She did not go very far. Only as far as to the end of the platform,
stopping at her usual spot, close to the big granite boulder which
blocked the mouth of the gully. Her head was spinning; wild thoughts
came and went in it, without, as it seemed to her, her having anything
to say to them. She was tingling from head to foot with the sense of
self-betrayal, a betrayal not so much to Honor as to herself, to the
world at large--to the birds of the air and the stars above
them--letting them all know what pride, decency, self-respect required
to be kept for ever locked up and hidden away.
The fact is, though it is difficult for an outsider to believe it, that
the whole subject of love, of passion of any kind, especially from a
girl and with regard to her own marriage, is such an utterly unheard-of
one amongst Grania’s class that the mere fact of giving utterance to a
complaint on the subject gave her a sense not merely of having committed
a hideous breach of common decency, but of having actually crossed the
line that separates sanity from madness. Could she really be going
crazy? she asked herself. Would she soon be seen gibbering by the
roadside like mad Peggy O’Carroll, who was always laughing to herself at
nothing, and being mocked at by the boys as they drove the kelp donkeys
to and from the sea-shore?
What ailed her? she again asked herself. What _did_ ail her? It seemed
to be literally like some disease that had got into her bones--this
strange unrest, this disturbance--a disease, too, of which she had never
heard; which nobody else so far as she knew had ever had; a disease
which had no name, and therefore was the more mysterious and horrible.
As a matter of fact, she was to some extent ill, or rather her usually
perfect health had for the moment partially deserted her. Close
attendance on Honor, many sleepless nights, trouble of all kinds, the
wear and tear of nursing, all these had broken down those good solid
barriers which a life spent eternally in the open air would otherwise
have kept up. Sturdy, too, as she was, there was nothing bovine in her
strength, on the contrary, like most Irishwomen, she was a nervous
creature at bottom, however little she might have seemed so when those
barriers were in their proper place. At present they were gone. She was
unstrung, and we all know what that means. So completely was this the
case that she had even become aware of it herself. She felt worn out,
and wrought up to a pitch of desperation. Something she must do, she
felt, but what, that was the question, what?
She went to the edge of the platform and put her head against the big
boulder, invisible but still present, a familiar object sustaining and
comforting. Stooping down, she pressed her cheek closer and closer
against the gritty surface till it began to hurt her. What ailed her?
she once again asked herself, what _did_ ail her; what did it all mean?
‘Auch, what will I do, my God, what will I do, at all?’ she moaned
suddenly, speaking aloud into the friendly deaf ear of the night.
‘Arrah, if I was but dead! if I was but dead! My God, if I was but dead,
wouldn’t that be the best way out of it, at all, at all?’
She did not mean this, by the way, in the least. She did not want to
die, to be dead. Life was bounding and beating within her, on the
contrary--beating to the point of pain. It was a protest merely, a
voice from the very strength of her youth and her love. She asked for
death, as all young creatures ask for death when what they really want
is life--only life with a difference.
By-and-by, as the air began to cool her, or the old stone brought
counsel, she tried to think the matter out, to get a little away from
her trouble, and to look at it with some degree of reasonableness.
Thought to one of Grania’s rearing and powers of comparison and
deduction is a queer, dim process, very strange in its methods, very
mysterious often in its results. In its own fashion, however, it has to
be gone through, and is gone through, especially under the stress of
strong emotion. Under that stress she now began to try and consider the
matter; to try and see if there was not some way to be found of getting
rid of this new, this utterly intolerable, wretchedness. What if she
made up her mind, she asked herself, to give up Murdough--now, at once,
to-night--surely that would give her peace if anything would? She was
not bound to marry him, and if she were, his tipsiness and ways of going
on recently would be excuse enough, if she wanted or cared about an
excuse, which she did not. She lifted her head, and tried to think this
new idea clearly out; to see what it was, and where it led to. Yes, to
give him up! to be free; completely free. Surely that was the right
thing to do--the right thing and the spirited thing! Yes, she would do
it, she resolved. She would see him herself--to-morrow morning the very
first thing--she would see him and she would tell him so, that she
would.
A glow of tingling satisfaction shot through her as she thought of
meeting Murdough the first thing in the morning, and telling him in an
easy, off-hand fashion that she had made up her mind and that she was
not going to marry him, that he need not think it, for she had quite
made up her mind. Stay, would it not be even better, she next reflected,
if she could tell him at the same time that she was going to marry
someone else? _Someone_ else, yes; but who else? That had to be decided.
Who was there that she could declare on the spur of the moment she
intended to marry instead of him? Well, why not Teige O’Shaughnessy? she
thought; poor Teige O’Shaughnessy, who was so sober, so industrious, so
hardworking, so exactly everything that Murdough was not; who would leap
out of his very skin with joy at the bare idea; who would not even need
to be informed beforehand; who would do everything she wished: obey her,
follow her, worship her all his life, she instinctively knew, just as
Pete Durane obeyed, followed, and worshipped Rosha, badly as that
termagant treated him.
The idea seemed for the moment a perfectly brilliant one, a haven of
refuge, a complete solution for all the miseries of the past few weeks.
It stood out before her as a splendid spirited programme, brimful of
satisfaction, brimful, above all, of a delightful promise of vengeance.
Murdough’s rage, Murdough’s scorn of poor Teige, Murdough’s fury at
herself, Murdough’s attempts to change her resolution, her own air of
jaunty indifference--a sort of parody of his former ones--surely, surely
it should be done, and done, too, the very next day!
She got up and moved about the platform with a sense of having regained
her old liberty, with a sense of being once more Grania O’Malley, the
cleverest, strongest, richest girl on the whole island. She was about to
return to the cabin when--suddenly, like a thunderbolt--the reaction
came. She stopped short with a feeling of absolute terror, a feeling of
having taken some irrevocable step, a feeling of sheer panic. ‘Oh, no,
no, no, no, no!’ she cried aloud. ‘Oh, no, no, no, my God! Sure you
_know_ I didn’t mean it. You know right _well_ I didn’t. ’Twas only mad
I was! just mad, out and out, no other!’---- Mean it? Better be ill used
by Murdough; beaten by Murdough; toil, drudge, be killed by Murdough;
better have her heart broken; better have to give up the farm, and be
ruined by Murdough, than live prosperously and comfortably with anyone
else! The thought of the cabin seen a few weeks before at Cashla rushed
back suddenly upon her mind, but now with none of that previous sense of
disgust, none of that horror of revolt and loathing which had filled her
then. Even in this extremity, even so, dead drunk in a corner, Murdough
was still Murdough--the first; the only one. Idle? yes; tipsy? yes;
cold, unkind, indifferent even? yes, yes, yes, still he was _Murdough_,
her Murdough, always the same Murdough, and what did anything else
matter?
The love that had come down from the very beginning of things, the love
that had never known a break, the love that was a part of herself, a
part of everything she saw and touched, of everything she could imagine,
the tenderness that had curled itself subtly into every fibre of her
body, was not to be dislodged in so summary a fashion. It clung
tenaciously; clung only the harder because it ought to be dislodged,
because she herself wished to dislodge it. A sudden wave of desperate
love, of tender, reckless passion, swept through her, and she stretched
out her arms.
‘Auch, Murdough, _Murdougheen_,’ she murmured tenderly. ‘Where are you,
Murdough? where are you then, at all, at all, this dark night? Arrah,
come to your poor Grania! Where are you, dear? where are you?’
She ran back to the edge of the platform, and flinging her arms again
about the boulder, pressed her cheek against its gritty irresponsive
surface. It was like a reconciliation! There had been a quarrel, and now
there was no quarrel; none! She and Murdough; she and Murdough; always,
always, _always_ she and Murdough. The warm dark night about her, the
scarcely audible note of the sea upon the rocks below, the stars
blinking sleepily overhead; they all seemed to be so many witnesses and
assurances of that reconciliation.