by BJ Hoff
But over the years, history repeated itself, and the people of Killala, like those throughout all Ireland, found themselves plundered and stripped of all they owned, reduced to the station of destitute serfs upon their own land.
At a moan from Tahg, Nora’s eyes snapped open. Dragging herself up from the chair, she gave her head a moment to clear, then went to wipe a trail of blood-tinged spittle from Tahg’s chin. His face was white, with that awful transparency that seemed to reflect the dim light of the room. In spite of the cold—for there had been no turf to burn for days now—his skin was hot and damp with unhealthy perspiration.
The pain in her head throbbed fiercely as she tended to Tahg. Turning to Old Dan, she tucked his blanket more closely about his shoulders, then braced her hands on either side of his wasted body to steady herself. Straightening, she gasped as a hot wave of nausea washed over her. Her ears were ringing, the room spinning. She grabbed for the bedstead, but missed.
She fell, tumbling slowly at first, then faster and faster toward a deep, dark pit. Again she reached out, clutching at something, anything, to break her fall. But it was too late. The pit yawned and widened, sucking her into a dizzying whirlpool of darkness, then hurled her into oblivion.
Daniel hadn’t intended to go so far; certainly he had not thought of ending up here, on the hill where the land agent lived.
But he had promised himself not to return to the cottage until he’d found some sort of provisions for his family. Tahg was so terribly ill, as was Grandfar—and lately Mother looked nearly as weak and sick as they did. He had to get help for them all—he simply had to!
Now, after searching for more than two hours and finding not even a rotten old turnip, he stood staring up at the bleak gray house of the agent, attempting to muster his courage. Perched almost at the very top of the hill, it was a grim, ill-kept block of a place, square and ugly and battered by the Atlantic winds. It stood there in all its drab coldness, glowering down on the village as if to mirror its occupant’s contempt.
In spite of his earlier promise to himself, Daniel shivered, longing to turn back. But he knew in his heart that this might be the one place he would find food—food that could very well mean his family’s survival. And so he began to walk, hesitatingly at first, then with more purpose.
About a quarter of the way up, he stopped to read a notice tacked up on a fencepost. It was the same warning he’d seen in numerous places throughout the village. Thomas Fitzgerald had said the stranger in town had nailed up the notices, the one sent from London by the Big Lord. Gilpin’s lackey.
The tenantry on Sir Roger Gilpin’s estate, residing in the village of Killala and surrounding manor, are requested to pay into my office on the 30th of March, all rent and rent in arrears due up to that date. Otherwise summary steps will be taken to recover same.
It was signed by the agent, George Cotter.
Daniel wanted to rip the notice from the post and burn it. No one in the village—including his own family—was in a position to pay the rent.
Anger and fear churned together inside him, making his empty, bloated stomach cramp even more. Clenching his hands into tight fists, he resumed his trek up the hill with more determination. He passed a stone fence that followed a wild thicket up to the stables, and, farther up, a rough-hewn storage barn. It was a forlorn, wild-looking property that appeared to have had no attention for years. The buildings were in need of paint, the weeds overgrown; and paper and other debris littered the yard.
Out of breath, his chest heaving from the effort of the climb, Daniel stopped. Partially concealed by a tumble of overgrown brush, he stood unmoving, taking a long, careful look around his surroundings. Satisfied that nobody was about, he broke into a run, heading toward the back of the house. As soon as he came around the side, he spotted a large bin and some barrels, but they were dangerously close to the door. He crouched, again scanning his surroundings.
The backyard led straight into the woods with a path leading off to the right, toward the stables. There was no one in sight, no sound from the house. With the wind whipping his face, he broke toward the barrels near the door.
He made it as far as the nearest barrel when he froze, paralyzed by the sound of approaching hoofbeats.
A horse snorted, and somebody shouted, “Halt! You—stay where you are!”
Daniel whipped around to see the agent bearing down on him on his enormous gray stallion. Behind him, on a black mare, sat a small, slender man with fair hair and round spectacles. He was dressed like a gentleman, and Daniel knew at once this must be Lord Gilpin’s man from London.
Instinctively, he stiffened, bracing himself for the blow he was sure would come.
Cotter drew his horse to a sharp halt, and the other man stopped beside him. The agent’s eyes were blazing, his face flushed and slick with perspiration. In his upraised hand he held a riding crop.
“What the devil are you up to, you little nit?” he shouted, waving the crop in Daniel’s direction. “Thinking to rob me, is that it?”
Daniel tried not to shrink beneath the agent’s fierce gaze. His tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth, and his heart threatened to explode, but he stood his ground, waiting.
Cotter looked as slovenly as he was rumored to be. Stains spotted his coat and a tear showed in one sleeve; he was unshaven and appeared to need a wash.
Daniel’s only thought was to run, and he did lunge forward. As if the agent had anticipated his move, Cotter turned the big stallion’s lathered body sideways to block him.
“Stay where you are, you thieving little wretch! I want your name!”
Daniel opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. He swallowed, trying again. “Daniel…Daniel Kavanagh.”
“From the village?”
“Aye, sir.”
“How many more of you are hiding in the bushes?” Cotter glanced toward the woods.
“None…none, sir. I’m alone.” Daniel’s heart was hammering crazily, and he feared that, in an instant of terror, he was going to humiliate himself by breaking into tears. But he fought for a deep breath, seeing something in the agent’s eyes that said it would go even worse for him if the man sensed his fear.
“Well, then—what are you doing here? Have you come to steal or to beg?”
“I—neither, sir.” Shame crept over Daniel as he tried to explain. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I helped myself…to some of your leavings.”
Cotter’s lips turned up in disgust. “You thought to steal from the garbage? What are you, then, a rat?”
Angered, Daniel refused to shrink from this bleary-eyed man. “No, sir,” he muttered harshly. “I am simply hungry. As is everyone else in the village.”
The agent leaned forward on his horse, his small, glazed eyes boring into Daniel. “Well, then, perhaps you’d like to beg,” he sneered. “Any lad hungry enough to eat a man’s garbage should certainly be humble enough to beg, I would think.”
Daniel stiffened, blinking furiously against the tears threatening to spill from his eyes. He looked at the younger man on the horse beside Cotter, surprised to see him studying the agent with a look of open contempt.
“Who are your people, boy?”
Daniel’s gaze returned to Cotter. A faint shift in the agent’s tone made him wary. Cotter’s anger seemed to have faded; in its place was another expression that sent a ripple of uneasiness coursing through him.
“My people? My da was Owen Kavanagh, sir, but he’s dead now. My mother’s name is Nora, and I’m called after my granddaddy, Dan Kavanagh.”
“And how many more nits at home?”
“Just my brother and me, sir,” Daniel replied grudgingly. “My little sister died of the fever.”
Cotter rubbed the side of one hand across his stubbled chin. “And you’re hungry, is that it? You and your family?”
Daniel gave a curt nod, bitter that the agent would feign ignorance of the widespread starvation in the village.
“Lazy,
too, I’ll wager,” Cotter sniped, leaning forward still more.
Daniel was struck by a roaring wave of rage, and with it a sudden desperate wish to be a man grown. A big man, as big as Morgan, so he need not stand here and be disgraced by this disgusting, loathsome creature. For the first time in his life he knew the intense, almost debilitating desire to harm another human being.
“But perhaps you’re not as lazy as some, after all, eh?” the agent was saying. “At least you had the industry to go in search of food.”
Daniel frowned, puzzled as to what Cotter was getting at. “I’m not lazy, sir. I’d work if there were work to be had.”
The agent straightened a bit, giving Daniel a long look of appraisal. “You’d welcome a job, would you?”
“Aye, sir,” Daniel said uncertainly. “It’s not that I haven’t tried to find work.”
Cotter smiled, but the smile only increased Daniel’s apprehension. Something lay behind the look that he did not understand. “What’s your age, boy?”
“My—I’m thirteen, sir.”
“Mmm.” Cotter went on studying him carefully. “You’re old enough, I suppose. None too strapping, though you’re tall for your age. Are you strong enough for hard work, do you think?”
Daniel now began to feel a surge of hope. “Oh, I’m that fit, sir! I could do any work I set my hand to.”
Again the agent stroked his chin, and Daniel squirmed inwardly under his keen inspection. He felt as if every inch of his frame was being measured. Even as his hope increased, his stomach knotted. There were stories about the agent, murmured stories and accusations about some terrible, unspeakable aberration in his nature that was only spoken of in whispers.
“I suppose there’s always work to be found around this place for a boy who is fit,” Cotter proclaimed loudly, jarring Daniel out of his uncomfortable thoughts. “How soon could you start?”
He was offering a job! The ground tilted beneath Daniel’s feet, and his legs went weak with relief.
Forgetting the rumors, dismissing his feelings of uncertainty, Daniel answered him quickly before the man had time to change his mind. “As soon as you’d want, sir! Today, if you wish.”
Cotter slapped the open palm of his hand with the riding crop. “Good enough. I’ll give you bed and board and a fair wage.”
Bed and board? “I—I wouldn’t have to stay here, would I, sir? I can come up in the mornings just as early as you like, and stay late in the evenings, but—”
The agent’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth thinned to a tight line. “If you work here, you stay here. I need somebody I can count on, day or night.”
Daniel’s mind reeled. His mother couldn’t do without him, couldn’t manage Tahg and Grandfar on her own. But the money—he must take the job!
His eyes went to the fair-haired man, who was studying him with an expression that startled Daniel. Pity. The man was staring at him with open pity.
Daniel looked away, pretending he hadn’t seen. He lifted his chin; he wanted no pity, least of all from an Englishman.
“All right, sir. I’ll have to go home and tell my mother, but I’ll come back whenever you say.”
Cotter twisted his mouth to one side, raking Daniel’s face with his eyes. “See that you’re back before sunset this evening.” He raised a hand, pointing a finger warningly. “If you’re not back when I say, you need not come at all, do you mind? I’ll find a boy I can depend on.”
Daniel nodded, eager now to get away and tell his mother the good news. As soon as Cotter waved him off, he bolted around the side of the house.
He ran all the way down the hill, ignoring the cramps in his stomach and the burning pain in his chest.
Sure, and I do thank You, Lord…I can’t tell how much it means to know You’re looking after us after all…
He couldn’t wait to see his mother’s face, to see relief in her large sad eyes instead of the ever-present fear that lately seemed to grow darker and darker. Perhaps she would be able to smile again. It had been so long since he had seen her do more than force a thin smile for Tahg’s sake.
Reaching the bottom of the hill now, he slowed and started down the road toward home. Despite his exhaustion and dizziness, he knew a sense of hope and expectation he had not felt for a long, long time.
Suddenly, in the midst of his relief and excitement, he recalled something he’d overheard Sean O’Malley say to Morgan the night of Timothy’s wake: “Sure, and I’d go to work for the devil himself, Morgan, would it put food in my family’s bellies again.”
At the time, Daniel had caught his breath at the man’s blasphemy. Now, he could only try to ignore the possibility that he might be about to do what Sean O’Malley had only threatened.
She was coming to. Morgan quickly rose from the chair, bending over her as she attempted to focus her eyes in the dim light from the lantern.
“Nora?” He had covered her with his cloak and now tucked it more snugly under her chin.
A large bruise discolored her left cheekbone, just below the small cut near her eye. Her hair had come loose from its pins, and he moved to smooth it away from her face. She watched him through heavy, dull eyes.
“How do you feel?” he asked her, taking her hand. She blinked, her eyes still uncomprehending. “You must have blacked out. I found you on the floor.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “My head…”
“Aye, I expect it hurts.” Again he stroked her hair back from her forehead, and turned to tug the chair closer to the bed.
Suddenly her eyes widened, and she tried to lift her head from the pillow. “Tahg—”
“Tahg and the old man are both all right,” Morgan quickly assured her, putting a hand to her shoulder until she dropped her head weakly back onto the pillow. “You must rest, now. Just lie still.”
He sat down, taking her hand between the two of his. “I got worried when nobody came to the door, so I came inside to check on you. You gave me quite a fright, lass.” Frightened him out of his wits was what she did. “Nora…how long since you’ve eaten?”
She turned her head away.
“Nora?”
Keeping her face turned from him, she gave a small, weak shrug beneath his cloak.
“I’ve brought food, Nora,” he told her. “Enough for several days.” When she still made no reply, he went on. “Did you hear me, lass? As soon as Daniel John comes in, we’ll have something to eat. Where is he, by the way?”
At last she turned back to him and spoke. “He went looking for food. He’s not back yet?”
Morgan shook his head. Guilt lay heavy on his heart. He should never have stayed away so long. The small, forlorn figure beneath his cloak was little more than a ghost of herself. He shuddered involuntarily as a memory of the young Nora flashed across his mind. Gone were the laughing eyes of her youth, the vibrant energy of her nature. The raven tresses that had shone in the summer sun hung lank and graying around her ashen face. Cheekbones jutted above sunken hollows, and her deep gray eyes were darkly shadowed. He had known a moment of total, blood-chilling panic when he found her slumped on the floor beside the old man’s bed, looking for all the world as if the life had left her body.
Well, he would not leave her again. From this time on, for as long as she remained in the village, he would be here, too, to take care of her.
Without thinking, he lifted her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “It will be all right, ma girsha,” he murmured. “Everything will be all right, you’ll see. But you must continue to fight for a little while longer.”
As if she had not heard him, she turned her face to the wall. “I just want it finished,” she said woodenly.
He lifted his head, frowning at the defeat he heard in her voice. “No,” he said firmly. “You must not allow yourself to think so. You have to fight, Nora.”
Slowly, she dragged her gaze back to his face. “Fight?” A low moan of bitterness escaped her. “For what?”
H
e rose from the chair, and, bending over her, pressed his hands into the mattress on either side of her shoulders. “For your sons. For yourself. For life, Nora. You must fight for life.”
She closed her eyes as if to block out the sight of him, and he was struck anew by the frailty of her fine, delicate features. Dear God, she was so small, so thin and weak!
“Nora—look at me.”
Her eyes opened, and he saw the unshed tears. Stabbed by the fear and misery in her eyes, he dropped down beside her and scooped her up in his arms. “Cry, lass…it’s all right to cry…cry it out…”
She made a small, choked sound and allowed him to press her face against his chest. “I’m so afraid, Morgan,” she whispered against him. He felt her shoulders sag, then begin to shake. “I know it’s wrong…I should have more faith. But I’m so frightened all the time. I try not to show it to the others, but I’m…terrified, Morgan…I’m terrified…”
The dam of her grief and fear burst then, and Morgan felt a spasm of shudders wrack her fragile body. As he held her, he tried to will some of his own strength into her.
After a long time, she turned in his arms, her face damp, her eyes haunted and glistening. When he saw a look of uncertainty, then embarrassment, steal over her features, he tightened his embrace before she could free herself.
She stared up at him. “I—I’m sorry…I can’t think what—”
“Shhh, none of that,” he said firmly, resisting her effort to slip out of his arms. “Nora, listen to me, now. As soon as the boy comes in, we’ll have some supper, and then we’ll talk. There’s something I need to tell you, and I want Daniel John here when I do.”
“What?”
“It will keep,” he said, drinking in her face and her hair tumbling free over his arm, cherishing this rare, precious moment of holding her again, if only to comfort her. “We must get some food into you before—”
“Mother?”
They broke apart at the sound of Daniel John’s voice, calling out from the kitchen.
Morgan got to his feet. “In here, lad.”