A DINNER-PARTY.
“Go, let him have a table by himself!
For he does neither affect company,
Nor is he fit for’t, indeed.”
In spite of the incontestable success of my decorations, which drew
forth the admiration of even the superior Henrietta O’Neill, I felt,
before we had arrived at the period of fish, that the dinner-party was
likely to be a failure.
Uncle Dominick had, of course, taken in the elder Miss O’Neill, and as
far as they were concerned nothing was left to be desired. Conversation
of a fluent and high-class order was evidently her strong point. She at
once entered upon a discussion of Irish politics with my uncle in a
manner deserving of all praise, and as I surreptitiously studied her
pale, plain, intellectual face, with the dark hair severely drawn back,
and heard her enunciate her opinions in clearly framed sentences, I
became deeply conscious of my own general inferiority.
Nevertheless, I did what in me lay to talk to Nugent O’Neill, who had
taken me in, thus leaving to Willy the necessary and, as I thought,
congenial task of entertaining Miss Connie. Nothing could apparently be
better arranged. Nugent had exchanged his frigid, uninterested civility
of the day before for an excellent semblance of sociability, beneath
which, as it seemed to me, he concealed a curious observation of all
that I said. He had a dark clever face, with strong well-cut features,
and blue eyes, with a pleasanter expression in them than I had at first
expected to see there. His voice would have been monotonous in its
quietness and unexcitability had it not been for a certain humorous,
semi-American turn which he occasionally imparted to his sentences. He
annoyed me, but at the same time he was interesting; moreover--which was
to me a very strong point in his favour--he was evidently as much alive
as I to the fact that for the next hour and a half it would be our
solemn duty to amuse each other, and to that intent we both performed
prodigies of agreeability.
But Willy was the cause of disaster. I became gradually aware that
silence was settling down upon him and Connie, and that, instead of
devoting himself to her, he, with his eyes fixed on me and my partner,
was listening moodily to what we were saying. When this had gone on for
some minutes, during which Connie crumbled her bread and looked cross, I
was exasperated to the point of bestowing a glance upon him calculated
to awaken in him a sense of his bad manners. Far, however, from
accepting my reproof, Willy returned my look with a gaze of admiring
defiance, and projected himself into our conversation by flatly
contradicting what Nugent was saying. The latter rose many degrees in my
estimation by ignoring the interruption till he had reached the end of
his sentence. Then, with a tolerating smile, he looked past me to Willy,
and asked him what he had said.
Willy’s dark eyebrows met in a way that unpleasantly reminded me of his
father.
“If it wasn’t worth listening to, it’s not worth repeating,” he said
aggressively.
Terrified by the turn things were taking, I struck in quickly, “Oh,
Willy! have you told Miss O’Neill what you heard to-day about the
Jackson-Crolys giving a ball?”
“No; I thought she’d have heard it herself,” he returned ungraciously.
“As it happens, I had heard nothing about it,” said Connie, from the
other side of the table; “but I cannot say that I feel much excited at
the prospect of one of their dances.”
“I am looking forward to it immensely,” I said, persevering with my
topic. “I want very much to see a real Irish ball.”
“Yes,” said Nugent, reflectively; “you will see that to great perfection
at the Jackson-Crolys’. They excel in old Irish hospitality. They do
that kind of thing in quite the traditional way. Little Croly offers you
whiskey the moment you get into the hall; and, though you may not
believe it, Mrs. Jackson-Croly orders champagne to be put into all the
carriages when people are coming away. The guests are generally pretty
happy by that time, and she says it is to keep their hearts up on the
way home.”
“That’s quite true,” observed Connie; “and, as well as I remember, you
were not at all above drinking it next day.”
“Do they dance jigs at these entertainments?” I asked. “If so, I am
afraid I shall be rather out of it.”
“Oh yes,” said Willy, with what was intended to be biting sarcasm; “and
horn-pipes and Highland flings. They always do at Irish dances.”
“Nonsense, Willy! They don’t really, do they, Mr. O’Neill?”
“It is always well to be prepared for emergencies,” he answered, “so I
should advise you to have some lessons from Willy. I have been told
that step-dancing is his strongest suit.”
“Who told you that?” demanded Willy.
“One of our men was at McCarthy’s wedding the other day, and said he saw
you there.”
“Oh yes,” supplemented Connie. “He said, ‘The sight would lave your eyes
to see Mr. Sarsfield and that little gerr’l of owld Michael Brian’s
taking the flure, and they so souple and so springy.’”
Willy did not appear to be at all amused by this flattering opinion, or
by the admirable accent in which it was repeated. On the contrary, he
looked rather disconcerted, and, with a glance towards the other end of
the table, he said awkwardly--
“Oh, one has to do these sort of things now and then. The people like
it, and it doesn’t do me any harm.”
“On the contrary,” said Nugent, “I am sure it is a most healthy
exercise. But I thought it rather spoiled your leg for a top-boot.”
Willy was known to favour knee-breeches as being especially becoming to
him, and at this, to my great relief, he turned his back upon us, and
plunged into an ostentatiously engrossing conversation with Connie. At
last we were in smooth water, and with almost a sigh of relief I heard
Nugent take up the thread of our discourse at the point where Willy had
broken it off.
It was evident that he could be pleasant enough when he chose; and
though I felt that this new development was almost as offensive in
another way as his deliberate dullness yesterday, I was now very
grateful for its timely help. At the same time, I bore in mind with
resentment my unremunerated toil during our ride, and reflected
bitterly on the fact that people who only talk when it pleases them,
receive far more credit when they do so than those who from a sense of
duty exhaust themselves conversationally.
Uncle Dominick and Henrietta had up to this not caused me a moment’s
anxiety. We were now at dessert, and yet the flow of their discourse had
never flagged. In fact, my uncle seemed at present to be delivering a
species of harangue, to which Henrietta was attending with a polite
unconvinced smile. This was all as it should be, and my respect for
Henrietta’s social gifts increased tenfold. Unfortunately, however, it
soon became evident that the discussion, whatever it was, was taking
rather too personal a tone, and my uncle’s voice became so loud and
overbearing that Nugent and I were constrained to listen to him.
“You amaze me,” he was saying. “I cannot believe that any sane person
can honestly hold such absurd theories. What! do you mean to tell me
that one of my tenants, a creature whose forefathers have lived for
centuries in ignorance and degradation, is my equal?”
“His degradation is merely the result of injustice,” said Miss O’Neill,
coolly adjusting her _pince-nez_.
“I deny it,” said my uncle, loudly. His usually pale face was flushed,
and his eyes burned. “But that is not the point. What I maintain is that
any fusion of classes such as you advocate, would have the effect of
debarring the upper while it entirely failed to raise the lower orders.
If you were to marry your coachman, as, according to your theories of
equality, I suppose you would not hesitate to do, do you think these
latent instincts of refinement that you talk about would make him a fit
companion for you and your family? You know as well as I do that such an
idea is preposterous. It is absurd to suppose that the natural
arrangement of things can be tampered with. This is a subject on which I
feel very strongly, and it shocks me to hear a young lady in your
position advance such opinions!”
Henrietta’s face assumed an aggravating expression, clearly conveying
her opinion that further argument would be thrown away. Uncle Dominick
gulped down a glass of wine, and glared round the table. There was a
general silence, and I took advantage of it to make a move to the
drawing-room.
I was wholly taken aback by my uncle’s violence, and could not help
fearing that the number of times his glass had been replenished had had
something to say to it. Willy’s temper had also been so uncertain that
I dreaded an outbreak between him and his father, and, in the interval
of waiting for their reappearance, I found myself making the most absent
and ill-chosen answers to Henrietta’s questions upon the culture and
political status of American women, while I listened anxiously for the
sound of the opening of the dining-room door. My only consolation was,
that Nugent would, for his own sake, do his best to keep the peace, and
I was surprised to find how much I relied on his powers of doing so.
In my preoccupied state of mind, it is not to be wondered at that
Henrietta soon appeared to come to the conclusion that I was incapable
of giving her any information on the subjects in which she was
interested, and that I was generally a person of limited abilities. She
leaned back in her chair with the exhausted air of one who relinquishes
a hopeless task, and, taking up a photograph-book, she tacitly made me
over to her sister.
Connie’s ideas ran in less exalted grooves. The run of the day before
was to her a topic of inexhaustible interest; and when she found that my
humility in the matter of hunting equalled my ignorance, she expanded
into extreme graciousness, and was soon in the full tide of narration.
The story-teller who treats of hunting with any real enthusiasm
generally loses all mental perspective, and sacrifices artistic unity to
historical accuracy. Then, as now, I was amazed at the powers of memory
and merciless fidelity to detail with which those who have taken part in
a run can afterwards describe it, and I listened with reverence
befitting the neophyte to Connie’s adventures by flood and field. Foxes
and fences, hounds and hunters, were revolving in my brain, when the
opening of the door brought the story to a conclusion, and Willy came
into the room, followed by Nugent. He marched directly to the sofa where
I was sitting, and deposited himself beside me with such determination
that the rebound of its springs almost lifted me into the air.
This behaviour was really intolerable. Willy had not before shown any
very pronounced partiality for me, and why he should have selected this
evening for a demonstration of affection it would be hard to say. One
thing was clear: it must be suppressed with a strong hand, or a
dead-lock would ensue. Nugent was standing on the hearthrug, with
apparently no prospect of entertainment before him save what he could
derive from talking to his sisters; while those two young ladies were
well aware that no reasonable hostess could ask them to dinner and
expect them to devote their evening to conversing with their brother,
and, pending action on my part, were sitting in expectant silence. I
turned upon Willy in desperation.
“You _must_ talk to them,” I hissed in his ear.
To which, with equal emphasis, he whispered back, “I won’t!” fixing upon
me a blandly stubborn gaze that infuriated me beyond the bounds of
endurance.
I leaped from my seat, and, with a timely recollection of Nugent’s
violin, I walked over to him and asked if he had remembered to bring it.
He admitted apologetically that it was in the hall, adding, with
unexpected modesty, that he had only brought it because I had asked him
to do so. I had some acquaintance with the ways of amateur violinists,
and speedily recognized the diffidence which conceals a yearning to
play at all hazards. My intention to dislike him was softened by the
discovery that he was not at all points so superior as I had believed,
and I was pleased to notice some hurry and trepidation in his manner
while he was tuning his violin. Henrietta advanced upon the piano with
an air of sisterly resignation, and, concealing a yawn, tapped a note
for Nugent to tune by.
While he was thus engaged, I cast an anxious eye round the room. My
uncle had now come in, and, with his elbow on the chimney-piece, was
looking into the fire. Connie had taken possession of the ancient
photograph-book which her sister had put down, and, in company with
Willy, was silently and methodically turning over its yellow pages. Well
did I know its contents. Ladies in preposterously inflated skirts, with
rows of black velvet round the tail; and gentlemen clad from head to
heel in decent black, each with his back to an Italian landscape, and
his tall hat on a Grecian pedestal near him--all alike undistinguishable
and unknown. I felt sincerely for Connie; but other occupation there was
none, and I had done my best on her behalf.
I was at first inclined to agree with Nugent in his own estimate of his
playing, and I saw with unworthy amusement that he was extremely
nervous; but as he went on he steadied down, and played with
considerable sweetness and delicacy. The keen notes vibrated in the dim,
lofty room, and tingling in the many hanging crystals of the old glass
chandelier. I forgot the indignation which he had yesterday aroused in
me, and remained leaning on the piano, conscious only of the pleasure I
was receiving, until the player ceased, and began to unscrew his bow
preparatory to putting it away.
“Please play something else,” I said hastily. “Won’t you try this Suite
of Corelli’s? I know it so well.”
“I am afraid my sister doesn’t know the accompaniment,” he answered,
with a dubious look at Henrietta, who was rising from the piano.
Her bored manner had already told me that she looked on accompanying her
brother as a task beneath her powers, and the thought struck me with
paralyzing conviction that I ought to have asked her to play a solo.
However, this was not the moment to rectify the error; Nugent was
lingering over the putting away of his violin, with an obvious desire to
play again.
“I suppose it would be too much to ask you to try it?” he said to me,
after another glance at Henrietta’s unresponsive face.
“Perhaps if it was not very difficult I might be able----” I said, and
checked myself, remembering the snub I had received on that very
subject.
But now that I had admitted so much, Nugent held me to my word, and
firmly proceeded to arrange the piano part on the desk for me.
“I don’t envy you, Miss Sarsfield,” remarked Henrietta, with a cold
little laugh; “Nugent’s ideas of counting are excessively primitive.”
Decidedly Henrietta was annoyed.
“I am the class of savage who cannot count more than five,” he replied,
addressing me; “but I do my best.”
Miss O’Neill laughed again. “You will have to play it for him,” she
said, moving away from the piano; “Nugent is a regular bully.”
I scarcely liked being coerced in this way, but I yielded; and we played
the piece I had asked for, as well as several others, before I
remembered my duties as hostess. Willy had forsaken Connie and the
photograph-book, and had again left her and Henrietta to talk to each
other, while he propped himself against the chimney-piece, and gazed
moodily at Nugent and me.
I could not have believed that he would have left me in this dastardly
way to bear the burden and heat of the entertainment, and I made a
second effort to keep things going by begging Miss O’Neill to play. But
this time I was unsuccessful; she would not be propitiated. A look
passed between her and her sister, whose banjo I now had little doubt
had been secreted in the hall; while I, in violation of all the laws of
civility, had myself been monopolizing the piano. They both got up from
their places.
“I should have been delighted,” said Henrietta, “but I am afraid it is
getting rather late. My dear Nugent”--calling to her brother, who was
carefully swaddling his violin preparatory to putting it away--“we
really ought to be getting home. The carriage must have been waiting
some time; and I am sure”--in a lower voice--“that Mr. Sarsfield has had
quite enough of us.”
I looked at my uncle, who during the violin-playing had sunk into an
armchair, and had shaded his eyes with his hand, as if listening
attentively. He had not moved since we stopped, and looked almost as if
he were asleep; but there was something in his attitude that conveyed
the idea of deep dejection rather than of slumber.
The general stir of departure roused him. He rose slowly, and said good
night with a little more than his usual sombreness.
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