Redemption - Leon Uris [7]
After a first rush of joy, Liam realized what lay behind the letter. After four generations, the Larkin land would not have the Larkin name on it unless Liam came back.
Conor had left the village of Ballyutogue and had established himself as a great ironmaster. Dary, the younger brother, was on the way of fulfilling his mother, Finola’s, dream of his becoming a priest. That left Brigid, who had given up her only love because he had no land and was forced to leave.
Brigid would now have to marry some old run-down bachelor because she was beyond the age of youth and loveliness and it was doubtful that she would ever bear a child.
“I treated you sorely,” Tomas’s letter pleaded, “but come home, the farm and all I have is yours.”
Liam could imagine both the agony and hope in his father’s pen. He could also imagine Tomas at Dooley McCloskey’s public house waving the return letter that his boy, Liam, would soon be coming home.
Too bad, Daddy, too damned bad. Keep your hair on. Me and Millie were never part of anyone’s plan because nobody ever loved either of us…except my brothers, Conor and Dary.
Liam was not yet literate enough to compose an answer and he did not want to introduce Mildred by way of the family brouhaha. He went to Father Gionelli and together they crafted a letter that oozed with compassion and concern. Between the compassion and concern he dropped little mouse turds…“Conor has paid off my passage…I’ve a lease with option to purchase of six hundred acres…the government is helping me with a thousand head of sheep…the land in New Zealand is rich and black…tell Ma I still say the rosary and Angelus.…”
Then Liam stroked a razor’s edge of kindness across his daddy’s throat. He wrote about Mildred. Liam did not mention that they were already married and had a son but…“Mildred is from an English family and convent-educated and we will marry soon and I’m not coming back to Ireland.”
Liam held his tongue until the letter was mailed then went to the priest again. “Father, I feel no anger toward my daddy but I must confess that the letter filled me with a tremendous thrill of happiness, and I know that’s wrong because I know how much I hurt him. I know the hurt because that is the way he hurt me. I’m sorry for my joy, but I cannot deny it.”
“I comprehend you, Liam,” Father Gionelli answered. “Your letter is the story of my own childhood.”
“Have I sinned?”
“Sin? What is sin inside the dynamic of family relationships? It is a mystery that began with man. No one can solve it except through his own unique experience. How you feel is human. But do not think it will leave you alone. We are never free of our blood.”
Tomas Larkin was struck down with the diabetes shortly after receiving Liam’s letter. He passed on through as the sun inched up along the horizon of a new century. Tomas died, deep in consternation over the way he had treated his son.
3
January 1915
The benevolence of Squire Larkin grew along with his acres. He built a church for Father Gionelli at Methven and beautified it with stained-glass windows dedicated to his father, and later, his mother. He pondered as he had never pondered for almost six months but finally ended up calling the church St. Columba’s, the same name his childhood church bore in Ballyutogue.
He was a benefactor of Father Gionelli’s nonsectarian orphanage in Christchurch, which he thought was a noble idea worthy of the attitudes of New Zealand.
Although it was not the same as seeing the priest arrive at Methven with his donkey train, Liam was chief contributor for the purchase of a Model-T automobile from America to carry the Father up and down the mountain road.
And he had been a benefactor for the folks back in Ireland! He made sure his mother, Finola, lived like a queen in her village. The Larkin cottage roof had slates, a singular signature that one of the family