An Irish Hostage Page 5

  Coming back to stand beside her, I lowered my voice. “Father O’Halloran doesn’t seem to care for your cousin Terrence. Or for Michael. And there was someone in the pub who questioned Terrence. I thought he was a hero of the Rising, that everyone looked up to him?”

  “There are those who feel that what was started in Dublin ought to continue. They weren’t there, but they’re full of wild talk, and Terrence swears it will do more harm than good, carrying the fight to the English. They don’t want to hear him, and they go on stirring people up without a thought to the consequences if someone decides to go out and shoot the wrong person.”

  I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “Could it be these people who decided to take Michael? To frighten him,” I added quickly as alarm spread across her face.

  She sat down on the bed, the springs squeaking a little from the suddenness of it. She didn’t look at me, her fingers tracing the pattern on the pretty coverlet. “I don’t know. I can’t believe they’d kill him for wearing a British uniform. But they have done—according to the whispers.”

  “Surely not.”

  “A friend’s brother, now, he burned his uniform before he left England and claimed to everyone who’d listen that he’d been in prison for the past four years, for attempted desertion. That he’d gone to enlist, but when he thought better of it, they claimed he’d already signed the papers and threw him into prison. He told terrible tales about English prisons, but his mother had got letters from him while he was in France, and there were people who had seen them. So he swore he’d paid someone to post them from France, to keep his mother from worrying about him in English custody.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “She sent him away. For his own good. A ship to America. But the Irish there may feel just the same in Boston as they do here. And she’s had no word at all since he landed. He was told not to go to New York, that they hanged Irish workers there. But Terrence says that was a long time ago.”

  I took a deep breath. “Wouldn’t it have made a difference, that you and Michael were planning to leave Ireland?”

  “That might only make matters worse. We didn’t make a public announcement, no, but word got out. Terrence thought it might be for the best. But Granny says a traitor is a traitor, and running away doesn’t change anything.” She looked up finally. “I wish I’d never asked you to come here. But I so wanted you to see me walk down to the altar, to be married.” She lifted her skirts, and I could tell that the scars were still there. Even in her stockings her legs were slightly misshapen. “Michael said he didn’t care. I don’t think he did.” She dropped her skirts again and sighed. “I should have listened to Father O’Halloran, and gone to England to meet Michael and marry him there. But I wanted to be married in the same church as my mother and my grandmothers and all the Flynn women before me. I wanted to start my marriage in Ireland, not a strange church in England. Was that asking so much?”

  “No. Not at all.” It was a tangle, and I wasn’t sure just who I should believe about Michael’s disappearance. I tried to consider what would have happened in Somerset if I’d brought home a German officer and told everyone that I wanted to marry him in the village church. It wasn’t quite the same, of course, but there were families in the village who had lost loved ones in the war, and those losses were still fresh and painful.

  Letting it go, I took her in my arms and tried to comfort her.

  After a bit, she moved away, saying, “And here I am, thinking only of myself, while you’ve had nothing to eat the whole day! My mother taught me better.” She tried to laugh at herself. “There’s a bit of roast from last night. I’ll make tea, and sandwiches.” She suddenly realized I was still wearing my riding clothes. “Change first! I’ll bring hot water to wash your face and hands. You’d think the Irish had no hospitality at all.”

  And she left the room in a hurry, needing to be busy. I closed the door behind her, found one of the plain dresses I’d brought that didn’t identify me as a nursing Sister, and by the time she was back with the hot water, I was more presentable.

  We ate the sandwiches in the kitchen, after she’d carried a plate up to her grandmother with a pot of tea and a small glass of Irish whiskey, then took another to Major Dawson and the younger Mrs. Flynn.

  I couldn’t help but wonder why Eileen, the daughter of the house, was preparing tea and sandwiches, carrying trays upstairs. There had been a young girl here when I first arrived, but I hadn’t seen her since, nor anyone else who might be staff. It didn’t fit with the family’s position here or the size of the Flynns’ property. It didn’t appear to be a matter of money—there was nothing shabby about the house or the grounds. Surely it couldn’t be our presence here, the Major’s and mine? Even that thought made me uneasy. But of course I couldn’t ask. It would be rude.

  Eileen’s cheeks were flushed when she came back, and I took it that the older woman had been ungrateful and rather nasty. But Eileen said nothing, and nor did I.

  There was nothing we could do about her grandmother.

  Warm air, a slight breeze that lifted the curtains at the open window, and a buzzing of bees somewhere in the tall bushes just outside lulled me into wishing for a nap. It had been an eventful day so far, and the Captain and I had risen before dawn to begin our flight.

  And then Terrence came into the kitchen, banging the door wide open against the wall, saying angrily, “If that woman had been at the Post Office, no one would have dared to surrender.”

  The Post Office in Dublin had been the scene of much of the action in the Rising. I gathered he meant his grandmother.

  Eileen didn’t smile. He poured himself a cup of tea, and as she rose and began to make more sandwiches, he reached for the bottle on the shelf and added whiskey to his cup. But when she had prepared them, he shook his head. “No. I’m not hungry.” Then he said, as if suddenly aware of who was not there, “Where’s the Major?”

  “In his room. I took up a tray.”

  He nodded. “Best place for him.” He finished his tea, then poured more whiskey into the empty cup. “He ought to leave. You as well,” he said, gesturing toward me with the cup.

  This was a change in attitude.

  “Are you saying there won’t be a wedding?” Eileen asked in a small voice.

  “God, no. But having English attendants at a wedding of an English nursing Sister and a former English soldier is not the best decision you could have made.”

  “But that’s just it. It’s my wedding. I wanted it to be happy. Joyful. And Michael’s brother died in France. He would very likely have chosen him, if he’d lived.”

  “It doesn’t sound right, somehow. An officer coming all this way to stand up for his Sergeant.” He stared into the contents of his cup. “There’s talk that the Major was glad of the excuse. That he’s an English spy.”

  “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. You’ve talked to him often enough. And what is he spying on, here at the edge of the world? The fish in the nets? The number of gulls flying over the harbor? If he was a spy, he’d be in Dublin.”

  “What if he’s after me? London wouldn’t mind seeing me hang. Or shot. Even this long after events. Still. Both should go, and you should find a nice Irish girl to stand up with you, and I’ll stand up with Michael.”

  “But I thought—you were to give me away? As my eldest cousin.”

  He turned on her. “Eileen. You’re living in a pretty dream, and this is Ireland in 1919. Don’t you see? Your stubbornness has put everyone on edge. You’re as bad as your grandmother, in your own way. She sees everything in the blackest possible way, and you see only what you want to see.”

  Her face flared red. “Do you remember how my legs were when I first came home? I couldn’t even put one foot in front of the other! Someone had to carry me up and down the stairs, I was in constant pain, and I wanted to die before Michael saw me that way. Helpless, ugly—I had to do my exercises even when I couldn’t bear it. And you were in hiding, and
Granny was awful, even Father O’Halloran had something to say. Punishment, he called it, punishment for deserting my own people in their time of need.”

  He stared at her. “You made your choices, Eileen. Against all advice. You went to London to train. Your choice!”

  “I went to London because Michael had enlisted. I wanted to be in France, closer to him. I wanted to be there if he was killed. Don’t you understand? I had to wait four years to know if he was going to live or die. Four years. It isn’t too much to ask to be married in the church that buried my father and my little brother—where I was christened and confirmed. My church, not a stranger’s church.”

  She had used the same words to me. And I could see that Eileen was still Irish, no matter where she’d trained or where she’d been posted during the war. Or where she might be going to spend the rest of her life with the man she loved.

  But her family couldn’t see that. Only her apparent desertion. I wondered how many held that against her.

  Chapter Five

  The evening meal was late. Together Eileen and I took it from the basket and warmed it in the oven, and we had no idea how many we would be serving.

  As it happened, there were six of us at the table. And we prepared a tray for her mother.

  Eileen, her grandmother, her cousin Terrence, the Major, and I. Just as we were sitting down, another man came in, nodded to Granny, and sat down. Without a word Eileen set another place for him.

  I learned he was another cousin, Niall. I could see the likeness, the dark curling hair, the long dark lashes, the straight nose, and the dark eyes. But there the resemblance ended. This man was shorter, slimmer, his chin less square, and without the power of personality that marked Terrence. But without that comparison, he would have been considered a handsome young man in his own right. I had a feeling that he must have stood in Terrence’s shadow all his life. It was there in the diffidence he showed his older brother, sometimes edged with a sharpness.

  He seemed to be fond of Eileen, he was polite to me and the Major, and he gave me the impression he was afraid of his grandmother.

  That was no surprise. She was tall and dark, a woman to be reckoned with, in spite of the gray in her hair. I was reminded of one of the Maharani’s friends: strong-minded, opinionated, and rude.

  Granny had glared at me as she sat down, as if she wished she could order me from the table. Then she ignored me. The Major seemed to interest her, although she was short and insulting with him. In fact, I thought she was enjoying having a British Army Major to bully. And Major Dawson was politely distant in his turn.

  Eileen was clearly put out with her grandmother, but there was little she could say or do. It was Granny’s house, after all.

  And so, the meal was unpleasant enough to give us all indigestion.

  We were nearly finished when there was a banging at the front door, and Terrence rose quickly, moving toward the passage to answer the summons. As he went he motioned to Niall to stay seated.

  The table was silent as we all tried to listen to whatever was being said at the door. There had been an ominous sound to that banging.

  Just then Major Dawson rose and went to stand in the doorway to the back stairs, where he had a better view of the passage. He too had heard more than just someone pounding on the paneling.

  Terrence came racing back down the passage, beckoned to me, and said, “Do you have your kit with you?”

  I didn’t, but Eileen said, half-rising, “Mine is in the cupboard in my room.”

  “No, stay, I’ll fetch it. Sister?”

  And he was gone, his feet pounding on the treads of the stairs, going up and then down again by the time I’d reached the door. He’d borrowed one of Eileen’s coats as well, for me to wear.

  “This way.” He set out toward the village, almost running, and I was hard-pressed to keep up. There was a chill in the air, now, coming off the water.

  We passed the church, dark against the sky as the long day was beginning to fade into the last few minutes of sunset. I kept pace, even though his legs were longer than mine, but I was nearly out of breath by the time we’d reached the little harbor. The gulls had disappeared for the night, resting out on the water somewhere.

  Five or six dogs lay at the approach to it, staring at us, knowing at once that we were strangers. I heard one growl, a huge and handsome Irish Wolf Hound with a great many large teeth, but Terrence snapped his fingers at it, and it subsided as we moved on.

  I loved dogs, but hadn’t been able to keep one because we never knew when or where my father might be posted abroad.

  A cluster of men stood on the mole, staring down at something at their feet. I couldn’t really see past the forest of dark trouser legs. And then Terrence was pushing them aside, and I could see the body lying there.

  A man. He was dressed in dark clothing, like most of the men I’d seen that day, but he had reddish-brown hair. The pale freckled skin was marred by a large scrape down one side of his face.

  I knelt quickly beside the body, but I could tell without touching him that he was dead. Half-closed hazel eyes stared blankly back at the deep lavender sky overhead, and there was a slackness in his limbs that was unnatural in life.

  Above my head, someone was saying to Terrence, his voice still edged with shock and apology, “I was out fishing. And there he was. In the water. I thought it must be Michael. I don’t know how I got him into the rowing boat. But that wound—it was there, I never touched him.”

  I had never seen Michael, I didn’t know what he looked like. Was this the missing man? I felt my stomach turn over—how was I to tell her?

  “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do,” I said, looking up at Terrence. “He’s dead, very likely has been even before he was pulled from the water.”

  “How do you know that?” It was the barkeep.

  “The body is very cold.” I turned back to Terrence, and saw that he was frowning. “And there is no pulse, no heartbeat.”

  “Who is he? Do you know?” another man put in.

  “He’s an artist living in one of the other villages down the coast,” someone else replied. “He came to paint the sea. And stayed on.”

  I felt intense relief sweep through me that it wasn’t Michael lying here.

  I went on with my examination. And apparently the poor man had been in the water for some time, because the puddle under him, draining from his soaked clothing, was widening as we talked. I moved slightly, out of its reach.

  “What killed him?” Another voice, this time one I recognized. And Father O’Halloran was pushing me aside and kneeling in my place to give last rites. He seemed oblivious of the water making its way toward him.

  “The blow on the head?” I said. It was nasty enough to have fractured his skull. “It must have been something large and very heavy to do such damage.”

  But the priest ignored me. And Terrence said, “Well, then. That tells us he didn’t take his own life. A fall, do you think? There are rocks along the water up and down the coast.” He turned toward the fisherman. “Ewen. Any rocks near where you found him?”

  “It was dark. I can’t be sure.”

  Or didn’t wish to be?

  The priest went on with what he was doing. The onlookers had stepped back, giving him room, shadows on their faces as they crossed themselves.

  “Was he Catholic?” I quietly asked Terrence, who seemed to be the only one taking charge. If the dead man hadn’t been local, he might not be.

  “He was. He’d been in Dublin that April. 1916. And afterward painted what he saw by the Post Office and down by the bridge. The dead, the dying. And there were some who weren’t happy about that. The English didn’t want the dead to become martyrs.”

  I looked at the long pale fingers lying lax against the sun-bleached wood on which he lay. There was a dark blue stain on two of them. Paint. He must have been painting earlier in the day.

  “What was he working on?” I asked quietly.

  Terrence
shrugged. “Portraits of the dead, last time I was there.”

  Apparently, no one wanted him to paint those either. No one being the English, of course.

  The priest finished and rose, looking down at the body. “A pity,” he said softly. And then he glanced at Terrence, who nodded once in an unspoken reply to whatever it was the priest was asking.

  “Take him up,” Terrence said, “and carry him to the pub.”

  I watched several men lift the body, its clothing still dripping seawater, and start forward with it. The last of the light had faded, and it was dark. As the men moved on, I could hear the lapping of the tide and the rowboat gently nudging the pilings where it was tied up.

  We followed the sad little procession. I said, “Is there a doctor in the village?”

  “No.”

  “A policeman?”

  “No. But one will have to be sent for.”

  “I want to look at the wound again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a nurse,” I said shortly.

  He glanced at me, then walked on. I was left to carry Eileen’s kit.

  At the inn, they laid the body out on a table in the bar, hands by his sides, eyes closed. Someone had put pennies on the lids.

  “Was he married? A family?” the barkeep was asking.

  Again the men looked at Terrence. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never saw a wife. Or children.”

  I wondered if the dead man had painted the living too. Like Terrence. That might explain how he’d come to know the artist.

  I stayed in the background while the men moved restlessly around, then began to leave, with a nod to the priest.

  Finally, when there were only four or five left in the room, among them the priest and the barkeep and Terrence, he turned and motioned me forward. From somewhere the barkeep produced a torch, and I took a longer look at the wound.