The House (Armstrong House Series Book 1)

by A. O'Connor

  “Nobody has been round.”

  “Johnny told you what to say to them if they come?”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “He’s versed me well.”

  “Good.”

  Thomas came over to the small table she had put the food on and sat down, looking at her.

  “I never thought when I met you before I’d owe you my life,” he said as he started to eat.

  “Neither did I, I assure you.”

  He nodded. “Thank you.”

  “There’s no need to thank me. I was put in a hopeless situation where I was told your life was in my hands. I couldn’t have your death on my conscience. But I don’t approve of what you’ve done and I’ll never forgive Johnny for putting me in this situation.” She sat down on the bed.

  Thomas drank his coffee and smiled at her. “Yes, you will. Everyone always forgives Johnny in the end.”

  “I think you’ll find his charms will be lost on me.”

  “Too bad. That’ll devastate him. He thinks very highly of you, you know. He has a soft spot for you.”

  “I’m sure he has a soft spot for many.”

  “A soft spot for many, but he’s in love with you,” Thomas said matter of factly.

  Clara went bright red and she stood up. “I think you’re forgetting yourself, Mr Geraghty. Just because I’ve been forced to hide you gives you no permission to speak impertinently to me.” She walked towards the door. “I’ll be back for the tray shortly.”

  She stepped out and closed the door after her, locking it. She walked quickly down the corridor, but suddenly stopped and leaned against the wall, Thomas’s words whirling around her head.

  “Mr Seymour here to see you, ma’am,” said Fennell.

  She tried to look mildly surprised. “Mr Seymour? Oh, show him in, Fennell.”

  A few seconds later Johnny came bounding into the drawing room, followed by Fennell.

  “My dear Lady Armstrong!” He bent down, kissing her on the cheek.

  “Mr Seymour, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting my duties, Lady Armstrong,” he said in a loud jovial voice.

  “How so?” Clara smiled back at him but her eyes were venomous.

  “The portrait, Lady Armstrong, the portrait! I’ve come back to finish it.”

  “How thoughtful of you, Mr Seymour. We’d given up hope of it ever been finished and we have exiled it to –” She looked at Fennell, “Where exactly have we put the unfinished portrait, Fennell?”

  “In the pantry, my lady.”

  “The pantry!” Johnny exclaimed in mock horror.

  “There you have it, Mr Seymour. All art finds its correct resting place, and yours has found its own – in the pantry.”

  “Shall I fetch the portrait, my lady?” enquired Fennell.

  “No, thank you, Fennell,” said Clara.

  “By all means, Fennell,” exclaimed Johnny. “And perhaps tea while you’re at it.”

  “Will I place it on the easel in the ballroom where it was before?” asked Fennell.

  “What would we do without you, Fennell?” said Johnny with a wink at Clara.

  Fennell nodded and left the room, closing the door.

  “So now my servants obey you rather than me!” said Clara.

  Johnny came and sat down quickly beside her. “How is he?”

  “Recovering and resting. And anxious to be gone as much as I am anxious for him to be gone.”

  “The arrangements are made for tomorrow night. Bring him out through the French windows to the side of the house at two in the morning when the servants are safely out of the way.”

  Clara sat on the chair, posing as Johnny painted.

  “Well, if anything good has come out of this it’s brought me back to finish your portrait. I thought when you walked out of the Shelbourne without saying goodbye I wouldn’t see you again.”

  “I had decided I wouldn’t see you again, apart from events like tea or tennis parties that you deigned to come to while in these parts.”

  “And why, may I ask, did you leave without saying goodbye?”

  “Because I do not like being made a fool of.”

  “And how was I making a fool of you?” Johnny continued to paint and his voice remained calm.

  “By playing with me.”

  “What?”

  “Come off it, Johnny. I’m wise to you now. You’re a bed-hopping bastard with a short attention-span who thought it would be amusing to bed a colonel’s neglected wife while he was off at the front.”

  “Whatever gave you that impression?” He looked over at her, shocked.

  “I heard about your reputation.”

  “From whom?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, I think that’s very unfair, I really do.”

  “And if all that wasn’t bad enough, you arrive on my doorstep with a rebel, putting me in danger. I really never want to see you again after this.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Oh yes, I do!”

  “What about the portrait?”

  “To hell with the portrait! You’ve never been honest with me. At least I know where I am with Pierce, even if I don’t like it. But you! You never even hinted to me you were a revolutionary.”

  “I’m not a revolutionary. I’ve strong links with them, but that’s where it stops.”

  “And if you’re not a revolutionary, why do I have a wanted man hiding upstairs in a guest bedroom?”

  “I’m linked with them politically. I’m a politician.”

  “Ha!” Clara laughed dismissively. “What kind of country are you aiming to build with poets pretending to be revolutionaries and painters masquerading as politicians?”

  “A better one than the one we are in now where youngsters get used as cannon fodder and farmers masquerade as officers.”

  “An insult to my husband, no doubt.”

  Johnny shouted, “Yes, your husband! In your sham of a marriage!”

  “Well, it certainly would be a sham if I continued seeing you. Tell me, when you had your affair with Countess Kavinsky was the Count already dead? But then, a little matter like that does not concern you, does it?”

  “So it was Alice who opened her big mouth?”

  “Why, how many others could have opened theirs? Count Kavinsky, he killed himself, didn’t he? Were you the cause of it?”

  Johnny glared at her, threw down his paints and then stormed over to one of the French windows and stood there staring out at the gardens.

  She sighed and walked over to him.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice became gentle. “Did he kill himself over your affair with Alice?”

  “It was gambling debts that finished him off, everyone said it,” Johnny said quietly.

  “I’m sure it was.”

  He turned. “We used to be friends – how did we end up hurting each other like this?”

  “Because I’m not like you, Johnny. You want me to live the life that you do. And I can’t. I can’t flit around like you, not worrying about conventions.”

  He reached forward and grabbed her, forcing his mouth down on hers.

  “You’re not like the others. I’ve fallen for you.”

  She pushed him away and walked into the centre of the room.

  “And how do you propose we make it work? Snatched meetings wherever we can?”

  “You could leave him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d be ruined.”

  Fennell walked into the room.

  “Pardon me, my lady, will Mr Seymour be staying for dinner?”

  “No, Fennell, Mr Seymour will be leaving now.”

  When Fennell had left she said, “I’ll bring Geraghty to the French windows at two tomorrow night. You can take him from there.”

  Clara unlocked the French windows and they went outside.

  Johnny and two other men appeared from the shadows.

  “Quickly, let’s go!” said one of
the men and, supporting Geraghty, they started to move quickly across the lawns.

  Johnny stood there, staring at Clara.

  “Seymour, will you come on!” called one of the men softly.

  “Will I stay or do you want me to go?” he asked.

  “Stay,” she said quietly.

  He turned around and called softly, “You go on! You don’t need me from here. Good luck.”

  They stepped inside.

  He closed the French windows, drew the curtains and slowly walked towards her.

  “Are you sure?” he asked quietly as he put his arms around her.

  “No,” she whispered back as she reached forward to kiss him.

  76

  Clara stirred in her sleep and woke. She saw Johnny sleeping beside her. She looked at the clock on the bedroom wall and saw it was seven in the morning.

  She gently woke him.

  He opened his eyes.

  “You’d better go – the servants will be up and about already,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “Do they come in here unannounced?”

  “No.”

  “Then to hell with them!” He reached out for her. “I can just sneak downstairs to the ballroom in a while and say I just arrived to paint.”

  “Johnny, you enjoy taking risks far too much.”

  “That’s what life is for.”

  She suddenly started laughing.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I’m just thinking of what my grandmother would say if she knew.”

  They spent nearly every day together, some time with her posing for him, the rest going for long walks through the woods or down to the lake, or driving out to the sea.

  As they walked along the lake one evening, his arm around her, she said, “I don’t know what I was looking for. I was running around London like a mad thing, searching frantically for something. I thought I found it when I met Pierce. I thought it was a blinding love that would fulfil me.”

  “I wish I met you first, before you met him.”

  She smiled at him “Why – do you think we would have married and lived happily ever after?”

  “Maybe.”

  “It was hard enough to get my family to accept Lord Armstrong, let alone an artist with dubious connections,” she said, smiling mockingly at him.

  “You had the world at your feet before you married. You could have had it all if you had made other choices.”

  “I don’t think the world would have satisfied me . . . What about you? Is that all you want from life? Flitting between women like Dors, Countess Alice and me? A series of sheath-protected relationships.”

  “Excuse me! I want to be a world-renowned artist and have a revolution!”

  “But for yourself? For your personal life, don’t you want something solid, long-lasting?”

  “I never thought along those lines. I thought life was for enjoying and taking what you wanted. Until now.”

  They had to be very careful not to arouse the servants’ suspicions. Luckily there were few left in the house since the war started and the Fennells were very early-to-bed people.

  “Goodnight, Fennell,” said Johnny happily as he threw on his hat and Fennell opened the front door of the house for him.

  “Goodnight, Mr Johnny, and have a good one.”

  “Oh, I will!”

  The door was closed after Johnny and he paused and lit a cigarette before walking down the steps and along the forecourt, then making his way to the terrace at the side of the house where he knocked on the French windows. A few seconds later Clara opened the windows and he stepped inside and into her arms.

  She had begun to sketch and paint under his supervision.

  She had spent the afternoon painting the view down by the lake as he sat reading. After an hour he rose and came to check her work.

  “Oh Clara!” he said. “That’s not good.”

  She was taken aback by the insult. “In your opinion, and I haven’t asked for it.”

  He reached forward, took the painting and tore it in half.

  “Johnny!” she shouted angrily. “That was mine and you had no right!”

  “I had every right – it’s bad!”

  She turned and stormed away from him. He ran and caught up with her and grabbed her.

  “Let me go, Johnny! I’m sick of you.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “You don’t understand. You could be a great artist, the talent is there. But you need to know the difference between good and bad work, and you don’t yet. That was bad, and you can do much better.”

  Clara made journeys up to Dublin and would stay with Johnny in his flat there. She got to know all his friends and she found them exciting and full of fun and yet so political and dedicated to their beliefs. She felt she was part of something big and exciting. And they seemed to accept her without questioning. They didn’t seem curious or concerned about her relationship with Johnny. She thought some of them must guess they were lovers, but they never made her feel awkward or even seemed to care. The crowd would often come down to the west and she began to invite them to stay at the house. It was a perfect disguise to excuse why Johnny was staying there.

  She sat beside Johnny in front of the fire in the drawing room as a group of about twenty sat debating furiously about Irish independence.

  Clara suddenly giggled.

  “Stop it!” chastised Johnny, trying to look annoyed but smiling. “You’re supposed to be taking this seriously.”

  “I am!” she whispered back.

  “So why are you laughing?”

  “I’m just thinking this room was never designed to be a talking salon for Irish republicanism!”

  77

  Prudence called up to the house to discuss the running of the farm as they moved into winter. Clara found Prudence’s talk of farming tiresome and could hardly concentrate as she went on about the price of animal feed.

  “Am I boring you?” asked Prudence eventually, noting the glazed look that had come over Clara’s eyes.

  “No – it’s just that Pierce left you to run the farm, so do you need me to sanction every little detail?”

  Prudence snapped her ledger shut. “In other words, yes – I am boring you. I suppose you’d much prefer to be off gallivanting with Johnny Seymour’s set than listening to me.”

  “Am I not allowed friends?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t matter what I think one way or another around here any more. I don’t know what Pierce will think about it all when he returns from the war. The company you keep is quite shocking.”

  “I’m sure Pierce will think as he always has when it concerns me – nothing.”

  As Christmas 1917 approached Clara gave all the servants two weeks off to go to stay with their families.

  “Are you sure, Lady Armstrong?” Fennell said as he watched Clara decorate the Christmas tree happily in the drawing room.

  “Quite sure, Fennell.”

  “But you’ll be here on your own. It’s highly unusual. How will you feed yourself?”

  “Oh, I’m a big girl now, Fennell, I’m sure I can manage.”

  “But you will be going into the kitchen?” Fennell was incredulous.

  “Fennell, with all my friends and Lord Armstrong spending Christmas in the trenches I’m sure I can put up with venturing into the kitchen to put a bit of cold turkey on a plate, don’t you?”

  Later, the Fennells looked at each other in amazement in the kitchen.

  “I’m very fond of her, but she’s highly unusual. That’s what she said – that she’ll make do herself over Christmas,” he said.

  “It’s all those new-fangled ideas she’s picked up since she’s been hanging around Johnny Seymour’s set.” Mrs Fennell sighed heavily as she looked at the front of the newspaper whose headlines were mass killings in battles in France and Republican attacks on British army barracks in Ireland. “The world is turning upside down, I can tell you that.”

  With Prudence gone to Dubli
n to spend Christmas with cousins, Clara waited anxiously for Johnny to arrive on Christmas Eve. As he drove up to the front door she ran out to greet him.

  “Two whole weeks,” he shouted as he hugged her tightly and they went in and closed the door behind them.

  They lay out on the floor in front of the crackling fire, the candles on the Christmas tree twinkling.

  “It’s so strange just the two of us here, cut off from the world. This house wasn’t meant for this. It was meant to be filled with people and servants.”

  Johnny drew from his cigarette. “Not just for a wife and her lover?” He handed her the cigarette and she smoked it.