Dubliners
“But as for Gretta there,” said Gabriel, “she’d walk home in the snow
if she were let.”
Mrs Conroy laughed.
“Don’t mind him, Aunt Kate,” she said. “He’s really an awful bother,
what with green shades for Tom’s eyes at night and making him do the
dumb-bells, and forcing Eva to eat the stirabout. The poor child! And
she simply hates the sight of it!... O, but you’ll never guess what he
makes me wear now!”
She broke out into a peal of laughter and glanced at her husband, whose
admiring and happy eyes had been wandering from her dress to her face
and hair. The two aunts laughed heartily too, for Gabriel’s solicitude
was a standing joke with them.
“Goloshes!” said Mrs Conroy. “That’s the latest. Whenever it’s wet
underfoot I must put on my goloshes. Tonight even he wanted me to put
them on, but I wouldn’t. The next thing he’ll buy me will be a diving
suit.”
Gabriel laughed nervously and patted his tie reassuringly while Aunt
Kate nearly doubled herself, so heartily did she enjoy the joke. The
smile soon faded from Aunt Julia’s face and her mirthless eyes were
directed towards her nephew’s face. After a pause she asked:
“And what are goloshes, Gabriel?”
“Goloshes, Julia!” exclaimed her sister. “Goodness me, don’t you know
what goloshes are? You wear them over your ... over your boots, Gretta,
isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Conroy. “Guttapercha things. We both have a pair now.
Gabriel says everyone wears them on the continent.”
“O, on the continent,” murmured Aunt Julia, nodding her head slowly.
Gabriel knitted his brows and said, as if he were slightly angered:
“It’s nothing very wonderful but Gretta thinks it very funny because
she says the word reminds her of Christy Minstrels.”
“But tell me, Gabriel,” said Aunt Kate, with brisk tact. “Of course,
you’ve seen about the room. Gretta was saying....”
“O, the room is all right,” replied Gabriel. “I’ve taken one in the
Gresham.”
“To be sure,” said Aunt Kate, “by far the best thing to do. And the
children, Gretta, you’re not anxious about them?”
“O, for one night,” said Mrs Conroy. “Besides, Bessie will look after
them.”
“To be sure,” said Aunt Kate again. “What a comfort it is to have a
girl like that, one you can depend on! There’s that Lily, I’m sure I
don’t know what has come over her lately. She’s not the girl she was at
all.”
Gabriel was about to ask his aunt some questions on this point but she
broke off suddenly to gaze after her sister who had wandered down the
stairs and was craning her neck over the banisters.
“Now, I ask you,” she said almost testily, “where is Julia going?
Julia! Julia! Where are you going?”
Julia, who had gone half way down one flight, came back and announced
blandly:
“Here’s Freddy.”
At the same moment a clapping of hands and a final flourish of the
pianist told that the waltz had ended. The drawing-room door was opened
from within and some couples came out. Aunt Kate drew Gabriel aside
hurriedly and whispered into his ear:
“Slip down, Gabriel, like a good fellow and see if he’s all right, and
don’t let him up if he’s screwed. I’m sure he’s screwed. I’m sure he
is.”
Gabriel went to the stairs and listened over the banisters. He could
hear two persons talking in the pantry. Then he recognised Freddy
Malins’ laugh. He went down the stairs noisily.
“It’s such a relief,” said Aunt Kate to Mrs Conroy, “that Gabriel is
here. I always feel easier in my mind when he’s here.... Julia, there’s
Miss Daly and Miss Power will take some refreshment. Thanks for your
beautiful waltz, Miss Daly. It made lovely time.”
A tall wizen-faced man, with a stiff grizzled moustache and swarthy
skin, who was passing out with his partner said:
“And may we have some refreshment, too, Miss Morkan?”
“Julia,” said Aunt Kate summarily, “and here’s Mr Browne and Miss
Furlong. Take them in, Julia, with Miss Daly and Miss Power.”
“I’m the man for the ladies,” said Mr Browne, pursing his lips until
his moustache bristled and smiling in all his wrinkles. “You know, Miss
Morkan, the reason they are so fond of me is——”
He did not finish his sentence, but, seeing that Aunt Kate was out of
earshot, at once led the three young ladies into the back room. The
middle of the room was occupied by two square tables placed end to end,
and on these Aunt Julia and the caretaker were straightening and
smoothing a large cloth. On the sideboard were arrayed dishes and
plates, and glasses and bundles of knives and forks and spoons. The top
of the closed square piano served also as a sideboard for viands and
sweets. At a smaller sideboard in one corner two young men were
standing, drinking hop-bitters.
Mr Browne led his charges thither and invited them all, in jest, to
some ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. As they said they never took
anything strong he opened three bottles of lemonade for them. Then he
asked one of the young men to move aside, and, taking hold of the
decanter, filled out for himself a goodly measure of whisky. The young
men eyed him respectfully while he took a trial sip.
“God help me,” he said, smiling, “it’s the doctor’s orders.”
His wizened face broke into a broader smile, and the three young ladies
laughed in musical echo to his pleasantry, swaying their bodies to and
fro, with nervous jerks of their shoulders. The boldest said:
“O, now, Mr Browne, I’m sure the doctor never ordered anything of the
kind.”
Mr Browne took another sip of his whisky and said, with sidling
mimicry:
“Well, you see, I’m like the famous Mrs Cassidy, who is reported to
have said: ‘Now, Mary Grimes, if I don’t take it, make me take it, for
I feel I want it.’”
His hot face had leaned forward a little too confidentially and he had
assumed a very low Dublin accent so that the young ladies, with one
instinct, received his speech in silence. Miss Furlong, who was one of
Mary Jane’s pupils, asked Miss Daly what was the name of the pretty
waltz she had played; and Mr Browne, seeing that he was ignored, turned
promptly to the two young men who were more appreciative.
A red-faced young woman, dressed in pansy, came into the room,
excitedly clapping her hands and crying:
“Quadrilles! Quadrilles!”
Close on her heels came Aunt Kate, crying:
“Two gentlemen and three ladies, Mary Jane!”
“O, here’s Mr Bergin and Mr Kerrigan,” said Mary Jane. “Mr Kerrigan,
will you take Miss Power? Miss Furlong, may I get you a partner, Mr
Bergin. O, that’ll just do now.”
“Three ladies, Mary Jane,” said Aunt Kate.
The two young gentlemen asked the ladies if they might have the
pleasure, and Mary Jane turned to Miss Daly.
“O, Miss Daly, you’re really awfully good, after playing for the last
two dances, but really we’re so short of ladies tonight.”
“I don’t mind in the least, Miss Morkan.”
“But I’ve a nice partner for you, Mr Bartell D’Arcy, the tenor. I’ll
get him to sing later on. All Dublin is raving about him.”
“Lovely voice, lovely voice!” said Aunt Kate.
As the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure Mary Jane
led her recruits quickly from the room. They had hardly gone when Aunt
Julia wandered slowly into the room, looking behind her at something.
“What is the matter, Julia?” asked Aunt Kate anxiously. “Who is it?”
Julia, who was carrying in a column of table-napkins, turned to her
sister and said, simply, as if the question had surprised her:
“It’s only Freddy, Kate, and Gabriel with him.”
In fact right behind her Gabriel could be seen piloting Freddy Malins
across the landing. The latter, a young man of about forty, was of
Gabriel’s size and build, with very round shoulders. His face was
fleshy and pallid, touched with colour only at the thick hanging lobes
of his ears and at the wide wings of his nose. He had coarse features,
a blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid and protruded lips. His
heavy-lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair made him look
sleepy. He was laughing heartily in a high key at a story which he had
been telling Gabriel on the stairs and at the same time rubbing the
knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.
“Good-evening, Freddy,” said Aunt Julia.
Freddy Malins bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an
offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then,
seeing that Mr Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed
the room on rather shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the
story he had just told to Gabriel.
“He’s not so bad, is he?” said Aunt Kate to Gabriel.
Gabriel’s brows were dark but he raised them quickly and answered:
“O, no, hardly noticeable.”
“Now, isn’t he a terrible fellow!” she said. “And his poor mother made
him take the pledge on New Year’s Eve. But come on, Gabriel, into the
drawing-room.”
Before leaving the room with Gabriel she signalled to Mr Browne by
frowning and shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro. Mr Browne
nodded in answer and, when she had gone, said to Freddy Malins:
“Now, then, Teddy, I’m going to fill you out a good glass of lemonade
just to buck you up.”
Freddy Malins, who was nearing the climax of his story, waved the offer
aside impatiently but Mr Browne, having first called Freddy Malins’
attention to a disarray in his dress, filled out and handed him a full
glass of lemonade. Freddy Malins’ left hand accepted the glass
mechanically, his right hand being engaged in the mechanical
readjustment of his dress. Mr Browne, whose face was once more
wrinkling with mirth, poured out for himself a glass of whisky while
Freddy Malins exploded, before he had well reached the climax of his
story, in a kink of high-pitched bronchitic laughter and, setting down
his untasted and overflowing glass, began to rub the knuckles of his
left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye, repeating words of
his last phrase as well as his fit of laughter would allow him.
Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece,
full of runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing-room. He
liked music but the piece she was playing had no melody for him and he
doubted whether it had any melody for the other listeners, though they
had begged Mary Jane to play something. Four young men, who had come
from the refreshment-room to stand in the doorway at the sound of the
piano, had gone away quietly in couples after a few minutes. The only
persons who seemed to follow the music were Mary Jane herself, her
hands racing along the keyboard or lifted from it at the pauses like
those of a priestess in momentary imprecation, and Aunt Kate standing
at her elbow to turn the page.
Gabriel’s eyes, irritated by the floor, which glittered with beeswax
under the heavy chandelier, wandered to the wall above the piano. A
picture of the balcony scene in _Romeo and Juliet_ hung there and
beside it was a picture of the two murdered princes in the Tower which
Aunt Julia had worked in red, blue and brown wools when she was a girl.
Probably in the school they had gone to as girls that kind of work had
been taught for one year. His mother had worked for him as a birthday
present a waistcoat of purple tabinet, with little foxes’ heads upon
it, lined with brown satin and having round mulberry buttons. It was
strange that his mother had had no musical talent though Aunt Kate used
to call her the brains carrier of the Morkan family. Both she and Julia
had always seemed a little proud of their serious and matronly sister.
Her photograph stood before the pierglass. She held an open book on her
knees and was pointing out something in it to Constantine who, dressed
in a man-o’-war suit, lay at her feet. It was she who had chosen the
name of her sons for she was very sensible of the dignity of family