The Bay

by L. A. G. Strong

  So off we went by devious ways over the river into Talbot Street, and, after visiting three shops, I had to pay the appalling sum of eight and sixpence. I never forgot it, and I never will. It brings me out in a sweat every time I think of it. Dismay and guilt and treachery to Muriel and the conviction that I was six sorts of blasted idiot, all fought with a feeling that I couldn’t have done otherwise, and that I was unstable and unaccountable and a stranger to myself. It’s hell being young.

  I paid her the money by Butt Bridge, and shook hands with her and wished her luck. I was going off, when I found she was in tears again.

  “Sir,” she said, “you’ve been a gentleman to me, and are you satisfied that I will go straight home now?”

  “I am,” I said awkwardly. “Don’t take me for a saint or anything; but I do trust you, and I think you’ll be all right now.”

  But she caught my arm, and pleaded with me to see that she would do as she said. I went along with her to Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, and came to the bulk of a giant tenement house. She insisted that I should accompany her to the upper portion of it. We went up the stairs, plunging and groping in the darkness, and she knocked at the door. Her sister opened it, and at once the two women fell into each other’s arms and wept. I looked on helpless, standing in the doorway, with two pink china dogs in my arms, and a picture, and a jug of vast dimensions with rosebuds all around its middle.

  A queer scene followed. The man hadn’t come in yet. The two wanted me to stay, and yet they didn’t.

  “Ye must see me brother-in-law,” the girl kept on saying. “Sure, ye won’t go without seeing him.”

  I compromised by saying that I’d call back presently and bring some things for tea, and see the man of the house then. So I went off, and, my madness still strong upon me, I bought some fat rashers and greasy sausages and tea and cakes. I remembered that I’d be too soon if I went back straight, so I asked the woman in the shop (she had a small baby in a basket on the counter) if I might leave my parcel and fetch it again. She said yes, and I went out and tramped a mile up and back to the music of the hooters and syrens, till I went back to the shop. The woman was not to be seen; there was no one but the baby. My parcel was where I had left it. I picked it up, the baby staring at me unwinkingly and making me feel like a thief.

  “Good-bye, baby,” I said; and went out, and back to the tenement house, and up the stairs.

  The first picture that met my eye as the door opened was the girl sitting on a chair by the fire with bowed head, and on the mantelpiece above her the two pink dogs, their expressions denoting an astonishment suitable to the whole episode.

  Then I saw the man himself. He was a big, heavy, coarse man with a kindly face. He had on him a blue worsted jersey with a lot of letters embossed around it, that made me think of Captain Callaghan.

  He got up very slowly from his chair.

  “Sit ye down, sir,” he said. “Myself and the wife are beholden to ye.”

  I muttered something, I don’t know what, and the wife made ready the meal. She wasn’t long, thank goodness. We all sat down to it, and, to keep myself from looking at the girl, I ate a frightful lot and drank copious draughts of tea. They were all so diffident, the great big man was so shy, and the girl so red in the face and so often looking at me, that I ached and longed to be away, out in the rain, anywhere.

  At intervals, as I was scooping up tea out of my saucer, which I took that way out of deference to the company, I’d look out of the window and see a lazy rain-sodden sail go slowly past, and hear a far voice accompanying it. Then, maybe, a steamer heavy with lowing cattle, and too much smoke coming out of the funnel, and blowing across to blur the view.

  Another thing I noticed: the sink was very high up on the wall. I wondered how the devil they managed to wash up at it. No curiosity, however, could have made me stop to see.

  At long last, the man pushed back his chair, and rose.

  “Mister,” he said again, “we’re beholden to ye.”

  I gulped unhappily. I did not know what to say. The wife smiled at me. Emboldened, I pointed to the girl by the fire.

  “She’s a fine girl,” I blurted out, “and so sincere in what she says and does. It would be a million pities for her to drink her good looks away and go to blazes.”

  I was speaking under compulsion, for my stomach was sore with the food I’d eaten—the cakes were like rocks—and I was dizzy with the heat of the room. The man then tried to repay me the eight and six. I heard myself laugh and say that it was nothing, though I was bursting all the time to take it, for I knew what it would mean to me for the rest of the week.

  I left them, after a shamefaced, awkward handshake with the girl. I went down the stairs with my head spinning. At the corner, I had to stand aside to let a fat woman come up, scolding a girl about some apples. She paused only long enough to glance at me suspiciously as she passed.

  When I reached the street, I heard a window go up. I looked up, and the man waved his pipe to me and shouted out something I couldn’t hear properly.

  “Aha!” I shouted back, and waved and smiled, and hurried round the corner.

  I told Muriel my first lie, to account for that ten and four-pence: for that is what it came to, with the things I bought for tea. I told her I had lost half a sovereign out of my pocket. She was horrified, and scolded me, and I had to listen to a long lecture from Mr. Travers on the necessity to keep a purse with different compartments in it for coppers, silver, and gold. I got very little to eat that week, in consequence, and had to go and explain matters to Alfred, the head waiter at the chop house, so that I could take an extra meal or two off next week’s allowance, and not starve altogether. I had to buy my food, you see. Mrs. Murphy cooked it, and in practice bought it for me, but I had to give her the money.

  So the weeks went on. I was in no hurry to be married, but I could not understand Mr. Travers’ attitude. Sometimes he seemed almost anxious to be rid of a daughter who had disgraced him. Next, he did all in his power to impress on both of us that the engagement must be a long one. Muriel did not take this well. So docile, so abject in everything else, she showed a passive rebellion which astonished me. She wept, she would not eat, and, since she could not sulk openly, she became ill. On two Saturdays running, when I came to the house, I was told she was in bed, and that I could not see her. I accepted this the first time, but twice was too much, and I kicked up such a fuss that Mrs. Travers went to make sure that all was decent, and I was presently allowed in with her as chaperone. To do her justice, the poor woman was unhappy; and Muriel turned on her a look of such appeal, such a heartfelt call to the freemasonry of feminine compassion, that she grew redder and redder, murmured something about excusing her for just a moment, and tiptoed out.

  Muriel held out her arms to me. I ran to her. She held me in a grip of surprising strength. The smell of her rose at me in a hot wave.

  “There, my darling. What’s wrong with you?”

  She pushed me away, gripping my arms so tightly that her fingers pinched. Her eyes were very bright.

  “Don’t you know? Can you ask?”

  “Your throat again?”

  “No!”

  She pulled me down, and held my head tight against her breast.

  “I’m so miserable. Oh, Luke, why can’t we be married? I’ll be all right then, I promise you I will. I won’t go on being ill, truly. I’m quite strong. I usen’t to be ill.”

  She rocked me to and fro. I was twisted into a position of acute discomfort, and fast getting a crick in the neck.

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I always seem to be ill nowadays. At least, I do know. It’s because they won’t let us be married. Oh, Luke—can’t you earn some money, or something?”

  I began to mumble into her dressing gown, but Mrs. Travers could be heard coughing genteelly. I disengaged myself.

  “Keep that up,” I whispered. “About being ill till we can get married. It’s our best bet.”

  S
he looked at me, and a gleam of calculation leaped in her eyes. Next moment they were turned, patient and troubled as a sick sheep’s, to greet her mother.

  The campaign went well. Either Muriel was a better actress than I knew, or nature took charge. Instead of getting better she grew worse. Mr. Travers at first paid little heed. Then he treated the illness as a moral weakness, and exhorted her to use her will power and pull herself together. He would allow her one more day in bed, and then she must get up. She was no better the next day, but he insisted that she should follow his programme. She got as far as the parlour, where she first vomited, then fainted.

  Alarmed, he called in the family doctor. The Doctor took a long time over his examination, but could find nothing much wrong. He was no fool. The Dublin of those unhappy far-off days must have been limp with girls in Muriel’s condition. He knew the Travers, and saw he was on delicate ground. Besides, he had a feeling of sympathy for Muriel. But this was a professional matter, and the question must be asked.

  “Er—Mrs. Travers—I suppose there is no possibility of your daughter having—er—any sort of a love affair, which might not be—be—going exactly as she wished?”

  Mrs. Travers opened her mouth. Her face grew pink. The fear of Gerald’s wrath rose, towering above her like a genie let out of a bottle. She looked despairingly at it, dared, and blurted out the facts—not, of course, what Muriel had done, but that she was in love with me and I with her, and we wanted to be married.

  The doctor was much relieved. Such a state of things absolved him from the need for a medical diagnosis.

  “If I were you, Mrs. Travers,” he said, “I’d get her married as soon as you can. She’s one of the type that go with their heart. A whole-hogger, if you will pardon the phrase.”

  “I know. I know. But you see, Doctor—Mr. Travers——”

  The Doctor nodded wisely. His practice bristled with Mr. Traverses.

  “I wonder, maybe, if I had a word with him?”

  “But, Doctor, you are not supposed to know. He would never forgive——”

  “Tut, tut, Mrs. Travers. I didn’t need you to tell me—I saw for myself how things were. You will recollect my question to you.”

  Mrs. Travers was not convinced.

  “Well then—why should I not have heard it from the young lady herself? Why, Mrs. Travers! what’s wrong?”

  He caught her arm, pulled her into a chair, and felt her pulse. After a few seconds, her breath and her colour came back.

  “You must not say that, Doctor, whatever else you say,” she gasped. “It—it could only have the most unfortunate results.”

  He stood back, puzzled, crossed to the sideboard, and gave her a glass of water.

  “You know best, of course, Mrs. Travers. But I’d have thought——”

  “No, no, please, Doctor. It would get her into—it would do no good at all.”

  “Well—— Look here. Let me ask Mr. Travers if he knows of any love affair. I take it that he does know of it?”

  “Oh yes. He knows.”

  “All right, then. I’ll ask him: and, if he tells me anything like what you have told me, I’ll give him my opinion.”

  Mrs. Travers was still tremulous, but she saw that nothing else could be done, and gave her leave. The Doctor interviewed Mr. Travers, who was at first icily offended, refusing to see that such matters lay in the province of medicine. But the Doctor could be blunt enough when he wished, and in the end Mr. Travers reluctantly admitted that Muriel was in love with a young man. Gould they not marry, the Doctor asked? Mr. Travers replied with force that it was out of the question. The young man was penniless and socially beneath her.

  The Doctor shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s for you to decide, of course. But if you value your daughter’s health, you will think very carefully before you decide to keep them apart.”

  “Thank you. It is my habit to think carefully before I make decisions.”

  He picked up the Doctor’s hat and coat, and held them out to him. The Doctor took them.

  “You are taking a heavy responsibility on yourself, Mr. Travers.”

  A furious bow was his only answer. I am not romancing. That account is true. The Doctor himself told me a couple of years afterwards, and he could have no possible motive for inventing it.

  So a few more weeks went by, Muriel now a little better, now a little worse. She could not come out with me for walks, and, now that the long days had come, she urged me to be out of doors part of the weekend at least. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t altogether sorry, for we were left very little alone, and such time as we were Muriel mostly cried and begged me to take her away—knowing quite well I couldn’t. And, when I’d been out by myself, on her suggestion, she could not help oblique and loving digs at me when I came back. I was bewildered at first, and very much hurt. Then she would cling to me and weep and say she was selfish and horrible and she wished she was dead, and I would collapse at once and be wretched and feel all the guilt I hadn’t felt before.

  I think, looking back on it, that my usual feeling was one of guilt towards her. Guilt because I could not marry her at once, guilt because I wasn’t sure I wanted to, guilt because I was not more considerate of her, guilt because I wasn’t saving money. The savings programme had found a new enemy. One night a young fellow I met in the chop house, a literary sort of a young fellow, had dragged me off with him to see a couple of new plays that some amateurs were putting on in some tuppenny ha’penny little hall. I went, and came out stunned. I had never heard anything like it, never dreamed there could be anything like it. It wasn’t a proper theatre, there was no proper scenery, only some curtains and things, and the plays were in poetry. And no real actors either—just two brothers called Fay, who worked in a shop somewhere, and a few others. But, by God, it was a revelation. I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I paced up and down my room, my whole mind on fire. I asked questions of my friend the next day I saw him, and found that there were other plays and books to be had by the same writers, and that they were Irishmen living in Dublin. There was a sort of a magazine called Beltane, and another called Samhain, in which some of the plays were printed. I bought them, and I began to buy all the books I could. They were a fearful price, and I felt guilty as hell, but I got them, and sat up at night to read them. The next thing, I was writing too. I was all ablaze, I was mad, I was bursting with thoughts to put down. Lord knows how many poems I wrote. I wish I had one or two of them, just to have a look at them and see how bad they were. And, just as violently, I was bursting to show them to someone, and to talk about the books and the plays. It was no good trying to talk to any of my office friends, and I was afraid of the literary chap, because every time we talked he would mention this that and the other book or writer I’d never heard of, and say, “Haven’t you even heard of him?” till I went off thinking I must be the bloodiest ignorant fool in Christendom. I showed Muriel a poem, and she was delighted, and kept saying how clever I was, and before I could stop her she had told her mother. The last thing I wanted was to have it held up for family inspection. I snatched it away and behaved very boorishly, I am afraid, and Muriel’s eyes opened wide and filled with tears, and I felt seven sorts of brute and an idiot into the bargain.

  The Doctor was the only person of my acquaintance who was well read, but I shrank from showing him anything I had written as my naked body would shrink from a north-easter. I could well imagine the snorts of derision, the insulting queries as to what I might suppose I meant by that, and so on. But I could at least show him one of the plays, and ask his opinion. He damned most things that were new, but he had knowledge. He’d read a great deal. In any case, it would be good to see him.

  So one evening, instead of going to Muriel, I went out to see the Doctor. The evenings were at their longest, but summer was delaying, and it was still cold for June. My pulse quickened as I came in sight of the harbour. It still had its magic for me. I still felt as if I had come home when I got out of the tra
m by the big clock, and turned down to the sea.

  Mary Kate opened the door. Her pupils contracted at the sight of me.

  “Mother o’ God,” she ejaculated. Then she turned to the back regions, and let a scream.

  “He’s come! He’s in it!”

  A startled cry answered. Before I could ask what was up, the door opened, and Mrs. Kinahan came shuffling out.

  “Talk of angels! did you get-Sure ye couldn’t. I only just sent him.” She pointed to the Doctor’s door. “Himself that’s been roarin’ for ye all the afternoon.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes. Mangan, he bawls, Mangan, come here to me. Then he let a roar for me or for Mary Kate. Where the hell is Mangan, says he. Fetch him to me this minute. I waited for him to quieten down, but, begod, he’s worse. So I borried sixpence off of him, and sent Joe to the telegraph office for ye.”

  “But what’s the matter with him?”

  “Destruction’s on. He has them again.”

  Understanding flashed on me. My mouth fell open.

  “Yes.” She nodded. “The horrors.”

  A sudden banging came from the Doctor’s room, to confirm her words, followed by a tinkle of broken glass.

  “He has them again?” I said.

  “Yes. Didn’t you know? He was near three weeks in Mount Melleray. Soon after ye were here the last time.”

  The shock made me unreasonably angry.

  “You ought to have told me,” I snapped, and pushed past her towards the Doctor’s room.

  “The cab will be here for him soon,” she said.

  I stopped, my hand on the knob.

  “What cab?”

  “To take him off. Dr. Flanagan said to get it. He’s let them know.”

  “Thank you,” I said shortly, and went in.

  The room was less brilliantly lit than usual. At least three of the globes were smashed; what was left of one still swung on its flex. The Doctor was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, a stick in his hand. He glared watchfully about him, and his face was pale and gleamed with sweat. It eased at the sight of me.