by A. O'Connor
Clara booked into the Shelbourne Hotel and had barely time to unpack and change when reception rang up and said Johnny was waiting for her in the foyer. Assuming he planned to go for dinner and might want to go out, she hurriedly got ready and went down to meet him.
“I only left you an hour ago!” she said.
“I know, but the play starts in half an hour,” he said, taking her arm and propelling her to the doorway.
“Play? What play?”
“We’re off to see a play this evening, didn’t I tell you?”
“No, you didn’t. I’d planned to have an early night after all the travel.”
“Early night, pah!” he dismissed as he pushed her through the revolving doors and out to the waiting cab.
Clara had nearly forgotten what it was like to be in a theatre as she took her seat in The Gaiety. Looking around at the glamorous crowd, she cursed Johnny for rushing her out of her hotel in her comparatively plain attire.
“Hello, Johnny!” called a man waving from across the aisle.
Johnny waved back.
“Johnny, you’re back! Good to see you!” said a woman turning around from a few rows down.
“You seem to be quite well known,” said Clara.
“Of course I am.” He looked around the theatre. “They’re all wondering who you are. Wondering if we are lovers.”
Clara looked at him, shocked. “Johnny!”
“I’m only saying what they’re thinking.”
“Well, don’t! You’ll make me feel guilty.”
“Sorry – couldn’t have that!” He smiled at her.
Soon the curtain rose. Countess Alice Kavinsky was the lead and Clara had to admit she found her performance in The Taming of the Shrew mesmerising.
Afterwards, when they were in the crowded foyer, Alice shouted over to them, “Johnny, we’re all going to Jammet’s. See you there!”
Clara enjoyed every minute of her time in Dublin. But there was a feverish atmosphere there as the city was still being rebuilt after the Rising. It had been under martial law during the Rising and there was so much resentment that it felt to Clara like a furnace about to explode. Johnny had a huge list of things for her to do and he rushed her from event to event. One minute she was having lunch in one of Dublin’s fine hotels with the intelligentsia, the next she was attending a political talk in a draughty hall.
Clara and Johnny were in a taxi cab back to Johnny’s Dublin flat.
“It’s like I’ve never heard people talk like that before,” she was saying. “Not with such passion and vigour. I mean, before I married, before the war, all we talked about was which party to go to and how much everyone was worth. And after I got married, well, my husband’s set seemed only to care about country pursuits.”
“And how does Dublin make you feel?”
“It makes me feel alive.”
He smiled at her as he studied her face.
Johnny’s home in Dublin was a top-floor flat in Leeson Street in Dublin. The cab left them off outside and they climbed the steps to the front door and made their way up the stairs to his flat.
The flat was large and doubled as a studio.
He made her a cup of coffee and handed it to her.
“They make it all sound so exciting,” she said. “That anything is possible. When I was beginning to think that nothing was possible.”
“The world can emerge from this war better than before. And this country can have a glorious future ahead of it.”
“Well, my time in Dublin has been wonderful. It was lovely to see and experience your world.”
“It can be your world as well.”
“No, it can’t. Next week I will go home to my house and wait for my husband to return from war and then continue with our marriage and our life in whatever way it takes shape.” She looked into her coffee sadly.
He walked over to her and sat beside her. Taking the cup from her, he put it on the floor.
“You don’t have to do that, Clara,” he said. He reached forward and put his lips on her mouth.
She pulled back quickly and stood up, shocked. “I’d better go.”
“I’ve offended you.”
“No – it’s just . . . I can’t.”
He stood up and held her shoulders. “I thought there was something between us?”
“I’m married, Johnny.”
“Unhappily.”
“I’ve made my decision.”
“People divorce all the time!”
“In your world, not in mine. I’m not one of your intellectual friends. I’m a woman who was brought up to fulfil a role. And the role I chose was Lady Armstrong.”
He grabbed her and kissed her again. “Tell me you don’t feel the same. That you don’t have feelings.”
She pushed him aside. “I’ll see you at the exhibition tonight.”
She walked quickly from the room.
“I won’t give up trying!” he shouted after her.
The gallery was full of people for the exhibition. She nearly hadn’t gone, nervous of seeing Johnny again, scared of what he was beginning to mean to her. She wasn’t stupid – she had felt the chemistry between them. So different from the relationship she had with Pierce. She had wondered would it be awkward for them that night, but he took control and with his forceful and jovial personality made sure she was comfortable.
She was one of a small select group of artists being exhibited and as she made her way through the gallery she was infused with a sense of pride to see her paintings hanging on the wall, her painting of Mrs Fennell at work in the kitchen being her main exhibit.
“It’s getting a very positive reaction,” said Johnny.
“Really?” Clara was overjoyed.
“The critic from The Times said you were most promising.”
“Story of my life!” She smiled cynically at him.
He laughed and, taking her by the arm, led her around to introduce her to people.
Countess Alice sidled up beside her. “I have to say I love your paintings.”
“Oh thank you!”
“I love the concept of it all. Lady Armstrong drawing her cook slaving in the kitchen for her.”
“It’s not meant like that!” Clara said, shocked.
Alice was studying her intently. “So you’re Johnny’s new muse. Let me take a good look at you . . . Yes, my memory serves me right – you are very beautiful, my dear.” She leaned closer to her. “Have you slept with him yet?”
Clara’s face clouded with concern. “How dare you say such a thing!”
“I’ll take that as a no then? Which explains why he is still so attentive to you. The problem with Johnny is, once he sleeps with you he tends to move on to his next muse.” Alice looked smug as she put her hand to her chest. “I should know! I’m one of his conquests.”
Clara’s eyes widened in horror, causing Alice to laugh nastily.
“Oh Clara! You poor thing! Did you think you might be special to him?” She laughed again. “You’re just his latest muse. As soon as he’s finished your portrait and bedded you, he’ll be off to his next well-heeled beauty. It’s funny that for all his socialist talk, he only ever shares his bed with aristocrats. A case of ‘do as I say, rather than do as I do’, I imagine.”
“Excuse me, please,” said Clara as she moved away from her.
Clara walked through the crowd quickly and suddenly felt an arm around her waist.
“There you are!” said Johnny. “Come on. I need to introduce you to a critic.”
Back in her hotel room Clara rang down to reception.
“It’s Lady Armstrong here. Please book me a cab for the train station first thing in the morning.”
Johnny bounded up the steps of the Shelbourne with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a copy of The Times with a review of Clara’s paintings in the other.
“Could you ring up to Clara Armstrong and tell her Johnny Seymour awaits her,” he said to man behind the reception with a big grin.<
br />
“I’m afraid Lady Armstrong left the hotel for the train station early this morning,” answered the receptionist.
“What? Did she leave any message?”
“No message,” said the man as he continued with his work.
Johnny turned away crestfallen and walked out, still holding the flowers and the newspaper.
74
Clara stood in the ballroom of the house looking at the unfinished portrait on the easel.
“You stupid woman!” she said to the image of herself on the canvas. “Stupid, stupid woman!” She covered the painting with a sheet and went out into the hallway where she passed Fennell holding a tray with a teapot on it.
“Fennell, the portrait of me in the ballroom. Put it away somewhere, will you? An attic or somewhere out of the way.”
“Very good, ma’am. Mr Seymour will not be returning to finish the portrait?”
“No, Mr Seymour will not.”
And Johnny, who had obviously got the message, was staying clear.
As Clara drove through the little village she decided to stop and go into the church. She pulled up outside and walked through the summer sunshine into the small building. She was surprised to see Emily Foxe there at the top aisle, head down. She walked up to her.
“Emily?” she asked.
When Emily looked up, Clara got a fright to see her face white and her eyes red from heavy crying.
“What is it, Emily?” Clara asked, sitting quickly beside her and putting an arm around her.
“It’s Felix. He was killed in that last . . . battle,” she just managed to say the word.
“Oh no, Emily!” Clara pulled her close and hugged her tightly as she dissolved in tears. As she held the sobbing woman she thought of young Felix’s innocent face, good nature and endearing stammer.
That night Clara was awoken by a loud bang. She sat up quickly in her bed. A minute later there was another bang and she realised it was a stone being thrown at her window. She jumped out of bed and hurried to the window, looking down at the forecourt below. She couldn’t see anything, so she opened the window and peered nervously out.
“Clara!” said a voice from the shadows.
“Who is it?” she demanded.
“It’s Johnny!”
“Johnny! What do you want at this hour?”
“I need to see you. Come to the front door and don’t alert the servants.”
“I will not! This is ridiculous!”
“Please! It’s an emergency.”
Clara hesitated and then quickly closed the window. She wrapped her silk dressing gown around her and left the room, hurrying down the stairs and across the hall to the front door which she unlocked and unbolted.
Johnny was standing there with his poet friend Thomas Geraghty beside him, Johnny propping him up.
“What in God’s name is going on?” demanded Clara.
Johnny pushed past her and half-carried Thomas across the hall and through into the drawing room.
Clara shut the front door and followed them quickly. Closing the drawing-room door behind her and turning on the light, she demanded again, “What are you doing here?”
Johnny carefully placed his friend down on a chair and it was only then that she realised Thomas was wounded.
“What happened to him?” she asked, rushing over and looking at him.
Johnny said nothing but carefully pulled back Thomas’s coat and Clara gasped as she saw the bloodstained shirt.
“He’s been shot,” said Johnny.
“Shot!” Clara nearly screamed.
“It’s okay. He’s over the worst. We got him to a doctor who fixed him up and bandaged the wound.”
“But Johnny, he needs to go straight to a hospital.”
Johnny turned around and faced her. “He can’t go to a hospital, because he would be arrested, tried for treason and then shot again for good.”
Clara knelt down beside Thomas as realisation dawned on her. “He was in the Rising?”
Johnny nodded. “He managed to escape but they are looking for him everywhere. He was hiding in Longford, but they got wind of where he was. He managed to escape but they shot him in the process.”
Just then they heard a door open and close in the hallway.
“It’s someone coming out of the servants’ quarters! Probably Fennell!” said Clara, panicked.
“Get rid of him!” ordered Johnny.
“If I don’t say something now, I’ll be an accessory.”
“If you say something now, you’re condemning him to death. Do you want that?”
Clara looked down at Thomas, then dashed to the door and went into the hallway.
It was Fennell in his dressing gown, looking alarmed. Only then did it occur to Clara that he might have looked out of one of the attic windows and seen the two men.
“My lady! Is everything all right? I thought I heard somebody outside – some noises.”
“No, no, Fennell. It’s just me. I couldn’t sleep so needed a drink of sherry to help me on my way!” She smiled at him.
“I see.” Fennell still looked puzzled.
“Oh, I opened my window to get some air and slammed it shut – that might have woken you,” Clara improvised.
His face cleared. “Aah, yes – that was it. Very well, my lady. But let me make you some hot milk – it may be more advisable.”
“Not at all. I’m happy with my sherry. You toddle back to bed.”
Fennell nodded and retreated back to the servants’ quarters.
Clara waited until he was well gone, then returned to the drawing room and closed the door, locking it behind her.
“He heard you throwing the stones,” she said, “but I told him it was me shutting my window.”
Johnny was pouring himself a large glass of whiskey. “Want one?”
She nodded and walked quickly over to him.
She kept her voice low so Thomas couldn’t hear, though in fact he seemed to be only semi-conscious now, presumably from medication the doctor had given him.
“What on earth did you bring him here for?” she muttered angrily, grabbing the whiskey glass from him and taking a gulp.
“I couldn’t think of anywhere safe to hide him,” said Johnny.
“How about your own house?” she snapped.
“It wouldn’t be safe. They’re searching all the houses in the area looking for him. My place will definitely be searched because of all the political people I know.”
“And what makes you so sure this house won’t be?” she asked, half-panicked, half-incredulous.
“They’ll never search here. Lord and Lady Armstrong’s house? And your husband a high-ranking officer in the army?”
“You have it all thought out!” She was amazed and angry. “You’ve put me in a terrible position, Johnny! You’re asking me to harbour a criminal.”
“A freedom fighter.”
“I don’t care what you call him! He’s illegal and he’s in my drawing room, in my house.”
Johnny went over to the front windows and looked out from behind the curtains.
“It’s only for a couple of days until we can arrange for him to be transported down to the south. They’ll never find him there.”
She hurried over to him. “And where do you propose I hide him? Don’t you think Fennell and the other servants will see him?”
“We’ll put him up in one of the guest bedrooms and lock the door. They’ll never know he’s there.”
“No, Johnny! You have to leave immediately and take him with you. Take him to the south tonight.”
“I can’t – there are too many road blocks.”
“Well, I don’t care where you take him as long as it’s nothing to do with me. He can’t stay here. I’m sorry.” She turned and folded her arms.
“In that case you’re sentencing him to death. He won’t survive without your protection for a couple of days.”
She looked over at Thomas who was now asleep and thought of Fel
ix Foxe and all the others who had been killed.
“All right, two days but no more. He has to be gone by then, do you understand me?”
Johnny smiled down at her and nodded.
75
For the next couple of days Clara’s nerves were fraught. Her main concern was not alerting the servants’ suspicions. She had breakfast delivered to her room in the morning, which she promptly brought down the corridors to the far end of the house where Thomas was hiding and brought whatever food she could to him at night. There was a real risk a servant might hear him move around or cough or moan from pain in his sleep.
“How are you today?” she asked on the third day as she brought in the silver tray of food to him.
He was at the window, peeping out from behind a curtain.
“Has the army been round?” he asked.
