Collected Stories (21 page)

Rita returned, laughing.

“Well?” asked Nellie.

“Consent refused,” growled Rita, bowing her head and pulling the wrong side of an imaginary mustache.

“What did I say?” exclaimed Nellie, but without rancor.

“You don't think it makes any difference?” Rita asked dryly.

“I wouldn't be too sure of that,” said Nellie. “What else did he say?”

“Oh, he hadn't a notion who I was talking about,” Rita said lightly. “‘Justin who?'” she mimicked. “‘How the hell do you think I can remember all the young scuts ye bring to the house?'”

“Was he mad?” asked Kitty with amusement.

“Hopping.”

“He didn't call us scuts?” asked Bill in a wounded tone.

“Oh, begor, that was the very word he used, Bill,” said Rita.

“Did you tell him he was very fond of me the day I gave him the tip for Golden Boy at the Park Races?” asked Justin.

“I did,” said Rita. “I said you were the stout block of a fellow with the brown hair that he said had the fine intelligence, and he said he never gave a damn about intelligence. He wanted me to marry the thin fellow with the specs. ‘Only bloody gentleman that comes to the house.'”

“Is it Ned?” cried Nellie.

“Who else?” said Rita. “I asked him why he didn't tell me that before and he nearly ate the head off me. ‘Jesus Christ, girl, don't I feed ye and clothe ye? Isn't that enough without having to coort for ye as well? Next thing, ye'll be asking me to have a few babies for ye.' Anyway, Ned,” she added with a crooked, almost malicious smile, “you can always say you were Pa's favorite.”

Once more the attention was directed to Ned. He put his cigarette down with care and sprang up with a broad smile, holding out his hand.

“I wish you all the luck in the world, Justin,” he said.

“I know that well, Ned,” boomed Justin, catching Ned's hand in his own two. “And I'd feel the same if it was you.”

“And you too, Miss Lomasney,” Ned said gaily.

“Thanks, Mr. Lowry,” she replied with the same crooked smile.

J
USTIN
and Rita got married, and Ned, like all the Hayfield Hourigans, behaved in a decorous and sensible manner. He didn't take to drink or break the crockery or do any of the things people are expected to do under the circumstances. He gave them a very expensive clock as a wedding present, went once or twice to visit them and permitted Justin to try and convert him, and took Rita to the pictures when Justin was away from home. At the same time he began to walk out with an assistant in Halpin's; a gentle, humorous girl with a great mass of jet-black hair, a snub nose, and a long, pointed melancholy face. You saw them everywhere together.

He also went regularly to Sunday's Well to see the old couple and Nellie, who wasn't yet married. One evening when he called, Mr. and Mrs. Lomasney were at the chapel, but Rita was there, Justin being again away. It was months since she and Ned had met; she was having a baby and very near her time; and it made her self-conscious and rude. She said it made her feel like a yacht that had been turned into a cargo boat. Three or four times she said things to Ned which would have maddened anyone else, but he took them in his usual way, without resentment.

“And how's little Miss Bitch?” she asked insolently.

“Little Miss who?” he asked mildly.

“Miss—how the hell can I remember the names of all your dolls? The Spanish-looking one who sells the knickers at Halpin's.”

“Oh, she's very well, thanks,” Ned said primly.

“What you might call a prudent marriage,” Rita went on, all on edge.

“How's that, Rita?”

“You'll have the ring and the trousseau at cost price.”

“How interested you are in her!” Nellie said suspiciously.

“I don't give a damn about her,” Rita with a shrug. “Would Señorita What's-her-name ever let you stand godfather to my footballer, Ned?”

“Why not?” Ned asked mildly. “I'd be delighted, of course.”

“You have the devil's own neck to ask him after the way you treated him,” said Nellie. Nellie was interested; she knew Rita and knew that she was in one of her emotional states, and was determined on finding out what it meant. Ordinarily Rita, who also knew her sister, would have delighted in thwarting her, but now it was as though she wanted an audience.

“How did I treat him?” she asked with amusement.

“Codding him along like that for years, and then marrying a man that was twice your age.”

“Well, how did he expect me to know?”

Ned rose and took out a packet of cigarettes. Like Nellie he knew that Rita had deliberately staged the scene and was on the point of telling him something. She was leaning very far back in her chair and laughed up at him while she took a cigarette and waited for him to light it.

“Come on, Rita,” he said encouragingly. “As you've said so much you might as well tell us the rest.”

“What else is there to tell?”

“What you had against me.”

“Who said I had anything against you? Didn't I distinctly tell you when you asked me to marry you that I didn't love you? Maybe you thought I didn't mean it.”

He paused for a moment and then raised his brows.

“I did,” he said quietly.

She laughed.

“The conceit of that fellow!” she said to Nellie, and then with a change of tone: “I had nothing against you, Ned. This was the one I had the needle in. Herself and Kitty were forcing me into it.”

“Well, the impudence of you!” cried Nellie.

“Isn't it true for me?” Rita said sharply. “Weren't you both trying to get me out of the house?”

“We weren't,” Nellie replied hotly, “and anyway that has nothing to do with it. It was no reason why you couldn't have married Ned if you wanted to.”

“I didn't want to. I didn't want to marry anyone.”

“And what changed your mind?”

“Nothing changed my mind. I didn't care about anyone only Tony, but I didn't want to go to that damn place, and I had no alternative. I had to marry one of you, so I made up my mind that I'd marry the first of you that called.”

“You must have been mad,” Nellie said indignantly.

“I felt it. I sat at the window the whole afternoon, looking at the rain. Remember that day, Ned?”

He nodded.

“The rain had a lot to do with it. I think I half hoped you'd come first. Justin came instead—an old aunt of his was sick and he came for supper. I saw him at the gate and he waved to me with his old brolly. I ran downstairs to open the door for him. ‘Justin,' I said, grabbing him by the coat, ‘if you still want to marry me, I'm ready.' He gave me a dirty look—you know Justin! ‘Young woman,' he said, 'there's a time and place for everything.' And away with him up to the lavatory. Talk about romantic engagements! Damn the old kiss did I get off him, even!”

“I declare to God!” said Nellie in stupefaction.

“I know,” Rita cried, laughing again over her own irresponsibility. “Cripes, when I knew what I was after doing I nearly dropped dead.”

“Oh, so you came to your senses?” Nellie asked ironically.

“What do you think? That's the trouble with Justin; he's always right. That fellow knew I wouldn't be married a week before I didn't give a snap of my fingers for Tony. And me thinking my life was over and that was that or the river! God, the idiots we make of ourselves over men!”

“And I suppose 'twas then you found out you'd married the wrong man?” Nellie asked.

“Who said I married the wrong man?” Rita asked hotly.

“I thought that was what you were telling us,” Nellie said innocently.

“You get things all wrong, Nellie,” Rita replied shortly. “You jump to conclusions too much. If I did marry the wrong man I wouldn't be likely to tell you—or Ned Lowry either.”

She looked mockingly at Ned, but her look belied her. It was plain enough now why she wanted Nellie as an audience. It kept her from admitting more than she had to admit, from saying things which, once said, might make her own life impossible. Ned rose and flicked his cigarette ash into the fire. Then he stood with his back to it, his hands behind his back, his feet spread out on the hearth.

“You mean if I'd come earlier you'd have married me?” he asked quietly.

“If you'd come earlier, I'd probably be asking Justin to stand godfather to your brat,” said Rita. “And how do you know but Justin would be walking out the señorita, Ned?”

“Then maybe you wouldn't be quite so interested whether he was or not,” said Nellie, but she didn't say it maliciously. It was now only too plain what Rita meant, and Nellie was sorry for her.

Ned turned and lashed his cigarette savagely into the fire. Rita looked up at him mockingly.

“Go on!” she taunted him. “Say it, blast you!”

“I couldn't,” he said bitterly.

A month later he married the señorita.

News for the Church

W
HEN
Father Cassidy drew back the shutter of the confessional he was a little surprised at the appearance of the girl at the other side of the grille. It was dark in the box but he could see she was young, of medium height and build, with a face that was full of animation and charm. What struck him most was the long pale slightly freckled cheeks, pinned high up behind the gray-blue eyes, giving them a curiously Oriental slant.

She wasn't a girl from the town, for he knew most of these by sight and many of them by something more, being notoriously an easygoing confessor. The other priests said that one of these days he'd give up hearing confessions altogether on the ground that there was no such thing as sin and that even if there was it didn't matter. This was part and parcel of his exceedingly angular character, for though he was kind enough to individual sinners, his mind was full of obscure abstract hatreds. He hated England; he hated the Irish government, and he particularly hated the middle classes, though so far as anyone knew none of them had ever done him the least bit of harm. He was a heavy-built man, slow-moving and slow-thinking with no neck and a Punchinello chin, a sour wine-colored face, pouting crimson lips, and small blue hot-tempered eyes.

“Well, my child,” he grunted in a slow and mournful voice that sounded for all the world as if he had pebbles in his mouth, “how long is it since your last confession?”

“A week, father,” she replied in a clear firm voice. It surprised him a little, for though she didn't look like one of the tough shots, neither did she look like the sort of girl who goes to Confession every week. But with women you could never tell. They were all contrary, saints and sinners.

“And what sins did you commit since then?” he asked encouragingly.

“I told lies, father.”

“Anything else?”

“I used bad language, father.”

“I'm surprised at you,” he said with mock seriousness. “An educated girl with the whole of the English language at your disposal! What sort of bad language?”

“I used the Holy Name, father.”

“Ach,” he said with a frown, “you ought to know better than that. There's no great harm in damning and blasting but blasphemy is a different thing. To tell you the truth,” he added, being a man of great natural honesty, “there isn't much harm in using the Holy Name either. Most of the time there's no intentional blasphemy but at the same time it coarsens the character. It's all the little temptations we don't indulge in that give us true refinement. Anything else?”

“I was tight, father.”

“Hm,” he grunted. This was rather more the sort of girl he had imagined her to be; plenty of devilment but no real badness. He liked her bold and candid manner. There was no hedging or false modesty about her as about most of his women penitents. “When you say you were ‘tight' do you mean you were just merry or what?”

“Well, I mean I passed out,” she replied candidly with a shrug.

“I don't call that ‘tight,' you know,” he said sternly. “I call that beastly drunk. Are you often tight?”

“I'm a teacher in a convent school so I don't get much chance,” she replied ruefully.

“In a convent school?” he echoed with new interest. Convent schools and nuns were another of his phobias; he said they were turning the women of the country into imbeciles. “Are you on holidays now?”

“Yes. I'm on my way home.”

“You don't live here then?”

“No, down the country.”

“And is it the convent that drives you to drink?” he asked with an air of unshakable gravity.

“Well,” she replied archly, “you know what nuns are.”

“I do,” he agreed in a mournful voice while he smiled at her through the grille. “Do you drink with your parents' knowledge?” he added anxiously.

“Oh, yes. Mummy is dead but Daddy doesn't mind. He lets us take a drink with him.”

“Does he do that on principle or because he's afraid of you?” the priest asked dryly.

“Ah, I suppose a little of both,” she answered gaily, responding to his queer dry humor. It wasn't often that women did, and he began to like this one a lot.

“Is your mother long dead?” he asked sympathetically.

“Seven years,” she replied, and he realized that she couldn't have been much more than a child at the time and had grown up without a mother's advice and care. Having worshipped his own mother, he was always sorry for people like that.

“Mind you,” he said paternally, his hands joined on his fat belly, “I don't want you to think there's any harm in a drop of drink. I take it myself. But I wouldn't make a habit of it if I were you. You see, it's all very well for old jossers like me that have the worst of their temptations behind them, but yours are all ahead and drink is a thing that grows on you. You need never be afraid of going wrong if you remember that your mother may be watching you from Heaven.”