CHAPTER 1
October 1845
Briana Walsh descended the steps of Lear House and breathed in the brisk Atlantic air. She had taken in its crispness all of her life. The air comforted her, filled her with joy, and always deepened her sense of security, no matter the time of year or the weather. The solid structure of the manor cheered her, although she owned not one of its stones. It stood behind her like an austere guardian, rising from the sloping green and brown heath, surrounded by the hamlet of tenant farms. Along with her family, these farmers were the people she loved, and she could imagine no other home on earth than these lands.
She considered Lear House her second home, the first being the adjoining cottage, the site of her birth. Sir Thomas Blakely, the English owner who spent most summer months in County Mayo, when he could divorce himself from his textile business in Manchester, also called it home.
This evening, Briana had been to the manor, in her father’s stead, to make sure everything was locked for the night. With its rock façade, climbing ivy, and slate roof, Lear House retained its regality in the dying light. Briana knew every nook and cranny of the manor, the history of every oil painting, the provenance of every object displayed upon its shelves. She had touched each book in its ample library and read many of them except for those—the most academically stuffy—that held no interest for her.
She and her father lived in the tidy cottage that rested just to the west of the house, adjacent to the western farms and the cliffs that ended at the sea. She gazed at the cottage as well, which was infused with a buttery glow from oil lamps. At this hour, after supper, Brian would be smoking his pipe and reading.
The sun, obscured except for occasional splits in the leaden clouds, was beginning its descent into the Atlantic beyond the western cliffs. The pallid rays, when they did appear, cast streaks of purple across the lawn. Behind her, to the north, the land rose to the plateau and bluffs overlooking Benwee Head and the Stags of Broadhaven—the rocky, jagged islands rising like shark’s teeth from the sea.
As she walked from Lear House to the farthest eastern tracts on the manor acreage, a foul odor wafted into her nostrils. There, on the last remaining lands before slanting to the bay’s shifting dunes, Rory Caulfield and his brother made their homes. He had claimed his corner on the far border of the manor holdings. It looked out to the sandy bay and the distant hillocks to the south.
Rory had sent her a message through his brother’s son asking her to come to his land. Something was wrong, and she only had to breathe to know it.
The poet and her father had told her weeks ago at supper about rumors of potato crop failures on the Continent, but she had wondered if the story might be part of Quinn’s own flair for the dramatic—she had always felt there was something theatrical, bordering on artifice, about his personality—tales embellished by too much poteen.
But tonight, judging from the urgent message conveyed by the boy, the nervous apprehension that filled her body, and the putrid odor, something was indeed wrong. She wondered how the smell could be so overpowering that it could dominate the wind rushing in from the Atlantic.
She tightened her mother’s red shawl about her shoulders, covering her nose and mouth. The faint odor of wisteria water, a gift long ago from her father to her mother, blotted out the terrible stench.
She walked in the center of the pebbled lane, avoiding the carriage ruts carved into the path, lifting the hem of her scarlet petticoats as she bounded over puddles. An excursion up or down the drive was always a challenge by carriage. Often she preferred to be let out on the hilltop road to walk down to the house, even in the foulest weather. The middle of the path also held its dangers—rocks dislodged by the horses, indentations made by the power of hooves, that could easily cause a sprained ankle or fall.
The estate was separated by irregular lines of brush and stone fences, some hundreds of years old and others built much later as the tenant population bore children and expanded its claim. Many of the homes had thatched roofs, but most were little more than mud huts with a vent so the turf-fire smoke could escape. The estate seemed to grow every month with a new fence and the wail of a newborn.
Soon she neared Rory’s small acreage where he tended his potato crop, in addition to the oats and rye he farmed on land higher up the hill. He sold the oats and rye, as did the other tenants, to pay in kind for his rent. The lane led her past the larger parcels, some as sizeable as an acre, down to the quarter acres owned by Rory and his brother.
Rory leaned casually against the corner of his cabin. He was clad in dark breeches, a white shirt, and a green jacket; he, like her, wore no shoes. Tobacco smoke twirled through his nose and mouth as he inhaled deeply from his clay pipe. His reddish hair glowed auburn in the sunset. Near his cabin, a pig snuffled in the turf. Rory, like other tenants, kept the animal inside at night for safety and warmth.
She stopped a few paces away, her body kept to a respectable distance by the social views of her father. “A woman should save herself until her marriage night,” he had told her years after her mother had died. His words only echoed those she was sure her mother would have spoken had she lived. Tonight, the plans she dreamed of sharing with Rory, the whispered words of love she wanted to say, would wait for another day. No matter that they had known each other since they were children and their affection had grown over the years. The time to show it hardly ever seemed to present itself because of their duties with the manor and farm. But their marriage was coming soon. Rory had told her so.
Rory pointed to the potato ridges that weren’t far up the sloping land.
She stared at the blackened leaves and pressed the shawl tighter against her mouth.
Rory beckoned her closer, stooped, and touched one of the dark leaves. It melted into a viscous goo in his hand. “See,” he said, “this is what the poet predicted would happen. Look.” He grabbed a nearby spade and thrust it into the ground. He dug quickly, turning over the moist earth at the top of the ridge. The potatoes were planted there for maximum drainage. He reached into the earth, grasped the potatoes and lifted them for her to see.
He crushed one with his hand, and a slimy mush dripped from his fingers. His hand opened in the feeble light, revealing the moldy, black and gray meat inside them, gangrenous in appearance.
She would never have suspected that the crop, lush, bright and green as of yesterday, could change to rot in less than a day. She stepped back. “Are they all gone?”
“All that I’ve checked,” Rory answered. He threw the rotten potatoes on the ground and rubbed his hand across the furrow to rid his fingers of the putrefaction. “Even my pig has the sense not to touch them.”
“The ‘plague’ Daniel Quinn predicted. And we don’t know why?”
Rory nodded. “The summer was mild and wet, excellent for growing potatoes. Even the fall has been good. Some will say this curse came from rain and wind, others insects, but what I fear most are those who will claim it comes from God.”
“Even after Daniel Quinn departed, Father said it was silly to worry about such things,” Briana said. “ ‘Providence will provide, ’ he told me.”
The wooden door to Rory’s brother’s cabin creaked open. Jarlath stretched his arms, lit his pipe and then nodded to Briana. She shifted on her feet and bowed slightly to him.
Looking back to Rory, Briana asked, “Is every row like this?”
“Yes, this crop is ruined. We’ll have to start over for the spring. I don’t know whether we can salvage seed potatoes.”
The poet’s words about the “plague” came rushing back to her. A number of horrifying thoughts struck her as she stared at the plants, including one that crept slowly in from the back of her mind, of not having enough to eat—starvation, plainly put. All the farmers, even her family, depended upon the potato for their daily meals. To lose the crop would mean they would have only seed potatoes to eat, and those wouldn’t last forever. A disturbing picture flashed through her mind as she imagined children begging for food as they lifted their empty bowls.
“What will the people eat. . . . What will we eat?”
Rory looked toward the gray waves of Broadhaven Bay. “Maybe a herring, if Jarlath can fish the waters. Seaweed? Birds’ eggs? A frog now and then.” He chuckled at the thought.
Briana didn’t think his musings were funny. Few men ventured out in their small canoes, their curraghs, on the ragged ocean, and they knew the risks when they did. She had seen the bodies of several drowned men. The ocean currents were powerful, the tides swift, the waves treacherous on most days, and only the most skilled among them could navigate the Atlantic waters.
Rory looked again at the rotted plants lying putrid on the ridges, and his voice turned somber. “Without food, the people won’t have the strength to farm. How will we pay the rent if we have to eat our oats and rye?”
Briana hadn’t thought that far ahead, and his question jolted her. “I don’t know,” she said after a few moments. “The crops have to be sold.” She wanted a solution, but the immensity of what she had seen was too much to take in. “I have to tell Father,” she said, and walked toward the lane. “He doesn’t even know—he’s been working inside all day.”
Rory followed a few steps behind. “Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked in a wistful voice.
She turned, well aware that they both would have liked to have met under more pleasant circumstances. “Tomorrow.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her. She didn’t mind that Jarlath, still outside smoking his pipe, was a witness, for he would never speak of their affection to her father. Besides, everyone on Lear House grounds knew, or at least suspected, that one day they would be married.
She left him standing at his cabin. The deepening indigo sky retained its swaths of red. The wind licked against her, and she folded her arms against her chest. Fear lapped at her as well, as the images of the rotted plants floated through her mind. Only one question offered some hope. Was there anything her father could do? She was filled with doubt. In less than an hour, her world had shifted.
Rinroe Point beckoned, with its broad view of the ever-shifting Atlantic, but the walk was long and treacherous at night. Sitting by the cliffs, watching the stars shift in and out of the clouds, would be so much easier than telling her father about what she had seen.
He might be reading in his chair near the turf fire or, by now, have fallen asleep. The cottage would be cozy and warm inside. “You saw Rory, didn’t you?” she imagined he would ask with slight disdain. “You can do better.” It wasn’t that he didn’t like or respect Rory, or perhaps hold some love for him in his heart—but she understood that her father, in his love, wished for her a better life than a tenant farmer might have to offer. A life like her sister, Lucinda, might construct.
She arrived at the circular lane in front of Lear House. The house was as black as her mood. No light burned in any window, and the ivy clung like strangling, dark fingers over the stone face.
She shivered and darted toward the cottage door.
Her father had read King Lear to her years before. He loved Shakespeare and had imparted that love to his daughters. The playwright was one of the reasons he had learned English and then taught the language to Lucinda and to her.
She thought of Rory and how much she longed to be with him as she clutched the latch. Lines from the play came into her head.
So we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too . . .
Any sense of happiness of singing and telling tales was blotted out as she thought about the crop. Without potatoes there would be nothing to eat. Her father would be placed in the difficult position of collecting rents he couldn’t gather. And she knew from his bookkeeping troubles that many of the tenants were already in arrears. This failure would put them further in debt.
A hopeful thought struck her as she stood outside. She would write to Lucinda informing her of the blight and ask her to intercede with Sir Thomas on the family’s behalf as well as the tenants’. Those words, asking for forgiveness of debt, might fall upon the unsympathetic ears of the landlord, but it was the best plan she could think of. Her sister, after all, was in close contact with the Englishman through the family she worked for.
She decided not to tell her father of her scheme. Of course he would raise a strong objection to her interference in a business matter. It would be better if he didn’t know.
Her mind shifted back to Rory and the crop failure and then to her family’s situation. What of the food stored in Lear House? How long would it last? The questions made her head spin.
She stepped inside and greeted her father, who looked up from his reading, closed his book, and smiled.
Her stomach quivered as she spoke. “I saw Rory this evening.”
His smile faded into a look of thoughtful reflection. “I thought you must be with him. It took you longer than usual to check on the house.” The light from the oil lamps and the turf fire cast flickering shadows across the room. Her father lowered the book to the floor.
“You’ve not been outside today, have you?” she asked.
“Other than to run from Lear House to the cottage,” he replied. “Why?”
“Did you smell it in the air?”
His nose crinkled. “What? I noticed nothing unusual. The wind was strong off the bay.”
That explained it. The wind would have swept the odor up the hill toward the farms and then on toward the village of Carrowteige. It had now shifted more from the Atlantic. “The potato crop has failed—rotted.”
Her father smiled again, as if she had told him some kind of perverse joke. “We’ve been through these before—it can’t be as bad as you imagine.”
Briana sat in a chair across from him. “Rory says all the ridges have failed. There’s nothing left. Daniel Quinn told us it would happen.”
He scoffed. “The poet isn’t right about everything. I’ll check in the morning. Now I’m going to bed.” He rose from his chair.
“Perhaps Sir Thomas should be notified that the tenants may fall into more debt,” she said without mentioning her plan.
Her father turned, his face flushed. “I would never do such a thing!” He lifted his book and tossed it on the chair. “I’m working very hard to keep Lear House solvent. Sir Thomas need not be burdened with an additional worry.” He started for his bed and then stopped. “And don’t get any grand ideas in your head. You should stay out of my business, and that includes any meddling from Rory Caulfield.”
“Well, you’ve made your feelings clear.” Briana got up. “I’m headed to bed as well.”
“Daughter,” Brian said with a tone of reconciliation, “let’s not panic. The tenants have had many troubles over the years, and this is one more—that we will get through together.”
She admired her father for not panicking despite the stress he was under. She kissed him on the forehead and retired to her room as he extinguished the oil lamps. The cottage still glowed from the smoldering turf fire.
Despite what her father instructed, she couldn’t let go of her plan to write Lucinda. What could it hurt? It would be a friendly note to her sister with one addition.... She undressed and said her prayers. She was grateful for the firelight because it made her feel that she and Lear House were safe—at least for the moment.