Anna had brought in an extra chair, opened the windows to an August breeze.
He’d told Anna they had important news, yet dropping a bomb into a tea party in Ibiza wasn’t his cup of Earl Grey.
Cynthia took lemon, a cube of sugar, stirred, set down her spoon. ‘The Barret,’ she said to Anna, ‘is at Catharmore.’
‘Catharmore?’
‘We saw it today in the basement, in a storage room.’
‘But that means… Paddy.’
‘We thought you should tell Liam,’ he said. ‘You’ll know best how to handle such news.’
‘In a storage room?’
‘Where the boys’ childhood things are kept,’ said Cynthia. ‘Among a stack of louvers.’
‘Any harm done to it?’
‘None we could see.’
‘The Garda,’ said Anna. ‘The uproar it will bring. Dear God.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I can’t believe it.’ Anna shook her head, took a deep breath. ‘It’s hard to consider the good news for thinking how Liam will feel. This black betrayal will cap it all. Does Seamus know?’
‘He does,’ he said. ‘He’ll mention it to no one. It will be a hard thing for Mrs. Conor.’ The upheaval of a police investigation, inevitable. The news of one son stealing from another, inevitable. The extra drain on Evelyn Conor’s diminished physical resources, inevitable.
‘I’m sorry for her,’ said Anna. ‘I want you to know that. I’m not completely coldhearted.’ She looked at her hands in her lap. ‘I must think of how to tell Liam-he seems happier just now. I can hardly keep up with all that comes at us-’t is a battering ram at our door.’
He thought of Fintan O’Donnell and the fruit spoons; how the doctor had quietly removed them from the thief’s possession and returned them to his own, with no word spoken. This would be different.
‘I’ve heard fiddle music a couple of times,’ he said, ‘as if it were coming from this room.’
‘Yes. I share it now with Bella. Things feel better, if only a little. Thank you both for your kindness, your patience with her, with all of us.’
‘Thank you for your patience with us,’ he said.
‘Soon you’ll be leaving. It seems you’ve been with us a very long time.’
He couldn’t help smiling. ‘We have been with you a very long time.’
‘I shall hate to see you go.’
‘We will hate to go,’ said Cynthia.
‘If you change your mind, you can have your room through next week.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘We must get home to our son.’
He wanted to tell Anna that William was not Liam’s father, should she have any lingering question. But Liam had talked to him in confidence, and the need to relieve Anna was not his concern.
He stopped with Cynthia in the library and looked around-at the fine bookcases and worn rug, the chairs with their silent history of sitters from every realm, the fireplace with its eternal flame. ‘I’ll never forget this room.’ He put his arm around her. ‘Did you mean it about hating to go?’
She looked at him, thoughtful. ‘Yes.’ They hoped to be ready when Feeney gave the word.
‘Has Pud seen the suitcases?’
‘He has.’
They had no energies left to chat up the Sweeneys and the author and niece at the social hour, nor any joie de vivre for dinner downstairs. They took it in their room, withered as weeds.
She put on the declining robe; he donned pajamas and, raising a glass of fairly decent port, opened the journal to their bookmarks and read aloud.
January 1863
After bitter days of solitude & sickness at Cathair Mohr, the snow melts fast & we have seen three patients. I wonder at the low number; they are uneasy & tell me there are rumours abroad.
I ride out on Adam, dodging the worst of the mud.
Inside her door, I remove my heavy coat & hang it on a peg. Her red hen perching on the other chair gives me a menacing look.
I pull up a stool. What are they saying, Rose?
They’re sayin’ ye’ve a lad sick with Cholera at your place.
Who is saying it?
O’Leary got th’ word passin’, he didn’t call it th’ Cholera to me, but ’t was turned into Cholera by th’ time it went round. They say Balfour is comin’ to your door with such as th’ Health Board.
I had thought the rumour started when Keegan went four days ago to Mullaghmore to pronounce the lad too ill with food poisoning to travel, & met Padraigin coming this way saying the lad’s mother is in Hospital. The poor woman suffers the same evil symptoms we are wrestling with here but Keegan swears he stuck to his story of food poison.
How is th’ lad? she says.
Frail as any feather, we do all we can. Tis the typhoid fever, but you must swear to say nothing.
She dips her chin, affirming her honor to me.
Tis passed to another through feces or urine or vomit, I say, & no need to worry for he is quarantined & I come to ye clean.
She puffs her pipe, nods. I am pleased to see a makeshift pie sits warming on her hob.
And you, Rose? Are ye well in this wether?
Aye, but for th’ Rheumatics.
She holds up her hands, displays her gnarly fingers.
Keep them warm, I say. Is there anything ye need?
Mutton, she replies.
Ye’ll have it, I say.
I go to the peg & pull on my heavy coat.
Bring him here when he’s stout again, she says. I’ll boil ’im an egg from Cliona.
Stout again! My heart leaps. I salute her.
Bail ó Dhia ort, I say with my little Irish.
Bail ó Dhia is Muire dhuit, she says.
Cliona has not moved from her perch.
I return home, brooding with an unnamed anxiety. There is Balfour’s untidy carriage, fair covered with mud. Balfour & two men-both English-are coming down the steps of the front portico, Keegan stands on the top step, arms folded, looking sour. Caitlin stands in the open doorway, a statue of marble in her white nurse’s apron. I do not dismount.
We have searched your house, sir, says Balfour, the Great Boar Hog in Trousers.
I say nothing.
We were informed you have Contagion here, says one of the men.
I see by C’s expression that they have not discovered the lad.
I trust you are pleased with your findings, I say.
I rein Adam about, mud flying. At the carriage house, I find I am trembling as if with the ague.
It happened that Jessie had been sweeping out the upper floor & looked down to see Balfour’s carriage in the lane. She alarmed the house so that Keegan & C got the lad well-wrapped & down the stairs to the quarantine room in good time.
Jessie cleared the table by his bed, chucked it all into a pillow casing & hid it in the laundry. C stuffed his wee dab of clothes behind her bureau. Fiona’s sour humour came to marvelous use-she met the men in the hall & forced them to remove their muddy boots!-this action giving Keegan & C time to roll the bookcase away & get the lad into the room.
As she tells me this, C is trembling as I had done.
We put him on the cot, she says, & covered him with the blankets. I asked him not to cry out whatever he did and he did not. They searched the house-what terrifying & wicked little men they were, & yet so very stupid-seeming in their sock feet. If men were robbed of boots with their dangerous heels, wars would cease.
She clings to me. We must keep the lad there, she says, for they will be back, I can feel it.
What did you tell them, I say.
Twas a poor job, but the best I could muster. I said a relative of his had come for the boy & we know nothing of his circumstances. I said he had recovered from what appeared to be food poisoning & was well & able when he left us.
They asked about Padraigin & the rest?
Yes.
What did you tell them?
The truth, she said. That they live in Mullaghmore, but I am not certain where.
I go down to him carrying a slab of heated stone wrapped in a scrap of linen. In the cold room, my breath is vapor. I am brought low by the smallness of him beneath the blankets & the heat of his head in this punishing fever.
I place the wrapped stone beneath the covers at the foot of the cot & pull the little stool from under the table & sit by him.
Lad, I say.
He opens his eyes to me. I see the tribulation of the world in but eight years of living.
You are safe, I say. You will be strong again. You will make a fine Surgeon.
I am babbling like an idjit, tears streaming. I turn my face from him & make this promise aloud in the desolate room-With God’s help, we shall see a nasty thing fixed back to a good thing.
Day following, January
I have set up my own cot by the fire in the Surgery & am in & out to him frequently, managing the pan, turning him, applying the ice if need be. All possible clues to his presence in the house are now with him in the room. I look at once for the little vapor from his breath, a small flag that signals good news. All the writings on this subject have been delved-we are advised to keep him abed so that no Energy is wasted in tottering about. He is patient & kind, without the urgent desire of the young for his sickness to leave off-he simply endures. My mother Bessy would so relish giving him comfort. Mother, I sometimes say aloud, as if she were near.
We are blessed of God with a day unseaonsably warm. I open the small window for ventilation-Keegan has obscured it from any outside view.
14 January
Some improvement. Fever lingering as it does in such a case. Taking beef broth. C with him frequently. Fr Dominic here overnight to help us & discuss plans to build a new parish church, yet some years away. C & I make decision to give beyond our current means.
15 January
Balfour & his thugs have come again & gone away cheated.
I am not convinced they are Health Board for they are ignorant in manner & smelled strongly of whiskey-perhaps personal associates of Balfour out to have a malicious bit of fun & turn us over to authorities.
I think how near we have come to disaster, had it not been for the three words formed with a thick nib. I am Noah who was asked to build the ark & when it was done, flood waters rushed in upon the Land.
Date?
Whipping winds two days running
I will not write here again until the lad is out of danger. It requires all our forces to tend him and the Surgery combined, for there are many patients now and a number of deaths into the bargain. I found a few holly berries in the cellar, dropped from the garlands we had made for Christmas-I remembered that Christmas passed us by as in a dream. All that is left of it is our faithful Goose, who comes again and again to pray us through these unholy times.
15 Feb
Unseasonably warm & wet
A month has gone since writing here & I am awkward as any intern. I come to these pages to report-nay, to shout IMPROVEMENT!
C & I stood yesterday at our chamber window after a downpour & beheld a most unusual sight-a rainbow above the bright shingle of the lough-in February!- & twas a double.
He will be well again, she says, taking my arm.
I slept in the room with him last night & when I awoke this morning, yes, by God, he was improved! Not hale, not hearty, but improved.
Aoife? he says. Has she come?
I open the window a crack & put on my shoes.
Brannagh is waiting to take you about in the sunshine, I say. And fat as any pig from his winter corn.
I cannot tell him of his poor mother who died in hospital the tenth day of this month with the fever. The doctors thinking it was the milk delivered in a can washed with polluted water. The contagion did not spread to Padraigin & family for they get milk delivery from another man & there had been no contact of late between households. This we learn in a letter received from P, demanding the lad be returned to him. I delay posting an answer.
He wants money, says C.
He shall not have it.
He is likely claiming himself as legal guardian, she says.
I have written my Solicitor about a number of pressing issues, not least of which is the man to manage this demesne. Even with little outdoor work to be done in winter, this small holding seems a gaping maw of thousands of acres demanding attention.
We have today moved the lad back to his old room & shall keep the turf fire going round the clock. Fiona cooking as for the Roman legions. He is but a lad, I say, stern as a cleric. She is stirring a pot of rice that would feed Mesopotamia.
She removes the spoon, slams the lid on. With a bit of cream & molasses, she says, he’ll be eatin’ th’ lot of it, mark my word.
God knows he did eat a small bowlful & I had a portion, myself.
I choose not to worry any longer about hiding the lad; we will not live in fear of fools.
I tell C-If Balfour comes sniffing about, I shall kill him.
Remember he has a child, she says, & a wife to look after.
Well then, I say, I shall but maim him for the rest of his days.
19 February 1864
A cold snap
At two this morning, I delivered Jessie of a healthy boy-nearly nine pounds! He was squalling in the little room behind the scullery as I had breakfast in the kitchen. In winter we do not take meals in the dining quarters for the perishing cold.
A lusty boy, I can say that-name of Brian, after his father whom Jessie expects each day to turn up, hat in hand, & take her away.
And where would Away be? I ask.
The Land of Plenty, sir, she says with a most cheerful smile.
And where might the Land of Plenty be found?
Why, Boston, sir, she says, & makes a small curtsy.
I tell C we should pack up our jumble & get away quickly to such a Land!
I ask the Lad if he wishes to remain with us & of course he does. Against my better judgement, I sent Keegan to Mullaghmore with an envelope, enough to put P off until we can manage the best solution.
14 March
We have taken the lad-riding upon my shoulders-to the Mass Rock & shown him the date 1774 engraved upon it & the cross beneath. The lilies we planted have sent up their green shoots, the wood is fragrant with smells of earth & leaf mold.
We do not expose this holy shrine to fools. Who can know what destruction may come upon us yet? In our prayers we remember those run to ground like fox, those for whose severed heads the English were keen to pay a shilling apiece.
The Lad gains strength & eats with increasing appetite, though he tires easily & must have a long rest following the mid-day meal. I will take him tomorrow in the cart, wrapped like a mummy as Keegan the Wether Predictor calls for Dry & Colder.
Have not seen hide nor hair of Balfour & his minions-rumour has it that Palmerston again enchants him with big doings at his Monstrous Pile.
The glad news from Dublin that P has no legal charge over the Lad. We are seeking his Father-whereabouts currently unknown.
30 April 1864
Uprooting Fiona from her kitchen pallet is kin to removing a large oak from the field, one must hoick it & burn the stump. Back they go to the Cabin, she in bad humour. Our new man arrives on Thursday with family of four. We will lodge them in the carriage house as it contains a fireplace for whatever Groom I thought we might employ. Keegan fractious. God save us from Squabble & ill temper which spread in a household like Measles.
Having a lad about is a consuming piece of business. I have put him to work two or three hours each morning as his stamina permits. He is fascinated by the common Goiter as I once was & curious about the removal of digits & limbs. The subject of Coughing is another interest & anything to do with skin disease. He studies a rash as some look at a map of the world & its many Wonders. He now has access to my microscope & is keen to examine anything at all, including maggots found in a rotten log.
The sobering matter of Last Will & Testament will be properly finalized Monday next.
Twill be the fixing of a nasty thing back to a good thing.
He closed the journal. They were quiet, pondering.
‘We can’t finish it,’ he said. ‘Maybe another round before bedtime or first thing tomorrow, but we can’t make it through.’
‘I hate to leave it-what will become of all these lives opened to us?’
‘Would be good to have a paperback edition to tuck in your hamper.’
‘Without his journal,’ she said, ‘we wouldn’t have found the painting. Hats off to Fintan.’
‘How far away are you from starting to pack?’
‘Far, far away. Have you called Aengus?’
‘Blast,’ he said. ‘I forgot. First thing tomorrow. ’
‘How about now? He’ll be mowing verges tomorrow.’
‘I’ll go down to the kitchen. Have you seen his card?’
‘On the dresser with the cuff links you brought.’
But no cuffs to go with them-yet another item he’d left behind in Mitford.
‘What do you think will happen?’ she asked. ‘Do you think Liam would let Paddy be prosecuted? ’
‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t like thinking about it. ‘We’ve done all we can.’ He would be curious about fingerprints, if any.
‘I’m painting Evelyn tomorrow morning. If she’s able,’ she said, going off to the bathroom. ‘And I’d like to paint Anna and Liam before we go, but this doesn’t seem the best time.’
‘How is it?’ he called after her.
‘How is what?’
‘You know.’
‘Great,’ she said.
They had agreed not to use the a-word ever again.
He was edgy, scattered, as he dressed to go down to the phone. He could feel himself pulling away from Broughadoon like moss scraped from a log. It was discomfiting, the same way he’d felt when he left home to come here. He was no traveler; this would be his last jaunt for some while.
In the kitchen, he squinted at the various phone numbers on Aengus Malone’s card, and punched in the one not penciled out.
‘Hallo!’ A woman, irritable.
‘Aengus Malone, please.’
‘Who’s callin’ Aengus?’
‘Tim Kav’na from th’ States. He drove us to Lough Arrow some time ago.’
‘Aengus is out to ’is dance class.’
‘His dance class!’
‘Learnin’ th’ oul-style step dancin’ for th’ competition.’
‘Will you have him call me? It’s important.’
‘He’ll be in late.’
‘Will he be mowing tomorrow?’
‘Mowin’?’
‘The verges.’
‘He’s left off mowin’ verges,’ she said.
‘Well, then.’
‘I’ll take your number.’
No telling what time the call would come, disturbing the household. Call a taxi, he thought, or whatever people call around here.
‘Ah, but you’re in luck, now, here comes th’ poor devil lookin’ like he was flogged by a rooster. Aengus, it’s your customer from th’ States.’
‘Hallo!’
‘Aengus! Tim Kav’na here. You left your hat at Lough Arrow.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Is it you, then, Rev’rend?’
‘It is. How are you?’
‘I’ve a ragin’ thirst, if ye must know; I’ve been dancin’ like a jackhammer for two bleedin’ hours.’
‘I hear there’s a competition.’
‘Aye, an’ I’m needin’ my hat for good luck.’
He gave Aengus date, time, and airline.
‘Strandhill, is it’
‘Dublin. We’re skipping Strandhill this go-round. We’ll see more of Ireland going down to Dublin!’
‘I’ll send me cousin, Albert.’
‘We can’t get th’ top dog?’
‘Tis th’ day of my competition; I’ll be nervous as any cat, an’ shinin’ me hard shoes.’
‘How will you make it without your hat?’
‘I’ll do as I’ve done these last weeks an’ ask help from above. Send me oul’ hat off with Albert.’
‘Will do. What time will he fetch us?’
‘Six-thirty A.M., sharp. He’ll load everything in, ye needn’t turn a hand. How’s th’ missus?’
‘Good, good. Sorry to miss you.’
‘Aye, an’ same here. I don’t suppose ye lift prayers for such as dancin’ competitions.’
‘May he make you able to do your best, Aengus.’
‘I thank ye for that, Rev’rend, an’ for your business with Malone Transport. Good luck to ye, an’ come again.’
He forgot to ask what the prize might be, or what work had come around since the mowing job.
He passed Bella coming downstairs with their dinner tray. She lowered her eyes.
‘Good evening Bella.’
No reply.
‘Bella dislikes me intensely,’ he told Cynthia. ‘I just passed her on the stair, she wouldn’t speak.’
‘It’s the collar, sweetheart. I think it causes her to feel a kind of shame.’
The collar definitely had its downside: it provoked shame in some, anxiety in others. On the upside, it also provoked its due share of consolation. In any case, he seldom took it off-let the chips fall where they may.
Albert at 6:30, he wrote in the calendar of his notebook. Why did he write this down? He’d had zero appointments these last weeks; maybe Albert at 6:30 was a small way to prepare for reality, for going home to his own mowing.
While Cynthia occupied the bathroom, he pondered his unease. Dooley and Lace, unfinished. Evelyn, Liam, Paddy, unfinished. Bella totally unfinished. The whole Barret business, unfinished. He despised the unfinished, and yet all of life was continually under construction and he was continually at odds with that plan.
He closed his eyes, breathed deep. Prayed.
She came steaming into the room from the shower.
‘We can’t go home, Timothy.’
She often spoke what he was timid even to think. ‘We’ll miss seeing Dooley off to school,’ he said.
‘He’s young; she’s old.’
‘Of course, we’d have him only one day before he takes off to Georgia, but we’ll see him at fall break for a week. Dooley, Sammy, Kenny, all the boys together, right next door.’
‘A week of my pizza and your hamburgers,’ she said.
‘Not to mention my barbecue and your fries.’
‘Ruinous, but lovely. I shall need this long rest to face the onslaught.’
‘Do you feel it’s fair to claim medical reasons?’
‘We’ve been here an eon,’ she said, ‘and owing to medical reasons, I’ve hardly left the premises.’
‹Dear Emma,
Not flying out of Dublin as scheduled. Medical reasons. Advise Puny no pick-up needed. Pls get open-end ticket deal.
As ever›
Thank heaven Walter didn’t answer his cell phone and he could leave a message. No Guess what, no You’ll never believe this, he was beyond that.
‘Walter, it’s Tim. We won’t meet you at the airport as planned, we’re going to take a few days to see the sights. If you need my apologies, you have them in spades. Peace and plenty and love to Katherine.’ He should feel guilty, but didn’t-they would laugh about this in their dotage.
He left a message canceling Albert, relieved to skip a chin-wag with Mrs. Malone.
‘Anna,’ he said, ‘what is Dublin’s finest hotel?’
Cynthia was in bed when he came back to the room, Pud trailing, no shoe.
‘An odd thing,’ she said. ‘For the first time, I feel like we’re on vacation.’
He stepped out of his loafers; Pud leaped onto the duvet. ‘Why is that?’
‘Because the ticket will be open-ended,’ she said. ‘I love open-ended.’