After nearly twelve weeks, the ship finally reached America. A hurricane had blown it off-course to the north. Caitríona, Orla and the others took it in turns to look out their small portholes at the approaching coastline of Virginia. Caitríona was disappointed in the flat, sandy shores covered in scrubby pine trees as they entered the mouth of the James River. Once safely anchored at Newport News Point, the English passengers disembarked first. Then, the twenty-two surviving Irish were allowed above decks. They were made to stay on board while the remainder of the cargo was unloaded. After so many weeks in the dark, dank hold, the heat and humidity of Virginia in July were too much for Orla. She became faint. Caitríona half-carried her to a bit of shade against the wall of the pilot house and propped her up against the varnished wood.
Though the smell of fish and brackish water was not pleasant, anything was better than the putrid air they had been breathing. Leaving Orla to rest with some fresh water, Caitríona went to the rail to watch the activity below. This harbor was not as busy as Cobh, but there was a great deal of commotion nonetheless.
The trunks and crates were hoisted up from the cargo hold and transferred to waiting barges. Next, the horses and livestock were taken off the ship, some to waiting corrals, others taken directly to the barges on which they would travel the next leg of their journey. Only then were the Irish ordered off the ship and also dispersed to the various barges that would take them to their destinations and their new lives.
Clutching their small bags, Orla and Caitríona crossed the gangplank to their assigned barge along with Ewan, the surviving stable boy, and Fiona. Seeing one another in daylight, Caitríona thought they all looked like the living dead – like during the famine, she thought. They had all lost a frightening amount of weight, their eyes sunken deep in their sockets, their cheeks hollowed, hair lank and lifeless. None of them had been able to bathe since before their voyage began. Orla clutched at the rosary hanging around her neck and whispered a prayer.
Patrick Doolan, the captain of the barge, looked upon them with a mixture of pity and revulsion. Shouting orders to his crew, he waited until the barge was safely underway up the river before ordering fresh water and bread for his passengers. He himself retrieved a smoked ham from his personal stores and cut slices off for them, the first meat they had had in nearly three months.
“Take it slow,” he cautioned. “You’ll be needing to give your bellies time to get used to real food again.”
As they traveled along the river, Captain Doolan checked on them as often as he could. He arranged for a small tub to be filled with water and shielded behind a blanket so the women could bathe and wash their filthy clothing. Ewan was thrown into the river by the crew, mostly Irish themselves, as they put in at Williamsburg to take on some cargo. One of the men tossed him a bar of lye soap and shouted, “You’ll not be comin’ back on board till you smell human again!” When he was pronounced fit to climb back on board, the crew good-naturedly gave him a set of clothes, declaring his own beyond salvaging.
The effect Orla had on the crew was dramatic. Clean for the first time in weeks, her black hair rippling in the breeze blowing upriver, when her beautiful face broke into a smile, the men stopped what they were doing, watching her with their caps doffed until Captain Doolan roared at them to tend to business.
Caitríona scowled as she watched all this from where she sat curled up in a large coil of rope on the deck. She felt like a foreigner as they traveled up this river so broad she could barely see the opposite bank at times. The sky felt crushingly huge above them. She missed the sounds and smells and sights of Ireland so that she thought she would never feel whole again. Her loneliness was intensified as Fiona began helping the barge’s cook, and Ewan was taken in by the crew and put to work. Orla, as often as not, was in the pilot house, keeping the captain company.
As the barge moved slowly upriver, it put in at Jamestown and other ports along the way, sometimes taking cargo on, other times off-loading some of what they carried, but the Irish bound for the plantation remained the only passengers.
Caitríona took to staying at the rear of the barge with the horses and cattle. Animals and humans alike were being besieged by hordes of mosquitoes and biting flies. It was enough to drive them all mad as they swatted and bit and stamped at the biting insects. Caitríona was soon given the job of keeping the animals calm, as she was the only one they would allow in their enclosure when the bugs were biting. She gently talked to them, patting the cattle and rubbing the horses’ necks and faces, brushing them all with switches to keep the bugs off.
“You smell like a horse,” Orla said, wrinkling her nose as Caitríona lay down beside her under the stretched tarp that served as a sort of tent. The barge had no actual sleeping quarters for passengers as it so rarely carried any. There was a small area in the cargo hold where the crew hung hammocks each night. Ewan slept there with the men, while Fiona shared the tarp with the girls.
“Good,” Caitríona shot back as she smacked at a mosquito. “I’d rather smell like something honest and good from home than be prancing about making the men go all stupid.”
Orla’s fair cheeks flushed. “I don’t prance… I can’t help… Don’t be mad at me, Caitie,” she said, using the childhood nickname that never failed to cool Caitríona’s quick temper.
“I’m not mad at you,” Caitríona said grudgingly. “Only, I hate this cursed country.”
Orla laid a calming hand on her arm. “Don’t hate so. We’re here now, like it or no. We may as well make the best of it. ‘Tis no use constantly wishing to be somewhere we’re not.”
But Caitríona did wish. She wished so hard she thought her heart must burst from the strain of it – she wished for the cool sea breezes of Ireland, for the earthy smell of a warm peat fire, for the cleansing rains that fell soft on the fields leaving the hills and rocks glistening like jewels in the sun that would come out as the clouds scudded away. But all her wishing couldn’t take her from this ugly land where she felt she was wrapped in a hot, wet blanket so that she never stopped sweating, where the river went on and on, the boredom broken only occasionally by the towns and ports they passed.
It wasn’t until their eighth day on the river that they approached Richmond. The river traffic had been building steadily as the barges were diverted to the canal to get past waterfalls. Traffic slowed to the pace of the mules pulling the barges along the towpath, with regular stops at locks to raise or lower water levels. Captain Doolan told Orla that Richmond would be the biggest city the girls had ever seen. Even before they got to the actual outskirts, they could see mansions so grand they could never have imagined them before. Amidst the shouting of men on other boats and barges, the wharves of Richmond came into view. Looming over the river were huge brick warehouses and factories with black smoke churning from tall brick chimneys.
The barge eased up to one of the wharves where it was moored by enormously thick ropes. Caitríona went to the livestock to soothe them as they grew agitated with all the commotion. Standing in between two of the horses, she looked up to see Orla being helped off the barge by Captain Doolan. Taking his offered arm, she accompanied him down the dock, and was soon obscured from view by the dockworkers.
Caitríona was fuming by the time they returned to the barge a few hours later. Orla came to find her as the captain began shouting orders for them to shove off and get underway again, now carrying the last new cargo they would take on as they continued upriver to Scottsville, which was the closest the barge could take them to Lord Playfair’s plantation.
“Caitríona –,” Orla began excitedly, but her sister turned her back. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded.
Caitríona whipped around, glaring at her. “You’re a traitor! That’s what’s the matter,” she said waspishly.
“A traitor! And just how do you figure that?” Orla asked, getting angry herself.
Caitríona pointed accusingly. “You went off, with him!”
“The captain? He’s old enough to be our Da,” Orla sputtered. “He was a gentleman.”
Caitríona knew she should stop – how many times had Mam told her she let her temper run away with her tongue? – but she heard herself saying, “Well, he wasn’t looking at you like a daughter! And you… going off with him pretty as you please.”
Orla’s face reflected her anger as two vivid patches of scarlet rose in her cheeks, making her look as if she had been slapped. “That’s a horrible thing to say!” she retorted as her eyes filled with angry tears.
Caitríona said nothing further, turning back to the horses and cattle as the barge resumed its slow way up the canal. Orla dropped a small paper-wrapped parcel on top of the water barrel kept near the enclosure. “Here’s the chocolate the captain bought for you.”
When Caitríona turned around, Orla was gone.
§§§
“This is fun,” Will said as he dipped his paint brush back in the can.
Abraham smiled. “You think so?”
Now that the chimney was repaired, the exterior of the house was receiving a much-needed coat or two of paint. After conferring with Elizabeth, it was decided that the children could help with the exterior painting while she continued working inside.
Abraham glanced down at Conn who was absent-mindedly running her brush over the same area repeatedly, apparently unaware that she was now wiping off more paint than she was applying. Squatting next to her, Abraham asked, “Connemara? Is there anything wrong?”
Startled, Conn looked at him. For an instant, her eyes were troubled and he had the feeling there was something she wanted to say, but then the moment passed and she smiled. “I’m fine. Just daydreaming. Mom always says I could get lost in my daydreams.”
Abraham nudged the paint can closer to her, and said, “Then you could probably use some paint on that brush.”
Conn laughed and burned red.
Abraham turned and paused. “I think you have a visitor.”
She followed his gaze and saw Jed standing at the curve of the drive where it emerged from the woods.
“Hi,” she called out.
“Hi,” Jed said uncertainly.
“Come on up,” she invited.
“We’re helping Mr. Greene paint,” Will said, stating the obvious as he had nearly as much paint on his elbows and hands as he did on his brush.
“Good morning, Jedediah,” Abraham said congenially.
“Mornin’, Ab –, I mean Mr. Greene,” Jed said shyly.
Elizabeth appeared at the screen door, her auburn hair tied back in a ponytail, wiping her hands on a rag. “I thought I heard an unfamiliar voice,” she said, smiling. “You must be Jed.”
“Yes’m,” Jed said, bobbing his head a little.
“We’re about to break for lunch,” she said. “Can you join us?”
Jed’s eyes registered his surprise. “Yes’m.”
“All right, then. Everybody wash up and we’ll eat,” Elizabeth commanded.
Jed followed Conn and Will into the bathroom, where they washed their faces and hands. In Jed’s case, this effected a rather more dramatic change than it did in either Conn or Will, as several layers of dirt were washed down the drain as Jed rinsed the soap off.
He followed the others to the table where Elizabeth was pouring a glass of milk for each of them.
Jed looked around hesitantly as he waited for some signal as to what to do. He remained standing, mimicking Abraham, until Elizabeth was seated. Jed stared at her as if he had never seen a woman before.
“I hope you like egg salad, Jed,” Elizabeth said as they all reached for the sandwiches piled high on a plate in the middle of the table.
He picked up his sandwich and took a tentative bite. His eyes widened in delight at the taste. “Yes’m,” he said again as he tore off a huge bite. He glanced quickly at Abraham who gave a minute shake of his head, took a small bite of his sandwich and wiped his mouth with his napkin. Jed copied him and was therefore able to speak when Elizabeth asked him how old he was.
“I’m near twelve,” he said. “In September.”
“And who are your parents?” she asked.
“My ma’s dead,” he said, pausing in his attack on the sandwich. “When I was five. It’s just me and my pa now. Sam, Samuel Pancake.”
“I knew a Samuel Pancake,” Elizabeth mused. “He’s the right age to be your father.”
“Connemara,” said Abraham, “what are you reading now?”
“Robin Hood,” Conn answered brightly. She turned to Jed. “Have you ever read it?”
Jed turned red and mumbled something indistinct.
“What an excellent adventure,” Abraham said. “I think that was the first long book I ever read. Living in Sherwood Forest, archery contests, outsmarting the Sheriff of Nottingham – it certainly was exciting.”
Will’s eyes got big. “Can you read it out loud?” he asked his sister. “I want to hear the story.”
“Me, too,” Jed said before he could stop himself.
Elizabeth hid a smile as Conn said, “Sure. We can read a little every day if you want.”
After lunch, Jed stayed to help as they resumed painting. By the end of the afternoon, all the clapboards under the front porch had a glistening new coat of white paint, while Abraham put the finishing touches on the dark green paint on the shutters.
“You three did an excellent job,” Elizabeth pronounced when she came out to the porch to inspect their work. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Greene?”
“I do, indeed, Mrs. Mitchell,” said Abraham, as he began washing brushes in a bucket of turpentine.
“Can you stay to dinner, Jed?” Elizabeth invited.
“No, ma’am,” Jed said politely. “I gotta get home.” He hesitated as he descended the porch steps. “Can I come back tomorrow? To help paint?”
“Course you can,” Conn said.
“All right,” Jed grinned. “See y’all tomorrow.”
Abraham watched him run down the drive and said, “That boy would thrive under a little kindness.”
“What do you mean?” Conn asked.
“Well, after his mother died, his father began drinking,” Abraham explained. “Jedediah just hasn’t had contact with many people. Especially good people.” He glanced at Conn and added, “That’s what I meant when I said he could use a friend like you, Connemara. And you, William.”
Will beamed.
“Well,” Abraham said, straightening up as he wiped the clean brushes dry on a rag, “I shall see you all on the morrow.”
“‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’” Conn quoted.
Abraham laughed, his face twisting grotesquely as his scar pulled. “Exactly.”