Ballysheen is one of those little villages, tucked in between high
headlands, that lie along the south coast of Ireland. A Protestant
rector, a parish priest and his curate shepherd the two or three
hundred souls of which it is composed.
There is one street--so called--lined with those white or pink-washed
cottages, all one story in height, which are peculiar to that corner
of the world. For the most part they are occupied by fishermen; though
here, there is Quin the baker, there, Foley the provision merchant and,
distributed in other cottages down the street, you will find Linehan
the cobbler, Tierney the town councillor and plumber, O'Shaughnessey
the butcher, and last of all, achieving distinction by its proportions,
the two-storied edifice belonging to the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Besides and beyond the centre of this hive of activity, there are three
lanes, all combining to meet towards that road which has been built up
the side of the cliff and which, when at length necessity ceases for it
to continue, dwindles into a winding cliff path that leads on and away
to the wild headlands.
The few better-class houses, occupied by summer residents, or those
who of necessity are compelled to live there the whole year round, are
to be found variously situated. There is no fashionable quarter in
Ballysheen. If you were to divide it up into quarters you might lose
sight of it altogether. My friend Cruikshank lives in a house hidden
away in a nest of trees that cluster round the Protestant church.
Janemount, on the other hand, belonging to the Miss Fennells, is away
on the very brow of the cliff road, just at that point where it tires
of magnificence and becomes a little rambling path.
Apart then from the cottages and houses of better class, there are
the Roman Catholic chapel, the Protestant church, the schools, the
post-office--which is an ordinary cottage with two holes in it, one
where you buy stamps, the other where you post letters--there is the
lifeboat house and the court house, the latter used mostly by the
butcher, and last of all, there is that record of forty years' stern
and persistent agitation, the pier. Like a breakwater, it runs out some
thirty yards or so into the sea, locking in a little strip of water
where the fishing-boats lie at rest. For forty years they agitated
for its construction and when, after a year's labor, the last block
of cement was laid, the fishermen turned and looked into each other's
faces.
"Shure, what in the name of God do we want a pier for?" they said. "If
they'd had the sinse to buy us a few boats!"
But no one yet who has provided for Ireland has ever had the "sinse."
Sense in fact is not the quality that is required. One ounce of heart
would do more for Ireland than a whole bushel load of sense. And the
one man who had it, lost it to a woman! Is not that ever the way?
This then is Ballysheen. I feel I have discharged a duty in describing
it, however poorly. In the first ten minutes as I walked with
Bellwattle towards the Miss Fennells' houses, I was able to absorb it
all, to realize at the same time that I knew nothing whatever about it.
It is ever the people one must know; seldom the place. I made the
acquaintance of three of them that morning. It was as we took the broad
lane which connects the church road with that leading to the cliff,
that we saw the figure of a man approaching us. At such distance he
would have been undistinguishable to me, but Bellwattle knew him at
once.
"Let's turn and go the other way through the village," said she.
I asked her why.
"Here comes General Ffrench. He's a most terrible bore. Directly he
sees I'm with a visitor--a stranger--he'll want to be introduced. He'll
force us to stop and speak to him."
"As you like," said I, but I was disappointed. I was not sure that
anybody could bore me there. "What sort of a dog is that he has with
him?" I added. It was a hazard, but it was my only chance.
"Is Pepper with him?" said she.
"If that black Aberdeen is Pepper--" said I.
I heard no more about turning back. She just told me to come along and
I went. As we decreased the distance between us, Dandy began a-pricking
of his ears.
I pointed to him as his tail set erect.
"I don't expect we shall be bored," said I.
She stooped down to take hold of Dandy's collar.
"P'raps they'll fight."
I shook my head. This was the first I was to see of Bellwattle in her
moments of maternal fussiness. Where any animals, birds or insects are
concerned, she becomes like a hen with a brood of chickens. Cruikshank
tells me that when first he took her abroad, she shuddered and winced
at every animal in the streets. Whenever she saw a horse whose harness
chafed a sore on its back, she bit her lip and clutched his arm.
"You mustn't look at them," said he.
"I can't help it," she replied. "I find myself looking out for them
because I know they're there."
At last he gave it up in despair. There was no curing her.
"I suppose women must suffer," he concluded, as he told the little
incident to me.
"If one might only say that of men," said I.
"And who is this General Ffrench?" I asked, as we walked along to meet
him. "What regiments did he command?"
"Oh--he was only a Surgeon-General," said she.
"Then why not give him his proper title?"
"Not one of us has the courage, besides you forget the--the
what-ever-you-call-it that we get out of it. It's not only what he
calls himself, it's what we want to call him. We should be very unhappy
if we couldn't say--General Ffrench."
I bent my head in comprehension, just catching the twinkle in her eye.
"Am I to begin to understand Ireland from that?" I asked.
"I wouldn't begin, if I were you," said she.
And then she told me more about him, how he lived with his widowed
sister, combining his pension with the fragile income her husband had
left to her; how she, too, cultivated a garden, but one whose produce
was designed to bring them in a steady, but scarce-appreciable profit
through the summer months.
"She sends round a little girl," said Bellwattle, "who has a bunch of
flowers in one hand which she holds--conscupiously do you call it?"
I nodded--what does a word matter one way or another? Language was a
precious thing once when the few knew how to use it.
"Which she holds conscupiously in front of her. In the other, behind
her back, she carries a basket of vegetables, peas and so on. She
comes to the back door and when it is opened, she thrusts forward the
flowers. 'These are from Mrs. Quigley,' she says, and then comes the
hand with the basket of peas from behind her back."
"Therefore having taken the flowers," said I--
"Well naturally," said Bellwattle; "I wouldn't mind if I had to praise
her for her peas, because they're really splendid. But one dare not
mention them. They've been paid for. So I have to thank her for the
flowers which are given, and they're nothing to what Cruikshank grows."
"Cruikshank grows the most beautiful flowers in the world," said I.
She looked at me out of the corner of one eye, which is her habit,
always fearing that one has contrived to deceive her. If ever she finds
that I have misled her in the use of that word--conspicuously--can I
hope to regain her confidence then? But were women unable to forgive,
where should we be? And not that only, but what would there be left for
women to do?
The next moment, General Ffrench was bearing down upon us. Already he
had raised his hat, in much the same fashion as you lift a lid from off
a saucepan and, holding it there above his head, he came forward with
the other hand stretched out and a weather eye upon me. Bellwattle knew
her man. There was no getting away from this.
But, the moment I was introduced, she turned her attentions to Pepper.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her formally introducing Dandy.
"Pepper," I heard her say, "this is Dandy," and they both glared at
each other like two nations at war.
"You'll find this a quiet little spot," the General was saying to me,
"a bit too quiet--eh--after London." It sounded to me like comparing
Chicago to an oasis in the desert. "I find myself," he went on, "that
it's too quiet sometimes--just a bit too quiet. I like the hum of the
traffic--the hum--eh--that's what it was like when I was in London
thirty years ago--sounded just like a hum."
"It has been called that," said I.
"It has? Well--I'm not surprised. I go to Dublin myself
occasionally--just to see how the world's wagging. It's a change after
this. I always say to my sister, Mrs. Quigley--you must come down and
see us--I always say to her that the danger of a place like this is
that you get in a groove. Fatal thing, you know--fatal thing--a groove."
"I don't think you need fear that," said I, "if you go to Dublin every
year."
"Well, I don't go every year, not regularly; it's an expensive place
you know--Dublin--there are such a crowd of things to be seen, such a
number of things to be done, and they all cost money. I was up there
the time the old Queen came over--fine reception we gave her too--fine
reception. I remember it as if it were yesterday."
At this point he suddenly assumed that terrible attitude of the
raconteur. I felt Bellwattle's hand tugging gently at my coat.
"I beg your pardon, General Ffrench," said I, and then I turned to her.
"Are we keeping you?" I asked.
"I think I'd better be getting on," said she.
"Tell me that another time then, will you?" I suggested. "I've often
wanted to know what sort of a reception she really did get."
"Thank you," said Bellwattle, when we had passed out of hearing.
"Thank _you_," said I. "Now tell me, has he ever been to Dublin since
he gave the old Queen that magnificent reception?"
"Never."
I looked back at his retreating figure. He was striding it nobly. There
was the whole of the British Army in every step that he took. He seemed
as though he were marching, for ever marching, as if he feared were he
to stop, the music would no longer sound in his ears. Every action,
therefore, every movement had in them the rigid discipline of the
Service. Each simple thing he did was in time to the upward wave of the
drum-stick. He then was one of the three I met that morning.
The other two were the Miss Fennells, the two maiden aunts whose
existence I had first heard of in that far-away restaurant which seems
to me now at the furthermost end of the earth.
When Bellwattle touched my arm and said--"The Miss Fennells"--I felt
the pulses quicken which evenly had been beating in me. The whole of
that story then came back as though I had just heard it. The sound of
the violins crept into my ears. I could hear the clatter of plates, see
the faces of those two, that man and that woman, as they sat together
drinking their coffee. His barking laugh shouted suddenly at me out
of the past; but last of all, Clarissa, in her gown of canary-colored
satin.
And then I knew how, until that moment, it had never truly been real.
I had dreamed it all until then; it had only been a story. But now
these two prim figures, in costumes too extravagant to describe, the
mere sight of them had made the story come true, had turned the dream
into reality, and I began a-wondering why I had ever set out about the
business at all.
I think Bellwattle must have been watching me, for suddenly she said--
"Would you rather we didn't stop and talk to them?"
How do women know these things? She had taken it from my mind before my
thoughts had found it. In another instant, had she not spoken, it would
have been a conscious idea. I should have preferred not to have been
introduced to them that morning. Then she put her question and, human
nature being as it is, I said, "Oh no--by all means, let us stop. I
want to meet them."
Whereupon in the next moment there was made the second stage in my
erratic journey. I was introduced in all solemnity to Miss Mary and
Miss Teresa Fennell.
It is a distressing fact, when you come to describe a woman, to find
that you know nothing whatever of the character of those garments which
go to make her what she is. A hat or a bonnet mean but little--but
little, unless you can trim them. The bonnet then which was worn by
Miss Mary, the hat by Miss Teresa, must remain without description, for
to trim them is absolutely beyond me. I can only tell of the little
thought that occurred to my mind as I noticed them--the thought that
the bonnet of Miss Mary was a gentle concession of years to the hat of
Miss Teresa. There is hope left in a hat, even if it only exists in
the mind of the head that wears it. God alone can tell what hopes lie
buried beneath a bonnet; no man, I swear, could ever know.
The Miss Fennells, therefore, must describe themselves. Miss Teresa
with her wealth of ruddy brown hair, her discreet allusions to the
age at which a woman is at her best, her pathetic little memories
of the past, all of which go to prove that she cannot be more than
thirty-seven, notwithstanding these obvious characteristics, Miss
Teresa eludes me. Neither can I any more describe Miss Mary.
It is personal bias that stands in my way. I think of their cruelty to
Clarissa, and I can judge them from no other standpoint. It is as well
then to leave it alone. Only the far-reaching and all-comprehensive
eye can judge. I was prejudiced before I met them.
It was as I listened to Miss Mary, whose words hurry from her lips and
remind me, in their simple anxiety to get out of her mouth, of children
tumbling out of school, it was as I listened to her that I heard
Bellwattle say to Miss Teresa--
"How is your invalid to-day?"
In a moment my hearing was alert, but the languid reply of Miss Teresa
did not satisfy me.
"Much about the same," she answered.
I was not content to let it go at that. With proper sympathy, I
inquired of Miss Mary.
"You have an invalid in your house?" said I.
"Poor child--we have indeed," replied she. "'Tis her eyes are very
weak."
"Is the doctor attending her?"
"Well--the doctor here is not. She's after seeing a doctor in London
and 'tis his instructions now that she's following."
"In what way are her eyes weak?" I asked, and I looked directly in her
face.
With no intention to depreciate human nature, I say all men and
women are liars, and with one striking difference between. Women are
successful. With the utmost ease in the world, Miss Mary told me of
this lovely child to whom her nephew was engaged to be married. With
the most dexterous imagination she described how Clarissa's ailment
compelled her to be confined to the house in semi-darkness. How
lovingly they cared for her and tended her--well "it is not difficult
for you to suppose," said she.
"It is not," said I. "But surely," I added, "it must be bad for her to
have no exercise."
Oh--there were evenings, of course, when they took her out--just for a
little walk along the cliffs. Even then they had to protect her eyes.
The doctor in London had said she could not stand the light.
"What, light at night?" said I.
Miss Teresa touched Miss Mary's arm.
"Have you got the letters?" she asked. There was no hurry about it.
It was said quite gently; but it served its purpose. My question was
never answered. The next moment they were continuing their way to the
post-office. Bellwattle and I were left alone to the pursuit of our
destination.
"Do you want to see where they live now you've met them?" she asked.
"We might as well go that way," I replied. "It leads to the walk round
the cliffs, doesn't it?"
She nodded and we walked on.
I knew the house, long before she stopped and pointed it out to me. It
was just the prison, just the cage I had imagined it to be. In a little
plot of land on the cliff's edge it stood, looking out across the wide
and lonely bay of Ballysheen. The sun was shining then, but I knew what
it must be like on a lightless day. There was no garden, and the shrubs
that partly surrounded the house were bent with the south-west wind.
They looked like old witches stooping in the grass to gather simples.
No creeper grew upon the walls. It was all a cold grey stone, and the
windows stared and stared as though they ached with endless looking out
to sea. Even with that sun burning in the sky, the water was not blue.
I thought of the colors which must still be living, burning in the eyes
of that little prisoner behind those walls, and with an effort I kept
my exclamation to myself.
"Shall we go on?" said Bellwattle.
I acquiesced, but just as we were about to turn away, I saw the
curtains in an upper window move. For one instant they were pulled
aside and a face that surprised me with its paleness peeped out.
I stopped, waiting to see more, hoping that I should really behold
Clarissa for the first time and then, as the curtains fell together
again, I turned to look at Bellwattle and found her watching me.