by James Hanley
‘Denny!’ called Mrs Fury from the top of the stairs. Mr Fury went into the hall. Come upstairs.’ He went up. Mrs Fury was standing in Peter’s room. His son had partly stripped.
‘You’re quite a man now,’ he said. ‘You’re even a fine-looking young man,’ went on Mr Fury. ‘You were only a nipper when I saw you last. Well, well.’ He could not believe his eyes. He went across to where Peter was standing and gripped his hands. Mrs Fury looked on quite uninterested in this sudden display of filial devotion. For the first time Mr Fury kissed his son. ‘Good-night, boy,’ he said. He went downstairs again, his wife following with the bed-clothes. She cleared the sofa of cushions and laid his bed. She turned to her sister. ‘You must be tired, Brigid.’ It was a signal. Miss Mangan got up. ‘I think I’ll go up now, Fanny,’ she said. She smiled at Mr Fury. ‘Goodnight, Denny.’ She went out. Mr Fury said, ‘Good-night.’
‘Don’t forget to lock up and wind the clock,’ said Mrs Fury. No. He wouldn’t forget. Where was the evening paper? His wife picked it up from the dresser and threw it across to him. ‘Good-night,’ she called out, her hand on the kitchen door. Mr Fury made no reply. The door closed.
‘At last!’ he was thinking. ‘At last!’ He surveyed the deserted kitchen with a sort of triumphant air. All away. He was alone at last. He looked at the roughly made-up bed on the sofa, made a grimace, and drew out Mr Mangan’s great chair. He settled it in front of the fire, and picking up the paper, he began to read. His eye fell upon the stop-press news, and remained there for some time as though glued to the spot. He could hear the moving about in the rooms above him. Suddenly he smiled. Did he mind sleeping downstairs? By heavens, no! He would miss Mangan’s grunts for once, and Fanny would have somebody else to talk to. He stirred the fire. The paper fell from his hands. He closed his eyes and lay back. He lost himself in the past. What a change had taken place in his wife. He had traced this change right back to the time of Peter’s going away. ‘Confound the whole business!’ he cried in his mind. One couldn’t patch up anything now. Everything seemed to lie in pieces. Yes. There could be no doubt about it. Fanny was a changed woman. He had indeed probed a vital spot. And from it had flowed to waste all her respect, all her feeling, all her admiration and gratitude. But why should he suffer for her own folly? The stop-press of the evening paper suddenly blotted out these thoughts, and Mr Fury was muttering, ‘Strike! Confound the damn strike! It would come now. And the house full of people.’ He sat up. How could he sleep? No. He couldn’t settle to anything until he heard all about Peter. What was she hiding? He had an idea, but he wasn’t certain. Was it that she had realized her mistake? Or, on the other hand, was the real revelation to come from that young man upstairs? He got up and crept silently into the hall. He stood at the bottom of the stairs. Why, the light was still on in his son’s room! And Fanny was talking away. ‘Poor Brigid!’ he was thinking. ‘Devil of a bit of sleep she’ll get!’ He went back into the kitchen again and began pacing the floor. If only Fanny would say straight out, ‘Well, it was a mistake, Denny, and now I realize it. Perhaps you had better get Peter fixed up.’ But no. Stubborn woman. She wouldn’t do it. A nice education Peter was getting. He wasn’t blind to such tactics. Young people knew a hell of a lot more than she thought. He stopped by the door, hesitating. Then he exclaimed, ‘Well, no. It’s useless.’ He went into the hall, put his coat and cap on, drew a woollen scarf round his neck, and went silently to the door. He opened the door and went into the street. How nice and fresh it was outside. He might as well go for a short walk. He heard the clock strike from the neighbouring chapel. He drew the door to, and jammed it with his handkerchief. Then he went off down the street. He did not know that Peter had seen him. Peter, like himself, had not turned in. He was standing looking out of the open window when his father passed down the street. Unable to conceal his astonishment, he called out, ‘Dad! Hey, Dad!’ A voice in the next room shouted, ‘Who’s that?’ No reply. Peter left his room, crept downstairs, and hurried down the street after his father.
2
Brigid Mangan lived in an old-fashioned house on the Mall. When her mother died, it seemed that the house of the Mangan family had come to its appointed end. A month after Mrs Mangan’s death, her two sons, Joseph and Terence Mangan, packed up their belongings and decided to seek their fortunes in New York, where an uncle of theirs already lived, and who had some sort of official position in the municipal offices of the city. Like their sister Brigid, they realized the end had come. Mrs Mangan lived to a ripe old age. She was some seven years senior to Anthony Mangan. But this fact did not prevent her children from attributing the cause of her sudden decease to their sister’s brutal treatment. So Brigid called it. Why had Fanny ever decided to leave Ireland? It was all a mystery. When she left, it seemed the first rift had been made. When the brothers sailed for New York, leaving Brigid to look after her father, Miss Mangan decided at once that she could not stay in the house any longer. She shifted the furniture and family effects to the house on the Mall, taking Mr Mangan with her. Fortunately, Brigid Mangan was able to maintain her independence, partly from a small weekly pension left to her by her mother, partly from her own industry. Brigid Mangan was not an idle woman. Clever with the needle, she soon put this to good purpose, for, a few weeks after taking up her abode in the new house, she managed to get commissions to make altar cloths, surplices, and communion cloths. Always a pious woman, her interests were solely divided between the house and her father, and the near-by chapel of St Andrew’s. She soon became known in the neighbourhood. She made arrangements with the local priest to put up and look after his visitors, so that in time her house was a sort of Open Sesame for passing students, brothers, priests, and even nuns. Her interests grew. She was getting older. Ambition served no purpose. She was content to spend her time in the service of her religion. She found her time taken up. When one summer she decided to put up five visiting missioners, it seemed to her that old Mr Mangan was an obstacle. She now began to regret her sudden generousness of spirit. Here she was, saddled with a man well on in years, and for whom she could do no more. She had even hinted to him that now was the time to consider going into retreat. The old man refused. He had felt somewhat shocked that but a year after his wife’s death his daughter should want him out of the way. He knew why she wanted it. It was at this juncture that the old man realized that his daughter Brigid had been slowly alienating his affections from Fanny. Indeed, the nightly conversations, winter and summer, month after month, had seemed to centre round the woman in Gelton. Brigid Mangan impressed the old man at first. Yes. That had really been the first rift in their lives, their comfort, and their security. But when Brigid added that she considered Fanny’s action monstrous, and the cause of her mother’s death, the old man flung up his hands in horror. Impossible! Ridiculous! He would have none of it.
If Brigid Mangan did not openly express her dissatisfaction with the state of affairs, she did it secretly, and with great subtlety. Miss Mangan had suddenly decided to devote her whole life to service. More and more she found the work of her hands taking up her time, and now, with the extension of St Andrew’s chapel and the installation of a new high altar, she was continually busy. For hours on end the old man was left alone. He felt miserable and lonely. He rarely went out, except when he struggled to the early Mass on a Sunday morning. He was silent. He made no protests. For a while his sons in America wrote to him. He treasured their letters. They served as a sort of barrier against his loneliness that had slowly grown upon him since the loss of his wife. One day his daughter Brigid arrived home very late. The old man, unable to fend for himself, had been left without food the whole day. He spoke to Brigid. She said she had had to stay and help serve dinner to the Brothers of the Cross, who had arrived that morning to conduct a mission at St Andrew’s. The old man flamed up. ‘And what about me? Don’t I exist?’ Brigid shouted, ‘No! You don’t!’ burst into tears, and rushed off upstairs, where she remained for over an hour. She came down a
nd made a meal for her father, but not before her anger had vented itself in a hastily written letter to her sister in Gelton. Mr Mangan never heard a word about the letter to his daughter Fanny. It was quite brief and to the point. ‘I have so much to do,’ she wrote. ‘All my time is taken up with work at the chapel, and really I don’t feel capable of looking after Father any longer.’ She added with a sort of malicious glee: ‘He still has a high regard for you, in spite of your action, and perhaps your taking him over will serve in some measure as an atonement for your brutal treatment of him.’ Two days later Fanny Fury arrived from Gelton, and took her father away, as she remarked, ‘from a most indifferent and unfeeling woman’. Brigid Mangan remained calm. She bid good-bye to her father, and saw the pair off at the pier that very afternoon. As the boat sailed out, she felt at last that she was free. Now she could devote her whole time to the church. The house in the Mall settled itself down to a sort of spiritual isolation. It became a kind of chapel itself. People living in the Mall were of the opinion that one day Brigid Mangan would go into a nunnery. Miss Mangan had no such ambition. She was content to carry on her embroidery work and her work at the chapel. Nothing ruffled the calm flow of her life until the sudden arrival on a stormy Monday night of her nephew, Peter Fury. She had never seen this boy but once, and was quite unaware of his being in Cork at all, and although she had once visited the very college where Peter stayed, she remained wholly ignorant of his presence.
Nobody was more astounded than Brigid Mangan when, one Monday night, returning from Benediction, she found a youth standing on her doorstep. He was soaked through with the rain. The woman drew back with fright. It was quite dark. The very first thing she said to Peter was, ‘Where’s your cap?’ The element of surprise lay not in his sudden appearance, but in his standing capless in the pouring rain. She looked at Peter. A stranger. Then the youth said, ‘Don’t you know me, Aunt Brigid?’ The woman dropped the door key from her hand. Peter even smiled. ‘I’m Peter,’ he announced.
‘What? Not Fanny’s boy?’ Miss Mangan drew nearer and looked him full in the face. Then, before he could make any reply, she had smothered him in her arms. They went into the house. Peter, as he followed his aunt upstairs to the bathroom, made a note of the house, its furniture, carpets, beds, even its peculiar musty smell. In a few minutes he was sitting in a bath. Brigid Mangan went downstairs to make a meal for him. She hung his wet clothes before the kitchen fire. ‘Good heavens!’ she was thinking. What was this? Amazing! Where had he come from? How? Why hadn’t Fanny written to her? Just like her, of course. Aunt Brigid, quite capable of extending her hospitality to the religious orders, had other ideas when it came to taking in straying members of her sister’s family. She reflected now, as she hurried from pantry to dining-room, that Fanny had only written twice since her father had gone to Gelton. When Peter came down, she was sitting at the dining-table waiting for him. Peter closed the door and sat down. She looked at him, not slow to notice the changing expressions upon the boy’s face. Obviously he was embarrassed. H’m! A quite ridiculous thing. After all, he was her sister’s child. Such nonsense. Putting on airs. The truth was, Peter was ashamed. He had a confession to make. Now, as he sat opposite his aunt, he saw the questioning look she gave him.
‘Come, my boy,’ she said. ‘Eat your supper, we can talk afterwards.’ Peter felt relieved at once. It was like a great weight taken off his shoulders. He was hungry. Soon he was doing justice to the cold ham and potatoes. Not once during the meal did he raise his head. The world seemed bounded by the huge plate in front of him. Nor indeed did Aunt Brigid take her eyes from him. She felt excited, the minutes seemed hours. There was such a lot to talk about. As soon as the meal was over they went into the back sitting-room. She made her nephew comfortable in the arm-chair, though Peter did not feel as comfortable as she thought. The horse-hair chair was old, its springs gone. From time to time Peter moved uneasily in the chair. Aunt Brigid did not seem to notice it.
She was sitting on the sofa opposite him, her head reclining on its arm, now covered with a clean antimacassar. Questions began. How long had he been in Ireland? Why had he arrived in such a state? She was glad he had not arrived in daylight. She was quite unused to such goings-on. Was his mother aware of his being in Ireland? Peter stared absent-mindedly into the fire. He was no longer conscious of the presence of Aunt Brigid, he was only aware of a certain insult to his mother. Damned fool! Why had he gone to her house? For the simple reason that there was no place else. At last she spoke. He had been in Ireland, in Cork to be precise, seven years …
Miss Mangan threw her hands in the air. ‘What? Seven years. My God!’ And she didn’t know! But what was he doing there? She leaned forward on the sofa and subjected her nephew to a stare so penetrating that Peter sat further back on the chair. He saw the blood rush to his aunt’s cheeks.
‘But your mother never told me!’ Here she paused. There came vividly to her mind again the letter she had written to Fanny. Now she knew she had been justified. What a strange woman! Her own nephew at her very doorstep for seven years, and she had never known! Such treatment … amazing … that was Fanny all over. Now she rose to her feet, and began poking the fire. Suddenly she fired a question.
‘But why have you come here?’
‘Because I left the college. I failed. I’m through now.’
‘Through!’ What was all this about. ‘Failed!’
‘What college? What were you studying?’
‘Studying for the priesthood,’ said Peter slowly. Ah! Now the mist was clearing. Everything seemed crystal-clear. ‘Why have you failed?’ she asked; then, hardly waiting for his answer, she added, ‘Have you told your mother yet?’
Peter shook his head. No. He hadn’t told anybody yet.
‘Who is your Principal?’ she asked.
‘Brother Geraghty,’ replied Peter.
‘Oh, I see! I know him well. I shall call and see him tomorrow.’ She began pacing the room. Her mind worked swiftly. Something mysterious here. What was it? And that silence. That seven years’ silence. She looked at the clock. ‘I shall wire your mother at once, Peter,’ she said. She felt the boy was hiding something from her. She had a right to know everything. Her sister’s children could not drop in on her like this! She had had some of that before. Peter sat up in the chair. ‘The Post Office is shut, Aunt,’ he said.
‘I’ll send a night-wire,’ remarked Miss Mangan with great emphasis. Peter lay back again. He watched her go to the window. She turned round.
‘Have you had enough to eat?’ she asked. ‘Yes, Aunt.’ He wondered if his clothes were yet dry. Miss Mangan seemed to divine his thoughts, for she said abruptly, ‘Your clothes are far from dry. You must content yourself with sitting in that blanket. There is nothing in the house you could wear, and I’m certainly not going to give you clerical attire.’
Then she went out.
Her wire to Mrs Fury was brief and to the point.
‘Peter failed. All my sympathy. Brigid.’ Not a word more. As she walked home through the pouring rain she visualized the receipt of the wire in Gelton. But then she didn’t know anything. Peter might have been telling some cock-and-bull story. At the same time she got some satisfaction from the sending of the wire. Nearly time Fanny had a shock of some kind. It might wake her up after that long silence. She was still too shocked to be able to comprehend anything beyond the presence of her nephew. Number thirty-seven the Mall had never suffered such a violent disturbance. Three days later she took Peter to the shipping office and that very afternoon they sailed together for Gelton. The house on the Mall was locked up, and the parish priest informed that she might be away for an indefinite period.
3
Miss Mangan moved restlessly in the bed as her sister suddenly sat up. Mrs Fury was certain she had heard somebody descending the stairs. ‘Did you hear a noise on the stairs, Brigid?’ she asked.
‘No! Why?’ Miss Mangan said. Mrs Fury lay down again.
‘I though
t I heard the boy go down,’ she said. Brigid laughed. She wasn’t interested in anybody on the stairs. This sudden startling exclamation from her sister had put a spoke into a most interesting conversation. She made herself more comfortable. ‘Don’t bother yourself, Fanny,’ she remarked. Mrs Fury was staring up at the patchwork on the ceiling, now illuminated by the moonlight streaming into the room. Brigid Mangan’s last question still remained in her mind. How had Desmond come to marry the woman?
‘Well,’ said Mrs Fury, ‘it’s always been a mystery to me, and I suppose it always will be. I knew nothing of their goings-on until I heard it from his own lips, that he was getting married. Yes. He was getting married almost immediately. It was a great surprise to me, Brigid, for Desmond never struck me as being of the marrying sort, and they say that when those kind of men do go off at last, they create the greatest surprises. I had been suspicious for a time. For instance, his last two annual holidays he spent in Ireland. Now, that was unusual. Do you know, Brigid, I have asked Desmond time and time again to spend his holidays there, either with his aunt at Ringsend or with you. But I could never get him to go. Sometimes he made me feel ashamed that I was Irish. Naturally I was bound to feel surprised when he suddenly decided to spend his holidays there. What part of Ireland he went to I don’t know. He was always secretive, was Desmond. But there are some kinds of secrets that can’t remain hidden for ever, Brigid.’ The woman paused, and Miss Mangan said:
‘Oh! How surprising!’
