"That'll do," I said, and the next moment we were in the living-room--a
bare, bleak, comfortless Curraghman's kitchen.
A more incongruous sight than we saw there human eyes never beheld.
Daniel O'Neill, a shadow of the big brute creature he once was, a
shrivelled old man, with his bony hands scored and contracted like an
autumn leaf, his shrunken legs scarcely showing through his baggy
trousers, his square face whiter than the wall behind it, and a piece of
red flannel hanging over his head like a cowl, sat in the elbow-chair at
the side of the hearth-fire, while at a deal table, which was covered
with papers that looked like law deeds and share certificates (being
stamped and sealed), sat the Bishop of the island, and its leading
lawyer, Mr. Curphy.
On hearing my name and seeing me enter the house, Daniel O'Neill lost
all control of himself. He struggled to his feet by help of a stick, and
as I walked up to him he laid hold of me.
"You devil!" he cried. "You infernal villain! You. . . ."
But it is of no use to repeat what else he said in the fuming of his
rage, laying hold of me by the collar of my coat, and tugging at it as
if he would drag me to his feet.
I was half sorry for the man, badly as I thought of him, so I only
opened his hand (easy enough to do, for the grip was gone from it) and
said:
"You're an old man, sir, and you're a sick man--don't tempt me to forget
that you are the father of Mary O'Neill. Sit down."
He sat down, breathless and broken, without another word. But the
Bishop, with a large air of outraged dignity, faced about to poor Father
Dan (who was standing near the door, turning his round hat in his
trembling hands) and said:
"Father Donovan, did you know that Mr. O'Neill was very ill?"
"I did, Monsignor," said Father Dan.
"And that a surgeon is coming from London to perform an operation upon
him--did you know that?"
"I did, Monsignor."
"Did you know also that I was here to-night to attend with Mr. Curphy to
important affairs and perhaps discharge some sacred duties?"
"I knew that too, Monsignor."
"Then," said the Bishop, pointing at me, "how dare you bring this man
here--this man of all others, who has been the chief instrument in
bringing shame and disgrace upon our poor sick friend and his deeply
injured family?"
"So that's how you look at it, is it, Monsignor?"
"Yes, sir, that is how I look at it, and I am sorry for a priest of my
Church who has so weakened his conscience by sympathy with notorious
sinners as to see things in any other light."
"Sinners, Bishop?"
"Didn't you hear me, Father Donovan? Or do you desire me to use a harder
name for them--for one of them in particular, on whom you have wasted so
much weak sentimentality, to the injury of your spiritual influence and
the demoralisation of your parish. I have warned you already. Do you
wish me to go further, to remove you from your Presbytery, or perhaps
report your conduct to those who have power to take the frock off your
back? What standard of sanctity for the sacrament of Holy Matrimony do
you expect to maintain while you degrade it by openly associating with a
woman who has broken her marriage vows and become little better . . . I
grieve to say it [with a deep inclination of the head towards the poor
wreck in the elbow-chair] little better than a common. . . ."
I saw the word that was coming, and I was out in an instant. But there
was somebody before me. It was Father Dan. The timid old priest seemed
to break in one moment the bonds of a life-long tyranny.
"What's that you say, Monsignor?" he cried in a shrill voice. "_I_
degrade the sacrament of Holy Matrimony? Never in this world! But if
there's anybody in the island of Ellan who has done that same every day
of his life, it's yourself, and never more cruelly and shamefully than
in the case we're talking of at this present speaking."
"I'm not used to this kind of language from my clergy, Father Donovan,"
began the Bishop, but before he could say more Father Dan caught him up
by crying:
"Perhaps not, Monsignor. But you've got to hear for once, and that's
now. When this man [pointing to Daniel O'Neill] for his own purposes
wanted to marry his daughter (who was a child and had no choice in the
matter) to one of another faith, a man who didn't believe in the
sacrament of marriage as we know it, who was it that paved the way for
him?"
"You actually mean that _I_. . . ."
"I mean that without your help, Monsignor, a good girl could never have
been married to a bad man. You didn't act in ignorance, either. When
somebody told you--somebody who is here now--that the man to whom you
were going to marry that innocent girl was a notorious loose liver, a
profligate, a reprobate, a betrayer of women, and a damned
scoundrel. . . ."
"Go on, Father Dan; that's God's own name for him," I said, when the old
priest caught his breath for a moment, terrified by the word that had
burst from his lips.
"Let's have an end of this," said the Bishop mightily.
"Wait a bit, sir," I said, and then Father Dan went on to say how he had
been told there was nothing to my story, and how he had been forbidden
to inquire into it.
"That's how you made _me_ a party to this wicked marriage, God and his
Holy Mother pardon me! And now that it has come to the end you might
have expected, and the poor helpless child who was bought and sold like
a slave is in the position of the sinner, you want me to cut her off, to
turn the hearts of all good people against her, to cast her out of
communion, to make her a thing to point the finger at--me, her spiritual
father who baptized her, taking her out of the arms of the angel who
bore her and giving her to Christ--or if I won't you'll deprive me of my
living, you'll report me to Rome, you'll unfrock me. . . ."
"Do it, Monsignor," cried Father Dan, taking a step nearer to the Bishop
and lifting a trembling hand over his head. "Do it, if our holy Church
will permit you, and I'll put a wallet on my old shoulders and go round
the houses of my parish in my old age, begging a bite of bread and a
basin of meal, and sleeping under a thorn bush, rather than lay my head
on my pillow and know that that poor victim of your wicked scheming is
in the road."
The throbbing and breaking of the old priest's voice had compelled me to
drop my head, and it was not until I heard the sneck of the lock of the
outer door that I realised that, overcome by his emotion, he had fled
from the house.
"And now I guess you can follow your friend," said Daniel O'Neill.
"Not yet, sir," I answered; "I have something to say first."
"Well, well, what is it, please?" said the lawyer sharply and
insolently, looking to where I was standing with folded arms at one side
of the hearth-place.
"You'll hear soon enough, Master Curphy," I answered.
Then, turning back to Daniel O'Neill, I told him what rumour had reached
my dear one of his intentions with regard to her child, and asked him to
say whether there was any truth in it.
"Answer the man, Curphy," said Daniel O'Neill, and thereupon the lawyer,
with almost equal insolence, turned to me and said:
"What is it you wish to know, sir?"
"Whether, if Mary O'Neill is unable from any cause to keep control of
her child (which God forbid!), her father intends to take possession of
it."
"Why shouldn't he? If the mother dies, for instance, her father will be
the child's legal guardian."
"But if by that time the father is dead too--what then?"
"Then the control of the child will--with the consent of the
court--devolve upon his heir and representative."
"Meaning this lady?" I asked, pointing to the woman MacLeod, who was now
standing at the back of Daniel O'Neill's chair.
"Possibly."
"And what will she do with it?"
"Do with it?"
The lawyer was running his fingers through his long beard and trying to
look perplexed.
"Mr. Curphy, I'll ask you not to pretend to be unable to understand me.
If and when this lady gets possession of Mary O'Neill's child, what is
she going to do with it?"
"Very well," said the advocate, seeing I meant business, "since my
client permits me to speak, I'll tell you plainly. Whatever the child's
actual parentage . . . perhaps you know best. . . ."
"Go on, sir."
"Whatever the child's parentage, it was born in wedlock. Even the
recent divorce proceedings have not disturbed that. Therefore we hold
that the child has a right to the inheritance which in due time should
come to Mary O'Neill's offspring by the terms of the settlement upon her
husband."
It was just as I expected, and every drop of my blood boiled at the
thought of my darling's child in the hands of that frozen-hearted woman.
"So that is the law, is it?"
"That is the law in Ellan."
"In the event of Mary O'Neill's death, and her father's death, her child
and all its interests will come into the hands of. . . ."
"Of her father's heir and representative."
"Meaning, again, this lady?"
"Probably."
The woman at the back of the chair began to look restless.
"I don't know, sir," she said, "if your repeated references to me are
intended to reflect upon my character, or my ability to bring up the
child well and look after its interests properly."
"They are, madam--they most certainly and assuredly are," I answered.
"Daniel!" she cried.
"Be quiet, gel," said Daniel O'Neill. "Let the man speak. We'll see what
he has come for presently. Go on, sir."
I took him at his word, and was proceeding to say that as I understood
things it was intended to appeal to the courts in order to recover
(nominally for the child) succession to the money which had been settled
on Mary O'Neill's husband at the time of their marriage, when the old
man cried, struggling again to his feet:
"There you are! The money! It's the money the man's after! He took my
daughter, and now he's for taking my fortune--what's left of it, anyway.
He shan't, though! No, by God he shan't! . . . Go back to your woman,
sir. Do you hear me?--your woman, and tell her that neither you nor she
shall touch one farthing of my fortune. I'm seeing to that now. It's
what we're here for to-night--before that damnable operation to-morrow,
for nobody knows what will come of it. She has defied me and ruined me,
and made me the byword of the island, God's curse on her. . . ."
"Daniel! Daniel!" cried the MacLeod woman, trying to pacify the
infuriated madman and to draw him back to his seat.
I would have given all I had in the world if Daniel O'Neill could have
been a strong man at that moment, instead of a poor wisp of a thing with
one foot in the grave. But I controlled myself as well as I could and
said:
"Mr. O'Neill, your daughter doesn't want your fortune, and as for
myself, you and your money are no more to me than an old hen sitting on
a nest of addled eggs. Give it to the lady at the back of your
chair--she has earned it, apparently."
"Really," said the Bishop, who had at length recovered from Father Dan's
onslaught. "Really, Sir What-ever-your-name is, this is too
outrageous--that you should come to this lonely house at this time of
night, interrupting most urgent business, not to speak of serious
offices, and make injurious insinuations against the character of a
respectable person--you, sir, who had the audacity to return openly to
the island with the partner of your sin, and to lodge her in the house
of your own mother--your own mother, sir, though Heaven knows what kind
of mother it can be who harbours her son's sin-laden mistress, his
woman, as our sick friend says. . . ."
Lord! how my hands itched! But controlling myself again, with a mighty
effort I said:
"Monsignor, I don't think I should advise you to say that again."
"Why not, sir?"
"Because I have a deep respect for your cloth and should be sorry to see
it soiled."
"Violence!" cried the Bishop, rising to his feet. "You threaten me with
violence? . . . Is there no policeman in this parish, Mr. Curphy?"
"There's one at the corner of the road, Bishop," I said. "I brought him
along with me. I should have brought the High Bailiff too, if there had
been time. You would perhaps be no worse for a few witnesses to the
business that seems to be going on here."
Saying this, as I pointed to the papers on the table, I had hit harder
than I knew, for both the Bishop and the lawyer (who had also risen)
dropped back into their seats and looked at each other with expressions
of surprise.
Then, stepping up to the table, so as to face the four of them, I said,
as calmly and deliberately as I could:
"Now listen to me. I am leaving this island in about three weeks time,
and expect to be two years--perhaps three years--away. Mary O'Neill is
going with me--as my wife. She intends to leave her child in the care of
my mother, and I intend to promise her that she may set her mind at ease
that it shall never under any circumstances be taken away. You seem to
have made up your minds that she is going to die. Please God she may
disappoint your expectations and come back strong and well. But if she
does not, and I have to return alone, and if I find that her child has
been removed from the protection in which she left it, do you know what
I shall do?"
"Go to the courts, I presume," said the lawyer.
"Oh dear, no! I'll go to no courts, Mr. Curphy. I'll go to the people
who have set the courts in motion--which means that I'll go to _you_ and
_you_ and _you_ and _you_. Heaven knows how many of us may be living
when that day comes; but as surely as I am, if I find that the promise I
made to Mary O'Neill has been a vain one, and that her child is under
this woman's control and the subject of a lawsuit about this man's
money, and she in her grave, as surely as the Lord God is above us there
isn't one soul of you here present who will be alive the following
morning."
That seemed to be enough for all of them. Even old Daniel O'Neill (the
only man in the house who had an ounce of fight in him) dropped his head
back in his chair, with his mouth wide open and his broken teeth showing
behind his discoloured lips.
I thought Father Dan would have been waiting for me under the trammon on
"the street," but he had gone back to the Presbytery and sent Tommy the
Mate to lead me through the mist and the by-lanes to the main road.
The old salt seemed to have a "skute" into the bad business which had
brought out the Bishop and the lawyer at that late hour, and on parting
from me at the gate of Sunny Lodge he said:
"Lord-a-massy me, what for hasn't ould Tom Dug a fortune coming to him?"
And when I asked him what he would do with a fortune if he had one he
answered:
"Do? Have a tunderin' [thundering] good law-shoot and sattle some o'
them big fellas."
Going to bed in the "Plough" that night, I had an ugly vision of the
scene being enacted in the cottage on the curragh (a scene not without
precedent in the history of the world, though the priesthood as a whole
is so pure and noble)--the midnight marriage of a man dying in unnatural
hatred of his own daughter (and she the sweetest woman in the world)
while the priest and the prostitute divided the spoils.
[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM]