A Fitzgerald, related to the mighty Earl of Desmond. Quite a distant kinsman, from a modest branch of the southern Fitzgeralds. But still a Fitzgerald.
“How did you manage that?” she asked in frank admiration.
“It must be my charm.” He smiled. “He’s a nice boy. You’ve no objection?”
“It would be a fine thing for Fintan to have such a friend,” she answered. “Let him come as soon as he likes.”
He came the following month. His name was Maurice. He was the same age as Fintan, but dark where Fintan was fair, slimmer, a little taller, with finely drawn Celtic features that served to remind you that the Fitzgeralds were as much Irish princes as English nobles, and beautiful eyes, that she found strangely compelling. He was very polite, and declared that her house was exactly like that of his parents—“Except,” he added, “that ours is beside a river.” Though slim, he was athletic, knew his cattle, and seemed to slip easily into Fintan’s life as an unassuming friend. But you could tell, she observed, that he came from an aristocratic household. His manners, though very quiet, were courtly. He always referred to her as “the lady O’Byrne”; he obeyed her husband with instant respect, and said “please” and “thank you” more than they were used to. He could also read and write considerably better than Fintan, and played the harp. But beyond all this, there was a fineness about him that she couldn’t quite describe, but which marked him out, and privately she confessed to her husband, “I hope that Fintan will learn from him.”
Certainly the two boys became good friends. After a year, they seemed as close as brothers, and Eva came to think of Maurice as an extra son. Sean was a good foster father. Not only did he ensure that the boy came to know all that there was to know about the farming and the local affairs of the Wicklow Mountains and the Liffey Plain, but he would send him out with MacGowan sometimes, to visit the farms and houses of people like the Walshes, or to go down to Dalkey or even to Dublin itself with the grey merchant.
Eva had supposed that perhaps the boy would wish to meet his Kildare kinsmen also on these occasions. But Sean had explained to her that with the suspicions attaching to the Earl of Desmond recently, this might not be wise. “His parents will make those arrangements when they see fit,” he said. “It’s hot for us to introduce him to his relations.” And Maurice seemed perfectly content with his quiet life in the O’Byrnes’ household.
Yet, in some strange way, he was also a being apart. It was not only his love of music—for sometimes, when he played his harp, he seemed to drift away into a sort of dream. It was not only his aptitude for the things of the intellect—for Father Donal, who taught the two boys, would sometimes wistfully remark, “It’s a pity he is not destined to become a priest.” It was his melancholy moods. They were rare, but when they fell upon him, he would wander up into the hills alone and be gone for perhaps a day, not striding vigorously over the mountains like Sean, but walking alone as if in a trance. Even Fintan knew better than to offer to accompany him at such times, but left him alone until the mood had passed. And when it had he would emerge, it seemed, refreshed. “You’re a strange fellow,” Fintan would say affectionately. And it surprised no one that, when the friar had passed once or twice on his way to visit the hermit at Glendalough, he had sat for hours with the boy and upon departing given him his blessing.
Yet none of this seemed to affect the Fitzgerald boy’s friendship with Fintan. They worked together, went hunting, and played practical jokes exactly as other healthy boys of their age would do; and once, when she had asked Fintan who his greatest friend was, he had looked at her in astonishment and said, “Why Maurice, of course.”
As for Maurice’s relationship with her, it was like that of a son to a mother except that, with the faint reserve of a priest, he always held himself just a little distant from her—a fact which after a year or two had almost grieved her until she had realised that he was doing so to ensure that he did not encroach upon her relationship with Fintan; and she admired his fineness.
Though no one could say quite when or why, the atmosphere in the house of O’Byrne of Rathconan subtly changed with the coming of Maurice Fitzgerald. Even Sean seemed gradually to become more thoughtful towards her. And what better proof could there be than the fact that, as the day of her birthday approached in the summer of 1533, he invited all the neighbours to a feast at the house. There was a fiddler, and dancing, and a travelling bard recited tales of Cuchulainn, and Finn mac Cumaill, and other heroes of legend in the old way, while Sean and Fintan sat beside her; and Maurice also played his harp for all the company. And then Sean made her a present of a pair of Henry Tidy’s finest embroidered gloves together with a length of silk brocade, which pleased her no less because she guessed that they had been chosen by Maurice on one of his journeys to Dublin with MacGowan.
So they feasted and sang and danced late into that night, which was the eve of Corpus Christi.
There were several great days of pageant in the Dublin calendar. Some years there was the Riding of the Franchises; there were always parades upon Saint Patrick’s Day and Saint George’s, the patron saints of Ireland and of England. But the greatest pageant of all came in July, four Fridays after midsummer, at the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, the celebration of the miracle of the Mass. What better day for the city’s corporate bodies, religious fraternities, and the guilds to celebrate themselves. For if the mayor, aldermen, and freemen of the city were the rulers of Dublin, nearly all of them were members of one or another of these. There were the great religious fraternities, like the mighty Holy Trinity to which Doyle belonged, which had its chapel in the Christ Church and concerned itself with charity and good works; and there were the numerous guilds—merchants, tailors, goldsmiths, butchers, weavers, glovers, and many more—which regulated their own trades and most of which had modest chapels in the lesser city churches. And on Corpus Christi day, they had their great pageant.
It had followed a set pattern for generations. Each guild had its carnival float, with painted scenery like a little stage. Eight feet wide, so that they could just pass through the Dame’s Gate, drawn by six or eight horses, they were proudly maintained to make a splendid show. Each one depicted a famous scene from the Bible or from popular legend. The order of procession was laid down in the Chain Book of city regulations kept in the Tholsel. First came the glovers, depicting Adam and Eve; then the shoemakers; then the mariners, who represented Noah and his Ark; then the weavers, followed by the smiths—nearly twenty pageants in all, including a splendid tableau of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table performed by the city auditors. Finally, making its way like a two-man pantomime horse, and nodding in a stately manner to the crowd, came the great dragon of Saint George, the emblem of Dublin corporation.
Congregating in the early morning on open ground near Ailred the Palmer’s old hospital outside the western gate, the procession would make its way through the gate, up the High Street to the High Cross by the Tholsel, past Christ Church and the castle, and then down through the Dame’s Gate, finishing by the archery practice grounds on the edge of Hoggen Green, where some of the guilds would perform short plays from their floats.
Tidy was excited. This year he had been selected by his fellow glovers to play the part of Adam. During the procession he would be standing on the float in a white hose and vest, wearing a huge fig leaf of vaguely indecent design; but afterwards he had a spoken part to learn, and for weeks Cecily had listened to him solemnly rehearsing such lines as, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?”
The sun was already bright when Tidy set off, looking pleased but determined. An hour later, Cecily left the children with a neighbour and went into the city to watch him.
It seemed to Margaret as if the entire region had converged upon Dublin that day. So thick were the crowds that she was obliged to leave her horse at a tavern near Saint Patrick’s, for an outrageous charge, and to join the throng making its way on foot th
rough the southern gate. This had the advantage of making her inconspicuous, but she wondered if she would ever catch sight of her husband.
Walsh had left at dawn. She had waited an hour, then telling the groom that she’d be back that evening, she had ridden after him without a word of explanation. She had wondered if she might catch sight of him ahead, but he had been too quick for her and she had failed to do so. As for how she would explain her absence from home on her return, that would depend upon what happened today.
She had wondered whether to confront him with his affair with the Doyle woman, but decided against it. She had no proof. If he denied it, where would that leave her? In a state of perpetual uncertainty. Some women, she knew, would have ignored it, and no doubt that made life easier. But she didn’t think she could. Nor did she have any other woman she could confide in: faced with this unexpected crisis in her life, she found herself alone. So she had decided to follow him into Dublin. She knew it was foolish. She knew she might not catch sight of him. And if she did, if she saw him with the Doyle woman, what was she going to do? She didn’t know that either.
How cheerful everyone was. The colourful crowd flowed through the gateway laughing and chattering while Margaret, her hair pushed under a black velvet hat, her face looking solemn and gaunt, was carried along in its flow like a stick in a stream. Up Saint Nicholas Street they went, past Shoemaker Lane, and thence to the big intersection with the High Street where the tall gables of the old Tholsel could be seen. The crowd at the crossing was too thick to get through but fortunately the stewards let a group, including Margaret, surge across the street into the precincts of Christ Church where there was more room for the crowd to stand. Moments later the street was cleared again. The procession was coming.
A party of horsemen, sergeants of the city, and other officials led the way. Then came a band with pipes and drums. And, lumbering slowly behind, came the first of the floats.
The glovers certainly got the carnival off to a good start. In the middle of the float stood a tree made of board painted with green leaves and golden apples. Adam and Eve, both men, were wearing the appropriate fig leaves; Eve sported a pair of huge breasts, held a golden apple the size of a pumpkin, and made lascivious movements to the cheers of the crowd, while Adam looked solemn and cried out from time to time, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?” The serpent—a tall, thin man—wore an ingenious headpiece which, with the aid of a string, he caused to writhe from side to side or dart its head in a frightening manner towards the crowd.
Margaret watched it pass with a grim smile. She started to inch her way eastwards through the crowd. Another float rumbled by: Cain and Abel. Soon after this she reached the place she wanted, and finding a spot on a low wall where some children were standing, she was able to enjoy a good view, over the heads of the spectators, of the doorways of the houses on the other side.
The section of the High Street opposite the cathedral was known as Skinners Row. The big gabled houses there were the Dublin residences of some of the nobility and gentry, including the Butlers. Others belonged to the greatest merchants. Alderman Doyle had moved there from Winetavern Street on his marriage. Their timber-framed upper floors overhanging the street provided perfect galleries for viewing the pageant and all the windows were crowded. The place Margaret had chosen was opposite Doyle’s house.
It was certainly impressive; four storeys high, built of stone at street level, timber and plaster above, with two gables and a slate roof—it was a permanent pageant of the alderman’s wealth. Margaret stared up at its windows, full of faces: servants, children, friends at every one. At the biggest she could see Doyle and his wife. Was her husband in there, too? She couldn’t see him.
The floats went by: Noah and his Ark, the Pharaoh of Egypt and his army, several Nativity stories; Pontius Pilate accompanied by his wife. Just after this, Doyle’s face disappeared from the window, and as King Arthur and his Knights came by, she saw the alderman, in his scarlet robes of office, emerge from the street door and walk towards the Tholsel. She continued to watch until the splendid green-and-red dragon of Saint George, which also had silver wings, brought up the rear of the pageant, together with another band of pipes and drums.
As the end of the procession passed, many of the crowd were falling in behind. Realising that she might become conspicuous, Margaret retreated a little to a small tree in the precincts from which she could still watch the Doyle house. The faces had already left the windows and people were starting to come out of the street door, presumably to follow the pageant to Hoggen Green and see the plays. It looked as if the entire household might be leaving, servants and all, but though she watched carefully, she didn’t see Doyle’s wife. By the time the door closed, the big house appeared to be empty. She waited while the people following the procession reduced to a trickle. Had Joan Doyle left after all? Had she missed her? She wondered what to do.
And then, walking jauntily along the street, she saw her husband. He paused in front of Doyle’s door, glanced about, and seemed about to knock on it when the door opened and there, smiling in the entrance, stood Joan Doyle. He stepped in and the door closed behind him.
Margaret stared. Her heart missed a beat. It was true then: her husband and the Doyle woman. She felt an icy coldness strike her in the chest. She was suddenly breathless.
What should she do now? Were they really alone? Surely there would be a servant, at least, in the house. Unless the Doyle woman had deliberately sent them all away. That might be it: the Corpus Christi pageant was the perfect excuse. They would go to watch the plays while her husband slipped into the empty house. She looked along the street in the direction in which the procession had gone. The ebbing tide of people was just drawing away from the pillory which stood alone at the end of Skinners Row. She heard the distant blast of someone blowing a trumpet down by the Dame’s Gate, a haunting warning like a tocsin sound.
She must go in and confront them. It was now or never. But what excuse could she use? That she happened to have raced into Dublin that day? That she had just caught sight of him entering the house? What if his visit had some other purpose, purely innocent?
It would be, to say the least, embarrassing. And as she tried to formulate what she should say, she realised the uselessness of it. For if they were in fact making love, the door would certainly be bolted so that they wouldn’t risk being caught in the act. If she hammered on the door, William would either vanish through a back window or, more likely, be found there fully dressed with a plausible excuse. She’d be left looking a fool and perhaps none the wiser. She wondered whether to go across to the house and try to peer in through the windows.
She decided to wait a little and see what happened. Time passed. But she was so distressed that, after a while, she realised that she had no idea how long she had been watching. A quarter of an hour? Half an hour? It seemed like an eternity. She was just trying to work out how long it might have been when the door opened and William came out. He turned and walked swiftly towards the pillory as the door closed behind him. Margaret stayed where she was. More time passed. The door did not open again.
The pageant floats had come to rest near the edge of Hoggen Green where there was a small chapel dedicated to Saint George. While their horses grazed on the green, a group of five floats had been arranged in a large semicircle on the grass; and these were to give a succession of short plays, starting with the glovers’ Adam and Eve.
Cecily smiled. It was a charming scene, in sight of the old Thingmount. A few booths had been set up selling ale and other refreshments. The sky was clear blue, the sun hot. There was a smell of horse and human sweat and barley ale that was not unpleasant.
Though it was brief, the glovers’ play was well performed. Tidy’s cry, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?” was taken up by the crowd who, all together, had bellowed it back with great good humour. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent were duly banished from Paradise to general applause. Shortly it would be the turn of the next
group to perform Cain and Abel.
Cecily’s attention had already been drawn to the group of young men standing nearby during the glovers’ play. It was obvious from their bright silk shirts and tunics that these were rich young aristocrats, and some of them sounded like visitors from London. They had also clearly been drinking; but they seemed harmless. And it didn’t shock her that, seeing her watching them, they began to banter with her.
What was a pretty woman like herself doing alone? Where was her husband? On the stage, she told them. Who was he? Adam. This was greeted uproariously. Then she must be Eve. Was she a temptress? Which one of them would she tempt? All this she could take in good part. But as the next play began, and they started to make lewder remarks, she decided she had to put them in their place.
“Attend to the play, Sirs,” she cried, “not to me. Remember,” she added, “that this is still the Feast of Corpus Christi.”
Yet if she supposed that this reproof would quieten them, it had quite the opposite effect. They started making vulgar puns, asking her if she would be “corporal” on Corpus Christi day, until finally she had had enough.
“Do not mock the miracle of the Mass,” she called out sharply, expecting this to silence them once and for all. So she was utterly astonished when one of the young bloods, who was clearly English, made a disparaging remark about the Mass. It wasn’t said very loudly, but it was audible; and even more amazing, some of his companions laughed.
She even forgot the play. She stared at them in disgust. Who did these English fops think they were? And why were their Irish companions letting them get away with it? They might be the sons of great lords—she didn’t know and she didn’t care—but they shouldn’t be allowed to come and utter profanities in Dublin. She stepped towards them.
“You may be Protestants and heretics in London,” she called out firmly, “but you need not bring your blasphemy to Dublin.” Some of them, she thought, looked awkward, but not all.
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