Aunt Julia smiled broadly and murmured something about compliments as she released her hand from his grasp. Mr Browne extended his open hand towards her and said to those who were near him in the manner of a showman introducing a prodigy to an audience:
—Miss Julia Morkan, my latest discovery!
He was laughing very heartily at this himself when Freddy Malins turned to him and said:
—Well, Browne, if you’re serious you might make a worse discovery. All I can say is I never heard her sing half so well as long as I am coming here. And that’s the honest truth.
—Neither did I, said Mr Browne. I think her voice has greatly improved.
Aunt Julia shrugged her shoulders and said with meek pride:
—Thirty years ago I hadn’t a bad voice as voices go.
—I often told Julia, said Aunt Kate emphatically, that she was simply thrown away in that choir. But she never would be said by me.
She turned as if to appeal to the good sense of the others against a refractory child while Aunt Julia gazed in front of her, a vague smile of reminiscence playing on her face.
—No, continued Aunt Kate, she wouldn’t be said or led by anyone, slaving there in that choir night and day, night and day. Six o’clock on Christmas morning! And all for what?
—Well, isn’t it for the honour of God, Aunt Kate? asked Mary Jane, twisting round on the piano-stool and smiling.
Aunt Kate turned fiercely on her niece and said:
—I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it’s not at all honourable for the pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have slaved there all their lives and put little whipper-snappers of boys over their heads. I suppose it is for the good of the Church if the pope does it. But it’s not just, Mary Jane, and it’s not right.
She had worked herself into a passion and would have continued in defence of her sister for it was a sore subject with her but Mary Jane, seeing that all the dancers had come back, intervened pacifically:
—Now, Aunt Kate, you’re giving scandal to Mr Browne who is of the other persuasion.
Aunt Kate turned to Mr Browne, who was grinning at this allusion to his religion, and said hastily:
—O, I don’t question the pope’s being right. I’m only a stupid old woman and I wouldn’t presume to do such a thing. But there’s such a thing as common everyday politeness and gratitude. And if I were in Julia’s place I’d tell that Father Healy straight up to his face…
—And besides, Aunt Kate, said Mary Jane, we really are all hungry and when we are hungry we are all very quarrelsome.
—And when we are thirsty we are also quarrelsome, added Mr Browne.
—So that we had better go to supper, said Mary Jane, and finish the discussion afterwards.
On the landing outside the drawing-room Gabriel found his wife and Mary Jane trying to persuade Miss Ivors to stay for supper. But Miss Ivors, who had put on her hat and was buttoning her cloak, would not stay. She did not feel in the least hungry and she had already overstayed her time.
—But only for ten minutes, Molly, said Mrs Conroy. That won’t delay you.
—To take a pick itself, said Mary Jane, after all your dancing.
—I really couldn’t, said Miss Ivors.
—I am afraid you didn’t enjoy yourself at all, said Mary Jane hopelessly.
—Ever so much, I assure you, said Miss Ivors, but you really must let me run off now.
—But how can you get home? asked Mrs Conroy.
—O, it’s only two steps up the quay.
Gabriel hesitated a moment and said:
—If you will allow me, Miss Ivors, I’ll see you home if you really are obliged to go.
But Miss Ivors broke away from them.
—I won’t hear of it, she cried. For goodness sake go in to your suppers and don’t mind me. I’m quite well able to take care of myself.
—Well, you’re the comical girl, Molly, said Mrs Conroy frankly.
—Beannacht libh, cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she ran down the staircase.
“Where on earth is Gabriel? There’s everyone waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!”
Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in ill humour: she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.
At that moment Aunt Kate came toddling out of the supper-room, almost wringing her hands in despair.
—Where is Gabriel? she cried. Where on earth is Gabriel? There’s everyone waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!
—Here I am, Aunt Kate! cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary.
A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side- dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.
Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease now for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well-laden table.
—Miss Furlong, what shall I send you? he asked. A wing or a slice of the breast?
—Just a small slice of the breast.
—Miss Higgins, what for you?
—O, anything at all, Mr Conroy.
While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced beef Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane’s idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for the goose but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without apple sauce had always been good enough for her and she hoped she might never eat worse. Mary Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the best slices and Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia opened and carried across from the piano bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the ladies. There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the noise of orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass- stoppers. Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first round without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised by taking a long draught of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary Jane settled down quietly to her supper but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia were still toddling round the table, walking on each other’s heels, getting in each other’s way and giving each other unheeded orders. Mr Browne begged of them to sit down and eat their suppers and so did Gabriel but they said there was time enough so that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing Aunt Kate, plumped her down on her chair amid general laughter.
When everyone had been well served Gabriel said, smiling: —Now, if anyone wants a little more of what vulgar people call stuffing let him or her speak.
A chorus of voices invited him to begin his own supper and Lily came forward with three potatoes which she had reserved for him.
—Very well, said Gabriel amiably, as he took another preparatory draught, kindly forget my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes.