Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  “And this happened near the Opera House? I think people should know. A gentleman should be able to walk, no matter the hour, and have every expectation of personal safety,” says Ward. He stands from the couch and walks purposefully from one side of the room to the other. Sarita tracks his progress. She’s sunk into her usual chair and must be tired out from the previous evening’s festivities, as she’s failing to muster the requisite outrage. She sips her tea, looking at Casement with narrowed eyes.

  “How much money did he get?” she asks.

  “About eighty francs. And my watch.”

  “And where exactly were you?” she continues.

  Casement, with some effort, smiles. “On the pavement.”

  Casement has been waiting at the Belfast ferry terminal for an hour. Millar is not usually this late, although he has been later as of late and has even canceled meetings set well in advance, meetings that he would never have thought to miss when they first got together. Although, Millar is solicitous, happy to run errands, organize accounts, arrange figures. Casement adjusts himself on the wooden bench. If Casement had need of a personal bank clerk, Millar would be there, one hundred percent. But lately he has been a distracted creature and, honestly, what does Casement have to offer?

  And then Millar presents himself at the entrance. Casement watches. Millar’s jacket is buttoned incorrectly, so the collar’s askew. He’s looking all around, mouth agape and nose wrinkled, but Casement doesn’t wave. He feels two currents playing through him at this moment. One is that heart flutter that he always gets when he sees Millar, the sense of incredible luck that he could be here in Belfast and have someone waiting for him, to have something that approaches the conventional. The other is a dull ache, the anticipation of grief, which is unfortunately the gift of middle-age wisdom. And that’s why he doesn’t wave, because for this minute at least he knows where Millar is, knows that Millar is looking for him.

  “Mister Gordon!” shouts Casement, and Millar looks over. There’s that smile and it could be that Casement is overthinking things, as is his nature.

  Millar pushes through a couple of idlers, extends his hand. “Sorry, Sir Roger. All of Belfast’s a disaster today.” He sees Millar notice his eye, acknowledged only with subtle nod. They shake hands. “The streets are jammed.”

  “Business as usual?” Casement picks up his case and the two make for the entrance of the terminal.

  “Have you not looked at the newspaper?”

  “I have yesterday’s Daily Mail.”

  “The Titanic was launched this morning, so we should move quickly. Things are going to get very hectic around here.”

  “That’s right.” Casement remembers. “Did you go see it?”

  “Me and all of Belfast. They’re saying there were over a hundred thousand people there. Do you know that it took twenty-two tons of soap and tallow to get her down the slipway?”

  “That’s a lot of tallow. Did you get a good look?”

  “The ship’s four stories high and hard to miss.”

  “I suppose it will be difficult to get a taxi?”

  “Not difficult, impossible. Good thing I have my own transportation.”

  Casement gives Millar an indulgent nod weighted with foreboding. It’s Casement who bought him the motorbike in the first place, because it’s what Millar wanted, and he had cash then—cash, which shows up miraculously every now and then, and is quickly consumed, like summer strawberries. “What about my case?”

  “That’s easy. Goes on your knees.”

  “And how does it stay there?” Casement needs both his hands to grip the bar at the back of the seat to keep himself from pitching off.

  “With any luck, I won’t have to make any abrupt stops.”

  On the street corner, the motorbike does not seem quite so terrifying, although it does look small to transport all it’s needed to. “Maybe I can call Biggers.”

  “He’s out of town.” He arches an eyebrow. “Apparently some graves in Londonderry needed rubbing.”

  It’s Derry, but Millar has a hard time keeping that straight. Millar gets on first and rocks the bike off its stand. He gives a ready look to Casement, who gets astride and then squeezes the case between him and Millar. The case seems to have been invented to prevent the touching of bodies. Millar kicks the motorbike into life. “Don’t go too fast,” says Casement.

  Millar responds with his usual statement, “When I lean, try to lean with me.”

  Belfast should feel like home, but it doesn’t. No place does, really. Rumor has it the bill is going to be on the table next April. Home Rule could be a reality in the next three years and English sovereignty a thing of history. To say the North is adamantly opposed to an Irish State is something of an understatement, although the faction in favor—Biggers, Hobson, Alice, himself—are at least organized. Things are getting heated. He’s cautioned himself to stay calm in these discussions as such behavior is usually better for his cause in the long run, but he is a man of many passions, all of which, unfortunately, look better on the young. On people his age passions don’t seem virile, rather the opposite—hysterical.

  Still, there are some things he can discuss calmly. No, he doesn’t want to be ruled by the Pope any more than Henry VIII. And no, he doesn’t want to find himself beholden to some toothless Mayo sheep farmer. Keep the North as is. Linen and shipbuilding and good Protestant work ethics have brought wealth to the region. The successes of the North are exactly what make a free Irish State such a viable thing—the leavening in the bread. What needs to be articulated is an Irishness that appeals to Ulster ledgers. He can’t keep pointing to dancing girls and soda bread and boys at the hurling and expect Ulster Scots to leap on board. Lean. Lean. Lean. Millar is taking this corner too slowly and Casement is worried the motorbike will topple. There is a wobble and Casement feels a wash of adrenaline as he predicts the fall, but then Millar grinds into a different gear, there’s a jump of speed, and the bike rights itself.

  At the house on Myrtlefield Park, all is quiet. Casement sets his bag inside the door, rakes his hands through his hair, looks around.

  “No one here,” says Millar. “I gave Margaret the day off because her sister just had a baby.”

  “And Mrs. Gordon?”

  “In Ballymoney at a funeral.”

  “No one close, I hope.”

  “Not to me, or to her. Mother just likes funerals.” Millar widens his eyes with the mock horror that usually accompanies all references to his mother. “Tea, Sir Roger?”

  Casement smiles. Millar is presenting a casual self that’s a touch too relaxed. Casement follows him down the hallway to the kitchen, taking in the slightly pigeon-toed gait, the low hairline that no matter how he keeps his hair always touches his collar. Casement is quiet. Millar will soon recognize this, if he hasn’t already. It would be like Millar to intentionally ignore this so as not to get into a discussion. Millar goes about filling the kettle, holds his hand over the stove to check the heat, then puts the kettle on.

  Casement leans on the doorframe and Millar leans against the counter, folding his arms across his chest, crossing an ankle. “Are you tired?” he finally offers.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “How are the Wards?”

  “I always enjoy spending time with them.”

  “And your friend Herbert?”

  Once, Millar had nursed an envy here, had asked for details about their time in Africa, had suspected that there was more to this history, a suspicion that Casement had nurtured to give an alternate past, perhaps. Or merely to heat desire. “Still capable of charming any man, woman, or beast.”

  “Or combination thereof?”

  Casement smiles again.

  “And your eye?”

  “Still working. I think it gives me a masculine edge, helps when I’m addressing the workers of this great soon
-to-be nation.” Will Millar ask how he got it? He doubts it. And Casement won’t ask about the lady’s parasol he saw leaned inside the door, definitely not the stiff black affair that Mrs. Gordon uses to shield herself from the sun’s cheery rays.

  “Quite the brute,” says Millar.

  Things are looking up. “And I suppose you’re an angel.”

  “I’m no angel, Sir Roger. You know that.”

  Sarita is headed to Aldershot with Herbie, whom she’s checked out of Eton for the night to watch Charlie box. The carriage is first class and, as a result, reeks of first-class cigar smoke, and also something that she can’t quite place. Cat urine comes to mind, but it’s probably the afterglow of some modern perfume. She’d been thinking of ordering a light snack, but the thought of eating anything with her olfactory senses so assaulted does not seem advisable. Herbie probably wants something, even though it’s only an hour’s journey. He’s at that age—fourteen years—and has changed since the last time she saw him, just a matter of weeks earlier. His cheekbones are higher and he’s developing her reedy build, her deep-set eyes, her discerning intellect. “Mother,” he says, “why are we taking the train if Grandfather is going in the motorcar?”

  “Paulson is a terrible driver. I don’t think it’s safe.”

  “Everyone’s been complaining about Paulson for years. He wasn’t a good groom. He took some of Father’s shirts when he was watching the house in London. And he got the Fordham’s maid pregnant.”

  “It was the Fordham’s governess. And you’re not supposed to know about that.”

  “Why doesn’t Grandfather just fire him?”

  “You don’t just fire people who have been working for the family for years.” And besides, if Father did that, Paulson would no doubt show up at Rolleboise with his hat in his hands and next thing Herbert would have created a position for him and soon all the maids would be complaining about Paulson’s advances, as he’s not the lad he once was. Sarita performs the folding of hands in her lap. “Loyalty is a virtue, Herbie.”

  “Is that what you’re going to say when Paulson drives Grandfather into a ditch?”

  Herbie is playing with her. She knows it. He’s so clever, that boy. He’s probably figured out the real reason why they’re on the train. Now that Mother’s dead, Father has taken a companion, and this new addition is currently his companion in the motorcar. Father had actually asked Sarita if the arrangement was acceptable to her, if she had a problem with it, but the truth is she’d been sending Paz money since Dr. MacIntyre’s death. Paz was no longer lady’s maid material and she had nothing to her name but four trunks of last season’s gowns. Even the jewelry that she’d thought good was just paste. What she’d said in the letter actually was “basta bisuteria, como yo,” or just paste, like me. And never having lied to her father about anything, Sarita had laid it out, just like that. Father taking Paz as mistress made sense. He was old, of course, but Paz was no longer a girl. What was Father’s response? “Sarita, you are both pragmatic and kind.”

  Herbie is watching her think, his lips pursed and eyes squinted, the gears of that Sanford mind grinding all pretense into substance. “And why are we staying at The Goring?”

  So Herbie does know. But so long as he doesn’t know that she knows that he knows, it will all be acceptable. “You don’t need a reason to stay at The Goring.” She sounds like Cricket, who might not need a reason to stay at The Goring, but this sensible mother does. At some point they will have to figure out how to give all access to the London house.

  “Will Charlie be joining us?”

  “He might.” If he’s not in hospital. Charlie is competing in the Public School Competition representing Eton. She doesn’t know where he finds the time to do this and would rather he found something less dangerous for sport, but here her opinion matters little. Herbert is suddenly interested in his eldest son. He can’t make this fight as he booked a Volunteer Force bivouac for the same weekend, but he sends support. Sarita’s father is so pleased with this fantasy of self that has become a flesh-and-blood grandson that whatever protests she has as mother are not worth considering. And she understands it. She hears herself, “I’d rather you weren’t standing in front of all those people in your shorts,” “Doesn’t it hurt?” and, this one bon mot, which Herbie finds endless use for, “Charlie, you’ll ruin your nose.” Any time she asks anyone not to do something, Herbie asks if she’s afraid the person in question will ruin his or her nose. For example, “Cricket, you should not go riding with Alain Breson,” is met with Herbie’s “Afraid she’ll ruin her nose?”

  Neither of her sons has an adequate sense of self-preservation. Last term at Eton Herbie had been sanctioned for the most stupid of offenses. Apparently, as the stew was particularly awful, he’d taken his bowl up to the high table and said, before the whole student body, “Please, sir, can I have some less?” Herbie had told her that the whole thing was worth it. He’d become some sort of hero and claimed to have no regrets, although she doubted he’d felt that way when he was being birched.

  “Can I have some oysters?” asks Herbie.

  “Oysters on the train to Aldershot?”

  “Fish pie?”

  “You are asking for food poisoning. Steak and kidney pie, if they have it.” She raps her knuckles on the window as the porter passes. “Or some sandwiches.” She’s not sure that the dining cart will be open off hours, but they must have something to eat.

  “What time is Charlie’s fight?” asks Herbie.

  “It starts at two o’clock.” The porter passes again and she raps, again too late. “And no, we don’t have time to find a good lunch venue. We can always eat at the teashop at the station. You can have all the oysters you want when we get back to the hotel.”

  Dimples has just finished decorating her new townhouse in Paris and that’s where Roddie and Cricket are staying this weekend. Phipps is nice enough, but Dimples is having some trouble settling in and Roddie has been spending most weekends with her. Everyone anticipated that Roddie was going to miss Dimples—the two have always been close—but his grief at her moving out was a shock to all. And then, a week later, Ticker failed to wake up for his morning beef tea. This had been a blow to her as well, but not a surprise. As Herbert argued, that dog, out of canine devotion to her, had willed himself to the unprecedented age of seventeen and made a very reasonable exit. But Roddie was unmoved. He kept looking at the place by the newel post where Ticker’s cushion (and therefore Ticker) had been for years with a look of such horror that Sarita had suggested he use the back stairs until he was completely recovered.

  Roddie is too sensitive. Ostensibly, he’s going to Broadstairs next year, which should prepare him for Eton, but he’s so easily persuaded to tears that she doesn’t know how the other boys will react. Herbert’s solution? Tell Roddie not to cry. Toughen him up. Last week Herbert had mentioned sending the boy to Africa. She pictures little Roddie, although he’s now eleven, standing on a beach with his case and hat, a few black men milling around, a grinding sun, an elephant, and Roddie’s face composed in that stunned halibut look that he gets right before falling to pieces. Sarita thinks the boy’s best served by kindness, but she’s a mother, and her opinion is biased, useless, ignored. Distraction is probably good for him, and Cricket has managed to get tickets for them to some nutty—no doubt distracting—Russian ballet, even though all the seats were sold out a month ago. Cricket has been running with an artistic crowd, not a good idea for someone who’s logged several seasons, and seems content to log several more. What if she finds herself with someone unsuitable? When Sarita had brought this up with Herbert, his response had been, I was an artist and that wasn’t a problem. Which was unhelpful, but also difficult to argue with.

  “You just missed the porter again,” says Herbie. He gets up and with his knuckles gently raps on her forehead. “Hello, Mama, are you in there?”

  The gymnasium on
Queens Avenue has the look of a prison. At the entrance, an anxious boy jumps up and down on the balls of his feet, strange behavior, but no doubt related to some athletic endeavor. Sarita washes in through the doors with all the other people. She’d been concerned that there would be no women, but quite a few are here for the tournament, a lot of young girls surreptitiously pinching cheeks and turning to face the world with the composed, serene, false expression so prized in society. She wonders if one of them is here for Charlie, who, despite his blockiness, projects a ferocious masculinity that is not quite handsome but very effective. He’s admitted to having an involvement with a local girl who works in a teashop, but says he’s being careful. How strange that in her short life she has gone from someone who could have been that girl to a mother warning her son not to become entangled.

  “Mother, should I go find Grandfather?”

  “Not yet, I don’t think he’s arrived,” says Sarita.

  Paz enters the gymnasium alone and glides along, quickly recognized from her posture, taking steps to the top tier. A pair of soldiers in uniform turn to look as she passes, and they are ignored, as is Sarita, who has been sighted out the left side of Paz’s vision.

  “Let’s sit here,” says Sarita. These stupid hard seats are not sympathetic to women’s fashion and she’ll be spending the next hour or so leaned up along its supports like a plank. Sarita sees her father enter the gymnasium. He props himself on his cane, setting it before himself like the third leg of a tripod, and scans the seats. “Go say hello to your grandfather.”

  “Can I get some sweets?” Herbie is digging around in his pockets, which are yielding a surprising amount of coinage.