The Mill River Recluse (16 page)

Father O’Brien closed the door with tears leaking down his own cheeks. He knew Daisy’s pain was as great as his own.

As much as he tried not to think about how he had found Mary earlier, the scene replayed itself in his mind. She had been so...still. And then, as he sat down again in his office chair, he was overcome by a terrible sense of déjà vu. His mind reached back in time, to another day more than sixty years earlier, on which he had discovered Mary in the marble house. He tried to deflect the powerful memory, but it invaded him, its similarities with this morning’s awful experience rising and fading, and he was helpless to stop it.

On that stormy evening in June 1942, he had been summoned by the Mill River police. Patrick McAllister had been thrown through his car’s windshield and killed.
Father
, the police had asked him,
could you go with us to tell his wife
?

The side door to the marble mansion had been left open, which was strange, because the storm outside had been ferocious. When no one came to the door, he and a police officer a few years his junior ventured inside. The house was dark and quiet, and they assumed that Mrs. McAllister was upstairs in bed. They were halfway right.

She was upstairs, slumped against the back bedroom wall. At first, they didn’t see her. Then the young officer who had accompanied him spotted her, rushed forward, and immediately recoiled, saying, “Sweet Jesus, my God, oh my God, I’m sorry, Father, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

What he himself had seen of Mary’s face hadn’t looked human. Her left eye was lost in a great purplish-black swelling that extended to her hairline. He caught only a glimpse of her before the officer, apparently overcoming his shock at seeing her, snatched her up in his arms to carry her downstairs, screaming, “Go, Father, she’s hurt bad and we’ve got to hurry!” His stomach churning, he ran back down the stairs with the officer carrying Mary right behind him.

They took her to the Rutland County Hospital, where Patrick’s body had been sent. There, doctors determined that the upper rim of the circular orbital bone surrounding her left eye had been shattered. An injury such as that could only be caused by a blunt force blow with a hard, heavy object. The doctors were puzzled, too, by the fact that their patient was a member of one of the most wealthy and well-known families in Rutland but wore clothes smeared with dirt. Her matted hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed or brushed in weeks.

He had no answers for them, nor for Patrick’s parents and grandfather, who had arrived at the hospital to identify Patrick’s body. The family had been allowed to see Mary for a moment. It was for the better that she remained unconscious, unable to see the fresh shock on her in-laws’ faces.

“They may have had an argument,” he suggested to the McAllisters as they all stood numbly in the hospital waiting room.

“We know Patrick was drinking,” Conor had said. “And we know he went back home before the accident because he had a suitcase with him. Maybe he lost his temper and--”

“My son wouldn’t do something like that,” Elise cried into Stephen’s shoulder.

“Well, look at the state she’s in,” Conor had continued angrily. “She’s obviously been far worse than he let on for quite some time.”

“So she neglected him! Drove him out of his own home,” Elise retorted between sobs.

“Maybe it’s best we not discuss the how’s and why’s right now,” Stephen said, still holding Elise. “We can talk to Mary when she comes to…”

“
If
she comes to,” Conor said.

“…And she will, Pop, we have to believe that, but in the meantime, we should go home. There are arrangements to make.”

“You two go. I’ll wait here in case she wakes up. If she does, I’ll call you right away,” Conor said. Patrick’s parents left, leaving Conor and Father O’Brien alone in the waiting room.

Even more than sixty years later, Father O’Brien’s ensuing conversation with Conor McAllister remained clear in his memory. The conversation had changed his life entirely.

“Father,” Conor began, “I want to tell you that I love...loved my grandson very much. There’s not anything in the world that I wouldn’t have done for him.” He still remembered the tremor in the patriarch’s voice and the way that several silvery tears had worked their way down the creases of his face into the thick white beard.

“However, I know, have always known, what Patrick was capable of. He was brilliant, handsome, confident. His father made sure he had everything he ever wanted, whenever he wanted it. He wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to keep him from spoiling the boy. I was so busy with the Marbleworks and thought it best not to interfere, but I was wrong. I should have done more to prevent Patrick from turning out as he did. Patrick grew into a determined young man, determined to succeed and determined to have the world accede to his every demand. He wanted control over every aspect of his life, from the women he courted to his responsibilities at the Marbleworks. And he couldn’t have it. At least, not all the time.”

Conor looked up at him, his green eyes watery and bloodshot. “This morning, Father, Patrick received notice that he was going to be drafted into the Navy. He and his father believed that I could have prevented it, but I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. Patrick left the Marbleworks right before noon. I thought he needed some time alone, to cool off, so we didn’t go after him. Now, I wish we had. We didn’t know....”

The tone of Conor’s voice changed as he dropped his gaze to the floor. “I have always worried about Mary, however. From the moment I met her, from that first time Patrick brought her to the house, I knew that she was innocent and vulnerable, a poor shy thing. I worried that Patrick might seize on that weakness and feed off it, or lose patience with Mary, or try to make her into something she was not. I should have suspected that they were having serious problems when he stopped bringing her to the house. He told us she was having a hard time with her father’s death, that she was spending time with friends, but we had no idea.” Conor paused for a moment before continuing. “You saw Mary this evening, Father. As much as I don’t want to, I believe Patrick did that to her. If she survives, she will be forever scarred on the inside and the outside. And,” Conor said, his voice breaking, “I blame myself. I should have protected her.” The tears were coming faster now. Conor covered his mouth and chin with a shaking hand.

“Mr. McAllister, you mustn’t blame yourself for this. Despite what you may believe, you are not responsible for Patrick’s behavior. There is no way you could have predicted that this would happen,” he said. For a long while, they had sat together in silence. Finally, Conor looked at him square in the eyes again.

“Father, I need your help. If Mary lives, I want to be sure that she is cared for and protected for the rest of her life. Part of that I can do. All of my grandchildren have trust funds. Patrick’s currently contains a little over two hundred thousand dollars. As Mary will be his sole heir, she will be entitled to that money. In addition, I intend to bequeath to her another substantial sum. If invested properly, those amounts, taken together, should sustain her for the rest of her life.”

“That is very generous of you, Mr. McAllister,” he said, but Conor continued.

“But, I will not be on this earth long enough to ensure her security. Mary will be utterly alone if she survives. You know how close she and her father were, but he’s gone now, and I can’t imagine Elise will ever reach out to her if she believes that Mary had any role in Patrick’s leaving the house tonight. That is why I need you, Father. You are young, about the same age as Mary. You will be alive long after I’m gone. You can look after her for me,” Conor said.

Father O’Brien remembered the feeling of realizing what had been asked of him. “Mr. McAllister,” he said, “of course I will do everything I can to ensure Mrs. McAllister’s well-being. But, you have to understand, she may choose to leave Mill River. The church may assign me to a different parish. So many things could change over which I have no control.”

“I can talk with Bishop Ross about your situation and ask him to make a special exception for you. At least he could make sure you wouldn’t be transferred from Mill River. As for anything else that might come up, well, no one can predict the future, but I trust you, Father. I’ve trusted you ever since I met you, and I trust you will find a way to do this thing for me. You will, won’t you, Father?”

He hadn’t had a chance to reply, for at that very moment, Bishop Ross burst into the waiting room.

“Conor, I came as soon as I heard. I can’t believe it, and his wife is here too, injured?” the portly bishop asked, slightly out of breath. “Father O’Brien, it’s good of you to have come.” “Yes, she’s here,” Conor said, “but she is still unconscious. We don’t know much about what exactly happened with Mary yet. Stephen and Elise went back to the house a few minutes ago. Could you go to them, perhaps? I’ll follow after I speak with the doctor, and I think Father O’Brien should stay with Mary tonight, in case there is any change in her condition.”

“Of course, of course. I’ll go immediately, and come back by in the morning,” Bishop Ross said, and hurried out the door.

Conor turned to face him again, waiting for his answer. He didn’t know how he would do what Conor wanted, but he couldn’t refuse.

“I will protect her as best I can, Mr. McAllister, for as long as I am able. That is the most I can promise.”

And he had kept his promise to Conor, kept it for some sixty years, until today. He looked at the envelope and package on his desk for the hundredth time. Now that Mary was gone, he would do what was necessary to keep the last, secret promise that he had made to her.

Part II

“
Give light, and the darkness will

disappear of itself.”
– Desiderius Erasmus

Chapter 12

The window of the dim hospital room was open a crack, and the ribbon of fresh air that slid inside cut through heavy odors of sickness and sterility. Mary lay in the bed, her petite form outlined under tight white sheets. A bandage around her head hid the swollen purple mass that was her left eye. She was still unconscious.

Father O’Brien also slept. He had spent most of the night slouched in a wooden chair at her bedside. Now the ribbon of air brushed his cheek and whispered through his hair, and he opened his eyes.

“Good morning, Father,” a nurse said as she entered the room.

“Good morning, Miss....” Father O’Brien said, straining to make out the nurse’s name on her name tag.

“Clarke,” said the nurse, as she took Mary’s pulse. She glanced up from her wristwatch as Father O’Brien shifted stiffly in the chair, rubbing the back of his neck. Her brown eyes were sympathetic. “Did you manage to sleep there all night?”

“I was here all night. As for sleep, well,” Father O’Brien sighed and looked at Mary. “Let’s just say that I didn’t get nearly as much as she did.”

“She still hasn’t come around, then,” said Nurse Clarke, reading Mary’s chart. “The doctor will be here soon to check on her.” She shook her head as she hung the chart back on the end of the bed. “If her husband really was the one that did this to her--”

“Papa?” Mary groaned, and turned her head on the pillow. Her right eye fluttered open.

“Mrs. McAllister, it’s Father O’Brien,” said the priest, jumping up from the chair. “Can you hear me?”

“I’ll get the doctor,” the nurse said, and hurried from the room.

Mary turned her head slowly toward the priest. “Can’t see,” she said, and raised her left hand toward her injured eye. Father O’Brien grabbed the hand before it touched the bandage.

“No, you mustn’t touch it. You’re in the hospital. You’ve been hurt,” Father O’Brien said carefully. Her hand was limp and fragile. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

For a moment, Mary’s expression was one of confusion. Her mouth opened slightly as her sleep-numbed mind struggled to respond. Then she flinched, as if someone had startled her. Her body became rigid. The hand that Father O’Brien held suddenly clenched tight around his fingers.

“He’s starving him,” she said, in whispered desperation.

“Who’s starving who?”

“Patrick,” Mary said, as she began to tremble. “Monarch. In the barn for weeks. Beaten and starving.” She pulled on the priest’s hand, attempting to sit up. “He’ll kill him, you’ve got to stop him.”

“It’s all right, Mrs. McAllister, Patrick isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

Tears began to flow out of her uninjured eye. “He’ll kill him, please Father.”

A man in a white coat came into the room, followed by Nurse Clarke. He approached the bed slowly as the nurse went around to the other side.

“Mrs. McAllister, I’m Dr. Mason. Do you know where you are?”

Mary turned toward him, grimacing slightly. “In the hospital.”

“Do you remember how you were injured?”

Mary blinked, shuddered again, and looked up at the doctor. “Ebony, the miniature Ebony,” she said, in a faraway tone. She sucked in her breath sharply, her exposed eye racing from side to side, reviewing some unknown event. The doctor looked at Father O’Brien and raised his eyebrows. The priest shrugged.

“Who’s Ebony?”

“My horse. And Monarch. You have to keep him away from them.” Mary’s voice started to rise again.

“Keep who away?” Dr. Mason asked.

“Patrick, I already told him,” Mary said, turning again toward the priest, “Monarch needs help. You’ve got to call the veterinarian. His foot is infected, and he’s starving, please....” Mary was thrashing and babbling now, the right side of her face tear-streaked.

Dr. Mason nodded at Nurse Clarke, who nodded in return and withdrew a syringe from her pocket. She quickly injected the tranquilizer into Mary’s upper arm.

“You need to relax, Mrs. McAllister,” Nurse Clarke said softly, smoothing Mary’s hair away from her face. After a few minutes, Mary stopped trembling and lay quietly.