Powerscourt and Fitzgerald watched them go.
‘Do you think they know anything at all, Francis?’ said Johnny.
‘You can look at it in two ways, I think, Johnny. Either they know nothing at all, or they know a lot more than Harkness is letting on. If you forced me to place a bet either way I think I’d say they know more than they are letting on. But I could be wrong.’
They took an early lunch with the Ormondes, a clear chicken soup, roast lamb with redcurrant jelly that Powerscourt presumed was home-made, a fruit pie with cream. Johnny Fitzgerald had a long discussion with Ormonde about the local birds. Mrs Ormonde, a petite pretty woman in her early thirties with bright red hair, kept a firm but unobtrusive eye on her husband. The raging fury of days before, the Attila the Hun mood, had gone. You could see that he might easily be moved to anger but at this lunch table he was tamed. Just as she had done with the Picture Gallery, Powerscourt thought, Mrs Ormonde had locked her husband up and kept possession of the keys.
‘In Dublin’s fair city
Where the girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying cockles and mussels, alive alive oh.
Alive alive oh, alive alive oh,
Crying cockles and mussels, alive alive oh.’
The children’s concert party in Butler’s Court had begun. All the adults and a number of friends whose children were being cared for by Young James had assembled in the audience in the Long Gallery on the first floor. This was the most spectacular room in the place, nearly ninety feet long and twenty-five feet wide with huge windows looking out over the gardens and the river. Richard Butler was in the middle of the front row, wearing a deep red smoking jacket and a bow tie, looking, Powerscourt thought, rather like a man about to introduce acts in the music hall. Sylvia Butler was beside him, the two smallest Butler children sitting on either side, resentful that they were not allotted a part in the performance. The vicar was there, Reverend Cooper Walker, with that cheerful air vicars wear to fetes and parties. Johnpeter Kilross and Alice Bracken were sitting suspiciously close to one another in the back row. The first performers were three small girls in white dresses, aged, Powerscourt thought, about seven or eight. Maybe these were some of those who could not remember their lines. They sang a verse each on their own, all joining in for the chorus.
‘She was a fishmonger
And sure ’twas no wonder
For so were her mother and father before,
And they each wheeled their barrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying cockles and mussels, alive alive oh.’
The child gave a great sigh as she finished as if it had all been a terrible ordeal. James, accompanying them on the piano, gave her a stern look. A makeshift stage, used in grown-up amateur dramatics, had been erected at one end of the room. To one side was a table with poles around it holding black cloth that ran round three of the four sides. It was open facing the audience. A set of steps led up to it and in front was what looked like a bath tub, also draped in black. Powerscourt wondered if there was going to be a mock execution.
‘She died of a fever,’
the final singer, a dark-haired little girl with a very serious expression, put tremendous emphasis on the word fever,
‘And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone,
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying cockles and mussels, alive alive oh.
Alive alive oh, alive alive oh,
Crying cockles and mussels, alive alive oh.’
Many of the audience were humming along to the final chorus. The three girls bowed solemnly and departed through the door at the back of the room. Great giggling and laughter could be heard coming from the children awaiting their turn.
‘Didn’t they look sweet, Francis,’ Lady Lucy whispered to Powerscourt. ‘I hope their parents are here to see them.’
Next up was a boy of about ten years, in a dark blue sailor suit. He delivered a short extract from a speech by Daniel O’Connell at Tara, home of the legendary High Kings of Ireland, which declared that the country was making its way towards reform with the strides of a giant. Seven hundred and fifty tousand people, the boy assured them, had listened to O’Connell that day.
There was a round of applause. ‘Well said, wee Jimmy!’ ‘You tell them, son!’ ‘Three-quarters of a million, by God!’ James was back at the piano now, two girls of about thirteen standing demurely on either side of him, but turned to face the spectators. James, Powerscourt noticed, was dressed entirely in black, black trousers, a black jacket that was slightly too small for him. Only the shirt was white.
‘Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet,’
they sang in unison,
‘She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her
would not agree.’
The girls were old enough, Powerscourt thought, to dream of love, but too young as yet to have known it.
‘In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.’
Another prolonged round of applause followed, loud cries of Bravo and Encore coming from the back of the room. How innocent it all was, Powerscourt thought, and how charming. How far removed from the world outside where thieves broke in and stole, and blackmail letters came in through the front door. Now he saw the significance of the table and the black drapes. Two tall boys in dark shirts were dragging a third, dressed in rags, his hands tied in front of him, to the front of the table nearest the audience. Everything about him, his posture, his gestures, spoke of defiance. He waited until there was complete silence in the Long Gallery.
‘My lords’ – the words were spoken with extreme contempt as the prisoner stared with hatred towards the front row – ‘you are impatient for the sacrifice and my execution. Be yet patient. I have but a few more words to say.’ The guards pulled viciously at his arms at this point. ‘I am going to my cold and silent grave. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run, the grave opens to receive me and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world – it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph, for as no man who knows my motives can now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance defame them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace and my tomb remain uninscribed until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.’
With that the two guards pulled him away, crying, ‘To the scaffold!’, ‘Death to the traitor!’, ‘Hurry up with the drawing and quartering, for God’s sake!’ but the boy managed to turn and face his executioners one last time. ‘Robert Emmett, speech from the dock after his conviction, Dublin, 1803.’
A vast cheer went up. ‘Hurrah for Emmett!’ ‘Hurrah for Johnny Mason!’ ‘Didn’t he do well!’
Powerscourt suddenly remembered Uncle Peter’s description of Parnell’s funeral and his final journey through the streets of Dublin. The coffin and the vast crowds accompanying it had stopped for a minute or two outside the house in Thomas Street to pay their respects to the martyred Robert Emmett. Lady Lucy was whispering very close to his ear as the applause and the shouts went on.