Habit of Fear

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  ROY IRWIN WHISTLED when they passed through the gates and up the long, high-hedged entrance to Graham Hall. When the Georgian mansion came into view, he stopped the car just to gaze at it. “There aren’t many of them left. The Grahams must have been mighty good Brits in the old days.”

  “Aren’t they Irish?” Julie asked.

  “Anglo-Irish, whom some consider the best kind. But, mind, I never said it.” He explained, as he drove on, the devastation that occurred in the wake of independence in the early 1920s. The driveway divided in the shape of a horseshoe and surrounded a formal garden, where the only bloom left was a few roses, the last of summer, fading on toward a November sleep. In the near distance was a corral where the horses crowded the fence rail. They took off at a gallop, falling in behind one another, their manes and tails flying at the approach of the car. “Oh, Lord, wouldn’t I love to be astride one of them,” Irwin said.

  “Why don’t you stay and visit the stables? I’m sure if I asked, you’d be welcome to lunch.”

  “Thank you, no. I’m wanting to listen to what people hereabouts are saying. This is my chance.”

  A maid dressed in black with a white apron and a cambric coif opened the door to Julie. She was young and freckled, country-looking. “You’re from America, Miss,” she said, leading the way through a large foyer from which, just inside the double doors, a magnificent curved staircase rose and divided into two at a landing and then swept on upward in perfect symmetry.

  “I am,” Julie said. “I’m from New York.”

  “Lady Graham is very partial to New Yorkers. She lived there when the late Mr. Kearney was in diplomatic service.”

  Lady Graham was at a desk in the sun room, a small, simple room. She turned to greet Julie. She wore jodhpurs, a white, roughish blouse, and a sweater vest of many colors. Her first words: “Would you like to ride in the hunt this afternoon? It’s a trial run. No blood. I’m sure we could outfit you.”

  Julie explained that she had arranged to go on to Sligo after lunch.

  Her hostess rose and came, her hand extended. She was a tall, handsome woman with cropped gray hair. Her features were strong, her voice commanding, her handclasp a kind of punctuation. Julie, remembering Desmond’s entries about her in his journal, decided he was no great authority on women. But he had said that himself. She gave Julie a chair in front of casement windows that looked out on a golden field of stubble, where red and white cattle and black-faced sheep were grazing, and turned a rocker for herself to where she could face her guest. She sat and lit a cigarette.

  “It’s a beautiful house, Lady Graham,” Julie tried the title on her tongue.

  “It will become historic after my death. I rather enjoy thinking of tours marching through, ninety-nine percent Americans. So long as I don’t have to conduct them.” And abruptly, “Your name is Julie Hayes. That ought to be easy to remember. The curious thing is, the older I get, the more difficulty I have in remembering the simple names. I have no trouble at all with Fothergil or McGillicuddy.”

  “I don’t think I would either,” Julie said, beginning to feel easier.

  “I take your point,” she said. “Now, what’s this about Thomas Francis Mooney? I didn’t know he had a child.”

  “I’m not sure he knew it,” Julie said.

  “Ha! Isn’t that like him!” She leaned forward, fanned the smoke from between them, and took a penetrating look at Julie. “There is a resemblance—oh, yes. The mouth, the bone structure. Especially the mouth. Do you pout?”

  “No,” Julie said. “I’ve got a lot of bad habits, but I don’t think I pout.”

  “You are like him.”

  She wasn’t sure it was a compliment. Lady Graham had spoken fiercely. “I’d love to find him if I can,” Julie said.

  “Where have you looked?”

  “Would you like me to tell you the whole story?”

  Lady Graham sniffed. “Shall we have sherry first?”

  THEY WERE AT DESSERT, Malaga grapes, a rich, dark grape that spurted juice, when Lady Graham apologized for receiving Julie in riding clothes. It was intended to save time—in case the hounds arrived before schedule. “Your father used to ride with me in Central Park.”

  “And danced the mambo,” Julie said.

  “He was much better afoot than on horseback.”

  “Do you know where he is, Lady Graham?”

  “I listened to your story, young lady. I should like to tell mine in my fashion.”

  “Of course,” Julie said. But what if the hounds arrived ahead of schedule?

  “Am I right that your mother was the bookstore woman?”

  Julie nodded.

  “I assumed so from your mention of the mambo. The time coincides.”

  “I’ve read the diary of Michael Desmond. He was a friend of my father’s.”

  “Him,” Lady Graham said with distaste. “Would you believe his niece has tried to persuade me to buy those wretched diaries?”

  “She’s very poor,” Julie said. She knew there was far more mention of the Graham-Kearneys than she had read, searching only for her father’s name.

  “She will not get rich at my expense. If you’re going to extort, you should do it and not sidle up to the subject. And I can see from this distance I behaved no worse at the time—nor better—than most women of spirit when they arrive at the age of forty. If a marriage gets over that hump, it is usually safe for life. Mr. Kearney was very wise to pack me up and bring me home. It was the briefest of attachments—your father and I—but when it became known that Kearney and I were going home—attributed to politics, not scandal, by the way—your father rushed headlong into a marriage that was disastrous, I should have thought, from the first night on. But here you are. Do you mind my saying these things to you?”

  “Yes, but I want to hear them.”

  “He was a boy, a mere boy! He looked like an acolyte. And he was quite lost. America was no more his dish of tea than it was mine.”

  “He doesn’t look like a boy in the picture I have of him,” Julie said.

  “What can I answer to that? Age, like beauty, must be in the eye of the beholder.” Then of dessert: “Are you finished?”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’ll take our coffee in the music room.”

  The music room was for the most part a collection of old instruments, lyres and harps, most of them half strung or unstrung, and ancient keyboards. They ought to be covered, she thought, or in a museum. They stood among furniture faded with dust and daylight. Lady Graham explained that in the old days, there were musical Fridays to which people came from as far away as Castlebar and Sligo. The ceilings were very high, and dark ancestral portraits hung on the smoke-gray walls. She called attention to a young, clean-shaven face. “That’s my first husband, Lord Andrew Graham. Poor boy.” Nothing more.

  A coal fire glowed in the grate. It looked a lot warmer than the room felt. When they approached the fireplace, a red setter jumped down from a chair and stretched. Lady Graham took the vacated chair. The dog turned around and around and then settled at her feet. Julie sank into a down-cushioned sofa, kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her.

  “I like people who can stand comfort,” her hostess said. “It’s not an Irish trait. It was fifteen years before I saw Frank again. I thought about it after you rang up yesterday. I met him in Dublin at a benefit to raise funds for a building to house primitive Gaelic art. It seemed to me a ridiculous idea: they already have a museum in which it is well represented. And if they collect all these objects from the countryside, they’ll be robbing every locale of its indigenous art, won’t they? But it was another of my lost causes, and I did meet Thomas Francis Mooney again. He was with a painter and I’ve been trying to remember her name …”

  “Edna O’Shea?” Julie suggested.

  “So you knew. They’d been married in London a few days before. I didn’t ask him what happened to the first one. I didn’t want him to think I cared. Vanity, vanity. I
don’t think he had any more money than when I knew him and I doubt that it mattered any more to him than it did then. The artist’s a strong woman. Older than him. Rather like myself, I thought. She spoke her mind and agreed with me in the business of primitive art. I’ve no idea whether or not she’s a good artist. Someone I asked that day said she was. Nor do I have any idea whether or not she’s a good wife. They were happy then, but who knows thereafter?”

  “But where are they?” Julie said. “That’s what I really want to know.”

  Lady Graham shook her head. “For all I know he may have taken her back to Australia. Did you know you have an uncle there?”

  “Yes,” Julie said. She was bitterly disappointed. Then it occurred to her that the family in Wicklow would have known if her father had gone back to Australia. They were in touch with his brother there. And four years ago Edna O’Shea had shown her paintings in London. “I don’t think he went back to Australia.”

  “Perhaps not. He was always passionately involved with Ireland. He wanted to write its history. Or to rewrite it. It’s a great wonder to me, the Irish attachment to our history. What it is but a series of lamentations?”

  Tardily, the maid brought the coffee and explained that she had thought they were returning to the solarium.

  “It’s all right, Kitty. We were only now about to miss it.” When the girl was gone, she said, “I wish you could arrange to stay on a few days. I’m not often taken with my American visitors.”

  Julie smiled. She had begun to suspect Lady Graham’s perversity. The maid had volunteered that she was very partial to New Yorkers, who, after all, were Americans.

  The older woman lit a cigarette. “You’re smiling. I suppose Kitty told you I adore Americans?”

  “Something like that.”

  “That’s a myth fashioned to her own fancy. I abhor most Americans, especially those of Irish extraction given to ancestor worship. And as for those who exploit the miserable dilemma which is Northern Ireland, I consider them downright evil. The only solution there is no solution. A periodic shake-up of the status quo by demonstration and rhetoric—in which Irishmen are not lacking—would serve to correct the imbalance of power and restore amity. It is a bad marriage, Northern Protestants and Catholics, but it was made too long ago to dissolve without the deaths of both parties. Let them squabble and spit at one another the live-long day and then crawl into the bed they must share if they are to rest the night. They need one another. They suit one another. The Northern Protestant is more Irish than was de Valera, and the Northern Catholic is an alien to the papish south. Drink your coffee before it’s stone cold.”

  Julie was both awed and amused. Lady Graham wasn’t lacking in rhetoric herself. She sipped her coffee and set the cup aside.

  “Now I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re to be in Sligo to attend the funeral of Roger Casey.”

  “I’m not, but the newspaperman I drove here with is going to cover a funeral here tomorrow. I’m not really up on Irish news, Lady Graham. Who is Roger Casey?”

  “A very old man being exploited in death as a last survivor of the Easter Rising. He was a drummer boy—eleven years old in 1916. For years he’s been supported by the IRA, all to the purpose of having him roll the dead march for their martyrs. As Kitty says, it will be a lovely funeral. I’m giving her and two of the stablemen a half day off. It’s a sight to see if the IRA turn out. You should go. If they appear, they’ll be wearing their berets and their masks, their eyes burning with fratricidal hatred.”

  No, Julie thought, no masks; she would not see that.

  “And if he dares come, you’ll see your Mr. Quinlan raise his fist and pledge the support of every American with a drop of red Irish blood in his veins.”

  It took Julie a moment to register the name. “Mr. Quinlan?” A pulse started to pound in her head.

  “You must surely have heard of him. He’s the head of something called the Gaelic Relief Fund, which to my mind is no more than a blind any American politician could see through if he wanted to look.”

  “Joseph Quinlan?” Julie said, although she knew the answer. Now she also knew why the name Quinlan had been familiar to her when he had taken on the defense of Kincaid and Donahue.

  “I believe he’s a lawyer over there. Over here he’s a public nuisance. Worse. Far worse.”

  “I do know who he is,” Julie said softly.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “SHIPS PASSING IN THE night. If you find Thomas Francis, tell him I approve his daughter.”

  Julie put her hand out the car window. The elder woman grasped it tightly and then let go with a little flourish as though she were releasing a bird. The hounds were baying, and Kitty came from the house with a tweed jacket, boots and a hunting cap for Lady Graham. She, too, waved as Julie and Roy Irwin drove off.

  “Well?” Irwin said finally to her silence.

  “I didn’t learn much about my father. He and Edna O’Shea were married in London about fifteen years ago. I did learn that. And she’s a landscape painter, but I knew that already.”

  “In Ireland?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You ought to be able to find that out from the London gallery.”

  “I hope so.” She could not throw off the turmoil Quinlan’s presence in Ireland had thrown her into.

  “You ought to ring them up before it’s too late in the day,” Irwin said.

  “From where?”

  “We’ll stop back at the hotel, and I’ll help you get through the local exchange. Are you depressed, or what?”

  “She was overwhelming,” Julie said. “I’ll come out of it in a minute.” She did not intend to make a confidant of Roy Irwin. She had wanted to leave the troubled part of her life at home until she sat down to write about it. Impossible. It was an unfinished story, and this, too, was part of it. And so, she had to suppose, was the Gray Man. And whoever in New York had wanted her Dublin address and used the name of Father Doyle to try to get it. That had to be significant, the reference to Father Doyle. The query had to have come from someone who knew the West Side of Manhattan. She thought back to what her partner had said on the phone about Quinlan. He hadn’t mentioned the name specifically. What he said was that Kincaid and Donahue’s lawyer had asked police protection for their families. Given the opportunity, she asked herself, would she speak to Quinlan in Sligo? Would she identify herself and speak to him? She knew that she would not.

  “I’ve a grand lot of chums in Sligo,” Irwin said and described a few of them, writers and musicians. Julie made herself listen. “You’ll be welcome among us tonight, even if you are a Yank.”

  She did not commit herself.

  Irwin got Duval himself on the phone for her, but the gallery owner would not give out the address of Miss O’Shea. He’d be happy to forward a letter, but it might take some time to reach her.

  “Could you tell me if she’s in Ireland?” Julie asked.

  He hesitated. “I can only tell you it’s not a place of easy access.”

  “That’s bound to be Ireland,” Irwin said as they went out to the car. “There’s nothing the Brits would rather tell you than how impossible it is to communicate with the Irish.”

  As they drove northeast close by the foothills of the Ox Mountains, Julie watched the change in the countryside again, the round haycocks giving way to stony grazing grounds. There were great stretches of pine woods—reforestation—and here and there small patches of yellow among the prevailing green; the gorse was still in bloom. It was said, Irwin explained, that from one end of the year to the other gorse was in bloom somewhere in the British Isles.

  As they approached Sligo, Irwin told her about Roger Casey, the Easter Rising survivor whose funeral he was going to report on the next day. Casey had survived rather more than Lady Graham-Kearney accounted him: he had spent a third of his life in prison. Which seemed quite a lot for a drummer boy.

  They arrived in Sligo town at teatime to discover that not a hotel roo
m or bed-and-breakfast accommodation was to be had within miles. Half the country, it seemed, had converged on the town for Roger Casey’s funeral. The press headquartered at the Lupins Hotel. In the sprawl of ground-floor rooms and bars, men who had not seen one another for years were coming together, men of all walks whose speech was sprinkled with Gaelic and was much of the time whispered—not in conspiracy, but to make their points more telling. Irwin wasn’t troubled by the lack of accommodations. “I’ve a sleeping bag in the boot if I need it.” Then, in the first suggestion of humor—Julie hoped it was humor—he added, “In a dire crisis there’s room in it for two. What was it called in the States—bundling? Isn’t it an old American custom?”

  Julie would like to have distanced herself from the celebrants of Roger Casey’s funeral, but she felt a degree of reassurance in their numbers. She and Irwin arranged to meet in the lobby at six-thirty. She stored her suitcase with the porter and gave her name at the desk in the event a cancellation occurred. Then she found a phone booth in one of the public rooms. She was third in line. When she got through to the Garvy number, she was informed that Gran Garvy never came to the phone. The person who had come seemed pretty quavery herself. “What did you say your name was?”

  Julie shouted. Everybody in the hotel would know her name.

  “Ah, yes. You’re Richard’s friend. Hold on.”

  While she waited, she detected beneath the rumble of voices the pulsation of rock music. You heard it everywhere in Dublin and now here. It ought to have been anachronistic, but it wasn’t.