Ashton Park (5 page)

“What is it, Father?” she asked him. “Something to do with Parliament?”

He put his glasses on the table strewn with sheets of paper and stood up. “I must speak with your mother first. Pray wait here.”

He found Lady Elizabeth in her room. She was in her dressing gown and preparing for bed, brushing out her long auburn hair that, of all the children, only Victoria shared. She smiled as he knocked and entered.

“Hello, dear. Come to kiss me goodnight and tuck me in?”

But her husband did not smile back at her. “I’ve received a note from Westminster.”

Lady Elizabeth put down her brush with a sharp look of annoyance. “Oh, no. They don’t mean to bring you back early? They can’t. Emma’s wedding is Friday.”

“There’s some sort of trouble in Dublin. Irish revolutionaries have taken over key buildings in the city and mean to put up a fight. They’ve declared Ireland an independent nation. A republic.”

Lady Elizabeth stood up. “What about Robbie? He’s in Dublin.”

“It just started yesterday. Easter Sunday. There haven’t been any major engagements. I’m positive he’s fine.”

“William. I’m frightened.”

“Come. Come here.”

When she approached, he put his arms around her. “My dear, don’t be anxious. This is what the Irish do. It shall be all over in another day or two. It’s posturing on their part, nothing more. I can’t imagine there will be any actual battle. They’re simply trying to draw attention to their cause in the most dramatic of ways.”

She closed her eyes. “I hope you’re right. Not everyone thinks as rationally as you. It’s bad enough having Kipp caught up in that awful air fighting but at least he can take care of himself, he always has. And Edward’s at dock in Scotland and I can only pray the Grand Fleet remains at dock for the rest of the war. But Robbie—he’s such an innocent…I thought Ireland would be so safe…and now this…”

Tears moved quickly down her cheeks.

Her husband patted her back. “Shh. Dublin is not the Western Front, why, it’s part of Britain. There will be no war there. Those clashes are behind us and in the past.”

“Must you return to Westminster?”

“No. The party hasn’t asked me to do that. We’re not in power, after all. Let us put this out of our thoughts and simply look forward to Emma’s wedding. We won’t breathe a word. There’s no point in disturbing the household, when it will all blow over in a matter of days or hours. Though Victoria was present when I read the cable so she may pester me about its contents.”

“The newspapers will write it up, William.”

“When they do we shall discuss it with the family at that point. Until then, we put it aside and carry on with our plans as if nothing’s happened.”

Lady Elizabeth grasped the fabric of his coat tightly in her fingers. “How can a mother do that when her youngest son is in harm’s way?”

“It’s no easier for a father, but we must be brave when our children have taken on adult lives of their own. He shall be safe.”

“Oh, surely not there, Elizabeth. Why, you’ll smother the altar.”

Lady Elizabeth blew an exasperated breath out of her nose and mouth. “Well, then, what do you suggest, Holly?”

“At its base. The very thing. It will look wonderful there.”

Two footmen, Heatherington and Wallace, lifted a great heap of gold and green bunting down from the altar as Lady Elizabeth waved her hand. They placed it on the floor stones at the front of the altar. One of the maids, Lillian, knelt and began to fuss with it, molding it into a more pleasing shape. All around the chapel, people were putting up tall candles, or green and gold clusters of ribbons and sheets of fabric. Emma stood back with her sisters Catherine and Victoria, her fingers to her lips.

“I don’t know if it’s all coming together,” she wondered out loud. “Mother is fretting so much.”

Catherine shrugged. “Oh, it looks well enough. And it’s only Tuesday. You have all week to fix it.”

Victoria put an arm around Emma. “I absolutely love green and gold, Em. Like sunlight on the grass. It’s perfect.”

“Really?”

“Our gowns are going to be in green with gold sashes and scarves, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“It will have the most astonishing effect. All this riot of sun on green and you standing in the middle of it in pure white. Wonderful.”

Catherine shrugged again. “Oh, well, any colors will do. I’m sure these are fine.”

Victoria made a face. “Try to be a little more animated, Cath. Maundy Thursday is over and done with for this year. He’s alive, remember? He’s alive, we’re alive, even you’re alive.”

“I’m tired from the weekend and all the back and forth to church and chapel.”

Victoria hesitated. “Why, I always thought that was the very thing you liked. The worship. The kneeling. The prayers.”

Catherine gazed ahead at Lillian, who was still working on the large heap of green and gold bunting, Aunt Holly at her side and offering her help. “I rather prefer staying in one place and in one room with one single candle burning.”

Emma and Victoria stared at her.

“You sound like a nun,” Emma said.

Catherine pondered this for a moment and then said, “I don’t think I’d much like being a nun.”

“No, and I very much doubt the nuns would have you,” Victoria said. “Now what’s next to do? We want everything just so for your wedding, Em.”

“It all looks lovely,” Emma said. “Really. There’s nothing amiss.”

“And nothing shall go amiss,” Lady Elizabeth said. “My daughters shall all have perfect weddings.”

“And how about your daughters’ marriages?” Catherine mused.

“That, my dears,” Lady Elizabeth said, “shall be entirely up to you and your husbands. A mother can do only so much.”

The British officer lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. The Irishmen were definitely armed and were all working feverishly to fortify Dublin’s large post office. He caught glimpses of them in the windows. Then he raised the binoculars to the roof. Flags flew there. Not the Union Jack. Flags of the Irish Republic, which the rebels had put up on Easter Sunday.

“Now it’s Tuesday,” the officer said out loud.

“Sir?” A corporal behind him stepped forward.

“It will go hard on them, Collingwood. King George will not like the idea of a rebellion in Ireland when he’s already fighting a war with Germany. There won’t be any patience for this. The Crown will strike hard.”

They were standing alone in an alleyway. On the street in front of them, rioters were running from shop to shop, breaking windows and smashing down doors, stealing hats and suits and shoes, carrying away chairs and sofas—whatever they could lay their hands on. Fires had been started and smoke drifted over the buildings near them.

“Anarchy.” The officer made a note on a pad in his hand. “I count well over a hundred rebels in the post office so far. I’m making an estimate. I know I’ve likely counted some of them twice but—”

From behind him, came the Irish voice. “Put away the paper and pencil, limey. And don’t move your hand to your sidearm.”

The Irish voice was right in the officer’s ear. A coldness went through his mind. He dropped the pad and pencil on the pavement. A gun barrel pushed into the back of his neck.

“Take his pistol, Seamus. You, limey, what’s your name?”

“I am…Leftenant Robert Danforth.”

“Well, Leftenant Robert Danforth, you and your corporal are prisoners of the army of the Irish Republic. Walk straight ahead, both of you. Get up with your hands. You’re so interested in what we’re doing at the post office, are you? So we’ll take you along and give you a firsthand look. Don’t try to run or you’ll be shot.”

Tall, like his father and mother, with the dark hair of Aunt Holly and his sister Catherine, Robbie moved out from the alleyway with his corporal beside him pale as sand, and the pair of them marched across the street, two gunmen at their backs, the one pointing his own pistol at him. The rioters paid the group of them no attention whatsoever, far more intent on looting and breaking open more shops. The four men continued past the dead horses of the Lancers that the Irish had shot and killed the day before.

Despite the roar of the mob, Robbie heard the sound of their boots on the street as if it were magnified. The same was true of the pumping of his blood and the noise of his breathing. His mother and father and Ashton Park passed through his thoughts, as well as images of the path on the sea cliff he had loved to slide down when he was a boy. His troops came to mind, stationed several streets back, and the cup of hot coffee and the hot cross bun he had been promised when he returned from his reconnaissance.

A door swung open when they reached the post office and he was prodded inside. Scores of men peered at him, all of them in rough clothing and gripping rifles in their hands. One jerked his chin at Robbie and the corporal.

“Hey. So you’re standing on the soil o’ the Free State o’ Ireland. Take off your caps.”

Robbie did so immediately.

“That’s better.” The man smiled. “Try not to look so tense, Leftenant. I may be wrong but I don’t believe the Irish Republic shoots prisoners of war.” Then he shrugged. “But maybe we do. I suppose it depends on how your king reacts to our declaration of independence.”

Tavy smoothed his hands over his starched white shirt and his stomach and straightened his black suit jacket and tie. When he was ready he knocked on the door. After a moment, Mr. Seabrooke opened it a crack.

“Who is it?” came Mrs. Seabrooke’s voice.

“Tavy, ma’arm.”

“Oh, Mr. Seabrooke, open the door to him, for heaven’s sakes.”

Mr. Seabrooke swung the door as wide as he could and stood to one side as Tavy entered the room. Mrs. Seabrooke was bent over a ledger and jotting down numbers from slips of paper.

“A costly enterprise running this household,” she muttered, her head still down.

“Indeed.”

“Well. What is it?”

“There’s an officer at the front door. A high-ranking army officer to see Sir William. I thought you should know.”

Mrs. Seabrooke sat up and stared at him. “Is there? Why haven’t you taken the officer to the man himself?”

“He’s on the grounds somewhere with the dogs. I’ve sent two men to look for him.”

“Will Lady Elizabeth do?”

“The officer did not wish to speak to Lady Elizabeth without Sir William present. I thought it best not to disturb her and her daughters while they decorate the chapel and work through the wedding details.”