Wild Irish Girl

by C. B. Halverson

  The jailer’s keys clinked as he pulled them from his belt, unlocking the door with an annoyed grunt.

  “You got five minutes,” he muttered before shuffling off.

  I had slipped the horrid man a few pounds in exchange for a quick word with Lyddy. Joseph had begged me not to go to the jail, but he finally relented if I let him attend me. His hand cupped my elbow in offer of support, but as soon as I saw Lyddy seated on a lump of straw in the corner, I darted from him.

  “Lyddy!” I fell to my knees and held her close. “How could you do such a thing? Why would you--?”

  I glanced down at her, and the peaceful look in her eyes arrested me.

  “Hello, Audrey,” she said.

  “Lyddy, we need to get you out of here. You need to recant your confession immediately.”

  She shook her head and disentangled herself from me. “No.”

  “No? But you are on trial for sedition! You will rot in jail, or worse, be transported. How will you survive the journey?”

  “Enough!” she shouted, bolting to her feet. “I have confessed, Audrey. The sentencing will be tomorrow. It’s done.”

  “No, it isn’t!” My hands shook, my chest tightening with a sob that threatened to explode from my body. I had promised Mother I would look after Lyddy, and I had tried. God have mercy, I had tried. I worked and wrote and fought and fought. But it was all for nothing. I could not keep her safe from this horrible world. I stood up, dusting off my skirts. “Why would you…why would you admit to this?”

  She whirled around. “And let Papa be transported in my place? What kind of person do you take me for?”

  “Papa knew the risks. Or he should have. You shouldn’t throw your life away for a play, Lyddy!”

  Her face stilled, and she folded her arms across her chest. “My dear sister, don’t you see? This is the first time I have ever felt truly alive.” She glanced around her jail cell and smiled, her eyes bright and glistening with tears.

  Tears of joy.

  “I have always hid behind you. Behind Papa. The theatre. But now, the whole world knows who I am. And while I may stand in this prison, I feel…free. Free to be myself. At last.”

  I paused, blinking hard. “No. I will not let you. I will tell the court I wrote The Rebel Sons.”

  “No!” Joseph and Lyddy said at the same time.

  I whirled around on Joseph and hissed. “Stay out of this.”

  He shook his head and took hold of my hand. “Your sister is the author, and these are her wishes.”

  “I don’t care what she wishes!” I cried, my voice shrill in my ears. “She’s a child. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  The tears I had pushed back erupted in such a violent rush, my knees buckled, and Joseph grabbed at my waist, pulling me close against his chest.

  “Let go, my love,” he whispered in my ear, smoothing my sweaty hair back. “Let go.”

  Through a haze of tears, I saw Lyddy approach me, saw her small hand clutch my shoulder, felt her tiny fingers hold me tight with a strength I never knew she had. “I’ve envied you, Audrey, that you have been able to stand next to your work. I want the same thing. Even if it is but for a few moments in time. I want the world to know me and my writing. To know a woman spoke up and tried to fight back.”

  “Fight back…” I said beneath my breath, scrubbing at my face. “But you’re not strong enough, Lyddy.”

  Her hand drifted down my arm. “I am now.”

  I nodded, wiping away my tears. “Joseph brought your supplements. And there’s a basket here with some food and extra clothing.”

  He handed the bundle over, and she took it with a grateful smile.

  “Time’s up!” the jailer shouted from beyond the door.

  I embraced Lyddy one last time, breathed in the lavender smell of her hair, clutched the slender curve of her waist. I didn’t know a world in which I didn’t have to look after her, care for her, make sure she was safe. Seeing her stand there—a woman, a writer, a nationalist, a prisoner—it made me wonder if I could even know myself now. Everything I knew to be true about my life felt like a lie, and a cold shadow passed over me, my breath emitting in soft, shuddering pants.

  “I will be there in court tomorrow,” I declared before darting out of the cell.

  I don’t know how we left the prison, how we made it through the throngs of people outside the walls, or how we entered the carriage. All I knew was that as soon as the door shut, my whole body caved in, wracked with a horrible, twisting pain. Joseph held me close, his hand smoothing over my back, the crown of my head. But it didn’t console me. Nothing could.

  The carriage rattled through the streets, and I heard Joseph say something from faraway. He slammed his fist on the roof, and the horses stopped. I wiped my tears away, shaking my head and clawing at his jacket.

  “What…?” I whispered.

  He grabbed my hands and forced me to look him in the eye. “I have to go. I have business in the city, but I will be there in court tomorrow. I swear it.”

  “But I…” I could barely speak. I need you, I wanted to say. You’re all I have now is what I longed to tell him, but he was already hopping out of the carriage.

  “I promise you, Audrey,” he called as the horses moved on. “I will be there.”

  I cried out his name, but he had already turned, lost in the throngs of people littering the London streets.

  Chapter 30

  Joseph

  I lifted my collar against the cold wind blowing across the Thames. The air stank of coal, burnt meat, and raw sewage, and the sky above rumbled and threatened to break into a deluge of rain. Sailors of all stripes stumbled through the alleyways, and toothless prostitutes clawed at my sleeves. I shrugged them off, in search of the Lascar community. My father used to trade spices and other rarities from a dry goods salesman who also doubled as a surgeon for the impoverished and castoff society of abandoned sailors that had sprung up along the riverside. To the English he went by Mr. M. But I knew his real name as Mr. Mahomet, and he was the one who taught me Arabic and Hindi, who taught me how to read the great surgical texts from the Middle East and India.

  I wandered into his shop, recalling that this was how I began my career in medicine, stumbling in during the middle of an amputation. A horrible sailing accident that had healed badly, the sailor’s leg green and pus-filled. Ten men had to hold him down, and Mr. Mahomet called to me to help, which I did with alacrity, my eyes wide and captivated by the way he sawed through flesh and bone, how he had sewed up the wound. The sailor lived because of his careful ministrations. After that, I snuck away from my father’s shop as often as I could to assist him, soaking in as much knowledge as possible. When my uncle died and left me a small inheritance, I put it all into my medical education, but I didn’t forget my debt to Mr. Mahomet. He never wanted money, though. Just ideas. Pamphlets. Textbooks.

  Through the veils sweeping across the opening to his back-door surgery, I spied Mr. Mahomet lancing a boil, talking in rapid Arabic as he dabbed at the open wound. The patient, a middle-aged woman with a face half hidden by a veil, winced as he stitched her up, moaning in a language I did not understand.

  “Ah, Dr. Moorland,” Mr. Mahomet said without looking up. “What do they say? The prodigal son returns?”

  “Hello, Ustadh,” I said, using the honorific Arabic term for teacher.

  “And how did you find Mecca?” He poured antiseptic over the stiches and rattled off something in the woman’s language. She gave him a weak smile and shuffled out before giving me a wary glance.

  “It was beautiful. And hot.” I walked over to his tables, studying his tools to see if he had anything new or interesting lying there. “But your letters went a long way to introducing me to the medical community, and I am grateful for it. I am sorry I have not come by. I have—”

  “Been busy with the Aberthornes, I hear. And a certain young Irishwoman.” He looked up from cleaning his instruments, his dark eyes glittering th
rough folds of his crepe-like brown skin. “Word travels fast on the riverside.”

  Heat burned my cheeks, and I looked down at my shoes. “Yes, Ustadh. And that lady is why I am here today.”

  He paused. “You placed this young woman in trouble?”

  My head snapped up, my heart thudding. “No, sir. I…” I swallowed hard, wondering if perhaps I had placed Audrey in some sort of womanly trouble. Regardless, though, I would have married her yesterday, not merely at the first sign of a child. “No, Ustadh. I am inquiring about a poison.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “You wish to poison this lady?”

  “Good lord, no.” Taking a deep breath, I spilled out the entire story about Lord Castlevane and Lord Aberthorne, about Audrey and her family, and how I needed to find the procurer of the poison before Castlevane convicted Lyddy of sedition. At the end, Mr. Mahomet said nothing, but collected a pot and two cups and set about making tea. I watched him the entire time, the steadiness of his movements, the blank face that belied the intricate gears of his mind at work.

  Finally, he passed me a cup of tea, the porcelain warm against my freezing hands.

  “I may know where to find this adenium,” he said.

  “Ustadh, I would not ask you if the situation were not dire indeed.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes I sell this adenium to take care of rats, you see. Sometimes grand statesmen have large rats to kill.”

  “Castlevane is a bad man,” I said in a quiet voice.

  “He is a powerful man.” Mahomet swept his arm across the room, gesturing to the outside. “A man capable of wiping out entire communities. Entire cultures.”

  “The Aberthornes can protect you,” I pressed.

  “They can protect me.” He nodded, setting his cup down on the table. “But can they protect everyone on the riverside?”

  “If Castlevane remains in power, the riverside is damned, regardless.” My hands shook, and my throat tightened. “You know what he wants to do with this area.”

  Mahomet glanced over at his instruments. “Did you know I fought with the Englishmen, with their navy? I was a surgeon, but even surgeons had to fight at times.”

  I shook my head. “I had no idea, Ustadh.”

  “Oh, yes,” he whispered. “Men like Castlevane only want the world to be one way. But there are so many ways in the world. This is the first thing you learn at sea.”

  He poured another cup of tea and let out another exhale.

  “Will you meet me at the courthouse tomorrow at one o’clock?” I asked.

  Mahomet sipped his tea and gave me a long, measured look. “One o’clock, you say?”

  Chapter 31

  Audrey

  Nothing could have prepared me to see Lyddy sitting up on that stand, so alone and tiny in the wooden box, her face blank and staring straight at the wall beyond the rollicking sounds of the court. I knew what was coming. Her confession. But I still could not understand why. Why should we admit to such a trumped-up charge? All of London had spoken up in defense of her and her play. Some had said as a woman, she had no idea what she was writing, and I wished she would at least take up that banner. I knew she wouldn’t, though, because it was the same reason I never would.

  “And here are the names of the players in our theatre who can verify my authorship,” she said in a small but confident voice, reciting a long list of actors from the former Dublin production. “My father wished me not to come forward, sir.” Her gaze shifted to the magistrate who stared at her with a scowl. “But I cannot condemn an innocent man.”

  Lord Castlevane stood up, tugging on the lapels of his coat. “Patrick Byrnes is far from innocent,” he bellowed. “He allowed such a farce to go on, your honor, even when he knew the law. As for this young woman...” he spat out the words like venom. “As for this young woman, you expect me to believe a woman such as this would have the intellectual capacity to produce such a play?”

  Lyddy leaned forward. “I have heard, Lord Castlevane, that you often struggle to understand the intellectual capacity of women.”

  The crowd roared, but Lyddy remained placid, her gaze never flinching from Castlevane. The lord in question turned red in the face, and he shook his head.

  “May I remind you, that even with your confession, your father is still on trial for producing such filth.”

  Lyddy nodded. “I do know that, sir, but can you fault a father for trying to fulfill his daughter’s whims?”

  “I do, and I will,” Castlevane said. “You, your father, and the entire Byrnes family. I call to the stand…Audrey Byrnes!”

  A ripple of shock blasted through me. What could the man possibly want with me?

  Castlevane turned and flashed me a smug stare, and that’s when I realized. He wanted to convict me instead of Lyddy. He said he would destroy me, and now it would be final.

  I tore through the crowd, low murmurs following in my wake. My stays tightened against my ribs, and I panted, my chest bursting. I stood alone in the middle of the court, my gaze never leaving Castlevane.

  “Miss Byrnes,” he began. “Are you the author of The Rebel Sons, this slanderous filth, this seditious play intended to fuel the hearts and minds of radicals and revolutionaries?”

  I swallowed hard and flashed the crowd a pretty smile. “Radicals and revolutionaries? Lord Castlevane, I am merely a woman, with womanly sensibilities. If anyone feels such wild passions about a play, then he should look into his own heart for his own longings. What difference does it make who wrote it?”

  Lord Castlevane’s face turned a deadly shade of purple. “What difference? It is the difference between treason or rule of the law. Between the transportation or freedom!”

  “Freedom, Lord Castlevane?” I let out a breathy laugh. “Locking up young ladies seems like a sad way to prove a point about liberty.”

  The crowd roared at that, and I threw my shoulders back in challenge.

  “Answer the question, Miss Byrnes,” he roared. “Are you or are you not the author of The Rebel Sons?”

  “Your lordship has deemed it impossible,” I quipped.

  “Do not trifle with me,” he hissed. “I ask you for the last time. Did you write this play?”I opened my mouth, the words that would damn my own sister catching in my throat. I glanced at her, and she nodded, a calm smile on her face. I could take the blame and save Lyddy. I would survive transportation somehow, and she would be free. Alive, at least. Which is all Mother wanted, to protect Lyddy. Keep Lyddy safe. She had begged me, her frail hand gripping mine tight before her final breath. Yet, Lyddy wasn’t a little girl anymore, and the woman who sat in the defendant box was a stranger to me.

  I swallowed hard, opening my mouth, knowing what I needed to say, but unable to utter the words.

  “Answer the question, Miss Byrnes!”

  My gaze flitted between Lyddy and Castlevane. “I…”

  “Stop the proceedings!”

  The doors boomed open and I whirled around. Joseph stood in the doorway, a pile of papers clutched to his chest while on his other arm leaned an ashen Lord Aberthorne. A dark figure followed them in foreign dress, and my eyes widened as the strange coterie shuffled down the aisle.

  “Stop the proceedings,” the marquess said in a choked voice, and he stumbled. Joseph’s other hand strained to keep him upright, his papers nearly slipping to the floor.

  Lord Castlevane darted forward. “Lord Aberthorne, this is most irregular!”

  “Not as irregular as barging into my own home,” Lord Aberthorne roared. “Arresting my guest during a private affair!”

  Castlevane turned to the magistrate. “Your honor, I ask you to hold these men in contempt. You need to—”

  The magistrate frowned, banging on his gavel. “Order! Order!” He turned to Castlevane with a deep frown. “Don’t you tell me how to run my court.” His gaze shifted to the marquess. “Your lordship, what business have you in regards to this case?”

  Lord Aberthorne straightened. “I have come her
e today to accuse Lord Castlevane of libel of Patrick and Lydia Byrnes.”

  Castlevane let out a disgusted sound.

  “And…!” Lord Aberthorne bellowed and pointed at Castlevane. “To accuse this man of attempted murder.”

  A gasp swept through the crowd, and the courtroom fell into chaos. Sharp cries in support of and against Castlevane echoed through the marble chamber. I remained in the middle of the court, between Castlevane and his accusers. I darted to the side, near Lyddy, my hand reaching for her before a guard grunted and stepped in my way.

  The magistrate banged his gavel once more. “I will have order in this courtroom!” He turned to Lord Aberthorne. “This is an egregious accusation, my lord.”

  Castlevane blustered forward to the stand. “I am not the one on trial here!”

  The judge waved him away and nodded at Lord Aberthorne. “Proceed.”

  Lord Aberthorne coughed, his face turning a horrible shade of gray. Joseph sat him down in an empty chair, and the marquess whispered in his ear and Joseph nodded.

  “Sir, I shall speak for Lord Aberthorne, if you please.”

  Castlevane shook his head. “Your honor, this man is a mere physician. He is not a lawyer. He is the lowly son of a grocer, a—”

  “Enough, Lord Castlevane!” The judge bellowed. “Hold your tongue, or I shall hold you in contempt.”

  Castlevane turned on his heel and retreated to his table, making a big show of rattling his papers and grumbling beneath his breath. My heart pounded, sweat trickling down my spine. The air in the courtroom suffocated me, and I took a deep breath, my gaze shifting to Joseph.

  He stood a mere ten feet away from me, but we might as well have been miles apart. He wore his best coat, but his eyes were red-rimmed, lined with dark shadows. He glanced down at his papers and cleared his throat. The room stilled, random sounds of feet shuffling, a man in the corner coughing. It all sounded too loud in the growing quiet.