Land of a Thousand Dreams (5 page)

The thought that she could not bear Evan's child was enough to tarnish her newly found happiness. Like a shadow on her heart, it threatened to stain the perfection of their union, dull the luster of her joy.

Tears stung her eyes, and she clenched her hands at her sides. She must stop this. She
must!
They had time—plenty of time. They had been married only a few months, after all. Their love was still new, and she was not yet an old drab. She need not,
would
not, give up her hope.

Pulling the drapery to one side, Nora managed to smile a little at the sight of wee Tom and Johanna playing in the leaves. She loved the view from the small house. By now the sun had fallen almost entirely out of sight, rouging the sky with peach and crimson. The spacious front yard was dense with trees, maples and oaks still lush with the honey gold and warm scarlet of October. A light evening wind had blown up, whipping the leaves about like swirling banners.

Autumn had ever been a bittersweet time for Nora, with its beauty teetering on the edge of a final farewell before the bleak hand of winter seized the land. She could never quite rejoice in the season's glory without a shadow of foreboding hovering near.

The specter of approaching winter.

Winter in famine-ravaged Ireland had meant only more suffering. For those evicted from their homes, the snow and cold promised certain death. Even for those with a roof above their heads, the lack of food and fuel meant unthinkable hardship.

Nora brought her hand to her throat, remembering the last winter in Ireland. Many had been the night her heart had keened with the wailing wind off the Atlantic. Throughout those months of sorrow and deprivation, her spirit had seemed to turn as cold as the dark, sullen waters of Killala Bay.

A shudder rippled through her, and she shook her head slightly as if to throw off her melancholy. Just then she caught sight of Evan turning the corner and starting for the house. For the first time since morning, she felt the weight of disappointment and dread lift from her heart.

Evan saw her at the window and waved. Nora watched him closely as he neared the cottage. This was his afternoon in Five Points with the new singing group, and she was learning to associate certain telltale signs of discouragement with Thursday afternoons.

But not today. Her own mood brightened still more when she saw that he wore a smile. Indeed, he was taking the walk with the eager, carefree steps of a boy!

Curious as to what might account for his obvious high spirits, Nora hurried to the door and flung it open. Eagerly, she slipped into her husband's embrace, feeling the last shadow of her earlier gloom disappear.

After dinner and the children's prayers, Evan and Nora sat on the sofa, reading. As was their habit each evening—and at Nora's insistence—Evan read aloud.

For several days now, they had been enjoying
Oliver Twist
—a novel by the English author Charles Dickens. An indictment of the London society that so callously and routinely abused the poor, the book created a world of such realistic, distinctive characters that both Evan and Nora found it difficult to put down when day was done.

Although he was a highly successful author, Dickens was yet regarded with suspicion and even disdain in some quarters. Famous while still in his early twenties, the prolific writer apparently possessed unlimited mental and physical energy. Yet the sheer volume of his writings and their unanticipated success seemed to contribute to the criticism leveled against him: that he was entirely too commercial, too sentimental and unsophisticated. He was nothing more than an entertainer, critics charged.

Even in America, where Dickens had toured early in the decade, the popular author was accused of lacking artistic taste and relying much too heavily on cheap dramatic effects.

With a mixture of annoyance and amusement, Evan wondered if the criticism would have been nearly as heated had Dickens not so successfully and brilliantly exposed the corruption of an entire political and social system. He personally found the man's work nothing short of genius. Both the
Papers of the Pickwick Club,
which he had read while still in England, and this new work,
Oliver Twist,
were surely the products of an inventive mind, a
deeply sensitive and acute observer of the human condition. He suspected the widely read, popular—and
entertaining
—author's works would long outlast many of the more “literary” and “artistic” efforts of others.

Evan was somewhat surprised to realize that Nora had fallen asleep, her head resting on his shoulders. Usually she protested when he put the book away for the evening. A prickle of concern intruded on his thoughts, and he turned slightly to study her face.

Still troubled, he noted the shadows under her eyes, the slight frown even in repose. Being careful not to waken her, he settled her more closely against his side and sat watching the fire.

Outside, the wind moaned. Despite the room's snug warmth, Evan shivered. Staring into the fire, he let his thoughts roam. As always, they went to his wife.

Nora thought him unaware of her sadness, her apprehension. But he had known as soon as he saw her framed in the doorway earlier in the evening that she had been weeping. Later, while playing with Johanna and Tom outside, he had caught her staring into the distance, an unmistakable glaze of sorrow in her eyes.

As always, she had evaded his questions, making an obvious effort to be more cheerful. But by now Evan recognized the slight darkening of those magnificent gray eyes, the faint tightening of the skin around her mouth.

She was determined to give him a child. A son. And it seemed no amount of reassurance on his part would ease her anxiety.

Evan knew beyond all doubt that her desire for a child was more for him than for her. She seemed not to hear him when he insisted that he could not possibly want anything more than what he already had. He loved her, and he adored Daniel and the Fitzgerald children as if they were his own. He needed nothing more than his dear Nora and their readymade family.

The truth was—and this he would
not
tell her—that the very idea of Nora's bearing a child frightened him. He deliberately kept his fear to himself, thinking it best that she not know of his uneasiness should the time come when she
did
conceive.

He would love the child, of course. He would be proud and happy and grateful, would feel all the things he imagined any normal man must feel
upon becoming a father. But there was no denying the fact that his fear for Nora's safety far outweighed any desire on his part for a child.

Childbirth was a mystery that frankly terrified him. His father, a rural clergyman, had buried many a woman who had died either during her confinement or during the delivery itself. While Nora seemed to have regained most of her health, Evan still sensed she was not overly strong. How could she be, after months of starvation and a bout with scarlet fever that had almost claimed her life?

What if she
should
conceive? What would it do to her to carry a child, to give birth?

What if he were to lose her?

The wind rattled the window. Instinctively, he pulled Nora more closely against him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he cherished the soft warmth of her body next to his, the gentle fragrance of her hair against his cheek.

As was so often the case, her closeness made his heart swell with thanksgiving. He had waited all these years to love a woman and to be loved. Yet none of his dreams had ever come close to the reality of the bliss he had found with Nora. There was nothing in the world worth the risk of losing her. Nothing. Not even a child of his own.

Perhaps he was being selfish and small-minded. If a child meant all that much to her, shouldn't he at least try to share her longing, encourage her dream?

She sighed in her sleep, and he touched his lips to her hair. His entire world was right here, beside him. He wasn't sure he could pretend to want more. Yet, for Nora's sake, he knew that he would try.

3

A Radical Nun at Nelson Hall

What is there in man, frail clay and dust,
That will rise and die for a cause,
Yet cower and cringe like a motherless cur
When a Good Woman unmasks his flaws?

MORGAN FITZGERALD (1848)

Dublin, Ireland

I
t was just past dawn, but Morgan Fitzgerald had been at his desk in the library for nearly an hour.

The shooting incident of a year past that had left his legs paralyzed had also served to make him a light sleeper. Most days he rose before daybreak and, with Sandemon's help, was dressed and at his writing or other tasks by the time the sun rose.

It seemed an ordinary morning. A pot of Sandemon's robust, scalding coffee waited on the sideboard near the desk, and the most recent installment from Joseph Mahon's journal was spread out in front of him.

He took a deep sip of coffee, raising one eyebrow at the strength of the stuff. He drank tea less frequently since Sandemon's arrival at Nelson Hall. But, then, he reflected dryly, the West Indies Wonder had been successful in modifying a number of his former habits—not the least of which was his affinity for the whiskey.

With his pen still in hand, he turned back to the journal. For some months now, he had been editing the Mayo priest's account of the famine. As yet he had not divulged his intentions to Joseph, but Morgan was convinced this painstakingly detailed, agonizing record of one parish's suffering must be published. Moreover, he was determined to see it printed across the sea as well as in Ireland.

The papers before him contained the reality of Ireland's tragedy, captured in this account of one small community in the remote west. Here, then, was the stark, bitter truth, a truth to counter England's denial and professed innocence in the evil that had been wreaked upon an entire nation.

Because of his rapidly failing health and utter exhaustion, the priest's entries were often little more than a hasty scrawl—a few terse words
scratched out in the throes of fatigue or desperation. Yet the depths of the man's soul pulsed through his words.

In the pages of the journal, Morgan had discovered a side to the gentle priest he had not known. Joseph had made no attempt to hide his own anguish, his horror, his grief—even the occasional faltering of his faith. At times Morgan could almost hear his old friend's spirit straining, his heart breaking, one fragile piece at a time.

Removing his new reading glasses—a rueful concession to the encroachment of middle age—Morgan rubbed the bridge of his nose, then drained the last of the coffee from the cup. As he stacked the entries he'd just completed, it occurred to him there had been no new pages from Joseph for a number of weeks now. Knowing the burden of work under which the priest labored, the impossible hours he kept, Morgan supposed he shouldn't be unduly alarmed. Yet a nagging shadow crossed his mind as he sat staring at the stack of pages in front of him.

After another moment, he opened the right-hand drawer of his desk, pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, and reached for his pen. He would get a note off to Joseph yet this morning, before early classes or interviews.

He managed to pen only a few words before Sandemon entered the room. “She has arrived,
Seanchai
.”

Morgan looked up. His black West Indies companion stood at ease, powerful arms at his sides, the sleeves of his favorite purple shirt flowing free. As always, the broad brow was smooth, the eyes dark pools of untroubled waters. In contrast, the gold-toothed smile hinted of some vague, anticipated pleasure.