Date Posted:17:37:40 05/22/10 Sat Author:Page Subject: Sorry it's taken me so long! >>>> In reply to:
Fi
's message, "Part 2 (word count 1245) >>>>" on 14:42:46 05/12/10 Wed
Before I get to the comments, let me just say how much I love this story already! Kind of reminds me of John Jakes' North and South a little, except Richard is more likeable than the Hazzard lad! *G*
>From Claddagh [working title]
>by F.H. Hurley
>Copyright April 2010
>For critique only
>
>Galway, Ireland. 1663.
>
>The housekeeper was only a little taller than Richard,
>but she took up nearly the width of the doorway. Great description, and a perfect example of telling, not showing! She
>led him and his mother through the kitchen, a great
>space with a huge fireplace and a smell of gravy that
>made the water pool in his mouth. A maid not much
>older than Richard, hair in kerchief and sleeves
>rolled to the elbows, scoured the inside of a brass
>skillet. Kate cast a desperate look at the pots,
>hoping perhaps that she would be allowed to stay among
>the servants, but the rotund housekeeper led them
>through to the parlour. I also like this last sentence; brings out Kate's feelings about where she thinks she belongs in such a house in just a few short words.
>
>A great crackling fire warmed Mr. Joyce's face,
>compensating for the dimming of daylight from the
>window. A woman in a stripped should be "striped" cream-and-pink dress
>directed another maid to set a jug on the table, and
>turned around I would take out "around" to greet the visitors. Her pretty cheeks
>were ruddied by the fire, and her eyebrows moved
>independently: first the left, then the right.
>
>“Please come in.” She motioned towards the table.
>
>Kate twiddled with her shawl and took a stool. Richard
>was intrigued by the spread of food: hand-sized pies,
>slabs of cheese, slices of ox-tongue, and some candied
>fruit. Slivers of salmon fanned on a plate, but no
>potatoes. His stomach made a cat's growl.
>
>“I hope you don't mind if I leave,” said the woman,
>placing a hand on her swollen belly. “I'm feeling
>rather tired.”
Wouldn't the woman have introduced herself? Or maybe her husband might do it? It seems a bit odd to me that she offered them a seat and then bugged out immediately.
>“Of course not, darling.” Her husband kissed her
>forehead and she left the room, her back-skirts
>sweeping the floor. And if introductions were made you wouldn't have to tell us she was Mrs. Joyce, but could show us through the story.
>
>“You've been keeping well, Kate?” asked Mr. Joyce,
>sitting opposite her.
>
>“I have, thanks be to God.” She worried her hands in
>her lap and glanced up at the high ceiling. “This is a
>fine place you have.”
>
>“It's the old family home. When the king returned to
>England, he allowed Catholics to return to the town,
>those that had been loyal to him. Those that survived.
>He still hasn't given us back our other land, but I'm
>writing him letters every other week so please God we
>should get it back too.” I'd remove the part above since I think that would be something Kate would know, having lived through those times herself. I know it's relevant to the story (the treatment of Catholics, etc.) but I think you can probably work it in a different way. Maybe someone explaining it to Richard who might wonder why Mr. Joyce has such a fine house while other Catholics he knows live in such poverty.
>
>“I've seen a lot more ships on the quays this past
>year or so.”
>
>“Trade is picking up again, thank God.”
>
>“I saw a big French ship the other day,” said Richard.
>“You could hear them blabbering away in the town.”
>
>Mr. Joyce's smile was the first genuine one that
>evening.
>
>“That's where this wine came from. We sold them a fine
>lot of butter and salted fish.” Fish I can see, but butter?
>
>“Fish from the Claddagh, sir? Do they eat Claddagh
>fish in France?”
>
>“They surely do. Isn't it great that there are still
>Catholics in the world, to keep buying our fish?”
>
>Kate's mouth twitched but she hid the half-smile in
>her hand.
>
>“We must all be hungry,” he said.
>
>Richard's hand reached across the table, but his
>mother swiped it back as she bowed her head for grace. I love that! I can just see her!
>After she finished, Mr. Joyce took one of the pies and
>motioned to Richard to do likewise. It still steamed
>as his knife cut through the pastry, and as he lifted
>a slice to his mouth he forgot about his confusion;
>all the world seemed to shrink to the gorgeous
>sensation of gravy melting on his tongue.
>
>“What are those, Mr. Joyce?” he pointed at the candied
>fruit.
>
>“They're oranges,” said Mr. Joyce. “From Spain.”
>
>Richard's head swam even as his stomach filled. Wine
>from France, oranges from Spain. This table seemed to
>connect to the harbour, which connected to a wide
>world beyond.
>
>“Have you ever been to these places, Mr. Joyce? France
>or Spain or England, even?”
>
>“I've been to Spain. My family has connections there.
>I had to leave, during the time of Cromwell.”
>
>Richard would have spit but his mouth was full of
>pastry and he didn't think crumbs on the tablecloth
>would make a good impression.
>
>“You know about those times? The Catholic Confederacy
>had fought long against Cromwell's troops, and Galway
>was the last town to stand against them?”
>
>Richard nodded. Adults often talked about the war in
>whispers, but it had happened before he was born so it
>never seemed relevant.
>
>“It seemed like the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse
>had run across the land. War that wouldn't end. We
>were under siege within the city walls, not just the
>townsfolk but people from the surrounding countryside
>too. Then Hunger came as the food ran out. Then
>Pestilence: the bloody flux, the plague. I lost my
>wife – my first wife – and our three children.”
>
>“God rest their souls,” said Kate.
>
>“God rest their souls.” Mr. Joyce nodded. “I
>apologise. This is not really a topic for supper.”
>
>“And that's when you met my Ma!” Richard realised.
>“The people from outside the city were within the
>walls during the seige should be "siege"! From the Claddagh too?”
>
>“From the Claddagh too.” Mr. Joyce daubed a little
>gravy from his chin.
>
>“And after the seige was broken, you went to Spain?”
>
>“Not directly after. Some of us escaped into the hills
>and continued to fight for several months. The
>countryside was a ruin; towns razed, people scattered
>and pushed westwards, starving and desperate. My
>mother's family had connections in La Coruòa, so
>I took the first boat I could get there.”
>
>“And Ma, she fought as well? Ma, didn't uncle Jack
>tell me you fought as well?”
>
>Kate wet her lips and fidgeted with her knife. “I
>fought as well, in the hills of Connemara.”
>
>“Learned to fire a musket as well as any man.” Mr.
>Joyce smiled.
>
>“And my Da? You must have known my Da, Mr. Joyce.”
>
>“I wish I had known him. He must have been a good man,
>God rest him.”
>
>Mr. Joyce cut a slice of ox tongue and put it in his
>mouth. Richard frowned. He had been born ten months
>after the siege ended, so his mother must have been
>married when she'd fought in Connemara. She must have
>been....
>
>Richard thumped the table with both fists. The pies
>jumped and wine spilled from the top of the jug.
>“You must have know my Da!” Richard's vehemence seems a little out of place to me. I can see him asking, but pounding his fists on the table struck me as a little out of place.
>
>“Richard!” Kate's raised voice sounded strange in this
>room. “I brought you up with manners!”
>
>“I will be forever grateful to Joe Mahon,” said Mr.
>Joyce quietly.
>
>The boy's lower lip trembled. “What do you want, sir?
>Why did you ask us here?”
>
>Blue eyes and a high forehead, eerily familiar, looked
>straight at Richard.
>
>“I asked you here because you are my son.”
>
>Richard's stomach lurched. A rich man with a brocade
>gown and long curled hair, a man who traded with
>French and Spanish captains, a man who made strange
>marks on paper with an ink-dipped feather.... No, it
>wasn't true!
>
>“Liar! Ma, tell him he's a liar!”
>
>His Ma with her proud eyes, her voice that sang
>sweetly and scolded sharply, the faint aroma of turf
>and salmon lingering in the fibers of her shawl... No,
>it couldn't be true!
>
>Kate nodded. “It's the truth, a storín.”
>
>“You're both liars!”
>
>He stood and stormed out through the kitchen. The
>young maid almost dropped the pots as he swung the
>back door open and slammed it behind him.
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