The Fire's Center (13 page)

"Very well then, off we go tomorrow, but if you don’t mind we’ll start out earlier this time. I want to see a few more workhouses on the way down, and the landlord has told me of several on our route."

Riona nodded as she took a last sip of her coffee and rose to see him to the door.

"I’ll rap on your door at nine, and if I catch you still in your dressing gown tomorrow, I shall put you down as a slug-a-bed," he joked, stooping to kiss her on the cheek.

A touch of devilment in Riona caused her to turn her head slightly, and the kiss landed full on her lips.

Lucien stood bolt upright at the contact, astonished, and then with a last confused look and pat on her shoulder, disappeared.

Riona thoughtfully pressed her fingers to her lips, savouring the sensation she had experienced just a moment before, and in the coach that afternoon when he had kissed her when he had assumed her to be asleep.

Riona popped her head out of her door and saw a servant passing, so she asked the girl to leave a message for her to be roused early, and then got ready for bed.

She was eagerly looking forward to another day with Lucien. Really he was the most remarkable man, she thought with a sigh, as she lay down and blew out her candle.

New employer he might be, but what a remarkable friend and comrade he was turning out to be as well. Perhaps even lover one day….

Riona and Lucien managed their early start the next morning, for Riona had given instructions to one of the maids before she went to bed to make sure that she was awakened at half past eight.

When Lucien arrived at her door at nine, he was surprised and not a little disappointed to see that she was not, after all, clad only in her dressing gown, but was bedecked in the black-watch tartan dress, and had her shawl and cloak and gloves laid out ready on the bed.

After breakfasting quickly, they got under way. Riona made no demur as Lucien took them through six workhouses that day, each more appalling than the next.

He led her by the arm through courtyards swimming with filth and ordure, and through so-called infirmaries where the patients had every disease imaginable, from typhus to relapsing fever, to famine dropsy, and the flux.

"The dropsy is usually the last sign of starvation before they die," Riona informed an astonished Lucien, who had not seen such cases before.

"In some cases they swell so much they actually burst through their clothes, and death follows shortly after. Whether it is yet another type of fever or not, I'm really not sure."

"And the flux? I’ve never seen so many cases in my life!" Lucien exclaimed.

"I must admit I am not sure about that either. I think part of it has to do with people eating poorly cooked vegetables. Certainly my family and I suffered when we tried to eat seaweed, and some of the Indian meal the shops were selling in place of oatmeal or flour for bread," Riona admitted candidly, though she avoided his eye. "But some of the families in the town all came down with it, so I think that it might be passed from one to another."

"How can you tell the difference between them, then, to know which is fatal?"

Riona thought for a moment before replying. "I’ve seen many such cases from people eating all sort so things, such as rotten cabbage leaves. But the second kind we call the bloody flux, where they pass blood, and their discomfort is extreme," Riona informed him as she stared at the human waste floating down a sewer into the open stream beside the workhouse, but could see no sign of any blood.

"All the same," Riona said with a grimace, pointing, "I’ll bet you anything they get their water for cooking and cleaning from that stream."

Lucien nodded, and went in to speak to the official running the workhouse about the number of deaths they had had recently, and his observations.

They continued to discuss what they had seen as they moved to the sixth and final workhouse on their route, run by a group of charitable Quakers.

This institution, unlike the others, was model of cleanliness, and Riona and Lucien marvelled at the fact that, though thin, a remarkable number of the inmates actually looked reasonably well.

Riona observed to Lucien in a low voice that all the women had had their heads shorn, and while clothed in simple dresses which strongly resembled sacks, they were extremely clean.

The men too were in canvas shirts and trousers, and all were working at sewing, carpentry, or tending to the various indoor chores, cooking, scrubbing, and cleaning.

"They were hopping with lice when they stood outside the door, so the first thing we did was burn their clothes and shave their heads, and scrub them from top to toe," the matron explained as she gave them a tour.

"We have them wash regularly, themselves and their clothes, and the place is kept clean at all times. After all, cleanliness is next to godliness."

"And have you had any serious cases of fever recently?" Lucien asked.

"They are in the infirmary, but most of them have got better," he was informed.

"And to what do you attribute your success, when so many other workhouses have hundreds of ill and dying?"

"Well. Miss, everyone takes turns nursing, and we keep our arms and hands covered, and our noses as well. It is said that the potato blight passed through the air. Perhaps the black fever is the human equivalent of the potato blight, and it causes the weak and elderly to succumb?" the woman speculated with a shrug.

"I’m a doctor from Dublin. May I just talk with you a little more about your work here?" Lucien asked, enthusiastically jotting down notes in his pocketbook regarding all he had seen.

Riona listened avidly as well, and hoped she would get a chance to institute some of the woman’s regimens once she reached Dublin and got to help Lucien in his clinic.

Once they reached Ardee, Lucien and Riona were both frozen to the core, but by no means as despondent as they had been two nights previously. They had seen both the best and worst of the workhouses. Turning the one into the other was the challenge which they would be faced with, or at least Lucien would be, for he still had other plans for Riona.

Once they had scrubbed themselves from top to bottom and applied their lice lotion, and prayed they had rid themselves once and for all of any lingering miasma from the workhouses, they sat down at the tea table by the fire in the sitting room of the George Inn and discussed what they had seen.

Lucien wrote up his observations, and all Riona had told him of her experiences in Dunfanaghy, and submitted it to the newspapers under her name, using the initials R. A. Connolly.

"What does the A stand for?" Lucien asked casually,

"Alanna, my mother’s name," Riona said with a wan smile.

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be, I don’t mind talking about her now as much as I did when she first died. But you know, I’m beginning to believe that perhaps the religious are right, that the Potato Famine is a huge scourge upon Ireland, to test our ability to survive. Some will live, and hopefully be stronger, while others must be sacrificed."

His brows knit. "I must say, Riona that seems a very pessimistic view."

Riona shook her head, trying to rid herself of her gloomy thoughts. "I’m sorry, Lucien, it’s just that I survived when so many in my family succumbed. Then the boys got washed out to sea, and Emer died in childbirth.

"I know I should feel lucky to still be alive, but the truth is that I don’t. All I can do is worry about the ones I’ve left behind in Donegal, and pray no more of my family are taken. I must also hope that I myself don’t fall ill, for what will happen to all of them if I should die?"

Lucien rose and put one arm around her comfortingly. "Nothing will happen to you, I promise. I’m here now, and no matter what you decide, or whether you find your father, I will look after you. If, once you find him, you want to go home to Donegal, I will understand. But if you don’t find him, perhaps you would be wiser trying to bring your family here, so you can keep them all together. I am sure I shall be able to find them some work."

"But what if Michael comes back from wherever he wandered, and finds us all gone?" Riona sighed, patting the hand which rested on shoulder gently.

"No, really, Lucien, you've done enough for me already without having to worry about the rest of my family. I’m just feeling a bit sad after seeing all those horrors today."

"I shouldn’t have brought you," Lucien said angrily, thumping himself on the head with an impatient gesture. "What was I thinking!"

Riona took his hand then. "Don’t be silly, I’m glad you brought me. I’ve told you, I don’t want to be protected from unpleasant things. I want to help. Please, don’t let’s argue about this again."

"We never argue," Lucien said with a small smile, giving in to her.

"My siblings would tell you a very different story about me, I'm sure," Riona laughed.

They finished their meal quietly, oblivious to the stares of the two other diners in the small parlour.

Lucien went to his room to write up a neat copy of his notes, while Riona busied herself with organising their dirty clothes to be washed, and reading some of the books he had given her.

But her mind frequently wandered off to imagine what Lucien’s house in Dublin would be like, and she admitted to herself it would be nice to have a place she could consider home, for at least a short time anyway.

"Are you ready for dinner, Riona?" she heard Lucien’s voice call several hours later.

She hastily hid the fever book in amongst the pile of poetry and short stories Lucien had given her. Adjusting her hair in the mirror, Riona threw a shawl over her shoulders, and met Lucien out on the landing.

He escorted her down to dinner, and made her sit with her back to the fire, where they once again went through her medical tests, with Lucien coaching and encouraging, and Riona laughing over her own small slips.

 
Then she admitted she had been reading the fever book, and they once again went over what they had seen together that day.

The kindly elderly couple who had observed them at tea time were unable to hear their conversation, but nudged each other and smiled. When they observed the young couple were finishing their meal and waiting for the coffee, the elderly gentleman rose from his seat.