Scarlett (106 page)

But nothing like as busy as Dublin’s streets. Scarlett pressed her nose to the window of the hackney in her excitement. Charlotte was right, she was going to love Dublin.

All too soon the hackney stopped. Scarlett stepped down, helped by a lavishly uniformed attendant. She was staring at a passing horse-drawn tram when Evans touched her arm. “This way, please.”

Charlotte was waiting for her behind a tea table in the sitting room of their suite of rooms. “Charlotte!” Scarlett exclaimed, “I saw a streetcar with an upstairs and a downstairs, and both of them packed full.”

“Good afternoon to you, too, Scarlett. I’m pleased that Dublin pleases you. Give Evans your wraps and come and have tea. We have a great deal to do.”

That evening Mrs. Sims arrived with three assistants carrying muslin-wrapped gowns and dresses. Scarlett stood and moved as ordered while Mrs. Sims and Mrs. Montague discussed every detail of every garment. Each evening gown was more elegant than the one that preceded it. Scarlett preened before the pier glass when she wasn’t being prodded and pinched by Mrs. Sims.

When the dressmaker and her woman left Scarlett discovered suddenly that she was exhausted. She was happy to agree when Charlotte suggested they dine in the suite, and she ate ravenously.

“Do not gain so much as a millimeter around the middle, Scarlett, or you’ll have to be fitted all over again,” Charlotte warned.

“I’ll run it all off shopping,” Scarlett said. She buttered another piece of bread. “I saw at least eight shop windows that looked wonderful on the drive from the station.”

Charlotte smiled indulgently. She’d receive a very welcome commission from every shop Scarlett patronized. “You’ll have all the shopping your heart desires, I can promise you that. But only in the afternoons. In the mornings, you’ll be sitting for your portrait.”

“That’s nonsense, Charlotte. What do I want with a portrait of myself? I had one done once, and I hated it. I looked mean as a snake.”

“You will not look mean in this one, take my word. Monsieur Hervé is an expert at ladies. And the portrait is important. It must be done.”

“I’ll do it, because I do everything you say, but I won’t like it, take my word.”

The next morning Scarlett was awakened by the sound of traffic. It was still dark, but street lamps showed her four lines of wagons and drays and carriages of every description moving along the street below her bedroom window. No wonder Dublin has such wide streets, she thought happily, almost everything in Ireland with wheels on it is here. She sniffed, sniffed again. I must be going crazy. I could swear I smell coffee.

Fingers tapped gently on her door. “Breakfast is in the sitting room when you’re ready,” said Charlotte. “I’ve sent the waiter away, all you need is a wrapper.”

Scarlett nearly knocked Mrs. Montague down opening the door. “Coffee! If you knew how much I’ve missed coffee. Oh, Charlotte, why didn’t you tell me they drink coffee in Dublin? I’d have taken the train every morning just for breakfast.”

The coffee tasted even better than it smelled. Luckily Charlotte preferred tea, because Scarlett drank the entire pot.

Then she obediently put on the silk stockings and combinations Charlotte unpacked from a box. She felt quite wicked. The light slippery undergarments were altogether different from the batiste or muslin she’d worn all her life. She tied her wool dressing gown tightly around her when Evans came in with a woman she’d never seen before. “This is Serafina,” said Charlotte. “She’s Italian, so don’t be concerned if you don’t understand a word she says. She’s going to do your hair. All you have to do is sit still and let her talk to herself.”

She’s having a one-way conversation with every hair on my head, thought Scarlett after nearly an hour. Her neck was getting stiff, and she hadn’t the faintest idea what the woman was doing to her. Charlotte had seated her near the window in the sitting room where the morning light was strongest.

Mrs. Sims and one assistant looked as impatient as Scarlett felt. They’d arrived twenty minutes earlier.

“
Ecco
!” said Serafina.

“
Benissimo
,” said Mrs. Montague.

“Now,” said Mrs. Sims.

Her assistant lifted the muslin wrap from the gown Mrs. Sims was holding. Scarlett drew in her breath. The white satin glistened in the light, and the light made the silver embroidery shine as if it were a living thing. It was a fantasy of a gown. Scarlett stood, her hands reached out to touch it.

“Gloves first,” Mrs. Sims commanded. “Every finger would leave a mark.” Scarlett saw that the dressmaker was wearing white kid gloves. She took the pristine long gloves Charlotte was holding out to her. They were already folded back and powdered for her to get them on without stretching.

When she had smoothed them all the way up, Charlotte used a small silver buttonhook with rapid competence, Serafina dropped a silk handkerchief over her head and removed her wrapper, and then Mrs. Sims lowered the dress onto Scarlett’s upraised arms and onto her body. While she fastened the back, Serafina deftly removed the handkerchief and made a few delicate touches to Scarlett’s hair.

There was a knock at the door. “Well timed,” said Mrs. Montague. “That will be Monsieur Hervé. We’ll want Mrs. O’Hara over here, Mrs. Sims.” Charlotte led Scarlett to the center of the room. Scarlett could hear her opening the door and speaking in a low voice. I suppose she’s talking French and expects me to. No, Charlotte must know me better than that by now. I wish I had a looking glass, I want to see the gown on me.

She lifted one foot, then the other when Mrs. Sims’ assistant tapped her toes. She couldn’t see the slippers the woman slipped onto her feet, Mrs. Sims was poking her in the shoulder blades and hissing at her about standing up straight. The assistant fiddled with the bottom of her skirt.

“Mrs. O’Hara,” said Charlotte Montague, “please allow me to present Monsieur François Hervé.”

Scarlett looked at the rotund bald man who walked in front of her and bowed. “How do you do,” she said. Was she supposed to shake hands with a painter?

“
Fantastique
,” said the painter. He snapped his fingers. Two men carried the enormous pier glass to a spot between the windows. When they stepped away Scarlett saw herself.

The white satin gown was more décolleté than she’d realized. She stared at the daring expanse of bosom and shoulder. Then at the reflection of a woman she hardly recognized. Her hair was piled high on her head in a mass of curls and tendrils so artful that they looked almost happenstance. The white satin glimmered the narrow length of her body, and a silver-encrusted white satin train spread in a sinuous semicircle around the white satin slippers, with silver heels.

Why, I look like Grandma Robillard’s portrait more than I look like me.

The years of habitual girlishness fell away. She was looking at a woman, not the flirtatious belle of Clayton County. And she liked what she saw very much. She was mystified and excited by this stranger. Her soft lips quivered faintly at the corners, and her tilted eyes took on a deeper, more mysterious sheen. Her chin lifted in supreme self-confidence, and she looked directly into her own eyes with challenge and approval.

“That’s it,” whispered Charlotte Montague to herself. “That’s the woman to take all Ireland by storm. The whole world, if she wants it.”

“Easel,” murmured the artist. “Quickly, you cretins. I shall do a portrait that will make me famous.”

“I don’t understand it,” Scarlett said to Charlotte after the sitting. “It’s like I never saw that person before in my life, yet I knew her… I’m confused, Charlotte.”

“My dear child, that is the beginning of wisdom.”

*   *   *

“Charlotte, do let’s ride one of those darling trams,” Scarlett begged. “I deserve a reward after standing like a statue for hours on end.”

It had been a long sitting, Charlotte agreed; future ones would probably be shorter. For one thing it would likely rain, and without good light M. Hervé wouldn’t be able to paint.

“Then you agree? We’ll take the tram?” Charlotte nodded. Scarlett felt like hugging her, but Charlotte Montague wasn’t that kind of person. And, in an undefined way, neither was she any longer, Scarlett felt. The view of herself as a woman, no longer a girl, had thrilled her but unsettled her, too. It was going to take some getting used to.

They climbed the iron spiral to the upper level of the tram. It was exposed and very cold, but the view was superb. Scarlett looked on all sides at the city, the crowded wide streets, the swarming wide sidewalks. Dublin was the first real city she’d ever seen. It had a population of more than a quarter million people. Atlanta was a boomtown of twenty thousand.

The tram moved on its tracks through the traffic with inexorable right of way. Pedestrians and vehicles scattered hastily at the last minute as it approached. Frenzied and noisy, the narrow escapes delighted Scarlett.

Then she saw the river. The tram stopped on the bridge and she could see along the Liffey. Bridge after bridge after bridge, all different, all teeming with traffic. The quays enticing with shop fronts and crowds. The water bright in the sunlight.

The Liffey was left behind, the tram was suddenly in shadow, tall buildings were near on both sides. Scarlett felt the chill.

“We’d better go down at the next stop,” said Charlotte. “We get off at the following one.” She led the way. After they crossed a bedlam intersection Charlotte gestured toward the street that curved ahead of them. “Grafton Street,” she said, as if she were making an introduction. “We’ll want to take a hackney back to the Gresham, but on foot is the only way to see the shops. Would you like coffee before we begin? You should become acquainted with Bewley’s.”

“I don’t know, Charlotte. I might just take a look inside this shop first. That fan in the window—see the one in that back corner, with the pink tassels—it’s the most adorable thing. Oh, and that Chinesey one, I didn’t see that at first. And that precious pomander! Look Charlotte, at the embroidery on those gloves. Have you ever? Oh, my goodness.”

Charlotte nodded at the liveried door attendant. He pulled the door wide and bowed.

She didn’t mention that there were at least four more shops on Grafton Street with hundreds of fans and gloves. Charlotte was quite sure that Scarlett would discover for herself that a major attribute of a major city is an infinite spectrum of temptation.

After ten days of sittings and fittings and shopping Scarlett went home to Ballyhara with dozens of presents for Cat, several gifts for Mrs. Fitz and Colum, ten pounds of coffee and a coffee maker for herself. She was in love with Dublin and could hardly wait to return.

At Ballyhara her Cat was waiting. As soon as the train left the city, Scarlett was in a fever to get home. She had so many things to tell Cat, so many plans for the time when she’d take her funny little monkey of a country child to the city. She had to hold her after-Mass office hours, too. She’d delayed them for a week already. And soon it would be Saint Brigid’s Day. Scarlett thought that was the best of all, the moment when the year really began with the turning of the first sod. How very, very lucky she was. She had both—country and city, The O’Hara and that still unknown woman in the pier glass.

Scarlett left Cat engrossed in a picture book of animals, her other presents still unwrapped. She ran down the drive to Colum’s gatehouse with the cashmere muffler she’d brought him and all her impressions of Dublin to share.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said when she saw that he had a guest. The well-dressed man was a stranger to her.

“Not at all, not at all,” said Colum. “Come meet John Devoy. He’s just in from America.”

Devoy was polite but clearly not pleased to be interrupted. Scarlett made her excuses, left Colum’s gift, and walked home briskly. Now what kind of American comes to an out-of-the-way place like Ballyhara and isn’t pleased to meet another American? He must be one of Colum’s Fenians, that’s it! And he’s annoyed because Colum isn’t part of that crazy revolution thing any more.

The reverse was the truth. John Devoy was seriously leaning towards support for Parnell, and he was one of the most influential American Fenians. If he abandoned support for the revolution, the blow would be nearly mortal. Colum argued passionately against Home Rule long into the night.

“The man wants power and will use any treachery to get it,” he said about Parnell.

“What about you, Colum?” Devoy retorted. “Sounds to me like you can’t stand a better man getting your job done, and done better.”

Colum’s reply was immediate. “He’ll make speeches in London till Hell freezes, and he’ll win headlines in all the newspapers, but we’ll still be left with starving Irish under the boots of the English. The Irish people will win nothing at all. And when they tire of Mr. Parnell’s headlines they’ll revolt. With no organization and no hope of success. I tell you, Devoy, we’re waiting too long. Parnell talks, you talk, I talk—and all the while the Irish suffer.”

After Devoy went to Kennedy’s Inn for the night Colum paced his small sitting room until the oil in the lamp burned out. Then he sat in the cold darkness on a stool by the dying embers on the hearth. Brooding on Devoy’s angry outburst. Could the man be right? Was power the motive, and not love for Ireland? How could a man know the truth of his own soul?