THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE Read online

  ‘Talk of the devil,’ Una said. ‘Is that the door-bell?’

  They all looked up, listening.

  ‘It’s only me!’ Shaun cried, in a high-pitched feminine voice. Una and Kevin echoed it.

  ‘It’s only me! It’s only me!’

  Professor O’Neill stood up hurriedly, gathering the Sunday Times, his pipe, matches and tobacco pouch. ‘I’ll be in my study if you want me.’

  Shaun bounced up from the sofa, big boned, adolescent. ‘I’ll come with you, Daddy.’

  ‘You’ll stay here, sir,’ Professor O’Neill said. ‘Stay for half an hour at least, to help your mother.’ He looked at his son and raised his hand against an unspoken protest. ‘Now, that’s enough. No nonsense.’

  The O’Neills’ maid was coming upstairs as the professor left the drawing-room. ‘It’s Miss Hearne, sir.’

  ‘Well, just wait until I get into the study, Ellen. Then show her up to the drawing-room.’

  Below, in the darkness of the hall, Miss Hearne was taking off her wet raincoat. She handed it to Ellen when the maid returned.

  ‘Thank you, Ellen. Just hang this somewhere. I’ll find my own way up.’

  She climbed the stairs slowly, giving young Kevin time to escape to the chilly solitude of the attic and his chemistry set. Just like his father, she thought, seeing his small legs scuttle around the curve of the banisters, two flights above her. Always running off to work on something or other. Dear Owen, the child takes after him.

  The drawing-room door was ajar. I wonder how many of them are in? Una and Shaun, and perhaps little Kathleen. And Moira herself, half asleep already. She knocked lightly on the drawing-room door.

  ‘It’s only me!’ she called.

  There was a sound of movement inside and then Moira O’Neill came forward, her arms outstretched in welcome.

  ‘Judy dear. And how are you?’

  Behind her, standing by the sofa giggling about something, were Shaun and Una, brother and sister, with their mother’s gay dark eyes. Miss Hearne smiled at them; her little nephew and niece, she liked to think.

  ‘Hello, Miss Hearne,’ Shaun said.

  Una burst into another peal of laughter.

  ‘Una!’ Mrs O’Neill took Miss Hearne’s arm. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with them, Judy. They’ve been laughing themselves sick all afternoon.’

  ‘O, the young in heart,’ Miss Hearne said, smiling. She went towards the fire — such a lovely room, warm and pleasant — and sat down in the chair vacated by Professor O’Neill.

  ‘My goodness, I was almost drenched coming over here. What a day! And how are you, Una dear? What’s the news with you?’

  ‘Same as ever, Miss Hearne. Exams, exams.’ Una sat down on the sofa and looked out the window. ‘I wonder will it clear up?’

  Mrs O’Neill returned to her chair beside the fire and picked up a bundle of knitting. ‘And what’s the news with you, Judy?’

  ‘Well, you know I’ve moved into my new digs.’

  ‘O, yes, of course. And what are they like?’

  She forgot it, she forgot it completely. As if I would forget something as important as moving, if it was her who was doing it! ‘Well, Moira, it’s over in Camden Street. I told you about it last week.’

  ‘Camden Street. I know it,’ Una said. ‘Near the university.’

  ‘It used to be one of the best parts of the city. I remember my dear aunt used to visit a family there — well, let me think what the name was. Wait — it will come in a minute. Anyway, it was a very good neighbourhood in the old days.’

  She saw Shaun smile when she mentioned her dear aunt. The younger generation are so cynical, she thought. Not well brought up, what Mr Madden said was quite right. Mr Madden, I wonder should I mention him?

  ‘This place is run by a woman called Rice. A Mrs Henry Rice, a widow. Did you ever hear tell of her?’

  Moira O’Neill paused momentarily in her knitting. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Neither did I. Anyway, she has the funniest son you ever saw. Bernard, his name is, and he’s the oddest-looking creature alive.’

  Una snapped her fingers. ‘Wait a minute. Bernard Rice. Has he long blond hair, in sort of ringlets? A fat fellow?’

  ‘The very man,’ Miss Hearne cried. ‘I’m sure it’s the same one.’ And as she leaned forward to tell more, Una turned to Shaun and said:

  ‘He used to be at Queen’s, before my time.’

  ‘That’s right, Queen’s, he said so himself,’ Miss Hearne agreed eagerly.

  ‘Wait till I tell you,’ Una said to her brother. ‘He’s the original mammy’s boy. His mother used to haunt the lecture halls, waiting to give him a feed, a sandwich or a thermos of hot soup. She used to plague him. He was supposed to be very bright, though. Honours English, I think.’

  ‘And what’s the long hair in honour of?’ Shaun said.

  ‘She wouldn’t let him cut it. She calls him, “My baby“. Isn’t that right, Miss Hearne?’

  ‘Well,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘You seem to know a lot more about him than I do.’

  ‘Sure, he was famous around Queen’s. Baby Rice, they called him. He was a big poet and talker. He was behind that crowd that got out the poetry magazine. You remember, Shaun, the mimeographed one.’

  ‘I never heard of him,’ Shaun said. ‘It’s a wonder I didn’t, seeing he was such a famous card.’

  His sister patted him playfully on the head. ‘You’re too young.’

  ‘O, it seems like yesterday that I remember you both as babies in your little woolly suits,’ Miss Hearne cried, trying to catch some of that brotherly and sisterly warmth. ‘I remember Shaun saying to your mother here, and the two of you standing there and he said: “I don’t like Miss Hearne wiv’at hat!“ ’

  But they turned glowering faces at her, rejecting the often heard story. Children don’t like to be reminded of their baby days. O, I know that. Why did I put my foot in it?

  Shaun got up off the rug and looked at the clock. ‘Holy smoke! It’s past three. I told Rory Lacey I’d be over at his house at three.’

  His mother looked at him, her eyes cold to the falsehood. ‘It’s still raining,’ she said. ‘You could ’phone him up and tell him you can’t come.’

  ‘It’s not far, Mam. I can take a tram. I should be back before five.’

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me too, Miss Hearne, but I’ve got to do some studying,’ Una said. ‘The exam is in less than a month.’

  ‘Of course, Una dear. I don’t even dare to think about the work you have to do nowadays. It’s not like our time, is it, Moira? Why, when I was at the Sacred Heart in Armagh we never had such a thing as an examination from one end of the year to another. Of course, girls didn’t learn Latin in those days. We seem to have managed to do without it.’

  ‘Not many people can afford to educate their girls to be ladies of leisure nowadays,’ Una said shortly.

  ‘O, I know that. Nobody knows it better. I often wish I’d been given a more practical training myself. Still, I don’t see what help Latin is to a girl who’s preparing for life.’

  When she said this, Una and Shaun giggled and she remembered — if only I could remember it sooner — that she had said it often before. I mustn’t repeat the same things, she thought, I simply must try not to.

  ‘Well, I won’t keep you from your lessons, Una dear,’ she said. ‘And good bye, Shaun. Cover yourself up well if you go out. It’s awfully cold, besides being wet.’

  Two good byes and they were gone, running out together, badly brought up children. And she was alone in the big bright room, with Moira O’Neill already nodding in the chair opposite. I wonder should I mention about meeting Mr Madden? No, better not. Moira O’Neill is the last one to tell about meeting a man who might be thought a little common. Remember how she never said a word, years ago, when everyone thought she was common.

  And, as she watched Moira O’Neill, Miss Hearne’s mind moved in a familiar spiral from present to past, m
ade a journey which had become increasingly frequent since her dear aunt died. It was so much easier to go back now; going forward was so frightening.

  In that journey she saw Moira as she had first seen her: young, charming, common, an upstart who came from nowhere to claim the prize. A scheming hussy they called her then, an unknown girl born on a farm in Fermanagh and educated by her uncle, a parish priest in some small place. A student in one of Owen O’Neill’s classes and he twice her age at the time. But she had carried him off, a well-connected man, a professor and the son of a well-known lawyer with money on his mother’s side. Miss Hearne remembered her Aunt D’Arcy’s comment at the time: that Moira was no more in love with Owen than with the man in the moon; that she had tricked and guiled and provoked him into marriage. She remembered too, Owen’s mother, old Mrs O’Neill, a stiff old lady if ever there was one and the way she had snubbed Moira when she heard of the engagement. And I hadn’t a good word to say for her myself, Miss Hearne thought, remembering all the gossip that ran against the new bride. It wasn’t kind of me. But I’ll give her her due, Moira, she put up with a lot of cold looks at the time. Those Thursday At Homes and all his relatives nodding their heads. She just sailed through them, and you never knew what she was thinking. And you’d never know now. She’s deep. But she’s the type to remember. So I’d better hold my tongue about Mr Madden. She’d find the commonness in him, quick enough, seeing she had it in herself.

  She pulled her chair closer to the fire and put on her extra cardigan. She always felt too hot or too cold and she carried an extra cardigan, just in case. Moira went on knitting and asked about the new digs, and how they were. And Miss Hearne told about Mrs Henry Rice and how poor the breakfasts were, only tea and toast, but kippers on Sunday. And about Mr Lenehan and Miss Friel. And that there was an American there too. A Mr Madden.

  She stopped then and looked at Moira, waiting for a question. But Moira’s head was going jump, jump, and her chin, was resting on her bosom. Dozing again!

  Miss Hearne watched Moira until there was a snore. Then she picked up a paper and read it for a while. But there was nothing much interesting in the Observer. All book reviews, and dispatches from foreign countries and long political articles. Dull, dull, but she read it, for soon tea would come.

  It came at four. Ellen knocked on the door and wheeled the tea wagon in, the cups on the top shelf, the cakes and biscuits on the second and the sherry, jams and cheese on the bottom.

  ‘O, my goodness, I was dozing again,’ Moira O’Neill said, waking up. ‘Put it over there, Ellen, and go and ask the master if he wants some tea. Excuse me, Judy dear, I must have been asleep for ages. You should have wakened me.’

  ‘No, no, you must be tired with all those children around you,’ Miss Hearne said politely. ‘I thought you deserved forty winks. I was just reading the Observer. Such an interesting paper.’

  ‘Ellen — call Miss Kathleen and Miss Una. Those poor girls are at their books night and day,’ Moira said, smiling at Miss Hearne.

  ‘But they’ll be a credit to you, I’m sure. They’ve got their father’s brains.’

  Professor Owen O’Neill, monocle gleaming against the flames of the fire, came in, thrusting his curved pipe in his pocket.

  ‘Hello, Judy.’

  ‘Hello, Owen, still working away?’

  And Kathleen, ugly little Kathy, Miss Hearne’s favourite, came sidling into the room, coming up to shake hands properly, her freckled face set in a smile. Miss Hearne remembered the days with her dear aunt. O, she reminds me of me.

  Una came too, the handsome one, joking with her father about some book he had recommended. They’re all such great readers, Miss Hearne thought, it’s a pity they don’t like the same books as I do.

  Then the sherry, golden, the colour of warmth, and a biscuit to nibble with it. The first sip was delicious, steadying, making you want a big swallow. But it had to last.

  The others took tea. Cakes and cheeses were passed around and in the confusion of movement and talk, Miss Hearne lifted her glass stealthily and let the golden liquid flow down her throat, feeling the shudder of pleasure as it went down, warming her all the way. Then she accepted cake and began to eat. Ladylike, but she ate a lot. Sunday tea at the O’Neills meant that you didn’t have to bother with supper. And with the good breakfast she had eaten that morning, it was a day with no money spent. Maybe a glass of milk, though, before she went to bed.

  ‘Another sherry?’

  ‘Well, really, I shouldn’t. But it’s so good.’

  She drank a second glass quickly and young Una lifted the decanter. ‘Let me fill your glass up, Miss Hearne.’

  ‘No, thank you, I couldn’t really. Two is my absolute limit.’

  There! She’d done it again, saying something she always said. She saw the small cruel smile on Una’s face — like the day I came into the room and she and Shaun were saying over and over, imitating me, ‘Your mother will bear me out on that, won’t you?’ Over and over and it’s what I always say — well, I won’t say two is my absolute limit ever again. Anyway, a child like her, what does she know about life? Or life’s problems.

  Miss Hearne stared mistily at the empty sherry glass. Or this, the temptation she puts in my way. What does she know about people, a young girl of her age? Mr Madden. James Madden, of New York. Mr and Mrs James Madden of Belfast and New York. The former Judith Hearne, only daughter of — O, I must stop that at once.

  And Miss Hearne smiled, an inward smile which lit her black nervous eyes. She pulled off her extra cardigan. ‘My goodness, it’s warm now,’ she said, looking at ugly little Kathleen. ‘Isn’t it, Kathy dear?’

  After the tea things had been cleared away, Professor O’Neill and his daughters again retired to their rooms and books. Moira O’Neill began to look around her as though she had lost something and was trying to think where she had put it. She wants to get the dinner on, Miss Hearne decided, it’s time to go. Although it would have been so nice to stay in the warmth, in the brightness of the room, among the family. Yet the children still say ‘Miss Hearne’. Funny, you’d think they could say ‘Judy’ when they know I like it. Judy. Like the old days on the Lisburn Road. Little Judy.

  She felt the tears come into her eyes. That’s the sherry affecting me. O, I mustn’t be sloppy. Look at something — quick.

  She looked down at her long pointed shoes. It was always comforting to look at them when tears threatened. The little buttons on them, winking up at her like wise little friendly eyes. Little shoe eyes, always there.

  Later, as she stood in the hall, putting on her raincoat, Moira opened the door and announced that the rain had stopped. And then, at the end of the avenue, hurrying, came Shaun, his hair sticking up like a fuzz of wet feathers on his head. He looked surprised to see her standing on the steps, as though she were waiting for him.

  ‘Well, Shaun, what luck,’ his mother said. ‘Just in time to see Miss Hearne to her bus stop.’

  ‘O, please don’t bother. I’m perfectly all right.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said politely. ‘Just wait a second till I leave these books in the hall. I’ll be with you in a jiffy.’

  They set off together, she bizarre and faltering in her crimson raincoat and her waxen flowered red hat; he embarrassed and uneasy, trying to find a subject of conversation. At the end of the avenue they stood under the harsh orange glare of the street light, urging the coming of the bus with hopeful remarks.

  ‘Is that one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought it was.’

  ‘I did too.’

  ‘They never come when you want them, do they?’

  ‘Maybe that’s one now?’

  ‘No.’

  They made little half turns, turning back towards each other, nervous, awkward, hoping for it to end. This is the way with men, she thought, always like this. They don’t seem to want to be alone with me, it’s as if they’re trying to get away. O, I know he’s only a boy and I remember hi
m as a baby I knit little woollen bootees for, but he’s a man, a man like all the others. And he wants to get rid of me, to run off and do whatever men do when there aren’t women around to hold them down. All like this, afraid to pair with me. Except James Madden? No, he wasn’t. Just a little bit at the end of Mass, maybe, shuffling his feet. But then he asked me to go out. He asked me out. He wanted to stay, he was afraid I’d run away. James Madden, a man’s man. She looked at Shaun’s young unfinished face. A boy, a baby boy.

  Then the bus came rushing over the top of the road, a double-decker, a huge box on wheels, running down over the grey belt of wet road with the little driver sitting up straight against the glass in its flat face. It stopped, squishing its huge tyres and Shaun stepped off the pavement and held her arm as she went up beside the ticket-punching conductor. And she turned to say, as always:

  ‘Thank you very much, Shaun dear. And be sure to thank your dear mother for me.’

  And the bell jangled, the driver started. The bus whirled off, to the last stop, the lonely room, the lonely night.

  CHAPTER VI

  LENEHAN

  AH, BUT you want to see the codology that’s goin’ on these days in my digs, yon big streel of a Yank I told you about and that ould blether of a Miss Hearne, the new one that just moved in, I tell you, you never seen the like of it, one ould fraud suckin’ up to the other and the pair of them canoodling, it would turn your stomach. No, nothing like that, the pair of them’s past it and I don’t think the Yankee Doodle has that in mind at all. And as for her, she never had it nor never will, if you ask me. No, the geg of it is, as I was tellin’ you, it’s one ould fraud matched up against the other. She’s a real Castle Catholic type, very refained, the grand lady with her rings and bangles and her la-di-da. And this ould Yank, he wouldn’t look me in the face after the tellin’ off I give him, a fine Catholic, a bloody Orangeman at heart he is, but anyway, he thinks she has a bit of cash put away, you can see it the way he’s suckin’ up to her and she the same of him. And the best joke of it is, it’s my bet and I’d lay a bottle of Jameson on it, neither one of them has a five-pound note to their name. He took her out to the pictures the other night and yesterday, when I was coming out of Mullen’s after wetting my thirst, who should I see but the pair of them, strollin’ along like young love. I folleyed them just for the crack of it, and you shoulda heard him givin’ off steam about the glories of the States, you’d think he was John D. Rockefeller, and her right back at him, as good as she got, about the wonderful times she had with her dear auntie. What age is she? I tell you that one will never see the fair side of forty again. But do you see the geg of it, this boozy ould Yank, bloody ould lying flag-thumper talkin’ a lot of balls about the Yew-nited States and this ould bag of a single woman, playing the Malone Road lady, and the two of them coddin’ each other on until the day when they find out that neither one of them has a silver tanner to their name. D’ye see the geg of it? Irish and Catholic, I tell you the most of the Catholics in this town are bloody little West Britons and, if they’re not that, the pictures has turned them into comic cuts imitations of Yanks. And these two could well be the model, couple of ould farts, with their chat every morning about America, what the hell did America ever do for us, I’d like to know?