The House

by A. O'Connor

  The key was in the ignition and she turned it on.

  “Lady Armstrong! What are you doing?” asked Joe, concerned.

  “I’m going to learn to drive, and you’re going to teach me. Sit in!”

  “But – but has Lord Pierce giving permission.”

  “I don’t need permission.”

  “No, but I do!”

  “Well, I’ve just given it to you.” She smiled at him. “I believe everyone can drive in Ireland and I’m going to learn.”

  “But – but –”

  “If you don’t teach me, I’ll learn myself!” warned Clara as she put her feet on the pedals and the car jerked forward.

  “Wait! All right!” conceded Joe as he jumped in beside her.

  After a few preliminary instructions, Clara announced she was ready and the car took off down the driveway.

  “See – I’m a natural!” said Clara as the car veered between the driveway and the grass verge.

  “Have you ever driven before?” asked Joe.

  “Of course not!” laughed Clara as they drove through the entrance and down the country road.

  “Giddy-up! I said – giddy-up!” demanded Clara as she tapped her riding boots against the horse’s flanks. The horse remained stubbornly still in front of the stables at the back of the house. The head groom and two stable boys stood staring in puzzlement.

  “Oh come on!” Clara demanded of the horse.

  The groom, leaning forward, suggested, “If you don’t mind me saying – maybe if the lady spoke with more authority, the horse might heed her.”

  “Show him who’s boss,” added the stable boy.

  Clara glanced down at the men and nodded.

  Clara deepened her voice and spoke loudly: “Right, you – do as I say and – move!” She dug her heels into the horse’s flanks.

  The horse neighed loudly and took off, causing Clara to scream and pull on the reins. This action resulted in the horse stopping suddenly and Clara was flung through the air screaming until she landed in a pile of hay.

  The men came running over to her.

  “Lady Armstrong – are you all right?” demanded the groom, horrified.

  Clara turned over and sat up, bewildered, hayall over her.

  “Quite all right, thank you.” She pulled the hayout of her hair. As she looked at the three men and their shocked expressions she suddenly started giggling.

  “She might have hit her head,” one of the stable boys pointed out.

  “Will we fetch the doctor?” asked the groom.

  “No need for that,” said Clara as she scrambled to her feet.

  She looked at the horse as it trotted unconcerned around the courtyard.

  “I don’t think he likes me much . . . Have you any Shetland ponies I could start on?”

  They all laughed.

  Clara had spent the afternoon shopping in Castlewest and walked down the busy pavement towards the car where Joe was waiting for her. He jumped out of the car and taking her shopping put it in the boot.

  “You know, I think I’ve been ripped off in Harrods all these years. I’ve found some perfectly beautiful dresses here at a fraction of the price they charge in London.

  “Yes, ma’am,” nodded Joe with that bewildered look he always seemed to have when he was out with Clara. He opened the door for her. “Back home, ma’am?”

  Clara took off her gloves and looked around the busy street.

  “No – I think I fancy a drink first. What’s that bar like over there, Joe? Cassidy’s?”

  Joe’s eyes grew wide in horror. “Not for your type, Lady Armstrong.”

  “Oh good!” Clara winked at him and smiled mischievously. “Come along, and I’ll buy you a lemonade.”

  Clara set off to the pub with Joe in quick pursuit.

  She marched through the door and looked around the traditional pub. There were a few men sitting around drinking stout who all turned around and stared at Clara in surprise. Clara walked up to the bar and sat up on one of the bar stools. The publican was a man in his fifties. He was drying glasses behind the bar, behind him was a big mirror with the engraved caption ‘Guinness is Good for You’.

  “I wonder if it is?” asked Clara.

  “I’m sorry?” asked the publican.

  Clara nodded at the mirror. “Good for you?”

  “Well, it’s never done me any harm,” answered the publican.

  “A fine endorsement. I’ll have a glass, and a lemonade for my driver.” She smiled around the pub.

  An hour later Clara was drinking brandy while the publican leaned across the bar talking to her. The other men had gathered around her.

  “Ah, it was tragic at the time when your husband’s father was shot, the late Lord Charles. They lay in wait for him as his carriage came out of the main gates in the estate and out comes the gun and shoots him – bang – right in the chest.”

  All the men shook their heads in sorrow.

  “But, to be fair,” the publican continued, “there’s some that said he was asking for it.”

  All the men nodded in agreement.

  “You can’t put widows and children out on the street like he was doing and not expect somebody some day is going to lose his head and try to kill you. Not that I’m condoning it or anything.”

  “Of course not,” nodded Clara. “Go on.”

  “Ah sure, he survived, but he didn’t leave the bed for months, and he was only a half a man after that. The kids were young at the time.”

  “Shocking behaviour,” said one of the men who stood around her.

  Clara looked at her empty glass. “Another brandy, please. And a drink for everyone as well.”

  There was a chorus of thank-yous.

  The publican came to the door to see her off when she left.

  “Lovely to meet you, Lady Armstrong,” he said.

  “And you!”

  “Visit us any time! You’ll always be welcome!” called one of the customers.

  Chapter fifty-one

  Clara walked around to the back of the stairs and through the door that led down to the servants’ quarters which were in a semi-basement that stretched along the back of the house.

  In the kitchen she found the cook, Mrs Fennell, and her kitchen maid Katie busy at work rolling pastry and cutting apples to make apple-pie.

  “Hello there!” said Clara as she walked in.

  The two women looked up and got a shock to see her there.

  “Lady Armstrong! Is everything all right? We didn’t hear the bell ring,” said Mrs Fennell.

  “Oh, I didn’t ring it,” said Clara.

  “Well, can we get you something?”

  “No, thank you. I just wanted to draw.”

  “Draw what? Water?”

  “No, I mean sketch. Sketch you and the kitchen, if that’s all right?” She indicated her drawing paper and pencils.

  “Draw us and the kitchen?” Mrs Fennell was confused.

  “Yes, I want to do a sketch of every room in the house, and I thought I’d start here. I want to send them to my family, you see, in London, so they can get a full picture of the place.”

  Mrs Fennell looked at Katie, concerned. “Well, as you wish, my lady. But it’s most peculiar. Lady Prudence comes down here occasionally, but I don’t think I remember Lord Pierce being in the kitchens or servants’ quarters ever – and I’ve been coming here since I was girl, as my mother was a kitchen maid here before me.”

  “How very fascinating. You must have grown up in the little village that was for the estate workers then?”

  “That’s right. Though we live here at the Big House now.”

  The cook began to roll her pastry again as Clara sat up on a high stool and started sketching.

  Clara managed to get Mrs Fennell to relax and open up after a while.

  “Oh, there were such parties here in the house back in the 1880s, Lady Armstrong! I remember sneaking up the servants’ stairs and creeping over to the ballroom and hidin
g so I could look at them dance all night! And the food that would be served here!” Mrs Fennell paused and her eyes got a faraway look as she remembered. “That was when money was no object around here – unlike now!” She gave Katie a knowing look and Katie nodded her head in resigned agreement.She started cutting her pastry again.

  “And who would be coming here to the parties? Who were the guests?” probed Clara.

  “Well, all the gentry of course, from near and far. Big shots from Dublin and London, millionaires from America. That ballroom upstairs would be full of the dignitaries.”

  “It sounds marvellous,” said Clara dreamily.

  “It was marvellous,” Mrs Fennell confirmed. “Lord Lawrence was a magnificent host, and a finer gentleman you would not meet. All his children met their husbands and wives at balls upstairs here. Including Lord Pierce’s father Charles – he met their mother at a ball here.” She gave Katie a wary look and Katie bit her lower lip.

  “Arabella? She was very beautiful from what I can see in the paintings.”

  “Eh – that she was,” Mrs Fennell’s voice took on a cautious tone.

  “What was she like – as a person?” Clara put down her drawing paper and, folding her arms, smiled over at the two women.

  “Well, Lady Arabella came from very good stock. She was quiet – not what you’d call a big socialite like the Armstrongs we were used to. And when Lord Lawrence passed away, bless him, and Lord Pierce’s father Charles took over –” Mrs Fennell started working on her pie very quickly. “You don’t want to be hearing all this from me. Sure what do I know? I know nothing.”

  Clara leaned forward imploringly. “Oh, but I do, Mrs Fennell. Please go on.”

  “Well, there’s nothing more to say really. After Charles’ . . . accident . . .”

  “The shooting?”

  “Well, he found it hard to get around, and poor Lady Arabella’s nerves gave way. Her nerves were bad. The days of the big parties here were more or less over. It was hard on their children, Master Pierce and Miss Prudence.”

  The back door suddenly opened giving everyone a start as Prudence marched in, holding two dead rabbits in one hand. Prudence hadn’t spotted Clara in the corner and Clara winced as Prudence flung the dead animals on the kitchen table.

  “There, Rory shot them down by the river. Put them in a stew or something, will you?” instructed Prudence.

  She got a start when she spotted Clara.

  “What are you doing down here?” she asked.

  “I’m sketching,” said Clara, feeling like a bold child having been caught.

  Prudence glanced around the kitchen. “Sketching what, in God’s name?”

  “Just Mrs Fennell at work,” explained Clara.

  Mrs Fennell went bright red with embarrassment.

  “Mrs Fennell!” Prudence shrieked in disbelief. “And when, Mrs Fennell – pray tell – when will you be departing the kitchens here to embark on your new career in Paris as a model?”

  Mrs Fennell coughed loudly and taking up the rabbits headed to the larder with them.

  Glaring at Clara, Prudence left.

  That evening Pierce was in the drawing room reading the newspaper when Prudence came in, closing the door behind her.

  “Where’s Clara?”

  “I haven’t a clue.” Pierce did not look up from the newspaper.

  “Pierce, you’re going to have to do something with her. She’s running amok!”

  “Amok?”

  “I caught the silly cow down in the kitchens today drawing the cook!”

  “Hardly running amok.”

  “That’s not all she’s doing. She’s driving through the countryside at high speed, causing chaos, trying to learn to drive. It’s a wonder she hasn’t killed somebody and herself along with them. Then she was spotted drinking stout in Cassidy’s bar in town in the afternoon last Thursday! Stout! She’s made a spectacle of herself in front of the stable boys displaying her wares as she’s thrown through the air by horse after horse. You just simply need to do something with her!”

  Pierce glanced up from the paper. “What – exactly?”

  “Tell the fool that as Lady Armstrong she needs to behave in a certain way. That she can’t just go around gallivanting wild through the countryside as she wants in front of the peasantry.”

  “Well, you see, the problem is I don’t actually give a damn,” said Pierce coolly.

  “Don’t give a damn about what exactly?”

  “I’m just not that interested in anything she does.”

  “Obviously!” Prudence looked at her brother in exasperation. “Well, in that case I wish you’d had the good sense to pick a rich wife that you didn’t give a damn about. At least then we could have had new plumbing and a proper heating system installed while we put up with her daft antics!”

  Pierce returned to his newspaper. “I think the killing of an Archduke the other side of Europe is really going to put everything in perspective very soon.”

  Prudence glanced at the newspaper headline which said that Franz Ferdinand of Austria had been assassinated.

  “What’s that got to do with us?” Prudence demanded.

  “A war. We’re all going to war.”

  Prudence sat down thoughtfully. “At least it might save on the expense of servants, if half of them are drafted into the army. It will save me from having to get rid of them. I do hate firing people.”

  Clara walked into the room, dressed in a glamorous gown.

  “Isn’t it a lovely summer’s evening?” she smiled. “Will I tell Fennell we are ready for dinner?” She went over to the bellpull.

  “I was wondering would you like to do something tomorrow?” asked Clara that evening to Pierce as he came into the room.

  “Can’t, I’m afraid. I told Philly Scott I’d go over to her place to take a look at a mare that’s giving her trouble.”

  Clara remembered Philly as one of the flirtatious girls from the garden party who spent the day fluttering her eyelashesat Pierce and giving her dagger looks.

  “Philly Scott?” Clara looked at him annoyed. “Why does she need you to look at her mare?”

  He looked at her disparagingly. “Why not? She’s a great girl, Philly. We grew up together . . . pity she hadn’t a pot to piss in, really.”

  As Clara heard this she burned with jealousy, wondering if Philly would have been a marriage prospect, had she been wealthy.

  “If she hasn’t a pot to piss in, how come she can afford to keep a mare?” asked Clara.

  “You ask the most tiresome of questions,” snapped Pierce as he turned to leave the room. “I’m going out for a cigar. No doubt you’ll find someway to amuse yourself tomorrow, from what I hear.”

  Clara awoke at four in morning. She turned around and saw she was alone in the bed.

  Chapter fifty-two

  Clara was sitting at a table in Cassidy’s bar writing a letter to her mother one afternoon when the door of the bar opened and she looked up to see Johnny Seymour walk in.

  He was carrying a suitcase and marched up to the bar. Clara studied him intently. She had made enquiries about him and seemingly he had become very well recognised in theDublin art and literary circle. The Dublin scene had acquired quite a reputation, producing amazing characters likethe poet William Butler Yeats and his brother Jack the artist, Lady Gregory and James Joyce. It seemed to her a dazzling world, a million miles away from the cucumber sandwiches, afternoon tea and set rules of the Anglo-Irish.

  “Get me a whiskey, Cassidy, the damned train for Dublin is late,” Johnny said, throwing his suitcase to the floor.

  “Ah, sure that train hasn’t run on time since Victoria was on the throne, Mr Johnny,” said Cassidy, putting the glass of whiskey in front of him.

  “Well, it’s a damned shame.”

  “That it is. And why are you not driving yourself up as you usuallydo?”

  “I got a six-month ban from driving, Cassidy,” Johnny said mockingly.

  �
�Why? What happened?” Cassidy was aghast.

  “My car had an argument with a flock of geese in County Longford.”

  “That’s an awful pity.”

  “A pity for the flock of geese anyway, Cassidy!” Johnny turned around and surveyed the bar.

  Clara quickly dropped her eyes and concentrated on the letter she was writing. Johnny saw Clara and then bent over the bar and had a whispered conversation with Cassidy.

  A minute later the glass of whiskey was slammed loudly on her table, causing her to look up with a start.

  “Hello, there. You must be Pierce’s wife?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmmm, I think I met you at the garden party up at your house, but to be honest I can’t remember.”

  “You were in a fairly inebriated condition as I recall.”

  “Oh dear!” He pulled up a chair and sat in front of her. “Did I disgrace myself?”

  “Not overly.”

  “It was all Dors’ fault. My companion?”

  “I remember her.”

  “Dors is a kind of cocktails-at-dawn kind of gal. She’s a terrible bad influence on me, you see.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And I’m so easily led.”

  “I’m sure.”

  He causally lit up a cigarette. “Smoke?” He offered his packet.

  She was horrified. “No – no, thank you.”

  He sat and looked at her. “I think I should let you now from the start, I don’t believe in titles. So do you want to be called Clara or Mrs Armstrong?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Em – Clara will do, I suppose.”

  “Good, I hoped you’d say that,” he looked her up and down. “I have to say – you look like awfully good fun.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. Pierce has done very well for himself. I always thought he was a bit of a stick in the mud, to be honest. Does he know you’re frequenting the local public houses on your own?”

  “I haven’t hidden the fact from him.”

  “Or advertised it to him either, I imagine. You’ll get yourself a reputation if you’re not careful. And once you get a reputation around here it’s very hard to lose it. I should know . . . I’m returning to Dublin for a while.”