"After a moment, he calmed enough to see how his anger was a separate thing inside him, a dingy, surprise gift from his father." Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves
----
XVI.
It felt as though Callan had been born in spite of the rich. He had been raised to hate them, to mistrust them, and to look down upon the fact that they looked down on him.
It did not matter that his mother was once one of them.
Callan had never been able to picture his mother as the fancy Miss Siobhan O'Connell. He often thought back to whenever he would see the children or the relatives of the landlord's prancing about in their silks that would have paid a Catholic's rent for a year. But she had been once.
His mother had been one of them. And his father had been nothing more than a potato farmer, working the landlord's field, just as his father had done before him.
Both his mother and his father had told the story of their meeting and courtship quite differently. Siobhan was far gentler and more romantic. Sean McCarthy described the ordeal as having to snatch a maid from the hands of a dragon.
However it happened, Siobhan had defied her father and had eloped with Sean. She had renounced her religion and had converted to Catholicism, and, in doing so, her father had disowned her.
It was not as though Callan was unknown to the man who was, by blood, his grandfather. Seamus O'Connell was Callan's father's landlord. The man was well aware that his daughter had given birth to a son, and that he had a grandson. Callan had grown up knowing this man was his grandfather, and that this man hated him because of his station.
Siobhan's entire family had rejected her because of her marriage, and they looked down upon her son as a by-product of her foolish and careless mistake. Callan did not think that he would ever be able to forget the looks on the faces of people who were supposed to be his aunties and his cousins. But most of all, he could not escape the damning sneers of his grandfather.
"What are you talking about?" Lily probed quietly. "What about your grandfather?"
Callan could not believe that he was behaving as he was in front of Lily. He ought to have been remarkably ashamed, and he would be just as soon as he could pull himself off of the damned floor.
Why hadn't she left? He didn't want her to see him like this. Even if pride was a sin, he had it, and he didn't want her to see him as less than a man.
At the mention of his grandfather, out of the corner of his eye, Callan observed Fionn retreating. He wisely knew that his grandfather was a sore source for Callan to be discussing.
As Callan looked into Lily's eyes, her impossibly blue eyes, he wanted to tell her to leave again. He wanted to tell her that he could not afford to pay himself, let alone her. He wanted to tell her that he could never see her again. He wanted to tell her that she was better off looking for someone more stable to employ her.
But nothing of the sort escaped his lips. His feelings overwhelmed his logic. He yearned for connection in that moment, and he could see in Lily's eyes that she wanted to understand him.
Callan desperately wanted to be understood.
"My grandfather ... he ... on my father's deathbed ... he ..." Callan struggled to string a series of words together that made any sort of sense.
And then Lily took hold of his hand. "Callan, start at the beginning."
She said his name. Was that the first of the second time? Had he imagined the first? He wasn't sure. But Callan enjoyed the way her English tongue wrapped around his name, and he never thought such a notion would enter his mind.
Lily squeezed his hand, and Callan found himself curling his fingers around hers, and gripping her little hand to keep himself focussed. He enjoyed the sensation far too much.
"There are landlords in Ireland," Callan managed to say. "It's not the same there. The differences between the wealthy and the peasant class are criminal. Poverty is ... rife. The landlords, they flout their wealth. They're arrogant, or ignorant, or both. But the way they treat us is, again, not the same as here. We're Catholics, you see."
"Forgive my ignorance, but I don't understand why being a Catholic is a bad thing."
What did they teach in schools in England? Then, Callan supposed, Lily's teacher had probably been a protestant.
"To be a Catholic is to be a second class, a fifteenth-class citizen," Callan explained. "Catholics can't sit in Parliament. We have no power or voice in the decision making of our own country. Our overlords are protestants who look down upon us while making laws that benefit their own kind. We starve in famines while they profit off of our brawn. They charge extraordinary rents that the poor people can't possibly afford and then evict whole families when they fail to pay.
"My grandfather is one of them. My grandfather was the richest man in Country Clare according to my father. He still is to this day. My mother is his daughter, and she defied him to marry my father."
Lily said nothing save to squeeze Callan's hand once more. She simply listened.
"My father worked himself to death to keep up with his demands. He would have done anything to prevent us from suffering because of him, especially considering my mother had chosen our life over the life she lived with her father. But he always wanted more for me."
Sitting here now, as he was, Callan wished that he had had the ability to refuse his father. He would have farmed potatoes for the rest of his life if it meant not having to return to Ireland in this way. The shame he felt was all-consuming.
"He ... he sounds like he was a very honourable man, your father," Lily uttered gently.
"He was," Callan confirmed. "I thought he would go to his grave hating them, hating what they all stood for. Aristocrats lauding their riches over us while we starved. And he did, in a way. But he never had too much pride when it came to me and my future.
"He went to the landlord's house. He was half dead, and he somehow made it to the landlord's house and asked to speak with my grandfather. My grandfather took the meeting. I imagine it was to laugh at my father, or to shame him, or some other evil deed. But my father asked him two things, and it was to acknowledge me as his grandson, and to provide for my future in his will."
Once Callan had started, he simply couldn't stop. Letting this pour out of his heart was cathartic, and he needed that relief at a time like this.
"What did he say? Did he say 'yes'?" Lily wondered.
"He did." Callan nodded. "On the condition that I renounce Catholicism."
"And did you?"
Callan scoffed. "No." Shaking his head, he continued, "I could never be one of them. I could never belong to a class that hated me despite the fact that we believed in the same God.
"But my father, bless his soul, would have done anything to provide for me. On his death bed, he would have watched me become one of them just so long as I didn't have to suffer under Seamus O'Connell as he did. Better me join my grandfather than be under him.
"So, I made a deal instead. I took a loan from him. I took a bloody loan from the man." Callan wished that he hadn't. Had his father not been on his deathbed begging Callan to, he wouldn't have. "I would use that money to start a business make something of myself, and I would pay the man back with interest. Fail to do so, and I ..." Callan's words stuck in his throat as he was about to voice the consequences of his failure out loud. "I have to return to Ireland and renounce Catholicism.
"I never would have made that deal if I thought that I would fail. I was naïve and ignorant, even knowing what I did about the aristocratic class. I somehow thought it might be different in England, but it is clearly the same, except that I'm dismissed for being Irish, as well as for being a Catholic."
There was silence between Callan and Lily for several minutes once Callan had realised that he was finished speaking. Voicing his shame aloud was, indeed, cathartic, but it suddenly hung between them and Callan felt a great deal of bile in his throat as he awaited what Lily would say.
What she thought of him was important to him, Callan realised. He cared what the eejit who set his office on fire thought of him. He cared a great deal.
"You have been treated very unfairly by people who were in a position to show you kindness and mercy and they did not. I am so sorry for that. I understand why you think so poorly of aristocrats. I think I would, too, were I in your position.
"I don't know what to say but to say 'sorry'. All I have ever seen in my life from people in a position of power has been mercy. There are classes in this country, but I have been brought up to never see one as more superior than another. I am so sorry that this has not been your experience, Mr McCarthy."
Lily's voice was hauntingly tender, and her words sounded like the sincerest sentences that he had ever heard uttered in his life, and yet what he was most aware of in that moment was the fact that she had not used his given name when addressing him.
"You do not owe me any sort of apology, Lily," Callan replied softly. "You are not responsible for any of this. It's not as though you are one of them."
Callan watched as Lily pressed her lips tightly together as she reacted to his words. He knew she was simply feeling badly for him, and that did not sit right with him. He did not want her sympathy. He still had his pride. What was left of it, that was.
"What is it that you need?" she asked then.
Callan needed the ability to turn back time so that he could tell his grandfather to kiss Satan's behind, because that would happen before Callan was accept a penny from him.
But he didn't say those colourful words to Lily. Instead, he chose, "I need passage back to Ireland. Or a plague to kill me quickly."
Perhaps those were colourful words, too, as Lily gasped. It was only then that she released his hand only to cover her mouth with it. Callan's hand immediately felt empty, and it was extraordinarily uncomfortable.
"I do apologise," he murmured. But in all honesty, death was preferable than facing that man again. Callan had been so filled with youthful pride and determination when he had agreed to his grandfather's terms. Failure was not even something that he considered. And yet it had come.
"What do you need in order to reverse this?" Lily pressed. "What do you need in order to be able to appease this agreement with your grandfather, and to correct what has happened with the cotton shipment?"
"Aren't you listening, Lily? Did you not here my very detailed tale of woe? I have served my pride up for your supper, my dear, enjoy!" Callan said facetiously. "There is nothing that can be done. I am ruined."
Lily frowned at him, a line of disappointment in him forming between her brows. "You have not lost your pride if you refuse to give up," she retorted. "Your father believed in you, did he not?"
"And thank God he is dead and cannot see me like this."
"What a shame," Lily said forcefully, "that he is not alive to see his son get off of the floor and figure out a solution as he has done for every setback that he has faced." Lily climbed to her feet and smoothed out of skirt with a brush of her hands.
"There is nothing to be done."
"Your father believed in you. So do I."
Lily placed her hands on her hips as she looked down at Callan and nodded at him to reinforce her point when he met her eyes.
Why would she believe in him? What had he done to warrant her belief? All he had done is fail repeatedly in her short tenure. And yet, again, Callan could see the sincerity in Lily's eyes, and it warmed him more than anything.
Lily suddenly took a breath before she suddenly spoke again. "Money would fix this. Capital ... I ... I ... know a man ... he has money ... he could help."
----
I wonder if the man you're thinking of is the same man we're thinking of, Lily?
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I had a really lovely day. Busy as anything! But lovely. I cooked for 13 hours total over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but I pulled it off and dinner was delicious. I had 20 people at my house and everyone was fed and loved. I was spoiled and I enjoyed spoiling people.
And I'm doing it all again next year!
But anyway, I hope this time was a warm one for you.
Thank you for being here with me xx