The Big Wind

by Beatrice Coogan

  Then he went on to tell them a tale of an anticlimax to the Penal System. The people of one small town had completed, just before Christmas, the first church that had been built there since the persecutions of previous centuries had razed its monasteries and abbeys. It had been built by the efforts and labour and contributions of the poorest of people. ‘This Christmas Day gone past,’ he cried, and now the beautiful voice throbbed with feeling; there were no more oratorical tricks, no phrase-making, and as always when he was deeply moved, its melting pathos plucked at the heart strings of his listeners, ‘for the first time in more than a century and a half the congregation knelt before an altar that was not erected in a cave or a garret. There was no curtain hung between the priest and his flock to enable them to swear with truth, if put to it, that they knew not the identity of the Mass celebrant.’

  He caught up a handful of the folds of his great cloak and threw them across his shoulder. Not a soul in the outermost edges of the multitude missed one breath that now came in tremulous tones. ‘On the night of Epiphany, that Feast that celebrates the Coming of the Wise Kings with their offerings that were the symbols of Faith and Homage and Self-denial, on that night as you all know too well the Big Wind blew.’ He dropped his voice almost to a whisper, but not a syllable was missed. ‘That little church was blown to pieces. The stones that were hand carved with love and devotion were scattered for miles across the countryside. There is nothing left of that great act of faith and human endeavour.’

  He raised his voice in sudden thundering. ‘Who will rebuild that church? Where are the lords of that soil and the rightful protectors of its people?’

  Now the Scout and the enlightened ones knew where he was leading their thoughts. He was on his pet theme: the Repeal of the Act of Union that had deprived Ireland of its native government, and transferred its legislature to England.

  ‘They have abandoned the country that they have betrayed. These landlords are the perpetrators of the Union that has caused misery they shirk to share. They do not like to stand in the sphere of their own infamy. They have taken shelter in England where there are no hungry Irish faces to look shame upon them. They are gone where they can enjoy in peace the plunder of the betrayal, where they can squander in luxuries the rack-rents that their agents wring from their impoverished tenants in Ireland.’

  From the centre of the crowd came a cat-call. It was Sealy Ring, a middleman, notorious for his exploitation of the tenants of his absentee employer.

  The crowd would have lynched him, but the voice that had held them spellbound was now wheedling. O’Connell had pushed the enormous chimney pot hat to a rakish angle that displayed the rich dark curls, powdered with silver. He dropped into the vernacular brogue. ‘Lave him be, boys,’ he shouted. ‘Sure I can’t find a wisp of hay for every ass that brays!’

  As the crowd laughed and cheered he tried to move away, but there wasn’t space in front of him to move a foot. In vain did the innkeeper and ostlers and police cry, ‘Make way for the Liberator!’ Finally he was lifted up on the shoulders of some men and borne into the hall of the inn.

  The excitement over. Big John sought out Mrs. Hogan, the nurse from Dublin who was astonished to learn that the infant O’Carroll had already arrived at Kilsheelin Castle.

  *

  ‘It will be a gathering of the giants! How I wish I could come downstairs for the dinner.’ Margaret addressed the remark to her husband’s back. Mr. O’Connell and the member for Tipperary, Mr. Richard Lalor Sheil, were coming to dine at Kilsheelin Castle. She wished Roderick would not keep looking out of the window at that field. Every time he came into the room he moved as though drawn from her bedside to that window. It was sad to think that the giant oak was uprooted on which he had carved their entwined hearts and initials. The lovely tea-parties they used to have under its branches! She sighed. Immediately he came to her.

  ‘Are you tired, darling?’ He placed his hand on the hair that hung smooth and glossy again across her shoulders. She reached up and took his hand.

  ‘I was just thinking of the day that you carved our names under that funny twisted branch on the lovely tree that has gone.’

  Now he sighed. ‘There are a great many lovely trees gone.’ He had given her no idea of the extent of the damage. She did not know there had been lives lost. She knew that the turret had been hit because a piece of it had actually come down the chimney into her room. She knew that a number of trees had been blown down; but she did not know that the number ran into thousands. She knew, too, that some beasts had been killed, but she had not been told that a great herd of cattle had been either drowned or killed by falling trees and flying missiles.

  She would have been distressed to know that the herdsman who did the killing had been hard set to find a sheep to kill for tomorrow’s dinner for such distinguished guests. The thought of the dinner made her sigh again, and the sigh made him laugh. He slipped his arm around her shoulder.

  ‘What a dismal duet! We seem to do nothing but sigh at each other. Wait until you see Mr. O’Connell. He will blow away your sighs. He comes into a room like a current of fresh air, and everything and everyone brightens and quickens.’

  She snuggled into him. ‘You admire him so much that I feel a little jealous!’

  ‘Good! It is good for my morale to know that I can make beautiful women jealous. But I remember when I was about fifteen father introduced me to Daniel O’Connell. I thought he was a most superb specimen, powerful shoulders, eyes and lips that a woman would admire.’

  ‘Do you think that I shall?’

  ‘You shall not. But it was his voice that I remember most. It possessed a cadence that was unforgettable. I noticed it again the other evening.’

  ‘He seems to have been your hero. Who was your heroine?’

  ‘My heroine was a brown-haired demoiselle whom I saw one day skating on a lake in Belgium. I watched until she came out of the Park of Nightingales with her mama and her sister and her fierce old bonne who was carrying their skates. They all got into a voiture and drove off. I followed it on foot at a gallop until it stopped outside a certain villa in the Place de l’Église. She is still my heroine.’

  She put up her hand and entwined her fingers in his. ‘I was no heroine on Sunday night.’

  He held her to him. ‘You were magnificent. I can’t bear to think of what you went through on that night of horror.’

  They were silent for a moment until with a little shiver she said, ‘Let us forget it. Let us talk of the preparations for tomorrow’s dinner party. O mon Dieu! If only Mrs. Mansfield were better! Mrs. Stacey is so gauche. How is la pauvre Mansfield?’

  Sir Roderick went to the window again. Let us forget it, he thought, bitterly. Let us forget it and how is la pauvre Mansfield? Where shall I seek forgetfulness? Out there in the peaceful landscape of my demesne? Out amongst my fallen trees, my cattle! Out in the arid bed of my wind-stolen land! Margaret assessed his graceful outline, tall, lithe, a fraction under six feet, the dark pallor of his complexion framed in side-whiskers, the thick, up-swept hair, not black, not brown. She could not see the long blue-grey eyes but she knew that they did not hold that lazy look of his that women found so fascinating.

  ‘Rodereeck,’ she called in sudden panic, ‘why do you not answer me?’

  He turned to her. ‘What was it you asked me? Oh, yes, Mrs. Mansfield. She is getting on all right.’

  ‘But Rodereeck, you said, and so did the doctor, that she was slightly stunned, and that she had sprained her shoulder under the big brass candle holder, Rodereeck.’ She pronounced his name the way she now did in stress or pleading. ‘Are you keeping something from me?’

  For a moment he thought of telling her the truth. Someone of the staff was sure to let it out. No one ever spoke of the housekeeper without saying, ‘Poor Mrs. Mansfield, God rest her.’ Then he looked at her dilated pupils, and remembered the strange way she had looked yesterday when she said she thought the bed was swaying, and had made a gesture to
wards the bed pillar as though to support herself. He came over to her with a quick stride. ‘Of course I’m not keeping anything back, you silly girl. But it is more than a sprain. Her shoulder appears to be broken. She—she was too stunned to allow of a closer examination that first morning. I had such a job procuring a foster-nurse for my daughter that I did not discover the extent of Mrs. Mansfield’s injuries until Dr. Mitchell’s visit yesterday.’

  ‘Roderick, you look so—so triste when you look through that window out at your great inheritance. I feel that you grieve that it was not a son—oh!’ Tension had quickened the dull pain that had never left her head since some moment after one of the crashes during that awful night. Roderick turned at the sound. He had indeed been grieving that the child was not a son. Inheritance, did she say! Who was to inherit what? He that troubleth his house, said the proverb, shall inherit the wind. Heaven knows I have never troubled my house!

  He took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away her tears. ‘If I seem strange and preoccupied it is because there should be the slightest dwindling of that heritage for our child. Surely you do not think that I could be disappointed with that solitary little blossom that dared the elements.’

  There came a knock at the door and Nurse Hogan came in with the child. Margaret took it in her arms. ‘It is the tiniest baby I have ever seen.’

  ‘Your Ladyship, for a baby that has come nearly six weeks before its time it is coming on wonderfully.’

  Sir Roderick touched the tiny cheek. ‘Do you know, Margaret,’ he said, ‘I have a dreadful suspicion that we have a red-haired woman in the family.’

  ‘Don’t you like red hair? Let me see. Maman and Papa are both brown, very brown. Yvette is golden. Grand’mère du Clos was dark, and I do not know what colour Grand’mère O’Regan was. She had died in Ireland before Papa left there. But he always said that I resembled her the most.’

  ‘She must have been pretty.’

  The nurse stood by and marvelled at the way the Quality paid compliments to each other, an’ they married, the same as if they were only courting.

  ‘What colour was your father’s hair, Roderick? I know about your mother’s black ringlets. I love to look at her portrait. Why is there no portrait of your father? He seems to have been such a beau. All those brocaded coats and satin breeches in his powder closet. A man like that should have several portraits.’

  ‘There must be a portrait in Dublin somewhere,’ he replied, ‘if only I could find it. There is an entry in his book, sixteen pounds to the Painter for my Portrait. I believe he must have sat for it in Dublin, and it was never claimed. They both caught the cholera almost immediately after his return from his last trip to Dublin.’

  ‘It is all so sad.’ Margaret pressed the baby’s soft cheek against her own. ‘To die so young and not be able to wear all those lovely clothes. There is a white satin dress in your maman’s chest, and never have I seen in Belgium upon any grande dame a gown so magnifique. Such exquisite Spanish lace! And a stomacher of real brilliants, and the train is embroidered in coral and gold.’

  ‘You shall wear it when you go to the Castle Drawing-Room.’

  ‘Oh la, Roderick, but it is démodée. It must be unpicked and made all over again. Rodereeck!’ Her voice went high and thin. ‘This bed, it is not safe! It sways.’ Her face went pale and strained.

  ‘Darling, I should not have let you talk so much.’ He beckoned to the nurse. ‘Give her the medicine the doctor prescribed. It will make her sleep.’

  He watched while the nurse administered the soothing draught. Gradually Margaret became calm and drowsy.

  The kitchen was alive with bustle. The news of the visit of Daniel O’Connell had lifted its atmosphere from the gloom and the desolation wrought by the storm and by the death of Mrs. Mansfield, whose calm personality had been the support and guidance of the staff. Michael, the turf boy, kept coming in and out with baskets of turf which he built up in neat stacks inside the chimney walls. They were sopping wet, and the ovens built into the thickness of the kitchen walls had to be heated for baking. The bastibles that hung over the fires on the hearth had previously been sufficient to bake enough bread for the household. But now six of them, and a big griddle as well were going all day to keep the homeless workers and tenants supplied.

  The Liberator’s visit was like the coming of royalty. ‘O’Connell is King of Ireland,’ George the Fourth had wailed when he had signed the Emancipation Bill. And King he had been ever since to the prostrate millions he had raised to human status. The chatelaine of the castle was ill; its housekeeper dead; its butler numbed with shock and cold. The cessation of the hearth fires had jolted the poor man in mind and body. Apart from freezing his bones and tubes it had cast him breathless into a void, as a fish is cast from its breathing element of water into the stifling void of air. The hearth fire of cabin or castle never dies. In the Kilsheelin kitchen there had been the sustained warmth of centuries of fires that had burned winter and summer, day and night. The butler would never forget the night of the Big Wind; not for its havoc but for the icy halt in the historicity of his world.

  Mrs. Stacey was whipping a syllabub and telling the assembly that she wouldn’t take twenty golden guineas to walk in the field that ‘they’ had taken. The dish nearly fell from her hand when she saw the Sir standing in front of her. He asked her in Gaelic about tomorrow’s menu. She enumerated the dishes. Hare soup, four geese (and the caraway seeds for stuffing, all washed away out of the cupboard), a boiled ham and a ham baked in cider, a side and hind quarters of mutton—and not a beast fit to kill for beef. ‘Is náire orm! There is shame on me. ’Tis a mean board, your Honour’s Sir. Not a taste of fish either.’

  ‘Ni fear cuirin na cuideas,’ he soothed her. Enough is as good as a feast.

  ‘Enough!’ she exclaimed. ‘The Liberator’s own cook would not insult a guest by sending meat to the table without the elegance of a fish course. And it isn’t one kind of fish that she’d send up but often twenty.’

  The Liberator, her master pointed out, had the Atlantic at his back door; not to mention the streams and rivers that raced against each other to bring fish down the slopes of his wild mountain territory. ‘And the Liberator’s cook could not hold a rush dip to the dinner that you can cook, Mo Banaltra.’

  The cook’s eyes felt a rush of tears. It was many a year now since her haughty young master had addressed her as his banaltra. When he had been a little boy in fosterage under her brother’s roof he had called her nothing else. That day when Sir Dominic had brought him back here to the castle, the lonely little boy had called out so poignantly for his banaltra that she had surrendered the independence of her own home life to be with him here. She reached up and touched his hand that rested so affectionately upon her shoulder.

  ‘Have no fear for tomorrow night, Dalta ma croidte. Foster-son of my heart.’

  6

  The first guest into the drawing-room was old Lady Cullen followed at an interval of six paces by Lord Cullen. The old gentleman still dressed like a Georgian buck. He gleamed from wig to shoe buckle. The only dull thing about him was the socket on each side of his nose where a roguish eye was sunk too deep to display its twinkle.

  ‘Incredible,’ he cackled as he minced across the carpet. ‘I thought that we had sustained considerable damage at Crannagh Hall but, egad, it was only the sigh of a zephyr compared to what I have seen as we drove up your avenue. Felicitations.’

  Roderick didn’t feel that the storm’s havoc was anything to be felicitated upon. But the old dandy proceeded. ‘Fancy being presented with a daughter in the midst of such a tempest! What a wonderful lady is your charming wife! An amazing feat, egad!’

  ‘Shut up, Cullen,’ said his own wife. ‘The girl had no alternative once it started. Take me to her, Rody.’

  On the way up he requested the old lady not to allude to the housekeeper’s death. ‘She does not know that Mrs. Mansfield is dead.’

  ‘What do you take me fo
r?’ Lady Cullen demanded. ‘An omad-hawn?’ In the bedroom she noted the distended pupils and the constant tremor of Margaret’s lips. But she hugged her briskly and closed the baby’s fingers over a gold four-pound piece for luck.

  ‘Have you decided what you are going to call her?’

  Margaret admitted that they had not. ‘She came before we had decided.’

  ‘Everything is topsy turvy,’ Lady Cullen observed. ‘In the ordinary course of etiquette, a lady should not receive until she is at least a month confined; of course, if I were a proper lady I would not attempt to pay a call at this stage, but when we heard of the arrival and I knew that the weather was rather bad that night, I insisted on accompanying Cullen when Roderick invited him to dine with Mr. O’Connell. What a man that is!’

  ‘Yes. I feel that I ought to make an effort to rise and give him fitting welcome.’

  ‘Don’t think of such a crazy notion.’

  ‘Ah, but he is almost like royalty. In Belgium he was one of the names they chose when they were seeking a candidate to elect as King.’

  ‘He is greater than royalty. He is the saviour of Ireland. When I think of the tribulations we have endured! I have known relatives of mine to be dispossessed and imprisoned because it became known that they had made wills leaving their own property to their families. Yes, I have known a relative of mine to be beaten to death because he carried a walking stick. The Penal System regarded a walking stick in the hand of a Catholic as the bearing of arms.’

  Margaret began to show signs of restlessness and the nurse glided over to her. Lady Cullen took the hint. ‘I’d better go down in case Cullen is putting his foot in it. Do you know, my dear, I always knew he was an idiot but latterly he is becoming an eejit.’ She stopped and kissed her young kinswoman. ‘Hurry and get well, my dear, before the next Drawing-Room. Remember, I’m going to present you.’