TWO FRIENDS AT BREAKFAST
Irishmen may reasonably enough travel for climate, they need scarcely go
abroad in search of scenery. Within even a very short distance from the
capital, there are landscapes which, for form, outline, and colour, equal
some of the most celebrated spots of continental beauty.
One of these is the view from Bray Head over the wide expanse of the Bay of
Dublin, with Howth and Lambay in the far distance. Nearer at hand lies the
sweep of that graceful shore to Killiney, with the Dalky Islands dotting
the calm sea; while inland, in wild confusion, are grouped the Wicklow
Mountains, massive with wood and teeming with a rich luxuriance.
When sunlight and stillness spread colour over the blue mirror of the
sea--as is essential to the scene--I know of nothing, not even Naples or
Amalfi, can surpass this marvellous picture.
It was on a terrace that commanded this view that Walpole and Atlee sat
at breakfast on a calm autumnal morning; the white-sailed boats scarcely
creeping over their shadows; and the whole scene, in its silence and
softened effect, presenting a picture of almost rapturous tranquillity.
‘With half-a-dozen days like this,’ said Atlee, as he smoked his cigarette,
in a sort of languid grace, ‘one would not say O’Connell was wrong in his
glowing admiration for Irish scenery. If I were to awake every day for a
week to this, I suspect I should grow somewhat crazy myself about the green
island.’
‘And dash the description with a little treason too,’ said the other
superciliously. ‘I have always remarked the ingenious connection with which
Irishmen bind up a love of the picturesque with a hate of the Saxon.’
‘Why not? They are bound together in the same romance. Can you look on the
Parthenon and not think of the Turk?’
‘Apropos of the Turk,’ said the other, laying his hand on a folded letter
which lay before him, ‘here’s a long letter from Lord Danesbury about that
wearisome “Eastern question,” as they call the ten thousand issues that
await the solution of the Bosporus. Do you take interest in these things.’
‘Immensely. After I have blown myself with a sharp burst on home politics,
I always take a canter among the Druses and the Lebanites; and I am such
an authority on the “Grand Idea,” that Rangabe refers to me as “the
illustrious statesman whose writings relieve England from the stain of
universal ignorance about Greece.”’
‘And do you know anything on the subject?’
‘About as much as the present Cabinet does of Ireland. I know all the
clap-traps: the grand traditions that have sunk down into a present
barbarism--of course, through ill government; the noble instincts depraved
by gross usage; I know the inherent love of freedom we cherish, which makes
men resent rents as well as laws, and teaches that taxes are as great a
tyranny as the rights of property.’
‘And do the Greeks take this view of it?’
‘Of course they do; and it was in experimenting on them that your great
Ministers learned how to deal with Ireland. There was but one step from
Thebes to Tipperary. Corfu was “pacified”--that’s the phrase for it--by
abolishing the landlords. The peasants were told they might spare a little
if they liked to the ancient possessor of the soil; and so they took the
ground, and they gave him the olive-trees. You may imagine how fertile
these were, when the soil around them was utilised to the last fraction of
productiveness.’
‘Is that a fair statement of the case?’
‘Can you ask the question? I’ll show it to you in print.’
‘Perhaps written by yourself?’
‘And why not? What convictions have not broken on my mind by reading my own
writings? You smile at this; but how do you know your face is clean till
you look in a glass?’
Walpole, however, had ceased to attend to the speaker, and was deeply
engaged with the letter before him.
‘I see here,’ cried he, ‘his Excellency is good enough to say that some
mark of royal favour might be advantageously extended to those Kilgobbin
people, in recognition of their heroic defence. What should it be, is the
question.’
‘Confer on him the peerage, perhaps.’
‘That is totally out of the question.’
‘It was Kate Kearney made the defence; why not give her a commission in the
army?--make it another “woman’s right.”’
‘You are absurd, Mr. Atlee.’
‘Suppose you endowed her out of the Consolidated Fund? Give her twenty
thousand pounds, and I can almost assure you that a very clever fellow I
know will marry her.’
‘A strange reward for good conduct.’
‘A prize of virtue. They have that sort of thing in France, and they say it
gives a great support to purity of morals.’
‘Young Kearney might accept something, if we knew what to offer him.’
‘I’d say a pair of black trousers; for I think I’m now wearing his last in
that line.’
‘Mr. Atlee,’ said the other grimly, ‘let me remind you once again, that the
habit of light jesting--_persiflage_--is so essentially Irish, you should
keep it for your countrymen; and if you persist in supposing the career of
a private secretary suits you, this is an incongruity that will totally
unfit you for the walk.’
‘I am sure you know your countrymen, sir, and I am grateful for the
rebuke.’
Walpole’s cheek flushed at this, and it was plain that there was a hidden
meaning in the words which he felt, and resented.
‘I do not know,’ continued Walpole, ‘if I am not asking you to curb one
of the strongest impulses of your disposition; but it rests entirely with
yourself whether my counsel be worth following.’
‘Of course it is, sir. I shall follow your advice to the letter, and keep
all my good spirits and my bad manners for my countrymen.’
It was evident that Walpole had to exercise some strong self-control not to
reply sharply; but he refrained, and turned once more to Lord Danesbury’s
letter, in which he was soon deeply occupied. At last he said: ‘His
Excellency wants to send me out to Turkey to confer with a man with whom he
has some confidential relations. It is quite impossible that, in my present
state of health, I could do this. Would the thing suit you, Atlee--that is,
if, on consideration, I should opine that _you_ would suit _it_?’
‘I suspect,’ replied Atlee, but with every deference in his manner, ‘if you
would entertain the last part of the contingency first, it would be more
convenient to each of us. I mean whether I were fit for the situation.’
‘Well, perhaps so,’ said the other carelessly; ‘it is not at all
impossible, it may be one of the things you would acquit yourself well in.
It is a sort of exercise for tact and discretion--an occasion in which that
light hand of yours would have a field for employment, and that acute skill
in which I know you pride yourself as regards reading character--’
‘You have certainly piqued my curiosity,’ said Atlee.
‘I don’t know that I ought to have said so much; for, after all, it remains
to be seen whether Lord Danesbury would estimate these gifts of yours as
highly as I do. What I think of doing is this: I shall send you over to his
Excellency in your capacity as my own private secretary, to explain how
unfit I am in my present disabled condition to undertake a journey. I shall
tell my lord how useful I have found your services with regard to Ireland,
how much you know of the country and the people, and how worthy of trust I
have found your information and your opinions; and I shall hint--but only
hint, remember--that, for the mission he speaks of, he might possibly
do worse than fix upon yourself. As, of course, it rests with him to be
like-minded with me or not upon this matter--to take, in fact, his own
estimate of Mr. Atlee from his own experiences of him--you are not to know
anything whatever of this project till his Excellency thinks proper to open
it to you. You understand that?’
‘Thoroughly.’
‘Your mission will be to explain--when asked to explain--certain
difficulties of Irish life and habits, and if his lordship should direct
conversation to topics of the East, to be careful to know nothing of the
subject whatever--mind that.’
‘I shall be careful. I have read the _Arabian Nights_--but that’s all.’
‘And of that tendency to small joking and weak epigram I would also caution
you to beware; they will have no success in the quarter to which you are
going, and they will only damage other qualities which you might possibly
rely on.’
Atlee bowed a submissive acquiescence.
‘I don’t know that you’ll see Lady Maude Bickerstaffe, his lordship’s
niece.’ He stopped as if he had unwittingly uttered an awkwardness, and
then added--‘I mean she has not been well, and may not appear while you are
at the castle; but if you should--and if, which is not at all likely, but
still possible, you should be led to talk of Kilgobbin and the incident
that has got into the papers, you must be very guarded in all you say. It
is a county family of station and repute. We were there as visitors. The
ladies--I don’t know that I ‘d say very much of the ladies.’
‘Except that they were exceedingly plain in looks, and somewhat _passées_
besides,’ added Atlee gravely.
‘I don’t see why you should say that, sir,’ replied the other stiffly. ‘If
you are not bent on compromising me by an indiscretion, I don’t perceive
the necessity of involving me in a falsehood.’
‘You shall be perfectly safe in my hands,’ said Atlee.
‘And that I may be so, say as little about me as you can. I know the
injunction has its difficulties, Mr. Atlee, but pray try and observe it.’
The conversation had now arrived at a point in which one angry word more
must have produced a rupture between them; and though Atlee took in the
whole situation and its consequences at a glance, there was nothing in the
easy jauntiness of his manner that gave any clue to a sense of anxiety or
discomfort.
‘Is it likely,’ asked he at length, ‘that his Excellency will advert to the
idea of recognising or rewarding these people for their brave defence?’
‘I am coming to that, if you will spare me a little patience: Saxon
slowness is a blemish you’ll have to grow accustomed to. If Lord Danesbury
should know that you are an acquaintance of the Kilgobbin family, and ask
you what would be a suitable mode of showing how their conduct has been
appreciated in a high quarter, you should be prepared with an answer.’
Atlee’s eyes twinkled with a malicious drollery, and he had to bite his
lips to repress an impertinence that seemed almost to master his prudence,
and at last he said carelessly--
‘Dick Kearney might get something.’
‘I suppose you know that his qualifications will be tested. You bear that
in mind, I hope--’
‘Yes. I was just turning it over in my head, and I thought the best thing
to do would be to make him a Civil Service Commissioner. They are the only
people taken on trust.’
‘You are severe, Mr. Atlee. Have these gentlemen earned this dislike on
your part?’
‘Do you mean by having rejected me? No, that they have not. I believe I
could have survived that; and if, however, they had come to the point of
telling me that they were content with my acquirements, and what is
called “passed me,” I fervently believe I should have been seized with an
apoplexy.’
‘Mr. Atlee’s opinion of himself is not a mean one,’ said Walpole, with a
cold smile.
‘On the contrary, sir, I have occasion to feel pretty often in every
twenty-four hours what an ignominious part a man plays in life who has to
affect to be taught what he knows already--to be asking the road where he
has travelled every step of the way--and to feel that a threadbare coat and
broken boots take more from the value of his opinions than if he were a
knave or a blackleg.’
‘I don’t see the humility of all this.’
‘I feel the shame of it, though,’ said Atlee; and as he arose and walked
out upon the terrace, the veins in his forehead were swelled and knotted,
and his lips trembled with suppressed passion.
In a tone that showed how thoroughly indifferent he felt to the other’s
irritation, Walpole went on to say: ‘You will then make it your business,
Mr. Atlee, to ascertain in what way most acceptable to those people at
Kilgobbin his Excellency may be able to show them some mark of royal
favour--bearing in mind not to commit yourself to anything that may raise
great expectations. In fact, a recognition is what is intended, not a
reward.’
Atlee’s eyes fell upon the opal ring, which he always wore since the day
Walpole had given it to him, and there was something so significant in the
glance that the other flushed as he caught it.
‘I believe I appreciate the distinction,’ said Atlee quietly. ‘It is to be
something in which the generosity of the donor is more commemorated than
the merits of the person rewarded, and, consequently, a most appropriate
recognition of the Celt by the Saxon. Do you think I ought to go down to
Kilgobbin Castle, sir?’
‘I am not quite sure about that; I’ll turn it over in my mind. Meanwhile
I’ll telegraph to my lord that, if he approves, I shall send you over to
Wales; and you had better make what arrangements you have to make, to be
ready to start at a moment.’
‘Unfortunately, sir, I have none. I am in the full enjoyment of such
complete destitution, that I am always ready to go anywhere.’
Walpole did not notice the words, but arose and walked over to a
writing-table to compose his message for the telegraph.
‘There,’ said he, as he folded it, ‘have the kindness to despatch this at
once, and do not be out of the way about five, or half-past, when I shall
expect an answer.’
‘Am I free to go into town meanwhile?’ asked Atlee.
Walpole nodded assent without speaking.
‘I wonder if this sort of flunkeydom be good for a man,’ muttered Atlee to
himself as he sprang down the stairs. ‘I begin to doubt it. At all events,
I understand now the secret of the first lieutenant’s being a tyrant: he
has once been a middy. And so I say, let me only reach the ward-room, and
Heaven help the cockpit!’