The door of the Presbytery was opened by Father Dan's Irish housekeeper,
a good old soul whose attitude to her master was that of a "moithered"
mother to a wilful child.
All the way up the narrow staircase to his room, she grumbled about his
reverence. Unless he was sickening for the scarlet fever she didn't know
in her seven sinses what was a-matter with him these days. He was as
white as a ghost, and as thin as a shadder, and no wonder neither, for
he didn't eat enough to keep body and soul together.
Yesterday itself she had cooked him a chicken as good as I could get at
the Big House; "done to a turn, too, with a nice bit of Irish bacon on
top, and a bowl of praties biled in their jackets and a basin of
beautiful new buttermilk;" but no, never a taste nor a sup did he take
of it.
"It's just timpting Providence his reverence is, and it'll be glory to
God if you'll tell him so."
"What's that you're saying about his reverence, Mrs. Cassidy?" cried
Father Dan from the upper landing.
"I'm saying you're destroying yourself with your fasting and praying and
your midnight calls at mountain cabins, and never a ha'porth of anything
in your stomach to do it on."
"Whisht then, Mrs. Cassidy, it's tay-time, isn't it? So just step back
to your kitchen and put on your kittle, and bring up two of your best
china cups and saucers, and a nice piece of buttered toast, not
forgetting a thimbleful of something neat, and then it's the mighty
proud woman ye'll be entoirely to be waiting for once on the first lady
in the island. . . . Come in, my daughter, come in."
He was laughing as he let loose his Irish tongue, but I could see that
his housekeeper had not been wrong and that he looked worn and troubled.
As soon as he had taken me into his cosy study and put me to sit in the
big chair before the peat and wood fire, I would have begun on my
errand, but not a word would he hear until the tea had come up and I had
taken a cup of it.
Then stirring the peats for light as well as warmth, (for the room was
dark with its lining of books, and the evening was closing in) he said:
"Now what is it? Something serious--I can see that much."
"It _is_ serious, Father Dan."
"Tell me then," he said, and as well as I could I told him my story.
I told him that since I had seen him last, during that violent scene at
Castle Raa, my relations with my husband had become still more painful;
I told him that, seeing I could not endure any longer the degradation of
the life I was living, I had thought about divorce; I told him that
going first to the Bishop and afterwards to my father's advocate I had
learned that neither the Church nor the law, for their different
reasons, could grant me the relief I required; and finally, in a faint
voice (almost afraid to hear myself speak it), I told him my solemn and
sacred secret--that whatever happened I could not continue to live where
I was now living because I loved somebody else than my husband.
While I was speaking Father Dan was shuffling his feet and plucking at
his shabby cassock, and as soon as I had finished he flashed out on me
with an anger I had never seen in his face or heard in his voice before.
"I know who it is," he said. "It's Martin Conrad."
I was so startled by this that I was beginning to ask how he knew, when
he cried:
"Never mind how I know. Perhaps you think an old priest has no eyes for
anything but his breviary, eh? It's young Martin, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"The wretch, the rascal, the scoundrel! If he ever dares to come to this
house again, I'll slam the door in his face."
I knew he loved Martin almost as much as I did, so I paid no heed to the
names he was calling him, but I tried to say that I alone had been to
blame, and that Martin had done nothing.
"Don't tell me he has done nothing," cried Father Dan. "I know what he
has done He has told you he loves you, hasn't he?"
"No."
"He has been colloguing with you, then, and getting you to say things?"
"Never."
"Pitying and sympathising with you, anyway, in your relations with your
husband?"
"Not for one moment."
"He had better not! Big man as he is in England now, I'll warm his
jacket for him if he comes here making mischief with a child of mine.
But thank the Lord and the holy saints he's going away soon, so you'll
see no more of him."
"But he is coming to Castle Raa," I said, "and I am to see him to-morrow
night."
"That too! The young scoundrel!"
I explained that my husband had invited him, being prompted to do so by
the other woman.
"Worse and worse!" cried Father Dan. "Don't you see that they're laying
a trap for you, and like two young fools you're walking directly into
it. But no matter! You mustn't go."
I told him that I should be compelled to do so, for Martin was coming on
my account only, and I could neither tell him the truth nor make an
excuse that would not be a falsehood.
"Well, well, perhaps you're right there. It's not the best way to meet
temptation to be always running away from it. That's Irish, but it's
true enough, though. You must conquer this temptation, my child; you
must fight it and overcome it."
"But I've tried and tried and I cannot," I said.
And then I told him the story of my struggle--how love had been no
happiness to me but only a cruel warfare, how I had suffered and prayed
and gone to mass and confession, yet all to no purpose, for my affection
for Martin was like a blazing fire which nothing could put out.
Father Dan's hands and lips were trembling while I spoke and I could see
that he was shuddering with pity for me, so I went on to say that if God
had put this pure and holy love into my heart could it be wrong--
"Stop a minute," cried Father Dan. "Who says God put it there? And who
informed you it was pure and holy? Let us see where we are. Come, now.
You say the Bishop told you that you could never be divorced under any
circumstances?"
"Yes."
"Yet you wish to leave your husband?"
"How can I help it? The life I have been living is too horrible."
"Never mind that now. You wish to leave your husband, don't you?"
"I . . . I must."
"And you want to go to this . . . this young . . . in short, you want to
go to Martin Conrad? That's the plain truth, isn't it? Don't deny it.
Very well, let us call things by their proper names. What is the fact?
You are asking me--me, your spiritual Father--to allow you to live a
life of open adultery. That's what it comes to. You know it is, and God
and His holy Mother have mercy on your soul!"
I was so startled and shocked by his fierce assault, and by the cruel
climax it had come to, that I flung up my hands to my face and kept them
there, for I felt as if my brain had been stunned and my heart was
bursting.
How long I sat like this, with my hidden face to the fire, I do not
know; but after a long silence in which I heard nothing but my own
heaving breath, I became aware that Father Dan had drawn one of my hands
down to his knee and was smoothing it with his own.
"Don't be angry with your old priest for telling you the truth," he
said. "It's hard to bear; I know it's hard; but it's as hard for him as
for you, my child. Think--only think what he is trying to save you from.
If you do what you wish to do, you will put yourself out of communion.
If you put yourself out of communion, you will cease to be a Catholic.
What will become of you then, my daughter? What will be left to replace
the consolations of the Church--in sorrow, in suffering, in the hour of
death? Have you never thought of that?"