The Bay Page 6

  Now, for the first time, I knew the full bitterness of my loss. I was tethered for all the future to a mad, unhappy woman who hated me, and, worse, hated my mother. (Even then, I clearly perceived Aunt Edith’s unhappiness, though without sympathy. I saw it only as a danger.) My only helps were my two uncles, both seldom accessible, and my darling Ann Dunn, whom I saw now and then, but needed all the time.

  For an hour or more I lay sobbing. At last I could bear the darkness no longer. Stealthily I got out, and fumbled my way to the window, caught the blind on each side, and eased it up. I got back into bed, and lay looking at the patch of light on the ceiling. Gradually I sank once more into calm, an exhausted calm at first, but it grew till I could feel a glow of strength, till there seemed to be a ball of light that swelled inside me, that opened out into a flower, and I lay on the tide of my content like a great golden waterlily, yet somehow realised myself, never more truly myself, lying on my back in the narrow iron bedstead, looking at the golden light upon the ceiling. For a while I lay, dreamily suspended between two consciousnesses. Then I drifted to sleep.

  The next thing was my Aunt Edith calling me in the morning. She checked at sight of the raised blind, and looked at me meaningly.

  “Luke! Did you get out of bed after I’d gone, and pull up that blind?”

  “No, Aunt Edith. It must have flown up by itself. I seem to remember I heard a snap.”

  She looked hard at me, but I met her eye. As I was dressing, I reflected that I had taken another step to qualify for hell fire; and I didn’t care. There didn’t seem to be any point in saying my prayers that morning, since I was at odds with God anyway.

  But my mood of defiance soon evaporated. I felt uncovered during the morning, answered badly in class, and finally made my peace with God, in the lavatory, at twenty minutes past twelve.

  From that time on I watched my Aunt Edith carefully, as one watches an animal whose temper is uncertain. All human contact ceased between us. I was careful to avoid giving her offence, I answered glibly such questions as she put from time to time about my spiritual welfare. I closed myself up, even from Ann Dunn, on the rare occasions when I saw her, for my aunt found more and more excuses to stop me from going to the basement in Fitzwilliam Street. For three months at least after that nocturnal interview, I walked entirely by myself. I had never committed myself much at school. Like most only children, I preferred the company of adults, and would rather be left to my own devices; so I don’t expect anyone noticed the change there. One master, Mr. Rourke, may have done so. He went out of his way to be kind to me, and with the surface of my mind I appreciated it and was grateful, but it didn’t reach deep down. For quite a while, nothing penetrated the anaesthetic I received that night. I went about, not so much in a trance as in a cold animal alertness. But though I didn’t know it, my spirit was sick. The occurrences of that spring and summer proved it.

  They tell us that illness is often a device to secure some benefit or deliver us from some burden. I had physical reason, on a raw February night, for getting a cold on my chest, but I’d a deeper reason. I came in wet and cold from school, and forgot to wipe my feet properly on the mat. My aunt sent me back, and came to superintend the process. My boots were so thick in mud and slime from the walk that she sent me to brush the muck off them. I went into the scullery for the brushes. My aunt was too mean to pay a maid full time. She had a dirty, scrubby young girl named Norah, whose nose always wanted blowing, but who was kind to me in her way. We were fellow sufferers under the tyrant. I didn’t know where Norah had put the brushes, and I poked about there in the cold, and by the time I’d found them and rubbed my boots and come in I was shivering, less with cold than with utter weariness and depression. My supper didn’t warm me, the fire didn’t warm me either, but I sulked and didn’t let on how wet I was. To blazes with her, I thought—and if I am ill, so much the better.

  I made no answer when she girded at me, so she came over and took me by the shoulder to shake me.

  “Gracious!” she exclaimed, starting back. “Your clothes are wet!”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s raining.”

  She didn’t notice the impertinence.

  “Run upstairs and change them at once, you naughty boy,” she said. “You ought to have gone up the moment you came in.”

  “I was going to,” I said, “only you sent me into the scullery.”

  I went up, with her fuming and scolding after me. I was shivering in earnest now.

  “You’d better get right into bed,” she said, “until you warm up. How can you be so thoughtless, and so silly! And so wicked. You know perfectly well, if you had told me the moment you came in, I should have made you change your clothes immediately.”

  I could see, through my dull misery, that she felt guilty about this, that this was her weak spot, and so with a boy’s cruelty I did nothing to help her out. I stood still, and wouldn’t undress till she went out of the room. When I was in bed, she came in, and stood staring down at me.

  “Really, Luke, you are a most unnatural child. There is something—something horrible in you. You are not only wickedly stubborn, but you try to put the blame for your own wilfulness on me. I am doing all I can for your good and for your welfare, and you give me neither affection nor gratitude.”

  I shut my eyes. I was tired, and by now feeling really ill. I don’t know how long she stayed there. I remember once waking in the night feeling terribly hot, and throwing some of the clothes off me. Then I was cold, and pulled them back again. The next thing I remember was the dear sheeplike face of Ann Dunn hanging over me. Then I knew that everything would be all right. A doctor came, very dark, with black hairs in his nostrils and a gold stopping bright in one of his teeth. His hands were very cold, but firm and kind. He put a cold ring on my chest, and listened to my breathing. Then Ann Dunn helped me to sit up, while he moved it about my back. Then the warm clothes were drawn over me again, and he and Ann Dunn moved off into a murmured conference by the window. My aunt was outside the door. How it was done I don’t know, but between them they kept her out.

  There followed a long dream-like period, with Ann Dunn always by my side. Day and night, whenever I wanted her, before I knew I had called her name, she was there. Aunt Edith wanted to come in once or twice, quite honestly, I expect, poor woman, to see how I was doing, but I cried desperately to Ann Dunn to keep her out, and worked myself into a fever even after there was no longer a question of her coming in, clinging to Ann Dunn, till I fell into a terrible fit of coughing. Ann Dunn scolded me after that, I remember.

  “Now you’re never to do that again,” she said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I am here, and I am staying here. You are only making yourself worse, and that makes work and trouble for us all. Now—you’ll be a good boy. Promise.”

  And I whispered “I promise” and lay back, exhausted, following her with my eyes as she moved about the room. Ann Dunn never made any noise. The only sounds I remember of her during all that time were the rustle of her dress and the faint tinkle of a spoon in cup or glass.

  Presently a thought struck me.

  “Ann Dunn. Ann Dunn.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Janey? Did you bring her?”

  “She is well. She’s with neighbours. They’ll look after her.”

  My anxiety relieved, I turned my head, and slept.

  I was a long time getting over that illness, and it was late March before I was out again, clad in two coats, with a muffler round my neck, hanging on to Ann Dunn’s arm and sniffing with excitement the wild spring air. The big squares looked clean and expectant; the colours of the city were sweet and full of life: it was entrancing to be out, to see the world, to come alive again. From being content and unwilling to leave the warm safe care of the house, I was allured by the outer world as never before. Come on, it said to me, I have things for you you never dreamed of. I looked up at the Dublin Mountains, vivid in the clear air, and was seized with a longing to go to them
, to climb them, and be free under the sky with mountains, lambs, and hares around me.

  I grew stronger quickly after that, and the day came when Ann Dunn packed up and went home again. I cried unashamedly, and entreated her not to go. I said I could not live in the house with Aunt Edith. I would run away, and go to sea, anything rather than stay. Ann Dunn had no patience with that. She spoke to me very severely, and defended Aunt Edith—with no great conviction, even I could see, but from an inflexible sense of duty.

  “You shall come and see me,” she said. “You shall come every Saturday half holiday.”

  “She won’t let me.”

  “Who is ‘she’?” Ann Dunn enquired severely. “The cat’s aunt?”

  The stock saying was unfortunate, for it gave me a chance to retort.

  “No,” I said, “my aunt.”

  Ann Dunn turned away.

  “I shall not talk to you,” she said, “if you are going to be pert.”

  “Darling Ann Dunn—please.” I flung my arms round her neck. “Please don’t be cross.”

  She held off for a while—Ann Dunn never relented in the immediate, spectacular way of most nannies: but presently we were discussing the matter again. She maintained that I was to come and have tea with her on Saturday afternoon, and she carried her point. It was a real victory, and Aunt Edith felt it sharply, for she never hesitated after that to make some derogatory remark when I set off of a Saturday.

  “Spending your free time in that horrible poky basement,” she said. “It isn’t healthy. I wonder Ann Dunn hasn’t more conscience. However, I have done all I can.”

  I paid no heed at the time, for I would be on the brink of the thing I’d been looking forward to throughout the whole week. But I heard afterwards it had been a battle indeed, and that Ann Dunn had enlisted Uncle John on her side. By the time Saturday came round, I was far too happy to mind anything my aunt could say. I had passed from hostility to a kind of contempt. On Saturday evening, when the darling hours were over, on Sunday when her power over me was complete, I could fear Aunt Edith. On Saturday morning, she could do anything to me, because she could do nothing.

  Then, one fine Saturday in May, came the blow. I ran down the steps, performed my private and particular fanfaronade on the brass knocker, and seized Ann Dunn in my usual bear’s hug, then stood transfixed on the threshold. The walls were bare of pictures: boxes stood on the floor: half the place was packed up.

  “Yes,” said Ann Dunn placidly. “I’m moving. This is the last Saturday you’ll come here to tea. I’m moving out to Kingstown.”

  My legs went weak under me. If I hadn’t had an arm round her, I’d have fallen.

  “But—Ann Dunn——”

  “It will be nicer out there, and healthier. It’s a little house near the sea. You shall come out and see me just the same. You shall ride out in the tram. I will give you the fare. You won’t have to trouble your aunt.”

  That was my worst fear removed, but I was still numb with shock: and, fighting with my personal sense of bereavement, my deep uneasiness at having Ann Dunn so far away, were the beginnings of my understanding of human character. I knew how dearly Ann Dunn loved her house, and I could not for the life of me imagine what had induced her to give it up.

  “It’s a nice little house,” Ann Dunn went on. “It belonged to Willie’s sister.” Willie was her husband. “When she died, it came to Willie. We had no use for it, so we let it to an old retired doctor and his daughter. Now I want it for myself. I gave them their notice last quarter, and they are out of it.”

  “But, Ann Dunn, you’ll be lonely out there. You don’t know anyone.”

  I didn’t realise it, but I was fighting against change with all the cunning I possessed.

  “I’m never one for going about much into company. And I have a friend in George’s Street.”

  “But what about your friends here? What about Mrs. Moles-worth, and old Miss O’Grady?”

  “There’s the tram,” said Ann Dunn peacefully. “I can run in and see them when I want.”

  Thus recalled to my mind, the tram became from that moment a magic link between me and Ann Dunn. It became a friend, a vessel of hope, and the tramway a silver cord that joined us. Very skilfully Ann Dunn harped on that tram, as I sat by her eating my scones and griddle bread, and very skilfully she talked of the little whitewashed house with the flowers by the door and the green painted garden gate, and the round glass floats that were stacked outside under one of the windows, and all the nooks and corners of it: for it was, apparently, a funny irregular little house. Its rooms ran this way and that, they were not great and gloomy rectangular boxes, like the rooms of Fitzwilliam Street. Soon I had fallen in with her mood, and we were gaily discussing where the various things should go, where this picture should be hung, and which room should have what.

  Chief of all problems was where to put the spinet. This object was Ann Dunn’s chief treasure. It had been given her, long ago, by a young woman she attended for her first baby. It was a beautiful thing to see, of old stained rosewood, with elegant thin legs. Its keys were yellow with age, some of the strings were broken, and the rest wildly out of tune; but its tone was sweet, and I loved to finger the notes and to call from its innards dim, dusty ghosts of music. Ann Dunn could not play it, but she loved it, and kept it scrupulously dusted and polished. She had an instinct for beautiful things, even if they lay beyond her.

  But, as my time grew short, and my glances at the bland-faced alarum clock on the dresser more frequent and more haunted, I knew only that Ann Dunn was going from Fitzwilliam Street, and that an era in my life was coming to an end.

  “When will you go, Ann Dunn?”

  “Most of the things will go on Monday. I’ll go with them, and see them in. Then I’ll come back, and go with the rest on Tuesday. Guntey is coming in soon, to see how much there is.”

  “And shall I come out to you on Saturday.”

  “Not next Saturday, I’m afraid.” My heart dropped deep. “You see, I shan’t be.quite settled in so soon. But you shall come the Saturday after that.”

  “Oh, Ann Dunn, please! Let me come. I won’t be a nuisance, I promise you. I’ll have tea anywhere, on a box. Or I needn’t have any tea. I’ll help you put things in their place. Please, Ann Dunn?”

  My face must have shown how I felt, for after a little hesitation she said I might come that very next Saturday. I jumped up and hugged her and gambolled round the kitchen, and my transports were only checked by a vast wallop on the knocker. I raised scared eyes to Ann Dunn. With a nod she bade me answer the door.

  I opened it, and the whole doorway was filled with the bulk of a man so huge that he blotted out the light. He uttered a deep rumble.

  “Good marnin’,” he said. “Is Miss Ann Dunn within?”

  I blinked up, overawed by such stature, and conscious of a strong smell of porter.

  “She is.”

  “Will ye tell her, i’ ye please, Guntey is come.”

  “Ask him to come in,” Ann Dunn’s voice came from the gloom at my back.

  “Will you come in?” I said, and stood aside.

  The apparition executed a sudden prance, and went through the motions of one wiping his boots on the stone step, making a tremendous clatter and kicking up sparks. This, and the pulling off of his greasy cap, were Guntey’s sole concessions to good manners.

  Where he got his name, or what his real name was, I have no idea; but there were several Gunteys in the less reputable parts of the city. It was a kind of generic name, bestowed from time to time on the person who seemed best to fit it. The qualifications, to judge from the possessor before me, were enormous stature, dirt, ten days’ growth of beard, and a strong smell, or rather, a cornucopia of smells. A thick, bass voice, hoarse from drink or bawling, and a trick of shifting his weight from one foot to another, as if anxious to make water, completed the picture.

  How Ann Dunn could stomach this unsavoury individual, or had ever met him, is one of life
’s mysteries. I suppose it was because he was cheap and useful. Guntey was by trade a carter, but he was also a sort of general odd job man. When not carting anything, he would go round trundling a barrow, with his hideous dwarf henchman Siff in close attendance. Guntey’s strength was prodigious. He could load things on his cart, or wheel them single-handed on his barrow, that three or four men would scarcely be able for. Fifteen stone of untamed animal passions—that summed up Guntey: and there he stood, in the middle of the kitchen, looking down respectfully at little orderly Ann Dunn, two extremes of humanity in brief, unlikely conversation.

  Guntey’s skilled eyes made appraisal of Ann Dunn’s worldly goods.

  “Erra yis, ma’am. Two loads.” He called it low-wuds. Most monosyllables Guntey made into two syllables, if not three. “That’ll be aal right, ma’am. Sure we’ll do it aisy, me and Siff, ma’am. Monda’ marnin’, ma’am. Yis.”

  “Very well, then. You’ll be in good time?”

  “Aw begod yis, ma’am. Yis. Good marnin’.”