Collected Stories (114 page)

The funeral procession stopped in a lane that ran along the edge of a lake. The surface of the lake was rough, and they could hear the splash of the water upon the stones. The two priests got out of the car and began to vest themselves, and then Mr. Fogarty got out, too. He was very nervous and hesitant.

“It's very inconvenient, and all the rest of it,” he said, “but I don't want you gentlemen to think that I didn't know you were acting from the best motives.”

“That's very kind of you, Mr. Fogarty,” Jackson said. “Maybe we made mistakes as well.”

“Thank you, Father Jackson,” Mr. Fogarty said, and held out his hand. The two priests shook hands with him and he went off, raising his hat.

“Well, that's one trouble over,” Father Hamilton said wryly as an old man plunged through the mud towards the car.

“Lights is what we're looking for!” he shouted. “Let ye turn her sidewise and throw the headlights on the causeway the way we'll see what we're doing.”

Their driver swore, but he reversed and turned the front of the car till it almost faced the lake. Then he turned on his headlights. Somewhere farther up the road the parish priest's car did the same. One by one, the ranked headlights blazed up, and at every moment the scene before them grew more vivid—the gateway and the stile, and beyond it the causeway that ran toward the little brown stone oratory with its mock Romanesque doorway. As the lights strengthened and steadied, the whole island became like a vast piece of theater scenery cut out against the gloomy wall of the mountain with the tiny whitewashed cottages at its base. Far above, caught in a stray flash of moonlight, Jackson saw the snow on its summit. “I'll be after you,” he said to Father Hamilton, and watched him, a little perturbed and looking behind him, join the parish priest by the gate. Jackson resented being seen by them because he was weeping, and he was a man who despised tears—his own and others'. It was like a miracle, and Father Jackson didn't really believe in miracles. Standing back by the fence to let the last of the mourners pass, he saw the coffin, like gold in the brilliant light, and heard the steadying voices of the four huge mountainy men who carried it. He saw it sway above the heads, shawled and bare, glittering between the little stunted holly bushes and hazels.

There Is a Lone House

T
HE WOMAN
stood at the foot of the lane, her right hand resting on the gate, her left fumbling at the neck of her blouse. Her face was lined, particularly about mouth and forehead; it was a face that rarely smiled, but was soft for all that, and plump and warm. She was quite gray. From a distance, this made her seem old; close at hand it had precisely the opposite effect, and tended to emphasize sharply what youthfulness still lingered in her, so that one thought of her as having suffered terribly at some time in the past.

The man came down the road, whistling a reel, the crisp, sprinkled notes of which were like the dripping of water in a cistern. She could hear his footsteps from a long way off, keeping irregular time to the elfin music, and drew aside a whitehorn bush by the gateway to watch him from cover. Apparently satisfied by her inspection, she kicked away the stone that held the gate in place, and, as he drew level with her, stepped out into the roadway. When he saw her he stopped, bringing down his ash plant with a twirl, but she did not look up.

“Morrow, ma'am,” he cried jovially.

Then she did look up, and a helpless blush that completely and utterly belied the apparent calculation of her previous behavior flowed over her features, giving them a sudden, startling freshness. “Good morrow and good luck,” she answered in a low voice.

“Is it far to Ballysheery, ma'am?”

“'Tis seven miles.”

“Seven Irish, ma'am?”

“Seven English.”

“That's better.”

She drew her tongue across her lips to moisten them. The man was young. He was decently dressed, but flaunted a rough, devil-may-care expression. He wore no hat, and his dark hair was all a tangle. You were struck by the length of his face, darkened by hot June suns; the high-boned nose jutting out rather too far, the irregular, discolored teeth, the thick cracked lips, the blue eyes so far apart under his narrow, bony forehead that they seemed to sink back into the temples. A craggy face with high cheekbones, all hills and hollows, it was rendered extraordinarily mobile by the unexpected shadows that caught it here and there as the pale eyes drew it restlessly about. She judged him to be about twenty-six or seven.

“You seemed to be belting it out fine enough.”

“How's that, ma'am?”

“I heard you whistling.”

“That's to encourage the feet, ma'am.… You'll pardon my asking, is there any place around a man would get a cup of tea, ma'am?”

“There's no one would grudge you that, surely.”

Another would have detected the almost girlish timidity of the answer, but not he. He appeared both puzzled and disappointed.

“I'll go a bit farther so,” he said stiffly.

“What hurry is on you?”

“'Tis my feet gets cramped.”

“If you come with me you can rest them a while.”

“God increase you, ma'am,” he replied.

They went up the boreen together. The house was on top of a hill, and behind it rose the mountainside, studded with rocks. There were trees about it, and in front a long garden with a hedge of fuchsia, at one side of which ran a stream. There were four or five apple trees, and beside the kitchen garden were a few flower-beds with a profusion of tall snapdragon, yellow, red and white.

She put on the kettle and turned the wheel of the bellows. The kitchen filled with blue turf smoke, and the man sat beside the door, almost invisible behind a brilliant column of dust motes, whirling spirally in the evening sunlight. But his hands lay on his knees in a pool of light, great brown hands with knuckles like polished stones. Fascinated, she watched them, and as she laid the table she almost touched them for sheer pleasure. His wild eyes, blue as the turf smoke, took in everything about the kitchen with its deal table, chairs and dresser, all scrubbed white; its delft arranged with a sort of pedantic neatness that suggests the old maid.

“This is a fine, fancy place, ma'am,” he said.

“'Tis a quiet place.”

“'Tis so. The men are all away?”

“There are no men.”

“Oh!”

“Only a boy that does turns for me.”

“Oh!”

That was all he said before he turned to his meal. He was half-starved, she decided, as she watched him wolf the warm, crumbling bread. He saw her gray eyes fixed on him and laughed brightly.

“I has a great stroke, ma'am.”

“You have, God bless you. I might have boiled you another egg.”

When tea was over he sighed, stretching himself in his chair, and lit his pipe.

“Would you mind if I took off my boots, ma'am?” he asked shyly.

“Why would I? Take them off and welcome.”

“My feet is crucified.”

She bent and took up the boot he removed.

“No wonder. Your boots are in need of mending.”

He laughed at her expressive politeness.

“Mending, ma'am? Did you say mending? They're long past praying for.”

“They are, that's true. I wonder.… There's an old pair inside these years and years. They'd be better than the ones you have if they'd fit you.”

She brought them in, good substantial boots but stiff, and a trifle large for him. Not that he was in a state to mind.

“God, but they're grand, ma'am, they're grand! One little patch now, and they'd be as good as new. Better than new, for they're a better boot than I could ever buy in a shop. Wait now! Wait!” With boyish excitement he foraged in his pockets, and from the lining of his coat produced a piece of leather. He held it up with the air of a professional conjurer. “Watch me now. Are you watching?” The leather fitted over the slight hole and he gave a whoop of joy. She found him last and hammer; he provided tacks from a paper bag in a vest pocket, and set to mending the damage with something like a tradesman's neatness.

“Is that your trade?” she asked curiously.

“One of my trades, ma'am. Cobbler, carpenter, plumber, gardener, thatcher, painter, poet; everything under the sun and moon, and nothing for long. But a cobbler is what I do be most times.”

He walked the kitchen in his new boots with all a child's inconsequent pleasure. There was something childlike about him, she decided, and she liked it. He peered at the battered alarm clock on the smoky heights of the mantelpiece and sighed.

“I'd like to stop here always,” he said wistfully, “but I suppose I'd better be going.”

“What hurry is on you?”

“Seven miles, ma'am. Two hours. Maybe more. And I have to be in the old doss early if I want to get a place to sleep.”

But he sat down once more and put a match to his pipe.

“Not, mind you, ma'am, that there's many could put me out of a warm corner if I'd a mind to stay in it. No indeed, but unless I had a drop in me I'd never fight for a place. Never. I'm apt to be cross when I'm drunk, but I never hit a man sober yet only once. That was a foxy tinker out of the Ranties, and the Ranties are notorious cross men, ma'am. You see, there was a little blind man, ma'am, trying to sleep, and this Ranty I'm talking about, whenever he saw the blind man dozing, he'd give his beard a tug. So I got that mad I rose up, and without saying as much as by your leave, I hit him such a terrible blow under the chin the blood hopped out on me in the dark. Yes, ma'am, hopped clean out on me. That was a frightful hard blow.” He looked at her for approval and awe, and saw her, womanlike, draw up her shoulders and shiver. His dramatic sense was satisfied.

It was quite dark when he rose to go. The moon was rising over the hills to the left, far away, and the little stream beside the house sounded very loud in the stillness.

“If there was e'er an old barn or an outhouse,” he said as if to himself.

“There's a bed inside,” she answered. He looked round at her in surprise.

“Ah, I wouldn't ask to stop within,” he exclaimed.

Suddenly her whole manner changed. All the brightness, if brightness it could be called, seemed to drop away from her, leaving her listless, cold and melancholy.

“Oh, please yourself,” she said shortly, as if banishing him from her thoughts. But still he did not go. Instead, he sat down again, and they faced one another across the fireplace, not speaking, for he too had lost his chatter. The kitchen was in darkness except for the dwindling glow of the turf inside its cocoon of gray dust, and the wan nightlight above the half-door. Then he laughed, rubbing his palms between his knees.

“And still you know, I'd ask nothing better,” he added shyly.

“What's that?”

“I'd ask nothing better than to stop.”

“Go or stop as you like.”

“You see,” he went on, ignoring her gathering surprise, “I'm an honest fellow. I am, on my oath, though maybe you wouldn't think it, with the rough talk I have, and the life I lead. You could leave me alone with a bag of sovereigns, not counting them, and I'd keep them safe for you. And I'm just the same other ways. I'm not a bit forward. They say a dumb priest loses his benefit, and I'm just like that. I'm apt to lose me benefit for want of a bit of daring.”

Then (and this time it was he who was surprised) she laughed, more with relief, he thought, than at anything he had said. She rose and closed the door, lit the lamp and hung up the heavy kettle. He leaned back in his chair with a fresh sigh of pleasure, stretching out his feet to the fire, and in that gesture she caught something of his nostalgia. He settled down gratefully to one of those unexpected benefits which are the bait with which life leads us onward.

When she rose next morning, she was surprised to find him about before her, the fire lit, and the kettle boiling. She saw how much he needed a shave, and filled out a pan of water for him. Then when he began to scrub his face with the soap, she produced a razor, strop and brush. He was enchanted with these, and praised the razor with true lyric fire.

“You can have it,” she said. “Have them all if they're any use to you.”

“By God, aren't they though,” he exclaimed reverently.

After breakfast he lit his pipe and sat back, enjoying to the full the last moments which politeness would impose upon hospitality.

“I suppose you're anxious to be on your road?” she asked awkwardly. Immediately he reddened.

“I suppose I'm better to,” he replied. He rose and looked out. It was a gray morning and still. The green stretched no farther than the hedge; beyond that lay a silver mist, flushed here and there with rose. “Though 'tis no anxiety is on me—no anxiety at all,” he added with a touch of bitterness.

“Don't take me up wrong,” she said hastily. “I'm not trying to hunt you. Stop and have your dinner. You'll be welcome.”

“I chopped a bit of kindling for you,” he replied, looking shyly at her from under lowered lids. “If there was something else I could be doing, I'd be glad enough to stop, mind you.”

There was. Plenty else to be doing. For instance, there was an outhouse that needed whitewashing, and blithely enough he set about his task, whistling. She came and watched him; went, and came again, standing silently beside him, a strange stiff figure in the bright sunlight, but he had no feeling of supervision. Because he had not finished when dinner was ready he stayed to tea, and even then displayed no hurry to be gone. He sang her some of his poems. There was one about Mallow Races, another about a girl he had been in love with as a boy, “the most beautiful girl that was ever seen in Kerry since the first day,” so he naively told her. It began:

I praise no princesses or queens or great ladies