by George Moore
On arriving at their destination, they first went to Dungory Castle, where they left Lady Cecilia; they then drove to “Brookfield,” which was a mile distant. The air was heavy with heat, and the leaves of the beeches that leaned over the high walls flecked with light shadows the dust-whitened roadway; and as the Dungory domain was passed by streaks of open country became visible. These were barren, rocky, and low-lying, and the cabins of the peasants came out in crude white spots upon the purple mountains.
In the tiny cornfields the reapers rose from their work to watch. The carriage was swiftly borne along. Mr. Barton commented on the disturbed state of the country. Olive asked if Mr. Parnell was good-looking. A railway-bridge was passed, and a pine-wood aglow with the sunset, and the footman got down to open a swinging iron gate.
This was Brookfield. Sheep grazed on the lawn, at the end of which, on a hill, beneath some chestnut-trees, was the house. It had been built by the late Mr. Barton, out of a farm-building, but the present man, after travelling in Italy, inspired by a sentiment of the picturesque, had added a verandah; and for the same reason he had insisted on calling his daughter Olive.
The rooms, except the bedrooms, were on the groundfloor, and, to maintain a southern character, glass doors opened on what was generally a mass of soaking gravel. But now, on this burning August day, Brookfield was looking its best, and wore its most Italian air. Every breeze was redolent with the pungent odour of hay, the laburnums were folded in flowery mantles of yellow, and in the fragrant shadows of the chestnut trees, Mrs. Barton was seen waving her white hands at some little compliment that Lord Dungory had just paid her.
“Oh! there’s mamma!” cried Olive.
Mrs. Barton received her girls with many protestations of affection. She trifled with, as if anxious to set straight, their newly-bought foulards, inquired in brief phrases after their health, their delight at returning home, and the fatigues of the journey.
“But you must be starving, my dears, and I am afraid the saffron buns are cold. Milord brought us over such a large packet to-day; we must have some heated up, they won’t be a minute.”
“Oh! mamma, I assure you I am not in the least hungry,” cried Olive.
“La beauté n’a jamais faim, elle se nourrit d’elle même,” replied Lord Dungory, in his most youthful and most gallant manner.
A thrush was pouring forth his soul into the ear of the evening, but his song was less melting than Mrs. Barton’s laugh.
“You see, you find Milord the same as ever; toujours galant; always thinking of la beauté, et les femmes.”
In looking at Mrs. Barton, you wondered if she were forty. Her hair was touched with dye sufficiently to give it a golden tinge in places where it might be suspected of turning grey; it was parted in the middle, and was worn, drawn back over the ears, and slightly puffed on each side, in accordance with a fashion that came in with the Empress Eugénie.
Her face was more than oval — it was heart-shaped. The eyes, long brown almond eyes, attracted attention at once, as would those of a beauty of the last century, sketched by Romney in pastel. Mrs. Barton resembled the celebrated portrait of Lady Hamilton.
Time had, however, affected her figure more than her face. It was thin, a little bent, and even in youth it had probably resembled Alice’s rather than Olive’s, which was obviously a heritage that had come to her from her father.
But Mrs. Barton’s figure was singularly in keeping with her moral character; both were elegant, refined, supple. When she walked, no movement of her limbs was ever visible; she glided when she crossed a room; she seemed by preference to avoid the middle of the floor, and to pass as close to the wall as possible. She, therefore, suggested the idea of one who had worked her way through life by means of numberless bye-paths, all lying a little to the left of the main road along which the torrent of men and women poured, and who had been known to them only at intervals as she passed furtively down the end of a vista, or hurriedly crossed an unexpected glade.
The bent shoulders hinted at a capacity for stooping under awkward branches and passing through difficult places. There was about Mrs. Barton’s whole person an air of falseness, as indescribable as it was bewitching.
The waves of her white hands, with which she accompanied all her pretty speeches, seduced, if they did not deceive you. Her artificiality was her charm.
Never had she been known to weary an acquaintance or a friend with accounts of her troubles, her pains, her hopes; and when you entered her presence, your own disappointments evaporated in the fumes of the incense she burned in your honour.
The compliments she paid were often wanting in finesse; but when accused of this by a wit her defence was profoundly philosophical:— “What does it matter! Nine teen people out of twenty believe them, and even the twentieth, who does not, is pleased to hear that he is very nice, and clever, and that all women are in love with him.’ And similar wise sayings were often scattered through Mrs Barton’s conversation, for she knew well, although her chatter was always en omelette soufflée, a little seasoning thought would not come amiss, even to the lightest appetite.
Her views of life were practical ones, and, had she ever had aflections or illusions, she had found pleasure in them only as long as it had suited her aims and interests to do so. Conscience with her seemed to be merged entirely in the idea of expediency.
On suitable occasions she would say, sighing, letting the white hand fall negligently over the arm of the chair:— “But what are we here for, if it is not to try to get a good place in the next world? Our great aim should be to live respectably without coming to grief in any conspicuous way, and does not religion help us to do this? Religion is all that is respectable, ’tis you, ’tis me, it is the future of our children. Society could not bold together a moment without religion.”
Lord Dungory was the kind of man that is often seen with the Mrs. Barton type of woman. He was sixty-seven, but he did not look more than sixty. He was about the medium height, and his portly figure was buttoned into a tightly-fitting frock-coat; a shooting-jacket would have been too youthful. A high silk hat in the country would have called attention to his age, so the difficulty of costume was ingeniously compromised by a tall felt — a cross between a pot and a chimneypot.
For collars, a balance had been struck between the jaw scrapers of old time and the nearest modern equivalent; and in the tying of the large cravat there was a reminiscence, but nothing more, of the past generation.
It is easy to read the marking on this shell. Lord Dungory was a concession, and he compromised now with time, as he had compromised before in politics, in racing, in friendship. At different periods he had passed for a man of ability, but, through powerlessness to stand by an idea, he had never achieved anything very tangible.
In the course of conversation you gathered that he was on terms of intimacy with the chiefs of the Liberal party, such as Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, and if the listener was credited with any erudition, allusion was made to the most celebrated artists and authors, and to their works. There was a celebrated Boucher in Dungory Castle, which Milord, it was hinted, had bought for some very small sum, many years ago on the Continent; there was also a cabinet by Buhl and a statue supposed to be a Jean Gougon. The story and the proofs of their authenticity were sometimes spoken of after a set dinner-party. Lord Dungory spoke with considerable urbanity, and, on all questions of taste, his opinion was eagerly sought for. He gave a tone to the ideas put forward in the surrounding country-houses, and it was through him that Mr. Barton held the title of “Genius gone wrong.”
Milord found his artistic sympathies invaluable: they helped to maintain the amenities of his life at Brookfield. It is not an exaggeration to say that for the last ten years he had lived there.
Half an hour before lunch the carriage drove up to the door; in the afternoon he went out to drive, or sat in the drawing-room with Mrs. Barton; four times in the week he remained to dinner, and did not return home until close on midni
ght.
Whether he ever made any return to Mrs. Barton for her hospitalities, and if so, in what form he repaid his obligations to her, was, when friends drew together, a favourite topic of conversation in the county of Galway. It had been remarked that the Bartons never dined at Dungory Castle except on state occasions, and it was well-known that the Ladies Cullen hated Mrs. Barton with a hatred as venomous as the poison hid in the fangs of adders.
But Lord Dungory knew how to charm his tame snakes. For fortune they had but five thousand pounds each, and, although freedom and a London lodging were often dreamed of, the flesh-pots of Dungory Castle continued to be purchased at the price of smiles and civil words exchanged with Mrs. Barton. Besides, as they grew old and ugly, the Ladies Cullen had developed an inordinate passion for the conversion of souls. They had started a school of their own in opposition to the National school, which was under the direction of the priest. To obtain a supply of scholars, and to induce the peasants to eat fat bacon on Friday, were good works that could not be undertaken without funds; and these were obtained, it was said, by the visits of the Ladies Cullen to Brookfield. Mrs. Gould declared she could estimate to a fraction the prosperity of Protestantism in the parish by the bows these ladies exchanged with Mrs. Barton when their carriages crossed on the roads.
Now, with face slanted in the pose of the picture of Lady Hamilton, Mrs. Barton distributed her coquettish glances. Olive, looking like a tall, white doe, tossed her fair head. Mr. Barton squared his shoulders, pulled at his flowing beard, and growled as if he were keeping at bay the deep emotions that were supposed to be continually throbbing within him.
Alice sat plain and demure; her quick, intelligent eyes alone revealed her personality. To a stranger the scene would have appeared a picture of perfect domestic virtue.
The evening was immeasurably calm. The large sloping woods of the Lawler domain fell into masses of deep violet colour; pale shadows filled the soft meadows that lay between, and from miles away the rooks came flying through the sunset. Overhead the clapping of their wings was heard continuously.
“And now, my dear children, if you have finished your tea, come, and I will show you your room.”
Then Milord drew his chair closer to Mr. Barton, and, with a certain parade of interest, asked him if he had been to the Academy:
“Did you see anything, Arthur, that in design approached your picture of ‘Julius Caesar overturning the Altars of the Druids?’”
“There were some beautiful bits of painting there,” replied Arthur, whose modesty forbade him to answer the question directly. “I saw some lovely landscapes, and there were some babies’ frocks,” he added satirically; “in one of these pictures, I saw a rattle painted to perfection.”
“Ah, yes, yes, you don’t like the pettiness of family-feeling dragged into Art,” replied the courtier. Then he added, with a sigh:— “But if you would only condescend to take a little more notice of the technique; the technique is after all—”
“I am carried along too rapidly by my feelings. I feel that I must get on — that I must get my idea on canvas. But when I was in London I saw such a lovely woman — one of the most exquisite creatures possible to imagine. Oh! so sweet, and so feminine! I have it all in my head. I shall do something like her to-morrow.”
Here he began to sketch with his stick on the grass, and from his face it might be judged he was satisfied with the invisible result. At last he said:
“You needn’t say anything about it, but she sent me some songs, with accompaniments written for the guitar; she said she was most anxious to hear me play the guitar. You shall hear some of the songs to-night.”
At this moment a bell rang; Arthur growled in imitation of a lion, which was his humorous way of declaring he was hungry, and both men got up and walked towards the house.
The two tall wax-candles had just been lighted, and, under their red shades, the silver sparkled, the fruit grew luscious as in the glow of a southern sun. A deep, rich twilight fell from the high-hanging red curtains, and half concealed the painted forms of the women that, in a sort of nightmare nakedness and confusion, were intermingled with the roaring jaws and the dying struggles of many lions and tigers. The Bridal of Trier main was one of Mr. Barton’s favourite subjects.
Olive was radiant with delight. She had been placed next to Milord, and the compliments of the old courtier, although imperfectly understood from their being in French, at once fevered and bewildered her. The delicately-turned phrases, the stock-in-trade of an old roué, epigrams faded in the dust, and torn in the racket of fifty years of usage, were new to her, and, in the bright atmosphere of new ideas, she fluttered like a sun-smitten butterfly.
“La femme est comme une ombre: si vous la suivez, elle vous fuit; si vous fuyez, elle vous poursuit,” tickled the champagne-excited imagination of the girl, and she laughed with hysterical delight. But Milord had aphorisms for married women, as well as for young girls, and he often leaned over the table to whisper to Mrs. Barton. Once Alice heard him say, “L’amour est la conscience du plaisir donné et reçu, la certitude de donner et de recevoir.”
A little frightened, she bent her eyes on her plate, and, later on, she strove to understand when, in speaking of Olive’s youth, beauty, and innocence, Milord said: “Gardez bien vos illusions, mon enfant, car les illusions sont le miroir de l’amour.”
“Ah! mais il ne faut pas couvrir trop l’abîme avec des fleurs,” said Mrs. Barton, as a sailor from his point of vantage might cry “rocks ahead!”
Arthur only joined occasionally in the conversation, he seemed rapt in dreams. He gazed long and ardently on his daughter, and then sketched with his thumb-nail on the cloth. When they arose from the table, Mrs. Barton said:
“Now, now, I am not going to allow you gentlemen to spend any more time over your wine; this is our first evening together; come into the drawing-room with us, and we shall have some music.”
Like most men of an unevenly-balanced mind, Arthur loved an eccentric costume, and soon after he appeared in a long-tasselled cap and a strangely-coloured smoking jacket; he wore a pair of high-heeled brocaded slippers, and, twanging a guitar, hummed to himself plaintively. Then when he thought he had been sufficiently admired, he sang “A che la morte,”
“Il Balen” and several other Italian airs, in which frequent allusion was made to the inconstancy of woman’s and the truth of man’s affection. At every pause in the music these sentiments were laughingly contested by Mrs Barton. She appealed to Milord. He never had had anything to complain of; was it not well-known that the poor woman had been only too true to him? Finally, it was arranged there should be a little dancing.
As Mrs. Barton said, it was of great importance to know if Olive knew the right step, and who could put her up to all the latest fashions as well as Milord? The old gentleman replied in French, and settled his waistcoat, fearing the garment was doing him an injustice.
“But who is to play?” asked the poetical-looking Arthur, who, on the highest point of the sofa, hummed and tuned his guitar after true troubadour fashion.
“Alice will play us a waltz,” said Mrs. Barton, winningly.
“Oh, yes, Alice dear, play us a waltz,” cried Olive.
“You know how stupid I am; I can’t play a note without my music, and it is all locked up in my trunk, upstairs.”
“It won’t take you a minute to get it out,” said Mrs. Barton, and moving, as if she were on wheels, towards her daughter, she whispered: “Do as I tell you, run upstairs at once, and get your music; make yourself useful.”
Now that she was grown up Alice had hoped to find consideration, if not sympathy. She looked questioningly at her mother and hesitated. But Mrs. Barton had a way of compelling obedience, and the girl went upstairs, to return soon after with a roll of music. At the best of times she had little love of the art, but now, sick with disappointment, and weary from a long railway journey, to spell through the rhythm of the “My Queen” waltz, and the jangle of “L’Espri
t Français,” was to her an odious, and, when the object of it was considered, an abominable duty to perform. She had to keep her whole attention fixed on the page before her: but when she raised her eyes, the picture she saw engraved itself on her mind. It was a long time before she could forget Olive’s blond, cameo-like profile seen leaning over the old beau’s fat shoulder. Mrs. Barton laughed and laughed again, declaring the while that it was la grâce et la beauté réunies. Mr. Barton shouted and twanged in measure, the excitement gaining on him until he rushed at his wife, and, seizing her round the waist, whirled her and whirled her, holding his guitar above her head. At last they bumped against Milord, and shot the old man and his fair burden on to the nearest sofa. Then Alice thought that her mission at the piano was over; she rose to go, but Mrs. Barton ordered her to resume her seat, and the dancing was continued till the carriage came up the gravel-sweep to fetch Milord away. This was generally about half-past eleven, and, as he muffled himself up in overcoats, the girls were told to cram his pockets with cigarettes and bonbons.
“Bedad, I think it is revolvers and policemen you ought to be givin’ me, not swatemates,” he said, affecting a brogue.
“Oh, yes, is it not dreadful?” exclaimed Mrs. Barton; “I don’t know what we shall do if the Government don’t put down the Land League; we shall all be shot in our beds, some night. Did you hear of that murder the other day?”
“And it is said there will be no rents collected this year,” said Mr. Barton, as he tightened one of the strings of his guitar.
“Oh! do cease that noise!” said Mrs. Barton: “And tell me, Lord Dungory, will the Government refuse us soldiers, and police, to put the people out?”
