Ulysses
the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries
and to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it
to her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then
threw it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the
slope and stopped right under Gerty’s skirt near the little pool by the
rock. The twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick it
away and let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but she
wished their stupid ball hadn’t come rolling down to her and she gave a
kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.
—If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.
Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her
pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted
her skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball
a jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it
down towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else
to draw attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She
felt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell,
surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged
glances of the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat she
ventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze there in the
twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had
ever seen.
Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted
and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain
of original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray
for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And
careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many
who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all
that bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told
them what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary,
the most pious Virgin’s intercessory power that it was not recorded in
any age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever
abandoned by her.
The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of
childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with
baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air.
Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was
Cissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my
word, didn’t the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say
papa.
—Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.
And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for
eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of
health, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out
to be something great, they said.
—Haja ja ja haja.
Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to
sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried
out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half
blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most
obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:
—Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.
And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all
no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the
geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave
him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen
was quickly appeased.
Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out
of that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little
brats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the
paintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured
chalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out,
the evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and
to hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense they
burned in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart
went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning
in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her
through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were,
superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer.
She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face
that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin
Harvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferred
because she wasn’t stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they
two to always dress the same on account of a play but she could not see
whether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly _retroussé_ from where he
was sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story
of a haunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have given
worlds to know what it was. He was looking up so intently, so still,
and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel
buckles of her shoes if she swung them like that thoughtfully with the
toes down. She was glad that something told her to put on the
transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was
far away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he
who mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him
because she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very
heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she
knew on the instant it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against
than sinning, or even, even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked
man, she cared not. Even if he was a protestant or methodist she could
convert him easily if he truly loved her. There were wounds that wanted
healing with heartbalm. She was a womanly woman not like other flighty
girls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists showing off what they
hadn’t got and she just yearned to know all, to forgive all if she
could make him fall in love with her, make him forget the memory of the
past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real man,
crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for
herself alone.
Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. _Ora pro nobis_. Well
has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy
can never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge
for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her
own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the
stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue
banners of the blessed Virgin’s sodality and Father Conroy was helping
Canon O’Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes
cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet
and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if ever
she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come
to the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time
when she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots
of her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that was
only the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature’s laws, he
said, in this life and that that was no sin because that came from the
nature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady
herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to
Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and
thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design
for him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the
mantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little
house to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the
forty hours’ adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a
present to give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or
some place.
The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky
threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little
monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them
a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of
them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they
were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned.
—Jacky! Tommy!
Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very
last time she’d ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and
she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had
a good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the
thingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn’t get it to grow
long because it wasn’t natural so she could just go and throw her hat
at it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn’t rip
up her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was a
lot of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece
whenever she thought she had a good opportunity to show off and just
because she was a good runner she ran like that so that he could see
all the end of her petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as
possible. It would have served her just right if she had tripped up
over something accidentally on purpose with her high crooked French
heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble. _Tableau!_
That would have been a very charming exposé for a gentleman like that
to witness.
Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,
they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy
handed the thurible to Canon O’Hanlon and he put in the incense and
censed the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and
she was itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she
didn’t because she thought he might be watching but she never made a
bigger mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without looking
that he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O’Hanlon handed
the thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the
Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing the _Tantum ergo_ and she
just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to
the _Tantumer gosa cramen tum_. Three and eleven she paid for those
stockings in Sparrow’s of George’s street on the Tuesday, no the Monday
before Easter and there wasn’t a brack on them and that was what he was
looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had
neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his
head to see the difference for himself.
Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with
her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a
streel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought
only a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her
petticoat hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a
moment to settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown
tresses was never seen on a girl’s shoulders—a radiant little vision,
in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travel
many a long mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. She
could almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyes
that set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she
could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster
for her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was
eying her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman’s instinct told her that
she had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet