At Swim, Two Boys Part 45

"I don't know, but after my fever everything changed. I doubt I'd be scared now, not of anything. It's like that time in the water. I couldn't think what I was doing different. But I was swimming and I was sure of my strength. Maybe it's you, MacEmm, made the difference."

Their ices were long eaten. Sandycove had drained the last flush of light and the sun was sinking fast. Soon the lamplighter would be trotting about. MacMurrough, wishing their time wouldn't be over, said, "Well." The boy felt this too, for he said, "You could tell me about the Sacred Band again, of Thebes."

MacMurrough laughed. "It's caught your fancy, that, I believe."

"I don't know. To fight with your friend beside you. That would be grand. There's grand things ahead. Can't you feel it?"

"Yes, I do feel grand things coming, sometimes."

"Not a man but he fell with his face to the foe." He quoted MacMurrough's telling. "It makes you shiver to say it. Is it true you're to teach us the care of a rifle?"

"I have been asked. Not sure if I should really."

"I'm sixteen."

"Yes, I know you are."

"Weren't you shooting at my age?"

Well, long before sixteen. He had been kept back at school one holiday, measles or something. He was bored and broke into the gun-cupboard. Took pot-shots at the gas-standards in the courts. His punishment had been, creative this, to join the senior OTC. "Don't you see it's getting dangerous now, all this militarism?"

"We'll be asked to fight for Ireland, sure I know that."

"But what is Ireland that you should want to fight for it?"

"Sure I know that too." He raised a shoulder, his head inclined then turned: an attempt to shrug shake and nod, all the same time. When he was shy or self-conscious of something he would say, his body would often fail him. "It's Doyler," he said.

"Doyler is your country?"

"It's silly, I know. But that's how I feel. I know Doyler will be out, and where would I be but out beside him? I don't hate the English and I don't know do I love the Irish. But I love him. I'm sure of that now. And he's my country."

s.c.r.o.t.es, my s.c.r.o.t.es, you should be here now.

The boy looked up from under his lashes. The color had tipped his cheeks. "I think a little bit of it too is yourself, MacEmm."

"Me? My gracious."

"Though I don't suppose you'd want me fighting about it. But I don't know anybody else I could talk these things with. I used think I'd burst with all the words in my head. I can talk things now. I don't know but it's like we have a language together. It's great with the swimming, but it's better again with the talking. You're a part of my country too now, MacEmm."

They were speaking of patriots, Dublin a.s.sociations of famous rebels, of battles ancient and modern. There Lord Edward had lived, there the Danes had fled, on the left now the Ormond Camp when Cromwell held the city. The car through sober streets motored while the travelers made leaps and purlers in time.

MacMurrough leant forward from the back seat. "We must be coming to Merrion Square."

"Soon," answered his aunt.

"Bagott Street," said her priest. "Up on the left now. Thomas Davis died there, a pneumonia brought on by ceaseless efforts for Young Ireland. 'A Nation Once Again'-that was his. A tremendous poet, Madame MacMurrough, you will agree. An inspiration to us all, for all he was a heathen."

"Merrion Square," said Eveline.

They came into a bosky square of rose and russet terracing. Plates by the doors in close-lipped smiles told guinea fees for doctors, lawyers. Railings curved up steps, unfolding intricate shapes for lantern-holding, the snuffing of torches. The sun was seen to attend the upper windows.

"I don't believe I know," the priest remarked, "any patriot a.s.sociated with Merrion Square. Though in course of time our new cathedral will rise here, and what truer monument to our country and her faith could a true-born patriot look for?"

Westland Row now and Trinity Fields to their left. "The foreign college," said Father Taylor.

A jam of jarveys toward the railway station slowed their pace to a crawl. MacMurrough leant forward again. "There was one Irishman a.s.sociated with Merrion Square," he said. "Yes, the English put him on trial."

"It is ever the way," the priest complacently affirmed.

"Three trials, in fact. On the first he had the wit to proclaim, I am the prosecutor in this case!"

"I see, yes, very good. For all his country's wrongs."

"I need hardly tell you, Father Taylor, of the desertion by his friends, of witnesses bullied and corrupted, of the agitation against him got up by the newspapers."

"It was ever the Saxon sneaking way."

"They say the evening he was arrested the packet to France was filled to overflowing with like-minded gentlemen, fearing for their liberty."

"Flight of the Earls," said Father Taylor. "The Wild Geese who chose to serve in exile than suffer the alien yoke at home. It is history in a nutsh.e.l.l. But you have not told me this gentleman's name?"

"His conviction was inevitable. But from the dock he gave a celebrated speech that defied to the heavens the traductions of his adversaries."

"A speech from the dock! I have heard it said, and have said it myself, the speech from the dock is the only truly Irish drama. Three patriots may not gather but a rendition of Emmett or of Tone will edify the occasion. It is a form peculiarly suited to the Irish temperament. And what did this speech from the dock say?"

"The jury was unmoved, the judge called for order, but still the gallery cheered."

"They may purchase however many juries, at whatever cost to their exchequer, but the honest man of the street they cannot touch. But I am surprised I have not guessed the gentleman's name. You must remind me now."

Eveline interrupted. "I fear, Father, I may come no closer to the station."

"Madame, forgive me, I was talking with your nephew. This is fine for me now. Go raibh mile maith agat."

"Irritating man," she said, when MacMurrough had climbed to the front and she was turning the car. "He let the boys find their own way into town, just so he might have a motor ride."

She made for St. Stephen's Green and gave the car at the RIAC garage. They walked to the Shelbourne, where she had a day sitting-room arranged. MacMurrough watched out the window while she sat to repair her toilet.

"Are you really so lunatic," she inquired, once the maid had left them, "that you were about to give Oscar Wilde's name to the parish curate?"

"So you heard our little parlance?"

"I'm sure you think yourself most ingenious."

"Well," said MacMurrough, "and was he not an Irishman? And did his speech not bring the gallery to its feet?"

"You refer to the eulogium on illicit love."

"The love that dare not speak its name."

"Its name," she said, "is b.u.g.g.e.ry. As any soul in the three kingdoms might have told him."

MacMurrough turned from the window and he looked with smiling admiration on his aunt. "Do you know, at home we couldn't say Stomach to my mother without the vapors coming on. And here we are, discussing Wilde and b.u.g.g.e.ry. You are a breath of air, Aunt Eva."

Her lips narrowed, refusing the compliment. She said, "The English behaved unforgivably with that man." She saw him in her gla.s.s and said, "Raise your eyebrows all you will, but it is true. They forgot what the Continent is for, and thought to replace it with Reading. They have attached a cachet to his name which to this day attracts the idle and dissolute. But then the English have always favored punishment over sense. The man was a buffoon and ought to have been treated as such, green carnations and all."

"I don't know that I agree," said MacMurrough. "Are green carnations so very much more buffoonish than these?" He fingered the spray at his breast.

"These," she answered, "are shamrock leaves. They are the emblem of our country, of its holiness and ancientry, which we wear with pride on this day of each year. What is more, admit I have never seen it, but we are told they grow naturally, which cannot be said of a green carnation."

"Then let us tolderol for nature and deck ourselves in trefoils."

She was quiet after this tease, while some emollient she smoothed in her face. "Anthony, it is a year since you came to me. I did not say then, but you frightened me. Your face was quite stark and your tongue could be so cruel. I hated to see you brooding and picking over your hurts. Yes, I pressed you into activities. How else was I to help beyond feeding and lodging you? Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it is the Forty Foot that has helped you and I have done nothing at all. If so, I thank the Forty Foot. But you have come through. Every day I see it, your old confidence returning. Your face too has cleared and is almost the face I loved so many years ago."

"You loved?"

"I loved. It was a terrible punishment you suffered, I am not the least deceived. But it is over. You know that it is over. You have come through."

"Yes," said MacMurrough. "I think you may be right. I think I really may have come through."

"You must put aside this fascination with Oscar Wilde. If you cannot forget him, at the least regard the totality of the man. He had a wife, he had children, he worked hard to support them. But for that other buffoon, Queensberry, this would be all we knew of the man, and we should all be very much the better for that."

She rose from her seat. "Such a pretty green, St. Stephen's," she remarked, looking out the window. "I cannot think there is call for an umbrella."

MacMurrough admired her from behind, with her beautiful hat that fell in lacy veils, cream and tan and umber, about her shoulders. What she needed, he decided, was some poor relative to keep company with her, and whom she might quietly terrify. With a start, he realized this was he. She turned. "Boots," she said and MacMurrough found a cloth.

While he polished, he said, "Do you remember I mentioned I rescued a man?"

"At the Forty Foot, I do."

"Shall I let you in who it was?"

"Do I know the gentleman?"

"I believe you may." He looked up from his shoe-polishing. "Sir Edward Carson."

The mildest of surprises crossed her face. "You are sure?"

"He gave me his card." And MacMurrough had not needed his card, for he knew that face well, had studied with perverse fascination the vignettes, the caricatures, from the trial. And there he had stood before him, in the Forty Foot of all places, with his chewy lips and distended jaw, his slanting eyes and sloped-back forehead, he stood there, draggled in his drawers, insisting on MacMurrough's use of his towel, the brilliant instrument of Oscar Wilde's fall. The cla.s.smate who had performed his task, as Wilde had predicted, with all the added bitterness of an old friend. And who since that eminence of the forensic craft, Pelion upon Ossa, had been fomenting Orange trouble in his native sod.

His aunt said, "It is wrong in me, I know, but I have never looked kindly on the Forty Foot. It attracts all conditions, which is always unfortunate."

"But shall I tell you what I did?"

"You are decided that I wish to hear?"

"I'll tell you because you may pretend dismay but I know you'll find it amusing. I kissed him."

"Sir Edward Carson?"

"Lavishly, on the lips."

Yes he had kissed him, clamped his mouth on that awful mug, lips on rubbery lips he pressed, propelling his tongue inside the portals, kissed for all he was worth. And Carson had staggered away, spitting and spluttering as though all the Irish Sea had vomited into his mouth. And MacMurrough had laughed like a schoolboy, and he heard now his aunt was laughing too.

"You are a wicked, wicked boy," she said, "and the Lord knows what retribution may come. The Attorney-General. King Carson himself. You gave your name?"

"Naturally. I am a gentleman."

"Oh, quel beau coup pour l'Irlande!" And she gazed upon her nephew with fondest affection. She took both his hands in hers. "What a wonderful boy you are. And I did love you so and I do love you still."

"Do you think he will make a stink?"

"The man is a cad and who can say what a cad may do? Let him utter a word, the country shall roar. Now let me look at you."

In point of fact they were not boots MacMurrough wore, but stout toe-capped Oxfords. Puttees wrapped infallibly to his knees, cavalry breeches swished as he walked, then rather a plain, disappointing tunic, whose insignia on the sleeve, though he did not understand them, he was reliably informed, proclaimed him a captain of the Irish Volunteers. He even carried his very own swagger-stick.

"You look most becoming," she p.r.o.nounced. She settled once again the shamrock at his breast. She angled her elbow. "I shall be proud to walk with my nephew through Dublin."

This good favor in which MacMurrough currently stood had begun shortly before Christmas. His aunt invited him to accompany her on one of her motoring jaunts. "Ferns," she said.

"High Kinsella in this weather?"

"I thought we might shoot."

Horrid drive in the freezing cold to that freezing tumble-down pile. Rough shooting with scatter guns, he had expected. But no, from a dirty oil-smeared covering his aunt produced a gleaming Lee-Enfield.

"How on earth did you lay your hands on this?" She did not immediately say. His hands ran along the barrel, bolt, trigger-guard. The stock was a touch loose. He would need to tighten the bolt. "Short magazine modified," he said. "At college we had to make do with the Boer War originals." He raised the rifle, trying the balance, sighted. "You bribed a soldier, I expect."

Her prim smile told indeed she had.

"Isn't that dangerous?"

But dangerousness, as a subject, did not interest her. She wished to know was it any good.

"Well, that very much depends what you want to shoot. If it's rabbits, it's useless. Thing was designed to stop a cavalry charge."

But he knew how to shoot it? Well, of course he knew. He had shot for his college at Bisley. Service Rifle Team Event, he told her. And had he won? No, the team hadn't won-but MacMurrough was sufficiently proud of his musketry to lay the emphasis on team. So he was proficient? He could shoot a mark, yes.

"As I thought. You shall teach me."

So all that day and the next he had taught his aunt to shoot rifle. The Sunday morning, even she could not disguise the pain in her shoulder. He advised a revolver. "Yes," she agreed. "But that would mean bribing an officer, which would never do. I shall have to get one in liquor. Then he may mislay the thing."

She had form, you had to give her that. Good or bad, it hardly mattered. She carried it off magnificently.

After Ma.s.s, groups of men and boys had come trudging up the avenue. At first MacMurrough had thought them retainers or tenants come to pay their respects. But not so. In the courtyard they lined up smartly in column of two files, and waited there, eyes forward, standing to attention. They carried pikes. They actually carried pikes. Intrigued, MacMurrough left the library where he had been browsing and came to the front steps. His aunt was already there, with an ancient gentleman attired, plausibly, in officer's rig. The gentleman addressed the men. Usual nationalist plat.i.tudes, save at the end MacMurrough heard his own name mentioned. His aunt produced the Lee-Enfield and announced that her nephew would be giving each man present a lesson in its use. They cheered.