IN SOCIETY.
“Ah! Then was it all spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.”
“Society is now one polished horde
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.”
One day at Durrus was very like another. By the time I had been there
three weeks or a month, the days stretched out behind me into indefinite
length, separating me more and more from my past life.
Looking back to that time, it seems to resolve itself into one long
_tête-à-tête_ with Willy. Quiet rides with him through the damp brown
woods, or now and then a day with the Moycullen hounds; drives to
return the visits of such of the natives as had called upon me; walks
across the turf bog to where the old graveyard hangs over the sea, to
watch the sun drop below the horizon. “Bound for America,” says Willy.
“I wonder if you’d like to be going back with him?” I had no doubts in
my own mind on the subject, though I did not feel called upon to say so
to him. I was now quite certain that, in spite of various drawbacks, I
enjoyed my life at Durrus very much.
I have said that I had had callers. After the O’Neills, among the first
to come and see me were Mrs. Jackson-Croly and her daughters, and the
Burkes, whose acquaintance I had already made.
These ladies all made their appearance on the same afternoon; but before
the Burkes arrived I had an undiluted quarter of an hour of the
Jackson-Crolys, during which time the magnificence of Mrs. Croly’s
manner was only equalled by the fashionable languor of her daughters’. I
naturally tried to talk to them of such local subjects as I knew
anything about, but found that the meanest topic on which they would
consent to converse was Dublin Castle, and the affability displayed to
them by the lord-lieutenant--“left’nant,” they pronounced it--during the
past season. With these lofty themes I was quite unfitted to grapple,
and had sunk into a subordinate place in the conversation when the Miss
Burkes were announced.
They were both exceedingly cordial and friendly, and Miss Mimi began
almost immediately to rally me with ponderous facetiousness on my
exploits on the day of the hunt.
“Oh, Miss Sarsfield! what’s this we hear about you and Mr. O’Neill?
Springing away through the country after the fox, and leaving poor
Willy in the ditch! Oh, fie!”
I feel that it is hopeless to convey any adequate idea of Miss Mimi’s
voice by any system of spelling; but the fact that in her vocabulary
“fie,” was pronounced “foy,” may serve as some indication of her manner
of speech.
At her ingenuous observation I became aware that the eyes of Mrs.
Jackson-Croly and her two daughters were riveted upon me with
undisguised interest, and I hastened to explain how it was that Willy
had been left behind. But Miss Burke paid little heed; another and more
exciting topic had suggested itself to her.
“Well, Mrs. Croly, is it true that you’re going to give us a dance at
Mount Prospect?” she began. “Why, you’re a wonderful woman for
dissipation! We’d all he dying down with dulness only for you.”
Mrs. Jackson-Croly, metaphorically speaking, descended with one leap
from the pedestal on which she had hitherto posed for my benefit.
Forgetful of the demeanour befitting one who moved in vice-regal
circles, she dragged her chair, still seated upon it, across the floor,
till she had placed herself knee to knee with Miss Burke, and they were
soon deep in calculation as to the number of “dancing gentlemen” who
could be relied on for the forthcoming ball.
A few days afterwards, Nugent O’Neill rode over to ask Willy and me to
lunch at Clashmore on the following day. I had once or twice met him and
Connie out hunting, and the latter and Henrietta had come over to call,
after their dinner at Durrus. On these occasions my acquaintance with
Connie had made rapid progress; she was a girl whom it was not
difficult to know and to like; but with her brother I seemed to have
come to a standstill. I must admit to having felt rather disappointed at
this, as since the night of the dinner-party I had believed that, under
favouring circumstances, he would be a person with whom I should find
myself on many points in sympathy. On this occasion he certainly did not
carry out my theory. After a great deal of profoundly uninteresting
conversation with Willy, in which a self-respecting wish not to be out
of it alone induced me to make a third, they both went round to the
stables, and I watched him ride away with a return of my old resentment
towards him.
Nevertheless, I had to allow to myself that he had not been more dull
than was suitable to the subject on which Willy had chosen to harangue
him--the question of how and where best to lay out and level a
tennis-ground in the lawn at Durrus was not one which lent itself to a
display of epigram, but I could not see why they should have talked
about it the whole time.
I speculated with a good deal of interest on Nugent’s probable demeanour
at luncheon the next day. I could not make up my mind if his
unenthusiastic manner was the result of conceit or of an inborn distrust
of “American young ladies.” It was certainly provoking that the one
Irishman I had hitherto met who seemed to have a few ideas beyond horses
and farming, was either too uninterested or too distrustful to expend
them upon me.
“I suppose it is the arrogant timidity of these eldest sons,” I
reflected, with a touch of republican scorn. “I wish I could tell him
that he can talk to me without fear of ulterior designs on my part.”
The day of the Clashmore repast was bright and cold. Willy had put
Alaska into the dog-cart to drive me there, and we all three started in
very good spirits.
“Willy,” I said, as we spun along the hard road, “you have never told me
anything about The O’Neill. I am rather nervous at the idea of meeting
an Irish chieftain in his own lair. Ought I to kiss his hand? I am sure
you ought to have driven over a couple of fat oxen and a he-goat as
propitiatory offerings.”
“By the hokey! I’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Willy. “I can tell
you, he is not the sort to refuse them if I did. But I’ve no objection
to your kissing his hand, if you like.”
“How kind of you!”
“And he’ll have still less. Mind you, he’s a great old buck, and expects
every girl who goes to Clashmore to make love to him.”
“Oh, Willy!” I cried, in real alarm, “for goodness’ sake don’t let him
come near me. I never have anything to say to old men, and yet they
invariably want to talk to me.”
“Then, my dear, you’d better look out. The madam will have it in her
sleeve for you if he’s too civil; _she_ doesn’t approve of his goings
on.”
“Well, one comfort is, I shall probably be in his black books in five
minutes, as you say it is one of the seven deadly sins to call him
_Mister_ O’Neill. I could no more call him ‘O’Neill’ than I could fly; I
should feel as if I were talking to a coachman.”
“Oh, I dare say he’d put up with more than that from you! You’re just
his sort. I know he’ll tell every one you are ‘a monstrous fine girl.’
You know, he likes them tall and dark and hand----”
“Do hold your tongue!” I interposed. “You are most offensive.”
“Well, never mind,” said Willy, consolingly. “Maybe he won’t look at
you, after all. There’s that big English girl we saw in church with them
last Sunday--Watson, I think Nugent said her name was--I dare say he
devotes himself to her all the time. Though,” he added, “I don’t see why
I shouldn’t go in for her myself”--with a glance at me to see how his
shaft had sped.
“Oh, I hope you will!” I said; “it would interest me so much.”
I thought Willy looked a little crestfallen, and he said no more on the
subject.
As I walked cautiously across the highly polished floor of the Clashmore
hall, preceded by an eminently respectable young footman, I was amused
to find that my mind was occupied in unfeigned admiration of the
cleanliness of the house. This, then, was the result of six weeks’
residence at Durrus. I had become so inured to untidiness, and a
generally lenient system of cleansing, that the most ordinary household
virtues had acquired positive instead of merely negative value.
The big, bright drawing-room seemed full of strangers, who, as I came
in, all stopped talking. I caught, however, my own name, spoken in a
voice unmistakable, even in the undertone in which it said, “I declare,
there’s Miss Sarsfield herself!” and I had the uncomfortable conviction
that Miss Mimi Burke, in common with the rest of the room, had been
discussing me.
I advanced with uncertain speed across the wide space of glowing carpet
which separated me from Madam O’Neill, my last few steps being
considerably accelerated by the sudden uprisal from under my feet of an
abnormally lengthy dachshund, which had lain coiled unseen in my path.
“That detestable dog of Henrietta’s!” said Madam O’Neill, as she shook
hands with me; “he is always getting in the way. How do you do, Miss
Sarsfield? Robert dear, this is Miss Sarsfield.”
A stout, elderly gentleman, in a light suit of clothes, and with one of
the reddest faces I have ever seen, stepped forward with a very polite
bow and expansive smile, and shook hands with me. This was my host, but
the warning I had received against encouraging his attentions had so
alarmed me, that as soon as was decently possible I turned my back upon
him and began to talk to Henrietta. I had been aware all the time of
Willy’s observation, and now, as I turned and met his malevolent eye, I
felt with dismay that my face was slowly turning a good fast colour,
analogous to Turkey red. Deeply conscious of this, and of the unsparing
glare of light from the large plate-glass windows, I spent some
singularly uncomfortable moments, until the booming of the gong
interrupted Miss O’Neill’s comments on the weather.
I suppose that every one has at some period of their life felt the
absurdity of being led forth processionally to an entirely commonplace
meal, to which one is quite capable of walking unassisted on one’s own
legs. I was never more keenly alive to this than on the present
occasion, when, thrusting my hand with some difficulty inside The
O’Neill’s bulky arm, and feeling at least a head taller than he, we with
all dignity led the way into the dining-room.
I looked round the luncheon-table to see how people had arranged
themselves. My neighbour on the right was the Reverend Thomas Horan,
Rector of Rathbarry, a dull-looking man, with a saffron complexion, and
hair and beard of inky blackness, whose speech in private life was
little less unintelligible than his pulpit utterances. Opposite to me
sat Nugent O’Neill and Miss Watson. She was an ordinary type of smart
English girl, tall, fair, square shouldered, and well dressed, and
apparently rather fond of the sound of her own high, unmodulated voice.
She, evidently, had no difficulty in talking to Nugent. I caught from
time to time such fragments of their discourse as, “Saw your college get
a bump,” “Up for commemoration week,” “Ladies’ eights”--by which latter
phrase I wondered if he were referring to her size in gloves.
The view to my right was impeded by the portly form of Miss Mimi Burke,
who was next Mr. Horan, she and that divine interchanging much lively
badinage, in tones suggestive of a duet between two trombones. Beyond
her I could just discern the feeble profile of a red-haired youth of
nineteen or twenty, who was subsequently introduced to me as Mr.
Barrett.
The O’Neill had been up to this too busy in dissecting two ducks of
unusually athletic physique to speak to me; but he had from time to
time--
“Looked upon me with a soldier’s eye,
That liked, but had a rougher task in hand.”
And when the last limb had been distributed, he turned his crimson face
and gleaming eyeglass upon me.
“And why haven’t we seen you out with the hounds lately, Miss
Sarsfield?” he began, in a wheezy, luscious voice, with a suspicion of
brogue in it. “Nugent brought home such accounts of your doings that I
went out myself in hopes of seeing you show us all the way.”
I modestly disclaimed all credit for the glories of the run which had
made such a sensation. “And I have only been able to go out once or
twice since,” I added; “the meets have been so far away, and Willy has
only two horses.”
“Ah! I wish you’d let me give you a mount. Your father has done as much
for me many a day when I was a youngster; and I think you and I ought to
be great friends”--this with a gaze of deep feeling from the unglazed
eye.
“Thank you; you are very kind,” I murmured discomposedly, looking
towards the little madam to see if she were noting the behaviour of her
lord.
But no; the pink ribbons and marabout tufts of her elaborate cap were
nodding complacently towards Willy, who was talking to her with
enviable ease and fluency.
Willy’s skill in talking to elderly ladies amounted to inspiration. At
present both Madam O’Neill and Miss Bessie Burke were hanging on his
words, with every appearance of rapt interest; while I, the beloved of
old men, could make no fitting rejoinder to the advances of my host.
“But then,” I reflected, in self-extenuation, “old women are infinitely
preferable to old men.”
“Ah yes!” The O’Neill went on, “how much you remind me of your father!
The same wonderful dark eyes----”
“Mine are grey,” I interrupted, in as repressive a manner as possible.
The objects in question immediately underwent a close scrutiny.
“No matter--no matter; they have the same depth of expression. ‘That
eye’s dark charm ’twere vain to tell,’ eh? Isn’t that what Byron says?”
Of the appropriateness of the quotation my plate alone was in a position
to give an opinion, as on it my eyes were immovably fixed.
“I say, sir,” said Nugent, suddenly, from across the table, “did you
know that Miss Watson was a great fortune-teller? You ought to show her
your hand.”
Nothing loth, O’Neill laid his fat white hand on the table for Miss
Watson’s inspection. She at once opened the campaign in a masterly
manner, by pronouncing it to be that of a “flirt,” and I felt that the
chieftain’s entertainment need no longer be a matter of anxiety to me.
Looking at his father with a peculiar expression, in which amusement
seemed to predominate, Nugent listened for a minute or two to Miss
Watson’s ingenious insinuations and pronouncements. Then he turned to
me.
“Do you believe in chiromancy, Miss Sarsfield? It seems to me an
adaptable sort of science.”
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