The Big Wind

by Beatrice Coogan

  It was deliciously exciting. And the Sir’s Road! Never had he seen such traffic there. Cars spread with mattresses for the women and children were passing that way to town all Christmas Eve.

  The church was packed for Confession. Every household had lost someone to be remembered at the Altar next morning. Father Hickey let the people out of the box without delay but the curate in place of the one who had died of the famine fever was a terror. He kept people ages inside. To make matters worse, Sir Roderick O’Carroll took out his timepiece with great deliberateness as each penitent entered the box and took it out again as he or she emerged. His tactics gradually worked the desired effect upon the people in the long row ahead of him. One by one rather than be ‘timed before all the world’ they surrendered their places and fell back to the very end of Father Hickey’s penitents.

  There was a dreadful storm on Christmas Day and for the twelve days of festive reunion the rain blew in great sheets. The usual visiting was restricted to the shortest journeys. Sir Roderick, to banish ghosts and memories, fixed Epiphany Night for the staff dance. It had become, too, generally established as the anniversary of the Big Wind. Margaret dreaded the date. The servants dreaded it because the roll of those who had ‘seen’ Mrs. Mansfield’s ghost on that night was increasing annually. Sterrin could not forget that her birth and the Big Wind had plunged her mamma in some prolonged and fearful ordeal from which she had never fully recovered.

  It was wonderful to sit in the brightly lit barn and watch the dancing. Big John led Mamma out in the quadrilles. It looked funny to see him dancing and swinging. He was always so stiff and dignified. Papa was in great form. He took Sterrin out for the Cashel Sets and the servants were delighted with the spectacle of the Sir standing in a circle ‘clapping home’ his partner like the rest of the men.

  Thomas, standing in a shadowy corner, wondered if he would dare ask Miss Sterrin to dance. But the sight of her, elegant and unexpectedly tall in her party gown of white voile, filled him with a shyness that he had never felt towards her before. Her papa danced her round and round then swung her off the floor in one final whirl of frills, white lace stockings, ringlets and breathless laughter.

  Thomas had splashed the mad extravagance of seven and twopence upon a pair of dancing pumps. Their pointed tips drew glances that ranged upwards to the curled tips of his black hair.

  But the knife boy’s eyes watched the young daughter of the castle. Suddenly, the floor space between him and that young radiance that was, remotely and strangely, Miss Sterrin, had lengthened out before his eyes until it seemed insuperable. He turned and had reached the entrance when a hand crashed down on his shoulders—and dreams. ‘Go and lead out one of them colleens,’ ordered the voice of Mike O’Driscoll who was Master of Ceremonies.

  He walked Thomas up to a genteel-looking girl. Thomas bowed, ‘Permit me the honour of leading you out.’

  She glanced him up and down. A servant. But an extremely personable male. She silently extended her finger tips.

  You fancy yourself. Miss, he thought. She was the daughter of Lord Templetown’s English steward. At the Change Partners they were facing Sir Roderick and Miss Sterrin. ‘Young Thomas,’ cried Sterrin joyfully. ‘Where have you been? I think I am going to fall. My head is dizzy.’

  He placed a hand on her waist. ‘We’ll reverse. That will steady it.’ The steward’s daughter gazed after them and forgot to dance up to her next partner. He was gazing after them also. Roderick’s brain was whirling with wine and dancing. He could not call to mind the youth who was dancing so pleasingly with his daughter. Dancing with that ballet-like quality that is the body’s dramatic medium! He must ask Hegarty about him. Hegarty misread his signal and hurried with a flagon on a tray that was slanting at an angle of forty-five degrees. ‘Dancing is thirsty work, your Honour’s Sir.’

  ‘So I see,’ said his Honour’s Sir, whose vision was on a similar slant. He forgot about his daughter’s partner and remembered the steward’s daughter. He poured her a negus then whirled her the length of the barn until the next Change Partners restored Margaret to him. ‘Get yourself another partner, Big John,’ he called gaily.

  Next day the shops opened and ‘newses’ of the past twelve days circulated. The main news item spread horror. On Christmas Day a colony of people had been turned out on to the hillside. Almost a hundred people driven from their cabins in the pitiless rain.

  Roderick had withdrawn from public matters since the release of George Lucas. He regarded his release as a public indictment of himself; an official imputation of Landlordism. But the savageries of Christmas Day stirred him to action again. He addressed meetings; wrote to the newspapers; travelled to Dublin with the members of a protest deputation. The Government was assailed on all sides.

  And at last it showed mercy. In future, it decided, no eviction was to take place on Christmas Day or on Good Friday. Henceforth, those under notice to quit could shelter quite safely under the shadow of Golgotha; not until the Resurrection eve need they face their own Golgotha; And, Alleluia! Neither would they be shelterless on Christ’s Birthday. While angels sang the Birth Hymn they would be free to place the rush lights in the window for the Holy Wanderers. Not until the morrow would they become wanderers themselves.

  Father Hickey prayed from the altar for the Christmas outcasts. He referred also to the crop of ghost stories that were holding people in the grip of unholy fear. ‘Rest assured,’ he told them dryly, ‘that those taken to God by the famine have neither need nor wish to return to this vale of tears.’

  Young Thomas gave a cough and sent a sidelong glance through his fingers at Attracta Scally. She had sworn to him that she had ‘seen’ the ghost of Felix Downey carrying the ‘dead body’ of his brother past the front gates of the castle. But the church had hushed to a breathless stillness. Father Hickey had started to call out the Christmas dues. Not a cough nor sound while the congregation strained with godly fervour to catch the amount contributed by every member.

  ‘Lord Cullen of Crannagh Abbey, four pounds; Sir Roderick O’Carroll of Kilsheelin Castle, four pounds; Mrs. Lonergan of Golden Meadows, one pound ten; Mr. Ulick Prendergast, one pound; John Ryan Shake-hands, five shillings; always a decent man and so was his father before him. John Ryan Rua, seven and six and he ploughed my garden—a decent man with ten children to rear.’ The list ran on without comment, then an obvious pause. The congregation tensed. There was something good coming. ‘Owen Heffernan—’ the priest peered out over his spectacles, ‘five shillings—and if he has one acre by now, he has a hundred and he with neither chick nor child!’ Mr. George Lubey was growing impatient to hear his name called from his new mansion. Kilincarrig Lodge, former home of the De Laceys had always been called out after Kilsheelin Castle. ‘George Lubey—’ He sat straight in his pew. ‘George Lubey,’ repeated the priest, ‘of Main Street, two pounds ten.’

  The pulpit. Father Hickey indicated, was not for proclaiming the social advancement of parishioners.

  Outside in his carriage, Lord Templetown looked again at his watch. He had thought to catch Sir Roderick emerging from Mass long since. He had not reckoned with the Christmas dues and every name in the three parishes called out with ‘due’ comment.

  Sir Roderick yawned and took out his watch; but the list was ending. ‘James Keating of Poolgower, four pounds.’ The priest descended the steps. Roderick gasped. Four pounds! Before the Big Wind it was a half-crown and an ass-load of turf!

  The Scout rose for the Gospel. James Keating! The same offering as the Sir of Kilsheelin! The wheel was surely coming round to meet the time when The Keating like The O’Carroll had sent his priest four beeves and a hogshead of wine!

  Mass resumed its ritual. ‘Dominus Vobiscum’ prayed the priest. ‘Et cum spiritu tuo’ responded the server. Sir Roderick, deep in his missal, turned a page, ‘...Do Thou we beseech Thee Oh Lord, sanctify this gift offered to Thee—’ Four pounds! By the piper of Moses! The Bacach!

  Lord Templetown begg
ed permission to enter Sir Roderick’s carriage to discuss something important. He wanted to suggest that Sir Roderick stand for the parliamentary vacancy in the north riding. ‘No,’ he raised a hand against the exploding protests. ‘You are an exemplary landlord. You signalised yourself in the famine, while the gentleman who will be your opponent—’

  ‘The gentleman who will be my opponent. You seem, my Lord to take the matter as a fait accompli. I hate politics. I am no politician.’

  ‘No politician, true. I should say a potential statesman. Ireland has a plethora of politicians. Our best men do not go into public life. We are represented by mediocrities.’

  ‘What about O’Connell? Davis too. They were scarcely in that category.’

  ‘They were not in any category. They moved in the isolation of their own greatness. Not every century casts up an O’Connell. As for Davis, a genius, a magic personality. He has ploughed the nation’s soil. Men like you can guard the seedlings.’

  ‘Metaphors, my Lord, did not avail the seedlings we guarded in ’45; and ’46; that we cherished in ’47?’

  Sterrin listened, thrilled. Would Papa go to the British House of Parliament? Would the Bard accompany him? The assembly would never give his music the verdict. His knuckles were as big as crab-apples. If only he could be dressed in a suit of rushes!

  Roderick was perturbed. Margaret too. He loved his country life. ‘We are a quiet family,’ he said. ‘Worldliness does not become us.’

  Lord Templetown looked at the two young faces whose well-bred good looks were the complement of the splendid couple seated opposite him.

  ‘Forgive me if I disagree. You were not designed to browse in dignified rusticity. I envisage you returning from Saint Stephen’s to some London Salon of Repeal presided over by Lady O’Carroll.’

  There had been a time a few years back when Margaret would have been dazzled by the prospect. But now, out of calamity and misunderstanding, she had found contentment. She asked for nothing but the continued serenity of their present mode of life. Her fingers twined around her husband’s. The worldly old gentleman looked at them reflectively. It seemed to him that they followed close to the original plan for living that had been blueprinted for Eden.

  ‘The ground is prepared,’ he said. ‘Your speeches against the savageries of last Christmas have made a deep impression. I leave the rest to you. Lady O’Carroll.’ He took the hand that Lady O’Carroll extended. ‘I trust that I have not broken your Sabbath calm.’

  During the week when others came for his decision, Roderick’s refusal was positive. Politics were dirty, he told Margaret. The estate needed him and he needed it; needed the soil he loved and its workers who, through their recent need of him, he had come to love with a protective tenderness. There was a thousand and one things to be done. Cottages that should be re-thatched in autumn against the coming winter had not been thatched in years. Potatoes for next spring’s seeding were under his constant surveillance. And this winter he was tasting again the joy of riding out to hounds; riding home at night with a moon like a steel mirror in the sky; coping with his accounts before the blazing turf fire in the library with the red setters stretched at his feet. Abandon all that for the grey winter of London town! Some Salon of Repeal, forsooth!

  Then came news of four deaths amongst the victims of the Christmas Day evictions. A mother and three of her seven children had died in the hospital.

  Margaret watched him as he stood gazing out of the window; gazing in the direction of that little boreen; seeing three dead children; two raven-haired; one beautifully fair, as their mother was beautifully fair; a wistful imagery to inspire a man’s purpose.

  Roderick turned and the purpose was there. In his face; in his voice. ‘Margaret, in God’s name I’ll stand.’ He came over to her. ‘You don’t approve?’

  She kept her face over her embroidery. It was the end of something. It was the return of Roderick of the famine period; at the public’s beck and call, harassed, irritable. No, the famine had not caused his irritation. She had done that, her pettiness! She looked up at last. ‘You must do whatever you think is right.’

  ‘This ebbing away of human life is too persistent,’ he said. ‘A government’s first duty is to preserve life.’ The phrase had become almost his creed. ‘This will give me the opportunity to help to enforce that duty.’

  But Margaret knew that this would give him an opportunity to atone before a shrine in his memory.

  Repeal buttons flashed again. Margaret listened to floods of oratory. Torchlight processions wound through the darkness to the beat of music. Mrs. Enright started to organise ‘Repeal quilting parties’. No easy task, since all available blankets had gone to the famine cause. One day the Bard startled Margaret and Roderick by coming to the drawing-room and asking for a new cloak.

  ‘Cloak!’ Margaret saw to it that the Bard went well shod; well-provided for in linen and woollens, but the great tour-de-force of his plaid cloak flowing behind him in warm weather, wrapped about him in cold—was as inextricably part of himself as his white beard. ‘Aye,’ he mistook their surprise. ‘It is not torn yet. ’Twas only got in 1805, the last roll of cloth before Hennessey’s mills closed. After—’

  Roderick stemmed a tide of history. ‘You ought to have mentioned this long ago. That stuff must be thinned out after forty-four years.’

  ‘It is thick and warm enough,’ said the Bard. ‘But it is not grand enough for Westminster.’

  Roderick cocked an eyebrow at Margaret. The poor old boy was actually envisaging himself preceding his master into the House of Commons in the bygone strut of bardic glory!

  ‘I shouldn’t take Westminster for granted, Bard. But you shall have your cloak.’

  Margaret decided that she also must have a new cloak, and Sterrin and Dominic. Lord Templetown had placed his London house at their disposal. They couldn’t, she said, go to London in their famine rags.

  Mrs. Delaney was another who regarded Roderick’s election as a fait accompli. She had written a letter to the government protesting against her estate being placed on the Encumbered Estates Market. She came hotfoot to Roderick with the government’s reply in her hand. ‘And it took them an unmannerly long time to answer it, Rody,’ she said.

  Ned Rua tiptoed in behind her with its envelope. ‘I think,’ said Roderick, glancing at it, ‘that it may have been inadequately addressed.’

  The envelope was inscribed—‘The Government, England.’ The letter started off ‘Dear Government’, and pointed out graphically and ungrammatically that the writer had received no rents for two years while she fed and nursed her tenants, ‘and a few hundred more of your subjects.’ She also reminded ‘them’ of the four hundred beeves her family had sent to London when people there were starving after the fire.

  Roderick held his finger over his lips while he read the government’s polite regret that it had no knowledge of the fire in question or of the generous gift of beeves alluded to therein. ‘They’ve short memories,’ she snorted, as though the Great Fire of London had been a few years ago. ‘I came over to tell you what I want you to say to them when you go over, Rody. There is no use in writing letters, I never believed in—’

  ‘Your Honour’s Sir,’ interrupted Ned Rua. ‘’Twas the way Miss Kate signed the letter. I warned her. Sure she hasn’t written one since she was twelve and she’ll be forty-six next—’

  ‘Never mind my age, Ned—God save you, Margaret,’ she said. ‘I signed it “Yours affectionately”, the same as my cousin Lady Judith O’Moore does when she writes to me at Christmas, and she is a Bluestocking who writes for the journals.’

  But Ned Rua pointed out that it might have been better to use the phrase that Mr. Wilson, the harness-maker uses when he writes for the money.

  ‘You forget yourself, Ned Rua,’ said his mistress with dignity. ‘As though I should sign a letter in the fashion of a tradesman demanding money!’

  The Bard appeared from nowhere and asked her Ladyship if she had
got his cloak. From under his old one he produced—all unexpectedly—a small harp. To honour the daughter of The O’Moore, he said, and with his eye to a festive dinner, strummed them unbidden to the dining-room. High time, he muttered very audibly into his beard, that The O’Carroll went to the parliament. Too long this castle had been without feasting and harping!

  33

  Roderick rode out on Thuckeen to lead his waiting tenants to the hustings. From the doorway Margaret and the children waved him God-speed. From the turret, Ireland’s ancient flag, not the green one, the one of Saint Patrick’s blue, waved proudly.

  There was a fine mustering of horsemen at the crossroads. Despite Roderick’s repeated insistence that they were free to exercise the franchise without fear or favour of landlordism, they had expressed the wish to ride behind him in array. That was how their fathers, and some of themselves, had ridden behind his father!

  Roderick’s heart lifted as he rode towards them. It was an honour to own the allegiance of such men. Few of them were under six feet in height and their horses were worthy of their riders.

  Head and shoulders over the others was Michael Joseph Michael Ryan, on a light chestnut with cream-coloured mane and tail. Beside him was his ancient enemy, Martin Hennessey, the leader of the Hennessey clan that had fought the Ryans in faction fights at every fair day and election. Never before had the Ryans and Hennesseys been known to vote for the same candidate.

  The horsemen removed their high hats and greeted Roderick in Gaelic. He answered them in kind and thanked them for their fealty. There was a laugh when he said, ‘Is it a thing that I see, a Ryan and a Hennessey riding shoulder to shoulder to vote for the same man?’