Heart of the Lonely Exile (4 page)

4

Hope, like a gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728–1774)

O
ver the next two days, Daniel was aware only in the vaguest sense of the arrangements taking place for Katie's wake and funeral service.

He knew that both his mother and Sara Farmington, as well as Ginger, the housekeeper, had worked constantly to get things done—but he had only a faint idea of what sort of things they were doing.

Part of him—a part somehow detached from the cloak of grief that enfolded the rest of his being—took note of the fact that the room in which Katie had died was almost completely shrouded in white. A white satin cloth draped the small round table by the window, with a vase of white roses and fern its only adornment. White napkins discreetly covered the pictures and looking glass, and baskets of white flowers replaced the toiletries on the vanity.

On the bed itself, draped with white linen and silk ribbons, Katie lay, wearing a simple white dress, her reddish-blonde hair and golden red eyelashes the only color about her. Had it not been for the crucifix and sprig of holly placed upon her breast, she would have looked for all the world as if she were sleeping.

The Fitzgeralds and Kavanaghs being virtually unknown, and their status in the household being somewhat undefined, only close friends of
the Farmingtons came to pay their respects. Occasionally Daniel heard subdued voices and quiet footsteps in the hallway as his mother and Sara Farmington greeted strangers who came and went, but for the most part the house was silent—the silence of death.

Miss Sara had arranged a very nice funeral service for Katie in the small chapel attached to the mansion, but now that the service was nearing its end, Daniel was anxious for it to be done with. The room was warm and decked with flowers. Their cloying scent made him almost ill.

He had eaten little and slept even less since Katie died, and that, combined with the closeness of the room, caused him to be weak and lightheaded.

The priest had officiated at the service, but apparently Miss Sara had asked Pastor Dalton to be there as well. As the service came to an end, the big curly haired preacher stepped up to the front to offer a prayer and read from Scripture.

Daniel was remotely aware of soft weeping, coming mostly from his mother, beside him, and wee Tom, on his lap. Even the mute Johanna wept, her grief for her sister issuing forth in strangled-sounding sobs that made Daniel's own throat ache.

He did not cry, at least not aloud. As he drew Little Tom closer to him, his heart wept in silence, his spirit grieved, but he shed no tears for Katie. Even when Mr. Dalton prayed with deep feeling and eloquent words, Daniel could not cry.

It wasn't that he was deliberately trying
not
to cry. Indeed, he did not understand the dryness of his eyes. Was he so unfeeling, then, that he could not shed a tear or two for his own Katie, his best friend in the world since childhood? Guilt-stricken, he had attempted to force the tears any number of times since her death, but to no avail.

Had his heart grown hard from all its loss, battered to stone by wave after relentless wave of death? How could he
not
cry for Katie? Katie, with the green eyes that glittered like emeralds in the mist at the sight of a spring morning's rainbow. Katie, who had bandaged his thumb the time his whittling knife had slipped, then kissed it to make it heal properly. Katie, who had called him her hero-lad, ever trusting him to turn bad to good
and clouds to sunlight. Katie, his own Katie, lying cold and stiff and lifeless in the small white coffin.

He had failed her. In the end, he had been able to do nothing to help her, nothing at all. He had not even been with her when she drew her last breath. And now she was gone from him, gone forever, and he felt as if she had taken a part of himself with her. Something inside him had withered and turned brittle, crumbling to dust and destroying all his feelings, his hopes…and his tears.

Evan Whittaker took one look at Daniel's face as the funeral service neared its end and knew a mighty conflict was raging inside that young heart.

His own heart ached for the boy, and for Nora and the other two children. The loss and the grief represented in this room would not be quickly assuaged. They had endured too much—and lost too much—for life to be easy ever again.

Yet they survived. And while their survival alone attested to God's power and His mercy, He had accomplished much, much more for them all than mere survival. He had been gracious beyond anything they could have hoped for, providing them shelter and sustenance and the support of friends such as the Farmingtons, Michael Burke, Pastor Dalton. These friends were God's own messengers sent to ease their arrival in this new land.

Evan's gaze went to Nora, seated directly in front of him. Her diminutive form looked woeful and lost between her tall son Daniel on the one side and the brawny Michael Burke on the other. She wore a black crepe armband over the sleeve of a black dress—one of Sara Farmington's dresses. As Evan watched, she stroked the thin crepe over and over in a distracted, nervous gesture of despair. Sergeant Burke laid a protective hand on her arm, frowning down at her as if he feared she might faint at any moment.

Evan shared Burke's concern for Nora. Yet he had also come to realize that she was not the timid, helpless unfortunate he once thought her to be. More and more he saw her taking charge of her surroundings. Both Sara Farmington and Ginger, the housekeeper, frequently praised Nora's quiet
efficiency as she kept things running smoothly and in good order about the house. The Farmingtons also claimed her to be an excellent helper in the mission work at the church.

Evan sensed a kind of drive in Nora these days, a resolve to be adequate for whatever task was at hand. No question about it, she was a far stronger and more confident woman than he would have believed her to be—and obviously growing stronger all the time.

Glancing at Michael Burke, he felt a moment's resentment that the broad-shouldered police sergeant seemed totally oblivious to Nora's new strength. Instead, he seemed intent on handling her as if she were some sort of delicate figurine, a china miniature that would shatter to pieces if he did not carry her around on a silk pillow.

For an instant Evan wondered nastily if the Irish policeman thought to convince Nora to marry him by convincing her of her
need
for him. Just as quickly, he pushed the thought away. He was being unfair. Burke was a good man—a sterling fellow, to be sure—and obviously he only meant to do right by Nora.

The man doted on her, that much was clear. As for Nora's attitude toward the sergeant, Evan found it somewhat puzzling. At one moment she would gaze at Burke with what appeared to be genuine affection; the next instant, she would seem almost evasive in his presence.

Suppressing a sigh, Evan dragged his eyes away from the back of Nora's bowed head. He simply must not think about her in such an…
intimate
way, must not speculate on her relationship with Michael Burke. He and Nora were friends, good friends, and he would not have that spoiled by a hopeless, foolish longing that she would surely find outrageous. If she were ever to suspect how deeply he cared for her, her trust would be rent, their friendship ruined forever.

Evan could not bring himself to even imagine such an existence. He had resigned himself long ago to a life without Nora's love. But he could not envision a life without her presence.

Katie was buried in a small Catholic graveyard. A soft summer rain began to fall as they came away from the graveside service. Nora counted it as welcome; a cloudless sky was not a good omen for a funeral.

Immediately she chastised herself for paying heed to superstition. She was a Christian, not a pagan, and shouldn't be mindful of the old tales.

But that was easier said than done, for wasn't she Irish? Michael claimed that the Irish, in any land, were never quite free of their ancient dark fears and echoes of doom. Glancing at him as he helped her into the Farmingtons' carriage, Nora thought somewhat testily that Michael was one Irishman who seemed resolved to rid himself of every trace of the ancient ways.

Her thoughts roamed without direction as the carriage bumped over the dirt road leading back to town. He had become quite the American, Michael had. It was this very thing that at times seemed to be the main source of contention between him and his son.

Odd, how Tierney, who had been born and raised in America, wanted nothing more than to live out his Irish heritage to the fullest, while Michael, an Irishman through and through, seemed indifferent toward his roots. Nora sometimes thought that if the two of them, father and son, could bend just a bit toward each other, their relationship would be greatly improved. But Michael was a stubborn man, and Tierney equally hardheaded. There was no telling if they would ever accept each other's differences.

“Nora? Are you all right, lass?” Seated close beside her in the carriage, Michael took her hand and looked at her with a grave expression.

She nodded. “I'm weary, is all. I expect we are all worn to a frazzle. I don't understand why Daniel John insisted on walking back from the graveyard, or why Evan thought he must accompany him. Sure, and they will both catch cold, especially Evan. He is not a bit strong yet.”

“You fuss over that Britisher as if he were family,” Michael muttered.

At Nora's sharp look he colored. “I'm sorry,” he said grudgingly. “I know he's been the good friend to you, but you've enough to worry about without fretting over
him.
”

“Aye, he
has
been a good friend to me, Michael—to us all,” Nora answered, barely controlling her impatience. He did seem bent on resenting Evan Whittaker, and for the life of her, she could not understand why.

“Where would we all be now, I'd like to know,” she said pointedly, “had that
Britisher
not risked his very life for us.”

Michael remained silent, which only quickened Nora's exasperation. If he were so intent on being more American than Irish, he should
also
give over the old Irish hatred of all things English!