by George Moore
Now that the priest had ordered her conscience, she got well rapidly, and it was a pleasure to her to prepare herself for her husband’s admiration. The nurse thought he would perceive no difference in her, but when they put on her stays it was quite clear that she had grown stouter, and she cried out, “I’m quite a little mother!” But the nurse said her figure would come back all right. Ned’s return had been delayed, and this she regarded as fortunate, for there was no doubt that in a month she would be able to meet him, slight and graceful as she had ever been.
As soon as she was able she went for long walks on the hills, and every day she improved in health and in figure; and when she read Ned’s letter saying he would be in Cork in a few days she felt certain he would see no change in her. She opened her dress and could discern no difference; perhaps a slight wave in the breast’s line; she was not quite sure and she hoped Ned would not notice it. And she chose a white dress. Ned liked her in white, and she tied it with a blue sash; she put on a white hat trimmed with china roses, and the last look convinced her that she had never looked prettier.
“I never wore so becoming a hat,” she said. She walked slowly so as not to be out of breath, and, swinging her white parasol over the tops of her tan boots, she stood at the end of the platform waiting for the train to come up.
“I had expected to see you pale,” he said, “and perhaps a little stouter, but you are the same, the very same.” And saying that he would be able to talk to her better if he were free from his bag, he gave it to a boy to carry. And they strolled down the warm, dusty road.
They lived about a mile and a half from the station, and there were great trees and old crumbling walls, and, beyond the walls, water meadows, and it was pleasant to look over the walls and watch the cattle grazing peacefully. And to-day the fields were so pleasant that Ned and Ellen could hardly speak from the pleasure of looking at them.
“You’ve seen nothing more beautiful in America, have you, Ned?”
There was so much to say it was difficult to know where to begin, and it was delicious to be stopped by the scent of the honeysuckle. Ned gathered some blossoms to put into his wife’s dress, but while admiring her dress and her hat and her pretty red hair he remembered the letter he had written to her in answer to her telegram.
“I’ve had many qualms about the letter I wrote you in answer to your telegram. After all, a child’s right upon the mother is the first right of all. I wrote the letter in a hurry, and hardly knew what I was saying.”
“We got an excellent nurse, Ned, and the boy is doing very well.”
“So you said in your letters. But after posting my letter I said to myself: if it causes me trouble, how much more will it cause her?”
“Your letter did trouble me, Ned. I was feeling very weak that morning and the baby was crying for me, for I had been nursing him for a week. I did not know what to do. I was torn both ways, so I sent up a note to Father Brennan asking him to come to see me, and he came down and told me that I was quite free to give my baby to a foster-mother.”
“But what does Father Brennan know about it more than anyone of us?”
“The sanction of the Church, Ned—”
“The sanction of the Church! What childish nonsense is this?” he said. “The authority of a priest. So it was not for me, but because a priest—”
“But, Ned, there must be a code of morality, and these men devote their lives to thinking out one for us.”
He could see that she was looking more charming than she had ever looked before, but her beauty could not crush the anger out of him; and she never seemed further from him, not even when the Atlantic divided them.
“Those men devote their lives to thinking out a code of morality for us! You submit your soul to their keeping. And what remains of you when you have given over your soul?”
“But, Ned, why this outbreak? You knew I was a Catholic when you married me.”
“Yes, ... of course, and I’m sorry, Ellen, for losing my temper. But it is only in Ireland that women submit themselves body and soul. It is extraordinary; it is beyond human reason.”
They walked on in silence, and Ned tried to forget that his wife was a Catholic. Her religion did not prevent her from wearing a white dress and a hat with roses in it.
“Shall I go up-stairs to see the baby, or will you bring him down?”
“I’ll bring him down.”
And it was a great lump of white flesh with blue eyes and a little red down on its head that she carried in her arms.
“And now, Ned, forget the priest and admire your boy.”
“He seems a beautiful boy, so healthy and sleepy.”
“I took him out of his bed, but he never cries. Nurse said she never heard of a baby that did not cry. Do you know I’m sometimes tempted to pinch him to see if he can cry.”
She sat absorbed looking at the baby; and she was so beautiful and so intensely real at that moment that Ned began to forget that she had given the child out to nurse because the priest had told her that she might do so without sin.
“I called him after you, Ned. It was Father Stafford who baptised him.”
“So he has been baptised!”
“He was not three days old when he was baptised.”
“Of course. He could not have gone to heaven if he had not been baptised.”
“Ned, I don’t think it kind of you to say these things to me. You never used to say them.”
“I am sorry, Ellen; I’ll say no more, and I’m glad it was Father Stafford who baptised him. He is the most sensible priest we have. If all the clergy were like him I should find it easier to believe.”
“But religion has nothing to do with the clergy. It is quite possible to think the clergy foolish and yet to believe that the religion is the true one.”
“I like the clergy far better than their religion, and believe them to be worthy of a better one. I like Father Stafford, and you like having a priest to dinner. Let us ask him.”
“I’m afraid, Ned, that Father Stafford is getting old. He rarely leaves the house now and Father Maguire does all the work of the parish.”
She liked clerical gossip; the church was finished, and how Biddy heard the saints singing in the window made a fine tale.
“So now we have a local saint.”
“Yes, and miracles!”
“But do you believe in miracles?”
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t like to say. One is not obliged to believe in them.”
“I’m sure you would enjoy believing in Biddy.”
“Oh, Ned, how aggressive you are, and the very day you come back.”
But why hadn’t she asked him about America and about his speeches? He had looked forward to telling her about them. She seemed to care nothing about them; even when she spoke about them after dinner, he could see that she was not as much interested in politics as she used to be. However, she wore a white dress and black stockings; her red hair was charmingly pinned up with a tortoise-shell comb, and taking her upon his knee he thought it would be well to please himself with her as she was and forget what she was not.
Next morning when he picked up the newspaper and the daily instalment of a cardinal’s tour through Ireland caught his eye, he remembered that Ellen had sent for a theologian.... His eyes went down the columns of the newspaper and he said, “All the old flummery. Ireland’s fidelity to her religion, etc., her devotion to Rome, etc., — to everything,” he said, “except herself. Propagations of the faith, exhortations to do as our ancestors had done, to do everything except make life joyous and triumphant.” Looking across the page his eye was caught by the headline, “Profession of Irish Nuns in France.” Further on in large letters, “Killmessan Cathedral: Bazaar.” And these items of news were followed by a letter from a Bishop. “What a lot of Bishops!” he said. He read of “worthy” parish priests, and a little further on of “brilliant” young clergymen, and at every meeting the chair was taken by the “worthy” or by the “good” paris
h priest.
“Well,” he said, “if the newspaper reflects the mind of the people there is no hope.”
And he heard daily of new churches and new convents and the acquisition of property by the clergy. He heard tales of esuriency and avarice, and the persecution of the dancing-girl and the piper.
“The clergy,” he said, “are swallowing up the country,” and he looked for some means whereby he might save the Gael.
About this time an outcry was made against the ugliness of modern ecclesiastical architecture, and a number of enthusiasts were writing to the newspapers proposing a revival of Irish romanesque; they instanced Cormac’s Chapel as the model that should be followed. Ned joined in the outcry that no more stained glass should be imported from Birmingham, and wrote to the newspapers many times that good sculpture and good painting and good glass were more likely to produce a religious fervour than bad. His purpose was to point a finger of scorn at the churches, and he hoped to plead a little later that there were too many churches, and that no more should be built until the population had begun to increase again. He looked forward to the time when he would be able to say right out that the Gael had spent enough of money on his soul, and should spend what remained to him on his body. He looked forward to the time when he should tell the Gael that his soul was his greatest expense, but the time was far off when he could speak plainly.
The clergy were prepared to admit that German glass was not necessary for their successful mediation, but they were stubborn when Ned asked them to agree that no more churches were necessary. They were not moved by the argument that the population was declining and would not admit that there were too many churches or even that there were churches enough. The ecclesiastical mind is a subtle one and it knows that when men cease to build churches they cease to be religious. The instinct of the clergy was against Ned, but they had to make concessions, for the country was awakening to its danger, and Ned began to think that all its remaining energies were being concentrated in an effort to escape.
Long years ago in America he had watched a small snake trying to swallow a frog. The snake sucked down the frog, and the frog seemed to acquiesce until the half of his body was down the snake’s gullet, and then the frog bestirred himself and succeeded in escaping. The snake rested awhile and the next day he renewed his attack. At last the day came when the weary frog delayed too long and Ned watched him disappear down the snake’s gullet.
A good deal of Ireland was down the clerical throat and all would go down if Ireland did not bestir herself. Ireland was weakening daily, and every part of her that disappeared made it more difficult for her to extricate herself. Ned remembered that life and death, sickness and health, success and failure, are merely questions of balance. A nation is successful when its forces are at balance, and nations rise and fall because the centre of gravity shifts. A single Spaniard is as good as a single German, but the centre of gravity is in Spain no longer.
Ned did not look upon religion as an evil; he knew religion to be necessary; but it seemed to him that the balance had been tilted in Ireland.
He threw himself more and more into the education of the people, and politics became his chief interest. At last he had begun to live for his idea, and long absence from home and long drives on outside cars and evenings spent in inn parlours were accepted without murmurings; these discomforts were no longer perceived, whereas when he and Ellen used to sit over the fire composing speeches together, the thought of them filled him with despair. He used to complain that Ellen was always sending him away from home and to hard mutton shops and dirty bedrooms. He reminded her no more of these discomforts. He came back and spent a day or two with her, and went away again. She had begun to notice that he did not seem sorry to leave, but she did not reproach him, because he said he was working for Ireland. He tried to think the explanation a sufficient one. Did he not love his home? His home was a delightful relaxation. The moment he crossed the threshold his ideas went behind him and in the hour before dinner he played with his child and talked to Ellen about the house and the garden and the things he thought she was most interested in. After dinner she read or sewed and he spent an hour at the piano, and then he took her on his knees.
And sometimes in the morning as he walked, with Ellen at his side, to catch the train, he wondered at his good fortune — the road was so pleasant, so wide and smooth and shaded, in fact just as he imagined the road should be, and Ellen was the very pleasantest companion a man could wish for. He looked on her, on his child and his house at the foot of the Dublin mountains, as a little work of art which he had planned out and the perfection of which entitled him to some credit. He compared himself to one who visits a larder, who has a little snack of something, and then puts down the cover, saying, “Now that’s all right, that’s safe for another week.”
Nevertheless he could see a little shadow gathering. His speeches were growing more explicit, and sooner or later his wife would begin to notice that he was attacking the clergy. Had she no suspicion? She was by nature so self-restrained that it was impossible to tell. He knew she read his speeches, and if she read them she must have noticed their anti-clerical tone.
Last Saturday he had spoken to her about politics, but she had allowed the conversation to drop, and that had puzzled him. He was not well reported. The most important parts of his speech were omitted and for these omissions he looked upon the reporters and the editors as his best friends. He had managed to steer his way very adroitly up to the present, but the day of reckoning could not much longer be postponed; and one day coming home from a great meeting he remembered that he had said more than he intended to say, though he had intended to say a good deal. This time the reporter could not save him, and when his wife would read the newspaper to-morrow an explanation could hardly be avoided.
He had thrown a book on the seat opposite, and he put it into his bag. Its Nihilism had frightened him at first, but he had returned to the book again and again and every time the attraction had become stronger. The train passed the signal box, and Ned was thinking of the aphorisms — the new Gospel was written in aphorisms varying from three to twenty lines in length — and he thought of these as meat lozenges each containing enough nutriment to make a gallon of weak soup suitable for invalids, and of himself as a sort of illicit dispensary.
Ellen was not on the platform; something had delayed her, and he could see the road winding under trees, and presently he saw her white summer dress and her parasol aslant. There was no prettier, no more agreeable woman than Ellen in Ireland, and he thought it a great pity to have to worry her and himself with explanations about politics and about religion. To know how to sacrifice the moment is wisdom, and it would be better to sacrifice their walk than that she should read unprepared what he had said. But the evening would be lost! It would be lost in any case, for his thoughts would be running all the while on the morning paper.
And they walked on together, he a little more silent than usual, for he was thinking how he could introduce the subject on which he had decided to speak to her, and Ellen more talkative, for she was telling how the child had delayed her, and it was not until they reached the prettiest part of the road that she noticed that Ned was answering perfunctorily.
“What is the matter, dear? I hope you are not disappointed with the meeting?”
“No, the meeting was well enough. There were a great number of people present and my speech was well received.”
“I am glad of that,” she said, “but what is the matter, Ned?”
“Nothing. I was thinking about my speech. I hope it will not be misunderstood. People are so stupid, and some will understand it as an attack on the clergy, whereas it is nothing of the kind.”
“Well,” she said, “if it isn’t it will be different from your other speeches.”
“How is that?”
“All your speeches lately have been an attack upon the clergy direct or indirect. I daresay many did not understand them, but anyone who knows your opini
ons can read between the lines.”
“If you had read between the lines, Ellen, you would have seen that I have been trying to save the clergy from themselves. They are so convinced of their own importance that they forget that after all there must be a laity.”
Ellen answered very quietly, and there was a sadness in her gravity which Ned had some difficulty in appreciating. He went on talking, telling her that some prelate had pointed out lately, and with approbation, that although the population had declined the clergy had been increasing steadily year after year.
“I am really,” he said, “trying to save them from themselves. I am only pleading for the harmless and the necessary laity.”
Ellen did not answer him for a long while.
“You see, Ned, I am hardly more to you now than any other woman. You come here occasionally to spend a day or two with me. Our married life has dwindled down to that. You play with the baby and you play with the piano, and you write your letters. I don’t know what you are writing in them. You never speak to me of your ideas now. I know nothing of your politics.”