one side of her legs, the three-quarters of a loaf and the tin of
condensed milk on the other, Mary sat down with great care, and all
through the breakfast her mother culled from her capacious memory a
list of kindnesses of which she had been the recipient or the witness.
Mary supplemented the recital by incidents from her own observation.
She had often seen a man in the street give a penny to an old woman.
She had often seen old women give things to other old women. She knew
many people who never looked for the halfpenny change from a newsboy.
Mrs. Makebelieve applauded the justice of such transactions; they
were, she admitted, the things she would do herself if she were in a
position to be careless; but a person to whom the discovery of her
daily bread is a daily problem, and who can scarcely keep pace with
the ever-changing terms of the problem, is not in a position to be
careless.--"Grind, grind, grind," said Mrs. Makebelieve, "that is life
for me, and if I ceased to grind for an instant ..." she flickered her
thin hand into a nowhere of terror. Her attitude was that when one had
enough one should give the residue to some one who had not enough. It
was her woe, it stabbed her to the heart, to see desolate people
dragging through the streets, standing to glare through the windows of
bakeries and confectioners' shops, and little children in some of
these helpless arms! Thinking of these, she said that every morsel she
ate would choke her were it not for her own hunger. But maybe, said
she, catching a providential glance of the golden-tinted window, maybe
these poor people were not as poor as they seemed: surely they had
ways of collecting a living which other people did not know anything
about. It might be that they got lots of money from kind-hearted
people, and food at hospitable doors, and here and there clothing and
oddments which, if they did not wear, they knew how to dispose of
advantageously. What extremes of ways and means such people must be
acquainted with! no ditch was too low to rummage in, no rat-hole too
hidden to be ravaged; a gate represented something to be climbed over:
an open door was an invitation, a locked one a challenge. They could
dodge under the fences of the law and climb the barbed wire of
morality with equal impunity, and the utmost rigor of punishment
had little terror for those whose hardships could scarcely be
artificially worsened. The stagger of despair, the stricken, helpless
aspect of such people, their gaunt faces and blurred eyes might
conceivably be their stock-in-trade, the keys wherewith they unlocked
hearts and purses and area-doors. It must be so when the sun was
shining and birds were singing across fields not immeasurably distant,
and children in walled gardens romped among fruits and flowers. She
would believe this, for it was the early morning when one must
believe, but when the nighttime came again she would laugh to scorn
such easy beliefs, she would see the lean ribs of humanity when she
undressed herself.
VIII
After her mother had gone Mary Makebelieve occupied herself settling
the room and performing the various offices which the keeping in order
of even one small room involves. There were pieces of the wall-paper
flapping loosely; these had to be gummed down with strips of
stamp-paper. The bed had to be made, the floor scrubbed, and a
miscellany of objects patted and tapped into order. Her few dresses
also had to be gone over for loose buttons, and the darning of
threadbare places was a duty exercising her constant attention. Her
clothing was always made by her mother, whose needle had once been
noted for expertness, and, therefore, fitted more accurately than is
customary in young girls' dresses. The arranging and rearranging of
her beads was a frequent and enjoyable labor. She had four different
necklaces, representing four different pennyworths of beads purchased
at a shop whose merchandise was sold for one penny per item. One
pennyworth of these beads was colored green, another red, a third was
colored like pearls, and the fourth was a miscellaneous packet of many
colors. A judicious selection of these beads could always provide a
new and magnificent necklace at the expense of little more than a
half-hour's easy work.
Because the sun was shining she brought out her white dress, and for a
time was busy on it. There had been five tucks in the dress, but one
after one they had to be let out. This was the last tuck that
remained, and it also had to go, but even with such extra lengthening
the dress would still swing free of her ankles. Her mother had
promised to add a false hem to it when she got time, and Mary
determined to remind her of this promise as soon as she came in from
work. She polished her shoes, put on the white dress, and then did up
her hair in front of the cracked looking-glass. She always put up her
hair very plainly. She first combed it down straight, then parted it
in the center, and rolled it into a great ball at the back of her
neck. She often wished to curl her hair, and, indeed, it would have
curled with the lightest persuasion: but her mother being approached
on the subject, said that curls were common and were seldom worn by
respectable people, excepting very small children or actresses, both
of whose slender mentalities were registered by these tiny
daintinesses. Also, curls took up too much time in arranging, and the
slightest moisture in the air was liable to draw them down into lank
and unsightly plasters, and, therefore, saving for a dance or a
picnic, curls should not be used.
Mary Makebelieve, having arranged her hair, hesitated for some time in
the choice of a necklace. There was the pearl-colored necklace--it was
very pretty, but every one could tell at once that they were not
genuine pearls. Real pearls of the bigness of these would be very
valuable. Also there was something childish about pearls which
latterly she wished to avoid. She had quite grown up now. The letting
down of the last tuck in her dress marked an epoch as distinct as did
the first rolling up of her hair. She wished her dress would go right
down to her heels so that she might have a valid reason for holding up
her skirts with one hand. She felt a trifle of impatience because her
mother had delayed making the false hem; she could have stitched it on
herself if her mother had cut it out, but for this day the dress would
have to do. She wished she owned a string of red coral; not that round
beady sort, but the jagged crisscross coral--a string of these long
enough to go twice round her neck, and yet hang down in front to her
waist. If she owned a string as long as that she might be able to cut
enough off to make a slender wristlet. She would have loved to see
such a wristlet sagging down to her hand.
Red, it seemed, would have to be the color for this day, so she took
the red beads out of a box and put them on. They looked very nice
against her white dress, but still--she did not quite like them: they
seemed too solid, so she put them back into the box again, and instead
tied round her neck a narrow ribbon of black velvet, which satisfied
her better. Next she put on her hat; it was of straw, and had been
washed many times. There was a broad ribbon of black velvet around it.
She wished earnestly that she had a sash of black velvet about three
inches deep to go round her waist. There was such a piece about the
hem of her mother's Sunday skirt, but, of course, that could not be
touched; maybe, her mother would give it to her if she asked. The
skirt would look quite as well without it, and when her mother knew
how nice it looked round her waist she would certainly give it to her.
She gave a last look at herself in the glass and went out, turning up
to the quays in the direction of the Phoenix Park. The sun was
shining gloriously, and the streets seemed wonderfully clean in the
sunlight. The horses under the heavy drays pulled their loads as if
they were not heavy. The big, red-faced drivers leaned back at ease,
with their hard hats pushed back from their foreheads and their eyes
puckered at the sunshine. The tram-cars whizzed by like great jewels.
The outside cars went spanking down the broad road, and every
jolly-faced jarvey winked at her as he jolted by. The people going up
and down the street seemed contented and happy. It was one o'clock,
and from all kinds of offices and shops young men and women were
darting forth for their lunch; none of the young men were so hurried
but they had a moment to glance admiringly at Mary Makebelieve before
diving into a cheap restaurant or cheaper public-house for their
food. The gulls in the river were flying in long, lazy curves, dipping
down to the water, skimming it an instant, and then wheeling up again
with easy, slanting wings. Every few minutes a boat laden with barrels
puffed swiftly from beneath a bridge. All these boats had pretty
names--there was the _Shannon_, the _Suir_, the _Nore_, the _Lagan_,
and many others. The men on board sat contentedly on the barrels and
smoked and made slow remarks to one another; and overhead the sky was
blue and wonderful, immeasurably distant, filled from horizon to
horizon with sparkle and warmth. Mary Makebelieve went slowly on
towards the Park. She felt very happy. Now and then a darker spot
flitted through her mind, not at all obscuring, but toning the
brightness of her thoughts to a realizable serenity. She wished her
skirts were long enough to be held up languidly like the lady walking
in front: the hand holding up the skirt had a golden curb-chain on
the wrist which drooped down to the neatly gloved hand, and between
each link of the chain was set a blue turquoise, and upon this jewel
the sun danced splendidly. Mary Makebelieve wished she had a slender
red coral wristlet; it also would have hung down to her palm and been
lovely in the sunlight, and it would, she thought, have been far nicer
than the bangle.
IX
She walked along for some time in the Park. Through the railings
flanking the great road many beds of flowers could be seen. These were
laid out in a great variety of forms--of stars and squares and crosses
and circles, and the flowers were arranged in exquisite patterns.
There was a great star which flamed with red flowers at the deep
points, and in its heart a heavier mass of yellow blossom glared
suddenly. There were circles wherein each ring was a differently
colored flower, and others where three rings alternated--three rings
white, three purple, and three orange, and so on in slenderer circles
to the tiniest diminishing. Mary Makebelieve wished she knew the names
of all the flowers, but the only ones she recognized by sight were the
geraniums, some species of roses, violets, and forget-me-nots and
pansies. The more exotic sorts she did not know, and, while she
admired them greatly, she had not the same degree of affection for
them as for the commoner, friendly varieties.
Leaving the big road she wandered into wider fields. In a few moments
the path was hidden, the outside cars, motor cars and bicycles had
vanished as completely as though there were no such things in the
world. Great numbers of children were playing about in distinct bands;
each troop was accompanied by one and sometimes two older people,
girls or women who lay stretched out on the warm grass or leaned
against the tree-trunks reading novelettes, and around them the
children whirled and screamed and laughed. It was a world of waving
pinafores and thin black-stockinged legs and shrill, sweet voices. In
the great spaces the children's voices had a strangely remote quality;
the sweet, high tones were not such as one heard in the streets or in
houses. In a house or a street these voices thudded upon the air and
beat sonorously back again from the walls, the houses, or the
pavements; but out here the slender sounds sang to a higher tenuity
and disappeared out and up and away into the tree-tops and the clouds
and the wide, windy reaches. The little figures partook also of this
diminuendo effect; against the great grassy curves they seemed smaller
than they really were; the trees stirred hugely above them, the grass
waved vast beneath them, and the sky ringed them in from immensity.
Their forms scarcely disturbed the big outline of nature, their
laughter only whispered against the silence, as ineffectual to disturb
that gigantic serenity as a gnat's wing fluttered against a precipice.
Mary Makebelieve wandered on; a few cows lifted solemnly curious faces
as she passed and swung their heavy heads behind her. Once or twice
half a dozen deer came trotting from beyond the trees, and were
shocked to a halt on seeing her--a moment's gaze, and away like the
wind, bounding in a delicious freedom. Now a butterfly came twisting
on some eccentric journey--ten wing-beats to the left, twenty to the
right, and then back to the left, or, with a sudden twist, returning
on the path which it had already traversed, jerking carelessly through
the sunlight. Across the sky very far up a troop of birds sailed
definitely--they knew where they were going; momently one would detach
itself from the others in a burst of joyous energy and sweep a great
circle and back again to its comrades, and then away, away, away to
the skyline.--Ye swift ones! O, freedom and sweetness! A song falling
from the heavens! A lilt through deep sunshine! Happy wanderers! How
fast ye fly and how bravely--up and up, till the earth has fallen away
and the immeasurable heavens and the deep loneliness of the sunlight
and the silence of great spaces receive you!
Mary Makebelieve came to a tree around which a circular wooden seat
had been placed. Here for a time she sat looking out on the wide
fields. Far away in front the ground rolled down into valleys and up
into little hills, and from the valleys the green heads of trees
emerged, and on the farther hills, in slender, distinct silhouette,
and in great masses, entire trees could be seen. Nearer were single
trees, each with its separate shadow and a stream of sunlight flooding
between; and everywhere the greenery of leaves and of grass and the
gold of myriad buttercups and multitudes of white daisies.
She had been sitting for some time when a shadow came from behind her.
She watched its lengthening and its queer bobbing motion. When it grew
to its greatest length it ceased to move. She felt that some one had
stopped. From the shape of the shadow she knew it was a man, but being
so close she did not like to look. Then a voice spoke. It was a voice
as deep as the rolling of a sea.
"Hello," said the voice; "what are you doing here all alone, young
lady?"
Mary Makebelieve's heart suddenly spurted to full speed. It seemed to
want more space than her bosom could afford. She looked up. Beside her
stood a prodigious man: one lifted hand curled his moustache, the
other carelessly twirled a long cane. He was dressed in ordinary
clothing, but Mary Makebelieve knew him at once for that great
policeman who guided the traffic at the Grafton Street crossing.
X
The policeman told her wonderful things. He informed her why the
Phoenix Park was called the Phoenix Park. He did not believe there
was a phoenix in the Zoological Gardens, although they probably had
every kind of bird in the world there. It had never struck him, now he
came to think of it, to look definitely for that bird, but he would do
so the next time he went into the Gardens. Perhaps the young lady
would allow him (it would be a much-appreciated privilege) to escort
her through the Gardens some fine day, the following day for
instance.... He rather inclined to the belief that the phoenix was
extinct--that is, died out; and then, again, when he called to mind
the singular habits with which this bird was credited, he conceived
that it had never had a real but only a mythical existence--that is,
it was a makebelieve bird, a kind of fairy tale.
He further informed Mary Makebelieve that this Park was the third
largest in the world, but the most beautiful. His evidence for this
statement was not only the local newspapers, whose opinion might be
biased by patriotism--that is, led away from the exact truth--but in
the more stable testimony of reputable English journals, such as
_Answers_ and _Tit-Bits_ and _Pearson's Weekly_, he found an
authoritative and gratifying confirmation--that is, they agreed. He
cited for Mary Makebelieve's incredulity the exact immensity of the
Park in miles, in yards, and in acres, and the number of head of
cattle which could be accommodated therein if it were to be utilized
for grazing--that is, turned into grass lands; or, if transformed into
tillage, the number of small farmers who would be the proprietors of
economic holdings--that is, a recondite--that is, an abstruse and a
difficult scientific and sociological term.
Mary Makebelieve scarcely dared lift her glance to his face. An
uncontrollable shyness had taken possession of her. Her eyes could not
lift without an effort: they fluttered vainly upwards, but before
reaching any height they flinched aside and drooped again to her lap.
The astounding thought that she was sitting beside a man warmed and
affrighted her blood so that it rushed burningly to her cheeks and
went shuddering back again coldly. Her downcast eyes were almost
mesmerized by the huge tweed-clad knees which towered like monoliths
beside her. They rose much higher than her knees did, and extended far
out more than a foot and a half beyond her own modest stretch. Her
knees slanted gently downwards as she sat, but his jagged straightly
forward, like the immovable knees of a god which she had seen once in
the Museum. On one of these great knees an equally great hand rested.
Automatically she placed her own hand on her lap and, awe-stricken,
tried to measure the difference. Her hand was very tiny and as white
as snow: it seemed so light that the breathing of a wind might have
fluttered it. The wrist was slender and delicate, and through its
milky covering faint blue veins glimmered. A sudden and passionate
wish came to her as she watched her wrist. She wished she had a red
coral bracelet on it, or a chain of silver beaten into flat discs, or
even two twists of little green beads. The hand that rested on the
neighboring knee was bigger by three times than her own, the skin on
it was tanned to the color of ripe mahogany-wood, and the heat of the
day had caused great purple veins to grow in knots and ridges across
the back and running in big twists down to the wrists. The specific
gravity of that hand seemed tremendous; she could imagine it holding
down the strong neck of a bull. It moved continually while he spoke
to her, closing in a tense strong grip that changed the mahogany color
to a dull whiteness and opening again to a ponderous, inert width.
She was ashamed that she could find nothing to say. Her vocabulary had
suddenly and miserably diminished to a "yes" and "no," only tolerably
varied by a timid "indeed" and "I did not know that." Against the easy
clamor of his speech she could find nothing to oppose, and ordinarily
her tongue tripped and eddied and veered as easily and nonchalantly as
a feather in a wind. But he did not mind silence. He interpreted it
rightly as the natural homage of a girl to a policeman. He liked this
homage because it helped him to feel as big as he looked, and he had
every belief in his ability to conduct a polite and interesting
conversation with any lady for an indefinite time.
After a while Mary Makebelieve arose and was about bidding him a timid
good-by. She wished to go away to her own little room where she could
look at herself and ask herself questions. She wanted to visualize
herself sitting under a tree beside a man. She knew that she could
reconstruct him to the smallest detail, but feared that she might not
be able to reconstruct herself. When she arose he also stood up and
fell so naturally into step beside her that there was nothing to do
but to walk straight on. He still withstood the burden of conversation
easily and pleasantly and very learnedly. He discussed matters of high
political and social moment, explaining generously the more unusual
and learned words that bristled from his vocabulary. Soon they came to
a more populous part of the Park. The children ceased from their play
to gaze round-eyed at the little girl and the big man, their
attendants looked and giggled and envied. Under these eyes Mary
Makebelieve's walk became afflicted with a sideward bias which jolted
her against her companion. She was furious with herself and ashamed.
She set her teeth to walk easily and straightly, but constantly the
jog of his elbow on her shoulder or the swing of his hand against her
blouse sent her ambling wretchedly arms-length from him. When this had
occurred half a dozen times she could have plumped down on the grass
and wept loudly and without restraint. At the Park gate she stopped
suddenly and with the courage of despair bade him good-by. He begged
courteously to be allowed to see her a little way to her home, but she
would not permit it, and so he lifted his hat to her. (Through her
distress she could still note in a subterranean and half-conscious
fashion the fact that this was the first time a man had ever uncovered
before her.) As she went away down the road she felt that his eyes
were following her and her tripping walk hurried almost to a run. She
wished frantically that her dress was longer than it was--that false
hem! If she could have gathered a skirt in her hand the mere holding
on to something would have given her self-possession, but she feared
he was looking critically at her short skirt and immodest ankles.
He stood for a time gazing after her with a smile on his great face.
He knew that she knew he was watching, and as he stood he drew his
hand from his pocket and tapped and smoothed his moustache. He had a
red moustache; it grew very thickly, but was cropped short and square,
and its fiber was so strong that it stood out above his lip like wire.
One expected it to crackle when he touched it, but it never did.
XI
When Mrs. Makebelieve came home that night she seemed very tired, and
complained that her work at Mrs. O'Connor's house was arduous beyond
any which she has yet engaged in. She enumerated the many rooms that
were in the house: those that were covered with carpets, the margins
whereof had to be beeswaxed: those others, only partially covered with
rugs, which had to be entirely waxed: the upper rooms were uncarpeted
and unrugged, and had, therefore, to be scrubbed: the basement,
consisting of two red-flagged kitchens and a scullery, had also to be
scoured out. The lady was very particular about the scouring of
wainscotings and doors. The upper part of the staircase was bare and
had to be scrubbed down, and the part down to the hall had a thin
strip of carpet on it secured by brazen rods; the margins on either
side of this carpet had to be beeswaxed and the brass rods polished.
There was a great deal of unnecessary and vexatious brass of one kind
or another scattered about the house, and as there were four children
in the family, besides Mrs. O'Connor and her two sisters, the amount
of washing which had constantly to be done was enormous and terrifying.