Mary, Mary Part 8

"I don't want to marry any one at all," said Mary.

"You are not asked to marry any one, darling," said Mrs. Makebelieve, "but some one--this gentleman here whose name I don't happen to know.

Do you know his name?"

"No," said Mary.

"My name...." began the policeman.

"It doesn't matter, Sir," said Mrs. Makebelieve. "Do you want to marry this gentleman, Mary?"

"No," whispered Mary.

"Are you in love with him?"

Mary turned completely away from him.

"No," she whispered again.

"Do you think you ever will be in love with him?"

She felt as a rat might when hunted to a corner. But the end must be very near; this could not last forever because nothing can. Her lips were parched, her eyes were burning. She wanted to lie down and go asleep and waken again laughing to say--"it was a dream."

Her reply was almost inaudible. "No," she said.

"You are quite sure? It is always better to be quite sure."

She did not answer any more, but the faint droop of her head gave the reply her mother needed.

"You see, Sir," said Mrs. Makebelieve, "that you were mistaken in your opinion. My daughter is not old enough yet to be thinking of marriage and such like. Children do be thoughtless. I am sorry for all the trouble she has given you, and"--a sudden compunction stirred her, for the man was standing up now, and there was no trace of Mrs. O'Connor visible in him: his face was as ma.s.sive and harsh as a piece of wall.

"Don't you be thinking too badly of us now," said Mrs. Makebelieve with some agitation; "the child is too young altogether to be asking her to marry. Maybe in a year or two--I said things I know, but I was vexed, and...."

The big man nodded his head and marched out.

Mary ran to her mother moaning like a sick person, but Mrs.

Makebelieve did not look at her. She lay down on the bed and turned her face to the wall, and she did not speak to Mary for a long time.

x.x.xI

When the young man who lodged with Mrs. Cafferty came in on the following day he presented a deplorable appearance. His clothes were torn and his face had several large strips of sticking-plaster on it, but he seemed to be in a mood of extraordinary happiness notwithstanding, and proclaimed that he had partic.i.p.ated in the one really great fight of his life-time, that he wasn't injured at all, and that he wouldn't have missed it for a pension.

Mrs. Cafferty was wild with indignation, and marched him into Mrs.

Makebelieve's room, where he had to again tell his story and have his injuries inspected and commiserated. Even Mr. Cafferty came into the room on this occasion. He was a large, slow man dressed very comfortably in a red beard--his beard was so red and so persistent that it quite overshadowed the rest of his wrappings and did, indeed, seem to clothe him. As he stood the six children walked in and out of his legs, and stood on his feet in their proper turns without causing him any apparent discomfort. During the young man's recital Mr.

Cafferty every now and then solemnly and powerfully smote his left hand with his right fist, and requested that the aggressor should be produced to him.

The young man said that as he was coming home the biggest man in the world walked up to him. He had never set eyes on the man before in his life, and thought at first he wanted to borrow a match or ask the way to somewhere, or something like that, and, accordingly, he halted; but the big man gripped him by the shoulder and said "You d.a.m.ned young whelp," and then he laughed and hit him a tremendous blow with his other hand. He twisted himself free at that, and said "What's that for?" and then the big man made another desperate clout at him. A fellow wasn't going to stand that kind of thing, so he let out at him with his left and then jumped in with two short-arm jabs that must have tickled the chap; that fellow didn't have it all his own way anyhow.... The young man exhibited his knuckles, which were skinned and bleeding, as evidence of some exchange; but, he averred, you might as well be punching a sack of coal as that man's face. In another minute they both slipped and rolled over and over in the road, hitting and kicking as they sprawled: then a crowd of people ran forward and pulled them asunder. When they were separated he saw the big man lift his fist, and the person who was holding him ducked suddenly and ran for his life: the other folk got out of the way too, and the big man walked over to where he stood and stared into his face. His jaw was stuck out like the seat of a chair and his moustache was like a bristle of barbed wire. The young man said to him, "What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you to go bas.h.i.+ng a man for nothing at all?" and all of a sudden the big fellow turned and walked away. It was a grand fight altogether, said the youth, but the other man was a mile and a half too big for him.

As this story proceeded Mrs. Makebelieve looked once or twice at her daughter. Mary's face had gone very pale, and she nodded back a confirmation of her mother's conjecture; but it did not seem necessary or wise to either of them that they should explain their thoughts. The young man did not require either condolences or revenge. He was well pleased at an opportunity to measure his hardihood against a worthy opponent. He had found that his courage exceeded his strength, as it always should, for how could we face the G.o.ds and demons of existence if our puny arms were not backed up by our invincible eyes? and he displayed his contentment at the issue as one does a banner emblazoned with merits. Mrs. Makebelieve understood also that the big man's action was merely his energetic surrender, as of one who, instead of tendering his sword courteously to the victor, hurls it at him with a malediction; and that in a.s.saulting their friend he was bidding them farewell as heartily and impressively as he was able. So they fed the young man and extolled him, applauding to the shrill winding of his trumpet until he glowed again in the full satisfaction of heroism.

He and Mary did not discontinue their evening walks. Of these Mrs.

Makebelieve was fully cognizant, and, although she did not remark on the fact, she had been observing the growth of their intimacy with a care which was one part approval and one part pain; for it was very evident to her that her daughter was no longer a child to be controlled and directed by authority. Her little girl was a big girl; she had grown up and was eager to undertake the business of life on her own behalf. But the period of Mrs. Makebelieve's motherhood had drawn to a close, and her arms were empty. She was too used now to being a mother to relinquish easily the prerogatives of that status, and her discontent had this justification and a.s.sistance that it could be put into definite words, fronted and approved or rejected as reason urged. By knowledge and thought we will look through a stone wall if we look long enough, for we see less through eyes than through Time.

Time is the clarifying perspective whereby myopia of any kind is adjusted, and a thought emerges in its field as visibly as a tree does in nature's. Mrs. Makebelieve saw seventeen years' apprentices.h.i.+p to maternity canceled automatically without an explanation or a courtesy, and for a little time her world was in ruins, the ashes of existence powdered her hair and her forehead. Then she discovered that the debris was valuable in known currency; the dust was golden: her love remained to her undisturbed and unlikely to be disturbed by whatever event. And she discovered further that parentage is neither a game nor a privilege but a duty; it is, astounding thought, the care of the young until the young can take care of itself. It was for this freedom only that her elaborate care had been necessary; her bud had blossomed and she could add no more to its bloom or fragrance. Nothing had happened that was not natural, and whoso opposes his brow against that imperious urgency is thereby renouncing his kind and claiming a kins.h.i.+p with the wild boar and the goat, which they, too, may repudiate with leaden foreheads. There remained also the common human equality, not alone of blood, but of s.e.x also, which might be fostered and grow to an intimacy more dear and enduring, more lovely and loving than the necessarily one-sided devotions of parentage. Her duties in that relations.h.i.+p having been performed, it was her daughter's turn to take up her's and prove her rearing by repaying to her mother the conscious love which intelligence and a good heart dictates. This given, Mrs. Makebelieve could smile happily again, for her arms would be empty only for a little time. The continuity of nature does not fail saving for extraordinary instances. She sees to it that a breast and an arm shall not very long be unoccupied, and, consequently, as Mrs. Makebelieve sat contemplating that futurity which is nothing more than a prolongation of experience she could smile contentedly, for all was very well.

x.x.xII

If the unexpected did not often happen life would be a logical, scientific progression which might become dispirited and repudiate its goal for very boredom, but nature has cunningly diversified the methods whereby she coaxes or coerces us to prosecute, not our own, but her own adventure. Beyond every corner there may be a tavern or a church wherein both the saint and the sinner may be entrapped and remolded. Beyond the skyline you may find a dynamite cartridge, a drunken tinker, a mad dog, or a s.h.i.+lling which some person has dropped; and any one of these unexpectednesses may be potent to urge the traveler down a side street and put a crook in the straight line which had been his life, and to which he had become miserably reconciled. The element of surprise being, accordingly, one of the commonest things in the world we ought not to be hypercritical in our review of singularities, or say--"These things do not happen,"--because it is indisputable that they do happen. That combination which comprises a dark night, a highwayman armed and hatted to the teeth, and myself, may be a purely fortuitous one, but will such a criticism bring any comfort to the highwayman? And the concourse of three benevolent millionaires with the person to whom poverty can do no more is so pleasant and possible that I marvel it does not occur more frequently. I am prepared to believe on the very lightest a.s.surance that these things do happen, but are hushed up for reasons which would be cogent enough if they were available.

Mrs. Makebelieve opened the letter which the evening's post had brought to her. She had pondered well before opening it, and had discussed with her daughter all the possible people who could have written it. The envelope was long and narrow, it was addressed in a swift emphatic hand, the tail of the letter M enjoying a career distinguished beyond any of its fellows by length and beauty. The envelope, moreover, was sealed by a brilliant red lion with jagged whiskers and a simper, who threatened the person daring to open a missive not addressed to him with the vengeance of a battle-axe which was balanced lightly but truculently on his right claw.

This envelope contained several doc.u.ments purporting to be copies of extraordinary originals, and amongst them a letter which was read by Mrs. Makebelieve more than ten thousand times or ever she went to bed that night. It related that more than two years previously one Patrick Joseph Brady had departed this life, and that his will, dated from a mult.i.tudinous address in New York, devised and bequeathed to his dearly beloved sister Mary Eileen Makebelieve, otherwise Brady, the following shares and securities for shares, to wit:--and the thereinafter mentioned houses and messuages, lands, tenements, hereditaments and premises, that was to say:--and all household furniture, books, pictures, prints, plate, linen, gla.s.s and objects of vertu, carriages, wines, liquors and all consumable stores and effects whatsoever then in the house so and so, and all money then in the Bank and thereafter to accrue due upon the thereinbefore mentioned stocks, funds, shares and securities.... Mrs. Makebelieve wept and besought G.o.d not to make a fool of a woman who was not only poor but old. The letter requested her to call on the following day, or at her earliest convenience, to "the above address," and desired that she should bring with her such letters or other doc.u.ments as would establish her relations.h.i.+p to the deceased and a.s.sist in extracting the necessary Grant of Probate to the said Will, and it was subscribed by Messrs.

Plat.i.tude & Glambe, Solicitors, Commissioners for Oaths and Protectors of the Poor.

To the Chambers of these gentlemen Mrs. Makebelieve and Mary repaired on the following day, and, having produced the letters and other doc.u.ments for inspection, the philanthropists, Plat.i.tude and Glambe, professed themselves to be entirely satisfied as to their bona fides, and exhibited an eagerness to be of immediate service to the ladies in whatever capacity might be conceived. Mrs. Makebelieve instantly invoked the Pragmatic Sanction; she put the entire matter to the touchstone of absolute verity by demanding an advance of fifty pounds.

Her mind reeled as she said the astounding amount, but her voice did not. A check was signed and a clerk dispatched, who returned with eight five-pound notes and ten sovereigns of ma.s.sy gold. Mrs.

Makebelieve secreted these, and went home marveling to find that she was yet alive. No trams ran over her. The motor cars pursued her, and were evaded. She put her hope in G.o.d, and explained so breathlessly to the furious street. One cyclist who took corners on trust she cursed by the Ineffable Name, but instantly withdrew the malediction for luck, and addressed his dwindling back with an eye of misery and a voice of benediction. For a little time neither she nor her daughter spoke of the change in their fortunes saving in terms of allusion; they feared that, notwithstanding their trust, G.o.d might hear and shatter them with His rolling laughter. They went out again that day furtively and feverishly and bought....

But on the following morning Mrs. Makebelieve returned again to her labor. She intended finis.h.i.+ng her week's work with Mrs. O'Connor (it might not last for a week). She wished to observe that lady with the exact particularity, the singleness of eye, the true, candid, critical scrutiny which had hitherto been impossible to her. It was, she said to Mary, just possible that Mrs. O'Connor might make some remarks about soap. It was possible that the lady might advance theories as to how this or that particular kind of labor ought to be conducted....

Mrs. Makebelieve's black eye shone upon her child with a calm peace, a benevolent happiness rare indeed to human regard.

In the evening of that day Mary and the young man who lodged with their neighbor went out for the walk which had become customary with them. The young man had been fed with an amplitude which he had never known before, so that not even the remotest slim thread, shred, hint, echo or memory of hunger remained with him: he tried but could not make a dint in himself anywhere, and, consequently, he was as sad as only a well-fed person can be. Now that his hunger was gone he deemed that all else was gone also. His hunger, his sweetheart, his hopes, his good looks (for his injuries had matured to the ripe purple of the perfect bruise) all were gone, gone, gone. He told it to Mary, but she did not listen to him; to the rolling sky he announced it and it paid no heed. He walked beside Mary at last in silence, listening to her plans and caprices, the things she would do and buy, the people to whom gifts should be made and the species of gift uniquely suitable to this person and to that person, the people to whom money might be given and the amounts, and the methods whereby such largesse could be distributed. Hats were mentioned and dresses, and the new house somewhere--a s.p.a.ce-embracing-somewhere, beyond surmise, beyond geography. They walked onwards for a long time, so long that at last a familiar feeling stole upon the youth. The word "food" seemed suddenly a topic worthy of the most spirited conversation. His spirits arose.

He was no longer solid, s.p.a.ce belonged to him also, it was in him and of him, and so there was a song in his heart. He was hungry and the friend of man again. Now everything was possible. The girl? Was she not by his side? The regeneration of Ireland and of Man? That could be done also; a little leisure and everything that can be thought can be done: even his good looks might be returned to him: he felt the sting and tightness of his bruises and was rea.s.sured, exultant. He was a man predestined to bruises; they would be his meat and drink and happiness, his refuge and sanctuary forever. Let us leave him, then, pacing volubly by the side of Mary, and exploring with a delicate finger his half-closed eye, which, until it was closed entirely, would always be half-closed by the decent buffet of misfortune. His ally and stay was hunger, and there is no better ally for any man: that satisfied and the game is up; for hunger is life, ambition, good-will and understanding, while fullness is all those negatives which culminate in greediness, stupidity and decay; so his bruises troubled him no further than as they affected the eyes of a lady wherein he prayed to be comely.

Bruises, unless they are desperate indeed, will heal at the last for no other reason than that they must. The inexorable compulsion of all things is towards health or destruction, life or death, and we hasten our joys or our woes to the logical extreme. It is urgent, therefore, that we be joyous if we wish to live. Our heads may be as solid as is possible, but our hearts and our heels shall be light or we are ruined. As to the golden mean--let us have nothing to do with that thing at all; it may only be gilded, it is very likely made of tin of a dull color and a lamentable sound, unworthy even of being stolen; and unless our treasures may be stolen they are of no use to us. It is contrary to the laws of life to possess that which other people do not want; therefore, your beer shall foam, your wife shall be pretty, and your little truth shall have a plum in it--for this is so; that your beer can only taste of your company, you can only know your wife when some one else does, and your little truth shall be savored or perish.

Do you demand a big truth? Then, Oh Ambitious! you must turn aside from all your companions and sit very quietly, and if you sit long enough and quiet enough it may come to you; but this thing alone of all things you cannot steal, nor can it be given to you by the County Council. It cannot be communicated, and yet you may get it. It is unspeakable but not unthinkable, and it is born as certainly and unaccountably as you were yourself, and is of just as little immediate consequence. Long, long ago in the dim beginnings of the world there was a careless and gay young man who said--"Let truth go to h.e.l.l"--and it went there. It was his misfortune that he had to follow it; it is ours that we are his descendants. An evil will either kill you or be killed by you, and (the reflection is comforting) the odds are with us in every fight waged against humanity by the dark or elemental beings.

But humanity is timid and lazy, a believer in golden means and subterfuges and compromises, loath to address itself to any combat until its frontiers are virtually overrun and its cities and granaries and places of refuge are in jeopardy from those gloomy marauders. In that wide struggle which we call Progress, evil is always the aggressor and the vanquished, and it is right that this should be so, for without its onslaughts and depredations humanity might fall to a fat slumber upon its corn sacks and die snoring: or, alternatively, lacking these valorous alarms and excursions it might become self-satisfied and formularized, and be crushed to death by the mere dull density of virtue. Next to good the most valuable factor in life is evil. By the interaction of these all things are possible, and, therefore (or for any other reason that pleases you) let us wave a friendly hand in the direction of that bold, bad policeman whose thoughts were not governed by the Book of Regulations which is issued to all recruits, and who, in despite of the fact that he was enrolled among the very legions of order, had that chaos in his soul which may "give birth to a Dancing Star."

As to Mary--even ordinary, workaday politeness frowns on too abrupt a departure from a lady, particularly one whom we have companioned thus distantly from the careless simplicity of girlhood to the equally careless but complex businesses of adolescence. The world is all before her, and her chronicler may not be her guide. She will have adventures, for everybody has. She will win through with them, for everybody does.

She may even meet bolder and badder men than the policeman--Shall we then detain her? I, for one, having urgent calls elsewhere, will salute her fingers and raise my hat and stand aside, and you will do likewise, because it is my pleasure that you should. She will go forward, then, to do that which is pleasing to the G.o.ds, for less than that she cannot do, and more is not to be expected of any one.

THUS FAR THE STORY OF MARY MAKEBELIEVE

On the following pages will be found the complete list of t.i.tles in "The Modern Library," including those published during the Fall of Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-one. New t.i.tles are added in the Spring and Fall of every year.