Читать книгу Cinders to Satin - Fern Michaels - Страница 9

Chapter Three

Callie studied him for a long moment. “As long as it’s understood it’s not charity, Mr. Kenyon. I’m a girl who can take care of herself and her own.”

“Without a doubt,” he quickly agreed with a slightly lopsided grin.

“As I said, as long as it’s understood. If you’ll please put Billy down now, I’ve got to get back to the other children.”

“I’ll go with you. Which way are you heading?” It was casually asked, and his tone was friendly, but Callie was still skeptical. After all, it still wasn’t too late for him to have a twinge of conscience and turn her into the authorities.

“There’s no need. I’ll not let this one out of my sight again.” She indicated Billy with her glance.

“I insist.” The simple statement stifled further argument. “Billy and I are going to be friends, aren’t we, boyo?” He gripped the child’s ankles hanging down from his perch atop Byrch’s shoulders.

Callie led the way back to the park where the other children waited. “So, at last I know your full name,” he told her, watching for her reaction. “It’s James, isn’t it?”

Stopping dead in her tracks, she faced him, irritated and again suspicious. “And how would you be knowing that?”

“Billy’s your brother and I heard you calling him Billy James. Not an amazing piece of deduction, I assure you.”

“You’re quick with your mind, you are. Or at least you’d have me believe. Are you sure you weren’t snooping around asking questions? You seemed overly curious about me when you walked me part way home.” She tried to pretend indifference, but inside her heart was racing.

“A newspaper man should be quick and clever. I’ve done my share of hunting down stories and getting to the truth.” He was thinking that when he got back to the States he’d like to do a story on Callie James. People were hungry for news of their homeland, and aside from politics, Byrch liked nothing better than a human interest story. Of course, he dared not mention this to her. Her fear of being betrayed was almost tangible. His hands gripping Billy’s ankles could feel the small, delicate bones in the boy’s legs. An occasional basket of food would never be enough to put meat on this thin, growing body. What Billy needed, what all children needed, was a proper diet each and every day.

Breaking into his thoughts, Callie asked, “What were you doing down on Bayard Street? It isn’t exactly the kind of place a gentleman like you does his business.”

“I’m not the only quick mind, it would seem,” he complimented. “Actually I was looking for you. I had no idea how far you still had to go after you ran away, and I was worried. I thought if anything had happened, it would be talked about and I’d hear it.” The hard truth was that he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Throughout the morning he’d been unable to complete the smallest task without wondering if she’d made it home safely. He knew he couldn’t leave Ireland without knowing she was secure from the law.

Callie was surprised to find herself grateful. Perhaps she had been too hard on him. Glancing up, looking into his smiling face, she knew she had found a friend, and she returned his smile.

Byrch felt as though the sun had warmed his bones. She was lovely, this woman-child, and he suspected that there was a gaiety about her just beneath the surface of her powerful determination to surmount the hardships life had tossed her way. He liked the way her clear blue eyes met his steadily, and how her slim, delicately shaped nose turned up at the very tip, lending a saucy air to the structure and planes of her face. It was still a child’s face, rounded near the chin and pink at the cheeks from the March winds, but some day, Byrch knew instinctively, Callie James would be a beautiful woman if disease and privation didn’t alter the course of her future.

Georgie, Hallie, and Bridget waited near the edge of the park, anxious for Callie’s return. They were surprised to see the tall man carrying Billy on his shoulders and watched with a combination of shyness and curiosity.

Seeing his siblings, Billy began shouting, “I found it! I found it! Look!” He held out the gold coin Byrch had given him.

Georgie looked with amazement from his baby brother to Callie and then back at the coin. “You . . . you found the pot o’ gold?”

“No, him gave it to me,” Billy explained seriously. “Next time I find the pot!”

Byrch hoisted Billy back to the ground where the others could get a closer look at the coin. “I almost found it,” Billy said.

Callie rolled her eyes. Now she would never convince the children that the wee people were only make-believe. “You’ve made a hard job harder, Mr. Kenyon. There’s no room in our lives for believing in leprechauns and the like. Nothing save good luck and hard work will save us.” But the child in Callie rose victorious. “Still, I suppose there’s no real harm in believing, is there? I grew up on Granda’s tales, and they never hurt me, did they? I know what needs doing when it needs to be done.” She sighed resignedly. “And they are only children, aren’t they?”

“Sometimes, Callie, we all pretend to believe in something that we know couldn’t possibly be true. It’s the child within us. And there’s no harm in it, I assure you. I’d like you to tell me about your Granda. He seems a lot like my own.”

The children ran off to play, and Callie sank down onto the bench beside Byrch. She found the words tumbling out of her, telling him about Granda and Thomas and Peggy. It was good to talk, and she found herself reminiscing about happier times as she painted the canvas of her life with bold strokes of color and held it up for him to see. She’d never talked this way to anyone before, and because he seemed genuinely interested, she found herself imparting deep-seated feelings and secret thoughts she never considered sharing with another living soul. She told him of her ambivalent feelings toward her father, the love she felt for Peggy as well as her almost overwhelming need to protect her, and the frustrations of living with Granda’s tales and his encroaching senility. Talking to Byrch clarified many things she had never had either the time or inclination to discover about herself.

Byrch sat listening, enthralled. Her speech was peppered with local colloquialisms, adding richness to her descriptions. He wished he had a notepad and pencil to take it all down. He wanted to remember every word. Callie James saw the world with a child’s clear vision. Petty jealousies and self-centeredness were not a part of her world. She was as guileless as Billy and Bridget, even though the world and the times were bent on teaching her bitter lessons.

He realized with a start that Callie was staring at him, her words halted in mid-sentence. “What are you looking at, Callie? Have I a wart on the end of my nose?”

Callie blushed, her cheeks suffusing with color, making her eyes seem bluer and the burnished highlights in her hair appear more golden amidst the strands of deep, warm brown. “I was just thinking I’ve never seen eyes the likes of yours, Mr. Kenyon. Cat’s eyes is what they are. Gray and green at the same time and circled in black. Mum would call them tiger eyes.” Callie bit her lower lip. She was afraid she’d insulted him.

Byrch laughed, the sound reassuring her. “Tiger’s eyes, eh? Do you know what they say about a cat’s eyes? That he can look into your soul. Is that what you think, Callie?”

“That you can look into my soul? Hardly,” she scoffed, still embarrassed by her impudent remark but quick to rally against possible ridicule. “Only the angels can see through to the soul, and you, Mr. Kenyon, are no angel, I suspect.”

But you are an angel, Callie James, Byrch was thinking, and the blue of your eyes is heaven’s own. He almost laughed at himself for his poetic bent of thought. Ireland and it’s blarney was getting to him, he supposed. Quickly he looked away from Callie to where the children were playing. It was disconcerting to find himself thinking of this girl as more a woman than a child. It was just as well he was leaving for America in the morning. Otherwise he knew he would find himself seeking out Callie James again and again, becoming more and more involved in her life. And each time he saw her it would become increasingly difficult to remind himself that she was only a bit more than half his age.

“I really must be getting home, Mr. Kenyon,” Callie told him. “Bridget and Billy did without their naps this afternoon, and I’m soon to get ready for work at the mill.” Calling the children to her, she straightened Bridget’s bonnet and adjusted Hallie’s shoelace. She brushed the dried bits of grass from their clothes and smoothed their hair. “Like Mum always says, we may be poor and shabby, but there’s no reason not to take pride in ourselves. Say goodbye to Mr. Kenyon, he’s leaving for America tomorrow.”

Georgie’s eyes widened with interest. “Really, Mr. Kenyon? Are you gonna sail or go by steamer? What ship is taking you? Do you live in America? Are the streets paved in gold?”

Byrch answered the boy’s questions. “Seems to me, young man, you’ve a great interest in travel.”

“Oh, yes,” Georgie told him. “When I’m a man, I’m going to become a merchant marine and work for the Cunard Line. My Da was a merchant marine!” he said proudly.

“Come now, children, say goodbye to Mr. Kenyon and wish him a safe voyage.”

Byrch leaned over to Billy. “Have you still the coin I gave you?”

Billy extended his hand, the shiny coin resting on his grimy palm. “Just to be a fair man, what would you think if your brother and sisters had a coin just like it?”

Callie was aghast. “No, really, you mustn’t . . .”

“It’s for the children. Surely you wouldn’t deprive me of the pleasure as well as them? Say it’s all right, Callie.”

She looked at the children’s eager faces. She knew how the generous offering would alleviate some of their problems. Standing straight, stiffening her back, she lifted her chin. “Seeing as how it would please you, Mr. Kenyon,” she said softly, lowering her gaze, unable to look at him.

“It does please me, Callie,” he told her, making his voice light and playful. Not for anything would he want to humiliate her, but the need was obviously great. “It pleases me greatly.”

Callie turned away, reluctant to observe this display of charity, for that’s what it was, she knew. She wanted to protest, to refuse, but she’d often heard Peggy quote that “pride goeth before the fall.” Callie wasn’t exactly certain she understood or that it even applied, but she wasn’t about to take chances. The James family could not fall much further without disastrous results.

Throughout Dublin posters from the emigration commissioners and advertisements from ticket brokers were stuck on building facades and eagerly read by the populace. “Flee the Famine” became a much heard cry, and entire families and groups of families were emigrating to America, giving one another moral support and solace. Where most of them found the money for their passage was a mystery, but many of them had family members who had already emigrated and who sent either the ticket or the money.

In some instances the posters appeared in rural Irish villages, though many of the Irish could not speak or read English. Often the parish priest would translate for them and explain in detail the difficulties and hardships of leaving their homeland. Many were undaunted, believing it better to learn a new language from their native Gaelic and live with the hope of saving themselves and the ones they loved from certain starvation.

In Dublin, the people were better acquainted with the English language than with Gaelic. When they read the posters, they needed no priest to translate for them; however, it was to their religious leaders that they turned for the last blessing before leaving the home soil. They cried as they boarded the boats that would take them across the Irish Sea to Liverpool, England, where packet steamers and sailing schooners were crossing the Atlantic to America. Survival was their hope, but it was without joy. They were severing themselves from the places of their birth, their homeland, from all they knew and loved. It would have been easier to tear an oak from its roots than to separate an Irishman from his country.

“The Tynans left early this mornin’ on the D & L. That’s the last we’ll see of them.” Peggy sighed, telling Callie of the emigration of their neighbors and friends. “It’s as though they dropped off the face of the earth, for it’s certain we’ll never see them again.”

Peggy busied herself near the stove, stopping in her preparation of tea to adjust the blanket on the baby who was sleeping in the old cradle near the fire’s warmth. Joseph Aloysius James was now nearly three months old, and he was robust and alert. All the children had improved in health, thanks to what Callie liked to think of as her resourcefulness.

It had been a long time since Peggy last asked her oldest daughter where this bit of tea had come from, or that string of sausage, although she now looked at her first born with a deep sadness in her eyes. Ever since they’d seen the last of the money Byrch Kenyon had given the children, Callie had seen to it that there was food on the table when the need was the greatest. How she came by her windfalls Peggy could not bring herself to ask. Her admonitions to Callie were strong; she had even begged, fearing for her child’s very life. Whenever she’d hear of someone being sent to prison or in many cases hanged by the neck, she took great pains to relate the news to Callie. It seemed to make no impression on the girl. Whenever she’d bring home a bit of this or a piece of that, it was with a deadly calm, as though she’d just found the parcels on the doorstep. Peggy’s worry and concern grew deeper.

From time to time Thomas would look at Callie with questions in his eyes, but he never put them into words. Whatever he thought she was doing to ease the cook pot, he dared not ask.

“Your Aunt Sara is coming this morning to bring her ironing,” Peggy said matter-of-factly, averting her eyes from Callie.

“So? She comes every Thursday morning, doesn’t she? I swear, Mum, it sets my insides churning when I think of you mending her drawers and pressing her fine linens. You should have those things, too! There’s lots of things we Jameses should have.” Her tone was bitter; there was a flash in her clear blue eyes. “I suppose now that cousin Colleen is keeping company with that English corporal things are looking up for the O’Briens.”

“Hmmm. So one would think,” Peggy said distractedly, smoothing her hair before nestling the worn iron kettle onto the hob. “Somehow, though, I’ve a feeling something’s preying on my sister’s mind.”

“Perhaps it’s guilt,” Callie offered snidely. “With all the comforts and security she enjoys she doesn’t seem disposed to share even a crumb with you, her own flesh and blood.”

“So, is it charity you’ll be wanting?” Peggy retorted. “Sara pays me well for the bit of laundry I do for her.”

“According to what standards? She’s familiar, I’m certain, with the prices of things. In better times, Mum, what she pays you would be enough and fair. Not in these times, though, and well you know it.”

Peggy met her daughter with flinty eyes. “I’m asking you, child, what is it you want Sara to do? Bestow charity?”

Callie looked away, ashamed, her argument quelled. Peggy knew her child well. Charity had a bitter taste for her. “I was talking to Mrs. Tynan the other day,” Peggy reintroduced the subject of the neighbors who had emigrated to America. “She told me that they’ve distant relatives over there and that will make all the difference. Already Kevin has expectations of a job and so does their oldest son. Did I ever tell you I’ve a cousin who lives in New York? Cousin Owen and a fine upstanding man he is, or so I’ve heard. Do you remember him, Callie? You were only a little girl when he left Ireland.”

“And if I did remember him? What’s he going to do, tear up some of the pavement from those streets of gold and send it to us? Listen, Mum, I’ve got it on good authority that America isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Things are hard for the Irish over there, too.”

“Oh, yes, this good authority would be Mr. Kenyon, wouldn’t it?” Peggy’s tone implied that she not only remembered who Mr. Kenyon was, but she also disapproved of the circumstances under which Callie had met him.

“Now, Mum, no more scolding. Must you relate everything say to something else?”

“If that ‘something else’ can put a rope around your neck or send you to prison.” Peggy’s tone was hard, her eyes accusing.

There was a sound at the door and then a knock. “Hurry and put out the cups, Callie, that’ll be Sara now. Oh, I hope she doesn’t wake the children.” Peggy tugged her apron into place and hurried to admit her sister.

Aunt Sara bustled into the James’s kitchen on a breeze of perfumed air and flying flounces. A plump woman, small of stature, with light golden hair styled into dozens of sausage curls at the back of her head, she was a younger, prettier, better fed version of Peggy.

“Margaret, you do look well,” Sara complimented. “I don’t know, childbirth and mothering seem to do you the world of good.” She moved over to the cradle beside the stove to coo down at the baby. “How I envy the ease with which you can bear children. Having Colleen nearly took my life, as you well know. I don’t believe I’ll ever recover! It’s because my bones are so small, don’t you know?”

Callie appraised Aunt Sara’s wide expanse of buttocks as she bent over the cradle and almost laughed aloud. Small bones, indeed! Always making herself out to be so delicate, just like the ladies she enjoyed reading about in those penny novels. It was Peggy who possessed that slim, elegant length of bone that made each movement so graceful. “Like a dancer,” Thomas liked to say.

“Callandre, child, how are you?” Aunt Sara bestowed a perfunctory kiss. “You’ve grown since the last I saw you. How is your position at the mill?”

“It’s not a position, Aunt Sara, it’s a job! And you know they’ve cut hours as well as wages. Those who don’t like it are invited to leave. There’s plenty of cheap labor coming into Dublin from the countryside.”

“Tsk, tsk. That’s what your Uncle Jack was saying just the other night.” Sara settled herself at the table and allowed Peggy to pour tea for her. “Of course, we wouldn’t think of hiring anyone and not paying them fairly. You know that, don’t you, Margaret? We’ve taken on a new man, came here from Cork with his family.”

Peggy and Callie exchanged glances over the top of Sara’s head. The O’Briens had hired another hand for their dry goods business and had never given a thought to Thomas. Heartless, Callie thought nastily.

“How is Colleen?” Peggy managed to change the subject.

“Feeling much as you’d expect.” Sara’s ringed fingers dug into her reticule, extracting several little parcels of sugar. Passing one to Callie and one to Peggy, she liberally added the light brown granules to her own cup. “Callandre, did you know that Colleen is to be married in a week’s time? There’s so much to do, so little time. I’ll be imposing myself on you, Margaret. There’s table linens to be laundered and ironed, and I was wondering, if you’ve the time, would you mind coming over to the house to measure the hem on Colleen’s new gown? Wait till you see it, the palest shade of blue—”

“Blue?” Callie asked. “Don’t you mean white?”

Sara looked at her sister. “It seems that your mother hasn’t told you . . . er . . . my darling, Colleen, seems to be . . . er . . . in the family way. But in truth, she and her young corporal couldn’t be more delighted. Your Uncle Jack says the sooner they bless themselves with children the better . . .” Sara’s words seemed to accelerate with her embarrassment. Suddenly she stopped in mid-sentence. “Margaret, don’t tell me you’ve not told Callandre.”

Peggy shook her head warningly.

“Tell me what?” Callie demanded, looking from her aunt to her mother.

“Margaret, you really should have told her! It’s just not the kind of thing to spring on a person, especially someone as young as Callandre. And I told you before, you should have arranged for her to go with the Tynans. At least she’d be protected until she landed in America.”

Callie gasped. The table seemed to swim before her eyes.

“Mum! What’s she talking about?” Callie stood on wobbling feet, knocking her chair backwards. Her teacup rattled in its saucer. “Mum! What does she mean?”

Words would not come to Peggy. This was not the way she meant to break the news. “You’re going to America, Callie.”

Once Peggy’s mind had been set, no power on earth could change it. Not Granda’s intercession, not Thomas’s disapproval heartily voiced, not the cries of the younger children, nor the anguish of Callie’s tears. Through her fear that Callie should be caught in some misdeed and suffer the justice of the law, she had seized upon an opportunity that had suddenly presented itself.

Young, impetuous Colleen, at the end of a previous and unsuccessful romance before meeting her young English corporal, had taken to writing cousin Owen in America, telling him of her desire to emigrate. Owen had presumed to send her a passage ticket on a packet boat leaving from Liverpool. When learning of her pregnancy and being assured of the affability of the unborn child’s father, Colleen had confided in Sara who, in turn, confided in Peggy. To Peggy, the passage ticket was heaven sent, a sign from God Himself.

“The girl’s only sixteen!” Thomas pleaded to Peggy, finding her for once impervious to his charm. “Surely that’s too young an age to be sent away from home, much less to America. Have ye no heart, Peg me love? Wasn’t Callie always your best loved?”

“Aye, and that’s the reason she’s to go! You may be able to close your eyes to what’s been going on these past months, but not me, Thomas. Would you rather see her off to cousin Owen or finding her just rewards at the hands of the law?” This was the closest Peggy could come to admitting to Thomas that he’d often filled his belly with the proceeds from Callie’s thievery. “She’s a good girl, love,” her tone softened, “and she’ll find her way, no doubt about it.”

“But so far away! And what do we really know of Owen? It’s been years since ye’ve seen him.”

“Enough to know that he could afford to send a ticket to Colleen. The man must have some sort of employment. Besides, darlin’, the man is family.”

Thomas’s shoulders slumped. There would be no changing Peg’s mind. During these past days there had been a renewal of closeness between Callie and himself. She was depending on him to talk sense to her mother. Again he had failed her. He would spend the next fortnight listening to the girl’s anguished tears all through the long nights.

September 19 arrived in a flood of rain. It was as though heaven itself was crying against tearing Callie away from all she knew and loved. The children were out of bed before the crack of dawn, rubbing at their red noses and hanging onto Peg’s apron, wailing that Callie should not leave. Choking back tears, Peggy brushed the children away from her skirts, dutifully attending to the baby Joseph. How much like her firstborn this babe was. The same curling brown hair, and already his eyes were that clear, bright blue fringed with thick, curling lashes. Joseph, more than any of the children, was like Callie, and each day she held him in her arms or gazed into his sleeping face, Peggy would remember her first child.

Granda went about the small house shuffling, shoulders stooped, repeatedly blowing into his handkerchief. “Ah, Peg, yer takin’ the heart right out of me,” he moaned. “Have heart, girl.”

“If you’re goin’ down to the D & L dock with us, Granda, you’d better get ready. And dress warm. That’s a punishing rain outside.” Peggy tried to keep the grief out of her voice. Callie’s one hope, she constantly assured herself, was for her to be strong and not waiver. How simple it would be to tell the child that she needn’t go, that her family needed her here. But that would be an act of selfishness and went against her every instinct. If Callie were to have a chance, she would not find it here in Ireland. No, America was the place for opportunity.

Callie appeared in the tiny kitchen, dressed in several layers of clothing that gave an unnatural bulk to her slim figure. Her face was deathly white, and her huge blue eyes were red-rimmed from crying. Peggy pretended not to notice. “Here’s your tea, darlin’. Drink it down while it’s hot. It’s a terrible morning.”

Callie sat obediently, blowing on the steaming brew before bringing it to her lips. Her words to Peggy these past ten days had been few and far between. This strange silence was breaking Peggy’s heart. She knew she might never see her child again in this lifetime, and there was so much to say, so much love to express.

“Have you everything packed in that oilskin bag your Uncle Jack was nice enough to give you? Not to mention the ten-shillings fare on the steamboat to Liverpool. Where is it, child? Have you kept it handy?”

“Yes, Mum.” That was all she would say. She was being sent away, and in many ways it was sadder and harder to bear than if the grocer had caught her that first night when she stole the basket.

“When you’ve finished your tea, then we’ll be leaving. Sara says the lines at the D & L are longer than Moses’ staff. If we get there early, we’ll be able to stand beneath the tarpaulin out of the rain. Fortunate that Uncle Jack saw to it that you’d have advance booking. You’ll go straight to the head of the line.”

Dodging in and out of doorways, suffering the pelting of a drenching rain, the James family formed a caravan through the streets and down to the dock. Peggy carried little Joseph, and Thomas held the twins’ hands. Hallie and Georgie ran ahead, waiting beneath awnings and trees still thick with summer leaves. There was no gaiety in their running, no sense of frolic on their little faces. They were losing Callie.

Granda walked as fast as he could, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks. He knew without a doubt that he would never again hold Callie in his arms or hear her soft, tuneful humming about the house. She would be gone, out of his life, and the pain of it was not for the bearing.

Peggy kept her eyes straight ahead. Joseph wriggled in her arms. The family walked in a line, heads down against the rain and the tears, like a funeral cortege, until they reached the end of Bayard Street and could see the mottled green tarpaulin. A milling throng lined the rickety wooden fence along the wharf. A long line of people: women, men, families snaked back and forth upon itself. It would appear that all of Dublin had turned out either to leave or say goodbye. Emigrants held their numbered passes aloft, lining up numerically.

Under the tarpaulin the Jameses had relative shelter, the rain teeming into splashing puddles near their feet. “I’ve promised to stop my wickedness, Mum,” Callie pleaded. “I’ve a fear I’ll never see you again. Don’t do this to me, Mum. Don’t do this.”

Peggy stiffened her back; her arms ached to hold her daughter. “It’s a fine thing that you know your letters, Callie. I’ll be expectin’ you to write as often as you can. I’ll do my best to answer.” Her voice was low, almost harsh, with the force of holding back her emotions. It would be so easy to tell Callie not to go. But she knew her child, knew her devotion to her family, even at the risk of her own neck. “You be a good girl, Callie. Remember what you’ve been taught. I’ll expect you to go to church on Sundays, circumstances allowin’. Now kiss your Da and the children.”

The next moments were a blur, a confusion of motion and a struggle for air. Callie tried to commit to memory the exact shade of her father’s eyes; the sweet, clean, milky smell of the baby; the strength in Granda’s arms; the outpouring of love from the twins and Hallie and Georgie. But most of all she wanted to remember forever the sound of her mother’s voice when she called her name.

A voice called the number on her card, “Number one-oh-seven! One-oh-seven! Please to the back of the deck!”

Peg’s hand on her shoulder, pushing her forward. A last kiss from Da. Then she was in the mainstream of passengers boarding the crowded steamer, prodded like cattle to the rear decks. There was no shelter from the weather, and Callie wasn’t able to distinguish her tears from the rain.