Part 22 (1/2)

CHAPTER XII

Mrs. Kenny, with prodigal hospitality, took Molly in for over Sunday.

Fairfax walked alongside of her to his boarding-house, carrying the imitation leather bag, talking to her, laughing with her, calling the colour back and making her eyes bright. He found himself, with his young lady, before the threshold of Kenny's hotel. ”Gents only.” Whether this was the rule or an idea only, Fairfax wondered, for Molly was not the first one of the gentler s.e.x who had been cordially entertained in the boarding-house! Mrs. Kenny's sister and her sister's child, her mother and aunts three, had successively come down on the hotel during Fairfax's pa.s.sing, and been lavishly entertained, anywhere and everywhere, even under Fairfax's feet, for he had come out one morning from his door to find two little girls sleeping on a mattress in the hall.

All his lifelong Fairfax retained an adoration for landladies. They had such tempting opportunities to display qualities that console and enn.o.ble, and the landladies with whom he had come in contact took advantage of their opportunities! It didn't seem enough to wait five weeks for a chap to pay up, when one's own rent was due, but the landlady must buy chicken at ruinous prices when a chap was ill, and make soup and put rice in it, and carry it steaming, flecked with rich golden grease, put pot-pie b.a.l.l.s in it and present it to a famis.h.i.+ng fireman who could do no more than kiss the hand, the chapped hand, that brought the bowl.

”Now _wud_ ye, Misther Fairfax?”

He would, as if it had been his mother's!

Nut Street was moral, domestic and in proportion severe. Mary Kenny had not been born there; she had come with her husband from the happy-go-lucky, pig-harbouring shanties of County Cork. She was the most unprejudiced soul in the neighbourhood. Between boarders, a lazy husband, six children and bad debts, she had little time to gossip, but plenty of time in which to be generous.

”I _wull_ that!” she a.s.sured Molly. ”Ye'll sleep in the kitchen on a shakedown, and the divil knows where it'll shake _from_ for I haven't a spare bed in the house!”

Molly would only stay till Monday.... Fairfax put her little bag on the kitchen table, where a coa.r.s.e cloth was spread, and the steam greeted them of a real Irish stew, and the odour of less genuine coffee tickled their appet.i.tes.

Molly Shannon considered Fairfax in his new Easter Sunday spring clothes. From his high collar, white as Nut Street could white it, to his polished boots--he was a pleasant thing to look upon. His cravat was as blue as his eyes. His moustache was brushed carefully from his young, well-made mouth, and he beamed with good humour on every one.

”Shure, dinner's dished, and the childer and Kenny are up to the cemetery pickin' vi'lets. Set right down, the rest will be along. Set down, Misther Fairfax and Molly Shannon.”

After dinner, up in his room, the walls seemed to have contracted. The kitchen's smoky air rose even here, and he flung his window wide to the April sweetness. The atmosphere was too windless to come in and wrestle with the smell of frying, but he saw the day was golden as a draught waiting to be quaffed. The restricted schedule of Sunday cast a quiet over the yards, and from the distance Fairfax heard sounds that were not distinguishable in the weekday confusion, the striking of the hour from the Catholic Church bell, the voices of the children playing in the streets. There was a letter lying on his bureau from his mother: he had not had the heart to read it to-day. The gymnasium was shut for repairs, there was no ball game on for Easter Day, and, after a second's hesitation, he caught up his hat from where he had dropped it at his feet and rushed downstairs into the kitchen.

Molly, her sleeves rolled up, was was.h.i.+ng dishes for Mrs. Kenny.

”Don't you want to come out with me for a walk?” Fairfax asked her.

”Go along,” said Mrs. Kenny, giving her a shove with her bare elbow.

”I'll make out alone fine. The suds is elegant. If you meet Kenny and the children, tell them there's not a bit left but the las.h.i.+ns of the stew, and to hurry up.”

CHAPTER XIII

There was a divine fragrance in the air. Fairfax stopped to gather a few anemones and handed them to his silent companion.

”Since you have grown so pale in the collar factory, Miss Molly, you look like these flowers.”

He stretched out his, arms, bared his head, flung it up and looked toward the woodland up the slope and saw the snow-white stones on the hill, above the box borders and the cedar borders of the burial place: above, the sky was blue as a bird's wing.

”Let me help you.” He put his hand under her arm and walked with her up the hill. They breathed together; the sweet air with its blossomy scent touched their lips, and the ancient message of spring spoke to them. He was on Molly's left side; beneath his arm he could feel her fluttering heart and his own went fast. At the hill top they paused at the entrance to a pretentious lot, with high white shafts and imposing columns, broken by the crude whiteness of a single marble cross. Brightly it stood out against the air and the dark green of cedar and box.

”This is the most perfect monument,” he said aloud, ”the most harmonious; indeed, it is the only relief to the eye.”

On every grave were Easter garlands, crosses and wreaths; the air was heavy with lilac and with lily.

Except for a few monosyllables Molly said nothing, but now, as they paused side by side, she murmured--