She was home before she knew it.


“Such good news, Scarlett!” She’d never seen Harriet looking so excited. Why, she’s much prettier than I thought. With the right clothes—

“While you were gone a letter came from one of my cousins in England. I told you, did I not, that I’d written of my good fortune and your kindness? This cousin, his name is Reginald Parsons but the family always called him Reggie, has arranged for Billy to be admitted to the school his son attends, Reggie’s son, that is. His name is—”

“Wait a minute, Harriet. What are you talking about? Billy’s going to the school in Ballyhara, I thought.”

“Naturally he’d have had to if there was no alternative. That’s what I wrote to Reggie.”

Scarlett’s jaw set. “What’s wrong with the school here, I’d like to know.”

“Nothing is wrong with it, Scarlett. It’s a good Irish village school. I want something better for Billy, surely you understand that.”

“Surely I do no such thing.” She was prepared to defend Ballyhara’s school, Irish schools, Ireland itself, at the top of her lungs if need be. Then she took a good look at Harriet Kelly’s soft, defenseless face. It was no longer soft, there was no weakness. Harriet’s gray eyes were normally hazy with dreams; now they looked like steel. She was ready to fight anyone, anything for her son. Scarlett had seen the same kind of thing before, the lamb turned lion, when Melanie Wilkes took a stand about something she believed in.

“What about Cat? She’ll be so lonely without Billy.”

“I’m sorry, Scarlett, but I have to think of what’s best for Billy.”

Scarlett sighed. “I’d like to suggest a different alternative, Harriet. You and I both know that in England Billy will always be branded the Irish son of an Irish stable groom. In America he can become anything you want him to be . . .”


Early in September Scarlett held a stoically silent Cat in her arms to wave goodbye to Billy and his mother as their ship left Kingstown harbor for America. Billy was crying; Harriet’s face had the radiance of resolve and hope. Her eyes were cloudy with dreams. Scarlett hoped at least part of the dreams would come true. She had written to Ashley and Uncle Henry Hamilton, telling them about Harriet and asking them to watch out for her and help her find a place to stay and work as a teacher. She was sure they’d do that much at least. The rest was up to Harriet and circumstances.

“Let’s go to the zoo, Kitty Cat. There are giraffes and lions and bears and a big, big elephant.”

“Cat likes lions best.”

“You might change your mind when you see the baby bears.”

They stayed in Dublin for a week, going to the zoo every day, eating cream buns in Bewley’s coffee shop afterwards, then the puppet theater followed by high tea at the Shelbourne with silver tiers of sandwiches and scones, silver bowls of whipped cream, silver trays of éclairs. Scarlett learned that her daughter was indefatigable and had a digestive system of cast iron.


Back at Ballyhara she helped Cat turn the tower into Cat’s private place, to be visited only by invitation. Cat swept the dried cobwebs and droppings of centuries out of the high doorway, then Scarlett pulled up bucket after bucket of water from the river and the two of them scrubbed the walls and floor of the room. Cat laughed and splashed and blew soap bubbles while she scrubbed. It reminded Scarlett of the baths when Cat was a baby. She didn’t mind at that it took them over a week to get the place clean. Nor did she mind that the stone steps to upper levels were missing. Cat would have liked to wash the tower all the way to the top.

They finished just in time for what would have been Harvest Home in a normal year. Colum had advised her not to try and make a celebration when there was nothing to celebrate. He helped her distribute the sacks of flour and meal, salt and sugar, potatoes and cabbages that came to the town on wide wagons from all the suppliers Scarlett had found.

“They didn’t even say ‘thank you,’ ” she said bitterly when the ordeal was over. “Or if they did, they sure didn’t act like they meant it. You’d think it might just dawn on a few people that I’m hurting from the drought, too. My wheat and grass were ruined the same as theirs, and I’m losing all my rents, and I bought all that stuff.”

She couldn’t verbalize the deepest hurt of all. The land, the O’Hara land, had turned against her, and the people, her people, of Ballyhara.

She poured all of her energies into Cat’s tower. The same woman who hadn’t so much as peered through a window to see what was happening to her house now spent hours going through all the rooms, scrutinizing each piece of furniture, each rug, every blanket, quilt, pillow, selecting the best. Cat was the final arbiter. She looked over her mother’s choices and picked a bright flowered bathmat, three patchwork quilts, and a Sevres vase, the vase for her paintbrushes. The mat and quilts went into a deep wide indentation in the massively thick wall of the tower. For her nap, said Cat. Then she patiently went back and forth, house to tower, with her favorite picture books, her paint box, her leaf collection, and a box containing stale crumbs saved from cakes that she had especially liked. She was planning to lure birds and animals to her room. Then she’d paint their pictures on her wall.

Scarlett listened to Cat’s plans and watched her laborious preparations with pride in Cat’s determination to create a world that would satisfy her even without Billy in it. She could learn from her four-year-old daughter, she thought sadly. On Halloween she gave Cat the birthday party that the little girl designed for herself. There were four small cakes, each with four candles. They ate one of the cakes themselves, sitting on the clean floor of Cat’s tower sanctuary. They gave the second one to Grainne, eating it with her. Then they went home, leaving the other two cakes for the birds and animals.

The next day not a crumb was left, Cat reported with excitement. She didn’t invite her mother to come see. The tower was all hers now.


Like everyone else in Ireland, Scarlett read the newspapers that autumn with alarm that grew into outrage. For her, the alarm was caused by the number of evictions reported. The farmers’ efforts to fight back were perfectly understandable as far as she was concerned. Attacking a bailiff or a pair of constables with fists or pitchfork was only a normal human reaction, and she was sorry that it stopped none of the evictions. It wasn’t the fault of the farmer that crops had failed and there was no money from sale of the grain. She knew all about that herself.

At nearby hunts the talk was always about the same thing, and the landowners were much less tolerant than Scarlett. They were worried by the instances of resistance by farmers. “Dammit, what do they expect? If they don’t pay their rents, they don’t keep their houses. They know that, it’s always been like that. Bloody insurgence, that’s what’s going on . . .”

But Scarlett’s reactions became the same as her neighboring estate owners’ when the Whiteboys entered in. There had been scattered incidents during the summer. The Whiteboys were more organized now, and more brutal. Night after night barns and hayricks were torched. Cattle and sheep were killed, pigs slaughtered, donkeys and plow horses had legs broken or tendons cut. Shops windows were smashed, and manure or burning torches thrown inside. And more and more as autumn turned to winter there were attacks from concealment against military men, English soldiers and Irish constables, and gentry in carriages or on horseback. Scarlett took two grooms along on the roads to the meets.

And she worried constantly about Cat. Losing Billy seemed to have upset Cat much less than she had feared. Cat never moped, and she never whined. She was always occupied with some project or some game she invented for herself. But she was only four, it made Scarlett nervous now that Cat went off by herself so much. Scarlett was determined not to cage her child, but she began to wish that Cat were less agile, less independent, less fearless. Cat visited stables barns, stillroom and dairy, garden and gardensheds. She wandered through woods and fields like a wild creature at home there, and the house was a land of opportunity for play in rooms that were cleaned but not used, attics full of boxes and trunks, basements with wine racks, barrels of foodstuffs, rooms for servants, for silver, for milk, butter, cheese, ice, ironing, washing, sewing,; carpenter’s repairs, bootblacking, the myriad activities that maintained the Big House.

There was never any point in looking for Cat. She might be anywhere. She always came home for her meals and bath time. Scarlett couldn’t figure out how the child knew what time it was, but Cat was never late.

Mother and daughter went riding together every day after breakfast. But Scarlett grew afraid to go out on the roads because of the Whiteboys, and she didn’t want to spoil the intimacy of their rides by taking grooms along, so their route became the path she had first used, past the tower and through the ford and into the boreen that led to Daniel’s cottage. Pegeen O’Hara might not like it, she thought, but she’ll have to put up with Cat and me if she wants me to keep on paying Seamus’ rent. She wished Daniel’s youngest son, Timothy, wasn’t taking such a long time about finding a bride. He would have the little cottage when he did, and the girl could only be an improvement on Pegeen. Scarlett missed the easy intimacy she had known with her family before Pegeen joined it.


Every time she left for a hunt Scarlett asked Cat if she minded being left. The little brown forehead wrinkled with perplexity above Cat’s clear green eyes. “Why do people mind?” she asked. It made Scarlett feel better. In December she explained to Cat that she’d be gone for a longer time because she was going a long way, on the train. Cat’s response was the same.