The Untilled Field Part 43

"How characteristic the room seemed to me," said Harding. "The piano against the wall near the window."

"I know," said Rodney. "Lucy used to sit there playing. She plays beautifully."

"Yes, she plays very well."

"Go on," said Rodney, "what happened?"

"You know the mother, the thin woman with a pretty figure and the faded hair and the features like Lucy's."

"Yes."

"I had just begun my little explanation about the top of Berkeley Square, how a girl came up to me and asked me the way to the Gaiety Theatre, when this little woman rushed forward and, taking hold of both my hands, said: 'We are so much obliged to you; and we do not know how much to thank you.' A chair was pushed forward--"

"Which chair?" said Rodney. "I know them all. Was it the one with the hole in the middle, or was the hole in the side?"

"'If it hadn't been for you,' said Mrs. Delaney, 'I don't know what would have happened.' 'We've much to thank you for,' said the big man, and he begged to be excused for not getting up. His wife interrupted him in an explanation regarding his illness, and gradually I began to see that, from their point of view, I was Lucy's saviour, a white Knight, a modern Sir Galahad. They hoped I had suffered no inconvenience when the detectives called at the Club. They had communicated with Scotland Yard, not because they suspected me of wishing to abduct their daughter, but because they wished to recover their daughter, and it was important that she should be recovered at once, for she was engaged to be married to a mathematical instrument maker who was on his way from Chicago; he was expected in a few days; he was at that moment on the Atlantic, and if it had not been for my admirable conduct, Mrs. Delaney did not know what story she could have told Mr. Wainscott."

"So Lucy is going to marry a mathematical instrument maker in Chicago?"

"Yes," said Harding, "and she is probably married to him by now. It went to my heart to tell her that her mother was coming over to fetch her, and that the mathematical instrument maker would arrive early next week. But I had to tell her these unpleasant things, for I could not take her away in Owen Asher's yacht, her age and the circ.u.mstances forbade an agreeable episode among the Greek Islands. She is charming.... Poor Lucy! She slipped down on the floor very prettily and her hair fell on my knees. 'It isn't fair, you're going away on a yacht, and I am going to Chicago.' And when I lifted her up she sat upon my knees and wept. 'Why don't you take me away?' she said. 'My dear Lucy, I'm forty and you're seventeen.' Her eyes grew enigmatic. 'I shall never live with him,' she said."

"Did you kiss her?"

"We spent the evening together and I was sorry for her."

"But you don't know for certain that she married Wainscott."

"Yes. Wainscott wrote me a letter," and after some searching in his pockets Harding found the letter.

"'DEAR SIR,--Mr. and Mrs. Delaney have told me of your kindness to Lucy, and Lucy has told me of the trouble you took trying to get her an engagement, and I write to thank you. Lucy did not know at the time that I had become a partner in the firm of Sheldon & Flint, and she thought that she might go on the stage and make money by singing, for she has a pretty voice, to help me to buy a partnership in the business of Sheldon & Flint. It was a kind thought. Lucy's heart is in the right place, and it was kind of you, sir, to take her to different managers.

She has given me an exact account of all you did for her.

"'We are going to be married to-morrow, and next week we sail for the States. I live, sir, in Chicago City, and if you are ever in America Lucy and myself will esteem it an honour if you will come to see us.

"'Lucy would write to you herself if she were not tired, having had to look after many things.

"'I am, dear sir,

"'Very sincerely yours,

"'JAMES WAINSCOTT.'"

"Lucy wanted life," said Rodney, "and she will find her adventure sooner or later. Poor Lucy!"

"Lucy is the stuff the great women are made of and will make a noise in the world yet."

"It is well she has gone; for it is many years since there was honour in Ireland for a Grania."

"Maybe you'll meet her in Paris and will do another statue from her."

"It wouldn't be the same thing. Ah! my statue, my poor statue. Nothing but a lump of clay. I nearly went out of my mind. At first I thought it was the priest who ordered it to be broken. But no, two little boys who heard a priest talking. They tell strange stories in Dublin about that statue. It appears that, after seeing it, Father McCabe went straight to Father Brennan, and the priests sat till midnight, sipping their punch and considering this fine point of theology--if a man may ask a woman to sit naked to him; and then if it would be justifiable to employ a naked woman for a statue of the Virgin. Father Brennan said, 'Nakedness is not a sin,' and Father McCabe said, 'Nakedness may not be in itself a sin, but it leads to sin, and is therefore unjustifiable.'

At their third tumbler of punch they had reached Raphael, and at the fourth Father McCabe held that bad statues were more likely to excite devotional feelings than good ones, bad statues being further removed from perilous Nature."

"I can see the two priests, I can hear them. If an exception be made in favour of the Virgin, would the sculptor be justified in employing a model to do a statue of a saint?"

"No one supposes that Rubens did not employ a model for his descent from the Cross," said Rodney.

"A man is different, that's what the priests would say."

"Yet, that slender body, slipping like a cut flower into women's hands, has inspired more love in woman than the Virgin has in men."

"I can see these two obtuse priests. I can hear them. I should like to write the scene," said Harding.

The footman brought in the tea, and Harding told him that if Mr.

Carmady called he was to show him in, and it was not long after that a knock came at the front door.

"You have come in time for a cup of tea, Carmady. You know Rodney?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Carmady used to come to my studio. Many's the time we've had about the possibility of a neo-pagan Celtic renaissance. But I did not know you were in London. When did you arrive?"

"Yesterday. I'm going to South Africa. There's fighting going on there, and it is a brand new country."

"Three Irishmen meet," said Rodney; "one seeking a country with a future, one seeking a country with a past, and one thinking of going back to a country without past or future."

"Is Harding going back to Ireland?" said Carmady.

"Yes," said Rodney. "You tried to snuff out the Catholic candle, but Harding hopes to trim it."

"I'm tired of talking about Ireland. I've talked enough."

"This is the last time, Carmady, you'll be called to talk about Ireland. We'd like to hear you."

"There is no free thought, and where there is no free thought there is no intellectual life. The priests take their ideas from Rome cut and dried like tobacco and the people take their ideas from the priests cut and dried like tobacco. Ireland is a terrifying example of what becomes of a country when it accepts prejudices and conventions and ceases to inquire out the truth."

"You don't believe," said Harding, "in the possibility of a Celtic renaissance--that with the revival of the languages?"

"I do not believe in Catholics. The Catholic kneels like the camel that burdens may be laid upon him. You know as well as I do, Harding, that the art and literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were due to a sudden dispersal, a sudden shedding of the prejudices and conventions of the middle ages; the renaissance was a joyous returning to h.e.l.lenism, the source of all beauty. There is as little free love in Ireland as there is free thought; men have ceased to care for women and women to care for men. Nothing thrives in Ireland but the celibate, the priest, the nun, and the ox. There is no unfaith, and the violence of the priest is against any sensual transgression. A girl marries at once or becomes a nun--a free girl is a danger. There is no courtship, there is no walking out, and the pa.s.sion which is the direct inspiration of all the world's music and art is reduced to the mere act of begetting children."

"Love books his pa.s.sage in the emigrant ship," said Rodney. "You speak truly. There are no b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in Ireland; and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is the outward sign of inward grace."

"That which tends to weaken life is the only evil, that which strengthens life the only good, and the result of this puritanical Catholicism will be an empty Ireland."

"Dead beyond hope of resurrection," said Rodney.

"I don't say that; a wave of paganism may arise, and only a pagan revival can save Ireland."