Collected Stories (38 page)

“Wisha, Mrs. Carty,” he said crankily, “how could I get him to marry her? Wouldn't you have a bit of sense? Some little financial arrangement, maybe, so that she could leave the parish and not be a cause of scandal—I might be able to do that.”

He interviewed Ned Flynn, who by this time had got Tom's version of the story and knew financial arrangements were going to be the order of the day unless he could put a stop to them. Ned was a man of over six foot with a bald brow and a smooth unlined face as though he never had a care except his general concern for the welfare of humanity which made him look so abnormally thoughtful. Even Tom's conduct hadn't brought a wrinkle to his brow.

“I don't know, father,” he said, stroking his bald brow with a dieaway air, “I don't know what you could do at all.”

“Wisha, Mr. Flynn,” said the priest who, when it came to the pinch, had more nature than twenty Flynns, “wouldn't you do the handsome thing and let him marry her before it goes any farther?”

“I don't see how much farther it could go, father,” said Ned.

“It could become a scandal.”

“I'm afraid 'tis that already, father.”

“And after all,” said Father Corcoran, forcing himself to put in a good word for one of the unfortunate sex whose very existence was a mystery to him, “is she any worse than the rest of the girls that are going? Bad is the best of them, from what I see, and Delia is a great deal better than most.”

“That's not my information at all, father,” said Ned, looking like “The Heart Bowed Down.”

“That's a very serious statement, Mr. Flynn,” said Father Corcoran, giving him a challenging look.

“It can be proved, father,” said Ned gloomily. “Of course I'm not denying the boy was foolish, but the cleverest can be caught.”

“You astonish me, Mr. Flynn,” said Father Corcoran who was beginning to realize that he wasn't even going to get a subscription. “Of course I can't contradict you, but 'twill cause a terrible scandal.”

“I'm as sorry for that as you are, father,” said Ned, “but I have my son's future to think of.”

Then, of course, the fun began. Foolish to the last, the O'Gradys wanted to keep Delia on till it was pointed out to them that Mr. O'Grady would be bound to get the blame. After this, her father had to be told. Dick Carty knew exactly what became a devoted father, and he beat Delia till he had to be hauled off her by the neighbors. He was a man who loved to sit in his garden reading his paper; now he felt he owed it to himself not to be seen enjoying himself, so instead he sat over the fire and brooded. The more he brooded the angrier he became. But seeing that, with the best will in the world, he could not beat Delia every time he got angry, he turned his attention to the Flynns. Ned Flynn, that contemptible bosthoon, had slighted one of the Cartys in a parish where they had lived for hundreds of years with unblemished reputations; the Flynns, as everyone knew, being mere upstarts and outsiders without a date on their gravestones before 1850—nobodies!

He brought Delia to see Jackie Canty, the solicitor in town. Jackie was a little jenny-ass of a man with thin lips, a pointed nose, and a pince-nez that wouldn't stop in place, and he listened with grave enjoyment to the story of Delia's misconduct. “And what happened then, please?” he asked in his shrill singsong, looking at the floor and trying hard not to burst out into a giggle of delight. “The devils!” he thought. “The devils!” It was as close as Jackie was ever likely to get to the facts of life, an opportunity not to be missed.

“Anything in writing?” he sang, looking at her over the pince-nez. “Any letters? Any documents?”

“Only a couple of notes I burned,” said Delia, who thought him a very queer man, and no wonder.

“Pity!” Jackie said with an admiring smile. “A smart man! Oh, a very smart man!”

“Ah, 'tisn't that at all,” said Delia uncomfortably, “only he had no occasion for writing.”

“Ah, Miss Carty,” cried Jackie in great indignation, looking at her challengingly through the specs while his voice took on a steely ring, “a gentleman in love always finds plenty of occasion for writing. He's a smart man; your father might succeed in an action for seduction, but if 'tis defended 'twill be a dirty case.”

“Mr. Canty,” said her father solemnly, “I don't mind how dirty it is so long as I get justice.” He stood up, a powerful man of six feet, and held up his clenched fist. “Justice is what I want,” he said dramatically. “That's the sort I am. I keep myself to myself and mind my own business, but give me a cut, and I'll fight in a bag, tied up.”

“Don't forget that Ned Flynn has the money, Dick,” wailed Jackie.

“Mr. Canty,” said Dick with a dignity verging on pathos, “you know me?”

“I do, Dick, I do.”

“I'm living in this neighborhood, man and boy, fifty years, and I owe nobody a ha'penny. If it took me ten years, breaking stones by the road, I'd pay it back, every penny.”

“I know, Dick, I know,” moaned Jackie. “But there's other things as well. There's your daughter's reputation. Do you know what they'll do? They'll go into court and swear someone else was the father.”

“Tom could never say that,” Delia cried despairingly. “The tongue would rot in his mouth.”

Jackie had no patience at all with this chit of a girl, telling him his business. He sat back with a weary air, his arm over the back of his chair.

“That statement has no foundation,” he said icily. “There is no record of any such things happening a witness. If there was, the inhabitants of Ireland would have considerably less to say for themselves.

You would be surprised the things respectable people will say in the witness box. Rot in their mouths indeed! Ah, dear me, no. With documents, of course, it would be different, but it is only our word against theirs. Can it be proved that you weren't knocking round with any other man at this time, Miss Carty?”

“Indeed, I was doing nothing of the sort,” Delia said indignantly. “I swear to God I wasn't, Mr. Canty. I hardly spoke to a fellow the whole time, only when Tom and myself might have a row and I'd go out with Timmy Martin.”

“Timmy Martin!” Canty cried dramatically, pointing an accusing finger at her. “There is their man!”

“But Tom did the same with Betty Daly,” cried Delia on the point of tears, “and he only did it to spite me. I swear there was nothing else in it, Mr. Canty, nor he never accused me of it.”

“Mark my words,” chanted Jackie with a mournful smile, “he'll make up for lost time now.”

In this he showed considerably more foresight than Delia gave him credit for. After the baby was born and the action begun, Tom and his father went to town to see their solicitor, Peter Humphreys. Peter, who knew all he wanted to know about the facts of life, liked the case much less than Jackie. A crosseyed, full-blooded man who had made his money when law was about land, not love, he thought it a terrible comedown. Besides, he didn't think it nice to be listening to such things.

“And so, according to you, Timmy Martin is the father?” he asked Tom.

“Oh, I'm not swearing he is,” said Tom earnestly, giving himself a heave in his chair and crossing his legs. “How the hell could I? All I am saying is that I wasn't the only one, and what's more she boasted about it. Boasted about it, begod!” he added with a look of astonishment at such female depravity.

“Before witnesses?” asked Peter, his eyes doing a double cross with hopelessness.

“As to that,” replied Tom with great solemnity, looking over his shoulder for an open window he could spit through, “I couldn't swear.”

“But you understood her to mean Timmy Martin?”

“I'm not accusing Timmy Martin at all,” said Tom in great alarm, seeing how the processes of law were tending to involve him in a row with the Martins, who were a turbulent family with ways of getting their own back unknown to any law. “Timmy Martin is one man she used to be round with. It might be Timmy Martin or it might be someone else, or what's more,” he added with the look of a man who has had a sudden revelation, “it might be more than one.” He looked from Peter to his father and back again to see what effect the revelation was having, but like other revelations it didn't seem to be going down too well. “Begod,” he said, giving himself another heave, “it might be any God's number.… But, as to that,” he added cautiously, “I wouldn't like to swear.”

“Nor indeed, Tom,” said his solicitor with a great effort at politeness, “no one would advise you. You'll want a good counsel.”

“Begod, I suppose I will,” said Tom with astonished resignation before the idea that there might be people in the world bad enough to doubt his word.

There was great excitement in the village when it became known that the Flynns were having the Roarer Cooper as counsel. Even as a first-class variety turn Cooper could always command attention, and everyone knew that the rights and wrongs of the case would be relegated to their proper position while the little matter of Eileen O'Grady's best frock received the attention it deserved.

On the day of the hearing the court was crowded. Tom and his father were sitting at the back with Peter Humphreys, waiting for Cooper, while Delia and her father were talking to Jackie Canty and their own counsel, Ivers. He was a well-built young man with a high brow, black hair, and half-closed, red-tinged sleepy eyes. He talked in a bland drawl.

“You're not worrying, are you?” he asked Delia kindly. “Don't be a bit afraid.… I suppose there's no chance of them settling, Jackie?”

“Musha, what chance would there be?” Canty asked scoldingly. “Don't you know yourself what sort they are?”

“I'll have a word with Cooper myself,” said Ivers. “Dan isn't as bad as he looks.” He went to talk to a coarse-looking man in wig and gown who had just come in. To say he wasn't as bad as he looked was no great compliment. He had a face that was almost a square, with a big jaw and blue eyes in wicked little slits that made deep dents across his cheekbones.

“What about settling this case of ours, Dan?” Ivers asked gently.

Cooper didn't even return his look; apparently he was not responsive to charm.

“Did you ever know me to settle when I could fight?” he growled.

“Not when you could fight your match,” Ivers said, without taking offense. “You don't consider that poor girl your match?”

“We'll soon see what sort of girl she is,” replied Cooper complacently as his eyes fell on the Flynns. “Tell me,” he whispered, “what did she see in my client?”

“What you saw yourself when you were her age, I suppose,” said Ivers. “You don't mean there wasn't a girl in a tobacconist's shop that you thought came down from Heaven with the purpose of consoling you?”

“She had nothing in writing,” Cooper replied gravely. “And, unlike your client, I never saw double.”

“You don't believe that yarn, do you?”

“That's one of the things I'm going to inquire into.”

“I can save you the trouble. She was too fond of him.”

“Hah!” snorted Cooper as though this were a good joke. “And I suppose that's why she wants the cash.”

“The girl doesn't care if she never got a penny. Don't you know yourself what's behind it? A respectable father. Two respectable fathers! The trouble about marriage in this country, Dan Cooper, is that the fathers always insist on doing the coorting.”

“Hah!” grunted Cooper, rather more uncertain of himself. “Show me this paragon of the female sex, Ivers.”

“There in the brown hat beside Canty,” said Ivers without looking round. “Come on, you old devil, and stop trying to pretend you're Buffalo Bill. It's enough going through what she had to go through. I don't want her to go through any more.”

“And why in God's name do you come to me?” Cooper asked in sudden indignation. “What the hell do you take me for? A Society for Protecting Fallen Women? Why didn't the priest make him marry her?”

“When the Catholic Church can make a farmer marry a laborer's daughter the Kingdom of God will be at hand,” said Ivers. “I'm surprised at you, Dan Cooper, not knowing better at your age.”

“And what are the neighbors doing here if she has nothing to hide?”

“Who said she had nothing to hide?” Ivers asked lightly, throwing in his hand. “Haven't you daughters of your own? You know she played the fine lady in the O'Gradys' frocks. If 'tis any information to you she wore their jewelry as well.”

“Ivers, you're a young man of great plausibility,” said Cooper, “but you can spare your charm on me. I have my client's interests to consider. Did she sleep with the other fellow?”

“She did not.”

“Do you believe that?”

“As I believe in my own mother.”

“The faith that moves mountains,” Cooper said despondently. “How much are ye asking?”

“Two hundred and fifty,” replied Ivers, shaky for the first time.

“Merciful God Almighty!” moaned Cooper, turning his eyes to the ceiling. “As if any responsible Irish court would put that price on a girl's virtue. Still, it might be as well. I'll see what I can do.”

He moved ponderously across the court and with two big arms outstretched like wings shepherded out the Flynns.

“Two hundred and fifty pounds?” gasped Ned, going white. “Where in God's name would I get that money?”

“My dear Mr. Flynn,” Cooper said with coarse amiability, “that's only half the yearly allowance his Lordship makes the young lady that obliges him, and she's not a patch on that girl in court. After a lifetime of experience I can assure you that for two years' fornication with a fine girl like that you won't pay a penny less than five hundred.”