Such Is My Beloved (6 page)

 

NINE

T
he time when Father Dowling went to meet Charlie Stewart's girl, he found that as soon as he got to the apartment house by the schoolyard he had become shy. As he looked up at the lighted apartment window and saw the shadow of a woman moving on the shade he remembered how he had at first been angry because a woman had become important in his young friend's life. Now he knew he had dreaded to meet the girl. Walking away a little piece, he turned around and saw her form again passing the lighted window. In his own celibate life he had always been content, but now he wondered if that contentment had made him dry and wooden, so he could not understand Charlie's longing for happiness with this girl. She was a Catholic. Perhaps it was his duty, he thought suddenly, to go in and tell her that she ought not to marry a man like Charlie who was without faith, no matter how much he loved her. But supposing he went in there and saw that they were both very much in love. “Perhaps through her influence Charlie might learn to think differently,” he thought.

As he looked up at the lighted window, he was afraid it might be better to try and understand the happiness the young man and girl might be seeking so eagerly before he spoke against their marriage. “I won't say anything to her to-night,” he thought. This was a compromise. He excused himself because he knew the girl would look at him shrewdly, maybe with dislike, and remember that he had advised Charlie not to marry her. In going in to meet them, when they loved each other in a way that he could not comprehend, because for him their marriage could hardly be sanctioned, he felt he might be going where he had no right to go. He felt the girl might look at him and hate him. “I'll go in very cheerfully and pretend I've never thought about the matter at all,” he said.

But when Father Dowling was in the apartment, shaking hands, with his face red and smiling, the girl, Pauline, who understood so well why Father Dowling did not want the marriage, smiled at him warmly as if she had been wanting to meet him for a long time; she could not believe from what she had heard about him that he would say Charlie ought not to marry her. She was a very tall, fair girl with an elegant manner, who wore fine expensive clothes.

Charlie was talking to her now as if Father Dowling was not a priest but an old friend, and she kept turning her head and looking at the priest's embarrassed face, hardly able to conceal a slight amusement. But as soon as Father Dowling looked at the girl's blue eyes and saw her smile suddenly, he knew she had wondered maybe many nights whether she could get a priest to marry her to Charlie.

As the priest sat opposite the two of them the girl's face was radiant. They both seemed very much in love, and she said, “I've heard so much about you, Father. Charlie keeps saying he
wants you to marry us.” The priest liked her and couldn't help thinking she would make a fine wife. “If she's a good Catholic, and if Charlie's intuitions are so often traditionally Catholic, even if he thinks he's Communistic, maybe it's in the hands of God whether he has faith or not. Faith is the gift of God. It is in God's hands, especially if they are determined to marry,” and after this thought he smiled as though he had suddenly freed himself of the problem.

“I've heard so much about your conversation. I'd just love to listen to the two of you talking,” she said.

“No, not to-night,” he said. “I'm happy to be here with you and Charlie. I know you'll make him a splendid wife.” He blushed, remembering that the last argument had been about celibacy, and Charlie had yelled, “Faith, hope and celibacy, and the greatest of these is celibacy, says St. Paul.” He nodded his head with the diffidence of a man who feels he may be intruding, but who wants to stay. “I'd be very happy to-night if we didn't become intellectual, but if you'd just let me sit here and listen, and maybe you'd talk about your plans or what you've been doing and where you've been going, and perhaps what you expect to do when you get married.”

The medical student started to talk solemnly about his plans for the future; he was going away to another city. His thin, clever face lit up as he told how he wanted to specialize in nervous diseases: he would like to go to Vienna, he said, and study in the hospitals there. When he paused, the tall girl who had been listening intently, with her head leaning forward, her face full of sincerity, began to speak rapidly, carrying on just from the point where Charlie had left off, making more plans, telling how they would go to Vienna because they both were saving their money. When she, too, had to stop to get her breath, Charlie went on slowly, explaining that he loved and
respected his work, and wanted to keep growing into it, that he would work like a dog and still remain very willing. “Pauline understands the situation perfectly,” he said. “We know just what we want to do. The whole thing is there before us if we'll only do it,” and they smiled confidently, as if their souls remained open to each other. Father Dowling, watching and listening, did not know why he felt so joyful at one moment, so inexpressibly sad at another. It filled him with joy to be there, close to these two young people who were so much in love, and yet it was a kind of love he would never be able to realize completely, although he assured himself it was just a part of a greater, more comprehensive love that he often felt very deeply. In a moment of wistfulness, he rubbed his plump hand nervously over his face, listening like a child, but he was thinking that this beautiful girl who was so well dressed lived comfortably, while the two girls who most concerned him in the world, and who were now his special care, looked shabby, lived in mean rooms and probably were often hungry.

The student and his girl were still talking, having almost forgotten that he was there. He stole a nervous glance at Pauline's fine kid shoes, at her black crêpe dress, so rich-looking and probably so expensive, and then, with the color mounting in his smooth cheeks, he glanced quickly at her legs in the sheerest of fine crêpe hose. Sighing, he leaned back and closed his eyes. But they did not notice him. At that moment he was feeling more love for the two girls than he had ever felt before because their lives were so wretched, because their clothes were so shabby, and even when they bought new things they were in poor taste. “Midge bought a new hat but it did not really look like this girl's hat,” he thought. Suddenly Father Dowling was full of such eagerness that he leaned forward, waiting for Charlie to stop talking. He was moistening his lips, smiling,
hardly hearing the conversation at all. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder if you would do something for me, Pauline?”

“I'd do anything I could, Father.”

“I'm sure you would, but I don't want to impose on you.”

“I won't let you do that, Father. I'm pretty ruthless.”

“This is a matter that would only take up a little of your time. It's like this. I know two girls, sort of nieces, not in very good circumstances. I was wanting them to have new clothes for the spring….”

“Go on, Father.”

“That's where you come in.”

“You want me to help you with the clothes.”

“Well, as you can see, I can't very well go and buy them clothes. I'd have no skill in such matters. Besides, they mightn't want to wear what I'd buy. If you would do this for me….” He began to look terribly embarrassed. He felt his face getting hot while they smiled broadly, and then he, too, began to laugh with great heartiness, his face all red and full of open enthusiasm now, and when he got his breath at last, he said, “It no doubt must seem a bit funny to take advantage of you immediately in this way, Pauline, but that's the kind of person I am. Ask Charlie. I've been taking advantage of him ever since I've known him.”

“I don't believe it, Father,” she said. “I'd be glad to help you if you'd just tell me what sort of thing, what kind of dress, how much you want to pay and so on. Just give me something to go on. What are the girls like?”

“One of them is about your height and she's fair, too. Her feet look to me to be about your size. Let's say that for her. You get something like you'd get for yourself. Shoes, stockings, and dress. What do you think?”

“You've no idea what color for the dress?”

“I think that black dress you've got on looks beautiful on you,” he said honestly. “I like that bit of white at the neck, too.”

“That's fine. I didn't think you had noticed it. What's the other girl like?”

“She's different. Her feet are smaller for one thing. They are very tiny little feet. I'd say a size and a half smaller than yours. And she's a good four inches shorter. But mind, she is of a normal build, not fat or awkward nor thin either. And she's dark with brown eyes. What do you think would look good on her?”

“Gray is being worn a lot now, gray with gray shoes and gray stockings. A gray outfit.”

“Lovely,” he said. “Simply splendid.”

“Do you want to pay much?”

“I don't want it to be cheap stuff, but not expensive of course. Maybe if you'd look around you'd get a bargain. Then send it up to me and I'll pay for it.”

“I'll be downtown to-morrow. I'll look around in the morning maybe. How's that?”

“God bless you,” he said. “If I were a young fellow I'd have a girl like you.”

His own thoughts were now so delightful that he got up to go, so he could enjoy them undisturbed. They coaxed him to stay; he pleaded he had work to do. They were both smiling at him warmly, and when he went out to the street his first thought was, “What a remarkable quality that girl has. What a pity they aren't both more devout Christians. Charlie's in the Church in heart and he doesn't really know it.” Then he walked on, still smiling, till he remembered he had said Ronnie and Midge were nieces of his. “That was a lie,” he thought and he was immediately bothered, walking along, staring at the sidewalk. “Of course, I couldn't have explained who they
actually were. But I don't want to get into the habit of lying about them. That's inexcusable.” And while he wanted to let his thoughts leap forward with pleasure to images of the girls in new clothes, he resolutely forced himself to go on considering the danger of petty lying.

 

TEN

T
he afternoon the boxes containing the dresses came to the priest's house, Father Dowling was waiting and he wrote out a check for sixty-five dollars for the delivery man. The housekeeper, old Mrs. Arrigo, who had called him to the door, looked with curiosity at the bundles and smiled up at him, for she liked him more than any of the other priests. She was a little, fat, gray-haired, Italian woman, who always smiled and was very pious. “Can't I help you with those boxes, Father?”

“Oh no,” he said anxiously. “I'll look after them myself, thank you.”

After carrying the boxes upstairs to his bedroom he looked at them for a long time, full of eagerness, but knowing really that he would not permit himself to open these boxes of young women's clothing in the house. They must remain there on his bed till he took them away early in the evening. Furthermore, he would not permit himself to indulge in too much anticipation, either, of the pleasure that would be his when he saw the startled surprise on the girls' faces. All these thoughts and resolutions occurred to him as reasons why he
should not want to open the boxes there in the room, when some one was apt to come upstairs and see him, or call him, and force him to make very embarrassing explanations. The other young priest in the house, Father Jolly, knew that he had no nieces. Besides, there was always a kind of good-natured malice between Father Dowling and Father Jolly. It had begun when Father Dowling had wanted the other young priest's room because it had a set of bookshelves and his own had none. Father Jolly had immediately decided to go in for literature himself, and he would read Tolstoy, or Conrad, or anybody else that Father Dowling recommended and come back in a few days, drink two or three bottles of beer, and say, “My, isn't that author carnal? Do you really like him?” and at the dinner table, with old Father Anglin turning down his lip contemptuously, he would force Father Dowling to defend a carnality in Tolstoy that didn't really exist. Sometimes these arguments about literature became so impassioned that old Father Anglin was drawn into them and he gave it as his opinion that all art, being sensual, tended to detract from man's one primal instinct, his need of the faith and his desire to worship God. Father Jolly, his head bobbing up and down enthusiastically, readily agreed with the old priest. But he kept his room with the bookshelves, teased Father Dowling, accused him of scheming to get it, gave up his interest in literature unless the books were on the Cardinal's white list, and remained gravely suspicious of Father Dowling's respect for modern carnal authors. If Father Jolly saw these boxes he would at once associate them with unorthodox notions. “Ah, I must not have such thoughts,” Father Dowling said to himself, going out of the room.

In the evening, almost as soon as it was dark enough so that he thought he would not be noticed, Father Dowling
took his two boxes and the smaller bundle and set out for the hotel on the other side of the block. It was a clear mild evening. The snow had nearly all gone from the streets. There was a freshness in the air that made him think of approaching spring. He passed a young man and a girl walking very close together and the girl's face was so full of eagerness and love Father Dowling smiled. As soon as the mild weather came the young people began to walk slowly around the Cathedral in the early evening, laughing out loud or whispering and never noticing anybody who smiled at them. The next time Father Dowling, walking slowly, passed two young people, he smiled openly, they looked at him in surprise and the young man touched his hat with respect. Father Dowling felt suddenly that he loved the whole neighborhood, all the murmuring city noises, the street cries of newsboys, the purring of automobiles and rumble of heavy vehicles, the thousand separate sounds of everlasting motion, the low, steady and mysterious hum that was always in the air, the lights in windows, doors opening, rows of street lights and fiery flash of signs, the cry of night birds darting around the Cathedral and the soft low laugh of lovers strolling in the side streets on the first spring nights. He felt he would rather be here in the city and at the Cathedral than any place else on earth, for here was his own home in the midst of his own people.

Closer to the hotel, he felt a deep amusement within him, as if he could feel in advance the astonishment that would be in the girls' eyes. The bundle, though not heavy in his arms, was very awkward to carry, and as he shifted it from one arm to the other, he could already see himself standing in the hotel room, peering into the boxes, more eager than the girls to see what they contained.

But when he entered the hotel and rapped on the door there was no answer. Leaning against the wall, listening, he heard no sound and then he walked downstairs slowly, his feet heavy on each step and a fear in him that he might go many times up the stair to that white door and knock and there never would be an answer. The silence that follows an eager knock on a door can be a dreadful thing, he thought. Many times he had gone upstairs with like eagerness and always deeply buried within him was the same fear that they would not be there. Yet they were nearly always there, or they came shortly afterwards.

He was standing by the hotel door holding his boxes tightly when the man at the desk called out ingratiatingly. “Are you looking for your girl friends, mister? They'll be along shortly, I think.”

“Thank you,” Father Dowling said. His hand wanted to go creeping up to his collar to make sure it was covered, then he reflected with relief that the man had called him “Mister.” Mr. Baer, who was sitting at the desk with the most benevolent, considerate smile on his round face, a smile that included comprehendingly all the desires of the world and their satisfactions, was tapping the tips of his fingers together, anxious to begin a conversation. But Father Dowling stepped out to the street thinking, “I decidedly don't like that man.”

Up and down the street he went, feeling sure he would not see the girls that evening. At last he saw them coming, crossing the road, hesitating because of the passing automobiles, holding on to each other's arm; he heard a ripple of loud laughter, and they started to run a little before they saw him at all.

“Just a minute, Midge. Just a minute, both of you,” he called out.

“Look, Ronnie, it's Father,” Midge said.

“Wouldn't that knock you cold. Just when we were talking about him, and he pops up here.”

“We've been loafing around window shopping. Isn't it cockeyed? There we were gaping in a window talking about you and here you were looking for us.”

“I came about twenty minutes ago. If you hadn't come now I would have gone looking for you.”

“Look at the parcels Father's carrying, Midge. What's in them? Were you going some place?”

“I'll show you what's in them. That's exactly what I want to do. Could I go in with you?”

As he followed the girls upstairs he tried to keep a severe, stern expression on his face so the man at the desk dare not smile, but he was really so eager to show his gifts that the corners of his mouth kept twitching into faint smiles of amusement. In the bedroom he put the bundles on the floor and sat down with his blue eyes shining bright. “Open them, both of you,” he said. And he leaned back, relaxing and feeling a marvellous contentment while they knelt down on the floor, their heads together, their faces so serious, pulling at the paper, snapping off the string, pulling the lids off the boxes, holding up a black crêpe dress, then pulling out the gray dress. And then he could resist no longer, he leaned forward, peering eagerly over Ronnie's shoulder at the dresses he had not seen. “The gray one, the gray stockings and the gray shoes are for you, Midge, and the black dress and shoes are for you, Ronnie.”

Still crouched on the floor, the two girls were silent, then Ronnie, rolling her eyes and lifting her head up to him, whistled softly. Midge just kept on staring at Ronnie.

“I wonder if you might put them on now and let me see you,” he said mildly. “Just before I go. I must hurry to-night.”

“Oh, Father, you're a peach, honest to God you are.”

“I'd love to do something for you, Father. Isn't there something you'd want me to do? Let me kiss you.”

“Oh no, don't do that,” he said quickly.

“It wouldn't hurt just once. Do you think it might give you the jitters?”

“No. Not that. You can be good to me just by thinking of me sometimes and being a good girl and feeling you've nothing to worry about. See.”

Then the girls picked up the dresses and went silently into the other room, and for a long time Father Dowling waited, glancing impatiently at the door every time he heard a sound. Closing his eyes, he kept on waiting with a strange breathlessness, as if some transformation in the girls, far deeper than a mere change of clothing, would be effected there before his eyes.

And when they returned, shyly standing in front of him and looking around with an awkward uncertainty, glancing one at the other in a curious mutual uneasiness, he said nothing, he watched in silence and he did not even smile. Then they smiled timidly. They couldn't get rid of their feeling of shyness, they tried laughing at each other. “Look at you, Midge,” Ronnie said. “Look at yourself,” Midge said. Midge looked almost dainty in the gray dress, with her face paler and her eyes round with endless surprise. In the black crêpe dress with the long, severe, but graceful lines, some of the awkwardness seemed to have gone out of Ronnie, and her hair looked fairer, her face fresher. With this new timidity, lasting for just a few moments, she seemed severely honest, severely forthright in appearance.

“My goodness, I'm astonished at both of you. I don't know what to say,” Father Dowling said.

“Do we look elegant?” Midge asked.

“You look– well, you look natural, as you should always look, and rather charming, both of you. You take my breath away.”

So they felt easier in their thoughts. They began to laugh and walk around gaily, Midge extending her left hand gracefully to Ronnie and making a little curtsy. Then they both laughed again with a fine free happiness; they shrugged their shoulders, they became simply themselves, and while still looking pleased, they turned good-naturedly to the priest.

“Ah, you know somebody, Father, who likes nice clothes,” Midge said. “Now who would it be? Have you a little lady tucked away some place?”

“I'll bet you've had a girl all the time,” Ronnie said.

“Don't say things like that,” he said softly.

“I'm only trying to kid you. You're a prince. I never met anybody so kind.”

“Why do you do all these crazy things for us, Father?” Midge asked.

“You know why. Because I care for you and sometimes worry about you and hope so much that you'll keep trying to forget this room and all the people that ever came here. And all the nights you ever wandered around. That would satisfy me.”

But he did not notice that they had become uneasy while he was speaking. He remained motionless, his young, smooth face very calm and a peculiar, wondering, remote expression in his eyes. He was not hearing anything they were saying to him. He was remembering how they had seemed so shy, with a kind of naïve, awkward innocence, when they returned to the room in the new clothes, and it seemed wonderful to him that he had discovered these traits in them. Nothing they
could have said by way of thanking him could have repaid him as they had done already without knowing it. He felt very happy to have thought of the dresses. It seemed that for a long time he had been groping and scraping away at old reluctant surfaces and suddenly there was a yielding life, there was a quickening response. He sat there hardly smiling, looking very peaceful.