Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  And with this he made a flourish with his hat, and a bow to Miss Theodora, the like of which I could hardly hope to execute in half a life, with such a smile of conceit and assurance, and, I may say; of defiance, as almost drove me out of my senses, and down he went, with a whisk, into the chair next hers, and began to talk love and nonsense into her ear, under my very nose! Every now and then, I could see from the comers of his eye he gave me a look as much as to say, “I have her, and I mean to keep her; and don’t you wish you may get her?”

  “That fellow’s disposed to put a quarrel on me,” said I to myself; “let him; if he don’t, maybe I’ll put one upon him.”

  I dare say I looked a little bit surly, for Mrs. Molloy plucked me by the coat, and said: “Sit down at the table, here, beside me and take a hot cup of tay, and a cut o’ that pittaytee-cake; and may I never! but ye look as if ye saw your tailor’s ghost with a bill in his fingers. Sit down now, I tell you,” and the imperious old lady pulled me down on the chair with a souse. “And here’s for you; that’s stingo; drink it, my child; and cream in it that will make you as fat as a pig.”

  I think in her youth Mrs. Molloy must have been very nearly as strong as Juggy Hanlon: I felt perfectly helpless in the hands of either. In deep dudgeon I swallowed lumps of potato-cake and gulped down tea, talking rather vaguely with old Mrs. Molloy, and watching Theodora and The O’Kelly of Ballynamuck with the corner of my eye.

  “I see how it is, my poor little fellow,” says Mrs. Molloy, with a kind wink at me, “but don’t bother you head about him. “Mickey Kelly there,” and she winked at me again, and jogged her elbow in the direction of The O’Kelly, “can’t come to the playhouse tonight; he’s going to Killcock to sell a mare, and he’s the boy that can do it. So Theodora ‘ll have no one to look after her but yourself and them officers, and I leave her among you, and I think I know who’ll be foremost. We leave that dear girl, me and Molloy there, just to do whatever she likes best herself. What time of day is it, Molloy?”

  Old Molloy obediently grasped the seals of his huge silver watch, and hauled it, with several tugs, from the recesses of his fob.

  “Why then, it’s time the coaches was at the door,” says Mrs. Molloy, in a tone of brisk alarm, having heard his report. “Bing the bell, some o’ yez, like darlin’s. Where’s that Juggy Hanlon? Don’t be affeard, Mr. Dooley,” she interpolated to me, with a momentary playfulness, “she shan’t lay a finger on you. Call two coaches, Juggy, and don’t be while ye’d be lookin’ about ye — mind. Bun in and get ready, Theo, my child.” And she added more vehemently to her helpmate, “Shake them crumbs off your smallclothes, Mr. Molloy, and, for dacency’s sake, will ye wipe that butter off your chin.”

  So issuing her orders in hot haste, Mrs. Molloy fussed, and wheezed, and bustled about. Mundy was arranging his curls, and smiling blandly at his handsome features in the looking-glass; and Lieutenant Kramm was entertaining old Molloy with terrific anecdotes of his sporting and military life; and The O’Kelly was taking his leave with all the fascination and gallantry that belonged to his courtly manners. From the window I saw him get into a battered gig, and drive off at a hideous pace, pretty much at the mercy of a mad-looking horse, in a westerly direction. That redfaced thief made me very uneasy; and you may be sure it wasn’t altogether about his neck I was anxious.

  Well, he was gone; that was one comfort. I shook myself up, and strutted from one window to another, and Mrs. Molloy’s words and looks of encouragement came back, and I began to think if a little beast like that chooses to pin himself to a girl’s apron-string, what is she to do? I dare say she hated the old whisky-faced rascal as much as I did; and didn’t she give me a smile over her shoulder as she left the room!

  My spirits rose. I was glad to observe that Mundy, who was six feet high and wore a red coat — decisive odds — was not in the running; and Kramm was directing his attentions chiefly to the old people. The opportunity would, after all, prove as fortunate as my wildest hopes had painted it.

  In a few minutes more we were rolling and rattling away to the theatre. Mrs. Molloy distinguished Kramm and Mundy by placing herself under their escort, and starting first, with a tipsy coachman and a horse that had a morbid jerk in one of its legs, and seemed at every fifth step to be on the point of pitching, with a curtsey, on its head. Away they went in full fig, merrily, in this conveyance; Mrs. Molloy, as proud as a peacock to take her seat in the box next his Excellency, the Lord Lift’nant! I, old Molloy, and the lovely Theodora, whom I keep to the last, as children do their best bit, followed in our jingling, thundering, rolling coach, and in a few minutes down slammed the steps in front of the box-entrance, and I had the happiness of giving my arm to the beautiful girl I had never ceased thinking of since I saw her for the first time, in the barouche, outside the pickle-shop on Stephen’s Green. Can I ever forget it!

  Here we are now, all in our glory, under the blaze of the lamps. Mrs. Molloy’s turban, or, as she persisted in calling that sort of coiffure, to her dying day, her “turbot,” was the finest thing in green, yellow, and pink that night in the playhouse, with a big pin — I suppose they were precious stones — stuck in the front of it; her dress was of corresponding magnificence. At that time ladies wore next to no waists at all, and their clothes were made almost as tight as bolster-cases, if you just suppose a bit of string all round tied tight, and as close under the arm-pits as anatomy would permit. Whatever advantages this style of dress had, I think it was rather trying to persons of Mrs. Molloy’s figure, and was calculated, with uncommon candour, to display every pound of flesh she boasted. She had three necklaces on, and a roll of fat for every one, and a pair of Roman-pearl pendants, that were as big as duck-eggs, and kept swinging and knocking on her inflamed shoulders whenever she turned her head. I will say this for Mrs. Molloy, that for her time of life she was as showy and plentiful a figure, and as roomy a woman as you could wish to fill a window with on a Lord Mayor’s Day; and this night, in the front row of the box, next his Excellency, she was looking her very best, and, I dare say, a more striking figure than the Lord Lieutenant himself.

  Mrs. Molloy was so anxious to get next the Lord Lieutenant, and her daughter to get as far as possible from Mrs. Molloy that Mundy and I were put side by side in the middle, Miss Theodora on my right, and the old lady on Mundy’s left next the viceregal box. I remember the arrangement well, because we were hardly in our places, and I saying something engaging to Miss Theodora Molloy, sitting as I was side by side with my friend the lieutenant, when a fellow in the gallery calls out, “Three cheers for Mundy and his man Friday,” and three cheers followed that made the lustres tremble.

  This you may be sure made me feel rather fidgetty, more especially as who should I see but that blackguard young Figges, and all his malevolent family, grinning and sniggering away in a front row, only a box or two off. He was watching me, and laughing, you’d say, for a wager, and bursting with spite.

  I was as sure as could be, of a thing I did not actually see, that the sneaking rascal had sent a lot of his shop-boys into the upper gallery to make fun of me before the people. Of course he saw my name down and who I was with when he went to take his places.

  It was a terrible unlucky thing. It was putting me out. I could not hear half she said; and two or three times I was very near talking nonsense.

  In a minute more another chap calls out from the gallery: “A cheer for the big soger with the little hyacinth in his buttonhole,” and off goes another cheer.

  Well, this blew over like the last, leaving me feeling rather small and blushing all over. But I did not pretend to think they meant me, and went on talking all the same, thinking the overture would never begin, and the curtain go up to put me out of pain.

  Then there comes a thundering cheer for Mr. Toole, in the box next his Excellency, and I saw the Figgesses tittering.

  No matter, I was determined to keep neverminding, and to talk on to that beautiful girl as if nothing in the world was going the le
ast bit wrong.

  “May I make bold,” says I, “to ask you, Miss Molloy, how long it is since you and Mr. O’Kelly were first acquainted?”

  “And why should you care a brass farthing, Mr. Toole, to know? “ says she, looking as innocent and startled-like as a little frightened bird. “Sure there’s no harm in poor little Micky O’Kelly!”

  “No harm, I dare say, and not much good,” said I; “but whatever he is I envy him, Miss Molloy, and lament all the precious time I have lost.”

  I said this, you may be sure, as tenderly as I could.

  “I hope you’re gettin’ on with her, Mr. Toole,” calls out a fellow affectionately from the gallery.

  “Never mind,” says another, “he’s the boy that’ll melt her soon.” I felt my very cheeks tingling with shame. There was another cheer, and those accursed Figgesses grinning. Well, it could not last for ever, I thought. “Will those beastly fiddlers never begin?” I thought. “Is there no one else in the house to make fun of hut me? Will I ever be out o’ this, dead or alive?”

  The house was now filling fast; the box-doors were opening and clapping; a human flood was oozing and tumbling into the pit from every entrance. The gallery was becoming more noisy every minute; the orchestra were assembling, were chatting together, turning over music, and tuning violins, double-basses, and all sorts of instruments. There was a cheer for “Nosey,” which was the nickname of the “leader” of those days. There was the usual “groan for the man in the white hat,” and call for “music,” and two or three fruits, small and hard, of that popular kind which were displayed by the vendors at the corner of Carlisle Bridge, in old japanned snuffer-dishes, and offered from 11 o’clock, A.M., to sunsetting, with inviting monotony, in the words, “Fourteen scarlet craftons for a halfpenny,” hit a hat or two in the pit, and one sounded the big drum with a spirit that made the accomplished drummer start, and drew upon him a glance of indignation from “Nosey,” now upon his throne. These “fine scarlet craftons,” as I knew from experience, were as cheap and convenient an ammunition as a man could take with him to the upper gallery, when he wished to take half-an-hour’s innocent diversion with bald heads in the pit. Only two or three came down now; but they were “like the first of a thunder-shower,” as Lord Byron says, and I knew they were signs of the coming storm.

  And now, on a sudden, every one in the house stood up, the orchestra struck up “God save the King.” The Lord Lieutenant was taking his place in state, in the box next ours, and such a storm of clapping, cheering, hooting, groaning, hissing, whacking of sticks on the front of the gallery, whistling, cat-calls, and other sounds rose all at once, as made the music totally inaudible, and deafened the entire audience for a time. During the whole of this period, while we could see by the elbows and fiddlesticks of the orchestra that the national anthem was still being played, much to my chagrin, I saw Mrs. Molloy, in whom I felt an interest, reflected from her lovely daughter, and a responsibility though not quite so near as Mundy’s, behaving herself in a manner that, I confess, scandalised me a good deal; for, with her side and shoulder on the cushion of our box, she contrived to get her face round the partition of his Excellency’s, and indeed, I may say, pretty well into it. One of her objects had been to get a good look at that dignified personage. I could soon perceive that she was engaged in a violent altercation with some one in the viceregal box, in which her face was, I may say, established.

  I thought I could distinguish in her powerful voice an allusion to the well-known privilege that cats enjoy, of looking at kings; but, except the constant and vehement nodding of her turban, I could see nothing of what was going on in the state box.

  Tom Barnacle was in the pit, a little way out, and told me next day all he saw; and from that and Mrs. Molloy’s narrative, I can relate that when her face presented itself considerable surprise and even consternation appeared in the countenances of those members of the household that were stationed in the rear of “his Excellency,” who looked straight before him, as if unconscious of the appearance of the disk that had risen so unexpectedly on his horizon.

  Mrs. Molloy nodded repeatedly to “his Excellency,” and smiled affably, assuring him that she was proud to see him there, and that Molloy himself and her daughter being in the next box she did not think it would be manners if some one of the family did not wish his Excellency health, wealth, long life, and prosperity, which she did with a cead mille failthe from the heart of a Connaught woman, and the boosom of Ireland.

  His Excellency, she complained afterwards, did not appear to hear what she was saying— “them ignorant blackguards were making such a noise” — but as the speech exhibited no symptoms of drawing towards its close, one of the gentlemen, in Castle uniform, stepped forward, and said with very marked distinctness: “Unless you withdraw your face, a constable shall take you from the next box, and convey you to the watch-house.”

  It was upon this that Mrs. Molloy, who had a “spent” befitting her ancient lineage, had retorted in high and scornful terms upon the “gentleman-at-large,” who looked as if he would have liked to take by the throat that turbaned Turk; and it was not until she saw him, as she thought, make a sign to some one, in the rear of the box, that her prudence overcame her indignation, and, with a face of flame and many a sniff and snort, she resumed her original pose, and stared fiercely across at the side-scene opposite, and her gills palpitated for half an hour afterwards.

  The frightful discord with which the representative of majesty was received, foreboded the political storm that was brewing.

  ‘Macbeth’ was the play, and my troubles, to return from great things to small, were not over yet, for when the witches came on, and the cauldron appeared, a chap calls out from the gallery: “The boiling-pot, Mr. Toole.”

  I felt it the more that there was a dead silence in the house at the moment. And when the smoke began to come up, and the witches said:

  “Double, double, toil and trouble;

  Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.”

  “Melting-day, Toole,” says another. And when Macbeth said:

  “Out, out, brief candle.”

  There was a roar of “Short sixes.”

  I give you my sacred honour, I felt as if I was melting myself. I’d have liked to stand up that minute and tell the whole world I was a chandler. There’s nothing on earth so torturing as a mystery, with a lot of fellows, that know all about it, poking it under your nose every minute in the presence of a great assembly.

  Between the acts, it was one succession of groans, and hisses, and political sentiments, and it was plain that the Lord Lieutenant and the government bigwigs were in ill odour with the gallery. It was just when Macbeth was on the point of murdering King Duncan, a chap among the gods called out, by way of a joke: “God save the King,” and with that another calls for “Patrick’s Day,” and then the whole gallery round set up one roar for “Patrick’s Day,” and nothing could you hear but “Patrick’s Day — Patrick’s Day,” in one thunder; you’d think the ceiling would come down. And out comes the manager, and stood bowing in front of the footlights, turning up his eyes to the gods, and Nosey waiting for a signal from him to strike up the tune they wanted. He made no sign; the clamour rose awfully; he smiled, he shrugged, he bowed very low, he expanded his white gloves imploringly, as he slowly looked from one side to the other of the gallery. All would not do; they would not give him a hearing. The manager went off, bowing and smiling regretfully, and he sent on Lady Macbeth to proceed, if she could; but the storm was rising steadily, and even that royal virago was forced to submit: Lady Macbeth curtseyed low, and in turn withdrew. Again the manager came forward. He gesticulated before the gentlemen in the gallery, conveying as well as he could that their demands were complied with; he stepped forward to the footlights, signed to Nosey, who rapped on his desk with his fiddlestick, and waved that wand of power over his musical familiars, and it was to be supposed the tune, so tumultuously demanded, was at last being executed by the full strength o
f Nosey’s band; but, of course, not a note could any one hear in the house. The magic of “Patrick’s Day” was powerless to abate the storm. That quarrel was but a pretext: there was something deeper in it. The manager bowed very low, and a sucked orange hit him on the head. At the same moment a whisky-bottle, from the upper gallery, hit the front of the Lord Lieutenant’s box, and a shower of glass splinters flew in all directions. Now there were gentlemen standing up in the boxes, and gesticulating fiercely at the gallery; box-doors were opened and peaceable people were drawing back and some getting out on the corridors; the same agitation was visible in the pit. Smash goes another bottle on the side of the viceregal box.

  The Viceroy, being a plucky man, continued to sit serenely with his eyes on the stage. Old Molloy popped his bald head out to see what was going on, and instantly, not a scarlet “crafton,” but one of those big, yellow apples that were called cannon-balls — never did they better deserve their name — burst with a thump on his shining bald head, a bit of it, as big as a walnut, hit me in the eye, exactly as I was saying, with a look of unutterable love in the unfortunate eye that I had fixed on her: “Dear Miss Theodora, fear nothing; am not I beside you?” Some pulp marked the spot where it had hit her papa, and a “noggin” of cider was streaming over his massive forehead and intelligent eyes, and I dare say old Molloy thought, for a minute, he was back again on the fair green of Ballynawhop.

  If we had known that the Lord Lieutenant’s box was likely to become the mark for all this artillery, I doubt if Mrs. Molloy would have been in such a hurry to secure the place of honour.

  “Papa dear, are ye hurted?” Miss Theodora exclaimed with much trepidation; and “Oh, la! There’s mamma!” And sure enough a cat had at that moment alighted with great directness on the head of Mrs. Molloy, whirling her tasteful turban and wig over her left cheek, and displaying instead a head as bald as her husband’s. A live cat, bedad! If it had dropped into the box among us, Saint Peter would not have kept me in it an instant! Luckily it tumbled off Mrs. Molloy’s turban, head over heels among the groundlings in the pit. Grasping her wig and turban with both hands she rose exclaiming, “Take me out of this hell upon earth some of ye.”