i f6c06dd9cf3fe221 by Unknown (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

of the hundred which was the total amount of his estate besides his books. Their generosity had amazed Kate afresh when she had learned that they had been living on annuities, not over large tor their wants, either. Yet there had always been an outfit every year from Miss Tolmache, and clothes for Annie, expensive books from Mr.

Bernard, and sly boxes of chocolates and a pound or two from Mr.

Rex.

Oh, Kate thought, were there ever such people born, as they!

She remembered her last talk with Mr. Bernard: "Take happiness, Kate,"

he had said, holding her hands.

"It's all that matters. To be happy and to make another supremely so is the reason for being. In all my life of thinking and pondering I have come to know this as an essential truth. I learned it a little late, more's the pity, but you, Kate, can build your life on it...."

She wondered if he had known. She thought he had . dear, beloved Mr.

Bernard.

"Will I get the taties from the shop, Kate, or will I fetch them from the docks?"

"Potatoes, Annie!"

"Potatoes... I'm sorry, I forgot."

"Get them from the shop; they are too heavy to carry from the docks.

Here's the list, and that's a ha' penny for your tram back. And don't stop if a man should speak to you, unless you know him; you understand?

"

"Yes, Kate."

"Go on then."

"Here's the postie, Kate," Annie called from the front door. "Postman, I mean," she added.

"All right, dear, I'm coming. Go along."

Kate waited tensely at the door for the postman's approach.

"Two for you," he said, as he put them into her hand.

She looked down at their open flaps . Christmas cards!

Oh, Rodney, what is it? What's happened? The anxiety was like a heavy weight bearing her down.

She returned to the kitchen and stood looking round her; the feeling of being hemmed in, chained for life within these four walls, returned.

That was how she had felt when she had first left the Tolmaches, but Rodney, from last Christmas Eve, had lifted her spiritually out of this house and these streets.

The sufferings she had experienced that night had almost broken her spirit. The humiliation of cowering under the merciless flailing of the belt had affected her more than the physical pain, bringing with it a desire for death. And then he had come. From the moment he entered the room she knew that he alone could give her the desire to live, and she would fight against him no more.

After a week he had gone, leaving her still in bed, dazed with a strange happiness that demanded nothing but the knowledge that they loved each other. And then his letters had come, sometimes every day, at least every other day. They were like beams of clear light shining through the muck of her surroundings.

Only once had they met since . a few stolen hours taken from a broken journey when on his way to a remote corner of Scotland. He had wired her to meet him in Newcastle, and they had sat for most of the time in a restaurant, strangely tongue-tied, offering each other food which they neither wanted not could eat. Her love on that day, as now, was no dazed thing, content with words as it had been earlier in the year.

Her body had cried out to give him all that she knew he desired but for which he would never now ask. His love had taken on a tender quality that seemed foreign to the desire that emanated from him. It puzzled her and made her impatient. If only he would take her by force, would give her no time to be afraid or to reason, no time to think of the future, the time that would come for looking back, and around her at the living consequence of their union . this was what she dreaded, another child, who would perhaps say to her, as Annie had said, "They said I hadn't a da." Later, Annie might forgive her for having, in the ignorance of youth, created her, but would be ashamed of her for having knowingly created another. Her mind had repeated, "She's right," but her heart had cried, "Nothing matters'.

Mrs. Mullen came down the stairs and into the kit t55

chen, breaking in on her thoughts.

"She's a bit brighter this morning, Kate."

"Yes, she seems to have had a good night." Kate changed the loaf tins around on the fender.

"Well, I suppose I'll have to go and make a start," Mrs. Mullen sighed.

"It isn't a bit like Christmas this year. I've no heart to do anything.

What with the war and our Michael I don't know where I am. I just can't get over him. He's never missed mass or benediction for years until lately. Our Peter used to scoff him and say he should be a priest, and now he wants to marry a Nonconformist. "

"She's a nice girl," said Kate.

"I can quite understand him wanting to marry her."

"There are plenty of nice Catholic girls, and you know, Kate, there's no good ever comes of a mixed marriage."

"No, I don't," said Kate sharply.

"I suppose it is better if they are both of the same religion, but if they love each other that's all that matters."

"Love! Kate, you talk like a child." Mrs. Mullen was scornful.

"I'm surprised at you. When you start getting hairns around your feet there's not much time for love. It's quite hard enough when you're both of the same creed; but what's going to happen when he wants them to go to mass and she's bent on sending them to chapel?"

"If they care for each other they'll work that out."

"I wish Father O'Malley thought like that."

"Oh, Father O'Malley!" said Kate bitterly.

"He'll do more harm than good.... Father O'Malley!"

"Aye, I've