XXIX

At Brookfield on the morning of December 3, '84, the rain fell

persistently in the midst of a profound silence. The trees stood stark

in the grey air as if petrified; there was not wind enough to waft the

falling leaf; it fell straight as if shotted.

Not a living thing was to be seen except the wet sheep, nor did anything

stir either within or without till an outside car, one seat overturned

to save the cushions from the wet, came careering up the avenue. There

was a shaggy horse and a wild-looking driver in a long, shaggy frieze

ulster. Even now, at the last moment, Alice expected the drawing-room

door to open and her mother to come rushing out to wish her good-bye.

But Mrs. Barton remained implacable, and after laying one more kiss on

her sister's pale cheek, Alice, in a passionate flood of tears, was

driven away.

In streaming mackintoshes, and leaning on dripping umbrellas, she found

her husband, and Gladys and Zoe Brennan, waiting for her in the porch of

the church.

'Did you ever see such weather?' said Zoe.

'Isn't it dreadful!' said Gladys.

'It was good of you to come,' said Alice.

'It was indeed!' said the bridegroom.

'What nonsense!' said Zoe. 'We were only too pleased; and if to-day be

wet, to-morrow and the next and the next will be sunshine.

And thanking Zoe inwardly for this most appropriate remark, the party

ascended the church toward the altar-rails, where Father Shannon was

awaiting them. Large, pompous, and arrogant, he stood on his

altar-steps, and his hands were crossed over his portly stomach. On

either side of him the plaster angels bowed their heads and folded their

wings. Above him the great chancel window, with its panes of green and

yellow glass, jarred in an unutterable clash of colour; and the great

white stare of the chalky walls, and the earthen floor with its tub of

holy water, and the German prints absurdly representing the suffering of

Christ, bespoke the primitive belief, the coarse superstition, of which

the place was an immediate symbol. Alice and the doctor looked at each

other and smiled, but their thoughts were too firmly fixed on the actual

problem of their united lives to wander far in the most hidden ways of

the old world's psychical extravagances. What did it matter to them what

absurd usages the place they were in was put to?--they, at least, were

only making use of it as they might of any other public office--the

police-station, where inquiries are made concerning parcels left in

cabs; the Commissioner before whom an affidavit is made. And it served

its purpose as well as any of the others did theirs. The priest joined

their hands, Edward put the ring on Alice's finger, and the usual

prayers did no harm if they did no good; and having signed their names

in the register and bid good-bye to the Miss Brennans, they got into the

carriage, man and wife, their feet set for ever upon one path, their

interests and delights melted to one interest and one delight, their

separate troubles merged into one trouble that might or might not be

made lighter by the sharing; and penetrated by such thoughts they leaned

back on the blue cushions of the carriage, happy, and yet a little

frightened.

Rather than pass three hours waiting for a train at the little station

of Ardrahan, it had been arranged to spend the time driving to Athenry;

and, as the carriage rolled through the deliquefying country, the eyes

of the man and the woman rested half fondly, half regretfully, and

wholly pitifully, on all the familiar signs and the wild landmarks which

during so many years had grown into and become part of the texture of

their habitual thought; on things of which they would now have to wholly

divest themselves, and remember only as the background of their younger

lives. Through the streaming glass they could see the strip of bog; and

the half-naked woman, her soaked petticoat clinging about her red legs,

piling the wet peat into the baskets thrown across the meagre back of a

starveling ass. And farther on there were low-lying, swampy fields, and

between them and the roadside a few miserable poplars with cabins sunk

below the dung-heaps, and the meagre potato-plots lying about them; and

then, as these are passed, there are green enclosures full of fattening

kine, and here and there a dismantled cottage, one wall still black with

the chimney's smoke, uttering to those who know the country a tale of

eviction. Beyond these, beautiful plantations sweep along the crests of

the hills, the pillars of a Georgian house showing at the end of a

vista. The carriage turned up a narrow road, and our travellers came

upon a dozen policemen grouped round a roadside cottage, out of which

the furniture had just been thrown. The family had taken shelter from

the rain under a hawthorn-tree, and the agents were consulting with

their bailiffs if it would not be as well to throw down the walls of the

cottage.

'If we don't,' one of the men said, 'they will be back again as soon as

our backs are turned, and our work will have to be begun all over

again.'

'Shocking,' Alice said, 'that an eviction scene should be our last

glimpse of Ireland. Let us pay the rent for them, Edward,' and as she

spoke the words the thought passed through her mind that her almsgiving

was only another form of selfishness. She wished her departure to be

associated with an act of kindness. She would have withdrawn her

request, but Edward's hand was in his pocket and he was asking the agent

how much the rent was. Five years' rent was owing--more than the

travellers had in their purses.

'It is well that we cannot assist them to remain here,' said Edward.

'Circumstances are different, and they will harden; none is of use here.

Of what use--'

'You believe, then, that this misery will last for ever?'

'Nothing lasts in Ireland but the priests. And now let us forget

Ireland, as many have done before us.'

* * * * *

Two years and a half have passed away, and the suburban home predicted

by May, when she came to bid Alice a last good-bye, arises before the

reader in all its yellow paint and homely vulgarity. In this suburb we

find the ten-roomed house with all its special characteristics--a

dining-room window looking upon a commodious area with dust and coal

holes. The drawing-room has two windows, and the slender balcony is

generally set with flower-boxes. Above that come the two windows of the

best bedroom belonging to Mr. and Mrs., and above that again the windows

of two small rooms, respectively inhabited by the eldest son and

daughter; and these are topped by the mock-Elizabethan gable which

enframes the tiny window of a servant's room. Each house has a pair of

trim stone pillars, the crude green of the Venetian blinds jars the

cultured eye, and even the tender green of the foliage in the crescent

seems as cheap and as common as if it had been bought--as everything

else is in Ashbourne Crescent--at the Stores. But how much does this

crescent of shrubs mean to the neighbourhood? Is it not there that the

old ladies take their pugs for their constitutional walks, and is it not

there that the young ladies play tennis with their gentleman

acquaintances when they come home from the City on a Saturday afternoon?

In Ashbourne Crescent there is neither Dissent nor Radicalism, but

general aversion to all considerations which might disturb belief in all

the routine of existence, in all its temporal and spiritual aspects, as

it had come amongst them. The fathers and the brothers go to the City

every day at nine, the young ladies play tennis, read novels, and beg to

be taken to dances at the Kensington Town Hall. On Sunday the air is

alive with the clanging of bells, and in orderly procession every family

proceeds to church, the fathers in all the gravity of umbrellas and

prayer-books, the matrons in silk mantles and clumsy ready-made elastic

sides; the girls in all the gaiety of their summer dresses with lively

bustles bobbing, the young men in frock-coats which show off their broad

shoulders--from time to time they pull their tawny moustaches. Each

house keeps a cook and housemaid, and on Sunday afternoons, when the

skies are flushed with sunset and the outlines of this human warren grow

harshly distinct--black lines upon pale red--these are seen walking

arm-in-arm away towards a distant park with their young men.

Ashbourne Crescent, with its bright brass knockers, its white-capped

maid-servant, and spotless oilcloths, will pass away before some great

tide of revolution that is now gathering strength far away, deep down

and out of sight in the heart of the nation, is probable enough; but for

the moment it is, in all its cheapness and vulgarity, more than anything

else representative, though the length and breadth of the land be

searched, of the genius of Empire that has been glorious through the

long tale that nine hundred years have to tell. Ashbourne Crescent may

possibly soon be replaced by something better, but at present it

commands our admiration, for it is, more than all else, typical England.

Neither ideas nor much lucidity will be found there, but much belief in

the wisdom shown in the present ordering of things, and much plain sense

and much honesty of purpose. Certainly, if your quest be for hectic

emotion and passionate impulses, you would do well to turn your steps

aside; you will not find them in Ashbourne Crescent. There life flows

monotonously, perhaps sometimes even a little moodily, but it is built

upon a basis of honest materialism--that materialism without which the

world cannot live. And No. 31 differs a little from the rest of the

houses. The paint on its walls is fresher, and there are no flowers on

its balcony: the hall-door has three bells instead of the usual two, and

there is a brass plate with 'Dr. Reed' engraved upon it. The cook is

talking through the area-railings to the butcher-boy; a smart

parlourmaid opens the door, and we see that the interior is as orderly,

commonplace, and clean as we might expect at every house in the

crescent. The floorcloths are irreproachable, the marble-painted walls

are unadorned with a single picture. On the right is the dining-room, a

mahogany table bought for five pounds in the Tottenham Court Road, a

dozen chairs to match, a sideboard and a small table; green-painted

walls decorated with two engravings, one of Frith's 'Railway Station,'

the other of Guido's 'Fortune.' Further down the passage leading to the

kitchen-stairs there is a second room: this is the Doctor's

consulting-room. A small bookcase filled with serious-looking volumes, a

mahogany escritoire strewn with papers, letters, memoranda of all sorts.

The floor is covered with a bright Brussels carpet; there are two

leather armchairs, and a portrait of an admiral hangs over the

fireplace.

Let us go upstairs. How bright and clean are the high marble-painted

walls! and on the first landing there is a large cheaply coloured

window. The drawing-room is a double room, not divided by curtains but

by stiff folding-doors. The furniture is in red, and the heavy curtains

that drape the windows fall from gilt cornices. In the middle of the

floor there is a settee (probably a reminiscence of the Shelbourne

Hotel); and on either side of the fireplace there are sofas, and about

the hearthrug many arm-chairs to match with the rest. Above the

chimneypiece there is a gilt oval mirror, worth ten pounds. The second

room is Alice's study; it is there she writes her novels. A table in

black wood with a pile of MSS. neatly fastened together stands in one

corner; there is a bookcase just behind; its shelves are furnished with

imaginative literature, such as Shelley's poems, Wordsworth's poems,

Keats' poems. There are also handsome editions of Tennyson and Browning,

presents from Dr. Reed to his wife. You see a little higher up the shelf

a thin volume, Swinburne's _Atalanta in Calydon_, and next to it is

Walter Pater's _Renaissance_--studies in art and poetry. There are also

many volumes in yellow covers, evidently French novels.

The character of the house is therefore essentially provincial, and

shows that its occupants have not always lived amid the complex

influences of London life--viz., is not even suburban. Nevertheless,

here and there traces of new artistic impulses are seen. On the

mantelpiece in the larger room there are two large blue vases; on a

small table stands a pot in yellow porcelain, evidently from Morris's;

and on the walls there are engravings from Burne Jones. Every Thursday

afternoon numbers of ladies, all of whom write novels, assemble here to

drink tea and talk of their work.

It is now eleven o'clock in the morning. Alice enters her drawing-room.

You see her: a tall, spare woman with kind eyes, who carries her arms

stiffly. She has just finished her housekeeping, she puts down her

basket of keys, and with all the beautiful movement of the young mother

she takes up the crawling mass of white frock, kisses her son and

settles his blue sash. And when she has talked to him for a few minutes

she rings the bell for nurse; then she sits down to write. As usual, her

pen runs on without a perceptible pause. Words come to her easily, but

she has not finished the opening paragraph of the article she is writing

when the sound of rapid footsteps attracts her attention, and Olive

bursts into the room.

'Oh, Alice, how do you do? I couldn't stop at home any longer, I am sick

of it.'

'Couldn't stop at home any longer, Olive; what do you mean?'

'If you won't take me in, say so, and I'll go.'

'My dear Olive, I shall be delighted to have you with me; but why can't

you stop at home any longer--surely there is no harm in my asking?'

'Oh, I don't know; don't ask me; I am so miserable at home; I can't tell

you how unhappy I am. I know I shall never be married, and the perpetual

trying to make up matches is sickening. Mamma will insist on riches,

position, and all that sort of thing--those kind of men don't want to

get married--I am sick of going out; I won't go out any more. We never

missed a tennis-party last year; we used to go sometimes ten miles to

them, so eager was mamma after Captain Gibbon, and it did not come off;

and then the whole country laughs.'

'And who is Captain Gibbon? I never heard of him before.'

'No, you don't know him: he was not in Galway in your time.'

'And Captain Hibbert! Have you heard from him since he went out to

India?'

'Yes, once; he wrote to me to say that he hoped to see me when he came

home.'

'And when will that be?'

'Oh, I don't know; when people go out to India one never expects to see

them again.'

Seeing how sore the wound was, Alice did not attempt to probe it, but

strove rather to lead Olive's thoughts away from it, and gradually the

sisters lapsed into talking of their acquaintances and friends, and of

how life had dealt with them.

'And May, what is she doing?'

'She met with a bad accident, and has not been out hunting lately. She

was riding a pounding match with Mrs. Manly across country: May's horse

came to grief at a big wall, and broke several of her ribs. They say she

has given up riding--now she does nothing but paint. You remember how

well she used to paint at school.'

'And the Brennans?'

'Oh, they go up to the Shelbourne every year, but none of them are

married; and I am afraid that they must be very hard up, for their land

is very highly let, and the tenants are paying no rent at all

now--Ireland is worse than ever; we shall all be ruined, and they say

Home Rule is certain. But I am sick of the subject.'

Then the Duffys, the Honourable Miss Gores, and the many other families

of unmarried girls--the poor muslin martyrs, whose sufferings were the

theme of this book, were again passed in review; their failures

sometimes jeeringly alluded to by Olive, but always listened to

pityingly by Alice--and, talking thus of their past life, the sisters

leant over the spring fire that burnt out in the grate. At the end of a

long silence Alice said:

'Well, dear, I hope you have come to live with us, or at any rate to pay

us a long visit.'