A Song Across the Sea (5 page)

The trusting brown eyes that followed Tara’s movements in the barn strengthened her resolve. She would stubbornly defy tradition. As long as old Molly drew breath, she’d have a home here. The scant bit of hay she consumed would scarcely mean the difference between survival and disaster for them.

Tara and Padraig left the cows in their stalls for the night and hurried to the house. The wind had risen to a howling drone. Rain would not be long in coming.

Her mother was already asleep. Tara supervised Padraig’s unenthusiastic washing-up and prayers and then, even though it was long past his bedtime, indulged him in his favorite nighttime ritual.

By the light of the kerosene lamp next to his bed, she read to him from “The Fairy Bell.” It was a book of children’s stories he’d gotten for his last birthday. He never seemed to tire of it. Even though he knew all of the stories by heart, he insisted on listening to her read them.

“…and at last the leprechaun jumped over the hedge and was never seen again.”

Paddy was asleep. In repose his usually mischievous face looked relaxed, serene.

Tara closed the book and put it on the stand next to his bed. She leaned over and kissed him on his smooth cheek, marveling at the long, feathery eyelashes that seemed like such a waste on a boy. She pulled the goose down quilt up over his shoulders, put out the kerosene lamp and went through the dark house to her own bed.

•  •  •

Tara was up earlier than usual the day of the gatherin’ in order to get her chores out of the way. Even so, the afternoon’s long shadows were deepening into dusk before she finally finished with her work. She drew water from the well and carried it into the house for her washing up, hoping it would not be too cold. Heating it would take up too much time.

Her mother had been very mysterious about the dress she was altering for Tara. A half-smile and a shrug were the only response Tara had gotten when she’d asked her which one it was.

“You get washed up in here, in front of the fire,” her mother told her. “I’ll bring your dress in to you. Padraig will be busy in the kitchen.”

The delectable odor coming from the kitchen told Tara what he’d be busy at: helping his mother bake the apple cakes they were to take with them to the party.

A fire crackled and spit sparks in the fireplace, radiating a warm glow that temporarily banished the always-encroaching dampness from the room. Tara slipped out of her dirt-smeared skirt and blouse and luxuriated in the heat from the fireplace for a moment. The muted light lingered on the lovely planes of her face, followed the elegantly curving cheekbones and the clean line of her jaw. Her eyes appeared midnight-blue in this light, under distinctive, arching eyebrows. The generous lips that turned up slightly at the corners hinted at a sensual nature as yet untapped while a slight cleft in the chin signified the strong-willed stubbornness and determination already in play in many ways.

Tara washed, using a piece of cloth and a chunky bar of homemade soap. She dried off quickly, shivering. Her mother entered the room, hiding something behind her back.

“Try this on, Tara. I’m thinkin’ it’ll suit you.”

She was uncomprehending at first. The dress her mother held out to her was not an old one from her closet, patched and remade. It tingled with newness. Tara had never before seen this rich scarlet silk. If she had, she still wouldn’t have guessed that it could be fashioned into such a stunning garment—even by her mother’s talented fingers.

“It’s beautiful. But it’s such a…bold color,” Tara murmured, a bit apprehensively.

“You’ve grown too used to faded clothes and coarse tweeds. This will set off your hair and skin.”

Tara forgot her reluctance and eagerly slipped the dress over her head. It fit as if it had been tailored by the finest couturier in Paris. The scooped neckline revealed just a hint of the full breasts swelling beneath the draped bodice. The dress clinched in at the waistline—making her small waist look even smaller—before cascading out in rich folds of fabric. Tara recognized the creamy lace that trimmed the neckline and elbow-length sleeves as her mother’s handiwork.

Her mother finished fastening the stays in the back of the dress and held a looking-glass up to her. The scarlet did, indeed, set off her lustrous chestnut hair and the fair skin on her arms and long neck. She could hardly believe it was herself. The person who looked back at her didn’t look like a girl who spent her days farrowing fields and spreading dung for fertilizer.

“You look grand!” Padraig, finished with his baking duties in the kitchen, put into words what they’d all been thinking.

Tara hugged her mother. “It’s…splendid! I feel like a queen! What a lot of work you must’ve put into it. And how did you ever—?”

“I’ve been settin’ a wee bit aside for a long time. For somethin’ special. Since I have the most beautiful daughter in all the county, I thought she should have the most beautiful dress.”

Tears sprang to Tara’s eyes. She was terrible to resent her life as she did, to think it a miserable existence and dream of escaping to something easier. As poorly as her mother had been feelin’ lately, she’d spent countless hours toiling on this magnificent dress.

“Now there’s no need for that, Tara. It’s just a dress, after all.”

“If we don’t leave now, it’ll be over before we get there,” Padraig said plaintively.

His mother attempted a stern look. “Then go and fetch the apple cakes, little man. Or were you thinkin’ of leavin’ them behind and eatin’ them tomorrow, all by yourself?”

Tara wrapped a woolen shawl around her shoulders and ran to hook the pony to the trap.

•  •  •

They arrived at Hennessey’s large, prosperous farm in no time at all. Horses, ponies and all manner of conveyances stood in the spacious front yard of the farmhouse. The McLaughlins could hear lively fiddle music spilling through the open doors as they climbed from their trap.

Inside the rambling farmhouse people clustered in tight, excited groups in every room. Tara’s mother spotted Aunt Bridey and walked over to talk to her sister. Tara noted Aunt Bridey’s swelling middle with dismay. This would be her seventh child—or was it her eighth? Padraig skipped off to find other lads his own age, and Tara was left alone.

But not for long. Mary McCarty detached herself from a gaggle of chattering girls and made her way over to Tara.

“Tara!” Her round blue eyes feigned surprise. “I was after thinkin’ you wouldn’t be able to join us. Your work on the farm, and all.”

Her words were, as usual, carefully chosen. The “us” confirmed Tara’s status as an outsider. Tara sensed—with newfound insight—that Mary somehow considered her competition, although she couldn’t imagine why. Unaware of her own regal beauty, Tara supposed that Mary’s coy, kittenish ways got her all the male attention she craved.

Tara casually removed her shawl. She noted with pleasure Mary’s gasp of surprise when she saw the scarlet dress.

“Is it new?”

Tara looked down at Mary, smiling indulgently. “Mother made it for me.”

Mary recovered sufficiently to be surprisingly gracious. “It’s lovely, it is. There’s not one as nice as it in me father’s shop, even.”

So Tara unexpectedly found herself that evening admitted to the inner circle. She accepted her inclusion into Mary McCarty’s stylish clique of friends with the same amused detachment that she’d adopted to tolerate their earlier snubs. It made her mother happy, at least. Several times during the evening, Tara caught her mother looking over at her in unabashed pride as she circulated among the partygoers.

Girls weren’t the only ones who paid attention to her. As soon as the dancing began, Tara found herself sought after by several eager young lads. She danced jigs and reels, set dances and barn dances, her long legs carrying her around the room in a scarlet whirl of graceful energy. The rhythmic thump of the bodhran drum echoed some primitive pulsing beat in her own body. The fiddles, flute and tinwhistle added resonant melodies to the mix.

After the dancing, Tara collapsed happily in one of the chairs that had been pushed back against the wall. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with excitement. She allowed Timmy Fagan to bring her a cup of cider and some crumble cake. She had to. The poor lad seemed so nervous around her that she felt sorry for him. She tried to picture herself with Timmy, married to him, even, but she couldn’t. He was not the mysterious man waiting for her in the wings.

There was a sudden commotion at the far end of the room. Tara glimpsed a wiry redheaded man poking an angry finger against another man’s chest. The redheaded man was not familiar to her at first. She finally recognized him as someone her father had pointed out to her in the village, years ago. Seamus Muldoon. “Stay away from that one,” her father had warned.

“You’ll not be sayin’ this is bootleg whiskey, you cheap little bastard!” Muldoon shouted at the other man. “If you’re not willin’ to pay a fair price, you’ll buy elsewhere!”

The man said something Tara couldn’t hear. Muldoon seemed about to take a swing at him, but others intervened. Two men grabbed Muldoon none too gently by the arms and hurried him out the back door while he twisted his body wildly in resistance.

“They should drop him down the well to cool him off.” Timmy Fagan, sitting beside her, had found his voice. “Isn’t it just like Muldoon to come to a party and start trouble?”

“Is he really a bootlegger?”

“That, and worse. There’s some who say he has nasty dealings in the city. Gambling, thievery. He runs with a bad crowd, that’s for sure.”

The incident was quickly forgotten. The women set out the covered dishes they’d brought on the enormous table in the kitchen, and Tara fixed herself a plate heaped with food. Timmy had left her to join in a game of dice taking place in an upstairs room. She was relieved by his absence. He was a nice enough lad, but not exactly a lad to set a girl’s heart to beatin’ faster.

Longing for a bit of fresh air, she carried her plate outside. It was a soft night. The rain-bearing clouds had been shifted away by a mild breeze out of the north, leaving a clear black sky that looked like a treasure chest lined in velvet, holding a bounty of glittering jewel-like stars.

Tara sat on a stone bench in the garden and ate with zest. Overheated by all the dancing, she relished the feel of cool air on her skin. Solitude sometimes made for a pleasant companion, she thought. She was havin’ a fine time with her friends and neighbors tonight, but being out here alone for a brief spell had its rewards as well.

“You’ve a wild streak in you when you dance. I could see that. Are you wild in other ways, as well?”

The voice had a harsh, unfamiliar edge to it. She looked up from her meal, startled. Muldoon stood over her, blocking out the moonlight.

“You’ve an odd way of introducin’ yourself,” she remarked coolly.

He chuckled. She didn’t much care for the sound.

“Puttin’ on airs, are we? You may be full of yourself tonight, prancin’ around in that red dress, but I’m told, Tara McLaughlin, that you’re poor as dirt. You haven’t got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. You’d do well to be more accommodatin’ to a man of means such as meself.”

He sat down next to her on the bench. “I’m Seamus Muldoon.”

She refused to be rattled by his offensive manners. “I thought, Mr. Muldoon, that you’d been put out of the house, like a cat.”

“That? That was just a wee business disagreement. It’s been settled to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.”

“And just what is your business?”

“I buy a little here, sell a little there. A man has to make his own opportunities. I sometimes arrange…insurance for small businesses. Make sure their windows don’t get broken or their inventory destroyed by fire.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it sounded unsavory. In the moonlight she could see that he was not so old as she’d first thought—all of twenty-five, maybe, but with a twisted cynicism in his expression that made him seem older. He wasn’t tall, but he looked strong as whipcord.

“I’ve been to America, too,” he boasted. “Layin’ the groundwork for some new…enterprises. I’ll be goin’ there for good soon.”

“Our little village must be dull for a world traveler such as yourself.” She hoped her sarcasm was apparent. “One wonders why you bother spendin’ time here at all.”

“Just another stop on my distribution route. I try to be here as little as possible. It’s a dirty, backwards place, full of ignorant country folk. I should think it too tame for a girl like you.” He was staring blatantly at her breasts.

Her temper snapped. “And what do you mean by that, you hooligan? You, you…criminal! I’m thinkin’ you should take your dirty little ‘business’ and go back to the city!”

He sneered. “Oh, quite the proper young lady, aren’t we?” He leaned in close, and she could feel his warm, whiskey-flavored breath on her face. “I know what you want, even if you don’t admit it. You’re a whore, like all women.”

“You swine!” she hissed. “I may be just a farm girl—’poor as dirt,’ wasn’t it?—but I’m much too good for the likes of you!”

She jumped to her feet, spilling her plate of food onto the ground in her haste. She turned her back on him and started toward the house, but he gripped her arm with a strong hand and spun her back around to face him.

“Too good, did you say? Or is it just that you’ve grown too fond of the soft kisses of the local lads, like the ones I saw you dancin’ with?”

He pulled her roughly toward him. He grabbed the back of her head with his hand and pulled her face forward, so close to his she could smell the whiskey on his breath. Tara struggled mightily against him, but made little headway. His lips pressed against hers painfully. The bristly stubble on his cheek scratched her soft skin. She felt revolted by his kiss.

Tara angled her leg backward as far as it would go and let loose with a kick—a hearty blow that landed with a satisfying thud on his left shin. His face registered surprise, disbelief and fury. For a moment, she thought he was going to strike her. Not waiting for the blow, she swung out her foot again. This time it caught him higher up, between his legs.