The Blind Astronomer's Daughter Read online

  Chapter 3

  AND THE ONE WHO DOES THE FINDING

  The beginning is hardly different for Finnegan himself. He is the son of Owen O’Siodha’s younger brother Malachi, who, from the inside of a bottle, proved his mettle no match for the hardness of life. And in the summer of 1763, a few months before Finn discovers the wailing infant in the falling-down barn, Malachi pins a note to the boy’s shirt, sets him in the road, points him in the direction of his brother’s forge, and tells him to follow the way from Carrickmourne to Inistioge without looking back. The three miles is no great distance to this child who has walked five times as far, feet bare and calloused, clutching his father’s trouser leg. Finn arrives with the help of a woman, herself more bone than flesh, driving a cart pulled by a weary ox. She puzzles over the scrap of paper on the boy’s chest. The marks make little sense to her, but she recognizes the blacksmith’s name, and she knows where to go. Finn thinks it a game, believes his father will follow soon after and praise him for keeping to the road. He cries when Malachi does not appear later that day or the next, and he wonders what he has done wrong and what he must do to put things right. He is certain that the fault is his own—that he had somehow caused his mother’s disappearance and now he has driven his father away as well—and the guilt is a faithful dog, following him even as he comes to understand the shape of betrayal.

  On his own, Finn takes to scrambling after the curious workings of his new home, eager to prove himself as useful as Owen and Moira’s four fiery-haired sons. Owen is much older and sterner than Finn’s father. He wakes before dawn, and works until sunset, and he warns Finn of the dangers of the forge. He scolds the inquisitive boy for seeking—through trial and mishap—the former uses of bent nails and rusted bolts and other cast-off bits readily found beneath the worktable. But the scoldings do not discourage Finn from tracing crooked circles in the dirt with a hammer too heavy to lift, or from handling tongs sharp enough to sever fingers, or from standing closer to the fire than is wise. Owen swings backhanded whenever Finn comes near the anvil, missing his cheek by inches, always missing. The eldest son, Andrew, ten years beyond Finn and three times his size, pushes him aside, and Patrick, a year younger than Andrew but no smaller for it, holds Finn to the floor to stop him hopping through the shower of bright sparks careening from Owen’s hammer.

  Out in the field, Finn proves no less determined to plunge into whatever work awaits, lugging sacks of halved potatoes for planting in the lazy beds, venturing partway up the ladder as Owen replaces storm-blown thatch, chasing the goat with the gnawed rope at its neck. He takes pride in his reek after gathering manure, his buckets always heavier than those of Liam and Dermott, who are more than twice his age. And he smiles whenever he hears Owen and Moira mutter rib-skinny and pale as the crescent moon as they bob their heads in amazement over how he sweats and grunts like none of their sons.

  Andrew tells them from the first that Finn will bring trouble. Owen and Moira have never doubted the boy’s skill at seeing things to come, for it is Andrew who predicts when rains will arrive and how long winter will linger. He alone seems to know when the first green shoots will push through the soil, and he can guess without fail the number of eyes on a potato before it is pulled from the ground. But when Andrew tells them that their worries will multiply, that they should expect yet another visitor, they pay him no heed, until the day that Finn finds the infant in the hay.

  Andrew and Patrick, arms folded tight, and Dermott and Liam, breathing through clenched teeth, peer into the wooden box where Siobhan sleeps and though none of them says a word, Finn knows they are wondering where she will fit into the order of their lives. Moira says she is beautiful and calls her a gift and the word catches in her throat. She tells Finn that she loves all of her boys—himself included—but she has always hoped for a daughter even though she is much too old for that now, and what is a family anyway but the people you pull closest and refuse to let go. But sometimes Owen seems to look at the girl with a bone-weary expression, as if she were a stone to be cleared from the field, and Finn understands what he must do without being told. The girl is his discovery, and he will make it his duty to care for her so that she does not add to anyone’s burden. He feeds her bits of crumbled bread soaked in goat’s milk, and makes sure the thin blanket covers her feet. He twirls above her face a string tied with bright shards of shattered bottles that glitter like the night sky and stop her crying. Sometimes he pulls her wooden box into the forge, where the sparks fall like stars, so that he can watch her as he tries to help Owen and the boys with the tasks they all say are too much for his small hands.

  Finn wants to prove that Andrew is wrong, that Siobhan will not add to their worries, but he sees the lines gathering at Owen’s eyes and at the corners of Moira’s mouth, and he hears the grumbling at evening meals. Though she must stretch what they have, Moira always puts something before them: corn and oats and potatoes and sometimes a fish—a salmon or trout plucked from the Nore—and sometimes root vegetables boiled into a thick yellow stirabout and maybe a round loaf of coarse bread, but after they have stuffed their mouths, there is never enough left to fill their bellies, and Finn knows it is his fault. He has increased their number by two, and it is only fitting that he should earn a place at the table for himself and Siobhan by working harder in the fields than Liam and Dermott, by trying to do as much as Andrew and Patrick in the forge, even if Owen chases him from the fire.

  Every third Saturday, a priest on the circuit from Thomastown to Gowran to Graiguenamanagh appears at their door with a square book in his hands and beads tied at the waist of his long black dress, and he speaks to them of a bright and distant world that cannot be reached by carriage or ship. Father Eamon Donaghy describes with quiet certainty the better life to be had after this meager one is finished, and how they should have no cause for despair so long as they trust that the next world, though no man has yet seen it, is waiting for all. Finn thinks him kind to tell such stories and he wants to ask how it is possible to know a thing without seeing it, but the priest takes more interest in Andrew and Patrick than himself. When Father Donaghy tells the older boys about the far-off places that they might go if they agree to wear the black dress and carry the book and the beads, their eyes grow wide and they lean forward as if they believed they might transport themselves by touching his sleeve. Sometimes the priest whispers to Owen and Moira, his hands working in the air to give shape to his words, while Moira bows her head and Owen turns away clenching his fists and muttering: I’ll not have you buying and selling my boys.

  And one gray morning, when Father Donaghy reappears unexpected after an absence of several months and again begins to tell the boys of the glorious worlds awaiting them, Owen knocks the book from his hands and pushes him from their door, and the priest does not return. Andrew grows sullen after that and stops making predictions. He no longer warns them about unexpected frosts or uninvited guests. He begins tracing simple landscapes in the dirt and tells Finn that if Father Donaghy came again he would gladly follow him. In the forge, Andrew’s attention wanders, and often he turns from the work at hand to stare into the fire or lean close over the cauldron, as if searching for something lost in the blinding heat.

  On an afternoon like any other, Andrew bends so near the flames that his apron steams, and Finn stares in fascination, marveling at the heat’s invisible reach. Owen hammers a glowing ingot pinched in Patrick’s tongs, and while the blows ring out, Finn watches Andrew hold his hand above the flames, testing the limits of his own combustibility even as the rolled sleeve of his shirt begins to smolder. Finn tries to shout a warning, but his voice sits in his throat like a hard crust of bread. Owen calls for water as he hammers and Andrew lowers his hand closer to the fire. Owen calls out again in earnest and Finn hurries toward the pail, his eyes still fixed on Andrew leaning so very close to the fire now that he seems to float on the silvery heat. Finn heaves the sloshing bucket in both hands, the water heavy as lead, and he tries to lug i
t toward Owen but cannot keep his balance, and then he is falling and the water spilling like a wave from his arms, and he stumbles into one of the big mallets propped top-heavy on its handle, and the mallet teeters and slices a slow arc through the air and crashes into the box where Siobhan is sleeping.

  They all hear it, the awful crack and the terrible silence that follows, and at first no one dares approach. Finn clenches his jaw and tries to undo the last few seconds in his head. Then comes the wailing full-throated, and it is a relief. Owen, Andrew, and Patrick lean over the box and Finn stands behind, peeks between his fingers. One side of the box is all to splinters, but Siobhan appears unharmed. Owen lifts her and she screams and wriggles in the tangle of blankets. He tugs a corner, lets the blankets fall to the floor, and then they see it, one tiny hand plump and pink and the other twisted and broken at the fatness of the forearm.

  Owen and Moira try to straighten the tiny smashed fingers, but they cannot find the small bones amid the swelling. They wrap the hand in strips of rag, and Siobhan screams when touched, seems relieved only when they remove the bandages and leave her to flap the hand above her head in spasms that toss off sparks of pain. She no longer smiles at Finn’s approach and will not be soothed by Moira’s songs. They place her beneath the oak tree near the door and she stares at the fluttering leaves, watching how each dangles from its twig. Her hand turns the color and shape of a rotted apple, and it swells until it seems it will burst, and Owen says that he won’t flinch to do what is needed.

  Finn gathers handfuls of pebbles at the Nore and throws them into the river one by one, wishing he could take back what has happened until his head aches and his shoulder hangs loose. He knows already that this guilt will trail him day to day. The swelling creeps up Siobhan’s arm like a fungus and they wait for what is sure to come next until, slowly, the limb begins shrinking to its former size. The flesh fades from purple to blue to gray and the fingers curl into a tight little fist angry at the injustice of living. When Finn asks Andrew what he saw when he stared into the fire that day, Andrew says nothing, but he narrows his eyes as if to suggest that Finn might just as easily have foreseen the shattering of the girl’s arm himself.

  Finn hopes that things will return to how they were, but Owen and Moira whisper more than usual and Moira tells Finn that no matter what happens, he must remember always to keep Siobhan close and look after her as he would a sister. From the rueful tone of Moira’s voice, Finn knows what they have decided; he knows that Owen will send him away, just as Finn’s father had done. But before this happens, the landlord at New Park, Arthur Ainsworth, suddenly appears at their door rigid with urgency, and Owen sends the boys to wait in the back room. Their conversation is hushed though it sounds like Moira makes a high-pitched sigh now and then, and Finn expects Owen to come in and pin a new letter to his chest and set him in the road with Siobhan tied to his back, and he wonders how far he will have to walk this time and who he will find waiting for him. This is what he is prepared to hear Owen explain when he gathers the boys at the fire after the landlord has left.

  But instead Owen tells them that the forge is no place for a foundling.

  Chapter 4

  IN THE WAKE OF THE LONG-HAIRED VISITOR

  Here in the spring of 1744, one week past his eighth birthday, young Arthur Ainsworth rises before dawn, roused by a light not the sun. His first thought is to tell his younger brother, Lawrence, to snuff the guttering candle and put away his Homer. Far better to read about gods and giants in the brightness of day. But Lawrence is fast asleep alongside him, the book splayed on his shallow chest and the candle long extinguished. Arthur swings a soft fist anyway and clips the boy’s ear but this does not wake him. On the other side of the room their older brother, Stephen, coughs, and then Arthur hears noises rising from the street, startled shouts and disgruntled animal stirrings. He covers his ears and presses his face deep into his pillow. There should be no cause for disturbance at this hour. The Ainsworth home, high and narrow, stands far from the chaotic markets at Spitalfields, far from the restless wharves along the Thames and the busy thoroughfares in between where clamoring Londoners begin the day long before it arrives. Here at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, dawn treads softly, and so at this hour it is clear that something is not right. Arthur feels a suggestion of movement, as if someone has tipped the bed just enough to shift the center. He throws off the blanket, kicks his sleeping brother for good measure, pushes himself to sitting, and slips from the warm mattress. The floorboards are cold beneath his stockinged feet and he hops across the room, rubbing his eyes, disbelieving what he sees: beyond the window, the night has become a strange sort of day.

  A cold glow pesters birds in the still-black trees and sets earnest dogs to barking. In the street below, faces half-asleep tilt skyward. He thinks they are pointing at him, but when he follows their outstretched arms he sees the bright light piercing the sky, an icy brilliance outshining the full moon. A broad fan rises above the glowing object, hailing him like an open hand. Still dreaming, perhaps, he lifts his arm toward the bright visitor, spreads his fingers, and waves.

  The Great Six-Tailed Comet lingers in the London sky for weeks, rising well before the sun and visible even in daylight. Its daily coming and going is on everyone’s lips. Some watchers call it a marvel. Arthur’s mother, Angela Ainsworth, says it is evidence of a God whose works are as magnificent as they are mysterious. But others find it a cause for worry. There is talk that the celestial dome has cracked, that there is a hole in the sky’s vault leaking the bright essence of heaven itself. Comets of previous years have brought drought and famine, vicious storms, the destruction of empires, and retribution for sins unrepented. Concerned Londoners attempt to drive off the comet with a desperate barrage of church bells and cannons, and some men warn that a second flood is imminent; self-ordained preachers stand knee-deep in the alluvial mud near Westminster Bridge and gauge the rising level of the Thames. A comet portends nothing good, the newsboys shout in the streets, waving broadsides that proclaim the certain comings of sickness and despair if the comet does not soon depart.

  Night after night, Arthur looks skyward and feels that he will choke on the questions rising in his throat. His father reproves him for losing sleep, for neglecting his studies; he says there is no profit in gazing at the stars since there is nothing to be done about them. Gordon Ainsworth expects his sons to study the law as he has; he tells them that they will each earn their place at the bar, for it is the written law that orders the affairs of men in the world.

  “Men who watch the sky,” Gordon Ainsworth reminds his boys, “do so only to convince us that things are not as they appear. And who would wish such a maddening life for himself?” Lawrence and Stephen nod respectfully, and Arthur agrees with them, even as he recalls other advice his father has given: Wisdom tolerates blustered opinions, the better to dismiss them later with discovery.

  Arthur measures the comet’s progress across the sky in finger-widths and plots its course in the notebook meant for conjugating Latin verbs. During the day his tutor raps his knuckles when his pen strays into the margins to sketch the comet’s feathery tails. His brothers sympathize. Lawrence tells him that he has found no mention of comets in Homer, but he says the word comes from the Greek kometes, meaning “long-haired.” Arthur says that the comet deserves a better name, but Stephen says he has found nothing in their father’s library to suggest that a man has a legal right to name something in the sky, and surely the order of English law must extend beyond the earth as well. Under the comet’s pallid glow, the brothers riffle through the heavy books smelling of leather and leaf-rot, some are gilt-edged, and some are cracked along their spines, and all bear the bookseller’s crimson stamp:

  THE PILLARS OF THE MUSES

  MEWS GATE

  MESSRS. CULLENDON, ALLEN, AND CO.

  Their father has told them that these books hold the full sum of a lawyer’s training. The boys comb through the tedious workings of the world, page after page
of decisions on taxes and levies and fines and the possession and transfer of property and land, but not a single word regarding how a man might lay claim to an object in the heavens.

  Lawrence says that the Greeks and the Romans long ago named all the stars and planets, which have remained unchanged since men first lifted their eyes from the ground. It is only the sudden and unpredictable appearance of comets that spoils the immutable celestial sphere. Stephen agrees, and he tells Arthur that since a comet comes once and never again, giving it a name is as pointless as christening a snowflake or raindrop.