The Fire's Center (4 page)

"I wouldn't like you to think that we're all feckless, not willing to work hard," she said promptly. "It's just that I'm the eldest now, out of the twelve of us, and with Mum gone and Pa away I had to do something."

His brows lifted. "Twelve?"

"Yes, with me in the middle."

"You said the eldest now. Can you tell me about it?" he probed gently.

Riona looked out the window, feeling as though she could barely breathe. But something about this man by her side was so compelling, she could hardly refuse his request. She took a deep breath, and began.

"The Famine has been a disaster for Ireland, I know, but my family has truly suffered," Riona said as she began to tell Dr. Woulfe more about herself.

"We used to all work on a splendid estate outside Dunfanaghy. My first three brothers, Padraig, Seosamh, and Martin, worked as fishermen. Number four, Michael and myself, followed in our father’s footsteps to become school teachers.

"Our landlord, Mr. Woodham was a father of five, and a widower. He didn't care that, well, that we're Catholics," she said, blushing. "He thought Michael and I were educated enough for his three boys and two girls. Father taught in the local state-run school. The rest of the family worked on the estate as well. My four sisters and mother all earned a living with their needles and other domestic chores around the estate. The youngest boys, Finn and Earc and Bran, were carpenters, though Bran, the youngest, is still school-aged."

"It sounds like an ideal place. What happened?"

"One day Mr. Woodham told us that the taxes on the estate had been raised, and he would have to sell up. Suddenly our home and our livelihoods had vanished overnight. The potatoes had failed, and the land was cleared. The lovely cottages we had been living in had been razed to the ground."

He stared at her in shock. "That's terrible! You had no choice but to leave?"

Riona shook her head. "None at all. We had to find somewhere we could afford quickly, and jobs if we could. Perhaps a patch of land to grow vegetables on. But there was nothing. All fourteen of us, plus Padraig’s wife Nuala and their three small children, and Michael’s wife Emer, who had been expecting their first child, were all forced to move a small fisherman’s cottage barely large enough for four people, let alone eighteen."

He shook his head pityingly. "How on earth did you manage?"

"My brothers built a second storey into the roof of the cottage, but it was terribly crowded and very uncomfortable. At least it was warmer up there with all the unmarried boys and girls sleeping side by side, huddled together for warmth. Down below the wind whipped unmercifully under the splintered door, and the stone floor ran with damp. The married couples slept down there with the children, so they wouldn't get hurt going up and down the ladder."

"It must have been very hard for you," he said, offering her a bottle of ginger beer from the basket of food he had had packed for him at the inn they had changed horses at.

She took it with a nod and drank thirstily. "It was. For a time we did the best we could, fishing and then trading the surplus catch for other foodstuffs. But there was little anyone had worth trading. We avoided buying food, for we wanted to conserve our small hoard of coins for as long as possible."

"Very sensible."

"Then disaster struck in the village, with an epidemic we began to call relapsing fever, a strange disease which often killed just as the person seemed to be recovering. "Padraig’s three small children, his wife Nuala, and my mother, who insisted on nursing them night and day, all succumbed to the fever, as did one of my older brothers, Seosamh, and one of my younger sisters, Eilis."

"My God. I had heard how harsh conditions were," he said, taking out a small pocket notebook and pencil and beginning to jot down notes, "but you're the first person to survive through such a thing to give me actual details."

She stared at him open-mouthed.

He caught her look of consternation and began to apologize at once. "I'm sorry, Miss Connolly, I don't wish to appear callous. But the more information we doctors have about the famine and diseases it seems to have brought, the more lives we may be able to save."

"I suppose," she said stiffly.

"So all the people who slept in the downstairs area of the cottage succumbed, you say?"

She thought about it and nodded. "Yes, for the most part."

"And the others? Forgive me, but you did mention that you were the eldest now. What happened to, I believe it was Padraig, who was the eldest?"

"He and Martin drowned in a shipwreck."

"Oh no. I'm so sorry. And what of Michael and his wife?"

Riona swallowed hard. "Emer died in the childbed, of fever. The infant was stillborn. Michael lost his wits and ran from the cottage. My father Declan decided to try to go after him. So he packed up and went to Dublin to search, and for work."

"What a dreadful tragedy. I find it remarkable that in those conditions as many of you were spared as there were. I hear there is even typhus up in Donegal."

She nodded. "There was. I nursed everyone as best I could, and they got well."

"And you didn't take sick?" he said, staring at her as though she had sprouted three heads.

"No. I was very fortunate. I spent a lot of time out in the fresh air looking for food. We tried to avoid the town as much as possible. But with no word from Father, well, someone has to try to find him."

He nodded. "I understand. I just wonder how your family will manage without you. I mean, I've promised to send the money and I certainly shall, but you must have been a good nurse."

"I did my best," she said humbly. "Mother had the gift of healing, God rest her."

"Well, I most certainly hope she's passed it onto you. Every day we get more and more fever patients struggling into the cities looking for work or poor relief. I believe the more crowded the conditions, the faster the fever spread. Yet to try to convince some of the more stodgy members of my profession of my opinion, and they act as though I've grown horns and a tail."

Riona laughed despite herself, and lapsed shyly back into silence once more.

Lucien made a few more notes, then looked up at her. "But where are my manners? I'm constantly being berated for forgetting about anything other than my work. Would you like more to drink? I'm sorry there's no food left in the basket, but we'll stop soon."

"I'm fine, thank you."

"I'm sorry there's no glass to drink from."

"It's quite all right. Beggars can't be choosers, as the phrase goes."

His brows knit. "Not any longer. You have a position now for as long as you need it. Or can stomach it. Between fevers and childbirth, you must be exhausted."

She shuddered at the recollection of her sister-in-law's sufferings. She had been unfortunate, she knew, but it was a specter every woman had to face...

"Why don't we talk about something else now," Lucien suggested, noting her increased pallor. "The St. Patrick's holiday has just passed. What special things did you do for the day?"

They continued to make small talk with one another the remaining miles to Strabane.

Riona was astonished at how easy she found it to talk to such a fine gentleman as Lucien Woulfe. He seemed so unaffected, without airs and graces of any kind, though it was evident he was vastly wealthy if the carriage and his clothing were anything to go by.

Lucien, for his own part, was even more astonished at how easy Riona was to converse with. He was able to account for this by observing to himself that since she was of a lower class than himself, it was less threatening than having an unguarded personal conversation with a woman of his own standing. All of them viewed him simply as an incredibly eligible bachelor and a noble enough conquest.

This young woman was a good listener who seemed genuinely interested in all he had to tell her. It wasn't long before he reverted back to his favorite topic and mentioned his new clinic.

From there he began to recount the amount of suffering he had seen since the Famine had started eighteen months before. People had started flocking into the already overcrowded slums of Dublin, the Liberties, to look for work, and that had been when he had felt he simply had to act.

"I've never been to the capital. Tell me about it, Dr. Woulfe."

"People living on the land have no idea what urban deprivation is like. We have factory, brewery and dock workers, all laboring long hours seven days a week. There are swarms of people coming to Dublin looking for jobs and shelter, only to be turned away. Many of them have no skills to speak of, having never known anything other than farm work. With them they bring dirt and disease, yet they are crowded into the slums and workhouses to die.

"I'm sure the dirt is part of the plight. Doctors in the past believed diseases could be transmitted in all sorts of ways, not just by touching. Why couldn’t they be passed along through dirt and bad air, the damp, and the conditions in the streets, which are running with filth, animal and human waste?" Lucien argued.

Riona nodded, listening to his every word with interest.

"People say the potato blight came through the air," Lucien continued. "People reported bad smells, like sulphur, and a black mist. The weather was also particularly wet all of last year. I’ve seen the worst cases of disease in crowded houses where the people are all huddled together for warmth, and the walls are running with damp. It can’t be a coincidence. That’s why I wanted to start a clinic, to give these people a warm, dry place where they can get cleaned up, get good food inside of them, and hopefully recover."

"That's a noble endeavor," she said, looking at the handsome doctor with increasing admiration.

"But it's been hard getting charity subscriptions. Plus, I doubt many doctors will be willing to work there. There is of course prestige in being involved with a well-funded charity clinic, but it will mean long hours and horrendous cases. I have to make staff selections when I go back. I dread to think what some of them will be like, arrogant, overbearing, upper-class, you know..." Lucien trailed off with an impatient gesture of his hand.

Riona, though listening avidly, at this point began to shiver in her sodden clothes. Lucien immediately moved over to her side and threw his cloak around the both of them.

"I say, I'm rattling on about warmth and dryness, and there you are soaked though. Here, lean up against me for warmth. We’ll soon be in Strabane, and I’ll order you a hot bath."

"No, sir, really, don’t trouble yourself on my account," she said, alarmed by his nearness.

"It’s no trouble at all. We don’t want you to catch a chill. Not if you are going to be working for me, now do we?" he said in a reasonable tone.

Riona continued the conversation, as much because she found it stimulating, as to prevent it from taking any intimate turn as he continued to sit so close beside her.