Dawn of the Golden Promise (55 page)

Quinn had gone to work for Millen Jupe for one reason, and one reason only: to save her mother, her younger sister, Molly, and herself from the graveyard.

Situations in service were all too rare throughout the county. But situations like the one into which Millen Jupe eventually drew Quinn were shamefully common, especially during the Hunger.

The landlord or his agent, whichever happened to be in residence, would send for one of the village girls, offering what seemed—at least to a starving family—like an extravagant wage for the position of housekeeper and cook.

More often than not, it was the young, comely girl who received such a summons. Refusal meant almost certain eviction of the entire family. With hundreds throughout the county falling over dead from the harsh winter winds and the famine, a bid from the Big House was often seen as salvation itself.

When the message first came for her, Quinn resisted, indeed refused to go. Later she begged her mother not to
make
her go. Although the agent, Millen Jupe, was neither old nor unattractive, he was known throughout the county for his vicious temper and debauchery. At the time, Quinn was but fifteen years of age, and the thought of living in the same house with the agent terrified her.

It was her mother who finally convinced Quinn there was nothing for it but to comply. And so finally, she had gone—for the sake of her little sister, whom she loved more than everything, and for her mother, whom she also loved, though her affection had never been returned.

For nearly two years she lived in the Big House, serving as housekeeper and cook—and, later, as the agent's mistress, and the object of his abuse.

“It wasn't all that bad, at first,” she told Alice, her voice leaden. “In the beginning, he treated me decent enough. He paid me a fair wage, allowed me time off to visit my mother and Molly on Sundays, and later even taught me to read a bit—permitted me the use of his library as well.”

The man had actually been kind to her at first, almost as if he valued Quinn as a companion. When he turned ugly, it seemed to happen all at once, without warning. He brought her to his bed and raped her repeatedly, then shamed her until she started to believe his accusations—that she had taunted him, enticed him to do the things he did to her.

“I tried to run away many a time, but when he brought me back the beatings were worse than ever. He grew uglier as I grew bolder. And he threatened to have the roof knocked down over my mother's head if I didn't cease the running. Between his threats and his savagery, I finally gave up and stayed with him.”

“Didn't you tell your mother?”

Quinn stared down at her hands. “Aye, I told her. She said I must be doing something to displease the man, else he wouldn't be so bitter toward me. She told me I must try harder to win his favor, or we would all pay.”

She looked up and saw the shock mirrored in the eyes of Alice Walsh. Shamed, Quinn quickly dropped her gaze and went on with her story.

She had not known a human being could perpetrate such cruelty on another. Although her mother had always been cold and indifferent, she had never raised a hand to Quinn or her sister. Quinn hardly remembered her da—he had died when she was seven—but her vague recollection was that of a bearded man with mournful eyes and a quiet voice. A gentle man.

There had been nothing in her life or limited experience to prepare her for a madman like Millen Jupe. Almost daily he inflicted an entire gamut of abuse on her, the depravity of which grew darker as his drinking increased. At the end, on those rare occasions when he was sober, he wounded her with his words instead of his hands.

It seemed to Quinn the man had been taken over by the devil himself, and in his madness he had resolved to exorcise his demons by destroying her. She spent her days in a prison of physical pain and emotional terror. She spent her nights in hell.

Perhaps, like Jupe, she went a bit mad after nearly two years of his abuse. Or perhaps her action was spurred by the latest in a particularly vicious series of beatings. More than likely, though, it was the sound of her sister's name on his leering mouth that finally drove her to that mindless deed of desperation which resulted in her fleeing her home…and her country.

“That last night, he beat me harder than ever before. Then he threatened me and my family, and beat me again. At the end, he said he was going to replace me with my little sister, Molly.

“He taunted me, said Molly was nearly as old as I had been when he brought me up to the Big House. He said…he said he liked to raise up his little tarts to suit himself.”

He had sat up in bed and, as was his habit, began to peel himself an apple with a kitchen knife. He continued to mock her and, seeing her fury, he flicked the knife at her face, as if to cut her.

Quinn snapped. She dived at him, wresting the knife from his grip and raking it down the side of his face.

Roaring like an enraged bull, he kicked her from the bed, onto the floor, then stood over her and kicked her again. And again.

The knife went clattering out of her hand, across the floor. Somehow Quinn found the strength to lunge after it. As she rolled over onto her back, the knife in hand, Jupe fell on her with a demented scream, as if to murder her.

Instead, he fell onto the knife. With her last remaining shred of sanity, Quinn realized what had happened, and, hoping to save herself, twisted the knife into his heart even farther.

Dazed and in pain, she eased out from under his lifeless body and stumbled to her feet. He was dead, or looked to be. She did not wait to be sure. Her mind screaming, her body rebelling against the agony of the night's abuse, she bolted from the house and ran like a wild thing all the way home.

“Your mother…actually told you it was your fault?” Alice said incredulously. “She told you to leave?”

Dear God in heaven, what this child had endured! It was a miracle she had survived at all!

The girl nodded. She had not met Alice's eyes more than once throughout her narrative. Even now, although she lifted her face, she kept her gaze averted.

As carefully as if Quinn were made of fragile china, Alice touched her hand to the girl's chin, turning her face gently toward her. Tears spilled from those pain-filled eyes, tracking that splendid face. Alice felt her own eyes sting and knew that she, too, might weep at any moment.

“Listen to me, Quinn. What happened to you—that horrible time with the agent, that last night, the knife—none of it was your fault.
None
of it! Do you understand?”

The girl looked at her. “I should never have gone with him in the first place, I had a choice.”

“Did you?” Alice probed. “Did you really? And what was your choice, Quinn? To let your family be thrown out of their home and die of starvation? Good heavens, girl, your own mother urged you on! You had no
choice
! You were only a child!”

“But if I could have gotten away from him before then…at least he wouldn't have died…” The girl squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could not bear the memories.

“If you could have gotten away from him, you
would
have!” Alice said sharply. “You tried, child—you tried. It wasn't
your
fault you couldn't get away! Oh, Quinn, Quinn, you must understand—none of it was your fault!”

The girl opened her eyes. Alice could not bear the sight of such despair any longer. Gently she gathered the girl into her arms and pressed her head against her shoulder.

“Oh, my dear…my dear,” she murmured, agonizing over the devastation, the evil, that had been inflicted on the girl. “You bear no guilt for what was done to you. You are not a murderer, child. You're a
victim
!”

They sat there for a long time, the shadows deepening in the room. Alice held her and let her cry away her shame and agony, the entire time repeating soft reassurances.

“God doesn't condemn you, Quinn, and you must not condemn yourself,” she told her when the girl had quieted. “Why, there's a promise in His Word about this very thing,” she said, trying to recapture from her memory the words she herself had learned to cling to in the days after the hearing.

“‘For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things…if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before Him.'”

“No court in the land…at least not in
this
land,” Alice went on, “would hold you responsible for that man's death. Look at
me
: I shot my own husband! Yet the court declared me innocent of any wrongdoing. And I accept that decision. I can't take back what I did, can't change anything that happened. But I believe God has pronounced me innocent, just as the court did. And if I believe I am innocent in God's eyes—then I must not condemn myself in my own heart.”

The girl eased back, lifting her face to look at Alice.

“That's what you must do, Quinn. You must accept your innocence. Give God all those years of torture and fear and hurt. Give Him your pain, your broken heart, your guilt. Give it all to Him…and begin to
live
.”

As Alice watched, she saw a faint light of awareness, understanding…something…dawn in the glistening eyes. And in her own words of comfort to Quinn O'Shea, she seemed to hear the voice of her forgiving Father speaking to
her
with the same admonition…

“Give Me your pain, your broken heart, your guilt. Give it all to Me, Alice…and begin to live.”

39

This is the place: these narrow ways,
diverging to the right and left,
and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth.
Such lives as are led here,
bear the same fruits here as elsewhere.

CHARLES DICKENS (1812–1870)
F
ROM
A
MERICAN
N
OTES

T
he squalor and misery of the Five Points immeasurably exceeded everything Morgan had been led to expect.

Within minutes after entering the area ludicrously known as “Paradise Square”—a triangular space into which the five streets giving the slum its name converged—he began to wish he had not insisted on seeing the place for himself. Both Michael and Whittaker had done their utmost to dissuade him. Even Jess Dalton, who apparently spent much of his time here in ministry, warned that nothing in Morgan's past experience could possibly prepare him for the Five Points.

Morgan now saw for himself why they had been so adamant in their objections. The place was an abomination, a nightmare world which would surely defy any attempt to capture its ugliness and horror, its wretchedness.

He had seen the slums of London and Paris, knew the treacherous laneways of Dublin's Liberties all too well. But none of these had stunned him or sickened him quite like this American lair of filth and depravity.

He would have thought that by now he was past being shocked or horrified. He had seen enough suffering and rampant injustice in his own country to callous one's soul. But to find such a pit of human misery in the midst of a city often hailed as having “streets of gold”—and to know the place was chiefly populated with his own countrymen—was beyond belief.

As Sandemon wheeled him down one garbage-littered alleyway after another, flanked by Michael and Jess Dalton, with Daniel John out in front of them, Morgan felt as if he were journeying through the very streets of hell. Every building in view seemed to have a crumbling facade and broken windows, doors hanging ajar, torn free of their hinges. Broken whiskey bottles and animal offal literally paved the rutted lanes. The stench alone was enough to make a strong man retch. On almost every corner lounged inebriated beggars and slatternly women—these also drunk—while from each open doorway came the sound of shrieking or brawling or weeping.