Leaving Ireland

by Ann Moore

  “You’re too kind, I’m sure.” The warmth of his breath on her neck flustered her, and she turned imploring eyes on her brother. “Won’t you change your mind and come with us? You know you’ll enjoy yourself.”

  “Ah, now, Grace, we’ve settled this, but I’ll walk out with you. ’Tis time I made my way over to the Osgoodes. They’ll be waiting for me.”

  “Shall we go, then?” Jay offered Grace his arm, and she took it—a little nervously, he thought, which pleased him.

  From the moment they’d met, Grace had been a challenge, had always managed to unsettle him, whether slopping around the saloon with a bucket and a mop, her apron damp, hair flying around her face, children pulling at her skirts; or standing alone at a party, her best dress fashionably out of fashion, gorgeous hair swept back from her face as she listened to the conversation swirling around her. But Jay was the kind of man who appreciated challenge, especially when it came in the form of a desirable woman.

  They said good night to Sean outside—he was going the opposite way and wouldn’t hear of a ride—then got into Jay’s handsome carriage.

  “He’s an odd duck, your brother,” Jay said as they pulled away.

  “Ah, well, he only seems odd when he’s out with you swans.” Grace eyed Jay’s fine evening dress from the top of his perfect hat to the tips of his gleaming leather boots. “Put him in his own pond and he’s not so very different.”

  Jay snorted. “You’re as quick as he is. Maybe I won’t miss him tonight, after all.”

  “You most certainly will,” she replied. “For I’ve not half his mind.”

  “Twice the charm, however. And a thousand times the beauty. I’ll enjoy looking at you all evening even if you have nothing to say!”

  He laughed as the carriage rocked down the avenue, his knee now resting firmly against hers.

  “Ah, but your sister will miss him.” She shifted her position deftly while she spoke.

  He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, acknowledging the physical countermove in their little game.

  “True,” he admitted. “They never run out of things to talk about, those two—freedom fighters and abolitionists share a great deal of common ground. Florence is particularly fond of him, you know.”

  Grace looked up, surprised. “Is she?”

  “Very.” He leaned back, his leg once again touching hers. “She only hopes they can continue their friendship despite his courtship of the popular Miss Osgoode.”

  “He likes Miss Osgoode, true enough,” Grace allowed. “But I don’t know that he’s courting her.”

  “I have jumped to a conclusion,” Jay pronounced. “Please forgive me. Born of frustration, I suppose. He’s so often unavailable now, and when he is, he talks of nothing but this … group.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Anyway, we miss him. Florence especially, as he was a regular at her afternoon soirees and she so enjoyed him. All that stimulating conversation, you know. Gives one ideas.”

  “Was he … did he …” Grace hesitated. “Are you saying there was an understanding between them?”

  “Absolutely not,” Jay said quickly. “He’s an honorable man, your brother, and his intentions were always quite clear, even if—and I take you quite into confidence here, my dear—even if Florence hoped that his feelings might have increased in the course of their mutual admiration.”

  “I see.” Grace pulled on the fingers of her gloves. “I like Florence very much.”

  “And she likes you.”

  She allowed herself a brief look into his eyes and was glad to see he was sincere.

  “He’s not been himself,” she confided, then bit her lip, the desire to understand her brother conflicting with the anxiety of betrayal. “It’s not like him to turn away from a friendship like your sister’s. Or yours.”

  “Any of ours!” Jay exclaimed. “Though we may be somewhat responsible. He’s had to take a good deal of ribbing about all this. Everyone simply got fed up with his constant spouting off, and perhaps we were not as tactful as we might have been.”

  “Ah.” Grace wove her fingers together to keep them still.

  “We did humor him at first. Because he’s got such an incredible mind, and he’s so persuasive. But really, it’s just too much to ask any reasonable person to believe. All you have to do is dig into Joseph Smith’s background and …” He shrugged defensively.

  She turned to look out at the damp streets, gaslight shadows looming large across dark buildings.

  “Oh, I say—you may well think as your brother does, and then I have insulted you.” When Grace made no reply, he added, “I do apologize.”

  “If Sean says it’s the truth”—she struggled to remain loyal—“then I can only think I’m not seeing it because I’ve not looked hard enough.”

  “Or perhaps it is not there,” he posited. “These new religions can bind one up with so much high emotion that reason is no longer as logical as it might seem.” He glanced out the window. “We’ve arrived.”

  The carriage followed a circular drive, coming to a halt before the front entrance. Jay got out, gave Grace his hand, and escorted her to the door, which opened immediately. A butler helped with her burnoose, then took the young master’s hat, gloves, and overcoat.

  “Ah, there you are at last!” Florence came sailing into the foyer to greet them. “Don’t you look lovely tonight, Grace! Where’s Sean?”

  “Unwell,” Jay lied smoothly. “He wanted to come—made a great fuss about it—but I said absolutely not, not looking as he did.”

  “How ill is he?” Florence’s eyes clouded with concern. “Will we send a doctor?”

  “A long night’s rest and he’ll be good as new,” Jay assured her. “But I insisted Grace come out anyway, and she kindly consented.”

  “I’m so glad you did.” Florence was too gracious a woman to let her disappointment show, and now she took her guest’s arm companionably. “Come, let me introduce you around. Going to be a talky bunch tonight. I’ll miss your brother,” she confided in a low voice.

  “Aye.” Grace nodded. “He’s never without an opinion.”

  Florence laughed, and Grace allowed herself to be escorted into the main drawing room, where people stood or sat in small groups, already engaged in conversation. Florence made a number of introductions, pausing on the edge of a clique of young people comparing minstrel shows. Florence rolled her eyes and was about to move on, when one of them plucked at her sleeve.

  “Oh, Miss Livingston, do give us your opinion,” he implored, though his tone was not sincere. “You’re more familiar with darkies. Who does them best—Christy Minstrels or the Kentucky Rattlers?”

  The group as a whole appeared to be holding a singular breath, and Florence eyed them shrewdly.

  “They do themselves best,” she said pointedly. “I have seen many outstanding negros play their own music, tell their own jokes, and perform their own dances. And it was a far more rewarding entertainment than a stageful of white men who paint their faces black.”

  The young man persevered. “But surely, Miss Livingston, you understand that the minstrel show celebrates the life of the dar … negro? We see how they live, we understand them better, we are better able to accommodate them in civilized society—isn’t that right?” he asked the group, pleased with his own pomposity.

  Grace bit her lip, noting Florence’s sudden high color.

  “I had not thought you so dense, Mister … Tweedle, is it?”

  “Tweedham, actually.” His smile faltered.

  “Well, Mister Tweedle, far from celebrating the culture of a people brought over so forcibly from their homeland and treated so abominably, minstrel shows mock what is good and decent about them and makes light of their suffering. It seeks to convince us that they are too stupid and ignorant to mind what has happened. It is an insult, Mister Tweedle, a further affront to the many whose lives have been brutally subsumed in the creation of wealth for a comparative few.”

  The faces of Lily and her
children came before Grace, and she regarded Florence with renewed admiration.

  “I hope that answers your question, Mister Tweedle?” Florence stared him into submission.

  “Tweedham,” the young man stammered. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.” Florence took Grace’s arm once again and propelled her to the edge of the room. “I simply can’t abide that kind of ignorance. I’m sorry if you were uncomfortable.”

  “Not a bit.” Grace grinned. “It put me in mind of a woman I’ve come to know, of her life.”

  “Was she a slave?”

  “Aye. Free now, but she left people behind.”

  “I know many who’ve had to make that choice,” Florence said grimly. “Slavery is an abomination, a blight on the soul of this nation.”

  “You’re an abolitionist.”

  “A negrophile, according to not a few here tonight.” Her eyes twinkled darkly. “But they’ll catch up. It’s all coming to a head, you know, and there’ll be war over this if nothing is done. I dread that.” She shuddered. “The cost of freedom is so often paid in buckets of blood.”

  “Aye,” Grace said, and the two shared a look of understanding.

  “I must excuse myself,” Florence apologized. “May I leave you on your own for a moment?”

  “I’ll be fine. I like to hear what’s being said.”

  “You might sidle up to that group over there.” Florence pointed to a tight circle of men standing at the far end of the great hearth, obviously in the middle of a heated discussion. “You know Mister O’Sullivan from the paper. Most likely the topic is Ireland.”

  She left then and Grace make her way over to the circle on the pretext of warming herself by the blazing fire.

  “Duffy should never have issued an ultimatum in the first place,” argued a distinguished man in glasses. “Never divide loyalties.”

  “Just shows how unstable the Young Irelanders really were.” This from a round man in side-whiskers, who jabbed his finger with each point he made. “Mitchel’s a hothead. They’re all hot-heads. They thought nothing of dividing loyalties when they broke from O’Connell’s group!”

  “They gave it a great deal of thought,” O’Sullivan interjected. “Old Ireland refused to take up arms. The oppression was worse than ever. If it weren’t for Mitchel and Smith O’Brien, they’d still be—”

  “Starving to death?” Whiskers interrupted. “Dying like flies from disease? Emigrating by the thousands? Bah! I don’t see one drop of difference made by the Young Irelanders.”

  “Moot point now, gentlemen,” Glasses intoned. “Mitchel’s been transported—fourteen years in Bermuda. John Martin, ten years. Smith O’Brien sentenced to hang, and Meagher—”

  Grace stepped away from the fire and into their midst, unable to stop herself. “Are you saying, sir, that the sacrifice of these men means nothing to their country? That the lives given up were for naught?”

  Mister O’Sullivan cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, this is Missus Grace Donnelly, sister to our own great orator, Sean O’Malley.”

  The men nodded dutifully, though some were clearly irritated that their intellectual debate would now be diminished by female emotionality.

  “What we’re saying, Missus Donnelly,” Whiskers spoke carefully, as if to a child, “is that it has been too much sacrifice for too little gain, and had the Young Irelander movement stayed within the dictates of Old Ireland, that sacrifice would have been very much less.”

  “Aye, because O’Connell’s group refused to fight!” Emotion made Grace’s accent more pronounced. “Because in the end, they were more concerned with their own politics than with feeding their people!”

  “That’s hardly an accurate portrayal, Missus Donnelly.” It was all Whiskers could do not to jab his finger at her. “The Young Irelanders were led by coddled idealists, men who lacked the experience needed—nay, required—to negotiate the terms of Ireland’s independence. Just look at who they put in charge of carrying out the raids, no offense to your brother, madam,” he said. “He’s a brilliant man and probably the only reason they achieved as much as they did. But this McDonagh—an uneducated peasant, barely literate from what I gather, who had no choice really—was expected to organize armies out of ill-fed, ragged men like himself! What in God’s name were they thinking? Were there no better men than that?”

  Grace felt the heat of her blood spread across her chest, her neck, her cheeks. She willed herself to calm down, to resist slapping the maddeningly smug faces of these well-fed, well-dressed imbeciles.

  “McDonagh had more courage and conviction in the look of his eye than all of you put together,” she said in a voice that belied her rage. “He could’ve left Ireland. He had that choice. He could’ve come here to be with his family, the wife he loved …” She made herself stop. “But he didn’t. He stayed and rallied his countrymen, spoke for them, fought for them.” She looked at each of their faces, caught O’Sullivan’s nearly imperceptible nod, and went on. “In the middle of the worst hunger we’ve ever known, he gave us hope—he gave us something to live for! You support Irish independence by laying down your wallet. He supported it by laying down his life.” She jabbed her finger at Whiskers. “Who’s the better man?”

  Whiskers put his hand to his chest, feigning incredulity at such an attack. “My dear woman, we’re all of us familiar by now with the legend. I’m talking about the sad reality of a man unprepared for the burden placed upon him, used as a sentimental pawn by those in charge.”

  Grace was nearly blind with fury. “Truly you must be out of your mind to say such things. Morgan McDonagh was the finest man I have ever known in all my life.”

  “He’s the finest man every Irishman has ever known, my dear.” Whiskers turned to his companions, chuckling. “And they all know him. Every Irishman fresh off the boat has a personal story about himself and ‘The Great One.’”

  “If Missus Donnelly says she knows the man, then she does.”

  The voice behind Grace was serious and commanding, and it wiped the smirk right off Whiskers’ face.

  “Captain Reinders. You misunderstand me, sir. I was not doubting the truth of Missus Donnelly’s claim.”

  “It’s no claim—it’s fact,” Reinders stated. “You owe her an apology.”

  “Of course.” Whiskers frowned, then attempted to arrange his face in a show of contrition. “Please forgive me, Missus Donnelly, for any affront. I certainly have no doubt that McDonagh was indeed of your acquaintance.”

  “And a great man,” she added. “Better than you. Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. Captain Reinders. Mister O’Sullivan.”

  “Give my regards to your brother, Missus Donnelly.” O’Sullivan made a small bow away from the others, then lowered his voice. “Well done.”

  Grace crossed the foyer, shaken, and ducked inside the library. There was a low fire burning in the hearth, and she knelt on the rug in front of it, head down, eyes closed, pushing from her mind the words of that stupid, stupid man. Minutes passed in which she did nothing but listen to the steady tick of the mantel clock, the sigh of crumbling embers. She was startled from her solitude by the sound of pointed throat-clearing, but pulled herself together in that instant, composing her face before turning around.

  “I’ve brought reinforcements.” Reinders held up two crystal cups of dark punch. “May I come in?”

  He stood in the doorway, smiling awkwardly, and she realized he was wearing evening clothes. He looked different without his cap.

  “I’m afraid you’ve caught me hiding out.”

  “Don’t get up on my account. You look very comfortable sitting there.” He handed her a cup.

  She took it gratefully and they both drank, Reinders finishing his in one long gulp, then frowning into the empty cup as if it had betrayed him.

  “Guess I was thirsty,” he commented. “These cups are small, though. Punch cups are always small. Or maybe I was just thirsty.” Oh, God, he thought, here I go again. He smiled weak
ly, wishing he had his cap.

  “I almost didn’t know you without it, but I was never so happy to see your face,” she said gratefully. “You saved me from myself, and that’s the truth of it.”

  “Nonsense.” He put his cup on the mantel. “It’s just too bad Florence didn’t hear it. You’d be her new hero.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Grace covered her face with her hands. “I believe I was about to punch that man.”

  “Yes, I believe you were,” he said, oddly happy. “He deserved it and I should have let you.”

  “Ah, no.” She waved him off. “’Twould’ve been shameful, that—the Livingstons so good to my brother and all.”

  “So that’s how you know Florence.”

  “Aye. Sean was meant to come tonight, but”—she hesitated—“he couldn’t. So Jay brought me on my own.”

  “Jay Livingston is your escort?”

  She understood at once. “I know he’s a bit of a ladies’ man.”

  “A bit.” Reinders snorted. “I’m surprised your brother would send you out alone with him.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself now, Captain.”

  “I know.”

  They looked at one another for a long moment, until Grace shifted her gaze to the fire.

  “What’s the news from home?” he asked.

  “Not a word.” She looked up into his face and he caught a flash of panic, but then it was gone. “I’ve written many times over, but we hear nothing. Not from anyone, and now the weather’s changed or wouldn’t I go after them myself?”

  “Don’t even consider it,” he ordered. “All signs point to a long stormy winter, which as you know is much worse at sea.”

  “Aye.” She sighed. “I couldn’t put the children through that again.”

  “How are they? I’ve been … busy,” he apologized.

  “Mary Kate’s grand, and Liam’s doing better now he’s back with us. He’s a fine boy, full of wanting to make his fortune and lead the country someday.”