Chasing River
Page 41

“Spurred by the sight of her little sisters’ skeletal limbs, Marion decided she would face this English landlord of theirs, a wealthy man who visited his lands only once or twice a year and was rumored to have arrived a fortnight before. She knew Seamus would never approve, so she waited until he left for the day, and then, collecting a handful of berries to give her sustenance for the fifteen-kilometer walk west, she put the second eldest in charge and left their little hut. She had no idea what she would say as she marched through the fields, noting all the landmarks on her path toward this home—there was no road to guide her—but she figured she’d know by the time she arrived.
“You can only imagine what was going on in little Marion’s mind as she crested a hill and caught her first glimpse of the landlord’s home. This was a girl who, like many Irish farm families, had only ever seen the tiny, drafty cottages that her kind lived in. To see this huge stone building now . . .”
River sets his pint down on a side table, freeing his hands to animate his excitement. “Remember, I told you that Seamus’s ancestors came from royalty, and so they didn’t merely live in an estate home. They lived in a bloody castle! If you’ve been to Kilkenny, then you’ve seen something like what Marion saw that day—a beautiful home towering high above the ground, with turrets on the ends and half a dozen chimneys to help bring its occupants warmth. And real glass windows! Of course, it wasn’t quite as grand as Kilkenny, but to Marion, it was worthy of a king. Which spurred her on even more, because that should have been her family’s house. So she marched toward that castle, the massive wooden door in her sights . . . until a man’s voice called out to her. ‘Who are you?’ She turned to see a young man atop a horse, trotting toward her. She guessed him to be maybe twenty, dressed in trousers and a woolen jacket, his waistcoat peeking out beneath. He was an ordinary-lookin’ fella, but he was English and no doubt a Protestant, and therefore she despised him on sight.
“ ‘What’s it to ya?’ she asked boldly, hugging her ratty shift dress close to her body. His horse circled around her once . . . twice . . . before he hopped off. ‘This is my land and you’re trespassing,’ he said. This was her English landlord? She put on a brave face. ‘Me name is Marion McNally and me family’s starvin,’ she announced. ‘We’re all starvin’ and you’re here, prancin’ around with your fancy horse, wearin’ your fancy clothes, livin’ in your big castle. Don’t ya know that people on your land are dying? That ya could feed them with what you send back to England to make your selfish countrymen fat and blissful?’ ”
I smile, listening to River mimic a much thicker, more pronounced Irish brogue to perfection.
“The young man simply stared at her, for so long she was beginning to think he might order her executed for treason. ‘I’m sorry, miss . . . but we don’t have much choice. If we don’t collect rents and taxes from our farms, then we’ll be forced to evict them from our land, or lose our land, altogether.’
“ ‘It’s not even your land. It’s me family’s land. You’re a bunch of thieving bastards!’ Marion exclaimed boldly, and then turned and ran as fast as her skinny legs could carry her, expecting to be run down at any moment. But she wasn’t. And almost a fortnight later, when the weather had turned cold, a knock sounded on the wooden plank they used for a door to keep out the draft. They opened it to find two sacks of milled oats sitting outside, hidden beneath a few thick woolen blankets. The sound of horse hooves could be heard in the distance, galloping away.
“Seamus quickly hid the bags inside, because the situation for everyone had become desperate, and he was afraid they would be pillaged. There was just enough to keep his girls alive for the winter, he hoped. Now, it wasn’t bad enough that the blight had stolen virtually all food for the farmers, but that year saw the harshest winter Ireland had seen in years. Cottages were buried to their rooftops in snow as storm after storm pounded the country. By the spring, bodies lay everywhere.
“But the McNally family survived yet again, hiding within their one-room home, keeping warm with the tiniest of fires and those woolen blankets and their body heat, rationing their oats for a daily helping of porridge, using melted snow to make it. Seamus knew he should eat more, let the kids go without so he could stay healthy and take care of them like many parents had to do in those long, dark days, but he couldn’t bear listening to their hungry cries.
“And because of that, he fell ill. In the early spring, Seamus passed on, leaving Marion to care for her four sisters. The five of them, stronger than most laborers around because of the milled oats they lived off of through the winter, were able to keep their hut by working the fields as Seamus had, and planting more potatoes, in hopes that a third year of blight was impossible.”
He pauses to nod a thanks to Rose as she drops off a fresh pint. The Irish really do love their Guinness. That’s his fourth now, and there isn’t even a hint—a slur, a lax face, a stray thought—that would suggest it’s affected him in any way.
“When Marion heard rumors of the landlord arriving at the house again, she knew she had to visit him. To apologize. It was the right thing to do, especially after she had spoken to him in such a horrific way. She knew that it was that young man on a horse who dropped the milled oats and blankets at her door.
“So on the following Sunday, she again marched through the fields, along the stone wall, over the hill, her body weaker from hunger, her dress even more tattered and filthy. The man was not out on his horse this time. She found him standing before a two-hectare-sized garden patch, the soil freshly tilled, his arms folded over his chest, his brow furrowed.
“ ‘What are you going to plant?’ she asked by way of greeting. He looked at her for a long moment before saying, ‘I don’t know, Miss Marion. What do you think I should plant here?’ She was surprised to know that he remembered her name but she pretended not to be and said, ‘You’re in Ireland, so potatoes, of course,’ which made him burst out laughing. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, holding out his hand to show her the beans. ‘But just in case of that pesky blight, I was thinking these, too. And some corn and cabbage.’ She nodded her approval. Beans and corn were expensive to plant. He asked her how her family had fared over the winter, and she shared the news of her father. His father had died as well, over Christmas, he admitted. When Marion had met this man the fall before, he hadn’t been the landlord, after all. His father had in fact owned the land.
“The young man’s name was Charles Beasley, and he was happy to see Marion alive and well. She had been a pretty young ginger-haired thing the year before, the day she marched onto his family’s property with fire in her eyes. She still was, though far too thin for his tastes. It had been a long winter for him, sitting in the comfort of his family’s estate home near Bath, wondering if the bags of milled oats he’d dropped at her door that day would be enough to keep her alive. It was long enough to concoct a plan. He had already inquired about the McNally family in secret on the day he arrived in Ireland and knew what had happened to her father. He figured it was only a matter of time before that fiery little Irish girl would show up again.