O'FLAHERTY. Whisht, sir, for God's sake: here she is.
The General jumps up. Mrs. O'Flaherty arrives and comes between the
two men. She is very clean, and carefully dressed in the old fashioned
peasant costume; black silk sunbonnet with a tiara of trimmings, and
black cloak.
O'FLAHERTY [rising shyly]. Good evening, mother.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [severely]. You hold your whisht, and learn behavior
while I pay my juty to his honor. [To Sir Pearce, heartily.] And how
is your honor's good self? And how is her ladyship and all the young
ladies? Oh, it's right glad we are to see your honor back again and
looking the picture of health.
SIR PEARCE [forcing a note of extreme geniality]. Thank you, Mrs
O'Flaherty. Well, you see we've brought you back your son safe and
sound. I hope you're proud of him.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. And indeed and I am, your honor. It's the brave boy he
is; and why wouldn't he be, brought up on your honor's estate and with
you before his eyes for a pattern of the finest soldier in Ireland.
Come and kiss your old mother, Dinny darlint. [O'Flaherty does so
sheepishly.] That's my own darling boy. And look at your fine new
uniform stained already with the eggs you've been eating and the porter
you've been drinking. [She takes out her handkerchief: spits on it: and
scrubs his lapel with it.] Oh, it's the untidy slovenly one you always
were. There! It won't be seen on the khaki: it's not like the old red
coat that would show up everything that dribbled down on it. [To Sir
Pearce.] And they tell me down at the lodge that her ladyship is
staying in London, and that Miss Agnes is to be married to a fine young
nobleman. Oh, it's your honor that is the lucky and happy father! It
will be bad news for many of the young gentlemen of the quality round
here, sir. There's lots thought she was going to marry young Master
Lawless
SIR PEARCE. What! That--that--that bosthoon!
MRS O'FLAHERTY [hilariously]. Let your honor alone for finding the right
word! A big bosthoon he is indeed, your honor. Oh, to think of the times
and times I have said that Miss Agnes would be my lady as her mother was
before her! Didn't I, Dinny?
SIR PEARCE. And now, Mrs. O'Flaherty, I daresay you have a great deal to
say to Dennis that doesn't concern me. I'll just go in and order tea.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh, why would your honor disturb yourself? Sure I can
take the boy into the yard.
SIR PEARCE. Not at all. It won't disturb me in the least. And he's too
big a boy to be taken into the yard now. He has made a front seat for
himself. Eh? [He goes into the house.]
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Sure he has that, your honor. God bless your honor! [The
General being now out of hearing, she turns threateningly to her
son with one of those sudden Irish changes of manner which amaze and
scandalize less flexible nations, and exclaims.] And what do you mean,
you lying young scald, by telling me you were going to fight agen the
English? Did you take me for a fool that couldn't find out, and the
papers all full of you shaking hands with the English king at Buckingham
Palace?
O'FLAHERTY. I didn't shake hands with him: he shook hands with me. Could
I turn on the man in his own house, before his own wife, with his money
in my pocket and in yours, and throw his civility back in his face?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. You would take the hand of a tyrant red with the blood
of Ireland--
O'FLAHERTY. Arra hold your nonsense, mother: he's not half the tyrant
you are, God help him. His hand was cleaner than mine that had the blood
of his own relations on it, maybe.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [threateningly]. Is that a way to speak to your mother,
you young spalpeen?
O'FLAHERTY [stoutly]. It is so, if you won't talk sense to me. It's a
nice thing for a poor boy to be made much of by kings and queens, and
shook hands with by the heighth of his country's nobility in the capital
cities of the world, and then to come home and be scolded and insulted
by his own mother. I'll fight for who I like; and I'll shake hands with
what kings I like; and if your own son is not good enough for you, you
can go and look for another. Do you mind me now?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. And was it the Belgians learned you such brazen
impudence?
O'FLAHERTY. The Belgians is good men; and the French ought to be more
civil to them, let alone their being half murdered by the Boshes.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Good men is it! Good men! to come over here when they
were wounded because it was a Catholic country, and then to go to the
Protestant Church because it didn't cost them anything, and some of them
to never go near a church at all. That's what you call good men!
O'FLAHERTY. Oh, you're the mighty fine politician, aren't you? Much you
know about Belgians or foreign parts or the world you're living in, God
help you!
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Why wouldn't I know better than you? Amment I your
mother?
O'FLAHERTY. And if you are itself, how can you know what you never seen
as well as me that was dug into the continent of Europe for six months,
and was buried in the earth of it three times with the shells bursting
on the top of me? I tell you I know what I'm about. I have my own
reasons for taking part in this great conflict. I'd be ashamed to stay
at home and not fight when everybody else is fighting.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. If you wanted to fight, why couldn't you fight in the
German army?
O'FLAHERTY. Because they only get a penny a day.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Well, and if they do itself, isn't there the French
army?
O'FLAHERTY. They only get a hapenny a day.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [much dashed]. Oh murder! They must be a mean lot, Dinny.
O'FLAHERTY [sarcastic]. Maybe you'd have me in the Turkish army, and
worship the heathen Mahomet that put a corn in his ear and pretended it
was a message from the heavens when the pigeon come to pick it out and
eat it. I went where I could get the biggest allowance for you; and
little thanks I get for it!
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Allowance, is it! Do you know what the thieving
blackguards did on me? They came to me and they says, "Was your son a
big eater?" they says. "Oh, he was that," says I: "ten shillings a week
wouldn't keep him." Sure I thought the more I said the more they'd give
me. "Then," says they, "that's ten shillings a week off your allowance,"
they says, "because you save that by the king feeding him." "Indeed!"
says I: "I suppose if I'd six sons, you'd stop three pound a week from
me, and make out that I ought to pay you money instead of you paying
me." "There's a fallacy in your argument," they says.
O'FLAHERTY. A what?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. A fallacy: that's the word he said. I says to him, "It's
a Pharisee I'm thinking you mean, sir; but you can keep your dirty money
that your king grudges a poor old widow; and please God the English will
be got yet for the deadly sin of oppressing the poor;" and with that I
shut the door in his face.
O'FLAHERTY [furious]. Do you tell me they knocked ten shillings off you
for my keep?
MRS O'FLAHERTY [soothing him]. No, darlint: they only knocked off half
a crown. I put up with it because I've got the old age pension; and they
know very well I'm only sixty-two; so I've the better of them by half a
crown a week anyhow.
O'FLAHERTY. It's a queer way of doing business. If they'd tell you
straight out what they was going to give you, you wouldn't mind; but if
there was twenty ways of telling the truth and only one way of telling a
lie, the Government would find it out. It's in the nature of governments
to tell lies.
Teresa Driscoll, a parlor maid, comes from the house,
TERESA. You're to come up to the drawing-room to have your tea, Mrs.
O'Flaherty.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Mind you have a sup of good black tea for me in the
kitchen afterwards, acushla. That washy drawing-room tea will give me
the wind if I leave it on my stomach. [She goes into the house, leaving
the two young people alone together.]
O'FLAHERTY. Is that yourself, Tessie? And how are you?
TERESA. Nicely, thank you. And how's yourself?
O'FLAHERTY. Finely, thank God. [He produces a gold chain.] Look what
I've brought you, Tessie.
TERESA [shrinking]. Sure I don't like to touch it, Denny. Did you take
it off a dead man?
O'FLAHERTY. No: I took it off a live one; and thankful he was to me to
be alive and kept a prisoner in ease and comfort, and me left fighting
in peril of my life.
TERESA [taking it]. Do you think it's real gold, Denny?
O'FLAHERTY. It's real German gold, anyhow.
TERESA. But German silver isn't real, Denny.
O'FLAHERTY [his face darkening]. Well, it's the best the Bosh could do
for me, anyhow.
TERESA. Do you think I might take it to the jeweller next market day and
ask him?
O'FLAHERTY [sulkily]. You may take it to the divil if you like.
TERESA. You needn't lose your temper about it. I only thought I'd like
to know. The nice fool I'd look if I went about showing off a chain that
turned out to be only brass!
O'FLAHERTY. I think you might say Thank you.
TERESA. Do you? I think you might have said something more to me than
"Is that yourself?" You couldn't say less to the postman.
O'FLAHERTY [his brow clearing]. Oh, is that what's the matter? Here!
come and take the taste of ther brass out of my mouth. [He seizes her
and kisses her.]
Teresa, without losing her Irish dignity, takes the kiss as
appreciatively as a connoisseur might take a glass of wine, and sits
down with him on the garden seat,
TERESA [as he squeezes her waist]. Thank God the priest can't see us
here!
O'FLAHERTY. It's little they care for priests in France, alanna.
TERESA. And what had the queen on her, Denny, when she spoke to you in
the palace?
O'FLAHERTY. She had a bonnet on without any strings to it. And she had
a plakeen of embroidery down her bosom. And she had her waist where it
used to be, and not where the other ladies had it. And she had little
brooches in her ears, though she hadn't half the jewelry of Mrs Sullivan
that keeps the popshop in Drumpogue. And she dresses her hair down over
her forehead, in a fringe like. And she has an Irish look about her
eyebrows. And she didn't know what to say to me, poor woman! and I
didn't know what to say to her, God help me!
TERESA. You'll have a pension now with the Cross, won't you, Denny?
O'FLAHERTY. Sixpence three farthings a day.
TERESA. That isn't much.
O'FLAHERTY. I take out the rest in glory.
TERESA. And if you're wounded, you'll have a wound pension, won't you?
O'FLAHERTY. I will, please God.
TERESA. You're going out again, aren't you, Denny?
O'FLAHERTY. I can't help myself. I'd be shot for a deserter if I didn't
go; and maybe I'll be shot by the Boshes if I do go; so between the two
of them I'm nicely fixed up.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [calling from within the house]. Tessie! Tessie darlint!
TERESA [disengaging herself from his arm and rising]. I'm wanted for
the tea table. You'll have a pension anyhow, Denny, won't you, whether
you're wounded or not?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Come, child, come.
TERESA [impatiently]. Oh, sure I'm coming. [She tries to smile at Denny,
not very convincingly, and hurries into the house.]
O'FLAHERTY [alone]. And if I do get a pension itself, the divil a penny
of it you'll ever have the spending of.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [as she comes from the porch]. Oh, it's a shame for you
to keep the girl from her juties, Dinny. You might get her into trouble.
O'FLAHERTY. Much I care whether she gets into trouble or not! I pity the
man that gets her into trouble. He'll get himself into worse.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. What's that you tell me? Have you been falling out with
her, and she a girl with a fortune of ten pounds?
O'FLAHERTY. Let her keep her fortune. I wouldn't touch her with the
tongs if she had thousands and millions.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh fie for shame, Dinny! why would you say the like of
that of a decent honest girl, and one of the Driscolls too?
O'FLAHERTY. Why wouldn't I say it? She's thinking of nothing but to get
me out there again to be wounded so that she may spend my pension, bad
scran to her!
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Why, what's come over you, child, at all at all?
O'FLAHERTY. Knowledge and wisdom has come over me with pain and fear
and trouble. I've been made a fool of and imposed upon all my life. I
thought that covetious sthreal in there was a walking angel; and now if
ever I marry at all I'll marry a Frenchwoman.
MRS O'FLARERTY [fiercely]. You'll not, so; and don't you dar repeat such
a thing to me.
O'FLAHERTY. Won't I, faith! I've been as good as married to a couple of
them already.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. The Lord be praised, what wickedness have you been up
to, you young blackguard?
O'FLAHERTY. One of them Frenchwomen would cook you a meal twice in the
day and all days and every day that Sir Pearce himself might go begging
through Ireland for, and never see the like of. I'll have a French wife,
I tell you; and when I settle down to be a farmer I'll have a French
farm, with a field as big as the continent of Europe that ten of your
dirty little fields here wouldn't so much as fill the ditch of.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [furious]. Then it's a French mother you may go look for;
for I'm done with you.
O'FLAHERTY. And it's no great loss you'd be if it wasn't for my natural
feelings for you; for it's only a silly ignorant old countrywoman you
are with all your fine talk about Ireland: you that never stepped beyond
the few acres of it you were born on!
MRS O'FLAHERTY [tottering to the garden seat and showing signs of
breaking down]. Dinny darlint, why are you like this to me? What's
happened to you?
O'FLAHERTY [gloomily]. What's happened to everybody? that's what I want
to know. What's happened to you that I thought all the world of and was
afeard of? What's happened to Sir Pearce, that I thought was a great
general, and that I now see to be no more fit to command an army than an
old hen? What's happened to Tessie, that I was mad to marry a year ago,
and that I wouldn't take now with all Ireland for her fortune? I tell
you the world's creation is crumbling in ruins about me; and then you
come and ask what's happened to me?
MRS O'FLAHERTY [giving way to wild grief]. Ochone! ochone! my son's
turned agen me. Oh, what'll I do at all at all? Oh! oh! oh! oh!
SIR PEARCE [running out of the house]. What's this infernal noise? What
on earth is the matter?
O'FLAHERTY. Arra hold your whisht, mother. Don't you see his honor?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh, Sir, I'm ruined and destroyed. Oh, won't you
speak to Dinny, Sir: I'm heart scalded with him. He wants to marry a
Frenchwoman on me, and to go away and be a foreigner and desert his
mother and betray his country. It's mad he is with the roaring of the
cannons and he killing the Germans and the Germans killing him, bad cess
to them! My boy is taken from me and turned agen me; and who is to take
care of me in my old age after all I've done for him, ochone! ochone!
O'FLAHERTY. Hold your noise, I tell you. Who's going to leave you? I'm
going to take you with me. There now: does that satisfy you?
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Is it take me into a strange land among heathens and
pagans and savages, and me not knowing a word of their language nor them
of mine?
O'FLAHERTY. A good job they don't: maybe they'll think you're talking
sense.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Ask me to die out of Ireland, is it? and the angels not
to find me when they come for me!
O'FLAHERTY. And would you ask me to live in Ireland where I've been
imposed on and kept in ignorance, and to die where the divil himself
wouldn't take me as a gift, let alone the blessed angels? You can come
or stay. You can take your old way or take my young way. But stick in
this place I will not among a lot of good-for-nothing divils that'll not
do a hand's turn but watch the grass growing and build up the stone wall
where the cow walked through it. And Sir Horace Plunkett breaking his
heart all the time telling them how they might put the land into decent
tillage like the French and Belgians.
SIR PEARCE. Yes, he's quite right, you know, Mrs O'Flaherty: quite right
there.
MRS O'FLAHERTY. Well, sir, please God the war will last a long time yet;
and maybe I'll die before it's over and the separation allowance stops.
O'FLAHERTY. That's all you care about. It's nothing but milch cows we
men are for the women, with their separation allowances, ever since the
war began, bad luck to them that made it!
TERESA [coming from the porch between the General and Mrs O'Flaherty.]
Hannah sent me out for to tell you, sir, that the tea will be black and
the cake not fit to eat with the cold if yous all don't come at wanst.
MRS O'FLAHERTY [breaking out again]. Oh, Tessie darlint, what have you
been saying to Dinny at all at all? Oh! Oh--
SIR PEARCE [out of patience]. You can't discuss that here. We shall have
Tessie beginning now.
O'FLAHERTY. That's right, sir: drive them in.