CHARLES STEWART PARNELL Taken in the sitting-room at Wonersh Lodge, Eltham by Mrs. Parnell
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL
Taken in the sitting-room at Wonersh Lodge, Eltham
by Mrs. Parnell
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL
His Love Story and Political Life
BY
KATHARINE O'SHEA
(Mrs. Charles Stewart Parnell)
"No common soul was his; for good or ill
There was a mighty power"
HAWKSHAW—Sonnet IX
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1921
First published in Two Volumes 1914
One Volume Edition 1921
DEDICATED TO
LOVE
Had the whole rich world been in my power,
I should have singled out thee, only thee,
From the whole world's collected treasury."
MOORE
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
Of all the love stories in history possibly none had more intense reactions upon politics than that of Charles Stewart Parnell and Katharine O'Shea, which is unfolded with candour so compelling in this record of their life.
The engrossing interest in Ireland has demanded a new and popular edition of Mrs. Parnell's book. No real comprehension of the Irish question is possible without a thorough knowledge of Parnell's life and his part in the creation of the modern Home Rule movement; and no intimate knowledge of Parnell's character and the springs of his policy during the critical decade of the 'eighties can be had without studying the revelations of his correspondence with his wife.
In this edition some abridgment has been necessary to bring the book within the compass of a single volume. The less material parts of Mrs. Parnell's narrative of her own girlhood have been curtailed, and the long correspondence of Captain O'Shea has been summarised in a note appended to Chapter xxvii. One or two omissions are indicated in footnotes. The text has been subject to no other interference.
La Belle Sauvage,
September, 1921.
MRS. PARNELL'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
On October 6th, 1891, nearly twenty-three years ago, Charles Stewart Parnell died in the arms of his wife; nearly twenty-three years ago the whole of the civilized world awoke to laud—or to condemn—the dead chief. It ranked him with the greatest heroes, or with the vilest sinners, of the world, because he had found and kept the haven of her arms with absolute disregard of that world's praise or blame, till death, the only power greater than the love that held him there, tore him from them.
And then the hate that followed him to the grave turned to the woman he had loved, to vent upon her its baffled spleen; not considering that such a man as he would keep the heart of his wife as closely in death as he had kept it in life, so closely that none could come near it, so secretly that none could find the way to plant therein a sting. And so for these more than twenty-two years, I, his wife, have lived upon memories so happy and so precious that, after time had brought back some meaning to my life, I took a certain pleasure in reading all men had to say of him whom they so little knew. Never in all the "lives," "articles," or "appreciations" I read had there been one that could say—or one that desired to say—that Parnell was not a man who stands out sharp and clear from other men for good or ill.
But now, after all these years, one of Parnell's erstwhile followers has arisen to explain to another generation that Parnell was not really such a man as this, that he was one of Ireland's eternal failures. One who held her dear indeed, but one who balanced her welfare against the clutches of a light o' love with all the foolishness of callow degeneracy, so fondly imagined chivalry by the weak. Not a man who gave his country his whole life, and found the peace and courage of that life in the heart of the woman he loved. No, that is how a man lives and loves, whether in secret or before the whole world. That is how Parnell lived and loved, and now after these long years I break my silence lest the unmanly echo of excuse given forth by Mr. O'Brien in an age that loves excuse may cling about the name of the man I loved. It is a very poignant pain to me to give to the world any account of the sacred happiness of eleven years of my life and of the agony of sorrow that once seemed too great to bear; but I have borne it, and I am so near him now that I fear to leave near the name of that proud spirit the taint of excuse that he loathed.
Parnell never posed as "rather the victim than the destroyer of a happy home," as Mr. O'Brien suggested in the Cork Free Press of last year, and he maintained to the last day of his life that he suffered no "dishonour and discredit" in making the woman he loved his own.
And because Parnell contravened certain social laws, not regarding them as binding him in any way, and because I joined him in this contravention since his love made all else of no account to me, we did not shrink at the clamour of the upholders of those outraged laws, nor resent the pressing of the consequences that were inevitable and always foreseen. The freedom of choice we had ourselves claimed we acknowledged for others, and were wise enough to smile if, in some instances, the greatness of our offence was loudly proclaimed by those who he knew lived in a freedom of love more varied than our own. For the hypocrisy of those statesmen and politicians who, knowing for ten years that Parnell was my lover, had with the readiest tact and utmost courtesy accepted the fact as making a sure and safe channel of communication with him, whom they knew as a force to be placated; for those who, when the time came to stand by him in order to give Ireland the benefits they had promised him for her, repudiated him from under the cloak of the religion they thereby forswore, he, and I with him, felt a contempt unspeakable.
In this book I am giving to the public letters so sacred to my lover and myself that no eyes other than our own should ever have seen them, but that my son was jealous for his father's honour, and that I would not my lover's life should seem in these softer days a lesser thing, beset with fears and indecisions that he did not know. I have, lived in those eleven years of Parnell's love so constantly that nothing has been lost to me of them, and the few details of them that I give will show a little of what manner of man he was, while still I keep for my own heart so much that none shall ever know but he and I.
In regard to the political aspect of the book those who know the Irish history of those days will understand. My lover was the leader of a nation in revolt, and, as I could, I helped him as "King's Messenger" to the Government in office. It has been erroneously said by some of the Irish Party that I "inspired" certain measures of his, and biased him in various ways politically. Those who have said so did not know the man, for Parnell was before all a statesman; absolutely convinced of his policy and of his ability to carry that policy to its logical conclusion. Self-reliant and far-seeing, the master of his own mind.
I was never a "political lady," and, apart from him, I have never felt the slightest interest in politics, either Irish or English, and I can honestly say that except for urging him to make terms with the Government in order to obtain his liberation from prison, I did not once throughout those eleven years attempt to use my influence over him to "bias" his public life or politics; nor, being convinced that his opinions and measures were the only ones worth consideration, was I even tempted to do so. In my many interviews with Mr. Gladstone I was Parnell's messenger, and in all other work I did for him it was understood on both sides that I worked for Parnell alone.
KATHARINE PARNELL.
Brighton, April, 1914.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1. MY EARLY LIFE
2. VISITORS AT RIVENHALL
3. MY FATHER'S DEATH AND MY MARRIAGE
4. A DAY ON THE DOWNS
5. MORE FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES
6. CAPTAIN O'SHEA ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE
7. MR. PARNELL AND THE IRISH PARTY
8. THE FIRST MEETING WITH MR. PARNELL
9. AT ELTHAM
10. THE LAND LEAGUE TRIALS
11. PARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATIONS
12. HOBBIES AND A CHALLENGE
13. ASTRONOMY, "SEDITION," AND ARREST
14. KILMAINHAM DAYS
15. MORE KILMAINHAM LETTERS
16. THE "KILMAINHAM TREATY"
17. THE PHOENIX PARK MURDERS AND AFTER
18. ENVOY TO GLADSTONE
19. THE FIRST HOME RULE BILL
20. MR. PARNELL IN DANGER—FOUNDING OF NATIONAL LEAGUE
21. A WINTER OF MEMORIES
22. HORSES AND DOGS
23. SEASIDE HOLIDAYS
24. LONDON REMEMBRANCES
25. THE PARNELL COMMISSION
26. BRIGHTON HAUNTS
27. THE DIVORCE CASE
28. A KING AT BAY
29. PARNELL AS I KNEW HIM
30. MARRIAGE, ILLNESS AND DEATH
INDEX
Charles Stewart Parnell
CHAPTER I
MY EARLY LIFE
"Go forth; and if it be o'er stoney way
Old Joy can lend what newer grief must borrow,
And it was sweet, and that was yesterday.
And sweet is sweet, though purchased with sorrow."
F. THOMPSON.
My father, Sir John Page Wood, was descended from the Woods of Tiverton, and was the eldest of the three sons of Sir Matthew Wood, Baronet, of Hatherley House, Gloucestershire. He was educated at Winchester and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and after entering into holy orders, before he was twenty-four years of age, was appointed private chaplain and secretary to Queen Caroline, performing the last offices for her at her death in 1820, and attending her body to its final resting-place in Brunswick. He then became chaplain to the Duke of Sussex, and in 1824 was appointed by the Corporation of London to the rectory of St. Peter's, Cornhill.
In 1820 my father married Emma Caroline, the youngest of the three daughters of Admiral Michell (and my father's uncle, Benjamin Wood, M.P. for Southwark at the time, married the second daughter, Maria, the "Aunt Ben" of this book). She was eighteen. My father was still at Cambridge. The improvident young pair found it difficult to live on the small allowance that was considered sufficient for my father at college. They appear to have been very happy notwithstanding their difficulties, which were augmented a year later by the birth of a son; and while my father became "coach" to young men of slower wit, my mother, who was extremely talented with her brush, cheerfully turned her beautiful miniature painting to account for the benefit of her young husband and son. She soon became an exhibitor of larger works in London, and the brothers Finden engraved several of her pictures.
She and my father seem to have idolized their first child, "Little John," and his early death, at about four years old, was their first real sorrow. The boy was too precocious, and when he was three years old his proud young parents were writing "he can read well now, and is getting on splendidly with his Latin!"
Constable, the artist, was a friend of my mother's, who thought highly of her work, and gave her much encouragement, and the young people seem to have had no lack of friends in the world of art and letters. Of my mother, Charles Sheridan said he "delighted in her sparkling sallies," and the young Edwin Landseer was "mothered" by her to his "exceeding comfort."
My mother was appointed bedchamber woman to Queen Caroline, and became very fond of her. The consort of George IV. appears to have taken the greatest interest in "Little John," and I had until a short time ago—when it was stolen—a little workbox containing a half-finished sock the Queen was knitting for the little boy when her fatal illness began.
My parents then lived in London for some years while my father did duty at St. Peter's. In 1832 my father became vicar of Cressing, in Essex, and he took my mother and their (I think three) children there, leaving a curate in charge of St. Peter's. Thirteen children in all were born to my parents (of whom I was the thirteenth), and of my brothers and sisters there were seven living at the time of my birth.
There was little room for all these young people in the vicarage at Cressing, and it was so extremely damp as to be unhealthy; so my parents moved to Glazenwood, a charming house with the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen in a place of moderate size. I think my brother Fred died here; but my first memories are of Rivenhall, where my parents moved soon after my birth. Rivenhall Place belonged to a friend of my father's, Sir Thomas Sutton Weston, of Felix Hall. The beautiful old place was a paradise for growing children, and the space and beauty of this home of my youth left me with a sad distaste for the little houses of many conveniences that it has been my lot to inhabit for the greater part of my life.
In politics my father was a thoroughgoing Whig, and as he was an able and fluent speaker, and absolutely fearless in his utterances, he became a great influence in the county during election times. I remember, when he was to speak at a political meeting, how he laughed as he tied me up in enormous orange ribbons and made me drive him there, and how immensely proud of him I was (though, of course, I could not understand a word of it all) as he spoke so persuasively that howls and ribald cries turned to cheers for "Sir John's man."
When he went to London to "take duty" at St. Peter's Cornhill, he and I used to stay at the Green Dragon, Bishopsgate Street. There was a beautiful old courtyard to this hotel with a balcony, overhung with creepers, running all round the upper rooms. I loved this place, and when I was too young to care much for the long service and sermons, I was quite content that my father should tuck me up safely in bed before going to evensong at St. Peter's.
Sometimes I was not well enough to go to London with him, and on these occasions comforted myself as much as possible with a compensating interest in the habits of the Rev. Thomas Grosse, who took my father's place at Cressing. He was very good and kind to me, and in the summer evenings, when he knew I was missing my father, he would take me out to look for glow-worms, and show me the stars, teaching me the names of the planets. Years afterwards the knowledge I thus gained became a great happiness to me, as I taught Mr. Parnell all I knew of astronomy, and opened up to him a new world of absorbing interest.
Friends of my brother Evelyn frequently stayed at Rivenhall, and one of them, a colonel of Light Dragoons, was engaged to one of my elder sisters. This gentleman appealed to my youthful mind as being all that a hero should be, and I used to stick a red fez on my golden curls and gallop my pony past the dining-room windows so that he might see and admire the intrepid maiden, as the prince in my fairy book did!
I loved the winter evenings at Rivenhall when my brothers were not at home. My father used to sit by the fire reading his Times, with his great white cat on his knee, while I made his tea and hot buttered toast, and my mother and sister Anna read or sketched. I used to write the plots of tragic little stories which my "Pip"[1] used to read and call "blood-stained bandits," owing to the violent action and the disregard of convention shown by all the characters concerned.
However, these childish efforts of mine led to greater results, as one evening my mother and sister laughingly offered to buy my "plot" in order to "write it up" into a novel. I was, of course, very proud to sell my idea, and thenceforth both my mother and sister wrote many successful novels, published by Chapman and Hall—and, I believe, at prices that are rarely realized by present-day novelists.
I was thus the unwitting means of greatly relieving my parents' anxiety of how to meet, with their not very large income, the heavy expense of educating and maintaining my brothers, and the responsibilities of their position.
My brothers loved to tease me, and, as I was so much younger than they, I never understood if they were really serious or only laughing at me. Evelyn was specially adroit in bewildering me, and used to curb my rebellion, when I was reluctant to fetch and carry for him, by drawing a harrowing picture of my remorse should he be killed "in the next war." The horror of this thought kept me a ready slave for years, till one day, in a gust of temper, I burst out with: "I shan't be sorry at all when you're killed in a war cos' I didn't find your silly things, and I wish you'd go away and be a dead hero now, so there!" I remember the horrified pause of my mother and sister and then the howl of laughter and applause from Evelyn and Charlie. Evelyn was very good to me after this, and considered, more, that even little girls have their feelings.
As a matter of fact, my mother was so entirely wrapped up in Evelyn that I think I was jealous, even though I had my father so much to myself. My mother was most affectionate to all her children, but Evelyn was her idol, and from the time when, as a mere lad, he was wounded in the Crimean War, to the day of her death, he was first in all her thoughts.
Of my brothers and sisters I really knew only four at all well. Clarissa had died at seventeen, and Fred when I was very young; Frank was away with his regiment, my sister Pollie was married and away in India before I was born, and my sister Emma married Sir Thomas Barrett-Lennard while I was still very young. She was always very kind to me, and I used to love going to visit her at her house in Brighton. Visiting Sir Thomas Barrett-Lennard's country seat, Belhus, I did not like so much, because, though Belhus is very beautiful, I loved Rivenhall better.
My mother was a fine musician, and as I grew older, I began to long to play as she did. There was a beautiful grand piano in the drawing-room, and I used to try to pick out tunes upon it. My mother had spent much money on her eldest daughter's—Maria's (Pollie)—musical education. At the end of this Pollie said she detested it, and would never play a note again if she could help it. When I asked that I might be taught to play my mother said, "No. There is the piano; go and play it if you really want to learn." In time I could play very well by ear, and began to compose a little and seek for wider knowledge. My love of music led me to try composition, and I used to set to music any verses that took my fancy. Among these I was much pleased with Longfellow's "Weariness," and was so encouraged by my mother's praise of the setting that I sent the poet a copy. I was a very happy girl when he wrote to thank me, saying that mine was the best setting of his poem he had ever heard.
Armed with the manuscript of this music and some others, the next time I went to London with my father I went to Boosey's, the musical publishers, and asked their representative to publish them.
"Quite impossible, my dear young lady," he answered at once. "We never take beginners' work!" I plaintively remarked that even Mozart was a "beginner" once, and could not understand why he laughed. Still, with a smile, he consented to look at the manuscript, and to my joy he ceased to laugh at me and tried some of it over, finally agreeing, much to my joy, to publish "Weariness" and a couple of other songs.
I remember my father's pleasure and the merry twinkle in his eye as he gravely assented to my suggestion that we were a very gifted family!
While my brother Frank (who was in the 17th Foot) was stationed at Aldershot he invited my sister Anna and myself down to see a review. He was married, and we stayed with him and his wife and children in the married officers' quarters, which appeared to us to be very gay and amusing.
I greatly enjoyed seeing the cavalry, with all the officers and men in full dress.
Many of the officers came over to call after the review, and among them was Willie O'Shea, who was then a cornet in the 18th Hussars. There was a small drama acted by the officers in the evening which my brother's wife took us to see, and there were many of the 18th Hussars, who paid us much attention, though, personally, I found the elderly and hawk-eyed colonel of the regiment far more interesting than the younger men.
CHAPTER II
VISITORS AT RIVENHALL
"A chiel's amang you takin' notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it!"—BURNS.
Among other visitors to Rivenhall was Lieut.-Colonel Steele, of the Lancers, a dark, handsome man, who married my sister Anna.
I remember looking at Anna consideringly when I was told this was to be, for, as children do, I had hitherto merely regarded Anna as a sister too "grown-up" to play with on equal terms, and yet not as a person sufficiently interesting to be married to one of the magnificent beings who, like Evelyn's friends, wore such beautiful uniforms and jingly spurs. But my sister had soft brown hair and a lovely skin, blue eyes that were mocking, gay, or tender in response to many moods, and a very pretty figure. And I solemnly decided that she was really pretty, and quite "grown-up" enough to be loved by the "beautiful ones."
Anthony Trollope was a great friend of my father and mother, and used to stay with us a good deal for hunting. He was a very hard rider to hounds, and was a cause of great anxiety to my mother, for my sister Anna loved an intrepid "lead" out hunting, and delighted in following Trollope, who stuck at nothing. I used to rejoice in his "The Small House at Allington," and go about fitting the characters in the book to the people about me—a mode of amusement that palled considerably on the victims.
I was always glad when our young cousin George (afterwards Sir George) Farwell (Lord Justice Farwell) came to see us. A dear lad, who quite won my childish admiration with his courtly manners and kind, considerate ways.
The Hon. Grantley-Barkley (who was seventy, I believe) was a dear old man who was very fond of me—as I was of him. I was but a child when he informed my parents that he wished to marry me when I was old enough! He was a dear friend of my father's, but, though the latter would not consider the matter seriously, my mother, who was an extraordinarily sympathetic woman, encouraged the idea.
Grantley-Barkley was always called the "Deer-slayer" by his friends. A fine old sportsman, his house, "The Hut," at Poole, Dorset, was a veritable museum of slain beasts, and I used to shudder secretly at the idea of becoming mistress of so many heads and horns.
The dear old man used to write long letters to me before I could answer them in anything but laborious print, and he wrote sheets to my mother inquiring of my welfare and the direction of my education. I still have many of the verses he composed in my honour, and though the last line of the verse that I insert worries me now as much as it did when I received it, so many years ago, I still think it very pretty sentiment:
"Then the Bird that above me is singing
Shall chase the thought that is drear,
When the soul to her side it is winging
The limbs must be lingering near!"
This little one-sided romance died a natural death as I grew up, my old friend continuing to take the kindest interest in me, but accepting the fact that I was no exception to the law of youth that calls to youth in mating.
My brother Frank suggested to my brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Barrett-Lennard, that Willie O'Shea, who was a first-class steeplechase rider, would no doubt, if asked, ride the horse Honesty that Tom was going to run in the Brentwood Steeplechase. He had already ridden and won many races. Willie readily agreed to ride, and came to stay at Belhus for the race.
I was staying there at the time, and though I was considered too young to be really "out," as a rule I had my share in any festivities that were going on. I remember my brother-in-law saying casually to my sister Emma, who was giving a dinner party that evening: "Who is Katie to go in with, milady?" and she answered promptly, "Oh, she shall go in with O'Shea." A mild witticism that rather ruffled my youthful sense of importance.
My first sight of Willie then, as a grown-up, was on this evening, when I came rather late into the hall before dressing for dinner. He was standing near the fire, talking, with the eagerness that was not in those days bad form in young men, of the steeplechase he had ridden and won on Early Bird.
I had been so much the companion of older men than he that I was pleased with his youthful looks and vivacity. His dress pleased me also, and, though it would appear a terrible affair in the eyes of a modern young man, it was perfectly correct then for a young officer in the 18th Hussars, and extremely becoming to Willie: a brown velvet coat, cut rather fully, sealskin waistcoat, black-and-white check trousers, and an enormous carbuncle and diamond pin in his curiously folded scarf.
When introduced to me he was most condescending, and nettled me so much by his kindly patronage of my youthfulness that I promptly plunged into such a discussion of literary complexities, absorbed from my elders and utterly undigested, and he soon subsided into a bewildered and shocked silence.
However, in the few days of that visit we became very good friends, and I was immensely pleased when, on parting, Willie presented me with a really charming little poem written about my "golden hair and witsome speech."
Of course, as usual, I flew to show my father, who, reading, sighed, "Ah, too young for such nonsense. I want my Pippin for myself for years to come."[1]
In the summer at Belhus I met Willie again. Unconsciously we seemed to drift together in the long summer days. The rest of the household intent on their own affairs, we were content to be left together to explore the cool depths of the glades, where the fallow deer ran before us, or the kitchen garden, where the high walls were covered with rose-coloured peaches, warm with the sun as we ate them. What we talked about I cannot remember, but it was nothing very wise I should imagine.
Week after week went by in our trance of contentment. I did not look forward, but was content to exist in the languorous summer heat—dreaming through the sunny days with Willie by my side, and thinking not at all of the future. I suppose my elders were content with the situation, as they must have known that such propinquity could have but one ending.
There was a man by whom I was attracted and who had paid me considerable attention—E.S., stationed at Purfleet. He was a fine athlete, and used to fill me with admiration by jumping over my pony's back without touching him at all. I sometimes thought idly of him during these days with Willie, but was content to drift along, until one day my sister asked me to drive over with a note of invitation to dinner for the officers at Purfleet.
In the cool of the evening I set out, with Willie, of course, in attendance. Willie, on arrival, sprang out of the pony cart to deliver the note, and as he was jumping in again glanced up at the window above us, where it happened E. S. and another officer were standing. Without a moment's hesitation Willie leant forward and kissed me full on the lips. Furious and crimson with the knowledge that the men at the window had seen him kiss me, I hustled my poor little pony home, vowing I would never speak to Willie again; but his apologies and explanation that he had only just wanted "to show those fellows that they must not make asses of themselves" seemed so funny and in keeping with the dreamy sense I had of belonging to Willie that I soon forgave him, though I felt a little stab of regret when I found that E. S. declined the invitation to dinner. He never came again.
Willie had now to rejoin his regiment, and in the evening before his going, as I was leaving the drawing-room, he stopped to offer me a rose, kissing me on the face and hair as he did so.
A few mornings after I was sleeping the dreamless sleep of healthy girlhood when I was awakened by feeling a thick letter laid on my cheek and my mother leaning over me singing "Kathleen Mavourneen" in her rich contralto voice. I am afraid I was decidedly cross at having been awakened so suddenly, and, clasping my letter unopened, again subsided into slumber.
So far nearly all my personal communication with Willie when he was away had been carried on by telegraph, and I had not quite arrived at knowing what to reply to the sheets of poetic prose which flowed from his pen. Very frequently he came down just for a day to Rivenhall, and I drove to meet him at the station with my pony-chaise. Then we used to pass long hours at the lake fishing for pike, or talking to my father, who was always cheered by his society.
At this time Colonel Clive, of the Grenadier Guards, was a frequent visitor. I was really fond of him, and he pleased me by his pleasure in hearing me sing to my own accompaniment. I spent some happy hours in doing so for him when staying at Claridge's Hotel with my sister, and I remember that when I knew he was coming I used to twist a blue ribbon in my hair to please him.
Once, when staying at Claridge's, my sister and I went to his rooms to see the sketches of a friend of my brother Evelyn's, Mr. Hozier, the clever newspaper correspondent, afterwards Sir H. Hozier, and father of Mrs. Winston Churchill. The drawings were, I believe, very clever, and I know the tea was delicious.
It was some time after this that the 18th Hussars were stationed at Brighton. Willie loved early morning gallops on the Downs, and, on one occasion, he rode off soon after daybreak on his steeplechaser, Early Bird, for a gallop on the race-course. At the early parade that morning Willie was missing, and, as inquiries were being made as to his whereabouts, a trooper reported that Early Bird had just been brought in dead lame, and bleeding profusely from a gash in the chest.
He had been found limping his way down the hill from the race-course. Willie's brother officers immediately set out to look for him, and found him lying unconscious some twenty yards from a chain across the course which was covered with blood, and evidently the cause of the mishap. They got him down to the barracks on a stretcher, and there he lay with broken ribs and concussion of the brain.
He told us afterwards that he was going at a hard gallop, and neither he nor Early Bird had seen the chain till they were right on it, too late to jump. There had never been a chain up before, and he had galloped over the same course on the previous morning.
I was at Rivenhall when I heard of the accident to Willie, and for six unhappy weeks I did little else than watch for news of him. My sister, Lady Barrett-Lennard, and Sir Thomas had gone to Preston Barracks to nurse him, and as soon as it was possible they moved him to their own house in Brighton. For six weeks he lay unconscious, and then at last the good news came that he was better, and that they were going to take him to Belhus to convalesce.
A great friend of Willie's, also in the 18th—Robert Cunninghame Graham—was invited down to keep him amused, and my sister, Mrs. Steele, and I met them in London and went down to Belhus with them. Willie was looking very ill, and was tenderly cared for by his friend Graham. He was too weak to speak, but, while driving to Belhus, he slipped a ring from his finger on to mine and pressed my hand under cover of the rugs.
Robert Cunninghame Graham, uncle of Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, the Socialist writer and traveller, walked straight into our hearts, so gay, so careful of Willie was he, and so utterly bon camarade, that we seemed to have known him for years. In a few days Anna and I left Belhus, and Willie's father came over from Ireland to stay with him till he was completely recovered.
Before Willie left I was back at Belhus on the occasion of a dinner party, and was shyly glad to meet him again and at his desire to talk to me only.
While the others were all occupied singing and talking after dinner we sat on the yellow damask sofa, and he slipped a gold and turquoise locket on a long gold and blue enamel chain round my neck. It was a lovely thing, and I was very happy to know how much Willie cared for me.
CHAPTER III
MY FATHER'S DEATH AND MY MARRIAGE
"Fair shine the day on the house with open door;
Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney,
But I go for ever and come again no more."
—STEVENSON.
The following autumn my father, mother, and I went to stay at Belhus on a long visit, my father going to Cressing each week for the Sunday duty, and returning to us on Monday morning.
We all enjoyed spending Christmas at Belhus. My mother and my sister Emma were devoted to one another, and loved being together. We were a much larger party also at Belhus, and there were so many visitors coming and going that I felt it was all more cheerful than being at home.
Among other visitors that winter, I well remember Mr. John Morley—now Lord Morley—as he was told off for me to entertain during the day. He was a very brilliant young man, and my elders explained to me that his tense intellect kept them at too great a strain for pleasurable conversation. "You, dear Katie, don't matter, as no one expects you to know anything!" remarked my sister with cheerful kindness. So I calmly invited John Morley to walk with me, and, as we paced through the park from one lodge to the other, my companion talked to me so easily and readily that I forgot my rÔle of "fool of the family," and responded most intelligently to a really very interesting conversation.
With the ready tact of the really clever, he could already adapt himself to great or small, and finding me simply ready to be interested, was most interesting, and I returned to my family happily conscious that I could now afford to ignore my brother Evelyn's advice to "look lovely and keep your mouth shut!"
John Morley, so far as I remember him then, was a very slight young man with a hard, keen face, the features strongly marked, and fair hair. He had (to me) a kindly manner, and did not consider it beneath him to talk seriously to a girl so young in knowledge, so excessively and shyly conscious of his superiority, and so much awed by my mission of keeping him amused and interested while my elders rested from his somewhat oppressive intellectuality. I remember wondering, in some alarm, as to what topic I should start if he suddenly stopped talking. But my fear was entirely groundless; he passed so easily from one thing interesting to me to another that I forgot to be self-conscious, and we discussed horses and dogs, books and their writers—agreeing that authors were, of all men, the most disappointing in appearance—my father, soldiers, and "going to London," with the greatest pleasure and mutual self-confidence. And I think that, after that enlightening talk, had I been told that in after years this suave, clever young man was to become—as Gladstone's lieutenant—one of my bitterest foes, I should perhaps have been interested, but utterly unalarmed, for I had in this little episode lost all awe of cleverness as such.
My father died in February, 1866. The vexed question of ways and means—always a vexed question in a clergyman's household when the head of the house dies—pressed heavily on my mother, who was left almost penniless by my father's death.
My mother and sisters were discussing what was best to be done, and my mother was speaking sadly as I went into her room. "We must sell the cow, and, of course, the pig," my eldest sister (Emma) replied in her sweet, cheerful voice, which produced a little laugh, though a rather dismal one, and our sorrow was chased away for the moment.
My mother's sister, Mrs. Benjamin Wood, on hearing of her troubles, settled a yearly income on her, thus saving her from all future anxiety, most of her children being provided for under our grandfather's—old Sir Matthew Wood's—will.
During that year we lived chiefly at Rivenhall. It was a very quiet, sad year, but we had a few pleasant visitors. Sir George Dasent, of the Times, and also Mr. Dallas, who wrote leading articles for the same paper, were frequent visitors, and Mr. Chapman (of Chapman and Hall, publishers), with pretty Mrs. Chapman, Mr. Lewes, and many other literary people were very welcome guests. My mother and sister Anna (Mrs. Steele) were writing books, and much interested in all things literary. At the end of the year we joined my eldest sister and her husband at Brighton, and soon after this Willie returned from Spain and called on us at once, with the ever-faithful Cunninghame Graham. I now yielded to Willie's protest at being kept waiting longer, and we were married very quietly at Brighton on January 25, 1867. I narrowly escaped being married to Mr. Cunninghame Graham by mistake, as Willie and he—the "best man"—had got into wrong positions. It was only Mr. Graham's horrified "No, no, no," when asked whether he would have "this woman" to be his wife, that saved us from many complications.
My mother, brothers and sisters gave me beautiful presents, and my dear sister Emma gave me my trousseau, while Willie himself gave me a gold-mounted dressing-bag. My old Aunt H. sent me a gold and turquoise bracelet. Willie saw this after I had shown him what my sister Mrs. Steele had given me—a carbuncle locket with diamond centre. Aunt H. was a very wealthy woman, my sister not at all well off, though in any case her present would have been much more to me than that of Aunt H. However, Willie merely remarked of Anna's gift: "That is lovely, darling, and this," taking up Aunt H.'s bracelet, "this will do for the dog," snapped it round the neck of my little Prince.
Long afterwards he and I went to call on Aunt H., and as usual I had Prince under my arm. I noticed Aunt H. break off in a sentence, and fix a surprised and indignant eye on my dog. I had forgotten all about Prince's collar being Aunt H.'s bracelet, and only thought she did not like my bringing the dog to call, till I caught Willie's eye. He had at once taken in the situation, and became so convulsed with laughter that I hastily made my adieu and hustled him off.
Sir Seymour Fitzgerald lent us Holbrook Hall for our honeymoon, a kindness that proved unkind, as the pomp and ceremony entailed by a large retinue of servants for our two selves were very wearisome to me. There was little or no occupation for us, as the weather was too bad to get out much; our kind host had naturally not lent us his hunters, and we were, or Willie was, too much in awe of the conventions to ask anyone to come and relieve our ennui. Indeed, I think that no two young people were ever more rejoiced than we were when we could return to the life of the sane without comment.
Willie had sold out of the army just before his marriage, and his Uncle John, who had married a Spanish lady and settled in Madrid, offered Willie a partnership in his bank, O'Shea and Co., if he would put the £4,000 he received for his commission into it. This was too good an offer to be refused, so I said good-bye to my people, and bought some little presents for the servants at home, including a rich silk dress for my old nurse Lucy, who had been in my mother's service since the age of sixteen, and who was much upset that her youngest and dearest nursling should be taken away to such "heathenish, far-off places."
Before leaving England Willie and I stayed for a few days in London, and his mother and sister Mary called on us. They had not attended the marriage, as they would not lend their countenance to a "mixed" marriage, though once accomplished they accepted the situation. They were very nice and kind, and so gently superior that at once I became politely antagonistic. They brought me some beautiful Irish poplins which were made into gowns to wear in Madrid to impress the Spanish cousins, and a magnificent emerald bracelet, besides £200 worth of lovely Irish house-linen. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were most generous indeed, and I then, and always, acknowledged them to be thoroughly good, kind-hearted women, but so hidebound with what was to me bigotry, with conventionality and tactlessness, that it was really a pain to me to be near them. They admired me, and very plainly disapproved of me; I admired them for their Parisian finish—(for want of a better term)—and for their undoubted goodness, but, though I was rather fond of Mary, they wearied me to death.
That week we crossed over to Boulogne, and there we had to stay for a few days, as I was too ill from the crossing to go farther. The second morning Willie, seeing I was better, wanted to go out to dÉjeuner, and told me to lie still in bed, and he would tell them to send a maid with my food, as he knew that I, not being used to French customs, would not like a waiter to bring it. To make sure of my not being disturbed he locked the door. To my horror half an hour after he had gone there was a tap at the door, and a manservant opened it with his key, and marched in, despite my agitated protests in very home-made French. Once in, however, he made me so comfortable by his deft arrangement of a most tempting meal and paternal desire that "Madame should eat and recover herself," that I was able to laugh at Willie's annoyance on his return to find the waiter once more in possession and removing the tray.
We then went to Paris to stay with my mother-in-law and Mary for a few days, while they found me a French maid and showed me the sights. I had a great quantity of very long hair in those days, and Willie insisted on my having it very elaborately dressed—much to my annoyance—in the latest French fashion, which I did not consider becoming to me. My maid was also much occupied in making the toilet of my little dog. He was a lovely little creature, and Caroline would tie an enormous pale blue bow on him as a reward for the painful business of combing him. From the time Willie gave me this little dog to the day it died, about six years afterwards, it went everywhere with me. He was as good and quiet as possible when with me, but if I ever left him for a moment the shrill little howls would ring out till the nearest person to him would snatch him up, and fly to restore him to his affectionate, though long-suffering, mistress.
At Paris there was trouble with my mother-in-law and Mary at once because of him. They took me to see Notre Dame, and as a matter of course Prince was in my arm under my cloak. As we came out I let my little dog down to run, and the Comtesse nearly fainted. "You took the dog into the church! Oh, Katie, how wrong, how could, you! Mary! what shall we do? Do you not think——?" and turning a reproachful glance on me, Mary responded, "Come, mother," and, leaving me amazed and indignant on the steps, they passed into Notre Dame again. With some curiosity I peeped in after them, and beheld them kneeling at prayer just inside the door. They came out almost at once, and the old Comtesse looked happier. "You did not understand, dear," said Mary kindly, "it is better not to take the little dog into a church." I was young enough to resent being told I did not understand, and promptly returned, "I understand, Mary, that you and the Comtesse consider it wicked to take Prince into Notre Dame. Well, I don't, and you must excuse me if I remind you that God made the dog; and I seem to remember something about a Child that was born in a stable with a lot of nice friendly beasts about, so you need not have gone back to pray about me and Prince, I think!" And, scooping up Prince, I stalked off with a dignity that was rather spoilt by my not having sufficient French to find my own way home, and having to wait at the carriage for them. We drove home with much stiffness, and only thawed sufficiently to assure Willie how much we had enjoyed ourselves!
While I was abroad I often used to get away by myself to spend many happy hours in the beautiful churches with Prince tucked under my arm, and often a friendly old priest would give us a smile as he passed on his way about the church, so it was apparently not a very deadly sin to take him with me.
Willie's mother and Mary became more reconciled to the little dog when they found how much admired he was in Paris. An old Frenchman, after seeing him one evening as Willie and I were leaving table d'hÔte, made inquiries as to where we were staying, and called on Willie to offer £100 for "madame's pet" if at any time she wished to sell him. Willie was too wise to approach me with the offer, and assured monsieur that madame would consider the offer an insult only to be wiped out in monsieur's blood!
CHAPTER IV
A DAY ON THE DOWNS
"A son to clasp my finger tight."—NORMAN GALE.
When we had been in Spain for nearly a year, there was some dispute about the business arrangements of Willie's partnership in his uncle's bank, and Willie withdrew altogether from the affair. We then decided to return to England. Though glad to go home, I parted from my Spanish relations with regret, and have always since my visit to them thought that the admixture of Irish and Spanish blood is most charming in its result.
On our return to England we lived in Clarges Street, London, for some time, while Willie was looking for a place in the country where he could start a stud farm. Willie was very fond of horses, and understood them well, and I was delighted at the idea of his getting some really good brood mares and breeding race-horses. We knew, of course, nothing of the enormous expense and many losses such an undertaking was certain to entail.
At last we decided to take Bennington Park, Hertfordshire, and on going there Willie bought some good blood stock, among the pick of which were Alice Maud, Scent, and Apricot. Soon we had all the boxes tenanted, and I spent many happy hours petting the lovely thoroughbred mares with their small velvety noses and intelligent eyes.
The chief form of social intercourse in the county was the giving of long, heavy, and most boring dinners. People thought nothing of driving eight or even ten miles (and there were no motor-cars then) to eat their dinner in each other's houses, and this form of entertainment used to produce such an absolutely painful boredom in me that I frequently hid the invitations from Willie, who wished to "keep up with the county."
Willie and I were a good-looking young couple, and people liked to have us about. Willie, too, was a good conversationalist, and had a ready wit that made him welcome, since an Irishman and wit are synonymous to the conventional mind. That his witticisms pertained rather to the France of his education than the Ireland of his birth was unrecognized because unexpected.
I was—rather, I fear, to Willie's annoyance—labelled "delightfully unusual" soon after our going to Bennington, the cause being that I received my guests one evening with my then abundant hair hanging loosely to below my waist, twisted through with a wide blue ribbon. To Willie's scandalized glance I replied with a hasty whisper, "The very latest from Paris," and was rewarded with the mollified though puzzled expression very properly awarded by all men to the "latest fashion" of their womenkind.
I put off the queries of the ladies after dinner in the same way, and was rewarded by them by the general admission that it was a fashion for the few—who had the hair. Never did I admit that I had been out with the horses so late that I had had just time for Caroline to hurry me into a gown and shake down my hair as my first guest arrived. So little do we deserve the fame forced upon us.
Willie was never good at dunning friends for money owed, and as we had many brood mares, not our own, left with us for months at a time, the stable expenses, both for forage and wages, became appallingly large. It was always difficult to get the accounts in, and while Willie did not like to worry the owners even for the amount for the bare keep of the animals, he was himself perpetually worried by forage contractors, the shoeing smith, and the weekly wage bill, besides the innumerable extra expenses pertaining to a large stable.
As I urged against the sale of the mares, which he so often threatened, their happy, peaceful maternity, in the long lush grass and shade of trees by day, their comfortable boxes at night, and their fondness of me, he used to stare gloomily at me and swear gently as he wished there were more profit than peace in their maternity and my sentimentality. But he could forget his worries in the pleasure of schooling the yearlings, and we agreed always to hold on as long as possible to a life we both found so interesting, and with the facile hope of youth we thought to get the better of our expenses in time.
In this year (1869) my eldest (surviving) brother, Frank, became very ill, and Willie and I went to Rivenhall to see him. He wanted me to nurse him, so I stayed on in my old home while Willie returned to Bennington.
Frank had consumption, and very badly; he suffered intensely, and I think I have never longed for the presence of a doctor with more anxiety than I did for Dr. Gimson's at that time. My perpetual fear was that the effect of the opiate he gave to deaden poor Frank's pain would wear off before he came again. When it grew dusk Frank desired me to put candles in every window, that he might not see the shadows—the terrifying shadows which delirium and continual doses of morphia never fail to produce.
Frank's very dear friend, Captain Hawley Smart, the novelist, came to Rivenhall in the hope that he could cheer poor Frank's last hours; but he was too ill to know or care, and Hawley Smart could, like the rest of us, only await the pitying release of death.
We went on at Bennington in very much the same way until the end of that year. Willie had been betting very heavily in the hope of relieving the ever-increasing difficulty of meeting our heavy expenses, and now, in view of his losses in racing added to the cost attendant on keeping up such a large stud, the kind-hearted bank manager insisted that the large overdraft on his bank must be cleared. Hitherto, whenever he had become very pressing, Willie had sent him "something on account," and we had given a breakfast for his hunt, as Willie said such a good fellow "could not eat and ask at the same time." Now, however, Mr. Cheshire sorrowfully declined to eat, and maintained that his duty to his firm necessitated his insisting upon the clearing of the overdraft.
When Willie was made bankrupt, Mr. Hobson—a gentleman living near us with his very charming wife, who afterwards became Mrs. A. Yates—very kindly took my little old pony across the fields at night to his own place and kept him there so that he should not go into the sale of our goods. This defrauded no one, as the pony (my own) was beyond work, being my childhood's pet.
I was now nearing my first confinement, and my aunt, Mrs. Benjamin Wood, took a house for me at Brighton close to my sister's, Lady Barrett-Lennard. There my son Gerard was born.
I was very ill for some time after this, and my mother, Lady Wood, stayed with me, employing her time in making a lovely water-colour sketch for me.
Willie's affairs were now settled, and I had to give up all hope of returning to my dearly loved country home and all my pets; but I had the consolation of my beautiful babe, and I forgot my sorrow in my greater possession. He was very healthy, so I had no trouble on that score.
A young solicitor who took Willie's affairs in hand, Mr. Charles Lane (of Lane and Monroe), very kindly took upon himself to call on my Uncle William, who was then Lord Chancellor of England, and ask him to assist us in our financial difficulties. Uncle William was much astonished at the application of this obviously nervous young solicitor, who with the courage born of despair went on to suggest that Lord Hatherley might give Willie a lucrative appointment.
Strangely enough it had never occurred to me to apply to Uncle William for anything, and when Mr. Lane called on us and solemnly presented me with a substantial cheque and a kind message from my uncle, Willie and I were as surprised as we were pleased, even though Mr. Lane explained that "the Lord Chancellor had no post suitable" for Willie's energies.
We then moved into a house on the Marine Parade, as the one we were in was very expensive, and though I was glad to be next door to my sister, I felt it was not fair to my aunt, Mrs. Wood, who was paying the rent for us.
My faithful French maid Caroline stuck to us all through our fallen fortunes, as also did our stud-groom, Selby, and though we could no longer pay them the high wages they had always had, they refused to leave us.
My aunt now took a cottage for me at Patcham, just put of Brighton, and I was able to have my pony there. The house at Patcham was a dear, little, old-fashioned place right against the Downs, and there I used to walk for miles in the early morning, the springy turf almost forcing one foot after the other, while the song of the larks and scent of the close-growing, many-tinted herbage in the clear bright air filled me with joyous exhilaration.
Willie went to town, and often was away for days, on various businesses, and I was very lonely at home—even though I daily drove the old pony into Brighton that I might see my sister.
I had a cousin of Willie's, Mrs. Vaughan, to stay with me for some time, but she was perpetually wondering what Willie was doing that kept him so much away, and this added irritation to loneliness. I had had such a busy life at Bennington that I suffered much from the want of companionship and the loss of the many interests of my life there. I felt that I must make some friends here, and, attracted by a dark, handsome woman whom I used to meet riding when I walked on to the Downs, I made her acquaintance, and found in her a very congenial companion. Quiet and rather tragic in expression, she thawed to me, and we were becoming warmly attached to one another when Willie, in one of his now flying visits, heard me speak of my new friend. On hearing her name—it was one that a few years before had brought shame and sudden death into one of the oldest of the "great" families of England—he professed to be absolutely scandalized, and, with an assumption of authority that at once angered me, forbade me to have any more to do with her. He met my protests with a maddening superiority, and would not tell me why she was "beyond the pale." I explained to him my own opinion of many of the women he liked me to know and almost all the men, for I had not then learnt the hard lesson of social life, and that the one commandment still rigorously observed by social hypocrisy was, "Thou shalt not be found out."
When I met Mrs. —— again she soothed my indignation on her behalf, and as we sat there, high on a spur of a hill, watching the distant sea, she smiled a little sadly as she said to me: "Little fool, I have gambled in love and have won, and those who win must pay as well as those who lose. Never gamble, you very young thing, if you can help it; but if you do be sure that the stake is the only thing in the world to you, for only that will make it worth the winning and the paying."
It was nearly ten years afterwards that I, feeling restless and unhappy, had such a sudden longing for the sea, that one morning I left my home (at Eltham) very early and went down to Brighton for the day. I was alone, and wished to be alone; so I got out of the train at Preston, for fear I should meet any of my relations at Brighton station. A fancy then seized me to drive out to Patcham, about a mile farther on, to see if my former little house was occupied. Having decided that it was I dismissed my fly and walked up the bridle path beyond the house out on to the Downs, where, turning south, towards the sea, I walked steadily over the scented turf, forcing out of my heart all but the joy of movement in the sea wind, with the song of the skylarks in my ears.
I sang as I walked, looking towards the golden light and sullen blue of the sea, where a storm was beating up with the west wind. Presently I realized that I was very tired, and I sat down to rest upon a little hilltop where I could see over the whole of Brighton. The wind brought up the rain, and I rose and began to descend the hill towards Brighton. I wondered apathetically if my sister was in Brighton or if they were all at Belhus still. Anyhow, I knew there would be someone at her house who would give me something to eat. Then I turned round, and began deliberately to climb up the hill on to the Downs again. After all, I thought, I had come here to be alone, and did not want to see my sister particularly. The family might all be there, and anyhow I did not want to see anybody who loved me and could bias my mind. I had come down to get away from Willie for a little while—or rather from the thought of him, for it was rarely enough I saw him. If I went down to see Emma and Tom they would ask how Willie was, and really I did not know, and then how were the children. Well, I could thankfully answer that the children were always well. Why should I be supposed to have no other interests than Willie and my children? Willie was not, as a matter of fact, at all interesting to me. As to my children, I loved them very dearly, but they were not old enough, or young enough, to engross my whole mind. Then there was dear old Aunt Ben, who was so old that she would not tolerate any topic of conversation of more recent date than the marriage of Queen Victoria. What a curiously narrow life mine was, I thought, narrow, narrow, narrow, and so deadly dull. It was better even to be up there on the Downs in the drifting rain—though I was soaked to the skin and so desperately tired and hungry. I paused for shelter behind a shepherd's hut as I saw the lithe spare form of my brother-in-law, Sir Thomas, dash past, head down and eyes half closed against the rain. He did not see me, and I watched him running like a boy through the driving mist till he disappeared. He had come over from Lewes, I supposed. He was a J.P., and had perhaps been over to the court; he never rode where he could walk—or rather run.
I waited, sheltering now from the rain, and through the mist there presently came a girl riding. On seeing me she pulled up to ask the quickest way to Brighton, as the mist had confused her. As I answered her I was struck by a certain resemblance, in the dark eyes and proud tilt of the chin, to my friend of many years ago, whose battles I had fought with Willie, and who had told me something of her life while we sat very near this place. The girl now before me was young, and life had not yet written any bitterness upon her face; but as she thanked me, and, riding away, laughingly urged me to give up the attempt to "keep dry," and to fly home before I dissolved altogether, I had the voice of my old-time friend in my ears, and I answered aloud, "I am afraid; I tell you, I am afraid." But she was dead, I knew, and could not answer me, and I smiled angrily at my folly as I turned down the track to Preston, while I thought more quietly how the daughter whose loss had caused such bitter pain to my dear friend, when she had left all for love, had grown to happy womanhood in spite of all.
I was now feeling very faint from my long day of hard exercise without food, but there was a train about to start for London, and I would not miss it.
On the platform for Eltham, at Charing Cross, stood Mr. Parnell, waiting, watching the people as they passed the barriers. As our eyes met he turned and walked by my side. He did not speak, and I was too tired to do so, or to wonder at his being there. He helped me into the train and sat down opposite me, and I was too exhausted to care that he saw me wet and dishevelled. There were others in the carriage. I leant back and closed my eyes, and could have slept but that the little flames deep down in Parnell's eyes kept flickering before mine, though they were closed. I was very cold; and I felt that he took off his coat and tucked it round me, but I would not open my eyes to look at him. He crossed over to the seat next to mine, and, leaning over me to fold the coat more closely round my knees, he whispered, "I love you, I love you. Oh, my dear, how I love you." And I slipped my hand into his, and knew I was not afraid.
