Brendan Graham - The Element of Fire

Ellen wasn’t unduly worried about the Protestant ethos prevalent in Boston’s public schools – the ‘little red school houses’ as the Boston Irish called them. Patrick would receive a more liberal education at Eliot than in the narrow Catholic schools, the ‘little green school houses’. She, herself, would see to his spiritual needs outside of school. At first Patrick resisted her choice of schooling for him, but finding Eliot School populated with a good sprinkling of other Irish Catholic boys, his resistance diminished.

Mary’s future, Ellen decided, would be best served by placing her with the nuns. She saw no contradiction in this, relative to her plans for Patrick. Boston, in terms of schooling for girls, particularly young Irish and Catholic girls, far surpassed that available to its young men, mainly due to the influence of the ‘Sisters of Service’. Mostly Irish or the American-born daughters of the Irish, the nuns were a group of free-spirited and independent-minded young women who had eschewed marriage in favour of the economic, social and intellectual independence the Sisterhood offered. What Ellen liked about them was that having liberated themselves, they had a more liberal view of other women’s roles in society. Orders like the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, where she would send Mary, sought not to prepare young immigrant women solely for marriage, but to lead lives of independence and dignity. This would provide the pathway to spirituality, rather than that followed by most young Irish women – the bridal path.

The nuns would be good for Mary.

With regard to Louisa, Ellen had much with which to occupy her mind. She had grown a great fondness for the girl but still wondered about her – where had she come from? Her family, if any?

The Pilot ran regular columns of the ‘lost’ and ‘missing’ Irish – those who had become separated en route to the New World, or who had moved deeper into the American heartland before family had arrived from Ireland to join them.

Each week Ellen read the ‘lost’ notices, relaxing only when nowhere among them could she find a description to match that of Louisa. She agonized for weeks as to whether she herself should put in a notice, seeking any family of the girl who might be in America. Reluctantly, she came to the conclusion that it was ‘the right and proper thing to do’, as she explained to Patrick and Mary, ‘and pray that we don’t find anybody!’ she added.

For a month she had inserted the notice, hoping it would go unanswered.

Female child – of about twelve or thirteen years, unspoken. Tall, with dark brown hair and hazelwood eyes – found among the famished near Louisburgh Co. Mayo 20th day of August 1848. Now living in Boston. Seeking to be reunited with any members of family who may have escaped the Calamity to the United States.

To her despair, she had been flooded with respondents. With each one her heart sank lower, fearing that this would be the one to claim Louisa, lifting again with relief when it was not. In turn, she was filled with guilt at her own selfishness, then sorrow at the disappointment carved out on the faces of those who came with so much hope but left again, empty-handed. Faint-heartedly they would apologize with a ‘Sorry for troubling you, ma’am!’ or ‘I was hoping ’twould be her,’ some would say, awkward for having come in the wrong.

One young woman from near Louisburgh arrived brimful of hope. She had, she said, been told that her young sister ‘had been taken pity on by a red-haired woman, rescued from the famished and brought over to Amerikay’. She had searched high and low, doggedly traipsing each mill town. At nights waiting outside until, disgorged in their thousands, the mill girls poured out into the streets. Ever afraid her sister had been among them and that she had missed her in the crowds.

‘Was it to Boston she came?’ Ellen enquired, wondering if the young woman’s task was fruitless from the start.

‘To Amerikay, anyway!’ she replied, as if ‘Amerikay’ were no vaster than the townland of her home village. ‘She has to be here somewhere, if it’s true what they say!’ she added, defiant with faith. The girl had no idea where her sister was, would spend a lifetime looking for her in ‘Amerikay’. Probably never to find her – in this life at least, Ellen knew.

‘You have to keep looking,’ was all she could limply offer the girl.

‘I do – them that’s still alive back home are always asking for news of her – she was the youngest … but I’ll find her yet, I will!’

Ellen’s heart had gone out to the young woman, her hopes dashed once again, yet still full of faith, still resolved to finding her sister.

‘Thanks, ma’am – this one is very like her,’ she said of Louisa, ‘but it’s not her. She’s a fine child, God bless her, I hope you find her people.’

She spoke to Lavelle about it. ‘There are thousands upon thousands of them still searching for their lost ones, still hoping to find some trace. It’s heartbreaking.’

‘They’ve done a right good job, the Westminster government,’ he replied, scathingly, ‘scattering the Celts to the four corners of the globe. Keeping us on the move, wandering, like a divided army trying to find itself. One day that army will regroup –’

‘Oh, Lavelle!’ she had chided him. ‘I’m not talking about armies or the British Empire. You should’ve seen the look on that poor girl’s face – she will search all of America, search till the day she dies. Louisburgh, and all that’s in it, will have long since disappeared before she finds her sister.’

As the months passed the number of enquiries about Louisa, originally from Boston and the greater Massachusetts area, reduced. Then a trickle from the further-flung regions of New York, Montana, Wisconsin and even Louisiana, found their way to her door clutching old issues of the Pilot , clinging on to even older hopes. Eventually the stream of people calling dried up completely. Only then did Ellen allow herself to be fully at ease, previously having measured out to herself only small, fragile rations of relief as each month had slipped by.

Louisa herself bore all of this with apparent equanimity, Ellen having assured her in advance that this course of action was not an attempt to get rid of her. Again reassuring her, each time someone called, of how much both she and the others loved her. Some callers took just one look at her, knowing immediately she wasn’t the girl they sought. Others inspected her more intently, peering into her face, asking questions: ‘Does she ever utter a sound at all?’ or ‘What name has she?’

Always, Ellen had the feeling that Louisa understood. Once or twice she had faced her, asking, ‘Louisa, can you hear me – tell me if you can hear me?’

The girl had just looked at her lips as she spoke, so that Ellen didn’t know whether she was avoiding looking directly at her, or merely trying to understand in that manner. Either way she got no response, only the killing smile.

Although Louisa did not converse with anybody she was yet such a part of their lives; always there, soaking up everything. If not, indeed, through her ears, then through her eyes, and, in some strange way Ellen couldn’t define, just through her presence. She resolved to take Louisa to a doctor.

‘I can find no physical defect in the child, Mrs O’Malley,’ Doctor Hazlett confided in her after examining Louisa. ‘It may be that the abject circumstances in which you found her have locked a portion of her mind, a portion in which she still remains,’ he offered, referring to their pre-examination discussion.

‘What am I to do, Doctor?’ she asked.

‘The answer lies not with me,’ he replied, ‘but the answer, if anywhere to be found, will be found in Boston – the cradle of the sciences. I propose sending you to Professor Hitchborn for further consultation.’