Land of a Thousand Dreams

by BJ Hoff

  Cassidy had long thought Morgan Fitzgerald to be a fascinating combination of both the wandering troubadour and venerable Seanchai—the name by which he was often called about the country. At least he had been, he reminded himself sourly, when he’d still had the use of his legs to carry him.

  The thought of his friend’s misfortune jarred Cassidy back to his surroundings and the reason he had come to Dublin in the first place. If there was information to be had about this girl Morgan was so taken with, he would find it. This, at least, was one thing he could do for the man who had befriended him when he needed a friend most.

  Eyeing the street musician, who looked about to take a breather from his entertainment, Cassidy began to thread his way through the onlookers to speak with Christy Whistle.

  25

  The Dawn of Darkest Fears

  Why is it effects are

  Greater than their causes?

  Why should causes often

  Differ from effects?

  Why should what is lovely

  Fill the world with harness?

  And the most deceived be

  She who least suspects?

  OLIVER ST. JOHN GOGARTY (1878–1957)

  In the dark hour before daybreak, Finola awakened, violently ill again.

  Lucy held her head as she heaved, then sponged her face with a cool cloth. All the while she comforted her, she wrestled with the problem of whom to call.

  They would have to send for the doctor, no matter the early hour. The queasiness had come upon the girl, off and on, for days now. She was growing too weak, too faint by far, and it must not, could not, go on.

  Just when it seemed she might be gaining a bit of strength, walking about, sitting up for her meals, she had taken this unexpected turn for the worst.

  In the beginning, Lucy had tried not to make too much of it. Even to herself, she insisted it might only be the result of a cold, or the increased variety in her diet.

  The nun had noticed, of course; there was no hiding anything from that one. Up until the past two days, however, they had refrained from telling the Fitzgerald how often the sickness came upon the girl, and how severe it was when it came.

  That had been Finola’s doing. She had tried her utmost to convince them all that this was no more than an unsettled stomach, that it would soon pass. Lucy knew what she was about; no doubt the girl was feeling shamed by the trouble she had brought upon the Fitzgerald household and meant to avoid any further imposition. She was too much the innocent to recognize that the man was hopelessly besotted with her, that nothing she could do would ever prove an imposition.

  In any event, there could be no more delay. They must send for the doctor, and the sooner the better.

  Leading Finola to believe she was going for more towels, Lucy hurried from the room. But whom to awaken? The nun, she supposed, although she dreaded the thought. The religious treated her well enough, but Lucy was no fool. No doubt her very presence offended the sister. More than likely, the woman crossed herself at the very mention of Lucy’s name.

  No, she would rather deal with the black man. Although she had always been a bit afraid of the dark sailors from the foreign ships, this Sandemon did not strike her as someone to dread. Big as he was, he had a kindness, a gentleness, about him. He seemed a man to respect, but not to fear.

  Besides, something in his eyes gave Lucy to know that he did not condemn her—indeed, did not condemn anyone. The black man just might be the one person in the household to whom she could turn—if it turned out she was right about Finola.

  But not now, at this early hour of the morning. He slept in a connecting room off his employer’s bed chamber, so it was likely that to wake him would mean disturbing the Fitzgerald as well.

  There was nothing for it but to wake the nun. With a reluctant sigh, Lucy turned and started down the dimly lighted hall.

  Sandemon had been half-expecting a summons to send for the surgeon. Something had roused him awake nearly an hour ago. Now, as he lay listening, he identified sounds alien to the usual early morning rumblings of the household. After a moment, he surmised that Miss Finola must be ill again.

  Quietly, he slipped from his bed. He dressed quickly, then entered the Seanchai’s quarters to check on him. Assured that his employer was still sleeping soundly, he tiptoed from the room.

  He stood outside the door for a long moment, listening. The hall was cold and shadowed, lighted only by candles at each end and midway, but there was enough light that he saw Lucy Hoy headed toward Sister Louisa’s bedroom.

  Taking the hall with quick, light steps, he cleared his throat so as not to startle her. She stopped when she saw him, waiting for him to reach her.

  “Miss Finola is ill?” he asked without preamble.

  She nodded, and Sandemon saw that the normally suspicious eyes were dark with worry. The woman looked heartsick and worn with fatigue.

  “Shall I go for the surgeon?”

  Again she nodded. “She’s growing worse, I fear. The sickness comes upon her much more frequently now. We’d best not delay.”

  The round face had been heavily painted when she first came to Nelson Hall. Now it was always scrubbed clean, and usually appeared years younger. This morning, however, it was lined with weariness and concern.

  Sandemon’s gaze locked with Lucy’s. With a sinking heart, he saw his own fears reflected.

  A few moments later, back in Finola’s bedroom, Lucy jumped when the door creaked open.

  The nun stood just inside the room for a moment, appearing much smaller than usual in the voluminous dressing gown. Lucy tried not to stare. Without the ever-present wimple, the nun’s short dark hair was revealed, tossed with curls and lightly streaked with silver.

  “I heard you and Sandemon in the hallway,” she whispered. “You’ve sent for the surgeon, have you?”

  Lucy nodded.

  Sister Louisa approached the bed, then stood perfectly still, looking from Lucy to Finola, who now lay sleeping. For the first time, Lucy forgot to be ashamed or apprehensive in the nun’s presence. So surprised was she by the depth of sadness she saw in the sister’s eyes, she did not even think to leave the room in order to spare the nun offense.

  Long past the breakfast horn, the household was astir with the sounds of morning. Pans clanged in the kitchen, and the day maids scurried back and forth from room to room. A number of tradesmen had already appeared at the back door.

  Morgan sat in the library, a cup of Sandemon’s strong hot coffee at his side. Only in the vaguest sense was he aware of the noise elsewhere in the house. Unable to take breakfast, unwilling to endure the mincing of Artegal in and out of the dining room, he had wheeled down the hall to what had become his favorite room of the mansion. His retreat.

  Now he sat waiting for the surgeon to come down. When Annie appeared in the doorway instead, he beckoned her inside.

  “Sand-Man told me the doctor is here,” she said, her black eyes solemn and watchful.

  He nodded. “He’s upstairs now. Finola took ill again this morning.”

  He sensed the child’s uncertainty as she approached the desk. “I thought Finola was gaining.” Still she watched him, as if she feared saying the wrong thing.

  Morgan looked at her, then gestured that she should come closer. Her eyes brightened, and she hurried around the desk to stand beside him.

  Taking her hand, he managed to smile at her. “You’re fond of Finola, aren’t you, lass?”

  ‘“Oh, of course I am!” she burst out. “I think she’s grand!” With her customary bluntness, she added, “And I’m sure Finola likes me as well. Indeed, we were beginning to be good friends before—”

  She broke off, looking at Morgan as if she weren’t sure she should finish.

  “Would you like to know what Finola thinks of you?” Morgan asked. “It’s very complimentary.”

  The dark eyes grew wide, and she nodded eagerly.

  He drew the child closer still. “I know for a fact that Fino
la thinks you have a beautiful soul, and that you will one day be an extraordinarily lovely young woman.”

  Annie gaped, her eyes glistening. “She doesn’t!”

  “Ah, but she does. And do you know what I think?”

  Beaming, Annie shifted from one foot to the other, obviously impatient to hear.

  “I think,” Morgan said soberly, “that Finola is exactly right. I think I shall have to hide you in the cellar once you’re past thirteen. Otherwise, I’ll spend my days doing nothing but tossing out lovesick gorsoons! Perhaps—”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan saw the surgeon appear in the doorway, then Sister Louisa.

  Still holding Annie’s hand, he turned toward them, glancing from one to the other. He observed that the doctor would not quite meet his eyes. It was the nun who spoke first. “Master Fitzgerald—Seanchai—we would speak with you, please.”

  Morgan stared at her. This was the first time the sister had ever addressed him by the affectionate Seanchai. His throat tightened with apprehension as he gestured for them to enter.

  Sister Louisa glanced at Annie. “Perhaps we should speak alone.”

  Morgan looked at the child. She was unable to conceal her disappointment, but at his nod, she slipped her hand from his and left the room without protest.

  When neither the nun nor the doctor made a move to speak first, Morgan deliberately fastened his gaze on his hands, now knotted in fists atop the desk. “Well, then?”

  Sister Louisa took a step closer, while the doctor remained a discreet distance from the desk. “Seanchai, this is a hard thing. But you must know. Finola…”

  Her voice faltered, and Morgan looked up, shaken by the undisguised pain staring back at him.

  “Finola is with child,” she finally said in a strangled voice.

  For an instant, Morgan felt as if his heart had stopped. What he had feared in the long hours of the night, what he had suspected for days but refused to face—had now become a bleak reality.

  Framing his face with his hands, Morgan closed his eyes for a moment.

  When he opened them, Sister Louisa was watching him with knowing concern. Behind her, the surgeon waited with sad eyes.

  Thrusting his arms straight out toward the desk, Morgan regarded the sister. “Well, then,” he said in a voice less than steady, “we must take care of her, of course. We must take care of Finola…and her child.”

  26

  The Vanishing Smoke of Dreams

  We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit’s fire;

  For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return

  If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,

  As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.

  GEORGE W. RUSSELL [“AE”] (1867–1935)

  By the next afternoon, it had been decided that Lucy should be the one to tell Miss Finola of her condition. Although Sandemon understood the decision, he was not entirely comfortable with it.

  He questioned his own uneasiness as he walked along the stream at the west of the house. It was a soft day, as the Irish people called it—cool, but not bitter cold; wet, with a continuous, light rain from a pewter sky that promised still more to come. He was glad of his cape to keep out the wind, yet at the same time he savored the soothing feel of the rain on his face.

  He thought of the woman, Lucy Hoy. It was not that he doubted her devotion to Miss Finola. To the contrary, he suspected she would lay her life down for her young friend without protest.

  What troubled him more was a certain cynicism he had detected in her, the jaded air of one who has known only life’s darkness—and neither believed in nor expected anything else. He would have understood bitterness and resentment from the woman, even anger. She doted on Miss Finola, after all; no doubt the news that there would be a child as a result of the attack was greatly troubling to her, as it was to the entire household.

  Yet, she went about in a silent, tight-lipped manner, while something in her eyes implied that she had anticipated the worst all along.

  That she was world-weary and hard came as no surprise. The woman was a prostitute, after all, and no doubt had lived her demoralizing existence for some years. Yet, there were times when Sandemon caught a sense of softheartedness, a warmth that belied Lucy Hoy’s brittle exterior.

  He walked on, heading back toward the house now. He tried to persuade himself that he was overly concerned. Certainly, the physician would have cautioned Lucy Hoy to take great care in approaching Miss Finola with this latest shock.

  Still, he could not help but wish the Seanchai had seen fit to ignore convention and speak with Miss Finola himself. Shaken as he was, the young master would nevertheless have found the strength and necessary wisdom to cast this latest dilemma in the best possible light, leaving the door open for God’s grace to redeem the situation.

  No doubt Lucy Hoy would do her best for Miss Finola. But unless he was mistaken, she was more likely to focus on the evil that had been done. Indeed, she seemed unable to see anything beyond the wickedness of the attacker and the tragedy of the attack itself.

  That was understandable, of course. But at some point…soon, please, God…somebody needed to consider the unborn and, sadly, unwanted child.

  She was being told now…at this moment…and Morgan felt as if he might as well have been an ocean apart from her.

  Even during the long and terrible time of her silence, when she lay removed from them all in what had seemed an endless dream—even then, he had not felt so altogether separated from her.

  In the solitude of the chapel, he tried to close out the sounds of the household, that he might be alone before God and with his own thoughts. He stayed in the back, in the shadows, staring at the simple wooden crucifix behind the altar.

  For a long time, he simply sat in the wheelchair, his eyes locked upon the cross. His heart was too anxious, his thoughts too troubled and confused, to do anything more than simply…be still. Be still and wait, hoping that some glimmer of light, some faint wisdom or insight into the darkness of these days would come to him.

  She is to have a child…the child of the animal who raped her and beat her….

  As always, the memory of what had happened to Finola slashed at his heart, made him moan aloud.

  Wasn’t it enough that she had been beaten and abused? Was she now to bear the irrefutable evidence of her horror, a daily reminder of the agony? Why this, now, when she had finally begun to heal?

  “Why?”

  The sound of his own voice raised in anger amid the hush of the chapel made him glance around guiltily. After a moment, he slumped a little in the chair, closing his eyes.

  He was mortal-tired, so exhausted his bones ached. He had not slept throughout the long, dismal night, and all during the morning, his emotions had raged from one storm to another. At first seized with a white-hot anger—a righteous anger, he told himself—he had gone on to utter bewilderment, frustration, and finally raw grief.

  Now, however, he was merely tired. Tired and heartsore. Yet he was determined to find a way to keep this thing from destroying Finola.

  Morgan massaged his aching temples. Oh, Lord…Lord, You know the innocent she is. You know what she has been through—the evil and pain inflicted upon her. You know the horror she has endured, only to be assaulted with still another burden.

  How is she to survive it all, then? It would be easy enough for her to lose her mind altogether, to simply drift back to wherever she was before….

  He opened his eyes. A cold hand of fear clutched the back of his neck. He could not, would not, let that happen. For this time, he knew with a chilling certainty, she would not return to him.

  He gave a long, heaving sigh, once more turning his eyes on the crucifix at the front of the chapel.

  Give me the wisdom to know what to do for her, how to help her. Please, You who are called Merciful, show our Finola Your mercy.

  Finally, he again closed his eyes, his mind repeating the plea for
mercy like a litany. He sat that way for a long time, slumped wearily in the wheelchair, allowing the cool, quiet peace of the chapel to enfold him.

  “A child?” Finola pulled herself up in bed, gripping Lucy’s hands as if to stop the violent trembling of her body.

  “There now, alannah, hush…hush. You will hurt yourself! It will be all right…we will make things all right, you will see….”

  Finola scarcely heard Lucy’s words of reassurance. She was only dimly aware of the room around her: the high, plump mattress that seemed to be swallowing her whole…the gray afternoon light fighting its way through the drapes…the mirror on the opposite wall…the massive chiffonnier….

  “A child?” she whispered, more to herself than to Lucy. “I am to have a child?” She fell back against the pillows, stunned to the point of numbness.

  Once she had dreamed of having a child, of being a mother. She remembered…a long time ago, in another place, she had rocked a rag doll and sung childish little lullabies, pretending it was her very own babe. A boy babe, it had been….

  Lucy clasped her shoulder, rousing her from her thoughts with a gentle squeeze. “Finola, do you understand, love? Do you mind what I’m saying?”

  Slowly, Finola nodded, looking about the room again to make sure this was no dream. There had been so many dreams of late. Sometimes it was nearly impossible to distinguish the real from the imagined.

  This place—Nelson Hall—this was real, she knew, as were its people. The Seanchai—Morgan. Lucy. Annie and her big wolfhound. The kindly Sandemon. Sister Louisa. The gently sloping grounds outside, the trees and gardens she could see from her window—all this was real.

  She had put away the ugliness and pain, relegated it to the dream world. She would not think of it again, that terrible dream. The man who hurt her…