Gracelin O'Malley

by Ann Moore

  Sixteen

  “WHAT the hell is going on here?” an angry voice demanded from the yard. “Who are all these people? Brigid!”

  The housekeeper came to the door, her face pale, her eyes searching out Father Brown, who was making his way through the garden.

  “Good to see you home, sir,” she said meekly. “Shall I get Nolan to tend your horse?”

  Bram jumped down and snapped the reins around the porch post. Anger rolled off him in a sour wave; his bloodshot eyes told Brigid he’d found an open shebeen on the way home.

  “Nolan!” He came running. “Take the Squire’s horse to the barn, now, there’s a good boy.”

  Nolan reached out hesitantly to loose the rein, then led Warrior quickly away.

  All the men in the yard had risen to their feet and stood silently watching, as the snow fell on their shoulders and covered their way-worn hats. Father Brown slipped on ice near the well, regained his balance, and hurried cautiously toward the porch.

  “Squire Donnelly.” He made a slight bow. “May I be the first to welcome you home, and may I say what a fine thing it is you’re doing here.”

  Bram squinted at the priest, then looked around the yard in disgust. “Who the hell are you?” He shoved Father Brown aside and walked up to his housekeeper. “What the hell is this, Brigid?” He peered into the kitchen behind her. “Where is Missus Donnelly?” He stormed into the house. “Grace! Grace!”

  Brigid followed him. “She’s resting, sir. Her time is near, as you know, and she’s been so tired, she has.”

  He ignored her. “Grace!” Then he stormed into the drawing room, eyes widening when he saw the furniture pushed out of the way and what seemed to be bundles of rags lying on the floor.

  Grace appeared at the top of the stairs, pushing her hair into place, then coming down as quickly as she could.

  “Bram,” she said evenly, taking his arm and pulling him out of the drawing room. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

  He looked at her in amazement. “What in God’s name is going on here? Who are all of these people?”

  Grace swallowed and smoothed down the apron over her skirt. “They’re your tenants, Bram. They’re dying.” She held his eye, unflinching. “Father Brown comes to hear their confession. Then we bury them.”

  Bram became unnaturally calm. “And those able-bodied men in the yard?”

  “Tenants trying to get to the city to find work. There’s nothing left for them here,” she explained.

  “And are you feeding them?”

  She nodded, her mouth dry.

  “With our food?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, not only are my tenants running off without paying their rent, but they’re taking my food as well, is that right?” His smile froze her heart. “Do I understand the situation correctly?”

  “They cannot pay you, Bram,” she said quietly. “They have no money. They have no food. They are starving to death. And now they’re freezing to death, as well. I could not turn them away.”

  “Oh, you could not?” His eyes widened in mock surprise. “Well, all right, then. If you just … ‘could not’ …” He grabbed her arm and dragged her through the kitchen and out into the yard. “You could not turn them away, but you will make them pay—whatever they’ve got: rings, watches, earbobs …” He shook her. “Look at them! They’re secretive and sly. They sew coins into their clothing, they bury what they have in the fields or stuff it into tree trunks! I know they’ve got money hidden away, and it belongs to me! Tell them to turn it over!” he demanded.

  “I won’t!” She struggled against him. “They have nothing to give you!”

  “Then tell them to get off my property right now or I’ll shoot every last one.” He gripped her arm more tightly, then pushed her to the ground.

  The men in the yard dropped their cups and moved forward as one body. Abban came around the side of the house, a shovel raised in warning. Bram backed into the kitchen, then burst out again, a six-shooter in each hand. His dogs came to his side and stood, quivering with anticipation.

  “Get off my land, you lazy Irish bastards.”

  The men stood where they were, joined now by the women and children. Father Brown stood at their front.

  “Start running,” Bram shouted, his voice echoing in the muffled silence of raining snow. “Or I swear I’ll shoot you where you stand. Bloody thieves! Bloody trespassers!”

  Father Brown came forward, holding up his hands. “Please, Squire Donnelly. You’re tired … you’ve had a long journey … this is all a surprise to you. But are we not reasonable men?”

  Bram leveled the gun at the priest, who stopped in his tracks. “These are not reasonable times, priest.”

  Father Brown swallowed and took another step. “But certainly …”

  Bram shot him in the foot. “Next time I aim higher. Now get out.”

  The men surged forward to catch the stumbling priest, who looked up at the Squire in shock. One man suddenly burst from the back of the crowd, charging with a battle cry. Bram shot him dead.

  “Next,” he said calmly, and when they still did not recede, shot again, felling a second man. Blood sprayed across the white snow.

  “Run and live, or stay and die,” he explained patiently, giving them another moment. When they still did not move, he sighed, shook his head as if they were errant children, and took careful aim at a young woman. Instantly, the crowd fell back, then began to run for the road, clumsily dragging the fallen and wounded with them, slipping and falling on the ice. Bram fired in the air to keep them moving, then set the dogs upon them. He turned, then, to survey the litter of the yard, and saw Abban, who had not run but stood near the barn.

  “You!” he ordered. “Take that refuse out of the drawing room and dump it in the bog.”

  “Sir?”

  “Clear them out of there or spend the afternoon burying them, with a space for yourself beside. Understood?” He waved the gun.

  “Yes, Squire.” Abban went quickly to the barn for the cart, which he drove around to the kitchen. Inside the house, he could hear Bram’s rage increasing as Grace answered questions. He cursed under his breath as he carried out the dying men, one by one, and laid them in the cart. The last was his cousin Dick, who’d stumbled into the yard only yesterday and certainly wouldn’t live to see tomorrow, so sick was he with the fever. He couldn’t dump them in the bog.

  “Go to the parish house.” Brigid appeared in the doorway, pale and teary. “They’ll give those poor souls a Christian burial.” She glanced at the sky. “It’s coming down hard. You won’t be able to see soon. Leave the cart there, I’ll send Nolan down for it tomorrow. You’d best not come back here.”

  “What will happen?” he whispered. “Will you be all right?”

  She sighed, then set her jaw. “I’ll not leave unless I have to. My Jack is sick, and there’s Nolan. I’ve never seen such a cold winter as this. The roads would kill us all for sure.”

  “And the Missus?”

  Fresh tears welled up. “I don’t know,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t think he’ll touch her. Not with the baby so close.” She paused and listened to a door slam upstairs. “But when he’s had the drink, he’s not himself. I’ve seen him terrible cruel, though never to this one.”

  Abban’s face was grim. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Give him all the whiskey you can find and maybe he’ll go out with it.”

  He climbed into the cart, but could not make himself go. Light spilled down from the upstairs window, blurred through falling snow, and he cocked his head, listening hard to the sound of raised voices; only when he heard Grace’s, only when he had locked it firmly in his heart for safekeeping, did he pull his jacket more tightly around himself and urge the horses to move now.

  “Surely you’ve taken leave of your senses!” Bram shouted.

  They were in his study, Grace sitting in the chair by the window, Bram pacing the room, hands clenched.

  “Th
ere’s nothing left in the storehouse!” he said. “Do you realize what you’ve done to us? Do you?”

  Grace faced him, but not defiantly. “I did what I thought was right. They work your land and pay your way. I cannot turn my back on them while they starve to death on our doorstep.”

  “And so you have decided to let your own family starve instead, is that it?”

  Grace tried to quiet the fluttering within her. “Did you not sell the mill, then, and bring back supplies?”

  “I am not running a poorhouse. I made that clear when I left. You knew what was expected of you and still you disobeyed me.”

  He was more angry than Grace had ever seen him, but not until she realized that Brigid had gone home and they were alone in the house did she feel the first trickle of fear.

  “I was wrong to go about it the way I did, without your permission,” she said humbly. “You have every right to be angry.”

  “Don’t try to placate me,” he spat. “You’ve dug yourself an early grave, Missus Donnelly.” He pulled some papers out of his breast pocket and threw them on the desk. “Not only could Hastings ill afford to buy me out—he was himself in need of a buyer. We must have wined and dined every Englishman off the boat in an attempt to sell, but it’s taken all this time to persuade someone of the bargain. All they see when they come are hordes of squatters begging in the streets. Fear hangs about the place like a stink. Who wants to invest in a country where death is all anyone talks about?”

  “But you did sell it?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yes,” he hissed. “We sold it. But for very little. I wired most of it back to London, thinking I was safe. This is all that’s left.” He pulled a sack of coins out of his coat pocket and dropped it on top of the papers. “Little good it’ll do us, though, with the country rapidly running out of food to buy.”

  “There are the animals,” she offered. “And I’ve not touched the cellar.”

  “Someone did.” He glanced out the window, his reflection stark in the glass. “Your precious Irish peasants broke in and stole what you didn’t give them.”

  Grace bit her lip. There was no malice in her heart toward those who had taken the food, but she knew this would weigh against her in a trial where she was already most certainly judged guilty.

  “God, I hate this bloody country!” He slammed his fist down on the desk. “Nothing but beggars and whores.”

  Grace said nothing, afraid to move.

  “But I’ll be damned if I’ll go back to England defeated, and live with that smirk the rest of my days. He will not win.” Sweat glistened in the creases of his forehead. “I may be stuck here, goddamn it, but I’m not going down with this tide of waste. I’ll ride out this famine, and this bloody awful winter, and then I’ll buy up all the land when they get desperate enough to sell—which they will! At the end, I’ll be the richest man in the country, and when my father insists upon ‘remuneration,’ I’ll have the extreme pleasure of telling him to fuck off.” He smiled wickedly, then his eyes fell on Grace and the smile evaporated. “Get out,” he ordered. “Tell Brigid to bring me something to drink. Then leave me alone to figure a way out of this mess.”

  Night came early. The gentle snow fall had become a fierce wind of icy sleet and hail that battered the house. It was not the west wind that Ireland knows so well, but a frozen gale from the northeast, and it ended the life of many on the road that night.

  Upstairs in the battened house, Bram swigged straight from the bottle and looked over his accounts, oblivious to the wind howling around corners, whistling through tiny slits. Remembering Abban’s advice, Brigid had gone out to the cellar and come back with a full bottle of whiskey, which she delivered to the Squire’s study. Steeling herself against the tension in the house, but jumping at every sound of the storm, she tried to concentrate on roasting the last chicken for his dinner, along with a turnip, hoping a good meal and the drink would help him to nod off.

  Grace cleared away the blankets and sheets from the drawing room and directed Nolan to put the furniture back exactly as it was. When this was done and all looked as before, she sent Nolan away—despite his protests and his anxious face—then lit the fire and sat staring into it, wondering at the chaos she’d created and wishing she were a child again on her straw mat next to Gran. Mary Kate, afraid of the storm, slept on the divan, firelight shimmering in her curly golden baby’s hair, a fist balled up, nestled against her mouth. She made sucking motions in her sleep and Grace worried for the future, as the unborn child within her kicked and kicked. Occasionally there was a thump from overhead, and once the sound of breaking glass followed by a stream of curses. The chicken had gone untouched; she thought of Abban and his dying cousin out in the night somewhere, unprotected from cold and wind, but she held her tears, knowing she must show no sign of weakness. She looked, instead, for answers in the face of the warm fire until, at last, she fell asleep.

  “You stupid, stupid bitch!” Bram screamed in her ear, hauling her up by her hair.

  She came awake quickly, her heart racing; one look told her that he was out of his mind with drink. She began to fight him with both hands, but was no match for his rage.

  “All the household money is gone! Every penny!” He slammed her up against the door, the hinge biting into her backbone. “And the silver! That was Abigail’s! You had no right to touch it! Where is it?” His hands were around her throat, choking her.

  Mary Kate was awake now, screaming in terror. Grace’s hands flailed against the wall until one fell on a porcelain statue, which she grabbed and smashed over his head. Momentarily stunned, he let go and she ran to the child, scooping her up protectively.

  Bram recovered quickly, cornering them. “Bad enough you give away our supplies,” he snarled. “But to use the money, and to steal Abigail’s silver … for that trash … I ought to kill you for that alone.” He picked up the fireplace poker.

  Grace set Mary Kathleen down, pushing the child behind her, eyes flying over the room. There was no way out except the door. She’d have to get past him.

  “Bram, the baby,” she begged, then stopped, remembering the last time she’d said those words.

  He darted in and struck her with the poker, knocking her to her knees.

  “The baby,” he muttered, throwing the weapon into the fire with disgust. “The. damn baby …” He grabbed a thick hank of her hair and dragged her out of the room, yanking her up, twisting her around and shoving her against the stairs. She stumbled and he kicked at her, his boot smashing into her abdomen. She couldn’t see for the pain, but struggled not to lose consciousness.

  “Run,” she called weakly to the child still screaming in the other room.

  He snorted and gripped her hair again, close to the scalp, pulling her up the stairs and down the hall to the room off the nursery that had been Abigail’s.

  “Get in there, bitch.” He shoved her into the room, then up against the wall.

  No light, she thought, then realized the windows were boarded. Fear surged through her and she fought with fresh energy, bringing her knee up between his legs. When he doubled over, she shoved him and tried to run for the door, but he grabbed her ankle and felled her, then pulled her back along the floor. She struggled to her feet, only to feel his fist land against her face. Sinking back to the floor, she heard his voice as if from far away.

  “You’ll stay in here until you have the baby.” He was breathing heavily in the doorway. “If it’s a boy, I’ll consider letting you out. If it’s a girl, you can both rot.”

  The door closed on her and she slumped in the blackness, listening to the scrape of the key in the lock.

  “Mary,” she whispered, and then she passed out.

  Seventeen

  THERE was no answer at the parish house and Abban realized the priests had gone up to the tiny convent of silent nuns on the hill. He could not bring himself to leave his cousin or the other men alone at the parish, although none of them was conscious. He urged the terrified ho
rse on against the horrible wind, his hands and face numb, ice and snow coating the cart. He must have stood half an hour pounding on the convent door until they heard him above the shriek of the storm. Once inside, he drank some broth and took a cloak given by the nuns, who had little themselves but who gestured insistently and forced it upon him when they saw he would not stay and wait out the storm. He kissed his cousin Dick on both cheeks and looked long into the face of his last living relative, then asked the priest to bury him, say a special mass for his soul, and mark the grave with his proper name so that Abban might find it again one day.

  The hour of midnight had come and gone, the wind had blown itself out, and the snow fell lightly again. He felt alone in the world, and was heartened to see, out in the bog, the flickering light of camp-fires shielded by the low, rough huts people had dug to make temporary shelter. So many had died, but there were others who were staying alive just as he was—day by day, night by night.

  As, at last, he neared the avenue that would take him to Donnelly House, he was filled with dread and tried to hurry the exhausted horse. There was a low light in the drawing room window, but nowhere else. They’re all asleep, he told himself, safely asleep in their beds. It was not until he neared the house that this illusion was shattered; a small figure burst out of the shadows and ran at him, his progress slowed by the deep snow.

  “He’s passed out now.” Nolan was out of breath. “Mam’s taken the baby. I don’t know about the Missus—I’m afraid to go back in alone.”

  Abban hauled the boy into the cart and hurried the horse around the back of the house to the kitchen door. He stopped and listened, but heard nothing above the occasional gust of wind.

  “Where’s the Squire now?” he asked as loudly as he dared.

  “On the floor by the fire in the drawing room,” the boy replied, eyes wide. “He comes alive now and again, cursing and ranting, then falls back.”

  “And the Missus?”