Toward the Sea of Freedom

by Sarah Lark

Nothing was happening on the wharf. Though the crowd of those waiting grew larger, the prisoners were nowhere to be seen. Around noon, sailors appeared on deck to adjust the sails. And then, as Kathleen shivered with cold and hunger, a train of six prison wagons approached. Prison guards were on the boxes of the wagons, and soldiers guarded the train. The soldiers were well armed, and as the train got nearer, they took up posts between the waiting crowd and the wagons. Kathleen’s hope of exchanging a few words with her beloved sank.

  Worse still, the wagons were driven right up alongside the ships. The prisoners only had a few steps to take on land before they were pushed on deck. A few threw themselves, sobbing, to the ground to kiss Irish soil one last time. Others walked stoically without looking back. Still others tried desperately to glimpse their loved ones in the crowd on the wharf.

  The men in the last wagon hardly had this opportunity. Their hands and feet were heavily chained, and they dragged themselves onto the ship, driven roughly by the guards who struck at them, yelling. Kathleen cried out when she recognized Michael among these unlucky souls. She called his name, but all the others in the crowd cried out to their husbands, brothers, and sons. There was no way the prisoners could pick out the voices of their loved ones.

  Michael did not look around. He could not guess, after all, that she was at the wharf. When he disappeared into the belly of the ship, Kathleen collapsed, sobbing.

  “Now, now, don’t cry, lass. It’s not good for the baby,” said a sympathetic voice beside her. “And you must take care of it. At least you have that from him.”

  A careworn but motherly woman helped her to her feet and led her to the wharf wall where she could sit down.

  Kathleen looked at her, uncomprehending. It felt good to have someone say something friendly about the child growing within her. And the woman was right. She had lost Michael, but the little one inside her was a piece of him. She should be happy about it instead of quarreling with her fate.

  “How about you?” she managed, pointing to the ship now setting sail.

  The woman understood at once. “My son,” she said quietly. “And he didn’t leave a grandson behind for me. He had two children, but the famine . . . In the end, he stole a sheep—he thought a little meat could keep the last one alive. But he just wasn’t a good enough thief. They caught him and locked him up. I buried his wife and the child. What are these days we live in, lass?”

  The woman put her arm around Kathleen, and the two of them watched the ship move away from land. The rain did what it could to make it disappear quickly into the mist. Kathleen wept noiselessly. The woman beside her had no more tears left. Neither of them heard the cart making its way through the slowly dispersing crowd.

  “Ready?” asked Ian Coltrane, who seemed to suddenly appear before her.

  Kathleen was startled. “I, I . . .” She felt she had to explain to the woman next to her. But the woman merely shrugged her shoulders.

  “It’s all right, lass. You’re right to look forward. And he must be a good lad to drive you here to say farewell.” They stood and the woman hugged Kathleen again, lovingly and maternally. “I must be going myself. God be with you, lass.”

  Agitated, shivering with cold and weak with hunger, Kathleen climbed onto the cart’s box. Without a word, Ian handed her a blanket in which she could wrap herself.

  “Help yourself,” he said curtly as he gestured to a bag of hot meat pies under the seat.

  Kathleen bit voraciously into what was surely an expensive treat and wondered again: Why was Ian doing all of this for her?

  The whole way home, Kathleen feared that Ian would demand his payment for being her driver. She could hardly have stopped him. There was no one on the road on that wet, cheerless day. But nothing happened. Ian even accepted her persistent silence. When they had almost reached the village, she risked asking him once more.

  “I’m not much company, Ian. I’m sorry. And what’s worse, people will talk when they see you with me. What do you get out of this?”

  “Perhaps I just want you to think I’m a good fellow.”

  “What do you care what I think?” Kathleen asked wearily. “And what do I care whether you’re a good fellow or a . . .” The word “swindler” almost slipped out of her mouth, but she managed to hold it back.

  Ian shrugged. “In any case, I wanted you to see him sail away.” His eyes gave him away: he wasn’t at ease. “Now you know he’s gone and can forget him.”

  Kathleen was relieved when she caught sight of the first village houses. They were close enough that she had an excuse to get off the wagon. Now she need not have anything more to do with Ian Coltrane.

  As she walked the rest of the way home through the rain, Kathleen thought about the old woman’s words. Michael was gone, but he had left her his child. A bond would always exist between them. And she had his promise to return. Kathleen hummed a nursery rhyme as she arrived at the village.

  Her father’s reception sobered Kathleen up at once. She had expected difficulties when she reached home, but the brutal slap in the face with which her father welcomed her took her by surprise. She almost fell backward.

  “Where did you get the money, you little whore?” James O’Donnell waved Michael’s purse around in front of her face. “You hoard a fortune in my house and say nothing about it. Where did you get it, Kathleen? What did you do for it? Is it whore’s wages?”

  Kathleen sobbed. The words hurt more than the blow. “It’s from Michael,” she finally managed. “And it belongs to his child. You have no right.”

  “I have all the right in the world,” he roared at her. “I’m to be the bastard’s guardian, after all. So, this is Michael’s. And where did he get it? Distilling? Stealing?”

  “Would it be worth less if so?” asked Kathleen.

  She knew it sounded impudent and rebellious, but in truth, she was only tired. She wanted to put all of this behind her. Let him take her money, let him beat her. As long as she could sink down onto her straw mat and pull the blanket over her head at some point.

  But then her mother made her presence known. “It doesn’t matter where it’s from,” Erin O’Donnell said, her lips thin. “What’s important is where it goes. Don’t you understand, James? This money is a gift from God. It will save our honor!”

  Kathleen’s mother looked at her with a thoughtfully furrowed brow, and Kathleen stared back, uncomprehending.

  Erin O’Donnell clasped her forehead. “My God, James. With that we can buy a husband!” She took the purse from him and waved it triumphantly in front of Kathleen. “This money, my sweet Mary Kathleen, is your dowry.”

  Chapter 8

  Ian Coltrane appeared in church the next Sunday, less conspicuously dressed than usual. He had exchanged his checkered jacket for a dark, dignified coat. After Mass, he politely asked to speak with James O’Donnell.

  And a short time later, before the fire in the O’Donnell’s humble house, he asked for Mary Kathleen’s hand.

  “I can keep your daughter fed, Mr. O’Donnell, better than most of the lads here. Though I still live in my father’s house, I can have a few stable rooms furnished for us. It won’t be for long anyway.”

  “Not for long?” asked O’Donnell sternly. “Now, what’s that supposed to mean? You’re not planning on a long marriage?”

  Ian laughed. “No, I want Kathleen for all time. No one will take her from me; that I swear. But I’ve had enough of this famine, Mr. O’Donnell. And enough of English lords I have to flatter to keep my trade license, and of rent and taxes that eat up what little I earn. I don’t mean to say anything against Ireland, Mr. O’Donnell. It’s a beautiful country. A man could love it if he were allowed. But I’ve no talent for rabble-rousing, nor for bootlicking. That means I need to leave. And I’m prepared—”

  “To America?” asked Erin O’Donnell. “Mr. Coltrane, that may sound like an adventure to you, but half of the emigrants die on the ship! And Kathleen . . . Do you know she’s pregnant?” Kathleen�
�s mother blushed.

  Kathleen was following the conversation, and she wanted to say something, but it was as if her throat were tied shut.

  Ian Coltrane raised his eyebrows. “I know that, Mrs. O’Donnell. I’m not blind, after all. Nor a fool. Nothing draws me to the coffin ships. Or to factories in New York either. A cousin of mine is over there and writes sometimes. It’s a different sort of hell than here, but a hell nevertheless. No, Mrs. O’Donnell, I mean to make my fortune. I mean to go to a new country, a brand new one where no one spits at an Irishman and calls him ‘Paddy,’ and where the ships have better oversight. The journey is longer, but the Crown sends inspectors who look closely at the room and board. It also does not lead to a foreign land indifferent to the British—the British remain citizens, and we become them. The journey is more expensive than to good old America, so I still have some saving up to do. But in a year, two at the most . . .”

  James O’Donnell furrowed his brow. “And what is this promised land called?” he asked skeptically.

  Ian smiled. His eyes shone as he did—and Kathleen suddenly knew what frightened her. When he had spoken of marriage, he had looked predatory, like a trader making a deal. A swindler hiding his true motives.

  “New Zealand,” Ian said. “Discovered a hundred years ago, I believe. It’s supposed to look a little like our country, but sparsely settled. A few Indians or the like, but peaceful, mostly. Anyway, where I want to go, out on the Canterbury Plains, there are just sheep. Ideal for livestock trading and breeding. All the animals had to be brought over. In the country itself there were only birds.”

  “Where is it?” Kathleen finally managed to get out a word. “And to whom does it belong?”

  “No one!” Ian crowed. “Well, I suppose it’s an English colony, but anyone can go. And where is it? Far, very far away, somewhere in the South Seas. But it doesn’t matter. The captain’ll know where he’s going. And for us there’ll be land and freedom and a new life! Passage costs thirteen pounds each. I’ve got the money for one ticket already, but I’d love to take Kathleen with me, Mr. O’Donnell.”

  “And her child?” Erin asked severely.

  Ian shrugged his shoulders. “It’ll come one way or another. No matter where. Better it be born in a land that has never heard the name Drury. Alas, I won’t gather the money that quickly. But I promise you, Kathie, that we’ll be gone from here before the child is old enough to understand the word ‘bastard.’”

  Kathleen felt strangely touched. Was Ian really worried about her child? Would he raise it as his own? With all the consequences that implied? She wished she could trust him.

  Erin O’Donnell breathed deeply, giving her husband and Kathleen a triumphant look.

  “Don’t worry about that, Mr. Coltrane. This girl has a dowry, and not just one that cries and wets itself. You can book your passage. But first make your proposal, and be sure you both say ‘I do’ before Kathleen rips the seams in all her clothes.”

  “What about me?” Kathleen cried. “Is anyone going to ask me what I think of this?”

  Three pairs of eyes looked at her. Were they uncomprehending? Or unfeeling?

  “No,” said James O’Donnell curtly. “At least not until you stand before the priest. And God help you if you don’t . . .”

  Erin O’Donnell snorted. “Don’t worry about that,” she scoffed. “She can say yes. She had trouble with no.”

  While her parents raised a glass with Ian to the trade they called a marriage proposal, Kathleen ran outside. She did not want any of the whiskey Ian had brought along, which she thought she recognized by the bottle as the kind Michael used to distribute. Instead, she felt she needed to talk to someone desperately. Anyone who meant good by her. Kathleen yearned for Michael. Or for Bridget, the prostitute. Or the old woman from the wharf; it would be wonderful if Kathleen could speak to her now.

  She ended up in front of Father O’Brien’s rectory. The priest smiled as she stood disheveled, with wild hair and a tear-streaked face, before his door.

  “Do come in, Mary Kathleen,” he said amicably. “You know you’re welcome here. Do you want to confess, my child?”

  “What do I have left to confess, Father?” Kathleen blurted. “Everyone can plainly see the evidence of my old sins. And sitting at the spinning wheel, it’s hard to add new ones.”

  “Even in our thoughts we can sin, Mary Kathleen,” Father O’Brien said with feigned severity. “But step in, step in. You’ll catch a cold in that thin dress.”

  Mary Kathleen entered the tiny rectory.

  “What’s wrong, Mary Kathleen? Come sit down.”

  Kathleen sat. Then she inhaled deeply. “Ian Coltrane wants to marry me,” she said.

  O’Brien listened silently to her somewhat confused explanation of Michael’s money and Ian’s plans. “Ah, and you think young Coltrane knew about the purse?” he asked at the end. “The way you put it . . .”

  Kathleen shrugged. “I don’t know, Father. It’s not really possible. But Ian, he’s eerie, Father. Sometimes I feel he knows everything.”

  The priest laughed. “I doubt that, child. Unless you mean to imply he’s in league with the devil. And I can’t imagine that, even if he’s undoubtedly a swindler. That mule he foisted on William O’Neil . . . But let’s forget that. You don’t have much of a choice, Mary Kathleen, if you want a father for your baby.”

  “But the baby has a father!” cried Kathleen. “Michael will come back. He promised! And then, then he might not find me. Then I might be in, in . . .”

  “New Zealand,” the priest helped her. “But then you’d be a good bit closer to that Michael of yours. Of course, even the thought of another will be forbidden you once you’re Ian’s wife.”

  “Closer?” Kathleen sat up.

  The old priest was amused by how quickly life returned to the girl’s green eyes. “Come, take a look.” O’Brien pulled a globe out of a cabinet in which he kept the instruments for his school lessons. “Look, here’s Ireland. And there’s London, where they’re taking Michael now. From there he’s going to Australia. Here, through the channel and into the Atlantic, around Africa, past Madagascar. And then here, clear across the Indian Ocean. This is Botany Bay, Kathleen, and Van Diemen’s Land. It’s an island offshore. Here, you see?”

  Kathleen followed the priest’s finger as it traced the endlessly long path across the globe. She lost all hope as he did. Never, never would Michael find his way back to Ireland. It was completely impossible. Perhaps you could escape a prison, but you couldn’t sail halfway around the world without money or papers.

  “And down there”—Father O’Brien pointed to two small islands to Australia’s southeast—“this is New Zealand.”

  “That’s, that’s really very close,” she said excitedly.

  The priest shrugged. “Something more than a thousand miles, if that seems near to you. But like I said, it’s closer than Ireland, however you look at it.”

  “And the country: I’ve never heard about it before. The islands in the South Seas, aren’t they full of cannibals?”

  O’Brien laughed. “Well, this one has rather more Protestants, who, in general, show themselves harder for the missionaries to convert. Most of the immigrants are Scotch or English—a few Germans too. I haven’t heard anything about the natives so far. And there aren’t many settlements yet, either, just a few whaling stations, some seal catchers, fortune hunters. I wouldn’t like to see you in their camps, Kathleen. But Ian’ll hardly go to those anyway. After all, they don’t buy many horses.”

  “Ian said something to my parents about the Canterbury Plains.”

  The priest nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. The Church of England is supposed to be founding a city, and the area is supposed to be good for livestock husbandry. Ian will make money there, in any case. So think about it, Mary Kathleen. Don’t fear; I’ll not marry you to any man you don’t like, regardless of what your parents want. But think about it. As I said, you don’t have many options.
”

  Kathleen sighed. Then she looked again at the endlessly long way from Ireland to Australia—and the comparative stone’s throw to New Zealand.

  “I’ve thought about it, Father,” she said. “I want to go to New Zealand.”

  The old priest shook his head. “That’s not right, Kathleen,” he said softly. “It should be ‘I want to take Ian Coltrane for my lawfully wedded husband, in sickness and in health.’”

  Father O’Brien married Ian and Kathleen two weeks later in his little church. Beforehand, Kathleen had thought up every possible excuse to delay the wedding. She did not want to marry until she got to her new homeland.

  Her mother dismissed this with a disdainful glance at Kathleen’s belly.

  “There’ll be no question of that, Mary Kathleen,” she said sternly. “You can’t travel with Ian without being married. And who’ll do the ceremony down there? An Anglican reverend? A blind one if possible, so he won’t notice you’re ready to give birth at the altar? And what if the baby is born on the way? If you give birth on the ocean before you’re married, the poor bastard won’t just lack a father but a homeland too.”

  “He’s getting a father. That’s why we’re doing all this, isn’t it?” Kathleen grumbled. She saw that her objections were childish. Father O’Brien was right: Going to New Zealand meant she had to marry. And no matter how close she would be to Michael on the map, once married she would be as far as was possible.

  Kathleen was ashamed when she stood at the altar with Ian. She wore a new wide-cut green dress, and she stuck Michael’s letter and lock of hair in her cleavage, so that they were next to her heart. In principle, she was already betraying her husband, but no one would learn of it, of course. Mary Kathleen had long stopped confessing every sinful thought.

  Ian had set aside a portion of her dowry for a proper celebration, so at least the good food stopped the mouths of her worst mockers. But it did not matter what people in the village said about Kathleen’s union with Ian. Just three days after the wedding, the young couple would set out for Dublin. From there, a ship would leave for London the next day. And just a few days later, on April 5, the Primrose would depart from London for Port Cooper, a harbor near the future pastures of the Canterbury Plains.