In the Ladies’ Gallery Margaret was listening enthralled. She didn’t understand half of it; she never did—of this kind of thing! But had this young gentleman, Thomas Francis Meagher, been but half so romantic looking as he was, she would still have been enthralled. For he had started to talk about her beloved Antwerp. ‘...I learned,’ he cried, ‘the first part of a nation’s creed upon the ramparts of Antwerp... stigmatise the sword! No, my Lord, for it scourged the Dutch marauders out of the old towns of Belgium; back into their own phlegmatic swamps! I honour the Belgians. I will not stigmatise the means by which they obtained a citizen King—’
The spell was broken. John O’Connell, acting in his father’s absence, broke in to protest. ‘These sentiments imperil the Association. Either Meagher or I quit the Hall.’
Roderick watched the young orator leave. With him went the leader Smith O’Brien and Mitchell and Gavan Duffy; out from the Hall and the movement it housed. They took with them their brilliance and their bravery. Despite the July sunshine, the glow had gone from the Hall. He felt an urge to follow them. This pledge against force suddenly seemed to mock all the lessons of history. It seemed as pedantic and as pompous as—as John O’Connell himself; sitting there, envisaging himself in his father’s cloak.
On the return drive Margaret was indignant that the oratory should have been stemmed in its Belgian sequence. ‘I think it is very bad form of Mr. John O’Connell. He forgets that when we won our freedom in Belgium—with the sword—that we paid his father the tribute of nominating him for election as our King!’
Belgium and home had been much in her thoughts lately. Her mother had been ailing and Margaret had longed to visit her but the thought of the sea, the winds, the swaying boat! They were too terrifying to be faced alone. And, Roderick, could not have been spared during the recent emergency.
One lovely Sunday afternoon a few weeks later, she decided to broach the matter. Roderick lay stretched in a garden chair feeling at peace with all the world. The worst was over. He had almost dragged his tenants through the last threat of famine. And now there was abundance in sight. Never had he seen such crops. Through half-closed lids he enjoyed the spectacle of his wife approaching him. In her white gown of striped muslin, tight-waisted and billowing, her country hat of white straw with its fall of white lace round the brim, she had a bridal air. He told her so.
‘I am—a bride—again,’ she twinkled. She bent over Dominic in his bassinet beside the ‘Big Wind seat’. ‘I vow I shall have no favourites,’ she cooed to him, ‘but you make it difficult for me.’
Margaret lifted the baby and seated herself beside Roderick. From nowhere Pakie Scally appeared and stood behind them swishing off midges.
‘And brides,’ resumed Margaret, ‘go on honeymoons.’
‘Honeymoons?’ Roderick was dangling his hunter over Dominic who clutched it and said ‘Tick! tick!’ It was a perfect moment for suggesting a trip to Belgium.
Roderick’s first thought was the expense. Where would the money come from? He had spoken the words before he realised.
She apologised. ‘I ought to have remembered what a time you’ve had. No rents coming in and everything going out—But—’ she faltered, ‘it’s been so long; nine years!’
He sat up and looked at her. She was as slenderly graceful as when he had first glimpsed her gliding over the ice at Antwerp; the heart-shaped face just as lovely! Was it nine years since then?
‘We will go to Belgium,’ he announced. ‘No.’ He placed a hand over her lips. ‘You deserve a break away from this country. It has tossed you about too often; it treated you to a display of fireworks when you arrived that nearly sent you into Kingdom come; then climaxes and anti-climaxes. And you’ve worked like a galley slave all this year. Hasn’t she, Mister?’
‘Tick, tick,’ replied Dominic, reaching to clutch the big watch that his father still dangled over him.
‘Then that’s settled. We go to Antwerp next month.’
‘But Roderick, the money!’
‘My love, it is middle class to speak of money. And besides, in all the nine years you have been with me I have never seen better crops. We shall have a bumper harvest. When it is gathered and the rents flowing in we shall go sailing up the Scheldt; all four of us.’
Her eyes shone out at him. ‘To see maman again,’ she breathed, ‘to bring her our children!’ She was near to tears. Hannah came for the baby.
‘Come,’ said Roderick. ‘Let’s go for a stroll.’
As Margaret adjusted the tapestry that draped the back of the big seat he stooped to study the scene she had embroidered. She had depicted the great tree exactly as it had stood in the centre of the lawn. Under its branches a girl watched while a man carved their intertwined initials. Beyond stretched the avenue with the trees meeting overhead as they used to, and in the distance the gateway under the arch formed by the sentinel tree at either pillar.
‘It is exactly as it used to be. I have not fully appreciated your beautiful industriousness.’
They strolled through the pastures to where the first corn lay cut. Finches and chaffinches hopped songless and businesslike among the husks. He helped her on to a bank that throbbed with bees and flies. Grasshoppers did their best in the way of chirrups to make up for August’s lack of bird song. Margaret watched Roderick as his eyes roved over the fields. The love of the land lay deep and dark within him.
‘Look, Margaret.’ He waved towards the golden heads of wheat that bent towards each other. ‘Don’t they resemble a conclave of crowned kings?’
‘La, la,’ she cried gaily. ‘I wish I could see things as you do. It must be the Belgian strain that curbs my Celtic vision.’ Belgium, she thought. I shall be there soon. Soon! The words made a song in her heart that stripped the fields of mystique.
‘Watch the way their leaves tremble,’ he said. ‘Even in this heat! They are trembling at their own power.’
‘What a fanciful thought, Roderick!’
‘It is not fanciful, Margaret. It is terribly real. No monarch on earth wields such power as these golden sceptres of wheat. If they were to lose, suddenly, their crown of golden grain, who would fill the hungry mouths of a starving world?’
A burst of music sounded. From the high bank where they stood they could see figures forming up on the dance platform at the crossroads.
‘It has been many a long Sunday since they’ve held the platform dance. Thank goodness they have the heart to dance again. Shouldn’t fancy myself dancing in this steaming heat!’ He jumped down and held out his arms for her. ‘Let’s go and watch.’
Horses were tethered at the four roads that converged at the cross. Townspeople looked on from their phaetons and passing strangers reined in to watch the spectacle of a crossroad dance. Even the old people were there, lured by the lovely weather and the gladsome sight of the rich crops.
In the interlude, the piper, Owen Meagher, who was believed to have been taught his music by the fairies, played a solo.
Margaret murmured to Roderick that she could quite believe that the Good People had been his teachers. The sound made her think of the dancing of fairies and the singing of elves. Later, the longhaired girl who had danced at the castle did a Double Jig with John Holohan. Margaret and Roderick left the crossroads as Big John sang a selection which made the people roar at its wry humour.
‘The Wedding of Ballyporeen’
...There was bacon and greens but the
turkey was spoilt
Potatoes dressed every way, roasted and
boiled...
Roderick led Margaret back along the bridle path to the Cobs where the potato field lay.
‘We can take the short cut through Black Pat Ryan’s,’ he said.
Nonie had seen the elegant couple passing down through the fields. The sight of them, he with his arm around her waist, she floating like thistledown in her fashionable gown, struck at her heart.
For better or worse! One might as well have taken the nun’s vow
and coarse habit. Its renunciation of fashionable gowns would not have been more irrevocable than her marriage vows. She turned away. Gowns indeed! In a few more days her darlings would have food; solid food. A plate of floury potatoes just now would be more acceptable to herself than a silk gown.
She tried to busy herself. There was so little to do. The dishes were so easy to wash these days. No grease; no soiled cutlery; no pigs to boil for; no yarn to knit stockings. She looked idly through the window. He was coming this way! And the white gown floating behind; and he stopping every minute to help her over a twig or a pebble. She squeezed her eyes against the sight. Poor Pat for all his kindness would never dream of stepping back to allow her to pass first through that little gap! Damn them! Traipsing coolly through her land; making her mourn the refinements that she thought to forget.
She closed the door and drew down the fiddle. Roderick and Margaret turned towards the house as they heard the music, but they could only glimpse a bent gold head. Roderick’s lips twitched. The tune was old and saucy—
I met a fair Rosy by a mulberry tree.
And though Mass was my notion
My devotion was she—
He burst out laughing. ‘She’s a minx!’
‘A huzz-ee,’ said Margaret. She hadn’t realised that the unfamiliar path would have led her past this door.
He drew her over another stile. Black Pat was sitting on the ground looking at his potato field. ‘Be generous, Margaret! Remember, we are on the first stage of our honeymoon.’ The sight of Black Pat watching his potatoes smote her. They had so little! While she—Belgium! Her mind made joyful plans about clothes.
‘I see you are keeping a close eye on your potatoes, Pat,’ Roderick called out.
Pat rose unhurriedly to his feet. ‘No child ever got better mindin’ Sir Roderick. A few more days of this heat and they’ll be leppin’ out of their skins.’
The pair strolled on arm in arm. Sterrin’s voice called. She came up holding out Margaret’s vinaigrette. ‘You left it on the Big-Wind-seat.’
Roderick took her hand and sauntered along, his senses drowsed by the mingled scent of woodbine and hawthorn and the particularly strong-scented wild stock that grew on the hedge by the bog road.
‘What a horrible smell!’ said Margaret. ‘Let’s go back.’ She was deep now in Sterrin’s Belgium wardrobe.
Roderick broke off a blossom. ‘It is rather pungent, love, but I must confess I find it pleasing.’ Sterrin squealed with laughter.
‘Silly Papa! Not that smell... The one from the potato fields.’
‘Potato fields?’ he spoke quietly, but no longer sleepily.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I rode there this afternoon. I had to turn back from the smell. That is why when I saw you heading for the Cobs I brought Mamma’s vinaigrette.’
Black Pat’s planning was simpler than Lady O’Carroll’s. Smoking his first pipe of tobacco for months, he planned about his fine potato crop. The priest had given him the tobacco today when he called for a birth certificate for Norisheen’s Confirmation. He had filled his pockets with biscuits for the children. And the delight of them! Like Christmas, they had said! But not like last Christmas. Well, next Christmas would be different; a goose in the bastable again; and dumplings with caraway seeds. Shamefacedly, he puffed out a cloud of smoke. Mean it was, for a respectable man to give his mind to thoughts of food. Like a bacach!
He smiled as he looked at the proud foliage of his potatoes. They had repaid his extravagance, the long journey to Kerry for seed potatoes from the Maharees! No rich farmer in the three parishes had dreamt of doing such a thing. Not even the Sir. Oh, little Nonie had big ways! He engulfed the landscape in smoke.
Black Pat looked over his shoulder. The castle Quality were behaving very strangely. Miss Sterrin was running towards the castle. The Sir was running in the opposite direction and her Ladyship was just standin’ there; sniffin’ elegantly at her smelling salts. He shrugged and resumed his seat and his pipe. There was no accountin’ for the whimsies of the Quality. A few minutes later he was on his feet looking curiously over the hedge; just as Roderick had gazed at his own extraordinary behaviour last autumn. Big John, on a horse that he hadn’t taken time to saddle, had led Thuckeen up to the Sir. Pat could see the Sir riding the headlands of the Cobs hither and thither; mounting and dismounting. Now he was coming this way! Suddenly the great black horse rose over the hedge and skidded to its haunches beside Pat.
‘Ryan!’ called Sir Roderick. ‘Go down there and see are your potatoes all right.’
‘My potatoes. Sir Roderick! Sure—’
‘Go on!’
Black Pat turned and ran. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my potatoes!’ he shouted. He pulled a piece of furze from a gap. It resisted and he forced through. He raced across the next field and through the hedge without making for the gap. He reached his field unaware that his face and hands were bleeding. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my potatoes!’ he sobbed at the first drill. There was no tobacco smoke to kill the smell that rose and smote him to the earth!
Nonie found him there when she came to call him to the watery porridge. He refused to stir; just lay babbling and bleeding. Stiffly, like an old woman, she stooped and pulled a stalk from the earth. It was laden with fine potatoes. She gripped one. There was a squelch as her fingers closed over slime. She shook her hand to free it from the abomination, the stench. Before her eyes, the mess that had been a firm potato dropped in black splodges into a deep, gaping hole. She screamed. It was a haunting! The orchards of hell were forcing their evil fruit up through the earth! She fled.
*
Roderick turned in the saddle and looked back at his stricken fields. Beyond lay the sprawling colony of tiny holdings that had only potato patches. Their occupants, and as many more, to be fed by him! For ever! Was it some other phase of time or was it this very afternoon that he had talked whimsicalities about golden crowns filled with wheat to feed a starving world?
His glance fell on the face of the big coachman. There was a horror upon it this lovely evening that the terrible night of the Big Wind had not been able to produce. There was horror, too, on that lad’s face. And on his hands! Young Thomas came over and spoke to his master without being addressed; just as he had spoken to him that night when the storm had swept all men to one level of helplessness. ‘I saw them move, your Honour’s Sir.’ He shook his hands to free them of slime. ‘Before my eyes they decomposed; like—like an apparition—of some—’
‘Of some spectre,’ said his master. ‘The spectre of famine.’
Thomas stole out at dusk to see how things fared with Kitty and Mark at the little cottage at Knockgraffin. Mrs. Stacey slipped him a wedge of cake for Kitty. ‘I saw her go down to the platform dance this afternoon. The creature looked like a brooch.’ Thomas understood. He had glimpsed Kitty at Mass this morning and her profile had looked like a cameo brooch etched whitely against the black background of her hair.
He rushed through unaccustomed short cuts to warn Mark to get his potatoes out of the ground.
A motionless figure of a man stood silhouetted against the darkening light in the potato patch. It was Mark, his head bowed into the crook of the arm that leaned on the spade handle. With that awful smell coming from the opening around the spade the melancholy figure might well have exhumed the body of a loved one.
Thomas, scraping words of pity, might as well not have been there. He moved on into the house. Kitty was kneeling by the cradle, her cheeks pressed to the baby’s. She turned at his step. ‘God save you Thomas! I knew you’d come.’
He drew her to her feet. ‘You’ll be cramped sitting there. Mark is taking it hard.’
‘It is a wonder he hasn’t gone mad. His poor body is only a husk; too weak to sustain a strong mind. Coax him inside, Thomas. I’ll brighten the fire.’
He took the support of the spade from Mark and led him in. Kitty was turning the fanwheel. Fresh sods of turf stood upright, their heads together over th
e reddening embers.
Mark watched smoke dance up the chimney in patterned puffs. ‘It was a trick,’ he croaked, ‘a mean, low trick of nature, codding our hungry hearts up to the eyes with the kind of sunshine that brings abundance. It made me dance—dance!’ His voice thinned upwards. ‘That’s how tricksters fool men into putting their savings into a scheme that isn’t there—What in the name of God are you doing with that kettle, Thomas?’
Thomas had swung a kettle of water on to the crane over the blaze. ‘Are you dreamin’, Thomas?’ cried Kitty. There was hysteria in her laugh. She had retched as she turned in the boreen after the dance and the silent messenger of the Blight had sneaked down the pathway to greet them with its evil-smelling tidings. Her mind had retched too, in hysteria. She was drained, exhausted. There was no tea in the house. Why was Thomas boiling water?
Thomas scalded the teapot. ‘We’ll find use for the kettle,’ he smiled. He took tea from a screw of paper in his pocket. The brew was weak but cheerful and there was still a few grains to lighten the despondency of the morrow.
Kitty’s old warm smile shone through her tears as she took the cup from him and the plate with the generous slice of cake. She cut it into three wafer-thin slices and when Theobald whimpered again, she took him up and fed him crumb by crumb.
Thomas watched with pity the way the child devoured the crumbs. The tiny features were perfect; like Kitty’s, the same black curls. But the lovely roses had faded from the once chubby cheeks. They were as yellow as the Indian meal his little stomach rejected.
As they walked to the gate with him, Kitty said suddenly, ‘Isn’t it strange! This—calamity reminds me somehow of the Big Wind. That came suddenly, too; out of the sky in the evening. I was bolting the henhouse and suddenly I was flung along the yard and round the gable end of the house and the heavens were roaring as though God Himself were angry. Not that I associate the thing that has come out of the ground this evening with God.’
The Big Wind Page 25