Fancies and Goodnights

THE INVISIBLE DOVE-DANCER OF STRATHPHEEN ISLAND

I came again to Doyle's Hotel, at Ballymalley in Connemara, and unpacked my bags in a bedroom smelling of brine and damp towels. A little heap of sand lay in the grate, spilled out from someone else's shoes. Outside there was the wind and the dunes, and a sea already ragged with night. Downstairs was the bar.

Doyle was standing behind the bar, holding forth about Strathpheen Island. «And here,» said he to his listener, «here is the gentleman to tell you it's the wonder of the world for the sight of the wild sea-birds, and the breeding places of them.»

«No doubt about it,» said I.

«A gentleman from America,» said Doyle to me, indicating the stranger. «And him touring around, mourning over the graves of his forefathers.»

The American gave me a big handshake. «Thomas P. Rymer,» said he. «And I want to tell you, sir, this is the sort of place we read about in story-books, and can't altogether believe in.»

«I'm only a visitor, myself,» said I. «It's a romantic corner.»

«Romance,» said he. «Don't talk to me about romance. I'm what we call a hard-headed business man, but what this old Emerald Isle has done for me in the way of romance —! Nothing immoral, of course. Don't get me wrong.»

«Is Mrs. Rymer with you?» said I.

«No, sir,» said he. «I'm sorry to have to tell you, there isn't a Mrs. Rymer. Now don't laugh at me as a sentimentalist, or idealist, but a man in my line of business gets mighty particular about what I might call the finesse of the female form. Has to be. Foundation garments — girdles, corsets, brassieres. And, well, I've not seen just that bit of perfection — You know what I mean.»

«Well, you won't see her on Strathpheen Island,» said I. «All the same, why don't we go together? We'll get the boots here, the fellow they call old Danny, to help with the boat. Doyle'll pack us a bit of lunch.»

«Now that's a grand idea,» said he.

«Fine!» said I. «Tomorrow, then, if the weather's right»

It was. The sea was as flat as a mill-pond and as blue as a cornflower. We soon got out the creaky old boat, and were off on the three-mile trip to the island. Rymer was delighted. «To me, as a business man,» said he, «this is something like a bit of Man of Aran got into the March of Time. Boy! Look at those rocks! Look at that colour! Look at the birds!»

Up they got. The whole blue sky was full of winging and crying. «Come ashore,» said I. «This is just a sample.»

«Just a minute,» said Rymer, standing quite still on the beach. «I'm just trying to hear what this little out-of-the-world islet is saying to me. Now don't start calling me poetical, but if ever I came to a place where the concentrated atmosphere and romance seemed to have a special message for me — this is it. Is this island by any chance in the market?»

«I don't think so,» said I. «In fact, I know it isn't.»

«That's tough,» said he. «Never mind. Maybe it's just a feeling I had. I don't know if you've ever felt you've been sort of missing something all your life? You want to get out, make a break — I don't know. Let's get on.»

We went on, through the bracken and the bluebells, where the terns' eggs were lying about on every side, round by the cliffs, and over to the flatter side of the island. By the time we got there, we were ready for lunch.

We were just finishing, when Rymer, looking over behind me, broke off in the middle of a sentence, and looked, and stared. «What is it?» said I, turning round.

«What in God's name,» said he, «are those birds there? What are they doing?»

«Ah, 'tis them island pigeons the gentleman means,» said old Danny. «And a surprising sort of bird entirely.»

«It certainly is,» said I. «For there were five white pigeons, all close together in the air, four of them swooping down and diving in and out, quite near the ground, and the fifth hovering and fluttering, more like a hawk than a pigeon, and staying always in the middle.»

«And I'll be telling you the reason why,» said Danny. «'Tis that old farmhouse, and the walls of it standing to this day, just over the rise there. Now the farmer's wife, I've heard tell, was the one for keeping every sort of dove and pigeon, the white ones, and the fan-tailed ones, and the hairy-legged ones, and them that tumble in the air. And now the folks are dead, and the house in ruins, and no farm on the island, and them birds have mixed and mingled with the wild pigeons of these parts, and many a time they'll be throwing up a white one, and one with a queer way of flying.»

«Very queer,» said I.

Rymer seized me by the arm. «Don't think I'm kinda crazy», said he, «but — but — I know the measurements. It's my line of business. I can't see her, but — there's a dove-dancer among those birds.»

«A dove-dancer?» said Danny. «Would you be telling us what a dove-dancer may be?»

I told him of the World's Fair and its crowning symbol of peace and freedom.

«Would you believe it?» said he. «Flip over that bit of a stone, your honour, that lies against your hand. Make the brazen hussy skip a bit higher.»

«Don't on your life!» cried Rymer. «Have you no reverence, man?»

«You're right,» said Danny. «I'm thinking she may be one of the Good People and all — saints defend us!»

«Thirty-four to the fraction of an inch!» said Rymer.

«Thirty-four?» said I. «Thirty-four what?»

«Those hips,» said he. «Thirty-four — Twenty-five — Thirty-five — Boy, it's perfection!»

«Listen,» I said. «You've got a touch of the sun. There's nothing but the pigeons there.»

«Watch their flight,» said he. «I'm in the corset and girdle line; I got an eye for the measurements. I've been to the World's Fair. I know a dove-dancer when I see one, my boy — and even when I don't. And can she dance? What a peach! What a honey! Boy, is she the dove-dancing Venus of all time! Look, they're moving away!»

«So they are!» cried Danny. «And all in formation, like a flock of the government aeroplanes.»

«Excuse me, please,» said Rymer. «I can't pass this up. I can't let that wonderful little invisible lady go right out of my life like this.»

With that he sprang up, and began to lumber after the pigeons, which increased their pace. Too astonished to move, we saw him trip, fall, pick himself up again, and rush after the retreating birds faster than before. Soon he disappeared over the little rise.

«Did you ever see the like of that?» said Danny.

«Look here,» I said. «He may get over by the cliffs, I'll go round to cut him off. You follow him in case he goes the other way.»

I hurried round to the cliff edge, but there was no sign of Rymer. After waiting a long time I saw Danny come climbing up from below.

«He's stretched out under a rock, poor man,» said he. «With his wind gone, and the heart broken in him, and saying over his numbers like a reverend father telling of his beads, and measuring with his hands like a fisherman, and crying like a child. Will it be a madness on him, your honour, or was he after seeing something he couldn't see entirely?»

«It must be the sun,» said I. «We'd better get him home.»

We clambered down to where Rymer lay. He was in a piteous state, «I'm beat,» said he. «My approach was all wrong. Rushing at her like that! She got the wrong impression.»

«You come home,» said I.

We rowed home in silence. When we landed, he looked back at the island. «If she'd given me just a chance!» said he. «Just a chance to explain!»

«You go up to your room,» said I, «and lie down.»

«That's what I mean to do,» said he. «That's all I'm fit for.»

He stayed in his room all that day, and all the next, and the day after. On the third day I was out for a while. When I came back I asked Doyle if all was well.

«Devil a bit of it,» said Doyle, «for he's keening like a woman over the dead.»

I listened at the foot of the stabs. «That's all right,» said I, coming back. «That's just his version of a song — 'Night and day, you are the one.' There's a note of optimism at the end of it. I've an idea he's bucking up.»

Sure enough, we soon heard his foot on the stabs. He was in the highest of spirits, a tremendous reaction. «Well, pal,» he said, «I'm afraid I've been a bit of a dead weight the last two or three days. She had me knocked right out, and that's the truth, brother. I didn't have an idea left in me. Mr. Doyle, I want you to hunt me up some canes or osiers or something, and I want your man Danny to help me build a little contraption I got in mind.»

I gave Doyle the wink to humour him, and he took the particulars of what was wanted.

«You see the idea?» said Rymer to me. «I make me these two sort of cages, like the bird traps we used to make in the Midwest when I was a boy. In the little one, I put some boiled com. That's for the doves. The big one's for her.»

«What's the bait there?» said L

«She's a woman,» said he. «Divine, if you like, but still a femme.» With that he pulled out a leather case from his pocket and opened it to display a very handsome little wristwatch, set in diamonds. «Picked it up in Paris,» said he modestly. «Thought of presenting it to a young lady in Cleveland. Thirty-six hips, though. And here we have thirty-four, twenty-five, thirty-five! So this goes for bait, you see. It'll fetch her. And when I see it picked up in the air, I pull the strings, and I have them goddam doves in one cage and her in the other. Then I can talk. Nothing immoral, mind you. I want to proposition that little lady to be Mrs. Thomas P. Rymer.»

«But if you can't see her—» said I.

«Wait,» said he, «till I get the Max Factor Studios on her. A sort of simonizing job, only in technicolour, if you get me. It'll be,» said he, bursting into song, «'Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light —' Nothing unpatriotic, mind you, only it's kind of appropriate.» Still singing, he went out to the wood-shed, where I heard hammering going on for the rest of the day.

Next morning, as I was shaving, I happened to glance out of the window, and there I saw the boat pulling out, with Danny at the oars, Rymer in the bow, and two vast and crazy contraptions swaying on the stern. I called out; Rymer waved his hand, and they went on toward the island.

That evening, as I approached the hotel, I saw the boat pulled up on the beach, and hurried in to find Rymer. He was sitting in the bar, with a big whiskey in front of him, looking very grim. «What happened?» said I.

«Don't ask me what happened,» said he curtly. Then, relenting, «I'll tell you,» said he. «I'm afraid that little lady's out to make a monkey of me, and I don't like it.»

«What did she do?» I asked.

«I had Danny land me on that island,» said he, «and pull out and wait off shore so as not to crowd her. I fixed up my cages and my baits, and I got behind a rock, and I waited awhile. Then I saw those birds coming along, swooping and diving at top speed — I reckon it was a marvellous number — and the old hen in the middle fluttering her damnedest to keep up with them. When they saw the traps, they slowed up. I could tell she was interested.»

«Go on,» said I.

«Well,» said he, «they visited the small trap first, and the top left-hand dove flew down and picked up bits of the corn and fed all the others.»

«I'll be damned!» said I.

«Then,» said he, «they moved over to where the big cage was, and the dexter dove flew in and picked up the wristwatch in its beak, and she did a sort of humoresque dance with it, and threw it over the cliff into the sea in front of my eyes. What do you think of that?»

«That's pretty tough,» I said.

«It's downright inconsiderate!» said he, banging on the table. «And if that dame thinks she's going to get away with it with Thomas P. Rymer, well — Landlord, I want another highball.»

«Why don't you just give her the air?» said I.

«I'd have given her the world,» said he. «And I would yet. But she's gotta see reason. I'll make her listen to me somehow. Let me get her within reach of my arms, that's all! Landlord, I'll have a bottle of this hooch up in my room, I reckon. I gotta do a bit of thinking. Good night, pal. I'm no company. She's roused up the old cave man in me, that's how it is. I'm not claiming to be any sort of sheik, but this little Irish wonder lady's gotta learn she can't make a monkey of a straightforward American business man. Good night!»

Most of the night I heard him tramping up and down his room. It was pretty late when I got to sleep, and when I did I slept heavily and woke late. I went downstairs and looked about for my friend «Where's Mr. Rymer?» said I to Doyle.

«God alone knows,» said he. «Were you not hearing the great cry he gave in the grey of the dawn?»

«What?» said I.

«I woke up,» said Doyle, «and heard him muttering. Suddenly he lets a yell out of him: 'Marriage licence! That'll get her!' And then he went silent entirely, and I dropped off to sleep again. And when I came down this morning, he was missing. And his car was missing. There was a note on the bar here: 'Back in a few days.'»

«He's gone to Galway,» said I, «to get his confounded licence.»

«Like enough,» said Doyle. «It's a great affliction, to be sure.»

Sure enough, after a few days I was wakened in the early morning by the sound of a car driving up. I looked out in the half-light and recognized the impressive lines of Rymer's huge American roadster. At breakfast time I hurried downstairs, eager to have a word with him.

I met Doyle in the passage. «So Mr. Rymer's come back?» I said.

«He's come,» said Doyle. «And he's gone.»

«Gone? Where?»

«It must be to the island,» said Doyle. «He must have drove up in the night and took the boat out right away. I've sent Danny for the loan of Murphy's boat from the fishing lodge. I told him to row straight out to the island, to see what's happened to the poor unfortunate gentleman.»

There were no field glasses in the place. We waited impatiently till Danny came in sight, rowing the borrowed boat and towing the other. We saw that Danny was alone.

«Did you not find him?» shouted Doyle.

«Never the hide nor hair of him,» said Danny, making fast the painter. «Sure it was one of the Good People he was after, right enough. The poor man has vanished entirely.»

«Could he have fallen over a cliff?» said I.

«I see'd the pigeons,» said Danny, shaking his head. «Four of 'em I saw, sitting each alone in a bush, just round the place we first saw them, and the creatures were mourning.»

«And the fifth?» said I.

«The misfortunate bird was lying on the grass in the middle,» said Danny, «with its neck wrung.»