The Paradise Tree_A Novel

by Elena Maria Vidal

  “Ah, my lady Brigit, now you know my secret!” said Mr. Horn, sounding not at all angry but perhaps a little sad.

  “Why didn’t you ask for her hand, Mr. Horn? You being a Catholic and a scholar, Daniel and I would have been honored.”

  “Go on away with ye, Madam,” replied Horn with a glint of humor. “An old man like myself competing with a strapping boyo! She’ll be better off with him, on their own farm, than with a poor schoolmaster, with not a stick to call his own. I shall always love her, though.”

  “Mr. Horn, you have helped to shape Joanna’s character with your wisdom and learning. You have helped her to become the lady she now is. And so you will always have a share in her accomplishments. But I know that none of that can mend heartbreak. So there you have it.”

  “Perhaps not,” said Horn, with a wry smile. “But knowing that she is happy and well-cared for will add to my own contentment in this life.”

  “Good on you, Mr. Horn,” said Brigit and after a sip of water from the dipper in the bucket she returned to her room, her heart heavy.

  After Joanna and Ben were married and Lottie was christened, the wedding breakfast was served. The day before they had set up trestle tables in front of the house which were now laden with cold salmon and eel, aspic, and ham, a side of beef and hearty country puddings. The wedding cake was a fruit cake such as was usually served only at Christmas and near it was the punch, made by Daniel from an old family recipe. There were also pies, cookies and fresh berries with cream. At a separate table Ellen served tea in pretty china cups with silver spoons. On the porch several fiddlers, led by Daniel’s brother Charles, conjured up some fine tunes for dancing. They began singing as well.

  Ho ro, my nut brown maiden

  Hi ri my nut brown maiden

  Ho ro ro, maiden

  Who else would I marry but thee?

  Joanna and Ben began to jig on the lawn and a half dozen other couples joined them, including Mick and a pretty dark-haired girl from Gananoque named Nancy MacDonald. And there was Charles and Eleanor’s daughter Julia capering with a local boy named Patrick Ivey, known to be a rascal. Margaret jigged with Nancy’s brother James. Bridget Gabrielle, whose long curls had come completely undone, was twirling with one of the McArdle sons. Everyone clapped in time to the music.

  Her eyes so mildly beaming

  Her look so frank and freeing

  In working and in dreaming

  Is always ever with me.

  Brigit held a sleeping Lottie in her arms while she chatted with Eleanor and Mrs. McArdle. She glanced around for her younger children; Charlie was racing around the periphery of the dancers with several boys his own age. Mary and Annie were sitting on a bench eating strawberries and cream. Ellen served the tea and chatted with Kate McArdle.

  And when with blossoms laden

  Right summer comes again

  I'll wed my nut brown maiden

  Down in the bonnie glen.

  Daniel stood with Andrew McArdle and John Flood and several other men who had gathered around D’Arcy McGee and a barrel of stout. Brigit could catch snatches of their talk. “But Mr. McGee, what does O’Connell say?” Mr. Flood was asking.

  “O’Connell agrees with me!” exclaimed Mr. McGee. “Ireland’s people are born slaves, and bred in slavery from the cradle; they know not what freedom is. But in Canada there is new hope. There is more liberty and toleration here for Irish Catholics. But, oh, save us from our friends the Tories!” The men laughed and applauded.

  The jig ended and the musicians struck up a quadrille. Bridget Gabrielle had kicked off her shoes and was dancing barefoot with her brother Mick, her hair wilder than ever. Brigit noticed one of Mr. Flood’s sons was standing nearby as if he wanted to dance with her.

  “Who is that tall Flood lad?” she asked Eleanor, nodding towards the lanky youth.

  “That’s Anthony,” Eleanor said. “He’s a handsome one, but wild, I’m afraid. He wanted to call on our Julia but Charles wouldn’t let him.”

  “I hope he leaves our Bridget Gabrielle alone,” sighed Brigit.

  “And I hope that Patrick leaves our Julia alone. Charles does not like him coming around either.” Eleanor echoed her sigh.

  “Now that’s a fret,” commiserated Brigit. As the dance ended, she tried to catch Bridget Gabrielle’s eye, and when she did, motioned to her to come. Bridget Gabrielle flew across the yard like a wind from the lake.

  “Bridget Gabrielle, you must put on your shoes and stockings and tie back your hair,” commanded Brigit gently but firmly. “You are too old to be running about with your hair trailing down.” Brigit remembered how Daniel always said that their Bridget Gabrielle was a little like his mother and a little like Brigit herself but altogether unlike anyone they had ever known. In their excitement her eyes were a fulgent blue, enough to put the lakes and the skies to shame.

  “I’ll do it now in a minute, Ma!” exclaimed Bridget. “But please make Mick give me my money!”

  “Your money? Have you been making bets with Mick again?” queried Brigit.

  “Yes! We bet tuppence over which song Mr. Horn would play for Joanna’s procession! I bet on “Loch Lomond” and so I won. But Mick won’t give me my money! He said he made the same bet with Nancy MacDonald and gave all his money to her and now he is broke.”

  “Well, now, ’tis desperate!” exclaimed Brigit in a teasing manner. She took the fifteen year old’s hand. It was hard to believe that she herself had been married at about the same age her daughter was now. “Darling, you’ll have to wait for your tuppence, then. Now go upstairs and fix your hair. And take Lottie and put her in her cradle.”

  The fiddlers had struck up a reel. Brigit saw Daniel leave the men and walk towards her. “Are you going to dance, brother?” asked Eleanor.

  “I was going to ask this fair lady in blue to dance with me,” he said, gazing at Brigit. It took her a moment to realize he was referring to herself.

  “You’re not fluthered are you, Mr. O’Connor?” She suddenly felt shy and peered up at him sideways.

  “Not a bit, Mrs. O’Connor,” he said, bowing over her hand and then raising her up. Hand-in hand, they joined the reel.

  Part III

  Bridget of the Woods and Waters

  “Summer loves the green glen, the white bird loves the sea,

  An' the wind must kiss the heather top, an' the red bell hides a bee;

  As the bee is dear to the honey-flower, so one is dear to me.

  Flower o' the rose,

  Flower o' the rose,

  A thorn pricked me one day, but nobody knows.”

  —from “The Song of Glen Dun”

  CHAPTER 11

  On the Gananoque River

  July, 1870

  “Where Lagan stream sings lullaby

  There blows a lily fair.

  The twilight gleam is in her eye

  The night is on her hair.”

  —from “My Lagan Love”

  “Reel it in, now!” said Bridget Gabrielle to eleven-year-old Lottie, whose fishing pole bent with the weight of the struggling bass.

  “Here it comes! You’ve got it!” exclaimed Annie, peering into the limpid waters.

  “Help! I can’t hold the pole and reel it in at the same time!” cried Lottie. Annie, age fourteen, bounded to her side and grabbed the pole while Lottie began to reel in the fish.

  “I have the basket ready! Oh, help them, Charlie!” Bridget prodded her brother Charlie with her foot where he lay on the ground napping. Having been out late with the lads, he had fallen asleep on the grass as soon as he paddled them to their fishing spot at dawn. Charlie leaped to his feet and, in one stride with his Irish race horse legs, he took the pole from his younger sisters and began to reel in the huge bass, haplessly twisting and flailing. He put it into the basket; Bridget slapped down and fastened the lid.

  As soon as it was light that Thursday morning they had canoed out to a cove on the Gananoque River, which they had long ago found
to be a pleasant place to fish. It was near a rock on which nature had carved the profile of an Indian squaw; because of the squaw they never had trouble finding the cove. Bridget had recruited twenty-three year old Charlie to canoe her and the young girls onto the river so they could catch Friday’s dinner for the family. They fished off a huge boulder jutting out from a grassy bank. The water was deep on either side of the boulder and because of the clearness of the water they could see all the way to the bottom.

  Bridget knew her parents were concerned about Charlie’s growing recklessness as well as his association with wild characters like Patrick Ivey. Patrick Ivey had married their Cousin Julia against the wishes of Uncle Charles and Aunt Eleanor. Ivey was improvident so they lived with Julia’s parents. He had created such agitation in the family with his heavy drinking that Pa believed it had hastened Uncle Charles’ death from consumption in 1865. In the meantime, poor Julia had baby after baby without a home to call her own.

  Lottie proudly baited the end of her line once more, casting it back into the river. The water had been as smooth as glass when they first arrived, with mist rising in curls from the placid surface. Now it was alive with ripples and currents, which reflected the morning sun, breaking it into thousands of radiant orbs. Under a calico sunbonnet, Lottie’s ash-blonde hair was in two neat braids. Her large blue eyes were wide apart, her skin creamy; she reminded Bridget of a porcelain doll she had once seen in a shop in Kingston. Annie, only three years older, was as different in looks from Lottie as anyone could be. Where everything about Lottie was soft, everything about Annie was angular and sharp, from her chin to the awkward way her limbs were strung to the rest of her body. Her kinky black hair was braided but curling tendrils escaped; she gave the impression of not having brushed her hair for days. Her wide straw hat hung down her back on its ties. Her fierce blue-green eyes with long thick lashes were her main claim to beauty.

  Charlie had retired to his place in the grass and showed signs of dozing again. At almost twenty-three he was taller and lankier than their brother Michael had been, although his shoulders were just as massive from farming and blacksmith work. His hair was light brown and straight, his blue-green piercing eyes with a faraway expression, his nose slightly aquiline; he always made Bridget think of a character one might read about in a story, although she could not decide exactly who. He was either one of King Arthur’s knights or a hero in an old Irish fairytale. Whoever he was, he seemed to have trouble living in the nineteenth century. Having a dreamy nature herself, Bridget understood. But she had to be firm.

  “Now Charlie,” she began, in her best older sibling tone, taking a seat beside him. “Why do you pass the time with Patrick Ivey and his comrades? You know how he should be at home with Julia and the children, not spending what little money he has on drink!” She whispered the last word so the girls would not hear. Bridget, being twenty-seven and an “old maid” school teacher, had come to take propriety almost as seriously as their sister Ellen did.

  “But Brig!” groaned Charlie. He was obviously not feeling well. “I went to Delta on purpose to talk to Pat about his behavior and ask him about helping Pa and me haul some timber to repair the road. He agreed with everything I said and was eager to help. Then he invited me for a wee drink at the Philipsville tavern. Some local lads were there. We told stories and played darts and, before I knew it, the night was far spent.”

  “That’s the tavern where Mr. Philips hit a Tory over the head with a shillelagh!” Lottie piped in. “Pa saw the whole thing!”

  “No, Pa was not there, Lottie!” contradicted Annie. “He just likes to talk about it as if he had been there.”

  “Girls, attend to the fish!” chided Bridget. “Now, here’s the long and short of it, Charlie. You cannot ever drink with Pat. It is not like having a drink with Pa or Mick or Uncle Charles. To drink with Pat only encourages him in a life of vice. Besides, you should not be seen with him in public. He is a convicted forger and felon. Don’t forget how he forged Uncle Charles’ signature so he could steal his savings. It pushed a fine man into an early grave. Pa says that Julia and Aunt Eleanor may have to move the entire family to the States so Julia’s children can have a fresh start in life. Besides, you will ruin your own marriage prospects!”

  She felt Charlie withdraw into silence, a deeper silence than when he slept. Bridget realized she had touched a nerve. Charlie had long been in love with Emily McArdle but Squire McArdle refused to grant permission for Charlie to court her unless Charlie proved himself to be diligent and respectable.

  Bridget was in the kitchen one day helping her mother bake bread when she heard her father give Charlie a tongue-lashing after yet another misadventure involving liquor.

  “And don’t you be thinking, with this wild behavior, that you’ll ever be allowed to court a daughter of the McArdles! They have high notions! The Talbots and the Howards and the bloody Plantagenets and all that! Why, do you think Squire McArdle would ever give leave for one of his girls to marry a Slack!” He said the word Slack in such a way that startled Bridget, for it had never entered her mind that the Slacks might not be considered good society. “Nay, not ever! He wants a prince for each of his daughters! Unless you plan on becoming a prince yourself you might as well be forgetting all about it!” Then her mother said something to her father, and the two of them started speaking so fast to each other in such a thick brogue that Bridget could not understand a word either of them said. Her mother slammed down a bread pan and stormed off to her room. Bridget smothered a bitter laugh as she continued to knead the bread, being acutely aware that her father, Squire Daniel O’Connor, also wanted a prince for each of his daughters and had equally high standards when it came to who was allowed to come courting, as Bridget had learned to her own heartbreak.

  There on the bank, Charlie emerged from his stupor by blurting out: “If only I knew that someday I would be able to marry Emily, I would work my hands to the bone and I would never let whisky touch my lips! And besides, Pa said I was going to inherit the farm, eh!”

  “Only if you are worthy, Pa said,” reminded Bridget gently. “Why don’t you work and behave as if Emily was already yours, and then one day, she might be.”

  Charlie looked thoughtful, and then smiled. They began to talk about their cousins, especially Julia’s brother Patrick O’Connor who had gone to America to fight in the Civil War. They spoke of how Julia’s mother, poor Aunt Eleanor, was getting along. When Uncle Charles died she had been forced to sell her house in Delta to Mike Kelly, who then took possession of the property but refused to pay what he owed her. Aunt Eleanor had had to hire a solicitor, which drained her already meager finances. Of course, Julia’s husband was no help at all but the source of most of their trials.

  “Oh, Brig, I almost forgot!” Charlie sat up. “Guess who one of the lads was last night?”

  Bridget’s heart almost stopped. Without asking, she already knew. “Who?” she asked, as pleasantly as possible.

  “Anthony Flood! He is back from the West! He had many adventures! He plans on starting a hotel for Americans! And he asked about you, Brig!

  “He did, did he? He mentioned my name in a tavern?” Bridget fussed with the basket of food that she had brought for the girls.

  “Oh, no!” exclaimed Charlie. “He asked me, in a low voice when the others were not listening, ‘How is your sister?’ I said, politely but firmly, ‘Anthony, I have seven sisters and none of them are to be spoken of in a tavern.’”

  “There’s a good man!” laughed Bridget. “How are you so certain I was the sister about whom Mr. Flood was inquiring?”

  “Certainly I am certain. He had that look in his eyes, that fierce look, which he always had when you were around.”

  “Hush!” Bridget jumped to her feet. “Lottie, let me take a turn fishing while you read aloud to us from Miss Proctor.” The late Adelaide Proctor, an English Catholic convert, was a favorite poetess of the O’Connor family. Ellen, who was working as the governess for a
wealthy family in upstate New York, left her copy of Miss Proctor’s poems behind at Long Point. Lottie took up the worn, beloved volume and began to read in her clear, precise manner.

  “Per Pacem ad Lucem”

  I do not ask O Lord that life may be

  A pleasant road.

  I do not ask that Thou wouldst take from me

  Aught of its load.

  I do not ask that flowers should always spring

  Beneath my feet.

  I know too well the poison and the sting

  Of things too sweet.

  Bridget cast the line further out into the water. She had trouble hiding her feelings from the others and was glad to be able to turn away from them and face the river. It was bad enough that her cheeks were so naturally pink; some people had thought she was wearing rouge. So Anthony had returned after ten years. He had never written her, not once. She had heard different stories about his destiny. Some said he had gone to China, others that he had found a job in New York State. The most common story was that he had gone West. She had so many times longed to ask his mother, but Mrs. Flood seemed so cold to her and would give her reproachful glances, as if to make certain that Bridget knew it was all her fault that Anthony had left his home.

  Bridget had last spoken with Anthony when they were both seventeen at the marriage of her sister Margaret to Mr. James MacDonald in 1860. It was a grand nuptial Mass at St. Philip Neri’s in Toledo, not far from the spot where their parents had been married almost thirty years earlier. All the Catholics in the county were present, including plenty who had not been invited. Margaret wore a white silk gown with a lengthy train and veil. It was autumn so Bridget and her sisters were garbed in dark blue serge, trimmed with silk fringe, and the widest hoops they had ever yet worn. Her Uncle James Trainor of Toledo was generous enough to host the wedding breakfast for them, and had his barn decorated and cleared for dancing. Bridget had been chatting with her Trainor cousins when she felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned around and it was Anthony. He wanted to dance with her. She looked up into his eyes and laughed and at that moment their souls met and entwined. Without a word she gave him her hand and without taking his eyes from hers he lead her onto the floor where they must have danced although she had no memory of the song or the dance step. She had always known Anthony; her earliest memories of him were of them both running barefoot with the other children after a station, or of watching him as he balanced on a fence, trying to pretend he did not notice her. As she grew older she grew more excited when she knew Anthony would be present at various occasions, even if he never said a word to her, nor she to him. Later, he worked in her father’s blacksmith shop, and she saw him more often, although she was busy with her studies to be a teacher. When she did encounter him, their relationship consisted of his teasing her and making her mad. Her little brother Charlie liked to joke about Anthony’s attentions, calling her “Mrs. Flood.”