A Great Beauty

by A. O'Connor

  “Not right here, Mick, for goodness’ sake! No … we can get a room here for the night. That’s what I want, Mick. I didn’t come all the way to London to be in fancy restaurants or to go shopping or to party in Cadogan Gardens. I came to be with you.” She reached out and held his hand across the table.

  “Are you sure?” he asked incredulously.

  She nodded.

  ***

  The porter showed them to a bedroom.

  “Anything else, sir?”

  “No, thank you,” said Michael and the porter left.

  Kitty went over to the window and looked out at the rooftops across Chelsea.

  He came and stood behind her.

  “I love you, Kitty,” he whispered.

  She turned around and took his face in her hands. He bent his head and kissed her before they went and lay down on the bed.

  The next morning Kitty awoke in Michael’s arms.

  She gently nudged him awake.

  He opened his eyes and smiled at her.

  “I look forward to waking up to your face every morning,” he said.

  She smiled and kissed him before her smile turned into a frown. “I want to run away with you.”

  “Run away?” he asked.

  “Just to go – away – from here. Leave all this treaty and politics behind. Have we not sacrificed enough of our lives already?”

  “I know, I know – but let’s hope it will soon be all over, my love.”

  “No – I’m serious, Mick. I want us to run away.”

  “Kitty! I’m part of the delegation. I can’t just – run away from my responsibilities.”

  “You would if you loved me,” she said. “If you put me first for once.”

  “I do put you first, Kitty, but you’re asking the impossible!”

  “I’m asking to be able to marry the man I love and not have to share him with the world – is that too much to ask?”

  “On this occasion, yes,” he said.

  She turned from him and got out of bed. “We had better get back to Cadogan Gardens before they miss us. Maud will be terrified something has happened if she wakes and finds my room not slept in. And I have to protect my reputation from the rest of them.”

  “Kitty!” Michael called after her as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

  CHAPTER 50

  The next couple of days passed quickly for Michael and Kitty. Sometimes they managed to forget everything and enjoy the time they had together. But then the pressure of the situation would re-emerge and result in them have an argument where one or the other would storm off.

  “I just don’t know what’s wrong with us, Maud,” Kitty confided. “I know from the start we always used to spar with each other, but this is different. This feels serious.”

  “Kitty, he is under terrible pressure with the negotiations – he is unable to remove his mind from the conference table. Look, you’re both in a unique set of circumstances and pressures. But you’ll come through it stronger than ever.”

  “I hope so, Maud. Because I’ve put my whole life into this. If something goes wrong between us now, I don’t think I’ll be able to recover.”

  On the evening they were departing for Dublin, Michael took them to Euston Station.

  Maud said her goodbyes and got onto the train carriage, leaving Michael and Kitty on the platform.

  “I’ll write to you – every day, as before,” she promised.

  “And I to you,” he said.

  “What’s going to happen now? When will you be home next?”

  “It’s impossible to say.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  She hid her frustration and embraced him.

  The train whistle blew, and he led her to the carriage and helped her in before closing the door.

  As the train took off, she leaned out the window.

  “I’ll write to you,” she called as she waved goodbye.

  Winston Churchill watched Hazel’s face, animated as she paced up and down Philip Sassoon’s opulent drawing room. Philip was hosting an impromptu meeting that rainy late-November afternoon. Lloyd George and Lord Birkenhead were in attendance. Although Lloyd George had resisted Hazel Lavery’s interference in government affairs, he had to admit she had become a useful source of information since she had formed a close friendship with most of the Irish delegation, particularly Michael Collins.

  “The reality is, it will soon be December and the Irish delegates will be returning home to spend Christmas in Ireland,” said Hazel.

  “Really? I thought they would all have been spending Christmas dinner around your table at Cromwell Place, Lady Lavery,” Birkenhead mocked. “Raising a toast to the Old Country!”

  “The question is,” Hazel continued, ignoring Birkenhead’s sarcasm, “if the impasse has not been broken by then, will they return in the New Year? Why should they return if they feel no progress can be made? You have a very small window of opportunity here to close this deal and sign a treaty. Otherwise I fear all will be lost!”

  “And is this opinion coming from you, Lady Lavery – or Michael Collins?” asked Birkenhead. “We would like to be clear about the source of this information.”

  “Even a child would understand that what I am saying is true, Lord Birkenhead!” snapped Hazel.

  “Unfortunately, Hazel is right,” said Winston. “I can’t see how the negotiations can continue into the New Year if nothing has been achieved by Christmas. We would just be going around in circles.”

  “Michael and the others are under increasing pressure,” said Hazel. “De Valera and the parliament in Dublin insist on either closing a deal or going home.”

  “I wish people would stop calling that kangaroo debating society in Dublin a parliament!” snapped Lloyd George angrily. “It has no international recognition as of yet! And never will if we don’t sign this damned treaty!”

  “The way I look at it,” said Hazel, “is that to break this impasse you need to remove a couple of the more serious obstacles – for example, Mr. Childers – from the negotiations. Prime Minister, Winston, Lord Birkenhead – come to Cromwell Place and meet Michael and discuss things as men and not as politicians. You will be able to speak candidly there, without having everything documented and recorded. You will have the freedom to speak as you find.”

  They all sat in silence for a while.

  “What is this? Another impasse?” Hazel eventually said with a laugh.

  “Well,” Winston mused, “Hazel might have a point. My own private secretary, Eddie Marsh, has told me that when he has met Collins at Hazel’s he has found him to be very easy to deal with and talk to – not always the case at Downing Street, I think you’ll agree!”

  “Well, there is nothing to lose at this stage,” said Lloyd George. “I shan’t go myself, that wouldn’t look right … but Winston, Lord Birkenhead, as friends of Lady Lavery there is nothing to stop you attending Lady Lavery’s salon on a social visit – and if Mr. Collins happens to be there at the same time …”

  “Bravo!” exclaimed Hazel, clapping her hands together.

  “We shall leave the arrangements in your capable hands, Hazel,” said Winston.

  “Excellent!” Hazel said. “And before I rush off – I have to collect Michael as we have been invited to a poetry recital this evening – if I could remind you that you have committed to be painted by John as part of the Irish Collection to mark this treaty.”

  “If there ever is a treaty to mark!” scoffed Birkenhead.

  “Please put it in your diaries to attend John’s studio – he is a very patient man but even he has his limits!”

  Hazel threw on her fur coat, bid everyone goodbye and rushed out the door.

  “John Lavery is a very patient man indeed!” said Lloyd George. “I imagine life is never dull with Hazel as a wife.”

  “That is unquestionable!” chuckled Winston.

  “I still wonder what she wants out of all this,” mused Lloyd George. “I would hazard a gu
ess that she would have been angling for a knighthood for services to the Crown – but they already have that!”

  “Hazel is just a very kind and remarkable lady,” said Winston.

  “Not a vain attention-seeker then?” said Birkenhead with a smirk. “Poetry recital indeed!”

  CHAPTER 51

  The following day Michael and Hazel went to the Victoria and Albert Museum which was across the road from Cromwell Place, a short walk from the Lavery house. They had passed it walking back from Mass each morning and Michael had expressed an interest in visiting it.

  As they wandered around the museum, Michael marvelled at how relaxed he was in Hazel’s company. They had become so close over the weeks that he couldn’t imagine a time he had not known her. Under all the terrible pressure he was under with the negotiations, he felt he could trust her completely.

  Afterwards, they went for a stroll through the vast grounds of the museum.

  Hazel tightened her fur coat around her to keep out the chill. “So, on Saturday night Winston and Lord Birkenhead will arrive at seven for dinner at our house. I suggest that you are there early – it will put you in a stronger position if you are there first to greet them – instead of the other way round.”

  “You think of everything, Hazel,” he said, smiling at her.

  “I have invited Winston’s secretary also – you’ve met Eddie a few times socially – he can help smooth over any awkwardness.”

  “And there will be awkwardness. Yesterday, when we were finishing up the day’s negotiation, Birkenhead and I were nearly shouting at each other,” said Michael.

  “I want you all to leave that negativity behind and embrace the opportunity to make friendships. Ireland and Britain need to be friends – we are close neighbours and could be close allies – let’s start building bridges.”

  Michael spotted a bench and went and sat down on it, beckoning to Hazel to sit beside him.

  “I don’t know how I can ever repay you for all you’ve done for us – for me – since we arrived in London,” he said.

  “I don’t want repayment, Michael – I just want peace in Ireland!”

  He studied her fascinating face. “You’re an enigma.”

  “Me? An enigma?” she hooted, laughing. “Everyone will tell you I’m the very opposite of an enigma – I’m an open book!”

  “I don’t buy that. Behind the jolliness and the flamboyance – who is the real Hazel? Why have you thrown yourself so much into Irish politics?”

  “Things haven’t always been smooth for me, Michael. It was hard for me when my first husband Ned died. I was pregnant at the time and it was a shock.”

  “Of course it was.”

  “The trouble was, I never really loved Ned, not really. He loved me and he was without question the match I was expected to make. But I’d already met John by then and fallen in love with him. But my mother insisted he was not suitable … he was that much older than me, a widower with a daughter. She absolutely forbade a marriage to John and then marched me up the aisle with Ned.”

  “Could you not have said no? If you didn’t love Ned and were truly in love with John, why didn’t you follow your heart?”

  “I was too frightened to. I was too frightened to go against my mother’s wishes. And she had been recently widowed at the time – I didn’t want to cause her any more upset.”

  Michael gave a small laugh. “Strange, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “How people think they know what’s best. There was your mother thinking John wasn’t good enough for you and here you are still married years later – he’s now Sir John and you have become a titled lady through the marriage and risen to the top of British society.”

  “I often think exactly that!” nodded Hazel. “John would have had more than any of my mother’s expectations if she could have seen into the future. Mama got it very wrong – as mamas tend to do!”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you are so involved in Irish affairs,” said Michael.

  “So – Ned died, suddenly and shockingly – fell dead in front of me when I was five months pregnant with Alice. He was only twenty-nine years of age. Eventually, after a decent period of mourning, I married John, and Alice and I moved to London. Soon after the marriage my mother died – it was hard, but it hit my sister particularly hard. I had only one sibling – Dorothy.”

  Michael remembered that Hazel had talked about her sister when he met her first, when he was sitting for the portrait and Hazel had spoken to him about her sister to try and calm his nerves.

  “Had?” questioned Michael.

  “She died, Michael. She died a number of years ago.” A shadow passed over her face.

  “Was it sudden?” he asked.

  “It was unexpected, but in a way it shouldn’t have been. It was an unnecessary waste of a life.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Dorothy had been very cosseted as she was brought up – as had I. After our father died, my mother continued living a very lavish lifestyle and, when she died, to everyone’s horror there was very little money left. I had moved to London and started my new life with John. Dorothy, as she didn’t have anybody left in America, came to London and tried to live here … but she couldn’t settle. She didn’t get on with John … and she and I didn’t get on while she stayed here. Dorothy was very demanding, and she wasn’t very well. She was plagued with insecurities. She used to fast – long bouts of fasting where she hardly ate anything. Well, it all played havoc with her health which was seriously damaged. When she moved back to Chicago …” Hazel sank her face into her hands, “I was relieved. I felt she couldn’t fit in here and I was so taken up with my own new life with John at the time that I felt I had no time to give her. That I couldn’t give her the help she needed. Eventually we got news Dorothy had become quite unwell and we travelled back to the States to help her. But when we arrived, it was too late …” Tears were falling down Hazel’s face. “She had died. I got such a shock … I never expected … I just thought it was the latest drama in a long line of dramas with her. She had died alone in a public hospital with no family or friends around her.”

  “Oh, Hazel!” Michael was overcome with compassion.

  Hazel quickly wiped her tears away. “The press was merciless. They wrote many things about me – that I was a cruel and neglectful sister who had put ambition before caring for my own family.”

  “I’m so sorry, Hazel.” Michael’s own eyes began welling up.

  “They were right of course, the newspapers –”

  “No!” insisted Michael. “She was a grown woman! An adult – what could you have done?”

  “I could have been there for her. I could have helped her, but I was too preoccupied with myself – with my life, my marriage, my everything. I can never forgive myself for abandoning her. I will never forgive myself.”

  “But you can’t carry the burden for the rest of your life!”

  “Yes, I can. It’s my burden to carry … a few years after her death, during the Great War, John and I were in a car crash. We weren’t seriously hurt, but it was an awful shock. While I was recuperating I fell into the most terrible depression. Just everything seemed to hit me all at once. Being widowed at a young age, my parents’ death and then most of all what had happened to Dorothy. It was as if for the previous few years I had been rushing around from party to party, portrait-painting to portrait-painting, social column to social column, trying to – block out – the past. And suddenly when I was recuperating, I had time on my hands to face the past. It hit me so bad I could hardly get out of bed – I couldn’t see any point to the future.”

  As Michael listened intently, he could not imagine Hazel as being anything but vivacious and lively and optimistic. He couldn’t imagine her ever having a depressed day in her life. He suddenly put an arm around her.

  She melted into his arms and allowed herself to be enveloped in a hug as she held on to him tightly.

  “It w
ent on for weeks and months. John was despairing – he thought I’d end up like Dorothy. John was covering the Roger Casement trial in London, sketching the daily events for the government and press. And he would come home every evening and talk about what had happened in court that day. It was just after the Easter Rising and so the newspapers were full of it all and John spoke so passionately about the case that I became intrigued. Why had this man, with his immense international reputation as a humanitarian and his knighthood, risked it all to smuggle arms from Germany into Ireland? It was the first thing that had interested me in months. I do, of course, have Irish ancestry myself. One day, I got up and went into the court with John to witness the proceedings myself. From that day I was hooked – was hooked as I learned about the Irish fight for independence and the part Casement had played. When they hanged him, an Irishman, as a traitor to ‘his country’ – that is, England – I made up my mind to fight for Irish independence. I became obsessed with the Irish question.”

  “And here you are now,” said Michael as he held her tightly and stroked her hair.

  “In the arms of Michael Collins!” She managed to laugh as she wiped away her tears. “You see, it’s not you who owe me anything, Michael. It’s you and the Irish I owe everything to – you gave me back a purpose in life.”

  CHAPTER 52

  The Lavery household was a sea of activity the day of the dinner party. Gordon and his staff were rushing around, making sure everything was in place. Hazel oversaw all the details, checking and double-checking the settings at the dinner table and going through the house with a fine-tooth comb to ensure all was perfect.

  “For goodness’ sake, Hazel,” said John as he walked through the hallway and saw her arranging a display of flowers in a vase. “You are making the servants very nervous with all your fussing. I heard one of the kitchen maids had to take to the bed with a migraine, she was so stressed. It is just another dinner party, the same as countless others we have hosted in the past.”