In his heart he no longer believes I’m the one Queen Una promised him: The girl of his choice who was to give him a wonderful son. With the repetition of this thought, Maeve came finally to believe it herself.
The heat of southern September lay oppressive on the camp in the pines. The younger children pleaded with Owen Roe Tavish to take them swimming. A wide, shallow lake was no more than an hour’s walk, by following the edge of the stream that skirted the camp. Such a clamor was raised by the children when Tavish consented that the mothers hastened to agree. Most of the men were away on trading trips. They would be back by nightfall, but it would be a relief to have a few hours away from the noisy children.
“All right now,” Tavish cried, assembling his charges, “let’s count noses so there’ll be no losing of any of you.”
He lined them up, boys and girls together, and counted thirteen. Number thirteen turned out to be little Tommy Sherwood, eager to accompany the older children on all adventures. He was a bright child, large for his three plus years, with his father’s flat, merry face and twinkling blue eyes.
“Tommy,” Tavish told him, “you’re too young to go on such a long trip. Stay and look after your mother and the baby sister.” The little boy wailed in protest, and Doreen came from the Sherwood tent to call him. She was pregnant with her third child.
“Tommy, you’re not to go with the big children,” she ordered.
“I’ll take you another time in the wagon,” Tavish promised.
The child watched aggrieved as the others set off on their hike to the lake. When Tavish looked back, he was still standing where they had left him, head down, sullenly scraping the carpet of pine needles with his bare big toe.
“Little malrach,” he said sympathetically, “they’re that mad to grow up.” He made a resolution to tell Tommy a special story that night—something to take the sting from being left behind.
Following the winding course of the stream to the lake, children and dogs ranged happily up and down the rocky banks. “Mind the snakes and lizards,” the old man warned. “They’ve had no St. Patrick over here to banish the reptiles with a Christian word.”
One of the more adventurous boys discovered an abandoned stone quarry near the top of a hill. It was almost full of water from the heavy summer rains, and glowed temptingly like a great, square-cut emerald in a jagged setting of rocks and trees. The children stood along the edges examining their vivid reflections in its shadowy, green-blue depths, and begged to swim in it. Tavish shook his head.
“’Tis dangerous,” he warned mysteriously. “There be some who say that a long time ago there was no pool here at all, but at the bottom a magic well.…”
The word magic caught every child’s thoughts in the vise of attention. “No.… Really.… Tell us,” they cried in unison. The square of emerald water assumed a new and wonderful significance to twelve pairs of eyes.
“A long time ago,” Tavish began.…
“When cows were kine and pigs were swine … and eagles of the air built their nests in the beards of giants,” the children interrupted gleefully.
“Now who is telling this tale?” the Speaker demanded with mock severity.
The children subsided with smothered laughter, and Tavish continued. “At the bottom of this pool was a magic well. One night, a rough, unlettered spalpeen came and uncovered the well to draw a bucket of water. But being an uncouth, careless sort of fellow, he went away without covering it again. Och, that were a foolish and dangerous thing to do, especially with a magic well. During the night the well began to overflow. It overflowed into the stream down there, and poured into the lake; sure it would have overflowed the whole red world if someone hadn’t stopped it.”
He paused, pointedly. “Who?” the children breathed in unison.
“The fairy people who live under the hills. Sure the water was pouring into their caves and washing them out of their beds.”
“How did the fairies stop the water?” one of the girls asked timidly.
“’Twere easy to answer that,” Tavish said solemnly.
“They took away the bottom of the pool. Like ants, they swarmed in and carried off every sand and pebble of it. Now the water runs out at the other end as fast as it runs in from the magic well.”
The children pondered this bit of dubious physics as Tavish led the way on toward the lake. He halted them once, thinking he heard a child calling, but when noses were counted, his charges were all present.
The afternoon at the lake was filled with boisterous play, and the children returned the way they had come, wet, tired, and happy. Most of the men were back from trading when they and Tavish trudged wearily into the camp. The women were bustling about, lighting the supper fires.
Big Tom Sherwood came hurrying to meet the cavalcade, his amiable face twisted between hope and anxiety. “Is little Tommy with you?” he asked eagerly. “Doreen said he’s been gone most of the afternoon.”
As he spoke his wife joined them. “He may have followed you, Tavish,” she said desperately. “He wanted to go so badly.”
“We came back the same way we went, now,” Tavish assured her. “There was not a sign of him.” As he spoke, the old man remembered the cry he had heard earlier, near the stone quarry.
“I did think once I heard a child calling as we were on our way, but I stopped to listen and there was nothing more.” Tavish was deeply perturbed.
“He’s lost,” Doreen cried, covering her face with her hands and beginning to moan. Big Tom sought to reassure her.
“He can’t have wandered far. We’ll take the dogs and find him in no time.”
The men were organizing the search as Jamie drove into camp. “What is it, Cousin Tavish?” he called as he stepped from the buggy.
Tavish explained that little Tommy Sherwood had wandered from the camp and Jamie immediately took a lantern to join the search. “Sure the boy is part squirrel; you couldn’t lose the likes of him in these hills,” he assured the weeping Doreen.
Tavish was tired from his earlier hike, but he guided the men toward the spot where he had heard a child calling. Spreading themselves into a wide, thin line, the men urged the prowling dogs to range even wider through the thick undergrowth. Darkness came swiftly beneath the trees, and they lit lanterns to continue the search, calling repeatedly “hallooooo, Tommy,” which echoed back weirdly through the dusk-shrouded hills.
Shiel Harrigan and Jamie were the first to reach the deserted stone quarry. A child’s straw hat was floating soggily, half submerged in the still, dark water. Maeve’s father fished it out as the others converged upon the pool.
“Is this the lad’s hat?” he asked, handing it to Big Tom Sherwood.
The boy’s father took the wet, misshapen object and examined it with trembling hands. “It might be,” he said hesitantly. “Where’d you find it?”
He knew the answer without following Shiel Harrigan’s gesture toward the pool. Silence like a dull ache settled over the men. They stood along the edge of the quarry as the children had stood earlier in the afternoon. The glare from their lanterns lit deep, reflected fires in the depths of the water, changing now from blue-green to blue-black.
Jamie broke the silence. “Does anyone know how deep it is?”
“I saw it last year when the water was not so high,” Me-Dennis spoke up. “There are two levels. The outer one is down about fifteen feet. The other is fifty or more.”
The men looked at Big Tom. “I’m no swimmer,” he said apologetically.
“Let me have a try.” Quickly Jamie pulled off his suit, stripping down to his long, summer-weight underwear. Then he lowered himself into the pool. “I’ll work this side nearest the camp first.”
He took a deep breath and dove, swimming downward frog-fashion, with quick, vigorous strokes. The water near the surface was warm, but turned chillingly cold a few feet down. His lungs were aching by the time he touched the even stone shelf of the outer level. There was no time to make any search.
He shot himself surfaceward with a powerful thrust of his legs; then rested against the smooth side of the pool, gasping for breath.
“Me-Dennis is right,” he called to the men. “There’s a shelf about fifteen feet down. I’ll have a look around next time.”
Sucking his lungs full of air, Jamie dived again. He swam with his eyes open but could see nothing. It was like swimming imprisoned in the depths of a great, dark emerald, as a beetle is imprisoned in amber. Tavish had once told him stories of the sunken continent of Moo, lost in the deep Atlantic off the coast of Ireland. There in the emerald underwater-land, all children who died prematurely came to live out their lives before going on to Heaven.
Jamie swam slowly along the side of the quarry, extending his arms in a wide breast stroke. He was out of breath and was turning toward the surface again when his fingers touched something. It was a child’s hand that slid away before Jamie could grasp it.
Back at the surface, he rested, filling his lungs with deep gulps of air before he spoke. “Me-Dennis,” he beckoned the child’s grandfather. “I’ve found the little one,” he whispered. “Better the news be broken to Tom before I bring him up.”
As Jamie was diving, he heard Big Tom’s broken voice saying: “O Mother of God … Mary … my little son … my little son.…”
The small crucifix glowed dully on the center pole of the tent. The flame of the altar candle beneath it wavered slightly, forming slender, upright shadows that danced without music on the dark walls of the tent. Jamie lay with half-closed eyes, watching them. He had returned from the ordeal at the quarry, saddened and exhausted. Maeve had put him to bed, then left immediately to be with Doreen. It was past midnight and she hadn’t returned.
The slight golden flame of the altar candle nodded toward the entrance as the tent flap was drawn aside and Maeve entered. In the dim half-light her small face seemed haggard and drawn with fatigue. “How is she?” Jamie asked, sitting up.
“It’s poor Tom I feel sorriest for,” Maeve answered indirectly. “Every time Doreen sobs, it’s like hitting him with with a whip.”
“Who’s with her now?”
“Father Kerrigan came out from town. She quieted down until the undertaker arrived to take the boy; then she got hysterical again. When she started blaming Cousin Tavish for what happened, I left.”
“Och—crazed with grief, she is,” Jamie exclaimed. “How could she be blaming Owen Roe Tavish? Sure he carried the wee drowned one in his arms all the way back to the camp. Big Tom was that weak he had to be helped himself.”
“Doreen said he heard the baby crying and gave no heed. Had he turned back, little Tommy would still be alive.”
“And where was she while her child was wandering in the woods?” Jamie demanded, indignant that Doreen should involve Tavish in any way.
“Sure, that’s the poor thing’s trouble. She feels guilty and is trying to shift some of the blame to someone else.”
“Let her not shift it to Tavish, whose heart broke as much as Tom’s when I brought the boy up out of the water …” Jamie declared.
Maeve undressed listlessly, blew out the crucifix candle, and crept wearily into bed. She was exhausted but felt no desire to sleep. To her childless self, the drowning of little Tommy was a sort of double death. She relived Doreen’s grief with an anguish of her own. Had she been the mother of a little boy, the same adventurous spirit might have been his undoing. Some square-cut emerald pool might have mirrored his child’s face and smilingly beckoned him in. The thought of a child never to be born, gasping out breath it would never breathe, convulsed her slender body with sobs. Tears she had stored unshed for years now rained from her eyes in unchecked relief. Her weeping roused Jamie, who had fallen asleep, and he strove awkwardly to comfort her.
“My arms are around you this now, Maeve darling,” he whispered. “Tell me what’s wearing your heart away. Is it the death of the boy? Tavish told us coming back from the pool, ‘When a little child dies, sure a part of every other child in the world dies with him.’ Is it for the babe you never had, or for the one that’s lost you’re grieving?”
Maeve made no attempt to answer, but her sobbing subsided. It had been some time since they had lain side by side, drawing common strength from their closeness to each other. Pillow-talk had ended when the quarrels began and they stopped being lovers. With it had ended the tender word probings that explored and examined the sealed compartments of their minds and hearts. For more than a year they had remained physical strangers, sharing a tent but not themselves or their thoughts occupying the same bed but living in different worlds.
Now the tragic death of another’s child seemed to heal the breach. In the warm, medicinal darkness capsuled within the green walls of the tent, words that had lately been impossible to speak—subjects neither dared broach—found easy expression and easier understanding. Time could have retraced itself to the first year of their marriage.
“I’ve failed you,” Maeve whispered, pressing her tear-moist cheek against Jamie’s shoulder. “You wanted a son so very much—every day has been like a reproach. I promised God to give the first born to the Church, if He would but hear my prayer. Then, you’ll never know how I prayed to have one. When prayers and candles didn’t help I asked Tavish to arrange a May Baby dance once when you were away.”
Jamie caressed her cheek tenderly. “My Maeve … my heart’s own love … my small, wee pagan wife. If Father Kerrigan ever learned you’d been trafficking with the Druids, sure he’d jump straight up through the hoop of his collar without stopping to unfasten it.”
“I don’t care. It doesn’t seem right. Doreen’s having a new baby nearly every year.”
“Aye, but look what happened to her eldest,” Jamie reminded gently. “Maybe ’tis God’s way of punishing us for having so much and still asking for more.”
Maeve was silent. Then she whispered with a catch in her voice: “To have a child and lose it would be more than heart could bear. I wouldn’t want to live.”
“There’s the great hulk of your husband that’s still part baby. Sure you’ll always have him to take care of,” Jamie teased tenderly.
Maeve laughed fondly, her face against his arm. “Aye, there’s woman’s problem in a nutshell: How to help them grow up and still keep them children.”
“When we were first married and the sight of your sweet portrait of a face set my heart dancing with a kind of music only the fairies know, sure I was the richest man in all the round red world. I owned the mists of the mountains. Proud I was, and went about flashing my antlers in the air, so certain that a wonderful son like the one promised me would be mine. A daughter I’d have none of; it was a son or nothing. I never dreamed that the last of my three wishes, the one that seemed simplest and easiest of fulfillment.…” Jamie paused and Maeve caressed his arm sympathetically.
“Do you still mind so terribly?”
“About the wonderful gossoon who was to speak in the poetry of the ancient tongue? No. For a while, though, when that pink little tongue of yours grew more and more like a mustard plaster.…”
“It never,” Maeve protested.
Jamie continued teasingly, ignoring the interruption: “Then I was that certain you were not the girl promised me. Now since I know you, and have lived and traveled and seen the world … I know better.”
“You mean you know I am the girl promised you by the Fairy Queen?”
“I mean I know there’s no Fairy Queen,” Jamie announced calmly. Maeve was shocked.
“But what of the first two wishes? They came true!” she said dismayed.
“They’d have come about without any help from Una,” Jamie assured her.
“I wonder,” Maeve said seriously.
The more she considered Jamie’s calm dismissal of the fairy folk, the more perturbed she became. Such sentiments from Jamie seemed vaguely sacrilegious. His half-serious belief that a power above nature was personally shaping his destiny had been such an integral part of him. Wit
hout it he would not be Jamie McRuin. Maeve had never taken his fantasies deeply to heart, but there was an intangible comfort in knowing that Jamie believed in them.
“Tell me one thing,” she challenged him. “Had you not believed the girl of your choice was yours by Queen Una’s promise—would you have stood up to Travis Bunn and let his fists pound hatred of him and love for you into my heart, with every blow he struck?”
Jamie considered the question for a long moment; then he laughed. “Sure I never thought of it that way. You’re right as always, my heart’s darling. Had I not believed you were meant to be mine by compacts made beyond the rim of the world, sure then there’d have been but one thought in my mind: Like a Kerry dog, to fight until I’d killed the man, or he had killed me.”
“Come here,” he cried exultantly, “we’ll give Una and the fairies another chance.”
Eagerly and happily he drew Maeve closer; and eagerly and happily she came to him.
XVIII
Owen Roe Tavish regarded Maeve and Jamie’s reconciliation with deep inner satisfaction. The bitterness between them had infected the entire camp, already torn by petty quarrels and bickering.
“You’re a wonder, now,” he praised Maeve. “However did you work such a change in the stubborn malrach? Already he’s on the way to being the darling he was when I brought him to America!” Tavish had quite forgotten it had been the other way round.
Maeve smiled happily. “He’s promised we’ll go back to the road—in two or three months—as soon as business matters can be arranged.” She spoke with unconcealed delight.
“There’s no need to tell the why of the coolness between you,” the old man assured her confidentially. “I saw it begin and I watched the secret sorrow of it wear you, one against the other, like the grinding stones of a mill. If ever two people needed a little one to soften the friction that marriage brings, ’tis yourself and Jamie McRuin.”
Three Wishes for Jamie Page 16
