Barracks?” asked Mrs. Bowdler.
“I am not, Mrs. Bowdler, but I wish I was,” replied Matilda.
“Colonel, do you hear that? Miss Casey has not received a card for the
Twelfth ball. _You_ must take care that she gets one.”
“I’ll go to Major McVickers at once—the old rascal and I served in
India together—and see what can be done.”
He had been to Major McVickers five times already to secure invitations
for himself and wife, but without success.
Luke Fogarty entered with an enormous silver salver bearing the
champagne, jelly, fruit, and cake. He would have preferred to have been
behind a runaway horse, ay, and down-hill to boot. He regarded the
jelly with a savage eye, muttering “Woa! woa!” in an undertone as it
shook from the movement of the tray, accompanying the exclamation by
that purring sound so dear to grooms when closely applying the
curry-comb.
“Open the champagne, Fogarty,” said Matilda in a tone of lofty command.
“To be shure I will, miss,” replied the willing retainer, diving into
the pockets of his trowsers in search of an iron-moulded corkscrew,
which he eventually brought to the surface after considerable effort.
“I’ll open it in a jiffy.”
He tortured and twisted the wires until he was nearly black in the face
from sheer exertion, but, although yielding to his pressure, they still
clung perplexingly to the cork.
“Bad cess to thim for wires! but they have the fingers nearly cut aff
o’ me. Curse o’ the crows on them!” making another despairing effort;
“but I’m not bet yit.”
The wire, slipping suddenly aside, gave freedom to the cork, which
bounded gaily against the colonel’s nose, and, ricochetting, lodged in
the bosom of Mrs. Bowdler’s dress, while the froth spurted high in the
air, descending in seething showers upon the gallant warrior’s head,
disarranging the few brown hairs which were carefully laid across his
bald, shining pate, resembling cracks upon an inverted china bowl, and
causing him to utter maledictions strong and deep.
“See that, now!” exclaimed Fogarty, clapping his hand on the opening of
the bottle. “It’s livelier nor spirits. Hould yer glass, colonel, or
the lickher ‘ill be lost intirely.”
“Champagne is my favorite wine,” said Mrs. Bowdler, tossing off her
glass without winking.
“And mine,” added the colonel, filling it for her again, and then
replenishing his own.
“Oh! dear me, I’m so glad to know that. Fogarty, bring another bottle.
We’ve heaps of it in the cellar at ninety-six shillings a dozen—a top
price. You’ll always get good wine here,” said Mrs. Casey.
“The man who would give his guest bad wine ought to be blown from the
muzzle of a gun,” observed the colonel, plunging at the jelly.
This came strangely from an individual who, whenever he gave a visitor
a drink, gave it of a liquor warranted to kill at fifty yards. Young
Bangs, of the Tenth, whose father instructed him to visit Bowdler, was
laid up for an entire week after a teaspoonful of the colonel’s tap.
The second bottle of champagne appeared.
“Ye’d betther open this combusticle yerself, gineral,” suggested
Fogarty; “an mind ye hould on to the cork, or it ‘ill give ye the slip
as shure as there’s a bill on a crow.”
“I must introduce your dear daughter here to the Dayrolles,” exclaimed
Mrs. Bowdler, “and to the Fitzmaurices. You will like Lady Fitzmaurice,
Miss Casey, and I _know_ she will like _you_.”
“Do you hear that, Matilda? Now, won’t ye play for Mrs. Colonel
Bowdler?”
“I’m a very poor player,” simpered Matilda.
Nevertheless, she proceeded to the piano and dashed off a _morceau_ of
Chopin with considerable vigor, during which the colonel improved the
occasion by pocketing a bunch of grapes and a good-sized cut of
seed-cake.
“_Bravissima!_” he cried, as if in rapture. “Lord St. Lawrence must
hear that, Jemima; we must try and get him to name a night.”
“We can reckon on Lady Howth.”
“Certainly. She’s always too glad to be asked.”
“And the Powerscourts?”
“By the way, that reminds me: we owe a visit at Powerscourt, do we
not?”
“I can’t say, colonel, until I look at my list. We have such an
enormous visiting list, Mrs. Casey,” turning to that lady, who was
nearly caught in a feeble attempt at winking at her daughter, in order
to beget that young person’s special attention to the delightful
conversation going on between the visitors, and who was perfectly
overwhelmed with dismay and apprehension lest she should have been
perceived. “I put my engagements down alphabetically, and—he! he!
he!—I’m so glad to think that _you_ are so high on our list.”
The Bowdlers took their departure, after having promised to dine in
Merrion Street on the following day.
“To-morrow will be Thursday, and we dine with the Commander of the
Forces. Friday we dine at Lord Newry’s.”
“Never mind, my dear,” interposed the colonel, “I’ll come _here_. I’m
heartily sick of those fearfully ceremonious banquets; besides,” he
added, “we are not asked here every day, and Newry or Strathnairn will
be glad to get us when they can.”
When Mickey Casey returned that evening from his office he found his
wife and daughter in ecstasies over their newly-made acquaintances.
There were no words in the English language sufficiently strong to
convey a tithe of the admiration they entertained for them. Such
elegance, such urbanity, such distinguished manners, such amiability!
“I’m going to the Twelfth ball,” cried Matilda, “and to be introduced
to Lady Fitzmaurice and the Dayrolles, and dear Mrs. Bowdler is going
to give a party for me, and to ask Lady Howth and Lord St. Lawrence and
Lord Powerscourt all to hear me play. What _shall_ I play? I must begin
to practise at once. I’ll go to Pigott’s to-morrow for something
new—_the_ newest thing—and I’ll get Mrs. Joseph Robinson to give me six
lessons.”
“I’ve asked them to dinner here,” said Mrs. Casey; “and only to think,
Mick, I—”
“I _do_ wish you’d say Mr. Casey, or at all events Michael, mamma,”
burst in Matilda. “You see how _dear_ Mrs. Bowdler addressed her
husband. You’ll find it much more genteel.”
“Whatever you say, me darling. Well, _Mister_ Casey—oh! I can’t do that
after Micking him for twenty years,” she cried. “Well, Mick, what do
you think, but the colonel gave up a dinner at the Commander of the
Forces’ to come to us on Thursday.”
“Thursday, did ye say, Mary?”
“Yes.”
“That’s awkward; that’s to-morrow, and your brother Tim Rooney comes up
in the morning to stop for a month.”
Mrs. Casey glanced timidly at her daughter, who gave a little shriek.
“It will never do, mamma. Uncle Timothy is too rough, too vulgar, and
too careless of what he says and does, to meet Colonel and Mrs.
Bowdler. It would destroy us at once. You must telegraph him, papa, not
to come till Friday or Saturday.”
“I can’t, me honey, for he started this morning; and may be it’s in
Tullamore he is while I’d be wiring to Inchanappa.”
Matilda clasped her hands in a sort of mute despair.
“He _cannot_ dine at this table to-morrow,” she cried. “I’d rather put
off the Bowdlers, first.”
“Suppose ye give him an early dinner and plenty of liquor, and send him
with Fogarty to the play.”
“We will want Fogarty, papa. His livery opening the door looks very
genteel.”
“It won’t do to insult him. Tim has twenty thousand pounds, and you’re
his god-daughter, me darling,” said Casey.
“I wonder, if we told him that these people were very ceremonious and
very grand, if he’d consent to dine alone,” suggested Matilda.
“That would only rouse Tim, my pet,” observed Mrs. Casey. “He’d just
come in on purpose then, and if he got a sup in there would be no
holding him.”
“What _is_ to be done?” cried Matilda, starting from her chair and
pacing the floor with long and hasty strides.
At this moment a short, sharp double knock was heard at the hall-door.
“That’s Tim,” groaned Mrs. Casey.
“A telegraph!” roared Fogarty, bursting into the room as if a human
life depended upon his celerity.
“Yer in luck, Matilda, my pet; it’s from your uncle. Read it.”
It ran thus:
“_From Tim Rooney, ‘The Ram’s Tail,’ Inchanappa, County
Tipperary, to Mickey Casey, 190 Merrion Street, Dublin_:
“I can’t stir for a couple of days. I have to bolus a horse,
and Phil Dempsey is after drinking a cow on me, the
blackguard!”
“What a relief!” cried Matilda Casey, throwing herself into an
easy-chair.
The dinner at 190 was supplied by Murphy, of Clare Street, the Gunter,
the Delmonico of Dublin.
“I don’t care a farden about the price,” said Mickey to the smiling
caterer. “I want it done tip-top, and let the ongtrays be something
quite out of the common; for Colonel and Mrs. Colonel Bowdler are to
dine with us, and me wife is very anxious to have everything spiffy.”
Mrs. Casey was in a fever of preparation the livelong day, washing
glasses, getting out wine, laying the table, while Matilda with her own
fair hands fitted up the _épergne_ with rare hot-house plants and
crystallized fruits.
“Papa will take Mrs. Colonel Bowdler in to dinner, and Colonel Bowdler
will take you, mamma.”
“Oh! no, me pet; I’d rather he’d take you.”
“But it’s not etiquette.”
“Oh! bother etiquette,” exclaimed Mrs. Casey, wiping her face in a
napkin.
“It’s all very fine to say bother etiquette; but if we do not show it
now, what will Colonel and Mrs. Colonel Bowdler think of us?”
The appalling consequences attendant upon her refusal to be led to the
banquet by the gallant colonel smote the mind of Mrs. Casey with such
considerable force that she at once assented to the proposal, lauding
her daughter’s foresight to the very skies.
“You’re a wonderful child, dear; ‘pon me word, you think of
everything.”
“The colonel will sit here, and I’ll put this bouquet opposite his
chair with the menoo card; and Mrs. Bowdler will sit here, Fogarty,”
addressing Luke, who was standing by with a portion of harness about
his neck. “Take care that Colonel Bowdler gets enough of champagne.”
“Be me faix, thin, Miss Matilda, ye’d betther lave out a dozen anyhow,
for he lapped it up yistherda like wather,” replied that functionary
with a broad grin.
“And see that Mrs. Colonel Bowdler’s glass is always full.”
“I’m thinkin’ she’ll see to that herself wudout thrubblin’ me,”
muttered Fogarty.
“Ask Colonel Bowdler if he’ll take sherry or Madeira with his soup.”
“To be sure he will, miss.”
“I say ask him which he’ll take.”
“I’ll make bould to say he’ll take the both o’ thim,” grinned Fogarty,
who, with that quick perception characteristic of his race, had already
“measured his man.”
“Be very particular about the ongtray.”
“I will, miss, an’ the tay-thray too.”
“And above all things keep sober, Fogarty.”
“He’s a teetotaler,” chimed in Mrs. Casey. “Aren’t ye a teetotaler,
Luke?”
There was a comical expression upon Luke’s face as he stoutly replied:
“I am, ma’am; but _I’m not a bigoted wan_.”
At about four o’clock a note arrived from Mrs. Bowdler.
“Oh! my gracious, I hope there’s no disappointment,” cried Matilda,
turning very pale, while dire apprehension was written in the pallid
features of her mamma.
“I hope not; that would be awful, me pet.”
The note ran thus:
“292 STEPHEN’S GREEN, 3.30 o’clock.
“MY DEAREST MISS CASEY: Our dear friend Major Beamish and his
_charming_ daughter, nearly related to the Beamishes of Cork,
have just written to say that they will dine with us to-day. I
must, therefore, with the MOST _painful reluctance_, ask of you
to allow us to cancel our engagement to you. I cannot tell you
how sincerely this grieves me, but the B.’s, though _very old_
friends, are people of that _haute distinction_ that one cannot
treat as one possibly could wish.
“With kindest regards to your _dear_ mamma, and with united
kind regards from the colonel to all _chez vous_, I am, my
dearest Miss Casey, yours affectionately,
JEMIMA BOWDLER.”
“This is agonizing!” cried Matilda, ready to burst into tears.
“Our lovely dinner!” moaned Mrs. Casey.
“There is some fatality about us.”
“Wan pound five a head without wine, and seventeen and six extra for a
pineapple.”
“Was ever anything so provoking? It’s enough to drive one mad!”
“I suppose Mick must ask in the apprentice to eat the dinner, as we’ve
to pay for it. Such food for to cock up an apprentice with!” sighed
Mrs. Casey.
Miss Casey perused the letter again, and finding P. T. O. in the
corner, turned the page and read a postscript as follows:
“P. S.—The colonel has just come in, and what do you think he
has the audacity to suggest?—that we ask your permission to
bring the Beamishes to your dinner to-day. The colonel has
taken such a fancy to you, _dearest young friend_, that he
treats you as if he had been on intimate terms for years. He
insists upon my writing this, but please to blame _him_ for
this piece of audacity.
J. B.”
Miss Casey’s joy knew no bounds. The Beamishes of Cork, one of the
oldest families in Ireland—such a charming addition to the party. She
would order round the brougham, and drive over to dear Mrs. Colonel
Bowdler’s at once to thank her for such a signal mark of kindness; as
for the colonel, she could have hugged the gallant veteran from sheer
gratitude.
_She_ did not know that the Bowdlers wished to shelve the hungry major
and his daughter in a polite way, and provide them with a sumptuous
repast at the expense of Mickey Casey. Not she, indeed; so she stepped
into her carriage, and having driven, first, round to the caterer’s to
order reinforcements, proceeded to Stephen’s Green, where she was
received by Mrs. Bowdler in a small, dingy front room _minus_ a fire,
although it was late in December and bitterly raw and cold.
Mrs. Bowdler kissed her, and gushed over her, and begged to be excused
for hurrying her away for the tyrant post, as she was compelled to
finish a letter to her _dearest_ friend, the wife of the
governor-general of India. Miss Casey cut short her stay, as in duty
bound, and Mrs. Bowdler ascended to the drawing-room, where three or
four visitors were assembled around a fairly decent fire—one of the
ladies, during the temporary absence of the hostess, having
surreptitiously stirred it up—to whom she imparted the intelligence
that she had just parted from the governess to Mrs. Geoffrey Ponsonby,
whom that aristocratic personage had sent over in the Ponsonby brougham
with a request that she and the colonel would dine in Fitzwilliam Place
upon that day, whereat the visitors declared that Mrs. Geoffrey
Ponsonby was evidently very desirous of Mrs. Bowdler’s company, and
that it was a very remarkable instance of her esteem and regard.
At 6.30, military time, the company arrived, and were ushered into
Mickey Casey’s study in order to uncloak. Major Beamish wore a short
brown wig on the top of a very high, a very bald, and very shiny head.
His eyes were small and watery, and his moustache, greased with a cheap
ointment, lay like a solid cushion of hair beneath a nose with nostrils
as expansive as those of a rocking-horse. He was attired in a faded
suit of evening clothes, his shirt-bosom bearing the indelible imprint
not only of the hand of Time, but of the hand of a reckless laundress,
who hesitated not to use her nails upon the sierras of its coy and
threadbare folds.
Miss Beamish was a gushing maiden of twenty anything, possessed of a
profusion of frizzly fair hair, done in a simple and childlike fashion,
and bound by a fillet of blue ribbon over a vast expanse of forehead.
Her eyes were greenish gray, and not quite free from a suspicion of a
squint. Her nose resembled that of her sire, and her mouth was almost
concealed by her thin and bloodless lips. Her gaunt frame was enveloped
in a gauzy substance over a pink silk, which betrayed the recent
presence of the smoothing-iron. Bog-oak ornaments rattled around her
neck, at her ears, and upon her lean and sinewy arms.
“Colonel an’ Missis Bowhowdler,” roared Fogarty, as the guests entered
the drawing-room. “Major an’ Missis Baymish.”
“Miss, fellow, Miss,” impatiently cried the major.
“Miss Baymish, I mane,” adding in an undertone: “It’s not but she’s
ould enough and tough enough for to be a missis tin times over.”
“This is _so_ good of you,” said Matilda, shaking hands all round, “and
_so_ good of _dear_ Mrs. Bowdler to give us the pleasure of having
you.”
“Monstrous fine gal. Right good quarters,” observed the major to the
colonel, glancing round the room at the superb mirrors, buhl cabinets,
inlaid tables, rich hangings, and furniture upholstered in yellow
satin.
“You might do worse than take this girl. Casey’s good for twenty
thousand,” suggested the colonel.
“If Tibie was once quartered on the enemy I’d enlist again—I would,
sir, by George! I’d take the shilling from that seductive and dangerous
recruiting sergeant, Hymen,” exclaimed the major, wagging one soiled
white glove and posing himself after a gratified and prolonged glance
in the mirror.
“Miss Matilda,” whispered Fogarty, who had just entered, and who was
endeavoring to attract her attention. “Miss Matilda! Miss Tilly!”
“What is it, Fogarty?” asked Miss Casey at length; and upon perceiving
him, “What _is_ it?” she repeated somewhat testily, as Mrs. Bowdler was
engaged in narrating a delightful conversation with the
lady-lieutenant.
“The masther’s clanin’ himself, an’ he wants a lind av yer soap, miss,
as there’s not a screed in the house, be raisin’ av the misthris
washin’ the glass an’ chany wild the rest av it.”
The guests filed down in the order prescribed by Matilda, save that she
fell to the arm of Major Beamish, who overwhelmed her with compliments,
which only lasted until the soup was served, as from that moment his
attention became concentrated upon the delicacies placed before him, on
which he opened so murderous and effective a fire as almost to paralyze
the energies of the ubiquitous and perspiring Fogarty, and the
solicitous attentions of a young lady from the kitchen, whose
stertorous breathing made itself heard above the din and clatter of
knives, forks, and conversation, in a distinct and somewhat alarming
manner.
“Hi! some more soup. Another cut of fish. I’ll try that _entrée_ again.
Let me have that last _entrée_ once more. Some turkey and ham. Why
don’t you look alive with the champagne? A slice of roast
beef—underdone. Some pheasant; ay, I’ll try the woodcock. Jelly, of
course.” And the gallant major kept the servants pretty busily engaged
during the entire repast.
Matilda was in a shimmer of delight. Her darling hopes were being
realized at last, and society was budding for her. A colonel and his
wife, a major and his daughter—why, what higher rank need any person
desire? How friendly, how gracious, and how charmingly they ate and
drank and praised everything! This was life—a life worth living; this
was that delicious glow of which she had read in _Lothair_ and other
novels portraying fashionable existence.
While these rosy thoughts were coursing through her brain a noise was
heard in the direction of the hall, and a man’s voice in tones of angry
expostulation.
“Your servants are quarrelling, Mrs. Casey,” observed Mrs. Bowdler,
holding up her hand to enjoin silence.
“It’s that Luke Fogarty; he can’t keep his fingers off the dishes, and
the girl is—”
At this moment the individual in question burst into the apartment with
an expression as if some fearful catastrophe had just happened.
“What is the matter, Fogarty?” demanded Mrs. Casey, glancing at her
retainer with an inquiring eye.
“We’re bet, ma’am,” responded Fogarty in a half-whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re bet up intirely. Misther Tim has came.”
Mrs. Casey felt as if she would have fainted, while Matilda bit her
lips till the blood came; and as they were still gazing at each other
in the direst consternation, Mr. Timothy Rooney entered the apartment,
clad in a bulgy Ulster that had known fairs and markets and
race-courses for several previous years, a felt hat of an essentially
rakish and vulgar description, his pants shoved into his muddy boots
after the fashion of a Texas ranger, while his hands were swollen and
the color of beet-root.
“Company, be the hokey crikey!” he exclaimed, as he advanced to embrace
the reluctant hostess. “Ah! Mary, ye didn’t expect me,” giving her a
kiss that made the glass drops upon the chandelier jingle again.
“No, we didn’t expect you, Tim,” gasped his sister.
“No, of course not. Shure I sent ye a telegraph that that villyan of a
Phil Dempsey drank me best cow on me—tellin’ ye that—”
“Won’t you take some dinner in your own room?” interposed his niece,
now the color of a peony.
“Come over here and kiss your uncle, ye young rogue. Up-stairs, indeed!
What would I do that for?”
“You are not exactly dressed for dinner.”
“Oh! I’ve a shirt on under this Ulster, and I’ll show a bit of the
bussom, as the man said, never fear. Well, Mickey, me hearty, how goes
it? Put it there,” extending his beet-root fist to his brother-in-law.
“My brother, a regular character, immensely wealthy; obliged to put up
with his ways,” explained Mrs. Casey, while her daughter retired with
Mr. Rooney, with a view to inducing that gentleman to refrain from
again putting in an appearance.
“A very fine, joyous son of the Emerald Isle,” cried the colonel,
helping himself to champagne.
“When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” observed the major, following the
good example of his senior officer, “we had just such a joyous,
devil-may-care fellow in the Tenth. He resided in the bungalow with me,
the compound being in common. One morning, while enjoying
chotohassary—the major aired his Indian experiences and Hindoo
acquirements upon all occasions— I happened to call my kitmagar as well
as my consumar, who was—”
The narrative was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Rooney and his
despairing niece. Tim had given his face what is commonly known as a
“Scotch lick,” causing it to shine again. He was about forty years of
age, rough-looking as a Shetland pony, and a “warm man”—_i.e._, the
possessor of a few thousands in the bank and of a well-to-do,
well-stocked farm.
“I’m tidy enough now, I think; at all events, yer friends will be aisy
on a traveller. Why don’t ye introduce us, Mick? Where are yer
manners?”
He was presented in due form by the abashed Casey, and, after having
shaken hands with all round, commenced a vigorous attack upon a slice
of turbot with his knife, plunging that useful instrument two or three
inches into his mouth at every helping, until Miss Beamish, who was
seated opposite, shuddered with apprehension.
“Is there anything the matter with ye, ma’am?” he demanded, upon
observing a ghastly contraction of the muscles of her face.
“N-nothing,” she stammered.
“Ye haven’t got a pain?”
“Uncle, help yourself to champagne,” shrilly interposed Matilda.
“Pshaw! get me some whiskey, me pet,” adding, as he winked facetiously
upon Mrs. Bowdler, “_champagne is taydious_.”
“By and by, uncle,” said the agonized girl.
“A little drop wouldn’t harm Miss Baymish there, Matty; she looks as
if—”
“Take some more beef, Tim,” put in Mrs. Casey.
“Well, just wan skelp more, Mary. Room for wan inside, as the man
said.”
When the ladies had retired Mr. Rooney stretched his legs beneath the
table and his body on the chair until his chin was nearly on a level
with the table.
“Now, Mickey, in with the hot water, and let the girl put a kettle
under the pump. Are ye fond of sperrits, major?”
“Well, the fact is that spirits don’t agree with me.”
“Oh, then, Mickey Casey has some that will oil the curls of yer wig for
ye.”
“When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” observed the major hastily, “there
happened to be a very rollicking, gay, charming fellow of our mess, who
shared my bungalow with me—the compound being in common. One morning I
was engaged at chotohassary and—”
“What the dickens is chotohassary?”
“Breakfast, Mr. Rooney.”
“I never heard it called by that name before. Go on, you old son of a
gun.”
“Well, sir,” continued the major somewhat stiffly, “I had occasion to
call my kitmagar.”
“Kit who?” asked Tim.
“Kitmagar, one of my servants.”
“An Irishman, of course.”
“No, sir, a Hindoo.”
“Well, this flogs; are ye listening to this, Mickey?” addressing Casey,
who had drawn off the colonel.
“Am I listening to what?” asked the host rather gruffly.
“To this old fogy here.”
“Really, Mr. Rooney—” began the offended major.