10th May 1855
“Caitríona! Where are you?”
Orla Ní Faolain cast about, looking for her younger sister. The sudden wind whipped her long, black hair sideways and brought rare color to her normally pale cheeks as she held tightly to the halter of the stout Connemara pony pulling her cart.
“Shhh, Connor,” she said soothingly as he tossed his head, his eyes wide.
“Where are you?” she moaned again, glancing worriedly at the black clouds roiling in from the sea.
Without warning, Caitríona ran out from behind a small hillock near the dirt lane. There were brambles tangled in her wild red hair, and she had dirt smeared across her freckled cheek. In her hands, she cradled a small mound of red fur.
“Look, Orla!” she exclaimed excitedly as she scrambled over the stacked rock wall rambling along the lane.
Orla, with a reserve born of experience, cautiously looked to see what her sister held. A tiny fox kit blinked up at her.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Caitríona murmured, entranced.
Orla sighed in exasperation. “Aye, she’s beautiful, but Mam will have our hides if we don’t get the cart home before the storm.”
She wasn’t sure Caitríona was listening as she bent over the fox kit, stroking its soft head and murmuring to it.
“Put it back where you found it,” Orla said gently, casting another glance at the ominous clouds. Her sister was always finding stray and injured animals. Or they found her. Even the wild ones came to her trustingly, seeming to know that she would do them no harm.
Reluctantly, Caitríona carried her small burden back to the gorse behind the hillock. She ran back to the cart and took the pony’s halter on the other side as together they urged him into a trot.
They arrived home as the first fat raindrops began to fall. Connor trotted right into the three-sided run-in that served as a barn, its rock walls chinked with clumps of sod so that the stones looked hairy. Because the storms here on this peninsula were so fierce, the thatched roof was reinforced with strong cords anchored by more rocks, swinging wildly now in the wind.
The girls unhitched the pony, and Caitríona put him in his stall next to the milk cow. Hastily, she put a few handfuls of sweet hay in his feed bin and gave him a pat before putting up the boards that closed his stall.
“You’d better be hoping Da doesn’t see that hay,” Orla warned. “You know he says it’s only for the cow.”
Caitríona looked around to make sure her father wasn’t near. “You won’t tell, will you?” she pleaded. “Connor works harder than that old cow.”
“That old cow gives us milk and butter,” Orla reminded her sister. “Come. Let’s get this lot in the house.”
Gathering up the paper-wrapped parcels of fish and salt, along with the tins of tea and flour, the girls ran through the rain to the house. The small cottage was also built of stone whose whitewash had long ago faded, beaten away by the relentless pounding of the storms blown in by the westerly winds. Rounding the corner, they skidded to a halt. A carriage was there, pulled by two fine bay hackney ponies covered with blankets against the weather. The coachman sat like a statue on the high seat, his heavily embroidered uniform getting wetter by the minute. The footman, dressed in a similar livery, stood miserably at the heads of the horses.
Ducking under the rocks anchoring the cottage’s thatched roof, the girls peered through the low door to see a strange gentleman sitting in their father’s chair by the fire. Niall O’Faolain jumped up from the bench at the table when he saw them.
“Come in, girls, come in,” he said anxiously, gesturing them inside when they still hesitated. “Lord Playfair has been waitin’ to see you.”
The girls kicked off their muddy shoes as they entered and stood silently, still clutching their parcels. Lord Playfair’s cold, indifferent gaze swept over them, passing quickly over Caitríona, but pausing on Orla for several seconds before he turned to Niall. Caitríona glanced quickly at her mother who sat with the baby and five other children on the bench along the far wall. The sight of her mother’s ashen face frightened her.
“They both know how to read and write?” Lord Playfair asked.
“Yes, your Lordship,” Niall answered, his head bowed, staring at Lord Playfair’s shiny black boots. “English and Latin, and a little Irish.”
Lord Playfair’s eyebrows rose slightly in haughty acknowledgement of his surprise.
“Very well, then. We have an agreement,” he said as he stood. “Five extra acres. Have them ready in two weeks. I’ll send a wagon. They sail from Cobh.” He pulled his oilskin cloak around his shoulders and, ducking through the cottage door, climbed into the waiting carriage and departed.
Niall collapsed into the vacated chair and stared into the low flames slowly consuming the blocks of peat. Orla dropped her packages on the wooden table and knelt beside her father as he rubbed the red stubble on his chin.
“Da?” She laid a white hand on his arm. “Da, what did he mean?”
Refusing to meet her gaze, Niall said, “Lord Playfair is sending his son to oversee his plantation in America. They need servants. You and your sister are to go.”
Orla’s hand flew to her mouth in disbelief, but Caitríona cried defiantly, “I won’t! He can’t force us!”
Niall shoved himself abruptly to his feet. “You’ll do as you’re told for a change!” he roared. He swept his arm toward the door. “All I’ve got is ten acres to feed this family. Look at them,” he gestured with his other hand toward the other children watching wide-eyed. “Skin and bones. Orla’s fifteen. She should be married, and you, not two years behind, should be following. But since the famine… all the young men have gone.” His voice faltered. “There’s not enough land to feed us all.” His jaw worked from side to side. “It’s time you were gone,” he said.
His wife, Eilish, looked out the window at the three small crosses silhouetted on the hill behind the cottage, and said, “You would do well to remember, Niall O’Faolain, that we’d have lost more than three children to the famine if it weren’t for the girls helping me make lace to sell in town.”
She handed the baby to the boy next to her and stood, clearly pregnant again. Her smooth white skin and long black hair marked her as Orla’s mother. She was still beautiful, despite the ravages of years of hunger and the hardships of bearing and burying too many children, the same beauty that now made men stop and look longingly at Orla.
“You’re telling me I’m not man enough to work this land and feed my family?” Niall growled, his cheeks turning a blotchy red that matched his hair.
“I’m saying it’s taken more than farming to feed this family these past seven years, and you’ve no cause to make the girls believe they’ve been a burden,” Eilish insisted, refusing to back down despite his menacing tone.
His eyes flickered briefly in the direction of his two eldest daughters. “With five extra acres, I could get back on me feet.”
“So you sold us like a pair of cattle!” accused Caitríona.
So fast she didn’t have time to duck, Niall lashed out, backhanding her and knocking her to the floor. She stayed down, her unruly red curls falling over her face as Niall stomped out into the rain.
Eilish rushed over and brushed Caitríona’s hair back to reveal a bloody lip. Angry tears spilled from her daughter’s eyes.
“Will you never learn to hold your tongue?” she asked, shaking her head. “Come.” She led Caitríona to the table. There, she dabbed at the blood with the corner of her apron. “Only, if you go, Lord Playfair will let your father keep five extra acres of crops, but if you don’t, he’ll take five away. We can’t live on five acres and he knows it,” Eilish explained gently.
“But he farms over fifty acres for that English bastard now!” Caitríona sputtered through her swollen lips. “We’re not his property,” she insisted bitterly.
“To himself, that’s all we are.” Eilish sighed in resignation. “I blame myself. If I hadn’t taught you to read and write and make lace…” She looked over at Orla, still kneeling by her father’s chair. “If I could, I’d send you to the nuns who raised me. You’d be safe there.”
Orla turned to her mother. “Mam? For how long must we go? Will we ever come home again to Ireland?”
Eilish looked at her sadly. “I don’t know, child.”