At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [8]
Eveline MacMurrough slid to the passenger side, shifted her skirt over the low door. One leg, two legs, she steadied on the running-board, then slipped to the ground. The hand that held her gloves patted the coachwork, patted the trim. My Prince Henry. And they had thought to requisition you for an ambulance at the Front. Les brutes anglaises.
There was no one to see to her entrance, only the skivvy from the kitchen whom she had scarcely begun to civilize. This skin of jitters received her gloves, her chiffon, hat; Eveline allowed the dustcoat to be eased from her shoulders. L’idiote. “Not through the hall, child,” she said. “Outside and shake the dust.”
In the stand glass she reviewed her visage. The wind-screen had not been a total success. Then again goggles did leave such hideous lines. Perhaps it must be the veil after all. Though she did so resent the implication of purdah. Toilet water, a good scrub, then hot damp towels.
“Is old Moore about?”
“Would he not be in the garden, mam?”
Peasant insistence on interrogative response. It rather appealed to Eveline. Yes, she rather believed she liked it. “When you find him, tell him the motor-car wants cleaning. Lamps too, I dare say. Cook?”
“Hasn’t she taken the morning to visit her sister in St. Michael’s that’s poorly?”
Defensive really: none of my doing, as though to say. “Are we to starve so?”
“No, mam. She left a cold dinner prepared.”
“Lunch,” said Eveline.
“Lunch, mam.”
There was a quick call through the staff roll. Bootman repairing a leak in the attic, meaning presumably he was high; parlor maids called back to the registry, replacements not turned up. Really she must see to appointing new people, a housekeeper at the very least. So trying with the war on. Rush to the altar to avail of the separation allowances. It was something her nephew might take in hand. “And my nephew?”
“I’m not sure, mam”—flush in her cheeks—“if he hasn’t gone bathing.”
Eveline had completed her inspection at the hall stand. The child waited by the pass door, hands by her sides like a board-school girl. Itching to be below stairs out of harm’s way. Pauvre ingénue. Eveline smiled and ordered hot water and towels to her dressingroom. Even the imbécile might manage that.
While she sponged her cheeks with water of roses, she considered her interview with the new curate at St. Joseph’s, Glasthule. Naturally, it was the canon she had called upon, some invitation to decline, but a young priest had received her, offering regrets at the canon’s indisposition. The canon’s health was neither here nor there to Eva, her confessor being of the Jesuits at Gardiner Street, but the young man made such parade of hospitality, she had quickly perceived her demurs would serve but to encourage his insistence.
She had accepted tea in best blue china. The curate gave his name—unless she misheard, Father Amen O’Toiler, which sounded a sermon in itself. He fingered her card, then, still fidgeting, stood to make his say. “I cannot tell you, Madame MacMurrough, what pleasure it is to greet a scion of your famous name.” Her famous name was given its due, which she heard as a type of Cook’s tour of Irish history. Bridges taken, fords crossed, the sieges broken, battles lost, long valiant retreats—and not a one but a MacMurrough had been to the fore.
It was a familiar account and she had waited politely, seated at the edge of an aged Biedermeier whose stuffing was gone. Absently she wondered which charity the curate had in mind and what donation might eventually