The Garden Page 8

  The old man looked at him, and nodded once or twice. Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the appearance of Bessie, carrying a lamp. Grandpapa’s hand rose instinctively, and “Ta’ care” formed itself upon his lips ; but he knew there was no need to say it.

  Bessie always came in the same way, the lamp held firmly in her right hand, her face averted, clear of the big globe, her left hand stretching out for the little mat on which the lamp was to stand. Reaching this from its place on a small side table, she would advance to the centre table, put the mat down, and then with both hands steadily lower the lamp into its place. Then, opening her mouth, and screwing up her eyes, she turned up the wick. There was a steadfastness and strength about her process which reassured Grandpapa in his own despite. He sat back in his chair, one finger tapping his knee, and pushed up his moustache from underneath, till Bessie had gone. Then, after a few seconds’ contemplation of the mild, wide light, he rose stiffly from his chair.

  “Come over with me here, now, till I find out something I want ye to read to me.”

  Dermot willingly followed him across to the alcove, giving, as he did so, a single apprehensive glance at the cuckoo clock, lest it startle him by suddenly proclaiming the hour. Last year he would not go into that part of the room without someone to hold his hand. Now, he was getting to love the clock, without fear: only he did not want to be taken by surprise. But there was no fear: the hands said twenty to six.

  Grandpapa put a hand on his shoulder, and pointed to a row of volumes with leather backs, standing deep and solemn in the shadow.

  “Do you know what those books are, Dermot?” he asked.

  “No, Grandpapa. What are they?”

  “Those,” said Grandpapa reverently, “are the works of Charles Dickens, the greatest novelist who has ever lived.”

  There was a suitable pause.

  “One day, you shall read them. You are not old enough yet.”

  “Are they interesting?”

  “They are more than interesting,” replied Grandpapa solemnly. “One of these days, I shall begin to tell you about them, and maybe read a bit to you, here and there. Then, when you are older, you shall read them for yourself.”

  It was thus that Dermot first heard the name of Dickens—in a far, surviving corner of Dickens’ world: in an alcove, with firelight unsteady on the walls, spoken reverently on the lips of one for whom that world was contemporary and real, and those books the newest, the only fiction: somewhere, say, in the year 1860, which had by some mystery been persuaded to stay forty years above its time. It seemed to him afterwards that, by shutting his eyes, he could always slip back into that world, and that he held a real link with it. He knew, with more than an imaginative sympathy, what the books were talking about.

  But Grandpapa was looking for something else. Craning back his head, peering (as well he might), he extracted at last a large Prayer Book. Together the pair turned back to the table, where the lamp swam dimly, like the full moon one suddenly sees in summer, some little while after she has taken her place unnoticed in the sky. Sitting down, holding the book forward into the circle of brightest light, Grandpapa opened it, and took from inside its cover a newspaper cutting, yellow with age, and stuck upon a card.

  “Now, Dermot,” he said. “I want ye to read this to me.” With a slight frown, and a look at the old man, Dermot obediently took it. He had never seen a piece of reading matter of like appearance. In his clear voice, unnecessarily loud, he began to read :

  “Henry Francis Lyte, author of the justly celebrated hymn, ‘Abide With Me,’ passed away on the . . . ”

  Chapter IX

  The arrival of Dermot’s father, though it presaged departure, made little impression upon him, so deep was he in the new world. His father belonged, very properly and importantly, to the world of England—to Mutley Park House, Plymouth. Here, he seemed out of place. He lost authority, too. Dermot was quick to notice that, in spite of being who he was in the family, his father was outside the little circle of Walmer Villa. Walmer Villa was Mummy’s home. Here she had been born, had grown up, and from here she had married. The house and garden had for her a thousand associations to which her husband must always be a stranger, or an appreciator at second hand. The little circle, which belonged together, most freely opened its enclosure to admit the guest: but a guest he was, and his behaviour showed it. He deferred to the old couple: he asked Grandpapa his opinions, and listened with the appearance of respect. He rose first from the table, and held open the door. To Dermot, accustomed for weeks now to Irish voices, his voice sounded incongruous and strange. He was fallen, most decidedly fallen, from his high estate at home. Dermot disliked to see this, without knowing that he disliked it. His escape from it was to be almost unaware of his father: not to realise his presence until they should all be home again, and he could be given his proper attention in his proper place. So Dermot went about his days, for the most part, as if his father were not there. He shut up his senses from taking any notice of him.

  At the same time, he resented very much anything which looked like an attempt to belittle his father. A suspicion that Uncle Ben and the rest of the Delgany contingent were laughing at him embarrassed him—though hardly on personal grounds. There was to be no nonsense of that kind. No one was permitted to overturn the fixed pillars in Dermot’s world. On the very evening of his father’s arrival, when Grandpapa had stood at the top of the steps, holding his hand, and said, chuckling, “That’s not your Daddy,” Dermot replied coldly, “It is my Daddy,” and took the joke in very bad part. He did not consciously side with his father: but, at home, his father’s mightiness was a fact, one of the facts upon which the world rested, and Dermot, like many another philosopher, did not like to see his facts lose value.

  There was a feeling, too, that besides being always deferential in his behaviour, his father was avoiding certain subjects. More than once, at meals, came the feeling of a difficult place avoided. On one occasion, just as he himself was allowed to “get down” and go out of the room, something had happened—anger from Grandpapa, and, through the closed door, deprecating and soothing voices from the rest. Munny, consulted, reproved him for being inquisitive, but softened later, to remark that she thought it might be some question of politics. Dermot noticed also that his father did not accompany the family to church. He enquired boldly why, and was told by Granny that Daddy was tired after his journey: leaving him to cogitate on the unusual rigours of a journey whose effects persisted from Tuesday to Sunday morning.

  The last days flew quickly by, and, before he realised it, Walmer Villa was loud with preparations for departure. Uncle Ben called and said good-bye on his way in to Dublin: Aunt Patricia, Con, and the girls came in late the same afternoon. Seeing them, hearing their voices, Dermot felt a sudden tugging at his heart-strings. He wanted to go again to the big cliff of a house, to take part in the strange meals, to go across in the boat to Dalkey Island, and see the ships, and the goats. He clung suddenly to Aunt Patricia’s hand, and said so.

  All bent down to reassure and comfort him.

  “Ah, sure, little son, when ye come again next year, ye must come up and see us lots of times.”

  “Yes, Dermot. We’ll go over to the Island, and have a grand time. There’ll be twice as many goats.”

  “We’ll teach you to fish, too.”

  “Yes—listen, Dermot—you sit in the back of the boat, and hold a line in your hand as we’re going along—we’ll show him the way, won’t we, Eileen?”

  “—Oh, sure we will——”

  “—And you’ll catch big, shining mackerel !”

  The tears were delayed a moment.

  “What are mackerel?”

  “Oh, grand fish. They pull hard, and, when you get them in, they flop about all over the place. And they’re the loveliest colours——”

  “Yes. All like a rainbow, where the light comes on their side.”

  He looked mournfully from one to another, only half com
forted.

  “You wouldn’t be able to do these things much longer, this year, anyhow,” put in Con, with real understanding. “It’ll be too rough and cold. But next year, now——”

  Between them, they managed to distract him for a while. Eileen took him out into the garden. She loosed Paddy-monkey, and the three roamed round the walks. Whether from compassion—for she thought him a queer little freak—or because she was setting herself a task, she did everything in her power to charm and divert Dermot: and made him her slave for life. Paddy, unconscious of the coming separation, gambolled happily along. When they ran, he galloped ahead, throwing up his behind like a frisky cat. When they stopped, he turned and looked up at them with human, intelligent eyes.

  The walk was all too short. Anne appeared at the top of the garden, waving and calling. Eileen had to go.

  At the actual good-byes, Dermot shed tears. They were all so kind, so lively—they came from a world which seemed to him exciting and delicious and strange: a world of shark’s teeth and centipedes and telescopes and wooden pigs and queer meals and bathrooms without taps and sea and boats and outings and front doors that made a queer noise. The detailed memory was too much for him: he shook himself free from the comforting ministrations of Munny and Bessie, and crept out into the garden.

  Paddy sat on top of his kennel, eating his supper. Bessie had filled his tin mug with stewed apple. He looked up as Dermot appeared, made a little friendly noise, and went on eating.

  For several minutes Dermot stood watching him, brooding upon the separation that was coming: watching him hungrily, taking in every movement, every look of his friend, staring at the kennel, the tree, the little path that ducked suddenly and dodged into the scullery: learning it all by heart, to remember during the long winter months which were coming. A year—a whole year! It was more than he could grasp. He could remember last year, of course, but only as a sort of dream, dim broken pieces. A year! Why, the time he had been over here, that great, long, wonderful time—that was only two months and a bit. A year was twelve months! No, that wasn’t quite right: you had to take away the two months and a bit. That left ten—nine months and a bit. More than four times as much as the time he had been over here must go by before he saw Paddy again, and Bessie, and Mr. Caggen, and—everybody and everything.

  He put his arms round the monkey, who had finished eating, and held him tight.

  “Oh, Paddy, darling Paddy,” he whispered.

  Puzzled, the monkey stared for a second. Then, aware of his distress, it snuggled close to him, with crooning, comforting noises.

  Chapter X

  The actual departure was fearful, except that it had about it the excitement of strange and unusual doings. Sitting up to an early tea, eating an egg with a bone spoon for the last time, taking, whenever he could spare the time, a surreptitious glance around the room——

  “—Hurry up, Dermot. There’s not time to go mooning around. Get on with your egg.”

  —to fix its darling details once more in his mind: that was awful. There was a sick, heavy feeling in his chest, which would hardly move aside to let the food go down. He had not cried. There was a sort of numbness—the sorrow was too big: and, at the same time, though he knew he was going, that in one hour he would be gone, and Walmer Villa be empty, but for Grandpapa and Bessie, and Paddy rattling his chain (tears suddenly welled up, but he choked them back): though he knew all this, and the pictures of that knowledge came flashing up, every now and then, like stabs of pain: yet some queer sort of strength had somehow come up inside him, putting an excitement underneath the sorrow, and making him at moments almost callous. He had said good-bye in an almost jaunty spirit to Paddy, to Pucker, and to the kitten—who was in a most inappropriate mood, and would not come to be petted, but thought the pursuit was a game. Bessie’s continual saga of “the days we’ll have next year, please God”: and “Sure the time won’t be long passing. Christmas’ll be on us before we know where we are, and then, sure, in a month or two, we’ll be making ready to welcome yez all again,” was curiously invigorating. He had come in to his early tea almost cheerful: but the stabs of realisation came up again.

  Watching him, hard put to it, indeed, to hide her own grief, Granny made one of her very few mistakes.

  “Would you like to take one of the bone spoons with you, Dermot dear, to eat your eggs at home?”

  The boy’s face darkened in repudiation of such a blasphemous thought.

  “No, thank you——” he got out somehow, and stopped short, blinking hard: for the separateness, the difference of Walmer Villa, of everything in Ireland, was the strongest of his secret pleasures.

  Then, suddenly, came the bustle of leaving. A last glimpse of Paddy, snatched on the pretext of wanting to go to the lavatory, a preoccupied Paddy, playing with his chain: something put into his hand: his father’s voice, impatient, “Come on, come on”: the tickle of Grandpapa’s beard: the brave show of flowers in the tiny front garden, suddenly noticed, as if especially bright: Bessie waving her hand merrily from the steps, crying “Next year, next year,” and his own hand, laboriously freed, to wave back: the darkness of the cab, the loud clatter of its wheels: they were gone.

  The B. & I. boat took a long time to get from the North Wall to Dalkey Sound. The evening was overcast: there was a chill air: all the land, the trees so soon to lose their tired foliage, looked dark and cold. The boat went down the Sound almost in silence. As one who has suffered too much, and can feel no more, Dermot stared at the little harbour of Coliemore, where Uncle Ben’s boat lay. He got a quick glimpse of boats at anchor, but could not see the boat: it was moored too far round. Then they cleared the point, and Delgany itself showed gaunt above the curving shoulder of the land.

  Uncle Ben and Company had arranged to be down on the boatslip. They were to wave a sheet.

  “Look, Dermot, look. There! There they are !”

  Mummy was pointing over his shoulder. He looked, and there, sure enough, were two or three tiny figures, waving what looked like a napkin. He waved back, mechanically.

  When they had finished waving, Uncle Ben’s party climbed the path up to the house, and turned the telescope upon the boat. They saw through it a picture which they described to Dermot in later years, so convincingly that he always seemed to see it himself. At the stern of the boat, clearly visible, so that they could even see the expression on his face, he stood, in his sailor cap, his blue reefer coat buttoned across, gazing vaguely back towards Dalkey, solemn, lost in thought. The telescope was so powerful that they could see him for quite a long time, dwindling slowly eastward into the dusk.

  Interlude

  Chapter XI

  The interval which followed deserves some record, because, though Ireland became more and more important to Dermot, he did not visit it again for two years. These two years marked the development of Baby Eithne from a helpless and noisy little animal into a person, obliging Dermot to adjust his singular existence to admit her. Remembering his first hostility, his parents kept anxious watch ; but they were reassured. The opening of her eyes to the world roused Dermot’s interest. She was a new and exciting plaything. He became much attached to her, and took a grave pride in fetching and carrying for her, and directing her first steps. Strange feelings came over him, when he stood in the nursery, holding out his hands, and the baby, her own hands outstretched, took her unsteady way across the floor, caught his hands, and sighed with the satisfaction of an accomplished journey. Soon she was walking all over the place, with the dour, valiant tread of the very small child, stopping still, every now and then, with great virtuosity, and turning her head to smile at her escort. She was a purposeful baby, and when, as frequently happened, she fell on her face, she was not so much frightened as resentful of the interruption to her progress ; and would be set on her feet again, her face dark with anger, which she immediately forgot.

  A memory which came often to Dermot was of sitting with Eithne in the big nursery window, watching down Oxford A
venue for his parents to come back from the town. Oxford Avenue marked the end of civilisation, the end of streets and lamps. Their house stood in a garden, not nearly as big as Granny’s, but of a decent size: and, beyond its southernmost fence, rough, broken ground sloped down to the top of Oxford Avenue. This broken ground opened into a small wood, which ran beside the eastern fence of the garden: a piece of waste land, still more than half wild, with a stream running through its midst: too small, and too near civilisation, to give much pleasure: spoiled by an occasional rubbish dump, and the haunt of small armies of street boys. Each successive tenant of Mutley Park House put up a higher fence to exclude these armies and preserve his garden from their inspection. The waste land was bounded on the far side by a steep rise in the ground, which was let out to market gardeners. Happily, the little wood concealed this from the house. On the north ran a lane, which also bounded the garden, and curved round the meadow and clump of trees at the back of the house.

  It was a wild November evening. Over Plymouth Sound, a great opening had been torn in the ragged sky. The evening light shone through it, grand and mournful, and the wind roared in from the sea, whirling down the narrow streets from the Hoe, leaping impatiently across the pit of the town, and shaking the regiments of houses upon North Hill. It leaped at the great high nursery window, again and again. One could almost see it coming: but the two children did not heed it. Dermot’s gaze was fixed intently upon as much as could be seen of Oxford Avenue. Eithne, too young to concentrate on any intellectual purpose, sat, her short legs sticking straight out in front of her, pulling at her toes, and chanting to herself an interminable song of pleasure. Every now and again, moved by an imperious shaking of the glass, she would look wonderingly up at the window ; but she did not stop her song. Drawing his brows together, Dermot watched. The avenue was empty ; its very lamps appeared fitful in the wind. Suddenly a strong gust flung a handful of drops against the window. They trickled slowly down, and the light of the lamps dazzled into stars. The window became a drizzle and a blur: fresh drops were flung upon it, splashing out at first into little rings, which drooped and became part of a general descending sadness. Then the assault ceased: the pane dried quickly in the wind, save where a few big drops clung shivering. Dermot moved his head so as to see the street lamps through the drops, and each light became to his imagination a fairy, with a big radiant head and shooting, dancing limbs. In less time than it takes to tell he knew the name, the history, and the habits of these iridescent creatures. They lived on a hill above the town. As soon as he had gone, or the drops had dried from the window, they would drift slowly away to it, like thistledown, like dandelion feathers. Dandelion feathers on their stalk—only more splintery ; and with exactly that same transparency, like the daytime shell of the moon ; drifting along in flocks and companies over the heads of the admiring townspeople. Only—the townspeople would not admire. They did not know. He alone knew: he had the lovely sight and knowledge and friendliness of them, all to himself. He alone knew—and, of course, Eithne.