SULLIVAN SMITH
'It may be as well to take Mr. Redworth's arm; you will escape the crush
for you,' said Lady Dunstane to Diana. 'I don't sup. Yes! go! You must
eat, and he is handiest to conduct you.'
Diana thought of her chaperon and the lateness of the hour. She
murmured, to soften her conscience, 'Poor Mrs. Pettigrew!'
And once more Mr. Redworth, outwardly imperturbable, was in the
maelstrom of a happiness resembling tempest. He talked, and knew not
what he uttered. To give this matchless girl the best to eat and drink
was his business, and he performed it. Oddly, for a man who had no
loaded design, marshalling the troops in his active and capacious
cranium, he fell upon calculations of his income, present and
prospective, while she sat at the table and he stood behind her. Others
were wrangling for places, chairs, plates, glasses, game-pie, champagne:
she had them; the lady under his charge to a certainty would have them;
so far good; and he had seven hundred pounds per annum--seven hundred
and fifty, in a favourable aspect, at a stretch....
'Yes, the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is an opera
of Carini's,' she said, in full accord with her taste, 'and Tellio for
tenor, certainly.'--A fair enough sum for a bachelor: four hundred
personal income, and a prospect of higher dividends to increase it;
three hundred odd from his office, and no immediate prospects of an
increase there; no one died there, no elderly martyr for the advancement
of his juniors could be persuaded to die; they were too tough to think
of retiring. Say, seven hundred and fifty.... eight hundred, if the
commerce of the country fortified the Bank his property was embarked in;
or eight-fifty or nine ten....
'I could call him my poet also,' Mr. Redworth agreed with her taste in
poets. 'His letters are among the best ever written--or ever published:
the raciest English I know. Frank, straight out: capital descriptions.
The best English letter-writers are as good as the French--
You don't think so?--in their way, of course. I dare' say we don't
sufficiently cultivate the art. We require the supple tongue a closer
intercourse of society gives.'--Eight or ten hundred. Comfortable
enough for a man in chambers. To dream of entering as a householder on
that sum, in these days, would be stark nonsense: and a man two removes
from a baronetcy has no right to set his reckoning on deaths:--if he
does, he becomes a sort of meditative assassin. But what were the
Fates about when they planted a man of the ability of Tom Redworth in
a Government office! Clearly they intended him to remain a bachelor for
life. And they sent him over to Ireland on inspection duty for a month
to have sight of an Irish Beauty....
'Think war the finest subject for poets?' he exclaimed. 'Flatly no: I
don't think it. I think exactly the reverse. It brings out the noblest
traits in human character? I won't own that even. It brings out some
but under excitement, when you have not always the real man.--Pray don't
sneer at domestic life. Well, there was a suspicion of disdain.--Yes, I
can respect the hero, military or civil; with this distinction, that the
military hero aims at personal reward--'
'He braves wounds and death,' interposed Diana.
'Whereas the civilian hero--'
'Pardon me, let me deny that the soldier-hero aims at a personal
reward,' she again interposed.
'He gets it.'
'If he is not beaten.'
'And then he is no longer a hero.'
'He is to me.'
She had a woman's inveterate admiration of the profession of aims. Mr.
Redworth endeavoured to render practicable an opening in her mind to
reason. He admitted the grandeur of the poetry of Homer. We are a few
centuries in advance of Homer. We do not slay damsels for a sacrifice to
propitiate celestial wrath; nor do we revel in details of slaughter. He
reasoned with her; he repeated stories known to him of civilian heroes,
and won her assent to the heroical title for their deeds, but it was
languid, or not so bright as the deeds deserved--or as the young lady
could look; and he insisted on the civilian hero, impelled by some
unconscious motive to make her see the thing he thought, also the thing
he was--his plain mind and matter-of-fact nature. Possibly she caught a
glimpse of that. After a turn of fencing, in which he was impressed by
the vibration of her tones when speaking of military heroes, she quitted
the table, saying: 'An argument between one at supper and another
handing plates, is rather unequal if eloquence is needed. As Pat said to
the constable, when his hands were tied, You beat me with the fists, but
my spirit is towering and kicks freely.'--Eight hundred? a thousand a
year, two thousand, are as nothing in the calculation of a householder
who means that the mistress of the house shall have the choicest of the
fruits and flowers of the Four Quarters; and Thomas Redworth had vowed
at his first outlook on the world of women, that never should one of
the sisterhood coming under his charge complain of not having them in
profusion. Consequently he was a settled bachelor. In the character
of disengaged and unaspiring philosophical bachelor, he reviewed the
revelations of her character betrayed by the beautiful virgin devoted to
the sanguine coat. The thrill of her voice in speaking of soldier-heroes
shot him to the yonder side of a gulf. Not knowing why, for he had no
scheme, desperate or other, in his head, the least affrighted of men
was frightened by her tastes, and by her aplomb, her inoffensiveness in
freedom of manner and self-sufficiency--sign of purest breeding: and by
her easy, peerless vivacity, her proofs of descent from the blood of
Dan Merion--a wildish blood. The candour of the look of her eyes in
speaking, her power of looking forthright at men, and looking the thing
she spoke, and the play of her voluble lips, the significant repose of
her lips in silence, her weighing of the words he uttered, for a moment
before the prompt apposite reply, down to her simple quotation of Pat,
alarmed him; he did not ask himself why. His manly self was not intruded
on his cogitations. A mere eight hundred or thousand per annum had no
place in that midst. He beheld her quietly selecting the position of
dignity to suit her: an eminent military man, or statesman, or wealthy
nobleman: she had but to choose. A war would offer her the decorated
soldier she wanted. A war! Such are women of this kind! The thought
revolted him, and pricked his appetite for supper. He did service by
Mrs. Pettigrew, to which lady Miss Merion, as she said, promoted him, at
the table, and then began to refresh in person, standing.
'Malkin! that's the fellow's name' he heard close at his ear.
Mr. Sullivan Smith had drained a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and
was priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's
quick stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is
grey, or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other colour of the
Malkin breed.'
He explained to Mr. Redworth that he had summoned Mr. Malkin to answer
to him as a gentleman for calling Miss Merion a jilt. 'The man, sir,
said in my hearing, she jilted him, and that's to call the lady a jilt.
There's not a point of difference, not a shade. I overheard him. I
happened by the blessing of Providence to be by when he named her
publicly jilt. And it's enough that she's a lady to have me for her
champion. The same if she had been an Esquimaux squaw. I'll never live
to hear a lady insulted.'
'You don't mean to say you're the donkey to provoke a duel!' Mr.
Redworth burst out gruffly, through turkey and stuffing.
'And an Irish lady, the young Beauty of Erin!' Mr. Sullivan Smith was
flowing on. He became frigid, he politely bowed: 'Two, sir, if you
haven't the grace to withdraw the offensive term before it cools and
can't be obliterated.'
'Fiddle! and go to the deuce!' Mr. Redworth cried.
'Would a soft slap o' the cheek persuade you, sir?'
'Try it outside, and don't bother me with nonsense of that sort at my
supper. If I'm struck, I strike back. I keep my pistols for bandits and
law-breakers. Here,' said Mr. Redworth, better inspired as to the way of
treating an ultra of the isle; 'touch glasses: you're a gentleman, and
won't disturb good company. By-and-by.'
The pleasing prospect of by-and-by renewed in Mr. Sullivan Smith his
composure. They touched the foaming glasses: upon which, in a friendly
manner, Mr. Sullivan Smith proposed that they should go outside as
soon as Mr. Redworth had finished supper-quite finished supper: for the
reason that the term 'donkey' affixed to him was like a minster cap of
schooldays, ringing bells on his topknot, and also that it stuck in his
gizzard.
Mr. Redworth declared the term to be simply hypothetical. 'If you fight,
you're a donkey for doing it. But you won't fight.'
'But I will fight.'
'He won't fight.'
'Then for the honour of your country you must. But I'd rather have
him first, for I haven't drunk with him, and it should be a case of
necessity to put a bullet or a couple of inches of steel through the man
you've drunk with. And what's in your favour, she danced with ye. She
seemed to take to ye, and the man she has the smallest sugar-melting for
is sacred if he's not sweet to me. If he retracts!'
'Hypothetically, No.'
'But supposititiously?'
'Certainly.'
'Then we grasp hands on it. It's Malkin or nothing!' said Mr. Sullivan
Smith, swinging his heel moodily to wander in search of the foe. How one
sane man could name another a donkey for fighting to clear an innocent
young lady's reputation, passed his rational conception.
Sir Lukin hastened to Mr. Redworth to have a talk over old schooldays
and fellows.
'I'll tell you what,' said the civilian, 'There are Irishmen and
Irishmen. I've met cool heads and long heads among them, and you and I
knew Jack Derry, who was good at most things. But the burlesque Irishman
can't be caricatured. Nature strained herself in a 'fit of absurdity to
produce him, and all that Art can do is to copy.'
This was his prelude to an account of Mr. Sullivan Smith, whom, as a
specimen, he rejoiced to have met.
'There's a chance of mischief,' said Sir Lukin. 'I know nothing of the
man he calls Malkin. I'll inquire presently.'
He talked of his prospects, and of the women. Fair ones, in his opinion,
besides Miss Merion were parading; he sketched two or three of his
partners with a broad brush of epithets.
'It won't do for Miss Merion's name to be mixed up in a duel,' said
Redworth.
'Not if she's to make her fortune in England,' said Sir Lukin. 'It's
probably all smoke.'
The remark had hardly escaped him when a wreath of metaphorical smoke,
and fire, and no mean report, startled the company of supping gentlemen.
At the pitch of his voice, Mr. Sullivan Smith denounced Mr. Malkin in
presence for a cur masquerading as a cat.
'And that is not the scoundrel's prime offence. For what d' ye think? He
trumps up an engagement to dance with a beautiful lady, and because
she can't remember, binds her to an oath for a dance to come, and then,
holding her prisoner to 'm, he sulks, the dirty dogcat goes and sulks,
and he won't dance and won't do anything but screech up in corners that
he's jilted. He said the word. Dozens of gentlemen heard the word. And
I demand an apology of Misterr Malkin--or...! And none of your guerrier
nodding and bravado, Mister Malkin, at me, if you please. The case is
for settlement between gentlemen.'
The harassed gentleman of the name of Malkin, driven to extremity by
the worrying, stood in braced preparation for the English attitude of
defence. His tormentor drew closer to him.
'Mind, I give you warning, if you lay a finger on me I'll knock you
down,' said he.
Most joyfully Mr. Sullivan Smith uttered a low melodious cry. 'For a
specimen of manners, in an assembly of ladies and gentlemen... I ask
ye!' he addressed the ring about him, to put his adversary entirely in
the wrong before provoking the act of war. And then, as one intending
gently to remonstrate, he was on the point of stretching out his finger
to the shoulder of Mr. Malkin, when Redworth seized his arm, saying: 'I
'm your man: me first: you're due to me.'
Mr. Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a cloud of faces.
Now was he wroth on patently reasonable grounds. He threatened Saxondom.
Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset,
wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers
shivered at the notion of powder and ball. Redworth, in the struggle to
haul him away, received a blow from him. 'And you've got it! you would
have it!' roared the Celt.
'Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort,' Redworth
said; and he observed generally: 'No Irish gentleman strikes a blow in
good company.'
'But that's true as Writ! And I offer excuses--if you'll come along
with me and a couple of friends. The thing has been done before by
torchlight--and neatly.'
'Come along, and come alone,' said Redworth.
A way was cleared for them. Sir Lukin hurried up to Redworth, who had no
doubt of his ability to manage Mr. Sullivan Smith.
He managed that fine-hearted but purely sensational fellow so well that
Lady Dunstane and Diana, after hearing in some anxiety of the hubbub
below, beheld them entering the long saloon amicably, with the nods and
looks of gentlemen quietly accordant.
A little later, Lady Dunstane questioned Redworth, and he smoothed her
apprehensions, delivering himself, much to her comfort, thus: 'In
no case would any lady's name have been raised. The whole affair was
nonsensical. He's a capital fellow of a kind, capable of behaving like
a man of the world and a gentleman. Only he has, or thinks he has, like
lots of his countrymen, a raw wound--something that itches to be grazed.
Champagne on that!... Irishmen, as far as I have seen of them, are, like
horses, bundles of nerves; and you must manage them, as you do with all
nervous creatures, with firmness, but good temper. You must never get
into a fury of the nerves yourself with them. Spur and whip they don't
want; they'll be off with you in a jiffy if you try it.
They want the bridle-rein. That seems to me the secret of Irish
character. We English are not bad horsemen. It's a wonder we blunder so
in our management of such a people.'
'I wish you were in a position to put your method to the proof,' said
she.
He shrugged. 'There's little chance of it!'
To reward him for his practical discretion, she contrived that Diana
should give him a final dance; and the beautiful gill smiled quickly
responsive to his appeal. He was, moreover, sensible in her look and
speech that he had advanced in her consideration to be no longer
the mere spinning stick, a young lady's partner. By which he humbly
understood that her friend approved him. A gentle delirium enfolded his
brain. A householder's life is often begun on eight hundred a year:
on less: on much less:--sometimes on nothing but resolution to make
a fitting income, carving out a fortune. Eight hundred may stand as a
superior basis. That sum is a distinct point of vantage. If it does
not mean a carriage and Parisian millinery and a station for one of the
stars of society, it means at any rate security; and then, the heart of
the man being strong and sound...
'Yes,' he replied to her, 'I like my experience of Ireland and the
Irish; and better than I thought I should. St. George's Channel ought to
be crossed oftener by both of us.'
'I'm always glad of the signal,' said Diana.
He had implied the people of the two islands. He allowed her
interpretation to remain personal, for the sake of a creeping
deliciousness that it carried through his blood.
'Shall you soon be returning to England?' he ventured to ask.
'I am Lady Dunstane's guest for some months.'
'Then you will. Sir Lukin has an estate in Surrey. He talks of quitting
the Service.'
'I can't believe it!'
His thrilled blood was chilled. She entertained a sentiment amounting to
adoration for the profession of arms!
Gallantly had the veteran General and Hero held on into the night,
that the festivity might not be dashed by his departure; perhaps, to a
certain degree, to prolong his enjoyment of a flattering scene. At last
Sir Lukin had the word from him, and came to his wife. Diana slipped
across the floor to her accommodating chaperon, whom, for the sake of
another five minutes with her beloved Emma, she very agreeably persuaded
to walk in the train of Lord Larrian, and forth they trooped down a
pathway of nodding heads and curtsies, resembling oak and birch-trees
under a tempered gale, even to the shedding of leaves, for here a
turban was picked up by Sir Lukin, there a jewelled ear-ring by the
self-constituted attendant, Mr. Thomas Redworth. At the portico rang a
wakening cheer, really worth hearing. The rain it rained, and hats were
formless,' as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp,
boots liquidly musical, the pipe of consolation smoked with difficulty,
with much pulling at the stem, but the cheer arose magnificently, and
multiplied itself, touching at the same moment the heavens and Diana's
heart-at least, drawing them together; for she felt exalted, enraptured,
as proud of her countrymen as of their hero.
'That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial!' she heard Mr.
Redworth say, behind her.
She turned and sent one of her brilliant glances flying over him, in
gratitude for a timely word well said. And she never forgot the remark,
nor he the look.