THE DEAD (James Joyce)
LILY, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet.
Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on
the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door
bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in
another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But
Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom
upstairs into a ladies' dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there,
gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the
stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who
had come.
It was always a great affair, the Misses Morkan's annual dance. Everybody who
knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the
members of Julia's choir, any of Kate's pupils that were grown up enough, and
even some of Mary Jane's pupils too. Never once had it fallen flat. For years
and years it had gone off in splendid style, as long as anyone could remember;
ever since Kate and Julia, after the death of their brother Pat, had left the
house in Stoney Batter and taken Mary Jane, their only niece, to live with them
in the dark, gaunt house on Usher's Island, the upper part of which they had
rented from Mr. Fulham, the corn-factor on the ground floor. That was a good
thirty years ago if it was a day. Mary Jane, who was then a little girl in short
clothes, was now the main prop of the household, for she had the organ in
Haddington Road. She had been through the Academy and gave a pupils' concert
every year in the upper room of the Antient Concert Rooms. Many of her pupils
belonged to the better-class families on the Kingstown and Dalkey line. Old as
they were, her aunts also did their share. Julia, though she was quite grey, was
still the leading soprano in Adam and Eve's, and Kate, being too feeble to go
about much, gave music lessons to beginners on the old square piano in the back
room. Lily, the caretaker's daughter, did housemaid's work for them. Though
their life was modest, they believed in eating well; the best of everything:
diamond-bone sirloins, three-shilling tea and the best bottled stout. But Lily
seldom made a mistake in the orders, so that she got on well with her three
mistresses. They were fussy, that was all. But the only thing they would not
stand was back answers.
Of course, they had good reason to be fussy on such a night. And then it was
long after ten o'clock and yet there was no sign of Gabriel and his wife.
Besides they were dreadfully afraid that Freddy Malins might turn up screwed.
They would not wish for worlds that any of Mary Jane's pupils should see him
under the influence; and when he was like that it was sometimes very hard to
manage him. Freddy Malins always came late, but they wondered what could be
keeping Gabriel: and that was what brought them every two minutes to the
banisters to ask Lily had Gabriel or Freddy come.
"O, Mr. Conroy," said Lily to Gabriel when she opened the door for him, "Miss
Kate and Miss Julia thought you were never coming. Good-night, Mrs. Conroy."
"I'll engage they did," said Gabriel, "but they forget that my wife here takes
three mortal hours to dress herself."
He stood on the mat, scraping the snow from his goloshes, while Lily led his
wife to the foot of the stairs and called out:
"Miss Kate, here's Mrs. Conroy."
Kate and Julia came toddling down the dark stairs at once. Both of them kissed
Gabriel's wife, said she must be perished alive, and asked was Gabriel with her.
"Here I am as right as the mail, Aunt Kate! Go on up. I'll follow," called out
Gabriel from the dark.
He continued scraping his feet vigorously while the three women went upstairs,
laughing, to the ladies' dressing-room. A light fringe of snow lay like a cape
on the shoulders of his overcoat and like toecaps on the toes of his goloshes;
and, as the buttons of his overcoat slipped with a squeaking noise through the
snow-stiffened frieze, a cold, fragrant air from out-of-doors escaped from
crevices and folds.
"Is it snowing again, Mr. Conroy?" asked Lily.
She had preceded him into the pantry to help him off with his overcoat. Gabriel
smiled at the three syllables she had given his surname and glanced at her. She
was a slim; growing girl, pale in complexion and with hay-coloured hair. The gas
in the pantry made her look still paler. Gabriel had known her when she was a
child and used to sit on the lowest step nursing a rag doll.
"Yes, Lily," he answered, "and I think we're in for a night of it."
He looked up at the pantry ceiling, which was shaking with the stamping and
shuffling of feet on the floor above, listened for a moment to the piano and
then glanced at the girl, who was folding his overcoat carefully at the end of a
shelf.
"Tell me. Lily," he said in a friendly tone, "do you still go to school?"
"O no, sir," she answered. "I'm done schooling this year and more."
"O, then," said Gabriel gaily, "I suppose we'll be going to your wedding one of
these fine days with your young man, eh? "
The girl glanced back at him over her shoulder and said with great bitterness:
"The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you."
Gabriel coloured, as if he felt he had made a mistake and, without looking at
her, kicked off his goloshes and flicked actively with his muffler at his
patent-leather shoes.
He was a stout, tallish young man. The high colour of his cheeks pushed upwards
even to his forehead, where it scattered itself in a few formless patches of
pale red; and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the polished
lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and
restless eyes. His glossy black hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a
long curve behind his ears where it curled slightly beneath the groove left by
his hat.
When he had flicked lustre into his shoes he stood up and pulled his waistcoat
down more tightly on his plump body. Then he took a coin rapidly from his
pocket.
"O Lily," he said, thrusting it into her hands, "it's Christmastime, isn't it?
Just... here's a little...."
He walked rapidly towards the door.
"O no, sir!" cried the girl, following him. "Really, sir, I wouldn't take it."
"Christmas-time! Christmas-time!" said Gabriel, almost trotting to the stairs
and waving his hand to her in deprecation.
The girl, seeing that he had gained the stairs, called out after him:
"Well, thank you, sir."
He waited outside the drawing-room door until the waltz should finish, listening
to the skirts that swept against it and to the shuffling of feet. He was still
discomposed by the girl's bitter and sudden retort. It had cast a gloom over him
which he tried to dispel by arranging his cuffs and the bows of his tie. He then
took from his waistcoat pocket a little paper and glanced at the headings he had
made for his speech. He was undecided about the lines from Robert Browning, for
he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers. Some quotation that they
would recognise from Shakespeare or from the Melodies would be better. The
indelicate clacking of the men's heels and the shuffling of their soles reminded
him that their grade of culture differed from his. He would only make himself
ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand. They would
think that he was airing his superior education. He would fail with them just as
he had failed with the girl in the pantry. He had taken up a wrong tone. His
whole speech was a mistake from first to last, an utter failure.
Just then his aunts and his wife came out of the ladies' dressing-room. His
aunts were two small, plainly dressed old women. Aunt Julia was an inch or so
the taller. Her hair, drawn low over the tops of her ears, was grey; and grey
also, with darker shadows, was her large flaccid face. Though she was stout in
build and stood erect, her slow eyes and parted lips gave her the appearance of
a woman who did not know where she was or where she was going. Aunt Kate was
more vivacious. Her face, healthier than her sister's, was all puckers and
creases, like a shrivelled red apple, and her hair, braided in the same
old-fashioned way, had not lost its ripe nut colour.
They both kissed Gabriel frankly. He was their favourite nephew the son of their
dead elder sister, Ellen, who had married T. J. Conroy of the Port and Docks.
"Gretta tells me you're not going to take a cab back to Monkstown tonight,
Gabriel," said Aunt Kate.
"No," said Gabriel, turning to his wife, "we had quite enough of that last year,
hadn't we? Don't you remember, Aunt Kate, what a cold Gretta got out of it? Cab
windows rattling all the way, and the east wind blowing in after we passed
Merrion. Very jolly it was. Gretta caught a dreadful cold."
Aunt Kate frowned severely and nodded her head at every word.
"Quite right, Gabriel, quite right," she said. "You can't be too careful."
"But as for Gretta there," said Gabriel, "she'd walk home in the snow if she
were let."
Mrs. Conroy laughed.
"Don't mind him, Aunt Kate," she said. "He's really an awful bother, what with
green shades for Tom's eyes at night and making him do the dumb-bells, and
forcing Eva to eat the stirabout. The poor child! And she simply hates the sight
of it!... O, but you'll never guess what he makes me wear now!"
She broke out into a peal of laughter and glanced at her husband, whose admiring
and happy eyes had been wandering from her dress to her face and hair. The two
aunts laughed heartily, too, for Gabriel's solicitude was a standing joke with
them.
"Goloshes!" said Mrs. Conroy. "That's the latest. Whenever it's wet underfoot I
must put on my galoshes. Tonight even, he wanted me to put them on, but I
wouldn't. The next thing he'll buy me will be a diving suit."
Gabriel laughed nervously and patted his tie reassuringly, while Aunt Kate
nearly doubled herself, so heartily did she enjoy the joke. The smile soon faded
from Aunt Julia's face and her mirthless eyes were directed towards her nephew's
face. After a pause she asked:
"And what are goloshes, Gabriel?"
"Goloshes, Julia!" exclaimed her sister "Goodness me, don't you know what
goloshes are? You wear them over your... over your boots, Gretta, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Conroy. "Guttapercha things. We both have a pair now. Gabriel
says everyone wears them on the Continent."
"O, on the Continent," murmured Aunt Julia, nodding her head slowly.
Gabriel knitted his brows and said, as if he were slightly angered:
"It's nothing very wonderful, but Gretta thinks it very funny because she says
the word reminds her of Christy Minstrels."
"But tell me, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate, with brisk tact. "Of course, you've seen
about the room. Gretta was saying..."
"0, the room is all right," replied Gabriel. "I've taken one in the Gresham."
"To be sure," said Aunt Kate, "by far the best thing to do. And the children,
Gretta, you're not anxious about them?"
"0, for one night," said Mrs. Conroy. "Besides, Bessie will look after them."
"To be sure," said Aunt Kate again. "What a comfort it is to have a girl like
that, one you can depend on! There's that Lily, I'm sure I don't know what has
come over her lately. She's not the girl she was at all."
Gabriel was about to ask his aunt some questions on this point, but she broke
off suddenly to gaze after her sister, who had wandered down the stairs and was
craning her neck over the banisters.
"Now, I ask you," she said almost testily, "where is Julia going? Julia! Julia!
Where are you going?"
Julia, who had gone half way down one flight, came back and announced blandly:
"Here's Freddy."
At the same moment a clapping of hands and a final flourish of the pianist told
that the waltz had ended. The drawing-room door was opened from within and some
couples came out. Aunt Kate drew Gabriel aside hurriedly and whispered into his
ear:
"Slip down, Gabriel, like a good fellow and see if he's all right, and don't let
him up if he's screwed. I'm sure he's screwed. I'm sure he is."
Gabriel went to the stairs and listened over the banisters. He could hear two
persons talking in the pantry. Then he recognised Freddy Malins' laugh. He went
down the stairs noisily.
"It's such a relief," said Aunt Kate to Mrs. Conroy, "that Gabriel is here. I
always feel easier in my mind when he's here.... Julia, there's Miss Daly and
Miss Power will take some refreshment. Thanks for your beautiful waltz, Miss
Daly. It made lovely time."
A tall wizen-faced man, with a stiff grizzled moustache and swarthy skin, who
was passing out with his partner, said:
"And may we have some refreshment, too, Miss Morkan?"
"Julia," said Aunt Kate summarily, "and here's Mr. Browne and Miss Furlong. Take
them in, Julia, with Miss Daly and Miss Power."
"I'm the man for the ladies," said Mr. Browne, pursing his lips until his
moustache bristled and smiling in all his wrinkles. "You know, Miss Morkan, the
reason they are so fond of me is----"
He did not finish his sentence, but, seeing that Aunt Kate was out of earshot,
at once led the three young ladies into the back room. The middle of the room
was occupied by two square tables placed end to end, and on these Aunt Julia and
the caretaker were straightening and smoothing a large cloth. On the sideboard
were arrayed dishes and plates, and glasses and bundles of knives and forks and
spoons. The top of the closed square piano served also as a sideboard for viands
and sweets. At a smaller sideboard in one corner two young men were standing,
drinking hop-bitters.
Mr. Browne led his charges thither and invited them all, in jest, to some
ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. As they said they never took anything
strong, he opened three bottles of lemonade for them. Then he asked one of the
young men to move aside, and, taking hold of the decanter, filled out for
himself a goodly measure of whisky. The young men eyed him respectfully while he
took a trial sip.
"God help me," he said, smiling, "it's the doctor's orders."
His wizened face broke into a broader smile, and the three young ladies laughed
in musical echo to his pleasantry, swaying their bodies to and fro, with nervous
jerks of their shoulders. The boldest said:
"O, now, Mr. Browne, I'm sure the doctor never ordered anything of the kind."
Mr. Browne took another sip of his whisky and said, with sidling mimicry:
"Well, you see, I'm like the famous Mrs. Cassidy, who is reported to have said:
'Now, Mary Grimes, if I don't take it, make me take it, for I feel I want it.'"
His hot face had leaned forward a little too confidentially and he had assumed a
very low Dublin accent so that the young ladies, with one instinct, received his
speech in silence. Miss Furlong, who was one of Mary Jane's pupils, asked Miss
Daly what was the name of the pretty waltz she had played; and Mr. Browne,
seeing that he was ignored, turned promptly to the two young men who were more
appreciative.
A red-faced young woman, dressed in pansy, came into the room, excitedly
clapping her hands and crying:
"Quadrilles! Quadrilles!"
Close on her heels came Aunt Kate, crying:
"Two gentlemen and three ladies, Mary Jane!"
"O, here's Mr. Bergin and Mr. Kerrigan," said Mary Jane. "Mr. Kerrigan, will you
take Miss Power? Miss Furlong, may I get you a partner, Mr. Bergin. O, that'll
just do now."
"Three ladies, Mary Jane," said Aunt Kate.
The two young gentlemen asked the ladies if they might have the pleasure, and
Mary Jane turned to Miss Daly.
"O, Miss Daly, you're really awfully good, after playing for the last two
dances, but really we're so short of ladies tonight."
"I don't mind in the least, Miss Morkan."
"But I've a nice partner for you, Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, the tenor. I'll get him to
sing later on. All Dublin is raving about him."
"Lovely voice, lovely voice!" said Aunt Kate.
As the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure Mary Jane led her
recruits quickly from the room. They had hardly gone when Aunt Julia wandered
slowly into the room, looking behind her at something.
"What is the matter, Julia?" asked Aunt Kate anxiously. "Who is it?"
Julia, who was carrying in a column of table-napkins, turned to her sister and
said, simply, as if the question had surprised her:
"It's only Freddy, Kate, and Gabriel with him."
In fact right behind her Gabriel could be seen piloting Freddy Malins across the
landing. The latter, a young man of about forty, was of Gabriel's size and
build, with very round shoulders. His face was fleshy and pallid, touched with
colour only at the thick hanging lobes of his ears and at the wide wings of his
nose. He had coarse features, a blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid
and protruded lips. His heavy-lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair
made him look sleepy. He was laughing heartily in a high key at a story which he
had been telling Gabriel on the stairs and at the same time rubbing the knuckles
of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.
"Good-evening, Freddy," said Aunt Julia.
Freddy Malins bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an offhand
fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then, seeing that Mr.
Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed the room on rather shaky
legs and began to repeat in an undertone the story he had just told to Gabriel.
"He's not so bad, is he?" said Aunt Kate to Gabriel.
Gabriel's brows were dark but he raised them quickly and answered:
"O, no, hardly noticeable."
"Now, isn't he a terrible fellow!" she said. "And his poor mother made him take
the pledge on New Year's Eve. But come on, Gabriel, into the drawing-room."
Before leaving the room with Gabriel she signalled to Mr. Browne by frowning and
shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro. Mr. Browne nodded in answer and,
when she had gone, said to Freddy Malins:
"Now, then, Teddy, I'm going to fill you out a good glass of lemonade just to
buck you up."
Freddy Malins, who was nearing the climax of his story, waved the offer aside
impatiently but Mr. Browne, having first called Freddy Malins' attention to a
disarray in his dress, filled out and handed him a full glass of lemonade.
Freddy Malins' left hand accepted the glass mechanically, his right hand being
engaged in the mechanical readjustment of his dress. Mr. Browne, whose face was
once more wrinkling with mirth, poured out for himself a glass of whisky while
Freddy Malins exploded, before he had well reached the climax of his story, in a
kink of high-pitched bronchitic laughter and, setting down his untasted and
overflowing glass, began to rub the knuckles of his left fist backwards and
forwards into his left eye, repeating words of his last phrase as well as his
fit of laughter would allow him.
Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece, full of
runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing-room. He liked music but the
piece she was playing had no melody for him and he doubted whether it had any
melody for the other listeners, though they had begged Mary Jane to play
something. Four young men, who had come from the refreshment-room to stand in
the doorway at the sound of the piano, had gone away quietly in couples after a
few minutes. The only persons who seemed to follow the music were Mary Jane
herself, her hands racing along the key-board or lifted from it at the pauses
like those of a priestess in momentary imprecation, and Aunt Kate standing at
her elbow to turn the page.
Gabriel's eyes, irritated by the floor, which glittered with beeswax under the
heavy chandelier, wandered to the wall above the piano. A picture of the balcony
scene in Romeo and Juliet hung there and beside it was a picture of the two
murdered princes in the Tower which Aunt Julia had worked in red, blue and brown
wools when she was a girl. Probably in the school they had gone to as girls that
kind of work had been taught for one year. His mother had worked for him as a
birthday present a waistcoat of purple tabinet, with little foxes' heads upon
it, lined with brown satin and having round mulberry buttons. It was strange
that his mother had had no musical talent though Aunt Kate used to call her the
brains carrier of the Morkan family. Both she and Julia had always seemed a
little proud of their serious and matronly sister. Her photograph stood before
the pierglass. She held an open book on her knees and was pointing out something
in it to Constantine who, dressed in a man-o-war suit, lay at her feet. It was
she who had chosen the name of her sons for she was very sensible of the dignity
of family life. Thanks to her, Constantine was now senior curate in Balbrigan
and, thanks to her, Gabriel himself had taken his degree in the Royal
University. A shadow passed over his face as he remembered her sullen opposition
to his marriage. Some slighting phrases she had used still rankled in his
memory; she had once spoken of Gretta as being country cute and that was not
true of Gretta at all. It was Gretta who had nursed her during all her last long
illness in their house at Monkstown.
He knew that Mary Jane must be near the end of her piece for she was playing
again the opening melody with runs of scales after every bar and while he waited
for the end the resentment died down in his heart. The piece ended with a trill
of octaves in the treble and a final deep octave in the bass. Great applause
greeted Mary Jane as, blushing and rolling up her music nervously, she escaped
from the room. The most vigorous clapping came from the four young men in the
doorway who had gone away to the refreshment-room at the beginning of the piece
but had come back when the piano had stopped.
Lancers were arranged. Gabriel found himself partnered with Miss Ivors. She was
a frank-mannered talkative young lady, with a freckled face and prominent brown
eyes. She did not wear a low-cut bodice and the large brooch which was fixed in
the front of her collar bore on it an Irish device and motto.
When they had taken their places she said abruptly:
"I have a crow to pluck with you."
"With me?" said Gabriel.
She nodded her head gravely.
"What is it?" asked Gabriel, smiling at her solemn manner.
"Who is G. C.?" answered Miss Ivors, turning her eyes upon him.
Gabriel coloured and was about to knit his brows, as if he did not understand,
when she said bluntly:
"O, innocent Amy! I have found out that you write for The Daily Express. Now,
aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"Why should I be ashamed of myself?" asked Gabriel, blinking his eyes and trying
to smile.
"Well, I'm ashamed of you," said Miss Ivors frankly. "To say you'd write for a
paper like that. I didn't think you were a West Briton."
A look of perplexity appeared on Gabriel's face. It was true that he wrote a
literary column every Wednesday in The Daily Express, for which he was paid
fifteen shillings. But that did not make him a West Briton surely. The books he
received for review were almost more welcome than the paltry cheque. He loved to
feel the covers and turn over the pages of newly printed books. Nearly every day
when his teaching in the college was ended he used to wander down the quays to
the second-hand booksellers, to Hickey's on Bachelor's Walk, to Web's or
Massey's on Aston's Quay, or to O'Clohissey's in the bystreet. He did not know
how to meet her charge. He wanted to say that literature was above politics. But
they were friends of many years' standing and their careers had been parallel,
first at the University and then as teachers: he could not risk a grandiose
phrase with her. He continued blinking his eyes and trying to smile and murmured
lamely that he saw nothing political in writing reviews of books.
When their turn to cross had come he was still perplexed and inattentive. Miss
Ivors promptly took his hand in a warm grasp and said in a soft friendly tone:
"Of course, I was only joking. Come, we cross now."
When they were together again she spoke of the University question and Gabriel
felt more at ease. A friend of hers had shown her his review of Browning's
poems. That was how she had found out the secret: but she liked the review
immensely. Then she said suddenly:
"O, Mr. Conroy, will you come for an excursion to the Aran Isles this summer?
We're going to stay there a whole month. It will be splendid out in the
Atlantic. You ought to come. Mr. Clancy is coming, and Mr. Kilkelly and Kathleen
Kearney. It would be splendid for Gretta too if she'd come. She's from Connacht,
isn't she?"
"Her people are," said Gabriel shortly.
"But you will come, won't you?" said Miss Ivors, laying her arm hand eagerly on
his arm.
"The fact is," said Gabriel, "I have just arranged to go----"
"Go where?" asked Miss Ivors.
"Well, you know, every year I go for a cycling tour with some fellows and
so----"
"But where?" asked Miss Ivors.
"Well, we usually go to France or Belgium or perhaps Germany," said Gabriel
awkwardly.
"And why do you go to France and Belgium," said Miss Ivors, "instead of visiting
your own land?"
"Well," said Gabriel, "it's partly to keep in touch with the languages and
partly for a change."
"And haven't you your own language to keep in touch with -- Irish?" asked Miss
Ivors.
"Well," said Gabriel, "if it comes to that, you know, Irish is not my language."
Their neighbours had turned to listen to the cross- examination. Gabriel glanced
right and left nervously and tried to keep his good humour under the ordeal
which was making a blush invade his forehead.
"And haven't you your own land to visit," continued Miss Ivors, "that you know
nothing of, your own people, and your own country?"
"0, to tell you the truth," retorted Gabriel suddenly, "I'm sick of my own
country, sick of it!"
"Why?" asked Miss Ivors.
Gabriel did not answer for his retort had heated him.
"Why?" repeated Miss Ivors.
They had to go visiting together and, as he had not answered her, Miss Ivors
said warmly:
"Of course, you've no answer."
Gabriel tried to cover his agitation by taking part in the dance with great
energy. He avoided her eyes for he had seen a sour expression on her face. But
when they met in the long chain he was surprised to feel his hand firmly
pressed. She looked at him from under her brows for a moment quizzically until
he smiled. Then, just as the chain was about to start again, she stood on tiptoe
and whispered into his ear:
"West Briton!"
When the lancers were over Gabriel went away to a remote corner of the room
where Freddy Malins' mother was sitting. She was a stout feeble old woman with
white hair. Her voice had a catch in it like her son's and she stuttered
slightly. She had been told that Freddy had come and that he was nearly all
right. Gabriel asked her whether she had had a good crossing. She lived with her
married daughter in Glasgow and came to Dublin on a visit once a year. She
answered placidly that she had had a beautiful crossing and that the captain had
been most attentive to her. She spoke also of the beautiful house her daughter
kept in Glasgow, and of all the friends they had there. While her tongue rambled
on Gabriel tried to banish from his mind all memory of the unpleasant incident
with Miss Ivors. Of course the girl or woman, or whatever she was, was an
enthusiast but there was a time for all things. Perhaps he ought not to have
answered her like that. But she had no right to call him a West Briton before
people, even in joke. She had tried to make him ridiculous before people,
heckling him and staring at him with her rabbit's eyes.
He saw his wife making her way towards him through the waltzing couples. When
she reached him she said into his ear:
"Gabriel. Aunt Kate wants to know won't you carve the goose as usual. Miss Daly
will carve the ham and I'll do the pudding."
"All right," said Gabriel.
"She's sending in the younger ones first as soon as this waltz is over so that
we'll have the table to ourselves."
"Were you dancing?" asked Gabriel.
"Of course I was. Didn't you see me? What row had you with Molly Ivors?"
"No row. Why? Did she say so?"
"Something like that. I'm trying to get that Mr. D'Arcy to sing. He's full of
conceit, I think."
"There was no row," said Gabriel moodily, "only she wanted me to go for a trip
to the west of Ireland and I said I wouldn't."
His wife clasped her hands excitedly and gave a little jump.
"O, do go, Gabriel," she cried. "I'd love to see Galway again."
"You can go if you like," said Gabriel coldly.
She looked at him for a moment, then turned to Mrs. Malins and said:
"There's a nice husband for you, Mrs. Malins."
While she was threading her way back across the room Mrs. Malins, without
adverting to the interruption, went on to tell Gabriel what beautiful places
there were in Scotland and beautiful scenery. Her son-in-law brought them every
year to the lakes and they used to go fishing. Her son-in-law was a splendid
fisher. One day he caught a beautiful big fish and the man in the hotel cooked
it for their dinner.
Gabriel hardly heard what she said. Now that supper was coming near he began to
think again about his speech and about the quotation. When he saw Freddy Malins
coming across the room to visit his mother Gabriel left the chair free for him
and retired into the embrasure of the window. The room had already cleared and
from the back room came the clatter of plates and knives. Those who still
remained in the drawing room seemed tired of dancing and were conversing quietly
in little groups. Gabriel's warm trembling fingers tapped the cold pane of the
window. How cool it must be outside! How pleasant it would be to walk out alone,
first along by the river and then through the park! The snow would be lying on
the branches of the trees and forming a bright cap on the top of the Wellington
Monument. How much more pleasant it would be there than at the supper-table!
He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad memories, the
Three Graces, Paris, the quotation from Browning. He repeated to himself a
phrase he had written in his review: "One feels that one is listening to a
thought- tormented music." Miss Ivors had praised the review. Was she sincere?
Had she really any life of her own behind all her propagandism? There had never
been any ill-feeling between them until that night. It unnerved him to think
that she would be at the supper-table, looking up at him while he spoke with her
critical quizzing eyes. Perhaps she would not be sorry to see him fail in his
speech. An idea came into his mind and gave him courage. He would say, alluding
to Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the generation which is now
on the wane among us may have had its faults but for my part I think it had
certain qualities of hospitality, of humour, of humanity, which the new and very
serious and hypereducated generation that is growing up around us seems to me to
lack." Very good: that was one for Miss Ivors. What did he care that his aunts
were only two ignorant old women?
A murmur in the room attracted his attention. Mr. Browne was advancing from the
door, gallantly escorting Aunt Julia, who leaned upon his arm, smiling and
hanging her head. An irregular musketry of applause escorted her also as far as
the piano and then, as Mary Jane seated herself on the stool, and Aunt Julia, no
longer smiling, half turned so as to pitch her voice fairly into the room,
gradually ceased. Gabriel recognised the prelude. It was that of an old song of
Aunt Julia's -- Arrayed for the Bridal. Her voice, strong and clear in tone,
attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and though she sang
very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes. To follow
the voice, without looking at the singer's face, was to feel and share the
excitement of swift and secure flight. Gabriel applauded loudly with all the
others at the close of the song and loud applause was borne in from the
invisible supper-table. It sounded so genuine that a little colour struggled
into Aunt Julia's face as she bent to replace in the music-stand the old
leather-bound songbook that had her initials on the cover. Freddy Malins, who
had listened with his head perched sideways to hear her better, was still
applauding when everyone else had ceased and talking animatedly to his mother
who nodded her head gravely and slowly in acquiescence. At last, when he could
clap no more, he stood up suddenly and hurried across the room to Aunt Julia
whose hand he seized and held in both his hands, shaking it when words failed
him or the catch in his voice proved too much for him.
"I was just telling my mother," he said, "I never heard you sing so well, never.
No, I never heard your voice so good as it is tonight. Now! Would you believe
that now? That's the truth. Upon my word and honour that's the truth. I never
heard your voice sound so fresh and so... so clear and fresh, never."
Aunt Julia smiled broadly and murmured something about compliments as she
released her hand from his grasp. Mr. Browne extended his open hand towards her
and said to those who were near him in the manner of a showman introducing a
prodigy to an audience:
"Miss Julia Morkan, my latest discovery!"
He was laughing very heartily at this himself when Freddy Malins turned to him
and said:
"Well, Browne, if you're serious you might make a worse discovery. All I can say
is I never heard her sing half so well as long as I am coming here. And that's
the honest truth."
"Neither did I," said Mr. Browne. "I think her voice has greatly improved."
Aunt Julia shrugged her shoulders and said with meek pride:
"Thirty years ago I hadn't a bad voice as voices go."
"I often told Julia," said Aunt Kate emphatically, "that she was simply thrown
away in that choir. But she never would be said by me."
She turned as if to appeal to the good sense of the others against a refractory
child while Aunt Julia gazed in front of her, a vague smile of reminiscence
playing on her face.
"No," continued Aunt Kate, "she wouldn't be said or led by anyone, slaving there
in that choir night and day, night and day. Six o'clock on Christmas morning!
And all for what?"
"Well, isn't it for the honour of God, Aunt Kate?" asked Mary Jane, twisting
round on the piano-stool and smiling.
Aunt Kate turned fiercely on her niece and said:
"I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it's not at all
honourable for the pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have slaved
there all their lives and put little whipper-snappers of boys over their heads.
I suppose it is for the good of the Church if the pope does it. But it's not
just, Mary Jane, and it's not right."
She had worked herself into a passion and would have continued in defence of her
sister for it was a sore subject with her but Mary Jane, seeing that all the
dancers had come back, intervened pacifically:
"Now, Aunt Kate, you're giving scandal to Mr. Browne who is of the other
persuasion."
Aunt Kate turned to Mr. Browne, who was grinning at this allusion to his
religion, and said hastily:
"O, I don't question the pope's being right. I'm only a stupid old woman and I
wouldn't presume to do such a thing. But there's such a thing as common everyday
politeness and gratitude. And if I were in Julia's place I'd tell that Father
Healey straight up to his face..."
"And besides, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane, "we really are all hungry and when we
are hungry we are all very quarrelsome."
"And when we are thirsty we are also quarrelsome," added Mr. Browne.
"So that we had better go to supper," said Mary Jane, "and finish the discussion
afterwards."
On the landing outside the drawing-room Gabriel found his wife and Mary Jane
trying to persuade Miss Ivors to stay for supper. But Miss Ivors, who had put on
her hat and was buttoning her cloak, would not stay. She did not feel in the
least hungry and she had already overstayed her time.
"But only for ten minutes, Molly," said Mrs. Conroy. "That won't delay you."
"To take a pick itself," said Mary Jane, "after all your dancing."
"I really couldn't," said Miss Ivors.
"I am afraid you didn't enjoy yourself at all," said Mary Jane hopelessly.
"Ever so much, I assure you," said Miss Ivors, "but you really must let me run
off now."
"But how can you get home?" asked Mrs. Conroy.
"O, it's only two steps up the quay."
Gabriel hesitated a moment and said:
"If you will allow me, Miss Ivors, I'll see you home if you are really obliged
to go."
But Miss Ivors broke away from them.
"I won't hear of it," she cried. "For goodness' sake go in to your suppers and
don't mind me. I'm quite well able to take care of myself."
"Well, you're the comical girl, Molly," said Mrs. Conroy frankly.
"Beannacht libh," cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she ran down the staircase.
Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs.
Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked
himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in
ill humour: she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.
At the moment Aunt Kate came toddling out of the supper-room, almost wringing
her hands in despair.
"Where is Gabriel?" she cried. "Where on earth is Gabriel? There's everyone
waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!"
"Here I am, Aunt Kate!" cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, "ready to carve a
flock of geese, if necessary."
A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of
creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its
outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its
shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran
parallel lines of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a
shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped
dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and
peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs,
a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and
sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some
tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a
fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat
old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark
sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in
waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and
minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two
black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with
transverse green sashes.
Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the
edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at
ease now for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find
himself at the head of a well-laden table.
"Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?" he asked. "A wing or a slice of the
breast?"
"Just a small slice of the breast."
"Miss Higgins, what for you?"
"O, anything at all, Mr. Conroy."
While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and
spiced beef Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes
wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane's idea and she had also suggested
apple sauce for the goose but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without
any apple sauce had always been good enough for her and she hoped she might
never eat worse. Mary Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the best
slices and Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia opened and carried across from the piano
bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the
ladies. There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the noise of
orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass-stoppers.
Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first
round without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised
by taking a long draught of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary
Jane settled down quietly to her supper but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia were still
toddling round the table, walking on each other's heels, getting in each other's
way and giving each other unheeded orders. Mr. Browne begged of them to sit down
and eat their suppers and so did Gabriel but they said there was time enough, so
that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing Aunt Kate, plumped her down
on her chair amid general laughter.
When everyone had been well served Gabriel said, smiling:
"Now, if anyone wants a little more of what vulgar people call stuffing let him
or her speak."
A chorus of voices invited him to begin his own supper and Lily came forward
with three potatoes which she had reserved for him.
"Very well," said Gabriel amiably, as he took another preparatory draught,
"kindly forget my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes."
He set to his supper and took no part in the conversation with which the table
covered Lily's removal of the plates. The subject of talk was the opera company
which was then at the Theatre Royal. Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, the tenor, a dark-
complexioned young man with a smart moustache, praised very highly the leading
contralto of the company but Miss Furlong thought she had a rather vulgar style
of production. Freddy Malins said there was a Negro chieftain singing in the
second part of the Gaiety pantomime who had one of the finest tenor voices he
had ever heard.
"Have you heard him?" he asked Mr. Bartell D'Arcy across the table.
"No," answered Mr. Bartell D'Arcy carelessly.
"Because," Freddy Malins explained, "now I'd be curious to hear your opinion of
him. I think he has a grand voice."
"It takes Teddy to find out the really good things," said Mr. Browne familiarly
to the table.
"And why couldn't he have a voice too?" asked Freddy Malins sharply. "Is it
because he's only a black?"
Nobody answered this question and Mary Jane led the table back to the legitimate
opera. One of her pupils had given her a pass for Mignon. Of course it was very
fine, she said, but it made her think of poor Georgina Burns. Mr. Browne could
go back farther still, to the old Italian companies that used to come to Dublin
-- Tietjens, Ilma de Murzka, Campanini, the great Trebelli, Giuglini, Ravelli,
Aramburo. Those were the days, he said, when there was something like singing to
be heard in Dublin. He told too of how the top gallery of the old Royal used to
be packed night after night, of how one night an Italian tenor had sung five
encores to Let me like a Soldier fall, introducing a high C every time, and of
how the gallery boys would sometimes in their enthusiasm unyoke the horses from
the carriage of some great prima donna and pull her themselves through the
streets to her hotel. Why did they never play the grand old operas now, he
asked, Dinorah, Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not get the voices to sing
them: that was why.
"Oh, well," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, "I presume there are as good singers today
as there were then."
"Where are they?" asked Mr. Browne defiantly.
"In London, Paris, Milan," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy warmly. "I suppose Caruso,
for example, is quite as good, if not better than any of the men you have
mentioned."
"Maybe so," said Mr. Browne. "But I may tell you I doubt it strongly."
"O, I'd give anything to hear Caruso sing," said Mary Jane.
"For me," said Aunt Kate, who had been picking a bone, "there was only one
tenor. To please me, I mean. But I suppose none of you ever heard of him."
"Who was he, Miss Morkan?" asked Mr. Bartell D'Arcy politely.
"His name," said Aunt Kate, "was Parkinson. I heard him when he was in his prime
and I think he had then the purest tenor voice that was ever put into a man's
throat."
"Strange," said Mr. Bartell D'Arcy. "I never even heard of him."
"Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right," said Mr. Browne. "I remember hearing of old
Parkinson but he's too far back for me."
"A beautiful, pure, sweet, mellow English tenor," said Aunt Kate with
enthusiasm.
Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table. The
clatter of forks and spoons began again. Gabriel's wife served out spoonfuls of
the pudding and passed the plates down the table. Midway down they were held up
by Mary Jane, who replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with
blancmange and jam. The pudding was of Aunt Julia's making and she received
praises for it from all quarters She herself said that it was not quite brown
enough.
"Well, I hope, Miss Morkan," said Mr. Browne, "that I'm brown enough for you
because, you know, I'm all brown."
All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment to
Aunt Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him. Freddy
Malins also took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had been told
that celery was a capital thing for the blood and he was just then under
doctor's care. Mrs. Malins, who had been silent all through the supper, said
that her son was going down to Mount Melleray in a week or so. The table then
spoke of Mount Melleray, how bracing the air was down there, how hospitable the
monks were and how they never asked for a penny-piece from their guests.
"And do you mean to say," asked Mr. Browne incredulously, "that a chap can go
down there and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on the fat of the
land and then come away without paying anything?"
"O, most people give some donation to the monastery when they leave." said Mary
Jane.
"I wish we had an institution like that in our Church," said Mr. Browne
candidly.
He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in the
morning and slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for.
"That's the rule of the order," said Aunt Kate firmly.
"Yes, but why?" asked Mr. Browne.
Aunt Kate repeated that it was the rule, that was all. Mr. Browne still seemed
not to understand. Freddy Malins explained to him, as best he could, that the
monks were trying to make up for the sins committed by all the sinners in the
outside world. The explanation was not very clear for Mr. Browne grinned and
said:
"I like that idea very much but wouldn't a comfortable spring bed do them as
well as a coffin?"
"The coffin," said Mary Jane, "is to remind them of their last end."
As the subject had grown lugubrious it was buried in a silence of the table
during which Mrs. Malins could be heard saying to her neighbour in an indistinct
undertone:
"They are very good men, the monks, very pious men."
The raisins and almonds and figs and apples and oranges and chocolates and
sweets were now passed about the table and Aunt Julia invited all the guests to
have either port or sherry. At first Mr. Bartell D'Arcy refused to take either
but one of his neighbours nudged him and whispered something to him upon which
he allowed his glass to be filled. Gradually as the last glasses were being
filled the conversation ceased. A pause followed, broken only by the noise of
the wine and by unsettlings of chairs. The Misses Morkan, all three, looked down
at the tablecloth. Someone coughed once or twice and then a few gentlemen patted
the table gently as a signal for silence. The silence came and Gabriel pushed
back his chair
The patting at once grew louder in encouragement and then ceased altogether.
Gabriel leaned his ten trembling fingers on the tablecloth and smiled nervously
at the company. Meeting a row of upturned faces he raised his eyes to the
chandelier. The piano was playing a waltz tune and he could hear the skirts
sweeping against the drawing-room door. People, perhaps, were standing in the
snow on the quay outside, gazing up at the lighted windows and listening to the
waltz music. The air was pure there. In the distance lay the park where the
trees were weighted with snow. The Wellington Monument wore a gleaming cap of
snow that flashed westward over the white field of Fifteen Acres.
He began:
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
"It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in years past, to perform a very
pleasing task but a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as a speaker are
all too inadequate."
"No, no!" said Mr. Browne.
"But, however that may be, I can only ask you tonight to take the will for the
deed and to lend me your attention for a few moments while I endeavour to
express to you in words what my feelings are on this occasion.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not the first time that we have gathered together
under this hospitable roof, around this hospitable board. It is not the first
time that we have been the recipients -- or perhaps, I had better say, the
victims -- of the hospitality of certain good ladies."
He made a circle in the air with his arm and paused. Everyone laughed or smiled
at Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia and Mary Jane who all turned crimson with pleasure.
Gabriel went on more boldly:
"I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no
tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously as
that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique as far as my
experience goes (and I have visited not a few places abroad) among the modern
nations. Some would say, perhaps, that with us it is rather a failing than
anything to be boasted of. But granted even that, it is, to my mind, a princely
failing, and one that I trust will long be cultivated among us. Of one thing, at
least, I am sure. As long as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid --
and I wish from my heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come --
the tradition of genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our
forefathers have handed down to us and which we in turn must hand down to our
descendants, is still alive among us."
A hearty murmur of assent ran round the table. It shot through Gabriel's mind
that Miss Ivors was not there and that she had gone away discourteously: and he
said with confidence in himself:
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
"A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas
and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and its
enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But
we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented
age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as
it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour
which belonged to an older day. Listening tonight to the names of all those
great singers of the past it seemed to me, I must confess, that we were living
in a less spacious age. Those days might, without exaggeration, be called
spacious days: and if they are gone beyond recall let us hope, at least, that in
gatherings such as this we shall still speak of them with pride and affection,
still cherish in our hearts the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose
fame the world will not willingly let die."
"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Browne loudly.
"But yet," continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer inflection, "there
are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our
minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss
here tonight. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and
were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely
with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living
affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavours.
"Therefore, I will not linger on the past. I will not let any gloomy moralising
intrude upon us here tonight. Here we are gathered together for a brief moment
from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine. We are met here as friends, in
the spirit of good-fellowship, as colleagues, also to a certain extent, in the
true spirit of camaraderie, and as the guests of -- what shall I call them? --
the Three Graces of the Dublin musical world."
The table burst into applause and laughter at this allusion. Aunt Julia vainly
asked each of her neighbours in turn to tell her what Gabriel had said.
"He says we are the Three Graces, Aunt Julia," said Mary Jane.
Aunt Julia did not understand but she looked up, smiling, at Gabriel, who
continued in the same vein:
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
"I will not attempt to play tonight the part that Paris played on another
occasion. I will not attempt to choose between them. The task would be an
invidious one and one beyond my poor powers. For when I view them in turn,
whether it be our chief hostess herself, whose good heart, whose too good heart,
has become a byword with all who know her, or her sister, who seems to be gifted
with perennial youth and whose singing must have been a surprise and a
revelation to us all tonight, or, last but not least, when I consider our
youngest hostess, talented, cheerful, hard-working and the best of nieces, I
confess, Ladies and Gentlemen, that I do not know to which of them I should
award the prize."
Gabriel glanced down at his aunts and, seeing the large smile on Aunt Julia's
face and the tears which had risen to Aunt Kate's eyes, hastened to his close.
He raised his glass of port gallantly, while every member of the company
fingered a glass expectantly, and said loudly:
"Let us toast them all three together. Let us drink to their health, wealth,
long life, happiness and prosperity and may they long continue to hold the proud
and self-won position which they hold in their profession and the position of
honour and affection which they hold in our hearts."
All the guests stood up, glass in hand, and turning towards the three seated
ladies, sang in unison, with Mr. Browne as leader:
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
Which nobody can deny.
Aunt Kate was making frank use of her handkerchief and even Aunt Julia seemed
moved. Freddy Malins beat time with his pudding-fork and the singers turned
towards one another, as if in melodious conference, while they sang with
emphasis:
Unless he tells a lie,
Unless he tells a lie,
Then, turning once more towards their hostesses, they sang:
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
Which nobody can deny.
The acclamation which followed was taken up beyond the door of the supper-room
by many of the other guests and renewed time after time, Freddy Malins acting as
officer with his fork on high.
The piercing morning air came into the hall where they were standing so that
Aunt Kate said:
"Close the door, somebody. Mrs. Malins will get her death of cold."
"Browne is out there, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane.
"Browne is everywhere," said Aunt Kate, lowering her voice.
Mary Jane laughed at her tone.
"Really," she said archly, "he is very attentive."
"He has been laid on here like the gas," said Aunt Kate in the same tone, "all
during the Christmas."
She laughed herself this time good-humouredly and then added quickly:
"But tell him to come in, Mary Jane, and close the door. I hope to goodness he
didn't hear me."
At that moment the hall-door was opened and Mr. Browne came in from the
doorstep, laughing as if his heart would break. He was dressed in a long green
overcoat with mock astrakhan cuffs and collar and wore on his head an oval fur
cap. He pointed down the snow-covered quay from where the sound of shrill
prolonged whistling was borne in.
"Teddy will have all the cabs in Dublin out," he said.
Gabriel advanced from the little pantry behind the office, struggling into his
overcoat and, looking round the hall, said:
"Gretta not down yet?"
"She's getting on her things, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate.
"Who's playing up there?" asked Gabriel.
"Nobody. They're all gone."
"O no, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane. "Bartell D'Arcy and Miss O'Callaghan aren't
gone yet."
"Someone is fooling at the piano anyhow," said Gabriel.
Mary Jane glanced at Gabriel and Mr. Browne and said with a shiver:
"It makes me feel cold to look at you two gentlemen muffled up like that. I
wouldn't like to face your journey home at this hour."
"I'd like nothing better this minute," said Mr. Browne stoutly, "than a rattling
fine walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the
shafts."
"We used to have a very good horse and trap at home," said Aunt Julia sadly.
"The never-to-be-forgotten Johnny," said Mary Jane, laughing.
Aunt Kate and Gabriel laughed too.
"Why, what was wonderful about Johnny?" asked Mr. Browne.
"The late lamented Patrick Morkan, our grandfather, that is," explained Gabriel,
"commonly known in his later years as the old gentleman, was a glue-boiler."
"O, now, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate, laughing, "he had a starch mill."
"Well, glue or starch," said Gabriel, "the old gentleman had a horse by the name
of Johnny. And Johnny used to work in the old gentleman's mill, walking round
and round in order to drive the mill. That was all very well; but now comes the
tragic part about Johnny. One fine day the old gentleman thought he'd like to
drive out with the quality to a military review in the park."
"The Lord have mercy on his soul," said Aunt Kate compassionately.
"Amen," said Gabriel. "So the old gentleman, as I said, harnessed Johnny and put
on his very best tall hat and his very best stock collar and drove out in grand
style from his ancestral mansion somewhere near Back Lane, I think."
Everyone laughed, even Mrs. Malins, at Gabriel's manner and Aunt Kate said:
"O, now, Gabriel, he didn't live in Back Lane, really. Only the mill was there."
"Out from the mansion of his forefathers," continued Gabriel, "he drove with
Johnny. And everything went on beautifully until Johnny came in sight of King
Billy's statue: and whether he fell in love with the horse King Billy sits on or
whether he thought he was back again in the mill, anyhow he began to walk round
the statue."
Gabriel paced in a circle round the hall in his goloshes amid the laughter of
the others.
"Round and round he went," said Gabriel, "and the old gentleman, who was a very
pompous old gentleman, was highly indignant. 'Go on, sir! What do you mean, sir?
Johnny! Johnny! Most extraordinary conduct! Can't understand the horse!"
The peal of laughter which followed Gabriel's imitation of the incident was
interrupted by a resounding knock at the hall door. Mary Jane ran to open it and
let in Freddy Malins. Freddy Malins, with his hat well back on his head and his
shoulders humped with cold, was puffing and steaming after his exertions.
"I could only get one cab," he said.
"O, we'll find another along the quay," said Gabriel.
"Yes," said Aunt Kate. "Better not keep Mrs. Malins standing in the draught."
Mrs. Malins was helped down the front steps by her son and Mr. Browne and, after
many manoeuvres, hoisted into the cab. Freddy Malins clambered in after her and
spent a long time settling her on the seat, Mr. Browne helping him with advice.
At last she was settled comfortably and Freddy Malins invited Mr. Browne into
the cab. There was a good deal of confused talk, and then Mr. Browne got into
the cab. The cabman settled his rug over his knees, and bent down for the
address. The confusion grew greater and the cabman was directed differently by
Freddy Malins and Mr. Browne, each of whom had his head out through a window of
the cab. The difficulty was to know where to drop Mr. Browne along the route,
and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane helped the discussion from the doorstep
with cross-directions and contradictions and abundance of laughter. As for
Freddy Malins he was speechless with laughter. He popped his head in and out of
the window every moment to the great danger of his hat, and told his mother how
the discussion was progressing, till at last Mr. Browne shouted to the
bewildered cabman above the din of everybody's laughter:
"Do you know Trinity College?"
"Yes, sir," said the cabman.
"Well, drive bang up against Trinity College gates," said Mr. Browne, "and then
we'll tell you where to go. You understand now?"
"Yes, sir," said the cabman.
"Make like a bird for Trinity College."
"Right, sir," said the cabman.
The horse was whipped up and the cab rattled off along the quay amid a chorus of
laughter and adieus.
Gabriel had not gone to the door with the others. He was in a dark part of the
hall gazing up the staircase. A woman was standing near the top of the first
flight, in the shadow also. He could not see her face but he could see the
terra-cotta and salmon-pink panels of her skirt which the shadow made appear
black and white. It was his wife. She was leaning on the banisters, listening to
something. Gabriel was surprised at her stillness and strained his ear to listen
also. But he could hear little save the noise of laughter and dispute on the
front steps, a few chords struck on the piano and a few notes of a man's voice
singing.
He stood still in the gloom of the hall, trying to catch the air that the voice
was singing and gazing up at his wife. There was grace and mystery in her
attitude as if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman
standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of.
If he were a painter he would paint her in that attitude. Her blue felt hat
would show off the bronze of her hair against the darkness and the dark panels
of her skirt would show off the light ones. Distant Music he would call the
picture if he were a painter.
The hall-door was closed; and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane came down the
hall, still laughing.
"Well, isn't Freddy terrible?" said Mary Jane. "He's really terrible."
Gabriel said nothing but pointed up the stairs towards where his wife was
standing. Now that the hall-door was closed the voice and the piano could be
heard more clearly. Gabriel held up his hand for them to be silent. The song
seemed to be in the old Irish tonality and the singer seemed uncertain both of
his words and of his voice. The voice, made plaintive by distance and by the
singer's hoarseness, faintly illuminated the cadence of the air with words
expressing grief:
O, the rain falls on my heavy locks
And the dew wets my skin,
My babe lies cold...
"O," exclaimed Mary Jane. "It's Bartell D'Arcy singing and he wouldn't sing all
the night. O, I'll get him to sing a song before he goes."
"O, do, Mary Jane," said Aunt Kate.
Mary Jane brushed past the others and ran to the staircase, but before she
reached it the singing stopped and the piano was closed abruptly.
"O, what a pity!" she cried. "Is he coming down, Gretta?"
Gabriel heard his wife answer yes and saw her come down towards them. A few
steps behind her were Mr. Bartell D'Arcy and Miss O'Callaghan.
"O, Mr. D'Arcy," cried Mary Jane, "it's downright mean of you to break off like
that when we were all in raptures listening to you."
"I have been at him all the evening," said Miss O'Callaghan, "and Mrs. Conroy,
too, and he told us he had a dreadful cold and couldn't sing."
"O, Mr. D'Arcy," said Aunt Kate, "now that was a great fib to tell."
"Can't you see that I'm as hoarse as a crow?" said Mr. D'Arcy roughly.
He went into the pantry hastily and put on his overcoat. The others, taken aback
by his rude speech, could find nothing to say. Aunt Kate wrinkled her brows and
made signs to the others to drop the subject. Mr. D'Arcy stood swathing his neck
carefully and frowning.
"It's the weather," said Aunt Julia, after a pause.
"Yes, everybody has colds," said Aunt Kate readily, "everybody."
"They say," said Mary Jane, "we haven't had snow like it for thirty years; and I
read this morning in the newspapers that the snow is general all over Ireland."
"I love the look of snow," said Aunt Julia sadly.
"So do I," said Miss O'Callaghan. "I think Christmas is never really Christmas
unless we have the snow on the ground."
"But poor Mr. D'Arcy doesn't like the snow," said Aunt Kate, smiling.
Mr. D'Arcy came from the pantry, fully swathed and buttoned, and in a repentant
tone told them the history of his cold. Everyone gave him advice and said it was
a great pity and urged him to be very careful of his throat in the night air.
Gabriel watched his wife, who did not join in the conversation. She was standing
right under the dusty fanlight and the flame of the gas lit up the rich bronze
of her hair, which he had seen her drying at the fire a few days before. She was
in the same attitude and seemed unaware of the talk about her At last she turned
towards them and Gabriel saw that there was colour on her cheeks and that her
eyes were shining. A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his heart.
"Mr. D'Arcy," she said, "what is the name of that song you were singing?"
"It's called The Lass of Aughrim," said Mr. D'Arcy, "but I couldn't remember it
properly. Why? Do you know it?"
"The Lass of Aughrim," she repeated. "I couldn't think of the name."
"It's a very nice air," said Mary Jane. "I'm sorry you were not in voice
tonight."
"Now, Mary Jane," said Aunt Kate, "don't annoy Mr. D'Arcy. I won't have him
annoyed."
Seeing that all were ready to start she shepherded them to the door, where
good-night was said:
"Well, good-night, Aunt Kate, and thanks for the pleasant evening."
"Good-night, Gabriel. Good-night, Gretta!"
"Good-night, Aunt Kate, and thanks ever so much. Goodnight, Aunt Julia."
"O, good-night, Gretta, I didn't see you."
"Good-night, Mr. D'Arcy. Good-night, Miss O'Callaghan."
"Good-night, Miss Morkan."
"Good-night, again."
"Good-night, all. Safe home."
"Good-night. Good night."
The morning was still dark. A dull, yellow light brooded over the houses and the
river; and the sky seemed to be descending. It was slushy underfoot; and only
streaks and patches of snow lay on the roofs, on the parapets of the quay and on
the area railings. The lamps were still burning redly in the murky air and,
across the river, the palace of the Four Courts stood out menacingly against the
heavy sky.
She was walking on before him with Mr. Bartell D'Arcy, her shoes in a brown
parcel tucked under one arm and her hands holding her skirt up from the slush.
She had no longer any grace of attitude, but Gabriel's eyes were still bright
with happiness. The blood went bounding along his veins; and the thoughts went
rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, tender, valorous.
She was walking on before him so lightly and so erect that he longed to run
after her noiselessly, catch her by the shoulders and say something foolish and
affectionate into her ear. She seemed to him so frail that he longed to defend
her against something and then to be alone with her. Moments of their secret
life together burst like stars upon his memory. A heliotrope envelope was lying
beside his breakfast-cup and he was caressing it with his hand. Birds were
twittering in the ivy and the sunny web of the curtain was shimmering along the
floor: he could not eat for happiness. They were standing on the crowded
platform and he was placing a ticket inside the warm palm of her glove. He was
standing with her in the cold, looking in through a grated window at a man
making bottles in a roaring furnace. It was very cold. Her face, fragrant in the
cold air, was quite close to his; and suddenly he called out to the man at the
furnace:
"Is the fire hot, sir?"
But the man could not hear with the noise of the furnace. It was just as well.
He might have answered rudely.
A wave of yet more tender joy escaped from his heart and went coursing in warm
flood along his arteries. Like the tender fire of stars moments of their life
together, that no one knew f or would ever know of, broke upon and illumined his
memory. He longed to recall to her those moments, to make her forget the years
of their dull existence together and remember only their moments of ecstasy. For
the years, he felt, had not quenched his soul or hers. Their children, his
writing, her household cares had not quenched all their souls' tender fire. In
one letter that he had written to her then he had said: "Why is it that words
like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender
enough to be your name?"
Like distant music these words that he had written years before were borne
towards him from the past. He longed to be alone with her. When the others had
gone away, when he and she were in the room in the hotel, then they would be
alone together. He would call her softly:
"Gretta!"
Perhaps she would not hear at once: she would be undressing. Then something in
his voice would strike her. She would turn and look at him....
At the corner of Winetavern Street they met a cab. He was glad of its rattling
noise as it saved him from conversation. She was looking out of the window and
seemed tired. The others spoke only a few words, pointing out some building or
street. The horse galloped along wearily under the murky morning sky, dragging
his old rattling box after his heels, and Gabriel was again in a cab with her,
galloping to catch the boat, galloping to their honeymoon.
As the cab drove across O'Connell Bridge Miss O'Callaghan said:
"They say you never cross O'Connell Bridge without seeing a white horse."
"I see a white man this time," said Gabriel.
"Where?" asked Mr. Bartell D'Arcy.
Gabriel pointed to the statue, on which lay patches of snow. Then he nodded
familiarly to it and waved his hand.
"Good-night, Dan," he said gaily.
When the cab drew up before the hotel, Gabriel jumped out and, in spite of Mr.
Bartell D'Arcy's protest, paid the driver. He gave the man a shilling over his
fare. The man saluted and said:
"A prosperous New Year to you, sir."
"The same to you," said Gabriel cordially.
She leaned for a moment on his arm in getting out of the cab and while standing
at the curbstone, bidding the others good- night. She leaned lightly on his arm,
as lightly as when she had danced with him a few hours before. He had felt proud
and happy then, happy that she was his, proud of her grace and wifely carriage.
But now, after the kindling again of so many memories, the first touch of her
body, musical and strange and perfumed, sent through him a keen pang of lust.
Under cover of her silence he pressed her arm closely to his side; and, as they
stood at the hotel door, he felt that they had escaped from their lives and
duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with wild and
radiant hearts to a new adventure.
An old man was dozing in a great hooded chair in the hall. He lit a candle in
the office and went before them to the stairs. They followed him in silence,
their feet falling in soft thuds on the thickly carpeted stairs. She mounted the
stairs behind the porter, her head bowed in the ascent, her frail shoulders
curved as with a burden, her skirt girt tightly about her. He could have flung
his arms about her hips and held her still, for his arms were trembling with
desire to seize her and only the stress of his nails against the palms of his
hands held the wild impulse of his body in check. The porter halted on the
stairs to settle his guttering candle. They halted, too, on the steps below him.
In the silence Gabriel could hear the falling of the molten wax into the tray
and the thumping of his own heart against his ribs.
The porter led them along a corridor and opened a door. Then he set his unstable
candle down on a toilet-table and asked at what hour they were to be called in
the morning.
"Eight," said Gabriel.
The porter pointed to the tap of the electric-light and began a muttered
apology, but Gabriel cut him short.
"We don't want any light. We have light enough from the street. And I say," he
added, pointing to the candle, "you might remove that handsome article, like a
good man."
The porter took up his candle again, but slowly, for he was surprised by such a
novel idea. Then he mumbled good-night and went out. Gabriel shot the lock to.
A ghastly light from the street lamp lay in a long shaft from one window to the
door. Gabriel threw his overcoat and hat on a couch and crossed the room towards
the window. He looked down into the street in order that his emotion might calm
a little. Then he turned and leaned against a chest of drawers with his back to
the light. She had taken off her hat and cloak and was standing before a large
swinging mirror, unhooking her waist. Gabriel paused for a few moments, watching
her, and then said:
"Gretta! "
She turned away from the mirror slowly and walked along the shaft of light
towards him. Her face looked so serious and weary that the words would not pass
Gabriel's lips. No, it was not the moment yet.
"You looked tired," he said.
"I am a little," she answered.
"You don't feel ill or weak?"
"No, tired: that's all."
She went on to the window and stood there, looking out. Gabriel waited again and
then, fearing that diffidence was about to conquer him, he said abruptly:
"By the way, Gretta!"
"What is it?"
"You know that poor fellow Malins?" he said quickly.
"Yes. What about him?"
"Well, poor fellow, he's a decent sort of chap, after all," continued Gabriel in
a false voice. "He gave me back that sovereign I lent him, and I didn't expect
it, really. It's a pity he wouldn't keep away from that Browne, because he's not
a bad fellow, really."
He was trembling now with annoyance. Why did she seem so abstracted? He did not
know how he could begin. Was she annoyed, too, about something? If she would
only turn to him or come to him of her own accord! To take her as she was would
be brutal. No, he must see some ardour in her eyes first. He longed to be master
of her strange mood.
"When did you lend him the pound?" she asked, after a pause.
Gabriel strove to restrain himself from breaking out into brutal language about
the sottish Malins and his pound. He longed to cry to her from his soul, to
crush her body against his, to overmaster her. But he said:
"O, at Christmas, when he opened that little Christmas-card shop in Henry
Street."
He was in such a fever of rage and desire that he did not hear her come from the
window. She stood before him for an instant, looking at him strangely. Then,
suddenly raising herself on tiptoe and resting her hands lightly on his
shoulders, she kissed him.
"You are a very generous person, Gabriel," she said.
Gabriel, trembling with delight at her sudden kiss and at the quaintness of her
phrase, put his hands on her hair and began smoothing it back, scarcely touching
it with his fingers. The washing had made it fine and brilliant. His heart was
brimming over with happiness. Just when he was wishing for it she had come to
him of her own accord. Perhaps her thoughts had been running with his. Perhaps
she had felt the impetuous desire that was in him, and then the yielding mood
had come upon her. Now that she had fallen to him so easily, he wondered why he
had been so diffident.
He stood, holding her head between his hands. Then, slipping one arm swiftly
about her body and drawing her towards him, he said softly:
"Gretta, dear, what are you thinking about?"
She did not answer nor yield wholly to his arm. He said again, softly:
"Tell me what it is, Gretta. I think I know what is the matter. Do I know?"
She did not answer at once. Then she said in an outburst of tears:
"O, I am thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim."
She broke loose from him and ran to the bed and, throwing her arms across the
bed-rail, hid her face. Gabriel stood stockstill for a moment in astonishment
and then followed her. As he passed in the way of the cheval-glass he caught
sight of himself in full length, his broad, well-filled shirt-front, the face
whose expression always puzzled him when he saw it in a mirror, and his
glimmering gilt-rimmed eyeglasses. He halted a few paces from her and said:
"What about the song? Why does that make you cry?"
She raised her head from her arms and dried her eyes with the back of her hand
like a child. A kinder note than he had intended went into his voice.
"Why, Gretta?" he asked.
"I am thinking about a person long ago who used to sing that song."
"And who was the person long ago?" asked Gabriel, smiling.
"It was a person I used to know in Galway when I was living with my
grandmother," she said.
The smile passed away from Gabriel's face. A dull anger began to gather again at
the back of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his
veins.
"Someone you were in love with?" he asked ironically.
"It was a young boy I used to know," she answered, "named Michael Furey. He used
to sing that song, The Lass of Aughrim. He was very delicate."
Gabriel was silent. He did not wish her to think that he was interested in this
delicate boy.
"I can see him so plainly," she said, after a moment. "Such eyes as he had: big,
dark eyes! And such an expression in them -- an expression!"
"O, then, you are in love with him?" said Gabriel.
"I used to go out walking with him," she said, "when I was in Galway."
A thought flew across Gabriel's mind.
"Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?" he said
coldly.
She looked at him and asked in surprise:
"What for?"
Her eyes made Gabriel feel awkward. He shrugged his shoulders and said:
"How do I know? To see him, perhaps."
She looked away from him along the shaft of light towards the window in silence.
"He is dead," she said at length. "He died when he was only seventeen. Isn't it
a terrible thing to die so young as that?"
"What was he?" asked Gabriel, still ironically.
"He was in the gasworks," she said.
Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this
figure from the dead, a boy in the gasworks. While he had been full of memories
of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had
been comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own
person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy
for his aunts, a nervous, well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and
idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a
glimpse of in the mirror. Instinctively he turned his back more to the light
lest she might see the shame that burned upon his forehead.
He tried to keep up his tone of cold interrogation, but his voice when he spoke
was humble and indifferent.
"I suppose you were in love with this Michael Furey, Gretta," he said.
"I was great with him at that time," she said.
Her voice was veiled and sad. Gabriel, feeling now how vain it would be to try
to lead her whither he had purposed, caressed one of her hands and said, also
sadly:
"And what did he die of so young, Gretta? Consumption, was it?"
"I think he died for me," she answered.
A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer, as if, at that hour when he had
hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him,
gathering forces against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free of it
with an effort of reason and continued to caress her hand. He did not question
her again, for he felt that she would tell him of herself. Her hand was warm and
moist: it did not respond to his touch, but he continued to caress it just as he
had caressed her first letter to him that spring morning.
"It was in the winter," she said, "about the beginning of the winter when I was
going to leave my grandmother's and come up here to the convent. And he was ill
at the time in his lodgings in Galway and wouldn't be let out, and his people in
Oughterard were written to. He was in decline, they said, or something like
that. I never knew rightly."
She paused for a moment and sighed.
"Poor fellow," she said. "He was very fond of me and he was such a gentle boy.
We used to go out together, walking, you know, Gabriel, like the way they do in
the country. He was going to study singing only for his health. He had a very
good voice, poor Michael Furey."
"Well; and then?" asked Gabriel.
"And then when it came to the time for me to leave Galway and come up to the
convent he was much worse and I wouldn't be let see him so I wrote him a letter
saying I was going up to Dublin and would be back in the summer, and hoping he
would be better then."
She paused for a moment to get her voice under control, and then went on:
"Then the night before I left, I was in my grandmother's house in Nuns' Island,
packing up, and I heard gravel thrown up against the window. The window was so
wet I couldn't see, so I ran downstairs as I was and slipped out the back into
the garden and there was the poor fellow at the end of the garden, shivering."
"And did you not tell him to go back?" asked Gabriel.
"I implored of him to go home at once and told him he would get his death in the
rain. But he said he did not want to live. I can see his eyes as well as well!
He was standing at the end of the wall where there was a tree."
"And did he go home?" asked Gabriel.
"Yes, he went home. And when I was only a week in the convent he died and he was
buried in Oughterard, where his people came from. O, the day I heard that, that
he was dead!"
She stopped, choking with sobs, and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face
downward on the bed, sobbing in the quilt. Gabriel held her hand for a moment
longer, irresolutely, and then, shy of intruding on her grief, let it fall
gently and walked quietly to the window.
She was fast asleep.
Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her
tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had
had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him
now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched
her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and
wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he
thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish
beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to
say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it
was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.
Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over
which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the
floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay
upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what
had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the
wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the
pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too,
would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had
caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed
for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room,
dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and
Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling
him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that
might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that
would happen very soon.
The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along
under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all
becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of
some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who
lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her
lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.
Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself
towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears
gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw
the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near.
His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He
was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering
existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the
solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was
dissolving and dwindling.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow
again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely
against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey
westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It
was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills,
falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into
the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the
lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly
drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate,
on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling
faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last
end, upon all the living and the dead.