The Garden

by L. A. G. Strong

  Many memories of departure were crowded together in Dermot’s mind. Sometimes the family went South, by Rosslare. They would travel sadly into Dublin, to Kingsbridge, and rattle away into the gathering dusk, till the trees became dark as crêpe, and presently, over the hazy fields, the enormous harvest moon arose, and stared changelessly in the carriage window. Later, he would look out, and see the roofs of Kilkenny shining in the green moonlight. Other times, they would go by the morning mail from Kingstown. The streets would be clean and empty as they went down, with the heavenly early morning smell to make parting a worse agony. Everyone they met would be smiling and cheerful, going about their business for another day. A milkman, jumping from his float, would sing out some remark in the darling tongue Dermot was to hear no more for ten whole months. Half an hour of confusion, and stiff smiles, and they would be standing out splendidly across the Bay, looking at the houses all shining in the morning sun, at the Island, Dalkey Hill, the Sound—and Delgany itself, standing up clean and pure upon its hill. Deliberately, he would look down for a minute at the hissing, creaming wave that rushed away from the ship’s side—just to prove that, by lifting his eyes again, he could still actually feast them upon the loveliest and dearest place in all the world. He would watch, as in duty bound, till his eyes ached, till he could no longer pick out houses, till the spires were dim astern, and Killiney Hill itself a brown knoll on the horizon: till, when at last one looked ahead with a sigh, the cold unwelcoming cliffs of Wales stood up, and Ireland was lost in a smoky cloud on the edge of the sky.

  Once, they went all down the coast to Waterford. This was heartrending for a while, though not perhaps as bad as leaving by the mail boat. All got in at Sandycove, and the train puffed maddeningly along to Dalkey, past Dalkey, below the road to Delgany, and then, after a short tunnel, past the very windows of Delgany itself ; and rushed off down the coast to Killiney. That far, one could pretend, tantalisingly, horribly, that they were just going for a picnic to Killiney Strand. Indeed, Mr. Gray, with ghastly jocularity, teased them by saying as much: but, as Eithne collapsed at once into tears, and Dermot scowled furiously, he was not encouraged. Granny came as far as Bray with them. Even Dermot felt this to be a mistake, a prolonging of the agony. All along the coast from Killiney to Bray, one could watch Delgany, clear upon its cliff, retreating, growing tinier. One could watch, and turn to see the great tireless waves crashing in upon the Strand. It looked forlorn already, with, here and there, a person walking alone, holding a hat on against the evening breeze. Great, curling waves. In half an hour, when he was miles down the coast, they would still be falling ; breaking, creaming, subsiding, hissing: like that wave now. It was hard to realise that all would go on just the same. He had never seen the country except in summer, and could not picture it.

  Presently, down the coast, dusk would fall. Eithne and he would have to give up counting donkeys and goats. They sat together, in the window, doing this, eating their supper—eating the last dear food of Walmer Villa, the last picnic basket. It was a sad pastime, but it was part of the ritual. Besides—and here was its real value—though every clockety-clock of the wheels was taking them further and further from the dear places, there would come a day when the train would bear them upward again, when they would joyfully count goats and donkeys. Swallowing the ache in his throat, Dermot repeated almost savagely his favourite text, “Heaviness may endure for a night ; but joy cometh in the morning.”

  Book III

  Chapter XXIV

  The treat of the whole holiday, the very summit of happiness, was the week Dermot spent at Delgany. Aunt Patricia’s invitation had been grudgingly accepted at first, for both Granny and Dermot’s mother were afraid that the unaccustomed diet would upset him, that he would be kept up late, and that efforts to keep pace with Con would overtax his strength. But Dermot pleaded so hard they let him go: and the precedent, once established, might not be broken. Indeed, as soon as Eithne was nine, she was asked too. It was the week of the year, the summit of all joy, and, blessed circumstance, not right at the end of their time, but a good fortnight or so before, so that their farewell, when they had to leave the house, was not final. They knew they would soon be up again, for a day. It was goodbye by easy stages.

  He went up to Delgany in the morning. Paddy, subdued at the prospect of a week’s loneliness, took the old Gladstone bag. Eileen opened the door, gave him a hug, and in a few minutes was helping him unpack in a high airy room that smelt of the sea. After that, there was time to rush down the steep path, joyously waving a towel, and get a glorious bathe and a sunbathe before lunch. Dermot would have to go round and undress by himself in a queer little cave. A former owner of Delgany, a crippled man, with an inveterate love of bathing, had caused a wall to be built across the mouth of this cave, enclosing a small bath of water, some twenty feet long, by six or seven across. Into this his attendants lowered him, on a stretcher, so that he could still gasp and tingle in the cold, live element. All shook their heads, and called it suicide: but he lived six years to enjoy his bath, and the doctors could not say it had shortened his life: so he got good value for his money. Nowadays, the bath was not inviting, for no one troubled to clean it. Uncle Ben, who bathed before breakfast the whole year round, might well have used it: but, after one glance, he preferred to walk the half mile to Vico, and bathe there. He was wise, for the walk back warmed him up. The cave would be very damp and depressing on a wet winter day.

  But winter was far off. This was high September, that marvellous time when the sun shines all day, rising to find the grasses white with dew ; when there is a tang of early frost in the morning air, clearer than the air of full summer ; when the sea sparkles with fresh life, and mackerel pull stronger on the hook, and there is a joyous rush to use the boats that must soon be beached and housed. Soon after Uncle Ben returned, singing, from his bathe, there would be a furious sound of razor strops, followed by the mellow uproar of the gong: and Dermot would come down to breakfast. He would find, in the dining-room, most of the party, speaking in hushed voices. Chairs would be set out, in odd, constrained positions. After a few brief civilities, silence would fall, broken at last by a slip-slopping hurricane of sound, as though a young elephant were falling down the stairs ; and Con, in slippers, hastily doing up the last button of his waistcoat, would burst in, exclaiming, “Sorry, Mother. Sorry, Dad,” and collapse into a chair. Then Uncle Ben, looking over the tops of his spectacles at nothing, would go across to the door and cough a tenor “ahem.” At the signal, there would be a clippering of heels on the oilcloth, and in came the maids, self conscious, looking down their noses, to take their place stiffly on two chairs apart, against the wall. Coughing once more, Uncle Ben began to read. He read always one of the lessons for the day. When he had finished, everyone rose stiffly, and kneeled down. Dermot at first covered his eyes with his hands. Later, finding that as he knelt against the low window seat, he faced Vico Hill and the Bay, he took unashamedly to gazing out. This did not take his mind off the prayers. The whole picture, the rise and fall of the sea on the gleaming weed, the clean colours of the houses on the hill, the pale blue plumes of smoke that rose into the morning air, wooded Killiney, and, beyond, the great line of the mountains, were all blended with the earnest, emphatic tones of Uncle Ben’s voice, that special voice in which he read the prayers, which was yet so recognisably his own. Here, Dermot felt, one did pray. The prayers startled him at first. They were family prayers, read from a special manual, quite unlike the prayers to which he was accustomed. To hear God called upon to sanctify the work and pleasures of each individual, to safeguard business dealings, watch over jokes and private conversations, and take a benevolent hand in family disputes, used at first to shock him. Then, catching the spirit of this amazing household, and realising that in it all they were in deadly earnest, he began to feel the warmth of their devotion. He was glad his father was not there, nor his mother. They did not take their faith like this. Their worship was not so simple, or so demonstr
ative. Their voices did not alter when they prayed. They would have felt uncomfortable, tried, politely, to laugh it off. Without a word spoken, he knew that. What was more, he knew that one day he would have to choose between this way and theirs. It was some time before he decided. When the day came, he found that he had decided to follow the way of Delgany: laying up for himself much trouble in this temporal world, and staging yet another conflict for a nature that was to fight a good many already.

  The moment prayers were over, the family all began to talk in their normal voices. Con would leap upon Dermot, make a hideous face at him, and lift him into the air.

  “G’d marnin’ to ye, old sober gob,” he would bawl. “How aarre yez? Have ye no tongue in yer head, boy? Wha’, wha’, wha’?”

  Each question would be punctuated by a shake, so that Dermot could not answer.

  “Con! Sit down to your food, like a Christian.”

  “All right, Mother, all right. Dermot—d’ye hear—sit down to your food like a Christian.”

  And breakfast began. Three or four times during the meal Eileen screwed round in her chair, to look out over the gleaming expanse of the bay.

  “That’s a grand day. What would you like to do, Dermot, son?”

  “Aah, Eileen! don’t be goin’ on about the day. What good is it to poor divils like Dad and myself, has to be goin’ in to earn money by the sweat of our two brows?”

  “Keep your divils to yourself,” said his father equably, hunting for his napkin ring. “Now where, now where in the world—oh, here it is. But ye’re right, son. It’s too good a day to be going into the city.”

  “Money! “said Con melodramatically, rolling an eye towards his father, for this was a beloved gambit. “Take heed, Dermot. Be warned in time. It’s greed for money has us slavin’ away like this. Money is the root of all evil.”

  Uncle Ben, who had risen from his chair, looked down at him in mild reproof.

  “No, son,” he corrected. “The love of money.”

  “Oh, sorry, Dad.” Unable to control himself, Con burst into a guffaw, with the endearing candour of a sheepdog which knows it has been naughty, but cannot feel repentant. His father took no notice, but went about the room, patting his pockets, and peering on the mantelpiece.

  “What is it you want, Ben. Is it your pipe?”

  “It is, darling. It is me pipe. Me little pipe. Oh, me pipe, where are ye. Where are—Golly Mass! Here it is, under me nose, all the time.”

  After breakfast, which was quite a leisurely affair, the whole house seemed suddenly to go mad. Uncle Ben, looking out of the window, caught sight of his train somewhere between Bray and Killiney, and broke into wild lamentations. From his outcry, and the scurry it caused, one would surmise that he had lost everything he possessed. The commotion always ended in his running out of the gate, blowing huge kisses back at Aunt Patricia, and paying no attention to the recommendations she was screaming after him. Dermot had never before seen people whose moods varied from instant to instant. At one moment, in the hall, Uncle Ben, separated from some important belonging, would be crying his woes to Heaven. Irretrievable disaster, to judge from his tones, would be overhanging the house. In another moment, on the doorstep, he would be beaming, encircling, with a vast bear’s hug, everyone there to see him off, and rush off, trumpeting with laughter. Con, who all this time had been sedulously brushing his teeth (another eccentricity, in Dermot’s eyes. He brushed his when he first got up)—Con would become infected with the same madness, and plunge bellowing through the house, down to the mysterious and utterly delightful cellar where he kept his motor bike. One of the pioneers of this sport, he rode in trials for a large manufacturing company, and received from them a new machine each year at a nominal cost.

  “Here, Con, Con, Con! Your parcel !”

  “It’s no good, mother, it’s no good. I can’t stop. I can’t stop.”

  “Ah, Con! Here, Eileen. Run out and catch him.”

  Seizing his beloved machine, Con would charge out with it, across the narrow space between the lawns, through a small gate, and into the path which led to the shore. Up this, with his exceptional strength, he was able to push the bicycle: but, once started, he could not stop until, panting and crimson, he reached the level of the road.

  “Get away, girl, get away, girl, get away. Thank ye. D’ye know what ye are? C’m here till I tell ye. Ye’re a pet.” An overalled arm would encircle her, and she would receive an enormous kiss.

  “Aah, Con, let go. You’re making me all dusty.”

  “I tell ye wha’,” bellowed her brother, over the roar of the engine. “That fella Cecil” (or Patrick, or Denis, or Freddie, or Joe)—“he doesn’t deserve ye. No. He’s not good enough.”

  “Aah, Con. Will you shut up.”

  And, her eyes sparkling, Eileen returned to the house.

  For Dermot, the day stretched ahead, with all its enchantment. Anne and Eileen had their various tasks to do for a while, but they would be sure to join him at half past eleven for a bathe, or to troll for mackerel up and down the Sound. Till then, he was left to himself. He could go down on the shore, and fish—more for form’s sake than for any practical result, for the place was a mass of weeds. He could potter about the pools, or play upon the lawn, listening with one ear to Anne practising in the drawing-room. He could pop discreetly into the greenhouse, where Eileen was tending her vines: the hot, mossy greenhouse, so queer after the sparkle and sunshine outside: quite a different world. Anne’s playing, softened by distance, wove itself deeply into the spell of those mornings. He could never afterwards hear Sinding’s “Rustle of Spring” without a rush of memories and sights and sounds ; the sigh of the waves, the brightness and bustle of the sunny morning, the bees in the bushes, and, abrupt and sudden, the rushing of a train out of the tunnel, filling the bay with its noise and its general air of flustered unpunctuality. The light notes of the music, cheerful and shallow, leaped out of the window like a school of little fishes: Anne put into her piece the gaiety and vigour of the morning. Then, more assertive, more majestic, the strong left hand went crashing down into the bass, in full and sufficient assertion of the animal spirits proper to such sunlight and such a shining sea.

  In the afternoon there would be a row in the boat, or a picnic on the Hill. Any odd few minutes, any cold or wet time, Dermot would put in on the billiard table. Under the tuition of Con and Uncle Ben, he was practising assiduously. The trouble about Con and Uncle Ben as coaches was that, being possessed of an excellent eye and much natural games ability, they played for the individual shot rather than for the leave, and so encouraged Dermot into a virtuosity to which he was by nature only too prone. When Brian came in—he lived in rooms in Dublin, for his work—he was very scornful of their teaching. Dermot was resentful at first ; but, seeing Brian defeat them easily, without ever appearing to make a difficult shot, he had to admit privately that there was something in it. Con could never stand being beaten.

  “Look at the leaves the fella gets,” he would mutter angrily.

  He could not be brought to see that these were provided by Brian’s skill. Con would never admit the possibility of a skill beyond his own understanding: though, as he did some things very well indeed, this was not so grave a limitation as it sounds. Con had a magnificent voice, and would not believe that it could be the better for training. He was amazingly strong, and professed to laugh at all systems of exercise. He had robust health, and could hardly help looking upon the care that others took as fear and faddiness. Finding that by nature he could excel the majority of his fellow men, he despised the means by which they sought to better themselves. “Brains” was the only attribute he respected. “One of those clever fellas,” he would say, and an expression of reverence would come over his face: for “brains” Con lacked. He read his motorcycling journal, but little else: and, typically, since this was the only mount he could afford, he believed quite sincerely that a cycle was in all respects superior to a car. Dermot would go down to the
cellar, as soon as the snorting of the machine advertised Con’s return in the evening, and stare at the great engine, there fitly housed, amid walls whose whitewash was covered six feet above the ground with cuttings and photographs of similar wonderful engines and their godlike drivers. Dermot had no natural aptitude for machines. He valued them because Con did, and for the pleasures they gave, their roar, their speed, the marvellous rides they took one, flying away in no time over the hot road he would need hours to walk, rushing up the little roads into the mountains, escaping by Sally Gap or Glen Macnass to the airy top of the world. They would go up there when Con came back early from the city. Later on, when Dermot was older, he would go in to Dublin on the tram, and call for Con at Middle Abbey Street, to save time. In half an hour, they would be whizzing up a steep hill, and presently they would look down on a little clear toy city, with miniature spires shooting up alert out of the haze of grey and blue, and tiny piers jutting out on the pale, looking-glass sea: upon the Hill of Howth, squat, sulky, mutinous, blue: away past Dublin into infinite flat distance, rich, sweetly wooded country which speedily became like smoke, fading out at the horizon’s rim. Then they would turn to the near shoulders of the mountains, and greet the breeze that blew across the great smooth billows of peat and heather. Those swift escapes from the city to the mountains, the rush of air upon one’s face, the roar behind and beneath one, the dogs that scampered soundlessly out to attack, tore along level for a second, and fell behind: what joy they held! Sometimes Dermot rode in the sidecar, but usually on a cushion strapped to the carrier. This he much preferred—holding on to Con’s broad back, his feet on the shivering rests, feeling every motion, as the machine leaned over, swooped, or powerfully charged a hill: craning round to get the fierce rush of the wind, or stretching back as far as he dared, to hear the clamorous echoes behind them, as they sped down the Rocky Valley on their too-swift journey home in the sunset.