Dorothy Eden (28 page)

With the greatest unwillingness Katharine carried out this task, only to meet a frosty stare from the great man.

“Impossible, Mrs. O’Shea. Oh, I understand your feelings. They do you credit.” (Did his narrowed and formidably sharp gaze see other reasons behind this request?) “But for one thing O’Shea hasn’t shown sufficient abilities yet, and for another, I’m not in a position to grant favours. There’ll be another election before too long, and I’m not happy about our chances. I tell you this in the greatest confidence. Your husband, and Mr. Parnell, too, may have to look elsewhere for a while. I’m sorry. I still hope to realise my ambition of getting the Home Rule Bill through. But it may have to wait awhile. And whether I can wait for it I don’t know. I’m seventy-seven, Mrs. O’Shea, and I’m very tired.”

He added, “Another thing. Would you write me letters about your business in future? I think you’re seen coming here too often. It’s getting a bit indiscreet.”

She would miss the stimulation of their meetings. She liked, admired and trusted Mr. Gladstone. She believed he also admired her. But perhaps his edict was timely, for she was pregnant again. Willie had already guessed this fact. He had a sharp eye for her pallor and the dark stains she got beneath her eyes. That would be why he was agitating for the Chief Secretaryship. But since that wasn’t to be his, what else would he want?

However, another scandal was occupying political circles at this time. It was a very shocking one. Sir Charles Dilke, that solid and upright Victorian, a widower who had just become engaged to a most respectable young woman, and who shared equally with Joseph Chamberlain the chance of stepping into Mr. Gladstone’s shoes, was being named as co-respondent in a particularly unsavoury divorce suit.

Although his guilt was not proved, the scandal compelled him to resign from politics, and go to live abroad. In one stroke he had lost his career.

It was a tragedy for an exceptionally able man, and Katharine could not get it out of her mind. She became ill, and the doctor, fearing a miscarriage, put her to bed for a couple of weeks. She had to write to Charles, who was in Ireland, telling him this, as she would be unable to keep their next assignation. He was immediately deeply alarmed and sent a telegram begging her to reply at once telling him how she was.

When he heard, he wrote, “I felt very much relieved by your letter last night. However, it is evident you must take great care.” He made no mention of when he would next be down at Eltham, but as it happened it was the very evening of the day she had received his letter.

There was a great commotion downstairs, with sundry thuds, and doors opening and shutting. Katharine rang the little silver bell on her bedside table. No one answered it. She had to ring again, shaking the bell impatiently for a long time, before at last Jane appeared at the door.

“Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry to be so long in coming, but Mr. Parnell’s arrived. He’s brought—”

“Not a word, Jane,” came Charles’ voice behind her. “It’s a surprise for Mrs. O’Shea. Can I come in, Katharine?”

“Yes, do.” She dismissed Jane, and Charles strode towards the bed. She was pleased to see that he looked well, his eyes bright, his colour good. But perhaps that was caused by excitement, for he looked quite boyish in his pleasure at his secret.

“How are you, my darling? Can you get up?”

She lifted her face for his kiss, sighing with happiness.

“Of course. As long as I don’t walk too much.”

“You shan’t walk at all. Put on your robe.”

He picked it up from a chair, and held it out for her to put it on. Then, to her complete surprise, he swung her into his arms.

“I’m taking you downstairs.”

“Charles! I’m much too heavy! There are two of us, remember.”

“All the better. That’s what my surprise is for.”

And there it was before the fire in the sitting room. A large invalid couch upholstered in pale pink brocade.

Charles laid her on it as carefully as if she were made of glass, then stood back, hugely delighted with himself.

“Is that comfortable! Is that better than spending all day upstairs? But wait a minute. You need pillows and a rug.”

He went leaping upstairs again, and by the time he returned Katharine had been able to stop her tears and present a smiling face to him.

“Charles, it’s heavenly. It makes me feel like a consumptive heroine.”

He laughed with enormous enjoyment.

“Thank God you don’t look like one. You look remarkably healthy. Let me see. The pillows slightly more to this side. Your hair displayed so. One hand outside the coverlet. Very artistic.” His face sobered as he knelt beside her. “If only I could look after you all the time.”

“This is enough for the present. I feel cherished.”

“So you are. Is it really all right about the baby now?”

“I think so, the doctor says in another week the danger will be completely past, but it’s past now, I’m sure. Especially in the last fifteen minutes. How did you get this large piece of furniture down here?”

“By hansom cab, after some hard bargaining with the driver. He didn’t like his cab being treated like a furniture removal van, but when I explained the couch was for a very charming lady who would immediately get well when she lay on it, he relented.”

“I expect it was your charm that he couldn’t resist, not mine.” She laid her hand over his. “Can you stay?”

“May I?”

“Please! Willie’s in Scotland shooting. In any case, I’m not worrying about him. Ring the bell, will you? I want to tell Ellen about dinner, and Jenny must bring Clare in after her bath. You’d like to see her, wouldn’t you?”

“You hardly need to ask that question.”

It was true, for Charles was deeply devoted to his plump brown-eyed little daughter. When the nursemaid brought her in she flung out her dimpled arms to him, and gurgled as his beard tickled her. Grouse had followed, and, as always, went into a frenzy of joy to discover his master there. Although he had settled down happily enough in his new home he had never given his complete loyalty to anyone else. He whimpered with pleasure when the tall familiar form was there before him.

Katharine had to blink back tears again. These scenes were all the more precious for their rarity. She thought that she lived all her life in a tenth of the time that other people had, for she was only truly alive at these times.

But they were not entirely ecstatic. There was always a shadow. This evening it was the tragedy of Sir Charles Dilke.

“And the case against him was not even proved,” Katharine said. “That girl, Mary Crawford, may have been lying. So what would public opinion be if the guilt were undeniable?”

“Are you talking about a hypothetical case? Or us?”

“Us,” she admitted. “Supposing Willie got vindictive.”

“Is he likely to?”

“I don’t think so at present. In spite of his tempers, I still think the situation suits him. He was very disappointed about the Chief Secretaryship, but he knows that’s not your fault. No, I don’t think he will do anything. But if he did—”

“Kate, there’s something I want to tell you. Not long ago I consulted my solicitor, Mr. Inderwick, as to whether there was any country in Europe where you could live and retain custody of Clare and the new baby. He hasn’t given me an answer yet. He was going to look into the matter.”

Katherine was sitting bolt upright.

“You mean that we’re to run away?”

“Wouldn’t you like to?”

She ignored his question. “Charles, you’re never to do this! Never! We’ve talked of this before and I suppose we’ll talk of it again, but my answer will always be the same. I won’t allow you to run away.”

“Even if it came to the question of being another Dilke?”

“No! Even then you would face your enemies and fight. I know you would. Because otherwise you would die. You would be eaten up with contempt for yourself and die.”

“Katie, my dearest, we’re talking about you, too.”

“Oh, I have a long neck. I can hold my head high on it.”

He bowed his own over her hand, lifting it to lay his lips on it, and holding it there for a long time.

“So tell Mr. Inderwick to do nothing more about the matter.”

“I would so much like you and my children to myself.”

“But our house, wherever it was, would be full of phantoms.” Her voice was wry. “I suppose the Irish are better at haunting than anyone.”

“Yes. They do that to me even now.” He suddenly sprang up as if trying to shake off a burden. “Curse this ambivalence of mine! Curse this obsession I have for my country.”

“And curse mine for you,” said Katharine. “But I don’t mean that any more than you do. Sit down, my darling. Read to me.”

He obeyed slowly, the tension still in his body.

“What?”

“John Donne, please. ‘
Take heed of loving me. At least remember I forbade it thee
’.”

The slow quiet voice, the flickering fire, the gaslight turned low, were infinitely peaceful, unbearably sad.

“
Yet, love and hate me, too. So, these extremes shall neither’s office do …” “To let me live, O love and hate me, too …
”

I
N AUGUST 1885 PARLIAMENT
was dissolved preparatory to the General Election to be held in 1886.

In November, when the lilac-coloured mists were hanging about the trees in the park and the first frost powdered the grass, Katharine’s baby, another girl, was born.

She was named Frances, and nicknamed Katie. All the women in the family welcomed her warmly. Willie, to Katharine’s relief, stayed away, and Charles had time for only the briefest visits since he was deep in his election campaign. It was important to return the Liberals to power, though he was fairly certain that the Conservatives wouldn’t be too opposed to a Home Rule Bill. Whichever party was elected, the Irish Nationalists, eighty-six strong, could hold the balance of power. The position was heady and exciting.

Not, however, for Willie. Mr. Gladstone and his party were re-elected but, far from getting the Chief Secretaryship, Willie found that he could not even get re-elected to his own seat, County Clare. He had always been unpopular with the Irish party, which was not surprising since he openly despised and derided them for their uncouth manners and haphazard way of dressing.

It was no use for Parnell to point out their cleverness. Willie merely said that he could rejoice in but not sit with unvarnished genius. Indeed, one of the exasperated members who returned Captain O’Shea’s contempt in full measure, lay in wait for him one night in the lobby of the House, intending to kill him. But the silly fellow had been inflaming his anger with too much Irish whiskey, and in the end was too drunk to be of harm to anybody. Which event might have gone to support Willie’s condemnation of the unbalanced behaviour of his fellow party members if he hadn’t been just as stubborn and foolhardy himself in an entirely different way.

He refused to take the party pledge.

It looked as if he shared the feelings of the Queen, who, after the election, wrote acidly in her
Journal
:

“Mr. Gladstone continued to say that one could not doubt the opinion of Ireland when eighty-six members were returned by the Irish people in favour of Home Rule. I observed that these were mostly low disreputable men who were elected by order of Parnell, and did not genuinely represent the whole country.”

Willie certainly did not count himself one of the “low disreputable men” but the fact remained that he was without a seat, and he intended to make trouble until he had one. It was true that, with Lord Richard Grosvenor’s and Mr. Gladstone’s help (Katharine had written to both of them) and with Mr. Parnell campaigning for him, he had stood for one of the Liverpool divisions, but had been defeated. So he must be given another opportunity elsewhere. The great and powerful Mr. Parnell must get an Irish seat for him, even without his taking the party pledge.

He went down to Eltham to make this known to Katharine. He sprawled in a chair in front of the fire, the port decanter beside him, and said, not without satisfaction, “Well, the time has come, Kate. Parnell must do something for me.”

“How can he, if you ruin your own chances?” Katharine asked hotly. “You won’t take the party pledge, you make yourself unpopular with the other members.”

“No, I don’t. I’m a popular fellow,” Willie said in a hurt voice. “Talk to Parnell for me. Use your own kind of persuasions. They’ll be effective enough, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Willie, I beg you, don’t worry him now. The election has been an enormous strain on him. He’s exhausted. Let a few months go by. Let things settle down.”

“And go about with my tail between my legs? I have no intention whatever of taking your advice, my love. I want something done for me now. Now!” He pounded the table several times, making the decanter and glasses rattle, “Otherwise I might turn out to be just as awkward a customer as some of my fellow countrymen. Chamberlain, I might say, is behind me in this. I’ve got a letter from him here. I’ll read it to you.”

He took the folded paper from his breast pocket, and opened it.

“In the present condition of affairs it is more than ever unfortunate that you have not found a seat. Is there any chance of your standing for one of those now vacant by double election in Ireland? Surely it must be to the interest of the Irish party to keep open channels of communication with the Liberal leaders? Can you not get Mr. Parnell’s
exequatur
for one of the vacant seats? It is really the least he can do for you, after all you have done for him.”

Willie stopped reading and replaced the letter in his pocket.

“There. Tell Parnell that, will you?”

“Which seat is he referring to?” Katharine asked reluctantly.

“Galway. O’Connor was elected to it, and also to one of the Liverpool divisions. He’s taking Liverpool, so Galway stays vacant. I’d like it. If you see Parnell before I do, tell him this conversation. Don’t leave anything out. Don’t try to protect his feelings. Because this is something I expect him to do for me. Do you understand, my love?” He smiled, his blue eyes cold. “I’m sure you do.”