Dorothy Eden (12 page)

She could, although it meant not being at home to say goodnight to Norah and Carmen. They were becoming used to Mamma being away a good deal. Carmen sometimes wept a little, but Norah scoffed at such weakness. Hadn’t Papa said Mamma was in the country too much, and mustn’t she go out to dinner parties and balls?

“But she isn’t wearing her ball gown,” Carmen sobbed. “She had on her green coat and skirt. She can’t dance in that.”

“She keeps a ball gown at Aunt Anna’s,” Norah said, which was true. Carmen was a baby and had no sense.

And Katharine, in her green coat and skirt, with a cloak over that, and her small velvet hat with a thick veil, walked up and down Charing Cross station waiting. Trains went in and out and people gathered and melted away. She was always left, a lonely figure pacing up and down. The railway porters looked at her curiously, she was well-dressed and obviously a lady. It was odd that she was there alone. They were quite relieved when at last she was joined by her husband, the tall handsome man with the neat brown beard.

He came striding on to the platform, his arms held out to her.

“Kate darling! I was quite unavoidably detained. Are you angry with me? Are you frozen?”

“Neither.” She was so glad to see him, how could she feel any emotion but pleasure. “But you’ve missed the last train to Holyhead.”

“I know. I shall have to stay in London until tomorrow.”

“Come down to Eltham.”

She said it unhesitatingly. Why should he not spend another night there? He couldn’t go looking for lodgings at this hour, and in the cold.

“May I, Kate? What about Willie?”

“Willie would be furious if he knew you were without lodgings on such a cold night. Besides,” she tucked her arm into his, laughing, “the porters are quite convinced I was waiting for my husband. Don’t let’s disappoint them.”

They crept into the house long after midnight, going through the conservatory door. Katharine lit candles and went to the kitchen looking to see what food Ellen had left in the larder. She found soup which she heated, and a good-sized leg of cold lamb. She prepared the tray and carried it into the sitting room where Charles had coaxed the embers of the fire into a blaze with fresh wood and coal.

It was one more period of uninterrupted time together. Charles said that it too late to go to bed. He must be off at daylight. Anyway, time was too precious to waste in sleep. There were so many things he wanted to talk about. Would she listen? She was such a good listener, attentive and intelligent. Besides, if he didn’t talk—She looked at him questioningly when he paused, and saw the flames deep in his eyes. Flames that were no reflection of the fire on the hearth.

“I don’t know how much longer I can wait for you, Katie. Have you noticed that I never even kiss you now?”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice. “I have noticed.”

“I don’t dare to. I must try to remain a gentleman, damn it all.”

“Why?” Her voice was no more than a whisper.

“Yes, why?” he said harshly. “I suppose because we must keep some sort of hold on ourselves. And anyway I won’t have any kind of snatched affair with one eye on the clock and the other on the door. We need time. Time, time, time. I won’t have you lightly, you’re too sweet, too beautiful. If you knew how I want to look at your body …”

She couldn’t look at the strained face above her any more. She put her head in her hands and began to weep.

“Ah, now, my dearest!” His tenderness made the ache in her throat unbearable. She could not stop her tears for several moments, and when at last she did, he lifted her face, and kissed her wet cheeks without passion, but comfortingly, as he might a child’s.

“Don’t cry, Kate. It hurts me too much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This was not such a good idea, missing my train. All the same, I’d like to be able to come again, late at night like this. Is it too dangerous? It would be wonderful if I could. Something to dream of all day.”

“If you tap at the conservatory window—don’t rouse the servants. I’ll hear you. My bedroom is just over the conservatory.”

“‘
Unless you can die when the dream is past, Oh, never call it loving …
’” he quoted dreamily. “Come, sit beside me, Kate. Rest a little until daylight.”

He left the house before anyone had stirred, and she had the long lonely day to face, rings of sleeplessness round her eyes, her attention constantly wandering from Aunt Ben’s or the children’s demands.

“Was it a nice ball, Mamma?”

“Ball?”

“The one you were at last night. Norah said you were at a ball and that’s why you couldn’t say goodnight to us.”

“Oh yes, my darlings. Only it wasn’t a ball, it was just some people at dinner.”

“Was Papa there?”

“No, not last night,” said Katharine, seeing Miss Glennister’s sharp attentive eyes on her. “He had other affairs. Grown-ups’ business.”

“It’s a pity grown-ups have so much old business,” Norah said. “Are you going to London tonight, Mamma?”

“No, I shall be home to say goodnight to you. I shall even read you a bedtime story if that pleases you.”

“Oh, yes, dearest Mamma!”

Miss Glennister’s face went a little pinched and sour. She was really not the nicest of young women, but she was a sad lonely creature, one must try to be kind to her. So long as she didn’t slip into that trap that existed for sentimental unloved governesses and nursemaids, and develop an unhealthy and possessive love for someone else’s children.

Willie came home on Sunday, as usual. He talked about the sitting in the House, but his mind was on other things. He thought he would pay a long overdue visit to his relations in Madrid. His gout had been troubling him and he would like to escape a part of the English winter. He scarcely bothered to ask her if she minded. Why should she mind, the cold way she treated him nowadays?

“I’ll be back in a month or so.” He winced as he moved his foot. “By the way, how’s the old lady for a bit of cash?”

At first Willie had pretended reluctance about having his expenses subsidised by Aunt Ben. But now he had come to see it as his due. Wasn’t she practically usurping ownership of his wife, tying her to the country whether he needed her or not?

Katharine promised to ask. She knew Aunt Ben would refuse her nothing. It would be easy enough to get Willie his money. And to have him away for a whole month … She was already forming the letter she would send off to Dublin that night.

But why had there been no news from Charles? She had waited for interminable days, fretting and worrying. She knew she would never get over this anxiety when he was away. She would walk about like a ghost watching for the postman, and when the longed-for letter came she would have to restrain herself from embracing the postman for bringing it.

At last the letter did come and it had a Paris postmark. Why was he in France? Katharine’s heart leaped in dismay. She tore open the envelope and read rapidly,

“Hotel Brighton,

218 Rue de Rivoli,

27th February, 1881.

My dear Mrs. O’Shea,

There was no letter for me from you at the usual address. I fear something may have gone wrong. I have been warned from Dublin that there is some plot afoot and that my arrest was intended for passages in my Clare speech, and that bail would be refused. I think, however, that they have now abandoned this intention, but will make sure before I return.

Yours, C.S.P.”

The letter fluttered to the table, as she unfolded the one enclosed beginning:

“My dearest love,

You cannot imagine how much you have occupied my thoughts all day and how very greatly the prospect of seeing you again comforts me. Can you meet me in London at nine p.m. tomorrow, evening anywhere you say. I send one or two sprigs of heather I plucked for you at Avondale, and have carried in my pocket to France … I left Dublin hurriedly without a chance to let you know. But I think things will have calmed down by now. If not, I will have to make other plans. But I can’t go away longer without seeing you …”

His reference to something going wrong meant that perhaps Willie had become suspicious. It was their constant fear. She had written, but he must have left for France, before her letter had arrived. His arrest! She had heard the talk about it, as everyone had, but she had thought it merely another threat of the Irish Secretary, Mr. Forster, who was never short of threats. To see the words in Charles’ own writing filled her with terror. He had had to go to France to be out of the way. So it was really serious.

But he was coming back this evening. Was it into danger?

S
HE DROVE UP TO
London late that afternoon, and left a message at the Keppel Street address that they always used in emergencies. She would be at Thomas’s Hotel. He could call and ask for her there. She carried the heather he had sent her inside her glove for luck. She had a feeling that from now on they were going to need a great deal more luck than they had already had. She was burning with anger for Mr. Forster, Lord Cowper, and all their confederates. To imagine that a man like Mr. Parnell could be arrested! It would be the most disgraceful act yet of the British Government.

She was waiting restlessly and uneasily when he arrived.

He greeted her with a simple startling question: “Can you hide me, Kate?”

“
Hide
you!” She felt as if the words had been shouted, as if all the hotel staff had heard them. But there was no one within hearing. They stood together in the foyer, a well-dressed man and woman apparently exchanging polite greetings. She was on the verge of hysterical laughter.

“Are you having a joke?”

“Far from it, unfortunately. I’ve been warned privately to disappear for a few weeks. I should have stayed abroad. Instead I’ve come back. Am I mad?”

“Oh, Charles! Hopelessly. It’s true that Willie’s in Spain, but all the same to hide you—it would be impossible.”

“That’s not a word in my vocabulary.”

“But with the children rushing everywhere, the servants—someone would talk.”

“The servants mustn’t know. Nor the children.”

“You mean—hide you completely? For weeks?”

He nodded, watching her, waiting. He always looked thin and tired after an absence, but today he was much more than merely tired, he was disturbingly haggard.

“Have you been ill?” she asked sharply.

“I did have a chill. I stayed in bed a day or two in Paris. I visited Delia there. But she’s just like my mother, she’s on a hectic social round from morning till night. So I came home.”

He said home. And what was she doing, being a coward?

“You need rest.”

“Yes.”

She looked round uneasily.

“We can’t talk here.”

“If you can’t do it, Kate, there’s nothing to talk about.”

His voice was courteous, as always, but for the first time she heard its implacability. She remembered the things of which he was constantly accused, ruthlessness, cunning, a remorseless use of people to suit his own ends. Was he using
her
this way? Her eyes flashed with indignation.

“You must be able to find a much safer place, somewhere where no one knows you.”

“Yes, I daresay I can. I’m sorry to have embarrassed you, Kate. We did call our meetings a game. I suppose I should have realised the point comes when they’re no longer an amusing one. Well, I must be off.”

He gave his grave bow and turned away.

“But where will you go?”

“Back to Paris, perhaps. I’ll write.”

She tried to detain him. “Charles, it would be utterly rash. You must see that. If you were found in my house, you would be ruined.”

“Yes, my darling. You’ve convinced me of that. I was merely indulging in a dangerous daydream. Goodbye.”

He was gone. She stood staring after him, unable to believe it. He had come and he had gone in the space of a few minutes, a few disastrous minutes in which she had failed him, completely,

Oh, she had been completely sensible, completely levelheaded.

But who wanted to be those things? Who wanted to be left alone while the man one loved disappeared, became an outcast, perhaps lay ill and neglected somewhere.

He had looked ill, his face marked with fatigue. He had come instinctively and intuitively to her for help and she had failed him.

But didn’t he see how impractical, how dangerous, how impossible his scheme was?

Or had he known about the little boudoir off her room to which no one ever went but her? It was over the conservatory so even footsteps moving about would not be heard from below. If he were to rest in the daytime and she smuggled him food at night … Better still she could pretend to be feeling unwell and keep to her room, and have all her meals brought up. Ellen, having a large appetite herself, was supremely pleased when other people could be persuaded to eat well. There would be plenty of food to share, and, late at night, she could cook over the fire in her bedroom.

They had always longed for time together. In this way, they could have almost limitless time.

But she had refused him. She had let him go. She had made him all too well aware that their fascinating game had become too dangerous. Now he would believe that she had never regarded it as anything but a game.

The realisation appalled her. She rushed to the door, pushing it open in such haste that the doorman Thompson, another of her old friends, looked at her in surprise.

“Do you want a cab, Mrs. O’Shea?”

“The gentleman who just came out—there was something I forgot to tell him—which way did he go?”

“He’s just this minute driven off in a cab. I didn’t hear the address he gave. Perhaps he’ll be back and I can give him a message for you, Mrs. O’Shea.”

The cold settled into her heart.

“No, I’m afraid he won’t be back. He wasn’t staying here. Yes, get me a cab, Thompson. Ask the driver whether he’s willing to go to Eltham.”

The house was silent when she arrived. Too silent. Everyone had gone to bed except one of the maids, Jane, who was in the hall, turning down the gas.

“Is there anything you want, Ma’am?”