The Paradise Tree_A Novel

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Sadly, oh Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping,

  Fate bids me languish long ages away;

  Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,

  Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.

  When will that day-star, mildly springing,

  Warm our isle with peace and love?

  When will heav'n, its sweet bell ringing,

  Call my spirit to the fields above.

  Brigit forced the ship from her mind. She ran her hand through the boy’s dark, matted curls. The child opened his eyes and gazed into hers. She bent and kissed his burning forehead as she clasped his thin hand.

  “Thank you.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I will never forget . . .” But then his eyes rolled back in his head as his tiny body shook with a dreadful spasm. His breath left him and he was still.

  Brigit cradled him closer and wept. “Oh, poor darling! God have mercy on you! Holy Mary Mother of God!” She made the sign of the cross.

  The child’s mother stirred. “My boy! My Georgie! What has happened to him?”

  “He has gone to God, Ma’am,” said Brigit through her tears. “He has gone to God.”

  “Oh, my George! My only son! Why . . . why did you have to leave me?” The woman shuddered with sobs.

  The day was deepening into twilight. “Ma’am, I must get you back to the cottage before night falls,” said Brigit, wiping her face with the corner of her apron. “Do you have enough strength to stand so that I can help you onto my horse?”

  “What of my boy?” asked the woman in a fading voice.

  “There is no time before dark for us to give him a proper burial,” Brigit told her. “And no proper shovel about. But since I don’t want the wolves to get at him, I will cover him with stones from the river until Mr. O’Connor can come.” She enshrouded George’s little body with her shawl then made her way through the bushes to the shore of the lake. She filled her apron with as many smooth round stones as she could carry and piled them on and around the corpse. It took more trips than she could count; the wind picked up as the sun set, chilling her to the bone. Rory accompanied her until she made him sit by the victims to guard them. Her only consolation was that there were no snakes around due to the autumn frosts. Finally, she had a small cairn built over George. She knelt and said some prayers. Then it was time to depart.

  She helped the mother onto the horse. She sat slumped over in the saddle but was able to hang on to the pommel. Leading Maeve on foot, Brigit summoned Rory and off they went through the forest just as dusk was coming on. Both horse and dog knew the way, so there was little for Brigit to do except steady Maeve so that the woman would not tumble off.

  “What is your name, ma’am?” asked Brigit.

  “My name is Martha, Martha Peters.” Mrs. Peters choked on a sob as she spoke, her breathing labored.

  At length they came to Long Point farm; Kitty had placed candles in the windows so that the cabin could be seen through the chill of the deepening twilight. It was nearly time to do the milking.

  “Me cabin is right up ahead, Mrs. Peters,” said Brigit. Rory ran ahead barking, and Kitty came out. Together they helped Mrs. Peters down from the horse and into the cabin. The children were sitting around the table, ready for tea. “Mammy!” cried Mick and Joanna simultaneously.

  “Ma!” exclaimed Susannah, who was sitting next to Katy, all clean and scrubbed, her hair in neat braids. The scrawny child ran over to her mother. They put Mrs. Peters in the bed shared by Katy and Joanna, who in their turn would be sleeping with Brigit that night, Daniel being gone.

  It was several months before Daniel returned. Until then, Brigit did not let the children stir from the immediate vicinity of the cabin. Mrs. Peters and Susannah stayed in the county until their health and strength came back. They were good people but Brigit could tell that they thought the O’Connors’ Irish and Catholic ways to be strange, so she arranged for them to be removed to the Buells. Later they returned to America with the help of one of the local Protestant churches. However, Daniel and Brigit had trouble finding George’s grave. The snow flew early that year and made locating the cairn impossible. By the spring the lake had swollen and flooded the banks. The remains had vanished forever into the Red Horse Lake.

  CHAPTER 7

  Moy Mell

  March, 1844

  “Being pushed I was overturned that I might fall: but the Lord supported me.” — Psalm 117:13

  From Mary Ann’s bedside, Brigit could hear the chop of Granny O’Grady’s cleaver as she quartered and sliced the peeled potatoes on the chopping block downstairs by the hearth. Brigit bathed Mary Ann’s forehead with a cool cloth. Daniel had gone to fetch the priest. Now that so much good had happened for her family, God was striking her down with the greatest sorrow of her life.

  She glanced around the snug upstairs room which was a sign of their new prosperity. In the years since the rebellion, Daniel had become an important man in the county, even as Brigit’s Pa had once predicted. “Mind you now, Brigit darling,” Pa had said to her before her wedding. “Mr. Daniel O’Connor is a very fine gentleman! They’ll be calling him ‘squire’ someday. Mark my words.”

  It was around the time that Eleanor Elizabeth was born, in 1839, that Daniel was summoned for jury duty in Brockville. Brigit could not remember what the case was, something about an inheritance, with Judge Draper presiding. She and the older children had gone to watch Daniel in the jury box. When it came time for a Catholic witness to take the stand, the clerk sketched a cross on the Bible. It was a Protestant notion that Catholics did not believe in the Bible and therefore could not swear upon it. Daniel stood up and asked the clerk: “By what authority, sir, do you take pen and ink to that Bible?”

  “It is our custom, sir,” the clerk replied.

  “Does the law prevail here or quaint local custom?” asked Daniel.

  “Mr. O’Connor is correct,” pronounced Judge Draper. “Her Majesty’s court is a court of law, not of absurd, rustic superstitions. I ask the clerk to desist.” All the Catholics in the courtroom cheered and order had to be restored.

  Word of Daniel’s courage at the trial spread throughout the district and the next time there was an election, the new MP for Leeds, Mr. William B. Richards, appointed Daniel a justice of the peace. Thus he became the first Irish Catholic magistrate ever in that region. He rarely went to court, however, so good was he at settling disputes in the parlor, helping enemies to become friends.

  They now had a proper front hall with a parlor and dining room on either side of it, as well as two new bedrooms on the ground floor, one for Daniel and Brigit and another across the hall for the younger children. To the front of the original roughcast cottage Daniel had added a large frame addition with a slate roof, just as he had promised her father. It had a front porch, which faced north in the direction of the meadow, beyond which were the woods and the lake. The eaves of the porch were trimmed with carved gingerbread, as were the edges of the high pointed roof and pointed gables of the upstairs windows. The addition was framed in vertical board and batten; both parts of the house were whitewashed.

  The entire upstairs of the new addition was intended for the older girls and female guests and while the upstairs of the older section was for Mick and any male relatives who visited. There was an attic as well. Mary Ann was in the girls’ part of the house, in a makeshift sickroom they had curtained off. The original roughcast cottage now served as the kitchen and it was where Brigit spent most of her time. Behind it in the summer was the kitchen garden, including herbs, vegetables and rows and rows of flax. Beside the garden was the loom house where Brigit did her spinning and weaving, making both wool and linen. The hardwood floors of the house were covered with the carpets, which she had woven over the years. As a child she had never imagined that such prosperity would be hers. Brigit would have given it all in order to ensure Mary Ann would live on.

  Brigit and Daniel had new neighbors, the McArdles, who were building
a house down the road from Long Point at a place called Sweet’s Corner. Daniel had met Mr. Andrew McArdle at a political meeting and after a quarrel or two they became fast friends. Andrew was a world traveler, or at least purported to be. Andrew, knowing what it was to lose a child, called every day to help Daniel with the chores, and Mrs. McArdle sent over bread and bonnyclabber.

  What with the farm, the thriving blacksmith shop, and his military duties, Daniel was a busy man. However, he made teaching the children a priority. The closest school was in Lansdowne, too far away for Mick and Joanna to attend regularly in the winter. Besides, the Lansdowne schoolhouse was in a notoriously dilapidated condition. Daniel had plans for building a schoolhouse of their own at Long Point. But Mary Ann would never see it.

  Brigit could hear the iron caldron sputter loudly as Granny O’Grady began to add the potatoes to the rolling brew. The feet and legs of the hog, which Daniel and Brigit had had butchered, smoked and kept frozen in the shed from last fall had been chopped into small pieces and been boiling for three hours. Granny had started first thing in the morning, singeing off the bristles and scraping the meat clean, while removing the toes by scorching. Now she had to stir the pot constantly so the potatoes would not stick to the sides. It was a stew as only an old Irishwoman like Granny could make. What remained from dinner would be poured into a mould and it would become a jelly, which would be delicious eaten cold for breakfast.

  Ever since Kitty Hacket had died last year, Granny O’Grady, who had been the widow’s bosom friend, had taken her place helping Brigit when she was in need. Granny was a lean angular woman, older than anyone could remember, who walked all the way to Kingston every Lent to make her confession to the bishop, a bishop being the only one to whom she would confess. She was a good soul, if rather eccentric. Hearing of Mary Ann’s illness, Granny showed up at the door one day and stayed on. Seeing Brigit’s tear-stained face she had rushed to her side, saying: “Muise, muise, mo mhiurnen! I know. There is no pain like it! Go to your darling while I take care of things here.”

  Granny was telling the children the story of Connla and the faery maiden as she scraped, peeled and stirred. She needed to keep them quiet as possible for poor Mary Ann who fought for her life. Brigit, upstairs with Mary Ann, could picture twelve-year-old Joanna keeping tiny Bridget Gabrielle away from the fire as Katy worked on her embroidery. Mick was probably playing blocks with three year old Margaret and five year old Eleanor Elizabeth, who was called “Ellen.”

  Connla of the Fiery Hair was son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. One day as he stood by the side of his father on the height of Usna, he saw a maiden clad in strange attire coming towards him. ‘Maiden, where do you come from?’ asked Connla. ‘I come from the Plains of the Ever Living,’ she said, ‘there where there is neither death nor sin. There we always keep holiday, nor need we help from any in our joy. And in all our pleasure we have no strife.’

  Mary Ann smiled faintly as she heard the story wafting up from downstairs, then she coughed and gasped for breath. Of all the things God had asked her to bear, watching seven-year-old Mary Ann suffer with pneumonia was the heaviest cross of all.

  The king and all with him wondered much to hear a voice when they saw no one. For save Connla alone, none saw the Fairy Maiden. ‘To whom are you speaking, my son?’ asked Conn the king. Then the maiden answered, ‘Connla speaks to a young, fair maid, whom neither death nor old age awaits. I love Connla, and now I call him away to the Plain of Pleasure, Moy Mell, where Boadag is king for aye, nor has there been complaint or sorrow in that land since he has held the kingship. Oh, come with me, Connla of the Fiery Hair, ruddy as the dawn. A fairy crown awaits thee to grace thy comely face and royal form. Come, and never shall thy comeliness fade, nor thy youth, till the last awful day of judgment.’

  Brigit heard Granny’s voice rise and fall with the drama. She was making her tone calm and cheerful. Brigit herself had tried to keep herself tranquil for the children; if it were not for them she would be running through the forest shrieking like a mad woman.

  It was not only a Sunday of Lent but the Vigil of the Annunciation, a welcome break in the rigors of a long Lent. It was also the First Sunday of the Passion and they needed a hearty meal before facing the intensified fasting of the next two weeks. Besides, they must to use up all frozen meat, since the recent thaw had come to stay. Brigit had brought up potatoes, carrots, turnips and parsnips from the root cellar. She had learned how to portion the supplies so that they lasted until the next harvest. There was still a hickory smoked ham in the rafters of the attic that they were saving for Easter.

  But when the last day of the month of waiting came, Connla stood by the side of the king his father on the Plain of Arcomin, and again he saw the maiden come towards him, and again she spoke to him. ‘’Tis a glorious place that Connla holds among short-lived mortals awaiting the day of death. But now the folk of life, the ever-living ones, beg and bid you come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they have learnt to know you, seeing you in thy home among thy dear ones.’

  Brigit remembered the day she and Daniel had ridden out to the station in Kitley to have both Katy and Mary Ann christened. Daniel had held Katy before him on his horse while she rode Maeve with Mary Ann in a sling across her chest. As with all their children, Daniel had baptized them at birth, there being no priest or parish church nearby. When a priest next held a station in order to bless marriages and christen babies, Daniel and Brigit would bring the little ones so that they could be anointed with the holy oils and recorded in the church registry.

  When Conn the king heard the maiden's voice he called to his men aloud and said: ‘Summon swift my Druid Coran, for I see she has again this day the power of speech.’ Then the maiden said "Oh, mighty Conn, Fighter of a Hundred Battles, the Druid's power is little loved; it has little honor in the mighty land, peopled with so many of the upright. When the Law will come, it will do away with the Druid's magic spells that come from the lips of the false black demon.’

  Brigit remembered Father saying the prayer of exorcism over Mary Ann. It was her only consolation that she had done whatever she could in order to obtain grace and blessings for her child. She recalled how Mary Ann had giggled when she was being anointed. Soon Father would be here for another anointing, and to give Mary Ann her First and Last Communion.

  Yesterday when Andrew McArdle came by, Daniel asked him if he knew the whereabouts of a priest. “Granny O’Grady will know,” said Andrew. “She knows everything going on in the diocese. Let me ask her and I’ll be back with a priest.” Brigit longed for them to come yet dreaded it.

  When the maiden ceased to speak, Connla of the Fiery Hair rushed away from them and sprang into the curragh, the gleaming, straight-gliding crystal canoe. And then they all, king and court, saw it glide away over the bright sea towards the setting sun. Away and away, till eye could see it no longer, and Connla and the Fairy Maiden went their way on the sea, and were no more seen, nor did any know where they came.

  The story ended. The children remained quiet. “Time for some maple sugar candy!” Granny announced. “Joanna, please give everyone a piece since it is a Sunday and tomorrow is a feast day.”

  Three-year-old Margaret could be heard exclaiming, “Mayann! Candy!”

  “No, Margaret darlin’, Mary Ann is too sick,” she heard Granny say. Brigit began to weep silently. Had it only been a week since Mary Ann had fallen sick?

  She had let Daniel and Mick take Katy and Mary Ann fishing with them. The children had been cooped inside the house for so long; Brigit thought she would go mad. Every time she swept and straightened a room another was made untidy. As soon as she cleaned up from one meal it was time to fix another. She was up most of the night with either the baby or Margaret or Ellen. She was delighted when Daniel offered to take the middle children fishing with him on that sunny March day. Now she and Joanna would have the peace and quiet they needed in order to put the little ones down for a long nap. Brigit could have a nap he
rself while Joanna kept the fire from going out. It all happened just as she had hoped, and she slept a long and deep sleep. Little did she know that it would be the last peaceful slumber she would have for a long time. She was awakened from her nap by cries from the children, “Mammy, Mammy!” She jumped up, her head spinning as she stumbled to the door. The brightness of the sun on the snow almost blinded her. Mick reached her first.

  “The ice broke!” he panted, his cheeks bright red. “Mary Ann fell in the water! We had trouble getting her out!” Brigit flew out the door. She saw Daniel trudging through the snow with Mary Ann in his arms. Katy dragged along at his side, wailing aloud, as the dog barked wildly.

  Brigit saw herself moving as if she were watching from outside of her body. It seemed to be happening to someone else, to another family, not to hers. She bounded forward, and clung to Mary Ann’s hand as Daniel brought her into the house. The little hand was ice cold but the pulse was still there. She peeled off child’s soaking clothes and dressed her in warm flannel as Daniel built up the fire. Mary Ann’s lips were blue and Brigit feared she had breathed in too much icy water. Her nose was running and her forehead burning and a few days later she coughed up phlegm. It was amazing how quickly a healthy child could become a sick and dying one. Worse, Mary Ann had stiffness in her neck and severe trembling in her limbs. No home remedies were of any help except that at times they were able to keep the fever from burning her up.