ISBN: 1583450254
The
Fire's Centre; A Novel of the Famine-buy!
Sorcha Mac Murrough
During the time of the Irish potato famine, a young woman takes a post at the clinic of a handsome doctor. But their growing attraction to each other is forbidden in the straight-laced society of Victorian Dublin.
I can't think of a better title for this novel, because it really sizzles. The hero is so resistant to the idea of being in love that he nearly throws away any chance of happiness with the woman who is obviously his soul mate.
Riona, on the other hand, is so intent on her desire to help the poor during the Famine, that she is willing to risk losing the only man who can set her heart afire. She can be wilful at times, but her heart is always in the right place, and the love the couple have for each other transcends all boundaries in the end. Gritty, realistic, yet romantic, this is another winner from this wonderful romance writer.
Michaela Brennan
Prologue
I think continually of those who were truly great,
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre,
Born of the sun they travelled to the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their names--
Stephen Spender
Chapter One
March 1847
Riona Connolly trudged along the muddy road, shifting the bundle on her back slightly to ease its drag on her thin shoulders. She managed to pull her shawl up over her thick auburn hair just before the torrential downpour began. Looking left and right through the pelting rain with her large sapphire blue eyes, Riona sought in vain for any sign of shelter. There were no cottages, no trees in this barren stretch of road of southern Donegal, and so far as she knew, the next town wasn't for miles yet.
She debated in her mind for a while as to whether or not she should turn back to Letterkenny, where she would at least be certain to find a stable to bed down in for the night. But the pressing need to help her family and find her father caused her to put one foot in front of the other with dogged determination.
At least she had wrapped her bundle up well in an old waterproof, she thought optimistically. It would keep the worst of the rain off her back.
But the deluge continued unabated, drenching the land, which she prayed would blossom and grow again. Riona prayed also that this year would not be one of Famine, as it had been the previous year, when the summer of 1845 had brought the Potato Blight, which had destroyed the Irish way of life and claimed thousands of victims.
Riona recalled with a shudder the day her father had taken the rotten black oozing lumps out of the patch next to their house. Then the Connolly family had known that they too were destined to suffer like all the others they had heard about all over the country. The sorry news of the grim harvest of putrid lumper potatoes unfit for man or beast had spread throughout the country like wildfire. But living so far north in Donegal, their own harvest had come later than in the rest of Ireland. They had an agonising few weeks of suspense, with her father Declan hoping they would be able to escape the blight.
Soon after the devastating blow of the rotten potatoes, had come the unbelievable news of massive evictions on an unprecedented scale. Riona, the eldest of all the girls in her family, and the middle child of eleven, had seen her family taken from her virtually overnight. They had been working on a splendid estate outside the small coastal town of Dunfanaghy, where her eldest three brothers, Padraig, Seosamh, and Martin, had worked as fishermen, while her brother Michael and herself, always the brightest, had followed in their father’s footsteps to become school teachers.
Their enlightened landlord, Mr. Woodham, the father of five, and a widower, hadn’t cared that they were Catholics. He had considered them educated enough for his three boys and two girls, and Riona and Michael had grown quite fond of their charges. Riona’s four sisters and her mother Alanna had all earned a living with their needles and other domestic chores around the estate, and the youngest boys, Finn and Earc and Bran, were carpenters, though Bran, the youngest, was still school-aged.
But soon their landlord had told the family that the taxes on the estate had been raised, and he would have to sell up. Suddenly their home and their livelihoods had vanished overnight, and the spacious cottages they had lived in had been razed to the ground. The entire Connolly clan, along with Padraig’s wife Nuala and their three small children, and Michael’s wife Emer, expecting their first child in a few month’s time, had all been forced to move a small fisherman’s cottage barely large enough for four people, let alone eighteen.
Finn, Earc and Bran, being carpenters, had built a second storey into the roof of the cottage for most of their beds, but it had been crowded up above, and very uncomfortable. But at least it had been warmer up there with all the boys and girls sleeping side by side, huddled together for warmth, than down below, where the wind whipped unmercifully under the splintered door, and the chill stone floor ran with damp. Riona’s parents, and her two brothers, and their wives, as well as their children, had all slept down below, in an effort to give them some small amount of privacy, and to ensure that the children didn’t tumble off the platform.
The eldest boys did their best to provide for the family by fishing and then trading their surplus catch for other foodstuffs, but the truth was that there was little anyone had worth trading. But they’d avoided buying food, for they’d wanted to conserve their small hoard of coins for a long as possible.
Then disaster struck in the village, with an epidemic of what became known a relapsing fever, a strange disease which often killed the victim just as they seemed to be recovering. Padraig’s three small children, his wife Nuala, and Riona’s mother Alanna, who had also been nursing them night and day, had all succumbed to the fever, as had one of her older brothers, Seosamh, and one of her younger sisters, Eilis.
Padraig, a bitter and broken man at the loss of his young family, had gone out to sea one day with her brother Martin, and they had never been seen again. The wreckage of their small fishing boat had washed up on the beach a few miles away, as had their poor bloated bodies, Riona recalled with a shudder as she marched on under the rapidly darkening sky.
But the final tragedy which had broken up the family had been the death of Michael’s wife Emer in childbirth. They had been married just one short year before, and had had the finest wedding the town had ever seen. She had lain in agony, and no matter what Riona and her sisters tried, the baby simply would not come. The doctor had been called in and had tried a forceps delivery. At last, the baby had been born, but hadn’t survived more than a few minutes.
Malnutrition and hours of long hard work in their tiny vegetable patch or by the stove had no doubt also taken their toll on poor Emer’s health. Weakened by the relapsing fever, Emer had died, and Michael had become inconsolable. His mind had wandered. Insisting he would only be a burden to everyone if he remained, he had taken to the roads one day with only the clothes on his back.
Riona’s father Declan had also suffered grievously at the loss of his wife, but had known that he ran the risk of losing his entire family if he didn’t do something to help the four girls and three boys that remained to him. Finn, Earc, and Bran continued with their carpentry, working for whomever needed them, but few people were in the market for new furniture nowadays. Nor would anyone be ordering new clothes from the girls in the near future. Declan had known starvation was fast approaching for them all.
Through all of these disasters, Riona had suffered only a small cold and chill herself, nothing more. As the eldest remaining child, she had volunteered to go look for work. But her father had relied upon Riona’s common sense to look after the others, and so had elected to go to Dublin alone himself to search for work.
As Riona trudged along the road while the storm continued unabated, she recollected her father’s arguments as clearly as though they were yesterday.
“With Michael gone, you are the eldest. I need you to look after things, to keep the family home together. I’ll find a job. I don’t care what. Then I’ll write to you, and send you whatever money I can. Check the hotel reception desk every fortnight, and you will find news of me, I promise.”
Riona had had to accept his decision, and with a heavy heart she and her brothers and sisters had said goodbye to yet another member of their beloved family.
Once Declan had gone, the small family group had settled down to the task of making what little food they did have stretch to the seven mouths left in the household. Riona had picked wild mushrooms, found cockles, winkles and mussels, and set snares for rabbits and pots for lobsters. She and her sisters tended the vegetables, and helped to fish. They had bartered their dead family members’ clothes and other possessions for flour, oats and salt. Even though they knew they were suffering, they could not help but be grateful for all they had, when they saw how many other people were dying of starvation all around them.
The relapsing and typhus fevers raged all around them, and Riona had often escaped into the woods to avoid the noisome smells of the village. It was there that she gathered herbs for their meals, and tried to recall all that her mother had told her about simple cures. Her mother had possessed the gift of healing, and for a time Riona had thought she might possess it too, until her faith in her abilities had been dented when Emer had died so horribly.
Suddenly, Riona paused and turned her head back in the direction of Letterkenny. In the distance, she thought she could hear the clatter of horses’ hooves on the rough road, and soon she espied a dim light heading towards her.
Riona looked up. The rain was still coming down in torrents. Did she dare try to get their attention, and ask for a lift? Surely if they were decent people, they wouldn’t mind her riding on the back of the coach?
She wouldn’t even leave a dog out on a night like this, she thought with a shiver, as the last rays of sunlight dipped below the horizon, and the chill spring evening tightened its icy grip. She stood by the side of the road and waved, and sure enough, the coach drew to a halt next to her, and the passenger door swung open.
“Get in quickly, before you drown,” a deep voice commanded.
“No, really sir, I can always ride on the back,” Riona protested, walking closer to the circle of light the coach gave off.
“Nonsense, child, come inside at once before you catch your death. I’m a doctor, and I have no desire to end up with a corpse at the back of the coach. Now get in,” he insisted, pulling her up by her wrist as though she were as light as a feather, and depositing her in the seat across from him. Then he pulled the door closed and banged on the roof of the carriage with the flat of his hand to signal to the driver to move on.
“Well, miss, what’s a tiny slip of a girl like you doing walking on the road at this late hour, and in the pouring rain?” the dark-haired stranger inquired, his unusual golden eyes resting upon her dripping form speculatively for a moment.
“I’m looking for my father, sir. The last I heard from him, he was working in Dublin for a family called Trevor. But we haven’t heard from him for so long now, I am beginning to wonder if he has fallen ill, or lost his place. He had been sending us money, you see, but without his assistance, and with the huge rise in prices as a result of the scarcity of food caused by the Famine, well, my brothers and sisters and I have had a terrible winter. As soon as the weather improved and the roads were free of snow, I began my journey from Dunfanaghy. That was about a week ago. So far the weather hasn’t been too bad, that is, until the sky opened up about an hour ago.”
Riona grimaced as she took off her dripping shawl and removed her parcel from her back.
“I take it you haven’t eaten, then,” the stranger asked as he took in her pitifully thin appearance.
“No, I haven’t,” Riona said with a blush.
“Then will you do the honour to dine with me when we reach Strabane?”
“But sir, I’m soaked through, and I have no wish to embarrass you,” Riona stated bluntly.
“Damn the embarrassment, child, you need to eat. But if it will make you feel better, I shall take you into a private room at an inn where you can get warm and dry, and no one shall see you,” the stranger said gruffly.
In truth he had been going to stay the night with his old friend the Earl of Abercorn at his estate Baronscourt, but he didn’t want to overwhelm the girl entirely. Furthermore, he was eager to be home in Dublin, where he was just about to open a clinic for the poor in the Liberties area of the city. If he went to see the Earl, he might be forced to linger for days for politeness’ sake.
“Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Lucien Woulfe, of Merrion Square West. And you are?”
“Riona Connolly, a former governess to Mr. Charles Woodham of Dunfanaghy.”
“A governess. I see. And what other skills do you possess?”
Riona shrugged. “Cooking, cleaning, sewing, tending the garden, growing herbs. Why?”
“Because it seems to me that you will need a post when you get to Dublin, and I may be in a position to help you,” Lucien said practically.
“No, really, sir, once I find my father....”
He smiled thinly. “Try to be realistic, Miss Connolly. What will you do if you don’t manage to find him? Starve in the streets of Dublin, instead of the streets of Dunfanaghy? Live in a workhouse?”
Riona blushed to the roots of her hair, but conceded the truth of what he was saying. “But I wasn't telling you my story to ask for charity, sir, merely to pass the time engaged in conversation,” she said shyly, and lapsed into silence in the corner, hugging her arms against her chest for warmth.
She had suddenly begun to doubt the wisdom of having accepted a lift from him; what if he were some sort of seducer?
This sudden thought occurred to her because ever since she had entered the brougham, he had done nothing but stare at her. And what woman wouldn’t fall prey to his charms? He was the handsomest man she had ever seen in her twenty-two years on the earth. How could any woman fail to be moved by his good looks?
Lucien’s black hair fell in thick, lush waves over one eye, swept over from the side, and it shimmered so darkly it was almost blue in colour. His dark brows were moderately heavy, and arched gracefully over the most unusual eyes she had ever seen, tawny gold in colour, which gave Riona the distinct impression of a tiger stalking its prey. The nose was thin, particularly narrow at the bridge, and the tip was almost razor sharp. It was not, however, too large, and suited his thin cheeks, which were completely clean-shaven. He was without the heavy sideburns which were so fashionable amongst the Victorian gentlemen she had seen, and she could see a firm jaw and chin, which possessed a deep cleft. He had even white teeth which glinted when he smiled, and his rich sonorous voice added to his already ample attractions.
His stock was of the finest linen, snowy white, and indeed all his clothing was rich, but by no means gaudy. His coat and trousers were black, his waistcoat burgundy silk, but with no fancy embroidery, merely a paisley embossed pattern. The trousers were sleekly cut, and moulded his muscular legs to perfection. Here as a man who led a busy, active life. He was, no doubt, an excellent horseman, and a wealthy, successful doctor, Riona judged.
“Do I pass muster?” Lucien asked with a gentle smile.
“I’m sorry for staring. I’m must admit, I am trying to think what could possibly be your motives for helping me,” Riona stated candidly.
Lucien was not oblivious to Riona’s feminine charms, but he was not about to point this out, any more that he was going to admit that though her face was lovely, she was far too thin, and at the moment closely resembled a sodden scarecrow rescued from a mud bath.
So he simply declared, “I’ve told you, I’m looking for someone to help at my clinic. With your knowledge and skills you might be just the right person.”
Riona frowned, and huddled closer into the corner of the seat. “What knowledge and skills do you think I would possess that would be of any use to you?”
“For one thing, Miss Connolly, you can obviously read and write, you can cook and sew, and you told me that you grew plants and herbs. I am willing to bet you have knowledge of all sorts of useful remedies I could use in my new clinic.”
“Well, now that you mention it, my mother did teach me a great deal of what she had learnt over the years before she died,” Riona admitted.
Lucien smiled. “You see, I knew it. What could be more perfect for you than working at my clinic?”
Riona considered all he had said in silence for a moment before replying. At length she admitted, “Well, if I can’t find my father, I suppose I shall have to find a post somewhere as governess, in order to send money home to my brothers and sisters. We have been doing our best to live frugally, but it’s so hard with all of them to feed. I didn’t take more than a pound out of our funds, just in case they should need anything.”
“If you give me the name of the establishment, I shall send money to the hotel in Dunfanaghy for them. That way they needn’t wait. In exchange, all you have to do is promise to work for me for a month. At the end of that time, if you’ve found your father, all very well and good. If not, then you can stay on with me if you like, or I can make enquiries for you for a post, if the work I give you doesn’t suit,” he proposed.
“Oh really, sir, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,” Riona replied anxiously.
“It’s no trouble at all. I shall give you food and lodging, and some clothes for work, so you may keep your pound for any little necessities you might need. I shall send the rest. If you earned, say, sixty pounds a year at your old job,” Lucien said, quoting an impossibly high figure. “I shall send five pounds, which will represent one month’s salary.”
Riona laughed incredulously. “Really, sir, I never earned that much.”
“All the same, I don’t like cheating my workers,” Lucien insisted, and though he knew his sum was far too high, he secretly resolved to send not five pounds but twenty-five. He hated to think of all her brothers and sister worrying, scrimping and saving. It was a miracle as many of them had survived thus far, if the reports he had heard about the severity of the Famine were true.
Reluctantly, Riona agreed to his proposal. “Well, thank you, sir. I’ll do my best to please you.”
“I warn you, though, I have only a humble bachelor’s establishment, mind, since my father died several years ago. My old uncle Oliver lives in the family home down in Wicklow, and I have a town house. We have a property up in Donegal as well, though it isn’t used now. I have one brother, who has a family, but I don’t really see them very much. Always busy with work, you know,” he explained.
“One brother?” Riona asked, marvelling at the small family. There had been many of them growing up, some would have said that there were too many mouths to feed, but Riona wouldn’t have parted with one of her siblings for anything in the world.
“Yes, two years younger than myself, called Quentin. He’s married to Antoinette. They have two children, a boy, Neville, who is eight, and a girl, Lisette, who is seven. Who knows, perhaps they might need a governess one day soon. The woman they have now is fine for the moment, but she is rather old and cranky,” Lucien said with a laugh.
They continued to make small talk with one another the remaining miles to Strabane, and Riona was astonished at how easy she found it to talk to the gentleman. He seemed so unaffected, without airs and graces of any kind, though it was evident he was vastly wealthy.
Lucien, for his own part, was even more astonished at how easy Riona was to converse with. He was able to account for this by observing to himself that since she was of a lower class than himself, it was less threatening than having an unguarded personal conversation with a woman of his own standing. All of them viewed him simply as an incredibly eligible bachelor and a noble enough conquest.
This young woman was a good listener who seemed genuinely interested in all he had to tell her, especially when he mentioned the clinic and the amount of suffering he had seen since the Famine had started eighteen months before, when people had started flocking into the already overcrowded slums of Dublin, the Liberties, to look for work. Riona asked many intelligent questions, and when she admitted she had never been to the capital, Lucien highlighted for the terrible urban deprivation which was endemic in Dublin.
“We have factory workers, brewery workers, dock workers, all labouring long hours, and swarms of people coming to Dublin looking for jobs and shelter, only to be turned away. Many of them have no skills to speak of, having never known anything other than farm work. With them they bring dirt and disease, yet they are crowded into the slums and workhouses to die.
“I am sure the dirt is part of the plight. Doctors in the past believed diseases could be transmitted in all sorts of ways. Why couldn’t they be passed along through dirt and bad air, damp conditions, and the conditions in the streets, which are running with filth, animal and human waste?” Lucien argued cogently.
Riona nodded, listening to his every word with interest.
“People say the potato blight came through the air,” Lucien continued. “People reported bad smells, like sulphur, and a black mist. The weather was also particularly damp all of last year. I’ve seen the worst cases of disease in crowded houses where the people are all huddled together for warmth, and the walls are running with damp. It can’t be a coincidence. That’s why I wanted to start a clinic, to give these people a warm dry place where they could get cleaned up, get good food inside of them, and hopefully recover.
“But it has been hard getting charity subscriptions, and I doubt many doctors will be willing to work there. There is of course prestige in being involved with a well-funded charity clinic, but it will mean long hours and horrendous cases. I have to make staff selections when I go back, and I dread to think what some of them will be like, arrogant, overbearing, upper-class, you know....” Lucien trailed off with an impatient gesture of his hand.
Riona, though listening avidly, at this point began to shiver in her sodden clothes. Lucien immediately moved over to her side and threw his cloak around the both of them.
“I say, here I am going on about warmth and dryness, and there you are soaked though. Here, lean up against me for warmth. We’ll soon be in Strabane, and I’ll order you a hot bath.”
“No, sir, really, don’t trouble yourself on my account,” she said, alarmed by his nearness.
“It’s no trouble at all. We don’t want you to catch a chill, not if you are going to be working for me, now do we?” he said reasonably.
Riona continued the conversation, as much because she found it stimulating, as to prevent it from taking any intimate turn as he continued to sit so close beside her.
“What you were just saying a minute ago about diseases and how they can be passed on to other was very interesting. We’ve had fever in our house, and I am sure it is because of the crowded conditions we had to suffer after we lost our house on the estate when Mr. Woodham sold it. I wouldn’t want to pass anything on to you. I would be grateful for a bath at the inn, if we are staying over night, but in the meantime, please don’t sit so close to me,” Riona urged.
Lucien was surprised, but he could see she was making the request out of a sincere desire to avoid putting him at risk, rather than from maidenly bashfulness. He wrapped the cloak more tightly around her, and moved to the opposite side of the carriage then, where he resumed his conversation until the coach driver gave a shout that they were approaching Strabane.
“There we are, we’ll soon get you warm and fed.”
“I’ll have the bath first and then hurry down to join you,” Riona proposed.
“No, no, that wouldn’t do at all. Your hair will still be wet, and the downstairs rooms might be chilly. I think it best if you have your meal in your room,” Lucien argued as he began to gather up his hat and several other items from the interior of the coach.
“But it seems so rude, to not join you after your kind invitation,” Riona said shyly.
“Well, we could have the meal by your fireside, if you had no objections, I mean, if it didn't seem too informal and forward of me to suggest it,” Lucien added hastily, as he looked at her sapphire blue eyes, which positively glowed.
“No, not at all. I shall have a good long soak, and we shall have the meal at say, nine?” Riona suggested.
He nodded agreeably. “That will certainly give me enough time to do one or two errands here in the town, and get washed and changed myself.”
Descending from the coach outside the inn, he helped her down. He took her small parcel from her, and then issued instructions to the inn’s landlord as they made their way up the stairs to their rooms.
Riona noticed as she stepped down onto the ground that Lucien towered over her by at least a foot. She found this fact comforting, rather than threatening. He had a very reassuring manner, and she felt certain that he meant her no harm. It was a luxury for her to someone else take charge for a change, and so she made no demur at any of the arrangements he made for their stay. She could only remark to herself how lucky she was to have met such thoughtful, thorough man, even if she suspected he was also one accustomed to getting his own way.
The landlord beamed and said nothing was too much trouble for Dr. Woulfe. He found them two of the best rooms, right next to one another on the second floor. Servants immediately began scuttling to and fro with hot water to fill Riona’s bath. After having put her things in her room, Lucien went to his own to deposit his personal articles on the bed, and then waylaid one of the serving girls.
“Excuse me, but could you tell me if there is a good sempstress in the town?”
“Yes, Maggie Mitchell, who has a small shop just behind Main Street, in a small mews,” the girl replied.
“Good. Can you go next door to the young lady’s room, and remove all her articles of clothing from her bundle, and take them downstairs to be boiled and scrubbed? But before you do that, take one of the cleaner articles and bring it here to me, so I can determine her size,” Lucien instructed.
The girl stared at him for a minute and then nodded. In a few more minutes she came back with a plain brown dress, not cheap, but certainly having seen better days, and handed it to him.
“Thank you, my dear. Now, I’ll want some hot water up here myself in about half an hour. As soon as I come back with some new clothes, please put them in Miss Connolly’s room. Then help her dress, and make sure she eats. Tell her to start without me, but make sure these items are on her tray.”
Lucien listed milk, bread, only a pat of butter, a small amount of fish, some vegetables, and rice, since the girl told him there were no potatoes to be had.
“But no sauces, is that clear?” he insisted.
The girl promised to do as she had been instructed, and Lucien strode out towards the shop the girl had directed him to, leaving Riona to take her bath and settle into her room.