Friends Indeed

by Rose Doyle

  'My mother has asked me to be at the Rotunda earlier,’ He was apologetic.

  'Understandable,’ my father said, 'we'll follow in a second carriage.'

  Ned Mulvey was preoccupied from the very beginning of the evening, a mood I hadn't seen him in before. There was nothing about him of his usual amused and mocking bon viveur.

  We travelled across the town in a silence so complete I wondered if he'd forgotten he'd company in the carriage. I didn't point it out to him. There are some things a woman should never do, according to French etiquette. Reminding a male escort that you exist is one of them. I stared through the window and fumed. He didn't seem to notice this either.

  I was wearing the best of my French style: a ball gown of straw-coloured silk with a puff at the back and looped at the sides with a garland of red roses. Another garland of roses draped the bodice. For all the attention Ned Mulvey paid I might have been wearing sack cloth.

  My mother had thought the gown 'somewhat vulgar' and now, fingering the roses under my cloak, I wondered if she was right.

  When we got to the Rotunda my escort came to life and smiled and took my arm. His attentions didn't last long. We were the first arrivals in the reception hall and I was still dazzled by the lamps burning in every nook and alcove when he said, 'I must leave you for a while,' and walked quickly away.

  My eyes adjusted and I saw quiet, organising people coming and going through doors. One of them separated from the rest and came towards me. Ned Mulvey's mother, when she came near, dazzled too. She wore her usual black but with jet stones glittering at her neck and on her ears. When she moved her hands bracelets glittered at her wrists.

  'Miss Buckley,’ she stood three feet away, 'I'm told you're my son's companion for the evening.'

  'I came with Ned, yes.'

  'Where is he?'

  'I've no idea.' I hated making the admission.

  'Strange,' she raised her eyebrows, 'you struck me as an alert young woman last time we met.' She paused. 'You had a great many opinions then, as I recall.'

  'I'd like to hand in my cloak,' I said.

  'Of course.' She beckoned and another of the quiet shapes began towards us. 'Mr Craig will go with you.'

  'There's no need . . .'

  'There is every need, since my son is so neglectful.' She put a hand to the jet beads around her throat. 'You would greatly oblige me, Miss Buckley, if you would find my son and remain close to his side for the evening. It would be by far the safest thing. There was . . . trouble at last year's ball. We're anxious to avoid a repetition.'

  'Thank you for your concern,' I was surprised, 'but I don't know that I'll be able to attach myself so securely as all that.'

  'Find him, Miss Buckley, and do as I ask. My concern is for him, not you. Are you so terribly unaware . . .' She gave me a long, irritated look and sighed. 'I can see that you are.'

  She left me with Mr Craig, a small man with an apologetic smile. He went slowly ahead of me to the cloakroom, waited until I was ready and then escorted me to the ballroom. Other guests had begun to arrive and the musicians were tuning and setting up their instruments. It was all very grand, with a great deal of natural foliage decorating the walls and even more lamps than in the reception hall. There were chandeliers too, large and hanging quite low.

  Ned Mulvey was by the punch bowl with a noisy group. I waited for him to come to me and he did, after a few minutes, smiling and full of his old charm.

  'I was looking for you,' he said, 'I thought you'd abandoned me.'

  'The night is young,' I said and he raised his eyebrows in exactly the way his mother had.

  'Are you threatening me, Alicia, with desertion?'

  'You were the one deserted me,' I said.

  'Touche,' he said and stood back to look at me. 'You're lovely and fair as the rose in May.' He kissed my hand but his flattery came too late. He'd been neglectful. I wasn't half as fascinated by him as I'd been before.

  'Come, meet my friends.' He led the way back to the punch bowl.

  His friends were younger than he was, but older than me. The women were pretty and underdressed, the men spoke loudly and were already well on in drink. They made me feel very young, an ingenue as the French would say, and made me aware of how unused I was to the night life of parties and balls.

  I took a glass of punch. It was spicy and burned my throat but made me feel immediately more a part of the evening.

  'Another?' Ned Mulvey refilled my glass.

  'Your roses are . . . fetching,' a girl in an emerald dress said to me. She giggled.

  'Thank you.' Her own dress was off the shoulder and almost off her bosoms. 'Yours is . . . effective,' I said. She stopped giggling.

  'A word, if I may, Edmund.' Edith Mulvey's wintry tones carried from the edge of the group. She stood waiting as her son took my arm.

  'You must meet my mother,' he said.

  'I already have.'

  'You will meet her again.'

  There seemed no polite way to avoid another encounter with the stern widow. Edith Mulvey suffered herself to be kissed by her son. 'Are there many of those people here?' She eyed the group we'd just left.

  'Many of my friends, Mother, is that what you mean? Not so many. I told you I would look after things.'

  'Be sure that you do. I would prefer if none of that group were here.'

  'It's a charity ball, Mother, you need all the paying guests you can get. I can't, in any event, stop people attending.'

  'You could have discouraged them and I'm disappointed you didn't. I will not tolerate a repeat of last year's vulgarities on the part of you and your friends.'

  'You're unfair, Mother . . .'

  'I am worried.'

  'You don't need to be.'

  'We agreed, Edmund, that you would come in a spirit of atonement and to help,' she said as she looked around the ballroom. 'I will not forgive any misconduct tonight. If I'm shamed . . .' She paused. 'If the Society is shamed, I will hold you responsible. I will carry out my threat not to give you a penny piece towards your venture with this girl's father.' She gave me an irritated look. 'Now do we have an agreement?'

  'We always had,' he replied, unruffled, 'and you're wrong about my friends.'

  'I'm not wrong.' Her sigh was resigned. 'Please be more attentive to Miss Buckley.'

  The musicians were playing and the room quite crowded by this time. My parents arrived and joined us and we chatted about the fact that the Lord Lieutenant would not, after all, be attending. My father, who was wearing a dark grey evening suit and already looked hot, disguised his disappointment well. My mother looked beautiful in burgundy-coloured velvet.

  When the musicians struck up a waltz Ned Mulvey excused us and took me on to the floor.

  'You dance well,' he said.

  'Your lead is easy to follow,' I said.

  'I doubt, my dear Alicia, that you could be led anywhere you didn't want to go.'

  'That could be said of both of us,' I said and we danced in silence until I asked, 'What happened at last year's ball?'

  'Very little. It was a great fuss about nothing, as is often the

  case in Dublin.' He whirled us from the path of a clumsy couple. 'This town can be too provincial by half at times. I'll be ending my business here soon and returning to London.'

  Once he'd got money from his mother. He was becoming less and less charming as the night went on.

  'It could be that you'll be happier there,' I said.

  'Happy?' He gave a short laugh. 'Are you happy in your dispensary with the sick? Is my mother happy with her good works? Is your mother happy?' The music ended and we came off the floor. 'Are you happy tonight, Alicia? Am I?' He looked bored, and shrugged. 'I shouldn't have brought you here.'

  'Why did you?'

  'I thought it would be amusing to . . . excite passions. I was wrong. It's merely predictable. Boredom has yet again won out.' He looked around. 'I must leave you for a while.' He was gone, again.

  He was missi
ng for a long time. The punch had made me lightheaded and I sat by the wall and failed to think lucidly about what he had said. I watched my mother dance and my father talk with a group of men who all looked remarkably like himself. I saw Dr Maurice McDermott with his daughter Jane and a fat, powdered woman and wondered if he'd at last found himself a wife. I felt very apart from it all. When the music stopped my parents came to me.

  'Alone?' my mother said.

  'It's not right,' my father muttered. 'He shouldn't have left you like this.'

  'It was an unsuitable arrangement from the beginning.' My mother shrugged. She looked pleased. Vindicated, I supposed.

  'I'm sorry I came.' I knew this would please my mother, and my father, for their separate reasons.

  But my regrets had nothing to do with them. My head was clearer now and I was feeling grossly humiliated. I didn't know how or why Ned Mulvey had intended to make amusing use of me and I didn't want to stay at the ball to find out. I wanted to be at home with my books, even with the dreaded Mary Connor for company. She, at least, was part of a world I understood and could deal with.

  'Maybe you should leave,' my mother said, 'you've caused enough embarrassment. Your father will call a carriage.'

  'You're right,' I said, 'I'll go home.'

  'We'll all go,' my father said. 'Get your cloak, Alicia.'

  My mother was arguing with him as I left for the cloakroom.

  The smallest things can determine the course of a life. As I crossed the reception hall a current of crisp, night air gusted past and made me stop. A door to the rear stood open; my reeling head and hot cheeks decided the rest.

  I stepped through the door and found myself in a private garden. It was wintry-looking and bleak, with skeleton trees and bare bushes. But there were walkways too and a bower and high hedging. When I rounded a corner I saw a waterless fountain. Gasoliers had been positioned about the place and guests from the ball were like figures on a stage, moving in and out of the shadows as they took the air.

  After the ballroom it felt cool and clean in that garden. I walked along a path and when I came to a secluded wooden bench sat and closed my eyes and took deep breaths. The air on my face and in my lungs made me feel immediately better. I sat on. After a while a gong sounded for the buffet and I heard people begin to go back inside.

  When I opened my eyes my mother and Ned Mulvey were standing in the shadows not ten feet away. My mother was holding him by the arms and speaking in a low, impassioned voice. He was smiling. After a minute he nodded, agreeing to what she asked, and held her to him. They kissed.

  I did nothing for a minute. I couldn't. Things I'd never understood were becoming clearer than I wanted them to. My heart ached for my betrayed father, waiting in the hall for me and for my mother.

  I stood and called to her. 'Mother . . .'

  They turned together, then moved apart. My mother stood very still, staring at me. Ned Mulvey gave a low laugh.

  'Were you looking for me, Alicia?' he asked. I shook my head and began walking toward the door to the garden.

  'Wait,' he called.

  I kept going. There was a rustle to my right and my mother hurried past along another path. Hoping to get to my father before I did, I supposed.

  'I haven't been very attentive,' Ned Mulvey came up behind me and took my arm, 'but it's not too late to remedy . . .'

  'There's nothing to remedy because I'm not the one who's ill.' I shook my arm free. 'I see now how I must have amused you. You and my mother are what needs remedying.'

  I would have walked on but he stood in my way. We were alone, the only people left in the gardens.

  'We have nothing to say to one another,' I said.

  'You're a temptress, Alicia, though you may not know it.' His smile was the old, mocking one. 'You're like your mother in ways you don't even realise. That's why I liked you and why I invited you here.'

  'I'm not at all like my mother,' I said, 'and neither do I share her tastes. You disgust me.'

  His smile turned cold, then angry. He stepped closer to me. 'I don't disgust your mother,' he said.

  When I moved back I found myself standing against a hedge.

  'Nowhere to go, Alicia,' he smiled, 'but maybe it's time you learned that if you dance with the devil you'll be pricked by his horns.' He touched one of the roses on my bodice. 'What a pity you don't share your mother's . . . tastes. We're alone here, you know that.' He was almost on top of me. 'The evening has become quite interesting.'

  'You said earlier it was boring,' I reminded him.

  The door to the garden was closed. I wanted it to open and for my father to come through. I wanted to be a child again. I didn't want any of this to be happening.

  'You're such a serious young woman, Alicia,' he said, 'you must try to see, and enjoy, the amusements in life.' His hands were in his pockets but I didn't trust him to keep them there.

  When I tried to move sideways he moved with me. 'I would guess, Alicia, that you have never been kissed. Am I right?'

  'That's none of your business,' I said.

  'It could be that you've a taste for the sort of kiss your mother enjoys . . .'

  'My father is at the other side of that door. I'll scream if you touch me. You'll be disgraced. Let me pass now.'

  'You poor beautiful child,' he laughed, 'your father is already disgraced. Half the town knows about your mother's dalliances. Do you think I'm the first?' He gazed at me then shrugged. 'You knew nothing at all, did you? I could never be sure. You seemed sophisticated enough. I thought too that your friend from the tenements knew and would have told you.'

  No. I hadn't known. I'd been too concerned with myself to know anything. This was what Sarah had tried to tell me as Mary Ann lay dying. I hadn't wanted to hear. I wanted to be sick. I asked a question instead.

  'Does Mary Connor know about your . . . liaison?'

  'The wicked dwarf is our postman,' he laughed without humour, 'her sister, who works for my mother, is the receptacle she delivers to.'

  And my father the fool who paid her wages. My mother and Mary Connor made a rarer couple than I'd thought.

  'I want to leave now,' I said again 'my father is waiting.'

  I knew my mother wouldn't be. I'd heard what she said to Ned Mulvey. They were to be together that night.

  'Don't fret so, Alicia.' He lifted a lock of my hair. 'I'm not going to rape you. I don't need to rape a woman, or even a girl, to persuade her of my charms. Still, now that it's looking as if I'll be returning to London sooner than I expected, it would be a pity to part on bad terms.' He ran two fingers down my cheek.

  I spat into his face.

  It was the wrong thing to do. He slapped me twice, quick, hard blows which stung my cheeks like lashes from a whip. My ears began a ringing and tears came to my eyes. I cried out and he snarled at me, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

  'It would have entertained me to have mother and daughter but not any longer. You're still a child. A child playing among the dirt and disease of the slummers. You should stay there. You're not yet fit for society. You may never be.' He walked toward the door. When he got there he opened it and turned. 'Your father will have discovered tonight that he is a fool and a cuckold. I would spare him the news of our encounter, if I were you. He is already unhappy enough.'

  The reception hall was almost empty as I collected my cloak and went into the street. I didn't see my father and didn't look for him.

  I walked quickly for Sackville Street, putting my head back and taking deep breaths as I went. A bright moon had come out but clouds were moving to cover it. I felt both free and imprisoned. I didn't know how I would face my father.

  I'd got as far as Findlaters when he came alongside in a carriage. I climbed in and sat next to him and we drove home through the mainly quiet streets. Neither of us mentioned my mother, or where she was. I ached for him to put an arm about me but he didn't, his own pain too great to help me with mine. Crossing Carlisle Bridge I remembered the day I
'd arrived home and almost wept for its innocence. I closed my eyes and prayed for the journey to end so as I could be in my room, alone.

  'Are you all right?' my father asked, once.

  I nodded. 'Don't worry about me, Dada. I'm fine,' I said.

  My face was hot and sore and beginning to stiffen. I felt sure there would be marks.

  'Good,' my father said and I knew he didn't want to know what had happened in the gardens. My mother's betrayal was all he could deal with for now. Ned Mulvey had been right about that, at least.

  I kissed my father lightly before going to my room. 'You should sleep,' I said.

  'I'll wait down here,' he said, 'for a while.'

  I put a cold cream pomatum on my face. It soothed a little but my right eye, which was almost closed, would be worse before morning.

  I lay for a long time without sleeping. The sky was lightening before I heard a carriage stop on the road outside and my mother let herself into the house. My father, still waiting in the parlour, came into the hallway and spoke to her. They exchanged two sentences, no more, before my mother climbed the stairs to her room. My father went back into the parlour and closed the door.

  I stayed in my room all the following day. When the girl came with hot water for me to wash in I averted my face and told her to bring me tea, nothing more. My father came once to my door but didn't enter. He would be away for two days, he called to me, we would talk when he got back.

  From my mother I heard nothing at all.

  That night I packed all that I valued into two bags. I also packed some things I didn't value but which would get me money in a pawn or jeweller's shop. Into my purse I put what money I had and this journal.

  I wrote two letters. To my father I said I couldn't any longer live with my mother. I told him where I would be, so as he wouldn't worry, but said he was on no account to come after me. I would let him know when I had decided a plan for my future. I wished him every happiness and I meant it.