Gabriel's warm, trembling fingers tapped the cold pane of the window. How cool it
must be outside! How pleasant it would be to walk out alone, first along by the river
and then through the park! The snow would be lying on the branches of the trees and
forming a bright cap on the top of the Wellington Monument. How much more
pleasant it would be there than at the supper-table!
He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad memories, the Three
Graces, Paris, the quotation from Browning. He repeated to himself a phrase he had
written in his review: `One feels that one is listening to a thought-tormented music.'
Miss Ivors had praised the review. Was she sincere? Had she really any life of her
own behind all her propagandism? There had never been any ill-feeling between them
until that night. It unnerved him to think that she would be at the supper-table, looking
up at him, while he spoke, with her critical quizzing eyes. Perhaps she would not be
sorry to see him fail in his speech. An idea came into his mind and gave him courage.
He would say, alluding to Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia: `Ladies and Gentlemen, the
generation which is now on the wane among us may have had its faults, but for my
part I think it had certain qualities of hospitality, of humour, of humanity, which the
new and very serious and hyper-educated generation that is growing up around us
seems to me to lack.' Very good: that was one for Miss Ivors. What did he care that
his aunts were only two ignorant old women?
A murmur in the room attracted his attention. Mr Browne was advancing from the
door, gallantly escorting Aunt Julia, who leaned upon his arm, smiling and hanging
her head. An irregular musketry of applause escorted her also as far as the piano and
then, as Mary Jane seated herself on the stool, and Aunt Julia, no longer smiling, half
turned so as to pitch her voice fairly into the room, gradually ceased. Gabriel
recognized the prelude. It was that of an old song of Aunt Julia's - `Arrayed for the
Bridal'. Her voice, strong and clear in tone, attacked with great spirit the runs which
embellish the air, and though she sang very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest
of the grace notes. To follow the voice, without looking at the singer's face, was to
feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight. Gabriel applauded loudly
with all the others at the close of the song, and loud applause was borne in from the
invisible supper-table. It sounded so genuine that a little colour struggled into Aunt
Julia's face as she bent to replace in the music-stand the old leather-bound song-book
that had her initials on the cover. Freddy Malins, who had listened with his head
perched sideways to hear her better, was still applauding when everyone else had
ceased and talking animatedly to his mother, who nodded her head gravely and slowly
in acquiescence. At last, when he could clap no more, he stood up suddenly and
hurried across the room to Aunt Julia whose hand he seized and held in both his
hands, shaking it when words failed him or the catch in his voice proved too much for
him.
`I was just telling my mother,' he said, `I never heard you sing so well, never. No, I
never heard your voice so good as it is tonight. Now! Would you believe that now?
That's the truth. Upon my word and honour that's the truth. I never heard your voice
sound so fresh and so... so clear and fresh, never.'
Aunt Julia smiled broadly and murmured something about compliments as she
released her hand from his grasp. Mr Browne extended his open hand towards her and
said to those who were near him in the manner of a showman introducing a prodigy to
an audience:
`Miss Julia Morkan, my latest discovery!'
He was laughing very heartily at this himself when Freddy Malins turned to him and
said:
`Well, Browne, if you're serious you might make a worse discovery. All I can say is I
never heard her sing half so well as long as I am coming here. And that's the honest
truth.'
`Neither did I,' said Mr Browne. `I think her voice has greatly improved.'
Aunt Julia shrugged her shoulders and said with meek pride:
`Thirty years ago I hadn't a bad voice as voices go.'
`I often told Julia,' said Aunt Kate emphatically, `that she was simply thrown away in
that choir. But she never would be said by me.'
She turned as if to appeal to the good sense of the others against a refractory child,
while Aunt Julia gazed in front of her, a vague smile of reminiscence playing on her
face.
`No,' continued Aunt Kate, `she wouldn't be said or led by anyone, slaving there in
that choir night and day, night and day. Six o'clock on Christmas morning! And all for
what?'
`Well, isn't it for the honour of God, Aunt Kate?' asked Mary Jane, twisting round on
the piano-stool and smiling.
Aunt Kate turned fiercely on her niece and said:
`I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it's not at all honourable
for the Pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have slaved there all their
lives and put little whipper-snappers of boys over their heads. I suppose it is for the
good of the Church, if the Pope does it. But it's not just, Mary Jane, and it's not right.'
She had worked herself into a passion and would have continued in defence of her
sister, for it was a sore subject with her, but Mary Jane, seeing that all the dancers had
come back, intervened pacifically.
`Now, Aunt Kate, you're giving scandal to Mr Browne, who is of the other
persuasion.'
Aunt Kate turned to Mr Browne, who was grinning at this allusion to his religion, and
said hastily:
`O, I don't question the Pope's being right. I'm only a stupid old woman and I wouldn't
presume to do such a thing. But there's such a thing as common everyday politeness
and gratitude. And if I were in Julia's place I'd tell that Father Healey straight up to his
face... '
`And besides, Aunt Kate,' said Mary Jane, `we really are all hungry and when we are
hungry we are all very quarrelsome.'
`And when we are thirsty we are also quarrelsome,' added Mr Browne.
`So that we had better go to supper,' said Mary Jane, `and finish the discussion
afterwards.'
On the landing outside the drawing-room Gabriel found his wife and Mary Jane trying
to persuade Miss Ivors to stay for supper. But Miss Ivors, who had put on her hat and
was buttoning her cloak, would not stay. She did not feel in the least hungry and she
had already overstayed her time.
`But only for ten minutes, Molly,' said Mrs Conroy. `That won't delay you.'
`To take a pick itself,' said Mary Jane, `after all your dancing.'
`I really couldn't,' said Miss Ivors.
`I am afraid you didn't enjoy yourself at all,' said Mary Jane hopelessly.
`Ever so much, I assure you,' said Miss Ivors, `but you really must let me run off
now.'
`But how can you get home?' asked Mrs Conroy.
`O, it's only two steps up the quay.'
Gabriel hesitated a moment and said:
`If you will allow me, Miss Ivors, I'll see you home if you are really obliged to go.'
But Miss Ivors broke away from them.
`I won't hear of it,' she cried. `For goodness' sake go in to your suppers and don't mind
me. I'm quite well able to take care of myself.'
`Well, you're the comical girl, Molly,' said Mrs Conroy frankly.
`Beannacht libh,' cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she ran down the staircase.
Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs
Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked himself was
he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in ill humour - she
had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.
At that moment Aunt Kate came toddling out of the supper-room, almost wringing
her hands in despair.
`Where is Gabriel?' she cried. `Where on earth is Gabriel? There's everyone waiting in
there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!'
`Here I am, Aunt Kate!' cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, `ready to carve a flock
of geese, if necessary.'
A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table, and at the other end, on a bed of
creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin
and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin, and beside this
was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes:
two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of
blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle,
on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on
which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated
nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers
and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there
stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American
apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the
other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in
waiting, and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals
drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown
and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.
Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of
the carver, plunged his fork firmly into-the goose. He felt quite at ease now, for he
was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well-
laden table.
`Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?' he asked. `A wing or a slice of the breast?'
`Just a small slice of the breast.'
`Miss Higgins, what for you?'
`O, anything at all, Mr Conroy.'
While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced
beef, Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a
white napkin. This was Mary Jane's idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for
the goose, but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without any apple sauce had
always been good enough for her and she hoped she might never eat worse. Mary
Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the best slices, and Aunt Kate and
Aunt Julia opened and carried across from the piano bottles of stout and ale for the
gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the ladies. There was a great deal of confusion
and laughter and noise, the noise of orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of
corks and glass-stoppers. Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had
finished the first round without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly, so that he
compromised by taking a long draught of stout, for he had found the carving hot
work. Mary Jane settled down quietly to her supper, but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia
were still toddling round the table, walking on each other's heels, getting in each
other's way and giving each other unheeded orders. Mr Browne begged of them to sit
down and eat their suppers and so did Gabriel, but they said there was time enough,
so that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing Aunt Kate, plumped her down
on her chair amid general laughter.
When everyone had been well served Gabriel said, smiling:
`Now, if anyone wants a little more of what vulgar people call stuffing let him or her
speak.'
A chorus of voices invited him to begin his own supper, and Lily came forward with
three potatoes which she had reserved for him.
`Very well,' said Gabriel amiably, as he took another preparatory draught, `kindly
forget my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes.'
He set to his supper and took no part in the conversation with which the table covered
Lily's removal of the plates. The subject of talk was the opera company which was
then at the Theatre Royal. Mr Bartell D'Arcy, the tenor, a dark-complexioned young
man with a smart moustache, praised very highly the leading contralto of the
company, but Miss Furlong thought she had a rather vulgar style of production.
Freddy Malins said there was a Negro chieftain singing in the second part of the
Gaiety pantomime who had one of the finest tenor voices he had ever heard.
`Have you heard him?' he asked Mr Bartell D'Arcy across the table.
`No,' answered Mr Bartell D'Arcy carelessly.
`Because,' Freddy Malins explained, `now I'd be curious to hear your opinion of him.
I think he has a grand voice.'
`It takes Teddy to find out the really good things,' said Mr Browne familiarly to the
table.
`And why couldn't he have a voice too?' asked Freddy Malins sharply. `Is it because
he's only a black?'
Nobody answered this question and Mary Jane led the table back to the legitimate
opera. One of her pupils had given her a pass for Mignon. Of course it was very fine,
she said, but it made her think of poor Georgina Burns. Mr Browne could go back
farther still, to the old Italian companies that used to come to Dublin - Tietjens, Ilma
de Murzka, Campanini, the great Trebelli, Giuglini, Ravelli, Aramburo. Those were
the days, he said, when there was something like singing to be heard in Dublin. He
told too of how the top gallery of the old Royal used to be packed night after night, of
how one night an Italian tenor had sung five encores to Let me like a Soldier fall',
introducing a high C every time, and of how the gallery boys would sometimes in
their enthusiasm unyoke the horses from the carriage of some great prima donna and
pull her themselves through the streets to her hotel. Why did they never play the
grand old operas now, he asked, Dinorah, Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not
get the voices to sing them: that was why.
`O, well,' said Mr Bartell D'Arcy, `I presume there are as good singers today as there
were then.'
`Where are they?' asked Mr Browne defiantly.
`In London, Paris, Milan,' said Mr Bartell D'Arcy warmly. `I suppose Caruso, for
example, is quite as good, if not better than any of the men you have mentioned.'
`Maybe so,' said Mr Browne. `But I may tell you I doubt it strongly.'
`O, I'd give anything to hear Caruso sing,' said Mary Jane.
`For me,' said Aunt Kate, who had been picking a bone, `there was only one tenor. To
please me, I mean. But I suppose none of you ever heard of him.'
`Who was he, Miss Morkan?' asked Mr Bartell D'Arcy politely.
`His name,' said Aunt Kate, `was Parkinson. I heard him when he was in his prime
and I think he had then the purest tenor voice that was ever put into a man's throat.'
`Strange,' said Mr Bartell D'Arcy. `I never even heard of him.'
`Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right,' said Mr Browne. `I remember hearing old Parkinson,
but he's too far back for me.'
`A beautiful, pure, sweet, mellow English tenor,' said Aunt Kate with enthusiasm.
Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table. The clatter of
forks and spoons began again. Gabriel's wife served out spoonfuls of the pudding and
passed the plates down the table. Midway down they were held up by Mary Jane, who
replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with blancmange and jam. The
pudding was of Aunt Julia's making, and she received praises for it from all quarters.
She herself said that it was not quite brown enough.
`Well, I hope, Miss Morkan,' said Mr Browne, `that I'm brown enough for you
because, you know, I'm all Brown.'
All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment to Aunt
Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him. Freddy Malins also
took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had been told that celery was a
capital thing for the blood and he was just then under doctor's care. Mrs Malins, who
had been silent all through the supper, said that her son was going down to Mount
Melleray in a week or so. The table then spoke of Mount Melleray, how bracing the
air was down there, how hospitable the monks were and how they never asked for a
penny-piece from their guests.
`And do you mean to say,' asked Mr Browne incredulously, `that a chap can go down
there and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on the fat of the land and then
come away without paying anything?'
`O, most people give some donation to the monastery when they leave,' said Mary
Jane.
