Hyacinth Part 5

'I wish,' said Augusta Goold, 'to ask a simple question of your chairman.'

Mr. O'Rourke rose.

'This meeting,' he said, 'is convened for the purpose of raising funds for the carrying on of the national business in the House of Commons. If Miss Goold's question relates to the business in hand, I shall be most happy to answer it. If not, I am afraid I cannot allow it to be asked here. At another time and in another place I shall be prepared to listen to what Miss Goold has to say, and in the meantime if she will take her seat on the platform she will be heartily welcome.'

'My question,' said Augusta Goold, 'is intimately connected with the business of the meeting. It is simply this: Are you, Mr. O'Rourke, prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to a.s.sist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'

It was manifestly absurd to ask such a question at all. Mr. O'Rourke had no intention of collecting money for the Boers, who seemed to have plenty of their own, and he could not without breach of trust have applied funds subscribed to feed and clothe members of Parliament to arming volunteers. Nevertheless, it was an awkward question to answer in the presence of an audience excited by Augusta Goold's beauty and splendid audacity. A really strong man, like, for instance, O'Rourke's predecessor, John O'Neill, might have faced the situation, and won, if not the immediate cheers, at least the respect of the Irish people. But Mr. O'Rourke was not a strong man, and besides he was out of temper and had lost his nerve. He took perhaps the worst course open to him: he made a speech. He appealed to his past record as a Nationalist, and to his publicly reiterated expressions of sympathy with the Boer cause.

He asked the audience to trust him to do what was right, but he neither said Yes nor No to the question he was asked.

Augusta Goold stood calm and impa.s.sive while he spoke. A sneer gathered on her lips and indrawn nostrils as he made his appeal for the people's confidence. When he had finished she said, very slowly, and with that extreme distinctness of articulation which women speakers seem to learn so much more easily than men:

'Are you prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to a.s.sist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'

Mr. O'Rourke was goaded into attempting another speech, but the audience was in no mood to listen to him. He was interrupted again and again with shouts of 'Yes or no!' 'Answer the question!' The bantering tone with which they had plied him earlier in the evening with suggestions for a menu had changed now into angry insistence. He pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead with a gesture of despair, and sat down. At once the tumult ceased, and the people waited breathless for Augusta Goold to speak again.

'Are you prepared'--she seemed to have learnt her question off by heart--'to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to a.s.sist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'

Mr. Shea, a red-headed member of Parliament from Co. Limerick, being himself one of those most deeply interested in the contents of the party's purse, sprang to his feet. It was clear that he was in a condition of almost dangerous excitement, for he stammered, as he shouted to the chairman:

'Sir, is this--this--this woman to be allowed to interrupt the meeting?

I demand her immediate removal.'

Augusta Goold smiled at him. It was really a very gracious, almost a tender, smile. One might imagine the divine Theodora in her earlier days smiling with just such an expression on a plebeian lover whose pa.s.sion she regarded as creditable to him but hopeless.

'I a.s.sure you, Mr. Shea, that I shall not interrupt the business for more than a minute. Mr. O'Rourke has only got to say one word--either Yes or No. Are you prepared to give any portion of the funds entrusted to you by the Irish people to a.s.sist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'

Mr. Shea was not at all mollified either by the smile or the politeness of her tone.

'We shall not permit the meeting to be interrupted any more,' he shouted. 'Either you will withdraw at once, or we shall have you removed by force.'

She smiled at him again--a pitying smile, as if she regretted the petulance of his manner, and turned to the chairman.

'Are you prepared to give----'

Then Mr. Shea's feelings became too strong for his self-control. He sprang forward, apparently with the intention of laying violent hands upon Augusta Groold. Hyacinth Conneally started up to protect her, and the same impulse moved a large part of the audience. There was a rush for the platform, and a fierce, threatening yell. Mr. Shea hung back, frightened. Augusta Goold held up her hand, and immediately the rush stopped and the people were silent. She went on with her question, taking it up at the exact word which Mr. Shea had interrupted, in the same level and exquisitely irritating tone.

'--Any of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to a.s.sist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?'

Mr. O'Rourke had sat scowling silently since the failure of his last attempt to explain himself. This final disjointed repet.i.tion of the galling question roused him to the necessity of doing something. He was a pitiful sight as he rose and confronted Augusta Goold. There were blotches of purple red and s.p.a.ces of pallor on his face; his hands twisted together; a sweat had broken out from his neck, and made his collar limp. His words were a stammering mixture of bl.u.s.ter and appeal.

'You mustn't--mustn't--mustn't interrupt the meeting,' So far he tried to a.s.sert himself, then, with a glance at the contemptuous face of the woman before him, he relapsed into the tone of a schoolboy who begs off the last strokes of a caning. 'Is this nice conduct? Is it ladylike to come here and attack us like this? Miss Goold, I'm ashamed of you.'

'I am glad to hear,' said Augusta Goold, departing for the first time from her question, 'that there is anything left in the world that Mr.

O'Rourke is ashamed of. I didn't think there was.'

It was Mr. Shea and not his leader who resented this last insult. His lips drew apart, leaving his teeth bare in a ghastly grin. He clenched his fists, and stood for a moment trembling from head to foot. Then he leaped forward towards Augusta Goold. The man who stood next Hyacinth lurched suddenly forward, wrenched his right hand free of the crowd round him, and flung it back behind his head. Hyacinth saw that he held a large stone in it.

'You are a cowardly blackguard, Shea,' he yelled--'a d.a.m.ned, cowardly blackguard! Would you strike a woman?'

Shea turned on the instant, saw the hand stretched back to fling the stone. He seized the chair behind him--the very chair which, while an appearance of politeness was still possible, Mr. O'Rourke had offered to Augusta Goold--and flung it with all his force at the man with the stone. One of the legs grazed Hyacinth's cheek, sc.r.a.ping the skin off. The corner of the seat struck the man beside him full across the forehead just above his eyes. The blood poured out, blinding, and then, as he gasped, choking him. He reeled and huddled together helplessly.

He could not fall, for the pressure of the crowd round him held him up.

Hyacinth felt his hands groping wildly as if for support, and reached out his own to grasp him. But the man wanted no help for himself. As soon as he felt another hand touch his he pressed the stone into it.

'I can't see,' he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. 'Take it, you, and kill him, kill him, kill him! smash his skull!'

Hyacinth took the stone. The feel of the man's blood warm on it and the fierce yelling and stamping of the crowd filled him with a mad l.u.s.t of hate against Shea, who stood as if suddenly paralyzed within a few feet of him. He wrenched his hand free, and with a mighty effort flung the stone. He saw it strike Shea fair on the forehead. In spite of the tumult around him, he fancied he heard the dull thud of its impact.

He saw Shea fling up his hands and pitch forward. He saw Augusta Goold gather her skirts in her hand, and sweep them swiftly aside lest the man should fall on them. Then the crowd pressing towards the platform swept him off his feet, and he was tossed helplessly forward. A giddy sickness seized him. The pressure slackened for an instant, and he fell.

Someone's boot struck him on the head. He felt without any keen regret that he was likely to be trampled to death. Then he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER VI

Next morning the Dublin daily papers laid themselves out to make the most of the sensational fight at the Rotunda. Even the habitually cautious _Irish Times_ felt that the occasion justified the expression of an opinion, and that there would be no serious risk of alienating the sympathies of subscribers and advertisers by condemning the bloodshed.

It published an exceedingly dignified and stodgy leading article, drawing the largest and finest words from the dictionary, and weaving them with extraordinary art into sentences which would have been creditable to anyone bent upon imitating the style of Dr. Samuel Johnson. The British Empire and the whole of civilized Europe were called upon to witness the unspeakably deplorable consequences which invariably followed the habitual neglect of the cultivation of the elementary decencies of public life. The paper disclaimed any sympathy with either of the belligerent parties, and pointed out with sorrowful solemnity that if the principles sedulously inculcated upon its readers in its own columns were persistently flouted and contemned by those who claimed the position of national representatives, little else except a repet.i.tion at frequent intervals of the painful and humiliating scenes of the night before could possibly be antic.i.p.ated by reasonable observers of the general trend of democratic inst.i.tutions. The _Daily Express_ openly exulted over the rioters. Its leading article--the staff may have danced in a ring round the office table while composing it--declared that now at length the Irish had proved to the world that they were all, without a solitary exception, irredeemably vicious corner-boys. Miss Augusta Goold was warmly praised for having demonstrated once for all that 'patriotism' ought to be written 'Pat riotism.' Deep regret was expressed that those who attended the meeting had not been armed with revolvers instead of stones, and that the platform had not been defended with Maxim guns instead of comparatively innocuous wooden chairs. Had modern weapons of precision been used the _Daily Express_ would have been able to congratulate mankind on getting rid of quite a considerable number of Irishmen.

The _Freeman's Journal_ and the _Daily Independent_ were awkwardly situated. Their sympathies were entirely with Mr. O'Rourke, and they were exceedingly angry with Miss Goold for interfering with the collection of funds for the Parliamentary party. At the same time, they felt a difficulty in denouncing her, not for want of suitable language--the Irish Nationalist press has a superb command of words which a self-respecting dictionary would hesitate to recognise--but because they felt that push of the horns of the dilemma on which O'Roun'y-had been impaled, and they were obliged to sand their denunciations between layers of stoutest pro-Boer sentiment.

All four papers contained reports of the proceedings which were practically identical up to a certain point. It was about the commencement of the actual bloodshed that they differed. The _Irish Times_ reporter believed that Mr. Shea had begun the fray by striking Augusta Goold behind the ear with his clenched fist. The _Daily Express_ man claimed to have overheard Mr. O'Rourke urging his friends to brain a member of the audience with a chair. The _Freeman's Journal_ held that Augusta Goold's supporters had come into the hall supplied with huge stones, which, at a given signal, they had flung at the inoffensive members of Parliament who occupied the platform, adding, as a corroborative detail, that the lady who accompanied Augusta Goold had twice kicked the prostrate Mr. Shea in the stomach. The _Daily Independent_ advanced the ingenious theory that the contest had been precipitated by a malevolent student of Trinity College, who had flung an apple of discord--on this occasion a jagged paving-stone of unusual size--into the midst of a group of ladies and gentlemen who were peacefully discussing a slight difference of opinion among themselves.

Beyond this point none of the papers gave any account of the proceedings, all four reporters having recognised that, not being retained as war correspondents, they were not called upon to risk their lives on the battlefield. The accounts all closed with the information that the wounded had been carried to Jervis Street Hospital, and were under treatment suitable to their injuries. Hyacinth had suffered a slight concussion of the brain and a flesh wound. Other sufferers were in the same ward, Mr. Shea himself occupying a bed, so that Hyacinth had the satisfaction of seeing him stretched out, a melancholy figure, with a bandage concealing most of his red hair. After the surgeon had finished his rounds for the morning a police official visited the sufferers, and made a careful note of their names and addresses. He inquired in a perfunctory manner whether any of them wished to swear an information. No one, except Mr. Shea, was sufficiently satisfied with his own share of the meeting to wish for more fame than was unavoidable.

As no further use was ever made of Mr. Shea's narrative, it may be presumed that the authorities regarded it as wanting in accuracy.

No blame, however, ought to be attached to the author for any petty deviation from the truth of which he may have been guilty. No man's mind is perfectly clear on the morning after he has been struck on the head with a stone, and perhaps afterwards kicked twice in the stomach by a lady journalist. Besides, all members of Parliament are, in virtue of their office, 'honourable gentlemen.'

An excited and sympathetic nurse provided Hyacinth with copies of the four morning papers, which he read with interest and a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt. Only the account in the _Daily Independent_ caused him any uneasiness. No doubt, as he fully recognised, the suggestion about the Trinity student was nothing but a wild guess on the part of the reporter. It was highly unlikely that anyone would seriously consider a theory so intrinsically improbable. Still, if the faintest suspicion of the part he had played reached the ears of the college authorities, he felt that his career as a divinity student was likely to be an extremely brief one. His chief fear was that a prolonged absence from college would give rise to inquiry, and that his bandages would excite suspicion when he reappeared. Fortunately, the house surgeon decided that he was sufficiently recovered to be allowed to leave the hospital early in the afternoon. The boot which had put an end to his share in the riot had raised its bruise under his hair, so he was able to remove the bandages from his head as soon as he got into the street. There still remained a long strip of plaster meant to keep a dressing of iodoform in its place over the cut on his cheek which Mr. Shea's chair-leg had inflicted.

This he could not get off, and thinking it wiser to make his entry into college after nightfall, he sought a refuge in Mary O'Dwyer's rooms.

He found the poetess laid on a sofa and clad in a blue dressing-gown.

She stretched a hand of welcome to Hyacinth, and then, before he had time to take it, began to laugh immoderately. The laughing fit ended in sobs, and then tears flowed from her eyes, which she mopped convulsively with an already damp pocket-handkerchief. Before she had recovered sufficient self-possession to speak, she signed to Hyacinth to fetch a bottle of smelling-salts from the chimney-piece. He hastened to obey, and found himself kneeling beside the sofa, holding the bottle to her nose. After a while she recovered sufficiently to tell him that she had not slept at all during the night, and felt extremely unwell and quite unstrung in consequence. Another fit of immoderate and tearful laughter followed, and Hyacinth, embarra.s.sed and alarmed, fetched a tumbler of soda-water from the syphon on the sideboard. The lady refused to swallow any, and, just as he had made up his mind to risk an external application, recovered again. During the lucid interval which followed she informed him that his own conduct had been superb and heroic. What seemed to be an effort to celebrate his achievements in extemporary verse brought on another fit. Hyacinth determined to risk an appearance in the college square in broad daylight rather than continue his ministrations. While he was searching for his hat Miss O'Dwyer became suddenly quite calm, and began to explain to him how immensely the cause of Ireland's independence had benefited by the demonstration in the Rotunda. Hyacinth listened anxiously, waiting for the next explosion, and experienced very great relief when the door opened and Augusta Goold walked in.

Unlike Mary O'Dwyer, she was entirely mistress of herself. Her cheeks were not a shade paler than usual, nor her hand at all less cool and firm. She stretched herself, after her usual fashion, in the largest available chair and lit a cigarette.

'You look excited, my dear Mary,' she said--'a little overexcited, perhaps. Have you had tea? No? Perhaps you will be so kind as to ring the bell, Mr. Conneally.'

Mary O'Dwyer repeated the information she had given Hyacinth about her sleepless night, and complimented Augusta Goold on her nerve.

'As for poor little me,' she went on, 'I'm like a--like a--you remember the kind of thing, don't you?--like a--I'm not sure if I know the name of the thing myself.'

She relapsed into a weak giggle, and Hyacinth stooped for the bottle of smelling-salts, which had rolled under the sofa. Augusta Goold was much less sympathetic. She fixed her with a strong stare of amazement and disgust. Apparently this treatment was the right one, for the giggling stopped almost immediately.

'I see you have got some sticking-plaster on your face, Mr. Conneally,'

she said, when Mary O'Dwyer had quieted down.

'Yes,' said Hyacinth, 'and a good-sized b.u.mp behind my ear.'

'I suppose this business will be very awkward for you in college. Will they turn you out?'

'I'm sure they will if they find out that I threw that stone at Shea.'