Chapter 9 #2
Boots marched forward with agitated steps, and I didn’t dare look up. Instead, I found a whorl in the grain of the marble floor and focused on it.
“My Lord!” A voice called, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Da.
“God damn it, Junior!” Colonel Moore-Vandeleur roared, and I felt Michael stiffen beside me.
We both hated that his lordship still referred to Da as “Junior.” His name was Michael too, like his Da before him—who died long ago—which now made our da senior, and my brother junior. “What does this even mean?”
“We did discuss the possibility, Your Lordship—” Da began, but the sound of ceramic shattering on marble cut him off … and succeeded in exacting a gasp from me.
“Do you even understand what this means?” Colonel Moore-Vandeleur shouted. “Christ above! How many tenant homes do we have living on less than a quarter acre?”
“At the estate? A couple hundred,” Da replied.
“You fool! All together.”
Da hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat. “About fifteen hundred, Your Lordship.”
Colonel Moore-Vandeleur chortled, then a great booming laugh shook the windowpanes. But there was no humor in it; instead, it weighed the air in tones of disbelief and despair.
“Do you know how much money I’ve spent developing this town?
” Colonel Moore-Vandeleur’s question required no answer.
We all knew. His father, a kind and generous man, had spent a fortune building Kilrush from the ground up, from the port to the homes, the main square, the roads, the Protestant church.
The port allowed well-to-do tourists from Limerick to cross the Shannon so they might avail of all we had to offer before continuing to Kilkee to enjoy the beachside amenities.
And the current Colonel Moore-Vandeleur had continued his father’s good work, so he could continue to thrive from the great relationship between the townsfolk, his tenants, and his many enterprises.
He’d even facilitated the building of a workhouse, a small prison, and a Catholic church, making Kilrush a town of note.
“Your Lordship, I—” Da began, but the sound of angry bootsteps cut him off. Thud, thud, closer to where Michael and I stood, and for a moment I feared he would stop to take his wrath out on us.
Thud, thud, his step echoed, away from us, down the hall from whence we came, and the knot in my chest loosened so I could breathe once more.
“Da,” Michael called, sprinting forward once it was clear his lordship was gone.
I glanced up, and my chest tightened once more.
Da, my big strong father, appeared so small in that hallway, his felt hat in hand, squeezing the brim with two blanched fists amid a mosaic of shattered vase shards.
Small and … old. For the first time in my life, the brightness that shone through his eyes seemed to have died, deepening the wrinkles of his face, inviting shadows to hollows I’d not noticed before.
With a deep sigh, Da looked over at me, then at Michael, before placing the hat back on his head.
“Take your sister home, Junior,” he said quietly, but not in Irish, in English.
Alarm bells rang between my ears. We spoke Gaeilge at home, like everyone else, reserving English for the Big House and when needed to translate between the tenants and the Anglos.
Speaking English now … he meant for his words to go unheard by any prying ears.
Some of the staff had enough English to get by at the Big House—mostly those in a supervisory role—but few would’ve had a strong understanding.
Da grabbed Michael’s shoulder. “Go down the main drive and use the Ennis road. Don’t cut through the side gate.
Stay away from the farmland. Stop for no one.
When ye get home, gather everyone inside and bolt the windows and doors.
Can I rely on ye to not frighten everyone? ”
My heart raced as he gave his instructions, and I finally willed my body to move, my feet to work, before quickly joining my brother and father.
“What has happened?” I asked, in English.
“Disaster,” he whispered, training his eyes on the ground. “Complete and utter disaster. But not a word of anything ye see or hear on yer way home, lest ye upset yer mother in her delicate condition. Understand? I’ll break it to her as gently as I can when I get home.”
Michael and I nodded in sync, and I bit my lower lip.
Disaster meant one thing, and one thing only.
For the second year in a row, the only crop we could grow to sustain our families must have had another poor harvest.
“What was all that his lordship was saying?” I asked, hurrying to keep stride with Michael’s long legs. He kept a punishing pace, heeding Da’s words as solemnly as a priest’s sermon.
The breeze picked up suddenly, ruffling the slowly changing leaves of tall oak trees caged behind the high, imposing wall surrounding the estate.
“I think he’s worried about the poor rates,” Michael replied, grunting as he kicked at a loose stone. “Remember what happened back in April?”
My eyes widened. His lordship had evicted a few hundred families from their homes, then made Da and the bailiffs burn the houses and level the remnants.
From what I understood, according to Teddy, there was a law in place that stated for every home on less than a quarter acre of land, the landlord had to pay four pounds to the government if the family sought poor assistance—food and government-run work projects—from local authorities.
And the crops on his lordship’s land in Moyarta fared worse than ours last year, which led him to evict those most likely to seek aid and level the houses so he could say the homes didn’t exist …
and therefore he wasn’t required to pay the poor rate.
“You think he fears having to evict more people because of another bad harvest?” I asked. That was the picture Teddy always painted of Colonel Moore-Vandeleur—a benevolent man who sought to continue the family’s legacy of goodwill toward the people under their care.
Of course, he was benevolent. Hadn’t he forgone marriage matches until he found a woman comfortable raising Teddy as her own?
Not just as the heir of the house, but with the kind of love only a mother could give.
There was a huge gulf in age between Teddy and his siblings as a result—and the only reason I dared hope that our marriage could go ahead.
For Teddy’s birth mother, his lordship’s first wife, had once been a tenant, like me, raised above her station to become Mrs. Moore-Vandeleur.
His lordship must have a fondness for us and would surely look favorably upon our union.
I wouldn’t have dared such a plan otherwise—I wasn’t a complete fool.
Michael was slow to answer, as if mulling my question and weighing the information. But surely a good Christian man, Protestant or not, Anglo or not, would worry for those less fortunate, those who depend upon him? “Perhaps.”
I was about to ask him to elaborate, but the fast-approaching rattle of a cart set my heart racing.
Ahead, the road curved off to the left, winding around the Moore-Vandeleur estate toward the village of Lissycasey on the Ennis Road, almost eighteen miles from us, away from the town of Kilrush. Da had said to stop for no one, and I prayed to God whoever approached didn’t feel like chatting.
“Keep yer head down,” Michael said, as the rattle reached a crescendo of thundering hooves and screeching wheels. The fzzt of leather reins against a horse’s back drove my gaze upward. Nobody traveled this winding road at such a clip; it was far too dangerous.
The horse’s ears lay flat against its skull—a fine beast, half-draught, half-Vanner by the looks and height of it, its black-and-white coat shimmering with sweat as it barreled around the corner.
I thought for sure the cart behind would tip, but the driver leaned toward the wall-side of the road, and the cart stabilized.
“Rith amach as seo!” The driver roared, pointing at Michael and me before sweeping an arm toward Kilrush, behind us. For a moment, I wondered if he wanted us to dash away so he wouldn’t run us over, but then he spoke again: “Fanann an diabhal i mo dhiaidh!”
Ice wound up my spine, freezing the breath in my lungs. The Devil waits behind me. The man was terrified and running from something.
Surely not illness? Something like that crept upon us, case by case, until we all remained indoors for fear of the miasma.
With another slap of reins against the horse’s back, the driver drove on, and Michael whipped out an arm to push me behind him as the cart sped past.
“Jesus wept,” Michael murmured, grabbing my hand. “Come on. Let’s run.”
Without another word, I hopped into a jog, debating the irony of running toward whatever the driver had been fleeing from.
But I didn’t have long to wonder, for the moment we turned the corner, where the road would soon straighten and rows of tenant houses would dot the fields, the wind shifted, and we were blasted by a stench that stopped us in our tracks.
It hit the back of my throat, rotten eggs and sulfur, mixed with the unmistakable scent of sewage and mold.
Michael gagged, and my stomach roiled.
“What in the name of God is that?” Michael spat, covering his nose and mouth with his arm.
I shook my head, desperately pressing my lips together for fear I’d vomit.
A scream rent the air—a long, keening wail heard only at funerals, and the hair at the back of my neck stood on end.
Was this the “devil” the man warned us of?
A woman stumbled from a field to our right, onto the road, bent forward, and threw up.
“Mary?” My eyes widened as I recognized her, and I quickly broke away from Michael to assist. “Mary!”
Wiping her mouth, Mary Leary glanced up, the whites of her eyes so bloodshot, the blue of them glowed.
“The crop!” she cried, voice hoarse.
I wanted to tell her it was all right. That we’d get through it. That we’d plant again in the spring, and that my da would do his best to intervene with his lordship.
But the words died in my throat as Mary held up her hands.
“The fog. ’Twas the fog,” she wailed, staring down at the thick, black sludge that coated her fingers, stretching like webbing as she fanned them out.
“What was the fog, Mrs. Leary?” Michael asked, placing two strong hands on my shoulders—whether to support me or himself, I’d never know. “And what’s that smell? And why in the name of God are ye covered in tar?”
A chuckle emanated from the depths of Mary’s chest, and fear gripped my soul.
“It came with the fog, the smell. And it turned the spuds to rot.” Mary laughed now, straightening as she threw her head back.
Michael stepped back and pulled me with him.
“Come to your senses, Mrs. Leary,” Michael snapped, voice shaking. “What are ye talking about?”
The laughter suddenly stopped, and Mary leveled a wild stare at both of us.
“Spuds,” she said, holding up her hands so we might better see the tar.
“Spuds?” I echoed, furrowing my brow.
Mary nodded. “This is it. This is the crop.”
Michael and I stared at the rotten sludge for what felt like a good minute, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what she was trying to say. Then Michael grabbed my hand and jerked me into a walk, without a single word to Mary—who had started chuckling again.
“Home. Now,” he hissed in my ear. “Like Da said, not a word to Mam or anyone about this.”
I nodded, mute, and allowed him to drag me toward home, all while glancing over my shoulder at Mary Leary, who still stood, laughing, staring at her hands.