Mrs. MacDermott splashed her way across the yard towards the stable. It
was raining, softly and persistently. The mud lay deep. There were pools
of water here and there. Mrs. MacDermott neither paused nor picked her
steps. There was no reason why she should. The rain could not damage the
tweed cap on her head. Her complexion, brilliant as the complexions of
Irish women often are, was not of the kind that washes off. Her rough
grey skirt, on which rain-drops glistened, came down no further than her
knees. On her feet were a pair of rubber boots which reached up to the
hem of her skirt, perhaps further. She was comfortably indifferent to
rain and mud.
If you reckon the years since she was born, Mrs. MacDermott was nearly
forty. But that is no true way of estimating the age of man or woman.
Seen, not in the dusk with the light behind her, but in broad daylight
on horseback, she was little more than thirty. Such is the reward of
living an outdoor life in the damp climate of Connaught. And her heart
was as young as her face and figure. She had known no serious troubles
and very few of the minor cares of life. Her husband, a man twenty-five
years older than she was, died after two years of married life, leaving
her a very comfortable fortune. Nell MacDermott--the whole country
called her Nell--hunted three days a week every winter.
“Why shouldn’t she be young?” John Gafferty, the groom, used to say.
“Hasn’t she five good horses and the full of her skin of meat and drink?
The likes of her never get old.”
Johnny Gafferty was rubbing down a tall bay mare when Mrs. MacDermott
opened the stable door and entered the loose box.
“Johnny,” she said, “you’ll put the cob in the governess cart this
afternoon and have him round at three o’clock. I’m going up to the
station to meet my nephew. I’ve had a letter from his father to say
he’ll be here to-day.”
Johnny Gafferty, though he had been eight years in Mrs. MacDermott’s
service, had never before heard of her nephew.
“It could be,” he said, cautiously, “that the captain will be bringing a
horse with him, or maybe two.”
He felt that a title of some sort was due to the nephew of a lady like
Mrs. MacDennott. The assumption that he would have a horse or two with
him was natural. All Mrs. MacDermott’s friends hunted.
“He’s not a captain,” said Mrs. MacDennott, “and he’s bringing no horses
and he doesn’t hunt. What’s more, Johnny, he doesn’t even ride, couldn’t
sit on the back of a donkey. So his father says, anyway.”
“Glory be to God!” said Johnny, “and what sort of a gentleman will he be
at all?”
“He’s a poet,” said Mrs. MacDennott.
Johnny felt that he had perhaps gone beyond the limits of respectful
criticism in expressing his first astonishment at the amazing news that
Mrs. MacDermott’s nephew could not ride.
“Well,” he said, “there’s worse things than poetry in the world.”
“Very few sillier things,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “But that’s not the
worse there is about him, Johnny. His health is completely broken down.
That’s why he’s coming here. Nerve strain, they call it.”
“That’s what they would call it,” said Johnny sympathetically, “when
it’s a high-up gentleman like a nephew of your own. And it’s hard to
blame him. There’s many a man does be a bit foolish without meaning any
great harm by it.”
“To be a bit foolish” is a kindly, West of Ireland phrase which means to
drink heavily.
“It’s not that,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “I don’t believe from what I’ve
heard of him that the man has even that much in him. It’s just what his
father says, poetry and nerves. And he’s coming here for the good of his
health. It’s Mr. Bertram they call him, Mr. Bertram Connell.”
Mrs. MacDermott walked up and down the platform waiting for the arrival
of her nephew’s train. She was dressed in a very becoming pale blue
tweed and had wrapped a silk muffler of a rather brighter blue round
her neck. Her brown shoes, though strong, were very well made and
neat. Between them and her skirt was a considerable stretch of knitted
stocking, blue like the tweed. Her ankles were singularly well-formed
and comely. The afternoon had turned out to be fine and she had taken
some trouble about her dress before setting out to meet a strange nephew
whom she had not seen since he was five years old. She might have taken
more trouble still if the nephew had been anything more exciting than a
nerve-shattered poet.
The train steamed in at last. Only one passenger got out of a
first-class carriage. Mrs. MacDermott looked at him in doubt. He was
not in the least the sort of man she expected to see. Poets, so she
understood, have long hair and sallow, clean-shaven faces. This young
man’s head was closely-cropped and he had a fair moustache. He was
smartly dressed in well-fitting clothes. Poets are, or ought to be,
sloppy in their attire. Also, judged by the colour of his cheeks and
his vigorous step, this man was in perfect health. Mrs. MacDermott
approached him with some hesitation. The young man was standing in
the middle of the platform looking around. His eyes rested on Mrs.
MacDermott for a moment, but passed from her again. He was expecting
someone whom he did not see.
“Are you Bertram Connell, by any chance?” asked Mrs. MacDermott.
“That’s me,” said the young man, “and I’m expecting an aunt to meet me.
I say, are you a cousin? I didn’t know I had a cousin.”
The mistake was an excusable one. Mrs. MacDermott looked very young and
pretty in her blue tweed. She appreciated the compliment paid her all
the more because it was obviously sincere.
“You haven’t any cousins,” she said. “Not on your father’s side, anyway.
I’m your aunt.”
“Aunt Nell!” he said, plainly startled by the information. “Great Scott!
and I thought----”
He paused and looked at Mrs. MacDermott with genuine surprise. Then he
recovered his self-possession. He put his arm round her neck and kissed
her heartily, first on one cheek, then on the other.
Aunts are kissed by their nephews every day as a matter of course. They
expect it. Mrs. MacDermott had not thought about the matter beforehand.
If she had she would have taken it for granted that Bertram would kiss
her, occasionally, uncomfortably and without conviction. The kisses she
actually received embarrassed her. She even blushed a little and was
annoyed with herself for blushing.
“There doesn’t seem to be much the matter with your nerve,” she said.
Bertram became suddenly grave.
“My nerves are in a rotten state,” he said. “The doctor--specialist, you
know, tip-top man--said the only thing for me was life in the country,
fresh air, birds, flowers, new milk, all that sort of thing.”
“Your father wrote all that to me,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“Poor old dad,” said Bertram, “he’s horribly upset about it.”
Mrs. MacDermott was further puzzled about her nephew’s nervous breakdown
when she suggested about 7 o’clock that it was time to dress for dinner.
Bertram who had been talking cheerfully and smoking a good deal, put his
arm round her waist and ran her upstairs.
“Jolly thing to have an aunt like you,” he said.
Mrs. MacDermott was slightly out of breath and angry with herself for
blushing again. At bedtime she refused a good-night kiss with some
dignity. Bertram protested.
“Oh, I say, Aunt Nell, that’s all rot, you know. An aunt is just one of
the people you do kiss, night and morning.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, “and anyway you won’t get the chance
to-morrow morning. I shall be off early. It’s a hunting day.”
“Can’t I get a horse somewhere?” said Bertram.
Mrs. MacDermott looked at him in astonishment.
“Your father told me,” she said, “that you couldn’t ride and had never
been on a horse in your life.”
“Did he say that? The poor dad! I suppose he was afraid I’d break my
neck.”
“If you’re suffering from nervous breakdown----”
“I am. Frightfully. That’s why they sent me here.”
“Then you shouldn’t hunt,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “You should sit quietly
in the library and write poetry. That reminds me, the rector is coming
to dinner to-night. I thought you’d like to meet him.”
“Why? Is he a sporting old bird?”
“Not in the least; but he’s the only man about this country who knows
anything about poetry. That’s why I asked him.”
Johnny Gafferty made a report to Mrs. MacDermott when she returned from
hunting which surprised her a good deal.
“The young gentleman, ma’am,” he said, “was round in the stable this
morning, shortly after you leaving. And nothing would do him only for me
to saddle the bay for him.”
“Did you do it?”
“What else could I do,” said Gafferty, “when his heart was set on it?”
“I suppose he’s broken his own neck and the mare’s knees,” said Mrs.
MacDermott.
“He has not then. Neither the one nor the other. I don’t know how he’d
do if you faced him with a stone wall, but the way he took the bay over
the fence at the end of the paddock was as neat as ever I seen. You
couldn’t have done it better yourself, ma’am.”
“He can ride, then?”
“Ride!” said Gafferty. “Is it ride? If his poetry is no worse nor his
riding he’ll make money by it yet.”
The dinner with the rector was not an entire success. The clergyman,
warned beforehand that he was to entertain a well-known poet, had
prepared himself by reading several books of Wordsworth’s Excursion.
Bertram shied at the name of Wordsworth and insisted on hearing from his
aunt a detailed account of the day’s run. This puzzled Mrs. MacDermott a
little; but she hit upon an explanation which satisfied her. The rector
was enthusiastic in his admiration of Wordsworth. Bertram, a poet
himself, evidently suffered from professional jealousy.
Mrs. MacDermott, who had looked forward to her nephew’s visit with
dread, began to enjoy it Bertram was a cheerful young man with an easy
flow of slangy conversation. His tastes were very much the same as
Mrs. MacDermott’s own. He smoked, and drank whisky and soda in moderate
quantities. He behaved in all respects like a normal man, showing no
signs of the nervousness which goes with the artistic temperament. His
politeness to her and the trouble he took, about her comfort in small
matters were very pleasant. He had large handsome blue eyes, and Mrs.
MacDermott liked the way he looked at her. His gaze expressed a frank
admiration which was curiously agreeable.
A week after his arrival Mrs. MacDermott paid a high compliment to
her nephew. She promised to mount him on the bay mare and take him out
hunting. She had satisfied herself that Johnny Gafferty was not mistaken
and that the young man really could ride. Bertram, excited and in high
good humour, succeeded, before she had time to protest, in giving her a
hearty kiss of gratitude.
The morning of the hunt was warm and moist. The meet was in one of the
most favourable places in the country. Mrs. MacDermott, drawing on her
gloves in the hall before starting, noted with gratification that her
nephew’s breeches were well-cut and his stock neatly fastened. Johnny
Gafferty could be heard outside the door speaking to the horses which he
held ready.
A telegraph boy arrived on a bicycle. He handed the usual orange
envelope to Mrs. Mac-Dermott. She tore it open impatiently and glanced
at the message inside. She gave an exclamation of surprise and read the
message through slowly and carefully. Then, without a word, she handed
it to her nephew.
“Very sorry,” the telegram ran, “only to-day discovered that Bertram
had not gone to you as arranged. He is in a condition of complete
prostration. Cannot start now. Connell.”
“It’s from my brother,” said Mrs. MacDermott, “but what on earth does it
mean? You’re here all right, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, “_I’m_ here.”
He laid a good deal of emphasis on the “I.” Mrs. MacDermott looked at
him with sudden suspicion.
“I’ve had a top-hole time,” he said. “What an utterly incompetent
rotter Connell is! He had nothing on earth to do but lie low. His father
couldn’t have found out.”
Mrs. MacDermott walked over to the door and addressed Gafferty.
“Johnny,” she said, “the horses won’t be wanted to-day.” She turned
to the young man who stood beside her. “Now,” she said, “come into the
library and explain what all this means.”
“Oh, I say, Aunt Nell,” he said, “don’t let’s miss the day. I’ll explain
the whole thing to you in the evening after dinner.”
“You’ll explain it now, if you can.”
She led the way into the library.
“It’s quite simple really,” he said. “Bertram Connell, your nephew,
though a poet and all that, is rather an ass.”
“Are you Bertram Connell, or are you not?” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“Oh Lord, no. I’m not that sort of fellow at all. I couldn’t write
a line of poetry to save my life. He’s--you simply can’t imagine how
frightfully brainy he is. All the same I rather like him. He was my fag
at school and we were up together at Cambridge. I’ve more or less kept
up with him ever since. He’s more like a girl than a man, you know. I
daresay that’s why I liked him. Then he crocked up, nerves and that
sort of thing. And they said he must come over here. He didn’t like the
notion a bit. I was in London just then on leave, and he told me how he
hated the idea.”
“So did I,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“I said that he was a silly ass and that if I had the chance of a month
in the west of Ireland in a sporting sort of house--he told me you
hunted a lot--I’d simply jump at it. But the poor fellow was frightfully
sick at the prospect, said he was sure he wouldn’t get on with you, and
that you’d simply hate him. He had a book of poetry just coming out and
he was hoping to get a play of his taken on, a play about fairies. I
give you my word he was very near crying, so, after a lot of talking, we
hit on the idea of my coming here. He was to lie low in London so that
his father wouldn’t find him.”
“You neither of you thought about me, apparently,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“Oh, yes we did. We thought as you hadn’t seen him since he was a
child that you wouldn’t know him. And of course we thought you’d be
frightfully old. There didn’t seem to be much harm in it.”
“And you--you came here and called me Aunt Nell.”
“You’re far the nicest aunt I’ve ever seen or even imagined.”
“And you actually had the cheek to----”
Mrs. MacDermott stopped abruptly and blushed. She was thinking of the
kisses. His thoughts followed hers, though she did not complete the
sentence.
“Only the first day,” he said. “You wouldn’t let me afterwards. Except
once, and you didn’t really let me then. I just did it. I give you
my word I couldn’t help it. You looked so jolly. No fellow could have
helped it. I believe Bertram would have done the same, though he is a
poet.”
“And now,” said Mrs. MacDermott, “before you go----”
“Must I go----”
“Out of this house and back to London today,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“But before you go I’d rather like to know who you are, since you’re not
Bertram Connell.”
“My name is Maitland, Robert Maitland, but they generally call me Bob.
I’m in the 30th Lancers. I say, it was rather funny your thinking I
couldn’t ride and turning on that old parson to talk poetry to me.”
Mrs. MacDermott allowed herself to smile.
The matter was really settled that day before Bob Maitland left for
London; but it was a week later when Mrs. MacDermott announced her
decision to her brother.
“There’s no fool like an old fool,” she wrote, “and at my age I ought to
have more sense. But I took to Bob the moment I saw him, and if he
makes as good a husband as he did a nephew we’ll get on together all
right--though he is a few years younger than I am.”