XXV
The thrill and terror of a house fire so uncomfortably close by had been a little too much for Miss Agatha Cramp. Even now, a week after the night of the uproar, she was still having breakfast in bed. Every time she thought of the excitement—the smoke, filling the quiet neighborhood before anyone suspected its origin, the long wait for the engines while the flames gained headway, the shriek, roar and clangor of arriving fire trucks, men shouting, thumping her own front door, yelling for admittance, dragging hose line through her house to the roof—she had to suppress shudders and draw deep breaths. It was a shattering ordeal.
She said as much this morning over her tray to her new Irish maid, Mary. Mary, an extremely acquiescent person, answered solidly, “Yes’m.”
“I feel so badly,” Miss Cramp went on, “about such a great loss of property. It must be extremely discouraging. The poor man never had a chance to take up his residence in the place, you know.”
“No, mum.”
“No. You see, he was a Negro.”
“Yes’m.”
“And I shouldn’t be surprised if someone weren’t guilty of arson in this case.”
“Y’ nivver kin tell, mum,” said Mary wondering what in limbo arson was.
“There is so much hatred between races,” sighed Miss Cramp. “Still, it is all that can be expected. Now Negroes, for instance are most extremely deceitful.”
“Is ’at so, mum?”
“Indeed it is. Why, this man Merrit, who owned the house that burnt up—he was always practicing some sort of deceit. Do you know what he did, Mary?”
“No mum.”
“Of course you don’t. Well, he was extremely fair of skin, you see, so that you wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed that there was anything wrong about him. So many generations in this climate, you understand. But he was always posing as a white man.”
“Y’ don’t say, mum.”
“He certainly was. He posed as white when he purchased that house—otherwise he’d never have gotten it. And, Mary, you can’t imagine what else he did.”
“No, mum.”
“He even went so far as to deceive white women in order to get into their homes—God knows for what purpose.”
“Is that so, mum?”
“Yes. So you see, after all, some disaster like this was all that he could expect. It was simply poetic justice, that’s all.”
“Justice of the peace,” amended Mary.
“I once had a colored maid. She was very deceitful, also.”
“Is that so, mum?”
“Very. She used to go out at night without letting me know, and finally she left on only three days’ notice.”
“Y’ don’t say, mum.”
“So you see, everything considered, there is some basis for race-distrust after all.”
“Like England and Ireland,” suggested Mary.
“Exactly, Mary. Exactly what I was thinking. And that reminds me, Mary.”
“Yes’m.”
“Who is the president of your country now?”
“Feller named Coolidge,” said Mary.
“No, no, Mary. I do not mean the United States. I mean the Irish Republic, your native land.”
“I sorter fergit, mum,” Mary apologized. “Y’ see, when I come away, sure there wasn’t no Irish Republic.”
“Isn’t it a man named De Valera?”
“Yes—I believe it is, mum.”
“Now there is something I can’t understand—how a Spaniard—he is a Spaniard isn’t he—how a Spaniard could become a native son of Ireland?”
“Well,” said Mary philosophically, “them things will happen, mum.”
“But I wonder, Mary—I wonder if your people don’t need help. Look at the way that McReeny starved to death. Something ought to be done. Isn’t there some organization that takes care of such matters?”
“I think his family buried him all right,” Mary reassured her.
“No—no, Mary. You do not understand at all. What I mean is this. Here is a young and inexperienced newborn nation, planted on a little isle of the sea, and left quite alone, helpless. It does seem to me that those of us who are in a position to do so should contribute all we can toward their welfare.”
“Yes’m.”
“Indeed there should be some organization having that as its purpose. Are you sure there isn’t?”
“Well—there’s what they call the Irish Free State Association, mum.”
“There!” said Miss Cramp triumphantly. “I knew it. Exactly what I thought, Mary. I must get in touch with them at once. Have they a phone, do you suppose?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if they did, mum.”
“Very well, then. That will do, Mary. That’s all. When you come for the tray, bring the phone book, will you, Mary?”