Here are Ladies

J >> James Stephens >> Here are Ladies

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"If you are in earnest about this, you have my permission to court
Julia Elizabeth as much as she'll let you. But don't blame me if she
marries you. People who take risks must expect accidents. Don't go
about lamenting that I hooked you in, or led you on, or anything like
that.--I tell you, here and now, that she has a rotten temper--"

His wife was aghast--

"For shame, O'Reilly," said she.

Her husband continued, looking steadily at her--

"A rotten temper," said he, "she gives back answers."

"Never," was Mrs. O'Reilly's wild exclamation.

"She scratches like a cat," said her husband.

"It's a falsehood," cried the lady, almost in tears.

"She is obstinate, sulky, stubborn and cantankerous."

"A tissue," said his wife. "An absolute tissue," she repeated with the
firmness which masks hysteria.

Her husband continued inexorably--

"She's a gad-about, a pavement-hopper, and when she has the toothache
she curses like a carman. Now, young man, marry her if you like."

These extraordinary accusations were powerless against love and
etiquette--the young man stood up: his voice rang--

"I will, sir," said he steadily, "and I'll be proud to be her husband."

In a very frenzy of enthusiasm, Mrs. O'Reilly arose--

"Good boy," said she. "Tell your Aunt Jane I'll send her another pot
of jam." She turned to her husband, "Isn't it delightful, O'Reilly,
doesn't it make you think of the song, 'True, True Till Death'?"

Mr. O'Reilly replied grimly--

"It does not, ma'm.--I'm going back to my work."

"Be a gentleman, O'Reilly," said his wife pleadingly. "Won't you offer
Mr. O'Grady a bottle of stout or a drop of spirits?"

The youth intervened hastily, for it is well to hide one's vices from
one's family--

"Oh no, ma'm, not at all," said he, "I never drink intoxicating
liquors."

"Splendid," said the beaming lady. "You're better without it. If you
knew the happy homes it has ruined, and the things the clergy say about
it you'd be astonished. I only take it myself for the rheumatism, but
I never did like it, did I, O'Reilly?"

"Never, ma'm," was his reply. "I only take it myself because my
hearing is bad. Now, listen to me, young man. You want to marry Julia
Elizabeth, and I'll be glad to see her married to a sensible, sober,
industrious husband.--When I spoke about her a minute ago I was only
joking."

"I knew it all the time," said his wife. "Do you remember, Mr.
O'Grady, I winked at you?"

"The girl is a good girl," said her husband, "and well brought up."

"Yes," said his wife, "her hair reaches down to her waist, and she won
a prize for composition--Jessica's First Prayer, all about a girl
with----"

Mr. O'Reilly continued--

"She brings me up a cup of tea every morning before I get up."

"She never wore spectacles in her life," said Mrs. O'Reilly, "and she
got a prize for freehand drawing."

"She did so," said Mr. O'Reilly.

His wife continued--

"The Schoolboy Baronet it was; all about a young man that broke his leg
down a coal mine and it never got well again until he met the girl of
his heart."

"Tell me," said Mr. O'Reilly, "how are you young people going to live,
and where?"

His wife interpolated--

"Your Aunt Jane told me that you had seventeen shillings and sixpence a
week.--Take my advice and live on the south side--two rooms easily and
most salubrious."

The young man coughed guardedly, he had received a rise of wages since
that information passed, but candour belongs to childhood, and one must
live these frailties down--

"Seventeen and six isn't very much, of course," said he, "but I am
young and strong----"

"It's more than I had," said his host, "when I was your age. Hello,
there's the post!"

Mrs. O'Reilly went to the door and returned instantly with a letter in
her hand. She presented it to her husband--

"It's addressed to you, O'Reilly," said she plaintively. "Maybe it's a
bill, but God's good and maybe it's a cheque."

Her husband nodded at the company and tore his letter open. He read
it, and, at once as it appeared, he went mad, he raved, he stuttered,
now slapping the letter with his forefinger and, anon, shaking his fist
at his wife--

"Here's your daughter, ma'm," he stammered. "Here's your daughter, I
say."

"Where?" cried the amazed lady. "What is it, O'Reilly?" She arose
hastily and rolled towards him.

Mr. O'Reilly repelled her fiercely--

"A good riddance," he shouted.

"Tell me, O'Reilly, I command you," cried his wife.

"A minx, a jade," snarled the man.

"I insist," said she. "I must be told. I'm not well, I tell you. My
head's going round. Give me the letter."

Mr. O'Reilly drew about him a sudden and terrible calmness--

"Listen, woman," said he, "and you too, young man, and be thankful for
your escape."

"DEAR PA," he read, "this is to tell you that I got married to-day to
Christie Rorke. We are going to open a little fried-fish shop near
Amiens Street. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me at present, your
loving daughter,

"JULIA ELIZABETH.

"P.S.--Give Christie's love to Ma."

Mrs. O'Reilly sank again to her chair.

Her mouth was partly open. She breathed with difficulty. Her eyes
were fixed on space, and she seemed to be communing with the guardians
of Chaos--

"Married!" said she in a musing whisper. "Christie!" said she. She
turned to her husband--"What an amazing thing. Doesn't it make you
think, O'Reilly, of the poem, 'The World Recedes, it Disappears'?"

"It does not, ma'm," said her husband savagely.

"And what is this young gentleman going to do?" she continued, gazing
tearfully at the suitor.

"He's going to go home," replied her husband fiercely. "He ought to be
in bed long ago."

"A broken heart," said his wife, "is a sad companion to go home with.
Doesn't it make you think of the song----?"

"It does not, ma'm," roared her husband. "I'm going back to my work,"
and once again the door banged and the room shook.

Young Mr. O'Grady arose timidly. The world was swimming about him.
Love had deserted him, and etiquette was now his sole anchor; he shook
hands with Mrs. O'Reilly--

"I think I had better be going now," said he. "Good-bye, Mrs.
O'Reilly."

"Must you really go?" said that lady with the smile of a maniac.

"I'm afraid so," and he moved towards the door.

"Well," said she, "give my love to your mother and your Aunt Jane."

"I will," was his reply, "and," with firm politeness, "thank you for a
very pleasant evening."

"Don't mention it, Mr. O'Grady. Good-bye."

Mrs. O'Reilly closed the door and walked back towards the table smiling
madly. She sank into a chair. Her eye fell on the butter-knife--

"I haven't had a bit to eat this day," said she in a loud and
threatening voice, and once again she pulled the loaf towards her.

II

His mother finished reading the story of the Beautiful Princess, and it
was surely the saddest story he had ever heard. He could not bear to
think of that lovely and delicate lady all alone in the great, black
forest waiting until the giant came back from killing her seven brothers.
He would return with their seven heads swinging pitifully from his
girdle, and, when he reached the castle gates, he would gnash his teeth
through the keyhole with a noise like the grinding together of great
rocks, and would poke his head through the fanlight of the door, and say,
fee-faw-fum in a voice of such exceeding loudness that the castle would
be shaken to its foundation.

Thinking of this made his throat grow painful with emotion, and then his
heart swelled to the most uncomfortable dimensions, and he resolved to
devote his whole life to the rescue of the Princess, and, if necessary,
die in her defence.

Such was his impatience that he could not wait for anything more than his
dinner, and this he ate so speedily that his father called him a
Perfect-Young-Glutton, and a Disgrace-To-Any-Table. He bore these
insults in a meek and heroic spirit, whereupon his mother said that he
must be ill, and it was only by a violent and sustained outcry that he
escaped being sent to bed.

Immediately after dinner he set out in search of the giant's castle. Now
there is scarcely anything in the world more difficult to find than a
giant's castle, for it is so large that one can only see it through the
wrong end of a telescope; and, furthermore, he did not even know this
giant's name. He might never have found the place if he had not met a
certain old woman on the common.

She was a very nice old woman. She had three teeth, a red shawl, and an
umbrella with groceries inside it; so he told her of the difficulty he
was in.

She replied that he was in luck's way, and that she was the only person
in the world who could assist him. She said her name was
Really-and-Truly, and that she had a magic head, and that if he cut her
head off it would answer any questions he asked it. So he stropped his
penknife on his boot, and said he was ready if she was.

The old woman then informed him that in all affairs of this delicate
nature it was customary to take the will for the deed, and that he might
now ask her head anything he wanted to know--so he asked the head what
was the way to the nearest giant, and the head replied that if he took
the first turning to the left, the second to the right, and then the
first to the left again, and if he then knocked at the fifth door on the
right-hand side, he would see the giant.

He thanked the old woman very much for the use of her head, and she
permitted him to lend her one threepenny-piece, one pocket-handkerchief,
one gun-metal watch, one cap, and one boot-lace. She said that she never
took two of anything, because that was not fair, and that she wanted
these for a very particular, secret purpose, about which she dare not
speak, and, as to which she trusted he would not press her, and then she
took a most affectionate leave of him and went away.

He followed her directions with the utmost fidelity, and soon found
himself opposite a house which, to the eyes of any one over seven years
of age, looked very like any other house, but which, to the searching eye
of six and three quarters, was patently and palpably a giant's castle.

He tried the door, but it was locked, as, indeed, he had expected it
would be. Then he crept very cautiously, and peeped through the first
floor window. He could see in quite plainly. There was a polar bear
crouching on the floor, and the head looked at him so directly and
vindictively that if he had not been a hero he would have fled. The
unexpected is always terrible, and when one goes forth to kill a giant it
is unkind of Providence to complicate one's adventure with a gratuitous
and wholly unnecessary polar bear. He was, however, reassured by the
sight of a heavy chair standing on the polar bear's stomach, and in the
chair there sat the most beautiful woman in the world.

An ordinary person would not have understood so instantly that she was
the most beautiful woman in the world, because she looked very stout, and
much older than is customary with princesses--but that was owing to the
fact that she was under an enchantment, and she would become quite young
again when the giant was slain and three drops of his blood had been
sprinkled on her brow.

She was leaning forward in the chair, staring into the fire, and she was
so motionless that it was quite plain she must be under an enchantment.
From the very first instant he saw the princess he loved her, and his
heart swelled with pity to think that so beautiful a damsel should be
subjected to the tyranny of a giant. These twin passions of pity and
love grew to so furious a strength within him that he could no longer
contain himself. He wept in a loud and very sudden voice which lifted
the damsel out of her enchantment and her chair, and hurled her across
the room as though she had been propelled by a powerful spring.

He was so overjoyed at seeing her move that he pressed his face against
the glass and wept with great strength, and, in a few moments, the
princess came timidly to the window and looked out. She looked right
over his head at first, and then she looked down and saw him, and her
eyebrows went far up on her forehead, and her mouth opened; and so he
knew that she was delighted to see him. He nodded to give her courage,
and shouted three times, "Open Sesame, Open Sesame, Open Sesame," and
then she opened the window and he climbed in.

The princess tried to push him out again, but she was not able, and he
bade her put all her jewels in the heel of her boot and fly with him.
But she was evidently the victim of a very powerful enchantment, for she
struggled violently, and said incomprehensible things to him, such as "Is
it a fire, or were you chased?" and "Where is the cook?" But after a
little time she listened to the voice of reason, and recognised that
these were legitimate and heroic embraces from which she could not
honourably disentangle herself.

When her first transports of joy were somewhat abated she assured him
that excessive haste had often undone great schemes, and that one should
always look before one leaped, and that one should never be rescued all
at once, but gradually, in order that one might become accustomed to the
severe air of freedom--and he was overjoyed to find that she was as wise
as she was beautiful.

He told her that he loved her dearly, and she admitted, after some
persuasion, that she was not insensible to the charms of his heart and
intellect, but she confessed that her love was given to another.

At these tidings his heart withered away within him, and when the
princess admitted she loved the giant his amazement became profound and
complicated. There was a rushing sound in his ears. The debris of his
well-known world was crashing about him, and he was staring upon a new
planet, the name of which was Incredulity. He looked round with a queer
feeling of insecurity. At any moment the floor might stand up on one of
its corners, or the walls might begin to flap and waggle. But none of
these things happened. Before him sat the princess in an attitude of
deep dejection, and her lily-white hands rested helplessly on her lap.
She told him in a voice that trembled that she would have married him if
he had asked her ten years earlier, and urged that she could not fly with
him now, because, in the first place, she had six children, and, in the
second place, it would be against the law, and, in the third place, his
mother might object. She admitted that she was unworthy of his love, and
that she should have waited, and she bore his reproaches with a meekness
which finally disarmed him.

He stropped his penknife on his boot, and said that there was nothing
left but to kill the giant, and that she had better leave the room while
he did so, because it would not be a sight for a weak woman, and he
wondered audibly how much hasty-pudding would fall out of the giant if he
stabbed him right to the heart. The princess begged him not to kill her
husband, and assured him that this giant had not got any hasty-pudding in
his heart at all, and that he was really the nicest giant that ever
lived, and, further, that he had not killed her seven brothers, but the
seven brothers of quite another person entirely, which was only a
reasonable thing to do when one looked at it properly, and she continued
in a strain which proved to him that this unnatural woman really loved
the giant.

It was more in pity than in anger that he recognised the impossibility of
rescuing this person. He saw at last that she was unworthy of being
rescued, and told her so. He said bitterly that he had grave doubts of
her being a princess at all, and that if she was married to a giant it
was no more than she deserved, and further he had a good mind to rescue
the giant from her, and he would do so in a minute, only that it was
against his principles to rescue giants.--And, saying so, he placed his
penknife between his teeth and climbed out through the window again.

He stood for a moment outside the window with his right hand extended to
the sky and the moonlight blazing on his penknife--a truly formidable
figure, and one which the princess never forgot; and then he walked
slowly away, hiding behind a cold and impassive demeanour a mind that was
tortured and a heart that had plumbed most of the depths of human
suffering.

III

Aloysius Murphy went a-courting when the woods were green. There were
grapes in the air and birds in the river. A voice and a song went
everywhere, and the voice said, "Where is my beloved?" and the song
replied, "Thy beloved is awaiting thee, and she stretches her hands
abroad and laughs for thy coming; bind then the feather of a bird to
thy heel and a red rose upon thy hair, and go quickly."

So he took his hat from behind the door and his stick from beside the
bed and went out into the evening.

He had been engaged to Miss Nora MacMahon for two ecstatic months, and
held the opinion that the earth and the heavens were aware of the
intensity of his passion, and applauded the unique justice of his
choice.

By day he sat humbly in a solicitor's office, or scurried through the
thousand offices of the Four Courts, but with night came freedom, and
he felt himself to be of the kindred of the gods and marched in pomp.
By what subterranean workings had he become familiar with the lady?
Suffice it that the impossible is possible to a lover. Everything can
be achieved in time. The man who wishes to put a mountain in his
pocket can do so if his pocket and his wish be of the requisite
magnitude.

Now the lady towards whom the raging torrent of his affections had been
directed was the daughter of his employer, and this, while it notated
romance, pointed also to tragedy. Further, while this fact was well
within his knowledge, it was far from the cognizance of the lady. He
would have enlightened her on the point, but the longer he delayed the
revelation, the more difficult did it become. Perpetually his tongue
ached to utter the truth. When he might be squeezing her hand or
plunging his glance into the depths of her eyes, consciousness would
touch him on the shoulder with a bony hand and say, "That is the boss's
daughter you are hugging"--a reminder which was provocative sometimes
of an almost unholy delight, when to sing and dance and go mad was but
natural; but at other times it brought with it moods of woe, abysses of
blackness.

In the solitude of the room wherein he lodged he sometimes indulged in
a small drama, wherein, as the hero, he would smile a slightly sad and
quizzical smile, and say gently, "Child, you are Mr. MacMahon's
daughter, I am but his clerk"--here the smile became more sadly
quizzical--"how can I ask you to forsake the luxury of a residence in
Clontarf for the uncongenial, nay, bleak surroundings of a South
Circular Road habitation?" And she, ah me! She vowed that a hut and a
crust and the love of her heart. . .! No matter!

So, nightly, Aloysius Murphy took the tram to Clontarf, and there,
wide-coated and sombreroed like a mediaeval conspirator, he trod
delicately beside his cloaked and hooded inamorata, whispering of the
spice of the wind and the great stretches of the sea.

Now a lover who comes with the shades of night, harbinger of the moon,
and hand in glove with the stars, must be a very romantic person
indeed, and, even if he is not, a lady whose years are tender can
easily supply the necessary gauze to tone down his too-rigorous
projections. But the bird that flies by night must adduce for our
curiosity substantial reason why his flight has deserted the whiteness
of the daytime; else we may be tempted to believe that his advent in
darkness is thus shrouded for even duskier purposes.--Miss MacMahon had
begun to inquire who Mr. Murphy was, and he had, accordingly, begun to
explain who he was not. This explanation had wrapped his identity in
the most labyrinthine mystery, but Miss MacMahon detected in the rapid,
incomprehensible fluctuations of his story a heart torn by unmerited
misfortune, and whose agony could only be alleviated by laying her own
dear head against its turmoil.

To a young girl a confidant is almost as necessary as a lover, and when
the rendezvous is clandestine, the youth mysterious, and his hat
broad-leafed and flapping, then the necessity for a confidant becomes
imperative.

Miss MacMahon confided the knowledge of all her happiness to the
thrilled ear of her younger sister, who at once hugged her, and bubbled
query, conjecture, and admonishment. ". . . Long or short? . . .
Dark or fair?" ". . . and slender . . . with eyes . . . dove . . .
lightning . . . hair . . . and so gentle . . . and then I said . . .
and then he said . . .!" "Oh, sweet!" sighed the younger sister, and
she stretched her arms wide and crushed the absent excellences of Mr.
Murphy to her youthful breast.

On returning next day from church, having listened awe-stricken to a
sermon on filial obedience, the little sister bound her mother to
secrecy, told the story, and said she wished she were dead.
Subsequently the father of Clann MacMahon was informed, and he said
"Hum" and "Ha," and rolled a fierce, hard eye, and many times during
the progress of the narrative he interjected with furious energy these
words, "Don't be a fool, Jane," and Mrs. MacMahon responded meekly,
"Yes, dear," and Mr. MacMahon then said "Hum" and "Ha" and "Gr-r-r-up"
in a truly terrible and ogreish manner; and in her distant chamber Miss
MacMahon heard the reverberation of that sonorous grunt, and whispered
to her little sister, "Pa's in a wax," and the little sister pretended
to be asleep.

The spectacle of an elderly gentleman, side-whiskered, precise and
grey, disguising himself with mufflers and a squash hat, and stalking
with sombre fortitude the erratic wanderings of a pair of young
featherheads, is one which mirth may be pleased to linger upon. Such a
spectacle was now to be observed in the semi-rural outskirts of
Clontarf. Mr. MacMahon tracked his daughter with considerable stealth,
adopting unconsciously the elongated and nervous stride of a theatrical
villain. He saw her meet a young man wearing a broad-brimmed hat,
whose clothing was mysteriously theatrical, and whose general shape,
when it could be glimpsed, was oddly familiar.

"I have seen that fellow somewhere," said he.

The lovers met and kissed, and the glaring father spoke rapidly but
softly to himself for a few moments. He was not accustomed to walking,
and it appeared as if these two intended to walk for ever, but he kept
them in sight, and when the time came for parting he was close at hand.

The parting was prolonged, and renewed, and rehearsed again with
amendments and additions: he could not have believed that saying
good-bye to a person could be turned into so complicated and symbolic a
ceremony: but, at last, his daughter, with many a backward look and
wave of hand, departed in one direction, and the gentleman, after
similar signals, moved towards the tramway.

"I know that fellow, whoever he is," said Mr. MacMahon.

Passing a lamp-post, Mr. Aloysius Murphy stayed for a moment to light
his pipe, and Mr. MacMahon stared, he ground his teeth, he foamed at
the mouth, and his already prominent eyes bulged still further and
rounder--

"Well, I'm----!" said he.

He turned and walked homewards slowly, murmuring often to himself and
to the night, "All right! wait, though! Hum! Ha! Gr-r-r-up!"

That night he repeatedly entreated his wife "not to be a fool, Jane,"
and she as repeatedly replied, "Yes, dear." Long after midnight he
awoke her by roaring violently from the very interior depths of a
dream, "Cheek of the fellow! Pup! Gr-r-r-up!"

At breakfast on the following morning he suggested to his wife and
elder daughter that they should visit his office later on in the day--

"You have never seen it, Nora," said he, "and you ought to have a look
at the den where your poor old daddy spends his time grinding dress
material for his family from the faces of the poor. I've got some
funny clerks, too: one of them is a curiosity." Here, growing suddenly
furious, he gave an egg a clout.

His daughter giggled--

"Oh, Pa," said she, "you are not breaking that egg, you are murdering
it."

He looked at her gloomily--

"It wasn't the egg I was hitting," said he. "Gr-r-r-up," said he
suddenly, and he stabbed a piece of butter, squashed it to death on a
slice of bread, and tore it to pieces with his teeth.

The young lady looked at him with some amazement, but she said nothing,
for she believed, as most ladies do, that men are a little mad
sometimes, and are foolish always.

Her father intercepted that glance, and instantly snarled--

"Can you cook, young woman?" said he.

"Of course, father," replied the perplexed maiden.

He laid aside his spoon and gave her his full attention.

"Can you cook potatoes?" said he. "Can you mash 'em, eh? Can you mash
'em? What! You can. They call them Murphies in this country, girl.
Can you mash Murphys, eh? I can. There's a Murphy I know, and,
although it's been mashed already, by the Lord Harry, I'll mash it
again. Did you ever know that potatoes had eyes, miss? Did you ever
notice it when you were cooking them? Did you ever look into the eyes
of a Murphy, eh? When you mashed it, what? Don't answer me, girl."

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