The Whitest Flower

by Brendan Graham

Now, through the cloth of her bag she could make out the short, slender barrel and the pearled handle of ‘Dr Peabody’, just the right size for her hand.

  ‘A lady’s handgun,’ Lavelle had called it.

  At first she had been tempted to return it to Peabody.

  What truck did she have with a gun? But Lavelle talked her out of it.

  ‘Listen, Ellen,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what awaits you back there. What if Pakenham tries to prevent you getting your children?’

  ‘Even if he did, Lavelle, I couldn’t shoot him. I couldn’t kill a person. Not after …’ She didn’t complete the sentence.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll probably never have to unwrap it. But carry it, just in case.’

  Reluctantly she had agreed.

  ‘Maybe I should go with you – in case you do have problems.’

  ‘No, Lavelle, thank you,’ she replied, having expected this moment. ‘This is something I have to do myself. And, anyhow, you’re needed here. Who would look after things?’

  ‘Well, it would only be a few months, and we could talk old Peabody into taking extra stock for the time …’ said Lavelle.

  But she was ready for this, too, very clear as to how it should be. ‘We’ve put too much into making this work,’ she told him. ‘We can’t risk losing it now. What if there were any problems to be sorted out? I’ll be fine – you’ll see.’

  She couldn’t agree to him going with her. It would start up things between them, let him across that line she was determined not to let him cross – or herself either!

  It just couldn’t be.

  The evening before she was to set sail, Lavelle came to see her.

  ‘I came to wish you well, Ellen, to say God speed … and hurry back.’

  She was glad to see him, streelish and all as she thought she looked with last-minute readying.

  She would miss him, had grown used to his being around.

  But she was going to keep the good-byes between them light and breezy.

  ‘Lavelle! Come to help me pack, have you?’ she mocked. ‘Here!’ and she threw a dress at him.

  Blushing as he caught the dress, Lavelle responded playfully: ‘Don’t give me any bad manners now, Ellen, or it’s yourself you’ll find bundled into that suitcase!’

  She shot a quick glance at him as she leaned over the suitcase. He seemed sonasach enough, she thought. Lighthearted was the way to keep it all right!

  She snatched the dress back out of his hands and folded it into the case. He watched her as she leaned over.

  ‘You know,’ he said, as she pushed down, trying to make more space for the children’s clothes she had bought, ‘it’s a prettier sight than Clew Bay ever was!’

  ‘What is, Lavelle?’ she responded automatically, her mind not on what he was saying, until she heard him laughing.

  Then she realized with some embarrassment to what he was referring. She should have been more careful – was getting too used to him being around her. And he was getting too smart, too pass-remarkable. Too easy with her. She’d teach him a lesson!

  She grabbed her bag and pulled out the pistol, turning it on him.

  ‘Now, Mr Lavelle, what remark did you make about my person?’

  ‘Ellen! For God’s sake put that thing down – it could go off!’ He waved his hands at her, backing away.

  ‘You were the one who said I’d never have to use it!’ she challenged him, not even the flicker of a smile on her. ‘Well, now I’ve found a reason – to defend my honour! You can’t go around insulting a woman like you did and expect to get away with it. Clew Bay, is it? Apologize, or you’ll never see it again,’ she demanded of him, fighting to keep a straight face.

  Lavelle couldn’t tell if she was serious or play-acting. You never knew with her.

  ‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to apologize for a compliment to your person,’ he said.

  She had thought he’d back down, thought she could pull it off, give him a fright. He had been getting exceedingly cheeky in his remarks to her of late, but she enjoyed the banter, was well able for him. Now he had called her bluff. What was her next move to be?

  Too late.

  Lavelle saw her waver for just that moment. His arm shot out and caught her wrist forcing the gun up and away from him. He tightened his grip on her until she dropped it.

  She knew, by the look that was on him – the one she saw there at Christmas – knew what he would do next.

  This time she did not resist him.

  50

  Never, in all the voyages she had undertaken, had Ellen experienced such a mix of emotions as she felt on sailing out of Boston. Her mind was in turmoil, full of hope and fears, excitement and dread. This was the moment she had looked forward to ever since she had agreed to Edith Pakenham’s conditions.

  She was coming home again.

  This would be her final test. But what would be the outcome?, she wondered, as she saw the queue of ships waiting off Deer Island – Boston’s quarantine station. Was it already pre-ordained whether she would succeed or fail? Something, someone was putting her through all this. She hadn’t chosen the sequence of events. Maybe the Church was right all along: the Famine was the Hand of Providence. Maybe that same Hand of Providence which had shaped her, had not yet finished shaping her.

  She was imperfect. Filled with pride. Thought that on her own she could save Michael, save the children, hold back the ravages of famine – succeed where Government and Church had failed. In her eyes, even God had been wrong, and she had railed at Him in His heaven, trying to make Him see it her way. Accusing God of failing her.

  But it was she who had failed. First she had failed Michael, then Annie. She had failed her other children, too, leaving them behind. And she had failed her God: killed another human being, broken His most sacred Commandment – ‘Thou shalt not kill’!

  She herself would have been dead if it hadn’t been for the help of others. But this was more pride. Why should she be so important? Her one little life worthy of all this attention?

  Was she any different from the mad vacant wretches on the Eliza Jane? Any better than the Aboriginal women used by the white settlers, their bodies then stuffed into the middens of the Coorong? Was she any different from the red-haired girl taken from the hold of the Dove, and buried alive in the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean? What was her special right to life, to anything?

  And what of Lavelle – and Michael?

  This thing with Lavelle, she hadn’t counted on. She had thought she had the situation with him well judged. That she was in control of it. They had been through a lot together and she liked him. He was respectful but good-humoured, and, yes, she admitted to herself, he was a fine handsome cut of a man. But that was it, nothing more.

  Certainly, she had known he was attracted to her. At first she laughed it off, thinking that in Boston he’d meet someone else. But he hadn’t looked. For a while she had denied this to herself, putting it down to everything and anything, except what it was. Then Christmas Day, when he had kissed her … Although she had pushed him away from her, something had happened. At first she had put the feeling down to her own high spirits; the day that was in it; the success with Peabody’s; the surprise of the silken scarf. Anything but what it was, she now thought. More denial.

  But her reaction to him had niggled at her. It was something she had been unable to package away.

  Michael was her love, her one and only love. She would be faithful to him to the grave. She had prayed to him, asked for his love to strengthen her, but …

  It was all pride, she now knew, more pride. Thinking she could control Lavelle’s emotions as well as her own. Thinking she could go to the grave without the touch of another man. She was stupid, so stupid.

  Lavelle had taken her by surprise last night. But he must have sensed something. It must have been written on her face. Maybe the thing with the gun was a last-ditch attempt to deny the trembling inside her? Maybe it had been a device to a
ssuage her guilt, so she could tell herself it wasn’t her fault that she’d betrayed Michael. After all, she had held Lavelle off at gunpoint, and he had overpowered her. Or, was the gun her provocation? Knowing that he wouldn’t give in to her game, knowing that the gun wasn’t loaded. Had she initiated it all?

  Lavelle had declared his love for her, said he wanted to marry her when she returned from Ireland. This morning he had come to the Long Wharf to see her off. He had wanted to kiss her too, but she would only allow an embrace. Neither did she wear his scarf. But he hadn’t commented on this. That morning she had decided not to – and had stuffed it into the case between the two print dresses for Katie and Mary. It was a distancing. She was not ready.

  Lavelle, and her feelings for him, were a complication she could do without.

  Pakenham … her children … These were the things she had to deal with. The only things.

  And, besides, the earth had hardly yet settled on Michael’s grave. His body was hardly even cold.

  There could be no other man for her.

  Book Five

  Ireland

  51

  It was the early dawn of the thirty-ninth day at sea when she saw Ireland.

  The bright August sun rose in the east ahead of them. It flickered out over the green fields and the Western seas, lighting all in its path. Welcoming them home. Ellen’s heart leapt for joy at the sight. Passengers familiar with the area called out the names of the islands as they sighted them: Inishark; Inishbofin; Inishturk; Clare Island – stronghold of her ancestor, Grace O’Malley; Achill Island, home to Lavelle.

  Then, they tacked in for Clew Bay with its three hundred and sixty-five islands, it was said – one for every day. On past Louisburgh, and the Old Head. Towering above everything, the Reek with its crown of mist. Although she recalled all too well the severity of the barefoot ascent to the summit, the sight of the Reek was somehow comforting, reminding her of a time when life was simpler for her. All those Reek Sundays of years gone by: the long walk from Maamtrasna over the mountains to Murrisk. Then the climb up the Reek, gaining indulgences as you went, which, in the next life, would lessen the fires of purgatory, or shorten your stay there. Then the walk home again. It was hard, and it was faith alone that kept you going. The faith of St Patrick’s Vermin. If only Boston’s bully-boys and bigots could have seen them, she thought, scurrying down the Reek through the mist, like rats blinded by faith.

  At Westport Quay, as they disembarked, there was a riot to welcome her home. Hundreds of people, their clothes in tatters, some with gnarl-topped blackthorn sticks, were trying to prevent food being loaded on to a cargo ship, the Lady of Plymouth. But, determined as the crowd were, a large force of the constabulary kept them back from the convoy of food.

  Ellen watched in horror as a young man broke through the cordon and jumped on one of the crates, shouting, ‘Food for England while Ireland starves!’ to great cheers, until he was clubbed to the ground and cast back into the crowd.

  Then a constable of some rank mounted the same crate and unfurled a large notice which he proceeded to read to the seething mob: ‘On the authority vested in me by Her Gracious Majesty, Victoria, Queen of these Islands, I hereby read to you the Riot Act of the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, and caution all forthwith as to the gravity of its provisions …’

  Nothing had changed, except for the worse. The reading of the Riot Act was met with booing and jeering, accompanied by any missiles to hand, and shouts of: ‘Famine Queen!’ ‘Give us food, not Riot Acts!’ ‘Irish food for Irish bellies!’ ‘Attack the Peelers!’ And at this there was a great surge forward which broke through the ranks of Peelers. Starving people swarmed over the boxes of food. Even as they were rounded on and beaten by the truncheons of the policemen, they tried to tear open the boxes. The young man she had seen clubbed to the ground was up again, in the thick of it. With his strong blackthorn stick he managed to lever open one of the crates. Then, with a shout, he heaved the crate on its side so that its contents spilled out. As if by signal, the other rioters stopped and the Peelers too desisted, all mute witnesses to the scene: rounded, unblemished, perfectly formed potatoes tumbled out of the crate, hopped this way and that, the sunlight picking them out as they hobbled along the quayside.

  Potatoes being taken out of Ireland – it couldn’t be!

  She remembered what they had had to endure. How she had laboured, cutting out the good bits from rotting potatoes, saving any shred of skin she could. How she had doled out the under-sized lumpers to Michael and the children, week by week reducing the amount she gave to each of them. Sacrificing one at each meal from her own ration, until there wasn’t even one left to sacrifice.

  Now, with the people still starving, potatoes were being sent out of the country! It was unthinkable. The worst insult to the poor.

  Angrily she stormed over to the constable in charge. Some in the crowd jeered as she passed them: ‘Merchant’s tallywoman!’ ‘Look at her! She never knew want!’ She was tempted to retort, annoyed at being challenged thus. But these were her people – had probably come in from the valleys looking for work or a handful of grain. The realization shocked her.

  ‘Who is the owner of this produce?’ she asked the constable in charge. He, seeing her fine clothes, took her to be someone of importance and directed her to a well-heeled man with hat and cane.

  ‘Sir,’ she asked, ‘are these your potatoes?’

  He doffed his hat to her, and in a West of Ireland accent said, ‘Yes, madam – for whatever good they are now, scattered on the quayside by these ruffians.’

  ‘A shame on you – why don’t you let these poor starving people have them, then?’ she challenged him.

  ‘Why, madam,’ he started, flustered by her directness, ‘I’d rather see them in the bay than let these wretches have them now!’

  ‘No need to, sir. I’ll buy them from you with good Yankee dollars.’ And with that she pulled out her purse.

  The merchant was flabbergasted – didn’t know what to make of this finely dressed woman from America.

  ‘Ten dollars seems a fair price for damaged goods,’ she said, pushing the money into his hands.

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose so, madam. Yes, take them away,’ the merchant blurted, embarrassed by it all, but glad to have recouped some of his losses.

  So, in her first moments back in Ireland, Ellen Rua O’Malley hiked up her skirts, knelt on the Quay of Westport and gathered up potatoes, returning them to the crate from which they had spilled.

  They were round and smooth, no eyes or dark marks on them. Definitely not the ugly, misshapen potatoes the poor knew. Only the best class of potato would do for the tables of England!

  As she gathered them, the Lady of Plymouth continued to be loaded. She heard the ship’s captain check off his bill of entry to Liverpool port: ‘Pigs – one hundred and one; Cows – fifty-four; Sheep – three score and ten; Fowl – six boxes; Calves – seven …’

  When she had finished, she approached the ranking Peeler again. ‘Now, Constable,’ she addressed him firmly. ‘Since I am the new owner of these potatoes, I wish them distributed to the needy here, without violence to their persons.’

  ‘Oats – fifteen barrels,’ the captain’s voice called out in the background. ‘Wheat – forty-four bags; Oatmeal – one hundred and eighteen bags; Coarse meat – nineteen barrels; Bacon – a dozen pounds …’

  The constable, thinking her to be the wife of some official, acceded to her directions without demur. ‘Yes, madam. As you wish, madam,’ he said. ‘Men – set up an orderly line. Any person being disorderly will be disqualified from relief.’

  As she left the scene, Ellen was horrified to see that as soon as the famished people received their paltry lot of potatoes, they devoured them raw, so great was their distress.

  Behind her, the checking of the cargo continued: ‘Butter – three hundred and fifty firkins; Lard – two terces; Tongues – ten firkins; Ale – four hogsheads; Whiskey – twe
nty-four puns; Potatoes – delete the potatoes …’

  * * *

  Ellen instructed the driver of her carriage to take her to Maamtrasna via the coast road through Louisburgh and Leenane. That way she would come by the Crucán and Maamtrasna first before going on to Tourmakeady. Once she had the children there would be no stopping, they would go straight from Tourmakeady to Westport – a much shorter route.

  The driver, Faherty, a thin, talkative fellow from Westport, at first refused.

  ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am – but I daren’t go back the valleys,’ he said.

  When she pressed him, saying no harm would come to him, he replied, ‘Begging your pardon again, ma’am – it’s not my own person I’m afeared for but old Nell here. ’Pon my oath, they’d eat her for sure, things is that bad back there!’ And he patted the horse’s neck.

  Eventually she convinced him, saying she would hire him for the return journey to Westport, ‘with something extra for yourself.’

  Faherty’s description of how bad things were in the valleys sent a shiver through her. Despite all she’d heard in Grosse Île and Boston about the state of Ireland, nothing could have prepared her for the riot on the quayside. Ragged wretches so desperate for food they risked being clubbed to death rather than starve.

  Now, around the outskirts of the town she saw hordes of the poor roaming aimlessly, while others sat passively, staring at nothing, waiting for the release that death would bring.

  ‘Why are so many in Westport?’ she asked him.

  ‘Well, ma’am,’ he told her, ‘they swarm in from the countryside looking for any relief. Walk miles and miles in all weather. There’s nothing else left for them to do. They’re mostly evicted. No homes, no places to sleep, no work, no potatoes. They might as well walk the roads – it gives them something to do. They walk here, then they walk back again, or walk on to Castlebar, mostly saying nothing to no one.’

  She noticed he spoke in English all the time to her.

  ‘What about the workhouses – can’t they take them in?’ she asked, knowing the reply.