by BJ Hoff
11
The Silent Scream
I think the most dread sound,
The most terrible cry to the human ear,
Is not the common lament for the end of life,
But one heart’s keen
For the death of Innocence.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF JOSEPH MAHON, COUNTY MAYO (1848)
Throughout the long morning, Nelson Hall lay still as a tomb. Outside, the soft dawn rain had increased to a frigid downpour, weeping through leaden skies that blotted the day’s light and drummed away all other sounds.
Within, no voices were raised; indeed, no conversation was made that was not absolutely necessary, and then words were limited to furtive whispers. The maids went about their work in doleful silence. The classrooms were empty; the four scholars who now lived on the premises had been excused to their rooms in the absence of Sister Louisa and the Seanchai. Even the great wolfhound lay silent and mournful outside the chapel doors, as if standing guard over a holy place.
It seemed for all the world that there had been a death during the night.
And so there had. Under cover of darkness, in the concealing shadows of evil, Innocence had suffered yet another blow.
In her twenty-five years as a nun, Louisa Moore had seen much pain, much ugliness, inflicted by one human being upon another.
She had worked among Dublin’s destitute, nursed in hospitals, ministered to the homeless and the dying. During the past months, she had labored to the point of exhaustion among the famine immigrants who flooded the streets and alleys of Dublin with their misery.
Through it all, she had determined not to let the suffering and the tragedy of her fellowman destroy her. Most of the time she managed a precarious balance, keeping a safe step’s distance away from the dividing line that separated ministry from madness.
But as she stood by the bed of the young woman called Finola, she knew herself to be in danger of crossing the line. Nothing in her memory had shaken her quite so violently as this.
Louisa believed with all her heart that God’s Word was true, and that, just as He promised, He would work good from all things entrusted to Him. Indeed, she had seen that promise fulfilled more times than she could remember.
But standing here as witness to this young girl’s tragedy, she could not for the very life of her imagine how even the Lord could turn this kind of disaster to good.
The girl had as yet showed no sign of rallying, although she was anything but lifeless. Every touch of the physician’s hand seemed to bring pain; every labored breath was accompanied by a choked sigh or an anguished moan.
Perhaps the Lord in His wisdom had hidden the girl, for now, in a shelter known only to Him. Louisa had seen this before in many victims. They lived, but in another place. A place unknown and unapproachable by those outside the pale.
In God’s presence—in His arms, close to His heart—the victim waited until the Lord moved to give safe passage to whichever side of heaven He chose.
It was difficult to imagine how beauty could possibly shine through such stark evidence of evil. Yet, shine it did. Finola’s carefully formed, delicate loveliness made the ugly manifestation of man’s depravity all the more visible, all the more terrible.
Louisa bent to sponge the girl’s forehead with a cool cloth while the surgeon bound her midsection. “The animal spared her nothing!” muttered the physician, more to himself than to Louisa. “She is broken…a broken doll. Broken bones and fractures, her kidneys bruised—” he stopped, overcome, his hands trembling as much as his voice.
He met Louisa’s gaze over the girl’s still form. She would not have expected to see such agony, such rage, in a man who surely must encounter the very depths of tragedy in his profession. He was still a young man, but Louisa suspected that after this day he would feel much older.
“Will she live?” Louisa asked quietly.
The surgeon looked from her to Finola’s bruised face, now swabbed with ointment. “Yes,” he said in a voice hoarse with emotion. “I would say that she will live.” He looked up. “But tell me this, Sister: Do you think that she will want to live?”
Louisa could not drag her eyes away from the girl’s poor broken body, her bruised loveliness. “As God enables us,” she said softly, “we will do everything we can to be sure she does.”
Less than an hour later Finola began to fight her way back to consciousness. Watching her struggle, Louisa anguished for the pain the child was obviously enduring. Her own body winced with each difficult breath, every flail of the hand and tortured gasp uttered. The slightest movement seemed torment.
But the most terrible thing of all, indeed the one evidence of Finola’s suffering that Louisa found most painful to witness, was the voiceless cry, the futile, tortured rasp of a whisper that the girl gave over and over again throughout her agony.
As she twisted and cringed, her face drawn in a taut rictus of horror, her hands knotted and raised as if in self-defense, Finola repeatedly opened her mouth in a futile attempt to cry out.
Shuddering with the girl’s every effort, Louisa thought that silent scream must be the most heartbreaking sound she had ever heard.
The ship had put out just past dawn. By now Dublin City was only a stretch of coast, great rocks, and a number of lighthouses.
Mooney took a moment to give it a last look. The wind was numbing, the spray off the ocean laced with ice. He hunched deep inside his jacket and stood, watching.
It would be months before he saw the harbor again. Months of rough seas, hot-tempered sailors, and squalid living. Months of hard work and cold nights. Months of boredom.
He would look her up when he came back. He wouldn’t forget her, that was certain. Not for long.
His lips cracked in the semblance of a smile. She’d not be forgetting him either, he would warrant. Not for a minute.
12
Doing Battle with the Enemy
A starless landscape came
’Twixt that scene and my aching sight,
And anon two spires of flame
Arose on my left and right;
And a warrior throng
Were marching along,
Timing their tramp to a battle song,
And I felt my heart from their zeal take fire,
But, ah! my dream fled as that host grew nigher!
THOMAS D’ARCY MCGEE (1825–1868)
Only the nun was allowed to remain in the bedroom where Finola had been taken. She had been summoned to help Lucy put Finola to bed, and, no doubt because she was a woman and a nun, the surgeon had requested that she stay.
Just as quickly, he had ordered Lucy to leave. More than likely her kind of woman was offensive to the nun—perhaps to the surgeon himself.
Lucy would not have expected anything else. Still, she begged to stay with Finola, insisting she might be of some help. The physician, however, remained adamant: only the nun would remain; Lucy would wait outside. With the big black man watching her and the stricken-faced Fitzgerald looking as if he might spring from his wheelchair in a raving fury at any moment, Lucy knew it would be foolish to press. It was enough that she had been allowed to come, more than she could have hoped for.
Upon arrival, as she hovered near the bedroom door, she had been surprised when the black man—they called him Sandemon—brought a straight chair, indicating it was for her. Bracing the chair with his hands, he said kindly, “You can wait here. No doubt you will want to stay close-by, for you may be needed soon.”
Now, nearly two hours later, Lucy sat, still cradling Finola’s wee cat in her lap, her eyes filling with tears as she remembered what the black man had said to her. There had been a time when such words might have thrilled her heart. To be needed, to be of some value—to someone—she could not imagine such a thing. She might have lived long and content on the knowledge that, at least once, she had been important to someone, that her life had counted for more than a few years of emptiness.
But now…now, she could only
mourn the waste her life had been. Her lack of worth, her uselessness, somehow seemed to make what had happened to Finola just that much more tragic and unthinkable.
What cruel fate had dictated that she, an aging prostitute whose very existence had been squandered on sin, should be spared the pain and degradation of violence—so often the lot of Dublin’s whores—while Finola…innocent angel…endured such a vile, merciless attack?
If the God Finola had so often referred to did in fact exist, where had He been last night? Couldn’t He see what had been done to this innocent one who trusted Him…loved Him? Didn’t He care?
Lucy remembered a street preacher who had once appeared, night after night, on the corner near Healy’s place to speak of God. She had stood with Finola at the top of the stairs and listened to the old man talk of God and His Son—called Jesus—who was sent to show His father’s love to the world.
The preacher said that God was aware of every child in the world, called them by name, knew the hairs on their heads—indeed, had them numbered. He knew the needs of every soul, claimed the preacher: heard the pleas of all the helpless, felt the pain of those who suffered, wept with every broken heart throughout the ages.
Finola had clung to the man’s words, believed them, fed on them—claimed them for her memory. And she had tried, with her hand signs and pen and paper, to explain it all to Lucy.
But Lucy had known, although she smiled and pretended to agree, that the preacher’s God—Finola’s God—wasn’t accessible to the likes of Lucy Hoy.
Not wanting to disappoint Finola, she had kept her feelings to herself. Obviously, the lass set great store by this God of Love.
But nobody loved the Lucy Hoys of the world, and that was the truth. A thing had to be worth the loving, now, didn’t it? Even for Finola’s God—the God of Love—a woman like herself would not be worth the effort.
Of course, such a God could easily love Finola. She was goodness itself, pure and gentle—and innocent. Everyone loved Finola.
But where…where had Finola’s God of Love been last night?
In his room, Sandemon was on his knees, waiting for the Light. It had been a long time—a very long time—since he had met in direct encounter so bold an evil, so deep a darkness.
In his own strength, he might have chosen to ignore the old enemy’s presence. He might have cowered, all too aware of his own sin and weakness in the face of the dark one, the one who hated all innocence, all things pure and holy—who hated anything touched by the Light. But, although he felt alone, he had the promise that he was not alone, and so he braced himself to persevere.
Besides, his efforts were not on his own behalf, but for the poor girl downstairs whose life hung suspended by a fragile thread. It was for Finola that he must overcome.
The times were rare when his own dealings with the darkness would surface, dredging up from the deep those hideous memories that could, even after so long a time, still shake his peace and haunt his spirit. More often than not, the door remained firmly closed on that time in his life, before the island priests had done battle for his soul…and won.
But now, despite the wall of heavenly fire, the promised hedge of divine protection, he was once more assailed by a savage onslaught of images from the past. Memories, ugly memories, of what he had been, the dark things in which he had played a part, dived at him, attacking him like crazed vultures. He was caught up in a maelstrom of memories—memories of his own wickedness, his corruption, and the tragedy he had inflicted on the lives of others before his deliverance.
He covered his head with one arm as if a veritable host of evil predators would swoop down from the air and fall upon him. Forcing a fist against his mouth, he muffled his cries. As he struggled against what he knew to be an already vanquished foe, he cried out with such vehemence that he drew blood from his hand.
Finally…finally…he felt the darkness begin to fade, until at last, it was replaced by the Light. The blessed Light now banished the fear, gave route to the enemy, then breathed, like fresh air from heaven, the cleansing reminder of love and new life into Sandemon’s spirit.
His body and soul wrung dry, drained from the exertion of this unheralded attack, he lifted his head, and then his hands. Enfolded by the Light, he sent up to the throne not a plea for protection, but a power-filled psalm of high praise.
Morgan thought he had known the full force of rage before this day, had been caught up countless times in the whirlwind of anger, to be tossed and battered by storms of blind fury.
But those times had been different, had stopped just short of madness—for then, he had not been helpless, had not been trapped in the cursed wheelchair. Then he had possessed the means to make a difference, to turn his rage outward, into action, instead of inward, on himself—on his weakness, his helplessness, his guilt.
Now, as he sat staring with dull fixation into the fire, it occurred to him that even if he could have freed himself from the wheelchair, there would still be no way to damp the fire that blazed inside him.
He felt as if he might die from the sheer agony of remembering how Finola had looked when Sandemon first carried her inside. So still, so pale and lifeless…so broken.
Until today he had not admitted that he loved her. He had called his affection for the girl by many names, rationalized his feelings by labeling them “brotherly” or “protective.”
He had used every conceivable excuse—all of them justified—for not admitting his true feelings: first and most obvious, his being a cripple. The vast age difference between them—clearly, more than a decade. The mystery of her past, who she was, where she had come from—he had even tried to reason that she might belong to another man, although her youth and the years spent in isolation at the inn made it highly unlikely.
It was a bitter thing, that it had taken a night of terror, an unthinkable vicious attack to make him face the truth…that he loved her. He loved Finola.
Unhappily, his newly recognized love served only to add yet another dimension to the helpless rage in which he was already trapped. He did not know which knife now pierced more deeply into his soul: the imagined horror of the attack, the anguish of knowing how she must have suffered, or the guilt born of thinking he might have prevented her agony, might have spared her this grief, if only he had been a whole man.
The man he used to be might have overcome the obstacles—what was age, after all, or a missing past?—and gone in pursuit of her love, ignoring the consequences. The man he used to be might have claimed her affection, secured her promise, made her his bride.
But the man he was now, at this moment, could not even offer her a measure of comfort if…please, God…she managed to survive this nightmare. What possible comfort could he be, what haven could he offer?
What difference could he make?
You could be her friend….
The thought came unbidden, like a whisper from the very recesses of his aching heart.
Aye…that much, at least, he could do. He could be Finola’s friend.
And how she would need one! What anguish, what horror, lay ahead if she survived?
At the very least, he could give her shelter, the protection of his household. A home. A family.
A faint, slowly dawning glimmer of hope began to rise in him. Hadn’t he told her, and not so long ago, that they were all family, united in God? Finola and himself. Annie. Sandemon. Sister Louisa.
If Finola would allow it, they would be her family from this day on.
As for himself…he would be anything…everything…she needed him to be.
He blinked, straightening in the chair. He felt a sudden and urgent need to be with the family. His family.
He rang for Artegal. As soon as the pale footman appeared in the doorway, Morgan demanded the whereabouts of Annie and Sandemon.
“The girl—Miss Annie—is in the chapel, I believe, sir. As for him”—the footman’s mouth thinned in distaste—“he said something about going to his room to…to do battle.�
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Morgan managed a ghost of a smile. He might have known that’s where Sandemon would be. On his knees.
“Go up and tell him to come to the chapel, please, Artegal. Tell him to come at once if he can.”
The footman gave a disapproving sniff and a reluctant nod. “Very well, sir.”
“Tell him,” Morgan added, ignoring the footman’s pinched expression, “that the family will do battle together.”
Annie Delaney had heard nothing from the Lord. She had prayed and begged, stayed on her knees for more than an hour now—the longest she had ever prayed in her entire life!
But no answer came. Not even a whisper. Not a single word of explanation or assurance.
Annie felt both anger and fear: anger at God’s silence and fear that she would dare to be angry with Him. She supposed it was wicked to feel anger toward God, wicked to let go of such thoughts, for they might fly straight to heaven.
But she had kept them to herself as long as she could. She simply could not understand why God had helped her, a child unwanted, even by her own mother, to escape drunken old Tully and fly free to Dublin City, unharmed. Yet Finola, so good and gentle—a true child of God, loved by everybody—had been left on her own, unprotected, to be…savaged in such a terrible way.
Why? Why had the Lord not rescued Finola? Why had He allowed her to be hurt? She might even die!
Annie began to cry harder. She would not think so! She would not Finola would not die…could not die!
“Please, Lord…please, Sir,” she managed between sobs, “if someone has to die today—and I confess I don’t understand why that should be the case—but if it is, Lord, couldn’t you just take somebody bad, somebody wicked—instead of Finola? I know you’d probably like to have her company, her being so pretty and as nice and kind as any angel must be! But we need her down here, don’t you see? I’m not asking just for myself, Lord—the Seanchai does dote on her so. And he’s near out of his wits, he’s that frightened!”
