“The orphans,” Quirke said after a moment, “Costigan, that crowd-was that you, too? Were you running the whole thing, you and Josh?” The old man did not deign to answer. “And Dolly Moran,” Quirke said, “what about her?”
The Judge stopped, holding up a hand.
“That was Costigan,” he said. “He sent those fellows to look for something she had. They weren’t supposed to hurt her.”
They walked on.
“And me?” Quirke asked. “Who sent those fellows after me?”
“Have a heart, Quirke-would I want to see you hurt the way you’ve been hurt, you, that were a son to me?”
But Quirke was thinking, putting it together.
“Dolly told me about the diary,” he said, “I told Mal, he told you, you told Costigan, and Costigan sent his thugs to get it from her.” Out in the harbor a tugboat hooted. Quirke thought he could see from here a section of the river, a blue-gray line humped under scudding cloud. “This Costigan,” he said, “who is he?”
The Judge could not resist an amused, malicious snort.
“Nobody,” he said. “What they call over here the paid help-true believers are scarce. There’s a lot that are in it for the money, Quirke-Josh’s money, as it was.”
“And no more.”
“Oh?”
“There’ll be no more funds. I made Rose promise.”
“Rose, is it? Aye-and I wonder, now, how you went about extracting a promise of that order from that particular lady?” He glanced at Quirke. “Cat got your tongue, eh? Anyway, Rose’s funds or no, we’ll manage. God will provide.” He laughed suddenly. “You know, Quirke, you should be proud-the whole thing started with you. Oh, aye, it’s true. Phoebe was the first, it was her that gave Josh Crawford the idea. He telephoned me, in the middle of the bloody night, it was, wanting to know what happened in Ireland these days to children like Phoebe, children that weren’t wanted. I told him, I said, Josh, the country is overflowing with them. Is that so? said he. Well, send them over here to us, he said, we’ll find homes for them soon enough. In no time we were dispatching them by the dozen-by the hundreds!”
“So many orphans.”
The Judge was swift.
“Phoebe wasn’t an orphan, was she?” His face darkened, the blue blotches turning to purple. “Some people are not meant to have children. Some people haven’t the right.”
“And who decides?”
“We do!” the old man cried harshly. “We decide! Women in the tenements of Dublin and Cork bearing seventeen, eighteen children in as many years. What sort of a life would those youngsters face? Aren’t they better off out here, with families that can take care of them, cherish them? Answer me that.”
“So you’re the judge and jury,” Quirke said wearily. “You’re God Himself.”
“How dare you, you of all people! What right have you to question me? Look to the mote in your own eye, boyo.”
“And Mal? Is he another judge, or just the court clerk?”
“Pah. Mal is a fixer, that’s all-he couldn’t even be trusted to keep the unfortunate girl alive when she had her baby. No, Quirke, you were the son I wanted.”
A gust of wind swooped down on them, throwing a handful of sleet like slivers of glass in their faces.
“I’m taking Phoebe home with me,” Quirke said. “I want her away from here. Away from you, too.”
“You think you can start being a father to her now?”
“I can try.”
“Aye,” the old man said with high sarcasm, “you can try.”
“I want you to tell me about Dolly Moran.”
“And just what is it you want me to tell you?”
“Did you know,” Quirke said, looking off again toward that line of lead-blue water that was the river, “that she used to go up to the orphanage every day, for years, and stand outside the playground, looking to see if she could spot her child, her boy, among all the others.”
The Judge’s look turned vague.
“What sort of a thing was that for her to be doing?” he muttered.
“Tell me,” Quirke said, “you were on the board of visitors-did you ever really know what Carricklea was like, the things that went on there?”
“You got out, didn’t you?” the old man snarled. “I got you out.”
“You did-but who was it put me in?” The Judge glowered and said something under his breath, and set off determinedly in the direction of the gate, where Harkins in his coat and his galoshes was still waiting “Look around you, Garret,” Quirke called after him. “Look at your achievement.”
The Judge paused and turned back.
“These are only the dead,” he said “You don’t see the living. It’s God’s work we’re doing, Quirke. In twenty years’, thirty years’ time, how many young people will be willing to give their lives to the ministry? We’ll be sending back missionaries from here to Ireland-to Europe. God’s work. You won’t stop it. And by Christ, Quirke, you better not try.”
TO THE END QUIRKE WAS SURE THAT PHOEBE WOULD COME TO SAY good-bye to him. He waited on the gravel outside Moss Manor, scanning the windows of the house for a sign of her, while the taxi driver was stowing his bags. It was a day of bleak sunshine, and a cutting wind was blowing in from the sea. In the end it was not Phoebe who came, but Sarah. Wearing no coat, she appeared in the doorway and after a moment’s hesitation walked across the gravel with her arms folded and a cardigan pulled tight around her. She asked him what time his flight was. She said she hoped the journey would not be too dreadful, in this winter weather that seemed set never to end. He drew close to her, canted on his stick, and made to speak, but she stopped him.
“Don’t, Quirke, please,” she said, “don’t say you’re sorry. I couldn’t bear it.”
“I begged her to come home with me. She refused.”
She shook her head wearily.
“It’s too late,” she said. “You know that.”
“What will you do?”
“Oh, I’ll stay, for a little while, at least.” She laughed unsteadily. “Mal wants me to go into the Mayo Clinic-to have my head examined!” She tried to laugh again but failed. She looked off, frowning, in the direction of the sea. “Perhaps Phoebe and I can become”-she smiled miserably-“perhaps we can become friends. Besides, someone has to keep her out of Rose’s clutches. Rose wants to take her to Europe and make her into a Henry James heroine.” She paused, and looked down; she was never as dear to him as when she looked at her feet like that, scanning the ground frowningly for something that was never there. “Did you sleep with her,” she asked mildly, “with Rose?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, without rancor.
She took a deep breath of the icy air and then, glancing over her shoulder toward the house, she brought from under her cardigan a rolled-up paper scroll and pressed it into his hand.
“Here,” she said. “You’ll know what to do with this.” It was a school jotter, with a dog-eared orange cover. He made to pull off the rubber band that was holding it rolled but she put her hand over his and said, “No-read it on the plane.”
“How did you get it?”
“She sent it to me, the Moran woman, that poor creature. God knows why-I hadn’t seen her since Phoebe was a baby.”
He nodded.
“She remembered you,” he said. “She asked after you. Said you had been good to her.” He put the jotter, still rolled, into the pocket of his overcoat. “What do you want me to do with it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Whatever is necessary.”
“You’ve read it?”
“Enough of it-as much as I could bear.”
“I see. Then you know.”