Chapter Thirteen: Dublin, Howth May 1914
It had taken five years, but Mickey at last had the satisfaction of being his own man. No more the lackey of landlord, priest, professor or master of art; he had accomplished it all, and secured his own house as well, for he had a lifetime lease from Pete’s father, in exchange for the copying of three old masters. His job at the Irish Independent caused him little difficulty; he showed up at the offices in Middle Abbey Street with camera in hand at nine, after three hours’ painting, went to two or three assignments - never more than four - delivered his film in the middle of the afternoon, gave directions for any retouching necessary, and had the rest of the day to himself, to paint, to read, to squire his sister about, go to the pictures, or whatever he chose. The pay was excellent, the work simple; he had nothing to complain of.
Most of his assignments were with society dames during the season, and with managers of various sorts the rest of the time. He covered shop openings, derby meets, committee meetings, theatre reviews (thanks to his long association with the Abbey) weddings, and funerals. Sometimes when his subject discovered that he painted, mostly by observation of the paint in the crevices of his fingernails, they would commission paintings, as Pete Krisham’s father had done; this he liked best. He hoped to become a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and he needed a number of works behind him, a familiarity before the public before the application would be considered. Orpen had already told him that he was likely to be accepted, for his work was new and unusual enough to rouse their interest. He had proved he could copy the masters with more than satisfaction; now the old guard was happy to give him his head, so long as he bowed to Irish opinion in the matter of the “decency” of pictures.
This was not a terrible stricture as he was not fond of painted nudes or lascivious scenes for their own sakes, although he had taken a leaf from the book of one of his fellow students at Orpen’s - Willie Gunn - when that young man painted a scene from Irish mythology - the meeting at the ford between the Morrigan and Cuchulainn - and it was rejected because the mythical lady raised her skirts in a rude gesture. No, the objections to any of Mickey’s painting had tended to be due to their surrealism. “What does it mean?” was the commonest question of the old folks. “think of it as a dream,” he made the mistake of saying once. “Looks more like a nightmare to me,” came the reply. But he was encouraged, by Orpen, for one, whose opinion mattered, and by Leary for another, whose opinion was always interesting, whether or not Mick agreed with it. “Keep it up,” he had said. “Ireland needs this to pull herself out of mediaevalism.”
“You don’t care for Morris and Burne-Jones, then?” Mick asked. His house in Gardiner Street had two Arts and Crafts movement works, and a Rosetti.
“Pah!Smarmy romantic pandering,” Paddy had spat in disgust. “The literature is fantastic; the painting is prurile. No, all that lot belongs to me ould wan - my wife. She likes it because it is the fashion and she can afford it” That was a window into their marriage Mickey didn’t fancy.
His own house was burgeoning with furniture and engravings these days, as well as endless studies he had done and paintings he wanted to keep. The furniture was more in the manner of Leary’s ancient Victorian sofa - got second-hand on the cheap - but he was careful to cover it with bold new modern prints in bright colours. He didn’t care for the yallery-greeny of the Arts and Crafts movement any more than Paddy did.
His sister didn’t like his taste at all. The first time he had her to tea after the Sunday Mass at the Pro-Cathedral once his things were in, she asked to sit in the kitchen because the colours in the living room and the “strange” paintings made her uneasy. He shook his head at her, smiling,
“Katty, will you never get out of Rathbarren at all? Look you, you’re living in Dublin itself, as we used to think it, the end of the world; you go to the pictures; ride the electric trams; use the telephone; even took that telegram for herself once - and look at you!” he tapped her forehead, where the curls sprang unruly. “You’re still as much the wee girl from Anaghmore as ever you were, in here. Come along now,” he said, taking her back into the parlour and gesturing toward the painting over the mantel - a scene from the Liberties during the Strike - ”What is so nasty about it?”
“It makes me want to throw up,” Katie said, making a face. “Wid all them ghosty things and monsters.” It was a view of Church Street,. There were indeed ghostly men sitting on the stoop and the DMP were mythical monsters, identified only by the blue haze about them - exactly the colour of the DMP uniform.
“As well it should!” he agreed cheerfully. “it’s supposed to. It’s me little rebellion, my statement about it all as an artist.” She was looking at him sceptically. “Look, if I went about it like Seanin or the Kilgallens, I’d end it in the bridewell, but people see this, and no matter who they are they get the message and that can’t throw me in jail. If they don’t like it they just think I’m a terrible artist.”
“It clashes with the furniture,” she said, casting a glance at the purple, green, red and yellow print. “Everything would clash with the furniture.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Molly,” he said dryly, leading her out into the hall again.
“Who?” She asked at they crossed to the kitchen.
“Mrs. Leary,” he said over his shoulder. “Your employer.”
“You call her Molly?”
He began to make tea. “I should call her ‘ma’am’? She’s younger than I am.”
“That’s mighty fresh of you,” Katie observed, taking a chair. ”Are you in love with her?”
He looked up quickly, spilling tea on the counter. “Christ! No, hardly,” he said, scooping up the tea into his palm. “You know how she is.”
“You’re lying, Mickeen,” she said flatly. “You’re as red as a live coal. Is that why you come there so much?”
Her questions irritated him. Could he never get away from bloody Molly Leary, even when he tried? “I come to see you,” he said shortly. The kettle was beginning to boil on the back of the stove, and he moved it from the heat with a towel. He looked askance as he poured water into the pot, to find Katie with just the expression Annie used to have when she was set to argue.
“Have you told her?” Katie asked.
“Good lord, no!” he said, rattling the biscuit tin rather unnecessarily. “What good would it do anyway? She’s very married and always pregnant.”
“She acts very odd when you’re around.”
“Because she doesn’t care for me,” he agreed. “I asked to paint her once, more than once, and she said no. It put her off me. She thought I had other ideas.”
“Well, don’t you?” Katie said as he sat the pot down in front of her. She sounded just like wee Annie. He ached suddenly with loneliness, longing for that other sister, his dearest childhood friend. Annie would understand. But not Kate, who was still a child.
“I suppose,” he said shortly, fetching the cups from the dresser. “Even if she wasn’t married, she counts herself too high and mighty for a spalpeen like me.” He sat down with the tea equipage before him, angry for the turn of the conversation, and despondent for the sleepless nights the subject had caused.
“Mick, you’re an eejit itself,” Katie said, pouring out tea. She handed him a cup, strong with milk as he liked it. He met her eyes.
“What?”
“Mick,” Katie put her hand on his on the table. Her tone was as gently scolding as a mother’s. “Don’t you know that she’s after acting queer because she feels the same? She’s not fightin’ wid you, but wid herself. You poor dumb eejit.” she shook her head. “Mr. Leary knows it. The wee-anes know it; you should hear them talk! Everyone in the house knows it but the pair of you are too devil-stubborn to say it outright. Maybe if you did, it would go away... How long have you known her?”
“Since I first came to Dublin,” he muttered into his tea.
“You been at this for five years!” she exclaimed. “It’s no mystery that you’re both a misery!”
He looked into her clear blue eyes, eyes that were innocent and shrewd. “Where did you come to be so wise, Caitin?” he teased.
“Sure, we haven’t aught else to do in the country than look after who loves who.” She patted his hand again. “She’s better’n Bridie Twomey,” she smiled.
Ah Bridie! Unthought after these many years. “And how is the Mrs.?” He drained his teacup.
“Widowed,” Kate said shortly. “She’s back, you know, after the husband drowned offen the Malin Head. And fat as a hen she is, with a snot-nosed evil brat of a child, too.”
He had not known she was back. No one had told him. It was better not to have known, open up that heartache again. He was beyond her now; she would never be enough now. He opted for humour over such dark musings, and teased Kate, “And you a nanny!”
Katie drew herself up. “Wee Joe is the cleverest boy I ever laid eyes on and charmin into it; he’d buy and sell ya. Like his da.”
He caught the edge of her words. “Sounds like there’s more than one of us sighing after the Learys,” he sobered, remembering the latest scandal, heard from the servants. Some student had come to the house, and been confronted by Molly. Mick wouldn’t have been in the house that day for worlds. Nor the one when Nancy Barnes left. He had finally dragged that story out of Rosie, with kisses, coins and wheedling when he was walking her home from the pictures on her half day. The problem of Nancy Barnes reminded him of his duties. “He hasn’t troubled you has he?” He asked his sister.
“Mr. Leary?” She coloured at the name. “Not once. And why should he?”
“You know what the talk is. I know Rosie’s warned you about him.”
“And I’m to be after listening to what that one says. Huh!” she rebuffed him. “Drink your tea, or we’ll miss the first picture.”
“Yes, Mammy.” He grinned. “But, look you, Caitin,” he said, catching her eye in earnest, “if he ever so much as says a word, I want you to tell me. I’ll have him before the magistrate, so.”
Kate sat back. “Don’t you like Mr. Leary Mick?” she asked, confused.
He was rueful. “In some ways, I love him more than the wife -” he could not speak her name now. “But I’m no fool. I know what he is. And I won’t have him ruining my sister. That Kilgallen was bad enough to our Annie.”
“But he married her.”
It was his turn to rebuff her. “Ha, if you can call the like of that marrying! What has she but the wee house and the babby every year? Is that what our Annie wanted?” He paused. “But no mind: I’m telling you girl, if he says one word you will tell me.”
“Aye,” Kate assured him, shaking her head. “But he never will.”
The next day his assignment was for the Flower Show at the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park. It was an afternoon affair, and he arrived early, at half-past twelve, and had a word with the staff manager about the placement for his photos, for he had learned it was best to negotiate these society affairs carefully. He was given a vantage point in the Garden suitable for the photographing of Lady Aberdeen, Lady Fingal and the Countess of Athlone- the three dignitaries of the affair on their dais at a flattering angle; no easy thing as the Viceroy’s wife was a steamship of a woman, whereas Lady Fingal was tall and thin and Athlone little. For the rest he could wander about with his brownie. He was busy setting up his camera, not paying much mind to the minor arrivals, when who should appear before him but the Honourable Mrs. Talbot - Molly’s friend Lizzie, whom he had met in Gardiner Street at the Wednesday salon. She recognised him of course, as on that occasion they had spent half an hour talking about painting; her husband George was an amateur painter and avid collector, and one of the Regents of the RHA.
“Well, what a small world it is!” Lizzie exclaimed, coming over to where he was fiddling with his camera lens. “Mr. Rafferty, isn’t it?” She wore a pale trailing afternoon dress with a narrow skirt. She had masses of rich brown hair, piled casually on her head, and wore no hat so that the glories could be fully appreciated.
He straightened. “Yes. How do you do, Mrs. Talbot. I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here today.” Her parents were Lord and Lady Butler of Kilkenny.
“No,” she said, with laughter in her voice, ”I suppose you shouldn’t.... I forget, which paper are you with, Mr. Rafferty?” There was an undertone of condescension in those words, but he ignored it.
“The Independent, ma’am.” He made a mock bow. “Resident photographer.” He turned away briefly, as much to hide her effect on him as anything else for she was devastatingly attractive, and tested the lens again unnecessarily, screwing it off and on again.
“You are a remarkably clever young man, Mr. Rafferty.” Mrs. Talbot went on. “My husband informs me that your work is to be featured in the next show, and you are on the list for candidacy in the Academy.”
He turned back. “That’s right.”
“How droll, to be so clever.” She looked him in the eye, boldly. There was no mistaking that clear assessment. But for whom? As if in answer to his thought, she said, “You’ll be surprised, I think, Mr. Rafferty, to see Mrs. Leary here today. She is expected.” He blanched, and she watched this change with interest. “Oh yes, her mother is a particular friend of Lady Fingal. You’ve seen Molly’s garden, of course. She’s a great plantswoman.” She smiled, and that bright, hot smile leant a rude meaning to her words.
“Only at a distance,” he countered, in that vein. “I’ve never been invited to stroll through it. It would be wasted on me, besides. I don’t know one flower from another.”
“How extraordinary!” Lizzie exclaimed. “The way Molly goes on, I thought you had! In any case, a small bit of tutoring, and you’ll soon learn one from another.” Before he could reply to this, she exclaimed again. “Oh! There is my mother! Must dash. Fun chatting with you!” And she hurried away, across the pavilion to where a tall brown-haired stately woman waited; it occurred to him that it may or may not have been Lady Butler. But her words were food for thought. Evidently someone cared to make it known that Molly was talking about him to her friends, and talking in a way that implied intimacy, or at least desired it.
Molly herself did appear, but not with the early arrivals, and she was with a woman who looked so much like her that it could be no one but her mother. She did not notice him before the day’s business commenced; only when he set off a great flash for the final judging did she look over and catch his eye. Even at the distance, her alarm was visible; she excused herself and disappeared in the rising of the crowd, moving away toward the house. She wore a pale yellow dress that disguised her pregnancy artfully; she was so tall that the casual observer would not guess, but he had seen her at home in other clothes. The sight of her made him ache, and if he thought his purely physical response to Mrs. Talbot required retirement, this was nothing to it. Grabbing his overcoat, he abandoned the camera and strode off in the direction of the house, as she had done. Supposedly going to the lavatory, he found her in the hall before the grand ballroom.
“What in God’s name are you doing here?” she whispered furiously, though there wasn’t a soul to hear them.
“I’m on assignment from the paper,” he said.
“What are you doing here, following me?” She went on. She looked over his shoulder, ”my God, if anyone should see, should talk, my husband would kill me; he’s already suspicious....” She looked at him directly, her gaze level with his own. “And why are you carrying that coat? You look absurd.”
“You’d be more alarmed for your reputation if I weren’t carrying it,” he said ruefully, smiling.
“What?” She was distracted, busy searching the halls for non-existent spies. Then, “Oh. Oh my -” She looked at him, her face colouring, and he saw the thrill go up her bare arms. “You can’t mean it,” she pleaded.
“I assure you, I’m not joking. I wish I were.... Look, this is not the time or place for this, but your friend Mrs. Talbot told me something about you that your reaction just now confirmed. I want to talk with you. Could you meet me?”
Her face was rigid with alarm. “Oh, please no! Paddy is already suspicious!”
“You’ve said that twice now,” he murmured calmly, looking into the grey depths of her eyes. “Agra, are you afraid of him?”
She was desperate now. “Please, leave me alone!” she whispered hoarsely. Those beautiful pale eyes were pleading, but what he was not certain. Yes? No? She said no, but did she mean it? Was Kate right? He wanted so much to touch her, but did not, could not. Not here.
“I don’t want to frighten you, Molly,” he said soothingly, as if to Kate. “All I want is to hear from you what I heard from Liz.” He smiled a little. “I can’t help the response, but I promise you, it will come to nothing if it’s too much for you. He already suspects. Even my sister knows it. For the love of God, isn’t it time we said it to each other? Please meet with me. Just to talk. Please say Yes.”
All her confusion was in her face, all the unhappiness the struggle had caused her too, these long years. It would be a relief to speak the words. Like confession. Relief for her too. He was willing her to say yes, just to end the terrible tension of a years’ long desire.
She winced and drew in a breath. “Yes,” she said, barely audibly. “Yes.” The word came stronger now. “I’ll send you a note when and where.”
He reached out and took her hand now, and found it remarkably cold. “Don’t leave anything in writing. Can you remember this? The Municipal Gallery, third floor. Tomorrow at two.”
“I - I can’t tomorrow, I must be here again.” She looked up, her expression pained. “Thursday?”
He smiled, nodding, and squeezed her hand. “Back to work now, me. You won’t forget?”
She shook her head.
He did reach out and touch her now, damning convention, his fingers trailing along her jaw that had always spoken of Greece to him, and paintings by Waterhouse. “Good,” he said in Irish. And so he left her.
He went to Gardiner Street before the Wednesday salon, and even from the kitchen could hear music echoing through the house. Grieg. Dark, passionate music, angry in its force. A strange choice for so bright and cheerful a day, for the sun poured through the windows even in the cavernous dark of the kitchen, and the heavy smell of flowers rose from the garden and wafted through the open kitchen door. He raised an eyebrow when Mrs. MacElwee brought him a cup of tea as he sat at the table with Rose. He had been courting Rosie these two years, in a friendly way, the better to gain information about the comings and goings and temperature of the house. They had been to the pictures, out walking, that sort of thing. He had kissed her, but only very chastely, and if she had any ideas beyond that she was mistaken; she did not behave as though she did, to his relief, and he did not broach the subject. As his intentions were entirely benign he didn’t feel compunctuous about actions that in the country would have earned him the reputation of a rake. He asked now, with a glance above his head,
“Has she been long at that?”
Mrs. Mac pulled the face of a martyr. “All bloody morning!”
He smiled. “You should have some relief when the guests arrive, at least.” He looked at Rosie beside him. “Have they been rowing again?” It would be all he needed, Paddy to instantly suspect them once they had actually agreed to meet. But Rose shook her head.
“No, they haven’t had a cross word in a week,” she said, “And believe me, I’d know it!” She looked at Mrs. Mac, who nodded. “She takes to throwing things and biting your head off for nothing when they’ve had a row.”
Mick put down the mug he held and scraped the chair back. “Let me see if I can bring us all some peace,” he said and rose to go upstairs.
He found her in the upstairs drawing room on the second floor, in a world of her own at the piano, dressed for the afternoon in a violet dress. Grieg was still rattling the windowpanes, and as she neither heard nor saw him, her gaze being abstracted, neither on the keyboard nor at the scene before her, he was beside her before she started and glanced up. There were tears running down her face, that face which in her strange silent grief was unearthly beautiful. Her fingers faltered, stilled, and the echoing music ceased.
“…I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you,” she said, colouring. “Is it so late already?”
How magnificent she was, with her haggard beauty! The violet shadows beneath those eyes as dark and grey as a stormy sky, her face, before pale, now marked with colour at his advent. She looked tossed, tumbled. All the emotions she kept locked within her were ready on her face. A goddess she was, a mystery come on in sudden and secret nakedness of soul. Would he, like Anacteon, be struck blind for gazing on her private self?
“For whom do you weep, agra?” He asked her softly. He was close enough that his clothes brushed her shoulder, and he could feel the magnetism radiate from her. She did not move away now, but choked back a sob with a small strangled noise.
“Please, don’t ask me; he is dead,” she said flatly. She sought his hand beside her, laid her cheek against it, and the long years of torment were nothing to what passed through him at that soft supplication. He stood trembling as deeply as she did, closed his eyes against it, and laid his other hand on her shining hair. When he could control himself he ventured in a voice that yet shook,
“This was before your husband.”
She only nodded, and o he could see it all so easily! A girl’s first lover dead, she had thrown herself away on Paddy Leary. And now… He looked down on her dark head, bent against him, seeking his… what? Blessing? Understanding? Forgiveness?
“I loved someone once too,” he said soothingly. “She married someone else. We all have our grief, Mallaidh.” He raised her face with his fingers. “But what I want to know is what brings this about today?” He smiled a little. “The servants say it is quite a regular thing.” He took in her face, softer and more open than he had ever seen it. “Are you afraid of meeting with me?”
Such directness spurred her own, to his relief. “Yes,” she murmured. He did not need to ask why; it was all in her face. He smiled at her.
“I remember the first time I saw you, standing in the window. I loved you from that moment.” He caressed her face. “But you fought me so hard I thought myself unwelcome. Now I see why.” He knelt so they were on a level, and stared into her eyes. “Sweetheart, I swear to you if you would have me, I would never leave you.” She was crying then in earnest, and his arms went round her, his mouth sought her face in kisses until she lifted hers and kissed him back and then he was drowning.
The doorbell downstairs broke them apart. He rose, unsteadily. Now she looked tumbled indeed, his beautiful girl.
“I’ll go down the back stairs,” he said. “They shan’t know.” He smiled into her beautiful eyes. “The rest we can leave for tomorrow.”
The next day as luck would have it he had four assignments for the paper and an art class at Orpen’s studio in the afternoon at 4, which only gave them two hours. He was late to their meeting, and found her on the sun-filled gallery on the third floor, sitting under the skylight on the bench before the Sargent portrait of Madame X. She looked forlorn. He threw his coat down on the floor and hurried over. She rose, and gave him her hands.
“I’m very sorry—” he said quickly.
“I thought you weren’t coming.” She met his gaze.
“Oh no, agra.” he pressed her hands. “I wouldn’t have missed this.” He looked about them. They were alone. “Shall we sit, or walk? Have you been here before?”
She smiled and shook her head, enigmatic now. “Can we sit? I don’t want to be overheard.”
“Just so.” He went to retrieve his coat and sat with her on the cold stone of the bench, holding her hands and searching for words while she waited. The hundred gallant, clever phrases he had thought of in sleepless nights went from his head, and his only recourse was simple honesty, in simple Irish, so that she both understood and had recourse to the privacy she so desired.
“I have been enthralled by you for so long that I hardly know what to say now,” he murmured ruefully. Her answer was wordless, a tender look such as she might bestow on Joe. “Mallaidh,” he struggled for the right words – “I love you, and I want you in any way you will have me. I genuinely do want to paint you; as an artist I find you fascinating. That is not simply a ruse to make love to you, although I confess I want that too.” He smiled to take the fearful impact out of the words.
Her voice was low, a throaty contralto, and the hint of the devilish girl she must once have been peeped out, “Even fat as I am with another man’s child?” Her thin lips twitched with mischief. “And such a man!”
He held her gaze until the laughter faded from her eyes. “Even so… You’ll think me a pervert, but maybe I should say especially so.” Her eyes grew large with amusement. “I can’t stand skinny women,” he complained. “I have no fancy for girls who look like boys.” He coloured with the admission, that he had thought too often on intimacy with her.
She was trying not to laugh aloud now, he could see the devilment in her eyes. “Well, there’s more to our country fellow than meets the eye,” she said. “Though I shouldn’t be too surprised.” Still, she gave nothing of her own feelings away directly, but this was better than her icy coldness and taunts.
“I wish I could say,” he endeavoured to go on, “that I would be content with friendship, but it will never be easy for me, and maybe you would resent that in time…” he coloured again, “That is presuming you want to be friends with me!” He looked into her eyes, having run out of words. How was it that she, so supplicant yesterday, had the upper hand today?
“But I don’t want to be friends with you,” she murmured smoothly, and his heart sank. He winced, and in that moment felt her hands trembling. Her face was suddenly a study in pain. She leant forward, so that the words she spoke brushed his cheek, as much felt as heard, “I want to be your lover, your mistress. But you are right, I am afraid of my husband.” She leaned back again and looked at the painting before them. “He has not been the same since Bloody Sunday. “He has such unexpected rages now, over trifling things. I shudder to think what would happen if he knew about even this.”
She looked at him directly. “He has already promised me that I should regret it if I betrayed him. He sees very well how you feel; I have done my best to hide how I feel.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “Mick, from the first time I saw you, I had such a feeling! I suppose it is love. Why do you think I have had to make it seem as if I disliked you, especially before him?” Her voice rose, and she closed her eyes, turned her head away. “Oh don’t torment me!” she cried in a low voice. “I love you! There! Does it please you? I met you too late! Everything is always too late!” She was trembling violently now, and controlled herself with difficulty. He reached into his pocket and gave her his handkerchief; it had no marks, but she would not take it.
“No, please. You make this harder.” She said. He watched the sun falling on her hair. Ireland weeping her long-held grief. She looked up, pleadingly.
“We can find a way,” he said.
“How?” She scoffed. “Sneaking about, hole-in-corner meetings? Is that what you want?”
He took her hand. “No,” he said, troubled. There was a time when he did, but the reality of her, of her words and emotion, and the lurking threat from Paddy banished such thoughts. If he was to have her at all, it was to be with some sense of honour and commitment, even if it were only that of artist and muse. Ah, a way!
“Mallaidh,” he exclaimed, leaning forward excitedly, “if you are properly and officially my model, then he can have no complaint. It’s a job -”
“A job?” she asked in astonishment. “Have you forgotten who I am? My family would disown me if I took a job, especially one like this!” She was smiling now. “However,” she said with that debutante’s smile lurking about the corners of her mouth again, “it’s not uncommon for society women to model unofficially, without pay, as a patronage to the artist... Most of them are mistresses, as I seem to recall but no one can say anything because it is a business arrangement...” She leant forward too now. “Oh Mick, are you sure?” She was as excited as a girl, all the sparkling wit and enthusiasm he saw in her at the Wednesday salons, never lavished on him so that he called it giddy vapidity, was now his own. He’d have made any bargain to get her; he agreed to this without a thought.
“Yes!” He said, a little too loudly. It echoed against the walls. He took her hands again. “Yes.” He stared at her for a long moment. “Thank you, my darling girl.” He kissed her but she wriggled away.
“There’s more to it,” she cautioned, drawing back. “We need to be practical. He won’t like it if I give up his calendar and my mother won’t tolerate it if I give up hers. Can you paint around Trinity and the Lodge?” She was teasing, he saw by the colour in her face. He was intensely happy, and the logistics didn’t matter.
“I’ll find a way,” he returned. He was bounding with enthusiasm, and rose in a fit of nervous energy. “ Come now,” he said in English, “would you like to see the Gallery?”
“Must I learn about art?” she said faintly, in the tone of a schoolgirl.
Mick grinned. “I’m afraid so, if you’re to sign on with me.”
She rose and sighed in mock-weariness. “This is already more than I imagined... Lead on, then. I shall try to keep up as best I may. But I warn you,” she said as she followed him down the stairs, “I was a wretched student.”
“I have one or two things that you may be interested in,” he laughed.
He took her to Orpen’s studio at the Metropolitan School, where he was teaching the afternoon first-year watercolour class and found the Master in the supply cupboard - a converted passageway between two rooms.
“Will! I found my model!” he cried, stalking into the long narrow room.
Orpen turned. He was a genial man of the middle height, becoming portly in early middle age, and dressed in a meticulously clean suit covered with a work-smock. But the keenness of his blue eyes belied complacency. He was ever-alert, as he trained his students to be. He took in Molly who stood in the doorway of the passage in a glance and his eyes lit with interest, though there wasn’t much to see under the cover of her large-brimmed hat and voluminous coat.
“Ah, Michael!” he said. “How fortuitous for you! Well, I would welcome an introduction to the lady.” He came forward, leaving aside the tins of water colours he had been sorting.
“Of course,” Mick said. “Mrs. Patrick Leary, Mr. William Orpen, DFA, RHA, etc, etc...” He smiled at Orpen.
“How do you do,” Molly said, Will’s interest kindled further at her Castle accents.
“Very well,” he smiled. “Welcome, dear lady, to the lair of iniquity.”
“You can’t frighten me off that easily, sir,” Molly said, with the debutante’s smile, “I grew up fending off the Viceroy.”
“Just so,” Orpen laughed, glancing at Mick. That look that telegraphed the question, Where did you find this treasure? That answer would have to wait. Meanwhile, he took Molly’s elbow in old-fashioned courtliness. “Can I offer you a cup of tea Mrs. Leary? I promise no linseed will enter into the lists...”
Molly was smiling now, as Mick had rarely seen her do. Who would have thought such slight attention would make her bloom so?
“I should love tea,” she laughed.
They spent an agreeable hour, by the end of which Orpen had offered to introduce her to all the resident Academicians- some of whom she knew already, including Liz Talbot’s husband George - and she had shed her coat and hat to reveal her fashionable figure, with which Will was professionally pleased. She was plumper now than she had been several months ago, but no one yet looking at her would dream she was almost four months pregnant. He said to Mick when she had gone,
“You have found a woman who could have been mistress to the King had she lived in England. Do you recall Lady Warwick, the professional beauty?”
He nodded. She had been the old King’s last mistress, if he remembered rightly. Her first name was Daisy, or something equally improbable.
“Well, your Mrs. Leary has the same look.” Orpen began setting up the table at the head of the room. “Many of our Irish beauties do: Countess Markievicz, Lady Fitzgerald, and even that muckraker, Madame MacBride. A man would follow that face to his doom.” He glanced up, wryly. “Doubtless you’ve thought of that,” he said cheerily, and went into the supply room again. When he came out, he said, “But you must be very careful, Michael, with these society women.” He took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. “Their patronage will make you, but there must be no hint of scandal. Whatever you do, keep it strictly private.” He met Mickey’s eyes. “I don’t mean to sound like a Dutch-uncle. Think of it as the voice of experience.” As Will was married to a fellow artist, but had always painted society beauties, both Irish and English, it raised an interesting possibility, but Mick wasn’t able to enquire, for their afternoon students began arriving for the watercolour class.
Molly annoyed him by being unavailable again until the next Tuesday, but she agreed to meet him at Tara Street station to go out to Howth for a few hours in the afternoon to work on sketches for the Academy showing.
“What did you tell your household?” he asked her in an undertone as they sat waiting for the Howth train. It was unbearable now to mention Paddy’s name. It was too real a reminder that she did not in fact belong to him. This convention she tacitly agreed with.
“I said I was visiting my friend Susanna Eustace,” she said, without looking at him. Then she turned those eyes on him, speaking volumes her words did not say, “you met Hobbles, at one of our Wednesdays. Her husband is the barrister.” The firm of Eustace and Coleraine was not unknown to him; they advertised in all the papers, including his.
“Ah,” he murmured. “She knows, of course, if anyone should ring?”
Molly smiled. It was the same expression of amused condescension Liz Talbot had used, and it rankled here too. “But of course. I am perfectly capable of managing my affairs.”
He looked at her quickly. “Have you had others?”
She raised her head. “Would I tell you if I did?” She rose. “I believe I hear the train.”
“To answer your question,” she said once the train was moving toward Irishtown, “I have not.” She slipped her hand into his on his lap. “You have that honour.” She glanced at him sidelong, with a look that turned his blood to fire. A face that a man would follow to his doom. Cathleen ni Houlihan herself could not be more compelling. Her continual play of light and shadow only made her more so; he felt she would be impossible to really know, but oh to try!
It was an agony to wait, but his patience was finally rewarded when they reached Howth strand, having taken a sidecar from the village; in the desertion of the beach, she turned and gave him such a kiss that he could have no doubt of her intentions. They were sheltered from view under the brow of the hillock, in the windless stretch of rock beach that farther south led down to the quay. They were safe here, in the middle of the day. Any thought he had of her frigidity melted in her deliberate advance and in her skill in arousing him to a pitch. His arm went around her waist and lost himself in sensation, in every texture of her mouth, her hair, her skin, her clothes.
She pressed herself so close that he could feel her heart beating, and he was frustrated by the rigid contours of her corset. He wanted more…. But more of her he did not have, though she had more of him. No decent woman had ever knelt before him to her purpose; he staggered when Molly did in her fine clothes, to open his trousers with a swift practised hand and bring him off in her mouth.
Images assailed him. Paddy had taught her this. He could see it in some country lane or bachelor digs. The professor and his prized student in the art of sex.... Jealousy added fury to his desire. His hand clenched in her shining hair. Bitch! To play so cold for five years, when all along she was more wanton than a whore, for she obviously enjoyed her talents! He would pay her back in torment. Oh he would have her begging. He had learned a thing or two himself since Sligo; he had not wasted his time in the kips. And here she was, o decent, willing, avid darling, aching to share learned arts—The novelty was so arousing that he went off almost immediately with a strangled cry.
He collapsed onto the strand abruptly, gasping, while she sat back on her heels, her eyes bright, her mouth curving in the smile she had bestowed on Orpen, watching him. She fished in her bag for a handkerchief. He closed his eyes, feeling sensation ebb slowly, and when he opened them again she was looking at him still with glittering eyes, holding out her dainty handkerchief, lace-edged and embroidered with her initials, with an elegant, manicured hand.
“My God!” he exclaimed breathlessly. Rousing himself, he took the cloth from her hand, leaned forward and kissed her fiercely, possessively. “I didn’t think decent women did that,” he said frankly. She laughed.
“You’d be surprised.”
“I am!” He put himself back together, shoving her handkerchief into his coat pocket, and sat tailor-fashion, shaking his head. “I never would have thought it of you.”
She smiled archly. “Don’t be deceived by appearances, my dear,” she murmured. She cleared her throat, glancing around primly. “Don’t we have work to do?”
“I can’t think straight, now you’ve taken the life out of me,” he said, shaking his head. “It’ll be on my mind all day.”
She rose. “That was the idea,” she said coolly, brushing the dust from her skirt.
Despite such distractions, he did managed to get some work done, making sketches of her on Howth Head and on the beach, and by teatime they were back in Dublin.
“Will you come up, Mallaidh?” he asked as they stood before his door.
She looked at her hands. “No. I have dinner guests tonight and mustn’t be late.” Her head came up. “The Mahaffys, and some others.”
“Ah.” Back to the don’s wife. She would go home, to her elegant dinner party, to her faithless husband, and when night came spend it in Leary’s arms. Rage moved in him, rage at her coolness and control, rage that she would not yield in his time but in her own…. He scowled darkly.
“You shall have to work on it tomorrow of course,” she said, catching him off guard. She regarded him with clear grey eyes. “You work in the mornings, do you not?”
How could he refuse? “Yes,” he said, colouring.
“Good.” She gave him her gloved hand. “I’ll see you at eight then.” Her smile was genuine, and unravelled all his angry thoughts. He watched her walk away, down Townsend Street to D’Olier and the trams, in thrall.
She was punctual. Never in all the time that came after was she late, though he frequently was. She arrived on his doorstep precisely at eight, in her long dark coat and an unremarkable hat, her splendid legs encased in dark silk stockings above buttoned shoes. His heart was hammering wildly as he took her coat and hung it over the chair in the parlour. He led her upstairs to his studio by the hand. He had left his old bed there, for he frequently worked early and late and did not want to be troubled going up and down the stairs to sleep. Now the morning light poured through the windows. He had been working for two hours, rough out the outlines onto canvas in sienna. He knew on sight of her that any work was over; his leaping pulse made it impossible.
The room was alive with tension as she stood before him, eyes luminous, waiting. Waiting for him to close the gap between them, to free the buttons of her shirt blouse, to take her… Waiting…. It seemed to him that waiting was her essential quality, the stillness she had that was open and ripe, wanton and inviting, receptive and soft as a woman should be. However could he have though her cold? She burned with heat against him when he had peeled away the layers of clothes, of artifice of this beautiful woman. Naked and ripe, she was still beautiful, her skin a honey colour, even to the swell of her belly. She was visibly pregnant now, but it did not trouble him. Oh no, she was a goddess, full of life, and the thrill of supplanting her devotee was high in him. He tore himself out of his clothes, throwing them anyhow on the floor, and fell with her onto the narrow iron bed against the south wall. Oh, open she was and soft, answering his few Irish words with murmurs in no language at all; entwined herself with him as easily and inseparably as if they had been lovers for years. When he entered her O! his whole being shook with the impact. No ordinary woman, this, but heaven and earth. Ireland herself - stormy skies, dark lakes and deep bogs - shone from her as he gazed into her soul while he hovered above her in that brilliant moment. It was the first moment of the new-created world, stunning.
“Woman you are beauty itself,” he said in Irish. Her answer was to bring him near, clasping him close, urging, moving sinuously in ways no whore ever learned, and he was drowning in the bog of her hair, a joyful sacrifice to the Ancient Dark One.
Three times he came to brink, and three times held back until at last he raised himself to look on her languid face, shining, abloom with hectic colour, her eyes as dark as a storm. He smiled at her eyes’ silent pleading, lovely wanton. Her mouth was open and red as rowan, her hair spilled out about them, her whole body tense and glistening.
“Oh, please,” she breathed, her hands coming up to his face. “Please, darling, oh come, oh let me come - it’s so close!”
He gazed down the length of her heaving, lovely round body, flushed and trembling. Beautiful. Beautiful... he smiled.
“Yes, agra,” he murmured. “So we shall.” He closed the gap at last, coming with her, spinning into a heaven he had never known, everything brilliant and strange; she was all the world and he knew only the electric hum in all his limbs, the colours and flashes in his mind, and her voice crying low in his ear. He had truly found his muse.
He came back to himself groggily, heavy and dull. Molly lay with a face as soft as a dreaming child’s, and looking on her, he felt an ineffable tenderness. It was a pity to wake her, but a glance at the clock on the stand showed that he had ten minutes to be in Abbey Street. He bent and murmured in her ear,
“Molly, darling, I have to go.”
She was awake instantly, startled at first, her expression changing to one of dreamy tenderness. She kissed him and watched him dress, which he did hastily, peering over his shoulder at her, to burn the image of her in his bed into his mind.
“What did you tell them at home?” He asked, as he sat to pull on his socks.
She laughed. “That I had a headache; they don’t disturb me then.”
“Nice cure for a headache,” he smiled. He reached over to touch her face.
“I expect I’ll have them more often,” she agreed, bright-eyed.
“I won’t get any painting done if you do,” he said, standing to pull up his braces. Her answer was a laugh. It was good to see her so gay.
“Stay as long as you like,” he told her when he had put on his coat and picked up the bag of his camera gear. “There’s a key on phone ledge for you downstairs.” He took in her face one last time.” You’re welcome whenever you like.” he kissed her. “I’m sorry to have to go.”
“Go,” she said softly. “I will see you this afternoon? it’s Wednesday.”
He was at the door. “Yes. Oh yes. Good-bye, agra.” He bounded down the stairs then, and dashed down the corner, past the mental hospital, dodging the trams and passing traffic and into Murphy’s building without ever knowing how he did it.
Most of his assignments were with society dames during the season, and with managers of various sorts the rest of the time. He covered shop openings, derby meets, committee meetings, theatre reviews (thanks to his long association with the Abbey) weddings, and funerals. Sometimes when his subject discovered that he painted, mostly by observation of the paint in the crevices of his fingernails, they would commission paintings, as Pete Krisham’s father had done; this he liked best. He hoped to become a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and he needed a number of works behind him, a familiarity before the public before the application would be considered. Orpen had already told him that he was likely to be accepted, for his work was new and unusual enough to rouse their interest. He had proved he could copy the masters with more than satisfaction; now the old guard was happy to give him his head, so long as he bowed to Irish opinion in the matter of the “decency” of pictures.
This was not a terrible stricture as he was not fond of painted nudes or lascivious scenes for their own sakes, although he had taken a leaf from the book of one of his fellow students at Orpen’s - Willie Gunn - when that young man painted a scene from Irish mythology - the meeting at the ford between the Morrigan and Cuchulainn - and it was rejected because the mythical lady raised her skirts in a rude gesture. No, the objections to any of Mickey’s painting had tended to be due to their surrealism. “What does it mean?” was the commonest question of the old folks. “think of it as a dream,” he made the mistake of saying once. “Looks more like a nightmare to me,” came the reply. But he was encouraged, by Orpen, for one, whose opinion mattered, and by Leary for another, whose opinion was always interesting, whether or not Mick agreed with it. “Keep it up,” he had said. “Ireland needs this to pull herself out of mediaevalism.”
“You don’t care for Morris and Burne-Jones, then?” Mick asked. His house in Gardiner Street had two Arts and Crafts movement works, and a Rosetti.
“Pah!Smarmy romantic pandering,” Paddy had spat in disgust. “The literature is fantastic; the painting is prurile. No, all that lot belongs to me ould wan - my wife. She likes it because it is the fashion and she can afford it” That was a window into their marriage Mickey didn’t fancy.
His own house was burgeoning with furniture and engravings these days, as well as endless studies he had done and paintings he wanted to keep. The furniture was more in the manner of Leary’s ancient Victorian sofa - got second-hand on the cheap - but he was careful to cover it with bold new modern prints in bright colours. He didn’t care for the yallery-greeny of the Arts and Crafts movement any more than Paddy did.
His sister didn’t like his taste at all. The first time he had her to tea after the Sunday Mass at the Pro-Cathedral once his things were in, she asked to sit in the kitchen because the colours in the living room and the “strange” paintings made her uneasy. He shook his head at her, smiling,
“Katty, will you never get out of Rathbarren at all? Look you, you’re living in Dublin itself, as we used to think it, the end of the world; you go to the pictures; ride the electric trams; use the telephone; even took that telegram for herself once - and look at you!” he tapped her forehead, where the curls sprang unruly. “You’re still as much the wee girl from Anaghmore as ever you were, in here. Come along now,” he said, taking her back into the parlour and gesturing toward the painting over the mantel - a scene from the Liberties during the Strike - ”What is so nasty about it?”
“It makes me want to throw up,” Katie said, making a face. “Wid all them ghosty things and monsters.” It was a view of Church Street,. There were indeed ghostly men sitting on the stoop and the DMP were mythical monsters, identified only by the blue haze about them - exactly the colour of the DMP uniform.
“As well it should!” he agreed cheerfully. “it’s supposed to. It’s me little rebellion, my statement about it all as an artist.” She was looking at him sceptically. “Look, if I went about it like Seanin or the Kilgallens, I’d end it in the bridewell, but people see this, and no matter who they are they get the message and that can’t throw me in jail. If they don’t like it they just think I’m a terrible artist.”
“It clashes with the furniture,” she said, casting a glance at the purple, green, red and yellow print. “Everything would clash with the furniture.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Molly,” he said dryly, leading her out into the hall again.
“Who?” She asked at they crossed to the kitchen.
“Mrs. Leary,” he said over his shoulder. “Your employer.”
“You call her Molly?”
He began to make tea. “I should call her ‘ma’am’? She’s younger than I am.”
“That’s mighty fresh of you,” Katie observed, taking a chair. ”Are you in love with her?”
He looked up quickly, spilling tea on the counter. “Christ! No, hardly,” he said, scooping up the tea into his palm. “You know how she is.”
“You’re lying, Mickeen,” she said flatly. “You’re as red as a live coal. Is that why you come there so much?”
Her questions irritated him. Could he never get away from bloody Molly Leary, even when he tried? “I come to see you,” he said shortly. The kettle was beginning to boil on the back of the stove, and he moved it from the heat with a towel. He looked askance as he poured water into the pot, to find Katie with just the expression Annie used to have when she was set to argue.
“Have you told her?” Katie asked.
“Good lord, no!” he said, rattling the biscuit tin rather unnecessarily. “What good would it do anyway? She’s very married and always pregnant.”
“She acts very odd when you’re around.”
“Because she doesn’t care for me,” he agreed. “I asked to paint her once, more than once, and she said no. It put her off me. She thought I had other ideas.”
“Well, don’t you?” Katie said as he sat the pot down in front of her. She sounded just like wee Annie. He ached suddenly with loneliness, longing for that other sister, his dearest childhood friend. Annie would understand. But not Kate, who was still a child.
“I suppose,” he said shortly, fetching the cups from the dresser. “Even if she wasn’t married, she counts herself too high and mighty for a spalpeen like me.” He sat down with the tea equipage before him, angry for the turn of the conversation, and despondent for the sleepless nights the subject had caused.
“Mick, you’re an eejit itself,” Katie said, pouring out tea. She handed him a cup, strong with milk as he liked it. He met her eyes.
“What?”
“Mick,” Katie put her hand on his on the table. Her tone was as gently scolding as a mother’s. “Don’t you know that she’s after acting queer because she feels the same? She’s not fightin’ wid you, but wid herself. You poor dumb eejit.” she shook her head. “Mr. Leary knows it. The wee-anes know it; you should hear them talk! Everyone in the house knows it but the pair of you are too devil-stubborn to say it outright. Maybe if you did, it would go away... How long have you known her?”
“Since I first came to Dublin,” he muttered into his tea.
“You been at this for five years!” she exclaimed. “It’s no mystery that you’re both a misery!”
He looked into her clear blue eyes, eyes that were innocent and shrewd. “Where did you come to be so wise, Caitin?” he teased.
“Sure, we haven’t aught else to do in the country than look after who loves who.” She patted his hand again. “She’s better’n Bridie Twomey,” she smiled.
Ah Bridie! Unthought after these many years. “And how is the Mrs.?” He drained his teacup.
“Widowed,” Kate said shortly. “She’s back, you know, after the husband drowned offen the Malin Head. And fat as a hen she is, with a snot-nosed evil brat of a child, too.”
He had not known she was back. No one had told him. It was better not to have known, open up that heartache again. He was beyond her now; she would never be enough now. He opted for humour over such dark musings, and teased Kate, “And you a nanny!”
Katie drew herself up. “Wee Joe is the cleverest boy I ever laid eyes on and charmin into it; he’d buy and sell ya. Like his da.”
He caught the edge of her words. “Sounds like there’s more than one of us sighing after the Learys,” he sobered, remembering the latest scandal, heard from the servants. Some student had come to the house, and been confronted by Molly. Mick wouldn’t have been in the house that day for worlds. Nor the one when Nancy Barnes left. He had finally dragged that story out of Rosie, with kisses, coins and wheedling when he was walking her home from the pictures on her half day. The problem of Nancy Barnes reminded him of his duties. “He hasn’t troubled you has he?” He asked his sister.
“Mr. Leary?” She coloured at the name. “Not once. And why should he?”
“You know what the talk is. I know Rosie’s warned you about him.”
“And I’m to be after listening to what that one says. Huh!” she rebuffed him. “Drink your tea, or we’ll miss the first picture.”
“Yes, Mammy.” He grinned. “But, look you, Caitin,” he said, catching her eye in earnest, “if he ever so much as says a word, I want you to tell me. I’ll have him before the magistrate, so.”
Kate sat back. “Don’t you like Mr. Leary Mick?” she asked, confused.
He was rueful. “In some ways, I love him more than the wife -” he could not speak her name now. “But I’m no fool. I know what he is. And I won’t have him ruining my sister. That Kilgallen was bad enough to our Annie.”
“But he married her.”
It was his turn to rebuff her. “Ha, if you can call the like of that marrying! What has she but the wee house and the babby every year? Is that what our Annie wanted?” He paused. “But no mind: I’m telling you girl, if he says one word you will tell me.”
“Aye,” Kate assured him, shaking her head. “But he never will.”
The next day his assignment was for the Flower Show at the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park. It was an afternoon affair, and he arrived early, at half-past twelve, and had a word with the staff manager about the placement for his photos, for he had learned it was best to negotiate these society affairs carefully. He was given a vantage point in the Garden suitable for the photographing of Lady Aberdeen, Lady Fingal and the Countess of Athlone- the three dignitaries of the affair on their dais at a flattering angle; no easy thing as the Viceroy’s wife was a steamship of a woman, whereas Lady Fingal was tall and thin and Athlone little. For the rest he could wander about with his brownie. He was busy setting up his camera, not paying much mind to the minor arrivals, when who should appear before him but the Honourable Mrs. Talbot - Molly’s friend Lizzie, whom he had met in Gardiner Street at the Wednesday salon. She recognised him of course, as on that occasion they had spent half an hour talking about painting; her husband George was an amateur painter and avid collector, and one of the Regents of the RHA.
“Well, what a small world it is!” Lizzie exclaimed, coming over to where he was fiddling with his camera lens. “Mr. Rafferty, isn’t it?” She wore a pale trailing afternoon dress with a narrow skirt. She had masses of rich brown hair, piled casually on her head, and wore no hat so that the glories could be fully appreciated.
He straightened. “Yes. How do you do, Mrs. Talbot. I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here today.” Her parents were Lord and Lady Butler of Kilkenny.
“No,” she said, with laughter in her voice, ”I suppose you shouldn’t.... I forget, which paper are you with, Mr. Rafferty?” There was an undertone of condescension in those words, but he ignored it.
“The Independent, ma’am.” He made a mock bow. “Resident photographer.” He turned away briefly, as much to hide her effect on him as anything else for she was devastatingly attractive, and tested the lens again unnecessarily, screwing it off and on again.
“You are a remarkably clever young man, Mr. Rafferty.” Mrs. Talbot went on. “My husband informs me that your work is to be featured in the next show, and you are on the list for candidacy in the Academy.”
He turned back. “That’s right.”
“How droll, to be so clever.” She looked him in the eye, boldly. There was no mistaking that clear assessment. But for whom? As if in answer to his thought, she said, “You’ll be surprised, I think, Mr. Rafferty, to see Mrs. Leary here today. She is expected.” He blanched, and she watched this change with interest. “Oh yes, her mother is a particular friend of Lady Fingal. You’ve seen Molly’s garden, of course. She’s a great plantswoman.” She smiled, and that bright, hot smile leant a rude meaning to her words.
“Only at a distance,” he countered, in that vein. “I’ve never been invited to stroll through it. It would be wasted on me, besides. I don’t know one flower from another.”
“How extraordinary!” Lizzie exclaimed. “The way Molly goes on, I thought you had! In any case, a small bit of tutoring, and you’ll soon learn one from another.” Before he could reply to this, she exclaimed again. “Oh! There is my mother! Must dash. Fun chatting with you!” And she hurried away, across the pavilion to where a tall brown-haired stately woman waited; it occurred to him that it may or may not have been Lady Butler. But her words were food for thought. Evidently someone cared to make it known that Molly was talking about him to her friends, and talking in a way that implied intimacy, or at least desired it.
Molly herself did appear, but not with the early arrivals, and she was with a woman who looked so much like her that it could be no one but her mother. She did not notice him before the day’s business commenced; only when he set off a great flash for the final judging did she look over and catch his eye. Even at the distance, her alarm was visible; she excused herself and disappeared in the rising of the crowd, moving away toward the house. She wore a pale yellow dress that disguised her pregnancy artfully; she was so tall that the casual observer would not guess, but he had seen her at home in other clothes. The sight of her made him ache, and if he thought his purely physical response to Mrs. Talbot required retirement, this was nothing to it. Grabbing his overcoat, he abandoned the camera and strode off in the direction of the house, as she had done. Supposedly going to the lavatory, he found her in the hall before the grand ballroom.
“What in God’s name are you doing here?” she whispered furiously, though there wasn’t a soul to hear them.
“I’m on assignment from the paper,” he said.
“What are you doing here, following me?” She went on. She looked over his shoulder, ”my God, if anyone should see, should talk, my husband would kill me; he’s already suspicious....” She looked at him directly, her gaze level with his own. “And why are you carrying that coat? You look absurd.”
“You’d be more alarmed for your reputation if I weren’t carrying it,” he said ruefully, smiling.
“What?” She was distracted, busy searching the halls for non-existent spies. Then, “Oh. Oh my -” She looked at him, her face colouring, and he saw the thrill go up her bare arms. “You can’t mean it,” she pleaded.
“I assure you, I’m not joking. I wish I were.... Look, this is not the time or place for this, but your friend Mrs. Talbot told me something about you that your reaction just now confirmed. I want to talk with you. Could you meet me?”
Her face was rigid with alarm. “Oh, please no! Paddy is already suspicious!”
“You’ve said that twice now,” he murmured calmly, looking into the grey depths of her eyes. “Agra, are you afraid of him?”
She was desperate now. “Please, leave me alone!” she whispered hoarsely. Those beautiful pale eyes were pleading, but what he was not certain. Yes? No? She said no, but did she mean it? Was Kate right? He wanted so much to touch her, but did not, could not. Not here.
“I don’t want to frighten you, Molly,” he said soothingly, as if to Kate. “All I want is to hear from you what I heard from Liz.” He smiled a little. “I can’t help the response, but I promise you, it will come to nothing if it’s too much for you. He already suspects. Even my sister knows it. For the love of God, isn’t it time we said it to each other? Please meet with me. Just to talk. Please say Yes.”
All her confusion was in her face, all the unhappiness the struggle had caused her too, these long years. It would be a relief to speak the words. Like confession. Relief for her too. He was willing her to say yes, just to end the terrible tension of a years’ long desire.
She winced and drew in a breath. “Yes,” she said, barely audibly. “Yes.” The word came stronger now. “I’ll send you a note when and where.”
He reached out and took her hand now, and found it remarkably cold. “Don’t leave anything in writing. Can you remember this? The Municipal Gallery, third floor. Tomorrow at two.”
“I - I can’t tomorrow, I must be here again.” She looked up, her expression pained. “Thursday?”
He smiled, nodding, and squeezed her hand. “Back to work now, me. You won’t forget?”
She shook her head.
He did reach out and touch her now, damning convention, his fingers trailing along her jaw that had always spoken of Greece to him, and paintings by Waterhouse. “Good,” he said in Irish. And so he left her.
He went to Gardiner Street before the Wednesday salon, and even from the kitchen could hear music echoing through the house. Grieg. Dark, passionate music, angry in its force. A strange choice for so bright and cheerful a day, for the sun poured through the windows even in the cavernous dark of the kitchen, and the heavy smell of flowers rose from the garden and wafted through the open kitchen door. He raised an eyebrow when Mrs. MacElwee brought him a cup of tea as he sat at the table with Rose. He had been courting Rosie these two years, in a friendly way, the better to gain information about the comings and goings and temperature of the house. They had been to the pictures, out walking, that sort of thing. He had kissed her, but only very chastely, and if she had any ideas beyond that she was mistaken; she did not behave as though she did, to his relief, and he did not broach the subject. As his intentions were entirely benign he didn’t feel compunctuous about actions that in the country would have earned him the reputation of a rake. He asked now, with a glance above his head,
“Has she been long at that?”
Mrs. Mac pulled the face of a martyr. “All bloody morning!”
He smiled. “You should have some relief when the guests arrive, at least.” He looked at Rosie beside him. “Have they been rowing again?” It would be all he needed, Paddy to instantly suspect them once they had actually agreed to meet. But Rose shook her head.
“No, they haven’t had a cross word in a week,” she said, “And believe me, I’d know it!” She looked at Mrs. Mac, who nodded. “She takes to throwing things and biting your head off for nothing when they’ve had a row.”
Mick put down the mug he held and scraped the chair back. “Let me see if I can bring us all some peace,” he said and rose to go upstairs.
He found her in the upstairs drawing room on the second floor, in a world of her own at the piano, dressed for the afternoon in a violet dress. Grieg was still rattling the windowpanes, and as she neither heard nor saw him, her gaze being abstracted, neither on the keyboard nor at the scene before her, he was beside her before she started and glanced up. There were tears running down her face, that face which in her strange silent grief was unearthly beautiful. Her fingers faltered, stilled, and the echoing music ceased.
“…I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you,” she said, colouring. “Is it so late already?”
How magnificent she was, with her haggard beauty! The violet shadows beneath those eyes as dark and grey as a stormy sky, her face, before pale, now marked with colour at his advent. She looked tossed, tumbled. All the emotions she kept locked within her were ready on her face. A goddess she was, a mystery come on in sudden and secret nakedness of soul. Would he, like Anacteon, be struck blind for gazing on her private self?
“For whom do you weep, agra?” He asked her softly. He was close enough that his clothes brushed her shoulder, and he could feel the magnetism radiate from her. She did not move away now, but choked back a sob with a small strangled noise.
“Please, don’t ask me; he is dead,” she said flatly. She sought his hand beside her, laid her cheek against it, and the long years of torment were nothing to what passed through him at that soft supplication. He stood trembling as deeply as she did, closed his eyes against it, and laid his other hand on her shining hair. When he could control himself he ventured in a voice that yet shook,
“This was before your husband.”
She only nodded, and o he could see it all so easily! A girl’s first lover dead, she had thrown herself away on Paddy Leary. And now… He looked down on her dark head, bent against him, seeking his… what? Blessing? Understanding? Forgiveness?
“I loved someone once too,” he said soothingly. “She married someone else. We all have our grief, Mallaidh.” He raised her face with his fingers. “But what I want to know is what brings this about today?” He smiled a little. “The servants say it is quite a regular thing.” He took in her face, softer and more open than he had ever seen it. “Are you afraid of meeting with me?”
Such directness spurred her own, to his relief. “Yes,” she murmured. He did not need to ask why; it was all in her face. He smiled at her.
“I remember the first time I saw you, standing in the window. I loved you from that moment.” He caressed her face. “But you fought me so hard I thought myself unwelcome. Now I see why.” He knelt so they were on a level, and stared into her eyes. “Sweetheart, I swear to you if you would have me, I would never leave you.” She was crying then in earnest, and his arms went round her, his mouth sought her face in kisses until she lifted hers and kissed him back and then he was drowning.
The doorbell downstairs broke them apart. He rose, unsteadily. Now she looked tumbled indeed, his beautiful girl.
“I’ll go down the back stairs,” he said. “They shan’t know.” He smiled into her beautiful eyes. “The rest we can leave for tomorrow.”
The next day as luck would have it he had four assignments for the paper and an art class at Orpen’s studio in the afternoon at 4, which only gave them two hours. He was late to their meeting, and found her on the sun-filled gallery on the third floor, sitting under the skylight on the bench before the Sargent portrait of Madame X. She looked forlorn. He threw his coat down on the floor and hurried over. She rose, and gave him her hands.
“I’m very sorry—” he said quickly.
“I thought you weren’t coming.” She met his gaze.
“Oh no, agra.” he pressed her hands. “I wouldn’t have missed this.” He looked about them. They were alone. “Shall we sit, or walk? Have you been here before?”
She smiled and shook her head, enigmatic now. “Can we sit? I don’t want to be overheard.”
“Just so.” He went to retrieve his coat and sat with her on the cold stone of the bench, holding her hands and searching for words while she waited. The hundred gallant, clever phrases he had thought of in sleepless nights went from his head, and his only recourse was simple honesty, in simple Irish, so that she both understood and had recourse to the privacy she so desired.
“I have been enthralled by you for so long that I hardly know what to say now,” he murmured ruefully. Her answer was wordless, a tender look such as she might bestow on Joe. “Mallaidh,” he struggled for the right words – “I love you, and I want you in any way you will have me. I genuinely do want to paint you; as an artist I find you fascinating. That is not simply a ruse to make love to you, although I confess I want that too.” He smiled to take the fearful impact out of the words.
Her voice was low, a throaty contralto, and the hint of the devilish girl she must once have been peeped out, “Even fat as I am with another man’s child?” Her thin lips twitched with mischief. “And such a man!”
He held her gaze until the laughter faded from her eyes. “Even so… You’ll think me a pervert, but maybe I should say especially so.” Her eyes grew large with amusement. “I can’t stand skinny women,” he complained. “I have no fancy for girls who look like boys.” He coloured with the admission, that he had thought too often on intimacy with her.
She was trying not to laugh aloud now, he could see the devilment in her eyes. “Well, there’s more to our country fellow than meets the eye,” she said. “Though I shouldn’t be too surprised.” Still, she gave nothing of her own feelings away directly, but this was better than her icy coldness and taunts.
“I wish I could say,” he endeavoured to go on, “that I would be content with friendship, but it will never be easy for me, and maybe you would resent that in time…” he coloured again, “That is presuming you want to be friends with me!” He looked into her eyes, having run out of words. How was it that she, so supplicant yesterday, had the upper hand today?
“But I don’t want to be friends with you,” she murmured smoothly, and his heart sank. He winced, and in that moment felt her hands trembling. Her face was suddenly a study in pain. She leant forward, so that the words she spoke brushed his cheek, as much felt as heard, “I want to be your lover, your mistress. But you are right, I am afraid of my husband.” She leaned back again and looked at the painting before them. “He has not been the same since Bloody Sunday. “He has such unexpected rages now, over trifling things. I shudder to think what would happen if he knew about even this.”
She looked at him directly. “He has already promised me that I should regret it if I betrayed him. He sees very well how you feel; I have done my best to hide how I feel.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “Mick, from the first time I saw you, I had such a feeling! I suppose it is love. Why do you think I have had to make it seem as if I disliked you, especially before him?” Her voice rose, and she closed her eyes, turned her head away. “Oh don’t torment me!” she cried in a low voice. “I love you! There! Does it please you? I met you too late! Everything is always too late!” She was trembling violently now, and controlled herself with difficulty. He reached into his pocket and gave her his handkerchief; it had no marks, but she would not take it.
“No, please. You make this harder.” She said. He watched the sun falling on her hair. Ireland weeping her long-held grief. She looked up, pleadingly.
“We can find a way,” he said.
“How?” She scoffed. “Sneaking about, hole-in-corner meetings? Is that what you want?”
He took her hand. “No,” he said, troubled. There was a time when he did, but the reality of her, of her words and emotion, and the lurking threat from Paddy banished such thoughts. If he was to have her at all, it was to be with some sense of honour and commitment, even if it were only that of artist and muse. Ah, a way!
“Mallaidh,” he exclaimed, leaning forward excitedly, “if you are properly and officially my model, then he can have no complaint. It’s a job -”
“A job?” she asked in astonishment. “Have you forgotten who I am? My family would disown me if I took a job, especially one like this!” She was smiling now. “However,” she said with that debutante’s smile lurking about the corners of her mouth again, “it’s not uncommon for society women to model unofficially, without pay, as a patronage to the artist... Most of them are mistresses, as I seem to recall but no one can say anything because it is a business arrangement...” She leant forward too now. “Oh Mick, are you sure?” She was as excited as a girl, all the sparkling wit and enthusiasm he saw in her at the Wednesday salons, never lavished on him so that he called it giddy vapidity, was now his own. He’d have made any bargain to get her; he agreed to this without a thought.
“Yes!” He said, a little too loudly. It echoed against the walls. He took her hands again. “Yes.” He stared at her for a long moment. “Thank you, my darling girl.” He kissed her but she wriggled away.
“There’s more to it,” she cautioned, drawing back. “We need to be practical. He won’t like it if I give up his calendar and my mother won’t tolerate it if I give up hers. Can you paint around Trinity and the Lodge?” She was teasing, he saw by the colour in her face. He was intensely happy, and the logistics didn’t matter.
“I’ll find a way,” he returned. He was bounding with enthusiasm, and rose in a fit of nervous energy. “ Come now,” he said in English, “would you like to see the Gallery?”
“Must I learn about art?” she said faintly, in the tone of a schoolgirl.
Mick grinned. “I’m afraid so, if you’re to sign on with me.”
She rose and sighed in mock-weariness. “This is already more than I imagined... Lead on, then. I shall try to keep up as best I may. But I warn you,” she said as she followed him down the stairs, “I was a wretched student.”
“I have one or two things that you may be interested in,” he laughed.
He took her to Orpen’s studio at the Metropolitan School, where he was teaching the afternoon first-year watercolour class and found the Master in the supply cupboard - a converted passageway between two rooms.
“Will! I found my model!” he cried, stalking into the long narrow room.
Orpen turned. He was a genial man of the middle height, becoming portly in early middle age, and dressed in a meticulously clean suit covered with a work-smock. But the keenness of his blue eyes belied complacency. He was ever-alert, as he trained his students to be. He took in Molly who stood in the doorway of the passage in a glance and his eyes lit with interest, though there wasn’t much to see under the cover of her large-brimmed hat and voluminous coat.
“Ah, Michael!” he said. “How fortuitous for you! Well, I would welcome an introduction to the lady.” He came forward, leaving aside the tins of water colours he had been sorting.
“Of course,” Mick said. “Mrs. Patrick Leary, Mr. William Orpen, DFA, RHA, etc, etc...” He smiled at Orpen.
“How do you do,” Molly said, Will’s interest kindled further at her Castle accents.
“Very well,” he smiled. “Welcome, dear lady, to the lair of iniquity.”
“You can’t frighten me off that easily, sir,” Molly said, with the debutante’s smile, “I grew up fending off the Viceroy.”
“Just so,” Orpen laughed, glancing at Mick. That look that telegraphed the question, Where did you find this treasure? That answer would have to wait. Meanwhile, he took Molly’s elbow in old-fashioned courtliness. “Can I offer you a cup of tea Mrs. Leary? I promise no linseed will enter into the lists...”
Molly was smiling now, as Mick had rarely seen her do. Who would have thought such slight attention would make her bloom so?
“I should love tea,” she laughed.
They spent an agreeable hour, by the end of which Orpen had offered to introduce her to all the resident Academicians- some of whom she knew already, including Liz Talbot’s husband George - and she had shed her coat and hat to reveal her fashionable figure, with which Will was professionally pleased. She was plumper now than she had been several months ago, but no one yet looking at her would dream she was almost four months pregnant. He said to Mick when she had gone,
“You have found a woman who could have been mistress to the King had she lived in England. Do you recall Lady Warwick, the professional beauty?”
He nodded. She had been the old King’s last mistress, if he remembered rightly. Her first name was Daisy, or something equally improbable.
“Well, your Mrs. Leary has the same look.” Orpen began setting up the table at the head of the room. “Many of our Irish beauties do: Countess Markievicz, Lady Fitzgerald, and even that muckraker, Madame MacBride. A man would follow that face to his doom.” He glanced up, wryly. “Doubtless you’ve thought of that,” he said cheerily, and went into the supply room again. When he came out, he said, “But you must be very careful, Michael, with these society women.” He took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. “Their patronage will make you, but there must be no hint of scandal. Whatever you do, keep it strictly private.” He met Mickey’s eyes. “I don’t mean to sound like a Dutch-uncle. Think of it as the voice of experience.” As Will was married to a fellow artist, but had always painted society beauties, both Irish and English, it raised an interesting possibility, but Mick wasn’t able to enquire, for their afternoon students began arriving for the watercolour class.
Molly annoyed him by being unavailable again until the next Tuesday, but she agreed to meet him at Tara Street station to go out to Howth for a few hours in the afternoon to work on sketches for the Academy showing.
“What did you tell your household?” he asked her in an undertone as they sat waiting for the Howth train. It was unbearable now to mention Paddy’s name. It was too real a reminder that she did not in fact belong to him. This convention she tacitly agreed with.
“I said I was visiting my friend Susanna Eustace,” she said, without looking at him. Then she turned those eyes on him, speaking volumes her words did not say, “you met Hobbles, at one of our Wednesdays. Her husband is the barrister.” The firm of Eustace and Coleraine was not unknown to him; they advertised in all the papers, including his.
“Ah,” he murmured. “She knows, of course, if anyone should ring?”
Molly smiled. It was the same expression of amused condescension Liz Talbot had used, and it rankled here too. “But of course. I am perfectly capable of managing my affairs.”
He looked at her quickly. “Have you had others?”
She raised her head. “Would I tell you if I did?” She rose. “I believe I hear the train.”
“To answer your question,” she said once the train was moving toward Irishtown, “I have not.” She slipped her hand into his on his lap. “You have that honour.” She glanced at him sidelong, with a look that turned his blood to fire. A face that a man would follow to his doom. Cathleen ni Houlihan herself could not be more compelling. Her continual play of light and shadow only made her more so; he felt she would be impossible to really know, but oh to try!
It was an agony to wait, but his patience was finally rewarded when they reached Howth strand, having taken a sidecar from the village; in the desertion of the beach, she turned and gave him such a kiss that he could have no doubt of her intentions. They were sheltered from view under the brow of the hillock, in the windless stretch of rock beach that farther south led down to the quay. They were safe here, in the middle of the day. Any thought he had of her frigidity melted in her deliberate advance and in her skill in arousing him to a pitch. His arm went around her waist and lost himself in sensation, in every texture of her mouth, her hair, her skin, her clothes.
She pressed herself so close that he could feel her heart beating, and he was frustrated by the rigid contours of her corset. He wanted more…. But more of her he did not have, though she had more of him. No decent woman had ever knelt before him to her purpose; he staggered when Molly did in her fine clothes, to open his trousers with a swift practised hand and bring him off in her mouth.
Images assailed him. Paddy had taught her this. He could see it in some country lane or bachelor digs. The professor and his prized student in the art of sex.... Jealousy added fury to his desire. His hand clenched in her shining hair. Bitch! To play so cold for five years, when all along she was more wanton than a whore, for she obviously enjoyed her talents! He would pay her back in torment. Oh he would have her begging. He had learned a thing or two himself since Sligo; he had not wasted his time in the kips. And here she was, o decent, willing, avid darling, aching to share learned arts—The novelty was so arousing that he went off almost immediately with a strangled cry.
He collapsed onto the strand abruptly, gasping, while she sat back on her heels, her eyes bright, her mouth curving in the smile she had bestowed on Orpen, watching him. She fished in her bag for a handkerchief. He closed his eyes, feeling sensation ebb slowly, and when he opened them again she was looking at him still with glittering eyes, holding out her dainty handkerchief, lace-edged and embroidered with her initials, with an elegant, manicured hand.
“My God!” he exclaimed breathlessly. Rousing himself, he took the cloth from her hand, leaned forward and kissed her fiercely, possessively. “I didn’t think decent women did that,” he said frankly. She laughed.
“You’d be surprised.”
“I am!” He put himself back together, shoving her handkerchief into his coat pocket, and sat tailor-fashion, shaking his head. “I never would have thought it of you.”
She smiled archly. “Don’t be deceived by appearances, my dear,” she murmured. She cleared her throat, glancing around primly. “Don’t we have work to do?”
“I can’t think straight, now you’ve taken the life out of me,” he said, shaking his head. “It’ll be on my mind all day.”
She rose. “That was the idea,” she said coolly, brushing the dust from her skirt.
Despite such distractions, he did managed to get some work done, making sketches of her on Howth Head and on the beach, and by teatime they were back in Dublin.
“Will you come up, Mallaidh?” he asked as they stood before his door.
She looked at her hands. “No. I have dinner guests tonight and mustn’t be late.” Her head came up. “The Mahaffys, and some others.”
“Ah.” Back to the don’s wife. She would go home, to her elegant dinner party, to her faithless husband, and when night came spend it in Leary’s arms. Rage moved in him, rage at her coolness and control, rage that she would not yield in his time but in her own…. He scowled darkly.
“You shall have to work on it tomorrow of course,” she said, catching him off guard. She regarded him with clear grey eyes. “You work in the mornings, do you not?”
How could he refuse? “Yes,” he said, colouring.
“Good.” She gave him her gloved hand. “I’ll see you at eight then.” Her smile was genuine, and unravelled all his angry thoughts. He watched her walk away, down Townsend Street to D’Olier and the trams, in thrall.
She was punctual. Never in all the time that came after was she late, though he frequently was. She arrived on his doorstep precisely at eight, in her long dark coat and an unremarkable hat, her splendid legs encased in dark silk stockings above buttoned shoes. His heart was hammering wildly as he took her coat and hung it over the chair in the parlour. He led her upstairs to his studio by the hand. He had left his old bed there, for he frequently worked early and late and did not want to be troubled going up and down the stairs to sleep. Now the morning light poured through the windows. He had been working for two hours, rough out the outlines onto canvas in sienna. He knew on sight of her that any work was over; his leaping pulse made it impossible.
The room was alive with tension as she stood before him, eyes luminous, waiting. Waiting for him to close the gap between them, to free the buttons of her shirt blouse, to take her… Waiting…. It seemed to him that waiting was her essential quality, the stillness she had that was open and ripe, wanton and inviting, receptive and soft as a woman should be. However could he have though her cold? She burned with heat against him when he had peeled away the layers of clothes, of artifice of this beautiful woman. Naked and ripe, she was still beautiful, her skin a honey colour, even to the swell of her belly. She was visibly pregnant now, but it did not trouble him. Oh no, she was a goddess, full of life, and the thrill of supplanting her devotee was high in him. He tore himself out of his clothes, throwing them anyhow on the floor, and fell with her onto the narrow iron bed against the south wall. Oh, open she was and soft, answering his few Irish words with murmurs in no language at all; entwined herself with him as easily and inseparably as if they had been lovers for years. When he entered her O! his whole being shook with the impact. No ordinary woman, this, but heaven and earth. Ireland herself - stormy skies, dark lakes and deep bogs - shone from her as he gazed into her soul while he hovered above her in that brilliant moment. It was the first moment of the new-created world, stunning.
“Woman you are beauty itself,” he said in Irish. Her answer was to bring him near, clasping him close, urging, moving sinuously in ways no whore ever learned, and he was drowning in the bog of her hair, a joyful sacrifice to the Ancient Dark One.
Three times he came to brink, and three times held back until at last he raised himself to look on her languid face, shining, abloom with hectic colour, her eyes as dark as a storm. He smiled at her eyes’ silent pleading, lovely wanton. Her mouth was open and red as rowan, her hair spilled out about them, her whole body tense and glistening.
“Oh, please,” she breathed, her hands coming up to his face. “Please, darling, oh come, oh let me come - it’s so close!”
He gazed down the length of her heaving, lovely round body, flushed and trembling. Beautiful. Beautiful... he smiled.
“Yes, agra,” he murmured. “So we shall.” He closed the gap at last, coming with her, spinning into a heaven he had never known, everything brilliant and strange; she was all the world and he knew only the electric hum in all his limbs, the colours and flashes in his mind, and her voice crying low in his ear. He had truly found his muse.
He came back to himself groggily, heavy and dull. Molly lay with a face as soft as a dreaming child’s, and looking on her, he felt an ineffable tenderness. It was a pity to wake her, but a glance at the clock on the stand showed that he had ten minutes to be in Abbey Street. He bent and murmured in her ear,
“Molly, darling, I have to go.”
She was awake instantly, startled at first, her expression changing to one of dreamy tenderness. She kissed him and watched him dress, which he did hastily, peering over his shoulder at her, to burn the image of her in his bed into his mind.
“What did you tell them at home?” He asked, as he sat to pull on his socks.
She laughed. “That I had a headache; they don’t disturb me then.”
“Nice cure for a headache,” he smiled. He reached over to touch her face.
“I expect I’ll have them more often,” she agreed, bright-eyed.
“I won’t get any painting done if you do,” he said, standing to pull up his braces. Her answer was a laugh. It was good to see her so gay.
“Stay as long as you like,” he told her when he had put on his coat and picked up the bag of his camera gear. “There’s a key on phone ledge for you downstairs.” He took in her face one last time.” You’re welcome whenever you like.” he kissed her. “I’m sorry to have to go.”
“Go,” she said softly. “I will see you this afternoon? it’s Wednesday.”
He was at the door. “Yes. Oh yes. Good-bye, agra.” He bounded down the stairs then, and dashed down the corner, past the mental hospital, dodging the trams and passing traffic and into Murphy’s building without ever knowing how he did it.
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