Major Talbot-Lowry had been in a passion for three days, and Lady
Isabel, who had borne the storm alone, longed for Christian's return,
as the lone keeper of a lighthouse might long for the support of his
comrade during a gale.
Judith came to visit her parents on Monday, but Judith was very far
from being Christian, and could be relied on merely as far as a
counter-irritant might prove of service.
"Well, of course, it was abominable impertinence of the priest to come
up with the tenants to try and bully you, Papa, but you know, I see
their point." Thus, Judith, annoyingly, and with pertinacity.
"You do, do you!" interjected Judith's progenitor, his once ruddy face
now a congested purple. "It seems to me, Judith, you're always deuced
ready to see any one's point but mine!"
"After all," went on Judith, with all the self-confidence and
intolerance of five and twenty, "it's in your interest to sell, just
as much as theirs to buy! With this detestable Government in power it
will be a case of the Sibylline Books. You'll see the Nationalists
will have it all their own way, and the next Act--"
"Nationalists!" roared the Major, sitting upright in his chair, and
panting, his utterance temporarily checked by the sheer pressure of
all that he wished to say. "Don't talk to me of Nationalists! Common
thieves! That's all they are! There's no Nationalism about
_them_! Call it Socialism, if you like, or any other name for
robbery! They'd look very blue if _we_ took to shouting 'Ireland
a Nation!' and expecting to come in at the finish! They mightn't be
able to call us English invaders and to steal our property then!
English! I've got Brian Boroihme in my pedigree and that's more than
they can say! A pack of half-bred descendants of Cromwell's soldiers!
That's what they are, and the best of them, too! That's the best drop
of blood they've got!" Dick shouted, veering in the wind of his own
words like a rudderless ship in a storm. "That's what gives them
tenacity and bigotry! Look at the old places that they're squeezing
the old families out of! It's the Protestant farmers and the Religious
Orders that are getting them, swarming into them like rats! Don't tell
me that I and my family aren't a better asset to any country than a
lot of fat, lazy Monks and Nuns!"
"But, Papa, they're not all fat!" said Judith, beginning to laugh.
"Deuce a many of them's thin for want of plenty to eat!" returned
Dick, with the confidence of a man whose faith in his theories has
never been interfered with by investigation. He was recovering his
temper, having enjoyed the delivery of his diatribe; and the fact that
he had not only silenced Judith but had tickled her to a laugh,
restored his sense of domination.
Poor old King Canute, with the tide by this time well above the tops
of his hunting-boots, and all the familiar landmarks becoming
submerged, one after the other! It may be easy to deride him, but it
is hard not to pity him.
This was on Monday, and Christian returned from her week-end visit
that evening. Judith stayed, and went with Christian to her room.
"Well, my dear," she began, eagerly, as the door closed, "when are you
going to announce it?"
Christian sat down on her bed. She was looking very tired.
"Never, I think!"
Without paying attention to Judith's exclamation she took a newspaper
out of the pocket of her top-coat, and handed it to her sister.
"This is this evening's paper. I got it at the Junction. Read that."
She pointed to a paragraph.
Judith read it; then she dropped the paper, and gazed at Christian
with dramatic consternation.
"The idiot!" she said, at length. "Couldn't you stop him?"
"He had promised years ago. I didn't try. He couldn't break his word."
"Oh, rot!" said Judith, briefly.
"You know he couldn't, Judy."
"Well, you know, this will finish him with Papa," said Judith,
gloomily. "He's bad enough as it is about the sales to the tenants,
and I was prepared for rows over the religious business, of course,
but this! Can't you"
"I can't do anything," interrupted Christian, getting up. "I heard
from him this morning, fearfully keen about it, but he didn't know
then if the Party were going to adopt him. Evidently they have."
"Trust them for that!" said Judith, with a heavy groan. "I suppose
Larry thinks we shall all be delighted! What fools men are! Bill did
say once that it had been suggested--oh, ages ago, when Larry came of
age; Ma-in-law told him--but we thought it had died out."
Christian hardly heard what she said. She was standing at the open
window, in the stillness that tells of intense mental engrossment.
Self-deception was impossible for her; her mind was too acute for
tolerance of subterfuge; and for her, also, away and beyond the
merciless findings of intellect was the besetment of presentiment,
intuition, inward convictions that can override logical conclusions,
words that are breathed in the soul as by a wind, and, like the wind,
are born and die in mystery.
The last of the daylight had gone; there was a touch of frost; the sky
was clear and hard, the stars shone with sharp brilliance, some of
them had long, slanting rays on either hand that looked like wings of
light; a new moon glittered among them, keen and clean, and vindictive
as a scimitar; in the quiet, the low murmur of the Broadwater pervaded
the night. Judith watched her sister with unconsciously appraising
eyes, noting the straight slenderness of her figure, the small,
high-held, dark head.
"Old people are intolerable!" she thought; "she shall _not_
sacrifice herself to Papa's prejudices! If she likes Larry she shall
have him!"
But she was too wise to argue with Christian.
Dick Talbot-Lowry, though now arrived at the age of sixty-nine, was as
unconvinced as ever of the fact that time had got the better of him,
and that its despotism was daily deepening. He admitted that he had
become something of an invalid, but that his elder daughter should
have classified him as an old person would have appeared to him as
absurd and offensive. There are minds that keep this inveterate
youthfulness; that learn nothing of age, and forget nothing of youth.
It is an attitude sometimes charming, sometimes undignified, always
pathetic. Christian saw old age as a tragedy, a disaster, to alleviate
which no effort on the part of the young could be too great; the
pathos and the pity of it were ever before her eyes. In contest with
her father, if contest there were to be, she would go into the arena
with her right hand tied behind her back.
Without any definite admission of failure, Major Talbot-Lowry had been
brought to submit to having his breakfast in bed, and Robert Evans, a
sour and withered Ganymede, was the bearer of it. He was also the
bearer of any gossip that might be available, and seldom failed to
provide his master with a stimulant and irritant. On the morning
following on Christian's return it was very evident that intelligence
of unusual greatness seethed in the cauldron wherein fermented Mr.
Evans' brew of news. His rook-like eye sparkled, his movements, even
that walk for whose disabilities it may be remembered that the pantry
boy had thanked his God, were alert and purposeful.
"Ye didn't see the _Irish Times_ yet, I think?" he began,
standing over his master, and looking down upon him with an expression
as triumphant and malign as that of a carrion-crow with a piece of
stolen meat. He rarely bestowed the usual honorifics upon Dick,
considering that his five years' seniority relieved him of such
obligations. "I wouldn't believe all I'd read in the papers, but this
is true, anyway!"
"What's true?" said Major Dick, irritably; "you've forgotten the salt
again, Evans! How the devil can I eat an egg without salt? Send one of
the maids for it--don't go yourself," he added, as Evans left the
room. "The old fool'd be all day getting it," he said to himself, with
an old man's contempt for old age in another. "Now, then," as Evans
returned, "what's your wonderful bit of news?"
"Ye can read it there for yourself," replied Evans, coldly; he was
ruffled by the episode of the salt.
"Damn it, man, I can't read the paper and eat an egg!" snapped the
Major. "Out with your lie, whatever it is!"
"Master Larry's chosen for the Member in place of Prendergast," said
Evans, sulkily.
If Evans had been unfortunate in the way in which his sensation had
been led up to, its reception left him nothing to desire. Dick was
stricken to an instant of complete silence. Then he roared to Evans to
take the damned tray out of his way, and to give him the (otherwise
qualified) paper.
It would serve no purpose, useful or otherwise, to attempt to record
Dick Talbot-Lowry's denunciations of Larry, of his religion, and of
his politics; of, secondarily, his ingratitude; his treachery, and his
lack of the most rudimentary elements of a gentleman. They lasted
long, and lacked nothing of effect that strength of lung and vigour of
language could bring to them. And Evans, the many-wintered crow,
hearkened, and rejoiced that he was seeing his desire of his enemy.
"No! I won't eat it! Take it away--I don't want it, I tell you! Curse
you, can't you do as you're bid?" Thus spake Dick Talbot-Lowry,
flinging himself back on his pillows, and shoving the breakfast-tray
from him. The hot purple colour that had flooded his face was fading;
his voice was getting hoarse and weak. Evans, with an apprehensive eye
on his master's changed aspect, carried the tray out of the room.
There was a quick step on the stairs, and Larry came lightly along the
landing.
"The Major up, Evans? No? Oh, all right! May I come in, Cousin Dick?"
He swung into the room.
Old Evans carefully shut the door behind him.
"Now me laddy-o!" he whispered, rubbing his hooked grey beak with one
finger, and chuckling low and wheezily: "Now, maybe! Me fine young
Papist! Ye'll be getting your tay in a mug! Hot and strong! Hot and
strong!"
He moved away from the door with the tray of untouched breakfast
things.