A powdery snowfall already mantled the cobblestone street where I abruptly emerged. The moon, in near full phase, dangled like a pewter pendulum above an urban avenue. In the distance, although out of visible range from where I trod, a church tower’s bell tolled eleven times in succession. Apart from a string of gas lamps sporadically illuminating the sidewalks with halos of ocher light, the majority of brick and brownstone apartments appeared bleak. One residence on the street’s western half, however, harnessed enough animation to enliven the whole lot. I approached this façade with a good sense that a joyous occasion had prompted a gathering of friends and relatives. A copper plate affixed to the residence’s letterbox identified this destination as the Morkans’ home.
After some consideration, I determined that I had arrived in Dublin during the Feast of Epiphany. This event, marking the end of the Christmas season, seemed well underway. Although I needlessly patted my pockets in search of a tangible invite to this celebration, it seemed fairly obvious that I was predestined to mingle among this hodgepodge of Irish guests. From a porch’s stoop I distinguished a melody often loaned to a waltz; dancing silhouettes projected through the home’s second-story windows and mixed cohesively within the snowfall flittering along the walkway. In spite of my seemingly impervious tolerance to the night’s frigidness, I rang the door’s bell with an eagerness of attending this party from the reverse side of the chilled air.
It took longer than I anticipated for the door to swing open. A young maid with straw-colored hair, apparently frazzled from the evening’s pace, gazed at me as if she was leafing through an annual’s pages in quest of a name to match my features. The hostess’s smile gradually shortened as her perplexity deepened. Her search had reaped no palpable result. But this was the type of festivity where a strange guest or two would have likely shown up unexpectedly. After an awkward exchange of glances, where she undoubtedly mocked my attire in mute disapproval, I watched her otherwise colorless cheeks flush with a tinge of ruddiness.
“Good evening to you, sir,” she said. “You must be one of Mary Jane’s former students. Welcome.”
If such an agreement pleased her well enough to usher me inside, so be it. I nodded my chin chivalrously, and brushed a fringe of snowflakes from my hair. She winced again at the informality of my clothing before stepping to threshold’s left side. I couldn’t deny that in comparison to the others I was woefully underdressed for this convivial occasion. But the hostess, being a naïve girl, was easily appeased by my excuse.
“Forgive my appearance,” I said. “This wonderful event almost slipped my mind, but I’m glad to see that I haven’t arrived too late to enjoy what’s left of it.” Until now, the young maid’s name eluded my memory, but I remembered it in the midst of my explanation. “You don’t know me at all, do you, Lily?”
“I can’t say that I rightly do, sir.”
“It’s as you already guessed. I once studied piano with Mary Jane.”
“Welcome,” she said, but more reservedly than before. She then extended her fingertips, which I clasped gently in my palm. “And what is your name, sir?”
“My name,” I said, scarcely above a whisper, “is Corbin Cobbs.”
My surname, of course, elicited another blank expression from this young lady, but a blustery wind pervading through the doorway prompted her to extend her cordiality to me. I walked into a dimly light pantry, where the guests’ winter garb hung on racks at the hallway’s far end. Lily almost asked to relieve me of my coat before she realized that I wasn’t wearing one. Even though such cold weather was unusual for Ireland’s version of winter, my lack of sensibility caused her chalky complexion to change even whiter than the snowfall.
But as fate would have it, Lily’s list of chores was inestimable on this occasion, which left her limited time to scrutinize my rather ambiguous introduction. Before I attempted to say another word, an elderly woman with auburn hair summoned Lily upstairs. After ascending a staircase, I eventually meandered among the Morkans’ guests, but I didn’t blend with these socialites as seamlessly as I might’ve wished. They were all assuming their pompous roles as high-minded figures, but I sensed a vagueness stirring within their eyes like a dusty updraft. None of this detail seemed terribly distracting since they—as counterfeit people often do—whispered quirky opinions of my disposition rather than attempting to find out my true nature.
Eventually, I settled my eyes upon a member in the crowd who appeared almost as out of place as I did during the procession of an Irish jig. He leaned languidly against a plaster wall, shifting his hands from his tailored suit coat to his pant’s pockets as if he had misplaced something of importance. He combed his dark hair back from his pasty forehead, revealing a slightly furrowed brow. The rimmed glasses he wore shielded his boredom from those who watched too closely. Judging by these few observations, I assumed this man was Gabriel Conroy. Perhaps I had conveniently found the purpose to this particular journey.
I prepared to converse with Gabriel as soon as the encompassing crowd dispersed, but another gentleman with an irregular gait rudely nudged me with his elbow as our paths intersected in the parlor. Apparently, he had consumed an ample portion of spirits for this evening. The gaunt fellow teetered along the floorboards with two glasses held precariously in front of his extended arms. He already spilled half the contents of one drink over his shirt’s cuffs before bumping into me. In this case an introduction wasn’t required. I’m certain everyone in company realized that Freddy Malins had no intention of curtailing his drinking habit; his inebriation was almost as traditional as the event itself.
The party’s source of comic relief hobbled close enough to my nose that I smelled vodka mixing with a citrus scent on his breath. “When it comes to epipha—neees,” Freddy slurred, “I say let the fine lassies dance as they might dare. It brings the eyes a great degree of pleasure, don’t you think?”
“So it does,” I agreed. My response was more reflexive than honest, but I didn’t want to arouse suspicions among the others. Besides, debating an alcoholic on any point was never a prudent choice. I only hoped the lemonade Freddy ignorantly ingested sobered him until I escaped to another portion of the house. Fortunately, a tenor’s song provided all the misdirection I needed. While Freddy and the guests dutifully surrounded Bartell D’Arcy, I made a stealthy retreat to an adjacent staircase in the home. Within seconds after inhaling the fragrance of Freddy’s pastime, I determined that there was only one person at this gathering who captured my interest. Her name was Gretta Conroy, and she kept herself isolated from the majority of these nostalgic imbibers for most of the night.
As I ascended the stairs treads, a lilting pitch of a woman’s voice guided my attention toward a sitting room at the corridor’s opposite end. The melody she hummed was identical to the one D’Arcy simultaneously crooned in the parlor downstairs. The woman’s song saddened me, although I couldn’t claim the tenor’s effort had the same sway on my emotions. Perhaps I had already assigned a mournful meaning to “The Lass of Aughrim.” I felt conflicted for intending to interrupt her at such a vulnerable moment because I knew what secret loomed in the crevices of her heart. But conversely, I also realized that it was impossible for me to depart this residence without first conversing with Gabriel’s wife.
Gretta hardly shifted in her stance as my shadow angled through the sitting room’s doorway. She fixated her gaze magnetically toward a window, where a soft snowfall speckled the glass and concrete sill. Strands of moonlight filtered between the silvery snowflakes, which illuminated against her ivory dress. I already knew that her thoughts had drifted to province far removed from this party’s pretenses. She must have sensed that I studied her as one previewed a well-guarded work of art. But she continued to hum the melody as if I was just another apparition in her mind.
“It’s a mesmerizing song,” I announced, hoping that she’d at least acknowledge my sentiments. Upon hearing my voice, Gretta pivoted her head slightly in my direction. Her hair shone with a brassy tin
ge in the muted light. A blanch shawl concealed the curvature of her neck and shoulders. I noticed that her fair complexion was almost as equally colorless as the gown she wore. At the moment, Gretta’s own contemplations barred an immediate response.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you, madam,” I said. “But I couldn’t help overhearing the song you were humming a few moments ago.”
My intrusion obviously startled Gretta, but trying to assign a name to my face most likely contributed to her confounded expression. She then addressed me in a voice that was almost as hushed as the falling snow.
“I don’t believe we’ve met before, sir.”
“We haven’t,” I said, confirming her suspicion. “Well, at least we haven’t met in a way that you’d accept as rational.”
Perhaps an introduction would’ve sufficed at this juncture, but I didn’t expect a sociable greeting for such a formality. Gretta continued to stare at me with a pensiveness that would’ve surely turned men like Freddy Malins away in a fit of shivers. After observing my attire, I assumed that Gretta realized I had no invitation to alleviate her concern. I then told her my name, which only served to heighten the gracelessness of my intrusion.
“Did Gabriel send for me?” she questioned.
“No.”
“Then, if I may be so bold, Mr. Cobbs, why are you here? The guests are all downstairs.”
“Yes,” I concurred, “but I’m not really one for crowds. I just came up here to clear my head, but that’s when I heard your astonishing voice.”
Gretta, of course, recognized faux patronage better than most of these partiers, and my only plausible excuse for exploring this portion of the Morkans’ residence had suddenly become as flimsy as Freddy’s equilibrium. She then relaxed her shoulders a bit, permitting the shawl to slip away from her skin momentarily. Her eyes looked as muzzy as the Bog of Allen as she attempted to coax the truth from my lips.
“Are you familiar with that song?” she inquired.
“Before Mr. D’Arcy started to entertain the company, I had only limited knowledge of it. But, as I said, I was drawn to your interpretation.”
“I’m not a tenor, Mr. Cobbs.”
“Maybe not, but there’s a sincerity in the way you sing that melody.”
Although I couldn’t be certain, I believe a single teardrop traced across Gretta’s cheekbone. I watched this saline droplet continue to slide over her jawbone and dissolve in the fabric of her shawl. She managed to face me squarely at the room’s entrance, but not without a hint of anxiety altering her posture.
“Considering the occasion, your choice of dress is very odd,” she remarked.
“I’ve been too busy traveling to fret about proper clothing, Mrs. Conroy, but I hope that doesn’t make me offensive in your eyes.”
“Then you’re not from Dublin?”
“No, madam, much farther away.”
“Not from Galway either?”
“No.”
Gretta paused longingly as if she was overcome by wanderlust. “I can almost place the accent,” she declared. “I’d say you’re an American—New York, perhaps?”
“Close enough.”
“Very curious,” Gretta pondered aloud. “I wasn’t aware that Aunt Julia or Aunt Kate were acquainted with an American man, let alone provide him with an invite to their yearly celebration.”
“Well, since we’re speaking candidly here, I feel I should tell you that I don’t have an invitation. In fact, my reason for visiting has nothing to do with this party. I think I’ve come here to talk to you.”
The trepidation returned to Gretta’s eyes before she said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why do you want to speak to me?”
I almost stuttered a response laced with flattery, but then stopped myself at the risk of sounding disingenuous. At the moment, the only reply I offered was earnest but trite.
“I really was hoping to learn from you, Mrs. Conroy.”
Gretta tittered like a schoolgirl being courted for the first time. “Learn from me?” she repeated with incredulity. “Really, Mr. Cobbs, this is all very bizarre. I wished I shared your enthusiasm for my ability to instruct anything. But I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve obviously mistaken me for someone else.”
“I know I haven’t.”
“If Irish music is your fancy, there are more qualified people here to attain it from.”
“I’m not here for the music, madam. I’m here for the memories.”
Gretta’s visage appeared pale, while this evening’s light still silhouetted her delicate figure in the doorway. Her voice was fretted with uncertainty as she continued.
“I’ve been patient with you thus far,” she murmured. “But I think it’s time for me to rejoin the others downstairs.”
“But that’s not where you truly wish to be, is it?”
“You presume too much, Mr. Cobbs.”
Even if Gretta’s last comment was true, it didn’t change the course of my intentions. “I think we can help one another,” I declared, staunchly maintaining my position in the doorway.
“You haven’t convinced me thus far,” she countered. “Now, I don’t wish for our chat to turn into a commotion. Move aside, please.”
“I’m only asking you to stay with me a couple minutes longer.”
“We’re beyond that point already, sir. I think it’s best I leave.”
“But what about ‘The Lass of Aughrim’, Mrs. Conroy?” I asked, perhaps relying too stringently upon this solitary song. “Before tonight, I’ve never heard it sung so affectionately. I can only conclude that its lyrics mean far more to you than you’ve ever confessed to anyone.”
Upon assessing my words, the remaining color in Gretta’s face became entirely depleted. She appeared baffled by my remark at first, but we both knew that I hadn’t misrepresented her emotions. It was still her duty to convince me otherwise.
“Why do you insist that this song has relevance to me?” she asked. “I can’t even recall the name of it on occasion.”
By now, Gretta’s eyes had darted away from my stare, almost as if to seek refuge from a flood of passion that she didn’t wish to unleash onto me. I sensed her perplexity more readily than before. Her lips trembled as she uttered her next question.
“Are you certain we haven’t met before?”
“Most positive.”
“Yet you talk as though you’ve designed my thoughts.”
“You may stop me when I’m wrong.”
Gretta paced across the creaking floorboards and leaned against a daybed’s wooden framework. Her head then tilted toward the window again, where fresh snow still fluttered against the icy pane. “I’m not sure exactly who you are, Mr. Cobbs, and I can’t say that I truly care. But I don’t think it’s proper of you to mock my feelings.”
“It’s not my intention to do so, Mrs. Conroy. I only wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“Pertaining to an Irish melody?”
Before answering the lady, I inhaled a sample of the room’s perfumed air, which reminded me of mints and lilacs. Gretta averted my gaze as I searched for a subtle way to convey what I knew about her past. But even with her stare cast toward the window, I detected a trace of apprehension circulating within the room’s climate.
“I don’t think I need to remind you that it’s more than just a sorrowful tune to your ears, Mrs. Conroy.”
“I’m thoroughly mystified. Are you certain you’re not from Galway?”
I shook my head compassionately, realizing that my accusation had etched into Gretta’s mind with a numbing impact. She swayed momentarily in her stance, perhaps overwhelmed by the memories reverberating through her mind. Suddenly, her demeanor improved as her thoughts stabilized.
“I demand that you stop sporting with me, Mr. Cobbs. You have me at a disadvantage, of course. I don’t even know if you’re telling me your real name.”
“My name isn’t important,” I returned. “I’ve really come to talk about Michael Furey.”
Gretta’s mouth nearly froze as she repeated the syllables of that name. I didn’t intend to startle her with this announcement, but we couldn’t proceed without touching upon this point. For a moment, the lady wavered in silence, perhaps allowing her recollections to return to the clandestine meeting place of the boy she once adored.
“How do you know about Michael?” she uttered as softly as dove’s wings on air. Another collection of teardrops sparkled in the corner of her eyes.
“If I told you how I knew of him, you’d only be more confused.”
“But I’ve never spoken his name aloud before,” she insisted.
“That will change soon,” I promised.
“Is this another prediction on your behalf?” she said rhetorically. “What kind of a man are you?”
“A curious one, that is all.”
“Michael Furey is someone I knew a long time ago,” she whispered while flicking a teardrop from her eyelash. “If you truly know the lad, what has he said about me lately?”
“We both know that Michael can’t say anything, Mrs. Conroy.”
I expected Gretta’s disdain on this matter, but I didn’t fully comprehend the level of anguish she still harbored for this boy. Obviously, this was a love lost that she had never recuperated through another man’s embrace, not even the one she married. My goal now, it seemed, was to learn why she coveted the promise of a fractured relationship. But Gretta already revealed a tinge of animosity toward me, as if she expected nefarious intentions on my part. I assured her that I planned to be as tactful as possible in regard to her feelings.
“You still haven’t explained how you know Michael,” she sobbed. “What else can you tell me about him?”
“Only that he is dead,” I replied. “Yet I think we both can agree that Michael Furey’s death didn’t mark the end of his life in your mind, Mrs. Conroy. In a way that may be even realer than before, he’s still with you. As a matter of fact, he’s never left.”
Gretta’s quietness foretold of an attachment to this boy that no words adequately expressed. The first epiphany for me this evening suddenly suspended in front of my eyes like a polished jewel. This lady, of course, owed nothing to me, and how could any impartial man fault her for assuming such an obstinate disposition while her most furtive memories were exposed by a virtual stranger?
“You have me in a rather peculiar situation, Mr. Cobbs,” she uttered. “Apparently your travels must have taken you through Galway at one time or another. I don’t understand how else you’d ever come in contact with Michael’s name.”
Gretta continued to keep her head turned toward the window, where the nervous cadence of her heartbeat drummed against my ears. I attempted to step farther into the room, perhaps to help the lady understand that she wasn’t alone in her unvoiced agony.
“So many of us spend our whole lifetimes hoping to secure the love that Michael Furey once felt for you,” I explained. “It’s not easy to let it go, even when you know you must.”
“You sound like a man who’s besotted by such notions,” she said. “Are you presently in love with a woman?”
I paused and then felt listless for not responding like an impetuous suitor. “I like to think I am,” I answered.
Gretta still spoke softly without glancing in my direction. “You don’t sound too confident with that assertion.”
“I once was.”
“What happened?”
“I…I guess it’s the same thing that occurs between most couples after they’ve been married for many years,” I stammered. “Maybe I became too comfortable with our situation.”
“Complacency divides even the most devout lovers,” Gretta concurred.
“But your case, Mrs. Conroy, is a bit different. At what point did you realize that your feelings for Gabriel weren’t as pure as what you felt for Michael?”
Gretta paced back toward the window. She kept her back to me and sighed, “It was never a premeditated choice. Besides, I suppose my husband has always been too busy honing his own reputation to fret about my petty woes.”
“Have you ever explained your concerns to Gabriel?”
The lady delayed her response again, this time by placing her palm flat against the pane of glass as if to absorb the surface’s frigidness through her bloodstream. Although Gretta’s back still faced me, I knew that her countenance still yearned for another time in her life.
“Michael never had an opportunity to love me,” she whispered. “Yet there wasn’t a moment where I believed he didn’t care more about me than himself. I suspect that a man who values his own pursuits more so than his partner’s feelings will never truly know how to love a woman.”
“Did you ever share this opinion with your husband?”
Gretta didn’t feel compelled to answer this question. Instead, she fixated her stare at the cascading snow again. After a few seconds, she made her insight audible to me.
“No man walks aimlessly through a storm and comes out on the other side of it entirely unscathed, Mr. Cobbs. Eventually, he must survey what is behind him, and what is yet to come.”
“Borrowing from your logic, madam, it’s easy to get lost in such storms without any guidance.”
Gretta’s palm slid methodically down the glass as she pondered my words. Her fingertips thawed an impression of her hand upon the window. “I’ve lived my whole life steeped in false hope,” she sighed. She then paused and trained her ear to the spirited music borne from a piano’s keys on the floor beneath us. The woman’s forced smile contradicted her sorrow in this instance.
“The party seems lively,” I remarked, calling unneeded attention to the guests’ frivolity.
“Seems indeed,” Gretta exhaled. “If you should learn one truth from this occasion, Mr. Cobbs, then let it be this: all of the merriment here is worn like a jester’s disguise.”
“Are you inferring that no one here tonight is happy?”
“Oh, I suspect they are all content to exist within the framework of such an illusion. If contrived bliss is the order of the day, then you can expect them to fill the roles obediently. I suppose most of us have forgotten what it means to be candid with ourselves. The truth is often just too cold to grasp.”
Gretta withdrew her hand from the window’s surface and pivoted toward me sharply with a painted face smeared by her teardrops. Somewhere beneath that fractured shell of powder and paint, a real woman’s desires burned ardently enough to melt the frost from the window’s sill. For this lady, the mystery of securing one’s happiness couldn’t be attained in the midst of parties. She realized that the occupants wore their artificial smiles like veils. Her moment to educate me on this point now appeared as tangible as the snow falling on the River Shannon’s icy currents.
“It doesn’t snow in Dublin often,” she said, “but I can’t imagine a more proper evening for such an anomaly. Ireland’s green fields are blanketed in white, making all the landscape appear more dead than alive.”
Perhaps Gretta’s frigidness had forecast the night’s affair better than I realized, but a glimmer of regret shined like a heated ray at her center of her eyes, momentarily dissolving a portion of her insulated agony.
“If you’re a man who hopes to be great with his lady, then you mustn’t permit your life to become mundane.” Gretta now stepped toward me, clasping her hands in attempt to absorb the coldness exuding from her fingers.
“Is there still hope for your marriage?” I asked.
The lady’s pale face seemed couched in a snowdrift. She debated my last inquiry for many seconds before offering a reply. “Where would any of us be if all hope was absent from our thoughts? But if I’m going to be forthright, it’s not always possible for a person to change.”
“What about you? Do you see yourself ever loving your husband as much as you cherished that lad from Galway?”
“I wish I had a less cynical outlook,” she sobbed. “But I’m inclined to believe that even if I had the best intentions, it would be
impossible to commit to them now.”
“Is it your contention that it’s not conceivable to love more than one man in a lifetime?”
“You may love more than once, Mr. Cobbs, but with each failing, the heart doesn’t beat as fervently as it had before. For me, more than the physical remains of Michael Furey lie buried in the churchyard. A part of my soul rests beside him.”
“Then you already know what must be done.”
“As I’m sure you do. Perhaps we’ll both have the clarity we crave before the last snowflake falls tonight.”
I now deemed it proper to leave Gretta to her ruminations. In a sudden shift of conduct, she now watched me avert her gaze as I slunk silently out of the sitting room. Even though I didn’t examine the lady’s eyes again, I knew that she probed for something hidden beneath January’s cold earth.
Festive melodies still chimed within my brain, belying the tormented tones of wistfulness that echoed throughout the parlor below. When I descended the staircase to make my way to the home’s exit, Gabriel’s eyes fixated on to mine; the hollowness of a dead man’s expression caused an instantaneous chill to creep up my spine. Maybe Gabriel Conroy and I weren’t so unmatched in our misery after all. One fact was uncontestable: the journey for both of us loomed as frigid and forlorn as the most bitter of nights in Ireland’s history.
Chapter 9
6:35 A.M.
The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs Page 8
