CONFESSION
I
A week passed; the hour was twelve o’clock on a Saturday night. The
clocks were striking midnight but the streets were still crowded with
people. A boat could be heard hooting on the Broomielaw; a train
whistling at Enoch Street station. A woman came along a narrow lane on
the Cowcaddens, shouldering her way amongst the people, and abusing in
no polite terms those who obstructed her way. She wore a shawl almost
torn to shreds and she staggered a little as she walked. Her features
were far from prepossessing; dry hacks dented her cheeks and brow; her
lips were rough and almost bloodless and wisps of draggled hair hung
over her face. As she walked along she broke into snatches of song from
time to time.
Under the gaslight staring eyes set in sickly or swarthy faces glared at
her; rude remarks and meaningless jokes were made; sounds of laughter
rose, echoed and died away. Suddenly a noise, loud as a rising gale,
swept through the lane; a man hurried past and rushed along the streets,
a young girl followed. The crowd, as if actuated by one common impulse,
scurried past the woman, yelling and shrieking. A drunken man stared
stupidly after the mob, then fell like a wet sack to the pavement; a
labourer struck against the prostrate body; fell, and rose cursing. A
whistle was blown. “The slops! the slops!” a ragged youth shouted, and a
hundred voices took up the cry. “Run! Run!” others roared.... A little
toddling child stood on the pavement crying, one finger in its mouth and
its big curious eyes fixed on the rabble.
“What are ye greetin’ for?” asked the woman in the ragged shawl. “Have
ye lost yerself?”
“I want me mither!” wailed the child.
“Ye’re here, are ye?” cried a stout, brazen-faced woman, ambling up and
seizing the infant, who was trying to chew a penny which the stranger
had just given it. “It’s a lass that’s fainted on the pavement,”
explained the mother, pointing to the crowd. “I think the corner boys,
rascals that they are, were playin’ tricks on her.”
“That’s always the way with people,” said the strange woman. “See and
don’t let the child swallow the bawbee.”
With these words she hurried into the press of people, the corners of
her shawl fluttering round her. A group of ragged men and women stood on
the pavement, chattering noisily. Against the wall a frail form was
propped up between two young girls, one of whom had a frightened look on
her face; the other was smiling and chewing an orange. A man, lighting a
pipe and sheltering the match under the palm of his hand, made some
suggestion as to what should be done, but nobody paid any heed.
The woman with the torn shawl elbowed her way through the crowd, and
came to a standstill when she caught sight of the girl propped up on the
pavement.
“It’s Norah Ryan!” she exclaimed.
“That’s the name,” a female in the crowd said. “She lives up 42. She’s a
woman of the kind that.... But ye ken what I mean.”
“And ye’d let her die here, wi’out givin’ a hand to help her!” cried the
new-comer, turning fiercely on the speaker. “Help me to take the lass to
her house.”
The two girls assisted by two men helped the woman to carry Norah
upstairs. The crowd followed, pressing in and shoving against those in
front. Someone made a rude remark and the laughter which greeted it
floated far up even to the topmost landing, where the paralysed beggar,
somewhat the worse for liquor, was singing one of his cheery songs.
II
The accident to Norah happened in this way.
After seeing the Irish diggers come out of the chapel, she felt a sudden
desire to go and confess her sins to the young priest. This desire she
did not strive to explain or analyse; she only knew that she would be
happy in some measure if she went to the chapel again.
The memory of her sins began to trouble her. How many they had been! she
thought. From that night when a ring sparkled in the darkness outside
Morrison’s farmhouse up till now, when she was a common woman of the
streets, what a life she had led! With her mind aspiring towards heaven
she became conscious of the mire in which her feet were set; the
religion of childhood was now making itself heard in the heart of the
woman. Nature had given Norah a power peculiarly her own that enabled
her to endure suffering and in turn counselled resignation; but that
power was now gone. She required something to lean against, and her
heart turned to the faith of which the little black crucifix on the
mantelpiece was the emblem. On the Saturday evening following her
meeting with the potato-diggers she went to confession.
She entered the chapel, her shawl drawn tightly over her head and almost
concealing her face, which looked fair, white and childlike, seen
through the half-light of the large building. Although she tried to walk
softly her boots made a loud clatter on the floor and the echo caught
the sound and carried it far down through nave and chancel. A few
candles, little white ghosts with halos of feeble flame around their
heads, threw a dim light on the golden ornaments of the altar and the
figure of the Christ standing out in bold relief against the darkness
over the sacristy door. The sanctuary lamp, hanging from the roof and
swaying backwards and forwards, showed like a big red eye.
Outside the confessional a number of men and women were seated on long
forms; one or two were kneeling, their rosaries clicking as the beads
ran through their fingers. Those seated, with eyes sparkling brightly
whenever they turned their heads, looked like white-faced spirits. An
old man was shuffling uneasily, his nailed boots rasping on the floor
from time to time; a woman having been seized with the hiccough rose and
went out, and the row on the seat gathered closer, each no doubt pleased
at the prospect of getting in advance of at least one other sinner.
Norah sat down at the end of the row, a strange fluttering in her heart,
and her fingers opening and closing nervously. She felt that the
penitents knew her, that they would arise suddenly and accuse her of her
sins. A man opposite looked fixedly at her and she hung her head. The
low mumbling voice of the priest saying the words of absolution over a
sinner could be heard coming from the confessional. But had there ever
been a sinner as bad as she was? Norah asked herself. For her sins it
was so hard to ask forgiveness.
“Never, never will I get absolution,” she said under her breath.
Then she began to wonder if the young, pleasant-faced priest who talked
to the potato-diggers was in the confessional. He would not be hard on
her; he looked so kind and gentle!
“I’m afeared, very afeared,” she whispered to herself. “I’ll not go in
this time; I’ll go away and come back again.”
But even as she spoke the woman with the hiccough came back and took up
her position on the end of the seat. Norah found that she could not get
away now without disturbing the woman. She bowed her head and began to
pray.
III
She could not see the priest in the confessional, but could hear him
breathing in short, laboured pants like a very fat old woman. It
couldn’t be the young man, Norah thought, as she went down on her knees
and began the “Confiteor.” The priest hurried over the words in a weary
voice; Norah repeated them after him, stopping now and again to draw her
breath. A sensation, almost akin to that which precedes drowning,
gripped her throat.
“What sins have ye committed?” asked the priest. “Tell me the greatest
first.”
“I am a woman of the streets.” She had now taken the plunge and felt
calmer as she waited to be asked a question.
“God’s merciful,” said the priest, and his voice was tinged with
interest. “Go on.”
“I am the mother of a child that died but was never christened,” said
Norah. “It was all through my own fault.”
“You haven’t been married?”
“No,” said the girl, with a shudder. “I often thought of takin’ my own
life.”
“Yes.”
“I took to drink and then threw the picture of the Blessed Virgin and a
stoup of holy water into the fire.”
She paused.
“Ye’ve given up the life of the streets?” enquired the priest in a voice
teeming with curiosity.
“I have,” answered Norah.
“Did ye like it?”
“No.” The answer was the echo of a whisper almost.
“God’s merciful,” said the priest. His tones seemed hoarse with the
passion of a sensuous youth. “And yer other sins?” he asked.
IV
She prayed for a long time before the altar, mingling tears with her
prayers. Footfalls came and went, but nobody paid any heed to the
kneeling woman. Of this she was glad. Norah wanted to do good, as other
people commit evil actions, secretly. The trembling shadows thrown by
the sanctuary lamp played round the Christ who, with outstretched hand,
stood over the sacristy door. How great and serious the Saviour looked!
The girl imagined that He was thinking of some great secret belonging to
humanity but hidden so deeply that it was unknown to man.
At ten o’clock she returned to her room and sat there for a long while.
A great peace had stolen into her soul, a peace that was mingled with no
regrets. She had forgotten the pain in her shoulder, forgotten
everything but the figure of the Christ over the sacristy door, and the
hand that was held out above her head as if in blessing.
It was near midnight when she went out to buy provisions for the next
day. The hooligans at the street corner were very drunk and very noisy.
There were no policemen about; a fight some distance off was engaging
their attention.
“Ah! here’s one that’ll hae some siller, the kip-shop wench!” shouted
one of the roughs, a big, round-shouldered rascal, on seeing Norah.
“Fork out, my pretty, and gie us some tin.”
“Fork out!” roared the rest of the gang in chorus.
Norah stood undecided, one foot in the gutter, one on the pavement. The
grocer’s shop was a dozen paces away.
“The cops will be here in a jiffy,” someone shouted in a tense whisper.
“Search her!”
Then followed a wild rush and Norah was conscious of many things in the
next few minutes. The air seemed suddenly charged with the fumes of
alcohol; hands seized her, rough fingers fumbled at her blouse, opened
it and rested on her breasts; a whistle was blown, she fell to the
pavement, got dragged for a few paces on the wet street and was pulled
to her feet again. Someone laid hands on her purse and took it out; a
scramble ensued, then a fight for the money. Norah was thrown down again
and trampled upon. The hooligans tore the purse and several coins fell
to the ground. A second whistle was blown, and the crowd disappeared,
leaving Norah lying in a dead faint on the pavement.
V
When she recovered consciousness she was in her own room, lying on the
bed. The lamp was lit and she could hear the coal crackling in the fire.
She raised herself up in bed and looked enquiringly around. A stranger,
a woman who was bending over the fire, hurried forward.
“And how are ye, Norah Ryan?” asked the stranger.
“It’s Ellen that’s in it,” exclaimed Norah, sinking back on the pillow,
but more from surprise than from weariness. “Where have ye come from,
Ellen?”
“I was in the street,” explained the woman, who was indeed
Ellen--Gourock Ellen. “I saw ye lyin’ on the pavement and I kent ye at
once. A woman in the crowd knew where ye lived.... Ye hae nae muckle
changed, Norah Ryan. Ye’re just the same as ye was when I saw ye last in
Jim Scanlon’s squad. And d’ye mind how me and ye was in the one bed?”
“Ellen, I’m glad that ye came,” said Norah in a low voice. “I used to be
often thinkin’ of ye, Ellen.”
“Thinkin’ of me, lass?” exclaimed Ellen, bending over the bed, but
keeping her lips as far away as possible from Norah lest the young woman
should detect the smell of whisky off her breath. “Why were ye thinkin’
about me? Someone worthier should be in your thoughts.... The rascals in
the streets! Ah, the muckle scamps! They should be run into the nick and
never let out again. Ill-treatin’ a little lassie like you!”
Norah looked up at the woman. Ellen’s pock-marked face was still full of
the same unfailing good nature which belonged to her years before when
she worked in Micky’s Jim’s squad.
“Where is Annie?”
“I dinna ken. She went off with a man and I haven’t seen her never
since.” Ellen smiled, but so slightly that the smile did not change the
expression of her eyes.
“Ye don’t tell me! And ye’ve never been back at the squad again?”
“Never back. I was times workin’ at the rag-pickin’ and times gatherin’
coal from the free coup.”
“That’s what Mary Martin done,” Norah exclaimed. “She was a woman known
to me.”
“And ye kent old Mary!” said Ellen. “Me and her have worked together for
many’s a day, makin’ a shillin’ a day each at the job.”
The woman paused.
“Are ye feelin’ a wee better, Norah?” she asked presently.
“I’m fine, Ellen,” was the answer. “I could get up and run about and I’m
not in the least sleepy. What were the corner boys wantin’ to do?”
“They wanted siller----”
“My purse, Ellen! Have they taken it from me?” Norah searched nervously
in the pockets of her dress.
“I’m afeared that they have.”
“Mother of God! I haven’t one penny now, Ellen, not one brown penny!”
Norah exclaimed. “It’ll be the streets for me again.”
“We’ll get along somehow, if we work together,” said Ellen.
“We’ll work together; that’s the way,” Norah whispered after a moment’s
consideration.
“Twa is always better than yin,” Ellen replied.
Norah looked closely at the woman as if puzzling out something; then her
eyes closed gently and quietly and she fell asleep. She awoke several
times during the night, mumbled incoherent words, then sank into a deep
slumber again. And all night Gourock Ellen watched over Norah Ryan.
Morning found her still sitting beside the bed, weary-eyed but patient,
her eyes fixed on the face of the sleeping girl.