The Star of the Sea

by Joseph O'Connor

  ‘I hate lessons. More than I hate girls.’

  ‘Did you ever hear the like of that in your life, Mulvey? A boy who doesn’t like his lessons.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What do you think would happen to a boy like that if he didn’t mend his ways?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘You bloody do know; you’re just being polite enough not to say. You expect he wouldn’t make the best of himself in life, don’t you?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Exactly. He might have to work as a chimney-sweep, mightn’t he?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘What else might he have to work at, would you say? An idler who did not attend to his lessons.’

  Everyone but Mary Duane was looking at him now. ‘Perhaps a costermonger, sir.’

  Lord Kingscourt gave a hearty laugh at the thought. ‘Do you hear that, you indolent little loafer? A costermonger you shall be if you don’t watch out. Sweet apples here, Missus! Penny the dozen bejaysus!’

  The boy scowled and pulled abruptly away from his father.

  ‘Today’s lesson was astronomy,’ said Lord Kingscourt, tossing his son’s hair. ‘But I’m afraid it didn’t stick, hmm? Toffee and treacle are the only things that stick. But at least we attempt to show willing. Isn’t that right?’

  The child forked an egg into untidy quarters. His face was the colour of his father’s wine.

  ‘Jons,’ said his mother gently. ‘Papa was only playing.’

  He nodded sullenly but still did not say anything. Merridith looked at his wife. She gave him a stare that was hard to read. The Earl made to speak a few times but in the end he said nothing.

  ‘Do you have a place to go in New York, Mr Mulvey?’ asked Grantley Dixon.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You have family there, I suppose.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Friends, then.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Mulvey continued eating, his head bowed low. Eating like a man who had known the life of hunger, a man for whom eating had become a matter of chance: rhythmically, determinedly, with grim concentration, as though the sands were running steady through some hourglass of providence and the plate would be taken away when the last ones disappeared. Not gorging, not gulping – that was much less efficient: in your hurry you might leave the tiniest scrap uneaten. His hands rose and sank like those of a puppet drummer-boy, from plate to mouth, from mouth to plate, and he swallowed while they sank, so that his mouth would be empty at the instant when his fork rose to astonish it once more. He chewed quickly, mechanically: taste was not the issue. Taste was not something that had mattered for years. His hands trembled sometimes; his face was damp with purpose. To write it down is hard; it reads as though it were ridiculous. But to witness it was harder, and not funny at all. Even those merry boys stopped laughing as they noticed; my own feeling was that none of us would ever laugh again. Had the room burst into flames, or the vessel struck an iceberg, he would have continued implacably eating as death sat down at the table.

  ‘Perhaps …’ said Laura Merridith, and her voice trailed off. Never before had she witnessed a starving man eat. ‘Perhaps you might do us the honour of staying with ourselves for a while. Would that be a good idea, David?’

  She was trying not to cry.

  Lord Kingscourt looked at his wife with an expression of bewildered gratitude. ‘What a very nice thought. Don’t know why it didn’t occur to me.’

  Mulvey stopped eating and stared at the floor. There was a strange sense that the air around him was acquiring a colour. ‘I couldn’t do that, sir.’

  ‘We should like it if you did. Till you get on your feet.’

  The Countess touched the back of his emaciated wrist. ‘We really should. You have done us such a kindness.’

  Tears appeared in the guest’s eyes but he pinched them away. Inclined his head lower so that his face could not be seen. His hand reached for a glass and he took a sip of cloudy water.

  ‘What kindness is that, then?’ asked Jonathan Merridith.

  ‘Mr Mulvey has helped me with a small matter, that’s all,’ his father said.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Mind your own business before your business minds you, sir.’

  ‘Pardon me, lady,’ said Mary Duane suddenly. ‘But might I be excused from the table?’

  The Countess looked at her. ‘Are you unwell again?’

  ‘Yes, lady.’

  ‘You don’t look unwell. Are you sure?’

  ‘Lady.’

  ‘What is the matter, then, for pity’s sake? I warned you three times earlier, this is a special occasion.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ sighed Merridith, ‘if the girl says she’s unwell, she’s unwell, Laura. Must her head fall off and roll about the table?’

  Robert Merridith snuffled with mirth at the thought. His father leered across at him and pulled a clown’s face.

  ‘Your mama’s a silly old mare sometimes, ain’t she?’

  ‘I only meant it seems a pity for Jonathan’s birthday to be spoiled,’ said the Countess. ‘But if Mary wants to leave, then of course she must leave.’

  ‘Can’t you stay for a little time, Mary?’ asked Jonathan mopily. ‘I should very much rather you did.’

  A long moment passed. She went back to her food.

  ‘May I pour you a glass of water, Miss Duane?’ offered Grantley Dixon.

  She nodded her thanks. He filled her tumbler. The salad course was finished without another word from the diners.

  The plates were removed, and a platter bearing three chickens was placed on the table. Lord Kingscourt picked up a carving knife and held it towards Mulvey.

  ‘Little tradition,’ he explained. ‘We always invite the guest of honour to carve.’

  ‘David, for Heaven’s sake, let us not have all that formality.’

  ‘Oh do shut up, can’t you, woman. That is more than half of the fun. To attention at the double, Corporal Mulvey, and perform thy duty else thou be whipp’d.’

  Mulvey took the knife, stood up unsteadily and began to slice the meat. The Countess and Dixon handed him plates. He cut with surprising neatness, as though he was used to doing it. Whenever anyone said ‘thank you’ he nodded briefly but did not speak.

  The plates being loaded, they began to eat again. Dishes of vegetables and sauces were quickly passed around. Glasses refilled. More wine opened. Only the silence of Mary Duane worked against the attempt at festiveness – hers and the silence of Mulvey the killer. Their wordlessness hung over the table like an unasked question.

  ‘Isn’t this agreeable,’ said Lord Kingscourt after a few minutes. ‘All nosebagging together. We should arrange it more often.’

  Low, vague sounds were made by the boys. None of the adults gave any response.

  ‘How is it the Bard puts it, Dixon? Merry feast, etcetera?’

  ‘Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.’

  ‘Indeed. And how true. Old Othello, that is, Jonathan.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Dixon mildly, ‘it’s The Comedy of Errors.’

  ‘Of course; silly me. Antipholus, aint it? The shag from Ephesus.’

  ‘Balthazar in fact. Act Three, scene one.’

  ‘Bloody heck,’ sighed Merridith to his son, ‘it’s the dunce’s cap for your imbecile Pops tonight. Thank goodness for Mr Dixon’s presence among us.’

  Dixon laughed warily. ‘I played the part once in my student days, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, I’d say you were very good,’ Lord Kingscourt smiled.

  The ship pitched. The chandelier tinkled. The Earl broke a piece of chicken wing and began eating it with his fingers.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Mulvey?’ said a small and timid voice that had barely spoken a syllable since the start of the supper.

  The guest looked across the table at the face of Robert Merridith. A bonny little boy. The broth of his father.

  ‘Didn’t you come into my castle o
ne morning?’

  Mulvey shook his head. ‘No, master. I didn’t.’

  ‘One morning you came into my castle. With a funny kind of black mask on your face and a great big knife –’

  ‘Bobby, that’s enough,’ Merridith interrupted with a sigh. ‘Please excuse us, Mulvey, we have a fertile imagination.’

  ‘He’s only making a crack, sir, it’s all right.’

  ‘I’m not making a crack.’ The child gave an apprehensive giggle. ‘It was you, Mr Mulvey, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Bobby, I told you that’s quite enough. Now shut up and eat your confounded supper.’

  ‘I think we are a little tired, David,’ the Countess said gently. ‘You know how we become more imaginative when we are tired.’

  ‘We may be tired all we like. There is no need to be rude.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be rude, Pops, I just thought it was him.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said his mother. ‘We can all make mistakes.’ She turned to the guest of honour. ‘I am sure Mr Mulvey understands.’

  Robert was staring at him now. Mulvey tried to laugh. ‘A big man like myself’d never fit in through a little window like that, master.’

  ‘But he had a funny kind of walk. Exactly like you have. He was a cripple. He –’

  The next sound was the slap. It made the boy’s head whip back. The ship plunged hard. Nobody said anything.

  ‘Apologise to our guest this minute.’

  ‘Sir, there’s no need,’ Mulvey said.

  ‘There certainly is. This minute, do you hear.’

  ‘I’m s-sorry, Mr Mulvey.’

  ‘Now apologise to your brother for ruining his birthday.’

  ‘David, for pity’s sake – ’

  ‘Do not dare to interrupt me, Laura, when I am speaking to my son. Do you understand me, woman? Must I write it out in my own blood? Must you flaunt your disrespect and contempt for me on every possible occasion?’

  She made no response. He turned back to the boy. ‘I am waiting, Robert.’

  ‘I am sorry, J-Jons.’

  ‘Use his name you ridiculous fool.’

  ‘I am sorry, J-Jonathan.’

  ‘Do you accept his apology, Jonathan?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Shake hands.’

  They did as they were ordered. Robert was quietly crying.

  ‘Now get to your bed this minute. You make me sick to the stomach.’

  The child slipped down from his seat and tottered from the cabin. After a moment, Mary Duane rose and followed.

  Merridith filled his glass and took a long drink of wine. Went back to his food as though nothing had happened. A deadened, dazed look had invaded his face, and he cut up his meat with surgical attentiveness.

  ‘I should like to add my own apology, Mulvey. My own and my wife’s. My wife feels that children should be indulged whatever they do. A matter of how she herself was raised, no doubt.’

  ‘Your Honour –’

  ‘Not another word. I don’t mind a joke. But bad manners are intolerable. We are not in a swinery.’

  Dixon sat very still. Jonathan Merridith was pale. The Countess went to a serving table and began to stack the dirty plates. John Conqueroo gave a groan and moved closer to America.

  ‘Now,’ smiled the Earl. ‘Anyone for cake?’

  CHAPTER XXXII

  FROM

  ‘THE BLIGHT’

  FRAGMENT OF AN ABANDONED NOVEL

  BY G. GRANTLEY DIXON

  Details of the following extract drawn from notes made by Surgeon William Mangan (coeval with the events described herein) and from a long interview conducted with him shortly before his death in 1851.

  62°08’W; 44°13.11′N

  — 11.15 P.M. —

  ‘I’m not disturbing you, Monkton?’ said Lord Thomas Davidson.

  The weary-faced surgeon stepped back from the doorway and squinted in surprise.

  ‘Lord Queensgrove. Not at all. Come in, sir, come in.’

  Inside the cramped but orderly cabin sat the surgeon’s sister in a Japanese kimono. A teapot and porcelain cups had been placed on a card table, near a chessboard whose pieces were also Japanese. She rose to meet him with a careworn frown.

  ‘Good-night, Mrs Darlington. Forgive my intrusion at this unconscionable hour.’

  ‘Please, don’t worry. Is everything all right?’ Her loosened hair was wet. ‘It’s not one of the children?’

  ‘Both sleeping like Endymion. We had a little birthday celebration earlier this evening.’

  The lamp was burning low from the rafters over the card table, so that the corners of the room were lost in shadow. A dark mirror hung over the desk which was squashed into an alcove and in it could be seen the reflection of a hunting print.

  ‘You’ll join us for some tea? Or something a little stronger? I have a nice bottle of Madeira stowed away somewhere.’

  ‘No, thank you, Monkton. Fact is, I wanted to see you professionally for a moment if I might.’

  The surgeon half nodded. ‘Honoured, Lord Queensgrove. Just general run-down feeling, is it?’

  ‘Well, that – yes. And there’s another small matter.’

  ‘That’s all right, that’s all right. As a matter of fact, we were only saying, Mrs Darlington and I, how you seemed to be looking a little pale of late.’

  ‘It’s possibly a little delicate.’

  ‘Ah. You’d prefer Mrs Darlington to leave us for a moment?’

  ‘No no. Not at all. I didn’t mean that.’ He did mean that, but he didn’t want to offend her. The surgeon appeared to understand.

  He turned to his sister. ‘Marion, my love – would you go and see about that little message I was mentioning before.’

  She smiled. ‘I was just about to, dear.’

  Monkton gave a quiet and good-natured laugh as she left the cabin. ‘We chaps sometimes have a difficulty looking after ourselves properly and coming out with a thing. Not like the memsahibs in that way at all. And yet, you know, we really must.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Lord Queensgrove. Already he was feeling it had been a mistake to come here. He loathed the surgeon’s ingratiatingly chatty manner, the back-slappery and presumption that lay behind it.

  ‘Would you care to tell me a little more? Oh excuse my oafish manners, please sit down, My Lord; sit down.’ He beckoned to an armchair beside the small rolltop desk and sat down himself on a stool nearby.

  ‘It’s rather disconcerting to say it. I find myself a little embarrassed.’

  The surgeon opened a drawer and took out a notebook. ‘North or south? In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘South.’

  He nodded diplomatically and dipped his pen.

  ‘Little digestion problem? That type of thing?’

  ‘Not that.’

  He licked his fingers to separate the pages; nodded again and began to write. ‘South by south-west, then. My Lord Nebuchadnezzar.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The old waterworks, as it were.’

  ‘I suppose one could put it that way, yes.’

  ‘Lack of vigour?’

  ‘Not that, no.’

  ‘Inflammation? Pain?’

  ‘A little of both.’

  ‘Mm. Passing water all right lately?’

  ‘Not really. Gets extremely painful, then.’

  Again the surgeon nodded, as though he wasn’t surprised. For a moment there was no sound but the scratch of the nib on the paper. ‘Discharge at all?’

  The word struck the patient like a slap across the mouth. A blush flared up; his face was almost smarting.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said.

  ‘Ah. I see.’ The surgeon wrote in his notebook for what seemed a long time. Then he pursed his pale lips and gave a fatigued sigh. ‘Conditions on board a ship aren’t what they might be, of course. Hygienically speaking. Even here in First-Class. It’s my own little bugbear, I must confess. Mine and also Mrs Darlington’s. Ah, Lord Queensgrove, the p
redicaments we might avoid through simple cleanliness. Mrs Darlington does a lot of work among the poor.’

  For a moment Davidson didn’t know what to say. He wondered if he was being invited to defend the ship’s policies on hygiene, or his own; or to comment on Mrs Darlington’s mysterious works among the poor. But by now the surgeon was rummaging in a small leather bag.

  ‘You enjoy a drink, My Lord?’

  ‘Perhaps too much sometimes.’

  The physician chuckled. ‘Far from alone in that regard.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘But we all need to keep an eye on our general consumption. Doesn’t help anything to do with the waterworks or liver. Matter of build-up of toxins, you see. Can cause pain in the lumbar and also the private area generally. Night sweats, too.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘You bathe regularly of course, sir?’ He took a stethoscope and a couple of small metal instruments from the valise.

  ‘Twice a week, yes.’

  ‘Mm. Good fellow. Good for you.’ He went back to the notebook and resumed his writing, pronouncing aloud the last few words, like a pleased schoolmaster completing a report. ‘Bathes. Twice. In every. Week.’ With a flourish he made a motion of heavy underlining and then a vigorous full stop, as though trying to stab an insect with the nib of the pen.

  ‘I’d probably bang it up to every other day. Or even daily if poss.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘That’s the style. Now, pop over here and let’s take a look at the old site of battle, eh?’

  The surgeon lit a tilly-lamp and lengthened the wick, brightening the flame to a rich golden glow. Damp clothes and bed linen had been hung around the sitting room; on the chairs, on the sofa, on a fold-up dressing screen.

  Davidson opened his britches and underclothing and pulled them down to his thighs. Undid the lowest three buttons of his shirt. The surgeon took what looked like a pillowcase from a pile of pressed clothes and draped it quickly over the back of a chair.

  ‘Lean the old stern against there if you would.’

  He did as he was told. Monkton knelt and began examining him.

  ‘Little delicate there?’

  ‘Yes.’