Another Heartbeat in the House (46 page)

The coach took us to Doneraile, where I had expected to find some means of conveyance to Lissaguirra. Clara Venus and I were put down at the staging inn, and I finally managed to engage the services of a carter, who agreed to transport us the rest of the way on a dray drawn by a donkey.

The once prosperous town was looking forlorn: many of the shops were shuttered, and the gates to Doneraile Court were chained. As I made my way along the footpath towards Mr Shinnors's emporium to buy a toffee apple for Clara, I met Mrs Grove-White coming in the opposite direction. Once upon a time she would have shunned me, but today she seemed overjoyed by the encounter.

‘Miss Drury!' she said, ‘Good day to you! I had heard you were beyond in London. What brings you back here?'

‘I had heard that the situation had improved, so I –'

‘Oh, no no no no no!' said Mrs Grove-White. ‘If anything, things have got worse! It would have been better if you had stayed put, for everybody has upped and left. They are too fearful to remain, for although – thanks be to the good God – we have no scarcity of provender here in Doneraile, there is always the threat of – you know – disease. A lady of my acquaintance was afflicted dreadfully, and has had to desist from her charitable works. But Mr Grove-White is stubborn and will not leave. I wish he would, for there is nobody to visit any more! It has made life so dull – look! Mr Shinnors is practically the only shopkeeper left – the others have all been obliged to close for want of trade. But you must not fear that we are likely to die from a shortage of food – oh no! It is only the poor that are distressed. If you need anything, Miss Drury, Mr Shinnors will get it for you. He has just taken delivery of some pretty albums. I have bought two, for I find that assembling an album is a good way of passing the time. Do you have one? No? You must call upon me, and I will show you mine with pleasure! Perhaps I could get up a little musical evening or some such. You were always such a delight, Miss Drury, at Lady Charlotte's soirées! So vivacious! Such a talented pianist, and so accomplished at charades!'

I made a polite bow, and was about to take farewell of the garrulous old crone when she laid a restraining hand upon my arm.

‘While I think of it,' she said, ‘do stock up on some James's Powder while you are here, in case of – you know –' she dropped her voice to a theatrical whisper – ‘any maladies of the stomach. You must be careful of the little one – although I am sure that the chances of her coming into close contact with the wrong class of person are much reduced now that the population hereabouts is so depleted.'

‘No! So many are dying still? Can it be true?'

‘There have been deaths of course –' Mrs Grove-White made a little moue of regret, ‘– but most of the peasantry has left. Gone! You will find that much of the countryside is deserted – and a good thing, don't you agree? For it was quite overpopulated with the most filthy, indolent creatures. There is a great scheme afoot to rid the great estates of tenants. Mr Grove-White is more knowledgeable of it than I.'

‘But if there are more evictions, where are the tenants to go?'

‘The more munificent landlords are offering each family food, clothing and money to leave the country. It is a scheme designed to encourage the investment of capital – for who in their right mind should wish to invest in a country overrun with riff-raff?'

‘How much is each family being given to emigrate?'

‘Up to five pounds.'

‘Five pounds?'

‘Yes! Imagine! Just think how the rogues must be laughing up their sleeves at us as they sail merrily off! But Mr Grove-White tells me that a pauper can be shipped out to Canada or America for half of what it costs to keep him in the workhouse for a year. It is said, you know, that the famine is an act of God, for it has accomplished a task beyond the reach of the government.'

‘What is that supposed to mean?'

‘Well, the government could hardly legislate for the problem of overpopulation, Miss Drury.'

‘The government is largely comprised of landlords, Mrs Grove-White. They could have taken better care of their tenants. Indeed, they had a duty to do so, for they have lived off the misery of the peasantry for centuries.'

Mrs Grove-White looked affronted. ‘I cannot agree with you, Miss Drury. This divine visitation – calamitous as it is – has rid us, in one fell stroke, of the burden of the drunken, idle Irish. We all know that they are worthless, good-for-nothing liars and layabouts. Indeed, a learned friend of mine has argued that they are a form of human chimpanzee.'

Before I knew it, the palm of my hand had made contact with Mrs Grove-White's plump cheek. She dodged backwards just in time to avoid the full brunt of the blow, and had I not been so incandescent with rage I might have laughed at the dumbfounded expression on her face, or marvelled at her agility. Grabbing Clara's arm, I turned and began striding back up the street to where the carter had finished loading our luggage.

‘Mama! Mama?' said Clara, as she pittered along beside me. ‘Why did you smack that lady?'

I did not trust myself to speak.

‘Mama!' Clara importuned me again. ‘Why did you do that?'

‘I will tell you when we are on our way.'

Beside me, Clara Venus fell silent. We reached the dray, and I told the driver to make haste as I climbed aboard, pulling Clara up behind me. As we passed Mr Shinnors's shop, I saw through the window that Mrs Grove-White had taken refuge inside.

‘Mama, you must stop and say sorry,' said Clara. ‘Look at the lady! Her bonnet has come off. She looks like a poor old sheep.'

Clara was genuinely stricken, but there was something else about her demeanour, something that was so redolent of indignation and repulsion at what I, her mother, had done, that I felt it incumbent upon myself to explain my behaviour.

‘I hit her because she was stupid and wicked,' I was about to say. And then I realized that what I had just done was in itself stupid and wicked. Mrs Grove-White was unspeakably ignorant and unforgivably prejudiced, but she was not, I think, wicked, nor did she deserve to be violently assaulted. I felt a pang of guilt for having lashed out at her. But I could not bring myself to stop and apologize, despite her affecting resemblance to a poor old sheep (Clara Venus was right: Mrs Grove-White did look as if she were baa-ing her head off in Mr Shinnors's shop). So instead I said, ‘I hit her because there was a cleg on her.'

‘What's a cleg?'

‘One of those nasty, stinging horseflies. And then – then I had to make a run for it, in case the cleg got me.' It sounded so lame that I felt I had to proffer a more nuanced explanation. ‘A cleg can spread disease, you see.'

‘Does that lady have disease?'

‘No. But the cleg could have been on somebody who did have a disease, and then brought some of the disease with it when it landed on Mrs Grove-White.'

‘Would the cleg have been on that baby?'

‘What baby?'

‘That baby I saw a picture of in the hotel. The man said it had died of disease.'

How I had underestimated my daughter's powers of observation! While I had thought she was engrossed in singing ‘Higgledy Piggledy' and dipping toast soldiers in her boiled egg, she had been quite cognizant of the conversation going on around her.

‘Did you see other pictures, Clara?' I asked cautiously.

‘Yes. Why did that man want to draw dead people?'

‘It's his job.'

‘Why?'

‘So that he can show people how important it is to stop disease spreading.'

‘Because people die?'

‘Yes.'

‘How do you stop it?'

‘It's difficult. Disease is passed on from one person to another by animals or insects, and sometimes by other people.'

‘What people?'

‘Sick people.'

‘Like the people we saw that time going to the workhouse?'

‘Yes.'

Oh, name of God! I did not want to have this conversation! Clara Venus was too young, too new in the world to learn of the horrors and the evil that thrived in this imperfect place.

‘What animals spread diseases? Are they bad animals?'

‘No, sweetheart. They are not bad. They don't know that they are carrying disease.'

‘Did the cleg not know when he landed on the lady who looks like a sheep's face?'

‘No. The cleg didn't know.'

‘So it wouldn't be his fault if the lady died?'

‘No.'

‘The poor cleg. If he knew, I don't think he would have landed on her.'

Clara Venus drew her brows together in a perplexed frown, and I decided to distract her from the morbidity of the subject by pointing out the lovely things by the side of the road along which we were travelling.

‘Look!' I said, pointing randomly at a whitethorn, the leafless branches of which were clawing at the sky. ‘A lovely tree! See how lovely is its shape, against the blue! And look at the cloud above! It looks like the wombat we saw in the zoo! And look at … look at …'

I had been going to say, ‘Look at the birds!' But there were no birds. There was nothing to look at, or rather, there was nothing lovely to look at in the surrounding countryside. It was blasted and desolate and bleak, and the cabins that had once housed the poor peasantry, and the drills where potatoes had grown, had been levelled into an expanse of barren earth that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Until we arrived at Lissaguirra. My house and its surrounding purlieus were like a haven in a wilderness. It was late in the year, but the evergreens tinged the landscape here and there with a verdant hue, and though the birds were silent, I knew they were there. We startled a wood pigeon; it flapped up from the forest floor to take refuge in a thicket, and a pheasant broke cover to run across our path on its silly stick-like legs. A robin followed us along the last quarter-mile of our journey, flitting from twig to twig, regarding us curiously. When we emerged from the trees, I saw that a pair of swans were skimming serenely over the surface of the lake towards us.

Clara Venus turned to me and smiled. ‘We're home,' she said. ‘We're home! Hooray, hooray!' And before the donkey had turned into the courtyard, she had hopped off the cart and gone racing towards the kitchen door.

The carter offloaded our luggage and dumped it by the storm porch, and as he turned the dray around I heard the sound of our own little donkey calling from the stable. Passing the open half-door, I put my head through to say hello, and there found stalled, as well as Dolly and my little mare Minerva, a glossy chestnut hunter.

I smiled as I heard behind me the tread of a man's boots. I did not need to glance around, for I knew who it was.

‘Eliza,' he said, and then he drew the collar of my pelisse aside and kissed the nape of my neck.

I turned to face him as his arms went around my waist.

‘You got my note,' I said.

‘I did. Your postscript was the sweetest I have ever read.'

‘Remind me of it.'

‘It was a line of but three words.'

‘I remember.'

‘Say them.'

I smiled, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. ‘I love you,' I said.

LATER, WE SAT
by the fire in the kitchen, all six of us: Jameson, Clara Venus, me, the two Biddies and Christy.

We were eating griddle cakes with honey – Christy's beehives had produced a bumper harvest that autumn – and Clara Venus had reunited Romulus with Remus and reinstated the wolves in the ark, which she had set upon the kitchen table. Christy was desperately downcast, but the Biddies shot him warning looks every time he made mention of
an Gorta Mór
, or touched on what had become known as the ‘coffin ships' that were transporting their wretched passengers across the Atlantic. I was glad that they had the wit not to speak of such things in front of Clara Venus, for I knew that, preoccupied as she seemed in marching the animals two by two up the gangway of the ark, she listened constantly.

‘Little pitchers have big ears,' said Old Biddy, when Christy made some reference to mass graves in Cork. And between the pair of them, through nuance of word and tone, the Biddies let me know that they had been lucky; that they had survived in this hidden corner of North County Cork, and were well set up for the coming winter. For Clara's benefit, they made the events of the past year seem like a big adventure.

‘Most folk hereabout have gone to the cities,' said Old Biddy.

‘Why?' Clara Venus asked, arranging the animals in order of size on Noah's gangplank.

‘Because they hope to find work in the big, bustling towns.'

‘Why?'

‘Because then they will have money for food.'

‘Where does our food come from in Lissaguirra?'

‘Not a year away, and London has made a townie of you, girleen! We have our chickens for eggs and goats for milk and our kitchen garden for vegetables and the little orchard that Christy planted for apples. And if we need anything else, we can fetch it from Doneraile. We are very lucky here.'