In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

In the evening I contemplated wearing one of Oona's ball gowns, then decided that I’d be up in the gods with the students and should look inconspicuous. So it was the striped two-piece again, which was by now somewhat the worse for wear. But I did put my hair up and tucked a small feather into it. Then off I went into the night. It was a bitterly cold evening and the lacy shawl around my shoulders was no match for the wind sweeping in from the North Sea. I think windswept was also the word to describe my appearance when I finally landed up outside the theater.

There was quite a crowd around the Ambassador. I pushed my way through and made it up many flights of stairs to the gods. As soon as I found my seat and looked around, I spotted Alice waving at me from the other side of the balcony. I had hoped that I might be able to draw my seatmates into conversation and find out more from them about the Dublin literary life and Terrence Moynihan, but on one side of me were two large ladies who engaged in nonstop gossip about the people they were observing in the stalls through their opera glasses and on the other a young couple so clearly in love and oblivious to the rest of the world that I hadn’t the heart to interrupt them.

During the interval I sought out Alice. “What do you think of it so far?” she asked.

“Maud Gonne is lovely,” I said. “I can understand why Mr. Yeats is besotted with her. Those eyes—they seem to take up half her face.”

“But the language,” Alice said patiently. “Don’t you find the language stirring? An Irish play about Irish people, not other people's lives, but our own. Don’t you find that wonderful and new and exciting?”

“Oh indeed,” I said, realizing that I was probably neither a true scholar nor patriot. In truth, I was finding parts of it long-winded.

“Will you be coming to the party afterward?” Alice asked.

“Party?”

“There's going to be a celebration at a restaurant across the street,” Alice said.

“But I’m not invited.”

She laughed. “It will be a proper shindig, a free-for-all with the wine flowing like water if some of their other parties are anything to go by. Half of Dublin will be there.”

“Then I’ll join in the fun by all means,” I said. If Terrence Moynihan had made any name for himself as a playwright then I should know by the end of tonight.

The play ended to riotous applause. Mr. Yeats was called on stage to take a bow. He appeared, looking every inch the poet, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, and solemnly kissed Maud Gonne's hand. The crowd applauded wildly.

“Give her a great big smacker,” someone shouted from the gods. He didn’t oblige but escorted her gallantly off the stage. We were swept down the stairs by the crowd and out into the chill night. We didn’t need to ask where the party was to take place. We were born across the street like leaves floating in a current and into a brightly lit saloon, already crowded with people. Alice saw people she knew immediately, and I was left to stand there, examining the scene. A familiar voice attracted my attention, and there was the lovely Grania from the hotel, holding court, surrounded by a circle of admirers.

“So what did you think of the play?” a voice asked beside me and aserious-looking young man stood at my elbow. He was rather shabbily dressed, and I took him for another student.

“Interesting,” I said cautiously. “I need more time to digest it. What did you think?”

“As a playwright, I think Mr. Yeats is a very fine poet,” the young man replied with a twinkle in his eye. He held out his hand. “The name is Joyce,” he said.

“Joyce? You have a woman's name?”

He laughed. “That's my family appellation. First name is James, but it's not polite to be on first-name terms with young ladies with whom one is not familiar.”

I laughed too. “Well spoken, Mr. Joyce. My name is”—again I hesitated and opted for caution—”Mary Delaney, visiting Dublin from New York. Are you a student?”

“I am. Finishing up at University College here in the city. But also a writer, Miss Delaney,” he said, “at least a hopeful writer.”

“Ah, James, there you are, you fine fellow.” A big hand was clapped on his shoulder, and he was borne into the crowd before I could find out whether he was another aspiring playwright and might have met Terrence Moynihan.

Trays of wine came around and I took a glass. At least sipping it gave me something to do. The rest of the people in the crowd seemed to know each other and were all engaged in animated discussions. I moved closer to Grania and her set, shamelessly listening in on her conversation.

“So is he going to be our new shining star of the theater?” someone was asking.

“The words are lovely to be sure,” another chimed in, “but he doesn’t possess the wit of an Oscar Wilde or a Bernard Shaw, and certainly not of a Ryan O’Hare.”

I pricked up my ears now. I’d forgotten that Ryan also came from Ireland. I knew he’d come to fame in England, where he had been blacklisted for writing a wickedly satirical play about Victoria and Albert.

“And what about Cullen?” the first woman continued. “He would have topped them all by now, if he’d had a chance to go on writing. I certainly miss Cullen.”

“We all miss Cullen,” Grania said.