The Whitest Flower

Bridget knew she couldn’t escape forever. But as she entered the drawing room she resolved that today would not be the day.

‘M’Lord, you called?’

‘Ah, Bridget – tea for myself and Beecham, here,’ Pakenham said brusquely.

She left, surprised and relieved to find the agent present, but not at all pleased to see him. Pakenham she could handle – so far – but Beecham was dangerous and cunning – a right slieveen. He was always eyeing her when Pakenham’s back was turned. It was just like him to slip into the house unnoticed.

‘Well, Beecham,’ Pakenham resumed the conversation Bridget’s entrance had interrupted. ‘It seems we have a situation here, if the papers are to be believed. A worrying situation for a landlord whose land will offer up no produce but blighted potatoes, giving yet a further excuse to his tenants to withhold their lawful rents. What are we to do, Beecham?’

Beecham moved to within a few feet of where Pakenham stood looking out at the rose gardens. He clasped his hands in front of him, and paused to check that he had Pakenham’s attention.

‘It would seem that the blight is uneven in its distribution, and there is no certainty that it will be as melancholy on the potatoes as some reports suggest. Of course, the experts differ, as always.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Pakenham cut in, ‘but what of our own tenantry?’

‘Well, Sir Dick – I mean, Sir Richard … my apology, Your Lordship,’ Beecham said slyly.

Pakenham let that go, maintaining his silence.

‘It appears the Catholic Church has done us some favour: the bishops have instructed their flocks to make an early harvest of the potatoes. Most of the peasantry obeyed, and even broke the holy Sabbath to do so. The greater portion of the crop has thus been saved. However—’

‘What now?’ Pakenham was losing patience. God, Beecham could be so longwinded.

‘If Your Lordship will permit …?’ Beecham gave an impertinent half-bow.

Pakenham nodded him on.

‘I would suggest that, when we summon the tenantry for renewal of their tenure, we make it clear to them that there will be no abatement of rents. Furthermore, we stipulate that arrears of rent will be dealt with by summary eviction, while at the same time impressing on them the need for good husbandry in the coming year.’

Observing that Pakenham was about to interrupt again, the agent pressed on: ‘You will remember, sir, the spectacle of the tenantry at Maamtrasna, hooleying and drinking when they should have been tending to their fields. We must outlaw all such folderriderry.’

At the mention of Maamtrasna, Pakenham’s hand involuntarily reached for the still-tender spot at the back of his head where the peasant’s stone had hit him.

‘Indeed we must, Beecham. Call them in and tell them what’s what. Damned lucky they’ll be if I don’t clear the lot of them!’

‘Well, sir,’ offered Beecham, ‘this blight might present you with an opportunity to commence the consolidation of your land into larger, more manageable, holdings.’

Pakenham turned and looked the agent squarely in the eye.

‘You know, Beecham, it’s a damnable pity that you can be such a disagreeable fellow at times…’

The crooked smile on Beecham’s face froze as he waited, not sure what was to follow.

‘You have a good understanding of affairs and a damned good nose for an opportunity to improve your employer’s lot.’

Beecham gave as near a full smile as his features would allow. ‘My Lord, you are too kind, I—’

‘However,’ his employer interrupted, ‘if you don’t desist from baiting me, and leering at my personal wench, then I shall have your balls for breakfast – after I have keelhauled you from one end of the Mask to t’other. Do you have me, sir?’ Pakenham snarled, pushing his face towards Beecham’s, relishing the sight of the agent squirming away from him.

Before Beecham could reply, if indeed he had a reply to the prospect of being keel-hauled and castrated, Bridget Lynch re-entered the room.

‘Bridget,’ Pakenham greeted her jovially, ‘Mr Beecham will be without tea today. Methinks the Mask air disagrees with him, and he must leave.’

Bridget made to put down the tray so as to see Beecham to the door.

‘Oh, Bridget’ – Pakenham was enjoying this – ‘Mr Beecham is not so poorly that he is in need of your assist.’ He turned to the agent then, and in honeyed tones enquired: ‘Pray, Beecham, do you require Bridget’s assist, or will you escort yourself out? In any event, Bridget must serve my tea before it turns tepid. You know how I abhor tepidity in anything.’

Bridget had a sense that she was caught in the middle of this rather one-sided exchange. Her unease was not assuaged one whit when Beecham, without speaking, pushed past her and stormed out of the room.

Chuckling at Beecham’s ignominious exit, the landlord turned to Bridget. ‘If that bounder causes you any concern, you must inform me at once.’

‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. But Mr Beecham never bothered me none,’ she lied. ‘He’s always been proper and gentlemanly towards me, sir.’ Even as she spoke she was vividly recalling how, only a week previously, Beecham had come up behind her and rumbustled her into the storage pantry, pushing himself against her so that she was ‘caught between the ram and the hams’, as she put it to one of the kitchen maids later. Though she had managed to joke about it, she was sure Beecham would have undone her had it not been for Mrs Bottomley’s footsteps sounding in the corridor outside.

Sir Richard was mightily pleased with himself. He had exposed Beecham in front of the girl, and taught the little upstart a lesson. The girl’s obvious alarm when she walked in on their conversation, and the way her cheeks had flushed when she had lied to him, excited him further. Did she think he didn’t know? Pah! Mrs Bottomley missed nothing. Who did she think she was, this Irish peasant girl holding him, Sir Richard Pakenham, on the leash of a promise? Teasing him, and probably Beecham too, with those long black eyelashes and sideways looks? It was time she learned who was master around here.

And there she stood before him – waiting, flushed and unsure, her dark eyes set on him. The blood coursed in him from all the excitement of the hour. Gone were thoughts of the blight, tenants, the rents. All he saw before him was all he desired just then.

‘Bridget, now that Mr Beecham has so ungraciously left us, we are one tea too many … Would you do me the honour of joining me?’ His manner was so uncommonly courteous that all her womanly instincts were alerted. As she walked towards him, balancing the tray with the silver tea service and fine bone-china settings, she prayed she would not reveal her uncertainty to him. But before Bridget Lynch could control it, the tremor in her soul reached her hands and the cups rattled ever so slightly on their saucers. Though she immediately clenched her hands against the silver tray to silence the rattle, she wasn’t quick enough. Pakenham had heard it.

He cocked one eyebrow as her eyes darted to him. Heart thumping now, she was only two steps from where he stood. He reached forward. ‘Allow me, Bridget,’ he said, all helpfulness.

His eyes never left hers. She wanted to dash it all – tray, china, silver, tea, milk – at him and run. But how could she run out of a position which put food into the mouths of her younger siblings through the winter months while her father worked in Lancashire? After all, nothing had happened … yet.

Sir Richard Pakenham saw the turmoil in Bridget’s face, but he felt no pity for her predicament, only exultation. This servant girl had dared to challenge him. But now, as she released the tray into his hands, he knew, as she did, that this would be his day.

6

It was the time of Samhain – the start of the Celtic new year. Patrick and the twins were beside themselves with excitement. Tonight, Halloween, the spirits of the dead would come back to the valley. There would be a bonfire, merriment, singing and dancing.

Ellen, Michael and the children walked up through the straggling line of cabins. The whole village, save the very old and infirm, had come out into the gathering dusk to make the annual pilgrimage to the bonfire place – a hillock on the high ground, close to the site of the recent céilí. Back down the valley in Glenbeg, Ellen could see figures gathering, heading towards the lakeshore where their bonfire would be kindled. From across the lake in Derrypark, unseen, bodiless voices echoed in the night.

The Halloween half-moon was high in the sky, partly shrouded by puffs of mist. Stars sprinkled the heavens above Maamtrasna – one for every soul of the dead, thought Ellen. She imagined the Máistir and Cáit up there, perched on the handle of the great Plough, guiding, lighting, working together in the heavens as they had on earth. Ellen wondered where her own place in the vault of heaven would be. Would Michael be there beside her, her love-star? Would the children know where to look for them on Halloweens to come? And would they, too, claim their place in the firmament – Patrick the dark, strong star; Katie and Mary, the heavenly twins, set close together. Bright flame-stars.

And what of this new star she carried within her?

Where would this miracle-star, not yet of this world, be? Where would it fly across the heavens?

They reached the Crucán. Ellen felt a shiver run through her, and crossed herself. Now, at the place of the bonfire, the children’s shrieks of delight drove everything from Ellen’s mind save the ceremony of fire about to begin.

Earlier in the day, the village children had scoured the lakeshore for firewood. The men had dragged down from the mountain great pieces of blackened bogwood, the remains of mighty oaks that, thousands of years ago, had stood where today there was only bogland. Now the villagers heaped these pieces of broken wood, along with old rags and bones and straw, on to the misshapen monster that was growing topsy-turvy-like on the hillock above the village. Through the gaps in the wood, Ellen could see shafts of bleak, early winter light, providing an eerie backdrop to this pagan festival.

Then, to a chorus of yells, the great pyramid of wood was kindled. At first the kindling took slowly, with little spurts whenever a lick of flame caught the quick-to-burn straw or rags. Gradually, tongues of flame began to reach up from the lower regions of the pile. The children were mesmerized by the fiery serpents which, every now and then, darted out towards them, to the accompaniment of squeals of excitement and fear. At first they would retreat from the flames, but then, daring the fire-devils, they would edge back to their previous positions, their little faces red and white in the night, the fire dancing in their eyes. The bonfire rapidly grew in intensity and ferocity, sweeping up to the sky. Sparks driven off by the wind illuminating the pale marking stones on the children’s burial mound.

Ellen looked out across the Maamtrasna Valley. Everywhere fires roared in the night, ringing the lakeside in a circle of flame, framing the wild gesticulations of the revellers, transforming them into grotesque spectres of shadow and light, more spirit than human. Further back towards Tourmakeady, the great pagan celebration lit up the sky, lifting a downtrodden people into risen people for this night. Ellen knew that Pakenham would see the flames and understand that they were a symbol of a culture as old as the bogwood, waiting its turn to be ignited – to crackle and hiss and flame and spark into glorious life again.

Just as the old black wood was liberated by fire, so too this night of celebration freed the people of the valley. A people not yet suffocated by hundreds of years of an alien culture seeking to dominate, to drive out the old ways of this land. A people not yet made joyless by the starched, imposed strictures of the Catholic Church.

‘Fire is life.’

Ellen looked for the bright stars that formed the handle of the Plough and smiled, knowing the Máistir was there, wise as ever.

She felt a tug at her elbow. It was Mary, all bright and rosy from the heat of the bonfire.

‘Come on, a Mhamaí, give me your hand and we’ll do the circle round the fire.’

Ellen, surprised by Mary’s initiative – normally Katie was the one doing all the pulling and tugging – bent down and gave her quiet child a hug. Perhaps Mary was at last, getting out of being so backward about coming forward, as Michael put it. It wasn’t easy to be the outgoing one, when you had a twin sister who ran at life, day after day, fit for anything – and everything.

‘Of course, a stóirín,’ she whispered.

Mary grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her towards the ring of people forming around the fire. Someone took Ellen’s other hand as it trailed behind her, but she took little notice of this in the general melee.

Ellen spotted Katie on the far side of the bonfire, pulling Michael into the ring as Mary had done with her. She could imagine her twins plotting and scheming, the whispered argument: ‘I’ll get Mammy and you get Daddy.’ ‘No, I’ll get Mammy and you get Daddy.’

Slowly, the ring of fire-dancers, their hands joined, began to move to the right around the fire. Ellen, feeling a cold grip on her left hand, turned to see who it was. With a start she saw Sheela-na-Sheeoga grinning at her, flickers of light darting across her face, giving it a wild look.

‘Dance easy round the fire, Ellen Rua. Dance easy tonight.’ The old woman’s voice rattled out to her through the crackling sound of the bonfire. ‘For it’s no harm you want to be bringing on yourself this night when the evil ones fly in the air.’

Ellen hoped that Sheela would not notice the unsettling effect her presence was having. Why had the old one to be always on her shoulder, appearing out of nowhere with some ominous-sounding message? It was as if Sheela had appointed herself both midwife and guardian for this child. Ellen rued the day she had gone over the mountain to see the old cailleach.

‘Everything is fine, Sheela,’ she heard herself saying.

Sheela-na-Sheeoga’s eyes glinted back at her, the flickering of the fire adding a demonic intensity to them.

‘Let you pick up the burning ember and pass it round yourself to purify your body. Let the fire protect you from the evil ones.’

This advice seemed to Ellen to bring a chilling dimension to the old custom of casting the embers. Glad of the excuse to break off physical contact with the woman, she grasped an ember. Contrary to the old one’s admonitions, she did not pass it around her body, but slowly and deliberately made a fiery sign of the cross before casting the ember high into the Halloween night. It turned and twisted as it rose, sizzling and crackling as it cut a path through the air. Starwards it climbed, hanging in the heavens, until at its zenith it flared brightly. Then, like a fallen soul, it dropped. Only a dark, dull redness remained, in stark contrast to its previous showering, sparking glory. Now, thought Ellen, it will burn out alone, hidden in the blackness beyond the Crucán, dying in its own ashes as they returned to the earth.

‘Ellen, are you all right?’ Michael appeared at her side looking worried. He had noticed that she seemed preoccupied of late, as if she had drifted into a place that was beyond his reach. At such times she seemed to him like a spirit-woman. Her body was there – you could touch it, feel it, taste it – but her elusive spirit slipped between your fingers.

‘Ah, I’m fine, Michael. It’s just the night that’s in it, and thinking of those who are gone. Nothing ails me. Sure, isn’t it the same with everyone else here?’

Katie rushed over to them, her face all alight.

‘Did you see that?’ she burst out. ‘I hit one of them – I hit an evil spirit.’

‘Ah! Hush that talk now, Katie,’ said Patrick, a little unnerved by the Halloween ceremonies.

‘No, but I did – I swear! I threw my lighted stick up in the air, and it went up above the smoke, and then I saw it hit this black thing in the sky, and I heard a sound like a screech. I did! I did! I’m telling you!’ Katie stamped her foot in exasperation.

‘I believe you, Katie.’ Mary’s quiet voice penetrated the commotion.

‘See!’ said Katie, throwing her arms around her sister.

‘Twins know these things because they’re special. They just know!’

The big bonfire died down, its timbers, weakened by the flames, crumbling and sliding into the pit of glowing ash-whitened wood. Eddies of wind swept in, picking up the ash and floating it into the hills and the valleys in busy flurries of fire-snow. The demons that lurked in the flames continued hissing and spitting, inviting the onlooker in even after their long, ever-beckoning fingers of flame had departed, quenched for another year.

Around the valley, the fires which had roared into the night were now just a row of red, angry eyes dotted along the hillsides. Eyes which by morning would be closed.

The O’Malleys returned to their cabin. Michael took his knife and scooped out a turnip that Roberteen had got somewhere, then carved eyes, a nose and a mouth to make a púca. Finally, he took a small piece of lighted turf from the fire and placed it inside the turnip. Patrick, who had been clamouring to be allowed to help, positioned the turnip in the window opening. The Halloween púca sent out an eerie yellow glow. Its gashed face smiled evilly, the burning innards sending out a sickly wet smell.

The next night – the eve of All Souls – the O’Malleys’ cabin was filled with a strange mixture of fear and excitement. The prayers took longer than usual as the family recited the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, offering up a decade each for the Máistir, Cáit, Michael’s mother and father, and all dead relatives. The dead of the village and all the souls in purgatory, waiting to be released through the prayers of the faithful on earth, were also included.

The Rosary finished without any of the usual ‘trimmings’, except for the prayer to Mary: ‘… to thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping’ – or ‘morning and evening’ as Katie put it, referring to all the praying that took place at this time of year.

Next came the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, which Ellen gave out in a toneless chant, and the others answered:

‘Pray for us!’

‘Have mercy on us!’

‘Pray for us!’

‘Have mercy on us!’

The continuous chanted responses induced a trance-like state in the younger members of the group, providing much-needed release from the pain of kneeling at prolonged prayer.

Afterwards, as the children settled down to sleep, Ellen laid out five settings for food, although they themselves had already eaten. Katie and Mary watched with great interest, but Patrick, showing his disdain for pisreoga – superstitions – had turned his face away and gone to sleep. As she set each place, Ellen whispered an explanation to the twins: ‘This place is for the Máistir.’ They nodded their assent, agog with the mystery of it all. ‘And this one is for my mother, Cáit. And this for your other grandfather, Stephen, and beside him Sarah.’

Before Ellen could explain further, Mary, in hushed tones, half-afraid the spirits of the dead would not come if they heard the noise of children, asked: ‘And who is the last place for, a Mhamaí?’

‘Well, a stóirín,’ Ellen whispered back, ‘that place is for any poor wandering soul who has no home to go to, and who would be left beyond on the mountainside, wailing bitterly in the wind and the cold.’

This captured the imagination of the twins, and for a moment there was silence. Then it was Mary again who spoke: ‘A Mhamaí, I’m glad we’ve set the extra place. It’s a kind thing to do for a poor, lonely soul who has no one to welcome it in.’

Now that the place-setting had finished, the twins switched their attention to Michael. Having gathered up some of the almost burnt-out wood from last night’s bonfire, he was building a fine welcoming fire in the hearth. Their little minds were alive with hordes of wandering souls filling the night sky over the valley, picking out the welcoming cabins below. Cabins like their own, with glowing fires, doors left unlatched and tables set for the midnight feast.

Finally, Katie and Mary fell into sleep, comforted by the image of the unknown soul slipping in quietly to take its place among their grandparents; having a family, for this night at least.

Ellen lay on her back watching the flames of the fire shadow-dance along the walls and up towards the ceiling. They darted in and out of the loft, burnishing the gold-coloured straw which held their food supply for the year to come. Now and again, the shadow of a flame would seem to pick out the lumpers stored there, casting up grotesque images of stunted men, no arms and legs, only small squat heads set on larger squat bodies.

Ellen wondered whether their little loft would be groaning under the weight of lumpers in the Samhain of the following year. She couldn’t quite harness all the feelings of impending catastrophe which seemed to be pressing on her recently – her baby and Sheela-na-Sheeoga; the potato disease; Pakenham singling her out at the céilí; Halloween and her thoughts on the stars of the dead. Something was happening. Some force was putting her at the centre of things. But why her?

When, eventually, she did succumb to sleep, her dreams were filled with dark and troubling visitations.

She was hurrying down a long, winding road. On every side were people weeping and wailing – calling out to her. She had the children with her – all three of them – and she was carrying a baby.

Way off in the distance, at the end of the road, was a … ship. That’s where she was running to. She had to reach that ship. She had to get there fast, before the evil following behind caught up with her.

Mary could not keep up. Ellen ran back and grabbed her. She was losing time – the ship, the tall ship, it would leave without them. She didn’t seem to be making any ground at all. The road twisted on, and on, and on, lined with poor, piteous souls calling out to her. She couldn’t stop. Their skeleton-like fingers clawed the air, trying to hold her back, to smother her and the children.

Now she couldn’t see the ship. Had it sailed already? She hadn’t seen it leave. Ahead was a gaping darkness, waiting to swallow them. The thing that had pursued them was now in front of them, blocking their escape. The blackness seemed to be moving towards them. If they did not move, it would crush them. But the child in her arms was crying; it was heavy, too heavy for her to be carrying.

‘Mary, keep up, for God’s sake!’ She yanked the child’s arm, pulling her along.

Then the whole countryside shook as a tremendous booming noise resounded from the road ahead. The vibrations travelled from the ground into her feet, and then up through her whole body, until the sound rang inside her head: boom! boom! boom! The faster she ran the louder it grew. Terrified, she realized she was running towards the booming.

And still no ship to be seen, only a black, black void. The noise was coming from immediately in front of her, advancing on her. She could hardly keep her feet, it shook the ground so.

‘Patrick, Katie, not too far ahead now! Wait for us!’ she screamed, but the children seemed not to hear her, seemed not to hear the noise of the anvil of hell, booming, threatening, welcoming them into what dark abyss she knew not.

Now heat – gusts of hot steam – enveloped them, drenching them, suffocating them with its stench. The putrid stench of decay that seemed somehow familiar.

And still the white hands clawed at her, shredding her garments. When they reached her skin she knew she would be ripped to pieces. And then who would save the children? She looked for Michael, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Ahead, Katie and Patrick had stopped – their hands thrown up in front of them. They were backing away from something. She tried to close the distance between herself and them. The wailing from the skeletons grew louder, reaching a fearsome crescendo against the booming which was now threatening to explode inside her head. And all the while the vile steam surrounded them, sticking to them, melting their skin.