Jerry did not expect this, and his voice became a little harder as he replied —
“No, I have not given up the wild idea, as you call it. It is about it that I want to speak.”
Katey felt the shadow pass between them again, and in spite of all she could do her eyes filled with tears. She did not wish to hurt Jerry, however, and turned away her head. But, man-like, he would know all that was going on in the mind of his companion, and, taking her face between his strong hands, he turned it up to the light. As he did so, he saw the tears and could not help feeling annoyed, for he knew that as yet in the conversation he had said nothing to warrant the change from sunshine to rain. So he spoke not unkindly — “Cryin’ already. Ah, Katey, what do you mean?”
“Nothin’, Jerry, nothin’, my dear, only I couldn’t help it. I’m not very strong yet.” She said this with a tender, half shy glance down at the cradle, which she was rocking with her foot, that would have turned the heart of a savage.
Jerry could not help feeling moved, and clasped her still more tenderly in his strong arms, and his voice softened —
“Sure, Katey, it’s breakin’ my heart I am all day knowin’ how you would take the news. Cry away, darlin’, it’ll do you good, and mayhap the news will make you cry.”
“No, no, Jerry, only talk to me like that, and I’ll never cry — never — never — never.” The little woman’s voice went up in a sweet, half playful crescendo as she reiterated the last words, and shook aside her tears.
“Then, Katey, I’ll tell you. I have got an offer to go to England” — Katey’s face fell — “to London — to become head carpenter in a theatre, an’ I’ve written to say I’ll take it.”
Woman’s nature, when compared with man’s, resembles more the hare than his does, and her moral eye, like the hare’s eye, is set far back for seeing the past clearly, whilst it accepts the future blindly. She accepts facts more easily than resolves; and when once a thing has been accomplished, and any final or decisive step taken, the major part of her anxiety is over. Accordingly Katey heard her husband’s resolve with an equanimity which took him by surprise. She did not cry, although her heart felt to herself to sink into her very boots, but simply drew his head on her bosom and stroked his hair, saying fervently —
“God grant, Jerry, acushla, that it may be for the best. May all the saints pray for us both.”
“Amen,” said Jerry, and then both remained silent for a time.
Soon the woman’s curiosity spoke, and her imagination began to work; and in the pleasure of expectation of change — always specially dear to women — she lost sight for a time of her present trouble. She began to question Jerry about the new engagement, and, having once began, poured forth such a tide of questions that he had no time to answer them, even had he known himself all she wanted. He did as well as he could, however; and now that the worst of the news was over, her hopeful nature took the brightest view possible of the case, and she seemed, by comparison with her mood of the last few days, quite happy.
Jerry did not tell her that night of the time of leaving, but let her sleep with what happiness she could, for he knew that the morrow, when she had learned the necessary suddenness of their departure, would be a sad one for her.
In the morning he told her just before going to his work, for he put off the evil moment, half that she might be able to have her cry in quietness — he knew that she would cry — and half with a man’s selfish wish to avoid an unpleasant scene.
Katey bore up till he was gone, and then the tide of her grief and sorrow burst forth unchecked, and she cried so pitifully that her little ones began to cry from childish sympathy. She took them in her arms and knelt down with them and rocked herself and them to and fro, and moaned — “Oh, woe the day, oh, woe the day.”
Chapter 4 — The New Life
Jerry O’Sullivan well knew the difference between the dispositions of his wife and his mother; and it was not without a shrinking of spirit that he approached the dwelling of the latter that evening to impart the unwelcome news.
His fears were not without foundation, for when he began to tell his news the old lady who had hitherto been full of love and affection broke out into a desperate fit of crying, a very unusual thing with her, mingling her tears with reproaches such as Jerry had never before heard from her lips.
“And you, my son,” she said, “are about to leave your home, and your country, and your mother, and to go amongst strangers. Oh, woe the day, oh, woe the day, that my child ever wants to leave the ground where his poor dead father lies sleeping. Oh, Jerry, Jerry, was it for this that I watched over your youth, and toiled and slaved for you, early and late, that when I saw you grow into a strong, steady, honest man, with a sweet wife and a happy home, I should see you leave me for ever.”
Jerry interrupted. “Not for ever, mother.”
“Ay, ay, for ever. Wirrasthrue, wirrasthrue. Sure, don’t I know I’ll never see your face again. You’re goin’, Jerry, among strangers an’ their ways are not our ways, and amongst them you’ll forget the lessons of your home. You’re goin’ to a city where the devil lives, if he lives any one place in the world; and I must sit at home here and doubt, and sigh, and weep, and weep, till I die.”
“Mother, dear, don’t take on like this. Why should you doubt, and sigh, and weep at all, at all? I amn’t goin’ to do anything wrong. I’m goin’ to work harder than ever, an’ I think, mother — I do think that it’s not fair to me to think that I’m goin’ to go to the devil, just because I leave one town to live in another.”
But reason and consolation were alike thrown away on Mrs. O’ Sullivan. The spice of obstinacy in her nature, and which Jerry had inherited from her, made her stick to her point; and so after many efforts Jerry came away leaving her bowed down with sorrow. He was himself somewhat indignant — and with fair enough reason — that all his relatives should take it for granted that he was going to change an honest hardworking life for an idle dissolute one.
He did not like to go home at once, for he somehow felt afraid of meeting a reproachful look on Katey’s face. This fear was a proof that he knew in his secret heart that he was doing wrong, for in all their married life Katey had never once given him cause for such a thought; it was in his own conscience that the reproach arose; and the look was on the face of his angel.
Accordingly, he made a detour and called at the house of Mr. Muldoon. The great man was within and received him heartily.
“Why, O’Sullivan,” said he, “this is quite unexpected. Sit down, man, and make yourself comfortable.”
Jerry sat down, but was anything but comfortable. Whilst he was on the way to his home, he had felt a desire to stay away, but now that he was settled down he longed to be at home. Katey’s face, pale with her recent sickness, and paler still from her recent grief, seemed to look at him, and he thought and felt how her poor heart must be beating as she waited and waited for his return, counting the minutes, and finding in each moment’s extra delay new causes for dread. At last he could stand it no longer and jumped up, saying to his host:
“I can’t stay. I have not been at home yet, and Katey will be expecting me.”
Muldoon laughed.
“There’s a man with three children! Sure, a wife in her honeymoon wouldn’t look for you like that.”
“Katey would, and does. No, indeed, I can’t stay. I just came to tell you that I have got an engagement in the Stanley Theatre, in London, as carpenter, and I am going in less than a fortnight.”
Mr. Muldoon whistled.