by Sarah Lark
A penny bought an hour from the guard, and in that short time, Michael and Kathleen said their good-byes. Michael put his hand on his beloved’s stomach as if he could feel the child already.
“Would you want to name it Kevin?” he asked. “After my father?”
Kathleen asked herself if she really wanted her son to be named after a whiskey distiller, but it was a beautiful name, a sainted name. She thought of all the stories Father O’Brien had told about St. Kevin. He had been strong and handsome, and so gentle and clever that sea monsters lay like lambs at his feet and birds roosted in his hands.
So she nodded and gave herself over one last time to Michael’s kisses. It would have to last a lifetime.
Kathleen tried not to cry when she finally left.
“I’d like a smile to remember you by,” Michael whispered.
Kathleen smiled through her tears. But then she thought of something. With a quick motion, she wrapped several strands of her hair around her hand and pulled them out, as she had often seen men do when shortening horses’ manes.
“Here,” she said. “I don’t know if they’ll let you keep it. But if so . . .”
Michael put the lock of her hair to his lips. “I’ll fight for it,” he said plainly, then tried tearing out a few strands of his own. His hair was not long enough, so he gritted his teeth and pulled out an entire tuft.
“Michael!” cried Kathleen, horrified. She did not want him to suffer any more pain.
“For you, my love. Forget me not.”
The guard cleared his throat as Kathleen kissed Michael once more, this time on his forehead.
Michael held her hand until she finally withdrew it.
“I’ll always love you,” she promised with a firm voice.
“I’ll come back!” he called to her as she stepped into the hall. “Wherever they send me, I’ll come back.”
Kathleen did not turn around. She knew she would have cried, and she did not want that.
You’ll raise our child with dignity. I trust you. Michael had said that. She had made a promise, and she had to keep it.
“What now?” asked Bridget.
They had left Wicklow Jail, and Bridget had dragged the girl to the nearest cookshop that was already open. Kathleen was frighteningly pale. Bridget had thought she needed some hot tea—preferably with a shot of whiskey.
Now Kathleen was sipping indecisively at the steaming-hot drink.
“What can I do?” she asked listlessly. “I only know that I won’t get rid of the baby. How could Daisy even think that? Bridget, I, I don’t think I want to go back to Daisy.”
Bridget shrugged. “Daisy isn’t bad. And she did not mean you any harm, believe me. It’s just she knows all too well what you’re in for if you bring a bastard into the world. And that’s what they’ll call your child, dearie, no matter how much love conceived it. It’s not pleasant for the child, Kathleen. I’m a bastard myself, and I’ve often thought what a blessing it would have been if my mother had killed me in the womb. But so be it. No one is forcing you, Daisy least of all. If, however, you want to go back . . .”
Her eyes wide, Kathleen looked at Bridget, who continued to talk, undisturbed.
“Look, dearie. Basically, you have three options. One, you stay here, with Daisy. She made you the offer. You’re a vision of loveliness, lass. She’d make a fortune from you, and you’d do well for a few years. You could give the baby to someone to raise and pay for it.”
“But then I won’t even see it,” protested Kathleen. “Other people would raise it.”
Bridget shrugged. “You can’t raise it into a good Christian in a whorehouse either.”
“And the other options?” asked Kathleen, dispirited.
“Well, you could go back to your village. And the smartest thing would be to look for someone who would take an experienced woman.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“A man who’ll marry you. Despite your child. You’re so pretty, there must be dozens of lads who want you. They’ll just have to take the child too. Besides, you do come with a certain dowry, don’t you?” Bridget looked at Kathleen sharply. She must have guessed about Michael’s money.
Kathleen nodded. “Aye,” she admitted. “But I love Michael. I can’t, with another—”
“Dearie, you won’t even believe all that a person can do,” Bridget interrupted her bitterly. “But fine, you could also remain unmarried. Your parents will probably make your life miserable, but if you’re lucky, they won’t throw you out right away. And there is one more alternative.”
“What’s that?” Kathleen was grasping at straws.
“Take the money and buy yourself passage on a ship,” said Bridget. “Go to America like you two planned. But I’ll tell you right now, no one knows what happens to people there. Neither I nor anyone else, no matter what the people say. Maybe it really is the promised land, where milk and honey flow from springs. Maybe it’s even shabbier and dirtier than here. Particularly for girls. I’ve never yet heard of a country where the girls are free. It’s a risk. If you want to take it, we’ll take care of you somehow until the next ship.”
Kathleen thought it over, her heart beating heavily. She was scared. Of the coffin ships, of the unknown country. Even in America, she supposed, it would be a scandal to raise a child out of wedlock.
“You could say you’re a widow.” Bridget seemed to read her thoughts.
An idea occurred to Kathleen—for her and her new friend.
“Would you come with me, Bridget?” she asked quietly. “I have, we had, money for two passengers. I could pay for you. And I, I wouldn’t be so alone.”
Bridget thought about it for a heartbeat but then shook her head. “No, dearie,” she said quietly. “I don’t have the courage. I no longer believe in the New World, child, and not in heaven, and not in forgiveness, but not in scandal anymore either. What can the poor kid do about the fact that his father stole? Not to mention that he did so for the noblest reasons? But that won’t save you, and I don’t have strength for a new hell. Who knows what waits for us on the other side of the world?”
Bridget sighed. “What I have here, I know. Not paradise, but better than many others have. I don’t dare risk it. But don’t listen to me, Kathleen. I’m probably just too old. If I were still sixteen, then I might do it. But no longer, lass. I’m sorry.”
The older woman laid her hand comfortingly on Kathleen’s arm. Kathleen sighed. She knew she would not risk it alone. America had never been her dream; it was Michael’s. With him, she would have gone. Without him, it was hopeless.
So Kathleen chose the second path. After she parted from Bridget, thanking her a thousand times, she set out on the long road home to her village.
This time no cart stopped next to her, and that suited her fine. She was in no hurry to arrive. Either way, people would gossip about where she had been and what she had done.
When she was halfway there, a redcoat wagon came from the opposite direction. As it passed her, she recognized Billy Rafferty, who lay in straw in the back of the wagon. He was chained to the prison bars. Apparently they were taking the other thief to Wicklow. Kathleen pulled her shawl over her face, and Billy Rafferty took no notice of her.
In the village, her return caused less commotion than she would have thought. Indeed, the villagers were focused on Gráinne Rafferty and her family. The law had come down with all its might on the old cook, and Trevallion, the only one who could still have objected, knew no mercy.
The soldiers had stormed the Raffertys’ house that afternoon, driving out Gráinne and her children. Though the cook cried and begged, the soldiers stood deaf and dumb. As the family stood in the open air with the few possessions they had been able to save in haste, the redcoats tore down the cottage’s walls and set it on fire.
Gráinne and her children had remained behind, sobbing. They did not even have the option of staying with another villager temporarily. They had to leave Wetherbys’ land by
sundown.
“The only guilty one is that Drury boy,” Gráinne said, pointing at the smoking ruin that had once been the Drurys’ hut. But Fiona Drury and her children had not given Trevallion the satisfaction of forcing them onto the street. They knew what was coming, so the night after Billy’s imprisonment, they made for the mountains.
“They always acted so Christian, but in the end, they were the same rats as their forefathers,” Gráinne said.
Yet Kathleen was sure Fiona had left in tears herself. Michael’s mother had never wanted to live in the mountains. But at least she had a refuge. There was no hope for Gráinne.
“Perhaps you’ll find work in the city,” Kathleen’s mother said to try to comfort Gráinne. “The girls will soon be old enough to find jobs for themselves too.”
One after another, the village women approached the ostracized family, handing them little presents. With a heavy heart, Mrs. O’Donnell gave them the last little sack of grain from what Trevallion had gifted them.
Gráinne nodded bravely. Then she led her children off into the unknown.
Kathleen bore her mother’s accusations and father’s slaps without complaint. She did not tell them where she had been; her parents knew anyway.
“And now Trevallion knows what was going on too,” her mother said. “He would have been such a good choice, Kathleen. But no, you had to get involved with a rascal, a thief, and a distiller. It will take a long time before that wound has healed. Let’s just hope you’re still a virgin.”
Kathleen did not comment on this either. Her mother would notice the truth soon enough.
Chapter 6
Days in the dungeon were hell, and it did not get better when, two days after Michael’s arrest, Billy Rafferty was locked away in the cell. On the contrary, now Michael also heard Billy’s screaming and crying during his interrogations. Again and again, the British accusers tried to beat any information they could out of the young criminals, but Michael remained firm, and Billy had long since told them everything he knew.
Michael could hardly stand to hear the whip rain down on his friend’s back; it almost hurt him more than the blows he received himself. He forgave Billy’s betrayal. Michael believed it had been his own fault. Billy could not handle money, nor could he have continued the whiskey sale. Bringing him into the theft had been careless.
Michael would have done better to fetch an assistant from the mountains or work with his younger brothers. Jonny and Brian could hold their tongues. But he hadn’t wanted to encourage his brothers toward crime, and Billy had not required much convincing.
The jailers considered Michael hopelessly stubborn. They cut his meager portion of the porridge on which the prisoners in Wicklow Jail lived to try to get him to talk, but Michael wouldn’t bend. He spent Christmas of 1846 drinking water and eating moldy bread in the pitch-black dungeon, thinking of Kathleen and listening to Billy’s sobbing in the next cell. Desperately, he clung to the lovely scenes of the past. He conjured Kathleen’s white body in the grass beside the river. He recalled every kiss and every caress, and he thought of their baby in her womb. Michael was determined that it would not end this way. He would return to Kathleen, even if they shipped him to the ends of the earth.
By year’s end, the redcoats’ ardor to wring new confessions from Michael and Billy had cooled. Instead, a man appeared. Though his suit had seen better days, he introduced himself as an attorney. Michael listened as Billy told the story again, crying through the whole tale. Michael kept his silence with this man as well. He did not believe this sad-looking lawyer could do anything for him. With theft came banishment. They would be condemned. And the length of the sentence was more or less irrelevant. Once you landed in Australia, you never came back.
Still, Michael stubbornly believed he would find a way back. There was no prison one could not escape. Walls couldn’t be put up around an entire country, and if Australia were an island, he would just swim for it.
Michael yearned to write to Kathleen, at least. Like most of the village youths, he had mastered the fundamentals thanks to Father O’Brien. As long as he sat in the dungeon, though, there was nothing he could do. Even if Michael had a penny with which to bribe the guards, he would have needed not just pen and paper but also a lamp. The lantern Kathleen had gotten from the guard had long since burned out, and in his cell, Michael could hardly see his hand in front of his face.
The attorney told the prisoners the date of their trial. The sentencing was scheduled for the beginning of January, just next door in the courthouse. This news caused new rivers of tears for Billy, but Michael looked forward to it. Once they had been sentenced, there would be no more reason to torture them. Michael also thought they would be moved out of the dungeon to the cells, where it was surely warmer and the food might be better. He drew new courage from these hopes, and he made it through his trial without saying a word.
“You two could shorten your sentences by showing remorse,” said the judge—a short, thin man, wearing a giant white wig, who reminded Michael vaguely of Trevallion.
At that, Billy almost fell to his knees before the man, and crying and lamentation arose in the courtroom too. Gráinne Rafferty and two of her younger sons were present, but Michael had hardly recognized the old cook at first glance. The once rotund Gráinne looked haggard and emaciated, her children dirty and ragged. Apparently they had been cast out of the village and were struggling through life on the street. Michael wondered how a woman could make money out there without selling herself. With a guilty conscience, he thought of Gráinne’s daughters, who had not come with her. Were they standing on some corner of the wharf, offering their bodies to the sailors?
Michael’s parents had not come either, but as he let his eyes roam for the third time over the people in the courtroom—among them, other prisoners to be sentenced and their families—he caught sight of Brian and Jonny in the last row. Jonny grinned at him, and Michael smiled in return. It was good to know the two of them were over there and not in chains next to him.
When the judge saw Michael’s smile, he became annoyed. He angrily accused him of contempt for the law, but Michael let the accusations bounce off him, just as he had the judge’s earlier admonition. The English occupiers could mistreat him, condemn him, and exile him, but they could not force him to take them seriously.
Finally, the sentences were announced. Billy’s seven years of exile were no surprise. That was the usual sentence for theft. Michael received ten years. The Irish in the courtroom found that too hard a sentence, and they reacted loudly.
Michael received his sentence in silence. He did not move or say a word until the other prisoners were led out and Jonny could finally make his way to him.
“Jonny! How’s Ma? Is everyone well?”
Jonny nodded. “Aye. Ma sends her love, but it was too far for her to travel in this cold. And she’s not mad at you.” He grinned. “On the contrary, I’d almost say she and Da were one heart and one soul. Wouldn’t surprise me if we have another brother or sister before long.”
“Jonny!” Michael laughed, if a little forcedly. “And . . . Kathleen?” he asked quietly.
Although his family no longer lived in the village, he was sure Jonny still talked to his old friends.
Jonny shrugged. “Don’t know. I haven’t seen her. Or hardly anyone from the village. Seems the O’Donnells didn’t throw her on the street. But people are talking, you know. So, is it true what Pat Minoghue says? Is there a baby coming?”
Michael bit his lip. Of course, Kathleen must now be in her third month. A pregnancy could not be kept secret forever. And naturally, her parents were in a rage and punishing her, but at least they had not sent her away.
He did not know whether he was relieved or disappointed. Of course everything would be easier if Kathleen waited for him in the village. But being thrown out might have given her the courage to try her luck in the New World. Australia might even be closer to America. Perhaps he could flee straight there.
>
“Tell her I’m thinking of her,” Michael called to his brother as the guards pulled him away. Until then, they had allowed him the conversation—perhaps out of surprise that their stony prisoner could actually talk—but regards to his beloved proved too much for them.
Indeed, they did not take the men back to the dungeon. Finally, the relief Kathleen and Bridget had worked out for Michael was taking effect. The corrupt but affable guard was convinced to extend favors to Billy too. Bridget was in the courtroom when Billy and Michael were sentenced, and the old whore was happy to pay an extra penny for Michael’s desperate accomplice.
Kathleen had left plenty of money with the good woman, and Bridget felt sorry for Billy and his family. Since the trial, he had shared a halfway spacious four-person cell with Michael and two other men. There were even a few logs for the fire and plenty to eat every day.
“What happens now?” Billy asked.
“Now, we wait,” one of their fellow prisoners explained, “until the next ship leaves for Australia. And that might take a while. If the winter is long, they won’t send us over until May.”
“Probably also depends on how quick this place fills up,” the other speculated. “If the jail’s bursting at the seams, they’ll sail—they don’t care if the tub sinks, after all.”
Michael thought the latter point was likely untrue. The English Crown might not care about the prisoners, but a ship was valuable and its crew consisted of Englishmen, probably experienced seamen. Michael had never heard of a prison ship going down.
Half of the prisoners in Wicklow Jail were serving shorter sentences and were employed for labor, mostly doing simple and rather boring tasks. The other half were waiting to be shipped out, and those were the more serious criminals being shoved off to Australia. They were mostly thieves who were driven to their crimes by pure need. But there were also brawlers and murderers among them, always looking for trouble.
Boredom took its toll: there was bullying, abuse, and fighting. And there were draconian punishments if someone was caught in the act. Michael, who was considered a troublemaker because he neither treated the guards with reverence nor let the other prisoners push him around, quickly became acquainted with punishment.