The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night
Rich and epic Historical Fiction set against the backdrop of the Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora. Perfect for fans of Winston Graham and Ken Follett.Set against the backdrop of the New World, this powerful novel follows the story of Ellen O’Malley. Torn from Ireland during the Great Famine, Ellen’s odyssey has taken her from the harsh landscape of Australia to the killing fields of the American Civil War and poignantly explores forgiveness, longing and the changing role of women set free by war.Together with her natural daughter Mary and adopted daughter Louisa, Ellen helps tend the wounds of the soldiers who have fallen in battle. Surrounded by death and destruction, she little realizes that her estranged son, Patrick, and Lavelle, the husband she desperately seeks, are on opposing sides of the terrible conflict.Meanwhile, Lavelle and Ellen's former lover, Stephen Joyce, likewise seek her out – and each other – with tragic repercussions. Ellen’s story is a tale of great loves, impossible choices and the triumph of the human spirit against all odds.
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BRENDAN GRAHAM
The Brightest Day,The Darkest Night
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 2005 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Brendan Graham 2005
This edition 2016
Fair-Haired Boy - Words and Music by Brendan Graham © Brendan Graham (world exc. Eire) / Peermusic (UK) Ltd. (Eire)
Praise to the Earth - Words and Music by Brendan Graham © Brendan Graham (world exc. Eire) / Peermusic (UK) Ltd. (Eire) Ochón an Gorta Mór - Words and Music by Brendan Graham © Brendan Graham (world exc. Eire) / Peermusic (UK) Ltd. (Eire) Sleepsong - Words: Brendan Graham; Music: Rolf Lovland © Peermusic (UK) Ltd.; Universal Music A/S Crucán na bPáiste: Words & English Translation: Brendan Graham; Music Trad/Additional Music - Brendan Graham © Brendan Graham (world exc. Eire) / Peermusic (UK) Ltd. (Eire) I Am The Sky: Poem by Brendan Graham The Last Rose of Summer - Thomas Moore - A Selection of Irish Melodies, Vol 5 (1813) Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded - Thomas Moore - A Selection of Irish Melodies, Vol 6 (1815)
Brendan Graham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Source ISBN: 9780006513971
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007387687 Version: 2016-01-19
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Mary
CONTENTS
Half Moon Place, Boston, 1861
Ellen O’Malley opened her eyes.
Blinked.
Raised her head.
Waited, watching for the sky.
Soon the sun would come creeping into the corners of Half Moon Place. ‘Like a broom,’ she thought. Sweeping out the dark.
When the sun brushed along the narrow alleyway towards where she sat, she opened her throat, and began singing,
‘Praise to the Earth and creation,
Praise to the dance of the morning sun.’
She sat atop a mound of rubbish, raised from the ground and the sordid effluents that backwashed the alleyway. The mane of red hair that fell from her head to her waist, her only garment. The sailors who frequented the basement dram-houses of Half Moon Place, had rough-handled her, taken her clothes for sport. But no more.
Ellen hadn’t even resisted. Instead, offered prayers for their wayward souls, which hurried them off.
The glasses she missed more. The alley children had stolen them, fascinated by the purplish hue that helped her eyes. Years in the cordwaining mills of Massachusetts had taken their toll. But she was blessed more than most. Without them she could still see the sun and the stars and the moon. The shoe-stitching she could no longer do. She couldn’t blame Fogarty then, the landlord’s middleman, when eventually he put her out for falling behind with the rent. He wasn’t the worst; had stretched himself as far as one of his kind could.
Even in her current situation, any passer-by would have still considered Ellen O’Malley a striking woman. Firm of countenance, fine of forehead and with remarkable eyes. ‘Speckled emeralds,’ she had once been told, ‘like islands in a lake.’ She smiled at the memory. Tall, she sat unbowed by the circumstances in which she now found herself. Her fortieth year to Heaven behind her, a casual onlooker might have placed Ellen O’Malley at not yet having reached the meridian of life. A flattery from which, once, she would not have demurred.
She had only been out the few nights now and the New England Fall had not been harsh. Biddy Earley, whose voice Ellen heard at night, driving a hard bargain with the men of the sea would, in the daylight hours bring her a cup of buttermilk and a step of bread for dipping in it. Part-proceeds of the previous night. Likewise, Blind Mary, all day on her stoop in nodding talk with herself, would bring her a scrap of this or that, or the offer of a ‘gill of gin’. Then, nod her way homewards again, scattering with her stick the street urchins who taunted her.
