Scarlett (110 page)

Scarlett went to a house party in Roscommon in early June, confident that she was in no way deserting her daughter. She probably won’t even notice that I’m not there. How humbling.

“Isn’t the weather splendid?” said everyone at the party. They played tennis on the lawn after dinner in the soft clear light that lasted until after ten o’clock.

Scarlett was pleased to be with so many of the people she’d liked most in Dublin. The only one she didn’t greet with real enthusiasm was Charles Ragland. “It was your regiment that flogged that pitiful man to death, Charles. I’ll never forget, and I’ll never forgive. Wearing regular clothes doesn’t change the fact that you’re an English soldier, and that the military are monsters.”

Charles was surprisingly unapologetic. “I’m truly sorry that you saw it, Scarlett. Flogging’s a filthy business. But we’re seeing things that are even worse, and they must be stopped.”

He declined to give examples, but Scarlett heard from general conversation about the violence against landlords that was cropping up all over Ireland. Fields were torched, cows had their throats cut, an agent for a big estate near Galway was ambushed and hacked to pieces. There was hushed, anxious talk about a resurgence of the Whiteboys, organized bands of marauders that had terrified landowners more than a hundred years before. It couldn’t be, said wiser heads. These latest incidents were scattered and sporadic and usually the work of known troublemakers. But they did tend to make one a bit uncomfortable when the tenants stared in the carriage as one drove past.

Scarlett forgave Charles. But, she said, he mustn’t expect her to forget. “I’ll even take the blame for the flogging if it will make you remember me,” he said ardently. Then he blushed like a boy. “Dammit, I invent speeches worthy of Lord Byron when I’m in the barracks thinking of you, then I blurt out some rubbish when I’m in your presence. You know, don’t you, that I’m most abominably in love with you?”

“Yes, I know. It’s all right, Charles. I don’t believe I would have liked Lord Byron, and I like you very much.”

“Do you, my angel? Might I hope that—”

“I don’t think so, Charles. Don’t look so desperate. It’s not you. I don’t think so with anybody.” The sandwiches in Scarlett’s room slowly curled up their edges during the night.

“It’s so good to be home! I’m afraid I’m an awful kind of person, Harriet. When I’m away I always get an itch to be home, no matter how much fun I’m having. But I’ll bet you I start thinking about the next party I’ve accepted before this week’s out. Tell me all about what happened while I was gone. Did Cat pester Billy half to death?”

“Not too much. They’ve invented a new game they call ‘sink the Vikings.’ I don’t know where the name comes from. Cat said you could explain, she only remembered enough to make up the name. They’ve put a rope ladder on the tower. Billy hauls rocks up it, then they throw them through the slits into the river.”

Scarlett laughed. “That minx. She’s been nagging me about getting up in the tower for ages. And I notice she’s got Billy doing the heavy work. Before she’s even four years old. She’s going to be a terror by the time she’s six. You’ll have to beat her with a stick to make her learn her letters.”

“Probably not. She’s already curious about the animal alphabet in her room.”

Scarlett smiled at the implied suggestion that her daughter was probably a near-genius. She was willing to believe that Cat could do everything earlier and better than any child in the history of mankind.

“Will you tell me about the house party, Scarlett?” Harriet asked wistfully. Experience hadn’t caused her to lose her romantic dreaminess.

“It was lovely,” said Scarlett. “We were—oh, about two dozen, I guess—and for once there was no boring old retired general to talk about what he’d learned from the Duke of Wellington. We had a knock-down-drag-out croquet tournament with someone taking bets and giving odds like a horse race. I was on a team with—”

“Mrs. O’Hara!” The words were screamed, not spoken. Scarlett jumped up from her chair. A maid ran in, panting and red-faced. “Kitchen…” she gasped. “Cat… burned…” Scarlett almost knocked her down when she tore past her.

She could hear Cat wailing when she was only halfway through the colonnade from house to kitchen wing. Scarlett ran even faster. Cat never cried.

“She didn’t know the pan was hot”… “already buttered her hand”… “dropped it soon as she picked it up”… “Momma… Momma…” The voices were all around her. Scarlett heard only Cat’s.

“Momma’s here, darling. We’ll fix Cat up quick as a wink.” She scooped the crying child up in her arms and hastened to the door. She’d seen the furious red weal across Cat’s palm. It was so swollen her little fingers were spread wide.

The drive had doubled its length, she’d swear it. She was running as fast as she could without risking a fall. If Dr. Devlin’s not at his house, he won’t have a roof over his head when he comes back. I’ll throw out every stick of furniture he owns, and his family with it.

But the doctor was there. “Now, now, there’s no need to be in such a state, Mrs. O’Hara. Aren’t children having accidents all the time? Let me take a look at it.”

Cat screamed when he pressed her hand. It tore Scarlett like a knife.

“It’s a bad burn, and that’s a fact,” said Dr. Devlin. “We’ll keep it greased till the blister fills, then cut and drain the liquid.”

“She’s hurting now, Doctor. Can’t you do something?” Cat’s tears were soaking Scarlett’s shoulder.

“Butter’s best. It will cool it in time.”

“In time?” Scarlett turned and ran. She thought of the liquid on her tongue when Cat was born, the blessed quick release from pain.

She’d take her baby to the wise woman.

So far—she’d forgotten the river and the tower were so far. Her legs were getting tired, that mustn’t be. Scarlett ran as if the hounds of Hell were in pursuit. “Grainne!” she cried when she reached the hollies. “Help! For God’s sake, help.”

The wise woman stepped out from a shadow. “We’ll sit here,” she said quietly. “There’s no more running needed.” She sat on the ground and held up her arms. “Come to Grainne, Dara. I’ll make the hurt go away.”

Scarlett put Cat into the wise woman’s lap. Then she crouched on the ground, poised to snatch her child and run again. To wherever there might be help. If she could think of any place or anyone.

“I want you to put your hand in mine, Dara. I won’t touch it. Lay it in my hand yourself. I will talk to the burn and it will heed me. It will go away.” Grainne’s voice was calm, certain. Cat’s green eyes looked into Grainne’s placid wrinkled face. She placed the back of her injured small hand against Grainne’s herb-stained leathery palm.

“You have a big, strong burn, Dara. I will have to persuade it. It will take a long time, but it will begin to feel better soon.” Grainne blew gently on the burned flesh. Once, twice, three times. She put her lips close to their two hands and began to whisper into Cat’s palm.

Her words were inaudible, her voice like the whisper of soft young leaves or clear shallow water running over pebbles in sunlight. After a few minutes, no more than three, Cat’s crying stopped, and Scarlett sank onto the ground, slack-muscled from relief. The whispering continued, low, monotonous, relaxing. Cat’s head nodded, then dropped onto Grainne’s breast. The whispers went on. Scarlett leaned back on her elbows. Later her head drooped and she slid onto the ground, supine and soon sleeping. And still Grainne whispered to the burn, on and on, while Cat slept and Scarlett slept, and slowly, slowly the swelling subsided and the red receded until Cat’s skin was as if she had never burned it at all. Grainne lifted her head then and licked her cracked lips. She laid Cat’s hand over the other, then folded her two arms around the sleeping child and rocked gently forth and back, humming under her breath. After a long while she stopped.

“Dara.” Cat opened her eyes. “It’s time to go. You tell your mother. Grainne is tired and will sleep now. You must take your mother home.” The wise woman stood Cat on her feet. Then she turned and went into the holly thicket on her hands and knees.

“Momma. It’s time to go.”

“Cat? How could I fall asleep like that? Oh, my angel, I’m so sorry. What happened? How do you feel, baby?”

“I had my nap. My hand is well. May I go up in the tower?”

Scarlett looked at her little girl’s unblemished palm. “Oh, Kitty Cat, your Momma really needs a hug and a kiss, please.” She held Cat to her for a moment, then let her go. It was her gift to Cat.

Cat pressed her lips to Scarlett’s cheek. “I think I’d rather have tea and cakes than go in the tower right now,” she said. It was her gift to her mother. “Let’s go home.”

“The O’Hara was under a spell and the witch and her changeling were talking in a tongue known to no man.” Nell Garrity had seen it with her own eyes, she said, and that frightened she was she turned on her heel into the Boyne, forgetting altogether she needed to go back to the ford. She would have drowned for certain sure had the river been its usual deep self.

“Casting spells on the clouds to make them pass us by they were.”

“And didn’t Annie McGinty’s cow go dry that very day and her one of the best milkers in all Trim?”

“Dan Houlihan in Navan has the affliction of warts on his feet so bad he can’t put them to the floor.”

“The changeling rides a wolf disguised as a pony by day.”

“Her shadow fell on my churn and the butter never came.”

“Those who know say she sees in the dark, her eyes glowing like fire for her prowling.”

“And did you never hear the tale of her birthing, Mr. Reilly? It was on All Hallows’ Eve, and the sky fairly torn to shreddings with comets…”

The stories were carried from hearth to hearth throughout the district.

It was Mrs. Fitzpatrick who found Cat’s tabby on the doorstep of the Big House. Ocras had been strangled, then disembowelled. She rolled the remains into a cloth and hid it in her room until she could go unobserved to the river to dispose of it.

Rosaleen Fitzpatrick burst into Colum’s house without knocking. He looked up at her, but he remained seated in his chair.

“Just what I thought I’d be finding!” she exclaimed. “You can’t do your drinking in the bar like an honest man, you’ve got to hide your weakness here with that sorry excuse for a man.” Her voice was rich with contempt, as was her gesture when she prodded Stephen O’Hara’s limp legs with her booted foot. He was snoring unevenly through his slack open mouth. The smell of whiskey clung to his clothes, saturated his breath.

“Leave me be, Rosaleen,” Colum said wearily. “My cousin and myself are mourning the death of Ireland’s hopes.”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick put her hands on her hips. “And what about the hopes of your other cousin, then, Colum O’Hara? Will you drown yourself in another bottle when Scarlett is mourning the death of her darling babe? Will you sorrow with her when your godchild is dead? Because I tell you, Colum, the child is in mortal danger.”

Rosaleen fell on her knees before his chair. She shook his arm. “For the love of Christ and His Blessed Mother, Colum, you’ve got to do something! I’ve tried every way I know how, but the people won’t listen to me. Mayhap it’s even too late for them to listen to you, but you’ve got to make the try. You cannot hide away from the world like this. The people feel your desertion, and so does your cousin Scarlett.”

“Katie Colum O’Hara,” mumbled Colum.

“Her blood will be on your hands,” said Rosaleen with cold clarity.

Colum made a leisurely round of visits to every house, cottage, and bar in Ballyhara and Adamstown the following day and night. The first visit was to Scarlett’s office, where he found her studying the estate ledgers. Her frown smoothed out when she saw him at the door, reappeared when he suggested she give a party to welcome her cousin Stephen back to Ireland.

She capitulated at last, as he’d known she would, and then Colum was able to use the invitation to the party as his reason for all the other visits. He listened keenly for indications that Rosaleen’s warning had a basis, but he heard nothing, to his great relief.

After Sunday Mass, all the villagers and O’Haras from all County Meath came to Ballyhara to welcome Stephen home and to hear about America. There were long trestle tables on the lawn with steaming platters of boiled salt beef and cabbage, baskets piled with hot boiled potatoes, and foamy pitchers of porter. The French doors were open to the drawing room with its ceiling of Irish heroes, as invitation into the Big House for any who cared to enter.

It was almost a good party.

Scarlett consoled herself afterwards with the thought that she’d done her best, and she’d had a long time with Kathleen. “I’ve missed you so, Kathleen,” she’d told her cousin. “Nothing’s the same since you left. The ford might be under ten feet of water for all the good it does me, I can’t stand to go to Pegeen’s house.”

“And if things always stayed the same, Scarlett, what would be the reason for bothering to draw breath?” Kathleen replied. She was mother to a healthy boy and expecting a brother for him, she hoped, in six months.

She hasn’t missed me at all, Scarlett realized sadly.

Stephen talked no more in Ireland than he had in America, but the family didn’t seem to mind. “He’s a silent man, and that’s the all of it.” Scarlett avoided him. He was still Spooky Stephen to her. He had brought back one delicious piece of news. Grandfather Robillard had died and left his estate to Pauline and Eulalie. They were in the pink house together, took their constitutionals every day, and were reputed to be even richer than the Telfair sisters.