by Tom Murphy
Mary Malone’s pine casket lay on a black-covered bier before the altar.
There was only one small black wreath to cover the naked-looking wood, a sinister thing of black, leathery leaves with a wrinkled purple ribbon on it Lily knew it was a reusable wreath, for she had seen it and wreaths like it many times before. Like the horse and the cart he pulled, the wreath itself seemed ready for the grave.
The coffin looked small and lonely in the soaring darkness of the church. Lily thought of her mother, alone and cold inside, but at least past suffering.
Maybe Ma was with the angels, with Big Fergus! If only she could be sure of that.
Father Gregory, impressive in his priestly robes, came out on the altar and began the funeral Mass.
There were five or six neighbors present, but not Fat Bessie Sullivan. That, thought Lily, was typical. Fat Bessie was probably eating pastries somewhere and gossiping about how the Malones had fallen on evil times.
Well, and wasn’t it true?
The Mass crawled across Lily’s mind with the numbing familiarity of long, long acquaintance. Then it was over and the young priest said a short eulogy. He had known Big Fergus, which did not surprise Lily in the least, since she had always assumed that everyone in the world, high and low alike, knew her father. Then Father Gregory led them in a short prayer and it was over.
Lily stood with Fergy at the door of the cathedral and spoke to the people who had taken the trouble to come.
They made death sound like a fine and glorious thing, as though life were a race and death was the prize. Lily heard well-meaning people telling her that Ma had gone to her reward, that she would know eternal happiness now, that she was in a better place.
Yet, as much as Lily wanted these things to be true, the memory of Ma’s last days was too vivid in her to believe the kind sentiments entirely. She suffered terribly, Lily thought, bracing herself against the forbidden tears, and if she’s anywhere now where she can see what’s probably going to become of Fergy and me, she’ll be suffering even more!
In the end it was Father Gregory who saved them.
He came out of the vestry in his black priest’s suit and stepped up behind the Malone children and put one of his big red hands on each of their shoulders. Then he led them down the stairs to the waiting carriage.
“Come now, Lily, Fergus,” he said, and with such vigor in his voice, you could hardly call it sad. “And may I be hitching a ride with ye to the graveyard?”
On the slow ride to Twelfth Street, Father Gregory spoke kindly to the children and tried to make them feel he understood their sorrow, and how bad their luck had been.
He spoke of St. Paddy’s orphanage, too, and told Lily and her brother many things they hadn’t known, or had only guessed about the place. Father Bill was well aware of the rumors that circulated about St. Paddy’s, for his parish was a garden of superstition and the young priest saw it as his duty to weed and prune that garden on a regular basis.
Lily found herself delighted with much of what he told them.
“There’ll be classes, then, I can learn to read?”
“If you apply yourself, Lily, that is very likely, and to write a good hand, too, and to sew if you like, and do other handy things, for many of our best girls go into service, and with some of the finest families in the city, at that.”
“And we won’t be beaten?”
“Not if you behave yourselves. The nuns of St. Paddy’s are kindly, Lily; they like the little ones, or surely they wouldn’t be devoting their lives to ’em, now, would they?”
Lily had no answer for this: she remembered the lurid tales of torture and unspeakable perversions. Then she looked at the smiling young priest beside her and decided that the rumors had been just that, and this man would not be a part of anything unspeakable. It was just then that she noticed the slow horse slowing further.
The carriage stopped. Lily and Fergy knew the graveyard well. They came every Sunday when the weather permitted, before their mother fell ill, to visit their father’s grave and make sure it was being kept properly. They were proud of the fine white headstone, all they had left of Big Fergus other than the memory of him.
Mother’s grave had been dug, a narrow trench that looked too small even for the small pine box. Lily looked at the hole and then looked away. Dylan’s men were there, and they had a rough trestle waiting for the coffin. The hearse was not really a hearse in the proper sense. There were no cut-glass windowpanes, no bright silver, no black plumes or glossy black paintwork. Lily’s mother arrived at her burial place on a cart, like a load of hay, and even though the cart had been smeared with dull black paint, it didn’t seem right, somehow. Lily remembered her father’s funeral, the glitter and spectacle of it, and shivered at the comparison. Still, it was the best that ten dollars could buy from Dylan’s, and who were they to quibble? Who, indeed?
Father Gregory read the service. The day was bright and hot within the walls of the new burial ground. Lily looked around her as the familiar prayers filled her ears: this place had been in use only ten years, and already it was nearly filled. The trees hadn’t had a chance to reach their full growth as yet, and before they did, this graveyard would be shut, finished, full-up as the old St. Patrick’s graveyard had been filled up before it. And the new place that people were talking about even now, out on Long Island somewhere, a boat ride away, it might as well be in another country. How people died! The new St. Patrick’s graveyard was like a little town inhabited only by dead people. Lily hoped her mother would find friends there, that she would not be lonely. There would be, of course, Big Fergus. Lily tried to imagine her parents lying side by side in the black earth of Twelfth Street as they had lain side by side in bed, and she prayed there would be comfort in it for both of them, that they’d really and truly know, each of them, that the other was there, at hand, inches away. Lily hoped they’d be able to sing again, to laugh as they once laughed, and even argue now and then, then kiss and forgive, and dream again and make plans. She wanted to ask Father Gregory if dead people could sing, could they hear, was it allowed, in heaven, to make plans? But it would be unseemly, she decided, at least here and now. Maybe she could ask such questions later.
Father Gregory finished the service. Dylan’s men had thick ropes under the coffin now, and they gently lowered it into the earth. The priest came close to the children then and once more put his arms around the two of them as the first spadefuls of earth rattled down on the lid of the pine box. Lily could feel herself shuddering with that fearful hollow noise, and all at once she hoped that dead people really couldn’t hear, even if it meant not hearing singing or jokes. This noise was too terrible to hear, dirt rattling down on your own coffin. They did not wait for the grave to be filled.
Father Gregory walked with them back to the carriage and then rode back down Mulberry Street to the old apartment. He would wait and the carriage would wait, while they got their clothes to take to the orphanage.
Somehow, Lily thought as she and Fergus climbed those worn stairs for the last time, it might not be so bad after all, being in the orphanage. There would be school, there would be other girls to play with, Fergus would be nearby, in the boy’s section. Best of all, there would be regular meals: Fergus wouldn’t have to be out on the streets scrounging for them all day. They got to the old apartment door. It was open.
The one big room was changed already. Lily looked at the place that had been her home these last five years, in happy times and sad times, and thought: We never lived here. Where we lived was somewhere else.
Mrs. Logan was there, and old Mrs. Flannagan resting on a stool, coughing softly. And Fat Bessie Sullivan. The furniture, what was left of it, had been moved against the far wall, and the room seemed bigger than Lily could remember. There was a small heap of linen on top of the old kitchen table, the table where her mother had lain last night. On a chair were two worn pillowcases stuffed full of Lily’s things and Fergus’ everyday clothing. Hortense—Lily’s o
nly toy, the rag doll—waited sadly, her head flopping down as if in mourning, perched on top of the pillowcase that held everything Lily Malone owned in the world.
It was hard to know what to say. Fergus spoke first to no one in particular: “We’re going to St. Paddy’s!” He blurted it out like a challenge.
The ladies gathered around them then, clucking and murmuring platitudes of thanks, more expressions of sympathy, notes of encouragement all to the rasping counterpoint of Mrs. Flannagan’s incessant coughing. Lily decided that the next time she went into St. Patrick’s she would say a prayer for old lady Flannagan. The children squirmed under the sudden flood of attention. Lily walked to the window and looked out to see Father Gregory pacing anxiously back and forth in front of the carriage, the picture of a man with better things to do. She turned to Fergus. Fat Bessie was bending over him to whisper something in his ear. Fergus cringed.
It was then that Lily noticed her mother’s favorite scarf carefully knotted around Fat Bessie’s neck. It was a very old scarf, part of Mary Malone’s dowry chest, made from the softest ivory-colored linen and edged with pure white lace made by Lily’s grandmother’s own hands. It was the one valuable thing that Mary refused to sell, come what may. Even after her own gold wedding band had gone, just a month before she died, Lily’s mother would never part with that scarf. She would ask Lily to take it out sometimes, just so she could hold it, and think of the olden times, and remember Big Fergus, and smile. Lily stood for a moment, staring. Then she walked up to Fat Bessie and touched her on the arm. Bessie Sullivan’s arms were the shape and color of large hams. She straightened up, smoothed her billowing skirts, and smiled at Lily. It was a large, false smile, the smile of a marzipan pig.
“Yes, my darlin’?”
“You are wearing my mother’s best scarf.”
Bessie’s smile grew even wider, even more false. Her hands fluttered to her neck like overweight drunken butterflies.
“Dear Mary, God rest her soul, she wanted me to have it.”
“She was dead before you ever came here.”
Bessie’s pink face flushed red. The little beady eyes seemed to grow smaller and darker and more vindictive. Lily watched Fat Bessie with a mixture of loathing and detachment: she would have her mother’s scarf back if she died on the spot getting it off this swine in mourning.
“Child, are you accusing me of stealing?”
“May I have my mother’s scarf, please?”
“Well! I never in all my…after all I’ve…”
The other two women stood transfixed, and Fergus, too.
Only the booming authority of Father Gregory’s voice cut through the bewildering scene: “Tell the pure truth now, Bessie Sullivan: did Lily’s mother bequeath you that scarf?”
“She most certainly did!”
Bessie gathered herself up, nearly five feet of lard trembling with self-righteous indignation.
“And you are prepared to roast in the eternal fires of hell if that isn’t God’s own truth? Eternity is a long, long time, Bessie. And hell is a very hot place.”
“I…I just know she wanted me to have it!”
“Because she said so?”
“Well, Father, not in so many words…but…”
“So you kindly filled in the gaps for the poor dying creature, is that it? And helped yourself to this scarf, which I see around your neck like the noose on the neck of a murderer. Is that what happened?”
Bessie stuttered and fumbled for words which never came. Her flushed face turned pale. Small beads of sweat appeared upon her upper lip and her forehead, and ran down her face. Her lips opened and shut spasmodically, like the lips of a beached fish, but no words came out. Instinctively Lily moved closer to Father Gregory and took his hand.
Still in silence, Fat Bessie reached to her throat, quickly untied the scarf, hurled it to the floor, turned on her heels, and flounced indignantly out of the room.
The sound of her footsteps in heavy retreat down the stairs was drowned by Father Gregory’s laughter.
“Lily, Lily,” he roared, lifting her to the very ceiling, “if General Scott had you at Veracruz, it would have been over in an hour!”
Dizzy from the height and the unexpected triumph, Lily found herself laughing, and heard Fergus laugh in response. Even Mrs. Logan was seen to smile, and old lady Flannagan nodded her approval through the incessant coughing.
At last the priest set her down, and picked up the scarf where it lay crumpled on the floor. He smoothed it out and handed it to Lily with a bow. “’Tis a lovely scarf, Lily, and you must keep it always as a memory of your dear mother. I think,” he added with a wink, “that it is not too badly contaminated by its recent adventures. Sure, and Sister Mary Agnes at St. Paddy’s knows everything about fine linens. She can show you how best to clean it, and mend it too, if ever need be.”
Lily thanked him and folded the scarf and put it in the pillowcase with her other things. Then she went to Mrs. Flannagan. “Thank you,” said Lily softly, “for you surely helped us when we needed it most.”
She thanked Mrs. Logan, too, as did Fergus. Then they picked up their belongings and walked out of the room and down to the carriage.
No one spoke until the carriage was off and moving. Both Lily and her brother had thoughts enough of their own to keep them from idle chatter. For, though St. Patrick’s Orphanage was six short blocks from where they had lived all their lives, it was as much of a new adventure as going to a foreign country, both scary and exciting, filled with promise and fraught with unknown dangers.
Lily’s reverie was interrupted by an uncontrollable chuckle from Father Gregory. “Indeed, ’twill be a long time before I forget the sight of Bessie Sullivan, children, caught as she was in the act. And while we think on that my darlings, do not feel ashamed to be laughing on the day of your poor mother’s burial. It is a dark hour indeed that has no light at all in it and ’tis sure I am if Mary Malone had been in that room—and who is to say she was not?—she would have been proud and happy to see her little girl so lively after what’s right. Always stand up for yourselves, children, for often there may be no one else to do it for you.”
The horse clip-clopped its mournful way up Mulberry Street. Finally they reached Prince Street and turned the familiar right-hand corner. The St. Patrick’s orphanage lined the block on their right three stories of immaculate red brick and a gabled story above that neat behind its lawn, dappled by the shade of two ancient elm trees, softened by a new fringe of flowering shrubs along the line where the bricks met the lawn. There could be no doubt that this was an institution, but somehow it seemed welcoming in the late-afternoon light. The familiar cathedral was just across the street with its old walled graveyard and its square bell tower and iron lacework. Father Gregory, they learned, taught in the school, and might in fact be teaching them.
“Surely, it isn’t home, children,” he said as they were about to climb down, “but there are good things here, things to learn, things to do. Three square meals every day, that can’t be too bad, now, can it? And the good Sisters of Charity are kindly ladies. I think you will like it here, and if you don’t, Lily and Fergus, tell me why, and if I can, I will try to help you.”
He patted them on the shoulder for encouragement, then led them up the short walk to the front door. Even though she felt better now, it seemed to Lily the longest and the saddest walk she had ever taken. She reached for Fergy’s hand and held it tight. Their future was here, and they’d face it together!
3
Lily looked up at the polished dark-wood doors.
They seemed big enough to be the very gates of heaven—or hell. She remembered all the old gossip, of children who went in through these same doors and never were seen again. Lily turned.
The priest smiled, but Lily was not entirely reassured.
Fergy knocked. They waited in silence. He was just about to repeat his knocking when the door swung silently open. A small, old, smiling nun stood there, old as the hi
lls she was, and hardly bigger than Lily herself.
“Come in, come in, my dears, you must be the Malones, is that right?”
Fergy mumbled something and they followed the old nun into the orphanage.
The front door opened onto a long central hallway floored in dark wood that had been polished almost to the brightness of a mirror. Lily couldn’t remember ever seeing a floor so bright. At the end of the hallway an enormous crucifix stood against the white wall with a bigger-than-life-size Jesus twisting in unspeakable agony against a heavy oak cross, flesh pale as Ma’s had been in the last days, blood pouring from the several wounds with ghastly authenticity. Christ, thought Lily with a shudder, died for my sins. Sure and I must have some pretty bad ones, to have caused all that. Fergus, standing beside her in the doorway, was unnaturally silent, as he had been all morning. Lily sensed that her brother must be feeling the same doubts and hopes and fears that she felt. And that he must be as little equipped to handle those doubts and fears. Well. And what was there to do but make the best of it and be thankful to Almighty God that it wasn’t worse? For surely they could be out on the streets this very night with no roof at all over their heads, and not a thing in their bellies, and no one to know the difference whether they lived or died. More than ten thousand homeless children, Lily had heard, were reported to be wandering the streets of this city, sleeping in alleys and cellars, stealing, running wild, prey to criminals of all kinds, and the pimps, and even Protestants. There was no doubt about it: things could have been much, much worse. The old nun nodded to Father Gregory then and left them.
Smiling, Lily turned to Father Gregory. “And will you be leaving us now, Father?”
“Not till I see that you’re properly introduced, my girl. ’Tis Sister Cathleen herself I’ll be taking you to, the matron of the whole establishment. Just follow me.”
