The Star of the Sea (61 page)

‘You know when you were in a funk with me the other night, Papa? About Mr Mulvey?’

‘I didn’t mean to be angry, old thing. It’s just that we mustn’t let our imaginations run away with us, that’s all.’

‘Why did he say he wouldn’t fit in through the window?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘At supper. He said a great big man could never fit in through a little window like that one.’

‘And?’

Robert Merridith said to his father: ‘I never said anything about the window to Mr Mulvey. So how did he know?’

‘Know what, Bobs?’

‘Well – that the person I saw had come in through my window.’

For several minutes Lord Kingscourt evidently said nothing. Many years later his son recalled that it was the longest period of absolute silence he could ever remember spending in his father’s company. His father seemed ‘completely distracted’, he said. ‘As one in a trance or a kind of hypnotism.’ He sat down on the bunk and gazed at the floor. He seemed utterly unaware that anyone else was in the room with him. Finally the boy approached his father and nudged his arm. Lord Kingscourt looked up at his son and smiled, ‘as though he had just that moment awoken’. He ruffled his hair and told him not to be worried about anything. Everything was going to be all right now.

‘Do you think Mr Mulvey was playing a game?’

‘Yes, Bobs. I expect that’s it. Playing a game.’

Robert Merridith returned to the deck, leaving his father alone in the cabin. What the Earl was thinking we cannot know. But by now he must have been contending with an unavoidable and shocking fact: Pius Mulvey had indeed entered his son’s room with a knife. He meant to do murder on that ship.

After that point the picture becomes confusing. Surgeon Mangan recalled that he visited Lord Kingscourt twice in the course of the afternoon and administered very strong doses of mercury in injection form and a treatment of laudanum to help him sleep. He was apparently in terrible pain, almost cripplingly so. But several of the steerage passengers later testified that they saw him come into their quarters in the following hours. Others insisted that they observed him walking alone near the stern and looking out at the skyline of lower Manhattan Island, which was at that time a tumble of tenements and poor dwelling houses. A great fire had caught in one of the slums that day; the flames and smoke could be clearly seen from the port side of the
Star
. One elderly woman, a widow from near Limerick City, swore she saw Lord Kingscourt seated at his easel and painting a picture of the burning buildings. It was snowing hard by then and he was wearing no coat but she did not approach him, thinking him ‘very hag-ridden’.

There was a dangerously charged atmosphere on the
Star
that night. Food supplies were almost completely exhausted; melted snow was by now the only source of drinkable water. By now it was absolutely believed by everyone in steerage that the vessel was to be sent back to Ireland within the next few days. Many in First-Class believed it, too. It was also widely rumoured that some of the passengers were planning to jump the ship and try to swim the four hundred yards across the harbour. Most had sold every last possession to pay for the voyage. Many could literally see their loved ones waiting on the dock. Having come so far, and at such a heavy cost, they did not mean to go back.

For their own part, the sailors were deeply uneasy. To be thrust into the role of jailer suited very few of them indeed; neither did they want to be nursemaids to sick passengers, not having any training to do so. Indeed it was whispered that a number of the men themselves were about to desert, fearful of catching fever from the worsening conditions on board, and resentful of being asked to police hungry passengers for whose continuing imprisonment they saw no reason. One sailor told me that if passengers tried to escape he would do nothing to stop them but would instead wish them luck. Another, a Scotsman, said that if ordered to use firearms on passengers he would refuse, and would throw his weapon overboard. I asked what he would do if his orders were issued at gunpoint. (There was a rumour that the New York police might give such an order.) ‘I will shoot any son-of-a-bitch who points a gun at me,’ he replied. ‘Yank or Limey, he will get himself a bullet.’

At seven o’clock I saw Merridith in the Dining Saloon. He was neatly dressed, as ever, and looked quite strong. The cold was quite savage on the ship that night; nearly everyone in the saloon was wearing an overcoat, but Merridith, a stickler for etiquette, was not. We did not exchange much conversation, but anything he did say I remember as being very clear. As usual he made a few quips at my own expense but that was nothing out of the ordinary.

I dined that night at the Captain’s table, with Wellesley the Mail Agent, the Chief Engineer, the Maharajah, Reverend Deedes and Mrs Marion Derrington. Mangan the surgeon was completely exhausted, now violently unwell himself with an infection of the stomach, and he conveyed his apologies through his capable sister.
The Merridiths sat by themselves at a table for two. They did not say much but no argument was had. Lord Kingscourt appeared to eat a hearty enough supper, though even in First-Class we were now down to dried cod and biscuit; and he bade good-night to our company as he left the saloon. A conversation about literature was taking place at the time. He contributed a few remarks, nothing of consequence. And I remember that he shook my hand just before he left – a thing he had never done before; except, perhaps, the first time I had met him, back in London six years beforehand. ‘Keep up the good work, old thing,’ he said. ‘It is not in the material, but the way it is composed.’

Returned to his cabin he made a few drawings: rather neat little studies of aristocratic houses; a sketch of a peasant-boy of the Connemara hills, in which observers have seen some quality of himself. Others have been struck by the resemblance to his sons; particularly, it is said, to Jonathan. To draw from memory must have been difficult that night. And yet the image is not without peace. The boy is clearly poor; but he is clearly not dying. Nobody is dying. His parents might be at home. If it is a depiction of one of his tenants – and many say it is – it must have been done from distant memory indeed.

At about quarter after ten he ordered a glass of hot milk but was told by the duty steward that there was no milk left on board. He requested a glass of hot water or mulled cider instead. He also asked the steward if it would be possible to borrow a bible, from the Captain, perhaps, or the Surgeon. The steward went to Lockwood’s cabin but the Captain was not there and no bible was on his shelf. So the man went to the quarters of Reverend Deedes and there he was given what was necessary. Bringing it to Lord Kingscourt, he received a handsome tip. He was told not to remain on guard outside the door. Apparently Merridith joked that he could not sleep if under guard (‘nor spring an old leak with another fellow in the room’), both matters which had blighted his navy days. The man said he would rather stand guard, for security. Lord Kingscourt picked up his razor and opened the blade. ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ he said, and he smiled. ‘Not a man on this ship is the match of a Merridith.’

A sailor on deck duty noticed him open the porthole at about half-past ten. It being such a cold night, the man thought it odd. The light was lowered but not extinguished. He placed his shoes outside
the cabin door to be polished. Took off his evening suit and hung it carefully in the wardrobe. And he put on the moth-eaten ancient garments he must have brought from Ireland: a peasant’s canvas britches and a bawneen
‘bratt’
: a farmer’s smock, as worn in Connemara.

He read and underlined the following verses; from the Gospel of Mark, chapter twelve:

1
And he began to speak unto them by parables. ‘A lord planted a vineyard and let it out to tenant men, and went into a far country.
2
And at the season he sent to the tenant men a servant, that he might receive of the fruit of the vineyard.
3
And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty.
4
And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones and sent him away.
5
And again he sent another; and him they killed; beating some and killing some.
6
Having one beloved son, he sent to them his son. And he said, “I know they will reverence my son.”
7
But the tenant men said among themselves: “This is the heir; come; let us kill him; and the inheritance of the vineyard shall be ours.” ’

Just before eleven o’clock that same night, a number of sailors who were nominally on watch duty were overpowered by a group of about twenty men from steerage, led by Seamus Meadowes of Ballynahinch who had broken out of the First Mate’s quarters half an hour beforehand. By the time he came onto the frozen upperdeck, Meadowes was ‘raging and covered in blood’ and ‘roaring that a blow had been struck for freedom this night’. They smashed open the chains on two of the lifeboats; heaved them into the icy water and jumped in after them. One man remained in the water and began to swim. The others clambered into the smaller of the two boats and began making hard for the shore. None was an experienced boatman; panic set in quickly. The oars were soon lost
and the desperate fugitives were seen trying to paddle with their hands.

Moments later, Pius Mulvey appeared on the deck in an agitated state and pleaded to be allowed to go with the second group. He was pushed away and violently abused. At that point a larger group, comprising another fifty or so, appeared from various parts of the ship. Among their number was Mary Duane.

By now some of the passengers were jumping overboard. Many found themselves in immediate difficulty; the water must have been paralysingly cold, and the majority were unable to swim. An argument seems to have begun on the deck as to which of the remaining passengers should have places in the second boat. The few women and children were accommodated first; next the husbands of the women, or their male relations or fiancés. Mary Duane, being the last woman present at the scene, was offered one of the last two places. She wavered, briefly, and then said she would take it. A very old Galwayman called Daniel Simon Grady was offered the place beside her. He was much admired among the steerage passengers, a gentle sort of old man.

Mulvey stepped forward and said he had prior claim, being a member of Mary Duane’s family.

Mary Duane replied, ‘May you rot.’

Mulvey was then heard to utter the words, ‘Have mercy on me, Mary. Don’t deny me the only chance, for pity’s sake.’

He began to weep and to clutch at her hands. He seemed absolutely convinced that his life was in danger. He kept saying that he could not leave the ship in such a way as to go through the customs station with the body of passengers, that he had strong reason to believe he would be murdered if he did. Neither could he risk being sent back to Ireland, for a similar fate awaited him there, and anyway he could not bear to face the journey.

She said it was a fate he deserved, and worse.

‘Hasn’t there been enough of torture, Mary? Enough of bloodshed?
Enough
by now?’

She was asked by the old Galwayman if what Mulvey was saying was correct. Was he indeed related to her? She must speak the truth. To deny one of your own family was a dreadful thing to do. Far too many in Ireland had done it before. So many had turned against their
own blood now. He was not blaming anyone; it was just so cruel what had happened to the people. It would break your heart to see it happen. Neighbour against neighbour. Family against family. For a man to turn his back on his brother was the blackest sin. But men were weak. So often they were afraid. For a woman to do it could never be forgiven.

‘Is your name Duane, love?’ the old man asked her.

She said it was.

‘Of over by Carna?’

She nodded.

‘That name is a wealth to you. Your people were great.’

When she made no answer she was asked again would she leave one of her own family behind to suffer. Perhaps to die. Was that truly what a Duane would do? The old man said he could not take the place in such a circumstance. No blessing could come from such an action; nor would any be merited. He was only here himself because of natural family love; his children in Boston had sent him the fare. They had little enough but they had scraped every penny to do it. Often they themselves had gone hungry just to save him. There was no need for them to do it, only simple human mercy. ‘The only thing that makes our lives here bearable.’ He could not disgrace their name by standing in the way of family. His wife in Heaven would weep for his honour if he did.