notion that everybody was trying to look at her, and that they were
all laughing maliciously. After a few moments she stepped out on the
path and walked homewards quickly. She did not hear the noises of the
streets, nor see the promenading crowds. Her face was bent down as she
walked, and beneath the big brim of her straw hat her eyes were
blinded with the bitterest tears she had ever shed.
XV
Next morning her mother was no better. She made no attempt to get out
of bed, and listened with absolute indifference when the morning feet
of the next-door man pounded the stairs. Mary awakened her again and
again, but each time, after saying "All right, dearie," she relapsed
to a slumber which was more torpor than sleep. Her yellow, old-ivory
face was faintly tinged with color; her thin lips were relaxed, and
seemed a trifle fuller, so that Mary thought she looked better in
sickness than in health; but the limp arm lying on the patchwork quilt
seemed to be more skinny than thin, and the hand was more waxen and
claw-like than heretofore.
Mary laid the breakfast on the bed as usual, and again awakened her
mother, who, after staring into vacancy for a few moments, forced
herself to her elbow, and then, with sudden determination, sat up in
the bed and bent her mind inflexibly on her breakfast. She drank two
cups of tea greedily, but the bread had no taste in her mouth, and
after swallowing a morsel she laid it aside.
"I don't know what's up with me at all, at all," said she.
"Maybe it's a cold, mother," replied Mary.
"Do I look bad, now?"
Mary scrutinized her narrowly.
"No," she answered, "your face is redder than it does be, and your eyes
are shiny. I think you look splendid and well. What way do you feel?"
"I don't feel at all, except that I'm sleepy. Give me the glass in my
hand, dearie, till I see what I'm like."
Mary took the glass from the wall and handed it to her.
"I don't look bad at all. A bit of color always suited me. Look at my
tongue, though, it's very, very dirty; it's a bad tongue altogether.
My mother had a tongue like that, Mary, when she died."
"Have you any pain?" said her daughter.
"No, dearie; there is a buzz in the front of my head as if something
was spinning round and round very quickly, and that makes my eyes
tired, and there's a sort of feeling as if my head was twice as heavy
as it should be. Hang up the glass again. I'll try and get a sleep,
and maybe I'll be better when I waken up. Run you out and get a bit of
steak, and we'll stew it down and make beef tea, and maybe that will
do me good. Give me my purse out of the pocket of my skirt."
Mary found the purse and brought it to the bed. Her mother opened it
and brought out a thimble, a bootlace, five buttons, one sixpenny
piece and a penny. She gave Mary the sixpence.
"Get half a pound of leg beef," said she, "and then we'll have
fourpence left for bread and tea; no, take the other penny, too, and
get half a pound of pieces at the butcher's for twopence and a
twopenny tin of condensed milk, that's fourpence, and a three ha'penny
loaf and one penny for tea, that's sixpence ha'penny, and get onions
with the odd ha'penny, and we'll put them in the beef tea. Don't
forget, dearie, to pick lean bits of meat; them fellows do be always
trying to stick bits of bone and gristle on a body. Tell him it's for
beef tea for your mother, and that I'm not well at all, and ask how
Mrs. Quinn is; she hasn't been down in the shop for a long time. I'll
go to sleep now. I'll have to go to work in the morning whatever
happens, because there isn't any money in the house at all. Come home
as quick as you can, dearie."
Mary dressed herself and went out for the provisions, but she did not
buy them at once. As she went down the street she turned suddenly,
clasping her hands in a desperate movement, and walked very quickly
in the opposite direction. She turned up the side streets to the
quays, and along these to the Park Gates. Her hands were clasping and
unclasping in an agony of impatience, and her eyes roved busily here
and there, flying among the few pedestrians like lanterns. She went
through the gates and up the broad central path, and here she walked
more slowly: but she did not see the flowers behind the railings, or
even the sunshine that bathed the world in glory. At the monument she
sped a furtive glance down the road she had traveled--there was nobody
behind her. She turned into the fields, walking under trees which she
did not see, and up hills and down valleys without noticing the
incline of either. At times, through the tatter of her mind there
blazed a memory of her mother lying sick at home, waiting for her
daughter to return with food, and at such memories she gripped her
hands together frightfully and banished the thought.--A moment's
reflection and she could have hated her mother.
It was nearly five o'clock before she left the Park. She walked in a
fog of depression. For hours she had gone hither and thither in the
well-remembered circle, every step becoming more wayward and aimless.
The sun had disappeared, and a gray evening bowed down upon the
fields; the little wind that whispered along the grass or swung the
light branches of the trees had a bleak edge to it. As she left the
big gates she was chilled through and through, but the memory of her
mother now set her running homewards. For the time she forgot her
quest among the trees and thought only, with shame and fear, of what
her mother would say, and of the reproachful, amazed eyes which would
be turned on her when she went in. What could she say? She could not
imagine anything. How could she justify a neglect which must appear
gratuitous, cold-blooded, inexplicable?
When she had brought the food and climbed the resonant stairs she
stood outside the door crying softly to herself. She hated to open the
door. She could imagine her mother sitting up in the bed dazed and
unbelieving, angry and frightened, imagining accidents and terrors,
and when she would go in ... she had an impulse to open the door
gently, leave the food just inside and run down the stairs out into
the world anywhere and never come back again. At last in desperation
she turned the handle and stepped inside. Her face flamed, the blood
burned her eyes physically so that she could not see through them. She
did not look at the bed, but went direct to the fireplace, and with a
dogged patience began mending the fire. After a few stubborn moments
she twisted violently to face whatever might come, ready to break into
angry reproaches and impertinences, but her mother was lying very
still. She was fast asleep, and a weight, an absolutely real pressure,
was lifted from Mary's heart. Her fingers flew about the preparation
of the beef tea. She forgot the man whom she had gone to meet. Her
arms were tired and hungry to close around her mother. She wanted to
whisper little childish words to her, to rock her to and fro on her
breast, and croon little songs and kiss her, and pat her face.
XVI
Her mother did not get better. Indeed, she got worse. In addition to
the lassitude of which she had complained she suffered also from great
heat and great cold, and, furthermore, sharp pains darted so swiftly
through her brows that at times she was both dizzy and sightless. A
twirling movement in her head prevented her from standing up. Her
center of gravity seemed destroyed, for when she did stand and
attempted to walk she had a strange bearing away on one side, so that
on striving to walk towards the door she veered irresistibly at least
four feet to the left-hand side of that point. Mary Makebelieve helped
her back to bed, where she lay for a time watching horizontal lines
spinning violently in front of her face, and these lines after a time
crossed and recrossed each other in so mazy and intricate a pattern
that she became violently sick from the mere looking at them.
All of these things she described to her daughter, tracing the queer
patterns which were spinning about her with such fidelity that Mary
was almost able to see them. She also theorized about the cause and
ultimate effect of these symptoms, and explained the degrees of heat
and cold which burned or chilled her, and the growth of a pain to its
exquisite startling apex, its subsequent slow recession, and the thud
of an india-rubber hammer which ensued when the pain had ebbed to its
easiest level. It did not occur to either of them to send for a
doctor. Doctors in such cases are seldom sent for, seldom even thought
of. One falls sick according to some severely definite, implacable law
with which it is foolish to quarrel, and one gets well again for no
other reason than that it is impossible to be sick forever. As the
night struggles slowly into day so sickness climbs stealthily into
health, and nature has a system of medicining her ailments which might
only be thwarted by the ministrations of a mere doctor. Doctors also
expect payment for their services--an expectation so wildly beyond the
range of common sense as to be ludicrous. Those who can scarcely fee a
baker when they are in health can certainly not remunerate a physician
when they are ill.
But, despite her sickness, Mrs. Makebelieve was worried with the
practical common politics of existence. The food purchased with her
last sevenpence was eaten beyond remembrance. The vital requirements
of the next day and the following day and of all subsequent days
thronged upon her, clamoring for instant attention. The wraith of a
landlord sat on her bed demanding rent and threatening grisly
alternatives. Goblins that were bakers and butchers and grocers
grinned and leered and jabbered from the corners of the room.
Each day Mary Makebelieve went to the pawn office with something. They
lived for a time on the only capital they had--the poor furniture of
their room. Everything which had even the narrowest margin of value
was sold. Mary's dresses kept them for six days. Her mother's Sunday
skirt fed them for another day. They held famine at bay with a patchwork
quilt and a crazy washstand. A water-jug and a strip of oilcloth tinkled
momentarily against the teeth of the wolf and disappeared. The maw of
hunger was not incommoded by the window curtain.
At last the room was as bare as a desert and almost as uninhabitable.
A room without furniture is a ghostly place. Sounds made therein are
uncanny, even the voice puts off its humanity and rings back with a
bleak and hollow note, an empty resonance tinged with the frost of
winter. There is no other sound so deadly, so barren and dispiriting
as the echoes of an empty room. The gaunt woman in the bed seemed
less gaunt than her residence, and there was nothing more to be sent
to the pawnbroker or the secondhand dealer.
A post-card came from Mrs. O'Connor requesting, in a peremptory
language customary to such communications, that Mrs. Makebelieve would
please call on her the following morning before eight o'clock. Mrs.
Makebelieve groaned as she read it. It meant work and food and the
repurchase of her household goods, and she knew that on the following
morning she would not be able to get up. She lay a while thinking, and
then called her daughter.
"Deary," said she, "you will have to go to this place in the morning
and try what you can do. Tell Mrs. O'Connor that I am sick, and that
you are my daughter and will do the work, and try and do the best you
can for a while."
She caught her daughter's head down to her bosom and wept over her,
for she saw in this work a beginning and an end, the end of the
little daughter who could be petted and rocked and advised, the
beginning of a womanhood which would grow up to and beyond her, which
would collect and secrete emotions and aspirations and adventures not
to be shared even by a mother, and she saw the failure which this work
meant, the expanding of her daughter's life ripples to a bleak and
miserable horizon where the clouds were soapsuds and floor cloths, and
the beyond a blank resignation only made energetic by hunger.
"Oh, my dear," said she, "I hate to think of you having to do such
work, but it will only be for a while, a week, and then I will be well
again. Only a little week, my love, my sweetheart, my heart's darling."
XVII
Early on the following morning Mary Makebelieve awakened with a start.
She felt as if some one had called her, and lay for a few moments to
see had her mother spoken. But her mother was still asleep. Her
slumber was at all times almost as energetic as her wakening hours.
She twisted constantly and moved her hands and spoke ramblingly. Odd
interjections, such as "ah, well, no matter, certainly not, and indeed
aye," shot from her lips like bullets, and at intervals a sarcastic
sniff fretted or astonished her bedfellow into wakefulness. But now as
she lay none of these strenuous ejaculations were audible. Sighs only,
weighty and deep drawn and very tired, broke on her lips and lapsed
sadly into the desolate room.
Mary Makebelieve lay for a time wondering idly what had awakened her
so completely, for her eyes were wide open and every vestige of sleep
was gone from her brain; and then she remembered that on this morning,
and for the first time in her life, she had to go to work. That
knowledge had gone to bed with her and had awakened her with an
imperious urgency. In an instant she sprang out of bed, huddled on
sufficient clothing for warmth, and set about lighting the fire. She
was far too early awake, but could not compose herself to lie for
another moment in bed. She did not at all welcome the idea of going to
work, but the interest attaching to a new thing, the freshness which
vitalizes for a time even the dreariest undertaking, prevented her
from rueing with any bitterness her first day's work. To a young
person even work is an adventure, and anything which changes the usual
current of life is welcome. The fire also went with her; in quite a
short time the flames had gathered to a blaze, and matured, and
concentrated to the glowing redness of perfect combustion, then, when
the smoke had disappeared with the flames, she put on the saucepan of
water. Quickly the saucepan boiled, and she wet the tea. She cut the
bread into slices, put a spoonful of condensed milk into each cup, and
awakened her mother.
All through the breakfast her mother advised her on the doing of her
work. She cautioned her daughter when scrubbing woodwork always to
scrub against the grain, for this gave a greater purchase to the brush,
and removed the dirt twice as quickly as the seemingly easy opposite
movement. She told her never to save soap. Little soap meant much
rubbing, and advised that she should scrub two minutes with one hand
and then two minutes with the other hand, and she was urgent on the
necessity of thoroughness in the wringing out of one's floor cloth,
because a dry floor cloth takes up twice as much water as a wet one,
and thus lightens labor; also she advised Mary to change her positions
as frequently as possible to avoid cramp when scrubbing, and to kneel
up or stand up when wringing her cloths, as this would give her a rest,
and the change of movement would relieve her very greatly, and above
all to take her time about the business, because haste seldom resulted
in clean work, and was never appreciated by one's employer.
Before going out Mary Makebelieve had to arrange for some one to look
after her mother during the day. This is an arrangement which, among
poor people, is never difficult of accomplishment. The first to whom
she applied was the laboring man's wife in the next room; she was a
vast woman with six children and a laugh like the rolling of a great
wind, and when Mary Makebelieve advanced her request she shook six
children off her like toys and came out on the landing.
"Run off to your work now, honey," said she, "and let you be easy in
your mind about your mother, for I'll go up to her this minute, and when
I'm not there myself I'll leave one of the children with her to call me
if she wants anything, and don't you be fretting at all, God help you!
for she'll be as safe and as comfortable with me as if she was in Jervis
Street Hospital or the Rotunda itself. What's wrong with her now? Is it
a pain in her head she has or a sick stomach, God help her?"
Mary explained briefly, and as she went down the stairs she saw the
big woman going into her mother's room.
She had not been out in the streets so early before, and had never
known the wonder and beauty of the sun in the early morning. The
streets were almost deserted, and the sunlight--a most delicate and
nearly colorless radiance--fell gently on the long silent paths.
Missing the customary throng of people and traffic she seemed almost
in a strange country, and had to look twice for turnings which she
could easily have found with her eyes shut. The shutters were up in
all the shops and the blinds were down in most of the windows. Now and
again a milk cart came clattering and rattling down a street, and now
and again a big red-painted baker's cart dashed along the road. Such
few pedestrians as she met were poorly dressed men, who carried tommy
cans and tools, and they were all walking at a great pace, as if they
feared they were late for somewhere. Three or four boys passed her
running; one of these had a great lump of bread in his hand, and as he
ran he tore pieces off the bread with his teeth and ate them. The
streets looked cleaner than she had thought they could look, and the
houses seemed very quiet and beautiful. When she came near a policeman
she looked at him keenly from a distance, hoping and fearing that it
might be her friend, but she did not see him. She had a sinking
feeling at the thought that maybe he would be in the Phoenix Park
this day looking for her, and might, indeed, have been there for the
past few days, and the thought that he might be seeking for her
unavailingly stabbed through her mind like a pain. It did not seem
right, it was not in proportion, that so big a man should seek for a
mere woman and not find one instantly to hand. It was pitiful to think
of the huge man looking on this side and on that, peering behind trees
and through distances, and thinking that maybe he was forgotten or
scorned. Mary Makebelieve almost wept at the idea that he should fancy
she scorned him. She wondered how, under such circumstances, a small
girl can comfort a big man. One may fondle his hand, but that is
miserably inadequate. She wished she was twice as big as he was, so
that she might lift him bodily to her breast and snuggle and hug him
like a kitten. So comprehensive an embrace alone could atone for
injury to a big man's feelings.
In about twenty minutes she reached Mrs. O'Connor's house and knocked.
She had to knock half a dozen times before she was admitted, and on
being admitted had a great deal of trouble explaining who she was, and
why her mother had not come, and that she was quite competent to
undertake the work. She knew the person who opened the door for her
was not Mrs. O'Connor, because she had not a hairy wart on her chin,
nor had she buck teeth. After a little delay she was brought to the
scullery and given a great pile of children's clothing to wash, and
after starting this work she was left to herself for a long time.
XVIII
It was a dark house. The windows were all withered away behind stiff
curtains, and the light that labored between these was chastened to
the last degree of respectability. The doors skulked behind heavy
plush hangings. The floors hid themselves decently under thick red and
black carpets, and the margins which were uncarpeted were disguised by
beeswax, so that no one knew they were there at all. The narrow hall
was steeped in shadow, for there two black velvet portieres, at
distances of six feet apart, depended from rods in the ceiling.
Similar palls flopped on each landing of the staircase, and no sound
was heard in the house at all, except dim voices that droned from
somewhere, muffled and sepulchral and bodyless.
At ten o'clock, having finished the washing, Mary was visited by Mrs.
O'Connor, whom she knew at once by the signs she had been warned of.
The lady subjected each article that had been washed to a particular
scrutiny, and, with the shadowy gallop of a smile that dashed into and
out of sight in an instant, said they would do. She then conducted
Mary to the kitchen and, pointing to a cup of tea and two slices of
bread, invited her to breakfast, and left her for six minutes, when
she reappeared with the suddenness of a marionette and directed her to
wash her cup and saucer, and then to wash the kitchen, and these
things also Mary did.
She got weary very soon, but not dispirited, because there were many
things to look at in the kitchen. There were pots of various sizes and
metals, saucepans little and big, jugs of all shapes, and a regiment
of tea things were ranged on the dresser; on the walls were hung great
pot lids like the shields of barbarous warriors which she had seen in
a story book. Under the kitchen table there was a row of boots all
wrinkled by usage, and each wearing a human and almost intelligent
aspect--a well-wrinkled boot has often an appearance of mad humanity
which can chain and almost hypnotize the observer. As she lifted the
boots out of her way she named each by its face. There was Grubtoes,
Sloucher, Thump-thump, Hoppit, Twitter, Hide-away, and Fairybell.
While she was working a young girl came into the kitchen and took up
the boots called Fairybell. Mary just tossed a look at her as she
entered and bent again to her washing. Then with an extreme
perturbation she stole another look. The girl was young and as trim as
a sunny garden. Her face was packed with laughter and freedom, like a
young morning when tender rosy clouds sail in the sky. She walked with
a light spring of happiness; each step seemed the beginning of a
dance, light and swift and certain. Mary knew her in a pang, and her
bent face grew redder than the tiles she was scrubbing. Like lightning
she knew her. Her brain swung in a clamor of "where, where?" and even
in the question she had the answer, for this was the girl she had seen
going into the Gayety Theater swinging on the arm of her big
policeman. The girl said good morning to her in a kindly voice, and
Mary with a swift, frightened glance, whispered back good morning,
then the girl went upstairs again, and Mary continued to scrub the
floor.
When the kitchen was finished and inspected and approved of, she was
instructed to wash out the front hall, and set about the work at once.
"Get it done as quickly as you can," said the mistress, "I am
expecting my nephew here soon, and he dislikes washing."
So Mary bent quickly to her work. She was not tired now. Her hands
moved swiftly up and down the floor without effort. Indeed, her
actions were almost mechanical. The self that was thinking and probing
seemed somehow apart from the body bending over the bucket, and the
hands that scrubbed and dipped and wrung. She had finished about three
quarters of the hall when a couple of sharp raps came to the door.
Mrs. O'Connor flew noiselessly up from the kitchen.
"I knew," said she, bitterly, "that you would not be finished before
he came. Dry that puddle at once, so that he can walk in, and take the
soap out of the way."
She stood with her hand on the door while Mary followed these
directions, then, when a couple of hasty movements had removed the
surplus water, Mrs. O'Connor drew the bolt and her nephew entered.
Mary knew him on the doorstep, and her blood froze in terror and
boiled again in shame.
Mrs. O'Connor drew the big policeman inside and kissed him.
"I can't get these people to do things in time," said she. "They are
that slow. Hang up your hat and coat and come into the parlor."
The policeman, with his eyes fixed steadily on Mary, began to take off
his coat. His eyes, his moustache, all his face and figure seemed to
be looking at her. He was an enormous and terrifying interrogation. He
tapped his tough moustache and stepped over the bucket; at the entrance
to the parlor he stood again and hung his monstrous look on her. He
seemed about to speak, but it was to Mrs. O'Connor his words went.
"How's everything?" said he, and then the door closed behind him.