good deeds in spite of yourself. You are a lost man.” “Go to hell!” Fallon said and he plunged out into the rain
and walked rapidly away.
I3
The Church Militant
Father da Costa, was packing his vestment into a small suitcase when Anna went into the study. It was a grey morning, that eternal rain still tapping at the window. She was a little paler than usual, but otherwise seemed quite composed. Her hair was tied back with a black ribbon and she wore a neat grey skirt and sweater.
Father da Costa took both her hands and led her to the fire. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Truly I am. Are you going out?”
Tm afraid I have to. One of the nuns at the convent school of Our Lady of Pity died yesterday. Sister Marie Gabrielle. They’ve asked me to officiate.” He hesitated. “I don’t like leaving you.”
“Nonsense,” she said. Til be all right. Sister Claire will be bringing up the children from the junior school for choir practice at ten-thirty. I have a private lesson after that until twelve.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be back by then.”
He picked up his case and she took his arm and they went through to the hall together. “You’ll need your raincoat.”
He shook his head. “The umbrella will be enough.” He opened the door and hesitated, “I’ve been thinking, Anna. Perhaps you should go away for a while. Just until this thing is settled one way or the other.”
“No!” she said firmly.
He put down his case and took her by the shoulders stand-ing there in the half-open doorway. I’ve never felt so helpless. So confused. After what happened last night, I thought of speaking to Miller.”
“But you can’t do that/ she said quickly – too quickly. “Not without involving Fallon.”
He gazed at her searchingly, “You like him, don’t you?”
“It’s not the word I would choose,” she said calmly. “I feel for him. He has been marked by life. No, used by life in an unfair way. Spoiled utterly.” There was a sudden passion in her voice. “No one could have the music in him that man has and have no soul. God could not be so inhuman.”
“The greatest gift God gave to man was free will, my dear. Good and evil. Each man has a free choice in the matter.”
“All right,” she said fiercely. “I only know one thing with any certainty. When I needed help last night, more than I have ever needed it in my life before, it was Fallon who saved me.”
“I know,” Father da Costa told her. “He was watching the house,”
Her entire expression changed, colour touched those pale cheeks. “And you don’t care what happens to him?”
“Oh, I care,” Father da Costa said gravely. “More than you perhaps understand. I see a man of genius brought down to the level of the gutter. I see a human being -a fine human being – committing, for his own dark reasons, a kind of personal suicide.”
“Then help him.” she said.
“To help himself?” Father da Costa shook his head sadly. “That only works in books. Seldom in life. Whoever he is, this man who calls himself Martin Fallon, one thing is certain. He hates himself for what he has done, for what he has become. He is devoured by self-loathing.”
But by now she looked completely bewildered. “I don’t understand this – not any of it.”
“He is a man who seeks Death at every turn, Anna. Who would welcome him with open arms.” He shook his head. “Oh yes, I care what happens to Martin Fallon – care passionately. The tragedy is that he does not.”
He turned and left her there in the porch and hurried away through the churchyard, head down against the rain, not bothering to raise his umbrella. When he moved into the side porch to unlock the sacristy door, Fallon was sitting on the small bench leaning against the corner, head on his chest, hands in the pockets of his trench coat.
Father da Costa shook him by the shoulder and Fallon raised his head and opened his eyes instantly. He badly needed a shave and the skin of his face seemed to have tightened over the cheekbones and the eyes were vacant.