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; some times 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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