Song of the Silent Harp (18 page)

Morgan took a step toward him with the intention of explaining himself still further, but Daniel John shook his head. “No, really, it's all right,” he said in a choked voice. “I do understand, at least I think I do, how it is with you…how it has always been. It's as if Ireland has absorbed your very spirit, made you a part of her.”

Morgan had never loved the lad quite so much as he did at that moment. He thought his heart would surely explode as he laid his hands lightly on the boy's shoulders, saying, “Aye, it is as you say. But do you also understand, lad, that though it is a different kind of love, it is no greater than my feelings for you and your mother?”

Daniel John gave a short, stiff nod, averting his eyes. “Aye, I do know that, Morgan. I have always known.”

The ache in Morgan's heart swelled. “Then know this as well, lad: I would never, ever, wish you or your mother separated from me. It crushes me to even think of it. But what I
do
wish is for you to live, Daniel John—to live and have a chance for a good life, a better life than this suffering island can ever offer you.”

Daniel John looked up at him, and Morgan saw with dismay that the boy's eyes were filled with tears. Impulsively, he caught him in a brief embrace, then held him away. “You are growing up quickly, lad,” he said, still holding him loosely by the shoulders. “And you will grow to be a fine man—a
great
man, I am thinking.”

The boy flushed, but Morgan went on. “You have a noble, heroic heart, Daniel John. You will do your mother proud.” He stopped, searching for the words to express what he so desperately wanted to say. “There is something I want to tell you, lad, and no matter what may happen in the days and years to come, I pray you will always remember it.” He tightened his grip on the boy's shoulders, regarding him with pride and approval. “If I had ever had a son, Daniel John, I would have been pleased had he been a lad like you, exactly like you. Many is the time I have wished you mine.”

For a silent moment they stood so, each searching the gaze of the other. Suddenly, Daniel John threw his arms about Morgan's neck and clung to him. “Go with us, Morgan!” he choked out, the words muffled against Morgan's shoulder.
“Please! Go with us!”

Morgan held him tightly, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. Obviously, none of this was going to be as simple as he had hoped.

 

P
ART
T
WO

 

The Lord himself has scattered them; he no longer watches
over them. The priests are shown no honor, the elders no
favor. Our eyes failed, looking in vain for help; from our
towers we watched for a nation that could not save us.

L
AMENTATIONS
4:16-17 (
NIV
)

15

For where is Faith, or Purity, or Heaven in us now?
In power alone the times believe—to gold alone they bow.

R
ICHARD
D'A
LTON
W
ILLIAMS
(1822-1862)

C
otter sat alone in the large, drafty front room, nursing his whiskey along with his rage.

He had spent most of the day fuming about the Kavanagh boy, plotting his revenge on the thieving little rat. He was vaguely aware that night had fallen. The darkness around him was relieved only by the low fire across the room, which had almost burned itself out. A candle had been flickering earlier, but when the draft from the ill-fitting windows snuffed it out, he hadn't bothered to light it again.

He was completely alone in the house, except for Whittaker, who had secreted himself in his room upstairs immediately after supper. Cook had returned to her cottage in the village after the evening meal; and since the latest in a succession of housekeepers had quit only last week, there were no other domestics presently on the grounds.

From time to time Cotter shot a furious glare at the ceiling, angrily willing the milksop Englishman in the room above to feel the heat of his wrath. For the most part, however, he merely sat, sprawled drunkenly in his chair, drinking and cursing. Sometimes aloud, more often to himself, he cursed Daniel Kavanagh, his family, and the useless inhabitants of the village.

As for the boy, that impudent
gorsoon
would pay, he would. He could not imagine what had possessed the young pup, pretending to be so eager for a job, then deliberately defying him. Well, he would rue his insolence, and soon. Tomorrow the foolhardy young buck would find out the hard way that he could not afford to flout Georges Cotter's authority.

The agent tossed down the rest of his whiskey. Aye, tomorrow young Kavanagh would learn to his misfortune the consequences of rebuffing those in authority. Indeed, many of the disrespectful savages in this squalid village would have themselves a taste of their agent's authority tomorrow.

Mastery was the thing, he concluded with a self-satisfied smirk. Mastery, not mercy. The English dandy upstairs liked to run on about mercy. Well, Whittaker would also be learning soon enough that mercy had no place in this hellhole. Power was the thing that got the job done—
British
power. The power of the British landlord.

He laughed aloud. To these ignorant Irish peasants, what other power was there?

Upstairs, on his knees, his head resting on clasped hands atop the bed, his brow beaded with perspiration, Evan Whittaker pleaded with his Lord.

He pleaded for control over the hot anger coursing through him, an anger fueled by disgust and targeted at Cotter, yet somehow directed at his own homeland at the same time. He found it incomprehensible that one people could devastate another in such a way, with such blatant inhumanity and indifference. The question that had confronted him, nagged at him all day, was how a nation like England, perceived as a nation of greatness and nobility by other lands throughout the world, could simply turn its back on a starving country—a country from which they had drawn huge quantities of grain, produce, cattle, and manufactured goods for years. The accusation that they were allowing the Irish to starve to death was no longer a point of debate; a number of Protestant churchmen throughout both countries had begun to add their outraged protests to those of the Catholic clergy, confirming what had been, up until a few months past, merely rumor and insinuation. Facts were facts, and Evan no longer attempted to deny the truth. But what dumbfounded him most was the arrogant detachment, the glib ease with which they had condemned this suffering island.

Why?

The question had been on his lips for hours, and he still had no answer. But it seemed to him that at the heart of England's unmerciful treatment of the Irish, there had to be something larger than neglect, more significant than bigotry. Or did he only cling to that assumption because he could not bring himself to accept the fact that his own country had condemned an entire people out of greed? Greed and apathy.

And so as he prayed for an ebbing of his anger, as he pleaded for mercy and divine intervention in the lives of the suffering Irish, he prayed for God's mercy upon his own land as well, for England and her hardened heart.

So intent was Evan upon his supplications that the noise below scarcely penetrated his awareness. When it came again, he raised his head to listen.

He heard the sound of breaking glass, then a low, guttural roar, followed by an instant of silence. Evan held his breath, waiting. After another moment came a high-pitched shriek, then an explosion of laughter.

The sound of madness.

Evan shuddered, swallowed against his fear, then squeezed his eyes shut. Clasping his hands even more tightly, he bowed his head and returned to the Quiet, to the secure shelter of his Hiding Place.

The letter from Michael came that night.

Morgan was sitting at the kitchen table, fiddling with a piece of writing by a young medical student in Dublin, a member of the Young Ireland movement named Richard D'Alton Williams. Williams wrote for
The Nation
under the
nom-de-plume,
“Shamrock.” He was a talented lad who on more than one occasion had asked Morgan to critique his poems. Tonight, however, he was finding it difficult to concentrate on Williams' work, in spite of its usual excellence.

It was late, past midnight. The children had been in bed for hours. Thomas, his shaggy hair falling over his forehead, sat nodding and dozing by the fire. Earlier he had been reading from the Scriptures. His large hands still held his Bible securely in his lap.

Pushing his pen and paper aside, Morgan rose to go and wake his brother lest he topple from the chair. He was halfway across the room when someone pounded on the door. Morgan jumped, and Thomas awakened with a startled grunt.

As soon as Morgan opened the door and saw the young, sober-faced Colin Ward, he knew that at long last he had his reply from Michael.

A diminutive, wiry lad, Ward wore an eye patch to cover his missing left
eye, lost in a brawl on the Dublin docks. At the moment he appeared half-frozen and nearly exhausted. Morgan urged him inside, but the youth refused to sit down and rest.

“No, thank you, sir. I'll take but a moment to warm myself, and then I must be off to Castlebar. I have one more delivery yet tonight.”

Reaching into a pouch on a rope tied about his waist, he pulled out a large, thick envelope and handed it to Morgan. “Here you are, sir. All the way from New York City—and safe and dry at that, though it has passed through many hands, I should imagine.”

His heart pounding, Morgan reached for the envelope with one hand while squeezing Ward's shoulder with the other. “I cannot thank you enough, lad. I had almost given this up.”

Morgan glanced at the hefty envelope, pulling in a sharp breath of anticipation when he saw that it was addressed in Michael's hand. So impatient was he to open the letter he had to make an effort not to be rude to Ward. But he need not have worried, for the lad seemed as eager to be gone as Morgan was to read his letter. After a brief introduction to Thomas and a few observations about O'Connell's failing health and Smith O'Brien's troubles, Ward started to leave. Morgan saw him out, then turned to Thomas.

“So it has come,” his brother said, watching Morgan with the first spark of interest he had exhibited since Catherine's death.

Morgan nodded. He had told Thomas of the letter to Michael, omitting his proposal regarding Nora. So far as his brother was aware, Morgan had simply contacted his old friend to ask assistance for his family in matters of lodging and employment.

“Go on, then,” Thomas said, returning to his chair. “I am as anxious as you to hear his reply.”

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, Morgan opened the outside envelope, his hands trembling when he realized it contained two separate letters, each in its own sealed envelope. One was addressed to him, the other to Nora.

Putting aside for now the torrent of emotions surging up inside his chest, he ripped open the letter addressed to him. He read in silence for a moment, his eyes scanning the words quickly but thoroughly.

As he had hoped—hoped and half-feared, he admitted to himself—Michael declared himself willing to do what he could to help Nora and her family, as well as Thomas and his children. Though it was not an overly long letter, it was warm and plainly sincere. The decision, Michael said, had not been his alone, but had been made only after much prayer and lengthy discussion with his son, Tierney.

We are agreed that Nora should come to us, along with
those family members who manage to survive the terrible events you have described. And so I have written a separate letter to Nora, as you so insightfully suggested, to make an honorable proposal of marriage, explaining that I greatly need the companionship of a wife, and that Tierney even more needs the mothering influence and nurture she could provide.

I have tried my best, Morgan, to be entirely sincere and convincing. In truth, I do fervently pray that Nora will come. I am not exaggerating when I say that Tierney and I need her, but in all honesty I might never have come to this realization if you had not written when you did. While I have attempted to build a good life for the both of us, I fear it is often a somewhat lonely life; I know the boy, to say nothing of myself, would benefit greatly from Nora's presence.

Not only was he in full agreement with Morgan's suggestions, Michael went on to say, but he was enclosing some money inside Nora's letter, “just in case additional funds might be needed once her passage is paid.”

Bless the man, he had even gone so far as to inquire into employment opportunities for Thomas before writing, saying he thought he might have “something lined up for him by the time they arrive.”

As Morgan neared the end of the letter, he was feeling a bit better about things—at least until he came to Michael's closing remarks, which seemed to leap up off the page as if to challenge him.

It's entirely true, of course, that when we were young, I was that mad for Nora. Yet, although I did ask her to accompany me to America as my wife, I was never fool enough to hope she could care for me in any way other than as a friend. We both know that she never saw me apart from your shadow, and I was never so blind as to be unaware of your love for her as well. That being the case, I must ask you, man: Are you absolutely certain this is how you want things to be?

Ah, no, Michael, this is not the way I want things to be! Were I a different man and this a different time, I would make Nora mine in a shake, if she would have me.

Dragging his gaze back to the letter, Morgan continued to read.

Please know, Morgan, that by raising this question I am in no way attempting to renege on anything, but am only
trying to be absolutely certain you realize what you are doing. If you are indeed convinced, then know this: If we do this thing, if Nora agrees to come to me and be my wife, then it will be for the duration.