Of Irish Blood (28 page)

“My grandmother was a Presbyterian,” Élisabeth de Meaux says. “She converted to Catholicism, of course. But my father supported the American church out of devotion to her.” Nice of her to explain things to me since everyone else expects me to know exactly what they’re talking about.

She turns to Sylvia. “But wasn’t your name Nancy then?”

“Yes. I changed it to Sylvia to honor my father, Sylvester.”

“And he’s the Presbyterian minister?” I ask.

She nods. I wonder what Natalie Barney thinks of this father worship.

There’s a Frenchwoman with Sylvia who tells me her name is Adrienne Monnier. Plainly dressed in wide skirt, white blouse, and vest. She talks to me about her plan to open a bookshop. She wants to call it La Maison des Amis des Livres and has her eye on a place at 7 rue de l’Odeon.

“But women in France cannot open businesses in their own name,” she says. “I will find a male partner—who feels the same about literature.” Not so easy to escape men.

Sylvia says she wants to start a bookshop too. Only hers will be for English speakers and she’ll import books from America.

“I’m going to call it Shakespeare and Company.”

Not very original, I think. But I say, “Wonderful. That’d be great. I can’t even get a copy of the latest Edith Wharton here.”

“Perhaps you can ask her for one,” Sylvia says, and points to an older woman who resembles the French-Irish countess and duchess. She’s dressed in shades of plum velvet, corseted and crinolined, and has seated herself between the noblewomen on the sofa, where they’ve spent the entire party.

“That’s Edith Wharton,” Sylvia says.

I start over to her just as she stands and bows her good-byes to the countess and the duchess and heads for the door. I start to follow her but Gertrude Stein steps right in front of her. A short conversation. Very short and Edith Wharton is gone.

Gertrude Stein sees me standing behind her.

“I tried to tell her I studied with the brother of her great friend Henry James,” Gertrude says to me. “William James is the foremost philosopher and religious thinker of our time.”

“Oh, sure,” I say.

She turns now to the other women.

“William James and I researched the unconscious. A great influence on my writing,” Gertrude Stein says loudly.

“The James family—Cavan people,” Countess Markievicz says. She’s joined us now. “From Bailieborough. The grandfather left for America during the United Irishmen uprising. He was much the rebel,” she says. “Cousins of mine in Cabra Castle knew them.”

“Bailieborough,” I say. “Why, my friend’s mother’s family are from there. She was a Lynch and married a McCabe. Funny to think her ancestors might have known the James family.”

Gertrude Stein nods. “Could have been servants in the James household,” she says. “We had a very good Irish housemaid in Pittsburgh.”

Natalie Barney and Duchess Call-Me-Elisabeth hear our conversation.

“Oh, yes,” Natalie says. “So did we. And the most darling cook from Kerry.”

The duchess says something in French.
“Né”
and
“domestique,”
I hear.

“Is she saying the Irish are born to be servants?” I ask.

“No, no,” Natalie says. “Only that some races are more suited to serve. The Irish personality. Their loyalty and kindness,” she goes on, smiling as she explains to everyone in the circle why the American and English upper classes treasure their Irish help. “We snap up any new stock”—she says “stock” as if speaking of cattle—“from Ireland.”

I want to strangle her.

Everyone is listening now. I glance over at Antoinette and Sheila, so gently tending to their ancient noble ladies. True enough, these girls are kind and efficient, able to speak words of comfort. But nothing servile about them. A way to earn money during their student days.

But I’d heard Aunt Máire’s stories from her time in the landlord’s house in Ireland. Maud and Constance know very well why the Irish work in the Big Houses and what happens to them.

Why do neither of Ireland’s Joan of Arcs speak up?

“Listen,” I say. “Irish women became maids in America to feed their families when the men faced ‘Irish need not apply’ signs. But earning your own living’s something you ladies would not understand.”

They stare at me. Silent all of them.

“For God’s sake, Constance,” I tell her, “say something.”

“Well, Nora,” she says. “Of course, you’re right in principle. But I’m not sure if you understand as an American, the bonds between a family and its, well…”

“Faithful retainers?” I say. “Geeze Louise.” I walk over to her.

“Wake up, Constance,” I say. “My great-aunt Máire was forced to serve in the landlord’s house in Ireland. Abused something terrible by the family. The Scoundrel Pykes, she called them. She put the best face on her time there for her children because their father was Pyke’s son but believe me, there are young girls being raped by their employers right now,” I say.

“Please,” Gertrude Stein says. “If you’re referring to droit du seigneur, such behavior hasn’t happened since the Middle Ages.”

“No.” Maud speaks up. “Nora is right. Maids are still vulnerable. Landlords own their tenants body and soul. And really, I must disagree, Natalie. It’s necessity forces Irish people to become servants, not some special penchant. In the free Ireland, everyone will choose the work they want to do.”

“Choose?” I say. “Only if there are jobs! My older sister worked as a maid—twelve to fourteen hours a day. Making less money in a month than her employers spent on food for one fancy dinner party. And I would have done the same except I was the youngest. The money the others earned let me stay in school, graduate from St. Xavier’s at a time when there were finally other jobs for women.”

No one says anything until Sylvia Beach speaks. “Most of us here live on funds from our family. Our father’s money, really. What would we do if we had to earn our living?” she says.

“What indeed,” Maud says. “When I started the Daughters of Erin, we condemned the Dublin streetwalkers. Said how could any Irishwoman sell herself to a British soldier. But I didn’t realize that these women were desperate to feed their children and took the only way open to earn money for them. Terrible. I apologized to them.”

Mary O’Connell Bianconi speaks up. “At least nurses are paid. Not great sums of money, but earning it for ourselves.”

Now, I hadn’t meant to start a fight. But had any of these women spent even fifteen minutes in the real world? And I say that, repeating “real world” very loud.

“It’s because we’ve all been wounded by the real world that we prefer to create our own,” Natalie says. “And Paris gives us that chance.” She goes over to the two French noblewomen who are standing now, hands on the arms of the young Irish students, ready to leave.

Natalie says to them in French, “For which we are very grateful.” She curtsies very deeply. She looks up at the countess. “I meant no disrespect to your heritage.”

And the countess says, “Stand up, my dear. You bow to me and yet for all you know some distant cousin of mine may have worked in your American household.” She smiles at me. “You must continue to instruct your countrywomen, Nora,” she says. “They seek to make distinctions among us. They don’t realize you and me, Maud, Constance, the James family, our people scattered across every continent share an essential bond. We are all of Irish blood. A strong inheritance carried in every drop—never completely diluted. You have much to learn about us Irish,” she says to Natalie. “I hope you will.”

And then, she, Antoinette, Sheila, and the duchess process—no other word for it—out of the door.

“Well,” Natalie says to me. “Lesson one. I apologize if I insulted you. Truly, I am sorry.”

Well, what could I say. Only, “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to get so hot under the collar. It’s just that…”

“We know,” Gertrude Stein says. “You’re from Chicago.”

And we all laugh.

“And I’m proud of being from Chicago,” I say.

“Except you left,” Natalie says.

“Haven’t we all,” Gertrude says.

11

So—the others are gone by seven o’clock, but Maud asks me to stay. She brings out a bottle of red wine and glasses as the countess, who tells me to call her Constance, and I pull up three chairs close to the fire.

“That was some crowd you assembled, Maud,” Constance says.

“Father Kevin asked me to invite Coco Chanel,” she says.

“And the others?”

“Not sure where some of those came from. But that’s Paris,” Maud says. “I’m always running into people who studied painting at Julian’s when I did, some quite well known now.”

Maud fills our glasses.

And I have to ask, “Julian’s?”

“Académie Julian. First place to accept women. I studied there, too. Why I came to Paris,” Constance says. “Many years ago. Seems another lifetime. A respectable thing for a young woman, or not so young woman, who wasn’t married, to do. Very shocking to some in Sligo. But, of course, most of them had given up on the Gore-Booth girls by then.” She takes a lazy swallow. “Do you have a sister?” she asks me.

“I have a few,” I say.

“And are you close?”

“Well…” I start, then stop. The countess isn’t listening.

Caught by memories, she stretches her legs out. I guess those are riding boots she’s wearing. Part of the uniform? No explanation for the outfit and I’m not asking. Beautiful leather, those boots. Awfully close to the fire. Constance takes no notice.

“This afternoon reminded me of the talks Eva and I used to have. She’s the one who was the crusader then. ‘Women must vote. We will never be equal until there is universal suffrage,’ she’d tell me over and over.”

“She’s right,” I say. “I have two friends in Chicago who are as close to me as sisters. We marched with the suffragists.”

“So did we. Eva organized a campaign in England, kept that awful fellow Winston Churchill from winning a seat in Parliament,” Constance goes on.

“But he got it in the end,” Maud says.

“Well, we humbled him a bit,” Constance says.

Maud pours more wine. “I want women to vote too, of course,” she says. “But we can’t be distracted from our objective: Ireland’s freedom.”

“I’d say they go hand in hand,” I put in.

Constance smiles. “Well said, Nora. Maud tells me that you’re studying with Professor Keeley.”

“Studying might be an exaggeration,” I say. “But I did have a few sessions with him in the library before he left for Louvain.” I tell her about the excitement I felt touching the Kelly page, learning about the heroines of Ireland. “Maeve, especially,” I say.

“Oh, Maeve. I named my daughter Maeve,” Constance says. “She’s with my parents at Lissadell. Almost fifteen now. Thinks her mother is mad.”

Maud closes her eyes and speaks in a kind of drone. “I am Maeve and Willie is Aillil on the Astroplane.”

Silence. What do I say to that? Constance winks at me. “That’s nice,” I try.

“Has Willie asked you to marry him lately, Maud?” Constance says.

“Pressing me to get a divorce, as if I could. Hard enough to have the courts allow a separation. Augusta Gregory thinks Iseult should marry Willie.”

“But isn’t he nearly fifty?” I say. “And what is she? Twenty?”

Maud nods. “Augusta says her husband was thirty years older and they had a satisfactory marriage.”

“Well, Queen Maeve wouldn’t have settled for an old man,” I say, and we all laugh.

“I took the name Maeve,” Maud says, “when we began the Daughters of Erin. Inspiring those tales.”

“It’s the old stories that woke all of us,” Constance says. And she begins to tell me how she grew up feeling a certain connection to the country people on her father’s estate. “He was as good a landlord as he knew how to be,” she says. “Trying to make up for the past.”

She drinks some wine.

“You have to remember those were difficult times, Nora. And, well, I mean what do you do when millions are starving? My grandfather really believed his tenants would be better off in Canada.”

She stops.

“He couldn’t know what would happen, Constance,” Maud says.

“Still,” Constance says.

“Constance, you mean during the Great Starvation your grandfather…”

“Paid the passage for his tenants to go to Canada,” she says.

“Evicted them,” I say.

“I suppose,” she says. “Though he thought it was for the best. The only way to save the estate. He didn’t know that the ships were derelict.”

“Coffin ships,” I say.

She sighs. “Hard to explain to you. The people were a faceless mass to my grandfather. He’d already cleared a whole area, the Seven Cartrons—wanted the land to graze cattle. More economical. Eighteen thirty-four it was. Loaded the ship with tenants. It sank within sight of land. All were lost.”

“And these were the ancestors of the country people you felt so connected to,” I say.

Monsters those landlords. And now here’s their descendant dressed up in green?

“I know,” Constance says. “It must seem such a contradiction to you. But, Nora, I wish I could make you understand how I grew up. Such a contained world—balls and hunts and horses…”

She stands, pacing.

“Nora,” Maud says, “we need your help!”

“Mine?” I say.

“You’re an American, an innocent, one step up from a tourist. Not watched, not suspected.”

They both lean forward. “So…” But just then, Iseult comes into the room holding the hand of the little boy from church, Seán.

“He woke up, Maman,” she says.

Maman? I thought Iseult was Maud’s cousin.

Seán runs over to me.

“The funny lady,” he says.

And I think, with all the odd women who have trooped in and out of this apartment today, I’m the funny lady?

But I look straight at him, cross my eyes, and stick out my tongue. He laughs. Maud reaches out and draws the boy to herself.

“I want my supper, Mama,” he says, first in English then in French.

“Let’s see what Cook has in the kitchen, Bichon,” she says, and runs her hand through his curls. “Isn’t he just like a little puppy?”

Maud turns to me. “Let me get him settled and we’ll talk more.”