Through the earlier part of this term at college there was no peace
in the mind of John Brennan, and his unsettled state arose, for the
most part, from simple remembrance of things that had happened in
the valley. Now it was because he could see again, some afternoon in
the summer, Rebecca Kerr coming towards him down the road in a brown
and white striped dress, that he thought was pretty, and swinging a
sun-bonnet by its long cotton strings from her soft, small hand. Or
again, some hour he had spent listening to Ulick Shannon as he talked
about the things of life which are marked only by the beauty of passion
and death. Always, too, with the aid of two letters he still treasured,
his imagination would leap towards the creation of a picture--Rebecca
and Ulick together in far-off Donegal.
He did not go home at Christmas because it was so expensive to return
to Ireland, and in the lonely stretches of the vacation, when all his
college friends were away from him, he felt that they must surely be
meeting again, meeting and kissing in some quiet, dusky place--Rebecca
as he had seen her always and Ulick as he had known him.
Even if he had wished to leave Ulick and Rebecca out of his mind, it
would have been impossible, so persistently did his mother refer to
both in her letters. There was never a letter which did not contain
some allusion to "them two" or "that one" or "that fellow." In
February, when the days began to stretch out again, he thought only of
the valley coming nearer, with its long period of delight.... Within
the fascination of his musing he grew forgetful of his lofty future.
Yet there were odd moments when he remembered that he had moved into
the valley a very different man at the beginning of last June. The
valley had changed him, and might continue to change him when he went
there again.
Nothing came to stay the even rise of his yearning save his mother's
letters, which were the same recitals at all times of stories about the
same people. At no time did he expect to find anything new in them, and
so it was all the stronger blow when from one letter leaped out the
news that Ulick Shannon had failed to pass his final medical exam., and
was now living at home in Scarden House with his uncle Myles. That he
had been "expelled from the University and disgraced" was the way she
put it. It did not please John to see that she was exulting over what
had happened to Ulick while hinting at the same time that there was no
fear of a like calamity happening to her son. To him it appeared as
not at all such an event as one might exult about. It rather evoked
pity and condolence in the thought that it might happen to any man. It
might happen to himself. Here surely was a fearful thing--the sudden
dread of his return to the valley, a disgrace for life, and his mother
a ruined woman in the downfall of her son.... This last letter of hers
had brought him to review all the brave thoughts that had come to him
by the lakeside, wild thoughts of living his own life, not in the way
appointed for him by any other person, but freely, after the bent of
his own will. Yet when he came to think of it quietly there was not
much he could do in the world with his present education. It seemed
to have fitted him only for one kind of life. And his thoughts of the
summer might have been only passing distractions which must disappear
with the full development of his mind. To think of those ideas ever
coming suddenly to reality would be a blow too powerful to his mother.
It would kill her. For, with other knowledge, the summer holidays had
brought him to see how much she looked forward to his becoming a priest.
Quite unconsciously, without the least effort of his will, he found
himself returning to his old, keen interest in his studies. He found
himself coming back to his lost peace of mind. He felt somehow that
his enjoyment of this grand contentment was the very best way he could
flash back his mother's love. Besides it was the best earnest he had of
the enjoyment of his coming holidays.
Then the disaster came. The imminence of it had been troubling the
rector for a long time. His college was in a state of disintegration,
for the Great War had cast its shadow over the quiet walls.
It was a charity college. This was a secret that had been well kept
from the people of the valley by Mrs. Brennan. "A grand college in
England" was the utmost information she would ever vouchsafe to any
inquirer. She had formed a friendly alliance with the old, bespectacled
postmistress and made all her things free of charge for keeping close
the knowledge of John's exact whereabouts in England. Yet there was
never a letter from mother to son or from son to mother that the old
maid did not consider it her bounden duty to open and read.
The college had been supported by good people who could find nothing
else to do with their money. But, in war-time, charity was diverted
into other channels, and its income had consequently dwindled almost to
vanishing point. Coupled with this, many of the students had left aside
their books and gone into the Army. One morning the rector appeared in
the lecture-hall to announce to the remnant that the college was about
to be closed for "some time." He meant indefinitely, but the poor man
could not put it in that way.
John heard the news with mingled feelings. In a dumb way he had longed
for this after his return from the valley, but now he saw in it,
not the arrival of a desired event, but a postponement of the great
intention that had begun to absorb him again. He was achieving his
desire in a way that made it a punishment.... To-morrow he would be
going home.... But of course his mother knew everything by this time
and was already preparing a welcome for him.
The March evening was gray and cold when he came into the deserted
station of Kilaconnaghan. It had been raining ceaselessly since
Christmas, and around and away from him stretched the sodden country.
He got a porter to take his trunk out to the van and stand it on end
upon the platform. Then he went into the waiting-room to meet his
mother. But she was not there. Nor was the little donkey and trap
outside the station house. Perhaps she was coming to meet him with
Charlie Clarke in the grand and holy motor car. If he went on he might
meet them coming through Kilaconnaghan. He got the porter to take his
box from its place on the platform and put it into the waiting-room.
All down through the town there was no sign of them, and when he got
out upon the road to Garradrimna and the valley there was no sign of
them either. The night had fallen thick and heavy, and John, as he
went on through the rain, looked forward to the comforting radiance of
Charlie Clarke's headlights suddenly to flash around every corner. But
the car did not come and he began to grow weary of tramping through the
wet night. All along the way he was meeting people who shouldered up
to him and strove to peer into his face as he slipped past. He did not
come on to the valley road by way of Garradrimna, but instead by The
Road of the Dead, down which he went slopping through great pools at
every few yards.
He was very weary when he came at last to the door of his mother's
house. Before knocking he had listened for a while to the low hum of
her reading to his father. Then he heard her moving to open the door,
and immediately she was silhouetted in the lamp-light.
"Is that you, John? We knew you were coming home. We got the rector's
letter."
He noticed a queer coldness in her tone.
"I'd rather to God that anything in the world had happened than this.
What'll they say now? They'll say you were expelled. As sure as God,
they'll say you were expelled!"
He threw himself into the first chair he saw.
"Did any one meet you down the road? Did many meet you from this to
Kilaconnaghan?"
He did not answer. This was a curious welcome he was receiving. Yet he
noticed that tears were beginning to creep into her eyes, which were
also red as if from much recent weeping.
"Oh, God knows, and God knows again, John, I'd rather have died than it
should have come to this. And why was it that after all me contriving
and after all me praying and good works this bitter cross should have
fallen? I don't know. I can't think for what I am being punished and
why misfortune should come to you. And what'll they say at all at all?
Oh you may depend upon it that it's the worst thing they'll say. But
you mustn't tell them that the college is finished. For I suppose it's
finished now the way everything is going to be finished before the war.
But you mustn't say that. You must say that it is on special holidays
you are, after having passed a Special examination. And you must behave
as if you were on holidays!"
Such a dreadful anxiety was upon her that she appeared no longer as his
mother, the infinitely tender woman he had known. She now seemed to
possess none of the pure contentment her loving tenderness should have
brought her. She was altogether concerned as to what the people would
say and not as to the effect of the happening upon her son's career.
He had begun to think of this for himself, but it was not of it that
she was now thinking.... She was thinking of herself, of her pride, and
that was why she had not come to meet him. And now his clothes were wet
and he was tired, for he had walked from Kilaconnaghan in the rain.
Ned Brennan, stirring out of his drunken doze, muttered thickly: "Ah,
God blast yourselves and your college, can't you let a fellow have a
sleep be the fire after his hard day!"