Hyacinth Part 14

'Ah! Better go to the hotel for to-night. It's not much of a place, but you will have to learn to put up with that sort of accommodation.

Tomorrow we'll try and find you some decent lodgings.'

The hotel struck even Hyacinth as of inferior quality, though it boasted great things in the timetable advertis.e.m.e.nts, and called itself 'Imperial' in large gold letters above its door. A smell of whisky and tobacco greeted him as he entered, and a waiter with a greasy coat, in answer to inquiries about a bed, sent him down a dark pa.s.sage to seek a lady called Miss Sweeney at the bar. Large leather cases with broad straps and waterproof-covered baskets blocked the pa.s.sage, and Hyacinth stumbled among them for some time before he discovered Miss Sweeney reading a periodical called _Spicy Bits_ among her whisky-bottles.

She was a young woman of would-be fashionable appearance, and acted apparently in the double capacity of barmaid and clerk. On hearing that Hyacinth required, not whisky, but a bedroom, she requested him to go forward to the office, indicating a gla.s.s case at the far end of the bar counter. Here he repeated his request to her through a small opening in the gla.s.s, and received her a.s.surance, given with great condescension, that No. 42 was vacant, and, further, that there was a fire in the commercial room. A boy whom she summoned carried Hyacinth's bag to an extremely dirty and ill-furnished bedroom, and afterwards conducted him to the promised fire. Two other guests were seated at it when he entered, who, after a long stare, made room for him. Apparently there was no one else stopping in the hotel, and the whole ma.s.s of c.u.mbrous baggage which blocked the pa.s.sage to the bar must belong to them.

Hyacinth realized, with a feeling of disgust which he could not account for, that these were two members of his new profession--fellow-travellers in the voyages of commerce. He gathered--for they talked loudly, without regarding his presence--that they represented two Manchester firms which were rivals in the wholesale drapery business. Very much of what they said was unintelligible to him, though the words were familiar. He knew that 'lines' could be 'quoted,'

but not apparently in the same sense in which they discussed these operations, and it puzzled him to hear of muslins being 'done at one and seven-eighths.' He sat for a time wondering at the waste of money and energy involved in sending these men to remote corners of Ireland to search for customers. Then he left them, and made his way down the muddy street to Mr. Quinn's house.

The room into which he was shown was different from any he had ever seen. It was lit by a single lamp with a dull gla.s.s globe and a turf fire which burnt brightly. Two straight-backed, leather-covered chairs stood one on either side of the tiled hearth. Near one stood a little table covered with neatly-arranged books, and, rising from among them, a reading-lamp, as yet unlit. Beyond the other was a work-table strewed with reels and scissors, on which lay a child's frock and some stockings. The table was laid for tea. On it were plates piled up with floury scones, delicate beleek saucers full of b.u.t.ter patted thin into the shapes of sh.e.l.ls, and jam in coloured gla.s.s dishes cased in silver filigree. A large home-baked loaf of soda bread on a wooden platter stood at one end of the table, and near it a sponge-cake. At the other end was an array of cups and saucers with silver spoons that glittered, a jug of cream, and one of milk. Two of the cups were larger than the others, and had those curious bars across them which are designed to save men from wetting their moustaches when they drink. No room and no preparation for a meal could have offered a more striking contrast to Augusta Goold's dining-room, her groups of winegla.s.ses, multiplicity of heavy-handled knives and forks, and her candles shrouded in silk. Nor was the dainty neatness less remote from the cracked delf and huddled sordidness of his old home.

Long before Hyacinth had realized an impression of the scene before him Mrs. Quinn greeted him, and led him to the fire. Her two little girls, who lay on the hearthrug with a picture-book between them, were bidden to make room for him. When her husband appeared she bustled off, and in a minute or two she and the maid came in bringing toast and tea and hot water hissing in a silver urn.

As the evening pa.s.sed Hyacinth began to realize that he had entered into a home of peace. He felt that these people were neither greatly anxious to be rich nor much afraid of being poor. They seemed in no way fretted that there were others higher in the social scale, cleverer or more brilliant than they were. He understood that they were both of them religious in a way quite different from any he had known. They neither spoke of mysteries, like his father, nor were eager about disputings, like the men who had been his fellow-students. They were living a very simple life, of which faith and a wide charity formed a part as natural as eating or sleeping. When the children's bedtime came it seemed to him a very wonderful thing that they should kneel in turns beside their father's knee and say their prayers aloud, when he, a stranger, was in the room. It seemed to him less strange, because then he had been two hours longer in the company of the Quinns, that before leaving he, too, should kneel beside his hostess and listen while his new employer repeated the familiar words of some of the old collects he had heard his father read in church.

CHAPTER XIV

On Sunday, the third day after his arrival in Ballymoy, Hyacinth went to church. He could hardly have avoided doing so, even if he had wanted to, for Mrs. Quinn invited him to share her pew. There was no real necessity for such hospitality, for the church was never, even under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, more than half full. The four front seats were reserved for a Mr. Stack, on whose property the town of Ballymoy stood.

But this gentleman preferred to live in Surrey, and even when he came over to Ireland for the shooting rarely honoured the church with his presence. A stone tablet, bearing the name of this magnate's father, a Cork p.a.w.nbroker, who had purchased the property for a small sum under the Enc.u.mbered Estates Court Act, adorned the wall beside the pulpit.

The management of the property was in the hands of a Dublin firm, so the parish was deprived of the privilege of a resident land agent. The doctor, recently appointed to the district, was a Roman Catholic of plebeian antecedents, which reduced the resident gentry of Ballymoy to the Quinns, a bank manager, and the Rector, Canon Beecher. A few farmers, Mr. Stack's gamekeeper, and the landlady of the Imperial Hotel, made up the rest of the congregation.

The service was not of a very attractive or inspiriting kind. Canon Beecher--his t.i.tle was a purely honorary one, not even involving the duty of preaching in the unpretending building which, in virtue of some forgotten history, was dignified with the name of Killinacoff Cathedral--read slowly with somewhat ponderous emphasis. His thirty years in Holy Orders had slightly hardened an originally luscious Dublin brogue, but there remained a certain gentle aspiration of the _d's_ and _t's_, and a tendency to omit the l.a.b.i.al consonants altogether. He read an immense number of prayers, gathering, as it seemed to Hyacinth, the longest ones from the four corners of the Prayer-Book. At intervals he allowed himself to be interrupted with a hymn, but resumed afterwards the steady flow of supplication. The eldest Miss Beecher--the Canon had altogether two daughters and three sons--played a harmonium. The other girl and the three boys, with the a.s.sistance of an uncertain ba.s.s from Mr. Quinn, gave utterance to the congregation's praise. Hyacinth tried to join in the first hymn, which happened to be familiar to him, but quavered into silence towards the end of the second verse, discovering that the eyes of Mrs. Beecher from her pew, of the Canon from the reading-desk, of the vocal Miss Beecher and her brothers, were fixed upon him. The sermon proved to be long and uninteresting. It was about Melchizedek, and was so far appropriate to the Priest and King that it had no recognisable beginning and need not apparently have ever had an end. Perhaps no one, unless he were specially trained for the purpose, could have followed right through the quiet meander-ings of the Canon's thought. This kind of sermon, however, has the one advantage that the listener can take it up and drop it again at any point without inconvenience, and Hyacinth was able to give his attention to some sections of it. There was no attempt at eloquence or any kind of learning displayed, but he understood, as he listened, where the Quinns got their religion, or at least how their religion was kept alive.

Certain very simple things were reiterated with a quiet earnestness which left no doubt that the preacher believed exactly what he said, and lived by the light of his faith.

One evening shortly afterwards Canon Beecher called upon Hyacinth. The conversation during the visit resolved itself into a kind of catechism, which, curiously enough, was quite inoffensive. The Canon learnt by degrees something of Hyacinth's past life, and his career in Trinity College. He shook his head gravely over the friendship with Augusta Goold, whom he evidently regarded as almost beyond the reach of the grace of G.o.d. Hyacinth was forced to admit, with an increasing sense of shame, that he had never signed a temperance pledge, did not read the organ of the Church Missionary Society, was not a member of a Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, or even of a Gleaners' Union. He felt, as he made each confession sorrowfully, that he was losing all hope of the Canon's friendship, and was most agreeably surprised when the interview closed with a warm invitation to a mid-day dinner at the Rectory on the following Sunday. Mrs. Quinn, who took a sort of elder sister's interest in his goings out and comings in, was delighted when she heard that he was going to the Rectory, and a.s.sured him that he would like both Mrs.

Beecher and the girls. She confided afterwards to her husband that the influence of a Christian home was likely to be most beneficial to the 'poor boy.'

The Rectory displayed none of the signs of easy comfort which had charmed Hyacinth in the Quinns' house. The floor of the square hall was covered with a cheap, well-worn oilcloth. Its walls were damp-stained, and the only furniture consisted of a wooden chair and a somewhat rickety table. In the middle of the wall hung a large olive-green card with silver lettering. 'Christ is the unseen Guest in this house,'

Hyacinth read, 'the Sharer in every pleasure, the Listener to every conversation.' A fortnight before, he would have turned with disgust from such an advertis.e.m.e.nt, but now, since he had known the Quinns and listened to the Canon's wandering sermons, he looked at it with different eyes. He felt that the words might actually express a fact, and that a family might live together as if they believed them to be true.

'Yes,' said the Canon, who had come in with him, and saw him gaze at it, 'these motto-cards are very nice. I bought several of them last time I was in Dublin, and I think I have a spare one left which I can give you if you like. It has silver letters like that one, but printed on a crimson ground.'

Evidently the design and the colouring were what struck him as noticeable. The motto itself was a commonplace of Christian living, the expression of a basal fact, quite naturally hung where it would catch the eye of chance visitors.

In the drawing-room Mrs. Beecher and her two daughters, still in their hats and gloves, stood round a turf fire. They made a place at once for Hyacinth, and one of the girls drew forward a rickety basket-work chair, covered with faded cretonne. He was formally introduced to them. Miss Beecher and Miss Elsie Beecher had both, the latter very recently, reached the dignity of young womanhood, and wore long dresses. The three boys, who were younger, were made known afterwards.

When they went into the dining-room the Canon selected the soundest of a miscellaneous collection of chairs for Hyacinth, and seated him beside Mrs. Beecher. Then the elder girl--Miss Beecher's name, he learnt, was Marion--entered in a long ap.r.o.n carrying a boiled leg of mutton followed by her sister with dishes of potatoes and mashed parsnips.

'You see,' said Mrs. Beecher, and there was no note of apology in her voice as she made the explanation, 'my girls are accustomed to do a good deal of the house-work. We have only one servant, and she is not very presentable when she has just cooked the dinner.'

Hyacinth glanced at Marion Beecher, who smiled at him with frank friendliness, as she took her seat beside her father. He saw suddenly that the girl was beautiful. He had not noticed this in church. There he had no opportunity of observing the subtle grace with which she moved, and the half-light left unrevealed the l.u.s.trous purity of her complexion, the radiant red and white which only the warm damp of the western seaboard can give or preserve. Her eyes he had seen even in the church, but now first he realized what unfathomable gentleness and what a wonder of frank innocence were in them. The Canon looked round the table at his children, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eye when he turned to Hyacinth and quoted:

'"Your sons shall grow up as young plants, and your daughters shall be as the polished corners of the temple."'

Perhaps nine-tenths of civilized mankind would regard five children as five misfortunes under any circ.u.mstances, as quite overwhelming when they have been showered on a man with a very small income, who is obliged to live in a remote corner of Ireland. Apparently the Canon did not look upon himself as an afflicted man at all. There was an unmistakable sincerity about the way in which he completed his quotation:

'"Lo! thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord."'

It dawned on Hyacinth that quite possibly the Canon's view of the situation might be the right one. It was certainly wonderfully pleasant to see the girls move through the room, and it seemed to him that they actually realized the almost forgotten ideal of serviceable womanhood.

The talk at dinner turned first on the ailments of an old woman who was accustomed to clean the church, but was now suspected of being past her work; then, by an abrupt transition, on the new hat which the bank-manager's wife had brought home from Dublin; and, finally, the connection of thought being again far from obvious, on the hymns which had been sung that morning. It was at this point that Hyacinth was included in the conversation. Marion Beecher announced that one of the hymns was a special favourite of hers, because she remembered her mother singing the younger children to sleep with it when they were babies. She caught Hyacinth looking at her while she spoke, and said to him:

'Do you sing, Mr. Conneally?'

'I do a little.'

'Oh, then you must come and help us in the choir.' 'Choir' seemed a grandiose name for the four Beechers and Mr. Quinn, but Marion, who had little experience of anything better, had no misgivings. 'I hope you sing tenor. I always long to have a tenor in my choir. Why, we might have one of Barnby's anthems at Easter, and we haven't been able to sing one since Mr. Nash left the bank.'

Hyacinth had never sung a part in his life, and could not read music, but he grew bold, and, professing to have an excellent ear, said he was willing to learn. The prospect of a long series of choir practices conducted by Marion Beecher seemed to him just then an extremely pleasant one.

After dinner, while the two girls cleared away the plates and dishes, Canon Beecher invited Hyacinth to smoke.

'I never learnt the habit myself,' he said. 'It wasn't so much the fashion in my young days as it is now, but I have no objection whatever to the smell.'

Hyacinth lit a cigarette apologetically. It seemed to him almost a wicked thing to do, but his host evidently wished him to be comfortable.

Their talk after the girls had left the room turned on politics.

Hyacinth's confession of his friendship with Augusta Goold had impressed the Canon, and he delivered himself of a very kindly little lecture on the duty of loyalty and the sinfulness of contention with the powers that be. His way of putting the matter neither irritated Hyacinth, like the flamboyant Imperialism of the Trinity students, nor drove him into self-a.s.sertion, like Dr. Henry's contemptuous reasonableness. Still, he felt bound to make some sort of defence of the opinions which were still his own.

'Surely,' he said, 'there must be some limit to the duty of loyalty. If a Government has no const.i.tutional right to rule, is a man bound to be loyal toit?'

'I think,' said the Canon, 'that the question is decided for us. Is it not, Mr. Conneally? "Render unto Caesar"--you remember the verse. Even if the Government were as unconst.i.tutional as you appear to think, it would not be more so than the Roman Government of Judaea when these words were spoken.'

Hyacinth pondered this answer. It opened up to him an entirely new way of looking at the subject, and he could see that it might be necessary for a Christian to acquiesce without an attempt at resistance in any Government which happened to exist.

He remembered other verses in the New Testament which could be quoted even more conclusively in favour of this pa.s.sive obedience. Yet he felt that there must be a fallacy lurking somewhere. It was, on the face of it, an obvious absurdity to think that a man, because he happened to be a Christian, was therefore bound to submit to any form of tyranny or oppression.

'Suppose,' he said--'I only say suppose--that a Government did immoral things, that it robbed or allowed evil-disposed people to rob, would it still be right to be loyal?'

'I think so,' said the Canon quietly.

Hyacinth looked at him in astonishment.

'Do you mean to say that you yourself would be loyal under such circ.u.mstances?'

'I prefer not to discuss the question in that personal way, but the Church to which you and I belong is loyal still, although the Government has robbed us of our property and our position, and although it is now allowing our people to be robbed still further.'

'You mean by the Disestablishment and the Land Acts?'

'Yes. I think it is our great glory that our loyalty is imperishable, that it survives even such treatment as we have received and are receiving.'

'That is very beautiful,' said Hyacinth slowly. 'I see that there is a great n.o.bility in such loyalty, although I do not even wish to share it myself. You see, I am an Irishman, and I want to see my country great and free.'

'I suppose,' said the Canon, 'that it is very natural that we should love the spot on earth in which we live. I think that I love Ireland too. But we must remember that our citizenship is in heaven, and it seems to me that any departure from the laws of the King of that country dishonours us, and even dishonours the earthly country which we call our own.'

Hyacinth said nothing. There flashed across him a recollection of Augusta Goold's hope that some final insult would one day goad the Irish Protestants into disloyalty. Clearly, if Canon Beecher was to be regarded as a type, she had no conception of the religious spirit of the Church of Ireland. But was there anyone else like this clergyman? He did not know, but he guessed that his friends the Quinns would think of the matter in somewhat the same way. It seemed to him quite possible that in scattered and remote parishes this strangely unreasonable conception of Christianity might survive. After a pause the Canon went on:

'You must not think that I do not love Ireland too. I look forward to seeing her free some day, but with the freedom of the Gospel. It will not be in my time, I know, but surely it will come to pa.s.s. Our people have still the simple faith of the early ages, and they have many very beautiful virtues. They only want the dawn of the Dayspring from on high to shine on them, and then Ireland will be once more the Island of Saints--_insula sanctorum_.' He dwelt tenderly on the two words. 'I do not think it will matter much then what earthly Government bears rule over us. But come, I see that you have finished your smoke, and I must go to my study to think over my sermon.'