‘I adore revolution,’ Mother said. ‘It must be so exciting!’

‘Well, we’re not going to burn Mount Penrose today, Mother, just to amuse you,’ I said.

‘It is completely panelled in oak,’ Mother observed, as we made our way home.

In Longstead that evening I told Frank about Norman Penrose and how my family’s greatest wish was that I would marry him.

‘Maybe your family is right,’ he said.

‘I would die,’ I replied.

‘There’s a lot to be said for security,’ Frank said. ‘For an assured future.’

‘Look at me,’ I said, and he did. ‘I would die,’ I repeated, and neither of us smiled.

The following weekend we met in Dublin and took a tram out as far as Howth. In warm heather, as yachts like toys glided at our feet, we kissed with a new urgency. And when we got back to Dublin, we went not to the place where the bus left from, but to a hotel called The Wicklow. In the back bar, we drank whiskies, then each of us went, at three minute intervals, up the curving stairs to the bedroom Frank had reserved.

It was that night that I first felt the all-possessing thrill of love. I felt as if my body had been turned inside out. I wanted to keep the moment for all time, indissoluble.

‘Was it bad?’ he asked afterwards.

I rolled into him. ‘They say for girls who’ve ridden horses it’s easier.’

‘I might have known,’ he said.

Bella came home in May with a man in tow. In his mid-thirties, tall and cool, he was called Nick Sinclair and worked in London in some ministry or other, a family tradition, I gathered. He had never been to Ireland before.

‘Iz is the backbone of Longstead,’ Bella told him.

She was radiant and Nick Sinclair could not drag his eyes from her.

‘Wonderful old place,’ he said.

‘What’s the latest from Rafter?’ Bella enquired.

‘His son still says that the Land Commission will hold off until the end of this year’, I replied. To Nick I said, ‘We all hope that the war will end and our brother Allan will come home.’

Bella described for Nick how Longstead was in peril.

‘They just take it?’

‘They pay for it with pieces of worthless paper called land bonds. So yes, in effect, they take it,’ I said.

‘Nick says we may not have to wait too long for the war to end, don’t you, darling?’

Nick smiled thinly. ‘Hopefully.’

‘Nick knows but cannot say,’ Bella said.

After supper, Bella announced that she and Nick were to be married. Mother seemed pleased in a glassy-eyed sort of way. I went to the kitchen and found a bottle of the champagne left over from Bella’s party. We sat and drank as Bella described how she adored life in London and Nick made commitments to become better acquainted with Ireland.

‘Is there another bottle of fizz?’ Bella asked.

‘Another?’

‘I just want to make sure there’s one here when you announce your news,’ said Bella.

I laughed her off. ‘I have no news.’

She turned to Nick. ‘There’s this wonderful man who is completely infatuated with our Iz.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Nick.

‘You mean, Frank?’ Mother said.

Bella’s face went into spasm. ‘Who did you say?’

‘Frank,’ Mother said, with no idea of the consternation she was causing. ‘That lovely young man from Monument. He is quite the connoisseur of art. He very much admires my birds.’

Bella put down her glass. ‘Are we talking of the dock worker? I don’t believe this. ‘

‘Frank believes in a united Ireland,’ said Mother, ‘and I agree with him.’

‘Oh my God!’ cried Bella and closed her eyes. She turned to Nick. ‘The man I was actually referring to is Norman Penrose. He has taken over the running of our farm and transformed it. His uncle is Sir Charles Penrose.’

‘Ah,’ Nick said and nodded.

‘Iz, Norman Penrose adores you. Are you completely stupid?’ Bella asked.

I marvelled at my own composure.

‘Bella, I am so pleased for your happiness, and for yours, Nick. But since no one bullied you to come to your decision, I’d be grateful if you could bear that in mind when it comes to me.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Bella said again.

‘I may even hold an exhibition,’ Mother said, gazing at the tiny bubbles spiralling up from the bottom of her glass.

Later, Bella got me on my own.

‘By all means have your fling with your handsome dock man, but, for God’s sake, when you come to your senses, marry Norman and save Longstead.’

‘How dare you speak like that, Bella! Why should I forsake my happiness to suit you? Or anyone else?’

‘Because the happiness you refer to is an illusion. This is the first man who’s managed to lay a hand on you, so of course you like him, but then you have to take a thousand other things into consideration. Such as, who is he? What does he represent? Is his background compatible with our own? Sadly, the answer is no.’

‘You are despicable!’

‘I’m a pragmatist. It just won’t work and it’s my duty as your older sister to tell you.’

‘You are so stuck in the past that it makes me ill!’

‘I’ve spoken to Mother,’ Bella said quietly. ‘She told me he’s quite the hothead, your docker. Wants to burn down Mount Penrose, she said.’

‘That was a joke!’

‘Maybe it wasn’t. Nothing would surprise me in this country nowadays. It’s being run by corner boys. And dock hands.’

I faced her. ‘I used to worship you, Bella. I used to be so proud to watch you and to have such a beautiful older sister. But what you have just said makes me ashamed that I have ever known you.’

My sister set her face at its sharpest. ‘I’m going to forget that. But believe me when I say this: I have a duty to Daddy and this family that you seem to have decided to ignore and I’m not going to stand to one side and watch my younger sister make a complete fool of herself.’


One evening as we sat by the fire, Mother suddenly put her book down.

‘Iz, I want to go home,’ she said.

My first thought was, She’s losing her mind.

‘You are at home, Mother.’

She sighed. ‘I want to go home to Yorkshire.’

I saw her, the ghost of a tall, pretty woman, sitting before me like a child.

‘Why?’

‘It’s time.’

I made us a pot of tea. Ever since Daddy’s death, she said, she had thought about returning to Yorkshire, where some of her cousins still lived and where there was a house left to her by her stepfather. It was, she said, despite all the years in County Meath, the place she loved most and whenever she woke up and imagined for the briefest moment that she was a child again in Yorkshire, she was happiest.

‘Of course you must go, if that’s what you wish,’ I said.

‘Might you come with me, Iz?’

‘I don’t think so, Mother,’ I said gently.

She smiled. ‘That’s all right, I understand. I didn’t think you would.’

I wrote at her request to a land agent in Skipton who managed the house and told him that she would be taking it over. In the context of Longstead’s problems, it seemed like a very sensible decision.


Although Ireland was neutral and although the most all-engulfing war the world had ever known was referred to in Ireland as “the Emergency”, ours was a benign and knowing neutrality, so that when, on June 7th, all the newspapers carried banner headlines announcing the invasion of Europe, there was a lift in everyone’s step. We in Ireland knew that only when the war was won would shortages ease and the full benefits of being independent begin to be exploited.

But there were those who were determined, against all the odds, to strike against what they saw as the remnants of imperialism. A week after D-Day, I read of an attack on a lonely police barracks in Munster and the death of a garda sergeant. Subversives were responsible, the paper said, reporting that the Minister for Justice had vowed to hunt down the killers without mercy and to bring them to account.

Allan wrote from France and his letter did the rounds of everyone in Longstead. He had come in with the first landings. He was well, Hitler was beaten and the war would be over by Christmas, Allan said. I brought his letter down to the village and read it to the Rafters.

‘Thanks be to God,’ Mr Rafter said.

‘I’ll see the word gets around, Iz,’ said John, the son, and nodded reassuringly.

It was turning into a good summer from the point of view of fattening cattle and saving hay. Norman had been almost every day in one part of Longstead or another almost every day, directing teams of men in their tasks. In late June, the hay had been drawn into the barns near the house and also into a hay shed renovated by Norman for the purpose, which stood by a boundary wall not far from the village. But one morning in early July, one of our farmhands came in, wide-eyed.

‘The new barn, Miss…’ I knew what he was going to tell me. The look of fear in his face was the worst part. ‘They burned it to the ground.’

It was the waste I found most distressing, for I too had helped in the fields, bringing out flasks of tea and bread and working until ten at night to get the hay saved. Forty cattle could have wintered off what had been destroyed. Although people in Tirmon must have seen the blaze, since they lived the other side of the wall, no one had raised the alarm or tried to help.


Word of Longstead’s problems travelled fast. Among the first to drive up our avenue and show solidarity were Stanley and Norman Penrose.