THE NEW-COMER
I
Three weeks, laggard and leaden in movement, passed away. It was late
evening; nine o’clock was just striking, and Sheila, true to her usual
habit, counted the strokes aloud.
“The clock goes faster now than it did the first night I was here,” she
said. “I suppose they’ll all be goin’ to bed in Frosses now, or maybe
sayin’ the rosary. Are ye tired, Norah?” she suddenly asked her
companion.
“No, not tired, only....”
“Maybe ye would like to go to bed,” said Sheila, anticipating Norah’s
desires and looking very wise.
“I think that.... Oh! it’s all right,” answered Norah, an expression of
pain passing across her face.
“I know,” said Sheila, laying down her scissors and stirring up the
fire, which was brighter than usual. “Ye must go to bed now and keep
yerself warm, child. Ye’ll be all right come the mornin’.”
“I’m very unwell, Sheila. I feel.... No, I’m better again,” said Norah,
making a feeble attempt to smile and only succeeding in blushing.
She undressed to her white cotton chemise, lay down, and Sheila gathered
the blankets round the young woman with tender hands. Norah appeared
calm, her fingers for a moment toyed with the tresses over her brow,
then she drew her hand under the blankets. Her face had taken on a new
light; the cold look of despair had suddenly given place to a new and
nervous interest in life and in herself. It seemed as if things had
assumed a new character for her; as if she understood in a vague sort of
way that a woman’s life is always woven of dreams, sorrow, love, and
self-sacrifice. She was now waiting almost gladly, impatient for the
most solemn moment in a woman’s life.
“I’m not one bit afraid,” she said to the serious Sheila who was bending
over her. “Now don’t be frightened. One would think....” Norah did not
proceed. It was a moment of words half-spoken and the listener
understood.
Suddenly Norah sighed deeply, clutched Sheila’s dress in a fierce grip
and closed her eyes tightly and tensely. She was suffering, but she
endured silently.
“I’m better again,” she said after a moment. “Don’t heed about me,
Sheila. I’m fine.”
The older woman went back to her work with the large shiny scissors and
the bright little needle. Only the swish-swish of the cutting shears and
the noise of a falling cinder could be heard for a long while. On the
roof wave-shadows could be seen rushing together, forming into something
very dark and breaking free again.
“Will ye have a drop of tea, Norah?”
“No, Sheila,” said the girl in the bed in a low strained voice: then
after a moment she asked: “Sheila, will ye come here for a minute?”
A cinder fell into the grate with a sharp rattle, the scissors sparkled
brightly as they were laid aside. Sheila rose and went towards the bed
on tiptoe.
“I’m not needin’ ye yet,” said Norah. “I thought.... I’m better again.”
The woman went back to her work, stepping even more softly than before.
The night slipped away; the noises on stair and street became less and
less, the women of No. 8 had retired to their beds, a drunken man sang
homewards, a policeman passed along with slow, solemn tread; even these
signs of life suddenly abated, and the noise of the cutting scissors,
the clock striking out the hours, and the wind beating against the
window were all that could be heard in the room.
About three o’clock the sanitary inspectors called. Sheila whispered to
them at the door and they went away muttering something in an apologetic
voice.
The grey dawn was lighting up the street; the blind had been drawn aside
and the lamp flickered feebly on the floor. Sheila turned it down and
approached the bed. On Norah’s face there was the calmness of
resignation and repose. She had suffered much during the night, but now
came a quiet moment. Her brow looked very white and her cheeks
delicately red. Her face was still as beautiful as ever; even so much
the more was it beautiful.
“There’s great noises in the streets, Sheila,” she said to the woman
bending over her.
“‘Tis the workers goin’ out to their work, child,” was the answer. “How
are ye feelin’ now?”
“Better, Sheila, better.”
But even as she spoke the pain again mastered her and she groaned
wearily. And Sheila, wise with a woman’s wisdom, knew that the critical
moment had come.
II
The child who came to Norah, the little boy with the pink, plump hands,
the fresh cheeks and pretty shoulders, filled nearly all the wants of
her heart. The fear that she had had of becoming a mother was past and
the supreme joy of motherhood now was hers. She knew that she would be
jealous of the father if he was with her at present; as matters stood
the child was her own, her very own, and nothing else mattered much.
Sometimes she would sit for an hour, her discarded scissors hanging from
her fingers, gazing hungrily at the saffron-red downy face of the child,
anticipating every movement on its part, following every quiver of its
body with greedy eyes. In the child lay Norah’s hopes of salvation; it
was the plank to which she clung in the shipwreck of her eternity. All
her hopes, all her fortunes lay in the babe’s fragile bed; the sound of
the little voice was heavenly music to her ears. In Norah’s heart welled
up this incomparable love, in which are blended all human affections and
all hopes of heaven, the love of a mother. The great power of motherhood
held her proof against all evils; dimly and vaguely it occurred to her
that if that restraining power was withdrawn for a moment she would
succumb to any temptation and any evil which confronted her.
She found now a great joy in working with Sheila: both talked lovingly
of home and those whom they had left behind. Sometimes Norah mingled
tears with her recollections. Sheila Carrol never wept.
“Years ago I could cry my fill,” she told Norah, “but for a long while,
save on the night yerself came here, the wells of my eyes have been very
dry.”
At another time when the mother was giving the breast to the child
Sheila said: “Ye look like the Blessed Virgin with the child, Norah.”
A difficulty arose about the child’s name: that of the father was out of
the question.
“One of the Frosses names for me,” said Sheila. “Doalty, Dony, or
Dermod, Murtagh, Shan, or Fergus; Oiney, Eamon, or Hudy; ah! shure,
there’s hundreds of them! All good names they are and all belonging to
our own arm of the glen. The trouble is that there’s too many to pick
from. We’ll be like the boy with the apples; they were all so good that
he didn’t know what one to take and he died of fargortha while lookin’
at them. Dermod or Fergus, which will it be?” asked the beansho.
“Dermod,” said Norah simply.
“I thought so,” said the woman. “And I hope another Dermod will come one
of these days to see us. Then maybe ... Dermod Flynn was a nice kindly
lad, comely and civil.”