The Escape From Home Read online

  For Linda Cruse Wright

  Contents

  Title page

  Dedication

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1850

  1. A Knock at the Door

  2. The Man in Black Delivers a Message

  3. In Which the Letter Is Read

  MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 1851

  4. January in Kilonny

  5. Mr. Morgan Comes

  6. On the Road to Cork

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1851

  7. The City of Cork

  8. Ireland Left Behind

  9. In London, England

  10. Albert’s Response

  11. Laurence Alone

  12. Through London Fog

  13. An Arrest Is Made

  14. An Investigation Is Begun

  15. Of Muffins and Names

  16. Mr. Pickler Takes Action

  17. A Secret Consultation

  18. Mr. Clemspool Has Another Visitor

  19. A Conversation Overheard

  20. On the London-to-Liverpool Train

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1851

  21. Mr. Pickler at Home

  22. Maura and Patrick on the Liverpool Boat

  23. Laurence on the Liverpool Train

  24. The Queen of the West Reaches Liverpool

  25. A Liverpool Lodging

  26. Some Troubling Thoughts

  27. Laurence and Mr. Clemspool Reach Liverpool

  28. At Mrs. Sonderbye’s Lodging House

  29. Laurence Awakens

  30. Mr. Clemspool Attends to Business

  31. Darkness in Liverpool

  32. Laurence Reacts

  33. Mr. Drabble Leads Maura through Liverpool

  34. Mr. Grout and Mr. Drabble Have a Talk

  35. Laurence Moves On

  36. A Way to Get Money

  37. Mr. Pickler Arrives in Liverpool

  38. Maura Is Distressed

  39. Mr. Clemspool Makes an Announcement

  40. Laurence Hears a Voice

  41. Upon the Charity

  42. Mr. Clemspool Pauses

  43. Mr. Bartholomew Ponders

  44. Mr. Clemspool Makes a Discovery

  45. The Liverpool Metropolitan Police

  46. What Happened to Ralph Toggs?

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1851

  47. Maura Awakens

  48. Concerns Fred of the Lime Street Runners Association

  49. Reverend Bartholomew Concludes the Service

  50. Ralph Toggs Is Woken Up

  51. Fred and Toggs Have a Race

  52. Mr. Bartholomew Endeavors To Be Helpful

  53. Laurence Makes a Discovery

  54. Sergeant Rumpkin Leads Toggs to a Siege

  55. A Meeting on the Streets

  56. Other Meetings at the Liverpool Police Office

  57. What Mr. Pickler Learns

  58. Maura, Patrick, and Mr. Drabble at Breakfast

  59. Toggs Brings Mr. Pickler to Mrs. Sonderbye’s

  60. In Search of a Hiding Place

  61. Fred Returns to the City

  62. Mr. Clemspool and Mr. Grout Make Travel Arrangements

  63. The Medical Exam

  64. Mr. Pickler and the Lime Street Runners Association

  65. Mr. Pickler and Toggs Confer

  66. On the Hulks

  67. The O’Connells Prepare for Departure

  68. Laurence Prepares for Departure

  69. On the Robert Peel

  70. Final Arrangements

  71. Fred Prepares for Departure

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1851

  72. Mr. Pickler Faces the Early Morning

  73. The O’Connells at Clarence Basin

  74. Two Endings and a Prayer

  About the Author

  Also by Avi

  Copyright

  Just before dawn—that moment when time itself seems to stand still, when the whole world teeters on the edge of possibilities—a man looking like death’s own shadow came scurrying down a bluff toward the tiny village of Kilonny in Ireland.

  He was dressed in a black frock coat and black trousers. His coat was patched; his trousers fit ill; his boots were badly broken. Only his white neck cloth relieved his funereal appearance, and that was soiled from excessive use and little washing. Tired eyes, set deep in a flat, grizzled face, were mirrors of grief. But then, the man’s principal state of mind these days was woe.

  Though he knew exactly where he was going, knew too the path he’d trod with weariness so many times, he carried a small lantern to light his way.

  Kilonny Village lay upon devastated land. Little grew in the heavy mix of clay and jagged stone that made up the valley’s earth thereabouts. The trees were barren of leaves. And with its clutch of crumbling structures, the village was like a prehistoric ruin in a rank, forgotten place.

  When the man reached the village, he went directly to one of the first huts, a seven-foot pile of sticks thrust up, mortared with clay, then roofed over with rotten thatch from a collapsed cottage nearby. No proper door barred his way. Instead, he knocked upon a splintery slab of wood that had been pulled across the entry.

  The knocking woke Patrick O’Connell from fitful sleep. Twelve years of age, small and wiry, he owned little more than the ragged clothes he wore and no shoes at all. Coal black hair framed a pinched face with large eyes that proclaimed his hunger.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the boy whispered under his breath as he made the sign of the cross and glanced about. There were neither windows nor furniture, only a wooden bowl of cornmeal and a chipped jug a quarter full of soured buttermilk. Their other possessions—clothing, digging tools, a few odd bits and scraps—would barely have filled two bundles.

  In a hole scooped from the earthen floor near the hut’s center lay a turf fire whose glowing ember—the size of a thumb—offered more smoke than heat. Patrick’s mother, Annie O’Connell, and his sister, Maura, were huddled together in a corner, sharing what warmth they could.

  Though Patrick wanted to know who had knocked, he held back. Who could have proper business with them at such an hour? The O’Connells’ lives had been miserable for so long that the only visitor he could imagine was new calamity.

  The potato famine had come, bringing starving times, no employment, illness, and death. So it was that eleven months ago Patrick’s father, Gregory O’Connell—Da to the children—grew so desperate he took most of the money the family still had and sailed to America in search of work. Since then there had not been one word from him. In that same period a fever had taken Patrick’s younger brother, Timothy. His mortal remains lay in Kilonny’s crowded cemetery. Now there was no money left to pay the quarterly rent to Mr. Morgan, the agent for Sir James Kirkle, the English lord who owned all the land around the village.

  Perfectly reasonable, then, for Patrick to think the knocking meant Mr. Morgan had come to evict them. If it were so, he’d have constables and soldiers by his side to drive the family away and tumble their hut. Such things happened, and often. It was fear of eviction that caused Patrick and Maura to guard the entryway at night. This night’s watch was Patrick’s.

  He looked around for a weapon. Spying a rock against a wall, he hefted it in the palm of his hand. Maybe—coming in the dark—the rock would scare the agent off.

  “Mother! Maura!” he whispered across the earthen floor. “Bestir yourselves! Someone’s at the door. It’s likely Mr. Morgan.”

  Maura, instantly alert, started up. She was fifteen, tall and thin, with a strong, high-cheeked, and dirty face from which angry blue eyes blazed beneath a tangled mass of long, thick brown hair. It was a rare day—or night—that saw Maura O’Connell smile.

  “Did you say someone’s come?” she asked.

  “And wanting to get in
,” Patrick said. A pale yellow glow of lantern light seeped through the splintery board.

  Maura touched her mother gently. “Mother,” she said, “you must move.”

  Mrs. O’Connell groaned, sat up slowly, and automatically crossed herself. Though only forty-one, she looked the flinty side of fifty. Her thin hair was streaked with gray. Her eyes were dull and sad, her cheeks haggard, her lips parched and tight. When she coughed—as she did often—a spike of pain cut deep within her sunken chest.

  “What is it?” she asked half in a whisper, half in a moan.

  “Someone’s at the door,” Patrick said with even greater urgency.

  “God keep us from more misfortune,” his mother murmured. She began to say her rosary beads.

  “Go on, Patrick,” Maura commanded. “See who it is.”

  Clutching his stone, Patrick crept forward and put his eye to a crack in the wood. “I can’t make him out at all,” he said.

  Maura pulled her dark red shawl close around her body and moved next to her brother. At the threshold she paused and tried to steady her nerves.

  “Maura,” Patrick whispered, “if it is Mr. Morgan, I’ve got a stone for him.” He held up his fist.

  “Hush!” his sister cried, struggling with her own dread. “Put aside your foolishness! It’ll do us no good. None! Do you understand?”

  Patrick shrank down and let the stone roll away. “I’ll try,” he muttered, convincing no one, least of all himself.

  “Mother?” Maura called. “Are you ready then?”

  Mrs. O’Connell, assuming the worst, closed her eyes. With arms wrapped about herself, she began to rock slowly back and forth, praying softly.

  Knowing all too well there was little she could do about Mr. Morgan if it were he, Maura faced the entryway, took a deep breath, and cried, “Who’s that at the door?”

  It’s Father Mahoney, Maura O’Connell,” came a whispered voice. “Would you be kind enough to let me in!”

  “Father Mahoney!” Mrs. O’Connell cried with relief. “He’ll be bringing no harm.”

  “But he might be bringing a warning, Mother,” Patrick cautioned.

  “Don’t you speak it,” Mrs. O’Connell said with a vehement shake of her head.

  “It’s true, Mother,” Maura agreed. “You know how vicious Mr. Morgan is. He may have the father in his pocket as he does so many others.”

  “By the Blessed Virgin!” Mrs. O’Connell cried as she pulled herself to her feet and wrapped a black shawl tightly about herself. “Am I hearing my daughter saying such dreadful things? Father Mahoney has been a loyal friend. For Jesus’ sake, open the way to him!”

  Maura pulled aside the board. “Father Mahoney,” she said, “you’re welcome here.”

  “God be with you in the morning,” the priest said as he stooped low and entered the hut. His fingers were raised in a blessing. The three O’Connells breathed an “Amen” but were too uneasy to speak more.

  The priest set his small lantern on the ground. Rubbing his hands together to ease the chill, he searched for Mrs. O’Connell through the smoky gloom.

  “Mrs. O’Connell,” he said, clasping and unclasping his hands, “you’ll forgive me my waking you so early.”

  “Has something happened?” the woman asked, alarmed by his manner. “Is it Mr. Morgan who’s coming? Are we to be driven out?”

  “God protect us all from such rough usage, Mrs. O’Connell,” the priest replied. “Though, true enough, I was over to Skibbens way just yesterday, where Mr. Morgan was tumbling cottages. May God witness his cruelty! Faith, it’s terrible to see. I’m fearing it’ll happen here in Kilonny, and soon at that.”

  “Jesus have mercy,” Mrs. O’Connell whispered. “What will the people do?”

  “God’s love will care,” the priest said.

  “I don’t doubt it, Father,” Mrs. O’Connell offered with instant humility.

  Maura gave an angry toss of her head. “And in the here and now?” she asked.

  Father Mahoney, alarmed by this suggestion of blasphemy, looked around with sad eyes. He waited. But when Maura said no more, he turned back to her mother.

  “Mrs. O’Connell,” he said, “I tried to talk to Mr. Morgan—him of the Kirkle estates—to secure the unfortunates of Skibbens more time. All the narrow man would say is, ‘Orders are orders, money is money, and the law proclaims it so.’ Then I—” Now it was the priest who stopped midsentence lest he speak in a way that would bring a rebuke. “But,” he said, smiling now, “I haven’t come at such an hour to bring sad news.”

  “Pray God, I hope not.”

  “No, no. I merely wanted to explain the odd hour of my coming. You see, when I got home from Skibbens, I found the post wagon had left a letter.” He glanced about benevolently, first at the cowering woman, then at Maura—whose look remained hostile—and finally at Patrick, whose eyes were fixed upon him with intense interest.

  “A letter?” Mrs. O’Connell said, not sure she understood.

  “’Tis true,” Father Mahoney explained. “It was addressed to me, but when I opened it, sure enough, it was for you.”

  “Father,” said Mrs. O’Connell, “it’s a mistake you’re making. Never before have I received such a thing.”

  “Well, by the grace of God, you have now,” the priest informed her grandly as he reached into a deep coat pocket. “I couldn’t wait for the bringing of it.”

  “But who would be writing to me?” she asked fearfully.

  Father Mahoney smiled broadly. “It’s from America,” he announced.

  “America!” the woman fairly shrieked. “God have mercy! Who’s it from?”

  At the word—America—Maura pressed a hand to her heart. Patrick gasped.

  “It’s your husband,” the priest proclaimed.

  “Is it—is it something that’s happened to himself?” Mrs. O’Connell stuttered, full of fright.

  Father Mahoney, still smiling, produced a creased letter from his pocket. The O’Connells stared at it.

  “Patrick, lad,” the priest said. “Point the lamp so all can see.”

  Patrick snatched up the lantern and aimed its beam at the paper. Maura crept closer. Mrs. O’Connell, hands over her mouth, edged in too.

  “There, you see,” the priest said. He pointed to and read from the paper:

  “Father James P. Mahoney SJ

  St. Peter’s Church

  Kilonny Village

  County Cork

  Ireland”

  “It’s not Mr. O’Connell,” Mrs. O’Connell said. “He was hardly above the making of his mark.”

  “Someone could have done for him,” Patrick said.

  “But what does it say?” Maura asked in a voice quivering with emotion. “Does it tell how he fares?”

  The priest drew himself up. “Gregory O’Connell, God bless the man, has sent the most extraordinary news!”

  Sweet Jesus,” Mrs. O’Connell murmured as she sank to her knees, “I thought the man truly lost.”

  “The Lord provides,” Father Mahoney reminded her kindly. “And He loves most the ones with faith.”

  “I never doubted, Father,” the woman insisted, her eyes glistening with tears as she crossed herself yet again. “But, oh, Father, with all the terrible things that have happened, a body can’t help but question.”

  The priest held out his hand. Mrs. O’Connell kissed it fervently, then breathed a deep sigh. “Father,” she asked, for she could not read, “would you be kind enough to tell us what Mr. O’Connell has said?”

  “I’m proud to do it,” Father Mahoney replied. “Patrick, lad, keep the lantern steady.”

  Trying to hold his excitement in check, Patrick drew closer as the priest carefully unfolded the letter. From it, he extracted another piece of paper.

  “Now then,” the priest began, “the letter’s dated early November past from a place called Lowell.”

  “Where is this … Low-ell?” Maura asked.

  Father Mahoney looked aroun
d. “I don’t rightly know,” he admitted. “Somewhere in America.”

  “But America is huge!” Patrick objected.

  “Shhh!” Maura said, hands clasped together tightly. “Let the father read!”

  The priest cleared his throat and began:

  “To my beloved wife and you my three darling children.”

  The reminder of her lost child caused Mrs. O’Connell to moan softly. After a moment the priest went on:

  “I have not spoken before, since I was unsure of my ways and not wishing to send anything but what was good tidings. I—bless God—work steady in a cloth-making manufactory in this city and have found good pay with decent lodging, far better than anything I have known before. I have a good young friend too who writes this for me.”

  “Merciful God!” Mrs. O’Connell broke in. “He did the right thing, and it’s done well for him! Work and friend. And I feared him lost at sea!”

  “Or that savages killed him,” Patrick added.

  “There’s much more,” the priest said, recalling them to the letter.