by Anne Bennett
The maid knew that for the master to go into that area at night, and in a carriage too, was madness. But her mother was always telling her not to try to understand the minds of those she worked for, just to do as she was told, so she said, ‘Yes, sir, I’ll go directly.’
The coachman wasn’t that keen either, but as he told Jane, ‘Orders is orders, but I’ll tell you summat for nowt: if anything has happened to that lass, then our lives won’t be worth living.’
Jane sighed. ‘Don’t I know it?’ she said. ‘Let’s hope you find her safe and sound.’
Lily’s house was in darkness. Levingstone wasn’t really surprised, for most of the prostitutes would be working at that time, but then where the hell was Aggie? He knew where many of the women’s pitches were, and so he set off to find Lily. He saw the girls standing in provocative poses in doorways and on street corners, and while some watched him pass silently, others called out, their wares on offer. He barely heard them, though his eyes scanned each face. He was dismayed that Lily was nowhere to be seen in the roads she usually worked.
He didn’t know what to do and he told the coachman to just drive around and he hoped he would come upon her. He didn’t, but he did spy Susie a couple of streets away. He saw her eyes light up speculatively at the sight of a man in a carriage beckoning her over, until she realised who it was.
‘Is anything up, Mr Levingstone?’
‘Yes, I’m looking for Lily.’
‘Oh, she’s gone off with some geezer,’ Susie said. ‘I was just coming to work myself and saw her.’
‘Right,’ Levingstone said. ‘Well, I really want to know if she saw Agnes today.’
‘We all did. She came round.’
‘Thank God!’ Levingstone said. ‘So where is she now?’
‘No idea,’ Susie said. ‘After a bit I went up to get changed to come out, like, and when I come back down she was gone. Lily said she told her to take the tram home, but she said she’d walk – that it would do her good.’
‘About how long ago was this?’
Susie shrugged. ‘’Bout two hours ago.’
‘At the outside, it would take her forty minutes or so to walk home,’ Levingstone said, ‘and yet there is no sign of her.’
‘Christ,’ Susie breathed.
‘I just don’t know what possessed her to come round like that,’ Levingstone said. ‘I’ve told her I don’t want her walking the streets on her own.’
‘She was excited about her wedding and that,’ Susie said. ‘Who wouldn’t be in her position? Like a dog with two tails, she was, and wanted someone to talk it over with, that was all. It’s worrying, though, that she ain’t come home.’
‘Anything could have happened her,’ Levingstone said.
‘Have you thought of informing the rozzers?’ Susie asked.
Levingstone avoided the police as much as possible, as did the prostitutes. ‘No, not yet,’ he said.
‘You are going to, though, ain’t you?’ Susie insisted. ‘You’ll have to.’
‘I know,’ Levingstone sighed. ‘I tell you, Susie, if anything terrible has happened to Aggie, I will no longer want to live.’
Susie caught sight in the lamplight of the devastated look on Levingstone’s ashen face and thought wistfully: if just once in my whole life a man had loved me so wholeheartedly, I’d have thought I had died and gone to Heaven. What she said was, ‘Come on, Mr Levingstone. Don’t go thinking the worst straight off. I’d advise you to go home. She might be there by now and if she ain’t, well, that’s time enough to worry about it and get the coppers in.’
Levingstone knew that Susie spoke sense, and he couldn’t think of anything else he could do anyway, so with the cries of the prostitutes ringing in his ears, the coachman thankfully turned the cab for home.
Bob Tyler, the club doorman, stepping outside for a walk and a smoke before the doors were opened officially, saw the crumpled shape on the ground as soon as he turned the corner. He threw his cigarette to the ground and hurried closer to see who it was. When he realised the person was Aggie, the shock was so great it was a wonder he was not rendered senseless on the ground alongside her.
She was naked with just a coat covering her shoulders, and he pulled it around her for modesty while he put his fingers on her neck to check for a pulse. He was mightily relieved when he found one, for he had never seen a person so badly battered.
For a moment Bob wasn’t clear what to do. Should he fetch a woman from the house? But he would hesitate to leave Aggie in this state. Anyway, he reasoned, a woman would hardly be able to lift her. Surely it was better to get her indoors as soon as possible. When he put a hand on her, though, Aggie shrank from him, though her eyes remained closed.
‘Don’t you fret, Aggie,’ he said softly. ‘You’re home now, and safe. We will have you nice and comfortable as soon as we can.’ And he lifted her as gently as he could.
Bob wondered what Levingstone would do when he saw what some vicious thug or thugs had done to his Aggie. He knew he would not rest until he found out who her attacker was, and he wouldn’t blame him if he tore the heart from the man, for every bit of poor Aggie was bruised or bleeding. Anyone who could beat a defenceless woman so badly didn’t deserve to live. He felt a wave of compassion flow over him at what Aggie must have suffered and how frightened she must have been.
‘Mother of God, what has happened?’ Jane asked as she opened the door to Bob’s frantic knocking.
‘We can go into what happened to her later,’ Bob said. ‘Run up and turn the bed down, there’s a good girl.’
But when Bob laid her on the bed and said to Jane, ‘Will I help you get her coat off?’ Jane shook her head.
‘You can’t do that,’ she said. ‘You’re a man.’
‘I’ve just carried her in.’
‘Even so,’ Jane said firmly, ‘it wouldn’t be seemly. I’ll get Cook to help me; you would be better employed fetching the doctor.’
‘You don’t think we should wait for Levingstone to get back?’
‘No,’ Jane said, ‘I think that he would want us to use our common sense and do the best we can for Aggie. That girl needs a doctor, and quickly, I would say.’
Bob couldn’t disagree with that, but Jane hadn’t finished. ‘And when you have done that, then wait outside for the master and try and prepare him in some way, if there is any way in the world to prepare anyone for such a sight.’
And Aggie was a sight. The fronts of her legs were lacerated, and her hands, and the rest of her was a mass of swelling bruises. The skin from her shoulders had been ripped off. Her bloated face, though, almost defied description. Both lips were split open and the blooded nose was a very odd shape. Around her eyes, blackened with bruising, was so swollen the eyes themselves were mere slits.
‘God, the master will go off his head when he sees her like this,’ Bessie said brokenly, weeping as she helped Jane bathe Aggie tenderly with warm water. ‘He thinks the bloody world of her.’
‘I know,’ Jane said, dabbing at her eyes. ‘It’s lovely to see them together.’
‘And now some bloody bastard tries to do her in.’
‘Poor, poor Aggie.’
‘Aye, and poor Mr Levingstone,’ the cook said. ‘He’ll never manage without her.’
The doctor was already in the room and examining Aggie when Levingstone burst through the door, having been told what had happened by Bob. He approached the bed almost cautiously, and then the doctor had to steady him as he looked at his beloved Aggie’s face. The doctor wasn’t surprised, for he had been similarly stunned by the injuries. And then he saw the deep sorrow in Levingstone’s eyes replaced by the white heat of anger, and knew he intended to find and kill the man who had done this.
The doctor bandaged Aggie’s face so that only the slits of eyes were left uncovered. She didn’t regain consciousness, nor did she move when the doctor bandaged the lacerations on her hands and legs.
‘Believe me, I understand how deeply upset and sh
ocked you were,’ the doctor said to Levingstone as he closed up his bag. ‘In all my professional life I have never seen a person beaten so badly. Any ideas who it was did this?’
‘No,’ Levingstone said through gritted teeth, ‘but I intend to find out.’
‘Are you informing the police?’
Levingstone shook his head. ‘No police.’
‘Alan, you might be the one in trouble if you deal with this yourself.’
‘That is not your concern,’ Levingstone snapped. ‘You just look after Agnes.’
The doctor shrugged. Maybe he would feel the same if one of his own loved ones was attacked in such a vicious manner. And there was no doubt that Levingstone truly loved his Agnes. His love seemed to seep from the very pores of his skin.
Levingstone was actually in acute pain, affecting all of his body as if his nerve endings were exposed, and his suffering was apparent to everyone in the room.
Even the doctor knew it was no good telling Levingstone to pull himself together, as he had done to other worried men, for he was past hearing that. His haunted, saddened eyes worried him, and he would have been happier if Levingstone had agreed to accept some powders to calm him a little and enable him to sleep, but he would have none of it.
‘Have you given some of that stuff to Agnes?’ he asked.
‘No,’ the doctor said. ‘She was found in that unconscious state. But don’t worry about that, not just yet anyway. That’s the mind closing down so that the body can heal. Probably the pain was too much to bear. She will come round in her own good time, I’m sure, and for the moment she needs full-time care.’
Levingstone gave a brief nod. ‘I’ll see to it.’
‘He will never survive this if she doesn’t make it,’ the doctor remarked to Jane as she showed him out.
Jane was shocked. The thought that Aggie wouldn’t pull through had not occurred to her. ‘D’you think she might not?’
‘Who knows? Maybe she hasn’t the stamina or will to fight such an attack. She is a very sick young woman at the moment, I know that. I have done all I can and now the next twenty-four hours are crucial. Send for me, if you are worried – about either of them, mind. Levingstone won’t have anything yet, but he might be glad of it before he is much older.’
‘Yes, Doctor,’ Jane said, and returned to the room of sadness and sorrow.
Levingstone couldn’t seem to sit still. One minute he was ranting and raving, promising that he would find who did this to Aggie and tear them to shreds, beat them to pulp. The next minute he was kneeling by Aggie’s bed and promising her the earth if she would just recover from this, pleading and beseeching her. The sight was so moving that both Jane and Bessie felt tears sting their eyes.
The knock at the door took them all by surprise and Jane went to answer it. She knew straight away who the woman was. She was a street woman, and Jane wrinkled her nose in disgust. She knew that Levingstone ran houses for the street women – everyone knew – but never in all the time she had worked in the house had one of those women come to the door, so she could sort of forget about that side of things.
She’d never associated with the girls in the club either, except Aggie, though she considered what they did a tad more respectable than trawling the streets looking for men.
Lily saw the lift of Jane’s chin, but she was too worried about Aggie to take Jane to task.
‘I’ve come about Aggie,’ she said. ‘My mate Susie told me she was missing, like, and I come straight up. Has she got home yet?’
‘Yes,’ said Jane. ‘She’s back, but…’
‘What is it?’ Lily asked urgently, seeing the look on Jane’s face. ‘Is she all right?’
‘No,’ Jane said. ‘She’s far from well. She has been beaten up.’
‘Beaten up! Dear Christ! Do they know who by, what for, or anything?’
‘No,’ Jane said. ‘Maybe you’d better speak to Mr Levingstone.’
‘Oh, is he here?’
‘Yes,’ said Jane. ‘What name shall I say?’
‘Lily.’
Jane had never expected to see Mr Levingstone so pleased to hear that one of his street women was in his own private quarters. As soon as she mentioned the name, he was up from the chair, while she took his place by the bed.
‘Oh, Lily,’ he cried, almost in relief.
Lily knew she was looking at a man in torment, his face grey and drawn.
‘Your maid that let me in said Aggie was beaten up,’ she said.
‘That’s right.’
‘It must have been as she was making her way from our place.’
‘I suppose. I know so little.’
‘I blame myself,’ Lily said. ‘I should have insisted she used the tram.’
‘Can’t everyone be wise after the event?’ Levingstone said. ‘You’re not to blame for this, Lily.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘Of course. But she is unconscious and she is also heavily bandaged.’
Afterwards, Lily was glad that Levingstone had warned her about this and so she was able to hide her shock. Levingstone had dismissed Jane so there were just the two of them in the room. Lily said, ‘God, that must have been some beating she took.’
‘It was,’ Levingstone said. ‘The doctor said he had never seen anything like it. His voice says she’ll recover, but his eyes say different.’
‘Nonsense!’ Lily declared emphatically. ‘He doesn’t know the girl like I do. She might look like a strip of wind, but she has got guts. She is a fighter. I didn’t drag her from the jaws of death fifteen years ago just to let her succumb to this now.’
And then Alan remembered the little girl who had shared Lily’s room for weeks after she had found her half dead and pregnant in the street. The little strip of a thing who had danced for him and taken away a piece of his heart. Now she had it all and he wouldn’t, couldn’t lose her. Life would have no meaning if he didn’t have Agnes by his side to share it with him.
‘Would you do it again?’ he asked. ‘Nurse Agnes, I mean. I will see that you don’t lose by it. Agnes cannot be left. Jane can’t do it all and I don’t want to engage someone that Agnes won’t know and might feel nervous of.’
Lily thought about it and knew she would like to do that. She thought a great deal of Aggie, and so she said to Levingstone, ‘I will do it on one condition.’
‘And what is that?’
‘That you talk to that young girl who opened the door to me,’ Lily said. ‘Tell her I’m not some slug to be ground beneath her feet. I plainly saw the look of disgust in her eyes and the way her lip curled and the nose that she had lifted into the air. I wish to be treated civil and spoke to civil and then I dare say we shall get along well enough.’
Levingstone gave a grim little smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Same old Lily. Don’t believe in pulling your punches. I will see to it that no one, absolutely no one, looks down on you in this house and I will start putting that right straight away.’
‘So be it,’ Lily said. ‘And between us we will get Aggie right. Just see if we don’t.’
SIXTEEN
On the Tuesday after Easter, the postman told Biddy of the insurrection that had begun in the GPO in Dublin the previous day.
‘Surely not,’ Thomas John said, when Biddy told him after he and Tom and Joe came in for breakfast. ‘They would not be so stupid as to take on the might of the British Army.’
‘I don’t know so much,’ Joe said. ‘There are plenty of stupid fellows in that Irish Republican Brotherhood, or whatever they call themselves these days. That’s what people say, anyway. Some fellows were talking about it only last Saturday. They seem to think that England has her hands full fighting Germany.’
‘Oh, aye,’ Thomas John commented drily. ‘So they expect them to wave good-naturedly when this motley bunch takes charge, do they? Jesus, Connolly and Pearse are leading them to be slaughtered, and what will they gain? Bugger all, that’s what.’
‘Who really cares about
what is happening in Dublin anyway?’ Joe said.
Thomas John rounded on him immediately. ‘Well, you should, for a start,’ he snapped. ‘All of us should care what is happening in our own country. Someone of us must go to Buncrana and buy a paper.’
In the end, Tom went in on the old horse. When he got home, regardless of the jobs awaiting attention on the farm, Thomas John spread the paper on the table.
‘Just a thousand of them,’ he said in disgust. ‘What on earth can they hope to achieve?’
‘They have both sides of the Liffey covered, though,’ Joe put in, impressed despite himself. ‘And taken over the GPO in Sackville Street like the postman was after telling Mammy.’
‘Hoisted up the tricolour flag too,’ Tom said.
‘And the other one,’ Joe said, pointing to the picture. ‘Paper says it has a green banner and has a golden harp and “Irish Republic” written on it.’
‘It might be ill-timed, stupid or whatever you want to call it, Daddy,’ Tom said, ‘but isn’t it a fine sight to see the tricolour flying in Ireland again?’
‘Aye, it is, son,’ Thomas John said rather sadly. ‘And take joy in it, because it won’t flutter there for long. It wouldn’t hurt to get a paper each day and keep abreast of things.’
Britain’s response was immediate. Thousands of troops arrived in Dublin. Field guns were installed and by Wednesday a gunship had sailed up the Liffey and begun shelling the place to bits. Dublin was burning. Few supplies were getting through as the rebels had control of the railway stations, and those shops not shelled or burned to the ground were closed up. The Dublin people were starving, and looting became commonplace, despite the army shooting anything that moved.
‘What did they expect?’ Thomas John said. ‘It’s their own people that these bloody rebels are hurting. And in the end it will be for nothing. You’ll see.’
He was right. By Saturday it was all over and the rebels marched off to Kilmainham Gaol – apart from de Valera, who had an American passport and was taken to Richmond Barracks.