kind of way, she told him, “We never said , not ever , to anyone in Roonatellin that we were married. It was them as supposed we were, and we let it stand that way as being simpler for us. If we’d corrected what they’d decided about us—told them we were brother and sister—they’d have gone about trying to settle our lives for us, myself expected to want to marry and Kevin seen by the women as a hope, the lot of them leeching on our privacy and pecking at our freedom, busy at arranging ourselves to fit the slots of their desires…. Their thinking we were married,” she concluded simply, “it cleared it for us to be and do as we pleased.”
He heard her, understood her, but, God forgive him, in the state she’d got him in of feeling demeaned and pocked as an object of her pity, and in the grip of some heretofore unknown brand of a crazed and crazy pride which imperatively and absolutely required that he recoup his dignity and score, he bludgeoned her with: “And what exactly, outside the usual , did it please you to be and do?”
Disbelief—no, dismay of the deepest sort arrested her features, but, like a feral dog after a lamb, he was not to be stopped. “Tell me,” heinsinuated, “was it the other part?” Then, crudely, “The sexual part that—”
He never finished.
She rose before him like a pillar of fire. “You could think that?” she cried, “Of Kevin and myself? That we kept it up? Shame! ”
“I must know!” he raged. “’Tis my duty!”
“Then God damn your duty for the filthy thing it is.”
He welcomed the force of the lash as being deserved.
Despairing, he saw the twist of contempt on her face and the tears which blazoned her eyes. “You’ve laid a wound on me,” she said; then turned from him with: “I’ve things to do.”
Of course she had, he thought distantly: any minute now everyone would be arriving.
In a voice fractured by grief, he said, “Allow me to help—”
Her answer, made with her back to him, was tersely excluding: “It’s faster done alone.”
Near smothering in sorrow and self-disgust, he sat and watched her as she built up the fire and got some lamps going and rearranged the plates on the table. At the last, at each corner of the bed, she lit a fresh candle, holding the wick of the new to the flame of the feebler old. In the brighter light, Kevin’s face shone whiter, moon-like, yondered truly.
There was the sound of an approaching car.
She went to the window. Peering out, her profile as it was seen against the harsh yellow beam of the nearing headlights was eyeless and black, as futile for its tellingness as a penny-purchased silhouette.
“It’s the first of them coming,” he said hollowly, a fool at the obvious. Aching, he stood up. He smoothed his hair with his hands. He drew a chair—could it be as heavy as it felt?—to the foot of the bed. He said, “Sit here, Enda. It’s your rightful place.”
She came at once and sat down.
He reached for his overcoat.
“You’re not going ?” she asked.
“I don’t see how you could want me to stay.”
“It wouldn’t be proper for you to go.” She made the reply as an admonitory fact.
“Would you have me then at the door?”
“If you will, please,” she answered formally.
Now, from the yard, voices were heard, and from down the lane, a further succession of car lights showed.
He crossed the room.
He put his hand to the latch.
He said, “Forgive me if you can.”
Then he lifted the latch and swung open the door and called out gently into the night, “Come in; come in…. Enda is waiting.”
Ten
O NCE, IN THE afternoon, as he was working the bottom stretch of the beat, he looked back and saw the ruin he’d left in the wake of his day’s efforts: there, all along the bosky rim and reach of the river, the crushed heather, the trampled furze, the flattened sedge: havoc of desiring.
But here now! (Might as well get a sermon out of it.) Every decent-hearted angler knows that
He heard her, understood her, but, God forgive him, in the state she’d got him in of feeling demeaned and pocked as an object of her pity, and in the grip of some heretofore unknown brand of a crazed and crazy pride which imperatively and absolutely required that he recoup his dignity and score, he bludgeoned her with: “And what exactly, outside the usual , did it please you to be and do?”
Disbelief—no, dismay of the deepest sort arrested her features, but, like a feral dog after a lamb, he was not to be stopped. “Tell me,” heinsinuated, “was it the other part?” Then, crudely, “The sexual part that—”
He never finished.
She rose before him like a pillar of fire. “You could think that?” she cried, “Of Kevin and myself? That we kept it up? Shame! ”
“I must know!” he raged. “’Tis my duty!”
“Then God damn your duty for the filthy thing it is.”
He welcomed the force of the lash as being deserved.
Despairing, he saw the twist of contempt on her face and the tears which blazoned her eyes. “You’ve laid a wound on me,” she said; then turned from him with: “I’ve things to do.”
Of course she had, he thought distantly: any minute now everyone would be arriving.
In a voice fractured by grief, he said, “Allow me to help—”
Her answer, made with her back to him, was tersely excluding: “It’s faster done alone.”
Near smothering in sorrow and self-disgust, he sat and watched her as she built up the fire and got some lamps going and rearranged the plates on the table. At the last, at each corner of the bed, she lit a fresh candle, holding the wick of the new to the flame of the feebler old. In the brighter light, Kevin’s face shone whiter, moon-like, yondered truly.
There was the sound of an approaching car.
She went to the window. Peering out, her profile as it was seen against the harsh yellow beam of the nearing headlights was eyeless and black, as futile for its tellingness as a penny-purchased silhouette.
“It’s the first of them coming,” he said hollowly, a fool at the obvious. Aching, he stood up. He smoothed his hair with his hands. He drew a chair—could it be as heavy as it felt?—to the foot of the bed. He said, “Sit here, Enda. It’s your rightful place.”
She came at once and sat down.
He reached for his overcoat.
“You’re not going ?” she asked.
“I don’t see how you could want me to stay.”
“It wouldn’t be proper for you to go.” She made the reply as an admonitory fact.
“Would you have me then at the door?”
“If you will, please,” she answered formally.
Now, from the yard, voices were heard, and from down the lane, a further succession of car lights showed.
He crossed the room.
He put his hand to the latch.
He said, “Forgive me if you can.”
Then he lifted the latch and swung open the door and called out gently into the night, “Come in; come in…. Enda is waiting.”
Ten
O NCE, IN THE afternoon, as he was working the bottom stretch of the beat, he looked back and saw the ruin he’d left in the wake of his day’s efforts: there, all along the bosky rim and reach of the river, the crushed heather, the trampled furze, the flattened sedge: havoc of desiring.
But here now! (Might as well get a sermon out of it.) Every decent-hearted angler knows that
Similar Books
