CHAPTER VII
Ballysheenis one of those little villages, tucked in between high headlands, that lie along the south coast of Ireland. A Protestant rector, a parish priest and his curate shepherd the two or three hundred souls of which it is composed.
There is one street—so called—lined with those white or pink-washed cottages, all one story in height, which are peculiar to that corner of the world. For the most part they are occupied by fishermen; though here, there is Quin the baker, there, Foley the provision merchant and, distributed in other cottages down the street, you will find Linehan the cobbler, Tierney the town councillor and plumber, O'Shaughnessey the butcher, and last of all, achieving distinction by its proportions, the two-storied edifice belonging to the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Besides and beyond the centre of this hive of activity, there are three lanes, all combining to meet towards that road which has been built up the side of the cliff and which, when at length necessity ceases for it to continue, dwindles into a winding cliff path that leads on and away to the wild headlands.
The few better-class houses, occupied by summer residents, or those who of necessity are compelled to live there the whole year round, are to be found variously situated. There is no fashionable quarter in Ballysheen. If you were to divide it up into quarters you might lose sight of it altogether. My friend Cruikshank lives in a house hidden away in a nest of trees that cluster round the Protestant church. Janemount, on the other hand, belonging to the Miss Fennells, is away on the very brow of the cliff road, just at that point where it tires of magnificence and becomes a little rambling path.
Apart then from the cottages and houses of better class, there are the Roman Catholic chapel, the Protestant church, the schools, the post-office—which is an ordinary cottage with two holes in it, one where you buy stamps, the other where you post letters—there is the lifeboat house and the court house, the latter used mostly by the butcher, and last of all, there is that record of forty years' stern and persistent agitation, the pier. Like a breakwater, it runs out some thirty yards or so into the sea, locking in a little strip of water where the fishing-boats lie at rest. For forty years they agitated for its construction and when, after a year's labor, the last block of cement was laid, the fishermen turned and looked into each other's faces.
"Shure, what in the name of God do we want a pier for?" they said. "If they'd had the sinse to buy us a few boats!"
But no one yet who has provided for Ireland has ever had the "sinse." Sense in fact is not the quality that is required. One ounce of heart would do more for Ireland than a whole bushel load of sense. And the one man who had it, lost it to a woman! Is not that ever the way?
This then is Ballysheen. I feel I have discharged a duty in describing it, however poorly. In the first ten minutes as I walked with Bellwattle towards the Miss Fennells' houses, I was able to absorb it all, to realize at the same time that I knew nothing whatever about it.
It is ever the people one must know; seldom the place. I made the acquaintance of three of them that morning. It was as we took the broad lane which connects the church road with that leading to the cliff, that we saw the figure of a man approaching us. At such distance he would have been undistinguishable to me, but Bellwattle knew him at once.
"Let's turn and go the other way through the village," said she.
I asked her why.
"Here comes General Ffrench. He's a most terrible bore. Directly he sees I'm with a visitor—a stranger—he'll want to be introduced. He'll force us to stop and speak to him."
"As you like," said I, but I was disappointed. I was not sure that anybody could bore me there. "What sort of a dog is that he has with him?" I added. It was a hazard, but it was my only chance.
"Is Pepper with him?" said she.
"If that black Aberdeen is Pepper—" said I.
I heard no more about turning back. She just told me to come along and I went. As we decreased the distance between us, Dandy began a-pricking of his ears.
I pointed to him as his tail set erect.
"I don't expect we shall be bored," said I.
She stooped down to take hold of Dandy's collar.
"P'raps they'll fight."
I shook my head. This was the first I was to see of Bellwattle in her moments of maternal fussiness. Where any animals, birds or insects are concerned, she becomes like a hen with a brood of chickens. Cruikshank tells me that when first he took her abroad, she shuddered and winced at every animal in the streets. Whenever she saw a horse whose harness chafed a sore on its back, she bit her lip and clutched his arm.
"You mustn't look at them," said he.
"I can't help it," she replied. "I find myself looking out for them because I know they're there."
At last he gave it up in despair. There was no curing her.
"I suppose women must suffer," he concluded, as he told the little incident to me.
"If one might only say that of men," said I.
"And who is this General Ffrench?" I asked, as we walked along to meet him. "What regiments did he command?"
"Oh—he was only a Surgeon-General," said she.
"Then why not give him his proper title?"
"Not one of us has the courage, besides you forget the—the what-ever-you-call-it that we get out of it. It's not only what he calls himself, it's what we want to call him. We should be very unhappy if we couldn't say—General Ffrench."
I bent my head in comprehension, just catching the twinkle in her eye.
"Am I to begin to understand Ireland from that?" I asked.
"I wouldn't begin, if I were you," said she.
And then she told me more about him, how he lived with his widowed sister, combining his pension with the fragile income her husband had left to her; how she, too, cultivated a garden, but one whose produce was designed to bring them in a steady, but scarce-appreciable profit through the summer months.
"She sends round a little girl," said Bellwattle, "who has a bunch of flowers in one hand which she holds—conscupiously do you call it?"
I nodded—what does a word matter one way or another? Language was a precious thing once when the few knew how to use it.
"Which she holds conscupiously in front of her. In the other, behind her back, she carries a basket of vegetables, peas and so on. She comes to the back door and when it is opened, she thrusts forward the flowers. 'These are from Mrs. Quigley,' she says, and then comes the hand with the basket of peas from behind her back."
"Therefore having taken the flowers," said I—
"Well naturally," said Bellwattle; "I wouldn't mind if I had to praise her for her peas, because they're really splendid. But one dare not mention them. They've been paid for. So I have to thank her for the flowers which are given, and they're nothing to what Cruikshank grows."
"Cruikshank grows the most beautiful flowers in the world," said I.
She looked at me out of the corner of one eye, which is her habit, always fearing that one has contrived to deceive her. If ever she finds that I have misled her in the use of that word—conspicuously—can I hope to regain her confidence then? But were women unable to forgive, where should we be? And not that only, but what would there be left for women to do?
The next moment, General Ffrench was bearing down upon us. Already he had raised his hat, in much the same fashion as you lift a lid from off a saucepan and, holding it there above his head, he came forward with the other hand stretched out and a weather eye upon me. Bellwattle knew her man. There was no getting away from this.
But, the moment I was introduced, she turned her attentions to Pepper. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her formally introducing Dandy.
"Pepper," I heard her say, "this is Dandy," and they both glared at each other like two nations at war.
"You'll find this a quiet little spot," the General was saying to me, "a bit too quiet—eh—after London." It sounded to me like comparing Chicago to an oasis in the desert. "I find myself," he went on, "that it's too quiet sometimes—just a bit too quiet. I like the hum of the traffic—the hum—eh—that's what it was like when I was in London thirty years ago—sounded just like a hum."
"It has been called that," said I.
"It has? Well—I'm not surprised. I go to Dublin myself occasionally—just to see how the world's wagging. It's a change after this. I always say to my sister, Mrs. Quigley—you must come down and see us—I always say to her that the danger of a place like this is that you get in a groove. Fatal thing, you know—fatal thing—a groove."
"I don't think you need fear that," said I, "if you go to Dublin every year."
"Well, I don't go every year, not regularly; it's an expensive place you know—Dublin—there are such a crowd of things to be seen, such a number of things to be done, and they all cost money. I was up there the time the old Queen came over—fine reception we gave her too—fine reception. I remember it as if it were yesterday."
At this point he suddenly assumed that terrible attitude of the raconteur. I felt Bellwattle's hand tugging gently at my coat.
"I beg your pardon, General Ffrench," said I, and then I turned to her. "Are we keeping you?" I asked.
"I think I'd better be getting on," said she.
"Tell me that another time then, will you?" I suggested. "I've often wanted to know what sort of a reception she really did get."
"Thank you," said Bellwattle, when we had passed out of hearing.
"Thankyou," said I. "Now tell me, has he ever been to Dublin since he gave the old Queen that magnificent reception?"
"Never."
I looked back at his retreating figure. He was striding it nobly. There was the whole of the British Army in every step that he took. He seemed as though he were marching, for ever marching, as if he feared were he to stop, the music would no longer sound in his ears. Every action, therefore, every movement had in them the rigid discipline of the Service. Each simple thing he did was in time to the upward wave of the drum-stick. He then was one of the three I met that morning.
The other two were the Miss Fennells, the two maiden aunts whose existence I had first heard of in that far-away restaurant which seems to me now at the furthermost end of the earth.
When Bellwattle touched my arm and said—"The Miss Fennells"—I felt the pulses quicken which evenly had been beating in me. The whole of that story then came back as though I had just heard it. The sound of the violins crept into my ears. I could hear the clatter of plates, see the faces of those two, that man and that woman, as they sat together drinking their coffee. His barking laugh shouted suddenly at me out of the past; but last of all, Clarissa, in her gown of canary-colored satin.
And then I knew how, until that moment, it had never truly been real. I had dreamed it all until then; it had only been a story. But now these two prim figures, in costumes too extravagant to describe, the mere sight of them had made the story come true, had turned the dream into reality, and I began a-wondering why I had ever set out about the business at all.
I think Bellwattle must have been watching me, for suddenly she said—
"Would you rather we didn't stop and talk to them?"
How do women know these things? She had taken it from my mind before my thoughts had found it. In another instant, had she not spoken, it would have been a conscious idea. I should have preferred not to have been introduced to them that morning. Then she put her question and, human nature being as it is, I said, "Oh no—by all means, let us stop. I want to meet them."
Whereupon in the next moment there was made the second stage in my erratic journey. I was introduced in all solemnity to Miss Mary and Miss Teresa Fennell.
It is a distressing fact, when you come to describe a woman, to find that you know nothing whatever of the character of those garments which go to make her what she is. A hat or a bonnet mean but little—but little, unless you can trim them. The bonnet then which was worn by Miss Mary, the hat by Miss Teresa, must remain without description, for to trim them is absolutely beyond me. I can only tell of the little thought that occurred to my mind as I noticed them—the thought that the bonnet of Miss Mary was a gentle concession of years to the hat of Miss Teresa. There is hope left in a hat, even if it only exists in the mind of the head that wears it. God alone can tell what hopes lie buried beneath a bonnet; no man, I swear, could ever know.
The Miss Fennells, therefore, must describe themselves. Miss Teresa with her wealth of ruddy brown hair, her discreet allusions to the age at which a woman is at her best, her pathetic little memories of the past, all of which go to prove that she cannot be more than thirty-seven, notwithstanding these obvious characteristics, Miss Teresa eludes me. Neither can I any more describe Miss Mary.
It is personal bias that stands in my way. I think of their cruelty to Clarissa, and I can judge them from no other standpoint. It is as well then to leave it alone. Only the far-reaching and all-comprehensive eye can judge. I was prejudiced before I met them.
It was as I listened to Miss Mary, whose words hurry from her lips and remind me, in their simple anxiety to get out of her mouth, of children tumbling out of school, it was as I listened to her that I heard Bellwattle say to Miss Teresa—
"How is your invalid to-day?"
In a moment my hearing was alert, but the languid reply of Miss Teresa did not satisfy me.
"Much about the same," she answered.
I was not content to let it go at that. With proper sympathy, I inquired of Miss Mary.
"You have an invalid in your house?" said I.
"Poor child—we have indeed," replied she. "'Tis her eyes are very weak."
"Is the doctor attending her?"
"Well—the doctor here is not. She's after seeing a doctor in London and 'tis his instructions now that she's following."
"In what way are her eyes weak?" I asked, and I looked directly in her face.
With no intention to depreciate human nature, I say all men and women are liars, and with one striking difference between. Women are successful. With the utmost ease in the world, Miss Mary told me of this lovely child to whom her nephew was engaged to be married. With the most dexterous imagination she described how Clarissa's ailment compelled her to be confined to the house in semi-darkness. How lovingly they cared for her and tended her—well "it is not difficult for you to suppose," said she.
"It is not," said I. "But surely," I added, "it must be bad for her to have no exercise."
Oh—there were evenings, of course, when they took her out—just for a little walk along the cliffs. Even then they had to protect her eyes. The doctor in London had said she could not stand the light.
"What, light at night?" said I.
Miss Teresa touched Miss Mary's arm.
"Have you got the letters?" she asked. There was no hurry about it. It was said quite gently; but it served its purpose. My question was never answered. The next moment they were continuing their way to the post-office. Bellwattle and I were left alone to the pursuit of our destination.
"Do you want to see where they live now you've met them?" she asked.
"We might as well go that way," I replied. "It leads to the walk round the cliffs, doesn't it?"
She nodded and we walked on.
I knew the house, long before she stopped and pointed it out to me. It was just the prison, just the cage I had imagined it to be. In a little plot of land on the cliff's edge it stood, looking out across the wide and lonely bay of Ballysheen. The sun was shining then, but I knew what it must be like on a lightless day. There was no garden, and the shrubs that partly surrounded the house were bent with the south-west wind. They looked like old witches stooping in the grass to gather simples. No creeper grew upon the walls. It was all a cold grey stone, and the windows stared and stared as though they ached with endless looking out to sea. Even with that sun burning in the sky, the water was not blue. I thought of the colors which must still be living, burning in the eyes of that little prisoner behind those walls, and with an effort I kept my exclamation to myself.
"Shall we go on?" said Bellwattle.
I acquiesced, but just as we were about to turn away, I saw the curtains in an upper window move. For one instant they were pulled aside and a face that surprised me with its paleness peeped out.
I stopped, waiting to see more, hoping that I should really behold Clarissa for the first time and then, as the curtains fell together again, I turned to look at Bellwattle and found her watching me.