Land of a Thousand Dreams Read Online Free PDF

anxiety.
    Evan knew beyond all doubt that her desire for a child was more for him than for her. She seemed not to hear him when he insisted that he could not possibly want anything more than what he already had. He loved her, and he adored Daniel and the Fitzgerald children as if they were his own. He needed nothing more than his dear Nora and their readymade family.
    The truth was—and this he would not tell her—that the very idea of Nora’s bearing a child frightened him. He deliberately kept his fear to himself, thinking it best that she not know of his uneasiness should the time come when she did conceive.
    He would love the child, of course. He would be proud and happy and grateful, would feel all the things he imagined any normal man must feelupon becoming a father. But there was no denying the fact that his fear for Nora’s safety far outweighed any desire on his part for a child.
    Childbirth was a mystery that frankly terrified him. His father, a rural clergyman, had buried many a woman who had died either during her confinement or during the delivery itself. While Nora seemed to have regained most of her health, Evan still sensed she was not overly strong. How could she be, after months of starvation and a bout with scarlet fever that had almost claimed her life?
    What if she should conceive? What would it do to her to carry a child, to give birth?
    What if he were to lose her?
    The wind rattled the window. Instinctively, he pulled Nora more closely against him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he cherished the soft warmth of her body next to his, the gentle fragrance of her hair against his cheek.
    As was so often the case, her closeness made his heart swell with thanksgiving. He had waited all these years to love a woman and to be loved. Yet none of his dreams had ever come close to the reality of the bliss he had found with Nora. There was nothing in the world worth the risk of losing her. Nothing. Not even a child of his own.
    Perhaps he was being selfish and small-minded. If a child meant all that much to her, shouldn’t he at least try to share her longing, encourage her dream?
    She sighed in her sleep, and he touched his lips to her hair. His entire world was right here, beside him. He wasn’t sure he could pretend to want more. Yet, for Nora’s sake, he knew that he would try.

3
    A Radical Nun at Nelson Hall
    What is there in man, frail clay and dust,
That will rise and die for a cause,
Yet cower and cringe like a motherless cur
When a Good Woman unmasks his flaws?
    MORGAN FITZGERALD (1848)
    Dublin, Ireland
    I t was just past dawn, but Morgan Fitzgerald had been at his desk in the library for nearly an hour.
    The shooting incident of a year past that had left his legs paralyzed had also served to make him a light sleeper. Most days he rose before daybreak and, with Sandemon’s help, was dressed and at his writing or other tasks by the time the sun rose.
    It seemed an ordinary morning. A pot of Sandemon’s robust, scalding coffee waited on the sideboard near the desk, and the most recent installment from Joseph Mahon’s journal was spread out in front of him.
    He took a deep sip of coffee, raising one eyebrow at the strength of the stuff. He drank tea less frequently since Sandemon’s arrival at Nelson Hall. But, then, he reflected dryly, the West Indies Wonder had been successful in modifying a number of his former habits—not the least of which was his affinity for the whiskey.
    With his pen still in hand, he turned back to the journal. For some months now, he had been editing the Mayo priest’s account of the famine. As yet he had not divulged his intentions to Joseph, but Morgan was convinced this painstakingly detailed, agonizing record of one parish’s suffering must be published. Moreover, he was determined to see it printed across the sea as well as in Ireland.
    The papers before him contained the reality of Ireland’s tragedy, captured in this