The Convictions of John Delahunt (3 page)

On the second night I left my den to forage. Miss Joyce had brought in provisions, and I returned to my room well stocked with food, firewood and a bottle of wine. I set the fire, hunkered beside its glow with a book, and finished the bottle as rain drummed against the leaden return roof below my window. Such comfort. When I woke beside the cold ashes, shivering with cramp and a splitting head, my stomach knotted as I remembered my dilemma. I was tempted to go abroad in the city to discover what was happening. Had magistrates executed warrants against O’Neill and dispatched enforcers? Perhaps I was already identified as an informer, and my name was spat in the public houses around Trinity. Even if that was not yet the case, it would certainly be my fate when the testimony was read at trial, and I would be called upon to denounce my supposed friend, this time in public.

My agitation forced me from my room on the morning of the third day. I waited in the hall below for Miss Joyce to pass on her way to the kitchen. I must have looked frightful: unshaven, having slept two nights in my clothes. She stopped on the first-floor return when she saw me. Her thin hands were clasped together. From her vantage she couldn’t help but appear superior. I was unsure how to broach the subject, but there was no need.

‘Your friend has been arrested.’

‘Which friend?’

She regarded me for a moment, as if surprised I had more than one. ‘The O’Neill boy. The police came for him early yesterday morning.’

I asked if she had heard anything of Arthur Stokes. She said there was a rumour he was also arrested, but he had returned to his home last evening. She began to descend the stairs again. ‘You picked a curious time to retreat into your studies. Who came to the door last Friday?’

I told her not to mind. ‘Just see to my father.’ As I pushed past her mid-flight she leaned to one side so our clothes wouldn’t brush.

He had let O’Neill take the blame after all. I waited for evening to fall, intending to visit Arthur in the Stokes family home on Merrion Square. I imagined him there in abashed conference with his father and old legal advisers. But a few thoughts stopped me. For one, it would not do to appear as if Arthur and I were somehow in cahoots, meeting to get our stories straight while a friend languished. Also, I took some pleasure in knowing that he was surely fearful of me and what I might reveal. I pictured again his face looking into mine as he stood over the prostrate policeman a week ago that night. I could let that uncertainty undermine him.

Late that night, someone knocked on the front door and I went to answer. A young man stood outside, with one thumb hooked in a waistcoat, and his head tilted so only half his face caught the street light. He had a cast of countenance that seemed Italianate, and a beard trimmed to resemble a chinstrap.

‘John Delahunt?’

There was no use denying it.

‘I’ve a message from Tom Sibthorpe,’ he said. ‘Better heard indoors.’

I brought him up to the study, placed a lamp on the green baize of the writing desk and sat behind it. The young man introduced himself as Devereaux, and went to look at some books on the shelves.

‘You study anatomy?’

I told him they were my father’s books. I was a student of natural and experimental philosophy. He gave a low whistle and my patience ended. ‘You said you had a message for me.’

He pulled a volume down and opened it. ‘That’s right. You’ve made quite an impression on Tom.’ He glanced up. ‘And he’s not exactly the impressionable type.’

He leafed through a few pages, paused, and held the book open towards me. It was a plate showing surgery performed on the abdomen of a woman. An incision below her breast revealed bone and muscle tissue. He shook his head and chuckled, then snapped the book closed and came to sit at the desk.

‘Sibthorpe appreciates the statement you gave. It greatly assisted our efforts. He also likes that you went to ground for a few days while loose ends were tied up.’

Devereaux picked up a framed silhouette of my mother in her youth.

He said they were mindful of the delicate position I was in. When someone had demonstrated admirable willingness to assist the Castle authorities, it didn’t seem fair to allow his reputation to be tarnished with any kind of stigma. ‘The case against O’Neill will be strong enough without your testimony.’

I asked how so?

‘Any number of the injured man’s colleagues in the DMP are willing to swear against O’Neill. And their word is believed above any other in the kingdom.’ All they had to guard against was contradiction. Stokes had already sworn that he had not seen the incident, and they were sure he would not backtrack in court.

‘How can you be sure?’

‘We’re sure. Your position is easier, as on the night you had already walked away from the scuffle. But it’s inevitable you’ll be called as a witness.’ I need simply say that I turned a corner and was wholly unaware of what transpired. ‘Maintain that, no matter the jibes, or sarcasms or disbelief of defence counsel.’ He waved a hand. ‘It’ll be child’s play. You’re a natural.’

I felt reprieved, enough to allow the snide compliment to go unanswered. Devereaux sensed the lifting of my mood and flashed an engaging smile. ‘You should remember that you now have Tom’s ear in the Castle, and can call in to the commissioners at any time with information.’

I doubted I would know anything else that would be of interest to the authorities.

He shook his head. ‘You’d be surprised, if you just remain vigilant. Especially now O’Connell is agitating again. Students always have loose tongues after a few drinks.’

Such matters didn’t interest me. Besides, what motive would I have to inform on my fellows if there was no peril to myself?

He made a show of looking at my drab clothes, and around at the faded grandeur of the room.

‘Lucre, of course.’ The devil drips from the word.

James O’Neill got a few months’ hard labour for his trouble. The authorities never cared about the officer with the shattered eardrum. O’Neill’s father, a close associate of Daniel O’Connell, chaired the first meetings of the Repeal Association. The embarrassment of his son’s arrest and conviction meant he had to resign that position, and it put the new association immediately on the back foot. Newspaper editors and pamphleteers had much sport with the idea that Repealers were already attacking policemen. It was intriguing to think that faceless men in a Dublin Castle office had played with O’Neill’s life and reputation merely to create some unflattering headlines.

The main benefit of the whole episode was the power it gave me over Arthur Stokes. I was able to play up my silence on the affair as an act of loyalty, to save him from the cells, and though we never spoke of the matter directly, he considered our friendship very much strengthened. I’m also sure that was how he described my involvement to Helen, with whom he confided everything, and who subsequently looked upon me with great favour.

One thing I recall from the trial was the testimony of two policemen who swore that they came upon the scene in time to witness O’Neill throw the punch. The story they told was exactly the one I had recounted to Sibthorpe. Here were words I picked on the spur of the moment being related by officers of the Crown, taken down by clerks of the court, noted by judges on the bench, entering the public record as irrefutable fact. History would show that James O’Neill struck officer D32 on the side of the head in a drunken melee, and the man suffered permanent deafness in his left ear. It seemed I had been telling the truth all along.

In the month following O’Neill’s conviction there was a return to routine. After a few weeks of temperance, Arthur and I began to frequent the Eagle once more, where our reputations were much enhanced. Students everywhere like to brag of japes and the hazards of mild criminality, but ours was a different story. Not only had Stokes and I been involved in the skirmish, we had maintained honourable silence in the courtroom. Arthur could not meet my eye as he accepted these plaudits. No one doubted O’Neill’s guilt, and his overbearing presence was not particularly missed. It was all rather agreeable. My usual aloofness, seen before as antisocial, was now taken as a mark of deeper character. My well-timed sardonic interjections were now met with appreciative mirth. I knew O’Neill’s date of release weighed upon Arthur, and he made every effort to cement our friendship.

It happened that his sister Helen was first presented at court that month, at a levee hosted by the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle. I’ve seen those carriages converging on Castle Street, backed up in congestion, allowing the lower orders to gather and gawk and mock the fluttering girls folded within. I would imagine the Viceroy and Vicereine graciously hosting their subjects in the Castle’s resplendent rooms of state, while Sibthorpe and his agents scuttled in the shadows below. The Stokes family hosted a gathering in their home to celebrate Helen’s coming-out. Arthur invited me along.

That night in Merrion Square, the folding doors between the front and back drawing rooms were open. Fires blazed beneath both marble chimney pieces, while the rooms were lit from above by glinting chandeliers. The floor was thick with revellers, who stood in groups or sat on couches that lined the walls. Many of the young men wore uniforms, the others wore finely pressed suits, and even the servants were better dressed than I. The women were like unwholesome confections: a blur of satin and gauze, lappets and ostrich feathers, lace trims and silk trains in an array of colours. Upon my arrival I spied Arthur speaking with one of his college tutors, so thought to find a glass of wine and rescue him. I stalked a servant who meandered with a tray of drinks.

Glass in hand, I was now opposite one of the fireplaces; Helen stood beside it in conversation with a young lieutenant of the Inniskilling Dragoons. Unlike the other girls, Helen was dressed quite simply in a pearl-white gown. Her thick brown hair was pinned up and she wore no headdress except for some topaz crystals. I had known her since she was little, and had been in and out of her house and company several times. But seeing her in this finery, as the strains of a quartet drifted over the gentle hubbub, and her gown reflected the roseate light, it struck me that she wasn’t really beautiful. Her mouth has always been too wide, and her lower lip heavy-set. Still, she was tall like her brother and moved gracefully, she had vivacity and spontaneity, and her eyes shone with intelligence.

Helen saw me and I raised my glass in greeting, though a passer-by bumped my arm, which caused some of the wine to spill. When I looked again she had withdrawn from her companion. He bowed stiffly to her retreating back and flashed me a dark glance, which I found gratifying. She was then in front of me, all smiles and thanks for my coming. I told her she looked wonderful, and punctured any awkwardness by calling her Nelly, at which she laughed. She had been standing by the fire too long, so suggested we sit together in a corner beside one of the front drawing-room windows. Away from the hearth and in a slight draught it was more pleasant and we spoke of small things. She said it was a relief to chat normally. Every woman was speaking inanely of fashion and marriage, while every other young man wished to crow of his prospects and career. To be needled and bored at once. George May – she nodded at the lieutenant who had spoken with her – had talked for twenty minutes of his graduation from Woolwich, his commission in the dragoons and imminent deployment to the Far East to fight against the Chinese. ‘He just went on and on. It was torture.’

‘I’ve heard the Chinese have a peculiar genius for methods of torture.’

I hadn’t meant it like that. I’m not sure what I meant by it, but I feared she would be aghast at the callousness of wishing harm to befall the young man. Instead there was a gleam in her eye as she glanced at me sideways, and then back across the room to May in his scarlet coat. ‘Heaven forbid.’

I decided not to backtrack. I pointed out that May had found himself a new companion, whom I knew to be Miss Waring. We quietly derided her attire, commented on each gaudy feature: the pink gauze, blond lace, feathered headdress. I noted she stood perilously close to the fire and Helen craned her smooth neck to see. She wondered what if some rogue spark was to elude the guard and catch in the gauze. ‘The poor girl would flare up like a moth in a candle,’ she said. ‘The night would end in tragedy.’

I agreed. All the work of that Grafton Street boutique gone for nought.

For a pleasant quarter-hour we picked out other attendees at random and for each imagined a bizarre demise. When others wandered near, Helen seamlessly shifted into chat about my studies, or Cecilia’s marriage. Then when once more out of earshot she would picture Mr Goodshaw, who was speaking with her father, on a hunt, one eye peering down the barrel of his muzzleloader, wondering why the powder had failed to ignite.

Our furtive laughter was no doubt unbecoming, and it wasn’t long before Mrs Stokes loomed above us. I rose to greet her. She didn’t smile, but said how thoughtful it was of me to attend. She then turned to Helen. ‘We didn’t arrange this gathering so you could talk with old neighbours.’ There was someone she wanted her to meet. Helen rose decorously and was led away.

Nothing appals and delights the general public so much as the trial of a murderous woman. Sarah Blackwood was a young wife who killed her husband so she could take up with a French medical student with whom she was having an affair. Her means of assassination was arsenic, which she slipped into the meals of her spouse in tiny but increasing quantities. Her trial kept Dublin enthralled for several weeks. The accused was found guilty and sentenced to hang at the start of April.

On the morning of her execution there was a knock on my front door. I ignored it at first until it sounded again. Despairing of Miss Joyce’s idleness, I went to answer. Helen stood alone on my steps wearing a travelling cape and dark grey bonnet.

I greeted her with surprise, smoothed my hair and closed over the door behind. There was no sign of a chaperone. I dithered about inviting her in because the parlour was in such disarray, strewn with clothes, empty wine bottles and days-old remnants of dinner. But she was the first to speak. She had decided to go and view the hanging of Mrs Blackwood and wondered if I would like to accompany her. She looked at me steadily, as if challenging me to ask about the consent of her family, or general propriety.