At Swim, Two Boys Part 33

"I am sure that does not surprise me," she said. "You suppose very little in your elders beyond fatuity. Where has that priest got to?" Her gaze glinted east and west but nothing she found dulled its edge. It glanced off MacMurrough's eyes, grazed his chin, then settled on the pearl pin of his neck-tie. "Perhaps this is not the moment to speak of it," she said. "I wonder." The wonder flittered across her face. Dismissed, it fluttered down her sleeve, to b.u.t.terfly away in her fingers. "We have something of a scene de menage on our hands. It requires attending."

"We have?"

"The kitchen girl. She is with child."

"You are sure?"

"Cook is certain. It's not . . . ? No, of course it is not."

"Aunt Eva!"

"One is a woman of the world. Such entanglements occur in a big house. Your grandfather was a great man, but he was not renowned for a saintly conduct. And no one would have expected it of him. Least of all I."

"Why not you?"

"I have told you many times. I am his daughter. You are his grandson. It is not ours to concern ourselves with the petty inadequacies of human nature. There is the confessional for that. Our role is to lead, if not by example, by force of will. Where is that d.a.m.ned priest?"

She leant on her parasol, half standing, so that MacMurrough had to rise and take her elbow. "I saw him earlier at an ice-cream stall. He seemed in his element."

"I know what you think," she replied, sitting again. "A c.o.c.kalorum of the walk. What they would call here a Puncheous Pilate. But a spinster of the parish, of whatever means or dignity, has little sway without a priest at her side. The old canon was a dotard, and one can only hope for his speedy deliverance from the sufferings of this world. Father O'Toiler is a G.o.dsend to us all. Until one's nephew come into his inheritance."

"Aunt Eva, what do you propose doing about the girl?"

She sighed. "Yes, la pauvre. In the country parts they call it tinning. They tin the girl out of the parish. I have never witnessed the procedure, but one presumes the rowdies and roisterers of the village, the men in plainer words, follow the girl, banging sticks on tin drums, until she has pa.s.sed beyond the parish bounds. She will not return."

"What becomes of her?"

"The poorhouse, possibly. In the bigger towns they have convents for such unfortunates. With luck she may arrange her affairs as far as Liverpool. She will need more luck there, of course. The fever may overcome her. It is rumored many have fallen by the hedge."

"But you're surely not intending to do any of these things?"

"What can you be thinking? I shall do nothing of the sort. Indeed, I shall do nothing at all beyond sending her home. It is her people who will cast her out. You think me very harsh. But let me tell you, were she my niece I should manage the affair differently. I should look after her and arrange, one way or another, her return into society. And the child should be for ever grateful. She would not fall so publicly again. Would she?"

"No, Aunt Eva, I dare say she would not."

"Had she any sense. But one despairs of discovering sense in the young. And now, here at last is Father O'Toiler. Father O'Toiler, how do you do? I have been telling my nephew of the schoolmaster you have brought along. Tell us, do, where is the young man now? My nephew is most anxious to make an acquaintance."

MacMurrough splashed soda in Kettle's gla.s.s. "I was surprised to find you in British uniform."

"There's quite a war on, you know."

"Only it jars with the nation-once-again crowd outside."

He handed Kettle his tumbler. Kettle said, "Where it goes," and knocked it back and MacMurrough raised his gla.s.s in reply.

"Your aunt has grown advanced with the years. But good old Eveline, she keeps a finger in most pies. Last I heard she was collecting comforts for the troops." The gla.s.s was at his lips before he remembered it was dry. "Will I help you to a refresher? Not a sportsman for it. Well, you're not long back."

"Don't they worry you?" said MacMurrough.

"The boys from Sinn Fein?" He turned cunningly from the tray. "They have me shivering in me socks." He had spoken with the accent of a street-hawker and there was something in his look of the Dublin blowsy. He raised his gla.s.s, "Gaudeamus," and decorum returned. "Why should they worry me? There were ever outandouters in Ireland. But these upstarts of your aunt's represent the past. Home Rule is on the books now. The people know that, they know whom to thank: the Parliamentary Party. Once this war is over we'll have our separate legislature. We have one final hedge to leap and that is to rout the Germans. Then it's consummatum est. Consummatum for the Sinn Feiners, anyway. Let them keep their kilts and Gaelic. No harm in that. In a way they've done us a service. I'm quite an O'Growneyite myself, you'll find. But politically they're dead as mutton."

The flushed boyish face moved away. MacMurrough remembered that from school. The muscular mouth-breather who bobbed into your face then bobbed back again to utter a little laugh at what had been said. Kettle. Now here's a man whose name is a household word. It was the school taunt.

He had another mannerism, which was to scratch quickly behind his ear then examine his fingers to see what had they unearthed. His smile now told it was something charming. Liberal to a fault, he flicked the charm away. The library shelves diverted him.

"I see your aunt has the entire Thesaurus palaeohibernicus. Thesaurus palaeohibernicus. Isn't that Eveline to a t.i.ttle? The rest of us must make do with O'Growney's Irish primers while your aunt has the collected glosses of Dark Age Gaelic. Has she opened them at all?" Isn't that Eveline to a t.i.ttle? The rest of us must make do with O'Growney's Irish primers while your aunt has the collected glosses of Dark Age Gaelic. Has she opened them at all?"

"I shouldn't think so."

"No. Still, she keeps a good Home Rule." He meant, apparently, her Irish whiskey. At the drinks tray again, with his back to MacMurrough, he said, "Look here, I was sorry to hear about your trouble." A pause, then the phrases came magpie quick. "In England. Your aunt has clarified all. One had no idea. An abominable slander. That the terriers should go to such lengths. Besmirch your grandfather's name. It is intolerable. Look here," he said again, and this time turned, "I have influence with a publication. We might write you up. As I'm a Member of Parliament it would be my duty to a.s.sist. The truth ought to be told."

"I don't know what my aunt would say."

He looked blankly a moment from glazing eyes, then scratched his ear. Another charm he found there. "Perhaps you're right. Sleeping dogs lie and all that. But the offer stands. We cannot have the terriers and their Orange whelps carry off every slander they choose. Speaking of whelps, I wonder what Carson makes of your aunt's to-do."

"Carson? He's never here."

"Here in the garden? Not while gra.s.s is green, he's not. But he takes one of the villas over. A lot of bad blood between Eveline and our Orange friend. He always complained your sycamores interrupted his view to the sea. Who knows, perhaps it's that which has advanced Eveline's opinions. There was rumor of a court case."

Carson. Sir Edward Carson, Wilde's prosecutor, his persecutor, next door. Why, sir, did you mention this boy was ugly? Why, why, why? Until the poetry was beaten from him and he was just a fat bl.u.s.tering man. Squilde. It is the worst case I have ever tried. Two years' hard. Next.

MacMurrough knocked back his gla.s.s. "To our enemy's enemies," he said.

"May we die in Ireland," Kettle returned. Then he was off. "They've done a blundering stupid thing bringing Carson into the Government. More we work with the English now, less the country will work with us. We finally make a peace with them and they go and ditch us like that. Carson-leader of the Orangists, an avowed law-beaker, Attorney-General they make him. Tell me about the English. All the sensitivity of a pin-cushion. Sense of justice, fair play and all that. Play up, play up and play the game. Lauded game of cricket. Load of rot. Never did understand the Irish. Never will, until we look them in the eye from our own legislature. Home Rule," he said, raising his gla.s.s in toast.

MacMurrough shifted his gaze from the thick spittle-wet mouth and stared instead through the garden windows. What a dreary drunk he was. He recalled the Spartan custom of inebriating slaves that young men should see how contemptible was drunkenness. Nowadays we leave it to our leshishlashors. And one had idolized him at school. Tom-tom Kettle-drum in his cricket whites. Tomtom Kettle-drum come to say goodnight. How sad to recollect in the dull-eyed face the rose-white boy.

Aunt Eva deep in conversation with her priest. What is she hatching now? Two golden boys eloped toward the sea. The way their heads inclined, the way an arm embraced: like a capital A they walked.

"Meanwhile I'm up and down the land, making a sacrifice of my throat, getting the b.u.g.g.e.rs to enlist. What a hope. All down to Kitchener, of course. Gives the Ulstermen their own division. Catholic Irish get kicked about in any old sod's brigade. But as I say, this is no time for nationalist quibbling. I ask you, have we that luxury when German steel is skewering the maidenhead of Belgium?"

"Shall I fix a drink?" said MacMurrough.

"Well, why not? Nunc est bibendum, what?"

Skiagrams, silhouettes, pictures of shadows that turned their faces from him: MacMurrough's gaze roamed the library art. Family crest in the unlaid hearth: lion rampant, rather a boxing pose actually, a shadow-boxer, argent on a b.l.o.o.d.y field. On the library shelves, bound volumes of the saints and scholars. Acta sanctorum Hiberniae. Navigatio sancti Brandani abbatis. Book of Moling. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland. Acta sanctorum Hiberniae. Navigatio sancti Brandani abbatis. Book of Moling. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland. Bunting, Moore, Lecky. Novels, various, in the love her and leave her vein. Bunting, Moore, Lecky. Novels, various, in the love her and leave her vein. The Love Songs of Connaught. The Love Songs of Connaught.

Above the hearth hung a print of Maclise's Marriage of Strongbow and Eva Marriage of Strongbow and Eva-"Courtesy of the House of Commons," ran the tag. Kettle remarked it now, saying, "And yet she never did marry, did she, our particular Eva. After her father, no mortal man would answer. Though they say she made quite a run at Cas.e.m.e.nt when he was here."

MacMurrough turned. "Cas.e.m.e.nt?"

"Don't start me on that blackguard. An Irishman, a Protestant even, prancing about Deutschland tempting our men to turn traitor. Our brave Irish prisoners of war, wants to turn them into renegades. Man's a blackguard, a cad."

A name at last. Cas.e.m.e.nt. "In Germany, you say?"

"I say, am I being indiscreet?"

"Not at all," said MacMurrough.

"b.l.o.o.d.y Sinn Feiners. Mark my words, they'll get their comeuppance. The country don't know them, don't wish to know them, too citified by half. Gaelic League, the Gaelic Athletics, our friends from Irish Freedom, all that rag-bag and bobtail. Could say they've done us a service. We in the Parliamentary Party, we were so occupied dealing with the English, we had forgotten to be Irish. We've admitted that criticism now and our policies are clear. Our land, our learning and our legislation. The three Ls, I like to call them, after the three Fs of your grandfather's and my father's time."

MacMurrough could remember something of those three Fs. Feast, a f.u.c.k and a footrace, wasn't it? Alarmingly the face wobbled directly in front.

"I'm pleased you remembered me," it said. "Lot of water gone under since school."

"How should I forget? Your name is a household word."

"That old clench. Of course, it was one of Parnell's. Said it of my father. No, there's a drop in that gla.s.s. I'll just-there you go. May his shadow never grow less. It was witty, no doubt, but also the man to a dot. He needed us. There's no purpose to a locomotive except it pull a train. But the engine is sui generis. Never liked us. I believe it was only the English he disliked more. We owe a lot to him naturally. One worries we owe too much. His shadow stalks the land. You find that amusing?"

"I was thinking: Parnell and Wilde, the two great scandals of the age: both Irish. It's good to know Ireland can lead the world in something."

Something less charming he found behind his ear this time. "Morbid thing to say."

"You know, what my aunt said-about the charges being trumped up against me."

"Water under the bridge."

"Not exactly." MacMurrough wondered was he going to say what was on his mind, and after a while discovered that he very possibly was. "When we were at school together that year, I quite admired you."

"One had an equal regard for yourself, be a.s.sured."

"You were brash and outspoken and you saw no harm in friendships and acted on that impulse."

"Don't know if I'm sure what you mean."

"It's quite true. I was guilty as charged."

Kettle swayed on the soles of his feet. He appeared to waver between outburst and conciliation. An indignant compromise prevailed. "You can't imagine I didn't know? G.o.d's sake, man, I took silk years back. I am informed you have since-how to say?-put away the things of a child."

MacMurrough's eyebrows lifted. "Truth, for instance?"

"You are telling me that there is a flaw in your character?"

"I am telling you that I do not think it is a flaw."

The empty gla.s.s went down on the table. "There's nothing more to be said." But there was just the tiniest drop at the bottom of the gla.s.s. He lifted it, bottomed it, banged it down. "d.a.m.n it all, MacMurrough, are you telling me you are an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort?"

"If you mean am I Irish, the answer is yes."

"Where we going?"

"Out of this crush for a breather."

By private paths Doyler led away from the lawns, across a vegetable garden, past the gate to the sea-wall, and up narrow overgrown steps where their kilts snagged on the briers. They came out on a sunny corner, quite hidden from the house, and near enough level with the sea-wall so that the view gave out directly on the sea.

"How'd you know this place?" asked Jim.

"Maybe I been before," said Doyler, slumping down in the gra.s.s. The gra.s.s was long and meadowy, quite wild. Jim sat down beside, though he had to hitch up again to arrange the kilt properly under. He believed he knew better now than to ask was it Mr. MacMurrough had taken Doyler here.

"Did you ever in your puff see such a crop of la-di-das?"

"It's a let-out all right," Jim agreed.

"And that old witch Madame Mac-s.h.a.gging-Murrough. I'll tell her next time, I will. Came to play the flute is all. If it's a flunkey she wants she can re-im-b.l.o.o.d.y-burse me."

"What's up with you?"

"Nothing up with me. Have me pride is all."

Doyler was in his band kilt at last. It was a relief to Jim because he couldn't see that strange suit but he was searching for blood stains on it. Some young fellow had died in that suit and his mother, unable to bide the memory, had given it away out of charity. The stains wouldn't shift, inside maybe, where you wouldn't see, but you'd know they were there, reminding.

Doyler picked his nose. He twiddled with what he found, watching Jim the while. He flicked it over Jim's shoulder. Jim scowled at the indignity. Doyler leered.

"Your da's doing a roaring trade. Bet you was up all night painting them bottles green."

"We was."

"Were, Jim. Were, not was. You're a college boy. Speak the King's English sure."

"What's wrong with you, Doyler?"

"Nothing, I told you."

He hawked his throat and spat. Jim watched the gobsh.e.l.l jelly down the stalk of a gra.s.s. "Is it something I said?"

The flash smile aged on Doyler's face. "Not at all." He looked mean with his smile that had no humor in it. "Them high-sniffing n.o.bs eye-gla.s.sing you would have any man out of sorts."

He lay back, chewing on a gra.s.s. The way he lounged he had his knees up and wide apart. They were grazed and gra.s.sy from the athletics earlier. His kilt had slipped back. Jim shredded the seeds of a gra.s.s in his fingers. The shadows of the trees reached out. They wouldn't be long here in the sun.

"Did you see your man from the Wolfe Tone above? He'll be giving a speech I suppose. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Jim? A speech from your man."

Jim shrugged. "I wouldn't mind it."

"I seen you bring him the tray of tea. Big wide eyes on you same like a cow. I'd say you've took a fancy to that man. Sounded to me you was coughing up Gaelic at him."