Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

Day following, January

I have set up my own cot by the fire in the Surgery & am in & out to him frequently, managing the pan, turning him, applying the ice if need be. All possible clues to his presence in the house are now with him in the room. I look at once for the little vapor from his breath, a small flag that signals good news. All the writings on this subject have been delved-we are advised to keep him abed so that no Energy is wasted in tottering about. He is patient & kind, without the urgent desire of the young for his sickness to leave off-he simply endures. My mother Bessy would so relish giving him comfort. Mother, I sometimes say aloud, as if she were near.

We are blessed of God with a day unseaonsably warm. I open the small window for ventilation-Keegan has obscured it from any outside view.

14 January

Some improvement. Fever lingering as it does in such a case. Taking beef broth. C with him frequently. Fr Dominic here overnight to help us & discuss plans to build a new parish church, yet some years away. C & I make decision to give beyond our current means.

15 January

Balfour & his thugs have come again & gone away cheated.

I am not convinced they are Health Board for they are ignorant in manner & smelled strongly of whiskey-perhaps personal associates of Balfour out to have a malicious bit of fun & turn us over to authorities.

I think how near we have come to disaster, had it not been for the three words formed with a thick nib. I am Noah who was asked to build the ark & when it was done, flood waters rushed in upon the Land.

Date?

Whipping winds two days running

I will not write here again until the lad is out of danger. It requires all our forces to tend him and the Surgery combined, for there are many patients now and a number of deaths into the bargain. I found a few holly berries in the cellar, dropped from the garlands we had made for Christmas-I remembered that Christmas passed us by as in a dream. All that is left of it is our faithful Goose, who comes again and again to pray us through these unholy times.

15 Feb

Unseasonably warm & wet

A month has gone since writing here & I am awkward as any intern. I come to these pages to report-nay, to shout IMPROVEMENT!

C & I stood yesterday at our chamber window after a downpour & beheld a most unusual sight-a rainbow above the bright shingle of the lough-in February!- & twas a double.

He will be well again, she says, taking my arm.

I slept in the room with him last night & when I awoke this morning, yes, by God, he was improved! Not hale, not hearty, but improved.

Aoife? he says. Has she come?

I open the window a crack & put on my shoes.

Brannagh is waiting to take you about in the sunshine, I say. And fat as any pig from his winter corn.

I cannot tell him of his poor mother who died in hospital the tenth day of this month with the fever. The doctors thinking it was the milk delivered in a can washed with polluted water. The contagion did not spread to Padraigin & family for they get milk delivery from another man & there had been no contact of late between households. This we learn in a letter received from P, demanding the lad be returned to him. I delay posting an answer.

He wants money, says C.

He shall not have it.

He is likely claiming himself as legal guardian, she says.

I have written my Solicitor about a number of pressing issues, not least of which is the man to manage this demesne. Even with little outdoor work to be done in winter, this small holding seems a gaping maw of thousands of acres demanding attention.

We have today moved the lad back to his old room & shall keep the turf fire going round the clock. Fiona cooking as for the Roman legions. He is but a lad, I say, stern as a cleric. She is stirring a pot of rice that would feed Mesopotamia.

She removes the spoon, slams the lid on. With a bit of cream & molasses, she says, he’ll be eatin’ th’ lot of it, mark my word.

God knows he did eat a small bowlful & I had a portion, myself.

I choose not to worry any longer about hiding the lad; we will not live in fear of fools.

I tell C-If Balfour comes sniffing about, I shall kill him.

Remember he has a child, she says, & a wife to look after.

Well then, I say, I shall but maim him for the rest of his days.

19 February 1864

A cold snap

At two this morning, I delivered Jessie of a healthy boy-nearly nine pounds! He was squalling in the little room behind the scullery as I had breakfast in the kitchen. In winter we do not take meals in the dining quarters for the perishing cold.

A lusty boy, I can say that-name of Brian, after his father whom Jessie expects each day to turn up, hat in hand, & take her away.

And where would Away be? I ask.

The Land of Plenty, sir, she says with a most cheerful smile.

And where might the Land of Plenty be found?

Why, Boston, sir, she says, & makes a small curtsy.

I tell C we should pack up our jumble & get away quickly to such a Land!

I ask the Lad if he wishes to remain with us & of course he does. Against my better judgement, I sent Keegan to Mullaghmore with an envelope, enough to put P off until we can manage the best solution.

14 March

We have taken the lad-riding upon my shoulders-to the Mass Rock & shown him the date 1774 engraved upon it & the cross beneath. The lilies we planted have sent up their green shoots, the wood is fragrant with smells of earth & leaf mold.

We do not expose this holy shrine to fools. Who can know what destruction may come upon us yet? In our prayers we remember those run to ground like fox, those for whose severed heads the English were keen to pay a shilling apiece.

The Lad gains strength & eats with increasing appetite, though he tires easily & must have a long rest following the mid-day meal. I will take him tomorrow in the cart, wrapped like a mummy as Keegan the Wether Predictor calls for Dry & Colder.

Have not seen hide nor hair of Balfour & his minions-rumour has it that Palmerston again enchants him with big doings at his Monstrous Pile.

The glad news from Dublin that P has no legal charge over the Lad. We are seeking his Father-whereabouts currently unknown.

30 April 1864

Uprooting Fiona from her kitchen pallet is kin to removing a large oak from the field, one must hoick it & burn the stump. Back they go to the Cabin, she in bad humour. Our new man arrives on Thursday with family of four. We will lodge them in the carriage house as it contains a fireplace for whatever Groom I thought we might employ. Keegan fractious. God save us from Squabble & ill temper which spread in a household like Measles.

Having a lad about is a consuming piece of business. I have put him to work two or three hours each morning as his stamina permits. He is fascinated by the common Goiter as I once was & curious about the removal of digits & limbs. The subject of Coughing is another interest & anything to do with skin disease. He studies a rash as some look at a map of the world & its many Wonders. He now has access to my microscope & is keen to examine anything at all, including maggots found in a rotten log.

The sobering matter of Last Will & Testament will be properly finalized Monday next.

Twill be the fixing of a nasty thing back to a good thing.

He closed the journal. They were quiet, pondering.

‘We can’t finish it,’ he said. ‘Maybe another round before bedtime or first thing tomorrow, but we can’t make it through.’

‘I hate to leave it-what will become of all these lives opened to us?’

‘Would be good to have a paperback edition to tuck in your hamper.’

‘Without his journal,’ she said, ‘we wouldn’t have found the painting. Hats off to Fintan.’