by BJ Hoff
And so, two nights before the birthday celebration, Sandemon and Sister Louisa were rushing to complete what was meant to be a very special gift for the occasion. A small linen press at the end of the hall had been converted to a prayer closet. Sandemon had done most of the pounding and scraping in one afternoon, while the Seanchai, who by this time had been let in on the secret, occupied Finola with a picnic by the stream.
After numerous late nights, and with considerable help from Sister Louisa and Annie, Sandemon had almost finished the task. Tonight they would complete the closet’s furnishings.
“No doubt the Seanchai will present Mistress Finola with something fine and precious,” Sandemon mused as he attached a carved wooden crucifix to a nail in the wall. “Jewelry, do you think?”
Sister Louisa gave a huff; worldly baubles, she clearly believed, were insignificant in comparison to spiritual riches. “Our gift will serve her better,” she said, smoothing a soft white cloth over a table confiscated from one of the unused bedchambers in the east wing. “The girl needs privacy far more than pieces of glass.”
Stepping back from the crucifix, Sandemon gave a satisfied nod. “You truly think she will be pleased?”
“And why wouldn’t she be? The poor child doesn’t know what it’s like to have any time to herself. And it seems to me that it’s beginning to tell on her. She’s fretful and weepy of late—not herself at all.”
Sandemon frowned. He eyed the candlestick Louisa placed at the end of the table, then leaned to move it slightly closer to the middle.
The black man lifted an eyebrow. “I have noticed that she is often sleepless,” he said. “She roams the halls many a night, after everyone else is abed. Often, I have had to cease work in here, for fear of being discovered. I question whether the lack of privacy alone would cause such disquiet.”
Louisa hadn’t known about the sleeplessness, and it only added to her concern about the girl. “I didn’t know,” she admitted, setting the candlestick back in its original place. “Still, there is no denying that she is seldom alone. Young Annie follows her about like a shadow. And our Gabriel now toddles after her as if he would attach himself to her skirts. Then, of course, there is Lucy, who insists on hovering over the girl like a guardian angel.” She paused. “Not to mention the Seanchai, who becomes positively wild-eyed if she’s out of his sight for more than five minutes.”
Placing a small missal and a copy of the Scriptures next to the candlestick, she stood appraising the tiny room. “There are many demands on a young wife and mother,” she said distractedly. She bent to inspect the rag rug and prayer pillows, then straightened. “A few moments alone with the Lord each day will do her a world of good. Finola is devout, you know. She often steals away for a time of quiet in the chapel. But she is almost always followed by one of the children or the Seanchai. Even there, she seldom finds any real privacy.”
The black man nodded. “Ah, well, here she can close the door to everyone—even lock it, if she wishes.” He motioned to the small bolt he had installed. “Surely the household will respect her privacy to this extent. A person’s time with God should be honored.” Turning to Louisa, he crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “Your idea was a fine one.”
Louisa shrugged. “Ideas are easy enough to come by. It takes effort to give them life. You have worked hard,” she conceded. “And everything looks splendid. Now,” she added dryly, “if only our Annie can keep the secret just two days more.”
Sandemon chuckled, turning for one last look at his handiwork. “She will,” he said. “After the mayhem you’ve threatened, I can’t think the child would dare whisper a word. Besides, she would not spoil the surprise. She dotes on the young mistress.”
It occurred to Louisa that the entire household doted on Finola. With her shy smile, gentle ways, and unceasing kindness, the Seanchai’s young wife had endeared herself to the family—and to the entire staff of Nelson Hall, as well. Everyone, from the kitchen workers to the stable hands, wished only goodness and happiness for their lovely, soft-voiced mistress.
And that was as it should be, Louisa thought. When one so young and pure of heart had already endured such an incredible degree of pain, it seemed only right that she should now enjoy an abundance of blessing.
On the heels of this reflection came the unsettling reminder that life did not always balance its pain with an equal share of joy. Louisa firmly banished the thought but was unable to stop the slight shudder that accompanied it.
When she turned around, she saw that Sandemon had dropped to his knees. No doubt he was seeking the Lord’s blessing on Finola’s private haven. Without hesitating, Louisa knelt to join his supplications with her own.
Rook Mooney stood hunched in the rain across the street from Gemma’s Place. He had watched the upstairs’ door every night for almost a week now, long enough to realize with growing fury that the Innocent no longer lived in the room at the top of the stairs.
She was gone. More than a year he had waited, the fire in his gut raging. Now he had come back for her, and she was gone. Gone!
With a rough hand, he brushed the rain from his face. Anger rose up in him like a scalded beast. For the past year he had lived for this time, when he would return to Dublin and put an end to the sickness she had bred in him.
He knew there was only one way to banish the fever from his brain, only one way to ever be free of her. In order to destroy her hold on him, he would have to destroy her.
But where to find her? There was a new woman in the room at the top of the stairs—an older woman, hard and unattractive. In five nights he had seen no sign of the golden-haired witch, no indication that she had ever existed, other than in his mind.
He spat into the street, then pushed away from the wall and began to walk. The rain came harder now, and he cursed as he stumbled into the night, his shoulders stooped against the driving downpour.
It wouldn’t do to question the other women. He didn’t want to raise their curiosity.
Besides, he knew where he would find his answers well enough. Information could always be had on the docks, at least for a price. That was where he had heard about her in the first place.
His boots scraped, then slapped heavily through a puddle. He would find her. If not tonight, tomorrow. No matter how long it took, he would find her.
And this time when he was done with her, she would no longer haunt his sleep and poison his days. He would be free…because she would be dead.
Finola jerked awake, her heart hammering. She looked over at Morgan, relieved to see that he was still sleeping soundly.
Sometime in the night, the big arm that was usually wrapped securely about her had fallen away, and she suddenly felt cold. She tried to focus her eyes, reassured to see the candle beside the bed still flickering; she could not bear total darkness in a room.
Seeking Morgan’s warmth, she moved closer to the safe wall of his brawny shoulder. She took care not to rouse him, but lay quietly, trying to control the trembling of her body. Trying to think. Trying not to think.
She shuddered at the sound of the rain blowing against the house. Rain at night always seemed such a desolate sound, like the mournful drumbeat of a troubled heart.
Another strong blast of wind-driven rain hurled itself between the battlements outside and slammed against the window. Finola cringed, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment.
It wasn’t the Dream that had awakened her this time, but the Feeling. A hideous, bleak sense of isolation, as if she were trapped in the vault of night itself. The darkness was dense and glacial, unyielding, bringing with it an overwhelming sense of betrayal that swept over her like a tidal wave of despair.
Again she had heard the faraway sound of music…strange, high-pitched—almost shrill—yet elusive, like the night wind sighing through the trees.
At the last she had felt the hands close about her throat…suffocating her…crushing the breath from her…stealing her life…
And then, as alway
s, she awakened with a start, panicked, terrified, filled with a sense of revulsion, as if she had been touched by something unclean.
The nausea came upon her in a wave, the sudden wash of sickness. Bracing herself, she resisted the urge to spring out of bed and escape the room. It would soon pass, as it always did.
Finally she was able to draw in one steadying breath, then another. Little by little the trembling subsided. Depleted, still dazed, she drew a fist against her mouth to choke down a sob of despair. Morgan stirred, and his hand moved to touch her hair, but he slept on.
She knew she would not sleep again this night. When the Dream or the Feeling woke her, it was impossible to return to the peace of sleep. She would lie awake in the dimly lighted bedroom, listening to the rambling old mansion creak and shudder around her. Or, if she grew too restless to stay abed, she would rise and walk the halls or go to the chapel and try to pray.
For now, though, she was reluctant to leave the comforting sound of Morgan’s breathing, the safe haven of his bed.
What did it all mean, the evil dream and the poisonous feelings that continued to cause her so much anguish? Of all the night terrors she had endured since the attack, she thought these must surely be the most deadly. Not only did they rob her of hours of much-needed rest, but they spoiled her days as well, leaving her anxious and impatient. Of late, she had even begun to feel physically ill throughout the day.
She was failing her family, disappointing the entire household.
But what to do?
Sometimes she feared she had been stricken with some dreadful illness of the mind. Perhaps because of the dark chasm where no memory dwelt…perhaps because of the terrible thing that had been done to her.
Would it grow worse? Would she eventually lose her mind altogether?
Again she shuddered.
She looked at Morgan, studying his strong, beloved face in the candle-glow. Then the tears came, spilling silently from her eyes.
He had suffered enough on her behalf, this good and noble man. She must give him no more pain, no more anguish of the soul. She would keep her silence; she would endure.
Carefully, she turned onto her side, away from him. She would not ever have him know that in the long hours of the night his wife lay weeping beside him.
8
A Casting of Shadows
For back to the Past, though the thought brings woe,
My memory ever glides…
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN (1803–1849)
On the morning of Finola’s birthday, Morgan was enduring a Latin recitation by one of the O’Higgins twins, at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the other scholars in the room.
He was impatient, not only with the boy standing across the desk from him, stumbling over his lesson, but even more with the subject itself. He detested the study—and the teaching—of Latin. It was too rigid, too precise a language for his taste. Although Sister Louisa had done her best on a number of occasions to point out its usefulness, Morgan’s feelings had changed not at all since his own boyhood experience with the subject.
“Our young people would do far better to devote more time to their own language,” he had argued with the nun. “The Irish is a sturdy, lively language. It has spirit. Latin is weak broth in comparison.”
“Latin is the language of the Church,” the nun returned pointedly. “A language of tradition and dignity. It also teaches one to think in a precise and orderly fashion, as well as providing—”
“—an understanding of all other grammatical relationships,” Morgan finished for her. He knew her rebuttal by heart.
The woman could ever make him feel like an ignorant bostoon!
Glaring at Barry O’Higgins—or was this one Barnaby?—he offered no mercy as the boy ended yet another pathetic rendering of the daily assignment.
“Perhaps by now you have come to realize that one cannot conjugate esse in the passive voice, Mr. O’Higgins,” he said, leveling a withering glare on the round, freckled face. “Would I be safe in assuming you did not bother to read the assignment before presenting it?”
Despite the flush that crept over his features, the lad’s expression appeared entirely unrepentant. The quick downward glance didn’t deceive Morgan for a moment. The O’Higgins twins took nothing seriously until threatened with corporal punishment.
He sighed, wishing not for the first time that he had followed his earlier instincts and sent the both of them packing long ago. In truth, they owed their status as students to Sister Louisa, who insisted that even the O’Higgins twins could be both tamed and taught.
When the devil takes a holiday, Morgan thought, eyeing the difficult scholar. “Well, then, Barry—”
“—Barnaby, sir—”
“Very well, Barnaby—you may add to today’s exercises the three sets in the appendix for chapter five, to be recited tomorrow.”
“But you said no assignments today, sir!” the boy burst out. “It being the mistress’s birthday and all.”
Morgan lowered his eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose and stared at the boy. Finally he sighed. “So I did. Very well, then.”
The boy beamed at him.
“But you will be prepared by Saturday morning,” Morgan cautioned.
“Oh, I will, sir!”
“And you’d best set your mind on taking a more serious attitude toward your studies, else—”
A knock on the door interrupted him. Morgan motioned the boy back to his chair as Sandemon entered the room.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but there is a gentleman to see you.”
Morgan frowned. It was only midmorning, early for a caller.
“A gentleman?”
“Mr. Cassidy, sir,” replied the black man.
“Cassidy?” Morgan caught his breath, then tossed his grade book into the top drawer of the desk. “Show him into the library. I’ll see him at once!”
As he propelled his chair into the library, Morgan fought down a wave of excitement and apprehension.
Something in the confident way Cassidy was standing—even though his smile appeared somewhat guarded—made Morgan’s heart jump with anticipation.
They shook hands, and Morgan wheeled himself behind the desk. For a moment he studied the big white-haired man across from him. “So, Frank—” He motioned Cassidy to take a chair. “What news do you bring me?”
“I do have news at last,” Cassidy said, lowering himself into the chair. “Though it’s taken a terrible long time, I know.”
Morgan swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “Tell me,” he said, his voice strained.
Cassidy knotted his big hands together on his knees as he leaned forward. Never one to dissemble, he started in right away. “It seems her name was Moran. The family was from Drogheda, but there would appear to be a distant blood-tie with Michael Moran.”
Morgan gaped at him. “Zozimus?” Michael Moran, the blind street musician and legendary patriarch of the itinerant ballad singers, was better known by his nickname, Zozimus. So great was his fame that his reputation had spawned countless numbers of imitators.
Cassidy nodded. “Finola Moran is your wife’s name, right enough.”
Finola. So, then, her name really was Finola, after all.
Morgan fought to control the conflicting passions that warred within him. Hadn’t he wanted to discover Finola’s past and help her come through the darkness she battled? Yet now, selfish man that he was, all he could think of was the possibility that someone else, someone with a greater claim to her, might try to take her from him. He wanted what was best for Finola, of course, but…by all the saints, he couldn’t face the possibility of losing her!
Trying to check the trembling of his hands, Morgan clenched them on the desk in front of him. “And…did you find…the family?”
Cassidy shook his head. “There was only herself and the father. And the old man is dead.” He paused. “Murdered, ’tis said, in a shooting incident. He was a widower, and the girl—Finola—
his only child.”
Relief poured over Morgan like a river, only to be replaced by a wave of guilt. Was he really so selfish that he could take comfort from Finola’s loss?
“There is no one else, then?” he managed to ask, gripping his hands even tighter. “No one at all?”
Cassidy shook his head. “Only the two of them, the girl and the father—and him gone. James Moran owned an apothecary and raised some crops on a patch of land outside the city. A respected man, it would seem. ’Twas the son of his housekeeper from whom I finally heard the story—and a sad story it is.”
Morgan squeezed his eyes shut.
There was no one out there waiting to take her away from him, no one else with a claim to her affection. Another stab of guilt, this time even sharper, pierced through him.
For so long he had dreaded the truth….
Suddenly it struck him that Cassidy had mentioned a murder. “What’s this about the father being murdered?” he managed to ask, opening his eyes. “Tell me everything you’ve learned.”
In her bedroom, Annie sat at the small desk in the corner. She had completed her recitations with Sister Louisa and was now studying what she considered her most skillful piece of artwork to date.
She touched the tip of her sketching pencil to her lower lip, then gave a nod of satisfaction. At her side, Fergus uttered a soft bark, obviously intent on having a look for himself.
Annie glanced at the wolfhound. “Very well,” she said, replacing the pencil in its box. “You may look at it. But you must be very careful not to drool. I’ll not be giving Finola a portrait smudged by your great tongue.”
She held up the sketch at a considerable distance from the wolfhound’s huge head. He studied it, his expression sober. At last he gave a short bark.
“Don’t be such a pup,” Annie scolded. “Didn’t I tell you the cat would be included in the portrait? ’Tis only right, her being Finola’s special pet.”