Songs of the Shenandoah (2 page)

Now with great success about to be realized, Mr. Field would be able to make a triumphant return to his good fortune.

Clare panned the room and took in the curious mix of well-dressed financiers and telegraph technicians. Some had nodded off in their chairs, with arms folded and heads tilted. Those who remained awake kept their heavy-lidded gazes upon the brass hammer of the telegraph.

Which is why they almost all became startled when the door snapped open and a tall, blond man with round spectacles entered, escorted by a brisk breeze.

Clare was always lifted by seeing her husband, Andrew. For fear she would miss the precise moment when the queen's message arrived, Clare had fended off all of his pleaded requests that she take a break to sleep in their lodging, or at least walk along the beach to clear her mind. But this didn't take away her appreciation of his care and concern for her.

Andrew stepped lightly on the creaking wooden floorboards and slid into the chair by her side. He unwrapped a handkerchief in his hand, revealing some carefully sliced apples and cheese, and held it out to her.

Clare noticed a few irritated glances by some of the others in the room. She reached out and gratefully accepted several pieces of the food. She bit into one of the apple slices and savored the sweetness of the juice.

Clare leaned into his shoulder, which smelled like ocean air. She was careful not to clip the pin tenuously holding up her hair. Too tired to care what she looked like, she rested in the comfort that Andrew always made her feel beautiful. So many years had passed since her long black hair, fair complexion, and sapphire-blue eyes had drawn the unwanted gaze of many a man. Yet now in her late thirties, even the emergence of a few strands of gray in her hair and lines under her eyes had not tempered his affection for her.

He whispered in her ear, “I hate to be the one to ruin this somber moment, but at great personal risk I have followed the full length of this telegraph cable and have made a most remarkable discovery.”

“Oh you have, Mr. Royce?”

“Yes I have,
mon chéri
, and after rowing tirelessly out across these churning waters, imagine my distaste in learning that Cyrus's dear cable has not made it clear across the Atlantic as stipulated.”

“It has not?” Clare found it amusing when her playful Englishman tried wooing her in French. She reached out for his hand and wrapped both of hers around it to warm it for him. He had certainly aged as well in their ten years of marriage, but his etched features made him appear distinguished.

“No, I am afraid your Cyrus has deceived us all,” he intoned with a mischievous whisper. “As a duty-bound journalist, I must report to you that we discovered the cord wrapped loosely around the fluke of a full-grown gray whale.”

Clare snorted out a laugh and covered her mouth when she realized she had attracted hardened glares from many of the serious faces in the room. She squeezed his arm. “Must I send you back outside? You are more trouble than both our two children combined. And not nearly as adorable.”

The mention of their eight-year-old son, Garret, and their six-year-old daughter, Ella, seared Clare with guilt. She had no intention of being away on assignment for several days. Not only was it unfair of her to be away from the children for so long, but it was a mistake to have dragged Andrew along. He labored to keep up with his responsibilities at the
Daily
, and being away from his office would only put him that much further in arrears.

“What do you suppose Her Majesty will have to say?” He nodded toward the telegraph.

Clare sat up and tucked a few loose strands of hair back in her bun. “Well, since it'll be passing through Ireland, I am certain it will be something quite eloquently stated.” She tried to think of something clever, but her mind was numb from the lack of sleep.

“Something like . . .” Andrew shifted to his fake royal accent. “Had you unsophisticated Yankee minions merely paid your proper tea levies, we would have laid this grand wire decades ago.”

She tried to hold back her laughter, but she was unsuccessful. This time it was the bald telegrapher himself who gave her a crooked expression. Clare waved her hand in apology.

For fear she would not be able to contain herself if she looked her husband in the face, she closed her eyes. But her lips sought out his ear. “I love you, Andrew Royce.”

He gave her a firm embrace, then she heard his voice turning soft and sincere. “Even if . . . ?”

“Especially because.”

Andrew suffered with the knowledge he was struggling to keep the
Daily
at the financial strength it heralded when his father was running it. But since Charles Royce had passed, they both learned unsavory details of how the old man had reaped such success.

Andrew's main shortcoming was not being able to clean up the business dealings of the paper without simultaneously washing away its profits. It pained Clare to come to this conclusion, but it was becoming clear they couldn't blame all of the
Daily
's suffering on her husband's ethics alone. He just wasn't as gifted a proprietor as his father was.

“You miss it, don't you?” Andrew's expression was one of a sudden discovery. “That's why we're here, isn't it?”

She was about to protest. To tell him it was because of her fascination with the miracles of science. Or due to her journalistic curiosity. These were true, but Andrew always knew deep inside her heart, in places she was uncomfortable visiting herself.

“It was . . . a more simple life.” Her thoughts drifted to her days on the Hanley farm in Ireland; of living in tight quarters; of feeding from their soil and cutting turf from bogs for fires; and sweet dances of celebration with the entire village, all of whom were both lovingly flawed and part of an extended family.

But this was a sheltered memory, one that would frame perfectly as a painting. For Clare's last experience of her homeland more than ten years ago was one of crop failure, starvation, and death. And even on their scarcest of days in America, there wasn't the remotest of comparisons to the poverty she had once endured.

No. This land of opportunity had been their savior. Not only for herself, but for her brothers and sister, who had made new lives for themselves; lives not so dependent on the whims of nature or the cruel provision of fate.

And although her brothers Seamus and Davin had scattered to the far ends of this country, in gold-rich California, she was comforted by knowing she had assisted in their arrival to these nurturing shores, to a place where their bowls would never be empty and through effort and innovation, their dreams were always in reach.

America was a place of blessing where someone like herself, her siblings, and her children could rise above their given standing and declare their own destiny.

Yet something troubled Clare, for she knew in her heart that they left something behind in the ship taking them all from Cork Harbour to the promised land. A memory forgotten. A voice that was silenced.

“What's wrong?” Andrew placed his hand on her arm and looked into her eyes with a yearning to heal.

Clare shook her head. She regretted wearing her concerns so obviously. This was not the time for such a discussion. “I was just thinking of home.”

Andrew was about to speak but then paused and turned toward the telegraph as gasps came out of several people, and those who had nodded off to sleep were given heavy tugs on their arms.

All attention was focused in silence on the brass head of the telegraph machine, which now danced with tapping rhythms of change.

Chapter 1

Christmas in Manhattan

Manhattan, New York

December 1860

Clare had been anticipating this moment for more than a decade.

It was to be the most glorious Christmas dinner of her life, with her cherished guests about to arrive, and she was intent on making every detail of her hospitality an expression of the profound love she felt for her family.

After all of this time and separated by so many distant miles of untamed territories, they would be home at last.

She stepped back, raised her hand to her chin, and considered the placement of the candles that were set in brass holders, tied with golden ribbons, and placed on a red silk runner, which went down the center and spilled over the sides of a long cherry table.

The flames rising from the wicks and those emanating from wood crackling in the marble-framed fireplace combined to light up the spacious dining room and cause shadowy figures to shift on the walls between painted portraits and landscapes.

The pine boughs she had weaved so delicately on the shelving and mantelpiece of the room smelled of fresh-cut evergreen. These scents blended with those from the mistletoe arranged on the table and the potpourri simmering in a copper kettle at the foot of the fire, providing a festive symphony of Christmastime aromas.

Garret, with his black tussle of curls, had his back to her, his knees perched on the bay-window ledge, fogging up the glass as he waited anxiously for the arrival of relatives he had known only through letters and photographs.

Standing beside Clare, her sister polished the crystal drinking glasses around the table with the aid of a napkin. The flickering candlelight splashed delicately on Caitlin's face, who at thirty years with her long, wavy blond hair, high cheekbones, and fair complexion appeared much younger.

“This one is quite chipped.” Caitlin held the glass up to Clare.

“If you look closely, you'll see they all have their blemishes, I am afraid. Much the same as me.” Clare reached down and picked up one of the china dishes. “Look at these poor fellows. If they survive this . . . last supper, it will be only due to God's mercy.”

Clare held up one of the silver knives, tarnished beyond repair, and sighed. “Oh to see what has become of all of this! If Andrew's mother were still with us, she would no doubt have good reason to lecture her daughter-in-law. A sad caretaker of the Royce empire I have proven to be.”

Caitlin plucked the piece of silverware from her sister's hand and laid it in its proper place on the table. “These are different times. Troubling times. There is victory in . . . just maintaining our position.”

“What I would do to maintain. What a glorious ring that word has to it. No, we slip further with each day.” Clare glanced at her fingertips. “And I have calluses to prove how precipitously we hang on.”

The harmonies of well-sung Christmas songs wafted through the window. “What's this I hear?” Clare headed to the window.

“Ma,” Garret said, without turning. “There's carolers coming.”

“What a welcome sound to our evening.” Caitlin nodded to her sister to join them.

“Enough fussing about the cutlery.” Clare squeezed her son's shoulder. “I should be ashamed to be bantering about such things on this of all evenings.”

The three of them peered out the window, smiles warming their faces as they gazed through the misty veil of the falling snow. There, under the gaslight, was a gathering of seven sharply dressed singers, the women in bonnets and colorful dresses and the men sporting tall hats and tailored coats. Each stood closely together and were wrapped tightly in scarfs as steam rose with each Yuletide verse they sang.

As she savored the words and muted melodies of the song, Clare whispered a prayer of thanks for this neighborhood she lived in and this house, a fieldstone two-story structure that despite sorely needing new paint still rose above the others on her block.

“Should we go outside?” Garret turned and smiled sweetly, but his eye had swollen even more in the past hour, and it was darkening.

Clare had almost forgot about his fight earlier in the day with the boys at the park. “Oh, that looks dreadful, son.” She put her hand on his cheek. “If only you had the sense to ignore them and just walk away.”

“You know I won't allow them to speak of you and Da so unkindly.”

“What did they say to you?” Caitlin asked. “I hadn't heard.”

Garret looked to Clare for permission to answer, which she grudgingly provided with a nod.

“They don't like Ma's writing in the newspaper.” He turned to face the window, his freckled cheeks reflecting in the glass. “They say she hates her own people and wishes she was a Negro slave.”

“Who said these horrible words?” Her eyes wide, Caitlin looked to Clare. “You should have told those . . . dreadful whelps . . . that your dear mother has been the greatest gift to the Irish this city has ever laid eyes on. No one has done more for her people than—Oh my, who is that precious little girl playing in the snow?”

Clare peered outside and her entire body tensed. She tapped her knuckles on the window. “Ella Royce! You come in here immediately.”

Garret looked back with his mouth agape. “Ma, you're going to scare away the carolers.”

In a few moments the front door snapped open and Clare's daughter entered the dining room with guilty and moist steps, her brown hair flecked with snow and her face ruby red from the cold. Ella was wearing only a blue cotton dress, and she had a latticed apron folded up to hold some concealed items that appeared precious to her.