IV

In the tiny cornfields the reapers rose from their work to watch the

carriage. Mr. Barton commented on the disturbed state of the country.

Olive asked if Mr. Parnell was good-looking. A railway-bridge was passed

and a pine-wood aglow with the sunset, and a footman stepped down from

the box to open a swinging iron gate.

This was Brookfield. Sheep grazed on the lawn, at the end of which,

beneath some chestnut-trees, was the house. It had been built by the

late Mr. Barton out of a farmhouse, but the present man, having

travelled in Italy and been attracted by the picturesque, had built a

verandah; and for the same reason had insisted on calling his daughter

Olive.

'Oh there, mamma!' cried Olive, looking out of the carriage window; and

the two girls watched their mother, a pretty woman of forty, coming

across the greensward to meet them.

She moved over the greensward in a skirt that seemed a little too

long--a black silk skirt trimmed with jet. As she came forward her

daughters noticed that their mother dyed her hair in places where it

might be suspected of turning grey. It was parted in the middle and she

wore it drawn back over her ears and slightly puffed on either side in

accordance with the fashion that had come in with the Empress Eugenie.

Even in a photograph she was like a last-century beauty sketched by

Romney in pastel--brown, languid, almond-shaped eyes, a thin figure a

little bent. Even in youth it had probably resembled Alice's rather than

Olive's, but neither had inherited her mother's hands--the most

beautiful hands ever seen--and while they trifled with the newly bought

_foulards_ a warbling voice inquired if Olive was sure she was not

tired.

'Five hours in the train! And you, Alice? You must be starving, my dear,

and I'm afraid the saffron buns are cold. Milord brought us over such a

large packet to-day. We must have some heated up. They won't be a

minute.'

'Oh, mamma, I assure you I am not in the least hungry!' cried Olive.

'_La beauté n'a jamais faim, elle se nourrit d'elle même,'_ replied Lord

Dungory, who had just returned from the pleasure-ground whither he had

gone for a little walk with Arthur.

'You will find Milord the same as ever--_toujours galant_; always

thinking of _la beauté, et les femmes_.'

Lord Dungory was the kind of man that is often seen with the Mrs. Barton

type of woman. An elderly beau verging on the sixties, who, like Mrs.

Barton, suggested a period. His period was very early Victorian, but he

no longer wore a silk hat in the country. A high silk hat in Galway

would have called attention to his age, so the difficulty of costume was

ingeniously compromised by a tall felt, a cross between a pot and a

chimney-pot. For collars, a balance had been struck between the

jaw-scrapers of old time and the nearest modern equivalent; and in the

tying of the large cravat there was a reminiscence, but nothing more, of

the past generation.

He had modelled himself, consciously or unconsciously, on Lord

Palmerston, and in the course of conversation one gathered that he was

on terms of intimacy with the chiefs of the Liberal party, such as Lord

Granville and Lord Hartington, and if the listener was credited with any

erudition, allusion was made to the most celebrated artists and authors,

and to their works. There was a celebrated Boucher in Dungory Castle,

which Milord, it was hinted, had bought for some very small sum many

years ago on the Continent; there was also a cabinet by Buhl and a

statue supposed to be a Jean Gougon, and the proofs of their

authenticity were sometimes spoken of after a set dinner-party. His

speech was urbane, and, on all questions of taste, Lord Dungory's

opinion was eagerly sought for. He gave a tone to the ideas put forward

in the surrounding country houses, and it was through him that Mr.

Barton held the title of a genius born out of due time. If Arthur, he

said, had lived two centuries ago, when the gift of imagination was

considered indispensable in the artist, he would have achieved high

distinction. His subjects--_The Bridal of Triermain_ and _Julius Cæsar

overturning the Altars of the Druids_--would have been envied, perhaps

stolen, by the Venetian painters. And this tribute to Arthur's genius,

so generously expressed, enabled him to maintain the amenities of his

life at Brookfield. He never forgot to knock at Arthur's studio-door,

and the moment his eyes fell on a new composition, he spoke of it with

respect; and he never failed to allude to it at lunch. He lunched at

Brookfield every day. At half-past one his carriage was at the door. In

the afternoons he went out to drive with Mrs. Barton or sat in the

drawing-room with her. Four times in the week he remained to dinner, and

did not return home until close on midnight.

Whether he ever made any return to Mrs. Barton for her hospitalities,

and, if so, in what form he repaid his obligations to her, was, when

friends drew together, a favourite topic of conversation in the county

of Galway. It had been remarked that the Bartons never dined at Dungory

Castle except on state occasions; and it was well-known that the Ladies

Cullen hated Mrs. Barton with a hatred as venomous as the poison hid in

the fangs of adders.

But Lord Dungory knew how to charm his tame snakes. For fortune they had

but five thousand pounds each, and, although freedom and a London

lodging were often dreamed of, the flesh-pots of Dungory Castle

continued to be purchased at the price of smiles and civil words

exchanged with Mrs. Barton. Besides, as they grew old and ugly, the

Ladies Cullen had developed an inordinate passion for the conversion of

souls. They had started a school of their own in opposition to the

National school, which was under the direction of the priest, and to

persuade the peasants to read the Bible and to eat bacon on Friday, were

good works that could not be undertaken without funds; and these were

obtained, it was said, by the visits of the Ladies Cullen to Brookfield.

Mrs. Gould declared she could estimate to a fraction the prosperity of

Protestantism in the parish by the bows these ladies exchanged with Mrs.

Barton when their carriages crossed on the roads.

'Here are the saffron buns at last, my dear children;' and Mrs. Barton

pressed them upon her girls, saying that Milord had brought them from

Dungory Castle especially for them. 'Take a bottom piece, Olive, and

Alice, you really must. . . Well, if you won't eat, tell Milord about your

play of King Cophetua and the beggar-maid. Arthur, tell me, how did you

like the play, and how did the nuns like it? To think of my daughter, so

prim and demure, writing a play, and on such a subject.'

'But, mamma, what is there odd in the subject? We all know the old

ballad.'

'Yes, we all know the ballad,' Arthur answered; 'I sing stanzas of it to

the guitar myself.' He began to chant to himself, and Mrs. Barton

listened, her face slanted in the pose of the picture of Lady Hamilton;

and Milord rejoiced in the interlude, for it gave him opportunity to

meditate. Anna (Mrs. Barton) seemed to him more charming and attractive

than he had ever seen her, as she sat in the quiet shadow of the

verandah: beyond the verandah, behind her, the autumn sunshine fell

across the shelving meadows. A quiet harmony reigned over Brookfield.

The rooks came flapping home through the sunlight, and when Arthur had

ceased humming Mrs. Barton said:

'And now, my dear children, if you have finished your tea, come, and I

will show you your room.'

She did not leave the verandah, however, without paying a pretty

compliment to Milord, one that set him thinking how miserable his life

would have been with his three disagreeable daughters if he had not

fallen in with this enchantment. He remembered that it had lasted for

nearly twenty years, and it was as potent as ever. In what did it

consist, he asked himself. He sometimes thought her laughter too

abundant, sometimes it verged on merriment. He did not like to think of

Anna as a merry woman; he preferred to think that wherever she went she

brought happiness with her. He had known her sad, but never melancholy,

for she was never without a smile even when she was melancholy.

Awakening from his reverie he drew his chair closer to Arthur's, and,

with a certain parade of interest, asked him if he had been to the

Academy.

'Did you see anything, Arthur, that in design approached your picture of

_Julius Cæsar Overturning the Altars of the Druids_?'

'There were some beautiful bits of painting there,' replied Arthur,

whose modesty forbade him to answer the question directly. 'I saw some

lovely landscapes, and there were some babies' frocks,' he added

satirically. 'In one of these pictures I saw a rattle painted to

perfection.'

'Ah, yes, yes! You don't like the pettiness of family feeling dragged

into art; but if you only condescend to take a little more notice of the

craft--the craft is, after all--'

'I am carried along too rapidly by my feelings. I feel that I must get

my idea on canvas. But when I was in London I saw such a lovely

woman--one of the most exquisite creatures possible to imagine! Oh, so

sweet, and so feminine! I have it all in my head. I shall do something

like her to-morrow.'

Here he began to sketch with his stick in the dust, and from his face it

might be judged he was satisfied with the invisible result. At last he

said:

'You needn't say anything about it, but she sent me some songs, with

accompaniments written for the guitar. You shall hear some of the songs

to-night. . . . Ah, there is the dinner-bell!'

Olive was placed next to Milord, and the compliments paid to her by the

old courtier delighted her. She pretended to understand when he said:

'_La femme est comme une ombre: si vous la suives, elle vous fuit; si

vous fuyez, elle vous poursuit_.' A little later the champagne she had

drunk set her laughing hysterically, and she begged him to translate (he

had just whispered to her mother, '_L'amour est la conscience du plaisir

donné et reçu, la certitude de donner et de recevoir_'); and he would

have complied with her request, but Mrs. Barton forbade him. Alice, who

had understood, found herself obliged to say that she had not

understood, which little fib begot a little annoyance in her against her

mother; and Milord, as if he thought that he had been guilty of a slight

indiscretion, said, addressing himself to both girls: '_Gardez bien vos

illusions, mon enfant, car les illusions sont le miroir de l'amour.'_

'Ah! _mais il ne faut pas couvrir trop l'abîme avec des fleurs_,' said

Mrs. Barton, as a sailor from his point of vantage might cry, 'Rocks

ahead!'

Arthur only joined occasionally in the conversation; he gazed long and

ardently on his daughter, and then sketched with his thumb-nail on the

cloth, and when they arose from the table, Mrs. Barton said:

'Now, now, I am not going to allow you gentlemen to spend any more time

over your wine. This is our first evening together; come into the

drawing-room with us, and we shall have some music.'

Like most men of an unevenly balanced mind, Arthur loved an eccentric

costume, and soon after he appeared in a long-tasselled cap and a

strangely coloured smoking jacket; he wore a pair of high-heeled

brocaded slippers, and, twanging a guitar, hummed to himself

plaintively. Then, when he thought he had been sufficiently admired, he

sang _A che la morte, Il Balen_, and several other Italian airs, in

which frequent allusion was made to the inconstancy of woman's and the

truth of man's affection. At every pause in the music these sentiments

were laughingly contested by Mrs. Barton. She appealed to Milord. He

never had had anything to complain of. Was it not well known that the

poor woman had been only too true to him? Finally, it was arranged there

should be a little dancing.

As Mrs. Barton said, it was of great importance to know if Olive knew

the right step, and who could put her up to all the latest fashions as

well as Milord? The old gentleman replied in French, and settled his

waistcoat, fearing the garment was doing him an injustice.

'But who is to play?' asked the poetical-looking Arthur, who, on the

highest point of the sofa, hummed and tuned his guitar after true

troubadour fashion.

'Alice will play us a waltz,' said Mrs. Barton winningly.

'Oh yes, Alice dear, play us a waltz,' cried Olive.

'You know how stupid I am; I can't play a note without my music, and it

is all locked up in my trunk upstairs.'

'It won't take you a minute to get it out,' said Mrs. Barton; and

moving, as if she were on wheels, towards her daughter, she whispered:

'Do as I tell you--run upstairs at once and get your music.'

She looked questioningly at her mother and hesitated. But Mrs. Barton

had a way of compelling obedience, and the girl went upstairs, to return

soon after with a roll of music. At the best of times she had little

love of the art, but now, sick with disappointment, and weary from a

long railway journey, to spell through the rhythm of the _My Queen

Waltz_ and the jangle of _L'Esprit Français_ was to her an odious and,

when the object of it was considered, an abominable duty to perform. She

had to keep her whole attention fixed on the page before her, but when

she raised her eyes the picture she saw engraved itself on her mind. It

was a long time before she could forget Olive's blond, cameo-like

profile seen leaning over the old beau's fat shoulder. Mrs. Barton

laughed and laughed again, declaring the while that it was _la grâce et

la beauté réunies._ Mr. Barton shouted and twanged in measure, the

excitement gaining on him until he rushed at his wife, and, seizing her

round the waist, whirled her and whirled her, holding his guitar above

her head. At last they bumped against Milord, and shot the old man and

his burden on to the nearest sofa. Then Alice, who thought her mission

at the piano was over, rose to go, but Mrs. Barton ordered her to resume

her seat, and the dancing was continued till the carriage came up the

gravel sweep to fetch Milord away. This was generally about half-past

eleven, and as he muffled himself up in overcoats, the girls were told

to cram his pockets with cigarettes and bon-bons.

'Bedad, I think it is revolvers and policemen you ought to be givin' me,

not swatemates,' he said, affecting a brogue.

'Oh yes, is it not dreadful?' exclaimed Mrs. Barton. 'I don't know what

we shall do if the Government don't put down the Land League; we shall

all be shot in our beds some night. Did you hear of that murder the

other day?'

'And it is said there will be no rents collected this year,' said Mr.

Barton, as he tightened one of the strings of his guitar.

'Oh, do cease that noise!' said Mrs. Barton. 'And tell me, Lord Dungory,

will the Government refuse us soldiers and police to put the people

out?'

'If we go to the Castle, we shall want more money to buy dresses,' said

Olive.

'_La mer a toujours son écume pour habiller ses déesses,'_ replied

Milord; and he got into his carriage amid pearly peals of laughter from

Mrs. Barton, intermingled with a few high notes from Olive, who had

already taken to mimicking her mother.

V

Mr. Barton, or Arthur, as he was usually called, always returned to his

studio immediately after breakfast, and, as Mrs. Barton had domestic

duties to attend to, the girls were left to themselves to appreciate

their return home from school and look forward to their entry into the

life of the world.

The two girls descended the stairs with their summer hats and sunshades,

and Alice stopped at the door of the schoolroom. It was here that, only

a few years ago, she had interceded with the dear old governess, and

aided Olive to master the difficulties against which the light brain

could not contend singly--the hardships of striving to recall the number

of continents the world possesses, the impossibility of learning to say

definitely if seven times four made twenty-eight or thirty.

At the end of the passage under the stairs the children used to play for

hours, building strange houses out of boxes of bricks, or dressing dolls

in fantastic costumes. Olive had forgotten, but Alice remembered, and

her thoughts wandered through the land of toys. The box of bricks had

come from an aunt that was now dead; the big doll mother had brought

from Dublin when she went to see the oculist about her eyes; and then

there were other toys that suggested nothing, and whose history was

entirely forgotten. But the clock that stood in the passage was well

remembered, and Alice thought how this old-fashioned timepiece used to

be the regulator and confidant of all their joys and hopes. She saw

herself again listening, amid her sums, for the welcome voice that would

call her away; she saw herself again examining its grave face and

striving to calculate, with childish eagerness, if she would have time

to build another Tower of Babel or put another tack in the doll's frock

before the ruthless iron tongue struck the fatal hour.

'Olive, is it possible you don't remember how we used to listen to the

dear old clock when we were children?'

'You are a funny girl, Alice; you remember everything. Fancy thinking of

that old clock! I hated it, for it brought me to lessons when it struck

eleven.'

'Yes, but it brought you out to play when it struck twelve. See! the

hands are just on the hour; let us wait to hear it strike.'

The girls listened vainly for a sound; and Alice felt as if she had been

apprised of the loss of a tried friend when one of the servants told

them the clock had been broken some years ago.

The kitchen windows looked on a street made by a line of buildings

parallel with the house. These were the stables and outhouses, and they

formed one of the walls of the garden that lay behind, sheltered on the

north side by a thin curtain of beeches, filled every evening with noisy

rooks; and, coming round to the front of the house, the girls lingered

beneath the chestnut-trees, and in the rosary, where a little fountain

played when visitors were present, and then stood leaning over the

wooden paling that defended the pleasure-ground from the cows that

grazed in the generous expanse of grass extending up to the trees of the

Lawler domain. Brookfield was therefore without pretensions--it could

hardly be called 'a place'--but, manifolded in dreams past and present,

it extended indefinitely before Alice's eyes, and, absorbed by the sad

sweetness of retrospection, she lingered while Olive ran through the

rosary from the stables and back again, calling to her sister, making

the sunlight ring with her light laughter. She refrained, therefore,

from reminding her that it was here they used to play with Nell, the old

setter, and that it was there they gave bread to the blind beggar; Olive

had no heart for these things, and when she admired the sleek

carriage-horses that had lately been bought to take them to balls and

tennis-parties, Alice thought of the old brown mare that used to take

them for such delightful drives.

Suddenly Mrs. Barton's voice was heard calling. Milord had arrived: they

were to go into the garden and pick a few flowers to make a buttonhole

for him. Olive darted off at once to execute the commission, and soon

returned with a rose set round with stephanotis. The old lord, seated in

the dining-room, in an arm-chair which Mrs. Barton had drawn up to the

window so that he might enjoy the air, sipped his sherry, and Alice, as

she entered the room, heard him say:

'_Quand on aime on est toujours bien portant_.'

She stopped abruptly, and Mrs. Barton, who already suspected her of

secret criticism, whispered, as she glided across the room:

'Now, my dear girl, go and talk to Milord and make yourself agreeable.'

The girl felt she was incapable of this, and it pained her to listen to

her sister's facile hilarity, and her mother's coaxing observations.

Milord did not, however, neglect her; he made suitable remarks

concerning her school successes, and asked appropriate questions anent

her little play of _King Cophetua_. But whatever interest the subject

possessed was found in the fact that Olive had taken the part of the

Princess; and, re-arranging the story a little, Mrs. Barton declared,

with a shower of little laughs, and many waves of the white hands, that

'my lady there had refused a King; a nice beginning, indeed, and a

pleasant future for her chaperon.'

The few books the house possessed lay on the drawing-room table, or were

piled, in dusty confusion, in the bookcase in Mr. Barton's studio; and,

thinking of them, Alice determined she would pay her father a visit in

his studio.