to knock at Father’s study and ask to speak to him alone because Father understood her, but Eva was too shy to seek advice from anyone about anything so personal.
Eva’s parents were used to her wandering off for walks at night to sketch in the moonlight or simply sing with joy where she could not be overheard. With so many people arriving tonight nobody would miss her or Jack. She imagined cold water soaking into her bathing costume, the sway of dark waves, the white splash of oars. She would need to change back into her clothes when they reached the island, having to render herself naked under a bathing robe before slipping every item of apparel back on. Jack would be kindling a fire with his back to her, aware that she was briefly naked and knowing that when she sat next to him a tang of salt would still linger on her lips if he kissed her. He would definitely kiss her on the island with no one else there. If she allowed him, he would touch her through her clothes in places where Eva had never been touched. Surely it would be the most fleeting of touches because he was a gentleman who wished to marry her and would do nothing that might lessen his respect. Perhaps he would just want to talk or read her poetry.
The coach house was deserted. The family had divided the building into separate dens. Being fascinated by science, Art and Thomas had constructed a laboratory in the part furthest from the kitchen, from which explosions were occasionally heard. Nearby Maud had set up a weaving shed, after visiting local weavers to master the loom. Maud’s den was also the editorial address of The Dunkineely News, the family newspaper established by Maud to record the advent of summer visitors. A flight of rickety steps led to the small loft that Eva used as a studio for painting. Brendan generally flitted between dens, anxious to be with his brothers but knowing he would be teased less by his sisters. He considered the back seat of the motor as his private den. This was parked in the main coach house, and Art and Thomas were summoned to discuss engine problems whenever it refused to start.
Eva climbed the stairs to her studio where she could be alone, except for the mouse behind the skirting board whom Eva had trained to come out and accept food from her hands. Jack was the only visitor to her studio with the patience to sit still long enough for the mouse to emerge. Jack seemed content to sit for hours and watch her paint. At first Eva was too self-conscious in his presence, but she had grown so accustomed to him being there that she found it hard to paint without Jack at her shoulder.
She picked up a paintbrush but put it back, wishing she had socks to darn because she found darning a soothing occupation. Footsteps ascended the wooden stairs and she prayed it was not Jack. It was Brendan, wearing the comical oversized hat that he loved.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Just dreaming.’
‘I bet you’ll be a famous artist when you grow up.’
Eva laughed. ‘I doubt it.’
‘I’ll stand by the door in tails and top hat greeting the crowds pouring into your first exhibition.’
‘I prefer you wearing that hat. What will you be?’
‘A world famous traveller. Foreign correspondent for The Dunkineely News, sending dispatches from Killybegs and Kilimanjaro. I’ll recruit a tribe of pygmies to land at Bruckless Pier and march on Dunkineely to put Art and Thomas in the stocks with people ordered to empty chamber pots over their heads.’
Eva smiled. ‘What have they done now?’
‘Thomas won’t let me into the attics to dress up.’
‘For what?’
‘The dancing, silly. Maud has decided we should wear fancy dress tonight. She says you must go as Becky from Vanity Fair and she is dressing as a damsel from a harem, whatever that is. Will you help me to find a costume and stop the others from teasing?’
Eva took his hand, which felt so small after Jack’s, and left the studio. She envied Brendan being the magic age of ten, just like he envied Eva her grown-up status. At ten she had seemed old compared to her brothers, but, as the youngest, Brendan would always seem young. They crossed the yard, swinging their arms and singing. She knew that the others had not really barred him from the attics, especially Art with his deep sense of justice, but Brendan was sensitive to every slight, convinced that his brothers patronised him no matter what he did. Normally Eva loved to dress up but this evening she found it hard to focus on anything except the slow approach of midnight. Maud had opened a trunk of clothes belonging to Grandpappy’s late wife who had been locked away in an asylum for the incurably insane. Grandpappy had never encouraged visitors, claiming that she recognised nobody, but Eva used to hate imagining the old woman stranded in a ward of strangers.
Maud was dressed in bright silks, set off by a rich Persian cummerbund. She had found a pageboy outfit that Brendan only agreed to wear on condition that he could keep on his favourite hat. For Eva, Maud had a high-waisted, full-skirted pale green satin dress, which had probably not been worn for decades. Normally Eva liked to make her own choice but this evening she didn’t argue, even allowing Maud to put up her hair with a ring of silk rosebuds after they returned to their room.
‘You’re quiet,’ Maud observed, finishing Eva’s hair. ‘Did anything happen on the cycle back from Killybegs?’
‘Like what?’
‘You tell me.’ Maud looked down. ‘You’re blushing.’
‘Am I?’
‘Jack is daft about you. I heard him tell Father and Mother.’
‘What did they say?’
‘That you couldn’t be rushed, you didn’t really understand such things yet. But you do, don’t you? You must do what you alone want in your heart. But a man cannot be put off for ever either. You could lose him.’
Eva knew this. But there was so much else she could lose. She felt safe in Donegal where she understood this peaceful world and it understood her. Jack didn’t just bring the horror of war into their lives by occasionally shouting in his sleep, making Eva long to comfort him, he also brought home the encroachment of adulthood. There was no doubt but they made a wonderful couple, matched in everything except experience. He loved nature like she did and would happily lie out in the fields while Eva recited Tennyson or Whitman. But change was everywhere. This autumn Art would enter the University of London. A suitor could snatch away Maud at any moment. Watching Father check the windows at night Eva knew in her heart that they could wake to find the house in flames. That was why she loved to stop time in paintings. But life refused to work like that.
The maid’s voice called from the landing that Maud was urgently needed to sort out seating arrangements. Left alone, Eva examined herself in the mirror. The Victorian dress made her seem older, the piled up hair emphasising her slender neck. She closed her eyes to imagine Jack’s hand caressing it. Then the dinner gong broke her reverie. At Maud’s chest of drawers she put rouge on her face, then walked downstairs to greet people, sensing Jack watching her every step.
By a miracle they all fitted at the table. Some neighbours disapproved of such mayhem but Eva loved the informality where Cook was applauded and people struggled to make themselves heard. Across the table Jack caught her eye and Eva knew that he thought she looked beautiful. Normally she would have brought down her autograph book to ensure that everyone inscribed a clever remark or fragment of poetry. At last year’s regatta party Mr Barnes’s eldest son had inscribed a poem:
If the wicked old world was swept away
Like dust from your studio floor,
And only those parts of it made again
That were good and fair and pure;
And if the re-making was given to me,
I’d begin with Donegal,
And your studio out in the stables
Would be the first of all.
But the treasured autograph book belonged to her old life and she would have felt childish bringing it to the table now.
As