Gracelin O'Malley

by Ann Moore

  Grace turned her attention back to the priest, slipping two gold sovereigns into his hand. “Thank you for coming all this way, Father.”

  He looked down at the coins gratefully; the usual method of payment would have been by collection, a poor bet by the looks of this crowd.

  “It’s a fine start for my brother and his new wife,” she added. “To be blessed by the church.”

  Father Keating nodded soberly. “Are you a believer in the True Faith, then, Missus Donnelly?”

  “My husband is a Protestant, Father,” she said.

  “Well, one can be a True Believer and a Protestant,” he allowed, the coins warm in his hand. “But one must work harder at it, you know, for the Lord has less to work with.”

  Grace nodded, listening with half an ear as he went on to praise her well-made marriage and the gentry class for setting such a fine example of higher living. His only regret, he whispered conspiratorily, was that there were not enough Catholics in the bunch. Still, he said, if God bestowed such a fine life on Protestants, who, as we all know, are dancing on the edge of the Pit (begging your pardon but there’s the hard truth of it), just think what might come to hardworking Catholics! Grace was glad when a bottle appeared; she took it and filled the priest’s glass, urging another drop on him before he started out on the long journey home. He drank to her health, swallowing heartily, then, with reddened cheeks, he loudly blessed the bride and groom, and departed.

  After his donkey was out of sight, the talk grew louder and more free. Grace made her way around the room, filling glasses with poteen, then with punch. Bram had finished several glasses along with Patrick’s tour and was holding court out in the yard, when tinkers appeared at the half-door off the lane, blessing the house and all in it. They were invited to share the wedding feast and paid their way with a long, moving ballad, offered up by the oldest woman in the tribe. She invoked the beloved name of Carolan the Blind and brought out her ancient harp, which she stroked nimbly until the room quieted and all eyes were turned upon her.

  The sound of her high, quivering voice and the solemnity of the song drew Bram in from the yard.

  “What in God’s name is the old hag singing about?” he breathed heavily in Grace’s ear.

  She frowned at him, then tipped her head and listened to the Irish. “It’s about a young man who falls in love with a girl of better class. He watches her all day at the fair, and that night she comes to him in a dream and says it will not be long until they marry, but first he must make his fortune.”

  “A bit like us.” Bram’s words were slightly slurred. “Except for the girl being of better class.” He took a sip, swirling the burnished liquid in his glass. “I never said before, but I watched you that night at St. John’s Eve, you know, standing near some ruddy brute of a farm boy. You were the spitting image of the girl who’d appeared in a dream I’d had. Quite vivid, actually.”

  Grace looked at him, astonished.

  He nodded. “Quite true.” He pulled her back into the corner and lowered his voice even more. “I’ll tell you.” He smiled indulgently. “In this dream, I fell into a deep well and couldn’t get out. Rain was filling the damn thing up and I knew I was lost. I heard a voice singing, and a baby appeared in the light at the top. I startled it by yelling for help, and it fell down the shaft right into my arms—a fat, naked, howling boy. I looked up and, in the light, saw a mass of red curls framing an anxious face—your face.” He touched her cheek. “I called out for you to save me, but you were frightened and shook your head. Only when I held up the boy and begged you to save us both did you shake loose your hair and allow me to climb up on it. When I reached the top, I put the baby in your arms. You looked at it for a long time, then kissed it tenderly and gave it back to me, saying this was my son now.”

  Grace’s mouth hung open in astonishment. “One afternoon at an Irish party, and haven’t you become as grand a storyteller as the best of them!”

  Bram shook his head. “It’s no story,” he said gravely. “The next night, there you were at the bonfire, every bit the girl in my dream. Younger, perhaps, but who could mistake all that hair?”

  Grace was thoughtful. “If what you say is true, then it’s more than a dream you’ve had.” She bit her lip, her eyes growing wide. “It’s a sign.”

  Bram rolled his eyes, retreating back into his world of modern sensibilities. “You Irish and your signs. One of the many things that keeps you from joining the modern world.” He tossed off his drink. “This is not about Pookahs and Banshees. It was simply a dream, a vivid dream at best, but that’s most certainly all. I must’ve seen you before in the village, and your face remained in my subconscious.”

  “Yet you married me without a word between us,” Grace challenged. “That’s not me looking for answers in signs, now, is it?”

  Bram’s face grew still. “I want a son,” he said simply.

  Grace’s heart went out for the yearning in his eyes, something she had never seen. She hesitated only a moment before leaning against him and whispering in his ear, “Bram. It was a sign from God most surely. I’m meant to have a baby come spring.”

  His stare was blank. Then his face lit up and he let out a whoop that she attempted to smother.

  “We must announce it,” he whispered loudly.

  Grace shook her head. “This is Ryan and Aghna’s wedding day. It would be bad luck to steal happiness from them.”

  “I must tell someone,” he begged. “Your father! Let me tell your father, then. In private! Outside!”

  Reluctantly, Grace agreed, wary of intruding on her brother’s joy. But she watched with pleasure as Bram took her father’s arm and led him out to the yard.

  The old woman finished her song and Irial Kelley began to tune his fiddle in the corner. The floor was cleared and four couples began to dance, arms to their sides, feet flying in complicated steps as much a part of them as the music itself. Others pressed against the wall, leaned in on windowsills, or crowded the doorways. Ryan and his fair-haired bride skipped around the room with eyes only for one another, and Grace was happy for the light that shone in their faces. She did not notice Morgan’s approach and was startled when he put a hand on her arm.

  “A quick step while your husband’s not looking, then, Missus Donnelly?”

  “Morgan,” she scolded. “Bram’s not at all like that!”

  “So the answer is ‘yes’, is it?” His eyes twinkled, knowing she was caught.

  Grace glanced out the window to see Bram again holding court with the young farmers, puffed up with his secret, and drinking more than he should.

  She bit her lip, but could not help smiling as Morgan moved her out onto the floor with the other couples. They took their places in the line, waited for the fiddler and piper to call the song, then smiled at one another and began to fly.

  Granna and Sean watched the musicians and dancers from their chairs in the corner, more than content with their place on the edge of the party.

  “Morgan’s got Grace to dance,” Sean said, pointing them out.

  “Aye.” Granna sipped daintily from the finger of whiskey Sean had poured her. “’Tis a shame he’s so full up of love for her.”

  Sean sprayed his drink on the floor in front of him, and turned to her, eyes wide in alarm.

  Granna shushed him. “Ah now, don’t worry yourself. There’s no one to see but ourselves who love them both.” She paused. “Why did he not speak of it?”

  Sean wiped his chin, then moved his stool closer to her chair. “Donnelly got there first, but didn’t I beg him to say something even then? He made me swear never to tell a soul. He said there was no choice to be made, and that putting it before her would only bring her heartache.”

  “God knows I’d have rather called himself son than that other great beast of a man.” She gazed into her glass. “But there’s nothing can be done for it now. Grace is married to him and happy enough. ’Tis our own poor Morgan will have to find happiness where it lies.” />
  Sean looked to where they stood, waiting for the next song, flushed from the dance, Morgan just now brushing a bit of loose hair away from Grace’s face.

  “He will,” he said, lifting a glass to them. “He is.”

  The couples spun through two more sets; then Aghna’s father stood to sing “Barbara Allen,” a favorite of the crowd. Other singers, Morgan among them, granted requests, and there were many trips to the poteen barrel to refill glasses for hearty toasts to the bride and groom, may they have long life and many children, a bit of land and love in their hearts. Gone was the currant bread and whiskey punch; the men drank straight whiskey now, getting teary over songs of lost love and hard battles, and of Ireland, the most beautiful woman in the world. Barefoot children, eyes shining with merriment, shirts untucked, flower wreaths askew on their heads, ran shouting through the legs of grown-ups, who kissed instead of cuffed them on this happy day. And in the long, warm, bright summer evening, the women sat around them all, keeping track, and talking their talk of weddings remembered and wakes recalled, babies born alive and dead, children raised to good or bad, and men who never changed.

  Seven

  THE McDonaghs gathered before the hearth on their knees, rosary beads in hand, to say their morning prayers. Nally McDonagh, the father, led them rapidly through it, eager as he was to get on with his day. With his wild hair just going gray, pulled back and tied like Morgan’s, and a gold ring hanging from each earlobe, he looked like the pirate he longed to be. The mother—a tired, faded beauty at thirty-five—knelt in their midst, one hand rocking the cradle of the newest babe; smaller children leaning against older. All the feet that showed were bare and black on the bottoms from the dirt floor and summer roads, all the earnest faces sun-browned and freckled.

  “Amen,” Nally said emphatically as each one made the sign of the cross. He kissed the beads and hung them on a peg by the hearth before sitting down at the board for breakfast. A knife and a tin cup marked each seat and in the middle sat a heavy black cooking pot filled with steaming boiled potatoes, a crock of fresh butter, and a bowl of salt. They stuck their knives into the pot, pulled out a potato, dipped it into the butter and salt, and ate it from the knife, washing it down with cups of buttermilk. When there were no oats for porridge, this was breakfast, and dinner, too, more often than not.

  Mary McDonagh put the baby to her breast and watched to make sure everyone got their share. She’d given birth to eleven children, eight of whom still lived. Although she loved her seven daughters with a full heart, she was most attached to Morgan, her firstborn and only surviving son. He sat across from her, feeding the two-year-old on his lap hot potato from his hand.

  “Musha, eat up now,” she said softly to him. “’Tis a long walk yourselves will have to the fair.”

  Morgan looked up and smiled at her. “And don’t I wish you were coming along, Mam? You who loves the market days.”

  “We’ll bring yourself back a bit of something, Mam,” Aislinn said, wiping her hand on her skirt. She would be the oldest daughter going, as Barbara was staying home with her mother and the wee Erin.

  “Just be sure you get what’s on the list,” Mary said sternly. “Mind you don’t get flighty as you’re wont to do.”

  “Not me, Mam!” Aislinn said earnestly. “I’ll get Katie to go round with me and gather it all.” She looked across the table at her younger sister, who nodded vigorously, cheeks stuffed with potato.

  Nally stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’ll all stay with me till we get a price for the yearling cow and the pig. Then we’ll square up with the Squire’s agent and see what’s left for the cupboard.”

  “You’re selling a pig?” Morgan frowned at his father.

  “Aye.” Nally’s eyes darkened. “We’ll barely pay the rent after selling the calf, so the pig’s got to go.”

  “That leaves but one to eat, none to bear.” Morgan looked around at all the faces at the table.

  “’Tis not my fault all the piglets took sick and died,” Nally said angrily. “Now I’ve naught to sell but the old one, be lucky to get a decent price for him as it stands. We’ll just have to trust our good fortune and find the sow a mate come next spring. Let yourselves be finished now and get on.” He donned his market hat, dark brown with a slouchy brim, then stepped out the low door into the yard, whistling for the dogs.

  Mary looked after him wistfully. “Arrah, himself is a fine-looking man in his linen shirt and vest. ’Tis what he wore to, marry me away.” Her face took on that far-off look that came over her so much of late. Morgan knew she was missing her home in the Black Valley, poor and scruffy though it was, and her mother and da long dead. She had been a true mountain girl, her cabin three walls of the mountain itself, no windows, and a low, narrow door, her father and brothers driving the sheep up the steep, narrow paths to the small patches of grass, her mother weaving the frieze for the tailor to sew into workshirts when he came round once a year. Nally, making the tramp to Galway to see about getting a ship, broke his arm in a terrible fall and was found by her. She helped him back to the cabin and sent a boy for the bone-setter. He gave over his heart for the shine in her eyes and the way she listened to his talk about adventure. They married and he brought her back to the family farm, but he never conquered his desire for the sea, and every few years he left the growing family to set sail and bring home riches. Rarely did the riches amount to more than he could’ve made had he stayed on the farm, but now and then he enjoyed a small bounty, and he told fantastic tales around the winter fire.

  “He’ll be leaving us again soon,” Mary said, her eyes still on the yard and disappearing figure of her husband.

  “But he’s not been back a year!” Morgan was dismayed. There was so much to be done and he needed his father’s help.

  “Aye,” Mary said. “But I can see it. Himself is restless and can’t look me square to talk about winter coming.”

  Morgan stood and set the two-year-old gently down on the floor. He shook his head. “I’ll speak to him, Mam. ’Tis no time for him to go.”

  Mary sighed. “Never is, but go he does, so sure he is that treasure and riches are only to be found at sea.”

  The girls had neatened their hair and tied their cloaks around, and now called for Morgan to hurry.

  He stooped to kiss the toddler, then the baby and Mary. “I’ll speak to him, don’t worry yourself. Rest today. Let Barbara do for you.” He smiled at his sister, a serious young woman, tall and strong-boned like himself.

  “Off with you now,” Barbara said. “I’ll watch after our mother and the babes. You know I will.”

  Morgan kissed her and hurried into the yard, where the party had already begun moving down the road. The girls carried their stockings and shoes in their hands to keep them clean until they reached the town, and their faces were flushed with excitement. Up ahead, his father drove the yearling calf and the sow with a long stick. The wind had picked up and Morgan held his hat on with one hand as he caught up to his father.

  “No rain to slow us down,” Nally said by way of greeting.

  “True for you,” Morgan said, keeping the sow in line with his stick. “I’m thinking we can buy some seed at the market if we get a fair price for the pig.”

  “What kind of seed?” Nally spat tobacco juice to the side of the road.

  “We could grow a small vegetable garden in the spring.”

  “Vegetables!” He shook his head firmly. “’Tis a break with custom and I’ll not be a party to it. The neighbors would laugh to see me waste good pratie ground on the planting of vegetables.”

  Morgan gripped his stick and tried to keep the anger out of his voice. “We’ve got the room for it. I could clear that rocky patch on the south end of the cabin, put in a few seeds—turnips, carrots, onions …”

  “Onions grow wild in the wood, and berries and nuts. God provides us with what we need.” Nally spat again.

  Morgan tapped his stick against the hide of the
slowing calf. “That doesn’t make sense, Da,” he said. “Why grow potatoes then? Why keep chickens, pigs, and cows? We could grow the oats we feed the animals and save the cost!”

  “So it’s oats you want to grow now! Grain and vegetables! You want me to run a squire’s farm—is that it?” His voice was loud and angry on the quiet road. The others had fallen silent behind him and were listening fearfully. “Well, let me tell you something, boyo. To run a squire’s farm costs a squire’s coin. The minute we put our spades to the earth, they’ll raise the rent. When the grain and greens start to grow, they’ll raise it again. When it begins to look as if we might have enough to eat and are prospering, they’ll take half of it for themselves and add a tax, as well. And on top of that, our neighbors will suffer envy and steal what they think should be rightfully shared.” He shook his head. “Makes no sense to do things different when the custom of the land is against it.”

  “But, Da,” Morgan protested. “Hear me out, at least.”

  Nally struck the ground hard with his stick and stopped. “No! No, boy. You’re wanting to be like those O’Malleys of yours. Didn’t your mother, as well, bringing home the strange way of that Kathleen, and did it not serve her poorly? ‘No pigs in the house,’ she says to me, and what happens but they all die of the cold, away from the hearth ash. I’m moving the hen coop to the yard,’ she says and catches a terrible fever, losing the babe she carried, all from going out in the rain to get eggs from high and mighty chickens must have their own place!”

  Morgan felt the slow burn of rising anger. “Your thinking is all wrong. We’ve had less sickness since the animals are out of the cabin. The pigs died of swine fever from that rogue you caught in the wood and put in with the others, and as for the hen coop—it was away off in the bushes where you made her put it because she stood up to you for once in her life. Have you not noticed that it’s now built onto the side of the cabin, and all’s been well with it?”