The Paradise Tree

by Elena Maria Vidal

  When the dance ended, they walked through the autumnal radiance of Uncle James’ harvested barley field, hands clasped and fingers plaited as if they planned never to part. The winds played with the clouds above, swirling them into grey, gold and silver patterns so that the sunbeams constantly shifted, faded, and glowed. They talked of everything and of nothing in particular; all that seemed to matter was that they were together and united in a way that neither had known to be possible with anyone on earth.

  A few days later, Anthony had come to Long Point to call upon her parents to ask their permission to court Bridget. They went into the parlor and closed the door. Bridget never found out exactly what was said, although her mother later told her that they thought Anthony too young and without prospects to give him access to Bridget. Besides, he had a wild reputation, being friends with Patrick Ivey. From her upstairs window she saw Anthony climb on his horse and ride away. He never looked back. The next thing she heard was that he had gone West.

  A fish plopped in the water as Lottie continued reading the poem.

  For one thing only, Lord dear Lord, I plead

  Lead me aright

  Though strength should falter and though heart should bleed

  Through peace to light.

  Annie caught a perch, and with calm precision reeled it in, flipping it into the basket. Bridget jumped because for a moment she thought she saw a face staring at her from the water, like one of the faeries in the tales her mother told. She realized it was her own reflection. With her hair coming undone beneath her wide straw hat and her fey smile, she did half resemble a faery lady. “I tell you, we Trainors are descended from the Old Folk,” Ma once insisted. “I can see it in you, Brig. You’re fine-boned, like one of them. And the most graceful of all me girls!”

  Bridget thought of where the river of life had brought her in her nearly twenty-seven years. For the last decade or so, not only had she taught in various schools around the county, but she’d also written poetry for the diocesan periodicals, under a pen name, of course. John McArdle, son and heir of Squire Andrew, was now courting her and he was a suitor of whom both her parents heartily approved. John had supper with the O’Connors almost every evening when Bridget was home during the summers. Yet she had trouble encouraging him to make a proposal. Her heart could not forget the moments she had spent with Anthony. She realized she was being foolish and perhaps ruining her life, but when John touched her hand she never felt the same magic she had felt at Anthony’s touch and glance. Her mother told her that marriage was not based on such nonsense, and that all such feelings faded fast and what counted was a man who was steady, kind and hard-working “like your Pa.” John was a hard worker, highly educated, and set to inherit a great deal of property. He was also quick with a jest, warm-hearted and, last but not least, descended from the Plantagenets. “So there you have it,” Bridget often said to herself.

  Although she had known John all of her life, he had never really noticed her until her sister Mary’s wedding five years earlier in the fall of 1865. One summer Mary went to New York State to visit their Uncle Michael O’Connor and his family. While she was there, she met a gentleman named John Desmond, who fell desperately in love with her. They had not thought of Mary as the type of girl over whom a man would be frantic with love; her heavy florid features rendered her plain, although she could make a turn of phrase sound extremely funny, even when humor was not her intention. Her hair was thick, curly, and lustrous; her nature, sweet and benevolent. When their father found out that Mr. Desmond wanted to ask for Mary’s hand, he stormed through the house shouting, “I’ll not be having one of me daughters marrying a Yank!” But after Uncle Michael wrote a long letter, assuring them that Mr. Desmond was a fine man whom he had known since childhood, as devout and diligent as could be, Pa relented somewhat. Then Mr. Desmond himself traveled to Long Point to ask Pa’s permission to marry Mary. He was a genteel, handsome man, not much taller than his intended bride. He owned a prosperous farm near Brasher Falls, New York, not far from Uncle Michael and Aunt Catherine’s place. Pa liked him in spite of himself and gave his consent; Ma cried that all her children were leaving her. The marriage itself was a modest affair; Mary wanted a small wedding, and wore her best blue dress to be wed in, asking only that everyone wear clothes they already had, without having anything special made. Her nuptial Mass at St. Philip Neri’s had a unique beauty, with the choir singing Gregorian chants, and a sense of profound mystery descending upon the congregation. Afterwards, they all made the journey back to Long Point for a merry time. The McArdles were there, and Bridget found herself talking to John McArdle, who gazed at her as if he had never seen a woman before.

  After they had caught enough fish, and broken their fast with bread, cheese and cold tea, Charlie commenced to paddle the canoe towards home. They had promised Ma they would be at Long Point for dinner; Pa required their presence since the ministers were coming to debate. The younger girls snoozed as the canoe glided up the river. Bridget fell to thinking of how empty the house seemed now that her older sisters, and even Mary, a younger sister, had either died or married, leaving her alone with the younger ones as the older sister they knew the best. She realized that if she married John McArdle she would be close to Long Point, able to see her parents everyday if she wanted.

  She remembered how upset Ma and Pa were about having two daughters gone away to a foreign country. After Mary went to America with her husband, Ellen followed; she found a position as a governess with a wealthy family in Brasher Falls, a town of some prosperity due to the iron works and mills. Many Irishers had settled there is search of employment. Pa seemed to see America as a place of infamy where the most innocent people could be lured into vice. In the winter of 1866, he composed a letter to Ellen and Mary, mostly to Ellen, who did not have a husband’s protection. Bridget remembered when he read it aloud to their mother before posting it, in case she wanted to add anything. It went as follows:

  My dear daughters Ellen and Mary,

  This is the first letter I have ever written you and I hope it will not be the last. I am anxious to know how you are enjoying your health, how John and his mother are, also my brother Michael and your Aunt Catherine and all your cousins, and my old neighbors.

  My dear children, it is superfluous for me to admonish you as respects to your moral and religious duty. For, thanks be to God, you did not neglect that instruction under your paternal roof. I pray God to shed His grace unto your hearts to practice faithfully the duties of His religion. You will not be saved only because you are a Catholic but when you are a true and pious one. Let not weak and silly minds persuade you that this is an unnecessary thing to engage in the exercise of piety. My dear Ellen as your lot is cast among strangers by practicing this precept you have been taught by the Church and your parents, you will gain the respect and esteem of those who can appreciate virtue. You know it is the duty of servants, either man or woman, to obey their employers in all lawful actions. If however they solicit you to commit sin or order you to do to do anything wrong or sinful do not then, but resist all evil. Consider the family you work for as your own, look to their interest, let nothing go to loss that is under your care. I hope you will keep the Sundays holy, shun every dangerous party and also associates who are addicted to immoralities of any kind. I have not much to say to Mary—she is her own mistress—at least she is in her own home. If you do not let her read this, tell her to be obedient and kind to her mother-in-law, and to respect, love and obey her husband. There is no occasion to admonish her unless she changed her temper since she changed her name.

  You will not approve of so long a scroll, but you cannot wonder when I tell you that the pen that wrote it came from the South this winter (crow’s quill pen) and is wielded by trembling hands.

  Remember me to Michael and Catherine. I hope she has recovered her health. I am in hopes your mother and I will be able to go see you all this summer. You will find many blunders in this letter.

  Your
affectionate father,

  Daniel O’Connor

  “Glory be!” Ma responded at the end of the letter. “Mr. O’Connor, you speak to our Ellen as if she were a hussy in need of a moral reclamation! It puts me heart crossways! And she a prim schoolmarm! What can you be thinking?”

  Pa’s heavy brows furrowed with concern. “I did not mean to sound harsh. So, do you think I should be writing it over? Our Ellen is a good girl but she knows nothing of the world . . . .”

  “Nay, write it not again,” sighed Ma. “We know hen’s teeth about the folk beyont, and what Ellen might be encountering, God bless her.”

  The girls woke up as Charlie pulled the boat up to Pa’s dock on the river. He leaped ashore, secured the boat and helped each of them out, taking the basket of fish to carry it home. He paused when he noticed a white-haired woman in an old-fashioned grey bonnet with a ruffled cap underneath and a dark homespun housedress a few yards away. The woman’s face was softened by wrinkles, but still

  pretty; her penetrating blue eyes twinkled as she smiled and nodded at them.

  “It’s Mrs. Barnes!” whispered Annie, excitedly.

  “Isn’t she a witch?” gasped Lottie.

  “Oh, no, not at all,” said Bridget. “She has the second sight. It’s a preternatural gift left over from the Garden of Eden. It is neither good nor evil in itself; it depends upon how it’s used.”

  Charlie nodded. “Mrs. Barnes is a good and wise woman. Remember how she helped Pa find our sheep last spring, after the Chase gang stole them? Pa and I went to the place she said they were hidden, and there they were. Pa called to them and they came.”

  “I wonder what she is doing so far from home?” said Bridget. She knew that Mrs. Barnes lived far away, north of Athens with her many children. The old woman rarely left her farm since her husband abandoned her. “Hello, Mrs. Barnes!”

  The wise woman smiled and took a step closer.

  “Can we help you, ma’am?” asked Charlie.

  “Bridget Gabrielle Mary O’Connor!” Mrs. Barnes pronounced Bridget’s name slowly, like an oracle. Her voice was high, musical and Gaelic.

  “Yes, ma’am! Here I am!” replied Bridget.

  “I have come to warn you, daughter of Daniel! You stand between light and darkness. Let not the darkness overcome you. There will be danger but you will go from peace to light!”

  “Did you come all the way from Plum Hollow to tell me this, Mrs. Barnes?”

  “Yes, dearie. And to warn you! You’re the seventh child of a seventh child, like meself. You have gifts. You will have help in the present trial.”

  “Would you like to come to Long Point and have dinner with us, Mrs. Barnes?” called Lottie.

  “Nay, child, but I’m much obliged. I’m on my way to see an old friend. Farewell! And if you need me you know where to find me!”

  “Good-bye!” they all chimed. Mrs. Barnes turned and hastened away along the river’s edge.

  They were silent as they walked up the steep wooded bank. “What did she mean, Brig, about being the seventh child of a seventh child?” asked Lottie.

  “She means that being a seventh child of a seventh child makes a person clairvoyant,” explained Annie, with all the superior knowledge of her fourteen years. “That’s what they think in Ireland, anyway.”

  “I don’t think that’s in the catechism,” asserted Lottie.

  “Of course it’s not in the catechism. It’s folklore, eh,” said Annie, jumping over a fallen log.

  “But that would mean either Ma or Pa would have had to have been a seventh child themselves and they are not,” declared Charlie.

  “Ma is a seventh child, and I am her seventh child,” affirmed Bridget quietly.

  “I did not know that,” sighed Charlie.

  “Neither did I,” concurred Lottie solemnly.

  “So, do you have the second sight, Brig?” asked Annie.

  Bridget really did not want to talk about it. “A little, I think.” They fell silent for a time. Soon the woods ended and they were traipsing through their neighbor’s pasture towards Long Point. Sheep grazed sleepily in the noonday sun as the winds rippled the grass like an ocean of green. They fell to laughing and talking about the shenanigans of their small, and not so small, nieces and nephews, Mick’s children, and Joanna’s and Margaret’s. Soon they crossed Pa’s southern boundary onto Long Point land. Bridget watched her younger sisters flitting along in their bright calico dresses, remembering that it had not been long since they were babies themselves.

  “What’s that noise?” asked Charlie. They were passing Pa’s old sugar shack. It stood in what had once been a thick swatch of forest, but all the trees had been cleared away to make room for the sheep. Pa had built a newer sugar shack in the woods bordering Singleton Lake, on the north side of his property.

  “There are vultures!” exclaimed Lottie. There were indeed vultures circling the shack and some were trying to get inside the shuttered windows.

  “Judas Maccabeus! There must be something dead in there!” Annie surmised.

  “Don’t swear, Annie!” scolded Bridget. She suddenly felt a chill, as if the wind had turned cold.

  “I’ll go see what it is,” said Charlie. He shouted, waving his arms, so that the vultures squawked and flew away. He went to the door of the shack, which appeared to be unlocked, and ventured inside. Within half a minute he darted out, the color drained from his face. Bridget instinctively put her arms around both girls. “Let’s take the girls home, Brig! Quickly!” Charlie exclaimed when he found his voice.

  “What is it, what is it?”

  “Girls, run along ahead!” ordered Charlie. Lottie and Annie joined hands and ran towards the farm. When they were far enough away not to hear, Charlie took Bridget’s hand, saying with a trembling voice, “There’s a dead person in there, a babe.”

  “God have mercy!” exclaimed Bridget, crossing herself. “Come, we must fetch Pa!” Neither of them stopped running until they reached the house.

  CHAPTER 12

  Babe in the Meadow

  July 1870

  “A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” —Matthew 2:18

  “Wait, Charlie!” called Bridget as she neared the house, gasping for breath. Her brother had outpaced her and already had his hand on the doorknob. “Let’s speak to Pa about this privately, not in front of Ma and the guests!” Charlie nodded, waiting until she reached the house to open the door. They entered quietly. Everyone was already seated at the table and she could hear the ministers talking and laughing with Pa. As they entered the dining room, they could see that there were three ministers present, the Reverend Mr. Smith, who was quite elderly now, along with the Reverends Mr. Brown and Mr. Hill. Mr. Horn was there as well. They stood as Bridget entered and she curtseyed in response. Charlie gave a small bow and handed the basket of fish to their mother, who bustled into the kitchen with it. Lottie and Annie were already seated; both looked too startled to speak as they stared at Bridget with wide eyes.

  “Is something the matter?” asked Pa, with one eyebrow raised. He never missed anything where his children were concerned.

  “Begging your pardon, gentlemen, but we need to speak with Squire O’Connor privately for a moment,” said Charlie, addressing the ministers.

  At that moment Ma returned from the kitchen. “What’s going on?” she inquired.

  “I’ll be finding out momentarily, darling,” said Pa. He smiled at his guests. “Gentlemen, I leave you in the care of Mrs. O’Connor and Mr. Horn.” He motioned Bridget and Charlie into the parlor. His face paled as Charlie told him haltingly what he’d found in the old sugar shack.

  “This sort of abomination has been occurring for years, my children,” Daniel said sadly. “I have always managed to keep word of it from you all, and from your mother. She can no longer bear to hear of such horrors. Her health will not allow it.” Over the years, Ma had in
creasingly suffered from dizzy spells and shortness of breath, along with eye trouble. She had lost a couple of teeth as well; Pa had had to bring her into the blacksmith shop to extract them.

  “Pa, what do you mean it has been going on for years?” asked Bridget, tears springing to her eyes.

  “What I mean, my Bridget Gabrielle, is not fit for any young lady to hear. Know only that many foolish and vulnerable young women have been betrayed by weak and improvident men. The one who pays for the foolishness and weakness is an innocent babe. And, in some cases, the woman has been taken against her will. Yes, such things happen, even here in Leeds County, although it is usually kept quiet.” Bridget covered her face with her hands. Daniel went on. “My friend, Dr. Kinney in Brockville, has dealt with many such cases. We must send for him, now. And for Squire McArdle.”