Luke was allowed no lamp or candle in his room at the boarding house, but he rose early the next morning and by the wan light of first dawn took out his pen. He would write to “Uncle” George Harliss, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t make out the origin of his letters. He would simply write to all three of the places he thought it might be. Briefly, he wondered if he should wait and consult his father. Thaddeus seemed to know every small village in Canada West, and might make a shrewder guess as to which one was correct.
That would delay the sending of the letter, though. Better to write all three and hope one of them hit the mark. As he took out the stationery box he had been given, he wondered why he was going to such trouble for one child when the streets of Kingston were full of orphans and the newspapers full of notices posted by frantic parents looking for lost children. One thing at a time, he decided. He couldn’t help them all, but it was within his power to help one of them, so he would do his best.
Luke wrote standing up, the wall serving as a desk, the windowsill as a ledge for his inkpot: “Dear Mr. Harliss,” he began. What now? How to explain this appalling situation in terms that were less than appalling? He couldn’t: “I can only hope that this letter has reached the correct hands. I am sorry to inform you that your relative, John Porter, has succumbed to the malignant fever that is currently devastating the emigrant population.”
Too stark, Luke thought, but changing it now would waste an entire sheet of paper. Besides, how does one break such bad news gently? He continued:
Mrs. Porter and two of the children have died as well. A son named Jack was detained at one of the ports and his fate is unknown. However, a daughter named Margaret travelled ahead of the family and I do not know what has happened to her.
One of the smaller children, Anna, is here in Kingston. She is being looked after at present, but with her father dead and her remaining family unaccounted for, her future is uncertain. I am writing in the hope that you are in a position to retrieve her, and to provide her with a home.
If I have indeed reached the correct address, please respond to
Here Luke hesitated. He had not yet made up his mind what he was going to do, and so had no notion of where he might be by the time Harliss responded. With no fixed address, the letter might well go astray. And then he had an idea. He wrote: “Luke Lewis, c/o Thaddeus Lewis, Wellington P.O, Canada West.”
His father would know where to find him.
He copied the letter twice and addressed it three times: George Harliss c/o Bewdley P.O., Beverley P.O., Bexley P.O.
Surely one of the arrows would find its target.
It was nearly noon by the time Luke had helped the carters load and bury the eight souls who had died during the night. It would be a few hours yet before he would be needed at the brewery wharf to help with the newest arrivals, so he went in search of Father Higgins, who he was told was with a dying man in the fever shed at the foot of Emily Street.
The priest was at the far end of one row, his cross held before him while he murmured his incantation in a language that Luke thought must be Latin. He had only just been in time, apparently, for a few minutes later Higgins left the man’s side. Luke located a stretcher and walked with it down the aisle.
When Higgins saw Luke, he waved away the other priest who had stepped forward to help in the removal of the body. “We’ll do this,” he said.
As soon as they slid the body onto the stretcher and manoeuvred it into the aisle, the priest snatched the blanket that had covered the bed. A quick shake to dislodge the lice, and the cot would be ready for its next occupant.
Wordlessly, they deposited the corpse beside the shed — the first one there, but likely a harbinger of what the rest of the day would bring.
“Are you on your way to the wharf?” Higgins asked. “There’s another two waiting for me there. I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind.”
Luke was only too glad to oblige, not only because he had questions that he hoped the priest might answer, but also because he enjoyed the man’s company so much.
“You knew John Porter, you said one time.”
“I did,” Higgins replied.
“Do you know his daughter? The odd-looking one with the scaly skin.”
“Anna? Everybody in Banesalley knows Anna. Or everyone who was in Banesalley, I should say, since I expect the entire village is either dead, scattered, or over here by now.”
“Someone told me she’s a merrow.”
Higgins snorted. “Ah yes, Anna Porter is a merrow. And Florence Mullen is a cluricaune. And the fairy world is responsible for all the evils in the world.”
“A cluri-what?”
“A cluricaune. A wizened little dwarf who causes mischief. And come to think on it, that’s not a bad description of Flea Mullen.”
“Do you know Bridie Shanahan?”
“Of course.”
“She’s taken Anna Porter in.”
“Really?” Higgins looked puzzled at this.
“Mrs. Shanahan got quite upset when I offered to try to find what’s left of Anna’s family. She said there had to be seven, but I don’t know what that means.”
“The Shanahans had seven girls, I know that,” Higgins said. “I don’t know what’s happened to them.”
“And she said poor Charley Gallagher was shot down, but there was no point in anybody being sorry about it because it wouldn’t bring him back. And Anna said that her father pulled Mrs. Shanahan’s house down. What happened?”
The priest stopped walking and turned to Luke. “What do you want to know about that for? These are old quarrels that happened an entire ocean away. Bridie Shanahan is right, being sorry won’t bring anybody back, least of all the thousands of people who have died of poverty and starvation and a government that doesn’t give two figs whether they live or die. We have a great deal more to worry about than what happened to Bridie Shanahan’s cabin.”
“But why would someone tear it down?”
Higgins started walking again, his pace a little quicker than before. “The landlord decided to clear them out. Have you ever witnessed an eviction?”
“Of course not,” Luke said. “It doesn’t happen a lot here.” Although he did spare a thought for the man in the timber trade who had now lost his warehouse to Archibald McFaul. That was different, though. Presumably the man still had somewhere to house his family.
“A landlord can demand his rent at any time,” Higgins said. “Since most of his tenants are in arrears all the time anyway, if he wants to be rid of them, all he has to do is post a notice stating that they have to be paid up by a certain date. When they can’t pay, he orders them out.”
“So when the rent isn’t paid by the date posted …” Luke prompted.
“A notice of eviction is served, and on the appointed day the bailiff and the estate agent and a crew of destructives show up.”
“What are destructives?”
“Men who are hired to destroy the cabins. It’s not hard work. In fact, it’s pathetically easy to tear down an Irish cabin — they’re so flimsy to begin with. All you have to do is tie a rope around the roof beam and run it out through the door. A few quick chops, a pull on the rope, and the roof comes crashing down. The rest can be easily dismantled with a few crowbars. That way the evicted tenants can’t just creep back into the cabin and squat there.”
“But where do they go?” Luke had a sickening suspicion that he knew the answer.
“Out on the road. Up in the hills. To the workhouses. They don’t really have anywhere to go.”
“And on the day the Shanahans were turned out?”
“Why do you want to know all this?” Higgins again demanded.
“I don’t know,” Luke said with a shrug. “I’m just curious. Why did Anna say it was her father who pulled down the Shanahans’ house?”
“Because he did, although he wasn’t the only one.” Higgins exhaled in one large exasperated puff of air. “There had been a large number of evictions on that particular estate already. The tenants were being well and truly cleared out, and every single time, there were the Porters, standing in line ready to help clear them. Mind you, if it hadn’t been them, it would have been someone else.”
“But there was trouble this time?” Luke asked.
“Yes, and the bailiff must have been expecting it, because he armed some of the destructives with guns — three hunting rifles so old they looked like they’d fall apart if anyone tried to fire them — but a gun is a gun and threatening nonetheless, I suppose. John Porter had just fastened the rope around the roof beam when a mob of men arrived to protest. Some rocks were thrown, some shots were fired, and at the end of it a man lay dead.”
“Charley Gallagher,” Luke said.
“Yes, Charley Gallagher.”
“And everybody thinks one of the Porters fired the shot?”
Higgins shrugged. “All I know is that David Porter disappeared the next day.”
“Where do you think he went?” Luke asked.
“It would be easy enough to disappear, if you had a head start. Ireland’s roads are clogged with people looking for food and shelter. He wouldn’t have to go far before he could find a place where no one knew him from Adam.”
They had reached the brewery. The rest of Luke’s questions would have to wait, he realized, for two steamboats were approaching the wharf, each low in the water from the number of emigrants it carried. Wagons were already arriving to carry the sick away. It would be just another day of carting bodies, Luke thought, from the wharf to the shed to the pit.
Just before they parted company, though, Luke turned to the priest. “One more question, that’s all,” he said. “Were the Mullens there?”
But Higgins strode off without answering.