he and Mary took their evening walks together. He was a clerk in a
large retail establishment, and had many things to tell Mary which
were of great interest to both of them. For in his place of business
he had both friends and enemies of whom he was able to speak with the
fluency which was their due. Mary knew, for instance, that the chief
was bald but decent (she could not believe that the connection was
natural), and that the second in command had neither virtues nor
whiskers. (She saw him as a codfish with a malignant eye.) He
epitomized the vices which belonged in detail to the world, but were
peculiar to himself in bulk. (He must be hairy in that event.)
Language, even the young man's, could not describe him adequately. (He
ate boys for breakfast and girls for tea.) With this person the young
man was in eternal conflict (a bear with little ears and big teeth);
not open conflict, for that would have meant instant dismissal (not
hairy at all--a long slimy eel with a lot of sense), but a veiled
unremitting warfare which occupied all their spare attention. The
young man knew for an actual fact that some day he would be compelled
to hit that chap, and it would be a sorry day for the fellow, because
his ability to hit was startling. He told Mary of the evil results
which had followed some of his blows, and Mary's incredulity was only
heightened by a display of the young man's muscles. She extolled these
because she thought it was her duty to do so, but preserved some
doubts of their unique destructiveness. Once she asked him could he
fight a policeman, and he assured her that policemen are not able to
fight at all singly, but only in squads, when their warfare is callous
and ugly and conducted mainly with their boots; so that decent people
have no respect for their fighting qualities or their private
characters. He assured her that not only could he fight a policeman,
but he could also tyrannize over the seed, breed and generation of
such a one, and, moreover, he could accomplish this without real
exertion. Against all policemen and soldiers the young man professed
an eager hostility, and with these bad people he included landlords
and many employers of labor. His denunciation of these folk might be
traced back to the belief that none of them treated one fairly. A
policeman, he averred, would arrest a man for next door to nothing,
and any resistance offered to their spleen rendered the unfortunate
prisoner liable to be man-handled in his cell until their outraged
dignity was appeased. The three capital crimes upon which a man is
liable to arrest is for being drunk, or disorderly, or for refusing to
fight, and to these perils a young man is peculiarly susceptible and
is, to that extent, interested in the Force, and critical of their
behavior. The sight of a soldier annoyed him, for he saw a conqueror,
trampling vaingloriously through the capital of his country, and the
inability of his land to eject the braggart astonished and mortified
him. Landlords had no bowels of compassion. There was no kindliness of
heart among them, nor any wish to assist those whose whole existence
was engaged on their behalf. He saw them as lazy unproductive gluttons
who cried forever "Give, give," and who gave nothing in return but an
increased insolent tyranny. Many employers came into the same black
category. They were people who had disowned all duty to humanity, and
who saw in themselves the beginning and the end of all things. They
gratified their acquisitiveness not in order that they might become
benefactors of their kind (the only righteous freedom of which we
know) but merely to indulge a petty exercise of power and to attain
that approval which is granted to wealth and the giving of which is
the great foolishness of mankind. These people used their helpers and
threw them away, they exploited and bought and sold their fellow-men
while their arrogant self-assurance and the monstrous power which they
had gathered for their security shocked him like a thing unbelievable
in spite of its reality. That such things could be fretted him into
clamor. He wanted to point them out to all people. He saw his
neighbors' ears clogged, and he was prepared to die howling if only he
could pierce those encrusted auditories. That what was so simple to
him should not be understood by everybody! He could see plainly and
others could not, although their eyes looked straightly forward and
veritably rolled with intent and consciousness! Did their eyes and
ears and brains act differently to his, or was he a singular monster
cursed from his birth with madness? At times he was prepared to let
humanity and Ireland go to the devil their own way, he being well
assured that without him they were bound quickly for deep perdition.
Of Ireland he sometimes spoke with a fervor of passion which would be
outrageous if addressed to a woman. Surely he saw her as a woman,
queenly and distressed and very proud. He was physically anguished for
her, and the man who loved her was the very brother of his bones.
There were some words the effect of which were almost hypnotic on
him--The Isle of the Blest, The Little Dark Rose, The Poor Old Woman
and Caitlin the Daughter of Holohan. The mere repetition of these
phrases lifted him to an ecstasy; they had hidden, magical meanings
which pricked deeply to his heartstrings and thrilled him to a
tempest of pity and love. He yearned to do deeds of valor, violent,
grandiose feats which would redound to her credit and make the name of
Irishmen synonymous with either greatness or singularity: for, as yet,
the distinction between these words was no more clear to him than it
is to any other young man who reads violence as heroism and
eccentricity as genius. Of England he spoke with something like
stupefaction--as a child cowering in a dark wood tells of the ogre who
has slain his father and carried his mother away to a drear captivity
in his castle built of bones--so he spoke of England. He saw an
English-man stalking hideously forward with a princess tucked under
each arm, while their brothers and their knights were netted in
enchantment and slept heedless of the wrongs done to their ladies and
of the defacement of their shields.... "Alas, alas and alas, for the
once-proud people of Banba!"
XXX
Mrs. Makebelieve was astonished when the policeman knocked at her
door. A knock at her door was a rare sound, for many years had gone by
since any one had come to visit her. Of late Mrs. Cafferty often came
to talk to her, but she never knocked: she usually shouted, "Can I
come in?" and then she came in. But this was a ceremonious knock which
startled her, and the spectacle of the great man bending through the
doorway almost stopped her breath. Mary also was so shocked into
terror that she stood still, forgetful of all good manners, and stared
at the visitor open-eyed. She knew and did not know what he had come
for; but that, in some way, his appearance related to her she was
instantly assured, although she could not even dimly guess at a
closer explanation of his visit. His eyes stayed on her for an instant
and then passed to her mother, and, following her rather tremulous
invitation, he came into the room. There was no chair to sit on, so
Mrs. Makebelieve requested him to sit down on the bed, which he did.
She fancied he had come on some errand from Mrs. O'Connor, and was
inclined to be angry at a visit which she construed as an intrusion,
so, when he was seated, she waited to hear what he might have to say.
Even to her it was evident that the big man was perplexed and abashed;
his hat was in his way and so were his hands, and when he spoke his
voice was so husky as to be distressful. On Mary, who had withdrawn to
the very end of the room, this discomfort of speech had a peculiar
effect: the unsteady voice touched her breast to a kindred fluttering,
and her throat grew parched and so irritated that a violent fit of
coughing could not be restrained, and this, with the nervousness and
alarm which his appearance had thronged upon her, drove her to a very
fever of distress. But she could not take her eyes away from him, and
she wondered and was afraid of what he might say. She knew there were
a great many things he might discuss which she would be loath to hear
in her mother's presence, and which her mother would not be gratified
to hear either.
He spoke for a few moments about the weather, and Mrs. Makebelieve
hearkened to his remarks with a perplexity which she made no effort to
conceal. She was quite certain he had not called to speak about the
weather, and she was prepared to tell him so if a suitable opportunity
should occur. She was also satisfied that he had not come on a formal,
friendly visit--the memory of her last interview with him forbade such
a conjecture, for on that occasion politeness had been deposed from
her throne and acrimony had reigned in her stead. If his aunt had
desired him to undertake an embassy to her he would surely have
delivered his message without preamble, and would not have been thrown
by so trifling a duty into the state of agitation in which he was. It
was obvious, therefore, that he had not come with a message relating
to her work. Something of fear touched Mrs. Makebelieve as she looked
at him, and her voice had an uneasy note when she requested to know
what she could do for him.
The policeman suddenly, with the gesture of one throwing away anchors,
plunged into the heart of his matter, and as he spoke the look on Mrs.
Makebelieve's face changed quickly from bewilderment to curiosity and
dulled again to a blank amazement. After the first few sentences she
half turned to Mary, but an obscure shame prevented her from searching
out her daughter's eyes. It was borne quickly and painfully to her
that Mary had not treated her fairly: there was a secret here with
which a mother ought to have been trusted, and one which she could not
believe Mary would have withheld from her; and so, gauging her child's
feelings by her own, she steadfastly refused to look at her lest the
shocked surprise in her eyes might lacerate the girl she loved, and
who she knew must at the instant be in a sufficient agony----
Undoubtedly the man was suggesting that he wanted to marry her
daughter, and the unexpectedness of such a proposal left her mentally
gaping; but that there must have been some preliminaries of meeting
and courtship became obvious to her. Mary also listened to his remarks
in a stupor. Was there no possibility at all of getting away from the
man? A tenacity such as this seemed to her malignant. She had the
feeling of one being pursued by some relentless and unscrupulous
hunter. She heard him speaking through a cloud, and the only things
really clear to her were the thoughts which she knew her mother must
be thinking. She was frightened and ashamed, and the sullenness which
is the refuge of most young people descended upon her like a darkness.
Her face grew heavy and vacant, and she stared in front of her in the
attitude of one who had nothing to do with what was passing. She did
not believe altogether that he was in earnest: her immediate
discomfort showed him as one who was merely seeking to get her into
trouble with her mother in order to gratify an impotent rage. Twice or
three times she flamed suddenly, went tiptoe to run from the room. A
flash, and she would be gone from the place, down the stairs, into the
streets and away anywhere, and she tingled with the very speed of her
vision; but she knew that one word from her mother would halt her like
a barrier, and she hated the thought that he should be a witness to
her obedience.
While he was speaking he did not look at Mary. He told Mrs.
Makebelieve that he loved her daughter very much, and he begged her
permission and favor for his suit. He gave her to understand that he
and Mary had many opportunities of becoming acquainted, and were at
one in this desire for matrimony---- To Mrs. Makebelieve's mind there
recurred a conversation which she had once held with her daughter,
when Mary was curious to know if a policeman was a desirable person
for a girl to marry? She saw this question now, not as being prompted
by a laudable, an almost scientific curiosity, but as the interested,
sly speculation of a schemer hideously accomplished in deceit. Mary
could see that memory flitting back through her mother's brain, and it
tormented her. Nor was her mother at ease--there was no chair to sit
upon, she had to stand and listen to all this while he spoke, more or
less at his ease, from the bed. If she also had been sitting down she
might have been mistress of her thoughts and able to deal naturally
with the situation; but an easy pose is difficult when standing: her
hands would fold in front of her and the schoolgirl attitude annoyed
and restrained her. Also, the man appeared to be in earnest in what he
said. His words at the least and the intention which drove them seemed
honorable. She could not give rein to her feelings without lapsing to
a barbarity which she might not justify to herself even in anger and
might, indeed, blush to remember. Perhaps his chief disqualification
consisted in a relationship to Mrs. O'Connor for which he could not
justly be held to blame, and for which she sincerely pitied him. But
this certainly was a disqualification never to be redeemed. He might
leave his work, or his religion, or his country, but he could never
quit his aunt, because he carried her with him under his skin; he was
her with additions, and at times Mrs. Makebelieve could see Mrs.
O'Connor looking cautiously at her through the policeman's eyes; a
turn of his forehead and she was there like a thin wraith that
vanished and appeared again. The man was spoiled for her. He did not
altogether lack sense, and the fact that he wished to marry her
daughter showed that he was not so utterly beyond the reach of
redemption as she had fancied.
Meanwhile, he had finished his statement as regarded the affection
which he bore to her daughter and the suitability of their
temperaments, and had hurled himself into an explanation of his
worldly affairs, comprising his salary as a policeman, the possibility
of promotion and the increased emoluments which would follow it, and
the certain pension which would sustain his age. There was,
furthermore, his parents, from whose decease he would reap certain
monetary increments, and the deaths of other relatives from which an
additional enlargement of his revenues might reasonably be expected.
Indeed, he had not desired to speak of these matters at all, but the
stony demeanor of Mrs. Makebelieve and the sullen aloofness of her
daughter forced him, however reluctantly, to draw even ignoble weapons
from his armory. He had not conceived they would be so obdurate: he
had, in fact, imagined that the elder woman must be flattered by his
offer to marry her daughter, and when no evidence to support this was
forthcoming he was driven to appeal to the cupidity which he believed
occupies the heart of every middle-aged, hard-worked woman. But these
statements also were received with a dreadful composure. He could have
smashed Mrs. Makebelieve where she stood. Now and again his body
strained to a wild, physical outburst, a passionate, red fury that
would have terrified these women to their knees, while he roared their
screams into thin whimpers as a man should. He did not even dare to
stop speaking, and his efforts at an easy, good-humored, half-careless
presentation of his case was bitterly painful to him as it was to his
auditors. The fact that they were both standing up unnerved him
also--the pleasant equality which should have formed the atmosphere of
such an interview was destroyed from the first moment, and, having
once sat down, he did not like to stand up again. He felt glued to the
bed on which he sat, and he felt also that if he stood up the tension
in the room would so relax that Mrs. Makebelieve would at once break
out into speech sarcastic and final, or her daughter might scream
reproaches and disclaimers of an equal finality. At her he did not
dare to look, but the corner of his eye could see her shape stiffened
against the fireplace, an attitude so different from the pliable
contours to which he was accustomed in her as almost to be repellant.
He would have thanked God to find himself outside the room, but how to
get out of it he did not know: his self-esteem forbade anything like a
retreat without honor, his nervousness did not permit him to move at
all, the anger which prickled the surface of his body and mind was
held in check only by an instinct of fear as to what he might do if he
moved, and so, with dreadful jocularity, he commenced to speak of
himself, his personal character, his sobriety and steadiness--of all
those safe negations on which many women place reliance he spoke, and
also of certain small vices which he magnified merely for the sake of
talking, such as smoking, an odd glass of porter and the shilling
which, now and again, he had ventured upon a race horse.
Mary listened to him for a while with angry intentness. The fact that
she was the subject of his extraordinary discourse quickened at the
first all her apprehensions. Had the matter been less important she
would have been glad to look at herself in this strange position, and
to savor, with as much detachment as was possible, the whole spirit of
the adventure. But when she heard him, as she put it, "telling on
her," laying bare to her mother all the walks they had taken together,
visits to restaurants and rambles through the streets and the parks,
what he had said to her on this occasion and on that, and her remarks
on such and such a matter, she could not visualize him save as a
malignant and uncultivated person; and when he tacitly suggested that
she was as eager for matrimony as he was, and so put upon her the
horrible onus of rejecting him before a second person, she closed her
mind and her ears against him. She refused to listen, although her
perceptions admitted the trend of his speech. His words droned heavily
and monotonously to her as through dull banks of fog. She made up her
mind that if she were asked any questions by either of them she would
not reply, and that she would not look at either of them, and then she
thought that she would snap and stamp her feet and say that she hated
him, that he had looked down on her because she worked for his aunt,
that he had meanly been ashamed of and cut her because she was poor,
that he had been going with another girl all the time he was going
with her and that he only pursued her in order to annoy her, that she
didn't love him, that she didn't even like him, that, in fact, she
disliked him heartily. She wished to say all these things in one
whirling outcry, but feared that before she had rightly begun she might
become abashed, or, worse, might burst into tears and lose all the
dignity which she meant to preserve in his presence for the purpose of
showing to him in the best light exactly what he was losing.
But the big man had come to the end of his speech. He made a few
attempts to begin anew on the desirability of such a union for both of
them, and the happiness it would give him if Mrs. Makebelieve would
come to live with them when they were married. He refused to let it
appear that there was any doubt as to Mary's attitude in the matter,
for up to the moment he came to their door he had not doubted her
willingness himself. Her late avoidance of him he had put down to mere
feminine tactics which leads on by holding off. The unwilling person
he had been assured was himself--he stooped to her, and it was only
after a severe battle that he had been able to do it. The astonishment
and disapproval of his relatives and friends at such a step was very
evident to him, for to a man of his position and figure girls were
cheap creatures, the best of them to be had for the mere asking.
Therefore, the fact that this girl could be seriously rejecting his
offer of marriage came upon him like red astonishment. He had no more
to say, however, and he blundered and fumbled into silence.
For a moment or two the little room was so still that the quietness
seemed to hum and buzz like an eternity. Then, with a sigh, Mrs.
Makebelieve spoke.
"I don't know at all," said she, "why you should speak to me about
this, for neither my daughter nor yourself have ever even hinted to me
before that you were courting one another. Why Mary should keep such a
secret from her own mother I don't know. Maybe I've been cruel and
frightened her, although I don't remember doing anything that she
could have against me of that sort: or, maybe, she didn't think I was
wise enough to advise her about a particular thing like her marriage,
for, God knows, old women are foolish enough in their notions, or else
they wouldn't be slaving and grinding for the sake of their children
the way they do be doing year in and year out, every day in the week,
and every hour of the day. It isn't any wonder at all that a child
would be a liar and a sleeveen and a trampler of the roads with the
first man that nods to her when her mother is a foolish person that
she can't trust. Of course, I wouldn't be looking for a gentleman like
yourself to mention the matter to me when I might be scrubbing out
your aunt's kitchen or her hall door maybe, and you sitting in the
parlor with the company. Sure, I'm only an old charwoman, and what
does it matter at all what I'd be thinking, or whether I'd be agreeing
or not to anything? Don't I get my wages for my work, and what more
does anybody want in the world? As for me going to live with you when
you are married--it was kind of you to ask me that; but it's not the
sort of thing I'm likely to do, for if I didn't care for you as a
stranger I'm not going to like you any better as my daughter's
husband. You'll excuse me saying one thing, Sir, but while we are
talking we may as well be talking out, and it's this, that I never did
like you, and I never will like you, and I'd sooner see my daughter
married to any one at all than to yourself. But, sure, I needn't be
talking about it; isn't it Mary's business altogether, and she'll be
settling it with you nicely I don't doubt. She's a practiced hand now
at arranging things, like you are yourself, and it will do me good to
be learning something from her."
Mrs. Makebelieve took a cloth in her hand and walked over to the
fireplace, which she commenced to polish.
The big man looked at Mary. It was incumbent on him to say something.
Twice he attempted to speak, and each time, on finding himself about
to say something regarding the weather, he stopped. Mary did not look
at him; her eyes were fixed stubbornly on a part of the wall well away
from his neighborhood, and it seemed to him that she had made a vow to
herself never to look at him again. But the utter silence of the room
was unbearable. He knew that he ought to get up and go out, but he
could not bring himself to do so. His self-love, his very physical
strength, rebelled against so tame a surrender. One thought he
gathered in from swaying vacuity--that the timid little creature whom
he had patronized would not find the harsh courage to refuse him
point-blank if he charged her straightly with the question, and so he
again assayed speech.
"Your mother is angry with us, Mary," said he, "and I suppose she has
good right to be angry; but the reason I did not speak to her before,
as I admit I should have if I had done the right thing, was that I had
very few chances of meeting her, and never did meet her without some
other person being there at the same time. I suppose the reason you
did not say anything was that you wanted to be quite sure of yourself
and of me too before you mentioned it. We have both done the wrong
thing in not being open, but maybe your mother will forgive us when
she knows we had no intention of hurting her, or of doing anything
behind her back. Your mother seems to hate me: I don't know why,
because she hardly knows me at all, and I've never done her any harm
or said a word against her. Perhaps when she knows me as well as you
do she'll change her mind: but you know I love you better than any one
else, and that I'd do anything I could to please you and be a good
husband to you. What I want to ask you before your mother is,--will
you marry me?"
Mary made no reply. She did not look or give the slightest sign that
she had heard. But now it was that she did not dare to look at him.
The spectacle of this big man badgered by her and by her mother,
pleading to her, and pleading, as he and she well knew, hopelessly,
would have broken her heart if she looked at him. She had to admire
the good masculine fight he made of it. Even his tricks of word and
tactic, which she instantly divined, moved her almost to tears; but
she feared terribly that if she met his gaze she might not be able to
resist his huge helplessness, and that she might be compelled to do
whatever he begged of her even in despite of her own wishes.
The interval which followed his question weighed heavily upon them
all. It was only broken by Mrs. Makebelieve, who began to hum a song
as she polished the fire grate. She meant to show her careless
detachment from the whole matter, but in the face of Mary's silence
she could not keep it up. After a few moments she moved around and
said:--
"Why don't you answer the gentleman, Mary?"
Mary turned and looked at her, and the tears which she had resisted so
long swam in her eyes: although she could keep her features composed
she had no further command over her tears.
"I'll answer whatever you ask me, mother," she whispered.
"Then, tell the gentleman whether you will marry him or not."
"I don't want to marry any one at all," said Mary.
"You are not asked to marry any one, darling," said Mrs. Makebelieve,
"but some one--this gentleman here whose name I don't happen to know.
Do you know his name?"
"No," said Mary.
"My name...." began the policeman.
"It doesn't matter, Sir," said Mrs. Makebelieve. "Do you want to marry
this gentleman, Mary?"
"No," whispered Mary.
"Are you in love with him?"
Mary turned completely away from him.
"No," she whispered again.
"Do you think you ever will be in love with him?"
She felt as a rat might when hunted to a corner. But the end must be
very near; this could not last forever because nothing can. Her lips
were parched, her eyes were burning. She wanted to lie down and go
asleep and waken again laughing to say--"it was a dream."
Her reply was almost inaudible. "No," she said.
"You are quite sure? It is always better to be quite sure."
She did not answer any more, but the faint droop of her head gave the
reply her mother needed.