by George Moore
Mr. Barton’s father had spent fifty years in his study, imagining himself a Gibbon, and writing unpublishable history and biography. The attics were full of his manuscripts. It was from him Alice had inherited her love of books; her clear logical intelligence had come from her mother — of her father’s brain she had nothing, she was only connected with him by those imaginative faculties that for three generations had characterised the family.
And now, as she listened to her father babbling nonsense about his artistic capabilities, her heart and her mind were at variance. A want of knowledge of painting might blind her to the defects of his pictures (there was in them all a certain crude merit of design), but it was impossible to deceive herself into thinking his conversation more than a sort of mild folly. In turn he spoke of himself as a great hunter, a great painter, a great singer, and, fact curious to note, in what he said there were flashes of humour and intelligence. For, in common with hundreds of his countrymen, Arthur had a trick of never appearing to thoroughly believe in his follies, and he sometimes seemed purposely to laugh at himself, as if by so doing he might nip all hostile criticism in the bud. He was a little bewildering. Alice, nevertheless, spent a pleasant afternoon chatting of Rome and art, and she learned, before she went upstairs to dress for dinner, that he was better than her mother, who, under a coaxing manner, concealed a hard and even bitter disposition.
A week passed away. Mrs. Barton went out for long drives with Olive, and Alice lived alone and apparently forgotten. Then the dresses came down from Mrs. Symond’s, and Lord Dungory announced that he was going to give a great dinner-party.
Arthur, who rarely dined out, handed the ladies into the carriage.
Mrs. Barton was beautifully dressed in black satin; jet ornaments were woven about her bosom and shoulders; a diamond star glittered in the golden-brown hair. Olive was lost in a mass of tulle, that fell like crimson foam about her. Alice wore a black silk trimmed with passementerie and red ribbons. It was a delicious evening, sweet with sunset and corn. Behind the Clare mountain the pale transitory colours of the hour faded, and the women, their bodies and their thoughts swayed together by the motion of the vehicle, listened to the irritating barking of the cottage-dog. Surlily a peasant, returning from his work, his frieze coat swung over one shoulder, stepped aside; a bare-legged woman, surrounded by her half-naked children, leaving the potato she was peeling in front of her door, gazed, like her husband, after the rolling vision of elegance that went by her, and her obtuse brain probably summed up the implacable decrees of Destiny in the phrase:
“Shure there misht he a gathering at the big house this evening.”
“But tell me, mamma,” said Olive after a long silence, “how much champagne ought I to drink at dinner? You know it is a long time since I have tasted it; indeed, I don’t remember that I ever did taste it.”
Mrs. Barton laughed softly:
“Well, dear, I don’t think that two glasses could do you any harm; but I would not advise you to drink any more.”
“And what shall I say to the man who takes me down to dinner? Shall I have to begin the conversation, or will he?”
“He will he sure to say something; you need not trouble yourself about that. I think we shall meet some nice men to-night. Captain Hibbert will be there; he is very handsome and well-connected. I hope he will take you down. Then there will be the Honourable Mr. Burke. He is a nice little man, but there’s not much in him, and he hasn’t a penny. His brother is Lord Kilcarney, a confirmed bachelor. Then there will be Mr. Adair; he is very well off. He has at least four thousand a year in the country; but it would seem that he does not care for women. He is very clever; he writes pamphlets. He used to sympathise with the Land League, but the outrages went against his conscience. You never know what he really does think. He admires Gladstone, and Gladstone says he can’t do without him.”
They had now passed the lodge-gates, and were driving through the park. Herds of fallow-deer moved away, but the broad bluff forms of the red-deer gazed steadfastly as lions from the crest of a hill. The house was not yet visible.
“Did you ever meet Lady Dungory, mamma?” asked Alice. “Is she dead?”
“No, dear, she is not dead, but it would be better perhaps if she were. She behaved very badly. Lord Dungory had to get separated from her. No one ever speaks of her now; mind, you are warned!”
At this moment the carriage stopped before a modern house, built between two massive Irish towers entirely covered with huge ivy. The plate-glass square windows and rose blinds were a strange anachronism.
“I am afraid we are a little late,” said Mrs. Barton to the servant as he relieved them of their sorties de bal.
“Eight o’clock has just struck, ma’am.”
“The two old things will make faces at us, I know,” murmured Mrs. Barton as she ascended the steps.
On either side there were cases of stuffed birds, a fox lay in wait for a pheasant on the right, an otter devoured a trout on the left. These attested the sporting tastes of a former generation; the white-marble statues of nymphs sleeping in the shadows of the different landings, and the Oriental draperies with which each cabinet was hung, suggested the dilettantism of the present owner.
Mrs. Barton walked on in front; the girls drew together like birds. They were amazed at the stateliness of the library; and they marvelled at the richness of the chandeliers and the curiously-assorted pictures. The company was assembled in a small room at the end of the suite.
Two tall, bony, high-nosed women advanced and shook hands menacingly with Mrs. Barton. They were dressed alike in beautiful gowns of gold-brown plush.
With a cutting stare, and a few cold conventional words, they welcomed Olive and Alice home to the country again. Lord Dungory whispered something to Mrs. Barton. Olive passed across the room, the black coats gave way, and, as a white rose in a blood-coloured glass, her shoulders rose out of the red tulle. Captain Hibbert twisted his brown-gold moustache, and, with the critical gaze of the connoisseur, examined the undulating lines of the arms, the delicate waist, and the sloping hips: her skirts seemed to fall before his looks.
Immediately after, the roaring of a gong was heard, and the form of the stately butler was seen approaching. Lord Dungory and Lady Jane exchanged looks; the former offered his arm to Mrs. Gould; the latter, her finger on her lips, in a movement expressive of profound meditation, said:
“Mr. Ryan, will you take down Mrs. Barton; Mr. Scully, will you take Miss Olive Barton; Mr. Adair, will you take Miss Gould; Mr. Lynch, will you take Miss Alice Barton; Mr. Burke, will you take my sister?” Then, smiling at the thought that she had checkmated her father, who had ordered that Olive Barton should go down with Captain Hibbert, she took Captain Hibbert’s arm, and followed the dinner-party. About the marble statues and stuffed birds on the staircase, flowed a murmur of amiability, and, during a pause, skirts were settled amid the chairs, which the powdered footmen drew back ceremoniously to make way for the guests to pass. —
A copy of Murillo’s Madonna presenting the Divine Child to St. Joseph hung over the fireplace; between the windows another Madonna stood on a half-moon, and when Lord Dungory said, “For what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful,” these pictures helped the company to realise a suitable although momentary emotion.
Turtle-soup was handed round. The soft steaming fragrance mixed with the fresh perfume of the roses that bloomed in a silver vase beneath the light of the red-shaded wax-candles; a tree covered with azaleas spread notes of delicate colour over the gold screen that hid the door by which the servants came and went.
“Oh! Lady Sarah,” exclaimed Mrs. Gould, “I do not know how you have such beautiful flowers — and in this wretched climate!”
“Yes, it is very trying, but then we have a great deal of glass.”
“Which do you prefer, roses or azaleas?” asked Mrs. Barton.
“Les roses sont les fleurs en corsage, mais les azalées sont les fleurs en peignoir.”<
br />
Lady Sarah and Lady Jane, who had both overheard the remark, levelled indignant glances at their father, scornful looks at Mrs. Barton, and, to avoid further amatory allusions, Lady Sarah said:
“I do not think we shall soon have bread, much loss flowers, to place on our tables, if the Government do not step in and put down the revolution that is going on in this country.”
Everyone, except the young girls, looked questioningly at each other, and the mutuality of their interests on this point became at once apparent.
“Ah! Lord Dungory, do you think we shall be able to collect our rents this year? What reduction do you intend to give?”
Lord Dungory, who had no intention of showing his hand, said:
“The Land League has, I believe, advised the people to pay no more than Griffith’s valuation; I do not know if your lands are let very much above it?”
“If you have not seen the Evening Mail you have probably not heard of the last terrible outrage,” said Captain Hibbert and, amid a profound silence, he continued: “I do not know if anybody here is acquainted with a Mr. Macnamara; he lives in Meath.”
“Oh! you don’t say anything has happened to him? I knew his cousin,” exclaimed Mrs. Gould.
Captain Hibbert looked round with his bland, good-looking stare, and, as no nearer relative appeared to be present, he resumed his story:
“He was, it seems, sitting smoking after dinner, when suddenly two shots were fired through the windows.”
At this moment a champagne-cork slipped through the butler’s fingers and went off with a bang.
“Oh! goodness me! what’s that?” exclaimed Mrs. Gould, and, to pass off their own fears, everyone was glad to laugh at the old lady. It was not until Captain Hibbert told that Mr. Macnamara had been so severely wounded that his life was despaired of, that the chewing faces became grave again.
“And I hear that Macnamara had the foinest harses in Mathe,” said Mr. Ryan; “I very nearly sold him one last year at the harse show.”
Mr. Ryan was the laughing-stock of the country, and a list of the grotesque sayings he was supposed, on different occasions, to have been guilty of, was constantly in progress of development. He lived with his cousin, Mr. Lynch, and, in conjunction, they farmed large tracts of land. Mr. Ryan was short and thick; a sort of mixture between a herd and a huntsman. Mr. Lynch was taller and larger, and a pair of mutton-chop whiskers made his bloated face look bigger still. On either side of the white tablecloth their dirty hands fumbled at their shirt-studs that constantly threatened to fall through the worn buttonholes. They were, nevertheless, received everywhere, and Pathre, as Mr. Ryan was called by his friends; was permitted the licences that are usually granted to the buffoon. All eyes were now turned on him.
“Arrah!” he said, “I wouldn’t moind the lague being hard on them who lives out of the counthry, spendin’ their cash on liquor and theatres in London, but what can they have agin us who stops at home, mindin’ our properties and riding our harses?”
This criticism of justice, as administered by the league, did not, however, seem to meet with the entire approval of those present. Mr. Adair looked grave; he evidently thought it was based on a superficial notion of political economy. Mr. Burke, a very young man with tiny red moustache and a curious habit of wriggling his long weak neck, feeling his amusements were being unfairly attacked, broke the silence he had till then preserved, and said:
“I haven’t an acre of land in the world, but if my brother chooses to live in London, I don’t see why he should be deprived of his rents. For my part, I like the Gaiety Theatre, and so does my brother. Have you seen the ‘Forty Thieves,’ Lady Jane? Capital piece — I saw it twenty times.”
“I think what Pathre, me cousin, means to say,” said Mr. Lynch, declining the venison the servant offered him, “is that there are many in the country who don’t deserve much consideration. I am alluding to those who acquired their property in the land courts, and the Cromwellians, and the — I mean the rack-renters.”
The sudden remembrance that Lord Dungory dated from the time of James so upset Mr. Lynch, that he called back the servant and accepted the venison, which he failed, however, to eat.
“I do not see,” said Lord Dungory, with the air of a man whose words are conclusive, “why we should go back to the time of Cromwell to discuss the rights of property, rather than to that of the early Kings of Ireland. If there be a returning, why not at once put in a claim on the part of the Irish Elk? No! there must be some finality in human affairs.” And on this phrase the conversation came to a pause.
But if the opinions of those present were not in accord concerning the rights of property, their tastes in what might be considered agreeable conversation certainly differed as widely. The heavy jaws and flabby cheeks of age and middle-age grew hopelessly dejected, and their vision of poverty had become so intolerably distinct that they saw not the name of the entrée on the menu, and the côtelettes à la réforme were turned to porridge in their mouths. Olive’s white face twitched from time to time with nervous annoyance. Alice looked up in a sort of mild despair as she strove to answer the questions Mr. Lynch plied her with, under his whiskey-heated breath. May had fallen into a state of morose lassitude. If Mr. Adair would only leave her alone she would not so much mind, but, whenever he gave up the hope of being able to introduce his repudiation of Mr. Davitt’s system for the nationalisation of the land, he explained to her how successfully he had employed concrete in the construction of his farm-buildings. When this subject was exhausted, he fell back upon his sawmill.
But the moment came when the girls’ eyes met: it was like the meeting of friends in a wilderness; and, more or less definitely according to their characters, their looks said: “Well, if this is society, we might as well have remained in our convent.”
But at this moment Captain Hibbert looked so admiringly at Olive that she instantly forgot her disappointments; and, at the same time Mr. Scully succeeded in making May understand that he would infinitely prefer to he near her than Lady Sarah. In return for this expression of feeling the young lady determined to risk a remark across the table; but she was cut short by Mrs. Could, who pithily summed up the political situation in the words:
“The way I look at it is like this: Will the Government help us to get our rents, or will it not? Mr. Forster’s Act does not seem to be able to do that. There’s May there who has been talking all the morning of Castle seasons, and London seasons, and I don’t know what; really I don’t see how it is to be done if the Land League—”
“And Mr. Parnell’s a gentleman, too. I wonder how he can ally himself with such blackguards,” gently insinuated Mrs. Barton, who saw a husband lost in the politician.
“But the difficulty the Government find themselves in is that the Land League is apparently a legal organisation,” said Lord Dungory in the midst of a profound silence.
“A society legal, that exists and holds its power through an organised system of outrage! Mind you, as I have always said, the landlords have brought all their misfortunes upon themselves; they have often behaved disgracefully — but I would, nevertheless, put down the outrages; yes, I would put down the outrages, and at any cost.”
“And what would yer do?” asked Mr. Ryan. “De yer know that the herds are being coerced now? we’d get on well enough were it not for that.”
“In the beginning of this year Mr. Forster asked Parliament for special powers. How has he used those powers? Without trial, five hundred people have been thrown into prison, and each fresh arrest is answered by a fresh outrage; and when the warrant is issued, and I suppose it will be issued sooner or later, for the arrest of Mr. Parnell, I should not be surprised to hear of a general strike being made against rent. The consequences of such an event will be terrific; but let these consequences, I say, rest on Mr. Forster’s head. I shall have no word of pity for him. His government is a disgrace to Liberalism, and I fear he has done much to prejudice our ideal in the eyes of the world.”
/>
Lord Dungory and Lady Jane exchanged smiles; and poor crotchety Mr. Adair leaned forward his large, bald blow, obscured by many obscure ideals, and sought for words. After a pause he continued:
“But I was speaking of Flanders. From the time of Charles the Fifth the most severe laws were enacted to put down the outrages, but there was an undercurrent of sympathy with the outragemonger which kept the system alive until 1840. Then the Government took the matter in hand, and treated outragemongering as what it is — an act of war; and quartered troops on the inhabitants and stamped the disease out in a few years. Of course I could not, and would not, advocate the employment of such drastic measures in Ireland; but I would put down the outrages with a firm hand, and I would render them impossible in the future by the creation of peasant-proprietors.”
Then, amid the juicy odours of cut pineapple, and the tepid flavours of Burgundy, Mr. Adair warmed to his subject, and proceeded to explain that absolute property did not exist in land in Ireland before 1600, and, illustrating his arguments with quotations from Arthur Young, he spoke of the plantation of Ulster, the leases of the eighteenth century, the Protestants in the North, the employment of labour; until, at last, inebriated with theory, he asked the company what was the end of government?
This was too much, and, seeing the weary faces about him, Lord Dungory determined to change the subject of conversation:
“The end of government?” he said; “I am afraid that you would get many different answers to that question. Ask these young ladies; they will tell you, probably, that it is to have des beaux amants et des joyeuses amours, and I am not sure that they are not right.”
