by George Moore
He did not answer for some time, and when I pressed him he repeated what he had said before, adding that the engagement could not be broken.
And when are you going back to the West?
At the end of next week or the week following.
But won’t you spend the interval here?
No; I’m going on to see some other friends.
And then?
Well, then I shall go back to the West.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry ... this religion has estranged us.
Don’t let us speak on that subject again.
No, let us never speak on that subject again.
But you can’t help yourself.
By going away you’ll give importance to words which they really don’t deserve. Nothing has happened, only a few words — nothing more. And after all, you can’t blame me if I’m interested in your children. It’s only natural.
You said you’d seek my children out for the express purpose —
Excuse me; I said I would not seek them out.
And as I stood looking at him the thought crossed my mind that there was a good deal to be said in support of his view, so I said: I suppose that if the father’s right to bring up his children as he chooses be taken from him, he loses all his pleasure in his children.
It seems the more humane view.
His voice altered, and, seeing that we were on the point of being reconciled, I said: You always had more conscience than I had; even when you were four years old you objected to my putting back the clock in the passage to deceive Miss Westby. And in the hope of distracting his thoughts from last night’s quarrel, I asked him if he remembered my first governess, Miss Beard. I remember crying when she went away to be married; and it was possibly for those tears that she came to see me at Oscott, and brought a cake with her. A tall, blond girl succeeded her, but she had to leave because of something the matter with her hip.
The Colonel did not remember either.
Nor grandmother?
Oh yes, I remember grandmother quite well.
But only as a cripple. My first memory is going along the passage with her to the dining-room, and hearing her say the gingerbread nuts were too hard, and my first disappointment was at seeing them sent back to the kitchen. She promised that some more should be made. But a few days or a few weeks after she was picked up at the foot of the stairs. She never recovered from that fall; she never walked again, but was carried out by two villagers in a chair on poles.
I remember seeing her dead, and the funeral train going up the narrow path through the dark wood to Kiltoon.
Half-way up that pathway there is a stone seat. It was she who had it put there. She walked to Kiltoon every day till her accident. She is there now, and father and mother are there. The tomb must be nearly full of us. Are you going there? I’m not. Does it ever occur to you that we have very little more life to live, only the lag end of the journey? I cannot believe myself to be an old man.
You’re not.
I don’t know what else to call myself. How unreal it all is! For if we look back, we discover very few traces of our flight. Our lives float away like the clouds. Father was in London fighting Ireland’s battle when mother and I used to spend the evening together in the summer room — she in one armchair, I in another. Our lives begin in a grey dusk. I can remember settling myself in the chair every night and waiting for her to begin her tale of loneliness; and I must have enjoyed it, for when she started up out of her chair, crying, Why, it’s eleven o’clock; we must get to bed, I was loath to go. She used to read father’s speeches.
To whom?
To grandmother. She was a young woman at the time — not thirty, and was glad when father’s political career ended and he returned to live in Moore Hall with her. You’re writing his life, and have heard me tell how he was pricked by a sudden curiosity to hear me read aloud, and how the long ff’s broke me down again and again. My mother and Miss Westby were called in, and father assured us that he used to read The Times aloud to his parents when he was three. And then I think he ceased to interest himself in my education for some while — a respite much appreciated by me and my governess. He turned to racing —
The usual thing for an Irish gentleman of those days to do when he left politics.
You know about Wolf Dog and Carenna — you have read the subject up; but you don’t remember the old Cook — the last of the first racing stud: an old mare that had drifted into the shafts of the side-car that used to take us to church and to Ballinrobe. How very Irish it all is! But when father gave up politics, she was sent to the Curragh to be served by Mountain Deer. Her first foal was a chestnut filly — Molly Carew — but she was too slow to win a selling race, and I don’t know what became of her. She bred another chestnut filly — the Cat — and she was as slow as her sister — a very vicious animal that nearly killed both my father and mother. After her came Croagh Patrick, a brown colt. There seems never to have been any doubt that he was a good one. I remember hearing — and perhaps you do, too — that when the grooms appeared at the gate with sieves of oats Croagh Patrick always came up the field streets ahead.
No, I never heard that. I’m glad to you told me.
All the same, he didn’t win his two-year-old races at the Curragh.
Yes, he did; he won the Madrids, for I saw him win. He was a black, ratlike horse, with four white legs. And what I remember best is how I made my way to the railings, and gradually slipped down them till I was on my knees, for I wanted to say a little prayer that the horse might win; and I remember then how I looked round, terribly frightened lest any one had seen me pray.
He couldn’t have won the Madrids before he won the Steward’s Cup, for the handicapper let him in at six stone. It must have been as a four-year-old you saw him run, or in the autumn. You were a baby boy when Croagh Patrick went to Cliff’s to do his last gallops before running at Goodwood. I was at Cliff’s at the time and saw him do them. Father and mother went away with the horse —
And what became of you?
I was left at Cliff’s, and enjoyed myself immensely among the stable-boys. There was a green parrot in the parlour — it was the first time I had ever seen a parrot, and Polly was often brought out into the stable-yard, and I thought it cruel to throw water on her, till it was pointed out to me that the bird enjoyed her bath.
Who looked after you at Cliff’s?
I don’t know. Mrs Cliff probably saw that I put on my trousers. But I remember the pony I used to ride out on the downs, and Vulture, a horse so vicious that if he had succeeded in ridding himself of the boy he would have eaten him. The Lawyer was there at the time, the last half-bred that won a flat race. Once I lost myself on the downs. You never heard of my stay at Cliff’s?
I always thought that you went straight from Moore Hall to Oscott.
After Goodwood father and mother went off somewhere, and presumably forgot all about me. Of course, they knew I was quite safe.
Among stable-boys! I don’t think I should care to leave Rory and Ulick at a racing-stable for three weeks. How long were you there?
A month, perhaps; but I can’t say. And then a little kid of nine was pitched headlong into the midst of a hundred and fifty boys. How well I remember leaving Cliff’s for Oscott! My one thought at the time was that the train didn’t travel fast enough, and all the way I was asking father how far we were from Oscott, and if we should get there before evening. You remember the fringe of trees and the gate-house rising above them, and the great red-brick building, the castellated tower with the clock in it, and the tall belfry! I left father and mother talking with the President in the pompous room reserved for visitors, and raced through the empty playgrounds (it was class-time) delirious; and it was with difficulty that I was found when the time came for father and mother to bid me goodbye. They were a little shocked, I think, at my seeming heartlessness, but I could only think of the boys waiting to make my acquaintance. A few hours later they came trooping out of the classrooms,
formed a procession, and marched into the refectory, I bringing up the rear. Father Martin came down the refectory and, to my great surprise, told me that I must hold my tongue. As soon as he had turned his back I asked my neighbour in a loud voice why the priest had told me I wasn’t to talk. The question caused a loud titter, and before the meal had ended I had become a little character in the school. I never told you of my first day at Oscott. It seemed to me a fine thing to offer to match myself to fight the smallest boy present in the play-room after supper. But he was two or three years older than I was, and, though a Peruvian, he pummelled me, and the glamour of school-life must have begun to dim very soon — probably that very night, as soon as my swollen head was laid on the pillow. At Hedgeford Mrs Cliff must have helped me a little, but at Oscott there was no one to help me. Imagine a child of nine getting up at half-past six, dressing himself, and beaten if he was not down in time for Mass. There was no matron, no kindness, no pity, nor, as well as I can remember, the faintest recognition of the fact that I was but a baby. When my parents returned they found that the high-spirited child they had left at Oscott had been changed into a frightened, blubbering little coward that begged to be taken home. In those days children were not treated mercifully, and I remained at Oscott till my health yielded to cold and hunger and floggings. You remember my coming home and hearing that I wasn’t returning to Oscott for a year or two.
You very nearly died, and if it hadn’t been for cod-liver oil you would have died. But how difficult it was to get you to take it!
Those two years spent at Moore Hall were the best part of my childhood. Long days spent on the lake, two boatmen rowing us from island to island, fishing for trout and eels. How delightful! We sought for birds’ nests in the woods and the bogs; I made a collection of wild birds’ eggs, and wrote to my school-fellows of my finds. One of our tutors, Feeney, passed you afterwards for the army. We had many tutors, but Father James Browne is the only one that I remember with real affection. He loved literature for its own sake. Father didn’t. I always felt he didn’t, and that’s what separated us.
He was a man of action.
Yes, I suppose he was, and could, therefore, learn lessons.
He seems to have been a model schoolboy. It was not till he went to Cambridge —
Whereas I couldn’t learn.
You could learn quickly enough when there was anything to be gained that you wanted especially; and the Colonel reminded me that I had learnt up Greek and Latin history in a few weeks, because the reward was a day’s outing in Warwickshire.
Any one can learn a little history. I often asked mother if I was really stupid, but was never able to get a clear answer from her. But you often see our old governess — would you mind asking her?
I have asked her, and she remembers you as the most amiable child she ever knew.
Did she tell you anything more about me?
No; I think that’s all she said.
You like seeing the old people who knew us in childhood, but I don’t. I never know what to say to them.
The Colonel did not answer, and at the end of a long silence I asked him if he remembered being taken to Castlebar and measured for clothes, and travelling over to England in the charge of Father Lavelle, who was going to Birmingham to spend his holidays with his cousin, a provision-dealer.
I can never forget that shop, the Colonel said; the smell of the cheese is in my nostrils at this moment. I always hated cheese.
You didn’t like to stay the night there. You asked me, Why did you agree to stay here? I think it was because the people were so common.
I remember nothing of that, but I remember the provision-dealer’s shirt-sleeves clearly; his face is indistinct.
A plump, cheery fellow, who came round the great piles of butter and cheese and shook hands with Father Lavelle, and was introduced to us, and begged that we should stay to dinner. Dinner was served in the back parlour, and was interrupted many times by customers.
I don’t remember the dinner, but what I remember very well is that a number of people came in after dinner, and that a piper was sent for, and that we were asked to say if he was as good as our Connaught pipers. They all turned towards us, waiting for us to speak, and I can remember my embarrassment, and my effort to get at a fair decision, and wishing to say that Moran was the better piper.
It is curious how one man remembers one thing and another another. The people coming in, and the piper and the discussion about the piping have passed completely out of my memory, but I do remember very well lying down together side by side on flock mattresses in a long garret-room under a window for which there was no blind, and you reproaching me again for having consented to stay the night, and I suppose to your complaint I must have answered, You don’t know Oscott. But perhaps I didn’t wish to discourage you. A cab was called in the morning, and I congratulated myself that there were six miles still between us and that detestable college, and wished the horse would fall down and break his leg.
It was on my lips to say My God! you remember Oscott, and yet you’re sending your son to be educated by priests. But quarrelling with my brother would not save the boy, and I said:
Things must have improved since then. Let us hope the windows in the corridors have been mended, and that a matron has been engaged to look after the smaller boys. Do you remember the dormitories, and thirty or forty boys, and a priest in a room at the end to see that we didn’t speak to each other? All that was thought of was the modesty of the wooden partition. There were not sufficient bedclothes, we were often kept awake by the cold, and as for washing — none in winter was possible, the water in the jug being a solid lump of ice in the morning; but our ears were pinched by the Prefect because our necks were dirty. The injustice, the beastliness of that place — is it possible to forget it?
I remember praying on those cold mornings that I might not be sent to the Prefect’s room to be beaten. Do you remember the order, Go to the Prefect’s room and ask for four or six, and we had to wander down a long passage, doors all the way on the right and left, till we came to the last door? If the Prefect wasn’t in we had to wait, and when he came to his room we told him who had sent us to him, and he took out of a cupboard a stick with a piece of waxed leather on the end of it, told us to hold out our hands, and we received four or six strokes delivered with all his strength.
He enjoyed it; men do enjoy cruelty, especially priests. I hope the food isn’t so bad now as it was in the ‘sixties.
The food that was given us at Oscott was worse than bad — it was disgusting, the Colonel answered.
Do you remember the bowl of slop called tea, and the other bowl of slop called coffee, and the pat of grease called butter? Some stale bread was handed about in a basket, and that was our breakfast; never an egg — a bleak meal, succeeded by half an hour’s recreation, and then more lessons. At dinner, do you remember the iridescent beef, purple, with blue lines in it?
I’m convinced that very often it wasn’t beef at all, but the carcass of some decayed jackass.
Whatever it was, I never touched it, but ate a little bread and drank a little beer. You couldn’t touch the beef nor the cheese. Nor could my love of cheese enable me to eat it. What was it most like — soap, or decayed cork? It was like nothing but itself. Forty years have gone by and I remember it still.
One day in the week there were ribs of beef —
Those I used to eat; but the worst day of all was Thursday, for it was on that day large dishes of mince came up, I never touched it — did you?
Never.
Do you remember one morning at breakfast lumps of mince were discovered in the tea? The Prefect looked into the bowl handed to him, and acquiesced in the opinion that perhaps no tea or coffee had better be drunk that morning.
But if the Colonel had forgotten that incident, he remembered the tarts: sour damson jam poured into crusts as hard as bricks, and these tarts were alternated with a greasy suet-pudding served with a white sauce that made it ev
en more disagreeable.
A horrible place! I muttered; and we continued to speak of those meals, eaten in silence, listening to a boy reading, the Prefect walking up and down watching us. Was any place ever more detestable than Oscott? At five o’clock beer was served out — vinegar would have been better. And the bread!
At seven sloppy tea and coffee, greasy butter, bread that looked as if it had been thrown about the floor! And then the dormitories!
The Colonel would not, of course, agree with me that any great harm is done to a boy by giving him over, body and soul, to a priest; but he remembered that our Castlebar clothes were soon threadbare and in holes, and our letters home, begging for an order for new clothes, were disregarded.
I think it must have been that father had lost money at racing, and as he hadn’t paid the school fees, he didn’t like to write to the President. When I left Oscott I used to hear people say they were cold, but I didn’t understand what they meant. The hard life of Oscott gave us splendid health, which has lasted ever since.
Yes, it seems to have done that; and that’s about all. We learnt nothing.
Nothing whatever; in many respects we unlearnt a great deal. I had learnt a good deal of French from our governess, but I forgot it all; yet we were taught French at Oscott.
Taught French! We weren’t even taught English.
It was assumed that we knew English.
The English language begins in the Bible, and Catholics don’t read the Bible. Do you remember the Bible stories we were given, written in very Catholic English?
Yes, I remember, the Colonel answered; and I think it’s a great mistake that the Bible isn’t taught in Catholic schools. There is nothing that I admire more than the Psalms — those great solemn rhythms.
We used to hear the Gospels read out in Chapel —
The door opened: the parlourmaid had come to tell the Colonel that a man downstairs would like to speak to him, and he left the room abruptly.
