Leon Uris (72 page)

“Rachael, when you touch me like that I think I’m going to melt and die,” Dary whispered.

“Then melt and die,” she answered. “I’ll touch you again and again, here and here and here.”

He held her hands, then drew them to his lips. Her arms went about his head, with strength, and drew his head to her breasts. Dary felt bosom against his cheek.

“Nothing is this good,” he said.

“It gets better,” she whispered, “much, much better.”

Dary separated from her abruptly. “How would you be knowing that?”

Well, he had to know and now was the time. “I’m not chaste,” she said, in the direct manner of a Fitzpatrick.

Why should that annoy him, indeed! After all, he’d been hearing confessions for over a decade from women he’d never believe would have indulged. Why had he always thought of Rachael and virginity in the same breath? He was going to ask something stupid like “Did you confess?” or “You were forced upon?” Oh, the damnableness of wanting all women pure!

“I want no secrets between us,” Rachael said. “I think you ought to know about it.”

And then what, he thought. Would he ask her to do penance or chastise her? Wouldn’t that be rather hypocritical
under the circumstances? He and Rachael were not exactly priest to penitent.

“I don’t need to know,” he pouted with plain old male pride. “On the other hand, in that we are in a close family friendship and so forth, my understanding of the situation…yes, I want to know.”

“I was in my sixth form at school, just ready to graduate. My history teacher, Ned Finch, was a very decent lad from an Anglo family. Despite the disparity in our ages and the fact I was his pupil, we had a strong attraction to each other.”

Dary found himself all quivery with a dry lump spreading through his throat to his chest; his hands were a bit shaky. An emotion he had never felt or known of welled up inside him. Jealousy? Is this jealousy? It’s a bloody monster, if that’s what it is. He got together an outward show to cover himself and demonstrated that it was all in a day’s work for a priest.

“Dary, maybe that’s enough.”

“Indeed, no. Do go on.”

“We were like great chums more than anything. Ned was into reading poetry and going to theatre and we liked to ride in Phoenix Park. Being as there were no other lads who caught my fancy, I really looked forward to Sundays with him. We
were
entirely discreet.”

“Entirely?”

“Sort of. If you want to keep seeing a fellow and enjoy his companionship, you fool around a little, you know, a little.”

“I don’t know.” But he did. From confessions. Kisses, kisses with the use of tongues, breasts…breasts were the first very major target. Then rolling about so that parts accidentally rub against each other, entirely innocent…bah!

“I didn’t feel sensual toward him, but we were pals and the boys my age were real dullards.”

Well, that eased Dary up a bit. The Virgin had been
his
woman for over thirty years and Mary’s virginity was Her gift to all women. He knew that virginity was not a reality,
but now that he felt “that way” about a girl, virginity seemed its old awesome self. He wanted Rachael’s story to end that way
for her sake
. What the hell was he thinking about? It didn’t make tuppence difference if she was or she wasn’t so long as Mary was. And Rachael wasn’t Mary. Besides, they’d have to cut out what they were doing, anyhow. It could only be a short-lived dalliance.

“Ned enlisted in the Royal Irish artillery a month after the war started,” Rachael went on. “He was going to fight in France and he pleaded with me to do it.”

The old demon leapt into Dary’s throat again!

“I went to Mom and we talked it over.”

“You and your mother?”

“Of course, my mom, who else? I already know what a priest would tell me. I wanted to hear the truth and not a lecture. Dary, I’m sorry.”

“What did Atty tell you?”

“She asked if I loved him and I told her I didn’t love him in a sexual way but he was my dearest friend and I was terribly emotional about him leaving for war and he
did
love me desperately. I thought I ought to make him happy.

“Mom said she understood. She told me how to be careful and also said, for God’s sake, be joyous, laugh a lot at yourselves and be very, very glad afterward.”

“She told you that!”

“Of course. Once Mom had broken down the barriers of pain and sorrow for Conor, it was a wonderment watching the two of them rush toward each other down a path. They could make each other out a mile away and Conor would always whisk her off her feet…and she’s no little lamb…and twirl her around. Sometimes they’d throw off all their clothing and leap into the icy lake screaming and howling for joy. It might have been a day when ten Brotherhood men were captured or some other disaster was on their necks…but when they saw each other, oh, did they go for each other. So, when she told me it was all right to be with Ned that way, she said…‘Make it be happy.’”

Dary stopped his own pouting and studied her. For the first time he realized a woman’s love was not a one-time gift…an ultimate sacrifice to be borne with regret that she would never be the same. Love from a woman like Rachael could be given over and over to a man, with great wonderment.

She took his hands. “Ned was happy. He went away happy. He was killed in the first month. I’m glad he went away happy.”

The stranger had been sitting, sitting, sitting in his threshold for a score of years, and him holding in his powerful habitude, and now it was seeking a way out and the stranger was seeking its way in with the rush of feelings of an ordinary man.

“Did you enjoy it?” Dary asked the most pedantic question of all.

“Truth?”

He said, “Of course,” but he didn’t really mean it.

“It was clumsy and painful. But it was joyous.”

“Oh.”

He felt her soft fingers touch his face, then her lips. “Dary, Dary,” she whispered, “I was waiting for you.”

As they held each other she whispered meekly, “I was hoping you’d get jealous.”

“Well, you hoped correctly, lass.”

“What are we going to do, Dary?”

“I was about to ask the same question.”

“Are those tears, Dary?” she asked.

“Only tears of joy,” he said.

“Mine as well. I was waiting for you, mon, I was waiting for you…I was waiting for you.”

Ireland, as an island, has ninety-four corners to it where you can go no farther without getting wet. Clonlicky Crossroad was one of them. It serviced farms nearby and had a milk collection station, a provisions store, a pub on the left side of the road, and a church on the right.

It was never known as a dangerous place insofar as republican activity went. However, to it fell the dubious distinction of being made an example, in the post-Rising order of things.

Quinn’s Pub, a meager hard-assed Guinness bar, was owned by the Widow Quinn and boasted the normal bent of a lot of republican talk but very little action.

Like every woebegone public house, republican oratory and song was part of the menu for Saturday night and after Sunday Mass. Well, some fecking informer, the bane of Irish life, had reported to the Royal Irish Constabulary that the Widow Quinn was hiding a Brotherhood lad in her cellar. He’d been on the run since the Rising. The Constabulary turned the informer over to the local Army barracks.

No less than General Llewelyn Brodhead drove all the way from Dublin to observe the new order of things. A full-scale attack was made on Quinn’s Pub, loaded with drinkers of a Saturday night. The Brits came in as though they were attacking Gibraltar.

The Brotherhood lad was nabbed in the cellar, taken to the barracks and, after a ten-minute court-martial, put against the wall and shot by a firing squad.

The next day as the parishioners were leaving church after Mass, the British leveled every building at Clonlicky Crossroad, save the church.

The tumbling was done by a pair of tractors driving parallel about thirty feet apart dragging a chain and steel beam. One went on the right side of the building, the other went on the left side, and the chain and beam went through the middle, chopping it to the ground, furniture and all.

General Brodhead noted that it was more efficient than eight horse teams dragging logs as they had had to do during the famine.

As though the executions in Dublin had not caused enough of an early chill, the news of the tumbling of Clonlicky Crossroad spread like the plague of the Dark Ages. Impact of the tumbling threw the Irish people right back into the potato famine of the last century.

General Brodhead had delivered a potent message that no further nonsense from the Irish would be brooked.

“My goodness, Erma, who is that gorgeous young officer behind Sir Llewelyn in the receiving line.”

“New staff man.”

“My daughter will be livid she didn’t come tonight.”

“He’s a frontiersman from the colonies. V.C. winner.”

“I hear he wears a glove over his right hand all the time. Isn’t that romantic?”

Rory sensed Caroline Hubble was close, and she was.

“Hello, handsome,” she said to him. “It looks like you’re the belle—or the beau—of the ball.”

“I can’t dance these things,” Rory said.

“Oh, that won’t matter. There’s a lovely balcony for chat
ting, outside.” Caroline fluttered her eyes in mock awe.

“While I’ve got you,” she said, “I’ve put you down for dances numbers, let’s see, ten and fifteen on my card,” she said.

Caroline moved on down the receiving line to where Sir Llewelyn stood ramrod and bemedaled, and Lady Beatrice stood wide. Caroline and Beatrice bussed cheeks.

“Ah, Caroline, good to see you about,” Brodhead said. “Do save me a dance before your card is filled.”

“Oh dear, Llewelyn,” Caroline said dismayed, “let me look. Look what I went and did. I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

“Has a general no rights here?” he mumbled.

“I’ll surrender one of my dances with Countess Hubble to you, General,” Rory said.

“Good lad! I told you this was a resourceful young man!” Brodhead beamed.

“Number ten is yours, sir,” Rory said.

“The gavotte, cropper!”

“Beatrice, I’ll catch up with you in a moment. I’ve yards and yards of news,” Caroline said.

The ballroom, used on the odd occasion as a Throne Room, had a jaunty air tonight. A note of victory prevailed. Marble, gilt, great Waterford chandeliers, and no lack of upholstered silk tapestry could almost make one feel one was not even in Ireland. Dublin, no matter how polished, was still provincial. It had been taken as far as it could go tonight, for a colony.

Caroline and Beatrice had their heads glued together like a pair of Siamese twins during the intermission. The General’s wife’s conversation, alas, matched her looks. As the music started up, Sir Llewelyn offered his wife his arm.

“Do this one with Caroline, dear,” she said. “I’ve trampled on the feet of every junior officer in the room and I’m pooped.”

“Caroline?” the General asked.

“You’re too kind, Beatrice,” Caroline demurred.

’Round and ’round in the oblong hall they waltzed until the ends of the room grew smaller as dancers retired and circled the dozen remaining couples, not in the center.

“You’ve been on my mind constantly,” he managed.

“Myself as well. I can’t tell you how lovely it feels to have a strong arm holding me. Let us lilt and fly and show these young puppies a thing or two.”

“I want to see you badly”—as they whirled.

“And I, you,” she said. “I’m holding a conference with some of my subcontractors from the south up in Belfast shortly. We’ll have lunch in my private dining room.”

“Yes,” he confirmed, and held her a tad closer to feel that bosom press against him.

“Llewelyn,” she said breathlessly, playing her fingers deftly over his neck.

Lady Caroline and the General modestly accepted the applause as the music stopped and they returned to Lady Beatrice.

“Lovely, lovely,” Beatrice said. “I used to dance that way once,” she said in her singsong voice.

Like hell you did, Brodhead thought.

A glowering light colonel demonstrated all teeth as he bowed to Caroline.

“Martin!” Caroline cried with joy. “I’ve been waiting for you. Best dancer in the Fusiliers.”

Martin hacked out a silly nasal laugh as he arched his body back.

Caroline looked at her dance card at the same instant Lieutenant Landers bowed before her.

“Why don’t we take our dance out on the balcony,” she suggested.

An unusually decent night greeted them. Over the way stood the Protestant cathedral, smaller than the real ones in France and England. Everything in Dublin was half-sized, except for the Guinness Brewery.

“Give us a hug,” Caroline said. “I know how difficult it is for you to write notes, but thank you for the telephone calls. It can be maddening trying to get through from the west.”

“Ah, it’s not much better in New Zealand.”

“How was your journey, Rory?”

“The west of Ireland is magnificent.”

“We try to keep anything of worth in Ireland a secret so we Anglos can have it for ourselves.”

“It was a good place to go, for many reasons. I found I hadn’t spent all my tears over Gallipoli. I miss my pals fiercely. Jeremy, beyond fiercely. I suppose given time I’ll be able to control things enough to carry on with my life.”

“I see you’re wearing captain’s pips. Does that mean you’re staying in Ireland?”

“The General has agreed I can leave when I feel I must. He’s trying to lure me, inch by inch.”

“Which one of the lovely ladies has captured your heart, Lieutenant Landers?” Caroline asked.

“You,” Rory said.

“Good, then you see us home,” she said.

“Caroline, you’ve been too magnanimous about the townhouse. I was planning to bunk in at the barracks.”

“Indeed you will not!”

“I appreciate everything, but I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

“I promise you I won’t attack you in the middle of the night.”

“Well, I mean, suppose you’re having company or a dinner or something?”

“Rory. Will you treat it exactly as Jeremy and Christopher did?”

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

“I do. Gorman will be over for the weekend. The three of us will do up Dublin, if you’re off-duty.”

“Grand. Caroline, tell me it’s none of my business, but are you the least bit interested in Llewelyn Brodhead?”

“Yes, I am,” she said, “interested and serious. Dead serious.”