Next day Ulick Shannon made a call upon John Brennan and invited him
for a drive. Outside upon the road Charlie Clarke's motor was snorting
and humming. Ulick had learned to drive a car in Dublin, and had now
hired Mr. Clarke's machine for the day.
"You see," he said airily, "that I have dispensed with the
sanctimonious Charlie and am driving myself. Meaning no respect to you,
Brennan, one approach to a priest is as much as I can put up with at a
time."
Mrs. Brennan had come to the window, which looked out upon the little
garden wicket by which they were standing.... Her eyes were dancing and
wild thoughts were rushing into her mind.... Here, at last, was the
achieved disaster and the sight her eyes had most dreaded to see--her
son and the son of Henry Shannon talking together as brothers.
An ache that was akin to hunger seemed to have suddenly attacked her.
Her lips became parched and dry and her jaws went through the actions
of swallowing although there was nothing in her mouth. Then she felt
herself being altogether obliterated as she stood there by the window.
She was like a wounded bird that had broken itself in an attempt to
attain to the sunlight beyond.... And to think that it had fallen at
last, this shadow of separation from her lovely son. John came to the
door and called in:
"I'm going for a drive in the motor with Mr. Shannon, mother."
These were his very words, and they caused her to move away towards
the sewing-room with the big tears gathering into her eyes. From her
seat she saw her son take up his proud position by the side of Ulick
Shannon. There was something for you, now! Her son driving in a motor
car with a young man who was going on to be a doctor, in the high noon
of a working day, all down through the valley of Tullahanogue. If only
it happened to be with any other one in the whole world. What would
all the people say but what they must say?... She saw the two students
laughing just before the car started as if some joke had suddenly
leaped into being between them.
Ned Brennan came into the room. He had been making an effort to do
something in the garden when the car had distracted him from his task.
Well, that was what you might call a grand thing! While he was here
digging in his drought, his son, I thank ye, going off to drive in a
motor with a kind of a gentleman. His mind went swiftly moving towards
a white heat of temper which must be eventually cooled in the black
pools of Garradrimna. He came into the room, a great blast of a man in
his anger, his boots heavy with the clay of the garden.
"Well, be the Holy Farmer! that's the grand turn-out!... But sure
they're a kind of connections, don't you know, and I suppose 'tis only
natural?"
Great God! He had returned again to this, and to the words she feared
most of all to hear falling from his mouth.
"A curious attraction, don't you know, that the breed of the Byrnes
always had for the breed of the Shannons. Eh, Nan?"
Mrs. Brennan said nothing. It had been the way with her that she felt
a certain horror of Ned when he came to her in this state, but now she
was being moved by a totally different feeling. She was not without a
kind of pity for him as she suddenly realized once more how she had
done him a terrible and enduring injury.... As he stood there glowering
down upon her he was of immense bulk and significance. If he struck her
now she would not mind in the least.
"And they're like one another too, them two chaps, as like as brothers.
And mebbe they are brothers. Eh, Nan, eh; what happened the child
you had for Henry Shannon? It died, did it? Why 'tis only the other
night that Larry Cully came at me again about it in Garradrimna. 'I
see you have your sons home about you,' says he, 'and that must be
the great comfort to a man, your son John,' says he, 'and your son
Ulick. Maybe ye never heard tell,' says he, 'that Grace Gogarty's child
died young and that Henry Shannon bought his other son from his other
mother-in-law to prevent it being a rising disgrace to him. Bought it
for a small sum,' says he, 'and put it in the place of his lawful son,
and his wife never suspected anything until the day she died, poor
woman; for she was to be pitied, having married such a blackguard.' Is
that true, is it, Nan?"
Oh, Blessed Mother! this was even more terrible than the suspicion
Marse Prendergast had put upon her. It seemed less of a crime that
the little innocent babe should have been murdered in this house
and buried in the garden than that her old, dead mother should have
sold it to Henry Shannon. And how was she to know? Twenty-five years
had passed since that time when she had been at Death's door, nor
realizing anything.... And her mother had never told her.... It would
be strange if she had gone digging at any time for the tiny bones of
the little infant that had never been baptized. People passing the
road might suspect her purpose and say hard things.... But sure they
said hard things of her still after all the years. It was dreadful to
think how any one could concoct a lie like this, and that no one could
forget. Old Marse Prendergast knew well. Deep in her wicked mind, for
twenty-five years, the secret had been hidden. It was a torture to
think of the way she would be hinting at it forever.... And just quite
recently she had threatened to tell John.
Bit by bit was being erected in her mind the terrible speculation as
to what really was the truth and the full extent of her sin. Yet it
was not a thing she could set about making inquiries after.... She
wondered and wondered did Myles Shannon, the uncle of Ulick, know the
full truth. Why did not her husband drop that grimy, powerful hand? Her
breasts craved its blow now, even as they had yearned long ago for the
fumbling of the little, blind mouth.
But he was merely asking her for money to buy drink for himself in
Garradrimna. Hitherto this request had always given her pain, but now,
somehow, it came differently to her ears. There was no hesitation on
her part, no making of excuses. She went upstairs to the box which held
her most dear possession--the money she had saved so well through all
the years for the fitting-out of Ned to go proudly with her to attend
the ordination of their son John. She opened the box with the air of
one doing a deliberate thing. The money, which amounted in all to about
five pounds, was still in the form in which she had managed to scrape
it together. In notes and gold and silver, and even copper. Before this
it would have appeared as a sacrilege on her part to have touched a
penny of it, but now she had no thought of this kind. Ned wanted the
money to purchase the means of forgetfulness of the great injury she
had done him.
She counted thirty pennies, one by one, into the pocket of her apron.
This seemed the least suspicious way of giving it to him, for he had
still no idea that she could have any little store laid by. It was
hardly possible when one considered how much he drank upon her in the
village.
She came down the stairs in silence, and spoke no word to him as she
handed over the money. His lips seemed to split into a sort of sneer
as he took it from her. Then he went out the door quickly and down the
white road toward Garradrimna.
For the admiration and surprise of John Brennan, Ulick Shannon had
been displaying his skill with the wheel. Soon the white, tidy houses
beyond the valley were whizzing past and they were running down the
easy road which led into the village of Ballinamult. They had moved in
a continuous cloud of dust from Tullahanogue.
Ulick said he was choked with dust as he brought the car to a
standstill outside the "North Leinster Arms." He marched deliberately
into the public bar, and John Brennan followed after with less sure
footsteps, for it was his first appearance in a place of this kind.
There was a little, plump girl standing up on a chair rearranging the
bottles of whiskey and dusting the shelves.
Ulick would seem to have already visited this tavern, for he addressed
the girl rather familiarly as "Mary Essie." She looked at the young
man impudently as she wheeled around to exhibit herself to the best
advantage. Ulick leaned his elbows upon the low counter and gazed
towards her with his deep, dark eyes. Some quite unaccountable thing
caused John Brennan to blush, but he noticed that the girl was not
blushing. She was more brazenly forcing her body into exhibition.
Ulick called for a drink, whatever his friend Brennan would have, and
a bottle of Bass for himself. It appeared a little wrong to John that
he should be about to partake of a drink in a pub., for the "North
Leinster Arms" was nothing more than a sufficiently bad public-house.
He had a sudden recollection of having once been given cakes and sweets
in an evil-smelling tap-room one day he had gone with his mother
long ago to Mullaghowen. He thought of the kind of wine he had been
given that day and immediately the name was forced to his lips by the
thought--"Port wine!"
When the barmaid turned around to fill their drinks the young men had
a view of the curves of her body. John Brennan was surprised to find
himself dwelling upon them in the intense way of his friend.
Before they left Ulick had many drinks of various kinds, and it was
interesting to observe how he expanded with their influence. He began
to tell "smutty" stories to Mary Essie. She listened with attention.
No blush came into her face, and her glad neck looked brazen.... John
Brennan felt himself swallowing great gulps of disgust.... His training
had led him to associate the female form with the angelic form coming
down from Heaven. Yet here was something utterly different.... A vulgar
girl, with fat, round hands and big breasts, her lips red as a recent
wound in soft flesh, and looking lonely.
He was glad when they regained the sunlight, yet the day was of such
a character as creates oppression by the very height of its splendor.
Ulick was in such a mood for talk that they had almost forgotten the
luncheon-basket at the back of the car.
Beyond Ballinamult they stopped again where the ruins of a moldering
Abbey lay quietly surrounded by a circle of furze-covered hills....
Ulick expanded still further with the meal, yet his discourse still ran
along the old trail. He was favoring his friend with a sketch of his
life, and it seemed to be made up largely of the women he had known
in Dublin. Quite suddenly he said what seemed to John a very terrible
thing:
"I have learned a lot from them, and let me tell you this--it has been
my experience that you could not trust your own mother or the girl of
your heart. They seem to lack control, even the control of religion.
They do not realize religion at all. They are creatures of impulse."
Here was a sentiment that questioned the very fact of existence....
It seemed dreadful to connect the triumph of love and devotion that
was his mother with this consequent suggestion of the failure of
existence.... Together they went across the grassy distance towards
the crumbling ruin wherein the good monks of old had lived and prayed.
And surely, he thought, the great spirit of holiness which had led
men hither to spend their lives in penance and good works could not
have departed finally from this quiet place, nor from the green fields
beyond the rim of furze-covered hills.
Yet upon his ears were falling the even, convincing tones of Ulick
Shannon, still speaking cynically.
"Behold," he was saying, "that it is to this place the younger
generation throng on the Sabbath. Around you, upon the ruined and bare
walls, you will observe not pious words, but the coupled names of those
who have come here to sin."
"And look at this!" he exclaimed, picking from a niche in the wall
a long shin bone of one of the ancient monks, which possessed the
reputed power of cures and miracles. For a moment he examined it with a
professional eye, then handed it to John Brennan. There were two names
scribbled upon it in pencil, and beneath them a lewd expression. Ulick
had only laid hands upon it by the merest accident, but it immediately
gave body to all the airy ideas he had been putting forth. There was
something so greatly irreverent in the appearance of this accidental
piece of evidence that no argument could be put forward against it. It
was terrible and conclusive.
The evening was far advanced when John Brennan returned home. His
mother and father were seated in the kitchen. His father was drunk,
and she was reading him a holy story, with an immeasurable feeling of
despondence in her tones. John became aware of this as he entered the
house.