The Big Wind

by Beatrice Coogan

  ‘You may thank Father Matthew for that, your Honour,’ said Martin. ‘Only for him we’d still be splittin’ each other’s skulls; if the Ryans were voting for you, why then, we’d have to vote against you. Indeed, the whole Hennessey clan is mindful of what you did for Mark and his wife and child. ’Twas only yesterday that his brother had word from him from Canada. He said that only for the way you provided for them on the ship they would never have survived the voyage.’ His horse sidestepped in the crush of horsemen.

  ‘Canada?’ Sir Roderick called after him. But Hennessey’s mount was pivoting around on its hind legs, and Ulick Prendergast had reined in beside Sir Roderick.

  Ulick owed no vassalage to Kilsheelin, but he had the grá for the O’Carrolls. The old man’s face had the haunted look that still lingered on the faces of so many of those who had endured the famine. Ulick might be stingy enough to shave gooseberries for their hair, but he had shown no lack of heart to the hungry.

  When he had greeted the old man, Roderick had perforce, to greet his son-in-law, John Keating. He expressed his surprise at seeing him here. And Keating answered, ‘My vote will always be for you, Sir Roderick.’

  Roderick thanked him and rode out in front. The horsemen fell in behind and the road shook with the thunder of hooves.

  At the entrance to the town the Repeal band was waiting to play them in.

  As they clattered up Main Street, the waiting crowd shouted the old O’Carroll cry, ‘The Hawk abú!’ The hawk to victory, and then, ‘Long live O’Carroll! Long live Repeal!’

  ‘He looks like a Roman centurion at the head of a hundred horsemen,’ said Constable Humphreys.

  ‘Whisht!’ said the Scout. ‘He looks what he is, an Irish chieftain at the head of two hundred horsemen.’

  Master Hennessey greeted his clansmen. ‘’Tis the finest cavalcade I have seen riding down this street, and I’ve seen the pride of Wellington’s army ride past.’

  A company of dragoons rode by. When their officer had ridden out of sight the soldiers towards the end of the line raised their sabres to the civilian horsemen. ‘And here comes the arch-evictor!’ cried the Master. Major Darby rode up with a group of horsemen, followed by a brake-load of supporters.

  A little dark man with a face smooth, yet shrivelled, like an apple that had been pulled and stored too soon, dismounted from the brake. Wherever he moved, men turned their backs on him. George Lucas was left in the isolation of his treachery.

  A sudden blaze of music sounded from the direction of the Mall, and Lord Templetown, preceded by a piper, rode into view at the head of a file of horsemen. Tomorrow would be the coming-of-age of his son. His Lordship had doubled his extravagant arrangements to include the victory celebrations.

  Roderick was surrounded with well-wishers. They made a path for Lord Cullen, who came tottering up on his Regency cane and brandishing The Times. ‘Here’s your speech for today,’ he shouted as he came through. ‘Read that to the Whig supporters!’

  He held his snuff box in the hollow of his palm, and unscrewed the top with a practised twist of his little finger. ‘There,’ he said, indicating the column with the joined finger and thumb that held the pinch of snuff.

  Roderick blew the snuff from the paragraph, sneezed and read—‘...in one year, seventy thousand holdings and their occupiers have been rooted out of the land. This year two hundred and fifty thousand people have emigrated to America. The Irish are going! And going with a vengeance! Now at last after these six hundred years, England has Ireland at her mercy and can deal with her as she pleases.’

  Lord Cullen flicked open his fingers and sent a shower of snuff in the direction of Darby’s supporters. ‘At their mercy, egad!’

  Roderick did not read out The Times’s gloatings, but the Scout straightaway procured a copy and read it at the top of his voice to the men who followed Darby. He halted every voter who approached the courthouse and forced him to listen. Between the first and last step of the building he made a number of converts.

  The results, as Lord Templetown had hoped, coincided well with the coming-of-age celebrations. When the High Sheriff announced, ‘I proclaim Sir Roderick O’Carroll to be duly elected,’ the rest of his statement was drowned in cheering. The people went wild with joy.

  Tar barrels blazed on the hill behind the castle. The young Scallys were on the road, with ears to the ground for the sound of the carriage. At the first rumble they were up the avenue in a streak. When Roderick, with Margaret and the children, turned in the gates, he saw his people waiting for him.

  The flames from the tar barrels cast flickering shadows on the turrets. Lights blazed from every window. Out in front was the Bard. And he played this new-fangled air of Mr. Davis’s that Young Thomas had dinned into all of them. ‘It has the sound of marching men,’ muttered the old man as he drew forth a rousing chord. The voice of Young Thomas soared above the rest when it came to:

  For freedom comes from God’s right hand.

  And needs a godly train;

  And righteous men must make our land,

  A nation once again.

  Margaret felt a rush of tears to her eyes. Sterrin glowed with pride to the words Young Thomas sang as though he had written them himself for her papa. She was free at last to tell her parents about the secret rehearsals that had taken place in the Bard’s big room while Papa was electioneering.

  Roderick was deeply moved. He would like to have spent this evening here amidst his own people; so generous; so true-hearted; their helplessness that had made them lean on him in the recent, terrible past had endeared them to him a hundredfold.

  For politics he did not give a tinker’s curse; but by heaven, he’d use them to see that his people would never again go hungry! He looked at the tall, dark boy who was carrying the great harp indoors and he felt within himself those stirrings of affinity that were not new to him. He must see about that boy. Meantime, politics had made their first demand upon his private life. He must change and return to Templetown House as a public figure.

  Sterrin hastened to tell Young Thomas of the complimentary things her papa had said about his singing and the way he had arranged the welcome, but she stopped dead at the door of the silver pantry. ‘What is the matter with you, Young Thomas?’

  He was sitting staring at a letter as though he had been stunned by its contents.

  He had rushed joyfully to read the letter that Hegarty had just sorted from the post bag. At last! A letter from Kitty and Mark!

  His joy was shortlived. No horror that he had witnessed could equal what he had just read in Kitty’s letter. Their ship had been fourteen weeks at sea. Because of the fever it had been forbidden to land at New York. When it reached Canada it was one of eighty fever ships put into quarantine at Grosse Island. Mark had been flung bodily on to the beach with the dead. ‘For hours I crawled on all fours through mud and slime and hundreds of prostrate bodies ’til I found him alive, thank God.’

  She had found Mrs. Black Pat as well, her children screaming like maniacs around their dead Mammy. The following Sunday, Kitty wrote, the priest who had carried Mrs. Black Pat ashore had led her three children from the sacristy to the altar.

  ‘Here is your sermon for today,’ he had said to the amazed congregation. ‘Look at them; starved out of their country by bad laws, their father dead in Ireland, their little mother back there in the nameless grave pit of Grosse Island...’

  Sterrin went slowly upstairs to tell the news to her papa. He had asked her more than once if Young Thomas had heard from his friends.

  She found her mamma standing before her mirror dressing for the coming-of-age party at Lord Templetown’s. She looked radiant in white with Roderick’s diamond necklace sparkling against her skin. ‘Mamma,’ breathed Sterrin, ‘I’ve never, never seen you look so beautiful!’ Then she told her mother about the letter from America.

  Margaret’s pleased smile froze. Her ivory skin paled to a frightening white. She reached for the back of a chair to stea
dy herself. Sterrin hadn’t thought the news would have such an effect upon her mamma. She looked as though she might faint.

  ‘But Mamma,’ she said, ‘the children have got lovely homes. The letter says that the rich people rushed to the altar to take them. The priest had to remind them that they were in the house of God.’

  From his dressing-room Roderick called out. Margaret rallied. She put her fingers to her lips. ‘Ster-een,’ she whispered urgently, ‘not a word of this to Papa! We mustn’t spoil tonight for him. Tomorrow I shall tell him myself.’

  Roderick came in. Like his daughter he halted in admiration of Margaret’s beauty. Like Sterrin he declared that never had he seen Margaret look so beautiful.

  Lord Templetown, watching the pair enter his drawing-room, felt justified in his statement that Sunday morning that they were designed to perform with éclat before the world. At the dinner he placed them on either side of him. He enjoyed the dazzling image of Lady O’Carroll reflected in the empanelled mirrors that duplicated the lights from the candelabra of jasper and filigree and from the great Renaissance candelabrum in the centre of the splendid room.

  After the dinner the guests moved out to where the tenants were celebrating. The heir cut the seven-hundred-pound plum pudding with his sword and cut the traditional speech to a fraction.

  When the cheering had subsided Lord Templetown led forward the new representative and his beautiful wife. They stood together while the crowd gave them a Three-times-Three.

  Roderick said it was too soon to talk of politics whilst the nation was but rising from her knees after its supplication for bread.

  ‘The Times,’ he said, ‘has told us that at last we are conquered; that at last we are at their mercy. It is true that the famine had succeeded where the oppression of centuries had failed; the Ironsides of Cromwell; the savagery of the Penal Code, availed less than the force of the Great Starvation.

  ‘The lesson of the famine has taught us that Repeal is not a question of political power or party. It is a question of physical existence. The only soup kitchen that will supply adequate nourishment is a Domestic Parliament.’

  When he and Margaret at last got through the cheering throng to their carriage they found Lord and Lady Cullen leaning on their canes and on each other. Their grand-nephew Patrick, completely bottled, was standing on a bench reciting to a ring of delighted tenants. On one side he was supported by the heir and on the other by his Trinity classmate, Prince George of Cambridge.

  ‘It sounds extremely bad form,’ said Lord Cullen, ‘and quite seditious, but pray continue.’ Patrick carried on his recitation of a popular squib purporting to be about a conversation between Louis Philippe, hiding in Buckingham Palace after his escape from the Barricades, and Queen Victoria.

  Patrick continued—

  My dear Vic, sez he.

  I’m mighty sick, sez he.

  For I’ve cut me stick, sez he.

  Tarnation quick, sez he.

  From the divil’s breeze, sez he.

  At the Tooleyrees, sez he.

  For the Blackguards made, sez he,

  A barricade, sez he.

  And I was afraid, sez he.

  And greatly in dread, sez he.

  That I’d lose me head, sez he.

  And if I lost that, sez he.

  I’d have no place for me hat, sez he.

  Stop a while, sez she.

  Take off your tile, sez she.

  You’ve come a peg down, sez she.

  By the loss of your crown, sez she,

  Mille pardon, sez he.

  For keepin’ it on, sez he.

  But my head isn’t right, sez he.

  Since I took flight, sez he.

  Patrick stopped and rubbed his head. ‘My own head is a bit light, sez he...’

  ‘Go on, Patrick,’ roared the Prince. ‘Finish it!’

  ‘Go on, sir,’ roared the tenants. The three young gentlemen supported one another while they racked their brains for the next stanza. Roderick and Margaret entered their carriage laughing. As it moved off they could hear Prince George solemnly intoning—

  Indeed my ould buck, sez she.

  You look mighty shook, sez she—

  Roderick sighed comfortably. ‘It’s been a long day. I own that I’m tired.’

  ‘Oh, Roderick,’ she breathed, ‘I felt so proud of you!’ He raised her fingers to his lips. ‘I felt proud of you, too.’ They drove in silence for a stretch. Suddenly he turned to her. ‘Do you know, I heard today from one of the Hennessey faction that Mark Hennessey and his wife arrived safely in America—Canada he said—but that is probably his mistake. I wonder what can have happened to little—little Mrs. Ryan.’

  She half-turned to tell him, then stopped. No, tomorrow! She would hold on to this moment. There might never be such another. Her breath caught on her vision of a dainty figure in a chic green shawl, a golden head bent over her knitting, then suddenly looking up out of those long beautiful eyes. Oh, little ghost, why had you to come haunting tonight!

  He misinterpreted her sharp intake of breath! The tensing of her hand in his.

  ‘Margaret.’ He turned to catch her expression in the shadowy light. ‘Surely you don’t still resent her? She will never trouble either of us again.’ She will never cease to trouble us, thought Margaret!

  She forced herself to say in a low voice, ‘Of course, I don’t resent her.’ Then in a lighter tone she said, ‘What I do resent is this sudden onslaught of public life. It may part us. I couldn’t get near you tonight. You will go to London—’

  ‘But you will be in London with me, sooner too than I expected. You must have all your falderals ready by the middle of next week.’

  ‘So soon! And I postponed all preparations, just—just in case.’

  ‘Is that all the faith you had in me?’

  ‘No darling, I had no lack of faith in you. It was just those other times when we made plans. Belgium—then the Blight fell. This time I resolved not to make a single preparation until the election was successfully over.’

  ‘You have had grim reason to be cautious. But all that is behind now. So make no more delay.’ He placed his arm about her. ‘As for public life parting us! Nothing could do that, my darling.’

  A light shot up. They were both startled. But it was only a spurt from a smouldering bonfire. Faintly in the breeze sounded a ‘Long Life to O’Carroll!’ He replaced his arm across her shoulders and they turned in at the gates in pleasant silence.

  Sterrin was leaning from a window watching the last flickering of the bonfire behind the castle. There were still a few revellers round the fire. She felt too excited to go to bed and yield up this wonderful day. Such a proud day. Papa had looked like a prince going to battle at the head of those horsemen. And both he and Mamma had looked stupendous tonight.

  From the carriage road came the sound of horsebeats. Mamma and Papa returning. She yawned sleepily. Better not let them find her up at this hour. As she crossed the landing she could see the gig lights of the carriage flashing through the gates. Then she heard a shot. She peered through the panes. The carriage had stopped. There was another shot; and a scream! Sterrin rushed down the stairs.

  Outside, it was Margaret’s shoulders that were braced now to give support. She crouched rigidly by the driveway where Roderick had fallen as he made to leave the carriage. His full weight lay in her arms. His eyes stared up at the face of the woman he had loved so dearly.

  As Sterrin dropped to her knees beside them, he was murmuring, ‘I was wrong. I thought—nothing—could part us.’

  ‘Oh, Papa!’ sobbed Sterrin. A branch cracked and she turned to see a man’s figure crashing through to the pasture beyond. ‘The darraghadheal!’ she screamed. She made to rise. Roderick lifted his fingers and let them fall.

  ‘Don’t go, my stormling.’ In the distance the horses pounded frantically as Big John lashed them to summon priest and doctor.

  Margaret cradled Roderick’s head in her arms; all her
faculties alert. There was a prayer to be said at a time like this. She called it into his ears, then moved her lips to his. They had a coldness that had never been there before. The mad wild shrieks went tearing through her brain but she checked them at her lips. He still had need of her. He strained with his head and she lifted him up while he looked at the castle. A tongue of flame from the bonfire outlined the broken turret. Above it the flag of privilege hoisted for a great occasion lapped gently in the wind. From somewhere beyond, the party cries echoed thinly, ‘Long Live Repeal! Long Live O’Carroll!’

  He lowered his head on to her breast and as she held him close, her fingers crept to his lips. She could feel the little breaths that beat against them; until they came no more.

  *

  Men came, as in a stride, from the polls to the funeral of the one they had voted to victory. Their faces were still stunned from the impact of the tidings. Those whom he had led to the town a few mornings ago now stepped out of line and took it in turns to bear him upon their shoulders. Nearing the brink Big John surrendered the reins of the riderless Thuckeen. He claimed his right to lend a shoulder to the one he had revered.

  The pain that the weight aroused in the maimed shoulder was no less agonising than the memory of the night ride that had given him the wound. Sweat drops mingled with the tears as he recalled how he had returned that morning after the Big Wind’s storm and found new life and gladness waiting.

  ‘Big John’s shoulder must be made sound,’ the young Sir had said later to the doctor. ‘For we all lean heavily on these shoulders.’

  Lord Templetown looked across at the tall, veiled figure who walked with the white-faced girl and the boy. The guilt, he thought, was not entirely with the little dark man with the distorted brain who had fired the shots.

  Would there come a time when that stricken woman would point some of the blame towards the man who had entered their carriage that peaceful Sunday morning, who had urged his wishes and gone his way expressing the urbane hope that he had not disturbed their Sabbath calm? For the hundredth time he asked himself would this have happened if he had not intruded upon that Sabbath calm? Would that lovely idyll of their lives be still unfolding?