Father Maloney was in a mood, which, it must be confessed, was distinctly unfavourable to his peace of mind. And not only his peace of mind, but his appetite had suffered considerably thereby. Cold corned beef and plum tart had been so much sawdust between his lips, flavourless and exceeding dry. Even his after-luncheon pipe failed to rouse him to a cheerier outlook on life in general. Now, when the joys of tobacco had ceased to woo him, matters had, indeed, come to a pretty pass. Anastasia, his housekeeper, clearing away the débris of the meal, eyed him solicitously.
“You’re not ill, Father?” she asked, her black eyes snapping anxiety in his direction.
For a moment he roused himself.
“Not at all, not at all,” he responded with a show of briskness, only to relapse once more into gloom.
Anastasia shook her head.
“It’ll be that moidering business up to the Castle, I’m thinking,” quoth she to herself, her lips tightening in a manner that would have augured ill for the author of the business had he been anywhere within sighting distance.
Returning to the kitchen she addressed a fervent, and, it must be confessed, slightly authoritative decade of the rosary to Our Blessed Lady, before beginning to wash up plates and dishes. To her mind something had to be done. Herein her mind and that of old Biddy the nurse up at the Castle were distinctly in accord.
For one hour—two hours, perhaps—Father Maloney sat in his old armchair. During that time he endeavoured, with some degree of success, to say his office with attention. Then he once more lapsed into gloomy retrospection and anticipation.
Since midday the world—the pleasant, material, sunny world—had been turned upside down for him. It is true that this inversion had been looked for, feared, for the last six months, but that fact did not prevent the present phenomenon from being any the less unpleasant when it actually occurred. It requires a peculiarly level head, not to say a certain degree of something almost akin to callousness, to regard matters from so totally different a point of view. It is a position to which you cannot readily adjust yourself. At all events Father Maloney found it one to which he could not readily adjust himself. It required a supreme effort on his part merely to hang on, so to speak.
“Sure, and I ought to have been more prepared for it,” he muttered to himself.