by George Moore
“I haven’t spoken about politics much lately, Ellen, because I thought you had lost interest in them.”
“I have lost interest in nothing that concerns you. I have not spoken to you about politics because I know quite well that my ideas don’t interest you any longer. You’re absorbed in your own ideas, and we’re divided. You sleep now in the spare room, so that you may have time to prepare your speeches.”
“But I sometimes come to see you in your room, Ellen.”
“Sometimes,” she said, sadly, “but that is not my idea of marriage, nor is it the custom of the country, nor is it what the Church wishes.”
“I think, Ellen, you are very unreasonable, and you are generally so reasonable.”
“Well, don’t let us argue any more,” she said. “We shall never agree, I’m afraid.”
Ned remembered that he once used to say to her, “Ellen, we are agreed in everything.”
“If I had only known that it was going to turn out so disagreeable as this,” Ned said to himself, “I should have held my tongue,” and he was sorry for having displeased Ellen, so pretty did she look in her white dress and her hat trimmed with china roses; and though he did not care much for flowers he liked to see Ellen among her flowers; he liked to sit with her under the shady apple-tree, and the hollyhocks were making a fine show up in the air.
“I think I like the hollyhocks better than any flowers, and the sunflowers are coming out,” he said.
He hesitated whether he should speak about the swallows, Ellen did not care for birds. The swallows rushed round the garden in groups of six and seven filling the air with piercing shrieks. He had never seen them so restless. He and Ellen walked across the sward to their seat and then Ellen asked him if he would like to see the child.
“I’ve kept him out of bed and thought you might like to see him.”
“Yes,” he said, “go fetch the baby and I will shake the boughs, and it will amuse him to run after the apples.”
“Differences of opinion arise,” he said to himself, “for the mind changes and desire wanes, but the heart is always the same, and what an extraordinary bond the child is,” he said, seeing Ellen leading the child across the sward. He forgot Ireland, forgot priests, and forgot politics, forgot everything. He lifted his little son in his arms and shook the boughs and saw the child run after the falling apples, stumbling and falling but never hurting himself.
The quarrels of the day died down; the evening grew more beautiful under the boughs, and this intimate life round their apple-tree was strangely intense, and it grew more and more intense as the light died. Every now and then the child came to show them an apple he had picked up, and Ned said: “He thinks he has found the largest apples that have ever been seen.” The secret of their lives seemed to approach and at every moment they expected to hear it. The tired child came to his mother and asked to be taken on her lap. An apple fell with a thud, the stars came out, and Ned carried his son, now half asleep, into the house, and they undressed him together, having forgotten, seemingly, their differences of opinion.
But after dinner when they were alone in the drawing-room their relations grew strained again. Ned wanted to explain to Ellen that his movement was not anti-clerical, but he could see she did not wish to hear. He watched her take up her work and wondered what he could say to persuade her, and after a little while he began to think of certain pieces of music. But to go to the piano would be like a hostile act. The truth was that he had looked forward to the evening he was going to spend with her, he had imagined an ideal evening with her and could not reconcile himself to the loss. “The hour we passed in the garden was extraordinarily intense,” he said to himself, and he regretted ever having talked to her about anything except simple things. “It is unwise of a man to make a comrade of his wife.... Now I wonder if she would be angry with me if I went to the piano — if I were to play something very gently? Perhaps a book would seem less aggressive.” He went into his study and fetched his book, and very soon forgot Ellen. But she had not forgotten him, and she raised her eyes to look at him from time to time, knowing quite well that he was reading the book out of which he drew the greater part of his doctrine that he had alluded to on his way home, and that he had called the Gospel of Life.
He turned the pages, and seeing that his love of her had been absorbed by the book, she stuck her needle in her work, folded it up, and put it into the work-basket.
“I am going to bed, Ned.” He looked up, and she saw he had returned from a world that was unknown to her, a world in which she had no part, and did not want to have a part, knowing it to be wicked. “You have been reading all the evening. You prefer your book to me. Good-night.”
She had never spoken to him so rudely before. He wondered awhile and went to the piano. She had gone out of the room very rudely. Now he was free to do what he liked, and what he liked most was to play Bach. The sound of the piano would reach her bedroom! Well, if it did — he had not played Bach for four weeks and he wanted to play Bach. Yes, he was playing Bach to please himself. He knew the piano would annoy her. And he was right.
She had just lighted the candles on her dressing-table, and she paused and listened. It annoyed her that he should go to the piano the moment she left him, and that he should play dry intellectual Bach, for he knew that Bach did not interest her. She was tempted to ring for her maid, and would have sent down word to Ned that she would be obliged if he would stop playing, had it not seemed undignified to do so.
As she undressed she lost control over herself, and lying in bed it seemed to her that Ned had hidden himself in a veil of kindness and good humour, and that the man she had married was a man without moral qualities, a man who would leave her without resentment, without disgust, who would say good-by to her as to some brief habit. She could hear Bach’s interminable twiddles, and this exasperated her nerves and she wept through many preludes and fugues. Later on she must have heard the fugues in a dream, for the door opened; it passed over the carpet softly; and she heard Ned saying that he hoped the piano had not kept her awake. She heard him lay the candle on the table and come over to her bedside, and, leaning over her, he begged of her to turn round and speak to him.
“My poor little woman, I hope I have not been cross with you this evening.”
She turned away petulantly, but he took her hand and held it and whispered to her, and gradually tempted her out of her anger, and taking some of her red hair from the pillow he kissed it. She still kept her head turned from him, but she could not keep back her happiness; it followed her like fire, enfolding her, and at last, raising herself up in the bed, she said: —
“Oh, Ned, do you still love me?”
When he came into her bed she slipped down so that she could lie upon his breast, and they fell asleep thinking of the early train he would have to catch in the morning.
He was going to Dublin, and the servant knocked at the door at seven o’clock; Ellen roused a little asking if he must go to Dublin. She would like him to stay with her. But he could not stay, and she felt she must give him his breakfast. While tying her petticoats she went to the door of Ned’s dressing-room asking him questions, for she liked to talk to him while he was shaving. After breakfast they walked to the station together, and she stood on the platform smiling and waving farewells.
She turned home, her thoughts chattering like the sunshine among the trees; she leaned over the low, crumbling walls and looked across the water meadows. Two women were spending the morning under the trees; they were sewing. A man was lying at length talking to them. This group was part of external nature. The bewitching sunlight found a way into her heart, and it seemed to her that she would never be happy again.
Ned had told her that he was not going to say anything about the priests at this meeting. Ah, if she were only sure he would not attack religion she would not mind him criticising the priests. They were not above criticism; they courted criticism, approving of a certain amount of lay criticism. But it was not the
priests that Ned hated; it was religion; and his hatred of religion had increased since he began to read those books — she had seen him put one into his bag, and the rest of the set were in his study. When she got home she paused a moment, and, without knowing exactly why, she turned aside and did not go into his study.
But next day the clock in the drawing-room stopped, and, wanting to know the time, she went into the study and looked at the clock, trying to keep her eyes from the bookcase. But in spite of herself she looked. The books were there: they had been thrust so far back that she could not read the name of the writer. Well, it did not matter, she did not care to know the name of the writer — Ned’s room interested her more than the books. There was his table covered with his papers; and the thought passed through her mind that he might be writing the book he had promised her not to write. What he was writing was certainly for the printer — he was writing only on one side of the paper — and one of these days what he was writing would be printed.
The study was on the ground floor, its windows overlooking the garden, and she glanced to see if the gardener were by, but her wish to avoid observation reminded her that she was doing a dishonourable action, and, standing with the papers in her hand, she hoped she would go out of the study without reading them. She began to read.
The papers in her hand were his notes for the book he was writing, and the title caught her eye, “A Western Thibet.” “So he is writing the book he promised me not to write,” she said. But she could feel no anger, so conscious was she of her own shame. And she did not forget her shame until she remembered that it was her money that was supporting the agitation. He had been spending a great deal of money lately — they were rich now; her father had died soon after their marriage and all his money had come to her, and Ned was spending it on an anti-religious agitation. She had let Ned do what he liked; she had not cared what happened so long as she kept his love, and her moral responsibility became clearer and clearer. She must tell Ned that she could give him no more money unless he promised he would not say anything against the priests. He would make no such promise, and to speak about her money would exhibit her in a mean light, and she would lose all her influence. Now that they were reconciled she might win him back to religion; she had been thinking of this all yesterday. How could she tell him that she would take all her money away from him? Ned was the last person in the world who would be influenced by a threat.
And looking round the room she asked herself why she had ever come into it to commit a dishonourable act! and much trouble had come upon her. But two thousand a year of her money was being spent in robbing the people of Ireland of their religion! Maybe thousands of souls would be lost — and through her fault.
Ellen feared money as much as her father had loved it.
“Good Heavens,” she murmured to herself, “what am I to do?” Confession.... Father Brennan. She must consult him. The temptation to confide her secret became more decisive. Confession! She could ask the priest what she liked in confession, and without betraying Ned. And it was not ten o’clock yet. She would be in time for eleven o’clock Mass. Father Brennan would be hearing confessions after Mass, and she could get to Dublin on her bicycle in an hour. In three-quarters of an hour she was at the presbytery, and before the attendant could answer she caught sight of Father Brennan running down-stairs.
“I only want to speak to you for a few minutes.”
“I am just going into church.”
“Can’t I say a word to you before you go in?”
And seeing how greatly agitated she was, he took her into the parlour, and she told him that though she trusted him implicitly she could not consult him on this particular question except in the confessional.
“I shall be hearing confessions after Mass.”
If the priest told her she must withdraw her money from Ned, her marriage was a broken one. It was she who had brought Ned into politics; she had often spoken of her money in order to induce him to go into politics, and now it was her money that was forcing her to betray him. She had not thought of confession in her present difficulty as a betrayal, but it was one, and a needless one; Father Brennan could only tell her to withdraw her money; yet she must consult the priest — nothing else would satisfy her. She lacked courage: his advice would give her courage. But when she had told Ned that she could give him no more money, she would have to tell him she was acting on the priest’s advice, for she could not go on living with him and not tell him everything. A secret would poison her life, and she had no difficulty in imagining how she would remember it; she could see it stopping her suddenly as she crossed the room when she was thinking of something quite different. The hardest confession of all would be to tell Ned that she had consulted the priest, and she did not think he would ever love her again. But what matter, so long as she was not weak and contemptible in the eyes of God. That is what she had to think of. The love of one’s husband is of this world and temporary, but the love of God is for all eternity. All things are in the will of God. It was God that had sent her into Ned’s room. She had been compelled, and now she was compelled again. It was God that had sent her to the priest; she was a mere puppet in the hands of God, and she prayed that she might be reconciled to His will, only daring to implore His mercy with one “Our Father” and one “Hail Mary.” Further imploration would be out of place, she must not insist too much. God was all wisdom, and would know if the love of her husband might be spared to her, and she hoped she would be reconciled to His will even if her child should be taken from her.
There were two penitents before her. One a woman, faded by time and deformed by work. From the black dress, come down to her through a succession of owners and now as nondescript as herself, Ellen guessed the woman to be one of the humblest class of servants, one of those who get their living by going out to work by the day. She leaned over the bench, and Ellen could see she was praying all the while, and Ellen wondered how Ned could expect this poor woman, earning a humble wage in humble service, to cultivate what he called “the virtue of pride.” Was it not absurd to expect this poor woman to go through life trying to make life “exuberant and triumphant”? And Ellen wished she could show Ned this poor woman waiting to go into the confessional. In the confessional she would find a refined and learned man to listen to her, and he would have patience with her. Where else would she find a patient listener? Where else would she find consolation? “The Gospel of Life,” indeed! How many may listen to the gospel of life, and for how long may anyone listen? Sooner or later we are that poor woman waiting to go into the confessional; she is the common humanity.
The other penitent was a girl about sixteen. Her hair was not yet pinned up, and her dress was girlish even for her age, and Ellen judged her to be one of the many girls who come up to Dublin from the suburbs to an employment in a shop or in a lawyer’s office, and who spend a few pence in the middle of the day in tea-rooms. The girl looked round the church so frequently that Ellen could not think of her as a willing penitent, but as one who had been sent to confession by her father and mother. At her age sensuality is omnipresent, and Ellen thought of the check confession is at such an age. If that girl overstepped the line she would have to confess everything, or face the frightful danger of a bad confession, and that is a danger that few Catholic girls are prepared to face.
The charwoman spent a long time in the confessional, and Ellen did not begrudge her the time she spent, for she came out like one greatly soothed, and Ellen remembered that Ned had once described the soothed look which she noticed on the poor woman’s face as “a look of foolish ecstasy, wholly divorced from the intelligence.” But what intellectual ecstasy did he expect from this poor woman drifting towards her natural harbour — the poor-house?
It was extraordinary that a man so human as Ned was in many ways should become so inhuman the moment religion was mentioned, and she wondered if the sight of that poor woman leaving the confessional would allay his hatred of the sacrament. At that moment the young gir
l came out. She hurried away, and Ellen went into the confessional to betray her husband.
She was going to betray Ned, but she was going to betray him under the seal of confession, and entertained no thought that the priest would avail himself of any technicality in her confession to betray her. She was, nevertheless, determined that her confession should be technically perfect. She went into the confessional to confess her sins, and one of the sins she was going to confess was her culpable negligence regarding the application of her money. There were other sins. She had examined her conscience, and had discovered many small ones. She had lost her temper last night, and her temper had prevented her from saying her prayers, her temper and her love of Ned; for it were certainly a sin to desire anything so fervidly that one cannot give to God the love, the prayers, that belong to Him.
During Mass the life of her soul had seemed to her strange and complex, and she thought that her confession would be a long one; but on her knees before the priest her soul seemed to vanish, and all her interesting scruples and phases of thought dwindled to almost nothing — she could not put her soul into words. The priest waited, but the matter on which she had come to consult him had put everything else out of her head.
“I am not certain that what I am going to tell you is a sin, but I consider it as part of my confession,” and she told him how she had given Ned her money and allowed him to apply it without inquiring into the application. “Since my child was born I have not taken the interest I used to take in politics. I don’t think my husband is any longer interested in my ideas, and now he has told me that some kind of religious reformation is necessary in Ireland.”
“When did he tell you that?”
“Yesterday — the day before. I went to the station to meet him and he told me as we walked home. For a long time I believed him: I don’t mean that he told me falsehoods; he may have deceived himself. Anyhow he used to tell me that though his agitation might be described as anti-clerical no one could call it anti-religious. But this morning something led me into his room and I looked through his papers. I daresay I had no right to do so, but I did.”
