Ellen asked for her suitcase. Reluctantly the gaoler agreed, having first searched it for any concealed weapons.
She washed Katie from head to toe, and patiently brushed out her hair, giving it one hundred strokes of the brush as she used to before, when preparing her for Sunday Mass. Then, Ellen took out the dress, a matching one to the silent girl’s, bright with its pinks and blues and its white collar and cuffs.
The dress looked wonderful on Katie, as Ellen had imagined it would. Full of life and colour, as Katie once was. She talked to her beautiful máinlín as she dressed her: ‘This is the dress I brought you from Boston, a stóirín. One for you, one for Mary, for going to America in …’
Ellen fought to keep back her tears. America – would any of them see it now, let alone Katie?
It had all gone wrong for her – even the dresses. She had been imagining how the two would look, all dressed up identically, and like American girls. Now one of the dresses was on the silent girl, the other on Katie – she almost silent too.
Ellen smartened herself up in readiness for the morning. She was tired, not up to it. But she had to defend herself. Had to get free, see to Katie, get them all out of here to America. She couldn’t fail now at what surely must be the final obstacle to being fully and completely rejoined with her children. It would be difficult. Pakenham wasn’t dead, she knew. Father O’Brien told her she had only wounded him, shot him in the shoulder. So the landlord would be in court, facing her. Would the court ever take her side against him, believe her story? She doubted it.
When she had finished with herself, she cradled Katie in her arms again. What a little mischief she had been before. Always in trouble, always testing to see how far she could go with people.
Ellen looked down at her child, remembering the fights at the Rosary, the interminable questions from her at the Lessons. But Katie had great nature in her too. Like the Sunday morning going to Finny when she had dashed to the side of the mountain, and brought back a fistful of wildflowers for Ellen. And how she was always protective of Mary, her twin – the two of them sharing that special world where other, single children could not go.
And now that special bond, that twin-ness, had been turned against them, used to separate and break them. Katie was now paying the ultimate price for the twin sister she loved.
She was dying for her.
Ellen lovingly rubbed her daughter’s forehead, clearing a space on it amongst Katie’s mass of red hair. She made a small cross on the spot, leaning forward to kiss where she had crossed, her lips tasting the hot salty moisture of the fever as she did so. Then, she sang to Katie a suantraí – lullabying her – still caressing her forehead. Katie always liked that.
When she had finished the lullaby, Ellen heard Katie make a sound. She put her ear to the child’s lips.
‘What is it, a stóirín? I’m here with you!’ she whispered.
She felt the feverish lips move against her ear. At first no sound came. Ellen, motionless, held back her own breathing, to try and catch whatever it was Katie was trying to say to her.
Again she felt the lips move against her ear, the way the Máistir used to whisper to her about wonder. The way she herself whispered to Katie the morning Annie was born, when the three of them lay together in absolute silence, in absolute wonder.
This time the sound came, whispered, but clearer than Ellen had expected: ‘A Mhamaí … a Mhamaí, tháinig tú ar ais chugainn!’ Ellen almost choked at the words: ‘A Mhamaí, you came back to us!’ was what Katie had been trying so hard to say to her.
‘Oh, my God – my poor child!’ Ellen said, kissing her on the cheek, overcome with emotion.
Then, with her task completed, the words at last transmitted between them, Katie expired. Her tired little heart gave up, no longer able to meet the demands that the fever which racked her body had made on it.
Ellen knew she was gone. Knew that Katie had summoned up all her last resources of strength to tell her how happy she was she’d come back for them. That that was all that mattered.
That she had forgiven her for ever going.
‘Tháinig tú ar ais chugainn – you came back to us,’ Ellen repeated, whispering it into the stony walls of the Westport Gaol.
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Through the night into the morning, Ellen sat with Katie, talking and singing to her as if she was still alive.
When they came for her at about ten o’clock, Ellen pretended nothing was wrong. Katie was just sleeping.
If they knew, they would take Katie’s body away from her. Throw it into a grave somewhere. She didn’t want that.
She would have to win this trial. Be freed.
Then, together with the others, she would get Faherty to bring them back to the mountains. Back to Maamtrasna. Back to Crucán na bPáiste.
There was no other place Katie could be buried.
That was her place. High up in the mountains, overlooking the Mask and Lough Nafooey.
Back there with Michael.
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Ellen was nervous as she was led into the court and told to stand in the dock while the charges of Malicious Injury and Attempted Murder were read out against her. What chance did she have? Pakenham would have them all lined up against her with their big words. She glanced at the judge, bewigged and in his black garb, sternly looking down on all of them – especially her, she thought.
Father O’Brien was as good as his word. He had been there when she arrived and had smiled at her. She was glad to see him.
Patrick and Mary were there too, and they looked nervously at her, fearful for her, and wondering about Katie, Ellen guessed. The silent girl sat between them and Faherty, who was with a soft-faced, good-hearted looking woman. This must be ‘Herself’, Ellen thought, Mrs Faherty.
Sir Richard and Edith Pakenham both appeared. The landlord’s arm was supported by a sling bandage. Ellen was relieved she hadn’t killed him, the more so when she saw Bridget there behind him. The girl sat with her eyes cast downwards throughout, never once meeting Ellen’s gaze. On one occasion when Ellen glanced over, she caught Bridget looking at Pakenham. It suddenly dawned on her that Bridget – in spite of everything the landlord was, in spite of their strange, unequal relationship – had grown to like, maybe even, love Pakenham. She dismissed the idea from her mind, almost as quickly, thinking it too improbable.
Pakenham gave evidence. He traced the history of his ‘O’Malley tenants’ going back to Michael’s attack on him, the disappearance of his agent, Mr Beecham, and ‘Mrs O’Malley’s most recent assault on my person with a firearm.’
Father O’Brien cross-examined the landlord, informing the court that he had witnessed with his own eyes the harassment visited by Sir Richard on his tenants. He then questioned the landlord about the immoral raising of rents in the face of Famine, citing Pakenham’s sur-tax on the children of his tenants. When he asked Sir Richard if he had ‘occasioned the eviction of Mrs O’Malley and her family on the eve of Christmas’, a gasp went up from the courtroom.
The priest then began his defence of Ellen, stoutly attesting to her good character and extraordinary courage.
‘Why, even now,’ he told the packed courtroom, ‘while she stands here before you falsely accused, her child lies within the gaolhouse, grievously stricken.’
Again, this drew exclamations from those present.
Then he asked Ellen to turn first one side of her face to the Bench, then the other.
‘Sir Richard,’ he asked deliberately, ‘bearing in mind that you are under oath, please tell the court: did you inflict these wounds on Mrs O’Malley?’
Pakenham hesitated, flustered.
‘You did, I saw her cut and bleeding!’
It was Patrick, standing up in the courtroom, shouting at Pakenham.
Ellen couldn’t believe her ears. Her heart, filled with sorrow and apprehension, now lifted at her son’s intervention. Patrick, whom she had thought was lost to her, was now returned – true to his nature – stand
ing there defiant, defending her. Like Michael would.
When the court had settled again, the judge issued a warning against further interruptions, then addressed Pakenham: ‘You must answer the question, Sir Richard.’
Ellen watched Pakenham. He looked at the judge, looked at the priest … started to say something – then changed his mind.
‘I – dammit, I was afeared for my life with the woman!’ ‘Did you strike her before she presented the weapon?’
‘Yes, Goddammit! Yes, I did – the woman has caused me such trouble …’
The judge called the court to order again.
After some more questioning of Pakenham, other witnesses were called. Then it was Ellen’s turn.
Ellen, when called, gave her evidence calmly, trying not to think of Katie lying back there in the cell, bedecked in bright colours. Her beautiful, beautiful, Katie.
Somehow, she got through it, somehow remaining dignified and restrained on the outside.
After Pakenham’s evidence the judge seemed not to be as stern. Father O’Brien had further discredited Pakenham by revealing that the landlord owed almost two thousand pounds to the Westport Union, charged with running the workhouse. By failing in his civil duty, the priest reminded the court, Pakenham amongst others had caused the workhouse to close and its inhabitants to be evicted, including Mrs O’Malley’s child – who had been entrusted into the Pakenhams’ care on the promise that she would be kept safe.
Then the judge addressed the jury: ‘The accused, by her bearing and demeanour, is no ordinary peasant bent solely on wronging her landlord,’ he began. ‘But she and her children have been subjected to much oppression by a superior power, who also inflicted wounds on her person. You must decide if the sum of these events, culminating in the final assault, constituted sufficient grounds for possessing a firearm, and for using it in self-defence – as she claims – on Sir Richard. You may retire to your deliberations.’
Eventually, the jury returned. It seemed a lifetime to Ellen, another lifetime before the verdict was read. She stood up, her body tense, afraid to look at the children.
‘Not guilty!’
‘Not guilty’! She could scarce believe it – they hadn’t gone against her. She looked for her children. Patrick and Mary cheered and clapped. Faherty threw his cap in the air, then threw his arms round Herself as far as they would go.
Father O’Brien took her hand in both of his and said: ‘God is good, justice has been given to you at last, Ellen Rua.’
She thanked him. ‘Without you, Father ..
He silenced her. But it was not over yet. The judge, having granted her freedom, addressed Pakenham: ‘You, sir, have, by deceit, caused this woman to be separated from her children for your own ends. You then assaulted her in a most cowardly and ungentlemanly manner when she came to retrieve her children. You are a disgrace to your breed, and your position as a gentleman! The constabulary may well wish to speak further with you,’ he added.
The judge departed the courtroom. And Sergeant Moriarty approached her.
She looked at her children, thought of all the suffering inflicted on her family over the years by Pakenham.
She looked at Bridget. The girl’s face had gone pallid at this unexpected turn of events.
She looked at Pakenham, the man who had battered them out of their home. The man who had shot her husband, and who had tricked her into leaving behind three of her children and going to Australia. And then separated her children. This man who had beaten her, as if she were a dog at his heels.
He had been shamed now, called for what he was. The newspapers would carry word of it to any who were left to read them. And to London and Australia. His house was fallen, he was a ruined man.
She looked again at Bridget. This time the girl’s eyes met hers, frightened, imploring. If Pakenham was arrested, imprisoned, she would have no job, no means of supporting her mother and family. But there was more in her eyes than just that.
Sergeant Moriarty waited. Did Mrs O’Malley wish to press charges?
‘No,’ Ellen said quietly. ‘No charges.’
60
There was a great melee about Ellen, Mary hugged her delightedly, and Patrick after his outburst seemed to have thawed a bit, but still she had to hug him.
She got Faherty on his own for a minute. ‘Mr Faherty, thank you for everything.’ Embarrassed by this, he stood fidgeting with his cap. ‘There is one more thing I have to ask of you – an important thing.’
‘Ma’am?’ the driver said willingly.
‘I need you to bring us to Maamtrasna, one more time, and thence back to Westport for a ship to America,’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am, of course I will, and delighted too. ’Pon my oath, you stitched Pakenham up rightly, I’ll have a word with Herself first,’ he replied.
Then it was settled.
She made her good-byes to Father O’Brien, thanking him again, promising to write to him from Boston.
Once in the carriage, Mary was all concerned about Katie, but excited by the new dress on her, the same as the one on the silent girl. Mary never referred to the fact that the girl’s dress was obviously meant for her.
‘A Mhamaí, Katie looks beautiful,’ Mary said, reaching her hand over to Katie’s face. ‘Will she be all right? Her face is very cold, not hot like before …’
Mary looked at her mother, the searching eyes knowing before Ellen spoke that Katie, her sister, her twin, was dead.
‘Katie isn’t with us any more, a Mhamaí, is she?’ Mary asked, very quietly now.
Ellen shook her head, not able to say it. Then she reached out her arms to this other, most beautiful child.
The two of them, then, mother and child, were locked in each other’s arms, silent tears for Katie streaming down their faces, when Ellen felt a pressure at her side. She turned. It was Patrick, his eyes filled with great big tears – unable to speak his grief, to ask for her comfort. She reached for him, encompassing him in the circle of the family once more.
They passed the Reek, ever present it seemed, ever over them, witness to all they suffered. She, with the dead child across her lap, her two other children half-stretched across Katie’s body. She, the mother of the living and the dead, somehow binding them all in together at last.
The silent girl looked out along the road ahead, unmoved by the grief beside her. Like a living part of the holy mountain she was. Impervious to everything.
Faherty doffed his cap, put it beside him on the seat. Not saying anything. Understanding it all.
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Up they went.
Up the Crucán in single file.
She at the front, still cradling Katie, refusing to let Faherty help her carry the body.
Gently she laid Katie beside the leac which marked Michael’s grave.
It was a wonderful, sunlit day, the waters of the Mask and Lough Nafooey glistening, the grass green beneath their feet, the mountains tall and grand all around them.
The breeze, attracted by the bright colours of Katie’s dress, picked at it, ruffling its hem. Then it caught her hair, holding strands of it aloft for a moment like fine, golden-red gossamer.
No one spoke. Nor was there any other sound in the valley, only the sound they made with their hands pulling back the grass and the clay to make a space for Katie next to Michael.
Faherty and the girl stood back, while the woman and the boy and his sister worked.
Soon, the shallow grave was ready. Shallow, but deep enough so that the dogs, whenever they came back to the valley, would not get at it. Nor hungry ravens.
Together they laid Katie into the cold clay. Solemnly, lovingly, not wanting to let go of her.
The children waited, watching their mother.
She knelt.
They knelt.
Faherty knelt.
The girl just stood there.
Ellen, all her grief, all her energies fixed on the face of her dead child, and putting off the final act of covering Katie
’s body, did not feel the girl approach them. Did not see her until she was in front of them, beside Mary.
The girl looked down at Mary, and then slowly, deliberately untied the bow at the back of her dress, and undid the buttons. Then, before their amazed eyes, she lifted the dress over her head, and took it off.
Ellen was too dumbstruck to move, to stop her. The girl, up to now, had shown no sign of movement other than to walk, shadow-like, beside her. She had never appeared to hear anything, to understand anything, to be able to do anything.
And now this.
They watched, as in a trance, as the girl reached out the dress, offering it to Mary.
And then she spoke: ‘Ní liomsa é seo … is leatsa é.’ In beautiful, perfect Irish, the girl was telling Mary that the dress she had been wearing did not belong to her, that it was Mary’s. But she was saying something beyond that, Ellen knew. She was returning the dress to Mary, at this precise moment, for a reason. She wanted Mary to wear the dress, the same dress that Ellen had bought for her and her twin sister Katie, lying there before them.
She wanted Mary to wear it before Katie was closed in.
‘Go on, Mary,’ Ellen said gently. ‘She wants you to wear it … and I think Katie would like to see you in it, too.’
Mary slowly put on the dress, fixing it, tying it back, taking her hair out from inside the collar.
She stood facing them.
Ellen looked from one to the other of her twin daughters. How alike they were. How beautifully alike.
She watched as Mary knelt again beside the grave. The child put her hand down into it and took Katie’s.
‘Twins,’ Mary said, holding her sister’s hand for the last time. ‘We’ll always be twins, Katie.’
Then they prayed the Rosary in Irish – the Joyful Mysteries. Faherty and the girl joined in. ‘Hail Mary … Holy Mary … Now and at the hour of our death …’
The Whitest Flower Page 53