Tipperary (21 page)

“Billy” looked at me down a long length of nose.

“What have you written?”

“Only my Journal,” I said.

“He's just met Parnell.” Edward beamed. “Show Billy the portrait.”

Billy, had he been sitting down, would have jumped up. He snatched the drawing from my hand.

“Write about this. It will make a nifty page. When do you go back to Ireland?”

“Saturday.”

“Come to my office tomorrow and I will pay you well.”

It has to be said that my account of meeting Parnell caused a sensation. It appeared—with the excellently printed portrait—in
The Chronicle
(where Billy worked as a senior editor) on the Thursday. Edward had arranged for us to dine again at the same chophouse; and I, flush with guineas from my writing (and a separate fee for the sketch), anticipated the pleasure of returning his hospitality. I had not, however, prepared for the merriment and celebration directed at me when I arrived.

It seemed as though hordes of people thronged the old place. As I entered, I saw Edward straightaway, and he roared, “Here's the chap! Here's my cousin! Welcome, Charles O'Brien!” A great cheer rose, and Billy stepped forward.

“Thank you, old man. Wonderful day for us.”

Apparently, my article had become the talk of London. I knew that I had been bold; for example, I had written, “May I beg to differ from those detractors who call Mr. Parnell ‘arrogant’ and ‘conceited’ and ‘pig-headed’ and ‘contemptuous’ and ‘boring’ and ‘politically unskilled.’ I spent four hours in his company this Monday past and found him a delight. His demeanor may be called all the more pleasant, since he had but minutes earlier risen from an afternoon sleep with his charming wife, Katharine, and many men who have just awakened require time to adjust their temperament to the world at large. Not so Mr. Parnell—and I may add that his husbandly attentions exhibited the utmost tenderness of affection. And of course I saw them reciprocated.”

(As I'd written these sentences in Billy's office, he'd praised me over and over, and I'd pronounced myself gratified that this new way of writing about great figures had found a home.)

How we ate and drank that night! Many arms wrapped themselves about my shoulders, many hands thrust ale and spirits at me, and I might have eaten ten—or fifty—dinners for all the food I was offered. I said to Edward, “If this be journalism, I'm game for it.”

Next day, I called to see my other old tutor in the area, Mr. Halloran. He worked in great offices within an eye's blink of Westminster and Parliament. Once, I should have been intimidated by such a powerful building, with its crests and escutcheons and marble and panels. Now, a new man, I sat in the hallway as a lackey took my card to Mr. Halloran's office.

Soon a lady approached me, dignified and quiet. “Mr. O'Brien?”

I rose, expecting to accompany her.

“I have a letter from Mr. Halloran”—and she handed it to me. With pleasure, I recognized the tight, formed hand—but the pleasure ended.

“I am too distressed today at what you have done,” said the note, with no address, no familiar greeting, “and so we may not meet.”

That was all.

“Oh, dear,” I said to the bearer, “I wish him better. Will you tell him that from me?”

She nodded and departed, and I reflected how easily distress used to visit Mr. Halloran when he lived under our roof.

I caught the boat train. My crossing took all night, and I slept on deck, in a chair, knowing I should never have such air again for some time. I awoke after some hours with a feeling of great unease. “At what you have done”—what had Mr. Halloran meant? Thinking on, I began to ask myself if I had somehow been duped by the London crowd. Their jubilation seemed excessive: Why should they have so relished my account of Mr. Parnell if they professed him their foe? Was there something in all this of which I had no knowledge—some nuance that I did not understand?

When we docked at Kingstown, I longed for hot tea and great slices of bread with bacon. As I left the gangplank and began to walk the short quayside to the street, a man ran after me from the ship; I had seen him speaking with the purser and they had been looking at me, but I knew not why and thought nothing of it.

“Are you O'Brien?” he asked—very rough, I thought.

“Yes. Charles O'Brien.”

“You bastard! You yellow-haired, treacherous bastard!” he accused, and he reached to hit me. I easily controlled him, since he stood no more than five feet eight or so, but he began to shout in a most unpleasant manner.

“This is him! This is him! This is the bastard who wrote about Parnell!”

Others began to collect, and I must say that I ran—and swiftly enough to outpace them all. Not until I met Mr. Egan again next day did I discover the reasons for this unpleasantness. Mr. Parnell had no wife, and his lady, “Katharine,” bore the name of her husband, another Member of Parliament—one Captain Willie O'shea, who had now begun divorce proceedings. All commentary suggested that this scandal would bring about Mr. Parnell's political downfall.

As it did. The Catholics of Ireland could not accept leadership from a man who consorted illicitly with another man's wife. Parnell lost his Irish Party, his place in the world, his repute. He and Kitty O'shea became the major scandal figures of the day and the decade—even though the world of politics had long known of their relationship. She had been Parnell's mistress for years, and had borne him daughters.

Captain O'shea got his divorce, Parnell married Kitty, and they went away to live quietly on the south coast of England. Less than two years later, he died of pneumonia, the “lost leader,” whose spirit, they say, was broken in his fall from grace.

In October 1891, I became part of the largest crowd that I have ever seen or expect to see. Today, Ireland buried Charles Stewart Parnell, under dark skies. Although the funeral was timed for the light of day, the people in the cortege continued to walk to Glasnevin Cemetery all night long. Yesterday, I went to the grave-digging, where I stayed, my hat pulled low over my face. Many came to me and asked my business there and I said, “A family mourner,” and they departed, satisfied with my answer. I told no lie; my purpose transcended that of all save Mr. Parnell's family.

For a number of years I had attempted to reach Mr. Parnell or—as she became—Mrs. Parnell. All efforts had been rebuffed; notwithstanding my lingering for hours on the porch of his house in Brighton or under the portico of lovely Avondale in the county Wicklow, Mr. Parnell's reserve did not melt. I believed that he accused me of “heavy irony” in the article that I wrote. Now I hoped that my presence at the funeral might cause his wife to unbend in forgiveness.

We rarely see our hopes fulfilled—but I did today. Repelling all entreaties to move aside, I remained as if a stone on that spot. They carried the coffin to the graveside; and I approached the figure in black.

“Mrs. Parnell,” I said. “I am Charles O'Brien, the man who—”

“Oh, I know full well who you are. I remember our tea.” She did not raise her black veil.

“I never meant anything but well. Think of how respectfully my account was couched.”

Mrs. Parnell laid her hand upon my arm. “I told my husband so. Many times.”

“But they say that the rejection of the people broke his heart. And I fear that I brought it about.” I was near to tears.

“Mr. O'Brien, our love had long been known. Nobody else had the respect to write about it with tenderness—and they had not the courage to write about it disrespectfully. Nor could they allege my adultery without being subject to a lawsuit. But they were able and pleased to print your piece because it was so beautifully couched—and they knew that we would feel unable to sue for libel.”

I stepped back, struck, as it were, by a light dawning.

“Oh. I never knew.”

“I thought not. You are forgiven—there is nothing harsh in me toward you. I merely wish you the fortune of a good woman to guide you—as my husband believed I guided him.”

So overcome did I feel that I could not stay there for Mr. Parnell's burial.

By the time Parnell died, at the too young age of forty-five, the Irish farmers had achieved their Three F's: Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rent, and Free Sale. And even though he had not been the author of the legislation, there seems no doubt that his great agitations helped to bring it about; and he also came within votes of having generated self-government.

So, every sixth of October I wear in my buttonhole an ivy leaf, Mr. Parnell's symbol, and I mourn our uncrowned king, this landowning gentleman of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy.

My heart ached that night, sore again from the damage that I had done to Mr. Parnell, and hurting even more deeply from the kindness of Mrs. Parnell. I found lodgings in the home of an old friend near Glasnevin Cemetery, Tom Childs, a man of kindness and decency. His peaceful house (assailed only by his occasional rants against his “hound” of a brother, Sammy) gave me a bed for the night and, mercifully, nothing to drink. I lay awake for many hours, hearing the footsteps of the mourners returning from Mr. Parnell's funeral. At about five o'clock in the morning, I drifted to sleep.

Next day, I set out upon the best cure that I know for grief and remorse: a journey; Ireland's hedges and streams are filled with balm for the spirit, and I was back at my healing trade. My first assignment required me to cure corns—and I all but wept once more as I advised and then put the measure into practice: bind tightly the toe with an ivy leaf.

Parnell's funeral went on for days. People from all over Ireland insisted on being able to get to the graveside long after the burial. Estimates of the crowd run to over a million people. By then the full story of Kitty O'shea had become a tragic Irish romance, eventually visited by Hollywood, and television drama. It still engrosses historians and biographers.

The entire matter was a morass of hypocrisy. Long before it became public, Captain O'shea had tacitly sanctioned the relationship. He had even been sponsored into politics by Parnell, who went against the members of his Irish Party to secure his cuckold a seat in Parliament. But when it looked as though Parnell's strength was becoming unstoppable, his political opponents decided to try to harness this open secret. Plotters close to the establishment paid O'shea to issue divorce papers. Ireland, with its newfound Catholic zeal, would never vote for a Parnellite again.