by George Moore
“Now, Pat Connex, we will go to Mrs. M’Shane. I shall want to hear her story.”
“Sure what story can she tell of me? Didn’t I run out of the house away from Kate when I saw what she was thinking of? What more could I do?”
“If Mrs. M’Shane tells the same story as you do we’ll go to your mother’s, and afterwards I’ll go to see Lennon about his daughter.”
Pat’s dancing with Kate and Kate’s flight to America had reached Lennon’s ears, and it did not seem at all likely that he would consent to give his daughter to Pat Connex, unless, indeed, Pat Connex agreed to take a much smaller dowry than his mother had asked for.
These new negotiations, his packing, a letter to the Bishop, and the payment of bills fully occupied the last two days, and the priest did not see Biddy again till he was on his way to the station. She was walking up and down her poultry-yard, telling her beads, followed by her poultry; and it was with difficulty that he resisted the impulse to ask her for a subscription, but the driver said if they stopped they would miss the train.
“Very well,” said the priest, and he drove past her cabin without speaking to her.
In the bar-rooms of New York, while trying to induce a recalcitrant loafer to part with a dollar, he remembered that he had not met anyone so stubborn as Biddy. She had given very little, and yet she seemed to be curiously mixed up with the building of the church. She was the last person he saw on his way out, and, a few months later, he was struck by the fact that she was the first parishioner he saw on his return. As he was driving home from the station in the early morning whom should he see but Biddy, telling her beads, followed by her poultry. The scene was the same except that morning was substituted for evening. This was the first impression. On looking closer he noticed that she was not followed by as many Plymouth Rocks as on the last occasion.
“She seems to be going in for Buff Orpingtons,” he said to himself.
“It’s a fine thing to see you again, and your reverence is looking well. I hope you’ve been lucky in America?”
“I have brought home some money anyhow, and the church will be built, and you will tell your beads under your window one of these days.”
“Your reverence is very good to me, and God is very good.”
And she stood looking after him, thinking how she had brought him round to her way of thinking. She had always known that the Americans would pay for the building, but no one else but herself would be thinking of putting up a beautiful window that would do honour to God and Kilmore. And it wasn’t her fault if she didn’t know a good window from a bad one, as well as the best of them. And it wasn’t she who was going to hand over her money to the priest or his architect to put up what window they liked. She had been inside every church within twenty miles of Kilmore, and would see that she got full value for her money.
At the end of the week she called at the priest’s house to tell him the pictures she would like to see in the window, and the colours. But the priest’s servant was not certain whether Biddy could see his reverence.
“He has a gentleman with him.”
“Isn’t it the architect he has with him? Don’t you know that it is I who am putting up the window?”
“To be sure,” said the priest; “show her in.” And he drew forward a chair for Miss M’Hale, and introduced her to the architect. The little man laid his pencil aside, and this encouraged Biddy, and she began to tell him of the kind of window she had been thinking of. But she had not told him half the things she wished to have put into the window when he interrupted her, and said there would be plenty of time to consider what kind of window should be put in when the walls were finished and the roof was upon them.
“Perhaps it is a little premature to discuss the window, but you shall choose the subjects you would like to see represented in the window, and as for the colours, the architect and designer will advise you. But I am sorry to say, Biddy, that this gentleman says that the four thousand pounds the Americans were good enough to give me will not do much more than build the walls.”
“They’re waiting for me to offer them my money, but I won’t say a word,” Biddy said to herself; and she sat fidgetting with her shawl, coughing from time to time, until the priest lost his patience.
“Well, Biddy, we’re very busy here, and I’m sure you want to get back to your fowls. When the church is finished we’ll see if we want your window.” The priest had hoped to frighten her, but she was not the least frightened. Her faith in her money was abundant; she knew that as long as she had her money the priest would come to her for it on one pretext or another, sooner or later. And she was as well pleased that nothing should be settled at present, for she was not quite decided whether she would like to see Christ sitting in judgment, or Christ crowning His Virgin Mother; and during the next six months she pondered on the pictures and the colours, and gradually the design grew clearer.
And every morning, as soon as she had fed her chickens, she went up to Kilmore to watch the workmen. She was there when the first spadeful of earth was thrown up, and as soon as the walls showed above the ground she began to ask the workmen how long it would take them to reach the windows, and if a workman put down his trowel and wandered from his work she would tell him it was God he was cheating; and later on, when the priest’s money began to come to an end he could not pay the workmen full wages, she told them they were working for God’s Own House, and that He would reward them in the next world.
“Hold your tongue,” said a mason. “If you want the church built why don’t you give the priest the money you’re saving, and let him pay us?”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, Pat Murphy. It isn’t for myself I am keeping it back. Isn’t it all going to be spent?”
The walls were now built, and amid the clatter of the slater’s hammers Biddy began to tell the plasterers of the beautiful pictures that would be seen in her window; and she gabbled on, mixing up her memories of the different windows she had seen, until at last her chatter grew wearisome, and they threw bits of mortar, laughing at her for a crazy old woman, or the priest would suddenly come upon them, and they would scatter in all directions, leaving him with Biddy.
“What were they saying to you, Biddy?”
“They were saying, your reverence, that America is a great place.”
“You spend a great deal of your time here, Biddy, and I suppose you are beginning to see that it takes a long time to build a church. Now you are not listening to what I am saying. You are thinking about your window; but you must have a house before you can have a window.”
“I know that very well, your reverence; but, you see, God has given us the house.”
“God’s House consists of little more than walls and a roof.”
“Indeed it does, your reverence; and amn’t I saving up all my money for the window?”
“But, my good Biddy, there is hardly any plastering done yet. The laths have come in, and there isn’t sufficient to fill that end of the church, and I have no more money.”
“Won’t you reverence be getting the rest of the money in America? And I am thinking a bazaar would be a good thing. Wouldn’t we all be making scapulars, and your reverence might get medals that the Pope had blessed.”
Eventually he drove her out of the church with his umbrella. But as his anger cooled he began to think that perhaps Biddy was right — a bazaar might be a good thing, and a distribution of medals and scapulars might induce his workmen to do some overtime. He went to Dublin to talk over this matter with some pious Catholics, and an old lady wrote a cheque for fifty pounds, two or three others subscribed smaller sums, and the plasterers were busy all next week. But these subscriptions did not go nearly as far towards completing the work as he had expected. The architect had led him astray, and he looked around the vast barn that he had built and despaired. It seemed to him it would never be finished in his lifetime. A few weeks after he was again running short of money, and he was speaking to his workmen one Saturday aftern
oon, telling them how they could obtain a plenary indulgence by subscribing so much towards the building of the church, and by going to Confession and Communion on the first Sunday of the month, and if they could not afford the money they could give their work. He was telling them how much could be done if every workman were to do each day an hour of overtime, when Biddy suddenly appeared, and, standing in front of the men, she raised up her hands and said they should not pass her until they had pledged themselves to come to work on Monday.
“But haven’t we got our wives and little ones, and haven’t we to think of them?” said a workman.
“Ah, one can live on very little when one is doing the work of God,” said Biddy.
The man called her a vain old woman, who was starving herself so that she might put up a window, and they pushed her aside and went away, saying they had to think of their wives and children.
The priest turned upon her angrily and asked her what she meant by interfering between him and his workmen.
“Now, don’t be angry with me, your reverence. I will say a prayer, and you will say a word or two in your sermon to-morrow.”
And he spoke in his sermon of the disgrace it would be to Kilmore if the church remained unfinished. The news would go over to America, and what priest would be ever able to get money there again to build a church?
“Do you think a priest likes to go about the barrooms asking for dollars and half-dollars? Would you make his task more unpleasant? If I have to go to America again, what answer shall I make if they say to me: ‘Well, didn’t your workmen leave you at Kilmore? They don’t want churches at Kilmore. Why should we give you money for a church?’”
There was a great deal of talking that night in Michael Dunne’s, and they were all of one mind, that it would be a disgrace to Kilmore if the church were not finished; but no one could see that he could work for less wages than he was in the habit of getting. As the evening wore on the question of indulgences was raised, and Ned Kavanagh said: —
“The devil a bit of use going against the priest, and the indulgences will do us no harm.”
“The devil a bit, but maybe a great deal of good,” said Peter M’Shane, and an hour later they were staggering down the road swearing they would stand by the priest till the death.
But on Monday morning nearly all were in their beds; only half a dozen came to the work, and the priest sent them away, except one plasterer. There was one plasterer who, he thought, could stand on the scaffold. “If I were to fall I’d go straight to Heaven,” the plasterer said, and he stood so near the edge, and his knees seemed so weak under him, that Biddy thought he was going to fall.
“It would be better for you to finish what you are doing; the Holy Virgin will be more thankful to you.”
“Aye, maybe she would,” he said, and he continued his work mechanically.
He was working at the clustered columns about the window Biddy had chosen for her stained glass, and she did not take her eyes off him. The priest returned a little before twelve o’clock, as the plasterer was going to his dinner, and he asked him if he were feeling better.
“I’m all right, your reverence, and it won’t occur again.”
“I hope he won’t go down to Michael Dunne’s during his dinner hour,” he said to Biddy. “If you see any further sign of drink upon him when he comes back you must tell me.”
“He is safe enough, your reverence. Wasn’t he telling me while your reverence was having your breakfast that if he fell down he would go straight to Heaven, and he opened his shirt and showed me he was wearing the scapular of the Holy Virgin.”
And Biddy began to advocate a sale of scapulars.
“A sale of scapulars will not finish my church. You’re all a miserly lot here, you want everything done for you.”
“Weren’t you telling me, your reverence, that a pious lady in Dublin—”
“The work is at a stand-still. If I were to go to America to-morrow it would be no use unless I could tell them it was progressing.”
“Sure they don’t ask any questions in America, they just give their money.”
“If they do, that’s more than you’re doing at home. I want to know, Biddy, what you are going to do for this church. You’re always talking about it; you’re always here and you have given less than any one else.”
“Didn’t I offer your reverence a sovereign once since I gave you the five pounds?”
“You don’t seem to understand, Biddy, that you can’t put up your window until the plastering is finished.”
“I think I understand that well enough, but the church will be finished.”
“How will it be finished? When will it be finished?”
She did not answer, and nothing was heard in the still church but her irritating little cough.
“You’re very obstinate. Well, tell me where you would like to have your window.”
“It is there I shall be kneeling, and if you will let me put my window there I shall see it when I look up from my beads. I should like to see the Virgin and I should like to see St. John with her. And don’t you think, your reverence, we might have St. Joseph as well. Our Lord would have to be in the Virgin’s arms, and I think, your reverence, I would like Our Lord coming down to judge us, and I should like to have Him on His throne on the day of Judgment up at the top of the window.”
“I can see you’ve been thinking a good deal about this window,” the priest said.
She began again and the priest heard the names of the different saints she would like to see in stained glass, and he let her prattle on. But his temper boiled up suddenly and he said: —
“You’d go on like this till midnight if I let you. Now, Biddy M’Hale, you’ve been here all the morning delaying my workmen. Go home to your fowls.”
And she ran away shrinking like a dog, and the priest walked up and down the unfinished church. “She tries my temper more than anyone I ever met,” he said to himself. At that moment he heard some loose boards clanking, and thinking it was the old woman coming back he looked round, his eyes flaming. But the intruder was a short and square-set man, of the type that one sees in Germany, and he introduced himself as an agent of a firm of stained glass manufacturers. He told Father Maguire they had heard in Germany of the beautiful church he was building. “I met an old woman on the road, and she told me that I would find you in the church considering the best place for the window she was going to put up. She looks very poor.”
“She’s not as poor as she looks; she’s been saving money all her life for this window. Her window is her one idea, and, like people of one idea, she’s apt to become a little tiresome.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
He began telling the story, and seeing that the German was interested in the old woman he began to acquire an interest in her himself, an unpremeditated interest; he had not suspected that Biddy was so interesting. The German said she reminded him of the quaint sculpture of Nuremburg, and her character reminded him of one of the German saints, and talking of Biddy and medievalism and Gothic art and stained glass the priest and the agent for the manufacture of stained glass in Munich walked up and down the unfinished church until the return of the plasterer reminded the priest of his embarrassments, and he took the German into his confidence.
“These embarrassments always occur,” said the agent, “but there is no such thing as an unfinished church in Ireland; if you were to let her put up the window subscriptions would pour in.”
“How’s that?”
“A paragraph in the newspaper describing the window, the gift of a local saint. I think you told me her name was M’Hale, and that she lives in the village.”
“Yes, you pass her house on the way to the station.”
The German took his leave abruptly, and when he was half-way down the hill he asked some children to direct him.
“Is it Biddy M’Hale, that has all the hins, and is going to put up a window in the church, that you’re wanting?”
The
German said that that was the woman he wanted, and the eldest child said: —
“You will see her feeding her chickens, and you must call to her over the hedge.”
And he did as he was bidden.
“Madam ... the priest has sent me to show you some designs for a stained glass window.”
No one had ever addressed Biddy as Madam before. She hastened to let him into the house, and wiped the table clean so that he could spread the designs upon it. The first designs he showed here were the four Evangelists, but he would like a woman’s present to her church to be in a somewhat lighter style, and he showed her a picture of St. Cecilia that fascinated her for a time; and then he suggested that a group of figures would look handsomer than a single figure. But she could not put aside the idea of the window that had grown up in her mind, and after some attempts to persuade her to accept a design they had in stock he had to give way and listen.
At the top of the picture, where the window narrowed to a point, Our Lord sat dressed in white on a throne, placing a golden crown on the head of the Virgin kneeling before him. About him were the women who had loved him, and the old woman said she was sorry she was not a nun, and hoped that Christ would not think less of her. As far as mortal sin was concerned she could say she had never committed one. At the bottom of the window there were suffering souls. The cauldrons that Biddy wished to see them in, the agent said, would be difficult to introduce — the suffering of the souls could be artistically indicated by flames.
“I shall have great joy,” she said, “seeing the blessed women standing about our Divine Lord, singing hymns in His praise, and the sight of sinners broiling will make me be sorrowful.”
She insisted on telling the German of the different churches she had visited, and the windows she had seen, and she did not notice that he was turning over his designs and referring to his note book while she was talking. Suddenly he said: —
“Excuse me, but I think we have got the greater part of the window you wish for in stock, and the rest can be easily made up. Now the only question that remains is the question of the colours you care about.”
