Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

After the banns had been read for the first time, Pat came to another conclusion: that the marriage was inevitable; that there was no way to stop it mew. He went on to his next project: the house. He knew Claude wanted to live there.

"How much will he pay?" he asked Maggie-Now.

"How do you mean, I'apa?"

"I'll rent him the downstairs for twenty-five a month and you can have me big bedroom and I'll take your bit of a one. Of course, I'll pay for me share of the food and the boy's."

"Now, Papa, must we go all through that again? Mama said I was to get the house when I married. You promised."

"It was one of them promises no man has to keep."

"Oh, shame, Papa. Shame. Grandpapa gave it to Mama in the first place. It was never yours."

"Ha! Me deed says: To Patrick Dennis Moore ate us."

"And you know what Et Ux means? "

"Sure. A/l His," he ventured, figuring that she didn't know what it meant either.

~ 280] "It means bled IVife. I know that much Latin anyhow. If you give the house to me after I marry, even if you don't want Claude to have it, the deed would have to be in his name."

"Over me dead body!"

"All right, Papa. I won't fight with you over it. I'll get the house anyway after you die."

"Knock wood when you say that," he shouted.

"I will not!" she shouted back. "I don't want to live here anyhow. What kind of a married life would I have and you always making trouble? We'll get an apartment."

"Do so. 'Tis right married people live alone." She got her hat. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going out to rent an apartment."

"Who's going to cook me meals? Who's going to look after the boy?"

"I'll find you a housekeeper, Papa. Maybe Father Flynn's housekeeper knows somebody. ."

"How much will it cost?"

"A very old lady will work for fifteen a month and room and board. Only you have to give her so much every week for groceries not a dollar whenever you feel like it."

He did some mental arithmetic; then he started to negotiate: He'd give her the upstairs rent free for the rest of her life, provided she continued keeping house for him.

She declined. The downstairs, then; same conditions. She said, no. They reached no agreement. Maggie-Now went out to look for an apartment.

When the banns were read for the second time, Pat made a deal. Because, and only because, he'd promised her mother, he told Maggie-Now, he would turn over the house to her. There were provisions. The house was hers for her lifetime only; after that, it went to Denny; she was to continue keeping house for him and Denny; he was to have the upstairs hall bedroom as his own to occupy or to rent out he to receive said rent.

"But why do you want to own a hall bedroom, Papa?"

"Because I just got to end up with something out of this."

She agreed. He had the deed made over to her right away. She suggested he wait until she and Claude married.

"It would be a nice wedding present," she said.

"I don't want it to be Et lJx," he said. ~81] Claude helped her move Pat's furniture to the upstairs room. They painted the walls and ceiling of Pat's old room, which would now be theirs, and Maggie-Now made new, rose-sprigged, ruffled dimity curtains. She bought a new bed and dresser for the room that would be hers and Claude's, and a taffeta, green bedspread. She decorated the bed with half a dozen tiny, heartshaped lace pillows and two French dolls with their legs knotted. This was the fashion of the time. Claude raised his eyebrows when he saw the decorated bed.

"I guess you think it's tacky or something, but all my life I wanted heart-shaped lace pillows. I like that stuff on my bed."

"Our bed," he said.

"That's right, Claude, and I'll put the stuff away after we're married."

"Oh, leave it, Margaret. Just so there's room for a husband."

She was ecstatically happy during those waiting weeks, but sometimes the thought of Lottie diluted her happiness.

She put off telling Lottie about her coming marriage as long as she could because she knew Lottie would rave.

She did.

"A fool! That's what you are, a fool! Marrying this nobody when you could have had a man like Timmy; you could have married Sonny. Who is this Claude anyway?

What do you know about him? He might be a jailbird; he might be already married to someone in Jersey. What do you see in him? "

"I love him so."

"You love the grand way he talks to you. And more shame to you. Are you not used to grand talkers and you coming from the Irish who is the grandest talkers of all?"

"But you'll come to my wedding anyhow, won't you, Aunt Lottie? "

"No! "

"Please! Since Mama died, you've been my mother. I

want my mother to come to my wedding to wish me luck."

"I use' to think of you as my daughter. Now I'm glad you ain't because I' rather see a daughter of mine in her casket than married to a man like him." Maggie-Now broke down and sobbed. Lottie wasn't moved an inch by her tears. "Go on and cry," she said bitterly. "Get use' to crying. You'll shed many a tear after you're married to him."

[282] Pat went to Mass with Maggie-Now and Claude the Sunday when the banns were read for the last time. He half closed his eyes and the church seemed like the little church in Ireland. He heard the same names he had heard in that little church; his beloved's name and his: Margaret Rose Moore. He half expected that a burly man some pews ahead would turn around and it would be Timmy.

He sat with his head bowed, wringing his hands in anguish between his knees. Oh, if only I was a boy again, back in Ireland he mourned. I'd marry me Maggie Rose and gladly. And I wouldn't care what Henny the Hermit, sang about me. I'd work from morning to night cutting peat, and when they'd call me a bog trotter, I'd only laugh. 'Twould be heaven to live in a oneroom sod shanty and sleep on a bit of straw on the poor and eat the small, hard potatoes that I

planted meself and, yes, take a licking every day of me life from Tim7ny and never complain. Anything. . anything! If I was only young again! Anything, if only I was young again!

~ C HAPTER FORTY ~ MAGGIE-NOW was married in the new green challis dress she'd made; new hat, new shoes, new white gloves and a winter coat that had been new five years ago. She carried a bunch of baby bronze chrysanthemums. She came out of the priest's house on Claude's arm and two lines of people had made a path for them from the house to the curb. They were friends, neighbors, acquaintances, curious people and children. The bride shared interest with a tall woman at the end of one of the lines.

The woman wore a large black hat with a long black crepe veil that swirled around her head in the winter wind.

She wore a long black coat of bearskin. It reached from her neck to her

~ 253]

ankles. Maggie-Now thought briefly of Mrs. Schondle the ship that had passed in the night.

Bride and groom walked down the path. She nodded to the strangers, shook hands with acquaintances and put her hand, in a gesture of affection, on the arm of each friend and kissed all the children. Claude bowed from side to side like a visiting dignitary. When they reached the end of the lane, Maggie-Now put her arms around the woman in the bearskin coat, buried her face in the prickly fur and sighed happily as though she had come home from far away.

"My Aunt Lottie came to my wedding," she said.

"Did you think for one minute that I wouldn't come to your wedding?" said Lottie. "Why, that would be terrible!"