Gracelin O'Malley

by Ann Moore

  It was Thursday night. On Saturday morning she’d hand over the trunks to Captain Wynne and the keys to Ceallachan. This determined, Grace went into the bare library, lit the fire she’d laid that morning, and sat down on the divan to watch it burn. She was deep in thought, drowsy with the heat, when there was a rap at the back garden window. She squinted into the darkness, sure it was only a branch knocking against the glass. It came again, more insistent this time. She rose and slipped quickly into the kitchen, picking up the shotgun before stepping out into the dark and easing silently around the corner of the house. It took a moment to adjust her eyes, but she could see faintly outlined from the light of the window, the figures of two men, one supporting the other, leaning against the house. She shouldered the gun and cocked it.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” she demanded, stepping away from the house and aiming at them.

  The biggest of the men nearly dropped the other as he tried to raise his hands and hold on at the same time.

  “For the love of God, Grace, don’t shoot!” he whispered as loudly as he could.

  Grace’s heart stopped. “Name yourself, then!” she called, not daring to believe.

  “It’s me, of course!” He stepped closer, holding up the other man.

  “Oh, dear Heavenly Father,” Grace murmured, lowering the gun and moving quickly to him.

  She slipped her shoulder under the other arm of the hurt man, helping to carry him into the kitchen.

  “Morgan McDonagh, I near blew your fool head off! What are you doing here, for pity’s sake, and who’ve you got under this great hood?”

  They stepped into the kitchen and eased the man into a chair. Morgan pushed away the hood.

  “It’s Father Brown!” she exclaimed. “What’s happened to his head?”

  Morgan, too, sank into a chair and wiped a hand over his tired face. “Just grazed, but it bled a lot. They come for him again, you see.” He looked at the older man. “And he’d not survive another round of ‘questioning,’ so we got him out of there, but he was hit and we got separated from the rest in the skirmish. I lost his horse, but it’s just as well, we’d’ve been seen and …” He shook his head.

  Father Brown roused himself at that moment. He opened his eyes and managed a weak smile. “Grace, my dear girl, forgive us coming like this.”

  “I’ll have none of it, Father,” she scolded him gently. “You know me better than that. Haven’t we been through times before?”

  “That we have,” he said softly and put a hand over hers. “Can you clean me up a bit while we figure what to do next?”

  “Aye.” She nodded. “Come in here near the fire and warm yourselves.”

  They stood while she barred the back door, then followed her into the living room.

  “Sit,” she ordered, putting a glass of whiskey in each willing hand.

  They sat on the floor in front of the fire, Bram’s heavy glasses in hand, and looked at one another.

  “Here’s to a sight for sore eyes.” Morgan raised his glass to Grace.

  “Hear hear.” Father Brown drank deeply.

  Grace bathed the wound on his forehead and applied a bandage. The whiskey had restored the color to his face, and he was able to eat the weak soup she had left, a crust of oat bread, and a dry, withered apple.

  “A feast, my dear,” he said and sighed deeply. “Simply a feast.”

  Morgan nodded, having finished his food, as well. “We’re grateful to you, Grace. I don’t know what we would’ve done, but I saw the smoke rising from your chimney and hoped you’d be alone.”

  “Another day and it would’ve been Ceallachan who answered your knock.” She smiled grimly.

  “We heard.” Father Brown looked at Morgan. “It’s a bad bargain, being turned out after all you’ve been through.”

  Grace shrugged. “Not so bad as you think.” She thought of Moira’s son and mother in England. “And how could I go on living here, a poor widow, alone?” She smiled mischieviously. “What with all the renegades and riffraff slinking about the countryside on dark nights.”

  They laughed. Then Father Brown put his hand to his head and grunted.

  “Is there a corner for me to lay myself down, dear Grace?” he asked. “I’m feeling the day now and can’t keep my own eyes from closing.”

  “Take my room at the top of the stairs, Father, and welcome to it.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sure to sleep like the dead … and if someone should come knocking in the middle of the night, I’d best be hidden away.” He thought. “How about the pantry closet off the kitchen?”

  Grace nodded. “If that’s what you want, but the floor’s hard and cold.” She set down her glass. “Morgan, help me fetch the featherbed from the nursery. And blankets.”

  He followed her upstairs, stood patiently while she piled the featherbed and two wool blankets in his arms, then carried it all down to the kitchen and waited while she arranged it into a comfortable-looking nest beneath the shelves.

  “And what about you now?” she asked. “You look as though you’ve not slept in a hundred years.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Someone must stay awake, stand guard.”

  She saw how terribly pale he was, how dark the circles beneath his eyes. His beard was gone, and his hair badly cut, hanging across his forehead despite the bit of leather that tied back most of its length. She’d become accustomed to the sharp, bony look of other people’s faces, hers included, but it shocked her to see Morgan so gaunt, he who had always seemed as tall and strong as the Irish oak, whose handsome face had carried a smile no matter the day. Now it appeared that a smile might stretch the skin too tight, and that his collarbones might snap if he stumbled and fell.

  “’Twill be me stays awake,” she said firmly, taking him by the hand and leading him to the drawing room. “You’ll have a night’s rest and there’s to be no other talk about it, do you hear me, now?”

  He was too tired to protest, and sank down gratefully on the rug in front of the fire, laid his head back against the divan, and closed his eyes. Grace roused a sleepy Father Brown, took him to the pantry, tucked him in, and saw with relief that he was fast asleep.

  She checked all the doors and drew every curtain against the night. She knew the house so well, there was no reason to carry a candle, and the firelight seemed bright when she came back into the drawing room. Morgan lay still, his hands folded across his chest. His jacket, which he’d never taken off, was thin and tattered. She put more turf on the fire and a bit of kindling, then quietly eased herself down next to him. He was asleep, his head tipped back at an awkward angle, and she gently drew it onto her shoulder, brushing the hair off his forehead and pressing her lips to it.

  “Ah, lovely.” His eyes stayed closed, but he smiled.

  Grace drew back, embarrassed. “Here I thought you were fast away, but instead you’re lying in wait, counting on the pity of an old friend,” she scolded, shrugging his head off her shoulder.

  Opening his eyes to her face, he grinned waggishly. “‘Pity’ was not the word I had in mind.” He sat up and resettled himself, drawing her near again. “But ’tis true you are my old friend. I’ve missed you, pirate.”

  “And I you,” she answered truthfully, glad to be close. “Have you not been to home in all this time?” she asked. “Your mam must worry after you.”

  “I’ve not been, nor will I ever go again.”

  Grace sat up and searched his face. “Has she died, then?”

  “Aye.” He nodded slowly.

  “And what of your sisters?”

  “Gone.”

  “All of them?” Grace whispered.

  “Not all.” He stared into the fire. “But Mam was never strong after the last baby, you know, and Erin at two was still a wee bit of a thing. They died within days of getting the fever, and then Fee. Maureen got word to me through Father Brown and I snuck back to bury them, but someone talked and the guard was laying for me.” He shook his
head, staring into the fire. “I got close enough to see the cabin and the girls walking to the road and back, looking out for me, but the soldiers were spread through the bush and I’d have been an easy target. The next day, Maureen come out and dug the grave herself, burying the bodies together and marking the place. It wasn’t a week after, Ceallachan and his henchmen—every one Irish—threw them out. Sure and it was a just another plot to lure me in—no one could grow a crop on that scrappy land—but I was far gone and knew nothing of it. She had no way of finding me, of course, so she took Katie and Ellen up the mountain, believing those crazy rumors of food hidden away in the caves. By the time I found them, Maureen and Katie were dead—of fever or starving, I don’t know. The animals had got to them, you see …” His voice broke and he put his fingers across his mouth. “Though Ellen tried to beat them off with a stick.”

  “Where’s Ellen now?” Grace asked quietly.

  “Buried at the Holy Sisters.” His voice was steady now. “Barbara’s there, you know. Took her vows years ago, it seems. Sister John Paul, they call her. Wears a great robe and barks orders at everyone, just like at home.” He smiled wearily. “Ellen died two days before I got her there.” He paused. “Wasn’t she always my favorite, though, and how could I leave her by the side of the road?”

  “Oh, Morgan, I didn’t know.”

  “Dying’s not news anymore.”

  “But Aislinn’s alive? And your da?”

  “Da came back afore Christmastime to find the cabin razed and the grave out back. They say he went on a roaring drunk, stole a man’s horse, rode it right into the fort and started shooting. They killed him, sure enough, but I think he took one or two down with him.”

  “And you’ve got these.” Grace touched the small gold rings in his ear.

  “Mam left them for me. I wear one for her, one for him.” He shrugged. “It’s about all that’s left. Along with this.” He pulled out from beneath his shirt a leather cord, on the end of which hung his mother’s wedding band. “Ellen had it round her neck, and Barbara can keep no worldly goods, as you know.”

  Grace’s heart went out to him. “Will you give it to Aislinn?”

  “If I find her. Last I heard, she was still in Liverpool. Making her way best she can, if I know that girl. And there may be a child, as well.” He looked at Grace. “Mam cared nothing for the shame, just wanted to see her again. But now I’m glad she never come.”

  “Ah, Morgan.”

  He shrugged. “Barbara is alive, and Aislinn, maybe. I’m still here.” He turned from the fire and laid a hand upon her cheek. “And thank God you’re here, Grace.”

  She covered his hand with her own, then leaned forward and kissed him, gently for his lips were split and sore. His eyes opened wide with the shock, but he quickly recovered and pulled her tightly to him, kissing her in return, desperately and with fierce longing.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered in her hair, breaking the embrace. “I forgot myself. Too many nights I’ve kept warm on a stranger’s cold floor by thinking of you and a kiss such as that. You must forgive a foolish man.”

  She pulled away and narrowed her eyes. “You’re taking a lot of credit for one that started nothing, Mister McDonagh.”

  He smiled despite himself. “It’s all right, then?” he asked shyly.

  She nodded and held his gaze until they kissed again, gently now, for there was time.

  “Where will you go when you leave this place?” he whispered as she leaned back in his arms.

  “Home,” she answered. “And lucky I am to still have it.” She squeezed his arm, then looked at him. “I’ve not thanked you for saving the life of our Sean! He’d be a dead man now, if not for you.”

  “I don’t know about that.” He laughed shortly, shaking his head. “Our Sean has never been short on guts. We could hear him yelling at the guards long before we knew which cell he was in! The whole day and through the night, even when they beat him, he cursed them all, cursed their families, cursed their mothers!” He laughed again. “He wasn’t denying that he did it … didn’t he say he’d do the same to them, as well? Abban and I thought sure they’d cut his throat before we could get him out of there.”

  Grace laughed with him, then sobered at the thought of how close her brother had come to the end of his life. “How did you?”

  Morgan frowned. “I’ll say only this—not all the English are against us. Some come from families poor and desperate as our own, and they help when they can. Plenty cannot bear the suffering, especially of the children.”

  “’Twas a great risk,” she said. “I saw notices in Macroom and Cork City. ‘The Outlaw McDonagh,’ they call you.”

  “Well, I’m keeping respectable company then, am I not?” He smiled, then rubbed a hand over his weary face. “At least I’m wanted alive, or it’d be harder than it already is. Before they put a rope around my neck or ship me off to Van Diemmen’s Land, they want to hear my lovely voice singing out names. One of them belonging to your own dear brother, of course.”

  “Do you know where he is, then?”

  “I have an idea,” he admitted. “But I cannot say.”

  “You must both get out of Ireland. Right away.”

  “It’s not that easy.” He sighed. “Even if I were to go, there’s just not enough money—not for passage, nor food and clothes, bribes and papers.”

  Grace thought a moment. “How much?”

  “More than you’ve got squirreled away, pirate.” He smiled and kissed her cheek. “You who’ve been feeding every mouth in the county.”

  “How much?” she asked, ignorning him.

  “A lot,” he laughed. “I can’t parade onto any old boat looking like my own wanted poster. There’s a reward, as you well know, and many’s the man wants that money—English and Irish alike.”

  “I have money,” she said. “Plenty.”

  “No.” He took her hand. “The Squire’s got nothing in the banks and there’s no one to buy what’s left of his property.”

  She regarded him for a moment. “If you’ll keep your manly opinions to yourself for a moment, I’ll tell you a wee story.”

  He sat quietly as she related Bram’s scheme to gain title to Donnelly House and all its lands, and Moira’s return with an illegitimate son. His mouth fell open, however, when she went on to tell him of Edward’s eager acceptance of the child and Brigid’s position as nurse for life in exchange for money and eventual title to the Donnelly estate for Mary Kathleen.

  “Sure and you are a pirate!” he exclaimed when she’d finished. And then he broke into hearty laughter, looking at her with fresh admiration. “Sweet Jesus, I didn’t know you had it in you, Grace! And why are you not leading raids with the best of them? We could use a mind like yours, ’tis true. What other secrets are you keeping in that head of yours?”

  Her face sobered immediately and he grabbed up her hand, reading her mind.

  “You’re no murderer,” he said quickly. “I know you wanted to kill him, and that you tried—but it wasn’t you did it in the end.”

  Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “You shot him to cover up. He was already dead of arsenic.”

  Morgan shook his head.

  “Sean, then.”

  “Not Sean, nor I, nor Abban, though we were all laying for him that very day.”

  “Then who?”

  “Nolan had plans, as well. He was downstream from us, and when the Squire come riding through, he jumped out to startle the black, hoping the Squire’d be thrown and his neck broke. The horse reared and threw him, but he only played dead until the boy come close enough, then he shot him.”

  “Nolan.” Grace’s hand went to her heart.

  “Moira was laying downstream, as well, and when she saw what happened to her brother, she didn’t waver, but shot him cold in the chest and again in the back of the head after he fell into the stream.”

  “Brigid thought Moira was dead, or I’d’ve never given up her son!”

  “She
is. The soldiers were fast on her heels. Abban and I managed to grab Nolan and carry him out of there, but she jumped on that great wicked horse of his and bolted. Dressed like a man, she was, and when Captain …” He paused. “When another man saw her coming at him, and with her gun out and firing, he shot back.”

  “Moira killed Bram.” Grace could barely take it in.

  “Aye.”

  “I put arsenic on his bread that morning. I meant to kill him. If he’d come back alive, I’d’ve found another way.”

  Morgan put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. “Look at me,” he said firmly. “God forgives you, Grace, if you ask Him. He knows the fear you carried for yourself and Mary Kate, and He took it out of your hands.”

  “Poor Moira,” she said, and then, much to her horror, began to cry. Not just silent weeping, but loud racking sobs that rose out of a chest strained too tight with grief and fear. He folded his arms around her, pressing her face against his shirt, holding her tightly.

  “It’s over now,” he whispered. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  She struggled against him, unable to breathe, frightened by the noise that poured out of her.

  “Shhhh,” he soothed, stroking her. “Don’t fight. Let the angels take it, now, for they’ve come.”

  She heard him, and stopped struggling, the slow rub of his hand on her back calming her and opening her lungs. Her tears fell freely, soaking the front of his shirt, but no sound accompanied them, save the deep sighs that expelled each painful memory: the babies who were dead, never to know life; the beatings that had ended her innocence; the torment of her marriage and the guilt she’d felt over not being able to repair it; the fear of losing her daughter and of damnation for taking her husband’s life; the horror of mothers and children dying alongside the road and not enough food to feed all those who begged at her door; the gnawing, weakening pain of hunger; the fatigue of fighting for survival day after day. She breathed it all out, pushed it away, and let it rise in vapors to be taken by the angels and rinsed clean. Her heart emptied, the blackness of her soul began to lighten, and her mind cleared itself of torment until she knew at last the one truth left in the world.