GROWN UP
I
To all souls who are sensitive to moods of any kind, whether joyful or
sorrowful, there comes now and again a delicious hour when it is not
night and no longer day; the timid twilight gleams softly on every
object and favours a dreamy humour that weds itself, as if in a dream,
to the dim play of light and shade. In that delightful passage of time
the mind wanders through interminable spaces and dwells lovingly on
vanished hopes, broken dreams, and shattered illusions. In that moment a
soul feels the wordless pleasure of a memory that drifts lightly by; a
memory to which only the accents of the heart can give life. Old scenes
are brought up again and are seen in the delightful haze of transient
remembrance; there are waters running to a sea; waves sobbing on a
shore; voices speaking softly and low, and trees waving like phantoms to
a wind that is merely the ghost of a wind. In these dreams there is a
joyful melancholy, a placid acceptance of sorrow and happiness that
might have only been realities of an earlier existence of long past
years.
An hour like this came to Norah Ryan one evening as she sat in her room
waiting for a fight to come to an end on the landing outside. The
one-armed soldier, who had just returned from prison and found another
man in company with one of his loves, was now blackening the man’s
eyes. Norah knew that she would be molested when passing outside; she
chose to wait until the storm was over. She was dressed ready to go out;
old Meg had taken charge of the child; the fight was still in full
swing. A fire burned dimly in the grate at which Norah sat; a frail blue
fleeting flame flared nervously for a moment amongst the red tongues of
fire, then faded away. The blind was drawn across the window, but the
lamp had not been lighted yet. Norah sat on the floor, looking into the
glowing embers, her chin, delicately rounded, resting in the palm of her
hand, her long, tapering fingers touching a little pink ear that was
almost hidden under her soft, wavy tresses. The faintest flush mantled
her cheeks, her brow seen in the half-light of the room looked doubly
white, and her long lashes sank languidly from time to time over her
dream-laden eyes.
Norah’s thoughts were far away; they had crossed the bridge of many
years and roved without effort of will over the shores of her own
country. Again she lived the life of a child, the life she had known in
her earlier years. The air was full of the scent of the peat, the sound
of the sea, the homesick song of the streams babbling out their plaints
as they hurried to the bosom of their restless mother, the ocean.
It was evening. The sun, barely a hand’s breadth over the horizon,
coloured the waters of the bar and the sea beyond, amber, crimson, and
dun. The curraghs of Frosses were putting out from the shore; the
bare-footed men hurried along the strand, waving their arms and moving
their lips, but making no sound. Fergus was there, light-limbed and
dark-haired; her father, wrinkled and bearded; the neighbours and the
women and children who came down to the beach to see the people off to
the fishing.
One dream blended with another. It was morning: the sun tipped the hills
and lighted Glenmornan; strips of gold in the clouds of the east were
drawn fine as the wrinkles on the brow of a woman; a mist rose from the
holms of Frosses, and the water of the streams sparkled merrily. In the
pools trout were leaping, breaking the glassy surface and raising a
shower of rainbow mist that dissolved in the air. A boy came along the
road; there was a smile on his face and his eyes were full of dreams, as
the eyes of a youth who goes out to push his fortune well may be. In one
hand he carried a stick, in the other a bundle. Dermod Flynn was setting
out for the hiring fair of Strabane....
II
So Norah Ryan dreamt, one vision merging into another and all bringing a
long-lost peace to her soul. She did not hear the first rap at the door,
nor the second. The third knock, louder and more imperative than the
others, roused her to a sense of her surroundings. In the fabric of her
existence the black thread of destiny again reappeared and she rose,
pushed back the erring lock of hair from her white forehead, placed some
more coal on the fire, turned up the lamp and lit it, then went and
opened the door. A young man dressed in sailor’s garb, his face cut and
covered with blood, stood on the threshold; behind him on the ground lay
a prostrate figure, the man with the empty sleeve.
“Come in,” said Norah. She did not look at the visitor; all men were the
same now to her; all were so much alike. The sailor rubbed a
handkerchief over his face, staggered past the girl and sank into a
chair.
“What’s that one-armed swine doin’?” he cried. “Strikin’ a man, an A.B.
before the mast, without any reason; him and his gabblin’ fools of
women! But I learned him somethin’, I did. One on the jowl and down he
went. An A.B. before the mast stands no foolin’. Has he got up?” he
called to the woman at the door.
The ex-soldier staggered to his feet on the landing, and swore himself
along the passage. Norah closed the door.
“He’s up on his feet and away to his own room,” she informed the sailor.
“This No. 8?” he asked.
“No,” answered Norah. “It’s three doors round on the left; I’ll show you
where it is.”
“But is this house one like No. 8?”
“The same.”
“Then I’ll stay,” said the sailor, who was still busy with his face. “I
heard tell of No. 8 out abroad. I’m an A.B., you know. Before the mast
on half the seas of the world! I met a sailor who was here; not here,
but at No. 8. Ah! he had great stories of the place. So I said that I’d
come here too, if ever I came to Glasgow. Damn! that one-armed pig he
almost blinded me, did the beggar. But I gave one to him on the jowl
that he’ll not forget.... Where can I wash my face?”
“On the landing,” Norah told him, and handed the man a towel.
He went out and washed. Presently he re-appeared and Norah took stock of
him. He was dressed in sailors’ garb; his eyes were hazy from
intoxication, one of his hard and knotted hands was tattooed on the
back, his dark and heavy moustache was draggled at both ends and a red
scar on his right cheek-bone showed where the soldier had hit him. He
was young, probably not over thirty years of age. He sat down again.
“D’ye know what it is?” he exclaimed, striking his fist heavily against
his knee. “A woman of yer kind may be as good as most and better than
many. I always say that, always. Some of them may be bad, but for the
others----”
He banged his fist again against his knee and paused as if collecting
words for an emphatic finish to his sentence.
“Others are as good as pure gold,” he concluded. He was silent for a
moment as if deep in thought, then he fixed his eyes on the girl. “Come
here and sit on my knee,” he said.
She sat down on his knee and laughed, but her laugh was forced and
hollow.
“Ye’re unhappy,” said the man, looking at her fixedly, and stroking his
face with his hand. “Don’t say that ye aren’t, for I know that ye are.
Ye’ll be new at this game, maybe.... D’ye belong to Glasgow?”
“I do.”
“Ye talk like an Irish girl.”
“My father was Irish.”
“Ah! that explains it,” said the man. “I’m Irish, ye know.”
“Are ye?” exclaimed Norah with a start.
“I am that,” said the man. “Why do ye jump like ye do? Maybe ye’re
frightened of me?”
“No.”
“Maybe it’s yer first time at this work?”
The girl made no answer. Her cheeks were scarlet and she felt as if she
could burst into tears, but stifled bravely the sob that rose to her
throat.
“Don’t be frightened of me,” said the man. “We sailors are a rough lot
at times, but we respect beauty, so to speak. My God, ye’re a soncy
lookin’ wench. New to this kind of life as well!”
He paused.
“And what’s this?” he cried, glancing at the Virgin’s picture and the
little black crucifix. He turned to the girl and saw that a tear which
she hastily tried to brush away was rolling down her cheek.
“Ye’re a Catholic too,” he said in a milder voice. “It’s damned hard
luck. I myself am a Catholic, at least I was born one, but now
I’m--well, I’m nothin’.... A Catholic feels it most.... I’ve always said
that one may find women a great lot worse than women--than a woman like
yerself. The ladies that can gorge themselves at table when ye have to
do the likes of this for a livin’ are more guilty of yer sin than ye are
yerself.... Ye know I’m a bit drunk; not much wrong with me, though, for
I can see things clearly. If I’m a bit groggy ’twas mostly the fault of
that one-armed swine. But I forgive him.... I’m an advanced thinker....
What is yer name?”
“Jean.”
“I mean yer real name. It’s rarely that an Irishman calls his children
by names unbeknown in his own country. Sit closer. There! ye’re a nice
girl. I like yer brow, it’s so white, and yer lips, they’re so pretty.
Now, give me a kiss. It’s nice to have a girl like yerself on my knee.
I’m three sheets in the wind, but I like ye. I’m an advanced thinker and
I’ve read, oh! ever so much: Darwin, Huxley. Have ye ever heard of these
men?”
“Never,” Norah answered. “Who are they?”
“They are the great minds of the world. They are the men who proved that
there was no heaven and no God.”
“But there is a God!”
“If there is, why do ye suffer like this?”
“Because I’m bad.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the man. “How funny! how very funny! Ye are a child,
and God would feel honoured if ye allowed Him to lace yer shoes. If ye
kept very good and pure He might let ye to heaven when ye died--but
would He give ye a pair of shoes in mid-winter?... There’s no God....
Kiss me again. By heaven! If ye weren’t so good lookin’ and so temptin’
I’d be generous. I’d go down on my knees and salute ye as a
representative of sufferin’ womankind, and then go away feelin’ honoured
if ye only allowed me to kiss your hand. But ye are so winsome! I should
like ye to be always pure, but why do men like purity in a woman? They
like it so that they can take it away, so that they can kill that which
they love. But what am I talkin’ about anyway? I’m drunk; not so
much--just three sheets in the wind or so. I can see things clearly. I’m
a learned man and I know things, bein’ a great traveller, and a worker
on half the docks in the world, and a sailor too. A.B. before the mast I
am. I’ve seen things in my time, many things, most of them unjust, very
unjust. It’s seven years since I left home, think of that! Yer father
came from Ireland, ye say. What part of the country did he come from?”
“I don’t know,” said Norah in a low voice. “I never asked him. What part
of Ireland did ye come from?”
“I said that it is an unjust world, a danged unjust world,” said the
man, pressing her tightly and kissing her. “And in Ireland ye see more
injustice than can be seen anywhere in half the world. I’ve seen women
and girls in Ireland working for a penny a day. They were knittin’ socks
and they had to travel miles for the yarn; aye, and to cross an arm of
the sea that took them to their breasts. In the height of winter, too,
with the snow fallin’ and the sleet. Ah! if yerself had suffered such
hardships ye wouldn’t live to tell the tale. And children too had to go
out into the cold black water! My sister, a very little girl--just about
that size”--the sailor held out his hand about two feet from the
ground--“used to work fourteen hours a day when she was but twelve, and
her pay was sevenpence ha’penny a week! The hanged little thing! and
she wasn’t that size.... But I’ve made some money--salvage, ye know--and
I’m goin’ to make my sister a lady when I go back to Donegal. She was
such a nice wee girl. Wouldn’t it be fine if girls always kept young! I
think of my sister now as I left her, not grown up at all.... Ye too are
a nice lass, so different from those I’ve seen in the far corners of the
world.”
“What is yer name?” asked Norah in a tremulous whisper. But she knew his
name, recognised her brother Fergus, saw in his face that indescribable
individuality which distinguishes each face from all others in the
world. With tense, strained look she waited for the answer to her
question.
III
“Fergus Ryan of Frosses in the county Donegal,” replied the sailor,
banging his fist against the corner of the chair. “Fergus Ryan,
able-bodied seaman before the mast. I’ve sailed ever such a lot.
Singapore, Calcutta, New York, and Melbourne; I’ve seen all those
places, aye, and nearly all the countries of the world!... Ah! and I’ve
come across a lot of trouble, fighting and all the rest of it. Two times
a knife was left stickin’ in me; more than once I was washed into the
sea. Ah! I could tell ye things about other places if I liked.... What’s
wrong with ye? Ye seem scared. But ye’re not afraid of sailors, are ye?
They’re all decent fellows, honest, though a little careless at times.
My God! what’s comin’ over ye? Ye’re goin’ to faint!”
Norah had suddenly become heavy in the man’s arms; the hand which he
held contracted tightly and a sickly pallor overspread her countenance.
“Jean!” cried the sailor, staring at the girl with a puzzled expression.
“Jean! that’s not yer name, but it doesn’t matter. Ye aren’t afraid of
sailors, are ye? They’re rough fellows, most of them, but good at heart.
Has a man never told ye before that he got stuck in the ribs with a
knife? Women here know nothin’, but in Calcutta.... What am I talkin’
about anyhow? Jean, waken up!”
The man rose unsteadily, and bearing the senseless girl in his arms he
approached the bed and laid her down carefully, sorting with clumsy
fingers the stray tresses on her brow as he did so. Then seizing a glass
that stood on the mantelpiece, he rushed out and filled it with water
from the tap on the landing. He came in, held Norah up in his arms, and
pressed the glass to her lips. She opened her eyes.
“Drink this,” said the sailor. “What else can I do to help ye?”
“Leave me to myself,” said the girl. “Go away and leave me. At once,
now!” She sat upright in bed and freed herself from his arms; the glass
fell to the floor and broke with a musical tinkle; the water splashed
brightly and formed into little wells on the planking. The sailor put
his hands between his belt and trousers and gazed placidly at the girl.
“Now, that is too bad,” he said, speaking slowly; “too dashed bad! All
sailors are decent fellows at heart, only now and then they tell stories
about their wild life. All that I said about the knifing was just a
tale.”
“I haven’t mind of what ye said,” Norah replied in a whisper, then in a
louder voice: “Go away! do go away and leave me to myself.”
“I’m not goin’ now,” he said in a voice of reproof. “I cannot go; it’s
impossible! I’ve plenty of money. Look!” He pulled a handful of gold
from his pocket. “My God! I cannot leave ye now, I cannot. Why do ye
want me to go away?”
Norah looked at the picture of the Virgin and shuddered as if something
had stung her. Suddenly it came to her that Fate had done its worst;
that evil and unhappiness had reached their supreme climax. She looked
hard at her brother, a fixed and almost defiant look in her eyes, her
lips set in a firmly-drawn line.
“Why do ye want me to go away?” he repeated.
“Because I’m yer sister Norah, the one that wouldn’t be grown up when ye
went back.” She felt a grim, unnatural satisfaction in repeating the
man’s words, and strangely enough her voice was wonderfully calm. “I
made a mistake and it was all my own fault. This is how I’m livin’
now--a common woman of the streets. Now go away and leave me to myself.
Fergus, I’m grown up!”
“Ye’re my sister, ye’re Norah?” said the man as the girl freed herself,
almost reluctantly, from his arms. He stepped backwards, paused as if he
wanted to say something, approached the door, fumbled for a moment with
the knob, and went out. On the stairway he stood as if trying to collect
his thoughts.
“Where am I?” he muttered. “It used to be red creepin’ things before,
and besides, I’m not very drunk at present, not more than three
sheets.... But the picture of the Blessed Virgin--that was funny! Fergus
Ryan, A.B., are ye drunk or are ye mad? Look around ye! This is a flight
of stairs, wooden steps; this is an iron railin’, that’s a window. Now,
ye aren’t very drunk when ye can notice these things. That’s where the
one-armed swine struck me. Now I’ll look at my watch. A quarter past
nine. If I was in the D.T.’s I couldn’t tell the time. Besides, I know
where I am at present. On the stairway leadin’ to a Glasgow kip-shop,
and I’ve been dreamin’. No, I haven’t been dreamin’, I’m mad! Talkin’ to
my sister, to Norah! One does dream funny things. She isn’t a person
like that.... Seven years is a long time and a lot might happen. I’ll
walk along the street to the quay and maybe the air off the river will
clear me up a bit. I’ll come back here and free her from the place, for
I’ve money, plenty of it.... I’m afraid of nothin’, nothin’ in the
world. Why should I, me with the track of two knives in my body? But
what is the use of talkin’ when I’m awfully sick with fear at this
moment! God! I’ve never ran up against a thing like this in all my life
before.... Have I not, though? Are they not all somebody’s sisters, some
mother’s children? I’ve never thought of it in that way before. I’ll go
up again.”
He reached the top and tried to push the door open. It did not budge. He
put his ear to the keyhole and heard sobs, smothered as if by a hand,
very near him. On the other side of the door Norah was weeping.
“That’s my sister,” he whispered hoarsely. Looking down he saw the light
shining through the splintered door. A cavity through which he might
pass his fist lay open before him. He put his hand in his pocket, took
out several pieces of gold and shoved them into the room; then turned
down the stairs and hurried out into the crowded streets.
IV
At the end of an hour he found himself sitting on a capstan by the
river, his elbows on his knees and his head buried in his hands. He
could not tell how he had gotten there; his brain was throbbing dizzily
and myriad little red and blue spots danced before his eyes.
The place was very dark, the sickly light of the few lamps along the
river did not light more than a dozen yards around them. On the deck of
a near boat a sailor walked up and down, stamping his feet noisily and
whistling a popular music-hall tune. Overhead a few stars glimmered
soberly; a smell of pitch was in the air; a boat loosened from her
moorings was heading downstream. About fifty paces back from the wharf a
public-house opened out on the river. Dark forms stood at the bar, arms
were waving in discussion, and hoarse voices could be heard distinctly.
Against the garish light the smallest perpendicular object was outlined
in black. Now and again a fist banged on a table and the glasses raised
a silvery tinkle of protest against the striker. A woman came out of the
place and went on her way along the street, reeling from side to side
and giving utterance to some incoherent song. The water lapped against
the wharf, a little wind wailed past Fergus’ ears; he rose, stretched
his arms, took a cigarette from his pocket but threw it away when it was
lighted.
“It’s lonely here, but in the pub a man may forget things,” he said. “I
wish to heaven I could think of anything but it! I’ll try and forget it,
but it’s hard, danged hard.... If I had a fight I’d forget, for a moment
at least, what I have just seen. My sister Norah? And once I struck a
sailor because he said that no girl was as good as I made out my sister
to be.... A whore! my God, a whore! I’ll go’ver to the pub and get
drunk, mad drunk! What matters now? I’ll not go home, I’ll never go
home!”
Thrusting his hands under his belt, he crossed the street, entered the
public-house and called for a glass of whisky at the bar. His face was
haggard and the palms of both his hands were bleeding.
“I’ve driven my nails into them,” he said aloud, and looked round
angrily. Those who were staring at him turned away their eyes, renewed
their conversation and raised their glasses to their lips with evident
unconcern. Fergus lifted his liquor and swallowed all at one gulp.
“The same again!” he shouted to the bar-tender, and lit another
cigarette. “No, not the same; gi’ me a schooner and a stick[G] in it.
God damn ye! what are ye starin’ at?”
The bar-tender who was examining Fergus attentively made no reply, but
emptied out the liquor hastily. For a moment Fergus was deep in thought.
Suddenly rousing himself he struck the counter a resounding blow with
his fist, ripping his knuckles on the woodwork and causing everybody in
the room to look round. Then he swallowed his drink and went towards the
door. With his hand on the handle, he looked back. “I’m sorry for
kickin’ up a noise,” he said. “Good-night.”
He passed out. The ray of light from the door showed him staggering
across the street towards the quay. Once there he sat down on the
capstan, put his hand in his pocket and brought out a fistful of money.
He raised it over his head and for a moment it seemed as if he was going
to throw it into the water. However, he kept hold of it and returned to
the pub, where he purchased a half-pint of whisky. He placed a sovereign
on the counter and went out without his change.
Ten o’clock passed; then eleven. Fergus Ryan paced up and down the quay,
his hands deep down under his belt and the half-empty bottle in his
pocket. The air was now moist and cold; a smell of rotting wood pervaded
the place, and the water under the wharf was wailing fitfully. The
mooring ropes of the nearest vessel strained tensely on the capstan and
the giant vessel seemed eager as a stabled colt to get out, away and
free.
“I would like to know where that boat is goin’ when she sails,” Fergus
said, but instantly his thoughts turned to something else. He pulled out
his watch and looked at it.
“Would anyone know a new day if the clocks did not chime?” he asked
himself in a puzzled way. “I suppose not. It’ll soon be here, the new
day.... There, the clocks are beginnin’. Damn them! Damn them!... If it
had been anyone but my sister! Why did she come to Scotland? Landlord,
priest, and that arch-scoundrel, McKeown, livin’ on her earnin’s. I
suppose she’ll send home money even now, and some of it’ll go to the
priest to buy crucifixes and pictures of the Virgin, and some of it to
the landlord to buy flounces for his wife, and some will go to Farley
McKeown. I was goin’ to pay a surprise visit and I was livin’ on that
goin’ home for a long while. Ah! but the world is out at elbow. And I’m
drunk!”
He stuck both his hands under his belt again and approached the edge of
the wharf. Three dark forms slunk out of the shadows and drew in on the
sailor. Only when they were beside him did anything warn him of danger.
He looked round into the face of the one-armed soldier, whose loose
sleeve was fluttering in the wind.
“Ah! ye swine!” Fergus exclaimed and struggled with the belt which
prisoned his hands. But the three men were on top of him and the effort
was futile. In an instant he was flung outwards and dropped with a
splash into the water that seemed to rise and meet him as he fell. It
was as cold as ice and the belt held taut despite his efforts to break
free. He had a moment to wonder. “Why did he want to drown me?” he asked
himself. His mouth filled and he swallowed. He was now going down head
first, but slowly. He made another effort to free his hands, but was
unsuccessful. Then he resigned himself to his fate, and consciousness
began to ebb from him. He felt that he had forgotten something that was
very important, not to himself but to somebody else. Then came complete
darkness, and the book of life, as man knows it, was closed forever to
Fergus Ryan.