‘The time is coming for change,’ he said fervently.
‘You mean Home Rule when the war is over? My parents and brothers are all opposed to any break from the crown and Britain.’
‘I am not sure such promises to Redmond will ever be kept by a British parliament, so perhaps Irish men will have no choice but to take what is rightfully theirs.’
His eyes were serious, and she could see a vein throb in his neck. He might be tall and lanky and thin, but there was a huge gravity and strength to him that few possessed. He was the type of person who said exactly what he meant.
The waitress hovered about them, clearing away their tea things.
‘We must go,’ he said abruptly, standing up and going over to pay the bill.
He touched her hand as she climbed into the side-car and she felt as if a spark of that new electricity was running through her. His eyes met hers, both startled.
At home, he helped her out of the side-car, holding her as she steadied herself. He thanked her for coming. She hesitated, not wanting to go inside.
‘I do hope you will agree to come for a ride with me again?’
She moistened her upper lip.
‘When?’ she blurted out.
He looked momentarily surprised, fiddling with his glasses.
‘Next week, if that suits you, Grace?’
‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘It most definitely would.’
‘Perhaps if the weather is clement we might take a picnic …’
Stepping inside the house, she watched as Joe Plunkett rode off on his noisy motorcycle. It was strange: they had known each other for years and yet only now was she discovering that he was the most interesting, exciting and complex man she had ever met.
Chapter 53
Grace
JOE BROUGHT HER out on his motorcycle again. This time they went to Killiney, where they sat on a rug and shared some sandwiches overlooking the sweeping seascape of Dublin Bay. He kissed her and she enjoyed it, so he kissed her again and again. His eagerness and passion surprised her, and on her own part she returned them. She soon found herself counting the hours and days between seeing him.
They went to the theatre and to ceili dances together, and to dinner. Joe wrote her letter after letter and poems too. She sat curled up on the window seat reading them. She had never been wooed in such a fashion and to her surprise she found she liked it. When she wrote back she often attached silly drawings to her words.
‘I see the poor postman is being kept busy again,’ teased Nellie as another letter from Joe arrived.
‘I do hope that you are not getting yourself too involved with that young Plunkett man, Grace. It is clear he has a poor constitution and I hear rumours that he was in a sanatorium a few years ago,’ warned Mother.
‘That was when he was much younger. He is well again now,’ she replied hotly, wishing that her mother would stop interfering in her life.
‘No young woman wants to bind herself to an invalid,’ Isabella warned dramatically.
As the weather became colder Joe collected her in his motor car, which she had to admit was far more comfortable. He took her on romantic drives up around Stepaside and Dublin’s pine forest.
‘Grace, I’ll teach you to drive,’ he laughed one day, stopping suddenly on a quiet country road.
‘I’m afraid, Joe,’ she protested in alarm. ‘I don’t know how to work a mechanical engine.’
Joe slipped out of the car and made her slide across into the driver’s seat and take the wheel, while he sat beside her on the passenger side. Terrified, she felt the car shudder and start, then it began to move. He made her drive for about two miles, one moment the car going slow and the next thing speeding up alarmingly as Grace tried to concentrate on keeping hold of the wheel and steering, which was much harder than it looked … But suddenly she began to get the hang of it and Joe insisted that she keep driving for another few miles until they came to a fork in the road. Laughing and nervous, Grace felt exhilarated, realizing that her life with Joe would never be boring or dull. He was a risk-taker and would always be at the centre of things, ready for something new.
‘Now I think it’s best I do the rest of the driving,’ he teased as she moved back into the passenger seat and they motored on towards a little place in Kilmacanogue where they would have lunch.
They would sit for hours and talk – talk about poetry. Grace was moved by many of his poems. Her particular favourite was ‘I See His Blood Upon the Rose’, and he would explain it to her, along with its spiritual significance. Books were another passion, and they discussed the sad realism of James Joyce’s Dubliners. They enjoyed arguing about art, both classical and modern, or talking about theatre and cinema, or discussing life and death, spirituality, religion and the existence of an afterlife. Joe was a passionate, highly intelligent man and when they were together Grace was never bored. He made her think.
When he took her hand as he looked into her eyes, Grace knew without any doubt that already she was beginning to fall in love with Joe Plunkett – and somehow it scared her a little to realize how important he had become in her life and how much she was growing to care for him.
Coming out of Clerys, having delivered the finished design work for advertising a new soap and cologne, Grace found herself suddenly drawn to go to visit the church that Joe always talked about, St Mary’s, the Pro-Cathedral. It was situated right in the heart of the city, just off Sackville Street and close to the Abbey Theatre and Liberty Hall. She often passed it but had never even considered going into the Catholic church, which looked like a tall Grecian temple situated on a narrow Dublin street.
Joe’s religion was deeply important to him, and Grace was curious to see if the cathedral lived up to his fulsome praise. As she went through the heavy doors she suddenly became conscious of the absolute quiet and stillness inside. It was almost empty except for two or three people praying. Grace sat down and looked around her. It was a beautiful old building, ornate compared to their church, with a high marble pulpit and statues and carvings. It had a Roman feel to it; she knew that the main high altar with its angels had been carved by Peter Turnerelli, a Dublin-based sculptor with Italian parents.
Sunlight filtered through the tall stained-glass windows depicting Mary and the Irish saints Kevin and Laurence O’Toole. The high dome and windows ensured the church was bright. She instantly liked it. After only a few minutes she forgot that Sackville Street with its trams, hotels and shops was so close by. She felt strangely cloistered here. It truly was a place of prayer and she knelt down in silence. Joe was right – it was a very special church.
She watched as an old beggar man shuffled down from one of the front pews, her nose wrinkling at the sour smell as he passed. He would not even have been let into her church, let alone allowed to sit up at the front. A young mother with small children slipped into a pew a few rows ahead of her, lost in momentary prayer, her baby in her arms. So this was the house of God, the house of prayer. Bowing her head, Grace prayed too.
As she was leaving the church the young mother was also going.
‘Excuse me, but a friend told me that the choir sings here sometimes,’ said Grace.
‘The Palestrina choir sings at mass here on a Sunday,’ the sharp-faced young woman confirmed. ‘’Tis like listening to the angels. You should come along, miss, though the church gets very crowded at times.’
Grace vowed to return.
Chapter 54
Grace
GRACE’S RELATIONSHIP WITH Joe was changing and becoming more serious.
Over dinner in Sibley’s one night Grace was excited, chatting and laughing as she made plans for next year, wondering where it would bring them, when she realized that Joe seemed cool, detached and uninterested.
‘What about your programme for the theatre next year?’ she pressed, trying to lighten his mood.
‘Who knows?’ he shrugged.
Perhaps he was already bored by it … bored by her … Joe seemed suddenl
y non-committal. Hurt, she drew back.
Later, sitting in her bedroom reading his letters and poems, Grace felt strangely bereft. Perhaps he had just come into her life like some kind of storm and would now disappear out of it again. Maybe Mother was right – she and someone like Joe Plunkett were not destined to be together.
The next day, however, she received a letter from Joe declaring that he loved her and wanted to marry her. Overcome, she read it again – then her heart sang as she read it over and over again.
Joe loved her and wanted to marry her. It was a proposal of marriage!
Grace scoured every single word of his letter, her heart and mind racing. She laughed at his postscript declaring himself a beggar with no income or earnings and implying there were other reasons no one should marry him. He could be such an idiot sometimes!
A few hours later another letter came, this time apologizing for behaving like a fool, telling her that he loved only her. ‘I love you a million million times …’
Grabbing her pen, Grace immediately wrote back: ‘Yes, yes, yes …’
She didn’t care about what objections her parents or his parents might make to their marriage. She was going to marry the man she loved – Joseph Plunkett.
The Plunkett family were somewhat shocked by the unexpected announcement of their engagement. Count and Countess Plunkett and Joe’s sisters and brothers were surprised that Grace was suddenly going to become his wife and part of their well-known family. Joe, however, assured her that his mother, who was away in America, was delighted with the news.
His sister Geraldine, to whom he was very close, had recently become engaged to Tommy Dillon.
‘Maybe we should make it a double ceremony,’ suggested Joe happily. ‘A Plunkett family double celebration!’
Grace smiled, but she could tell from the slight coolness in Geraldine’s demeanour that her future sister-in-law was not too keen on the proposal.
‘Congratulations,’ Joe’s younger brothers George and Jack echoed each other warmly.
Grace felt like pinching herself – it was all moving so fast. In a few months’ time she and Joe would be married, a proper couple with a home of their own. She dreaded telling her own parents, suspecting that Mother would certainly not approve.
‘We’ll tell them soon,’ she promised him.
Her sisters were delighted for her; they had a high regard for Joe.
‘I am so pleased for you both!’ cried Muriel, hugging her, when Grace told her the news and showed her the ring Joe had given her. ‘MacDonagh and I are so fond of him and soon he will be my brother-in-law!’
‘I intend telling Mother and Father soon,’ she said to Kate, ‘but you know what she will be like …’
‘Pick the right moment,’ Kate advised sagely. ‘Mother’s disapproval is horrendous …’
‘That’s what I fear,’ said Grace nervously.
‘Her bark is far worse than her bite,’ said Nellie reassuringly. ‘Mother has accepted MacDonagh and Walter as sons-in-law, and she will accept Joe too.’
Grace hoped that her sister was right.
‘I never thought that I would actually fall properly in love and get married,’ she admitted. ‘I thought that I would end up the old spinster artist aunt working up in some attic with my paints and covered in ink and charcoal.’
‘That was never going to happen!’ chorused her sisters.
Joe too was happier than she had ever seen him, writing her love letters and proudly telling his close friends about their plans to wed in a few months’ time.
They attended the big Anti-Conscription Meeting that Frank Sheehy-Skeffington had organized in the Mansion House; it drew thousands of people. Joe linked his fingers discreetly through hers as they listened to both Padraig Pearse and James Connolly give impassioned speeches. Grace realized how proud she was of the fact that Joe would always be at the heart of things, always ready to stand up and fight for what he believed in … She could see people looking at them together, wondering, for they were an unlikely couple … But fate had somehow brought them together and decreed that she would marry such a man.
Chapter 55
Isabella
ISABELLA SAT ALONE eating her usual breakfast. The morning newspaper, which had just been delivered, lay beside Frederick’s place at the breakfast table. She finished her porridge and was helping herself to a slice of soda bread and marmalade, trying not to be irked by his tardiness. She had left him dressing in their bedroom and preceded him downstairs. Their daily routine usually involved her husband’s reading aloud of the newspaper’s headlines and a discussion of such over a pot of tea. She was tempted to open the paper herself, but knew how much Frederick enjoyed reading it before he left for the office. Likely there would be an obituary for Dr Francis Heuston. She had attended the respected surgeon’s funeral only last week. His poor wife was insistent that he had died of a broken heart following the death of one of their twin sons, Fred, at Gallipoli. Isabella and Frederick both understood such grief.
‘Madam, will I hold the breakfast for the Governor?’ asked Julia.
Concerned, Isabella left the table and went upstairs.
As she entered their large bedroom she immediately saw him slumped near the side of the bed.
‘Frederick, what is it?’ She rushed over, leaning down beside him. He seemed to be having a problem speaking and there was a strange twist to his mouth. She managed to lay him against the pillows and bring his feet up on to the bed before calling for help from Julia and her daughters.
Nellie quickly came in and took charge.
‘Father, can you hear us? Are you in pain? What is it?’
Frederick tried to say something, but despite his efforts could not get the words out properly. He closed his eyes as if he had not the energy to respond.
‘I’ll run and see if Dr Mitchell is still at home,’ offered Grace.
‘Go quickly!’ urged Isabella, trying to suppress her mounting sense of panic.
Fortunately Grace was in time and the doctor came immediately to Temple Villas.
‘Isabella, you were lucky to catch me before I left for the hospital,’ James Mitchell said as he approached Frederick, who seemed barely able to speak or respond.
‘Well, Frederick old fellow, what seems to be the matter? Bit of a turn, I believe.’
She watched as the doctor tested his arms and hands, took his blood pressure and listened to his heart. She could see concern written on their neighbour’s face.
‘Frederick, to my mind you have had a stroke. Your speech and swallow and movement down one side have, I’m afraid, been affected. I know it is alarming for you, but you must rest so we can see how things develop.’
Fear flooded Frederick’s now twisted, distorted face, with one drooping eye from which a tear escaped. Isabella felt dizzy and weak herself with the shock of it all.
‘Lie back, Frederick, while I have a word with your good wife,’ Dr Mitchell said reassuringly as he led her out of the bedroom to the landing.
‘Will he die?’ she burst out tearfully.
‘It is a possibility, for strokes are difficult to treat, and they can recur. We cannot tell if there will be another worse event in the brain which Frederick would not be able to survive,’ he replied frankly. ‘He may have problems with his breathing and I suspect will not be able to manage to drink or eat properly without risk of choking – that is a common occurrence.’
‘What am I to do? Should he go to hospital?’
‘Moving Frederick may make the situation worse. My advice is to arrange full nursing care for your husband here at home and I will visit him regularly. But I think you should inform the family and perhaps arrange for them to visit their father.’
Isabella reached for her handkerchief, trying not to cry.
She sent Julia with a message for Muriel and Grace sent a telegram to Kate, informing both of them of their father’s illness. This evening she would write to Ada and Sidney in America and to all of the boy
s to tell them about Frederick’s condition.
A sturdily built young woman appeared. She was an experienced nurse from Sir Patrick Dun’s and she took charge at once, settling Frederick in bed in a position that was more comfortable for him and made it easier to breathe.
Muriel arrived immediately, having left Mary to mind the children.
‘What has happened to Father?’ she asked tearfully as she raced upstairs.
Kate was there two hours later and was in a state as she sat by his bed.
Frederick seemed to be sleeping heavily, saliva running from one side of his twisted mouth which the nurse wiped away.
MacDonagh came and Isabella could see her son-in-law was upset. He and Frederick enjoyed a close friendship and he went in and sat beside the bed to talk to him.
‘Has Frederick had the last rites?’ he asked her.
‘I will ask our rector to come to see Frederick.’
‘I mean the priest,’ MacDonagh persisted. ‘Has he had the priest to anoint him?’
‘No,’ she replied tersely.
‘Frederick would want the priest,’ he said firmly. ‘The priest from the church he attends in Rathmines.’
‘Mother, if Father could talk I’m sure he would want his own priest, not the rector,’ agreed Grace. ‘He is Catholic, after all.’
Isabella could feel a strange tightness and tension in her head.
‘I will not have a priest under my roof,’ she insisted fiercely.
‘This is Father’s roof too,’ Kate reminded her gently. ‘It is his faith.’
‘Grace is right,’ continued MacDonagh. ‘Frederick should have the priest come to the house to give him the rites. The man is entitled to that.’
‘I forbid it!’ she found herself shouting. ‘I will not have it.’
She could see MacDonagh flush with annoyance and a look of disappointment in her daughters’ faces. A few minutes afterwards her son-in-law said his goodbyes to Frederick and left the house angrily.
An hour later a priest came to the door enquiring for Frederick and Julia showed him upstairs. Isabella was about to despatch him back to his parish church, but on seeing Frederick the priest immediately greeted him warmly and stepped over near the bed. Grace and Kate were clearly daring her to interfere as the priest began his prayers in Latin and Frederick opened his eyes in recognition.
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