Song of Erin

by BJ Hoff

  It was springtime in Ireland, and Brady Kane was half in love. Half in love with one girl, and half in love with another. With a rueful smile, he wondered if that made him in love entirely.

  As he hoofed it down the Claddagh lane toward Gabriel’s house, his sketch pad under one arm, a bag of sweets dangling from the fingers of his free hand, he acknowledged that his affection for the one girl could hardly be counted, since she bolted like a frightened rabbit every time he came near her.

  He slowed his pace a little at the thought of Roweena, giving a sigh completely out of keeping with his jaunty mood. He had begun to despair of ever winning more than a furtive smile from the girl. If he so much as tried to coax her out for a walk—hoping to escape Gabriel’s ever watchful glare—she would quickly shake her head and scurry off to her corner near the hearth, as if he had suggested running off to the North with him. And even though, in spite of her deafness, she could speak, the only words she ever directed to Brady in that strange, strangled-sounding voice were a simple greeting of welcome or a shy farewell. Even these weren’t always spoken but just as often indicated by a few quick movements of her hands and a dip of her head.

  At first he’d blamed Gabriel—an unspoken accusation, of course—for the way the girl continued to dodge his attentions. The Big Fella directed a singular scowl at Brady whenever he chanced to eke out a few moments alone with Roweena in the yard before she darted back inside. And if he happened to follow her into the cottage, he was sure to be met with the sort of murderous look that only a man of Gabriel’s impressive size and fierce features could affect. Except for Jack, of course; Jack had a look that could set titans to trembling.

  But Brady had finally come to accept, however grudgingly, that Roweena’s reluctance to walk out with him apparently had nothing to do with Gabriel.

  “ ’Tis her way,” the child, Evie, had informed him with a look that clearly said he ought to know as much by now. “Her’s shy, Roweena is.”

  It was more than shyness, Brady was convinced. Other than Gabriel and Evie, Roweena appeared to be almost frightened of anyone who came round. Even Terese seemed to intimidate her.

  But then Terese could intimidate most anyone, he thought, grinning. She could be a real banshee, his Terese. The fire in her would scald even the toughest fellow. Only Gabriel and that harridan Jane Connolly seemed capable of dousing her smoke.

  As he approached the walk to Gabriel’s house, Brady reminded himself that he would have to watch it with this “his Terese” stuff. He fancied the girl, that was true, and he had no doubt but what she was sweet on him as well. But he had no intention of leading her to expect anything from him in the way of love everlasting. He wasn’t about to fall into that trap.

  As keen as Terese was for him, she was even wilder to go to America, he knew. Lately, she’d begun to drop thinly veiled hints that perhaps Brady could help advance her aspirations. He had said nothing to encourage her hopes, but she continued to hint.

  He had deliberately kept his silence regarding Jack’s idea to introduce a few specific individuals—or even entire families—to the Vanguard’s readers, with the possibility of later sponsoring their passage to America. It still amazed him that his brother had dreamed up such a scheme. Jack had never been tightfisted with his money. In fact, Brady would have to say that he had always been generous, at least with himself and Rose. But neither had Jack ever been unnecessarily extravagant, and Brady couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more behind this sudden idea than his big brother was letting on.

  In any event, he wasn’t ready to let Terese in on the plan. She would hound him to death if she thought there was any possibility he could help her get to the States. Actually, he had every intention of making sure she got onto the list of prospective candidates, but later.

  Terese’s story was just what Jack was after, a real tearjerker, complete with suffering, deprivation, and struggle. But Brady wasn’t ready to make a break with her, not yet. Even though he would soon be leaving Galway for a time, he planned on coming back. And when he did, he wanted Terese here, waiting for him.

  At the thought of leaving, he gave another sigh and slowed his pace a bit. He had delayed his departure as long as he dared, had even deceived Jack into thinking he had moved on, paying a coach driver to post his letters outside the county. In one of those letters, he had given Jack a spiel about having to look around a bit for prospective subjects, then interview them and make some sketches before putting together the accompanying stories. The truth was he hadn’t even begun looking as yet, but at least he’d bought himself a longer stay in Galway.

  On Wednesday of next week, though, he was leaving for Limerick. He hadn’t told Terese yet. He had a hunch she might take on, even though she liked to feign indifference to him. He smiled at the thought. She wasn’t indifferent, and he knew it. Over the past few weeks, they’d gotten pretty cozy. He even thought it wouldn’t take much at this point to coax her up to his flat, if she could just sneak away from old Jane long enough. It was a tempting possibility, but he wasn’t at all certain he wanted to deepen the relationship just yet.

  Sometimes he thought he was crackers about the girl, but other times she worried him a little. Terese had this…intensity about her that was almost threatening. She had grit, that much was certain, a kind of dogged determination and stubbornness he hadn’t encountered in any of his other girls. She could be downright fierce sometimes.

  Brady was used to being the one in control of a relationship, never the one being controlled. And he had no intention of changing roles, not with Terese or any other girl. He was in no hurry to get further involved with her, not until he knew just what he wanted from such a liaison.

  In any event, he would have to say his good-byes over the next few days. When he came back from Limerick, he would let her in on the business with the Vanguard and the rest of it. For now, though, he would tell her nothing.

  Actually, he hadn’t told Terese much of anything about himself. The only thing she really knew about him was that he worked for a New York newspaper and had a brother named Jack.

  As it happened, it was Jack who had cautioned him never to reveal too much about himself, especially to women: “A woman may take up with you for your dandy looks and your devilish charm, boyo. But make no mistake about it, if she learns you’ve got a bit of money, she’ll be harder to shake than a bad case of the grippe. She may adore you as a pauper, but won’t she love you to death if she learns that you’re a prince?”

  Was that what he was—a prince? He supposed that’s how it looked: Brady Kane, heir apparent to the Kane dynasty, pretender to the throne. Brady laughed aloud at the thought, but the sound had an empty ring to it. He could never fill Jack’s shoes, should it ever become necessary for him to try. He had no illusions about that. He was a different kind of man altogether than his brother—perhaps no less a man, but certainly not so big a man either. Jack had the stuff of greatness, whatever it was, and Brady not only didn’t aspire to those heights but he found the whole idea somewhat distasteful. He was more than content with his life as it was. He had the traveling, his painting, and almost always a pretty girl nearby wherever he went. What else could a man want?

  He looked around the yard—the best kept of any in the Claddagh—and saw no sign of Gabriel or the girls. But the front door was standing open, so after rapping on the door frame once, he walked inside, where he was greeted by a smile from Roweena, a childish trill from the precocious Evie, and a look that clearly said, “You again, Yank?” from Gabriel.

  Brady sought Roweena’s smile again, and in that instant it struck him that he was going to be saying good-bye to her soon as well. The awareness was like a knife in his heart, much more painful than the thought of leaving Terese.

  But he wouldn’t think about that at the moment.

  Gabriel turned, though he didn’t need to look; he recognized the brisk tapping on the door frame.

  Brady Kane. For as often as the Yank visited, G
abriel wondered that he still bothered to knock.

  The American was a welcome enough guest, for the most part, though Gabriel had full measure of mixed feelings about the young rascal. The lad was clever with words, well read, and amusing in a brash sort of way. He was generous natured as well, though Gabriel sometimes wondered where the money came from to finance his generosity.

  He watched as the child, spotting the bag of sweets in the American’s hand, sprinted across the room toward him. Rare was the day that the Yank appeared on their threshold without something for the wee girl, and Roweena as well. Today it was candy, enough for them all, though Gabriel had no taste for sweets.

  Kane did spoil Evie, but Gabriel considered the occasional indulgence harmless enough. It was Roweena who worried him most when it came to the American. He had seen the way she looked for him those days he did not come, had also seen the way her eyes lighted when he did.

  So far, he didn’t think Kane had noticed. Roweena was too timid to pay a man any obvious interest, too shy to encourage his. But Brady Kane wasn’t shy, not in the least. And Gabriel had seen the way those deep-set eyes followed the girl’s every movement about the room.

  He went on with the net he was mending, keeping an eye out as the child coaxed the Yank and Roweena to the hearth for a game of jackstraws. Watching them, he decided it wasn’t a lascivious kind of interest he sensed from the young monkey. Had Kane shown designs of that nature, Gabriel would have banished him long ago. In truth, the lad appeared to be more taken with Roweena’s shy sweetness, her fragility, than her looks—lovely though she was. Yet, only the fact that the American had exhibited no salacious intentions—so far, at least—gave sanction to his presence. One wrong move—one wrong look—and he would find himself a stranger in this part of Galway. And a mortally unwelcome one, at that.

  Gabriel suspected that Kane’s intentions toward the Sheridan girl might not be quite so innocent. He had seen the two of them any number of times on the quay, so close together that daylight couldn’t squeeze between them, the girl hanging onto the Yank’s arm as if she owned him.

  The lass would do better to set her sights elsewhere, Gabriel suspected. He couldn’t imagine anyone staking a claim to the young jackeen across the room. Brady Kane had the look about him of a wild stallion roaming the hills, kicking up dust, then shaking it from his feet as he ran into the wind.

  But better the island girl for him than Roweena. That one could take care of herself, no doubt, though at times Gabriel suspected she wasn’t nearly as hard as she would have others believe. Even so, she would be immensely stronger than Roweena, less likely to be the victim of an unprincipled rogue—if that’s what Brady Kane turned out to be.

  Roweena had already endured more than her share of pain in her young life. Inasmuch as he had it in his power to protect her, Gabriel vowed that she would suffer no more.

  He was realistic enough to know, however, that there was only so much he could do to shield her, only so much hurt he could spare her. Knowing this sometimes made his spirit writhe in helplessness.

  But at least he could protect her from careless young Corinthians like Brady Kane. The very possibility that Roweena was fascinated with the American was enough to evoke caution on Gabriel’s part. Although he sensed nothing inherently malicious or brutal about Kane, he had perceived a certain callousness in him that might point to an intemperate, self-indulgent nature, the sort disposed to using others, then going on his way with never so much as a backward glance.

  Even so, it was not the Brady Kanes of the world that troubled Gabriel most but those who were more beast than man. The predators among them. There would always be those who, possessing neither conscience nor compassion—perhaps not even a soul—took some sort of deranged satisfaction from tormenting, even destroying, the innocent.

  Didn’t the Scriptures themselves warn of them, those who prowled about like dogs, filth and curses spewing from their mouths as they sought unsuspecting victims on whom to inflict their evil? These were the deadly ones, the ones who struck at random, with no thought of consequence, no concern for the lives they might devastate.

  Roweena herself had been born of such mindless savagery.

  And her mother had died of it.

  Gabriel had been only a boy when he had first heard the story of Ena MacHugh. He hadn’t always lived in the Claddagh but had grown up in Galway City until such time as his Uncle Nessan—a well-to-do bachelor who had hoarded his earnings for years—decided that young Gabriel should go to France to be educated, and offered to sponsor him.

  While there, a letter from his mother arrived that related, in terms too delicate to convey the real tragedy of the situation, the “MacHugh family’s ordeal.” Later his uncle had also written, in more explicit terms, of the brutal rape that had been perpetrated, not only on the young MacHugh girl, but upon two others as well. In three separate but related acts of terror, three Galway women had been humiliated, violated, and tortured. Apparently, the victims had all been wives or daughters of men deeply involved with one of the countless secret societies forever springing up across the country, covert organizations bent on ridding Ireland of her English oppressors. These were violent men, riding about the countryside inflicting their own cruel form of justice on landlords, magistrates, even the police. After one particularly vicious incident wherein a dozen or more officials were terrorized and injured, three men considered to be leaders in the movement were captured and jailed.

  But imprisonment didn’t satisfy their captors. A few nights after the men were apprehended, a gaggle of British soldiers—drunk as lords and afire with bloodlust—visited the homes of the prisoners and inflicted their own manner of “justice” on their womenfolk.

  Ena MacHugh, the daughter of Seamus MacHugh, a widower and one of the imprisoned felons, was a girl of no more than fifteen years at the time. Excessively sheltered and innocent of the world’s cruelties, she was both mentally and physically devastated by the savagery wreaked upon her. After the birth of the child conceived during that attack, Ena began a spiraling descent into madness.

  By the time Gabriel returned from France, Ena and her child were living with the sisters at a convent in the country. Occasionally, Gabriel would catch a glimpse of Ena and the raven-haired little girl in the garden behind the convent. Though Ena herself was clearly demented by now, ranting and shrieking at all who happened by, the little girl—Roweena—had even then been a delicate, achingly lovely child.

  Gabriel went away once more, and when he returned the convent was gone, burned to the ground during yet another nighttime raid by unknown marauders. Ena had died in the fire. Her child, Roweena, was living with Gabriel’s parents. An elderly couple who had been unable to have any other children after Gabriel, they had volunteered to take in the orphaned MacHugh child after the fire.

  Gabriel was immediately drawn to the silent, sad-eyed Roweena, doting on her and caring for her as if she were his very own little sister. In spite of his and his family’s affection for her, however, Roweena’s situation was a pitiful one. She was looked upon by the townspeople as “that strange, wild girl,” born in shame to a mother who was mad as a brush. Her deafness—the result of a severe blow the night of the convent fire—only made things worse, for such a thing was viewed with suspicion and, by some, with outright fear.

  Gabriel’s parents died within a few months of each other while Roweena was still a child, leaving him to make the decision as to her fate. He went away only long enough to settle his affairs, leaving Roweena with his Uncle Nessan and a kindhearted housekeeper. Incredibly, there was another fire. No one perished this time, but Gabriel was summoned back to Galway, where he found Roweena, numb with shock and frozen in terror, hiding in an abandoned building on the quay.

  She was like a wild animal when he finally found her. He had to coax her to him as he would have a badly mistreated pup. He took her home, to the house where he had grown up, but by now a number of the townspeople were in a frenzy about the
“little witch on the hill,” accusing Roweena of everything from setting the fires to conjuring sea storms and crop failures. A neighbor accosted Gabriel at his own front door, demanding that he “get rid of the witch” before she brought a curse down upon them all.

  Finally, desperate to protect Roweena, Gabriel made the decision that was to change his life. Under cover of night, he took her from his boyhood home to a place where he thought they would be safe, a place where few ever entered unless they were born to it. He was known there, and they accepted him and the frightened little girl without questions or condemnation. In the Claddagh, Roweena was not viewed as a wild thing, as mad or accursed. A deaf child was simply “special,” touched by God.

  Gabriel promised her he would never leave her again, and he kept his word. Over the years, he took in others, mostly children, who had been wounded or abandoned, providing them food and shelter—and as much attention as he could manage—until he could find a home for them. Wee Evie was the most recent. She had been but a babe, put out by a mother who didn’t want her. Gabriel had not even tried to find another place for Evie. From the beginning, Roweena had developed such a fierce love and devotion for the babe, he could not think of separating them.

  He had made the best home he could for all those who chanced to shelter under his roof. His life was far different than the one he had planned for himself, but it was not without its satisfaction and small rewards. They were good folk, the Claddagh people—primitive and pious, yet with a wisdom the outside world could never comprehend.

  And they did not even seem to find it curious that a man who had once come within a handbreadth of a foreign mission field would give up everything to live among them as a fisherman—and a surrogate father and brother to those in need.

  21

  A CLOAK IN WHICH TO WRAP THE FIRE

  I gave a whistle and a lie,

  And you were deaf to both…