Song of Erin

by BJ Hoff

  “Get yourself back here, girl,” the big fisherman rumbled. “And mind your manners. Jane isn’t through with you yet.”

  Terese whirled around, facing him. “But I am through with her!”

  She was amazed when the widow woman cackled. “Didn’t I tell you, man? She is a wild island girl.”

  “And you,” Terese repeated through bared teeth, “are a rude old woman!”

  Again Jane Connolly laughed. The child, Evie, laughed, too, obviously delighted by the exchange taking place.

  These people were more than strange, Terese decided. They were demented.

  “Ach, enough now, enough.” The widow Connolly attempted to wave a hand, but the twisted, swollen appendage made the gesture seem almost grotesque. In spite of herself, Terese felt another quick stab of pity. Even so, she had no intention of suffering the woman’s abuse.

  Jane Connolly’s next words surprised her, however. “It seems to me that you will do well enough, girl. They do say the island girls aren’t afraid of hard work.”

  Gabriel nodded now in apparent satisfaction, while Roweena smiled at Terese as if to encourage her. And from the corner where she had perched herself on a stool, the peculiar Evie chuckled.

  “I will give you a bed and food,” said the widow in a brisk, no-nonsense tone. “You don’t look as if you eat all that much in any event. You will cook for us and tend to the house, inside and out.” Her tone now turned grudging. “And you will tend to me as well. It’s little enough I can do for myself these days.”

  “That sounds to me like a great deal of work,” Terese pointed out.

  The woman gave her a fierce glare. “Was I looking for you when you came, girl? You can go out the door just as easily as you came in, it seems to me.”

  “Jane—”

  The stern word of rebuke from Gabriel merely earned him a terrible scowl.

  “What will you pay me?” Terese broke in before the two could take up again.

  “Didn’t I just offer you a bed and potatoes?”

  “A bed and potatoes are not enough. You are requiring a full-time girl. I will work for wages or not at all.”

  The woman turned to Gabriel. “Impudent. You see? She’s a very lowbred girl.”

  The fisherman lifted his dark eyebrows. “ ’Tis true for her, though, Jane. You are expecting a great deal of work for no wages. I doubt that you’ll find another girl as strong and willing to work as this one.”

  The shrunken widow woman glowered at him, then turned an even blacker look on Terese. “One shilling a week,” she finally said, the words sounding as if she might choke on them.

  Hands on hips, Terese glared down at her. “Two.”

  “Ach, girl, do you think I am the goose laying eggs of gold?”

  Terese didn’t so much as blink an eye. “Two,” she repeated.

  Jane Connolly muttered something to the effect that she would “die in the workhouse and all for a greedy girl,” but after a moment more gave a grudging nod. “You will begin today.”

  “If you wish,” Terese said just as shortly.

  The widow woman wheeled around to Gabriel once more and gave a semblance of shaking a finger at him. The finger, Terese noted, was swollen at the knuckle to almost twice the normal size and was badly inflamed. “And you, man, will bear the burden if she steals from me or murders me altogether.”

  The big fisherman appeared to be suppressing a smile as he dipped his head in a gesture of agreement. “ ’Tis as you say, Jane.” He straightened then and beckoned to Roweena and the child. “We will be away now and let you and your new girl get acquainted.”

  At their departure, Terese braced herself. As cantankerous as her new employer had been in the presence of others, she hated to think what her temperament might be once they were alone. She consoled herself, however, with the thought that she finally had found a position—a position that included two shillings a week and a roof and hearth fire, not to mention “a bed and potatoes.”

  With that in mind, she actually managed to force a tight little smile for the woman in the wheelchair. “And what shall I be doing first, Mrs. Connolly?” she asked politely.

  Jane Connolly regarded her with the same narrow-eyed scrutiny. “I don’t suppose an island girl knows much at all about hanging out a proper wash.”

  “This island girl does,” Terese said evenly. “My people were clean and civilized.”

  “Ha. We will see about that, now won’t we? Well, then, get on with your work, girl. Behind the curtain there’s a basket of clothes needing to be laundered. All this blather with you and that thickheaded fisherman has exhausted me entirely. I will need to rest now.”

  “Would you be wanting me to help you to bed, then?”

  Slowly, Jane Connolly shook her head. “I can no longer find any comfort in my bed,” she said, averting her gaze. The woman appeared drawn and deathly pale. “I spend most of my hours in this infernal chair. That great oaf, Gabriel, doesn’t he nag at me to get up more, never mind the pain? ‘Get up, Jane, and uncoil yourself,’” she said in a sneering imitation, “‘or you will surely turn to stone.’”

  Her head dropped even lower. “He doesn’t know,” she said bitterly. “He can’t know what it’s like for me. I am turning to stone, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

  She glanced up at Terese then. “I am not an old woman, you know. You think I am old, and our dear Lord knows I feel it. But in truth I’ve no more than ten years or so on Gabriel.”

  Terese evidently failed to conceal her astonishment, for the woman gave a rueful smile and nodded. “ ’Tis true.” As if she suddenly decided she had said too much, she clamped her jaw. “Well, all right, then. Go and see to your work now. Make no mistake about it, miss, you will earn your two shillings a week.”

  Not doubting for a moment that she would do just that, Terese gave a resigned sigh and went in search of the clothes basket.

  13

  REGARDING WOMEN

  One had a lovely face,

  And two or three had charm,

  But charm and face were in vain…

  W. B. YEATS

  NEW YORK CITY

  Jack Kane looked idly around the ballroom of the Harrington mansion. It was unlikely that a Russian palace would have boasted more opulence or excess. White fire danced back and forth from the crystal chandeliers to diamond-bedecked socialites, only to be swept up in the flames of what must have been two hundred or more flickering candles placed all about the room. The place was so brightly lit it might have set the entire city ablaze.

  Not the typical Irish ceili, that was certain. The thought brought a wry grin. For once, being Irish hadn’t prevented Jack from receiving an invitation, indeed had actually helped to guarantee it. Had he been shanty Irish, however, that wouldn’t have been the case. Only the very rich Irish would be showing their gobs at this affair, a benefit ball put on to aid the work of some of the immigrant societies.

  There was never enough money, of course, to keep up with the increasing waves of immigrants flooding the harbors these days. So when Richard Harrington and a select few among the city’s elite circle—those who had not lost their fortunes in the crash last year—agreed to host a benefit for “the destitute and the despairing,” every Irishman with a bank account and a tailcoat got himself an invitation.

  For most of the evening, Jack had been preoccupied with his own thoughts, primarily of his brother’s whereabouts. The young rogue’s unaccountable silence had gone on long enough. Foul weather or not, Tom West was set to go across and have a look if there was no word from Brady in the next couple of weeks.

  At the moment, there was another source of irritation, this one closer at hand: the annoying Miss Patricia Woodstock. It wasn’t that his dinner companion lacked appeal. To the contrary, Miss Woodstock was quite fetching. Blonde and elegant, she had the kind of patrician features and form that never failed to turn heads. But to Jack’s thinking, her looks were just about all she could boast of. In fa
ct, in one of his more fanciful moments, he had decided that the fair Miss Woodstock rather resembled one of those French cream puffs that Addy was forever bringing home from Cree’s Bakery—a kind of powdery confection that made the mouth water but turned out to be little more than sugar-sprinkled air.

  All frosting and no filling, as it were.

  The girl had been like a leech throughout the entire evening, fixing her attention on his every word, rolling her china-doll eyes and chiding him with a dainty shake of the head at each hint of what she referred to as his “outrageous wit.” Even when Jack had deliberately taken up flirting with Mrs. Woodstock, Patricia’s widowed mother—who was actually far more interesting than her daughter—the vacant young woman had continued to fawn on him in the most foolish fashion, as if she hadn’t noticed his boorishness.

  Jack had toyed briefly with the idea of deliberately insulting the girl, then decided against it. He supposed she was only trying to help her family, after all. Perhaps she should even be commended for her willingness to sacrifice herself by consorting with an Irishman. As for her dear, departed father, poor old Woodstock would almost certainly turn in his grave at the idea of a Paddy for a son-in-law.

  Still, if Miss Patricia was to be successful in her campaign to restore the family fortunes, he thought nastily, she would have to learn not to patronize the candidates. Even an Irishman had his pride, after all.

  Jack held no illusions about the girl’s interest in him, and he wasn’t about to underrate what he suspected might be some very highly developed predatory instincts. She would retract her claws for only so long. She might tolerate him well enough at a banquet table; since she, no doubt, believed him to be filthy rich, perhaps she didn’t find him altogether offensive—for an Irishman. But if he were to fall for her ploys and take her to the altar, things would change quickly enough, he’d warrant. Once she got her mitts on his money, she would more than likely bar him from the bedroom and find a way to boot him out of the rest of her life as well.

  Too bad for Patricia Woodstock that he wasn’t quite the dolt she apparently believed him to be. As a widower for nearly eight years now—and a wealthy widower, at that—he had been targeted several times by most of the empty-headed fortune hunters about town. For a time he had actually considered the possibility of making a marriage of convenience. He would have liked children and a home. Although Addy kept his household running as efficiently as any wife would have, perhaps more so, it wasn’t the same as having a family.

  But he had never given any real credence to the idea. He knew himself too well, knew he could never be satisfied with anything less than a real marriage. He would always end up comparing another woman—a woman he didn’t love, at least—to Martha.

  She had been no beauty, his Martha, but she had had a certain charm, a quiet graciousness, and a fundamental goodness that, combined with her quick, incisive mind, had not only made her desirable to Jack but won his respect as well. Martha had been his lover, his sweetheart, and his best friend, and every woman he had known since seemed to pale in comparison.

  Unfortunately, they had had less than two brief years together before she died from cancer. That had been almost eight years ago, and Jack still missed her.

  But not so much that he would make an ill-fated match with a silly little schemer like Patricia Woodstock. He had been nearly thirty when he married Martha, was close on forty now, and he would spend the rest of his life alone if he must. He had the newspaper, enough money to live the way he wished, and, of course, he had Brady and Rose.

  His mouth turned sour as he reminded himself that his brother was missing somewhere in Ireland, and his sister, Rose, was Sister Rose, a nun in a New Jersey convent.

  But even though Rose might never make her home with him, Brady would eventually come back. Though at times he worried himself to desperation about his brother, somehow Jack could not imagine anything really disastrous happening to the careless young rascal. Brady always seemed to come out with a winning hand.

  Please, God, let that be the case this time…

  A rather insistent tug on his arm reminded Jack that he had been too long disengaged from the philistine ritual taking place around him. He gave a discreet sigh, then turned back to his dinner companion, forcing a show of interest that served to brighten still more the calculating glint in her eye.

  Cavan Sheridan was having trouble concentrating on the grammar text in front of him. His difficulty had nothing to do with the lesson itself, however, but rather with the instructor, who at the moment stood beside his desk, watching his progress as he attempted to rearrange the parts of a sentence.

  Samantha Harte was like no other woman Cavan had ever met. Certainly, she defied every preconceived idea he might have had about schoolteachers before he enrolled in this night class.

  The classroom itself, which was in the basement of the parish hall, had turned out to be predictably gloomy, cold, and musty. Cavan had expected the teacher to be equally drab.

  As it turned out, the slender Miss Harte, though quiet and seemingly possessed of great dignity and reserve, was anything but drab. By tonight’s session—the fourth so far—Cavan was half in love with the woman. It concerned him not in the least that she might be a few years older than he. Indeed, it only made her that much more intriguing. Nor did it bother him that Samantha Harte was obviously an educated, refined woman whose genteel demeanor and graceful manners clearly marked her as a lady. From the first night, she had dazzled him, until by now he was thoroughly smitten.

  Everything about the woman fascinated Cavan: the thick knot of glossy chestnut hair from which one or two pins were invariably escaping; the delicate oval face; the enormous brown eyes in which flecks of amber caught the light; the faint scent of soap and rose water that accompanied her every move; the beautiful, rich voice and the shy smile that seemed strangely at odds with her air of quiet confidence. With such a splendid distraction, he told himself throughout the evening, was it any wonder he had to make an extraordinary effort to keep his mind on his studies?

  When he had finally finished the assignment, Cavan deliberately lagged behind the other students, the last to approach the teacher’s desk. She gave him that quick little smile he had come to look for, then scanned the paper he handed her.

  “This would appear to be very good, Mr. Sheridan,” she said, glancing up. “Your usual fine work. You do seem to have an excellent grasp of grammar. I almost think you could have omitted this session and gone on to the more advanced class.”

  Cavan shook his head, at the same time trying to ignore the skip of his heart at her approval. “I’ll be needing all the grammar and such I can get,” he said, “for the job I’m wanting.”

  She folded her hands on top of the desk. “What job would that be?”

  “I mean to work for the Vanguard—the newspaper—you see. So I’ll be needing a great deal more education.”

  She smiled at him. “You plan to be a printer, do you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Cavan said firmly. “It’s a reporter’s job I’m after.”

  Her dark brows lifted slightly. “A reporter? Well, that’s certainly an ambitious goal for—” She broke off, as if embarrassed by what she had almost said.

  “For an Irisher?” Cavan finished for her, managing a tight smile. She blushed, and he hurried to ease her awkwardness. “You’re right, of course. But I already have one foot in the door, you see, and I’m hoping to get myself the rest of the way in before long. I mean to be ready when the time comes.”

  At her questioning look, Cavan went on to explain. “I’m presently employed by Mr. Jack Kane as his driver. But that’s only temporary. I won’t be driving his buggy forever.”

  “I see.” Again she smiled, then stood. “Well, I can see you have ambition, Mr. Sheridan,” she said, looking up at him. “And you’re a very good student. I should think your chances for success are excellent.”

  Was he imagining it, or did she seem slightly flustered? Had he said som
ething wrong? Or perhaps he had said too much. Perhaps he’d embarrassed her with his crack about the “Irisher.”

  “Miss Harte?” he ventured, her name on his lips threatening to choke him.

  She gave him another quick smile.

  “I—” he had to swallow before finishing—“I want to thank you. You’re a fine teacher. You’ve helped me more than you can know.”

  “Oh…well, I meant what I said, Mr. Sheridan. You’re an excellent student. A pleasure to teach, actually.” She put a hand to her throat, where a small black bow was tied, and Cavan couldn’t help but admire the long, slender fingers. Her skin was like rich cream, he thought. Wouldn’t it be grand to hold that fine-boned hand in his?

  He realized with a start that she had apparently said something and he’d missed it. “Ma’am?”

  “I…before…I wasn’t referring to your…being Irish. I was about to say that you’re ambitious for a young man.” She paused. “And also, it’s…Mrs. Harte.”

  The bottom drained out of Cavan’s heart, and he glanced away, unable to meet her gaze. Suddenly, he felt very much the oafish schoolboy.

  When he made no reply, she went on, her voice low. “I’m…a widow, actually. My husband passed away four years ago.”

  May God forgive him, he had all he could do to conceal his relief. Instantly guilt ridden, Cavan mumbled, “I’m—sorry to hear that.”

  He felt like the most wretchedly selfish lout under the sun, to be grateful that she had suffered such a loss. Yet grateful is what he was, or at the least relieved, and there was no denying it.

  Abruptly, her mood turned brisk as they started for the door. “Well, it’s getting late. The custodian will want to lock up.”

  Cavan followed her from the room, then up the steps and down the dim, deserted corridor. In the silence between them, he found himself wondering what her life was like. Since she was a widow, would she live alone, or had she gone back to her family after her husband’s death? It struck him then that she might even have children. The thought caught him up short. Somehow, he could not imagine Samantha Harte as a mother. She seemed so youthful herself, so delicate and vulnerable.