by Ann Moore
“So I’m to be married, then,” she said quietly to herself. “Gracelin Donnelly. Missus Donnelly. Missus Bram Donnelly.” She paused. “Landowner.” This last sent her into a fit of laughter and she pushed her fingers against her mouth to stifle the sounds before they woke Gran. The laughter turned quickly to sober tears and the smile faded from her face. She blew out her candle and got into bed, lying on her back so that she might see through the tiny window the glow of starlight strewn across the sky. As she felt her body give way at last to the drowsiness before sleep, she prayed silently the prayer her brother had taught her: Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done …
“Thy will be done,” she repeated slowly, words whispered aloud, the comfort of them settling in around her and leading her safely into sleep.
Two
SEAN was waiting on the wooden bench outside the cabin when Morgan McDonagh came up the lane in his father’s rough cart. The jennet, old and nearly blind, was stubborn and moved at a pace slower than a happy man’s stride, but Sean could never have walked the distance to the river without pain, so Morgan brought the cart.
“’Tis a fine evening for it, O’Malley!” he called, tossing aside the reins and hopping down with an easy swing. He was a strongly built young man with thick, nut-brown hair like all his family, and hazel eyes set in a smooth, tan face, a smattering of freckles running away over one high cheekbone.
Sean stood carefully, always happy to see him, then handed over the pole and tackle kit to put inside the cart, alongside the empty basket for their catch. He clapped Morgan on the shoulder. “Evening’s always best for spring salmon,” he said happily. “We’ll have a fine catch to bring back. Thanks for coming out, Morgan. I know they need you at home.”
Morgan nodded soberly. “Faith, it never ends. That’s the truth of it. Not with eviction hanging over everyone’s heads now that rents have gone up again.” He tossed in the small stooleen Sean took for sitting on the riverbank when he tired. “Nearly forty pounds a year, man, can you believe it?” He shook his head. “And all those extra bits tacked on—a pound if we whitewash the place or stone the walk, a levy for bringing baskets of turf across the lake, fines for not giving duty days if we’re sick when they call us, or if some relation misses his rent. Even a fine for getting married without his lordships leave! Blood and ounse, a man can hardly turn around without it costing him!”
“O’Flaherty’s a bastard,” Sean said, stepping into the foothold Morgan made with his hands. He pulled himself into the cart with his good arm. “I hear he’s thrown out everyone over in Castle Rock, knocked down the cabins, and posted soldiers to make sure they don’t sneak back and rebuild.”
“You heard right.” Morgan climbed into the cart and settled himself. “Most of those families held on a hundred years or more. They made their rents with nothing left over, but now they’ve been raised and levied till there’s nothing left. He’s going to graze sheep and cattle on that land. Money there, he says. No money in keeping people alive what worked your land all their days.” Morgan spat, then slapped the reins along the jennet’s backside to get her moving.
“A few passed through the Jane here.” Sean moved over to the edge of the driver’s bench, giving Morgan more room. “Looking for relations to take them in. There’s so many on their own, you know, and what’s to become of them?”
Morgan shrugged. “Well you might ask. O’Flaherty’s agent—spawn of the devil, that Ceallachan—says they’ll pay for immigration, but they only go because it’s that or die in the road. Paying the five-pound passage is cheaper for O’Flaherty than standing their rent another year, but I hear he sends them to Canada to die in the fever sheds … if they survive the crossing in those stinking holds. That done, they’re still living under English rule.”
“Grace says she saw whole families living in the bog, when she was cutting turf with Ryan.”
Morgan nodded. “Aye, some live in the bog, some in ditches. Respectable folk all their lives, living now like tinkers, only worse ’cause they don’t know how to beg their food without losing their pride.”
“Would it not be the better choice to risk passage than to starve in some muddy bog with only brack water to drink and roots to eat?” Sean rubbed his withered arm with his good hand. “It’s come upon me often enough, though Lord knows I’ve got good shelter and my belly’s full.” He looked down wistfully at his twisted leg. “A man can make something of himself over there. Every man an equal to every other man in America, they say.”
“Do you not think they’ve got rich and poor, just like here?” Morgan asked. “Because you’re daft, if you don’t.”
Sean frowned. “A man can work himself hard every day of his life in Ireland and never get ahead. He can’t even leave the bit of land he works all his life to his children. But in America, if he works hard every day, he can own his land and his family has something to show for his toil!”
“‘The Land of Opportunity,’” Morgan said wryly. “Sure, and some do all right, they go west and get a patch of their own, or stay east and send a bit of money home to the old folks. But most you never hear from again. The girls that come home, they’re silent as the grave.” He snapped the rein. “My cousin Colleen was in service at a grand house in Boston, sent money home regular, but after a year, she come back. Brought her mother a sewing machine and ten pounds, then went straight into the convent. America’s a wicked place, if you ask me.” He looked up into the blue sky filled with billowing white clouds and sailing blackbirds, took a deep breath, and said passionately, “It may be a hard life here, but you couldn’t pay me enough gold to leave Ireland.”
Sean smiled. “True enough. You’re an Irishman the likes of Finn McCool and Brian Boru. You should’ve been a king.”
Morgan glowered. “I’m the son of one, same as you—descendants of the seven hundred kings that once roamed this island. ’Tis no blood stronger or more noble than Irish blood, and it still beats in the hearts of men like William Smith O’Brien and John Mitchel.” He shook his head in disgust. “We’ve let the bloody English bully us and make peasants of our fathers, but it’s time we stood up for our rightful claim. It’s time the Irish ruled Ireland again.”
Sean’s smile faded. “That sounds like sedition, my friend,” he said softly.
Morgan met his gaze. “Call it what you like. I call it truth.”
They rode along in silence, each one deep in thought. Sean’s father, mistrusting the Catholics, was not an active Repealer, though Sean knew he wished for it fervently. Morgan, however, was steeped in the politics of his father, who attended all the rallies when he was home from seafaring. But Smith O’Brien and Mitchel were names associated with the new Young Ireland party, radicals in the eyes of the Repealers, for they refused to take the oath against bearing arms. He wondered how deeply Morgan was involved.
Unhindered by cloud, the late afternoon sun beat down and warmed their shoulders. A cuckoo called in the wood. Morgan sighed and shifted in his seat.
“You’ll not be paying a marrying tax for Gracelin, I don’t suppose,” he said all of sudden, glancing at Sean, then back at the road. “And, of course, you’ll not be worrying about living in the bog any time soon.”
Sean reached over, snatched the reins, and stopped the cart, then twisted in his seat to face Morgan. His voice was calm, but his eyes blazed.
“My sister is no man’s tallywoman, Morgan McDonagh. So, if that’s what you’re implying, I’ll have to kill you now.”
Morgan’s eyes widened in surprise, and he put up his hands in defense, despite his obvious physical advantage. “I’d never call her that, and you know it, you daft boy. We all love your Grace! Some more than others, to be sure,” he added under his breath, and then his hands fell into his lap. “Ah, brother, I’m a gabby eejit, is all. These days have my thick head whirling.”
The anger died and Sean’s shoulders drooped. “That makes two of us, then.” He sighed. “To s
ay the truth, I’m jumpy about Grace marrying him. It seems so queer. Our Grace marrying a squire and going off to live in a big house with servants and all. I can’t see it.”
“You’re not alone.” Morgan picked up the reins and set the cart in motion again. “Tongues are wagging up and down the valley, they are, all wanting to know how it come about.”
Sean rolled his eyes in disgust. “It’s all over him wanting an heir. And to get himself a boy, he’s convinced he needs a strapping country lass instead of a genteel lady, seeing as how he’s tried that in the past, don’t you know. He saw Grace in Macroom at St. John’s, and Brigid Sullivan, who keeps his house, told him all about her. He’s been up North to Ulster, but now he’s back, determined to have her. He put it to Da that he’d marry Grace, not just keep her. And her with no dowry—but of course, it makes no difference to him.” He stopped and took a breath, then looked Morgan square in the eye. “And, the truth of it is, Morgan, he says he’s going to make life easier for ourselves. Ryan can marry Aghna O’Doud and come into the house, because Donnelly’s going to build rooms onto the place. Now Ryan will stay on the land instead of going west to Galway as Da feared. There’s to be a new plow horse, as well, and a Dublin doctor for me. And, of course, we won’t be put out if times get hard, though we can’t do a thing for our neighbors. I feel ashamed of it all, somehow,” he added. “As if we’re selling her off to make our lives easier.”
Morgan drove the cart with one hand, laying the other on Sean’s stiff leg. “You can’t blame your da,” he said firmly. “He’s better off than some, but poor men are always poor in Ireland, you said so yourself. If he’s struck a bargain that stands well by yourselves, then he’s done his duty to you, and you can be sure it brings him some relief.”
“Him being saddled with an old woman and a cripple son, you mean,” Sean interjected bitterly.
“Eejit.” Morgan whapped him. “That’s not what I’m saying at all, as you well know. Sure and your body is crippled. But not your mind, and are you not thankful for that? You’re no burden to your da. Look at the coin you earn.”
“Pays not the doctor seen once a year.” Sean looked away into the woods where sunlight dappled new grass between the trees. “It’s why I’m thinking of America, of striking out on my own. But, faith! What could I do?” He pounded his lame leg with his fist. “What am I good for, then?”
“Usually, you’re good for a bit of easy talk.” Morgan grinned. “But not today, I’m thinking.”
Sean hung on to his frown stubbornly.
“You’re good for keeping knowledge and figuring things out,” Morgan volunteered. “You’ve been blessed with a sharp mind, sharper than any man I know, and that’s God’s truth.”
“Cursed, is what you mean. Cursed with a sharp mind … and a body too useless to house it.” Sean rubbed his forehead, his face tense.
“Doesn’t God tell us to count the blessings and shoulder the burdens?” Morgan peered through the trees for a glimpse of the river up ahead. “Does He not give both for our better good?”
“And what burdens do you carry, then, Mister McDonagh?” Sean asked, testily. “You with your bit of land, strong body and good looks, and a voice that makes all the girls want to lose their better judgment? What burden has God given you to shoulder?”
Morgan stared straight ahead. “I’ve got them, sure enough.”
“You care for your mam and the girls—I know that,” Sean acknowledged. “But that’s duty, not disappointment.”
“Of late, my friend, I’ve made good acquaintance with disappointment.” He paused. “I’ve come to love a girl who can never be my wife.”
“She must be blind and deaf both!” Sean replied. “Tell me her name quick, so that I might call upon her this very day!”
Morgan laughed despite himself. “Nay,” he said, shaking his head. “She’d not have you, though love you truly she does.”
“What?” Sean punched Morgan’s arm. “Out with it, man!”
Morgan looked at him briefly, his white teeth worrying his lower lip. “You must promise never to speak of it.”
“I swear on the soul of my father, the king,” Sean said, raising his hand.
“Then I’ll tell you that she’s more beautiful than the fairies and more gentle than any new mother. She is as brave as the pirate whose name she carries, and her mind is as quick as that of her brothers.”
Sean stared, then blinked twice before he found his voice. “Morgan!” he shouted. “Morgan, man! You’re in love with our Grace!”
Morgan smiled sheepishly. “‘Twas at that cursed bonfire last summer, St. John’s Eve. Did every man fall in love with her that night, I wonder?” He shook his head. “She was standing next to me and I could smell the wood smoke in her hair. She looked up all of a sudden like and smiled that sweet, gentle smile she has, and I … it just come over me then that I loved her.”
“Why did you do nothing about it?”
Morgan looked at Sean, one man’s regret an even match for the other man’s amazement. “I took her hand,” he said, then laughed, remembering. “And she near withered away of shyness. She couldn’t get away quick enough. But I knew, as I watched her run up the hill in the moonlight, that the time would come soon enough for me to speak.” He stopped and swallowed hard. “I told myself I’d wait till spring to come courting. I thought I’d get a jump on the line of boys I knew’d be waiting for her hand.” His laugh this time was short and tired. “It never occurred to me that Squire Donnelly would squash the line and claim her as his own. So, you see, Sean O’Malley, you’re not the only man to carry a stone in his heart.”
Sean said nothing until they got to the river, an offshoot of the Shannon that came tumbling over smooth, round rocks, sparkling in the light—a clear, cold river teeming with salmon in the spring. They got out their poles and tramped to the river’s edge to follow the thin path through the grasses that led to the salmon stand. When they came to the shoal where the fish tried to get up to the redds, they set down their baskets and Sean’s small stooleen, then rigged up for the first cast.
“She’s not married yet,” Sean said, when their lines had settled.
“Aye, but she’s promised.”
“Many a promise has been broken for less.”
“No.” Morgan shook his head firmly. “If he were a country man like myself, you can be sure I’d press my case.” He pulled gently on his line. “But he’s not a country man. Nor even a city man. He’s a squire. Son of an English lord, for pity’s sake. What can I possibly give her next to that?”
Sean grabbed Morgan’s arm, stopping him before he stepped into the water.
“Love,” he said simply.
Morgan didn’t smile. “You’re a dreamer, Sean. Sure and I love her more than any other girl I’ve ever known. Love is a double comfort in a man’s life … but not in a woman’s. Don’t I see it all around me? Have I not watched my mam suffer for her love of a wandering husband? I’ll not burden Grace with the fact of my love when she’s a chance for more.”
“She has no feelings for him.”
“And who’s to say she has them for me!” Morgan jerked his pole angrily, then sighed in disgust at the loose line lying tangled in the water. “Devil take you, Sean O’Malley, what are you doing to me here?”
“You’re the better man, by far,” Sean insisted. “Grace will see it, if she’s given the choice.”
“And what choice would that be, then?” Morgan spat. “Life in a hovel with me and all the babies, scraping by to pay the rent and put oats in the pot … or life in a manor house with servants and warm clothes, and plenty of meat for her sons and daughters, and a chance to turn her mind to other things than should we buy a cow this year or can we do without shoes till winter?”
“He’s no kind of husband for her!” Sean kicked the fish basket out of his way and sat down heavily on the bank.
“It’s not for you to say.” Morgan ran a hand, wet with river spray, through his hair. “
Even if she did love me, it couldn’t last. Don’t you see? Not now. Think it out, man—if she agreed to marry me, she’d regret it as we got older and life was so hard on her children compared to what she could have given them. And if she didn’t choose me, she might be left wondering—in the comfort of her home—about the love she passed over.” He stepped closer to where Sean sat. “You think you’ll be giving her a choice … but the truth of it is, you’ll only give her doubt. It’s best she never know my feelings. It’s best she marry Donnelly and come to love him. And she will, if we don’t get in the way. Do you understand me now, brother?”