The Moonlit Way: A Novel. Chambers Robert William

you about the things in it.” And for a while he rambled lazily on about old French chairs and Spanish chests, and the panels of Mille Fleur tapestry which hung behind them; the two lovely pre-Raphael panels in their exquisite ancient frames; the old Venetian velvet covering triple choir-stalls in the corner; the ivory-toned 72 marble figure on its wood and compos pedestal, where tendrils and delicate foliations of water gilt had become slightly irridescent, harmonising with the patine on the ancient Chinese garniture flanking a mantel clock of dullest gold.

      About these things, their workmanship, the histories of their times, he told her in his easy, unaccented voice, glancing sideways at her from time to time to note how she stood it.

      But she listened, fascinated, her gaze moving from the object discussed to the man who discussed it; her slim limbs curled under her, her hands clasped around a silken cushion made from the robe of some Chinese princess.

      Lounging there beside her, amused, humorously flattered by her attention, and perhaps a little touched, he held forth a little longer.

      “Is it a nice party, so far, Dulcie?” he concluded with a smile.

      She flushed, found no words, nodded, and sat with lowered head as though pondering.

      “What would you rather do if you could do what you want to in the world, Dulcie?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Think a minute.”

      She thought for a while.

      “Live with you,” she said seriously.

      “Oh, Dulcie! That is no sort of ambition for a growing girl!” he laughed; and she laughed, too, watching his every expression out of grey eyes that were her chiefest beauty.

      “You’re a little too young to know what you want yet,” he concluded, still smiling. “By the time that bobbed mop of red hair grows to a proper length, you’ll know more about yourself.”

      “Do you like it up?” she enquired naïvely.

      “It makes you look older.”

      “I want it to.”

      “I suppose so,” he nodded, noticing the snowy neck which the new coiffure revealed. It was becoming evident to him that Dulcie had her own vanities – little pathetic vanities which touched him as he glanced at the reconstructed first communion dress and the drooping hyacinth pinned at the waist, and the cheap white slippers on a foot as slenderly constructed as her long and narrow hands.

      “Did your mother die long ago, Dulcie?”

      “Yes.”

      “In America?”

      “In Ireland.”

      “You look like her, I fancy – ” thinking of Soane.

      “I don’t know.”

      Barres had heard Soane hold forth in his cups on one or two occasions – nothing more than the vague garrulousness of a Celt made more loquacious by the whiskey of one Grogan – something about his having been a gamekeeper in his youth, and that his wife – “God rest her!” – might have held up her head with “anny wan o’ thim in th’ Big House.”

      Recollecting this, he idly wondered what the story might have been – a young girl’s perverse infatuation for her father’s gamekeeper, perhaps – a handsome, common, ignorant youth, reckless and irresponsible enough to take advantage of her – probably some such story – resembling similar histories of chauffeurs, riding-masters, grooms, and coachmen at home.

      The Prophet came noiselessly into the studio, stopped at sight of his little mistress, twitched his tail reflectively, then leaped onto a carved table and calmly began his ablutions.

      Barres got up and wound up the Victrola. Then he kicked aside a rug or two.

      “This is to be a real party, you know,” he remarked. “You don’t dance, do you?”

      “Yes,” she said diffidently, “a little.”

      “Oh! That’s fine!” he exclaimed.

      Dulcie got off the sofa, shook out her reconstructed gown. When he came over to where she stood, she laid her hand in his almost solemnly, so overpowering had become the heavenly sequence of events. For the rite of his hospitality had indeed become a rite to her. Never before had she stood in awe, enthralled before such an altar as this man’s hearthstone. Never had she dreamed that he who so wondrously served it could look at such an offering as hers – herself.

      But the miracle had happened; altar and priest were accepting her; she laid her hand, which trembled, in his; gave herself to his guidance and to the celestial music, scarcely seeing, scarcely hearing his voice.

      “You dance delightfully,” he was saying; “you’re a born dancer, Dulcie. I do it fairly well myself, and I ought to know.”

      He was really very much surprised. He was enjoying it immensely. When the Victrola gave up the ghost he wound it again and came back to resume. Under his suggestions and tutelage, they tried more intricate steps, devious and ambitious, and Dulcie, unterrified by terpsichorean complications, surmounted every one with his whispered coaching and expert aid.

      Now it came to a point where time was not for him. He was too interested, enjoying it too genuinely.

      Sometimes, when they paused to enable him to resurrect the defunct music in the Victrola, they laughed at the Prophet, who sat upon the ancient carved table, gravely surveying them. Sometimes they rested because 75 he thought she ought to – himself a trifle pumped – only to find, to his amazement, that he need not be solicitous concerning her.

      A tall and ancient clock ringing midnight from clear, uncompromising bells, brought Barres to himself.

      “Good Lord!” he exclaimed, “this won’t do! Dear child, I’m having a wonderful time, but I’ve got to deliver you to your father!”

      He drew her arm through his, laughingly pretending horror and haste; she fled lightly along beside him as he whisked her through the hall and down the stairs.

      A candle burned on the desk. Soane sat there, asleep, and odorous of alcohol, his flushed face buried in his arms.

      But Soane was what is known as a “sob-souse”; never ugly in his cups, merely inclined to weep over the immemorial wrongs of Ireland.

      He woke up when Barres touched his shoulder, rubbed his swollen eyes and black, curly head, gazed tragically at his daughter:

      “G’wan to bed, ye little scut!” he said, getting to his feet with a terrific yawn.

      Barres took her hand:

      “We’ve had a wonderful party, haven’t we, Sweetness?”

      “Yes,” whispered the child.

      The next instant she was gone like a ghost, through the dusky, whitewashed corridor where distorted shadows trembled in the candlelight.

      “Soane,” said Barres, “this won’t do, you know. They’ll sack you if you keep on drinking.”

      The man, not yet forty, a battered, middle-aged by-product of hale and reckless vigour, passed his hands 76 over his temples with the dignity of a Hibernian Hamlet:

      “The harp that wanst through Tara’s halls – ” he began; but memory failed; and two tears – by-products, also, of Grogan’s whiskey – sparkled in his reproachful eyes.

      “I’m merely telling you,” remarked Barres. “We all like you, Soane, but the landlord won’t stand for it.”

      “May God forgive him,” muttered Soane. “Was there ever a landlord but he was a tyrant, too?”

      Barres blew out the candle; a faint light above the Fu-dog outside, over the street door, illuminated the stone hall.

      “You ought to keep sober for your little daughter’s sake,” insisted Barres in a low voice. “You love her, don’t you?”

      “I do that!” said Soane – “God bless her and her poor mother, who