At Swim, Two Boys Part 12

"I didn't dare for to ask, mam."

"Where is he now?"

"Isn't he in the hall?"

Idiot child. "Is the fire lighting in the small drawing-room?"

"It is, mam."

"Show him to the big one so. And make tea, child. Is there cake?"

"Wasn't there Madeira, only Cook said-"

Eveline cut short the elaboration of excuses. "Bring what you may find."

"Only Cook says, mam, to ask will he be staying for dinner?"

"No. Neither will he stay for lunch. Now, will you make haste." Perfunctory curtsy, then her tread on the clumsy stairs.

Eveline studied the presentiment in her gla.s.s. Not the pearls after all, not the studs, nor the jet. It would have to be the emerald eardrops now. She chose a tea-gown of bold and cloque roses: cerise, chartreuse, grenadine. Eau de damas Eau de damas for scent. Her hair was not unparagoned, wisps strayed beyond her ears. Not for scent. Her hair was not unparagoned, wisps strayed beyond her ears. Not en neglige, en neglige, but as though stirred by a Celtic breeze. but as though stirred by a Celtic breeze.

Father Amen O'Toiler, direct from his first sermon to the parish. She could not remember had she engaged to attend. She would congratulate him nevertheless. Magnificent blow for Ireland. At last a leader has come among us. Feet now. The b.u.t.ton boots or the Gibson laces? Gibsons to show her s.h.i.+ns.

The Gibsons had not been brushed nor the laces ironed and she cursed her idle people. And the gown, she realized, was a shade perhaps French in its reach. Still she had exquisite s.h.i.+ns, and should the priest pretend to look askance she would say the gown had been run up in Donegal. Yes, splendid relict contrives them. One sits at her hearth while she spins and sews and regales with tales of the old times. I suppose they do sew in Donegal?

She viewed the ensemble in the body-gla.s.s. A nation's muse, la belle Irlande. la belle Irlande. A celebrated lady poet. Lionizing hostess. Her shoulders sank. Judge at the Glasthule Charity Bazaar. Some fallal or other. Choker with the cameo brooch? In the end she chose an amber pendant with a fly caught inside. She sang to herself, "Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber That ever the sorrowing seabird hath wept." They gave it to Mother when Father was returned the third time. Grateful const.i.tuents. Oil of palm, she expected. A celebrated lady poet. Lionizing hostess. Her shoulders sank. Judge at the Glasthule Charity Bazaar. Some fallal or other. Choker with the cameo brooch? In the end she chose an amber pendant with a fly caught inside. She sang to herself, "Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber That ever the sorrowing seabird hath wept." They gave it to Mother when Father was returned the third time. Grateful const.i.tuents. Oil of palm, she expected.

En grande tenue, she descended the stairs. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Stop it, now, one must be sober. she descended the stairs. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Stop it, now, one must be sober.

"Forgive me, Father, for keeping you waiting. The butler has run off to sea, the parlor maids have married their soldiers, which leaves me only the girl from the kitchen and she, G.o.d help us, is touched."

She approached with her hand held out and the young man rose in jerks from the sofa. He fumbled in a farouche way, confused as to whether to kiss her hand or to shake it. At the last moment she glided past and pulled the bell-rope that hung by the hearth.

Nancy came rus.h.i.+ng to the door. "Mam?"

"Be a good child and bring tea. Would tea be all right for you, Father?"

"Tea would be grand, Madame MacMurrough."

"Isn't the kettle only waiting, mam?"

"Very good. Make haste. Father O'Toiler, do sit down and tell me, do, how are things in the four green fields of Erin?"

She perched upon a fiddle-back and the priest returned to the sofa. He had chosen the center cus.h.i.+on and she watched as he sank lower and lower till his knees rose to be level with his chin. Whatever it is they teach in Maynooth these days, she considered, it is never command of furniture.

She saw his fingers fidget with the cardboard cover of his breviary. Would a leather breviary be a fitting gift?

The priest hemmed. "Things are growing apace, Madame MacMurrough. It is my fear, however, that in the parish of the Stream of O'Toole we are lagging somewhat."

"The Stream of O'Toole, father?"

"It is the translation of Glasthule from the Gaelic."

"How inspiriting. You cannot conceive how proud I am to hear the ancient tongue spoken once more in my father's house."

He looked perplexed a moment, then graciously nodding, said, "Go raibh maith agat."

She gave an enchanted clap. "Bravo, Father, bravo. Tell me now, do, what was that you said?"

"It was the Irish for thank you." Again he nodded.

"Too long have we waited for a lead in this parish. And now you have come in answer to a prayer."

His smile sucked on sherbet. He leant cannily forward. "So you heard my sermon?"

"Splendid show."

"I thought it went very well."

"A magnificent blow for Ireland."

"And for the Church."

"And for the Church, of course."

"The two are inseparable. And you do not think my hopes too extravagant?"

"In what way extravagant now?"

"No, Madame MacMurrough, I see you stand foursquare beside me. For the past twenty years the Gael has been crying aloud for help to beat back the Anglicization that drags its slimy length along. The immoral literature, the s.m.u.tty postcards, the lewd plays and suggestive songs were bad, yet they were merely puffs from the foul breath of a paganized society. Even today I saw ye, many of ye here this morning, on your very way to Ma.s.s, I saw ye stoop to purchase-"

"I'm sorry, Father?"

"No, Madame MacMurrough, I quote from my sermon, you will recall. It was at that point I mentioned the News of the World News of the World and there was tremendous shuffling of feet and coughing throughout the congregation." and there was tremendous shuffling of feet and coughing throughout the congregation."

"Yes, of course."

"For we know now that should we continue traveling in this same direction, condemning the sports that were practiced by our forefathers, effacing our national features as though we were ashamed of them, contemning indeed our own native tongue that cannot speak but it praise G.o.d, and putting on, with England's stuff and broadcloths, her masher habits and feminine follies, we had better at once!"

"At once, Father?"

"And publicly, abjure our nationality, clap hands for joy at the Union Jack, and declare unto a disbelieving world that Ireland!-she has lost her faith of old."

"I see."

"It was all in the sermon and I believe it went tremendous well."

The girl came in with the tray, delivrance, delivrance, and rattled it on to a table. "Leave us, child. I shall serve the father myself." and rattled it on to a table. "Leave us, child. I shall serve the father myself."

She measured tea into the teapot, poured the water. To her surprise she saw the child had remained.

"Mam, there's a poor woman come to the kitchen door, mam."

"Well?"

"She's looking to take in was.h.i.+ng, mam."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Only Cook said-"

"Cook?"

"Didn't she say to tell you-"

"Enough. Show the woman to the pa.s.s door. I shall interview her there."

"Thank you, mam."

"Go raibh maith agat," said the priest.

Curtsying cheeses, Nancy left.

"Sugar?"

"I do."

"Cream?"

"A taste only."

"Your tea, Father."

"Go raibh maith agat."

A gracious language, if somewhat limited of expression. "You'll excuse me, Father O'Toiler, if I abandon you a moment."

"A domestic crisis ensues," he said, rising. But Eveline had already left.

The clock clicked, tock-tick. Over the hearth hung a heavy frame, carved in blackening shamrock lace. It leant ponderously forward as though the likeness within had been listening the while and now intended to intrude. An advocate perhaps, a politician certainly, last scion of a dispossessed clan. The large, square, low-fronted head was quarter-turned, as if to catch from the shadowy plane the ceaseless cries of an oppressed people. The gleam of the eyes showed humor, but the mouth had thinned with scorn as, blow for blow through the midless years, it had turned a conqueror's jibes. In ageing morbidezza, morbidezza, the character of their race. the character of their race.

The priest heard the door close and knew that Eveline stood behind him. "My father," she said after a time.

His face, which had lifted, lowered. "A great man."

"He was that." A pier gla.s.s gave gaze of her profile. I am my father's seed.

"Not a day but he worked in Ireland's cause."

"He lived for his country."

"He was a great man and a good. Any number of windows I have seen, painted windows in chapels wheresoever in the province, with his name in dedication."

Yes, she idly thought, her father had been scrupulous in providing for the Church. The rate of one gla.s.s window per b.a.s.t.a.r.d born, if she did not mistake.

The priest leant forward now. "Is it true, Madame MacMurrough, he had the ear of the Fenians?"

"He was always very close on that subject, Father. But it was his strong conviction that England never moved but she was pushed."

"A man of uplifting oratory and acuity of vision. Some say, and I have said it myself, he died for Ireland."

"So soon he left us."

"Happy the man who dies for his country."

"We will not see his like again."

"Do not say so!" Cup banged on saucer. "Madame, forgive me, but such thoughts have too long been the bane of our land!"

She was startled by the priest's ardor and could not immediately recall which commonplace had provoked it. She saw he had spilt tea on his trouser leg. "I'm afraid we have no cake, Father O'Toiler, but the child evidently has brought biscuits. May I tempt you? Or is it too soon before lunch?"

"A biscuit would be grand."

"They are Irish-manufactured."

"Proven by their taste."

She smiled acknowledgment. The smile moued on her face while the priest discoursed, detailing apparently the clubs and cla.s.ses he intended for the parish and the moral tone that should prevail. She eyed her tea-the girl had brought Indian not China-with a wintry discontent, though it was the service which the more displeased. Accursed child had laid out the Minton. Minton for a bishop at the very least, any old Davenport for a curate.

At one point the priest made to fetch another biscuit, and she quickly brought the plate to him lest he should feel free to roam her drawing-room. She wondered what childhood illness had rendered his face so blemished, for it was pocked and pitted miraculously. What in France they would call un joli laid, un joli laid, whose ugliness presented the chief attraction. This dash of a Roman collar-how it gleamed against the black, the white gloss of Maynooth. How it checked the ride of the apple in the throat. She was minded of those boys, that circle of young manhood-cat's-paws, panderers, fawners, wheedlers, henchmen, conjuror's a.s.sistants-that had orbited, till his dying end, her father's star. Some had thought to fawn to her, some to wheedle past her. Some, G.o.d help us, had thought to make love to her. As though she, her father's seed, should forsake his side for the side of a gangling weed. whose ugliness presented the chief attraction. This dash of a Roman collar-how it gleamed against the black, the white gloss of Maynooth. How it checked the ride of the apple in the throat. She was minded of those boys, that circle of young manhood-cat's-paws, panderers, fawners, wheedlers, henchmen, conjuror's a.s.sistants-that had orbited, till his dying end, her father's star. Some had thought to fawn to her, some to wheedle past her. Some, G.o.d help us, had thought to make love to her. As though she, her father's seed, should forsake his side for the side of a gangling weed.

The drawing-room gave out to the garden room which in turn gave out to the lawns, where sycamores waved in the sea-breeze. The may was waving, the bluebells hazed, and she wondered when the strawberries would come.

"However, Madame MacMurrough, intentions are all very well, but without organization, I hear you say, how far will our intentions advance?"

Not for the first time she wondered what she wanted with this priest. Of course, it was her name that he was after, that ill.u.s.trious and priceless name, on the headed notepaper of one more committee, her gloved hand opening yet another bazaar. How tedious it all could be. One yearned for the grinding of pikes on a stone, but the reality for a woman was tea parties, m.u.f.fin fights, hearts sunk in raising lucre.

She glanced upon his poking face, the spectacles that slid on his glistening nose. Every morning he brings down G.o.d to the altar. G.o.d has called him to do this. It was extraordinary and in some way very humbling. She leant forward and said, "Father, what may I do to help?"

"Help, Madame MacMurrough? Your very presence in the parish is an inspiration. Your name alone is worth its weight in gold."

Oh lah, here come the bazaars. She felt her pendant with its trapped and prehistoric fly. And I have dressed the part. She decided she would motor in the afternoon. And I shall wear green tweed, the Redfern probably, and my father's guns on the seat beside as over the hills I go. My name is MacMurrough. My father had the ear of the Fenians. I too hear the ceaseless cries.

She rose from her chair that the priest should rise and interrupt his homily. Adjusting a piece on the etagere, etagere, she said, "Tell me, Father, did the kilts arrive? A band, I believe. Young men of the parish." she said, "Tell me, Father, did the kilts arrive? A band, I believe. Young men of the parish."

"They arrived in perfect order. And it is in part my excuse for imposing upon you this morning, to express the grat.i.tude of the parish for your kind benevolence. Madame MacMurrough," he said, standing and taking off his spectacles, "go raibh maith agat."

She was sure she had never known so obliging a tongue.