sparkling and a big bowl of holly in the middle, its polished leaves reflecting the fairy lights on the tree. When she tried to imagine her father’s face, though, the expression on it, she felt a prick of doubt in her heart.
The doorman at the Shelbourne scolded her with mock seriousness for venturing out into the snow with those thin shoes and that poor little hat, the feather of which was thoroughly bedraggled by now. She went up in the lift to the top floor, and through the door with the green baize on it that led to Rose Crawford’s suite. A waiter in a tailcoat let her in and escorted her to the sitting room. Rose was there, and Quirke, and Malachy Griffin, too. Rose came to meet her and kissed her on the cheek. “My Lord”- she pronounced it
Quirke wore a black suit and a red silk tie, and his shirt was starched and very white. When he got dressed up like this he seemed to her very young, a big schoolboy, scrubbed and awkward, out for a treat with the grown-ups. She noticed he was drinking water with ice and a slice of lime- at least, she hoped it was water, and not gin. He would need to be on his best behavior to night, for she was sure it was to night that Rose would make her announcement, that this was the reason they were here, the four of them. Rose went off to one of the bedrooms to search for a pair of slippers, and the waiter came and asked Phoebe, in that confidential way that waiters did, what she would like to drink. Nervously she asked for a sherry, and when he brought it to her she spilled some of it because her hands were unsteady. She was so excited she felt that she was herself a glass filled to the brim that she had been given to carry and which she was terrified she would let spill or drop. Malachy asked her if she was all right, and she said yes, and he said that Quirke had told them what had happened on Howth Head. She turned quickly to her father- how much of it had he told?- but he would not meet her eye.
“Yes,” Rose Crawford said, coming back into the room, “that poor man, killing himself like that. What was the matter with him? Was he so upset about his sister disappearing?”
“You’re lucky he didn’t take you with him,” Malachy said.
“And your lovely car!” Rose cried.
Quirke looked into his glass.
For dinner they were served roast pheasant, which Phoebe did not like but which she made herself eat, determined to do nothing that might impede in the slightest way the steady progress of the evening towards the moment that she knew would come, when Rose would put down her glass and look about the table, and smile, and begin to speak-
“More potatoes, Miss?” the tailcoated waiter murmured, leaning down at her shoulder. He smelled of hair oil.
Time dragged. Rose talked of her visit to America. “Boston looks so bare in wintertime, the grass on the Common turned to straw by the cold and the pond iced over. I always feel sorry for the ducks; they look so puzzled, slipping and sliding on the ice, not able to understand what’s happened to the water.” She turned to Phoebe. “My dear, everyone, but everyone, asked after you and told me to be sure to give you their love, especially”- she put her head on one side and arched a mischievous eyebrow-”that nice young Mr. Spalding from the Chase Manhattan, you remember him?” She glanced at the two men. “
Phoebe was blushing.
“What’s this?” Malachy said. “You had an admirer, and you didn’t tell us?”
“He wasn’t an admirer,” Phoebe said, concentrating on her plate. “And anyway he had a fiancйe.”
“Oh, she’s long gone,” Rose said. “Mr. Spalding is quite free and unattached.” Malachy coughed, and Rose glanced at him and lifted that eyebrow again. “Yes,” she said, with a mild little sigh, “I guess it’s time.” She put down her glass. Phoebe felt something swell up suddenly inside her, and she went hot, and accidentally knocked her fork against her plate, producing a ringing chime. “We have a little announcement to make,” Rose said, looking at her and then at Quirke. “I confess”-s he picked up her napkin and put it down again-”I confess I’m feeling somewhat nervous, which as you all know is not like me.” Quirke was watching her and frowning. The waiter came to clear the plates but Rose told him to leave them until later, and he went away again. Rose by now was looking decidedly flustered. “I had my speech all prepared,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’ve clean forgotten it. So I’m just going to say it right out-”
She reached forward and took-
Phoebe stared, baffled.
It was Malachy’s hand that Rose took- Malachy’s, not Quirke’s.
“-that Mr. Malachy Griffin has kindly asked me to be his wife, and I, well, I have kindly accepted.”
She laughed helplessly. Quirke had turned to Malachy, and Malachy smiled, shyly, sheepishly, queasily.
THE REST OF THE EVENING PASSED FOR PHOEBE IN A HOT FOG OF stupefaction, anger, and pain. There would be no cozy Christmases after all, no sea voyages to the Isles of Greece, no games of happy families. How could she have thought that Quirke would marry Rose, that Rose would marry him- how could she have allowed herself such a foolish dream? She looked across the table at Malachy, sitting there in what seemed a befuddled amazement, and she almost hated him. What was Rose thinking? She would make the poor man’s life a misery. Quirke she tried not to see. She could have hated him, too. She knew it was Sarah he had wanted, all those years ago, and instead of marrying her had let her go with Malachy. Now he had done it again. Would he be maundering in regret over the loss of Rose, too, twenty years from now? She hoped so. He would be old then, and Rose would probably be dead, and the past would repeat itself. She saw the two of them, Quirke and Malachy, shuffling along the pathways in Stephen’s Green, picking over together the lost years, Quirke sourly unmarried and Malachy a widower again. They would deserve each other.
When finally the evening was over, and Phoebe was putting on her shoes and her poor, ruined hat, Rose took her arm and led her aside, and looked at her searchingly and said, “What is it, dear, what’s the matter?” Phoebe said nothing was the matter, and tried to break free, but Rose held her all the more tightly. Quirke and Malachy were still at the table, sitting in silence, Quirke smoking and drinking whiskey and Malachy doing nothing, as Malachy usually did.
Phoebe turned her face aside; she was afraid she might begin to cry. “You said it was my father you were going to marry,” she said.
Rose stared. “I did? When?”
“That day outside the American Express place, you said it then.”
“Oh, my,” Rose said, and put a hand to her cheek. “I probably did. I’m sorry. I always think of Malachy as your father- he
Quirke had finished his drink, and the waiter brought his overcoat and his hat. There were good nights. The waiter held the door open. Quirke followed Phoebe out, and through the green baize door. She felt the tears welling in her eyes now but forced herself to hold them back. She did not take the lift but hurried to the top of the stairs. Quirke was at the lift, calling to her to wait, and saying something about a taxi. She went on, down the staircase. The doorman smiled at her. Across the road, in the Green, behind the black railings, the branches of the trees were laden with snow; she saw them through a shimmer of unshed tears. She turned and walked away along the pavement, hearing only her own muffled footfalls and the dinning tumult in her heart.
Quirke came out of the lift and went through the revolving door out onto the steps. That morning he had got a call from Ferriter, the Minister’s man. The Minister, Ferriter had said, in his soft, smooth voice, was sure he could count on Dr. Quirke’s discretion in the matter of his nephew’s tragic death. Quirke had hung up on him and walked into the dissecting room, where Sinclair was sawing through the breastbone of an old man’s corpse and whistling to himself. Quirke had thought of April Latimer, whom he had never known.
Now he looked up and down the street, but his daughter was nowhere to be seen. A taxi drew up, and he climbed in. The driver was a sharp-faced fellow in a cap, with the stub of a cigarette stuck in one corner of his mouth. Quirke sank back luxuriantly against the greasy upholstery, chuckling to himself. Rose Crawford and old Malachy- ha!
The driver turned to him. “Where to, squire?”
“Portobello,” Quirke said.
