As my wedding-day approached and time ran short, the air of joy which
had pervaded our house was driven out by an atmosphere of irritation. We
were all living on our nerves. The smiles that used to be at everybody's
service gave place to frowns, and, in Aunt Bridget's case, to angry
words which were distributed on all sides and on all occasions.
As a consequence I took refuge in my room, and sat long hours there in
my dressing-gown and slippers, hearing the hubbub that was going on in
the rest of the house, but taking as little part in it as possible. In
this semi-conventual silence and solitude, the excitement which had
swept me along for three weeks subsided rapidly.
I began to think, and above all to feel, and the one thing I felt beyond
everything else was a sense of something wanting.
I remembered the beautiful words of the Pope about marriage as a mystic
relation, a sacred union of souls, a bond of love such as Christ's love
for His Church, and I asked myself if I felt any such love for the man
who was to become my husband.
I knew I did not. I reminded myself that I had had nearly no
conversation with him, that our intercourse had been of the briefest,
that I had seen him only three times altogether, and that I scarcely
knew him at all.
And yet I was going to marry him! In a few days more I should be his
wife, and we should be bound together as long as life should last!
Then I remembered what Father Dan had said about a girl's first love,
her first love-letter, and all the sweet, good things that should come
to her at the time of her marriage.
None of them had come to me. I do not think my thoughts of love were
ever disturbed by any expectation of the delights of the heart--languors
of tenderness, long embraces, sighs and kisses, and the joys and fevers
of the flesh--for I knew nothing about them. But, nevertheless, I asked
myself if I had mistaken the matter altogether. Was love really
necessary? In all their busy preparations neither my father, nor my
husband, nor the lawyers, nor the Bishop himself, had said anything
about that.
I began to sleep badly and to dream. It was always the same dream. I was
in a frozen region of the far north or south, living in a ship which was
stuck fast in the ice, and had a great frowning barrier before it that
was full of dangerous crevasses. Then for some reason I wanted to write
a letter, but was unable to do so, because somebody had trodden on my
pen and broken it.
It seems strange to me now as I look back upon that time, that I did not
know what angel was troubling the waters of my soul--that Nature was
whispering to me, as it whispers to every girl at the first great crisis
of her life. But neither did I know what angel was leading my footsteps
when, three mornings before my wedding-day, I got up early and went out
to walk in the crisp salt air.
Almost without thinking I turned down the lane that led to the shore,
and before I was conscious of where I was going, I found myself near
Sunny Lodge. The chimney was smoking for breakfast, and there was a
smell of burning turf coming from the house, which was so pretty and
unchanged, with the last of the year's roses creeping over the porch and
round the windows of the room in which I had slept when a child.
Somebody was digging in the garden. It was the doctor in his shirt
sleeves.
"Good morning, doctor," I called, speaking over the fence.
He rested on his spade and looked up, but did not speak for a moment.
"Don't you know who I am?" I asked.
"Why yes, of course; you must be. . . ."
Without finishing he turned his head towards the porch and cried:
"Mother! Mother! Come and see who's here at last!"
Martin's mother came out of the porch, a little smaller, I thought, but
with the same dear womanly face over her light print frock, which was as
sweet as may-blossom.
She held up both hands at sight of me and cried:
"There, now! What did I tell you, doctor! Didn't I say they might marry
her to fifty lords, but she wouldn't forget her old friends!"
I laughed, the doctor laughed, and then she laughed, and the sweetest
part of it was that she did not know what we were laughing at.
Then I opened the gate and stepped up and held out my hand, and
involuntarily she wiped her own hand (which was covered with meal from
the porridge she was making) before taking mine.
"Goodness me, it's Mary O'Neill."
"Yes, it's I."
"But let me have a right look at you," she said, taking me now by both
hands. "They were saying such wonderful things about the young misthress
that I wasn't willing to believe them. But, no, no," she said, after a
moment, "they didn't tell me the half."
I was still laughing, but it was as much as I could do not to cry, so I
said:
"May I come in?"
"My goodness yes, and welcome," she said, and calling to the doctor to
wash his hands and follow us, she led the way into the kitchen-parlour,
where the kettle was singing from the "slowery" and a porridge-pot was
bubbling over the fire.
"Sit down. Take the elbow-chair in the chiollagh [the hearth place].
There! That's nice. Aw, yes, you know the house."
Being by this time unable to speak for a lump in my throat that was
hurting me, I looked round the room, so sweet, so homely, so closely
linked with tender memories of my childhood, while Martin's mother
(herself a little nervous and with a touching softness in her face) went
on talking while she stirred the porridge with a porridge-stick.
"Well, well! To think of all the years since you came singing carols to
my door! You remember it, don't you? . . . Of course you do. 'Doctor,' I
said, 'don't talk foolish. _She'll_ not forget. _I_ know Mary O'Neill.
She may be going to be a great lady, but haven't I nursed her on my
knee?'"
"Then you've heard what's to happen?" I asked.
"Aw yes, woman, yes," she answered in a sadder tone, I thought.
"Everybody's bound to hear it--what with the bands practising for the
procession, and the bullocks roasting for the poor, and the fireworks
and the illuminations, and I don't know what."
She was silent for a moment after that, and then in her simple way she
said:
"But it's all as one if you love the man, even if he _is_ a lord."
"You think that's necessary, don't you?"
"What, _millish?_"
"Love. You think it's necessary to love one's husband?"
"Goodness sakes, girl, yes. If you don't have love, what have you?
What's to keep the pot boiling when the fire's getting low and the
winter's coming on, maybe? The doctor's telling me some of the fine
ladies in London are marrying without it--just for money and titles and
all to that. But I can't believe it, I really can't! They've got their
troubles same as ourselves, poor things, and what's the use of their
fine clothes and grand carriages when the dark days come and the night's
falling on them?"
It was harder than ever to speak now, so I got up to look at some silver
cups that stood on the mantelpiece.
"Martin's," said his mother, to whom they were precious as rubies. "He
won them at swimming and running and leaping and climbing and all to
that. Aw, yes, yes! He was always grand at games, if he couldn't learn
his lessons, poor boy. And now he's gone away from us--looking for South
Poles somewheres."
"I know--I saw him in Rome," said I.
She dropped her porridge-stick and looked at me with big eyes.
"Saw him? In Rome, you say? After he sailed, you mean?"
I nodded, and then she cried excitedly to the doctor who was just then
coming into the house, after washing his hands under the pump.
"Father, she saw himself in Rome after he sailed."
There was only one _himself_ in that house, therefore it was not
difficult for the doctor to know who was meant. And so great was the
eagerness of the old people to hear the last news of the son who was the
apple of their eye that I had to stay to breakfast and tell them all
about our meeting.
While Martin's mother laid the tables with oat-cake and honey and bowls
of milk and deep plates for the porridge, I told the little there was to
tell, and then listened to their simple comments.
"There now, doctor! Think of that! Those two meeting in foreign parts
that used to be such friends when they were children! Like brother and
sister, you might say. And whiles and whiles we were thinking that some
day . . . but we'll say no more about that now, doctor."
"No, we'll say no more about that now, Christian Ann," said the doctor.
Then there was a moment of silence, and it was just as if they had been
rummaging among half-forgotten things in a dark corner of their house,
and had come upon a cradle, and the child that had lived in it was dead.
It was sweet, but it was also painful to stay long in that house of
love, and as soon as I had eaten my oat-cake and honey I got up to go.
The two good souls saw me to the door saying I was not to expect either
of them at the Big House on my wedding-day, because she was no woman for
smart clothes, and the doctor, who was growing rheumatic, had given up
his night-calls, and therefore his gig, so as to keep down expenses.
"We'll be at the church, though," said Martin's mother. "And if we
don't see you to speak to, you'll know we're there and wishing you
happiness in our hearts."
I could not utter a word when I left them; but after I had walked a
little way I looked back, intending to wave my farewell, and there they
were together at the gate still, and one of her hands was on the
doctor's shoulder--the sweet woman who had chosen love against the
world, and did not regret it, even now when the night was falling on
her.
I had to pass the Presbytery on my way home, and as I did so, I saw
Father Dan in his study. He threw up the window sash and called in a
soft voice, asking me to wait until he came down to me.
He came down hurriedly, just as he was, in his worn and discoloured
cassock and biretta, and walked up the road by my side, breathing
rapidly and obviously much agitated.
"The Bishop is staying with me over the wedding, and he is in such a
fury that . . . Don't worry. It will be all right. But . . ."
"Yes?"
"Did you see young Martin Conrad while you were in Rome?"