Dorothy Eden (22 page)

Willie was unexpectedly thoughtful. He stayed home more and allowed Katharine to devote all her time to the baby. She had to tell Charles of her anxiety, and he replied:

“I am very anxious about our little daughter. Is it dangerous?” And, “If you will send me some of our daughter’s hair I will put it in the locket with yours. Would Sophie make a nice second name? It is the name of one of my sisters. I am very much troubled about our little daughter’s health and hope it will not make her permanently delicate.”

He also wrote, “D. is to be released immediately the house adjourns for Easter and after a time when they find nothing happens as a consequence of his release, they will probably take courage and let me out also. Anyway, this Government is not likely to last more than another session.”

The baby was eventually named Sophie Claude. Since she was too frail to take to the church, Willie arranged for the priest to come to the house, and there was a quiet baptism ceremony in the drawing room.

For a little while after that the baby seemed to grow stronger. One evening, opening enormous brown eyes she looked up into her mother’s face and gave her first tremulous smile of recognition. Katharine had loved all her children, but never one so much as this. She scarcely left the little one’s side, scarcely slept.

Willie was working hard, writing long letters to Parnell, and to Chamberlain about the proposed treaty to be made between the Government and the Irish party. It was obvious that the prisoners would have to be released soon.

It was an April morning and little Sophie was eight weeks old.

Willie had gone back to London. Jane, and loyal Ellen, who perhaps both guessed more than they should, rushed into Katharine in her sitting room exclaiming simultaneously, “Ma’am! Mr. Parnell!”

Katharine started up, her heart in her throat.

“What about him? Has there been an accident? Is he ill?”

“No, ma’am, no, he’s here! On the doorstep. God be praised!” Ellen added piously.

He was not on the doorstep, he was standing behind the excited maids. Katharine brushed them out of the way as she ran to him.

“It can’t be you! Have they let you free?”

“Not quite. I’m on my way to Paris. My nephew, my sister Theodosia’s boy, has died of typhoid. They’ve let me out on parole to go to the funeral.”

“Oh, Charles, how sad!”

“Yes, it’s a tragedy. He was only twenty-one. But how are you, Kate? The baby?”

The maids had withdrawn. She was able to fling herself into his arms and be held for a few precious moments before she lifted her head to search his face, seeing its thinness and pallor.

“Oh, Charles, how good to see you. I thought it was never to happen again.”

“And you, my darling. Tell me how you are. Have you quite recovered?”

“I’m all right, but our baby, little Sophie—” She shook her head. “Come upstairs and see her. How long can you stay?”

“No more than a few minutes. Officially I’m on my way to Paris. But I had to come straight to you.” He had her hand gripped so hard that her fingers were numb. “Kate, this must never happen again.”

“Then you must stop it,” she said passionately. She breathed deeply, trying to smile. “I’m sorry. Don’t invite me to say things now that I’ll be sorry for later. Come and see the baby.”

The cradle stood beside Katharine’s bed. She drew aside the curtain and let him gaze on the tiny sleeping face.

“She’s like you, Charles. See that round forehead. And her eyes are exactly yours. She smiled at me yesterday. Shall I wake her and see if she’ll smile at her Papa.”

“No. Please don’t. She looks so frail. Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know. I’m so afraid.”

“You’re wearing yourself out looking after her.”

“I don’t care about that if only she will live.”

“She’s been baptised?”

Katharine nodded, and saw his face tighten.

“But I called her the name you wanted. Sophie.”

“Thank you, my darling.”

The tears were aching in her throat.

“Willie’s in London. He’s been working hard on getting you released. He’s discussing a treaty with Mr. Chamberlain.”

“I know. Tell him I’m grateful, and that I’ll come here on my way back from Paris. I’ll wire him. Will you do that, Kate?”

“Then I’m to tell him you were here this morning?”

“Certainly.” He lifted his chin. His face had a hard determination. “I somehow don’t think I’m going to be quite so secretive in my movements in future. It’s beginning to be an impossibility—leaving you all the time. Now I’ve got to be off again.”

“Haven’t you time to rest and have some food? You’re so pale.”

“Yes, my prison pallor. I must take care not to lose it. It’s a valuable asset.” He bent for a moment over the cradle, then tenderly replaced the lace curtain that shielded the baby’s face from the light. “I thank God for you both,” he whispered.

He was at the door so quickly that she cried in dismay, “Charles, aren’t you going to say goodbye?”

“If I attempted to I would fail too miserably.”

Then he had left the room and was leaping down the stairs on his long legs. A moment later the front door banged.

He had gone. It was safe now to cry.

I
N THREE DAYS HE
was back. Willie, having had his telegram, was there to meet him. The two men immediately plunged into a discussion of what was to be called the Kilmainham Treaty. Willie said he had Chamberlain on their side, and was convinced that Gladstone only needed to be presented with some concrete terms to be brought round, too. He proposed making out a document that night which he would mail to Gladstone in the morning.

They spread out papers on the dining-room table, and worked all night. Katharine, who, under other circumstances, would have taken a keen interest in the discussion was scarcely listening. Tenant farmers and arrears of rent, an amendment to the Land Bill, a promise to bring to an end the campaign of violence … The words meant nothing to her, for she was desperately afraid her baby was dying. The little thing clung to life by the frailest thread. Now too weak even to cry, she lay giving her fluttering breaths, and Katharine could scarcely bear to leave her side. Even Charles must wait. And he himself giving her enough cause for anxiety, he looked so ill and tired.

At half-past ten she rose to go upstairs. Willie protested.

“No, stay, Kate. Let’s have the benefit of your views, too. The more heads the better.”

“I’m sorry, but I must go to the baby.”

“Isn’t she better, Mrs. O’Shea?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Willie was less acutely concerned.

“Can’t the nurse manage for another hour or two?”

“I want to be with her myself.” Katharine scarcely dared look at the brown eyes watching her across the lamplight. She might have begged,
you come, too. Let us watch over our child together …
She might have cried desperately,
Let Ireland wait, for once.

She quietly left the room and went upstairs. The nurse reported that the baby seemed a little better. She had taken a few drops of milk off a spoon, and was sleeping.

“Let me have her,” said Katharine.

“Should we pick her up? She seems comfortable.”

“If she’s to die,” said Katharine stonily, “it’s to be in my arms. You can go to bed now, nurse.”

It was the longest vigil she had ever had. It lasted till daylight. Then, at last, there were sounds of the men coming upstairs. They had worked all night.

She heard Willie saying, “Get some rest, Parnell, before you set off again,” and then his footsteps went along the corridor to his room. He hadn’t bothered to come in and see how the baby was. Perhaps he thought, by the silence, that both she and the baby slept, and he would not disturb them.

It was another familiar and welcome soft tap that came at the door a little later.

She said in a low voice, not stirring from her chair, “Come in,” and Charles entered quietly, crossing swiftly to kneel beside her, and look at the little round head with its cap of brown hair against her breast.

“How does she seem?”

For the last hour Katharine had been listening agonisedly to the scarcely audible breaths.

“I’m so afraid she’s sinking.”

“Let me see her face.”

She turned the baby to let the light fall on her face, and as she did so the eyelids fluttered open for a second. A tiny spasm passed over the paper-white face, and then it was still.

She was dead. She was just nine weeks old.

After a long time Charles said very quietly and tenderly:

“Let me lay her down, Kate.”

“Oh, no, no!”

But he took the minute form in his strong hands and laid her in her cradle. It was the first time he had held his daughter, and she was dead.

Then he knelt beside Katharine, putting his arms round her. With his head against hers they stayed silent. A little ash crumbled in the fire. Outside the birds were beginning to sing. It was an April morning, and it might be a fine sunny day.

“Be strong, Kate. I know you can be.”

“Must you go back?”

“I must. I’m on parole. But it won’t be long now.”

“Where—would you like her buried?”

“Somewhere near. I’ll be back soon to visit her grave.”

Katharine clung to him in an agony of despair.

“How can I let you go?”

His eyes burned in his gaunt face. He thrust her arms away. “Don’t make it too hard! I have limits of endurance, too.”

Then he lifted her hand, and laid his lips on it very tenderly, and a moment later had gone. She was still sitting there when the bustle of departure took place downstairs, the sound of wheels on gravel as Partridge brought the brougham to the door, and Ellen cried, “Oh, Mr. Parnell, are you leaving us so soon?”

“I must be off to my comfortable cell, Ellen. But not for long this time.”

“
Not for long …
” The echo of those words was the only thing that kept Katharine above despair. But how could she be as strong as she was required to be? Norah and Carmen wept in passionate grief for the loss of their baby sister. They looked at her, a white doll dressed in her christening gown, and Norah refused to say her prayers that night. It was no use to remonstrate with her and tell her she must ask God to look after little Sophie Claude.

“We would have looked after her just as well,” she sobbed.

Willie looked mournful for a day or two, but as he hadn’t grown fond of the sickly baby he couldn’t pretend too much grief. He had her buried in the graveyard at Chislehurst, and there was a letter from his mother in Ireland.

“Dearest Kate,

Dear little Claude—we shared your grief at losing her, but happy child, how glorious is her existence. What a contrast to ours, we who must struggle on. The Bishop is writing to William offering his tribute of sympathy on the death of your dear baby.

I remain, dearest Katie, your affectionate

Mary O’Shea.”

Mary O’Shea, that rigid Catholic, mourning a granddaughter who was not hers at all. The situation was ironical, to say the least.

The other letter, from Dublin, was the one she cherished.

“I have been thinking all day of how desolate and lonely you must be in your great sorrow. I wish so much that I might have stayed to comfort you, but I have indeed every hope and confidence that our separation will not now last long. It is terrible to think that on this saddest day of all others you should have nobody with you …”

It was a relief to get out of the house and go across the park to Aunt Ben whom she had scarcely visited during her anxiety over the baby. Aunt Ben showed her rare tact and understanding. She suggested that since it was a fine spring morning it was a great pity to remain indoors. The carriage should be brought round, they would stop at Wonersh Lodge to pick up the little girls who could very well be excused lessons for one morning, and then they would all go for a long drive in the country. The children could pick primroses and bring them back to make a pretty coverlet over the baby’s grave. Then they could think of her sleeping among flowers instead of in the cold earth.

Willie was very busy and important about his negotiations to get the prisoners released. The terms of the treaty, to which the Irish party would agree, had now been settled. Willie undertook to send them to Mr. Gladstone, and had a letter in acknowledgement.

“I have received your letter of the 13th and I will communicate with Mr. Forster on the important and varied matter which it contains. I am very sensible of the spirit in which you write.”

They were saying now that at liberty Parnell was a disturbing enough force, but imprisoned there was no dealing with the spirit let loose in Ireland, it had gone from a scourge of whips to a scourge of scorpions. The Land League perpetrated new crimes every day. It was rumoured that Parnell himself was afraid of the intensity of the hate he had unleashed. One of the terms of his release was that he would do his utmost to end this campaign of violence. It seemed that only he would be able to maintain any control.

Whatever his own people thought about him, he had become a distinct embarrassment to the Government. Mr. Gladstone informed Mr. Forster that the peace treaty arranged by Captain O’Shea and Mr. Parnell was acceptable, and Mr. Forster, bitter and angry, resigned his post as Chief Secretary for Ireland. He said sarcastically that if all England could not govern the member for Cork, then let everyone acknowledge that he was the greatest power in Ireland today.

Unperturbed, Mr. Gladstone accepted the Chief Secretary’s resignation, and announced in the House his intention to release the political prisoners. There was to be a new Viceroy, Lord Spencer, and a new Chief Secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish, Mr. Gladstone’s nephew-in-law. And again bonfires were lit on every hill in Ireland and shouts of triumph went up for the Chief, the beloved leader, who had once more turned what should have been defeat into an outstanding victory.

Mr. Parnell would be in England very shortly. But first, on the insistence of his family, he had to go to Avondale.