Dorothy Eden (35 page)

“Is there anyone here who will get up in his place, or, sitting in his place, by a shake of his head, or a nod, or a word, will venture to say he believes that there is any doubt whatever as to the forgeries of these letters which have been alleged to have been written and signed by me?”

The loud cheering broke out again, and when it quietened the ebullient Tim Healy was on his feet saying that for himself he had cared nothing for
The Times
’ charges. Let the Irish party go on as their fathers had gone on, and let those who had slandered John Mitchell, Smith O’Brien, Emmet and Wolfe Tone go on with their slander and moral assassination and do their worst, while the Irish party, standing safe in the confidence of their fellow countrymen, would go on raising the flag of Irish nationality and would keep it untarnished.

He added that he did not doubt before a month some Conservative member would come forward and say that the letters had been conclusively proved and that Pigott had been assassinated in Madrid by the Honourable member for Cork.

There was tolerant laughter, more tolerant than an Irish member usually was granted. Then the long weary business was all over, and Katharine, sitting in the Ladies’ Gallery, her veil hiding her tears of immense pride and emotion, wondered how long the adulation would last. Particularly the changeful Mr. Healy’s.

She was very tired and for a moment the figures before her seemed to blur into a black mass, like crows, squabbling, fighting, ready to pick a weaker one to pieces.

I
T WAS STRANGE, IT
showed their intense mental closeness, for when Katharine said, “Aren’t you proud and happy? I never heard such an ovation before.” Charles answered:

“They’d be at my throat in a week, if they could. Their cheering reminded me of the howling of a mob I once saw chasing a man to lynch him.” And she knew that he had had exactly the same thoughts as hers.

Involuntarily she shivered.

“Don’t think of things like that. Enjoy your popularity.”

“I shall enjoy it and be amused by it, but I won’t be taken in by it. They’re only feeling guilty because they made a mistake about me. The English worship laws. I’m glad Ireland has a religion, there’s so little hope for a nation that worships laws.”

“Well, at least, you acknowledged the applause with great dignity. I was proud of you.”

He smiled, pressing her hand.

“I’m happy to have you proud of me. But don’t be too pleased with their clapping. I’ve a presentiment you’ll hear them another way before long.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked intensely.

“I have no reason except that I don’t trust this present happy marriage. I’m being besieged with invitations. They want me to talk at the Eighty Club. I suppose that’s an honour, though it’s one I could do without. I’m accepting simply because it’s an opportunity to make them listen to me. There’s a great charm about a captive audience.”

“And what else do you have to do?”

He said, a little reluctantly, “Sir Charles and Lady Russell are giving a reception for me. I wish I could refuse to go, but I can’t. Sir Charles conducted a remarkable case for me, especially in his cross-examination of Pigott. So I shall have to show my gratitude.”

He kissed her lightly, his eyes begging her not to mind. It was galling that she could share none of his triumph. Almost everyone knew of her position in Mr. Parnell’s life, yet she must be kept out of sight, ignored. No one must be offended by the presence of a notorious woman.

This situation had not arisen too much in the past because of Charles’ refusal to take part in a social life. But now he had his moment of lionisation forced on him. Katharine must wait quietly at home until he returned from gatherings at which her own relations were present. Her brother, Sir Evelyn Wood, might be there, or her aunt and uncle, Lord and Lady Hatherley.

She tried not to show that she minded. When she was alone, waiting for him to return, she wondered how long they could go on living this unnatural life. She would sit stitching at her embroidery and thinking of the carriages drawing up at the lighted house, the doors wide open, footmen on the steps, and the rustle of silk and taffeta as the ladies stepped out of the carriages, their jewels glittering. She scarcely knew what was the latest fashion. The leg of mutton sleeves which she thought hideously ugly were very much in favour, and bustles were smaller, sometimes no more than a sweeping curve from a small waist.

This summer she must get herself some pretty gowns even if just to wear at home in the evening. What did she care about elaborate receptions and balls? She had had plenty of them in her youth and what did they consist of but meaningless chatter, empty politeness. Men looked at her askance if she wanted to discuss serious matters, and the women with their restless fans, their coquettish smiles, their endless artificialities, bored her to death. She much preferred the quiet evenings with Charles.

But not these evenings alone when he was at some festivity. That was when she felt ostracised and unbearably lonely. Yet when he arrived home, flinging off his cloak and top-hat and exclaiming how he hated a social life, how he had done nothing but look surreptitiously at his watch to see the earliest moment when he could leave to come home to her, she was happy again, all her doubts vanished. She even thought with pity of all the animated smiling women at those parties who were endlessly seeking the happiness that she had.

One thing for which she was thankful that spring was that Willie left her alone. Although he wrote his endless complaining letters, as he always had, he did not attempt to see her. So long as he got some money occasionally he had the decency to stay out of her sight.

But the hand of fate showed itself again. Aunt Ben was dying at last, and the family was gathering round, Willie among them. Aunt Ben was rich. Everyone, beneath formal expressions of concern, was wondering what was in her will.

Katharine, her constant companion and the only person she still loved in the world, never left her side.

The thistledown head on the pillow in the great four-poster looked so frail that it might take flight. But the old lady’s remarkable mentality had not deserted her, even in the hour of death.

The curtains had been drawn back because she wanted to see the sky, the pale blue serene sky that heralded summer. There were flutterings on the window-sill because the owls were nesting there again. Maryann, Aunt Ben’s faithful maid, had said that the owls’ nesting was an omen, the dear mistress must be going soon. It was no use for Katharine to point out that the owls had nested there for the last seventy years. Maryann merely said stubbornly that time would show.

Time, indeed, was the enemy. For now it was obvious that the servants must be summoned to make their farewells.

Solemnly they filed past dear Mrs. Ben’s bed. They had loved her. She had sent them to church on Sundays and made them learn the collect off by heart and recite it to her afterwards. She had been sympathetic in their illness, their family affairs, their marriages and the births of their babies. She had stood no nonsense and although of late years she had moved only from her bedroom to the tapestry room, or, on a mild day, gone for a short drive, she had known everything that had gone on in the house. She had been a good mistress of the kind that was slowly disappearing. They paid their sad farewells, the younger ones sniffing, old James, the coachman, with tears running unashamedly down his cheeks.

Then the room was silent again, and Katharine stood by the bed, holding the tiny dead-leaf hand.

“You do believe, don’t you, my swan?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’m glad. I wish you could come with me.”

Did Aunt Ben think that Katharine’s troubles would be too much for her to face? Or was she herself suddenly a little afraid of the dark unknown road she must travel alone?

It was too late to ask, for without even a sigh the tired eyelids had fallen shut forever.

Too late …

And so much trouble.

The will, made a year ago and witnessed by the cook, Sarah Elizabeth Russell, and the housemaid Maryann Elizabeth Allam, with Mr. Pym and his clerk William Buck in attendance, disclosed that Anna Maria Wood widow of Sir Benjamin Wood had left her entire estate valued at about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to her beloved niece Katharine O’Shea. None of her other nieces or nephews had been mentioned. More significant still, there was a clause excluding any control of her fortune by Katharine’s present or any future husband. Katharine was also the sole executrix, and if she had predeceased her aunt the estate was to have gone to her children to be invested in British or Indian Railway company debenture stock.

They were furious, all of them, her brother who was now General Sir Evelyn Wood, her sisters, Anna, Emma and Clarissa. Particularly Anna, and more particularly Willie, her husband. After the reading of the will Willie had got up and left the room, banging the door in the most marked manner. Naturally he was devastated. He might be estranged from his wife, but he was not legally separated so he had expected to have control of her fortune. Wasn’t that the particular right of a husband? Hadn’t he put up with a very great deal just to maintain this right?

It was useless for Katharine to protest that she had known nothing that was in the will. She kept hearing the words “undue influence” and seeing the hostile faces of her brothers and sisters.

They were all against her, she realised with dismay. Perhaps it wasn’t only because of this vast inheritance, perhaps it was because they had so much resented her becoming a notorious woman, shaming the family. Imagine someone in the highly respectable Wood family having her name bandied about in music halls and drinking houses. What would their father have said?

Willie had not attempted to speak to her. He had only glowered at her across the room. She had been shocked by his appearance. The dandy had vanished. His clothes had been badly cut, his linen none too white. His eyes were bloodshot, his face bore unmistakable marks of dissipation. The gay debonair Captain O’Shea had gone forever. All his little intrigues, and ambitious scheming had brought him to this shabby failure.

Somehow that frightened Katharine much more than had he been his usual jaunty menacing self. He could have blackmailed her for money had she been able to get immediate possession of Aunt Ben’s fortune. But since the will was to be contested, this would be tied up for a very long time. It looked as if, for Captain O’Shea, the golden goose was really dead.

Katharine could not bear to stay at Wonersh Lodge and look out of the upstairs windows over the park with its familiar footpath to the Lodge. It was too painful to see the distant white house so empty now that Aunt Ben lay at rest beside her husband in the churchyard.

One wise thing Aunt Ben had done was to have this ugly Victorian house put in Katharine’s name. So it at least could be sold immediately, and she could carry out her plan to move to Brighton.

Although Wonersh Lodge had been home for the last ten years, and although three of her children had been born there (one of them the frail beloved Sophie), she had no regret about leaving it.

Charles said, “Whatever you say, my love, I shall always have the fondest memories of your little boudoir. It was my dearest prison.”

For a moment she was still, remembering the intensity of her first love. It seemed long ago now. She seemed to have been so young. She supposed the first true love in her life must always make a woman feel young, even though she were over thirty and seemingly mature. What was more, true love made one retain an illusion of youth even ten years later. For here she was, a middle-aged woman with grey in her hair and lines deeply scored about her eyes, looking forward eagerly to the new house in which they would live like any married couple. A house that had never been lived in by Willie.

She only forgot the unpleasantness of the legal squabble that was beginning over Aunt Ben’s will, and her secret fear about Willie, when she was deep in the upheaval of moving.

She had found exactly the house she had wanted, at the end of the town with cornfields at one side, and the sea in front. It was quiet, isolated, not too far from the railway station. She had also found stables to which the horses, Dictator and President, could be moved. Home Rule had been sent back to Ireland. So the trap would be taken down and they could go driving perhaps now without curious people staring.

The moment Wonersh Lodge was empty people surged in destructively to get souvenirs from “the house where Parnell lived”.

Ellen the cook, elected to come with them to Brighton, but Jane Leinster had decided to leave. Katharine found another maid, Phyllis Brown, who was already devoted to the younger children, and to her. A new children’s nurse would have to be found for the little ones. Norah and Carmen had outgrown the need for a governess. Norah was seventeen and Carmen sixteen. Katharine was considerably worried about their future. Norah should be coming out, but the sisters were so devoted that it was only sensible that they should come out together. But how was this to be done?

She hadn’t moved from Wonersh Lodge before this problem was solved for her. Willie, unseen but threatening, was beginning to act. He wrote to his daughters saying that they were to spend the summer with their Aunt Anna, and Anna who had been particularly incensed by Aunt Ben’s will, but who also had never forgiven Katharine for being so shamelessly happy in her illicit love, was triumphant about carrying out Willie’s request.

She arrived in her carriage for the girls. She looked them up and down as they stood there in their good grey worsted coats and skirts and said, “Well, you poor little country mice.” She turned accusingly on Katharine, “Are those the best clothes they have? They look like schoolgirls.”

“They are schoolgirls,” Katharine said.

“Nonsense! They’re grown up. Really, Kate, how much longer were you going to let them look like that? With all Aunt Ben’s money—” Anna couldn’t stop being spiteful now.

“But none of you are letting me have all that money, are you? Dear Aunt Ben has bought the children’s clothes all her life, but she isn’t being allowed to do so any more because my own family won’t let her. My own family who knows I’ve had a husband who never provided for me. If you’re unhappy about Norah’s and Carmen’s appearance you’d better ask their father to do something about it.”