Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  It’s Tommie that answers the door. He’s in his shirtsleeves and is, as always, bearing that droll expression. “There you are, Casement. Where are your things?”

  Casement raises his battered leather case in response.

  “That all? Frank thinks you’re staying all week.”

  “I am.”

  “You travel light.”

  “He Traveled Light will be on my tombstone.”

  Tommie takes the bag and Casement passes him into the hall. “I’ll bring this up,” says Tommie. “Go see Frank. He’s having some trouble with a kilt.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “If I knew that, I’d be able to help.” Tommie is ostensibly Frank Biggers’ chauffeur, but he’s not a particularly confident driver. He does look very well in a cap.

  “Is Alice here?” Casement asks.

  “Yes, but she’s working on a pamphlet and has said no one’s to disturb her.”

  From the kitchen, Casement can hear boys singing a traditional ballad. Two of the voices sound quite good, but one is flat and the flat one strains itself into a higher note, cracking on the way. And then there’s laughter, lots of it. He moves down the hall. Sunlight pours through the long parlor windows, curtains hitched and sashed out of its way. A few chairs have been pushed to edges of the room and there is Biggers, on his knees, pulling an enormous tartan sheet into pleats.

  “Roddie,” says Biggers. “How long have you been here?”

  “About a minute,” says Casement.

  “You must help me,” says Biggers.

  “The pleats go in the back and there’s a long bit that comes over your shoulder and you tuck into a belt. And you don’t wear anything underneath.”

  “Everyone knows that. But how’re you supposed to get it on?”

  “Better question: Why are you supposed to get it on?” Casement smiles.

  “Ah, to you, this looks like a piece of fabric, but to me”—Biggers gestures dramatically across the tartan landscape—“this is the future of Ireland.”

  Frank Biggers has done more to promote Irish culture among the youth than anyone else in Belfast. He’s into singing and dancing, heraldry and grave rubbing, Gaelic sports and dressing up, and all of this is best done with a large number of enthusiasts. Biggers has mobilized a crowd of boys from twelve to twenty-two—his Neophytes—and given them something to do: sports, singing, camping, a place to meet, a purpose. He’s explained what being Irish might look like, and that embracing the Gaelic self provides a sufficient register of material that one can shed the Englishness entirely. And Biggers is fun, which boys like.

  Casement needs fun and Biggers helps with that. Exposing atrocity means articulating atrocity—being that voice of ugly truth, and that is not fun. Fighting injustice is so often mobilizing people to stop other people, rather than getting them to act on their own creative impulse. And there is Biggers to wrap it up with the things that he enjoys—plays, spectacles, an anachronistic embracing of culture—and as his enjoyment is infectious, why not?

  Although, here’s a boy of fourteen in a long Elizabethan gown and it’s hard to figure out where exactly this fits in to the larger goal of Ireland’s independence.

  “Gordon,” says Bigger when he sees him, “what seems to be the problem?”

  “Mister Biggers, sir, I can’t get the back done up and no one will help me.” Gordon is laughing. “They say I could be prettier.”

  “Nonsense,” says Biggers. “Millar Gordon, Sir Roger Casement.”

  The boy reaches his hand and they shake.

  “Gordons of Ballymoney?” asks Casement.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I think I played bridge with your father a few weeks back.”

  “Possibly my uncle,” says the boy. He pulls the dress back up as it’s slipping off his shoulders.

  “I’ll get the buttons,” says Alice, walking up the hallway. “Come over here.” Alice makes quick work of the buttons and Gordon thanks her, asking if she’ll help him out when he’s done rehearsing. And then he’s gone.

  “This is total mayhem, Biggers,” says Alice. “I’m never staying with you again.”

  “You shouldn’t try to work here,” Biggers responds.

  “True, but it does all come together,” says Alice. “This pamphlet is to discourage Irish boys from enlisting in English conflicts. In a couple of years that boy running around in a dress will be running around with a rifle. And then coming home in a box.” She thinks to herself for a minute. “Roddie, I need you to take a look, because it’s mostly about the Boer War.”

  Casement’s heart stops. And then starts with great fervor. This is it.

  Perhaps he’s written to the papers, put his name on various things, but he knows the pamphlet will be seen as seditious, another level entirely.

  Alice knows it too. Her face is uncharacteristically composed.

  “Why not?” he says. “I’m not much good at kilts.”

  Later, he finds himself sitting on the back porch in the evening’s stillness with Alice and a gin and tonic. The day’s sporting events have ended. The prizes have all been awarded, best telling of a story in Irish and best hank of Irish yarn, best written copy in Gaelic of the Lord’s Prayer.

  “Roddie, you seem sad,” says Alice. “Are you disappointed that you didn’t get a prize?” She looks at him with sharp eyes.

  “What better prize than the gift of your company?”

  “Where to start?” Alice responds. “For one thing, I’d rather you weren’t running off to Lisbon, or wherever else you’re headed. You’re needed here.”

  “I’m needed wherever they’ll pay me.”

  Alice fusses with her skirt and settles, hen-like, back into her chair. “Not all payment is made in coin, Sir Roger.”

  “I certainly don’t need another honor from the King.”

  “Don’t be obtuse. You’re walking around with a title and people respect that. They think, ‘If Sir Roger Casement is on our side, we stand a chance.’”

  “There is still the minor matter of my employment.”

  “If you stop giving all your money away, you should be able to get by on your pension.”

  “Alice, people are counting on me—”

  “Ireland,” says Alice, “is counting on you.”

  “Well, then,” says Casement, “she must need all the help she can get.” A breeze picks up, sending leaves flipping across the grass. The lawns at Ardigh reach out to the line of trees, washed by light to a tempered mauve. Alice chuckles. She reaches her glass over to Casement and they clink in some silent toast, a toast to nothing, or maybe to all there is.

  XIV

  Paris

  November 1905

  The cook is again glowering. “Is there really no fish available?” Sarita wonders if it’s worth holding her ground.

  “This is not the season for fish, Madame.”

  “I’m sure there’s fish at the market. I’ve seen it.”

  “It is not the best.”

  “Fine.” Sarita’s not sure what coda the cook, Madame Villiers, lives by, but whatever it is, she will not be moved. So, good for her. The French have triumphed. No fish. “You said Monsieur Joubert sent some cheese?”

  “And a crate of winter pears,” adds Villiers. The battle won, she’ll desert the field and retreat to the kitchen where, no doubt, she will continue to plot and strategize, to fortify her battlements so as to never, ever give an inch. But Villiers does cook well. Sarita values her, especially after the last cook, who thought everything, even scrambled eggs, began with goose fat.

  “Are the pears ripe?” asks Sarita.

  “They should be eaten within the next few days, Madame.”

  Joubert has a house in Normandy—good for pears and cheese—and, as Sarita is becoming a very good customer, he is w
ise to be generous. She and Herbert have bought a country house in Rolleboise, about halfway between Paris and Rouen, and Sarita is in the middle of a massive decorating project. Pears had come up in a recent conversation at Joubert’s gallery; Sarita and Joubert were standing before a painting with a girl up a ladder picking the fruit. Sarita had found the picture cloying and said so, but it had introduced the subject of gardening and Joubert, it turns out, is an avid gardener, although Sarita can’t imagine him digging around in the dirt or picking up shears. She’s pretty sure he has a fleet of boys to do the actual labor, but he is an amazing source of information. Joubert has encouraged her to plant the Passe Crassane, which ripen off the tree, their stems sealed carefully with wax, and present their full-flavored selves long after the other pears have given over to preserves or rot.

  Rolleboise is slowly making strides towards being habitable, but it will be a few months before the family can move from Paris and right now planting trees is something of a fantasy. November has proffered a couple of days of sunshine, but mostly sports its gray shroud in a vile gesture towards winter. She’d been hoping to sit outside with her notes from the draper, but now the patch of sky visible to her through the drawing-room window is deepening to purple. Ticker suddenly appears at her side, a bit droolly, his eyes wide with fear, and just as Sarita considers this, a massive boom of thunder sounds from the back garden.

  “Oh Ticker, it’s just thunder.”

  There’s a sudden gust and here are the raindrops, pounding tinny on the paving stones. The gutters start to thrum.

  “And rain and wind.” All of which this dog hates. Ticker has begun to wake her by scratching at the door when he’s afraid, which is ridiculous because even the children have never done that, except for Roddie on a few occasions when he had a particularly vivid nightmare. The children have always had nannies, but there’s Ticker, who won’t settle for anyone but her. She wonders if he’d be better off with a nanny of his own. She imagines the advertisement. “Dog’s nanny needed, references required.” And why not? She already feels as if she’s hiring half of Martes-la-Jolie to run the new country house. What’s another warm body?

  The front door swings open with a wet draft and Sarita hears her husband, laughing, stamping his feet. He’s early, and he’s not alone. She steps into the hallway. Evangeline is taking the coats and hats, which are damp with rain, and the men divest them upon the girl until she seems to have disappeared beneath a mountain of wet wool.

  “Herbert, you’re home early, and who’s followed you in?” But she’s already figured it out.

  “Look, Sarita. Alfred Harmsworth.”

  “Don’t you mean Lord Northcliffe?” says Sarita. It’s a new honor and this is the first time Sarita’s had a chance to try it out in person. “What a pleasant surprise. I didn’t even know you were in Paris.”

  “Mrs. Ward,” he says. “How are you?”

  “Very well.” She needs to send down to the kitchen for the pears and there should be some cake. “I do hope you’ll join us for dinner.”

  “Unfortunately, I already have plans, but I can stay till six.”

  “That’s enough time for a drink,” says Ward.

  “There’s a fire in the drawing room,” says Sarita. “Pull up a chair, kick your boots up.” Now that he’s got the baronetcy, Sarita’s sure people are presenting their most polite selves, but the opposite is what’s needed from friends. And Harmsworth is still, after all, a man with a job.

  Whiskey is poured, although Sarita has tea. She might have had a sherry, but the draper is coming by shortly and all the numbers—window measurements, yardage, and expense—are best met with a clear head. Harmsworth approaches the piano and pulls out the bench. He pretends to flip up coat tails and dramatically takes his seat, lifting the lid to expose the keys, arching his fingers above the ivory. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m in Paris?” he asks. He plays a questioning line of music.

  “You’re always in Paris,” says Herbert. “You practically live at the Ritz.”

  “Wrong answer,” says Harmsworth. He bangs twice and loud on the keys.

  “There’s some new motor car something or other,” tries Sarita.

  “Close,” says Harmsworth. He alternates between two sweet, high keys.

  “I thought you were all about balloons now,” says Herbert.

  “Even closer.” He looks from Sarita to Herbert to Ticker, and lets his gaze rest on the dog for a dramatic moment. “You’ve never witnessed anything like it.”

  “Well, if I’ve never witnessed anything like it, how am I supposed to guess what it is?” says Herbert.

  Sarita laughs. “Do you want us to read about it?”

  “No. You can see it for yourself. This Monday, in Bagatelle Field, Santos-Dumont is going to fly through the air in a machine.”

  “Another glider? Don’t those people keep killing themselves?” asks Herbert.

  Sarita sips her tea. She would like to keep up with the news, but she doesn’t have time. Maybe after they’re settled in Rolleboise.

  “This is not a glider, not a balloon. This is a genuine aero-plane,” Harms­worth purrs the word, “equipped with an engine and the ability to steer.”

  “Didn’t somebody already do that? It was those Americans, the Wright Brothers. It’s been done,” says Herbert. “And Santos-Dumont managed something last month, didn’t he?”

  “He managed to get off the ground in a heavier-than-air flying machine with the power of an engine.”

  Herbert’s dismissive. “So it’s already happened.”

  “And that was news, and this is news because it’s being done again and done better. And it will happen again and again and again.” Harmsworth shuts the lid of the piano and turns on the bench to face them. “Get ready for air travel.”

  “Not in my lifetime,” says Herbert.

  “In your lifetime, Wardy, and in the next five years.”

  Sarita would like to go see the experiment on Monday, but unfortunately the engineer is dropping by with plans. The new property is right on the banks of the Seine—gorgeous—but there’s some sort of issue with the embankment and erosion. Herbert might deal with this, but he’s completely useless on these matters. He seems to think that contractors show up at the house to be charmed with witty conversation and everything takes twice as long. But first she must deal with the issue of the drapes. She flips the flap of her leather binder and pulls out the notes—the feathery, fussy script of the draper, her own blunt pencil filling the margin with question marks and queries. On second look, the estimate for the long curtains in the dining room seems fine. Why did she have a problem with it? Oh, and why is Evangeline blocking the light?

  “Yes?” Sarita says.

  “Would Madame care for some tea?”

  “Ah, that’s a good idea.” What is wrong with Evangeline? She’s looking a little washed-out, a bit red around the eyes. Sarita slides her glasses down her nose and peers up at the girl. “Something’s the matter. Please don’t waste my time, or yours, denying it.”

  Evangeline dips her head quickly in assent. “Would Madame consider asking the seamstress to provide me with another uniform? This one is . . .”

  It’s bursting at the seams, now that she takes a good look. “Sit down.”

  “Madame—”

  “Sit.”

  Evangeline sits.

  It’s that boy delivering the flowers, Sarita’s sure of it. He is exceptionally handsome, charming, probably “delivering flowers” all up and down the street. Sarita has even seen Cricket eyeing him—spoilt, ferocious, anarchic Cricket—who is barely sixteen. Lucky for this mother, the class divide is very, very wide, even for a strong swimmer like her daughter.

  “First of all, the draper does drapes, not uniforms. Second, you don’t need a uniform. You need to go home. I’ll give you some money. I’ll check with M
ister Ward to see what an appropriate amount might be.” There’s a silence that Sarita eventually breaks by tapping her pencil on the tabletop. “You were going to bring me tea.”

  “Yes, Madame.” Evangeline stands up. “Thank you, Madame.”

  “Don’t thank me.” For one thing she’s just been let go. “You’ve enough on your plate, but I could use some help with a suitable replacement.”

  Deep breath, Sarita. It’s more than a personal inconvenience. Dig up a little human sympathy. What will happen to the girl? Worst-case scenario, she goes home and tells the truth to her very religious family, gets dumped on the street, and turns to whatever employment opportunities exist there. Best-case scenario, she makes up some story about her fiancé (or husband) dying tragically in Vietnam or Senegal or Cameroon that is believed by the family (religious or not) and Sarita hears from the girl a couple of times a year—pleasantries, fond memories—and there’s a final plea for money right before the earnest entreaty to God to continue his fond protection over all the Wards now and forever. Amen.

  Harmsworth is convinced that Germany is hatching something. He points to the Entente Cordiale to show that the world leaders share his opinion. Why else would France and England form such a friendship? What is in it for the French? What is in it for the English, for that matter, who at least share no borders with Germany—no borders with anyone, excepting the minor complications of Scotland and Ireland. The English, apparently, have finally gotten over the Norman Invasion, although it’s taken nearly a thousand years. Well, if they’re going to have a war, do it soon and make it quick. And win it before Charlie and Herbie and Roddie, who would make a terrible soldier, find themselves in uniform.

  Ward is standing on the front step in the cold, clear morning in his hat and coat. It’s a Monday and there will be traffic, which is probably why Harmsworth has arranged to collect them at the inhospitable hour of seven in the morning, although Bagatelle is only a few miles away. He can hear Sarita calling out in French to the nanny, saying that Herbie needs the fur-lined mittens and what is the point of having them if they’re lost? Charlie steps out the front door, his features composed.