The House

by A. O'Connor

  “Pah! Dublin! It’ll take a long time to rebuild. You know, I couldn’t find one city-centre venue still standing for my exhibition after the Easter Rising.”

  “Is that all you care about?” She was suddenly crying.

  He got up quickly and sat beside her. “What’s wrong?” he said, taking her hand. “Tell me!”

  “I can’t tell you, I can’t tell anybody!” She pulled back her hand, threw off the blanket, got up quickly and went to stand beside the fireplace.

  “I’m a good listener, and it looks like you can’t confide in anyone else.”

  “I don’t even know you, not really.”

  “Yes, you do. We’re old friends, well, in my dictionary definition we are.”

  She started pacing quickly up and down. “I think I’ve made the most terrible mistake with my life . . . I now realise I should never have married Pierce . . . I loved him so much I didn’t care how he felt about me. Or I deceived myself he loved me. That he just wasn’t very demonstrative. But now I know he has no feelings for me. None at all. I’m not even a nuisance to him. He just doesn’t care.” She stopped pacing and put her hands to her face. “And now I’m trapped.” Her voice cracked. “Utterly trapped. I can’t leave the marriage or this house. I’d be ruined. Utterly ruined and it would destroy my family. I have to put up with it. And then this terrible war and so many of my friends being killed. I can hardly believe it. All the people we used to party with and have friendships with suddenly disappearing, not even a funeral to give them. I remember an acquaintance of my father was once killed by an automobile. We were all shocked by it, talked about it for months. And now friends are being picked off like that children’s song ‘Ten Green Bottles’. What has happened to the world? To me?”

  She started to cry. He got up quickly and came to her and put his arms around her, holding her tightly.He swayed her slightly as he soothed her. “It’s all right. Let it go. Have a good cry, you need one.”

  She dissolved into his embrace and started to heave with sobs, the comfort of a caring person letting her emotions flood out.

  Eventually her sobs dissipated as she rested her head against him. She gently pulled back.

  He smiled at her, took out his handkerchief and wiped her face. “Don’t worry – it’s a clean one,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I hope the servants haven’t heard me.”

  He laughed. “Who cares if they have?”

  “I do!” She pulled away from him. “I apologise. I’ve just been a bit emotional, as you can imagine.”

  “Indeed I can. Where did you spend Christmas?”

  “Here on my own. Pierce, of course, didn’t get back. And I was too miserable to travel to London. I didn’t even have Prudence – she went off to cousins in Dublin.”

  “So you stayed here feeling sorry for yourself?”

  “There certainly wasn’t much to celebrate.” She sat down.

  “Well, there might be now.” He smiled and sat beside her. “I showed your work to several art critics in Dublin.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I nabbed some of your paintings from the library and showed them to a few people. They were very impressed, as I was. So much so, we decided to include you in my exhibition.”

  She glared at him. “Johnny, you had no right to show those to anybody. Or take them! It’s stealing!”

  “Borrowing, I would prefer to say.”

  “Well, you can tell your gallery I won’t be included in your damned exhibition or anything else.”

  “Clara.” He grabbed her hand. “Do you know what this means? There’s so many artists would kill for this opportunity. And you’re being handed it.”

  “Well, give it to them then!” She stood up and began to pace again. “Exhibition indeed! That’s my private work for my own enjoyment, not to be gawped at by strangers.”

  He sat back, looking bored. “You’re fooling nobody with this act incidentally. Pretending you don’t want it.”

  “Of course I don’t want it! Even if I did, I couldn’t. Lady Armstrong in an art exhibition while her husband fights the Germans! I’d be the talk of the place.”

  She turned around, went to the window and looked out at the snow.

  He got up and stood behind her very close.

  “This same husband who doesn’t love you?”

  “That’s irrelevant. I still have my position and reputation to consider.”

  “It would mean you being up in Dublin a whole week.”

  “Unthinkable.”

  “You’d get to go to the theatre every night.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “And eat out in fancy restaurants, well, the ones that weren’t blown up in the Rising.”

  “In times of war! Such bad taste.”

  “And of course meet all the literati.”

  “I’m overseeing a series of sale works for the war effort in the town hall, I couldn’t spare the time.”

  “It’s only a week. . . Oh and the exhibition will probably be attended by people like WB Yeats.”

  There was a silence.

  “When did you say the exhibition was due?”

  Johnny was such a force that he took over, and marched Clara back to posing for the portrait. She sat there while he painted her, trying not to laugh when he made jokes, trying not to cry when she thought of Pierce. He was continually going back up to Dublintoorganise the exhibition and she began to dread those absences when he was away, as she slipped back into her unhappy life.

  “Everything’s ready,” beamed Johnny in the early summer. “Are you?”

  And then she found herself on a train, going with him to Dublin.

  “I’ll never understand how you talked me into this,” she said, looking at him accusingly.

  He smirked at her. “With surprising ease.”

  Chapter seventy-three

  Clara booked intothe Shelbourne Hotel and had barely time to unpack and change when reception rang up and said Johnny was waiting for her in the foyer. Assuming he planned to go for dinner and might want to go out, she hurriedly got ready and went down to meet him.

  “I only left you an hour ago!” she said.

  “I know, but the play starts in half an hour,” he said, taking her arm and propelling her to the doorway.

  “Play? What play?”

  “We’re off to see a play this evening, didn’t I tell you?”

  “No, you didn’t. I’d planned to have an early night after all the travel.”

  “Early night, pah!” he dismissed as he pushed her through the revolving doors and out to the waiting cab.

  Clara had nearly forgotten what it was like to be in a theatre as she took her seat in The Gaiety. Looking around at the glamorous crowd, she cursed Johnny for rushing her out of her hotel in her comparatively plain attire.

  “Hello, Johnny!” called a man waving from across the aisle.

  Johnny waved back.

  “Johnny, you’re back! Good to see you!” said a woman turning around from a few rowsdown.

  “You seem to be quite well known,” said Clara.

  “Of course I am.” He looked around the theatre. “They’re all wondering who you are. Wondering if we are lovers.”

  Clara looked at him, shocked. “Johnny!”

  “I’m only saying what they’re thinking.”

  “Well, don’t! You’ll make me feel guilty.”

  “Sorry – couldn’t have that!” He smiled at her.

  Soon the curtain rose. Countess Alice Kavinsky was the lead and Clara had to admit she found her performance in The Taming of the Shrewmesmerising.

  Afterwards, when they were in the crowded foyer, Alice shouted over to them, “Johnny, we’re all going to Jammet’s. See you there!”

  Clara enjoyed every minute of her time in Dublin. But there was a feverish atmosphere there as the city was still being rebuilt after the Rising. It had been under martial law during the Rising and there was so much resentment that it fe
lt to Clara like a furnace about to explode. Johnny had a huge list of things for her to do and he rushed her from event to event. One minute she was having lunch in one of Dublin’s fine hotels with the intelligentsia, the next she was attending a political talk in a draughty hall.

  Clara and Johnny were in a taxi cab back to Johnny’s Dublin flat.

  “It’s like I’ve never heard people talk like that before,” she was saying. “Not with such passion and vigour. I mean, before I married, before the war, all we talked about was which party to go to and how much everyone was worth. And after I got married, well, my husband’s set seemed only to care about country pursuits.”

  “And how does Dublin make you feel?”

  “It makes me feel alive.”

  He smiled at her as he studied her face.

  Johnny’s home in Dublin was a top-floor flat in Leeson Street in Dublin. The cab left them off outside and they climbed the steps to the front door and made their way up the stairs to his flat.

  The flat was large and doubled as a studio.

  He made her a cup of coffee and handed it to her.

  “They make it all sound so exciting,” she said. “That anything is possible. When I was beginning to think that nothing was possible.”

  “The world can emerge from this war better than before. And this country can have a glorious future ahead of it.”

  “Well, my time in Dublin has been wonderful. It was lovely to see and experience your world.”

  “It can be your world as well.”

  “No, it can’t. Next week I will go home to my house and wait for my husband to return from war and then continue with our marriage and our life in whatever way it takes shape.” She looked into her coffee sadly.

  He walked over to her and sat beside her. Taking the cup from her, he put it on the floor.

  “You don’t have to do that, Clara,” he said. He reached forward and put his lips on her mouth.

  She pulled back quickly and stood up, shocked. “I’d better go.”

  “I’ve offended you.”

  “No – it’s just . . . I can’t.”

  He stood up and held her shoulders. “I thought there was something between us?”

  “I’m married, Johnny.”

  “Unhappily.”

  “I’ve made my decision.”

  “People divorce all the time!”

  “In your world, not in mine. I’m not one of your intellectual friends. I’m a woman who was brought up to fulfil a role. And the role I chose was Lady Armstrong.”

  He grabbed her and kissed her again. “Tell me you don’t feel the same. That you don’t have feelings.”

  She pushed him aside. “I’ll see you at the exhibition tonight.”

  She walked quickly from the room.

  “I won’t give up trying!” he shouted after her.

  The gallery was full of people for the exhibition. She nearly hadn’t gone, nervous of seeing Johnny again, scared of what he was beginning to mean to her. She wasn’t stupid – she had felt the chemistry between them. So different from the relationship she had with Pierce. Shehad wondered would it be awkward for them that night, but he took control and with his forceful and jovial personality made sure she was comfortable.

  She was one of a small select group of artists being exhibited and as she made her way through the gallery she was infused with a sense of pride to see her paintings hanging on the wall, her painting of Mrs Fennell at work in the kitchen being her main exhibit.

  “It’s getting a very positive reaction,” said Johnny.

  “Really?” Clara was overjoyed.

  “The critic from The Times said you were most promising.”

  “Story of my life!” She smiled cynically at him.

  He laughed and, taking her by the arm, led her around to introduce her to people.

  Countess Alice sidled up beside her. “I have to say I love your paintings.”

  “Oh thank you!”

  “I love the concept of it all. Lady Armstrong drawing her cook slaving in the kitchen for her.”

  “It’s not meant like that!” Clara said, shocked.

  Alice was studying her intently. “So you’re Johnny’s new muse. Let me take a good look at you . . . Yes, my memory serves me right – you are very beautiful, my dear.” She leaned closer to her. “Have you slept with him yet?”

  Clara’s face clouded with concern. “How dare you say such a thing!”

  “I’ll take that as a no then? Which explains why he is still so attentive to you. The problem with Johnny is, once he sleeps with you he tends to move on to his next muse.” Alice looked smug as she put her hand to her chest. “I should know! I’m one of his conquests.”

  Clara’s eyes widened in horror, causing Alice to laugh nastily.

  “Oh Clara! You poor thing! Did you think you might be special to him?” She laughed again. “You’re just his latest muse. As soon as he’s finished your portrait and bedded you, he’ll be off to his next well-heeled beauty. It’s funny that for all his socialist talk, he only ever shares his bed with aristocrats. A case of ‘do as I say, rather than do as I do’, I imagine.”

  “Excuse me, please,” said Clara as she moved away from her.

  Clara walked through the crowd quickly and suddenly felt an arm around her waist.

  “There you are!” said Johnny. “Come on. I need to introduce you to a critic.”

  Back in her hotel room Clara rang down to reception.

  “It’s Lady Armstrong here. Please book me a cab for the train station first thing in the morning.”

  Johnny bounded up the steps of the Shelbourne with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a copy of The Times with a review of Clara’s paintings in the other.

  “Could you ring up to Clara Armstrong and tell her Johnny Seymour awaits her,” he said to man behind the reception with a big grin.

  “I’m afraid Lady Armstrong left the hotel for the train station early this morning,” answered the receptionist.

  “What?Did she leave any message?”

  “No message,” said the man as he continued with his work.

  Johnny turned away crestfallen and walked out, still holding the flowers and the newspaper.

  Chapter seventy-four

  Clara stood in the ballroom of the house looking at the unfinished portrait on the easel.

  “You stupid woman!” she said to the image of herself on the canvas. “Stupid, stupid woman!” She covered the painting with a sheet and went out intothe hallway where she passed Fennell holding a tray with a teapot on it.

  “Fennell, the portrait of me in the ballroom. Put it away somewhere, will you? An attic or somewhere out of the way.”

  “Very good, ma’am. Mr Seymour will not be returning to finish the portrait?”

  “No, Mr Seymour will not.”

  And Johnny, who had obviously got the message, was staying clear.

  As Clara drove through the little village she decided to stop and go intothe church. She pulled up outside and walked through the summer sunshine intothe small building. She was surprised to see Emily Foxe there at the top aisle, head down. She walked up to her.

  “Emily?” she asked.

  When Emily looked up, Clara got a fright to see her face white and her eyes red from heavy crying.

  “What is it, Emily?” Clara asked, sitting quickly beside her and putting an arm around her.

  “It’s Felix. He was killed in that last . . . battle,” she just managed to say the word.

  “Oh no, Emily!” Clara pulled her close and hugged her tightly as she dissolved in tears. As she held the sobbing woman she thought of young Felix’s innocent face, good nature and endearing stammer.

  That night Clara was awoken by a loud bang. She sat up quickly in her bed. A minute later there was another bang and she realised it was a stone being thrown at her window. She jumped out of bed and hurried to the window, looking down at the forecourt below. She couldn’t see anything, so she opened the window an
d peered nervously out.

  “Clara!” said a voice from the shadows.

  “Who is it?” she demanded.

  “It’s Johnny!”

  “Johnny! What do you want at this hour?”

  “I need to see you. Come to the front door and don’t alert the servants.”

  “I will not! This is ridiculous!”

  “Please! It’s an emergency.”

  Clara hesitated and then quickly closed the window. She wrapped her silk dressing gown around her and left the room, hurrying down the stairs and across the hall to the front door which she unlocked and unbolted.

  Johnny was standing there with his poet friendThomas Geraghty beside him, Johnny propping him up.

  “What in God’s name is going on?” demanded Clara.

  Johnny pushed past her and half-carried Thomas across the hall and through into the drawing room.

  Clara shut the front door and followed them quickly.Closing the drawing-room door behind her and turning on the light, she demanded again, “What are you doing here?”

  Johnny carefully placed his friend down on a chair and it was only then that she realised Thomas was wounded.

  “What happened to him?” she asked, rushing over and looking at him.

  Johnny said nothing but carefully pulled back Thomas’s coat and Clara gasped as she saw the bloodstained shirt.

  “He’s been shot,” said Johnny.

  “Shot!” Clara nearly screamed.

  “It’s okay. He’s over the worst. We got him to a doctor who fixed him up and bandaged the wound.”

  “But Johnny, he needs to go straight to a hospital.”

  Johnny turned around and faced her. “He can’t go to a hospital, because he would be arrested, tried for treason and then shot again for good.”

  Clara knelt down beside Thomas as realisation dawned on her. “He was in the Rising?”

  Johnny nodded. “He managed to escape but they are looking for him everywhere. He was hiding in Longford, but they got wind of where he was. He managed to escape but they shot him in the process.”