Ulysses
oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy
chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy
Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and
Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits
with caps to match and the name _H. M. S. Belleisle_ printed on both.
For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very
noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little
fellows with bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They
were dabbling in the sand with their spades and buckets, building
castles as children do, or playing with their big coloured ball, happy
as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to
and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled with
delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a
tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy
Caffrey bent over to him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty
dimple in his chin.
—Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of
water.
And baby prattled after her:
—A jink a jink a jawbo.
Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of
children, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could
never be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that
held his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown
bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But
to be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in
his new fancy bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort,
was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life,
always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her
cherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman
laughed too at the quaint language of little brother.
But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and
Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to
this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand
which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go
wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like
the Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky
was selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman’s
house is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose
that the wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the
coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master
Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends.
—Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,
Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I
catch you for that.
His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for
their big sister’s word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he
was too after his misadventure. His little man-o’-war top and
unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the
art of smoothing over life’s tiny troubles and very quickly not one
speck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue
eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she kissed
away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and
said if she was near him she wouldn’t be far from him, her eyes dancing
in admonition.
—Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.
She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:
—What’s your name? Butter and cream?
—Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your
sweetheart?
—Nao, tearful Tommy said.
—Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.
—Nao, Tommy said.
—I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from
her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy’s sweetheart. Gerty is
Tommy’s sweetheart.
—Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.
Cissy’s quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to Edy
Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman
couldn’t see and to mind he didn’t wet his new tan shoes.
But who was Gerty?
Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,
gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a
specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was
pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said,
she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and
graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had
been taking of late had done her a world of good much better than the
Widow Welch’s female pills and she was much better of those discharges
she used to get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face
was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth
was a genuine Cupid’s bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely
veined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and
queen of ointments could make them though it was not true that she used
to wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple
told that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black
out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their
little tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told
her not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or
she’d never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There
was an innate refinement, a languid queenly _hauteur_ about Gerty which
was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep.
Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in
her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education
Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the
land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow
and patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their
devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that
lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed
meaning, that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful
eyes, a charm few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery?
Gerty’s were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and
dark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily
seductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful
page of the Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try
eyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so
becoming in leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then
there was blushing scientifically cured and how to be tall increase
your height and you have a beautiful face but your nose? That would
suit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But Gerty’s crowning
glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a
natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account of the
new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion of
luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. And
just now at Edy’s words as a telltale flush, delicate as the faintest
rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet
girlish shyness that of a surety God’s fair land of Ireland did not
hold her equal.
For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was
about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.
Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent.
The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out
into a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young
May morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy
say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a
lovers’ quarrel. As per usual somebody’s nose was out of joint about
the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding
up and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in
the evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate
that was on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a
doctor when he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who
was racing in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little
recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart
sometimes, piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he
might learn to love her in time. They were protestants in his family
and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed
Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an
exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the
shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would
know anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the
bicycle at the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice
perfume of those good cigarettes and besides they were both of a size
too he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was so
frightfully clever because he didn’t go and ride up and down in front
of her bit of a garden.
Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of
Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be
out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because
it was expected in the _Lady’s Pictorial_ that electric blue would be
worn) with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket
(in which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her
favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy
threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful
figure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of
wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue
chenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday
week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she
found what she wanted at Clery’s summer sales, the very it, slightly
shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny.
She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on
then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to
her! And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew
that that would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes
were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she
was very _petite_ but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a
five, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one
smart buckle over her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed
its perfect proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount
and no more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with
highspliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty’s
chief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet
seventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in
his heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty
stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with
different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen,
and she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from the
wash and ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because
she wouldn’t trust those washerwomen as far as she’d see them scorching
the things. She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her
own colour and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on
her because the green she wore that day week brought grief because his
father brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and