‘But surely———’
Halloran shrugged his shoulders.
‘My dear fellow, I don’t want to shatter your ideal, but the beautiful Finola wants to work a revolution, and you can’t do that sort of thing without soiling your hands. However, whether he imposed on her or not, there’s no doubt about it that he was a deserter. Why, it appeared that the fool was tattooed all over the arms and chest, and the military people had a list of the designs. They had a perfectly plain case, and, indeed, Doherty made no defence.’
‘What will they do with him?’ said Hyacinth, still uneasy about the possibility of Doherty’s volunteering information.
‘I don’t know,’ said Halloran. ‘I should think the best punishment would be to send him out to Ladysmith. I dare say the Boers would pass him in if the circumstances were explained to them. By the way, it would be rather funny if he met the other nine out there on a kopje, wouldn’t it? He might take them prisoners, or they might capture him. Either way the situation would have its comic possibilities.’
CHAPTER XI
Miss Goold lived that part of her life which was not spent at political meetings or in the office of the Croppy in a villa at Killiney. A house agent would have described it as a most desirable residence, standing in its own grounds, overlooking the sea. Its windows opened upon one of the best of the many beautiful views of Dublin Bay. Its half-acre of pleasure ground—attended to by a jobbing gardener once a week—was trim and flowery. Its brown gate shone with frequently renewed paint, and the drive up to the door was neatly raked. Inside Miss Goold’s wants were ministered to by an eminently respectable man-servant, his wife who cooked, and a maid. The married couple were fixtures, and had been with Miss Goold since she started housekeeping. The maids varied. They never quarrelled with their mistress, but they found it impossible to live with their fellow-servants. Mr. and Mrs. Ginty were North of Ireland Protestants of the severest type. Ginty himself was a strong Orangeman, and his wife professed and enforced a strict code of morals. It did not in the least vex Miss Goold to know that her servants’ quarters were decorated with portraits of the reigning family in gilt frames, or that King William III. pranced on a white charger above the kitchen range. Nor had she any objection to her butler invoking a nightly malediction on the Pope over his tumbler of whisky-and-water. Unfortunately, her maids—the first three were Roman Catholics—found that their religious convictions were outraged, and left, after stormy scenes. The red-haired Protestant from the North who followed them was indifferent to the eternal destiny of Leo XIII., but declined to be dictated to by Mrs. Ginty about the conduct of her love affairs. Miss Goold, to whom the quarrel was referred, pleaded the damsel’s cause, and suggested privately that not even a policeman—she had a low opinion of the force—could be swept away from the path of respectability by a passion for so ugly a girl. Mrs. Ginty pointed out in reply that red hair and freckles were no safeguard when a flirtation is carried on after dark. There seemed no answer to this, and the maid returned indignantly to Ballymena. She was succeeded by an anaemic and wholly incompetent niece of Mrs. Ginty’s, who lived in such terror of her aunt that peace settled upon the household. Miss Goold suspected that this girl did little or no work—was, in fact, wholly unfit for her position; but so long as she herself was made comfortable, it did not seem to matter who tidied away her clothes or dusted her bedroom.
Miss Goold, in fact, had so far mastered the philosophy of life as to understand that the only real use of money is to purchase comfort and freedom from minor worries. She had deliberately cut herself adrift from the social set to which she belonged by birth and education, and so had little temptation to spend her substance either in giving parties or enjoying them. The ladies who flutter round the Lord Lieutenant’s hospitable court would as soon have thought of calling on a music-hall danseuse as on Miss Goold. Their husbands, brothers, and sons took liberties with her reputation in the smoking-rooms of the Kildare Street Club, and professed to be in possession of private information about her life which placed her outside the charity of even their tolerant morality. The little circle of revolutionary politicians who gathered round the Croppy were not the sort of people who gave dinner-parties; and there is, in spite of the Gospel precept, a certain awkwardness nowadays in continually asking people to dinner who cannot afford a retributive invitation. Occasionally, however, Miss Goold did entertain a few of her friends, and it was generally admitted among them that she not only provided food and drink of great excellence, but arranged the appointments of her feasts luxuriously.
On the very day after his interview with Tim Halloran Hyacinth received an invitation to dinner at the Killiney villa. Captain Quinn, the note informed him, had arrived in Dublin, and was anxious to make the acquaintance of his future comrade-in-arms. It seemed to Hyacinth, thinking over the story of Doherty, unlikely that the whole corps would be asked to meet their Captain round a dinner-table, but he hoped that some of them would be there. Their presence would reconcile him to the awkwardness of not possessing a dress-suit. Grealy, who had occasionally dined at the villa, warned him that a white shirt-front and black trousers would certainly be expected of him, and Hyacinth made an unsuccessful effort to hire garments for the night which would fit him. In the end, since it seemed absurd to purchase even a second-hand suit for a single evening, he brushed his Sunday clothes and bought a pair of patent-leather shoes.