Chapter 21

THE BISHOP'S SOLUTION.

Denis Quirk, at Grey Town, threw away all thoughts of work, and laid himself out to make the time pass pleasantly for Desmond and Kathleen O'Connor. During his fortnight at "Layton" he was only in the town for Mass on the two Sundays, and once when he paid a visit to Cairns at the "Mercury" Office. That visit he curtailed to a brief fifteen minutes.

When he entered the old office, to find everything as he had left it--the old faces, the same order, even his own room arranged as it had been in his day--he felt that he could not stay for any length of time. This was home to him, and he an exile.

"I had to see you," he said to Cairns, "but it breaks me up to visit the old place."

"It is waiting for you, Quirk, and we miss you every day. When are you coming back?" the editor asked.

"When I can thrust my innocence in the town's face--perhaps to-morrow, possibly never," Denis answered.

"Nonsense! The scandal is dead and buried. We never realised what you were until you had left us. We want your initiative, Quirk."

"It's very good of you to say that. Lord, how I miss you Cairns--you and the old paper! The 'Freelance' is all right, but it never can be the 'Mercury.' And Grey Town, too! I love it for its very shortcomings," Denis replied.

He interviewed the staff, and parted after a few friendly words with each. The remainder of his time in Grey Town was spent at "Layton" and in the country around the town. His friends were invited to meet him at dinner--Father Healy, Mr. Green, Dr. Marsh, and a few others. Not that he feared to face the town, but because he could not bear to enter it as a mere visitor; to stand, as it were, on one side, as an onlooker and not as a worker.

"You have done wonders, they tell me," he remarked to his father, "but I feel that there is more to be accomplished, and my fingers are itching to be doing it."

"I am just keeping your seat on the Council warm for you. Say the word, and it is yours," remarked Samuel Quirk.

"When the word comes to me, I will send it along to you. Meanwhile, keep firing at them, Dad. Grey Town is yawning and rubbing its eyes. The town is beginning to realise what it is to be awake. In time it will be awake and moving briskly."

"I'll keep on pinching them, until they must be moving just to be quit of my fingers," Samuel Quirk replied complacently. "By the time you are back with us this town will be a young city."

The time passed pleasantly and swiftly at "Layton." Every day brought some new pleasure or excitement for the O'Connors, and Denis Quirk did his utmost to make them forget the strain that they had just been through. He proved that he could play as strenuously as he was accustomed to work, and that he was still a young man in his mind.

One morning Kathleen O'Connor attempted to thank him for his kindness. They were in the garden, old Mrs. Quirk resting placidly in an easy-chair under a large oak tree, Kathleen seated beside her, and the two men sprawled out at full length on the lawn. Desmond lay far apart, out of earshot, while Mrs. Quirk was fast asleep.

"I don't know how to thank you----," Kathleen began.

"There is no occasion to thank me. The gratitude is on my side, Miss O'Connor. You have made my mother happy, as no one else could have done. No payment or reward could represent what I owe you," he answered.

"But I am a paid companion," she protested, half-laughingly.

"Money cannot buy a friend, nor pay her for her friendship," he said. "And please not to forget that I am enjoying myself as much as you are. It seems to me that I have never been young until now. I went from school into a hard world, and I have been battling with it ever since. It is only now I realise that there is something else beyond work to make the world pleasant. Until now it has been a case of fighting hard and keeping myself straight by means of religion. Once I was tempted to drift--that was after my trouble, over there in Golden Vale--but I was fortunate enough to find an old friend, a Father, who put things before me in their proper light."

It was the first time he had spoken to her of the dark days in Goldenvale. She had often wondered to herself as to how he had accepted what must have been a terrible experience. Now that he had confided in her, she wished to hear more.

"A priest?" she asked him.

"The Bishop. I wish you knew him."

"I do," she answered. "We have a Bishop like that."

"Then I must know him. Will you take me to him and introduce me?"

"It is a long journey from Grey Town to Millerton," she answered laughingly.

"Nothing to a motor on a fine day and good roads. We will start early in the morning, and be there for lunch, see your Bishop, and return here for dinner. Desmond shall come--but what about the Mother?"

Mrs. Quirk had awakened, and lay very quietly, with closed eyes, listening to their conversation. She knew the Bishop well, for he came to visit her whenever he chanced to be in Grey Town. His very name brought a smile to her face, but she refused to place his Lordship before his reverence the parish priest.

"Never mind me," she said. "What is one day to me? But it may mean a good deal to Denis--and still more to Desmond."

They turned in surprise to look towards the spot where Desmond O'Connor lay, apparently asleep.

"To Desmond?" Kathleen asked, in a puzzled voice.

"Sure, you don't know the boy as I do. He comes to me, and we talk together, Desmond and I. The seed is working in the boy's soul--I am thinking he will be a priest."

"A priest!" cried Kathleen so clearly that Desmond rolled over lazily and faced them.

"What's that?" he asked. "You three look as if you were conspiring together. No secrets are allowed in this establishment--excepting Mrs. Quirk's and my own. Now, what is it, Kath.?"

"We are going to see the Bishop to-morrow," said Denis. "I intend to put his Lordship to a severe test. He shall be placed alongside my Bishop, and judged in that comparison."

"Six to four on his Lordship," said Desmond, still lazily.

"Will you come?" Kathleen asked.

"Of course I will. I have a spiritual conundrum of my own to be answered, and no one can find the solution but he. Book a seat for me in the car."

"May we take Molly Healy?" Kathleen asked.

"Who better? Molly Healy would make the longest road short and the roughest one smooth. If we puncture or blow out, she will cause us to forget the trials that pursue the tyres of a motor car."

The following day, at nine o'clock, the big "Layton" car, resplendent in a recent coat of paint, well shod, and perfectly equipped, started from the house on the long journey to Millerton. Denis Quirk was at the wheel, the chauffeur beside him. In the tonneau Molly Healy and Desmond O'Connor kept up a crossfire of good-humoured raillery, while Kathleen sat between them, smiling at their jests. It was a bright, sunny day, with a gentle breeze blowing from the south; the roads were smooth, and the motor throbbed along throwing the miles behind her, and the dust in the faces of those whom they passed on their way.

"A brief epitome of this Commonwealth," said Denis Quirk, with a wave of his hand as they were running through a vast, untenanted domain, protected on either side by rows of dark green pines. "Neglected opportunities! Land that should be supporting one hundred families wasted on one man."

Again they were hurrying between cultivated farms and farm houses, widely scattered, but sufficiently near to one another to represent civilisation. Double-fronted wooden houses were dotted here and there, single-storied, each with its wide verandah, a small garden, and possibly a row of pine trees to guard them from the wind. Behind them each had its row of wooden outbuildings, large haystacks, and sleek cattle feeding on green meadow-land.

"The proof of what we can do--given the one necessary thing, man. Lord! how the Japs must gnash their teeth when they think of the prize out here in the lone Pacific! When I am a politician----."

"Why not now?" Desmond asked. "Go forth and preach your new crusade. You can't begin too soon."

"I object to his preaching it in a car. Motors were never made for moralising. There's a feeling, in riding in a car, that makes a person lazy and contented," cried Molly Healy.

"Until something goes wrong with the car," suggested Desmond. "Then----."

"I have heard them in difficulties, and my ears are still tingling and my conscience burning me for the language they used," said Molly Healy.

"It's no use carrying other men's sins on your conscience. Haven't you sufficient of your own?" asked Desmond.

"That is between me and my confessor, Desmond. But if I don't carry these men's crimes no one will trouble about them, for they don't seem to think it a sin to swear at a motor, although they call the thing 'she.'"

"That's why they abuse her--woman was the original cause of sin, and still is, nine cases out of ten."

"Shame on you! The world would have little virtue to be boasting of were it not for us poor women."

"And less of sin," Desmond replied, cynically.

"Peace, children!" said Kathleen; "you spoil the scenery."

The Bishop was at home--a handsome man, tall and erect, with a stern face, yet one that was singularly sweet.

"Well, my child," he asked Kathleen, "what can I do for you?"

"Mr. Quirk wished to know you, my Lord," Kathleen answered, with a smile. "I brought him from Grey Town to introduce him to you."

"It is very kind of Mr. Quirk to come all this way to see me. Perhaps you will lunch with me, now that you have come so far."

"Oh! no, my Lord----," cried Kathleen.

"Oh! yes, my child. You have something to say to me?" he asked Desmond.

"It is private, my Lord--but it can wait," Desmond answered.

"No; it must not wait. Come with me, and talk until luncheon is prepared. I will send Father Geary to entertain your friends."

In his study, a small room, where large books on Theology were ranged on shelves round the walls, where a large silver crucifix stood on the table, with the Bishop's breviary and writing materials beside it, he bade Desmond sit down. Then he began to interrogate him shrewdly, but kindly.

"You wish to be a priest?" he asked.

Desmond eyed the Bishop in profound surprise, and his Lordship continued:

"How do I guess? Eh? It is not great wisdom nor the black art that has told me your secret. A friend wrote to me----."

"Mrs. Quirk!" cried Desmond.

The Bishop smiled, and his usually stern face relaxed, so that the lines and wrinkles of care smoothed themselves out.

"A friend," he answered, "who was interested in you, and anxious for advice."

"My Lord, I am quite uncertain. I can see which is the better, and which the more difficult."

"Make a retreat, my child; then come to me again."

"Tell me it is impossible, my Lord!" cried Desmond.

"Nothing is impossible. I was myself a man of the world like you, and, when I found myself confronted with a vocation, I was for running away, like you. But the grace of God constrained me by force."

"I can save my soul in the world," said Desmond.

"You may; probably you will. But there are other souls to save besides your own. Make a retreat, my child----."

"But I know what the result will be. There can be only the one answer."

"Then a retreat is not needed, but it will do you good. The Bishop commands you to make a retreat--at once!"

After luncheon, a plain meal, seasoned with good stories and laughter, they bade his Lordship a respectful good-bye. He stood at the door watching them as the car slipped down the avenue. On his face was the smile of one who has scored a triumph. Kathleen turned to Denis, and asked:

"What do you think of my Bishop?"

"Equal in every respect to my own, and that represents the very summit of virtue. But Desmond can tell you more of his Lordship than I. I met him as a mere man; Desmond was privileged to a more intimate knowledge."

Desmond smiled as he answered:

"A wise counsellor and a kind Father. He administers unpleasant medicine, flavoured with human kindness."

"And will you be taking the Bishop's black draught?" asked Molly Healy.

"I have not decided whether I shall swallow it or throw it away," he answered evasively.

But Molly Healy realised that Desmond O'Connor had decided. To her, this represented the destruction of an ideal she had never hoped to realise; but, as she wiped a few tears from her eyes that evening she remarked to herself:

"Life is made up of not getting what you want, Molly Healy. It is better Desmond should become a priest than die a scallywag--and it will keep him out of the way of that Sylvia Custance. God knows what is best for every one of us."