A Great Beauty

by A. O'Connor

  “Hazel!” snapped Eileen. “I know you are my father’s biggest champion and supporter but please – please – allow him to speak to me himself!”

  Shocked by Eileen’s outburst, Hazel looked at John who nodded reassuringly at her.

  She then stood and said, “I need to check on tonight’s dinner arrangements. I’ll let you two have some time to chat.”

  “Thank you,” said Eileen as she watched her stepmother leave the studio and close the door behind her.

  “There was no need to be rude to Hazel, Eileen. All she has ever done is try and be a friend to you.”

  “Indeed – who could say anything bad about Hail Saint Hazel!” Eileen’s voice dripped sarcasm.

  “She even arranged your first marriage for you in Tangier.”

  Eileen sighed loudly. “I know, and I apologise. I have no gripe against Hazel – apart from the constant adulation you have given her to the exclusion of everybody else in your life.”

  “Another untruth!”

  “Really?” said Eileen as she waved at the numerous paintings of Hazel around the studio. “This place is like a shrine to her!”

  “Well, she is a celebrity.”

  “She’s a celebrity because you made her one!” She sighed loudly. “I try not to be jealous, Papa, I really do. But when I think of the adulation you give Hazel – and Alice, by virtue of the fact she is her daughter – and compare it to the disinterest you had for me and my mother – it hurts.”

  “You were just a baby when she died – what could you know about my relationship to your mother?”

  “I know you never really loved her because I never once saw you mourn for her over the years.”

  “When you mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis, I was working on my first big commission – recording the visit of Queen Victoria to the International Exhibition, Glasgow.”

  “So, you put the royal family before your own family?”

  “I – I couldn’t turn my back on such a commission, Eileen. Not a job of that magnitude. It was out of the question. And there were doctors’ bills to be paid and I was a struggling artist at the time. But I admit I could have been a better father to you.”

  “William is very upset that you and Hazel have not made an effort with him.”

  “Well – it hasn’t been easy, Eileen. Your divorce and being cited as an adulteress because of your affair with him – it was a lot for us to take in.”

  “I would have thought with your overriding love for Hazel you might have understood how I followed my heart?” Eileen stood up abruptly. “I think I’m wasting my time here. I don’t think you’ll ever accept William.”

  He stood and embraced her. “I do love you, Eileen … when we get back from Ireland we will spend more time with you – and with William and the children.”

  She nodded. “But something else always comes first with you, doesn’t it, Papa?”

  She walked out of the studio, followed by a silent John.

  “Well?” asked Hazel after Eileen had left.

  “She feels neglected,” said John.

  “Oh dear!” Hazel pulled a face.

  “She feels we haven’t accepted William.”

  “Well, under normal circumstances we would have welcomed him with open arms – he’s going to be a Scottish lord! But the divorce was very unpleasant, and I am in the process of converting to Catholicism – the Bishop did raise an eyebrow about Eileen’s divorce to me. She’s just feeling a little needy. Once we get back from Ireland, we’ll smother her with love and attention!”

  “That’s what I said to her too.”

  “Very good.” Hazel smiled at him before walking off to the drawing room.

  John stood there silently, Eileen’s words whirling around his mind.

  CHAPTER 9

  Hazel was shocked by what she saw during their stay in Ireland. Gone was the beautiful relaxed atmosphere of the country she had loved. In its place were armed tanks, Tans everywhere and violence.

  She saw their trip as a peace mission, and they had a packed itinerary meeting people. She found that John’s celebrity status as an artist as ever opened doors and powerful men were willing to have meetings with them.

  “Vanity!” declared Hazel. “They all want to have their portrait painted by John Lavery.”

  She was correct and the temptation for these men to be captured for posterity by one of the greatest artists of the day was too strong to resist. However, even that temptation was not enough to lure the republican leaders out from hiding to pose for a portrait. During their stay in Dublin, Hazel anxiously awaited news from Shane Leslie or one of their other contacts saying the rebel leaders, and particularly Michael Collins, had agreed to meet them. But there was no response.

  Meanwhile Collins’ infamy was growing by the day, as it seemed impossible for the British authorities to track him down.

  “‘They seek him here – they seek him there!’” said John as he read the morning newspaper headline about Michael Collins while they had breakfast in their room at the Royal Marine Hotel.

  “The Irish Pimpernel!” added Hazel as she took a sip of tea and looked out at the sea view.

  John began to read from the front-page article: “British Auxiliaries raided a number of houses on Dublin’s northside in the early hours of this morning in their search for Republican leader Michael Collins. It is understood the raids were made after a number of tip-offs. No arrests were made.”

  As well as forming the ‘Black and Tans’, the British had created another constabulary unit, the Auxiliary Division, consisting of ex-army officers. They operated in well-armed mobile units whose job was to hunt down and wipe out IRA groups in the Irish countryside.

  “So Michael slipped through their fingers again,” said Hazel.

  “‘However,” John continued to read from the article, “‘a number of casualties were reported after gunshots were fired. It is understood two of the cases were fatal.’”

  Hazel put down her cup of tea in horror. “In other words – innocent people were gunned down and killed in the fruitless hunt for Collins! What a mindless tragedy!”

  There was a knock on the door and a porter entered the room, holding a silver tray.

  “Your morning post, sir.”

  “Ah, thank you, young man,” said John, reaching out and taking the post.

  Hazel took up the newspaper and looked through it as John sorted through the envelopes he had just received.

  “It is heart-breaking,” said Hazel. “Six RIC officers killed in an ambush in Tipperary … a village burned by the Auxiliaries in retaliation for the killing of a police officer in Galway … the shooting dead of a suspected informer in Cork.”

  “Shocking,” said John.

  “It’s deeply depressing,” said Hazel.

  “On a lighter note, my dear, here’s a letter from Alice.”

  “Ah!” Hazel smiled and, putting down the newspaper, reached out and took the envelope addressed to her in familiar handwriting.

  As John began to open his post, Hazel sat back and began to read the letter from her daughter.

  “She misses us dreadfully,” she said. “She sends you all the love and kisses in the world … she even misses my singing … and says we are to hurry home. You see, absence does make the heart grow fonder!”

  Hazel laughed and looked up at John.

  She saw his face had gone deathly pale and his frown nearly scared her.

  “John? What’s the matter?” she asked urgently.

  “Nothing! Nothing at all,” he said, quickly folding over a letter and putting it back into its envelope.

  “What is that? Who is that letter from?”

  “It’s nothing!”

  “John Lavery – give me that letter now!” demanded Hazel, her hand outstretched.

  John reluctantly handed the letter over to her.

  “It doesn’t say who it’s from … the writer didn’t sign it,” he said.

  She began to read
: People like you should be extinguished from the face of the earth. Stop interfering in something that is none of your business. Go back to London and your high-society friends and take your bitch Yankee wife with you.

  Hazel gasped and her hand shot up to cover her mouth.

  She read on: Stop interfering in Irish affairs that have nothing to do with you. Profiting from war and the killings of others is a sin.

  “Good Lord!” she said. “What a venomous correspondence! Who would write such a thing?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s frightening that somebody could,” said John, worry etched across his face.

  “What is all this nonsense about profiting from the war?”

  “They must think I’m getting paid for the painting of the political and religious leaders here,” said John.

  “So, the writer is misinformed as well as cruel and vulgar – ‘bitch Yankee wife’ indeed!”

  “Frightful. What should we do? We don’t want to offend anybody or alienate people.”

  “Who are we offending or alienating? We are trying to make friends across the divide – that’s all!”

  “But in doing so we risk doing damage to the very cause we are espousing.”

  “Nonsense!” Hazel got to her feet and, clasping the letter, began to pace up and down excitedly. “Don’t you see, John? This letter shows we are making progress – real progress! To receive a letter like this means that we are unsettling people and that people are taking us seriously. When people want you to go away, you know you’re a force to be reckoned with! This has strengthened my determination that we should be envoys in any way we can during this dreadful, dreadful war. Now we must hurry – we have a long journey to make to Belfast to meet the Lord Mayor – a staunch Unionist, so we must be prepared for a cool reception! I must wear something bright and cheerful.”

  As Hazel waltzed away to her dressing room, John looked after her in awe. He wasn’t sure whether his wife was brave or mad, receiving such a letter without it causing a moment of concern, but he was in awe of her either way.

  Hazel and John spent the month of October continuing their tour of Ireland. As John painted important figures, Hazel made mental notes of all she saw and wrote back to political friends in London about the horrors she witnessed.

  One night, when they were staying at their friend Charlie Vane-Tempest-Stewart’s estate in Ulster, Hazel tossed and turned in her bed. She was having a nightmare. It was a dream she’d had before. It concerned her dead sister Dorothy. In the early part of the dream Dorothy was young and beautiful and happy, as she had been growing up. They were at their home in Astor Place in Chicago and her mother and father were still alive too and they were all so happy. But then the bright happy feeling in the dream began to fade away and suddenly her father wasn’t in the dream anymore and neither was her mother, and neither was their house in Astor Place. And it was as if she wasn’t in the dream herself anymore either but was just looking on at Dorothy who was very alone and very scared and very ill. In the dream Hazel was desperately trying to reach out to her sister but she was slipping away from her.

  And then Hazel awoke and realised she had been crying while she slept and had dreamed. The morning light was coming through the windows and John had already got up and wasn’t there. And now she was awake the tears wouldn’t stop. It was like as if she was mourning her sister all over again and the pain and the grief were too much to bear. She grabbed a pillow and, hugging it, began to sob into it.

  The door opened and John walked in.

  He stopped abruptly as he saw Hazel in a huddle, sobbing into the pillow.

  “Hazel!” he said, rushing to her. “Whatever is the matter?”

  He sat on the side of the bed and reached out to her. She turned to him and he saw her face was red and her face tearstained.

  “Hazel!”

  She embraced him and began to sob loudly as she held him tightly.

  “Oh, John, I was having the most awful dream. It was about – Dorothy.” She was unable to speak as the pain of the memory of her sister overwhelmed her.

  He sat soothing her and stoking her hair.

  “It felt – so real,” she said between sobs. “She was alive, in front of me, and I tried to reach out and help her – but I couldn’t!”

  John held her tightly as she continued to sob. She’d had this dream often since her sister’s death. The guilt of Dorothy’s death and how she had died alone and impoverished in a Chicago hospital haunted Hazel and John knew she would never escape that ghost. This was the other Hazel that nobody on the outside saw. Behind the beauty and the wit and charm was this guilt-ridden woman who could never escape what had happened to her sister.

  “Oh, John, what will I do if you ever leave me?” she cried.

  “But I will never leave you, Hazel. I love you and I will always be here for you.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Kitty was sitting behind the bar in the Greville Arms hotel. Ever since the war had started, business in the evenings was slack. Before the troubles, the bar would be filled each night with drinkers. But now there wasn’t much trade after a certain hour. People didn’t like to be out late – they liked to be safe at home before darkness fell. Everyone lived in a climate of fear. Kitty had sent the barman home and said she would look after the bar for the rest of the evening. There had been an ambush of an army lorry twenty miles away that afternoon and so tensions were running high. She knew that the barman lived a few miles outside the town, and she didn’t want him cycling back late through a rural area when all she had to do was walk down a corridor to be home.

  There were only two customers, sitting at the end of the bar having a chat. It was her brother’s Larry’s night off and he was with them enjoying conversation that was no more controversial than the price cattle had fetched in the market that week.

  Kitty sighed as she reached into her pocket and took out the envelope she had received in the post that morning. It was from Harry. She took out the letter and read it again.

  My darling Kitty,

  I can’t tell you how happy I was when I received your letter today. Since it had been a couple of weeks since I received your last one, I feared you had forgotten about me! Or worse, had been swept away by some dashing fella the likes of whom I could not compete against.

  But, with the receipt of your letter, all is well with my world again. Every letter I get from you is like a magic carpet that sweeps me from this huge lonely impersonal city and back to the loveliness of Ireland and to you, my sweet, darling Kitty. I long for when I can see you again and be with you. I had a dream the other night that I was back in Longford like before. You were there, of course, beside me and the whole gang. We were dancing and singing, and Mick had us in stitches laughing over some joke. Then I woke up and realised it was but a dream and you were an ocean away from me.

  Have you seen Mick at all? I haven’t heard from him in a while. I miss him and the fun we had with him. I long to get those days back, the three of us together – a trinity of fun and friendship.

  Kitty stopped reading and looked up from the letter. As often over the past few of weeks since Michael had visited, her thoughts drifted to him. She hadn’t heard anything from him since then, though he was mentioned in the newspapers every day, his exploits becoming more daring all the time. What savage pressure he lived under!

  She had enjoyed his company so much during that last visit and had been upset that he had dashed off so quickly – but the war came before everything. As she looked down at Harry’s letter, she remembered that last night with Michael when she had read poetry to him by the fire and when he had reached out and asked her to stay longer and she had run off to bed feigning tiredness. The truth was he had stirred something in her that she didn’t want to acknowledge and didn’t want to face. She kept thinking about the revelation that there had been a bet between him and Harry when they first met, about who would win her heart. It was flattering to hear that Michael had originally been interested
in her. Initially she had suspected that, and she had always found him attractive. But it was Harry she had ended up falling for and she had ended up courting. He was more attentive, gentle, genuine and romantic than the dramatic, unpredictable, glamorous Michael – but, also, as time went on it was obvious to everyone that Michael’s interest was in Helen. He had all the hallmarks of a man in love. She idly wondered how things might have worked out if Michael had pursued her. She shook her head, willing the daydream away. She had ended up courting Harry but fate had then taken him away to America. Then, to add further complication into the mix, she had a fine fellow like Lionel Lyster actively trying to woo her – and everyone told her she was mad not to accept him. Her love life was complicated enough without daydreaming about Mick Collins!

  She put the letter away, then looked up and saw a young man enter the bar. She recognised him immediately as the local RIC policeman for the town, Philip Kelleher. It must have been his night off as he was wearing civilian clothes. He had been stationed in the town a few months and kept mostly to himself. He was an affable-looking young man with a very polite nature. Like everywhere else in the country, the war had stopped the police from carrying out their duties in the area. Most too frightened of being shot in retaliation, they left the policing of the country to the army and the hated Black and Tans. Although the police were Irishmen, they were being paid by the British government and this made them a target and an enemy. Many had resigned as their positions were untenable and their stations were quickly burned down by the rebels once they vacated.

  Kitty had chatted to this young policeman, Philip Kelleher, a few times when he came into the bar on a night off. He was the son of a Cork doctor and had fought on the front in France during the Great War. After the war he had joined the police and been stationed in Granard. Wisely, he did not try to implement his post and was just seen as a polite figurehead around the town.

  “Good evening, Miss Kiernan,” said Kelleher as he approached the bar.