When Shadows Fall (18 page)

E
VENING
D
RESS
P
REFERRED

RSVP: 4 E
DMONTON
T
ERRACE,
B
LACKROCK,
C
O.
D
UBLIN

When the night of the ball arrived, Adam thought it ironic how these charity events always brought about such self-indulgent displays of wealth. The front of the Gresham Hotel on Sackville Street had been decorated with red carpet and marble flower pots, Waterford Crystal lamps and Union Jack bunting. Guests arrived in drays and hackneys, men in officer’s uniforms and crisp tuxedos handing their womenfolk down to the paving, delicate heels lowered one after the other, bright, smug smiles, diamonds and cufflinks, and fashionably crimped hair.

On first seeing the invitation he’d swore he’d never go. Such nights were for the uppers of society, not the poor luckless souls they purported to represent. He imagined a roomful of military types, full of brandy and thumping each other’s shoulders in bonhomie, their women like exquisite ornaments, smiling dazzlingly and vacantly, complimenting each other’s style with scarcely concealed jealously. Adam would have had none of it.

But the Laides, who were paying for the table, were parents of a rugby teammate of his from Trinity College. Stephen Laide had made the rank of captain in the war, but there’d been no triumphant return home. He met his end on the Turkish beaches, the bloodbath of Gallipoli, Winston Churchill’s calamitous bungle of 1915.

Out of respect, or probably guilt, Adam responded to the invitation with a yes, though he declined to bring a guest. Who would go anyway? Ever since the war he’d found himself short of companions. And by choice, too. It hadn’t been like that before.

His group met in the hotel’s bar, a Palladian room floored with marble and sinkingly-soft carpet, already reeking of perfume and cologne. Bernard Laide was a stooped, thin man with sharp cheekbones and unfashionably thick whiskers. He greeted Adam with a handshake.

“Delighted you could make it, dear boy. You remember my wife, Eleanor?”

Introductions were done. The other guests included three couples, and Adam was self-conscious now at having come alone.

“You haven’t married yet, Adam?” asked Eleanor Laide. “How old are you, twenty-five, twenty-six?”

“Twenty-five,” he answered. “And no, not married.”

“I hear you’re working with your brother Duncan now. A solicitor.” She nodded approvingly at the others. “Actually, you might remember our daughter Isobel from when you used to pal around with Stephen. She’s teaching in Greystones. Actually, she’s not married either.”

There were conspiratorial smiles and winks in the group. Adam forced a smile.

“You must pass on my best regards.”

“Indeed we will, Adam. Indeed we will.”

After they had posed for a photograph, Bernard Laide beamed at his gathering. “Well, now. We’re all here, so shall we go through to the dining room?”

Tara gazed at the giant chandelier that cast splintered light over the immaculately polished ballroom floor. Cream-clothed tables had been set with walnut candelabra and silver cutlery, and the waiters were delivering water carafes and bread baskets. Most of the guests had already taken their seats.

“For the last time,” James bemoaned, “you’re fine. What on earth is the matter?”

She’d begun to tug at the silk neckline of her dress again, trying in vain to pull it higher. “I don’t know, James. I just feel so . . . so
bare
.”

“It’s the fashion, Tara. It’s what all the ladies of London and New York are wearing.”

“It’s little I know of New York or anywhere else. You should have let me buy something more suitable.”

“This
is
suitable,” he insisted. “And may I say, you look absolutely exquisite, my darling.”

“James.” She frowned at his endearment. “Don’t. Please. I’m nervous enough as it is.” This was their first outing together, and though James looked relaxed, she still felt slightly uncomfortable.

“Well, can’t blame a fellow for trying. Anyway, try to at least appear to be enjoying yourself. The colonel’s wife is giving you queer looks.”

Their invitation had come from Colonel Louis Guthering, retired, late of the Ninth Devonshire Regiment. Another dusty relic from the old man’s era, as James had described him to Tara, with an Eton education, Wellington and Sandhurst training, and the manners of a hog.

As his wife was a supporter of the Holland Charitable Trust, Guthering had grudgingly agreed to come over to Ireland for a few days and pay for a table, though besides James, he couldn’t be bothered with inviting other guests.

“I met your father only last week,” he informed James. “We had a bit of golf in Kent. He’s bearing up something tremendous, like the old war-dog he is.”

“It makes me very happy to hear that, Colonel,” James assured him.

Tara didn’t know what to make of Guthering. At her introduction he had nodded with a “Miss” before turning his attention back to James, as if she’d simply been some picture or ornament he’d been obliged to acknowledge. His wife, a tiny, bird-like creature with a look of perpetual anxiety, leaned across and touched her hand.

“Tell me, dear, how do you find Dublin? Some folk say it’s a huge change from London, but I must say I find it rather delightful. Oh, I do love the Irish. And their little ways.”

Starters were being served, mussels and pumpkin soup, roast squab and cress. The band had commenced with Elgar’s “Quintet in A minor,” a springy deliverance that soon warmed the ambience of the crowd.

“I can’t profess to know Dublin very well,” Tara admitted. “I moved here only a year ago, from Wicklow.”

“It’s a world from London,” Guthering grumbled, fixing the plate of shellfish with a murderous glare. “Hooded gunmen on every street corner. I say, here!” He spun round and grabbed a passing waiter’s coattails. “Look at these, boy!”

The youngster peered at the creamy flesh of the shellfish. “Sir? I’m not sure what—”

“The infernal things are gone off, man. Look at them!”

“Sir, I can assure you, all of the fish served on the premises is bought fresh.”

“Why, you impudent swine.” Guthering went to rise from his seat but his wife laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Dear, I’m sure the fish is fine. You shouldn’t finish the entire plate anyway, it upsets your tummy.” She looked up at the waiter. “That will be all, thank you.”

The waiter left and the colonel turned his eye on Tara. He directed his words to James, however. “Mm, maybe you’ve got it right this time, my boy. God knows your record in women is shabby, much to your poor father’s shame. But this one seems presentable and a good-looking face. Tell me, will you wait until you’re back in London before you get married?”

Tara spluttered on a half-chewed piece of mussel.

“Ho,” James quickly intervened. “The colonel misunderstands. Tara and I are not, you know, not in that kind of relationship. She’s here as my work colleague.”

“Work colleague. Bah! A woman’s place is in the making and the warming of the home. Is that not right, my darling?”

“Yes, dear,” his wife answered.

Guthering topped up his glass and then James’s. “Bring some decent wine the next time, you Irish lout,” he snapped when the waiter passed again.

James’s eyes slid to Tara’s, and he shrugged.
What can I do?
he mouthed silently.

I want to go home.
Her lips didn’t move but her expression said it all.

Adam watched the myriad heads of the ballroom, bowed over the plates or else flung back at some roaring witticism.

“Your meat’s all right?” The woman sitting next to him, the accountant’s wife whose name he couldn’t remember, enquired politely.

“Hmm? I mean, oh yes. Capital stuff.”

“You’re from Dalkey, I heard Bernard say?” She smiled. “Pierce and I are from Kerry. Killarney, to be exact. Pierce does the books for a lot of the merchants down there.”

“Killarney, eh?” Adam nodded obligingly. “I’ve never been to Kerry. Perhaps some day.” He couldn’t help but notice her vivid green eyes and lightly coloured lips.

“Oh, I shouldn’t right now,” she tutted. “You’ll have read the newspapers, of course. Hoodlums with guns, lurking behind ditches, planting bombs.”

“So I believe.”

“Yes. And when I think of brave souls like yourself, going out to fight in faraway lands for our freedom—and those brigands in Kerry and Cork and elsewhere, trying to tear asunder every sacrifice you made.”

Adam nodded reluctantly as a bottle was lowered over his glass. A bitter chardonnay—he’d have rathered a decent pint of stout. “Don’t trouble yourself about it, Mrs. D’Arcy, isn’t it? I’m sure the right fellows will win out in the end.”

Her hand touched his arm discreetly, and she smiled. “Brave souls.”

Adam, me boyo,
he thought,
you’ll not ruin poor Bernard Laide’s night by getting off with the accountant’s wife
. He stood up.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Mrs. D’Arcy.”

With the pretence of the restroom, he headed straight for the bar.

Tara exchanged worried glances with Clarice Guthering. Both James and the colonel had been draining wine throughout the main course, and now, spurning the Waldorf pudding, the colonel bawled for brandy.

“Dear me,” James tried to protest, his eyes swimming, “I’m not much of a drinker, old fellow.”

“Nonsense, boy. You’ll have a snifter with your father’s dearest friend and think of merry England.”

They sank a measure each.

The colonel ordered again. “Let’s nurse it this time, Bryant, for the Bible shames a drunkard. Eh?” He chortled under his walrus moustache and swallowed a glugful.

Two became four inside twenty minutes. By the fifth, both men were teary eyed with mirth after the colonel relayed an old joke about a French milkmaid and a Scottish parson. James almost fell off his chair and had to grip the tablecloth for support.

“Wodehouse wouldn’t have written it better!” he guffawed. “Really, Colonel, that takes the spoon.”

Tara sat quietly, as did Clarice Guthering, their gazes focused solely on the pristine linen tablecloth.