The Valley of Squinting Windows

by Brinsley MacNamara

This was a curious side of her. She kept him in comfort and in ease, and yet when his body had been contented she must needs apply herself to the welfare of his soul. For, although he spent many a penny of her money in the village of Garradrimna, was he not the father of John Brennan, who was going to be a priest of God? She forgave him everything on this account, even the coarse and blasphemous expressions he continually let fly from his mouth the while she read for him the most holy stories by Jesuit Fathers.

Just now she had given him two shillings with which to entertain himself. He had threatened to strike her in the event of her refusal.... That was why she had been sighing and why the tears were now creeping into her great tired eyes as she began to set her machine in motion for the tasks of the day. Dear, dear, wasn't he the cruel, hard man?... Yet beyond all this thought of him was her bright dream of the day when, with the few pounds she had saved so secretly from the wide grasp of his thirst, she must fit him out in a rich suit of black and go by his side proudly to attend the ordination of their son John. It was because she so dearly loved her dream that she bore him with immense patience.

Also it was because she had been thinking of that grand day and of the descending splendor of her son that she now commented so strongly upon the passage of the children to school. She had spoken bitterly to her own heart, but in that heart of hers she was a bitter woman.

This was such a sunny, lovely morning. It was the day of the June Races in the town of Mullaghowen, and most of the valley-dwellers had gone there. The winding, dusty road through Tullahanogue was a long lane of silence amid the sunlight. It appeared as an avenue to the Palace of Dreams. So it was not at all strange that Mrs. Brennan was dreaming forward into the future and filling her mind with fancies of the past. She was remembering herself as Nan Byrne, the prettiest girl in the valley. This was no illusion of idle vanity, for was there not an old daguerreotype in an album on the table behind her at this very moment to prove that beauty had been hers? And she had been ruined because of that proud beauty. It was curious to think how her sister and she had both gone the same way.... The period of a generation had passed since the calamity had fallen upon them almost simultaneously. It was the greatest scandal that had ever happened in these parts. The holy priest, whose bones were now moldering beneath the sanctuary of the chapel, had said hard words of her. From the altar of God he had spoken his pity of her father, and said that she was a bad woman.

"May God strengthen him, for this is the bitter burden to bear. Philip Byrne is a decent man for all his daughter Nan is a woman of shame. I pray you avoid her every one who has the trace of God's purity in his heart. Let you go not into that house which she has made an abode of lust, nor allow the fair name of your own house to be blemished by the contamination of her presence within its walls."

Yes, it was true that all this had been said of her by the holy father, and in the very spot beneath which his bones were now at rest. They were the hard words surely to have issued from the lips of God's anointed. Even in the fugitive remembrance of them now they seemed to have left red marks like whip-lash weals across her soul. The burning hurt of them drove her deeper into remembrance. She had already come to the full development of her charms when her ambition had also appeared. It was, in short, to effect the "catch" of one of the strong farmers of the valley. She entered into conspiracy with her sister and, together, they laid their plans. Henry Shannon was the one upon whom she had set her eye and Loughlin Mulvey the one her sister Bridget had begun to desire. They were both men of family and substance, and hard drinkers after the fashion of the fields. They often called at the house to see the sisters. Philip Byrne, whose occupation as head-groom at the stables of the Moores of Garradrimna often took him away from Ireland, would always be absent during those visitations. But their mother would be there, Mrs. Abigail Byrne, ambitious for her daughters, in great style. It was never known to happen that either of the strong farmers called to the house without a bottle of whiskey. Mrs. Byrne always looked favorably upon them for their high decency, and the whiskey was good whiskey.

Here in this very room where she now sat remembering it all there had been such scenes! Her hair had been so thick and brown and there had been a rare bloom upon her skin as she had sat here alone with Henry Shannon, talking with him of queer things and kissing his dark, handsome face. And all through those far, bygone times she used to be thinking of his grand house and of his broad fields and the way she would one day assert herself in the joy of such possessions over her less fortunate sisters of the valley. Yet, ever mixed with her bright pieces of imagination, there had been such torturing doubts.... Her sister Bridget had always been so certain of her prey.

There had been times when Henry Shannon spent the night in the house. In those nights had been laid the foundations of her shame.... Very, very clearly did she remember the sickening, dreadful morning she had come to her mother with the story that she was going to have a child. How angry the elder woman had been, so lit within her all the wild instincts of the female against the betrayer of her sex? Why had she gone so far? Why had she not played her cards like her sister? There was no fear of her yet although she had got a proper hold of Loughlin Mulvey.... What was she to do at all? She who had had great ambitions was to become lower than the lowest in the valley.

Yet the three of them had conferred together, for all the others were so angry with her because of her disastrous condition into which she had allowed herself to slip without having first made certain of Henry Shannon. The only course left now was to "make a show" of him if he could not see his way to marry her.

She could now remember every line of the angry, misspelled letter she had sent to her whilom lover, and how it had brought him to the house in a mood of drunken repentance. He presented her with material for a new dress on the very same night, and, as she laughed and cried over it in turn, she thought how very curious it was that he should wish to see her figure richly adorned when already it had begun to put on those signs of disfigurement which announce the coming of a child. But he was very, very kind, and all suspicion fell away from her. Before he went he whispered an invitation to spend a few days with him in Dublin.... What did it matter now, and it was so kind of him to ask her? It showed what was in his mind, and therefore no talk of marriage passed between them. It did not seem necessary.