Land of a Thousand Dreams (19 page)

And for that, perhaps we all deserve to burn….

When the black man came downstairs, Lucy was standing at the door holding Small One against her shoulder. He carried Finola in his sturdy arms as easily as if she were a child. Wrapped in a heavy brown blanket, she looked even more ashen and helpless than before.

He stopped when Lucy spoke. “We sent for you,” she said tremulously, “because we thought you'd know what to do. We thought it's what Finola would want.”

After an instant, he nodded, his eyes searching hers. Where Lucy would have expected condemnation, she encountered only a terrible depth of sadness, a raw grief, obviously controlled at great effort.

Lucy shrank within herself. Somehow she thought it might have been easier had he exploded in rage and damned them all.

“You did well to send word,” he said, his voice low. He paused, his eyes going to the limp Finola in his arms. “You are certain no one saw…who did this thing?”

Again Lucy sensed his rigid control. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to look him in the eye. “Believe me, man,” she choked out, “if I knew, I would kill him myself!” Her voice shook, and her eyes burned with tears.

The black man regarded her with a measuring look. His gaze went to the cat in her arms. “That is Small One?” he asked softly. “The little cat she is so fond of?”

Lucy glanced at the cat, then nodded.

The black man's expression gentled still more. For a moment he stood, studying Lucy as if trying to make a decision. His voice was low, even kind, when he spoke again. “Perhaps you would like to come with us?”

Lucy stared at him. “You'd let me?”

He nodded. “When she wakes, it might be well if you were nearby.” He paused. “And the cat…bring the cat as well.”

Lucy nearly strangled on a sob of gratitude. Unable to answer him, she cuddled Small One close to her heart and ducked her head. The tears spilled over from her eyes as she silently followed them outside to the waiting carriage.

In the library of Nelson Hall, Morgan waited. He sat, rigid and unmoving in the wheelchair, engulfed in agony and a deadly rage. Staring out the window, he was only dimly aware as the dull light of a rainy dawn struggled to rise past the horizon. And for the first time in months, he wished—almost desperately—for a drink. He allowed none of the whiskey at Nelson Hall, and now he knew why. If a bottle had been within his reach, he surely would have used it to dull the searing knife-edge of his pain.

When the word came that Finola had been injured, he had almost lost his grip from shock and fear. Now, waiting for Sandemon to return with her—at the same time waiting for the surgeon to arrive—he grappled with an entire storm of emotions, ranging from an almost debilitating fury to a numbing despair.

And helplessness.

Now, more than ever, he cursed his dead legs. He could not even go with Sandemon to get her, lest his slowness in getting dressed, the time-consuming procedure of getting himself in and out of the carriage, prove too much a delay for Finola.

Instead, he could only sit here, in the infernal chair, a great, useless lump, waiting. Waiting and worrying.

He tried to pray, but bis heart was numb, his mind frozen. All he could manage was a whispering chant, a drone for mercy.

God help her…God keep her…God save her….

He had never—never, in all the agonizing months since the shooting that had paralyzed his legs—felt more useless…or less a man…than he did at this moment.

He did not know yet what had happened—not exactly. Only that Finola had been hurt, and that it was bad. Why else would they have sent to Nelson Hall for help?

He felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare. He blamed himself, cursed himself, for not acting sooner to get her away from that place. If only he had acted last week…yesterday.

Why did I wait? Oh, God…why did I wait?

Blind rage and guilt roared through him. A violent trembling seized his entire body. He gripped the arms of the chair until pain shot through his hands and the thunder in his head subsided somewhat.

But his terror for Finola, his guilt and anguish for his own fault, went on raging in his heart like a storm at sea.

11

The Silent Scream

I think the most dread sound,
The most terrible cry to the human ear,
Is not the common lament for the end of life,
But one heart's keen
For the death of Innocence.

F
ROM THE
J
OURNAL OF
JOSEPH MAHON, C
OUNTY
M
AYO
(1848)

T
hroughout the long morning, Nelson Hall lay still as a tomb. Outside, the soft dawn rain had increased to a frigid downpour, weeping through leaden skies that blotted the day's light and drummed away all other sounds.

Within, no voices were raised; indeed, no conversation was made that was not absolutely necessary, and then words were limited to furtive whispers. The maids went about their work in doleful silence. The classrooms were empty; the four scholars who now lived on the premises had been excused to their rooms in the absence of Sister Louisa and the
Seanchai.
Even the great wolfhound lay silent and mournful outside the chapel doors, as if standing guard over a holy place.

It seemed for all the world that there had been a death during the night.

And so there had. Under cover of darkness, in the concealing shadows of evil, Innocence had suffered yet another blow.

In her twenty-five years as a nun, Louisa Moore had seen much pain, much ugliness, inflicted by one human being upon another.

She had worked among Dublin's destitute, nursed in hospitals, ministered to the homeless and the dying. During the past months, she had labored to the point of exhaustion among the famine immigrants who flooded the streets and alleys of Dublin with their misery.

Through it all, she had determined not to let the suffering and the tragedy of her fellowman destroy her. Most of the time she managed a precarious balance, keeping a safe step's distance away from the dividing line that separated ministry from madness.

But as she stood by the bed of the young woman called Finola, she knew herself to be in danger of crossing the line. Nothing in her memory had shaken her quite so violently as this.

Louisa believed with all her heart that God's Word was true, and that, just as He promised, He would work good from all things entrusted to Him. Indeed, she had seen that promise fulfilled more times than she could remember.

But standing here as witness to this young girl's tragedy, she could not for the very life of her imagine how even the Lord could turn this kind of disaster to good.

The girl had as yet showed no sign of rallying, although she was anything but lifeless. Every touch of the physician's hand seemed to bring pain; every labored breath was accompanied by a choked sigh or an anguished moan.

Perhaps the Lord in His wisdom had hidden the girl, for now, in a shelter known only to Him. Louisa had seen this before in many victims. They lived, but in another place. A place unknown and unapproachable by those outside the pale.

In God's presence—in His arms, close to His heart—the victim waited until the Lord moved to give safe passage to whichever side of heaven He chose.

It was difficult to imagine how beauty could possibly shine through such stark evidence of evil. Yet, shine it did. Finola's carefully formed, delicate loveliness made the ugly manifestation of man's depravity all the more visible, all the more terrible.

Louisa bent to sponge the girl's forehead with a cool cloth while the surgeon bound her midsection. “The animal spared her nothing!” muttered the physician, more to himself than to Louisa. “She is broken…a broken doll. Broken bones and fractures, her kidneys bruised—” he stopped, overcome, his hands trembling as much as his voice.

He met Louisa's gaze over the girl's still form. She would not have expected to see such agony, such rage, in a man who surely must encounter the very depths of tragedy in his profession. He was still a young man, but Louisa suspected that after this day he would feel much older.

“Will she live?” Louisa asked quietly.

The surgeon looked from her to Finola's bruised face, now swabbed with ointment. “Yes,” he said in a voice hoarse with emotion. “I would say that she will live.” He looked up. “But tell me this, Sister: Do you think that she will
want
to live?”

Louisa could not drag her eyes away from the girl's poor broken body, her bruised loveliness. “As God enables us,” she said softly, “we will do everything we can to be sure she does.”