Such Is My Beloved

by Morley Callaghan

  On this first Friday of the month, when there was such a surprising amount of warm sunlight, people who went into the darkened church for a short visit blinked their eyes, kneeling, and did not see Father Dowling over to the left by the window. He was praying and contemplating the Blessed Sacrament. There was so much fervent earnestness in the way his hands were clasped and the way his head was bent and motionless, that he seemed to have become a part of the bench. No other priest spent so much time alone in the church on these Friday adorations as did Father Dowling. While a streak of sunlight filtered through the blue stained-glass window and shone on the back of his neck, he was meditating on love, on human love, divine love, and the love of man for God. Then he began to think of Ronnie and Midge, feeling that his love for them was growing, so that he might try and love them in his way as God must love everybody in the world. It seemed to him also that the more he could understand, love and help these girls, the closer he would be to understanding and loving God. So he made up his mind to be very patient, never to be angry if he was not immediately successful with them, and to see, if possible, that they were never in want. These thoughts filled him with hope.

  As he left the church he decided to call that afternoon on Mr. James Robison, a wealthy lawyer, who had always been so willing to assist the priests in their charitable work, and ask him if he could get work for the girls.

  So Father Dowling walked over to the lawyer’s office, smiling, ruddy-faced, bowing to people he had never seen in his life before. He was looking forward eagerly to talking with Mr. Robison, because the lawyer was usually approached by Father Anglin when some favor was expected of him. Every time the young priest saw Mr. and Mrs. Robison coming out of the Cathedral on Sunday he felt a little glow of pride, knowing that no finer, more aristocratic, more devout people were coming out of church doors anywhere in the city. There had been a few occasions, too, when Mrs. Robison had invited Father Dowling to their home on an evening for a game of bridge and, of course, he was always there when she permitted her home to be used for a tea for charity. Father Dowling often hoped the Robisons would not move out of the parish because he knew people in the neighborhood were in the habit of jeering and saying that all Catholics were poor, unsuccessful in business and socially unimportant. But they could never say that about the Robisons. Mr. Robison, a big, handsome, white-haired fellow with a florid face, was one of the few men in the city who, on formal occasions, wore an opera cloak with a white silk lining. Father Dowling had seen him wearing this cloak with a high silk hat and silver-headed cane one night at a reception at the Bishop’s palace. And besides, as a corporation lawyer, Mr. Robison knew the directors of the big trust companies, the bankers and politicians and the chief of police. He was a lawyer, and it was true there were many other lawyers, but he used to say often that he would never soil his hands by appearing in the police courts or having contact with the criminal element. He was a patron of music and he appeared with the socially prominent people of all denominations at the best concerts. He had perhaps only one weakness: if he gave a large amount to charity he expected his name to be put at the head of the list in the newspapers, but, after all, he was entitled to this primacy of position; the only doubtful consideration was whether he ought to insist upon knowing what other people were giving. But aside from these matters, when Father Dowling saw the lawyer and his two fine daughters come out of church after the eleven o’clock mass on Sundays and get into their car, while the liveried chauffeur held the door open and the poor people stood on the sidewalk with their mouths open, he rejoiced and wondered, for it seemed truly remarkable that a wealthy man could be such a Christian.

  In the lawyer’s office on the twentieth floor of an office tower, Father Dowling waited, sitting up straight, holding his black hat in both hands. The only thought worrying him was that Mr. Robison might have been displeased by some of his sermons attacking the materialism of the bourgeois world. There must have been some displeasure in the Robison home, Father Dowling knew, because for the last two weeks he had not been invited there in the evening for a cup of coffee and a game of bridge. Mrs. Robison had always pretended to admire his skill at cards.

  But the lawyer this afternoon received him very heartily. “Come in, come in, Father,” he shouted as soon as the office door was opened. “Sit right down. One moment. Here, have a cigar. Now, Father, what is it?”

  Father Dowling, beaming and holding the cigar with great tenderness, said, “Beautiful weather out, simply wonderful. I’ve come to ask you a favor. Ah, Mr. Robison, we always seem to be asking favors of you. We’re mendicants of the worst kind. Poor begging friars.”

  “That’s quite all right. I’m the man to come to. I’d be disappointed if you went to any one else. How is Father Anglin’s cold?”

  “Much better. The bottle of whiskey you sent him was a great help.”

  “I hope you managed to get a nip?”

  “Just a nip.”

  Father Dowling smiled warmly, thinking, “He’s really a splendid Christian.” His slight timidity left him. Clearing his throat, he leaned forward and said eagerly, “This is a simple matter, Mr. Robison. I’ll put it very briefly. There are two girls in our parish in pretty desperate circumstances. They need work. I promised to get jobs for them. God knows what will happen if they don’t get work.” He was leaning forward over the desk, his blue eyes shining with sincerity and a conviction that he would not be denied. He looked very handsome. But Mr. Robison, regarding him with a blank expression and a complete lack of enthusiasm, tried to draw away by leaning further back in his chair and putting the tips of his fingers together, shutting Father Dowling out. “Does the man think I’m an employment agency in times like these, with the legal business on rock bottom, so many men out of work and half the city on civic relief?” he thought. Shaking his head sorrowfully, he said, “Ah, Father, these are difficult times for us all. I’d like to help you. I’ll try to help you as a matter of fact. But if you must know the truth, I’m cutting my own staff. However, do I know the girls?”

  “I don’t think you do. I’m sure you don’t.”

  “Old families in the parish, perhaps?”

  “No, they are not well known. You might not know their names.”

  “Still, you’d give them a good recommendation, I suppose.”

  “I’m sure they’d be willing to work hard,” Father Dowling said.

  “It’s a pity things are like this in these times. Many unfortunate people, even our own co-religionists, must suffer. The whole city is suffering. Men like myself must do all we can to keep the people contented and we’re doing so. I don’t mind saying, Father, that I can’t agree with your social and political philosophy expressed in some of your sermons, but still, still…”

  “You don’t think you know any one who’d have work for the girls?” Father Dowling said so brokenly that the lawyer was startled.

  “Say, it’s not any relative of your own, is it, Father?” he said with more interest.

  “No. Just two souls in our parish.”

  “Old friends of yours, maybe?”

  “No, I haven’t known them very long.”

  “I understand. I’ll make a note of it. But I have next to no hope. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll speak to my wife and ask her if she knows anybody who might want a couple of domestics. So don’t worry, Father. It’s mighty good of you to be taking such an interest in these people. Keep on with the good work. I admire your enthusiasm and energy.”

  Looking very upset, the young priest got up, his face beginning to flush with indignation. The lawyer was talking to him as though he were a child, a man so cloistered from life that he could not be expected to understand an economic depression, or the suffering of a city or a whole people– a cloistered young man, respected only because he was a priest. Father Dowling shook hands gravely with the lawyer, asked to be remembered respectfully to Mrs. Robison, and went out with his face burning.

  As he walked along the crowded stree
ts, with the women carrying parcels coming out of the big stores, he looked earnestly at each one as if he had never seen such people before. So many of them were well dressed, so many had their fur coats thrown open because of the sunlight, and were showing fine silk dresses. He longed to see Ronnie and Midge coming along the street in the crowd, well clothed, with some of the independence and contentment in their faces that he saw in the faces of these women. The snow was melting near the foundations of the buildings and the steam was rising. Father Dowling, standing by a drug store, kept thinking of the two girls with their old shoes and coats and their sewn-up stockings, in the hotel room, and he felt so much tenderness for them that he began to smile softly. As he heard the swishing of rubbers on the snow, he looked up and saw a beautiful woman with a mink wrap, fur-trimmed galoshes, and a face with a delicate hot-house bloom, getting into a big green car. Indignant, he wondered why God saw fit to permit so many people to have wealth and comfort, and so many to remain poor and hungry. “I’m sick and tired of those stupid platitudes about the poor,” he thought. “A Christian is entitled to self-respect, to warmth and good clothing in any kind of decent society. Even a religious, who takes the vow of poverty in life, has everything he requires. He lacks nothing really. He has warmth and comfort and leisure. You can’t be a Christian when you’re hungry and have no place to sleep, for then you’re hardly responsible for what you do.” And the more he thought of social disorder, the more love and concern he felt for the two girls.

  For the rest of the afternoon he went to see a few of his more wealthy parishioners. The women he called on welcomed him effusively, offered him wine or tea and talked to him as though he were a lovely boy, and he sat there very gravely, his eyes wandering around the room, his thoughts far away. And the more homes he visited the more he was convinced that moral independence and economic security seemed very closely related. He kept asking every one of these indulgent and respectful women if they would try and find employment for two girls of the parish. He pleaded with them, feeling that they were not taking him seriously, as they fawned over him, pampering him. The way some young women flirted with a priest disgusted him. Sometimes they even wrote letters to him, pretending to be making all kinds of revelations, when they were really shamelessly offering themselves to him without realizing how he might be tempted and tortured.

  SIX

  Father Dowling had one young friend named Charlie Stewart, who had always been a great joy to him. He was a medical student, a thin man with a narrow face and sharp restless eyes, who had no religion, but who loved to discuss social problems. Father Dowling had met him at a meeting of a league for social reconstruction. At first Father Dowling had tried to get the young man to join the Church. In this he was not successful, so he had come to love him for his passion and the violence of his opinions. He used to irritate the young man by smiling and saying, “Ah, Charlie, you don’t realize it, but all your intuitions are Catholic.” He had dropped this kind of mockery only when Charlie began to insist he was thinking of joining the Communist party. It often puzzled Father Dowling to realize that Charlie, who had no faith and was a dreadful rationalist, had in many ways become his best friend. Of course, few people ever understood the terrible loneliness of a young parish priest, the dreadful necessity for him to have one friend to whose house he could go when he was tired and discouraged and take off his collar, stretch his legs, and relax and laugh like a human being. So many of the people who talked to the young priest with such stiff politeness would have been ill at ease if they could have seen him laughing, without his collar on. They preferred to leave him alone or treat him with distant respect.

  As Father Dowling went along the street with his hat on the back of his head at a ridiculous angle, he was thinking it was only the grace of God that had given him such a friend as Charlie Stewart. Night after night, sometimes till two o’clock in the morning, over many cups of coffee or a little beer, they had had fierce political arguments and gruelling philosophical discussions: they had talked of Karl Marx and the guilds of mediaeval times; they had spoken passionately about “beauty” in the abstract, and the general progress of the race toward the city of God. Father Dowling had got many themes for sermons out of these discussions.

  Charlie Stewart’s apartment was in a building overlooking a schoolyard. Charlie was in his shirt sleeves when Father Dowling came in, and his hair was hanging low over his thin, intellectual face. He took off his glasses and his eyes looked very red and tired. “Hello, Father. I was thinking about you yesterday,” he said. “You haven’t come to see me all week. Sit down. Take off your coat.”

  “I can’t stay a minute,” Father Dowling said anxiously. “I won’t even sit down. I’m in a great hurry, Charlie.” Father Dowling was twisting his hat nervously, looking very worried.

  He was so quiet and ill at ease, so hesitant in his speech, that Charlie Stewart was silent, wondering what was the matter with him. The priest remained silent so long that Charlie imagined he was still offended over a discussion they had had the other night about celibacy. The priest had said that night, “I’m surprised a man of your intuitions can’t appreciate the value of celibacy.” And Charlie had jeered, “Faith, hope and celibacy, says St. Paul, and the greatest of these is celibacy.”

  “You don’t look well to-night, Father. Have you been working hard? You look pale and worried,” he said, and he thought, “What’s bothering Father Dowling?”

  “I’ve been feeling fine, Charlie.”

  “There’s something agitating you, I can see that.”

  “I feel splendid. Listen, Charlie, this is very embarrassing. I’d mention it to no one but you. I need the loan of a little money. Have you got anything you can spare? Say fifteen dollars. Of course I’ll square it off with you at the end of the month.”

  Charlie was surprised, but he said, “I’ll show you what I’ve got.” He took a small roll of bills out of his pocket. “I’m lucky to this extent. I just got money from my people. I can let you have twelve dollars. How’s that?” As he offered the money, Father Dowling saw him frown slightly and look concerned, and he knew intuitively that Charlie was remembering he had a girl now whom he took out in the evenings. He was very much in love with this girl. That was one of the reasons why he and the priest had had fewer profound discussions during the last month.

  Father Dowling felt humiliated to be taking this money. He drew in his breath, wetted his lips and looking very white-faced, he smiled and said, “God bless you, Charlie. God bless you. I’ll say a little prayer for you as I go along the street.”

  “I want you to promise to meet my girl, Father.”

  “I will, Charlie. I’ll like her, I know.”

  And when he was outside, walking rapidly with his head down, he was making a fervent little prayer. Some of the finest prayers he had ever made had been made sometimes when he was hurrying along the street. He prayed that Charlie Stewart might prosper because of his goodness. And he was thankful and proud that he had such a young friend. In all the city, he thought, no other priest had such an interesting friend, a man who was not only good-natured but full of his own wisdom, full of startling observation, speculative thought and, above all, a man with a simple heart.

  He felt easier in his own mind. He took off his hat, wiped his perspiring forehead, and as he looked up eagerly at the stars he passed right by the Cathedral and kept on going around the block to the hotel.

  SEVEN

  Father Dowling went up the hotel stairs two steps at a time, rapped on the white door and waited, breathless, fearing no one would be in. But when the door was opened a few inches, Midge’s round face peered out at him. She was puzzled. She hesitated almost as if she would close the door. It was time for her to go out. Her face had just been powdered carefully and her hair arranged and she was putting on her coat. She said doubtfully, “Were you coming in, Father?”

  “Please, Midge,” he said, and he went in as if the room were his own and he was relieved to be there.
Twice he walked the length of the floor, wondering how he could explain that he had failed to find work for them and wondering, too, if his gift of a few dollars would seem too small after his promises. Midge was watching him so restlessly, and tapping her toe so impatiently that he felt unwelcome and said, “Were you planning to do anything?”

  “Oh, no, Father,” she said. “I was thinking maybe of going over to the store, but that doesn’t matter at all.”

  “I thought we might talk a while,” he said diffidently.

  “I’m awfully glad to see you, Father,” she said. “You know that. You know, we often talk about you now.”

  “That’s splendid,” he said, and he smiled with relief and began to take off his coat. His lips were moving faintly as if he were preparing certain arrangements of words. Sometimes he smiled a bit and hesitated, as if the thought behind the words amused him. And when she saw that he intended to stay for some time, she shrugged and pursed her mouth and curled up on the bed, her head supported by her hand and elbow. By this time she was at ease with the priest and watched him with curiosity. It was only when he looked at her steadily and simply with his very candid blue eyes that she felt uneasy. Father Dowling was so pleased to see her lying there, smiling, that he became almost inarticulate. “Do you know,” he said suddenly, “you look now as if you would fit very easily into a decent home. That’s the way I think of you. I pray that soon I shall see you in such a place. I was awfully glad to find you here when I called. That’s the stuff. I’ll soon be able to have the feeling that I’m calling here as I would on any other parishioner.” He laughed apologetically. “Some of them are very strange people. They mightn’t like you, but you mightn’t like them, either. Oh well, that’s not the way to speak of them. Underneath the surface many of them have splendid Christian characters.”

  “You’re funny, Father. You think all people are nice, don’t you?”