The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

2

Her eyes, opening, saw the ceiling, the frozen light of what day? Sight, preceding comprehension, mercifully recorded familiar objects in the strangeness of the whole. Led the blind mind to memory; to this awakening.

She sat up, her hair falling around her shoulders, feeling a gelid draught through the flannel stuff of her nightgown. Her thighs and calves, warmed in the moist snuggle of sheets, were still lax, weary, asleep. The gilded face of her little travelling clock said ten past seven. She lay back, pulling the yellow blankets up to her chin and looked at the room.

A chair, broadbeamed, straight-backed, sat in the alcove by the bay window, an old pensioner staring out at the street. Near the bed, a dressing-table, made familiar by her bottle of cologne, her combs and brushes and her little round box of rouge. Across the worn carpet was a wardrobe of brown varnished wood with a long panel mirror set in its door. She looked in the mirror and saw the end of her bed, the small commotion of her feet ruffling the smooth tucked blankets. The wardrobe was ornamented with whorls and loops and on either side of the door mirror was a circle of light-coloured wood. The circles seemed to her like eyes, mournful wooden eyes on either side of the reflecting mirror nose. She looked away from those eyes to the white marble mantelpiece, cracked down one support, with its brass fender of Arabic design. Her Aunt D’Arcy said good day in silver and sepia-toned arrogance from the exact centre of this arrangement, while beside the gas fire a sagging, green-covered armchair waited its human burden. The carpet below the mantelpiece was worn to brown fibre threads. She hurried on, passing over the small wash-basin, the bed-table with its green lamp, to reach the reassurance of her two big trunks, blacktopped, brass-bound, ready to travel.

She twisted around and unhooked the heavy wool dressing-gown from the bedpost. Put it on her shoulders and slid her feet out of bed into blue, fleecy slippers. Cold, a cold room. She went quickly to the gas fire and turned it on, hearing its startled plop as the match poked it into life. She spread her underthings to warm; then fled back across the worn carpet to bed. Fifteen minutes, she said, it will take fifteen minutes to heat the place at all.

There was no hurry. Friday, a dull day, a day with nothing at all to do. Although it would be interesting at breakfast to see what sort of food Mrs Henry Rice gave and who the others were. She lay abed twenty minutes, then washed in cold water and went shivering to the mean heat of the stove. She slipped on her underthings under the concealing envelope of her nightgown, a habit picked up at the Sacred Heart convent in Armagh and retained, although keeping warm had long supplanted the original motive of modesty, which occasioned the fumblings, the exertions and the slowness of the manoeuvre. When she finally pulled the nightgown over her head, she was fully dressed, except for the dress itself. It was time for her morning hair-brushing exercise. She set great store by it: it kept one’s hair dark, she said, and if you did not wash the hair, ever, it kept its sheen and colour. Her hair, visible proof, was dark brown with a fine thickness and smooth lustre.

So each morning it was her custom to sit conscientiously at the mirror, her head bent to one side, tugging the brush along the thick rope of her hair, counting the strokes, thinking of nothing except the act of doing the exercise, her head jerking slightly with each long, strong stroke of the brush.

But this morning, hair brushing actually had to be hurried because it would never do to be late one’s first morning in a new place. Especially when there were other boarders to meet. She had said three, Mrs Henry Rice, were they men or women? Maybe, most likely, men, and what if one were charming?

Her angular face smiled softly at its glassy image. Her gaze, deceiving, transforming her to her imaginings, changed the contour of her sallow-skinned face, skilfully refashioning her long pointed nose on which a small chilly tear had gathered. Her dark eyes, eyes which skittered constantly in imagined fright, became wide, soft, luminous. Her frame, plain as a cheap clothes-rack, filled now with soft curves, developing a delicate line to the bosom.

She watched the glass, a plain woman, changing all to the delightful illusion of beauty. There was still time: for her ugliness was destined to bloom late, hidden first by the unformed gawkiness of youth, budding to plainness in young womanhood and now flowering to slow maturity in her early forties, it still awaited the subtle garishness which only decay could bring to fruition: a garishness which, when arrived at, would preclude all efforts at the mirror game.

So she played. Woman, she saw her womanish glass image. Pulled her thick hair sideways, framing her imagined face with tresses. Gipsy, she thought fondly, like a gipsy girl on a chocolate box.

But the little clock chittering through the seconds said eight-fifteen and O, what silly thoughts she was having. Gipsy indeed! She rose, sweeping her hair up, the hairpins in her mouth coming out one by one and up, up to disappear in her crowning glory. There (pat) much better. A little more (pat) so. Good. Now, what to wear? A touch of crimson, my special cachet. But which? Reds are so fickle. Still, red is my colour. Vermilion. Yes. The black dress with the vermilion touch at collar and cuffs. Besides, it hasn’t been crushed by the moving.

She opened the wardrobe, breaking the unity of its imagined face. Her dressing-gown fell like a dismantled tent at her feet as she shrugged her angular body into the tight waist seams of the dress. Then, her garnets and the small ruby on her right hand. She rummaged in the jewel box, deciding that the pink and white cameo would be a little too much. But she wore her watch, the little gold wristlet watch that Aunt D’Arcy had given her on her twenty-first birthday. It didn’t really work well any more. The movement was wearing out. But it was a good watch, and very becoming. And goodness knows, she thought, first impressions are often last impressions, as old Herr Rauh used to say.

Then back to the dressing-table to tidy the strands of hair which her dress had ruffled. A teeny touch of rouge, well rubbed in, a dab of powder and a good sharp biting of her lips to make the colour come out. There, much better. She smiled fondly at her fondly smiling image, her nervous dark eyes searching the searching glass. Satisfied, she nodded to the nodding, satisfied face. Yes. On to breakfast.

The dining-room of Mrs Henry Rice’s Camden Street residence was furnished with pieces bought by her late husband’s father. A solid mahogany sideboard bulged from one wall, blossoming fruit bowls and empty whiskey decanters on its marble top. The table, a large oval of the same wood, islanded itself in the centre of the room, making passage difficult on either side. Around the table eight tall chairs rode like ships at anchor. Daylight fought its way down to the room past grey buildings and black backyards, filtering through faded gauze curtains which half hid two narrow windows. Over the sideboard this light discerned a gilt-framed oil painting in which a hunter raised his gun to fire at the misty outline of a stag. Beside the door, like an old blind dog, a grandfather clock wagged away the hours.

Around the table the guests sat in semi-gloom, silent except for the tiny crash of teacups and the tearing of hard toast. Cups and saucers moved up and down the table like items on an assembly belt, entering the little fortress where, ringed around by teapot, hot water jugs, tea cosies, milk jug, sugar bowl, plates, cutlery and a little bell, Mrs Henry Rice dispensed stimulants. Matutinal in a flowered housecoat, her hair sticking out from her head like a forkful of wet hay, she smiled a welcome to Miss Hearne and gestured her to a seat at the opposite end of the room.

‘This is Miss Hearne, our new boarder, everybody. I’ll do the rounds so that you can all get to know her. Now, first, this is Miss Friel. Miss Friel. Miss Hearne.’

Miss Friel bit on her toast and laid the crust reluctantly on her plate. She looked to Miss Hearne and nodded. Light blue dress, grey lisle stockings, short clipped whitish hair, like a fox terrier. A Pioneer Total Abstinence Pin rode her shelving bosom. Hard chapped hands and a red roughness about the wrists. There was a book in front of her, propped up against the jampot.

‘Mr Lenehan.’

Mr Lenehan rose, his head turned sideways, his thin mouth curving into a sickled smile. His clothes were clerical black and a battery of cheap fountain pens raised their silver and gold nozzles like a row of decorations across his chest. His collar was white, waxy, uncomfortable, imprisoning a dark green tie, loosely knotted around a brass collar stud.

‘Vary pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ Mr Lenehan intoned.

Miss Hearne nodded, smiled, her eyes going on to the next, the most interesting.

‘And this is my brother James. Mr Madden. Miss Hearne.’

He was a big man. He alone had risen when she entered. He held his linen napkin like a waiter, waiting to seat her. She looked at his well-fed, rough-red face. His smile showed white false teeth. He was neat, but loudly dressed. A yellow tie with white golf balls on it, a suit of some brown silky stuff like shantung. Her brother, Mrs Henry Rice had said, but surely he was an American. Who else but an American would wear that big bluestone ring on his finger?

‘Glad to know you, Miss Hearne.’

I guessed right. An American for sure, by the sound of him. She smiled, waited for his male movement, the turning away, the rejection. But he winked at her with a merry blue eye and bending down, he drew her chair out from the table. He did not turn away.

They sat down, formally. Mrs Henry Rice asked her preference in matters of sugar and milk. The assembly line was set in motion and from the American’s blue-ringed hand a cup of tea was given into Miss Hearne’s possession. She said her thanks. Mrs Henry Rice smacked the little bell. Jing-jing-jing it cried.

Mary, young and flustered, put her face around the edge of the door.

‘Yes ’m.’

‘Did you bring Mr Bernard up his tray?’

‘Yes, ’m.’

‘Well, bring some hot toast then, for Miss Hearne. And see if the Irish News is here.’

Miss Hearne stirred genteelly. Miss Friel turned a page in her book and noisily bit off another mouthful of toast. Mr Lenehan took out a silver watch, consulted it, snapped the case shut. He slurped his tea and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

‘I’m late,’ he told the company. Nobody said anything. Miss Hearne, trying to be polite, looked at him in inquiry. He saw his audience. ‘Time and tide wait for no man, alas. Isn’t that a fact, Miss Hearne?’

‘Indeed it is, Mr Lenehan.’

‘Well, very nice to have met you,’ Mr Lenehan said, pushing his chair back from the table. He looked at the others. ‘So long, all.’

The American waved his hand. Miss Friel did not look up. Mrs Henry Rice nodded absentmindedly.

‘So long,’ Lenehan said again. And hurried out on his match thin legs. Good riddance, Miss Hearne thought, to bad rubbish. Why did I dislike him so much? O, well, maybe he’s not so bad after all. Old before his time. And something about him. Unpleasant.

She looked at the other. Mr Madden. And saw that he was looking at her. Embarrassed, she turned to Mrs Henry Rice.

‘I see a family resemblance. You and your brother. Yes, there’s a family resemblance, all right.’

‘James spent most of his life in the United States,’ Mrs Henry Rice told Miss Hearne. ‘Some see the likeness between us, but it escapes me. Still, I suppose it’s always that way with brothers and sisters.’

Mr Madden seemed pleased to be included in the conversation. ‘May’s younger than me,’ he offered.

‘But the likeness is there,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘O, it’s there, all right. Are you just over for a holiday, Mr Madden?’

Mr Madden carefully buttered a slice of toast and spread it thick with jam. ‘Lived thirty years in the States,’ he said. ‘New York City. I came back here four months ago.’

‘O! To stay?’

He did not answer. He ate toast. Quickly, she hurried over her gaffe, feeling her face grow hot at his silent snub. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit America,’ she said.

He did not look up. She hurried on: ‘I’m sure you must find Belfast dull, after New York. My goodness, after all that excitement. It’s so up-to-date and everything, New York, I mean.’

Mr Madden arrested his teacup in mid-air, put it back on his saucer. ‘You can say that again. Greatest city in the world.’ His eyes focused, found her and she smiled as though they had mutually agreed on something which had escaped the others. Her awkwardness was forgotten. For once, she had found the key.

‘What part of Ireland you come from?’ he said.

‘O, I’m from Ballymena originally. But I’ve spent most of my time here in Belfast.’

‘That so?’ He produced a package of cigarettes. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘O, no. I don’t smoke myself but smoking never bothers me.’

‘That’s good.’ He laughed without laughter, watching Miss Hearne.

He wants to talk, she thought, he’s lonely. And she returned his look. Then she helped him, made it easy for him to tell what he wanted to tell: America.

‘O, Belfast’s not like New York, I suppose. You must get lots of snow and sunshine there.’

‘All kinds of weather. I’ve seen it go up to a hundred and ten in the shade, in summer. And in winter, down to ten below zero. I’ve seen it so hot you’d have to change your shirt twice in one morning.’ He stopped, vaguely conscious of indelicacy. But she put him at ease.

‘Well, there must be an awful lot of laundry to do then. It must be exhausting. In summer, I mean.’

‘We got air conditioning, and central heating in winter. They never heard of that over here.’

Miss Friel closed her book with a snap and stared at the grandfather clock. She got up and went out without a goodbye. Mrs Henry Rice, informative, drooped her huge bosom over the table like a bag of washing. ‘She’s a schoolteacher,’ she said. ‘Public elementary.’

‘O?’

Mary came in with toast and the Irish News. Miss Hearne took toast, noticed that there were four slices, no sign of an egg, or anything.

‘Butter?’ Mr Madden offered butter and she saw that he was admiring the little gold wristlet watch on her wrist. She was glad she’d worn it. She looked at Mrs Henry Rice but Mrs Henry Rice had opened the Irish News and was reading births, marriages and deaths.

‘And how do you find Ireland, Mr Madden, now that you’ve come home?’

‘Been a lot of changes.’ He stared at the teacup. ‘It’s different.’

‘So you prefer New York then?’

Mr Madden inhaled. Cigarette smoke spewed from his large nostrils. ‘New York’s a rat race,’ he said.

She didn’t know what to answer. Really, what could he mean, a rat race? They certainly had queer expressions, these Yankees.

Mrs Henry Rice put the paper down. ‘You’ll excuse me now, Miss Hearne, but I must go up and say good morning to Bernard. Just ring for Mary if you want more tea.’

As Mrs Henry Rice moved towards the door, Miss Hearne’s nervousness increased. She had been forward, no two ways about it, asking all those questions, leading him on. And now she was to be left alone with him. Alone. The dining-room with its cold morning light, its heavy furniture, its dirty teacups and plates, became quiet as a church. Alone with this lonely stranger, she waited for his fumbled excuses, his departure. For now that the others had gone, it would be as it had always been. He would see her shyness, her stiffness. And it would frighten him, he would remember that he was alone with her. He would listen politely to whatever inanity she would manage to get out and then he would see the hysteria in her eyes, the hateful hot flush in her cheeks. And he would go as all men had gone before him.

And as she waited, with her hands pressed hard against the edge of the table, she felt the blushes start, the hateful redness and fire creep up her neck. She set her features in a stiff, silly smile and scuffed her feet under the table. She turned to him, still smiling, and a mechanical silly voice leaped out of her mouth, shocking her with the forward thing it said:

‘O, you must tell me more about America, Mr Madden. I’d love to go there.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I could talk all day and never finish. What did you have in mind?’

In mind. Something, something had to be said.

‘Well, is it true that the men over there put their wives on a pedestal, so to speak?’

He laughed, a big heavy laugh. He didn’t seem at all put out by her blushes, by her silly voice.

‘Yes, that’s correct, more’s the pity. That’s what’s wrong with the system, if you want to know. Guys beating their brains out to keep their wives in mink. It’s the women’s fault. No good. You should see some of the girls that walk on Broadway or Fifth. All dressed up with a dollar sign for a heart. Walking cash registers. Me, I wouldn’t have nothing to do with them.’

Wouldn’t have nothing, well, he certainly wasn’t very well educated, whatever else he was. So he didn’t get married. ‘O, that’s not like Ireland, Mr Madden. Why, the men are gods here, I honestly do believe.’

‘And right too. Head of the house. That’s the teaching of the Church. What the man says goes. Now, in the States, the women want it both ways. They do no work and they want to be boss as well. And dumb, well, you wouldn’t believe how dumb some of those dames are.’

He was so big, so male as he said it that she felt the blushes start up again. His big hand thumped the table.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Irishmen certainly wouldn’t stand for that, would they?’

‘Every man’s a sucker for a good shape. I know. In my business, you see some funny things.’

Dangerous waters. Discussing women’s figures, well, who but an American would have the vulgarity? Change the subject. ‘And what is your business, Mr Madden?’

‘Hotel business. I was in the hotel business right on Times Square. You’ve heard of Times Square?’

‘O, yes, of course. I’ve seen it on the newsreels. When the war was over and it showed all the people cheering. And all those huge advertisements. O, it must be an exciting place to live.’

He smiled: ‘Times Square. Watch the world go by. The things I’ve seen in fifteen years on Broadway. It’s an education. Why, I couldn’t even begin to …’

‘Well, don’t begin then,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. She stood at the opened door, monumental, stern. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Hearne, but I must let Mary tidy up. Jim would sit here all day boring the life out of you with his talk about New York.’

‘O, but it isn’t boring, Mrs Rice. On the contrary, I think it’s most exciting.’

Mr Madden stood up, indignant. He pointed at Miss Hearne. ‘This lady is interested in what goes on in the world. Not like you and Bernie.’

Mrs Rice did not seem to hear. ‘There’s such a lot of work to be done. You know what maids are like, Miss Hearne. You have to be after them all the time. That’s why I like to have the dining-room done by ten.’

‘Of course.’

Mr Madden went to the door. ‘Glad to have met you, Miss Hearne. We must have another talk real soon.’

‘Yes, indeed we must.’ Said with her gayest smile to show him she liked him.

Then Mrs Henry Rice offered her the Irish News to read and she took it and went upstairs to her room to finish unpacking. No need to hurry. Going over her linens, her packages of letters, and her collection of picture postcards, laying each thing away carefully in tissue paper, all of it could take a long time if you did it methodically. A long time.

But when the big trunks were opened and their trays were laid on the bed, Miss Hearne knelt in silence on the floor, abstracted, her hands idle, her mind filled with what had happened that morning. He had been so glad to talk to her. And he had looked so big and stern and manly, hammering his fist on the table while he laid down the law to her. A big handsome man with that strange American voice.

He came into the room, late at night, tired after a day at work in his hotel. He took off his jacket and hung it up. He put his dressing-gown on and sat down in his armchair and she went to him prettily, sat on his knee while he told her how things had gone that day. And he kissed her. Or, enraged about some silly thing she had done, he struck out with his great fist and sent her reeling, the brute. But, contrite afterwards, he sank to his knees and begged forgiveness.

Judy Hearne, she said, you’ve got to stop right this minute. Imagine romancing about every man that comes along.

Her busy hands flew, unpacking the linen sheets, putting them away in the dresser drawer. But she paused in the centre of the room. He noticed me. He was attracted. The first in ages. Well, that’s only because I’ve been keeping myself to myself too much. Go out and meet new people and you’ll see, she told her mirror face. And the face in the mirror told it back to her, agreeing.

Why did he come home to Ireland? A visit maybe, to see his family. But he doesn’t seem on very good terms with his sister. He’ll go back to New York, of course, back to his hotel. Mr and Mrs James Madden, of New York, sailed from Southampton yesterday in the Queen Mary. Mr Madden is a prominent New York hotelier and his bride is the former Judith Hearne, only daughter of the late Mr and Mrs Charles B. Hearne, of Ballymena. The honeymoon? Niagara Falls, isn’t that the place Americans go? Or perhaps Paris, before we sail.

But the mirror face grew stern and cross. You hardly know him, it said. And he’s common, really he is, with that ring and that bright flashy tie. O, no he’s not, she said. Don’t be provincial. Americans dress differently, that’s all.