To Kingdom Come

lads were enough to make them all give a knowing chuckle.

When the porter gave the call for visitors to depart, the group of men walked down the gangplank as the steamship Hibernia sounded its bass note and slowly pulled away from the dock. Still lost in my private thoughts, I watched the coast slip away until there was nothing left to do but to finally turn and look at Maire. To tell the truth, I was as nervous as a groom on his honeymoon, and a glance told me she was nervous as well.

“Would you like to walk about the ship or perhaps have a cup of tea?” I suggested.

“A cup of tea would be nice,” she murmured.

I escorted her to the lounge. The Hibernia was a trim little steamer running from Liverpool to Calais. The lounge was sumptuous, with gold-rimmed china, starched table linens, and attentive waiters. Maire didn’t speak until our tea and biscuits arrived.

“I feel like a complete imposter, Thomas,” she confessed. “I’m not used to this. I feel as if I should be in the galley, up to my elbows in soap suds.”

“You have as much right to be here as anyone, Maire,” I told her. “Or should I call you Brigid?”

Our passports and papers listed us as Charles and Brigid Beaton. I carried business cards listing me as a chemical engineer for a Liverpool mining firm. Beaton, a very serious young man, would take the opportunity to combine work with pleasure, purchasing supplies for his company while on the Continent.

“No, not Brigid,” she said. “I’m not accustomed to deception. I’m not a bomber or an anarchist, like you, working with the famous Mr. van Rhyn. I just keep house for my brother.”

Despite the words, she looked like anything but an ordinary Irish girl. She wore a beautiful traveling suit of violet linen. Pearl earrings dangled from her ears, and her hair was swept up in an elaborate style with red curls framing her face. The French would have called her ravissante.

“Who’s going to cook for Eamon and the boys, and Mr. van Rhyn, while I am gone?” she wondered.

“They’ll just have to fend for themselves, I suppose. Scavenge off the land.”

“I hope you don’t think-” she said, then stopped.

“Think what?”

A blush grew on her cheeks. “It was very forward of me to kiss you last week. I wish you to know it was unlike me. I don’t really know why I did it.”

“I understand,” I told her. “And in case you didn’t notice, I was kissing you back.”

She smiled behind her teacup. We sat in an awkward silence for a moment. I was fidgeting with my silverware, and she was playing with one of her curls. Finally, she spoke again.

“I suppose you shall be going back to London when this is all over or off with Mr. van Rhyn.”

“I believe Mr. van Rhyn intends to settle in Dublin now. He hopes to open a factory. As for me, I haven’t made any plans.”

“Do you have anyone waiting for you in London? Parents or brothers and sisters, or a sweetheart?”

“A sister, living in Cheapside,” I invented.

“The cause could use a man like you.”

“Just the cause?”

In answer, she cleared her throat daintily, took some more tea, and changed the subject. “I shan’t know what to do with myself in Paris,” she said.

“Oh, there are worlds of things to do: museums, opera, ballet, and cathedrals. There are gardens and cafes, shops of all descriptions, art galleries, and palaces. It is more than one can do in the four days allotted.”

“I’ve never been on holiday before,” she told me. “My life has been all work.” She spread her hands on the table. Though small, they were rough and red from hours of daily toil. I reached over and took them both in my own.

“In Paris, they have creams that will make your hands so soft, one would think you had never lifted anything but a hand mirror in your life. And there are silk gloves to cover them, while it works its magic.”

“How you do talk, sir,” she said.

I squeezed her hands. “Relax, Maire. Really. We have no idea what the future may hold. Enjoy the present, these few days. Forget about the cause. Forget about me, if you wish. Think about yourself. What do you want?”

“I hardly know,” she answered ingenuously.

“I know exactly what I want,” I said, lowering my voice.

She looked up at me sharply. “And what is that, I’d like to know, Thomas Penrith?”

“To buy you the prettiest dress in all Paris.”

We whiled away our hours aboard ship promenading on the deck and staring out over the ocean at the English coast. Maire had never seen the sea from aboard ship before. Luckily, neither of us suffered from seasickness. I demonstrated my utter lack of skill at deck games, and she beat me three games in a row. In one of the salons, we wrote cards to everyone back home, which would be posted on arrival in Calais. The real van Rhyn would have called us bourgeois or the idle rich. Rich we were, and none of it ours. I’d had a peep into the envelope. There was enough to show the girl a holiday she would never forget.

After dinner, a band played in the dining room, and I convinced her to dance. There was no impropriety in our dancing, being newlyweds, of course. In fact, the crew and passengers insisted. Everyone was quite sentimental over the handsome young couple, their futures ahead of them. One could have fit Barker into the space between us-or Willie, at least-but I still felt her hand in mine and the whalebone corset around her slender waist. We were both thinking the same thing. There was a key to our cabin in my pocket, and that cabin had but one bed.

When we finally left, there was a cunning look on the faces of everyone turned our way. It was our first night as a married couple. Everyone knew what was expected of us. But there’d been no wedding and I had promised several people, including my employer, that what was expected of us would not come to pass.

Once back in our room, I changed quickly into my nightshirt and set up a rude pallet on the floor, while Maire changed discreetly behind a screen. While she was going to sleep in a soft bed with Irish lace and linens and a gold-encrusted headboard, I would spend the night on the floor, with nothing but a blanket and pillow to keep me company. It reminded me in no small way of Barker’s Persian rug and his heavy volume of Shakespeare.

Maire came out wearing a white, frothy new nightgown, of which no Catholic sister in Dublin could accuse of impropriety. It came up to her throat and down to her wrists and ankles. There were yards and yards of it, in folds, in pleats. It was in two layers, an outer, lacy mantle with a large ribbon and an inner confection made of silk. She was completely covered, so why was my heart racing?

She looked at me as if I were a Bengal tiger, and she a goat which had just been brought out and tethered. I heard her naked little feet pad across to the bed, and she climbed under the sheets, covering herself quickly. There was at least a year’s output of Irish linen and lace in this one bed, all as white and virginal as a bride’s wedding gown.

“Good night,” she murmured.

“Good night,” I responded, turning down the gas. With a sigh, I sank down onto that hard floor to spend the night listening to her breathing and idly tracing the pattern on the ceiling with my eyes.

The next morning, I awoke as if the memory of every wound, bruise, scrape, and cut I’d ever incurred had all come back to haunt me. I loosed my limbs from the fetal position and rose to my feet, every bone and tissue protesting. My eyes strayed to the bed. It was empty. Where had she gone?

Maire stepped from behind the screen. She was dressed in an outfit of many shades of green. It set off the russet of her hair. Until yesterday, I had seen her in nothing but black and white, like a maidservant. I couldn’t help but pull my blanket up about me and to bow, formally, in my nightclothes.

“I trust you slept well, Mrs. Beaton,” I said.

She bobbed a curtsy to me gravely. “Mr. Beaton.”

“If you wish, you may go to the dining room. I shall be down directly.”

“Indeed, I must not,” she said, looking uncomfortable. “I shall wait for you, if I may.”

What was that about? I wondered. I needed a cup of coffee before my mind could cogitate. I nodded agreement and went behind the screen myself. Choosing a suit, I dressed rather self-consciously, knowing she was in the room. What had happened? Did I snore or thrash about in my sleep? On further reflection, had she believed it all a mistake? I finished tying my four-in-hand and stepped out from behind the screen. Maire O’Casey was reclining on the edge of the bed, which I noted she had made. A hand was across her brow, and I thought I saw a frown