Ulysses
because she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was
dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside
out and that was for luck and lovers’ meeting if you put those things
on inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so
long as it wasn’t of a Friday.
And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is
there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give
worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving
way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings
though not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before the
mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls
upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain.
Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a marriage
has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T.
C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be Mrs
Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was
wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox
was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in
love, a woman’s birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer’s
(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an
arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her
little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the
first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from
the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength
of character had never been Reggy Wylie’s strong point and he who would
woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting,
always waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be
over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous
love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who
had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey,
and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her
to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort
her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she
yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be
his only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in
health, till death us two part, from this to this day forward.
And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was
just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his
little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue
in the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she
would be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature
comforts too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked
that feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue
and queen Ann’s pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden
opinions from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a
fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same
direction, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of
eggs though she didn’t like the eating part when there were any people
that made her shy and often she wondered why you couldn’t eat something
poetical like violets or roses and they would have a beautifully
appointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the photograph
of grandpapa Giltrap’s lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was
so human and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack in
Clery’s summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be
tall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a
husband) with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed
sweeping moustache and they would go on the continent for their
honeymoon (three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled down in
a nice snug and cosy little homely house, every morning they would both
have brekky, simple but perfectly served, for their own two selves and
before he went out to business he would give his dear little wifey a
good hearty hug and gaze for a moment deep down into her eyes.
Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then
she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run
off and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy
said he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with
the ball and if he took it there’d be wigs on the green but Tommy said
it was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if
you please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy
Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off
now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.
—You’re not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It’s my ball.
But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her
finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand
and Tommy after it in full career, having won the day.
—Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.
And she tickled tiny tot’s two cheeks to make him forget and played
here’s the lord mayor, here’s his two horses, here’s his gingerbread
carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper
chin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way
like that from everyone always petting him.
—I’d like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won’t
say.
—On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.
Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy
saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she’d be ashamed of her
life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was
sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared
Ciss.
—Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of
her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I’d look at
him.
Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes.
For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea
and jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men’s faces on
her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to
go where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the
Miss White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget
her the evening she dressed up in her father’s suit and hat and the
burned cork moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a
cigarette. There was none to come up to her for fun. But she was
sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever
made, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome.
And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the
pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men’s temperance retreat
conducted by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary,
sermon and benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there
gathered together without distinction of social class (and a most
edifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves,
after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the
immaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her
to intercede for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin
of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty’s ears! Had her father only avoided
the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders
the drink habit cured in Pearson’s Weekly, she might now be rolling in
her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told herself that
as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp
because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window
dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking.
But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had
cast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in
the home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen
her own father, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself
completely for if there was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it
was that the man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way of
kindness, deserves to be branded as the lowest of the low.
And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard
her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman
off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like
himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him
any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a
father because he was too old or something or on account of his face
(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the
pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor
father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang _Tell me,
Mary, how to woo thee_ or _My love and cottage near Rochelle_ and they
had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby’s salad dressing for supper
and when he sang _The moon hath raised_ with Mr Dignam that died
suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her
mother’s birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom
and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have
had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now
he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a
warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn’t even go to the
funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him
the letters and samples from his office about Catesby’s cork lino,
artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and
always bright and cheery in the home.
A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the
house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in
gold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was
it rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn’t
like her mother’s taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single
thing they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the
world of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas
at the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of
that place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime
Mr Tunney the grocer’s christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days
where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with a
threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove with
oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a
story behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in a
soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in
chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at them
dreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her own
arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back and
thought about those times because she had found out in Walker’s
pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the
halcyon days what they meant.
The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion till
at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no
getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he
could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was
not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was
sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted