Dorothy Eden (11 page)

Such a seduction scene, she thought, as she hurried upstairs to get rugs.

But her amusement and regret left her and she could only stand looking down at him tenderly and lovingly after she had covered him warmly against the cold night. His cheekbones were too sharp, with hollows beneath them. The bones showed in the fine rounded prominence of his temple. He had extraordinarily long dark lashes, like a woman’s. She wanted to touch them. But his face, for all its pleasing shape, looked empty and extinguished with the dark eloquent eyes closed. It looked far away, remote, unreachable, as if infinitely more than the Irish Sea were between them. She found that she was shivering slightly, then realised it was only because the fire had gone down and the room was growing chilly.

She banked it up again, intending to wake and come down every hour or so to replenish it.

But in the end she slept, and opened her eyes only to find an excited Norah and Carmen peering into her face, willing her to wake.

“Mamma! What do you think? Mr. Parnell is asleep on the couch in the sitting room! In all his clothes! Miss Glennister is scandalised.” Norah began giggling wildly and Carmen, her faithful imitator, immediately followed suit.

“But it would be more dreadful if he were in his nightshirt,” Carmen said, and they were off on another wild attack of giggles.

“It’s not dreadful at all,” Katharine said, sitting up. “Mr. Parnell arrived late and was very tired and fell asleep by the fire, and I know all about it. Pass me my dressing gown, and then go down and tell Ellen to prepare a large nourishing breakfast.”

“Why, is Mr. Parnell starving, too?” Norah asked.

“Of course he isn’t, but in this cold weather we all need to eat nourishing food. And Mr. Parnell has a train to catch so tell Ellen not to dawdle.”

She dressed hastily and went downstairs to find Charles laughing merrily with the children.

He looked up when she came in and gave his peculiarly radiant smile.

“Good morning, Mrs. O’Shea. I had a capital night on your couch. I didn’t stir until these two young ladies came in. I couldn’t think for a minute where I was. You were exceedingly good to a wayfarer last night.”

That last sentence was for the benefit of Miss Glennister who stood primly in the background, her eyes bright with suspicion. Bother her, now Willie will have to be told. But what was there to tell? She had given food and shelter to the Irish leader. Would it have been less reprehensible to turn him away?

“Come, children, off to your lessons,” she said briskly. “Mr. Parnell, there is a train to Charing Cross at nine thirty-five. You have ample time for breakfast. I’ll walk across the park with you on the way to my aunt. It’s stopped snowing, thank goodness, but it’s bitterly cold. I hope the House is adequately heated.”

“I hope so, too, since we’re assured of a very long sitting today. Perhaps you may come up to hear a little of it, Mrs. O’Shea. It will be interesting, I promise you. Mr. Biggar has some fireworks, and so have I. I can’t be sure we’ll get to bed tonight at all.”

At least in the park, with the wind like ice on their faces, and a glitter of frost on the dun-coloured grass, they were alone.

“What am I to tell Willie?”

“Simply that I took him at his word and came down to my headquarters. Surely he isn’t going to mind that?”

“I wouldn’t tell him at all if it wasn’t for Miss Glennister. But she will. The children will, too. It’s nothing, Charles. Only that I don’t want any silly servants’ gossip to spoil our friendship. We’ll tell what we have to, and be silent about what we don’t.”

“Sensible Kate.” He seemed to be in fine spirits this morning. “Will you be up this afternoon?”

“If I can.”

“If the debate looks like going on all night I’ll slip out. I’m going to book a room at the Westminster Palace Hotel in the name of Mr. Preston. Will Mrs. Preston be good enough to come and enquire for her husband—say half an hour after she sees him leave the House?”

“Charles! Is this wise?”

“No, but nobody knows me there. It’s safe enough. And I intend to see you for a little while alone, without either a suspicious governess, two charming but inquisitive children, an Irish cook who embarrassingly wears my picture round her neck, or any other odd person lurking round corners. Come, Katie. Who is to be sane today, you or I?”

She caught his hand, laughing.

“Both of us, but I expect I’ll be there.”

He kissed her under the leafless oak at the corner of the park where the path led to Aunt Ben’s house. He said it was because she looked so captivating in that furry hood, like a bright-eyed squirrel. Then he strode away, lightly and briskly, and she stood a moment feeling the most perfect happiness. She wondered how to quench it in her glowing face before Aunt Ben’s acute gaze rested on her. From now on she would grow secretive, devious, expert at lying, jealous of emotions expended on other people, absent-minded. People would begin to notice. Aunt Ben didn’t matter so much. She was old and extraordinarily tolerant. But what about sharp-eyed Anna whom she saw most of her sisters? What about Miss Glennister and the servants? What about Willie?

She dismissed these problems airily as she walked towards Aunt Ben’s house, the grass crackling beneath her feet, the trees bent by the harsh north wind. There would be ways to overcome all the difficulties. This afternoon she would see Charles again. Mrs. Preston would meet Mr. Preston. She skirted an icy puddle, climbed the steps to Aunt Ben’s front door, opened it, and went in, calling good morning to the maid dusting the hall, and walking upstairs, her head high, carrying her happiness inside herself like a light.

T
HE HOUSE WAS PACKED
that afternoon. It had been rumoured that the Irish were going to make a lot of trouble over the Habeas Corpus bill, and this proved to be all too true.

Mr. Biggar, looking in the rudest of health, had embarked on one of his marathon speeches, ranging with relish from subject to subject, and with many Irish colloquialisms which the bored English members found incomprehensible. When he at last began to falter Mr. Healy sprang up to take his place. Mr. Healy who was very young, and an ardent follower of Mr. Parnell, had a caustic tongue and a breast full of overcharged emotions. But perhaps he was more bitter today because news had come that Michael Davitt had been arrested for violating conditions of his ticket-of-leave. Poor Mick was becoming a jailbird. The long term he had already served as a political prisoner in Dartmoor had not succeeded in teaching him caution.

This news had obviously upset Mr. Parnell, too, for when his turn came to speak, although he maintained his tantalising politeness and polished wit, there was an undercurrent of deep anger in his words. If this disgraceful Bill were to be passed, a man would have less freedom even than his friend Mr. Davitt had. There wouldn’t even need to be a trumped up charge against him. He would be thrown into jail and perhaps six months later someone would have the courtesy to tell him his supposed offence. Yet the British were a nation who boasted of freedom. On any occasion when an audacious foreigner had jailed a British subject a war, no less, was started. Why should not the Irish start a war for the jailing of Michael Davitt?

So it went on and on, the tall pale-faced figure, slender, erect, his voice sometimes ringing with scorn, sometimes low with compassion, penetrating to every corner of the House.

Mr. Gladstone leaned back in his seat on the Front Bench, apparently relaxed, his great nose jutting towards the ceiling, his keen gaze fixed on nothing in particular. Sir Charles Dilke fidgeted a little, he didn’t care at all for Mr. Parnell, he thought he behaved like a foreigner, with his posed aloofness, and his undisguised hatred of the English. Mr. Chamberlain listened impassively, thoughtfully. Mr. Forster, whose Bill it was, was anxious. He had professed himself most reluctant to introduce such a Bill, but his anxiety to have it passed disproved his reluctance. The Irish members sat in a huddle on their benches, occasionally whispering to one another, or chuckling at a telling point. Everyone knew that they had no manners. If they got angry and began shouting each other down they could reduce the whole sitting to a shambles. It seemed likely that this would happen before this Bill was passed, if anyone had any energy left by then.

Katharine could see Willie sitting slightly apart from the rest of the Irish members, as if he would have liked to deny association with them. He was dressed in his usual dandyish manner which served to heighten the untidiness and strange profusion of styles worn by his colleagues. But he was listening intently to the debate and no doubt meant to take his own part in it when the opportunity came.

Katharine hadn’t been sure at first that Charles had seen her enter. The Ladies’ Gallery was crowded today, in spite of the inclement weather.

After a little while, however, Charles’ eyes unmistakably met hers. There was no hesitation in the flow of his speech. He continued to relate England’s centuries of misrule, caring little that all these things had been said a hundred times before. They could be said another hundred times, until the English were weary enough of the relentless voice to listen and agree, if only because of an overpowering desire to escape to the warmth of their firesides and food and rest.

At last Mr. Parnell sat down and William O’Brien, the Dublin journalist, sprang up to take his place. The debate was young, if debate it could be called when the Irish members intended to hold the floor, and keep the English sitting until their bones stiffened to the hard benches.

Mr. Parnell lifted his gaze to the Ladies’ Gallery, touched the handkerchief in his breast pocket, and quietly left the chamber.

Katharine waited an interminable half-hour before also getting up to leave. Willie did not seem to notice her departure. If he did he gave no sign.

It did not prove difficult to get a cab. Wrapped in her warmest cloak, and heavily veiled, she enquired at the desk of the Westminster Palace Hotel for her husband, Mr. Preston.

He was in the small sitting room on the first floor, the clerk said. He had come in only a few minutes ago, and asked that his wife go up when she arrived.

Dear Charles. He so carefully paved the way for her so that there was no embarrassment about their meeting.

He was sitting by the fire in the sitting room, and as luck had it, there was no one else there. They could ring for tea and have it uninterruptedly, while they talked and quietly enjoyed each other’s company.

“Ah, Katie. I have many ideas of heaven. This is one of them.”

“Is it going to be a long sitting?”

“Very long.” He chuckled. “I’ll make a wager that we’re still there this time tomorrow, and perhaps the next day, too.”

“You mean that no one will get any sleep?”

“Only what he can snatch by slipping away for an hour or two like this.”

“Then you should be resting now.”

“Which is precisely what I am doing. I have begun to think that I never rest unless I am with you.”

“Oh no. You mustn’t let that begin to happen, or I shall never stop worrying about you.”

“I like to hear you say that, which I suppose makes me a very selfish man. Can you meet me here again tomorrow?”

She nodded. Only a snowstorm that made the roads impassable would keep her away.

“Bless you, my darling.” His face looked extraordinarily alive, the excitement and tension of the drama in the House still possessing him.

“Do you mind an hotel like this? It isn’t very grand, but it’s safe. No one will look for me here.”

“Then that’s all that matters. Actually,” her own eyes were bright with excitement, “I think this is enormous fun.”

“So do I. But it isn’t a game, Kate.”

She refused to hear the sober note in his voice.

“Let’s make it one. Then—”

“You’ll forget that it’s a little sordid, a little dangerous?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

He smiled at her tolerantly, as if she were Norah or Carmen.

“Very well, it’s a game, my dearest. And you’re perfectly right, as always, for I don’t doubt it will turn into some sort of treasure hunt. We can’t always come to the same hotel, or meet on the same railway station. But I can be very ingenious. Can you?”

“I’ve never tried. But of course I can be.” She was laughing with eagerness. “I can do everything you can do except oppose Mr. Gladstone in public.”

“You shall do that in private, and before long. And with the greatest success, if I know anything about it. We’ll lose this present fight, there’s no alternative to that. But we’ll make it such a poor victory for the English that in very shame they’ll do something. Well, that’s for another day. Will you tell me when it’s six o’clock, Kate? I must go back then.”

They were quiet after that. Charles lay back in his chair, half dozing, and she was content to sit looking at his face in the firelight, imprinting it once more on her memory. Six o’clock was not far away. But there would be tomorrow.

That sitting of the House lasted a marathon forty-one hours before the Speaker intervened, announcing that he had resolved to stop all discussion on the Bill, and that it should be read forthwith. So, with considerable difficulty, and still protesting that it wrung his heart, Mr. Forster got his bill passed. Mr. Gladstone, not making any attempt to hide his relief, said that it was a welcome end to a session remarkable for the speeches of the Irish members, some of whom “rose to the level of mediocrity, but more often grovelled amidst mere trash in unbounded profusion”.

Immediately, Mr. Forster jailed without trial hundreds of Land Leaguers. But the Land League remained and would do so unless its leaders were arrested. No one quite dared to arrest so powerful a man as Mr. Parnell was becoming. It was decided to wait, as he himself was waiting, to see what the effects of the new Land Bill would be.

Immediately after the House rose from that interminable sitting Charles had to go back to Ireland. He had managed to send a message to Katharine telling her he would be catching the night mail, could she be at Charing Cross to see him off?