The House (Armstrong House Series Book 1)

by A. O'Connor

  “I’m of some use to you now at last then, am I? To impress all your new high-powered friends?” She reached into her handbag, took out her cigarette box and placing a cigarette in her mouth lit it.

  He casually got up, walked over to her, yanked the cigarette out of her mouth and threw it into the fire.

  “Disgusting habit in a woman.”

  “Oh, it is so exciting, Lady Armstrong, having a hunt ball again here after all these years of war!” said Mrs Fennell. “And I don’t know where the money is coming from after all these years of frugality but Lord Armstrong said no expense is to be spared with the ball. It’ll be just like the old days back when Lord Lawrence was in charge!”

  Clara sat at the dining-room table with Mrs Fennell as they went through menus for food for the ball.

  “Yes, the frugality was when Prudence was in charge of the purse strings, now it’s Pierce. Though I imagine we still can’t afford it, Mrs Fennell, unless Lord Armstrong’s new government role is paying him a fortune, which I somehow doubt.”

  Mrs Fennell stared at Clara, still surprised with the freeness of how she spoke in front of servants.

  “These all look perfect, Mrs Fennell,” Clara said, handing back the menus. “Expensive but perfect. Obviously Lord Pierce thinks his new friends are worth the money to impress.”

  An array of expensive cars paraded up to the house the night before the hunt. As Clara put on her earrings and looked at herself in her silk cocktail dress, she realised she should be happy. She had everything she thought she wanted. The war was over, Pierce was back and needing her, if only for his own ends, and they would be the perfect society couple over the next couple of days. But she wasn’t happy.

  Pierce came in dressed in a tuxedo. “The guests are arriving. Are you ready?”

  She smiled briefly at him and took his arm. They walked along the corridor in silence and down the stairs. She could see the well-dressed guests from London and Dublin were gathered chatting amicably in the drawing room, being served drinks by Fennell and the new footmen. A lot of the men were wearing officer uniforms.

  They began to mingle.

  “Major Dorkley, this is my wife Lady Armstrong.”

  “Ah. Lady Armstrong, enchanted.”

  Clara smiled at him. “I hope your room is to your satisfaction, Major Dorkley?”

  “Couldn’t be better. I know your uncle, Rupert Charter.”

  She took his arm, ready to play the perfect hostess.

  The next morning Clara stood at their bedroom window looking out at the forecourt which was filled with men and women dressed in their hunt costumes and being served drinks on their horses as the pack of fox hounds swarmed around.

  Pierce came in dressed in the red tunic and white breeches of the hunt.

  “Come on, the hunt is about to begin in half an hour.”

  She looked at him. “I’ll see you back here when it’s over then.”

  “No, you’re coming too of course.”

  “No, I’m not. I hate hunts.”

  “The stable boys inform me you’ve become an adequate rider. Your role as Lady Armstrong means you must attend the hunt.”

  “I will not take part in it, Pierce! You know I abhor blood sports.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I don’t even have a riding costume!”

  He marched into his dressing room and emerged with one. “I took the liberty of having one made for you.” He flung the outfit on the bed. “See you downstairs in twenty minutes.”

  Clara walked down the main steps of the house onto the forecourt in her riding clothes.

  “Well, there’s something I never thought I’d see. You on a hunt!” said Prudence as she rode past.

  A stable boy brought over a horse and helped her to mount. She looked around and saw the familiar faces of the gentry mixing with Pierce’s new military friends.

  “You’re certainly one of us now, dear,” said Mr Foxe as he rode by.

  Suddenly she saw Johnny Seymour approaching her on horseback, smiling at her.

  “Lady Armstrong, good morning to you!” he said cheerily.

  “Mr Seymour, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Oh, the Seymours have been attending the Armstrong hunts for centuries.”

  “I see,” she said, wondering what he was up to.

  “Your bourbon, Mr Johnny,” said Fennell, handing up a silver tray with a tumbler of bourbon on it.

  “Oh, thank you, Fennell, couldn’t face a frosty morning on horseback without one of these.” He drank it back in one go and placed the tumbler back on the tray. He rode up close beside her. “How have you been?”

  “Getting on with life,” she said.

  Their eyes locked and his smile dropped.

  As the horses raced across the countryside after the pack of hounds, Clara struggled to keep up with them. Johnny deliberately stayed back and rode alongside her.

  “I thought about ringing you a thousand times,” he said.

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “I keep going into Cassidy’s hoping to find you there with a glass of Guinness.”

  “I don’t go there any more. It wouldn’t be right for Lady Armstrong to be seen there.”

  He stared over at her. “It never bothered you before. How long can you keep this up? Pretending to be something you’re not. Even on bloody hunts now! Doing everything he wants you to do.”

  “He needs a supportive wife, he’s been through hell over there . . . And at least I have his attention now.”

  “I only came today so I could see you.”

  “Well, I wish you hadn’t.” She kicked the horse’s flanks and galloped off to join the others.

  Clara was relieved when the hunt was over and everyone returned to the house for the Hunt Ball. She came out of her dressing room that evening to find Pierce was waiting for her.

  “Try and spend a little more time with Lord Harrington, will you? He’s going to be the next foreign minister, so Lloyd George has hinted. So worth keeping in with.”

  She looked at him curiously. “Where did all this ambition suddenly come from?”

  He held out his arm to her. “The trenches, Clara, the trenches.”

  The ballroom and drawing room were filled with guests. Clara circulated making sure everyone was enjoying themselves.

  Suddenly Johnny was beside her. “I have to talk to you!” he whispered.

  “Impossible.”

  His eyes were pleading. “Please!”

  She sighed. “I’ll see you in the gardens to the left of the second terrace in fifteen minutes.”

  He nodded and walked off.

  Prudence sidled up beside her, holding a glass of sherry. “Enjoying yourself?”

  “Just mingling.”

  Prudence glanced over at Johnny who was looking their way. “Well, just be careful you don’t mingle too much.”

  Clara put a fur coat around her and slipped out the front door and made her way across the forecourt and down the steps to the terraces and gardens.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” said Johnny as he put his arms around her and kissed her.

  “Johnny – this is stupid,” she said, kissing him before pulling back.

  “I’ve been looking at you all day. You look miserable.”

  “I didn’t enjoy the hunt.”

  “It’s more than that. It’s Pierce and this marriage.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She moved away from him.

  “Well, there’s a few things you need to know about Pierce. There’s going to be a war here, Clara. The British are not going to give independence. And the people want it. It’s going to erupt and Pierce’s new job is going to place him in the middle of it.” He came and put his arms around her. “We can be gone from here. I can organise tickets to set sail for New York. We can start again. I’ve been in contact with Paul Tierney, and he said he said he’ll help us with a new start over there. This country is going to explode
– let’s get out before we go down with it.”

  “So typical of you, Johnny. Running away when the going gets tough. You spent four years here partying to escape the war in Europe and now when one starts here you’re ready to run off from here as well.”

  He tightened his grip on her. “Don’t you understand – I love you. I want to be with you any way I can.”

  She pulled herself free of him. “I’m going back to the ball. We shouldn’t talk again.”

  Prudence came up to Clara in the ballroom, shaking her head.

  “I don’t know what’s got into Pierce. This is all costing a fortune that we can ill afford.”

  “For goodness sake, Prudence, is it all about money with you? He’s spent four years in hell . . . he deserves to splash out this once and celebrate being alive, doesn’t he? He survived, many didn’t.”

  “Hmmm, if the last four years were hell, why would he be planning another war then?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s in the library as we speak, having a counsel for war meeting with his new military and political friends.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The war with the natives, darling! There’s going to be a war here to stop them getting independence. I believe Pierce is going to be a driving force in it.”

  Clara pushed through the crowd and crossed to the dining room, then tiptoed over to the connecting door to the library. She gently opened it a crack and peeped in. She could see Pierce’s friends sitting around on the Chesterfield couches or standing nearby. Pierce himself was half-sitting on the desk, his arms folded.

  “The last thing we really need is another war after we just finished on the continent,” said Lord Harrington.

  “Yes, but war is inevitable,” said Pierce. “The situation is growing worse by the day. Attacks on military personnel by the republicans. They want their independence and we don’t want to give it. So we need to fight them. We’ve been trying to appease them long enough. And now we must fight back.”

  “He’s right,” said Major Dorkley.

  “If we don’t stand strong now and stamp out this rebellion it will lead to revolution,” said Pierce. “Look what’s happened in Russia. There will be anarchy if we don’t stamp it out now. And not just here, it could spread from Ireland to Britain. There’s so much unrest.”

  “And where do we raise an army to crush this revolution?” asked Lord Harrington.

  “There’s an army of unemployed soldiers just waiting for another war, isn’t there?” said Pierce.

  Clara slipped away and returned to the ball.

  Pierce came into the bedroom at three in the morning and found Clara sitting up in the bed reading a book.

  “The party is still going on downstairs. I thought you were the last of the great party girls – why aren’t you down with them?”

  “I have a headache.”

  “I went to a lot of expense and trouble for this weekend. You could at least look as if you enjoyed it.”

  She snapped the book shut. “You went to a lot of expense and trouble for yourself! It’s a cover for you to plan your bloody war! I thought you’d have had enough of bloodshed out there in France rather than starting another one here!”

  “Quite the little spy, aren’t you?” He smirked at her. “Well, I’m going back to the ball. There’s a redhead down there eying me up. It might be her lucky night. Enjoy your read. Don’t wait up.” He turned and walked out.

  “I bloody well won’t!” she shouted after him, and flung the book at the door.

  Johnny was back at Seymour Hall that night listening to a recording of ‘Women of Ireland’ on the gramophone. The song came to an end and he went and opened a window. There was a cold breeze sweeping the countryside and a full moon turned the night sky into dark blue. The clouds were drifting quickly past a sole star. It was completely silent but for the wind rustling through the trees and a curlew calling in the distance. In the distance across the lake he could see the lights of Armstrong House, the hunt ball still in full swing.

  83

  The Anglo-Irish war of Independence exploded in January 1919 as the British sent over troops en masse to suppress the armed insurrection.

  It was a guerrilla war and quite unlike the one Pierce had fought in France. Stories of tit-for-tat and retaliation came daily. An attack on a British army barracks, a burning of a town by the army looking for the culprits, as great swathes of the country were put under martial law.

  Clara walked down the main street of Castlewest. Gone was the happy friendly feel to the place as British soldiers manned street corners. She passed the publican Mr Cassidy in the street.

  “Oh good day, Mr Cassidy, how are you?” she said but Cassidy ignored her and walked past her. She looked to the ground, embarrassed, and headed quickly back to the house. Pierce’s position as a military commander in the war had made them very unpopular with the townspeople.

  Clara parked the car in front of the house and got out.

  Major Dorkley was coming down the steps after attending a meeting with Pierce. Pierce had a steady stream of military personnel coming to the house to attend meetings.

  “Good day, Lady Armstrong, how are you?” the major greeted her happily.

  “I’m fine.”

  The major looked concerned. “Did you drive yourself into the town?”

  “Yes, I always do. Ever since the chauffeur went to France and got killed,” she said.

  “Not really advisable with everything going on. I think we’d better assign you an armed driver from now on, as your husband has.”

  “Oh no, I’d hate that!” Clara was horrified. She looked over at the armed driver sitting in Pierce’s official car which had been assigned to him by the government.

  “Better safe than sorry! They shot a magistrate the other day. Cheerio!” said Dorkley as he headed to his own car.

  “I’m afraid another kitchen maid walked out on me this morning, Lady Armstrong,” sighed Mrs Fennell in the dining room as she served Clara breakfast.

  “Oh dear!”

  “They just won’t work here with all this fighting going on and Lord Armstrong’s role in it all. I can’t get any staff from Castlewest to work here any more.”

  “I see. I believe my husband is going to recruit some domestic staff through an agency in London.”

  “An agency! Has it come to that? The locals have worked here since the house was built.”

  “It seems to be the way, Mrs Fennell.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to say,” Mrs Fennell sighed. “If only Lord Pierce would keep his head down like the rest of the gentry and not draw attention to himself, but he won’t! It was on his orders houses in Castlewest were searched and ransacked by those Black and Tan soldiers last week.”

  “I’m sure Lord Armstrong didn’t order the ransacking, Mrs Fennell.”

  “Maybe he didn’t, but it’s what ended up happening anyway!”

  Pierce walked in the room. “Just toast for me, Mrs Fennell.”

  Mrs Fennell nodded and left.

  Pierce sat down and poured himself coffee.

  “She can’t get any staff to work here, Pierce. And with all the tea and refreshments to be served to your officer friends all the time, the Fennells are run off their feet.”

  “I’ll contact the agency again.”

  “I don’t know why you have to have all your meetings here anyway.”

  “Because the military barracks in the town was burned down by the rebels.”

  “I don’t like my home becoming a military headquarters.”

  Pierce picked up the paper and read about some atrocity that had happened in Tipperary.

  “Too bad . . . I’m having some armed soldiers placed at the entrances to the estate.”

  “What? This is getting ridiculous, Pierce. Mrs Fennell was saying half the shops in Castlewest won’t deliver to us any more. We’re making ourselves isolated – we won’t be able to live he
re any more.”

  “Don’t you understand, this is a war! If we don’t win it, we won’t be able to live here anyway. It’s a fight to the end. The rebels are burning down the Big Houses all around the country. We have to defend our way of life.”

  “You’re fighting for something that’s over, Pierce, and I can’t live like this any more.”

  “Well, don’t then. Go!” he said, smirking at her.

  “You’re so confident I won’t, aren’t you? You think no matter what I’ll stay because I won’t risk the scandal of leaving you, even though we despise each other.”

  He stood up, finished his coffee and smirked again at her. “Despise? A strong description, I think? But if it’s the truth as you see it, then who am I to argue?”