Outside the poor round of diversions afforded by the valley and her
meetings with Ulick Shannon, the days passed uneventfully for Rebecca
Kerr. It was a dreary kind of life, wherein she was concerned to avoid
as far as possible the fits of depression which sprang out of the
quality of her lodgings at Sergeant McGoldrick's.
She snatched a hasty breakfast early in the mornings, scarcely ever
making anything like a meal. When she did it was always followed
by a feeling of nausea as she went on The Road of the Dead towards
the valley school. When she returned after her day's hard work her
dinner would be half cold and unappetizing by the red ashy fire. Mrs.
McGoldrick would be in the sitting-room, where she made clothes for the
children, the sergeant himself probably digging in the garden before
the door, his tunic open, his face sweating, and the dirty clay upon
his big boots.... He was always certain to shout out some idiotic
salutation as she passed in. Then Mrs. McGoldrick would be sure to
follow her into the kitchen, a baby upon her left arm and a piece of
soiled sewing in her right hand. She was always concerned greatly about
the number at school on any particular day, and how Mrs. Wyse was and
Miss McKeon, and how the average was keeping up, and if it did not keep
up to a certain number would Mrs. Wyse's salary be reduced, and what
was the average required for Miss McKeon to get her salary from the
Board, and so on.
Sometimes Rebecca would be so sick at heart of school affairs and of
this mean, prying woman that no word would come from her, and Mrs.
McGoldrick would drift huffily away, her face a perfect study in
disappointment. And against those there were times when Rebecca, with
a touch of good humor, would tell the most fantastical stories of
inspectors and rules and averages and increments and pensions, Mrs.
McGoldrick breathless between her "Well, wells!" of amazement.... Then
Rebecca would have a rare laugh to herself as she pictured her landlady
repeating everything to the sergeant, who would make mental comparisons
the while of the curious correspondence existing between those pillars
of law and learning, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the National
Teachers of Ireland.
Next day, perhaps, Mrs. McGoldrick would enlarge upon the excellent and
suitable match a policeman and a teacher make, and how it is such a
general thing throughout the country. She always concluded a discourse
of this nature by saying a thing she evidently wished Rebecca to
remember:
"Let me tell you this, now--a policeman is the very best match that any
girl can make!"
And big louts of young constables would be jumping off high bicycles
and calling in the evenings.... This was at the instigation of Mrs.
McGoldrick, but they made no impression whatsoever upon Rebecca, even
when they arrived in mufti.
In school the ugly, discolored walls which had been so badly
distempered by Ned Brennan; the monotony of the maps and desks; the
constant sameness of the children's faces. All this was infinitely
wearying, but a more subtle and powerful torment arose beyond the hum
of the children learning by heart. Rebecca always became aware of it
through a burning feeling at the back of her neck. Glancing around
she would see that, although presumably intent upon their lessons,
many eyes were upon her, peering furtively from behind their books,
observing her, forming opinions of her, and concocting stories to tell
their parents when they went home. For this was considered an essential
part of their training--the proper satisfaction of their elders'
curiosity. It was one of the reasons why the bigger girls were sent to
school. They escaped the drudgery of house and farm because they were
able to return with fresh stories from the school every evening. Thus
were their faculties for lying and invention brought into play. They
feared Mrs. Wyse, and so these faculties came to be trained in full
strength upon Rebecca. As she moved about the school-room, she was made
the constant object of their scrutiny. They would stare at her with
their mean, impudent eyes above the top edges of their books. Then they
would withdraw them behind the opened pages and sneer and concoct. And
it was thus the forenoon would pass until the half-hour allowed for
recreation, when she would be thrown back upon the company of Mrs. Wyse
and Monica McKeon. No great pleasure was in store for her here, for
their conversation was always sure to turn upon the small affairs of
the valley.
There was something so ingenuous about the relations of Rebecca and
Ulick Shannon that neither of the two women had the courage to comment
upon the matter openly. But the method they substituted was a greater
torture. In the course of half an hour they would suggest a thousand
hateful things.
"I heard Ulick Shannon was drunk last night, and having arguments with
people in Garradrimna," Miss McKeon would say.
Mrs. Wyse would snatch up the words hastily. "Is that so? Oh, he's
going to the bad. He'll never pass his exams, never!"
"Isn't it funny how his uncle does not keep better control of him. Why
he lets him do what he likes?"
"Control, is it? It doesn't look much like control indeed to see him
encouraging his dead brother's son to keep the company he favors.
Indeed and indeed it gives me a kind of a turn when I see him going
about with Nan Byrne's son, young John Brennan, who's going on to be
a priest. Well, I may tell you that it is 'going on' he is, for his
mother as sure as you're there'll never see him saying his first Mass.
Now I suppose the poor rector of the college in England where he is
hasn't a notion of his antecedents. The cheek of it indeed! But what
else could you expect from the likes of Nan Byrne? Indeed I have a good
mind to let the ecclesiastical authorities know all, and if nothing
turns up from the Hand of God to right the matter, sure I'll have to do
it myself. Bedad then I will!"
"Musha, the same John Brennan doesn't look up to much, and they say
Ulick Shannon can wind him around his little finger. He'll maybe make a
_lad_ of him before the end of the summer holidays."
"I can't understand Myles Shannon letting them go about together so
openly unless he's enjoying the whole thing as a sneer. But it would
be more to his credit indeed to have found other material for his fun
than a blood relation. I'm surprised at him indeed, and he knowing what
he knows about Nan Byrne and his brother Henry."
With slight variations of this theme falling on her ears endlessly
Rebecca was compelled to endure the torture of this half hour every
day. No matter what took place in the valley Monica would manage,
somehow, to drag the name of Ulick into it. If it merely happened to
be a copy of the _Irish Independent_ they were looking at, and if they
came upon some extraordinary piece of news, Monica would say:
"Just like a thing that Ulick Shannon would do, isn't it?"
And if they came across a photo in the magazine section, Monica would
say again:
"Now wouldn't you imagine that gentleman has a look of Ulick Shannon?"
Rebecca had become so accustomed to all this that, overleaping its
purpose, it ceased to have any considerable effect upon her. She had
begun to care too much for Ulick to show her affection in even the
glimpse of an aspect to the two who were trying to discover her for the
satisfaction of their spite. It was thus that she remained a puzzle to
her colleagues, and Monica in particular was at her wit's end to know
what to think. At the end of the half hour she was always in a deeper
condition of defeat than before it began, and went out to the Boys'
School with only one idea warming her mind, that, some day, she might
have the great laugh at Rebecca Kerr. She knew that it is not possible
for a woman to hide her feelings forever, even though she thought
this one cute surely, cute beyond all the suggestion of her innocent
exterior.
Towards the end of each day Rebecca was thrown altogether with the
little ones who, despite all the entreaties of their parents, had not
yet come very far away from Heaven. She found great pleasure in their
company and in their innocent stories. For example:
"Miss Kerr, I was in the wood last night. With the big bear and the
little bear in the wood. I went into the wood, and there was the big
bear walking round and round the wood after the little bear, and the
big bear was walking round and round the wood."
"I was in America last night, and I saw all the motor cars ever were,
and people riding on horses, and the highest, whitest buildings ever
were, and people going to Mass--big crowds of people going to Mass."
"My mammy brought me into the chapel last night, and I saw God. I was
talking to God and He was asking me about you. I said: 'Miss Kerr is
nice, so she is.' I said this to God, but God did not answer me. I
asked God again did He know Miss Kerr who teaches in the valley school,
and He said He did, and I said again: 'Miss Kerr is nice, so she is.'
But He went away and did not answer me."
Rebecca would enter into their innocence and so experience the happiest
hours of the day.
She would be recalled from her rapt condition by the harsh voice of
Mrs. Wyse shouting an order to one of the little girls in her class,
this being a hint that she herself was not attending to her business.
But soon the last blessed period of the day would come, the half hour
devoted to religious instruction. She found a pleasure in this task,
for she loved to hear the little children at their prayers. Sometimes
she would ask them to say for her the little prayer she had taught them:
"O God, I offer up this prayer for the poor intentions of Thy servant
Rebecca Kerr, that they may be fulfilled unto the glory of Thy Holy
Will. And that being imperfect, she may approach to Thy Perfection
through the Grace and Mercy of Jesus Christ, Our Lord."
She would feel a certain happiness for a short space after this, at
least while the boisterous business of taking leave of the school was
going forward. But once upon the road she would be meeting people who
always stared at her strangely, and passing houses with squinting
windows.... Then would come a heavy sense of depression, which might be
momentarily dispelled by the appearance of John Brennan either coming
or going upon the road. For a while she had considered this happening
coincidental, but of late it had been borne in upon her that it was
very curious he should appear daily at the same time.... The silly
boy, and he with his grand purpose before him.... She would smile upon
him very pleasantly, and fall into chat sometimes, but only for a few
minutes. She looked upon herself as being ever so much wiser. And she
thought it queer that he should find an attraction for his eyes in her
form as it moved before him down the road. She always fancied that she
felt low and mean within herself while his eyes were upon her.... But
he would be forever coming out of his mother's cottage to meet her
thus upon the road.
After dinner in the house of Sergeant McGoldrick she would betake
herself to her little room. It would be untidy after the hurry in which
she had left it, and now she would set about putting it to rights.
This would occupy her half an hour or more. Then there would be a few
letters to be written, to her people away in Donegal and to some of
the companions of her training college days. She kept up a more or
less regular correspondence with about half-a-dozen of these girls.
Her letters were all after the frivolous style of their schooldays. To
all of them she imparted the confidence that she had met "a very nice
fellow" here in Garradrimna, but that the place was so lonely, and how
there was "nothing like a girl friend."
"Ah, Anna," she would write, or "Lily" or "Lena," "There's surely
nothing after all like a girl friend."
After tea she would put on one of her tidiest hats, and taking the
letters with her go towards the Post Office of Garradrimna. This was a
torture, for always the eyes of the old, bespectacled maid were upon
her, looking into her mind, as she stood waiting for her stamps outside
the ink-stained counter. And, further, she always felt that the doors
and windows of the village were forever filled with eyes as she went
by them. Her neck and face would burn until she took the road that led
out past the old castle of the De Lacys. There was a footpath which
took one to the west gate of the demesne of the Moores. The Honorable
Reginald Moore was the modern lord of Garradrimna. It was this way she
would go, meeting all kinds of stragglers from the other end of the
parish. People she did not know and who did not know her, queer, dark
men coming into Garradrimna through the high evening in quest of porter.
"Fine evening, miss!" they would say.
Once on the avenue her little walk became a golden journey for Ulick
always met her when she came this way. It was their custom to meet here
or on The Road of the Dead. But this was their favorite spot, where
the avenue led far into the quiet woods. A scurrying-away of rabbits
through the undergrowth would announce their approach to one another.
Many were the happy talks they had here, of books and of decent life
beyond the boorishness of Garradrimna. She had given him _The Poems of
Tennyson_ in exchange for _The Daffodil Fields_. Tastefully illuminated
in red ink on the fly-leaf he had found her "favorite lines" from
Tennyson, whom she considered "exquisite":
"Glitter like a storm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."
"Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of
the fool."
"Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips."
These had made him smile, and then he did not read any more of
Tennyson.... He was fond of telling her about the younger Irish poets
and of quoting passages from their poems. Now it would be a line or so
from Colum or Stephens, again a verse from Seumas O'Sullivan or Joseph
Campbell. Continually he spoke with enthusiasm of the man they called
Æ.... She found it difficult to believe that such men could be living
in Ireland at the present time.
"And would you see them about Dublin?"
"Yes, you'd see them often."
"_Real_ poets?"
"Real poets surely. But of course they have earthly interests as well.
One is a farmer--"
"A farmer!!!"
This she found it hardest of all to believe, for the word "farmer" made
her see so clearly the sullen men with the dirty beards who came in the
white roads every evening to drink in Garradrimna. There was no poetry
in them.
Often they would remain talking after this fashion until night had
filled up all the open spaces of the woods. They would feel so far
away from life amid the perfect stillness.... Their peace was rudely
shattered one night by a sudden breaking away from them through the
withered branches.... Instantly Ulick knew that this was some loafer
sent to spy on them from Garradrimna, and Rebecca clung to him for
protection.
Occasionally through the summer a lonely wailing had been heard in the
woods of Garradrimna at the fall of night. Men drinking in the pubs
would turn to one another and say:
"The Lord save us! Is that the _Banshee_ I hear crying for one of the
Moores? She cries like that always when one of them dies, they being a
noble family. Maybe the Honorable Reginald is after getting his death
at last in some whore-house in London."
"Arrah not at all, man, sure that's only Anthony Shaughness and he
going crying through the woods for drink, the poor fellow!"
But the sound had ceased to disturb them for Anthony Shaughness had
found an occupation at last. This evening he came running down from
the woods into McDermott's bar, the loose soles of his boots slapping
against the cobbles of the yard. Josie Guinan went up to him excitedly
when he entered.
"Well?" This in a whisper as their heads came close together over the
counter.
"Gimme a drink? I'm choked with the running, so I am!"
"Tell me did you see them first, or not a sup you'll get. Don't be so
smart now, Anthony Shaughness!"
"Oh, I saw them all right. Gimme the drink?"
She filled the drink, making it overflow the glass in her hurry.
"Well?"
"Bedad I saw them all right. Heard every word they were saying, so I
did, and everything! It was the devil's father to find them, so it was,
they were that well hid in the woods.... Gimme another sup, Josie?"
"Now, Anthony?"
"Ah, but you don't know all I have to tell ye!"
Again she overflowed the glass in her mounting excitement.
"Well?"