Authors: Marjorie Bowen
When Lord Edward returned to his house in Denzel Street he found his wife was out. He knew that she was to have been at Leinster House that afternoon, but was surprised that she had not yet returned. He went, therefore, at once to his brother’s residence. He found the Duke expecting him, with a heightening of the anxiety which had marked him of late.
‘Edward, I have detained your wife here. I sent for her maid and your Tony to help make her comfortable. The children, too, of course, I think they ought to stay with me.’
‘Why?’ asked Edward. He always, now, felt painfully embarrassed in his brother’s presence. He believed the Duke guessed much more than he disclosed.
‘I don’t like her to remain down in the town in a hired house,’ said the Duke anxiously. ‘That infernal town major, Sirr, and his men are everywhere; you wouldn’t like it if they searched and rifled your house? She is not at all well, Edward, and it wouldn’t be fair to expose her to that.’
‘I think it most unlikely it would happen. Yet certainly I am pleased that she should be here.’
‘They would scarcely come here,’ said Leinster, with a nervous half-smile. ‘Whatever the government might think of me they’d owe me too much respect to send the soldiers here.’
He looked at his brother narrowly, endeavouring to search that warm, candid face which was so bad at any manner of concealment. Then he sighed and turned away. He could not press Edward for a confidence that he knew would never be given. He passed his days in a constant fear that his beloved younger brother might be engaged in some rashness beyond anything he dared conjecture. But what more could be done? Clare and Castlereagh and Campden had all given their hints: ‘Get the young man out of the country, the ports will be open,’ and these warnings had been conveyed to Fitzgerald without effect. There was no more to be done…
Edward pressed his brother’s hand. ‘I thank you,’ he said with great affection, ‘for this kindness to Pamela.’
He would have liked to have added that he felt all the more deeply the Duke’s warm consideration, because he knew that the young Frenchwoman was not greatly loved at Leinster House, and also that his brother, besides being burdened by politics, was deeply troubled at the illness of his own wife. The Duchess was, indeed, dying, though none had had the heart to tell the Duke so; yet it was commonly supposed he knew it and that it helped to intensify his melancholy. He had six children to provide for, and his affairs became daily more uncertain.
‘Yes, yes, Edward,’ he urged, ‘let her stay here. That will be something I can do for you. Our mother, too, and Henry would be pleased. They’re almost overborne with all this.’
‘Don’t let Henry come to Ireland!’ said Edward sharply. ‘At least, not yet.’ He paused, anxiously turning over in his mind what effect, if the worst came to the worst, his failure, the discovery of the plot, his own arrest, might have on his family. He had tried to keep away from them as long as possible, but it had not been easy to avoid their watchfulness, their constant care.
‘Charles,’ said the Duke, ‘is so affected that he has gone into the country, as far away as possible from politics.’
‘What do you all suspect, Robert? Nay, I should not ask you that. We have decided not to put things into words between us. Do be more confident, my dear fellow; indeed you must be.’
‘I don’t like O’Connor’s arrest,’ replied the Duke nervously. ‘What had he got in all those papers for the French Directory?’
‘Not my name, I think.’
‘You only
think
, Edward, but here we are again on forbidden subjects! Go to Pamela; believe me, I’ll do my best. She is safer here, and happier too, I think. No one will bother her. She has her rooms to herself. I know she doesn’t like the house, but at least it is away from the streets and the noises. She can’t hear the patrols of soldiers and police nosing about, and see that odious fellow Sirr. Edward, I fear informers.’
‘Informers!’ Edward turned sharply on that word. ‘What do you mean, sir, informers?’
‘Why, you know, there are such going up and down the country, gleaning information about the rebels and receiving fine pensions for it.’
‘Ah, those mean creatures!’ Edward smiled. ‘I thought that you meant some dangerous traitors, some one of importance who really knew perilous secrets.’
‘There has been a great activity in the city of late, Edward. Every time I go up to the Castle I see all on the alert although they keep a smooth front. The garrison is under arms — constantly.’
‘Is it?’ laughed Fitzgerald. ‘We long to have these same arms, but to aid, not the Castle, but the people!’
‘Castlereagh,’ continued the Duke, ‘who went to London for poor O’Connor’s affair, is back again. I don’t like that. He’s a formidable man, and nothing’ll move Clare, the villages in Wexford are harried without mercy… I can’t begin to tell you the things they’ve done on my estate. It’s ruin for me, too, of course — no rents this year. I don’t know how we’re all going to live. Well, I suppose something’ll happen one way or another. I spoke to Campden about the Hessians. He can do nothing, he says.’
Edward was silent. It went very ill with him to withhold his confidence from his brother. His own discretion lay heavy on his heart.
Pamela lay on a couch drawn up before the fire. Her attitude was that in which he had first seen her in the little hired house, the pale room in Paris. She had changed in those few years, though she was still not much more than a girl. Her face was pinched and sharp, her loveliness overcast, her rich hair hung in neglected disorder on to her shoulders. She had been in very bad health of late, subject to fainting fits, weakened by insomnia and constant blood-letting.
Her loss of bloom and look of trouble greatly endeared her in her husband’s eyes. There never had been any flaw in his affection for Pamela. After six years of marriage he loved her as much as he had loved her when he had first seen her, or when he had sat beside her on the long coach journey through the bleak night to Tournai. It had been with him, once and for ever — love. Louise, Pamela…the vision and the reality in one.
‘Are you happy here, Pamela? My brother is very good to bring you here, but do you wish to stay?’
‘Oh, what you will!’ she smiled. ‘It makes very little difference to me. Tell me, Edward, what did you decide to-day? You were at Bond’s, were you not?’
‘I’ll not weary you with all that, dear. Everything is ready, you must not be so frightfully uneasy. Oh, Pamela, you will kill yourself, and that will be an end of me and of the rebellion too!’
She tried to smile. ‘How can I be at peace, especially since O’Connor’s arrest and the driving back of the French fleet? Edward, you expect too much, and I am more unfortunate than most women as I have told you so often, my all is on you.’
‘There are my people, dear Pamela. They love you so much.’
She interrupted the tender falsehood:
‘Nay, they don’t. They but put up with me for your sake. I’m always alien, I know, and the poor Duchess, she is so ill, a dying woman, I think, and your brother is distraught by that, and I but add to their unhappiness! They’re being ruined too, you know that, Edward? And I can’t help thinking that it’s your fault.’
‘I have that on my mind also, Pamela. It isn’t altogether true. The government have a black mark against the Fitzgeralds. One of us was hanged at Tyburn, you know.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘One, nay, seven of us! A Geraldine! It’s not a name of good omen to the British Government.’
‘The English Generals are to be sent over, are they not? — Moore and Abercrombie?’
‘Hush, hush!’ He put his fingers over her strained mouth. ‘I won’t have you bother yourself with these things, Pamela. I won’t have you think of them. You must concern yourself only with the children and keeping warm and snug here. Where’s your pretty work you used to be so busy with? You’re always idle now, and that’s bad for you, dear.’
‘Oh, I read a little, and I look into the fire and see castles! They’re always in the past, never in the future. I feel as if you and I had had our happiness, Edward. What a poor, weak, railing creature you must think me! I know I’m no heroine, Neddy.’
He sat down beside her on the couch and drew her to him so that her head rested on his shoulder, and they looked together into the fire, burning low and clear on the broad marble hearth.
‘I’ve been out with Lady Castlereagh,’ she mused, ‘and Lady Moira. She has been kindest of all. I really think she likes me a little, Edward.’
‘You’ve been careful with Lady Castlereagh?’ he asked between tender kisses on her brow. ‘Her husband is a very clever man, though she may be goodness itself he would get anything from her. He is dangerous.’
‘Edward! As if I have not been careful! That has been my one pride. I have been a conspirator, you know, since I was quite young. In Paris I used to hear all the secrets of the Revolution when M. d’Orléans received the deputies at Belle Chase.’
She sat up suddenly. ‘No one gets from me a single hint! I think that’s why they dislike me! Even your brother is a little hurt. They believe I might take them into my confidence, but no, nothing from Pamela! Come, tell me, dear, what was decided to-night?’
He believed every ward she said and trusted her utterly. He never had the least uneasiness on the score of any possible indiscretion on the part of Pamela. He knew her as he knew himself, and without any hesitation and as simply as if he showed her a letter from a friend he drew from the pocket of his coat a package of papers, for he was aware that this was, as she had declared, her one joy…to know herself completely in his confidence, the recipient of all his most dangerous secrets.
‘This will hearten you, my sweet Pamela, read this. The returns of the National Committee.’ He put into her hand a paper entirely in his own writing headed, ‘
National
Committee
, 26th
February
, 1798.’ Underneath was written, ‘Ulster and Munster make no new returns this time. We state their former returns again,’ and below was a list of five provinces; Ulster, Munster, Kildare, Wicklow, Dublin, and next these names two columns, one headed ‘
Armed
Men
’ and the other ‘
Finances
in
Hand
.’
‘Does that mean anything to you?’ asked Fitzgerald, smiling to see his wife’s frown of concentration as she looked at these figures.
‘Why, yes. I am not so stupid as all that, Neddy. I see that Ulster sends over a hundred and ten thousand men, and is contributing four hundred and thirty-six pounds, three and four pence.’ She laughed. ‘And Munster comes next with a hundred thousand and one hundred and forty-seven pounds.’
‘Look at the bottom of the columns, my love. You will see that one has carried forward two hundred and thirteen thousand, three hundred and ninety-two men, and over eight hundred pounds. Then, if you will please to turn the page, you will see Dublin City’ — he pointed out the items one by one with his forefinger — ‘Queen’s County, King’s County, Carlow, Kilkenny, Meath. And what have we together? Nearly fifteen hundred pounds in cash and two hundred and seventy-nine thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six men.’
‘But these are civilians, not soldiers,’ suggested Pamela anxiously.
‘Yes, I’ve heard those doubts expressed before, my wise little counsellor.’ He smiled. ‘It has been questioned whether the United men could stand in battle before the King’s troops. But remember we expect assistance from France, and they will soon discipline us. Even an untrained man, my love, who is nothing much of a soldier, if he has the heart and spirit, can do a good deal. They may harass the escorts of the ammunition, cut off detachments of foraging parties, make the King’s troops feel themselves in an enemies’ country, while the actual battles would be left to the foreign troops. And much of the Irish Militia has come over to us.’ He then eagerly showed her other papers with lists of the Colonels, Captains, and other officers, and remarked on the name of Mr. Thomas Reynolds, who had lately asked for a Colonelcy for Kilkea and Moon.
‘I must make him treasurer or secretary as well. He is a fine, honest fellow. I like him very much, Pamela, and that is queer, because I met him as a child and felt a strange abhorrence for him. Now, there are few among the United Irishmen whom I like better. He is coming to Denzel Street soon, and I must give him a copy of these returns of the National Committee. But there’s enough of this dry business for you, Pamela. It is only to show you that all goes on well.’
‘Lady Moira told me,’ said Pamela, returning the paper, ‘that her husband is trying in the House for some measure of conciliation.’
‘We don’t want it,’ said Fitzgerald firmly; ‘the moment has passed. They might have done that before. Now it will look like fear — at least, so we shall take it, and refuse it all.’
‘Oh, Edward, I think they mean it sincerely!’
‘I’ve no doubt Moira does — he’s a fine man. There’s sincerity on our side, also. Castlereagh won’t give way, nor Clare. Campden, of course, is only a makeshift. If there was real trouble I expect they’d withdraw him in an instant. I did hear rumours of Cornwallis being sent. Military law and a Commander-in-Chief, eh?’
‘But Lord Moira,’ insisted Pamela, ‘he — indeed he would try his best to give you what you want.’
Fitzgerald drew another paper out of his pocket and held it before his wife.
‘Read that, my love.’
Pamela read: ‘
Resolved
— That we will pay no attention whatever to any attempt which may be made by either Houses of Parliament to divert the public mind from the grand object which we have in view, and nothing short of the complete emancipation of our country will satisfy us.’
‘I see you’re obstinate,’ she cried, ‘and must go on!’
He went, of a sudden, on his knees beside her, put his arms round her waist, and drew her to him in a close embrace.
‘Pamela, don’t let’s think of it any more. But for tonight we’ll lock the storm outside; we’ll bar the window against the wind and rain. Just you and I, dear! As so often before! Can’t you forget all but ourselves, Pamela, for a little while? Put all else out of your mind and dream. Tell me what your dreams are, Pamela?’
‘Who can do that?’ she cried wildly. ‘Could you tell me yours?’
‘I think I could. I remember a little boy on a warm sunny afternoon — but there, that sounds commonplace.’
‘What follows, dear?’
‘Why, there was a girl, yourself. We never met until you were old enough to marry. But still it was you, Pamela. You had that little patch, I always make you wear it, and I put some ripe nectarines into your arms. I remember your blue hood and cloak, and all those sweet southern plants smelling so fragrantly? Pamela, don’t you sometimes yearn for the sunshine? Pamela, you love me a little?’
He pressed her close, and his lonely mind went back to his dreams — dreams or visions, or remembrances.
Why did they affect him with such an unutterable nostalgia, such an unbearable poignancy? Were they not all fulfilled? Did he not clasp in his arms the woman who had grown from the adored child? The very fruition of a boy’s vision? Were not all he had loved then still with him? His mother, Mr. Ogilvie, his brothers and sisters, his friends? Why, then, this sadness, for sadness it was…the tears stung his eyes.
‘Yet I have been so fortunate,’ he thought in disdain of his own melancholy, ‘been able to put my hand to something worth while, to undertake a worthy action, to get out of the rut of common things, to make a fine attempt to risk everything on an ideal — for others. Not many men have the chance of that — yes, I’m lucky indeed.’
He was roused by Pamela’s kiss on his brow that lay against her breast. She whispered:
‘Look up, my love. Your dreams make you sad.’