An hour later Doyle entered the doctor’s consulting room.
“I have it done,” he said. “I done what you bid me; but devil such a
job ever I had as what it was.” Doyle had evidently suffered from some
strong emotion, anger perhaps, or terror. He felt in his pocket as he
spoke, and, finding that he had no handkerchief, he wiped his forehead
with the back of his hand. He looked at his hand afterwards and sighed.
The hairs on the back of it were pasted down with sweat “Have you such a
thing as a drop of anything to drink in the house?”
“I have not,” said Dr. O’Grady, “how could I? Do you think I’ve lost all
my self-respect? Is it likely I’d order another bottle of whisky out of
your shop when you’re dunning me every day of my life for the price of
the last I got? Tell me what happened about the letter?”
Doyle passed a parched tongue across his lips. The inside of his mouth
was quite dry. Extreme nervous excitement often produces this effect.
“If it was even a cup of tea,” he said, “it would be better than
nothing. I’ve a terrible thirst on me.”
“Sorry,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but I’ve no tea either. Not a grain in the
house since last Friday. I hope this will be a lesson to you, Doyle,
and will teach you not to ballyrag your customers in future. But I don’t
want to rub it in. Get on with your story.”
“It could be,” said Doyle, “that there’d be water in your pump. I’m not
sure will I be able to speak much without I drink something.”
“The pump’s all right,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Just sit where you are for
a moment and I’ll fetch you some water. It may give you typhoid. I
wouldn’t drink it myself without boiling it, but that’s your look out.”
He left the moor and returned a few minutes later with a large tumbler
of cold water. Doyle looked at it mournfully. He knew perfectly well
that the doctor had both whisky and tea in the house, but he recognised
the impossibility of getting either the one or the other. He raised the
glass to his mouth.
“Glory be to God,” he said, “but it’s the first time I’ve wetted my lips
with the same this twenty years!”
“It will do you a lot of good if it doesn’t give you typhoid,” said Dr.
O’Grady. “How did you get so frightfully thirsty?”
The question was natural. Doyle drank the whole tumbler of water at a
draught. There was no doubt that he had been very thirsty.
“Will you tell me now,” he said, “what had that one in the temper she
was in?”
“Mrs. Ford,” said Dr. O’Grady, “was annoyed because she thought she
wasn’t going to be given a chance of making herself agreeable to the
Lord-Lieutenant.”
“If she speaks to the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Doyle, “after the fashion
she was speaking to me, it’s likely that she’ll not get the chance of
making herself agreeable to him a second time. Devil such a temper I
ever saw any woman in, and I’ve seen some in my day.”
“I know she’d be a bit savage. I hoped you wouldn’t have met her.”
“I did meet her. Wasn’t she turning in at the gate at the same time that
I was myself? ‘There’s a letter here, ma’am,’ says I, ‘that the doctor
told me I was to give to you,’ ‘I suppose it was half an hour ago,’
said she, ‘that he told you that,’ Well, I pulled the letter out of my
pocket, and I gave it a rub along the side of my pants the same as you
told me. ‘I suppose you’re doing that,’ said she, ‘to put some dirt
on it, to make it look,’ said she, ‘as if it had been in your pocket a
week.’”
“You wouldn’t think to look at her that she was so cute,” said Dr.
O’Grady. “What did you say?”
“I said nothing either good or bad,” said Doyle, “only that it was to
get the dirt off the letter, and not to be putting it on that I was
giving it a bit of a rub. Well, she took the letter and she opened it.
Then she looked me straight in the face. ‘When did you get this letter
from the doctor?’ says she. So I told her it was last Friday you give it
to me, and that I hadn’t seen you since, and didn’t care a great deal
if I never seen you again. ‘You impudent blackguard,’ says she, ‘the
letter’s not an hour written. The ink’s not more than just dry on
it yet,’ ‘I’m surprised,’ said I, ‘that it’s that much itself. It’s
dripping wet I’d expect it to be with the sweat I’m in this minute on
account of the way I’ve run to give it to you.’”
“Good,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If there was a drop of whisky in the house
I’d give it to you. I’ll look in a minute. There might be some left in
the bottom of the bottle. A man who can tell a lie like that on the spur
of the moment——”
“It was true enough about the sweat,” said Doyle. “You could have wrung
my shirt into a bucket, though it wasn’t running did it, for I didn’t
run. It was the way she was looking at me. I’m not overly fond of Mr.
Ford, and never was; but I don’t know did ever I feel as sorry for any
man as I did for him when she was looking at me.”
The doctor rose and took a bottle of whisky from the cupboard in the
corner of the room. There was enough in it to give Doyle a satisfactory
drink and still to leave some for the doctor himself. He got another
tumbler and two bottles of soda water.
“You needn’t be opening one of them for me,” said Doyle, “I have as
much water drunk already as would drown all the whisky you have in the
bottle. What I take now I’ll take plain.”
“She may be a bit sceptical about the letter,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but
I expect when she’s talked it over with Ford she’ll see the sense of
presenting the illuminated address.”
“Is it that one present the address? Believe you me, doctor, if she does
the Lord-Lieutenant won’t be inclined for giving us the pier. The look
of her would turn a barrel of porter sour.”
“She’ll look quite different,” said Dr. O’Grady, “when the time comes.
After all, Ford has to make the best of his opportunities like the
rest of us. He can’t afford to allow his wife to scowl at the
Lord-Lieutenant.”
“Was there no one else about the place, only her?” said Doyle.
“There were others, of course; but—the fact is, Doyle, if we got her
back up at the start her husband would have written letters to
Dublin Castle crabbing the whole show. Those fellows up there place
extraordinary confidence in resident magistrates. They’d have been much
more inclined to believe him than either you or me. If Ford was to set
to work to spoil our show we’d probably not have got the Lord-Lieutenant
down here at all. That’s why I was so keen on your getting the letter to
her at once, and leaving her under the impression that you’d had it in
your pocket for two days.”
“Devil the sign of believing any such thing there was about her when I
left.”
“She may come to believe it later on,” said Dr. O’Grady, “when she and
Ford have had time to talk the whole thing over together.”
The doctor’s servant came into the room while he spoke.
“Constable Moriarty is outside at the door,” she said, “and he’s wishing
to speak with you. There’s a young woman along with him.”
“Mary Ellen, I expect,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“He’s upset in his mind about that same Mary Ellen,” said Doyle, “ever
since he heard she was the niece of the General. It’s day and night he’s
round the hotel whistling all sorts and——”
“You told me all about that before,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Bring him in,
Bridgy, bring in the pair of them, and let’s hear what it is they want.”
Constable Moriarty entered the room, followed at a little distance by
Mary Ellen. He led her forward, and set her in front of Dr. O’Grady. He
looked very much as Touchstone must have looked when he presented the
rustic Audrey to the exiled Duke as “a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured
thing, sir, but mine own.”
“If you want a marriage license,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you’ve come to the
wrong man. Go up to Father McCormack.”
“I do not want a marriage license,” said Constable Moriarty, “for I’m
not long enough in the force to get leave to marry. And to do it without
leave is what I wouldn’t care to risk.”
“If you don’t want to marry her,” said Doyle, “I’d be glad if you’d let
her alone the way she’d be able to do her work. It’s upsetting her mind
you are with the way you’re going on.”
“Is it true what they tell me,” said Moriarty, “that the
Lord-Lieutenant’s coming to the town?”
“I think we may say it is true,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“To open the statue you’re putting up to the General?”
“‘Open’ isn’t the word used about statues,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but
you’ve got the general idea right enough.”
“What I was saying to Mary Ellen,” said Moriarty, “is that seeing as
she’s the niece of the General——”
“She’s no such thing,” said Doyle, “and well you know it.”
“The doctor has it put out about her that she is,” said Moriarty, “and
Mary Ellen’s well enough content. Aren’t you, Mary Ellen?”
“I am surely,” said Mary Ellen. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Look here, Moriarty,” said Dr. O’Grady, “if you’ve got any idea into
your head that there’s a fortune either large or small coming to Mary
Ellen out of this business you’re making a big mistake.”
“I wasn’t thinking any such thing,” said Moriarty. “Don’t I know well
enough it’s only talk?”
“It will be as much as we can possibly do,” said Dr. O’Grady, “to pay
for the statue and the incidental expenses. Pensioning off Mary Ellen
afterwards is simply out of the question.”
“Let alone that she doesn’t deserve a pension,” said Doyle, “and
wouldn’t get one if we were wading up to our knees in sovereigns.”
“So you may put it out of your head that Mary Ellen will make a penny by
it,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“It wasn’t that I was thinking of at all,” said Moriarty, “for I know
you couldn’t do it. My notion—what I was saying to Mary Ellen a minute
ago—is that if the Lord-Lieutenant was to be told—at the time that he’d
be looking at the statue—whenever that might be—that Mary Ellen was the
niece of the General——”
“If you’re planning out a regular court presentation for Mary Ellen,”
said Dr. O’Grady, “the thing can’t be done. No one here is in a position
to present anyone else because we have none of us been presented
ourselves. Besides, it wouldn’t be the least use to her if she was
presented. The Lord-Lieutenant wouldn’t take her on as an upper
housemaid or anything of that sort merely because she’d been presented
to him as General John Regan’s niece.”
“It wasn’t a situation for Mary Ellen I was thinking of,” said Moriarty.
“In the name of God,” said Doyle, “will you tell us what it is you have
in your mind?”
“What I was thinking,” said Moriarty, “was that if the matter was
represented to the Lord-Lieutenant in a proper manner—-about Mary Ellen
being the General’s niece and all to that—he might, maybe, see his way
to making me a sergeant. It was that I was saying to you, Mary Ellen,
wasn’t it, now?”
“It was,” said Mary Ellen.
“The idea of trotting out Mary Ellen on the occasion isn’t at all a bad
one,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I’ll see what can be done about it.”
“I’m obliged to you,” said Moriarty.
“But I don’t promise that you’ll be made a sergeant, mind that now.”
“Sure I know you couldn’t promise that,” said Moriarty. “But you’ll do
the best you can. Come along now, Mary Ellen. It’s pretty near time for
me to be going on patrol, and the sergeant will check me if I’m late.”
“There’s something in that idea of Moriarty’s,” said Dr. O’Grady, when
he and Doyle were alone again.
“I don’t see what good will come of it,” said Doyle, “and I’m doubting
whether Thady Gallagher will be pleased. Mary Ellen’s mother was a
cousin of his own.”
“She’s a good-looking girl,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If we had her cleaned up
a bit and a nice dress put on her she’d look rather well standing at the
foot of the statue. I expect the Lord-Lieutenant would be pleased to see
her.”
“And who’d be getting the lunch for the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Doyle,
“when Mary Ellen would be playing herself?”
“We’ll get someone to manage the lunch all right. The great thing for
us is to be sure of making a good general impression on the
Lord-Lieutenant, and I think Mary Ellen would help. I daresay you’ve
never noticed it, Doyle—it would be hard for you when she will not wash
her face—but she really is a good-looking girl. The Lord-Lieutenant will
want something of the sort to look at after he’s faced Mrs. Ford and her
illuminated address. She’s not exactly—-”
“The man that would run away with that one,” said Doyle vindictively,
“would do it in the dark if he did it at all.”
“Besides,” said Dr. O’Grady, “we ought to think of poor little Mary
Ellen herself. It’ll be a great day for her, and she’ll enjoy having a
new dress.”
“Who’s to pay for the dress?” said Doyle.
“The dress will be paid for out of the general funds. I’ll ask Mrs.
Gregg to see about having it made. She has remarkably good taste. I’ll
tell her not to get anything very expensive, so you need not worry about
that. And now, Doyle, unless there’s anything else you want to
settle with me at once, I think I’ll write our invitation to the
Lord-Lieutenant.”
“It would be well if you did,” said Doyle, “so as we’d know whether he’s
coming or not.”
“Oh, he’ll come. If he boggles at it at all I’ll go up to Dublin and see
him myself. A short verbal explanation—— We’ll let him choose his own
date.”
Doyle lit his pipe and walked back to the hotel. He found Thady
Gallagher waiting for him in his private room.
“What’s this I’m after hearing,” said Gallagher, “about the
Lord-Lieutenant?”
“He’s coming down here,” said Doyle, “to open the new statue.”
He spoke firmly, for he detected a note of displeasure in the tone in
which Thady Gallagher asked this question.
“I don’t know,” said Gallagher, “would I be altogether in favour of
that.”
“And why not? Mustn’t there be someone to open it? And mightn’t it as
well be him as another?”
“It might not as well be him.”
“Speak out, Thady, what have you against the man?”
“I’m a good Nationalist,” said Gallagher, “and I always was, and my
father before me was the same.”
“I’m that myself,” said Doyle.
“And I’m opposed to flunkeyism, whether it’s the flunkeyism of the rent
office or———”
“Well and if you are, isn’t it the same with all of us?”
“What I say is this,” said Gallagher, “as long as the people of Ireland
is denied the inalienable right of managing their own affairs I’d be
opposed to welcoming into our midst the emissaries of Dublin Castle, and
I’d like to know, so I would, what the people of this locality will be
saying to the man that’s false to his principles and goes back on the
dearest aspirations of our hearts?”
He glared quite fiercely while he spoke, but Doyle remained serenely
unimpressed.
“Talk sense now, Thady,” he said. “Nobody’ll say a word without it’d be
yourself and you making a speech at the time. It’s for the good of the
town that we’re getting him down here.”
“What good?” said Gallagher, “tell me that now. What good will come of
the like?”
Doyle was unwilling to confide the whole pier scheme to Gallagher. He
contented himself with a vague reply.
“There’s many a thing,” he said, “that would be for the good of the
town that might be got if it was represented properly to the
Lord-Lieutenant.”
“If I thought that,” said Gallagher, “I might——”
He was in a difficult position. He did not want to quarrel with Doyle,
who provided him with a good deal of bottled porter, but he did not
want to identify himself with a public welcome to the Lord-Lieutenant,
because he had hopes of becoming a Member of Parliament. The idea of
conferring a benefit on the town attracted him as offering a way out of
his difficulty.
“I might———” he repeated slowly. “I wouldn’t say but it’s possible that
I might.”
“And you will,” said Doyle soothingly, “you will.”
“I’ll not be a party to any address of welcome from the Urban District
Council,” said Gallagher.
“We wouldn’t ask it of you. Doesn’t everybody know that you wouldn’t
consent to it?”
“It’s the Major put you up to it,” said Gallagher.
“It was not then.”
“If it wasn’t him it was Mr. Ford, the R.M.”
“If you’d seen Mrs. Ford when she heard of it,” said Doyle, “you
wouldn’t be saying that. Tell me this now, Thady. Have you your speech
ready for the meeting on Tuesday? Everybody’s saying you’ll be making a
grand one.”
“I haven’t it what you’d call rightly ready,” said Gallagher, “but I
have it so as it will be ready when the time comes.”
“It’s you the people will be wanting to hear,” said Doyle. “It’s you
they’d rather be listening to than any other one even if he was a member
of Parliament: It’s my opinion, Thady, and there’s more than me that
says it—it’s my opinion there’s better men that isn’t in Parliament than
some that is. I’ll say no more presently; but some day I’ll be doing
more than say it.”