Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. Read online

  II

  A ROYAL COMMAND

  When I heard that Bernard Shute, of Clountiss, Esquire, late LieutenantR.N., was running an Agricultural Show, to be held in his own demesne,I did not for a moment credit him with either philanthropy or publicspirit. I recognised in it merely another outbreak of his exasperatinghealth and energy. He bombarded the country with circulars, callingupon farmers for exhibits, and upon all for subscriptions; he maderaids into neighbouring districts on his motor car, turning vaguepromises into bullion, with a success in mendicancy fortunately givento few. It was in a thoroughly ungenerous spirit that I yielded up myguinea and promised to attend the Show in my thousands: peace attwenty-one shillings was comparatively cheap, and there was always ahope that it might end there.

  The hope was fallacious: the Show boomed; it blossomed into a GrandStand, a Brass Band, an Afternoon Tea Tent; finally, fortune, as usual,played into Bernard's hands and sent a Celebrity. There arrived in aneighbouring harbour a steam-yacht, owned by one of Mr. Shute's dearestfriends, one Captain Calthorpe, and having on board a colouredpotentate, the Sultan of X----, who had come over from Cowes to seeIreland and the Dublin Horse Show. The dearest friend--who, as ithappened, having been for three days swathed in a wet fog from theAtlantic, was becoming something pressed for entertainment for hischarge--tumbled readily into Bernard's snare, and paragraphs appearedwith all speed in the local papers proclaiming the intention of H.H.the Sultan of X---- to be present at the Clountiss Agricultural Show.Following up this coup, Bernard achieved for his function a fine, aneven sumptuous day, and the weather and the Sultan between them filledthe Grand Stand beyond the utmost hopes (and possibly the secretmisgivings) of its constructors.

  Having with difficulty found seats on the top-most corner for myself,my wife, and my two children, I had leisure to speculate upon itsprobable collapse. For half an hour, for an hour, for an hour and ahalf, we sat on its hot bare boards and surveyed the wide and emptyoval of grass that formed the arena of the Show. Five "made-up" jumpsof varying dimensions and two vagrant fox-terriers were its soleadornment. A dark rim of spectators encircled it, awaitingdevelopments, _i.e._ the arrival of the Sultan, with tireless patience,and the egregious Slipper, attired in a gala costume of tall hat,frock-coat, white breeches, and butcher boots, gleanings, no doubt,from bygone jumble sales, swaggered and rolled to and fro, sellingcatalogues and cards of the jumping. Away under the tall elms near thegate, amid the rival clamour of the cattle sheds and the poultry pens,was stationed the green and yellow band of the "Sons of Liberty"; atintervals it broke into an excruciating shindy of brass instruments,through which the big drum drove a ferocious and unfaltering course.Above the heads of the people, at the far end of the arena, tossingheads and manes moving ceaselessly backwards and forwards told wherethe "jumping horses" were waiting, eaten by flies, inconsolablyagitated by the band, becoming momently more jaded and stale from thedelay. I thanked Heaven that neither my wife nor Bernard Shute hadsucceeded in inducing me to snatch my string of two from the paddock inwhich they were passing the summer, to take part in this purgatorialprocession.

  THE EGREGIOUS SLIPPER]

  The Grand Stand, a structure bare as a mountain top to the assaults ofsun and wind, was canopied with parasols and prismatic with millinery.The farmers, from regions unknown to me, had abundantly risen to theoccasion; so also had their wives and daughters; and fashionableladies, with comfortable brogues and a vigorous taste in scent, closedus in on every side. Throughout that burning period of delay went thesearching catechisms of my two sons (aged respectively four and seven)as to the complexion, disposition, and domestic arrangements of theSultan. Philippa says that I ought to have known that they werethoroughly over-strung; possibly my descriptions of the weapons that hewore and the cannibal feasts that he attended were a trifle lurid, butit seemed simpler to let the fancy play on such details than to decide,for the benefit of an interested _entourage_ of farmers' daughters,whether the Sultan's face was the colour of my boots or of theirmother's, and whether he had a thousand or a million wives. Theinquiry was interrupted by the quack of a motor horn at the entrancegate.

  "Here he is!" breathed the Grand Stand as one man. There was aflocking of stewards towards the gate, and the Sons of Liberty, full ofanxiety to say the suitable thing, burst into the melancholy strains of"My Old Kentucky Home Far Away." To this somewhat "hearse-like air"the group of green-rosetted stewards advanced across the arena,escorting the yacht party, in whose midst moved a squat figure, clad ingrey flannel, and surmounted by a massive and snowy turban. My elderson became very pale; the younger turned an ominous crimson, and thecorners of his mouth went down, slowly, but, as I well knew, fatally.The inevitable bellow, that followed in the inevitable routine, hadscarcely died away in the heart of Philippa's feather boa, when Mr.Shute's red face and monstrous Presidential rosette presentedthemselves on the stairs at my elbow.

  "Mrs. Yeates!" he began, in a gusty whisper, "Cecilia implores you tocome and fling yourself to the Lion! She says she simply can't andwon't tackle him single-handed, and she trusts to you to see herthrough! He talks French all right, and I know your French istop-hole! Do come----"

  Incredible as it may appear, my wife received this suggestion with areluctance that was obviously but half-hearted. Such it is to have theSocial Gift.

  I presently found myself alone with my offspring, both in tears, anddeaf to my assurances that neither the Sultan, nor his lion, would eattheir mother. Consolation, however, came with the entry of the"jumping horses" into the arena, which followed with all speed uponthat of the Sultan. The first competitor bucketted up to thestarting-point, and at the same moment the discovery was made thatthere was no water in the water-jump, a space of perhaps a foot indepth by some five feet wide. Nothing but a thin paste of mudremained, the water having disappeared, unnoticed, during the hot hoursof the morning.

  Swift in expedient, the stewards supplied the difficulty withquicklime, which was scattered with a lavish hand in the fosse, andshone like snow through the barrier of furze bushes on the take-offside. If, as I suppose, the object was to delude the horses into thebelief that it was a water-jump, it was a total failure; theyimmediately decided that it was a practical joke, dangerous, and inindifferent taste. If, on the other side, a variety entertainment forthe public was aimed at, nothing could have been more successful.Every known class of refusal was successfully exhibited. One horseendeavoured to climb the rails into the Grand Stand; another, havingstopped dead at the critical point, swung round, and returned inconsternation to the starting-point, with his rider hanging like alocket round his neck. Another, dowered with a sense of humour unusualamong horses, stepped delicately over the furze-bushes, and, amidstrounds of applause, walked through the lime with a stoic calm. Yetanother, a ponderous war-horse of seventeen hands, hung, trembling likean aspen, on the brink, till a sympathiser, possibly his owner, sprangirrepressibly from his seat on the stand, climbed through the rails,and attacked him from behind with a large umbrella. It was during thisthree-cornered conflict that the green-eyed filly forced herself intothe front rank of events. A chorus of "Hi! Hi! Hi!" fired at therate of about fifty per second, volleyed in warning from the crowdround the starting-point, and a white-legged chestnut, with anunearthly white face and flying flounces of tawny mane and tail, camethundering down at the jump. Neither umbrella nor war-horse turned herby a hair's-breadth from her course, still less did her rider, a leanand long-legged country boy, whose single object was to keep on herback. Picking up her white stockings, she took off six feet from thejump, and whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants and over thefurze bushes and the lime. Beneath her creamy forelock, I caught aglimpse of her amazing blue-green eyes.

  WHIZZED LIKE A DRIVEN GROUSE PAST THE COMBATANTS]

  She skimmed the hurdle, she flourished over the wall, flinging high herwhite heels with a twist that showed more consideration for theirsafety than that of her rider. She ramped over the big double b
ank,while the roars of approval swelled with each achievement, and sheended a faultless round by bolting into the heart of the crowd, whichfled hilariously, and as hilariously, hived in round her again.

  From my exalted seat I could see the Sultan clapping his hands in sweetaccord with Philippa. Somewhere near me a voice yelled:

  "Gripes! She's a monkey! When she jumped the wall she went the heightof a tree over it!"

  To which another voice replied that "It'd be a good bird that'd fly theheight she wouldn't lep, and John Cullinane'd be apt to get first withher at the Skebawn Show." I remembered casually that John Cullinanewas a neighbour of mine.

  "Well, I wouldn't fancy her at all," said a female voice. "I'd say shehad a very maleecious glance."

  "Ah! ye wouldn't feel that when the winkers'd be on her," said thefirst speaker; "she'd make a fine sweeping mare under a side-car."

  Meantime, the war-horse, much embittered by the umbrella, flounderedthrough the lime, and, continuing his course, threw down the hurdle,made a breach in the wall that would, as my neighbour put it, givethree hours' work to seven idlers, and came to a sudden conclusion infront of the bank, while his rider slowly turned a somersault that, bysome process of evolution, placed him sitting on the fence, facing thelarge and gloomy countenance of his horse.

  It was after this performance that my wife looked round to see if hersons were enjoying themselves, and waved her handkerchief. The snowyturban of the Sultan moved round too, and beneath its voluminous foldsthe round, black discs of a pair of field-glasses were directed at us.The effect was instant. With a simultaneous shriek of terror, mychildren flung themselves upon me and buried their faces in my breast.I shall never forget it to the farmers' daughters that, in this blackhour, their sympathy was prompt and practical.

  "Oh! Fie, fie! Oh! the creatures! 'T was the spy-glasses finishedthem altogether! Eat a sweetie now, lovey! that's the grand man!Pappy'll not let the dirty fella near ye!"

  A piece of the brown sugar-stick, known as "Peggy's leg," accompaniedthese consolations, and a tearful composure was gradually restored; but"Pappy" had arrived at the conclusion that he had had about as much ashe could stand. In shameful publicity I clambered down the steep tiersof seats, with one child under my arm, the other adhering to mycoat-tail. Philippa made agitated signals to me; I cut her dead, andwent to ground in the tea tent.

  A couple of days later my duty took me to the farthest end of mydistrict--a matter that involved a night's absence from home. I leftbehind me an infant family restored to calm, and a thoroughlydomesticated wife and mother, pledged to one o'clock dinner with thechildren and tea in the woods. I returned in time for luncheon nextday, bicycling from the station, as was my wont. It was a hot day, andas I walked my bicycle up the slope of the avenue, the shade of thebeech trees was passing pleasant; the dogs galloped to meet me over thesoft after-grass, and I thought about flannels and an idle afternoon.

  In the hall I met Margaret, the parlour-maid, engaged, with thehousemaid, in carrying the writing-table out of my smoking-room. Theywere talking loudly to each other, and I noticed that their eyes werevery bright and their complexions considerably above par. I am a manof peace, but the veriest dove will protect its nest, and I demandedwith some heat the cause of this outrage.

  "The Mistress told us to clear this room for the servant of the--thegentleman's that's coming to lunch to-morrow, sir," replied Margaretwith every appearance of offence.

  She and Hannah staggered onwards with my table, and the contents of thedrawers rolled and rattled.

  "Put down that table," I said firmly. "Where is the Mistress?"

  "I believe she's dressing, sir," replied Margaret; "she only came homeabout an hour ago. She was out all night on the sea, I believe."

  Instant on the heels of these astonishing statements the swing door tothe kitchen was flung open, and Mrs. Cadogan's angry voice wasprojected through it.

  "Hannah! go tell the Mistress the butcher's below, and he says he neverheard tell of the like, and would she lend him one o' the Major'sspears? How would the likes o' him have a spear! Such goings on!"

  "What the devil is all this about?" I said with an equal anger. "Noone is to touch my spears!"

  "Thanks be to God, the Major's come home!" exclaimed the ruler of thekitchen, advancing weightily into the hall. "There's no fear I'd put ahand on your spears, sir, nor the butcher neither, the poor, decentman! He says he's supplying the gentry for twenty-five years, and hewas never asked to do the like of a nasty thing like that!"

  "Like what!" I said, with growing wrath and bewilderment.

  "It's what the Mistress said," rejoined Mrs. Cadogan, the flush ofinjury mounting to her cap-frill. "That what-shall-I-call-him--thatKing, wouldn't ate mate without it'd be speared! And it's what I say,"she went on, perorating loudly and suddenly, "what's good enough forChristians and gentry is good enough for an owld Blackamoor!"

  It was now sufficiently obvious that Philippa had, with incredibleperfidy, taken advantage of my absence to embroil herself in theentertainment of barbaric royalty. "Tell the butcher to wait," was allI could trust myself to say, as I started in search of my wife.

  "Wait, Sinclair! I'm coming down!" cried an urgent voice from theupper landing, and Philippa, attired in what I may perhaps describe asa tempestuous dressing-gown, came swiftly downstairs and swept mebefore her into the drawing-room.

  "My dear," she said breathlessly, "let me break it to you as gently aspossible. The Shutes called for me in the motor after you leftyesterday, and we went on board Bernard's yacht and sailed round to teawith Captain Calthorpe and the Sultan. We were becalmed coming back,and we were out all night--we had nothing to eat but the men'sfood--not that I wanted anything!" She gave a nauseated shudder ofreminiscence. "There was an awful swell. It rained, too. Cecilia andI tried to sleep in the cabin with all our clothes on; I never spent amore horrible night. The yacht crawled in with the tide at about teno'clock this morning, and I got back here half-dead, and was just goingup to bed when Captain Calthorpe arrived on a car and said that theSultan wanted to lunch here to-morrow. He says we must have him--it'sa kind of Royal command--in fact, I suppose you ought to wear yourfrock-coat!"

  "I'm dashed if I do!" I said, with decision.

  "Well, be that as it may," resumed Philippa, discreetly evading thispoint, "that green-eyed thing that got the first prize for jumping isto be here to meet him. He wants to buy it for his State carriage. Idid my best to get out of it, and I told Captain Calthorpe it would beimpossible to manage about the food. I forgot to tell you," falteredPhilippa, with a wan giggle, "that he said he must have speared mutton!"

  "I call it an infernal liberty of Calthorpe's!" I said, withindignation fanned by the spectacle of Philippa's sleeplessblack-rimmed eyes and pallid face, "dumping his confounded menagerieupon us in this way! And I may tell you that those spears of mine arepoisoned!"

  "Oh! don't be so horrid, Sinclair," said Philippa, "inventingdifficulties like that!"

  I arose the following morning with a heart of lead--of boiling lead--asI went down early to the smoking-room to look for cigarettes and foundthat they, in common with every other thing that I wanted, had beentidied into oblivion. From earliest dawn I had heard the thumping offeet, and the swish of petticoats, and the plying of brooms; but for methe first shot of the engagement was not fired till 8.30, when, as Iwas moodily stropping my razor, I was told that John Cullinane wasbelow, and would be thankful to see me. As I shaved, I could see JohnCullinane standing about in front of the house, in his Sunday clothes,waiting for me; and I knew that he would so wait, patiently,inexorably, if I did not come down till noonday.

  I interviewed him, unsympathetically, on the hall door steps, and toldhim, firstly, that, as I knew nothing of his filly, I could not "say agood word" to the Sultan for her; and, secondly, that I certainly wouldnot mention to the Sultan that, in my opinion, she was a cheap mare atL80. John Cullinane then changed the conversation by remarking
that hehad brought over a small little donkey for a present for the younggentlemen; to which, with suitable politeness, I responded that mychildren already had a donkey, and that I could not think of deprivinghim of his, and the interview closed.

  Breakfast was late, and for the most part uneatable, the excitement ofthe household having communicated itself to the kitchen-range.

  "If I was to put my head under it, it wouldn't light for me!" Mrs.Cadogan said to Philippa.

  As a matter of fact, judging by a glimpse vouchsafed to me of her faceas I struggled forth from the cellar with a candle and the champagne,one might have expected it to cause a conflagration anywhere.

  My smoking-room had been dedicated to the Sultan's personal attendant,a gentleman who could neither lunch with his master nor with myservants; I was therefore homeless, and crept, an outcast, to thedrawing-room to try to read the newspaper undisturbed. Sounds fromabove told me that trouble was brewing in the nursery; I closed thedoor.

  At about eleven-thirty an outside car drove up to the house, and I sawa personable stranger descend from it, with a black bag in his hand, aforerunner, no doubt, of the Sultan, come over to see that thepreparations were _en regle_. I saw no reason for my intervention,and, with a passing hope that Providence might deliver him over to Mrs.Cadogan, I returned to my paper. The door was flung open.

  "Sinclair, dear," said my wife, very apologetically, "here is Mr.Werner, the piano-tuner, from Dublin. He says he can't come again--hethinks he can finish it by luncheon-time. I quite forgot that he wascoming----"

  Mr. Werner's spectacled and supercilious face regarded me over hershoulder; he evidently had a low opinion of me, I do not know why.With one Cenci-like glance of reproach at Philippa, I rose and left theroom. As I put on my cap I heard the first fierce chords break forth,followed by the usual chromatic passages, fluent and searching, whichmerged in their turn into a concentrated attack upon a single note. Ihurried from the house.

  It was a perfect August morning; the dogs lay on the hot gravel andpanted politely as I spoke to them, but did not move. Rejected by all,I betook myself to a plantation near the front gate to see how the workof clearing a ride was progressing. The cross-cut saw and a bill-hooklay on the ground, but of workmen there was no sign. From the highroad came the sound of wheels and of rapid trotting, also somethingthat seemed like cheering.

  "Good heavens!" I thought, my blood running cold, "here they are!"

  I broke through the tall bracken and the larches to an opening fromwhich the high road was visible. My two workmen were lying on theirstomachs across the coping of the demesne wall, and a line ofcountrymen, with their best clothes on and crape "weepers" on theirhats, sat on the opposite fence and applauded what was apparently atrotting match between a long-legged bay colt and John Cullinane'schestnut filly, owners up.

  I joined the entertainment, my two men melting like snow from the topof the wall, and it was explained to me that there had been a funeralin the locality, and that these were a few of the neighbours that hadbeen at it, and were now waiting to see the Black Gentleman. Anoutside car rested on its shafts by the side of the road, and a horsewith harness on it browsed voraciously on the shrubs inside my gate.Far away down the road I saw the receding figures of my two children,going forth to the picnic that had been arranged to allay their panicand to remove them from the sphere of action. Any Irish person willreadily believe that one of them was mounted on "the small littledonkey," the bribe which I had that morning irrevocably repudiated. Iknew that John Cullinane saw them too, but I was too broken tointerfere; I turned my back and walked rapidly away.

  The rhythmic rasp of the cross-cut told me that work at the clearinghad been resumed; I said to myself vindictively that I would see thatit continued, and returned to the ride. The bill-hook was doingnothing, and picking it up I fell to snicking and chopping, withsoothing destructiveness, among the briars and ash-saplings.Notwithstanding heat and horseflies, the time passed not disagreeably,and I was, at all events, out of range of the piano. I had paused forthe fifteenth time to wipe a heated brow, and extract a thorn from myfinger, when the familiar voice of the Shutes' motor-horn roused me tothe appalling fact that it was nearly luncheon-time, and that I was farfrom fit to receive Royalty. As I hurriedly emerged from the wood,there was a sound of hard galloping, and I beheld the green-eyed fillyflying riderless up the avenue. She crossed the croquet ground,thoroughly, from corner to corner, and disappeared into the shrubberyin the direction of the flower garden. I ran as I have seldom run,dimly aware of a pursuing party of mourners on the avenue behind me,and, as I ran, I cursed profusely the Sultan, Calthorpe, and chieflyBernard Shute and all his works.

  The chase lasted for twenty minutes, and was joined in by not less thanfive-and-thirty people. The creamy mane of the filly floated like abanner before us through the shrubberies, with the dogs in full crybehind her; through it all went the reiterations of the piano, themonotonous hammerings, the majestic chords, the pyrotechnic scales;they expressed as fully as he himself could have desired the completeindifference of the tuner. The filly was ubiquitous; at one moment shewas in the flower garden, the next, a distant uproar among the poultrytold that she had traversed the yard, whence she emerged,_ventre-a-terre_, delivered herself of three bucks at sight of heroriginal enemy the motor, at the hall door, and was away again for thecroquet ground. At every turn I encountered a fresh pursuer; it wasBernard Shute and the kitchen-maid who slammed the flower-garden gatein her face; it was Philippa, in her very best dress, abetted by JohnCullinane, very dusty, and waving a crushed and weepered hat, who, withthe best intentions, frustrated a brilliant enveloping movementdirected by me; finally the cross-cut saw men, the tuner's car-driver,and a selection from the funeral, came so near cornering her that shecharged the sunk fence, floated across its gulf with offensive ease,and scurried away, with long and defiant squeals, to assault my horsesat the farther end of the paddock.

  When we, _i.e._ Philippa, Bernard, and I, pulled ourselves together onthe top of the steps, it was two o'clock. By the special favour ofProvidence the Sultan was late, but the position was desperate.Philippa had trodden on the front of her dress and torn it, Bernard hadgreened the knees of his trousers; I do not know what I looked like,but when Cecilia Shute emerged, cool and spotless, from the hall, whereshe had judiciously remained during the proceedings, she uttered afaint shriek and covered her face with her hands.

  "I know," I said, with deadly calm, stuffing my tie inside mywaistcoat, "I can't help it----"

  "Here they are!" said Bernard.

  The sound of wheels was indeed in the avenue. We fled as one man intothe back hall, and Philippa, stumbling over her torn flounce, fell onher knees at the feet of Mr. Werner, the tuner, who stood there, histask finished, awaiting with cold decorum the reward of his labours.The wheels stopped. What precisely happened during that crowded momentI cannot pretend to explain, but as we dragged my wife to her feet Ifound that she had knelt on my eyeglass, with the result that may beimagined.

  All was now lost save honour. I turned at bay, and dimly saw,silhouetted in the open doorway, a short figure in a frock-coat, with aspecies of black turban on its head. I advanced, bowed, and heroicallybegan:

  "Sire! J'ai l'honneur----"

  "Yerrah my law! Major!" said the bewildered voice of Slipper. "Don'tbe making game of me this way! Sure I have a tallagram for you." Heremoved the turban, which I now perceived to be a brown tweed cap,swathed in a crape "weeper," and handed me the telegram. "I got itfrom the boy that was after breaking his bike on the road, an' I comingfrom the funeral."

  The telegram was from Calthorpe, and said, with suitable regrets, thatthe Sultan had been summoned to London on instant and importantbusiness.

  I read it to the back hall, in a voice broken by many emotions.

  "I saw the gentleman you speak of waiting for the Dublin train at SandyBay Station this morning," remarked the tuner, condescending for amoment to our level.

  "The
n why did you not tell us so?" demanded Philippa, with suddenindignation.

  "I was not aware, madam, that it was of any importance," replied Mr.Werner, returning to his normal altitude of perpetual frost.

  Incredible as it may seem, it was apparent that Philippa wasdisappointed. As for me, my heart was like a singing bird.