CHAPTER III. MY FIRST DINNER-PARTY IN DUBLIN.
AFTER securing a flat, I had gone back to England to fetch my luggage, and, on my return journey, had my first experience of the Irish Custom examination, which had just been started at Holyhead. I was travelling with some friends, and between us we seemed to have at least half the luggage on the train. This was minutely examined for revolvers, ammunition, and bombs. A ham we had was a special object of suspicion. I already hated that ham. I had carried it most of the way. It was heavy, and it nearly made us miss the boat, for the Custom officials would prod it all over. They did not prod us, for which I was thankful, though I admit they should have done: it would have been so very easy to secrete several revolvers about one's person, to say nothing of ammunition. There was no particular method of searching the luggage at Holyhead, and no counters or tables for the examination. I collected my luggage around me on the pier, as best I could, and felt like an agitated hen with a lot of chickens. Having got most of it together, one had to wait till some one came to examine it, and whether that was before or after the boat started was quite problematical. I dare say the arrangements are better now, but on my subsequent journeys to Ireland I was a privileged person, and was hurried on board the boat by my escort, who were all armed to the teeth. I passed a dreary month in Dublin. It rained almost without a pause. I believe it did the same everywhere else, but naturally I imagined beautiful summer weather all over England, and felt sure it was only wet and dismal in Ireland. We had three consecutive fine days for the Dublin Horse Show. During the past twelve months I had attended horse shows in four different countries, but the Dublin Show was the best by a long way. The horses, the jumps, and the riding, especially of the women, were a revelation to me. They were, mostly, very badly turned out, but they could ride. Horse-show week was the most peaceful one we spent in Ireland. There had been serious misgivings as to whether it would be possible to hold the show at all, owing to the disturbed state of the country. But the Sinn Fein leaders, when delicately approached on the subject, had guaranteed that there should be no disturbances of any sort. In fact, they even went so far as to say that a murder they had arranged for that week in Cork should be put off to the following week.
When it is a question of money coming into the country, republicanism takes a second place. We tried to play tennis, but the sodden courts never dried, the balls got black in a few minutes , and it was a dreary amusement. I had not been allowed to bring my dog from England to Ireland, owing to the quarantine regulations. I suppose it was right, though I really cannot see that, even if a few cases of rabies had occurred in Ireland, they would have been ever noticed among all the other excitements. My horse had not arrived, and I had nothing to ride. I was extremely bored. An invitatin to dinner from a General we had known on the Rhine , and who now occupied a high official post in Dublin, was quite an event. A motor came to fetch us, which was lucky, as I am certain that no taxi would have driven up to his house. I wondered why there was another man sitting beside the driver, and why he kept his hand in his right-hand coat pocket. I knew the reason for that, and for many other things, before I returned home that night. The General then lived in an ordinary house on the outskirts of the town. He has since moved into safer quarters. In the room into which we were shown were one or two revolvers lying about, and at a noise on the landing one of the Staff turned sharply, and asked a servant, " What was that ? " I smiled, and wondered why he was so nervous. When we went into the dining-room I found a revolver laid beside each plate knives, spoons, forks, and revolvers, in fact. The General who had taken me into dinner, said, conversationally, " This is just the sort of night they would come." I said nothing, but looked round to see where, if " they " came, I could take cover. But the room was singularly bare, and even the tablecloth did not reach the floor. I nervously ate my oysters, and thought that, perhaps, on the whole, I after all preferred dining at home. There were only two other ladies in the party : one, apparently, an enthusiastic Sinn Feiner. She started on my husband, without wasting a moment. He, having ascertained that she did not eat oysters, was quite happy to finish her share, as well as his own, and let her talk. Finding him so unresponsive, she turned to the General, and from then onwards I never got another word in ; and we had been so happy discussing racing on the Rhine, a much pleasanter subject than the I.R.A. The lady soon got very excited, and the whole table had to listen. She was trying to convert us all, I think. The General, who was always charming, listened politely, but obviously bored. She asked him to go round the country with her, to visit the people in the cabins : her poor, unhappy countrymen. " Richer, man for man, than any country in Europe," broke in a cold voice from the other end of the table. The same voice suggested to the General that perhaps it would be as well to take a revolver in his hand before he toured the country. " And a tin of Keating' s powder in the other," I added. I had not been a month in Dublin without realising the necessity of never being without the latter.
I tried to introduce a more frivolous tone into the conversation, but the lady was so desperately in earnest, so determined to make the most of her opportunities, that I gave it up. In a pleading tone she begged the General to tell her if he did not love her country. It seemed an inopportune question to ask a man, surrounded by a perfect arsenal of revolvers, a man who goes in daily risk of losing his life at the hands of the same " beloved countrymen." He merely grunted, so she turned to me with the same question. I was feeling rather cross. I wanted to talk about our year in peaceful Germany ; nearly every one at the table had been there with the Army of Occupation, and had enjoyed it as much as I had. In fact, I wanted to talk about anything as long as it was not Ireland. I also felt frightened. I did not like the revolvers lying about. They had upset me ; and when I am frightened I am always cross. It takes me that way. So I answered, " No ; I simply hate it." Tiresome woman, she would go on ; and shortly, as I had expected, she started on Cromwell . I registered a vow that before I went out again in Dublin I would read up carefully what Cromwell had and had not done in Ireland. He lived 250 years ago, it is true, but the deeds of no one else since seem to count at all with a certain class of Irishmen. We once had a house in Buckinghamshire, in the stables of which Cromwell was reputed to have stabled his horses. Very good stables they were too. That was the nearest I had ever got to Cromwell. He was also reputed to have laid waste the surrounding country. But they seem to have forgiven him there . Indeed, they have absolutely forgotten him. I quoted to the Sinn Fein lady the saying of a famous American : " Englishmen never remember history, Irishmen never forget it, and Americans never read it."
Upstairs, after dinner, I had another shock. The bridge-table was ready quite ready cards, markers, and a revolver at each corner. The General told me that ever since the murder of poor Colonel Smythe, one of his best friends, in the Club at Cork, he had always had a revolver ready. It was just the moment of time that it took Colonel Smythe to take his revolver out of his pocket that cost him his life. Alas ! we were not allowed to play bridge even ; we were still tlked out. In spite of my rudeness to her, she asked me to go and see her, and be introduced to some of her friends who shared her views. But I never went. Soon after the murders of 21st November I received a long letter of sympathy from her, but I did not answer it. Somehow, from a woman holding her views, it struck a false note, and I did not want her pity. Among other things she told us that night, I heard that for the last twenty years every child in the South of Ireland was brought up to hate England. They learnt to read from books which asked this and similar questions : " Which country in the world do you hate most ?" Answer : " England." These same books,by the way, being partly paid for by money supplied by the English tax- payer. This lady appeared to be bringing up her son in the same way. Her husband was in a British regiment. The pity of it ! The extraordinary thing was that later on, when Dublin was becoming still more dangerous, she telephoned almost daily to the Military for protection ; declared that she was in great danger, and must have a guard, which was finally given her. Her love for her countrymen did not seem to be equalled by her trust in them at that time. We dashed back home at a terrific pace through the crowded streets. Everybody was hurrying to get home before curfew. We hurried because it was never safe for these particular motors to go slowly through Dublin. A fast -moving motor is harder to hit with a bomb than a slow one. The others hurried to get in before 11 P.M. After that hour, if found in the streets, they would be taken off in a military lorry to spend the night at the nearest police station ; or if they did not stop when challenged, they ran the risk of being fired at. The Dublin citizens do not take many risks as a rule.
Our next dinner-party was at the residence I cannot call it a house of another and a still higher official. A car was not sent for us, and the taxi we ordered never turned up. Whether because I had stupidly told him where we were going to I do not know, but I suspected that was the reason. We managed to collect another taxi, and started off, already very late. A slight argument with the sentry at the gate made us later still. He evidently did not like our looks, and was unwilling to let us pass in our humble taxi. However, our hostess had guessed the reason for our delay : it was such a very common occurrence in Ireland. She told me that she had the greatest difficulty in entertaining : so many civilians were frightened at being seen too often at her house. Every motor that drives through certain gates in Dublin is watched, and the number taken, and the occupants noted. Perhaps, naturally, the ordinary residents were not very anxious that it should be their motors, so noted. The evening passed without incident. I did not actually see any revolvers, though a certain slight bulkiness in several pockets roused my suspicions. I knew where to look now. It always amused me to see with what delicate care the butlers helped visitors on with their coats. There was none of that tugging and pulling down in which English butlers indulge. The butler in Ireland knows better. Automatic pistols go off so easily. On our way home we were held up at the corner of Grafton Street the Bond Street of Dublin. A raid was in progress, all traffic was stopped, and we had to wait with the rest till an officer came and investigated us. It was a strange scene, and an unpleasant one. Crowds of scowling, sullen - looking men and women, and just a handful of very youthful soldiers and one lorry. I felt it quite probable that one side or the other would shoot us. Not on purpose, of course. But it would not be much consolation to know it was only a mistake, and as we sat with half a dozen rifles levelled at our car, I felt distinctly anxious. There was always a chance of a shot in the back from the crowd too. Doubtless, a good many of them carried revolvers. I decided I would not go out again in Dublin at night ; and I never did, except in an armoured lorry on the night of 21st November , and that was the most alarming experience I ever had.