One Moment from Heaven

By Georgiana Andersen

In the mid-nineteenth century, Maggie O’Fallon’s parents fled the Irish Potato Famine for the gold fields of New Zealand. But when the hardships of frontier life leave Maggie orphaned at the age of thirteen, she finds herself at the mercy of the Catholic Church. She is forced into an orphanage, where for years she endures loneliness and abuse until circumstances leave her no choice but to flee.
Maggie now must find her way in an unforgiving world. She will have to overcome her fears and self-doubt, and find the strength to resist those who seek to corrupt and destroy her. Maggie must decide who she can trust, when it seems that those whom society deem to be the most unworthy may be the only ones who can help her.
As Maggie comes of age in an era of lawlessness she must negotiate many dangers as she tries to survive. When she finds herself drawn to a dangerous frontiersman, Maggie faces a difficult decision. Could he be the greatest threat of all, or the unlikely means to her salvation?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jul 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483432755

Book preview

One

Moment

from

Heaven

Georgiana Andersen

Copyright © 2015 Gina C. Robinson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3276-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3275-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015908952

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 08/07/2015

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty Nine

For my Nana, who taught me the importance of keeping a family’s history alive

And for Craig, the one who has walked beside me all my days

Thank You

Prologue

This land is rife with ghosts. Oh, I reckon no one else can see them; they are my ghosts, after all. But they are here, hanging like shimmering heatwaves over the grassy meadows and among the clusters of lupines. They lurk in ruined doorways and along the stony riverbed. I may have even caught a glimpse of one beside the old Oriental store. In Arrowtown proper, God knows there could be dozens. But I am not concerned with those today. It is the Chinese ghost town that has called me back.

This place is no mere roadside attraction to me.

Ahead of me, a family of sightseers treads heavily along a pathway of packed earth. The mother and father pay cursory attention to crude plaques interspersed along the trail, while three children chase each other, screeching. The children disappear around a bend, taking their noise with them, for which I am thankful.

It is, in the big picture of things, a rather insignificant historical sight, this cluster of ruined structures along the banks of the Arrow River. The river is narrower now than I remember it. But it dances over the stones with the same lyrical voice that I remember from sixty years ago. And the golden chestnut leaves fall silently onto its sparkling surface, just as they did back then. Each drifts lazily downward with a whispered memory, a forgotten secret.

Up ahead, I see the family convene around one of the better-preserved structures. They are titillated to learn from the sign that this was a den of iniquity…a whorehouse and opium den. I drift silently closer to stand unnoticed behind them. Over the gentle tinkling of the stream, even over the noise of the children, I hear the sounds of long ago. Rapid voices in a foreign tongue, the strike of tinder on stone, the deep sigh as smoke is drawn deep into one’s lungs.

Daddy, what’s a prostitute? asks the oldest child. His mother and father exchange evasive smiles above his head.

"A very bad woman," the mother answers, pushing her brood ahead of her down the path. More than half a century later, a cloud of sin still hangs thickly about the place. It’s as if she can smell it in the air.

A bad woman.

Strange, their eyes had met mine as they turned. They smiled politely, showing courtesy to an old woman. How had the watchful mother failed to catch the air of my sins? For surely, I was the unholiest of unholies in my day. A whore, an addict…a murderer. Years and years after I sought to damn myself here, my feet stand upon the same earth.

Only this time, no judging eyes fall upon me.

Not even God sits in judgment on me anymore. I finally made my peace with Him years ago. Now there is another trinity that I hold just as sacred.

Today, I am here to honor the Father—

Not a hundred yards up the path stands the site I have come here to see. I lift my eyes, and they follow the family as they stroll languidly along the riverbank, not even stopping to read the sign in front of the low rock foundation. But I know what it says.

Probable Homesite. It is an unimpressive label for a place that is for me as holy as the grand cathedral in Christchurch. The great spires of that church stretch no nearer to God than the humble chimney stones of this house in ruins. And no priest is more responsible for the salvation of my soul than the ancient man who laid those stones. A man who, though he did not share my God, dragged me from the clutches of a demon who discriminates against no one.

There is no burial ground in this village of stones. No place where I may go to honor him. The Christian cemetery in Arrowtown did not sanctify the burial of the heathen Chinese within its walls. So I bow my head here, in the shadow of a chestnut tree which was but a sapling the last time I stood beneath it.

I left so quickly, in the dark and chaos, all those years ago. There had been no time for words of gratitude. No time—

I never saw the old Chinaman again, though he had once cared for me as no father ever had. Perhaps he died here still as poor as the day he arrived. Or perhaps he tired of the lonely life of the sojourner and returned to the oppressive feudalism of his native land. No doubt he ended his days in far less comfort than I now spend mine. But he is in part responsible for my salvation, and I send heavenward my silent words of thanks. I pray fervently that my words are good enough to reach him, wherever he may be.

Yesterday, I went to the small burial ground in Makarora where my beloved Bryce has slept for these forty years. He was put there too soon, murdered for the cause of trying to save women like me. Although he was a priest in God’s church, I know that he did the work in my name. He offered me a chance to seek forgiveness for my sins, thereby opening for me the doors to Heaven. In my sacred trinity, he is the Son.

Tomorrow, I will make my way somehow to my high mountain meadow. I sense that the end of my days is coming, and I wish to once more read the words on the headstone I planted there six decades ago. I want to gaze for a final time upon the verdant valley strewn with wildflowers, and across to the distant mountains. I want to hear the rushing waters of the mountain stream, and listen to the wind sighing through the fronds of the punga trees. I want to relive that one moment from heaven that I shared with the man who, though he died more than sixty years ago, has walked beside me all my days.

He is the Ghost.

"But Jesus said, suffer little children

and forbid them not,

to come unto Me:

for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven"

Matthew 19:14

Chapter One

I was just a child when it all began. Perhaps that affords me some degree of pardon. There’s no point in lingering too long over the details of my early life. It was a childhood like so many others of that time; countless days of hard work and too many hungry nights. My parents owned a small potato farm, where they toiled to wrest from the foreign soil the only crop they had managed to bring with them from their homeland.

My parents had fled the Irish Potato Famine in 1846 on board a coffin ship, so named because as many as half of the starved passengers died before ever reaching refuge on foreign soil. The floors of the oceans are littered with Irish dead, my father once told me, and it’s British indifference that put them there.

My mother and father arrived in New Zealand with little more than the clothes on their backs, and a great hatred for Mother England. Nonetheless, they were among the lucky ones, those refugees who actually managed to survive the brutal voyage to try to carve out a new life elsewhere. But, already physically depleted, those who arrived to the hard life of the pioneers often had little chance of surviving. The death toll among Irish immigrants in the new world was almost as high as it had been during the Famine back home.

We buried my mother when I was five. A hard winter finally took her, and we laid her in the ground at first thaw. The next day, Father loaded the wagon, and we left our small scrap of land behind us. To my brother and me he offered only one curt sentence of explanation.

Can’t work a farm without a woman.

And so, we set out for the southland, and the promise of rivers choked with gold. My father was no better miner than he was farmer. We had no permanent claim, only a series of camps on the banks of rivers whose names still ring cold in my ears. Manuherikia, Tuapeka, Clutha, frigid waters that swelled in the spring, and later receded to leave sodden banks upon which I must try to raise my miserable chickens and withered vegetables. My brother hunted fowl, and walked for miles over the plains in search of wood for our cookfires. My father panned the rushing rivers, and looked for peace in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

We were Irish refugees, like thousands of others of our kind scattered across the earth. Whether we were better or worse off than our brethren, I do not know. We were the people, gaunt and dirty-faced, that passersby looked upon with small pitying smiles; a curiosity to those better off, on their way to the civilized streets of Queenstown or Dunedin. How many times have I heard the words, "How can they live like that? So sad, those poor children—" They offered their pity for free, but none ever stopped to offer a loaf of bread or a worn out pair of shoes for small, freezing feet.

For eight years after my mother’s death, we survived along the banks of those rivers, until one morning, I think it was September, eighteen sixty-three. It was a cold morning, with the promise of the end of winter belated in its fulfillment. Frost rose from my breath inside our canvas tent, where I lay curled beside my brother under a pile of scratchy woolen blankets. Wanting to steal a few more moments of sleep, but annoyed by a full bladder, I rose. In haste I pulled on every article of clothing I possessed, and pushed aside the canvas flap. Outside, five paces away, our father lay outstretched upon the discolored snow.

Colin, I called softly.

In a moment, my brother stood beside me. He sucked in his breath quietly, and laid a hand upon my arm, bidding me to stay put. His feet crunched upon the snow, until he knelt beside our father. From the frozen hand he pulled an empty flask. Finishing the last of his whiskey, my father had simply lay down in the snow, and died.

We stayed there until the ground began to thaw, rationing the last of our stores of food, and going to bed most nights with a gnawing hunger in our bellies. We buried our father in October, in a shallow grave marked only by a cross of twigs. We shed no tears for a man whom whiskey had made a stranger to us.

What will we do now? I asked my brother.

His silence did little to comfort me, as he chewed his lip and studied my father’s grave. When finally he spoke, he did not meet my eyes. Don’t worry, he said, I know.

What an adventure it might have been, two children embarking on such a journey. We knew only to head south, following the wagon trains of the gold rush. Alone, we fared better than we had in our father’s care, at times even being drawn into the circle of an evening campfire, given a cup of steaming soup which warmed both belly and soul. Sometimes we had the good fortune of finding a traveling ministry, to which we would attach ourselves. We had never read a bible, and had seldom been inside a proper church. But we were Irish Catholics, and our belief in the Church was strong. We had almost no possessions to our name, but we had our faith.

For weeks our feet followed the deep wagon ruts, until finally on the horizon, the Remarkables soared above the surrounding land. The mountains beckoned to us, swore to us that at their feet rested that new city of promise, Queenstown. For months, we had listened to the excited talk of passersby. We had envied them the good fortune that awaited them there, in the city on the lake, where miners poured in from their claims, eager to spend their pots of gold. So much gold was there in Queenstown, that her residents had naught to do but dance in the streets till dawn, and fireworks nightly colored the sky. As the mountains drew closer, I felt my child’s heart quicken. Finally, an escape from the drudgery that had been my life! There, in that gem of a city, life for my brother and me would begin anew.

For three days, we walked with the mountains all the while swelling in our sight. On the fourth day, the first scents of the city assaulted our nostrils; the smell of smoke and manure. Nearing the town limits, our stream of travelers joined dozens of others approaching from every direction, as tiny tributaries join a river. And, like a might river we flooded into Queenstown, my brother and I swept along in the tide of humanity. Colin pulled me forward by the hand, both of us jogging now, eagerly rushing toward the better future that surely awaited us.

Never before had we seen such sights as those that assailed our eyes from every direction. Buildings two and even three stories tall lined congested streets, where carriages hurried past with their cargo of fine passengers. I marveled at the women finely attired in streetlength gowns, their waists drawn in so small that a man’s hands could have easily spanned them. A child my age brushed past me on the walkway, and I stared at her with my mouth agape. Her golden hair bounced in ringlets to her waist, and her feet tripped daintily along in shiny black shoes. Once again I was the dirty beggar child, digging my bare feet into the dust as if to hide them from view. My brother glanced at me and then seized my hand. Come on! There was excitement, or perhaps impatience, in his voice.

He was two years older than me, my brother, and I trusted him completely. I was happy to leave the worrying to him as I stared all around in wonder. I gripped his hand tightly as we threaded our way through the streets. My brother seemed to know exactly where he was going. Above the din, it would have been difficult to speak, so I didn’t ask him where we were headed. Colin spotted a white weatherboard building, and without warning he pulled me out of the stream of human traffic, and into the building’s quiet sanctitude. The sudden silence was startling, and I looked questioningly at him. He gestured for me to be quiet, even as he directed me into a wooden pew at the back of the church.

Stay here, Colin ordered, and walked up the center aisle.

Muted sunlight poured in through colored windows, casting myriad patterns on the polished wooden floor. I let my eyes rest on each window in turn, until they reached the front of the church. There, hanging on a wooden cross, was a life-sized, crucified Jesus. Never before had I seen him in such detail. The thought entered my mind that perhaps this was the real Jesus, and that in his proximity he would surely be able to sense my sins. Frightened, I dropped to my knees and bowed my head, where I remained quivering until my brother laid his hand upon my shoulder. He knitted his brow at me in question, and then turned to raise his hand toward an old man sweeping the altar. Thanks, my brother said, and the old man nodded silently. Relieved to be free from Christ’s silent scrutiny, I rose and followed my brother from the church.

We walked in silence for awhile, through streets not quite so crowded. Colin’s grip upon my hand was no longer hard, but almost tender as he led me along. He studied landmarks as we passed, and I realized that the old man must have given him directions to somewhere. The firm set of his jaw, and his quiet manner discouraged me from asking where.

I could not read the words above the iron gate through which we finally passed. Again I saw the crossed boards of the crucifix, though, this time, thankfully, no Jesus dripping blood. The place was painfully silent, but I caught fleeting glimpses of pale faces peering out through thick paned windows. Dark timber walls loomed quietly over me as we climbed hard steps toward a massive wooden door. I tilted my head back to look up at a steeple with a gold cross that seemed to puncture the sky. Feeling the eyes of God upon me once again, I quickly ducked my head. My brother pulled a rope, and deep within the bowels of the building, a bell pealed its deep, somber tones. I pressed closer to Colin.

With a groan, the door swung inward on massive hinges, and a woman looked wordlessly out at us. Her dark eyes peered out from under a heavy, black veil and flickered quickly over us, taking in our ragged clothes, our bony limbs and muddy, blistered feet. Without a word, she gestured us inside. After a quick, uneasy glance at each other, my brother and I followed her down a hollow, echoing hallway. We stopped in front of a door, and I studied the unreadable words upon frosted glass as the woman leaned around the door. In muted tones she spoke to someone within. Excuse me Father Lawrence, there are some children here. Waifs, I should say. She pushed the door open wider and ushered us inside. The door clicked shut behind her as she left.

The man seated behind a large desk wore the dark clothes and Roman collar of a priest. No smile or hint of kindness crossed his thin face as he studied my brother and me with small, gray eyes. I squirmed in the silence, until the man finally spoke.

Yes?

Our name is O’Fallon, sir, my brother said, with a forced confidence that I could tell he did not feel. Colin and Magdalene O’Fallon. He stopped after this pronouncement, as if these words would suffice. They did not.

You’re Irish, the priest stated. For a while he continued to study us, his face devoid of expression. Finally he said, I suppose you think you might find shelter here?

Oh, no sir, Colin said in haste. Not me, sir, I’m goin’ to find work in the goldfields. Just my sister—

And how old is she? the man interrupted.

My heart pounded in my chest. ‘Surely,’ I thought, ‘surely my brother doesn’t mean what he’s saying!’

She’s thirteen, sir.

Thirteen! The incredulous reply came, as if my age were somehow a crime. At thirteen she can find work as a domestic servant.

She cannot read or write, sir, Colin said quietly.

Those things are not required for domestic service.

"I want her to learn to read and write, Colin said, for the first time looking the imposing man in the eye. She has as much right to learn as anyone else, Irish or no."

That she’s Irish has nothing to do with it! the priest boomed. You had better mind your manners, boy, when you come begging for charity!

I shrunk against my brother in fear, but Colin stood his ground. He and the man stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

We’re orphans, sir, my brother finally said. Our people’re all back in Ireland. We’ve got nowhere else to go.

The priest considered this with no sign of compassion. She can stay here until her sixteenth birthday, he said finally, and not a day longer.

At this, my head whipped up and my frightened eyes flew from the priest to my brother. ‘No, don’t leave me here!’ I silently pleaded.

My brother met my gaze for only a moment, before dropping his eyes to the floor. Thank you, he said quietly.

Say your good-byes in the hall, he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

I followed my brother from the room. In the empty corridor, Colin and I eyed each other uneasily. At last, I looked away, shaking my head slowly in disbelief. "I can’t…I can’t believe you’re doing this."

Maggie, please, my brother said, turning to place his hands upon my shoulders. He bent his head low to look into my downcast eyes. You’ve got to believe me when I say that this is much better for you than going to work in some hotel or—

"But why won’t you take me with you?"

With a resigned sigh, he dropped his hands to his sides. The goldfields are no place for a child.

You’re only two years older than me.

Yes, but I have no choice, have I? Sadness hid behind the exasperation in his voice. I have to work to save money for us both. As soon as I can buy some land, I’ll come back for you. Half a year, a year at the most.

I did not reply, but turned my back to him and leaned, defeated, against a cold wall.

You know I’ll come back for you, Maggie. The sentence hung in the air like a question, to which again I did not reply. After a few moments, Colin bent to kiss the top of my bowed head, then turned and walked quickly down the corridor.

After a moment, I spun and ran after him. I choked out his name as he reached the entrance door.

Colin!

He was almost outside the building, but he turned at the sound of my voice. Our eyes locked for a final moment. But there was nothing left to say. Silently, my brother pushed open the heavy wooden door, and was gone.

Chapter Two

I believe that the day that my brother abandoned me was the very day that began my journey toward damnation, although some might say it was much later, when I left the Sisters of Mercy. For certain, my childhood ended that day with as much finality as the closing of the door between my brother and me. From then on, I was a prisoner, not only of the convent, but of that judgmental God who watched me, tallying my sins and ensuring that my road into Heaven would be a long, and by no means certain one.

The Sisters of Mercy convent was first and foremost a staging place for the missionaries to the far south. That the home was also burdened with the likes of us, foundlings and orphans, was a fact that the Sisters and Father Lawrence tolerated with obvious reluctance. Though they dispatched missionaries to creep eagerly ever further into the godless forests, gathering new souls for their Lord’s rosters with fervor, they were not so enthusiastic when it came to nurturing the troubled souls of their own unfortunate children. We were already spoken for, already claimed for God Almighty, already beneficiaries of His infinite mercy. Our souls weighed in with little value when compared with the worth of the newly redeemed, whom the missionaries could proudly add to the lists they returned to the Church of Rome. We were no asset, certainly, but rather a liability to be borne with fortitude by the Merciful Sisters. Oh and how we knew it.

My first days at the convent blended into weeks, and stretched into months, while my ridiculous hopes of a glorious new life receded further into obscurity. Clearly, I was never meant for the privileged days of the children I glimpsed from time to time outside the iron gates. I hated my brother for abandoning me, and yet I counted the days until he would come back for me, making little ticks in the floorboard beside my bed. I could not read or write, nor scarcely count, but each tick felt as if it brought me one day closer to his return. He could not know how I suffered here, I reasoned, wanting to forgive him.

And suffer I did, though at first no more so than the others. My days were spent in an endless struggle to stay one step ahead of damnation. It seemed that no sooner had I received weekly forgiveness in the confessional than I fell into sin again. Reconciliation was offered only on Saturdays, so any wrongdoing in between time had to be dealt with by God’s handmaidens, the sisters. They were devoted to this task, diligently meting out their own version of penance with the stiff leather tawse that each of them carried wherever she went.

I, at thirteen one of the oldest at the orphanage, assumed the impossible task of mothering the little ones. It was a job for which I was ill suited, long motherless myself, but which I nonetheless embraced gladly. I found that the cold and loneliness could be kept at bay while I cradled these tinier, sadder versions of myself. I held them to my flat bosom, two and three at a time, and thought, ‘Alone, but not alone as long as I have you.’

By the summer of my fourteenth year I had settled in to the routine of life at the convent. Each morning we rose to the sound of a rattan cane being dragged along the wrought iron footboards of our row of cots. We were expected to be on our feet in an instant, our nightdresses adjusted and our hair tucked tidily under our caps. To be the last child to rise was to ensure a stroke of the cane to start the day.

Magdalene O’Fallon, do you know that sloth is a mortal sin? Sister Roberta said to me one Sunday morning as she delivered a stinging blow to my bare leg. Why is it that you are nearly always the last to rise?

‘Because I would rather take your abuse than see you inflict it on the little ones,’ I thought.

I’m sorry, Sister, I said. I stood beside my bed with my eyes lowered, hoping that my contrite manner would diffuse her anger.

Sister looked at me with hard eyes. Prayers, girls, she said.

We dropped to our knees in unison to recite the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary. I clasped my hands and bowed my head in earnest. Perhaps if God saw how hard I was trying to be good, He would help to steer me clear of trouble for the coming week.

Ten minutes to dress and wash, then to the chapel for mass, Sister Roberta barked. She paced the narrow aisle between our rows of beds as we changed from our nightgowns into our gray muslin dresses. Her hard eyes raked over our half naked bodies, causing my cheeks to burn with shame. I held my dress close to my chest, certain that she would see the slight rounding of my breasts as something indecent.

In single file with our hands clasped behind our backs, we made our way to the chapel. Here we met Father Lawrence