“Of course you can’t, Luke.” She took my arm again. “But —you see—I don’t know how I could manage.”
This weakening of principle made me hope.
“Couldn’t you get down early in the morning, and take the letter out of the letterbox?”
“But Father would hear me go down.” She was thinking hard, talking to herself. “I might go down when he was in the bathroom.”
“Look—we needn’t post the letters at all. We could leave them somewhere. I’d leave mine there, and you’d put your answer in the same place.”
“Oh, Luke—could we? But where?”
“We’ll find a place easily enough; if you will write.”
Her face clouded once again.
“He’d see me writing them.”
“Write them after you go to bed.”
“He’d see my candle under the door.”
It was no use; she wouldn’t promise. The most I could get out of her was that she would think about it. But I had, by instinct or by luck, hit on the right appeal. The notion that I was forlorn and lonely, and that she could do me good, was the one thing that could prevail with her. Perhaps, too, as she was becoming aware of herself, there was the dawn of rebellion against the loving tyranny of her parents. I am sure she would have been shocked to hear it put in these words. A sense of romance, the thrill of a hidden correspondence—that may have been there too, but I don’t think, again, that she would recognise it as such. Muriel had the normal instincts of a grown girl, which no suppression could stifle. All that her parents did was to make her unaware of them.
At any rate, within a fortnight of our walk we began to exchange letters. They were long letters, very long, and packed from end to end with abstractions. We discussed everything. I sat up till all hours, writing sheet after sheet, pouring out all my immature ideas, and finding heaven in their release. There was in me a great share of idealism, which my knowledge of the seamy side of life had only strengthened. It had to be suppressed in the Doctor’s company; I learned that very early, since he fell mercilessly on my first tentative essays to give it an airing. Uncle John never ridiculed me, but when, once or twice, I let him see my feelings and beliefs, the well known look of blankness descended upon his face, and he hastened piously to agree in tones that showed he had not the faintest notion what I was talking about. Any pious platitude would nowadays command Uncle John’s agreement.
“Oh, bedad,” he would say solemnly, “that’s the truth, son. That’s the truth.”
But his eye would be expressionless, and his mind far away.
So Muriel and I wrote our letters, posting them behind a loose board in the paling at the bottom of the Travers back garden. The winter evenings favoured us, as I could pass unobserved up the lane at the back, and Muriel had four or five bantams to feed at six o’clock, so that no suspicious questions could be asked why she was out in the garden at such a damp unseasonable hour. Her letters were short at first, and’ rather stiff and reserved, but soon she was writing at even greater length than I. The letters were a release for her too, and more than her ideas bubbled up in them. She began to show a more and more active interest in my welfare, to try to mould me, and once or twice she took me to task for something I had said.
“I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw what you had written,” she wrote. “Surely you must have said it for effect, and to be clever. I don’t know you when you say such things. That is not my Luke.”
I was almost offended at the suggestion that I had professed an opinion for effect, but the implication in the statement that it was not her Luke who had written was so sweet to me that I felt faint with pleasure every time I thought of it, for several days.
All this time I was going regularly to the house. Mr. Travers had decided that he liked me, and treated me with a jovial condescension. He made puns about my name, he pretended that I had an abnormally big appetite, he called me Muriel’s squire, he even sent us out for a walk together.
This so surprised me that I remarked on it to Muriel. She made a little grimace.
“It’s not because of you,” she said. “It’s because of Mr. O’Hara.”
“Who is he?”
“He comes to see us sometimes.”
Her colour had deepened, and she was not looking at me.
“You mean,” I said, “he wants to marry you.”
“Goodness, Luke, what things you say!” She was badly flustered. “I—I mean—I don’t know what he wants. But Father has ideas about him.”
I was persistent. “Your father thinks he is after you?”
“He hasn’t said so. Do you mind if we change the subject?”
I was snubbed, I felt it. However, she relented soon, and I was emboldened to ask her a thing that had been worrying me for a long time.
“That chap you were with when I met you first.” Somehow, I could not bring myself to utter his name.
“You mean Claude? What about him?”
“Is he—does he—I mean—— You’re not going to marry him, are you?”
“Marry Claude?” She stopped and stared at me. “What an idea!”
“Well,” I said, feeling a fool, “he’s always about the place.” “Silly Luke!” She took my arm. “Claude’s my cousin. I’ve known him all my life.” “He’s fond of you,” I said.
“Silly! I’m fond of him—in a sort of way.” She looked at me. “I do believe you’re jealous.”
I wasn’t to be laughed out of it.
“I should be,” I said stoutly, “if I thought you were going to marry him.”
“Well, I’m not.”
We walked in silence for a bit. It was dark, we were in an unfrequented road, and she kept hold of my arm.
“Luke,” she said earnestly, “I do love having you for my friend. We’ll always be friends, won’t we?”
My heart soared and sang. “Indeed we will,” I got out.
“And I love being friends with you.”
“That’s lovely.” I could see her eyes shining. “We’ll always be friends.”
And we shook hands on it, solemnly, there in the road.
I was able to say something far more eloquent with my pen that night, when I sat up and poured forth page after page of impassioned yet abstract devotion. Even* Mr. Travers, had he come upon the letter, could hardly have taken offence at its terms. It would have confirmed his picture of me as a mere boy gazing in admiration at an older girl whose interest in him was motherly and platonic. Within the narrow limits of his approval, Mr. Travers was human and kindly. At this distance, I am beginning to form a clear understanding of that tormented and extraordinary man. But, for the moment, all was well. Bar an occasional outburst of severity, the violent prohibition of something which seemed totally harmless, and a tendency to frown suddenly and savagely upon Muriel or Mrs. Travers, he remained in such good humour, and behaved towards me so favourably, that, while I kept a wholesome respect, I gradually ceased to be afraid of him.
He did not find out about our letters. The correspondence increased steadily both in volume and frequency. By March, we were writing to each other three or four times a week. The composition of these lengthy letters took up all my leisure, and I hardly saw my old companions at all. I did not miss them. I was deep in a new world, a world to which, with all their virtues, they had no key.
But reality is not to be kept off for long, and one day the old world came back with a shock. Muriel and I were walking along, deep in conversation, somewhere off the Dartry Road. We came to a large-sized house, standing in its own grounds. Evidently there had been some kind of a sale, for the gate was wide open, and conveyances were going away, laden with odds and ends. As we reached the gate, who should step out, talking loudly to another man, but Uncle John. He laughed, wiped his moustache, and was about to bid his friend good-bye, when he saw us.
Uncle John’s face at sight of me took on its familiar blank look: then the blankness was succeeded by an expression of devastating intelligence. T
he pupils of his eyes went small. He came forward, smiled, raised his hat, and gave Muriel a magnificent bow.
“Well, Luke. This is a pleasure.”
“This is Miss Travers.” I realised I had blundered, pulled myself together, and said, “Miss Travers—may I introduce my Uncle John.”
“How do you do?”
Uncle John was dusty, none too clean, and had obviously been partaking freely of porter, but there was no getting away from his charm and the genuine warmth of his greeting. He treated Muriel as a privileged and elder courtier might treat his queen. I had seen him with a number of girls and women, and he charmed them all: but I never had to acknowledge his charm as, all unwillingly, I acknowledged it then.
His wits were all about him, too.
“’Pon my soul, Miss Travers, I’m ashamed to meet you like this. You see me in my working clothes, after a hard day’s work. If I’d known I was going to be so fortunate, I’d have had a wash. Ah well. Sure we can’t always choose our occasions. Maybe it’s as well. Maybe it’s as well. You’ll excuse me, I’m sure.”
Muriel was fluttered. The introduction had been a shock to her: I could see that, though she gave no outward sign: but she succumbed at once to Uncle John’s gallantry. He stood there for perhaps three or four minutes, charmed her, warmed her, made her smile, then laugh outright; then he effected to come to himself, and apologised for keeping her standing there in the cold, listening to an old fella blathering. It was masterly. Confused and embarrassed though I was, it left me gasping.
Muriel was silent and thoughtful on the way home. I kept looking sideways at her, wondering what I could say, and wisely decided to say nothing. When we got in, she made no reference to the incident, but towards the end of tea had a sudden access of vivacity, and was twice rebuked by Mr. Travers for speaking and laughing too loud.
I knew after this encounter that Uncle John would be anxious to meet me, and kept away from his haunts, even forbearing for three or four days to visit the chop house where I ate at his expense. But hunger drove me there at last, and, towards the end of my meal, he came in, looked around, spied me, and sat down.
For a while we talked of other things, but I knew it was coming, and steeled myself to bear his pleasantries. I had heard him too often not to know what to expect. But I was wholly unprepared for what he did say.
“Luke.” He had been picking his teeth, and now put his toothpick away.
“Yes, Uncle John?”
“That girl I saw you with. Look, son, I’m never one to interfere in another person’s business, you know that. But you want to be very careful there.”
My heart beat fast. “What do you mean, Uncle John?”
“You want to watch your step. I’ve seen too many of them. I know the kind. That one would rape you on the way to the Bible Class.”
I was dumbfounded by this aspersion. Then I was seized by a cold rage. That Uncle John should dare to use such coarse abominable words of the object of my reverent devotion, of Muriel, was so unthought of, so fantastic, I could not believe it. I drew myself together, I gazed at him, for the first and only time in my life, with real dislike. I can’t remember what else he said. He saw he had offended me, and soon got up to go. I was polite to him, polite and withdrawn. I sat there for a long time, my mind running races with itself, and the longer I thought of what he said, the more my anger against him grew. It grew the stronger because all the time, in some deep core of intuitive knowledge, his words had struck home. I did not for a fraction of an instant believe them: but the contrast, the colour and vigour of his speech, which I had half forgotten, made me feel as if I had been awakened in the midst of a dream.
How oddly the human mind works. How naively we put ourselves right with ourselves. I wrote a long letter to Muriel that night, extolling Uncle John, telling her of his heart of gold, of his difficulties, his early poverty, the fight he had had to establish himself. I made a wonderful story of it all, a good deal more wonderful than the fact. To read it, you’d have thought Uncle John was Sir Galahad handicapped by the misfortune of being brought up in Guffe Street. But by the time I’d finished I believed it, and it did its work handsomely. Muriel wrote back in lyrical terms. I had done more good to her than to myself, for I had turned her susceptibility to his charms into a virtue. She could now be sure that she had liked him so much because she had divined the heart of gold under the dusty jacket and the thumbed white waistcoat.
Still, the barb remained, stuck deep in my own inner disquiet, and it was a long time before I forgave Uncle John.
Then April came, and brought the day that shaped my whole life: April the eighth, my day of destiny. The day had been tiring, I was kept later than usual at the office, but I bore all with a kind of grim humour, for in the evening I was to visit our secret posting place and find a letter. However wearisome the day, however long the delays, the escape would come if one only waited for it. I learned that very early in life, and in consequence I have never suffered that grinding loss of nervous energy which those unfortunates feel who chafe and cannot reconcile themselves to delays. So I was neither exhausted nor exacerbated when I got out at last and made my way out to Rathmines. This I did deviously, since I had no excuse to go so far, and was anxious therefore not to meet anyone who might know me or know the Travers, and possibly comment to them upon having seen me in the neighbourhood. Accordingly I had planned out several most improbable itineraries, all of which avoided the roads used by Mr. Travers or his friends, and I used them in rotation.
It was a dark night. I had to wait in the shadows for a few minutes, because a policeman was standing under the lamp at the corner, and I feared he might suspect I was trying to break in if he saw me fiddling and groping at the fence. But it was only a few minutes more to wait—and, in any case, I was not to open the letter till I got up to my room. I had a ritual for those occasions, and never broke it. My letter was there—but it felt much thinner than usual. A sick pang of misgiving ran through me, and, as I hurried home, all sorts of fears played hopscotch in my brain. Maybe Muriel had heard what Uncle John had said about her. Fool, I said to myself—how could she? Very well: maybe she had decided, after seeing Uncle John, that she couldn’t have any more to do with me. Nonsense, retorted I: you have the letter she wrote about him. Maybe Mr. Travers had found out something about him. Maybe someone had overheard Uncle John in the chop house, and had reported to Mr. Travers what he had said. Not at all, not at all, I replied. Her name was never mentioned. But was it? I racked my memory, trying to be sure, going hot and cold. I bumped into a man at a corner, and he cursed at me. I hardly heeded him.
Half an hour later I was sitting, staring for the tenth time at words so amazing, so staggering, that they alternately robbed me of all physical feeling, and turned my body into a tornado. These were the words:
“My DEAREST LUKE,
“This is the last letter I shall ever write to you, and I must never see you again. It is all my fault, and my fault only. We made a pledge that we should always be friends. I have broken the pledge. What I feel for you is not friendship any longer. Oh, Luke, I love you, I love you, and so we mustn’t meet or write to each other any more.
“I am heartbroken and oh, so unhappy. Dear Luke, please do not be too angry with me. It is I who will feel the loss, far more than you. Thank you a thousand times for the dear gift of your friendship and all the happiness it has brought me. Do not think worse of me than you can help, and try to forgive
“Your always loving and heartbroken
“MURIEL.”
I sat and stared at this letter for a long time. Muriel’s writing was round, regular, and childish, with a very occasional flourish on a capital letter. Here, though regular as ever, it was blotchy and stained with tears. My feelings were in chaos, but I remember clearly that ignoble relief we feel when our hand is forced, that glad abdication from responsibility. My duty and my inclination rushed together down a steep place: and if a small voice cried caution, it was unnoticed as a
bird on the hillside of that swift descent. In less than half an hour of my first reading of the letter, I was replying to it.
“My DEAREST MURIEL,
“But I love you too. I have broken the pledge far worse than you, for I have loved you all the time. It is nonsense to say we mustn’t meet or write any more. We must do both, more than ever, until we never need to write again, because we shall be with each other all the time.
“Your adoring
“LUKE.”
I read this over once, sealed it up with a desperate finality, and rushed straight off to the posting place. I came back through the long streets, exalted, seeing some things clearly. The voices of caution cried; there was now, so to speak, a small choir of them; but I silenced them in elation and contempt. Now, after so much drifting about, after being knocked by circumstance from here to there and back again, I was set on a clear course. I was beckoned and drawn in to that world which fortune had so magically reserved to me. Providence, in its infinite resource, had chosen for me what was best. I was going to be allowed, nay, compelled, to live up to the inspiration, the vision. God had picked me out of the Fishbank and planted me in Rathmines.
I was not, of course, in love with Muriel: but, not knowing what love meant (though a small voice told me I was capable of something far greater than this) I honestly thought I was. No actual experience told me there was more to feel. I was devoted to Muriel, I looked up to her, I admired her, I loved looking at her: but I did not love her, and in any case I was not ready. I was quite content for things to go on as they were, and no idea of changing them had as yet entered my head. Now that it had been put there, it created an extraordinary turmoil. The idea that Muriel loved me, while it pulled her down from her pedestal, was a flattery beyond anything I had ever dreamed. And the thought of loving her, of possessing her, brought all the unknown forces of the world pouring on me in a cataract. My feelings, as I lay in bed that night, were a river in flood. But the dominant feeling was relief. Sex, which I had feared as sin, was to be mine, and mine through no action on my part. I couldn’t be held responsible. Providence was thrusting all upon me.
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