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must,
you
must
go to
confession at least once a year. Why did you stay away? Look at
3
66 Sean O'Faolain
the way your mind is deformed so that you can't even recognize a
sin when you commit it. Is there some sin you haven't told me that
you were ashamed to tell?'
'No, father.'
'Didn't your good mistress send you to confession at least every
month during those five years?'
'She sent me every week. But it was always of a Saturday night.
And one Saturday night I didn't go because I wanted to buy a
blouse before the shops shut. Then it was six months before I knew
it and I was afraid to go. And, anyway, sure what had I to tell?'
The canon waved his hands weakly and with great sarcasm he
said:
'Did you
never
commit a sin?'
'I suppose I told a lie, father. And there was the apple in the nuns'
orchard.'
Furiously the priest turned to her, determined to wring the truth
from her. In her compartment he heard Lady Nolan-White, his sec-
ond penitent, coughing impatiently.
'My dear child, you simply must have committed sins during
those five years. Be honest with yourself. Come now! Look! Take
the most common sin of all. Have you, ever, had what we, vulgarly,
call a . . . er . . . call a, boy?'
'I had - once - father.'
'Well, now!' He rubbed his forehead like a man in a great heat
and he strained towards her as if he were struggling with her de-
mon. 'You were, what do we say . . . er . . . walking out with him?'
'Yes,' panted the girl. 'In the back-lane.'
'Well, what shall we say? Did, what do you say, did, er, did any
intimacy take place with him?'
'I don't know, father.'
'You know what it is to be immodest, don't you?' cried the
canon.
Her breath was panting in and out. She said nothing. She stared
at him.
'My poor, poor child, you seem to have small experience of the
world. But we must get at the truth. Did he - did you - did either
of you ever go beyond the bounds of propriety?'
'I dunno, father.'
Loudly the canon expelled his breath. He was becoming ex-
hausted, but he would not give in. He rubbed his hair all the wrong
Sinners
3 67
way, which gave him a wild look. He took off his pince-nez and
wiped them.
'You understand plain English, don't you? Now, tell me, tell Al-
mighty God the truth of the thing. Did you ever allow him to take
liberties with you?'
'Yes, father. I mean no, father. We were in the lane. No, father.
We didn't do nothing. Nothing much, I mean.'
'Five years,' moaned the canon, and he hammered his thigh with
his fist. 'And nothing to tell. What kind of Christians . . . ' He de-
termined to make one last effort — just one more effort. 'Did he
ever touch your body?' he asked bluntly.
'No, father. Well, I mean - no, father.'
Seeing that she was beginning to whimper again he threw up his
hands.
'All right, child,' he said gently. 'Say your Act of Contrition and
I'll give you Absolution.'
'Father,' she whispered, her eyes black through the grille, 'I was
in bed with him once.'
The canon looked at her. She drew back. He leaned away and
looked from a distance at the criss-crossed face behind the grille.
Then he began to smile, slowly expanding his mouth into a wide
beam of relief.
'My child,' he whispered, 'did anyone ever tell you that you were
a little deficient in the head? I mean, you weren't very smart at
school, were you?'
i was always at the top of the school, father. Mother Mary Gon-
zaga wanted to make a teacher of me.'
'And,' growled the canon, now utterly exasperated, and dancing
his knees up and down on the balls of his feet like a man in the
agony of toothache, 'do you kneel there and tell me that you think
it no sin to go to bed with a man? Who,' he added, casually, 'isn't
your husband?'
'I meant no harm, father,' she palpitated, 'and it's not what is in
your mind at all, for we didn't do nothing, and if it wasn't for the
thunder and lightning that terrified me, I wouldn't do it at all. Mrs
Higgins was down in Crosshaven with Mrs Kinwall, that's her
daughter, and I was all alone in the house, and I was afraid of the
dark and the thunder, so Mikey said he'd stay with me, so he
stayed, and then it was late and I was 'fraid to be by myself in the
bed, so he said, "I'll mind you," so I said, "All right, Mikey, but
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