The Bazaar and Other Stories (17 page)

The Earl’s father had been the Bad Earl, but we forgave his name
for his son’s sake. From the day he succeeded into

¹
his father’s place
the Earl did not rest until he had righted injustices. It was known he
could not lie easy under his coronet canopy while any tenant of his
lay under an unsound roof. He advocated to us many improved
methods of doing all things, in the manner in which he had
witnessed them done abroad; and he would dispute with the most
stubborn farmer. We listened to him in patience, while we preferred
it better to keep to our fathers’ ways. The Earl restored the Castle,
which had been destroyed with neglect and riotous living in the
preceding times; he renewed the roof and the lead piping and sealed
up the cracks asunder in front and back; he stripped down the
sullied brocades from the saloons and commanded their copies from
France and Italy; he brought a scholar from Dublin to list the books,
and he renewed the heads to the garden statues, taking away from
out of it those that were unseemly. He dispelled the dead from the
nether part of the Castle by raising the ancient gravestones out of
the kitchen floor; and from the day the kitchen was repavemented
no voice but that of the living was heard there. The Earl introduced
drainage.

The piety of the Earl and his Lady was well known, and the
Primate travelled from Armagh to be their guest. But the Earl and
Her Ladyship did not tamper, confining their activities to the
Protestants. If any further affliction came to the Earl’s ears, he would
make no move till he had conferred with the priest. The priest dined
at the Earl’s table. The Lady Mary taught the Bible on Sundays
to the Protestant children in the schoolhouse adjoining on to the
church. She was to be met in the Wood Walk, stepping it fearlessly
to the schoolhouse, for the Earl on Sundays would not let the
carriage out, with the ribbon marker fluttering from her Bible and
the Little Dog

²
running beside her skirts. The Lady Mary was the
Earl and Her Ladyship’s one child; God sent them no other, and no
son.

To announce the eighteenth birthday of Lady Mary, a ball was
held. So great was the reputation of this ball that the aristocracy of
the country were competing among one another to be bidden. The
preparations occupied many weeks, no part of them escaping the
Earl’s notice. On the memorable night, the illuminations of the
Castle were to be seen not only across the Lough but from every top
of the mountains around here. Not a curtain was let be drawn, on
account of the Earl’s wish that we should freely look in upon the
festivities. From noon the countryside was in motion, and by dark
ness we had taken up our places in the Castle woods. The lamps
of the carriages and the coaches pressing upon one another in the
avenues, and the sounds of beauty and laughter proceeding out of
them, made the young girls with us tremble inside their shawls.

We observed the Lady Mary to be keeping modestly to her
father’s side. She appeared loth to be tempted into the dance by the
finest of the young lords and gentlemen. Indeed no presence among
them approached the presence of the Earl, with his forehead rising
up above all. Her Ladyship in her diadem also shone, and the smile
never left her mouth. In the confusion of the waltzes and the
mazurkas the family were from time to time hidden from us;
undoubtedly there were famous beauties present, revolving in the
hold of the gentlemen, flashing their gems and dashing their silks
and tossing their raven and golden heads. We agreed amongst us,
however, that Lady Mary surpassed them all in virtue. Throughout
the rejoicings her cheeks were as white and blameless as the dress
on her person, and the rose in her hair. She was adorned only with
the one string of pearls.

Now it was made known that the Lady Mary was marriageable,
we looked for suitors, and we were confounded seeing the time pass.
The grand ball had left our women with the thirst for a wedding.
The Lady Mary continued to walk in the woods with the Little Dog.
No doubt there were many beheld her face who were daunted from
raising their eyes to her high position. But we took count that there
should be, in beyonder parts of the country, some few fitted to
proffer her name and lands. But the Earl, concerned with improve
ments and science, was without time to dally with other schemes;
and Her Ladyship raised no finger without his bid. Moreover,
though free with the humble and with the scholarly, the Earl
consorted little with those claiming to be his equals in rank. He had
no patience with them and their pursuit of fashion. The Earl held
that progress bettered the world. Having completed the ball for the
Lady Mary, the Earl turned his attention to other matters. He
conceived the project of the Hotel.

The Earl’s door stood open all day to guests, and among the many
consorting around his table would be officers and young landowning gentlemen. No doubt among these numbers were some who
had the Lady Mary in view. But the Earl drew and gathered all to
him with his conversation. And when the table was quit the Earl
conducted the gentlemen in a cortège away to view the improve
ments that he had made. Lady Mary remained behind him, in the
rear of the telescope, with the Little Dog.

The Earl burned up with the project of the Hotel. In this as in
other matters he was our benefactor; there was not one of us to
whom he did not speak of it. The Earl conceived that the Hotel was
to do great good to us country people by bringing foreign money
into the land. He was telling us that the Lough was of grand beauty,
deserving to be admired by all the world, and to elevate all who saw
it. He was telling us how in the northern country of Norway the sea
also enters deeply into the land, and that such spots were besought
by travellers and visitors who were lodged in hotels, to the great
benefit of the country people. The Earl foresaw no further distress
amongst us once an hotel was erected on our Lough. The Earl was
particular that the Hotel was to be of no kind seen in this country
yet; it should rise direct from the water, and sustain on its front
balconies on which the ladies and gentlemen should disport them
selves and behold the Lough. You have seen the Hotel, sir. That is
the Earl’s design. In order to have the design correct the Earl
journeyed to Norway in the late summer, taking with him Her
Ladyship with her sketching book. He was absent from us five
weeks. The Lady Mary remained behind at the Castle, under care of
a widowed lady who was a cousin.

The Earl’s goings from us were often attended by some disaster.
In this instance it was the Little Dog fell ill. The Lady Mary could
hardly be led away from the Little Dog’s bedside, and there was
riding to and fro through the nights to the veterinary surgeon’s for
the medicaments. It was Mr. Harris offered his services to Lady
Mary in aid of the Little Dog. Mr. Harris was a young gentleman
who had lately been accepted in the Estate Office on account of the
Earl’s activities and improvements being more than the Agent alone
could handle. The Agent requested for an assistant, and the Earl
acceded to his request. Mr. Harris was therefore procured from
Belfast city, and grew to be tolerated by all. He was just and quiet
and led a blameless life; he was to be encountered in the evenings
about the woods, with his gun and his pot hat. For his tours round
about the demesne Mr. Harris made a companion out of my brother,
who was a young lad at the time.

In the end of it the Little Dog died. It was Mr. Harris gave out
the orders for the small little coffin and for the gravestone, for the
Lady Mary was unable to speak. She intended the burial should be
in the lawn plot back from the Wood Walk, and Mr. Harris saw that
it was so. It came to be known she replenished the flowers daily, but
none of us saw her come or go. From that day she went to the
Sunday School by another path. None of us perceived her beside
the grave.

None of us perceived her beside the grave until, one certain
evening after the rain, my brother was following after Mr. Harris on
some employment or other about the woods. The two of them
passed through the whipping branches out over into the Wood
Walk, forenist

³
the lawn plot; and they were upon her before they
could draw back, on account of her dark cloak matching into the
trees. The Lady Mary stood above the grave like a spirit, holding
her handkerchief to her mouth. The two of them were ashamed to
intrude now, and they turned to retreat into the woods. But Lady
Mary withdrew her handkerchief from her mouth and she motioned
to Mr. Harris to remain.

He was my faithful companion, says Lady Mary.

⁴

 

Mr. Harris stays with his head uncovered, fixed there by her
sorrowful look at him. She cries, Pray God to give me resignation!
and casts around her on all sides, not knowing where to go. Her
knees flowed under her; she looked likely to fall. Whereupon Mr.
Harris steps swiftly across the grave and extends the strength of his
arm to the Lady Mary, and he conducts her away down the Wood
Walk towards the vicinity of the Castle, leaving my brother to go
the way he had come.

 

He did never seek her out, nor presume to seek her. My brother
witnessed the start of it; and we who observed the Castle during the
Earl’s absence found Mr. Harris pure of any craft or design. It was
the Lady Mary who turned to him in her loneliness after the Little
Dog and her distress with her father across two seas. She was as
innocent as the Earl himself; and she as yet was ignorant that she
was a woman. She frequented Mr. Harris in the original start for joy
of the comfort that he gave her. They instructed one another in
conversation. They employed the telescope, and spied upon the
birds in the woods, and my brother accompanied them in the boat
to view the ancient chapel upon the island. He saw the Lady Mary
behold about her at the water and hills, as though this no longer
were her known and familiar home, as though she were wondering
at some new scene. At this time of which I speak, she came out into
flower like a thorn tree, and no beauty in the country could have
defied her. Also the rains gave over, and the corn stood up gold and
ripe in the fields. We were wondering would the Earl be back for the
harvest.

 

The sinless harmony between the Lady Mary and Mr. Harris was
not detected by the widowed lady cousin. The widow was timid and
disposed mainly towards the fear of robbers; she was also weak in
her constitution and would remain within in her own chamber,
perusing romances and snuffing salts. She took no reckoning of Mr.
Harris, on account of his humble employed status. We understood
at this time that Mr. Harris, alone and only, carried the pain of
thought; when he walked apart from the Lady Mary he walked with
a dumb still face; and he was heard to groan aloud in the nights.

 

The Earl returned to us out of Norway carrying with him the
project of the Steamer. It appeared, the hotels on the inland water
in Norway have steamers plying to them out of the outside sea; and
nothing would now content the Earl till we should have a Steamer
also upon the Lough. The Earl was telling us of the many advantages
of the Steamer; how it would carry the mail posts and fine manu
factured goods for us from the cities, and carry away for us to the
city markets what we might be able to raise that we should sell.
⁵
Moreover, the Steamer would swell the advantages of the Hotel the
Earl was now
⁶
to erect, for without it there would be no access for
the visitors other than the twenty-mile drive from the railway train
around the head of the Lough in the long car. The Earl judged that
the gentry visitors might shrink from the jolting and from the many
hours, and from maybe the contrariness of the storms. The Earl was
set to procure the Steamer.

 

The Earl gave a kiss to the Lady Mary’s brow and spoke a com
passionate word for the Little Dog. He then immediately sent for
the superior Agent and Mr. Harris in order to confer with them of
the Steamer; and he had the two out behind him till past sunset,
pacing out the foundations of the Hotel. The Hotel was to be
placed around one bend of the Lough in the inland direction from
the Castle; and the Earl was informing the Lady Mary that they
should be enabled to set their clocks by the Steamer’s passing by of
the Castle terrace. Within the week of the Earl’s homecoming he
had masons at work constructing the Steamer jetty, and cords
pegged to show the proportions of the Hotel. Our children had
great sport leaping between the cords; the girls and we young
fellows could not be kept from advancing along the jetty, signing
our tracks with our heels on the moist cement.

 

In the course of the winter that was to come, the Steamer
business was having the Earl tormented: we were sorry to learn that
all was not running smooth. It appeared, he could not procure or
set in motion the Steamer without a company be formated first, and
that none would step out to formate the company with him. The
Earl from time to time paced amongst us denouncing those who
obstructed Progress. He became more fractious than in the former
times; the beauty of his temper was overclouded; and with his
impatience his manly fullness seemed to consume away. He was
known to thresh through the nights beneath his coronet canopy till
Her Ladyship waned with the want of rest. For out of the many
projects the Earl had had, this was the first had ever stood still upon
him.

 

We did not know, was the Lady Mary intending to tell the Earl.
It was his due to know what was in her heart. Himself and Her
Ladyship were her loving parents; they had denied her nothing they
saw good, and she should have lacked for nothing she could name.
It might be she could not name what she lacked, and was therefore
grown up silent within herself. It might be that from the hour of the
Earl and Her Ladyship’s homecoming to the Castle, the Lady Mary
was only biding her time to introduce the matter of Mr. Harris, but
that the Steamer forbade her tongue. For how should she intrude
herself on her father whilst he was undergoing this great vexation?
And how should she find her way to her mother’s ear whilst Her
Ladyship was bent only upon alleviating the Earl? Also, from after
the Earl’s return, the hours of loving company were no more, and
there could be no word spoken nor look exchanged between the
Lady Mary and Mr. Harris. For this reason, the Earl with his present
scheme now kept the Estate Office skeltering day and night.