The other servants--there were four of them--spoke of her as “the
ould cat” or in moments of extreme exasperation “that divil Biddy
O’Halloran.” When they spoke to her they called her “Mrs. O’Halloran,”
or even “Mrs. O’Halloran, ma’am.” Even Lady Devereux, though nominal
mistress of the house, did not dare to call her “Biddy,” She would as
soon have addressed an archbishop as “Dickie,” if, indeed, there is an
arch-bishop whose Christian name is Richard. There is probably not
a woman anywhere, however brave, who would venture to speak to Mrs.
O’Halloran face to face and call her “Biddy.” But a man, especially if
he be young and good-looking, is in a different case. Harry Devereux
called her “Biddy.” He had earned the right to be familiar with his
aunt’s cook.
As a schoolboy Harry spent most of his holidays at his aunt’s house
in Dublin, and in those days Mrs. O’Halloran used to box his ears and
occasionally spank him. When he grew to be a man and was called in due
course to the Irish Bar, he was often at his aunt’s house and still
visited Mrs. O’Halloran in her kitchen. She gave up smacking him but
she still called him “Master Harry,” After the outbreak of war Harry
Devereux became a Second Lieutenant in the Wessex Regiment. He displayed
himself in his uniform to his aunt, who admired his appearance in her
placid way. He also showed himself to Mrs. O’Halloran, who snubbed him
sharply.
“So it’s fighting you’re for now, Master Harry,” she said. “Well, it’s
what’ll suit you. It’s my opinion that you’re never out of mischief only
when you’re in something worse. It is that way with you as long as
I know you and that’s since you were born or pretty near. It’s the
Germans, is it? Well, I’m sorry for them Germans if there’s many like
you going to be soldiers.”
Harry took this as a compliment. It was his hope that the Germans would
be sorry for themselves when he got out to France with his platoon of
Wessex men.
After dinner, Molly, the parlourmaid, her day’s work ended, became
sentimental. She said it was a terrible thing to think of all the fine
men that would be killed, and maybe young Mr. Devereux among them. Mrs.
O’Halloran checked her flow of feeling.
“Is it Master Harry be killed? Talk sense, can’t you? Sure you couldn’t
kill the like of that one. Haven’t I seen him, not once but a dozen
times, climbing out on the roof of the house and playing himself to and
fro among the chimneys. If that wasn’t the death of him, and him not
more than twelve years old at the time, is it likely the Germans would
be able to kill him? The like of him is the same as fleas that you’d
be squeezing with your finger and thumb or maybe drowning in a basin
of water. You know well they’d be hopping over you after the same as
before.”
Molly sniffed. It was not wise to argue with “Ould Biddy,” who had a
talent for forcible speech.
Mrs. O’Halloran had the best right in the world to the free use of
her tongue. She was a really good cook. She had satisfied Sir Joseph
Devereux while he lived. She satisfied Lady Devereux afterwards. And
Lady Devereux appreciated good cooking. Her husband dead, her three
daughters safely married, she had leisure to enjoy eating and had money
enough to pay for the best which the Dublin markets provided. Next to
good food Lady Devereux valued peace and the absence of worry. Mrs.
O’Halloran enjoyed strife and liked a strenuous life. She took all the
annoyances of the household on herself, and when they proved too few for
her, created unnecessary worry for herself by harassing the maids. Lady
Devereux slept untroubled at night, rose late in the morning, found all
things very much to her liking, and grew comfortably fat.
For eight months of the year, from October till the end of May, Lady
Devereux lived in one of the fine Georgian houses which are the glory of
the residential squares of Dublin. It was a corner house, rather larger
than the others in the square, with more light and more air, because its
position gave it a view up and down two streets as well as across the
lawn which formed the centre of the square.
Before the war Harry Devereux used to say that his aunt’s house was
the best in Dublin for a dance. It pained him to see its possibilities
wasted. After receiving his commission he looked at the world with the
eye of a soldier and gave it as his opinion that the house occupied
the finest strategic position in Dublin. There was not much chance of
persuading plump old Lady Devereux to give a ball. There seemed even
less chance of her home ever being used as a fortress. But fate plays
strange tricks with us and our property, especially in Ireland. It
happened that Lady Devereux’ house was occupied more or less by the
soldiers of one army, and shot at with some vigour by the soldiers of
another on Easter Monday, 1916. Oddly enough it was neither the rebels
nor the soldiers who earned credit by their military operations, but old
Biddy O’Halloran.
Mrs. O’Halloran always enjoyed Bank holidays greatly. She did not go
out, visit picture houses or parade the streets in her best clothes. She
found a deeper and more satisfying pleasure in telling the younger maids
what she thought of them when they asked and obtained leave to go out
for the afternoon, and in making scathing remarks about their frocks and
hats as they passed through the kitchen to reach the area door. On
that particular Easter Monday she was enjoying herself thoroughly. A
kitchenmaid--she was new to the household or she would not have done
it--had asked Lady Devereux’ permission to go out for the afternoon and
evening. She got what she asked for. Everybody who asked Lady Devereux
for anything got it as a matter of course. The kitchenmaid ought to
have made her application through Mrs. O’Halloran. It is the rule in
all services that remote authorities must be approached only through
the applicant’s immediate superiors. Mrs. O’Halloran took her own way of
impressing this on the kitchenmaid.
“I suppose now,” she said, “that you’ll be trapsing the streets of
Dublin in the new pink blouse that you spent your last month’s wages
on?”
That was exactly what the kitchenmaid meant to do. Mrs. O’Halloran
looked the girl over critically.
“I don’t know,” she said, “that I ever seen a girl that would look worse
in a pink blouse than yourself. The face that’s on you is the colour
of a dish of mashed turnips, and the pink blouse will make it worse, if
worse can be.”
The kitchenmaid was a girl of some spirit. She felt inclined to cry, but
she pulled herself together and snorted instead.
“I suppose,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “that you’ll be looking out for a
young man to keep you company?”
The kitchenmaid did, in fact, hope to walk about with a young man; but
she denied this.
“I’ll be looking for no such thing,” she said.
“It’s well for you then,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “for I’m thinking you’d
look a long while before you found one. It’s very little sense men has,
the best of them, but I never met one yet that hadn’t more sense than
to go after a girl like you. If you were any good for any mortal thing a
man might be content to marry you in spite of your face; but the way
you are, not fit to darn your own stockings, let alone sew for a man, or
cook the way he could eat what you put before him, it would be a queer
one that would walk the same side of the street with you, pink blouse or
no pink blouse.”
The kitchenmaid, though a girl of spirit, was still young. She was
washing potatoes in the scullery while Mrs. O’Halloran spoke to her. Two
large tears dropped from her eyes into the sink. Mrs. O’Halloran smiled.
Then Molly, the parlourmaid, flung open the kitchen door and rushed to
Mrs. O’Halloran. Her face was flushed with excitement and terror. Her
eyes were staring. She was panting. Her nice frilly cap was over one
ear. She held her apron crumpled into a ball and clutched tightly in her
hand.
“It’s murdered we’ll be, killed and murdered and worse! There’s them in
the house with guns and all sorts that’ll ruin and destroy everything
that’s in it. The mistress is dead this minute and it’s me they’re after
now. What’ll we do at all, at all?”
The kitchenmaid, stirred from her private grief by the news, left her
potatoes and came to the kitchen. She and Molly clung to each other.
“It’s the Sinn Feiners,” she said, “and they’re out for blood.”
“Where’s the police?” said Molly. “What good is the police that they
wouldn’t be here and us being murdered?”
“It’s blood they want,” said the kitchenmaid, “and it's blood they’ll
have.”
“Molly,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “is there men in the house or is there
not? Stop your bawling now, and tell me.”
“There is, there is,” said Molly, “with guns and cannons and knives.
Glory be to God, but I never thought to die this way. What’ll we do at
all, at all? Would it be any good hiding?”
Mrs. O’Halloran, with cool deliberation, shifted the position of two
pots on the kitchen range. Then she wiped her hands on her apron.
“It’s your place to attend the door and not mine, Molly,” she said, “but
if you’re afeard....”
She looked scornfully at the two girls and left the kitchen.
In the hall a young man stood just inside the door on the mat. He wore
a greenish-grey uniform and carried a rifle. Across his chest was
a bandolier. He looked uncomfortable, like a man who finds himself
unexpectedly in a public place when wearing a fancy dress. The door was
wide open. On the steps outside were two other young men. They also wore
uniforms and carried rifles.
“Now what may you be wanting?” said Mrs. O’Halloran.
The man on the mat--he was really little more than a boy--fumbled in one
pocket after another.
His uniform, like that of the British soldier, had a good many pockets.
Finally he drew out a sheet of paper.
“This is my authority,” he said, “from the Provisional Government of the
Irish Republic.”
He handed the paper to Mrs. O’Halloran.
“If it’s a collection you’re making for the Irish Language Fund,” said
Mrs. O’Halloran, “her ladyship gave half a crown last week to one of
yees, and she’ll give no more, so you can take yourselves off out of
this as quick as you like.”
“We are not collectors,” said the young man, with dignity.
“Whether you are not, it’s what you look,” said Mrs. O’Halloran,
“dressed up in them clothes, with your toy guns and all. You ought to be
ashamed of yourselves.”
The suggestion that his rifle was not a real weapon roused the spirit of
the young man.
“In the name of the Irish Republic,” he said, “I take possession of this
house for military purposes.”
“Musha, but that’s fine talk,” said Mrs. O’Halloran. “Will nothing do
you, only military purposes?”
“We shall do no harm to the inmates or the contents of the house,” said
the young man.
“You will not, for you won’t be let.”
“But I demand free entrance to the upper storeys for myself and my men.”
He turned to the two boys on the steps outside the door.
“Enter,” he said, “and follow me.”
“Will you wipe your boots on the mat,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “and not
be carrying all the mud of the streets into the house with you. Do you
think the girls that does be here has nothing to do only to be sweeping
carpets and polishing floors after the likes of you?”
The army of the Irish Republic has had many crimes laid to its charge;
but it has not been said that its soldiers were guilty of any needless
discourtesy to the inhabitants of the houses of which they took
possession. The three young men wiped their boots on Lady Devereux’
doormat with elaborate cafe. Mrs. O’Halloran watched them critically.
“Is it the police you’re out after with them guns?” she said. “It’s a
pity, so it is, to see fine young fellows like you mixing yourselves
up with that foolishness. Sure they’ll get you at the latter end, and
you’ll be had up in Court.”
The leader of the little party of Sinn Feiners was not inclined to
discuss the future prospects of the insurrection with Mrs. O’Halloran.
He moved across the hall towards the staircase, followed by his two
young men. They walked delicately, stepping carefully from one to
another of the rugs which lay on the floor and avoiding the polished
boards. They were courteous and considerate rebels.
“Will nothing but the front stairs suit you?” said Mrs. O’Halloran.
“Cock you up, indeed, the likes of you, that never was in a lady’s house
before. The back stairs is good enough for me, so I’m thinking it’s good
enough for you. Come along with you now.”
She led them past the foot of the great staircase and through a swing
door covered with green baize. That door, such was the fancy of the
designer of Lady Devereux’ house, concealed another, a very solid door,
made after the Georgian fashion, of thick mahogany. The baize-covered
door had a spring on it so that it swung shut of itself. Mrs. O’Halloran
held it open with one hand. With the other she turned the handle of the
solid door beyond.
“Will you come along now,” she said to the three young men, “and take
care you don’t be scratching the polish off the door with them guns
you’re so proud of?”
They were foolish rebels, those three. They were young and, though
Irish, this was the first time they had taken part in an insurrection.
They had marched forth to garrison Lady Devereux’ house expecting much,
hand-to-hand fighting perhaps in the hall, the tears and hysterics of
terrified women, revolver shots from outraged loyalists. Anything of
that sort, anything heroic they were prepared for. Old Biddy O’Halloran,
with her humorous eyes and her ready tongue, took them aback. They
walked through the mahogany door meekly enough.
They found themselves in a small cloak room. There was a wash-hand basin
and a couple of towels in one corner. A pile of carriage rugs lay on a
shelf. Some waterproof coats hung from pegs. There were three umbrellas
in a stand. There was one small window which looked out on a back yard
and was heavily barred. There was not the smallest sign of a staircase
leading to the upper storey of the house or to anywhere else.
A nervous and excitable woman who had trapped three young men would have
made haste to lock them in. Mrs. O’Halloran was in no hurry at all. The
key of the mahogany door was on the inside of the lock. She took it out
deliberately.
“There you stay,” she said, “the three of yous, till you’ve sense enough
to go back to your homes, and it’s your mothers will be thankful to me
this day for keeping you out of mischief. Listen to me now before I lock
the door.”
She fitted the key into the outside of the lock and half closed the door
while she spoke.
“If I hear a word out of your heads or if there’s any shooting of them
guns, or if you start cracking and banging on that door, or kicking
up any sort of a noise that might disturb her ladyship, I’ll give you
neither bite nor sup, not if I have to keep you here for a week, so be
good now and mind what I’m telling you.”
She shut the door and turned the key in the lock.
At the head of the kitchen stairs stood Molly and the kitchenmaid.
“Will I run for the police?” said the kitchenmaid. “Sure I wouldn’t be
afeard to do it if Molly would come with me.”
“You’ll run down to the scullery,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “and you’ll
go on washing them potatoes, and Molly along with you. That’s all the
running either the one or the other of you will do this day.”
“Her ladyship’s bell is ringing,” said Molly. “Will I not go to her? It
could be she’s not dead yet and might be wanting help.”
“It’s little help you’d give her if she was wanting it, you with your
cap on your ear, instead of the top of your head, and your apron like a
wrung dishclout I wonder you’re not ashamed to be seen. Get along with
you down to the kitchen and stay there. Anything that’s wanted for her
ladyship I’ll do myself.”
Lady Devereux was in her morning room, a pleasant sunny apartment which
looked out on the square. The day was warm, but Lady Devereux was an old
woman. She sat in front of a bright fire. She sat in a very deep
soft chair with her feet on a footstool. She had a pile of papers and
magazines on a little table beside her. She neither stirred nor looked
up when Mrs. O’Halloran entered the room.
“Molly,” she said, “I heard some men talking in the hall. I wish they
wouldn’t make so much noise.”
Mrs. O’Halloran cleared her throat and coughed. Lady Devereux looked up.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s not Molly. It’s you, Mrs. O’Halloran. Then I
suppose it must be plumbers.”
The inference was a natural one. Mrs. O’Halloran always dealt with
plumbers when they came. She was the only person in the house who could
deal with plumbers.
“Or perhaps some men about the gas,” said Lady Devereux. “I hope they
won’t want to come in here.”
The pleasant quiet life in Lady Devereux’ house was occasionally
broken by visits from plumbers and gas men. No one, however wealthy or
easygoing, can altogether escape the evils which have grown up with our
civilization.
“It’s not plumbers, my lady,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “nor it isn’t gas
men. It’s Sinn Feiners.”
“Dear me, I suppose they want a subscription. My purse is on my writing
table, Mrs. O’Halloran. Will five shillings be enough? I think I ought
to give them something. I’m always so sorry for people who have to go
round from house to house collecting.”
“I have the three of them in the cloakroom downstairs and the key turned
on them,” said Mrs. O’Halloran.
It is quite possible that Lady Devereux might have expressed some
surprise at this drastic way of treating men, presumably well-meaning
men, who came to ask for money. Before she spoke again she was startled
by the sound of several rifle shots fired in the street outside her
house. She was not much startled, not at all alarmed. A rifle fired in
the open air at some distance does not make a very terrifying sound.
“Dear me,” she said, “I wonder what that is. It sounds very like
somebody shooting.”
Mrs. O’Halloran went over to the window and opened it. There was a
narrow iron balcony outside. She stepped on to it.
“It’s soldiers, my lady,” she said. “They’re in the square.”
“I suppose it must be on account of the war,” said Lady Devereux.
She had learned--before Easter, 1916, everybody had learned--to put down
all irregularities to the war. Letters got lost in the post. The price
of sugar rose. Men married unexpectedly, “on account of the war.”
“But I don’t think they ought to be allowed to shoot in the square,” she
added. “It might be dangerous.”
It was dangerous. A bullet--it must have passed very close to Mrs.
O’Halloran--buried itself in the wall of the morning room. A moment
later another pierced a mirror which hung over Lady Devereux’ writing
table. Mrs. O’Halloran came into the room again and shut the window.
“You’d think now,” she said “that them fellows were shooting at the
house.”
“I wish you’d go down and tell them to stop,” said Lady Devereux. “Of
course I know we ought to do all we can to help the soldiers, such
gallant fellows, suffering so much in this terrible war. Still I do
think they ought to be more careful where they shoot.”
Mrs. O’Halloran went quietly down the two flights of stairs which led
from the morning-room to the ground floor of the house. She had no idea
of allowing herself to be hustled into any undignified haste either by
rebels or troops engaged in suppressing the rebellion. When she reached
the bottom of the stairs she stopped. Her attention was held by two
different noises. The Sinn Feiners were battering the door of their
prison with the butts of their rifles. Molly, the kitchenmaid and Lady
Devereux’ two other servants were shrieking on the kitchen stairs. Mrs.
O’Halloran dealt with the rebels first. She opened the baize-covered
door and put her mouth to the keyhole of the other.
“Will yous keep quiet or will yous not?” she said. “There’s soldiers
outside the house this minute waiting for the chance to shoot you, and
they’ll do it, too, if you don’t sit down and behave yourselves. Maybe
it’s that you want. If it is you’re going the right way about getting
it. But if you’ve any notion of going home to your mothers with your
skins whole you’ll stay peaceable where you are. Can you not hear the
guns?”
The three rebels stopped battering the door and listened. The rifle fire
began to slacken. No more than an occasional shot was to be heard. The
fighting had died down. It was too late for the prisoners to take any
active part in it. They began to consider the future. They made up their
minds to take the advice given them and stay quiet.
Mrs. O’Halloran went to the head of the kitchen stairs. The four maids
were huddled together. Mrs. O’Halloran descended on them. She took
Molly, who was nearest to her, by the shoulders and shook her violently.
The housemaid and Lady Devereux’ maid fled at once to the coal cellar.
The kitchenmaid sat down and sobbed.
“If there’s another sound out of any of yous,” said Mrs. O’Halloran,
“it’ll be the worse for you after. Isn’t it enough for one day to
have three young fellows in the house trying to get shot, and soldiers
outside trying to shoot them, and every sort of divilment in the way of
a row going on, without having a pack of girls bellowing and bawling
on the kitchen stairs? It’s mighty fond you are, the whole of you,
of dressing yourselves up, in pink blouses and the like” (she looked
angrily at the kitchenmaid) “and running round the streets to see if
you can find a man to take up with you. And now when there’s men enough
outside and in, nothing will do but to be screeching. But sure girls is
like that, and where’s the use of talking?”
Mrs. O’Halloran might have said more. She felt inclined to say a good
deal more but she was interrupted by a loud knocking at the hall door.
“I dursent go to it.” said Molly. “I dursent. You wouldn’t know who might
be there nor what they might do to you.”
“Nobody’s asking you to go,” said Mrs. O’Halloran.
She went to the door herself and opened it. A sergeant and eight men
were on the steps.
“And what may you be wanting?” said Mrs. O’Halloran. “What right have
you to come battering and banging at the door of her ladyship’s house
the same as if it was a public-house and you trying to get in after
closing time? Be off out of this, now, the whole of you. I never seen
such foolishness.”
“My orders are to search the house,” said the sergeant; “rebels have
been firing on us from the roof.”
“There’s no rebels been firing out of this house,” said Mrs. O’Halloran,
“and what’s more----”
“My orders,” said the sergeant.
“There’s no orders given in this house,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “only
mine and maybe her ladyship’s at odd times.”
She need scarcely have mentioned Lady Devereux. An order from her was a
very exceptional thing.
“Our officer----” said the sergeant “Private Beggs, go and report to the
officer that we are refused admission to this house.”
Private Beggs turned to obey the order. The officer in charge of the
party came out of the door of a house half-way along the side of the
square. Mrs. O’Halloran recognised him. It was Second Lieutenant Harry
Devereux.
“Master Harry,” she called, “Master Harry, come here at once. Is it you
that’s been raising ructions about the square? Shooting and destroying
and frightening decent people into fits? Faith, I might have known it
was you. If there’s divilment going you’d be in it.”
Harry Devereux, intensely conscious of his responsibility as commander
of men in a real fight, reached the bottom of the steps which led to his
aunt’s door.
“Enter the house, sergeant,” he said, “and search it.”
Mrs. O’Halloran stood right in the middle of the doorway. The sergeant
looked at her doubtfully and hesitated.
“Come up out of that, Master Harry,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “and don’t
be trying to hide behind the sergeant. It’s no wonder you’re ashamed of
yourself, but I see you plain enough. Come here now till I talk to you.”
The sergeant grinned. Private Beggs, who was behind his officer, laughed
openly.
“Was there nowhere else in the world for you to have a battle--if a
battle was what you wanted,” said Mrs. O’Halloran, “only in front of
your aunt’s house? Many and many’s the time I’ve smacked you for less
than what you’ve done to-day. Isn’t there bullets in her ladyship’s
morning-room? Isn’t there a grand looking-glass in a gold frame gone to
smithers with your shooting? Isn’t Molly and the other girls screeching
this minute down in the coal cellar, for fear you’ll kill them, and now
nothing will do you seemingly only to be tramping all over the house.
Search it, moya, search it! But you’ll not be let, Master Harry; neither
you nor the sergeant nor any of the rest of you.”
Second Lieutenant Harry Devereux pulled himself together and made an
effort to save what was left of his dignity. He had led his men across
the square under a shower of rebel bullets from the roofs of the houses.
He had taken cool advantage of all possible cover. He had directed his
men’s fire till he drove the rebels from their shelters. No one could
say of him that he was other than a gallant officer. But his heart
failed him when he was face to face with his aunt’s cook.
“I think we needn’t search this house, sergeant,” he said. “I know it.”
“If you’d like to come back in an hour or two, Master Harry,” said Mrs.
O’Halloran, “I’ll have a bit of dinner ready for you, and I wouldn’t say
but there might be something for the sergeant and his men. It’s what her
ladyship is always saying that we ought to do the best we can for the
lads that’s fighting for us against the Germans--so long as they behave
themselves. But mind this now, sergeant, if you do look in in the course
of the evening there must be no carrying on with the girls. The Lord
knows they’re giddy enough without you upsetting them worse.”
That night, after dark, three young Sinn Feiners climbed the wall at the
end of Lady Devereux’ back yard and dropped into a narrow lane beyond
it. A fortnight later Mrs. O’Halloran received a large parcel containing
three suits of clothes, the property of Second Lieutenant Devereux, left
by him in his aunt’s house when he first put on his uniform. They were
carefully brushed and folded, in no way the worse for having been worn
by strangers for one night.
In the bottom of Mrs. O’Halloran’s trunk there are three rebel uniforms.
And on the top of the cupboard in her room are three rifles, made in
Germany.