Coming back from sitting flirting with Eleanor at Donizetti’s, Miriam wandered impatiently into the dark dining-room. Eleanor was not her guest. Why didn’t she go up to her room and leave her to the dim street-lit dining-room and the nightly journey up through the darkness to her garret in freedom. Bedtime she hinted irritably, tugging at the tether. Bedtime echoed Eleanor, her smooth humouring nurse’s voice bringing in her world of watchful diplomatic manoeuvring, scattering the waiting population of the familiar dim room. I’m going to bed stated Miriam advancing towards the windows. On the table under the window that was the most brightly lit by the streetlamps was a paper, a pamphlet … coloured; blue. She took it up. It hung limply in her hand, the paper felt pitted and poor, like very thin blotting paper. Young Ireland she read printed in thick heavy black lettering across the top of the page. The words stirred her profoundly, calling to something far away within her, long ago. Underneath the thick words two short columns side by side began immediately. They went on for several pages and were followed by short paragraphs with headings; she pressed close to the lit window, peering; there were blotchy badly printed asterisks between small groups of lines. Heavy black headings further on, like the title, but smaller, and followed by thick exclamation signs. It was a sort of little newspaper, the angry print too heavy for the thin paper. Green. It was green all through … Ireland ; home-rule. I say she exclaimed eagerly. That was the grey man. Irish. That’s all going on still she said solicitously to a large audience. What dear asked Eleanor’s figure close to her side. Ireland, breathed Miriam. We’ve got a home-ruler in the house. Look at this; green all through. It’s some propaganda, in London, very angry. I ’ope the home-ruler isn’t green all through chuckled Eleanor smoothly. It’s the wearin’ o’ the green scolded Miriam. The Emerald Isle. We’re so stupid. An Irish girl I knew told me she “just couldn’t bear to face thinking” of the way we treat our children.
Leaving Eleanor abruptly in darkness in her bedroom she shut the door and stepped into freedom. The cistern gurgled from the upper dark