General John Regan Part 16

"He ought," said Doyle, "but he hasn't. The tunes he whistles round the house would drive you demented if so be that you listened to them; but I needn't tell you I don't do that."

"You'll have to put up with it," said Dr. O'Grady. "It won't be for very long, and you needn't mind what Mary Ellen neglects so long as she attends properly on Mr. Billing."

"She'll attend him right enough," said Doyle. "Since ever she got the notion that he was going to make a lady of her, attending on him is the one thing that she will do."

"Then you needn't bother your head about anything else."

CHAPTER VIII

There are men in the world, a great many of them?who are capable of managing details with thoroughness and efficiency. These men make admirable lieutenants and fill subordinate positions so well that towards the end of their lives they are allowed to attend full dress evening parties with medals and stars hung round their necks or pinned on their coats. There are also a good many men who are capable of conceiving great ideas and forming vast plans, but who have an unconquerable aversion to anything in the way of a detail. These men generally end their days in obscure asylums, possibly in workhouses, and their ideas, after living for a while as subject matter for jests, perish unrealised. There is also a third kind of man, fortunately a very rare kind. He is capable of conceiving great ideas, and has besides an insatiable delight in working out details. He may end his days as a victorious general, or even as an emperor. If he prefers a less ostentatious kind of reward, he will die a millionaire.

Dr. Lucius O'Grady belonged to this third cla.s.s. In the face of Doyle's objection to his expenditure on posters, he was capable of conceiving on the spur of the moment and without previous meditation, the audacious and magnificent plan of bringing the Lord-Lieutenant to Ballymoy and wrestling from a reluctant treasury a sufficient sum of money to build a third pier on the beach below the town. There may have been other men in Ireland capable of making such a plan. There was certainly no one else who would have set himself, as Dr. O'Grady did, with tireless enthusiasm, to work out the details necessary to the plan's success.

As soon as Doyle left him he mounted his bicycle and rode out to the Greggs' home. Mr. Gregg, being the District Inspector of Police, was usually a very busy man. But the Government, though a hard task-master in the case of minor officials, does not insist on anyone inspecting or being inspected on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Gregg had taken advantage of the Government's respect for revealed religion, and had gone out with a fis.h.i.+ng rod to catch trout. Mrs. Gregg was at home. Being a bride of not more than three months' standing she had nothing particular to do, and was yawning rather wearily over the fas.h.i.+on-plates of a ladies' paper.

She seemed unaffectedly glad to see Dr. O'Grady, and at once offered to give him tea. The doctor refused the tea, and plunged into his business.

"I suppose," he said, "that you'll have no objection to presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton when she comes to Ballymoy?"

"Is she coming?" said Mrs. Gregg. "How splendid!"

Before marrying Mr. Gregg she had lived in a Dublin suburb. Accustomed to the rich and varied life of a metropolis she found Ballymoy a little dull. She recognised Major Kent as "a dear old boy," but he was quite unexciting. Mrs. Ford, the wife of a rather morose stipendiary magistrate, had severely snubbed Mrs. Gregg. There was no one else, and the gay frocks of Mrs. Gregg's bridal outfit were wasting their first freshness with hardly an opportunity of being worn.

"Yes," said Dr. O'Grady. "She's coming with the Lord-Lieutenant to unveil the new statue."

"How splendid!" said Mrs. Gregg again. "I heard something about the statue, but please tell me more, Dr. O'Grady. I do so want to know."

"Oh, there's nothing particular to tell about the statue. It's to be to the memory of General John Regan, and will be unveiled in the usual way."

This did not add much to the information which Mr. Gregg, who himself had gleaned what he knew from Sergeant Colgan, had already given her.

But Mrs. Gregg was quite content with it. She did not, in fact, want to know anything about the statue. She only asked about it because she thought she ought to. Her mind was dwelling on the dazzling prospect of presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton.

"Of course I should love to," she said. "But I wonder if I could?really, I mean."

Dr. O'Grady was a man of quick intelligence. He realised at once that Mrs. Gregg had not been listening to his account of the statue, but that she was replying to his original suggestion.

"It's not the least difficult," he said. "Anyone could do it, but we'd like to have it done really well. That's the reason we're asking you."

"Don't you have to walk backwards?" said Mrs. Gregg. "I'd love to do it, of course, but I never have before."

"There's no necessity to walk at all. You simply stand in the front row of the spectators with the bouquet in your hand. Then, when she stops opposite you and smiles?she'll be warned beforehand, of course?and she's had such a lot of practice that she's sure to do it right?you curtsey and hand up the bouquet. She'll take it, and the whole thing will be over."

"Oh," said Mrs. Gregg, "is that all?"

Dr. O'Grady was conscious of a note of disappointment in her voice. He felt that he had over-emphasized the simplicity of the performance. Mrs.

Gregg would have preferred a longer ceremony. He did his best to make such amends as were still possible.

"Of course," he said, "your photograph will be in all the ill.u.s.trated papers afterwards, and there will be a long description of your dress in The Irish Times."

"I'd love to do it," said Mrs. Gregg.

"Very well, then," said Dr. O'Grady, "we'll consider that settled."

Leaving Mrs. Gregg, he rode on to Major Kent's house. The Major, like all men who are over forty years of age, who have good consciences and balances in their banks, spent his Sunday afternoons sleeping in an armchair. No one likes being awakened, either in a bedroom by a servant, in a railway carriage by a ticket collector, or on a Sunday afternoon by a friend. The Major answered Dr. O'Grady's greeting snappishly.

"If you've come," he said, "to ask me to make a speech at that meeting of yours on Tuesday, you may go straight home again, for I won't do it."

"I'm not such a fool," said Dr. O'Grady pleasantly, "as to ask you to do any such thing. I know jolly well you couldn't. Even if you could and would, we shouldn't want you. We have Father McCormack, and Thady Gallagher, besides the American. That's as much as any audience could stand!"

"If it isn't that you want," said the Major, "what is it?"

"It's a pity you're in such an uncommonly bad temper, Major. If you were even in your normal condition of torpid sulkiness you'd be rather pleased to hear what I'm going to tell you."

"If you're going to tell me that you've dropped that statue folly, I shall be extremely pleased."

"The news I have," said Dr. O'Grady, "is far better than that. We've decided to ask the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil the statue."

"He won't come," said the Major, "so that's all right."

"He will come when it's explained to him that??"

"Oh, if you offer him one of your explanations???"

"Look here, Major. I don't think you quite grasp the significance of what I'm telling you. Ever since I've known you you've been deploring the disloyalty of the Irish people. I don't blame you for that. You're by way of being a Unionist, so of course you have to. But if you were the least bit sincere in what you say, you'd be delighted to hear that Doyle and Thady Gallagher?Thady hasn't actually been told yet, but when he is he'll be as pleased as everyone else?you ought to be simply overjoyed to find that men like Doyle are inviting the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil their statue. It shows that they're getting steadily loyaler and loyaler. Instead of exulting in the fact you start sneering in a cynical and altogether disgusting way."

"I don't believe much in Doyle's loyalty," said the Major.

"Fortunately," said Dr. O'Grady, "Doyle thoroughly believes in yours. He agrees with me that you are the first man who ought to be asked to join the reception committee. You can't possibly refuse."

"I would refuse if I thought there was the slightest chance of the Lord-Lieutenant coming. Do you think I want to stand about in a tall hat along with half the blackguards in town?"

"Mrs. Gregg is going to present a bouquet," said Dr. O'Grady.

"Looking like a fool in the middle of the street, while you play silly tricks with a statue?"

"You won't be asked to do all that," said Dr. O'Grady.

"I am being asked. You're asking me this minute, and if I thought it would come off??"

"As you think it won't you may as well join the committee."

"I won't be secretary," said the Major, "and I won't have hand, act, or part, in asking the Lord-Lieutenant to come here. We don't want him, for one thing."

"You'll not be asked so much as to sign a paper," said Dr. O'Grady. "If your name is required at the bottom of any doc.u.ment I'll write it for you myself."