1949

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Mick knew that partitioning this island would create a running sore. He only signed the Treaty because the British threatened to pour two-hundred thousand fresh troops into Ireland immediately if he didn’t.”

  Chapter Three

  “God love Michael Collins,” sighed Henry, “he didn’t know the British were bluffing. Most of their army was demobilized after the Great War. The troops who’d fought Mick and the IRA had been thoroughly demoralized by the experience, and the British hardly had anyone left to send over here. A few thousand at the most. Our lads would have wiped the ground with them and got our country back with no strings attached. But Lloyd George and Winston Churchill outfoxed us and the chance was missed.”

  “De Valera wouldn’t have made that mistake,” Ursula said.

  Henry shook his head. “Dev’s a realist. In spite of what you may want to believe, he would have bowed to the inevitable too. Instead he sent Mick to London to take the fall for him. If Mick had lived, I’m convinced he would have got the other six counties back in time. He fully intended to dismantle the Treaty brick by brick.”

  Ursula lifted her chin. “Papa says the Irish Republican Army is all the Catholics in Northern Ireland have to defend them against the Protestant mobs. He says the Free State is too much under the British thumb to do the honorable thing and—”

  “Whoa!” Henry held up his hands. “I know that speech, I hear it almost every day. That’s what I mean about a sword hanging over our heads. Unfinished business, unfinished violence. Men who still want, still need, to fight. The lust for blood just under the surface.

  “During the Civil War I saw things I’ll never forget. Appalling things that shook my faith in my fellow man. As long as I stay in this country those images will keep coming back to me, like some terrible nightmare I can’t wake from.

  “Besides, I have to make a living. As a freelance journalist I can no longer do that here. I can’t sanction a lot of the things the Free State is doing, nor write the propaganda they want. I need to make a fresh start somewhere else.”

  Henry’s face gave no hint of the many nights he had lain awake, talking in the darkness with Ella. Agonizing over a decision.

  “I’m hoping to buy a small business in America,” he went on. “A country newspaper or maybe a printing shop. Thanks to the Bulletin I have a lot of contacts over there and I’ve learned of several opportunities already.”

  Ursula appealed to his wife. “Surely you don’t agree with this. How can you move thousands of miles away from your family?”

  “Henry and Bella are my family now,” Ella replied with her golden-brown eyes fixed on her husband’s face. “My relatives are decent, tolerant people, and when I married Henry they accepted his being a Catholic. But they also are members of what you call the landlord class, Ursula. They firmly believe the 1916 Rising was an act of treason and they have never been comfortable with Henry’s Irish nationalism. Since the new Land Commission took over so much of their property for redistribution to their tenants there are certain…stresses.” She gave a delicate shrug, as if those stresses were inconsequential. “Sometimes the only way to deal with family problems is to distance oneself from them.”

  “I know about family problems,” Ursula said. “They can hurt worse than anything. Papa is the best man in the world, but after Mama died…and then the Civil War…well, he’s just not himself anymore. He carries on long conversations with Mama at night. My bedroom is next to his and I hear him talking as if she were right there with him. Sometimes he gives great deep sobs that would break your heart. If I knock on the door he shouts at me to go away. Next day he may seem all right, then suddenly he’ll be angry over nothing. That’s why we can’t keep hired men on the farm for any length of time. They’re afraid of him.”

  Ned Halloran’s mental condition, which had become increasingly obvious in Ursula’s letters, was a matter of grave concern to Henry. There was nothing he could do for the man he had loved like a brother, any more than he could turn the clock back to that brief slice of time when Ireland had called herself a republic. All he could do was try to shield Ursula from witnessing the breakdown of the man she adored.

  He cleared his throat to draw her attention. “About those arrangements I mentioned, Little Business. Since the Great War new opportunities are opening for women. They’re entering the sciences and politics and—”

  “Countess Markievicz was the first woman in the world to become a minister of labor,” Ella cut in as if they had rehearsed this.

  “I know all about that, I have the newspaper articles in my scrapbook. She was a heroine of the Rising,” said Ursula.

  “Con’s war record didn’t qualify her for a cabinet post,” Henry pointed out. “Her political assets were intelligence and energy. They are priceless—and you have both. But you do need an education.”

  “I am educated. Papa taught me out of his old schoolbooks. English grammar and Irish and Latin and mathematics—”

  “Textbooks alone,” Henry interrupted, “aren’t an adequate preparation for life. Your father studied with Pádraic Pearse, but Pearse is dead and no other school in Ireland is providing the sort of curriculum he offered at Saint Enda’s. For a comparable education you would have to go abroad. Are you interested?”

  “You mean go to school in England?” Ursula straightened indignantly. “Not for anything! The English murdered Mr. Pearse and Mr. Connolly and it’s God’s miracle they didn’t murder Papa too. I hate them all.”

  Henry and Ella exchanged glances; the speechless conversation of two people who understood one another perfectly.

  “Not England, dear,” said Ella. “We’ve discussed this at some length. As your own words just revealed, we feel that you need to acquire a larger worldview.”

  “Are you talking about going to a university on the Continent? I don’t have the academic qualifications.”

  “I know, dear. Instead, we propose to give you a year or two at a private school in Switzerland. They accept students on rather a different basis. My recommendation should help; I went there myself, as did my mother. And you will enjoy the journey: a sea voyage to France and a train to Switzerland,” she added, cannily appealing to the girl’s adventurous spirit.

  The full import of what they were saying began to sink in. “You can’t afford to send me to a private school abroad,” Ursula told Henry.

  “Agreed. It will take every shilling I have to set us up in America. Ella has a fortune in her own name, though. I swore before we married that I would never use a penny of it to support my family and I shan’t, but…”

  “But I’ve persuaded him to let me do this for you,” Ella finished. “The money’s no good to me otherwise, it’s just sitting in the bank.”

  Her hand reached out and found Henry’s reaching for her. They sat looking expectantly at Ursula.

  Sometimes she knew. Simply knew what was fated to happen. Did not need to question herself or agonize over decisions, but knew with irrevocable certainty, as if the future and its secrets were spread out before her to read like the pages of a book. Pages inscribed with wind and rain and wisdom.

  When she was little, Henry Mooney had called Precious ‘fey,’ unwittingly identifying a part of her which predated flesh and blood.

  On the train ride home Ursula mentally rehearsed the way she would broach the subject to her father. Henry’s involvement would create difficulties at first, because of the quarrel between himself and Ned, but Ned Halloran had received his education at Saint Enda’s through the help of a mentor. Surely she could make him appreciate the symmetry of a similar opportunity for her.

  Surely.

  The battle when it came was savage. Like most important events, it took place in the kitchen.

  Ned Halloran roared so loudly he frightened the hens scratching in the yard outside. “I forbid it, Ursula! Get that idea out of your head right now. You’re not to write to that man or even mention his name. Not ever again. He wants to steal you from me but he wo
n’t get away with it this time. He won’t get away with it this time!” Ned shook his fists in the air as if he could not control them.

  Dismayed, Ursula stepped back. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Papa. Uncle Henry’s always been your friend.”

  “My friend!” Ned’s laugh was hollow. “That’s how little you know. Listen here to me, you’re never to go back to Dublin, ever. I demand your promise.”

  “I won’t promise, Papa. I can’t be living my whole life on this farm.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because there’s nothing for me here.”

  “Your family is here. Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.”

  “‘People live in one another’s shelter,’” Ursula translated. “That’s just an old saying, it doesn’t mean anything. Besides, this isn’t my family.” Her fingers clenched tightly around her thumbs, a habitual reaction to stress. Now that she had to fight she realized how much she wanted the prize. “I’m an orphan,” she said flatly.

  A muscle twitched in Ned’s jaw. “You’re no orphan. Síle may be dead but I’m still your father and I’m telling you…”

  “You can’t tell me what to do!” she lashed back. “And you are not my father. You never allowed anyone to talk about it in my hearing, but do you think I don’t know? I was a foundling you rescued from the Dublin streets. I don’t belong to anyone but myself!”

  In the emotion of the moment Ursula’s words were not a cry of grief, but a declaration of independence.

  The stunned look on Ned’s face told her she had gone too far.

  She laid her hand on his arm and softened her voice, soothing him as she would a difficult horse. “Please, Papa, see me as I am. I’m not a child anymore. I’m at least sixteen, maybe older. And you always say I’m intelligent. Surely you understand that I don’t want to spend my life working on a farm I’ll never inherit because I’m not really a Halloran. I’d rather go out into the world and see what it holds for me.”

  Ned’s tense features eased in sympathy. She thought she was getting through to him. Then she added, “Uncle Henry’s offering me the opportunity to do just that.”

  Something shifted in his eyes. “Leave me for him, will you?” Ned thundered. “I’ll see you dead first!”

  Chapter Four

  Henry Mooney met a badly shaken Ursula Halloran at Kingsbridge Station. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

  “You have a lot of luggage,” Henry remarked as the porter lifted her suitcase and a stack of boxes from the railway carriage.

  “I brought everything I own, even my saddle. Everything except Saoirse.” She looked as if she was about to cry again. “Oh, Uncle Henry, he gelded him!”

  “He did what?”

  “Papa took the hired men and a butcher knife and locked the barn door on the inside and…” Her voice broke. “…and gelded my horse. I heard him scream!

  “You know how I’d fought to keep Saoirse a stallion. They said a girl couldn’t manage one but I proved they were wrong. He was so proud and grand and he trusted me, Saoirse trusted me. Papa always said trust was the cement that held us all together. Now how can I ever trust him again? After…after he…”

  Her shoulders were shaking, though whether with grief or fury Henry could not tell. “I’m sorry,” he said, aware it was insufficient. “Is the horse all right otherwise?”

  “He’s alive, but he’ll never be the same. Why did Papa do that? I don’t understand. And something else. He accused you of trying to steal me and said he wouldn’t let you get away with it ‘this time.’ What was that supposed to mean?”

  Henry suddenly made himself very busy with the luggage. “ ’Fraid I can’t tell you,” he muttered. “Run out to the street and find a taxicab, will you? Tilly’s waiting tea for us.”

  The Mooneys tried to convince Ursula the break with Ned was only temporary, but she would not be comforted. “You didn’t see him. He even spoke of killing me.”

  Henry struggled to keep the shock he felt from showing in his face.

  Ursula went on, “Frank and Norah insisted I leave as soon as I could and come up to you. If you’d seen my horse standing there in the barn with his head hanging, and the blood still running down his legs…I couldn’t bear to be in the same house with Papa after that.”

  “You are welcome here for as long as you like,” Ella assured her.

  Letters were written to Switzerland, applications made, a sum of money sent. All that remained was for Ursula to obtain a passport. But passports required documentation.

  Henry Mooney had friends on both sides of the philosophical chasm that now existed. “There’s a young fellow in the Department of External Affairs who owes me a favor,” he told Ursula. “We’ll get your passport, don’t worry.”

  Finbar Cassidy surveyed his desk with distaste. As the most junior member of the passport section, he was given the bulk of the routine work. By staying in the office until almost eleven the previous night he had managed to clear most of it. Now a fresh stack of files awaited him. Miss Lynch’s doing, no doubt.

  He sighed, raked his fingers through his crisp red hair, looked around vaguely in hopes Miss Lynch had at least brought him a cup of tea, saw none, sat down, lit a cigarette, and was just opening the first file when a sour face framed by frizzled gray curls peered around the door of his office. “There’s someone called Henry Mooney outside, with a woman he calls his niece. Claims you’ll see him without an appointment.”

  “Ah, thank you, Miss Lynch. Send him in. And could you bring us some tea?”

  “Mmmph.” The door closed.

  When it opened again, Henry Mooney stood there with a woman. A very young woman with blue-gray eyes that lanced straight into Finbar Cassidy’s soul. Without waiting to be introduced she said, “Since this is a department of government I suppose you’re pro-Treaty. I’m a Republican myself. And do you have to smoke that cigarette? I hate the smell.”

  Cassidy was nonplussed. “I…ah…yes. I mean…” He ground out the cigarette in a cracked saucer. “It’s good to see you again, Mooney. Say, is this really your niece?”

  Henry chuckled, evading a direct answer. “Allow me to introduce you. Ursula, this is Finbar Cassidy, whom I helped get out of a scrape some time back when he…well…that’s of no consequence. Finbar, meet Ursula Halloran. She is a young person of strong convictions, but I’m sure you won’t hold that against her. She needs a passport in order to go to school abroad, and I told her you could fix her up.”

  “We can, of course. I assume she has the necessary documents?”

  Henry thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Mmmm, she does and she doesn’t. You may recall a little explosion some time back in the Four Courts. Ursula’s birth cert blew up with the other records in there. But she was born and reared in Dublin, and she does have her Confirmation cert, of course.”

  “I see.” Cassidy had heard this before. “The bombardment of the Four Courts was mighty convenient for some, Henry. As a result of the Civil War people have been leaving these shores in droves, and you have no idea how many are claiming their documents were lost in that explosion.”

  “Thousands of documents were lost,” Henry affirmed. “I was there that day and saw scraps of paper blowing like snow all over Dublin. You can’t deny people their legal status over a little inconvenience like that.”

  “Not if they have other suitable authentication, of course.”

  “Suitable authentication. God’s garters, you sound like every British bureaucrat I ever met. Damn it, Finbar, this is Ireland and this girl is as Irish as yourself or myself! The bishop who confirmed her knew who she was. And I vouch for her, isn’t that good enough?” Henry leaned his knuckles on the desk and thrust his face into Cassidy’s. “I vouched for you when those six IRA lads caught you in that laneway, didn’t I?”

  5 September 1925

  Dear Uncle Henry,

  I arrived at Surval Mont-Fleuri on Thursday. Surval is what they cal
l a “finishing school” something I had not realised before. If I had, I might have refused to come. Now I am here I shall make the best of it. Obviously you think this is something I need, and it is rather an adventure.

  Europe is astonishing. I have already seen ever so many people whose coloring and features are unlike ours. I never realised before that there is a recognisable Irish “look,” but there is. That was my first discovery and it did not come from a textbook.

  The school consists of a big country house rather like an Ascendancy mansion, set on the heights of Montreux with splendid views of Lake Geneva, which the locals call Lac Léman. (The language spoken in this part of Switzerland is French.) The lake is almost periwinkle blue and is framed by vineyards and mountains. Steamers buzz across its surface like so many black-and-white flies.

  The walls of the school are covered with portraits and landscapes in gilded frames. The furniture is so highly polished you can see your face in it. The students’ bedrooms are quite plain but the reception rooms are desperately grand. The furnishings in just one of them would support the inhabitants of a Dublin tenement for life.

  Meals are served in a vast dining room with crystal chandeliers. The cooks are Swiss, so everything is oily or fatty or flavored with seasonings I do not recognise. I do not like it very much. Madame says my palate needs to be educated, but at least she does not make me clean my plate. We are always supposed to leave food on our plates to show that we are used to having enough to eat. (And myself coming from an Ireland with terrible memories of the Famine!)

  The table napkins are folded to look like flowers. We are supposed to look like flowers too. We wear one frock in the morning, another in the afternoon, and then dress for dinner. I suppose this is to show that we are used to having plenty of clothes.

  I am sharing a room with a girl called Felicity Rowe-Howell. As you can tell from her double-barreled name, she is English, so I suspect our relationship will be anything but felicitous.