Having received Christ, Mulhall made his devotions quietly. After an appropriate interval of prayer and meditation Father O’Sullivan crossed himself, waited unobtrusively until Mulhall had done likewise, and snuffed the candles. Hearing sounds again in the room Mrs. Mulhall busied herself and brought in on a tray (also borrowed from Mary) two cups of tea and some biscuits.
‘This is trouble . . .’ Father O’Sullivan began.
‘What trouble, Father,’ she answered and left them alone again.
He drank. He was glad of the tea but the biscuits distressed him. They were a delicacy rare in his parish and meant sacrifice.
‘Ah—the women,’ he said to Mulhall, and elaborately selected a biscuit.
Mulhall selected a biscuit himself and he was at once amused and tender.
‘Biscuits, no less,’ he remarked, ‘she’d die or have style.’
‘Isn’t it a strange thing,’ Father O’Sullivan said, ‘I haven’t had a biscuit this long time—and they’re an item I’m very fond of. I must tell the housekeeper.’
‘What you lack is a wife, Father.’
‘It’s a great lack indeed,’ Father O’Sullivan acknowledged, ‘but then again—suppose I got a cranky one?’
They both laughed at that and Father O’Sullivan took another biscuit. Then he became grave and said:
‘Tell me, Bernie, are you at peace now with God?’
Mulhall hesitated and considered.
‘With God—yes, Father.’
‘I understand,’ Father O’Sullivan said. ‘Times are bad.’
‘Times is very bad.’
Father O’Sullivan nodded his agreement.
‘And I’d dearly love to be abroad—doing my bit.’
‘To strike a blow,’ Father O’Sullivan said, to show he understood.
‘Do you condemn us, Father?’
‘I go here and I go there,’ Father O’Sullivan said, ‘and the things I see would melt a heart of stone.’
‘Yet some of the priests is never done condemning us.’
‘And some don’t,’ Father O’Sullivan reminded him, ‘but at the same time you’d be the last to want them marching in procession with you.’
‘I want them all to keep out of it—that’s what I want,’ Mulhall said vehemently. Then he added: ‘That’s what I meant, Father. I’m at peace with God, but when I hear reports of what some of them say, I’m far from at peace with certain of his clergy. Is that sinful?’
‘Do you think you know better than they do?’ Father O’Sullivan asked, but not offensively.
Mulhall set his face.
‘I do, Father.’
‘You have first-hand experience of it, anyway,’ Father O’Sullivan agreed. Then he said:
‘But do you think you’re a better person than they are?’
‘No,’ Mulhall said, ‘that’s another matter entirely.’
‘In that case,’ Father O’Sullivan said, ‘I wouldn’t worry unduly about a difference of opinion with them.’
‘I’m glad you say that, Father.’
‘The only danger I see in it is that it might lead you into hatred. Differences of opinion often do. First bitterness—then hate. That’s the fellow I’d watch—Hate. That would be very sinful.’
‘I see, Father,’ Mulhall said. He was listening carefully.
‘No matter what a man—or a priest for that matter—says or does, you can oppose him certainly, but you must love him all the same.’
‘It’s asking a lot,’ Mulhall said doubtfully.
‘Don’t I know it is,’ Father O’Sullivan agreed. ‘And in times like this particularly. But there’s no way out of it.’
‘I know,’ Mulhall said. It was the truth. Neither priest nor bishop had invented that one. It had come from Higher-up.
‘That’s the one I’d watch,’ Father O’Sullivan concluded.
Mulhall frowned.
‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘so long as we’re not expected to give in to them.’
Father O’Sullivan carefully gathered the tea things on to the tray.
‘I’ll leave these with herself,’ he said, taking his leave.
It was easy enough to give counsel, he told himself when he was again in the street, but an ounce of example was worth a ton of advice. Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the sick. Well, he had done the last. But what of the first two. Father O’Connor had argued that charity only made things worse by prolonging the struggle without doing very much to relieve the suffering. The work was there for them; they were idle—destitute through their own choice. That was too glib and pragmatical. You had only to visit the tenements.
His feet hurt, his boots still creaked. He was limping noticeably. A cab driver drew in alongside him and hailed him.
‘Are you going back to St. Brigid’s, Father?’
‘I am,’ Father O’Sullivan said.
‘Then hop in. I’m on my way back to the rank.’
‘God bless you. Isn’t it Tom Mangan I’m talking to?’
‘That’s right, Father.’
He got into the cab. It was a relief to be driven. It was also something of a novelty. He was not a man to spend money on cab fares. He had visited Mangan’s wife about a month before, a sick call. The cab passed the rank and stopped at St. Brigid’s. Mangan was going out of his way.
‘You shouldn’t have done that, Tom, the rank would have done fine,’ he said when Mangan opened the door for him.
‘A few yards—what’s that,’ Mangan said. ‘Besides, your call brought us great luck altogether.’
‘Is she coming on?’
‘Famous,’ Mangan said. ‘I mentioned your visit to a regular passenger of mine, a doctor, and he said he’d come along and have a look at her. He’s been calling twice a week since and whatever it is he gives her she hasn’t had pain or ache since. He says she’ll be fit to get up and about in a week or so. And it won’t cost me a ha’penny.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it.’
‘You might know him, Father. He’s a head man in the Rotunda, Dr. Hayes.’
‘I don’t then,’ Father O’Sullivan said, ‘but he’s a good man to do that.’
‘There’s few like him,’ the cabman agreed.
Father O’Sullivan waved his gratitude as the cab went down the street. The thought of the doctor’s charity edified him. It was not, after all, a city of unrelieved bitterness or indifference. A man of learning regularly brought his skill to the bedside of a poor woman in the slums, and did so out of pity alone. He creaked his way towards the house. Father Giffley met him at the hall door.
‘I see you came home in style, John,’ he said. The tone was humorous.
‘I did. A good Samaritan offered me the lift.’
Father O’Sullivan groaned without meaning to. ‘I’ll have to take off the boots for a while. They’re killing me.’
He creaked his way through the hall. Father Giffley laughed. It was sympathetic at first but it grew too loud. He stood still in the hall, frightened for himself, as its echo died away.
CHAPTER SIX
All day the high wind from the sea raked the streets of Kingstown. It slackened in the late afternoon, but as dusk came it began to freshen again. After dinner, while Father O’Connor played the piano for them and Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw listened attentively, Yearling noticed that the oil lamp beside him was flickering from time to time. Taking care not to disturb his guests he searched quietly with his eyes for the source of the draught. The heavy curtains of the windows were stirring slightly. He sighed. All that was left to him of yet another of his diminishing store of summers was a warped window pane. He would have it seen to. In common with the rest of Kingstown he must take stock and prepare for the rigours of winter. He disliked doing that. It was always sad to bury a season.