prose.txt

It was a bright Sunday morning of early summer, promising heat, but with
a fresh breeze blowing. All the windows of the boarding house were open
and the lace curtains ballooned gently towards the street beneath the
raised sashes. The belfry of George's Church sent out constant peals
and worshippers, singly or in groups, traversed the little circus before
the church, revealing their purpose by their self-contained demeanour
no less than by the little volumes in their gloved hands. Breakfast
was over in the boarding house and the table of the breakfast-room was
covered with plates on which lay yellow streaks of eggs with morsels
of bacon-fat and bacon-rind. Mrs Mooney sat in the straw arm-chair and
watched the servant Mary remove the breakfast things. She made
Mary collect the crusts and pieces of broken bread to help to make
Tuesday's bread-pudding. When the table was cleared, the broken bread
collected, the sugar and butter safe under lock and key, she began to
reconstruct the interview which she had had the night before with Polly.
Things were as she had suspected: she had been frank in her questions
and Polly had been frank in her answers. Both had been somewhat awkward,
of course. She had been made awkward by her not wishing to receive the
news in too cavalier a fashion or to seem to have connived and Polly had
been made awkward not merely because allusions of that kind always made
her awkward but also because she did not wish it to be thought that in
her wise innocence she had divined the intention behind her mother’s
tolerance.

Mrs Mooney glanced instinctively at the little gilt clock on the
mantelpiece as soon as she had become aware through her revery that the
bells of George's Church had stopped ringing. It was seventeen minutes
past eleven: she would have lots of time to have the matter out with Mr
Doran and then catch short twelve at Marlborough Street. She was sure
she would win. To begin with she had all the weight of social opinion
on her side: she was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live
beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour, and he had
simply abused her hospitality. He was thirty-four or thirty-five years
of age, so that youth could not be pleaded as his excuse; nor could
ignorance be his excuse since he was a man who had seen something of
the world. He had simply taken advantage of Polly’s youth and
inexperience: that was evident. The question was: What reparation would
he make?

There must be reparation made in such cases. It is all very well for
the man: he can go his ways as if nothing had happened, having had his
moment of pleasure, but the girl has to bear the brunt. Some mothers
would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money; she had
known cases of it. But she would not do so. For her only one reparation
could make up for the loss of her daughter’s honour: marriage.

She counted all her cards again before sending Mary up to Mr Doran’s
room to say that she wished to speak with him. She felt sure she would
win. He was a serious young man, not rakish or loud-voiced like the
others. If it had been Mr Sheridan or Mr Meade or Bantam Lyons her task
would have been much harder. She did not think he would face publicity.
All the lodgers in the house knew something of the affair; details had
been invented by some. Besides, he had been employed for thirteen years
in a great Catholic wine-merchant's office and publicity would mean
for him, perhaps, the loss of his job. Whereas if he agreed all might
be well. She knew he had a good screw for one thing and she suspected he
had a bit of stuff put by.

Nearly the half-hour! She stood up and surveyed herself in the
pier-glass. The decisive expression of her great florid face satisfied
her and she thought of some mothers she knew who could not get their
daughters off their hands.