FATHER WHELAN the parish priest called on his curate, Father Devine, one evening in autumn. He was a tall stout man, broad-chested, with a head that did not detach itself too clearly from the rest of his body, bushes of wild hair in his ears and the rosy, innocent, good-natured face of a pious old country woman who made a living selling eggs. Devine was pale and worn-looking with a gentle, dreamy face that had the soft gleam of an old piano keyboard and wore pince-nez perched on his unhappy, insignificant little nose. He and his PP got on very well considering – considering, that is to say, that Devine, who didn’t know when he was well off, had fathered a dramatic society and an annual festival on old Whelan, who had to attend them both, and that whenever the curate’s name was mentioned the parish priest, a charitable old man, tapped his forehead and said poor Devine’s poor father was just the same. ‘A national teacher – sure, I knew him well, poor man!’ What Devine said about Whelan in that crucified drawl of his would take longer to tell, because for the most part it consisted of a repetition of the old man’s own words with just the faintest inflection that isolated and underlined their fatuity, so much so that even Devine himself, who didn’t often laugh, broke out into a little thin cackle. Devine was clever; he was lonely; he had a few good original water-colours and a bookcase full of works that were a constant source of wonder to Whelan. The old man stood in front of them now with his hat in his hands, lifting his warty old nose while his eyes held a wondering, hopeless, charitable look.
‘Nothing there in your line, I’m afraid,’ said Devine with his maddeningly respectful, deprecating air as if he really thought the schoolboy adventure stories which were the only thing his parish priest read were worth his consideration.
‘I see you have a lot of foreign books,’ said Whelan in a hollow far-away voice. ‘I suppose you know the languages well?’
‘Well enough to read,’ said Devine wearily, his handsome head on one side. ‘Why?’
‘That foreign boat at the jetties,’ said Whelan without looking round. ‘What is it? French or German? There’s terrible scandal about it.’
‘Is that so?’ drawled Devine, his dark eyebrows going up his narrow slanting forehead. ‘I didn’t hear.’
‘Oh, terrible,’ said Whelan mournfully, turning on him the full battery of his round, rosy old face and shining spectacles. ‘There’s girls on it every night. Of course there’s nothing for us to do only rout them out, and it occurred to me that you’d be handy, speaking the language.’
‘I’m afraid my French would hardly rise to that,’ Devine said drily, but he didn’t like to go further with his refusal, for except for his old-womanly fits of virtue, Whelan was all right as parish priests go. Devine had had sad experience of how they could go. So he put on his faded old coat and clamped his battered hat down over his pince-nez, and the two of them went down the Main Street to the Post Office corner. It was deserted at that hour, except for two out-of-works like ornaments supporting either side of the door, and a few others hanging hypnotized over the bridge while they looked down at the foaming waters of the weir. The tall, fortress-like gable of an old Georgian house beyond the bridge caught all the light.
‘The dear knows,’ said Devine with a sigh, ‘you’d hardly wonder where they’d go.’
‘Ah,’ said the old parish priest, holding his head as though it were a flower-pot that might fall and break, ‘what do they want to go anywhere for? They’re gone mad on pleasure. That girl, Nora Fitzpatrick, is one of them, and her mother at home dying.’
‘That might possibly be her reason for going,’ said Devine, who knew what the Fitzpatricks’ house was like with six children and a mother dying of cancer.
‘Ah, sure the girl’s place is beside her mother,’ said old Whelan without rancour.
They went down past the Technical School to the quays; these too deserted but for a local coal boat and the big foreign grain boat, rising high and dark over the edge of the quay on a full tide. The town was historically reputed to have been a great place – well, about a hundred years ago – and it had masses of grey stone warehouses all staring with lightless eyes across the river. There were two men standing against the wall of the mill, looking up at the grain boat, and as the priests appeared they came to join them on the water’s edge. One was a tall gaunt man with a long, sour, melancholy face which looked particularly hideous because it sported a youthful pink-and-white complexion and looked exactly like the face of an old hag heavily made up. He wore a wig and carried a rolled-up umbrella behind his back as though supporting his posterior. His name was Sullivan, the manager of a shop in town, and a man Devine hated. The other was a small, fat, Jewish-looking man with dark skin and hair and an excitable manner. His name was Sheridan. As they met by the boat, Devine looked up and saw two young foreign faces propped on their hands peering at him over the edge of the boat.
‘Well, boys?’ asked old Whelan.
‘There’s two of them on it at present, father,’ said Sullivan in a shrill, scolding voice. ‘Nora Fitzpatrick and Phillie O’Malley.’
‘Well, better go aboard and tell them come off,’ said Whelan tranquilly.
‘I wonder what our legal position is, father?’ said Sheridan, scowling at Whelan and Devine. ‘Have we any sort of locus standi?’
‘Oh, in the event of your being stabbed I think the fellow could be tried,’ said Devine with bland malice. ‘I don’t know of course whether your wife and children could claim compensation.’
The malice was lost on the parish priest, who laid one hairy paw on Devine’s shoulder and the other on Sheridan’s to calm their fears. He exuded a feeling of pious confidence.
‘Don’t worry your heads about the legal position,’ he said paternally. ‘I’ll be answerable for that.’
‘Good enough, father,’ said Sheridan with a grim air, and pulling his hat over his eyes and putting his hands behind his back he strode up the gangway while Sullivan, clutching his umbrella against the small of his back, followed him. They went up to the two young sailors.
‘Two girls,’ said Sullivan in his high-pitched scolding voice. ‘We’re looking for two girls that came aboard about a half an hour ago.’
Neither of the sailors stirred. One of them turned his eyes lazily and looked Sullivan up and down.
‘Not this boat,’ he said impudently. ‘That boat down there. Always girls on that.’
Then Sheridan, who had glanced downstairs through an open doorway, saw something below.
‘Phillie O’Malley,’ he shouted in a raucous voice with one arm pointing towards the quay, ‘Father Whelan and Father Devine are here. They want a word with you.’
‘Tell her if she doesn’t come at once I’ll go and bring her off,’ shouted Father Whelan anxiously.
‘He says if you don’t come he’ll damn soon make you,’ shouted Sheridan.
Nothing happened for a moment or two. Then a tall girl with a consumptive face came to the top of the gangway with a handkerchief pressed to her eyes. Devine couldn’t help a sudden pang of misery at the sight of her wretched finery, her cheap hat and bead necklace. He was angry and ashamed, and a cold fury of sarcasm rose up in him.
‘Come on, lads,’ said the parish priest encouragingly. ‘Where’s the second one?
Sheridan, flushed with triumph, was just about to disappear downstairs when one of the sailors turned and flung him aside. Then he stood nonchalantly in the doorway, blocking the way. The parish priest’s face grew flushed and he only waited for the girl to leave the gangway before he went up himself. Devine paused to catch her hand and whisper a few words of comfort into her ear before he followed. It was a ridiculous scene: the sailor blocking the door; Sheridan blowing himself up till his dark Jewish face turned purple; the fat old parish priest with his head in the air, trembling with senile anger and astonishment.
‘Get out of the way at once,’ he said.
‘Don’t be a fool, man,’ Devine said with quiet ferocity. ‘If you got a knife in your ribs, it would be your own doing. You don’t want to quarrel with these lads. You’ll have to talk to the captain.’ And then, bending forward with his eyebrows raised and his humble, deprecating manner he asked, ‘I wonder if you’d mind showing us the way to the captain’s cabin?’
The sailor who was blocking the way looked at him for a moment and then nodded in the direction of the upper deck. Taking his parish priest’s arm and telling Sullivan and Sheridan not to follow them, Devine went up the ship. When they had gone a little way the second young sailor passed them out, knocked at a door and said something which Devine couldn’t catch. Then, with a scowl, he held the door open for them to go in. The captain was a middle-aged man with a heavily lined sallow face, close-cropped black hair and a black moustache. There was something Mediterranean about his air.
‘Bonsoir, messieurs,’ he said in a loud business-like tone.
‘Bonsoir, monsieur le capitaine,’ said Devine with the same plaintive, ingratiating manner as he bowed his head and raised his battered old hat. ‘Est-ce que nous vous dérangeons?’
‘Mais pas du tout; entrez, je vous prie,’ the captain said heartily, obviously relieved by the innocuousness of Devine’s manner. ‘Vous parlez français alors?’
‘Un peu, monsieur le capitaine,’ Devine said deprecatingly. ‘Vous savez, ici en Irlande on n’a pas souvent l’occasion.’
‘Ah, well,’ said the captain, ‘I speak a little English too, so we will understand one another. Won’t you sit down?’
‘I wish my French were anything like as good as your English,’ said Devine as he took a chair.
‘You’ll have a drink with me,’ said the captain, expanding to the flattery of words and tone. ‘Some brandy, eh?’
‘I’d be delighted, of course,’ said Devine regretfully, ‘but I’m afraid I’ve a favour to ask of you first.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ agreed the captain enthusiastically. ‘Anything you like. Have a cigar?’
‘Never smoke them,’ said old Whelan in a dull stubborn voice, looking at the cigar-case and then looking away; and to mask his rudeness Devine, who never smoked them either, took one and lit it.
‘Perhaps I’d better explain who we are,’ he said, sitting back, his head on one side, his long delicate hands hanging over the arm of the chair. ‘This is Father Whelan, who is the parish priest of the town. My name is Devine and I’m the curate.’
‘And my name,’ said the captain proudly, ‘is Platon Demarrais. I bet you never heard before of a fellow called Platon?’
‘I can’t say I did,’ said Devine mildly. ‘Any relation to the philosopher?’
‘The very man!’ exclaimed the captain, holding up his cigar. ‘And I have two brothers, Zenon and Plotin.’
‘Really?’ exclaimed Devine. ‘What an intellectual family you are!’
‘My father was a school-teacher,’ said the captain. ‘He called us that to annoy the priest. He was anti-clerical.’
‘That’s scarcely peculiar to teachers in France,’ said Devine drily. ‘My own father was a school-teacher, but I’m afraid he never got to the point of calling me Plato.… But about this business of ours. There’s a girl called Nora Fitzpatrick on the ship, fooling with the sailors, I suppose. She’s one of Father Whelan’s parishioners and we’d be very grateful if you could see your way to have her put off.’
‘Speak for yourself, father,’ said Whelan, raising his stubborn old peasant’s head and quelling fraternization with a glance. ‘I don’t see why I should be grateful to any man for doing what ’tis his moral duty to do.’
‘Then perhaps you’d better explain your errand yourself, Father Whelan,’ said Devine with an abnegation not far removed from waspishness.
‘I think so, Father Devine,’ said Whelan stubbornly. ‘That girl, Captain Whatever-your-name-is,’ he went on in a slow voice, ‘has no business to be on your ship at all. It is no place for a young unmarried girl to be at this hour of night.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the captain uneasily, looking at Devine. ‘Is this girl a relative of yours?’
‘No, sir,’ said Whelan. ‘She is nothing whatever to me.’
‘Then I don’t see what you want her for,’ said the captain.
‘That’s as I’d expect, sir,’ said Whelan stolidly, studying his nails.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ exclaimed Devine, exasperated by the old man’s boorishness. ‘You see, captain,’ he said patiently, bending forward with his worried air, his head tilted back as though he feared the pince-nez might fall off, ‘this girl, as I said, is one of Father Whelan’s parishioners. She’s not a very good girl – not that I mean there’s any harm in her,’ he added hastily, ‘but she is a bit wild, and it’s Father Whelan’s duty to keep her as far as he can removed from temptation. He is the shepherd and she is one of his stray sheep,’ he added with a faint smile at his own eloquence.
The captain bent forward and touched Devine lightly on the knee.
‘You are a funny race,’ he said. ‘I have travelled the whole world. I have met Englishmen everywhere, but I will never understand you. Never!’
‘But we’re not English, man,’ said old Whelan with the first sign of interest he had so far displayed. ‘Don’t you know what country you’re in? This is Ireland.’
‘Ah,’ said the captain with a shrug, ‘it is the same thing.’
‘Oh, but surely, captain,’ protested Devine gently with his head cocked, sizing up his man, ‘surely we admit some distinction?’
‘No, no,’ said the captain vigorously, shaking his head.
‘At the Battle of the Boyne you fought for us,’ said Devine persuasively. ‘We fought for you at Fontenoy and Ramillies.
When on Ramillies bloody field
The baffled French were forced to yield,
The victor Saxon backward reeled
Before the charge of Clare’s Dragoons.’
He recited the lines with the same apologetic smile he had adopted in speaking of sheep and shepherds, as if to excuse his momentary lapse into literature, but the captain waved him aside impatiently.
‘No, no, no, no, no,’ he said with a shrug and a groan. ‘I know all that. You call yourselves Irish and the others call themselves Scotch, but there is no difference. You all speak English; you all behave like English; you all pretend to be very good boys. You don’t do nothing, eh? You do not come to me as man to man and say, “The cure’s daughter is on the ship. Send her home.” Why?’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Devine sarcastically, ‘because she doesn’t happen to be the cure’s daughter.’
‘Whose daughter?’ asked Whelan with his mouth hanging.
‘Yours,’ said Devine drily.
‘Well, well, well,’ the old man said in real distress. ‘What sort of upbringing had he at all? Does he even know we can’t get married?’
‘I should say he takes it for granted,’ replied Devine over his shoulder even more drily than before. ‘Elle n’est pas sa fille,’ he added to the captain.
‘C’est sûr?’ asked the captain suspiciously.
‘C’est certain,’ said Devine with a nod.
‘Sa maîtresse alors?’ said the captain.
‘Ni cela non plus,’ replied Devine evenly, with only the faintest of smiles on the worn shell of his face.
‘Ah, bon, bon, bon,’ said the captain excitedly, springing from his seat and striding about the cabin, scowling and waving his arms. ‘Bon. C’est bon. Vous vous moquez de moi, monsieur le curé. Comprenez-vous, c’est seulement par politesse que j’ai voulu faire croire que c’était sa fille. On voit bien que le vieux est jaloux. Est-ce que je n’ai pas vu les flics qui surveillent mon bateau toute la semaine? Mais croyez-moi, monsieur, je me fiche de lui et de ses agents.’
‘He seems to be very excited,’ said Whelan with distaste. What’s he saying?’
‘I’m trying to persuade him that she isn’t your mistress,’ Devine couldn’t refrain from saying with quiet malice. ‘He says you’re jealous and that you’ve had spies watching his ship for a week.’
‘Well, well, well,’ Father Whelan cried, colouring up like a girl and trembling with the indignity that had been put on him. ‘We’d better go home, Devine. ’Tis no use talking to a man like that. It’s clear that he’s mad.’
‘He probably thinks the same of us,’ said Devine, rising. ‘Venez manger demain soir et je vous expliquerai tout,’ he added to the captain.
‘Je vous remercie, monsieur,’ said the captain with a shrug which Devine knew he could never equal; ‘c’est très aimable de votre part, mais je n’ai pas besoin d’explications. Il n’y a rien d’inattendu, mais,’ with a smile, ‘vous en faites toute une histoire.’ He clapped his hand jovially on Devine’s shoulder and almost embraced him. ‘Naturellement, je vous rends la fille, parce que vous la demandez, mais comprenez bien que je le fais à cause de vous, et non pas’ – he drew himself up to his full height and glared at old Whelan, who stood there in a dumb stupor – ‘à cause de monsieur et de ses agents.’
‘Oh, quant à moi,’ said Devine with weary humour, ‘vous feriez mieux en l’emmenant où vous allez. Et moi-même aussi.’
‘Quoi?’ shouted the captain in desperation, clutching his forehead. ‘Vous l’aimez aussi?’
Non, non, non,’ said Devine good-humouredly, patting him consolingly on the arm. ‘It’s all very complicated. I really wouldn’t try to understand it if I were you.’
‘What’s he saying now?’ asked Whelan with sour suspicion.
‘Oh, he thinks she’s my mistress as well,’ said Devine pleasantly. ‘He thinks we’re sharing her so far as I can gather.’
‘Come on, come on,’ said Whelan in dull despair, making for the gangway. ‘My goodness, even I never thought they were as bad as that. And we sending missions to the blacks!’
Meanwhile the captain had rushed aft and shouted down the stairway. The girl appeared, small, plump and weeping too, and the captain, quite moved, slapped her encouragingly on the shoulder and said something to her in a gruff voice which Devine suspected was in the nature of advice about choosing younger lovers for the future. Then the captain went up bristling to Sullivan, who was standing by the gangway, leaning on his folded umbrella, and with fluttering hands and imperious nods ordered him off the vessel.
‘Allez-vous-en,’ he said curtly, ‘allez, allez, allez!’
Sullivan went and Sheridan followed. Dusk had crept suddenly along the quays and lay heaped there the colour of blown sand. Over the bright river mouth, shining under a bank of dark cloud, a star twinkled. Devine felt hopeless and lost, as though he were returning to the prison-house of his youth. The parish priest preceded him down the gangway with his old woman’s dull face sunk in his broad chest. At the foot he stopped and stood with his hands still clutching the gangway rail and gazed back up at the captain, who was scowling fiercely at him over the edge of the ship.
‘Anyway,’ he said heavily, ‘thanks be to the Almighty God that your accursed race is withering off the face of the earth.’
Devine with a bitter little smile raised his battered old hat and pulled the skirts of his old coat about him as he stepped up on to the gangway.
‘Vous viendrez demain, monsieur le capitaine?’ he said in his gentlest, most ingratiating tone.
‘Avec plaisir. A demain, monsieur le berger,’ replied the captain with a knowing look.