Chapter Twenty-Nine
“So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Rynn asked as the Vauxhall purred along the narrow, curvy lanes that led
to Moira Clary’s farm. Rolling hills, grassy meadows gleaming emerald from the rain, stone walls and sheep, with mighty Ben
Bulbin looming over all—even under a lowering sky the countryside was so beautiful that just looking at it lightened her heart.
“While I realize your intentions are good, you’ve no business acting as a nurse or anything else to any stray IRA fighters
who might come your way.” There was a flatness to his voice that told her that, from his point of view, there was no counterargument
she could make.
Taken by surprise, she gave him an indignant look. “You really do have a gossip network, don’t you? Who on earth is telling
you these things?”
“That’s not the point, is it? The point is, we live in dangerous times, and what you’re doing is dangerous. The men you saw
off to Galway? They’d just shot four RIC officers near Dungloe. They have bounties on their heads, and are being hunted far
and wide across the land. You don’t want to be putting yourself in the middle of that.”
Her lips compressed. “I couldn’t help it. They stopped me on the road, at gunpoint.”
“I doubt that would make any difference if you were to be found out. You’d be taken up for interrogation, arrested, maybe even shot or hanged.
I know that you’re not exactly responsible for what happened there, or with the others earlier.
But what I’m here to tell you is, you need to put yourself in a position where that doesn’t happen again.
Move into town at the very least. You’re too isolated in that drafty big mansion. ”
“It’s kind of you to worry about me.”
The look he shot her was almost savage. “It’s not kind. I’m not being bloody kind. I’m using the brain God gave me to foresee
a bad ending and try to stop it before it occurs. We’re not just dealing with the RIC and the British soldiers anymore. Churchill
has lost his patience as well as his mind and is recruiting mercenaries from among the worst of the troops that fought in
the war with a plan to send them here to crush the rebellion once and for all. These are some of the most brutal, vicious
men to be found anywhere, and they’ve no love for the Irish and no respect for military traditions. Woman or not, they’ll
shoot you or worse and never turn a hair.”
His expression had grown so grim that Rynn felt an actual flutter of fear. Before she could reply, two young men came bounding
out into the road, arms flailing wildly, with the clear intent of waving them down. Taken aback, she was relieved to hear
one shout “Yard’s a muddy mess, park in the grass by the barn,” and realized that they’d arrived at their destination.
“Relatives of yours?” she asked as the Vauxhall bumped into the barnyard as requested. A battered buggy, a couple of wagons
and a pony cart were there before them. Chickens scratching in the grass—and yes, with the barn on a slight rise, there was
grass, enough of it to hold all those vehicles and keep the car’s wheels from sinking in—fluttered out of the way. A horse
peered at them from the barn door.
“Friends of Tim’s,” he replied. “Or Alfie’s. Or James’s. Or Joseph’s. It’s hard to keep them straight.”
“I see you managed to bring her. Welcome to the madhouse, Lady Thomas.” Moira greeted each of them in turn as, taking Rynn with him, Maguire made his way through the packed house to the kitchen where his sister was holding court as she cooked.
Built of clay bricks that had been whitewashed at some point, the two-story structure was crowded to bursting and smelled of peat fires and good food and the pine of the Christmas tree claiming pride of place in a corner of the front parlor.
With so many guests the house was loud with chatter, and several children darted about underfoot unchecked.
“I did.” He kissed his sister’s cheek, then deftly dodged a bread roll thrown by one of Moira’s boys—Rynn was sure the sturdy
youth was one of Moira’s boys; the mop of unruly red hair was the giveaway—at another, equally redhaired, slightly older boy
that just missed Maguire’s ear. Alfie and James, she thought. Or Joseph.
“Oh, sorry, Owen,” the guilty party said, laughing as he danced away from the other boy’s retaliatory flick of a dish towel
in his direction.
“Be thankful you missed, maggot.” Maguire gave him a mock squinty-eyed look.
“Can I drive your car?” the older boy asked. “You said you’d teach me like you taught Tim.”
“In this weather? Not likely. I’ve no mind to die in a ditch.”
“You two, quit pestering your uncle and get out of my kitchen. Go on, shoo. Go find Joseph and tell him to make sure we have enough chairs set out.” Moira waved hands coated in white flour at them,
then glanced semiapologetically at Rynn. “They forget their manners sometimes, but they’re good boys.”
“I’m sure they are.” Rynn smiled at her.
“If only they hadn’t been spoiled so by their mother.” Maguire’s mournful expression earned him a withering look from his
sister, to which he responded with a grin.
“Our Alfie will be going off to Trinity College next year, and our James is the best hurler on his team. And our Joseph is the kindest, best boy a mother could ask for,” Moira said to Rynn with the air of one refuting her brother’s words.
“Moira, I think we can add the dumplings now.” The young woman, no more than eighteen, who turned from the pot she’d been
stirring on the range had a pretty round face with cheeks flushed from the heat, light brown hair smoothed back into a bun
at her nape and an apron covering her dress.
“They’re almost ready.” Even as Moira plunged her hands back into the bowl she’d been mixing, she glanced at Rynn. “Lady Thomas,
do you know Katie Meagher? She’s Tim’s friend. And over there—” with her hands full of dough, she nodded toward an older woman
slicing meat on a platter “—is my mother-in-law, Deidre Clary. And in the corner—” she looked at the comfortably plump middle-aged
woman dumping bread rolls into a basket “—is our neighbor Orla Boyce. Ladies, this is Lady Thomas Dunne.”
Rynn smiled at everyone in general. “Rynn Carmichael that was. And please, call me Rynn.”
“Rynn it is, then. And I’m Moira.” Moira lifted the bowl and carried it to the range. The other women gave their first names,
with Orla adding, “I remember your mother. Rosemary Shaughnessy. Quite a splash she made, with her singing and dancing. Every
man-jack of them fancied her. You’re the very spit of her, God rest her soul. Oh, eh, and I’m a widow myself, like you.”
Before Rynn could reply, two little girls ran into the kitchen. Their bright red hair gave their identity away even before
the older one said, “Mam, the table’s ready.”
“Good. Take the bread out, if you would. Grace, you take the butter.”
They did as asked, with the older one giving Rynn a quick, uncertain smile as she passed. The younger girl, her long braids hanging down her back, her eyes focused on the butter dish she carried, saved all her attention for her very important task.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Rynn asked.
Now at the range pinching off pieces of dough and dropping them in the pot, Moira shook her head. “Thank you, but once this
finishes everything will be ready. Owen, if you’ll look in that cupboard you’ll find a cake. Carry it out to the table for
me, would you, and tell everyone we’ll be eating in about ten minutes.” She flashed a quick smile at Rynn. “Oh, wait, there
is something you can do to help. Keep an eye on Owen. He can be uncommon clumsy, and we can’t have him dropping the cake.”
“You heard her.” Maguire took the cake—a tall, multilayered confection iced in what looked like almond paste—from the cupboard
and started out of the kitchen with it. “Come keep an eye on me.”
Not long afterward the party, thirty-some people strong, crowded around a table meant, perhaps, for twelve. Relatives, friends,
neighbors, three full-time farmhands—beyond the core group of Maguire and Moira and her family, the gathering was a mixed
bag of young and old, town and country, male and female. Rynn discovered that she knew a number of people present and was
kept busy talking as the food was served up.
The meal, as Maguire had promised, was excellent.
But more than that, she found to her surprise that she enjoyed the company, the laughter and teasing among people who knew each other well.
Tim and his group of friends, Alfie and James and Joseph, who were stairstepped in age at sixteen, fifteen and fourteen, the little girls, Grace and Maeve, and the other relatives and neighbors made for a merry gathering.
Seated beside Maguire, she was impressed by the sheer quantity of food he managed to consume, and more impressed by the obvious affection in which his sister and nephews and nieces held him, which he obviously returned.
It was a side of him she hadn’t seen before, and she was charmed by it.
After the meal, after the cake was consumed and the presents opened, the guests broke into various factions. To Rynn’s amusement,
Tim and his brothers managed to talk—goad?—Maguire into playing outside with them.
“Are you too grand, then, to kick a ball around with us?” Alfie demanded when Maguire initially refused. (Rynn could tell
Alfie from James now because, at sixteen, Alfie was larger than his brother, whom he greatly resembled, and his eyes were
blue to James’s green. Tim had the look of them, but he was taller and lankier. Joseph, at fourteen, had a face full of freckles,
which made him easy to identify.)
“It’s a sea of mud out there,” Maguire objected.
“He’s careful of his fancy clothes, he is. That’s understandable,” James said to Alfie.
“The mud’s in front. We’ll play in back,” Joseph said to Maguire.
“There’s still mud,” Maguire said.
“Leave him be. He’s old, you know. He’ll be fearful of getting hurt.”