Read Online Winter Song by James Hanley - Free Book Online Page A

between them, the steady laboured breathing of the woman. Sister Angelica went across to the bed. She wiped the woman’s forehead, her lips, she put her hands under the bedclothes. She knelt down and prayed.
    Father Moynihan was sitting in his study reading the evening paper when his housekeeper brought him the news. He looked up at her, he let the newspaper fall from his hands, he said:
    â€˜Show him in.’
    â€˜Yes, Father, of course.’
    He rose to meet the visitor. Father Moynihan was a tall man, but the man in the Ulster coat dwarfed him at once. He was a big, burly man, red-faced; when he removed his hat, it revealed thick black curled hair, greying at the temples. There was something at once arrogant, at once uncouth, in his manner of approach, in a reluctance to take the outstretched hand of the priest.
    â€˜How are you, Desmond Fury? It is some years since we met. You’ve just got in?’
    â€˜Yes. And I must go back to-morrow afternoon. I have a most important conference. Where is my father? This is wonderful news indeed. I had given him up as lost for good.’
    â€˜Won’t you sit down.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    The loud voice, the animal-like ferocity seemed to shake the room and everything in it.
    â€˜Your father is not fit to be seen as yet. The news has been broken to your mother. The sad thing about all this, Mr Fury, is that the poor old things are quite unfit to meet each other at present. It’s hard. But that’s what Dr McClaren has told me. We went into a conference about them this evening, Father Twomey, the doctor and myself. They cannot possibly see each other for a few days. You will understand, I’m sure.’
    â€˜But this is awful!’ Mr Fury said; he was guarded in his manner of address, he was most careful not to use the word ‘Father.’ He had always hated the word, and the cloth more, as all good revolutionaries must. They had been so harmful, they had held him back so long—they had made such a fool of his mother and ruined his younger brother. He was certain in his mind that these black crows, as he called them, were on the side of the devil.
    â€˜Can’t I be taken to my father? Or must I go myself?’
    â€˜I have told you that neither parent is in a fit condition to be seen. If you cannot wait, you cannot wait. That is neither here nor there. But I had wished to see you to discuss certain matters.…’
    â€˜What matters?’
    â€˜The question of a home for your parents, Mr Fury … I have been thinking that it would be a good thing if they went back to Ireland, as soon as your father is fit to make the journey.’
    â€˜That would be a good thing—besides my mother has always wished to do that. She told me so when I last saw her.’
    â€˜Very convenient for you.’
    â€˜I did not come here to be insulted.’
    â€˜You have been a callous brute to your parents all the same,’ the priest said.
    â€˜I do my best.’
    â€˜Everybody does his best, I’m sure. I know you think I harbour something against you, you think I disapprove of your marriage out of the Church. Indeed not, quite the reverse. The Church is healthier without you, and certainly my parish is, Mr Fury, but we are wandering from the point. Let us begin with facts. You have no wish and no intention to make a home for them.…’
    â€˜I have just said that I’ll look after them. I promise you they’ll not want.’
    â€˜You want them to go back?’
    â€˜I do. Why should they stay? What did they ever find here except unhappiness?’
    â€˜There were some happy days—remember? Remember I baptised all you Fury children. Do you ever hear from your sister?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Or Peter?’
    â€˜Once a month.’
    â€˜You write to him?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜And Anthony …?’
    â€˜Sometimes—he’s so far away.’
    â€˜And