Synge (22 page)

Bride
[
showing it to him
]. Isn’t it a fine bow she’s made with bits of rags that we found? I was watching her do it, and I’m telling you she’s a wonder surely.

Colm
[
with reserve
]. She is clever with her fingers.

Bride
. Wait till your honour sees the way she has the room beyond, with fine flowers in, and white candles, and grand clothes on the bed, and your poor uncle lying so easy with his eyes shut you’d be thinking it was an old man in his sleep. [
Turning to the fire with a sigh
.] Ah, it’s a long way any person would go seeking the like of Sister Eileen, and it’s very lonesome your honour’ll be tomorrow or the next day when she is gone away to the town.

Colm
. She will stay for the funeral.

Bride
. And what day, if myself may ask, will the funeral be?

Colm
. I have settled it for Friday, but it was not easy, there were so many things to arrange.

Bride
. It’s great trouble the rich do have when there is even an old man to be buried, and it was that, I’m thinking, kept you a whole evening in the town.

Colm
. It kept me a good while, but I went wrong going home, and took the road through the bogs to the graveyard of Glan-na-nee.

Bride.
The Lord have mercy on us! There does be no one at all passing that way but a few men do be carting turf, and isn’t it a great wonder your honour got home safe, and wasn’t lost in the hills?

Colm.
I hardly knew where I was, but I found a woman there who told me my way.

Bride
. It was a lonesome place for a woman, God help her, and the night coming.

Colm
. She was nearly crazy I think, but she must have known the trap for she called out to me by my name and asked my uncle.

Bride
[
greatly interested
]. And was it much she said to your honour?

Colm
. At first she spoke sensibly and told me how I was to go, but when she tried to say something else she had on her mind she got so confused I could not follow her. Then the mare got frightened at a sort of cry she gave, and I had to come away.

Bride.
She was a big tall woman I’m thinking, with a black shawl on her, and black hair round her face? [
She begins blowing the fire with her mouth
.]

Colm.
Then you know who she is?

Bride
. She’s Mary Costello, your honour. [
She goes on blowing
.]

Colm
. A beggar woman?

Bride
[
indignantly
]. Not she a beggar woman … She’s a Costello from the old Castilian family, and it’s fine people they were at one time, big wealthy nobles of the cities of Spain, and herself was the finest girl you’d find in the whole world, with nice manners, and white hands on her, for she was reared with the nuns, as it’s likely you’ve heard tell from his honour, God rest his soul.

Colm
. If he ever spoke of her I do not remember it. Why should he have told me about her?

Bride.
It’s a long story, and a sad pitiful story. I’d have a right to tell you one day maybe if the Lord Almighty keep us alive, but Sister Eileen will be coming now, and the two of you won’t be needing the like of that to trouble you at all.

[
She stands up and sweeps up the hearth
.]

Colm.
Has she been long out of her mind?

Bride
. A long while in and out of it. It’s ten years she was below in the Asylum, and it was a great wonder the way you’d see her in there, not lonesome at all with the great lot were coming in from all the houses in the country, and herself as well off as any lady in England, France, or Germany, walking round in the gardens with fine shoes on her feet. Ah, it was well for her in there, God help her, for she was always a nice quiet woman, and a fine woman to look at, and I’ve heard tell it was ‘Your Ladyship’ they would call her, the time they’d be making fun among themselves.

Colm
. I wonder if I ever saw her before. Her face reminded me of something, or Someone, but I cannot remember where I have met it.

Bride
[
going up to the portrait over the fireplace
]. Let you come and look here, your Honour, and I’m thinking you’ll see.

Colm
[
going over
]. Yes, that is the woman. But it was done years ago.

Bride
. Long years surely, your honour, and it’s time the whole thing was forgot, for what call has any man to be weighing his mind with the like of it and he storing sorrows till the judgement day?

[
She goes over to window
.
Colm
takes down picture and looks at it closely in the lamp-light
.]

Bride
[
looking out
]. Sister Eileen’s coming now, and I’ll be going off to my bed, for I’m thinking the two of you won’t be needing me, and it’s a right yourselves would have to be going to rest, and not sitting here talking and talking in the dark night, when people are better sleeping, and not destroying their souls, pausing and watching and they thinking over the great troubles of the world.

[She goes out, and in a moment
Sister Eileen
comes in quickly from the door which leads into the open air. She is pleased and relieved when she sees
Colm
.]

Sister Eileen
.
You have come back? I was afraid something had happened.

Colm
. I have been in some time.

Sister Eileen
. I thought I would hear the wheels, and I went right down to the lake the night is so beautiful …You have arranged everything?

Colm.
I sent a number of telegrams, and waited for answers. He is to be buried on Friday at Glan-na-nee, and the coffin will come down tomorrow.

Sister Eileen
. When the storm broke I was sorry you had gone; you must have got very wet on the road across the mountains.

Colm
. It rained heavily on Slieve na-Ruadh, but I am nearly dry again.

Sister Eileen.
I was out for a little while getting flowers for your uncle’s room, but I did not find many they were so broken with the rain.

Colm
. Then you saw what a change the rain has made among the trees.

Sister Eileen
. It has ended the spring. I was just thinking what a difference there is since I arrived here three months ago, with the moonlight shining everywhere on the snow.

Colm
. It seems like three years since you telegraphed for me, we have made such a world for ourselves.

Sister Eileen
[
changing the subject
]. What have you got there?

Colm
. It is the picture from that corner. [
He turns it round to her
.] I saw her tonight at the graveyard of Glan-na-nee.

Sister Eileen.
What took you out there, surely that was not your way?

Colm
. I went wrong coming home, and this woman put me right. Do you know anything of the woman?

Sister Eileen
. I have heard a good deal about her, perhaps more than you have.

Colm.
Bride has been telling me that she was a long time in the Asylum, and that she was connected in some way with my uncle.

Sister Eileen.
He wanted to marry her although she was beneath him, but when it was all arranged she broke it off because he did not believe in God.

Colm.
And after that she went mad?

Sister Eileen
. After that. And your uncle shut himself up. He told me it was nearly twenty years since it happened, and yet he had never spoken of it to anyone. I do not think he would have told me if it had not been for his dislike of religious orders and the clothes I wear.

Colm.
You mean he told you as a warning … And yet I suppose you take her as an example to be followed.

Sister Eileen
. She did what was right. No woman who was really a Christian could have done anything else …

Colm
. I wish you had seen her tonight screaming and crying out over the bogs.

Sister Eileen
. I do not want to see her … I have seen your uncle for three months and his death today. That is enough.

Colm.
It is far from enough if it has not made you realize that in evading her impulses this woman did what was wrong and brought this misery on my uncle and herself.

Sister Eileen
[
giving him back the picture
]. We cannot argue about it. We do not see things the same way … Has she changed a great deal since that was done?

Colm
. Less than he has. [
He hangs the picture up again
.] He was right in thinking that their story is a warning … At the time they were about the ages we are tonight, and now one is a mad woman, and the other has been tortured to death – [
Some one knocks.
] Come in!

[
Bride
, half rolled in a shawl, as if she was not fully dressed, comes in with a telegram.]

Bride
[
giving it to Sister Eileen
]. That has just come for you now, Sister Eileen. It came into town after Mr. Colm had gone away, and they gave it to an old man was driving out west with an ass and cart.

[
Sister Eileen
takes it and reads it left.
Bride
takes
Colm
right
.]

Bride
[
whispering
]. I heard from the old man he seen Mary Costello coming in great haste over the hills, so let your honour not be afeard if you hear her singing or laughing, or letting a shout maybe in the darkness of the night.

Colm
. Is there nothing one can do for her?

Bride
. Nothing at all your honour. It’s best to leave her alone. [
She goes towards
the door
.]

Sister Eileen
[
turning to her, in a low voice
]. Can someone drive me into the town tomorrow? I must go to Dublin by the first train in the morning.

Bride
. We can surely, Sister Eileen. And what time will we send to meet you coming back?

Sister Eileen.
I am not coming back.

Bride.
Well the Lord speed you Sister Eileen, and that the Almighty God may stretch out a holy hand to preserve and prosper you, and see you safe home. [
Turning to the door
.] It’s lonesome you’ll be leaving the lot of us behind you, and you after bringing a kind of a new life into this house was a dark quiet place for a score of years, and will be dark again maybe from this mortal night. [
She goes out left
.]

Colm
[
with a change in his voice
]. What is this talk of your leaving me tomorrow?

Sister Eileen.
Someone has told the Mother Superior your uncle is dead, and she telegraphs – as she puts it – that she is short of nurses and will need me for a new case tomorrow.

Colm.
Cannot you stay a little longer?

Sister Eileen.
I am afraid not possibly … [
Looking up at the clock
.] I must soon go and pack up.

Colm.
We must talk about it till I make you decide with your whole mind whether you will obey the earth, or repeat the story of the mad woman and my uncle.

Sister Eileen
[
severely
]. If you say what I think you are wishing to say, I will have to leave you and not speak to you any more. That is all you will gain.