Land

by Liam O'Flaherty

  “I hope you forgive my coming,” Fenton said after the butler had gone.

  Barbara did not reply for a few moments. She seemed to be recovering slowly from the hypnotic effects of the song that had just ended. She shuddered slightly before turning to Fenton.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said without feeling. “You say Neville came to see you last night. Did he, by any chance, tell you where he was going?”

  “Not exactly,” Fenton said in surprise.

  Barbara laughed and toyed with her necklace.

  “You must think it very odd that I should ask such a question,” she said gaily, “but that is how things are in this house lately. Neville has become most secretive. He trusts nobody. Indeed, I feel that his bloodhound is the only creature in which he has any confidence. Life has become insufferable. It really has. I hope you don’t think it disloyal of me to say such things.”

  “Not in the least,” Fenton said.

  “If only the criminal were caught and brought to justice,” Barbara continued, “we might have peace.”

  “It’s very difficult,” Fenton said, crossing his legs. “We have no evidence. If we attempted to secure a conviction and failed, especially in view of the popular ferment, there might be a grave danger of making the man a martyr and a hero. The Government very definitely does not want to provide the rebels with any more martyrs than it can possibly help.”

  “It all sounds insane,” Barbara said.

  “Very unpleasant business, I admit,” Fenton said.

  “Neville is planning something,” Barbara said. “He always reacts violently when attacked.”

  “Your husband has gone to Dublin,” Fenton said in a sombre tone.

  “Oh!” said Barbara. “To Dublin? Is it to see Lord Mongoole about those tenants that are to be evicted?”

  “The evictions are possibly one of the reasons that took him to Dublin,” said Fenton, “but not the main reason. He called on me last night about a much more serious matter.”

  Barbara wrinkled her forehead and examined Fenton’s face critically.

  “You have something unpleasant to say,” she said in a tone of annoyance.

  “There are many things I want to tell you,” Fenton said. “Some of them, no doubt, you may find unpleasant. Others, I am bold enough to hope, might not be altogether …”

  He broke off in confusion, blushing to the roots of his hair.

  “Sometimes I have the feeling that I am living in a lunatic asylum,” Barbara said. “It really is beastly, living in a state of permanent fear, among people by whom one is permanently hated. Why can’t we ever behave decently towards the Irish? We have tortured this charming and talented people for hundreds of years. It’s outrageous.”

  “I profoundly disagree,” Fenton said passionately.

  Barbara looked at him with disgust.

  “How odd!” she said.

  “I loathe both the country and the people,” Fenton said with remarkable intensity. “I’d give a great deal to be away from here. Unfortunately, I’m a poor man. I can’t afford to resign.”

  He flushed, looked at Barbara suddenly and then drank all the whisky in his glass.

  “How very odd!” Barbara said. “I felt certain that you were a sensitive person.”

  “The trouble is that I’m too sensitive,” Fenton said in an injured tone.

  “Not in the way I understand the word,” Barbara said contemptuously.

  Fenton became truculent as the whisky made him intoxicated once more.

  “It’s because I am sensitive beyond the ordinary,” he said, “that I suffer so much from having to live here. The others simply drink and gamble. They stupefy themselves. However, I didn’t come here to talk of that sort of thing. I wanted to tell you …”

  “I feel sure that I’m not going to like what you have to say,” Barbara interrupted. “I’ve changed my mind lately about many things. May I have some sherry?”

  When he rose, Fenton was shocked to discover that he was completely drunk. He had considerable difficulty in getting Barbara her wine. Yet he refilled his own glass before returning to his seat.

  “When I met you first,” Barbara said after tasting the sherry, “I had an idea that you were sensitive to injustice, that it revolted you and that you held yourself apart for that reason, realising that you were being forced to live in a lie. Apparently I was wrong. You evidently have no sympathy with those who suffer injustice.”

  Fenton tried to retort, but failed to find anything suitable. He put his fingers inside the collar of his uniform and tugged nervously several times, trying to relieve the developing constriction at the base of his throat. Then he suddenly thought of a retort.

  “Last time I was here,” he cried in a tone of indignation, “you yourself said that you found the people stupid and cruel.”

  “Surely not,” Barbara said. “Even then, my views had already begun to change.”

  “I distinctly remember your saying so,” Fenton said in a tone of mean triumph.

  “Oh! I remember now,” Barbara said. “I was referring to Major Fitzwilliam and the others. It’s quite true that the local gentry bore me. They bore me terribly. The people to whom I now refer are those whom the parson loves to call ‘the natives.’ He says it in such a peculiar way, barely opening his lips, as if they were too indecent for mention in polite society.”

  “You surprise me,” Fenton said.

  “Neville’s attitude towards them is slightly different,” Barbara continued. “He thinks of them as domestic animals, some good for being soldiers, others for various kinds of manual labour.”

  “You surprise me very much,” Fenton said.

  “I hoped that I wouldn’t surprise you,” Barbara said, “when I met you first. You seemed so different from the others. I thought we might become friends. I was very lonely and …”

  “I, too, am very lonely,” Fenton interrupted in a tone of wild excitement. “I can’t tell you how desperately lonely I am.”

  He sat forward to the edge of his chair and began to tremble.

  “Don’t let anything I said just now make any difference to our relationship,” he pleaded. “I’m not quite myself. Indeed, for some time now, I have been far from normal.”

  His handsome face had suddenly become haggard. His eyes, instead of being shrewd and watchful, had become soft and appealing. The change had an unpleasing effect on his countenance. When it wore the mask of stern and contemptuous indifference, with which the imperial Englishman tries to command the respect of less disciplined races, his face was attractive. Without that mask, it was the face of a rather common man in pain.

  “I shock you,” Barbara said, looking him straight in the eyes.

  “That is untrue,” Fenton said. “Everything you do and everything you say is a source of passionate excitement for me. To me you are …”

  “I do shock you,” Barbara said, “because you are a conventional person.”

  “That is quite untrue,” Fenton asserted.

  “I was never conventional,” Barbara said. “From childhood I have been attracted towards whatever was forbidden. I was an orphan, you see, embittered by the ill-treatment of those placed in charge of me. I went on the stage when I came of age, even though I disliked the theatre and had no talent for acting, simply in order to shock people of my class, who looked upon an actress as a disreputable character. Then I married an Irishman who was hopelessly in debt, a gambler, a drunkard and a duellist. That was still more shocking. We lived for seven glorious years in disreputable happiness at Monte Carlo, at Paris, at London, at Dublin, at Baden. Then money became impossible to find. My beautiful Irishman deliberately drank himself to death. Afterwards, I married Neville simply in order to get a home. You see, Mr. Fenton, that I am a very shocking woman and completely unashamed.”

  With a quick twist of her wrist, like a man, she emptied her glass.

  “Nothing you could say,” Fenton said earnestly, “could possibly make any difference to m
y feelings towards you. When a man feels in the way I do, all is understood. On a certain plane of emotion, there is nothing to condemn.”

  He had become very agitated while he was speaking. Then he got to his feet unsteadily and took a pace towards her.

  “Sit down and compose yourself,” Barbara said sharply.

  “It’s too late now,” Fenton said thickly.

  “Sit down, Mr. Fenton,” Barbara said. “I command you.”

  “I came to talk to you about something else,” Fenton said “but this must come off my chest first of all.”

  “Sit down,” Barbara said.

  “I must speak of this, too,” said Fenton, “because the other affair would never have arisen, were it not for this.”

  “We are not alone in the house,” Barbara said angrily. “Sit down at once, or I must ask you to leave.”

  Fenton brought his heels together with difficulty. Then he bowed abruptly, sat down and stared at the floor, with his palms joined between his knees.

  “Even the most timid man can be ruthless,” he said, talking at random and in a subdued tone. “When a certain point is reached, it is easier to be ruthless than the contrary. It’s odd how a man is thrust suddenly out of obscurity into a situation where desperate and dramatic decisions have to be made. For twelve years I led a humdrum life. You may think I did beastly things even then. Now and again, I admit, there were things that might appear shameful. Police work is like that. However, it was all according to regulations. This morning, however, I overstepped the mark. I did something really frightful. I went with ten constables to carry out an eviction at a place called Sram, the other side of Clash. The tenants to be evicted lived in a little cabin, that stood apart on a knoll above the seashore. A desolate place, really, unfit for human beings. The thatch was so old that grass and little flowers were sprouting from it. In the yard and in the tiny paddock at the back of the hut there were tall weeds. The door was closed. The two windows, ever so small, were covered with boards. The whole thing was like an abandoned doll’s house. It belonged to an old couple, entirely destitute, the children all gone to America. You know how children behave in this country among the peasants. They are entirely bereft of filial affection. In any case, I had to evict the old couple and put them in the workhouse. The wife, white-haired and very tall, a decent-looking old person, stood among the village people. She seemed to watch the whole affair with complete detachment. The old man stayed within the cabin, refusing to surrender possession. I ordered the crowbar fellows to advance and knock down the walls. It took only a few blows here and there. Down they came. Just dry mud, of course. It collapsed like a house of cards. There was the old man, on his hearthstone, barefooted, bareheaded, with a stick in his hand. It really was a pathetic sight. It’s impossible to become hardened to that sort of thing. What struck me especially was the smoke-blackened wall of the chimney place, a wisp of smoke rising from some peat ashes on the hearth and the look of shame on the old man’s face. It’s odd, but I’m ready to swear that it was shame he felt. He was ashamed of being exposed that way to the outside world, after the walls fell. It was just like being caught naked. He saw me sitting my horse outside in the road and uttered a howl of rage. Babbling and waving his stick, he made for me through the rubble. Nobody attempted to stop him, neither the constables nor the crowbar men whom he passed. He looked so odd, I suppose, with his bald skull like that of a corpse, completely devoid of flesh. Men are baffled, no matter how well trained, by that sort of thing. You really don’t ever get used to it, no matter how callous you may think you are. He came at me, muttering some nonsense. There was froth at his lips. Then I lost control and struck at him with my whip. He fell instantly. Since then I have kept asking myself whether I really hit him or whether he fell at that moment in a fit. At any rate, the terrible fact is that I wanted to strike him. That is the terrible truth, so it doesn’t really matter whether it was a fit or my whip that made him fall. I wanted to strike that old man. I hated him terribly.”

  As he came to the end of his strange recital, he raised his eyes and looked at Barbara in forlorn appeal. She returned his glance with cruel composure.

  “You didn’t come here to tell me about striking an old man,” she said.

  Fenton made an effort to straighten himself. He succeeded to some extent in regaining his usual dignity. His lower lip, however, was now trembling. Failure to win her sympathy was a great blow to him.

  “I told you about the old man,” he said in a low voice, “simply to explain my condition.”

  “You really came to talk about Neville’s visit last night,” Barbara said. “Didn’t you?”

  “If I were my normal self,” Fenton said, “your husband’s visit would not have disturbed me in the least. Alas! I’ve not been my normal self since I was here last. I’ve been tortured night and day by the thought that I might become an accomplice in a …”

  He interrupted himself and stared at Barbara. His eyes looked frightened.

  “Excuse me,” he muttered, “for talking at random.” “So that’s what it is,” Barbara said.

  “Don’t let us talk about it,” Fenton said. “What would be the use?”

  “He let you ponder over some wicked suggestion all this time,” Barbara said. “For six whole weeks. What a perfect devil! He let you torture yourself with indecision and qualms of conscience.”

  “Please,” Fenton said. “It’s quite useless now. It would be merely flogging a dead horse.”

  “Was it murder?” Barbara whispered

  “Murder?” Fenton cried in horror.

  Barbara shrugged her shoulders.

  “You have no right to say that,” Fenton cried, jumping to his feet.

  “Sit down and tell me what he wants you to do,” Barbara said quietly.

  “Forget all I have said until now,” Fenton cried in a piteous tone. “All of it. I only want you to know that I am madly in love with you. That is really what I came to tell you, even though I didn’t admit it to myself. Yes, that is truly why I came. At thirty-six a man is not yet too old for a fresh start in life. You, too, are unhappy. Then, in God’s name, why should one sin and that only half committed make any difference to us? There are vast opportunities in America. Every other day one hears of fabulous fortunes being made in the Nevada mines. I can only offer you the abject devotion of …”

  “Sit down and tell me about this sinful thing,” Barbara interrupted.

  Fenton started violently. Then he touched his heels, bowed and sat down. Her brutal dismissal of his proposal had again sobered him. Now he felt angry with her.

  “Why did you agree to obey him, if what he proposes is so sinful?” she continued.

  “Did I say sinful?” Fenton said, in a sneering tone. “I understood myself to have used the word dishonourable.”

  “Have it your own way,” Barbara said. “Why did you submit?”

  “I was a fool to have come here,” Fenton said.

  “Neville tries to get everybody into his power,” Barbara said. “It’s a mania with him. I have watched him at it for three years. At first it was fascinating to watch him at his tricks. He invariably begins by making friends with his intended victim. He probes for the man’s weakness, like a butcher feeling under the fur of an animal for the jugular vein. When he finds the weakness, he strikes at it without mercy. If there is no weakness, he cultivates one. He seems to take an especial delight in destroying weaklings. It was only when he had the effrontery to use me as a bait that I ceased to be amused.”

  “Then you know everything,” Fenton cried arrogantly.

  “Tell me what he wants now,” Barbara said.

  “Why should you be sympathetic?” Fenton said. “After all, you are his wife.”

  “Why are you afraid to speak?” Barbara said.

  “I don’t blame you in the least,” Fenton said. “You gave me no encouragement. You can’t be held responsible for your beauty.”

  “I might be able to help you,” Barbara sai
d.

  Although her expression did not change, her voice became gentle as she made this last statement. Fenton responded at once to this encouragement. His bitter mood left him. He covered his face with his left hand.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said. “I must make my own decisions.”

  “Then why did you come here?” Barbara said angrily.

  “I came because I felt myself going mad,” Fenton said, “and you were the only one I knew that might be sympathetic. A few kind words …”

  “How could I sympathise with you unless you confide in me?” Barbara said.

  “It’s too late now,” Fenton said. “I gave him the necessary documents last night. In his presence it was impossible to deny him. Now it seems utterly silly that I should have considered myself under an obligation to him, simply because I am dishonourably in love with his wife. Yet at that time …”

  He took his hand from in front of his face, looked at Barbara and said:

  “How frightful! I’ve been drinking.”

  “You are quite right,” Barbara said. “I could do nothing to help you, because I despise cowards. I have more sympathy with a monster like Neville than with a coward. If I were a man and I had Neville’s passions, I’d behave exactly as he does. His passion is to possess land. He would commit any crime to possess it. He allows nothing to stand in his way. I understand passion. I am myself a passionate woman.”

  She threw back her head, looked at the ceiling and said dreamily:

  “My passion is not to possess land, or to scavenge for gold.”

  Fenton got to his feet and walked over to the table on which the whisky lay. He began to fill his glass.

  “You mustn’t take any more whisky,” Barbara said, coming over to him.

  He continued to pour the whisky.

  “It doesn’t help to drug yourself,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.

  Fenton made a sound in his throat. It was like a sob. He put down the decanter hurriedly. He stood absolutely still for several moments. Then he began to tremble. He turned towards her. With his head bowed, he groped at her bosom. He passed his hands hither and thither lightly, like a man trying to identify an object by means of touch.