I consider it fortunate that Kitty is my niece. She might have been my daughter and then I should have had a great deal of responsibility and lived a troublous life. On the other hand if Kitty had not been related to me in some way I should have missed a pleasant intimacy. I should probably very seldom see her if she were the daughter of a casual acquaintance, and when I did see her she would be shy, perhaps, or pert. I should almost certainly be awkward. I am, I regret to say, fifty years of age. Kitty is just sixteen. Some kind of relationship is necessary if there is to be real friendship between an elderly man and a young girl. Uncles, if they did not exist in nature, would have to be invented for the sake of people like Kitty and myself.
I see Kitty twice a year regularly. She and her mother come to town at Christmas time for shopping. They stay at my house. In summer I spend my three weeks holiday with my sister who lives all the year round in a seaside place which most people regard as a summer resort. She does this on account of the delicate health of her husband, who suffers from an obscure nervous disease. If I were Kitty’s father I should probably have a nervous disorder, too.
In December I am master of the situation. I treat Kitty exactly as an uncle ought to treat a niece. I take her to theatres and picture houses. I feed her at irregular hours on sweet, unwholesome food. I buy her presents and allow her to choose them. Kitty, as my guest, behaves as well as any niece could. She is respectful, obedient, and always delighted with the entertainments I provide for her. In summer—Kitty being then the hostess and I the guest—things are different. She considers it her duty to amuse me. Her respect for me vanishes. I am the one who is obedient; but I am not always delighted at the entertainments she provides. She means well, but she is liable to forget that a stiff-limbed bachelor of fifty prefers quiet to strenuous sports.
One morning during the second week of my last holiday Kitty came down late for breakfast. She is often late for breakfast and she never apologises. I daresay she is right. Most of us are late for breakfast, when we are late, because we are lazy and stay too long in bed. It is impossible to think of Kitty being lazy. She always gets up early and is only late for breakfast because she has had time to find some enthralling occupation before breakfast is ready. Breakfast and the rest of the party ought to apologise to her for not being ready sooner. It is really we who keep her waiting. She was dressed that morning in a blue cotton frock, at least two inches longer than the frocks she used to wear last year. If her face had not been as freckled as a turkey’s egg and the skin had not been peeling off her nose with sunburn she would have looked very pretty. Next year, I suppose, her frocks will be down to her ankles and she will be taking care of her complexion. Then, no doubt, she will look very pretty. But she will not look any more demure than she did that morning.
“It is always right,” she said, “to do good when we can, and to show kindness to those whose lot in life is less happy than our own.”
When Kitty looks particularly demure and utters sentiments of that kind, as if she were translating one of Dr. Watts’ hymns into prose, I know that there is trouble coming. I did not have to wait long to find out what was in store.
“Claire Lane’s aunt,” she said, “does a great deal of work for the children of the very poor. That is a noble thing to do.”
It is. I have heard of Miss Lane’s work. Indeed I give a subscription every year towards carrying it on.
“Claire,” Kitty went on, “is my greatest friend at school, and she sometimes helps her aunt. Claire is rather noble too, though not so noble as Miss Lane.”
“I am glad to hear,” I said, “that you have such a nice girl for a friend. I suppose it was from her you learnt that it was right to show kindness to those whose lot is less happy than our own.”
Kitty referred to a letter which she had brought with her into the room, and then said:
“To-day Claire and her aunt are bringing fifty children down here to spend the day playing on the beach and paddling in the sea. That will cost a lot and I expect you to subscribe, Uncle John.”
I at once handed Kitty all the money I had in my pocket. She took it without a word of thanks. It was quite a respectable sum, perhaps deserving a little gratitude, but I did not grudge it. I felt I was getting off cheap if I only had to give money. My sister, Kitty’s mother, understood the situation better.
“I suppose I must send down bread and jam,” she said. “Did you say fifty children, Batty?”
“Fifty or sixty,” said Kitty.
“Three pots of jam and ten loaves ought to be enough,” said my sister.
“And cake,” said Kitty. “They must have cake. Uncle John,” she turned to me, “would you rather cut up bread and jam or walk over to the village and bring back twenty-five pounds of cake?”
I was not going to get off so easily as I hoped. The day was hot, far too hot for walking, and the village is two miles off; but I made my choice without hesitation. I greatly prefer heat to stickiness and I know no stickier job than making bread and jam sandwiches.
“If you start at once,” said Kitty, “you’ll be back in time to help me with the bread and jam.”
I regret to say I was back in time to spread the jam out of the last pot.
Miss Lane’s party arrived by train at 12 o’clock. By that time I had discovered that I had not bought freedom with my subscription, nor earned the title of noble by walking to the village. I was expected to spend the rest of the day helping to amuse Miss Lane’s picnic party. Kitty and I met them when they arrived.
Miss Lane, the aunt, is a very plump lady with nice white hair. Her face, when she got out of the train, was glistening with perspiration. Claire, the niece, is a pretty little girl. She wore a pink frock, but it was no pinker than her face. Her efforts to show kindness to the children in the train had been too much for her. She was tired, bewildered, and helpless. There were fifty-six children, all girls, and they ranged in ages from about 18 years down to toddling infants. Miss Lane, the aunt, asked me to count them for her. I suppose she wanted to make sure that she had not lost any on the way down and that she would have as many to take home as she had when she started. Left to my own resources I could not possibly have counted fifty delirious children, not one of whom stood still for a single instant. Kitty came to my rescue. She coursed up and down among the children, shouting, pushing, occasionally slapping in a friendly way, and, at last, corralled the whole party in a corner between two sheds. I have seen a well-trained sheep dog perform a similar feat in much the same way. I counted the flock, with some difficulty even then, and noted the number carefully in my pocket book. Then there was a wild rush for the beach. Miss Lane headed it at first, carrying one of the smallest children in her arms and dragging another by the hand. She was soon overtaken and passed by Kitty and six lean, long-legged girls, who charged whooping, straight for the sea. Claire and I followed slowly at the tail of the procession. I was sorry for her because one of her shoes was beginning to hurt her. She confided this to me and later on in the day I could see that the pain was acute. We reached the beach in time to see Kitty dragging off her shoes and stockings. Eight or ten of the girls had walked straight into the sea and were splashing about up to their knees in water. Kitty went after them and dragged them back. She said that if they wanted to bathe they ought to take their clothes off. Kitty is a good swimmer, and I think she wanted those children to bathe so as to have a chance of saving their lives when they began to drown. Fortunately, Miss Lane discovered what was going on and put a stop to the bathing. She was breathless but firm. I do not know whether she shrank from drowning the children or held conventional ideas about the necessity of bathing dresses for girls. Whatever her reasons were she absolutely forbade bathing. The day was extraordinarily hot and our work was most strenuous. We paddled, and I had to wade in several times, far above the part of my legs to which it was possible to roll up my trousers. We built elaborate sand castles, and enormous mounds, which Kitty called redoubts. I was made to plan a series of trenches similar to those used by the armies in France, and we had a most exciting battle, during which Kitty compelled me to become a casualty so that six girls might have the pleasure of dragging me back to a place of safety. We very nearly had a real casualty afterwards when the roof of a dug-out fell in and buried two infants. Kitty and I rescued them, digging frenziedly with our hands. Miss Lane scooped the sand out of their mouths afterwards with her forefinger, and dried their eyes when they had recovered sufficiently to cry. We fed the whole party on buns and lemonade and became sticky from head to foot. We ran races and had tugs-of-war with a rope made of stockings tied together. It was not a good rope because it always broke at the most exciting moments, but that only added to our pleasure; for both teams fell flat on their backs when the rope gave way, and Miss Lane looked particularly funny rolling on the sand.
At six o’clock the gardener and the cook, sent by Kitty’s mother, came down from the house carrying a large can of milk and a clothes basket full of bread and jam and cake. We were all glad to see them. Even the most active children were becoming exhausted and were willing to sit down and be fed. I was very nearly done up. Poor Claire was seated on a stone, nursing her blistered foot. Only Miss Lane and Kitty had any energy left, and Miss Lane was in an appalling state of heat. Kitty remained cool, owing perhaps to the fact that she was soaked through from the waist down, having carried twenty or thirty dripping infants out of the sea in the course of the day.
My sister’s gardener, who carried the milk, is a venerable man with a long white beard. He is greatly stooped from constant digging and he suffers from rheumatism in his knees. It was his appearance, no doubt, which suggested to Kitty the absolutely fiendish idea of an obstacle race for veterans. The veterans, of course, were Miss Lane, the gardener, the cook, who was a very fat woman, and myself. Miss Lane agreed to the proposal at once with apparent pleasure, and the whole fifty-six children shouted with joy. The gardener, who has known Kitty since she was born, recognised the uselessness of protest and took his place beside Miss Lane. The cook said she never ran races and could not jump. Anyone who had looked at her would have known she was speaking the truth. But Kitty would take no refusal. She took that cook by the arm and dragged her to the starting line.
The course, which was arranged by Kitty, was a stiff one. It took us all over the redoubts, castles, and trenches we had built during the day and across a tract of particularly soft sand, difficult to walk over and most exhausting to anyone who tried to run. It finished up with what Kitty called a water jump, though no one could possibly have jumped it. It was a wide shallow pool, formed in the sand by the flowing tide and the only way of getting past it was to wade through.
I felt fairly confident I should win that race. The gardener is ten years older than I am and very stiff in the joints. The cook plainly did not mean to try. Miss Lane is far past the age at which women cease to be active, and was badly handicapped by having to run in a long skirt. I started at top speed and cleared the first redoubt without difficulty, well ahead of anyone else. I kept my lead while I floundered through three trenches, and increased it among the castles which lay beyond. When I reached the soft sand I ventured to look back. I was gratified to see that the cook had given up. The gardener was in difficulties at the second trench, and Miss Lane had fallen. When I saw her she was sprawling over a sand castle, surrounded by cheering children. It did not seem likely that she would have strength enough to get up again or breath to run any more if she did get on her feet. I felt that I was justified in walking quietly over the soft sand. Beyond it lay a tract of smooth, hard sand, near the sea, and then the water jump. My supporters, a number of children who had easily kept pace with me and were encouraging me with shouts, seemed disappointed when I dropped to a walk. To please them I broke into a gentle trot when I reached the hard sand. I still felt perfectly sure that the race was mine.
I was startled out of my confidence by the sound of terrific yells, just as I stepped cautiously into the water jump. I looked round and saw Miss Lane. Her hair was flying behind her in a wild tangle. Her petticoats were gathered well above her knees. She was crossing the hard sand at a tremendous pace. I saw that my only chance was to collect my remaining energies for a spurt. Before I had made the attempt Miss Lane was past me. She jumped a clear eight feet into the shallow water in which I stood and came down with a splash which nearly blinded me with spray. I rubbed the salt water out of my eyes and started forward. It was too late. Miss Lane was ten or twelve yards ahead of me. She was splashing through the water quicker than I should have believed possible. She stumbled, and once I thought she was down, but she did not actually fall until she flung herself, breathless, at Kitty’s feet, at the winning post.
The children shrieked with joy, and Kitty said she was very glad I had been beaten.
I did not understand at the time why she was glad, but I found out afterwards. I was stiff and tired that evening but rather proud of myself. I had done something to be proud of. I had spent a whole day in showing kindness—I suppose it really was kindness—to those whose lot on other days is worse than my own; and that, as Kitty says, is a noble thing to do. I was not, however, left in peace to enjoy my pleasant mood of self-congratulation. I had just lit my cigar and settled comfortably in the verandah when Kitty came to me.
“I suppose you know,” she said, “that there was a prize for that veterans’ race this afternoon.”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t know, but I’m glad to hear it. I hope Miss Lane will enjoy the prize. She certainly deserves it.”
“The prize,” said Kitty, “is——”
To my surprise she mentioned a sum of money, quite a large sum.
“—To be paid,” said Kitty, “by the losers, and to go to the funds of Miss Lane’s Society for giving pleasure to poor children. The gardener and cook can’t pay, of course, being poor themselves. So you’ll have to pay it all.”
“I haven’t the money in my pocket,” I said. “Will it do if I send it to-morrow?”
Kitty graciously agreed to wait till the next day. I hardly expected that she would.
“By the way, Kitty,” I said, “if I’d won, and I very nearly did, would Miss Lane have paid me?”
“Of course not. Why should she? You haven’t got a society for showing kindness to the poor. There’d be no sense in giving you money.”
The gardener to whom I was talking next morning, gave it to me as his opinion that “Miss Kitty is a wonderful young lady,” I agreed with him and am glad that she is my niece, not my daughter.
Michael Kane carried His Majesty’s mails from Clonmethan to the Island of Inishrua. He made the voyage twice a week in a big red boat fitted with a motor engine. He had as his partner a young man called Peter Gahan. Michael Kane was a fisherman, and had a knowledge of the ways of the strange tides which race and whirl in the channel between Inishrua and the mainland. Peter Gahan looked like an engineer. He knew something about the tides, but what he really understood was the motor engine. He was a grave and silent young man who read small books about Socialism. Michael Kane was grey-haired, much battered by the weather and rich in experience of life. He was garrulous and took a humorous view of most things, even of Peter Gahan’s Socialism.
There are, perhaps, two hundred people living on Inishrua, but they do not receive many letters. Nor do they write many. Most of them neither write nor receive any letters at all. A post twice a week is quite sufficient for their needs, and Michael Kane is not very well paid for carrying the lean letter bag. But he makes a little money by taking parcels across to the island. The people of Inishrua grow, catch or shoot most of the things they want; but they cannot produce their own tea, tobacco, sugar or flour. Michael Kane takes orders for these and other things from Mary Nally, who keeps a shop on Inishrua. He buys them in Clonmethan and conveys them to the island. In this way he earns something. He also carries passengers and makes a little out of them.
Last summer, because it was stormy and wet, was a very lean season for Michael Kane. Week after week he made his journeys to Inishrua without a single passenger. Towards the middle of August he began to give up hope altogether.
He and Peter sat together one morning on the end of the pier. The red post boat hung at her moorings outside the little harbour. The day was windless and the sea smooth save for the ocean swell which made shorewards in a long procession of round-topped waves. It was a day which might have tempted even a timid tourist to visit the island. But there was no sign of anyone approaching the pier.
“I’m thinking,” said Michael Kane, “that we may as well be starting. There’ll be no one coming with us the day.”
But he was mistaken. A passenger, an eager-looking young woman, was hurrying towards the pier while they were making up their minds to start.
Miss Ivy Clarence had prepared herself for a voyage which seemed to her something of an adventure. She wore a tight-fitting knitted cap, a long, belted, waterproof coat, meant originally to be worn by a soldier in the trenches in France. She had a thick muffler round her neck. She carried a rug, a packet of sandwiches, a small handbag and an umbrella, of all possible accoutrements the least likely to be useful in an open boat. But though she carried an umbrella, Miss Clarence did not look like a fool. She might know nothing about boats and the way to travel in them, but she had a bright, intelligent face and a self-confident decision of manner. She was by profession a journalist, and had conceived the idea of visiting Ireland and writing articles about that unfortunate country. Being an intelligent journalist she knew that articles about the state of Ireland are overdone and very tiresome. Nobody, especially during the holiday season, wants to be bored with Irish politics. But for bright, cheery descriptions of Irish life and customs, as for similar descriptions of the ways of other strange peoples, there is always a market. Miss Clarence determined to exploit it. She planned to visit five or six of the larger islands off the Irish coast. There, if anywhere, quaint customs, picturesque superstitions and primitive ways of living might still be found.
Michael greeted her as if she had been an honoured guest. He was determined to make the trip as pleasant as he could for anyone who was wise enough to leave the tennis-courts and the golf-links.
“It’s a grand day for seeing Inishrua,” he said. “Not a better day there’s been the whole summer up to now. And why wouldn’t it be fine? It would be a queer day that wouldn’t when a young lady like yourself is wanting to go on the sea.”
This was the kind of speech, flattering, exaggerated, slightly surprising, which Michael Kane was accustomed to make to his passengers. Miss Clarence did not know that something of the same sort was said to every lady, young or old, who ventured into Michael’s boat. She was greatly pleased and made a mental note of the words.
Michael Kane and Peter Gahan went over to a dirty and dilapidated boat which lay on the slip. They seized her by the gunwale, raised her and laid her keel on a roller. They dragged her across the slip and launched her, bow first, with a loud splash.
“Step easy now, miss,” said Michael, “and lean on my shoulder. Give the young lady your hand, Peter. Can’t you see the stones is slippy?”
Peter was quite convinced that all members of the bourgeois class ought to be allowed, for the good of society, to break their legs on slippery rocks. But he was naturally a courteous man. He offered Miss Clarence an oily hand and she got safely into the boat.
The engine throbbed and the screw under the rudder revolved slowly. The boat slid forward, gathering speed, and headed out to sea for Inishrua.
Michael Kane began to talk. Like a pianist who strikes the notes of his instrument tentatively, feeling about for the right key, he touched on one subject after another, confident that in the end he would light on something really interesting to his passenger. Michael Kane was happy in this, that he could talk equally well on all subjects. He began with the coast scenery, politics and religion, treating these thorny topics with such detachment that no one could have guessed what party or what church he belonged to. Miss Clarence was no more than moderately interested. He passed on to the Islanders of Inishrua, and discovered that he had at last reached the topic he was seeking. Miss Clarence listened eagerly to all he said. She even asked questions, after the manner of intelligent journalists.
“If it’s the island people you want to see, miss,” he said, “it’s well you came this year. There’ll be none of them left soon. They’re dying out, so they are.”
Miss Clarence thought of a hardy race of men wringing bare subsistence from a niggardly soil, battered by storms, succumbing slowly to the impossible conditions of their island. She began to see her way to an article of a pathetic kind.
“It’s sleep that’s killing them off,” said Michael Kane.
Miss Clarence was startled. She had heard of sleeping sickness, but had always supposed it to be a tropical disease. It surprised her to hear that it was ravaging an island like Inishrua.
“Men or women, it’s the same,” said Michael. “They’ll sleep all night and they’ll sleep the most of the day. Not a tap of work will be done on the island, summer or winter.”
“But,” said Miss Clarence, “how do they live?”
“They’ll not live long,” said Michael. “Amn’t I telling you that they’re dying out? It’s the sleep that’s killing them.”
Miss Clarence drew a large notebook and a pencil from her bag. Michael was greatly pleased. He went on to tell her that the Inishrua islanders had become enormously rich during the war. Wrecked ships had drifted on to their coasts in dozens. They had gathered in immense stores of oil, petrol, cotton, valuable wood and miscellaneous merchandise of every kind. There was no need for them to work any more. Digging, ploughing, fishing, toil of every kind was unnecessary. All they had to do was eat and sleep, waking up now and then for an hour or two to sell their spoils to eager buyers who came to them from England.
Michael could have gone on talking about the immense riches of the islanders. He would have liked to enlarge upon the evil consequences of having no work to do, the inevitable extinction which waits for those who merely sleep. But he was conscious that Peter Gahan was becoming uneasy. As a good socialist, Peter knew that work is an unnecessary evil, and that men will never be healthy or happy until they escape from the tyranny of toil. He was not likely to listen patiently to Michael’s doctrine that a race of sleepers is doomed to extinction. At any moment he might burst into the conversation argumentatively. And Michael Kane did not want that. He liked to do all the talking himself. He switched off the decay of the islanders and started a new subject which he hoped would be equally interesting to Miss Clarence.
“It’s a lucky day you have for visiting the island,” he said. “But sure you know that yourself, and there’s no need for me to be telling you.”
Beyond the fact that the day was moderately fine, Miss Clarence did not know that there was anything specially lucky about it. She looked enquiringly at Michael Kane.
“It’s the day of the King’s wedding,” said Michael.
To Miss Clarence “the King” suggested his Majesty George V. But he married some time ago, and she did not see why the islanders should celebrate an event of which most people have forgotten the date. She cast round in her mind for another monarch likely to be married; but she could not think of any. There are not, indeed, very many kings left in the world now. Peter Gahan gave a vicious dab at his engine with his oil-can, and then emerged feet first from the shelter of the fore deck. This talk about kings irritated him.
“It’s the publican down by the harbour Michael Kane’s speaking about,” he said. “King, indeed! What is he, only an old man who’s a deal too fat!”
“He may be fat,” said Michael; “but if he is, he’s not the first fat man to get married. And he’s a king right enough. There’s always been a king on Inishrua, the same as in England.”
Miss Clarence was aware—she had read the thing somewhere—that the remoter and less civilised islands off the Irish Coast are ruled by chieftains to whom their people give the title of King.
“The woman he’s marrying,” said Michael, “is one by the name of Mary Nally, the same that keeps the post-office and sells tobacco and tea and suchlike.”
“If he’s marrying her to-day,” said Peter Gahan, “it’s the first I heard of it.”
“That may be,” said Michael, “but if you was to read less you’d maybe hear more. You’d hardly believe,” he turned to Miss Clarence with a smile—“you’d hardly believe the time that young fellow wastes reading books and the like. There isn’t a day passes without he’d be reading something, good or bad.”
Peter Gahan, thoroughly disgusted, crept under the fore deck again and squirted drops of oil out of his can.
Miss Clarence ought to have been interested in the fact that the young boatman was fond of reading. His tastes in literature and his eagerness for knowledge and culture would have provided excellent matter for an article. But the prospect of a royal marriage on Inishrua excited her, and she had no curiosity left for Peter Gahan and his books. She asked a string of eager questions about the festivities. Michael was perfectly willing to supply her with information; indeed, the voyage was not long enough for all her questions and his answers. Before the subject was exhausted the boat swung round a rocky point into the bay where the Inishrua harbour lies.
“You see the white cottage with the double gable, Miss,” said Michael. “Well, it’s there Mary Nally lives. And that young lad crossing the field is her brother coming down for the post-bag. The yellow house with the slates on it is where the king lives. It’s the only slated house they have on the island. God help them!”
Peter Gahan slowed and then stopped his engine. The boat slipped along a grey stone pier. Michael stepped ashore and made fast a couple of ropes. Then he gave his hand to Miss Clarence and helped her to disembark.
“If you’re thinking of taking a walk through the island, Miss,” he said, “you’ll have time enough. There’s no hurry in the world about starting home. Two hours or three will be all the same to us.”
Michael Kane was in no hurry. Nor was Peter Gahan, who had taken a pamphlet from his pocket and settled himself on the edge of the pier with his feet dangling over the water. But Miss Clarence felt that she had not a moment to lose. She did not want to miss a single detail of the wedding festivities. She stood for an instant uncertain whether she should go first to the yellow, slated house of the bridegroom or cross the field before her to the double-gabled cottage where the bride lived. She decided to go to the cottage. In any ordinary wedding the bride’s house is the scene of most activity, and no doubt the same rule holds good in the case of royal marriages.
The door of the cottage stood open, and Miss Clarence stepped into a tiny shop. It was the smallest shop she had ever seen, but it was crammed from ceiling to floor with goods.
Behind the counter a woman of about thirty years of age sat on a low stool. She was knitting quietly, and showed no sign whatever of the excitement which usually fills a house on the day of a wedding. She looked up when Miss Clarence entered the shop. Then she rose and laid aside her knitting. She had clear, grey eyes, an unemotional, self-confident face, and a lean figure.
“I came to see Miss Mary Nally,” said Miss Clarence. “Perhaps if she isn’t too busy I could have a chat with her.”
“Mary Nally’s my name,” said the young woman quietly.
Miss Clarence was surprised at the calm and self-possession of the woman before her. She had, in the early days of her career as a journalist, seen many brides. She had never seen one quite so cool as Mary Nally. And this woman was going to marry a king! Miss Clarence, startled out of her own self-control, blurted out more than she meant to say.
“But—but aren’t you going to be married?” she said.
Mary Nally smiled without a sign of embarrassment.
“Maybe I am,” she said, “some day.”
“To-day,” said Miss Clarence.
Mary Nally, pulling aside a curtain of pendent shirts, looked out through the window of the little shop. She knew that the post boat had arrived at the pier and that her visitor, a stranger on the island, must have come in her. She wanted to make sure that Michael Kane was on board.
“I suppose now,” she said, “that it was Michael Kane told you that. And it’s likely old Andrew that he said I was marrying.”
“He said you were going to marry the King of the island,” said Miss Clarence.
“Well,” said Mary Nally, “that would be old Andrew.”
“But isn’t it true?” said Miss Clarence.
A horrible suspicion seized her. Michael Kane might have been making a fool of her.
“Michael Kane would tell you lies as quick as look at you,” she said; “but maybe it wasn’t lies he was telling this time. Come along now and we’ll see.”
She lifted the flap of the counter behind which she sat and passed into the outer part of the shop. She took Miss Clarence by the arm and they went together through the door. Miss Clarence expected to be led down to the pier. It seemed to her plain that Mary Nally must want to find out from Michael whether he had told this outrageous story or not. She was quite willing to face the old boatman. Mary Nally would have something bitter to say to him. She herself would say something rather more bitter and would say it more fiercely.
Mary turned to the right and walked towards the yellow house with the slate roof. She entered it, pulling Miss Clarence after her.
An oldish man, very fat, but healthy looking and strong, sat in an armchair near the window of the room they entered. Round the walls were barrels of porter. On the shelves were bottles of whisky. In the middle of the floor, piled one on top of the other, were three cases full of soda-water bottles.
“Andrew,” said Mary Nally, “there’s a young lady here says that you and me is going to be married.”
“I’ve been saying as much myself this five years,” said Andrew. “Ever since your mother died. And I don’t know how it is we never done it.”
“It might be,” said Mary, “because you never asked me.”
“Sure, where was the use of my asking you,” said Andrew, “when you knew as well as myself and everyone else that it was to be?”
“Anyway,” said Mary, “the young lady says we’re doing it, and, what’s more, we’re doing it to-day. What have you to say to that now, Andrew?”
Andrew chuckled in a good-humoured and tolerant way.
“What I’d say to that, Mary,” he said, “is that it would be a pity to disappoint the young lady if her heart’s set on it.”
“It’s not my heart that’s set on it,” said Miss Clarence indignantly. “I don’t care if you never get married. It’s your own hearts, both of them, that ought to be set on it.”
As a journalist of some years’ experience she had, of course, outgrown all sentiment. But she was shocked by the cool indifference of these lovers who were prepared to marry merely to oblige a stranger whom they had never seen before and were not likely to see again. But Mary Nally did not seem to feel that there was any want of proper ardour in Andrew’s way of settling the date of their wedding.
“If you don’t get up out of your chair,” she said, “and be off to Father McFadden to tell him what’s wanted, it’ll never be done either to-day or any other day.”
Andrew roused himself with a sigh. He took his hat from a peg, and a stout walking-stick from behind a porter barrel. Then, politely but firmly, he put the two women out of the house and locked the door behind them. He was ready to marry Mary Nally—and her shop. He was not prepared to trust her among his porter barrels and his whisky bottles until the ceremony was actually completed.
The law requires that a certain decorous pause shall be made before the celebration of a marriage. Papers must be signed or banns published in church. But Father McFadden had lived so long on Inishrua that he had lost respect for law and perhaps forgotten what the law was. Besides, Andrew was King of the island by right of popular assent, and what is the use of being a king if you cannot override a tiresome law? The marriage took place that afternoon, and Miss Clarence was present, acting as a kind of bridesmaid.
No sheep or heifers were killed, and no inordinate quantity of porter was drunk. There was, indeed, no special festivity on the island, and the other inhabitants took very little notice of what was happening. They were perhaps, as Michael Kane said, too sleepy to be stirred with excitement. But in spite of the general apathy, Miss Clarence was fairly well satisfied with her experience. She felt that she had a really novel subject for the first of her articles on the life and customs of the Irish islanders.
The one thing that vexed her was the thought that Michael Kane had been laughing at her while he talked to her on the way out to the island. On the way home she spoke to him severely.
“You’ve no right,” she said, “to tell a pack of lies to a stranger who happens to be a passenger in your boat.”
“Lies!” said Michael. “What lie was in it? Didn’t I say they’d be married to-day, and they were?”
Miss Clarence might have retorted that no sheep or heifers had been killed and very little porter drunk, but she preferred to leave these details aside and stick to her main point.
“But they didn’t mean to be married,” she said, “and you told me——”
“Begging your pardon, Miss,” said Michael, “but they did mean it. Old Andrew has been meaning it ever since Mrs. Nally died and left Mary with the shop. And Mary was willing enough to go with him any day he asked her. It’s what I was telling you at the first go off. Them island people is dying out for the want of being able to keep from going to sleep. You seen yourself the way it was. Them ones never would have been married at all only for your going to Inishrua and waking them up. It’s thankful to you they ought to be.”
He appealed to Peter Gahan, who was crouching beside his engine under the fore-deck.
“Oughtn’t they to be thankful to the young lady, Peter,” he said, “seeing they’d never have been married only for her?”
Peter Gahan looked out from his shelter and scowled. According to the teaching of the most advanced Socialists the marriage tie is not a blessing but a curse.
Mrs. MacDermott splashed her way across the yard towards the stable. It was raining, softly and persistently. The mud lay deep. There were pools of water here and there. Mrs. MacDermott neither paused nor picked her steps. There was no reason why she should. The rain could not damage the tweed cap on her head. Her complexion, brilliant as the complexions of Irish women often are, was not of the kind that washes off. Her rough grey skirt, on which rain-drops glistened, came down no further than her knees. On her feet were a pair of rubber boots which reached up to the hem of her skirt, perhaps further. She was comfortably indifferent to rain and mud.
If you reckon the years since she was born, Mrs. MacDermott was nearly forty. But that is no true way of estimating the age of man or woman. Seen, not in the dusk with the light behind her, but in broad daylight on horseback, she was little more than thirty. Such is the reward of living an outdoor life in the damp climate of Connaught. And her heart was as young as her face and figure. She had known no serious troubles and very few of the minor cares of life. Her husband, a man twenty-five years older than she was, died after two years of married life, leaving her a very comfortable fortune. Nell MacDermott—the whole country called her Nell—hunted three days a week every winter.
“Why shouldn’t she be young?” John Gafferty, the groom, used to say. “Hasn’t she five good horses and the full of her skin of meat and drink? The likes of her never get old.”
Johnny Gafferty was rubbing down a tall bay mare when Mrs. MacDermott opened the stable door and entered the loose box.
“Johnny,” she said, “you’ll put the cob in the governess cart this afternoon and have him round at three o’clock. I’m going up to the station to meet my nephew. I’ve had a letter from his father to say he’ll be here to-day.”
Johnny Gafferty, though he had been eight years in Mrs. MacDermott’s service, had never before heard of her nephew.
“It could be,” he said, cautiously, “that the captain will be bringing a horse with him, or maybe two.”
He felt that a title of some sort was due to the nephew of a lady like Mrs. MacDennott. The assumption that he would have a horse or two with him was natural. All Mrs. MacDermott’s friends hunted.
“He’s not a captain,” said Mrs. MacDennott, “and he’s bringing no horses and he doesn’t hunt. What’s more, Johnny, he doesn’t even ride, couldn’t sit on the back of a donkey. So his father says, anyway.”
“Glory be to God!” said Johnny, “and what sort of a gentleman will he be at all?”
“He’s a poet,” said Mrs. MacDennott.
Johnny felt that he had perhaps gone beyond the limits of respectful criticism in expressing his first astonishment at the amazing news that Mrs. MacDermott’s nephew could not ride.
“Well,” he said, “there’s worse things than poetry in the world.”
“Very few sillier things,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “But that’s not the worse there is about him, Johnny. His health is completely broken down. That’s why he’s coming here. Nerve strain, they call it.”
“That’s what they would call it,” said Johnny sympathetically, “when it’s a high-up gentleman like a nephew of your own. And it’s hard to blame him. There’s many a man does be a bit foolish without meaning any great harm by it.”
“To be a bit foolish” is a kindly, West of Ireland phrase which means to drink heavily.
“It’s not that,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “I don’t believe from what I’ve heard of him that the man has even that much in him. It’s just what his father says, poetry and nerves. And he’s coming here for the good of his health. It’s Mr. Bertram they call him, Mr. Bertram Connell.”
Mrs. MacDermott walked up and down the platform waiting for the arrival of her nephew’s train. She was dressed in a very becoming pale blue tweed and had wrapped a silk muffler of a rather brighter blue round her neck. Her brown shoes, though strong, were very well made and neat. Between them and her skirt was a considerable stretch of knitted stocking, blue like the tweed. Her ankles were singularly well-formed and comely. The afternoon had turned out to be fine and she had taken some trouble about her dress before setting out to meet a strange nephew whom she had not seen since he was five years old. She might have taken more trouble still if the nephew had been anything more exciting than a nerve-shattered poet.
The train steamed in at last. Only one passenger got out of a first-class carriage. Mrs. MacDermott looked at him in doubt. He was not in the least the sort of man she expected to see. Poets, so she understood, have long hair and sallow, clean-shaven faces. This young man’s head was closely-cropped and he had a fair moustache. He was smartly dressed in well-fitting clothes. Poets are, or ought to be, sloppy in their attire. Also, judged by the colour of his cheeks and his vigorous step, this man was in perfect health. Mrs. MacDermott approached him with some hesitation. The young man was standing in the middle of the platform looking around. His eyes rested on Mrs. MacDermott for a moment, but passed from her again. He was expecting someone whom he did not see.
“Are you Bertram Connell, by any chance?” asked Mrs. MacDermott.
“That’s me,” said the young man, “and I’m expecting an aunt to meet me. I say, are you a cousin? I didn’t know I had a cousin.”
The mistake was an excusable one. Mrs. MacDermott looked very young and pretty in her blue tweed. She appreciated the compliment paid her all the more because it was obviously sincere.
“You haven’t any cousins,” she said. “Not on your father’s side, anyway. I’m your aunt.”
“Aunt Nell!” he said, plainly startled by the information. “Great Scott! and I thought——”
He paused and looked at Mrs. MacDermott with genuine surprise. Then he recovered his self-possession. He put his arm round her neck and kissed her heartily, first on one cheek, then on the other.
Aunts are kissed by their nephews every day as a matter of course. They expect it. Mrs. MacDermott had not thought about the matter beforehand. If she had she would have taken it for granted that Bertram would kiss her, occasionally, uncomfortably and without conviction. The kisses she actually received embarrassed her. She even blushed a little and was annoyed with herself for blushing.
“There doesn’t seem to be much the matter with your nerve,” she said.
Bertram became suddenly grave.
“My nerves are in a rotten state,” he said. “The doctor—specialist, you know, tip-top man—said the only thing for me was life in the country, fresh air, birds, flowers, new milk, all that sort of thing.”
“Your father wrote all that to me,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“Poor old dad,” said Bertram, “he’s horribly upset about it.”
Mrs. MacDermott was further puzzled about her nephew’s nervous breakdown when she suggested about 7 o’clock that it was time to dress for dinner. Bertram who had been talking cheerfully and smoking a good deal, put his arm round her waist and ran her upstairs.
“Jolly thing to have an aunt like you,” he said.
Mrs. MacDermott was slightly out of breath and angry with herself for blushing again. At bedtime she refused a good-night kiss with some dignity. Bertram protested.
“Oh, I say, Aunt Nell, that’s all rot, you know. An aunt is just one of the people you do kiss, night and morning.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, “and anyway you won’t get the chance to-morrow morning. I shall be off early. It’s a hunting day.”
“Can’t I get a horse somewhere?” said Bertram.
Mrs. MacDermott looked at him in astonishment.
“Your father told me,” she said, “that you couldn’t ride and had never been on a horse in your life.”
“Did he say that? The poor dad! I suppose he was afraid I’d break my neck.”
“If you’re suffering from nervous breakdown——”
“I am. Frightfully. That’s why they sent me here.”
“Then you shouldn’t hunt,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “You should sit quietly in the library and write poetry. That reminds me, the rector is coming to dinner to-night. I thought you’d like to meet him.”
“Why? Is he a sporting old bird?”
“Not in the least; but he’s the only man about this country who knows anything about poetry. That’s why I asked him.”
Johnny Gafferty made a report to Mrs. MacDermott when she returned from hunting which surprised her a good deal.
“The young gentleman, ma’am,” he said, “was round in the stable this morning, shortly after you leaving. And nothing would do him only for me to saddle the bay for him.”
“Did you do it?”
“What else could I do,” said Gafferty, “when his heart was set on it?”
“I suppose he’s broken his own neck and the mare’s knees,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“He has not then. Neither the one nor the other. I don’t know how he’d do if you faced him with a stone wall, but the way he took the bay over the fence at the end of the paddock was as neat as ever I seen. You couldn’t have done it better yourself, ma’am.”
“He can ride, then?”
“Ride!” said Gafferty. “Is it ride? If his poetry is no worse nor his riding he’ll make money by it yet.”
The dinner with the rector was not an entire success. The clergyman, warned beforehand that he was to entertain a well-known poet, had prepared himself by reading several books of Wordsworth’s Excursion. Bertram shied at the name of Wordsworth and insisted on hearing from his aunt a detailed account of the day’s run. This puzzled Mrs. MacDermott a little; but she hit upon an explanation which satisfied her. The rector was enthusiastic in his admiration of Wordsworth. Bertram, a poet himself, evidently suffered from professional jealousy.
Mrs. MacDermott, who had looked forward to her nephew’s visit with dread, began to enjoy it Bertram was a cheerful young man with an easy flow of slangy conversation. His tastes were very much the same as Mrs. MacDermott’s own. He smoked, and drank whisky and soda in moderate quantities. He behaved in all respects like a normal man, showing no signs of the nervousness which goes with the artistic temperament. His politeness to her and the trouble he took, about her comfort in small matters were very pleasant. He had large handsome blue eyes, and Mrs. MacDermott liked the way he looked at her. His gaze expressed a frank admiration which was curiously agreeable.
A week after his arrival Mrs. MacDermott paid a high compliment to her nephew. She promised to mount him on the bay mare and take him out hunting. She had satisfied herself that Johnny Gafferty was not mistaken and that the young man really could ride. Bertram, excited and in high good humour, succeeded, before she had time to protest, in giving her a hearty kiss of gratitude.
The morning of the hunt was warm and moist. The meet was in one of the most favourable places in the country. Mrs. MacDermott, drawing on her gloves in the hall before starting, noted with gratification that her nephew’s breeches were well-cut and his stock neatly fastened. Johnny Gafferty could be heard outside the door speaking to the horses which he held ready.
A telegraph boy arrived on a bicycle. He handed the usual orange envelope to Mrs. Mac-Dermott. She tore it open impatiently and glanced at the message inside. She gave an exclamation of surprise and read the message through slowly and carefully. Then, without a word, she handed it to her nephew.
“Very sorry,” the telegram ran, “only to-day discovered that Bertram had not gone to you as arranged. He is in a condition of complete prostration. Cannot start now. Connell.”
“It’s from my brother,” said Mrs. MacDermott, “but what on earth does it mean? You’re here all right, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, “I’mhere.”
He laid a good deal of emphasis on the “I.” Mrs. MacDermott looked at him with sudden suspicion.
“I’ve had a top-hole time,” he said. “What an utterly incompetent rotter Connell is! He had nothing on earth to do but lie low. His father couldn’t have found out.”
Mrs. MacDermott walked over to the door and addressed Gafferty.
“Johnny,” she said, “the horses won’t be wanted to-day.” She turned to the young man who stood beside her. “Now,” she said, “come into the library and explain what all this means.”
“Oh, I say, Aunt Nell,” he said, “don’t let’s miss the day. I’ll explain the whole thing to you in the evening after dinner.”
“You’ll explain it now, if you can.”
She led the way into the library.
“It’s quite simple really,” he said. “Bertram Connell, your nephew, though a poet and all that, is rather an ass.”
“Are you Bertram Connell, or are you not?” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“Oh Lord, no. I’m not that sort of fellow at all. I couldn’t write a line of poetry to save my life. He’s—you simply can’t imagine how frightfully brainy he is. All the same I rather like him. He was my fag at school and we were up together at Cambridge. I’ve more or less kept up with him ever since. He’s more like a girl than a man, you know. I daresay that’s why I liked him. Then he crocked up, nerves and that sort of thing. And they said he must come over here. He didn’t like the notion a bit. I was in London just then on leave, and he told me how he hated the idea.”
“So did I,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“I said that he was a silly ass and that if I had the chance of a month in the west of Ireland in a sporting sort of house—he told me you hunted a lot—I’d simply jump at it. But the poor fellow was frightfully sick at the prospect, said he was sure he wouldn’t get on with you, and that you’d simply hate him. He had a book of poetry just coming out and he was hoping to get a play of his taken on, a play about fairies. I give you my word he was very near crying, so, after a lot of talking, we hit on the idea of my coming here. He was to lie low in London so that his father wouldn’t find him.”
“You neither of you thought about me, apparently,” said Mrs. MacDermott.
“Oh, yes we did. We thought as you hadn’t seen him since he was a child that you wouldn’t know him. And of course we thought you’d be frightfully old. There didn’t seem to be much harm in it.”
“And you—you came here and called me Aunt Nell.”
“You’re far the nicest aunt I’ve ever seen or even imagined.”
“And you actually had the cheek to——”
Mrs. MacDermott stopped abruptly and blushed. She was thinking of the kisses. His thoughts followed hers, though she did not complete the sentence.
“Only the first day,” he said. “You wouldn’t let me afterwards. Except once, and you didn’t really let me then. I just did it. I give you my word I couldn’t help it. You looked so jolly. No fellow could have helped it. I believe Bertram would have done the same, though he is a poet.”
“And now,” said Mrs. MacDermott, “before you go——”
“Must I go——”
“Out of this house and back to London today,” said Mrs. MacDermott. “But before you go I’d rather like to know who you are, since you’re not Bertram Connell.”
“My name is Maitland, Robert Maitland, but they generally call me Bob. I’m in the 30th Lancers. I say, it was rather funny your thinking I couldn’t ride and turning on that old parson to talk poetry to me.”
Mrs. MacDermott allowed herself to smile.
The matter was really settled that day before Bob Maitland left for London; but it was a week later when Mrs. MacDermott announced her decision to her brother.
“There’s no fool like an old fool,” she wrote, “and at my age I ought to have more sense. But I took to Bob the moment I saw him, and if he makes as good a husband as he did a nephew we’ll get on together all right—though he is a few years younger than I am.”
THE END