"a thousand tunes too good for her domineering, little husband. I had a very great admiration for her," he went on. "Though I was younger, I was really pained to hear of her death. You lost a good mother in her, my friend," was his summing up, and curiously enough, my own childish recollections corroborated the impression he gave of her sweet kindliness of nature. My father too when he spoke of her, which was very seldom, always laid stress on the fact that it was difficult to make her angry: "a very sweet and gentle nature" which her eldest son, Vernon, had inherited.
The thing I noticed most in Ireland was the way it rained, and the poverty of the wretched land impressed me the more, the more I studied it. The moral influence of the Catholic Church too was to be seen everywhere in the splendid physique of the people, and I was fated to experience its vigour very sharply. It was at Ballinasloe that I was surprised by the sheer loveliness of the innkeeper's daughter. I had been walking and working hard for some time and was minded to take it easy for a week or so when I came to his inn.
The girl captivated me. She hadn't much to do and they liked to hire their jaunting-car to me, and I got into the habit of taking Molly (Margaret was her name) with me everywhere as a guide. Her mother had long been dead and the father found enough to do in his bar, while an elder sister took charge of the house. So Molly and I spent a good deal of time together: I made up to her from the beginning. Naturally I kissed her as soon as I could and as often as I got the chance; and when I told her I loved her, I found she took it much more seriously than I did. "You wouldn't be after marrying me," she said.
"You'd be ashamed of me over there in London and Paris and Vienna." My boxes showed labels that were known to everyone in the house.
"You're an angel," I replied, "but I have a lot to do before I can think of marrying"; still the kissing and caressing went on continually.
I got into the habit of taking my dinner in my sitting-room, for there was seldom anyone in the public dining-room, and when my things were cleared away and I sat reading, Molly would come in and we'd talk like lovers. One evening I asked her why she didn't come to me in bed after everyone was asleep; to my amazement she said she'd love to and I made her promise to come that very night, scarcely daring to believe in my good fortune. About eleven I heard the pattering of bare feet, and as I opened the door that gave into my sitting-room, there was Molly with nothing but a red Indian shawl over her nightie. In bed together I kissed and kissed her and she responded, but as soon as I tried further she held me off: "Sure, you wouldn't be doing anything like that."
"You don't care for me much or you wouldn't deny me," was my retort.
"Indeed I would; you must be good for I love to cuddle you," and she slipped her arms round me and held me to her till I grew almost crazy with desire. At first I smiled to myself: a few nights of preliminaries and nature would be too strong, but I had reckoned without my host.
I have not even described Molly and yet I shall always see her as she stood before me nude that first night. She was as tall as I was and splendidly formed, of the mother-type with large breasts and hips. She held her head turned away, as if she did not want to see me while I perused her naked charms. But her flower face was finer even than her figure: the great grey eyes shaded with long black lashes that curled up, while masses of very dark hair fell to her waist. Curiously enough, her skin was as fair as that of a blonde. When she turned, half-smiling, half-fearful, to me, "Have you seen enough now," I drew down the nightie I had half round her neck.
"I could look a long time without ever having enough, you beauty!"
"Sure, I'm like everybody else and my cousin Anne Moriarty's the beauty, with her golden hair!"
"Nothing like so beautiful as you!" For answer, I kissed her. "You'll catch cold; you'll come to-morrow?" She nodded and I went to bed in a fever. I had failed absolutely, but I was in no hurry and ultimate failure was unthinkable.
The next night I began by showing her the syringe and explaining its use. She would hardly hear me out, so I began kissing her sex till she sobbed breathless in my arms; but still she wouldn't let me come to the natural act.
"Please not; be good now!"
"But why, why?" The question stung her.
"How could I ever go to church? I confess every month; sure it's a mortal sin!"
"No sin at all and who'd know?"
"Father Sheridan would ask me; sure, he knows I like you; I told him."
"And he'd condemn it?"
"Oh my! That's why I can come to you, because none of them would even dream that I'd come like this to you. But I love to hold you and hear you talk, and to think I please you makes me so proud and glad."
"Don't you love my kisses best?"
"They make me afraid. Talk to me now; tell me of all the places you've seen.
I've been reading of Paris-it must be lovely-wonderful-and the French girls dress so well-oh, I'd love to travel."
Again and again I tried, but the denial was adamant. Molly thrilled and melted under my kissing, but would not consent to what she'd have to confess afterwards to the priest.
A few days later, I made it my business to meet Father Sheridan and found him very intelligent. He was of the old school, had been brought up in St.
Omer and had a delightful French tincture of reading and humour, but alas!
He was as crazy as any Irish-bred priest on the necessity of chastity. I drew him out on the subject and found him eloquent. At his fingers' tips, he had all the statistics of illegitimacy and was proud of the fact that it was five times less frequent in Ireland than in England; and to my amusement I found it was commoner in Wales than in Scotland. Sheridan would never admit that the Welsh were Christians at all-"all pagans," he'd say, with intense emphasis,
"mere savages without a church or a saint!" He was proud of the fact, I found, that it was his duty to denounce a young man and woman from the pulpit if they kept company too long, or with a suspicion of undue intimacy. "They should marry and not burn," was a favorite phrase of his. "The children of young parents are always healthy and strong": it was an obsession with him.
Yet he would drink whisky with me till we both had had more than enough.
How do the Irish come to have this insane belief in the necessity and virtue of chastity? It is their unquestioned religious belief that gives it them, yet in the mountains of Bavaria and in parts of the Abruzzi, the peasants are just as religious, and there, too, chastity is highly esteemed, but nothing to be compared to its power in Ireland. I've often wondered why?
To cut a long story short, I used all the knowledge I had with Molly, yet failed completely. I knew that at certain periods women feel more intensely than at others; I found out that three or four times each month Molly was easily excited, especially about the eighth day after her monthlies had ceased. I used every advantage; but nothing gave me victory. One night, I was halfinsane, so I promised to do nothing and thus got permission to lie on her, intending if necessary to use a little force. "That's nothing," I repeated,
"nothing," as I rubbed my sex on her clitoris; "I'm not going in." But suddenly she took my head in her hands and kissed me. "I trust you, dear; you are too good to take advantage of me," and as I pressed forward, she said quietly,
"You know I'd kill myself if anything happened." At once I drew away. I couldn't speak, could hardly think.
"All right!" I cried at last. "You've won because you don't care," and I threw myself away from her.
"Don't care!" she repeated. "I love you, and I'll love you all my life," and as she took me in her arms all my stupid resentment vanished and I set myself to interest her as much as I could.