Lady Isabel Talbot-Lowry had invited what is concisely spoken of as
"people" to tea and tennis. The month was June, but the weather was
March, or at best, a sullen and overcast April. The purport of the
entertainment had been the exhibition, to rival amateurs, of the Mount
Music herbaceous borders, which, though "not looking quite their
best," were as nearly approximating to that never-achieved ideal, as
is ever the case with either gardens or children; but showers of chill
rain had marred the display, and the lawn tennis was fitful, and
subject to frequent interruption. In these circumstances, a fire of
turf and logs did not need apologies for its presence, and Lady Isabel
and her companion Heads of Households sat with it as their focal
point, and thought, as they saw the players flitting to and fro
between the showers, and the house, and the lawn tennis grounds, that
middle age had privileges that were not to be despised.
The long and lofty drawing-room of Mount Music was a pleasant place
enough, even on this showery day. Some five or six generations of
Talbot-Lowrys had lived in it, and left their marks on it, and though
the indelible hand of Victoria, in youthful vigour, had had, perhaps,
the most perceptible influence on it as a whole, the fancies and
fashions of Major Dick's great-grandmother still held their places. An
ottoman, large as a merry-go-round at a fair, immovable as an island,
occupied, immutably, the space in the centre of the room immediately
under a great cut-glass chandelier. Facing it was the fireplace, an
affair of complicated design, with "Nelson ropes" and knots, and
coils, in worked and twisted brass, and deep hobs, in whose
construction the needs of a punch-kettle had not been forgotten. Above
it, a high, delicately-inlaid marble mantelpiece, brought from Italy
by Dick's great-grandfather, was surmounted by a narrow ledge of
marble, just wide enough to support the base of a Georgian mirror of
flamboyant design, in whose dulled and bluish depths were reflected
the row of old white china birds, that were seated, each on its own
rock, on the shelf in front of it. Family portraits in frames whose
charm of design and colour made atonement for the indifference of the
painting, alternated with brown landscapes in which castles, bridges,
and impenetrable groves were dimly to be discovered through veils of
varnish; flotillas of miniatures had settled, like groups of flies,
wherever on the crowded walls foothold could be found, and
water-colours, pencil-drawings, and photographs, rilled any remaining
space. There were long and implacable sofas, each with its
conventional sofa-table in front of it; Empire _consoles_, with
pieces of china incredibly diverse in style, beauty, and value,
jostling each other on the marble slabs; woolwork screens, worked by
forgotten aunts and grandmothers, chairs of every known breed, and
tables, tables everywhere, and not a corner on one of them on which
anything more could be deposited. The claims of literature were
acknowledged, but without enthusiasm. A tall, glass-fronted cupboard,
inaccessibly placed behind the elongated tail of an early grand piano,
was filled with ornate miniature editions of the classics, that would
have defied an effort--had such ever been made--to remove them from
their shelves, whereon they had apparently been bedded in cement, like
mosaic. It was a room that, in its bewildering diversity, might have
broken the hearts of housemaids or decorators; untidy, without plan,
with rubbish contending successfully with museum-pieces, with the past
and present struggling in their eternal rivalry; yet, a human place, a
place full of the magnetism that is born of past happiness, a place to
which all its successive generations of sons and daughters looked back
with that softening of the heart that comes, when in, perhaps, a
far-away country, memories of youth return, and with them the thought
of home. The ladies who, constant to the saner pleasures of
conversation and tea, had disposed themselves round and about Lady
Isabel's tea-table, were of the inner circle of the friends of the
house, and owned, as is usually the case where habits and environment
are practically identical, a common point of view, and no more
diversity of opinion than is enough to stimulate conversation. Such of
them as had compelled husbands or sons to accompany them, had shaken
them off at the lawn tennis ground, and though loud cawings from the
hall indicated that certain of the more elderly males had congregated
there, the ladies in the drawing-room had, so far, been "unmolested by
either the young people or the men."
Thus, Miss Frederica Coppinger phrased it to those of her allies with
whom she was now holding sweet communion. The allies, albeit separated
by intervals of from five to ten miles of rough and often hilly road,
met with sufficient frequency to keep touch, yet not often enough to
crush the ultimate fragrance from the flower of gossip. Their most
recent meeting had taken place at the concert, which had been Larry's
last achievement before his return to Oxford, and although they had
not been oppressively hampered by the convention of silence at such
entertainments, conversation had been necessarily somewhat thwarted.
"They made quite a useful little sum at Larry's concert," said
Frederica. "Local charities--which meant the Fowl Fund, of course--and
Mr. Cotton and Father Greer. Dick said he would not support it if his
old women were not helped--abominable cheats though most of them are!"
"I _feel_ for them!" said Mrs. Kirby, intensely. "_No_ one
knows the misery and the beggary inflicted on me by the foxes that
Bill encourages about the place!"
A sympathetic imagination enabled her friends to realise the misery
and beggary which Mrs. Kirby's exceedingly cheerful and prosperous
appearance concealed. Both groaned appropriately, and Miss Coppinger
made the sweeping statement that she detested hunting in _all_
its ramifications. "We are always told that its great merit is that it
brings all classes together," she continued. "In _my_ opinion
that is a very dubious advantage, if, indeed, it is not a draw-back!"
Mrs. Kirby permitted her glance to commune for a brief instant with
that of the third lady, Mrs. St. George.
"Like mixed concerts!" said Mrs. St. George, in a deep and awful
voice.
"Mixed pickles!" murmured Mrs. Kirby, and chuckled at her jest.
Miss Frederica flushed.
"My dear Louisa," she said, resentfully, "I am perfectly aware of
their disadvantages, but I should be obliged to you if you would tell
me what I am to do! It is the difference in religion that makes me
powerless. Powerless!" she repeated looking almost with triumph upon
her companions, so irrefutable was her case.
"I hope I'm not a bigot," said Mrs. St. George impressively; "but I
thank God I'm not a Roman Catholic!"
"'Not as other men are'!" quoted Miss Coppinger, with some acidity.
Even though she agreed with the sentiment, she could not forget that
Larry was her nephew.
"Oh, it isn't the actual _religion_ I was thinking of," said Mrs.
St. George, rather hurriedly, Larry's disadvantages having temporarily
escaped her memory. "It was rather--well--"
"For boys it doesn't matter so much," broke in Mrs. Kirby, "but I
really _did_ dislike seeing Christian on the platform with that
party!"
"She was only playing accompaniments," said Miss Coppinger still
resentful.
"That only made it worse! If she had sung a solo it would have been
less humiliating," replied Mrs. Kirby, with a masterly change of
front. "I was indignant! Christian, with her charming voice, only
playing accompaniments and singing in the glees, and that unendurable
Mangan girl posing as the Prima Donna, and oh! her clothes!"
"Or her want of them!" interposed Mrs. St. George, on a profound bass
note.
"And her songs! I don't profess to know much about music, but I
_do_ know what I like!" continued Mrs. Kirby with the finality
and decision that usually accompany the admission. "People may tell me
she has a fine voice, but I _detest_ enormous contralto voices!
_What_ I suffered during the last thing she sang as an encore!
And that final yell of 'Asthore'! at least an octave below her voice!
I could only think of the bellow of the cow that jumped over the
moon!"
"What made _me_ indignant," said Mrs. St. George, in emulous
depreciation, ignoring this flight of fancy, "was their not having
'God save the King'! A cowardly concession to the Gaelic League, of
course! I really think that Georgy, who is in the Navy, might have
insisted upon it!"
"They did discuss it," said Frederica, forced by her friend into the
position of devil's advocate, "but they were afraid of the sixpenny
seats. The Mangans said that there would inevitably be rows. They have
had to give up having it at anything now."
This was unanswerable, and Mrs. St. George tacitly accepted defeat.
"I believe that young Mangan is simply a _Rebel_" resumed Mrs.
Kirby, portentously. "Bill thinks he'll go too far some day, and the
police will _have_ to take notice of him. But with the Government
yielding and pandering--"
Here, at least, was a subject on which all three disputants were in
complete agreement. Wolfe Tone or Robert Emmet could hardly have
abhorred the Government of England more heartily than did these three
respectable, law-abiding, unalterably-Unionist ladies, and for some
time the more recent enormities of the rule upon which they
theoretically bestowed their unshakable, allegiance, took precedence
of Miss Mangan as a subjct of disapproval.
"Nevertheless," summed up Mrs. St. George gloomily at the end of a
sweeping condemnation, "we must submit. We can do nothing. As Courtney
says, _we_ can't cut off cows' tails and shoot our tenants for
not paying their rent! _He_ says--"
Colonel St. George's further views were lost in the entrance of the
lawn tennis players, rain-sprinkled, heated, bringing with them a
lively aroma of trodden grass and wet flannel, and convinced of their
superiority to those who had sought shelter, and were now (to quote
Miss Talbot-Lowry) soddenly eating all the hot cakes. Judith had
recently returned from one of her forays, and had not spared her
family her views on the _rapprochement_ with the musical world of
Cluhir that the concert had involved. She was now seated with Bill
Kirby on a secluded sofa in a corner of the long drawing-room, and was
entertaining that deeply-enamoured young man with her accustomed
fluency.
Mr. Kirby, having petted and patronised Judith in her youth, when he
was still nine years older than she, had, since her recent return,
awakened to the fact that this difference in age had been mysteriously
obliterated, and that at present, Judith was not only his superior in
intelligence, but also in all those subsidiary matters in which age is
generally and erroneously believed to confer an advantage.
"If it had even been a good concert," Judith remarked, gobbling tea
and cake with a heartiness that, taken in connection with an admirable
complexion and very clear blue eyes, was in itself attractive to a
hungry young man, "I could have borne it better. But it was absolutely
deadly--all but just our own people's turns, of course--a sort of
lyrical geography--the map of Ireland set to music! Bantry Bay,
Killarney, the Mountains of Somewhere, the Waters of Somewhere else,
all Irish, of course! I get so sick of Ireland and her endearing young
charms--and all the entreaties to Erin to remember! As if she ever
forgot!"
"She remembers her enemies, all right," rejoined Bill Kirby, gloomily,
"but she forgets her friends! I know someone who hasn't got any
enemies to remember, but she's just like Ireland in one way!"
"What way?" demanded Judith, "and who do you mean?"
"You know very well who I mean! And the reason she is like Ireland is
that she forgets her friends! People who use to give her leads out
hunting when she was a little girl and never forgot _her_!"
"In the first place, I deny it, and in the second place, serves them
right if she does forget them," replied Judith tranquilly; "I don't
know the injured beings you refer to but I _do_ know my own
family. I take my eye off them for five minutes, and I come home to
find they have not only forgotten my existence, but they have plunged
into the heart of that appalling Cluhir crowd, and are indignant with
me--at least the boys and papa are--because I don't do the same!
Strange as it may appear, _I_ like nice people!"
"I wasn't talking of your family," said Bill Kirby morosely, "Hang it
all. _I'm_ quite a nice person, and haven't plunged into the
heart of Cluhir, but it's only by sort of accident, like this, that
you will ever say a word to me!"
"You'd better insure against accidents of this kind!" said Judith, who
was frankly enjoying herself; "and if you choose to renounce the
charms of Cluhir, you needn't make a virtue of it! Perhaps they don't
want you! They mayn't realise what a nice person you are! Would you
like me to explain to Tishy Mangan--"
Bill Kirby, who was possessed of good brown eyes and a profile like a
handsome battle-axe, was a young man of no special intellectual gifts,
but the sound judgment that distinguished him in the hunting-field was
wont to stand his friend in other emergencies. He was entirely aware
that he was no match for Judith in debate, but he was also aware that
deeds sometimes speak louder than words. He attempted no spoken reply,
but after a wary glance round the room, he permitted his large, brown
hand to descend upon and envelop Judith's, that rested on the sofa
beside him.
"You know you're talking rot," he murmured, cautiously. "No, don't
struggle. If you say things like that, you've got to be punished. Are
you sorry?"
"Not in the least!" replied Judith, with an equal caution; "but you
will be, soon! Mrs. St. George is looking at you!" The battle-axe
profile of Mr. Kirby betrayed no hint of the situation.
"Keep quiet, and say you're sorry! _I_ don't mind sitting here
all the afternoon--like this," he added, with a slight additional
pressure.
"I shall count three," said Judith suavely, "and then I shall ask you
in a loud, clear voice to get me another cup of tea. One--"
Further developments of the situation need not be attempted, the more
so as at this juncture the entrance of two uninvited guests caused a
redistribution of seats, whose most marked feature was the creation of
a desert space round the new arrivals and their hostess.
It would perhaps be irregular to say that the Reverend Matthew and
Mrs. Cotton were the incumbents of the parish church of Cluhir (and
had been profanely described as "the incumbrance of Cluhir"); even to
speak of them as, respectively, its curate and its rector, might,
though more accurate, be, perhaps, considered flippant. It would also
be open to the reproach of lack of originality. Yet, unoriginal though
the dominant clergywoman of fiction may be, it cannot be denied that
St. Paul's injunctions in connection with the subjection of wives did
not commend themselves to Mrs. Cotton. It may be, indeed, that her
views on matrimony, being more instructed, were sounder than those of
St. Paul, and she could at least argue that had he been acquainted
with Mr. Cotton he might have modified them. In any case, whatever St.
Paul might think about it, Mrs. Cotton was quite sure that she was
better fitted than was her husband to deal with the matter that had
brought them to Mount Music.
She did not, however, as becomes a sound tactician, approach the point
with undue directness. Lady Isabel had sent her daughters to school in
Paris; Lady Isabel had, on a bygone occasion, been goaded by Mrs.
Cotton into a declaration that her servants' religion was a matter
with which she only concerned herself if they neglected their
religious duties. Mrs. Cotton, remembering these things and being ever
filled to brimming with what Christian has called The Spirit of the
Nation, opened with a general attack upon the Church of Rome, and
narrowed to a tale of "a friend of mine and Mr. Cotton's. A clergyman.
A man of private means." After this stimulating prelude, the tale
ceased for a moment, while Mrs. Cotton blinked her small black eyes at
her hostess, several times, as was her practice. "Oh, a very wealthy
man!" she continued, imposingly, "and he bought a lovely house, with a
garden; a lovely garden!" The thought of a garden was a fortunate one,
and enlisted Lady Isabel's wandering attention. "But at the end of the
garden what was there but a Nunnery. And the clergyman found that his
daughters were always slipping out into the garden, and what was it
but the nuns that were getting hold of the girls! Very refined women
they were, and well able to deceive young girls!" The tale was flowing
swiftly now, but Mrs. Cotton paused dramatically, and continued on a
lower key. "The clergyman had had bookshelves made to fit the study,
and a splendid antique sideboard to fitanitch--" Mrs. Cotton spoke
fast, and the last three words ran bewilderingly into one. "But he
sold the house AT ONCE! Yes, indeed, Lady Isabel! Weren't his
daughters' souls more to him than bookshelves?"
Lady Isabel, who was still wrestling with the apparently Russian
problem in connection with the antique sideboard, attempted no reply
to this inquiry, and Mrs. Cotton, considering that her hostess' mind
was now sufficiently prepared, did not wait for her opinion, and swept
on to her objective, which was the denunciation of the conduct of the
recent concert, and more especially of the disposition of the
proceeds. "Of course, _I_ don't know in whose hands it lay, Lady
Isabel," she said, raising her tea cup to her lips, and in order to do
so curtaining it behind her ample veil, "but the Roman Catholics
seemed to consider that it was _all_ to go to them, and the
paltry sum I have mentioned was all they gave Mr. Cotton and me for
_our_ charities!" Her black eyes snapped nenacingly at Lady
Isabel over the rim of the veiled tea cup.
Lady Isabel uttered a soothing and indefinite murmur, and the
indictment proceeded.
"Considering that _your_ family, Lady Isabel, took a leading part
in the programme, and that I may say the greater number of the
half-crown seats were Protestants, I _do_ think that _our_
Church--"
It avails not to follow Mrs. Cotton's diatribes further. Lady Isabel
had lived for some five and twenty years in Ireland, but they had not
sufficed to expound to her the intricacies of the web of jealousies,
hatreds, fears, and stupidities, that has been spun by that intolerant
Spirit of the Nation, in order to separate, as far as may be, the two
Churches who divide the kindly people of the Island of Saints between
them. Lady Isabel might see that in the distribution of the spoils
Mrs. Cotton had possibly a lawful grievance, but she could not, even
after five and twenty years, quite understand how solacing to the soul
of Mrs. Cotton was the consideration of the wrongs endured by her
Church.
"Yes, indeed, Lady Isabel! Not one penny more! And then Dr. Mangan to
say to Mr. Cotton when I sent him to complain about it, that it was
better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick! That was by the way
of making a joke of it! And that the Hunt wanted it more than we did!
I wonder how much Father Greer left the Hunt!"
Again Mrs. Cotton's beady eyes snapped several times, in an emotion
that was not far from enjoyment. The iniquities of Father Greer were
very dear to her, and she was confident that in this matter of
dividing the spoil he had not disappointed her.
Passing on from the concert, Mrs. Cotton dealt with many subjects in a
harangue that turned the seamy side of Cluhir to the sun, with the
skill of a buyer of old clothes. Lady Isabel, behind the prisoning
tea-table, after a hopeless, helpless glance round an assembly that
was either preoccupied or wilfully blind, relapsed into the brain
stupor that was sometimes sent, like an anodyne, to those whom fate
had consigned to Mrs. Cotton's keeping. The Reverend Matthew, in whom
a prolonged course of his wife had developed a condition, when in her
society, of semi-hypnotic trance, sat in silence at his hostess' side,
devouring cake, and swallowing cups of tea, until what had apparently
been starvation was averted; he then dreamily withdrew, and joined
himself vaguely, to the group of which Miss Coppinger formed one.
Frederica's early training had, as has been said, implanted in her an
ineradicable interest in the Church. Even the dulled, almost
obliterated personality of Mr. Cotton still held for her some of the
magic of his cloth. She moved her chair to admit him to the fellowship
of which she was one, and offered him the seat that had been hastily
vacated by Mrs. Kirby on his approach, with a darkling eye of reproof
at that experienced lady.
Conversation with Mr. Cotton resembled conversation with his wife, in
that it was apt to be one-sided, life having taught him to take the
side not patronised by Mrs. Cotton. When, however, severed from her,
he was capable of imparting rudimentary fragments of fact, and one of
these he now offered to Miss Coppinger.
"I hear your nephew is the candidate chosen by the Nationalists here
for the next election, Miss Coppinger," he said, his pale eyes
regarding her drearily over the top of his spectacles.
Frederica sat erect in her chair with a jerk, and a hot red sprang,
like a danger-signal, to her face.
"I've heard nothing of it," she said stoutly, but with a leaping heart
of horror. "How do you know it is the case?"
"It is commonly reported in the town," replied Mr. Cotton, "One hears
these things--"
"I can't believe it--I can't believe it," said Frederica; the colour
had left her cheeks, and her eyes hurried from Mr. Cotton's face to
Mrs. St. George's, and roved on to Mrs. Kirby, who was seated near,
and had evidently felt the wind of the shot.
"Why, the boy is only just twenty-one!" said Mrs. Kirby, rolling
herself and her chair back into action to the support of her friend.
"With all deference to you, Mr. Cotton, I don't believe a word of it!
Of course, Larry would have told you, Frederica! I can well believe
that those Gaelic League people would like to have him if they can get
him! Depend upon it, the wish is father to the thought!"
Frederica made no reply; her lips were tightly compressed, and her
unseeing eyes, though they appeared to be fixed on Mrs. Kirby's broad
and friendly face, were looking along the paths of memory to the time
when that barrier of ice had not arisen between her and Larry.
"I understand that the suggestion emanated from Dr. Mangan," went on
Mr. Cotton, faintly stimulated by his unaccustomed success. "I am not
aware if young Mr. Coppinger has made any reply."
Mrs. Kirby put her plump white hand on Frederica's narrow knee. "I
shouldn't distress myself if I were you, my dear," she said in a low
voice. "Quite possibly it's all a mistake--" She turned to Mr.
Cotton, who was relapsing into trance; his eyes had followed the
movement of her hand, and were being held, hypnotically, by the
sparkle of the diamonds in her rings. "At all events," went on Mrs.
Kirby, "a general election now is very unlikely, and our valued
member--upon my word, I don't even remember his name!--isn't likely to
resign in Larry's favour, so we needn't discuss it now! I am sure, Mr.
Cotton, that you will agree with me, that the less said about it the
better; most probably the whole thing will die out and come to
nothing!" She glanced at Mrs. St. George, and perceiving that the news
had shattered her in only less degree than Frederica, she continued to
address Mr. Cotton, "Such weather! Isn't it? How does your garden like
all this rain, Mr. Cotton? Our strawberries _won't_ ripen, and as
for the poor hay--! You really ought to have prayers for fine
weather for us next Sunday!"
Mr. Cotton recalled his eyes from the diamonds with an effort. "I
will, if you like, Mrs. Kirby!" he said, looking at her, like an old
horse, down his long, deplorable nose, "but I fear they will be not of
much use, as the glawss is remorkably low!"
Prayers for the modification of the weather are often treated as a
permissible subject for mirth, and Mrs. Kirby availed herself of the
convention; even Frederica and Mrs. St. George, stricken though they
were, smiled wanly.