by James Hanley
‘And the room? Is that ready? I am still surprised that after all these years you should forget to hear Spencer’s cab roll up to the door. What were you doing, Corkran?’
‘Me, mam! I was going through the ledger. I never heard the cab, though usually I can hear it turning the corner. I was looking up the Fury account, mam.’
‘You’ve surprised me more than once, Corkran,’ replied Mrs. Ragner, folding up the paper which the man had given her.
‘Surprised, mam? I hope everything is satisfactory?’
There came one of those rare moments when this man, disarmed now by the tone of Mrs. Ragner’s voice, opened those slits of eyes so widely as to convey his consternation and his fear. Mr. Corkran had emerged from his shell, and he had momentarily slipped down from his high throne.
‘Yes, surprised, Corkran. I was surprised when you allowed that woman in.’
‘Mrs. Fury, mam? But her daughter has an account here.’
‘Is that all?’ she asked.
Mr. Corkran remained dumb. He had his whims and fancies, but these were things that not even Mrs. Ragner could invade. There was a reason why he had allowed Mrs. Fury inside the Banfield house. But he could not give it voice. He could not explain. At least not to the stout lady on the bed. Mr. Corkran said quickly, ‘Was I wrong in my calculations?’
‘If she had come direct to me I think I would have refused her, Corkran. That is one of my surprises, a surprise in which you have your fair share. For I am glad you introduced her to me, Corkran, very glad.’
‘I thought she was quite a decent person, mam. The daughter is respectable.’
‘Yes, Corkran. It is hard for me to express certain feelings that I now have. There are some clients whom one really respects. Some whom one does not.’
‘Looking through the account, mam, I thought that it was becoming most involved—excuse me—I mean it’s getting rather tight.’
‘What? Sixty pounds for a loan of twenty just over a year ago. Less thirty when that compensation note is cleared. You continue to surprise me, Corkran. Involved is a word I am better able to understand than you. How long have you been here, Corkran?’
She sat up on the bed, and leaned her head against the bed-rail. She fixed him with her eye. Mr. Corkran actually squinted.
‘Why is she asking this?’ thought the man. ‘And why isn’t she going down for her tea?’
‘I’ve been here nine years and a half,’ replied Mr. Corkran.
‘Of course you have. And at any moment that you feel your freedom threatened you may go. Understand that while you are here you must do as I ask.’
‘Yes, mam.’
‘And that in future I shall myself look after the Fury account.’
‘Yes, mam.’
‘And that your advice is only wanted when I require it.’
‘Yes, mam.’
‘That everything will go on just as usual. And that you won’t phone me when I am engaged with a client at the office.’
‘Yes, mam.’
‘Then get out, Corkran. You can call me when the tea is ready. Then get that room ready.’
The woman rose from the bed, crossed to her dressing-table and applied some powder to her face. Mr. Corkran departed. As she smoothed back her hair she said to herself, ‘I believe I have allowed things to get slack these last few weeks. Now why is that?’ She puckered her brows and stood looking down at her suède slippers, the while she drummed her fingers upon her partly open mouth. ‘Corkran is really going beyond himself.’ She went downstairs carrying the Fury agreement in her hand. In the hall she paused, then called, ‘Corkran!’
The man came out of the big room where he had been arranging the benches for visitors.
‘The chemist’s things,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
Corkran handed her a packet of sanitary towels and disappeared again. It was almost half-past six. She hurried into the drawing-room, the only room in the house where she took her meals, excepting an occasional light supper which she took in her bedroom. Mr. Corkran had made poached eggs on toast, and even hot buttered scones. Anna Ragner began her tea. This meal she always took leisurely, it was her hour of meditation. In retrospect she reviewed the events of the day, the clients seen and accepted—she never remembered the face of a refused person—and some remarkable-looking people had indeed interviewed her that very day. But she remembered almost every person upon her book. She knew the history of each case. She knew their families and relations, their incomes and their indebtedness. She knew when they were ill, as she knew the moment they were dead. She was linked up with their very destiny. Her house was a treasure-house of secrets, her letter-box bulged with appeals, hopes, threats and curses. Her safe, full of promissory notes, was a veritable arsenal of power. All this she contemplated upon as she sat enjoying her tea. She could unearth the past, obliterate the future. But, greatest of all, her world was a world of faces, and these she had the power to make laugh or cry. In imagination she peopled her room with all the clients she had ever had, just as at this moment her faithful factotum standing sentinel in the hall opened the door from time to time and asked rudely, ‘Name!’ People were ushered into the long room, where they sat waiting upon the benches: young women and old, working men, grand-dads, boys, mere children. And they talked to each other, in whispers, whilst Mrs. Ragner had her tea.
Mr. Corkran was disturbed. It was the first time he had ever been spoken to in such a manner. He simply could not understand this sudden change in Mrs. Ragner. Always she had left things to him. Every client passed through his hands. And now because he had been nothing other than attentive to her business she had humiliated him. There was no other word for it. As he stood there like a statue, waiting for a fresh ring at the bell, he thought to himself, ‘I will speak to her now.’ He knocked at the sitting-room door and, unusual with him, entered without being asked. Mrs. Ragner stood up.
‘What is the matter, Corkran? I don’t understand. You know I am not to be interrupted during meals.’
‘Yes, mam. But I have something to say. I am quite prepared to go if you wish it.’
Mrs. Ragner smiled. ‘Your spirit of independence, if you like to call it that, no longer counts. You have none. The position is: Two people here wish to change their minds. But only I can do that. Do you understand, Corkran? I repeat that I was rather surprised when you allowed this woman in, even though her daughter is respectable and pays regularly. But I don’t like the woman. That is why I am renewing the loan. If I have allowed you to have absolute sway here, it is only because my increasing business in town keeps me occupied not only in the daytime but at night. Even when you are in bed, Corkran! That is all. I repeat I was surprised. But I am glad she met with your approval, because now she meets with mine. You will bring me the ledger.’
‘Yes, mam.’ And Mr. Corkran hurried out for the big book.
He held the big ledger out to her.
‘You may carry on, Corkran. I give you absolute power to interview every person who calls here, and if you do not approve of them you can turn them away. All who satisfy you satisfy me. But the Fury account I shall look to myself. Is there anything else you wish to know?’
Mr. Corkran stood looking at the woman, whose books he kept, whose house he cleaned, whose clothes he washed, and whose money he banked; she whom he ran messages for, whose bath he filled and emptied, whose bed he made. He had done this for nearly ten years. In return he received two pounds per week and all found. He had Saturday and Sunday evenings off.
‘Am I satisfied?’ he asked himself, and already knew the answer to his question. He was satisfied. But the position was difficult. It had been made difficult by the fact that he had ventured to suggest that the Fury account was getting to a stage where further re-loans would be suicidal. For this he was told to mind his own business.
‘Well?’ asked Mrs. Ragner. ‘Well? What are you standing there for?’
The man opened his mouth to make reply. ‘I—I’m sorry, mam, but you
always counted on my advice when the accounts were climbing.’
‘I did,’ said Mrs. Ragner. ‘And you can still advise me. But not about the Fury account. Is that plain?’
‘Yes, mam. But you see—I mean it’s difficult—I mean the position.’
‘The position is that you cannot move. Do you understand that? You cannot move. Where can you go if you leave here? To whom? What can you do? Now get out.’
‘Very good, mam.’ As Mr. Corkran turned to go Mrs. Ragner rushed up to him, caught his shoulder and said loudly, ‘You are not a man. Understand me. Do you think you would be here if you were?’ She gripped both shoulders with her plump hands, and put her flushed face near to the ashen-grey one of Mr. Corkran. ‘If you were that, you would not be here five minutes. I know people when I see them. It’s not only my clients who can be ungrateful. Now go.’
To finish her tea was quite impossible. ‘The ingratitude of people!’ she said in her mind. It was as though she had struck at the core of her power and its harsh voice had remained silent. To have kept that creature nine years, to have clothed and fed him, to have done everything conceivable for him, and, then for him to take offence, mainly because, ruled by a sudden desire, she had decided to look after a particular account. It wasn’t the account, it wasn’t the sum, nor the woman, no, it was just this, that there should have emerged from that slavish creature a spirit, the faint glow of an independent spirit. That he should even have suggested that the account was running too high. She laughed aloud. Good God! She had not trodden hard enough.
At half-past nine, Mr. Corkran, hearing a loud ring on the bell, rushed down the hall to answer the door. A young man, he appeared to Mr. Corkran to be a person about twenty years of age, was standing on the step. In reply to that gentleman’s gruff ‘Name, please,’ the young man, after subjecting Mr. Corkran to a scrutinizing survey which began at his rope shoes and ended at the top of his head, replied:
‘Fury! I have a letter from my mother for Mrs. Ragner.’
‘I see. Will you step inside?’
Mr. Corkran drew open the door as far as he could without moving from his position, but the young man made no move. Instead, he replied:
‘I’d much rather not. Would you take the note for me?’
‘You seem in a great hurry. How do you know I’ll take the note for you? I am not a servant. If you have any business here, you must step inside and see Mrs. Ragner.’ He leaned out over the step and said in a low voice, ‘Because Mrs. Ragner is most strict about one thing. You can go to see her, but she won’t come out to see you. This applies to all visitors here. Is the message urgent?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it. I was asked to bring this note.’
‘Who asked you?’
‘My mother,’ replied the young man. He seemed to resent Mr. Corkran’s curiosity about such intimate matters. He held the letter in his hand, the other rested upon the brick-work. Looking at it, Mr. Corkran thought what a businesslike hand it really was. The fist was clenched and leaned heavily upon the wall, as though all the weight of the young man’s body lay behind it. Mr. Corkran shifted his position. The man on the step was staring at him in a most insolent fashion. This attitude was so unusual that for the first time for years Daniel Corkran raised his voice.
‘Who are you staring at?’ he asked.
‘You. Are you taking the letter or not? It doesn’t concern me, and I’m in a hurry.’
‘I thought you were,’ replied the astonished Daniel. ‘But wait a second, will you?’
Mrs. Ragner’s clients having gone, all business was closed promptly at nine. She had locked up her books, and was sitting indulging in contemplation at the wooden trestle-table. Then the sound of voices came to her ears. Two men speaking. She had been expecting a visitor at nine, but a woman. This was a man. She went out and stood in the hall.
‘What is it, Corkran?’ she called. ‘It is gone nine o’clock. Close the door.’
‘This young man has come from Hatfields. He has a letter for you and he is in a hurry. I asked him to come in, but he said he preferred not. His name is Fury.’
Anna Ragner stood motionless. Her eyes pierced through the dim light of the hall.
‘What do you want?’ she called out in a loud voice.
‘I have a letter from my mother,’ replied the young man.
‘Then if anybody has a letter for me they must deliver it. Corkran, I will see to this.’
It was only when she stood at the door looking down into the young man’s face that she realized that she had broken an iron rule. She had answered the door herself. Mr. Corkran, though dismissed, still hung about in the hall, his sallow skin looking yellowish and sickly under the light. Mrs. Ragner said sharply:
‘Show this young man to my room.’
Then she walked along the hall and disappeared into the big sitting-room. She sat down at her desk. Mr. Corkran, having seated the visitor in the back sitting-room, went into the big room to tidy up. Mrs. Ragner sat so quietly at her desk that he was quite unaware of her presence. The top part of the room where she sat was in shadow, but he heard her heavy breathing.
The young man seated on the couch at once rose to his feet when the woman entered the room. She had kept him waiting fifteen minutes, during which time she had sat thinking of nothing in particular except her visitor, who seemed truculent, agitated, and certainly ill-mannered. For anybody to refuse to enter number three Banfield Road, especially when asked, was the height of bad manners. She stood looking at him now, casually, indifferently, as though he were nothing in particular, like an article of furniture, or the very carpet on which he had placed his dirty boots.
Without a word she took the letter from his hand, opened it and began to read.
The young man wore a brown suit, a sailor’s blue jersey, and black shoes. His head was bare. He was about five foot ten in height, well built, had a lively, intelligent face, a restless look, and gave the appearance of being a little shortsighted by the way he stared at people at first acquaintance. He now stared at Mrs. Ragner. He noticed her black velvet dress, her black suède shoes, her well-kept hair, the single ornament she wore round her neck. He noticed the contours of her body set clear by the tightness of the black dress, and he noticed her hands. More than any other part of her person the hands stood out, at least for him, as the living manifestation of her character, of what she was. A moneylender. Whilst his eyes remained fastened upon her hands, she in turn was studying him. But so concentrated was his gaze that he was quite unconscious of the eyes that now roamed over his own person. Eyes that looked out over the edges of the notepaper she still held in her hand. She had read the letter long ago. It now became a sort of screen from behind which she could get a clear view of her visitor. To Mrs. Ragner it was almost as though that tall proud woman were now seated in front of her. But the expression was different. Mrs. Fury looked at her in one way—this young man had looked at her in quite another. Was he staring at the rings upon her fingers? And when he raised his eyes was he not staring at her neck, at that cavity between her breasts which took the weight of the necklace? Suddenly she dropped the letter and caught him unawares.
‘To think that he has been studying my figure!’ she thought as she saw the embarrassed look he shot at her. Somehow she felt pleased with herself at this moment.
‘Are you the Peter Fury who was at college?’ she asked, as she stretched her legs upon the black carpet.
The young man leaned forward and said, ‘Yes.’ He had begun to fidget, and for the second time he looked at his watch. ‘I’ll be late,’ he thought. ‘I was at college in Cork,’ he stammered out, and half rose from the chair.
‘What can he be in such a hurry about?’ Mrs. Ragner was asking herself. ‘You go to sea now,’ she continued. ‘Is your father still working? and your other brother, the one who had the accident?’
Peter Fury replied ‘Yes.’ He rather resented this enquiry into what he considered purely private family af
fairs. In any case he wouldn’t sit in the house a minute longer. He had something far more important to do than sit looking at this fat greasy Jewess, who seemed to take an especial pleasure in asking him somewhat embarrassing questions. He brushed his trousers with his hand, got up and said, ‘I must go now. I have an appointment. I’ll be late.’ As he said this he flushed deeply as though he now resented what he had said. It was none of this woman’s business, anyhow. Of one thing he was quite certain. He wouldn’t come here again. His mother could do that. It wasn’t anything to do with him.
Anna Ragner also got up and walked with him to the door. She smiled at him, saying, ‘About this note. Will you tell your mother that I have not yet made up my mind, and that on Friday I shall expect the usual payment?’
‘Yes. Yes.’ Peter Fury was getting quite agitated now. She opened the door for him.
‘Mr. Corkran will show you out.’ Suddenly, before he realized it, she was standing in front of him. ‘You will be here on Friday, then,’ she said, with all the assurance of a person who is quite certain that he will be.
‘Yes, I’ll tell her that,’ replied the young man, looking down into Mrs. Ragner’s face as though what she was saying—in fact, as though the whole scene was but the fragment of some dream. He could not take his eyes from Mrs. Ragner’s hands. There was something fascinating about them, with their glittering rings, the crooked fingers, the powerful wrists. Then he hurried from the room. Halfway down the hall he gave a quick glance back as though he imagined she were following him, and then out of the shadows stepped the factotum, walking silently in his rope shoes, who said quickly, ‘Have you forgotten something?’
‘Oh no. Thank you.’ Then the door opened and he shot out into the street. The door closed loudly behind him. He walked quickly down the gravel path, and when he came to the gate he stopped, turned round, and, leaning across it, stared back at the big gloomy house, in complete darkness now save for the faint light burning in the hall. He thought of the peculiar creature who had opened the door to him, as he thought too of that woman dressed in black velvet whose hands had so fascinated him and who seemed so calm, so businesslike, and so indifferent to everybody but herself. She had seemed quite indifferent to his haste, his agitation. ‘So that’s how it is,’ he thought, as he hurried down the road. ‘That’s the position. Well!…’ When he reached the bottom, he saw a tram racing along. Without waiting for it to stop he ran and boarded it, swinging dangerously by one hand to the brass pole. The car rocked crazily as it took the descent of the hill. There was only one passenger in it, a man going to work. He was trying to read the late issue of The Gelton Times, but the fantastic movements of the tram made this most difficult. By his side was a parcel. Obviously his food. ‘Must be a night worker,’ thought Peter as he passed him to take a seat right in front of the car. The life of the streets had dimmed, here and there lamps had been put out by the wind, and as he passed the local theatre he saw crowds streaming out, the air was filled with conversation, laughter, titters and curses. ‘I’m late,’ he thought. ‘Of course, Mother would just do that. Just like her. First night home from sea into the bargain.’ Well, he had made his position pretty plain. They needn’t expect him back before midnight. And no more questions, no more apologies, no more resurrecting old ghosts and playing upon his feelings. All past. A new page had come into being, the brightest page he had ever turned. In this rushing tram making towards the town at a speed that might have actually been fashioned to his very purpose, he was really floating upon the crest of the most delicious and delirious wave of anticipation. He was going towards happiness. ‘Sheila!’ he kept muttering under his breath. ‘Dear Sheila!’ Oh! Why had she married that thick brother of his? Why? Why? It all seemed so preposterous. Married nearly two years, and yet they meant nothing to each other. At least Desmond meant nothing to her. ‘If,’ he thought,’ ‘if’—but suddenly the tram pulled up with a jerk, and it seemed to snap off his train of thought as quickly as it had pitched him forward in his seat. He shook himself like a dog, dashed down the car, swung down the stair-rail, and landed in the road just as the car with a loud screech set off on its journey again. Then he disappeared into the darkness.