Authors: Marjorie Bowen
‘Your Lordship’s name alone would carry the greatest weight and encouragement to all engaged in this enterprise. We have among us many men of great eloquence, learning and talent, some of whom you know, such as Thomas Addis Emmett, O’Connor, and my own brother Henry, who is well spoken of by all.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Fitzgerald, warmly. ‘Mr. Tone, what does he do? I have not heard of him for a while.’
‘A banished man, sir. He is bound to keep his proceedings dark, but he is much in France and still works at the Directory for an expedition.’
‘And you, too?’ said Fitzgerald. ‘Is that your aim?’ He looked straight at the other. ‘You want first an armed rising and then a landing of a French force in Ireland?’
Mr. Sheares replied boldly:
‘We have not got, so far, such a plan yet, sir, but I hope that will be the end of it.’
He said no more, but tactfully left Fitzgerald to the thoughts that this speech must provoke.
A free Ireland, a country liberated by the force of her own arms, once again with her own flag, her own properties, her own arts and culture, a free nation among the free nations of Europe. A people, almost exterminated by hundreds of years of systematic oppression, lawless cruelty and internal divisions, once more raised, triumphant. To an enthusiastic and enlightened mind such a prospect was almost irresistible. Fitzgerald felt all the excitement of the French days of ’92 return, and he wondered if he had been right in forgoing everything in view of his obligation to Pamela. He murmured half to himself: ‘I am quite happy here, quite pleased and content,’ and fell silent again, pacing up and down the gravel path, between the neat borders of flowers.
In no tone of urging, Mr. Sheares said:
‘Your Lordship’s principles are so well known, you have ever been so foremost in your advocacy of liberty, that we considered it scarcely just to yourself to leave you in your retirement in ignorance of our intentions.’
‘You must not think,’ replied Fitzgerald, ‘that I shall hang back in such a matter. You may, when you will, enrol me as one of your United Irishmen. I confess it attracts me more now it is a secret society put down by Government than when it was openly permitted.’
‘Tyrants are generally fools! The administering of the oath is now illegal,’ said Mr. Sheares. ‘Since all our members are liable to arrest we have to use considerable caution, but as there are so many of us, and as it would be almost impossible for a traitor to gain admittance to our ranks, we have little to fear.’
Fitzgerald seemed to rouse himself suddenly out of a slightly uneasy mood. With a warm look he put his hand on Mr. Sheares’s arm, and said:
‘Come into the house. Pamela will have some refreshment for you. We must not talk too long on heavy topics. It seems to me hard to be serious-minded on such a morning.’
‘Sir, I am a peaceful family man myself, and I would I were not the one to darken your felicity, but there are those in Ireland who cannot see the sun for misery, and we must think a little, sir, of our children and what their fate will be if we allow these tyrannies to encroach unchecked.’
They entered the house. Pamela had a meal ready for them on the table, where the Duchess of Leinster’s china had been unpacked, all very delicate and dainty and pretty, with a fresh little country maid to wait on them. The warm wind, which was rising a little, blew the curling tendrils of the honeysuckle and the petals of roses through the wide open bay window where the thrushes sang behind the muslin curtains.
‘Have you come to take my husband away from me?’ asked Pamela from behind her pots of honey and cream.
Mr. Sheares thought there was something in her eyes and her manner that seemed to bespeak a constant apprehension of danger. He replied earnestly:
‘No, Madame, I call God to witness. I only wish to know his mind.’
Fitzgerald, putting his arm on his wife’s shoulder, which was warm through the thin muslin, said:
‘If I go to Dublin, you will come too, Pamela.’
‘But I don’t wish to go to Dublin,’ cried the lady with vehemence, ‘to lodge in Leinster House which is gloomy and vast like a barracks or a prison! There is misery abroad whenever one puts one’s foot in the street, and all your relatives, Edward, though they are so dear and kind, do not really like me but think that all the time I am a Frenchwoman, a stranger, one who has not helped you much by marrying you.’
‘Oh, hush, my dear little Pamela, you must not say those foolish things. You are too sensitive and think too much of people not liking you — and such nonsense!’
‘I have never,’ put in Mr. Sheares, sincerely, ‘heard any one say they do not like your Ladyship. Why, is not Lady Edward Fitzgerald a reigning toast and beauty?’
‘Ah,’ laughed her husband, ‘and did she not when she was in Dublin dance every night? Did I not go to ball after ball just for the pleasure of seeing her?’
‘Those light moods have passed,’ murmured Pamela, with a touch of sullenness. ‘I have a child now. The truth is, I suppose, I am a little weary of the world.’ Then she broke into sudden smiles and glanced, as if pleading for an excuse, at Mr. Sheares, ‘Oh, sir, forgive me, but when you have been in the midst of great affairs since you were a child and been through those hideous days in France and seen so many you knew and loved taken from you by violent death, why, then you grow a little frightened. You want a little cottage like this, I suppose, and nothing else.’
‘Believe me, Madame, it is to preserve such homes as this and such women as yourself that I and all patriots labour.’
For the rest of the meal they talked on other matters. Shortly after, Mr. Sheares took his leave, refusing to discuss any more politics with Lord Edward. In the pretty, sunny room, however, he left a bundle of papers, ‘which related,’ he said gravely, ‘the numerous activities and designs of the United Irishmen.’
So completely did Mr. Sheares trust Lord Edward that he gave him these papers of the highest importance without even cautioning him as to the peril there might be in disclosing them to anyone through accident or misfortune.
As soon as their handsome guest had gone (he had left his horse in Kildare to avoid any impression of a formal visit to Lord Edward) Pamela turned quickly to her husband.
‘What are you going to be involved in now? I behaved as well as I could. I was not discourteous, was I? But why must he come here to disturb us?’
‘Hush, my darling, you must not distress yourself. I already knew almost all he said, but I suppose’ — the young man frowned with the difficulty of expressing himself — ‘well, all these other men have ventured a good deal, you see, and I suppose they think I should, also my principles are known.’
‘So should your circumstances be!’
‘They also,’ he replied, troubled, ‘most of them, at least, have wives and children, dear enough to them, Pamela!’
Surprised by his unexpected seriousness, for she had hoped that he would laugh away the visit of the serious, proud Mr. Sheares, she ran to him and clung to his arm:
‘You’re not really considering joining them?’
‘My dear Pamela, there’s nothing in joining them. Every Irishman worth the name belongs to them already; as for it being illegal, there is nothing in that — I’m in no danger. Why, even Clare, who is the most English of any in the Government, is my friend. Nothing and no one could touch me whatever I did.’
Pamela did not feel this confidence. She shook her head:
‘I heard M. d’Orléans say something like that. He too, was very certain he was safe, and what was the end of it?’
‘All that was so different, Pamela, I am almost ashamed to think how safe I am, besides they do not mean any dangerous intrigue —’
She interrupted quickly:
‘I heard that man talk of a descent on the part of the French!’
‘Ah, that is Mr. Tone’s work. He is a remarkable man, full of implacable energy, a great patriot. He has been working for years at that project, and may achieve it yet —’
‘Bah, you are trying to evade me, Edward. You know well enough that if there was a French invasion all concerned in it would be considered as traitors!’
‘No, no, Pamela, you must not think such things. You see, I have agitated you for nothing, I would you had not seen Sheares.’
‘Would you had not seen him, darling.’
Deeply distressed, he begged her to be calm. Tears were running down her face and she sobbed as she leant against his shoulder. When she had first come to Dublin she had led what had seemed to many a life of thoughtless gaiety for one whose adopted father had lately been guillotined, and whose adopted brothers and sisters were imprisoned or in exile. She had seemed, indeed, to forget everything except her married love and trivial pleasures. But she had had moments even then when she would lie in his arms weeping for no cause at all, or when, resting in a chair beside the fire, she stared into the flames musing on what he hardly liked to question, answering his caresses only with sighs.
He had his sad moods himself, and these depressions of hers frightened him. They were so closely united that the mood of one affected the other, and when Pamela was sad her husband would be too. A common memory, a common dread seemed to engulf them both.
He desperately kissed away her tears and spoke of their joys and delights in the Kildare cottage, swearing to her that whatever he did her personal happiness should not be touched. But she shook her head beneath his kisses, knowing too well that he had no power to keep such promises. In her mind was the recollection of how easily she had detached him from his friends in Paris, how quickly he had left all those dangerous Republicans to follow her across the frontier.
‘Then,’ she reflected, ‘we were not married. Now he has had me for several years, perhaps my spell is not so potent.’ She thought, too, with some self-reproach: ‘Perhaps it is wrong to try and keep a man like this inactive,’ and she pulled away from his embraces and went resolutely back to the crate of china and began taking off the wisps of straw and polishing the cups and saucers and plates with her handkerchief.
Fitzgerald returned to the garden. He felt he could not bear more words with Pamela; the moment was past speech, yet why? Sheares had said very little he, Fitzgerald, did not know, and he had been expecting some call from the United Irishmen, but there are days that seem to mark the end of an epoch and this was surely one.
Fitzgerald turned his gaze to where the wall was low. He liked to look across the tranquil stretches of the rich, cultivated country towards the sparkle of the river. Standing there it was difficult to believe that an entire nation was being goaded into desperate revolt, that on every hand were instances of tyranny, oppression, cruelty, intolerance, which had united in one staunch brotherhood the Dissenter and the Catholic, the peasant and the gentleman. Fitzgerald was not familiar with the twists and turns of politics which were the usual weapons of men like Clare and Castlereagh, Grattan and Ponsonby. His nature was essentially simple, and averse to any intrigue; he had no taste for the details of governing. His early training had been military, and he had no guide beyond his own intelligence by which to judge the present situation of his country. The democratic experiment in France did not show now with that pristine splendour in which it had glowed in ’92; hideous excesses had disgraced the cause of liberty, and the name of Jacobin was abhorred by all moderate men in Europe, Englishmen in particular. Even those Whigs who had hitherto considered they stood for advanced and liberal principles, regarded all the disciples of the French Revolution with horror.
Fitzgerald himself had to admit that he had been the victim of a generous, a foolish delusion. He looked back to those first Parisian days of his, that impetuous visit to Paris in ’92 with regret, to the dreams he had had then which he would never be able to have again. Sharp little details emphasised those pictures of the past, the green bedroom in the first hotel where he had stayed, and his meeting with Tom Paine, Mr. Reynolds and the other Irishmen, the water-colour sketch of the girl’s head, then his chance visit to the theatre and seeing Madame de Sillery in her box, and afterwards going home with her to supper, and Pamela asleep by the dead fire in the pale room. That long, cold journey towards Tournai and their marriage; Hermine Compton asleep on the other girl’s shoulder. He had held Pamela’s hand as they watched the rays of lamplight from the carriage windows and the black melancholy fields; it was curious that his present sunny surroundings could not efface the darkness of those memories. His mind went further back, to his uncle’s Château at Aubignè, the tapestry in the Orangery and the visit of the boy Reynolds, when he was building his toy fort…
He paused by the low wall; his dark, usually animated face was thoughtful.
‘I am not the man for them; I ought not to do it. I doubt if I can do them any good, but I’ll join them formally, to show I am not against them or standing out. What would the Government do if we were discovered? I wonder if there would be great severity. Clare’s my friend and Castlereagh’s wife seems to love mine. I would I were in Leinster’s place or that he was in mine. Dear fellow, he should show a stronger hand.’
But as he gazed over the soft Irish landscape the romantic, the adventurous side of the proposed enterprise became uppermost in his mind. After all, why be afraid? England had only a small force in Ireland and was harassed by troubles abroad. If the Irish were properly organised, if it was possible to arm them, if there was a rising simultaneously all over the country, might they not, without the help of the French Republic, achieve something?
He believed that there was something he might do. He was a good organiser, a good soldier. He had had considerable experience in the American wars. As a Fitzgerald he would possess unbounded authority, awake unbounded loyalty and love. Every Irishman would be on the side of reform, of freedom. They would throw out the foreigners, the jobbers, break up this farcical Parliament and obtain the reform for which they had been pressing since England had told Ireland to defend herself when Belfast demanded aid against the invader in ’78; and Ireland’s murmured reply had been: ‘If we must defend ourselves, we must rule ourselves.’
Not under any slant that could be given to the affair, could the taint of treason or treachery attach to them. They would be Irishmen fighting for Ireland. They would behave in every way with tolerance and moderation. There would be no more bloodshed than was necessary. The English should be sent back to their own country. ‘Pamela has made me too happy. I have been idle too long. Sheares is quite right, I ought to do something. It’s foolish, almost cowardly to say I can’t help.’ He turned away abruptly from the low wall. He was sorry, for the first time in his life, that he had so little money. Money would be very necessary.
It was as if, Fitzgerald thought, everything in his life had suddenly fallen into place, like the pieces of a puzzle deftly and unexpectedly arranged.
‘I suppose I’ve been wanting to do this. I suppose I was meant to do this, ever since I used to be troubled by that figure of the black slave in the tapestry if it
was
in the tapestry and not really there — I can never be sure.’ He paused to look at his deep crimson roses; he could never pass these flowers, the result of his own labour, without the tribute of admiration. How rich they hung, weighted down on their fine stems, dark red petals folded over the hidden gold heart. For the first time he reflected between amusement and sadness: ‘I should not be considering these — but pinning on my coat some of these poor shamrocks Tony is carrying away with the weeds.’
Pamela appeared at the window and looked out across the shadows on the lawn; her face was troubled. Her husband, so sensitive to her moods, felt that she knew he was going to risk their happiness; betray their happiness, perhaps, she would call it, and he was bitterly puzzled as to where his duty lay.
She had no one but himself; he knew she was aware that she, snatched from disaster, from the midst of a doomed family, was only loved by his friends for his sake. She was very lonely, had been perhaps always lonely, even in the crowded days at Belle Chase.
He was not surprised nor hurt that few people really liked Pamela. She was for him alone. Only for him did her charms and graces unfold, like a flower opening to warmth; he could not be displeased that she kept for him all her secrets of soul and mind. She had fulfilled for him even the expectations of a dream; if Pamela died or left him he would stand in a void.
And if he had to leave Pamela? He could not imagine her existing apart from himself. Surely she would wither and blow away on the first chance wind, like a blossom from a felled tree.
He was confronted by an old dilemma — should a man who has achieved for himself a rare happiness jeopardise it for others, for a cause, for an ideal, perhaps for a dream?
‘It seems folly, yet if no one had ever done so, there would have been little of worth in the world.’
Pamela did not look at him; she put up her arm and pushed aside the sprays of honeysuckle. Her movements were languid; she was expecting another child.
Since she would not glance at him, he could not bear to look at her; he turned away, beyond the ash tree and thought with resentment of John Sheares; the reserved, taciturn man who had, without fuss or ado, put before him — what?
Fitzgerald was instantly ashamed of his pang of dislike for his visitor; he thought of what Sheares and all his fellows were risking; of the stakes, the hazards, the rewards, of what was surely the noblest game a man could play.
And the little house and garden, even the woman and the child, seemed, in comparison to this, just vain, pretty toys.