Such Is My Beloved

by Morley Callaghan

  “One of them is about your height and she’s fair, too. Her feet look to me to be about your size. Let’s say that for her. You get something like you’d get for yourself. Shoes, stockings, and dress. What do you think?”

  “You’ve no idea what color for the dress?”

  “I think that black dress you’ve got on looks beautiful on you,” he said honestly. “I like that bit of white at the neck, too.”

  “That’s fine. I didn’t think you had noticed it. What’s the other girl like?”

  “She’s different. Her feet are smaller for one thing. They are very tiny little feet. I’d say a size and a half smaller than yours. And she’s a good four inches shorter. But mind, she is of a normal build, not fat or awkward nor thin either. And she’s dark with brown eyes. What do you think would look good on her?”

  “Gray is being worn a lot now, gray with gray shoes and gray stockings. A gray outfit.”

  “Lovely,” he said. “Simply splendid.”

  “Do you want to pay much?”

  “I don’t want it to be cheap stuff, but not expensive of course. Maybe if you’d look around you’d get a bargain. Then send it up to me and I’ll pay for it.”

  “I’ll be downtown to-morrow. I’ll look around in the morning maybe. How’s that?”

  “God bless you,” he said. “If I were a young fellow I’d have a girl like you.”

  His own thoughts were now so delightful that he got up to go, so he could enjoy them undisturbed. They coaxed him to stay; he pleaded he had work to do. They were both smiling at him warmly, and when he went out to the street his first thought was, “What a remarkable quality that girl has. What a pity they aren’t both more devout Christians. Charlie’s in the Church in heart and he doesn’t really know it.” Then he walked on, still smiling, till he remembered he had said Ronnie and Midge were nieces of his. “That was a lie,” he thought and he was immediately bothered, walking along, staring at the sidewalk. “Of course, I couldn’t have explained who they actually were. But I don’t want to get into the habit of lying about them. That’s inexcusable.” And while he wanted to let his thoughts leap forward with pleasure to images of the girls in new clothes, he resolutely forced himself to go on considering the danger of petty lying.

  TEN

  The afternoon the boxes containing the dresses came to the priest’s house, Father Dowling was waiting and he wrote out a check for sixty-five dollars for the delivery man. The housekeeper, old Mrs. Arrigo, who had called him to the door, looked with curiosity at the bundles and smiled up at him, for she liked him more than any of the other priests. She was a little, fat, gray-haired, Italian woman, who always smiled and was very pious. “Can’t I help you with those boxes, Father?”

  “Oh no,” he said anxiously. “I’ll look after them myself, thank you.”

  After carrying the boxes upstairs to his bedroom he looked at them for a long time, full of eagerness, but knowing really that he would not permit himself to open these boxes of young women’s clothing in the house. They must remain there on his bed till he took them away early in the evening. Furthermore, he would not permit himself to indulge in too much anticipation, either, of the pleasure that would be his when he saw the startled surprise on the girls’ faces. All these thoughts and resolutions occurred to him as reasons why he should not want to open the boxes there in the room, when some one was apt to come upstairs and see him, or call him, and force him to make very embarrassing explanations. The other young priest in the house, Father Jolly, knew that he had no nieces. Besides, there was always a kind of good-natured malice between Father Dowling and Father Jolly. It had begun when Father Dowling had wanted the other young priest’s room because it had a set of bookshelves and his own had none. Father Jolly had immediately decided to go in for literature himself, and he would read Tolstoy, or Conrad, or anybody else that Father Dowling recommended and come back in a few days, drink two or three bottles of beer, and say, “My, isn’t that author carnal? Do you really like him?” and at the dinner table, with old Father Anglin turning down his lip contemptuously, he would force Father Dowling to defend a carnality in Tolstoy that didn’t really exist. Sometimes these arguments about literature became so impassioned that old Father Anglin was drawn into them and he gave it as his opinion that all art, being sensual, tended to detract from man’s one primal instinct, his need of the faith and his desire to worship God. Father Jolly, his head bobbing up and down enthusiastically, readily agreed with the old priest. But he kept his room with the bookshelves, teased Father Dowling, accused him of scheming to get it, gave up his interest in literature unless the books were on the Cardinal’s white list, and remained gravely suspicious of Father Dowling’s respect for modern carnal authors. If Father Jolly saw these boxes he would at once associate them with unorthodox notions. “Ah, I must not have such thoughts,” Father Dowling said to himself, going out of the room.

  In the evening, almost as soon as it was dark enough so that he thought he would not be noticed, Father Dowling took his two boxes and the smaller bundle and set out for the hotel on the other side of the block. It was a clear mild evening. The snow had nearly all gone from the streets. There was a freshness in the air that made him think of approaching spring. He passed a young man and a girl walking very close together and the girl’s face was so full of eagerness and love Father Dowling smiled. As soon as the mild weather came the young people began to walk slowly around the Cathedral in the early evening, laughing out loud or whispering and never noticing anybody who smiled at them. The next time Father Dowling, walking slowly, passed two young people, he smiled openly, they looked at him in surprise and the young man touched his hat with respect. Father Dowling felt suddenly that he loved the whole neighborhood, all the murmuring city noises, the street cries of newsboys, the purring of automobiles and rumble of heavy vehicles, the thousand separate sounds of everlasting motion, the low, steady and mysterious hum that was always in the air, the lights in windows, doors opening, rows of street lights and fiery flash of signs, the cry of night birds darting around the Cathedral and the soft low laugh of lovers strolling in the side streets on the first spring nights. He felt he would rather be here in the city and at the Cathedral than any place else on earth, for here was his own home in the midst of his own people.

  Closer to the hotel, he felt a deep amusement within him, as if he could feel in advance the astonishment that would be in the girls’ eyes. The bundle, though not heavy in his arms, was very awkward to carry, and as he shifted it from one arm to the other, he could already see himself standing in the hotel room, peering into the boxes, more eager than the girls to see what they contained.

  But when he entered the hotel and rapped on the door there was no answer. Leaning against the wall, listening, he heard no sound and then he walked downstairs slowly, his feet heavy on each step and a fear in him that he might go many times up the stair to that white door and knock and there never would be an answer. The silence that follows an eager knock on a door can be a dreadful thing, he thought. Many times he had gone upstairs with like eagerness and always deeply buried within him was the same fear that they would not be there. Yet they were nearly always there, or they came shortly afterwards.

  He was standing by the hotel door holding his boxes tightly when the man at the desk called out ingratiatingly. “Are you looking for your girl friends, mister? They’ll be along shortly, I think.”

  “Thank you,” Father Dowling said. His hand wanted to go creeping up to his collar to make sure it was covered, then he reflected with relief that the man had called him “Mister.” Mr. Baer, who was sitting at the desk with the most benevolent, considerate smile on his round face, a smile that included comprehendingly all the desires of the world and their satisfactions, was tapping the tips of his fingers together, anxious to begin a conversation. But Father Dowling stepped out to the street thinking, “I decidedly don’t like that man.”

  Up and down the street he went, feeling sure he would not
see the girls that evening. At last he saw them coming, crossing the road, hesitating because of the passing automobiles, holding on to each other’s arm; he heard a ripple of loud laughter, and they started to run a little before they saw him at all.

  “Just a minute, Midge. Just a minute, both of you,” he called out.

  “Look, Ronnie, it’s Father,” Midge said.

  “Wouldn’t that knock you cold. Just when we were talking about him, and he pops up here.”

  “We’ve been loafing around window shopping. Isn’t it cockeyed? There we were gaping in a window talking about you and here you were looking for us.”

  “I came about twenty minutes ago. If you hadn’t come now I would have gone looking for you.”

  “Look at the parcels Father’s carrying, Midge. What’s in them? Were you going some place?”

  “I’ll show you what’s in them. That’s exactly what I want to do. Could I go in with you?”

  As he followed the girls upstairs he tried to keep a severe, stern expression on his face so the man at the desk dare not smile, but he was really so eager to show his gifts that the corners of his mouth kept twitching into faint smiles of amusement. In the bedroom he put the bundles on the floor and sat down with his blue eyes shining bright. “Open them, both of you,” he said. And he leaned back, relaxing and feeling a marvellous contentment while they knelt down on the floor, their heads together, their faces so serious, pulling at the paper, snapping off the string, pulling the lids off the boxes, holding up a black crêpe dress, then pulling out the gray dress. And then he could resist no longer, he leaned forward, peering eagerly over Ronnie’s shoulder at the dresses he had not seen. “The gray one, the gray stockings and the gray shoes are for you, Midge, and the black dress and shoes are for you, Ronnie.”

  Still crouched on the floor, the two girls were silent, then Ronnie, rolling her eyes and lifting her head up to him, whistled softly. Midge just kept on staring at Ronnie.

  “I wonder if you might put them on now and let me see you,” he said mildly. “Just before I go. I must hurry to-night.”

  “Oh, Father, you’re a peach, honest to God you are.”

  “I’d love to do something for you, Father. Isn’t there something you’d want me to do? Let me kiss you.”

  “Oh no, don’t do that,” he said quickly.

  “It wouldn’t hurt just once. Do you think it might give you the jitters?”

  “No. Not that. You can be good to me just by thinking of me sometimes and being a good girl and feeling you’ve nothing to worry about. See.”

  Then the girls picked up the dresses and went silently into the other room, and for a long time Father Dowling waited, glancing impatiently at the door every time he heard a sound. Closing his eyes, he kept on waiting with a strange breathlessness, as if some transformation in the girls, far deeper than a mere change of clothing, would be effected there before his eyes.

  And when they returned, shyly standing in front of him and looking around with an awkward uncertainty, glancing one at the other in a curious mutual uneasiness, he said nothing, he watched in silence and he did not even smile. Then they smiled timidly. They couldn’t get rid of their feeling of shyness, they tried laughing at each other. “Look at you, Midge,” Ronnie said. “Look at yourself,” Midge said. Midge looked almost dainty in the gray dress, with her face paler and her eyes round with endless surprise. In the black crêpe dress with the long, severe, but graceful lines, some of the awkwardness seemed to have gone out of Ronnie, and her hair looked fairer, her face fresher. With this new timidity, lasting for just a few moments, she seemed severely honest, severely forthright in appearance.

  “My goodness, I’m astonished at both of you. I don’t know what to say,” Father Dowling said.

  “Do we look elegant?” Midge asked.

  “You look– well, you look natural, as you should always look, and rather charming, both of you. You take my breath away.”

  So they felt easier in their thoughts. They began to laugh and walk around gaily, Midge extending her left hand gracefully to Ronnie and making a little curtsy. Then they both laughed again with a fine free happiness; they shrugged their shoulders, they became simply themselves, and while still looking pleased, they turned good-naturedly to the priest.

  “Ah, you know somebody, Father, who likes nice clothes,” Midge said. “Now who would it be? Have you a little lady tucked away some place?”

  “I’ll bet you’ve had a girl all the time,” Ronnie said.

  “Don’t say things like that,” he said softly.

  “I’m only trying to kid you. You’re a prince. I never met anybody so kind.”

  “Why do you do all these crazy things for us, Father?” Midge asked.

  “You know why. Because I care for you and sometimes worry about you and hope so much that you’ll keep trying to forget this room and all the people that ever came here. And all the nights you ever wandered around. That would satisfy me.”

  But he did not notice that they had become uneasy while he was speaking. He remained motionless, his young, smooth face very calm and a peculiar, wondering, remote expression in his eyes. He was not hearing anything they were saying to him. He was remembering how they had seemed so shy, with a kind of naïve, awkward innocence, when they returned to the room in the new clothes, and it seemed wonderful to him that he had discovered these traits in them. Nothing they could have said by way of thanking him could have repaid him as they had done already without knowing it. He felt very happy to have thought of the dresses. It seemed that for a long time he had been groping and scraping away at old reluctant surfaces and suddenly there was a yielding life, there was a quickening response. He sat there hardly smiling, looking very peaceful.

  ELEVEN

  In a little upstairs Chinese restaurant in the early spring evening, Ronnie, Midge and Lou were having a sandwich and a cup of coffee. They were sitting by the window and could see the street below, see the crowds moving slowly under the brilliant electric lights and the women on the pavements who had discarded their fur coats now and had on brightly colored cloth coats for spring and Easter time. Midge was wearing her gray dress and gray shoes and Ronnie, too, had on the black dress the priest had given her. But the girls to-night were meditative and solemn. Even Lou was worried. On Midge’s small round face there was a look of dreadful uneasiness, and a scared trembling inside her that did not show itself because she never moved, nor smiled, nor spoke. Even her head was held rigid and motionless. Her eyes looked too brilliant and her face was a little thinner now than it had been two weeks ago. Every few moments, she stared wonderingly at Ronnie, begging her to say something comforting or something that would make her laugh and forget why the three of them were having such a solemn conference.

  “Never mind, kiddo. It’s really nothing,” Ronnie said. “It’s just a matter of a little while and then you’re right back again fresh as a daisy. I know.”

  “If you take my advice,” Lou said, leaning over the table and patting Midge’s hand, “you’ll go to a hospital and take the treatments and make it all in a day’s work. Don’t you see, kiddo?”

  “Do you hear what Lou’s saying, kid? Lou knows.”

  “I’m just giving you the straight dope, cold, and not trying to soften it up,” Lou said.

  “I guess that’s what I’d better do,” Midge said. She tried to smile. She tried to feel reasonable, but the mounting dread within her was terrifying her as though she were a frightened little girl. She began to look at both of them helplessly.

  “Will they hurt me?” she asked.

  “Lou says it’s nothing. It’s just like having a cold, Midge.”

  “It used to be something to really worry about,” Lou said. “But that was years ago. But it’s nothing now, baby.”

  “I told you Lou would say that, Midge. It’s nothing at all now,” Ronnie said.

  But Midge was so gloomy that Ronnie began to try and amuse her in many little ways. She folded her hands p
iously across her chest. “Ah, poor child, it’s a great pity. Now if you’d just say a little prayer. If you would just think of me occasionally.”

  Midge smiled slightly. They had often mocked the priest in this way. Ronnie went on eagerly, “Won’t you come and see me some time, child?”

  “Yes, Father,” Midge said, nodding her head and turning her eyes up angelically.

  “Have you been baptized, child?”

  “Ah, yes, indeed, Father. Three or four times, once last night and once the night before. And when I get some money I’m going to get drunk some more.”

  “Ah, but they are not good baptisms, my girl. Was the thing done properly?”

  “As well as they could do it, Father. I am a small girl and you ought not to expect too much of me.”

  “If you would not try so hard, but just listen to the dictates of your heart.”

  “I have listened, Father.”

  “And what did you hear, child?”

  “I heard the footsteps of my lord.”

  “And were they coming closer?”

  “Oh yes, Father, closer and closer.”

  “And then what did you do, child?”

  “I said the old man’s coming and if I’m caught like this with my skirts up it’ll look like a hard winter, I mean a cold winter, Father.” With her head tilted to one side, Midge was making silly faces she thought appropriate to a pious woman, and then both girls began to snicker, and Lou let out a deep roaring laugh. “That’s swell,” he said. “You ought to team up and go into vaudeville. Keep on. Give us some more. The poor old duffer. Drag me in on this some way, won’t you? I ought to be able to get my finger in for something, don’t you think, kid? I’ve got a good heart, too, don’t you think, Ronnie?”

  But Midge, looking at him vacantly for a moment said irritably, “Let’s get out of here in a hurry. I get fed up on the stuff,” and they got up and left the restaurant. As soon as they were in the street, walking slowly up among the crowd that was enjoying the mildness of the first spring evenings, the last bit of eagerness for mockery of the priest went out of Midge. She heard Lou still trying to continue the conversation and the laughter about the priest; she heard Ronnie replying rapidly, saw her leaning on Lou’s arm in her eagerness to hear more of his wit that kept them both laughing, and while Midge walked on and heard these sounds, on these streets where she had walked so often, in the neighborhood where she wandered every evening, she felt she could hardly drag herself along. She was looking straight ahead, but she kept seeing a long row of impenetrable faces. Sometimes she tried to remember and study these faces as if she might pick out and remember the one that was the cause of her sickness now. Her body began to feel so heavy and tired that she did not want to see anything, she did not even want to see the row of bright windows, the rooming houses, or the Cathedral on the corner; she longed to be able to close her eyes tight so she would not keep seeing hundreds of brutal faces and groping for one among them. “What will become of me? What can I do? Who will look after me? Who will pay the bills? Who will keep me?” she kept asking herself. “Maybe if I had got a job a few months ago it would not be like this now, but there was no job. There was nothing. There is nothing really now. No one’s walking beside me, there’s no street, no sound, there’s nothing.” And there seemed to be only darkness and numbness within her and all around her. Out of this darkness came a flicker of life, first a hatred for every one she had taken to the hotel, and then a breathless hope that she would go out that evening and find someone who would want her, who would go away content and then later begin to dread that night and be full of hate for her. But the resentment was so strong in her it could not last. She grew full of fear, dreadfully scared of the mockery she had been making with Ronnie a few minutes ago. “I didn’t mean anything, God. If I only could get better, if I only would be all right afterwards, I’d go away, maybe back to Montreal and live at home. I’ve always really believed in you, God. I’m just scared now, that’s all. Just don’t be too hard on me, God.” And as she kept on walking beside Ronnie and Lou, quite clearly she heard them laughing, she felt the night air, she saw the streets again.