by George Moore
Now, is that how the story finishes? said Alec. There is a little more, I answered. That misfortunate Tadhg doesn’t stretch out on the rocks and die of grief? I hadn’t thought of Tadhg’s end, Alec. But you’ve been telling Tadhg’s story and not Sir Ulick’s. Maybe you’re right, said I. And how do you think Tadhg should end? Married on the island, Alec replied without a moment’s hesitation. But how we are to get him married I don’t know. You’ve set me a hard nut to crack. Your honour has cracked so many nuts that you’ll crack this last one. I’m not sure. I shall be back in Westport next year, and the end of Tadhg will not be my story but yours, Alec. Alec replied: I’ll do my endeavours, and if I pick up a notion I’ll keep it in stock for you.
XIV
ON MY RETURN to London letters began to come from America asking for the new books that I had spoken of writing to replace certain old books which I could not honestly include in the canon. The suppression of the volume entitled Celibates necessitated a new set of stories about bachelors and spinsters; Conversations in Ebury Street seemed to me a suitable title for a volume to fill the niche left vacant by the withdrawal of Impressions and Opinions. But no sooner were these books finished than a letter came demanding revised texts and the translation of Daphnis and Chloe, a Greek story, and a perfect pleasure my translation would have been to me had I been able to put out of my mind Alec Trusselby and his desire to see Tadhg ODorachy married, and of all, his desire to see Tadhg die. But an old man of eighty dying under the trees or on the strand of a desert island is nowise dramatic or pathetic; an eagle cannot carry him off; a pike cannot drag him down. And week after week I sought a marriage and a strange death for Tadhg all round Chelsea’ and Pimlico, up into Mayfair and by Hanover Terrace, Regent’s Park, until unable to endure my life in Ebury Street any longer, I drove to Euston one morning feeling myself to be no better than a mere English novelist, without a strain of Balzac, Turgenev or Tchehov in me. True it is that Trusselby is without any of these three essential strains, but he lives in a country of story-tellers and may have heard the needed anecdote from some old woman by a cabin fire; or he may have come upon the anecdote whilst walking the roads. Or he may have forgotten all about me and about Tadhg! Or he may be dead; men often die suddenly. I must write to Tom Ruttledge from Dublin. And by the next post I got a letter in which I read the words: We are delighted to hear that you are coming to Westport, but your letter surprises us, for it would seem that you are coming to Westport not to see us but to visit our story-teller. And! Stood abashed by the implied reproof, saying to myself: Why should he reproach me for writing for news of Trusselby? And thinking how I might persuade away the unjust suspicion that my letter had awakened, I watched the counties of Meath and West Meath flying past. From Athlone the train jogged with unmerciful slowness into Westport, arriving an hour late. The very hour, I said, that Alec comes down the road from his shieling in the high wood. I shall not see him till to-morrow.
Breakfast is an early meal at Westport Lodge, and long before ten o’clock I was at my post in the big bow window that overlooked the high road, waiting for Alec, afraid to avert my eyes lest I should miss him. In a moment he will pass out of sight, and will be away on his rounds beyond Castlebar, or maybe some miles on this side of the Sligo border — a great walker; five-and-twenty miles is a mere trot to him. It will be simpler to seek him out in the wood. On inquiring from the young ladies I learnt that I should find his shieling on the first slopes, and barely was I in the wood when I caught sight of a shirt drying on a branch. He is away but his shirt is at home, I said, and whilst waiting for him to return for it I reconnoitred. He had built a wattled hut in front of a great scoop taken out of the bank, and piled about the opening were several pieces of porcelain. Old, discarded, chipped pots, I said, some without handles. I counted five. Now, what use can five pots be to him, living in a woodland? And my curiosity was so great that I might have been tempted to look into them if the breaking of a dry branch underfoot had not saved me from an indiscretion. So your honour is back! I arrived yesterday, Alec, and afraid you might pass me by — Unbeknownst? he interjected. I am a bit late this morning, but if your honour isn’t in too much of a hurry I’d be glad to eat a bit of breakfast before we start for Ilanady fern gathering or telling each other stories by the mill. Now, I won’t be long frying you a couple of eggs, and making a cup of tea. Thank you, Alec; I had breakfast at the Lodge, Alec. He came out of the hut with a frying-pan in one hand and a pot filled with eggs in the other. Your honour is laughing at my larder. A pot is as clean a place to keep eggs in as another, and Winne, the town photographer, put a couple of stitches into this one. In the smaller ones I keep my tea and sugar. But I miss my plates; this is the last one. But servants are always chipping plates, and I may be given a couple out of Mr. Ruttledge’s kitchen. I am sure you will, I answered, and the bubbling kettle reminding him of tea, he asked me if I liked two or more spoonfuls of sugar. I never take sugar in tea, Alec. I have no coffee, he replied, and I asked for a mug. I have a jam-pot, he said, looking into my face as if he guessed my thoughts. But even the risk of wounding his feelings and thereby losing the longed for anecdote could not persuade me. Now, put that idea out of your head, said he. Believe you me, this pot was never put under a bed. It was broken in the shop while the children were chasing a cat, and I happened to step in, just to see what the row was about, and the mother gave it to me. But I understand you well enough; the thought of the way pots like that are used morning and evening would put any one off his tea and off his feed. If you hadn’t seen me bringing the water up from the brook in it there’d be something to say for you — I wouldn’t say you’ve guessed wrong, Alec. The imagination makes great cowards of us all. That’s a great saying, it is sure, and one out of your own writings, I’ll be bound. As I was about to reward Alec’s acumen by an acknowledgment of the plagiarism, he said: A fine, warm wind from the southwest is coming through the trees; my shirt ought to be as dry as a bone by now. He picked it from the branch, and I could not but think of the picture in the National Gallery when he pulled it over his head. Whilst he stood in front of me buttoning it down the front he put the almost dreaded question: Has your honour made up a good story about Tadhg’s marriage? No, Alec, I can think of nothing, and have come all the way to Westport to ask you if you have been able to arrange the marriage for me. I won’t say that the story I’ve made is up to what your honour could do — But you have got a story, Alec? Good story or bad story, you have got something? Well, I have got something, he answered, but it may not be pleasing to you. Let me hear it, let me hear it! As soon as we get to our old seat under the trees yonder, he said, I’ll begin it.... Begin, Alec, begin!
Out of sight, out of mind, he said, and Soracha is now forgotten. But she was a great saint while her memory lasted, and not all that the clergy said could stop the processions and the pilgrimages to Castle Carra to do her honour; the people guided the blind and toted the lame to her grave for a curing. But Brother Peter (you remember him!) didn’t believe in miracles, and he kept harping away at it that the one who takes her own life can’t get to heaven, and he went so far as to say that if miracles were done at Soracha’s grave it was the Devil’s self did them. This last bit of Peter’s talk put the monks of Ballintober into the wrong box; for to tell the people that a woman who had killed herself to save Ireland was stewing in hell one minute, and trotting from hell to Connaught the next minute, to work miracles by the aid of the Devil, got their backs up, so that there was a hump in the county of Mayo as big as a camel’s, and if it hadn’t been for the Abbot the people might have risen up against Ballintober and shoved the monks into the lake. But the same Abbot was a cleverer lad than Brother Peter, and he decided that it would be the best of the Church’s play to take over the grave and the miracles, and to shut up about the suicide and the broken vows, and about Sir Ulick de Burgo hopping and trotting a nun out of a nunnery. A bad crime, God bless us! and one that the least said about it the better! Sir Ulick hadn’t had
the chance to do much for Ireland, having been thwarted at the last moment when he wanted to join Bermingham’s army. All the same, it is hard to get two lovers out of people’s heads, for love has that firm a root in the heart that people honour it, and nowhere more than in Ireland; so Sir Ulick came in for his share of the glory that was going round. That peaky little man Peter was half out of his wits, and there was a deal of ill feeling between himself and his brother, who, it was said, had offered him a hermitage on the island. But Peter wasn’t the man to go live on an island; ’twould be too lonely like, for he always had to be scratching and nagging at somebody, and never did he want to scratch and to tear more than he did now; small blame to him, and the way it was! for nobody likes to find himself bested. He tried to work up a party against the Abbot, but that failed on him, too, and at last he had to take the hint from his brother not to say another word about Soracha and the breaking of her vows, nor to put in his spade against the miracles that were performed at her grave, for the pilgrimages and the miracles were bringing cash into the Abbey, a thing that annoyed Peter more perhaps than anything else, for no man can turn his face against money; and so Peter was fairly bet for a while anyway. But he was thinking hard and tight, scratching his head, thinking always, and peeping round every corner of his skull to find a way out of the corner he was in. At last a sight of Biddy Lonn put a thought into his head — That will bring the whole country over to my side, said he. Now, said he in his sermon, and he giving it all out from the altar — now, said he, an unmarried couple living alone on an island is a disgrace and a scandal, and if we let it go on the parish of Ballintober will be a disgrace and a scandal in Ireland. The likes of it has never been known in holy Ireland before, and it has got to stop, if I have to walk to Rome on my two feet and tell the whole story to the Pope himself. And that I’ll do, he said; even if my brother Tom were to hold me by my habit, I’d leave it in his hand and be off with me to Rome.
Now, Peter, said Tom, you’ll soon be seeing the mischief you’ve been at, for Tadhg, whom I know well, will never marry Biddy Lonn, nor any other Biddy; and if you get him out of the island, even if the Pope himself is on your side, there’ll be a great falling off in the pilgrims, and the funds aren’t too healthy at the present time, that I can tell you. At this the giggling faces of the monks became sad as men’s faces do when they find they haven’t got the money they expected in their pockets. But Peter had his answer. Tom, said he, you’ve heard tell of the faithfulness of a dog, haven’t you? Yes, Peter, I have. And every brother of the brothers here knows that a dog is true to the death? There’s no going against it, said the monks, and they began to tell stories about faithful dogs, and there isn’t a thing will put a man into a good humour as quickly as the telling of a story. Well, now — When the last story was told Peter ups again and says: What is ODorachy after all but a dog? He has the dog’s nature; and the nature of a dog, which I see you all understand, is not to leave his master’s grave, and I am only telling the truth when I tell you that he’d marry the Devil’s dam rather than leave the island. We have Tadhg properly chained up, and after a talk with me he’ll marry Biddy Lonn, or I’ll know why. Now, have I got my lord Abbot’s leave to get ODorachy’s consent to the marriage? The Abbot kept a stiff face on him, and then Peter turned to the monks and he said: You know that a stop must be put to these pilgrimages, for the pilgrims will spread the story of Tadhg ODorachy and Biddy Lonn living in sin and we not lifting a hand to stop it, winking at it, indeed. And seeing that Peter had the crowd with him, the Abbot said: Go to the island, Peter, and do what you can. There’s no time like the present, as the clock said when it was going to strike. Off on the minute went my bold Peter to the shore, and he hadn’t whistled three whistles out of him when the bow of Biddy Bonn’s boat shot out of the cove. A fine, strong girl she is too, he said to himself. She’ll make a strapping wife for ODorachy, and look after his sick bed better than any other she in Ireland. When the boat ran up on the gravel he put out his hand to Biddy and said: Now, the stern of the boat is the place for a lady. I will row you over to the island myself; which he did. And when the boat reached the island, out of it he hopped and offered his hand to Biddy as if she needed his help, for he knew it would cock her up to be handed out of the boat by a priest.
Now, where is himself? On the other side of the island chopping sticks, she answered. So much the better, said Peter. This is a fine strand for a little talk, and we’ll walk up and down together. And to make a long story short, I have come to tell you that I am for putting an end to the stories that are going around about you and Tadhg ODorachy. Sure your reverence can do that same without turning me out on the lake side without a man to be with me spearing eels, or cutting me a raft of sticks in the wood. We have found a way to put an end to the scandal, myself and my brother, but the greater part is owing to myself. And listen to me: all we ask is that the talk shall stop, and to do that is easy. As his wife — What is it you are saying, Brother Peter? Me to be married to Tadhg, and he as little a marrying man as yourself! Sure he wouldn’t know me for a woman at all unless somebody told him, not even if he met me without my petticoat on, which God forbid! The young marry because they are hot, and the old marry to get hot, said Peter. But what I say is, that no better reason for this marriage could be found than to stop bad talk. Bad talk about me and Tadhg is it? If it wasn’t yourself that said it I’d say... What would you say, Biddy Lonn? I don’t think I’d be saying much; I’d spit in somebody’s face. But it being myself that is talking — I’ll say nothing and I’ll save my spits. But you’ll remember, Biddy, that as soon as we make one flesh of you both the talkers will stop as if a pitch plaster was clapped over their mouths. The Devil is always roaming, Biddy, and as nobody can tell when she will meet him we should always be prepared, and I hope to put the ring on your finger this day week. This day week! Is it my ears that I’m listening with? or what is it? This day week I’m to be the wife of that old ancient, and he nearer to eighty than he is to seventy. What sort of good would marriage be to me or to him? Now listen to me, father! Sure, the turf will be green over him in another few years. None of us can foresee the day of our death, and the younger may go before the elder. If you think that I’ll peg out before Tadhg, father — I would not say who may go first. We may all be dead before the sun dips yonder behind the Partry hills, and if Tadhg should die before you, Biddy, you’ll be free to take a younger man.... But here comes your future husband, and I’ll ask you to leave us, for I’m going to talk with him about your marriage. I do believe that he’s in earnest after all, Biddy muttered as she looked back.
ODorachy, said Peter, I’ve been talking to Biddy about her marriage. Biddy’s marriage! And who is she marrying? And what in this and that does Biddy Lonn want to get married for? I see you’d be sorry to lose her, Tadhg. Faith and troth, I would! A firmer hand never pulled an oar or got the thread of milk out of a goat’s tit easier than she. By my word, I won’t know how to manage without her, and I more than ever at the beck and call of the new lots of pilgrims, and every lot more wishful than the last for stories of the days in Normandy when we went walking the world with our harps on our backs, singing, from castle to castle, songs that were the cause of many a woman making a fool of her husband. But the sins of those days, I’m thinking, have been forgiven. I beg you to believe, Brother Peter, that if I sinned it was by following his voice on my harp. There was the rape of Soracha — Rape, indeed! Sorra a rape was in it! Didn’t it all come from her? Didn’t she send her picture to him and he in France out of harm’s way? Out of harm’s way — in France! He was out of her way anyhow! But the carrying a nun out of her convent — Speak no more of it, for the night we went to that convent is eating the heart out of me, preying upon it, waking me out of my sleep, and springing upon me like a weasel on a rabbit as I go about my work among the trees yonder. But you have been to confession, Tadhg. Aye, faith, and many times. But it is still on my conscience and will be for ever more till I go before my God and
himself releases me from memory of sin and death and the world. You have forgotten, Tadhg, that the words’ of our sovereign Lord and Master are: Whose sins ye shall remit shall be remitted. True for your reverence! The whole of the scripture isn’t in the mind of the laity, but the clergy is like a keg with the spigot driven in, always on tap. Sure ’tis they can give you a text with the froth on it.... I’ve come to talk to you about your marriage. Biddy’s marriage you said a minute ago, Tadhg interjected. Of your marriage and hers. Am I listening to you, father, or am I dreaming? Or are you making fun of me? No fun at all, Tadhg. But, Brother Peter, what would I be doing with a wench and I eighty years of age? You mayn’t know it, but in the days gone by Father Carabine was my confessor, and I told him that having heard much of the trussing of women I thought I’d have a try at it myself, but I made a bad hand of it, I can tell you. ’Tis no lie I’m telling; let you ask Father Carabine, for he knows my story, and you wouldn’t go thinking that after coming off the ship I’d make a bad confession to the priest? I know that what is said in confession is sacred trust, but I’ll give you a brief that will open Father Carabine’s lips. Tadhg, you are talking rubbish. Much scandal has been caused by you two living alone upon the island. The angels in heaven are not purer than we! cried Tadhg, in deed and in thought, too. I doubt it not, said the priest, but the scandal must be ended. If it weren’t that my master’s tomb is on the island I’d start to-morrow for Jerusalem and die fighting the Saracen. But your master’s tomb is on the island, and now I want you and Biddy to talk this matter over together. Does she know about it, father? I was talking of the marriage when you came out of the trees, Tadhg. And I’ll bet she was as flabbergasted as I was! She was. Next week — Your reverence doesn’t mean that we are to be man and wife in a week? I mean just that, Tadhg. But your reverence has left this out — that a man of eighty is like an old goat; he can’t jump, and he won’t jump! Isn’t it scripture that if the man can’t go in to the woman there is no marriage in the sight of God? Then the woman can appeal to Rome to have her marriage broken? But Biddy won’t do that; do you and Biddy talk it over together. And fetch her from the goats, for I must be returning to the Abbey. She’ll row you over in a few minutes, your reverence.... And sitting on a rock Tadhg watched the boat dwindle to a black spot in the distance, and when the priest stepped ashore, he said: Every minute of our lives God’s greatness is being shown to us and we understand it a bit better. No two lives are the same. Many’s the time I’ve wondered what my end would be, and faith, it took the Church herself to root up a married man in me. A queer sort of a married man I’ll be, but I’ll be a married man all the same.... Making a fine show she is, said Tadhg while watching the boat returning to the island. A fine back she has; fine arms she has, and no mistake. A decent upstanding woman it is that God is marrying me to, and I have no fault to find with anything except myself, that wasn’t up to a wife when I was young, and amn’t up to one now for certain.