CHAPTER 20
“We are marked women!” Lucinda retrieved the lock of hair from her coat pocket and threw it on her bed. “This is what we have to look forward to—a fate like Addy Gallagher’s.” She drew a line across her throat with her finger. “This is where he put the knife. This would never have happened had you stayed away like I asked.” Lucinda collapsed on the mattress.
Her sister was right—Briana had not foreseen the trouble her compassion for Addy and Quinlin would cause.
She rose from her bed and sat beside her sister. “I’m sorry. Let me look at you.” She turned her sister’s face gently toward her. Her left cheek still bore the red discoloration from the man’s fingers. The scrapes on the other side of the face were superficial, but Briana was certain they stung. “There’s ointment in the medicine chest in the bathroom. I’ll get it for you before we go to bed.”
The picture of Addy’s body, her throat still bleeding from the wound, floated through Briana’s mind like a feather blown from a seabird. The visage horrified her, but there was a strange finality to the image as if fate had intervened between them. But what would be the reason for their meeting? To alienate her sister? To save the boy? The answer wasn’t clear.
She traced her fingers across the bruises on Lucinda’s face as the specter faded. “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused. I thought I was doing what was right.” Now she wasn’t so sure. Even the bank notes could be a problem if they didn’t deliver them to the old woman. She rejected that idea, because the thought of giving up the money—for all their sakes—was too much to bear. “We must go to the police,” Briana urged.
Lucinda harrumphed. “Yes, but they won’t be able to watch us twenty-four hours a day, and, I suspect, they will care even less what happens to us or the child when they find out that Addy was a . . .” She shook her head. “It’s too sordid.”
“You might change your mind when you hear what I have to say,” Briana said, and told Lucinda about her meeting with Quinlin and the money that he had carried out of the house.
Lucinda’s eyes brightened when Briana came to the boy’s treasure.
“See, we must go to the police,” Briana said after she had finished her story. “Now is the time to move in with the Colemans. The Carson brothers know we live here.”
“Many times I’ve cursed the day I came to America. Many times I’ve thought I should have stayed in Ireland, or traveled to Manchester and thrown myself at the mercy of Sir Thomas.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “Now this attack.” She looked down at her trembling hands, revealing a sad vulnerability that touched Briana.
“We’ve had our differences, but I love you.” Briana leaned against her sister’s shoulder. “We’ll be stronger together than apart with your help and comfort.” They hugged each other with a vigor Briana had not experienced for many years.
“Do you think we should move?” Briana asked.
“After tonight, I’m in agreement,” Lucinda replied, and dried her tears. “The money does make things brighter . . . for us and Quinlin.”
“Oh, thank you, sister! I’m sure it’s the right thing for us.” She raced to her bed and pulled down the blanket. “There’s so much to do!”
A string of tasks ran through her head. She would contact the police and Declan Coleman, pack, get the boy, and move into a new home. She would have to take another day off from work, but she was certain Mr. Peters would understand. Certainly the Carlisles would allow Lucinda at least part of the day off in light of the attack. The immensity of it all was enough to set her nerves jangling.
As she pulled up the blanket, her sister asked, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Briana rolled over toward her sister with a puzzled look on her face.
“The ointment,” Lucinda said with a grin.
She rolled out of bed, honoring her promise to her sister, certain that tomorrow would be a better day.
* * *
The police sergeant sat with them in a secluded corner of the drawing room at the back of the boarding house. He took notes in a small book and nodded and hummed as Lucinda told her story. He was of Scandinavian descent with a bushy blond mustache and muttonchops, tall and wiry, but with a florid face, indicating he spent a great deal of time outdoors.
The casual approach of the sergeant’s questioning about the attack shifted when Lucinda mentioned the Carson brothers as possible suspects. Neither of them had mentioned the murder of Addy Gallagher. The officer looked around the room and then stopped writing in his notebook.
“What’s the matter?” Briana asked. “Something bothering your hand?”
“The Carson brothers are well known to me and the district force,” he said with a note of disdain. “I’m sure you must be mistaken.”
“Oh,” Briana said, anger causing her voice to rise. “Is that why no one has questioned me about Addy Gallagher’s murder? She died in my arms from a brutal beating and a knife wound to the throat after being threatened by the same man who probably accosted my sister—yet the Carsons are fine, upstanding men?”
The sergeant frowned, closed his notebook, and lowered his voice. “Addy Gallagher was a woman of ill repute, and that, ladies, is putting it delicately. It would be wise for both of you to go on with your lives and let the district police investigate both crimes.”
“Investigate?” Briana asked. “It appears that it would be wise for us to keep our mouths shut and remove ourselves from the whole affair. Am I right?”
The officer’s lips curled into a smirk. “You seem to be a smart lass.”
The hackles rose on Briana’s neck. It was one thing for her to be called a “lass” in Ireland but another to be addressed so in Boston by a son of Nordic immigrants.
Underneath the bruises and welts, Lucinda’s face flushed crimson. “And if we are to keep our mouths shut, how are we to protect ourselves if the police feel these men can do no wrong?”
He placed his notebook and pencil in his uniform pocket and glanced about the room to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “I would say that twenty-five dollars would ensure your protection, and I’m certain the Carsons would feel the same about staying out of your way. Such good men wouldn’t want their names besmirched by unsubstantiated charges of assault . . . and murder.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled.
The choice was clear. The Carsons and the district police were quid pro quo, and it would do no good to pursue accusations they couldn’t prove. For their own safety, they would have to comply with bribery and get the money from the safe. “Meet me outside the Peters Building Trades at three this afternoon. You’ll get your money.” Briana didn’t want the officer to know the money was being held there.
Lucinda’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.
“Good, I’ll consider the case closed,” the officer said. He rose from his chair and bowed slightly. “Good morning, ladies.” He tipped his hat. “I’ll see you at three, Mrs. Caulfield.”
After the officer left, Lucinda turned to her. “I can’t believe we have stooped so low.” She shook her head in disgust.
The whole affair was obvious to Briana. “It’s all about money, isn’t it—here in America, in Ireland, and the English government with their hands-off politics?”
Lucinda folded her hands as a thoughtful look crossed her face. “You’re right, as much as I’d rather deny it. Why isn’t more being done to help Ireland? Why did Addy Gallagher have to die? It is all about money.”
Briana rose from her chair. “You have a job to go to, and I must make arrangements for us to move to the Colemans’.”
Lucinda stood, moved a hand across her bruised face. “We do need each other.”
She hugged her sister. “See if you can get the afternoon off, or at least leave early. It’s time we left this boarding house. We’ve only a few days left in the month anyway.” She laughed. “I think the Newton on Beacon will be happy to be rid of us.”
“I think you’re right.” Lucinda grasped her hands. “By the way . . . twenty-five dollars well spent—let’s hope.”
* * *
A flurry of arrangements took up her day.
Briana was able to reach Declan Coleman through Mr. Peters. Declan was thrilled to know that they would be moving in, because his sisters were unable to book passage from Ireland. Their rent would help with household expenses in South Cove. The sergeant arrived outside the office promptly at three to collect the money, which she took from Quinlin’s bank notes, along with extra for a cab, promising herself to pay it back to the boy. The officer assured her that the Carson brothers would leave them alone because he had secured their “safety after a mutual agreement.”
She left work early to pack their things and then informed the proprietress that they would be leaving after dinner. The woman was unconcerned because she now had the rent paid on a room she might let before the end of the month.
Lucinda arrived at the boarding house at four, and after dinner they loaded their belongings in a carriage, picked up Quinlin from the Peterses, and headed to South Cove.
The Colemans greeted them at the door of their modest brick building. Her hands strained with her bags, but her exhaustion was temporarily overcome by the hope of a new start. Mrs. Aletha Coleman, a short, pretty woman of Greek descent with a narrow face and long black tresses, showed them around the house.
To Briana, the home seemed a welcoming fortress. After climbing up a set of wooden stairs at the entrance, a narrow hallway opened up before them. The first floor held a sparsely decorated living room with a cheery wood-burning fireplace, while a second room on the rear served as their bedroom. An outside alley led to the kitchen below the first floor. The room contained a coal-burning stove and an old maple dining table, and the space smelled of smoke and spices. Outside, a wooden privy stood against the brick wall.
Aletha led them to the second floor—their bedroom, with two single beds and a rectangular sack stuffed with straw that would serve as the boy’s bed. The fireplace was stoked with birch logs, which sent out a warm and welcoming light. A small desk and chair sat near two windows at the front of the room.
The Colemans soon left them, but not before saying the kitchen was theirs to use when they wished, as was their living room. Declan indicated that if their privacy became an issue, the boy might have the third floor, which was currently used for storage, until his sisters arrived in Boston next spring.
“Well, what do you think?” Briana asked her sister after the couple had gone downstairs. Quinlin curled up on his bed and watched the logs crackle in the fireplace.
“It’s not Lear House,” Lucinda said, “but I think it’s a dream come true.” She rubbed her hands over her arms and shoulders, luxuriating in the warmth of the fire. “How I wish Father—and Rory—were here.” The smile she had worn moments earlier disappeared. “I’ve hardly had time to worry about them, but when we sit in such luxury, I can’t help but think about them.”
“I feel the same way,” Briana said. The house was grand compared to the conditions her husband and father might be living in at this moment in Ireland. She looked glumly into the fire and tried to think of something to cheer her. One positive thought struck her, though not exactly a happy one.
“I didn’t tell you what I saw this afternoon,” she said to her sister.
Lucinda eagerly looked her way.
“I went inside and watched from the window when our police sergeant left,” Briana continued. “He was so brazen about it.”
“About what?” Lucinda asked with a studied gaze that lighted upon her.
Briana lowered her voice to keep Quinlin from hearing. “He walked to the corner of the green across the street—perhaps he thought I couldn’t see him, for he was partially hidden behind a tree—but he gave the twenty-five dollars to a man we know.”
“One of the Carson brothers?”
“No—Romero Esperanza. It was Romero, all right—wearing the same gambler’s hat and tailored overcoat. He must be the Carson brothers’ boss. Addy said she’d never met the man, but it makes sense.”
Lucinda shuddered. “Well, let’s hope that’s the end of it and we never see any of them again.”
Briana walked to the fire, stood beside it, and rubbed her hands in its warm rays. “There are only two people I want desperately to see again, and you know who they are.” She supported herself against the fireplace mantel and slid to her knees because it was hard to maneuver with a swollen belly. The light played over her in flickering shadows as she sat on the boy’s bed and stroked his red hair. It needed trimming, that is, if he would allow her to do it. He curled up beside her. She snuggled against him and wondered how Rory would feel about adding an older son to his name.
Another thought on her mind was writing a letter to her father, and thus to Rory. She doubted it would get to Brian before March or April, but the idea reinforced her hope that they were both still alive. When she put pen to paper, she would have much to tell him.
* * *
Clouds lingered over the campground the morning after the raid as the sun struggled to cut through the overcast. The Nephin Beg range lay dark in the eastern shadows. Orange and some of the Mollies inspected the grain and goods that remained in the curraghs. Others prepared to offload and transport the rest by hand or in makeshift barrow carts to a sympathizer’s farm near Geesala at the northeastern tip of the peninsula. Rory chose to go with the latter because he needed to get back to Brian at the Kilbanes’ cottage.
Orange outlined his plans for the goods while sitting on the damp plank of a canoe as the men ate plundered meat and cheese. His once-ruddy complexion had faded to ashen with the pain of his injury. Although no doctor, Rory worried an affliction might strike down the large man because of the wound’s proximity to his heart.
“We’ll take the canoes north until we reach the shore near Glencastle. We can’t risk suspicion from the Constabulary at Belmullet. Those of you going that way can make arrangements for what you need. The rest will be stored and buried at the farm near Geesala.” He paused, placed his thick right hand over the wound on his left shoulder, and grimaced in pain. Orange sputtered a bit and then continued, “The silver we’ll convert to cash when we can sell it safely, and we’ll use that money to buy food in any way we can. Every man will get his fair share either at Glencastle or Geesala. Each of you will get rations of meat and cheese. But for now, we must let the goods remain in hiding for a few days. Anyone who believes he’s entitled to more and sets out to get it will pay the price.” He waved his pistol and pointed to the still smoldering fires. “Clear the grounds and let’s be off before the English send the dogs after us.”
The men scurried about, dousing fires, obliterating footprints as best they could, and gathering belongings so that few traces of their presence remained. Three hours past dawn, Rory and Connor watched as the men shoved off and headed north over the slate-colored waves of Blacksod Bay.
Rory wrapped the blanket he had slept in around his shoulders and secured it at the waist, his shirt gone to bind Orange’s wound.
He, Connor, and eight men dragged the heavy sacks across the muddy heath for more than an hour until they arrived at the farm. The sympathizer, a bearded old man named Coyle, gave them water and then muttered and stomped around his stone barn, the hiding place for the stolen goods. He and Connor supervised the placement of the grain sacks under the barn’s hay ricks while the divided silver pieces were buried outside in a box near a tussock.
After their tasks were complete, Rory headed out with Connor after telling Mr. Coyle that he would return with his father for grain in a day or two. Connor left him at the crossing of a small stream to continue on to his family in Bangor after pledging to return for his share of the grain and money. They said good-bye and wished each other luck.
Rory headed across the heath as the wind freshened from the bay. Streams of silvery clouds pelted him with bursts of rain. He was soaked to the skin when he arrived early in the afternoon at the cottage near Ballycroy.
He called out for Brian, but there was no answer.
He stepped inside the gloomy cottage. The smell of roasted meat filled the room, but the odor was gamier than pork or beef.
Brian lay against the wall, his back to the door. Rory didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. A spit of wood hung between two branches over the smoldering turf pit. On it were the remains of a rat and a bird skewered head to tail. They had been partially eaten.
“Brian,” Rory called out in a panic.
The man stirred, gazing up at him with fear in his watery eyes, and then rolled toward the pit. He muttered and thrust out his scrawny arms.
He couldn’t understand his father-in-law’s mumbled words, so he cradled Brian’s head in his arms. The man’s mouth opened and closed in shallow breaths.
Rory kissed Brian’s forehead and cried out, “Don’t die. Please, don’t die.”
* * *
Sir Thomas sat at the oak desk in his library reading the document brought by his solicitor, who was seated across from him. The rain pelted the window behind him in pearly drops and ran down the panes in streaks like silvery shoals of fish. The fireplace crackled on the north wall, penetrating the crepuscular light provided by the weather. As usual, a brandy glass rested not far from his right hand.
The solicitor, a man of upper-class means who dressed the part in stiff breeches and a satin waistcoat, stared at Sir Thomas with a pinched expression. The man knew better than to interrupt while his client was reading an important contract.
The last page seemed so much gibberish that Sir Thomas skimmed through it before lifting his pen. Before he signed, he said, “All appears well. Can you guarantee it?”
“Certainly, sir.” The man bowed his head in an obsequious gesture. “All you need do is sign your name.”
“The sheep will be delivered on time?”
“By April of next year, after the worst of the winter but hopefully before the spring lambs are calved.” The solicitor smiled. “That way the estate can take advantage of extra stock, for our contract is for fifty of the beasts.”
“And the men who will oversee this business have been hired?”
“Yes, sir.” He tapped his fingertips against one another. “I’m assured that the two men are fine representatives of the business. Your agent—I forget the name—has been released and will not be part of this.” It was as much a question as a statement.
Sir Thomas stared at the solicitor. Their kind was puffed up but necessary. He had often wondered whether he could trust the man, who seemed to sense this thought and leaned forward in his chair anticipating a question.
“Brian Walsh—he is no longer under my employ.”
“Then everything should be settled.” The man tipped his glasses back on his nose and folded his hands.
Sir Thomas dashed off his signature, sealed the document, and handed it back to the solicitor, who placed it in his valise. He rose from his chair and said, “The first payment, according to the contract, is due within a week, the second upon delivery of the animals to the estate in Ireland.”
“You shall have it.” Sir Thomas rang the small bell on his desk. His valet appeared almost immediately to escort the man to the door.
He turned his chair toward the fire so he could watch the flames and, to his right, the rain as it drenched the house. Shortly, the solicitor’s coach disappeared down the drive into a foggy torrent. He was alone in the library again with only his man and the housekeeper for company, and they, on these depressing fall days, were not much help in lifting his mood. They were, after all, only servants—as expendable as everyone else in his life.
A sharp pang stabbed his heart, and he likened it to the sadness he sometimes felt when he was a child while still in the company of his mother and father. But he had no right to be sad, he told himself. He had everything a man could want—except for the love of a woman.
His thoughts turned again to Briana. Every day he shut her out of his mind, but the concentration, the effort to rid her from his thoughts, only worsened the problem. She appeared before him when she was least wanted or expected, often dressed in fine silks, Parisian shoes, and powdered face, looking more lovely than any woman should dare.
He, alone, could lift her from poverty, if only she would accept his offer. The Walsh family, and the beggar of a husband, had nothing to offer. Why is she stubborn? Why won’t she listen to reason? The loneliness, the emptiness of his grand life, shattered him. Not even his mistresses could force her from his mind. Could it be I have no concept of love? His parents were strict disciplinarians, and although they touted their love for him he rarely felt it in his mother’s cold kisses and his father’s unemotional handshakes. A few women had professed their love for him, but the feeling he got was one of anxious fawning for his riches rather than any true affection.
He rang for his valet again, and when the man arrived he ordered, “Gather my coat and bring the carriage around. I’m going into the city.” The man bowed and turned away.
Soon the carriage was at the front door, his man holding the umbrella over his head as he escorted him down the walk. “I’ll be dining at home tonight,” he told the valet. The carriage door closed. He raised the shade, settled in the leather seat, and watched the dripping landscape roll by.
Sir Thomas knew where the carriage was headed, and the driver did as well. They had both traveled many times to a grimy stone building near the banks of the River Irwell. There he would take comfort in the arms of a particular woman, one of the many who worked there. His chosen lady would rid his mind of Briana at least temporarily, along with his worries of what might become of Lear House if the grazing scheme failed.
That afternoon, as he lay with the woman and ran his tongue over her powdered neck, he saw Briana again and knew he must make a trip to Ireland in the spring to see how Lear House was faring. Perhaps, if he was lucky, she would be there.
* * *
Rory spent the evening attempting to feed his father-in-law from the plundered rations and drying his damp clothes. Brian was in no condition to make an arduous trip on the turf ponies to a city where there might not even be a bed.
He threw out the rat but kept the bird, which had been partially eaten. With a trembling hand, Brian pushed away the small portions of cheese and meat from the rations Rory had carried.
The fire needed peat for fuel. After it was stoked, he gathered fresh water, boiled it, and washed Brian’s body with a dry swatch cut from the blanket he’d worn.
He had been away only for one night. His father-in-law had declined so much in twenty-four hours, something must have gone wrong. Maybe the meat had been bad; or worse, perhaps he had contracted the fever. Brian was too weak to talk, however, so any discussion would have to wait.
He went to sleep that night with the blanket covering both of them and the pistol at his side. His sleep was fitful because the ghosts of Frankie and Aideen never seemed far away, staring through the window, peering out from the flames.
The sun broke through the clouds the next morning with intermittent splashes of light on the green heath. Rory was happy to see that the rain had moved on, although the wind cut in from the bay and the sharp air bit at his exposed chest. He washed in the clear rivulet behind the house. Although the Kilbanes’ bodies had long been removed by the Constabulary, the bath sent chills down his back, and not just from the cold water. He imagined the bodies looking up at him with staring eyes from the spot in the bog where he had placed them.
He was eager to depart the crumbling cabin. His body sagged from exhaustion, yet his limbs had been jolted by the cold. Rubbing his arms, he hurried inside and stoked the fire.
Brian stirred, lifted his head, and gazed at Rory with the look of one who has awakened from a long sleep. A spot of color had returned to his cheeks, but despite that good sign, deep lines cut into his cheeks like furrows, his sunken cheeks as hollow as a cave.
“You’re back,” Brian whispered.
“Yes, I’ve been back since late yesterday afternoon. Don’t you remember?” He offered Brian the now-cooled boiled water he had transferred to the flagons. The water slid out of the tip above the man’s lips and dribbled down his chin.
Brian brushed the water away. “I don’t remember anything after supper on the night you left. I ate some of the mush—the pain turned my stomach, and I felt light-headed like I was walking in a dream.”
Rory drew back the blanket and looked at his father-in-law’s breeches. “You need to wash off. I’ll scrub your breeches and dry them out. You can wrap up in the blanket until then.”
“You don’t have a shirt,” Brian said.
“It’s a long story,” Rory said. “I’ll tell you later. Eat some of this meat and cheese, if you can.”
Brian nodded, his sorrowful eyes taking in the cabin.
Rory agreed it was a sad sight—the empty rooms, the split thatched roof in back that let in the wind and rain, the house stripped to its sod and stone walls.
“I want to go home,” his father-in-law said abruptly.
Rory knelt before him. “We were going to Westport to look for work.” He felt as if he were talking to a child.
“I want to go home. I want to be near my wife.”
“We have no home,” Rory said, and remembered the stones that marked the communal graveyard at Carrowteige. There, Brian’s wife was buried. He didn’t want to hurt the man, but he needed to be reminded that there was nothing to go home to.
“Yes, we do,” Brian insisted. He took a piece of cheese, placed it on his tongue, chewed, and swallowed. “Lear House.”
“We’ll be arrested,” Rory said, thinking his father-in-law had lost his mind.
“Not if they don’t know we’re there.” Brian rose and propped his back against the wall, moaning in the process that all his joints ached from his illness. “The house will save us—it must,” he said after he caught his breath.
Rory thought for a moment while holding his tongue. Lear House was a more comforting option than trying to find work in Westport—if jobs were available at all. There would be furniture, blankets, towels, and shelter. It was an easy enough task to break in. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.
Because of the early nightfall, they could light fires in the kitchen, when the smoke wouldn’t be seen, and he could cook the meals he had earned through the raid. There might even be clothes to wear, courtesy of Sir Thomas. They were about the same size, although he was broader at the shoulders. The Master wouldn’t show his face until the spring at the earliest. They might have to dodge the Constabulary, but if they kept their eyes and ears open, they could make a go of it.
“I’ll consider it,” Rory said, trying not to give in immediately. “You need to rest until you’re well enough to travel.”
“Tomorrow,” Brian replied, “I’m going back whether you do or not.” He smiled at Rory, and the decision was made.