Bram Stoker: Bram Stoker: The Complete Novels

When all the company had assembled, which was about seven o’clock, Mr. Muldoon ordered supper, and all went vigorously to work. Hitherto there had been a little stiffness. Price and Carey had been somewhat awed by Mr. Muldoon’s magnificence, and their sweethearts, seeing this, had followed their lead, and remained in seemingly bashful silence. Jerry and Katey, and Mrs. O’Sullivan, and Parnell, were too heavy-hearted for mirth, and so the only members of the party who were lively, were the host and Miss M’Anaspie.

The latter was anything but sorrowful, and truly with good cause. She saw with the instinct of her sex that she had made a conquest in the rich old bachelor, and already tasted possession of all the splendour which surrounded her. She was even now, whilst she pretended to admire, planning changes in the room and its furniture. The chairs would not be arranged as at present, the pictures were too gloomy, and would have to be replaced by others of brighter hue — in fact, altogether much additional splendour would have to be imported, so that all her friends and visitors would be driven to the wildest envy without giving them a chance of escape.

When the supper was done, Mr. Muldoon stood up and made a speech reverting to Jerry’s departure, and wishing him success, and also managing to bring in a neat compliment to Miss M’Anaspie’s good looks, which caused that bashful young female to hide her face in her pockethandkerchief and to giggle for some minutes. Before he sat down he said, and said it pointedly —

“The last meeting of a festive description at which we all assisted was, I think, somewhat spoiled by various discussions. Now, I hope that to-night we will have no such discussions. I wish that our friends, Jerry and Katey, may have an evening all jolly and merry.”

“Hear, hear,” said the old men, simultaneously.

Parnell felt that all this was levelled at him, and found his hands tied. There was no discussion of any kind, and as nothing more than casual remarks were made, the party soon took a tone so gloomy that even the lively Margaret found her spirits below zero. All this tended to irritate Mr. Muldoon. A man of his temperament gets dogmatic in proportion to his irritation, and consequently he soon was laying down the law on every imaginable point.

This still more increased the gloom till all was so deadly that Katey could bear it no longer, and left earlier than she had intended. The rest were not slow to follow her example, and Mr. Muldoon was so enraged at the miserable failure of his merry party that he would hardly say good night.

The days drew on towards their departure, and all were so busy that there was no time for thought — perhaps just as well for those of them that had hearts to feel.

At last the day arrived, and their friends assembled at the North-wall to see them off, for they were going by sea on account of their luggage, which was quite disproportionate to their rank in life. The anguish of parting was very great, and the tears shed many. But partings must ever be, and this one was like all that have gone before and all that are to follow after. So great was the grief of all that Jerry for a time repented of his determination.

And so Jerry O’Sullivan and his wife and children left home and fortune to seek greater fortune in a strange place.

The voyage lasted three days. For the first twenty-four hours Katey was too sick to think, and the poor children suffered dreadfully; and it was not till the black bare rocks of the Land’s End came into view that the poor little woman was able to look about her. Even the first glimpse of her future country was not reassuring, for it looked very black and cheerless and inhospitable indeed.

However, by the time Falmouth, with its houses clustered up the hill, and its quaint, quiet, old-world look still upon it, came in sight, her spirits rose. From thence the journey was enjoyed by all, for the weather was fine and the sea like glass. The south coast of England is full of charming scenery, which one sees much of in passing from port to port, and it was no wonder that Jerry and his wife felt somewhat elated at being amongst such wealth and security as the disposition of things there presupposed. Plymouth, the queen of ports, with its wealth of naval strength and its picturesque batteries on Mound Edgecombe, Drake Island, and the Hoe; and Portsmouth, guarded by iron-clad towers out in the very sea, miles of continuous batteries and innumerable war-ships, made a deep impression, and somehow Katey felt that Jerry was a cleverer man than she had given him credit for being.

It is the nature of the greater to absorb the lesser. We see the beauty of the rose in full luxuriance in the summer sunlight; it is only when we reach the core that we find the canker worm.

At last the Thames was reached, and the O’Sullivans were fairly awed by the strength of the defences. All up the river, which took them the best part of a day to ascend, the banks were studded with forts on either side. Little low-lying forts, all fronted with iron, dangerous places, very hard to hit from any distance away, but able to contain the best and biggest guns made in the world; the black iron-cased ports, in rows seemingly level with the water’s edge, looked like the iron doors of the vaults in a cemetery, a fact which, in the eyes of the onlookers, added not a little to the grim terror of their appearance. The wonder culminated at Tilbury, for here two immense forts defended the narrowest part of the river, and made the idea of any hostile force passing up it a complete impossibility.

London was reached at last. Busy, bustling, rushing, hurrying London, compared with which all other

cities seem as the castle of the sleeping princess in the fairy tale; and Jerry and his wife, on landing from the steamer, albeit they came from a city where Progress speaks with no puny voice and works with no lazy hand, felt bewildered.

At the best of times and places a landing-stage is no flower garden, especially to the incomer; but the London landing-stages, with their great steam-cranes and palatial warehouses, and ships lying seven or eight deep out into the river, are wonders in themselves. It was only by patience, and care, and asking many questions that Jerry was able to bring his family into the wholly terrestrial world.

Through much bustling, scrambling, and exertion, they found their way into the street where the theatre was situated, for as they knew nothing about the place Jerry thought it best to get as near to his work as he could. He had high resolves, and intended to work harder even in the new life than in the old.

The neighbourhood was exceedingly poor, and an amount of misery and squalor prevailed which showed Katey in as many moments as the other had taken hours that all was not gold which glittered within the strip of silver sea which her sons call Britain’s bulwarks, but that the greatness, and wealth, and strength, have their counterfoils in crime, and poverty, and disease.

More than an hour was spent in looking for lodgings, and Katey’s heart was sick and sore. There was some vital objection to every place. One was too dear, another was too dirty, a third was too small, and so on.

All things have an end, even looking for lodgings, and towards nightfall they lighted on a place, which, although not exactly what they required, was still the nearest approach to it that they had yet come across. It was over a green-grocer’s shop, and promised to be fairly comfortable. Katey, somehow, felt that the mere show of green stuff gave it a little of the idea of home — just enough, she found out afterwards, to make her home sickness, which had worn somewhat away during the last day or two, come back again.

However, she had no time for brooding over sorrows, real or sentimental. The children were dead tired and crying with sleep, and so when a fire was lit, and the basket of provisions opened, they were tucked into their bed and fell asleep in a moment.