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  'You will regret that,' she said, softly, 'don't think my husband's wish to keep you here means you are safe.' Her smile widened. She looked quite happy. 'Don't think either that your own secret is safe. You should be more cautious, Sarah, about the company you keep and about where you keep it. The loss of your virtue is of no concern to me but would greatly agitate your mother were I to talk to her.' She paused. 'Leonard too. He would worry about your leading Alicia astray.' She walked to the fireplace and ran a finger over the gilding of the carriage clock there. 'This needs dusting,' she said, 'you really will have to keep your mind on your work, Sarah.'

  She put the clock down and with a sigh turned to look at her profile in the over-mantel mirror. It was a habit she had. From that angle she was quite beautiful. The tightness of her mouth and closeness of her eyes were not apparent.

  'Maybe it's the commandant of Beggar's Bush Barracks I should be talking to, or maybe,' she clicked her fingers as if remembering something, 'it's your father I should talk to. Cristy Rooney would be most unhappy to hear his daughter was parading the town with a soldier.' She turned to me. 'Don't you agree?'

  So she knew. Maybe she'd seen me with Jimmy. Passed us in a carriage perhaps and kept the information to herself, waiting the chance to use it. Or maybe it was the spying Mary Connor who'd seen us. Whichever, Allie's mother knew about Jimmy. I took some hope from the fact that she didn't know his name. She would have used it if she did.

  'You're blackmailing me,' I said.

  'Yes, I am.' She looked delighted. 'I don't like your lower- class, smart-tongued way of putting things but it seems that at last we understand one another. Since you will not give me your loyalty I must extract it somehow.' She glanced at the clock and became brisk. 'Go to my room. On the chiffonier you will find a sealed envelope. Take it to the last house on the west side of Merrion Square. Wait for a reply. On no account return without one.' She waved a dismissive hand and turned again to the mirror. 'Go quickly.'

  The envelope was cream-coloured and thin, only one sheet of paper inside. I sat with it on the bed, tracing the shapes of the exotic birds on the counterpane, gathering myself together. I thought about Allie's mother.

  There was a fever in her, a desperation driving her to take risks. I'd no doubt she had a lover. I'd suspected her for a long time. It wasn't so hard to see in her the same terrible need to be with someone I was so often consumed with myself. But terrible as her betrayal was I wasn't shocked.

  Nothing Allie's mother did would ever shock me. She was a woman lived only for herself. She always had and always would. I'd often thought her not quite sane. She was a wretched and cruel mother too. All through our schooldays together Allie had dreaded going home. She'd spent as much time in Henrietta Street as she had with her own family in the Broadstone. As a child I'd hated Harriet Buckley with a child's hatred for the way she treated my friend. Harriet had, in turn, hated me for bringing the pleasures of friendship to her daughter's life. She still hated me.

  Sitting in her bedroom I felt a terrible sadness. A feeling of waste. Harriet Buckley's abandon to the self was everywhere: in the dressing table strewn with potions and hair brushes, in the gowns thrown across chairs, the crinoline hoops on the floor. My feelings were partly for Allie's father. He was a greedy man but kind enough in his way. Mostly my feelings they were for Allie. She'd never known a mother's care and love. Now she was home betrayal was going to be added to that indifference.

  I'd no doubt Harriet Buckley's adultery would be found out. Dublin was too small a city for secrets to remain secrets very long. Only hers wouldn't be told by me. Harriet Buckley hadn't needed to use blackmail. I would have kept her secret for Allie's sake in any event.

  As I left I opened the window to rid the room of its heavy, musky smell. Harriet disliked fresh air.

  From the top of the stairs I saw Mary Connor below me in the hallway. Holding on to the wall with one hand and with a stick in the other she was making her way slowly towards the closed dining-room door. One of her feet was tightly bound in muslin bandages. Even handicapped she moved silent as a cat.

  As I watched Allie and Leonard Buckley came along behind her. The old woman refused Allie's offer of help and when she reached the dining-room door, which was held open by Leonard, she passed inside with a grim nod to her employer.

  My mother appeared then, with a soup tureen on a tray. She followed them all into the dining room. No one closed the door and, as I was trying to slip past, Allie saw me. She made frantic signals with her eyes. I couldn't ignore her and went inside. It was as well I did. My mother was in the dock. Mary Connor had put her there.

  'She can deny all she likes but the truth is that I fell when Mrs Rooney knocked against me.' The housekeeper was leaning on the stick, pain pinching her face.

  'That's not how it happened.' My mother was still holding the tray. 'You spun too quick on your heel no one was next or near you at the time.'

  'I am telling you, Mrs Buckley,' Mary Connor ignored her, 'that my fall was no accident. I'd had reason to take issue with Mrs Rooney only minutes before . . .'

  'You're a liar,' I said from the door, 'my mother didn't touch you.'

  I could feel Harriet Buckley's eyes on me, the frenzy in her that I hadn't yet left the house.

  'I didn't expect either you or your mother would be truthful,' Mary Connor's voice had the rasp of a boot on a grate, 'but the Lord God will be the judge of both of you.' She paused. 'God and Mrs Buckley.'

  'I've never known either Sarah or Bess to lie.' Allie stood stiffly. 'You must be mistaken.'

  'You've never known them to lie!' Mary Connor shook a pained, reproachful head. 'That is the difficulty with liars, they don't reveal themselves.'

  'I want to more of this talk.' Leonard Buckley, who had poured himself another whiskey, thumped the table with a fist. 'Bess, serve up that soup.' He slumped to the table, muttering. 'I want peace. Peace is all I want. I'll not tolerate squabbling women in my house.'

  You poor fool, I thought, as if you had a choice with a wife like yours.

  My mother put the tray and tureen down on the long sideboard. There was silence while she took the lid off and began ladling the cold, clear soup into bowls.

  'It might be as well to have a doctor look at the ankle.' Allie was the first to speak. 'Miss Connor is not young and her bone is brittle. She may need a splint of some kind.'

  'The ankle is sprained, not broken.' My mother put the bowl of soup in front of Leonard. 'With God's help it will fix itself in a few days.’ Leonard crossed himself, tucked a napkin into his collar and began to eat. My mother watched him for a minute before filling a second bowl and putting it in front of his wife.

  ‘I’ll bandage the ankle again tomorrow,' she said.

  ‘I’ll look after it myself,' Mary Connor limped to a chair and sat down.

  'You'd best go to your room and rest.' Harriet Buckley picked up her spoon. 'I won't be needing you this afternoon.'

  The old woman stared at her. 'I have a stick,' she said, 'I can walk well enough.'

  Harriet Buckley, eating her soup, ignored her.

  Mary Connor, after a full three minutes during which my mother served Allie her soup and another uneasy silence stretched, limped from the room.

  I should have felt sorry for her. I might have too if it hadn't been for the look she gave me as she went through the door. It was full of a deranged resentment and promised vengeance to come. I'd no doubt she knew full well I was to deliver Harriet Buckley's letter. That she felt I was usurping her position.

  It was for this I would be punished.

  The house to which I delivered Harriet Buckley's letter was one of the grander homes in Merrion Square. It was hugely tall, with long windows and an air of cold wealth about it. My grandmother was forever saying how much finer such houses had been when Dublin had its own government, when the gentry and such had lived in them. They seemed to me stately enough still, occupied as they were by doctors and lawyers and the city's new
rich.

  It was three or four minutes before a maidservant opened the door, and then only wide enough for me to see the side of a wizened face.

  'What is it you want?' she said.

  I held out the letter. 'I'm to wait for a reply,' I said.

  The woman looked at the envelope. She made no attempt to take it from me.

  'Who is awaiting the reply?'

  'Mrs Leonard Buckley.'

  She opened the door. 'You may step inside.'

  I stood into a hallway as big as the dining room in Haddington Road and stared at her. She gestured me to a polished wooden seat along a wall.

  'Why is it you who are delivering this letter?' she demanded as, still staring, I sat down. I couldn't help it. 'Answer me.' She held out her hand for the envelope.

  'Mary Connor has sprained her ankle,' I said at last.

  'How bad is she?'

  'Not so bad,' I said.

  'Good. Don't leave that seat 'til I return.'

  She walked with the same gliding motion as Mary Connor. She had the same parchment skin, ancient features, slate-coloured eyes. Apart from the fact that she was of more or less normal height she could have been her twin.

  She was certainly her sister.

  I waited on the seat in the hallway for fully five minutes. Even if I'd wanted to I'd have thought twice about venturing on to a timber floor so polished it was like glass. I spent the time studying a tapestry on the wall opposite. I was mesmerised by its green, woodland nymphs and the naked women they were chasing after.

  I was unaware a woman had come into the hallway until she spoke to me.

  'What is your business?' She wore an expression of surprised irritation on a face that was handsome, though certainly not young. Her black hair was turning grey and smoothly braided low on her neck. She was fashionable; her black dress had a bustle, a rare enough sight in Dublin where the crinoline was still popular.

  'I'm awaiting a reply to a letter.' I stood, carefully, not trusting the glassy floor.

  'Then you must remain here, I suppose.' Frowning, she looked a lot older. 'If you should come again please wait on the steps outside.'

  I thought about leaving without the reply but thought again and stayed where I was. Mary Connor's sister arrived almost immediately.

  'To be given to Mrs Harriet Buckley only,' she said.

  'Do you have any word for Mary Connor?'

  'Why should I?'

  'No reason.' Except, I thought, that she's your sister and is old and has damaged her ankle.

  Merrion Square was busy, the day unpleasantly close when I stepped outside again. From the footpath I looked up at the long windows, scanning them for a face, a hand. A movement of any kind which might have given a clue as to who had written the letter in the envelope I was carrying. There was nothing.

  There was

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Allie

  There wasn't so much as a breeze the night of the dinner party celebrating my return. Even at eight o'clock, when the first of the guests arrived, the air in the streets was heavy and full of a dead heat.

  Yet it might have been winter inside the house in Haddington Road. It was Mary Connor's way to keep windows and drapes tightly closed night and day. Doors too, except when of necessity they had to be opened. The result was a house so dark and cool it could have been a crypt. It was silent as a crypt too.

  At seven o'clock, when Sarah lit the gaslights in the hall and the candles in the chandelier in the dining room, it became a glowing, golden crypt.

  I was in my room when the first carriage drew up and halfway down the stairs when Sarah opened the door. My father, full of whiskey and jovial to the point of grovelling, appeared in the hallway to greet his guests.

  I stayed where I was, in the shadows close to the wall, watching.

  My father had asked me to 'practise my best manners' while my mother had reminded me that the occasion was for my benefit. Bess had refused to tell me if the man my parents wanted me to marry would be among the guests.

  'Whether he is or not they are wasting their time,' I said, 'and mine.'

  'Maybe they are,' Bess said, 'and maybe they aren't.'

  My father, in the hallway, pumped the hand of a man his own height, age and girth, but with a much more whiskery face. He wore a long, loose jacket fastened with one button. I suppose it was all he could get to fit him.

  'Maurice, my good man, come in, come in. We don't stand on ceremony here.' My father turned to the man's female companion. 'Jane too. You look resplendent, my dear.'

  The short, plump girl of about my own age who curtsied in an old-fashioned way was anything but resplendent. She was sullen and pallid in a too-tight, too-heavy dress of quilted satin. An unseasonal Paisley shawl clutched about her shoulders didn't help matters.

  'Thank you, Mr Buckley.' She peered about as if expecting ghouls to appear from the shadows. 'I'm delighted to be here.' She didn't look it.

  'Alicia will be with us shortly,' my father boomed and beamed at her. 'She needs friends her own age now she's home and is impatient to meet you.'

  This nonsense made me look at Sarah, standing composed and remote inside the door. Her eyes flickered towards the stairs and I knew that she knew I was there.

  'Come along, come along . . .' My father led the way to the drawing room and my mother. 'Terrible weather we're having, terrible. The mood in the town is sulky, sulky and broody. Very broody indeed. We need a fall of rain to dampen things down. A heavy fall of rain would do the trick.' To Sarah he said, 'Tell Alicia our guests have arrived.'

  It was a performance worthy of his calling as a publican but for a dinner party host it was, as the French say, de trop. Everyone had been very fond of my father the publican. So had

  I.

  'Who are those people?' I hissed to Sarah as the drawing- room door closed behind them.

  'You'll find out soon enough,' she grinned, 'the father's a doctor. He's been here before. His name's Maurice McDermott.

  His resplendent daughter is called Jane…' A knocking on the front door interrupted her.

  The woman who came in was followed by a much younger man, her son by the look of him. Both were tallish and black-haired, the woman turning grey. She looked about the hallway, ignoring Sarah's attempts to speak to her as she took her wrap while the man smiled and held on to a silver-topped cane.

  'Don't trouble yourself,' his charm made up for his mother's lack, 'but you might go ahead and announce that Mrs Edith and Mr Ned Mulvey have arrived.'

  I don't remember moving, or even taking a breath, but Ned Mulvey somehow knew I was on the stairs. He trailed behind Sarah and his mother and as he passed where I was looked directly up at me and raised silent, friendly eyebrows. Before going through the door he looked up again, this time giving a mocking salute. I felt a lot better about the dinner ahead.

  I'd dressed carefully. This was partly a childish arrogance on my part: I wanted to outshine my mother with my Paris style and I wanted to appear travelled. The dress I wore was of blue silk with six flounces and a pointed bodice of a paler blue silk, opening in the front and showing a chemisette of tulle. I'd piled my hair high and allowed curls to tumble to the front.

  The drawing room smelled of the roses my mother had insisted be put in vases everywhere. She herself, wearing a cream-coloured dress I thought too young for her, was languid in a chair.

  My father was holding forth about a port he'd had delivered that day.

  'Alicia,' he said, looking relieved when I came in, 'our guests are waiting to meet you.'

  Sarah had been right about all of them.

  The fat man was a Dr Maurice McDermott and up close he resembled a frog with whiskers. His mouth was full and wet and his eyes bulged. When he took my hand I stiffened but instead of his moist lips I felt only the shivery, hairy touch of his beard. I wondered if he had a wife and, if so, whether she too had something of the amphibian about her.

  His daughter Jane widened her eye and stared when
we were introduced and Mrs Edith Mulvey hoped, with a wintry smile, that I would not find Dublin boring after the French capital.

  Her son, assured and sleeker than he'd appeared from the stairs, bowed and smiled and said he was delighted to meet me. He was at least thirty-five years old and, if he was the man my parents had chosen for me, I couldn't, for the life of me, see why he didn't already have a wife.

  Then I looked again at his formidable mother and saw a very good reason.

  In the dining room my own mother sat at one end of the oval table, my father at the other. The chandelier candles, twenty or more of them, threw a pool of light over the table and created shadows everywhere else.

  Bess had prepared a banquet: cured salmon and prawn paste to begin with, beef olives with any amount of vegetables to follow. The wine jelly dessert, as events turned out, didn't make it to the table.

  Sarah served, Mary Connor in hobbling attendance on a walking stick.

  'You were sorry to leave Paris, Miss Buckley?' Ned Mulvey wore an evening suit over a green satin waistcoat and necktie. With his long face he would have made a good bird of prey at a fancy dress ball. He spoke from the other end of the table where he sat next to Jane McDermott.

  His mother, with her starched face, sat opposite me. The hairy doctor sat beside me.

  'I was,' I admitted. 'I grew to like it very much.'

  'It would be difficult not to.' He looked at me thoughtfully. 'Its citizens are a sophisticated lot. Have the French nuns sent us home a worldly young woman?'

  'Alicia was protected from the looseness of French society by the nuns,' my mother was sharp, 'she learned deportment and how to conduct herself.'

  'Indeed she did,' Dr McDermott agreed, 'the nuns are to be congratulated.' He beamed, and blotted his lips delicately. 'They say that the Frenchman is a frog-eater and that horse flesh too is eaten for dinner . . .' He stopped when his daughter made a mew of protest. 'I forget myself. We medical men can be too robust by times.'