Song of the Silent Harp (36 page)

“No—no, not a bit,” she assured him.

“Yes, well…” He relaxed only a little. Then, clearing his throat, he leaned forward. “I, ah, was wondering if we might…talk? There's something…I'd like to, ah, d-discuss with you. If it's no b-bother, that is.”

Nora shook her head, sensing the man's difficulty. Obviously, he was struggling to find words for whatever he intended to say. “It's no bother at all, Mr. Whittaker.”

“Yes, well…you see, k-keeping in mind that you've been through a great deal…you've had a terrible time of things, after all…and it does seem to me that it must be rather frightening for a woman, crossing the ocean more or less alone. Oh, you have your son, of course, I don't m-mean to denigrate Daniel. He's such a fine boy, so c-collected and mature for his age. Still, it has to be most difficult…”

He stopped, his expression frozen in dismay. “Oh, dear, I'm saying this b-
badly…I knew I would…”

Having no idea how to help him, Nora offered a weak smile.

Whittaker rose suddenly, reaching out to a nearby beam to steady himself. “I would like,” he said, his voice gaining a bit of strength, “to offer my p-protection to you, Mrs. K-Kavanagh. For the duration of our journey…and for as long as you might desire, afterward.”

Nora's mouth went slack as she stared at the man. “I'm sorry?”

“Please, Mrs. K-Kavanagh understand that in no way do I mean to be forward!” he blurted out. “I wouldn't want you to think—”

Whittaker stopped and swallowed with difficulty. Even in the dull glow from the lantern, Nora could see him flush and was torn between conflicting emotions of sympathy and annoyance.
Even to a mild-mannered man such as this, she appeared helpless and weak, in need of an overseer!

As he stood there, looking none too steady on his feet, he clenched and unclenched the fingers of one hand. “I only meant to say, Mrs. K-Kavanagh, that it would be my pleasure to act as your…ah…protector…for the duration of our voyage…and for as long as necessary after we reach New York. After that…well, ah, I'd b-be most flattered if you would consider me as a…a friend, at least.”

The poor man looked about to faint. Nora was at a loss. Half fearful that he might topple over at any moment, half angry that yet another man perceived her as helpless, she forced a note of steady calm into her voice. “I—truly, I don't know what to say, Mr. Whittaker. I'm very grateful to you, of course…but you've already done so much for me and my family—”

“Oh, please,” Whittaker interrupted, pulling a handkerchief from his vest pocket and wiping it over his brow with a trembling hand, “you need say n-nothing! Nothing at all. I only wanted to m-make you aware of the fact that…that I respect you greatly, and care deeply about your welfare. And that of your son, of course,” he added quickly. “D-Daniel and I have been getting to know each other quite well, and he's a wonderful b-boy. Wonderful…”

His words trailed off, unfinished. Nora felt an unjustified stirring of anger. She was being entirely unfair. This good, shy man was willingly making himself miserable on her account, pledging his protection to a virtual stranger, to a woman who must look no better than a deranged harridan at the moment. And, clearly, the very act of making himself understood was a torment, timid soul that he seemed to be.

Indeed, she
liked
Evan Whittaker and owed him much; that his intentions were the best, she had no doubt. But he, too, had seen something in her, some flaw in her character, that marked her as inadequate. God in heaven, what was there in her demeanor that made her appear simple-minded and
incompetent to these men?

She sat up a bit straighter, having to grope at the limp mattress when she was hit by a new surge of dizziness. Seeing her sway, Whittaker put a hand to her shoulder. “I've upset you! I'm so sorry—”

“No, no, it's not that!” Nora protested, forcing herself to sit upright, unassisted. “I'm still…a bit weak, is all. No, I'm—my goodness, Mr. Whittaker, I'm not perturbed with you at all, simply overwhelmed—by your kindness.”

He stooped slightly to peer into her face. “Please d-don't feel you need to say anything more, Mrs. K-Kavanagh. You're really quite weak, and I didn't intend to cause you additional d-distress. I—just b-bear in mind that I will count it a privilege to d-do whatever I can to make this journey easier for you. Now then,” he said with more firmness, “I'm going to leave you alone so you can rest.”

He turned to go, then stopped. “You will let me know if there's anything I can d-do?”

Nora nodded and managed another faint smile. “Of course. And—I do thank you, Mr. Whittaker.”

Still somewhat dazed, she watched him stumble off to the men's quarters. Truly, she did not know what to make of the man.

At the moment, she wasn't sure she cared. She had had her fill, and then some, of coming across as incompetent to the men with whom she came in contact. From now on, she would do whatever she must to avoid even a hint of weakness, any sign of dependency. She was a woman grown, after all, with a son and three orphaned children who had nobody else in the world.

Deliberately, and with a strange new sense of purpose, she took the pages of Michael Burke's letter and, one by one, tore them into pieces. As she watched them flutter to the floor, she knew an instant of panic.

Perhaps she should have at least saved his address…what if—Shaking off the thought, she closed her eyes.

Dear Lord, I am sick to death of being a weak, clinging woman. I ask You now to do whatever You must to make me strong…strong in Your power, strong enough, Lord, so that others will no longer feel such a need to take care of me, indeed strong enough that I might begin to look after others for a change. Oh, I'm that frightened, Lord. Sure, and You know I am terrified of what may lie ahead for all of us. But in the future, Blessed Savior, couldn't we just let my terrors be our secret
—
Yours and mine? Please, Lord?

Nora opened her eyes and, for the first time in her life, stretched her hands up, toward heaven. Crying out in a harsh, desperate whisper of a plea, she begged,
“God, change me! Oh, my Lord
—
change me!

31

The fell Spectre advanc'd—who the horrors shall tell
Of his galloping stride, as he sounded the knell.

A
UTHOR
U
NKNOWN
(1858)

T
hey had been at sea nearly a week when Evan took a turn for the worse. His fever soared, and his wound began to fester and burn as if somebody held a fiery brand to his skin. Still, there were others in sadder condition, and it was their need, not his own, that sent him stumbling to the surgeon's quarters late at night.

He found Dr. Leary sprawled in his bunk, his eyes glazed. He looked about to pass out.

“I'm sorry,” Evan said stiffly, not meaning it. “I know it's late, but you're d-desperately needed in steerage. We have people down there in their extremities.”

The surgeon lolled where he was, peering at Evan with eyes that would not quite focus.

Dr. Leary's quarters were cramped and reeked of whiskey and mold. Evan was struck by a bout of weakness and, head pounding, his wound on fire, he groped for the open door to keep from falling.

“There's something terribly wrong b-below,” he said thickly. “Not seasickness. M-much worse. Please—you
must
come! People are dying!” The surgeon had not been seen in steerage since the day after they sailed, and Evan found it almost impossible to keep from screaming at the drunken man to do his job.

“The Irish are always dying,” muttered Leary drunkenly. “Why should I be the one to circumvent their destiny?”

A terrible fury rose in Evan as he stood studying the dissipated wreck of a man across the room. Was this all the help they could expect, this drunken failure who could scarcely speak? God help them all, they
would
perish!

“You are Irish yourself, man!”

The surgeon grunted. “Don't be reminding me.”

“Dr. Leary,” Evan tried again, the words sticking to his palate, “we have two c-corpses in steerage, and from the looks of things this night, we will have m-many more before sunrise. If you do not c-come with me and come now, I promise you I will return with a number of the largest, b-brawniest men on board and we will
drag
you below! Good heavens, man, you're a
physician!”

Leary glared at Evan for another full minute. At last, he hauled himself up from the berth, teetering wildly as he stood. He grabbed at the corner of the desk to break his fall. After another moment, he yanked his bag off the desk and pitched toward Evan. “Let's go, then.”

Fighting back his revulsion, Evan put a hand to the man's arm to help steady him, but the surgeon shook him off with a grunt of protest.

“C'mon, Englishman, show me your corpses. And don't be getting so rattled about it.” He stopped long enough to wag a finger in Evan's face. “You'll be seeing plenty more of them before this crossing is done.”

The surgeon laughed, then lurched through the open doorway. “That's the truth, you know. There'll be plenty of corpses for the greedy old Atlantic on this voyage. She'll claim those she wants—she always does!”

The doctor looked back over his shoulder, squinting at Evan with a peculiar grimace of a smile. “And who can say but what they all would not be better off in the bosom of the sea than where they're going, eh?”

Less than an hour later, Leary, white-faced and suddenly sober, faced the captain in his quarters.

“I tell you it's the
Black Fever!”
the surgeon exploded, ducking his head beneath the low rough-beamed ceiling. A big man, he felt more confined in Schell's cabin than in his own, though the captain's room was far more spacious. Schell's Spartan quarters were oddly inhibiting, like a foreign laboratory. Sterile, cold, and restricted.

“Typhus?” Schell sat calmly, his smooth hands folded on his desk.

As always, the desk top was uncluttered and bare, except for the ship's log and a sextant.

“Call it what you will,” Leary spat out, “it's certain doom! This is disaster aboard a ship, and well you know it!”

Frigid blue eyes fixed the physician in place like a bug on a pin. Even in the somber lantern glow, the red scar on Schell's face blazed its anger. “How many?”

“Dead, do you mean? Two so far; at least half a dozen down with it, though. It can take the lot of them before it's done—but, then, I don't have to tell you that, now do I? You've seen it all before.”

The captain's thin mouth pulled down only enough to cause a faint break in the marble mask of his face. “Tell no one but the bosun and First Mate Clewes. They will confine steerage below decks.”

“All of them?”

Schell lifted his eyes to regard Leary with a cold, exaggerated patience. “Of course,
all
of them,” he said, still not raising his voice. “It would hardly make sense to isolate only a few, now would it?”

“They'll have no chance, none at all, locked in there together like rats in a barrel!”

Schell remained silent, watchful. Leary could hear the man's shallow breathing, saw the cold eyes freeze over, but just enough of the whiskey remained to dull his normal sense of caution. “I should think you'd want to deliver most of your cargo alive, Captain, if you're to earn your fee.”

“Our
cargo,” Schell said smoothly, his accent thickening somewhat, “has already been paid for, the fee collected—from
your
countrymen. The only thing left for us to do is to put them ashore in New York. After that, it's entirely the problem of the…what do you call them? The
runners.”

Leary glared at the man across from him. Schell was an unfeeling, cold-blooded monster. The man had no soul. No soul at all.

“Send Clewes and the bosun to me,” said the captain, turning his back. “And stay sober.”

Leary stared at the back of Schell's head, debating whether his surgeon's knife would penetrate that granite-hewn skull. At last he turned and lunged out of the room, in a mad race for his bottle.

Fiabhras dubh…

The Black Fever. Typhus. The fearful malediction began to circulate steerage within hours, bouncing from berth to berth, striking raw terror into the hearts of all who heard it whispered or moaned.

No disease was more dreaded, none more horrifying than the prolonged, agonizing terrors of typhus. No swift, merciful death, this, but days of suffering and slow destruction, a lingering agony that transcended every other known form of human misery. Even to speak its name aloud was to unleash a blast of hell's wrath.

Black Fever aboard ship meant unavoidable epidemic and unimaginable suffering. Tonight, aboard the
Green Flag,
it meant sorrow upon sorrow.

In the Castlebar gaol, Morgan Fitzgerald thought about Nora aboard the ship to America and Daniel John at her side. He thought about his fine horse, Pilgrim, wondering what had become of him. He even thought about Whittaker, the Englishman. Then, despite his intentions to avoid the subject, he turned his thoughts to his approaching death.

There had been no trial—not that he had expected one. He knew well
enough how things would be. One night soon, his cell would open. Hooded men would lead him out and put him onto a horse. He would be taken outside the town, to a deserted stand of trees—convenient for a hanging—and that, as they say, would be that. The end of him.

It had happened before, and it would happen again, was going to happen, to
him
this time. He had no hopes of a surprise or a last-minute miracle. He doubted that God was of a mind to perform miracles for an outlaw. And that was what he was, all right—an outlaw.

To the magistrates, he was the worst kind of outlaw—an Irish rebel who happened to have a passing good education, who could write a fair essay that might stir Gaelic blood and heat nationalist passions. He had robbed and raided. He had insulted the authorities and embarrassed their superiors. Of course, he might have survived all that if he had been ignorant—ignorant and entirely lacking in political interests.

Oh, he was a dead man, and that was the truth.

He should pray for his soul, Joseph Mahon had said, and Morgan knew the priest had it right. The thing was, he didn't know how—where to begin, what to say. He had gone too far. Over the years the stains of his sins had run together, eventually draining into the sea of a past from which he could no longer draw the slightest hope of a future.

Besides, only a penitent should pray for his own soul, one who sorrowed for his sin and wished it gone. Morgan supposed he was sorry for whatever wrongs he had committed in his lifetime, was
deeply
sorry for any that might have brought hurt or harm to his fellowman. But, in truth, the greatest sorrows in his soul were mostly self-centered: He grieved the loss of his loved ones, and he grieved the desolation of his country.

Had he known a way to create remorse within himself, he would have done so. But there was a terrible deadness in his spirit that seemed beyond reach. And so he waited, strangely impassive, knowing he would swing. Other than wondering when it would come, he was not as overwhelmed by the thought as he probably should have been.