The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance (75 page)

Before they’d left Tobernalt, she’d shared the cheese and scones in her saddlebag, and he’d split his chunk of currant bread in half. While they’d eaten, he’d spotted the pearl ring on her right hand. He’d carried her bicycle from the woods thinking how she’d surely look down on him once she knew more about him.

She’d peeked inside the wagon when he opened the rear doors. “What’ve you got in there, Tom?”

“Tea.” He’d helped her to the wagon seat. The touch of her fingers thril ed him, and though he knew right wel she didn’t have to, she leaned on him when she mounted the step. “I travel the counties sel ing tea.”

“Is that where you’re coming from now? A sales jaunt?”

“In Donegal and Tyrone, yes.” He’d settled beside her and tugged the reins. “Got as far as Strabane. There’s trouble up there. At the inn where I stayed, the landlady said I shouldn’t go out.

Said the local lads were on the prowl for southerners.”

The idea stil amused him, but furrows had appeared on Dol y’s forehead. “My father’s spoken of such goings on in the north, but I’ve never heard of them firsthand. Stil and al , you don’t look like the sort anyone would be stupid enough to take on.” Her cheeks turned crimson, as if she’d said something she shouldn’t.

Tom had been delighted she’d said it at al and, thinking of it now, he sat tal er on the seat. He guided the horse to the side of the road to let a northbound wagon pass. Once it did, he eased his hold on the reins and continued conversing with Dol y.

She’d recently returned from England, where she’d attended nursing school. She’d lived with her brother Lanigan and his wife.

“Lanigan’s a crackerjack carpenter, but he had to go to London to find work. My brother Maneen and sister Badie have emigrated to America. Mac is stil in Tubbercurry. He’s a teacher, like my mother. Sissie was, too, but she died of consumption two years ago.” Tom recognized the grief in her voice. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot of that about.”

“Too much. That’s one reason why I want to be a nurse. To help. I deliberately failed the teaching exam so I could go to nursing school.”

Tom’s delighted laughter echoed over the bogs. “It’s grand that you could. My father took me out after sixth grade to work the farm and do odd jobs.”

“That’s not uncommon. Most of my friends ended their schooling likewise. I’m lucky my parents let me go off at al , with twenty acres to manage. They were disappointed about the nursing. An unsuitable cal ing for a proper young lady, they said. Wanted me to stay home and teach, like Sissie and Mac. When Mac isn’t teaching, he helps my father about the farm. He’l inherit the place some day.”

“So wil I, though it’s little I want it.”

“I wondered about that, Tom. A Bal ymote lad travel ing al over Ireland. When you see other ways to live besides milking cows, it’s hard to go back to farming, isn’t it?” Tom tightened his hold on the reins. He didn’t want to talk about cows, not now. “Your brothers and sisters have odd names. Nicknames, are they?”

“Yes. Jim is Lanigan, John is Maneen. Michael is Mac, and Annie’s cal ed Badie. Kathleen was Sissie.”

“Is Dol y a nickname as wel ?”

“It is. They cal ed me that because I was the youngest. My real name is Doreen.” Hearing the name from his dream stunned Tom, though he recovered quickly. This was Ireland after al . And a fel ow got used to such odd occurrences.

Awake or dreaming, he had no business befriending an educated young lady whose father held a good strong farm of twenty Irish acres. “The matchmakers wil be hopping about like hungry hens over a girl as pretty as you.”

Dol y blushed again. Her lips pressed into a thin straight line, and she shook her head.

“Marriage would be the death of nursing for me. I’m thinking of emigrating. To Boston, like Maneen and Badie. That’s why I was at the wel . Looking for guidance, for something to help me find my way.”

The heart turned crosswise in Tom. He might convince her to stay, but how could he blame her for wanting to go? He wanted no part of a life here himself.

Locking his gaze on her sparkling eyes, he released one hand from the reins and dared to squeeze her fingers. “Someone told me once, you must find your way by the light of your heart.” She squeezed back, an agreeable response indeed, and then she smiled again. “That’s lovely, Tom. You know, I feel we’ve met before. At a dance? Or in church, perhaps?” It seemed she’d forgotten her time with the fairies. Had it real y happened at al ? Tom’s other hand slipped into the pocket that in his dream had held the golden bean. He felt nothing but the hard seam in the cloth.

A dream. It had al been a dream. “Somewhere like that, I suppose. I do get around.” Her heavy sigh seemed to unleash a new round of showers. She leaned back under the overhang. “There’l never be any light in my heart if my parents have their way. Mac says they’re going to forbid me to be a nurse. They thought I’d get it out of my system in London, but just the opposite occurred. Studying at the hospital and seeing al those il and dying folk only made me more determined to help them.”

Suddenly jealous of every sick man in the world, Tom released her hand. She might hit him, but he couldn’t hold back. “I wouldn’t like to see you go so far away, Dol y Keenan. The light in
my
heart has grown brighter since I met you.”

Nor could he keep from seizing her and sliding his lips over hers, gently at first, gauging, sensing, expecting an outraged shove. Instead, she kissed him back with a fervour that unlocked a secret door in his soul.

Could he go with her to America?

His cousin had gone to Boston and found work as a train conductor. An aunt named Mary, his father’s own sister, had gone to Boston too. She ran a boarding house and made good money, a lot more than Tom made sel ing tea. With al the skil s he had, he could do anything.

Could he leave Ireland and his family forever?

For Dol y Keenan he could, and her eager kisses said she’d have him.

“Good man yourself!” shouted a farmer leading a donkey laden with turf-fil ed panniers.

Tom backed breathlessly away from Dol y. He licked his lips, savouring the taste of her, entranced by the same perfume he’d smel ed in her hair behind the silver oak tree. Dol y in turn looked away to the west, touching her smiling lips as if she couldn’t believe he’d kissed her.

Tom picked up the reins and tried to focus on the road. He’d sinned with a girl or two around Ireland, but he sensed no sin here. He loved Dol y, and she loved him, he knew it.

Maybe they wouldn’t have to leave. He’d speak to his father, have him send the matchmaker to Mr Keenan, convince the man that Tom O’Byrne could support his daughter wel with his tea sales and roof thatching and al his odd jobs.

Stil , she’d have to do for his father and brother, mind the chickens, gather the eggs, churn the butter and mend the clothes. Tom would work hard to bring in more gold, enough to hire a local girl to help her.

Maybe her nursing could bring in some extra gold. Sligo had the fever hospital. She could work there, if tending potatoes and cabbage left her any time.

No, he thought. The farm would kil them both. They had to get away.

Yet he couldn’t speak the words that would change their lives forever, and perhaps not for the best. They rode on in silence until they reached the crossroads. No silver tree here, no crystal lark.

She insisted she’d be safe enough riding to Tubbercurry from here. He stopped at the roadside and opened the wagon’s rear doors. Before he reached in for the bike, she came at him, hugging him, kissing him, deliciously rubbing against him.

He held her close and ground against her, sin be damned. “Dol y. Oh, darlin’, what are we to do? I can’t marry you. Your father wouldn’t have me.”

“I’d have you, Tom O’Byrne. We can marry in America.”

They could. Others had done so. Tom’s heart thumped in his throat. “When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know. Soon. Come with me, Tom. Leave the farm for Boston.”
Leave the farm . . .
The words struck him like an Atlantic gale, knocking down fences, ripping up hedges, tearing down the wal s that threatened to imprison him to the end of his days.

Did he real y have the neck to leave?

One look at the promise glinting in Dol y’s eyes gave him his answer. “I wil ,
mo chroí.
I’l go anywhere with you.”

He caught her in his arms, silencing her delighted squeal with a kiss that reached for her soul.

When she final y wobbled from his arms, her crimson cheeks and ragged breath told him he’d succeeded.

“I’l send you a letter,” she said when she could speak. She twisted the ring from her finger and pressed it into his hand, apparently unconcerned that he’d nothing to offer in exchange.

Swearing she’d have a ring for every finger one day, he slipped the pearl in his jacket pocket and watched her ride away.

An hour before midnight, the Irish twilight lingered over Bal ymote. Hungry, tired and longing for Dol y, Tom trudged home from Davy Bookman’s house with his share of the gold snug in his pocket. His satchel contained his few toiletries and washing for Kate. She’d begrudgingly launder his socks and shirts, though he’d look after his trousers himself. She never put the crease in them right.

The homey odours of pipe tobacco and roasting turf greeted him at the door. Subtler aromas of bacon and bread sharpened his hunger. He set his bag on the rough plank table, eyeing the furnishings and holy pictures as if seeing them for the last time.

His father sat by the hearth holding a briar pipe to the mouth concealed in his long white beard.

As Tom approached, the old man lowered his pipe and turned his book on his lap. “Thanks be to God, it’s himself at last.”

Tom always pictured his father’s beard red, saw his freckled bald pate with a ful head of ginger-red hair. The family and neighbours stil cal ed him Red Brendan. “I’ve only been gone two weeks, Da. How are you keeping?”

“I’ve often been better and often been worse. And yourself, Tomás Og?”
I’ve been to the fairies. I’m in love and thinking of going to Boston.
“I’d be wel enough if I wasn’t hungry. Is there bread?” He handed the bag of gold to his father.

“There is, and cabbage and bacon. Kate’s just after finishing the mending. She’s gone to her room to brush out her hair.” Brendan rattled the coins and smiled. He placed the bag on the table beside him, near the tobacco can, and turned his head towards the back room. “Kate! Tom is home. Come out and get him tea, girl.”

Tom would have found the food himself, but he’d only earn his sister’s wrath for messing things.

He glanced at the blue and white delft in the cupboard. Not a piece missing, every plate clean and in its place. She kept house wel , he’d give her that.

On the top shelf sat the framed photograph of their mother, Ann. Dark-haired and lovely, she watched over the room with a neutral expression that over the years had turned cross or approving depending on Tom’s own behaviour. He barely remembered her. She’d died giving birth to Dan, when Tom had been three years of age.

“You favour her, Tom,” old Gram had said.

Kate and Dan had their father’s red hair, and Kate had the temper to match. Her entrance from the back room reminded Tom of the fire-breathing stal ions at the silver oak tree. He caught himself before he laughed. “Hel o, Kate. You’re looking lovely tonight.” She tossed her wel -combed mane and tied her shawl over her nightdress. “Never mind your trick-acting, Tom O’Byrne. Coming home near midnight and expecting me to drop everything to fix you a meal. I suppose that bag is ful of filthy laundry. As if I don’t have enough to do.”

“It’s grand to see you too, Kate.”

After Ann passed away, Brendan had sent Kate to live with an aunt. His mother moved in to look after him and the boys, but Kate grew up on a moneyed farm, and she fancied herself a step above the buttermilk. She’d just turned twelve when Gram passed on, and Brendan had cal ed her home to tend the house and chickens. She’d been doing so for nearly ten years, and she clearly resented every minute of it.

Pots and lids clacked and clanged while she rewarmed the supper and steeped a pot of tea.

Wincing with each slam, Tom took the dish she offered at last and thanked her. She retired to her room, and he sat near the fire, setting the plate on his lap, relaying the highlights of his trip between bites, neglecting to mention the wel and the fairies and Dol y Keenan from Tubbercurry.

Ever hungry for news, his father puffed his pipe and took it al in before reporting on the farm.

Two of the neighbours had stopped by to see if Tom could rethatch their roofs before winter. Dan had started cutting the turf, but he needed Tom’s muscle to finish the job.

Brendan pinched some tobacco from the can beside him and replenished the bowl of his pipe.

“I don’t know what wil become of that boy. He won’t get muscle by drawing pictures and playing the fiddle. Kate wil marry, and you’l have the farm, but I’m thinking Dan may have to emigrate.” Tom held his breath. A chance to escape had presented itself. Looking to keep a steady voice, he exhaled slowly. “Where is Dan? I doubt he’s sleeping in the loft with al the racket Kate made.”

“He’s in town tonight. A Tuesday night, can you believe it? Playing the fiddle at a dance with his friends. Said he’d spend the night at Mick Jordan’s. I’l have to speak to him soon. He can go to Boston. Stay with my sister Mary.”

Gulping for air, Tom braced himself. He shot out the words before his courage failed. “No, Da.

I’l go. Dan can have the farm. He does most of the work now. He’l real y buckle down if he knows it wil come to him.”

Brendan jerked as if nettles had stung him. He set the pipe on its tilted stand and pinned Tom with a piercing glare. “While you were gone, the matchmaker came about Kate. Séamus Hunt in Roscommon wil take her, thanks to the gold you’ve brought in. The Hunts have a strong farm, twenty-five Irish acres, and she’l have a daily girl in the kitchen. But I can’t let her go until you have a wife to do for us.”