The Breaking of the Barrier

Irish Jesuit Province

The Breaking of the BarrierAuthor(s): Thomas KellySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 44, No. 516 (Jun., 1916), pp. 397-404Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20504622 .

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[ 397 ]

THE BREAKING OF THE BARRIER

ND I laughed at the idea then," thought Lena Field A ing as she recollected a passage she had once read

in a novel. The reading had taken place several months before her marriage to George, when her castles were all in the air, when her dreams of wedded bliss were rosier than the reddest of October dawns. The novelist was em phasising the fact that the newly-wed girl has always a surprise in store for her in the discovery that the loneliest hours of her life will occur during the first couple of months after marriage. For, when the One Man of the

World has to spend the biggest part of the day in office, shop, or manufactory, a void never arranged for by the new-made wife has generally an unpleasant way of making itself felt. It doesn't make the hours of loneliness any the less undesir able to know that they are interspersed between hours of bliss.

The Fieldings had just settled into a pretty, detached house in a Dublin suburb. George had a comfortable berth in one of the Government offices-one of those posts in which though he did not live up to the exploded libel of the would-be comic press by sleeping from ten to four, neither did he-as the truth must be told-suffer to any great extent from over

work. They had been married a couple of months, and all the

excitements of arranging furniture and the hundred and one details of a new home, of receiving the first visits and congra tulations of their few friends in and around the city, and of

the general novelty of starting life anew, had gradually come to an end. Lena had lived for the greater part of her three

and twenty years-the chief break being one of two years in a

Dublin convent-in the country, where social life was a free and-easy, come-and-go-as-you-please affair, instead of a "hand shake over an imaginary five-barred gate" sort of business. George's existence until the time of his marriage had been



398 THE IRISH MONTHLY

more or less of a wandering one -he had held an outdoor

inspectorship in his department for a few years, but his early

country upbringing had not somehow succeeded in making him a non-lover of city ways. So it was that Lena soon felt a curious drag in some of the hours of the day-times when

she would delight to be able to run into somebody else's house and have a little chat over the nothings that yet are such serious somethings to the feminine mind.

" Isn't it just awful, George," she had asked one evening

-the third in their new home-" to have to look up the

Directory to see who are one's next-door neighbours ?"

George of course agreed that it was, but he even went fur ther and pointed out to her that the Directory very soon got out of date, owing to the facility with which one's neigh bours changed now and again. " I know that the people in

'Myrtleville' are only there about five weeks," he explained. " The Directory shows L. G. Harding, C.E., or some

thing," put in his wife. " Oh, they're left. It's a man called O'Reilly is living

there now, a solicitor. Married about three months," finished George, gingerly digging his knife into a tea-cake.

" She seems rather to give herself airs," went on Lena. "I saw her go out for a walk this afternoon."

"And can you judge ber so quickly?"

"Well, of course, silly! You need only see a woman once

before summing her up." George Fielding was not so sure on the point, but he said

nothing. " I think, though, Doctor Lenane who lives in

'Laburnum' is quite a decent sort," he pointed out.

"Oh. Do you know him?"

" Well not to speak to. One of the fellows in the office

knows him slightly and speaks very highly of him." " Hope he's better than he looks," pouted Lena with a

mock grimace. " He seems as if he was always preparing to say something gloomy to somebody."

" Professional methods, dear. Wouldn't do to poke a chap in the ribs and tell him he was to be operated on in the

morning, would it ?" The days lengthened into weeks, and still the Fieldings

lived the life of social isolation in their suburban home, save



THE BREAKING OF THE BARRIER 399

for an occasional visit from one or other of George's friends. Their evenings of course were full enough, but the interval between her early lunch and the arrival of George from the office dragged perceptibly for Lena. She often went down town to meet him, she was a practical believer in the mind employing powers of fancy-work, music and reading, but yet the craving for someone to talk to-for a sympathetic femi nine mind could not be stifled. She even began to lose her one-time liking for playing the piano to an empty room.

One evening she met her husband with this query, " Why is it, George, that in the country a house is a place which one keeps open so that a neighbour may drop in whenever she pleases, while in the city it is chiefly used to shut you right away from everybody else in the world? The same as if you thought 'twas dignified to be isolated?"

" Oh, just habit, Lenny, of course. City people often wonder why the country folk have such little dignity."

" Dignity," came with a frown from Lena, " Dignity, in

deed! You mean that instead of lacking dignity they have social ways with them, that they do not think it necessary for the sake of impressiveness to adopt the stare of frigidity. I'm sure," she went on with womanly irrelevance, " that

Mrs. O'Reilly iB a fearfully important person in her own estimation. She was working in the garden as I passed this afternoon and looked at me as if I were a complete stranger, though she must have seen me pass dozens of times."

" But you are a stranger to her, you know," came calmly from George Fielding. " You've never been introduced."

"Rubbish ! And who's to introduce us? " Oh, ask me an easier one! You wouldn't speak to every

Tom, Dick-I mean every Kate, Lil and Nancy that you met, would you? But," George paused for an appreciably long space, " you didn't speak to her, did you ?"

" Of course not !" Lena replied with conviction. "I couldn't very well when she didn't speak first."

" Strikes me," laughed her husband, " that's just what she

thinks about you, too. In any case, why should she speak when you didn't?"

" Oh, but it's her place to begin. They're here longer than we are, she's at least seven years older than I am, she's




-but, of course there's every reason for her making the start."

Some days later, George came home to find his wife deep in the " Auction and To Let" columns of the daily paper.

"Do you know, George," she said to him at dinner, " I'm

positively sick of this house and this neighbourhood? Not a soul that I know within a mile of us-except the butcher and

the grocer, if you count them." " Well, the others wil come in time. I thought you were

introduced to the Skeltons the other evening." " Yes, but that's only one family. I've been thinking it

all out dear, and I see nothing for it but for us to move out

a bit into the country-beyond Glasnevin, or Drumcondra, or away beyond Rathfarnham or Killiney. Miles out!"

" What!" came from George, " I-I'm afraid---" " Lucky we only took this house on a six month's trial

lease wasn't it, when the landlord was so accommodating and so sure that we'd never want to leave ? You could get a motor

bike and a side-car if we went to anywhere far away from

the tram-line, for of course we'd have to go a good way out

from the city to get into the real sociability of the country. I think I'd hardly care what our next-door neighbours were

like so long as I could look in to them any time I felt I wanted

to talk to somebody." George Fielding was by no means keen on the projected

move, but with a little persuasion he went to a house agent

and had his name entered on the 'waiting list.' The agent

suggested a place in the vicinity of Blackrock, and Lena went

to see it. But it was so far from her ideal of a residence in

the country that she didn't trouble even to go into the house.

The house agent was silent for a fortnight, and then he sent George a list of six " very desirable country residences"

that he had been instructed to sell or let. The list arrived

at George's office during the day-though he had not given the agent his official address-and he hurried home with the

document to Lena. Her fancy was particularly taken by a

notice regarding a house with four acres of " prime limestone

land," and an orchard. It was twelve miles from the city, and half a mile from a railway station.

" I'm nearly certain, George, that that's just the house




I'm-I mean we're looking for. Won't it be lovely to be in the middle of the country where the people are natural, where

we can have bees, and fowl and-everything! How do you feel about it, old boy?"

To telI-the truth, George was beginning to like the idea of the house near the railway; he was far from being an en thusiastic motor-cyclist-lacking the taste for mechanics

which alone makes motor-cycling a pleasure-and the thought that he would always be close to a train in case anything went

wrong was very comforting. Unable to resist any whim or desire expressed by his wife, he would have probably gone, with no expression of disapproval escaping his lips, to any where she wished, let the daily inconvenience of his journey to and from town be what they would. So long as Lena was happy in her chosen home he was content.

" Oh, I forgot to tell you," she had put away the house

agent's letter and was helping George to soup, " that I had a

visitor to-day." " Yes."

" Well, not a visitor exactly. She called for a loan of

what do you think ?" " Can't imagine. But who was it called ?"

" Oh, I didn't tell you even that. Mrs. O'Reilly." " Well, well. So she made the start after all." " Yes, and do you know she seems quite a decent person.

We had a long chat on the doorstep as she was going out."

"Just like women ! They never seem to settle down for a

chat till they are parting." " But I didn't tell you what she called for. Guess." " I give it up at the start."

" Well, 'twas a nuitmeg. She was in a hurry and so

couldn't wait while the maid went to the grocers." " And yet she had plenty of time to talk on the doorstep !"

Lena was so anxious to see the house with the orchard and

the four acres that she suggested going to inspect it on the

following day while George was at work. She would be able to get back in plenty of time to see after the dinner arrange

ments, and was in high hopes as to the success of her journey.

Her husband, too, was by no means indifferent, and as he walked up the little avenue that evening he expected that




Lena would await his return even more anxiously than was her wont, she would be so eager to give him tidings as to her expedition countrywards. But he looked in vain for a glimpse of her face at the sittingroom window, the door did not open as if by magic at his approach, and when he rang there was no answer of quick footsteps in the hall. After a few minutes he rang again, beginning to wonder whether

Lena had not missed her train in the morning, and so having to wait for a later one might not be back yet. Or, per haps

George's musing was cut short by the opening of the hall door by his neighbour, Doctor Lenane.

" What's wrong, doctor?" jerked George, a queer feeling in his throat. The doctor held out his hand, and George took it.

" We're next-door neighbours, Mr. Fielding," said the doctor smoothly. " I wanted to meet you, but I'm sorry our first meeting is like this. But, it's nothing to worry about."

" What's happened, what's wrong ?" The doctor's calm was beginning to irritate Fielding.

" Just a slight cold your wife's caught. One of those chills that people never know how they catch'. She was getting ready to go out somewhere to-day it seems when she felt a bit out of sorts. She lay down for hall-an-hour, but then she was feeling worse, and without telling her your maid slipped over and told me. She'll be all right in a day or two-just needs to lie up-so don't worry, old man." George had gone suddenly pale.

The doctor accompanied him to the sick-room, and there Fielding was surprised to find a lady, whom he recognised as Mrs. O'Reilly, attending to the invalid. The medical man introduced them, and soon slipped away to make some other calls.

Lena's chill turned out to be rather an acute attack of pneu

monia, and the few days' rest lengthened into several weeks

of prostration, during some days of which she hovered be tween life and death. On the day when Lena had first been taken ill, Mrs. O'Reilly had called to return the borrowed

nutmeg-or rather one instead of it-and had arrived at the same time as Doctor Lenane. Seeing how matters stood she




had at once placed herself in charge of the Fielding house hold, suggested that George be not telephoned to, as such a course would but cause undue excitement, adding that she would do all that was needful. She ordered a nurse on the doctor's recommendation, she prepared George's dinner, and met his profuse thanks in the evening by the simple state ments, " Oh, we're neighbours, aren't we, so why shouldn't we help one another in a case like this ?"

The doctor's wife, too, who had been a nurse in one of the

Dublin hospitals before the day when Cupid came, pointed out to George that as she was a next-door neighbour it was

only natural that she should help during Lena's illness as well as Mrs. O'Reilly-and help she did, with such a disre gard for her own houoehold that George was more than sur prised.

U a

At the end of a month, Lena was convalescent, and a week

later saw her almost her old self again. George had returned

to his official duties, and came home one evening to find her in excellent humour and spirits. " I feel an utter wretch,

George," she confided to him that night, " when I think of the way I misjudged Mrs. O'Reilly, and all our neighbours in fact. I've had so many callers these few days past, that I

am ashamed of myself." " I had a note from the agent to-day," George informed

her, suddenly. "lHe wants us to decide at once about that house."

"What house?" asked Lena, with wide-opened eyes. "You know. The one with the orchard and the four acres

that you were going to see that day . " Oh, tell him we've decided not to take it. Do you know,

George, I feel I couldn't leave here now-why, we could

hardly wish for better or more friendly neighbours no matter

where we went !" George Fielding looked at his wife in mock amazement. " But what about those neighbours you'd like to be able to

drop into at any time you felt like it ?" he queried. " Oh, they're all round us here! As soon as ever I'm about

I'm to call on Mrs. O'Reilly, Mrs. Lenane, Mrs. Dwan of

Fernleigh, Mrs., oh, ever so many more of them. No ' At




Home' days or anything like that either. The worst of it is," fshe finished, "I 've promised to call on all of them first !"

" But they all were such a stuck-up lot a few weeks ago,

you know," came slyly from her husband. " Well, they're not, George! 'Twas the queerest of all

about Mrs. O'Reilly." How's that?"

"She thought I was too full of myself to speak to anyone !" "That's just like- " "And she wanted several times to speak to me," cut in

Lena, " but didn't like too, for fear I was too dignified." " How the ladies do misjudge one another," commented

her husband. "And you summed her up-" " If we do make a mistake once in a while, we own up to

it, don't we?" George nodded assent, after a quizzical pause. "You do,

but " " Be sure, now," Lena emphasised, almost dramatically,

"that you tell the house agent that we've definitely decided on something else, or he might keep worrying you with other offers of desirable residences. Maybe," she urged, " there isn't a decent neighbour within a mile of that house that

looked so well on paper. 'Prime limestone land' doesn't, after all, hold much promise of sociable surroundings. We couldn't have much nicer people about us than we have here.

could we?" THOMAS KuLLY.

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The Breaking of the Barrier

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