The Secret Journey

by James Hanley

  She had now reached page three of the letter. She suddenly sat down, turned back to page one, and exclaiming to herself, ‘What a wonderful old woman Biddy is!’ began to read aloud from the beginning. In some way all that was surprising in its contents became vivified as she read aloud, as though when her tongue gave utterance to the carefully written words upon the paper it lighted up the scene anew. ‘Somehow, I still hope it was Biddy who wrote this letter. It would be such a credit to her at her age.’ The letter was dated the eighteenth June, and addressed from number one St. Sebastian Place, Gelton. It ran as follows:

  MY DEAR BRIGID,—After the busiest week I have ever experienced in all my fifty years in this little shop—for we have had three Treats from the Parish, a visit from the Redemptorist Fathers, and I’ve been to Communion three times this week—I now find time to pen you a line. It seems to me a long time since I last wrote you, though looking at one of your own letters I find it’s only six months ago. Well, well! how the days fly. How are you, Brigid? Well, I hope. And me the same, thank God. My recovery last year should by rights have put Dr. Dunfrey out of business long ago, but he’s as busy as ever, an unusual thing at this time of the year I must say. Well, you’ll never believe half the things I’m going to tell you—but tell you I must, since neither of you queer creatures ever write to one another, and most important because of your old father. He’s very low, Brigid, very low, my dear, and that’s the best I can say for the man, and that’s why I’m writing you at such great length. D’you know come Tuesday I’ll be just fifty years in this old shop. I’ve seen four generations come into it. Think of that. And people say to me, ‘Biddy, why don’t you give it up now, at your age?’ But I’m about the same age as your father I do believe, God keep him, which is what I want to speak about, Brigid. There are so many changes since last I wrote you, that these past days I’ve been saying to myself, ‘I’d better write to Brigid about this.’ To tell you the truth many things happened. That pathetic-looking little man, Denny, has actually gone off to sea again. Can you imagine a man having such ideas in his head at that age? And the young lad swallowed the anchor, as they say here. I believe he’s not going away any more. The place has gone to the dogs. I went round there the other day, for do you know I collect in that street for the Third Order, and be praised the man wasn’t there. He’d gone. Fanny took me upstairs to see your father. He’s been abed for a week now. My heart went out to the creature. Looking at him I thought, ‘Shameful! Shameful! He’s just sat in that chair like a dummy for years. I wonder if it ever occurred to Brigid, my dear woman, to have him home again.’ They were the thoughts that came into my mind the morning I saw him. Father Moynihan was there too. I believe he goes twice a week to give your father the Sacrament. He’s as cheery as ever; says he to Fanny, ‘But, Lord, woman, the man may live to be a hundred.’ He may well think so at his age, since he’s only a young stripling himself. So there you are, Brigid. What are you going to do about him? He might snuff it any minute, God knows. And your sister is quite altered. Quite, you’d hardly know her.

  There seems to be something queer going on in that house. I don’t really know what it is. You couldn’t call it mysterious, it’s not that. Just a queer feeling you get, and Fanny always tells you she’s quite well and everything’s splendid. But, I wonder. I heard the other day that she was hand in glove with a moneylender. Think of it. But then, being what I am and where I am, well, I hear all kinds of things. Somebody came to me the other day and said, ‘I see Fanny Fury goes out to work now!’ You could have knocked me down with a feather. But I think one can disbelieve that. It’s going a bit too far. Mind you, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything. It’s a strange thing that Fanny hardly ever comes inside the chapel. That’s the great surprise. She was such a one for the chapel, you’d see her at the earliest Mass on a Sunday morning, wet or fine. I saw her myself once, but she never spoke, just hurried away as if she were afraid of me. I was sorry for her. And that old, old coat she wears, I half believe she’ll be buried in it! There’s just the two of them, too, and the old man. Maureen I never see at all, and seldom Joe Kilkey. They seem to have shut their door for good on that neighbourhood. I see Mr. Kilkey at the chapel now and again, or going to the Billiard Hall, but as for that girl, she’s like her mother. She just flits there and flits back—if she goes at all, and that I doubt. I wonder if I told you that the eldest son is getting on very well now. Of course, he’s completely turned his back on the chapel, but you know that. They don’t live in Vulcan Street now. He and that actress-looking wife he has, they live in the city, if you please. This socialism, or whatever the devil it is, has completely gone to his head. Strange happenings, strange times, Brigid. The world’s getting madder every day. Over here they’re beginning to wear what they call the hobble skirt. It’s disgraceful. I see those brazen huzzies going to the altar, and every time they kneel I get the shivers, for there’s no knowing but these awful tight skirts might burst, and who do be wanting to see their backsides in the chapel? Brigid, you’re a fortunate woman, so you are. Hid away in that old castle of yours, doing your work quietly and your duty by God and His good men. You must be very happy indeed, to see the world going round outside your window, and you all snug in that old house, able to snap your fingers at it all. Well, well! God be with the old times and the lovely times. The world is getting quite cracked about everything, and the women are a disgrace to their sex. They’re burning the King’s letters in the pillar-boxes, and I heard of one who sent a parcel of horse-muck to an M.P.

  Don’t you be minding the length of this letter, for I’ve been three days writing it, and I haven’t told all you’d like to hear. I’ll keep the choice bits until you come over, for there’s nothing I like so much as a grand old chat before the fire. Well, Brigid, you must consider the old man’s delicate state. No doubt I’ll have a line from you when you’re coming. I wonder whether you’ll be going straight to your sister or coming to me? Please let me know so as I can get ready your room.—Yours, BIDDY.

  Brigid Mangan folded up the letter, put it back in the envelope and said, ‘Well—well.’ She smiled inwardly at all this. Everything seemed to be going at a fair pace. Even her own father was helping her in her plans. ‘I should think Fanny will be glad to see the back of him—no—I mustn’t think too fast. Perhaps she may not let him go. She might even know——’ but here Miss Mangan wisely enough decided to come to a halt. She didn’t want to think about it. It was really disturbing. Her sister might be deliberately hanging on to the old man for the very same purpose for which she, Brigid, was now deciding to have the long and tedious journey. ‘The fact is, I know nothing. When I come to think of it, this infernal silence between us, as much, even more her fault than mine, may turn out to be a bigger obstacle than I thought. How can I expect her to have kept him all that time for nothing? It’s ridiculous.’ Well, there was nothing else to do but book a passage at the earliest possible moment. ‘It’s no use worrying myself like this. Heaven knows what is happening over there. The main thing, the most important thing, is to get Father back here.’

  Her optimism took a fresh leap forward, for the thought was its mainspring, and this one thought dominated her every moment: ‘Get him back first. Get him safe home.’ After all, what better place than this old house from which to work out one’s plans? It was quite simple. Her father had money somewhere—where exactly she did not yet know—that didn’t matter—there was money, and that was all that interested her at the moment. ‘I had a feeling all along that Dad had some money, either of his own or to come to him from a relative. And now I see how right I was.’ But there was no reason why she should not get this. After all, she kept telling herself, Fanny had had him nine years or more. She’d had his pension all the time, and heaven knows what else. What had she herself had? Nothing. A small income from her mother, eked out by what she earned with her fingers. Fanny had a family—all grown up. She, at least, had something behind her. ‘But what have I?’ thought Brigid. ‘
No! I think it is my due, and only my due.’

  There seemed only one obstacle left. Fanny. Would she let the old man go? She was such an erratic creature. But after all, she could be made to see reason. ‘I shall take the night boat,’ Brigid said to herself.

  She went upstairs, took some clothes from the dressing-table drawer, flung them on the bed, and sat down. ‘I had better make up my mind,’ she kept saying under her breath. Should she write to her sister? She dallied with the idea while she rummaged in the drawers for stockings. Then she took a hat from the wardrobe and crossed to the window to inspect it. It was a green straw hat, with a black velvet ribbon round the crown, its ends clasped together by a large silver brooch. She looked carefully at this hat, and decided it was the one to wear. She took a pair of buttoned boots, three pairs of stockings, two night-gowns, four blouses and two pairs of gloves from the heap of articles on the bed, and threw them in a heap into the bandbox. Then she sat down again. ‘I had better write to her.’

  She went down to the kitchen, and taking pen and paper, sat down and wrote a letter to Fanny Fury. It was the first letter she had written for many months. Now, with pen in hand and clean paper before her, it was only a matter of putting her thoughts to paper. But somehow it wasn’t as easy as she had supposed. It must be more than an ordinary letter that was to break such a long silence. She kept drumming on the paper with the end of her pen. ‘My dear Fanny,’ she began. Now she had begun, how easily the words came. And in a few minutes the letter was written.

  Miss Mangan, with a final grand flourish of the pen, felt she had done much better than she had ever dreamed. At least, Fanny could never say she had not been fair, most fair, in this matter of their father. ‘And now I must post this before the five o’clock collection.’ She smiled broadly as she folded up the letter, placed it in the envelope, and sealed it. ‘That’s that,’ she announced in a loud voice, and the tortoise-shell cat jumped upon the table, and almost upset the ink-pot as it purred at her elbow. ‘Tibby, Tibby, Tibby,’ cried Miss Mangan, and rubbed the cat’s nose against her face. ‘To-morrow Miss Hegarty will have to give you your breakfast, and your dinner, and put you to bed. I am going on a long, long journey, Tibby.’ She crushed the cat in her arms, it gave a short and most feline squeak, and escaped, whereupon it hid itself under the couch.

  Promptly at nine o’clock on this June evening, Brigid Mangan, completely dressed for the journey to Gelton, answered the ring at the door and let Miss Hegarty in. Miss Hegarty was tall and bony. Looking at her, one at first thought her to be a man. She certainly looked most aggressively masculine, for of femininity there was not a trace. She had a hard voice, which seemed to suit a person of her make-up very well. She addressed one with what might be termed the barrack-square tone of voice. It had a ring in it, a rather frightening ring, so Miss Mangan thought.

  ‘Well, Brigid,’ said this tall lady, ‘so you’re off. Where is the cat?’ and her eyes searched the room.

  Miss Mangan called, ‘Tibby! Tibby!’ and after a while the cat appeared in the doorway, shot a glance at Miss Hegarty, and then hastily withdrew. Miss Mangan again called it. It came slowly up to her. ‘Now, Miss Hegarty,’ said Miss Mangan, ‘look after her well, won’t you?’ And with some misgiving she handed the cat to the woman; Tibby usually went to live at the priest’s house. This departure for Miss Hegarty’s house was something quite revolutionary in the life of the tortoise-shell cat.

  A quarter of an hour later, Brigid Mangan, whose dress and figure were nothing less than resplendent, closed the door of her house and set out on her journey to Gelton. Exactly thirteen months to the day since she had journeyed thence, and under circumstances which, though less adventurous, were at least abnormal enough to be called exciting. These breaks with her ordered world always seemed to upset Miss Mangan’s balance. She carried a yellow bandbox and a black bag. An obliging porter met her and relieved her of both. This had been arranged. She then caught a tram to the Pier. As the tram rattled along, she looked out through the windows but could see nothing save the lights of the ships, and somehow, passing them now on this first stage of her journey, their brilliant lights appeared to give off an added warmth, a sort of assurance, to the buxom lady who looked down from the top deck, that time wouldn’t be long passing, and that soon they would flare as brilliantly to welcome her home. If Miss Mangan had felt excited, agitated, fearful, suspicious, and once even utterly hopeless, she did not feel so now. With the journey begun, everything took on an aspect of order, and a definite purpose replaced that which had seemed aimless, without promise of success. Occasionally, and this could not be helped, she had qualms, but in a moment she could dismiss these by the thought, and what a glorious thought it was, that she had actually begun. She was on her way at last. Everything seemed to be working out as she had planned. There was one flaw, however, and she thought of it now. Supposing, by some means or other, her sister heard of this money? Would Mr. O’Toole have written to her? ‘I’d best not think about the matter,’ she told herself, ‘I’ll only end up by upsetting myself.’ No! She must wipe that possibility from her mind. ‘After all, the main thing is Father.’

  Thus comfortably settled in her mind, she sat back in her seat and lazily contemplated the advertisement for Pears’ Soap which hung in front of her. She got off the tram a few minutes later and made her way to the ship. Only when she beheld the ship did she realize, with a pang, the arduousness of the journey. Miss Mangan loathed the sea. Having shown her ticket, she descended the gangway, at the head of which the porter was already waiting with her luggage. The air was full of a warm and sordid smell. They were loading cattle for the lairage at Birkenhead. It was against the cries and bellows of the beasts, that seemed to overwhelm the ship, that Brigid Mangan three times raised her voice in an endeavour to inform the porter, who now leaned lazily on the bulkhead, that he must bring the luggage to her cabin. And after some two minutes of frantic shouting into his ear, the porter picked up the luggage and followed the stout lady along the deck. Miss Mangan stepped between boxes and bags, delicately manœuvring her weight over ropes, wires, and hatch covers, where the concord of sound rose from the holds as the terrified and bewildered animals were driven below.

  At last she reached her cabin. ‘Put them on the settee, please,’ she said, almost out of breath after her exertions.

  ‘Yes, mam.’ The porter seemed to have regained his hearing, whilst his eyes, that watered freely, focussed themselves on Miss Mangan’s black bag.

  The lady took a shilling from her bag and handed it to him. ‘There you are,’ she said, ‘thank you very much,’ and watched the astonished porter finger the coin as he exclaimed, ‘Have you iron in that bandbox, mam?’ and with a scowl, and not even waiting to hear the lady’s reply, stamped his way out of the cabin.

  Miss Mangan shut the door and sat down. ‘The noise,’ she said, ‘the awful noise. Those poor beasts!’

  Whilst still in the middle of regaining her breath, the door opened, and the stewardess, after examining her ticket, asked if she required anything, for her experienced eye told her at once that here was a lady whom the voyage might very well upset, and therefore attendance upon Miss Mangan seemed a vital necessity.

  ‘Will you bring me a tot of brandy in some hot milk, please?’ said Miss Mangan.

  ‘Yes, mam,’ replied the stewardess, and hurried away.

  Brigid Mangan lifted the bandbox from the settee and pushed it under the bunk. She took off her hat and placed it in the empty top bunk. She still hoped—though she made no enquiries—she still hoped that she would have the cabin to herself. In any case she had managed the bottom bunk, and that was a relief. To have to climb into a top bunk—it was just unthinkable. She was telling herself, with continuous sighs of relief and satisfaction, that she had been wise to travel saloon. No fuss, no crowding, no loss of dignity, and, best of all, she had only to fall into this bunk and lie there. In the steerage! that would have been quite impossible. The stewardess returned with
the hot milk and brandy.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Mangan, who was at that moment taking off her shoes.

  ‘There’s a bell behind your head should you want me,’ indicated the stewardess as she turned the knob of the door. ‘Good-night, mam.’

  ‘Good-night,’ replied Miss Mangan.

  She locked the door, and at once began to undress. Miss Mangan was determined on one thing, to be snug in her bunk before the ship left the quay. All she wanted to do was to fall fast asleep, a long and deep sleep, helped on by the brandy and milk, and to wake up only when the ship was beginning to tie up at the quay in Gelton.

  She undressed only to the essentials, put on her dressing-gown, and slipped into the bunk. She wrapped the gown round her feet, covered herself with the clothes, and then reached out for the hot milk and brandy. She sipped this with an air of comfortable satisfaction. She looked to the bell, and to the light switch. She felt warm and snug, and very pleased with herself. She thought that there was nothing like money, for one could have every possible comfort with it, and when she put down the glass, conscious of that pleasurable inner glow that hot milk and brandy gives to the body, she did not forget, as she said her night prayer, to thank God for her comfort, and for her ability to be able to travel saloon.

  ‘I am glad I came saloon,’ she thought. She blessed herself, blew out the light, and having made herself thoroughly comfortable, gave herself up to pleasurable thoughts.

  ‘I must write to Mr. O’Toole as soon as I reach Gelton,’ she was thinking. ‘I should have done it before.’ Then she thought of her sister. No doubt she would arrive in Gelton the same time as the letter. Well, at least Fanny could never say she, Brigid, had not warned her. ‘And I wonder—I wonder, if that old woman will really meet me as she says? I very much doubt it, for Biddy is far from being the woman she was, though her handwriting is a credit to her. I wonder what Father looks like now? Poor Dad.’