The next morning I was slumbering deeply when I felt her hand on my shoulder. There she was, back in uniform, the circles under her eyes the only hint of our night together. That, and the tender look she gave me.
“I gave you a little extra time,” she said. “You do have to hurry now.”
I sat up. Suddenly I threw my arms around her and we embraced passionately. We said nothing for a few minutes as we held each other. We feel so right together now, I thought.
“I love the fact that I see you first thing every morning,” I murmured.
“That might change in Dublin, but I’ll try to keep doing it. It’s nice for me too. My heart was in my mouth going back to bed last night.”
“But nobody saw you.”
“I was yawning this morning and they looked at me strange; but I said it was working in the kitchen, that I wasn’t used to that. And they feel it isn’t right what Johnson did.”
“Are you back to normal duties now?”
“Yes, thank God.”
“And will you consider being with me one of your ‘normal duties’?”
“More like a special duty,” she teased. Our faces were still close together as we whispered to each other. My heart was beating hard.
“I’m in love with you.” The words just came out; I felt terrified immediately. But I continued. “I’d do anything for you. Make any sacrifice.”
“I hope that won’t be necessary,” Grace said, looking at me intently. “I want to be with you as much as I can, believe me. And what you said about love . . . it’s not so easy for me to say it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”
We kissed, and she ran her hands over me under my nightgown. It gave me a delicious shiver. I pressed tightly against her, aware of how much I desired her, fearful that she wouldn’t want to continue.
“Please, Grace,” I said softly. “Just quickly. Please?”
I knew that I was begging, that I should be ashamed, but I so wanted her to say yes. I lay back down on the bed. To my astonishment, she lowered herself down on top of me. She had a way of moving against me that brought me to climax very quickly. My body, still sensitized from the night before, responded almost too fast. I clung to her, tears falling from my eyes. “Oh God,” I said helplessly. “God...”
At last she pulled away, smoothing herself down. Her face was very serious as she looked at me and I was afraid she was angry. I said nothing, feeling self-conscious about what I had said, what I had done.
“Caroline,” she began, and then stopped. Her voice was unsteady. “Caroline, we can’t do that every morning.”
“I know,” I said, not looking at her. “I’m sor—”
She laid her finger across my lips. “Tomorrow night. All right?”
“Yes,” I said breathlessly.
“That’ll be it for quite awhile, so let’s make the most of it.”
I nodded. The look we gave each other was one that conspirators must use, I thought. Now Grace had two big secrets that she hid from the outside world: her involvement in the struggle to free Ireland and her love for me. I only had one, yet nothing more momentous had ever happened to me.
After she left, when I was bathing myself, I thought of her hands on me and inwardly swooned. I was learning about passion: that it demands fulfillment, satisfaction, again and again. I hoped the day would never come when Grace would deny me because I thought it might drive me mad. So the perfectly rational Caroline Singleton has come to this, I mused wryly. And yet I was a little frightened, for I sensed that Grace was still holding back.
The day passed slowly and since Amelia’s high spirits were exhausting, I decided to take her out for a walk. We bundled up in coats and because she insisted, I took her to the barn so that she could see the cows. It was strange to walk past brawny men who tipped their caps to me, strange that walking with Amelia granted me automatic respect. Amelia picked handful of hay to feed the cows; I smiled at her need to feed animals. Adults lose that desire, for the most part, I thought. I did not particularly love animals, being a London girl, but I enjoyed seeing Amelia in her element. She took me to visit the henhouses next, and was allowed to keep a warm brown egg. “Nurse will boil it for my breakfast tomorrow!” she said with glee. “Oh, look, Miss Singleton. There’s Grace.”
I turned around. Grace and another maid were coming toward us. I stood by Amelia, blushing, and Grace approached me shyly.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, just as I queried, “Out for a walk?”
“Well, once again I’m being asked to do ‘special duties,’” she said with a grimace. We have to iron sheets before we go, so that when we come back in the spring they’ll be ready to use.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I thought some maids stayed here.”
“Not many. Anyway, we’ve been sent to the wash-house to collect them.”
“I want to go!” said Amelia, tugging my arm. “You should see the wash-house, Miss Singleton.”
“No, Amelia, I don’t think your mother would approve of that,” I said without thinking. Looking back at Grace, I was surprised to see a coldness in her expression. I trembled. The other maid walked on, waving to Grace, who said, “Be there in a minute.”
Turning back to me, she said, “I used to bring Amelia to the wash-house. That’s why she remembers going there.”
“Oh,” I said. “I just assumed Lady Wilcox would object . . . isn’t it smelly and hot?”
Again Grace looked at me coldly. “It smells of disinfectant. There’s nothing unhygienic about it. ’Course, the English are cracked about that kind of thing.”
“Cracked?” I repeated.
Amelia tugged at my arm again.
“I’m sorry, Amelia, it’s time to go in,” I said sharply. Grace shrugged and muttered that she would see me later, then. We’re both so tired, I thought, and I wondered how she would get through the rest of the day. I watched her figure recede, feeling an ache start in my chest.
I asked Amelia to wait, which she did, pouting. I ran after Grace. She had reached the corner of some low buildings and no one could see us. She turned, her face impassive.
“You don’t want to be seen with me during the day, then.” I was shocked and moved to see the glint of tears in her eyes.
“Grace . . . I just didn’t want to mix Amelia up in this. I mean, she might notice.”
“What could she notice?”
“She notices a lot,” I said. “And Lady Wilcox knows something.”
“Lady Wilcox?” She looked at me in disbelief.
“Yes. She told me that she had heard rumors that we might have formed an undesirable intimacy. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you had enough to worry about.”
“What else did she say?”
“Well,” I faltered, “she did say that she was going to watch you closely once we got to Dublin.”
“Oh, that’s very nice!” Grace was suddenly blazing with anger. “And naturally she told you that you were doing an excellent job. It’s always the same!”
“You’ve had other governesses before, then,” I joked, trying to make her smile, but she looked at me as if I were one of the enemy.
“You don’t understand how it feels—always being under suspicion. Then you wonder why I won’t take risks. I take all the risks, Caroline.”
There was a silence. I knew what she said had a lot of truth to it, and I felt guilty and miserable, yet at the same time resentful. Didn’t she know I was on her side?
“You’d better go back to Miss Amelia,” Grace said, not meeting my eyes. “I might go lie down instead of going to supper.”
“I might too then,” I said. The thought of eating by myself in the kitchen was terrifying.
She shrugged.
“Grace, let’s not fight,” I pleaded. “It was all going so well.” I suddenly had the strange foreboding that she had had second thoughts. “It’s not over, is it?” I blurted out, my voice rising half-hysterically.
She looked at me with a little more warmth. “No, but you hurt me just then. You get to sit in a nice room all day while I’m worked half to death. And then you won’t even take time to spend a few minutes with me. Maybe you don’t want to talk, maybe you think all I’m good for is—”
“No,” I said fiercely. “That’s not true. You know it’s not.”
“I know one thing,” Grace said. “You won’t talk about what’s really going on in this country. If you ignore that, you ignore everything about me. All you care about is what I can do for you in bed.”
I blushed, feeling a sense of shame well up within me.
“I’m not using you,” I muttered.
“Oh, I think you are.” She looked me straight in the face. “For all your talk of love. You’re as bad as a man. The minute you get it, you want more, and that’s all you want.”
I shook my head, too stunned to respond. From behind, I heard Amelia say tentatively, “Miss Singleton?”
I spun around. She was watching us curiously, a slightly apprehensive look on her face. In her hand she still clutched her egg.
“Amelia must get back,” I said to Grace in what I knew was a cool tone. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
She looked down then nodded. “Have a good rest.”
To my astonishment, she reached out and put her hand on my shoulder for a moment. It seemed to vibrate and I stared into her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. And then she was gone.
I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I had told Amelia’s nurse that I was going to lie down, and she had said that she would have some food sent up to me. I had told her I would go without supper, but she had insisted. So I had eaten my soup and was trying to sleep. Sleep would not come.
If Grace was right . . . no, Grace couldn’t be right. But I knew that her reaction to her words had not been one of complete disbelief. It was true that what I had felt that morning was largely compounded of lust, need, and desire. It was just all so new to me, and I could not help asking for more, even though it was unreasonable. I realized that now. When had I stopped being able to exercise restraint?
I turned over and hugged the blankets, thinking of Grace. My body was unruly. I saw no way to tame its desires. Then the tears came. I missed her so much and I could foresee only sadness and loss as I envisaged my future with her. We were too different, and would perhaps grow less tolerant of those differences. I had seen a harsher side of her today, and she had seen an aspect of me that I was ashamed of.
Yet we were lovers. I smiled at the thought and, strangely enough, felt my eyes closing.
I woke early the next morning to find her snuggling against me. Her warmth spread through me and I stroked her hair. We did not kiss.
“How long have you been here?”
“Not long. I wanted some time with you.”
“Well, you have it.”
We said nothing for a while. I resolved to say nothing about our plans for that evening. If Grace did not mention it, I vowed I would not pressure her.
“I’m sorry I said you were as bad as a man.”
“That was what hurt most,” I said playfully.
“Be serious.”
“Nobody’s ever said that to me before. I didn’t understand how you could accuse me of that. Then I looked at my own behavior and I saw how you must feel. I never want to make you feel used. We don’t even have to . . . be together in that way.”
“You’re more passionate than me, maybe. I like that about you, so it was wrong of me to turn it against you. I thought you’d be angry with me.” She spoke in a wistful, vulnerable way that I loved.
“No, how can I? I’m so glad that you came, that you’ve forgiven me.”
“There wasn’t really anything to forgive.”
“What you said about me not wanting to know about Ireland...” I began. “Well, maybe that was true. But I know there’s not a lot you can tell me. You can’t give away secrets. I know that your brother is involved in a group that will take part in a rising, if there is one. And I have to believe you when you say there’s going to be one. But—forgive me—it just doesn’t seem real to me. Any of this. Perhaps the War in France is not particularly real to you, and I don’t hold it against you. Isn’t it normal that we keep things from each other, that each of us has her own life, in a way?”
She remained quiet for a long time, thinking. I waited anxiously for a response. Her arms were still tight around me, her head on my breast.
“I don’t think you understand what an independent Ireland might be like.”
I shrugged.
“It would be a republic. A socialist republic. Men and women would have equal rights. Have you heard of Patrick Pearse?”
I shook my head.
“He’s a schoolteacher in Dublin. He runs an Irish school called St. Enda’s, where the boys are taught in Gaelic, I mean. My brother and I heard him speak at the funeral of a Fenian leader called O’Donovan Rossa two years ago. He gave a speech that fired up the crowd. He aid that the British had made a huge mistake when they left us the graves of our patriot men and women, and that Ireland unfree would never be at peace. After he heard Pearse speak, Jack knew that he had to get involved and I did too. We didn’t tell our ma and da. They wouldn’t understand. Then lots of things started happening. Eoin MacNeill formed the Irish Volunteers and they began training every week right under the noses of the English. They’re still the biggest group we have. He’s more of a moderate, though.”
“So Pearse is somehow involved with the rising?”
“He’s the brains behind it. He’s an amazing man, Caroline. Very shy, but very fierce. His whole life is dedicated to the idea of freeing Ireland. You see, every generation has tried. It started with the rebellion of 1798, then Robert Emmet, the Young Irelanders, the Fenians, and now us.”
“But do you think...” I paused, wondering if I should ask this. “Do you think it would change your life so much? Wouldn’t you still have to work?”
“As a maid, you mean,” she said in a subdued voice.
I said nothing.
“What I do now means nothing to me. As it is, a few rich families, mostly English or Anglo-Irish, hold all the wealth in this country. Do you realize that at the time of the Famine in the 1840s almost half the country died or emigrated? They were peasants, so nobody cared. And the English did nothing. So you see, if we have the power to rule ourselves, we’ll be our own responsibility, and I have to believe that we’d rule ourselves with more compassion than they’ve given us over the years.”
“You’re talking about the redistribution of wealth,” I mused. It was a slogan that I had often heard bandied about in London. “So I’ll be out of a job too, eh?”
Grace laughed gently. “Caroline, what will I do with you? You take nothing seriously.”
“I do take you seriously, Grace.” I said this with all the sincerity I felt. “I just don’t understand what you’re doing with me, an Englishwoman.”
“I don’t think of you that way. We have English people involved in the struggle. Some Englishmen have been involved in getting us guns. Even a fellow who was knighted by the English has helped us—I can’t tell you his name; he has contacts with the German Government, who also want to help us...”
“But most Dublin people, for example—they don’t know much about all this?”
She shook her head. “They know about as much as you do, love. Which is going to be a bit of a problem.”
I colored. Her use of “love” was very charming.
“I’m open to knowing more. And I will support you. I have particular loyalty to the British Government since my brother’s death.”
“That’s right,” she said quietly. “You’ve suffered. And you’ve learned from your suffering.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“I’ve learned a lot from you. You seem strong. Let’s both be strong so that neither of us has to take the man’s role.”
“You say things to me that seem so . . . so bold, Grace.”
“I know, Irish women are supposed to be pure and good.”
“Londoners are said to be more worldly, but I fell you know more than I—about life, and loving.”
“Oh, talking about that, she said teasingly, looking into my eyes now, “are we still meeting tonight?”
I smiled, weak with relief. “If you’ll still have me.”
“I’d never back out now.”
She flung her arms around me and we kissed, but still sparingly, as if reserving energy for later. I knew I would make it up to Amelia today for what I considered an “off” day yesterday. My first responsibility was to Grace, my second to Amelia. Or, I wondered, should my first responsibility be to myself? Grace seemed so trusting, and I wondered how many other lovers all over the country were spilling secrets in their passion at this moment. Presumably Dublin Castle, with its huge spy network, was busy processing all this information. But that was my cynical English view, perhaps, of a situation that was extremely Irish in its unpredictability.
“When we get to Dublin,” Grace said dreamily, “I’ll take you to plays at the Abbey Theatre. Once you hear these ideas and see the drama of them, you’ll see what I’m getting at. I want you to love Ireland.”
“Can’t I just love you?” I said, caressing her face.
“It’s a start,” she said, closing her eyes and becoming very still. “You’re good at that, don’t stop...”
We were in our own little cocoon now, and the outside world faded to nothing.