The Furys (15 page)

‘Studying for the priesthood,' said Peter slowly. Ah! Now the mist was clearing. Everything seemed crystal-clear. ‘Why have you failed?' she asked; then, hardly waiting for his answer, she added, ‘Have you told your mother yet?'

Peter shook his head. No. He hadn't told anybody yet.

‘Who is your Principal?' she asked.

‘Brother Geraghty,' replied Peter.

‘Oh, I see! I know him well. I shall call and see him tomorrow.' She began pacing the room. Her mind worked swiftly. Something mysterious here. What was it? And that silence. That seven years' silence. She looked at the clock. ‘I shall wire your mother at once, Peter,' she said. She felt the boy was hiding something from her. She had a right to know everything. Her sister's children could not drop in on her like this! She had had some of that before. Peter sat up in the chair. ‘The Post Office is shut, Aunt,' he said.

‘I'll send a
night
-wire,' remarked Miss Mangan with great emphasis. Peter lay back again. He watched her go to the window. She turned round.

‘Have you had enough to eat?' she asked. ‘Yes, Aunt.' He wondered if his clothes were yet dry. Miss Mangan seemed to divine his thoughts, for she said abruptly, ‘Your clothes are far from dry. You must content yourself with sitting in that blanket. There is nothing in the house you could wear, and I'm certainly not going to give you clerical attire.'

Then she went out.

Her wire to Mrs Fury was brief and to the point.

‘Peter failed. All my sympathy. Brigid.' Not a word more. As she walked home through the pouring rain she visualized the receipt of the wire in Gelton. But then she didn't know anything. Peter might have been telling some cock-and-bull story. At the same time she got some satisfaction from the sending of the wire. Nearly time Fanny had a shock of some kind. It might wake her up after that long silence. She was still too shocked to be able to comprehend anything beyond the presence of her nephew. Number thirty-seven the Mall had never suffered such a violent disturbance. Three days later she took Peter to the shipping office and that very afternoon they sailed together for Gelton. The house on the Mall was locked up, and the parish priest informed that she might be away for an indefinite period.

3

Miss Mangan moved restlessly in the bed as her sister suddenly sat up. Mrs Fury was certain she had heard somebody descending the stairs. ‘Did you hear a noise on the stairs, Brigid?' she asked.

‘No! Why?' Miss Mangan said. Mrs Fury lay down again.

‘I thought I heard the boy go down,' she said. Brigid laughed. She wasn't interested in anybody on the stairs. This sudden startling exclamation from her sister had put a spoke into a most interesting conversation. She made herself more comfortable. ‘Don't bother yourself, Fanny,' she remarked. Mrs Fury was staring up at the patchwork on the ceiling, now illuminated by the moonlight streaming into the room. Brigid Mangan's last question still remained in her mind. How had Desmond come to marry the woman?

‘Well,' said Mrs Fury, ‘it's always been a mystery to me, and I suppose it always will be. I knew nothing of their goings-on until I heard it from his own lips, that he was getting married. Yes. He was getting married almost immediately. It was a great surprise to me, Brigid, for Desmond never struck me as being of the marrying sort, and they say that when those kind of men do go off at last, they create the greatest surprises. I had been suspicious for a time. For instance, his last two annual holidays he spent in Ireland. Now, that
was
unusual. Do you know, Brigid, I have asked Desmond time and time again to spend his holidays there, either with his aunt at Ringsend or with you. But I could never get him to go. Sometimes he made me feel ashamed that I was Irish. Naturally I was bound to feel surprised when he suddenly decided to spend his holidays there. What part of Ireland he went to I don't know. He was always secretive, was Desmond. But there are some kinds of secrets that can't remain hidden for ever, Brigid.' The woman paused, and Miss Mangan said:

‘Oh! How surprising!'

‘Yes,' went on Mrs Fury, ‘the next thing I knew was that he had set up house in … near here.'

‘Where?' asked Brigid, her curiosity aroused by that sudden pause in the sentence.

‘Oh, somewhere round here. I don't know where. I never go near them, Brigid. Nor will I ever allow them to enter my house. Of course, the biggest shock I got was when he married her out of the chapel. Even Denny was shocked, Brigid, and, as you know, he's pretty loose himself in such matters. Bitchery. That's what I call it, Brigid. Rank bitchery. One of these days he will find out his mistake. I've lived in this parish over forty years now, and then I had to suffer that disgrace. Yes. Take my word for it, nothing but evil can grow out of such actions. I shall
never, never
forget it. I had to keep away from the chapel myself. I felt too ashamed. And I couldn't stand the looks, the hints, the questions. It's blowing over now, and I am back there again, but for nearly thirteen months I attended to my duties at St James's in the city.' A silence came over the room.

Brigid Mangan thought, ‘What a peculiar family!' Surely she had tapped a rich vein of history. She even began to feel glad she had crossed over with her nephew. She complimented herself now on her foresight. It seemed her stay would be for an indefinite period. As she lay there she went over slowly in her mind the events of the past three days. She had already sensed a kind of frenzied curiosity, a maddening impatience in her sister. She understood perfectly. Already she had collapsed, helpless, before the flow of Fanny's questions. For an hour and a half she had listened to it. If Fanny Fury maintained this expansiveness, then she could afford to feel sympathetic towards her brother-in-law, who had to sleep with her. The whole thing reminded her of a ‘penny dreadful' story. Mrs Fury was speaking again. ‘The whole house was upset, Brigid. Maureen had her own ideas about Desmond. I have always tried to do my best for them, but my husband does not seem to agree.' And once again she poured into her sister's unwilling ears the story of the last ten years of her life in Hatfields. Aunt Brigid almost sighed with relief when she changed her course. ‘Up to now,' continued Fanny Fury, ‘you have told me nothing of what has occurred beyond the fact that the boy went to your house saying he was through at the college. But he must have told you more than that. Surely! Did you do anything? Did you see his Principal, or anybody connected with the college?'

Again Miss Mangan had been thwarted, again Desmond's story was broken off. What a way her sister had of explaining things! She asked a question, and before one had time to answer she broke off and turned the point to something else. Miss Mangan had become tremendously interested in her nephew. She must see him before she went away, as she must indeed see this woman he had married. Mrs Fury became fidgety. Brigid said:

‘What is there to say? Not much. I did not go to the college. I felt I ought not to interfere in such a matter. After all, he is your son, Fanny. When he came to me and told me he had left the college, I took him in. Naturally I wanted to know something about his sudden dismissal from the college. But Peter was not responsive in any way. He said he had left the college. No more than that. That he was going home. He said he had failed in his examination. But I didn't accept his excuse, as the examination results to which he was referring would not have been issued. I became suspicious at once. Indeed, this suspicion of mine increased after he had been with me only two days. He used to go out at night. Where to, heaven alone knows. One night he was out until midnight. I could get nothing from him at all, not a satisfactory word. He was dumb. I noticed the change in him at once.' Miss Mangan stopped. Mrs Fury had sat up again. ‘I've half a mind to go down and make some tea,' she said, but her sister said: ‘It's so late, Fanny, and you'll wake Denny too.'

‘One would think,' began Mrs Fury, ‘one would think that after thirty years one had had their fill of disappointments, that struggles would be a thing of the past, but it seems to me that they are only beginning. Desmond has put bad luck on this house, I tell you that.'

‘Maureen seems to have been in league with him.' Brigid Mangan exclaimed. ‘It's a complete surprise to me to arrive here and find Maureen married away too. You never said a word about it.' Mrs Fury replied, ‘But I wrote you a letter as soon as Desmond went off.' Brigid Mangan said she had never received any letter. Where was Maureen living? Who was her husband? Was he Irish? Was he a Catholic? How long had she been married?

Mrs Fury remained silent. Why all these questions now, she was thinking. How useless dragging in all these uninteresting things. Desmond and Maureen were well out of it.

‘Peter has ruined me,' she said suddenly, and burst into tears. The woman beside her sat up. It was the first time she had ever seen her sister lose control of herself. ‘Why, Fanny,' she said, ‘you're crying. I know how disappointing it must be to have this son come home like this. I know …'

‘They're satisfied now,' went on the weeping woman. ‘The whole damned lot of them are laughing up their sleeves. Can't you imagine the smile on Desmond's face when he hears about it? And who is going to keep it from him? Children! My God! They have kept me tied down like this for years. I never thought I would rear such a mean-spirited crew. Never! Never!' She buried her face in her hands.

‘Fanny! Fanny! Don't cry. It's terrible, I know. But you take my advice and pack Peter off to work. Couldn't Denny get him away to sea?' The woman at her side fell back on the bed. She could not speak. Get him to sea. Was this all her sister had to say? Was this all the imagination she was capable of? Hardly different from the others. Could nobody see her point of view, could nobody assuage her feelings? Mrs Fury's mind was like a furnace. What was this about her son being out at midnight? ‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.' She got out of bed. She could lie there no longer. How could she lie, knowing that in the very next room lay the answer to her questions, the relief to the doubts she harboured, the suspicions that seemed to choke? He knew. What use talking to this woman at her side any longer? She simply did not understand. ‘Brigid,' she said, ‘I'm going downstairs. I can't sleep. I'm thinking of this boy all the time. I am suspicious. I know I am. But it has been forced on me.'

Miss Mangan struck a match and lit the candle. She set it on the table at Mrs Fury's side of the bed, her eyes fastened upon her sister's face. This was not the Fanny she knew three years ago. This, Fanny? There was something almost hag-like about her; in the very expression upon her sister's face, in the lines about her mouth, she sensed the story of ambition and frustration, of striving and defeat. Yet, like her brother-in-law, she could not but marvel at her head of hair, at the smoothness of her brow. There was something fine about Fanny too. Brigid Mangan climbed out of bed and went round to her sister. ‘Draw the blinds, Brigid,' Mrs Fury said. Miss Mangan crossed the room and drew the blinds. She came back to Mrs Fury. ‘You get into bed at once,' she said in a commanding tone of voice. ‘
I'll
make the tea.' She threw her old dressing-gown over her shoulders and went to the door.

‘Look here,' called Mrs Fury. ‘Denny'll make the tea. Just call down to him.' Brigid Mangan was determined to have her own way. ‘That's all right,' she replied, and opened the door. Mrs Fury lay back against the bed-rail. ‘Ah!' she thought, ‘even Brigid is hiding something! I never before realized what a vicious circle I was floundering in.' Get Peter to sea! After all she had done for him! He was to be like his father, like Anthony, like all the thousands of men who spent their lives between steel walls. It seemed willed that her children should desert her. ‘Fool I was ever to breathe a word about Desmond! I won't see much of her now. She'll be off to see Mrs Sheila Fury first thing tomorrow.' She got out of bed and went and stood by the window. Looking out, she became conscious of a smell, a most disgusting odour, that seemed to rise from between two high walls that faced her window. Suspended in the air between these walls was a single electric bulb, that now blew this way and that with the wind. This light threw out a sickly illumination, it created rather than obliterated the darkness. Mrs Fury could also see a figure moving about this yard. It looked like a wraith to her. She pulled down the window. The people must be very busy to have started night operations, she was thinking, and her eyes remained pinned upon this figure that seemed to move furtively about the yard. Who could it be? She knew that the main gate was always open, for within the yard itself was yet another great gate that opened into the bone sheds. The man appeared to be going from one heap to another. She turned away from the window. Her sister came into the room. Mrs Fury said, ‘You weren't long, Brigid.' The woman put down a jug of tea and two cups and saucers on the table. Then she climbed into bed again. ‘Why, you've shut the window, Fanny,' said Miss Mangan. ‘Don't you feel it stuffy in here?' Mrs Fury burst out laughing. ‘Haven't you a nose, Brigid? Why, there's the most disgusting smell outside here. The bone yard appears to be very busy lately.' She got into bed and they took up their cups. Brigid Mangan remarked that she smelt nothing.

‘Strange,' Mrs Fury said. She poured tea from the jug. ‘I was thinking, Brigid,' she went on; ‘what are you going to do if this strike comes off? It's going to be pretty awkward, isn't it?' Miss Mangan said, ‘Yes. I suppose I'll have to remain here, Fanny. It will be most awkward for you. Poor Michael's dead, or I could have gone to his place.' ‘Yes,' Mrs Fury replied. Her eyes sought the clock. Nearly four o'clock. Denny would be getting up in an hour and a half's time.

‘I suppose we'll manage somehow,' she said. ‘Really, I can manage anything. Father is the most trying. Lord! he irritates me sometimes. Yet I feel sorry for him too. He's so helpless. The job I have getting him down to the Office for his pension on a Friday!' She put her cup down. ‘Finished, Brigid?' she asked, at the same time taking the cup from her sister's hand. Then she blew out the light and lay down. Miss Mangan was so surprised by this action that she did not follow suit for nearly half a minute, remaining erect in the bed, her mind torn between two conflicting thoughts. Peter and Desmond were like two huge pendulums that kept swinging to and fro across the room. She could see their faces quite clearly. Then she lay down. The woman was still under a spell; there was something astonishing about her arrival, about her lying here now, at her sister's side, about Peter hiding his secret in the next room, about Desmond hidden away some few streets off. What changes had taken place in her sister's family! The silence was broken by Mrs Fury asking, ‘Was Denny asleep? Was he comfortable?' Miss Mangan gasped out, ‘Why, I never noticed, Fanny, I went in by the other door.' Her whole soul hungered for Desmond's secret. ‘I have a mind that I know these Downeys,' she said suddenly. She wanted to hear more about this woman. ‘In fact, I half believe I met a Matthew Downey once at a Mission at St Mary's Cathedral.'