The Garden Page 4

  The menu for Sunday dinner was selected invariably from a range of three dishes. Boiled chickens with parsley sauce: boiled ham and cabbage: boiled leg of mutton, carrots, and caper sauce. None of these Dermot liked, but worst of all was having to sit still through the interminable meal, listening with distaste to the avid champing of the indigent guests, or the conversation of the well-to-do, with every muscle in his body crying to run out into the garden, to play with Paddy-monkey, to be away out of it all. And, once away, he often got a vicarious revenge, with Paddy-monkey as the unlikely instrument. The outdoor lavatory, added to the old cottage by a more hygienic generation, stood directly opposite the monkey’s kennel. Its doorway was well within the range of his chain. Paddy was always resentful of strangers, and played up with redoubled vigour if he saw that they were afraid of him. When, after dinner, guests required to visit the lavatory, Paddy would rush out at the first sound of a strange voice, the first hissing of alien satin, and bar their approach. Therefore, they had to be escorted to the haven. Granny guided them as far as the door, but, as she could hardly hang about outside, Dermot, being too young “to matter,” would be charged to restrain the gibbering Paddy till the return journey had been safely made. The first time he was so instructed, and once or twice afterwards, he released Paddy as soon as the visitor was inside, and retreated to wait developments. The sound of the cistern emptying was a signal as well understood by the monkey as by the boy, and the unhappy lady would open the door to find her egress barred by a black leaping shape, holding the threshold with exaggerated demonstrations of ferocity. Dermot would remain deaf to her appeals for aid, till Granny sailed out to see what was the matter: but there was no ignoring her imperious call, and he would come reluctantly to hold the culprit while Miss O’Whoever-she-was made her tremulous escape. Granny was well able to deal with Paddy herself, and he was devoted to her, but she did not wish to pick him up in her Sunday finery. For years afterwards, the image of an old lady holding up her skirts and revealing several inches of lilac petticoat, before a leaping, gibbering monkey, served to solace Dermot for many social sufferings. That Paddy enjoyed the joke, and was not angry at all, was clear from the fact that he never resented Dermot’s catching him, nor struggled to escape when caught, though all the time, for the visitor’s benefit, he kept up a stream of furious maledictions. As soon as she had gone, he would look up at Dermot with an almost human twinkle, and bound happily enough to the ground. His real rages were quite different.

  Chapter V

  Dermot and Paddy were by now fast friends. By degrees, seeing that the monkey did him no harm, the grown-ups relaxed their hostility. Only Grandpapa made difficulties. Taking Dermot close to the kennel, and then petting him with theatrical expressions of affection—“In order, d’ye see, to show ye the jealousy of the animal”—he risked bringing on what they all feared. Left to himself, Paddy was perfectly good tempered. If ever Dermot went too far, the monkey seized his finger and gripped it tight in his small black paw, uttering a shrill gibber of warning, and staring furiously into Dermot’s face. The hint was taken, and harmony prevailed.

  Granny had obtained her unlikely pet in an unlikely way. The cottage next door, a lowlier dwelling, went with Granny’s. It was entirely separate, with a small garden of its own: and her habit was to let it to some poorer parishioner. One such tenant took as paying guest a negro, and the negro, unused to Irish winters, fell ill with congestion of the lungs. Granny, as a matter of course, ministered unto him. On his departure, cured, in the spring, he came grinning from ear to ear, and begged her to accept the only present he had it in his power to make—a young black monkey. To please him, she took it, intending to get rid of it at the first opportunity. It was affectionate and gentle, and she could not help liking it. Then Bessie entreated that it should stay, and that settled the matter. The formal expostulations of Grandpapa grew more and more formal—“Mark me words, Amelia, that animal won’t rest till it has done someone a mischief”—and Paddy stayed. So far, Grandpapa’s prophecy remained unfulfilled.

  The monkey, a light-hearted little creature, grew healthy and happy. Living out of doors, he kept himself very clean. This was his second summer with Granny. The winter, bane of animals from southern countries, he had survived well. The kitchen wall kept his kennel warm, and Bessie, solicitous as any mother, supplied him with hot-water bottles, round which he curled himself, in his thick bed of straw, and slept through the long, cold nights. Bessie wanted to bring him into the kitchen, but there Granny drew the line. Perhaps because of his youth, Paddy survived, grew strong and hardy, and became an accepted member of the household.

  Dermot played with him by the hour. Boy and monkey sat together, quite solemnly, in that satisfying companionship which is the secret of children and young animals. Sometimes they would play with a ball, or romp around together: but, usually, they seemed just to be keeping one another company. Pucker’s kitten, when she grew a little bigger, made a third. The monkey lost his heart to her altogether, though his attentions were not always pleasing to the kitten. He would lure her into his range by intriguing motions of his tail and paws, which any self-respecting kitten must at once investigate. Once he had caught her his idea was to nurse her in his arms. This at first suited the kitten very well, but as she grew more active, she would resent being held in one position, and mew for release. Then Pucker would approach in a fury. She and Paddy were not on very good terms. When each was small, their well-meaning elders, fearing jealousy, had kept them out of each other’s way: and thus the natural alliance between the two had been frustrated. They did not fight, but kept each a wary eye on the other. When the kitchen door was shut, and she was obliged to pass by the kennel to get into the scullery, Pucker quickened her pace to a trot: and Paddy, with his devilish instinct, took to giving his chain a rattle as she passed, so that the trot became an undignified scoot for safety.

  The first time she heard the kitten’s cries, she flew at Paddy, making him drop his charge and run up the pear-tree above his kennel. By degrees, however, seeing that the little animal was not afraid, and often trotted up to him of her own accord, she ceased to trouble herself. In any case, the kitten was too frisky to be kept out of mischief. Soon she and the monkey were fast friends—their only differences occurring when the kitten protested beneath the analyses to which Paddy from time to time subjected her furry person.

  Granny’s other dependents, Katie, Mr. Caggen, and his corps of occasional assistants, were all frankly terrified of the monkey, and crossed themselves every time they had to pass up the orchard. Paddy, well aware of this, improved the occasion by rushing to the full limit of his chain, gesticulating, leaping up and down, and flinging his tin mug after their hurrying feet.

  Mr. Caggen, being lame, was an especially good target.

  “Sacred Heart o’ Jasus, Sacred Heart o’ Jasus, Sacred Heart o’ Ja——” He stopped, out of range, and mopped his brow. “That rompin’ divil’ll get loose on us one day, Master Dermot—and then where’ll we all be?”

  “He’s quite harmless, Mr. Caggen.” Bessie smiled, as she heard the clear deliberate voice through the kitchen window. “He wouldn’t do anyone any harm. He only likes to pretend.”

  “Faix, then, I wouldn’t trust him. A hay then sort of an animal, to be havin’ about the place.”

  “Oh no, Mr. Caggen. He’s quite friendly. Look.”

  But Mr. Caggen turned from the sight, and limped off muttering, to exchange comment with his queer subordinate, Jem Neill.

  Sunday afternoon had other diversions, however, besides Paddy’s inhospitable treatment of the lady visitors. Round about tea-time, Dermot’s cousins from Dalkey would come down, accompanied sometimes by Uncle Ben himself. There were four cousins, but two came more often than the others, and to these two Dermot’s adoration was freely given: Con, a great handsome fellow of twenty-one, with the mind and antics of a schoolboy, and Eileen, some four or five years younger, a streeling long-legged girl with delicate features an
d light, clear-blue eyes. The arrival of these two, whether their father followed them or not, meant tea in the garden. Eileen’s first action, on her arrival, was sufficient to stamp her as a goddess in Dermot’s eyes. She unhooked Paddy’s chain, and went flying off down the garden with him, the delighted monkey gambolling along on all fours beside her, like a dog on a lead. Seldom though she saw him, their understanding was complete. He submitted to her without protest, letting himself be hauled ignominiously from all sorts of pleasing refuges ; sitting on her shoulder ; running full tilt with her all round the paths ; and eating, with the completest trust, whatever she gave him. He seemed to know that he was only out on sufferance, and that such escapes depended on his good behaviour. He knew, too, that his benefactress would stand no nonsense: and confounded the elder members of the party, Grandpapa included, by his demureness and docility. Con, who was quite irresponsible, would attempt privily to excite him, but the monkey paid no attention. Uncle Ben, when he came, late, by himself, bellowing a nautical hail down the garden, would sit down opposite the monkey and at once submit his bald head for inspection. He loved to feel the little paws delicately fingering his scalp. There was in one place a small mole, or stain on the skin. No amount of experience would convince Paddy that this was a fixture, and he would try, gently at first, and then more forcibly, to remove it. As soon as the monkey found this spot, Uncle Ben would begin to laugh. He would shake and splutter, cramming his great red fist into his mouth, until at last he would burst out in a roar which sent Paddy hopping back in affright.

  “Oh, there now, me little Paddy boy! Did I scare ye? Come here to me, then. Come on. Sure I didn’t mean to scare ye.”

  Watching him, and chattering gently, the monkey would come slowly back. Uncle Ben would then take him in his arms, tickle him, pat him, and give him a lump of sugar: and Paddy would lie right back, looking up with his bright eyes into the blue of the sky, in perfect happiness.

  The whole proceeding so outraged Grandpapa that he would get up and leave the table, and walk about muttering till his indignation had subsided. To let a monkey explore one’s head seemed to him contrary to the laws of decency, hygiene, and good sense.

  “You’re little better than a heathen, Ben,” he said severely, seating himself again: “Little better than a heathen ; or a black.”

  “Faith, Alfred,” returned his guest, unabashed: “If I’ve no worse than that on me soul at the Last Day, I won’t do too badly.”

  Grandpapa emptied his cup expressively, and passed it up for more.

  “Now, me little Paddy here,” pursued Uncle Ben, “is as clean as anyone of us, in his way. Not a day passes, but he makes his toilet—and the little cat’s too, if he can get a hold on it. There’s nothing of the Pharisee about Paddy. He doesn’t keep his virtues to himself. Here he’d be, investigating every inch of me, if I were in me pelt——”

  “Daddy! “protested Eileen, scandalised.

  Dermot’s mother laughed her lazy, silvery laugh. Granny made business with the teapot. Dermot, conscious of the embarrassment around him, turned crimson.

  “Control yourself, Ben,” said Grandpapa severely. “That sort of talk may be all very well among sailor men, but ye should know this is no place for it.”

  “Forgive me, Amelia.” Uncle Ben clasped his big hands in mock contrition, and looked very sorry indeed—for a couple of seconds—then exploded with laughter ; exactly as Con did on similar occasions, though Con now sat embarrassed at his father. Yet, strangely enough, as Dermot soon found out, Uncle Ben was of a fanatical Puritanism, and allowed his own family little freedom of speech or action.

  He was a man of extraordinary good looks, still in the prime of life, broad, strong, and hearty, with a ringing voice, a big fair moustache, eyebrows like wisps of hay, and the bluest of blue eyes. He had been a captain in the Merchant Service. When he retired, he placed his savings very skilfully in the half-share of a tea and wine merchants’ business in Middle Abbey Street, where he now occupied himself, with Con as his assistant. Con had refused the advantages of Trinity College, which his elder brother Brian had embraced, preferring to join his father. Uncle Ben wore hairy tweed suits of green and grey, varied with nautical blue of a Sunday. The only part of him not quite in character was his singing voice. It should have been a rollicking bass: actually, it was a sentimental tenor.

  Con was in some ways a replica of his father, though his looks were gentler. He was immensely strong, but had none of his father’s bustling alertness. A natural indolence showed in his eyes, which were heavily lidded. It sounded also in his voice. He was capable of violent outbursts of energy, but had as yet little method or staying power.

  Now, after watching Dermot idly for a minute or two, he rose from his chair, and led him off to play.

  “Uncle Ben,” said Dermot, stopping for a moment as he went.

  “Yes, son?”

  “Paddy has a pre-hensile tail.”

  He nodded towards the monkey, then turned, and trotted off after Con.

  “Glory be to God !” exclaimed the mariner, scratching his head, and staring after him.

  With the rest of his family, Con found the child difficult. Dermot spoke with that clear, pedantic distinctness which some children achieve so effortlessly: he used long words, was aggressively “English,” and did not respond to the usual easy gambits. Con, who was genuinely fond of children, and spent much of his free time playing with them, could make nothing of this solemn little owl. He asked him a few perfunctory questions, and received answers so precise and full that he was quite at a loss.

  “Will I push you in the swing?” he asked at last.

  “Yes, please do.”

  Dermot sat up, a frail figure, his wrists sticking out thin and white, as he grasped the ropes.

  “Not too high, Con,” came wavering cries from the ladies round the tea-table.

  “No, no, that’s all right,” he called back impatiently. “Now, then.”

  With a hand that went all across Dermot’s back, he gave him a shove. Not expecting it, Dermot slipped forward on the broad, smooth seat.

  “Tell me, when it’s high enough.”

  For an agonised minute Dermot was afraid that he was going to slip right off. He sat as tight as he could, feeling horribly insecure. Then, a stronger push sending him higher, he slipped back. So that was all right. Conscientiously, the fear removed, he tried to enjoy himself. Already his feet were going far, far above the branch of the laburnum which was his own private mark, when he swung himself. Why—gracious—they were almost at the topmost branch, the wildly impossible branch——He began to be frightened. At each swing back the remorseless hand was there to hurl him up still higher. He shut his eyes.

  “P—pl——”

  The cry would not come. He was sick, dizzy, breathless: the whole world rocked hideously, lunging to and fro, in flashes of green light. Another second, and he would let go—let go—let go——

  “Is that high enough?”

  Con’s voice swung with the great sick lights. He tried to answer, and heard, far off, a clamour from the tea-table.

  “All right, all right,” called Con, in an offended voice. He caught Dermot, and slowed him down. The world stopped swinging, the lights ceased to leap, and the roaring left his ears. He opened his eyes. All was well and normal. Con was smiling, holding the swing still for him.

  Sudden exhilaration and peace filled Dermot. He smiled back radiantly.

  “You shouldn’t go send the boy that dangerous height,” remonstrated Grandpapa. He had left the group, and approached them.

  “Ah, sure, Grandpapa, he was all right. You were all right, weren’t you, Dermot?”

  A glow of masculine pride, of complicity, warmed Dermot’s heart.

  “Of course I was,” he answered.

  “That’s the boy.”

  Con and he wandered off through the garden, to the gooseberry bushes. Adult interference had brought them together.

  “Ye mustn’t mind y
our Granny too much,” admonished Con, his mouth full of fruit. “She’s always anxious, that way. She was the same with us, whenever we came here.”

  “I know. It’s only natural for them to be anxious about me, because, you see, I’m not constitutionally very strong. I have to be rather careful.”

  A frown crossed Con’s face.

  “I wouldn’t go worrying about that sort of thing, if I were you. It doesn’t do to be wondering if you’re able for this, that, or the other thing. Sure that’s the way to make an invalid of yourself. Do the things. Then you find you can do them all right. Sure, half the things they tell you you can’t do, you find you can do perfectly well, all the time, once ye do them.”

  Dermot pondered this revolutionary view of things.

  “But,” he objected, “if your physique won’t——”

  “Physique! What would anyone your age be doing with a physique !”

  “But, Con: everyone has one. I mean—don’t you see——”

  “The less you bother about things of that kind, the better for you. You don’t want to be knowing the names of all your parts and diseases.”

  Dermot, anxious to make the matter clear, adopted his most patronising tone.

  “Physique isn’t a——”

  “Never you mind what it is. Here——” he held out a handful of gooseberries—” put these in your gob, and shut up about your physiques and your constitutions and all your nonsense.”

  Dermot meekly took the fruit. He was not used to being so addressed, and, as he ate, he eyed Con in some bewilderment. The sun, getting towards the western side of the garden, fell on the big, handsome fellow with soft, golden light. He ate absorbedly, foraging from bush to bush, masticating with enormous movements of his jaws, and shooting out the skins in decisive and powerful reports. Dermot looked past him. Everything in the garden was clear and beautiful. The bushes stood out, each from its own shadow, and Dermot noticed as if for the first time the detail of the prickly stems, the hairs on the fat berries, and, a few paces further off, the brilliant hanging clusters of the red currants. Raising his head, he looked round the garden. A dark, soft shadow, cast by the summer-house and the laburnum tree beside it, was drooping across the lawn, and approaching the tea party. Soon it would touch the end of his mother’s light-coloured dress, where it lay, swished out of harm’s way, behind her chair. In a haze by the sundial, midges were beginning to dance. Eileen went up to the group on the lawn. He heard their voices, and then the girl started slowly up the path at the far side, leading Paddy on his chain. Dermot could see the top of the monkey’s head, and the arch of his back over the dwarf box hedges, as he hopped along by her side. He made a movement to go and intercept her, but she disappeared into a big pergola, covered with clematis, and did not emerge. Evidently she was letting Paddy climb about upside down on the roof of it.