New Fiction for Patrons: Maud Gonne Witnesses Her First Eviction

"Maud Gonne Witnesses Her First Eviction" is an extract from my upcoming novel, A Life Before. narrated by the oldest woman in Ireland, Rosy Cross. In this extract, our heroine witnesses a poor Irish farming family being evicted from their home for non-payment of rent and begins her political awakening.

Musical Ireland was in a state of great excitement. M Hollmann, the King of Holland's own personal violinist, was set to give a private recital at Rochford Hall, Graignaspidogue. Tommy was still feeling guilty over the argument about his mistress, and Maud Gonne managed to persuade him to allow her to make the journey alone with only Dash, their big bull of a bulldog, for company. Ever since the debutant's ball, she'd barely had a moment's peace. Maud Gonne was a people person, at home in a crowd, but she also craved solitude, and saw the prospect of a long carriage ride to herself with only her book for company sounded heavenly. They set off in the military carriage on a bright February day. The dust of the city soon gave way to the charm of the countryside, and. A biting east wind nipped at her skin, but Maud was cosy, wrapped in blankets with Dash warming her feet, looking out at thick, mature hedgerows bursting with wild spring flowers as they passed, altogether delighted with life. She read a little, snoozed a little, contemplated a little. Since their argument, Tommy had been so charming. They had gone to Mrs Atkinson's to order the poplin and Tommy had it made up, and she would wear it this evening to dinner. That was Tommy's way. If they ever had the slightest different of opinion on any subject, it always ended by his giving her a present, to show there was no ill-will. And also because Tommy enjoyed nothing so much as giving presents. As they moved into North Carlow, the landscape subtly shifted again, as the wildness of the Wicklow hills and lakes gave way to gentler rolling hills and roads narrowed to smaller, meandering country lanes. Then came the shock that was to have such an impact on her life. Three miles from Rochford Hall, her destination, and only a stone's throw from where I myself grew up, Maud Gonne spotted a woman lying on the ground. Beside her was what had been a thatched cottage, now but jagged remains around a gaping great hole where the door used to be. A scattering of shards of stone and cracked wooden beams lay haphazardly strewn. Maud Gonne thumped on the roof with the stick to tell the driver to pull over. Donning her shoes and gloves and taking a bottle of cordial from her satchel of supplies, she stepped out into the freezing day. The woman lay unmoving but as Maud Gonne approached, she could hear she was emitting a high-pitched, piteous sound.“What has happened here?” Maud Gonne asked, holding Dash back. A trace of wood smoke clung to the air. “Can I help you?” The woman didn't respond, too weak to even speak, it seemed. Dash sniffed around as Maud Gonne crouched to put a gentle arm under the woman’s shoulders. Her body was alarmingly light and gave off the stark smell of oft-worn fabric on unwashed skin. Beneath that paper-thin shroud, her skeleton was a stark scaffolding, each bone declaring its presence. Maud Gonne brought the cordial bottle to her chapped, dry lips. The woman hesitated, then took it with a nod of wary, poignant gratitude. Her frail fingers were trembling. She was freezing and her eyes were glassy as ice, her pupils dilated. Maud Gonne helped her to drink. It felt like holding a bundle of brittle heather stems.

“What has happened here?” Maud Gonne asked. "Has there been an eviction?"

No response. "They tore down your house?" Again, nothing. "Who is your landlord? Is it Mr Rochford?" The woman nodded this time, a fierce gesture which brought on a bout of coughing. Maud Gonne helped her to drink some more. When she’d recovered, she said in a voice hoarse and rasping. “Food?" "I am so sorry, I have nothing but this drink. What is your name? Where is your family?" "Duncan. He's... away.”

“Where is he? Might we carry you to him?”

"He's... finding potatoes. Meet here."

Maud Gonne understood what "finding" meant in this case. Duncan was likely stealing from fields or sheds.

"Our own potatoes," the woman said, another flash, this time of indignation.

“Does this not put him at risk of arrest, nonetheless?” Maud Gonne had heard enough about evictions to know the people were entitled to nothing once they were put out. Worried now that she'd landed them in trouble with her admission, the woman clammed up.

“Oh please don’t worry. I assure you I won’t report anything,” Maud Gonne said. “I only want to help.”

Some small color was returning to her cheeks. At a loss at how to help further, Maud Gonne suggested her coachman might give her a lift to the dispensary doctor.

She shook her head vehemently. “Stay here. Duncan.”

“Might I fetch you some food?”

“Money,” the woman said, chapped lips tightening in a grim line.

With a heart full of pity and uncertainty as to whether she was doing right, Maud Gonne took a gold coin from her purse and pressed it into her frail and frozen hand. She could do little but leave the woman on the side of the road, with the broken fragments of her broken life, to await her husband’s return.

“I will speak to the landlord,” she said, as she reluctantly took her leave by, placing the cordial bottle in the other hand, and covering her with her blanket. “I am going to his house now and I am sure he will help you and your husband, once he understands your misery.”

The woman stared at the sky with a look absorbed and empty, lost in disbelief and pain.

Upon Maud Gonne's arrival at the house, she immediately sought her host but he was nowhere to be found. His wife, balancing the demands of her arriving guests was unable to help. She knew nothing of such matters. Miss Gonne would have to speak to her husband.

When said husband eventually turned up, very late, having held up dinner for everyone, he was drunk and she could see immediately that it was hopeless.

Over the delayed dinner, Mr Rochford dominated the table, complaining in an overbearing voice about the Land League as the ruination of the country. His wife tried to change the subject but he could not be diverted.

He had forbidden anyone on his estate from joining, he said, and one bad tenant had done so anyway, so he’d had him turned out, and the cottage pulled down. “Duncan was always a bad tenant. I’d warned him that if he didn't pay up, in six months his wife would be lying in a ditch. Well there she now is.”

Maud Gonne could stay quiet no longer. “I saw this woman today,” she said, on my way here. “I had hoped to speak with you about her. She is in dire need of aid.”

“Assistance?” He said, laughing like this was the best joke he’d heard this long time. “My dear girl.”

Maud Gonne felt a blush creeping up her neck. She was straying far from dinner party etiquette and her hostess was furious. Earlier, she had felt judgment from many of the women around her, criticism of her having travelled down unchaperoned, and being her alone. Now, she could feel their discomfort and disapproval, their eyes pressing heavy upon her.

She pressed on. “She is very ill. I believe she might die if she does not receive assistance.”

“If she does die, she has only her husband to blame. But I doubt she'll come to any serious harm”

“You intend to offer her no assistance?” Maud Gonne asked, desperation now creeping into her voice. “If she meets her end--and, I assure you, these folk have mastered the art of manipulating sympathy... But if death does claim her, it will serve as a potent example to others who might assume that paying their rent is optional.” One of the other guests asked, brightly, whether anyone had hear M. Holman's playing before and everyone with relief changed the subject. Poor Maud Gonne put in a most bitter evening. Though M Hollmann’s playing was exquisite, as his fingers moved, taut and deft, across the strings, the plaintive sweet melody of the violin only aggravated her frustrated outrage. She kept thinking of the Dublin waif girls watching the carriages at Dublin Castle on the night of the Debutante's ball. How like their chapped lips and limp hair was to Mrs Duncan's. As she looked around the drawing room of opulent gilded wood and tapestries, at the sparkling crystal and gold-framed paintings of dead ancestors from a distant era, she was sickened by her own class. The chandeliers, the bowls of fine china, the cut-velvet sofa, the elaborate hairstyles, the soft lace and silk--everything that had felt so beautiful to her before this evening was now overpowering, sickly sweet in its opulence. She got through the performance, which wasn't so bad because she didn't have to socialise, and the small talk of the post-recital supper and finally fled with relief to the guest room that had been readied for her. She was supposed to leave Dash down in the kennels but she sneaked him into her bedroom. She needed him. It was so hateful having to spend a night under the Rochford roof. She found herself tossing and turning in the night, falling asleep and then waking ten minutes later, full of anxieties and angers. She'd never spent a night so plagued by her own thoughts. Something was wrong in Ireland, something more than some good souls like Lord Ardilaun treating the people decently, and others like that blaggard Rochford, being so cruel. She could feel the wrong, though trying to frame it in the right words was like trying to catch smoke with her bare hands. And that’s when the thought came to her, in the dark, as she stared at the ceiling, her mind a whirlgig, with the soft snores of Dash beside her. Whatever was wrong was being kept in place by Tommy’s soldiers tramping across city and countryside, showcasing their might with in their dress uniforms, drums echoing, bayonets glinting, and bugles blaring. And by the women with their elegant luncheons and teas, dinners and balls. The social scene worked hand in hand with the military might, as the women dressed and danced, swayed and twirled through The Season and the soldiers paraded their pomp and circumstance. Which meant Tommy was the person in charge of it. This thought was a cold wind blowing through the cracks opening in her mind. Tommy was the man at the head of it all, keeping the whole sorry state of affairs in place. And there she was, by his side, helping him to hold it. * * *

To Be continued... Next extract in two weeks. This book will launch in autumn 2023.