In the Company of Others Read online

  Christ behind me, Christ before me,

  Christ beside me, Christ to win me,

  Christ to comfort & restore me,

  Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

  Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

  Christ in hearts of all that love us,

  Christ in mouth of friend & stranger.

  Sometime in all the pomp I stood & gave a talk of sorts shouted at the top of my lungs & felt nearly faint for it. It is not what I do best, oratory.

  And then Danny Moore brought out his fiddle & soon the dancing began & the lifting of cups to the doctor & his good wife & even to the Great Kettle for its bounty, after which began the pony rides & as C later said, twas the Pandemonium after all!

  I was at last filling my plate when Rose McFee sought me out--the sight of her was astonishing. The left jaw was swollen beyond belief for such a scrawny face as was now wrenched with suffering. Without a word she opened her maw & pointed to the black cavern within. I reeled from the stench.

  Have it out! she commands. 't is a savage pain--I can bear it no longer.

  Now, Rose, I say, I am no puller of teeth. Your man Aidan Murphy is the one for that--I saw him only minutes ago at Biddy Fitzgerald's mouth.

  He wants a shilling, she says. An' he's known to yank th' bloody wrong one out. Then you're left with th' misery you had in th' first place an' back ye trot to th' oul' dosser for th' real thing.'

  Heaven only knows what Germs might be loosed upon the Region while mucking about in so monstrous a hole. I was after giving her two bob for Murphy & be done with it when she says, Do ye see y'r man Balfour didn't come to y'r feast?

  Yes, yes. A weight gone off us all!

  Ye can thank me f'r that, if ye please.

  And why would I thank ye for that?

  For all he done to ye, she says, I set a curse on 'is privates.

  The ructions caused here by Balfour had been noised about to the entire Region.

  She gives me one of her dooming looks. Ye owe me th' comfort I'm after, she says.

  And would ye do such a thing to me, Rose, if I decline what you're askin'?

  Ye niver want to learn th' answer to that, she says, wincing with pain.

  I confess I trembled. How shall we do it then? I say.

  Nippers is what I'd say. But if you've not th' spunk to do it I'll do it meself an' th' devil with ye.

  I grew faint as any woman. I can amputate a limb or remove a rotten appendix, but a tooth is another matter altogether & especially if residing in the mouth of Rose McFee for nigh a century.

  I looked about for C or A, but did not see them. Thus I passed my dinner plate off to another, all appetite quelled for the day if not Eternity itself.

  In the Surgery I lit the lantern & hung it above the chair & she tipped her balding head back upon the slat. I washed my hands & looked in, holding her mouth on either side & prayed my own dear Mother would assist me in this Torment.

  In a region of severe dental disease, I had never seen such an orifice--its contents but one black stump in a perilous swelling of the lower left quadrant. I held my breath against the reek & covered her withered chest with a scrap of linen.

  Are ye fearful, Rose McFee? The sweat poured off me.

  Do as ye must, she says.

  We'll pull it with the nippers, I say, then lance the abcess & drain it. Try not to swallow til after we rinse or ye'll be fillin' yourself with poison.

  Out comes the ould stump like a cabbage in November.

  Aye, God! she says.

  Spit, I say, holding the bowl. Rinse, I say, offering the cup. I regretted my failure to tie on an apron.

  When she puts her head back again I slit the angry gum & Great God what a letting of blood & pus--it splatters my shirt front as if flung from a bucket. She reels off a thoroughly medicinal amount of Irish epithets.

  I hold the bowl, offer the cup, relieved that my hands have stopped their palsy.

  I'm going to press your cheek, now, I say, at the point of the abcess--we must force it all out of there. Are you with me, Rose McFee?

  I'm with ye, ye brute!

  There comes a gurgling sound as air & fluid are expressed. I vow never again to do such hog butchering.

  I washed up then sterilized a needle at the flame of the lamp & pushed the tip of it in where the pain was originating. Again the bloody pus pouring forth & the spitting & gargling & supplications to the Holy Mother & Her Blessed Son.

  When the worst of it was past, I did as I'd seen Mother do--swabbed her mouth with peroxide, then fetched a potato from the cellar with instructions to peel & cut it up & every two hours hold a piece against the incision to draw out infection.

  May God himself give ye a blessin', she says.

  I sent her off with a vial of peroxide & further instructions & went up to scrub myself & dress again. I noted the sense of satisfaction God sends often enough to keep a man at such a calling.

  The dancing continued beneath a three-quarter moon until nearly midnight, with the Moore sisters singing til spent. All the Sweets had vanished & even the crumbs. Trageser's Great Kettle hung dry above the coals, & gathered from around the spits & piled in baskets for the road home were the bones--every half-starved dog & not a few children & elders would have the amusement of them on the morrow.

  Little by little & save for Father Dominic who would abide with us overnight, they went their way, carrying sleeping children, a few swinging lanterns--we stood at the open windows of the parlor, listening to the rattle of carts in the lane, the nickering of a horse or pony. Some reeled & staggered, some sang until they passed out of hearing, whole families lay down by the lane to sleep until sun up--but all went away as happy as we had human ability to make them.

  A clearly does not fancy herself a beauty, which adds to her grace. In her frock the color of peaches stirred with cream, she was a sight such as I have never before seen & such as words could never express.

  To Mass tomorrow, the Feast Day of The Blessed Virgin.

  19 August

  Unseasonal damp & chill

  From dawn until dusk yesterday, the new Surgery received a horde of visitors--many out of simple curiosity, for it was not opened to the publik on our own Feast Day, except to Rose McFee. To abuse the Damp, we kept a turf fire on the Hearth which gave a note of Cheer to sick and hale alike. One old fellow stood hat over heart, looking about with Wonder. He swore he had never seen a lovelier place outside the sanctuary at Drumcliff!

  Lovelier than Palmerston's place? I jest.

  Th' divil with Palmerston, he says, offended, & curses the name of England's former Prime Minister whose work at Classiebawn is a spectacle of men & materials. Twill be a castle, they say, brooding on its barren ridge & claiming the eye for miles around.

  As I earlier refused to doctor beasts, I must now refuse requests for dental doctoring--my fame has rapidly spread & I shall likely be pestered unto death. A woman came at me this morning with her mouth open wide as any cellar door.

  C & I feeling our great age, myself of 52 years, she of 48.

  At a little past noon today, Balfour sent his man to summon me.

  I must come at once, he said, to see his master. When I inquired after the trouble, the fellow looked abashed. A scaldin' stream, he said.

  I took Adam & arrived at half past one o'clock to see Balfour in his bed chamber. Would I wish such a Pox on my worst enemy? I would not. I did what I could & learned from a stable boy that Balfour spends a deal of time hanging about Palmerston's work site which is largely a pile of Donegal stone. He says B treks the 40-odd miles horseback every other fortnight & lodges in taverns. Good riddance.

  While there, I was enjoined to see half the population of Balfour's place--they lined up belowstairs, man, woman & child, with everything from goiter to blood in the stool & ructions of the gut. I was then summoned upstairs to Balfour's wife & her Diarrhea. Having no ready Nostrum I must go again on the morrow. I learned from a doctor in Phila. that Mr. Jefferson was
afflicted much of his life with Diarrhea. How in God's name a man could be so discomfited & yet give speeches & attend fine dinners, I do not know.

  While I was away, C answered at the Surgery & kept A as busy as any bee.

  Nephew & the lad were fishing, it is said.

  C experiencing a return of the headaches suffered so frequently in Philadelphia. I have sent to Dublin for Passiflora Incarnata which works chiefly upon the nervous system & is said to be relieving of the Sick Headache. It should come up to Sligo by train in the next week or so.

  20 August

  A lowering sky

  Keegan has told me he will wed in September--the Bride being Fiona, our Head Cook at the Feast. He says I should consider both of us lucky men as he will have a wife to cure him of his long face, & C & I will have an able Cook & House Keeper. You could not do better, he says, in the whole of Ireland. He confesses he has looked both far & near for a suitable Wife & there she stood in the kitchen under his very nose, baking 40 Loaves as easy as rolling off a log. Her husband has been dead these four years & no children--a fact which relieves Keegan for he has little patience with the Young. I was obliged to get out the whiskey & sat with him in some amusement as he told his tale of Courtship over a period of but four days thus far--to a woman seven years his senior & easily twice his girth.

  Keegan says it came about the day before the Feast--he had passed through the kitchen & nicked off a chunk of dough to mollify his famishing hunger. When caught in the act he says a large woman flew at him with an iron rolling pin which she vowed to use if he laid another hand on her rising dough. He replied that he would make her dough rise, bedad. Thus commenced a chase down the stairs & through the lower halls & when she was nearly upon him he surrendered by waving a scullery rag. He says he was taken prisoner then & they fell down together laughing. I did not press him for Details.

  I am eager to have Sukey's Philadelphia Cookery book put to use here. A freed mulatto slave brought from Jamaica to America by Uncle, Sukey was a cook like nothing known before or since. Thus my earnest inquiry of Keegan--Can Fiona read? He assures me with a gushing pride that she can both read & sign her name with a flourish.

  I have found Keegan a decent judge of character but suggest he move forward with caution. He says he has waited many years for such a stirring as Fiona provokes & declines the proper use of either Patience or Common Sense. He is merry as a whiskey priest--& this a man inclined to be sour as a Protestant.

  Two large roasting hens, a pike & the greater portion of a ham employed this late afternoon at our supper for eight. The infant was brought to table with his mother & cried bitterly the whole duration. The lad has hardly spoken a word & looks at me with doleful eyes.

  As C passed up to bed this evening with another of her Headaches, I observe her lips & fingers moving. What are you doing? I ask.

  I am counting the days, she says.

  20 September

  Mild

  I cannot but wonder why the War between the American States is of such grave concern, disturbing my sleep. C says it is a simple matter--I thrived on the Hospitality of that Soil for thirty-three years & became the ardent supporter of its many just causes. Yet in these years at Lough Arrow I have sought to invest all my powers--of hope & strength & knowledge & affection--in the dire needs of my own people. If this incendiary conflict were indeed roused by the right or wrong of slavery I would side with the North. But as in everything in this world it is but Greed & more Greed which requires the issue of slavery to mask the wicked truth.

  May God have mercy upon Union & Confederate troops alike, & upon President Lincoln in this crucifying Struggle.

  Balfour's condition appears remedied. I would have him feel indebted to me--but we shall see. I have diagnosed his wife's condition as stemming from a disreputable kitchen & have advised the frequent sterilizing of knife blades, basins & tableware. This counsel met with eyebrows raised to the brim of her cap. Thus any good I might have done with Balfour may be undone by my bold come-uppance of their Yorkshire cook & scullery maids.

  As Nephew has lodged with us many days beyond the month, I ask when he intends returning home. He says he is having difficulty getting the carriage brought out. I say I will send Keegan to inquire though it will be some days hence, as Keegan is to wed tomorrow at noon.

  I believe Keegan expected me to rouse a celebration but C & I not yet recovered from the one roused earlier. I will provide a fair portion of whiskey, & tobacco to lift a haze over the celebrants. C will send ahead a large pot of Apple Dumplings. I've no more to give, she says--I am given out.

  21 September

  A grand day

  I took some time in making my toilet this morning & was dashed when I looked in the mirror to comb my graying beard. It is every morning of every day that I look upon this face & yet this time saw it more soberly.

  My brow displays the furrows of a potato field! I examine my pate--tis growing as bald as Uncles--& recall that Father possessed a head of hair to equal any privet hedge. It must be true that the persecution of baldness travels down the maternal line. At the long mirror in the upper hall, I pause to judge my physique. Taller, in the main, than most & fit enough--with no paunch thanks to God. I do heartily despise the paunch.

  Having a few minutes to spare I sit to this journal--it has become a warm friend who hears all, sees all & forgives all.

  Keegan's Bride will be moving into the little room next to the Surgery as she's 'after being close to the housekeeping.' It was never meant to lodge two people, but we have nonetheless furnished these tight Quarters with a good bed, a floor mat, two chairs & a bureau. The turnips & potatoes have more room in their cellar than the newlyweds will enjoy in this cranny. Fiona to bring 'a wee drop' of her own things, according to Keegan. We will then be at full house until Nephew & his legions depart, please God.

  Speaking of the legions, they wish to accompany us to the Wedding today. How on earth we are all to be transported I cannot say--I shall not risk the ruination of my Carriage by adding even one more passenger to the load over four miles of rough track. As to why they must attend the Wedding of a complete stranger, I posit they are following the scent of Whiskey & Apple Dumplings.

  Late evening--

  As Adam cast a shoe this morning & no time to remedy the circumstance, there was naught to do but walk, as Little Dorrit is not yet broke to the Carriage. I had managed to round up a wagon for the Multitudes but the women of that party declined such a rough amenity & then C was stricken with the Headache. All this whittled our party to Nephew & the lad & myself. Knowing that A had looked forward eagerly to the occasion, I asked C if I might take her along. C was lying on the chaise & did not turn her head. As you please, she said.

  The lad who seldom utters a sound became a regular magpie along the route.

  Do ye have th' Wee Folk? he says, casting his gaze about in the hedges. He wore his stubbed shoes slung about his neck by means of the laces tied together.

  I'm afraid I don't believe in Wee Folk, I say.

  He looks at me with astonishment, then recovers himself & says deferentially, They're there nonetheless.

  We walk on & he says, Aren't they, Aoife?

  A looks at me, suppressing a smile. I wager she believes in them.

  Twas the peach frock she wore & the shoes her Father made.

  23 September

  God have mercy. The wee drop that accompanied Fiona was a wagon load piled to the heavens. I have never seen such a look on C's face as the whole of it appeared in the lane pulled by a horse nearly dead from privation. Then came more than several of the Missus Keegan's women friends & their children skipping along behind with a passel of dogs & a pig at the rear.