by A. O'Connor
She went through the rooms searching for Johnny. Finally she spotted him deep in conversation with a woman in her forties who was wearing a diamond tiara and earrings. She recognised the woman from seeing her driving around beside Johnny in his car in town.
“Ah hello!” Johnny called over. “There you are! Thought you weren’t coming!”
“Sorry I’m late,” she said and went over to them.
“Never a problem being late here, as long as you’re not early to leave.”
He kissed her on both cheeks, giving her a start.
The woman beside him was looking at Clara quizzically.
“Countess Alice Kavinsky, may I introduce Clara, the Lady Armstrong.”
Clara immediately recognised the name. Countess Kavinsky was a famous actress of the Dublin stage.
Clara smiled at her. “I thought you didn’t believe in using titles, Johnny.”
“He doesn’t!” said Alice, before looking at Johnny knowingly. “Only if he is trying to impress one aristocrat with another.”
“Anyway, come along, Clara. I need to introduce you to people,” said Johnny. “Excuse us, Countess.”
He led her away through the crowd.
“Aristocrat indeed!” he whispered to Clara. “She’s actually from a small farm somewhere. Married a Hungarian Count who later committed suicide.” He waved a hand at a long buffet table. “Help yourself to some food if you feel peckish.”
As Clara looked at the feast of food laid out on various tables she realised that the government’s call to conserve rations had obviously fallen on deaf ears in these quarters.
Clara smiled at everybody as Johnny introduced her. They were all writers, poets, artists, actors and playwrights and Clara recognised some of them as being very famous.
They eventually circled back and joined a group which included the Countess Kavinsky where the topic of discussion was inevitably the war, to Clara’s disappointment – she had imagined that these intellectuals would have other subjects to discuss. However, as she listened she realised that they had their own take on the matter.
“What you have going on is wholesale slaughter. We’re not even hearing the magnitude of what’s been happening because the press is gagged by the government,” said a playwright whose play had just been a triumph in Dublin.
“Poor fools are being marched to their deaths and don’t even know it – there hasn’t been anything like it since the Dark Ages.”
“The war will mean the collapse of empires everywhere. All these outdated empires will collapse and be replaced by working democracies that look after what the people want, not what an outdated elite want,” said aman in his thirties with intense blue eyes and blond hair whom Johnny had introduced as the poet Thomas Geraghty.
“Like America – that’s the future,” said Alice Kavinsky.
“Starting right here in Dublin, in Ireland – why not?A revolution here would lead by example. This war is an opportunity to get rid of the old order and in with a new republic!” continued Thomas.
“Where we can protect people’s rights,” put forward another guest.
“A society based on culture and the arts,” offered another.
“But no bloodshed! There’s enough of that going on on the continent,” Johnny said firmly.
“A society based on giving everyone the same opportunity regardless of their circumstances.”
Johnny had drifted off and Clara was left standing there at the edge of the group feeling awkward.
Suddenly one man turned to Clara and said, “Clara Armstrong? As in Lady Armstrong, I presume?”
“Yes,” nodded Clara.
“The Armstrongs have a reputation for hosting elaborate hunts. I hope you aren’t part of it?”
“No – I hate hunting!”
“Good!”
Clara edged away only to be cornered by an elegant woman in pearls and a short haircut. “You see, my dear, it’s only a matter of time before women get the vote. I mean, how can they stop us now? We’re doing all the work while the men are at war. I’m training as a mechanic myself. You should try it – fascinating.”
The evening sped by and Clara met one eccentric person after another.
She eventually found herself back with Countess Alice who was intent on explaining her personal philosophy to her. “I believe there won’t be contentment in this world till we have complete equal division of personal property. I mean why should just one person live in a big house while a huge family is crammed in a one-room flat? Darling, you must accompany me to the slums of Dublin. They are the worst in Europe without doubt. And you know this country has one of the highest average incomes. It’s just not being distributed properly.”
Johnny slipped over to her and whispered, “How are you enjoying it?”
“I don’t know! I’ve never encountered anything like it.”
“Good!”
“They are all bursting with ideas of how the world should be run. They all want change and quickly.”
“I know.”
“They scare me.”
“Good!”
Clara got a shock when she looked at her watch and saw it was three in the morning.
“I have to go!” she said suddenly.
“So soon?But it’s only getting started,” said Johnny.
“For you maybe. But Prudence is timing me, I can assure you.”
Clara smiled at Countess Alice as she said goodbye. “I hear you’re a great actress. I’d love to see you on stage one day.”
“So kind. And I’m so delighted to have met you at last. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Have you?” Clara was confused.
“So much. You must be quite special for Johnny to endorse you like that. He doesn’t endorse all his girls, you know.”
Johnny suddenly appeared at Clara’s elbow. “Right, shall I show you to your car?”
Outside she sat into her car and smiled up at Johnny.
“Are you sure you’re all right driving back on your own,” he asked. “You’re more than welcome to stay here.”
As she looked up at the comfortable grandiose building, she was half tempted.
“Are you trying to ruin me? I don’t think so. Thanks, Johnny, it was fascinating.”
She started the engine and set off. It was a nice moonlit night and she was enjoying the drive back through the country roads when the engine cut out and the car came to a halt. She tried the key again and again, but the engine would not get past the revving stage.
She sat there wondering what to do. She was stranded and still quite a distance from Armstrong House.
“This can’t be happening!” she shouted loudly as she got out of the car and, grabbing her purse, set off walking. She looked an unusual figure as she walked through the countryside, her blonde hair, pale skin, cream satin dress and shawl luminous in the moonlight. She seemed to be walking for hours and was exhausted as she finally turned through the gateway of the house and began to walk up the long driveway.
Prudence stood at the window of her bedroom as she saw Clara walk across the forecourt and wearily climb the steps up to the front door, her shawl trailing behind her.
“Really, Clara, you really must check if the tank has petrol before you set off on one of your jaunts in the future,” said Prudence.
“The car has always had petrol in it before.”
“You see, this is the problem with you, Clara. The petrol doesn’t just magic itself intothe car, it is arranged. And you rely on other people to arrange it.”
“Well, I won’t in future!”
“Good! I wasted the labour of two stable boys today to go fetch the bloody car. I sometimes wonder should we cut costs and get rid of the car altogether.”
“Never!” Clara nearly shouted at the idea.
“Isn’t the car just a waste? I mean, everyone else can ride horses perfectly except for you.”
Clara stood up, appalled. “The car is not going, Prudence! Or I go with it!�
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“Oh, don’t give me an ultimatum, Clara. I hate ultimata.”
Clara marched out of the room leaving Prudence to laugh to herself.
Chapter sixty-six
If her grandmother had intended having her portrait paintedto act as a kind of therapy for Clara, she had judged well. Clara enjoyed the experience immensely.
To be associated with art was something she had always wanted, and now her image was becoming enshrined for ever in Johnny’s work. She didn’t know what to make of Johnny. He could be hilariously funny, terribly insulting, incredibly moody. Some days he maddened her so that she felt like slapping him, other days he made her laugh so she felt like embracing him. He would work intently on the portrait and then without warning throw down his paintbrushes and declare they were going off to Cassidy’s bar for the rest of the day to get drunk, or off to take a boat and go rowing on the lake. He was exciting. And he was the polar opposite of Pierce. After getting so used to Pierce’s evenness, his coolness, his aloof removal from the everyday world, Johnny’s expansive personality was intoxicating.
The Easter Rising in Dublin exploded without any warning. Days of shootings and carnage wrecked the prosperous city centre in a short time, much to citizens’ fury.
“Scandalous, if I may say,” said Fennell as he served Clara breakfast while she read the front-page report of the Rising.
“Honest decent people unable to get about their lives and go to work over a few silly men playing soldiers!” He finished pouring the tea into Clara’s cup.
“Quite right, Fennell! It’s seldom one hears you speaking any sense!” It was Prudence at the door of the room.
Fennell pursed his lips and walked out.
Prudence took the newspaper out of Clara’s hand to her annoyance and studied the front page.
“Silly arses! Do you know they copied the warfare in Flanders and built a series of trenches in the park in Stephen’s Green, planning on holding out there for months. But all the British troops did was go up on the roof of the buildings around the park and shoot down at them!”
The Easter Rising was quickly suppressed and the republicans who fought it arrested. They left behind a city in ruins and an angry public. However, as the authorities put the leaders on trial and sentenced them to execution for treason the public mood shifted from anger at the rebels to fury at the authorities for such severe sentences.
Clara sat at the bar in Cassidy’s, the newspaper in front of her, while she had a glass of wine in the afternoon.
“Ah, it’s shocking, just shocking!” said the publican. “Sure them brave lads didn’t deserve to be shot. All they were doing was trying to bring about independence which is what we all want anyway.”
“Shocking!” said a chorus of customers around the bar as they nodded.
She supposed it was shocking. Death was always shocking when it came swift and unexpected. The whole world had become brutalised, and this was just another arm of it. The brutality of the war seemed to be so far away, but now with the Rising in Dublin it seemed to be edging closer. The public wasbecoming aware of just how ferocious the Great War was and the extent of the casualties. The Battle of the Somme had been a bloodbath and the newspapers could no longer suppress the facts with the excuse of keeping the public mood positive. She sighed and folded over the newspaper, bade goodbye to Mr Cassidy and the others and went out to the car.
As she drove out of Castlewest she thought about Pierce who had made nocontact with her since she had seen him last.
Johnny rowed them across the still water of the lake in the small boat. Clara sat opposite him, looking at the house up on its hill.
“I should warn you, I’m not an experienced rower, so I hope we don’t get in trouble,” he said.
“I think you should have warned me of that before we left the shore, as I am not an experienced swimmer,” she said lightly.
“I will try not to sink us then.”
“Please do.”
He stopped rowing and looked back at the house and the surrounding countryside.
“You see, this is what we write about and paint about in Dublin. Trying to capture the real Ireland. The whole Irish revival in the arts.”
She looked at him curiously. “And politics.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“You believe in Home Rule.”
“I believe in it because it will happen. I only believe in things that are certain to happen.”
“Prudence says –”
“Prudence! She’s the old Ireland. There won’t be a place for her in the new country if she doesn’t change her ways and move with the times. She wants to hang on to the past. But you can’t. You can only move forward. If you take this county, the power used to be centred around the Big House, the epicentre of the estate. It’s not any more. The power has shifted to Castlewestand it’s in the hands of the shopkeepers, publicans, solicitors, doctors who function there. And not before bloody time!”
“But you’re from a Big House family. Don’t you mind losing all your power?”
“I’ve moved with the times.”
He started rowing again. “I have to return to Dublin next week. I’m behind with my work. I need to get this exhibition organised. Which is going to be hard since most galleries in Dublin are smashed after the Rising. And I have to attend a meeting at the Abbey.”
She nodded. He was on the board of directors at the Abbey Theatre. She suddenly felt a terrible dread of him going. He was the only bit of fun she had. The only excitement outside the house.
“How I would love to go to a play!” she sighed.
“Why don’t you? Come to Dublin and I’ll bring you to the theatre.”
She blinked a few times. “I can’t! It wouldn’t be right. Attending the theatre with a man while my husband is at war.”
Johnny roared with laughter as he began to row back to shore.
“What’s so funny?”
“You! You don’t mind going drinking in a local bar with me, but you couldn’t be seen out in society with me. There’s a rebel in you. But it’s a rebel very concerned with her reputation!”
Chapter sixty-seven
As Clara came down the stairs Fennell approached her.
“Oh, my lady, Mr Seymour is here for you. He’s in the library.”
“The library?”
Clara walked across to the library and opened the door. She saw Johnny standing there holding up one of her paintings to the light. She stored them in a folder there.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded as she walked over to him.
“I found them over there and decided to take a look. You never said you painted.”
Clara snatched her work from him. “You’ve no right to snoop around poking your nose intothings that don’t concern you.”
“But art always concerns me.”
“This isn’t art, it’s afew sketches. You’re so intrusive! You march into my dressing room and throw my dresses around. You march intothe library and go nosing through my sketches. The world doesn’t revolve around Johnny Seymour, you know!”
“Oh, stop getting worked up over nothing.”
“My drawings are private and I don’t want you looking at them.”
“But all artists have to show their work to others. It’s what we do.”
“I’m not an artist.”
“I beg to differ!” He grabbed the painting from her. “These are bloody good.”
“Give it back to me!” She tried to take it but he wouldn’t let it go.
“It shows real talent. Certainly potential. I could show it to some critics in Dublin.”
She reached forward, grabbed the painting and ripped it up. Then she crossed over to the fireplace, flung it in and watched it evaporate into ashes.
“That was stupid of you,” he said.
She turned and viewed him coldly. “I’m Clara Armstrong, wife of Lord Armstrong, an officer in the army. I do not show drawings to critics. I think you fo
rget my position and who I am.”
He walked slowly to her and put his hand under her chin. “No, Clara, I think it’s you who is forgetting who you are.” He dropped his hand. “I just dropped in to say goodbye before I headed to Dublin. Can you give me a lift to the station?”
She drove him to the station in silence and parked the car.
“I’m not sure how long it will take me to organise my exhibition in Dublin, but it will probably be a couple of months before I can resume the portrait.”
She nodded as she looked ahead. “That’s fine.”
“That’s if you want me to resume your portrait?”
“It’s as you wish. Let me know if you’re coming back.”
He leaned towards her and whispered into her ear. “Don’t be angry with me. I didn’t mean to snoop on your paintings. I’ll write to you.”
She turned and looked at him, smiling cynically. “I don’t think so.”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “See you in a couple of months.”
He got out of the car but she stayed put.
As he ran to catch his train he shouted, “I hope I didn’t ruin your reputation kissing you in public!”
“No,” she yelled after him. “But you might have ruined it by then shouting you had to the whole town!”
Laughing, he waved to her as he jumped on the train.
Chapter sixty-eight
Pierce looked down the trench at the soldiers lined up there. He looked up at the clear night sky. He looked at his watch and saw the second hand tick towards the designated time. As the second hand ticked past twelve he knew he should give the signal and yet he paused. He reached into his pocket and took out two photos. The first was a photo of his house in Ireland. Then he looked at the other photo which was of Clara who was smiling beautifully.
