During the next few days Mary, in between frequent errands, found an opportunity to contact Fitz again. She asked him to be near the gate at midnight on the following Sunday. Sunday was an early night in the Bradshaw household. When the rest had retired she would somehow get out to see him.
She made it a habit to sit with Miss Gilchrist during the night until after midnight. The old woman recovered a little, but remained too weak to be allowed up. On Sunday evening Father O’Connor called to see her. She had asked Mary to summon him. Mary left everything ready for the priest and withdrew. He gave no sign of being aware of the pending dismissal. When Miss Gilchrist had confessed to him he removed his purple stole, kissed it and folded it. He looked round the room. Miss Gilchrist smiled.
‘Haven’t I the height of comfort, Father,’ she said.
‘You have indeed,’ Father O’Connor said. ‘You’re the lucky woman.’
‘That shows you that I’m highly thought of.’
‘Are you long here?’ Father O’Connor asked.
‘Over thirty years.’
‘Then why wouldn’t you be highly thought of?’ he bantered, not without difficulty. He found it difficult to be easy and natural with a servant.
‘It isn’t always so,’ she said. ‘There’s some would dump you in an attic without fire or comfort.’
‘And who would have the heartlessness to do that?’ Father O’Connor reproved.
‘Many’s the one. I seen it and I know. Or pack you off to the Union the minute you showed a sign of feebleness. And why not, I suppose, when a poor body is not of their blood.’
‘Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw are good people,’ he said.
‘That’s what I’m saying, Father.’
‘And most people are good too, but gossip doesn’t give them credit.’ He felt it might be no harm to slip in a few words about the danger of uncharitable talk. But he got no chance.
The old woman said next: ‘Hand me across my apron, Father.’
He looked around, searching, and saw it draped on a chair. A tiny wave of irritation at being commanded by the old woman moved inside him but was suppressed. He handed it to her. She rooted for the pocket and gave him the purse.
‘I found them for you when we were cleaning,’ she said, with wonderful pleasure.
He opened the purse and let the beads fall into his hands. To have them again choked him with happiness.
‘My rosary,’ was all he could say, ‘how can I thank you . . . ?’
‘You can say a little prayer for me.’
‘They were my mother’s. I’d rather lose anything than these.’
Miss Gilchrist lay still, taking in his happiness, smiling in sympathy with it.
‘God bless you,’ he said. On an impulse he placed his hand lightly on her head and murmured his formal blessing. She closed her eyes and barely opened them when he bid her good night.
‘What do you make of her?’ Bradshaw asked.
He had made a point of meeting the priest in the hallway.
‘I think she should be all right,’ Father O’Connor said. Priests, he knew, had the reputation of being good judges, but as yet he had had very little experience of the sick-room.
‘Can you step in here a moment,’ Bradshaw invited. He held open the door of the drawing-room. They sat down.
‘The doctor,’ Bradshaw began, ‘thinks it may have been a little . . . stroke.’
They always said little, Father O’Connor thought, remembering the old woman’s closed eyes and tired face. It was a little weakness, a little turn, a little upset.
‘The trouble is,’ Bradshaw continued carefully, ‘that it seems to have affected one of the legs.’
‘In what way?’ the priest asked.
‘Paralysis—at least partial. Of course, it may pass.’
‘Please God it will.’
‘On the other hand it may not.’ Bradshaw fixed his gaze on the far corner. ‘What are we to do if she is no longer able to work?’
He waited for the priest to answer. Father O’Connor, drawn suddenly into the problem by the use of the word ‘we’, felt he should answer that the Christian thing would be to look after the old woman. But no matter how he tried to formulate the sentence it sounded incredibly impracticable. He decided to play for time and, if possible, to put forward his view obliquely.
‘She has been a very long time in service with you,’ he began.
‘She’s been paid for her trouble, every penny.’
‘Of course. It was not my intention . . .’
‘And been treated with every consideration.’
‘I have personal evidence of that,’ Father O’Connor said, in a conciliatory voice.
‘Indeed, if Mrs. Bradshaw has a shortcoming, it is her indulgent nature, as I have bitter cause to know.’
Father O’Connor, intimidated by Bradshaw’s commanding tone, nodded his head.
‘It’s not that I mind her growing old,’ Bradshaw continued, ‘provided she can potter around and get her work done. But what if she is incapable? We can’t employ a servant to dance attendance on a servant. The thing would be absurd.’
‘Has she no relatives?’
‘None at all.’
‘That makes it very difficult,’ Father O’Connor found himself saying.
‘And worrying, very worrying,’ Bradshaw added. He sighed deeply, thinking that he was never quite free from ill fortune; troubles trailed him everywhere like kittens after a cat.
‘God knows I’m fond of the old woman, she is quite devoted,’ Bradshaw continued. ‘If she remains as she is and we have to part with her it will be a terrible upset.’
Father O’Connor wanted to speak for her. The suggestion that she should be kept in the house no matter what the outcome of her illness came several times to the tip of his tongue. He could not say it. He told himself it would do no good. It would only make Bradshaw regard him as an incorrigible fool.
‘We can only pray,’ Father O’Connor said. ‘Prayer works wonders.’
The dilemma haunted him as he walked home. It seemed insoluble. If the old lady remained incapable, only Bradshaw’s generosity would stand between her and the workhouse; and Bradshaw, Father O’Connor knew, was incapable of charity in so large a measure. Indeed, Father O’Connor reminded himself, God did not demand it of his children. And yet, given certain circumstances, was not something required, in all justice, over and above the meticulous discharge of a contract? St. Thomas had somewhere discussed the matter. Father O’Connor tried but failed to remember specifically.
The streets were deserted, the bulk of the church looked black and forbidding, the wind was cold and burdened with rain. Father O’Connor went through the side gate and heard it groan as it shut behind him. What he could have said on the old woman’s behalf he did not know. He only knew that he had not said it. He walked along the narrow, tree-lined approach, his shoulders hunched, feeling like Judas.
‘What time is it?’ Miss Gilchrist asked.
‘Almost midnight.’
‘You should get to your bed.’
‘Presently,’ Mary said, ‘when you’ve had your milk and settled down for the night.’
The wind was making a great noise outside, bullying the trees and driving the rain against the windows. Sometimes the lamp dimmed and then brightened again, sometimes a gust beat down on the fire and sent a puff of smoke into the room. Mary watched the saucepan of milk, which for convenience she was heating at the bedroom fire. Miss Gilchrist returned to her chosen topic, Father O’Connor’s visit.
‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘About what?’
‘About your trouble.’
That was the phrase she had found for Mary’s loss of favour.
‘Not a word. Perhaps he didn’t know.’