Himself was out; but I was not alone. Mrs. Slaney sat upon my sofa, and
Mrs. Slaney smoked a cigarette, and once again Mrs. Slaney poured into
my dulled ears the story of Ireland’s martyrdom.
“It’s going to be a cold night,” she said, in the middle of a fiery
sentence.
“Cold?” My voice was like the night. “I must take my bulbs in from
the window; I don’t want them frost nipped now.” I rose and went to
the window and opened it with difficulty, for the sash had never been
mended.
“I really mustn’t stay long,” said Mrs. Slaney, staying where she was.
“I have letters to write. Are those tulips? They have come on.”
“Yes.” I carefully placed the last pot on the floor, shut the window
carefully, and crawled up from my lowly position on the floor. There
was silence for a moment after that. Mrs. Slaney smoked thoughtfully,
and I returned to my seat.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a shrill whistle. It made us start.
“I wonder if Mr. Fitzgerald is in?” said Mrs. Slaney suddenly.
“I don’t know,” I said, staring from the lighted room into the dark
outside.
“You hear him come and go, I suppose?”
“I seldom hear people come and go. I don’t listen. After all, it
doesn’t interest me.”
“I always feel so uneasy when he’s in the house. Poor hunted man!
You’ve not seen him, I suppose?”
I shook my head. “Never.”
“Awful for Mrs. Fitzgerald! Those brutes might shoot him at any moment.
But I suppose she’s used to it.”
“Perhaps he gets a certain amount of fun out of the life. No man can
call it dull eluding the Black-and-Tans.”
“Fun! Being hunted to death like the vermin of the fields. Fun!
Battered from pillar to post. The military are getting more and more
audacious. I often wonder where they will stop. Women are frightened
to have a bath now in case they come in, and they raided a convent the
other day. Thank goodness, there was an outcry at that! A convent which
had never admitted a man inside it. And at night. I heard the Mother
Superior said the nuns behaved magnificently, there was no outcry from
them, and when it was all over they went to the Chapel and tendered
thanks to the Blessed Virgin that they had come to no harm.”
“I heard it said that the raid was conducted with great civility.”
“Yes. I believe those special raiders were not a bad lot of men. But
the indignity of it! Would nuns intrigue and be interested in politics?”
“I really couldn’t say. You know best, of course. But there must have
been some reason for the raid.”
“None whatever. It was simply to show their power. The love of
terrifying people. But they didn’t terrify the nuns.”
“A Unionist told me the other day that the Irish question would be
settled only when education was taken completely out of the Church’s
hands and no religion was taught in the schools. I believe he’s right.”
“Every man and woman worth the name in Ireland would die before they
consented to such a thing.”
“It’ll come to pass. What’s really wrong with Ireland is religion.
You can say what you like. The religion is distorted, people aren’t
balanced about it. I’d like to see a wave of agnosticism pass through
the country, and after that people might take up religion at its true
value.”
“Of course we both think so differently. But I tell you that such a
thing can never happen in this country.”
A blaze of light shone suddenly into the room. There were loud sounds
of throbbing engines. We both started to our feet when a knock, which
should have roused all the dead in Ireland, shook the front door.
Mrs. Slaney’s hand flew to her heart.
“What’s that?” I hardly heard her voice above the noise.
She moved towards the door and then back again. Again the house was
shaken with the knocking.
Mrs. Slaney put out the light.
“Don’t do that,” I said sharply. “You’ll draw fire.”
She put it up again, and ran out of the room and halfway up the stairs,
as if she remembered something. Then she turned and came back.
I went out on the landing. By this time Polly had opened the front
door, and figures in uniform poured into the hall. “Open that door,”
the first man ordered, pointing at the Fitzgeralds’ sitting-room.
“Wide.” Polly obeyed, and the stream poured in. Others were coming
up the stairs when a shout, “Got him!” halted them. “It’s all right,
boys!” The people on the stairs went down into the hall again, and
began to go through the pockets of the coats hanging there.
“His bicycle!” exclaimed the officer in charge. “Put her on board, some
one.”
Mrs. Slaney and I leant over the stairs. I wondered if Mrs. Fitzgerald
felt as upset as I did.
The murmur of voices mounted all the time from the flat below. There
was an occasional laugh. Through the half-opened door, which showed us
the sitting-room, we could see the baby laughing and being handed round
by the Auxiliaries. The infant Fergus created a good atmosphere, and
seemed delighted with his new friends, who had wakened him to search
the cot. Finally Mrs. Slaney gathered herself together for the attack.
The Auxiliaries seemed delighted with their capture, and were obviously
ready to be amiable. Mrs. Slaney descended upon them, her wooden heels
tapping as she walked, and the light from the hall lamp glinted on a
tortoiseshell comb that rose from her hair.
“Who is the officer in command of the raid?” she demanded.
A youthful Auxiliary turned towards her, the baby kicking in his arms.
His revolvers rested peacefully round his waist and in holsters on his
legs.
“The officer in charge.” He beamed upon her as a friend.
A tall gaunt man, with a face like a red Indian, appeared in the
doorway.
“Who wants me?”
“Are you the officer in charge of this raid?”
“Yes, madam. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Are you the blackguard who murdered those unfortunate boys at
Drumcondra the other night?”
A cold shiver ran down my spine. Mrs. O’Grady, hovering in the shadows
in the hall, withdrew to the basement. I heard the shuffle of her
sandshoes.
“Will some one take the baby, please?”
Mrs. Fitzgerald, unconscious of the question or of the storm it raised,
came out of the sitting-room.
“He ought to be asleep. Where’s Mrs. O’Grady? She could take him
downstairs.”
I went down and took the baby, while Mrs. Slaney and the chief of
Auxiliaries eyed each other.
“What reason have you for arresting this man in my house?” Mrs. Slaney
demanded. “A perfectly innocent man.”
“Enough, madam.” Like Pharaoh, the man had hardened his heart. “Are you
the owner of this house?”
“I am.”
“Then perhaps you can explain why you let this flat to a rebel.”
“I let the rooms to Mrs. Fitzgerald,” Mrs. Slaney corrected.
“You didn’t know who she was, I suppose? Come, Mrs. Slaney, did you
know who Fitzgerald was or not?”
“I let the rooms to his wife. He only has his meals.”
“You are in a very serious position, Mrs. Slaney. Do you know the
penalty for harbouring rebels?”
I was mounting the stairs with the infant Fergus, to tuck him up on our
sofa, when I ran into the musical man who lived over our heads.
“Do you think they’ll search the house?” he said.
“If Mrs. Slaney annoys them enough they will.”
“I’ve a paper here--they don’t search women,” he suggested.
The infant Fergus whimpered at that moment, and I rolled him up on our
sofa. The man of music had followed me. He held a newspaper cutting in
his hand.
“I got this out of the paper this morning. They mightn’t like it.”
I read it. “There’s nothing in it.”
“You wouldn’t keep it?”
“Oh, I’ll keep it; but burn it if you like and get another paper
to-morrow.” As I spoke I put it in my pocket. He was very young.
Mrs. Slaney bustled into the room, her eyes flickering.
“The unfortunate man! They’ll murder him before he reaches the Castle.
She’s taken it wonderfully; but what else would you expect from an
Irish woman? Did you hear that man talking to me? The brutality of him.
But he couldn’t frighten me. Can you let me have a scarf? It’s such
a cold night, and I promised Mrs. Fitzgerald to let her husband have
mine; but it’s a long way upstairs.”
I got Himself’s own scarf, and followed after her as she bustled
downstairs with it. Preparations for departure were going forward. I
heard Mrs. O’Grady sniffing in the dark under the stairs.
“Ready?” said the man in charge.
I could just hear Mr. Fitzgerald’s answer. Mrs. Fitzgerald tucked his
neck with eager fingers. She followed him to the step.
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
The clutches grated as the lorries turned. The armoured car rolled
after them. In a minute it was all dark again outside.
I went to the basement to find what Mrs. O’Grady was doing. She was in
tears on a chair near the fire.
“I’ll never get over this night, at all, at all. And him with his
lovely hair and his beautiful smile; him that will be dead before
morning. It’s lucky you are. It’s you have your scarf round the neck of
a fine young Irishman, and O’Grady’s is there, too, for I gave it to
him last thing. Sure, but I do be glad he’s finished his dinner, it’s
the last dinner he’ll take maybe. And there’s his tea, not half drunk
in his cup, just as he left it. I hadn’t it in me heart to throw it
away. It’s black trouble has been brought on us all, and it’s blacker
will come.”
She rose from her chair and produced a box of matches from some
mysterious pocket, and lighted the gas stove for me.
“God help him!” she exclaimed. “There’s his tea.”