When I try to recall that lovely summer and its successor, the year of the old Queen’s First Jubilee, 1887, I seem best to remember those magical evenings when two or three boat-loads of us would row “up the river,” which is no river, but a narrow and winding sea-creek, of, as we hold, unparalleled beauty, between high hills, with trees on both its sides, drooping low over the water, and seaweed, instead of ivy, hanging from their branches. Nothing more enchanting than resting on one’s oars in the heart of that dark mirror, with no sound but the sleepy chuckle of the herons in the tall trees on the hill-side, or the gurgle of the tide against the bows, until someone, perhaps, would start one of the glees that were being practised for the then concert—there was always one in the offing—and the Echo, that dwells opposite Roger’s Island, would wake from its sleep and join in, not more than half a minute behind the beat.
Or out at the mouth of the harbour, the boats rocking a little in the wide golden fields of moonlight, golden as sunlight, almost, in those August nights, and the lazy oars, paddling in what seemed a sea of opal oil, would drip with the pale flames of the phosphorus that seethed and whispered at their touch, when, as Martin has said,
“Land and sea lay in rapt accord, and the breast of the brimming tide was laid to the breast of the cliff, with a low and broken voice of joy.”
These are some of those Irish yesterdays, that came and went lightly, and were more memorable than Martin and I knew, that summer, when first she came.
CHAPTER XI
“AN IRISH COUSIN”
I think that the final impulse towards the career of letters was given to us by that sorceress of whom mention has already been made. By her we were assured of much that we did, and even more that we did not aspire to (which included two husbands for me, and at least one for Martin); but in the former category was included “literary success,” and, with that we took heart and went forward.
It was in October, 1887, that we began what was soon to be known to us as “The Shocker,” and “The Shaughraun,” to our family generally, as “that nonsense of the girls,” and subsequently, to the general public, as “An Irish Cousin.” Seldom have the young and ardent “commenced author” under less conducive circumstances. We were resented on so many grounds. Waste of time; the arrogance of having conceived such a project; and, chiefly, the abstention of two playmates. They called us “The Shockers,” “The Geniuses” (this in bitter irony), “The Hugger-muggerers” (this flight of fancy was my mother’s); when not actually reviled, we were treated with much the same disapproving sufferance that is shown to an outside dog who sneaks into the house on a wet day. We compared ourselves, not without reason, to the Waldenses and the Albigenses, and hid and fled about the house, with the knowledge that every man’s hand was against us.
Begun in idleness and without conviction, persecution had its usual effect, and deepened somewhat tepid effort into enthusiasm, but the first genuine literary impulse was given by a visit to an old and lonely house, that stands on the edge of the sea, some twelve or thirteen miles from Drishane. It was at that time inhabited by a distant kinswoman of mine, a pathetic little old spinster lady, with the most charming, refined, and delicate looks, and a pretty voice, made interesting by the old-fashioned Irish touch in it; provincial, in that it told of life in a province, yet entirely compatible with gentle breeding. She called me “Eddith,” I remember (a pronunciation entirely her own), and she addressed the remarkable being who ushered us in, half butler, half coachman, as “Dinnis,” and she asked us to “take a glass of wine” with her, and, apologising for the all too brief glimpse of the fire vouchsafed to the leg of mutton, said she trusted we did not mind the meat being “rare.”
The little lady who entertained us is dead now; the old house, stripped of its ancient portraits and furniture, is, like many another, in the hands of farmer-people; its gardens have reverted to jungle. I wonder if the tombstone of the little pet dog has been respected. In the shade of a row of immense junipers, that made a sheltering hedge between the flower garden and the wide Atlantic, stood the stone, inscribed, with the romantic preciosity of our hostess’s youth,
“Lily, a violet-shrouded tomb of woe.”