Dorothy Eden (24 page)

“Then you may have a dull time,” Charles said. “I fancy there will be an unaccustomed harmony reigning.”

“I hope there is, if it makes you look as content as you do at this moment.”

“That is not entirely attributable to the current state of politics.”

He smiled into her eyes, and she remembered afterwards that moment of peaceful happiness. It lasted such a tragically short time.

On the railway station there were a few minutes before the train departed, and Katharine went to the news-stand to buy a morning paper for Charles to read on his journey. He opened it casually, then gave an exclamation.

“What is it, Charles?”

His face was rigid, full of horror. With a trembling forefinger he pointed to the headlines.
MURDER OF LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH AND MR. BURKE
.

“The new Chief Secretary!” Katharine could only whisper. “Where did it happen?”

“Where do you think? In Dublin. In Phoenix Park. Practically on the doorstep of the vice-regal Lodge.” His voice was the voice of a stranger, harsh, low, terrible. “Whoever did this—God rot their souls!”

He was trembling and frighteningly pale. Katharine made him sit down and got into the train beside him. She felt her rings cutting into her flesh as he unconsciously crushed the hand she had slipped into his.

“I’ll resign,” he said.

“What nonsense! This is nothing to do with you.”

He stared at her unseeingly.

“Just as my work was coming to some sort of fruition. The
accursed
fools! How can I carry on if I am stabbed in the back like this?”

The guard began ringing a bell signalling the train’s imminent departure. Katharine had to get out, but when Charles, frowning and still alarmingly pale, went to follow her, she pushed him back.

“You’re not a coward. Go and see Davitt and the others. You’ll know what to do. But you
must
go.”

He sank back as if he did not know what he was doing. She was on the platform and the door banged shut. As the train began to move she walked quickly beside it waving, and trying to smile. The shocked white face looked back at her. Then it was gone. The train rattled off down the track and dwindled into the distance.

“Want to read about the ’orrible murders, missis,” came the newsboy’s cheerful voice.

She did. She had to. She read how the new viceroy, Lord Spencer, had made his state entry into Dublin accompanied by the new Chief Secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish. There had been a torchlight procession in Dublin the previous evening to celebrate the release of Mr. Parnell, and the next day the crowd was in a mood to welcome the Lord-Lieutenant, hoping that he heralded a time of peace and prosperity. A polo match was being played in Phoenix Park and Lord Spencer, riding back from the festivities, stopped to watch it. He had continued on his way to Vice-regal Lodge, however, before Lord Frederick Cavendish who had walked from Dublin Castle along the banks of the Liffey, entered the park.

Mr. Burke, the Under-Secretary, had hired a jaunting car, but when he saw his chief walking he stopped the car, dismissed the driver, and joined Lord Frederick. A few moments later the murder gang sprang on them stabbing them to death.

Lord Spencer, the new Lord-Lieutenant, said that he had seen the scuffle from the doorway of the Lodge, but had thought it horseplay. Then he had heard a shriek he would never forget.

“It is always in my ears,” he said.

A man had dashed up to the Lodge shouting, “Mr. Burke and Lord Cavendish are killed.” Lord Spencer had been restrained from hastening to them lest the information had been a ruse to get him out into that murderous dusk too. So it was left to appalled passers-by to linger at the scene of the crime and wait to give what scanty evidence they could.

Katharine was appalled, too, as she read. This was surely one of the blackest crimes committed in Ireland. It seemed as if some of these Celtic people took a dark evil pleasure in crime and bloodshed. This was the strain in their nature of which Charles was afraid. He who so hated death. Fresh from his triumph of yesterday, how was he to face today?

She didn’t know what to do except send a telegram to Willie urging him to bring Charles down that evening. She was afraid for him if he were alone. She had no compunction about calling on her husband’s help. This was a national crisis. He should be as disturbed by it as was Charles.

The two men arrived so late that she had been in a fever of worry, thinking they were not coming.

It was Charles’ face, drawn and sad, which she studied with anxiety, but Willie’s too, was full of gloom.

“This is a damnable thing, Kate,” he said. The crisis had put their personal animosity into the background. Yesterday’s scene over tea in the House of Commons was forgotten.

“Is it known who committed the murders?”

“It’s believed to be the work of a gang who call themselves the Invincibles. They make a sport of removing obnoxious political people. Apparently they’ve been after Forster for months, but now he’s safe in England they’ve chosen his successor.”

“Then at least the party won’t be blamed,” Katharine said in relief.

Charles lifted his shadowed eyes. “Oh, everything will be blamed on us eventually. Indirectly, if not directly.”

“Kate, you must help me,” said Willie. “We’ve been trying all day to persuade Mr. Parnell not to resign. We’ve just about talked ourselves hoarse. Tim Healy was practically down on his knees.”

“Tim gets hysterical,” Charles said.

“Well, aren’t you hysterical in your own way, with all this determination to give up,” said Willie stubbornly.

“Oh, I may be a bit mad. All my family is, I believe. But it doesn’t take the form of hysteria. I just feel so confoundedly done, as if all I’ve worked for has been destroyed by that bloody deed in Phoenix Park last night. Lord Frederick was a young man. He left a young bride. He had all his life before him. I tell you, his blood and Burke’s will stain our cause forever.”

“Now, you’re being as melodramatic as Healy.”

“Eat something,” Katharine begged. “Willie, fill Mr. Parnell’s glass. No great decisions were ever made on empty stomachs.”

“Well, I don’t intend making any great decision, only a small defeated one. I shall write to Gladstone offering to resign, and abide by his decision.”

No amount of persuasion from Katharine and Willie would turn him from this course. The letter was written and posted. At the same time Katharine came to a private decision. She also would write to Mr. Gladstone asking him to meet and talk to Mr. Parnell.

Two gloomy days went by, and Mr. Gladstone’s reply came to Katharine’s letter. He was afraid it would not be possible for him to see Mr. Parnell, but he would meet her at Thomas’s Hotel, if she wished. Perhaps she would give him the pleasure of taking tea with him.

To observers it was a perfectly proper and ordinary thing, the elderly gentleman with the great powerful nose and beetling brows taking tea with the fashionably dressed good-looking young woman.

Their conversation was far from ordinary.

“It’s good of you to have tea with an old gentleman, Mrs. O’Shea. I admit that it would be most inconvenient and unwise for me to be in private communication with Mr. Parnell. But he has a very charming intermediary.”

“You’re not going to allow him to resign, Mr. Gladstone?”

“Good heavens, no. I’ll be frank with you. We need the Irish vote if we’re to stay in power, and your friend can guarantee that for us, I believe. No, no, he mustn’t resign. He isn’t being blamed for what happened in Phoenix Park. But those ruffians have set the clock back a bit for Ireland, I’m afraid. There’s going to be a devil of a row in the House, and we’ll have to return to coercion laws. A great pity. But patience, Mrs. O’Shea.”

The old man leaned back. He looked every one of his seventy-three years, but his eyes sparkled with their immense vitality.

“If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get this Home Rule Bill through. And Parnell’s the man to work with, I believe. He’s cool, intelligent, keeps his emotions in control, yet he has this tremendous hold over his people. He’s a curious personality, a paradox, a wonderful man. I expect you know his inmost feelings, Mrs. O’Shea?”

The words were shot at her so unexpectedly that she could not prevent her look of pride and pleasure. But she had sense enough to choose her words carefully.

“I think so. I know that he hates the English, and would die for Ireland.”

“Yes. He’s not a man for half-measures.”

Mr. Gladstone continued to regard her reflectively, and she was certain now that he knew the truth about her and Charles. He had suspected it, and now his suspicions were confirmed. But it would never be mentioned between them. There would be politeness, courtesy, and perhaps even sympathy.

“I hope he’s grateful for the loyal supporter he has in you, Mrs. O’Shea. Tell him not to lose heart. We’ve stood against a few storms and we’ll stand against a few more.”

But there had never been a storm like this.

On Mr. Gladstone’s announcement that coercion would have to be resorted to once more, and a new Crimes Bill passed, Mr. Parnell said,

“We have been contending against the Right Honourable Gentleman for two years. We have found him to be a great man and a strong man. I even think it is no dishonour to admit that we would not wish to be fought against in the same way by anybody in the future. I regret that the event in Phoenix Park has prevented him continuing the course of conciliation that we had expected from him. I regret that owing to the exigencies of his party, of his position in the country, he has felt himself compelled to turn from that course of conciliation and concession into the horrible paths of coercion.”

This caused Mr. Forster, who perhaps felt the chill breath of the death he himself had so luckily escaped, to make a long denunciation against Mr. Parnell, accusing him of having connived at the murders.

Mr. Parnell, although he looked so haggard and careworn, was equal to this. Perfectly composed, he replied that he was responsible to his countrymen only, and did not in the least care what was thought or said about him by Englishmen.

“By the judgment of the Irish people only do I stand or fall.”

The statement, infinitely more effective because it was spoken so quietly, and without histrionics, fell into an absolutely silent House. Everyone listened intently to the man who, still only in his thirty-sixth year, carried tragedy so plainly in his face.

He was all too aware that the murders in Dublin had set alight another outbreak of violence. Buildings were blown up, bailiffs for hated English landlords murdered, and innocent people who may have been compelled to give evidence silenced, too, by way of the dark door of death. A juryman was fatally stabbed for convicting a prisoner, an informer shot in broad daylight in a crowded street in Dublin.

But as to Mr. Forster’s attack on him, Mr. Parnell had to say with cutting sarcasm, “Why was the Right Honourable Gentleman deposed? Call him back to his post. Send him to help Lord Spencer in the congenial work of the gallows. Send him back to look after the secret inquisitions in Dublin’s castle. Send him to distribute the taxes which an unfortunate and starving peasantry have to pay for crimes not committed by themselves. All this would be congenial work for the Right Honourable Gentleman.”

Slowly the acuteness of the tragedy passed. Only Katharine knew that Charles had fought against illness during all those difficult weeks. He would come back to Eltham at night or in the early hours of the mornings and collapse. His nerves were gone to pieces, he said. He also suffered from feverish attacks and had nagging rheumatic pains. He needed a long rest and complete freedom from worry, neither of which things was remotely possible.

Somehow, and due only to Katharine, he said, he kept on his feet.

But the worst of the trouble was over. His manifesto denouncing the murders was out, and he was beginning to work on the Home Rule Bill again, frequently sending Katharine to Downing Street with drafts of amended clauses. Mr. Gladstone would walk up and down the long room, his arm tucked in hers, talking freely, and making her repeat the messages she was to take back to Mr. Parnell.

Construction was taking the place of destruction once more.

In spite of the anxiety, Katharine was conscious of a happiness the more acute for being tinged with sadness and uncertainty. Every morning she found a white rose to tuck in Charles’ buttonhole. The blooms would last all the summer and into late autumn. After that he would have to make the best of a non-festive appearance, which perhaps would be a good thing since a prospective father didn’t want to look too much like a gay bachelor.

Her casual words startled and dismayed him so extremely that he jumped to his feet and took hold of her.

“Is this true? Are you pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Three months. I didn’t tell you sooner because you had enough on your mind already.”

“Good God!”

She saw that his exclamation was not for her secrecy, but for the new dilemma.

“You are pleased?” she begged. “Tell me you are pleased.”

“Oh, Kate. Under these circumstances?”

“You said you would like me to have another baby. Didn’t you mean it?”

She had intended to be so calm and in control of this situation, but the agony of doubt in his face filled her with anger.

“Is saying one thing, and doing another?” She certainly had not meant to taunt him, but as he began to pace up and down, frowning heavily, she was determined to make him share her misery. She had been so deeply happy herself that she had enjoyed cherishing her secret, and had shut out of her mind the insuperable difficulties. He had expressed the hope that they would have another child, and that had been enough.

But now, by his expression, he thought her feckless, careless, imprudent. As if it were her fault alone! And yet in a queer way she thought it was her fault for having wanted another child by him so badly.

“Does Willie know?” His tone was so aggressive, that it seemed he might believe her capable of deceiving him as well as her husband.