The Red And The Green (4 page)

Sometimes Andrew, forever making little of his fright, decided that it was simply Christopher's appearance that unnerved him. His future father-in-law was very tall and looked anything but English. He might have been southern French or even Basque. He had extremely black hair and large dark eyes and a long thin very red mouth. He had always been cleanshaven, with a dulled sallow complexion. His longish hair was looped back behind his markedly pointed ears and his bushy triangular eyebrows met and grew for a considerable way down the bridge of his narrow and slightly hooked nose. The brow was prominent, yellower than the rest of the face, and much scrawled over with fine wrinkles, so that it sometimes seemed that he was wearing a cap pulled down to eye level. This gave him a secretive air. Yet he managed to look handsome and even young, and his eyes, always rather cautious and watchful, were very often humorous. Perhaps it was simply that Andrew suspected that Christopher was frequently laughing at him. He felt, however, an immense respect for Christopher, for his learning and for his rather mysterious detachment. Exhorted for some time to call him by his Christian name instead of ‘Sir', he had found this difficult.

Andrew had by now almost finished dealing with the swing. It had not been a complicated operation, but he had dreamily prolonged it, simply glad to find himself mechanically occupied. The ropes were securely knotted on to a projecting bough of the big chestnut tree which stood beside the lawn, and as they chafed to and fro they dislodged a light dusting of bark which descended on to Andrew's blond head in a peppery rain, making him sneeze. The ropes slipped neatly through the slots in the seat and were knotted together below. Andrew had mended an incipient crack with a slat of wood and filled up a hole with putty. The red-and-white painted surface was as bright as he remembered it, the central spot of scarlet in those green childhood scenes, polished by many childish posteriors into a warm soft glow. He was rubbing it over with his sleeve, almost as if for some magical evocation of the past, when he caught sight of Frances coming from the house to call him in to tea.

A number of blackbirds, who had been threatening each other upon the lawn, flew up at her approach. The garden was in that disturbing expectant condition of the spring when everything is exuberantly leafy but nothing is in flower. All was green, that particularly pale vivid, damp-looking green which emanates from the Irish soil or is perhaps elicited by the dark brightness of the Irish light, a green washed over with silver. The slender spears of montbretia which fringed the house, the pallid waxy stripes of hemerocallis, the fuzzy shifting masses of fuchsia gave to the scene something of the air of a lush reedy water meadow. Against this dense vegetable harmony Frances advanced, wearing a full-skirted dress of white spotted voile and Irish lace with a wide sash of mauve satin. Andrew, who had been drooping lazily, sprang to attention, his glance darting involuntarily to her ankles which the new fashion left clearly visible

Frances was a small girl, inclined to plumpness, with something distinctly bouncy or frisky in her gait. Andrew had once punched another boy who called her ‘dumpy'. There was in fact a brightness and vitality in her which forbade such a description. She had more the plump grace of a pretty pony. She had Christopher's dark hair which, travelling to a complex bun behind, was looped over her ears just like his. She had, too, his long mouth and the large prominent brow about which she could never decide whether to hide it or to reveal it. But the slightly exotic look which in Christopher suggested the south, gave to Frances an almost gipsy appearance, or perhaps rather she just looked Irish, of the Irish of Ireland, wide-faced, a little tousled, with a long powerful smile.

Without speaking to Andrew she hopped at once on to the swing and began to urge herself to and fro. The ropes groaned upon the bough and the chestnut bark descended like black confetti on to her white dress. It began very mistily to rain.

Chapter Two

‘W
HAT'S on at the Abbey?'

‘Some stuff by W.B. Yeats.'

‘The Countess Cathleen, man? I don't think we feel strong enough for that, do we. What about the Gaiety?'

‘D'Oyley Carte. I believe it's
The Yeoman of the Guard.'

‘Well, we might go there. Only don't forget my furniture is arriving at Claresville on Thursday.'

It was about half an hour later and tea was nearly over. They were sitting round the low wickerwork table in the conservatory, while outside the garden was being caressed or playfully beaten by the light rain which drifted a little in the breeze from the sea. Rain in Ireland always seemed a different substance from English rain, its drops smaller and more numerous. It seemed now to materialize in the air rather than to fall through it, and, transformed into quick-silver, ran shimmering upon the surface of the trees and plants, to fall with a heavier plop from the dejected palms and the chestnut. This rain, this scene, the pattering on the glass, the smell of the porous concrete floor, never entirely dry, the restless sensation of slightly damp cushions, these things set up for Andrew a long arcade of memories. He shifted uneasily in his basket chair, wondering how long it took to develop rheumatism.

Christopher had lighted his pipe, Frances was sewing, Hilda, without occupation, was sitting very upright as if the organization of the party had suddenly fallen upon her. Her hair, a pale blonde striped with grey, rather scanty and silky, pulled well away from the face and banded by a black velvet ribbon, looked like a neat cap, and she appeared older than her age. Her face, lightly wrinkled or rather perhaps crumpled, was a uniform colour of soft parchmenty gold, and often gave the impression of being weather-beaten or sunburnt, although Hilda in fact shunned the open air. The large straight nose and rather stern dark-blue eyes completed the picture of a person of authority, although an inherent vagueness in Hilda's principles made her in practice a less commanding person than she seemed.

‘I'm longing to see your house finished,' said Frances.

‘Thank God you didn't buy that crumbling pile at Dun-drum,' said Christopher. ‘I'd have had to help you keep it upright, and it would have been a full-time job.'

What about me? thought Andrew, with a sudden pang, but then decided that he was being morbid.

‘Kathleen said she'd find me a maid. I gather one has to pay ten shillings a week now.'

‘And most of them would steal the cross off an ass's back and can't be trusted to cook anything but rashers and eggs!'

‘Oh, I'm good at training servants. I had a perfect little jewel in London. And of course I shall have the telephone installed.'

‘The telephone is fine here if you only want to talk to the exchange! Have I convinced you on the motor car question?'

‘Yes, Christopher. I think after all it would be foolish to buy a motor car just now. There are too many difficulties. I hear Millie has just bought a Panhard. She is so extravagant.'

Andrew knew quite well that his mother was aware that she could not possibly afford a motor car.

‘We might think in terms of a pony and trap, though. After all, one must get about. And when the war is over I shall certainly purchase a touring car. Andrew shall learn how to operate it.'

A Vauxhall Prince Henry, thought Andrew dreamily to himself. When the war was over he would have money to spend. It was nice to think that he had a rendezvous in the future with a Vauxhall Prince Henry.

‘I think I shall always stick to my bike,' said Christopher. ‘The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.'

‘I was very relieved Andrew didn't want to go into the Flying Corps,' said Hilda, speaking as if her son were not present.

‘What's on tomorrow, Aunt Hilda?' asked Frances, revealing a long straight row of white teeth as she bit a length of thread off from the spool. Andrew's mother had always been content with this formal mode of address, which increased Andrew nomenclaturial difficulties with Christopher, since to address him familiarly in Hilda's presence would seem a kind of disloyalty.

‘Tomorrow,
my dear,' said Hilda, with the confiding eagerness she always evinced over any social plan, however trivial, ‘tomorrow Andrew goes to tea at Blessington Street. I can't manage it, I've
got
to be at Claresville then to see the builder. You'll go with him, won't you?'

‘I don't mind,' said Frances. ‘I like to watch Cathal growing up. He looks entirely different now every time I see him.'

‘He's such a big boy. It's hard to believe he's only fourteen. Children grow up so much more quickly nowadays. You'll go along too, Christopher?'

‘Please not. That house depresses me. And Kathleen always makes me feel guilty!'

‘I don't see why she should. But the house
is
gloomy, and there's always that curious smell on the stairs. Don't you think Kathleen has become awfully sour and self-absorbed just lately? And so dreadfully pious! Someone told me she goes to chapel every day.'

‘She does it to spite Barney,' said Christopher, puffing his pipe, his gaze upon the quietly dripping palm trees.

Hilda, as usual, did not follow up a remark which made reference to her brother's religion. She went on, ‘And on
Tuesday,
I know it's a terrible bore, but we
must
go and see Millie, I did promise. She's back from Rathblane now, it's her time for being in town. How do you think Millie is these days, Christopher? Going downhill?'

‘Not specially,' said Christopher. ‘She's been hunting like a maniac all the winter.'

‘She certainly has plenty of energy,' Hilda conceded. ‘I sometimes think she really might have been somebody if she'd been born a man.'

‘Can't one be somebody if one's born a woman?' asked Frances.

‘Well, hardly in that way, dear. Though in plenty of other ways which are just as important,' said Hilda vaguely.

‘I think being a woman is like being Irish,' said Frances, putting aside her work and sitting up. At such moments she had an unconscious gesture of pushing back her hair to reveal her large brow. ‘Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.'

‘Come, come, women have always had Home Rule!' Christopher always jestingly set aside his daughter's sometimes rather ferocious attempts to turn conversation into serious channels.

‘The emancipation question is certainly a grave one,' said Hilda. ‘I am not at all hostile to the idea myself. But there are so many values— And I'm afraid that your Aunt Millicent's idea of emancipation is wearing trousers and firing a revolver in her own house.'

Christopher laughed. ‘That's about it. But one must start somewhere! Will you be coming to Millie's, Frances?'

‘No, thanks.'

Andrew had long been aware that Frances did not like Aunt Millicent, but he had never been able to make out why. Among the generalizations about women which passed freely around his regimental mess was one to the effect that women never like each other, since every woman regards every other woman as her rival. Andrew, while attending with interest to all such distillations of worldly wisdom on a subject which was still very mysterious to him, suspected that this one was over-simple. It was true that women, leading more isolated and emptier lives, were naturally, when opportunity offered, more frantically anxious to attract attention and more ruthless in their pursuit of the opposite sex than were men who had, after all, other interests, as well as more chances to know each other in an atmosphere of free fraternal co-operation. Or so it seemed to Andrew, who saw men as inherently dignified animals and women as inherently undignified animals. However, in his own experience, when he had noted a marked dislike of one woman for another there had usually been some reason for this other than the postulated general rivalry.

In the matter of dislike of Aunt Millicent, his mother for instance disliked her out of envy for her title and her money, and because she failed to further Hilda's social ambitions. While Aunt Kathleen disliked her because of Uncle Arthur. Kathleen had it seems been very attached to her brother Arthur and had, rightly or wrongly, felt him to be in some way slighted or belittled by Millie, who was in fact fairly universally said to have married Arthur for rather worldly reasons. Uncle Arthur's early death was also somehow vaguely felt to be Millie's fault. ‘Poor Arthur,' Hilda used to say. ‘Millie simply ate him. Kathleen never forgave her.' Frances' dislike, which could hardly be put down to loyalty to either Kathleen or Hilda, persons from whom to say the least she felt detached, could perhaps after all be more simply explained as the nervous envy felt by a young girl who, however much she might officially despise such values, recognized in an older person a kind of elegance and glitter which she could never hope to emulate. Or more simply still it might be that Frances had weighed Millie in some spiritual balance and found her wanting. Andrew noted, sometimes a little uneasily, that his fiancee was capable of making quite uncompromising moral judgments.

‘I hear there is to be mixed bathing at the Kingstown baths,' said Hilda, pursuing some train of thought concerned with the enormities of the modern world. ‘I cannot approve. Not with the bathing costumes people wear nowadays. Frances and I saw a girl at the Ladies Bathing Place at Sandycove who was showing nearly the whole of her legs. Do you remember, Frances?'

Frances smiled. ‘She had very pretty legs.'

‘I'm sure you have very pretty legs, my dear, but they're nobody's business but your own.'

Andrew, feeling an entirely private amused resentment at this judgment, suddenly found himself catching Christopher's eye. Christopher gave him a faint secretive smile. Distressed, Andrew dropped his gaze and pulled at his moustache. There was something curiously improper about catching Christopher's eye just then. It was almost like an exchange of winks. He felt suddenly mocked and threatened. He could never make Christopher out.

Christopher, perhaps to cover what he had apprehended of Andrew's embarrassment, went on at once, ‘In fact nothing may come of the mixed bathing idea. Father Ryan has already protested about it. You and the Holy Romans see eye to eye on this, Hilda.'

‘They're certainly very full of themselves these days,' said Hilda, ‘protesting against this and demanding that. I expect it's the prospect of Home Rule. “Home Rule will be Rome Rule” may prove but too true. We must prepare ourselves.'

‘Indeed,' said Christopher. ‘And yet they've opposed it all along the line. It's the Church not the Castle that has really kept this country down. All the great Irish patriots have been Protestants, except for O'Connell. The Church was against the Fenians, against Parnell.'

‘Oh well,
Parnell
—' said Hilda. The judgment was vast, vague, crushing.

Andrew here caught the eye of Frances, who was a devotee of the great man thus dismissed. He saw her draw breath to protest, decide not to, and half smile at him as if asking for approval, all in two seconds. He was pleased by the quick little exchange.

His mother was going on, ‘I can't understand why recruiting is going so slowly in Ireland. I saw an article about it this morning.'

‘I don't think it's going slowly. Irishmen are streaming into the British Army.'

‘Well, yes, but so many remain behind. And the
attitude
of people. Last week I heard a man singing a song in German in the public street. And in Clery's yesterday I heard a woman say to another that Germany might win the war. She said it casually as if it were quite an ordinary thing to say!'

Christopher laughed. ‘Of course, the English never ever for a second conceive that they can lose a war. It's one of their great strengths.'

‘Why do you say “they”, Christopher, and not “we”? You're English after all.'

‘True, true. But having lived over here for so long I can't help seeing the dear old place a little bit from the outside.'

‘Well, I think it's very disloyal to talk in that way about the Germans, as if they could possibly win. After all, England and Ireland are really one country.'

‘So the English soldiers evidently think when they sing “It's a long way to Tipperary”. But it's always easy for the top dog to extend his sense of identity over his inferiors. It's a different matter for the inferiors to accept the identification.'

‘I can't understand this talk about inferiority. No one regards the Irish as inferior. They are loved and welcomed all over the world! And I can't stand this jumped-up Irish patriotism, it's so artificial. English patriotism is another thing. We have Shakespeare and the Magna Carta and the Armada and so on. But Ireland hasn't really had any history to speak of.'

‘Your brother would hardly agree with this judgment.'

‘I am not impressed by a few moth-eaten saints,' said Hilda with dignity.

‘Ireland was a civilized country when England was still barbarous,' said Frances, tossing her hair back.

‘My dear Frances, you are parroting your Uncle Barnabas,' said Hilda. ‘You know very little about it.'

This, Andrew thought, was probably just. Frances was no scholar, and her views on politics, though often vehement, were extremely confused and discontinuous. Frances had always been very attached to Hilda's brother, and had never associated herself with the scandalized or mocking attitudes of the family towards the convert. Uncle Barnabas and her father between them had been her school and her university, and once for a short while she had helped her uncle with some aspect of his study of the early Irish Church. It was something, she used vaguely to say, about the date of Easter, and more Andrew could not gather. Long aware of a friendship between Frances and ‘Barney', Andrew felt an undiminishing jealousy which he recognized to be both unworthy and irrational. He had never for a second been able to take his Uncle Barnabas seriously. While Christopher seemed to him, and rather formidably, a real scholar, he could not imagine Uncle Barnabas's toils as other than childish vanities, and Frances' muddled account of them seemed to confirm the view. ‘Barney' shambled on the outskirts of the family caravan, an irredeemable figure of fun.