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“Strange,” said Mr Bartell D’Arcy. “I never even heard of him.”
“Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right,” said Mr Browne. “I remember hearing
of old Parkinson but he’s too far back for me.”
“A beautiful pure sweet mellow English tenor,” said Aunt Kate with
enthusiasm.
Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table.
The clatter of forks and spoons began again. Gabriel’s wife served out
spoonfuls of the pudding and passed the plates down the table. Midway
down they were held up by Mary Jane, who replenished them with
raspberry or orange jelly or with blancmange and jam. The pudding was
of Aunt Julia’s making and she received praises for it from all
quarters. She herself said that it was not quite brown enough.
“Well, I hope, Miss Morkan,” said Mr Browne, “that I’m brown enough for
you because, you know, I’m all brown.”
All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of
compliment to Aunt Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had
been left for him. Freddy Malins also took a stalk of celery and ate it
with his pudding. He had been told that celery was a capital thing for
the blood and he was just then under doctor’s care. Mrs Malins, who had
been silent all through the supper, said that her son was going down to
Mount Melleray in a week or so. The table then spoke of Mount Melleray,
how bracing the air was down there, how hospitable the monks were and
how they never asked for a penny-piece from their guests.
“And do you mean to say,” asked Mr Browne incredulously, “that a chap
can go down there and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on
the fat of the land and then come away without paying anything?”
“O, most people give some donation to the monastery when they leave.”
said Mary Jane.
“I wish we had an institution like that in our Church,” said Mr Browne
candidly.
He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in
the morning and slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for.
“That’s the rule of the order,” said Aunt Kate firmly.
“Yes, but why?” asked Mr Browne.
Aunt Kate repeated that it was the rule, that was all. Mr Browne still
seemed not to understand. Freddy Malins explained to him, as best he
could, that the monks were trying to make up for the sins committed by
all the sinners in the outside world. The explanation was not very
clear for Mr Browne grinned and said:
“I like that idea very much but wouldn’t a comfortable spring bed do
them as well as a coffin?”
“The coffin,” said Mary Jane, “is to remind them of their last end.”
As the subject had grown lugubrious it was buried in a silence of the
table during which Mrs Malins could be heard saying to her neighbour in
an indistinct undertone:
“They are very good men, the monks, very pious men.”
The raisins and almonds and figs and apples and oranges and chocolates
and sweets were now passed about the table and Aunt Julia invited all
the guests to have either port or sherry. At first Mr Bartell D’Arcy
refused to take either but one of his neighbours nudged him and
whispered something to him upon which he allowed his glass to be
filled. Gradually as the last glasses were being filled the
conversation ceased. A pause followed, broken only by the noise of the
wine and by unsettlings of chairs. The Misses Morkan, all three, looked
down at the tablecloth. Someone coughed once or twice and then a few
gentlemen patted the table gently as a signal for silence. The silence
came and Gabriel pushed back his chair.
The patting at once grew louder in encouragement and then ceased
altogether. Gabriel leaned his ten trembling fingers on the tablecloth
and smiled nervously at the company. Meeting a row of upturned faces he
raised his eyes to the chandelier. The piano was playing a waltz tune
and he could hear the skirts sweeping against the drawing-room door.
People, perhaps, were standing in the snow on the quay outside, gazing
up at the lighted windows and listening to the waltz music. The air was
pure there. In the distance lay the park where the trees were weighted
with snow. The Wellington Monument wore a gleaming cap of snow that
flashed westward over the white field of Fifteen Acres.
He began:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in years past, to perform a
very pleasing task but a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as a
speaker are all too inadequate.”
“No, no!” said Mr Browne.
“But, however that may be, I can only ask you tonight to take the will
for the deed and to lend me your attention for a few moments while I
endeavour to express to you in words what my feelings are on this
occasion.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not the first time that we have gathered
together under this hospitable roof, around this hospitable board. It
is not the first time that we have been the recipients—or perhaps, I
had better say, the victims—of the hospitality of certain good ladies.”
He made a circle in the air with his arm and paused. Everyone laughed
or smiled at Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia and Mary Jane who all turned
crimson with pleasure. Gabriel went on more boldly:
“I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no
tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so
jealously as that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique
as far as my experience goes (and I have visited not a few places
abroad) among the modern nations. Some would say, perhaps, that with us
it is rather a failing than anything to be boasted of. But granted even
that, it is, to my mind, a princely failing, and one that I trust will
long be cultivated among us. Of one thing, at least, I am sure. As long
as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid—and I wish from my
heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come—the tradition
of genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our
forefathers have handed down to us and which we in turn must hand down
to our descendants, is still alive among us.”
A hearty murmur of assent ran round the table. It shot through
Gabriel’s mind that Miss Ivors was not there and that she had gone away
discourteously: and he said with confidence in himself:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by
new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these
new ideas and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I
believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a sceptical and, if
I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear
that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack
those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which
belonged to an older day. Listening tonight to the names of all those
great singers of the past it seemed to me, I must confess, that we were
living in a less spacious age. Those days might, without exaggeration,
be called spacious days: and if they are gone beyond recall let us
hope, at least, that in gatherings such as this we shall still speak of
them with pride and affection, still cherish in our hearts the memory
of those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world will not
willingly let die.”
“Hear, hear!” said Mr Browne loudly.
“But yet,” continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer
inflection, “there are always in gatherings such as this sadder
thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth,
of changes, of absent faces that we miss here tonight. Our path through
life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon
them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work
among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections
which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavours.
“Therefore, I will not linger on the past. I will not let any gloomy
moralising intrude upon us here tonight. Here we are gathered together
for a brief moment from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine. We
are met here as friends, in the spirit of good-fellowship, as
colleagues, also to a certain extent, in the true spirit of
_camaraderie_, and as the guests of—what shall I call them?—the Three
Graces of the Dublin musical world.”
The table burst into applause and laughter at this allusion. Aunt Julia
vainly asked each of her neighbours in turn to tell her what Gabriel
had said.
“He says we are the Three Graces, Aunt Julia,” said Mary Jane.
Aunt Julia did not understand but she looked up, smiling, at Gabriel,
who continued in the same vein:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
“I will not attempt to play tonight the part that Paris played on
another occasion. I will not attempt to choose between them. The task
would be an invidious one and one beyond my poor powers. For when I
view them in turn, whether it be our chief hostess herself, whose good
heart, whose too good heart, has become a byword with all who know her,
or her sister, who seems to be gifted with perennial youth and whose
singing must have been a surprise and a revelation to us all tonight,
or, last but not least, when I consider our youngest hostess, talented,
cheerful, hard-working and the best of nieces, I confess, Ladies and
Gentlemen, that I do not know to which of them I should award the
prize.”
Gabriel glanced down at his aunts and, seeing the large smile on Aunt
Julia’s face and the tears which had risen to Aunt Kate’s eyes,
hastened to his close. He raised his glass of port gallantly, while
every member of the company fingered a glass expectantly, and said
loudly:
“Let us toast them all three together. Let us drink to their health,
wealth, long life, happiness and prosperity and may they long continue
to hold the proud and self-won position which they hold in their
profession and the position of honour and affection which they hold in
our hearts.”
All the guests stood up, glass in hand, and turning towards the three
seated ladies, sang in unison, with Mr Browne as leader:
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
Which nobody can deny.
Aunt Kate was making frank use of her handkerchief and even Aunt Julia
seemed moved. Freddy Malins beat time with his pudding-fork and the
singers turned towards one another, as if in melodious conference,
while they sang with emphasis:
Unless he tells a lie,
Unless he tells a lie.
Then, turning once more towards their hostesses, they sang:
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
For they are jolly gay fellows,
Which nobody can deny.
The acclamation which followed was taken up beyond the door of the
supper-room by many of the other guests and renewed time after time,
Freddy Malins acting as officer with his fork on high.
The piercing morning air came into the hall where they were standing so
that Aunt Kate said:
“Close the door, somebody. Mrs Malins will get her death of cold.”
“Browne is out there, Aunt Kate,” said Mary Jane.
“Browne is everywhere,” said Aunt Kate, lowering her voice.
Mary Jane laughed at her tone.
“Really,” she said archly, “he is very attentive.”
“He has been laid on here like the gas,” said Aunt Kate in the same
tone, “all during the Christmas.”
She laughed herself this time good-humouredly and then added quickly:
“But tell him to come in, Mary Jane, and close the door. I hope to
goodness he didn’t hear me.”
At that moment the hall-door was opened and Mr Browne came in from the
doorstep, laughing as if his heart would break. He was dressed in a
long green overcoat with mock astrakhan cuffs and collar and wore on
his head an oval fur cap. He pointed down the snow-covered quay from