by George Moore
‘It is to be hoped the present Marquis won’t prove so difficult to please,’ said Mrs. Gould. The remark was an unfortunate one, and the chaperons present resented this violation of their secret thoughts. Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Scully suddenly withdrew their eyes, which till then had been gently following their daughters through the figures of the dance, and, forgetting what they foresaw would be the cause of future enmity, united in condemning Mrs. Gould. Obeying a glance of the Lady Hamilton eyes, Lord Dungory said:
‘On cherche l’amour dans les boudoirs, non pas dans les cimetières, madame.’ Then he added (but this time only for the private ear of Mrs. Barton), ‘La mer ne rend pas ses morts, mais la tombe nous donne souvent les écussons.’
‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed Mrs. Barton, ‘ce Milord, il trouve l’esprit partout;’ and her light coaxing laugh dissipated this moment of ball-room gloom.
And Alice? Although conscious of her deficiency in the trois temps, determined not to give in without an effort, she had suffered May to introduce her to a couple of officers; but to execute the step she knew theoretically, or to talk to her partner when he had dragged her, breathless, out of the bumping dances, she found to be difficult, so ignorant was she of hunting and of London theatres, and having read only one book of Ouida’s, it would be vain for her to hope to interest her partner in literature. The other girls seemed more at home with their partners, and while she walked with hers, wondering what she should say next, she noticed behind screens, under staircases, at the end of dark passages, girls whom she had known at St. Leonards incapable of learning, or even understanding the simplest lessons, suddenly transformed as if by magic into bright, clever, agreeable girls — capable of fulfilling that only duty which falls to the lot of women: of amusing men. But she could not do this, and must, therefore, resign herself to an aimless life of idleness, and be content in a few years to take a place amid the Miss Brennans, the Ladies Cullen, the Miss Duffys, the Honourable Miss Gores, those whom she saw sitting round the walls ‘waiting to be asked,’ as did the women in the old Babylonian Temple.
Such was her criticism of life as she sat wearily answering Mrs. Gould’s tiresome questions, not daring to approach her mother, who was laughing with Olive, Captain Hibbert, and Lord Dungory. Waltz after waltz had been played, and her ears reeked with their crying strain. One or two men had asked her ‘if they might have the pleasure’; but she was determined to try dancing no more, and had refused them. At last, at the earnest request of Mrs. Gould, she had allowed Dr. Reed to take her in to supper. He was an earnest-eyed, stout, commonplace man, and looked some years over thirty. Alice, however, found she could talk to him better than with her other partners, and when they left the clattering supper-room, where plates were being broken and champagne was being drunk by the gallon, sitting on the stairs, he talked to her till voices were heard calling for his services. A dancer had been thrown and had broken his leg. Alice saw something carried towards her, and, rushing towards May, whom she saw in the doorway, she asked for an explanation.
‘Oh, nothing, nothing! he slipped down — has broken or sprained his ankle — that’s all. Why aren’t you dancing? Greatest fun in the world — just beginning to get noisy — and we are going it. Come on, Fred; come on!’
To the rowdy tune of the Posthorn Polka the different couples were dashing to and fro — all a little drunk with emotion and champagne; and, as if fascinated, Alice’s eyes followed the shoulders of a tall, florid-faced man. Doing the deux temps, he traversed the room in two or three prodigious jumps. His partner, a tiny creature, looked a crushed bird within the circle of his terrible arm. Like a collier labouring in a heavy sea, a county doctor lurched from side to side, overpowered by the fattest of the Miss Duffys. A thin, trim youth, with bright eyes glancing hither and thither, executed a complex step, and glided with surprising dexterity in and out, and through this rushing mad mass of light toilettes and flying coat-tails. Marks, too, of conflict were visible. Mr. Ryan had lost some portion of his garment in an obscure misunderstanding in the supper-room. All Mr. Lynch’s studs had gone, and his shirt was in a precarious state; drunken Sir Richard had not been carried out of the room before strewing the floor with his necktie and fragments of his gloves. But these details were forgotten in the excitement. The harper twanged still more violently at his strings, the fiddler rasped out the agonizing tune more screechingly than ever; and as the delirium of the dance fevered this horde of well-bred people the desire to exercise, their animal force grew irresistible, and they charged, intent on each other’s overthrow. In the onset, the vast shoulders and the deux temps were especially successful. One couple had gone down splendidly before him, another had fallen over the prostrate ones; and in a moment, in positions more or less recumbent, eight people were on the floor. Fears were expressed for the tight dresses, and Violet had shown more of her thin ankles than was desirable; but the climax was not reached until a young man, whose unsteady legs forbade him this part of the fun, established himself in a safe corner, and commenced to push the people over as they passed him. This was the signal for the flight of the chaperons.
‘Now come along, Miss Barton,’ cried Mrs. Barton, catching sight of Alice; ‘and will you, Lord Dungory, look after Olive?’
Lord Rosshill collected the five Honourable Miss Gores, the Miss Brennans drew around Mrs. Scully, who, without taking the least notice of them, steered her way.
And so ended, at least so far as they were concerned, the ball given by the spinsters of the county of Galway. But the real end? On this subject much curiosity was evinced.
The secret was kept for a time, but eventually the story leaked out that, overcome by the recollections of still pleasanter evenings spent under the hospitable roof of the Mayo bachelor, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Lynch and Sir Charles had brought in the maid-servants, and that, with jigs for waltzes, and whiskey for champagne, the gaiety had not been allowed to die until the day was well begun. Bit by bit and fragment by fragment the story was pieced together, and, in the secrecy of their bedrooms, with little smothered fits of laughter, the young ladies told each other how Sir Charles had danced with the big housemaid, how every time he did the cross-over he had slapped her on the belly; and then, with more laughter, they related how she had said: ‘Now don’t, Sir Charles, I forbid you to take such liberties.’ And it also became part of the story that, when they were tired of even such pleasures as these, the gentlemen had gone upstairs to where the poor man with the broken leg was lying, and had, with whiskey and song, relieved his sufferings until the Galway train rolled into Ballinasloe.
XI
‘GOODNESS ME! ALICE; how can you remain up here all alone, and by that smouldering fire? Why don’t you come downstairs? Papa says he is quite satisfied with the first part of the tune, but the second won’t come right; and, as mamma had a lot to say to Lord Dungory, I and Captain Hibbert sat out in the passage together. He told me he liked the way I arrange my hair. Do tell me, dear, if you think it suits me?’
‘Very well, indeed; but what else did Captain Hibbert say to you?’
‘Well, I’ll tell you something,’ replied Olive, suddenly turning from the glass. ‘But first promise not to tell anyone. I don’t know what I should do if you did. You promise?’
‘Yes, I promise.’
‘If you look as serious as that I shall never be able to tell you. It is very wicked, I know, but I couldn’t help myself. He put his arm round my waist and kissed me. Now don’t scold, I won’t be scolded,’ the girl said, as she watched the cloud gathering on her sister’s face. ‘Oh! you don’t know how angry I was. I cried, I assure you I did, and I told him he had disgraced me. I couldn’t say more than that, could I, now? and he promised never to do it again. It was the first time a man ever kissed me — I was awfully ashamed. No one ever attempted to kiss you, I suppose; nor can I fancy their trying, for your cross face would soon frighten them; but I can’t look serious.’
‘And did he ask you to marry him?’
‘Oh! of
course, but I haven’t told mamma, for she is always talking to me about Lord Kilcarney — the little marquis, as she calls him; but I couldn’t have him. Just fancy giving up dear Edward! I assure you I believe he would kill himself if I did. He has often told me I am the only thing worth living for.’
Alice looked at her beautiful sister questioningly, her good sense telling her that, if Olive was not intended for him, it was wrong to allow her to continue her flirtation. But for the moment the consideration of her own misfortunes absorbed her. Was there nothing in life for a girl but marriage, and was marriage no more than a sensual gratification; did a man seek nothing but a beautiful body that he could kiss and enjoy? Did a man’s desires never turn to mating with one who could sympathize with his hopes, comfort him in his fears, and united by that most profound and penetrating of all unions — that of the soul — be collaborator in life’s work? ‘Could no man love as she did?’ She was ready to allow that marriage owned a material as well as a spiritual aspect, and that neither could be overlooked. Some, therefore, though their souls were as beautiful as the day, were, from purely physical causes, incapacitated from entering into the marriage state. Cecilia was such a one.
‘Now what are you thinking about, Alice?’
‘I do not know, nothing in particular; one doesn’t know always of what one is thinking! Tell me what they are saying downstairs.’
‘But I have told you; that Captain Hibbert preferred my hair like this, and I asked you if you thought he was right, but you hardly looked.’
‘Yes, I did, Olive; I think the fashion suits you.’
‘You won’t tell anybody that I told you he kissed me? Oh, I had forgotten about Lord Rosshill; he has been fired at. Lord Dungory returned from Dublin, and he brought the evening paper with him. It is full of bad news.’
‘What news?’ Alice asked, with a view to escaping from wearying questions; and Olive told her a bailiff’s house had been broken into by an armed gang. ‘They dragged him out of his bed and shot him in the legs before his own door. And an attempt has been made to blow up a landlord’s house with dynamite. And in Queen’s County shots have been fired through a dining-room window — now, what else? I am telling you a lot; I don’t often remember what is in the paper. No end of hayricks were burnt last week, and some cattle have had their tails cut off, and a great many people have been beaten. Lord Dungory says he doesn’t know how it will all end unless the Government bring in a Coercion Act. What do you think, Alice?’
Alice dropped some formal remarks, and Olive hoped that the state of the country would not affect the Castle’s season. She didn’t know which of the St. Leonard girls would be married first. She asked Alice to guess. Alice said she couldn’t guess, and fell to thinking that nobody would ever want to marry her. It was as if some instinct had told her, and she could not drive the word ‘celibacy’ out of her ears. It seemed to her that she was fichue à jamais, as that odious Lord Dungory would say. She did not remember that she had ever been so unhappy before, and it seemed to her that she would always be unhappy, fichue à jamais.
But to her surprise she awoke in a more cheerful mood, and when she came down to breakfast Mr. Barton raised his head from the newspaper and asked her if she had heard that Lord Rosshill had been fired at.
‘Yes, father. Olive told me so overnight;’ and the conversation turned on her headache, and then on the state of Ireland.
Mrs. Barton asked if this last outrage would prove sufficient to force the Government to pass a new Coercion Bill.
‘I wish they would put me at the head of an army,’ Mr. Barton said, whose thoughts had gone back to his picture — Julius Caesar overturning the Altars of the Druids.
‘Papa would look fine leading the landlords against the tenants dressed in Julius Caesar’s big red cloak!’ cried Mrs. Barton, turning back as she glided out of the room, already deep in consideration of what Milord would like to eat for luncheon and the gown she would wear that afternoon. Mr. Barton threw the newspaper aside and returned to his studio; and in the girls’ room Olive and Barnes, the bland, soft smiling maid, began their morning gossip. Whatever subject was started it generally wound round to Captain Hibbert. Alice had wearied of his name, but this morning she pricked up her ears. She was surprised to hear her sister say she had forbidden him ever to visit the Lawlers. At that moment the dull sound of distant firing broke the stillness of the snow.
‘I took good care to make Captain Hibbert promise not to go to this shooting-party the last time I saw him.’
‘And what harm was there in his going to this shooting-party?’ said Alice.
‘What harm? I suppose, miss, you have heard what kind of woman Mrs. Lawler is? Ask Barnes,’
‘You shouldn’t talk in this way, Olive. We know well enough that Mrs. Lawler was not a lady before she married; but nothing can be said against her since.’
‘Oh! can’t there, indeed? You never heard the story about her and her steward? Ask Barnes.’
‘Oh! don’t miss; you shouldn’t really!’ said the maid. ‘What will Miss Alice think?’
‘Never mind what she thinks; you tell her about the steward and all the officers from Gort.’
And then Mrs. Lawler’s flirtations were talked of until the bell rang for lunch. Milord and Mrs. Barton had just passed into the dining-room, and Alice noticed that his eyes often wandered in the direction of the policemen walking up and down the terrace. He returned more frequently than was necessary to the attempt made on Lord Rosshill’s life, and it was a long time before Mrs. Barton could persuade him to drop a French epigram. At last, in answer to her allusions to knights of old and la galanterie, the old lord could only say: ‘L’amour est comme l’hirondelle; quand l’heure sonne, en dépit du danger, tous les deux partent pour les rivages célestes.’ A pretty conceit; but Milord was not en veine that morning. The Land League had thrown its shadow over him, and it mattered little how joyously a conversation might begin, too soon a reference was made to Griffith’s valuation, or the possibility of a new Coercion Act.
In the course of the afternoon, however, much to the astonishment of Milord and Mrs. Barton in the drawing-room and the young ladies who were sitting upstairs doing a little needlework, a large family carriage, hung with grey trappings and drawn by two powerful bay horses, drove up to the hall-door.
A gorgeous footman opened the door, and, with a momentary display of exquisite ankle, a slim young girl stepped out.
‘I wonder,’ said Mrs. Barton, ‘that Mrs. Scully condescends to come out with anything less than four horses and outriders.’
‘Elle veut acheter la distinction comme elle vendait du jambon — à faux poids,’ said Lord Dungory.
‘Yes, indeed; and to think that the woman we now receive as an equal once sold bacon and eggs behind a counter in Galway!’
‘No, it was not she; it was her mother.’
‘Well, she was hanging on to her mother’s apron-strings at the time. You may depend upon it, this visit is not for nothing; something’s in the wind.’
A moment after, looking more large and stately than ever, Mrs. Scully sailed into the room. Mrs. Barton was delighted to see her. It was so good of her to come, and in such weather as this; and, after having refused lunch and referred to the snow and the horses’ feet, Mrs. Scully consented to lay aside her muff and boa. The young ladies withdrew, when the conversation turned on the state of the county and Lord Rosshill’s fortunate escape. As they ascended the stairs they stopped to listen to Mr. Barton, who was singing A che la morte.
‘The Land League doesn’t seem to affect Mr. Barton’s spirits,’ said Violet. ‘What a beautiful voice he has!’
‘Yes, and nobody designs pictures like papa; but he wouldn’t study when he was young, and he says he hasn’t time now on account of—’
‘Now, Alice, for goodness’ sake don’t begin. I am sick of that Land League. From morning till night it is nothing but coercion and Griffith’s valuation.’
Violet and Alice la
ughed at Olive’s petulance, and, opening a door, the latter said:
‘This is our room, and it is the only one in the house where tenants, land, and rent are never spoken of.’
‘That’s something to know,’ said Violet. ‘I agree with Olive. If things are bad, talking of them won’t make them any better.’
Barnes rose from her seat.
‘Now don’t go, Barnes. Violet, this is Barnes, our maid.’
There was about Barnes a false air of homeliness; but in a few moments it became apparent that her life had been spent amid muslins, confidences, and illicit conversations. Now, with motherly care she removed a tulle skirt from the table, and Violet, with quick, nervous glances, examined the room. In the middle of the floor stood the large work-table, covered with a red cloth. There was a stand with shelves, filled on one side with railway novels, on the other with worsted work, cardboard-boxes, and rags of all kinds. A canary-cage stood on the top, and the conversation was frequently interrupted by the piercing trilling of the little yellow bird.
‘You’re very comfortable. I should like to come and work here with you. I am sick of Fred’s perpetual talk about horses; and if he isn’t talking of them his conversation is so improper that I can’t listen to it.’
‘Why, what does he say?’ said Olive, glancing at Barnes, who smiled benignly in the background.
‘Oh, I couldn’t repeat what he says! it’s too dreadful. I have to fly from him. But he’s always at the Goulds’ now; he and May are having a great “case”.’
‘Oh yes, I know!’ said Olive; ‘they never left each other at our ball. Don’t you remember?’
‘Of course I do. And what a jolly ball that was! I never amused myself so much in my life. If the balls at the Castle are as good, they will do. But wasn’t it sad, you know, about poor Lord Kilcarney receiving the news of his brother’s murder just at that moment? I can see him now, rushing out of the room.’
