by George Moore
“No one can help me now,” said the girl, sullenly.
Alice did not speak at once, but at the end of a long silence she said:
“Does Fred Scully love you no more?”
“I do not know whether he does or not; nor does it matter much... he’s not in Ireland... he’s far away by this time.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s gone to Australia. He wrote to me about two months ago to say that all had been decided in a few hours, and that he was to sail next morning. He’s gone out with some racehorses... he expects to win a lot of money... he’ll be back again in a year.”
“A year is not long to wait; you’ll see him when he comes back.”
“I don’t think I should care to see him again.... Oh, you were right, Alice, to warn me against him.... I was foolish not to listen to you... but it was too late even then.”
Alice trembled: she had already guessed the truth, but hoping when she knew all hope was vain, she said:
“You had better tell me, May; you know I am to be trusted.”
“The truth is too horrible to tell. Can’t you guess it?”
The conversation fell, and the girls sat staring into the depths of the wood. Involuntarily their eyes followed a small bird that ran up branch after branch of a beech tree, pecking as it went. It seemed like a toy mouse, so quick and unvarying were its movements. At last May said, and very dolorously:
“Alice, I thought you were kinder; have you no word of pity? Why tell you, why ask me to tell you? Oh! what a fool I was!”
“Oh! no, no, May, you did right to tell me. I am more sorry for you than words can express, but I did not speak because I was trying to think of some way of helping you.”
“Oh! there’s no — no way of helping me, dear. There’s nothing for me to do but to die.” And now giving way utterly, the girl buried her face in her hands and sobbed until it seemed that she would choke in thick grief.
“Oh! May, May dear, you must not cry like that: if anyone were to come by, what would they think?”
“What does it matter? Everyone will know sooner or later — I wish I were dead — dead and out of sight for ever of this miserable world.”
“No, May,” said Alice, thinking instinctively of the child “you must not die. Your trial is a terrible one, but people before now have got over worse. I am trying to think what can be done.”
Then May raised her weeping face, and there was a light of hope in her eyes. She clasped Alice’s hand. Neither spoke. The little brown bird pursued his way up and down the branches of the beech; beyond it lay the sky, and the girls, tense with little sufferings, yearned into this vision of beautiful peace.
At last Alice said, “Did you tell Mr. Scully of the trouble?... does he know?...”
“He was away, and I did not like to write it to him; his departure for Australia took me quite by surprise.”
“Have you told your mother?”
“Oh no, I’d rather die than tell her; I couldn’t tell her. You know what she is.”
“I think she ought to he told; she would take you abroad.”
“Oh no, Alice dear; it would never do to tell mamma. You know what she is, you know how she talks, she would never leave off abusing the Scullys; and then, I don’t know how, but somehow everybody would get to know about it. But find it out they will, sooner or later; it is only a question of time. And I shall be disgraced; no one will ever marry me then.”
Something — but something she would not have been able to explain to herself — jarred Alice’s feelings in these last words. She looked at May inquiringly, then the expression of her face changed, and she said:
“No, no, May, they shall know nothing of this — at least, not if I can help it.”
“But you cannot help it.”
“There is one thing quite certain; you must go away. You cannot stop in Galway.”
“It is all very well talking like that, but where can I go to? A girl cannot move a yard away from home without people wanting to know where she has gone. I wish I could die; I am more miserable and unhappy than you can imagine.”
Alice’s eyes filled with tears. Never was the human soul more strikingly reflected in small grey eyes; the grave and exquisite kindness of a beautiful soul, and to this you must add the natural pity that every woman feels for another in the distressful period of child-bearing.
“You might go up to Dublin,” she said, “and live in lodgings.”
“And what excuse should I give to mother?” said May, who in her despair had not courage to deny the possibility of the plan.
“You need not tell her where you are,” replied Alice; and then she hesitated, feeling keenly conscious of the deception she was practising. But her unswerving common sense coming, after a moment’s reflection, to her aid, she said: “You might say that you were going to live in the convent. Go to the Mother Superior, tell her of your imminent need, beg of her, persuade her to receive and forward your letters; and in that way, it seems to me that no one need be the wiser of what is going to happen.”
The last words were spoken slowly, as if with a sense of shame at being forced to speak thus. May raised her face, now aflame with hope and joy.
“Oh, Alice, how kind of you; how can I ever thank you?” said the girl. Then a moment after the light died out of her face and she said:
“But how shall I live? Who will support me? I cannot ask mother for money without awakening suspicion.”
“I think, May, I shall be able to give you almost all the money you want,” replied Alice, in a hesitating and slightly embarrassed manner.
“You, Alice?”
“But I haven’t told you; I have been writing a good deal lately for newspapers, and have made nearly twenty pounds. That will be all you will want for the present, and I shall be able, I hope, to make sufficient to keep you supplied.”
May clasped her hands; her eyes flooded with tears, and she was breathless with worship. It was a heavenly right to see Alice; she loved the stiff staid shoulders, and the whole personality seemed to her now to be a symbol of earthly good; and she thought vaguely of the Virgin. In Alice’s face, however, there was no divine vapidity, but grand belief in this world, and faith in its ultimate perfectibility. She did not utter words of blame or reproach, they did not seem to her necessary. And it is doubtful, even if they had done so, if she could have spoken: an instinct, rather than a conscious sense of modesty, would have silenced her: she would have felt that anything she might say in reproof would be indirect praise of her own good conduct. As it was, nothing was present to her mind but one aching, throbbing thought — the thought of her friend’s imminent need, and of how she (Alice Barton) might help her successfully through her trouble.
“I don’t think that anyone was ever as good as you, Alice. You make me feel more ashamed of myself.”
“You mustn’t talk in that way, dear. I am doing only what anyone else would do if they were called upon. But we have been sitting here a long time now, and before we go back to the tennis-ground we had better arrange what is to be done. When do you propose leaving?”
“I had better leave at once.... it is seven months ago now.... no one suspects as yet....”
“Well, then, when would you like me to send you the money? You can have it at once if you like.”
“Oh, thanks, dear; mother will give me enough to last me a little while, and I will write to you from Dublin. You are sure no one sees your letters at Brookfield?”
“Quite sure; there’s not the slightest danger.”
As they drove home that evening, Mrs. Barton babbled about Sir Charles and his prospects of marriage, of the odious Ladies Cullen, and how the dear Milord had kept them in order; and, tickled by the remembrances of his looks, frowns, and winks, mother and daughter waved their white hands, and laughed consumedly. Alice sitting opposite them, her back to the horses, turned to pull down the blind, that she might save her eyes from the rays of the setting sun, now lying poised like a golden
shield in a rift in the amphitheatrical mountains; every perspective and aspect came out in trenchant outline, and, in the intense reverberation of the light, rocks and bushes appeared like bronze, and the tarns of the sterile landscape like flashes of silver. But now, the blinds being down, the carriage was filled with blue shadow, and Alice set herself to think of the duties she had undertaken. She did not question the advice she had given, and she felt sure that the rev mother, if a proper appeal were made to her common sense, would consent to conceal the girl’s fault. Two months would not be long passing, but the expenses of this time would he heavy, and she, Alice, would have to meet them all. She trembled for fear she might fail to do so, and she tried to reckon them up. It would be impossible to get rooms under a pound a week, and to live, no matter how cheaply, would cost at least two pounds; three pounds a week, four threes are twelve! The twenty pounds would scarcely carry her over a month, she would not be well for at least two; and then there was the doctor, the nurse, the flannels for the baby. Alice tried to calculate, thinking plainly and honestly. If a repulsive detail rose suddenly up in her mind, she did not shrink, nor was she surprised to find herself thinking of such things, she did so as a matter of course, keeping her thoughts fixed on the one object of doing her duty towards her friend. And how to do this was the problem that presented itself unceasingly for solution. She felt that somehow she would have to earn twenty pounds within the next month. Out of the Lady’s Paper, in which “Notes and Sensations of a Plain Girl at Dublin Castle,” was still running, she could not hope to make more than thirty shillings a week; a magazine had lately accepted a ten-page story worth, she fancied, about five pounds, but when they would print it and pay her was impossible to say. She could write the Editor an imploring letter, asking him to advance her the money. But even then there was another nine pounds to make up. And to do this seemed to her an impossibility. She could not ask her father or mother, she would only do so if the worst came to the worst. And if she wrote to Harding, he might, instead of helping her, give her the money out of his own pocket. But no, he couldn’t do that; the fact that the articles were printed was a proof that they were paid for. Yes, she might write to him, and in the meantime she must work. She would write paragraphs, articles, short stories, and would send them to every editor in London. One out of three might turn up trumps. So Alice reasoned; and ten hours a day were spent at her writing-table. You see the white room; the two white beds, the white curtains hanging from the two brass crowns, the chimneypiece covered with tiny ornaments, and the fireplace shut in with white embroidered curtains; you see the white wall-paper freckled with small flowers, the two engravings (the Youth and Maiden swinging, the Girl carving her Lover’s Name on the Beech-tree). You see the two little bookcases filled with neatly bound volumes — a few choice novels and some prayer-books: the rosaries still hanging from the holy-water fonts. You remember when you first saw this room? Is it the same now as it was then? Not exactly. A writing-table has been set in the window; it is covered with papers and MSS., Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” Matthew Arnold and James Thomson have been added to the bookshelves; Carlyle’s Essays — a sixpenny edition — lies on the sofa, at the foot of the beds. And the girl herself? You remember when you saw her in this room — the ante-room of society — for the first time. She was troubled and full of fear then, she is troubled and full of fear now; but it is not the same trouble, nor is it the same fear. Hope has beat its trembling wings, has buzzed out its trembling life, and she is content to crawl up the false, the implacable but glittering pane, only pausing here and there to see, to consider the fuller life of others, knowing well she cannot change the eternal issues of things of which she is but a fragment. She is almost without envy; and the clouds which now dim the bright brow are not for her own, but her friend’s affliction. She has just received her first letter from May, who is living in a Dublin lodging. It runs as follows:
“Gardner Street, Mountjoy Square.
“DARLING ALICE, —
“I have been in Dublin now more than a week. I did not write to you before because I wished to write to tell you that I had done all you told me to do. The first thing I did was to go to the convent. Would you believe it, the new rev mother is Sister Mary who we knew so well at St. Leonards? She has been transferred to the branch convent in Dublin. She was so kind, so delighted to see me, but the sight of her dear face awoke so many memories, so many old associations, that I burst out crying, and it seemed to me impossible that I should ever be able to find courage to tell her the dreadful truth. None will ever know what it cost me to speak the words. They came to me all of a sudden; I threw myself at her feet and told her everything. I thought she would reproach me and speak bitterly, but she only said, ‘My poor child, I am sorry you had not strength to resist temptation; your trial is a dreadful one.’ She was very, very kind. Her face lighted up when I spoke of you, and she said: ‘Sweet girl; she was always an angel; one of these days she will come back to us. She is too good for the world.’ Then I insisted that it was your idea that I should seek help from the convent, but she said that it was my duty to go to my mother and tell her the whole truth. Oh, my darling Alice, I cannot tell you what a terrible time I went through. We were talking for at least two hours, and it was only with immense difficulty that I at last succeeded in making her understand what kind of person poor mamma is, and how hopeless it would be to expect her to keep any secret, even if her daughter’s honour was in question. I told her how she would run about, talking in her mild unmeaning way of ‘poor May and that shameful Mr. Scully; and, at last, the rev mother, as you prophesied she would, saw the matter in its proper light, and she has consented to receive all my letters, and if mother writes, to give her to understand that I am safe within the convent walls. It is awfully good of her, for I know the awful risk she is wilfully incurring so as to help me out of my trouble.
“The house I am staying in is nice enough, and the landlady seems a kind woman. The name I go by is Mrs. Brandon (you will not forget to direct your letters so), and I said that my husband was an officer, and had gone out to join his regiment in India. I have a comfortable bedroom on the third floor. There are two windows, and they look out on the street. The time seems as if it would never pass; the twelve hours of the day seem like twelve centuries. I have not even a book to read, and I never go out for fear of being seen. In the evening I put on a thick veil and go for a walk in the back streets. But I cannot go out before nine, it is not dark till then, and I cannot stop out later than ten on account of the men who speak to you. My coloured hair makes me look fast, and I am so afraid of meeting someone I know, that this short hour is as full of misery as those that preceded it. Every passer-by seems to know me, to recognise me, and I cannot help imagining that he or she will be telling my unfortunate story half an hour after in the pitiless drawing-rooms of Merrion Square. Oh, Alice darling, you are the only friend I have in the world. If it were not for you, I believe I should drown myself in the Liffey. No girl was ever so miserable as I. I cannot tell you how I feel, and you cannot imagine how for lorn it all is; and I am so ill. I am always hungry, and always sick, and always longing. Oh, these longings; you may think they are nothing, but they are dreadful. You remember how active I used to be, how I used to run about the tennis court; now I can scarcely crawl. And the strange sickening fancies; I see things in the shops that tempt me, sometimes it is a dry biscuit, sometimes a basket of strawberries, but whatever it is I stand and look at it, long for it, until weary of longing and standing with a sort of weight weighing me down, and my stays all rucking up to my neck, I crawl home. There I am all alone; and I sit in the dark on a wretched hard chair by the window; and I cry; and I watch the summer night and all the golden stars, and I cannot say what I think of during all these long and lonely hours; I only know that I cannot find energy to go to bed. And I never sleep a whole night through; the cramp comes on so terribly that I jump up screaming. Oh, Alice, how I hate him. When I think of it all I see how selfish
men are; they never think of us — they only think of themselves. You would scarcely know me if you saw me now; all my complexion, you know what a pretty complexion it was, is all red and mottled. When you saw me a fortnight ago I was all right: it is extraordinary what a change has come about. I think it was the journey, and the excitement; there would be no concealing the truth now. It was lucky I left Galway when I did.
“Mother gave me five pounds on leaving home. My ticket cost nearly thirty shillings, a pound went in cabs and hotel expenses, and my breakfasts brought my bill up yesterday to two pounds — I cannot think how, for I only pay sixteen shillings for my room — and when it was paid I had only a few shillings left. Will you, therefore, send me the money you promised, if possible, by return of post?
“Yours affectionately, “MAY GOULD.”
The tears started to Alice’s eyes as she read the letter. She did not consider if May might have spared her the physical details with which her letter abounded; she did not stay to think of the cause, of the result; for the moment she was numb to ideas and sensations that were not those of humble human pity for humble human suffering: like the waters of a new baptism pity made her pure and whole, and the false shame of an ancient world fell from her. Leaning her head on her strong well-shaped hand, she set to arranging her little plans for her friend’s help — plans that were charming for their simplicity, their sweet homeliness. The letter she had just read had come by the afternoon post. If she were to send May the money she wrote for that evening, it would be necessary to go into Gort to register the letter. Gort was two miles away; and if she asked for the carriage her mother might propose that the letters should be sent in by a special messenger. This of course was impossible, and Alice, for the first time in her life, found herself obliged to tell a deliberate lie. For a moment her conscience stood at bay, but she accepted the inevitable and told Mrs. Barton that she had some MSS. to register, and did not care to entrust them to other hands. It was a consolation to know that eighteen pounds were safely despatched, but she was bitterly unhappy, she cried bitterly; — and she wrote to Harding to ask him if he could assist her in getting rid of two articles. The fear that money might be wanting in the last and most terrible hours bound her to her desk as with a chain; and when her tired and exhausted brain ceased to formulate phrases, the picture of the lonely room, the night walks, and the suffering of the jaded girl stared her in the face with a terrible distinctness. Her only moments of gladness were when the post brought a cheque from London. Sometimes they were for a pound, sometimes for fifteen shillings. Once she received five pounds ten — it was for her story. On the 10th of September she received the following letter: —
