In the Time of Famine, Page 5

  Before Emily could disabuse the old woman of that notion, Somerville hastily led the old woman away to meet the new vicar.

  While the guests danced to the music of a string quartet and servants circulated with silver trays filled with flutes of French champagne, Emily was literally backed into a corner, besieged by earnest young men with no other wish than to dance with her or fetch her something to drink. They came in all sizes—tall, short, thin, and fat. And all of them clumsy. One managed to spill champagne on her gown and another to step on her foot before, mercifully, dinner was announced.

  The dining room table was set for fifty. Fine English silver and Waterford crystal gleamed in the light of a hundred candles. Lord Somerville sat at one end of the table; Emily at the other.

  Seated next to Emily was a tenth-generation landlord, Lord Attwood, a disagreeable old man with small black eyes devoid of emotion. His smile, which he seldom displayed, was more a sneer. His wife, a buxomly woman with a prodigious appetite, was seated opposite him.

  Attwood, who had been holding forth about the treachery of the Peel government, intoned, “Mark my words. The government is going to make us pay for this tiresome crop failure.”

  Lady Breen peered at him through her lorgnette. “I don’t think tiresome is the word I would use, Lord Attwood. Without their potatoes, what are the peasants to eat?”

  “I am told there is plenty of food stuffs in the market place,” Attwood said, popping a medallion of lamb into his mouth.

  “My servants tell me that food prices have doubled,” Lady Breen persisted.

  Attwood shrugged. “That, madam, is not my concern.”

  Major Robert Wicker, an ill-proportioned man with an oversized head and short legs that gave him a dwarf-like appearance, nodded in agreement. “Eviction,” he said, stabbing the air with a fork. “That’s what I say. If they can’t pay the rents, turn them off the land. It’s time these wastrels learned some responsibility.”

  Emily smiled at the little man’s hypocrisy. It was common knowledge that Major Wicker had come to own his estates because his drunken father, a failed grain merchant, had won them in a card game. And if rumors of the son’s reckless gambling and drinking were true, Emily was certain the major would lose them just as quickly as his father had acquired them.

  “Major Wicker is, as usual, absolutely correct,” chimed in the obsequious Mr. Rowe. “Eviction will rid the land of the surplus Irish population.”

  Unlike the other men at the table, Edward Rowe, a fleshy man in his late fifties, was not a landlord. He was something worse—a property manager. For the past fifteen years he had been managing the estates for a wealthy member of the House of Lords who had never set foot in Ireland.

  The arrangement between landlord and property manager was simple and efficient. The property manager was paid a percentage of the profits from the land. Thus, it was in his financial interest to make every patch of dirt pay a dividend. And the landlord, who willingly turned a blind eye to underhanded and brutal practices, cared not how he did it.

  Landlords were feared. Property managers were feared and despised. Peasants expected to be treated harshly by the upper class, but it was assumed that someone closer to their station would have more compassion. These assumptions were badly misplaced. Rapacious property managers were quicker to eject tenants for late rent payments and more likely to cheat tenants out of monies owed them.

  Rowe, a baseborn man who lusted after the good life, was a toady who seized on every opportunity to ingratiate himself with the wealthier landlords. He’d made it his business to find ways to make himself useful to his betters. And he made it his business to know what they fancied. A gift of a Persian rug to Attwood and a case of fine wine for Wicker had put them in his debt. The only one he had not been able to win over was Somerville, who saw Rowe for the sycophant he was.

  Rowe had become frantic when he’d discovered he was not on the guest list for the ball. It was unthinkable that he would not attend the most important social event of the season. He went to Attwood and Wicker and pleaded his case. They in turn entreated with Somerville who, against his better judgment, relented. And now the self-satisfied Rowe sat happily among his betters with grease dripping from his chin and discoursing about eviction.

  “Where will the peasants go, Mr. Rowe?” Emily asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father frown. He thought such topics unsuitable for young ladies.

  “Ship them off to America,” Rowe said.

  Wicker shook his massive head. “Too expensive.”

  “No more expensive than having them on the land and paying no rent,” Rowe countered gently.

  “You gentlemen talk about them as though they were cattle,” Emily said.

  “Would that they were,” Rowe mumbled through a mouthful of food. “Then there would be a profit in them.”

  Attwood stabbed the air with his fork for emphasis. “It is the landlord’s right to do as he pleases with his land, madam. If he abstains from harsh treatment of his tenants, he confers a favor, an act of kindness. If, on the other hand, he chooses to stand on his rights, the tenants must be taught that they have no power to oppose or resist. My God, good lady, property would have no value and money would no longer be invested in the cultivation of land if it were not acknowledged that it is the landlord’s most sacred right to deal with his property as he wishes.”

  “Is that how you see it, Father?” Emily saw his uncomfortable expression and was pleased her question had the desired effect.

  “It’s a very complicated matter, my dear,” Somerville said, hoping to end the matter there.

  “You mean too complicated for a mere woman to understand?” Emily pressed.

  Anger flashed in Somerville’s eyes. “Certainly for a young woman to understand.”

  Father and daughter glared at each other across the wide expanse of the table.

  “In any event,” Lady Breen said, breaking the tense silence, “it’s a moot point. Surely next year’s harvest will be free of the blight.”

  Glasses were raised and there was a chorus of “Hear, hear.”

  At that moment, Emily happened to glance at Nora and the other servants. The old woman’s expression was a mask of neutrality. After so many years of servitude and listening to this kind of talk, she was either inured to it or had learned to block it out. But that wasn’t true of the younger servants who stood at rigid attention behind the guests, poised to jump to a raised finger. On their faces she saw undisguised anger and hatred. One girl, not much younger than herself, had tears in her eyes.

  Suddenly, Emily felt a great shame for herself and for those seated at the table.

  Michael lay on his pallet, listening to the sounds of his sleeping family. Earlier in the evening, he’d listened to the thumps and creak of wheels as the carriages made their way down the frost encrusted road from the Manor House. The ball was over and now all was quiet, save for the sounds of breathing.

  Suddenly, Dermot whispered in Michael’s ear. “Are you awake?”

  “Aye.”

  “Come outside then.”

  It was a clear, crisp night and the sky was aglow with stars. The milky-white frost crunched under foot as they sat down on the stone wall surrounding the potato field.

  For a long time they sat there, content to enjoy the solitude and beauty of the night. Finally, Dermot said abruptly, “Why do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t want to become Da.”

  “He has his faults true enough, but he’s not a bad sort.”

  “He’s a good man. I just don’t want his life.”

  “What else is there?” Dermot asked, genuinely befuddled.

  “America.”

  “But you know nothin’ about it.”

  “I do. When I went to Dublin to fetch furniture for Lord Attwood, I met two Americans.” Michael’s eyes lit up at the memory. “One was a captain from Boston who owned his own merchant ship. Dermot, he started out as a cabin boy! The other owned a
printing business in some place called Philadelphia. He started out as an apprentice and fifteen years later managed to earn enough to buy the establishment. Can you believe that? They said they were not unusual, Dermot. They said America is a truly wondrous place. It’s place where, if a man works hard, he can own somethin’ and once you own it no one can take it away from you.”

  “That was three years ago you were in Dublin.”

  “Aye. And it’s taken me that long to save the passage money.”

  “When will you go?”

  A gentle gust of wind drove the cold through Michael’s threadbare coat. He shivered and pulled it tighter around him. “I was gonna go after this harvest. But there’s no leavin’ now. With no potatoes, life is gonna be hard and dangerous for the family. I’m needed here.”

  Dermot clicked his brogues together to knock the frost off them. “Michael, we’ve no food. We’re all gonna die.”

  Michael saw the fear in his brother’s eyes. “Don’t be daft. We’ll not die. Not if the family sticks together.” He said it with conviction, to allay his brother’s fears, but he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

  He got up and put his arm around Dermot. “Come on. It’s cold out here and we need to get some sleep.”

  The next morning, Mam reached into the bin and took out a handful of potatoes. The family watched, silent, tense.

  “That’s the last of the lot,” she said.

  “Lord, what’s to become of us?” Grandmam wailed.

  “We starve, you foolish woman,” Granda said, and added ominously, “When famine comes, we’ll die as the birds do when the frost comes.”

  Michael wondered if his granda was pulling her leg or if he was in one of his moods again.

  “Don’t be daft,” Da said. “I’ll buy food.”

  “With what?” asked Mam.

  “The seed money.”

  There was a stunned silence as they contemplated the unthinkable—spending the seed money meant there would be no seed for next year’s planting.

  Da looked away from his wife’s astonished expression and studied the rough tabletop. “I’ve got to feed the family, haven’t I?” he said quietly. “I’ve got to keep the family together.”

  Michael heard his father’s words and suddenly knew what he had to do. The blood drained from his face. He felt light-headed, nauseous, claustrophobic. He jumped up from the table and stumbled out the door.

  All that morning as Michael worked the fields, he desperately searched his mind for some other way, some other alternative. But by midmorning he had to admit to himself that there was no other way.

  Da was in the shed sharpening a plow blade when Michael came in. The old man looked up and continued honing the blade. Since the night Michael had made his announcement about going to America, there had been a strained tension between them that had seen no abatement.

  Michael held out a small box covered with dirt.

  Da looked at the box. “What’s that then?”

  “My passage money.”

  Da stood up and rubbed his hands on his trousers. Unable to look his son in the eye, he stared at the box.

  “No, Michael. That’s yers. You worked for it.”

  Michael shoved the box into Da’s hand. “You have mouths to feed.”

  For a long moment father and son faced each other in silence, neither willing to say what they both knew to be a certainty. If Da took the money, Michael’s dream of going to America would be lost and gone forever.

  Da’s eyes glistened as he took the box and gently brushed the dirt from it with a calloused hand. “When times are not so hard,” he said quietly, “ I’ll pay you back.”

  “Aye. You will.”

  But both men knew that would never happen

  Chapter Six

  March 1846

  Ballyross, Ireland

  They came from near and far—from the valleys, from the bogs, and from the hill country. Desperate men all. They filed into the little village church, an endless stream of silent, sullen men, seeking answers to the misfortune that had befallen them. They filled the pews and, when there was no more room in the pews, they filled the aisles and, when there was no more room in the aisles, they spilled out into the road.

  Perched in his pulpit, Father Daniel Rafferty, parish priest and pastor for over fifty years, watched with mounting apprehension as the rising tide of men filled his church. They’d come to him for answers but, dear God, he didn’t have any. He was just a simple parish priest. What could he tell them besides what he always told them when he had no answer? Tis the will of God....

  He pitied them because he knew what their lives were like. In his fifty years as a priest he’d been with them through fever epidemics that had wiped out entire families, crop failures that had spawned starvation, births that gave no joy, and deaths that caused no sadness. But he’d never seen the likes of this. It was as though God in his heaven had cursed the land.

  Yes, he pitied them, but he was also angry with them—at least the ones he didn’t recognize. With self-righteous indignation he glared down at the sea of fearful, upturned faces, many of whom he’d never seen before. Who were these strangers? He asked himself. Where were these men and their families of a Sunday morning? Home, no doubt, sleeping late on the one day their God required their presence in his house. They had chosen to defy God, to ignore his commandment, to commit mortal sin Sunday after Sunday, willing to face the fires of eternal damnation. But, now—now that they were frightened and lost, they had discovered their God again. A righteous rage welled up in him, turning his face a deep purple. He gripped the sides of the pulpit with trembling hands, prepared to denounce them. But then he remembered why they were here. He pushed his unworthy thoughts from his mind and asked God to forgive him his anger. This is not the time for recrimination, he reminded himself. There would be time for that later on.

  “Men,” he began in a surprisingly powerful voice for so fragile an old man, “There is good news from England. I am told they are shipping more Indian corn.”

  Padric Leahy, a red-faced farmer, stood up. “Peel’s brimstone,” he cried out. “Tis food not fit for pigs.”

  Pat Doyle stood up a. “Then eat the potatoes in your bin,” he shouted.

  “I have no potatoes in my bin and you know that full well Pat Doyle.”

  “Then eat the corn like the rest of us.”

  “How? Tis like eatin’ gravel.”

  Doyle waved a huge hand in dismissal. “I’ve eight mouths to feed. I’ll take the corn and be glad of it.”

  Da stood up. “Father, how are we to pay for the corn?”

  The priest smiled down at Da benevolently, grateful that Ranahan had interrupted what threatened to turn into a donnybrook right here in his own church. “The new Board of Works will be accepting work applications.”

  That announcement was met with a wave of frustrated groans. They knew that the Board of Works was the British government’s response to the famine. But suspicious of anything British, rumors were already afoot that the Board would not be able to hire all who desired work. And those who got work would receive paltry wages for their efforts.

  Sitting in the third row of the old church, John Lacy, an arthritic old man with a head of unruly white hair and a shaggy beard, painfully pulled himself to his feet. “How much will they pay?” he asked.

  “Up to ten pence a day,” the priest said, trying to sound hopeful.

  That remark caused an uproar with dozens of men jumping to their feet and shouting out in protest. Father Rafferty screwed up his face in concentration and cocked a hand behind his mostly deaf ear, but he found it impossible to understand the chaotic babble. Then Pat Doyle’s voice boomed over the din clear as a bell. “Sure a pound of corn is three times that!”

  Michael gripped the back of the pew, enraged. “That’s starvation wages,” he shouted to the assembled men. “Are we going to stand for that?”

  “No…” The crowd roared in unison.

  Fat
her Rafferty glared down at the young troublemaker. He knew Michael Ranahan well. Even as a child he’d been too smart for his own good, him always with the questions. “If God loves us,” he’d asked when he was preparing for his First Communion, “why does he make us live the way we do?” And him only seven!

  Father Rafferty surveyed the sea of angry faces beneath him. Sure they were nothing more than a human forest of dried timber in a drought and that young Ranahan was a flaming torch that could set off a conflagration that would do none of them a bit of good.

  “Men, men,” he shouted over the clamor, “Tis only temporary. God willin’, this year’s crop will be healthy. Take the work. Just until the next harvest.”

  That seemed to appease them. There were murmurs of “God willin’,” as they sat down.

  Michael remained standing. How could they be so docile? How could they think of workin’ for starvation wages? He was about to say as much when Father Rafferty spread his arms out and, looking directly at Michael, intoned, “Kneel for the benediction.”

  Everyone knelt except Michael. Da reached up, grabbed Michael’s sleeve and pulled him down. “Don’t be shamin’ me before the priest,” he hissed. “This is no place to argue.”

  Michael knelt down, his heart pounding in his chest. They can do what they want, he thought, but by God they’ll not starve me without a fight.

  Lord Somerville sat in his favorite wingback chair and a roaring fire bathed the library in soft yellow light. Of the twenty-odd rooms in the house this was his favorite. It was the place he retreated to when the outside world closed in on him. He’d spent a lot of time here after his wife’s death. Too much time. He wanted to be alone in his grief forever, content to lose himself in Homer and Cicero. Reading about the misfortunes of those great ancient peoples diverted his attention from his own misery. He might never have come out of the library if it weren’t for Nora’s gentle, yet persistent, prodding. Still, it had taken months before he was ready to leave the sanctuary of the library and come back into the real world. And by that time he had sent Emily away.