In the Time of Famine

by Michael Grant

  Weakened from lack of sleep and little food, she was nodding off after having just replaced the soiled straw when she heard footsteps outside the cottage. She stiffened. Every day she listened for the sounds of footsteps outside, praying it was Dermot, and yet dreading that it might be someone to tell her that Dermot was dead, or someone carrying her husband home with the fever.

  The door swung open and Emily ducked into the cottage.

  “Mrs. Ranahan, I’m Emily Somerville.”

  “Yes, I know you are,” Mam said, stunned to see Lord Somerville’s daughter actually here in her cottage.

  “I just heard Michael was sick and I’ve come to help.”

  “Oh, this is not the work for a fine young lady such as yourself.”

  Emily knelt down and touched Michael’s feverish forehead. She was shocked at his appearance. He’d been thin for a long time, but now he was positively gaunt. But at least he didn’t have that certain look of death, the kind of look that would have caused Dr. McDonald to send him to the dying room.

  “Has he been vomiting?”

  “Yes. Constantly.”

  “Has he been conscious?”

  “Not really.”

  Emily could see that the woman was on the verge of collapse. Gently, she helped her to her feet and made her lie down on her own pallet. “You get some rest. Let me tend to things here.” The exhausted woman was asleep before Emily could spread a threadbare blanket over her.

  Emily turned her attention to Michael. He was deathly pale and his shirt was soaked through with perspiration. Recalling her experiences in the Fever Hospital, she realized that Michael could have any number of diseases. Typhus—or as the Irish called it, the “Black Fever”—caused the face to swell and the skin to turn a dark congested hue. Fortunately, it was usually not fatal. Then there was “Relapsing Fever,” which caused high temperatures and vomiting. She prayed he didn’t have that. Those afflicted with Relapsing Fever seemed to recover after several days, but there was always a relapse, and the whole cycle of fever and vomiting was repeated again. Emily had seen the cycle repeat itself as much as four times, but most patients, exhausted and debilitated, died well before that. She prayed it was only dysentery, whose symptoms were fever, vomiting, and violent evacuations. If she could keep plenty of fluids in him, he would survive. In the Fever Hospital, Dr. McDonald’s main concern with dysentery was that it often turned into bacillary dysentery. Almost everyone who contracted bacillary dysentery died.

  Oh, what’s the difference what he has, she chided herself as she dipped a rag into a bucket of cool water. I’m going to make him well and that’s that.

  For the next ten days, Emily and Mam took turns tending to Michael and it seemed as though the fever would never break. At the end of the day, an exhausted Da would straggle in from the worksite, gaze at Michael, his brow knitted with worry, and ask how he was doing. He’d stopped asking Mam if Dermot had come home. Looking more haggard and thin with each passing day, he would then go sit by the fire and stare at it in silence until it was time to eat.

  Sometime into the third week, Michael’s fever broke. He opened his eyes, saw Emily staring down at him, and thought that he’d died and gone to heaven. Then Da peered over her shoulder. “Well, I guess you didn’t die.”

  Michael rubbed his throbbing head. “I think I may be wishin’ I had.”

  Michael fell into a deep sleep and slept peacefully well into the next evening. When he awoke he was lightheaded and every part of his body ached, but at least the fever was gone.

  “Did Emily go?” he asked Mam.

  “No, she’s outside.”

  Overjoyed that she was still here, Michael pulled on his trousers and a shirt and went outside. She was sitting on the stone wall bordering the potato field.

  “Why do you always sit in the dark?” he asked, echoing her question to him.

  He could see her smile in the moonlight. “It’s easier to remember the way things used to be.”

  He wanted to take her in his arms and bury his face in her sweet-smelling hair and tell her he loved her. Instead, he said, “Thanks for takin’ care of me.”

  “I’m glad you’re well again, Michael.”

  In the moonlight they studied each other in silence. When Emily had come into the cottage that first day and saw him lying on the bed, pale, feverish, and close to death, she thought she would die. Her only thought was to make him well. To make him live. Now, as she looked at him, she wished that he would say what she, herself, was longing to say. That she loved him. But he stood with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, silently studying the trees in the distance.

  Well, she thought, if he won’t say something, I will. “Michael, I—”

  “Hello...”

  When Michael turned and saw Dermot coming up the road swaying on his short, bandy legs, a great anger rose in him. He wasn’t sure if was because Dermot’s absence had worried Mam sick or because he had spoiled this wonderful moment alone with Emily.

  “Where have you been?” he said, trying, and failing, to keep the anger out of his voice.

  “Lookin’ for work.”

  “You had work here.”

  “Bustin’ rocks for old Tarpy? I wanted somethin’ more than that.”

  “And did you get it?” Michael asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No.”

  Mam and Da heard Dermot’s voice and came of the cottage. Mam rushed to her son and wrapped her arms around him. “Dermot, thank God you’re alive. You’ve worried the life out of me.”

  Dermot pushed her away. “Sure I can take care of meself, Mam.”

  Da, standing rigidly in the doorway, made no attempt to approach his son. “So, you’re home, is it?” he said in a voice constricted with rage.

  “Aye. And I’m ready to go back to work with you and Michael.”

  “You’ve been sacked.”

  “Old Tarpy sacked me?”

  “Don’t act surprised, Dermot,” Michael said. “He warned you. We all warned you.”

  Emily stood up. “Well, I think I’ll be going,” she said, not wanting to witness a family fight.

  “I’ll walk with you,” Michael said.

  “No, you need to rest up and get your strength back. The fever can return if the body is not strong.”

  He didn’t protest. He was still feeling lightheaded and weak and wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk her to Nora’s cabin and make it back. “Well, thank you again, Emily. For everything.”

  “It’s nuthin’,” she said with a sly smile.

  Michael watched her go down the road and it suddenly occurred to him that when she’d said “It’s nuthin’,” she was repeating what he’d said to her when he’d saved her from going into the ditch with Shannon.

  When Michael went into the cottage, Da and Dermot were still arguing.

  “Well, what am I to do now?” Dermot asked.

  “You’ll work in the soup kitchen with Mr. Goodbody and Miss Emily,” Da said. “They need the help. Since the Works opened your brother and me have not been able to help out.”

  Dermot stomped out the door and went to sit on the same wall Emily had been sitting on. Work in the soup kitchen. The only thing he hated more than working with the road gang was working in the soup kitchen. He resented washing the endless pile of soup bowls and he detested the pathetic stream of beggars who came every day for their soup and a bite of bread.

  After the life he’d been living for the past three weeks, the thought of working in the soup kitchen was unbearable. He, Jerry Fowler, and a few other lads had roamed the countryside near the town of Innismorn, twenty-five miles from Ballyross. At first they only stole from homes and barns. But when that didn’t yield enough money, they moved up to stopping carriages on the road and relieving the wealthy passengers of their money and jewels. The risks were higher, but so were the rewards. In the beginning, he’d been terrified that he’d be shot or arrested, but the fear soon gave way to a surge of great excitement e
very time they stepped out into the roadway and stopped a carriage.

  With more money to spend than he’d ever seen in his life, he and Jerry and the others lived and ate well. But then, two nights ago, something went terribly wrong. Dermot shook his head at the memory of it. They’d followed their usual plan —posting someone to stand across the street from the town’s hotel. As soon as he saw a carriage being loaded with fancy dressed men and women, he’d run off to tell Fowler and the others. Then the whole group would wait two miles down the road for the arrival of the carriage. It was so easy, it was like snatching chickens in a hen house. Until that night.

  Dermot couldn’t get the images out of his mind. The carriage came around the bend. Following a prearranged plan, they jumped out into the roadway just as the carriage was upon them. Dermot’s job was to grab the bridle and hold the horses still while Jerry and the others surrounded the carriage and robbed the passengers. As he usually did, Jerry stepped up to the carriage waving a firearm and announced, “I have a pistol. Don’t resist and there’ll be no trouble.”

  Usually, the sight of the pistol was enough to start the passengers throwing their valuables into the roadway. But this time, he’d barely gotten the words out of his mouth, when a shot rang out. At first, Dermot thought Fowler had fired the shot, but then one of the lads standing behind Fowler fell backward into the dirt. Frightened and confused by the sudden turn of events, Fowler fired wildly into the air and raced for the trees. “Run lads,” he shouted. “Tis a trap.”

  Later, when Dermot met up with Fowler, he found out that one of the passengers had a firearm and had killed young Terry Wall, a sixteen-year-old runaway who had just joined up with them a week earlier. Jerry told Dermot to go home and lay low and promised he’d meet up with him later.

  On the long walk home, Dermot comforted himself that at least he still had some money. He put his hand into his pocket and was stunned to discovered there was nothing left. Not a farthing. My God, where did it all go?

  Like most men unaccustomed to using currency, he’d spent his ill-gotten gains with reckless abandon on women, drink, and food. He’d just assumed that there would always be more money. But those days were over. At least for now.

  As Dermot sat on the wall, staring at the cottage—which to his eye was nothing more than a sorry pile of mud and thatch—the rage in him grew. It was a rage fueled by his knowledge that there was a better life out there than breaking rocks, or washing soup bowls, or farming another man’s land.

  In his travels with Jerry Fowler, he’d experienced that better life. And if it meant stealing and robbing to have that life, so be it. Anything was better than this miserable existence.

  “All right,” he muttered into the night. “I’ll work in the soup kitchen. But just until Jerry Fowler comes back.”

  Chapter Thirty Four

  It had been almost a week since Dermot returned home. And every day, prodded by Da’s threat of banishment from the house, he went to the soup kitchen in the old village church. Conditions, he noted with disgust, were even worse than before he’d left. More and more starving people were coming for the food, and he was kept so busy that he hadn’t a minute to himself. Worse, now that the soup kitchen had been relocated to the church, he also had nosy old Father Rafferty looking over his shoulder all day long, watching his every move.

  It was toward the end of the day when Dermot, surrounded by a mountain of dirty soup bowls, saw his brother slip into the church. It amused him to see his big, serious brother so addle-headed over a woman. Even with Moira he was never like this. Michael always found some lame excuse for coming to the church after his work on the roads, but he didn’t fool Dermot. Still, Dermot couldn’t understand how his brother could be sweet on Emily Somerville. True, she was the most beautiful girl Dermot had ever seen, but she was the landlord’s daughter for Jasus’ sake—or was it ex-landlord’s daughter? Whatever. His brother had no chance of winnin’ her and Dermot thought him daft for moonin’ over somethin’ he could never have.

  Michael was helping Emily move a cauldron over the fire when an uncharacteristically animated Marcus Goodbody barged in waving a newspaper. He thrust the newspaper at Michael. “Read this, Michael, and tell me what thee thinks.”

  Michael backed away. “I… I can’t read,” he mumbled, glancing at Emily.

  “Oh.” Embarrassed for Michael, Goodbody slipped the newspaper behind his back. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Emily broke the embarrassed silence. “What does it say, Marcus?”

  Goodbody waved the paper in the air. “Queen Victoria is coming to Ireland next week.”

  Emily wiped her hands on her apron. “Well, I for one am glad. Perhaps when the queen sees how bad things are here, she’ll make Mr. Trevelyan do more.”

  “That was my thought,” Goodbody agreed. “When she sees conditions here, I am sure she will—”

  “She’ll not do anythin’,” Dermot snarled. “She’s a bloody Brit, just like the rest of them. They all want us dead and that’s a fact.”

  “Mind your tongue,” Michael said, stunned by the vehemence in Dermot’s tone. “You’re in the house of God.”

  Dermot threw his rag down. “Am I done here?” he asked Emily.

  “Yes, Dermot.” There was still a pile of bowls to be washed, but she knew that if she didn’t give him permission to go, he would only slip out anyway. “You’re free to go.”

  Dermot stomped out of the church without another word.

  Once outside, his scowl quickly turned to a smile when he saw Jerry Fowler across the road, standing under a tree.

  “Jerry, where have you been?” Dermot asked, happy to see the man he considered his best friend.

  “Back in the soup kitchen are ya?”

  “Aye. And they’re killin’ me with the endless washin’ and dryin’.”

  “What about the Works?”

  “That’s gone. Old Tarpy sacked me.”

  “Ah, to hell with Tarpy. Dermot, I want you and Kevin to meet me at Scanlon’s cottage tonight.”

  “Why?”

  He pulled Dermot close and whispered, “I’m plannin’ somethin’ big. Very big.”

  After supper that night, while Mam and Da were getting ready for bed, Dermot slipped outside. Michael followed. “Dermot, don’t you be goin’ off again, you hear? Da has told you. You go away again, you’re not to come back.”

  “For Jasus’ sake, I’m just goin’ to see Kevin. Can’t I do even that without you getting’ on me?”

  Dermot met Kevin at the crossroads and the two men tracked across a barren field to the ruins of Scanlon’s tumbled cottage. It was a dark night with no moon and they could barely make out the jagged edges of the cottage walls against the dark sky.

  Kevin listened for a moment. “He’s not here,” he said, sounding almost relieved. “Let’s go.”

  In the past year Dermot had come to realize that for all his great size Kevin was a bit of a mollycoddle—especially after Billy had been transported to Australia. For weeks after, Kevin would jump like a frightened field mouse every time he caught sight of a wagon coming down the road, thinking it might be the peelers again. When they were kids everyone was afraid of Kevin because he towered over them all. But, now, Dermot realized, Kevin was nothing but a coward who hid his fear behind his great size.

  They were about to leave when a voice came out of the darkness, frightening the life out of both of them. “Over here.”

  Fowler appeared from behind a shattered wall holding a candle. “Over here. I’ve somethin’ to show the pair of you.”

  They followed Fowler behind the wall and Dermot was surprised to see the two lads he’d recently run with, and another man he’d never seen before.

  “Dermot, you know Sean and William. And this”—he pointed to the stranger—“is Frankie. And this big lad here, is Kevin.”

  Fowler pulled a bottle of poteen out of his coat pocket and handed it to Dermot. “Take a pull and pass it.” He rubbed his ha
nds together. “Tonight, lads, we’re about to do something that will strike a blow for freedom. It’ll be one for the history books, I promise ya.”

  Dermot’s stomach tighten in fear—the same way it had when Fowler first proposed robbing houses and barns, and then carriages. Still, there was something in Fowler’s tone—a certain smoothness, a confidence—that had a way of allaying all fear and doubt. Whatever it was, Dermot knew that Jerry Fowler could talk him into going anywhere and doing anything.

  While the other men took their swigs, Fowler put the candle on a flat rock and unfolded a map. “Gather round.”

  He stuck his finger on a point on the map. “Right here. She’ll be landing in Cork Harbor this Friday night.”

  “Who?” Dermot asked.

  In the flickering candle light, Fowler’s grin was malignant. “Queen Victoria. Who else?”

  He moved his finger to another point. “And right here is Black Rock Castle, where she’s to have lunch on Saturday next.”

  “How do you know that?” Kevin asked.

  Fowler nodded toward the stranger. “Frankie, here, works in Dublin Castle. He’s our eyes and ears.”

  Fowler’s dirty finger traced a road from the harbor going toward the castle. “And right here in this bend in the road is where we’ll do it.”

  “Do what?” Dermot asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “Assassinate her. What else?”

  Until now, the others had been silent. They knew the kind of man Fowler was and sensed that he was planning something dangerous. But at Fowler’s announcement, everyone gasped at the audacity of it.

  “You’re mad,” Sean sputtered.

  William shook his head. “We’d never get away with it…”

  “Anyone else have anything to say?” Fowler asked, unfazed by their objections.

  Dermot and Kevin shook their heads.

  “Have you forgotten what the Brits have done to us?” Fowler went on. “They’ve starved us, they’ve taken our crops out of the country, and they’ve stood by and watched us die of famine and disease. Lads, this is a chance of a lifetime. A chance to strike a blow for freedom. We must let the bastards know we’re not a bunch of sheep to be slaughtered in meek silence.”