Authors: Marjorie Bowen
Mr. Thomas Reynolds returned to his house as the stormy dawn was discolouring the skies above Dublin. He had come from a carnival at the Rotunda and his mood was black. His companion, a woman on whom he had already spent too much money, had stolen a diamond pin he had inherited from his mother. Most of Mrs. Reynolds’s jewels had disappeared — and not into the coffers of her son’s wife.
Mr. Reynolds had been drinking heavily, but he had a strong head. It was with a steady hand that he turned over a pile of unwelcome letters that his wife had flung on his dressing-table.
There was one from his steward at Kilkea Castle which he had obtained through the favour of Lord Edward, lamenting that the military had been quartered on the estates and had devastated the property searching for rebels, and one from his head clerk stating that ladies came into the warehouse and cut off lengths of valuable brocade, declaring they had the permission of Mr. Reynolds. Another from a friend claiming repayment of a loan, one from an acquaintance demanding a settlement of a gambling debt…
Mr. Reynolds swept them all on to the floor, yawned, lit a candle, selected a brandy flask from among the pomade pots and scent bottles, took a long draught, then pulled out of the pocket of his expensive coat a bundle of last night’s newspapers.
Once more he read carefully over the paragraphs that announced that the French fleet, with Hoche and Grouchy on board, had been wrecked by gales in Brest harbour. Perhaps true; perhaps lies. He looked up at the bleak uncurtained windows. A storm was tearing the dark clouds across the empty sky.
‘It must be wild enough at sea.’
The bold face of Thomas Reynolds became grim and calculating in that wild winter light as he stared at the threatening skies and listened to the dull roar of the winds blowing away from the Irish coasts.
At his breakfast table, while Pamela frothed her chocolate, Lord Edward learnt from the public journals the confirmation of the rumours which had passed so anxiously among his friends.
On the night of the departure of the French squadron for Ireland seventy-four of the ships had struck upon the rocks and been lost. It was believed, too, that Generals Grouchy and Hoche, who were on board
La
Fraternité
, had been, in the storm, separated from the body of the fleet and were either lost or had been forced to return to Brest. The remnant of the armament was supposed to be forcing its way through contrary winds, gales and fogs, towards the Bantry Bay… The newspapers fell from Fitzgerald’s hand; he could no longer command himself.
Pamela rose as she saw her husband’s face and ordered Tony out of the room as she went behind her husband’s chair, where he sat leaning forward on the pretty table.
‘Read there,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot tell you — the worst — after all the waiting!’ She picked up the bent paper and read the news from France, then cried desperately:
‘Oh, Edward, it may not be true! They would invent that to dishearten us.’
‘I fear it is true. One may see for oneself the weather. My God, why could they not start before, with the wind set fair for Ireland for a month?’
He held his head in his hands and stared at the carpet. Again there swept over him that inexplicable sense of fatality which had shadowed him since he was a child. He never had felt the confidence of a man who is destined to successful action, and sensed it like a fatal flaw in himself. Over all his high spirits, his enthusiasm, his hopes had fallen this shadow, not of weakness, not of indecision, but of the sense that he and his cause were marked out for the mockery of fortune.
And Pamela had always shared his feelings. She had been, since she had married him, afraid of his destiny.
The wind cast the rain in large sheets on to the window, rattling the panes; howled in the chimney, scattering the ashes and embers on the hearth. The whole city, the whole island, was grey, as if wrapped in mourning. Pamela, thinking only of her fears, took her husband by the shoulder, and bent over him.
‘Edward, won’t you let this be the end of it? I’ve endured almost enough, with the children to think of and so much uncertainty. Will you remember now Mr. Ogilvie’s warning? Will you remember what Mr. Emmett said?’
‘I should not have told you those things,’ muttered her husband. ‘Must you always bring them up?’
‘Don’t speak harshly, Edward! Nay! I don’t care if you do! Let us go to England. Henry wants us — your mother. Think of her. You always cared for her more than you did for me or the children. I will go to her. I will ask her to help persuade you.’
‘Pamela, you dare not do it!’ He jumped up, taking her hands fiercely. ‘My mother knows nothing, nobody knows anything. I’ve almost had to lie to them, too, for the first time in my life deceive them. I have trusted you and you alone, Pamela. You can’t betray me by as much as a look!’
‘Sometimes I think I could,’ she answered desperately. ‘Sometimes I could go to your brother Leinster and give him the whole tale and have you seized and taken out of this dreadful island. Oh, Edward, what can you hope for now if this fleet is ruined?’
‘It is not all ruined,’ he said obstinately. ‘I was overthrown for a moment only. Pamela, see, it says here, even in the English prints, that the rest of them make for Bantry Bay, and if they landed with a few men we could do it; by God, we could! Nay, we could do it without, as I maintained to Emmett.’
‘How can they land in such foul weather? Such a gale already! What ship could live in such a sea as there must be around Ireland’s coasts to-day?’
‘Well, if the French ships can’t live, neither can the English,’ said Fitzgerald, with a forced smile. ‘Moore and Abercrombie won’t get here, either, and the troops in the country amount to nothing… Campden will be helpless. I’ll do it, I say, I’ll do it —’
‘But Hoche, you were counting on Hoche,’ she urged, turning from one argument to another in her desperation. ‘It seems that he is lost, with Grouchy, and, I suppose, Mr. Wolfe Tone.’
‘
La
Fraternité
is not lost,’ cried Edward Fitzgerald, with the air of a man who refuses to be discouraged. ‘Hoche lives, I’m sure he lives, and he will, if need be, fit out another expedition. He will not disappoint us. I have met the man. I know him. Tone too, I can answer for him — his life is in it.’
‘And not his only, I think,’ cried Pamela, twisting her hands, hardly able to control herself. ‘But yours and mine and our children and all your friends. Oh, God, Edward, I would you had never met these people who have led you into all this! I see nothing but evil coming of it!’
He gave her a furious look.
‘I should not have told you, Pamela. I certainly love you too much. That was my weakness.’
‘And now I discover mine. I am a woman, nothing but a woman. You should never have taken me for more.’
‘I did not, dear. But I took you for a woman of a rare fortitude.’
‘Well, so I am! Have I not been brave? You took all my happiness from me when you made me leave Kildare. What do you think that journey to Hamburg was to me? No, I must not complain. I am truly not only weak, but cowardly. Forgive me, Edward. But I would ruin my reputation in your eyes if I could but persuade you —’
‘You could if any could, Pamela. I am heartsick myself, for the things we have lost. I don’t think I am the man for this, either. Emmett was right, though I withstood him. I feel that every time I think of it, and I must confess I’ve been much unsettled by that talk of treachery. But I can’t go back.’
‘Why not, Edward? Here is a fair excuse. Let the whole thing wait for another time. Go to England as soon as the packets can sail. Till then let us return to Kildare, far away from trouble, so if any is suspected, if any information is lodged at the Castle Oh, Edward, I don’t know what I’m saying!’
He shook his dark, handsome head. ‘You see, Pamela, I’m better protected than any of these men. Even Clare and Castlereagh are my friends, and tried to warn me. I can’t take advantage of that, can I? I don’t think the ports would be open to the Sheares or Bond or Reynolds or O’Connor. I believe they are all marked. They must be — their names are known. Don’t you see, Pamela, that I couldn’t do it? Escape and leave them to face it — when they hadn’t a chance, and I had?’
‘Oh, a man’s honour’ — she sighed wearily — ‘yes, I know all about that! But you might break down even those niceties for my sake.’
‘A man can’t, Pamela. He simply can’t. It’s his friends first in a case like this. I should show up as a coward if I was to fly and leave them to it. I should never be able to look you in the face again. What tale would you tell the children after?’
‘Edward, I am not well; indeed I am not well. I have tried to disguise it from you, but I doubt if I can endure much more of this terrible secrecy — this anxiety — this living almost in hiding.’
‘You need not do that, Pamela. You should go about more — it would help divert suspicion.’
‘Why, that’s worst of all. When I go with your brother or his wife or with Lady Moira or any of these people, I feel them watching me, perhaps kindly, perhaps maliciously, hoping some word will drop from my lips that will help them to understand. Can’t you realise, Edward, the strain it is? And I have always told you, I am a foreigner here, and none of them like me very well.’
She checked herself suddenly, alarmed by the look of distress on his pale face.
‘I despise myself,’ she whispered in a hoarse voice. ‘I become a mere raving woman, and a piteous thing that is —’
‘I had no right to love you, Pamela. You must find it hard to forgive me, dear. I find it hard to forgive myself. I took it all so light-heartedly then. I never realised how this — how Ireland — would get hold of my heart. Oh, Pamela, don’t look like that — so forlorn! Why, I’m a fool to talk despondently — I don’t feel it. What will you say when you see the green flags above the Castle, dear, and Campden and his staff sent aboard a ship for Dover, like so many bundles of returned merchandise?’
She tried to smile in response to his sudden wild, high spirits, but she thought: ‘God help me, I don’t believe that any but the doomed are so confident.’
Lord Edward, as if he broke away from bonds, left Pamela. Catching up his hat, and without a cloak he hastened out into the wet streets, the steady wind howling about him, snatching away the mist from the roofs, and sending the rain in gold gushes against the grey fronts of the houses.
His first thought was to consult with his friends on the news published in the journal, and then, if possible, to get quickly together a meeting of the United Irishmen that they might decide what their course was now to be if the French did not land at all, or were only able to send a small body of troops.
He called, therefore, at the house of Arthur O’Connor, and found that gentleman, like himself, deeply perturbed.
‘I don’t know what to say, Fitzgerald. It looks as if the very elements were on the side of England.’
‘We’ll rise without them, as I said, but we must wait and see if any do come. We ought to go to the coast, perhaps, ourselves. I don’t know. My wife grows so fearful, I don’t want a premature explosion,’ he added, as if to himself. ‘That’s hard to bear, O’Connor. I should not have told her anything —’
‘Can you trust her? She is Lady Castlereagh’s friend, and in a moment of weakness, of excitement —’
‘Not a friend, an acquaintance. And I
can
trust Pamela not to speak — I can’t trust her, though, not to die of keeping silent.’
He stood at the window. The rain was ceasing with the rising of the wind. The clouds were swept up high, leaving the city outlined against the pale-washed sky which showed beneath the tumult of the storm.
‘Let us ride out,’ cried Fitzgerald. ‘I have been far too long in narrow streets and shuttered rooms. Let us ride a little way into the country. The wind will freshen our wits.’
*
In half an hour they were on the road, free of the dark gloomy shape of the Castle, fortress and prison, of the detested pride of the English flag that fluttered, gaunt and sodden, above the city.
Neither spoke. The rain and the wind and the steady exercise soothed them better than any words. They rode along the banks of the Liffey, which was grey and swollen. The clouds broke overhead. They looked up to see a rift of blue sky, pale and distant. The wind seemed to drop a little, and the thoughts of both the men were with the shattered fleet travelling towards Bantry Bay.
‘Ogilvie,’ said Fitzgerald suddenly, ‘told me that Clare mentioned the
Union
Star
. He accused us of conniving at it — and assassination. I saw it posted up to-day — a sheet that advised the taking off of Campden —’
‘The Castle is running it,’ replied O’Connor, whose own journal had recently been suppressed, ‘to blacken our characters and ruin our chances; to give them an excuse for unparalleled severity.’
‘Ogilvie challenged them with that to their faces.’
‘They denied it?’
‘Castlereagh said it was a foul libel.’
‘He lied. I don’t understand Castlereagh. Why is he so diligent against us?’
‘I don’t know. I liked him, he seemed so mild. Now! He must know that torture is used — the cat-o’-nine-tails, the pitch cap, the scourge! I confess I am afraid of Castlereagh, O’Connor.’
‘Why?’
‘He is the type who always seems to be successful.’
Arthur O’Connor shrugged under his wet cloak.
‘About the
Union
Star
— that damned rag does us much harm. I suppose Clare denied all knowledge of it?’
‘Neither denied it nor admitted it, but Ogilvie had his impression strengthened that the Castle knew all about it.’
‘Well, our hands are clear there,’ said O’Connor with impatience. ‘We have had no dealings with the
Union
Star
nor the editor, nor any of the printers. If our affairs should come to be publicly examined we should have no difficulty in proving that we have not advocated any manner of violence. But, by God, what the Government does is sufficient to provoke assassination. Did you hear of that poor boy last night? They had him tied up in the Castle yard for a flogging — the second that he’d endured. He got untied from the triangle under the excuse of a confession — sent them off to look for non-existent arms at his lodgings, then cut his throat with a pen-knife he got hidden about him.’
‘We must strike for it!’ cried Fitzgerald, urging his horse faster. ‘Even without the French —’
‘And two days ago a wretch they’d put into the warm pitch cap broke out all smeared with turpentine and drowned himself in the Liffey. A man was thrashed to death at Drogheda for having a shamrock on his ring.’
‘O’Connor, O’Connor, we must rise, must risk it, even if it comes to all of us cutting our throats in jail.’
‘I’d do that, sooner than be hanged.’
‘Hanged!’
‘Horrified, my lad? They’d do it.’
‘Yes, yes; that must be faced.’
They rode in silence, full of anxious thoughts. Suddenly, out of the misty, wind-scattered rain, a party of English soldiers came towards them, ten or twelve, riding at a canter.
The officer passed Fitzgerald, gave him a sidelong glance, then pulled up his steaming horse and turned so as to obstruct the passage of the Irishmen.
‘Lord Edward Fitzgerald, I think?’ said the Englishman. His fair, narrow face, wet from the rain, showed cold and haughty beneath the elaborate head-dress, sodden and dripping on to his cloak.
‘That is my name, sir,’ said Fitzgerald.
‘Well, I don’t like the colour of your neckcloth,’ said the Englishman insolently.
Fitzgerald had drawn up his fine black horse. He wore, according to his custom and contrary to the habits of most gentlemen, a neckcloth of green silk instead of a white cravat, fastened loosely round his neck and tied in the front.
‘Why? It is a pleasant colour,’ he answered quietly; ‘that of nature, of hope.’
‘I don’t like it. I think you would do well, sir, to take it off. Nay, I demand that you take it off. Hope? The damned French have gone down in a storm.’
Arthur O’Connor had paused beside his friend.
‘Your cloth bespeaks you a gentleman,’ said Fitzgerald in dry rebuke.
‘Green, I think,’ continued the officer, ‘is the colour of the United Irishmen.’
‘That society has ceased to exist, sir. It was made illegal some time ago, was it not?’ asked Mr. O’Connor pleasantly. ‘And I have no knowledge that green was particularly their colour.’
‘And I have some knowledge that it was,’ replied the Englishman. He twisted round in his saddle, and peering into Lord Fitzgerald’s face, added: ‘And it’s a bad colour to be wearing just now. What do you intend to do, sir?’
‘Why, all I can say,’ answered Fitzgerald, ‘is that here I am, and here is my neckcloth, and if any of you like to come and take it off, you’re welcome to try.’
The officer glanced at his men, hesitated, then shrugged and rode on at a gallop, his escort behind him, his wet plumes flapping in the rain.
‘So they became as insolent as that!’ cried Fitzgerald. He called over his shoulder to the Englishmen: ‘If you think yourself insulted, sir, you know where to find me.’