The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (35 page)

 

 

But as wonderful as
that news was,
Governor Collins was saving his best revelation of all until
the night of the
Yuletide celebration.

 

 

On Christmas Eve,
the entire jail
was abuzz with excitement over the festivities planned. Dalton
had bought Emer
an elegant black woollen gown to wear for the occasion. Mrs. Jenkins
had
protested it should be
any colour but black, but Dalton shook his head.

 

 

“She wouldn’t wear
it, believe me, I
know her. Besides,
I know it's a
bleak colour, but with Emer’s complexion, eyes, and hair, I’ve
never seen her
look lovelier than in a jet gown.”

 

 

“That’s because
you’ve never seen
her wear anything other than black or blue, or trousers,” Mrs.
Jenkins quipped.

 

 

“Beauty like Emer’s
needs no
enhancement,” Captain Jenkins remarked from behind his
newspaper. “It
glows from within. It doesn’t need
any frippery to call attention to what is so obviously already
there.”

 

 

“Why, Sam Jenkins,
if I didn’t know
any better, I’d start to grow jealous!” Mrs. Jenkins said
playfully.

 

 

“If you don’t know
you're the love
of my life after so many years, Emily Jenkins, then I’d be
wasting my breath
telling you,” Captain
Jenkins
replied with a small indulgent smile.

 

 

“A lady likes to
hear the words sometimes,
though,” Emily said prettily.

 

 

“In that case, I’ll
leave you two
lovebirds, and start getting ready for the party.” Dalton rose
with a blush,
and returned to his own room to change his suit.

 

 

Once he was
dressed, Dalton opened
the small ring box to take a look at his present to Emer, an
engagement ring in
brilliant aquamarines which reminded him of Emer’s eyes.

 

 

Then he picked up
the gown box, and
headed off to the prison, and looked forward to spending a
happy evening with
Emer by his side as his intended bride.

 

 

But Dalton’s plans
were thwarted
almost from the first, for Emer had dressed simply in one of
her new blouses
and skirts, and with an apron tired around her slender waist,
she was helping
serve up the roast beef and goose dinner the women of the town
had made when
Dalton arrived with his presents.

 

 

Once all the
inmates had eaten, the
assembled prisoners filed out into the exercise yard, and the
music
started.

 

 

Before Dalton could
say a word,
Terence whisked Emer off for a very vigorous hornpipe. Dalton
stood fuming as
he had to admit to himself that they made an extremely
handsome couple dancing
together.

 

 

Then it was
O’Brien’s turn to dance
with Emer, and Dalton felt all the agonies of hopeless
jealousy as the other
man waltzed around the floor with his intended bride.

 

 

There was a lull in
the dancing for
a time as the men stopped for a drink of ale they had been
permitted for the
special occasion.

 

 

Then Terence stood
Emer on a wooden
bench and asked her for a song.

 

 

Emer blushed to the
roots of her
hair, and would have declined, but the men all began banging
their wooden mugs.

 

 

So she said,
“Right, lads, this is a
comic song from my part of the country, and we call it simply
‘The Pig
Song.’ It goes
something like
this.

 

 

“In the year twenty nine, when the
weather was fine,

 

 

I straight took myself to the sweet fair at Trim.

 

 

For to sell a swine it was my
design,

 

 

She was plump fat and fair,

 

 

And complete in each limb.

 

 

The swine was as
mild as a lamb or a
child,

 

 

You could whip her all over the
globe with a twig.

 

 

And the truth for to tell, I sold
her right well,

 

 

Three ten was the price that I got
for me pig,

 

 

With a torallollora torallollora, torallollora, torall aeeay

 

 

Slapped the cash to
me thigh, and a
glass to me eye,

 

 

Through the streets I did fly like a
sporting young
buck,

 

 

When a buxom young dame that
belonged to the game

 

 

She up to me came to be sure for
good luck.

 

 

She gave me the
wink to go in for a
drink

 

 

She inveigled me then to dance
Twinuses' jig.

 

 

It was as we wheeled round that

 

 

She slipped her hand down and

 

 

She left me quite scare of the price
of me pig,

 

 

With a torallollora torallollora, torallollora, torall aeeay

 

 

I came all in despair when I missed
my share,

 

 

I went tearing my hair seeking her
up and down,

 

 

Every corner and lane, but it was
all in vain,

 

 

Sure a sprig of the damsel could
never be found.

 

 

In Navan next day I
striked up my
way,

 

 

For I heard people say of a fair
being in Trim,

 

 

Ah, but when I went there I was
loaded with care,

 

 

You may think I just had my walk all in vain.

 

 

And the first that
rolled in being
Tatterjack Flynn,

 

 

Oh he danced a few steps of a nice
double jig,

 

 

And then by and by I cast my eye on
the jade

 

 

That robbed me of the price of my
pig

 

 

With a torallollora torallollora, torallollora, torolaya

 

 

Ah by Tara, by Screen,

 

 

By the bog of Armin, by Paddy McGee,

 

 

By the high hill of Hope,

 

 

By the church, by the bell, and by Paddy McKell

 

 

If I swear any more then you’ll know
that I’m low.

 

 

If the lord of Mayo had a heard of
me woe,

 

 

I’m sure he’d come in a chase or a
gig,

 

 

And search high hill and ground till
the jade would
be found

 

 

And he’d clap her in pound for the
price of me pig,

 

 

With a torallollora torallollora, torallollora, torall aeeay

 

 

Ah so now since
it’s so, sure it’s
homewards I’ll go,

 

 

My shuttle I’ll throw and from drink
I’ll be free,

 

 

I’ll stick to me loom, where youth
has it’s bloom,

 

 

And I’ll never be caught by a
trumpet again.

 

 

Let me turn it out
well, I surely
will tell,

 

 

And I’ll have the best action of
Calvary’s wig,

 

 

And for the transaction I’ll have
satisfaction,

 

 

I’ll catch a few notes for the price
of me pig,

 

 

With a torallollora, torallollora, torallollora,
torall aeeay.

 

 

After a huge round of applause and
endless laughter
over the mistaken words and colorful language, Terence swung
Emer down off the
bench into his arms and did a Scottish Strathspey with her, and
then Emer was
taken around the circle by one after the other of the men.  

 

 

Mrs. Jenkins was
also a popular
dance partner with the men when she arrived a short time
later. Dalton had to
stand and watch as both women glided across the floor with
every prisoner in
turn.

 

 

Finally Dalton
could stand it no
more, and was just about to cut in on O’Brien as he danced
with Emer again,
when the governor of the prison arrived to say a few words to
the men.

 

 

After making a few
announcements
regarding the arrangements for the new prison farm on New
Year’s Day, he
declared, “And we all know who we have to thank for making it
all possible,
Emer Dillon, and her friends.
And
while I know that Emer initiated the whole scheme long ago,
with no thought of
ever getting a reward for herself, she and Terence McManus and
William Smith
O’Brien have
made an enormous
difference here.

 

 

"It therefore gives
me great
pleasure to admit that unbeknownst to them, I have been active
on their
behalfs, and have just received some good news. Effective New
Year’s Day, 1849,
Terence McManus and William Smith O’Brien will have their
sentences commuted
from death to fourteen years transportation to Tasmania, and
Emer Nugent Dillon
is to be granted a full pardon and set free.”

 

 

Emer’s eyes
widened, and then
Terence and O’Brien enfolded her in their embrace, and they
hugged each other
as Emer’s tears began to fall.

 

 

Dalton was
dumbstruck that the
Governor had undertaken the appeal behind his back, but
thought it was the best
Christmas present he had ever received.

 

 

He made his way
over to the
Jenkinses, and said, “In that case I will book passage on the
next ship bound
for North America on New Year’s Day, for all of us, and we'll
be home in Quebec
before you know it.”

 

 

Captain Jenkins
shook his head.
“We’re staying, Mr. Randall, with your permission, of course. We
have so many
plans for the town and
the prison farm, we couldn’t just leave like this. And Charlie, my
lad, you want to stay as
well, don’t you?”

 

 

“Aye, I do. I’ll teach the lads
sailing skills, and
if you're willing to send over ships and men, Mr. Randall,
you’d have the
finest fleet in the world in no time,” Charlie vowed.

 

 

Dalton looked from
one to the other,
and saw that their minds had been made up. “Very well, if
you're sure, then, I
guess I’ll have to say yes.
I’ll
book passage for just myself and Emer. We'll miss you.”

 

 

The Jenkinses
exchanged looks behind
Dalton’s retreating back.

 

 

Emily smiled gently
at her husband.

 

 

“Love really is blind, isn’t it?”

 

 

“Dalton’s not
blind. He's like
a great many other men when
it comes to women. He just wants to see what he wishes to see,
and ignores the
problems he doesn’t know how to deal with,” her husband
replied with a shake of
his head.

 

 

“You did mean it,
though, didn’t you
Sam? About
staying. You
didn’t just say it because you were
worried about Emer remaining behind on her own?”

 

 

“No, I really meant
it. I know you
want to stay too.”

 

 

“And me, sir,”
Charlie said
firmly. “After
everything Emer did
for me, I wouldn’t leave her on her own. Besides, I really believe I
can teach these men. If
they turn out to be
one-tenth the sailor Emer was, we will have the finest crews
in the British
Isles, and do something to right all these terrible wrongs.”

 

 

The three of them
turned to watch
Dalton hug Emer to him lovingly, and then the happy couple
made their way over
to the governor to shake him by the hand.

 

 

“Thank you, not
just for me, but for
Terence and O’Brien as well,” Emer said gratefully, as she
watched her two
friends dance in the middle of the set together comically as
though they hadn’t
a care in the world.

 

 

“It was the only
way I could think
of to get the worst trio of troublemakers I’ve ever met out of
my jail,”
Governor Collins teased.

 

 

Then he asked Emer
for the honour of
dancing with her.

 

 

Dalton watched Emer
vanish into the
throng again, but decided that for once he didn’t care. He believed
sincerely that she was
coming home with him at the end of the week, and so for once
Dalton could afford
to be generous.

 

 

As the Jenkinses
had said, love was
truly blind.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

 

 

Dalton blithely ignored all the warning
signs as Emer
remained noticeably reticent about his excited plans for them
once they got
home to the fabulous new house that he had built for her.

 

 

Emer knew she was
being cowardly by
not coming straight out and telling him that she wished to
remain behind in
Clonmel to put into effect all her plans for the prisoners,
but her feelings
ran deep, and she wasn’t certain she could really explain to
Dalton exactly how
she felt.

 

 

She loved him
dearly, but there was
still so much more to do…

 

 

Emer snatched as
many moments alone
with Dalton that week as she could given the busy nature of
the jail, and was
able to indulge in some intimate caresses with Dalton that
left her aching for
him to make love to her.

 

 

Yet as much as she
longed for him,
it was neither the time nor the place, and she wasn't sure of
her feelings
about motherhood ever since she had lost William. He had been
the greatest joy
of her life, and the cause of the most acute suffering. Women
died in
childbirth all the time. Could she be a good wife to Dalton,
and a mother as
well, and fulfill her destiny at the same time?