The Whitest Flower. Brendan Graham

him, waiting for him, waiting to cover his hands with its black clinging cloyingness.

      The more diseased potatoes he uncovered, the more the stench of them filled the air about him, until his body recoiled from carrying on. But carry on he did, as did the others, desperation driving them to turn every last handful of earth, to uproot every last stalk.

      Time after time they were defeated, but still they persisted in the heartbreaking task. It was as if even one good potato would be a sign of hope. A sign that all was not irretrievably lost.

      Fate, however, did not afford the three diggers even that slender thread of comfort. When they finally finished, they remained on their knees, aching and blackened, united in despair.

      ‘It can only be the work of the devil himself,’ Michael finally said.

      The others nodded. Then all three silently raised their heads in grim prayer to the glowering heavens.

      It did not seem to them that the heavens listened.

      Ellen and the children waited for Michael at the foot of the mountain. The wait seemed to go on forever. Black rain clouds gathered over the top of the mountain, throwing dark shadows down its side. Feeling Katie and Mary shivering against her, Ellen had just decided it was time to bring the children inside when Patrick shouted, ‘No, wait – there they are!’

      She strained her eyes to the place where the three men should have been, but whether they had stepped into shadow or one of the many little crevices, she could not make them out until minutes later they breasted a rocky ridge.

      They were making slow progress. At first Ellen thought that they must be dead weary, the way they weren’t looking up at all, trudging head-down, keeping close together.

      When he caught sight of her, Roberteen ran on ahead, anxious to be first with the important news. ‘It’s the same above as below,’ he said.

      Then she saw the look on the faces of the other two men.

      ‘Every last one of them is gone … gone into a stinking mess of pulp. Not even a beast could eat them,’ Martin Tom Bawn said to her as he approached.

      She looked at Michael.

      ‘It’s not good, Ellen – not good at all,’ was all he could say.

       5

      ‘Damn his impudence!’ Sir Richard Pakenham slapped the letter he had been holding. ‘It is impossible to get an honest answer out of this new breed of scientists without also getting a lecture.’

      The master of Tourmakeady Lodge threw the letter from Dublin’s Botanic Gardens on to the walnut-topped writing desk at which he was sitting. That dashed Scotsman, Moore, should never have been made curator. What were the Royal Dublin Society thinking of – appointing someone who took two months to reply to a simple question about roses? And when he did deign to reply, it was to pronounce the soil at Tourmakeady possibly ‘unfit for roses in any event’.

      And Tourmakeady Lodge with a garden full of roses, the finest this side of Victoria’s palace.

      He tugged at the bell-rope. Where was that serving girl? It was long past tea-time. Didn’t anything work in this accursed country?

      While he waited, the landlord picked up the Mayo Telegraph.

      ‘More tirades against landlords, I expect,’ he mumbled to himself, knowing by now the editorial stance of that newspaper on such matters. Wearily he put it down again without reading a word, and picked up the Mayo Constitution instead. At least the Constitution would give him a non-papist view of local events. An account of Daniel O’Connell’s recent visit to Castlebar caught his eye. ‘The Liberator, indeed! The last thing we need here is him and his damned Repeal movement exciting the populace.’

      He was pleased, however, to read that Lord Lucan and some of the other magistrates of Castlebar had succeeded in having the Liberator’s public platform removed on the grounds that it would ‘obstruct the public passage’. ‘Good for Lucan!’ he laughed, ‘and too good for O’Connell – “obstruct the public passage” – there’s a rub!’

      In much better fettle, he returned to the Mayo Telegraph. The spirit which a few moments prior had buoyed him up soon evaporated as he read the front page.

      The disease which now so formally threatens our own country last year destroyed three-fourths of the potato crop of the United States of America, as well as a large proportion of those of France, Germany, Belgium and Holland; and whatever be the mysterious origin of the disease, whether it is to be found in fly or fungus, it is but too plain that no effectual remedy against it has thus far been devised in any of the countries which it has afflicted.

      ‘There it is!’ he said aloud, in such a manner as to cause an already nervous Bridget Lynch, arriving with His Lordship’s tea, to jump back in alarm.

      Bridget waited, silver salver at the ready.

      ‘That’s what that scoundrel in the Botanic Gardens should be about. Instead of writing impudent letters, he should set to finding a remedy for this blight.’

      ‘Sir, your tea …’

      ‘Get out, get out – I don’t want tea now!’ Pakenham bellowed, waving the girl away.

      As she hurriedly closed the door behind her, she heard the sound of a newspaper being torn, and Pakenham shouting, ‘Where’s my pen? Damned botanist. He’ll not have the last word with me!’

      Mrs Bottomley, the housekeeper at Tourmakeady Lodge, had heard the commotion from the kitchen. As soon as Bridget arrived below stairs she rounded on her: ‘Did you spill the tea, girl?’

      ‘No, ma’am, I did not,’ Bridget replied, a hint of defiance in her voice. ‘It was some letter he got. He chased me out of the room, not wanting his tea, after all.’

      Mrs Bottomley’s hard stare remained fixed on the girl, forcing her to explain further.

      ‘He was in one of those “thundering rages”, ma’am.’

      ‘Well then, you better tidy yourself up and fix your hair. You know how he gets after he’s been in a temper. He’ll need you to take his port up to him. Shame such a fine nobleman as him never got married. Get along now, Bridget, see to, and be ready when he sends for you.’ It was the housekeeper’s duty to see that His Lordship’s needs were met, and not to pass any judgements. That’s the way things were. Sir Richard had kept all of them in their positions, not least herself, despite mutterings she had heard about large debts mounting on the estate. Where would they be without him? If those lazy tenants of his stirred themselves and produced more, and paid the rents on time, maybe then His Lordship might not be in such dire financial straits.

      Sir Richard, having exhausted the newspapers, turned to the two unopened letters before him. Which to read first? It mattered not a curse, he thought. He knew the contents: the gentlemanly yet patronizing tone employed by both Coutts, his bankers, and Crockford’s, his club. Knew that the language, however carefully couched, led unerringly to the bottom line: his debts.

      He first flicked through the letter from Coutts: Beg to advise you … Your Lordship may have overlooked … most earnestly … long outstanding … early remittance of same … sum of twenty-three thousand pounds.

      Pakenham crushed the letter in his fist and tossed it away. He was not too concerned about the bank; such demands were not unusual these days. Why, most of Ireland’s land-owners were in a state of indebtedness to London banks and living at a level of credit well beyond any viable income-to-debt ratio. Repayment of the loans was therefore impossible – unless, of course, one sold up, or succeeded in extracting further rents from those lazy wretches of tenants.

      Like the rest of Ireland’s landed gentry, Sir Richard Pakenham was asset-rich but cash-poor, starved of