Redemption. - Redemption. Part 83
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Redemption. Part 83

81.

Clonlicky Crossroad, Near Baltimore-June 1916 Ireland, as an island, has ninety-four corners to it where you can go no farther without getting wet. Clonlicky Crossroad was one of them. It serviced farms nearby and had a milk collection station, a provisions store, a pub on the left side of the road, and a church on the right.

It was never known as a dangerous place insofar as republican activity went. However, to it fell the dubious distinction of being made an example, in the post-Rising order of things.

Quinn's Pub, a meager hard-assed Guinness bar, was owned by the Widow Quinn and boasted the normal bent of a lot of republican talk but very little action.

Like every woebegone public house, republican oratory and song was part of the menu for Saturday night and after Sunday Mass. Well, some fecking informer, the bane of Irish life, had reported to the Royal Irish Constabulary that the Widow Quinn was hiding a Brotherhood lad in her cellar. He'd been on the run since the Rising. The Constabulary turned the informer over to the local Army barracks.

No less than General Llewelyn Brodhead drove all the way from Dublin to observe the new order of things. A full-scale attack was made on Quinn's Pub, loaded with drinkers of a Saturday night. The Brits came in as though they were attacking Gibraltar.

The Brotherhood lad was nabbed in the cellar, taken to the barracks and, after a ten-minute court-martial, put against the wall and shot by a firing squad.

The next day as the parishioners were leaving church after Mass, the British leveled every building at Clonlicky Crossroad, save the church.

The tumbling was done by a pair of tractors driving parallel about thirty feet apart dragging a chain and steel beam. One went on the right side of the building, the other went on the left side, and the chain and beam went through the middle, chopping it to the ground, furniture and all.

General Brodhead noted that it was more efficient than eight horse teams dragging logs as they had had to do during the famine.

As though the executions in Dublin had not caused enough of an early chill, the news of the tumbling of Clonlicky Crossroad spread like the plague of the Dark Ages. Impact of the tumbling threw the Irish people right back into the potato famine of the last century.

General Brodhead had delivered a potent message that no further nonsense from the Irish would be brooked.

Dublin Castle, One Week Later-The Officers' Ball "My goodness, Erma, who is that gorgeous young officer behind Sir Llewelyn in the receiving line."

"New staff man."

"My daughter will be livid she didn't come tonight."

"He's a frontiersman from the colonies. V.C. winner."

"I hear he wears a glove over his right hand all the time. Isn't that romantic?"

Rory sensed Caroline Hubble was close, and she was.

"Hello, handsome," she said to him. "It looks like you're the belle-or the beau-of the ball."

"I can't dance these things," Rory said.

"Oh, that won't matter. There's a lovely balcony for chatting, outside." Caroline fluttered her eyes in mock awe.

"While I've got you," she said, "I've put you down for dances numbers, let's see, ten and fifteen on my card," she said.

Caroline moved on down the receiving line to where Sir Llewelyn stood ramrod and bemedaled, and Lady Beatrice stood wide. Caroline and Beatrice bussed cheeks.

"Ah, Caroline, good to see you about," Brodhead said. "Do save me a dance before your card is filled."

"Oh dear, Llewelyn," Caroline said dismayed, "let me look. Look what I went and did. I'm afraid you're out of luck."

"Has a general no rights here?" he mumbled.

"I'll surrender one of my dances with Countess Hubble to you, General," Rory said.

"Good lad! I told you this was a resourceful young man!" Brodhead beamed.

"Number ten is yours, sir," Rory said.

"The gavotte, cropper!"

"Beatrice, I'll catch up with you in a moment. I've yards and yards of news," Caroline said.

The ballroom, used on the odd occasion as a Throne Room, had a jaunty air tonight. A note of victory prevailed. Marble, gilt, great Waterford chandeliers, and no lack of upholstered silk tapestry could almost make one feel one was not even in Ireland. Dublin, no matter how polished, was still provincial. It had been taken as far as it could go tonight, for a colony.

Caroline and Beatrice had their heads glued together like a pair of Siamese twins during the intermission. The General's wife's conversation, alas, matched her looks. As the music started up, Sir Llewelyn offered his wife his arm.

"Do this one with Caroline, dear," she said. "I've trampled on the feet of every junior officer in the room and I'm pooped."

"Caroline?" the General asked.

"You're too kind, Beatrice," Caroline demurred.

'Round and 'round in the oblong hall they waltzed until the ends of the room grew smaller as dancers retired and circled the dozen remaining couples, not in the center.

"You've been on my mind constantly," he managed.

"Myself as well. I can't tell you how lovely it feels to have a strong arm holding me. Let us lilt and fly and show these young puppies a thing or two."

"I want to see you badly"-as they whirled.

"And I, you," she said. "I'm holding a conference with some of my subcontractors from the south up in Belfast shortly. We'll have lunch in my private dining room."

"Yes," he confirmed, and held her a tad closer to feel that bosom press against him.

"Llewelyn," she said breathlessly, playing her fingers deftly over his neck.

Lady Caroline and the General modestly accepted the applause as the music stopped and they returned to Lady Beatrice.

"Lovely, lovely," Beatrice said. "I used to dance that way once," she said in her singsong voice.

Like hell you did, Brodhead thought.

A glowering light colonel demonstrated all teeth as he bowed to Caroline.

"Martin!" Caroline cried with joy. "I've been waiting for you. Best dancer in the Fusiliers."

Martin hacked out a silly nasal laugh as he arched his body back.

Caroline looked at her dance card at the same instant Lieutenant Landers bowed before her.

"Why don't we take our dance out on the balcony," she suggested.

An unusually decent night greeted them. Over the way stood the Protestant cathedral, smaller than the real ones in France and England. Everything in Dublin was half-sized, except for the Guinness Brewery.

"Give us a hug," Caroline said. "I know how difficult it is for you to write notes, but thank you for the telephone calls. It can be maddening trying to get through from the west."

"Ah, it's not much better in New Zealand."

"How was your journey, Rory?"

"The west of Ireland is magnificent."

"We try to keep anything of worth in Ireland a secret so we Anglos can have it for ourselves."

"It was a good place to go, for many reasons. I found I hadn't spent all my tears over Gallipoli. I miss my pals fiercely. Jeremy, beyond fiercely. I suppose given time I'll be able to control things enough to carry on with my life."

"I see you're wearing captain's pips. Does that mean you're staying in Ireland?"

"The General has agreed I can leave when I feel I must. He's trying to lure me, inch by inch."

"Which one of the lovely ladies has captured your heart, Lieutenant Landers?" Caroline asked.

"You," Rory said.

"Good, then you see us home," she said.

"Caroline, you've been too magnanimous about the townhouse. I was planning to bunk in at the barracks."

"Indeed you will not!"

"I appreciate everything, but I don't want to be a nuisance."

"I promise you I won't attack you in the middle of the night."

"Well, I mean, suppose you're having company or a dinner or something?"

"Rory. Will you treat it exactly as Jeremy and Christopher did?"

"You really mean that, don't you?"

"I do. Gorman will be over for the weekend. The three of us will do up Dublin, if you're off-duty."

"Grand. Caroline, tell me it's none of my business, but are you the least bit interested in Llewelyn Brodhead?"

"Yes, I am," she said, "interested and serious. Dead serious."

82.

Caroline Hubble never came down from her bedroom without looking the best she could look on that given day. She was attired in a pale blue dressing gown and wore her hair long. She poked through a stack of legal and business work in the solarium of the Merrion Square townhouse as Rory made a late morning appearance.

"Good morning, Prince Charming," she greeted him.

"I didn't realize that dancing was so much exercise."

Caroline rang for the butler. She smiled as Rory laid on a sheepman's breakfast for himself. "...And a rasher of bacon, Adam." Turning to Rory, she said, "It's unnatural to simply sit down, ring a bell, give an order, and there it is."

Rory sensed a very subtle shift in Caroline's demeanor, a bit of firmness, a new aspect to her otherwise constant sweet nature. She poured herself a cup of tea, chewed into her toast, and adjusted her glasses.

"I say if it looks like a kiwi, runs like a kiwi, quacks like a kiwi, and lays eggs, then it's a kiwi."

"I'm a kiwi all right. Question is, have I laid an egg?"

She found the paper she wanted. "Canterbury District, the South Island between Oxford and Kowai Bush. The Landers farm was purchased by Liam Larkin, proprietor of Ballyutogue Station in 1907."

Be cool, lad, he told himself. Across the table sat someone who could be as dangerous as a hangman.

"Am I under arrest?" he said at last.

"If you want to know how I got this, Jeremy wrote to me. I've known from the minute you walked into Rathweed Hall."

"That's not true, Caroline. Jeremy would not break a trust."

"You believe that?"

"I know it," Rory said. "You might not like the next line, Caroline. Jeremy intended to become a republican."

It confirmed her suspicions. Jeremy was born with that soft Irish nature and Conor Larkin was his god. His disaster with Molly, his hatred for his father, his inability to set in comfortably with his own caste all pointed to it. Still, on hearing it, it rocked her, even though she had suspected as much.

"What's your story, Mr. Larkin?"

"I was underage, pissed at my father, and passionate to get to Ireland from the instant I learned of Conor's death. A funny thing happened along the way called...Gallipoli. You sort out your troubles in a hurry in a place like that. I almost made the terrible mistake of not writing to my father to forgive him. Thank God, I didn't die and leave him with that hanging around his neck. Maybe Ireland was none of my business then. It is now."

"Conor played my father for a fool and that's what you did to me," she continued.

"All depends on how you look at it, about who is playing who for what. That's a mighty fine organization you run. A hell of a lot better than British intelligence. How are you playing this now, Caroline?"

"That all depends on whether you give me straight answers or not."