1916

by Morgan Llywelyn

  Henry surveyed his young friend with new respect. The boy was gone; a man sat before him. A man who carried a dangerous tension in every line of his body.

  “I think you mean that, Ned.”

  “I assure you I do.”

  The journalist smiled to himself as if his companion had just passed some obscure test. “Yours is a refreshing attitude in a city awash with informers. I won’t ask you again to divulge anything you’d rather not. And I’m glad you’re my friend. I wouldn’t like to see those eyes of yours looking at me down a rifle barrel.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  SEPTEMBER in New York was hotter than August had been. The city simmered beneath an oppressive blanket of humidity. Men worked in their shirtsleeves in defiance of office regulations. Women in the home loosened their stays or left them off altogether. Dogs lay panting in the shade of fire hydrants, too fatigued to rummage through overflowing garbage cans. War in Europe seemed a world away; New Yorkers were preoccupied with the more immediate fight against the heat.

  A succession of headaches kept Kathleen in her bedroom with the shades drawn and a cloth soaked in eau de cologne across her forehead. But nothing really helped. “Back home in Ireland we used to long for a hot climate,” she told Della when the housemaid brought her a glass of iced tea. “We did not know when we were well off.”

  “Folks never does,” Della Thornberry replied. A stout, plain woman in her middle years, she had coarse hands but a silky voice. “When I was single I wanted to get married. When me and Jake got married I wanted to have babies. When my babies came and cried all night with the colic I wished I was single.”

  In spite of her headache Kathleen laughed. “You didn’t mean that, not really.”

  “Oh, yes’m, I did!” Della said quickly. “Still do, to be honest. When I think of that worthless man of mine lying up in the bed till all hours, wantin’ me to fetch this and do that…I tell you, Missus Campbell, a man’s nothin’ but a child with a bigger appetite.”

  “Is Jake ill?”

  “No’m, he ain’t ill. Not unless laziness is a sickness. If it is, I’d say he’s close to dying tomorrow.”

  Kathleen gingerly turned her head on the pillow. She could just make out Della’s bulk silhouetted in the doorway. “What would you do if you weren’t married, Della?”

  “Me? Why, I’d go home so fast I’d just be a streak in the air.”

  “Where’s home? I always thought you were a New Yorker.”

  “Not me, missus. I was born in the New Jersey pine barrens. My folks worked for a chicken farmer there. When I was a young’un I hated it ’cause it was so lonely, but now I’m sorry we left. It’s the only place where my skin fits me.”

  The only place where my skin fits me. After Della left the room her words continued to echo through Kathleen’s aching head.

  When Alexander came to bed that night, Kathleen pulled back even before he touched her.

  “What’s the matter, Kate?”

  “I have a headache.”

  “Still? You had a headache last night.”

  “It’s the heat. I cannot bear the heat.”

  “You had a chance to go to Saratoga Springs with Mrs. Claffey and you refused,” he reminded her. “You could have spent the whole summer in the mountains.”

  “Mercedes Claffey doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Well, then, I don’t like her!”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous. She’s a charming woman who even came to that ill-advised luncheon of yours and gave you money for Ned’s school.”

  “She looks down on me, Alexander.”

  “Why on earth would she do that?” He was making an effort to keep his temper.

  “Because I’m a foreigner.”

  “But her own husband is Irish, Kate.”

  “His grandparents were Irish, that’s all. He was born here and so was his wife. They grew up on American food and they speak American English and they know different songs and they say ‘Excuse me’ instead of ‘Sorry’ and to them an anniversary means a wedding anniversary and not the commemoration of a death as it does at home and…” She was running on and she could not help it; words were spilling out of her mouth without any thought behind them. They were just words; a torrent of unreasoning protest. “And their gods are not my gods!” she heard herself crying.

  Alexander sat upright in bed. “Is that what this is all about? Religion? Great thunder, Kate! When I married you I thought you had some sense, at least you didn’t mouth papist dogma and rattle your beads at me. But now you’re raving about your gods like some ignorant peasant who’s never come out of the bog!”

  “I don’t mean gods in the religious sense, I mean…Oh, Alexander, this isn’t my place, can’t you understand? I thought it was, I wanted it to be. But it isn’t. I want to go home. I want to go home!” Her voice spiraled upward and she sat up as if to follow it.

  His thread of patience finally snapped. “You’re not going anywhere!” He caught her by the shoulders and threw her back onto her pillows. When she tried to break free of his grasp a delicious heat rose in him. For once she was showing some spirit in bed. The reason did not matter. It was unbearably exciting to feel her struggle, pitting her puny strength against his.

  Her shoulders were narrow beneath the silky skin; the bones in her arms were fragile. He could break them if he wanted. The knowledge filled him with exultation. Her smallness made him feel larger, her vulnerability gave him a thrilling sense of power. She was helplessly his in spite of all she could do, and in that moment he loved her as never before. He pounded her into the bed with his strength and his maleness, hurting her until she fought back and then hurting her again, just to show how much he loved her.

  Kathleen realized she was being raped and her resistance was only making it worse. But she had to fight back. She was an individual in her own right; he exceeded his authority in violating her just because he could.

  The struggle became a war, became rage and fury.

  WHEN Della arrived for work the next morning the house was very quiet. That in itself was unusual. No matter how bad the headaches, Kathleen was usually up with the dawn. She had never developed the habit of other women in her social circle of staying abed until ten at the earliest.

  Knocking softly on the closed bedroom door, Della heard a female voice mumble a response. She eased the door open and peered inside. A solitary figure lay on the bed amid chaotically disarranged bedclothes. The maid discreetly withdrew and went to the kitchen. There she found a half-empty cup of cold coffee on the table. But Alexander Campbell had gone.

  Della made a fresh pot of coffee and carried a tray in to Kathleen. “I see you’re still hurtin’,” she commented. “The mister’s gone to work already, so you’ll have the house to yourself. I’ll be as quiet as a fly on sugar.”

  Kathleen groaned and tentatively extended her legs. Then she groaned again. “Della.”

  “Yes’m?”

  “Don’t go.”

  “No’m.” Della waited patiently but Kathleen said nothing else.

  Her whole body ached. Worse—her soul felt degraded.

  Last night her sense of sexuality, so newly awakened, had received a nasty shock. Her husband’s behavior had disgusted her even more than it had frightened her. Was that what men really were?

  Alexander’s courtesy had been his initial attraction. With him she had once felt as safe as with her father. But Papa would never have assaulted Mama. Kathleen could not imagine such a thing. If all men were like Alexander, how could women remain sane? And to think she was bound to him for life!

  She licked cracked lips. “Della, I need you to take a message for me. Bring me some notepaper, will you?”

  “You can’t write no letter with a headache, missus.”

  “Don’t tell me what I can do!” Kathleen snapped. “Just bring the paper.”

  Della was startled. On more than one occasion she had remarked that her mistress
was “as sweet as any angel.” But it was no angel who abruptly threw back the covers and glared from the bed. It was a flushed, angry woman whose torn nightdress revealed massive bruises on her arms and bosom. In one or two places the skin was broken and oozing blood.

  “Sweet jumping Jesus!” Della gasped.

  Wincing, Kathleen pulled up her nightdress. “It isn’t as bad as it looks. I’ve been hurt worse falling out of a tree as a child. There is yellow salve in Mr. Campbell’s dressing room, I think, and a bottle of witch hazel and some cotton wool. Fetch them when you bring the notepaper.”

  They tended to her injuries together. Then Kathleen insisted upon dressing, although Della protested, “You should spend the day in bed, missus.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll feel better if I get up. Did you bring that notepaper? Good. Put it on the dressing table. But keep those shades down, will you?” She scribbled a few words on the paper, folded it into an envelope, and handed the envelope to Della. “Take this to Father Paul at Saint Xavier’s. And hurry.”

  BRIDIE Lynch had always resented the fact that young Mrs. Campbell would not employ her. “Married above her station, that one,” Bridie said. “Gives herself airs, and her as Irish as meself.” After the Claffeys hired her as housemaid Bridie took pleasure in gossiping about the Campbells with her friends. Little happened next door that she did not notice.

  That September morning she was sweeping the Claffeys’ front stoop when she saw Della Thornberry leave the Campbell house. The big woman hurried past and turned the corner almost at the run. A short time later Bridie was lowering the shades in the east-facing windows against the encroaching heat when she observed Della returning, accompanied by a priest. The two entered the Campbell house together. Della soon came out again with her marketing basket on her arm and was gone all morning.

  The priest did not leave until noon.

  MRS. Flanagan was worried about Father Paul. When he returned from visiting Kathleen Campbell that September morning he was not himself at all. In the days that followed he was uncharacteristically short-tempered and sometimes snapped at the other priests in the house. He was often absent without any explanation. His appetite fell off alarmingly. She knew there were nights when he never went to bed but knelt for long hours in prayer or paced the floor in his room until sunrise.

  Mrs. Flanagan’s late husband had been a heavy drinker who chased anything in skirts. Since his death she had served as housekeeper to the priests of Saint Xavier’s, which she described to friends as “Heaven after years of purgatory.” Her other two charges were in their sixties, like herself. One was devoted to studying the writings of Saint Augustine, and the other to golf. Paul O’Shaughnessy, however, was young and undeniably handsome. For such a man clerical robes might not be enough protection. There were always women who were tempted by forbidden fruit.

  Daughters of Eve could put a godly man’s soul in jeopardy. Mrs. Flanagan knew.

  In warm weather Abruzzio’s Ice Cream Parlor was a favorite gathering place for young housemaids on their afternoons off. Mrs. Flanagan never visited Abruzzio’s. To her mind there was something risqué, almost sinful, about sodas and phosphates and particularly that newfangled creation from the 1904 World’s Fair, the ice cream cone. She suspected they were an attempt on the part of greedy capitalists to lure honest folk away from home-cooked food. And she was absolutely certain that the maids who congregated at Abruzzio’s spent their time gossiping. Mrs. Flanagan prided herself on not being a gossip. She could have told many a story if she chose, but a priest’s housekeeper held a position of trust.

  Her marketing sometimes led her past Abruzzio’s, however. On a hot September afternoon a whiff of vanilla as intense as unrequited love poured out through the open door. Glancing through the window, Mrs. Flanagan noticed Bridie Lynch sitting alone at one of the tiny wrought iron tables.

  On impulse she went in.

  Bridie Lynch was surprised to see Mrs. Flanagan, but was flattered when the woman asked to join her. A priest’s housekeeper had considerable status in the hierarchy of domestics. Over dishes of ice cream—Mrs. Flanagan eschewed the more exotic chocolate and strawberry and ordered plain vanilla—the two discussed furniture polishes and the relative merits of broom and carpet sweeper.

  When Bridie was sufficiently bored to be off guard, Mrs. Flanagan asked casually, “Do you see much of the Campbells next door?”

  “Hunh. Them. Herself goes one way and himself the other. You’d need an eye on either side of your head to watch the pair of them.”

  “Is Mr. Campbell often away, then?”

  Bridie laughed. “Not often enough for his wife, I’d say. But you’d know that better than meself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You ‘do’ for Father Paul, don’t you? Him that’s been alone with her in her house every afternoon this week. With the shades down,” Bridie added with happy malice.

  Mrs. Flanagan pushed away the empty ice cream dish. Suddenly there was a bad taste in her mouth. “Every afternoon? Alone?”

  “The housemaid only works until three. There’s just the two of them to do for, you see. The Alexanders don’t have any children.”

  “Father Paul is a priest, and priests are supposed to visit the sick,” Mrs. Flanagan said. “Mrs. Campbell’s ill.”

  “Don’t you believe it. If she was, my mistress would be running over there making a fuss over her and feeding her calves’ foot jelly. And there would be a doctor called; that sort of people are great ones for doctoring. No, Mrs. Campbell is as healthy as meself. She should be; she’s getting plenty of exercise. Her housemaid washes bedsheets every morning. Every single morning!” Bridie Lynch gave Mrs. Flanagan a lewd wink that shocked the older woman to the depths of her soul.

  The housekeeper returned to the presbytery deeply troubled. Father Paul would not be the first priest to carry on an indiscreet relationship.

  Kathleen Campbell was a beautiful woman with discontented eyes, and Mrs. Flanagan was in a position of trust.

  She could not speak to the bishop, that would be disloyal to Father Paul. It was Mrs. Campbell who had to be dealt with, somehow.

  Mrs. Flanagan tightened her lips and prepared to do battle. She had always been devoted to “her priests.” For them she would fight tigers.

  September 18, 1914

  HOME RULE BILL RECEIVES

  ROYAL ASSENT

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  NED’S new job was not glamorous, but at the end of each week he received a pay packet. With a sense of satisfaction he wrote Frank not to send him any more money: “I can get by on what I can earn for myself.” The boast contained a degree of bravado, as he was making very little. But he was putting his trust in his abilities and the future.

  His next letter was to Kathleen:

  I’m employed as a copyboy, which means they have the legs run off me most of the time. I carry copy from the editorial offices to the printing plant in Middle Abbey Street. It’s just across O’Connell Bridge, but I make dozens of trips a day. However, if I prove myself I can work my way up to apprentice reporter before too long. And I have my evenings free for the Volunteers.

  My friend Henry Mooney tells me that the American papers carry little news about Ireland, and what there is comes through British channels. So you may not even know that the Home Rule Act is at last on the statute books. But don’t rejoice for us. At the same time—and using the European war as a justification—Parliament passed a Suspensory Act postponing Home Rule indefinitely.1 So the unionists have had their way after all.

  Yet John Redmond of the Irish Parliamentary Party went into veritable ecstasies, announcing that Ireland had got “a great charter of freedom.” Freedom! The Home Rule Act is no more than a useless scrap of paper now. I personally do not think we will ever see it go into effect, with or without the exclusion amendment.

  On the 20th of September Redmond spoke at a Volunteer rally in County Wicklow. Henry was assigned to report on the speech for the pape
r, and because it was a Sunday I was free to go down with him.

  It was a soft day; you could catch the air in both hands and squeeze it. But in spite of the damp a big crowd turned up at a place called Woodenbridge. There were banners and flowers on the speakers’ platform and even a band playing. Some of the Volunteers brought their wives and sweethearts for an outing in the country.

  What we got was a blatant recruiting speech for the British army. Redmond claimed that Britain had kept faith with Ireland (in what manner, I wonder?) so now we must keep faith with her. We must enlist to fight and die on her behalf. His exact words were, “The Empire is engulfed in the most serious war in history. It is a war for the defense of the sacred rights and liberties of small nations.”

  What about this small nation, Caitlín? When did Britain ever do anything but trample on our sacred rights and liberties?

  Redmond said the Volunteers must “account for yourselves wherever the firing line extends, in defense of right, of freedom, and religion in this war.”

  But what about Irish rights, freedom, and religion, Caitlín? All three have repeatedly been denied us in the long sad history of our relationship with Britain. Does Redmond not see the irony? But no; he urges us to rush out and join the army to serve wherever they send us. Rather than allowing us to defend this island, he has consigned the Irish to Flanders as British cannon fodder. In return he assures us a grateful Britain will reward Ireland with the implementation of Home Rule.2 Someday. (When pigs fly, as Henry said to me under his breath.)

  It would be hopelessly naive to believe this, no matter what promises Prime Minister Asquith has made. Individually, the people of England are as decent and honorable as any other. They cherish their reputation for fair play. But their government does not reflect the national character, at least in its dealings with Ireland. Anything to do with Ireland provokes British politicians into the worst excesses of imperialism. I doubt if one Englishman in a hundred has any idea what perfidy and duplicity have been visited upon this small island in his name.