The Whitest Flower

She looked back at the cabin and thought of her sleeping family: Michael, one arm unconsciously reaching for her; the twins, her darling cúplaín Ellen beag – ‘a pair of little Ellens’, as the villagers called them. Katie, a six-year-old bundle of fun and mischief, and next to her, or rather intertwined with her in a jumble of arms and legs, Mary. Quiet Mary, so different from Katie, but the two of them lying there as if they wanted to be one again. Patrick, two years older than Mary and Katie, slept a little ways off, as was proper for male children. If the girls were the reincarnation of Ellen, then Patrick was a young Michael in the making: dark of hair and feature, typical of the ‘Black Irish’ found along Ireland’s western shores – a living testament to the Spanish Armada’s visit to Galway in 1588.

‘Our children are our hope,’ the Máistir used to say. Would her children be allowed to realize the hopes of their parents – the hope of release from the tyranny of landlords, the hope of freedom from English rule?

Aware that her thoughts had strayed, Ellen returned to her prayers. Then, satisfied at having reconciled herself with her God, she strode happily alongside the mountain stream to the point where it entered the elbow of the Mask.

As she bent to splash some lake water on her face and neck, her thoughts once again turned to last night. How she loved the strength of Michael’s arms when he pulled her to him; the smell of the turf and the heather in his hair after he had been a day at the mountain; his eyes, shining out through the dark at her, riveting her very soul.

At thirty, he was four years older than she. Was it ever nine years since they first met? She had just turned seventeen and the Máistir had brought her to the Pattern Day Fair at Leenane. She’d seen Michael watching her – unlike Roberteen, he’d done it openly, like a man should – and she had known at once he would come for her. Before the week was out he called to see her father. Ellen remembered the way the feelings stirred inside her on seeing him again. In no time they were married. She was scarcely over her eighteenth birthday when Patrick was born. Then came the double joy of Katie and Mary. And then nothing.

Though they still loved each other passionately, God had not blessed them with any more children. At first, this hadn’t worried her unduly, but after a few years she began to wonder if she was barren; if it was a sign from God that she and Michael had loved too much.

She longed for a big family. As an only child, she had grown up wishing she’d been surrounded by brothers and sisters, like the other children in the village. At twenty-six she was still young enough – not like Biddy, who was too old to have any more after Roberteen was born. Children were a blessing from God and Ellen Rua wanted to be blessed again.

Eventually, somewhat against her better judgement, and without telling Michael, she had crossed the mountain to the hut of Sheela-na-Sheeoga. Sheela had delivered Ellen’s first three children, but the valley women rarely went to her now. It was rumoured that she consorted with the fairy folk and changelings, hence the name Sheela-na-Sheeoga – Sheela who is of the fairies.

What Ellen learned from that secret visit had served only to trouble her further. The old cailleach had asked some questions of a personal nature, laid her hands on Ellen’s forehead and stomach, and then shuffled off into the darkest corner of her cabin. It sounded as though the old woman was mixing something, all the time a-muttering away in words which Ellen did not recognize. When Sheela-na-Sheeoga finally emerged from the darkness, she anointed Ellen on the forehead, on the tip of her tongue, and over her womb, with a strong-smelling herbal brew.

‘Nothing ails you, craythur,’ she said. ‘You are young and you are strong. When the whitest flower blooms, so too will you bloom.’ She had paused then and moved closer to whisper: ‘But the whitest flower will become the blackest flower and you, red-haired Ellen, must crush its petals in your hand.’

Before Ellen could respond, the woman made a gesture of dismissal and said, ‘Now, go home to your husband, Ellen Rua!’ And with that she had ushered Ellen out of the cabin.

Once out of sight of Sheela-na-Sheeoga’s hut, Ellen had spat out the vile-tasting mixture and, with a handful of grass, cleansed the places where it stained her body. But the riddle the old cailleach had set her proved harder to get rid of; it had preyed on her mind ever since.

And now it seemed that the old woman’s doings with herbs and spells was all nonsense. Ellen’s prayers remained unanswered. There was still no sign of a younger brother or sister for Patrick and the twins.

As she sat looking for answers in the deep waters of the Mask, Ellen caught sight of her own reflection. Something about her face seemed different. She bent down closer, peering into the mirror of the lake’s surface, trying to find an explanation for the sense of trepidation and excitement she was feeling. This was more than the exhilaration of a fine August morning, the effects of the sun, the shimmering lake. Kneeling in the shallow water, she lowered her head until her hair draped over the Mask’s surface. The breeze rose. The water flicked at her face and tendrils of hair floated about her, red-eeled, seeking release. Then the breeze died and the waters settled to their previous calm. Still Ellen waited and watched, face to her face’s image. Seeing into herself.

First, it was a slow realization, sweeping silently over her body as the early dawn swept in over the valley – unnoticed until it was there. Then, with growing excitement, she knew – the face in the water knew – that this morning, after six long years, Michael’s seed had at last taken within her.

She was carrying his child.

‘Moladh le Dia,’ she whispered to the radiant face in the water. ‘Moladh le Dia,’ she repeated before lifting her face and her wet hair heavenwards.

She remained thus, silent in thanksgiving, for a few moments. Not daring to be too overjoyed, she resolved not to tell Michael yet. She’d keep it to herself until the month was out.

Roberteen Bawn watched transfixed as Ellen turned to make her way back up from the lake. Drops of water glistened in the sun as they fell from her hair. The loose-fitting shift she wore now clung to the contours of her body, accentuating each movement. Yet she seemed not to notice as she paused by the side of the stream, silently raising her head to heaven.

While his mouth and throat were dry with excitement, the unruly mop of blond hair which framed Roberteen’s face and forehead was ringed by beads of perspiration. ‘A curse on the woman!’ he muttered under his breath as he wiped the sweat from his eyes. ‘She’s the very divil!’ Gripping the outside of the window ledge, the boy hauled himself up until his legs dangled above the cabin floor. Now he would be able to see her better.

Too late, he heard the swish behind him as his mother’s broomstick whacked squarely against his backside.

‘Get down outta there, you dirty little blackguard!’ Biddy yelled, while laying into her son with the broom. ‘I’ll give you spyin’ on that poor woman! ’Tis at your prayers you should be’ – she landed another whack on him – ‘droolin’ over another man’s wife!’ Again the broom found its mark, harder now. ‘Go on, get out o’ the sight o’ me, or I’ll not be responsible for you!’ she threatened, making one last lunge at Roberteen, who was already half out the door and headed for the mountain.

David Moore, curator of Dublin’s Botanic Gardens, marvelled as the sunlight fell upon the vibrant reds and yellows of the rose gardens, then shimmered across the lily pond. His daily rounds, notebook in hand, were a constant source of delight. What better position in life could one aspire to? Working under God’s airy light, bounty and beauty on every side, entrusted with the pursuit of scientific knowledge and the furtherance of God’s work in creating new hybrids of plant life. Fine gentlemen and their ladies, out taking the air in his gardens, nodded to him, acknowledging his handiwork, and his treatises on matters botanical had won plaudits – even from Kew.

This morning he had every reason to be pleased: his roses were abundant in their growth and in the full bloom of health. He made a note for McArdle, his outdoor foreman, to prune them back harder next year. Turning the page, he scribbled a reminder to write to Pakenham at Tourmakeady in response to a letter he had received from that quarter. Pakenham wanted to know how to deal with blemishes afflicting the pride of his extensive rose gardens, a Rosa chinensis – the Jenkinstown Rose, forever immortalized by the poet Thomas Moore in his song, ‘The Last Rose of Summer’. The curator thought it likely that Pakenham’s problem was a product of the poor soil in the West, but he would consult his reference books and consider it further before replying. Moore’s own specimen was flourishing and showed neither spot nor blemish of any description.

Satisfied with the condition of the rose gardens, Moore moved on to the vegetable patch. Every kind of vegetable known to be capable of cultivation in the Irish climate was grown here. As curator, he carefully monitored growth under varying weather and tillage conditions, and conducted experiments with sulphides and phosphates to ward off diseases.

‘God’s day, Mr Moore,’ he heard, and turned.

‘Ah, yes a good morning, indeed it is, Canon,’ he replied to the sprightly old rector who frequented the gardens on a daily basis.

‘My most important appointment, as I always say. A good constitutional, in the company of the Lord, combined with a visit to my faithful congregation botanicus … That’s the thing, eh, Moore?’

‘Yes, Canon,’ the curator replied unenthusiastically.

The good Canon Prufrock, having delivered himself of his prescription for a healthy life, began to saunter away, muttering to himself in Latin. But his ruminations were interrupted by an anguished cry behind him. Alarmed, he turned to see the curator bent as if in pain.

‘What is it, man, what’s the matter?’ he asked, hurrying back to Moore’s side.

‘It’s here! It’s here!’ The curator gesticulated, unable to find words to describe what he had seen.

‘Why, I see nothing there except the makings of fine healthy potatoes glistening with God’s morning dew!’ said the cleric, in a tone that suggested he thought Moore had taken leave of his senses.

‘That is no dew! Look at it – feel it. That, Canon, is the blight. Have you not read of it in the journals? Introduced from America, it has wiped out the potato crop from the Low Countries to Northern France. Now it is here in Ireland – and may God have mercy on us all!’

‘Will it be of … of such a consequence?’

‘Consequence! If it takes root here in Ireland, this murrain will wipe out the entire potato crop in a matter of months. With two million acres – one third of all tilled land – given over to its cultivation, well over half the population is heavily dependent on the crop. Of those, some three million souls rely on it totally. This could be the biggest disaster Ireland, or the Empire itself, has ever experienced.’

‘But what is to be done? Is there nothing you …?’

Moore had not registered until then the awful burden which now rested upon his shoulders. As curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens it was natural that he should be looked to for a solution to this calamity. Sounding more composed than he felt, he began to outline a plan of action: ‘Firstly, I must alert the Lord Lieutenant. He, no doubt, will inform London with utmost expedition so that the Government can mobilize its resources to avert a catastrophe. Here, in the gardens, we must immediately find a cure. We must prevent this blight from taking root in Ireland, whatever the effort, whatever the cost.’

‘God will provide,’ Canon Prufrock said tremulously. ‘God will provide,’ he repeated. And then, almost sotto voce, he added: ‘If it be His will.’

Slowly and deliberately, David Moore opened his notebook and recorded the first occurrence in Ireland of a blight which would leave a trail of death and desolation, and forever change the lives of Ellen O’Malley and her little family:

Late Blight – Lumper Potatoes Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.

Twentieth day of August, 1845.

As Ellen walked back up towards the village, an unseasonably cold chill swept in from the lake, catching her about the neck and shoulders. She shivered, and for a fleeting moment the old cailleach’s strange prophecy echoed through her mind. But Sheela-na-Sheeoga’s words were drowned out by the rí-rá coming from her neighbours’ cabin. When young Roberteen emerged, scurrying up the mountainside like a scalded cat, she laughed and relaxed. Then smiled, thinking all the more of her new condition.

2

As Ellen re-entered the cabin, Michael was rising. He watched her incline slightly to negotiate the door and the fall of her breasts brought back to him all the urgency of last night. Framed in the doorway, the sparkling August morning behind her, she seemed to glow with light and life.

Silently Michael gave thanks for this woman, the most beautiful he had ever seen. Tall, she carried herself like the warrior queens of old, her bare feet clenching the ground, knowing it was of her and she of it.

In her face intelligence as well as beauty was held. And those eyes – it was like looking into the waters of the Mask: a mixture of green and blue, forever drawing you in, deeper and deeper. Her lips were wide and generous, not thin-lipped from whispering about the place like some of the other women. Sometimes she gave a little laugh when he kissed those lips. He never knew whether this was encouragement or shyness at his advances. Whatever it was, it made him all the more fervent in his desire for her. And when she laughed fully and threw back her head, then he was completely lost to this woman – his red-haired Ellen.

She caught his look, and, knowing what he was thinking, cast her gaze to where the children were still sleeping.

‘Dia dhuit,’ he said.

‘Dia’s Muire dhuit, a stór,’ she whispered, returning the blessing.

‘It’s time to wake the little ones, Ellen,’ he said softly. At her gentle touch, the still-intertwined twins were up in an instant, tumbling into her waiting arms.

‘A Mhamaí, a Mhamaí, what will we do this morning?’ they insisted simultaneously.

‘Wait a minute now,’ Mamaí prompted, ‘the first thing we do every morning is …?’

‘The prayers, a Mhamaí. But what then?’ they clamoured, undeflected.

‘Sshh now, and kneel down. Patrick, are you ready?’ Patrick rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles. He did not go to her as his sisters did, but she reached over and put one arm around him, drawing him towards her. He was growing, she thought. He gave her a quick look and a sleepy smile, and she nodded back understandingly. They didn’t need to say much between them. It was the same with Michael – more the silence than the spoken.

Together they all knelt down and, for the second time that day, Ellen crossed herself. Then she led them in the first of the morning prayers while the children joined in sleepily behind her. Katie, as always, elbowed Mary at every mention of the name of the Mother of God. This drew a similar elbowed response from Mary, coupled with, ‘Sure, you’re only jealous ’cos there’s no prayers for Katies.’ Ellen, fixing them with her most baleful glare, ordered Katie to lead the Hail Mary. This Katie did reluctantly, annoyed at having to give praise to her twin sister’s name. ‘Now, Mary,’ Ellen said when Katie had finished, ‘you will say the Act of Contrition.’ Mary considered that the Act of Contrition applied more to Katie than to her, and in consequence gave it plenty of emphasis for her sister’s benefit.

Some semblance of prayerfulness was restored when it came to Patrick’s turn. He was getting to the age where ‘O Angel of God, my guardian dear …’ seemed childish. Katie and Mary might still need guardian angels, but he was big enough to go to the top of the mountain by himself. Nevertheless for a quiet life he fell in with the part required of him.

Finally Michael concluded the morning prayers with the petition: ‘Keep us from all sickness and harm this day for ever, and ever, Amen.’ Then, having started the day off properly, he went outside – ‘To see what class of a day is in it.’

The others, meanwhile, had their own rituals to attend to.

Patrick cleared the night ashes from over the glowing turf and fetched fresh sods for Ellen to show him how to build up a new fire. Now he watched as she took the longer, narrower pieces of turf and stood them on end, balancing the top edges against each other for support, so that they encircled the smouldering embers of yesterday’s fire.

‘Always leave plenty of space between them for the breeze to get in and fan the flame,’ she advised. ‘Fire means life – never let the fire go out. When the fire is gone, so too are those who tended it.’

Patrick was too young to fully understand, but he knew from the way she held her face close to his and fixed him with those eyes that these were the Máistir’s teachings and therefore to be respected.

Mary and Katie, meanwhile, were up at the spring. For protection of both spring and playful water-carriers, Michael had laid two flat slabs of stone over the rock where the spring emerged. Forgetting the task at hand, Mary and Katie now lay on those slabs studying their reflections, fascinated by their sameness, and trying to find some feature in one that was not replicated in the other. Eventually a shout from the cabin below reminded them what they were there for: to bring back a pot of water. So they scampered back down – the lift in the land now being in their favour – pulling the pot this way and that between them, and spilling half the water in the process.

Thus began their day, like most every other day in the valley.

Then it was time for ‘the Lessons’.

Ellen’s love of learning came from her father. Forced to leave the priesthood when he fell in love with her mother, Cáit – a great scandal, and still whispered about in the valley – he had become a hedge-school teacher or ‘Máistir’. At his knee Ellen had learned to read not only in Gaelic but also in English. She had picked up a smattering of Latin, too. And he had taught her the history of Ireland, and England, and told her of the far-off places in the world where the people spoke strange languages and followed strange customs.

In the evenings they would sit across the hearth from each other and he would pass down to her the old sean-nós songs, stories and poems from Bardic times.

‘Come what may,’ he would tell her, ‘tradition and education will always stand to a person. It’s tradition that keeps the people strong and true to themselves, and it’s the education that will free them in the end. Never forget that, Ellen, a stór.’

But her father’s greatest gift to her was love. She remembered how he would reach out his hand to her across the hearth’s space between them. How he would softly murmur into her hair, ‘Ellen, mo stóirín, mo stóirín rua, mo Ellen rua.’

Now it was time for the education of her own children.

‘Tell us again about Cromwell and the Roundheads,’ said Patrick, showing signs of following his father’s nationalistic tendencies.

‘No! Do the lesson about our cousin “Granuaile”,’ Katie piped up. Her choice – Grace O’Malley, the chieftain’s daughter who, three hundred years earlier, had ruled the Connacht coastline from Clew Bay, dispensing with her enemies as quickly as her husbands – suggested a liking for the idea of independent womanhood. Katie particularly enjoyed hearing how, when summoned to meet with Queen Elizabeth I of England, Granuaile had considered it to be a meeting of equals.

‘And what about you, Mary – what would you like?’ prompted Ellen, knowing that the quieter twin would never put forward what she wanted, being content to let Katie make the running.

‘I like the story of the children who were turned into swans,’ Mary said.

How like Mary it was to pick ‘The Children of Lir’, the most childlike and the saddest of all the great legends of Ireland.

‘All right, then. Patrick, fetch me the traithneens,’ Ellen instructed.

Patrick darted outside and was back almost immediately with the three blades of grass he had plucked. He handed these to his mother, who put them behind her back, rearranging the stalks in her hand as she did so.

‘Patrick, you first – draw a traithneen,’ she said, presenting the three blades of grass to him.

Patrick made his choice. Next it was Mary’s turn, and then all eyes were on Katie as she whisked the remaining blade of grass from Ellen’s hand.

‘Who has it? Who has the shortest traithneen?’ cried Katie, wanting to know immediately if it was she who would get to choose the subject for this morning’s lesson.

‘I have it!’ Patrick shouted excitedly.

Cromwell had drawn the shortest straw.

Ellen waited for the children to settle, then began her story: ‘Before Cromwell’s time, two hundred years ago, the Catholics who lived in Ireland owned three-quarters of the land. But the King of England, who was a Protestant, wanted to take all the good land away and give it to the landed gentry. They were the descendants of people who had invaded Ireland and settled here, and they were Protestants too. When they were good and did what the King asked, he gave them big castles and lands in Ireland’ – Ellen could see Patrick bristling with questions, but she continued – ‘and took it away from the Catholics who didn’t want to obey him.’

‘But why didn’t they fight him?’ Patrick couldn’t hold back any more.

‘Well, they did. And there were a lot of Catholics – more than there were Protestants. Then, over from England came a big army …’ She paused before posing the question: ‘Led by whom?’

‘Cromwell!’ shouted Katie.

‘Yes, that’s right, Katie. Now, Oliver Cromwell was a bad and wicked man and he hated the Catholics. He beheaded King Charles first, and then came to Ireland to kill the King’s supporters here, the Royalists. They were mostly Catholics. But Protestants, too.’ Ellen interrupted herself for another question: ‘What were Cromwell’s soldiers called?’

‘Roundheads.’ This time Patrick asserted his pre-eminence in matters military.

‘Yes, Patrick, good. They were called Roundheads because of the big round helmets they wore on their heads to protect them from the swords of the Irish. So, Cromwell and his army of Roundheads marched through Ireland, and they went into the villages and murdered all the men and the women, and even little boys and girls. Everyone was killed.’

Ellen could hear the intake of breath, as three sets of eyes widened at this terrible telling.

‘That was a very bad thing to do to all the little children,’ Mary ventured, horrified at the thought. ‘And them not doing any harm at all – being only small like me and Katie.’

‘Yes it was, a stóirín,’’ Ellen said gently, ‘and the reason Cromwell did that was because he was afraid that if he killed just the big people, then the children, when they grew up, would remember this and make a big army to kill him back. Also Cromwell wanted to get the land, so he had to clear out all the people who held the land. That’s why the Roundheads knocked down the poor people’s houses and burnt their crops – so that nothing was left, no trace of them at all. It was as if they had never been there. Then Cromwell sent word that this would be the fate of any Catholics who stayed on their lands. He wanted to drive them over here to the mountains and the sea, over to the poor lands of the West. “To hell or to Connacht” he said he’d send the people – and he did just that, the devil.’

‘That’s why we’re here on this mountain, with only a little bitteen of land and bog to keep us,’ said Patrick, repeating a favourite phrase of his father’s.