"I don't think so exactly," he said, "but you see, poor old Johnnie has such a deuce of a temper, and he rubs fellows up the wrong way sometimes. They don't mind him being as wild as a hawk, but they do object when he has too much port after dinner and calls everyone he sees a swine and a bastard."
"Yes," said Fanny-Rosa, "yes, I see."
And yet, she thought, looking at this eldest son of hers as he brushed his hair before the mirror in his bedroom, how charming he could be when he wanted to, how affectionate, how lovable, and she was certain that his brains were the equal of Henry's, but he did not bother to use them, any more than his father had done. As for his temper, well, that was her legacy, and anyway it showed spirit, a determination not to be beaten.
"We had better be going, Johnnie," she said.
"I told the others seven-thirty."
"Very well," he answered. "There is a cab waiting, Dobson will see you into it. I shan't be a moment."
She went out into the hall, and, glancing back over her shoulder, she saw through the chink of the door that her son had opened the cupboard against the wall.
He's going to have a glass of port, she thought.
I wonder how much he gets through in the day.
The janitor held the carriage umbrella over her head, and she stepped into the cab. Johnnie joined her in a few minutes. He was flourishing a handkerchief, and a wave of eau-de-Cologne filled the cab.
"What does this party consist of?" he asked, stretching his legs on the seat opposite.
"Only ourselves," she said, "and Henry, and Edward, and Fanny, and Bill, and Bill's sister Katherine, whom I think you have not met."
"Is she as dull as Bill?"
"Don't be unkind about your brother-in-law; I'm devoted to him, Katherine is most charming. I rather fancy Henry has an eye on her Be civil and charming to everyone, for my sake. And don't make any remark about Fanny's appearance. She is very sensitive."
"Why the devil does she go out in public then?"
"She only does so tonight because of Henry. Then she and Bill are going off to Clifton, to await the arrival."
"What a confounded wet night it is!" said Johnnie, peering through the glass, and rubbing it with his handkerchief, "and where in hell's name does this fellow think he's going? I swear he's taken the wrong street. Here, you blithering idiot…"
He lowered the window, and began shouting at the driver.
Fanny-Rosa leant back and said nothing. This always happened, driving with Johnnie. Never yet had any cabman taken the right route. By the time they reached their destination he had cast doubt on the cabman's parentage, his personal morals, his cleanliness, the fidelity of his wife, and all to the unfortunate fellow's face. She began to wonder whether there would be a fight when they reached Port-man Square. But Johnnie suddenly changed his tone, gave the man an enormous tip and said he would not have his job for anything in the world, and giving his arm to his mother, he conducted her into the hotel, leaving the cabman red in the face, stupefied, and dumb.
Henry and Edward were waiting for them.
"The others will be down directly," said Henry; "the girls arc titivating, as usual. How are you, old fellow? I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you."
He shook hands with Johnnie, and kissed his mother.
The two brothers had not met for nearly a year.
"Greetings to the sheriff of Slane," said Johnnie. "And how's the law going, and the politics, and all your other interests?"
"Pretty well," smiled Henry. "I believe in dabbling in as many things as possible. They want me to contest the seat at the next election, but I think I'll wait a few years before I do that."
Enterprising chap, thought Johnnie. Always a finger in somebody's pie, but never being irritating about it. Here came Fanny, poor girl, looking grotesque, and the worthy Bill, and '
"This is Katherine Eyre," said Henry. "My brother Johnnie."
Charming, his mother had said, Johnnie remembered, but she had not told him she was beautiful. The smooth, dark hair, gathered in a low knot on the nape of her neck, the serene brown eyes, the cream-white texture of her skin, the whole impression of her, he thought, suggesting repose and quiet, someone withdrawn into herself who brought peace to the beholder. He found himself at a loss for words, and because he was not used to feeling shy before women he began to bluster, to give orders to the waiter in a loud voice, and when they came into the dining-room he complained about the position of the table; it was cramped against the wall, they must have the one in the opposite corner instead. Henry took charge and mollified the waiter. He gently teased his brother and changed the conversation, and soon they were all seated, Johnnie on the left of Katherine Eyre, and, rather than that she should think him a dullard and a boor, he at once plunged into a fantastic tale about the Crimea-she had asked some question on the war-hoping to impress her with its extravagance.
"I should like," she said, "to have been out there and helped Miss Nightingale. Not so much because of the nursing-I hardly think I could have stood it-but because so many of the men must have felt lonely and unhappy and would want comfort."
She looked at him and smiled, and he turned away, crumbling a piece of bread, because he was reminded suddenly of himself in that appalling shambles at Sevastopol, taking a very different sort of comfort in the arms of a slant-eyed, rather dirty little refugee, and how he had gone without whisky for five days and nearly died in consequence.
"I don't think," he said, "you could have done much good…"
And then he saw Henry staring at Katherine Eyre across the table, with such tenderness and adoration that Johnnie felt a strange despair come upon him, a feeling that he was an outcast, a pariah dog, who had no business to be sitting here with his brother and Katherine Eyre. They belonged to another world, a world where people were normal and happy, and had faith and confidence in the future. And above all faith and confidence in themselves.
"Here," he said loudly, "no one's drinking anything. Aren't we going to toast the sheriff of Slane?"
And he thumped on the table for the waiter to attend them. The other people dining in the room turned round at the sound of his voice.
"Henry," he said to Katherine Eyre, "gets his way by being polite to people. I get mine by doing the opposite?
She did not answer, and once again he felt depressed and lost, not because there was any sign of disapproval in her eyes, or condemnation, but because the sight of her sitting there beside him made him wish to be different, someone who was quiet and peaceful like her* self. He felt that very possibly she considered it unimportant whether people got their own way or not, and that in any case to shout and to bluster was something she would never do.
There was his mother laughing and talking to Bill. She enjoyed life, anyway, and would continue to do so whatever happened, and Bill, that honest parson, chatted back politely to his mother-in-laws though no doubt he did not care about the dyed hair and the powdered face. Fanny, giving birth any minute, was like a mouse, and always had been; no chance of her ever breaking the peace; and Edward and Henry discussed the affairs of the day as though the words Conservative and Liberal meant anything at all. No, he was an outcast, and always would be, and no doubt everybody here, except perhaps his mother, wished that they could have dined without him, "Well," he said, leaning back in his chair, "we have toasted Henry's future as a sheriff, what about toasting mine as a civilian?"
There was a pause in the conversation. Everybody looked at him.
"What do you mean, darling?" said Fanny-Rosa.