Song of the Silent Harp (17 page)

And then it was gone.

He released her hands and rose from the chair. “I should go now,” he said roughly. “But will you promise me to think, Nora—really think—about what I have suggested to you this night? You must be the one to make the decision; you are still the mother, and responsible for the safety of your family.”

When Nora would have interrupted his admonition, he lifted a hand to stop her. “Remember, now, you need not worry about funds to pay your passage. As I told you, a number of passages are already paid, and a ship is on the way.” He hesitated, and for just an instant Nora caught a sense that he wanted to say more—indeed, was withholding something from her.

But his gaze quickly cleared, and he said firmly, “I will help you get Tahg and the old man…if he's still living…to the pier. And I'll see to your food supplies as well, getting them boxed and loaded onto the ship. The only thing that will be left for you to do is to pack the few personal things you may have need of.”

He looked away, then started for the door. Without warning, Nora was struck by the suspicion that Morgan was not so much concerned for their welfare as he was desperately eager to be rid of them. He had clearly gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure they would have no excuse for
not
leaving.

Why hadn't she realized before now that they had become a burden to him? Of
course,
he would be anxious to see them out of Killala! For some unfathomable reason—a stroke of uncharacteristic Christian conscience, she supposed—he had assumed a kind of guardianship for her and her family. Clearly, he now had second thoughts, could scarcely wait to pack the lot of them off to America.

A sharp thrust of disillusionment tore at her heart. “How very neatly you have arranged my life for me, Morgan. I don't suppose it even once occurred to you that you might be assuming too much!”

Her voice trembled with humiliation and anger as she continued to rail at him. “I can't think what possessed you to feel responsible for me and my sons, but I can assure you it's entirely unnecessary. Whether we do or we don't choose to leave Ireland is none of your concern, you see. We will manage, and you're not to fret yourself about us another moment.”

Morgan had nearly reached the door, but now he whipped around to face her, his eyes flashing a warning. Closing the distance between them in two broad steps, he hauled her up from the chair, his large hands completely engulfing her shoulders. “You can be the most
infuriating
woman!”

When Nora made no reply but simply stared up at him, he scowled and uttered a groan of frustration. “Can you not get it through that stubborn head that I'm only trying to help you?”

In truth, Nora seemed unable to do anything more than gape at him, wide-eyed. His immense frame filled the room, his burning eyes seared her skin, and for one wild instant she thought he might shake her soundly. But after another long moment his hands went limp and the fire in his eyes died away. Releasing her, he turned and, without another word, stalked out of the cottage.

Staring after him, Nora drew in a ragged breath. She glanced down, vaguely aware that she was still wrapped in his cloak. She started to call out to him but stopped, knowing he wouldn't hear. Numbly, she lifted the corner of the rough, heavy frieze of his cloak and brought it to her face. The scent of winter, woodsmoke, and the vast outdoors flooded her senses; hunched over in weakness and regret, she moaned aloud.

Mother?
Mother, are you all right?” Daniel John's alarmed voice behind her made Nora straighten and turn.

He came to her at once. He was in his nightclothes, and Nora knew from the pinched look of concern and anguish on his face that he had heard at least a part of the argument between her and Morgan.

“I'm fine, son,” she said in an unsteady voice. “But why are you not sleeping?”

He shook his head. “There's too much to think about.”

Nora studied his young face, lined too soon with the cares and burdens life had thrust upon him. Putting a hand to his arm, she said gently, “Still, you must rest, Daniel John.”

“Mother…”

Nora waited, taken aback, as she often was lately, by the change in her youngest son: his soaring height, his spreading shoulders, the sharpening angles and planes of his long, handsome face, so like his father's. He was only thirteen—almost fourteen, she reminded herself—but soon the last trace of boyhood would be gone, exchanged for the mantle of a man.

So quickly gone, that wondrous time of childhood, when worries were the responsibility of grown-ups, when dreams seemed more real than life itself, and almost as precious. Would Daniel John ever find time for his own dreams? Or was he simply to make the leap from child to man with nothing to bridge the distance? Indeed, she sometimes wondered if her son had
ever
been a child. Always, he had seemed older—stronger, wiser, maturer than many of the other children. Had she made him this way with her ever-increasing dependence on him?

“Mother, can we talk?” His tone held an urgency that pulled Nora back to their surroundings.

“I thought…now that Morgan is gone…we could discuss what he—what he suggested.”

She looked at him. “About leaving Ireland?”

He nodded.

“'Tis late, Daniel John,” Nora reminded him feebly, knowing herself to be too weak, too exhausted and…wounded to handle anything further this night.

He peered into her face. “Yes,” he said finally. “All right, then. I don't want to tire you. But will you just answer me one thing, Mother?”

“Of course, son. If I can.”

“Do you—do you think perhaps Morgan might be right? He seems so determined that we leave Ireland. Do you agree with him, that emigration is our only hope of survival? Are things truly that desperate, Mother?”

Unable for the moment to meet his searching eyes, Nora looked down at the floor. She wasn't at all certain exactly
what
she believed. At least for now, she seemed incapable of getting beyond the degrading suspicion that Morgan merely wanted to unburden himself of them in the easiest way possible. Why couldn't he simply have realized from the beginning how vastly unsuited he was for the role of benefactor? It would have been so much better for them all.

She could not stop her anger from spilling over. “Of course not!” she snapped out. “He's only making things sound worse to frighten us into doing what
he
has decided we
should
do!”

Daniel John stood staring at her with an expression that was both puzzled and hurt. “I…I don't think Morgan would do that, Mother. He's not like that, not a bit.”

Suddenly irritated with the boy's adoration for the man—which Morgan clearly did not deserve—Nora proceeded to tell her son exactly what she thought to be the truth behind his hero's professed concern for their welfare.

14

Day and night we are wrapped in a desperate strife,
Not for national glory, but personal life.

J
OHN
D
E
J
EAN
F
RAZER
(1809-1852)

E
arly the next morning, Morgan stopped at Nora's cottage with an axe and a cart, explaining that he was on his way to fell a tree and asking if Daniel John wished to come along.

The two walked and climbed for nearly an hour before stopping halfway up a steep, dense hillside. They stood appraising a medium-sized elm tree and a smaller beech for firewood.

Although it was a cold, damp morning with mist bleeding down the hill, the sky was clear; indeed, it looked as if the sun might actually be about to shine upon Killala for the first time in weeks. Looking down on the village from this far up, its streets veiled by the shimmering mist, Daniel could hardly believe it was teeming with death and disease. The bodies heaped along the road weren't visible from up here, nor were the beggars, those few still able to stumble through the town. But here and there a ragged tunnel of smoke from a torched cottage rose to meet the mist in a grim reminder that the Reaper of Death was still on the prowl in Killala.

And, as always, silence reigned—the terrible, ominous silence, somehow more agonizing than actual cries of human misery. Even here, far above the town, the unnatural silence of the famine seemed to hover. Other than the occasional snap of a twig underfoot or the brushing of branches in the light morning wind, the same awful stillness that permeated the entire village shrouded the hill.

Morgan finally broke the silence. “The beech will do best,” he said decisively, slipping out of the cloak he had retrieved only that morning. “We can be done with it faster, and it will burn just as long.”

Daniel nodded shortly, not looking at him. Feeling ill at ease in Morgan's company was a new experience for him, and a distressing one. The harsh words spoken in haste the evening before seemed to have raised a wall between them. He had spent a long, restless night trying to sort out an entire parade of troubled feelings, not the least of which was humiliation.

Their argument over Cotter's job offer had provoked the first sharp words Morgan had ever uttered to him, and the scene had left Daniel feeling ignorant. He resented being scolded like a wee wane. Even if he
had
been foolish in going to the agent's house, he would have expected Morgan to understand the desperation that drove him there, rather than reprimanding him for it.

As for Cotter—certainly Daniel had heard the tales about the land agent. But what Morgan—and his mother as well—seemed bent on ignoring was the fact that Daniel was no longer a child. If he had not thought himself up to handling a weak, dull-witted man like Cotter, he wouldn't have agreed to accept the job in the first place.

Morgan's unexpected rebuke had been bad enough, but even more disturbing had been the abrupt, uncompromising manner in which he had forced upon them the subject of emigration. Obviously, he had upset Mother a great deal; the bitter, scathing things she said after Morgan left the cottage had been painful and impossible to believe.

Her accusation that Morgan wanted only to be rid of them had gone straight to Daniel's heart, piercing like a bandit's knife. When he attempted to protest on Morgan's behalf, she had ignored him. “Morgan is a man after living for himself—and himself alone!” she'd snapped. “And for his precious Ireland, of course! He cares for nothing else and never will. Why, he's even managed to coax Thomas and the children to go along with this daft scheme! Sure, and won't he be as free as a sea bird, once he gets the lot of us onto a ship?”

Despite his own conflicting emotions, Daniel still thought his mother's allegations unfair. Both she and Grandfar had always accused Morgan of being selfish and irresponsible, indifferent to the feelings of others. But Daniel had never seen him in that light. Admittedly, Morgan was a solitary man—perhaps even a bit peculiar, as some in the village insinuated. He was lonely, often melancholy, at times even aloof. But never uncaring—especially with Mother. He had seen the way Morgan sometimes looked at her when he thought nobody was watching, as if she were a rare and
precious jewel, a treasure to cherish. Daniel could not put a name to the expression that came over Morgan's face, but there was no mistaking the endless depth of caring there.

And yet, if Morgan
truly
cared, would he be so determined to send them away? To emigrate might mean they would never see one another again, after all. Mother said Morgan had no intention whatsoever of leaving Ireland, not now, not ever. If he had any real affection for them, would he be quite so eager to set them on their way to America?

America.
The word had once been magic to Daniel. Often he had dreamed of visiting the liberty-loving young country. Like Morgan, he doubted that any true Irish heart could help but be stirred by the tale of America's struggle for independence from the British.

But how could Morgan think Daniel would want to
stay
there? Didn't he understand that he wasn't the only one who loved Ireland? Wasn't this
his
country as well as Morgan's? Killala, the mountains—the entire island—this was
home.
Everything he'd ever known and loved was here. Did Morgan think he could simply turn his back on it, leave and forget it altogether?

“Daniel John? Are you going to help me?”

Morgan's voice yanked him out of his troubled thoughts. He whipped around and, without thinking, blurted out, “Morgan—I don't want to go! I don't
want
to leave Ireland!”

Clearly taken aback, Morgan stared at him a moment before answering. “Of course you don't want to leave, lad,” he finally said, his voice quiet. “You think I do not know that?”

“Then why did you even bring it up? You saw how weak Mother is! All you did was upset her!” Daniel's earlier hurt and confusion parted to make way for a growing wave of doubt. “Is it true, then, what Mother thinks—that you simply want to be rid of us?”

Morgan stood leaning on the axe, his eyes hooded. “Your mother said that, did she?”

Miserable, already wishing he had held his silence, Daniel turned away without answering.

Behind him, Morgan's voice was soft and oddly uncertain. “And you, Daniel John? Is that what
you
think?”

Daniel John swallowed, feeling torn and bewildered and even a little frightened. “I don't know,” he muttered, still keeping his back to Morgan. “I don't suppose I know
what
I think anymore.”

And how could he?
Morgan thought with despair.
He is but thirteen years old. A boy, not a man. A boy who has lost his father, his little sister
—
and is
now losing his grandfather and older brother as well. And as if that were not enough to crush the spirit out of him, here am I, suggesting that he forsake his home and his country in the bargain. Of course he does not know what to think, except perhaps that his life has become a tale of madness, a cruel and heartless jest.

“Mother was right, you know.” Daniel John finally turned to face him when he spoke. “Even if we were of a mind to leave, it would be impossible. Tahg cannot walk—he scarcely even speaks anymore. And Grandfar—”

Morgan nodded. “Yes, lad, I know,” he said, trying to be gentle. “Your granddaddy is dying. And I am sorry, Daniel John, deeply sorry.” He paused. “But can you not understand, lad, that it is only because I don't want to see you and your mother die as well that I'm trying to make you face reality—face it and do something about it?”

“You know Mother will never be able to bring herself to leave!” the boy argued, his voice breaking for an instant in his frustration. “Not only because of Grandfar and Tahg.” He paused, as if debating as to whether he had the right to say what came next. “Mother…Mother would be afraid, Morgan. Why, she'd be terrified, don't you see? She's never been farther than Ballina in her life! Her entire world is here, in Killala.”

Again Morgan nodded, unable to dispute the lad's insight about his mother. Yes, of course, Nora would be frightened. Hadn't he known all along that fear might prove to be the one obstacle he could not overcome? Everything else was within the realm of possibility: money for passage, a ship, even the hope of a livelihood once they arrived. But what to do about Nora's fear?

Wasn't that the reason he had counted on Michael's willingness to help? His hope was that having somebody to depend on, somebody
familiar,
once they reached the States would make all the difference for Nora.

Ah, Michael, Michael, why haven't you answered me, man? Have I hoped for too much, after all?

“Morgan?”

The boy seemed to be looking everywhere else but at him. “If…if
you
were to go, Mother might not be so frightened. It would make all the difference if you were with us. I don't believe she considers me any protection at all—she still thinks of me as a child, you know.”

Stricken, Morgan groped for an answer; it was a question he had not anticipated. Not that he hadn't already thought of the possibility. In the event that Michael did not answer his letter, or if he answered but was unwilling to help, he had considered accompanying Nora and the others across, then returning once they were settled.

But the timing could not be worse. The new Confederation was planning a rising—a plan doomed to failure before it began. How else could it end but in defeat? Their army would be made up mostly of hungry men and starving boys, with any number of wild-eyed fanatics thrown in who had no real conception at all as to what they were fighting for. An army of starving peasants and visionaries was hardly a match for the mighty British Empire.

Despite his conviction that defeat was the only possible outcome for such an undertaking, however, Morgan could not bring himself to turn his back on Smith O'Brien. His friendship with the leader of the Young Ireland movement—and hence the leader, albeit a reluctant one, of the planned rising—made it impossible for Morgan to walk away. Besides—as Smith O'Brien had pointed out to those members like Morgan who tended to be less radical—a few cool heads might help to temper the heat of the rebellion's real fire, the impassioned militant, John Mitchel. This strong-willed son of a Unitarian minister could not be a more dramatic contrast to O'Brien, a reserved, Protestant country gentleman; yet the two had somehow managed to engulf themselves and the entire movement in a gathering storm that could explode into open rebellion at any time.

Because of his friendship with O'Brien, Morgan had promised his pen—and his men—to the Young Ireland movement, and hence the rising. He would not renege. He was committed.

But was he not also committed to the boy who stood across from him, staring at him with entreating eyes? And to the lad's mother?

Nora. Dear God, don't make me choose between her and Ireland again. I made my choice once, and I have lived with it. But, please, God, not again…not again…

Raking a hand through his hair, he looked away, turning his gaze toward the mountains. “Daniel John, please try to understand. I am deeply involved in some things right now that I must see through to the end. I have committed myself to a plan, and to some people, and to leave Ireland at this time would be akin to betrayal.”

Unexpectedly, the boy nodded and said, “You're talking about a rising.”

Morgan shot him a surprised look. “What do you know of a rising?”

“I've heard Grandfar talking,” Daniel John said with a shrug. “Him and the other men in the village. And at meeting some weeks ago we were warned about such a possibility. The speaker said we should have no part in it.” He stopped, managing a small, bitter smile. “As if anyone in the village has the strength left to take up arms.”

He lifted his eyes to Morgan's, his expression sad but knowing. “I'm sorry,
Morgan,” he said quietly. “I shouldn't have said what I did. I understand why you can't go.”