Authors: Marjorie Bowen
‘So this is where the beckoning dream has led, behind prison bars — and now, nothing left but to die. How long will that take? I had thought that Henry would have got to me. Why did Sirr’s bullet go wide? Oh, God, could it not have ended then? What will they do to the people? Oh, God, pity Ireland. I heard them hanging Clinch. It ought to have been myself. Tony — the slave. I could not help him after all. I could help no one. And Pamela. I broke my promise to Pamela.’
Lord Edward lay and stared at the grated window. Between the bars the light showed white and bleak. It fell on the swords of the soldiers as they lay ready to hand across the dirty table, and on the soldiers themselves, lounging on their stools, on the dark walls of the prison, on the face of the young man lying on the rough bed, facing failure, ruin, death.
The bullets were still in his arm, which burnt and stung as he moved. The wound at the back of his neck caused him such pain that he could not rest his head on the pillows but had to turn it uneasily from side to side. Fever bewildered him. He tried to focus the grated window, those lines of white light, those bars of black iron, as a hold on reality. He tried to pray, to snatch at thoughts of peace… ‘Our Father Who are in Heaven —’ Heaven…the blue, warm, sweet dusk of a terrace, flowers hanging heavy with scent, a fair child with sunny fruit in her arms… ‘Mother, who was she? You must know — Louise!’ A lady’s bedroom with Chinese wall-paper — ‘Put those things away, Tony, a woman’s garments. I shall move to-morrow. She poisoned herself by soaking brass curtain rings in vinegar. Louise dead — dead? With whom did I ride to Tournai, cold and dark, enclosed in the chill carriage? Don’t think of it, don’t think of it. General Hoche, you are right, I am not the man for this task. Wolfe Tone, now, there’s a brave fellow with a young family, too, as I hear. I suppose you’d hardly believe your eyes if you saw the green flag over the Castle —’
He sprang from the bed and grasped at a chair with his wounded arm. The effort sent the blood and pus starting through the bandages. He wore the shirt and pantaloons in which he had been arrested; round his neck swung a gold locket. The soldiers leaped up.
‘Get me the uniform, Murphy, that’s not a thing to hide away. The flag ought to be ready too. I never finished the fort, and set the flag atop.’
He tried to snatch at one of the swords on the table. The soldiers seized him.
‘He’s shouting treason! He ought to be put in irons like other rascals.’
He flung them off with a strength that frightened them. ‘Come on, damn you! I’m ready!’ He plunged towards the door. ‘I want to go out. I can’t stay in this place. D’ye hear? Where is my brother Henry?’ As they grappled with him he sank in their arms, half fainting with agony as they touched his inflamed wound. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, gentlemen. I would be easy if I might see Henry.’
They put him on the bed, where he lay face downwards shuddering, and one went for the surgeon, grumbling, ‘There’s too much consideration shown; he ought to be in chains. He’d soon be quiet if he was tied up.’
Lord Edward sank into a darkness that was soon peopled with monstrous shapes. A tortured Negro, a scourged Irishman, a croppie in a pitch cap, a murdered girl with a mole by her lip, Lazare Hoche, gigantic, scornful, scarred from brow to chin, crying: ‘You are not the man for this work!’ He turned about, shouting. The prison was full of strange faces. He heard the English drums beating for an advance. With a shout he leaped at them all, the blood staining his bandages and trousers.
That night they had a keeper from the madhouse to hold him down, and people gathered under the prison windows to listen to his cries.
Lord Henry sat forlorn in Leinster House, haggard from sleeplessness, turning over with nervous fingers some papers on the desk before him. The first was a copy of his brother’s will, made by Mr. Leeson, his lawyer, who had sat in his carriage at the door of the prison whilst the document was conveyed to him from the prisoner.
‘
I, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, do make this as my last will and testament, hereby revoking all others: that is to say, I leave all estates, of whatever sort, I may die possessed of, to my wife, Lady Pamela Fitzgerald, as a mark of my esteem, love, and confidence in her…
’
Near this paper lay Lord Henry’s own memoranda:
‘
Has he got fruit? Does he want linen? How will the death of Ryan affect him? What informers are supposed to be against him?
‘
Upon his pain subsiding, the hearing of Ryan’s death (which he must have heard) caused a dreadful turn in his mind. Affected strongly on the 2nd of June — began to be ill about 3 — Clinch executed before the prison. He must have known it — asked what the noise was.
‘
Mr. Stone, the officer attending him, removed the 2nd of June, could not learn who was next put about him.
‘
2nd of June, in the evening a keeper from a madhouse put with him.
‘
3rd of June, wrote the Chancellor a pressing letter to see E.
’
The answer to this letter also lay under Lord Henry’s hand. It was a refusal, and contained only this ghastly consolation:
‘
Mr. Stewart, the surgeon, has just now left me, and, from his account of Lord Edward, he is in a situation which threatens his life. Perhaps if he should get into such a state as will justify it, your request may be complied with.
’
Lord Henry flung aside Lord Clare’s letter to read yet again a missive that had been sent him that morning from Newgate:
‘
My Lord, having in happier days had some success and much satisfaction in being concerned for you and Mr. Grattan in the city election, I take the liberty of writing to inform you that your brother, Lord Edward, is most dangerously ill — in fact dying — he was delirious some time last night. Surely, my Lord, some attention ought to be paid him. I know you’ll pardon this application.
‘
I am, yours,
‘
With respect and regard,
Matt. Dowling.
‘
I am a prisoner a few days — on what charge I know not. Seeing you or any friend he has confidence in, would, I think, be more conducive to his recovery than fifty surgeons. I saw him a few moments last night, but he did not know me. We’ll watch as well as in our power.
’
Lord Edward had fallen from his delirium to exhaustion. He made no complaint and stated no wishes, and did not ask even to be allowed to see his relatives.
On Friday a great lowness came over him and all believed him dying. He lay still on his pillows with his face turned to the wall, his bandaged arm stretched stiffly over the coverlet.
He tried to keep his mind collected and to distinguish dream from reality, but was unable to do this, and presently started up and asked ‘where poor Tony was?’ and was sure they were taking him out to beat him or place on his brow the pitchcap. Then he lay quiet again, and wondered if Louise and Pamela were really the same person, then asked again about the noise outside the prison, and if ‘they were hanging another prisoner?’
‘I’m in Newgate. I’ve got to die in Newgate. Why, there’s nothing in that. Better men have died in worse places.’
He turned round in the bed, quieter for the moment and wondered what the yellow light was. ‘Evening, I suppose, and a lamp lit — why, who is this?’ He stared at a weeping woman’s face. Her lips twitched, she tried to be calm, but her tears ran down her cheeks steadily. He frowned, puzzled. He thought she held a mirror and that in that he saw his own reflection, distorted, grey and terrible. But this reflection spoke.
‘Neddy — it is Henry — and this Lady Louise. We are at last allowed to visit you.’
Lord Edward smiled. Lady Louise bent over him. He kissed her wet cheek and whispered:
‘It is heaven to me to see you.’ Then turning about, he said, ‘But I can’t see you.’ It seemed to him that the lamp had gone out.
Lady Louise whispered: ‘Henry has come.’
‘Where is he, dear fellow?’
Henry fell upon his knees beside the bed and the two brothers embraced. The soldiers had left the room. The three were alone. Edward leant his head on Henry’s shoulder and whispered: ‘This is very pleasant.’
He remained silent and they wondered if his senses were clouded, or if he knew what was going on about him; Lady Louise said timidly: ‘Lady Edward is safe. Pamela is safe. I saw her on board for Holyhead. Richmond is looking after her.’
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘I met her on the road. She was well.’
Edward’s dark lashes lifted a little. He murmured:
‘And the children too? She is a charming woman.’
He raised himself from his brother’s shoulder and added, with an air of formal civility, as if he spoke to strangers: ‘Lady Edward Fitzgerald is a charming woman.’
‘He does not,’ whispered Lady Louise to her nephew, ‘realise his situation.’
Lord Henry did not answer. He was absorbed in gazing at his brother and marking, as if he would impress it for ever on his heart, the expression of pleasure with which those worn features turned towards him. The surgeon, Mr. Garnet, who had lately been attending the prisoner, appeared in the door. Lady Louise motioned him away, but he came forward and whispered that they were to be allowed no longer, but might return in the morning.
‘It will be too late in the morning, surely,’ sobbed Lady Louise, withdrawing from the bed. The surgeon did not answer and a couple of soldiers showed in the entrance. Lord Henry did not move, but continued kneeling by the bed, holding his brother’s limp hand. He was composed, and there was an uncommon force and earnestness in his expression. Never, thought Lady Louise, had the likeness between the two brothers been so marked. In one heartrending emotion, in the other the approach of death had overshadowed their handsome faces.
The officer at the door made an urgent sign that they must now go.
‘Edward, I will wish you good-night,’ whispered Lady Louise, keeping calm, she knew not by what effort of love; ‘we will return in the morning,’ she added, bending over the dying man. ‘You seem inclined for sleep.’
‘Do, do,’ smiled Lord Edward. ‘Yes, I’ll sleep.’
Mr. Garnet then entered the room. Lord Edward suddenly sat up in bed, exclaiming:
‘I knew it must come to this, and we must all go,’ and then he began to ramble a little about the Irish Militia and numbers — of men and money.
Lady Louise said: ‘It agitates you to talk upon these subjects.’
Mr. Garnet touched Lord Henry on the arm.
‘My Lord, I’m asked to send you away. It is nearly midnight. Indeed, you may come away — he understands nothing.’
With a look of incredulous horror Lord Henry rose. ‘Is this the extent of your charity? A few moments. Do you think that I’ll leave him now? Ill, perhaps dying —’
‘Surely dying, my Lord —’
‘What a gross gratuitous cruelty then to bid me leave him! His bitterest enemy could not murmur did you swerve from your duty now!’
‘Alas, sir, it does not rest with me.’
The two men had withdrawn against the wall and spoke in agitated whispers. Lord Henry had to lean against the doorposts to support himself.
‘Oh, God! What am I to do? He had the tenderness of a woman to all whom he loved, and is he to die abandoned among strangers in a prison?’
The surgeon did not answer, and the soldiers, on a sign from the officer who approached, took Lord Henry by the shoulders and put him out of the room, while he, stupefied with misery, exclaimed:
‘You have murdered my brother amongst you as surely as if you had put a pistol to his head!’
Edward did not know that Henry had been forced away, he put out his hand into the darkness, for he could no longer perceive the lamplight, and whispered: ‘Henry, do you like the uniform? With the rose-colour facings! Don’t you think the fort will look very fine when I have the green flag atop? I must be quick, finishing it — there’s not much more time — it becomes so dark, Henry. I never liked to stay here in the dark. Why, I can’t see you. But the flag is very bright. Henry —’
*
‘
Newgate Prison,
6
o’clock, June the Third,
1798
.
‘
Mr. Garnet presents his most respectful compliments to Lady Louise Connolly and begs leave to communicate to her the melancholy intelligence of Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s death. He drew his last breath at two o’clock this morning after a struggle which began soon after his friends left him last night.
’
The lady declared that she did not greatly care for the lodgings in the rue Richepanse. The rooms were gloomy, and over a third-rate restaurant, but she was tired, she could search no further; the apartments would do for the present. It was a few months after the revolution of July, 1830, and Paris was still in something of a turmoil.
‘My business is important,’ said she, noting perhaps that the pretty young landlady looked at her dubiously. ‘I dare say I shall soon be lodging at the Tulieries; yes, indeed, I am well known to His Majesty, and was, in a manner, brought up with him!’
‘Indeed, Madame? Of course His Majesty was long in exile, and made some strange acquaintances, and now he has come to the throne, Paris is full of poor creatures importuning him with petitions.’
The landlady spoke without much civility and the stranger retaliated, by saying, with an air of dignity: ‘I am not one of them! Louis Philippe, when M. de Chartres, was one of the witnesses at my marriage in Tournai in 1792’ — she paused, impressed by the strangeness of her own words — ‘how odd that sounds!’
‘Indeed, Madame, it is a long while ago, before I was born! And what of the price for the rooms? Fifty francs a week would be very little! It is a handsome chamber! You are American, you said?’
‘No, no, I am French —’
‘Your maid said that your name was Pitcairn and that you were married to the American consul at Hamburg.’
‘Did she?’ replied the other vaguely. ‘Oh, well, I call myself Madame Sims, and as for the room, I don’t like it. And fifty francs is very dear.’
She leant in the window-place and looked round with an air of apprehension as if she expected to discover something unpleasant, even horrible. She was frail, graceful, rather fantastically dressed in a fashion at once ornate and shabby, and was over fifty years old (the landlady gave her sixty). Extreme ill-health and, it seemed, sorrow, had ravaged features that might have been lovely once.
‘No, I don’t like the room,’ she repeated. ‘See, that cheap cotton damask is peeling off the wall, and that nasty green Chinese paper beneath is blotted with damp —’
‘It is a very handsome house and used to belong to a noble family before ’89 — this was a lady’s bedroom. Madame has seen the
cabinet
de
toilette
? All marble! One doesn’t get luxuries like that nowadays — and the great presses in the wall! I found some lady’s garments in one of them. Fine as a cobweb, but, unfortunately quite rotted away. Madame is lucky to find such a room.’
Madame Sims, with an air of great fatigue, sank into the sagging chair by the hearth and asked for a fire to be lit; it was a dark autumn day and the stale air in the room was chilly.
‘It is a long time since this was a private mansion,’ she remarked.
‘About forty years. It used to be a hôtel — quite fashionable. A number of Irish used to come here — then, when the Bourbons were restored, it failed, like White’s. But I keep the restaurant open. Madame will dine there tonight? Or up here?’
‘No, no, downstairs — I like company. Could I have a little tea now? My maid will make it. Irish, you say?’
‘Yes, all the rebels, you know. There is one comes here now, quite often. Is not that curious? Of course, he is an old man now, and rich, but he doesn’t seem able to keep away.’
‘The Irish rebels? I thought that they were all dead. I was in Ireland once myself. Would you send up the fire and the tea?’
*
The landlady slaked her curiosity by questioning the maid of Madame Sims, a gross German, who seemed to bear little affection to her mistress, and who, in her uneasy French, was willing enough to gossip.
‘I really don’t know who she is — she tells so many odd stories! A little odd, eh?’ The German tapped her forehead mysteriously. ‘She was married to M. Pitcairn as I told you, but separated from him long ago — she has had children, but they’re scattered. She boasts about her grand connections, but she has never any money. I mean, not enough. She says that the French King will pension her. I’m just staying on to see. If it is all lies, I shall leave. I’m tired of dragging from place to place —’
‘She looks a bit shabby! Ill, too, isn’t she?’
The German nodded mysteriously.
‘I don’t think she’ll last for more than another month or so, but it’s worth your while to keep her for a bit — just to see if she does get any money.’