The Lake — Chapter 3

London: William Heinemann, 10 November 1905, pages 42-52, 2,852 words

Ill

Catherine’s curiosity was a worry. As if he knew why he hadn’t come home to his dinner! If she’d just finish putting the plates on the table and leave him. Of course, there had been callers. One man, the man he especially wished to see, had driven ten miles to see him. It was most unfortunate, but it couldn’t be helped; he had felt that morning that he couldn’t stay indoors — the business of the parish had somehow got upon his nerves, but not because he had been working hard. He had done but little work since she left the parish. Now was that story going to begin again? If it did, he should go out of his mind; and he looked round the room, thinking how a lonely evening breeds thoughts of discontent.

Most of the furniture in the room was Father Peter’s. Father Peter had left his curate his furniture, but the pretty mahogany bookcase and the engravings upon the walls were Father Oliver’s own taste; he had bought them at an auction, and there were times when these purchases pleased him. But now he was thinking that Father Peter must have known to whom the parish would go at his death, for he could not have meant all his furniture to be taken out of the house — ‘there would be no room for it in Bridget Clery’s cottage;’ and Father Oliver sat thinking of the evenings he used to spend with Father Peter. How often during those evenings Father Peter must have said to himself, ‘One day, Gogarty, you will be sitting in my chair and sleeping in my bed.’ And Father Oliver pondered on his affection for the dead man. There had been no differences of opinion, only one — the neglected garden at the back of the house; and, smiling sadly, Father Oliver remembered how he used to reprove the parish priest.

‘I’m afraid I'm too big and too fat and too fond of my pipe and my glass of whisky to care much about carnations. But if you get the parish when I'm gone, I’m sure you’ll grow some beauties, and you’ll put a bunch on my grave sometimes, Gogarty.’ The very ring of the dead man’s voice seemed to vibrate through the lonely room, and, sitting in Father Peter’s chair, with the light of Father Peter’s lamp shining on his face and hand, Father Oliver’s thoughts flowed on. It seemed to him that he had not sufficiently understood and appreciated Father Peter’s kindliness, and he recalled his perfect good nature. ‘Death reveals many things to us,’ he said; and he lifted his head to listen, for the silence in the house and about the house reminded him of the silence of the dead, and he began to consider what his own span of life might be. He might live as long as Father Peter (Father Peter was fifty-five when he died); if so, twenty-one years of existence by the lake’s side awaited him, and these years seemed to him empty like a desert — yes, and as sterile. ‘Twenty-one years wondering what became of her, and every evening like this evening — the same loneliness.’

He sat watching the hands of his clock, and a peaceful meditation about a certain carnation that unfortunately burst its calyx was interrupted by a sudden thought. Whence the thought had come he could not tell, nor what had put it into his head, but it had occurred to him suddenly that ‘if Father Peter had lived a few weeks longer he would have found means of exchanging Rose Leicester for another schoolmistress, more suitable to the requirements of the parish. If Father Peter had lived he would have done her a grievous wrong. He wouldn’t have allowed her to suffer, but he would have done her a wrong all the same.’ And it were better that a man should meet his death than he should do a wrong to another. But he wasn’t contemplating his own death nor Rose’s when this solution of the difficulty occurred to him. Our inherent hypocrisy is so great that it is difficult to know what one does think. He surely did not think it well that Father Peter had died, his friend, his benefactor, the man in whose house he was living? Of course not. Then it was strange he could not keep the thought out of his mind that Father Peter’s death had saved the parish from a great scandal, for if Rose had been dismissed he might have found himself obliged to leave the parish.

Again he turned on himself and asked how such thoughts could come into his mind. True, the coming of a thought into the consciousness is often unexpected, but if the thought were not latent in the mind, it would not arise out of the mind; and if Father Peter knew the base thoughts he indulged in — yes, indulged in, for he could not put them quite out of his mind — he very much feared that the gift of all this furniture might — No, he was judging Father Peter ill: Father Peter was incapable of a mean regret.

But who was he, he’d like to be told, that he should set himself up as Father Peter’s judge? The evil he had foreseen had happened. If Father Peter felt that Rose Leicester was not the kind of schoolmistress the parish required, should he not send her away? The need of the parish, of the many, before the one. Moreover, Father Peter was under no obligation whatsoever to Rose Leicester. She had been sent down by the School Board subject to his approval. ‘But my case is quite different. I chose her; I decided that she was to remain.’ And he asked himself if his decision had come about gradually. No, he had never hesitated; he had dismissed Father Peter’s prejudices as unworthy.... The church needed some good music. But had he thought of the church? Hardly at all. His first consideration had been his personal pleasure, and he had wished that the best choir in the diocese should be in his church. Rose Leicester had enabled him to gratify his vanity. He had made her his friend, he had taken pleasure in her smiles, and in the fact that he had only to express a desire for it to be fulfilled. After school, tired though she might be, she was always willing to meet him in the church for choir practice. She would herself propose to decorate the altar for feast-days. How many times had they walked round the garden together gathering flowers for the altar! And it was strange that she could decorate so well without knowing much about flowers or having much natural taste for flowers.

Feeling he was doing her an injustice, he admitted that she had made much progress under his guidance in her knowledge of flowers.

‘But how did he treat her in the end, despite all her kindnesses? Shamefully, shamefully, shamefully!' and getting up from his chair he walked across the room, and when he turned he stopped, and drew his hand across his eyes. The clock struck twelve. ‘I shall be awake at dawn, and with all this story running in my head,’ and he paused at his bedroom-door. But having suffered in thought, he was spared the realization, and that morning he lay awake, hardly annoyed at all by the blackbirds’ whistling, contentedly going over the mistakes he had made — a little surprised, however, that the remembrance of them did not cause him more pain. At last he fell into profound sleep, and when his housekeeper knocked at his door and he heard her saying that it was past eight, he leaped out of bed cheerily, and sang a stave of song as he shaved himself. He gashed his chin, however, for he could not keep his attention fixed on his work, but must peep over the top of the glass, whence he could see his garden, and think how next year he would contrive a better arrangement of colour. It was difficult to stop the bleeding, and he knew that Catherine would grumble at the state he left the towels in (he should not have used his bath-towel); but these were minor matters. He was happier than he had been for many a day.

The sight of strawberries on his breakfast-table delighted him, and the man who had driven ten miles to see him yesterday-called, and he shared his strawberries with him. They smoked a pipe together before they went out. Never had he felt in better spirits as they walked down the hillside; the sunlight was exciting, and the lake looked beautiful, and it was pleasant to stride along, talking of the bridge (at last there seemed some prospect of getting one). The intelligence of this new inspector filled him with hope, and he expatiated on the advantages of the bridge and many other things. Nor did his humour seem to depend entirely on the companionship of his visitor. It endured long after his visitor had left him, and very soon he began to think that his desire to go away for a long holiday was a passing indisposition of mind rather than a need. It pleased him to postpone his holiday to the end of the year, when he would have more leisure — to the month when the Government would give a formal promise to build the bridge.

His change of mind interested him, and he watched it and pondered it during his afternoon walks, till one day he looked round the empty country, and a sudden sense of his loneliness swept over him. He could not tell at first whether the pang he had just experienced was a recurrence of the old pain; he tried to persuade himself that it was but a vivid memory of it, but very soon he was driven to admit that the longing to go away had returned. That evening was not spent in writing letters about the affairs of the parish, but staring at the lamp, hearing Catherine finishing her last work in the kitchen; and he would get up from his chair and walk terror-stricken about his room. That night he hardly slept at all. Lying between sleeping and waking, he thought of the long, bright, dusty day before him, and how it would pass away hour by hour. At the end of the afternoon he stood, a solitary figure, looking across the lake, heart-sick and wondering, feeling that nothing could save him but the spell of foreign travel; and his overwrought brain imagined a fair country, and himself as rambling, interested in the passers-by and the distant spire.

As he turned homeward a resolution strove to form itself in his heart. The strangest part of his disease was that he seemed unable to go, though he knew that to remain were to die. He seemed held back, and, unable to discover any natural reason for his hesitancy, he began to indulge in superstitious fears lest Rose’s spirit haunted the lake, and that his punishment was to be kept a prisoner always.

One day, as he stood at the end of the sandy spit, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, he was startled by a footstep. He fancied it must be she, but it was only Christy, the boy who worked in his garden.

‘Your reverence, the postman overlooked this letter in the morning. It was stuck at the bottom of the bag. He hopes the delay won’t make any difference.’

Front Father O'Grady to Father Oliver Gogarty.

‘June 1, 19 — .

 ‘DEAR FATHER GOGARTY,

‘I am writing to ask you if you know anything about a young woman called Rose Leicester. She tells me that she was schoolmistress in your parish and organist in your church, and that you thought very highly of her until one day a tale-bearer, Mrs. O’Mara by name, went to your house and told you that your schoolmistress was going to have a baby. It appears that at first you refused to believe her, and that you ran down to the school to ask Miss Leicester herself if the story you had heard about her was a true one. She admitted it, but on her refusal to tell you who was the father of the child you lost your temper; and the following Sunday you alluded to her so plainly in your sermon about chastity that there was nothing for her but to leave the parish.

‘There is no reason why I should disbelieve Miss Leicester’s story; I am an Irish priest like yourself, sir. I have worked in London among the poor for forty years, and Miss Leicester’s story is, to my certain knowledge, not an uncommon one; it is, I am sorry to say, most probable; it is what would happen to any schoolmistress in Ireland in similar circumstances. The ordinary course is to find out the man and to force him to marry the girl; if this fails, to drive the woman out of the parish, it being better to sacrifice one affected sheep than that the whole flock should be contaminated. I am an old man; Miss Leicester tells me that you are a young man. I can therefore speak quite frankly. I believe the practice to which I have alluded is inhuman and unchristian, and has brought many an Irish girl to unspeakable misery and degradation. I have been able to rescue some, and, touched by their stories, I have written frequently to the priest of the parish pointing out to him that his responsibility is not merely local, and does not end as soon as the woman has passed the boundary of his parish. I would ask you what you think your feelings would be if I were writing to you now to tell you that, after some months of degraded life, Miss Leicester had thrown herself from one of the bridges into the river? That might very well have been the story I had to write to you; fortunately for you, it is another story.

‘Miss Leicester is a woman of strong character, and does not give way easily; her strength of will has enabled her to succeed where another woman might have failed. She is now living with one of my parishioners, a Mrs. Dent, of 24, Harold Street, who has taken a great liking to her, and helped her through her most trying time, when she had very little money and was alone and friendless in London. Mrs. Dent recommended her to some people in the country who would look after her child. She allowed her to pay her rent by giving lessons to her daughter on the piano. One thing led to another; the lady who lived on the drawing-room floor took lessons, and Miss Leicester is earning now, on an average, thirty shillings per week, which little income will be increased if I can appoint her to the post of organist in my church, my organist having been obliged to leave me on account of her health. It was while talking to Mrs. Dent on this very subject that I first heard Miss Leicester’s name mentioned.

‘Mrs. Dent was enthusiastic about her, but I could see that she knew little about her lodger’s antecedents, except that she came from Ireland. She was anxious that I should engage her at once, declaring that I could find no one like her, and she asked me to see her that evening. I went, and the young woman impressed me very favourably. She came to my church and played for me. I could see that she was an excellent musician, and there seemed to be no reason why I should not engage her at once. I should probably have done so without asking further questions — for I do not care to inquire too closely into a woman’s past, once I am satisfied that she wishes to lead an honourable life — but Miss Leicester volunteered to tell me what her past had been, saying it was better I should hear it from her than from another. When she had told me her sad story, I reminded her of the anxiety that her disappearance from the parish would cause you. She shook her head, saying you did not care what happened to her. I assured her that such a thing was not the case, and begged of her to allow me to write to you; but I did not obtain her consent until she began to see that if she withheld it any longer we might think she was concealing some important fact. Moreover, I impressed upon her that it was right that I should hear your story, not because I disbelieved hers — I take it for granted the facts are correctly stated — but in the event of your being able to say something which would put a different complexion upon them.

‘Yours very sincerely,

‘FATHER O’GRADY, P.P.’