Maud Gonne Meets Her Half-Sister: A New Extract for Patrons

Maud Gonne and her friend Mrs Eva Caine were on a purchase outing, perched like a pair of princesses in the barracks carriage, enjoying the easy banter of good friends as they moved from shop to shop. You’re probably imagining the strolling down the street arm-in-arm? Not a bit of it. In those days, “carriage shopping” was the thing, with a lady’s conveyance serving as a moving parlor from which to shop without sullying delicate shoes on the cobblestones. Dublin at last had a brick sewer, so the open drains and cesspools that once lined Grafton Street were a thing of the past but there was still horse manure, and coal fires belching their dusty smoke, and no shortage of muck and stink.

Maud Gonne loved it, all the same, the vibrant hues of the market stalls and shopfronts, the shopkeepers and concierges standing at the shop doors, nodding and smiling at the carriage windows, hoping to catch the eye of whomever was within, trying to will open their purses. She loved being here with her friend, peering out at the shopfronts’ glittering promise, feeling very much the grown-up, highborn ladies.

This morning Maud Gonne and Eva had already been to Yeates’ opticians, known to all Dublin for its iconic spectacles outside. To Mitchell’s confectionary, that haven of sweet indulgences. To Fannin’s medical rooms, where ladies of a certain class could buy a bottle of laudanum over the counter for the vapors or the monthly cramps that could only be discussed in whispers. And to Tims’ emporium, a sanctuary for book and stationery lovers.

Both girls loved paper as much a jewels and the smell of fresh ink as much as any eau de cologne, so their time testing pens and sheets of paper, was a particular joy but each shop had created a tiny theatre of commerce in the carriage, where they were the leading ladies, recognized and revered, while treasures were unveiled for their pleasure with a mix of pride and reverence and offers of tea and treats.

Now they had two appointments left. Maud Gonne needed to go to McCullagh & McCullagh for some sheet music she wanted to send to Kathleen, as a surprise. And Eva needed some dancing slippers from Switzer & Co.

The Horse Show ball, one of the grandest affair of the season, was looming and Eva’s dance slippers were no match for the beautiful new gown being made for her, Madame Atkinson’s latest sartorial masterpiece. She had turned to Maud, her trusty friend known for a keen eye and fine taste, to help her in her quest for footwear that would be a statement, but also carry her through the night with comfortable poise.

They were in luck as their carriage pulled into a spot just vacated outside the door and they dispatched Lar inside with the slip of paper that bore their requests.

“Did Claude have any preference for your slippers?” Claud was Captain Claude Caine, Eva’s husband.

“As I won’t be wearing them to the stables, he has no opinion on the matter.’

Maud Gonne laughed. “Ah, men and their one-track minds. He’d probably like to see you dancing in your riding boots!”

“Once when I spoke to him of 'satin' he thought I was speaking of what one did in a seat. Thank goodness I have you, dear Maud.”

“I’m not sure if I can advise you but I do know satins from sittings!”

‘Dear Claude!” Maud Gonne always played along with her friend’s complaints about her husband, a narrative which unfurled with the ease of a practiced lament, forever bemoaning his disregard for the necessities of society. She adored him really. Maud sat back in her cushioned seat, offering nods and sympathetic clucks or chuckles as appropriate, enjoying their private world where Eva's matrimonial woes were the headline act, while they waited for Lar’s return.

When the carriage door swung open, they were deep in conversation and Maud Gonne jumped, a little. Then she saw who was climbing into the carriage, and she jumped again, this time with a leap that would startle a horse. For who should be stepping in, bearing two boxes of dancing slippers, with Lar lined up to hand her in more from behind, but Mrs Robbins, the young woman whose house she’d visited the morning before.

“Madame Caine,” she said, as she came in, bowing to Eva who had sent in the order. In those days, any woman from overseas was dubbed "Madame," and Eva, being Maltese, had been draped in the title by Dublin. Then her gaze slid over to Maud, and a flash of bewilderment crossed her face.

Sparks of recognition flew between them, in silent salvo, each flustered by the sudden, unexpected, face-to-face.

“This is Miss Gonne,” Eva said, in her Maltese accent, a little puzzled as she picked up on the atmosphere. “Daughter of Colonel Gonne.”

Maud Gonne could do nothing but nod with the small, appropriate tilt of the head, composing her face into cover-up. Mrs Robbins now knew she was Tommy’s daughter. She must also know that, such being so, the call she’d made to her house was not made for the reason given. Worst of all: she was most likely to tell Tommy. There was no getting away from it: her secret was bared.

But a breath ago, she’s been all enamored with the bustling charm of Grafton Street, but she now found herself cursing its very existence. The carriages rolling by, the passersby strolling the street, now seemed to her to be silent observers of her every move. Her parade ground of delight had turned into a theatre of treachery and she felt a desperate urge to flee.

Grafton street existed—still exists today—because once there was once a young man who was pronounced “The Duke of Grafton” by his father, a King who’d given himself the wherewithal to parcel up packets of Irish land and hand them out to English favourites. That old rake, the second King Charles it was, who handed over such a parcel to one of his many by-blow bastard sons. (He had a battalion of them and daughters too, though they were given husbands instead of acres or positions).

Before Cromwell came with his Republican parliament, Catholic gentry in Ireland had a good grip on the land, but he snatched it fast as a fox takes a hen. Come 1660, with the monarchy back on its pedestal, those Protestant settlers who’d pocketed land in the 1650s were naturally set on keeping their plots, and making much of their contracts. But the Catholic Royalists, who’d cozied up to the crown and cheering for Charles I and then Charles II in exile, when it was dangerous to do so, naturally wanted their lands back.

And then there were the other Catholic landlords who’d been shuffled off to Connacht, and were now sitting on land pinched from those who naturally wanted their fields back also.

Charles needed all the friends he could get, and played a game of take-and-give. He handed some the land confiscated from his enemies to his Catholic family and friends: his brother, the Duke of York, his mistress Barbara Villiers, and even tossed an Irish title, Earl of Castlemaine, to her husband, Roger Palmer.

And to her son with him—his “natural” son as he called him, for even royalty knows there’s nothing natural about their pomp and primogeniture, and even royalty must bend to the whims of Mother Nature—he gave a lush pocket of land cradled in the green embrace of the countryside near Dublin, where the grass grew as if kissed by fairy lips and the air hummed with the whispers of long ago.

This land had a track snaking through it, following the line of the old Steyne river and the Duke of Grafton let out part of the land, including the track, for the growing of wheat. But when the plaza of College Green was being created outside the Dublin University, at the same time as St Stephen’s Green was being laid out as a square, he saw an opportunity. The rough track would become “a Crown causeway”, he declared.

In plain talk, the people who'd dug deep into their pockets to pay the taxes would pave the way. His notion got the nod from a sleepy parliament and Grafton Street sprang up, a rough track turned into a fine residential boulevard in a few years, courtesy of a bit of royal scheming and the coinage of common people.

Today’s twists in Grafton St are ghosts of that river Steyne and its country trail, though it was culverted and brought beneath the belly of the city at the same time as the rich began to build their grand houses of tall windows and elegant doors there.

Many interesting people lived in Grafton St in the 18th and 19th century, most notably Mr Theobald Wolfe Tone, a fine lad with a head full of rebellion. He met Miss Matilda Witherington in Grafton St. when she lived there with her grandfather, a man of the cloth by the name of Fanning. The two made a runaway match, and eloped, but after a while all was forgiven, and they settled in lodgings not a stone’s throw from the old man’s place. It was from there that Wolfe Tone hatched his his grand schemes to shake off the English yoke from Ireland’s neck and plotted bring the French military force to Ireland in the insurrection of 1798.

His wife’s sister took the opposite course, marrying a man as welcome in decent company as a rat at a christening, being an informer to the Crown, a sneak and a spy, who sold his soul for a purse and a pat on the head from his English masters. The curse of the freedom-seeking Irish, said informers.

Now, by the time Maud Gonne and Eva have come there to o their shopping, near on two hundred years had passed since the first home was built, and all but one the buildings erected – that grand old dame, the Provost's House in Trinity College – had tipped its hat to the relentless march of commerce, and surrendered to trade. Grafton St resigned itself to its role as a commercial artery, to being lined on both sides each day with equipages, to grand dames of Dublin's elite chattering about Parisian trends as they sent their footmen scurrying with packages and purchase orders. We’ve driven the echoes of its residential past, and its even older royal and rural past, underground. Forgotten, unseen beneath the clamor and commerce, it’s still there all the same, in culvert like the River Steyne.

* * *

Mrs Robbins presented Eva with the first set of slippers and she tried on the left one, her face lighting up with the thrill of the new and the splendid as she surveyed it, twisting her angle this way and that.

“What do you think, Maud?”

“Oh, they’re quite lovely,” she said. “Are they comfortable?”

Eva slipped her feet in and out of various pairs of slippers, while Mrs. Robbins assisted her, with hands deft and sure. She had a refined air for a shop-girl. Even dressed in the Switzers uniform, mind you, but even in that simple garb of a crisp white blouse tucked neatly into a plain dark skirt, she carried herself like she was draped in silks and satins. There was a grace about her, an air that whispered she was meant for grander stages than this humble shop floor. Her demeanor was all business, but with a polish that was too refined, too knowing for such modest toil.

“Now, let’s see, Madame Caine,” she’d respond, her tone smooth as a well-kept road. “What about these?”

Maud Gonne played her part. At the same time, she was trying to get a look at Mrs Robbins abdomen to see if her suspicion of last time might be confirmed. maneuvered around the tight space with the ease of a cat.

and it looked like she was right. The figure was trim, the bosom was high, but in her shop-assistant outfit the swelling underneath was evident if you looked for it. And soon would be obvious without.

Maud, felt a sudden rush of blood, like she’d stood up too fast. Everything blurred, and she saw a vision of two Mrs Robbins.

She sensed she was being watched, turned and saw her. They locked eyes.

Eva admired the satin shimmering in the light, daintily touching and feeling,

The assistant was doing her job, watching keenly, trying to gauge every hint of a smile or a frown, but her gaze also flitted back to Maud.

"Would you ladies care to step inside for a spot of tea?" she inquired, her voice a melody of professional warmth. "The store now boasts an orchestra serenading the fashion floor each afternoon.”

"Oh, that sounds divine," exclaimed Eva. "What do you say, Maud? Shall we?"

Caught in a maelstrom, Maud Gonne masked her inner turmoil behind a practiced smile. "Next time, perhaps. I am already engaged for tea.”

With an understanding nod that held more grace than the cramped quarters of the carriage seemed to allow, Mrs. Robbins made her retreat, withdrawing backwards, as Lar stepped forward, as if on cue, to assist her in managing the boxes.

As soon as the carriage door closed after them, Eva leaned in. “You’re not engaged for tea.”

“No.” Maud tried to smooth over the creases of her disquiet, her mind racing in the attempt to protect her secrets, but unable to cloak her vulnerability and disbelief.

“My dear, who is she? What's wrong?"

Maud Gonne hesitated. Could she confess the unspoken truth, the family secret, that had been tormenting her for days? Saying the words out loud would give them too much power.

"You know you can confide in me” Eva urged, her earlier delight with the dancing slippers and other shopping quite forgotten. “I don’t like to see you like this.”

“You can never tell a single soul, least of all Claude. Tommy has no idea that I know and he must never be told.”

"I swear it," Eva vowed. “Not a word, to Claude, or to anyone.”

"I think…” Her voice was barely a thread. “I’m not sure… but I have all good reason to think that woman may be my half-sister.”

"Your half-sister?" Eva echoed. “You mean an unacknowledged sister?”

"Exactly that.” Eva’s shock and curiosity were already making Maud Gonne regret her disclosure. Before the import of her words could sink in, she said changed tone, “Let's not dwell on such dreary family sagas. Have you heard about the latest about Mr Parnell and Mrs O’Shea?”

“No. Pray, tell.”

The tale of the “uncrowned king of Ireland,” Charles Stewart Parnell, and his mistress, Katharine O’Shea, was a juicy bit of gossip that had long had Dublin and London tongues salivating. Their open affair was years old now and Captain O'Shea had left his wife over it but, feckless and fiscally challenged, he hadn’t divorced her, for she was sitting pretty on the promise of a hefty inheritance that, as her husband, he had a right to claim.

Maud Gonne told Eva what Tommy said about Mr Parnell, that he had achieved what was once unthinkable in bringing one of the great English political parties close to committing to Home Rule now. But Eva was not one bit interested in that so she sprang her best shot, though she didn’t like spreading rumours. With the flair of a natural storyteller, she launched into the story she had heard, peppering it with wit and intrigue, replacing the shadow of her confession with an affected delight in gossip, as she recounted how it was said that Captain O’Shea had seduced his wife’s sister, Miss Anna Caroline Wood. And that it was Mrs O’Shea who was going to be seeking the divorce.