“Wait until you have children, my dear,” said Mrs. Cafferty, “you won’t be so pernickety then.” She further told Mary that when she was herself younger she had often spent an hour and a half doing up her hair, and she had been so particular that the putting on of a blouse or the pinning of a skirt to a belt had tormented her happily for two hours. “But, bless you,” she roared, “you get out of all that when you get children. Wait till you have six of them to be dressed every morning, and they with some of their boots lost and the rest of them mixed up, and each of them wriggling like an eel on a pan until you have to slap the devil out of them before their stocking can be got on: the way they screw their toes up in the wrong places and the way they squeal that you’re pinching them! and the way that they say you’ve rubbed soap in their eyes!”—Mrs. Cafferty lifted her eyes and her hands to the ceiling in a dumb remonstrance with Providence, and dropped them again forlornly as one in whom Providence had never been really interested “you’ll have all the dressing you want, and a bit over for luck,” said she.
She complimented Mary on her hair, her complexion, the smallness of her feet, the largeness of her eyes, the slenderness of her waist, the width of her hat and of her shoestrings: so impartially and inclusively did she compliment her that by the time they went out Mary was rosy with appreciation and as self-confident as a young girl is entitled to be.
It was a beautiful grey day, with a massy sky which seemed as if it never could move again or change, and, as often happens in Ireland in cloudy weather, the air was so very clear that one could see to a great distance. On such days everything stands out in sharp outline. A street is no longer a congeries of houses huddling shamefully together and terrified lest anyone should look at them and laugh. Each house then recaptures its individuality. The very roadways are aware of themselves, and bear their horses and cars and trams in a competent spirit, adorned with modesty as with a garland. It has a beauty beyond sunshine, for sunshine is only youth and carelessness. The impress of a thousand memories, the historic visage, becomes apparent; the quiet face which experience has ripened into knowledge and mellowed into the wisdom of charity is seen then; the great social beauty shines from the streets under this sky that broods like a thoughtful forehead.
While they walked Mrs. Cafferty planned, as a general might, her campaign of shopping. Her shopping differed greatly from Mrs. Makebelieve’s, and the difference was probably caused by her necessity to feed and clothe eight people as against Mrs. Makebelieve’s two. Mrs. Makebelieve went to the shop nearest her house, and there entered into a staunch personal friendship with the proprietor. When she was given anything of doubtful value or material she instantly returned and handed it back, and the prices which were first quoted to her and settled upon became to Mrs. Makebelieve an unalterable standard from which no departure would be tolerated. Eggs might go up in price for the remainder of the world, but not for her. A change of price threw Mrs. Makebelieve into so wide-eyed, so galvanic, so powerfully-verbal and friendship-shattering an anger that her terms were accepted and registered as Median exactitudes. Mrs. Cafferty, on the other hand, knew shopkeepers as personal enemies and as foes to the human race, who were bent on despoiling the poor, and against whom a remorseless warfare should be conducted by all decent people. Her knowledge of material, of quality, of degrees of freshness, of local and distant prices was profound. In Clanbrassil Street she would quote the prices of Moore Street with shattering effect, and if the shopkeeper declined to revise his tariff her good-humoured voice toned so huge a disapproval that other intending purchasers left the shop impressed by the unmasking of a swindler. Her method was abrupt. She seized an article, placed it on the counter, and uttered these words, “Sixpence and not a penny more; I can get it in Moore Street for fivepence halfpenny.” She knew all the shops having a cheap line in some special article, and, therefore, her shopping was of a very extended description; not that she went from point to point, for she continually departed from the line of battle with the remark, “Let’s try what they have here,” and when inside the shop her large eye took in at a glance a thousand details of stock and price which were never afterwards forgotten.
Mrs. Cafferty’s daughter, Nora, was going to celebrate her first Communion in a few days. This is a very important ceremony for a young girl and for her mother. A white muslin dress and a blue sash, a white muslin hat with blue ribbons, tan shoes, and stockings as germane to the colour of tan as may be—these all have to be provided. It is a time of grave concern for everybody intimately connected with the event. Every girl in the world has performed this ceremony: they have all been clad in these garments and shoes, and for a day or so all women, of whatever age, are in love with the little girl making her first Communion. Perhaps more than anything else it swings the passing stranger back to the time when she was not a woman but a child with present gaiety and curiosity, and a future all expectation and adventure. Therefore, the suitable apparelling of one’s daughter is a public duty, and every mother endeavours to do the thing that is right, and live, if only for one day, up to the admiration of her fellow creatures.
It was a
