Dark Rosaleen (38 page)

‘The military will be on the roads.'

‘There are no roads the way I go,' said Tomás.

‘Declan, how will you get Daniel away?' asked Father Kenyon.

‘Once Miss Kate is safe in my mother's house, Tomás will come back and meet us at Rathkea. It's a small village a few miles from here, tumbled and deserted except for a family of tinkers. He'll bring the horses there. He knows where to steal them.'

‘How long will you wait here?'

‘No longer than we have to. Two days, maybe more. I must wait until Mr Daniel is ready for it.'

‘You will watch for the military.'

‘I will watch.'

‘And then you'll make for Limerick?'

‘I shall.'

Kate came to him. ‘Declan, I'll be waiting there. Promise you will bring my man safely to me.'

‘That I promise. We will have you both together soon enough.'

Coburn slept through the day. He woke that evening. Declan was a shadow by his side.

‘Is Kate safe away, Declan?'

‘They've been gone six hours, Mr Daniel. Tomás will have her in the Limerick house by now.'

‘How long do we have here?'

‘Not long, sir. They'll have more troops up by now.'

‘We must move, Declan.'

‘I'll not shift you, Mr Daniel, until I have to. I know a bit about bleeding – I've seen enough of it – and you're not ready yet to go anywhere. We must wait until the wound begins to close.'

‘How will you get us away?'

‘A little gap, a tiny escape hollowed out by men many years ago.'

‘Tell me, Declan, so I can ready myself.'

‘The Protestant landlord who owned these woods forbad the building of this church. But my people did build it and they hid it here, deep inside the thick of the trees so they could come to Mass. To get here and out again they dug a deep path and wove the saplings together over it so that it was like a tunnel. No stranger found it then, nor will they now. No soldier could ever know it's there. That's our way out, Mr Daniel.'

‘I'm in good hands, Declan.'

‘You are, sir. I'll be with you all the way and hope I live long enough to tell the story one day.'

‘I'm thirsty, Declan.'

‘A good sign.' He held a water jug to Coburn's lips.

‘And hungry.'

‘Even better. Father Kenyon is bringing more food.'

‘What chance do we have?'

‘More than half a chance if Tomás brings the horses. He knows where to get them.'

They heard a noise outside, a rustle in the undergrowth. Declan drew his pistol. Then came Father Kenyon's warning call, the thrice repeated call of the thrush. Declan put his pistol back down on the floor beside him. The priest entered carrying the bundle of food.

‘I've got this for you, Daniel. From Dr Joyce, God bless him. Some more of his wonder moss. And a little more opium to help you sleep.'

‘What of the soldiers, Father?'

‘Too many, Daniel. The town's full of them and they're spreading out across the lower slopes of the woods.'

‘Declan says Kate was away in good time.'

‘She was. Well away, Daniel. She's in safe hands now.'

Mother O'Connor's house in Limerick was close to the Shannon in a narrow alley off Bell Tavern Lane. From the top garret window Kate could see ships passing in and out of the docks and the endless flotilla of barges scurrying among them, carrying their cargoes to the mass of stevedores working on the warehouse quays. That morning she had watched a ship sailing downriver, westwards towards the Atlantic, its decks crammed with silent, motionless people. Not one of them waved goodbye to the Ireland.

She had been welcomed into the family and this was her third day. She had washed, fed and given the safe sanctuary of the room at the very top of the house.

Mother O'Connor, like her eldest son Declan, was strong and large with a shining dome of a forehead and a thin covering of ginger hair pulled back tight in a bun. Living so close to the docks, in a slum of strangers, she was careful and cautious, living by the maxim that nothing and no one was quite what they seemed.

From the day her husband had deserted her for a younger woman in Cashel, seven years before, she had lived on her wits and by them she had prospered. She knitted cotton jerkins for visiting seamen, sold jars of homemade illicit rum and lent small amounts of money at a pawnbroker's rate of interest. She kept to herself and those who did business with her knew it was wise not to argue over trifles.

She lived cheek by jowl with inquisitive, suspicious and troublesome neighbours and it worried her that some might have seen Kate's arrival. They would ask themselves who she was, this handsome young woman taking a room in the O'Connor's house, with such clothes and a clean head of shining black hair. They might suspect she was a fugitive running from the constabulary or a wife from her husband. Whatever her secret, they knew there might well be some profit in discovering who she was and why she was hiding in such a place.

Mother O'Connor was anxious, which was not her nature.

‘I had thought of cutting off your hair, Kate, and giving you some old rags to live in. But if you've been seen, and I think maybe they've already spied you, that would only make them more suspicious. We just have to pray you won't need to stay long here.'

‘When is Tomás leaving?'

‘Tonight. He's taking some horses from the coach yard after dark. They'll not be missed until morning. You mustn't worry. Leave that to me. You'll have your man with you by this time tomorrow.'

‘I've no way of thanking you. You are risking so much for us.'

‘And willingly so. I heard him speaking here in Limerick, not a year ago. I've never thought things could ever change in Ireland, but when I listened to him and all his fine words, I really did begin to think we were ready for something better.'

‘And now?'

‘It will come, my dear. I do believe it will come one day and I thank him for that. I thank you both.'

Tomás had picked the three sturdiest mares from the coach depot on the far side of Wellesley Bridge. He waited until the nightwatchman was long asleep and the horses had finished their oats. They made no fuss. He would have to ride them without saddles, but the rendezvous at Rathkea, where he would wait for Coburn and Declan, was barely twenty miles as the crow flies. It was no hardship to ride bareback.

He was close to his mother's house when he saw movement in the shadows. There were no gas lamps and no moon, but there was no mistaking them. He had dodged too many soldiers in his time.

They were less than a hundred yards ahead, about a dozen, but he guessed there were more beyond the turning that led to the back of the house. They must know about Kate. Someone had informed. He led the horses further back and tied them to a bollard on the quayside. Then he began climbing.

When he reached the top of the first house, fifty feet up, he took off his boots and swung them round his neck. Then, stepping ever so gingerly, he went from roof to roof, treading the tiles as if they were made of porcelain, until he came to the roof he recognised as his mother's. He leant over the guttering and tapped on the window of Kate's garret.

‘Kate,' he whispered.

He tapped again. ‘For Christ's sake, Kate, wake up. The military is here. Open up. It's me, Tomás.'

Kate lit her candle. Tomás's face was looking at her through the window. She opened the fanlight and he squeezed himself into the room.

‘They're on their way. I saw them. We're done for, Kate, there's no way out. And by Christ I had the horses ready too.'

Mother O'Connor knew what to expect before she heard the knocking. Alarm was no stranger. As she feared, the neighbours had told on her. A fist hit the door hard. A man shouted.

‘Open this door! I am an officer of the Queen's army. Your house is surrounded by my men. Open and you'll not be harmed.'

Mother O'Connor did what she had to do. The officer entered, a young man, so young to be a captain. A soldier stood either side of him. They held their rifles aimed at her.

‘You can put your guns away,' she said. ‘There are no men in this house and you'll have no cause to shoot at me.'

The young officer beckoned to his men and they lowered their weapons.

He said, ‘I have come to arrest a woman hiding in this house.'

‘There is no woman here but me, young man. This is a clean and respectable house so I'll ask you to search elsewhere.'

‘I know she is here,' the officer said. ‘Her name is Kathryn Macaulay. I demand you give her up.'

‘I'd give her to you if she was here but I've never heard of …'

‘My name is Kate and I go by no other name.'

Kate came into the room from the stairs, wrapped in a blanket.

The officer stepped towards her. ‘You are Kathryn Macaulay, daughter of the deceased Sir William Macaulay?'

‘I was his daughter once and I repeat, my name is Kate.'

‘Whatever name you prefer to go by, I am here to arrest you. You are charged with treason and I am to escort you to Newgate Prison in Dublin. You are to prepare yourself for that journey. And it is a long one.'

Mother O'Connor shouted at him. ‘You'll do nothing of the kind. You cannot take her all that way. Do you not see she is carrying a child? It will kill her and her baby too. Have pity. In the name of our God, let her stay awhile. Take her now and you will kill both of them.'

The officer looked stunned. He paused, seeming not to know what to say next. Then he mumbled his words.

‘I did not know this. I was not told. But I must obey my orders.'

‘May I dress?' Kate asked.

‘Of course.'

The officer turned and ordered his men out of the house. But as Kate went to climb the stairs back to the garret, the officer closed the front door behind him, locked it and stepped back into the room.

‘Kate.' He said it quietly. It was almost a whisper. ‘Come here, Kate. I have little time. My men will expect me to leave soon.'

‘You call me Kate? Why?'

She came back, hesitant, confused and stood close to Mother O'Connor.

‘Do you not recognise me?' the young officer said. ‘It was I who came to you in Cashel with that offer of a pardon and free passage to America.'

‘It was dark,' she replied. ‘I would not have known it was you. Why should it matter now?'

‘There was no such offer. It was deceit. A trap. They wanted a quiet killing of you both. If you had surrendered I had orders for my men to shoot you.'

‘This we knew. Of course we knew. But what are you saying? You come to arrest me and now you tell me this.'

‘Kate, you will find this hard to believe. But I have come to help you escape.'

‘Mother of God!' Mother O'Connor collapsed on her stool.

Kate did not move.

‘You trick me,' she said. ‘Why do you trick me?'

‘Look at me, Kate. Look at me. Do I not remind you of somebody, somebody you knew years ago, somebody who was your friend when you had none? Was he not your ally?'

‘You are not he. He is dead.'

‘What was his name, Kate? You cannot have forgotten him.'

‘I shall never forget him. His name was Shelley. Captain John Shelley. And I loved him as a brother.'

‘Kate, I am Richard Shelley, captain in the Hussars. I am John's younger brother.'

She looked at him again, his pale face, his high cheekbones, his fair hair and his eyes, grey-green and full of sadness. And she knew it to be true.

Captain Shelley went to the front door and unlocked it.

‘Sergeant, bring all the men to the front and have them lined up in column for escort.'

‘Even the men at the back, sir?'

‘I said all the men to the front, sergeant. Now.'

He closed and locked the door again.

‘Kate, it is not by accident that I am here. I have worked on it, planned it. When I knew for sure that you were alive, I manoeuvred my way towards you again, planning it day by day, asking favours, bribing, switching regimental orders, doing everything that was necessary to make it certain that I would be put in charge, the one officer whose responsibility it was to hunt you down. Now I've found you, Kate, and I have made preparations. I have a way out for you and it will succeed, trust me.'