Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  The day passed from eight o’clock in the morning until twelve, packing the biscuits in tin boxes, with every layer separated by paper, and they told us we mustn’t let it get crumpled; if the Inspector found the least wrinkle in the paper, we had to unpack the box again, and as we were paid by piece-work I soon saw that like this we wouldn’t get even six shillings a week maybe. At twelve there was an hour for dinner; as I’d had no breakfast I didn’t know how I’d get through to the end of the day, and I wouldn’t have if Phyllis hadn’t taken me to a grub-shop, where she said most of the girls went for their food, the ones that wasn’t living at home, and Phyllis paid for me, for I’d have no money till the end of the week. But, said I, our dinners alone will cost us all we earn. Phyllis laughed and said that there were always extras; I thought she meant overtime, and we went back to the factory. It closed at seven. And on our way home I asked if we couldn’t buy our food and cook it ourselves, and save half of what we spent in the grub-shop. But Phyllis was afraid that we’d not get back to the factory in time, and any saving we’d make would be lost in a fine. And so talking we got back to our room, where Phyllis began to dress herself out just as I’d seen her the night before, hat, umbrella and gloves, and as she didn’t offer to take me with her, I stayed at home, waiting up till midnight. You mustn’t wait up for me, she said, for if you do you’ll be too tired to go to work. And what about you? said I, and waited for an answer, which I didn’t get. She just went on undressing herself, taking out of her pocket more money than I knew she had gone out with.

  It was that night as we lay down together that she said to me: Well, Sarah, you may just as well hear it now as later. A girl can’t get a living out of the factory; it just keeps us employed in the daytime, and then the girls go out into Sackville Street, and there, or round about the Bank or in Grafton Street, the money’s good — you can pick up half a sovereign or maybe a sovereign. But you don’t find them along the pavement, said I. Our gentlemen friends give as much, ninny, she said, and I quickly understood that the factory girls, all the young ones at least, made their living, or the best part of it, on the streets, and that I’d have to do the same, for I couldn’t thole going on sponging on Phyllis, who only fell away from the right course because there was no other way for a girl to get her living in Dublin, none that she knew of. I heard Phyllis fall asleep, but I couldn’t sleep that night for thinking, it not seeming to me that I could go on the streets nor that I could stay at home while she did, for that would be like taunting her, living a lady’s life at home and she walking out round and round, up one street and down another. That’s how I saw her in my head all the night, afraid to come back without half a sovereign, and to take money earned her way seemed no better than earning it that way myself. Phyllis didn’t try to persuade me; she said that every girl must do the best she can for herself. She had often heard of girls marrying in the end off the streets, but she didn’t want to say a word that might lead me where I didn’t want to go. She said she quite understood, but that there wouldn’t be enough money for both of us if I didn’t go, and in the end I might have been pushed into it, for I’m no better than Phyllis; and there never was a kinder soul, and maybe it’s kindness that counts in the end.

  And how was it that you escaped the streets, Sarah?

  No more than an accident, sir. We were at work all day in the factory, as I’ve told you, and while Phyllis was out from seven o’clock till half-past eleven or twelve, I used to sit sewing, trying to make a little money that way, and as it was summer time the nuns were out every evening in their garden. I forgot to tell you that our window overlooked a convent garden, a lovely garden, with big trees and green plots, and it was lovelier when the nuns came out and walked in twos and threes through the shadows. I had only known religion as a quarrelsome thing that set men throwing stones and beating each other with sticks, breaking windows and cursing each other, and I said: If I had time, I’d like to know more of the nuns, they seem so quiet and happy. But we were, as I’ve said, at work all day, and it wasn’t till there was a strike in the factory that the days were our own, with no bell ringing and nobody to take our names as we went in. We could go and come as we liked, only there was the money; but as most of the girls got their living as I told you, sir, we could hold out. It was whilst the strike lasted that I went to the nuns’ chapel to attend Mass, a thing we seldom had — on Sundays we had to sleep it out. The strike lasted a fortnight, and I heard a little more of the Catholic religion than was spoken about in the County Down. Phyllis said: — If you have a feeling that way, tell the priest who hears your confession that you’d like instruction in the Catholic religion; he’ll give it to you and jumping. So I did, and entered the Church just about when the strike was to end.

  But, Sarah, I thought you were always a Catholic.

  My mother was a Catholic and I was baptized one, as I’ve told you, but mother went over when I was a child; between twelve and thirteen I was at the time, so you see I had had no instruction, or very little, in my religion. I’d been a month in Dublin by this time and owed Phyllis more money than I would ever be able to pay her back, and I was thinking of going into service, which I ought to have done long before, but I knew nobody that would recommend me. Father Roland (that was the priest who instructed me) said he would recommend me, but he was a long time about it and things were going from bad to worse. It seemed that I would have to do in the end as Phyllis did, and it might have been like that if Father Roland hadn’t said one day: Some nuns in Wales are looking out for lay sisters, but they are very poor and cannot afford to send you the price of your passage over; and you’ll want money to buy the clothes you’ll wear during your probationship. But where am I to get the money? I asked, and he spoke of putting by a little week by week; and I was going to tell him how I was living, but the story didn’t seem one for a gentleman like him to hear. And it all seemed more hopeless than ever. Phyllis said nothing, but I knew she was thinking that I’d better come out with her of an evening. She was down on her luck; for nearly a week she had not met with any money, and we were as poor as we could be, but still I clung on to hope. I seemed very selfish to myself, but you see, I was only eighteen and knew nobody except Phyllis and the girls at the factory. If I had known then what I know now, I could have gone to an agent and got some charring, maybe a situation. But I’m making a long story out of it, and the telling of it will make no difference. I must leave you, sir.

  I’ll be able to tell you, Sarah, if you’ll have to leave me when I have heard your story.

  Well, sir, one night Phyllis came home in great spirits.

  She had met a gentleman who had been very kind to her and given her two pounds. We talked about him a long while, and Phyllis was to meet him next day. And when she came back about half-past eleven, that was her time, she said: — I told him about you, and he says that he’ll pay the money for the convent if you’ll come to meet him. It wasn’t for sin that he needed me; the man was really a very religious man and knew that he was doing wrong in lying with Phyllis, but he couldn’t help himself; and that was why he told her he would give the money to get me into the convent. I was to pray for him in return.

  And did you go to meet him, Sarah?

  No, sir; for the next time Phyllis saw him he said that Phyllis’s word was good enough for him, and that he’d give her the money, taking in return for it my promise to pray for him. Tell him, I said to Phyllis, that I will never cease to pray for him, and for you, too, dear Phyllis, though indeed it should be you to pray for me, so much does it seem that I’m the wicked one. And we spoke of the wages of sin. But Phyllis said: — Dear, you wouldn’t do it well; you’re not suited to the life. It’s well that you didn’t.

  She seems to be a very good girl, your Phyllis, the doctor said.

  Yes, Phyllis is a good girl. There never was a better one, so good that it seemed to me, as I was saying, sir, that I was the wicked girl and Phyllis the good one. But that couldn’t be, for the Church says different. The
n I seemed to understand that every day I stayed in Dublin I was putting Phyllis into sins that she wouldn’t commit if I wasn’t with her. The night she went out to meet the gentleman again I prayed for them both all the time, and the money seemed hateful money she brought back. But there it was; it was earned, it was gotten, it would have to be spent, and it was better it should be spent on a good purpose than on a bad, so it seemed to me; and the next day we bought the clothes. Father Roland wrote to the nuns. A telegram came, and we went down to the boat together, crying all the way, for we were very sorry to part. Sir, I don’t think I can go on telling you. It broke my heart to part with that girl; she’d been so good to me and we were such friends, and there was nothing for it now but we be to part for ever. I felt I was never going to see her again, and I think she felt the same about me.

  Have you never tried to find her, Sarah?

  Oh, sir, all my evenings out have been spent hunting for her round Merrion Square and round about College Green, up Sackville Street as far as the Rotunda, looking for her in the crowd. Now and again it seemed to me that I saw somebody like her, and I ran and looked into her face, but it was not Phyllis. I can’t go on telling you the story, sir. I can’t, indeed I can’t. She laid her face in her hands and fell across the doctor’s writing-table, her sobs alarming him, the big tears rolling from her eyelids down her swollen cheeks, even to her chin. If anybody were to call! The doctor waited, saying nothing, relying on silence to calm the girl’s grief. At last he said: Let me hear the rest of the story. You went on board the boat and arrived at the convent — when?

  In the late afternoon, sir, towards evening. I don’t think I can tell you any more of it.

  Yes, you can, Sarah. I cannot tell you whether you are to stay or go till I’ve heard the end.

  Well, I don’t know that there’s much more to tell, sir. You can guess the rest, that I was very miserable at leaving Phyllis, and felt more and more as time went on that in God’s sight there could not be much to choose between us, and at last I went with my story to the Mother Prioress.

  To the Mother Prioress! the doctor repeated.

  You see, I wanted to leave the convent and go back to Phyllis and tell her that I’d lead her life. In great grief one hasn’t one’s right thoughts. And when I came to the Prioress to tell her that I wasn’t happy and what I had left behind, she said: My child, you can’t go to a life of sin. Well, what can I do? I asked her, and she told me that there was one remedy for it all, and that was prayer. You see, she said, you are without money, without friends; you can’t save Phyllis from the life she is leading, but you can pray for her. All things are in the hands of God; he alone can help. So I took the Prioress’s advice and prayed.... After a time I was a postulant and then a novice, and when I had taken the final vows I seemed stronger. But there was always in my heart the pain that I had left Phyllis to a life of sin and gone away myself to a life of comfort and ease, with the hope of heaven at the end. I couldn’t get it out of my head, and I wouldn’t have been able to bear it if it hadn’t been for the Mother Prioress, who was very good to me and understood that the lay sisters had as much right to hear Mass as the choir sisters. But her time came, as it will come to all of us, and the Prioress that came after her was quite different from the one that had gone.

  It was she who turned you out of the convent, wasn’t it? Sarah answered: Yes, sir, and continued her story drearily, telling that several lay sisters in the convent had died, and that many of those who remained were old women who had come to the end of their time, infirm, bed-ridden women: We had to attend on them in their cells and wheel them up and down the Broad Walk when there was a little sun. These old sisters were a great burden on the funds of the convent; I think the choir sisters felt it. And then two lay sisters died; young women who were not strong enough for the work. That was about three years ago, sir. So the convent was short of workers, and the choir sisters had to shift for themselves, and not being used to work they soon tired. So the Mother Prioress wrote to all the priests she knew for postulants, but the ones that answered her letters wanted to be choir sisters; none of them had fortunes, and the convent couldn’t afford to take them without. So all the work fell upon us, and many days we didn’t even get Mass. There was no time for private prayer; it was drudge, drudge, all the day, and if half an hour or ten minutes did come, I was too tired to pray, and there seemed to be no hope for me to make up my arrears. My health, too, began to fail, and I was distracted by thoughts that I was failing in my duty towards Phyllis. The Prioress had told me I could only help Phyllis by my prayers, and in the last years there was no time. And what with bad health and thinking that I was remiss in my duty towards her and the man who had given me the money, one of the big dishes dropped out of my hand one day in the kitchen. The noise and the clatter of the pieces brought in the Sub-Prioress, who told me I wasn’t worth my keep. I didn’t answer her, but she brought the Prioress to see the kitchen, and everything was found fault with: it wasn’t swept, and the crockery was chipped and broken — all through my carelessness. I don’t know what they didn’t find fault with that day, and they thrieped on me till at the last the blood went to my head and I spoke without knowing what I was saying, telling them that while they were walking idly in the garden we were working our lives away. Yes, I think I said that two nuns had died already of hard work and bad food, and that we had no time for prayer; that the nunnery was no house of prayer but just a sweaters’ den, and that I’d sooner go back to a biscuit factory, where at all events I had the evenings to myself for prayer. I said many wrong things, but however wrong I was the Prioress shouldn’t have turned me out of the convent after ten years of work. I stood up for her when I came here first, sir, when you spoke against her; but perhaps I am wrong now and was right then. And now you have had the whole story.

  Not all the story, Sarah.

  Well, I know no more of it, sir.

  You have not told me why you’re leaving my service.

  My duty is towards Phyllis, sir; I have promised her my prayers, and there’s the man that paid for me, too, to be considered. If I married I would be having children and I’d have to look after them, and Phyllis would be forgotten; I couldn’t be remembering her always except in a convent.

  You’ve never told me, Sarah, how you met Miss Lynch. You must have met her the day you arrived in Dublin.

  No, sir; it was the next day. I arrived in Dublin late in the evening, and after walking about Sackville Street, Bond Street, and round Trinity College, searching for Phyllis —

  But you were ten years in the Welsh convent, and in ten years —

  She may have married; she always looked to marry, I know that, but being in Dublin I had to look, for one never knows. I was just back where I was before, with this difference, that I had a sovereign. The nuns at the last moment said they’d let me have that much —

  For ten years’ work! chimed in Dr. O’Reardon, but without noticing the interruption Sarah continued: It was all over again what it was before, myself asking the policeman to direct me, and when he heard I had money he said there was a woman in the street he lived in who would take me in. He directed me. There was in her house a child put out to nurse —

  And Miss Lynch being a Health Inspector! said the doctor. I see it all!

  But I wouldn’t want you to think ill of the Welsh nuns, sir. You see, it was hard for them to keep me and I after saying to the Prioress that she was answerable for the lives of the lay sisters, and much of that sort. They couldn’t have kept me, and I have reason to think they have suffered in their consciences ever since, for when I wrote to them to tell them where I was and that I’d like to enter another convent if they’d give me a brief, they wrote, leaving out many of the bad things I’d said, for they were in the wrong too themselves, and they felt it, I’m sure of it. I am leaving you, sir, with sorrow in my heart, for I cannot find Phyllis, though I have looked everywhere for her.

  Phyllis may be dead.

  Even so, sir, I
must pray for her; we must pray for the dead. I know you Protestants don’t, but we Catholics do. And I hope you’ll forgive me, sir, if I’ve deceived you in anything, an’ indeed I have that, for I only came into your service to earn enough money —

  To go into another convent, the doctor interrupted.

  Yes; that was at the back of my mind always.

  Well, if that be your conviction, Sarah, you must go.

  Now will it be putting you to an inconvenience if I don’t stay my month?

  It will, Sarah, but I haven’t the heart to detain you. Peace of mind comes before everything else; and I dare say that I shall be able to get another parlourmaid within the next three days. And we part then, Sarah, for eternity.

  Not for eternity, sir. We shall all meet in heaven, Catholics and Protestants alike.

  And what about the broken-hearted man on the ladder clipping the ivy on the wall of my house?

  Throwing out the sparrows’ nests, sir. He said you told him to.

  What is to be done, Sarah? Sweet-peas and sparrows are incompatible.

  He’s sorry to do it, sir. He showed me a nest with four little ones, and the moment I touched their beaks they opened them, thinking their father and mother were bringing them food.

  You think more of the sparrows than of Michael, Sarah.

  I’d think of him ready enough if it wasn’t for my prayers.

  The door closed. The doctor was alone again, and he continued his letter to Helena Lynch, bearing Michael’s shears among the ivy.