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  'They're not likely to meet anyway,' I said, 'since my mother says Allie's parents have already chosen the man she's to marry.'

  'I hope he's good enough for her,' Jimmy said.

  I was wise enough myself to leave things there. John Marsh and Jimmy had grown up and joined the army together. They were like vinegar and milk; John Marsh was devious as Jimmy was straight. He was also jealous of me taking Jimmy from him. I saw it in his baleful eye each time we met.

  The lamplighter was making his rounds when we got to the top of the street, creating pools of soft gold each time he lit a

  mantel. Children followed him as he went round St Stephen's Green park, boys and girls with thin rickety legs. He kept shooing them away. When they didn't go he brandished his pole.

  Jimmy and me crossed the street to St Stephen's Green quickly, stepping together like soldiers. We knew it was a private park, for the use only of those living in the big houses all around. But the barriers about it were low, simple granite posts with chains between them. When we found an unlit spot opposite the Royal College of Surgeons it was a small matter to step over a chain.

  It was quiet in the park and, with the trees and bushes all about, much darker than in the street. We were very alone, very quickly. I couldn't see Jimmy's face when his arm went round me.

  'I want you to touch me as a man touches a woman,' I said. I was shaking. It was what I wanted. It was also what I didn't want.

  'I am afraid of you, Sarah, and afraid for you.' Jimmy was almost whispering. 'I haven't known many women . . .'

  'I know that. I wouldn't care for you if you were a Jack the Lad.'

  In front of us, waiting, there was a shadowy seat for two. We sat there, holding hands, a life away from the street sounds of hooves on cobblestones and the ballads of the musicians. I looked up through the leaves, at a patch of inflamed sky.

  'Red sky at night…' I began.

  'Is the shepherd's delight,' Jimmy finished. His hand tightened about mine. 'I will think of you always in the sun, Sarah, with your black hair shining. I will never be able to think of you in the wind or rain or cold.'

  The excitement in me died. Dread, like a leaded weight, lodged itself about my heart.

  'You're going away then?' I said.

  'I won't be staying in Dublin, you know that.' He kicked with his boot at the gravelly ground. 'The army will move me on. There's talk of a new regiment coming in, of others going home and of some of us being shipped out to . . . India.'

  I'd have been a fool not to hear the hesitation and then the longing in his voice as he said the name of the sub-continent.

  'That's where you want to go, isn't it? You want to go to India?' I kept my voice calm. I did well, considering.

  'I've given it thought in the past,' Jimmy admitted, 'before I knew you.' He took both my hands in his and held them to his mouth as he spoke. 'Since knowing you it's like I've been thrown into the air and am spinning up there and don't know how to get down again.' His breath was warm on my fingers. 'I'd want to go to India, if it came down to it, but I wouldn't want to go without you.'

  The dread eased a bit. 'I'd be sad if you went,' I said.

  'Sad . . .' He repeated the word as if testing it. 'I'd feel more than sad without you, Sarah. I'd feel a part of my life was gone from me.'

  'India is a long way from here.' I was imagining a hot, red sun, baked earth, silks and spices, mysterious, brown people. It was all I knew of India. I thought wildly that I would follow him there. But that would have made me a camp follower and so I said nothing.

  Jimmy pulled me to him. 'I've not got word yet anyway about moving on. If it happens I won't leave you behind.'

  'You're just saying that to please me . . .'

  'I'm saying it because I love you.'

  'Kiss me then, because I love you too.' I held my face up to his, and closed my eyes as he kissed me on the mouth.

  It was a kiss like none we'd shared before. When he opened his mouth I did too, felt his tongue move against mine and my body press into his with a life of its own. It was what I'd wanted. Only I hadn't wanted to feel frightened.

  I pulled away. 'We mustn't.' I couldn't stop the trembling.

  'I won't hurt you.' Jimmy's hand caressed my neck. He was trembling too. 'There's nothing wrong in us loving and wanting one another.'

  He put his mouth to mine again and this time I didn't draw away. He eased my dress from my shoulders and kissed the bared flesh and said my name, over and over. I felt half conscious, and more alive than I'd ever felt in my life before. I felt no shame. I wanted to laugh.

  I wanted to weep.

  'Jimmy,' I said and he lifted his head and began kissing me again on the mouth. I'll never know how our lovemaking would have gone because it ended there, cut short by a raucous, ear- splitting laugh from a woman in the trees just behind us. It might have been a rifle shot for the effect it had on us.

  We stiffened at once and moved apart, listening. I wanted to run; it was all I could do to hold myself on the seat beside Jimmy. He put an arm about me and pulled my dress back over my shoulders.

  The laugh came again, rougher and closer and followed by a crashing in the trees and drunken, bloody oaths from a man. I felt shame then, and disgust at myself. I felt hot tears on my face too, though I'd no sense of shedding them.

  'We shouldn't have come here,' I said. 'This place is no more than a hideaway for whores and prostitutes. I should've known better.'

  Jimmy, his arm about my waist, half carried me back the way we'd come. 'Don't cry, Sarah, please don't cry . . .' He had only his hands to wipe my tears but he used them, rubbing one cheek first and then the other. 'We'll find a place to be together. I'll find us a place.'

  'Any fool would have known what this park was used for.' Shame made my cheeks burn and I turned my back to him while I tidied my hair and made myself ready for the street. 'Any fool but me.' I put my hands over my cheeks.

  Jimmy turned me and held me against him. We stood there for a long time, at the edge of the shadows, passion gone but not wanting yet to step back into the light.

  I remembered what he had said about India and was afraid again. 'Did you mean it when you said about finding us a place to be together?' I asked and he nodded, yes.

  ‘I meant it,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sarah

  My mother was tired. Tiredness made her irritable. When she was irritable it was best to keep out of her way.

  'Did you scrub the front steps?' she demanded.

  'I did.'

  'And you polished the door brasses?'

  'I did.'

  'Empty the chamber pots then, and be quick.'

  'Neither Allie nor her mother are out of their beds yet.'

  'Empty them,' my mother said and I knew her irritability had as much to do with me as with her tiredness. I knew too that it was because of her suspicions about Jimmy Vance. If she'd had evidence she would have confronted me.

  Allie was still asleep. Or she was at any rate lying with her eyes closed and not speaking to me. She was still hurt about my having forsaken her the night before. Looking at her she didn't seem to me any bigger, or older, than the twelve-year-old girl who, during a summer every bit as hot as this one, had made me a present of her favourite bonnet of mixed yellow and cream straw. Her mother, not pleased, had flown into one of her rages and chopped Allie's hair to within an inch of her head.

  I'd given Allie back the bonnet but she'd refused ever after to wear it. She'd gone the whole of the rest of that summer hatless, her cropped head a statement of brazen defiance against her mother.

  I stood by the bed for a minute, the pot in my hand, willing Allie to open her eyes. I would remind her about the bonnet and we might laugh together about it. But she didn't move a muscle. I knew from old that when she was hurt she took her time about forgiving.

  It wasn't, in any event, the best of times to make up with her. Not with Harriet Buckley writing a letter in the next room, bein
g fussed over by Mary Connor. Leonard, who slept alone in the smallest bedroom of all, was long gone. His room I had cleaned and his pot I'd emptied.

  I kept out of my mother's way for most of the rest of the morning.

  I was trying to get iron mould out of a linen tablecloth with sorrel and salt when Mary Connor arrived into the kitchen. She wore the pale flush she often had when she'd been with Harriet Buckley. I'd swear she was half in love with Allie's mother. That old woman was strange enough for anything and been the bane of our lives every livelong day since she'd arrived.

  'The family will have luncheon at one o'clock,' she said, standing over me and adding unnecessary salt to the sorrel. 'Make sure you clean that cloth well. It'll be wanted two nights from now. Mrs Buckley is to give a dinner party.' She paused. 'It's to celebrate Miss Buckley's return and will be by way of an introduction to her new life.' She sniffed and looked up at my mother. 'It'll also be a test, Mrs Rooney, of your culinary skills. I hope you'll be up to the occasion.'

  It was a foolish person questioned Bess Rooney's cooking. If Mary Connor wanted to provoke my mother she couldn't have gone a better way about it. My mother knew her value as a cook.

  She stood over the housekeeper with her hands on her hips. 'My culinary skills as you call them are well tested,' she said. 'I've had no complaints about my dinners in the past and I don't expect there to be any this time either how many of them will there be at the table?'

  'Seven. I'll draw up a menu.'

  'I'll draw up the menu myself it's the way I work.'

  'You forget your place, Mrs Rooney. It's your job to cook and clean and be directed by me . . .'

  'I'll not be directed in matters relating to cooking and I'll not be directed at all if you interfere any more.'

  My mother wiped her hands on her apron and turned to the range. I thought Mary Connor would combust. My mother didn't give her a chance to do anything before turning on her again.

  'The range was slow to start today because it wasn't properly stoked this morning the luncheon could well be late as a result.'

  Stoking the range was Mary Connor's job, done at daybreak. The old woman's lips peeled back from her teeth.

  'A bad workman will always blame his tools,' she said. 'The range was stoked in the usual fashion. If the luncheon is late it'll be on account of your laziness and your daughter's.'

  'Be very careful Mary Connor how far you go with that tongue of yours.' My mother was dismissive, not even looking up from what she was doing.

  'It is you who should take care,' the housekeeper's voice was high and tinny, 'I will be obeyed. I will improve the standards of service in this house.'

  'Maybe you should be concentrating on standards above stairs then and on your own myself and my daughter know our jobs well we've been doing them a long time now . . .' My mother stopped and frowned at the housekeeper. 'Stay out of the kitchen Mary Connor because I'm not one bit impressed with your knowledge of housekeeping even if the woman who employs you is.' She took a breath. 'You'd be wise to remember that I know this family and they know me and old knowledge is what counts in the long run so the less you and me have to do with one another the better.'

  Mary Connor left the kitchen. She went quickly, her chest puffed out like a sparrow's, and without another word.

  'She won't be gone long and she'll cause real trouble now you mark my words.' My mother was still angry, but resigned.

  I'd all but got the stain out of the tablecloth. 'She's must be eighty years or more,' I said, 'she can't live forever.'

  'That's a fact,' said my mother, 'but if that's a curse you're putting on her may the Lord God forgive you.'

  My mother was right about Mary Connor. We'd only just got a luncheon of clear soup and fish pie ready when she reappeared in the kitchen.

  'The family has gathered in the dining room,' she sniffed about the range, 'they're expecting to eat in five minutes. Put your cap back on.' This last to me.

  I replaced the cap on my head. It was starched and flat, like no maid's cap I'd ever seen. Probably a design of Mary Connor's own. It made me look like a class of nun. I hated Allie seeing me with it on.

  She hadn't come to the kitchen all morning anyway.

  Mary Connor sniffed. 'Straighten it up, miss, it's crooked.'

  She would have said more but for a bell ringing just then in the panel over the door.

  My mother, who was seasoning the soup, said, 'That's the dining room Sarah see what it is they want.'

  'It'll be Mrs Buckley.' Mary Connor slithered to the door. 'You can be getting the soup on to the tray while I go to her.'

  'When you're up there Sarah,' my mother went on as if the housekeeper hadn't spoken, 'ask Leonard if he'd like to try a glass of the Madeira port was delivered this morning before he eats.'

  'You'll attend to your duties here, missy.' Mary Connor, voice shrill, spun to face me. 'I'll answer the bell.'

  The accident happened so quickly neither myself nor my mother could afterwards say clearly how it occurred. In all likelihood it had to do with the midget-sized heels on the housekeeper's shoes. They were so small that when she spun my way one must have caught in a groove between the floor flags. Whatever the cause she stumbled, clutched at the table, missed her hold and pitched forward, shooting her two arms out in front to break her fall. She broke her fall all right, but in doing so did harm to an ankle.

  As she lay on the floor, face down and one of her short legs crookedly beneath her, my mother and I could only stare. The shock of it was paralysing. Mary Connor, because of her size, looked pitiful, like a broken doll, fragile and pathetic.

  The service bell went on shrilling.

  My mother was the first to recollect herself. She dropped to her knees beside the fallen woman.

  'Are you all right, Mary?' She put a hand on her shoulder. 'Can you shift yourself is the leg broken?'

  'Miss Connor to you . . .'

  Her face more corrugated than ever with the pain, the housekeeper shook off my mother's hand. Pulling herself into a sitting position she leaned against the table and held her ankle with both hands. She looked up at my mother's worried face and I saw, in a quick flash there was no mistaking, the light of opportunity blaze in her pale eyes.

  'You'll not get rid of me so easily, Bess Rooney,' mixed with the pain there was a malevolent glee, 'you'll not be long in this house now that you've been the cause of injuring me.' She closed her eyes and leaned back. 'The bell . . .' It was still ringing.

  'Answer it, Sarah,' my mother was brusque, 'and tell Leonard Buckley what's happened here.'

  'Give a true account, mind.' Mary Connor groaned but did not open her eyes. 'Honesty is the best policy, no matter if you are in the wrong.'

  'I'll tell what I saw happen,' I said.

  The dining room was one of my favourites in the house. It had a long front window and walls filled with framed engravings and coloured prints. A crystal chandelier with wax lights hung over the table at which Allie and her father were sitting. Allie was plucking at the embroidered tablecloth. Leonard was drinking from the whiskey bottle in front of him.

  So much for my mother's offer of Madeira port.

  Harriet Buckley was standing by the fireplace, cold fury on her face and her hand pulling on the bell rope. 'Why has no one answered my call before now?’ she complained as she dropped the rope. 'It's fully five minutes since—'

  'Mary Connor has fallen in the kitchen.' I cut across her, directing what I had to say at Leonard Buckley.

  'How badly hurt is she?' he said.

  'She's in pain and holding her ankle. She twisted it under her when she fell. I don't know any more than that. My mother is with her. She'll be better able to tell you what the damage is.'

  'She's not able to walk then?' Harriet Buckley's voice had risen. 'She wasn't fit to come here to tell me herself?'

  'She's in pain . . .'

  'She cannot be so badly hurt as all that.' Allie's mother clasped and unclasped her hands. 'I need
her services—'

  'From the sound of it your housekeeper wants medical attention.' Allie pushed back her chair and stood. 'Maybe a doctor should look at her ankle.'

  Her mother glared before, without a word, walking to the window and standing with her back to us. Her ill humour filled the room with a sourness.

  'Get a doctor then.' Her voice was flat.

  'What doctor will come at this hour of the day?' Leonard Buckley was petulant. 'They're all in their hospitals or dispensaries. The woman is old and frail and should never have been engaged in the first place. It'll be throwing good money after bad, keeping her on.' He downed what was left in his whiskey glass. 'A man has a right to eat in his own home without carry-on like this forever getting in the way.' He lumbered to his feet. 'I'd best see to the old crone . . .'

  He left the room unsteadily, clearly the worse for wear. He'd never have spoken in such a way about Mary Connor if he hadn't been filled with whiskey.

  Allie, without a word or look right or left, followed him.

  I was about to go after them when Harriet Buckley, her voice low and hissing, called to me. 'Stay where you are, Sarah Rooney, there's something I want you to do.'

  I turned, slowly. Harriet Buckley's face wore an expression of supreme distaste as she looked at me. She spoke again as soon as the door closed behind Allie.

  'With Miss Connor incapacitated I unfortunately must place my trust in you, Sarah.' She took a deep, dragging breath. 'I want your word that you will speak to no one, not to your mother, not to Alicia, not to anyone, about the task I am about to entrust you with. Do I have it?' Her black eyes were on mine as if she would force an oath from me.

  'I'm not a secretive person,' I lied.

  'Oh, but you are, Sarah, you are a very secretive person when you want to be.' Harriet Buckley smiled her chilly half smile. 'Perhaps I should speak more plainly . . .'

  'Please do.'

  My interruption was sarcastic and cheap. I made it to cover a sudden, frightening fear that she knew about Jimmy.

  I should have resisted the urge. It merely added fuel to the spite Harriet Buckley was full of. She moved silently to the table and began drumming her fingertips on its surface. They made the sound rain did in a gutter.