Read Online King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald - Free Book Online Page A

poised upon the brink of a new age, an age of communion with minds immeasurably superior to our own, and in my very home I am subjected to occult, superstitious bosh, and my daughter to the filthy indulgence of jaded appetites! My daughter’s adolescence will not be soiled and sullied with your gleeful prying into her most private intimacies! Good day to you, gentlemen. I wish for you all to leave. At once, if you please. Mrs. O’Carolan, be so good as to fetch these people their coats. Caroline, I wish to speak with you immediately, in the library.

The Beau English Club, Nassau Street, Dublin
    “W ELL, I SEE THE papers have hold of it now.” “Yes, I picked it up in the Irish Times this morning. Full column, on the front page, by the Lord Harry.”
    “You know, of course, what they’re calling it?”
    “You mean, Desmond’s Downfall?”
    “Haven’t heard that one. Heh, that’s a good one. Very good. Most droll. Where did you pick that one up?”
    “The Independent Irishman. ”
    “That Fenian rag. Never read it myself. Mind you, Desmond’s Downfall, that is a good one. Another brandy?”
    “Don’t mind if I do. Most civil of you. You know, it shouldn’t surprise me in the least if the English papers didn’t pick up on the story. ‘Eccentric Irish Astronomer Attempts Communication with Star Men.’ Love that sort of thing, the English. Could be circulating worldwide within the week.”
    “God forfend. Imagine it, though—scruffy old Desmond with his eighteen-inch telescope on the front page of Le Soir or the New York Times. ‘Desmond’s Downfall: Exposed.’”
    “Don’t know how old Maurice ever got himself sucked into this one.”
    “I’d have thought better of him myself. Mind you, Charlie, he’s always had a reputation for espousing weird and wonderful causes. What about all this lobbying for that Home Rule Bill and votes for women? A queer fish in the aristocratic goldfish pond is our Maurice Fitzgerald.”
    “I blame it all on breeding, myself. You know, like cocker spaniels, inbreeding and all that. Congenital idiots. House of Lords is full of them. Educated idiots in ermine. No wonder old Maurice goes baying at the moon, or Bell’s Comet, or whatever.”
    “It’ll be the ruination of him.”
    “That it surely will. Do you know how much that floating pontoon thing is costing?”
    “Wouldn’t like to guess.”
    “Wouldn’t like to spoil your luncheon.”
    “Still, I’d like to know how Desmond wangled that old bird into parting with the Clarenorris fortune for such a ludicrous scrape.”
    “Ah, he has a silver tongue, has Dr. Edward Garret Desmond. Could charm the birds off the trees.”
    “Certainly charmed that fine woman of his off the Barry family tree. He’s well in there, Barry linen fortunes and all that. No stone, our Edward.”
    “Heh, heh. Fine woman she certainly is, that Caroline Desmond. Damn fine poetess, too. Read some of her stuff in Eire Nua— not, I hasten to add, that it’s the sort of thing I read regularly. This ‘Celtic Twilight’ stuff baffles me—woolly-minded mysticism—but what I read of her was excellent. She has the magic touch, right enough.”
    “Well, Desmond’s old silver tongue let him down badly at that farce of a lecture.”
    “Ah, that was O’Neill, wasn’t it? He’s a demon for the wit, is O’Neill.”
    “He queerly sharpened it on the good Dr. Desmond.”
    “A good thing, too, if you ask me. That lecture was the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. Extrasolar civilizations, comet-riding star travellers…”
    “Ridiculous. Tosh, gibberish, and flapdoodle.”
    “Isn’t it? I do hear that he’s invited astronomers from all over Ireland, and beyond, to be present when he switches this pontoon thing on.”
    “You going?”
    “Fishing’s good, this time of year. You?”
    “Wild horses, and all that.”
    “Still…”
    “Still what?”
    “Still, what if he’s right?”
    “Come now, you yourself checked his figures