TIMEwore on and Norah lived for the most part in a world of fancy, spoke to imaginary individuals and at moments addressed Ellen as Sheila Carrol or as Maire a Glan. Sometimes she was gloomy and reserved, made folds in the sheet, murmured in an almost inaudible voice, and seemed to be calculating distances. The least movement of the left arm pained her and caused her to groan aloud. Now and again her eyes were dull, heavy, and glassy; at other times they were re-lit and sparkled like stars. She ate next to nothing; wrinkles formed round her eyes, her cheeks were sunken; she became the shadow, the ghost of her former self.
After a while the name of Dermod Flynn entered into her prattle; at first she spoke of him, eventually she spoke to him as if he were in the room. When her mind resumed its normal state all this was forgotten. Once Ellen spoke to her of Dermod Flynn.
“I would like to see him again, just once,” Norah said, then added: “I’m a heart-break to ye, Ellen; to everybody that I ever met. I’m like a little useless wean, useless, of no use at all.”
Acting on Norah’s wishes a priest was called in, heard Norah’s confession and administered the sacraments.This made the girl happy for many days. Ellen disliked priests, but never gave hint of her dislike to Norah.
“Ye’re sic a funny little thing,” she exclaimed more than once. “I took a fancy to ye when I saw ye for the first time that mornin’ on Greenock Quay along wi’ Dermod Flynn. He was a comely laddie, and I would like to see him comin’ here.”
“I wonder where’ll he be now?” said Norah.
“I wunner.”
SPRINGwas over the town. The sun shone almost daily through the window and rested on Norah’s bed; the birds twittered on the roof; their songs, even in the city slums, were filling the air.
Starvation was very near the two occupants of the room. They were three weeks behind with the rent, the landlord threatened to evict them; the grocer grumbled, the coal man would not supply coals. Added to this, Ellen had lost her job as charwoman in the school. The head-mistress, a dear old pious soul! had made enquiries into Ellen’s past life, and the result of the investigations was that the charwoman was told to leave the premises.
Ellen was thinking of these things one morning. Norah was tossing restlessly in the bed, when a knock came to the door.
“Come in!” Ellen cried.
A man entered, one hand deep in his trousers’ pocket, a worn cap set awkwardly on his shaggy head. He was a powerfully-built individual, broad-shouldered and heavy-limbed. He had not shaved for weeks; his beard stood out in sharp bristles from his jaw.
“Moleskin Joe, what d’ye want?” Ellen asked, her voice charged with resentment.
“Did ye know Dermod Flynn?” asked the man, gazing curiously at the woman tossing in the bed.
“I kent him.”
“I’m lookin’ for a wench—for an old sweetheart of his, so to speak,” said the man.
“It’s Dermod Flynn that he’s speakin’ about! D’ye know Dermod?” asked Norah, sitting up in bed and gazing intently at the stranger. Her cheeks flushed; all her young beauty seemed to have returned suddenly and settled in her face.
“It’s like this,” said the stranger, shuffling uneasily. “It’s like this: me and Dermod’s pals. We did graft together on many’s a shift, aye, and fought together too. And he can use his fives! Well, Dermod often told me about an old flame of his, called—her name was——”
“Norah Ryan,” said Ellen.
“That’s it,” said the man, looking at the girl in the bed. “Perhaps you’ll be her. If you are, you buckle on to Dermod. He’s one that any girl should be proud of; and he can use his fives! But women don’t understand these things.”
“Don’tthey?” queried Ellen.
“Some think they do,” said the man. “Well, Dermod went to London and worked on a newspaper as a somethin’. Graft of that kind is not in my line, and the job wasn’t in Dermod’s line neither. He came back here to Glasgow, and he’s lookin’ for his old flame. I’m just helpin’ him.”
“Well, that’s the lass he’s lookin’ for,” said Ellen, pointing to the girl in the bed. “Now run awa’, Joe, and bring Dermod.”
“By all that’s holy! she’s a takin’ wench,” said the man, looking first at the girl, then at Ellen, then back to the girl in the bed again. “Well, I’d better be goin’,” he said.
“Ye’d better,” answered Ellen.
“Are ye well off here?” asked the man, who was apparently unperturbed by Ellen’s remark.
“Gey poorly,” said the woman; “we’ll soon hae a moonlight flittin’; that’s when we have anything to flit with.”
The man dived his hand into his trousers’ pocket, rattled some money, then as if a sudden thought struck him he went towards the door.
“Send Dermod at once, will ye?” asked Norah.
“I’ll do that,” said the man, then to Ellen: “I want to speak to you.”
She accompanied Moleskin out on the landing and closed the door behind her.
“Isn’t she a comely wench!” said the man.
“I know that. Is that all ye have to say to me?”
“Why is she in bed at this hour of the day?”
“She’s waitin’ for the meenit,” said Ellen in a low whisper. “She’ll maybe no’ last another twenty-four hours.”
“And she looks the picture of health!” said the man.
Ellen told of the assault on Norah, her narrative bristling with short, sharp, declamatory sentences. When she finished the man pulled some money from his pocket and put it into Ellen’s palm.
“Dermod’s my matey,” he explained apologetically. “I’ll bring the youngster here and we’ll be back in a jiffy. He’s lodgin’ near the wharf. And by heaven! we’ll cure the girl. She’ll be better in next to no time.”
Ellen shook her head sadly. “Lungs canna be put back again once they’re gone,” she said. “But hurry and bring Dermod Flynn here.”
The man turned and clattered downstairs.
“MOLESKINJoeis an old friend of mine,” said Ellen, coming in and counting the money as she made her way towards the bed. “Thirty bob—two—two fifteen—three, three punds nine and sixpence!” she cried. “And Dermod will be here in a meenit.... My goodness! what’s gang wrang wi’ ye, child?”
Norah was lying unconscious on the bed, a stream of blood issuing from her lips. One pale white hand was stretched over the blue lettering of the blanket, the other was doubled up under her body.
“Poor Norah Ryan!” exclaimed Ellen, opening the window and drawing back the clothes from the girl’s chest. “It’s the excitement that’s done it.... Wake up, Norah! It’s me, Ellen, that’s speakin’ to ye. Ye ken me, don’t ye?”
She placed her hand on Norah’s breast. Although her hand had lost most of its delicacy of touch she could feel the heart beating faintly, almost like the wing of a butterfly flickering against the net in which it is imprisoned.
“She’ll be better in a wee meenit! There, she’s comin’ to. She’ll ken me as soon as she opens her eyes!” said Ellen, and she nearly cried with joy.
In a little while Norah recovered and looked round with large, puzzled eyes; then, as if recollecting something—
“Is he comin’?” she asked eagerly, but so softly that Ellen had to bend down to catch the words. “He was the kind-hearted boy, Dermod,” she went on. “I always liked him better than anyone, Ellen.... ’Twas the bad girl that I was ... and I’m a burden on ye more than on anyone else.”
“God send that I bear the burden for long and many’s a day yet,” said the woman. “Ye’ve been a guid frien’to me, Norah, and I feel happy workin’ awa here by yer side. Ye’ll get better too, for when Dermod comes ye’ll be happy, and the happy live long.”
Norah put out her hand and grasped that of her friend. “God bless ye, Ellen,” she said. “Ye’ve been more’n a mother to me. But I’m not long for this world now. Something tells me that I’m for another place. I’m not afeared to die, Ellen; why should I? But sorrow is on me because I’m leavin’ you.”
The darkness fell; the two women were silent, their hands clasped tightly and their eyes full of tears. But with them was a certain strange happiness; one bright thought joined another bright thought in their minds just as the beams of a newly-lit fire join together in a darkened room.
Norah fell asleep. The lamp, which had become leaky, had now gone out. Ellen lit a candle, stuck it into the neck of a bottle and placed the bottle on the floor. The place looked desolate and forbidding; dead ashes lay in the fireplace; a pile of rags—Ellen’s bed—lay in the corner. There was no picture in the place, nothing to lessen the monotony save the little crucifix on the mantelpiece, and this relieving feature was a symbol of sorrow.
Ellen glanced at the sleeper. How strangely beautiful she looked now! It seemed as if something spiritual and divine had entered the body of Norah, causing her to look more like the creation of some delightful dream than an erring human being bowed with a weight of sorrow.
“I’ll go out and get some coals,” said Ellen, speaking under her breath. “Then we’ll have a cheerful fire for Dermod Flynn when he comes. He was sic a comely lad when in Jim Scanlon’s squad. And poor Norah! Ah! it’s sic a pity the way things work out in this life. There seems to be a bad management of things somewhere.”
FORthe rest of that evening, between short periods of sleep, one bright vision merged with another in front of Norah’s eyes, and in every vision the face of Dermod Flynn stood out distinctly clear. She spoke to him; talked of home, of the people whom both had known, of the master of Glenmornan schoolhouse, of Maire a Glan, of Micky’s Jim and the squad, Willie the Duck, and all those whom they had known so well a few short years before. But for all she spoke, Dermod never answered; he looked at her in silence where she lay, the life passing from her as a spent fountain weakens, as an echo dies away.
The candle threw out a fitful flame in the room, shadows rushed together on the ceiling, forming and breaking free, dancing and capering in strange antics. Steps could be heard on the stairs; the tap was running outside and the water fell with a hissing sound. Ellen was still out; the room was deserted; nothing there but the shadows on the ceiling and the sick girl on the bed by the window.
She was asleep when Dermod Flynn came, and wakened to find him standing by her bed, looking down at her with eyes full of love and pity. There was no surprise written on her face when she saw him; to Norahfor days he had been as near in dreams as he was now in real flesh and blood.
“I was dreamin’ of ye, Dermod,” she said in a low voice, sitting up with one elbow buried in the pillow and her bare shoulders showing white and delicate under her locks of brown hair.
“Ye took the good time in comin’,” she went on, but there was longing, not protest, in her voice. “Ellen told me that ye were lookin’ for meself.”
Dermod was down on his knees by the bedside. “ ‘Tis good to see you again, darling,” he said. “I have been looking for you for such a long time.”
“Have ye?” she asked, her voice, tinged with a thousand regrets, rising a little as if in mute protest, against the shadows dancing on the roof. Sobbing like a child, she sank back in the bed. “It’s the kindly way that ye have with ye, Dermod,” she said in a quieter voice. “Ye don’t know what I am, and the kind of life I’ve been leadin’ for a good lot of years, to come and speak to me again. It’s not for a decent man like yerself to speak to the likes of my kind. It’s meself that has suffered a big lot too, Dermod, and I deserve pity more than hate. Me sufferin’s would have broke the heart of a cold mountainy stone.”
“Poor Norah!” Dermod said, half in whispers; “well do I know what ye have suffered. I have been looking for you for a long while, and now, having found you, I want to make you very happy.”
“Make me happy!” she exclaimed, withdrawing her hands from Dermod’s grasp as if they had been stung. “What would ye be doin’, wantin’ to make me happy? I’m dead to ev’rybody, to the people at home and to me own very mother. What would she want with me now, her daughter and the mother of a child that never had the priest’s blessin’ on its head. A child without a lawfulfather! Think of it, Dermod! What would the Frosses and Glenmornan people say if they met me now on the streets? It was a dear child to me, it was. And ye are wantin’ to make me happy! Every time ye come ye say the same.... D’ye mind seem’ me on the streets, Dermod?”
“I remember it, Norah.”
He looked at her closely, puzzled no doubt by her utterances. She was now rambling a little again. Dreams intermingled with reality and her fingers were making folds in the sheets. Dermod remembered how in Glenmornan this was considered a sign of death. She began to talk to herself, her head on the pillow, one erring tress of hair lying across her cheek.
“It was the child, Dermod,” she said, a smile playing over her features; “it was the little boy and he was dyin’, both of a cough that was stickin’ in his throat and of starvation. As for meself, I hadn’t seen bread or that what buys it for many’s a long hour, even for days itself. I couldn’t get work to do. I would beg, aye, Dermod, I would, and me a Frosses woman, but I was afeared that the peelis would put me in prison. In the end there was nothin’ left to me but to take to the streets.... There were long white boats goin’ out and we were watchin’ them from the strand of Trienna Bay. The boats of our own people. Ah! my own townland, Dermod!... I called the little child Dermod, but he never got the christenin’ words said over him, nor a drop of holy water.... Where is Ellen?... Ellen, ye’re a good friend to me, ye are! The people that’s sib to myself don’t care what happens to me, one of their own kind; but it’s ye yerself that has the good heart, Ellen. And ye say that Dermod Flynn is comin’ to see me? I would like to see Dermod again.”
“I’m here, Norah,” said the young man, endeavouringby his voice to recall her straying fancy. “I’m here, Norah. I’m Dermod Flynn. Do ye know me now?”
There was no answer.
“Norah, do ye remember me?” Dermod repeated. “I am Dermod—Dermod Flynn. Say ‘Dermod’ after me.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him with a puzzled glance. “Is it ye indeed, Dermod?” she exclaimed. “I knew that ye were comin’ to see me. I was thinkin’ of ye often, and many’s the time I thought that ye were standin’ by me bed quiet like and takin’ a look at me. Ye’re here now, are ye? Say ‘True as death.’ ”
“True as death!”
“But where is Ellen?” she asked, “and where is the man that came here this mornin’, and left a handful of money to help us along? He was a good, kindly man; talkin’ about fives too, just the same as Micky’s Jim. Joe was his name.”
She paused.
“There were three men on the street and they made fun of me when I was passin’ them,” she went on. “Then they made a rush at me, threw me down and tramped over me. I was left on the cold streets, lyin’ like to die and no one to help me. ’Twas Ellen that picked me up, and she has been a good friend to me ever since; sittin’ up at night by my side and workin’ her fingers to the bone for me through the livelong day. Ellen, ye’re very good to me.”
“Ellen isn’t here,” Dermod said, the tears running down his cheeks. With clumsy but tender fingers he brushed back the hair from her brow and listened to her talk as one listens to the sound of a lonely breeze, the mind deep in unfathomable reflections.
Gourock Ellen entered the room and cast a curious look round. Seeing Dermod kneeling at the bedside the woman felt herself an intruder. She came forward,however, and bent over the girl, her shoulder touching the head of the young man.
Norah’s eyes were closed and a pallor overspread her features.
“Are ye asleep, lassie?”
There was no answer to her question; the woman bent closer and pressed Norah’s breast with her hand.
“Are ye come back, Ellen?” Norah asked without opening her eyes. “I was dreamin’ in the same old way,” she went on. “I saw him comin’ back again. He was standin’ by me bed and he was very kind like he always was.”
“But he’s here, little lass,” said Ellen, turning to Dermod Flynn. “Speak to her, man,” she whispered. “She’s been wearin’ her heart away for you, for a long weary while. Speak to her and we’ll save her yet. She’s just wanderin’ in her head.”
Norah opened her eyes; the candle was going out and Dermod could mark the play of light and shade on the girl’s face.
“Then it was not dreamin’ that I was!” she cried. “It’s Dermod himself that’s in it and back again. Just comin’ to see me! It’s himself that has the kindly Glenmornan heart and always had. Dermod, Dermod! I have a lot to speak to ye about!”
Her voice became strained; to speak cost her an effort, and Dermod, who had risen, bent down to catch her words.
“It was ye that I was thinkin’ of all the time, and I was foolish when I was workin’ in Micky’s Jim’s squad. It’s all my fault and sorrow is on me because I made you suffer. Maybe ye’ll go home some day. If ye do, go to me mother’s house and ask her to forgive me. Tell her that I died on the year I left Micky’s Jim’s squad. I was not me mother’s child after that; I was dead to all theworld. My fault could not be undone; that’s what made the blackness of it. Never let yer own sisters go to the strange country, Dermod, never let them go to the potato squad, for it’s the place that is evil for a girl like me that hasn’t much sense.... Ye’re not angry with me, Dermod, are ye?”
“Norah, I was never angry with you,” said the young man, and he kissed her. “You don’t think that I was angry with you?”
“No, Dermod, for it’s yerself that has the kindly way,” said the poor girl. “Would ye do something for me if ever ye go back to yer own place?”
“Anything you ask,” Dermod answered, “and anything within my power to do.”
“Will ye hev a mass said for me in the chapel at home; a mass for the repose of me soul?” she asked. “If ye do I’ll be very happy.”
These were Norah Ryan’s last words. As she spoke she looked at Gourock Ellen, and by a sign expressed a wish to speak to her. She sat up in bed, but, as she opened her mouth, shivered as if with cold, looked at Ellen with sad, blank eyes and dropped back on the pillow. Dermod and Ellen stooped forward, not knowing what to do, but feeling that they should do something. The girl was still looking upwards at the shadows on the ceiling, but seeing far beyond. Then her eyes closed slowly, like those of a child that falls into a peaceful sleep.
Norah Ryan was dead.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:[A]Girsha, girl.[B]Beanshee, a fairy woman. (Bean, a woman; shee, a fairy.)[C]Beansho, “That woman.” (A term of reproach.)[D]Brattie, an apron made of coarse cloth.[E]Shorgun, short gown. The uniform of the female farm servant: the sleeves of the blouse reach the elbows, the hem of the skirt covers the knees.[F]Threepenny piece.[G]A pint of beer and a glass of whisky mixed.
FOOTNOTES:
[A]Girsha, girl.
[A]Girsha, girl.
[B]Beanshee, a fairy woman. (Bean, a woman; shee, a fairy.)
[B]Beanshee, a fairy woman. (Bean, a woman; shee, a fairy.)
[C]Beansho, “That woman.” (A term of reproach.)
[C]Beansho, “That woman.” (A term of reproach.)
[D]Brattie, an apron made of coarse cloth.
[D]Brattie, an apron made of coarse cloth.
[E]Shorgun, short gown. The uniform of the female farm servant: the sleeves of the blouse reach the elbows, the hem of the skirt covers the knees.
[E]Shorgun, short gown. The uniform of the female farm servant: the sleeves of the blouse reach the elbows, the hem of the skirt covers the knees.
[F]Threepenny piece.
[F]Threepenny piece.
[G]A pint of beer and a glass of whisky mixed.
[G]A pint of beer and a glass of whisky mixed.