The Rebels of Ireland (124 page)

Once, about a year after she had arrived, she had gone to the nearest Church of Ireland church. Normally, the Protestant clergymen were only too grateful for any extra congregation they could get. Gladstone had disestablished the Church some time ago now, so they lacked the official backing they had enjoyed before. The number of Protestant landowners was falling, and nobody, in Rathconan at least, had ever heard of anyone being converted by a clergyman to join that church. He may therefore have looked up hopefully at the sight of Mrs. Budge, even with her turban on, sitting in his church one morning. Her conduct was not encouraging, however. She had sat, and she had continued to sit. Her face was neither approving nor disapproving. She might have been a dispassionate observer from a far-off land. Somewhat to his relief, he had not seen her since. Mrs. Budge's Dublin residence had a front parlour, or drawing room, which connected to a dining room that faced the garden at the back. When he was ushered into the front room, Willy noticed at once that the curtains were half drawn, so that the space was shadowy. There was a fire burning in the grate, and a lamp beside her wing chair provided the light by which, evidently, she had been reading the newspaper. On one wall there was a picture, of the early nineteenth century, depicting a view of Rathconan. On another, a sporting print and, not far from it, the sepia photograph of an erotic Indian wall carving that he remembered seeing in the big house. Did she take it with her, he wondered, like a talisman? On a low table were some theatre programmes. It seemed that she went to musicals, as most people in Dublin did. But beside one of these he saw a pamphlet on which, he was almost sure,
he could make out the words “Theosophical Society.” If she entertained in here, it was obviously her personal den. Perhaps her visitors were part of a coterie of some kind. His father swore she had séances. It might well be so.

She was wearing a turban, this one made of a cloth with a brownish paisley design. She had an Indian shawl round her shoulders. She had not changed much down the years, except that her face was worn a little looser now.

“You are quite a young man, Willy,” she said.

He glanced at a chair and she indicated that he should sit in it. He did not feel intimidated. His time out in the commercial world of Dublin had given him a certain confidence, and, as he had reminded himself, this was business after all. He had also developed a fairly pleasing manner. Very politely, but clearly, he explained the matter in hand. “I have come, Mrs. Budge,” he said, “on behalf of my father.”

The terms offered by the new Wyndham land legislation were really quite extraordinary. The price to be paid for land was twenty-eight times the annual rent. A landowner accepting this money, in a single, immediate payment from the government, would almost certainly be able to invest the proceeds at a higher return. The tenant was not required to make any down payment at all. And the government asked only a three percent mortgage rate, payable over sixty-eight years. Quite apart from the fact that even a modest rate of inflation would reduce these payments to trivial sums, the effect would almost certainly be a sharp reduction in the tenant's outgoings. To all intents and purposes, the government was using some of the wealth it had acquired from its empire to buy out the Ascendancy and return its lands to Irish hands. It was hardly surprising then, that the numbers taking up the offer exceeded anything seen before by a factor of about twelve times. The prediction of Sheridan Smith looked likely to be born out: some people were guessing that a third or more of the entire island might change hands.

Carefully, and very politely, Willy outlined the legislation. He
explained that the terms were so remarkable that both his father, and doubtless she herself, could hardly wish to pass them up. He stressed, albeit untruthfully, the affection his father had for the Budge estate, and how he desired to live in harmony with them. Nothing would change, except that all the parties would be better off. He did it respectfully and very nicely. She listened to him carefully. When he had done, she was silent for some time. Then she half smiled.

“Do you believe, Willy,” she asked, “in the transmigration of souls?”

He stared at her, hardly comprehending at first.

“I'd have to ask Father MacGowan,” he managed at last. “But I don't think so.”

“You should study it,” she cried. “It is a most interesting subject. I was wondering what you might have been before this life. I myself…” She did not divulge what it was that she had been. Probably something too exotic for humble ears to hear. “We are all,” she glanced towards the sepia photograph on the wall, “more than we imagine. Here in Dublin, many people are taking an interest in Theosophy, you know. Mr. Yeats himself has been a student of the subject. We are all connected, you see. These things only become clear as we achieve spiritual enlightenment. Buddhism, Hinduism, even Christianity: they are all related. That is the path to the future, I do believe. We think too much of material things.”

Were her own thoughts connected? It was hard to tell. But he recognised her well enough, as a general type. Clearly she had decided to become a Dublin eccentric. There were quite a number of them. He supposed such people existed in other places, too, but Dublin, with its special leisurely pace, seemed to encourage their growth.

If you had nothing else to do, perhaps if you were a little short of money—and who was not?—then to be an eccentric was an easy passport through the rest of your life. You could get away with anything.

Then, suddenly, he saw through her. She had nothing else to cling on to, of course. He understood that. Her land up at Rathconan was what she was. She would never give it up. This talk of spiritual things was nothing but a tatty old screen to hide her real intentions.

“And my father's land?” he asked.

“I'll have to think about that, Willy. But we're all very well as we are. Tell your father that. These things are quite temporal,” she cried, as if that signified something.

He bowed his head. The maid showed him out.

The old woman thinks she's fobbed me off, he considered to himself. But she hasn't. For now, this is war.

He was walking along from Trinity towards Merrion Square the following day, wondering how to write to his father, and what account of the meeting he could give him, when he noticed that the green door of MacGowan's bookshop was open. He did not think that he had ever seen it open before. By its very nature, it seemed to him, it should be closed. And simply because of this unusual circumstance, he decided to go in. Why not, after all? Sheridan Smith might have told him to avoid the owner, but that wasn't, surely, a prohibition against even looking at the books there. Besides, he was curious to see whether he would still find MacGowan as daunting as he had when he was younger. He entered.

MacGowan was sitting at a table at the back. He was examining a volume, evidently trying to decide how to price it. He was smoking a cigarette that was hardly more than a stub. Willy noticed how stained the bookseller's fingers were with nicotine. He went to a bookshelf. In front of him was a book of sermons by some eighteenth-century divine. He took it out and pretended to look at it.

Sure enough, the single eye was upon him. He held the book in his hand. The single eye remained fixed. But he was not afraid. He felt rather proud of himself.

“Are you interested in that book?” said MacGowan.

“No.”

Willy moved along the shelf. A book on South American plants, with line illustrations. He looked at the pictures. Quite fine, in their way.

“I'm surprised,” said MacGowan, “given that you've no interest in books, that you aren't playing a sport. Have you joined the GAA?”

“I haven't.”

“Do you speak the language?” Irish. Gaelic. The language of honour.

“A little. My mother does.”

“You should join the GAA. Though I suppose you get enough exercise,” he remarked, “running errands for Sheridan Smith.” He saw Willy start with surprise. “I know who you are. My brother has told me about you.”

“Father MacGowan's been very good to me.”

“No doubt. He is a kindly man.” He took a drag on the remains of his cigarette. “But mistaken.” He continued, almost miraculously it seemed to Willy, to find combustible weed in the ragged paper leavings between his fingers, drew upon the stub twice more, then, indifferently, let it drop into a small, stone ashtray, pressing the last life out of the little glow, somewhat cruelly, with his thumbnail. He glanced up, as if to check whether Willy was still there. “A good man, certainly. It's a pity,” he added regretfully, “that he's a priest.”

Willy looked at him in great astonishment.

“I assumed all his family would be proud…”

“My mother was. My father, too.” He glanced down at the book on the desk, wrote “Ten shillings” in pencil inside the cover, and closed it. “Personally, I've no great use for priests. It was the priests that destroyed Parnell.”

“A special case.”

“The men of '98 knew how to keep the priests in their place. Emmet, too.”

Willy nodded. There were plenty of men in Dublin with similar opinions. He had not felt impelled to join any political cause himself, but you had only to go into any Dublin pub to hear strong opinions voiced. A few were extremist—out and out socialists. Then there was the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Fenians—ultimate heirs of the French Revolution and of Young Ireland, it might be said—but secretive, shadowy. Most of them had little patience with Church interference. Then there was Redmond's Irish Parliamentary Party, of course, dedicated to Home Rule by more patient, parliamentary means. But you could seldom be sure where people really stood. The GAA was officially dedicated to sport, but it was quasi-political really. There were Fenians in the GAA all right. Evidently the priest's brother belonged somewhere along this spectrum—towards the radical end of it, perhaps, if it put him so at variance with his Father MacGowan.

Deciding that some response was required, but that he'd better leave Father MacGowan and the Church out of it, he remarked:

“I'd be glad to see the English out of Ireland.” He thought of Mrs. Budge. “But I sometimes wonder if it will ever happen.”

The bookseller stood up. He was somewhat corpulent. But the surprising deftness of his gait suggested he could move very fast if he wanted to.

“I sell newspapers here, as well as books,” he remarked. “Old issues.” He pulled down a broadsheet from a shelf. “This is the first issue of
The United Irishman
. Arthur Griffith produced it for the centenary of 1798.” He nodded. “A remarkable thing to have done.” He showed it to Willy. “You should read it,” he said. He turned and stared towards the open door. Apart from the two of them, the shop was quite empty.

“The trouble with Sheridan Smith,” he said, “is that he and his like—not to mention the Catholic farmers who don't want to be bothered with anything but their land—will give away Ireland's birthright. Our nationhood. In another twenty years we shall all be living as West Britons, which is exactly what the English want. The
only way to stop that is to drive them out: when the time is right, when we are ready for it. That may come through Parliament. Or more radical means. Fenian perhaps. With the help of Clan na Gael in America, of course.” He smiled. “America is where the money comes from. I lived there once, you know. Many years ago.”

“When I was a child,” said Willy, “the Clan na Gael sent men over to plant bombs in England. It did no good at all, and most of them were caught.”

“I know.” MacGowan sighed. “Twenty years in jail, some of them got. A particular friend of mine…” He stopped himself. “They've learned since.” He paused for a few moments. “Well.” He returned the newspaper to its shelf. “Do you know what the Church said about the Fenians. Bishop Moriarty, it was. He and Cullen were thick as thieves. ‘Eternity is not long enough,' he said, ‘nor hell hot enough to punish them for their sins.' There, you can think about that,” he concluded. “But don't tell my brother.”

“No,” said Willy, “I won't.”

“Come again,” said MacGowan. “You should read that newspaper. I have postcards, also, from France.”

As Willy continued on his way, he thought of Sheridan Smith's injunction. He had not deliberately disobeyed it. He couldn't have foreseen that the man would talk to him. In any case, the encounter had taken place, and there was no harm done.

 

1909