Call Home the Heart (9 page)

 

Neil's brother Philip might also prove a potentially useful ally,
since he was the owner of a fleet of small trading schooners which
plied the coast of England and Scotland. But Philip was in Canada at
the moment, although Neil was looking out for his business interests
while he was gone.

 

 

"Are you all right in there?" Muireann suddenly heard Lochlainn
inquire.

 

 

"Fine, fine. I'm sorry, I was just making some plans in my head,
that's all," she replied quickly. Giving her hair a last rinse, she
put down her flannel washrag and stood.

 

 

"Anything for me to worry about?" Lochlainn teased, for in truth, he
wondered what went on in her mind all the time.

 

 

"Not at the moment, though you'll probably worry anyway," Muireann
called as she rose and began to dry herself off. She wrapped the
towel turban-like around her dripping tresses, and hastily rubbed
herself down, before pulling the nightdress over her head. Then she
did up her robe, and came out from behind the screen.

 

 

"Do you have a pair of scissors handy?" she asked as she towel-dried
it and then ran her brush through it quickly, impatiently tugging
out the worst of the knots.

 

 

Lochlainn nodded and then watched in horror as she took her whole
hank of wet hair in a huge handful and snipped off nearly three feet
of it, causing it to curl up just above her shoulders. Then she
looked at herself in the mirror and trimmed the remainder until it
was completely even.

 

 

"There was no need for that!" Lochlainn protested when he was
finally able to speak. "Your lovely hair!"

 

 

Muireann waved aside his objection with a flourish of her delicate
white hand. "It will grow back in time. Besides, it will be easier
to keep clean, and it's still long enough to wear up, so no one will
know, now will they? I can even sell it to a wig maker." She smiled
up at him, and enjoyed the shocked look on Lochlainn's face.

 

 

He scowled. "Really, Muireann, this isn't some sort of game!"

 

 

Her eyes flashed. "I know it isn't! I'm doing the best I can to
maintain my optimism in the face of such terrible circumstances,
Lochlainn, that's all. I'm sorry you don't approve. But frankly, I
don't need your approval, just your loyalty to me as your employer!"

 

 

Muireann marched across the room stiffly with the long plait, which
she hung on the arm of one chair, and then sat down by the fire to
dry what he considered to be the pitiful remnants of her once
glorious ebony hair.

 

 

Lochlainn had been stung by her words, and stood uncertainly in the
center of the room, staring at her as she deliberately ignored him.

 

 

At last he approached her chair, and knelt down next to it. He
raised one hand tentatively and stroked her hair down to her
shoulder. "I'm sorry. I had no right to criticize or complain. But
your hair was so lovely."

 

 

"It still will be. It gets very curly when it's this short. Mother
and Alice used to complain about it being like a bird's nest all the
time. They have completely straight hair, you see. And don't worry
about the criticism. I'm accustomed to never doing anything right,"
she said quietly.

 

 

"That's a sad thing to say," Lochlainn remarked, as he stroked her
tresses again and sat down in front of her, curious to learn as much
about Muireann as possible. "Why would that be?"

 

 

"Because my mother and sister are incredibly beautiful. I'm the
ugly, unfeminine one in the family. I have dark curly hair, dark
heavy brows, my skin is too pale. I'm too tall for a woman, not
shapely enough where it matters, and I have large hands and feet.
Even my eyes are a funny color," Muireann recited by heart the
litany of criticisms she had been subjected to.

 

 

Lochlainn laughed long and loud, until he saw Muireann's eyes fill
with hurt tears.

 

 

"Is THAT what they told you?" he guffawed, unable to help himself.

 

 

"Well, it's true. They have blond hair and blue eyes, and are small
and dainty. Why, their rings couldn't even fit on my little finger."

 

 

"My dear girl, not every man admires blonde hair and blues eyes, you
know," Lochlainn found himself saying, making an unconscious
comparison between Muireann and his former fiancée Tara, and
discovering that he was suddenly unable to recall what Tara looked
like all that clearly.

 

 

"As for being too large, well, you're certainly quite small compared
to me, " he said, pulling her out of the chair so that he towered
over her by at least a foot.

 

 

Then he took Muireann's hands and placed both of them in his own. He
had a signet ring old Douglas Caldwell had given him as a young man.
Tugging it off his own little finger, he placed it on her thumb,
where it hung off and nearly rolled onto the floor.

 

 

"Now, no more nonsense about there being anything wrong with you, do
you hear?" Lochlainn scolded, playfully chucking her under the chin.

 

 

Then he sighed as he looked at the ring. "I suppose I should have
sold it," he said, squeezing her hands tightly before putting it
back on his own finger, then moving to get his things ready for the
bath, which was rapidly growing cold.

 

 

"Not if it had sentimental value. It looks very old."

 

 

"How can you say that to me when you sold your wedding band?"

 

 

She shook her head, and sat back down by the fire to dry her hair.
"I don't need any reminders of Augustine. Now go on, get in that tub
before it all goes cold."

 

 

"Will you read to me?" Lochlainn asked, not wishing to argue with
her again, and wondering why he felt as though he had been punched
in the guts. He picked up his toiletries, a fresh shirt and pair of
trousers.

 

 

"Of course, if you like."

 

 

 Lochlainn poured the rest of the hot water into the tub,
quickly stripped off his clothes and sat back with a sigh as the
steam swirled softly around him.

 

 

Muireann read aloud the latest agricultural prices, which Lochlainn
assumed she would find very boring.

 

 

"What about something more exciting, like the court circular?" he
suggested. Then he thumped himself in the head soundly with the heel
of his hand. Idiot! The last thing she needs is to be reminded of
her aristocratic lifestyle back in Scotland.

 

 

"No, thank you, the price of wedders and lumpers will do me just
fine."

 

 

"How much for the wedders?" Lochlainn asked quickly, in an effort to
cover up his silly blunder.

 

 

"Seven and a half shillings per pound at the moment. I must say,
that seems very expensive. At my brother-in-law's estate, when we
went to market last, they were only six shillings the pound for top
pedigree beeves, let alone sheep."

 

 

"It's transport costs, isn't it, as well as people trying to get as
much money as they can for their cattle," Lochlainn explained.

 

 

"The lumpers are two pounds per tonne. That's not too bad, but it's
still more expensive than we're accustomed to."

 

 

"Everyone eats lumper potatoes here. They have the best yield from
the seed, you see, though I myself think they're very watery. Pinks
or Queens, now they're a fine spud. But the people eat nothing but
potatoes here, because it's so hard to grow grain, with our harvest
season being quite late here compared to the rest of Europe."

 

 

"So what do you eat then?"

 

 

"As I said, plenty of potatoes, plus a bit of milk and butter if we
can get it, and vegetables."

 

 

"It sounds a pretty poor lifestyle. Why so many potatoes?"

 

 

"It's the only crop that will feed a whole family in a growing
season on the small pieces of land that the tenants get in exchange
for their rent. It is also easy to grow, being underground, so that
the crop doesn't require a great deal of tending. The men can work
at other things like hunting, building and fishing."

 

 

"Or to work elsewhere, and then home to their families," Muireann
remarked, snugging closer to the fire.

 

 

"That's right."

 

 

"It's beginning to make sense to me now. We've had Irish laborers
working at our harvests before. I always did wonder how they were
able to manage to be spared by their own families at harvest time."

 

 

"But why are their landholdings so small?" Muireann ventured to ask
a few moments later.

 

 

He paused in his scrubbing.  "Because people in Ireland value
land as wealth. Everyone wants his or her own wee plot. A man will
pay the most exorbitant rent to get one to support his family. Then
he'll subdivide the plots too amongst sons, so the holdings over the
years have become smaller and smaller.

 

 

"And I have to say, the landlords have become much more greedy. They
rent out to middlemen, who subdivide, and thus make more profit from
people who can ill afford the exorbitant prices. Even if you deal
directly with a landlord, he may rent the property at a lower price,
but charge for improvements. So if you build a cottage on the
property, you immediately owe more rent.

 

 

"Thus the vicious cycle of debt starts, and continues, tying the
people to the land and the landlord like serfs from the Middle Ages.
It traps them on the estates, and they end up facing debtor's prison
if they don't pay up."

 

 

She shook her head pityingly.  "My God, I had no idea!"

 

 

"That's all right, Muireann, there's no reason why you should know,"
he said, before ducking down to rinse his hair.   "Many
people do know and simply don't care. I'm convinced that Ireland
will always have unrest until the system is more fair. But with
absentee landlords who don't worry about their estates, and simply
bleed them dry to support their extravagant lifestyles in England
and Europe, the problem has only become worse. Greedy agents can rob
both tenant and landlord blind, and no one is any the wiser."

 

 

"I see."

 

 

"I suspect that's what happened after I left Barnakilla. My
predecessor became ill and eventually died. While he was ill,
Augustine asked my sister to send for me. I left Australia as soon
as I got the letter. By the time I got back, the old man was dead. I
haven't yet been able to make heads or tails out of the accounts
that have been left."

 

 

"Well, we'll just have to try to sort them out together when I get
there," she said in a firm tone.

 

 

Muireann lapsed into silence as she digested the information she had
gleaned from the newspaper and Lochlainn's replies to her questions.

 

 

Lochlainn, thoroughly refreshed after his bath and feeling much more
optimistic, dried himself and then dressed behind the screen,
emerging clad in his trousers and shirt.

 

 

"I do have Augustine's small strongbox in my bag," he informed her
quietly.

 

 

"We could look through it then," she said, averting her gaze before
she stared in too obvious a manner.  She remarked to herself
how handsome Lochlainn was when dressed less formally.

 

 

A tap at the door signaled that supper had at last arrived. Muireann
rose from the chair and threw a shawl around her shoulders. The maid
entered, put down the tray and left.

 

 

"Do you want to dress before we eat?" Lochlainn asked suddenly.

 

 

Muireann glanced up at him in surprise. "There's no need, is there?
I mean, it's late, and I'm warm enough like this. If you don't
mind--"

 

 

"No, not at all." He shook his head, thinking how curious a woman
she was. Tara had never allowed him to see her at anything less than
her best. Though their relationship had been remarkably passionate
for the first month or so, in the ensuing two years Tara had always
complained about him mussing her hair or gown, and their acts of
intimacy had become fewer and further in between until they had
finally stopped altogether.

 

 

Later, Lochlainn had put it down at the time to her infidelity with
Christopher Caldwell. Now he wondered if there hadn't been more to
it. That Tara had been essentially a cold woman who didn't really
relish physical contact.

 

 

She had come from a good family fallen on hard times. Above all else
she had made sure the little money she did have from her work as
seamstress in Enniskillen was spent on her appearance. It had
certainly got her what she wanted in the end. A rich if frivolous
lover, he thought bitterly, once again unconsciously comparing
Muireann to his former fiancée and finding Tara sadly
wanting.

 

 

"Come and eat, Lochlainn," she coaxed, taking his hand when she saw
he had gone off into the dark little world of his he visited
whenever he stared off into space.

 

 

She heaped his plate and then took smaller portions of everything
for herself and sat down. All the dishes were simple but tasty.
Lochlainn could see that while she had ordered the cheapest things
on the menu, they were nourishing. They finished the vegetables and
most of the potatoes. With the remaining bread and meat, Muireann
made sandwiches for them to eat in the coach the next day, which she
wrapped up in a clean napkin along with the leftover potatoes.