Toward the Sea of Freedom (4 page)

Once, she even pilfered a candle from the manor house, and the two of them solemnly recited wedding vows. Naturally, they knew this did not count. They were just children, playing at marriage. To make it real, they would need permission from their parents and the landlord, and Father O’Brien’s blessing. They couldn’t imagine how they would get all that.

“We’ll marry in America!” Michael comforted Kathleen when, once again, these thoughts aggrieved her. “Or in Kingstown or Galway before we sail.”

Kathleen no longer protested when he raved about their wonderful life together on the other side of the ocean. She had chosen him; she wanted to live with him, wherever that would be. And America was better than the convent—the only way to flee a marriage in Ireland.

The cold and rainy days of late autumn had arrived. Even under the thickest of the blankets Michael had scavenged, it was wet and uncomfortable in their love nest on the river. But the walks after church also grew shorter. Everyone took refuge in houses and cottages. Many people simply lacked the strength to do anything else.

There had been less and less to eat for weeks. Hunger held Lord Wetherby’s tenants in its iron grip, although the lord himself did not notice. He and his wife had long since returned to their country house in England, where they sat drinking tea in front of the fireplace, cheered by the rich harvest of his Irish holdings. It was possible he was not even aware that no such blessings were bestowed upon his tenants and day laborers. His grain was sound. Why should Wetherby give a second thought to potatoes?

The few potatoes not blighted had long since been eaten. There had been so few, no one had been able to store any—not even seed potatoes for the following year. They would have to buy them, and God alone knew with what money. To survive the winter, the children gathered acorns in the forest, which their parents ground. The lucky ones, like Kathleen’s family, added rye or wheat flour; others baked their bread from the coarse, unsubstantial acorn meal. The poorest—those who could hardly summon the strength to go into the woods to gather acorns or dig up roots—cooked soup from the meager grass that grew along the road. People fought over the last dry nettles.

Now and again, Father O’Brien would dispense donations in church. Collections were taken up in England for the Irish, and some of the charity even came from America. Nevertheless, it was never enough to last very long. Stomachs were filled once, but it only made the hunger hurt all the more.

Michael Drury’s family found ways to make ends meet. Michael fiddled in Wicklow’s tavern, but even the towns lacked money for diversions. Prices for groceries climbed in equal measure to people’s hunger, and even the moonshine whiskey distillers in the mountains wanted for raw materials.

Through it all, Mary Kathleen was the only one on whom the strains of the famine could hardly be seen. While everyone around her became thin, she seemed to blossom and even to put on weight. The reason for that did not, however, lie in Trevallion’s generous gifts. Old Gráinne cooked for the steward when the Wetherbys weren’t there, and he would have enjoyed feeding Kathleen the extra pastries and cakes. She wouldn’t take anything directly from him, though her mother joyfully accepted his boon and fairly distributed the treats to Kathleen’s siblings. Kathleen could not be getting fat from that.

“It’s my love making you more beautiful,” asserted Michael when they met at the river to take a little walk on one of the few dry Sundays.

The countryside was covered in an early frost, the meadow seeming to wear a wedding dress, and the cold pressed through Kathleen’s thin shoes. It would have been much too cold to lie down in the reeds. Outside, it was only tolerable when one was moving, so Michael and Kathleen strode quickly—they wished to put the village behind them as quickly as possible. On days like this, the gossip hounds curled up behind stoves, but one never knew if Father O’Brien might pass by on his way to a sick or dying parishioner.

Only when the young couple was a fair distance from the village did Kathleen dare to snuggle into Michael’s arms. His caresses kept her warm. His hands moved beneath her threadbare shawl and her thin dress, and he stroked her shoulders and breasts.

“You’re like a flower that blooms even in winter,” he whispered, “because your gardener flatters you, tends to you, and pines for your blossom.”

Kathleen bit her lip. “Do you really think I, I’m,” she stammered, “taking on a more womanly form? I mean . . .”

“Your breasts seem to be growing at my touch,” Michael laughed. “God knows they were always lovely and firm, but now—do you feel how my hands are no longer big enough to hold them?”

Michael caressed her breasts, and his hands wandered deeper inside her dress. “Everything about you is warm and wonderful. I long to curl up beside you and—”

Kathleen pushed him away. “Michael,” she said in a concerned tone. “I, I don’t know much about it, but I have seen the girls who marry and then . . . and then are in a family way. And I’ve seen my mother when she’s carrying another baby. That’s why, Michael, I, as wonderful as your love is, still, still—if a girl gains weight with nothing to eat, it often means she’s got something growing in her belly.”

Kathleen did not dare look at him. Michael let go of her, taken aback.

“You mean you might be pregnant?” he asked, disbelieving. “But, but how? It’s too soon, Kathleen! I haven’t put together the money for America yet.”

Kathleen exhaled audibly. “The baby won’t care a fig for that, Michael Drury! And I’m sure it wouldn’t want to enter this world aboard a coffin ship. We’ll have to marry, Michael. Very soon. Here.”

“But Kathleen! Here, now? Where would we live? What will your father say? He’s certainly not going to give his blessing.”

“He’s going to have to,” Kathleen insisted bitterly. “Or live with the shame. Of course, I could just give myself to Trevallion quickly and say it’s his. But we don’t have that much time.”

Michael roared. “That idiot touching you? Raising my child? Over my dead body! Listen, Kathleen, aren’t there any other options?”

Kathleen glared at him. “You’re not thinking of killing this child in me, Michael Drury.”

Michael shook his head ruefully. “No. But it, it could be that you’re wrong.”

Kathleen shrugged. “That could be. I just don’t believe it. I’ve made excuses to myself until today, Michael, but now that you’ve noticed it too . . . and it’s going quickly. Quicker than for most girls. Soon everyone will see.”

Michael took a few steps away from her, confused, unsure. He was quiet, which scared Kathleen, since it was so unusual for him.

“Aren’t you happy at all, Michael?” she asked quietly. “Don’t you want a baby? I mean, true, it’s too soon and a sin and a scandal, and everyone will flap their mouths about it. But it is . . . we can finally marry, Michael. Even if it doesn’t suit my father. If there’s no other way, then Father O’Brien will have a word with him. Or don’t you want to marry me, Michael?” Kathleen choked out her last sentence.

Remorsefully, he came back to her and took her in his arms with his accustomed tenderness. “For heaven’s sake, Kathleen, of course I want to marry you! I want nothing more. And I want the baby. It’s just, it’s just, so soon.” Michael sighed, then squared himself. “Listen, Kathleen, give me two or three weeks, aye? You take good care of yourself, and by then, I’ll arrange something. I’ll get the money for America, Kathleen. I don’t want to approach the cross here on hands and knees and be dragged in front of the priest, like a poor sinner. I don’t want them talking about you—not yet anyway. Later, of course, when we send them money from America or visit them with you wearing silk dresses and a velvet hat.” He laughed. “Yes, I’d like that. We’ll ride in a coach with two horses through this impoverished backwater and laugh down at Trevallion, or we’ll buy the whole wheat harvest off his damned lord and give it to the people.”

Kathleen could not help but laugh along with him. “Oh, that would suit you fine, Michael Drury. You’re a show-off. But it’ll be enough for me if old O’Rearke drives us to church in his donkey cart and I come out as Mrs. Drury.”

Michael kissed her. “I can’t promise you this particular church or donkey, dearest. But we’ll find a church where we can join in union with pride and dignity.” He straightened his posture, seeming to grow several inches.

“I, Michael Drury, am going to be a father. An exalted feeling. And I already know it will be a son. A handsome boy with my hair and your eyes.” His own eyes now shone as joyfully as Kathleen had hoped they would when she sensed she was pregnant.

“And if it is a girl? You won’t like your child at all then?”

Michael spun her around, laughing. “If it’s a girl, we’ll have to become rich even faster. So we can build a tower to lock her in. For a daughter of yours will be so lovely that a glance at her will lame a man and make him her slave.”

Hand in hand, they walked across the fields along the river, dreaming of their new life. Kathleen did not want to think about how Michael would raise the money for the journey and wedding. She only knew she trusted him. She wanted to—had to—trust him.

Chapter 3

In the middle of December, when the water of the Vartry River had frozen at the banks and the famine in Ireland was at its peak, three sacks of barley and rye disappeared from Trevallion’s barn. The grain for Lord Wetherby’s horses was kept there. He owned three powerful hunting horses that needed to eat more than the mules and donkeys did.

Ralph Trevallion did not notice the theft at first—only when the animals’ feed sack was empty did he go into the barn to retrieve fresh supplies and take stock. Then, however, his rage knew no bounds. The steward galloped into the village, upbraiding the tenants. Enthroned on the back of the largest hunting horse, he glared down upon the men and women.

“I will not rest until I’ve found the thief!” he spat. “That man will be driven from house and home, and his no-good family with him. And you all’ll help me! Aye, don’t look at me like that; you’ll do as I say. I’ll be accepting information starting today, and you have a week to deliver the thief to me. If you don’t find him, you’ll all go. Don’t even think I couldn’t answer for it to His Lordship. A pack the likes of you roams the streets by the dozen. With a flick of the wrist, I could fill the houses again—and just with men, you hear. No families whose brats we also have to feed.”

Everyone looked at the ground, afraid. Trevallion was right. Lord Wetherby did not care who worked his fields. The streets of Wicklow were full of men fleeing the famine. Their children had long since been claimed, often their wives too. They simply lay on the side of the street starving when they could not find anything more to eat.

“Now hold on, Ralph Trevallion.” Father O’Brien announced himself with a stern voice. “It was just a few sacks of grain—animal feed, like you said. It’s a shame you didn’t offer it long ago. Don’t you see what’s happening here? Can’t your horses eat hay?”

“And by my faith, we don’t know anything about it!” added Ron Flannigan, an older foreman. “We all bake our bread in the same oven, Mr. Trevallion, and believe you me, everyone here would smell it if someone was cooking mush or roasting grain in one of the houses. We dream of such stuff, sir.”

Trevallion glared at him. “I don’t care a fig what you dream about. I can only assure you I’ll become your worst nightmare if you don’t toe the line. A week, people, or you’ll feel it.”

With that, he turned his horse, leaving behind a village full of confused and despairing tenant farmers.

“But we haven’t done anything,” Flannigan shouted after him. He repeated the sentence again a second time, quietly and hopelessly.

Father O’Brien shook his head. Then he saw Kathleen standing somewhat off to the side with her parents. “Mary Kathleen, you must speak with him,” the priest told her quietly. “You, he brings you home on Sundays with your parents’ blessing and . . .” The old priest looked Kathleen’s body over meaningfully. “You also seem to be close to him besides,” he remarked. “He’ll listen to you. Ask him for mercy for the tenants. For, for the sake of his child.”

Kathleen blushed deeply. “Father, Father, what, what child? I, I’ve never had more to do with Ralph Trevallion than anyone else here.”

The priest looked the girl in the eye. His gaze was questioning, severe—but Kathleen also recognized sympathy. Whether it was for her, the tenants, the child, or even Trevallion—whose hope to win Kathleen’s love would be destroyed—Kathleen did not know. Nor could she stand his gaze any longer. It was not Trevallion with whom she needed to speak. It was Michael.

Where was he anyway? Kathleen wondered impatiently. She had not seen him during Trevallion’s tirade. But she was firmly convinced that her beloved had something to do with the theft of the grain. Surely it was related to gathering money for the wedding and passage to America. But innocent people could not pay for it. Michael had to give the grain back. There had to be a way to put it back in the barn just as slyly as it had been spirited away.

If Michael had already fled, if he had left nothing to chance, he would doubtlessly retrieve her sometime. She hoped it wasn’t too late, but it was possible that he could long since have sold the sacks in Wicklow or elsewhere.