Next, Liam paid a call on Eugene Brennan’s nephew. One of many Irishmen who occupied senior posts in the French Army, he was a military adviser to the ageing King Louis-Philippe. He told Liam that his uncle’s mental state was a permanent condition. The nephew had called in the finest doctors in Paris, but there was nothing anyone could do for the old politician. He was an old man who had pushed his mind and body too hard in the past. The acid wit that had delighted his friends and infuriated his political enemies was gone for ever.
The nephew was understanding about the needs of the people of County Wexford. Indeed, he was both surprised and moved to learn that his uncle was still their Member of Parliament. He promised to have a letter of resignation drawn up and signed by Eugene Brennan, and assured Liam that the old MP would want for nothing for the remainder of his life. Finally, he asked Liam to thank all the politician’s friends for their concern.
In such a way, far from the scenes of his many triumphs, the career of a great Irish politician came to an end. The seat Eugene Brennan had filled since the passing of the Emancipation Bill, allowing Catholics to sit in the House of Commons, would go to another. Liam thought that a successor would be hard to find. Few men would care to try to take the place of a national hero.
When Liam returned to the house of the Earl of Inch the next day, his welcome had none of the cordiality of the previous meeting. He was shown into a room, and when the Earl of Inch entered he glowered at Liam for long seconds before speaking.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I told you yesterday I would be calling to see Caroline before I returned to Ireland.’
‘Yesterday I did not realise who you were. You have a nerve coming here, McCabe, after all the rumours linking your name with that of my sister. Well, you can go back to Ireland without seeing her. A Kilmar fisherman can have nothing that needs to be said to Lady Caroline Dudley.’
Liam controlled his anger carefully. ‘We have been friends for a very long time. I will be obliged if you will tell her I am here.’
‘I’ll do no such thing! And I’ll not have you calling here again. I have no doubt this “friendship” of yours is the reason she has worked so hard for those wretched cottiers and seriously weakened her heart.’
‘Weakened her heart? I don’t believe you!’
‘I don’t care whether you believe me or not – but I’m damned if I will be called a liar by a fisherman. A doctor came to see her yesterday evening and he confirmed it beyond any doubt. Now, get out and return to Ireland, McCabe, and make no attempt to see Lady Caroline again.’
‘I will go – after I have seen Caroline.’ Liam’s quiet reply hid the deep anxiety he felt for the Earl’s sister.
‘Then I’ll have you thrown out – by the servants. You’ll not speak to my sister in this house.’
‘Would you rather Liam and I went to a tavern instead, Edward?’
Neither man had heard the door open as they argued with each other. Now Caroline stood in the doorway, pale but determined.
‘You should be in your room, resting – and McCabe is about to leave.’
‘He will go after I have said goodbye to him and given him messages for my own household in Ireland.’
Coolly ignoring her brother’s angry glare, Caroline walked across the room to Liam. Taking his hand she rose on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Liam, my dear. You look tired and in need of a drink. I will have one brought for you. But now we have things to discuss. Edward, will you leave us for a while, please.’
Liam thought the Earl would choke.
‘No, I’m damned if I will. This is my house, Caroline – and I have told this scoundrel to leave.’
‘Edward! If you persist in this ridiculous behaviour, I will ask Liam to take me to a place where we can talk. I am not a child who can be ordered to bed for misbehaving, I am a grown woman – and I warn you, if I leave I will never again return to this house. Now, will you please leave us alone to talk for a while?’
Caroline had always been stronger-willed than her brother and she seemed to be in full command of the present situation. Only Liam was aware that her hand was clutching his tightly to prevent it from shaking uncontrollably.
At first it seemed to Liam that the Earl was going to stand his ground, but with a smothered oath he swung away toward the door. There, he paused to fling back a final warning.
‘You are no longer a child, Caroline, but you are still my sister. I will not stand by and do nothing while a philandering adventurer makes a fool of you.’
With that, the Earl of Inch slammed the door shut behind him and a few moments later Liam heard him shouting in the hall for a horse to be brought to the door for him.
Caroline sagged against Liam in relief. ‘Hold me, Liam. Hold me very, very tight.’
Liam took her in his arms and held her until the tension of the last few minutes left her and her trembling stopped.
‘You must not excite yourself like this. Your heart….’
‘So Edward told you. You must not worry about it, Liam. I will be all right. I have been ill and it has been a strain on my heart, that is all. When I am stronger there will be nothing to worry about – but I do not want to talk about it. Tell me, how is Eugene?’
Liam told her of his meeting with the old man and of the talk with Eugene’s nephew.
‘Poor Eugene. I will visit him as soon as I am able. Perhaps he will remember me. But now County Wexford will have to elect a new Member of Parliament. Will you stand, Liam?’
‘No.’
Soon after leaving Eugene Brennan’s nephew, Liam realised that he was the logical choice for the County Wexford seat and had thought about it until well into the night.
‘Has your decision anything to do with me?’
‘No. I have no wish to return to Parliament. I want to spend a few years building up Kilmar’s fleet of fishing boats. When everyone owns a wooden boat there will be a great many more fish caught. In the long term that will benefit both Kilmar and the cottiers far more than I could as their MP.’
They talked about the decision until Liam saw that Caroline was looking tired. Then he announced that it was time for him to leave.
Caroline was tearfully reluctant to have him leave her, but she, too, knew it was time.
‘You will write to me, Liam?’
‘Of course – and I shall expect to hear from you often.’
‘God, Liam! I am going to miss you. I need you with me so much.’
‘Don’t, Caroline.’ Liam saw the trembling of her lip and held her to him. ‘I will miss you, too, but I must go now.’
‘I know.’
They heard footsteps outside and, as they drew apart, a servant came to the room to tell Caroline that the doctor had returned to see her.
As Liam left the house he could hear the doctor chiding Caroline for having left her room and calling for the servants to help her upstairs.
He wished he could have claimed the right to be told the truth about the nature of her present illness. But Liam had no rights. He had only a great and enduring love for another man’s wife.
Chapter Fifty-One
Liam arrived back in Kilmar in October 1847, to a country preparing for its third long winter of famine and fear. The plight of the cottier had not improved – indeed, it had worsened. The people of England had by now become weary of hearing about the troubles of the Irish. The famine had lasted for so long that it had become a bore. There was little enthusiasm for private relief schemes and the English Government had its own financial worries. The destitute cottiers were now the responsibility of their own area poor-houses. It mattered little that the poor-houses themselves were bankrupt. A law had been passed. It was now up to the Irish to feed their own.
England, led by Lord John Russell, shut its ears to the cries of a starving people and turned its back upon Ireland.
In their desperation, the starving and sick people fought to leave their native land and star
t life anew in the brave new world beyond the Atlantic Ocean. They set sail in any ship that could stay afloat for long enough to limp dear of the harbours and bays around Ireland’s coast. Lemming-like, many of them realised it would be a voyage to certain death. In that winter, when emigration was normally at a standstill, 100,000 men, women and children fled from their dying country. Of these, perhaps 60,000 survived to fill the cellars and shanty-towns of Boston and New York. The remainder were either lost at sea, or perished soon after their arrival in an unfamiliar and, as yet, unfriendly country.
But the boats that reached America returned carrying mail, and one day the letter that Liam had been dreading arrived in Kilmar. One of the young exiled Kilmar men wrote to his mother to tell of his progress in the new country – and to ask when Dermot McCabe would be coming to join them.
‘What does it mean, Liam?’ Norah McCabe was distressed and bewildered. ‘If he did not go to America with them, then where is he now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Liam lied. ‘But you know Dermot. I expect he had some dream of his own to pursue. He is probably in England right now, making a lot of money. One day he will return home in style and impress us all.’
Liam knew she did not believe him and there were many others in Kilmar who voiced their own opinions on the subject of Dermot’s mysterious disappearance.
A few days after the letter arrived, Liam went down to the quay before dawn to prepare his boat for the day’s fishing. He often came down here before the other fishermen had left their houses, welcoming the silence and the opportunity to be alone. But this morning someone was here before him. As he threw fishing tackle into the boat he smelled the aroma of burning tobacco.
Looking about him, Liam saw the faint glow of a clay pipe only a few yards away.
‘’Morning to you, Liam.’ The voice of Tomas Feehan came to him from the darkness.
‘Good morning, Tomas. You are up and about early. Are you fishing today?’
‘I have little heart for fishing, these days. I have only myself to feed and I can do that well enough with a line from the rocks. I see no sense in making hard work of staying alive.’
When Liam made no reply, Tomas Feehan shook the spittle from the stem of his pipe, and said, ‘It’s a strange thing – Dermot not going to America with the others.’
Liam tensed, glad that the darkness hid his face from Tomas Feehan.
‘I expect he had his own reasons, Tomas.’
‘I am sure he had, and I would bet my boat that I know what they were.’
Tomas Feehan cleared his throat and spat over the edge of the quay. Liam waited until the tough old fisherman had returned the pipe to his mouth and sucked hard to set the burning tobacco crackling.
‘The man who was hanged for killing Eoin…. I believe he refused to give his name to anyone before he died?’ Tomas Feehan spoke around his pipe.
‘So I hear.’
This was what Tomas Feehan had come to talk to him about. Liam wiped his hands on his rough trousers, preparing himself for whatever might come. The older fisherman was a strange moody man, known more for his violence than for his powers of speech.
‘I respect him for it – whoever he was. It’s a shameful thing for a family to have to live with. Having a son hanged for murder.’
The edge of the sky to the east was taking on a hint of red and a seagull greeted the first sign of the coining day with a raucous clatter that was quickly taken up by a dozen others.
Waiting until the noise died away, Tomas Feehan continued, ‘Nothing could equal the shame and pain that Eoin has brought upon me. I should have killed him myself. I was going to. I swore I would when I learned that he had been responsible for the death of my young Sean. I made an oath to seek him out and kill him – and, God help me, I meant every word.’
The rough old man choked on his words and by now Liam could make out his shape as he sat huddled against a stone bollard.
‘Yes, one day I would have met up with my son and would have had to kill him. I am not a religious man, Liam, but I doubt if God would have forgiven me for such a sin as that. So, you see, I owe a debt to the memory of this unknown young man who did the deed for me.’
The big fisherman stood up with his back to the dawn. ‘We Feehans always repay whatever we owe, Liam. Be it good or bad it is paid back in kind. Now, I have held you up for long enough. Good luck to your day’s fishing, Liam McCabe.’
Liam watched the big fisherman walk away along the jetty and wondered what he intended to do. He did not have long to wait. Within days a strong rumour swept Kilmar that the unknown man who had been hanged in Dublin for the murder of Eoin Feehan was himself a Feehan, sent to avenge Sean’s death by Tomas.
It was a rumour that Tomas Feehan refused to either confirm or deny, and no man dared press him on the subject, but the fishermen of Kilmar went about their business satisfied that they had learned the answer to the Dublin mystery.
The subject of Eugene Brennan’s resignation was less easily resolved. When the letter from France first arrived, the members of the All-Ireland Association refused to believe that Eugene Brennan really meant to resign. Liam attended a number of branch meetings and managed to convince them that the old politician really had come to the end of his parliamentary career. Liam told them that their MP was tired and ill, and that the doctors in France had ordered his retirement.
But, far from resolving the problems of the Association, the news broke it into a number of new factions. There were those who refused to acknowledge another leader, and who wanted no other Member of Parliament but Eugene Brennan. They were determined that he should remain their MP until the day he died, whether or not he ever again attended a sitting in the House of Commons. Others accepted the situation but wanted Liam to take Eugene Brennan’s place in Parliament.
The younger men wanted neither Eugene Brennan nor any of his disciples. They were for a new militant initiative. They wanted a man who would be willing to use more than words against the English.
They echoed the mood of many of the country’s young men, and their voice was beginning to be heard, even across the Irish Sea. More soldiers than ever before were sent from England in anticipation of the troubles that must surely come. Ireland became a fortress – but the guns were turned inward, upon herself.
The break-up of the Association in County Wexford worried Father Clery greatly, and he begged Liam to reconsider his decision not to stand for Parliament.
‘The Association and the county need you, Liam. They must have someone they can trust. Someone who knows their problems.’
‘You have such a man,’ declared Liam. ‘And you will find him not too many miles distant from here. I am talking about Nathan Brock.’
‘Nathan? But he is – or was – a cottier.’
‘Who better to understand their problems? Nathan will fight for them – and with more than his fists. If he were to rise to his feet in Parliament and talk about the plight of the cottiers, it would take more than Lord John Russell and his Whig Party to silence him.’
‘You know, you could be right, Liam!’ Father Clery became excited at the thought. ‘I have heard Nathan speaking on the cottiers’ behalf and he is very impressive. Very impressive indeed. But airing his views before an ignorant old priest and a crowd of fishermen is easy. Could he do the same before the men who hold Ireland’s fate in their hands?’
‘Given a worthy cause, Nathan Brock would not be overawed by the Devil himself,’ said Liam. ‘He knows he is as good a man as anyone who listens to him. You will find no worthier successor to Eugene, Father. He is respected by the older members of the Association and I feel sure the younger men will follow him, too. I can think of no other man capable of holding the Association together. Go and see him today, Father, and refuse to take “no” for an answer. The people need him.’
Chapter Fifty-Two
Nathan Brock was not easily convinced that he was the man County Wexford needed to have for its next Member of Parliament. N
ot until he had spent many evenings discussing the matter with Liam did he agree to put his name forward as a candidate.
The by-election was called for the last week in November but, long before then, Nathan Brock was assured of a seat in the House of Commons. Liam and Father Clery took the ex-prizefighter to many meetings of the All-Ireland Association, and it was evident that he was acceptable to all sides and needed no one to speak on his behalf. The few men in the county who disagreed with the Association’s choice also realised that no other candidate stood a chance, and he was returned unopposed.
Nathan Brock had been concerned that he was letting down Caroline by accepting the nomination, but she sent him a letter, via Liam, assuring him that she was absolutely delighted with the people’s choice and wishing she had been well enough to return to join him in his election campaign.
But before Nathan Brock went to London to take his seat and begin the new chapter in his life, an event occurred that was to have a momentous effect upon Liam’s own future.
A blustery easterly wind, accompanied by cold stinging rain, had been blowing off the sea for days, making fishing impossible. The Kilmar fishermen, anxious to obtain a stock of fish to salt away for the approaching winter months, sat indoors listening to the rattling doors and windows and grumbling about the bad weather.
At sea, all those ships large enough to defy the elements steered well clear of land and either rode out the storm or used the wind to their advantage. A few foolhardy captains, hoping to clip a day or two from their voyages, took chances – and the toll of wrecks in that late autumn storm was unusually high.
It was midday on the fifth day of the storm when Liam, quietly writing to Caroline in a corner of the McCabe kitchen, was brought to his feet by the cries of a Kilmar boy running along the street outside.
‘A ship in trouble! There’s a ship in trouble just off the reef.’
The Music Makers Page 45