Chapter 3 #2
“A few hours yet.” Sighing, her ladyship closed the window and settled back on her bench. “Hungry, Maggie?”
Tearing my eyes from the landscape, I glanced at her. “Oh, no thank you, My Lady. I saved some stew for later.”
She nodded. “Once we’re past Ennistymon, we’ve a long uphill climb. If you can sleep, you should, lest the boredom does us in.”
“Yes, My Lady.” I hadn’t a fiddler’s notion where Ennistymon was. “Where … that is, where are we going?”
“Ah.” With a smile, Lady Catherine looked out the window. “Home, my dear. Gortacarnaun. Have you heard of it?”
“No, My Lady.”
“A lonely spot, for sure, but a beautiful one.” Reaching into her pocket, Lady Catherine smiled, revealing fine crow’s-feet in the corners of her eyes.
She pulled out a box and opened it. Inside was a pipe made of gleaming black metal affixed with an ivory bit.
“When my husband asked for my hand, I agreed, but on one condition—that we remain in Browne House for the rest of our days. I didn’t want to be one of those landlords managing things from London.
Old Charlie even gave up his seat in the House of Lords.
Wait until you see the Burren, Maggie. You’ll never wish to leave. ”
I straightened as Lady Catherine packed the pipe and struck a match into the chamber.
I’d heard stories of the Burren from wandering seanchaithe, who came to Kilrush to pass on the old tales.
They told of the Other Crowd—Daoine Uaisle from the Other Realm—who called it home.
They’d said the land was desolate, made only for goats and spirits who liked to wander the limestone countryside.
That it was nestled between mountains of loose shale and the gateway to Tír na nóg—where the ancient Old Gods of our ancestors dwelled—the Atlantic Ocean.
“The Burren? Then, we’re still in Clare? ”
“Oh, yes,” she mumbled between kindling puffs. “I was born and raised here, and wouldn’t leave. So Charlie agreed to stay.”
“Does his lordship not think all this business odd? Bringing a stranger into your home?” I asked, savoring the heady scent of tobacco, and I was suddenly transported to happier times. Father used to smoke a pipe.
“If Charlie still lived, none of this would be necessary.” Lady Catherine pursed her lips around the pipe bit and took a thoughtful drag.
“I had a widow’s pension from his eldest brother, the marquess.
But the penny-pinching amadán only agreed to pay until Wilhelmina wed.
After that, I was to rely on my own daughter’s charity and the goodwill of her husband. The rest you know.”
I shifted on the bench, unsure what to say. “Sorry for your loss” held no meaning for me anymore. “Do you miss him? His lordship?”
Lady Catherine shrugged and leaned over to crack the window. “We were happy, if that’s what you mean. For a time, at least.”
I understood that well enough. The carriage jolted, and I was thrown from the bench to the carriage floor.
“What in the …?” Lady Catherine coughed, pipe smoke caught in her throat, as the carriage slowed to a near halt. She grabbed her cane and rapped on the roof as I tried to right myself. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“Y-yes.”
With a scowl that spelled Cormac’s doom, Lady Catherine flung open the window. “Cormac O’Dea! What is the meaning of this?”
The horses’ whinnies pierced the air, and I felt the moment the wheels ceased turning. Within a breath, Cormac himself appeared at the window.
“I’m that sorry, Your Ladyship,” he said, that soft, gentle voice now laced with urgency. I scowled. “But there’s a bit of a to-do up ahead.”
“A to-do? I’ll give you a to-do if you don’t explain yourself this instant.” Lady Catherine’s hand was already twisting the door handle.
“Are you all right, miss?” Cormac asked as I smoothed the velvet blanket over my knees.
Nodding, I watched as Lady Catherine opened the door and hopped down without waiting for Cormac to draw down the steps.
“There, m’Lady,” he said, pointing in the direction we were traveling.
“Lord have mercy …” Lady Catherine trailed off, all color draining from her cheeks.
I frowned and slid from the bench to pop my head out the door. In the distance, a tall spire promised a town ahead. But in the fore, a dark mass of people blocked the road. They were … walking. Toward the town, perhaps.
No, walking was wrong. I’d seen this march before. The slow forward shuffle of those barely able to move. Of those who should already be dead. Of those determined to persevere—if not for their sakes, then the sake of the child they carried or the one they couldn’t leave behind.
I balled my fists as I watched them, my eyes falling on a figure sitting by the side of the road, wailing as she cradled the stiffening corpse of a child not three summers old.
Even from here, I noted the bloated stomach and stick-like limbs of a child gone too long without food.
I wanted to scream my throat raw, to beat my chest, to cry the tears I couldn’t when it was I on that march.
There were hundreds of them, most naked, without a stitch to keep them from the wind and rain, their clothes long since sold to pay for lifesaving grain.
But the famine lingered still, and we had naught left to sell.
And no aid to be found. All we could do was watch cartloads of food drive by, guarded by the constabulary, bound for England.
Our food, our labors, to be sent to market across the sea.
Oh yes, England took care of their own. That much was certain.
“Is there nothing to be done?” Lady Catherine whispered, her gaze affixed on the same grieving mother I’d spied.
As we watched, the woman lovingly lay the corpse on the ground, her wails turning to shallow gulps of air, and wrapped her own naked body around the child.
She would be the child’s shield in death, as she was in life.
I pressed my lips together. That ditch at the side of the road would become their grave, unmarked forever.
With no one to remember that they had lived.
Just two more bodies for the dogs to gnaw.
“Not unless you have a mind to invite them all into your home, My Lady,” I spat, aware of the tremor in my voice. My eyes narrowed, and I glanced from Lady Catherine to Cormac. “I take it Ennistymon boasts a workhouse?”
“It does.” Cormac’s throat bobbed as he spoke.
“Then we should find a way around the town.” Without another word, I ducked back into the carriage and rearranged the blanket, yet again.
“Good God,” Lady Catherine murmured, bracing against Cormac’s hand as she hopped back into the carriage.
“God is gone, My Lady.” With the kind of snort my mother would’ve backhanded me for, I looked Lady Catherine dead in the eye. “He died of the starvation Himself, and there’s none now left to save us.”
Except, perhaps, ourselves.