The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 4 November 1915, Page 3

The Storyteller

THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN DOOR i Shuttle Alley was the short way from the High street of the country town to the market gardens. Xt widened at the lower end, and’ there were* whitewashed" cottages that had belonged to weavers long ago in the days of the hand-loom. To the poor people in those cottages the house with the walled, garden seemed like a palace. Its green door with one step was at the right-hand ■ side, Shuttle Alley being a flagged passage between two walls. That was a mysterious door. It never opened. , - Jacob Rickards’ second marriage had caused talk and envy. If he wanted a housekeeper,; could he not have found one nearer home? His laborers and carters knew that he had married a mere chit of a girl ’ in her teens, quite as poor as any one in the cottages. She had been working in Covent Garden market, where he had his stall. He had taken a fortnight’s holiday for the first time in his life, and brought home the new Mrs. Jacob Rickards with a wedding ring and two trunks full of finery. He was an elderly man with a substantial balance at the bank, a shop for fruit and flowers in the London market, and, here at Bar ford, orchards and kitchen gardens, half an acre of glass houses,, barns and sheets, and even a traction engine for sending his produce up to town in two waggon loads at a time. It was no wonder the girl he married thought herself like one of the heroines in the penny novelettes. ■

At first it took her all her time To admire her possessions. There was the large white hat and feathers that had figured at the wedding. That had to be tried on two or three times a day before the panel of looking-glass in the amazing mahogany wardrobe. It had also'to be shown to all the members of the Rickards family, as an antidote to their superiority, when they came to visit. Then there was all the other finery to be lodged in drawers and cupboards in the polished furniture and the silver teapot alone was occupation enough for a wet afternoon. One could make it shine,, and wonder how much silver money might be coined out of its bulk. It had belonged to the mother of the first Mrs. Rickardsand she was married in the same year as Queen Victoria; this fact alone added to the lustre of tho teapot.

The house itself was a pride and a joy. At one side of the hall there was a drawing-room with green furniture, and a centre table where lay illustrated catalogues of seeds. There were big seashells on the old-fashioned hobs of the grate; and on the mantelshelf, ornaments with pieces of glass hanging round them like ringlets. The little dining parlor at the other side of the hall was remarkable only for cases of stuffed birds and a smell of tobacco. At the there was a kitchen and storeroom, where the -new bride became suddenly overwhelmed by the shade- of the late Mrs. Rickards; for she knew how to put by jam and to pickle walnuts. Behind the house were the market gardens, where for the first time fruit appeared on trees instead of in baskets, which had always seemed to be its right and natural place. : Such was the house with the green door and the new Mrs. Jacob Rickards soon found that it was not quite a palace, neither was life going to be a novelette. Jacob was not an ideal lover, but a heavy, red-faced man, bent upon making and saving money. . She stood in dread of her lord and master, and he laid 7 down strict laws. On no account was she to go out into the town ; the people there talked and were jealous. She would find in the Rickards family plenty of company: So the green door never opened. - ; r There was a country girl called Hester, who came to work every day, entering by the cart gate at the end of the orchard. The first Sunday she brought back strange . news to her cottage,---such, very painful •- • f '

news that it became at, once interesting to all the neighbors. a ‘ The lady ■’ had /been ready to go out after 10 o’clock breakfast. She had her white hat and feathers on, and looked lovely. . Then the master made a scene and ‘ swore awful.’ The poor little ‘ missis ’ was. 1 that upset she cried till her eyes were up in her head. So would ; I cry, too,’ Hester added, if I ihad 7white feathers that long, and-had to take ’em off again and stop in the house.’ ’ *

I - Shuttle Alley stood east and west, and the setting sun shone shone full upon it. Before the next week ended, a poor field worker began to come every evening to the step of the green door. She had a red kerchief tied over her grey hair; her huge apron was of coarse sacking, her tired feet were in, broken boots caked with .clay. She seemed to have the idea that the doorstep belonged to her at that hour, and she stopped there to say her beads. Once a boy was on tiptoe on the step, .looking, through the letter slit at the red-tiled path up to the house, and the square of market flowers, growing closely like washes of —scarlet, lavender, white, yellow, purple. There was a window with wooden shutters at each side of the hall door, and three windows above, all white-curtained and shining; and at the farther end of the hall a bright opening into gardens beyond.

The boy was jerked down from his peep-show by a sudden pull of his jacket. ‘Go along now!’ said Norah, abruptly; and she sat on the step, with her beads in her hand. But she could not say her prayers just yet; for there was a piano-organ rattling away somewhere out of sight, perhaps down near the cottages. Norah’s brown and wrinkled face was smiling; the red kerchief began nodding to the music. ‘ That,’ she said, ‘is like “The wind that shakes the barley.” ‘ ’Tisn’t!’ said the boy. ‘What you go shuvvin’ me for ? There ain’t no wind. Wish there was ! It

isn’t alf ’ot! ’ . * . But, all the same, the tune was ‘ The wind that shakes the barley.’ And when the boy was gone, the old woman sat gently moving her head, and stirring a foot in its broken boot. The alley and the town beyond had faded away. There was no age, no trudging, no toil, no trouble. The sound of a fiddle came to her from an infinite distance, and she was a girl at home,’ dancing in the long barn. The Tarbert lighthouse was out there on the rocks, and the river was rushing away to the waves and the winds of the ocean. When the tune changed, the bright barn faded and the dancing stopped. She was back again, from the infinite distance and tired, old and poor, in Shuttle

Alley. , _ ‘ Ah, glory be to God!’ she said sure, the best is to come.’ And she began to say, her beads in Irish. ■ ' * - . In the house with the green door, when another summer came, Jacob Rickards was gentler with his young wife. She spent happy' hours in the garden now, carrying in her girlish arms a new treasure wrapped *in white embroidery and lace. Grandmamma Rickards was established in state to rule over Hester and keep the key-basket. She spent afternoons with the young mother on the orchard seat, where one could see under the crooked fruit trees the level sunny market gardens beyond, and flashing and dazzling glimpses of the glass-houses. Jacob Rickards had made, his wife very rich,—at -least it seemed so to her. And yet, even with the child in her arms, she was not at peace. The coming of ■the 7 little son had intensified her self-reproach; for' there was a new question now, and Jacob had said ‘No’ to it. - She had pleaded in vain with, his mother who ruled the house. * That strong-minded -old-lady,* with her ear trumpet and her keys, said emphatically. that she did not, believe in ‘ forms and going on. At her chapel? she said,. there was no baptising of infants t Rabies /don’t know what they . are doing ; . that s . what

■-V, - =?•*»’’ s ■' , •• our chapel says, and our chapel knows. When they are grown '.up; they get done if they choose, - My ; Jacob got done ; when he was a lad, , to please me. ; ; But ; he never had any use for church or chapel, my Jacob naan t. So don’t-you worry him with religion, my dear! ■ ..■- He never did get religion.-’ :. / - , J .- - He promised me before we were married,’ said church"’ ISh - m ° th€r ’ Bhd we were married in. my

f 11 Her blue ■ eyes . were swimming, with tears; the drops fell on. the : precious white bundle. She looked down ; with a mute, weak sense of injustice, at the sleeping face and the small, pink, helpless hands. ; • - 5 < w n H ? Promised, did he?’ said the old lady, tartly. Well, he didn-t ought to have. . , Men do say many lings o girls to please era, But now you are married, and you must study your husband. And hasn’t he said No ” ? Don’t vex my Jacob, for you know what a temper he has. And as to changing his mind you might as well try to pull up that.pear tree with your two hands.’ 1

Tk® elder Mrs. Rickards was so busy laying down the law that she forgot how far her-tones carried. . The woman with the red kerchief on her head,' over near the bushes, did not turn round, , but she spread her hands and raised her eyes. ‘ The Lord save us!’ she said, and went,on picking currants. Presently she brought her basket to the ladies on the seat. The elder Mrs. Rickards tasted a berry critically,- and screwed her lips. ' J „ 1 They want sugar.’ ’ ‘They do, ma’am,’ , said Nor ah' They are- like us all,—we’d all be the better for bein’ sweeter.’ What does she say ?’ . Norah was admiring the baby, before her wit could be interpreted. - . ■ / Lord love him for the beauty o’ the world. What name did you christen him, ma’am?’ ; ‘ We are going to call him Rex.’ -

‘ Yes, Rex,’ the young mother repeated. . ‘And is that a name?’ Norah was thinking of the stormy nights long ago, and the prayers for' the poor fishermen out at sea, last thing after the Rosary, before the turf fire was covered up to keep in ’ till morning. ‘ ’Tis a quare name,’ she said simply; ‘but maybe ’tis in the family.’ ‘No,’ said the young mother'; ‘it is in Lady Laura’s Legacy.’ Norah was completely mystified. After all, it did not ‘signify,’ she thought, by what outlandish name they called the child, so long as they did not leave, him shut out of heaven. '

The first day I saw you, ma’am,’ she said, with a view to being friendly, ‘you could have knocked me down with a feather. I thought it was Kitty Dempsey rose up from the ground. She was Kitty Maloney, and •she married Corney Dempsey, that had the long barn at Tarbert; and I danced at the wedding.’ ‘You!’ —with a laugh of impolite astonishment. ‘I did, indeed, ma’am. I was young once like you. Sure we all grow old before we know where, we are.’ She suddenly lowered her voice. /‘Everything passes away, my lady, and we with it. And, Begging your pardon, I’d go down on my two knees here on the path to ax you if I could—you’ll have - that child christened, my lady, won’t you, no matter who says “No”? And begin and go to Mass, for -I know you are wan of us.’ ' - / -

My husband would kill me,’ whispered the young wife, with a frightened little frown, signalling /to, her to go. : . _ _ . . ‘ And afther he’s done killing you, my dear, what could he do then?’ - > •"

- The field worker knew well enough that Mrs. Jacob had been as poor as herself but a year ago. , And, on the other side,; there was something' in Norah’s warm earnestness that went straight' to the young heart that was really lonely. - Friends were S7ay.ce .: / ‘ .*

The, elder Mrs. Richards was exasperated. What did that look on Norah’s face mean ? What was the woman saying ? She tapped her ear trumpet against Norah’s brown arm. •

‘Go away now ! That’s enough. It’s easy work admiring the baby. You are paid for picking, currants.’

' And that night again, when the field workers were going home, Norah sat on the step by the green door,- — this time with her-elbows on her knees, and the beads hanging from her hands into her coarse apron. The Gaelic words she murmured now and then were the very voice of prayer, and her soul was in a Land of Vision. 11. You don’t think us quite bad, do you, Norah?’ It was the lady of the house who asked the question, standing on the path among the furrows, in afternoon sunshine, with her child in her arms. She was fond of wearing her prettiest things, and looked childishly young herself, in a white frock and a muslin hat drawn in with blue ribbon. The men loading the carts had touched a forelock to ‘ the lady.’ The women had gathered about her to admire* the master’s little sour- They said he was like wax.’ His eyes were blue, and bright as jewels; and the young mother lifted his linen hat to show the curls. . Norah stayed after the others, as if there was something to be said ; and it was then Mrs. Jacob asked playfully, ‘ You don’t think us so bad, Norah, do you?’ The question took up again the thread of some other talk known only to themselves. * I showed you what a home he has given me. Jacob is much older than I am, — twenty years older. There will be time enough for going to church.’ Norah looked round at the blazing sunshine.

‘ ’Tis a quare way to thrate Him.’ ‘ Oh, I am very good to “the master’’ !’ ‘ Sure, I’m not talking of him at all,’ said Norah. ‘ But isn't it a hard thing now (and with that beautiful boy in your^arms) to be turning your back on our Lord and His Blessed Motherand all, as one may say, for meehogany furniture and a silver teapot?’ She wiped her hot face with the sacking apron, and stopped sadly as if there was nothing more to be said. Mrs. Jacob tried to laugh, and looked ready to cry.

‘ I can’t do any different while my husband is here,’ she said. ‘My dear,’ began Norah, ‘I had a dhrame. I dhramt the coffin was bein’ carried out of the green door in Shuttle Alley; for the hearse couldn’t come along there, the place bein’ too narrow intirely.’ ‘Oh, Norah, stop!’ . ‘Why, ’tis only a dhrame I’m telliu’ you! There was the coffin with all the flowers o’ the world about it, —a whole market full; and the people in crowds just standin’ on.top of each other. And somebody says; “Did you ever see such flowers?’’ And I says: “Whdl’s the good of ’em all? ’Twas a quare way to thrate Him.” And, my dear, it was you that was in the coffin and the masther walkin’ after it down Shuttle Alley. And maybe ’twill be so ! for you might go before him yet.’ ‘Don’t, Norah, —don’t!’ The meditation on death was too vivid: she refused to think of it. ‘ Why, you have a wedding ring (There was, indeed, aworn old ring on the bony hand.) ‘You ought to understand, Norah, — can’t do everything one likes when one is married.’ Then gaily: ‘Where is your good man?’ ‘ He is with Himself,’ said Norah, with a little upward movement of her head. There was a touch of reverence in her tone, and a deep contentment. Vlu'-Mrs. Jacob, failing to understand, noticed * the child’s blue eyes closing, and came back at once to the centre of the universe. : ; :‘The darling I must put him in his cot. I made those curtains myself,—-the muslin ones with the little pink rosebuds all over..He looks so sweet under them. I hope his hair will curl when he grows up. Do you know, Norah .whether,; one ought to brush 'it backward and twist it on one’s finger, every night?’

In. those days the priest of Barf of d often stood at the door and knocked, v but never did the; - green door open. " Perhaps Hester. looked out through that slit meant for letters. ; If he went round ’by hedged lanes to the orchard entrance, a state of siege was already prepared. The cart gates were shut; - there was no bell. .

Still the poor woman came every evening to the doorstep, and rested there to say her -beads an an unknown tongue. She had done a long day’s work. , I wonder if she ever dreamed a little; if the noise of the distant streets was ever merged into the rushing of the Shannon; if it grew dark, and Tarbert lighthouse shone out from the rocks; if she ever found herself saying the Rosary in Irish by the red glow of a -turf fire of fifty or sixty years ago; and if she heard othervoices answering with hers, —those voices of the little circle that were long since in ‘ refreshment, light,, and peace ’? .

So the green door remained closed, till autumn followed summer. And then came a Visitant that no one could shut out. In his little cot, under the -dainty rosebud curtains, the child was lying ‘ like wax ’ indeed ; and, though it was full day, all the blinds were drawn down.

Jacob Rickards- looked as if he had -"grown old since yesterday. He was‘tottering along the garden path, with raised shoulders and bent head, drawing at the empty pipe between his lips. His wife, frantic,, disfigured with grief, ran out to meet Norah.

1 I am going mad, Norah ! He is gone —my poor darling!and I never had him baptized!’

‘ Whisht now, —whisht! I have good news for you this day. Don’t cry yourself sick, mavourneeu, but listen to me !’

When. Jacob looked in at the back door, they were both on the settle in the corner near the kitchen fire. The strong arms were round the sobbing girlish mother; and between the sobs Mrs. Jacob, his own wife, was kissing the poor woman’s cheek, and even caressing the worn old hand. Glad, indeed, she was to have that faithful heart to rest upon; and soon the sobs became gentle like waves sinking after a storm.

‘ And so He has done that for me, after all,’ she said, —‘after all! And my pet is in' heaven? Oh Norah, Norah, I must not miss getting there, too! Was it you did it or the priest ? ’ ■ ‘ ‘ Sure any one could have done it handy, but I slipped my ould plaid shawl about him,’ said Norah. ‘ It was that time you left me settin’ there, and you and the old lady was worn out. I wanted the holy hand of the priest to do it; and he said I was to tell you your child is in heaven, knowing you better, and loving you more; for the son does not forget the mother there.’

■ After the last word, Norah drew a long, thin candle from some mysterious pocket, and a shining medal on a thread.

‘ May I go up now, ma’am?’ she said, with sudden deference.

‘Yes, yes! Don’t make a noise on the stairs. Mrs. Rickards is asleep; she was'with me all night. Come, Norah: I am going up, too.’ The shadow moved in from the garden door.

‘So am I,’ said Jacob. Norah asked for -a candlestick, and lighted the candle to shed a soft radiance on the rosebud curtains and on the little face that she. reverently uncovered. She had brought peace to the broken-hearted mother, and it was not in Jacob’s own suffering heart to say ‘ No ’ to her. ‘

‘ ’Tis my own blessed candle,’ she said, ‘ from Candlemas Day; and ’tis to remind us, of Him that’s the Light of the world.’ • f ; Then she lifted the unstirring head, saying soft endearments in a whisper of her own language; and in; a moment the thread had slipped over the little one’s hair, and he was pillowed; again, with the medal shining on his breast.;‘Still the father said not a word. Then- the poor mother suddenly lifted her hands to clasp her husband’s neck, and spoke in hushed tones,

as people do in the presence of those who can wake no more •

‘ln our own ground, Jacob;.— the church?’. . ‘ As you like.’ ‘ And, Jacob—l must go always now, even if you say “No.” But—-promise me you won’t make me miserable, if—if I try to do right. Say it nowhere!’ ‘As you like said Jacpb again. He stooped and kissed her-; and, locking her hands behind his neck, she kissed his rough cheek passionately in return. Those two loved each other now far more than when first he put a ring on her hand." ‘ Poor little woman !’ he said, stroking her hair tenderly. And henceforth it would have been agony to the wife even to think of a time when she might be in a lonely world without Jacob. ***** Norah’s soul had been faithful so long that it had come very near to being like the soul of a little child. Her religion was her whole knowledge. The greatest Roman of the first century would have commended her ; for he said in his, Epistles that nothing else was worth knowing. She had the detachment of poverty, the loneliness that makes common life a cloister. If you had ever seen (and heard) her praying, when she thought herself to be alone in the church at Barford, you would have perceived in her faith a quality that made it almost vision. She prayed as if she saw. Many a time she looks in there, with her red kerchief and her apron of sacking. But she is the last away on a Saturday night, and the first in on Sunday morning, wearing a little beady bonnet of generations ago, and a large black cloak in many folds about her shoulders. She sighs aloud before the statue of the Mother of Sorrows, ‘ O acushla ! O mavourneen !’—with human, living love and sympathy. She murmurs before the altar fn Gaelic, —that fortunate language that expresses more in two or three words than we in six or eight: ‘ O the little white Treasure of my heart !’ And it is perfectly clear that, as the years are going on, the Veil is becoming thinner between her and Him. She goes away as the people in the Gospel did, praising and glorifying God. From the depths of her poverty and labor, with darkening eyes, and ears that will soon be dull, and limbs already stiffening, she seems by a familiar habit to adore day and night, like the hermits of the desert, or like those flaming spirits whom St. John saw casting their crowns forever before the Lamb and before Him that sits upon the throne. This view of the field worker— after all. is the true one—must have been the explanation of what happened at the house with the green door. How many evenings, tired out, she stopped to say her beads on the step! If I passed, my head was always uncovered at her word of greeting. I was not only saluting Norah, but her nation and its destiny. ‘ O happy race, whom God has chosen to be apostles !’ ***** And now what happened at the house with the green door ? The first Sunday after the great sorrow, Jacob Rickards’ wife went out almost with the dawn of morning. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked. ‘I am going to Mass.’ That was all. The next Sunday, always looking bent and old now, he was in the garden after breakfast, when she went along the tiled path to the green door. ‘Where are you going?’ ' I am going to Mass.’ Every Sunday the same question was asked. Sometimes, on a rainy day, he would be in the house; sometimes smoking on a frosty morning in the sunshine at the door. There was always the same answer; and nothing more was said between one Sunday and another. It was surprising that rain made no difference and more surprising "still that she was often out so very early. The sleepy Jacob would fling up the window and look down between the curtains. : * Where are you going?’— surprise. ‘ I am going to Mass,’ and she would disappear by the green door. ~ ‘ v ■'

Somehow, his wife . was dearer to him now than ever. She had really loved him the more when, their first sorrow aged him suddenly. And he began to wonder what was all this, that;.mattered- so very much to her. i After a long time, ho met her one day at the churchyard gate; and they went in together to . see the little grave, now snowed over with daisies. The next Sunday he asked her: . ‘ Where are you going?’ ‘ I am going to Mass.’ Said Jacob; ‘I am going with you.’ —A vc Maria.