Dark Rosaleen Read Online Free PDF Page B

is. I saw the report on your desk this morning. I know what it says. Tell them what it says.’
    ‘Go, Kathryn. I order you to leave this instant.’
    ‘I saw it, Father,’ she shouted. ‘From your own men in Moyarta and Carrigholt. They said that so many tenants are being evicted it is a disaster. They said that over a hundred homes have been tumbled this week alone – this week, Father, the week before Christmas! Dozens of families have been thrown onto the road to live like wild animals without food and shelter, while we sit pigging ourselves. And here in our pantry we have the largest turkey in Ireland.’
    Sir William rose unsteadily to his feet, kicking his chair aside. But Kate had already run to the door, pushing past Moran and his silver tray before her tears began. She slammed it shut on a shocked and silent room of men who knew well enough the truth of what she had said. And, with one young exception, were committed to keeping it a secret.

    It snowed hard that night, and all the following day and night too. No one, whatever their age or fondness for exaggeration, could ever remember such a fall. On the fourth night the river froze and ships’ crews had to hack their way through ice in the Mahon to reach the deeper water of the outer harbour. People said it was coming straight from Russia and predicted a ferocious January. For the first two weeks of the new year, 1846, it snowed without pause.
    Kate had been confined to the house by the weather and, since the embarrassment of the dinner, by her father. He had called the doctor, who was pleased to confirm Sir William’s suspicion that she was over-tired and stressed, which helped explain her quite out-of-character behaviour. If she could not sleep, the doctor would prescribe a draught and if she continued to be depressed, he suggested company. He had a daughter of her age who would be delighted to come in the afternoons and play cards.
    Kate sat by the window of the drawing room that overlooked the long sweep of the south garden. Its delicately cultured divisions, the herbaceous borders, the box hedges, the manicured lawns and the gravelled drive had all become one, the gardener’s long summer labours now submerged in a prairie of white.
    She might once have thought it beautiful. Now she could only look at the fine line of oaks and firs that marked the edge of the estate and think of the misery beyond it.
    ‘They will die out there, like sheep trapped in a wintry ditch.’
    Kate turned to the voice behind her. She was not alarmed. It was not strange to her. It belonged to her new and only ally, the young Captain John Shelley. From the night of the dinner’s commotion, over three weeks before, they had become secret friends and since she had been forbidden to leave the house, he was now her only source of comfort and information. They had been careful not to show their bond in her father’s presence and met only at times when the house was empty of all but the servants. They were sure that no one knew of their alliance but they were wrong. The Reverend Martineau had them watched. The young captain had shown himself to be emotional and provocative. His sympathies were in doubt and the Reverend had made it a priority to establish the young Englishman’s allegiances, one way or the other.
    Captain Shelley said, ‘Yes, Kate, they are already dying out there, more and more every day. Three cartloads of them were brought into the city yesterday. I was called to register them. Their homes had been tumbled and many were decent properties. They were barely clothed and so weak they could not walk.’
    ‘Where are they now?’
    ‘In the workhouse. But I doubt they will last the week.’ He sat by her and took her hand. He was pale and his eyes were red-rimmed.
    ‘Kate. You must be the first to know this. I am about to resign my position. I cannot do what I have to do any longer. I see the reality and I write my reports on what I see without exaggeration. My God!