NEWS FOR THE CHURCH

When Father Cassidy drew back the shutter of the confessional he was a
little surprised at the appearance of the girl at the other side of
the grille. It was dark in the box but he could see she was young, of
medium height and build, with a face that was full of animation and
charm. What struck him most was the long pale slightly freckled
cheeks, pinned high up behind the grey-blue eyes, giving them a
curiously oriental slant.

She wasn’t a girl from the town, for he knew most of these by sight
and many of them by something more, being notoriously an easy-going
confessor. The other priests said that one of these days he’d give up
hearing confessions altogether on the ground that there was no such
thing as sin and that even if there was it didn’t matter. This was
part and parcel of his exceedingly angular character, for though he
was kind enough to individual sinners, his mind was full of obscure
abstract hatreds. He hated England; he hated the Irish government, and
he particularly hated the middle classes, though so far as anyone knew
none of them had ever done him the least bit of harm. He was a
heavy-built man, slow-moving and slow-thinking with no neck and a
Punchinello chin, a sour wine-coloured face, pouting crimson lips, and
small blue hot-tempered eyes.

“Well, my child,” he grunted in a slow and mournful voice that sounded
for all the world as if he had pebbles in his mouth, “how long is it
since your last confession?”

“A week, father,” she replied in a clear firm voice. It surprised him
a little, for though she didn’t look like one of the tough shots,
neither did she look like the sort of girl who goes to confession
every week. But with women you could never tell. They were all
contrary, saints and sinners.

“And what sins did you commit since then?” he asked encouragingly.

“I told lies, father.”

“Anything else?”

“I used bad language, father.”

“I’m surprised at you,” he said with mock seriousness. “An educated
girl with the whole of the English language at your disposal! What
sort of bad language?”

“I used the Holy Name, father.”

“Ach,” he said with a frown, “you ought to know better than that.
There’s no great harm in damning and blasting but blasphemy is a
different thing. To tell you the truth,” he added, being a man of
great natural honesty, “there isn’t much harm in using the Holy Name
either. Most of the time there’s no intentional blasphemy but at the
same time it coarsens the character. It’s all the little temptations
we don’t indulge in that give us true refinement. Anything else?”

“I was tight, father.”

“Hm,” he grunted. This was rather more the sort of girl he had
imagined her to be; plenty of devilment but no real badness. He liked
her bold and candid manner. There was no hedging or false modesty
about her as about most of his women penitents. “When. you say you
were ‘tight’ do you mean you were just merry or what?”

“Well, I mean I passed out,” she replied candidly with a shrug.

“I don’t call that ‘tight,’ you know,” he said sternly. “I call that
beastly drunk. Are you often tight?”

“I’m a teacher in a convent school so I don’t get much chance,” she
replied ruefully.

“In a convent school?” he echoed with new interest. Convent schools
and nuns were another of his phobias; he said they were turning the
women of the country into imbeciles. “Are you on holidays now?”

“Yes. I’m on my way home.”

“You don’t live here then?”

“No, down the country.”

“And is it the convent that drives you to drink?” he asked with an air
of unshakable gravity.

“Well,” she replied archly, “you know what nuns are.”

“I do,” he agreed in a mournful voice while he smiled at her through
the grille. “Do you drink with your parents’ knowledge?” he added
anxiously.

“Oh, yes. Mummy is dead but Daddy doesn’t mind. He lets us take a
drink with him.”

“Does he do that on principle or because he’s afraid of you?” the
priest asked dryly.

“Ah, I suppose a little of both,” she answered gaily, responding to
his queer dry humour. It wasn’t often that women did, and he began to
like this one a lot.

“Is your mother long dead?” he asked sympathetically.

“Seven years,” she replied, and he realized that she couldn’t have
been much more than a child at the time and had grown up without a
mother’s advice and care. Having worshipped his own mother, he was
always sorry for people like that.

“Mind you,” he said paternally, his hands joined on his fat belly, “I
don’t want you to think there’s any harm in a drop of drink. I take it
myself. But I wouldn’t make a habit of it if I were you. You see, it’s
all very well for old jossers like me that have the worst of their
temptations behind them, but yours are all ahead and drink is a thing
that grows on you. You need never be afraid of going wrong if you
remember that your mother may be watching you from heaven.”

“Thanks, father,” she said, and he saw at once that his gruff appeal
had touched some deep and genuine spring of feeling in her. “I’ll cut it
out altogether.”

“You know, I think I would,” he said gravely, letting his eyes rest on
her for a moment. “You’re an intelligent girl. You can get all the
excitement you want out of life without that. What else?”

“I had bad thoughts, father.”

“Ach,” he said regretfully, “we all have them. Did you indulge them?”

“Yes, father.”

“Have you a boy?”

“Not a regular: just a couple of fellows hanging round.”

“Ah, that’s worse than none at all,” he said crossly. “You ought to
have a boy of your own. I know there’s old cranks that will tell you
different, but sure, that’s plain foolishness. “Those things are only
fancies, and the best cure for them is something real. Anything else?”

There was a moment’s hesitation before she replied but it was enough
to prepare him for what was coming.

“I had carnal intercourse with a man, father,” she said quietly and
deliberately.

“You what?” he cried, turning on her incredulously. “You had carnal
intercourse with a man? At your age?”

“I know,” she said with a look of distress. “It’s awful.”

“It is awful,” he replied slowly and solemnly. “And how often did it
take place?”

“Once, father—I mean twice, but on the same occasion.”

“Was it a married man?” he asked, frowning.

“No, father, single. At least I think he was single,” she added with
sudden doubt.

“You had carnal intercourse with a man,” he said accusingly, “and you
don’t know if he was married or single!”

“I assumed he was single,” she said with real distress. “He was the
last time I met him but, of course, that was five years ago.”

“Five years ago? But you must have been only a child then.”

“That’s all, of course,” she admitted. “He was courting my sister,
Kate, but she wouldn’t have him. She was running round with her
present husband at the time and she only kept him on a string for
amusement. I knew that and I hated her because he was always so nice
to me. He was the only one that came to the house who treated me like
a grown-up. But I was only fourteen, and I suppose he thought I was
too young for him.”

“And were you?” Father Cassidy asked ironically. For some reason he
had the idea that this young lady had no proper idea of the enormity
of her sin and he didn’t like it.

“I suppose so,” she replied modestly. “But I used to feel awful, being
sent up to bed and leaving him downstairs with Kate when I knew she
didn’t care for him. And then when I met him again the whole thing
came back. I sort of went all soft inside. It’s never the same with
another fellow as it is with the first fellow you fall for. It’s
exactly as if he had some sort of hold over you.”.

“If you were fourteen at the time,” said Father Cassidy, setting aside
the obvious invitation to discuss the power of first love, “you’re
only nineteen now.”

“That’s all.”

“And do you know,” he went on broodingly, “that unless you can break
yourself of this terrible vice once for all it’ll go on like that till
you’re fifty?”

“I suppose so,” she said doubtfully, but he saw that she didn’t
suppose anything of the kind.

“You suppose so!” he snorted angrily. “I’m telling you so. And what’s
more,” he went on, speaking with all the earnestness at his command,
“it won’t be just one man but dozens of men, and it won’t be decent
men but whatever low-class pups you can find who’ll take advantage of
you—the same horrible, mortal sin, week in week out till you’re an old
woman.”

“Ah, still, I don’t know,” she said eagerly, hunching her shoulders
ingratiatingly, “I think people do it as much from curiosity as
anything else.”

“Curiosity?” he repeated in bewilderment.

“Ah, you know what I mean,” she said with a touch of
impatience. “People make such a mystery of it!”

“And what do you think they should do?” he asked ironically. “Publish
it in the papers?”

“Well, God knows, ’twould be better than the way some of them go on,”
she said in a rush. “Take my sister, Kate, for instance. I admit she’s
a couple of years older than me and she brought me up and all the rest
of it, but in spite of that we were always good friends. She showed me
her love letters and I showed her mine. I mean, we discussed things as
equals, but ever since that girl got married you’d hardly recognize
her. She talks to no one only other married women, and they get in a
huddle in a corner and whisper, whisper, whisper, and the moment you
come into the room they begin to talk about the weather, exactly as if
you were a blooming kid! I mean you can’t help feeling ’tis something
extraordinary.”

“Don’t you try and tell me anything about immorality,” said Father
Cassidy angrily. “I know all about it already. It may begin as
curiosity but it ends as debauchery. There’s no vice you could think
of that gets a grip on you quicker and degrades you worse, and don’t
you make any mistake about it, young woman! Did this man say anything
about marrying you?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied thoughtfully, “but of course that
doesn’t mean anything. He’s an airy, light-hearted sort of fellow and
it mightn’t occur to him.”

“I never supposed it would,” said Father Cassidy grimly. “Is he in a
position to marry?”

“I suppose he must be since he wanted to marry Kate,” she replied with
fading interest.

“And is your father the sort of man that can be trusted to talk to
him?”

“Daddy?” she exclaimed aghast. “But I don’t want Daddy brought into
it.”

“What you want, young woman,” said Father Cassidy with sudden
exasperation, “is beside the point. Are you prepared to talk to this
man yourself?”

“I suppose so,” she said with a wondering smile. “But about what?”

“About what?” repeated the priest angrily. “About the little matter he
so conveniently overlooked, of course.”

“You mean ask him to marry me?” she cried incredulously. “But I don’t
want to marry him.”

Father Cassidy paused for a moment and looked at her anxiously through
the grille. It was growing dark inside the church, and for one
horrible moment he had the feeling that somebody was playing an
elaborate and most tasteless joke on him.

“Do you mind telling me,” he inquired politely, “am I mad or are you?”

“But I mean it, father,” she said eagerly. “It’s all over and done
with now. It’s something I used to dream about, and it was grand, but
you can’t do a thing like that a second time.”

“You can’t what?” he asked sternly.

“I mean, I suppose you can, really,” she said, waving her piously
joined hands at him as if she were handcuffed, “but you can’t get back
the magic of it. Terry is light-hearted and good-natured, but I
couldn’t live with him. He’s completely irresponsible.”

“And what do you think you are?” cried Father Cassidy, at the end of
his patience. “Have you thought of all the dangers you’re running,
girl? If you have a child who’ll give you work? If you have to leave
this country to earn a living what’s going to become of you? I tell
you it’s your bounden duty to marry this man if he can be got to marry
you—which, let me tell you,” he added with a toss of his great head,
“I very much doubt.”

“To tell you the truth I doubt it myself,” she replied with a shrug
that fully expressed her feelings about Terry and nearly drove Father
Cassidy insane. He looked at her for a moment or two and then an
incredible idea began to dawn on his bothered old brain. He sighed and
covered his face with his hand.

“Tell me,” he asked in a far-away voice, “when did this take place?”

“Last night, father,” she said gently, almost as if she were glad to
see him come to his senses again.

“My God,” he thought despairingly, “I was right!”

“In town, was it?” he went on.

“Yes, father. We met on the train coming down.”

“And where is he now?”

“He went home this morning, father.”

“Why didn’t you do the same?”

“I don’t know, father,” she replied doubtfully as though the question
had now only struck herself for the first time.

“Why didn’t you go home this morning?” he repeated angrily. “What were
you doing round town all day?”

“I suppose I was walking,” she replied uncertainly.

“And of course you didn’t tell anyone?”

“I hadn’t anyone to tell,” she said plaintively. “Anyway,” she added
with a shrug, “it’s not the sort of thing you can tell people.”

“No, of course,” said Father Cassidy. “Only a priest,” he added grimly
to himself. He saw now how he had been taken in. This little trollop,
wandering about town in a daze of bliss, had to tell someone her
secret, and he, a good-natured old fool of sixty, had allowed her to
use him as a confidant. A philosopher of sixty letting Eve, aged
nineteen, tell him all about the apple! He could never live it down.

Then the fighting blood of the Cassidys began to warm in him. Oh,
couldn’t he, though? He had never tasted the apple himself, but he
knew a few things about apples in general and that apple in particular
that little Miss Eve wouldn’t learn in a whole lifetime of
apple-eating. Theory might have its drawbacks but there were times
when it was better than practice. “All right, my lass,” he thought
grimly, “we’ll see which of us knows most!”

In a casual tone he began to ask her questions. They were rather
intimate questions, such as a doctor or priest may ask, and, feeling
broadminded and worldly-wise in her new experience, she answered
courageously and straightforwardly, trying to suppress all signs of
her embarrassment. It emerged only once or twice, in a brief pause
before she replied. He stole a furtive look at her to see how she was
taking it, and once more he couldn’t withhold his admiration. But she
couldn’t keep it up. First she grew uncomfortable and then alarmed,
frowning and shaking herself in her clothes as if something were
biting her. He grew graver and more personal. She didn’t see his
purpose; she only saw that he was stripping off veil after veil of
romance, leaving her with nothing but a cold, sordid, cynical
adventure like a bit of greasy meat on a plate.

“And what did he do next?” he asked.

“Ah,” she said in disgust, “I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t notice!” he repeated ironically.

“But does it make any difference?” she burst out despairingly, trying
to pull the few shreds of illusion she had left more tightly about
her.

“I presume you thought so when you came to confess it,” he replied
sternly.

“But you’re making it sound so beastly!” she wailed.

“And wasn’t it?” he whispered, bending closer, lips pursed and brows
raised. He had her now, he knew.

“Ah, it wasn’t, father,” she said earnestly. “Honest to God it
wasn’t. At least at the time I didn’t think it was.”

“No,” he said grimly, “you thought it was a nice little story to run
and tell your sister. You won’t be in such a hurry to tell her
now. Say an Act of Contrition.”

She said it.

“And for your penance say three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.”

He knew that was hitting below the belt, but he couldn’t resist the
parting shot of a penance such as he might have given a child. He knew
it would rankle in that fanciful little head of hers when all his
other warnings were forgotten. Then he drew the shutter and didn’t
open the farther one. There was a noisy woman behind, groaning in an
excess of contrition. The mere volume of sound told him it was
drink. He felt he needed a breath of fresh air.

He went down the aisle creakily on his heavy policeman’s-feet and in
the dusk walked up and down the path before the presbytery, head
bowed, hands behind his back. He saw the girl come out and descend the
steps under the massive fluted columns of the portico, a tiny, limp,
dejected figure. As she reached the pavement she pulled herself
together with a jaunty twitch of her shoulders and then collapsed
again. The city lights went on and made globes of coloured light in
the mist. As he returned to the church he suddenly began to chuckle, a
fat good-natured chuckle, and as he passed the statue of St. Anne,
patron of marriageable girls, he almost found himself giving her a
wink.


(1945)