Catherine's curiosity was a worry. As if he knew why he hadn't come home
to his dinner! If she'd just finish putting the plates on the table and
leave him. Of course, there had been callers. One man, the man he
especially wished to see, had driven ten miles to see him. It was most
unfortunate, but it couldn't be helped; he had felt that morning that he
couldn't stay indoors--the business of the parish had somehow got upon
his nerves, but not because he had been working hard. He had done but
little work since she left the parish. Now was that story going to begin
again? If it did, he should go out of his mind; and he looked round the
room, thinking how a lonely evening breeds thoughts of discontent.
Most of the furniture in the room was Father Peter's. Father Peter had
left his curate his furniture, but the pretty mahogany bookcase and the
engravings upon the walls were Father Oliver's own taste; he had bought
them at an auction, and there were times when these purchases pleased
him. But now he was thinking that Father Peter must have known to whom
the parish would go at his death, for he could not have meant all his
furniture to be taken out of the house--'there would be no room for it
in Bridget Clery's cottage;' and Father Oliver sat thinking of the
evenings he used to spend with Father Peter. How often during those
evenings Father Peter must have said to himself, 'One day, Gogarty, you
will be sitting in my chair and sleeping in my bed.' And Father Oliver
pondered on his affection for the dead man. There were no differences of
opinion, only one--the neglected garden at the back of the house; and,
smiling sadly, Father Oliver remembered how he used to reprove the
parish priest.
'I'm afraid I'm too big and too fat and too fond of my pipe and my glass
of whisky to care much about carnations. But if you get the parish when
I'm gone, I'm sure you'll grow some beauties, and you'll put a bunch on
my grave sometimes, Gogarty.' The very ring of the dead man's voice
seemed to sound through the lonely room, and, sitting in Father Peter's
chair, with the light of Father Peter's lamp shining on his face and
hand, Father Oliver's thoughts flowed on. It seemed to him that he had
not understood and appreciated Father Peter's kindliness, and he
recalled his perfect good nature. 'Death reveals many things to us,' he
said; and he lifted his head to listen, for the silence in the house and
about the house reminded him of the silence of the dead, and he began to
consider what his own span of life might be. He might live as long as
Father Peter (Father Peter was fifty-five when he died); if so,
twenty-one years of existence by the lake's side awaited him, and these
years seemed to him empty like a desert--yes, and as sterile.
'Twenty-one years wondering what became of her, and every evening like
this evening--the same loneliness.'
He sat watching the hands of his clock, and a peaceful meditation about
a certain carnation that unfortunately burst its calyx was interrupted
by a sudden thought. Whence the thought came he could not tell, nor what
had put it into his head, but it had occurred to him suddenly that 'if
Father Peter had lived a few weeks longer he would have found means of
exchanging Nora Glynn for another schoolmistress, more suitable to the
requirements of the parish. If Father Peter had lived he would have done
her a grievous wrong. He wouldn't have allowed her to suffer, but he
would have done her a wrong all the same.' And it were better that a man
should meet his death than he should do a wrong to another. But he
wasn't contemplating his own death nor Nora's when this end to the
difficulty occurred to him. Our inherent hypocrisy is so great that it
is difficult to know what one does think. He surely did not think it
well that Father Peter had died, his friend, his benefactor, the man in
whose house he was living? Of course not. Then it was strange he could
not keep the thought out of his mind that Father Peter's death had saved
the parish from a great scandal, for if Nora had been dismissed he might
have found himself obliged to leave the parish.
Again he turned on himself and asked how such thoughts could come into
his mind. True, the coming of a thought into the consciousness is often
unexpected, but if the thought were not latent in the mind, it would
not arise out of the mind; and if Father Peter knew the base thoughts he
indulged in--yes, indulged in, for he could not put them quite out of
his mind--he feared very much that the gift of all this furniture
might--No, he was judging Father Peter ill: Father Peter was
incapable of a mean regret.
But who was he, he'd like to be told, that he should set himself up as
Father Peter's judge? The evil he had foreseen had happened. If Father
Peter felt that Nora Glynn was not the kind of schoolmistress the parish
required, should he not send her away? The need of the parish, of the
many, before the one. Moreover, Father Peter was under no obligation
whatsoever to Nora Glynn. She had been sent down by the School Board
subject to his approval. 'But my case is quite different. I chose her; I
decided that she was to remain.' And he asked himself if his decision
had come about gradually. No, he had never hesitated, but dismissed
Father Peter's prejudices as unworthy.... The church needed some good
music. But did he think of the church? Hardly at all. His first
consideration was his personal pleasure, and he wished that the best
choir in the diocese should be in his church, and Nora Glynn enabled him
to gratify his vanity. He made her his friend, taking pleasure in her
smiles, and in the fact that he had only to express a desire for it to
be fulfilled. After school, tired though she might be, she was always
willing to meet him in the church for choir practice. She would herself
propose to decorate the altar for feast-days. How many times had they
walked round the garden together gathering flowers for the altar! And it
was strange that she could decorate so well without knowing much about
flowers or having much natural taste for flowers.
Feeling he was doing her an injustice, he admitted that she had made
much progress under his guidance in her knowledge of flowers.
'But how did he treat her in the end, despite all her kindnesses?
Shamefully, shamefully, shamefully!' and getting up from his chair
Father Oliver walked across the room, and when he turned he drew his
hand across his eyes. The clock struck twelve. 'I shall be awake at
dawn,' he said, 'with all this story running in my head,' and he stopped
on the threshold of his bedroom, frightened at the sight of his bed. But
he had reached the stint of his sufferings, and that morning lay awake,
hardly annoyed at all by the black-birds' whistling, contentedly going
over the mistakes he had made--a little surprised, however, that the
remembrance of them did not cause him more pain. At last he fell asleep,
and when his housekeeper knocked at his door and he heard her saying
that it was past eight, he leaped out of bed cheerily, and sang a stave
of song as he shaved himself, gashing his chin, however, for he could
not keep his attention fixed on his chin, but must peep over the top of
the glass, whence he could see his garden, and think how next year he
would contrive a better arrangement of colour. It was difficult to stop
the bleeding, and he knew that Catherine would grumble at the state he
left the towels in (he should not have used his bath-towel); but these
were minor matters. He was happier than he had been for many a day.
The sight of strawberries on his breakfast-table pleased him; the man
who drove ten miles to see him yesterday called, and he shared his
strawberries with him in abundant spirit. The sunlight was exciting, the
lake called him, and it was pleasant to stride along, talking of the
bridge (at last there seemed some prospect of getting one). The
intelligence of this new inspector filled him with hope, and he
expatiated in the advantages of the bridge and many other things. Nor
did his humour seem to depend entirely on the companionship of his
visitor. It endured long after his visitor had left him, and very soon
he began to think that his desire to go away for a long holiday was a
passing indisposition of mind rather than a need. His holiday could be
postponed to the end of the year; there would be more leisure then, and
he would be better able to enjoy his holiday than he would be now.
His changing mind interested him, and he watched it like a vane, unable
to understand how it was that, notwithstanding his restlessness, he
could not bring himself to go away. Something seemed to keep him back,
and he was not certain that the reason he stayed was because the
Government had not yet sent a formal promise to build the bridge. He
could think of no other reason for delaying in Garranard; he certainly
wanted change. And then Nora's name came into his mind, and he meditated
for a moment, seeing the colour of her hair and the vanishing
expression of her eyes. Sometimes he could see her hand, the very
texture of its skin, and the line of the thumb and the forefinger. A cat
had once scratched her hand, and she had told him about it. That was
about two months before Mrs. O'Mara had come to tell him that shocking
story, two months before he had gone down to his church and spoken about
Nora in such a way that she had gone out of the parish. But was he going
to begin the story over again? He picked up a book, but did not read
many sentences before he was once more asking himself if she had gone
down to the lake, and if it were her spell that kept him in Garranard.
'The wretchedness of it all,' he cried, and fell to thinking that Nora's
spirit haunted the lake, and that his punishment was to be kept a
prisoner always. His imagination ran riot. Perhaps he would have to seek
her out, follow her all over the world, a sort of Wandering Jew, trying
to make atonement, and would never get any rest until this atonement was
made. And the wrong that he had done her seemed the only reality. It was
his elbow companion in the evening as he sat smoking his pipe, and every
morning he stood at the end of a sandy spit seeing nothing, hearing
nothing but her. One day he was startled by a footstep, and turned
expecting to see Nora. But it was only Christy, the boy who worked in
his garden.
'Your reverence, the postman overlooked this letter in the morning. It
was stuck at the bottom of the bag. He hopes the delay won't make any
difference.'
_From Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty._
'_June_ 1, 19--.
'DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,
'I am writing to ask you if you know anything about a young woman called
Nora Glynn. She tells me that she was schoolmistress in your parish and
organist in your church, and that you thought very highly of her until
one day a tale-bearer, Mrs. O'Mara by name, went to your house and told
you that your schoolmistress was going to have a baby. It appears that
at first you refused to believe her, and that you ran down to the school
to ask Miss Glynn herself if the story you had heard about her was a
true one. She admitted it, but on her refusal to tell you who was the
father of the child you lost your temper; and the following Sunday you
alluded to her so plainly in your sermon about chastity that there was
nothing for her but to leave the parish.
'There is no reason why I should disbelieve Miss Glynn's story; I am an
Irish priest like yourself, sir. I have worked in London among the poor
for forty years, and Miss Glynn's story is, to my certain knowledge, not
an uncommon one; it is, I am sorry to say, most probable; it is what
would happen to any schoolmistress in Ireland in similar circumstances.
The ordinary course is to find out the man and to force him to marry the
girl; if this fails, to drive the woman out of the parish, it being
better to sacrifice one affected sheep than that the whole flock should
be contaminated. I am an old man; Miss Glynn tells me that you are a
young man. I can therefore speak quite frankly. I believe the practice
to which I have alluded is inhuman and unchristian, and has brought
about the ruin of many an Irish girl. I have been able to rescue some
from the streets, and, touched by their stories, I have written
frequently to the priest of the parish pointing out to him that his
responsibility is not merely local, and does not end as soon as the
woman has passed the boundary of his parish. I would ask you what you
think your feelings would be if I were writing to you now to tell you
that, after some months of degraded life, Miss Glynn had thrown herself
from one of the bridges into the river? That might very well have been
the story I had to write to you; fortunately for you, it is another
story.
'Miss Glynn is a woman of strong character, and does not give way
easily; her strength of will has enabled her to succeed where another
woman might have failed. She is now living with one of my parishioners,
a Mrs. Dent, of 24, Harold Street, who has taken a great liking to her,
and helped her through her most trying time, when she had very little
money and was alone and friendless in London. Mrs. Dent recommended her
to some people in the country who would look after her child. She
allowed her to pay her rent by giving lessons to her daughter on the
piano. One thing led to another; the lady who lived on the drawing-room
floor took lessons, and Miss Glynn is earning now, on an average, thirty
shillings per week, which little income will be increased if I can
appoint her to the post of organist in my church, my organist having
been obliged to leave me on account of her health. It was while talking
to Mrs. Dent on this very subject that I first heard Miss Glynn's name
mentioned.
'Mrs. Dent was enthusiastic about her, but I could see that she knew
little about her lodger's antecedents, except that she came from
Ireland. She was anxious that I should engage her at once, declaring
that I could find no one like her, and she asked me to see her that
evening. I went, and the young woman impressed me very favourably. She
came to my church and played for me. I could see that she was an
excellent musician, and there seemed to be no reason why I should not
engage her. I should probably have done so without asking any further
questions--for I do not care to inquire too closely into a woman's past,
once I am satisfied that she wishes to lead an honourable life--but Miss
Glynn volunteered to tell me what her past had been, saying it was
better I should hear it from her than from another. When she had told me
her sad story, I reminded her of the anxiety that her disappearance from
the parish would cause you. She shook her head, saying you did not care
what might happen to her. I assured her that such a thing was not the
case, and begged of her to allow me to write to you; but I did not
obtain her consent until she began to see that if she withheld it any
longer we might think she was concealing some important fact. Moreover,
I impressed upon her that it was right that I should hear your story,
not because I disbelieved hers--I take it for granted the facts are
correctly stated--but in the event of your being able to say something
which would put a different complexion upon them.
'Yours very sincerely,
'MICHAEL O'GRADY.'