In the Time of Famine
Page 9
Grandmam was the first to begin the keening. Soon, the other women joined in.
After the music stopped, a disappointed Emily came away from the window to get ready for bed. As she slipped into her nightgown, a sudden wordless, howling, lament rose into the night air. She rushed to the window to listen. A cry crescendoed into a shrill howl, filling the starlit night. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and an inexplicable sadness came over her. She shut the window, muffling the mournful sounds, and got into bed. But they didn’t stop until long after she’d pulled the counterpane over her head.
Chapter Ten
November 1846
Ballyross, Ireland
Charles Trevelyan thought he had solved the “Irish problem,” but he had not. At first, only a handful of reports trickled in from counties in the west, the south, and the east about the conditions in Ireland. But soon the trickle became a torrent with every county reporting the same melancholy conclusion: The crop had failed utterly. In the year of our Lord, 1846, there would be no potatoes.
In spite of his personal beliefs, Trevelyan was forced to accept the fact that Ireland was in the throes of a crippling famine. Reluctantly, he authorized funding for additional public works. Within a week, four hundred thousand men applied for thirteen thousand jobs.
The weather during the fall and winter of 1846 was the most severe in recent memory. Weeks went by without a glimpse of the sun. Every day was the same as the day before. Cold and dreary. Then, the snow started falling in early November. A harbinger of the bitter winter to come.
The ones who had employment were the lucky ones. Still, they had to get to the worksite, which was usually some untraveled road far from the village. Some men, weakened by malnutrition and the bone-chilling cold that whipped through their tattered clothing, died on the road trying to reach the worksite. Others, too weak to work once they got there, fell helplessly by the side of the road, shivering and delirious.
The snow had been falling since dawn. Bracing against a bitter wind sweeping off the mountains, the Ranahan men and a work gang of fifteen attacked the frozen earth with picks and spades. Mechanically, as if in a trance, they went about their tasks, hacking at the ground, shoveling the gravelly soil, and prying loose the heavy stones that the frozen earth gave up with only the greatest of struggles. An emaciated man clothed in rags picked up a large stone. As he struggled to carry it out of the ditch, his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the ground.
Michael rushed to the man’s side and put his hand on his forehead. “He’s burnin’ up.”
Pat Doyle looked over Michael’s shoulder. “In the name of God, will ya look at his face? It’s goin’ black.”
Da grabbed his son’s coat collar and dragged him away.
Michael pulled free. “What’s got into you?”
Da’s eyes were wide with fright. “Come away...”
“Da, the man needs help.”
“It’s the fever,” Da hissed, pulling Michael away from the fallen man. “He’s got the fever.”
Less than a week later, Lord Somerville called an emergency meeting of the Board of Guardians to discuss what must be done about the alarming outbreak of typhus, which was spreading across the county with virulent speed and deadly results.
The four men sat in the great room close to the fireplace. Despite a roaring fire, it was barely able to keep the damp chill at bay.
Lord Attwood thumped his cane on the flagstone floor. “I will not spend another farthing on these damned Irish. The Crown continues to raise my taxes, my tenants are in arrears with their rents, and I’m paying for them to build bridges that span nothing and roads that lead nowhere. And now we’re asked to pay for a damn hospital to take care of them as well? Never, I say. Never.”
Somerville was sympathetic to Lord Attwood’s anger. He, too, was feeling the burden of these prohibitive costs, but he was also growing weary of dealing with his churlish behavior. Lord Attwood, Wicker, and even Rowe to a lesser extent, were long used to getting their own way. But now that things were not going their way, they had become as peevish and stubborn as children.
“You can complain all you wish about the heavy-handedness of Parliament,” Somerville said. “I am not in disagreement with you there. But the fact remains that hundreds are dying of typhus and, if something is not done immediately, I am told, we can expect an even greater outbreak.”
“Why can’t the British government pay for the hospitals?” Rowe whined.
Somerville, losing his patience with the thickheaded, ignorant property manager, tossed the letter that he’d just received from Whitehall at him. “Read it yourself, man. Trevelyan states quite clearly that his Majesty’s government will not pay for fever hospitals that in his view are the responsibility of the landlords. And so gentlemen, it has come to this. Either we set up our own fever hospital or do nothing and let disease ravage our tenants, and”—here he paused dramatically—“our own families as well. Disease respects neither class nor wealth.” He looked each of them in the eye. “Well, gentlemen, which will it be?”
Two doctors, who had just shipped in from England, watched workmen erect a hastily written sign that said: Fever Hospital. Under the sign, dozens of men, women, and children streamed into the hospital—some under their own power, others carried on backs or in wheelbarrows.
The younger of the doctors stroked his wispy blond mustache. “My God, is there no end to them?”
Dr. McDonald, an older man with bushy eyebrows and an unkempt beard, said, “This is just the beginning. I was in India during a typhus epidemic. Believe me, the worst is yet to come.”
The appearance of fever caused panic in the people. Over the span of centuries, the Irish peasant had learned to live with bad weather, drought, and even famine. But they had no understanding of the fever. What caused it? Where did it come from? How did it suddenly spring up and start its killing?
Lacking knowledge, they allowed superstition to fill the void. “Lame men carried the fever…” it was whispered. “It comes in on the cold night air…” others said with certainty. No, none of that. “Tis somethin’ in the soil…” others said. Though what that somethin’ was, no one could say.
The appearance of the “fever” had also changed the culture of the Irish. Irish peasants had always been renowned for their unstinting hospitality. By custom, a passing stranger was always welcome to share whatever meager food was available. It was unthinkable to send a hungry person away from the door without giving the poor soul something, even if it was nothing more than a half a potato and a sup of buttermilk.
But now, as fever spread across the land, the people grew fearful and wary. Strangers thought to be carrying the fever were shunned and, sometimes, stoned if they wouldn’t go away. This dread of fever eventually extended to family members as well. When a family member became stricken with the fever, other family members, fearful that the fever would spread to them, took the sick ones from the home and left them to die in a ditch.
Da was especially terrified of the fever. When he was a child, an outbreak of the bloody flux had killed off almost every child in Ballyross and left him near death for weeks. Now he took every opportunity to sternly lecture the family. “Stay away from strangers,” he cautioned. “Stay clear of people lying by the side of the road… Don’t drink from streams.”
Da, a man of many superstitions, was convinced that the night air carried the fever, and now he’d taken to standing in the doorway everyday at sunset. As soon as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, he’d bar the door and stuff rags in the cracks.
He was doing just that when Mam said, “What are you doin’, John? Dermot’s not home yet.”
Da forced a rag into the crack under the door. “He knows the rule.”
Mam could scarcely believe what she was hearing. “You’ll open it when he comes, John.”
“I will not.”
“Da,” Michael said. “It won’t hurt to open the door for just a moment.”
Michael said nothing. When his father was like this there was no talking sense to him. Besides, when the time came, he knew the old man would complain and curse Dermot, but he’d open the door just the same.
Still, for the next hour there was a tense silence in the cottage with everyone’s attention riveted on the barred door. Then, finally, the latch shook and Dermot thumped the door. “Open up,” he called out.
Mam started for the door, but Da blocked her way. “You’ll not open it.”
“For the love of God, tis your son out there.”
“He knows the rule. I’ll not risk the rest of the family.”
“John Ranahan, you’ll let your son in.”
Grandma started to keen.
Granda waved a hand at her. “Whist, woman.” But he, too, watched the barred door with growing concern.
Dermot thumped on the door harder. “Will someone open the door? I’m freezin’ out here.”
Michael knew his father was a stubborn man, but he couldn’t believe he could be this thickheaded. “Da, you have to let him in.”
“I have to do no such thing,” Da said with the desperate futility of a drowning man continuing to hold onto a rope even after he knows it’s not attached to anything.
Michael moved toward the door, but Da spread his arms wide, blocking him. The thought of striking his father had never entered Michael’s mind, not even the time he’d witnessed his father whip a ten-year-old Dermot with a strap until his brother’s back was a mass of welts. But he was considering it now.
With a violence Michael had never seen in his mother, she shoved him aside and confronted her husband. “For the love of God, have you gone mad, John Ranahan? Tis your son out there. Get out of the way, you great fool.” She shoved her speechless husband aside and undid the bar.
Dermot stood there scowling. “Were you gonna let me stay out here all night and freeze my—”
Michael grabbed him by his coat and yanked him into the room. Da quickly slammed the door and began stuffing the rags back into the cracks.
“Dermot,” Michael said through clenched teeth, “the next time you’re late, by God you will stay the night outdoors.”
All month had seen typical November weather—cold and rainy. But this morning when Emily awoke, she was pleasantly surprised by bright sunlight flooding her room and a gentle breeze rippling the curtains at the open window. Taking advantage of the unusually mild weather and seizing the opportunity to get out of the dreary house, she went to the garden to sit under an oak tree and read her Lord Byron. At thirteen, she’d discovered Byron and had immediately fallen in love with his poetry, even though she had to admit that she didn’t understand the half of what he wrote. Still, his words never failed to bring her to tears. Whether they were tears of sadness or melancholy or joy, she was never quite sure.
Now, thru misty eyes, she read:
The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine…
“Oh, so here’s where you are.”
With a start, Emily shut the book, mildly embarrassed to be caught reading poetry.
Somerville stepped from behind a thick hedge and approached. He feigned surprise at finding her here, but from his bedroom window he’d seen her come into the garden and decided this might be a good time to talk to her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Enjoying the garden? It is a lovely day.”
“I am going quite mad,” she said, irritated that he had intruded into her solitude. “I have nothing to do.”
Somerville stiffened at her grating tone, but he was determined not to let her get him angry. “Surely you can find some useful employment.”
She glared at him. “Perhaps I could. In London.”
Somerville suddenly thought of his wife. If only she were here. She was a conciliator with a true gift for bringing people with opposing views together. She was the one who could always handle their headstrong daughter. Then it occurred to him. If she were here, he wouldn’t be having this conversation. He would never have sent Emily away and there wouldn’t be this gulf between them.
“Emily, there are people on our lands who are dying of fever and starvation. I don’t think you need go as far as London to find people who need help.” In spite of his promise to himself, his tone dripped with sarcasm.
She rose, tucked her book into her apron pocket, and walked out of the garden without a word.
Somerville sat down heavily on the stone seat and stared at a nearby rose bush. In the spring it would bring forth beautiful red roses, but now there were only thorns on the barren, bare branches and they reminded him of death.
Lady Attwood’s sewing room was large, even by the standards of ostentatious landlords. But she’d stuffed it with so much furniture, antiques, and bric-a-brac that she’d collected on her many trips to the continent, that the room seemed positively claustrophobic.
As a noblesse oblige gesture, Lady Attwood had sent out invitations to the women in her social circle inviting them to make blankets for “the poor unfortunate wretches.”
“I do not sew,” Mrs. Rowe announced to her husband when she received the invitation.
“This is not about sewing!” the property manager had roared in response. “Lady Attwood has invited you to her home and you do not refuse an invitation to visit the Attwood home. Do I make myself clear?”
Mrs. Rowe was the first to arrive in an ill-fitting, vulgar lime-green dress. Now she sat in the sewing room looking bored and put upon, along with a dozen other ladies, including Emily.
When Emily had received her invitation, she’d almost thrown it away. But then she remembered her father’s biting admonition and it gave her pause. He was exaggerating of course. Certainly, there were some who were destitute, but had that not always been the case in Ireland? For as long as she could remember, there had always been barefoot, undernourished children and their emaciated parents living in small, dark hovels. What was so different this time? Desperate for something to occupy her time, she decided to accept Lady Attwood’s invitation.
The ladies were visibly relieved when after an hour of inept and clumsy effort to sew blankets, the maid arrived with the tea service. As tea was poured, the ladies helped themselves to pastries and commiserated with each other about what a great inconvenience this famine had become.
“My cook tells me it’s impossible to get a decent cut of beef,” Mrs. Wicker said.
“At least you have a cook,” Mrs. Rowe countered. “Mine up and went to America last week and, would you believe it, the ignorant woman gave me absolutely no notice?”
Emily looked out the window at the western mountains shrouded in low hanging clouds. She was so weary of this talk. She’d been hearing it at dinner parties and hound hunts since the crop failed in 1845. At first she found the mutterings of these patronizing women amusing, but now it had become simply tedious.
Lady Attwood put her teacup down and surveyed the output of their handiwork—a handful of badly sewn blankets.
“Well, ladies, I do believe we’ve done quite enough for today.”
There was an audible sigh of relief in the room.
Lady Attwood turned to Emily. “My dear, would you be so kind as to see that these blankets are distributed to the needy?”
Emily smiled weakly. “Of course, Lady Attwood, I should be glad to.”
Chapter Eleven
Happy to be away from Lady Attwood and those dreadful women, Emily snapped the whip over the horse’s head and the little trap jumped forward. As the horse settled into a comfortable trot, she glanced uneasily at the blankets on the seat next to her, wondering what in the world she was going to do with them.
The trap came over a rise and she saw a man walking toward her. This time she recognized Michael. Since that day when Shannon had run wild, she’d been feeling guilty about not thanking him properly. At first she
’d thought of inviting him to the house, but she quickly dismissed that idea. One did not invite a tenant farmer to one’s home—even if he did save one’s life. Then she thought of bringing something to his cottage. A small gift perhaps. But what? She had no idea what they could use or what they needed. And so she had done nothing. Now, here was a chance to remedy that.
She reined in the horse. “Good day, Michael.”
Michael felt a chill course through his body when she said his name. He stopped and took his hat off. “Good day.”
There was an awkward silence. Emily bit her lip. What is the matter with me? I’ve lived in London for God’s sake. I’ve attended salons and conversed comfortably with intellectuals, poets, and artists. So why am I acting like a flustered schoolgirl in the presence of this tenant farmer?
Emily avoided looking into his dark blue eyes and handed Michael the blankets. “We ladies made these blankets for the needy. Perhaps you would be good enough to see that they are distributed to the appropriate recipients.”
Michael fingered the blankets carefully and his smile faded. “You ladies made these did you? All five of them? It must have taken a fearful amount of time.” His tone shifted from mocking to bitter. “Tell me, is it a miracle you expect from me? Like the loaves and the fishes? Do you think I might turn these five blankets into five hundred overnight? Because that’s what’s needed. Maybe five thousand for all I know. Look around you, woman. People are starvin’. They’ve no roofs over their heads. They’re freezin’ in makeshift bog homes, dyin’ of the fever. And you give me five blankets!”