Chapter 7
When you gain her Affection, take care to preserve it; Lest others persuade her, you do not deserve it.
At first, I thought the bird beautiful, a clever, colorful creature that brought joy.
A macaw, of the parrot family, the bird’s feathers reminded me of a dandy—a bright saffron shirt beneath a deep blue overcoat, complementing a powdered white face, his dark eyes encircled with black patterned lines, like the illustration of a zebra I’d once spied in one of Teddy’s schoolbooks.
Saffron and blue, the same colors carried by Brian Boru at the ancient Battle of Clontarf …
and the proud colors of our county—Clare.
There might be symbolism there if one believed Lady Grace had a propensity for deep thought or philosophy, but alas, she did not.
A pleasant coincidence only … though pleasant was not a description anyone might use to describe Lucy.
Nicknamed “Lucifer” by the rest of the staff, Lucy was given a wide berth.
I wouldn’t dare allow Lady Grace to overhear such a cruel thing, for her beloved Lucy had traveled halfway across the world from its native Amazonian jungle, only to roost in the oft-times dreary sun-room of Kilrush House—quite the adjustment, I’m sure.
For if a bird could suffer from loneliness and melancholia, Lucifer was a prime example—biting, clawing, beating with wings so strong he’d once knocked me off my feet.
Nor could I blame him. Weren’t we both plundered conquests of an overreaching empire?
Both beings of sunshine wallowing in a darkness that swallowed our souls.
But Kilrush House could never dampen our light, not truly. I had found my joy, my smile, and I would help Lucifer find his, for even the weakest shaft of sunlight cuts through rain-filled clouds.
Lady Grace thought the bird had a great fondness for me …
though, given the bandage wrapped around my forearm, “fondness” to Lucifer, meant “maim, don’t kill.
” And thank God for such small mercies, as I was made his companion, and he mine—two curiosities to be paraded before company whenever guests arrived.
Ah, and here’s Margaret with Lucy. She’s the girl I took under my wing, you know. Great propensity for letters and language. Margaret, speak for Lady Marlborough. You’ll hear naught but a faint wisp of their savage tongue in her pronunciation.
“Their,” as if Lady Grace wasn’t an Anglo, born and raised in the very country and among the people she so casually hated. Savage.
Beast. Devil. Lazy. Ignorant. All spat in the same breath as “Irish.”
“Tusa agus mise, Lucifer,” I said with a sigh, gently stroking the soft yellow feathers of his breast. You and me … it was always he and I.
Squawk!
“Ba mhaith leat a eitilt?” I asked, glancing out the window.
Of course he wanted to fly. And I wanted to join him, flying far from the sun-room, over the garden, all the way to the summerhouse, where my smile—my light—lay bottled.
A captured beam encased in glass, to be consumed in measured bursts whenever circumstances allowed.
But my Teddy wasn’t at home, and I’d no way of knowing when he might come back from whichever piece of land he was prospecting with his father, my master.
Soon, Teddy would return to Dublin to resume his studies, and I’d be left waiting once more, anticipating his correspondence, sporadic though it was.
“Eitilt, eitilt, squawk!” Lucifer shook out his wings, and I instinctively pulled my hands toward my chest, for fear he’d accidentally peck my current injury.
“No Gaeilge, silly goose,” I said in English.
“Lady Grace will have me dismissed if you don’t speak the Queen’s.
If you’re a good boy, I’ll ask the falconer to put you on the long leash so you can spread your wings.
” At least I got to leave. Unlike Lucifer, and the rest of the staff, my brother Michael and I didn’t live in the Big House.
Our father was the Moore-Vandeleurs’ land agent, a position granted to him thanks to a distant oath—Colonel Moore-Vandeleur’s father had been saved by my grandfather during some political skirmish at Dublin Castle during the Wolfe Tone rebellion, and he had promised our family a good living in recompense and gratitude.
It meant employment for us all, and the luxury of returning home of an evening.
Squawk!
I turned to my charge, and smiled. “Beautiful boy. I bet you miss your home. Here.”
Digging in the pocket of my apron, I produced a hardened treat, and Lucifer happily—and gently—took it from my fingers.
“Maggie!”
I whirled, heart racing, ready to explain that it was naught but a crust of bread, and dear Lucy would be just fine—
“Michael!” I let out a shuddering breath and almost choked on my own relief. “You frightened the daylights out of me.”
“Arra,” scoffed Michael, eyeing Lucifer. “Still have both yer eyes?”
Squawk!
Lucifer ruffled his feathers, training that dark, beady gaze on my brother.
“Stand down, darlin’,” I whispered, running a gentle finger over the crest of the bird’s soft head. “I must away, but I’ll be back soon. And I’ll follow through on my promise.”
“It’s an animal, Maggie,” Michael said with a snort.
“A mean one at that. Come on quick, afore his lordship or her ladyship need anything else. We’ll be able to catch the start of the céilí if we hurry home.
Mam said there’ll be lamb stew tonight. Mr. O’Shea lost a few to an auld fox and sold one to Dad. ”
“Stew?” My eyes widened. It had been quite some time since last we’d acquired honest-to-goodness meat. Colonel Moore-Vandeleur had upped the livestock quota—again—last year, and with more animals earmarked for the landlord, the less there were for those who raised them.
“I must away, beautiful boy,” I said, smiling wide, stomach a-fluttering with the prospect of marrow-rich broth.
“Maggie! Squawk!”
Shooting a glance over my shoulder, I spied Lucy shuffling along the perch, promising to hop to the ground and follow us home.
“I’ll be back on the morrow, silly goose. Stay there now, lest Lady Grace accuse me of thieving ye.”
“Lord above, it doesn’t know what yer saying.
” With a roll of his eyes, Michael spun on his fresh-cobbled heel as Lucifer let loose another indignant squawk.
“Come on quick, let ye! I promised Eileen Mangan that I’d ask her to dance, and I don’t fancy the clip ’round the ear I’ll get if we’re late. ”
“’Tis worse than that you’ll get if Eileen Mangan’s father catches ye behind the church again,” I said with a laugh, following my brother from the room.
“And what will his lordship do when he catches you and the young master?”
I lashed out with my uninjured arm and slapped the back of his head.
“Ow!” he protested. “I don’t approve, in case it matters at all.”
“Keep yer voice down,” I scolded. “I love him, Michael.”
For Teddy’s father couldn’t know of the promises made between us just yet.
But when the time was right. Yes. The timing had to be perfect, or all my hard work would come to naught, and I’d lose the love of my life.
The music rose with the moon, bowstrings sawing through notes as local fiddlers threw themselves into the melody with fervor, driving it through the gathered crowd, an unending fever no poultice could break.
“Yoop!” I called, laughing from the candlelit edges of the dance floor of the parish hall, stomping my heel along to the beat as the feet of the set-dancers flew “around the house.” When I was younger, I feared the dancers might levitate off the ground and make it all the way to Heaven. And sure, how would they come back?
A low drone emanated from the uilleann piper, and the laughing couples on the floor quickly shuffled into position to begin the Fourth Figure as the fiddlers took swigs of porter. Ten sets of eight dancers each quickly took shape, and I was parched just watching them.
“You not dancing, love?”
A wooden cup of non-alcoholic blackberry cordial appeared to my right, and I turned with a smile.
“Thanks, Da,” I said, gladly taking a sip. My father wore his Sunday best—a fine, wide-brimmed felt hat, a swallowtail coat above shirt, waistcoat, knee breeches, and woolen, knee-high socks.
“Has no one asked ye? Síofra wouldn’t mind a set.
One of ye can dance the man’s part,” he said, taking a sip from his own wooden cup.
Da didn’t drink the English porter. In fact, he didn’t drink any kind of alcohol.
Some thought him cold because of it, but Da was always aware of the important position he held as land agent, and he took being Colonel Moore-Vandeleur’s record keeper—and translator—for the tenants very seriously.
“She’s out there with Paudie Connolly,” I said, nodding toward one of the far sets.
“Arra!” With a scowl fit to raze all of Kilrush to the ground, Da knocked back the rest of his blackberry cordial. “How many times must I warn her off them Connolly boys?”
“At least once more, it seems.” He elbowed me for that. “Ooft!”
“And you, Miss? You can’t be thinking of cleaning bird shite for the rest of your life, surely? You should be using that education of yours to teach or some such.”
I chuckled and looped my free arm through his. “And where would I teach, Da? I’d have to go to Ennis or the like to find work, and I couldn’t leave you and Mam for a position I’d not be able to keep once I wed.”
“That’s a while off yet,” he said with a smile.
Heat prickled my cheeks, and I brought the cool wooden cup to my skin. Not as far off as he might think.
“Yer flushed,” he noted, brow furrowing as he turned, concern tugging at his lips. “Have ye caught something from that bird?”