Thoughts of fishing, ideas for imitation, long spells of gazing at the window in which Christ walked upon the waters: these filled most of church time, till, after two or three years, a more urgent interest took their place. When he first noticed her he could never tell. She seemed to have happened, to have been there always. Perhaps it was that she (and her relations) had changed their pew. All that mattered was that there, every Sunday, she now sat, almost facing him, but mercifully at some distance off.
Everyone was agreed upon her beauty. She was, when he first saw her, eleven or twelve. A pure, oval face, most delicately coloured, too beautiful to last: wide, grey-blue eyes: long golden ringlets, hanging down on either side over her shoulders ; dressed always in soft, foamy white: she was the perfect idol, and received the perfect adoration. It was so disinterested, so cloud-high, that for a year Dermot never dreamed of meeting her. He was content to live unnoticed in a different world: to gaze where the lovely head and shoulders blossomed on the church’s darkness, to see of all the rows of faces only one face, swimming lightly in his vision, like a water-lily on turbid waters: his spirit filled with the pure sense of holiness: hearing and recognising still, but only as in a dream, Jurr’bome, Rheobome and Muy-CAA-yah the son of Imla: knowing that here, vouchsafed to him, living before his eyes, was perfect beauty. When the service was over, he would hurry home, if he could, before the others, post himself behind the drawing-room curtains, and watch the lovely figure go by. She walked with a fine swinging step: and she lived only a few doors up the road. Paddy volunteered her name: he had done odd jobs for her mother: but Dermot kept privately to the name he had given her in his heart. He called her Mona. It was a whole year before the others learned his secret, before their knowledge and his self-defence could vulgarise it, before it reached even the semblance of a personal desire. The immediate gain, besides these riches of the spirit, was that Sunday morning ceased to be a penance. Even its travesty of a tram-ride could be borne, if necessary, now.
Of real tram-rides, there were many. One fine evening, maybe half an hour from bedtime, Dermot was playing by himself in the garden, waiting for Bessie to take her little walk. He played hidden away somewhere in the bushes, deeply absorbed, when there floated down the garden the clear, liquid “Cuckoo ” with which his mother always called the children. Frowning, afraid some caller had arrived, he emerged, and trotted up the path.
His mother stood at the top, smiling at him. She wore a flowered muslin dress. Very beautiful and cool she looked, standing there, idly stroking a big trailing flower, and smiling her smile of lazy endearment.
“Darling,” she said, as he came near. “I’ve a bit of a headache, and thought I’d go for a short tram-ride. Will you come? ”
His mouth opened silently, and “Yes, please,” shot out with very little hesitation.
“Get your hat and coat, then.”
“Coat, Mummy? ”
“Yes. It will be cool on top of the tram, especially coming back. I’m wearing mine.”
How strangely Mummy gave one orders, he reflected, running in ahead of her for his coat. She hardly ever told him to do a thing, as Munny used to, or as Annie did, or Grandpapa—or Daddy. She always said it as if she were only a little older than he, as if it were something she supposed ought to be done, but personally did not believe in. Look, she seemed to say, I’m doing it too. He frowned fearfully with the effort of his thoughts. Yes ; that was what she was like, when he and she were alone together. Just occasionally she was different, severe, grieved, somebody else. That was when Daddy was angry. Not on her own account. Yes. Daddy made a big difference.
When he came out, she was not ready. He had to wait five minutes before she came slowly down the stairs from Granny’s room. She used it to save her going across the road to Miss Tarbet’s, the house where Daddy and she and Dermot slept. There was only the one spare bedroom in the cottage, and that was now given over to Annie and to Eithne.
“Now,” she smiled at him, and they went out of the narrow, dark little hall, down the brilliant white garden path, into the road. Dermot held out his hand stiffly till the big, blue-and-cream tram ground to a standstill. In another minute they were seated right in front, on top, the breeze on their foreheads, heading for Dublin and the western sky.
“Monkstown, please,” said Dermot’s mother, when the conductor came.
“Monkstown? Wan and a half? Yis, Miss.”
It still pleased her to be called Miss, as often she was.
There was an irresponsible grace about her, a remoteness, which did not go with Mrs. and maternity.
Leaning her head back in the cool breeze, Dermot’s mother began to talk. She pointed out this house, and that house: told stories of the people who had lived in them: explained the changes that had taken place since she was a little girl. They were not many. So vividly did she talk, that Dermot saw the far-off days as clearly as the passing scene.
“Look, Dermot. That big house in the grounds. That was where I went to my first ball.”
“Along that road poor old General O’Donovan was chased by a mad donkey.”
“Three old ladies had that house, for years and years. One died, and the other two went on as if she were still there. They had her place laid at table, her bed turned down every night: and every morning the maid had to go with hot water, and call the old sister who wasn’t there. This went on for years, and then the second one died. The poor old one that was left—she was wonderfully handsome, a little, proud, slim thing, with white hair, and rather a big nose—she went on with the same ceremony.”
“What—both places laid, and calling them both in the mornings? ”
“Yes. Just the same. At last she herself fell ill: nothing much, a cold, or something. But she had to stay in her bed. It was the chambermaid’s evening out, and the poor old thing got the idea into her head that the rooms were not properly ready, nor the beds turned down. She wouldn’t call the cook. I suppose she thought they laughed at her, and she was too proud. Anyway, when the chambermaid came back, in time to let the doctor in for his bedtime visit, they found the poor old thing in bed, nearly fainting, with her legs terribly scalded. She had been filling the hot water bottles for her dead sisters, and had upset the boiling water over herself. But she’d somehow filled the bottles and got round to each of the rooms. The beds were turned down, the nightgowns laid out, and the bottles were in the beds.”
Dermot was staring straight in front of him.
“Did—did she get better? ” he asked.
“No. She died of the shock, that same night.”
There was a silence, and, seeing that she had distressed him, she began to talk of other things.
“That house I showed you just now, where I went to my first ball——”
She paused, and Dermot, recalled to the present world, held his breath: for they were reaching Monkstown, and the strange towers of the church swung into view. The collector came up, shaking his bag of pennies, as a hint to them.
“Shall we go on? ” said Dermot’s mother, looking down at him with her smile.
“Oh, Mummy, do let’s. It’s so lovely.”
“We’ll go on,” she looked for the coins in her purse, “we’ll go on to Merrion, please.”
Dermot gasped. He had thought of Blackrock as the farthest possible limit.
“Just to get a glimpse of the sands,” she said. “We oughtn’t to, really. It’s terribly naughty of us.”
Dermot thrilled, and wriggled himself closer to her on the seat.
“Go on telling me about your first ball,” he besought her.
“Well, you can imagine the excitement I was in, for weeks beforehand. A first ball meant something, in those days. There was my dress to be made, and this and that little change: it drove poor Katie nearly out of her mind. I was in and out of her little house all day.”
Dermot frowned.
“Did Katie come, even in those days? ”
“Yes,” said his mother, “she did.” S
he sat up straighter on the seat, and spoke with more decision. “Katie is a very old, faithful servant to us all, and you mustn’t think unkindly about her. You must be nice to her, always.”
Dermot fidgeted.
“She’s so—so sort of oily. She’s always cadging for things,” he muttered.
“She has a terribly hard life: and she never asks a thing for herself. Whatever she gets goes to her sister’s family. You’re not to speak unkindly of her. It’s wrong, and uncharitable.”
“Uncle Ben and Aunt——”
“They’ve always had a spite against her. Who do you think are likely to know best? Granny and I, who have always had her here: or people who only see her at odd times? ”
“Oh, well, I——”
“Who, Dermot? ”
“Oh, well, you and Granny, I suppose.”
“There’s no ‘suppose’ about it.” Her tone changed. “Be fair to her, Dermot. She was always very kind to me.”
The boy swung his feet, and wriggled. This was the only unpleasant part of the ride. He looked away, and saw the solid, grey, Georgian houses slide by, with their clumps of thick chestnut trees, their dreaming beeches, shafted by the sunlight: the people sitting in their gardens, the children running, the tennis lawns, sounding with gay voices: a full and comfortable peace, stately, grown on security and long unanxious tenure. The character of it all impressed him, catching his senses right away from Katie and the tram. Then, as usually after a sudden, complete perception, they turned abruptly back again.
“Go on telling me about your first ball.”
She smiled straight in front of her, without looking at him.
“When at last the day came, Granny had a cold, and couldn’t go with me. I was in despair. We tried to get hold of friends—Amelia O’Farrell, Mrs. ffrench: none of them could come. Then, in the afternoon, who should come in to call but Cousin Corny.”
“Cousin——? ”
“You know—Cornelius O’Dowda. The O’Dowda.”
“Oh—him. I’ve seen pictures of him.”
“Yes. The big photo in the drawing-room. In he came, and, as soon as he heard of the trouble, nothing would do him but he must go, and chaperone me. He wouldn’t hear of a single objection. He insisted. Dermot—you should have seen him, when he came to call for me! ”
Her eyes were shining like a girl’s. She clasped her hands in front of her, on her knee.
“He is very handsome in the picture,” said Dermot.
“Nothing to what he was then. He came—he is six foot two, at least—stepping out of the carriage, in his long black cloak, and the ribbons of all his foreign orders flashing across his chest … ” She broke off. “And there was I, a young silly girl at her first ball, escorted by the handsomest nobleman in Ireland: and all the others eating off their heads in envy.”
“Did he dance well? ”
Dermot had a practical taste for exploring all the aspects of a situation.
“He danced most wonderfully. He still does. And he treated me all the evening as if I were a queen. That’s one of the most wonderful things about him. He’s terribly selfish in some ways, and goes off anywhere the moment the fit takes him: but he treats every woman, young or old, as if she were a queen. I’ll never forget that night. He made me feel—I knew, all the time, of course, how kind he was being to me—but he made me really believe that he was enjoying it all, and thought himself lucky to have been able to dance with me.”
She turned and looked at Dermot, a half-humorous look in her eye.
“Men like that are very dangerous to us poor women, Dermot, as you’ll learn one day.”
Dermot looked up, surprised.
“Dangerous? But you said he was so kind.”
“So he was. So he always is. That’s just why. It would be so hard to refuse him anything.”
Dermot frowned.
“Well, what would he want?” he asked prosaically: imagining his noble cousin coming back at the end of the evening, and asking an ornament off the mantelpiece for his services.
His mother interpreted the question correctly, and laughed.
“Fortunately he didn’t want anything.” She drummed with her fingers on the rail … “I meant that girls lose their hearts to him. He wouldn’t value that, you see, he gets so many.”
“You mean, he has lots of people in love with him? ”
“Lots,” replied his mother lightly. “Lots and lots.”
The tram clanked along between the trees, and came out by Booterstown into full sight of the sea. The tide was low, and, beyond the railway wall, the sands ran out, flat, wet, gleaming, so far that one could hardly tell where the sea began. Dotted over them, far apart, with rolled-up clothes, stooped the dark figures of the cockle gatherers. Nearer the City, in the soft haze of smoke and sinking sun, the tall chimney-stacks by the river rose with a kind of lonely grace, bewitched by distance and the evening. The long arm of Howth, running low by Clontarf, and swelling up slowly into the Hill, was dim and faint, as if it had gone off somewhere by itself, further off from the City and the Bay, and had forgotten them in a private dream. The tram hurried over the clear long curve towards Merrion, and the whole Hill came into view: then, as they looked, its soft obscurity was pricked by the sharp gleam of the Bailey Light. Further on, they could look back, and see the long awkward elbow of Kingstown Harbour, the less familiar, seldom seen West Pier, with the queer jumbled forest of masts and funnels sticking up above it.
“Good day to you, Miss,” said the conductor, touching his cap and grinning, as they got off.
Chapter XVI
“Marauderin’ divils !” said Mr. Caggen, spitting venomously sideways through a gap in his yellow teeth. He looked up, and saw Mr. Gray coming up the path to join them. “It’s poison is wanted, sir,” he said, touching the brim of his old straw hat. “Poison, and no stint of it.”
Mr. Gray raised his eyebrows.
“Cats again? ” he asked.
Mr. Caggen made a sweeping gesture with his arm.
“Wild, murderous divils from the woods beyant,” he replied, “Comin’ down and stravagin’ all over me beds.”
Mr. Gray whistled.
“I say—they have made a mess. What a wicked shame. Can’t you—do anything? ”.
“Th’ould gintleman,” growled Mr. Caggen respectfully—he always alluded to Grandpapa thus, “Th’ould gintleman: he won’t suffer me to raise a hand agen them. It’s a curse to the whole neighbourhood they are. Carryin’ off chickens, and young hens. Sure there’s none to withstand them.”
“Those two big toms are the worst? ”
“Aye, sir. Them big toms. The black wan and the yella wan. Faix,” he raised his hat, and rubbed the top of his head with his knuckles, “I’d like to take a dart at them two myself.”
Dermot’s father looked thoughtful.
“I wonder,” he said. “I have a little rifle … a neat enough little thing. Possibly, one day, when the old gentleman is out of the way … ”
“Oh, bedad, sir, it’s time. It’s time. They have the whole place destroyed on me.”
“Well, if you think we could …? It shouldn’t take long. If you’ll have a little grave prepared somewhere, handy, we could have the victim out of sight inside a couple of minutes.”
“Never could work come sweeter to me two hands, sir,” declared Mr. Caggen, spitting on both of them.
“Good. Then we’ll wait our chance.”
The chance did not come for some days, but fresh occasion was given for the plan. Of the biggest cats, one was nicknamed Black Tom, for obvious reasons, and the other Lord Spencer, for his ginger colour and his lordly mien. The name was Mr. Gray’s, and was lost on Dermot, though he used it gladly: it was appropriate, even without its reference. The two were not leagued together, but rivalled one another in daring, as if each felt bound to outdo the other’s latest feat: and their efforts culminated in the rapid entry of Lord Spencer into the kitchen, while Bessie was absent a few seconds in
the scullery, and his successful abstraction of one of Sunday’s two boiled chickens. He was positively seen, by Bessie, leaping off the table with the bird in his strong jaws. Horrorstruck, she recovered instantly, and gave chase: but the animal bounded off up the garden, and made good his escape, leaving a thin spattered trail of parsley sauce on the flagstones.
This deed roused the household, and even Grandpapa found difficulty in defending it.
“It’s the cruel way people do be acting,” he complained presently, “turning away their poor cats from the door, and leaving them to starve. Sure, who could blame——”
“That animal,” cut in Granny with decision, “that animal takes very good care it doesn’t starve. Mrs.Geraghty, below in the cottages, was telling me it’s worse than a fox, the way it does be taking their chickens.”
“Mrs. Geraghty. Sure, who’d believe Mrs. Geraghty.”
“Now, Alfred, don’t be talking nonsense. It’s your own fault, more than another’s. You’re always encouraging every sort of stray animal into the garden, and here’s what comes of it. Half me nice dinner gone: and everyone obliged to go short.”
“It’s your dinner you’re thinking of, not the cat at all.”
“Of course it’s me dinner I’m thinking o£ Sure who wouldn’t think of their dinner, and it snatched away from under their nose.”
Grandpapa looked around the table.
“Do you hear me old woman——” he began, with a chuckle ; but he got no support.
“It’s time a stop was put to those cats. They’ll hurt one of the children, one of these days.”
“They are nasty creatures.”
“I must say, sir,” observed Mr. Gray, “I agree with your lady. If anyone tried to stop one of them taking something, he or she might be very badly mauled.”
Grandpapa looked round upon them.
“Faith, you’re a nice lot,” he said, “afraid of a cat.”
The matter came up again, as soon as he was out of the room, and Dermot’s father met with great approval when, emboldened by Granny’s decisive words, he suggested he might, quite painlessly, get rid of the pests.
The Garden Page 13
