An End and a Beginning

by James Hanley

  The. flames of the fire were dying down. “If only this silly, headstrong woman had told me how long this man was going to be here, if she’d written properly, explaining. And it’s not right at all for two strange creatures of different sexes to be living alone under the one roof like this.”

  Anger would no longer allow her to be still. She moved about the great house as in a dream. She went to the son’s room, took away the dust sheets, aired the bedclothes, removed the sail-cloth from the floor. She dusted and polished, and always she tried to visualize this man, the one who was coming there. What was he really like? “A month or two, may be a year or two,” she thought, “at least to people who never had any sense of time at all. It’s all terrible, this disturbing me like this.”

  The morning grew. The afternoon she spent wandering from room to room, looking out of one window, and then another, trying doors, inspecting locks. She went to the kitchen, her practical mind already pondering over food, oil, light. This was going to mean leaving the house, struggling down to the village. A hateful matter. Sundays she did not mind; she enjoyed going off to the early Mass, and, if the weather was fine, to the evening service also. So far she had found the local tradespeople fairly obliging. Their doughty errand boys struggled up to Rath Na with baskets and boxes. It was going to be different, a new day, a new time, and she dreaded it, hated it. The casual nature of the note from Gelton made her at once suspicious. After years of silence and isolation, Miss Fetch felt she was being uprooted.

  Like a sentry she patrolled the rooms as the darkness came down, candle in hand, listening, waiting, watching, and hearing only in vastness of house the monotonous tick of a clock. She had pottered about in the kitchen, getting ready a meal, putting a stone water-bottle in the visitor’s bed. And, finally, she had sought the seclusion of her own room. There she sat staring at the fire, and after an hour and a half, the visitor had not arrived. “Perhaps he’s not coming after all, perhaps something has happened, perhaps he’s changed his mind about it. Maybe she herself has thought better of it. No. I can’t hear a sound at all.” She dozed.

  “Why, it’s nearly midnight. He can’t be coming. Oh, I hope he’s not. I wonder why I feel so angry about this. Perhaps one should be charitable, I don’t know, I’m not used to that sort of thing,” and she went on talking to herself. The clock struck one. “He isn’t coming.”

  Then, quite suddenly, her sharp ears heard the sound of boots on the gravel. “It’s him. He has come. And I hoped he would not.”

  She hurried down, and in the rush of air the candle flamed like a torch. She stood in the cold, draughty hall, and waited for his knock. When it came the door opened as though by magic. The man on the step was astonished. “She must have been there all the time,” he thought, “waiting.”

  As she sat in her cosy little room, Miss Fetch had gone back, little by little, thread by thread, over the whole disturbing day. She had not retired to her bed, and certainly she was not sleeping. After seeing to the visitor’s room she had gone straight to her own. She had supplied him with his hot meal, the rationed light.

  “Imagine a man arriving at Rath Na for a two months’ stay, a month, even a week’s stay, and not a thing with him. Not even an overcoat. He’s very tall, just like the other one that was here a few years back, and he seems just as clumsy. He lacks something. You notice these things very quickly. Never seen one like him in this house before to-day. Well, in the morning we shall see each other very clearly, and I hope we shall understand one another’s minds. But just imagine it! All that way across the water, and not even an overcoat.”

  The overcoat loomed large in her mind, and it continually astonished. “Fancy sending any man all that distance without a good strong coat to his back, in this horrible weather. Surely somebody could have got him a coat.”

  Until three o’clock in the morning Miss Fetch read the revelations of St. Theresa. At a quarter past three she removed her slippers, and crept silently away to the bedroom. She felt it as a humiliating act. She had never before had to do a thing like this. She was afraid to wake him, she knew she was afraid. She got into bed, and lay very still. She recited a decade of the rosary, for her own protection, for the protection of Rath Na. She fell asleep with the beads in her hands.

  Through the open window came the hoot of an owl. And at half-past seven the alarm clock woke her up. Immediately she got out of bed and dressed. Then she knelt down and said her morning prayers. There was one other prayer to add. “Oh God! Protect us this day from all evil things, protect this house.”

  She wore her long black dress, fastened at the throat by a single, large bone brooch. This she never failed to wear. The brooch of Saint Theresa was always pinned there. It was like a flag, proclaiming at her soul’s mast-head the triumph of the true religion. She picked up her great bundle of keys, and fastened the cord about her. She then went downstairs.

  Having lighted a fire in the kitchen, she began getting the breakfast things together. She had decided that during his stay her visitor should eat in the kitchen. The dining-room had been closed for years, and she saw no reason for opening it. As she went about her work her mind was full of the man upstairs. “I thought the night would never pass away. How glad I am to see the daylight.”

  This was the very first time that Rath Na’s housekeeper had had a man in the house. She sat down and began her own breakfast, some toast, an egg, tea. She listened for sounds, a voice, footsteps, but the place remained silent. She finished her breakfast, and cleared away her crockery. As she put it away in the cupboard she noticed the time. It was half-past eight o’clock.

  “I suppose I’d better let him know the breakfast is ready.” To-day it might be all right, but there was to-morrow, and the next day, all the afternoons and evenings. What were they going to say to each other. She hoped he wouldn’t just sit around; perhaps he might do some digging in the kitchen garden. But she supposed he would make his way down to the village. “I expect he drinks. Those people always do.”

  Passing into the hall she went to the foot of the stairs. Should she call him? Against the wall stood the gong. It was covered with dust. Suddenly the whole house shook from the force of the blow that Miss Fetch delivered to it. With its sounds still circling her ears, she returned to the kitchen, and waited. Seated by the now climbing fire of the stove, she made a note in her mind about arrangements with Mr. Cullen to take a note to the grocer. The house was silent again.

  “He must have heard that, surely. Why a deaf man would have heard it. He must be deep asleep not to.”

  On the spur of the moment she decided to go and see. And having found her way to the bedroom, she stood hesitating outside the door. She knocked. She knocked again. There was no reply. She felt annoyed.

  “It’s nearly nine o’clock.”

  A pause.

  “Are you awake in there?”

  Silence.

  The moment she lifted her hand she realized that she was afraid to knock. The hand remained in the air. “Are you awake there? Are you awake there, Mr.——”

  She had for a moment forgotten his name. She was lost in a sudden wave of confusion. She knocked again, waited.

  “The breakfast is ready, waiting you. Please be good enough to come down at once. I cannot wait on you all morning.” And nothing had happened. She turned the door handle, and pushed gently. She peeped round the door. The room was empty. She stepped inside. Her heart leapt, and she exclaimed under her breath, “He’s gone. Oh, thank heaven for that. He’s gone.”

  Seeing everything left so neat and tidy, she felt doubly certain of it. “He’s thought better of it perhaps, he’s——”, and now she noticed that there lay on the table at his bedside, a packet of cigarettes, matches, a wallet, a small heap of coins, and two photographs. She crossed the room and stood looking at them. After a while she bent down and picked up the wallet and put them away, took up the coins, the man walked into the room. The photographs fluttered to the floor, and standing behind her, he
saw them fall.

  “I thought you’d gone,” she said, not looking at him.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, it just came into my mind this minute, I came up here to tell you your breakfast is ready, and by this time it’s almost cold, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “I went for a walk. I like walking.”

  In silence he bent down and retrieved the photographs, picked up the wallet and put them away, took up the coins the cigarettes and the matches.

  “I rang the gong,” she said.

  “I was out, I told you that.”

  “You had better go and have your breakfast,” Miss Fetch said.

  “Thank you,” he said, and immediately left her.

  Long after the door had closed, Miss Fetch was still standing there. “A walk,” she thought, “at that hour of the morning.”

  It was to be the first of many.

  “The feet,” Miss Fetch said, “the murdering feet,” clutching in her hand the metal crucifix attached to the end of her rosary.

  They stamped through the house, through her room, through her dreams. She did not think she would ever forget them. Miss Fetch could only think of some mad captain, tramping about in the wilderness of his ship, a cold, empty, and rocking ship. Up and downstairs, in and out of doors, through passages, around corners, she heard them everywhere, restless, aimless. Always tramping, always moving somewhere, never still.

  “There he is,” she said, “there he goes again.” She sat still in her chair. On this late afternoon she had stood at her window, watching the last of the light go, and feeling suddenly shivery, she was glad to get back to the warmth of the fire, the flames of which sent shadows dancing on the stone-washed wall. She found herself slowly studying this room, with something of surprise, as though it had come to her in a flashing moment that inside its walls she had lived this thirty years. “Just imagine that. I’ve lived in this room just over thirty whole years.”

  There was the sewing-machine and the work-basket, still standing under the window. There, hanging on the wall, was the same corner cupboard, there “The Annunciation” hanging by her reading table. She looked at the mantelpiece, on which stood the two small blue vases containing the artifical roses, and between them her ivory crucifix. And handy by the armchair, the bookcase, loaded with lives, miracles, revelations, theological problems, burning faith, the aura of mystery. On three short shelves, arranged like armies, sentinels, and watchful angels, lay God and Miss Fetch’s battlefield. An escape hole, the tunnel to the light, ultimate, final. She watched the burning candles. She looked at the photograph of the stone-faced man that stood between them. Her father.

  She looked at her pile of sewing, her embroidery, her crochetwork, the Communion-white cloths, the heavenly sails on the calm sea, into which, Miss Fetch, after forty-six years, had steered her life. This sea was soundless, and she had watched its waves recede farther and farther, and they carried on their surface the spirit and substance of one burning hope, one great ambition. Under this soundless sea the lighthouse had vanished. “Thirty-two years. Think of it. Just fancy that,” she reflected, as she clutched the crucifix, as she listened to the tireless feet, tramping about the house, tramping on her heart, her soul, into her peace. “Those feet make the house rock.”

  She stared down at the red carpet, the footstool, the spirit stove, the kettle, the pan. Quite casually, she picked up a thick book in a red-cloth binding, and opening it, she glanced at the writing on its pages, and under her breath she read.

  “‘To-day I am sixteen and I have come here at my father’s bidding to serve Rath Na. I have stopped looking through a cracked window, feeling my father’s shadow behind me. I have stopped looking at the sea.’ Think of it. I wrote that all those years ago, in the old days, when Rath Na was glorious.”

  Idly her fingers turned its pages; phrases leapt out like light. “To-day Colonel Downey brought back with him a bright girl with laughing eyes.”

  She shut the book. She saw the girl, she saw the master of Rath Na. “Now he lives in England, of all places, in a very respectable villa, and this place rots. I sometimes ask myself why I stayed here so long, so very long. My foolish hope chained toe to every part of this house.”

  She opened the book again, and her sharp eye was darting about for dates, her mind leaping back to a day, an hour, a feeling, an observation, a look, a gesture.

  “Mrs. Downey likes suffering, it’s crucifixion for her, she likes being crucified.” She turned page after page, she searched for an entry. She read. “To-day the Colonel did not come—but he sent a wreath. Father Twomey and myself followed the martyr to her grave.”

  She laid the book face downwards, on her knee. “How he must have loathed her. How he must have hated that clinging ivy, that wilting piece of hypocrisy. Nevertheless, God rest her soul.

  “I would have married him. He never spoke. And neither did I. That’s how we loved each other, in silence.

  “I came here at sixteen to be a serving maid, and here I am.” Raising her head, she once more glanced round her room. She was at last its mistress, and Rath Na was silent, empty, falling to pieces.

  “Ah, but I won’t think about it any more. No, I won’t be remembering, and I won’t be bitter. I’d better forget it.”

  Again the red book tempted, and again she opened it. “A letter came to-day from Master John. A good lad. Best of the lot. This day I’ll write to Colonel Downey.”

  She reached forward and replaced the book on the shelf. The moment she closed its pages the silence was ended, and all the sounds were back again. She went to the lower part of the house.

  “Pacing his room,” she said, “and if it’s not the room, then it’s some other place. The miles that man has walked these past few days.” And then, suddenly, she was back in the hall. It was time to call him. Picking up the stick she struck a single blow, and the sounds went circling from floor to floor. The noise drowned the pacing feet.

  Miss Fetch never called him to meals personally, she always struck the gong. Then she went off and laid the table. As she moved about she thought of the first days, and the silence. He hardly spoke of anything beyond the weather, the seagulls on the lawn, the rain-sodden land. And the walks he took. Such walks, such long walks, out for hours, wearing the day out, far beyond the house. Where on earth did the man get to? When she heard him moving in his room, and knew he was getting up, she had but to glance at her clock, and it would show the hour of eight. It was always eight. Listening to him she would count the stairs as he descended, she had memorized the number of steps he took across the hall, how the door creaked when he opened it, and the heavy dragging steps on the gravel paths. The pattern was clear. Back to his breakfast. Up to his room. Long silences. Did he sleep, or did he just lie there, thinking, or did he read? There was plenty to read in John Downey’s room. The midday meal, and then off again, another walk. She thought he must already have flattened the hill. And how punctual he was, with nothing very important to be punctual about. The way he jumped when you came upon him suddenly in some part of the house. Sometimes she thought of a lost child, wandering about in the darkness.

  She now heard Peter Fury crossing the hall. The fork fell from her hand, went clattering to the floor.

  “But this,” she thought, “this.” It was the captain again, wandering through the wilderness of his ship; the demented captain was back. Like a hunted man. Hunted by whom? By what? A frightened man. Afraid of what?

  He entered the kitchen and sat down.

  “Good afternoon,” said Miss Fetch.

  “Good afternoon, ma’m,” he replied. She looked at him, and he returned her look.

  He saw the tall, thin woman enveloped in black, and this sombreness of dress was broken only by the white of the short apron she wore, and the bone brooch at her throat. She saw this tall, broad-shouldered man, with the black, though slowly greying hair, the wide eyes, and the restless hands. He saw before him the guardian of this house, its ordinance, its
breath.

  She now stood behind his shoulder, serving him, still unable to believe that the machinery of the pacing feet had suddenly shut down, like an engine, a dynamo. Looking at the top of his head she glimpsed skull through thinning hair, saw the strength of the face in profile, watched his hands. “Did you enjoy your walk?”

  “Yes, thank you. I like the smell of the sea over the hill,” he said, as she moved away and stood by the fire. She heard him eating.

  “Aren’t you eating, Miss Fetch?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She put some food on a plate and sat down opposite him. He lowered his head, and went on eating, and he knew that she was watching him.

  By some process of divination, each seemed to know just what the other was going to say. The conversations were fugitive, circumscribed; eating was the self-imposed ordeal. The feet trod into Miss Fetch’s mind. They seemed to press out her sudden question.

  She seemed hardly to have realized that she had spoken to him, until she heard him say, “I don’t know—not long.”

  “Are you comfortable?” she asked, wondering exactly what length of stay could be indicated by the words, “not long.”

  She had pushed away her plate, and now, her arms folded, she leaned across the table. “You never go to the village,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “Nor to the Mass on Sundays,” added Miss Fetch.

  And when he did not reply, she said, “It is understood.”

  The expression upon the man’s face had suddenly softened, and when he smiled at her, she saw him confused and shy, but she knew that the ice was breaking. “Thank you, Miss Fetch,” he said, and leaning towards her, he said, “You understand?”

  “I will try to. I am alone here. Rath Na is far from Gelton, and a wide sea divides them. But little birds have wings. I am sorry indeed that you do not go to the Mass.”