The Collar (4 page)

Ned gave his brother a slow look of intense understanding and sympathy. The small, smouldering eyes were fixed on him in challenge.

‘I suppose you think I'm a nice sort of fellow to talk like this?'

‘I d-do not. I'd think worse if you didn't. I'm very sorry.'

‘I'm a damned sight sorrier. And this is only the beginning of it. I thought I'd come here and forget it for a few days. Forget it! Lord God, yesterday put the tin hat on it. I thought my brain would burst, over there in Carriganassa.'

‘'Twill take time.'

‘'Twill take more than time. 'Twill take what self-respect I have. You don't know, nobody can know what it means to a man to have nothing to look forward to for thirty or forty years. It's not the woman so much as the companionship. And it isn't as if you could talk about it. Other people can be lonely and talk about it but wouldn't a priest look sweet telling people how lonely he was … I suppose I shouldn't have told you either.'

Again the same angry glare, and with an infinite compassion Ned realised that for years his brother had been living in the same state of suspicion and fear, and that for years to come he would live in the same way and perhaps never be caught like this again. He laughed softly, wistfully.

‘You needn't be afraid that I'll talk. If it was nothing else I daren't. The family would die of shame.'

‘Don't I know it?' said Tom between his teeth. ‘Sweet God, don't I know it?'

Ned rose and crossed gently to the window, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. His brows were raised; the unruly lock of black hair fell very low, obscuring his eyes.

‘I was thinking,' he said slowly, ‘wouldn't it have been better for us if we stopped at home and married girls like Cait Deignan?'

‘I used to court her long ago,' said the priest, and it seemed as if the words were being dragged out of him. ‘It's not too late for you.'

Ned shook his head slowly and gently, his eyes fixed on the brightening roadway outside. Then, without speaking, he went into the kitchen. His mother, the coloured shawl about her head, was blowing the fire. The bedroom door was opened and he could see Tomas in his shirtsleeves kneeling at the bedside. He unbolted the half door, went through the garden and out on to the road. The spring wind ruffled his long black hair. There was a magical light upon everything. Through the apple-green sky over the sea ran long streaks of crimson, so still it might have been enamelled. The clouds swathed the mountains fold on fold. Over there lay Carriganassa invisible yet. It seemed as if only now, for the first time, was he saying goodbye to it all.

N
EWS FOR THE
C
HURCH

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 were her slightly freckled cheeks and long pale hair, pinned high up behind the grey-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 easy-going 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-coloured 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 humour. 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 realised 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.'

‘Thanks, father,' she said, and he saw at once that his gruff appeal had touched some deep and genuine spring of feeling in her. ‘I'll cut it out altogether.'

‘You know, I think I would,' he said gravely, letting his eyes rest on her for a moment. ‘You're an intelligent girl. You can get all the excitement you want out of life without that. What else?'

‘I had bad thoughts, father.'

‘Ach,' he said regretfully, ‘we all have them. Did you indulge them?'

‘Yes, father.'

‘Have you a boy?'

‘Not a regular: just a couple of fellows hanging round.'

‘Ah, that's worse than none at all,' he said crossly. ‘You ought to have a boy of your own. I know there's old cranks that will tell you different, but sure, that's plain foolishness. Those things are only fancies, and the best cure for them is something real. Anything else?'

There was a moment's hesitation before she replied but it was enough to prepare him for what was coming.

‘I had carnal intercourse with a man, father,' she said quietly and deliberately.

‘You what?' he cried, turning on her incredulously. ‘You had carnal intercourse with a man? At your age?'

‘I know,' she said with a look of distress. ‘It's awful.'

‘It is awful,' he replied slowly and solemnly. ‘And how often did it take place?'

‘Once, father – I mean twice, but on the same occasion.'

‘Was it a married man?' he asked, frowning.

‘No, father, single. At least I think he was single,' she added with sudden doubt.

‘You had carnal intercourse with a man,' he said accusingly, ‘and you don't know if he was married or single!'

‘I assumed he was single,' she said with real distress. ‘He was the last time I met him but, of course, that was five years ago.'

‘Five years ago? But you must have been only a child then.'

‘That's all, of course,' she admitted. ‘He was courting my sister, Kate, but she wouldn't have him. She was running round with her present husband at the time and she only kept him on a string for amusement. I knew that and I hated her because he was always so nice to me. He was the only one that came to the house who treated me like a grown-up. But I was only fourteen, and I suppose he thought I was too young for him.'

‘And were you?' Father Cassidy asked ironically. For some reason he had the idea that this young lady had no proper idea of the enormity of her sin and he didn't like it.

‘I suppose so,' she replied modestly. ‘But I used to feel awful, being sent to up to bed and leaving him downstairs with Kate when I knew she didn't care for him. And then when I met him again the whole thing came back. I sort of went all soft inside. It's never the same with another fellow as it is with the first fellow you fall for. It's exactly as if he had some sort of hold over you.'

‘If you were fourteen at the time,' said Father Cassidy, setting aside the obvious invitation to discuss the power of first love, ‘you're only nineteen now.'

‘That's all.'

‘And do you know,' he went on broodingly, ‘that unless you can break yourself of this terrible vice once for all it'll go on like that till you're fifty?'

‘I suppose so,' she said doubtfully, but he saw that she didn't suppose anything of the kind.

‘You suppose so!' he snorted angrily. ‘I'm telling you so. And what's more,' he went on, speaking with all the earnestness at his command, ‘it won't be just one man but dozens of men, and it won't be decent men but whatever low-class pups you can find who'll take advantage of you – the same horrible, mortal sin, week in week out till you're an old woman.'

‘Ah, still, I don't know,' she said eagerly, hunching her shoulders ingratiatingly, ‘I think people do it as much from curiosity as anything else.'

‘Curiosity?' he repeated in bewilderment.

‘Ah, you know what I mean,' she said with a touch of impatience. ‘People make such a mystery of it!'

‘And what do you think they should do?' he asked ironically. ‘Publish it in the papers?'

‘Well, God knows, 'twould be better than the way some of them go on,' she said in a rush. ‘Take my sister, Kate, for instance. I admit she's a couple of years older than me and she brought me up and all the rest of it, but in spite of that we were always good friends. She showed me her love letters and I showed her mine. I mean, we discussed things as equals, but ever since that girl got married you'd hardly recognise her. She talks to no one only other married women, and they get in a huddle in a corner and whisper, whisper, whisper, and the moment you come into the room they begin to talk about the weather, exactly as if you were a blooming kid! I mean you can't help feeling 'tis something extraordinary.'

‘Don't you try and tell me anything about immorality,' said Father Cassidy angrily. ‘I know all about it already. It may begin as curiosity but it ends as debauchery. There's no vice you could think of that gets a grip on you quicker and degrades you worse, and don't you make any mistake about it, young woman! Did this man say anything about marrying you?'

‘I don't think so,' she replied thoughtfully, ‘but of course that doesn't mean anything. He's an airy, light-hearted sort of fellow and it mightn't occur to him.'

‘I never supposed it would,' said Father Cassidy grimly. ‘Is he in a position to marry?'

‘I suppose he must be since he wanted to marry Kate,' she replied with fading interest.

‘And is your father the sort of man that can be trusted to talk to him?'

‘Daddy?' she exclaimed aghast. ‘But I don't want Daddy brought into it.'

‘What you want, young woman,' said Father Cassidy with sudden exasperation, ‘is beside the point. Are you prepared to talk to this man yourself?'

‘I suppose so,' she said with a wondering smile. ‘But about what?'

‘About what?' repeated the priest angrily. ‘About the little matter he so conveniently overlooked, of course.'

‘You mean ask him to marry me?' she cried incredulously. ‘But I don't want to marry him.'

Father Cassidy paused for a moment and looked at her anxiously through the grille. It was growing dark inside the church, and for one horrible moment he had the feeling that somebody was playing an elaborate and most tasteless joke on him.