But the atmospheric surprises of such spots as Inishmaan are
inexhaustible. When next morning she again opened the cabin-door,
leaving Honor asleep, the rain and storm had vanished utterly, and
serenity reigned supreme over everything. The sky was such a sky as one
must go to Ireland--nay, to west Ireland--to see: great rolling masses
of clouds above, black or seemingly black by contrast with the pale
opaque serenity beneath. Parallel with and immediately above the horizon
spread a belt of sky filled with silvery clouds, pale as ghosts, rising
one over the other, tier on tier, like the circles of some celestial
amphitheatre. Now and then fragments of the darker region would detach
themselves and go floating across this silvery portion, their shadows
flung down one after the other as they went. Nowhere any direct
sunlight, yet the play of light and shadow was endless; tint following
tint, line following line, shade following shade in an interminable
gradation of light and movement. What gave tone and peculiarity to the
scene was that, owing to the wetness of the rocks and to their absolute
horizontality, the whole drama of the sky was repeated twice over; the
same shaft of light, seen first far off upon the most remote horizon,
telling its story again and again with absolute faithfulness upon the
luminous planes of rock as in a succession of enchanted mirrors.
Grania sat down on her accustomed seat, a bit of the upper ledge which
ran close to the great boulder and just at the mouth of the gully. She
had hardly slept at all, for Honor had awakened coughing, probably on
account of the open door, and for hours her cough had hardly ceased, the
oppression having been so great that twice it had seemed as if she must
suffocate before relief came. Grania had accordingly sat the greater
part of the night with her arm around her, supporting her in a sitting
posture, and it was not till towards six o’clock that Honor had fallen
into a doze, and that she had then been able to lie down.
She was tired out, therefore, as well as vexed by her unsuccessful chase
of the night before, and her mind was now busily going over what was to
be done about the turf. Already a large hole had been made in the rick,
and if this went on there would not be enough left to carry them on till
they got a fresh supply in the autumn. She ran over in her mind all the
evil-doers of the island, trying to fix upon the one most likely to be
the culprit. At first her thoughts had fixed themselves upon Shan Daly,
the black sheep par excellence, and as it were officially, of Inishmaan.
But Shan Daly was believed to be away at present, though no one knew
where, and on the whole she inclined to think that it was more likely to
have been Pete Durane, who lived on the other side of the island, a
little above Allinera, and whose record was by no means a blameless one
in the matter of petty larceny. The figure of which she had momentarily
caught a glimpse seemed more like that of Pete Durane, too, than of
Shan. Having come to this conclusion she decided to go round to the
Duranes’ house that morning, and see if, in the course of conversation,
any suspicious circumstances came to light. She also made up her mind to
watch again herself that evening. Perhaps Murdough Blake would come and
watch with her too. If so, they--
At this point a cough and faint stirring sound made itself heard from
the cabin, and she got up and went in.
Honor was lying upon her back, her face drawn and white with the long
conflict of the night. Her eyes opened, however, and turned, as they
always did, with a loving look upon her sister as she entered. Grania
lifted her up, propping her on her arm, and proceeded to arrange her for
the day. There was only one pillow in the cabin, so that the foundation
of the support by means of which she was enabled to sit erect had to be
made with the aid of an old fishing kish, which Grania had adapted for
the purpose. Raised upon this and the pillow over it, Honor could see
quite comfortably through the open door, here, as in every Irish cabin,
the chief means of observation with the outer world.
The sun had now struggled through the clouds and shone in at the
entrance with a sleepy radiance. In every direction the sound of
tinkling water was to be heard, as the residue of last night’s deluge
dripped from a thousand invisible chinks, falling with a soft, pattering
noise upon the platform which served as a sort of natural terrace to the
cabin. Against the steep, wet sides of the gully the light broke in
soft, prismatic gleams, which played up and down its fluted edges and
over the big face of the boulder in an incessant dance of colour. The
poor little weatherbeaten spot seemed filled for the moment to an almost
unnatural degree with soft movement and tender, playful radiance.
Honor gazed at it all from her bed, an expression of vague yearning
growing in her patient eyes.
Presently the brown sail of a hooker showed for a moment passing
between the rocks in the direction of the mainland.
Her eyes turned to follow it till it had passed beyond their reach.
‘That will be the Wednesday boat for Galway, Grania!’ she said in a tone
of mild excitement.
Grania was not looking. Her thoughts were still with the turf, and she
was going over in her mind the plan for that evening’s campaign. She
would tell her suspicions, she decided, to Murdough, and they would
watch behind the big boulder, or perhaps at the bottom of the gully.
‘Maybe, sister,’ she replied indifferently. ‘It is up to the Duranes’
house I must be going this morning,’ she added presently. ‘And, Honor,
it is not the kelp I need watch this evening. Will I--will I ask
Murdough Blake to come over, and sit with us a bit? It is not for a long
time, he says--no, not for a long, long time--that he has seen you.’
Honor suddenly reddened, and a curious look of embarrassment came into
her face.
‘Well, then, honey sweet, of course you can,’ she said, but in a tone of
such evident reluctance that Grania could not fail to observe it.
‘What is it ails you about Murdough?’ she asked curiously. ‘It is not
the first time, not the first by many, that you did not want him to come
here. Is it that you think anyway ill of him? Is it, Honor? Say, is it?’
she persisted anxiously.
‘Auch! child, no. Ill? Why would I think ill of him? Tis just--auch,
’tis just--’tis nothing in life but my own foolishness--nothing in life
but that. Heart of my soul! what wouldn’t I do if you asked me? and of
course he can come. But, ’tis just---- Auch, ’tis laughing at me you’ll
be, Grania--but you know when the fit takes me I must cough, and then
the phlegm--and--and--well, ’tis shamed I am, dear, shamed outright to
be sitting and spitting, you know, and a young man looking at me. That’s
just it, and nothing else in life, only that!’
Grania stared at her for a second open-eyed, then she, too, reddened
slightly. Such a reason would certainly never have dawned upon her mind.
Modest she was--no girl more so--but she took far too sturdy and
out-of-doors a view of life for any such fantastic notions of delicacy
as this to trouble her--notions which could only, perhaps, lurk and grow
up in such a nature as Honor’s, conventual by instinct, and now trebly,
artificially sensitive from ill health. Honor’s wishes were to be
respected, however, even when they were mysterious.
‘Well, indeed, sister, I never gave thought to that,’ she replied,
humbly enough.
‘Auch! and why would you give thought to it? Sure, why would a young
colleen like you, that’s niver known ache or sickness, think of such
things, no more than the young flowers out there coming up through the
rocks?’ the other answered with eager, loving tenderness. ‘And my prayer
to God and the Holy Virgin is that you never _may_ have to think of
them, Grania dheelish, alannah, acushla oge machree,’ she went on
coaxingly, heaping up one term of endearment upon another. She was
afraid that her reason, although a perfectly true and, to her mind, a
perfectly reasonable one, might somehow have offended Grania. With this
idea she presently went on, having first waited long enough to regain
her breath.
‘Think ill of Murdough Blake? Wisha! of Murdough Blake is it? a right
_brine-oge_ of a boy and a credit to all that owns him! A likely story
that, when it is a joy to me to think of the two, him and yourself,
coming and living here in the old house and I dead and gone--yes,
indeed, and your little children growing up round you--my blessing and
the blessing of Heaven be upon them, night and day, be they many or be
they few! And if it was not the next thing to a sin, ’tis fretted and
vexed I’d be to be stopping on in the way I am. What for? Only to be
hindering two young creatures that’s wanting and wishing to settle down,
as is only natural, and they not able to do it, and all because of me!
Sure, sister dear, ’tis begging your pardon I do be often inclined to
do--yes, indeed, many’s the time; only there--’tis God sends it, you
know, and it can’t be different, whether or no.’
Grania’s face had run through several variations while Honor was
speaking. By the time she had finished, however, her eyes were gentle
and misty.
‘A right _brine-oge_ of a boy,’ the other continued complacently,
smoothing down her blanket. ‘And love is a jewel that’s well known all
the world over’--this observation cannot be said to have been uttered
with any very fervent conviction, merely in the tone of one who utters
an adage, sanctioned by usage, and therefore respectable--‘’tisn’t every
colleen, either, gets the one she likes best, so it isn’t, and no
trouble; nothing to do but to settle down, and all ready, no questions,
nor money wanted, nor a thing. ’Tis hard for a girl to have to marry a
man and he nothing to her, or worse perhaps--a black stranger out of
nowhere--and all for no reason but because of his wanting so many cows,
or her father setting his mind on it, or the like of that. I mind me
when I was a slip of a child--thirteen years old maybe, or less--there
was a little girl--Mary O’Reilly her name was--barely seventeen years,
no more: a soft-faced, yellow-haired little girsha, as slight and
tender to look at as one of those fairy-ferns out there, when they come
up first through the cracks. And there was a man belonging to Inisheer,
whom they called Michael Donnellan--well, he wasn’t, to say rightly,
old, but he was a big, set-looking man, with a red hairy face on him,
and a nasty look, somehow. Well, he and Mat Reilly--that’s Mary
O’Reilly’s father--settled it up between them one night, over at the
“Cruskeen Beg,” and the number of cows fixed, and not a word, good or
bad, only the wedding-day settled, and the priest told and all. As for
Mary, all the notice she got was four days’, not one more! And sure
enough when the day came they all went over to Aranmore chapel, and
married they were--a grand wedding--and back they came in the boats, and
up to the house, and the height of eating and drinking going on, and the
neighbours all asked in, and every thing! I was looking in at the back
window, by the same token, and half the other girshas in the place with
me, and sorry I was, too, for I was fond of poor Mary O’Reilly, though I
didn’t rightly understand what it all meant, being only a child at the
time myself. Well, they were just setting out from the cabin, and the
neighbours had all gathered round to bid them “God speed!” when all at
once poor Mary, that was standing there quiet and decent as a lamb, gave
a sudden screech, and she ran and she twisted her arms round the top of
the doorway, that had a little space, mind you, between it and the head
of the door, so she could get her arm in. And when they went to unloose
her she struck out at them and fought and kicked and bit--the innocent,
peaceable creature that never lifted her hand to man or mouse before in
her life!--and she cried out to them that she wouldn’t leave her mammy,
no, she would _not_, and that they might tear her into little pieces but
she’d never loose hold of the door. Just think of it! the shame and the
disgrace before the whole country! Her mother tried to unloose her,
though she was crying fit to burst all the time herself. And the man
that was her husband since the morning went up to her, and spoke rough
to her--the beast!--and told her she must come with him at once. And she
cried out that she would _not_ go with him, no, not unless he took her
away in little pieces, for that she hated the sight of him and his red
face, and that she would kill herself, and him too, rather than go a
foot with him! Och, _vo, vo_! that was a day--my God! that was a day!
However, take her away with him he did, somehow or other, and ugly and
sulky he looked in his new clothes, and his face redder than ever, being
made such a _baulgore_[7] before them all--and she crying and screaming
to her mammy to keep her, and the old man holding back his wife that was
fighting to get to her--and away with the two of them in a curragh to
Inisheer, where he lived!’
‘And what did she do when he got her there? Did she kill him? ’Tis _I_
would have killed him, no fear of me but I would!’ Grania exclaimed
eagerly, her upper lip raised as she used to raise it when she was a
child, showing the white teeth below.
‘“Kill him”? Arrah! nonsense, girl alive; the creature hadn’t it in her
to kill a fly, no, nor the hundredth part of the half of a fly. What did
she do? Sure, she did as every other woman has done since the world
began; what else had she to do, God help her? Och, _vo, vo_! marrying is
a black job for many and many a one, and so I tell you, child, though
it’s little, I dare say, you believe me. I often think that it was
seeing poor Mary that same day gave me the first strong turn against it
myself--so I do,’ Honor ended meditatively.
Grania frowned till her brows met, but made no further comment on the
story.
‘Yes, indeed, I do think that ’twas seeing Mary O’Reilly hanging on to
that old door, and her mother crying and all, set me so against it then,
I do really!’ Honor went on complacently. ‘It wasn’t that I couldn’t
have married well enough if I had wanted it, mind you! There was an old
man--you’ve often heard me talk of him--up by Polladoo way; rich he
was--oh, my God! he _was_ rich!--nigh upon two cantrells of land he
rented, not a foot less, and my father was mad with me to marry
him--said once he’d turn me out of the house on to the bare sea rocks if
I didn’t! But your mother, Grania, that wasn’t long in it then herself,
helped me, so she did--may her bed in Glory be the sweeter and the
easier for it this day I pray! That was the worst time ever I had at
all, at all!--the very worst time of all,’ Honor added reflectively.
Grania looked up. A new idea, a sudden curiosity, was stirring in her
mind.
‘But did you never care for e’er a one, Honor?’ she asked, reddening and
speaking quickly: ‘never for e’er a one at all--not when you were young?
Sure, Honor, you must! Think a bit, sister, and tell me. Arrah! why
wouldn’t you tell me? Isn’t it all past and done now?’
‘“Care”? Is it I, child? “_Care_”! God keep you, no! What would ail me
to care?’ the elder sister asked in tones of genuine astonishment.
‘Auch! men is a terrible trouble, Grania, first and last. What with the
drink and the fighting and one thing and another, a woman’s life is no
better than an old garron’s down by the seashore once she’s got one of
them over her driving her the way he chooses.’ She paused, and a new
look, this time a look of unmistakable passion, came into her face.
‘Oh, no, Grania asthore, ’tis a _nun_ I would have loved to be; oh, my
God! yes, that _is_ the beautiful life! Pulse of my heart, sister
avilish, there’s nothing for a woman like being a nun--nothing, nothing!
Praying and praying from morning till night, and nought to do, only what
you’re bid, and a safe fair walk before you to heaven, without a turn,
or the fear of a turn, to right or left! Sure, ’tis all over now, as you
say, but many’s the time, och many’s and many’s the time, Grania, and
for years upon years, I cried myself to sleep because I couldn’t be a
nun. ’Tis on that little bed you do be sleeping on now I’d be lying, and
father and poor Phil, that’s dead, snoring one against the other as if
it was for money, and the wind blowing, and the sea and rocks grinding
against each other the way they do, and I would think of the big world
and the cruel things that do be going on in it, and the ugly ways of
men that frightened me always, and then of the convent, and the chapel
and the pictures and the garden--for I saw it all once, at Galway, at
the Sisters of Mercy there--and my heart would go out in a great cry:
“Oh, my God, make me a nun! Oh, my God, won’t You let me be a nun! My
God! my God! You’ll let me be a nun, won’t You? Arrah my God! _won’t_
You? _won’t_ You?”’
She lay back in the bed, her face flushed, her breath came fast; old
passion was stirring vehemently within her. For such passion as this,
however, Grania had no sympathy, Honor’s aspirations in this respect
having all her life been a source of irritation to her.
‘Then it is not _myself_ would like to be a nun,’ she exclaimed
defiantly. ‘And I think it was real bad of you, Honor, so I do, to have
wanted to go away. What would have become of any of us without you, and
of me most of all? Did you never think of that? Say, Honor, did you
never think of that?’
‘Arrah! whist! child, I know it, I know it. You needn’t be telling me,
for I’ve told myself so a hundred times,’ Honor answered eagerly. ‘And
maybe it’s all for the best now the way it is; anyhow, the end is not
far off, and God and the Holy Virgin will know it was not my fault. I
had the heart in me to be a nun, if ever a woman had, and it’s the heart
that’s looked to there--the heart and nothing else. And as to my not
thinking of you! why, you little _rogora dhu_, you black rogue of the
world, God forgive me if I’ve thought of anything else, child, since the
first hour I had you to myself! ’Twasn’t in it nor thought of, you were
at all, in those times I’m speaking of, nor would have been but for
father seeing your mother, a stranger come over from the Joyce country,
dancing at old Malachy O’Flaherty’s wake, and all the young fellows in
the place after her. What ailed him to think of marrying her _I_ never
could fancy! A man past forty years of age and a widower, too! An
extraordinary thing and scarce decent! No fortune to her, neither,
nothing but a pair of big black eyes--the very same as those two shining
in your own head this minute--and the walk, so people said, of a queen.
A good girl she was--I’m not saying anything against her, poor
Delia--and I cried myself sick the day she died, for she was a kind
friend to me. But there was yourself, Grania, screeching and kicking,
and making the devil’s own commotion with wanting to be fed. Somehow,
once I got you into my arms, and no one near you but myself, I
disremember ever wanting again to be a nun, so I do.’
Grania’s fierce look softened. ‘’Tis a mother you’ve been to me, sure
enough, all my life, sister,’ she said gently.
‘“Mother”! Wisha! child, with your “mother”! ’Tisn’t much _I_ think of
mothers, I can tell you! There’s mothers enough in the world and to
spare, too! Anyone can be a _mother_--small thanks to them! Oh, no,
Grania sweet, acushla machree, love of my heart, ’tis your _soul_, ’tis
the precious, precious soul of you that I’ve always wanted, and cried
after, and longed for, ever since first I had you to myself. Sure, if I
could only feel easy about _that_ I’d die the happiest woman ever yet
had a footboard laid on her face. Oh, my pet, my bird, my little
deerfoor asthore, won’t you try to turn to Him when I’m gone? Remember,
I’ll be near, maybe, though you won’t see me. Sure, if it was to do you
any good, I’d stop a hundred years longer than need be in the place
Father Tom tells of, or a thousand either, for I don’t mind pain, being
so used to it, and think it all joy and sweetness.’ Honor lifted her
head a little in the bed and raised her soft brown eyes imploringly
towards her sister. ‘Oh, Grania dheelish, pulse of my soul, what’s this
life at all, at all, short or long, easy or hard--what is it, what is it
but a dream? just a dream, no better!’ she cried with sudden passion,
that sisterly passion into which everything else had long been merged.
‘If I could only make sure of meeting my bird in heaven, if it was a
thousand years off and a thousand on the top of that, and ten thousand
more at the hinder end of that, sure, what would it matter? Oh, child
asthore, think of us two, you and me, standing up there together,
holding one another by the two hands, and knowing we’d never be
separated no more!--never, never, sun or shine, winter or summer--never
as long as God lived, and that’s for ever and ever! Oh, child, child!
when that thought comes over me, ’tis like new life in my veins and new
blood in my poor heart. I feel as if I could get out of my bed, and go
leaping and dancing over the rocks to the sea, or up into the air itself
like the birds, so I do.’
Her strength, momentarily sustained, suddenly broke down, and her voice
sank so as to be almost inaudible. ‘You wouldn’t disappoint me, Grania,
dear? Sure you wouldn’t disappoint your poor old Honor, that never loved
man or woman, chick or child, only yourself?’ she whispered, the words
coming out one by one with difficulty.
Grania’s eyes filled, and she let Honor take her hand and hold it in her
two worn ones, which were grown so thin that they seemed made of a
different substance from her own toil-roughened one. But though she was
touched and would have done anything to please Honor, she could not even
pretend to respond to the sick woman’s eager longing. She would have
done so if she could, but it was impossible. The whole thing was utterly
foreign and alien to her. There was nothing in it which she could catch
hold of, nothing that she could feel to attach any definite idea to.
Fond as she was of Honor, unwilling as she was to vex her, her whole
attitude, her excessive urgency, worried her. What ailed her to talk so,
to have such queer ways and ideas? Was it because she was sick, because
she was dying? Did all sick people talk and feel like that? Was it
possible that _she_ would ever feel anything of the sort if she were
sick, if she were going to die? She did not believe it for a minute. The
youth in her veins cried for life, life! sharp-edged life, life with the
blood in it, not for a thin bloodless heaven that no one could touch or
prove.
Turning away, she made an excuse, therefore, of having to go and see
after the calf, and ran hastily out of the cabin door into the sunlight,
leaving it open behind her.
Left alone, Honor’s eyes kept dreamily following the yellow bands of
light as they spread in ever-widening streams across the rocks. Over the
top of the gully she could see a space of sky, which seemed to her to be
not only bluer, but also higher than usual. She tilted her head a little
backwards so as to be able to look farther and farther up, higher and
higher still, into this dim, mysterious distance, gradually forgetting
all troubles, vexations, hindrances, as her eyes lost themselves in that
untravelled region.
‘Augh, my God! what will it be like at all, at all, when we get there?’
she whispered, looking up and smiling, yet half abashed at the same time
by her own audacity.