An Irish Heart

by C M Blackwood

  “I’ve had them in a stable behind the inn,” said Tyler, as we went together down the stairs. “The owner charged me by the week.”

  I looked at him. “Where do you get all of this money?”

  “Would you rather I had left them behind?”

  “No. I was just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Well, don’t ask so many questions.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said it, that’s why!”

  We rode all through the day. I’d not been able to allow Tyler to mount Zebulon; so I took him instead. Tyler rode Charlie (much to Charlie’s apparent disdain), and Dolly trotted along after us, tongue hanging from the side of her mouth, and tail wagging furiously.

  The day passed slowly; for it had been a long while since I spent so long on horseback. The paths (to wherever it was that we were going) proved truly miserable, for we had come some way out of Dublin to reach the Blue Buckle. By the time the sun began to set, my back and thighs ached terribly. Zebulon began to grow irritated, as well, and stopped occasionally to snort and stamp his hooves.

  ***

  We had to set up camp – a task for which we were ill prepared – at sundown. We tied the horses to a close-set pair of trees. I sat myself down on a log, and remained there all night; refusing to lie down, even when Tyler stretched out beside the fire he had made.

  “You’ll be covered in ticks,” I said, “without even a bedroll.”

  He looked up at me with one eye. “And you’re going to sit there till morning, I suppose?”

  “I certainly am.”

  “Well,” he said, dropping his head back down onto his pack, “all the luck to you. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you, though, when you fall off of your horse from exhaustion.”

  “You’d just go on without me, would you?”

  “No. I’d stop to laugh at the sight of you, plastered on the road.”

  “Your kindness makes me feel quite warm inside.”

  “That’s my constant aim.”

  I did not laugh, though I knew he wanted me to.

  I sat silent for some time, until the dog emerged from her wanderings among the trees, and came to sit beside me.

  “I just don’t see why she likes you so much,” said Tyler, watching in astonishment as the dog huddled closer to me, out of the heat of the fire. “All you ever do is holler at her.”

  I looked down into her face, which was tilted up towards mine. Her mouth was closed, and her brown eyes were solemn, as if she were waiting for some kind of explanation for my coldness.

  “Do I do that, Dolly?” I asked, reaching down to stroke the top of her head. “Do I holler at you?”

  Whatever pain I may have already caused her, she seemed willing to forgive me in an instant. She laid her head in my lap, and gave my hand a warm lick.

  “Oh, Dolly,” I said, looking into the fire. “Whatever shall we do?”

  She whined in response, and then closed her eyes. I could feel her whiskers tickling my hand, as every so often her nose twitched.

  It seemed that Tyler had fallen asleep. His back was turned to me, and the copper curls of his head spilt a little over his collar, glittering in the firelight.

  I watched as the flames rose to lick the sky. I observed them closely, listening to the sound they made – short, sparking cracks, like small whips wielded by dark elves.

  Chapter 22

  It was two days later when we came into the city. We were in a very different part of it, though, than that with which I had been made familiar during my stay on Marcker Street. The streets were somewhat less dirty, and the buildings looked not quite so disreputable. On our way through, I even saw a few motorcars pass us by.

  “Where are we going, exactly?” I asked Tyler.

  “To Brazier Street.”

  “Where is that?”

  He pointed. “Right there.”

  Five minutes later, we were stopped outside a rather grand-looking hotel. It towered above the buildings to either side, and was equipped with a set of fine-looking scarlet awnings which stretched out over the glass doors in front. I looked for the name of the place, but did not see one. I asked after this; and Tyler simply replied that it was “between appellations.”

  “What in the world does that –”

  But Tyler cut me off, raising his voice to greet a black-suited fellow who had just come out the front doors.

  “McGillie!” he said. “Lovely to see you, old boy. I wonder, would you mind seeing to the horses while I dash inside? I’m afraid I’m somewhat unexpected.”

  “I rather think not,” said McGillie. “Miss Elson awaits you anxiously, I believe.”

  Tyler’s face seemed to grow very bright at this; and he dismounted Charlie quickly, rushing to the doors and motioning for me to follow.

  “Madam,” said McGillie, nodding to me.

  “Hello,” I said. I gave Zebulon a pat, whistled to Dolly, and then went after Tyler.

  When I had gone through the front doors, however, I looked all about the lobby, and saw no sign of Tyler. I stood upon a crimson carpet that quite matched the awnings, in between two wide archways which led down a pair of separate corridors. Straight ahead of me there was a staircase.

  I looked back into the street; but McGillie had disappeared. So I went to a plush bench settled against the right wall, and sat and awaited Tyler’s return.

  “How rude,” I muttered. “He didn’t even wait for me!”

  “I’m sure that he meant no offence,” said an unfamiliar voice. At first, there was no body to match it; but then a woman came strolling out of the right archway, with Tyler on her heels. “Mr Ashley only forgets himself sometimes. Or, rather – quite often, I would say.”

  Tyler only beamed at her criticism.

  I stood up to meet them, as the woman continued across the lobby. When she had stopped before me, I noticed how much taller she was than myself (almost taller, even, than Tyler.) Her black hair was bound up tightly behind her head, and a pair of dark eyes looked out at me from a very handsome face.

  “It’s good to meet you, Miss O’Brien,” she said, reaching out to shake my hand.

  “And you as well, Miss –”

  But I had nothing to fill the blank.

  “Elson,” she said. “Abbaline Elson.”

  “Ah,” I said, though I really had no idea at all of the significance of the name.

  “I’m sure that you’re both weary from your travels,” said Abbaline Elson. “When McGillie returns, he will show you to your room.” She frowned, and looked down at the dog with an expression of distaste. “Only one, I’m afraid. All the rest are taken; but I’m sure that a pair of friends like you shouldn’t mind very much.”

  Tyler whispered something into her ear, at which a bright flush filled her cheeks. “I certainly think not, Mr Ashley,” she said. “Just wait here for McGillie, and keep out of trouble.”

  “As ever I do!” he exclaimed.

  After Abbaline Elson had departed through the archway, I turned to Tyler, and boxed him in the ear. “What are you thinking about?” I asked, persisting with a few more blows, even as he covered his face with his hands. “That’s no way to treat a lady.”

  He sighed. “You’re right, of course. But I simply can’t help it! It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen her, you know.”

  “Keep up like you’re doing, and it will be a very long time before you see her again.”

  “Of course you’re right,” he said with a frown.

  McGillie came in to us a few minutes later, and motioned for us to follow him. We mounted the staircase, and climbed up and up, all the way to the fifth and last floor. It was then to the end of the corridor, and the last door on the right.

  “Your baggage will be brought up directly,” said McGillie.

  “No rush, old chap,” said Tyler, flinging himself down on the bed near the far wall. He closed his eyes and added, “A sleeping fellow has no real need of his baggage.”

&n
bsp; “True enough, sir,” said McGillie. “True enough.”

  After he had gone, I went to the curtainless window (the absence of such a thing, in such a nice-looking place, I took a moment to consider strange) that looked down upon a narrow side-alley. It was dark and filthy. I squinted my eyes, and could see what looked like four boys, gathered there beside a cluster of garbage cans. They spoke together for a few moments, and then turned and ran in opposite directions, two-and-two together.

  “Now, this of course is only from personal experience,” said Tyler; and when I looked I saw that he was peering at me with one eye, “but it seems to me that it would be rather difficult to sleep, standing up beside a window. First, you know, there’s the fact that you’re standing up; but then it would seem that all those things taking place outside the window might distract you from a real sleep. I’d say that you’d get no more out of it, really, than a short doze.”

  Instead of replying, I left my place by the window, and went to the second bed, on which Dolly had already made herself comfortable. “That’s the way,” said Tyler, closing his eyes again, and joining his hands over the buttons of his waistcoat.

  ***

  When I woke in the night, and looked about the room (forgetting for a moment where I was, but remembering all the more quickly due to the lights that burned in the windows across the alley, thus illuminating the place somewhat dimly), I noticed immediately that Tyler was gone. I sat up in bed, and shivered in the chill air, wondering why a blasted hotel would not be at least a fair amount warmer. Weren’t such places supposed to have steam heat, and all such things?

  With chattering teeth I looked out into the corridor, where I saw several lights glowing, and heard voices issuing from what seemed several open doorways. I slipped from the room, crept on down the hall, and peeked into a few of the rooms as I passed by. I saw groups of gentlemen, some as many as eight to a room, carrying on exceedingly heated conversations, which rendered them for the most part unaware of my passing. A couple of fellows gave me a wave, and I smiled uncertainly, afterwards quickening my pace towards the stairs. Through one of the closed doors, I heard the sound of particularly loud snoring; and wondered if the gentleman who emitted the sound was aware of the terrible sinus infection he seemed to possess.

  Save for the lights from the rooms, all of the corridors I looked into were dark. But when I reached the top of the flight of stairs which led down to the lobby, I found that all had become illuminated, and that from that point on, it might prove a bit harder to creep about unnoticed. Yet I walked through the last of the shadows, and emerged into the brightness of the lobby, squinting my eyes a little from the sudden radiance.

  My goodness, what a shine! I looked up to the ceiling, where there was an intricately moulded, frosted plate of glass hanging a bit below the plaster. Somewhere betwixt it and the ceiling glowed a great beacon of light – and there must have dwelt an electric bulb. Now, for someone who had never had the privilege of viewing one in its use beneath a roof (for it was true that those streets in Dublin – if not the ones back home – were lit oftentimes with electric lamps), the place seemed to be lit with a ray of the sun itself.

  The lobby was empty, save for a great clock that stood beside the bench on which I had sat earlier. It ticked and tocked in a deep voice, with the accompanying soft swish of a golden pendulum that whispered to and fro, back and forth, in its glass cabinet. The face read at a quarter past one.

  I went out into the middle of the room, and looked down both of the archways, to see which seemed a more likely place to find Tyler. Lights glowed in either corridor, however; so I went to the mouth of each, and listened for voices.

  Voices in both, of course. But I thought that I heard (was almost certain that I heard), Tyler’s voice, raised in quite a high fashion down the left arch.

  So off I went.

  Behind a great pair of double-doors, in a place where the corridor widened considerably, I heard voices echoing. Tyler, now, I was sure I heard; and almost as certainly did I hear Abbaline Elson.

  “This place won’t do for long,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time till the secret is not quite so secret anymore.”

  “Surely we’ve got at least a little time, Abbaline?” said a male voice. “We’ve hardly even gotten settled in.”

  “The problem is that too many are settling in. All five floors are crammed to capacity! With that many mouths in a single building, it’s never long before at least one tongue wags where it shouldn’t.”

  “Ah, Abby!” said Tyler. “Don’t be such a pessimist! Look a little on the sunny side, d’you see what I mean?”

  I could tell, even from my own side of the conversation, that he had a bit of the drink in him.

  “The sunny side?” said Abbaline. “What do you know of the sunny side, you vile little street urchin? I’ve been here for over a month – and you were nowhere to be found!”

  “In all fairness,” said Tyler, who seemed quite undaunted (but who did seem a little more sobre now), “I should remind you that I’ve been dealing with problems which are not entirely my own.”

  “What’s that to do with anything?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what’s that to do with anything?’ It’s everything to do with anything, I’ll have you know.”

  “Do you see what I’ve been saying? This is exactly what I’ve been saying. I simply can’t trust you, Tyler! One minute you’re here – the next you’re not, and off you trot. You were hanging about with that trollop, the entire time you were supposed to be here!”

  “That’s not fair,” said Tyler. “For one thing, she is not a trollop; and for another, I’ve been in Dublin since October! I would have arrived here before you, had it not been for what happened. I couldn’t bring her back to the city straightaway. What if they’d been looking for her? She’s the only one they didn’t get, you know – and they’re bound to have found out that she was there.” He paused, and I heard the sound of ice clinking about against the sides of a glass. “Have a little heart, would you, Abby? She’s only just lost her very best friend.”

  Whether Tyler had defended me or no, I was not about to have anyone going about calling me a trollop. I would not take it from Leonard Ildris – and I certainly would not take it from Abbaline Elson, whoever in the hell she happened to be.

  I was just about to push open the door, when the third voice from inside the room announced, “This conversation seems to be getting just a little too personal. I think I shall call it a day – and bid you both goodnight.”

  I looked about for a place to hide, but the corridor was utterly empty. Not even a damned plant, for goodness’ sake.

  As I was reflecting on the regrettable absence of greenery, the door swung open, and a fat man in a striped necktie was revealed to me. He looked upon me with surprise.

  “And who would you be, young lady?”

  All my resolve of a moment ago seemed to have vanished completely. I just looked at the man, and made little o’s with my mouth; started to speak several times, but never actually made a sound that he would have been able to hear.

  “Ah, Kate!” said Tyler, leaning forward so as to cast me a smile. “Come in, won’t you?”

  “Go on, my dear,” said the man in the necktie, stepping aside so that I might enter. “Take my seat, do. I’m off to bed.”

  I went a little farther into the room, and Tyler stood up to clap a hand on my shoulder, and lead me to a chair. Sitting on a little sofa to the right were two men, speaking easily to one another, and seeming not to notice my arrival at all. But finally they looked up, and the one on the left said, “ ‘Ello, miss. Don’t believe I’ve seen ye before.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He extended a hand to me, and I shook it. “Name’s Tom,” he said.

  “They call me Blackie,” said the other. He held up his hands in explanation, which were blackened and greasy-looking. “I clean the guns, you see. Stuff doesn’t come off too easily, either.”
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br />   “What guns?” I asked.

  “The guns, miss.”

  The men went back to talking, and I dropped down into the chair beside Tyler.

  There I sat quietly; and when Abbaline had looked back to Tyler, from behind the great desk at which she was sitting, I fixed her with quite the most hateful glare I could muster.

  “Ho ho!” exclaimed Tyler, who had caught a glimpse of my face. “I think she heard what you called her, Abby. Do you see – that this is why I always tell you to be more polite? And after the way she defended your honour, too!”

  Abbaline frowned (for of course she had no idea what Tyler was talking about), but did not apologise.

  Who do you think you are? I thought boldly; but the thought never formed into words, and my countenance sank quickly back into a state of vacancy.

  “Sleep all right?” Tyler asked me, reaching into his breast pocket for his cigarette case. He took a sip of his drink, and then lit one of his dratted little smoking-sticks.

  “Quite,” I said.

  “Well,” said Abbaline, somewhat haughtily, “I’ve not yet slept at all, so I think I’ll just leave you to yourselves.”

  Tyler shook his head, and I narrowed my eyes; but a moment later Abbaline Elson was gone, and I was all the happier for it. Tom and Blackie scurried out behind her, and gave us a little wave as they went.

  “You mustn’t mind her,” said Tyler. “She huffs and she puffs, but she’d never do anyone any harm.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What in the world do you like about her?”

  Rather than reprimanding me (as it seemed he might do), Tyler just made his face thoughtful, and took a few moments before saying, “I’ve known her for a very long time. No matter how many times I have to leave, and no matter how long I have to be gone, I’m always just as glad to come back.” He gave me a smile, but it was tinged with something like sadness. “One might say, if you wouldn’t mind it, that she is my Thea.”

  I was about to say, that my Thea was nothing like that dreadful woman – but then I remembered the first and only time that she had met Tyler, and realised that she had indeed been quite horrible to him.