A to Z Classics - Bram Stoker - The Complete Novels

“My usual luck. Never mind. I like to have an old man on each side of me.”

Mr. Muldoon liked to be thought young — most middle-aged bachelors do — and he looked his disapprobation of the remark so strongly that a silence fell on all.

The dowager Mrs. O’Sullivan said quietly —

“You let your tongue run too fast, Margaret. You forget Mr. Muldoon is a new friend of yours, and not an old one.”

Miss M’Anaspie had already seen that she had made a mistake, and was only waiting for an opportunity of correcting it, so she seized it greedily.

“I am so awfully sorry. I hope, sir, I did not offend. Indeed I wished to please. I thought that young people wished to be thought old. I know that I did when I was young.”

“That was some time ago,” whispered Pat Casey to Mary, who laughed too suddenly, and was nearly caught at it.

Mr. Muldoon was mollified. He thought to himself that perhaps the poor girl did not mean to give offence; that she was a clever girl; much nicer after all than most girls; however that he would have an eye on her, and see what she was like.

For some time the consumption of the good things occupied the attention of everybody. Mrs. Jerry handed a cup of tea to Mr. Parnell before any of the rest of the men, saying —

“I know you like that better than anything else.”

“That I do,” he answered heartily. “There is as much virtue in this as there is evil in beer, and whisky, and gin, and all other abominations.”

No one felt inclined to take up, at present at all events, the total-abstinence glove thus thrown down, and so the subject dropped.

It would have done one good to have seen the care which Katey’s sisters took of their sweethearts, piling up their plates with everything that was nice, and keeping them as steadily at work as if they had been engaged in a contest as to who should consume the largest quantity in the smallest time. This was a species of friendly rivalry in which the men found equal pleasure with the girls.

It is quite wonderful the difference between the appetites of successful and unsuccessful lovers.

Mr. Muldoon and Miss M’Anaspie during the progress of the meal became fast friends, at least so it would seem, for they bandied, unchecked, pleasantries of a nature usually only allowed amongst intimate friends. Both Jerry and his wife were much amazed, for both stood somewhat in awe of the great man with whom they would never have attempted to make any familiarity.

By the time the heavy part of the eating was done, the whole assemblage was in hearty good humour.

Katey began to clear away the things, having given the baby in charge to her mother-in-law. The moment she began, however, Mary and Jane started up and insisted that they should do the work, and on her showing signs of determination forced her into the arm-chair, and placed the two sweethearts on guard over her, threatening them with various pains and penalties in event of their failing in their trust.

Seeing the other girls at work, Miss MAnaspie insisted on helping also, and they were too kind-hearted not to make her welcome in the little kindly office.

The next addition to the working staff was Mr. Muldoon, who, to the astonishment of every one who knew him, clamoured loudly for work, evidently bent on going wherever Miss M’Anaspie went, and on helping her in her every task.

It was a sight to see the great man work. He evidently felt that he was extending and being more friendly with his inferiors than, perhaps, in justice to his own position he was warranted in doing; and he took some pains to let every one see that he was playing at work. His ignorance of the simplest domestic offices was preternatural. He did not know how to carry even a plate without putting it somewhere he ought not, or spilling its contents over some one; and he managed to break a tumbler and two plates just to show, like Beaumarchais and the watch, that that sort of thing was not in his line.

Mrs. Jerry did not know Pope’s lines about the perfection of a woman’s manner and temper, wherein he puts as the culmination of her virtues, “And mistress of herself though china fall;” but she had the good temper and the good manner of nature, which is above all art, and although, woman-like, the wreck of her household goods went to her heart, she said nothing, but looked as sweet as if the breakage pleased her. Truly, Jerry O’Sullivan had a sweet wife and a happy home. Prosperity seemed to be his lot in life.

When all was made comfortable for the after sitting, the conversation grew lively. The position of persons at table tends to further cliquism, and to narrow conversation to a number of dialogues, and so the change was appreciated.

The most didactic person of the company was Mr. Parnell, who was also the greatest philosopher; and the idea of general conversation seemed to have struck him. He began to comment on the change in the style of conversation.

“Look what a community of feeling does for us. Half an hour ago, when we were doing justice to Mrs. O’Sullivan’s good things, all our ideas were scattered. There was, perhaps, enough of pleasant news amongst us to make some of us happy, and others of us rich, if we knew how to apply our information; but still no one got full benefit, or the opportunity of full benefit, from it.”

Here Price whispered something in Jane’s ear, which made her blush and laugh, and tell him to “go along.”

Parnell smiled and said gently —

“Well, perhaps, Tom, some of the thoughts wouldn’t interest the whole of us.”

Tom grinned bashfully, and Parnell reverted to his theme. He was a great man at meetings, and liked to talk, for he knew that he talked well.

“Have any of you ever looked how some rivers end?”

“What end?” asked Mr. Muldoon, and winked at Miss M’Anaspie.

“The sea end. Look at the history of a river. It begins by a lot of little streams meeting together, and is but small at first. Then it grows wider and deeper, till big ships mayhap can sail in it, and then it goes down to the sea.”

“Poor thing,” said Mr. Muldoon, again winking at Margaret.

“Ay, but how does it reach the sea? It should go, we would fancy, by a broad open mouth that would send the ships out boldly on every side and gather them in from every point. But some do not do so — the water is drawn off through a hundred little channels, where the mud lies in shoals and the sedges grow, and where no craft can pass. The river of thought should be an open river — be its craft few or many — if it is to benefit mankind.”

Miss M’Anaspie who had, whilst he was speaking, been whispering to Mr. Muldoon, said, with a pertness bordering on snappishness:

“Then, I suppose, you would never let a person talk except in company. For my part, I think two is better company than a lot.”

“Not at all, my dear. The river of thought can flow between two as well as amongst fifty; all I say is that all should benefit.”

Here Mr. Muldoon struck in. He had all along felt it as a slight to himself that Parnell should have taken the conversational ball into his own hands. He was himself extremely dogmatic, and no more understood the difference between didacticism and dogmatism than he comprehended the meaning of that baphometic fire-baptism which set the critics of Mr. Carlyle’s younger days a-thinking.

“For my part,” said he, “I consider it an impertinence for any man to think that what he says must be interesting to every one in a room.”

This was felt by all to be a home thrust at Parnell, and no one spoke. Parnell would have answered, not in anger, but in good-humoured argument, only for an imploring look on Katey’s face, which seemed to say as plainly as words —