G. V. O’Gorman was an unusually able man of business, and the Senator, with his fine eye for talent, had advanced him rapidly until Gerry, as everybody called him, was his second-in-command and managed everything in the ordinary way, giving advice when he was asked—and sometimes when he wasn’t—but leaving the major decisions to the Senator himself.
He was a big, fleshy, fine-looking Canadian-Irishman, jolly and kind of heart, a loving husband to Mary-Tess and a careful father of their sons, Gerald Lawrence and Gerald Michael. He was a staunch Catholic, and after the Senator the most prominent B.C.L. in Blairlogie and its district.
The O’Gormans came to dinner at St. Kilda every Sunday, and it did Aunt’s heart good to see how loving they were. Their amorous speciality, in public, was a sort of graveyard chivalry, a declaration that each had a proven right to “go first” into the afterlife.
“Aw, Mary-Tess, if you go first, I’ll never forgive you as long as I live, for my life would be a mockery without you, darlin’.”
“Gerry, don’t talk that way! You know it would kill me if you went before me; for the love of God, sweetness, let me go first! It will be the last of the thousand-and-one happinesses you’ve given me!”
“Aw, well; let’s hope under God it’ll be many a long day off, whichever it is. But I’ll give no promise.” Then a kiss—right at the table, after Gerry had gallantly wiped his lips with his napkin, as Aunt beamed, and Marie-Louise nodded approvingly, and the Senator looked down at his plate.
What could have been better? But then came the awful day when Mary-Tess, finding herself not far from the head office of the Senator’s business affairs, dropped in after five o’clock, to walk home with her Gerald, and found him in his office, strenuously “at it” on his desk with his secretary, Blondie Utronki.
Oh, the tears! Oh, the protestations! Oh, the dreadful come-down! For Mary-Tess’s howls attracted one of the cleaning women, who spread the tale through the whole of the Polish layer of the great fruit-cake, from which it mounted rapidly to the French layer, and in no time at all had reached the top, the Scots layer, where it was a cause of righteous jubilation.
Wouldn’t you know it? Of course Blondie Utronki would be just the one for that sort of game! As if Gerry O’Gorman hadn’t been shoving her forward whenever he could: getting her those chances to sing—at a hefty five dollars a warble—in the McRory Opera House, just before the feature film, when it was a specially good one! “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”, and “Smile Awhile, I’ll Kiss You Sad Adieu” and all that! Well, she’d blown her last bubble in Blairlogie, and she’ll be kissing Gerry sad adieu now, you can bet!
And from Alexander Dagg’s Maw: bad blood in that family! I’ve always said so. Piling on the agony, and now shamelessness on a glass-topped desk! We’ll see the McRorys topple! Rot of the brain! Look at the old aunt!
Nor was this the worst. Aunt, that tireless backstairs arranger of destinies, had laboured for two years to bring about her latest coup in St. Bonaventura. Father Devlin was now Monsignor Devlin, and it was Aunt who had pushed and shoved at the Bishop to get him nominated for that honour. Indeed, it had been she who presented him with his first two pairs of violet socks, one of the distinguishing marks of his new splendour. But this was not Aunt’s finest achievement.
St. Bonaventura had been very much to the fore in wartime charities, and Gerald Vincent O’Gorman, who was a little too old to be called up, and who felt that his brother-in-law. Major Francis Chegwidden Cornish, was brilliantly upholding the family honour in the Forces, had worked like a slave, and a dog, and a Trojan, for war charities. The whist-drives, the concerts, the fowl suppers! So successful was he that St. Bonaventura left all the Protestant churches nowhere in the extent of its contributions. Look at the Cigarette Fund—a triumph of organization and achievement! And everyone knew, because Aunt let it be heard, that Gerry did innumerable good works and paid for many a beautification of the church out of his own pocket, and never breathed a word about it. Surely something was owing for devotion like that?
Devotion was rewarded, for Aunt kept on at the Bishop, who kept on at the Cardinal of Apostolic Briefs, until Gerry was honoured by the Papacy itself, and Monsignor Devlin announced one Sunday morning at High Mass that henceforth Gerry was a Knight of St. Sylvester, as a recognition of his work for the Church, the Holy See and society at large.
Mary-Tess was the soul of modesty. Of course, it wasn’t a Commander, or a Knight Grand Cross; just a simple Knight of St. Sylvester. No, no; nothing of the honour appertained to the spouse; it was wholly a man’s thing—but of course she was very proud. External badges of honour? Well, in future on great occasions, like a visit from the Bishop or at High Mass on St. Bonaventura’s festal day, July 15, Gerry would be obliged to wear his coat with the gold buttons, and the gold embroidery on the velvet collar and cuffs, and the gold stripe down the side of the pants, and the bicorne hat with the Papal cockade. And the medal of the Order, with the Golden Spur hanging from it. And of course the sword. He’d have to put it on, whether he wanted to or not, and she’d have the job of making sure he got it all right, because you know what men are. Well, yes, Mary-Tess would admit under pressure, it was very nice.
Then—Blondie Utronki!
Monsignor Devlin, whose life was not a bed of roses, found that the hardest thing he had ever had to do was to inform Gerry that this sort of thing did not become a Papal Knight, and the Bishop had sent a peremptory inquiry. He would have to make a formal report to the Bishop, who would speed it to Rome, and the Knight would be un-knighted. Miserable in his violet socks, Monsignor Devlin made it as easy as he could. But Gerry was not inclined to take it easily.
“All I want to know—all I demand to know, Father Mick—is, who was the squealer?”
“Aw now, Gerry, no squealer was needed. The thing was all over town.”
“A little bit of local gossip. Who squealed to the Bishop? That’s what I want to know.”
“Now Gerry, you know I have to write the report myself, even if my hand withers as I do it.”
“All right; you have your duty. But who squealed to you?”
“The whole town, I tell you. The Presbyterians are laughing at us. When I met Mr. McComas in the Post Office he said to me: ‘I’m very sorry to hear of your trouble,’ he said. Me, to be pitied by a Presbyterian minister! They’re jeering at us behind our backs.”
“Yes, and to our faces, let me tell you! Yesterday in the office some joker stuck a memo up on the board saying, ‘All swords that are to be returned to Rome must be left in the umbrella stand before Friday.’ “
“Aw, that’s very small! You must frown ‘em down.”
“D’you know who I bet it was? Now, don’t take offence, but you know I’ve never liked him. Father Beaudry! I’ll bet it was his letter put the Bishop on to you!”
“Now Gerry, I can’t listen to that kind of thing.”
“Oh, can’t you? Well, priest though he is, he’s a squealer and a whistle-tricker, and you can bet he’ll never wear violet socks if I can stop it!”
“Now Gerry, you know the Order prescribes ‘Unblemished character’ and that’s all there is to it. No more to be said.—Where’s Blondie?”
“Gone to Montreal.”
“Not the worst girl I’ve known. I hope you gave her something handsome? You’ve ruined her, you know.”
“Aw Mick, don’t talk so soft! She was wise enough when she came to me. I’m the one that’s ruined.”
Besides much of this, Monsignor Devlin had to listen to the wails and beseechings of his benefactress, Mary-Ben.
This was the Dark Night of the Soul for the McRorys, except perhaps for the Senator, who had government business that kept him in Ottawa for several weeks.