Call Home the Heart

by Shannon Farrell

  Nothing was too daring or shocking as they explored each other, laughed, and loved unreservedly until the first rosy rays of dawn came to flood their secret retreat from the rest of the world.

  But all too soon, the rooster would summon them to their never-ending round of chores. They would give each other one last warm kiss, then have nothing but their memories to hug close until the next time they were able to snatch a few precious hours alone together.

  Lochlainn tried not to think about the future, but he felt he could never be certain of Muireann always being there by his side. A ship might come from Scotland with her father on it, and she would vanish without a trace. Yet while she was with him, he was determined to enjoy every second they could be with each other. Often he made love to her desperately, almost as though it were the last time. She met his passion kiss for kiss, stroke for stroke, and left them both hungering for more.

  Yet despite their mutual desire, Lochlainn waited for her to tell him it was over, that she had made a mistake. It seldom occurred to him that through his mistrust, he might help to bring about the fulfillment of his own prophecy and one day drive her away.

  Muireann also tried not to think about their future, but she wondered how it would all end. She loved Lochlainn, she was sure. But how on earth could they ever be happy together? No sooner did they manage to surmount one problem when another took its place.

  Moreover, Lochlainn always seemed so sure that he wasn't good enough for her. She was sure he compared her to Tara continually. Muireann's awareness of her inexperience, and the insecurity which resulted, also served to drive a wedge between them. She believed Tara had been the one great love of Lochlainn's life, and that she was merely a friend, a companion, someone for Lochlainn to pass the lonely nights with.

  Muireann dealt with the crisis of the tax money by selling every single luxury item which had come in the shipment from Scotland. She even parceled up the coffee into brown paper wrappers to sell at the various markets. Lochlainn gave Patrick the money for two of the packets, and gave one of them to Muireann as a present, saving the other for her birthday on the thirtieth of April.

  "Really, you shouldn't have," she said, kissing him warmly.

  "Now we're even. You shouldn't have kept the sideboard," he said with a grin, pointing to where it stood in her bedroom.

  She smiled shyly. "It was too beautiful to sell without a second thought. You made it with your own two hands, and it reminds me of you, and the first night I ever came here."

  "I would hardly think you needed a reminder of that horrible time. As for reminding you of me, isn't the real thing good enough?" he teased, tickling her so that she wriggled in his arms and laughed up at him.

  "More than good enough," she said, kissing him lingeringly.

  Ciara came into the chamber at that moment looking for advice, and they separated abruptly.

  His sister frowned her disapproval of their behavior, and did whatever she could to discourage her brother from spending time alone with Muireann.

  Muireann couldn't blame her. She was simply worried about her brother getting hurt again. All the same, though, it didn't bode well for their relationship if his only living relative didn't approve of her. What her own family would say if they knew about Lochlainn, she didn't even dare contemplate.

  By the end of March, some of the money Mr. Blessington had stolen was returned to her. Muireann spent most of it on paying off part of the mortgage and most of the taxes. The rest on new livestock, especially sheep for wool. They were sturdy beasts, and could graze even on the worst ground on the estate. For a time she began to feel optimistic that things were finally starting to take a turn for the better.

  But stunning new developments occurred in the middle of April, when Mr. Cole, her neighbor to the southeast, announced that he would be converting all his farmland to sheep pasture, and served eviction notices on every one of his tenants.

  Even worse, Colonel Lowry, her neighbor to the north, was prepared to pay the passage money for all of his workers to go to Canada, so that he could avoid paying the high taxes which the government had imposed. The taxes were based upon large numbers of tenants who were supposedly paying vast rents for their tiny cottages and minute potato plots.

  "The Devon Commission calculated the rents coming in early in 1841, before the potato crop failed that October," Lochlainn explained to Muireann as she sat at her desk trying to make sense of their own tax figures.

  "They added up all the rents which were on the books then, without even taking into account the amount of arrears were owed. Some of the people have left, some have died since, and of course, more children are born all the time, which boosts the tax figure even higher. Unfortunately, the women and infant children can't bring much money or wealth into the family, so there are more and more mouths to feed, and thus less cash. That's why the Colonel and Mr. Cole are cutting their losses now, before the situation reaches crisis point in another few years' time."

  "But where will their tenants go? What will they do? Sheep are all very well and fine, but you need people to work with them, shear them, card and dye the wool, and spin it into cloth!" Muireann exclaimed. "Or herd them and slaughter them for food."

  Lochlainn advanced from the doorway where he had been standing. He looked more grim that she had ever seen him.

  "I can't believe this is happening!" he declared as he flung himself into a chair dejectedly.

  "I know this must be hard for you, Lochlainn. I'm sorry."

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily. "I've known many of those people since I was a boy. Some of them are far too old. They can't emigrate. Most of them would never survive the passage! It's like signing their death warrants. Even if they do survive the passage, what then? They'll have to try to make a fresh start in a land very different from their own. It's too horrible even to think of. I certainly know how hard it was in Australia. I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone."

  "But you were successful," Muireann pointed out.

  "I was fortunate to even survive the passage!"

  "Oh my."

  "Indeed. And even then, yes, I worked damned hard to get what I did have, but a lot of it was luck as well. How lucky are all of them going to be? More and more emigrants are heading for Canada all the time compared with Australia. Few of them have any skills, and barely even the clothes they're standing up in. It's like signing their death warrants."

  Muireann listened carefully to Lochlainn's bitter tirade, and looked down at the figures in front of her pensively. Then she put the ledger to one side, and laid a fresh sheet of paper on the blotter.

  "How many are there on the Colonel's estate?"

  "A hundred or thereabouts."

  "And on Mr. Cole's?"

  "About the same, maybe a few more."

  "Out of these people, how many of them have any skills, you know, carpentry and so on?"

  Lochlainn scratched his head thoughtfully. "I don't know. My guess is most of them are farmers, but there must be some carpenters and builders, I'm sure."

  "From both estates?"

  He frowned, puzzled. "I think so. But why are you asking?"

  Muireann checked up her calculations carefully before replying. "Because I want them to come and live here."

  He half rose from his chair, his eyes wide. "Are you mad? We could never--"

  "I know what you're going to say, Lochlainn. Please hear me out before you fly off the handle completely. I know it won't be easy for us here at Barnakilla, but in a few weeks' time those poor people will either be homeless on the road, or dying on the long trip over to Canada. These are men, women and children we are talking about. If we take them in-"

  "We couldn't even begin to feed them all with the way things are at the moment!"

  She lifted her chin. "I'll find a way, even if I have to beg, borrow or steal."

  Lochlainn rounded on her angrily. "Why should you care? You could just go home to Scotland tomorrow!"

  Muireann blinked i
n surprise. "That's not fair, Lochlainn, and you know it. I could run away, of course, but I'm not going to. Barnakilla is the first real home I have ever had, and all should be welcome here if they wish to come.

  "This estate will thrive. It just takes time. I'll throw myself on my family's mercy if I have to, but I do have a few other options before I fall back on my last resort."

  "So what are you thinking of doing if not that?"

  "I'll go to Dublin, get the house sold, and we will just have to keep on making sacrifices until we get the money back that those men stole from Barnakilla, from us all. Then we'll thrive even more, I'm certain of it."

  "It could take ages—"

  "Please be patient, Lochlainn. It's not an easy decision, but you just said it yourself. To put them on a ship to Canada would be like signing the death warrants of almost all except the most fortunate few."

  "But how will we ever feed them all?"

  "Hunting, for starters. They might not want them as tenants, and they are turning over the fields to sheep rather than crops, so the deer and pheasant will thrive on the land even more."

  "Muireann, that's poaching!"

  She shook her head. "It's more like using Nature's bounty instead of letting it go to waste, and getting a bit confused as to which part of the woods we're in. If we lure them onto our land also, so they thrive here, well…." She shrugged.

  "I get the picture. You're right, of course. We just have to keep making the most of the woods and the lough."

  "And we can do the same as we did with our tenants here. As soon as they arrive, we'll calculate the wealth they bring with them. Then we can set a fair rent for them and chores to do. I still have a tiny bit of the money Colonel Lowry awarded us from Blessington's holdings. We can buy some oats, vegetables, potatoes, and corn meal with it. We'll have to cut down on the butter to increase our milk yield. If there are as many children as you say, we'll need the extra.

  "We also need more turf, more firewood, more meat and fish. I know Neil will send more food from Scotland as soon as the timber ship comes for another load. We can sell any luxury items like coffee, tea or wine and brandy immediately to buy staples. We'll have to think ahead to harvest time now as well.

  "Forget the crop rotation scheme we devised. I want you to start plowing up all the fallow fields and planting more turnips and beets. They will get the animals and people through the winter. Clear the land of tree stumps where we've already been timber-cutting, and put it under cultivation also," Muireann outlined for Lochlainn.

  He sat there numbly shaking his head. This was yet another burden for them to face. How much longer could they survive like this? How much longer would it be until she gave up and went back to Scotland?

  Muireann made a few notes on her paper, and looked at him hopefully. "Now if Colonel Lowry and Mr. Cole have really made up their minds about enclosing their lands, I'm going to go see them both to make a deal to sell their wool to me. You and your carpenters can make some spinning wheels and looms, and we are going to make cloth, lots of woolen cloth.

  "All of the women will pitch in, while the men will carry on with the farming, hunting, fishing, and carpentry. We'll also need to quarry more stone for new cottages to be built straightaway. Once the new people arrive, they can rotate into the chores system."

  "What else do you think we need?" he asked quietly, feeling slightly piqued that she seemed to have worked out everything without even consulting him or listening to his objections to the whole scheme.

  Muireann continued jotting down her ideas, one hand cradling her head. "I want to clear more trees now so we can season the timber. We can use it for furniture, or a new load of wood if Neil is willing to buy more. And I want some strong sturdy rabbit and pheasant pens built. We'll start breeding them ourselves from now on. And if you see a big stag, try to trap rather than kill it, and capture some does as well. We could begin to breed them."

  Then she sighed. "There are probably a hundred other things we'll have to take care of once they're here. But in the meantime, that's enough for everyone to be getting started with. The only other thing is to get more fertilizer from somewhere. And I think perhaps it is possible to start working around the clock on the estate. You know, divide the workers into three or four groups, get them to work eight or six hours each. But we will have to wait and see what skills and talents they possess before we make any decisions about that."

  Lochlainn stared at Muireann as though seeing her for the first time.

  "What is it? What have I said?" Muireann said sharply.

  "Nothing, nothing. I just can't believe you would do all this for people you don't even know."

  "The wealth of Ireland is in her people, in the land. I won't let those men, women, and children be made homeless due to the appalling greed of their landlords and the government, any more than I would have let you all suffer for Augustine's mistakes."

  This was first time in a long time that she had mentioned Augustine's name in Lochlainn's hearing. She stood up suddenly and began to pace the room.

  Lochlainn watched her uncomfortably for a few minutes, wondering why she was so disturbed.

  Suddenly she ordered, "I want a detail of people to come in here now to make these rooms habitable. Get the carpenters to make as many bedsteads as they can. We can get some oyster shells to burn to make whitewash for the rooms to help keep the damp out. The weather has fine, so I want to make sure all the holes in the roof are patched, and the chimneys cleared. Hire a proper sweep from Enniskillen tomorrow so he can get started.

  "I also want the library and the study cleaned, and I shall give up my room upstairs as well. And we will need more long benches and tables for the kitchen. We'll have to work day and night, but we can take the first of the new arrivals at the end of the week."

  "I don't understand. What are you talking about? Why give up your room? Where would you go?"

  "If they come here we're all casting our lot in together, are we not? So they will come live here, in every spare room we can find. I'll move into the small storeroom next to the agent's office at the back of the stable block. We shall leave the big house to the newcomers until we can get enough cottages built to house everyone."

  "But think of the sacrifice, my dear," he cautioned.

  She waved his objection away. "I don't care. They need somewhere to stay, and we could fit a whole family in each of the rooms I use by myself."

  "This is meant to be your home. I will not have you living like a pauper!"

  "It's my decision, Lochlainn," Muireann snapped back. "You aren't making me do anything I don't want to do."

  Lochlainn rose from his chair then and pulled her to him. His blistering kiss sapped their fury instantly, and within seconds they had tumbled onto the small sofa and begun stripping their lower clothing off in a frenzy of desire.

  For half an hour the only sounds that could be heard were their moans and sighs of contentment. But all too soon Lochlainn recalled his resolution not to take advantage of her in this way, not to impinge upon her daytime self.

  He hastily adjusted his clothing, embarrassed, and with a last kiss, fled from the room. Lochlainn prayed Muireann hadn't noticed his hands shaking as he reached for the catch to let himself out.

  She pulled her skirts down over her knees and sat on the sofa staring after him as he ran from the room. Well, what could she expect. He had no doubt been horrified by her wanton nature…

  But damn it all, if loving him was so wrong, why did it all feel so incredibly right, as if it were meant to be?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lochlainn's sister noticed something was amiss almost as soon as he got back to his small cottage. After he had revealed his momentous news about the evictions and Muireann's offer to support the other estates' tenants all and make arrangements to have them live in the house, she shook her head and asked, "What's really troubling you, Lochlainn?"

  He sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in both hands. "I'm afrai
d that this is all a dream. That Muireann is too good to be true. After all, she married Augustine didn't she? What if all this is just a passing fancy for an idle rich girl? What if she grows bored with it? Abandons us for the dazzling society of Dublin, London, or beyond?" Lochlainn wondered, his frustration evident on his handsome face.

  Ciara digested this information in silence, and then looked at her brother directly. "That isn't what's really worrying you either."

  "All right, all right, I'll tell you. I'll go mad if I don't tell someone. I just can't get the thought out of my head that I'm going to lose her. I'm obsessed by her. No matter what, I can't get Muireann out of my mind. Every moment of the day and night, sleeping or waking, I think about her. I can't help myself, Ciara, though God knows I've tried."