“It’s nothin’ o’ the kind,” cried a big, large-boned, red-faced, strong, handsome woman, called Connemara Maggie. “We hate ye because yer a stuck-up, ignorant thing, that thinks she’s better than what God turned her into; an’ God forgive me for sayin’ so—”
“More power to ye, Maggie,” interrupted several, “tell her yer mind.”
“I don’t mind what you say, Connemara Maggie,” gasped the fur-coated one. “You’re not the worst of them and—”
“Good God,” shouted Aunt Betty, suddenly putting her hands to her breasts.
She backed to the wall, staring furtively at the fur-coated woman. She was in the power of one of her “visions.” Gypo stared at the woman in the fur coat with his arms hanging loosely by his sides.
“Listen,” continued the woman, “I don’t bear any of you any malice. You can’t help it, any of you. I don’t bear even you any malice, Aunt Betty. I know very well that were it not for you I would starve or … or be in a worse place. I have been in your house a month now and you’ve been kind to me. I know very well nobody can help anything. I’m English, an army officer’s wife, so it’s only natural that you girls would be prejudiced against me—”
“It’s nothing o’ the kind,” cried Connemara Maggie; “it’s yer stuck-up ways that—”
“Let her have her say, Maggie,” cried another.
“I had no right to come in here,” cried the woman, bursting into tears. “I should have gone to the police and got them—”
“The police!” yelled Gypo suddenly, starting as if he had been awakened from his sleep. “None o’ that talk. Keep away from the police. What d’ye want the police for?”
“I want to get back home,” sobbed the woman.
“Where’s yer home?”
“It’s … it’s near London.”
“Well, what are ye doin’ over here then?”
“I got this,” cried the woman, becoming hysterical again. She put a trembling hand to her disfigured cheek. “I got this a year ago. It’s driven me mad. My husband took another woman. I sold everything I had and came over to Dublin. I wanted to go to work. Honest to God, I did. But I could get nothing. Then a man brought me down here. Good God, the shame of telling you all this in a place like this … the …”
“D’ye want to go home now?” cried Gypo angrily.
She did not reply, but looked at him with large eyes, as if in amazement.
“What’ll bring ye home?” he continued. “How much will it cost?”
“A little over two pounds,” she replied in a low voice.
“Here,” he cried, taking out his money, “here’s yer fare. One, two, three,” he paused and was going to add a fourth, but he put it back. He handed her the three notes. She shrank backwards, looking at the money with large eyes.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a strange, dreamy voice. “Take the money an’ get outa here. That’s enough to take ye home. Go back home. Yer not wanted here. You an’ yer husband and the police. Ye better keep away from the police, I’m tellin’ ye. Go on. Beat it. Get outa here.”
Staring him in the face, trembling, with her mouth open, she seized the notes suddenly. Then uttering an exclamation, she looked about her once and rushed to the door.
“Go off now,” cried Gypo after her. “Go off now.”
Everybody stared at the door through which she disappeared, banging it after her. There was silence. Then Aunt Betty spoke:
“That’s all very well,” she sniggered; “but she owes me two pound ten. Who’s goin’ to pay me that? It’s all very well doin’ the—”
“Shut up yer gob,” cried Gypo, “here’s two pound for ye. That’s enough. Not another word outa ye.” He threw two pound notes at her. Then he threw out his arms. “Who’s comin’ to bed with me,” he cried, “before the bank is broke?”
“I am, me bould son o’ gosha,” cried Connemara Maggie, rushing to him, with her yellow curly hair streaming about her face and her blue eyes dancing.
She enveloped his neck with her brawny arms.
X
At fifteen minutes to one, Bartly Mulholland entered Biddy Burke’s kitchen and sat by the fire. Nobody addressed him. He saluted nobody. Biddy Burke was sitting on the other side of the fire, on a stool, smoking a cigarette.
Biddy Burke was a middle-aged woman with a lowering expression in her black eyes, with puffed-out, sallow cheeks and a swollen throat. She was of the type of Irishwoman that is prone to sudden passions, due to the habit of eating enormous meals and then suffering from digestive disorders. They are tenderhearted people, utterly lacking in an aesthetic sense, violent, quarrelsome, savage, generous, inconsistent. Biddy was dressed in a white blouse and a blue skirt. She wore her greyish hair drawn back to her poll tightly and parted in the middle according to the peasant fashion.
There were other people in the room, two young women who sat on chairs and Jimmy “the fancy man,” who lay on his right side, on the settle opposite the fire.
Mulholland looked around the room slowly. Then he spoke.
“Was Gypo Nolan here this evenin’, Mrs. Burke?” he said.
Biddy Burke slowly shook her head, carefully examining Mulholland’s face as she did so. Then, as if she suddenly remembered something important, she leaned forward and bunched her lips together.
“There hasn’t a man stood within me door this blessed night,” she said in her rough, croaky voice. “No, nor damn the bottle o’ stout did I sell. That’s the God’s truth. Some people find Biddy Burke all right when they’re in trouble an’ they got nothin’, but when their tune changes they give her a wide berth. I’ll soon be in the workhouse at the rate things are goin’. I never saw anythin’ like it. The country is goin’ to the wall. That’s all there’s to it. I knew they’d make a mess of it
