by George Moore
“I have always thought there’s no colour like blue. I’d like the Virgin to wear a blue cloak.”
She did not know why she had chosen that colour, but the agent told her that she was quite right; blue signified chastity; and when the German had gone she sat thinking of the Virgin and her cloak. The Minorcas, and Buff Orpingtons, and Plymouth Rocks came through the door cackling, and while feeding them she sat, her eyes fixed on the beautiful evening sky, wondering if the blue in the picture would be as pale, or if it would be a deeper blue.
She remembered suddenly that she used to wear a blue ribbon when she went blackberrying among the hills; she found it in an old box and tied it round her neck. The moment she put it on her memory was as if lighted up with the memories of the saints and the miracles they had performed, and she went to Father Maguire to tell him of the miracle. That the agent should have in stock the very window she had imagined seemed a miracle, and she was encouraged to think some miraculous thing had happened when the priest asked her to tell him exactly what her window was like. She had often told him before but he had never listened to her. But now he recognised her window as an adaptation of Fra Angelico’s picture, and he told her how the saint had wandered from monastery to monastery painting pictures on the walls. More he could not tell her, but he promised to procure a small biography of the saint. She received the book a few days after, and as she turned over the leaves she heard the children coming home from school, and she took the book out to them, for her sight was failing, and they read bits of it aloud, and she frightened them by dropping on her knees and crying out that God had been very good to her.
She wandered over the country visiting churches, returning to Kilmore suddenly. She was seen as usual at sunrise and at sunset feeding her poultry, and then she went away again, and the next time she was heard of was in a church near Dublin celebrated for its stained glass. A few days after Ned Kavanagh met her hurrying up the road from the station, and she told him she had just received a letter from the Munich agent saying he had forwarded her window. It was to arrive to-morrow.
It was expected some time about mid-day, but Biddy’s patience was exhausted long before, and she walked a great part of the way to Dublin to meet the dray. She returned with it, walking with the draymen, but within three miles of Kilmore she was so tired that they had to put her on the top of the boxes, and a cheer went up from the villagers when she was lifted down. She called to the workmen to be careful in unpacking the glass; and when they were putting it up she went down on her knees and prayed that no accident might happen.
At sunset the church had to be closed, and it was with difficulty that she was persuaded to leave it. Next morning at sunrise she was knocking at the door of the woman who was charged with the cleaning of the church, asking for the key.
And from that day she was hardly ever out of the church; the charwoman began to complain that she could not get on with her work, and she was telling the priest that Biddy was always at her elbow, asking her to come to her window, saying she would show her things she had not seen before, when their conversation was interrupted by Biddy. She seemed a little astray, a little exalted, and Father Maguire watched her as she knelt with uplifted face, telling her beads. He noticed that her fingers very soon ceased to move; and that she held the same bead a long time between her fingers. Minutes passed, but her lips did not move; her eyes were fixed on the panes and her look was so enraptured that he began to wonder if Paradise were being revealed to her.
And while the priest wondered, Biddy listened to music inconceivably tender. She had been awakened from her prayers by the sound of a harp string touched very gently; and the note had floated down like a flower, and all the vibrations were not dead when the same note floated down the aisles once more. Biddy listened, anxious to hear it a third time. Once more she heard it, and the third time she saw the saint’s fingers moving over the strings; and she played a little tune of six notes. And it was at the end of the second playing of the tune that the priest touched Biddy on the shoulder. She looked up and it was a long while before she saw him, and she was greatly grieved that she had been awakened from her dream. She said it was a dream because her happiness had been so great; and she stood looking at the priest, fain, but unable, to tell how she had been borne beyond her usual life, that her whole being had answered to the music the saint played, and looking at him, she wondered what would have happened if he had not awakened her.
Next day was Sunday, and she was in the church at sunrise listening for the music. But she heard and saw nothing until the priest had reached the middle of the Mass. The acolyte had rung the bell to prepare the people for the Elevation, and it was then that she heard a faint low sound that the light wire emitted when the saint touched her harp, and she noticed that it was the same saint that had played yesterday, the tall saint with the long fair hair who stood apart from the others, looking more intently at Our Blessed Lord than the others. She touched her harp again and the note vibrated for a long while, and when the last vibrations died she touched the string again. The note was sweet and languid and intense, and it pierced to the very core of Biddy. The saint’s hand passed over the strings, producing faint exquisite sounds, so faint that Biddy felt no surprise they were not heard by anyone else; it was only by listening intently that she could hear them. Yesterday’s little tune appeared again, a little tune of six notes, and it seemed to Biddy even more exquisite than it had seemed when she first heard it. The only difference between to-day and yesterday was, that to-day all the saints struck their harps, and after playing for some time the music grew white like snow and remote as star-fire, and yet Biddy heard it more clearly than she had heard anything before, and she saw Our Lord more clearly than she had ever seen anybody else. She saw Him look up when He had placed the crown on His Mother’s head; she heard Him sing a few notes, and then the saints began to sing. The window filled up with song and colour, and all along the window there was a continual transmutation of colour and song. The figures grew taller, and they breathed extraordinary life. It sang like a song within them, and it flowed about them and out of them in a sort of pearl-coloured mist. The vision clove the church along and across, and through it she could see the priest saying his Mass, and when he raised the Host above his head, Biddy saw Our Lord look at her, and His eyes brightened as if with love of her. He seemed to have forgotten the saints that sang His praises so beautifully, and when He bent towards her and she felt His presence about her, she cried out: —
“He is coming to take me in His arms!”
And it was then that Biddy fell out of her place and lay at length on the floor of the church, pale as a dead woman. The clerk went to her, but he could not carry her out; she lay rigid as one who had been dead a long while and she muttered, “He is coming to put the gold crown on my head.” The clerk moved away, and she swooned again.
Her return to her ordinary perceptions was slow and painful. The people had left long ago, and she tottered out of the empty church and followed the road to her cabin without seeing it or the people whom she met on the road. At last a woman took her by the arm and led her into her cabin, and spoke to her. She could not answer at first, but she awoke gradually, and she began to remember that she had heard music in the window and that Our Lord had sung to her. The neighbour left her babbling. She began to feed her chickens, and was glad when she had fed them. She wanted to think of the great and wonderful sights she had seen. She could not particularise, preferring to remember her vision as a whole, unwilling to separate the music from the colour, or the colour and the music from the adoration of the saints.
As the days went by her life seemed to pass more and more out of the life of the ordinary day. She seemed to live, as it were, on the last verge of human life; the mortal and the immortal mingled; she felt she had been always conscious of the immortal, and that nothing had happened except the withdrawing of a veil. The memory of her vision was still intense in her, but she wished to renew it; and waited next Sunday br
eathless with anticipation. The vision began at the same moment, the signal was the same as before; the note from the harp string floated down the aisles and when it had been repeated three times the saintly fingers moved over the strings, and she heard the beautiful little tune.
Every eye was upon her, and forgetful of the fact that the priest was celebrating Mass, they said, “Look, she hears the saints singing about her. She sees Christ coming.” The priest heard Biddy cry out “Christ is coming,” and she fell prone and none dared to raise her up, and she lay there till the Mass was finished. When the priest left the altar she was still lying at length, and the people were about her; and knowing how much she would feel the slightest reproof, he did not say a word that would throw doubt on her statement. He did not like to impugn a popular belief, but he felt obliged to exercise clerical control.
“Now, Biddy, I know you are a very pious woman, but I cannot allow you to interrupt the Mass.”
“If the Lord comes to me am I not to receive Him, your reverence?”
“In the first place I object to your dress; you are not properly dressed.”
She wore a bright blue cloak, she seemed to wear hardly anything else, and tresses of dirty hair hung over her shoulders.
“The Lord has not said anything to me about my dress, your reverence, and He put His gold crown on my head to-day.”
“Biddy, is all this true?”
“As true as you’re standing there.”
“I am not asking you if your visions are true. I have my opinion about that. I am asking if they are true to you.”
“True to me, your reverence? I don’t rightly understand.”
“I want to know if you think Our Lord put a gold crown on your head to-day.”
“To be sure He did, your reverence.”
“If He did, where is it?”
“Where is it, your reverence? It is with Him, to be sure. He wouldn’t be leaving it on my head and me walking about the parish — that would not be reasonable at all, I am thinking. He doesn’t want me to be robbed.”
“There is no one in the parish who would rob you.”
“Maybe some one would come out of another parish, if I was walking about with a gold crown on my head. And such a crown as He put upon it! — I am sorry you did not see it, but your reverence was saying the holy Mass at the time.”
And she fell on her knees and clung to his cassock.
“And you saw the crown, Biddy?”
“I had it on my head, your reverence.”
“And you heard the saints singing?”
“Yes, and I will tell you what they were singing,” and she began crooning. “Something like that, your reverence. You don’t believe me, but we have only our ears and our eyes to guide us.”
“I don’t say I don’t believe you, Biddy, but you may be deceived.”
“Sorra deceiving, your reverence, or I’ve been deceived all my life. And now, your reverence, if you have no more business with me I will go, for they are waiting in the chapel yard to hear me tell them about the crown that was put upon my head.”
“Well, Biddy, I want you to understand that I cannot have you interrupting the Mass. I cannot permit it. The visions may be true, or not true, but you must not interrupt the Mass. Do you hear me?”
The acolyte had opened the door of the sacristy, she slipped through it, and the priest took off his cassock. As he did so, he noticed that the acolytes were anxious to get out; they were at the window watching, and when the priest looked out of the window he saw the people gathered about Biddy, and could see she had obtained an extraordinary hold on the popular imagination; no one noticed him when he came out of the sacristy; they were listening to Biddy, and he stood unnoticed amid the crowd for a few minutes.
“She’s out of her mind,” he said. “She’s as good as mad. What did she tell me — that Our Lord put a crown on her head.”
It was difficult to know what to do. News of her piety had reached Dublin. People had been down to Kilmore to see her and had given subscriptions, and he understood that Biddy had enabled him to furnish his church with varnished pews and holy pictures. A pious Catholic lady had sent him two fine statues of Our Lady and St. Joseph. St. Joseph was in a purple cloak and Our Lady wore a blue cloak, and there were gold stars upon it. He had placed these two statues on the two side altars. But there were many things he wanted for his church, and he could only get them through Biddy. It was, therefore, his interest to let her remain in Kilmore, only she could not be allowed to interrupt the Mass, and he felt that he must be allowed to pass in and out of his church without having to put up with extravagant salutations.
He was going home to his breakfast and a young man extremely interested in ecclesiastical art was coming to breakfast with him. The young man had a great deal to say about Walter Pater and Chartres Cathedral, and Father Maguire feared he was cutting but a very poor figure in the eyes of this young man, for he could not keep his thoughts on what the young man was saying, he was thinking of Biddy; he hardly thought of anything else but her now; she was absorbing the mind of his entire parish, she interrupted the Mass, he could not go into his church without being accosted by this absurd old woman, and this young man, a highly cultivated young man, who had just come from Italy, and who took the highest interest in architecture, would not be able to see his church in peace. As soon as they entered it they would be accosted by this old woman; she would follow them about asking them to look at her window, telling them her visions, which might or might not be true. She had a knack of hiding herself — he often came upon her suddenly behind the pillars, and sometimes he found her in the confessional. As soon as he crossed the threshold he began to look for her, and not finding her in any likely place, his fears subsided, and he called the young man’s attention to the altar that had been specially designed for his church. And the young man had begun to tell the priest of the altars he had seen that Spring in Italy, when suddenly he uttered a cry, he had suddenly felt a hand upon his shoulder.
“Your honour will be well rewarded if you will come to my window. Now why should I tell you a lie, your reverence?”
She threw herself at the priest’s feet and besought him to believe that the saints had been with her, and that every word she was speaking was the truth.
“Biddy, if you don’t go away at once I will not allow you inside the church to-morrow.”
The young man looked at the priest, surprised at his sternness, and the priest said: —
“She has become a great trial to us at Kilmore. Come aside and I will tell you about her.”
And when the priest had told the young man about the window the young man asked if Biddy would have to be sent away.
“I hope not, for if she were separated from her window she would certainly die. It came out of her savings, out of the money she made out of chickens.”
“And what has become of the chickens?”
“She has forgotten all about them; they wandered away or died. She has been evicted, and she lives now in an out-house. She lives on the bits of bread and the potatoes the neighbours give her. The things of this world are no longer realities to her. Her realities are what she sees and hears in that window. She told me last night the saints were singing about her. I don’t like to encourage her to talk, but if you would like to hear her — Biddy, come here!”
The old woman came back as a dog comes to its master, joyful, and with brightening eyes.
“Tell us what you saw last night.”
“Well, your reverence, I was asleep, and there suddenly came a knocking at the door, and I got up, and then I head a voice say, ‘Open the door.’ There was a beautiful young man outside, his hair was yellow and curly, and he was dressed in white. He came into the room first, and he was followed by other saints, and they had harps in their hands, and they sang for a long while; they sang beautiful music. Come to the window and you will hear it for yourselves. Someone is always singing it in the window, not always as clearly as they did last night.
”
“We’ll go to see your window presently.”
The old woman crept back to her place, and the priest and the young man began to talk about the possibilities of miracles in modern times, and they talked on until the sudden sight of Biddy gave them pause.
“Look at her,” said the young man, “can you doubt that she sees Heaven, quite plainly, and that the saints visited her just as she told us?”
“No doubt, no doubt. But she’s a great trial to us at Mass .... The Mass must not be interrupted.”
“I suppose even miracles are inconvenient at times, Father Maguire. Be patient with her, let her enjoy her happiness.”
And the two men stood looking at her, trying vainly to imagine what her happiness might be.
THE EXILE
I
PAT PHELAN’S BULLOCKS were ready for the fair, and so were his pigs; but the two fairs happened to come on the same day, and he thought he would like to sell the pigs himself. His eldest son, James, was staying at home to help Catherine Ford with her churning; Peter, his second son, was not much of a hand at a bargain; it was Pat and James who managed the farm, and when Peter had gone to bed they began to wonder if Peter would be able to sell the bullocks. Pat said Peter had been told the lowest price he could take, James said there was a good demand for cattle, and at last they decided that Peter could not fail to sell the beasts.
Pat was to meet Peter at the cross-roads about twelve o’clock in the day. But he had sold his pigs early, and was half an hour in front of him, and sitting on the stile waiting for his son, he thought if Peter got thirteen pounds apiece for the bullocks he would say he had done very well. A good jobber, he thought, would be able to get ten shillings apiece more for them; and he went on thinking of what price Peter would get, until, suddenly looking up the road, whom should he see but Peter coming down the road with the bullocks in front of him. He could hardly believe his eyes, and it was a long story that Peter told him about two men who wanted to buy the bullocks early in the morning. They had offered him eleven pounds ten, and when he would not sell them at that price they had stood laughing at the bullocks and doing all they could to keep off other buyers. Peter was quite certain it was not his fault, and he began to argue. But Pat Phelan was too disappointed to argue with him, and he let him go on talking. At last Peter ceased talking, and this seemed to Pat Phelan a good thing.
