Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars

by Jean Grainger

  The waiter led them to a table in the corner, from where they could observe the entire room. Couples, men in morning suits, and elegantly dressed ladies all chatted amiably in the sumptuously decorated room. The walls were covered with teal and gold silk wallpaper depicting birds of paradise, and the heavy lead crystal chandeliers sparkled. The cutlery, glassware, and linen shone and the gentle hum of background noise was soothing. The only other time Mary had been in a hotel was the day in Kingstown, so she never imagined anywhere could be more glamorous than the Royal Marine Hotel, but she was wrong. This place was breathtaking.

  Rory took off his coat and handed it to a waitress. He wore a smart tweed suit, the only one he owned according to Eileen. His snow white shirt was starched, and he wore brass collar studs and a wine coloured neck tie. He really is so very handsome, Mary thought. His hair was black, like Eileen’s, and curled slightly where it met his shirt collar. She suspected that like his sister’s it would be corkscrew curly if he left it to grow. She wondered at his skin tone, much darker than hers, which only faded slightly in the winter. Women had noticed him as they walked across the room, his tall muscular frame filling the space around him. Beside him she felt like a dwarf, and his azure blue eyes twinkled with merriment.

  ‘Rory, surely you can’t afford this?’ she whispered, once the waiter had left them with some beautiful leather bound menus.

  He winked at her and leaned over the table to whisper in her ear, ‘Of course I can. The Defence of Ireland Fund is paying, sure we must keep the ground troops fed and watered.’

  Mary was horrified. She knew the Volunteers and Cumann na mBan collected money, but it was for guns and things, not for the likes of her to be dining in places like this, aping her betters.

  Rory laughed. ‘If you could just see your face! I’m only pulling your leg. I’ve been working up here in Dublin for three years, and all I do is work and well...you know the rest of what I do, and so I decided it was time to treat myself. And what better way than afternoon tea in the Gresham with the most beautiful girl in Dublin?’ Seeing the worry in her face, his jokey tone changed. ‘Please just enjoy it, Mary, don’t worry about the cost of it. I have enough for it, I promise you, and I really do want to treat you. ‘Twill take all the good out of it if you can’t enjoy it too.’ He put his head on one side and gave her a pleading smile. She melted, incapable of refusing him anything.

  ‘Very well, but the next time, I’m paying. I get paid too, and apart from my contribution to the fund, I’ve nothing else and no one else to spend it on.’

  ‘So there’s going to be a next time then, is there?’ Rory was teasing. She was going to have to get used to this.

  ‘Well, that depends. If the cakes are a good as Mrs Kearns, then I’ll consider it,’ she remarked primly.

  Though the conversation flowed effortlessly between them, Mary noticed that Rory’s eyes constantly darted around the room, and he checked the door every time it opened. On one occasion a group of British officers walked in, and Rory and the waiter exchanged glances.

  ‘Everything alright?’ she asked, stopping her funny story about Mrs Kearns telling Jimmy off, when she saw the shadow cross his face.

  He leaned over and held her hand on the table.

  ‘Yes, I think so. I’m just a bit wary after earlier with that RIC man. John up there,’ he nodded in the direction of the waiter, ‘he’s with us, so he knows the regulars. He seems to think they’re fine.’

  Suddenly the whole situation became very real. They weren’t playing at this. Mrs Grant was always telling Mary that things were going to get serious, even more than they were already, and that they must be ready.

  ‘I know it’s dangerous, Rory, but you will try to be careful won’t you?’ Mary tried to hide the worry in her voice.

  He just nodded, and went on quietly so only she could hear. ‘I will. Especially now I have a lovely girl waiting for me. You will be my girl, won’t you, Mary?’ The normally confident Rory looked vulnerable.

  ‘I’d love it!’ She answered honestly. He grinned and leaned his knee against hers under the table. It was the most intimate gesture, but instead of terror, Mary felt a warm glow. He went on, speaking quietly and holding her hand. To anyone they were a courting couple, whispering sweet nothings.

  ‘Look, the worst thing that could happen for the moment is they force through conscription, though that seems unnecessary at this stage, seeing as so many of our lads joined up anyway. Sure you can’t blame them, I suppose, they need the money and they trust Redmond when he tells them that if we fight for the British, they’ll give us Home Rule.’

  ‘Don’t you think that they will?’ Mary asked.

  Rory considered his answer for a moment. ‘Well, it’s not that I don’t believe him. It’s just for me, and for a lot of us, Home Rule isn’t enough, even if they did give it to us. We want to be free, totally and completely. Free of Britain forever with no ties to her in any way. What Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party are offering is a kind of independence, but we’d still be beholden to them. Sure, they’d let us determine ourselves up to a point, but we would still be subjects of the British king. I can’t accept that. I never will. ’ Determination burned in his eyes.

  She knew she shouldn’t ask but she couldn’t help it. ‘There’s going to be a move made isn’t there?’

  ‘Mary, we can only live one day at a time. We have to get rid of them, we just have to. We deserve to be a self-determining people, and generations of men who went before us believed that too. Maybe ours will be the generation to achieve it, maybe we won’t. But I’ll tell you this, we will die trying to free our country if we have to.’

  Another girl might have begged him not to get involved, or to avoid danger, but Mary knew that Rory O’Dwyer was true to his word. None of them wanted to die, but if they had to, then die they would.

  She told Rory about the attack the master made on Mrs Grant, and for a moment she saw the fury blaze in his eyes.

  ‘They’re nearly worse you know, Mary, than the British, those Irishmen that are in cahoots with the Castle. He’s an informer, I’m sure of it, so be very careful of him. One or two of our lads worked for him in the factory and he was always nosing around and asking questions. He’s a dangerous man with a lot to lose, but if he ever says or does anything to you, I need you to tell me, alright?’

  She nodded, but vowed to stay out of the master’s way as much as was possible.

  Rory insisted on seeing her home all the way to the door of the Grants’ house. She would have liked to ask him in for a cup of cocoa, but she wasn’t sure that would be allowed. Mrs Kearns didn’t mind Eileen calling in the evenings, in fact she quite liked the company, but a young man was a different matter.

  ‘Well, Miss Doyle, it was my pleasure.’ Rory bowed theatrically and kissed her gloved hand. She felt silly but thrilled at the same time.

  ‘Thank you, Rory. I had a lovely time.’ She smiled.

  ‘I say, you there!’ A loud male voice coming from behind made her jump. ‘What on earth do you imagine you are doing loitering outside my home?’ Mr Grant got out of the carriage and Jimmy looked sheepish.

  ‘Get away from my housemaid at once, and leave this place before I call the police.’

  Rory bristled. Mary found herself deeply embarrassed at the way Mr Grant spoke to Rory, but also prayed that Rory wouldn’t do anything to upset her employer.

  Mr Grant stood in front of them both and spoke sharply to Mary. ‘Get inside at once. This type of behaviour will not go unpunished, let me tell you. I’ll deal with you myself later.’ Dismissing her, he turned his attention to Rory. Mary went down the steps into the tradesman’s entrance, but waited inside with the door slightly ajar to hear the exchange.

  ‘Identify yourself,’ Mr Grant demanded.

  ‘Rúaraí O’Duibhir is ainm dom,’ Rory replied in Irish.

  ‘What? Speak properly! Who are you? I advise you not to try any trickery
with me, young man. You do not know who you are dealing with.‘

  ‘Oh, I know who you are alright. I know exactly who you are,’ Rory said quietly. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Grant’s voice was icy. ‘You come to my house and attempt to molest one of my servants and now you are threatening me? I ought to have you horse-whipped.’

  ‘Mary is not your anything. She may work in your house but you have no ownership over her. I saw the way you looked at her and let me tell you this, Mr Grant,’ Rory sneered as he spoke, ‘if you touch so much as a hair of her head, you will regret it. You and your friends above in the Castle are being watched. You might think you have powerful friends who’ll protect you, but don’t you forget, so do I, and so does Mary. And our connections aren’t bound by the same rules as your friends are, if you get my meaning. Am I making myself clear, Mr Grant?’ Rory spoke in a voice Mary barely recognised, cold and threatening.

  Grant puffed up like a bull frog. ‘What do you mean I am being watched? How dare you? You are one of them, aren’t you? A troublemaking fool, lapping up all the lies that Sinn Fein, that excuse for a political party, wants to throw at you. I’m warning you, if I ever see you around my property again, I’ll shoot you myself.’

  Rory laughed into his face. ‘Times are changing, squire, and you’re a traitor to your own people. You’ve lived all cosy with the crowd inside in Dublin Castle with your Rule Britannia and God Save the King and you lining your own pockets by fair means or foul. But your king won’t be much use to you when our day comes, squire, no indeed. And there’s a few question marks about your contracts maybe? I’m sure if the British Army went digging into the paperwork of the supply of uniforms, they’d be interested in what they’d find. Enjoy your position while it lasts, because your days are numbered. Because if they don’t get you, we will. Now remember what I said about Mary. You’re not the only one with powerful friends. you know. You don’t scare me, and if you so much as even much as look in her direction, I will personally see to it that ’tis the last thing you ever do. Cheerio now.’ Rory turned and strolled nonchalantly away, whistling ‘God Save the King’ as he went.

  Mary ran to the kitchen, praying Mrs Kearns was there. She was and Mary blurted out the whole story.

  Mrs Kearns sighed heavily. ‘Rory is foolish to take the master on. He’s a right nasty piece of work if ever there was one. I always suspected there was something going on with the books though. That Johnson is a right piece of work. Did I ever tell you what he said as I was I showing him out one night? I was getting his coat and sez he to the master, ‘Grant’ sez he, and his big plumy accent up on him, ‘that’s a fine filly you have there’, talking about the mistress, of course, ‘but she needs a tighter rein. If you can’t manage her, I’d be happy to break her in for you. She’d be a quiet little mare once I’d be finished with her.’ The master was raging, of course, but he was beholden to Johnson so he just had to take it from him. Johnson looks at the rest of us like we were something he picked up on his shoe. He’s the right match for our fella above then. He gives me the shudders, so he does. There’s something sinister about him too. We’ll just have to hope that Rory’s threats will be enough to keep him away from you.’

  That night Mary lay awake, unable to sleep in her cosy little room. She was frightened of the master, and she hated the way he looked at her. She felt dirty after any encounter with him, but she smiled when she thought of how Rory defended her. She would have to steer well clear of Johnson. He sounded awful, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to answer the door to him when he called. Nothing could take away her joy though. No one had ever stuck up for her in her life before, and to think the handsome Rory O’Dwyer was on her side gave her a thrill of excitement.

  Chapter 17

  Mary and Mrs Kearns sat at the table in the drawing room staring in disbelief at the mistress. She surely couldn’t be serious?

  ‘Look, ladies, I know it’s dangerous. I’ve thought of the consequences and I’d do it alone if I could, but I need your help.’

  Since the night of the attack, things had changed between Mary, Mrs Kearns, and the mistress. Around the master they maintained the respectful distance befitting their stations in life, but when they were alone, they were friends and allies. Mrs Grant took to eating in the kitchen when the master was out, and often the three women would sit by the fire in the evenings discussing the political events of the day. Sometimes Eileen joined them as well, and the mistress was impressed with her commitment to the cause of Irish freedom.

  That evening the mistress had asked them up to the drawing room where a fire blazed merrily in the grate, and they ate toasted crumpets with their tea.

  ‘But Mrs Grant, what you’re suggesting is ...’ Mary was incredulous.

  ‘Dangerous, mad, all of those things. I know that. Look Mary,’ the mistress cut across her, anticipating her objections, ‘none of the jewels he buys me are because he feels anything for me. It’s all just showing off. My idea is simple. I get paste replicas made of all the jewellery I have, not all at once obviously, but over time, and we sell the originals. The Movement has friends in America where there are plenty of buyers for that sort of thing, it seems. We’d have to be very careful and ensure none of the pieces ever appears here again. The money we can give to the Volunteers. Edward will be bankrolling the Irish Republican cause unbeknownst to himself. Think of the satisfaction we’ll have as he rants on with his supercilious lectures about ‘our boys’ on the Somme. And we needn’t stop there. The house is bursting with valuable artwork, antiques, all that rubbish that he thinks makes him look superior to others. I’ll find someone to make copies of it all. I already know of an expert jeweller who has been making paste versions of ladies’ pieces for years. So many people are financially suffering, even people Edward knows through business, but they don’t want to lose face by not having their finery on display, so necessity is the mother of invention. This chap, he’s a Jew from Austria, I believe, is a genius. You bring him the piece, ostensibly to be cleaned, and he makes a replica that is as close to perfect as can possibly be achieved.’

  Mary had told her weeks earlier about the conversation between the master and Rory and what Rory said about the military contracts.

  ‘Just think, ladies. We know he is operating some kind of swindle with that oily toad Johnson, so he won’t want any attention drawn to his affairs. There are hundreds of ways we can swindle him in return. Mrs Kearns, it’s time we started being a little more creative with the household budget as well. The potential for a little fundraising there is as yet untapped. All we have to do is be clever, be cautious, and not rile him up so that he throws any of us out. Well ladies, what do you think?’

  Mary and Mrs Kearns looked at each other. The cause desperately needed money, the master was a criminal anyhow, and a thoroughly horrid man to boot, and the mistress was clever enough to make it work.

  Mary smiled conspiratorially at her two unlikely friends and said, ‘Let’s do it.’

  In the weeks that followed, Mary would regularly go to the little jeweller’s workshop off Mountjoy Square with pieces to be cleaned. A few days later she would collect the originals and the replicas, and then she would give the original jewels to a man in the movement who had connections in London and the United States. Mrs Grant was very careful that her pieces would never be seen in Dublin society in case the master recognised them and put two and two together.

  The amounts generated were considerable. Everything they were raising was accepted gratefully by the Movement, and they were delighted to contribute to the cause. One by one Mrs Grant’s diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls were replaced with glass and paste while the master was none the wiser.

  Chapter 18

  Scarlett pressed the doorbell of Eileen’s house on a bright Sunday morning. She was going to Lorena’s for lunch but she decided to check on Eileen first.

  ‘How are you, Eileen?’ She smi
led as the woman gave her a warm hug.

  ‘I’m fine Scarlett, and thank you again for everything you did, cleaning up all the mess but also, more importantly, for finding my flag. It means a great deal to me and to lose it, well it would be unimaginable. Now, have you time for a cup of tea or are you in a rush?’

  Scarlett could think of nothing that she would enjoy more than to sit in Eileen’s sunny kitchen, so she accepted the offer.

  ‘I’d rather coffee if it’s not too much trouble.’ She grinned.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry my dear, I used to have coffee here. A friend of mine used to like it but she has since passed on, so I don’t have any reason to have it in the house.’ Eileen looked genuinely put out.

  ‘Don’t worry, tea’s fine.’ She reassured her though she hated it. She had a brief flashback to Dan throwing a mug of hot tea at the wall, narrowly missing her, because Lorena hadn’t left the teabag in the cup long enough.

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Oh I’m fine. It could have been much worse. You hear such awful stories and people really are kind. There’s a young couple across the street. I babysit their little boy sometimes if Bianca, that’s the mother, is delayed coming home. Well, her husband Carlos is a builder and he fixed up all the things they broke, and the place is like it was before. Anyway, enough about me and my tale of woe, how about you? How are you doing?’ Eileen’s blue eyes were innocent, but Scarlett had a feeling that Eileen knew about the thing with Charlie. She struck her as someone who kept abreast of current affairs.

  She hated the idea that Eileen would see her as the home wrecking sinner Lorena did, but she needed to be honest.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Scarlett asked.

  ‘Well, I know you are a very kind hearted person who came to my rescue in my time of need. But if you’re asking, do I know about the affair with Charlie Morgan, then yes, I do. But Scarlett my dear, we all do stupid things, often in the name of love. How are you bearing up?’