Читать книгу The Whitest Flower - Brendan Graham - Страница 22

Christmas was upon them in no time at all. But unlike any Christmas they had ever experienced. A gloom of foreboding hung over the little cabins of Maamtrasna. Word was filtering through that the effects of the blight were beginning to bite, and bite deeply.

Biddy, Martin Tom Bawn’s wife, had dropped by to see how Ellen was keeping, and had told her, ‘’Tis said, beyond in Westport, that there won’t be a potato left in the country for people to eat by the time Saint Brigid’s Day comes.’

‘How are your own lasting out?’ Ellen had asked.

‘Faith, we’re all right for the moment – making do, sparing them out every day … thankful to have them at all,’ Biddy replied, before dashing off to see what that blackguardeen Roberteen was up to.

Ellen had seen to it that the rationing in their own household was exact and consistent. At times, it was hard for her not to give way and throw some extra potatoes in the pot. But she resisted that temptation, reminding herself of the hard times to come. What she did do, though, was to forgo one potato a day from her own ration, and share it between the rest of the family.

Yet despite the pervading air of gloom in the community at large, she felt good in herself this Christmas. The baby was carrying well – not too lively, just enough to let her know it was there – and growing. The children didn’t appear to be too put out about the lack of extras; as their mother suggested, they offered it up as penance for their venial sins and the souls in purgatory. But most of all, Ellen was so happy, as the days shortened into the winter solstice, that no misfortune seemed to be befalling Michael. His time was not yet come. There had been no further supernatural manifestations – no sightings of the Banshee combing her tresses; no prophetic dreams.

All in all, this Christmas promised to be a good one for the O’Malleys.

On Christmas Eve the night was crisp and clear, and the sky above their cabin was filled with thousands of stars lighting up the valley and the dark surface of Lough Mask.

Before they set out for Finny and the Midnight Mass, the children watched while Ellen lit the candle she had placed in the cabin window. She’d kept it since it had been blessed on Candlemas Day. Even in these inhospitable days, it was still a symbol of welcome for the Holy Family journeying to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. It was a sign, too, of hospitality for any poor stranger wandering the roads this Christmas.

As they climbed Bóithrín a tSléibhe, Katie was at them to: ‘Hurry up, so we can get near the front to see Baby Jesus!’ All three children were excited at the prospect of seeing the Christmas crib with the statues of Mary and Joseph, and the donkey, and the cow. The manger, empty at first of the Baby Jesus, would receive the tiny statue of the new-born Christ-Child at exactly midnight, as Mass began. The twins chattered happily about how, in a few short months, they would ‘get a baby of our own’, as Mary so maternally put it.

The atmosphere as they approached the little Finny church was one of great joy and mounting expectation at the coming of the Saviour. Neighbours exchanged the traditional Christmas blessings, ‘Beannachtaí na Féile’ and Father O’Brien stood at the entrance of the church to welcome his flock.

‘Michael, Ellen, and the gasúrs – welcome, and may the blessings of the Holy Season be upon all of you,’ he greeted them. Then, lowering his voice, he asked Michael, ‘Has there been any trouble back in the valley of late?’

‘No, Father, nothing at all,’ Michael replied. ‘Everything’s gone quiet. I heard tell Pakenham has gone beyond to London until the Christmas is out.’

‘C’mon, a Dhaidí!’ Katie tugged impatiently at Michael’s sleeve, dragging him away from the priest so that they could claim seats at the top of the church where they would better see the proceedings.

A hush fell over the church as Father O’Brien began his Christmas sermon: ‘My dear people, we are gathered here tonight on this joyous occasion to celebrate the birth of a baby …’

Ellen was disappointed in the young curate at this opening. Everyone had been hoping that he would denounce Pakenham from the pulpit, but this sounded like the standard ‘Peace on earth and goodwill to all men’.

The homily went on in the same vein, Ellen growing more impatient with each sentence. She could not believe it: he was going to say nothing. She had thought him to be an independent spirit who would not stand meekly by and toe the Church’s line on ‘not inciting the people to riotous behaviour’, but here he was – ignoring their plight completely. She was growing more angry with him by the minute.

Throughout the sermon she tried to catch his eye, to register her annoyance, but instead he looked at a point in the far corner of the church, above the heads of his congregation.

Pilate! Ellen fumed. ‘Pontius Pilate!’ she whispered to Patrick beside her. The boy did not understand what his mother meant, but he could tell that she was cross, very cross.

So much for Michael going all the way to Clonbur – and the priest telling him that he would take up their plight with Archbishop MacHale in Tuam. The archbishop had obviously told him to keep the people quiet; the Church wanted no trouble in the West.

But who would defend them, if not the Church? Who would prevent mass starvation or save them from dying on the roadside, their little cabins tumbled down behind them? There was nobody else. Not the shopkeepers, the traders, the scullogues with their money-lending, nor the middle-class Catholics in the towns. Not the constabulary, who would be too busy protecting the grain stores of the rich. Not a Government beyond in London. Would nobody lift a finger?

When Father O’Brien concluded his sermon with the traditional Christmas blessing, as if this were a year no different from any other, Ellen could contain herself no longer.

Father O’Brien, his back now to the people, had begun to recite the opening words of the Nicene Creed, ‘Credo in Unum Deum …’ when he sensed a commotion behind him. Casting a quick glance over his left shoulder, he saw Ellen Rua O’Malley – shawl clutched tightly in one hand and her three children trailing from the other – storming for the door, her wild red hair streaming out behind her.

He faltered in the Creed, the Latin words of belief somehow ringing hollow against the sight of this woman leaving the church in anger. A murmur rose from the crowd. Abandoning the service, he turned to face them. Ellen had by now reached the back of the church, whereupon she turned and looked straight at him. He held her stare, though the fire flowing from her eyes ignited the space between them with its intensity. The O’Malley woman was enraged – and with him!

He expected a tirade. What he got was two words – not much above a whisper, but spoken with a vehemence which cut the air – ‘Pontius Pilate!’

Then she was gone into the mountains. Into the silent night of Christmas.

Ellen knew he would come. Even before Biddy rushed into her cabin to tell her, ‘Ellen, the priest is coming! The priest is coming down the valley!’

Her actions on Christmas Eve had caused quite a stir in the locality. It was unheard of for anyone, let alone a woman, to walk out of the Mass, and at Christmas too! And then to insult the holy priest, and him on the altar of God.

Michael, who had followed her out, supported her actions. ‘We can’t depend on the Church. The bishops will always line up with the Crown to get more money for Maynooth, and more power for themselves. And come the day when we’re all lying stretched with the hunger, and no one to give us a decent burial, the Church and the Crown will still be saying, “What can we do? It’s the will of God.’”

She nodded. ‘We have to leave Ireland, Michael – get to America before it’s too late.’

‘We will, Ellen. I promise you, we will.’

But now, the priest was coming to see her.

The village would see this as a sign of shame on it, that the priest had to ride out from Clonbur to talk sense to Ellen Rua. But the way Ellen saw it, the priest had more to answer for than she did.

‘I’ll speak to him alone,’ she said to Michael, who wanted to stay. ‘Please. You take the children to the Tom Bawns’.’

Michael reluctantly left her, and she could hear him rounding up the children outside as they made a fuss of the horse that had carried her visitor. Then the light from the doorway darkened, signalling the approach of her visitor. She got up from where she tended the fire, and wiped her hands.

‘God bless all here,’ the figure in the doorway said.

‘God bless all who enter,’ Ellen responded. ‘You’re welcome, Father.’

At her invitation he sat across from her at the fire. ‘I think we might have a fall of snow yet – the sky has that colour to it,’ he began.

She nodded, allowing him to ease into the conversation in this way if he chose. ‘Yes, Father, pray that we will. A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard, a white Christmas a green harvest,’ she said, quoting one of the many sean-fhocails she had learned from the Máistir. The priest, she could see, was uncomfortable at the choice of her words.

He straightened himself, tore his gaze from the fire, and looked directly at her. ‘The Midnight Mass – it was a wrong thing to do, walking out like that. You caused scandal among the people, and scandal to your children.’

Ellen was prepared for this, but was not prepared to sit meekly through it. ‘Well, Father,’ she said, ‘the Church is always great with condemning people for causing scandal. Sure, isn’t it their way of keeping the people down?’

She saw him tense at this.

‘Is it not a scandal that the people are going hungry?’ she put to him. ‘Yet food is being exported to line the pockets of the merchants. Is it not a scandal that there is no work for our menfolk, when the whole country is a disgrace with lack of roads and bridges? Yet Ireland is a part of the great British Empire – the richest power there is?’

Father O’Brien was taken aback by this attack.

‘Well?’ she challenged him.

‘Mrs O’Malley, please—’

‘Is it not a scandal that my husband journeyed all the way to Clonbur to tell you how, in the face of Famine, we are being further ground down by Pakenham, for you to say, or do, nothing about it?’

‘You’re wrong, Mrs O’Malley,’ he countered. ‘I went to Tuam. I spoke with the archbishop.’

‘Then why is the Church silent on this? Why will the Catholic Church not lead us out of our poverty and misery? That is the scandal, Father.’

‘Ellen Rua!’ The priest raised his voice, demanding her attention. ‘Now, you listen to me for a moment. When Michael visited me, I was horrified to hear of Pakenham’s doings. Shortly thereafter, I set out for Tuam. Archbishop MacHale, in his wisdom – and he is experienced in these matters – advised that I should neither say nor do anything which might inflame the situation. I am bound by my vow of obedience to obey his Grace in all things.’

‘But is nothing to be done, then?’ she demanded.

‘The archbishop is doing something: he will consult with the other bishops in General Assembly at Maynooth. They will assess how the Crown is dealing with the present crisis, and if necessary, a deputation will go to Rome to petition the Pope to intercede with Queen Victoria. In the meantime, there should be no disturbances, no riotous behaviour, which might prejudice the position of the Holy Father.’

‘This is an old story, Father,’ Ellen replied, unappeased. ‘Nothing has been done by the bishops to improve the position of the poor since we were joined with England in the Union. And neither Queen Victoria nor her Government will recognize the Church of Rome. All that will happen is that more monies will be sent to Maynooth, and the bishops will fall silent again.’

‘It is not right for you to speak this way about Holy Mother Church, who always cares for her flock as Christ did.’

‘The Church cares only when it comes to the collection of dues,’ she rejoined. ‘It is no longer the Church of Christ. It is the Church of businessmen and traders, the Church of towns and cities, not the Church of the hills and valleys. When did the archbishop ever set foot out of Tuam to see how like animals we live, scavenging the bogs and bare rocks for what we can get to keep body and soul together?’

‘This is blasphemy you are speaking, Ellen Rua,’ the priest retorted, thinking what a mistake he had made in coming here.

‘Well, if it is itself then God will strike me down, Father!’

‘God forgive you for that, Ellen Rua, for I cannot,’ he said, making the Sign of the Cross on himself.

She looked at him across the hearth. ‘You are, I believe, a good man,’ she said. ‘But you have been too long at Maynooth, among the men of power – the priest-politicians.’

Father O’Brien studied her now. How did she know these things? Her father, the fallen priest, must have turned her against the Church, the Church that had turned on him, turned him out. That was it.

‘The Church that I, and these villagers, belong to is the Church of no voice, but it is the real Church of Christ. And you and the bishops have forgotten that, Father.’

There, she had said what she meant to say, she would say no more to him. It was not against him she spoke. He had to follow the rules. It was against the system itself that she raged. Layer upon layer of privileged, educated men laying down the law for the uneducated and underprivileged.

She rose as he made to leave. ‘God go with you on the road, Father,’ she bade him, no trace in her voice of the anger she had displayed towards his Church.

As he nudged the big grey mare on to the mountain track which would carry him back towards Finny, the young priest’s mind was filled with the woman’s fierce condemnation of the Church he served.

Ellen Rua was a devout woman, but also a strong woman who dared to speak her mind. He had no doubt she wasn’t alone in her feelings about the Church. He had sensed for some time that the people felt let down by him, but most of all by the Church. A Church that had gone astray.

When he came to the ford at Beal a tSnámha, the priest’s thoughts turned to Ellen Rua’s husband. He remembered how he had ridden out to this point to deliver Michael back across the water, the day he had come to talk about Pakenham. As the water swept up around his feet, he wondered what it must be like to be the husband of such a woman. Soon he would return to the warmth of his parish house in Clonbur. He would change his wet clothes for dry ones. Yet, back there in the cabin, just himself and the woman across from each other, he had been conscious of something being present. Something that his priest’s house in Clonbur, with all its comforts, didn’t have. Even while under attack from this woman – her eyes and hair all ablaze in the firelight – he had felt alive, invigorated, unshackled.

As he looked back in the direction of Maamtrasna, he promised himself that – for the Church’s sake – he would not let the red-haired woman down.