Long ago Precious had observed to Henry Mooney, “I’m lots of different people and so are you. You’re a little boy who used to ride in a pony cart, and a grown-up who talks to me like a grown-up too, and my papa’s best friend who laughs a lot, and a lonely man who looks sad sometimes when he thinks no one is watching.”
“Be thankful you’re a horse,” Ursula said aloud to Saoirse. “At least you know for certain who you are.”
He flicked an ear in her direction and went on eating.
The day after Christmas was St. Stephen’s Day. The Wren Boys would be out. Following an ancient tradition still observed in many parts of Ireland, local boys would scour every hedgerow until they captured and killed a wren. They would tie the tiny body to a bush and carry it in triumph from house to house while they chanted, “The wran, the wran, the king of all birds, on Saint Stephen’s day was caught in the furze.” Every household they visited was expected to pay them a sum of money in tribute.
Ursula hated the custom. But it was tradition and in Ireland one did not speak out against tradition. That would be heresy second only to denying Christ.
Norah did not come down for breakfast on St. Stephen’s morning. “Christmas probably tired her out,” Lucy said without any show of concern. “Go up and ask her if she has some pennies put aside for the Wren Boys when they come.”
Ursula knocked once, twice, on Norah’s bedroom door. There was no answer. She eased the door open. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light in the room, for the curtains were still closed.
The old woman lay on her back in bed with the covers pulled up under her whiskery chin. Her eyes were open. Staring past Here and Now. When Ursula pressed her fingers against Norah’s throat, she already knew there would be no pulse.
She dropped to her knees beside the bed and said a long, heartfelt prayer, then went to the head of the stairs and called down to Lucy.
Ursula rode Saoirse to Clarecastle to use the telephone at the post office. Although the journey was short the old horse stumbled several times, he who had been so surefooted in his youth. I should have spent whatever it took—even borrowed the money; Geraldine Dillon would have loaned it to me—in order to bring him up to Dublin. But it’s too late for that now.
With a heavy heart, Ursula admitted to herself that the two of them were sharing their last ride. Saoirse was slowly failing. To subject him to a jolting train ride or lorry journey at his age would kill him.
When her telephone call to John MacDonagh was put through, she told him, “My great-aunt has died and I’ll be needed here until after the funeral.”
“Stay as long as you must, we’ll manage,” he assured her.
To Lucy and Ursula fell the task of sorting Norah’s things. It had never occurred to the old woman to write a will, nor was there any need for one. She had possessed so little of her own. However to Ursula it seemed that each apron, every handkerchief, embodied some fragment of Norah Daly that had escaped the grave.
“Isn’t it strange,” she remarked to Lucy as the two women sat in the kitchen going through them, “the way things outlive people? And have the power to hurt us for that reason?”
Lucy gave her an uncomprehending look. “I’m glad things do last. I’m after needing more handkerchiefs.”
The paper records of Norah’s life consisted of her baptismal and confirmation certificates and a thin bundle of letters tied with the same twine Frank had used to bind up raspberry canes. Glancing at them without bothering to read, Lucy said, “We can just toss these in the fire.”
“Wait a minute.” Ursula reached out and selected one letter at random. When she unfolded the paper it was soft with age. Like Norah’s cheek, she thought. The ink was very faded. The handwriting was Norah’s, though not the crabbed hand of an old woman. The letter had been written at some time in Norah’s youth and apparently never sent—or retrieved afterward and secreted away.
My darling Patrick,
Tomorrow you will be married to my own dear sister. I truly wish you and Theresa every happiness. She loves you as much as I do, and you have told me that you love her, so I accept your decision.
We should not have met last night. One last time, you said. Did you know how much it hurt when you took me in your arms? I should not have let you, but I was greedy for a final embrace before you were lost to me forever. I hope it has not cost me my immortal soul.
God go with us all.
I remain yours, only yours,
Norah
Ursula swallowed. Hard. “Do you know what this says?” she asked Lucy.
“How can I? You’re the one reading it.”
“Norah—Aunt Norah—was in love with Patrick Halloran. Your father. All these years, since before your parents were married.”
Lucy snatched at the letter. “I don’t believe it!”
“It’s true all right. And she…” Ursula struggled to comprehend. “…she must have agreed to live with them and help her sister look after the children as they came. His children.”
Lucy was staring at the letter in disbelief. “None of us knew. She never gave any sign. Our parents were devoted to one another and she was always just Aunt Norah. Cooking, cleaning, mending his clothes.” Lucy raised her eyes to Ursula’s. “Mending his clothes.”
On the train going back to Dublin Ursula sat hugging herself. The train carriage was warm enough because it was packed with people returning to the city after Christmas, but a chill had entered Ursula’s bones.
When she returned to work a stack of news reports was waiting for her. Hitler had agreed to support a nonintervention pact on Spain if the other great powers would do the same. Mussolini’s government had banned interracial marriages in its colonies in Africa. And Franklin Roosevelt, in his inaugural speech in America, had spoken of his nation as being ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished.1
“Things have to get better,” Ursula remarked out loud, “because there’s no way they can get worse.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said an English voice.
She looked up in astonishment.
Lewis had entered the studio without her noticing, so intense was her concentration. Now he stood smiling down at her. “I couldn’t leave things as they were. Whatever I’ve done that upset you, I want to apologize and make it up to you if I can.”
A seismic shift rattled her emotions like windows during an earthquake. “Hello, Lewis,” she said, rather more warmly than she had intended.
“I wasn’t certain you’d be glad to see me.”
“Why?”
“Please have dinner with me later,” he urged, “so we can talk.”
She meant to say no. She said yes.
When he left the broadcasting station, the eyes of the other women followed him while Ursula pretended to concentrate on her work.
In actuality she was giving herself a stern lecture on how to behave when he called for her that evening. She would show him, once and for all, just what sort of woman she was.
Lewis brought roses for her—out of season and prohibitively expensive—and took her to Jamets. The Ursula Halloran who sat across the table from him, ramrod straight and coolly polite, was as dignified as a duchess.
Yet Lewis had a vivid memory of her shrieking with joy while he did stunts with his aeroplane. Poking fun at the stuffed shirts in the hotel bar. Which was the real Ursula?
He allowed her to keep their conversation on an impersonal level during dinner, but while they were waiting for dessert he finally asked outright what he had done to displease her.
She gave him an opaque look. “I don’t know what you mean, Lewis.”
“We were such good friends, at least I thought we were. Then all of a sudden you just went away.”
“Did I?” Coolly. “I thought you were the one who went away. You returned to England, did you not?” She waited a moment, then added, “To your family.”
“My family?”
“Your wife and children.”
T
o her surprise, Lewis laughed. “Oh, lord, is that what you think? I don’t have any wife, Ursula, and as far as I know I have no children either.”
“I was asked to ring you and a young woman answered the telephone. She spoke as if—”
“That must have been my sister. Muriel lives with me when she’s not gadding around the world. Since we both have itchy feet, often there’s only one of us there. Plus the housekeeper, of course, but she’s an old dragon with voice to match. Is that what’s wrong? You thought I was married?”
Ursula shrugged one shoulder. “It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”
He thought he understood everything. “You silly goose, you shouldn’t make assumptions about people. I promise you I’m not married, I’m not engaged, I’m as free as the wind. Or was until I met you. Now I don’t seem to be able to get you out of my mind.”
“I’m no threat to your freedom,” Ursula said crisply. “I don’t intend to marry, ever. I couldn’t keep my job if I was married.”
Just then the waiter brought their dessert, an apple tart with custard. As he placed Ursula’s portion in front of her she was thinking, You shouldn’t make assumptions about people. Where have I heard that before?
As her fork cut through the pastry she wondered, Should I give Lewis the benefit of the doubt? The apples were tart on her tongue but the custard was rich and sweet. The girls at Surval used to claim the English lack passion. Perhaps the words Lewis used with me were just his way of exciting himself, like a naughty schoolboy writing bad language on a fence.
She let herself thaw toward him, just a fraction. Like the first faint hint of warmth at the end of winter, it was not enough to melt the ice. But it contained the possibility of spring.
Chapter Thirty-five
On the eighteenth of February, 1937, Seán Lester officially took up his new position in Geneva. In the same bulletin, the 2RN newsreader announced, “One hundred men are preparing a site near Limerick to be used for transatlantic flights. Commercial passenger planes capable of crossing the ocean are not yet available but it is anticipated they soon will be. Éire hopes to become the first port for air traffic between Europe and North America.”
Lewis Baines and his little plane were making fairly frequent trips across the Irish Sea. He did not attempt to resume a sexual relationship with Ursula. He took her to dinner, he took her to the theater, he took her for long walks during which they talked about everything on earth. He enjoyed her intelligence, a quality he had never sought in a woman before.
As he ate eggs and kippers in the Shelbourne dining room one morning, an odd thought occurred to him. Should a man not marry an intelligent woman if he hoped to have intelligent children?
Lewis dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. Marriage was for some time in the distant future when the juice had been wrung out of life and there was nothing left but to settle down with the pipe and slippers. In the meantime he enjoyed many women for many different reasons, though none intrigued him quite as much as Ursula Halloran.
She was like a leaping salmon that must be played skillfully. He enjoyed the game, of which patience was an integral part.
When the exactly right moment presented itself he would reel her in.
His sister Muriel—whom Lewis had called Moo for as long as he could remember, for no reason that either of them remembered—teased him about the frequency of his flights to Dublin. “You must have a girl over there, Lew.”
“I have girls every place.”
“You reprobate. I mean a serious girl.”
“Sometimes she’s serious.”
“I suppose next you’ll be telling me she’s Irish. You know perfectly well you can’t get involved with an Irish girl, it would be quite unsuitable. Besides, I thought you and Fliss were—”
“That was years ago. You’re way behind in your gossip.”
A tall, fair woman who looked remarkably like her brother, Muriel Baines thought of herself as having all of the virtues and none of the vices of her race. “I don’t gossip,” she said icily.
But she kept on asking questions.
If she had not done so, Lewis might never have thought of Ursula as a prospective wife. He was perfectly aware that she was unsuitable. She was not even one of the Ascendancy, though with her poise and diction she could pass for one.
Lewis rather liked the idea of shocking his friends by making an unsuitable marriage.
Ursula held her emotions in tight check. While she could not deny the almost galvanic attraction she felt for Lewis, she was determined not to surrender to it again. Surrender made one vulnerable.
But she was glad to see him whenever he arrived in Dublin, and when he left she counted the weeks until his next visit.
On the tenth of March the draft of a new Irish constitution largely written by Eamon de Valera was introduced in the Dáil. Under its provisions the Free State was to be called by the Gaelic name of Éire. This was partially out of deference to the sensibilities of northern Unionists, who resented any implication that Northern Ireland was unfree.
The preamble began, “We, the people of Éire, humbly acknowledge all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial.”
Ignoring the forthcoming constitution, the obscure Gaelic Monarchist Party announced their support for the O’Conor Don as potential king of Ireland.1 Ursula invited their spokesman to put his case on the air, but he declined, saying it was beneath royal dignity.
Quick to spot a controversy that could sell newspapers, the Cork Examiner argued that Donough O’Brien, the 16th Lord Inchiquin, was a more suitable candidate. “He is in direct descent from Brian Bóru who, if he had survived Clontarf, would have established the O’Brien dynasty so firmly that the present O’Brien would be King of All Ireland and there would be no Irish problem to be solved.”
At the end of April Henry Mooney wrote to Ursula, “In your last letter you mentioned your interest in aeroplanes—which we call airplanes over here—so I thought you might like to hear about the latest. A new Boeing bomber called the Flying Fortress has just been unveiled, supposedly putting America well ahead of other nations when it comes to military air power.
“Ella has drawn a sketch of the Flying Fortress for you; I am including it with this letter. I am not happy about our perceived need for such a plane, however. Here’s a question for you to ponder, Little Business: Does war fuel the armaments industry, or does the armaments industry fuel war?
“Here’s another question: why did you develop this sudden interest in aviation?”
When Ursula answered Henry’s letter she did not answer his questions.
She was not telling anyone about Lewis Baines. How could a dedicated Irish Republican justify an interest in a member of the British ruling class? It was embarrassing.
And perversely exciting.
She did not even mention him in her letters to Fliss. Instinct warned her that Fliss might have more than a casual interest in Lewis herself, and she did not want to jeopardize their friendship.
The new Irish constitution was overwhelmingly approved by the Dáil. When it was published there was little public debate, though men argued some of the issues in pubs while women discussed them over back fences. “It’s the Civil War being fought all over again with documents instead of guns,” some people claimed.
“Rubbish! De Valera’s redefined the Treaty but he certainly hasn’t destroyed it.”
As concerned Northern Ireland, this was true. Articles 2 and 3 of the new constitution claimed the right of the Dublin government to exercise jurisdiction over the whole of Ireland while in practice confining the exercise to twenty-six counties, “pending the reintegration of the national territory.”
Strangely, the constitution did not take the additional step many expected and proclaim Ireland a republic. Frequent references were made to the Nation without any attempt to define its identity, which was still a thorny question in a land so divided.
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The new constitution created a new office, that of president of Ireland. This forcibly underscored the fact that the British king was no longer head of the Irish state. Not everyone was happy with the new arrangement; it caused more controversy than any other part of the document. “De Valera wants the Irish presidency for himself,” adherents of Fine Gael muttered darkly. “You have to be watching him all the time. Didn’t the British say dealing with him was like eating mercury with a fork?”
But de Valera preferred to be An Taoiseach,* the Irish equivalent of prime minister. The taoiseach would wield the most power in the Dáil and the Dáil would run the country. The presidency would be little more than a ceremonial position.
The role of the Catholic Church was greatly strengthened in the new constitution. Article 44 recognized “the special position of the Holy Catholic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the majority of the citizens.” However, in deference to the Republican ideal of religious tolerance, the same article took care to acknowledge both the various Protestant denominations and Ireland’s Jewish congregation. Given what was happening in Europe, the Jews in particular appreciated the gesture.
Women saw the new constitution as retrograde and paternalistic. The equality they had enjoyed during the revolutionary period was swept away. Life “within the home” was to be a woman’s rightful place and highest ambition. Mothers were actively discouraged from working elsewhere no matter what their economic condition. “We all believe that woman’s place is in the home,” Helena Moloney commented sarcastically, “provided she has a home.”
A group including Kathleen Clark and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington met to organize a protest. Ursula joined them in sending a barrage of letters to the major newspapers. “True republicanism is about fairness and equality, about inclusion and solidarity,” she wrote. “Mr. de Valera’s constitution denies women these basic rights.”
1949 Page 24
