The Rebels of Ireland (15 page)

 

At the age of thirty-four, Anne Smith had every reason to be grateful. She had known sadness: she had suffered a couple of miscarriages and lost two children, both boys, in infancy. But most of the mothers she knew had experienced similar misfortunes: these were wounds that healed. She was still blessed with four healthy children, three girls and a boy; and there might be more in the future.

And then there was her brother Orlando. She had half expected him to marry as soon as he returned from Salamanca. She knew about the promise he had made to their father and his intense desire not to let his father down. Once, when she had remarked with a laugh that he might have to be content with less than a dozen children, he had replied: “At least I can try.” He had spoken the words with such earnestness that she had hardly liked to say anything more. Certainly, there was no shortage of families glad to marry their daughters to young Orlando Walsh. But he had taken a few years, trained to be a lawyer like his father, and then settled down with a pleasant girl from one of the Catholic gentry families of the old English Pale. He was managing the estate well. Many of his father's clients had come to him. Anne had not heard that his wife Mary was pregnant yet; but they'd only been married a year. On Or
lando's account, therefore, it seemed to her that there was every reason to be optimistic.

But in the wider context of the world also, there were reasons why a good Catholic family like the Walshes might feel a modest sense of hope.

England had a new king. If old King James had been the son of that ardent Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, the Presbyterian lords of his native Scotland had seen to it that James himself, though reluctant to persecute Catholics, remained firmly Protestant. But now the old king had died, and a year ago his son King Charles—a serious young man—had shocked his Protestant subjects by marrying the sister of the most Catholic king of France. Where Charles's own religious sympathies might lie was not yet clear. “But it must surely be a cause for rejoicing,” Anne had remarked to her brother Lawrence, “that the king has chosen one of the true faith to be his bride.” And though Lawrence was always cautious, even he had answered, “It is to be hoped,” and given her an encouraging smile.

Ireland was a strange place. The Earls had fled; Munster and Ulster were being planted; Protestants had the upper hand in Parliament. Yet in the almost two decades since her marriage, it seemed to Anne that the everyday life of most ordinary Catholics had changed surprisingly little. The Protestants might pass legislation against them, but the laws were still only fitfully applied. Even here in Dublin, the very centre of English rule, life was full of curious anomalies. Christ Church Cathedral, that great medieval monument to Irish Catholic tradition, was now the home of the so-called Church of Ireland—which of course was Protestant and English. The government men from Dublin Castle and the Protestants of Trinity College went there. But almost every parish church in the city was serving a community of merchants and craftsmen who were still mostly Catholic. By law, Catholic priests were forbidden. “But we don't let that worry us,” her kindly husband Walter would cheerfully remark. In their own parish church, Smith and his fellow merchants supported no fewer than six Catholic priests; but if any
official should ask who they were, he'd be told: “They are singing men.” Of course, everyone knew they were priests. Even Doctor Pincher probably realised. But the men in Dublin Castle had no wish to offend the rich and useful merchants of Dublin, and the six priests were left to go about their business discreetly. “Just so long,” Walter drily put it, “as nobody asks them to sing.”

Surely, therefore, it was not too much to hope that men like her brother Orlando and her husband Walter—men of substance and good character, loyal to the English crown—might be able to persuade the new king to restore to the Catholic community the rights it deserved.

Nobody could fail to trust her solid, dependable, loving husband. You only had to look at him. Walter had not grown heavy with the years, but his body had thickened. His hair was iron grey. He had attained authority and respect. The important religious Guild of Saint Anne had their chantry in Saint Audoen's church; but all the guild's records were kept in an iron-bound chest which was lodged in Walter Smith's house. He always wore his authority lightly, however. Quiet and cheerful, invariably kind, you would say upon meeting him that he was first and foremost a stout, middle-aged, Catholic family man—and you would be right. He had given Anne a wonderful family. The eldest girl looked like her. Everyone said so. She'd no doubt be marrying soon. The second looked more like Walter; the third reminded her of an aunt she had known as a child. But young Maurice was the one that people remarked upon. He had been named after Walter's grandfather. His physique reminded her of Walter's brother Patrick, and so did his face. That alone would have made him a handsome young fellow. What really struck everyone, however, were his eyes, which were an extraordinary green. He was eight years old now, with a bright intelligence. “It only remains to be seen whether he will turn into a humble merchant like me,” his father would say with amusement, “or a clever lawyer like his uncle Orlando. It gives me such pleasure,” he would gently add to Anne, “that when I look at my son I also see the face of my dear brother Patrick again.”

They did not often speak of Patrick; but it was typical of Walter's kindness and delicacy that he should say such a thing to her, knowing that it was Patrick she had first loved. And she, for her part, would gently touch his arm and reply: “We both miss him, but you do more than I. I was lucky that I married you.” God knows, it was the truth.

 

Head over heart,

The better part.

 

Her brother Lawrence's advice had not been wrong. I am lucky, she thought, and I know it. The whole of Dublin would say so. The whole of Ireland would agree. I am truly blessed. And she scarcely knew why she needed to remind herself of the fact.

The priest who had married them had been a wise man. An old friend of her father's, a man in his fifties, with an ample girth and a comfortable manner. He'd been a parish priest for thirty years, and there wasn't much he hadn't seen. Before the wedding, he had called Walter and her together and given them some simple and sage advice. No matter what they did, he told them, every day of their married life in the future, they should always consider, before they said or did anything, how that would seem to the other. Was it kind and respectful of their feelings? “From a lifetime of observation and experience I can say,” he told them, “that if you just do this I can—almost—guarantee that you will have a happy marriage.” She had always done so faithfully, and so had Walter. She knew that what the priest said was true. It was nearly ten years now since he had passed on to a better world, but his words still echoed in her mind as if he had spoken them only the day before. “I can guarantee that you will have a happy marriage.” A joyful message. With that one little caveat. “Almost.”

He knew what he was saying, that kindly priest. But why—why couldn't such things be guaranteed? Why should it be, why would God so ordain it that two good people, who loved each other, might not be happy?

Walter did not often laugh out loud, but sitting at home in the evening, if one of the children amused him, he would give a quiet chuckle. There was nothing wrong with his chuckle, she supposed. Yet for some reason it irritated her. She had often told herself not to be foolish. The thing was trivial and she should ignore it; but somehow she could not. Once or twice, she had gently asked him why he did it, why he didn't just smile, or laugh out loud. “I don't know,” he had said amiably. “It's the way I've always been. Why?” And she had almost blurted out, “Because it irritates me.” But the fear that this would hurt him, and place a barrier between them, made her hold back. “Nothing. I only wondered,” she had said.

In any case, the chuckle itself was not really the issue. The problem was the mind that lay behind it—that and his happy assumption that whatever was in his mind at that moment was something that she equally shared.

Walter Smith was a devout man, but also wise and worldly. He looked after his family. She had no doubt that if he had to, he would gladly lay down his life for them. Above all, he enjoyed domestic order. “Thank you,” he would say to her with such feeling, “for my home.” And though he was too wise to express the knowledge, because this was her domain, she knew very well that he was aware of the exact location of every pot, pan, and ball of thread in the house. Always calm, always fair, he encouraged his children to lead ordered lives in their turn; and, of course, she supported him in this. You had to admire him. But did he never desire something more?

She always remembered how one day they had been standing together on the old city wall as a great cloud formation, dark and magnificent, had come rolling down from the Wicklow Mountains. She had watched, enraptured, as the grumbles of thunder grew louder and the flashes of lightning drew menacingly towards the city. “Isn't it splendid?” she had cried excitedly. “Oh, Walter, isn't it magnificent?”

“We'd best get home, or we shall get very wet,” he remarked.

“I don't care,” she laughed. “I shall be soaked, then.” And she had turned. “Don't you ever want to let the storm engulf you?”

“Come, Anne,” he had said quietly. And though she had not wanted to, she had gone home with him.

Would his brother Patrick have made her go indoors? Surely not. He might have made a terrible husband. Almost certainly, in fact. But he would have stayed with her to enjoy the wild exultation of that thunderstorm.

That night, when Walter had made love to her in his usual, unvarying fashion, she had had to disguise the fact that her body felt heavy, wooden, and unresponsive. It was not the first time she had done so, and not the last. He, of course, had no idea of her small deception, nor did she ever intend that he should.

But whenever her dear husband gave his happy little chuckle, which assumed that all his family shared his contentment at their comfortable, ordered life, she would experience that same, sickening little sinking of the heart. Then, seeing her children look at them both with such trust and happiness in their faces, she would smile and tell them: “Children, you are lucky to have such a good father.” And she would kiss him. And no one would ever guess that she wanted to scream.

Jeremiah Tidy did not often make his son come with him when he went about his work in the cathedral. “The boy has other things to do,” he told his wife. But today he had ordered the seven-year-old boy to accompany him, and so young Faithful Tidy was standing obediently by his side. There were reasons why Tidy wished this to be so.

Accordingly, as the two men came into the cathedral and moved towards them, the boy watched carefully. When his father made a humble bow to the two men, he waited just a moment and then, when he saw the taller of them glance at him, he too made a low bow.

“Ah, yes.” Doctor Pincher's smile was somewhat thin, but it was a smile of recognition nonetheless. “Faithful Tidy. A worthy name.” He turned to Doyle. “Shall we conduct our business?”

No one knew when it had first begun, but at some time in the four
and a half centuries that the English had been in Ireland, the custom had grown up that bargains should be sealed upon the tomb of Strongbow, the mighty lord who had brought the first great retinue of Anglo-Norman knights into the land. And so it was today that Doyle the merchant and Doctor Pincher of Trinity College stood by the big stone tomb in the cavernous space of the cathedral and struck their bargain on the stone. No pen and ink were necessary. Tidy stood as witness. As far as anyone in Dublin was concerned, the deal was as formalised as if it had been written in the Book of Life itself.

It had been Tidy, hearing that Doyle was making an investment in a new venture, who had spoken privately with the merchant and then suggested to Pincher that he might be interested in taking a share. This was part of Tidy's strategy of making himself useful to the doctor whenever he could, and the reason why he was standing as witness to the bargain. He had known that the business would especially appeal to Pincher, not only for its potential rewards but because it also promoted the Protestant faith.

Ever since the terrible massacre of the Huguenots in France five decades before, a steady stream of these harmless and worthy French Protestants had left their native country for other, more tolerant lands. Merchants and craftsmen mostly, these hardworking trades-people had already formed small communities in London and Bristol, and recently a few had started appearing in Ireland, too. Their religion was usually a moderate sort of Calvinism; and having suffered persecution themselves in Catholic France, they desired only to live at peace with their neighbours. “Some communities of quiet, hardworking Huguenots might set a good example to the Irish,” the English authorities judged. A Huguenot glassworks was already being set up in the southern town of Birr, and men like Doyle were glad to use their skills in other modest ventures. The present business, in which Pincher had just taken a share, was a small ironworks.