There are men in the world, a great many of them—who are capable of
managing details with thoroughness and efficiency. These men make
admirable lieutenants and fill subordinate positions so well that
towards the end of their lives they are allowed to attend full dress
evening parties with medals and stars hung round their necks or pinned
on their coats. There are also a good many men who are capable
of conceiving great ideas and forming vast plans, but who have an
unconquerable aversion to anything in the way of a detail. These men
generally end their days in obscure asylums, possibly in workhouses,
and their ideas, after living for a while as subject matter for jests,
perish unrealised. There is also a third kind of man, fortunately a very
rare kind. He is capable of conceiving great ideas, and has besides
an insatiable delight in working out details. He may end his days as
a victorious general, or even as an emperor. If he prefers a less
ostentatious kind of reward, he will die a millionaire.
Dr. Lucius O’Grady belonged to this third class. In the face of Doyle’s
objection to his expenditure on posters, he was capable of conceiving
on the spur of the moment and without previous meditation, the audacious
and magnificent plan of bringing the Lord-Lieutenant to Ballymoy and
wrestling from a reluctant treasury a sufficient sum of money to build a
third pier on the beach below the town. There may have been other men in
Ireland capable of making such a plan. There was certainly no one
else who would have set himself, as Dr. O’Grady did, with tireless
enthusiasm, to work out the details necessary to the plan’s success.
As soon as Doyle left him he mounted his bicycle and rode out to the
Greggs’ home. Mr. Gregg, being the District Inspector of Police, was
usually a very busy man. But the Government, though a hard task-master
in the case of minor officials, does not insist on anyone inspecting or
being inspected on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Gregg had taken advantage of
the Government’s respect for revealed religion, and had gone out with a
fishing rod to catch trout. Mrs. Gregg was at home. Being a bride of not
more than three months’ standing she had nothing particular to do, and
was yawning rather wearily over the fashion-plates of a ladies’ paper.
She seemed unaffectedly glad to see Dr. O’Grady, and at once offered to
give him tea. The doctor refused the tea, and plunged into his business.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you’ll have no objection to presenting a
bouquet to Lady Chesterton when she comes to Ballymoy?”
“Is she coming?” said Mrs. Gregg. “How splendid!”
Before marrying Mr. Gregg she had lived in a Dublin suburb. Accustomed
to the rich and varied life of a metropolis she found Ballymoy a little
dull. She recognised Major Kent as “a dear old boy,” but he was
quite unexciting. Mrs. Ford, the wife of a rather morose stipendiary
magistrate, had severely snubbed Mrs. Gregg. There was no one else, and
the gay frocks of Mrs. Gregg’s bridal outfit were wasting their first
freshness with hardly an opportunity of being worn.
“Yes,” said Dr. O’Grady. “She’s coming with the Lord-Lieutenant to
unveil the new statue.”
“How splendid!” said Mrs. Gregg again. “I heard something about the
statue, but please tell me more, Dr. O’Grady. I do so want to know.”
“Oh, there’s nothing particular to tell about the statue. It’s to be
to the memory of General John Regan, and will be unveiled in the usual
way.”
This did not add much to the information which Mr. Gregg, who himself
had gleaned what he knew from Sergeant Colgan, had already given her.
But Mrs. Gregg was quite content with it. She did not, in fact, want
to know anything about the statue. She only asked about it because she
thought she ought to. Her mind was dwelling on the dazzling prospect of
presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton.
“Of course I should love to,” she said. “But I wonder if I could—really,
I mean.”
Dr. O’Grady was a man of quick intelligence. He realised at once that
Mrs. Gregg had not been listening to his account of the statue, but that
she was replying to his original suggestion.
“It’s not the least difficult,” he said. “Anyone could do it, but we’d
like to have it done really well. That’s the reason we’re asking you.”
“Don’t you have to walk backwards?” said Mrs. Gregg. “I’d love to do it,
of course, but I never have before.”
“There’s no necessity to walk at all. You simply stand in the front row
of the spectators with the bouquet in your hand. Then, when she stops
opposite you and smiles—she’ll be warned beforehand, of course—and she’s
had such a lot of practice that she’s sure to do it right—you curtsey
and hand up the bouquet. She’ll take it, and the whole thing will be
over.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Gregg, “is that all?”
Dr. O’Grady was conscious of a note of disappointment in her voice. He
felt that he had over-emphasized the simplicity of the performance. Mrs.
Gregg would have preferred a longer ceremony. He did his best to make
such amends as were still possible.
“Of course,” he said, “your photograph will be in all the illustrated
papers afterwards, and there will be a long description of your dress in
The Irish Times.”
“I’d love to do it,” said Mrs. Gregg.
“Very well, then,” said Dr. O’Grady, “we’ll consider that settled.”
Leaving Mrs. Gregg, he rode on to Major Kent’s house. The Major, like
all men who are over forty years of age, who have good consciences and
balances in their banks, spent his Sunday afternoons sleeping in an
armchair. No one likes being awakened, either in a bedroom by a servant,
in a railway carriage by a ticket collector, or on a Sunday afternoon by
a friend. The Major answered Dr. O’Grady’s greeting snappishly.
“If you’ve come,” he said, “to ask me to make a speech at that meeting
of yours on Tuesday, you may go straight home again, for I won’t do it.”
“I’m not such a fool,” said Dr. O’Grady pleasantly, “as to ask you to
do any such thing. I know jolly well you couldn’t. Even if you could
and would, we shouldn’t want you. We have Father McCormack, and Thady
Gallagher, besides the American. That’s as much as any audience could
stand!”
“If it isn’t that you want,” said the Major, “what is it?”
“It’s a pity you’re in such an uncommonly bad temper, Major. If you
were even in your normal condition of torpid sulkiness you’d be rather
pleased to hear what I’m going to tell you.”
“If you’re going to tell me that you’ve dropped that statue folly, I
shall be extremely pleased.”
“The news I have,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is far better than that. We’ve
decided to ask the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil the statue.”
“He won’t come,” said the Major, “so that’s all right.”
“He will come when it’s explained to him that——”
“Oh, if you offer him one of your explanations———”
“Look here, Major. I don’t think you quite grasp the significance of
what I’m telling you. Ever since I’ve known you you’ve been deploring
the disloyalty of the Irish people. I don’t blame you for that. You’re
by way of being a Unionist, so of course you have to. But if you were
the least bit sincere in what you say, you’d be delighted to hear that
Doyle and Thady Gallagher—Thady hasn’t actually been told yet, but
when he is he’ll be as pleased as everyone else—you ought to be simply
overjoyed to find that men like Doyle are inviting the Lord-Lieutenant
down to unveil their statue. It shows that they’re getting steadily
loyaler and loyaler. Instead of exulting in the fact you start sneering
in a cynical and altogether disgusting way.”
“I don’t believe much in Doyle’s loyalty,” said the Major.
“Fortunately,” said Dr. O’Grady, “Doyle thoroughly believes in yours. He
agrees with me that you are the first man who ought to be asked to join
the reception committee. You can’t possibly refuse.”
“I would refuse if I thought there was the slightest chance of the
Lord-Lieutenant coming. Do you think I want to stand about in a tall hat
along with half the blackguards in town?”
“Mrs. Gregg is going to present a bouquet,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“Looking like a fool in the middle of the street, while you play silly
tricks with a statue?”
“You won’t be asked to do all that,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I am being asked. You’re asking me this minute, and if I thought it
would come off——”
“As you think it won’t you may as well join the committee.”
“I won’t be secretary,” said the Major, “and I won’t have hand, act, or
part, in asking the Lord-Lieutenant to come here. We don’t want him, for
one thing.”
“You’ll not be asked so much as to sign a paper,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If
your name is required at the bottom of any document I’ll write it for
you myself.”
“I wish to goodness,” said the Major, “that Billing—if that’s the man’s
name—had stayed in America attending to his own business, whatever
it is, instead of coming here and starting all this fuss. There’ll be
trouble before you’ve done, O’Grady, more trouble than you care for. I
wish to God it was all well over.”
Nothing is more gratifying to the prophet of evil than the fulfilment
of his own prediction. When the fulfilment follows hard on the prophecy,
when not more than half an hour separates them, the prophet ought to be
a very happy man. This was Major Kent’s case. He foretold trouble of the
most exasperating kind for Dr. O’Grady, and he was immediately justified
by the event. Unfortunately he did not expect an immediate fulfilment
of his words. Therefore he turned round in his chair and went to sleep
again when the doctor left him. If he had been sanguine enough to expect
that the doctor would be entangled in embarrassments at once, he would
probably have roused himself. He would have followed Dr. O’Grady back to
Ballymoy and would have had the satisfaction of gloating over the
first of a long series of annoying difficulties. But the Major, though
confident that trouble would come, had no hope that it would begin as
soon as it did.
Dr. O’Grady was riding back to Ballymoy on his bicycle when he met Mrs.
Ford, the wife of the stipendiary magistrate. She was walking briskly
along the road which led out of the town. This fact at once aroused a
feeling of vague uneasiness in the doctor’s mind. Mrs. Ford was a stout
lady of more than fifty years of age. She always wore clothes which
seemed, and probably were, much too tight for her. Her husband’s
position and income entitled him to keep a pony trap, therefore Mrs.
Ford very seldom walked at all. Dr. O’Grady had never before seen her
walk quickly. It was plain, too, that on this occasion Mrs. Ford was
walking for the mere sake of walking, a most unnatural thing for her
to do. The road she was on led nowhere except to Major Kent’s house,
several miles away, and it was quite impossible to suppose that she
meant to call on him. She had, as Dr. O’Grady knew, quarrelled seriously
with Major Kent two days earlier.
Dr. O’Grady, slightly anxious and very curious, got off his bicycle
and approached Mrs. Ford on foot. He noticed at once that her face was
purple in colour. It was generally red, and the unaccustomed exercise
she was taking might account for the darker shade. Dr. O’Grady, arriving
within a few yards of her, took off his hat very politely. The purple of
Mrs. Ford’s face darkened ominously.
“Nice day,” said Dr. O’Grady. “How’s Mr. Ford?”
Mrs. Ford acknowledged this greeting with a stiff, scarcely perceptible
bow. Dr. O’Grady realised at once that she was angry, very seriously
angry about something. Under ordinary circumstances Mrs. Ford’s anger
would not have caused Dr. O’Grady any uneasiness. She was nearly always
angry with someone, and however angry she might be she would be obliged
to call on Dr. O’Grady for assistance if either she or her husband fell
ill. There was no other doctor in the neighbourhood. The simplest and
easiest thing, under the circumstances, would have been to pass on
without comment, and to wait patiently until Mrs. Ford either caught
influenza or was so deeply offended with someone else as to forget her
anger against him. Society in small country towns is held together very
largely by the fact that it is highly inconvenient, if not actually
impossible, to keep two quarrels burning briskly at the same time.
When, a week or two before, Mrs. Ford had been seriously angry with
Mrs. Gregg, she confided her grievances to Dr. O’Grady. Now that she was
annoyed with him she would be compelled to condone Mrs. Gregg’s offence
in order to tell her what Dr. O’Grady had done. In due time, so Dr.
O’Grady knew, he would be forgiven in order that he might listen to
the story of the quarrel, which by that time she would have picked with
Major Kent. Therefore the doctor’s first impulse was to imitate the
Levite in the parable, and, having looked at Mrs. Ford with sympathy, to
pass by on the other side.
But Dr. O’Grady was engaged in a great enterprise. He did not see how
Mrs. Ford’s anger could make or mar the success of the Lord-Lieutenant’s
visit to Ballymoy, but he could not afford to take risks. No wise
general likes to leave even a small wood on the flank of his line of
march without discovering whether there is anything in it or not. Dr.
O’Grady determined to find out, if he could, what Mrs. Ford was sulking
about.
“I daresay you have heard,” he said, “about the Lord-Lieutenant’s visit
to Ballymoy. The date isn’t fixed yet, but——”
Mrs. Ford sniffed and walked on without speaking. Dr. O’Grady was not
the kind of man who is easily baffled. He turned round and walked beside
her.
“I needn’t tell you,” he said, “that the visit may mean a good deal to
Mr. Ford. We’ve all felt for a long time that his services and ability
entitle him to some recognition from the Government.”
Mrs. Ford was quite unmollified. She walked on without looking round.
She even walked a little quicker than she had been walking before. This
was a foolish thing to do. She was a fat and elderly lady. Some of
her clothes, if not all of them, were certainly too tight for her. The
doctor was young and in good condition. She could not possibly hope to
outstrip him in a race.
“My idea is,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that when the Lord-Lieutenant meets Mr.
Ford and becomes personally acquainted with him—there’s to be a lunch,
you know, in the hotel. A pretty good lunch, the best Doyle can do.
Well, I confidently expect that when the Lord-Lieutenant finds out for
himself what an able and energetic man Mr. Ford is—— After all, there
are much nicer places than Ballymoy, besides all the jobs there are
going under the Insurance Act, jolly well paid some of them, and you’d
like living in Dublin, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Ford?”
Mrs. Ford stood still suddenly. She was evidently going to say
something. Dr. O’Grady waited. He had to wait for some time, because the
lady was very-much out of breath. At last she spoke.
“Dr. O’Grady,” she said, “I believe in plain speaking.”
Neither Dr. O’Grady nor anyone else in Ballymoy doubted the truth of
this. Nearly everybody had been spoken to plainly by Mrs. Ford at
one time or another. Kerrigan, the butcher, was spoken to with
uncompromising plainness once a week, on Saturday mornings.
“Quite right,” said Dr. O’Grady, “there’s nothing like it.”
“Then I may as well tell you,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I think it was due
to my position—however much you may dislike me personally——”
“I don’t. On the contrary——”
“——Due to my position as the wife of the resident magistrate that I, and
not that Mrs. Gregg, should have been invited to present the bouquet to
Lady Chesterton.”
Dr. O’Grady gasped. Then he realised that he had made a fearful blunder.
“Half an hour ago,” said Mrs. Ford, “that woman, who isn’t even a lady,
bounced into my house, giggling, and told me to my face that you had
asked her——”
“Silly little thing, isn’t she?” said Dr. O’Grady. “But of course, you
have far too much sense to be annoyed by anything she said.”
“Don’t imagine for a moment,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I am vexed. The
slight, although it was evidently intentional, does not affect me in
the least. If you knew me a little better than you do, Dr. O’Grady, you
would understand that I am not at all the sort of person who cares about
presenting bouquets.”
“Of course not,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We quite realised that. We
understood that in your position, as wife of the resident magistrate of
the district, the presentation of a bouquet would have been infra dig.
After all, what’s a bouquet? Poor little Mrs. Gregg! Of course it’s a
great promotion for her and she’s naturally a bit above herself. But no
one would dream of asking you to present a bouquet. We have far too high
a respect for Mr. Ford’s position.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I ought to have been consulted.”
“Didn’t you get my letter?”
“I got no letter whatever. The first news I had of his Excellency’s
intention of visiting Ballymoy came to me from that Mrs. Gregg half an
hour ago, when she rushed into my drawing-room with her hair tumbling
about her ears——”
“That’s the worst of Doyle. He means well, but he’s frightfully
careless.”
“What has Mr. Doyle to do with it?”
“I gave him the letter to post. Did you really not get it?”
“I got no letter whatever.”
“I don’t know what you must have thought of us. I don’t know what Mr.
Ford must have thought. I don’t know how to apologise. But the first
thing we did, the very first——Mrs. Gregg and the bouquet were a mere
afterthought, we just tacked her on to the programme so that the poor
little woman wouldn’t feel out of it. She is a silly little thing, you
know. Not more than a child after all. It was better to humour her.”
“What was in the letter which you say you posted?” said Mrs. Ford.
“I didn’t say I posted it. I said Doyle forgot to. It’s in his pocket at
this moment, I expect.”
“What was in it?”
“Can you ask? There is only one thing which could possibly be in it. It
expresses the unanimous wish of the committee—the reception committee,
you know—Major Kent’s on it—that you should present an illuminated
address of welcome to His Excellency.”
“If such a letter were really written——”
“My dear Mrs. Ford! But I don’t ask you to take my word for it. Just
walk straight into Ballymoy yourself. I’ll stay here till you come back.
Go into the hotel. You’ll find Doyle in his own room drinking whisky
and water with Thady Gallagher. Don’t say a word to him. Don’t ask him
whether he was given a letter or not. Simply put your hand into his
breast pocket and take it out.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Ford. “I do not care to have anything to do with
Mr. Doyle when he is drunk.”
“He won’t be. Not at this hour. It takes a lot to make Doyle drunk.”
“When the letter arrives, if it ever does, I shall consult Mr. Ford as
to what answer I shall give.”
“I can tell you what he’ll say beforehand,” said Dr. O’Grady. “He’ll
realise the importance of the illuminated address. He’ll understand that
it’s the thing and that the bouquet——”
“Good-bye, Dr. O’Grady,” said Mrs. Ford.
The doctor mounted his bicycle. His face was very nearly as purple as
Mrs. Ford’s. He had, with the greatest difficulty survived a crisis. He
rode at top speed into Ballymoy, and dismounted, very hot, at the door
of the hotel. It was shut. He ran round to the back of the house and
entered the yard. Constable Moriarty and Mary Ellen were sitting side by
side on the wall of the pig-stye. They were sitting very close together.
Moriarty was whistling “Eileen Allan-nah” softly in Mary Ellen’s ear.
“Where’s Mr. Doyle?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“As regards the visit of the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Constable Moriarty
rousing himself and moving a little bit away from Mary Ellen, “what I
was saying this minute to Mary Ellen was——”
“Where’s Mr. Doyle?” said Dr. O’Grady.
“He’s within,” said Mary Ellen. “Where else would he be?”
“As regards the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Constable Moriarty, “and seeing
that Mary Ellen might be a near friend of the gentleman that the
statue’s for——”
Dr. O’Grady hurried through the back door. He found Doyle sitting over
account books in his private-room. That was his way of spending Sunday
afternoon.
“A sheet of notepaper,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Quick now, Doyle. I have my
fountain pen, so don’t bother about ink.”
“Where’s the hurry?” said Doyle.
“There’s every hurry.”
He wrote rapidly, folded the letter, addressed it to Mrs. Ford, and
handed it to Doyle.
“Put that in your trousers’ pocket,” he said, “and roll it round a few
times. I want it to look as if it had been there for two or three days.”
“What’s the meaning of this at all?” said Doyle.
“Now get your hat. Go off as fast as you can pelt to Mr. Ford’s house.
Give that letter to the servant and tell her that you only found out
this afternoon that you’d forgotten to post it.”
“Will you tell me——?”
“I’ll tell you nothing till you’re back. Go on now, Doyle. Go at once.
If you hurry you’ll get to the house before she does. She was two miles
out of the town when I left her and too exhausted to walk fast. But if
you do meet her remember that you haven’t seen me since yesterday. Have
you got that clear in your head? Very well. Off with you. And, I say, I
expect the letter will be looking all right when you take it out again,
but if it isn’t just rub it up and down the front of your trousers for
a while. I want it to be brownish and a good deal crumpled. It won’t do
any harm if you blow a few puffs of tobacco over it.”