Chapter 4

At the end of the passage under the stairs the children used to play for hours, building strange houses out of boxes of bricks, or dressing dolls in fantastic costumes. Olive had forgotten, but Alice remembered, and her thoughts wandered through the land of toys. The box of bricks had come from an aunt that was now dead; the big doll mother had brought from Dublin when she went to see the oculist about her eyes; and then there were other toys that suggested nothing, and whose history was entirely forgotten. But the clock that stood in the passage was well remembered, and Alice thought how this old-fashioned timepiece used to be the regulator and confidant of all their joys and hopes. She saw herself again listening, amid her sums, for the welcome voice that would call her away; she saw herself again examining its grave face and striving to calculate, with childish eagerness, if she would have time to build another Tower of Babel or put another tack in the doll's frock before the ruthless iron tongue struck the fatal hour.

'Olive, is it possible you don't remember how we used to listen to the dear old clock when we were children?'

'You are a funny girl, Alice; you remember everything. Fancy thinking of that old clock! I hated it, for it brought me to lessons when it struck eleven.'

'Yes, but it brought you out to play when it struck twelve. See! the hands are just on the hour; let us wait to hear it strike.'

The girls listened vainly for a sound; and Alice felt as if she had been apprised of the loss of a tried friend when one of the servants told them the clock had been broken some years ago.

The kitchen windows looked on a street made by a line of buildings parallel with the house. These were the stables and outhouses, and they formed one of the walls of the garden that lay behind, sheltered on the north side by a thin curtain of beeches, filled every evening with noisy rooks; and, coming round to the front of the house, the girls lingered beneath the chestnut-trees, and in the rosary, where a little fountain played when visitors were present, and then stood leaning over the wooden paling that defended the pleasure-ground from the cows that grazed in the generous expanse of grass extending up to the trees of the Lawler domain. Brookfield was therefore without pretensions--it could hardly be called 'a place'--but, manifolded in dreams past and present, it extended indefinitely before Alice's eyes, and, absorbed by the sad sweetness of retrospection, she lingered while Olive ran through the rosary from the stables and back again, calling to her sister, making the sunlight ring with her light laughter. She refrained, therefore, from reminding her that it was here they used to play with Nell, the old setter, and that it was there they gave bread to the blind beggar; Olive had no heart for these things, and when she admired the sleek carriage-horses that had lately been bought to take them to balls and tennis-parties, Alice thought of the old brown mare that used to take them for such delightful drives.

Suddenly Mrs. Barton's voice was heard calling. Milord had arrived: they were to go into the garden and pick a few flowers to make a buttonhole for him. Olive darted off at once to execute the commission, and soon returned with a rose set round with stephanotis. The old lord, seated in the dining-room, in an arm-chair which Mrs. Barton had drawn up to the window so that he might enjoy the air, sipped his sherry, and Alice, as she entered the room, heard him say:

'_Quand on aime on est toujours bien portant_.'

She stopped abruptly, and Mrs. Barton, who already suspected her of secret criticism, whispered, as she glided across the room:

'Now, my dear girl, go and talk to Milord and make yourself agreeable.'

The girl felt she was incapable of this, and it pained her to listen to her sister's facile hilarity, and her mother's coaxing observations. Milord did not, however, neglect her; he made suitable remarks concerning her school successes, and asked appropriate questions anent her little play of _King Cophetua_. But whatever interest the subject possessed was found in the fact that Olive had taken the part of the Princess; and, re-arranging the story a little, Mrs. Barton declared, with a shower of little laughs, and many waves of the white hands, that 'my lady there had refused a King; a nice beginning, indeed, and a pleasant future for her chaperon.'

The few books the house possessed lay on the drawing-room table, or were piled, in dusty confusion, in the bookcase in Mr. Barton's studio; and, thinking of them, Alice determined she would pay her father a visit in his studio.

At her knock he ceased singing _Il Balen_, and cried, 'Come in!'

'I beg your pardon, papa; I'm afraid I am interrupting you.'

'Not at all--not at all, I assure you; come in. I will have a cigarette; there is nothing like reconsidering one's work through the smoke of a cigarette. The most beautiful pictures I have ever seen I have seen in the smoke of a cigarette; nothing can beat those, particularly if you are lying back looking up at a dirty ceiling.'

War and women were the two poles of Arthur's mind. _Cain shielding his Wife from Wild Beasts_ had often been painted, numberless _Bridals of Triermain_; and as for the _Rape of the Sabines_, it seemed as if it could never be sufficiently accomplished. Opposite the door was a huge design representing Samson and Delilah; opposite the fireplace, _Julius Caesar overturning the Altars of the Druids_ occupied nearly the entire wall. Nymphs and tigers were scattered in between; canvases were also propped against almost every piece of furniture.

At last Alice's eyes were suddenly caught by a picture representing three women bathing. It was a very rough sketch, but, before she had time to examine it, Arthur turned it against the wall. Why he hid two pictures from her she could not help wondering. It could not be for propriety's sake, for there were nudities on every side of her.

Then, lying upon the sofa, he explained how So-and-so had told him, when he was a boy in London, that no one since Michael Angelo had been able to design as he could; how he had modelled a colossal statue of Lucifer before he was sixteen, how he had painted a picture of the Battle of Arbela, forty feet by twenty, before he was eighteen; but that was of no use, the world nowadays only cared for execution, and he could not wait until he had got the bit of ribbon in Delilah's hair to look exactly like silk.

Alice listened to her father babbling, her heart and her mind at variance. A want of knowledge of painting might blind her to the effects of his pictures (there was in them all a certain crude merit of design), but it was impossible not to see that they were lacking in something, in what she could not say, having no knowledge of painting. Nor was she sure that her father believed in his pictures, though he had just declared they had all the beauties of Raphael and other beauties besides. He had a trick of never appearing to thoroughly believe in them and in himself. She listened interested and amused, not knowing how to take him. She had been away at school for nearly ten years, coming home for rare holidays, and was, therefore, without any real knowledge of her parents. She understood her father even less than her mother; but she was certain that if he were not a great genius he might have been one, and she resolved to find out Lord Dungory's opinions on her father. But the opportunity for five minutes quiet chat behind her mother's back did not present itself. As soon as he arrived her mother sent her out of the room on some pretext more or less valid, and at the end of the week the gowns that had been ordered in Dublin arrived: ecstasy consumed the house, and she heard him say that he would give a great dinner-party to show them off.

VI

Arthur, who rarely dined out, handed the ladies into the carriage.

Mrs. Barton was beautifully dressed in black satin; Olive was lost in a mass of tulle; Alice wore a black silk trimmed with passementerie and red ribbons. Behind the Clare mountains 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 be 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, my 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 be 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 doesn't care for women. He is very clever; he writes pamphlets. He used to sympathize 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.

'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 a separation. 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.

'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 realize 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_.'

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 less 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; 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.

'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 a 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 is to 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 conversation certainly differed as widely. 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 Mr. Lynch's questions; May had fallen into a state of morose lassitude. If Mr. Adair would only cease to explain to her how successfully he had employed concrete in the construction of his farm-buildings! She felt that if he started again on the saw-mill she must faint, and Olive's senses, too, were swimming, but just as she thought she was going off Captain Hibbert looked so admiringly at her that she recovered herself; and at the same time Mr. Scully succeeded in making May understand that he would infinitely prefer to be 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. Gould, 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 organization,' said Lord Dungory in the midst of a profound silence.

'A society legal, that exists and holds its power through an organized 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 brow, obscured by many obscure ideals. 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 outrage-monger which kept the system alive until 1840. Then the Government took the matter in hand, and treated outrage-mongering 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.'