The summer was beginning to wane, August having sped to its end. The
schools had given vacation, and Rebecca Kerr had gone away from the
valley to Donegal. Ulick Shannon had returned to Dublin. This was
the uneventful season in the valley. Mrs. Brennan, finding little to
talk about, had grown quiet in herself. Ned had taken his departure
to Ballinamult, where he was engaged in putting some lead upon the
roof of the police-barracks. He was drinking to his heart's content,
she knew, and would come home to her without a penny saved against
his long spell of idleness or the coming rigors of the winter. But
she was thankful for the present that he had removed himself from the
presence of his son. It was not good for such a son to be compelled
to look upon such a father. She had prayed for this blessing and lo!
it had come. And it extended further. Ulick Shannon too was gone from
the valley, and so she was no longer annoyed by seeing him in company
with her son. Their friendship had progressed through the months of
July and August, and she was aware that they had been seen together
many times in Garradrimna. She did not know the full truth but, as on
the first occasion, the lake could tell. Rebecca Kerr was gone, and
so there was no need to speak of this strange girl for whom some wild
feeling had enkindled a flame of hatred within her. Thus was she left
in loneliness and peace to dwell upon the wonder of her son. He seemed
more real to her during these quiet days, nearer perhaps, than he had
ever been since she had first begun to dream her great dream.
Of late he had taken to his room upstairs, where he did a little study
daily. "So that it won't be altogether too strange when I go back again
to college," he told her on more than one occasion when she besought
him not to be blinding his eyes while there was yet leisure to rest
them. There were times during the long quiet day in the house when
her flood of love for him would so well up within her that she would
call him down for no other reason than that she might have the great
pleasure of allowing her eyes to rest upon him for a short space only.
She would speak no word at all, so fearful would she be of disturbing
the holy peace which fell between them. In the last week of his
present stay in the valley this happened so often that it became a
little wearying to John, who had begun to experience a certain feeling
of independence in his own mind. It pained him greatly now that his
mother should love him so.... And there were many times when he longed
to be back in his English college, with his books and friends, near
opportunities to escape from the influences which had conspired to
change him.
One morning, after his mother had gazed upon him in this way, he came
out of the house and leaned over the little wicket gate to take a look
at the day. It was approaching Farrell McGuinness's time to be along
with the post, and John expected him to have a letter from the rector
of the College giving some directions as to the date of return. Yet he
was not altogether so anxious to return as he had been towards the
ends of former vacations.... At last Farrell McGuinness appeared around
the turn of the road. His blue uniform was dusty, and he carried his
hard little cap in his hand. He dismounted from his red bicycle and
took two letters out of his bag. He smirked obviously as he performed
this action. John glanced in excitement at the letters. One was
addressed in the handwriting of his friend Ulick Shannon and the other
in the handwriting of a girl. It was this last one that had caused
Farrell McGuinness to smirk so loudly.
"'Tis you that has the times, begad!" he said to John as he mounted his
red bicycle and went on up the road, fanning his hot brow with his hard
cap.
Mrs. Brennan came to the door to hear tidings of the letters from her
son, but John was already hurrying down through the withering garden,
tearing open both letters simultaneously.
"Who are they from?" she called out.
"From Ulick Shannon."
"And th'other one?"
"From a chap in the college," he shouted across his shoulder, lying
boldly to her for the first time in his life. But if only she could see
the confusion upon his face?
She went back into the sewing-room, a feeling of annoyance showing in
the deep lines about her eyes. It seemed strange that he had not rushed
immediately into the house to tell her what was in the letters, strange
beyond all how he had not seen his way to make that much of her.
Down the garden John was reading Rebecca Kerr's letter first, for it
was from her that the letter from "one of the chaps in the college" had
come.
It told of how she was spending her holidays at a seaside village in
Donegal. "It is even far quieter than Garradrimna and the valley. I go
down to the sea in the mornings, but it is only to think and dream. The
sea is just like one big lake, more lonely by far than the lake in the
valley. This is surely the loneliest place you could imagine, but there
is a certain sense of peace about it that is quite lovely. It is some
distance from my home, and it is nice to be amongst people who have no
immense concern for your eternal welfare. I like this, and so I have
avoided making acquaintances here. But next week I am expecting a very
dear friend to join me, and so, I dare say, my holidays will have a
happy ending after all. I suppose you will have gone from the valley
when I go back in October. And it will be the dreary place then...."
She signed herself, "Yours very sincerely, Rebecca Kerr."
His eyes were dancing as he turned to read Ulick Shannon's letter....
In the opening passages it treated only in a conventional way of
college affairs, but suddenly he was upon certain lines which to his
mind seemed so blackly emphasized:
"Now I was just beginning to settle back into the routine of things
when who should come along but Miss Kerr? She was looking fine. She
stayed a few days here in Dublin, and I spent most of them with her.
I gave her the time of her life, the poor little thing! Theaters
every night, and all the rest of it. She was just lost for a bit of
enjoyment. Grinding away, you know, in those cursed National Schools
from year's end to year's end. Do you know what it is, John? I am
getting fonder and fonder of that girl. She is the best little soul in
all the world.
"She is spending her holidays up in some God-forsaken village in
Donegal. Away from her people and by herself, you know. She has a girl
friend going to see her next week. You will not be able to believe it
probably--_but I am the girl friend_."
He read them and re-read them, these two letters which bore so
intimately upon one another and which, through the coincidence of their
arrival together, held convincing evidence of the dramatic moment that
had arrived in the adventure of those two lives.
He became filled by an aching feeling that made him shiver and grow
weak as if with some unknown expectation.... Yet why was he so
disturbed in his mind as to this happening; what had he to do with it?
He was one whose life must be directed away from such things. But the
vision of Rebecca Kerr would be filling his eyes forever. And why had
she written to him? Why had she so graphically pictured her condition
of loneliness wherein he might enter and speak to her? His acquaintance
with her was very slight, and yet he desired to know her beyond all the
knowledge and beauty of the world.... And to think that it was Ulick
Shannon who was now going where he longed to go.
A heavy constraint came between him and his mother during the remaining
days. He spoke little and moved about in meditation like one fearful
of things about to happen. But she fondly fancied as always that he
was immersed in contemplation of the future she had planned for him.
She never saw him setting forth into the autumn fields, a book in his
hand, that she did not fancy the look of austere aloofness upon his
face to be the expression of a priest reading his office. But thoughts
of this kind were far from his mind in the fields or by the little
wicket gate across which he often leaned, his eyes fixed upon the
white, hard road which seemed to lead nowhere.
The day of his release at last came. Now that Ned was away from her,
working in Ballinamult, she had managed to scrape together the price of
another motor drive to Kilaconnaghan, but it was in the misfortune of
things that Charlie Clarke's car should have been engaged for the very
day of John's departure by the Houlihans of Clonabroney. It worried her
greatly that she could not have this piece of grandeur upon this second
occasion. Her intense devotion to religious literature had made her
superstitious to a distressing degree. It appeared to her as an omen
across the path of John and her own magnification. But John did not
seem to mind.
It was notable that through his advance into contemplation he had
triumphed over the power of the valley to a certain extent. So long
as his mind had been altogether absorbed in thought of the priesthood
he had moved about furtively, a fugitive, as it were, before the
hateful looks of the people of the valley and the constant stare of the
squinting windows. Now he had come into a little tranquillity and his
heart was not without some happiness in the enjoyment of his larger
vision.... And yet he was far from being completely at peace.
As he sat driving with his mother in the ass-trap to Kilaconnaghan,
on his way back to the grand college in England, his doubts were
assailing him although he was so quiet, to all seeming, sitting there.
Those who passed them upon the road never guessed that this pale-faced
young man in black was at war with his soul.... Few words passed
between him and his mother, for the constraint of the past week had not
yet been lifted. She was beginning to feel so lonely, and she was vexed
with herself that the period of his stay in the valley had not been all
she had dreamt of making it. It had been disappointing to a depressing
extent, and now especially in its concluding stage. This sad excursion
in the little ass-trap, without any of the pomp and circumstance which
John so highly deserved, was a poor, mean ending.
He was running over in his mind the different causes which had given
this vacation its unusual character. First there came remembrance of
his journey down from Dublin with Mr. Myles Shannon, who had then
suggested the friendship with his nephew Ulick. Springing out of this
thought was a very vivid impression of Garradrimna, that ugly place
which he had discovered in its true colors for the first time; its vile
set of drunkards and the few secret lapses it had occasioned him. Then
there was his father, that fallen and besotted man whom the valley had
ruined past all hope. As a more intimate recollection his own doubts
of the religious life by the lakeside arose clear before him. And the
lake itself seemed very near, for it had been the silent witness of all
his moods and conditions, the dead thing that had gathered to itself
a full record of his sojourn in the valley. But, above all, there was
Rebecca Kerr, whom he had contrived to meet so often as she went from
school. It was she who now brought light to all the darkened places of
his memory. Her letter to him the other day was the one real thing he
had been given to take away from the valley. How he longed to read it
again! But his mother's eyes were upon him.... At last he began to have
a little thought of the part she had played.
Already they had reached the railway station of Kilaconnaghan. They
went together through the little waiting-room, which held sad memories
for Mrs. Brennan, and out upon the platform, where a couple of porters
leaned against their barrows chewing tobacco. Two or three passengers
were sitting around beside their luggage waiting to take the train for
Dublin. A few bank clerks from the town were standing in a little group
which possessed an imaginary distinction, laughing in a genteel way
at a puerile joke from some of the London weekly journals. They were
wearing sporting clothes and had fresh fags in their mouths. It was
an essential portion of their occupation, this perpetual delight in
watching the outgoing afternoon train.
"Aren't they the grand-looking young swells?" said Mrs. Brennan; "I
suppose them have the great jobs now?"
"Great!" replied John, quite unconscious of what he said.
He spoke no other word till he took his place in the train. She kissed
him through the open window and hung affectionately to his hand....
Then there fluttered in upon them the moment of parting.... Smiling
wistfully and waving her hand, she watched the train until it had
rounded a curve. She lingered for a moment by the advertisement for
Jameson's Whiskey in the waiting-room to wipe her eyes. She began to
remember how she had behaved here in this very place on the day of
John's home-coming, and of how he had left her standing while he talked
to Myles Shannon.... He seemed to have slipped away from her now,
and her present thought made her feel that the shadow of the Shannon
family, stretching far across her life, had attended his going as it
had attended his coming.
She went out to the little waiting ass and, mounting into the trap,
drove out of Kilaconnaghan into the dark forest of her fears.