eyes. The next time she came across him, she’d look him straight in the eye – let him know that she knew, the little whelp! And he not even the height of her shoulder. Some hard work drawing turf up the mountain would temper the rising sap in him. If Michael suspected Roberteen of spying on her, he would give the lad a thrashing and a half. But she wasn’t about to tell Michael. She would deal with it in her own way, and in her own time.
She let her eyes rest upon the patch of land between the staggered row of cabins and the lake shore. She always saved this scene, the most important of all, until last. There, just below the bóithrín, were the lazy beds. Underneath these long raised mounds of earth grew the villagers’ sole means of existence: the lumper potato. The growth was luxuriant – the best she’d seen in years. Down below the green stalks and the little white flowers bobbing this way and that, the tubers themselves were ripening and fattening, getting ready to be lifted.
This would be a good year. They would work hard and, maybe, with God’s help, they would be able to put a little by after the rent had been paid.
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
