a big city, and the Cork and Youghal Railway from Cork City was nearing completion, already taking cargo away from shipping between the two cities. Still, there was enough to add to the profit for this voyage.
Two more hours found them docking at Dungarvon, east and a bit north from Youghal. The two cities were the same size but at Dungarvon it took more than an hour to on- and off-load the much-larger cargo. Dungarvon had no railroad connection, nor was one planned that Mary knew of. Still, such might be in the works. Railways were being planned and built all across Ireland nowadays.
By 5:00 they were in the ocean again heading directly east. Just past 8:00 they entered Waterford Harbour, created by the confluence of two big rivers, the Barron from the north and the Suir from the west. It took the Belle Rive another half hour steaming north against the river flow to dock, made possible this late because it was midsummer and days were long. Here they would stay for the night.
While ship and dock crews shifted cargo on- and off-board Mary, Edith, and Jane left ship to take a carriage into Waterford City. Dame Edith was greeted warmly by a minor English noble with a strong commercial bent with whom the Dame had been corresponding. They finalized details, Mary the "assistant" doing most of the commercial discussion, and then talked late of generalities. This let Edith settle more fully into her role.
By midmorning the Belle Rive rounded Carnsore Point, the furthest southeast corner of Ireland, and proceeded north. Shortly thereafter they entered Wexford Harbour for a substantial cargo exchange.
Now the ship had a straight trip north to Dublin. The prevailing wind from the west, though now more southwesterly than westerly, was now on their port side rather than stern, and the wind was much slowed by the whole of Ireland. The Captain steered the Belle Rive further into the Irish Sea to catch better breezes.
The rest of the day provided nothing to cut the boredom except a vigorous rainstorm that accompanied them, near nightfall, into Dublin Bay and its harbor. The three women left the ship pushing umbrellas into the falling rain and took a waiting coach into Dublin to their reserved suite at one of Dublin's most distinguished and expensive hotels, the Shelbourne .
The next morning it was exciting to Mary to be driven through the strange new city of Dublin. She was in her Dame Edith persona, one of the last times she would adopt it, and watching out the side window. She was enjoying the sights and inhaling the subtly different odor of this individual city, the air still damp from the tail end of the rain which had poured all night. The ride was short, only a few blocks.
Mary met Sir Robert Kane at the Museum of Irish Industry on Saint Stephen's Green East, a four-story building right across the street from the large rectangular park which gave the street its name and whose trees still dripped water. He was the founder and president of the Museum before he became president of Queen's College Cork and retained the Museum president's post. He split his time between his duties in Cork City and in Dublin, where he and his wife had grown up and which was their primary home.
Many of the full-time professors at the College, Mary knew, resented his part-time approach to what they considered a full-time job. Kane and George Boole had recently had several unpleasant exchanges in the Cork Examiner over his "double-jobbing" and had only recently patched up their differences.
Ushered into his pleasant but workmanlike office by a male secretary, Mary shuffled forward, back bent, using a cane to get along. Sir Robert came around the desk and helped her sit in the comfortable chair which she guessed had been brought in just for this aged and infirm visitor. She probed his body with her esoteric hands but could find no way to touch his skin without embarrassing him, so she couldn't read his emotions through her direct-contact sense.
Walking back around his desk to his chair he said, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Dame Edith. From our correspondence I feel I know you."
Mary saw a tall, distinguished man in elegant business attire. He had a handsome face and receding hair that he wore full on the sides and back as if to make up the lack in front. It gave him an old-fashioned look, as if he wore an eighteenth century wig.
From her dossier on him she knew he was Catholic, 50, spoke German and French, and had made a name for himself early in chemistry. He had made several important discoveries, the first of them when he was quite young. He had founded a chemistry journal and edited another.
He had also written texts that were still considered tops in his field, especially the Elements of Chemistry with more than 1200 pages and 200 woodcut figures. He had wide-ranging interests, evidenced by his Industrial Resources of Ireland which covered all the practical aspects of business, engineering, and science in this country. He was shrewd and practical and would be hard to fool or flatter.
Consequently she did nothing but bend over the cane that presumably supported her bad back and look at him through her black veil. Let him make the first move.
Perhaps he was disco
ncerted. He hid it well if so.
Too bad he had not given her his hand. She could have probed him and found out his emotional state. But she could read the subtle signs of body language. From those he seemed to be well-disposed toward her.
"My wife and I are hosting a reception tonight that I hope you will attend."
"I look forward to it. My aide Mary and I also look forward to spending the afternoon being shown around the city by your gracious wife. That is still on your wife's no-doubt-busy schedule?"
"Yes. It is. She is anxious to meet someone who is as interested in botany as she is. My wife does not often meet women who share her interests."
Katherine Baily Kane's father was a distiller in Dublin and she was a talented botanist. So much so that when she was 22 she published the well-regarded Irish Flora . Being a woman she, of course, had to do so anonymously. Mary intended to cultivate her to her cause of medical research.
Mary said, "You would think, Dublin being such a cosmopolitan city, that this would not be difficult."
Sir Robert made a barely perceptible grimace. "The Quality is of course English and of the Anglican Church. They are not always accepting of a Catholic, and a woman, bothering her 'pretty little head' with intellectual manners. And the attitude rubs off on the intelligentsia, who should know better."
Nor, for that matter, were the Quality especially open to the abilities of Catholic Irish men . Being all three, Sir Robert had no doubt had both subtle and harsh reminders of that in his life .
"Such is life," he said. "Now, you and I have corresponded on the need to improve the industry and commerce of Ireland. You are, of course, especially interested in your home Cork. Perhaps you could elaborate on some specifics that you think might accomplish this." What money are you going to give me, and for what? hung in the air.
Mary mentally reviewed the areas she wanted to tackle at this meeting. He had given her two full hours of his time, so he was serious about going into more than generalities.
One area that needed no discussion were the medical and academic donations that she had already made. Those had been approved during their correspondence. He might be surprised, but hardly displeased, when he found that the catch-all "minor facilities improvements" he had also approved had ballooned to 1500 pounds worth, including a new front road that had been long desired but never funded. The Crown's Board of Works was notoriously stingy.
"First, education," she said. "I think this is the key to all the rest. I've long been struck by the fact that the Quality and those who seek to emulate them send their sons to schools to study poetry and plays and medieval history and philosophy and damned little else. So when they graduate they do not know a God-damned useful thing about making a living!"
Sir Robert nodded. Dame Edith was known for her astringent and occasionally profane language, so he was not shocked. Also she was only echoing sentiments he had expressed more than once — as Mary well knew.
"So, I propose to establish a fund to support research into practical scientific and engineering studies. And the first institution I thought of to donate money to was your Queen's College Cork.
"Only there's a problem." She leaned back in her chair.
"Which is?" He leaned forward but only slightly. He had all the genes of the Irish horse trader and considerable practice in non-horse trading.
She leaned forward again. "Your College has no facilities for such research — now. However, my people have been investigating the land around the College. I see several convenient places where a few thousand pounds might raise a building for such research."
He grimaced. "That's more than I have found. There is plenty of land around the College. But it is all encumbered by various stubborn people who are perfectly happy to let it rusticate."
"Ah, but you are a Dublin man. I am a Cork local. I have resources of knowledge and persuasiveness that an outsider does not have."
Which went all the way from discreet economic encouragement through a visit from a couple of her rougher-looking enforcers to a visit from the cat lady.
"I might be open to the establishment of such a research facility at the College, if we can work out the details and acquire the land."
His coolness was only assumed. Mary didn't need any of her esoteric senses to tell her this. She was talking about his dream.
And talk they did, about the details of the land and facility she was proposing.
After fifteen or so minutes of this she leaned back in her chair.
"There are other issues. First, I can fund all this myself. And I will if I need to.
"However, I've often found it useful to share the pie around a table. It keeps others from trying to piss in your plate, or steal it. And when these others bake a second pie, they're happy to let you have a slice in hopes of future sharing. So I've been thinking about who else might be interested in funding the facility. I immediately thought of the Pike family."
Sir Robert nodded approval. A Dubliner he might be, but with his business interests and the years he had spent shepherding the College he had come to know many Cork City notables, including the Pike family. Among other businesses they had interests in the Cork Steamship Manufacturing Company, Pike's Bank, railway development, and a linen-draper shop.
They were also Quakers. This was important to Mary for two reasons. After returning from death the first time she had been physically thirteen years old and "raised" by a Quaker orphanage. The Pike family involvement would ultimately though indirectly be quite profitable for the family, and this was part of Mary's payback to the Quaker community.
Another was that Mary, though she still thought of herself as Catholic, had in recent years become increasingly disenchanted with the attempts by the Church — or rather some of its hierarchy — to take over the whole religious pie in Ireland. And for that matter similar attempts by the Anglican and other Protestant churches. Quakers (and Unitarians and a few other minor churches) were the only ones who not only tolerated but encouraged sharing the religious pie — not only because of self-interest but also for deep doctrinal reasons.
Mary believed that the several major Church's selfishness could, in the long run, very easily lead to war. And the cat lady was not going to stand for anyone who would scourge her beloved Ireland with that whip. Anyone who tried would not survive the attempt.
There were several other possible backers of the College science and technology institute. After another half hour of discussion they had agreed on a list that both liked.
They had perhaps an hour left today. Mary brought up another important subject.
"Perhaps we should end up today by discussing some ideas on areas the institute — and the College — might want to especially target. There is of course chemistry, your field. I mention it because I think the College should add a full-time German professor to the Modern Languages faculty."
These days Germany was the leader in chemistry. Their creation of artificial dyes alone had created multiple fortunes, as had other chemical enterprises. And incidentally strengthened Prussian prestige and imperial ambitions. Mary wanted to blunt some of that regime's ballooning support with Anglo-Irish chemical competition.
"For a similar reason I suggest more support for the French language. France is very strong in biology and in, of course, my especial interest, medicine." Kane spoke both languages and might support these suggestions for that reason alone. However, both her statements about chemistry and biology were true, so it was no surprise when he readily agreed — "provided that funds for two new faculty members can be found."
"Lastly, I'd like to see more study of magnetism and electricity. This could lead to better telegraphs. I consider the promise of near-instant communication absolutely crucial to industrial progress. Especially in small countries like Ireland who are handicapped by their smallness and meager mineral resources. Our only way to compete worldwide is by being more efficient than anyone else."
Sir Robert smiled. "You are not deterred in your appre
ciation of the telegraph by the recent debacles? "
After a slow start in the late 1840s the use of telegraphs had exploded, first in short-distance lines and then in ever-longer ones, including several undersea cables across the channels between Ireland and England, and England and the Continent. The successful bridging of the Atlantic Ocean from Valentia in western Ireland to Newfoundland in eastern America in August of last year had been declared a huge success. It had occasioned a hysterical optimism in national presses, heralding manifold numerous benefits all the way to fortunes in the commercial sectors and world peace in the political ones.
The failure of the transatlantic cable on September 1st of that year, less than two months later, had dashed many hopes. However the Atlantic Telegraph Company was a merely commercial enterprise. The announcement just weeks ago of the failure of a similar submarine cable from Britain across the Red Sea to India had caused a tremendous outcry because it was government funded. Now the same papers who had heralded the new millennium were predicting apocalypse.
Mary vented a snort. It was pure Edith, upon whom she had modeled the Dame Edith character, and Mary had practiced it to perfection. It expressed disdain in a most ladylike and at the same time vehement manner. She loved it so much that she had to restrain herself from using it too often.
"Fools always over-react. I am not one. The trajectory of the telegraph is perfectly obvious."
"I agree," he said. "American Telegraph hired an absolute idiot, that Professor Whitehouse. The cable was bound to fail."
She shrugged. "Another area of electromagnetism I want to see exploited is electric generators and motors. Ireland may be poor in coal but it's rich in water power."
Hardly a day passed when it did not rain in Ireland and the country had hundreds of rivers and riverlets. Mary had been struck by the appealing dualism of electric generators and motors. When spun by a mechanical power source they created electricity. When supplied with electric power they spun.