by Ann Moore
“Done,” she agreed, “though I’m getting the better part of the deal.”
He threw his head back and laughed, and when the sound of it had faded Barbara turned her attention to her meager meal, softening the roll over the fading steam of her tea. She savored each bite and, when done, moistened her fingertip to pick up the crumbs that had fallen, touching them delicately to her tongue for their last mite of nourishment.
Hunger was a steady companion, but her stomach had ceased its fiercest protests months ago as her body learned to function with less. She was grateful to be able to count upon some measure of food every day, even if only stale bread and tea, weak broth, a bit of dried fish or oats—that was bounty to most of the people in her land and she knew it. It was bounty to her, as well; she and Morgan, Aislinn, and the little girls having grown up where potatoes and buttermilk made the meal.
Each day, the food stretched to whoever was housed with them, and while the children weren’t robust and thriving, they weren’t dying in droves, as in the workhouses, hospitals, and fever tents. They were weak, true enough, and her heart ached at the sight of them sitting so still throughout each day, conserving their little bit of strength, moving slowly, never laughing, rarely crying—too weak even for the energy to muster grief. Almost any illness carried them off; so she spent time with them daily, watching for signs of cough or fever, making sure to quarantine them immediately until they were well or—most often—their pitiful life here had ended. She hated that, the shutting them out, especially when they had brothers and sisters, but she saw no other way.
And she knew Sister George would bathe them in love and comfort until it was over, for it was always Sister George who went into quarantine with the sick and who remained to attend them. She spent more days in that room than out of it, but never did her devotion to the children waver, nor her conviction that this was her place. Once, Barbara had ordered her to come away and rest for a day or two while others took over, but Sister George had said firmly and calmly that her orders came directly from Jesus Christ Himself. Hadn’t He told her that she was needed to ease the passing of these children from this world into the next, and hadn’t He given her the strong health and heart to do it? Aye—she’d answered herself—He had, and here she’d stay until He’d other work for her to do. Barbara never argued with her again about it, just added her to the growing list of those for whom she was thankful.
She could not, however, let go of her worry over the baby. Even though he nursed regularly at the full breast of Missus Keavy—the farm woman who’d lost her own infant within days of coming here—he was still thin and listless, his mewling pitiful to all who heard. Looking upon his face brought no reassurance as his eyes remained milky clouds, pale blue windows that let in no light; Barbara feared he was blind.
Patrick spoke little, sitting by the window in his room, holding and rocking the tiny thing, staring out over the tops of the bare, wind-stripped branches down the hill to the bay as if his watchful guard would bring news of Grace to him all the sooner.
“They’re in the middle of the ocean now,” he’d said last night when she’d slipped in to check on the boy. “Nobody knows where.”
Startled by his voice, she’d lifted the lantern higher and there he lay, propped up on his elbow, eyes as tired as her own, face haggard with the burden of helplessness and despair.
“God does,” she’d whispered, then set the light down on the small table near the door so that she might pick up the whimpering baby; he’d been dry, so she’d settled herself into the chair to rock him. “Can you not sleep, then, Patrick?”
He’d hesitated a moment, then spoke quietly. “I’m afraid of the dreams that come.”
“Tell me, if it’ll ease your mind.”
Again, he’d hesitated, but the burden of the dreams was too great. “In one, she’s lying upon a bed with Mary Kate beside. I wait for them to move, but they never do. I cannot see if they’re asleep or …” He’d stopped and taken a deep breath. “In another, Mary Kate is eating bread and jam with a strange woman—she looks kindly, but ’tisn’t a place for Mary Kate and I call to her from outside the window but she can’t hear me. It’s snowing, the glass fogs, and she disappears.” He’d shaken his head, frowning. “Then I see Grace in a place full of shadows where men are evil—a place where no one will ever find her—and I wake up sure that death has come, so tight is my heart.”
“Patrick …”
“Tonight,” he’d rushed on, agitated. “Tonight, I saw her on the boat, deep down in a dark place. There was a storm, Barbara, a terrible storm, waves as high as the mast, the sky black and cut with lightning, men screaming and all those people trapped in that pit below.” His voice caught in his throat and he stopped. “It’s going to be the death of me, Barbara, these dreams.”
“You must have faith,” she’d told him, the words sounding small even to her.
“I’ve never had it. And I don’t know how to find it now. I’m sorry, Barbara—you a daughter of the Church and all—but that’s the truth of it. She’s the one had all the faith. Just like her mother before her.”
“She’s in God’s hands, then.”
“I never knew what that meant,” he’d confessed. “It can’t mean He’ll keep her safe, for aren’t all the poor bastards out there in His hands and just look at them—dying for want of a potato and shelter at night.”
“You’re right,” she’d admitted. “It doesn’t mean He’ll save her, though He can and He does every day. How many times are our lives spared before we finally the—hundreds? Thousands? Living through any day a’tall is miracle enough.” She’d felt herself a witness to this many times over, but how to explain it? “What I believe, Patrick—and it’s only me, mind you—is that to be in His hands means He’ll never abandon us, that He’s at our side through all the trials of our living. He sees us, knows our pain and weeps for us, carries us in His own hands even as we go to our death so that we might not be afraid, so that we might meet any end with dignity.”
“Are these dreams from God, then? Is He telling me the way of it?”
“I don’t know,” she’d answered. “Dreams are a way of seeing, true enough, and the Bible’s full of dreams. But sure and the devil himself knows how to play our simple minds and uses our weaknesses to his own end, for won’t he tell you a thousand truths to get you to believe the one great lie that God is not in charge? It may be God’s voice reaching out to you, or it may be the Devil pretending to be God—the answer lies in the condition of your own soul.”
Outside, the wind had raged as if in response—snapping branches, smashing windows, wreaking havoc across the already ravaged land.
“The condition of my soul,” he’d said, his anguish apparent, “is nothing if not a raging battle between begging Him to keep her safe and cursing Him for what’s happened to us. I can’t bear that she’s out there alone, at the mercy of cruel men, going to a strange land where her brother may or may not be.” He’d gripped his forehead as if taken with a terrible pain. “I should never have let her go off alone. I’m her father for pity’s sake, and ’tis my duty to protect her, for isn’t her life worth a thousand of my own?”
“You’d die for her, then? Is that what you’re saying?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“If you’ve the courage to die for her, Patrick, can you not find the courage to live for her, as well?”
His eyes had sought hers.
“What she needs from you is the courage to fight despair, to battle hopelessness and worry the many months ahead, for won’t it be spring or even summer before we know what’s become of them? Do you have the courage to go on living for your child, and for the child of your child—this poor wee baby boy who has no one but us? Do you now, Patrick?” she’d demanded, suddenly angry. “Because I tell you, I will not write to her after she’s survived a great voyage across a treacherous sea only to tell her that her father’s dead of foolish dreams and the baby as well because I hadn’t the
strength of two people to care for him. I won’t do it, Patrick! I tell you, I will not.”
He’d raised his head then, chin jutting, back as straight as a younger man’s, shoulders no longer hunched around a broken heart, and in that moment, Barbara remembered the fierce, proud man who was once Patrick O’Malley.
“You’ll not have to write such a letter as that,” he’d said then. “I’ve become old, true enough, mush and easy prey for bad dreams … but I’ll not give in to them again, nor will I let myself be swayed from hope. You’re right—’tis the Devil himself plants them there to weaken me, and I swear to you I’ll fight him each night if that’s the lay of it.”
“Aye, Patrick. That is the lay of it.”
“I’ve a great deal to learn, even at this late hour,” he’d said, and his voice had been so tired. “Maybe that’s why God has kept me here. For sure and I’ve been a trial to my wife and my children all my life, too proud to bend a knee before the Lord. I thought He’d give up and leave me in peace if I ignored Him long enough.”
“He never gives up. I sometimes think He likes the stubborn ones best. Bit of a challenge, you know.”
“I’ve been that, and more.” He’d paused, considering. “We would’ve been lost without you here, Barbara, and that’s the truth of it. I was wrong all those years ago when I frowned on my own Kathleen’s friendship with your mam. She was a good woman, Mary was, and your da, as well. I was too harsh a judge when I had no right. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
She’d nodded immediately. “Mam was as good a woman as ever lived, but you and I both know himself was a rascally sort. He brought us ever more grief than comfort, and that’s the truth of that. Morgan was the head of our family.”
“Aye, and the very best of men.”
She’d looked down at the baby sleeping in her arms, the weight of him nothing compared to the heaviness that still invaded her heart whenever she thought of her brother.
“He’s asleep now.” She’d risen and settled the baby gently in his cradle, then taken up the lantern. “Good night to you then, Patrick. Sleep well.”
“God go with you, Barbara.”
“He always does,” she’d whispered before closing the door.
“You always do,” she said to Him now, standing by the window in her study.
Bright morning sun flooded the yard, lit up the hills, and sparkled on the waves of the bay beyond, turning it into a moving body of light. They were out there somewhere, she thought, somewhere upon the vast, open sea, and there—on the knoll by the fence, facing the same way—was Abban on his only knee.
“We’re all of us praying, Lord,” she said aloud. “And I know You can hear us.”
Eleven
SIOBAHN’S fever returned in the small hours of the morning, and there was no taking her up then. Not a single ray of weak December sun penetrated the low clouds, heavy as wet clay, clouds from which a thick, sleety rain had begun to fall, puddling icy slush on the deck. Rising at first light to take Mary Kate to the latrines, Grace watched others slip and slide, or lose their footing altogether as they navigated the treacherous deck on their way to fetch this day’s water, or to relieve themselves of yesterday’s. Only a few braved the terrible cold in an attempt to light the grates, so food for most was cold biscuit and hard cheese. Grace felt more guilty than usual about collecting her flask of hot tea, warm porridge, and salt pork from the cook. She did not allow these feelings to deter her, however, but quietly got her basket, slipped up the stairs, across the deck and to the door of the galley, where she covered the food with a cloth before retracing her steps.
Below again, she shared the meal with Mary Kate and Liam, and poured hot tea for Siobahn; Alice, she knew, would decline even a bite of Grace’s rations, but would whisper her thanks for the feeding of her children, especially Liam, who ate anything and everything offered. The ship’s rations for steerage were enough to sustain the body, Grace felt, especially starved bodies such as these, but there was nothing for the spirit. The regular food—dull though it was—had reawakened an appetite the existence of which many had forgotten, particularly the young. Mary Kate was eating more and more, the evidence in the way her face had begun to fill out; Liam, too, wolfed down his food, licking every morsel from his fingers, and while he never asked for more, his eyes swept the basket hungrily for crusts and rinds. Only Siobahn still nibbled and sipped, tiny portions placed on her tongue as if the weight of anything larger was simply too hard to consume.
“Her poor wee body’s forgotten how to take its nourishment,” Alice often lamented. “Not that we had ever so much in the way of a meal before the troubles,” she’d confided once as she and Grace watched the two girls—Mary Kate ripping off great bites of bread with her little teeth, Siobahn picking at the edges of hers. “Our one’s a drinking man—was a drinking man—afore he took the pledge and made for America. But many a time he drank up his own wages and most of mine, as well, and too often we were hard by.”
Grace had taken Alice’s hand, listening there in the gloomy hold.
“’Twas a miracle, him taking the pledge and all, saving the drinking money for his passage. We were more peaceful with him gone,” she’d admitted shyly. “But I missed him, true enough, and the worry’s been terrible. I don’t think he knew how bad it was or he’d’ve sent for us. I saved every penny, and one day I could see the choice was a few weeks’ food out of it and then nothing, or passage to America. I’m sure we’ll find him, I’m sure of it.…” she said, more to herself than to Grace. “I’ve sent ahead to the address, and there’ll be others know how to find him.”
Grace had agreed, but in her heart she had misgivings and vowed to keep the family with her until their future was more secure.
Alice herself was not faring well; she suffered aches of the stomach and head when the sea was rough, which was nearly always. Many had suffered seasickness at the start of the voyage, but this had seemed to ease a week into the trip. Not so for Alice.
In the evenings, though, spirits were lifted as they all gathered on their bunks to listen to the fiddlers play the old songs, sometimes singing along, the music a comfort to those who felt sick and afraid. And then, as they settled down to sleep, low voices told legends of kings and castles, and of battles fought over the land—always stories of the land, of estates handed down through family lines, divided and divided again until they were fields handed down from family to family, fields the English owned but that belonged truly to the Irish who worked them. They told tales of warriors and lovers, curses and charms, fairies and spirits and mischief and war—always war as far back as they could remember—and of great mystical journeys like this one here. The old told these to any who would listen, the young listened to any who would tell, and together they got through those first frightening days when the land disappeared altogether and they were the last living people on the face of the earth.
As Grace listened, she rested and ate and held her daughter in her arms, her strength returning; blood coursed through a quickening heart, and the fog in her head began to lift. She grieved when the ache stopped and her breasts grew soft with the absence of milk, but she did not allow grief to overwhelm her, and when the last of the spotting disappeared, she crept up to the deck in the middle of the night and threw the old rags overboard with relief. It had been hard to keep herself clean, though she’d rinsed the rags out in buckets of salt water and dried them covertly on the back of her trunk. They’d remained damp and stiff, which chilled and chafed her, and she’d worried that the bleeding would come on again strong, or that she’d fall ill.
She had little faith in the competency of the ship’s doctor after meeting him at dinner in the saloon on their first night aboard. Draper, he was called—a stout, arrogant man with bushy side whiskers; he’d spouted on to his captive audience about the science of phrenology, which was revolutionizing the medical field. It was the shape of one’s head, he said pompously, that indicated the difference in int
ellectual breeding between the races; the prominent protrusion of the Irish jaw, he pointed out, was evidence of their lesser intelligence as seen in their base way of life, their dependence upon the government of others, and their stubborn dependence upon a singular, though unreliable, crop. In fact—he’d gone on, warmed by his wine and the rapt attention of the other passengers—the Irish and the African savage had very similar head shapes, being at the lower end of intellectual development, and would most likely never be able to assimilate into civilized society. Which, he added, was as God intended as an advanced society was better enabled by the utilization of a servant class.
As everyone took advantage of the break in his speech to partake of their meal, Grace, annoyed no end, asked him in the heaviest Irish brogue she could muster to please pass the dish of singular crop unless he planned on finishing the entire thing himself. His cheeks burning—though not with embarrassment, she thought—the doctor regarded her for a full minute, eyes roaming the shape of her head, before replacing the serving spoon in the mashed potatoes. The meal ended in uncomfortable silence, and Grace had vowed then to eat elsewhere rather than expose Mary Kate to such nonsense. Now, though, she regretted baiting him as Siobahn lay quite sick with fever.
She was not the only one. By nightfall, the retching had begun in earnest; voices called out for water in their delirium, but there was no going up as the weather had worsened. Alice sat awake all night with Siobahn, trying to cool her with cloths dipped in a bucket of seawater. By morning, the child’s lips moved but issued no sound; her eyes, when they opened but briefly, were glazed with pain and absent of recognition. Alice was desperate.
“Siobahn.” She pulled the girl up by her shoulders and shook her. “Siobahn, open your eyes now, child, and speak to your mammie! Siobahn!” She shook her more roughly.
Grace came awake from a troubled sleep as if bidden, sat up and went immediately back to the Kelleys’ bunk. She took the girl gently out of Alice’s hands, lowered her to the mattress, and felt her face and throat, relieved that the child still breathed.