Without My Cloak Part III

Eddy and Denis note that Caroline is now middle aged and not very happy and feel sorry for her. Another member of the family is Teresa, Eddy's sister, who marries a nonentity called Danny Mulqueen. He works in Considine's but is not very clever. She has several children and lives for the eldest boy, Reggie, who is a rakish young man, who contracts a sexually transmitted disease. He is in poor health, and Teresa only half understands what's wrong with him. The Mulqueens appear in one of OBrien's later novels, The Ante Room, where the heroine is Agnes, Reggie's sister. Eddy talks seriously to Denis when the boy is leaving school, telling him that he should make use of the fortune that his grandfather left him, and not go into the family business. He thinks that Denis has some special qualities and he should at least try his luck at something outside even if he does end up settling for Considines. Denis is tempted but he loves his father and finds it hard to walk out on him. Denis starts working in the business and finds it rather dull but he does not want to hurt his father so he starts learning it from the bottom up. His cousin, Tony, goes into an order of Monks at Mount Mellary, and he loses touch with him.. and he can't understand why he has taken on this hard life. Getting increasingly bored, Denis starts going fishing at a river nearby, and enjoys it for a time, but then he meets a girl from a local farm, Christina Roche, who is gathering firewood near the river. Her aunt has a small farm which is rented from a Protestant landlord, and is very poor, living just above starvation level. Denis is struck by her beauty, and she tells him that she is illegitimate. Her mother was a servant who got pregnant and her aunt agreed to take care of her but she is barely able to support herself and her own children. Christina dreads the thought of emigrating to America or even England but she fears that her aunt can't give her a home indefinitely.