Interference

The following morning, when the first press of business was over, and when she had taken counsel with her sons, and had locked Lizzie into her room, Mrs. Maccabe put on her shawl (she always wore her bonnet except in bed) and stalked up the street, and out to Bridgetstown. She had never visited it before, and her tall commanding figure in the doorway, gave Sara, the parlour maid, what she subsequently described as a “turn.” Doubtless she gave Mrs. Malone a turn also, for she firmly believed that she had come for the balance of her bill—a large balance—and tremulously hinted as much.

“Oh no, Mrs. Malone, ma’am; though in course I’ll be thankful to see my money. I’ve come about something a great deal worse nor that. To make a long story short, your son Denis has destroyed himself.”

“Denis,” shrieked the wretched woman, staggering back against the turf basket. “What is it? Tell me the worst at once! Is he dead? Oh! what, what has happened to him?”

“He has happened to get married to my niece, Lizzie Maccabe, at a registry office in Dublin last October; that’s what’s happened to him!”

For a moment Mrs. Malone was speechless; then she went and sat down very suddenly on the nearest chair, and put both her hands to her head.

“It’s gospel truth,” continued her visitor. “I only found it out last night. I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for meself: it’s a terrible disgrace to us both. Such a thing never happened to a Maccabe before. I am going to get shut of her at wance.”

“Denis must have been mad,” said his mother distractedly. “Are you sure he is married?”

Mrs. Maccabe’s brow now became clothed in thunder.

“Better be mad nor bad, nor worse than he is! He is married. I have the lines, and I’ve come up to talk the matter over with the Major, and to see what he will do for his son’s wife. He must take her out of my house.”

“Oh, Mrs. Maccabe, could you not keep it quiet for a little longer, till we think it over. I simply dare not tell his father,” said Mrs. Malone piteously.

“But I dar,” replied this heroic matron, standing squarely before her meek little customer. “I dar a regiment of the likes of him; and I’ll tell him within the next five minutes. Where’s the study?”

“Oh, give me time—a little time,” pleaded Mrs. Malone in tears, “till I consult my eldest son. Oh, there he is! George, come here.”

George, who was equipped for riding, entered, whip in hand, and stared in amazement at his weeping mother, and the butcher’s widow. A bill of course.

“It’s something awful about Denis—and Mrs. Maccabe’s niece. He has married her, and she has been his wife for months,” explained his mother with streaming eyes.

George could not restrain a low whistle.

“It was only discovered yesterday, and Mrs. Maccabe is going to tell his father, and don’t you agree with me, that we might wait a little, and think it over.”

“No, mother, Mrs. Maccabe is right,” returned her son with decision; “there must be no delay; he should be told at once, and the marriage openly acknowledged.”

“You are right, sir,” said Mrs. Maccabe approvingly, “and now I’ll not detain you longer, ma’am, if you will show me the road to the Major’s study.”

“I’ll go with you,” volunteered George gallantly, resolved that the butcher’s widow should not bear the brunt of the fray alone and unprotected. Mrs. Malone was helpless. She stood with her handkerchief to her mouth, and watched them go into the study, saw them close the door, and then rushed back, and buried her head among the sofa cushions, poor coward! The study was next to the drawing-room, and at first there was the steady humming sound of Mrs. Maccabe’s voice, then a roar from the Major, then George spoke, then roar upon roar, like a starving Bengal tiger who sees food.

The Major could not realize the truth at first. He pushed back his chair, thereby capsizing Boozle, who was sleeping comfortably in the paper basket on all the unpaid bills. He gasped, his face became the colour of a boiled beetroot.

“Eh? What? What?” he shouted, and then he rose and figuratively fell upon Mrs. Maccabe, for “a lying, thieving, scheming old harridan, who had ruined his innocent son—an infernal old fosthooke, who had made the match.”

“And what would I get, av you please?” drawing herself up with an air of superb enquiry. “For why would I marry me niece, a decent girl, to an idle, drunken scutt, that never earned six-pence, a low-minded rapscallion, heir to nothing but debt and his father’s bad name? A fine thing to tell Bridget Maccabe——” and she looked about her, as if in search of the ox tail.

In vain the Major stormed; here his bellowing and bullying was as water on a rock. To borrow a word from the intrepid widow, she “bested him,” as she subsequently boasted—cowed him, silenced him, yea even him.

George was scarcely able to get in one syllable between such a war of words, and two such champions. It was Greek meeting Greek with a vengeance. The Major assumed an attitude of ferocious antagonism that would have struck terror into the heart of a less valiant opponent, and the battle raged. At last there was a lull; the man was worn down by the woman’s vigorous eloquence, and Mrs. Maccabe calmly stated her ultimatum.

“The girl should be decently married, as soon as possible, before the priest, and before the Rev. Mr. Mahon, too, if they liked, and Denis Malone should take his wife home. If he passed the medical, he might get something to do.”

“But he has not passed,” bawled the Major. “I’ve heard by yesterday’s post he has failed for his final examination, and he is done for. The most I’ll do for him will be to give him a steerage passage to Australia, and a five-pound note.”

“Man, that’s all balderdash and nonsense!”—that the Major should live to be apostrophised as a mere “man”! “Ye can’t turn your only son out into the world as ye would an ass on a bog, and him with a wife on his hands—ye bid to provide for him,” responded the widow in a tone of unshaken resolve.

“Denis might make a good start in Australia,” ventured his step-brother. “You see he likes a country life: he rides well, and he knows a little about stock, and if he had a small share in a run, just a start, he might do very well.”

“Then will you start him?” enquired the Major, turning on him furiously, forgetting the recent plunge he had made into George’s pocket.

“I am quite unable to do anything at present.”

“Av course the Major will assist his only son. It’s not your place, sir,” said Mrs. Maccabe emphatically. “The Major will give at least five hundred pounds, and their passages and outfit, and do the thing respectably, when he is about it,” speaking precisely as if the Major were miles away.

He, with his eyes almost starting out of his head, assured her in forcible language (that cannot here be quoted) that he would not do anything of the sort. But this determined woman made him listen to what she called “reason”; she bargained and chaffered with him, as if she were buying a young stall-fed bullock, and when she had left the study, rather hoarse and breathless, she had gained her end.

The Major would give four hundred pounds down on the nail; she herself (poor woman as she was) would put down two more. This money to be lodged in the hands of a respectable, honest man in Melbourne, who would see that Denis did not make ducks and drakes of it, but invest it prudently. The couple were to be married as soon as possible, and to take ship to Australia. “She would pay her niece’s passage, second class, and give her a sensible outfit, and no one could say but that she had done a handsome thing for a desolate, lorn widow woman, with no one to earn for her but herself, and hard work, and small returns, and bad debts. She would not trouble the Major further at present, but maybe he would spake a word to Mr. Denis and tell him that he was not to go next or nigh Bridget Maccabe, as she would not be answerable for herself.”

“Spake a word to Mr. Denis,” but feebly expresses the scene that awaited that young gentleman, as he strolled into the house in time for dinner. He had given the governor a wide berth since the fatal letter had been received the previous day, and had spent his time most agreeably, in coursing and card playing with some of his boon companions. He had a phlegmatic nature, and an adjustable conscience: it was rather a bore that he had not passed, but he hated the profession, and for the present his mother had assured him that he could live at home, and they would “think it over.” He was certain to get something, some agency; he was only twenty-four; there was lots of time! The Major’s fury would blow itself out like a gale, so he flattered himself, as he prepared for dinner. A sharp knock at the door, and enter Cuckoo, pale and excited-looking, and evidently bursting with some great news.

“Now then,” said Denis, who was belabouring his thick stiff hair with a brush in either hand, “what’s up?”

“Everything is up!” returned his sister tragically. “I thought I would just come in and warn you. Mrs. Maccabe was here this morning; they know you are married to Lizzie.”

Here Denis let fall a hair brush with a clang.

“It’s not true, is it, Denis?—that common girl! I’ve seen her walking with the Police Sergeant, over and over again—and I am sure she greases her hair with suet.”

“Who told?” enquired Denis fiercely, “and how did it come out?”

“From all I can hear, it was Foxy Joe that told.”

“Foxy Joe! Then I’ll break every bone in his crooked body.”

“The Major is raging mad, Denis. I never saw him so bad, and mother has been crying all day. You and Lizzie are to be married in chapel, and to be packed off to Australia. Mrs. Maccabe will help to send you; that’s all I could get out of George.”

This programme was acceptable to Denis; he was sick of Bridgetstown; he would gladly go forth and see the world, and begin a new life. Visions of a free, novel, thoroughly untrammelled existence, where he could play cards whenever he pleased, and with whom he pleased, and gallop over miles of good going, on a well-bred waler, instantly rose before his mind’s eye (an eye that kept a sharp look out on its own interest). After all, “Lizzie’s row,” as he called it, was bound to come some day; best have the two rows together, he said to himself philosophically; the row about his exam., and the row about his wife: as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb; and he descended, with a certain amount of dogged courage, to face the storm!

A storm indeed! A typhoon, that raged in the latitude of Bridgetstown for ten whole days. During occasional lulls, Denis was married in chapel and in church, passages were taken, money paid in, letters written, outfits procured.

The news of Denis Malone’s match ran through the neighbourhood like wildfire, and people said that “he would never do a day’s good at home; he was well out of the country, and that for once the Major showed some sense.” Here the Major got credit for wisdom that was not his own; his share of the money he had raised by giving a bill on the furniture at Bridgetstown, and he was so furious with his son that he actually thought him a cheap riddance at the price.

But Denis’s mother was heartbroken: she wept, she implored, she even went on her knees to her husband for her poor dear boy. She abased herself before Mrs. Maccabe (who was now a connection), and it was all of no avail; that great woman was inexorable, and the bitterest drop in all her cup was the knowledge that Denis, her darling, was glad to go.

In intervals of pleading and weeping, she prepared his shirts and clothes, and packed up some portion of the household linen and (but this is in strict confidence) some of the Major’s silk socks and handkerchiefs, his second-best top-coat, a rarely remembered gold watch, and a dozen silver forks and spoons, also the pink topazes for Lizzie—or it might be another relative. A few came forward with presents for the young couple. George gave his brother a saddle and bridle, and a gun. Mrs. Finny presented him with an old case of surgical instruments. Maria gave him a piece of her mind. Miss Dopping gave Lizzie a first-rate sewing machine, and a long lecture, concluding with this pleasant little prophecy:

“If you come to want, and to earn your bread, Lizzie Malone, as I honestly believe you will, this machine, if you work it industriously, will keep you from actual starvation. You will have to support your husband too—unless you can keep him away from cards, and whisky.”

“I think I’ll be able to do that, ma’am,” returned young Mrs. Malone confidently; “and if the worst comes to the worst, I can always make my living as a cashier in a shop. I am very fond of Denis, but I’ll never earn his bread.”

In which sentiment Lizzie displayed a flash of her aunt’s high spirit. Betty Redmond presented Lizzie with a warm shawl for the voyage, Belle gave her her photograph, and Mrs. Redmond, with much pomp, presented her with a case of needles (marked two shillings). Thus, endowed with gifts and advice, the young couple set out to seek their fortune in the new world. Major Malone personally conducted them down to Queenstown, saw them on board the steamer (in case they should miss it), and waved them away from the shores of old Ireland with his best red silk pocket-handkerchief.

The news about Denis Malone fell like a thunderbolt at Noone. Juggy brought up the intelligence from the gate lodge to the kitchen, and from the kitchen it flew upstairs. Mrs. Redmond wagged her head, and cast up her eyes, and said “that, after that, nothing would surprise her.” Belle laughed maliciously: she was glad of a bit of excitement. She was delighted that Denis was in trouble and going to “get the sack,” for she knew that he bore her no good will, and might possibly interfere with her prospects; and Betty, who was deeply relieved, was both glad and sorry. She had been almost rude to Mr. Holroyd—thanks to Lizzie’s daring falsehood; and how was she to excuse herself? How could she explain that she had mistaken him for Denis? She must make amends for her blunder at the first opportunity; but this opportunity never occurred. An urgent, nay an angry invitation, summoned him to stay with his Uncle Godfrey. When he came over to make his adieux at Noone, he found all the ladies at home. Betty was herself again, and her bright face was all smiles. But it was now his turn to be cold and irresponsive. He did not understand nor respect a girl who could change like a weather-cock. She would be an uncomfortable sort of wife; if she meant to have accepted him, she must have known what was trembling on his lips that night at Lord Enniscorthy’s ball, and her manner, when they next met, had been intended to show him unmistakably that she did not wish to hear what he had to say—and he would now be for ever silent. He was glad to go away from her neighbourhood, to where, among new scenes, he might forget her. He was glad to leave that miserable home, where a weeping mother, an irascible step-father, an intolerable brother, had recently made him their confidante, go-between and victim.

“Yes,” in answer to Belle’s pathetic enquiries. “He was coming back, of course, before his leave was up: he had got an extension: he did not return to India till July—the end of July.” Belle sighed a heart-breaking sigh, as she placed her hand timidly in his, and breathed a fervent inward prayer, that when he returned to the gorgeous East he would take her with him.