“This is Mr. Gray, a young English pupil I have,” said Mr. O’Hara, with a wave of his dirty hand. Dermot was so used to the mistake, by now, that he did not bother to correct it.
The figure bowed slightly.
“How do you do,” he said grimly. Dermot stammered an answer. Susceptible always to personal quality, he realised that he was in the presence of someone very considerable indeed.
Dr. Johnson looked away for a moment down the street.
“Will this war end soon? ” he said abruptly.
“Ah, sure, I hope so.”
“Well ”—with a glance up at’ the big stone front of Trinity—“I hope you’re right.”
And he passed on inside.
“Who was that?” asked Dermot, in awestruck tones.
“That,” replied Mr. O’Hara, well pleased, “is Doctor Mahaffy.”
“Oh! ” Dermot turned round, to stare once more after the famous figure.
When, a few days later, Mr. O’Hara interrupted the course of an unseen to point out the window and say “There goes a scholar you may have heard mentioned—Robert Yelverton Tyrrell,” Dermot felt that his cup was full. Of all people on the earth, scholars and writers held his passionate admiration. He had discovered Synge, and went regularly to the Abbey Theatre. Con had been the unlikely introducer to this literary pasture: he always went there to hear the dialect, and, except for this, could not at all distinguish the plays from those he saw elsewhere. It was a great disappointment to Dermot that Mr. O’Hara did not share his enthusiasm.
“Did ya ever see any good thing come out of a place the like o’ that? ” he enquired derisively: and, “Ah, they’ve learned a pretty little trick. Take any old plot of any old play, and dress it up with a bit of talk from a pub back door.”
Dermot looked at him, more shocked than he would admit.
“I think there’s more in ’ The Playboy of the Western World’ than that,” he said.
“There is,” retorted his tutor. “A lot of sham poetry no corner-boy would soil his tongue with.”
And Dermot, who was not yet hardened to differing in worship from those he liked, rode home in the tram hurt and dejected. He knew Mr. O’Hara was wrong ; he hated to be laughed at for his enthusiasm: and he felt that, by not being able to silence and out-argue him, he had let down the cause in which he believed. More than anything, he resented the unspoken suggestion that he liked the Abbey because he was an Englishman and a tourist. It was desperately hard, to get himself accepted as Irish. Even his friends at the baths all thought of him as an Englishman.
“I’ll tell you what you are,” said one of them one morning, as they stood up and stretched, preparatory to swimming their length to the pier and back. “You’re a quack Irishman.”
It was not meant unkindly, but it stuck: Dermot never forgot it. He swam savagely, and beat his traducer by many yards: but the barb could not be washed out of his flesh. “Begawrah !” Old mockeries rose up from the past. “The quack Irishman.” These obstinate brutes wouldn’t have it that anyone was Irish who didn’t live there all the year round, and go to school there. You might prove what you like, argue what you like, do what you like. They just grinned at you. They were like Mr. O’Hara, grinning at Synge and the Abbey. A derisive grin: that was Dublin’s answer to most things, whether it understood them, or, as was more likely, it had not the remotest idea what they signified. Even Con was like that: he jeered at what he could not understand. Perhaps even that was one better than Uncle Ben, who wouldn’t allow that it existed. Dermot raged to himself, sitting on the draughty covered top of the tram, scowling at the big houses in their stately gardens, and the long stretch of road to Monkstown.
Though he did not know it, he, and all the world, were seeing them for the last time. Not the outward shell of them, but all that gave them meaning. The eighteen-sixties had received their death-blow. Even during the ten or twelve years Dermot had known them, they were dying. The slow pool in the river was breaking up ; the eddies found themselves in the grip of the current ; they and their circling lumber began to move, and were borne away. The entrapped flotsam, which in the pool seemed so solid and large, was swept into the main current, scattered, made insignificant, and disappeared. Four years more, and those big houses would be empty, staring in mournful incomprehension through their broken windows at an altered world. Old newspapers would blow about the trim drives, the orchards would be desolate and broken, the tennis lawns dishevelled patches of rank grass. The broad peace and security of an old order would be gone. When Bessie and Dermot’s mother had clapped the front door of Walmer Villa after them for the last time, and faced one another on the doorstep to say goodbye, the spirit of the old times fled from its last stronghold, the little alcove in the corner where the books had been, where the dark outline of the cuckoo clock showed still upon the wall paper: the corner sacred to Tom Moore, to Dickens, and to Vousden: the corner comforted by the shade of Henry Francis Lyte, and composed by the shade of James Mongan, Barrister-at-Law. That period died. The period enshrined at Delgany survived and suffered change. “Are ye right, there, Michael, are ye right? ” sang Uncle Ben: and “When M’Carthy took the floor at Enniscorthy.” These survived: but “The Private Still,” which he also sang, was swept down the river with the years that owned it. The city Dermot had just left was to suffer change and violence. Gunfire and shells were to scar its face: Eithne was to come back ten years later, and search every stone of Middle Abbey Street to find, not the old offices, but some hint of where they stood. These tram-rides in to Trinity were Dermot’s last chance to see a city which was about to disappear: “dear old, dirty Dublin,” now no more, the despair of all who lived in her, whom all that knew her regret in their hearts, while thankful for the order and cleanliness that has taken her place: the old kindly, garrulous, amusing slattern, the old witty stinking fishwife, drink-sodden, paralysed in will, driven off, battered, given a black eye, kicked out, by a young hard-eyed woman who set to work scrubbing and setting things to rights: tottering off down the quayside of men’s memories, with a hiccup and a joke flung over her shoulder, disappearing into the rain and the darkness, her uncertain steps growing fainter and fainter: lovable, disgusting, butt for the sentimentality of men remembering old days, forgetting old discomforts: a tub, a target, a smell of porter: a rotten social system: ignorant, credulous, gossiping, with fits of drunken generosity: dear old dirty Dublin, staggering away to limbo down the cobbled quays. The world is well rid of her: peace to her soul.
But Dermot, clanking away towards Sandycove, knew none of this. He saw, dimly, that there were changes: he appreciated the true meaning of the alcove by the cuckoo clock: but the city he had left, a city whose spirit was expressed for him in the jeers of Mr. O’Hara, seemed full of inimical health, in no wise on her deathbed. He loved Dublin, because Dublin usually meant Middle Abbey Street, the Abbey, and rides with Con. This new aspect distressed him. He did not recognise the old lady when she suddenly stuck out her tongue.
Chapter XXXV
“Dermot,” said Con abruptly. “C’m here till I tell ye.”
They had left the bicycle beside the mountain road, and clambered down the steep slope that leads to the Annamoe. For some time they wandered along the river, Con growing silent. He was subject to fits of silence, so Dermot took no notice of this. Well content, he looked up at the enormous hills that shut in the long still valley. A quick memory of Keim an Eigh came to his mind, and he dismissed it with a smile. Last year seemed a long time ago. He would not break out so crudely, and expose himself, nowadays.
They came to a place where round, smooth boulders stuck out from the bank, and there, without a word, Con sat down, and began moodily throwing pebbles into the water. Dermot found himself a rock a few yards off, and sat, dreaming. Con’s voice, though it was not loud, made him jump.
“What? ” he said, looking up startled.
“C’m here. I’ve something I want to say to ye.”
Wondering, De
rmot came across. Con shuffled along his rock, and made room. Then, without saying anything, he went on throwing pebbles.
“Can ye keep your mouth shut, if I tell ye something.”
“I can.”
“That’s good. Well ”—another stone, more viciously aimed. “I don’t know what ye’ll think of this, at all: but … maybe … I think, anyhow, ye’d better know. Only, mind, not a word to a soul.”
“Not a word.”
“Not a bloody word——” Con grinned, as they both remembered something they had heard in the street outside the office.
“—to a bloody soul,” Dermot grinned back.
“Well. It’s no laughing matter. It’s—I’m in love with Eithne, and I always have been.”
“I thought that,” said Dermot. His eye, looking away, was caught by an agitated moorhen fussing about a hundred yards down on the opposite bank. Con glanced at him quickly out of the corners of his eyes.
“Well, I suppose you had as good a chance of noticing as the next person.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“Have any of the others noticed?” asked Con, with sudden apprehension.
“I heard Granny say, a long time ago, ‘ I believe Con will wait for Eithne.’ But none of them took it at all seriously.”
“That’s good.” Con blew with relief, and passed the back of his huge hand across his forehead. He surveyed the water for a moment, leaned down to one side, and threw two more pebbles.
“What will they think, do ye imagine?” he asked bluntly.
“They won’t be too keen on it,” answered Dermot, still watching the moorhen.
“No,” said Con, slowly, “I was prepared for that.” He scowled, and suddenly jerked his chin upward. “Why? ” he demanded truculently. “What have they against me? ”
His tone almost accused Dermot of the objection.
“They’ll say, I suppose,” said Dermot, not looking at him, “that you’re too old, and that your prospects aren’t good enough.”
“My prospects——” began Con, in fighting mood ; but stopped short. “Aye,” he said, in a quieter tone. “I haven’t much at the minute, I admit. But I’ve health, and strength, and the business is a good one. My Dad’ll give me a bigger share in it, once I want to settle. Or, if he doesn’t——”
“If he can’t——” put in Dermot quietly. The moorhen, after much looking around, disappeared into a thicket.
Con gave his companion a sharp, surprised look. He saw a motionless and rather stolid profile, that belied its owner. Several times lately the quiet force of Dermot’s personality had come suddenly out and surprised him.
“Well, aye, perhaps. If he can’t—isn’t the world full of jobs? And, anyhow—I have my faith in Almighty God, Who will find a way for me to carry out my heart’s desire. ”
The sincerity of this unwonted eloquence moved Dermot. He waited a couple of seconds before replying.
“All the same, Con,” he said, clearing his throat, “however much Daddy may appreciate that, you can’t expect him to look upon it as a commercial asset.”
“Commercial,” said Con, picking up a fresh handful of stones, and beginning methodically to sling them after their predecessors. “Well, no. I daresay not. But is that the only view to take? ”
Dermot swung round and confronted him.
“Don’t ask me. I’m not saying it is. I’m only telling you what I expect they—Daddy—will say as soon as you tell them.”
“I wouldn’t tell him. Not at first. I’d tell your mother.”
“She’d tell him.”
“I’d ask her not to.”
“She would, all the same. She’s pretty much under his thumb, you know.”
“Sure, she wouldn’t tell him, once she’d promised not. I’d make her promise, before I let out a word.”
“She’d be frightfully unhappy ; and it would make a fearful row between them. I’d tackle him right away, if I were you. He’d be all the worse to deal with, if he saw he’d been sidetracked.”
Con flung his last and biggest stone hard and true against a round stone in midstream.
“You may be right,” he said gloomily. “I’ll have to think it out. Anyway, I’m not going to say a word to them yet.” He turned round, and faced Dermot. “What do you think of it, by the way? ” he demanded bluntly.
Dermot smiled, and put out his hand.
“I’d ask no better, Con,” he said.
Con wrung his hand in his enormous paw.
“Thanks, old chap,” he said, with emotion. “It’s good of ye to say that.”
“It’s a fact,” answered Dermot awkwardly, “so why wouldn’t I say it.”
They sat happily together, watching the water. It ran dark and still. Only where the round stone stood up did it make any noise, embracing one side of it with a slow curved ripple, that set up a soft, thoughtful sound, unending, for a while unnoticed, then so distinct it filled the background of their consciousness, forcing them to realise it, and immediately forget.
“Does Eithne know? ” asked Dermot presently.
“No. I didn’t want to say a word to her, till I’d seen the others.”
“Why? ”
“Ah, sure, it’s hardly fair on the girl. She’s only a wee thing still.”
“She’s fourteen.”
“Yes, I know. But what would anyone say, telling a child like that? Of course I know she’s not a child in many things. But the world would say so. They’d say I was a cad.”
Dermot got up. The rock was becoming hard to his behind.
“Well, Con, you know more about these things than I do, of course. But I’d say, if anyone’s to hear about it, the first person ought to be the person whom it concerns. She’d far sooner know: that I’m sure.”
“Maybe, do ye think, I’d better not say a word at all yet?” Con looked at him in woe-begone enquiry. “You see, Dermot boy, she’s a lovely girl: and I don’t want any damned fella in England getting in before me, for want of a word said.”
“Don’t you worry about that.” Dermot was sure of his ground here. “You’re the one person in the world she adores. There’s nobody like you. Don’t you worry.”
“If I knew you were by, to keep an eye open, to give me the tip, if so be …? ”
“Well, now, what do you think I am? Of course I will.”
“Dermot, old man, I—I don’t know how to thank you. If ever a chap had a good friend——”
“Shut up. Do you think I’m not particular who I have for my only brother-in-law? ”
“You’re only one? Sure, what about when you marry yourself! ”
“Ah, don’t be a fool. You know what I mean. I’ve only the one sister.”
“Aye.” Con thumped his chest resoundingly. “And she’s one in a hundred thousand of them.”
“She is.”
Dermot could not, for some reason, naturally praise Eithne. It violated an unconscious taboo.
“Then you think I’d better say nothing for a while? ” asked Con, as they laboured up the slope.
“I think so, for everybody’s sake.”
But, for all that, the declaration was not long delayed. August nineteen-fourteen had set many a ball rolling, big and little. Great catastrophes are like cyclones, whose vast energies are expressed in the wrecking of cities and the dismembering of a butterfly. Nothing is too mighty for their influence, nothing too small.
Dermot kept the secret easily. Only once or twice, when he heard his family speculating about Con, did he feel the least temptation to blurt out his knowledge, and confound Mr. Gray’s facile diagnoses. There were times, however, when its magnitude suddenly struck him. Playing billiards one evening, looking across the room at Con, as he moodily watched Uncle Ben make a break: tall, powerful, handsome, brooding: he felt the sudden sense of power, the knowledge that he had but to blurt out a dozen words, and strike them all by lightning.
“Ah, me little darlin’—me little dar—Agh! now why didn’t ye go in
? ”
Uncle Ben straightened up with a look of sorrow on his face. He gazed reproachfully at the ball, as if it had betrayed his confidence.
Dermot grimaced, went to the table, took quick but careful aim, and missed an all round the table cannon by a couple of inches.
“Hard luck, oh, hard luck indeed, little son.”
Uncle Ben always treated his opponents as if they were children, exclaiming at the easiest of successes, condoling extravagantly upon the most obvious of errors. Age had emphasised this characteristic in him: he was now a bad man to play with.
“Now then, Ernest, me lad. A nice, easy, straightforward little shot for ye.”
Mr. Gray came forward with a bad grace. He was a poor performer, and hated partnering Uncle Ben. Usually he refused to play. To-night he had unwillingly consented, to make a four. Worst of all, he disliked showing his want of skill in front of Dermot.
“Now, Ernest, boy. Get down, now: hit your own ball just a little to the left—no, not down there: there. That’s it. Now, aim to catch me little red boy over yonder just about half ball.”
Mr. Gray stooped, and rose.
“What is it you want me to do, Ben? ” he asked, tartly.
“Just what I’m telling you, Ernest boy. Just what I’m telling you. Hit your own ball a little——”
“Yes. I heard all that. But what is the shot I’m supposed to be trying to make? ”
Uncle Ben regarded him in mild reproach, as a saint might a disciple for want of faith.
“What we want to do is to go in, off red, into the top pocket. But if you’ll just do what I tell you, now, ye’ll see, it’ll come out pat, without you worrying your head.”
“Well then, I wish, if you don’t mind, you’d tell me what I’m supposed to do first of all. Then you can tell me how to do it afterwards.”
“Very well, Ernest boy. Very well.” Uncle Ben crossed the room to chalk his cue. “Just what you like yourself,” he said amiably.
“I mean—I may be a fool, but I do like to be told what I’m at.”
The Garden Page 30