‘Sometimes I think . . . it’s the whiskey.’ It was such a dreadful thing to say that she was covered in confusion. At the same time, it seemed to please her husband.
‘Yearling is easily deceived. He can’t see that all this modern blarney about betterment of the workers’ conditions is a mere stalking horse for Red Republicanism.’
He took out his watch. It was the hour for his walk along the front. The prospect, on such a morning, was not at all pleasant. Nevertheless, regular exercise was essential to health. Putting back the watch with an air of resignation he added: ‘I think I might write to him.’
‘But won’t you be seeing him?’
‘Good God, Florence—I don’t mean the agent, I mean Yearling. I think I might write to Yearling.’
Then he said, deciding firmly:
‘That’s what I’ll do, I’ll write to him. He’s getting as odd as two left feet and I know why. It’s living all alone for so long in that enormous and empty house. Don’t you think I should do that?’
She saw now that he had missed Yearling. The grumbling was only a cloak. She saw, too, that he was uneasy about writing, for fear of a rebuff.
‘Suppose I invited him for a musical evening,’ she suggested. ‘I could ask Father O’Connor as well. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to come.’
She knew that this was what her husband had hoped for.
‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘write to both. Yearling is a nuisance, but we’ve known him such a long time. We mustn’t watch him become an old oddity of a bachelor and do nothing at all to help him.’
He put on his heavy muffler, his greatcoat, his hat, his gloves. He went out into the raw morning air. It made his ears tingle and smelled bitterly of the sea.
They met on St. Patrick’s Day. Yearling brought a fresh sprig of shamrock for his hostess. Mrs. Bradshaw praised it, found a pin and put it on her blouse. Then she said:
‘It seems a shame in a way. It withers so quickly.’
‘There’s an honoured custom, ma’am,’ Yearling reminded her, ‘and it’s called drowning the shamrock.’ He meant with spirits, of course. She smiled indulgently because no matter what her husband might say, he was jovial and yet thoughtful and that was nice. Bradshaw took the decanter from the sideboard. The glass was already out in readiness.
They sang Moore’s melodies because it was fitting to the occasion. They expressed national sentiments. It was altogether a very pleasant evening which concluded when Father O’Connor sang ‘The Dear Little Shamrock’ and they all joined in the chorus. The last tram had gone when they broke up but Yearling said he would leave Father O’Connor back to town in his motor, it was no trouble at all. After he had wound all the clocks and put the chain on the door, Bradshaw was in very good humour and sat at the fire for a while. She sat with him.
‘You played very nicely, Florence,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I was out of practice.’
‘No,’ he insisted, ‘you were in excellent fettle. Most pleasing.’ He poured himself a small measure of port for a night-cap. ‘What was your opinion of Yearling?’
‘He seemed very well disposed.’
Bradshaw nodded agreeably.
‘Warm. Unusually so. Whatever was troubling him, he seems to have got over it. I think the evening did him good. It took him out of himself.’
On the way home Yearling and Father O’Connor spoke of Ireland in a sentimental way, of her sad history, of her hopes of nationhood so often and so bloodily thwarted, of the theatre of Mr. Yeats and Mr. Synge. Father O’Connor confessed that he had not seen any of the plays, but he had heard that they were in tone and language somewhat immoral. How much better Tom Moore had served Ireland through the medium of music and literature. He quoted:
‘Dear Harp of my country in darkness I found thee
The cold chain of silence had hung o’er thee long.
When proudly, my own Island Harp I unbound thee
And gave all thy chords to light Freedom and Song.’
Yearling agreed. He said he wished often that he could have been present when the brave Tom was bringing tears to the eyes of pretty ladies in early nineteenth-century London drawing rooms by singing them songs that were sweetly seditious. Then he threw back his head and sang defiantly:
‘Dear Harp of my Country, farewell to thy slumbers
This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine.
Go—sleep with the sunshine of fame on thy slumbers
Till touched by some hand less unworthy than mine.’
He paused to say, ‘Come now, Father, join in,’ and continued, helped timidly by Father O’Connor, who was not happy about the seemliness of singing at the top of the voice in a motor car on the public street:
‘If the pulse of the patriot, soldier or lover
Have throbbed at our lay, ’tis thy glory alone
I was but as the wind passing heedlessly over
And all the wild sweetness I waked was thine own.’
‘Very beautiful,’ Father O’Connor said, when Yearling had adjusted his hat, which had tilted askew during his lusty chorus.
‘Did you know, Father, that Byron praised Moore’s verses highly?’
Father O’Connor confessed that he had not known.
‘It’s a fact,’ Yearling said. ‘The same Don Juan had a reputation for practising more than his poetry, but he had the magnanimity to acknowledge another man’s genius.’
‘Admirable,’ Father O’Connor said. He had to raise his voice. The motor, in the dark, deserted streets, was making a lot of noise.
‘Home Rule, of course, is a mirage,’ Yearling said, surprisingly, since the Bill had been passed in January by the House of Commons.
‘But the Lords can no longer veto it,’ Father O’Connor objected, ‘it must automatically become law in two years.’
‘It will be stopped.’
‘Surely not.’
‘Carson,’ Yearling said. ‘Carson will stop it. He has a hundred thousand volunteers drilling to fight it.’
‘I understand they have nothing but dummy rifles.’
‘They’ll get the real things when the time comes. If the British Unionists don’t supply them, our splendiferous and grandiloquent cousin—I refer to his Imperial Sublimity the Kaiser Wilhelm—will oblige. Do you know who Carson’s grandfather was?’
Father O’Connor could not say.
‘An immigrant Italian who resided in Dublin called Carsoni. The name of the present bould Orange blade is an abbreviation.’
Father O’Connor was astounded.
‘True bill.’ Yearling said.
‘Now that you mention it,’ Father O’Connor said, ‘his skin is very dark.’
‘A combination of liver trouble and the pigmentation of the Middle Sea,’ Yearling said. He turned a corner with a flamboyant twist of the wheel. A moment later he slowed to a standstill.
‘Your destination,’ he announced.
‘I’ve brought you very far out of your way.’
‘A pleasure. Think nothing of it. By the way, what did you think of Bradshaw?’
‘He seemed anxious to be agreeable.’
‘That’s what I thought too. I knew him at school, you know.’
‘So you’ve told me.’
‘He should never have married,’ Yearling said. ‘He’s becoming quite odd. I’ve noticed the change over the years.’
‘In what way?’ Father O’Connor asked.
‘Well, for one thing, the peculiar way he looks at me when I raise my glass to him and say “Good health”. Almost inimical.’
‘I think you exaggerate.’
‘No indeed. It happens almost every time. Still, I’m glad we went. I think the evening took him out of himself. Well—good night.’