The Valley of Squinting Windows

by Brinsley MacNamara

It was strange to think that this place could ever have had a fair look about it or given pleasure to any person at all. Yet it was here that John Brennan had loved to walk and dream. She wondered how it was with him now. She began to think of the liking he had shown for her. Maybe he fancied she did not know why he happened to meet her so often upon the road. But well did she know—well. And to think that he had come to look up at her window this evening.

Yet even now she was fearful of acknowledging these things to herself. It appeared as a double sacrilege. It was an attack upon her love for Ulick and it questioned the noble intention of Mrs. Brennan in devoting her son to God. But all chance that it might ever come to anything was now over. The ending had been effected by herself in the parlor of Tommy Williams, the gombeen-man, and Mrs. Brennan might never be able to guess the hand she had had in it. It was a thing upon which she might well pride herself if there grew in her the roots of pride. But she was not of that sort. And now she was in no frame of delight at all for the thought of him had united her unto the thought of Ulick, and Ulick had not come to her this evening.... She felt herself growing cold in the enveloping mist. The fir trees were like tall ghosts in the surrounding gloom.... But immediately the lake had lost its aspect of terror when she remembered what she had done might have averted the possibility of having John Brennan ever again to wander lonely.... And yes, in spite of any comforting thought, the place would continue to fill her with a nameless dread. She was shivering and expectant.

Suddenly a big pike made a splash among the reeds and Rebecca gave a loud, wild cry. It rang all down the lonely aisle of the fir-trees and united its sound with that of a lone bird crying on the other side of the lake. Then it died upon the banks of mist up against the silent hills.

For a few moments its source seemed to flutter and bubble within her breast, and then it ended in a long, sobbing question to herself—Why had she cried out at all? She might have known it was only a fish or some such harmless thing. And any one within reasonable distance could have heard the cry and thought it was the signal of some terrible thing that had happened here by the lakeside. It was not so far distant from two roads, and who knew but some one had heard? Yet she could hardly fancy herself behaving in this way if she had not possessed an idea that it was a lonely place and seldom that any one went by in the night-time.

But she hurried away from the feeling of terror she had caused to fill the place and back towards the house of Sergeant McGoldrick. As quickly as possible she got to bed. Here seemed a little comfort. She remembered how this had been her place of refuge as a child, how she felt safe from all ghosts and goblins once her head was hidden beneath the clothes. And the instinct had survived into womanhood.

Again a series of those fitful, half sleeping and waking conditions began to pass over her. Side by side with the most dreadful feelings of impending doom came thronging memories of glad phases of life through which she had passed.... And to think that this life of hers was now narrowing towards this end. Were the valley and its people to behold her final disaster? Was it to be that way with her?

She had intended to tell Ulick if he had come to her this evening, but he had not come, and what was she to do now? In the slough of her torment she could not think of the right thing.... Maybe if she wrote an angry letter upbraiding him.... But how could she write an angry letter to him? Yet she must let him know, and immediately—when the dawn had broken into the room she would write. For there was no use in thinking of sleeping. She could not sleep. Yes, when the dawn had broken into the room she would write surely. But not an angry letter.... Very slowly she began to notice the corners of the room appearing in the new light before her wide open eyes. And to feel that this was the place she had so fiercely hated from the first moment of setting foot in it, and that it was now about to see her write the acknowledgment of her shame.... The dawn was a great while in breaking.... If he did not—well then, what could her future life hope to be? She began to grow strangely dizzy as she fell to thinking of it. Dizzy and fearful as she drew near in mind to that very great abyss.

The leaping-up of the day did not fill her with any of its gradual delight.... She rose with a weariness numbing her limbs. The putting-on of her few clothes was an immense task.... She went to the table upon which she had written all those letters to her school-companions which described that "there was nothing like a girlfriend." She pulled towards her, with a small, trembling hand, the box of Ancient Irish Vellum, upon which her special letters were always written. Her mind had focussed itself to such small compass that this letter seemed more important than any that had ever before been written in this world.

But for a long time she could not begin. She did not know by what term of endearment to address him now.... They had been so particularly intimate.... And then it was so hard to describe her condition to him in poor words of writing with pen and ink upon paper. If only he had come to her last night it might have been a task of far less difficulty. A few sobs, a gathering of her little troubled body unto him, and a beseeching look up into his face.... But it was so hard to put any single feeling into any separate sentence.