Things improved after dinner. Jim Daly insisted on taking her on his arm for a walk to see the sights of Mullingar. Colum and Kathleen followed them. Not that there’s all that much to see, Scarlett thought. It’s a pokey little town, just one street and five times as many bars as shops, but it does feel good to stretch my legs. The town square wasn’t half the size of Galway’s, and nothing was happening in it at all. A young woman with a black shawl over her head and breast came up to them with one cupped hand held forward. “God bless you, sir and lady,” she whined. Jim dropped a few coins into her hand, and she repeated the blessing while she curtseyed. Scarlett was appalled. Why, that girl was begging, bold as brass! She certainly wouldn’t have given her anything; there wasn’t any reason the girl couldn’t go out and work for a living, she looked healthy enough.
There was an outburst of laughter, and Scarlett turned to see what caused it. A group of soldiers had entered the square from a side street. One of them was teasing the begging woman by holding a coin out to her, higher than she could reach. Brute! But what can she expect, if she’s going to make a spectacle of herself, begging on a public street. And from soldiers, too. Anybody would know that they’d be coarse and rude . . . Although, she had to admit, you could hardly credit that bunch as soldiers. They looked more like big toys for a little boy in those silly fancy uniforms. Obviously they did no more soldiering than marching in parades on holidays. Thank heavens there weren’t any real soldiers in Ireland, like the Yankees. No snakes and no Yankees.
The soldier threw the coin into a filthy, scum-coated puddle and laughed again with his friends. Scarlett saw Kathleen’s two hands grab Colum’s arm. He pulled away and walked over to the soldiers and the beggar. Oh, Lord, what if he started lecturing them about being good Christians? Colum pushed up his sleeve, and she caught her breath. He looks so much like Pa! Is he going to wade in fighting?
Colum knelt on the cobbled square and fished the coin out of the noisome puddle. Scarlett let her breath out in a slow, relieved hiss. She wouldn’t for a minute worry about Colum holding his own against one of those sissy-britches soldiers, but five might just be too much even for an O’Hara. What did he have to make such a fuss over a beggarwoman’s problems for, anyhow?
Colum stood, his back turned to the soldiers. They were visibly uncomfortable at the turn their joke had taken. When Colum took the woman’s arm and led her away, they turned in the opposite direction and walked quickly to the next corner.
Well, that’s that and no harm done, thought Scarlett. Except to the knees of Colum’s breeches. I suppose they get plenty of wear and tear anyhow, him being a priest and all. Funny, I forget that most of the time. If Kathleen hadn’t dragged me out of bed at dawn I wouldn’t have remembered we had to go to Mass before we took the train.
The balance of the town tour was very brief. There were no boats to be seen on the Royal Canal, and Scarlett wasn’t interested in the slightest by Jim Daly’s enthusiasm for travelling to Dublin that way instead of by train. Why should she care about getting to Dublin? She wanted to be on the way to Adamstown.
Before long she got her wish. There was a small, shabby carriage outside Jim Daly’s bar when they got back. An aproned man in shirtsleeves was loading their trunks on the top of it; the valises were already strapped on the back. If Scarlett’s trunk weighed much less now than it had at the depot when Jim Daly and Colum put it in Daly’s wagon, no one mentioned it. When the trunks were secure, the shirtsleeved man disappeared into the bar. He returned wearing a coachman’s caped coat and top hat. “Name’s Jim, too,” he said briefly. “Let’s be going.” Scarlett stepped up and took a seat on the far side. Kathleen sat beside her, Colum opposite. “May God travel your road with you,” called the Dalys. Scarlett and Kathleen waved their handkerchiefs out the window. Colum unbuttoned his coat and took off his hat.
“I cannot speak for anyone else here, but I’m going to try to sleep a bit,” he said. “I hope you ladies will excuse my feet.” He removed his boots and stretched out, his stockinged feet on the seat between Scarlett and Kathleen.
They looked at each other, then bent to unlace their boots. Within minutes they, too, were settled with their hatless heads resting against the corners of the carriage and their feet flanking Colum. Oh, if only I had on my Galway costume, I’d be as snug as a bug, Scarlett thought. One gold-filled corset stay was stabbing her in the ribs no matter how she arranged herself. Nevertheless she drifted quickly and easily into sleep.
She woke once when rain began to spatter on the window, but soon the soft sound of it lulled her back to sleep. The next time she woke the sun was shining. “Are we there?” she asked sleepily.
“No, we’ve a way to go yet,” Colum replied. Scarlett looked out and clapped her hands at what she saw. “Oh, look at all the flowers! I could reach out and pick one. Colum, open the window, do. I’ll get a bouquet.”
“We’ll open it when we stop. The wheels stir up too much dust.”
“But I want some of those flowers.”
“’Tis only a hedgerow, Scarlett darling. You’ll have the same all the way home.”
“This side, too, you see,” Kathleen said. It was true, Scarlett saw. The unknown vine and its bright pink flowers were barely an arm’s length away from Kathleen, too. What a wonderful way to travel with walls of flowers on both sides of you. When Colum’s eyes closed, she slowly let the window down.
49
“We’ll be reaching Ratharney soon,” Colum said, “then a few more miles and we’re in County Meath.”
Kathleen sighed happily. Scarlett’s eyes sparkled. County Meath. Pa talked like it was paradise, and I guess I can see why. She sniffed the sweet afternoon through the open window, a blend of faint perfume from the pink flowers, a rich country smell of sun-warmed grass from the invisible fields beyond the thick hedgerows, and a pungent herbal tang from within the hedgerows themselves. If only he could be here with me, it would be perfect. I’ll just have to enjoy it twice as much, for him as well as me. She inhaled deeply and caught a hint of the freshness of water in the air. “I think it’s going to rain again,” she said.
“It won’t last,” Colum promised, “and everything will smell the sweeter when it’s past.”
Ratharney came and went so quickly that Scarlett hardly saw anything. One minute there was the hedgerow, then it was gone and solid wall was in its place and she was looking through the carriage window and another open window the same size with a face in it looking out at her. She was still trying to get over the shock of the stranger’s eyes appearing from nowhere when the carriage rattled past the last of the row of buildings and the hedgerow was back again. They had not even slowed their pace.
It slowed very soon. The road had begun to wind in sharp short bends. Scarlett had her head halfway through the window, trying to look at the road ahead. “Are we in County Meath yet, Colum?”
“Very soon.”
They passed a tiny cottage, moving at hardly more than a walk, so Scarlett had a good look. She smiled and waved at the red-haired little girl who was standing inside the door. The child smiled in return. Her front milk teeth were gone, and the gap gave her smile a special charm. Everything about the cottage charmed Scarlett. It was made of stone and the walls were bright white with small square windows, their frames painted red. The door was red also and divided in half, with the top half open into the house. The child’s head reached barely above the half door; beyond it Scarlett could see a brightly burning fire in a shadowy room. Best of all the cottage was topped by a straw roof, and the roof made scallops where it met the house. It was like a picture from a fairy tale. She turned to smile at Colum. “If that little girl had blond hair, I’d expect to see the three bears any minute.”
She could tell from Colum’s expression that he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Goldilocks, silly!” He shook his head. “My grief, Colum, it’s a fairy tale. Don’t you have fairy tales in Ireland?”
Kathleen began to laugh.
>
Colum grinned. “Scarlett darling,” he said, “I don’t know about your fairy tales or your bears, but if it’s fairies you’re wanting, sure you’ve come to the right place. Ireland is teeming with fairies.”
“Colum, be serious.”
“But I am serious. And you’ll have to learn about the fairies or you might get in fearful trouble. Most of them, mind you, are no more than a small nuisance, and there are those, like the shoemaker leprechaun that every man would like to have a meeting with—”
The carriage had stopped suddenly. Colum put his head out the window. When he was back inside, he was no longer smiling. He reached across Scarlett and seized the leather strap that moved the window. With a rapid pull, he raised the glass. “Sit very still and don’t speak to anyone,” he said in a harsh undertone. “Keep her still, Kathleen.” He thrust his feet into his boots and his fingers were quick with the lacing.
“What is it?” Scarlett asked.
“Hush,” said Kathleen.
Colum opened the door, grabbed his hat, stepped down into the road and closed the door. His face was like gray stone as he walked away.
“Kathleen?”
“Hush. It’s important, Scarlett. Be quiet.” There was a dull reverberating thudding sound, and the leather walls of the carriage vibrated. Even through the closed windows Scarlett and Kathleen could hear the loud clipped words shouted by a man somewhere in front of them. “You! Driver! Move along. This is no entertainment for you to gawp at. And you! Priest! Get back in your box and out of here.” Kathleen’s hand closed around Scarlett’s.
The carriage rocked on its springs and moved slowly toward the right side of the narrow road. The stiff branches and thorns of the hedgerow tore at the thick leather. Kathleen moved away from the rasp on the window and closer to Scarlett. There was another thud, and both of them jerked. Scarlett’s hand tightened on Kathleen’s. What was going on?
As the carriage edged along, they came upon another cottage, identical to the one Scarlett had thought idyllic for Goldilocks. Standing in the fully open door was a black-uniformed, gold-braid-trimmed soldier who was placing two small, three-legged stools atop a table outside the door. To the left of the door there was a uniformed officer on a skittish bay horse, and to the right of it was Colum. He was talking quietly to a small weeping woman. Her black shawl had slipped from her head, and her red hair was straggling over her shoulders and cheeks. She held a baby in her arms; Scarlett could see its blue eyes and the russet down on its round head. A little girl who might have been the twin of the smiling child at the half-door was sobbing into the mother’s apron. Both mother and child were bare-footed. A straggle of soldiers stood in the center of the road near a huge tripod of tree trunks. A fourth trunk hung, swaying, from ropes attached to the tripod’s apex.
“Move on, Paddy,” the officer shouted. The carriage creaked and tore along the hedgerow. Scarlett could feel Kathleen trembling. Something terrible was happening here. That poor woman, she looks like she’s about to faint . . . or go stark crazy. I hope Colum can help her.
The woman dropped to her knees. My Lord, she’s fainting, she’ll drop the baby! Scarlett reached for the door-latch, and Kathleen grabbed her arm. “Kathleen, let me—”
“Quiet. For the love of God, quiet.” The desperate urgency in Kathleen’s whisper made Scarlett stop.
What on earth? Scarlett watched, disbelieving her own eyes. The weeping mother was clutching Colum’s hand, kissing it. Above her head he made the sign of the cross. Then he raised her to her feet. He touched the head of the baby, and of the little girl, and with his two hands on her shoulders he turned the mother to face away from her cottage.
The carriage moved on, slowly, and the dull, heavy thudding began again, behind them. They began to move away from the hedgerow, into the road, then into the center of it. “Driver, stop!” Scarlett shouted before Kathleen could stop her. They were leaving Colum behind, and she couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Don’t, Scarlett, don’t,” Kathleen begged, but Scarlett had the door open even before the carriage ceased moving. She scrambled down to the road and ran back toward the noise, oblivious of her fashionable trailing skirts dragging through the thin mud.
The sight and sound that met her eyes and ears halted her, and she cried out in shocked protest. The swinging tree trunk battered the cottage walls again, and its front collapsed inward, shattering windows, showering bright bits of clean, polished glass. Red window frames fell into the dust raised by the tumbling white stones, and the two-part red door folded upon itself. The noise was horrendous—grinding . . . crashing . . . shrieking like a live thing.
For a moment, then, silence followed, and then another sound—a crackling that became a roar—and the thick, smothering smell of smoke. Scarlett saw the torches in the hands of three soldiers, the flames that were eating hungrily into the straw thatch of the roof. She thought of Sherman’s Army, of the scorched walls and chimneys of Twelve Oaks, of Dunmore Landing, and she moaned with grief and with terror. Where was Colum? Oh, dear heaven, what had happened to him?
His dark-suited form stepped hurriedly from the dark smoke that was billowing across the road. “Move on,” he shouted to Scarlett. “Back to the carriage.”
Before she could break the trance of horror that held her fixed in place, Colum was beside her, his hand clasping her arm. “Come along, Scarlett darling, don’t tarry,” he said with controlled urgency—“We must be going home now.”
The carriage lurched off with all the speed the horses could manage on the winding road. Scarlett was tossed from side to side between the closed window and Kathleen, but she barely noticed. She was still shaking from the strange and terrible experience. It was only when the carriage slowed to a quietly creaking movement that her heart stopped pounding and she could catch her breath.
“What was going on back there?” she asked. Her voice sounded odd to her.
“The poor woman was being evicted,” said Kathleen sharply, “and Colum was comforting her. You shouldn’t have interfered like that, Scarlett. You might have caused trouble for us all.”
“Softly, now, Kathleen, you mustn’t be scolding so,” Colum said. “There was no way for Scarlett to know, being from America.”
Scarlett wanted to protest that she knew worse, much worse, but she stopped herself. She wanted more urgently to understand. “Why was she being evicted?” she asked instead.
“They didn’t have the rent money,” Colum explained. “And the worst of it is, her husband tried to stop the process when the militia came the first time. He hit a soldier, and they took him off to jail, leaving her with the little ones and afraid for him besides.”
“That’s sad. She looked so pitiful. What will she do, Colum?”
“She’s a sister in a cottage along the road, not too far. I sent her there.”
Scarlett relaxed somewhat. It was pitiful. The poor woman was so distraught. Still, she’d be all right. Her sister must be in the Goldilocks cottage, and that wasn’t far. And, after all, people really did have an obligation to pay their rent. She’d find a new saloonkeeper in nothing flat if her tenant tried to hold out on her. As for the husband hitting the soldier, that was just unforgivable. He must have known he’d go to jail for it. He should have given some mind to his wife before he did such a stupid thing.
“But why did they destroy the house?”
“To keep the tenants from going back to live in it.”
Scarlett said the first thing that came into her head. “How silly! The owner could have rented it to somebody else.”
Colum looked tired. “He doesn’t want to rent it at all. There’s a little piece of land goes with it, and he’s doing the thing they call ‘organizing’ his property. He’ll put it all in grazing and send the fattened cattle to market. That’s why he raised all the rents past paying. He’s no longer interested in farming the land. The husband knew it was coming; they all know once it starts. They’ve got months of waiting before they’
ve got nothing left to sell to raise the rent money. It’s those months that build up the anger in a man and make him try to win with his fists . . . For the women, it’s despair that tears at them, seeing their man’s defeat. That poor creature with her babe on her breast was trying to put her little body and bones between the ram and her man’s cottage. It was all he had to make him feel like a man.”
Scarlett couldn’t think of anything to say. She’d had no idea things like that could happen. It was so mean. The Yankees were worse, but that had been war. Not destruction so that a bunch of cows could have more grass. The poor woman. Why, that could have been Maureen holding Jacky when he was a baby. “Are you sure she’ll go to her sister’s?”
“She agreed to it, and she’s not the kind to lie to a priest.”
“She’ll be all right, then, won’t she?”
Colum smiled. “Don’t worry, Scarlett darling. She’ll be all right.”
“Until the sister’s farm is organized.” Kathleen’s voice was hoarse. Rain spattered, then poured down the windows. Water sheeted the inside of the carriage near Kathleen’s head, gushing through a rip torn by the hedgerow. “Will you give me your big handkerchief, then, Colum, to stuff this peephole with?” Kathleen said with a laugh. “And will you say a priestly prayer for the sun to return?”
How could she be so cheerful after all that and with that huge leak on top of everything else? And, for goodness sake, Colum was actually laughing with her.
The carriage was going faster, much faster. The driver must be crazy. Nobody could possibly see through a downpour like this, and the road was so narrow, too, and full of curves. They’d tear ten thousand leaks open.
“Do you not feel the eagerness coming over Jim Daly’s grand horses, Scarlett darling? They think they’re on a race course. But I know a racing stretch like this could only be found in County Meath. We’re nearing home for sure. I’d better tell you about the little people before you meet a leprechaun and don’t know who you’re talking to.”
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