THE
BOARDING HOUSE
MRS. MOONEY was a
butcher's daughter. She was a woman who was quite able to keep things to
herself: a determined woman. She had married her father's foreman and opened a
butcher's shop near Spring Gardens. But as soon as his father-in-law was dead
Mr. Mooney began to go to the devil. He drank, plundered the till, ran headlong
into debt. It was no use making him take the pledge: he was sure to break out
again a few days after. By fighting his wife in the presence of customers and
by buying bad meat he ruined his business. One night he went for his wife with
the cleaver and she had to sleep a neighbour's house.
After
that they lived apart. She went to the priest and got a separation from him
with care of the children. She would give him neither money nor food nor
house-room; and so he was obliged to enlist himself as a sheriff's man. He was
a shabby stooped little drunkard with a white face and a white moustache white
eyebrows, pencilled above his little eyes, which were veined and raw; and all
day long he sat in the bailiff's room, waiting to be put on a job. Mrs. Mooney,
who had taken what remained of her money out of the butcher business and set up
a boarding house in Hardwicke Street, was a big imposing woman. Her house had a
floating population made up of tourists from Liverpool and the Isle of Man and,
occasionally, artistes from the music halls. Its resident population was made
up of clerks from the city. She governed the house cunningly and firmly, knew
when to give credit, when to be stern and when to let things pass. All the
resident young men spoke of her as The Madam.
Mrs.
Mooney's young men paid fifteen shillings a week for board and lodgings (beer
or stout at dinner excluded). They shared in common tastes and occupations and
for this reason they were very chummy with one another. They discussed with one
another the chances of favourites and outsiders. Jack Mooney, the Madam's son,
who was clerk to a commission agent in Fleet Street, had the reputation of
being a hard case. He was fond of using soldiers' obscenities: usually he came
home in the small hours. When he met his friends he had always a good one to
tell them and he was always sure to be on to a good thing-that is to say, a
likely horse or a likely artiste. He was also handy with the mits and sang
comic songs. On Sunday nights there would often be a reunion in Mrs. Mooney's
front drawing-room. The music-hall artistes would oblige; and Sheridan played
waltzes and polkas and vamped accompaniments. Polly Mooney, the Madam's
daughter, would also sing. She sang:
I'm a ... naughty
girl.
You needn't sham:
You know I am.
Polly
was a slim girl of nineteen; she had light soft hair and a small full mouth.
Her eyes, which were grey with a shade of green through them, had a habit of
glancing upwards when she spoke with anyone, which made her look like a little
perverse madonna. Mrs. Mooney had first sent her daughter to be a typist in a
corn-factor's office but, as a disreputable sheriff's man used to come every
other day to the office, asking to be allowed to say a word to his daughter,
she had taken her daughter home again and set her to do housework. As Polly was
very lively the intention was to give her the run of the young men. Besides
young men like to feel that there is a young woman not very far away. Polly, of
course, flirted with the young men but Mrs. Mooney, who was a shrewd judge,
knew that the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant
business. Things went on so for a long time and Mrs. Mooney began to think of
sending Polly back to typewriting when she noticed that something was going on
between Polly and one of the young men. She watched the pair and kept her own
counsel.
Polly
knew that she was being watched, but still her mother's persistent silence
could not be misunderstood. There had been no open complicity between mother
and daughter, no open understanding but, though people in the house began to
talk of the affair, still Mrs. Mooney did not intervene. Polly began to grow a
little strange in her manner and the young man was evidently perturbed. At
last, when she judged it to be the right moment, Mrs. Mooney intervened. She
dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat: and in this case she
had made up her mind.
It
was a bright Sunday morning of early summer, promising heat, but with a fresh
breeze blowing. All the windows of the boarding house were open and the lace
curtains ballooned gently towards the street beneath the raised sashes. The
belfry of George's Church sent out constant peals and worshippers, singly or in
groups, traversed the little circus before the church, revealing their purpose
by their self-contained demeanour no less than by the little volumes in their
gloved hands. Breakfast was over in the boarding house and the table of the
breakfast-room was covered with plates on which lay yellow streaks of eggs with
morsels of bacon-fat and bacon-rind. Mrs. Mooney sat in the straw arm-chair and
watched the servant Mary remove the breakfast things. She mad Mary collect the
crusts and pieces of broken bread to help to make Tuesday's bread- pudding.
When the table was cleared, the broken bread collected, the sugar and butter
safe under lock and key, she began to reconstruct the interview which she had
had the night before with Polly. Things were as she had suspected: she had been
frank in her questions and Polly had been frank in her answers. Both had been
somewhat awkward, of course. She had been made awkward by her not wishing to
receive the news in too cavalier a fashion or to seem to have connived and Polly
had been made awkward not merely because allusions of that kind always made her
awkward but also because she did not wish it to be thought that in her wise
innocence she had divined the intention behind her mother's tolerance.
Mrs.
Mooney glanced instinctively at the little gilt clock on the mantelpiece as
soon as she had become aware through her revery that the bells of George's
Church had stopped ringing. It was seventeen minutes past eleven: she would
have lots of time to have the matter out with Mr. Doran and then catch short
twelve at Marlborough Street. She was sure she would win. To begin with she had
all the weight of social opinion on her side: she was an outraged mother. She
had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour
and he had simply abused her hospitality. He was thirty-four or thirty-five
years of age, so that youth could not be pleaded as his excuse; nor could
ignorance be his excuse since he was a man who had seen something of the world.
He had simply taken advantage of Polly's youth and inexperience: that was
evident. The question was: What reparation would he make?
There
must be reparation made in such case. It is all very well for the man: he can
go his ways as if nothing had happened, having had his moment of pleasure, but
the girl has to bear the brunt. Some mothers would be content to patch up such
an affair for a sum of money; she had known cases of it. But she would not do
so. For her only one reparation could make up for the loss of her daughter's
honour: marriage.
She
counted all her cards again before sending Mary up to Doran's room to say that
she wished to speak with him. She felt sure she would win. He was a serious
young man, not rakish or loud-voiced like the others. If it had been Mr. Sheridan
or Mr. Meade or Bantam Lyons her task would have been much harder. She did not
think he would face publicity. All the lodgers in the house knew something of
the affair; details had been invented by some. Besides, he had been employed
for thirteen years in a great Catholic wine-merchant's office and publicity
would mean for him, perhaps, the loss of his job. Whereas if he agreed all
might be well. She knew he had a good screw for one thing and she suspected he
had a bit of stuff put by.
Nearly
the half-hour! She stood up and surveyed herself in the pier-glass. The
decisive expression of her great florid face satisfied her and she thought of
some mothers she knew who could not get their daughters off their hands.
Mr.
Doran was very anxious indeed this Sunday morning. He had made two attempts to
shave but his hand had been so unsteady that he had been obliged to desist.
Three days' reddish beard fringed his jaws and every two or three minutes a
mist gathered on his glasses so that he had to take them off and polish them
with his pocket-handkerchief. The recollection of his confession of the night
before was a cause of acute pain to him; the priest had drawn out every
ridiculous detail of the affair and in the end had so magnified his sin that he
was almost thankful at being afforded a loophole of reparation. The harm was
done. What could he do now but marry her or run away? He could not brazen it
out. The affair would be sure to be talked of and his employer would be certain
to hear of it. Dublin is such a small city: everyone knows everyone else's
business. He felt his heart leap warmly in his throat as he heard in his
excited imagination old Mr. Leonard calling out in his rasping voice:
"Send Mr. Doran here, please."
All
his long years of service gone for nothing! All his industry and diligence
thrown away! As a young man he had sown his wild oats, of course; he had
boasted of his free-thinking and denied the existence of God to his companions
in public- houses. But that was all passed and done with... nearly. He still
bought a copy of Reynolds's Newspaper every week but he attended to his
religious duties and for nine-tenths of the year lived a regular life. He had
money enough to settle down on; it was not that. But the family would look down
on her. First of all there was her disreputable father and then her mother's
boarding house was beginning to get a certain fame. He had a notion that he was
being had. He could imagine his friends talking of the affair and laughing. She
was a little vulgar; sometimes she said "I seen" and "If I
had've known." But what would grammar matter if he really loved her? He
could not make up his mind whether to like her or despise her for what she had
done. Of course he had done it too. His instinct urged him to remain free, not
to marry. Once you are married you are done for, it said.
While
he was sitting helplessly on the side of the bed in shirt and trousers she
tapped lightly at his door and entered. She told him all, that she had made a
clean breast of it to her mother and that her mother would speak with him that
morning. She cried and threw her arms round his neck, saying:
"O
Bob! Bob! What am I to do? What am I to do at all?"
She
would put an end to herself, she said.
He
comforted her feebly, telling her not to cry, that it would be all right, never
fear. He felt against his shirt the agitation of her bosom.
It
was not altogether his fault that it had happened. He remembered well, with the
curious patient memory of the celibate, the first casual caresses her dress, her
breath, her fingers had given him. Then late one night as he was undressing for
she had tapped at his door, timidly. She wanted to relight her candle at his
for hers had been blown out by a gust. It was her bath night. She wore a loose
open combing- jacket of printed flannel. Her white instep shone in the opening
of her furry slippers and the blood glowed warmly behind her perfumed skin.
From her hands and wrists too as she lit and steadied her candle a faint
perfume arose.
On
nights when he came in very late it was she who warmed up his dinner. He
scarcely knew what he was eating feeling her beside him alone, at night, in the
sleeping house. And her thoughtfulness! If the night was anyway cold or wet or
windy there was sure to be a little tumbler of punch ready for him. Perhaps
they could be happy together....
They
used to go upstairs together on tiptoe, each with a candle, and on the third
landing exchange reluctant goodnights. They used to kiss. He remembered well
her eyes, the touch of her hand and his delirium....
But
delirium passes. He echoed her phrase, applying it to himself: "What am I
to do?" The instinct of the celibate warned him to hold back. But the sin
was there; even his sense of honour told him that reparation must be made for
such a sin.
While
he was sitting with her on the side of the bed Mary came to the door and said
that the missus wanted to see him in the parlour. He stood up to put on his
coat and waistcoat, more helpless than ever. When he was dressed he went over
to her to comfort her. It would be all right, never fear. He left her crying on
the bed and moaning softly: "O my God!"
Going
down the stairs his glasses became so dimmed with moisture that he had to take
them off and polish them. He longed to ascend through the roof and fly away to
another country where he would never hear again of his trouble, and yet a force
pushed him downstairs step by step. The implacable faces of his employer and of
the Madam stared upon his discomfiture. On the last flight of stairs he passed
Jack Mooney who was coming up from the pantry nursing two bottles of Bass. They
saluted coldly; and the lover's eyes rested for a second or two on a thick
bulldog face and a pair of thick short arms. When he reached the foot of the
staircase he glanced up and saw Jack regarding him from the door of the
return-room.
Suddenly
he remembered the night when one of the musichall artistes, a little blond
Londoner, had made a rather free allusion to Polly. The reunion had been almost
broken up on account of Jack's violence. Everyone tried to quiet him. The
music-hall artiste, a little paler than usual, kept smiling and saying that
there was no harm meant: but Jack kept shouting at him that if any fellow tried
that sort of a game on with his sister he'd bloody well put his teeth down his
throat, so he would.
Polly
sat for a little time on the side of the bed, crying. Then she dried her eyes
and went over to the looking-glass. She dipped the end of the towel in the
water-jug and refreshed her eyes with the cool water. She looked at herself in
profile and readjusted a hairpin above her ear. Then she went back to the bed
again and sat at the foot. She regarded the pillows for a long time and the
sight of them awakened in her mind secret, amiable memories. She rested the nape
of her neck against the cool iron bed-rail and fell into a reverie. There was
no longer any perturbation visible on her face.
She
waited on patiently, almost cheerfully, without alarm. her memories gradually
giving place to hopes and visions of the future. Her hopes and visions were so
intricate that she no longer saw the white pillows on which her gaze was fixed
or remembered that she was waiting for anything.
At
last she heard her mother calling. She started to her feet and ran to the
banisters.
"Polly!
Polly!"
"Yes,
mamma?"
"Come
down, dear. Mr. Doran wants to speak to you."
Then
she remembered what she had been waiting for.
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