The Rebels of Ireland (87 page)

“Lord Edward Fitzgerald is taken.” Confused details followed. He was wounded, in jail, dying. As soon as he heard, young William rushed out of the house. There was nothing she could do to stop him.

It took a few days for the details to emerge. The young aristocrat had been betrayed. He'd been taken in his hiding place in the Liberties; there had been a scuffle, and he'd tried to defend himself. Shots had been fired; he'd been badly wounded. Meanwhile, the searches had gone on. A cache had been found at Rattigan's timber yard in Dirty Lane. “They've taken all the furniture out of his house and burned it, to teach him a lesson,” she heard. Someone else had been flogged. Were the revolutionaries going to counterstrike? Young William was out for hours each day, and she'd no idea where he was. She tried to question him, but he was evasive. Two more
days passed. The curfew was being rigidly enforced now. Nobody could be on the streets after nine at night. On May 23, William seemed unusually excited. He went out early in the evening but did not return. The curfew passed. Not a sign of him.

Georgiana paced her room. There was nothing she could do, but she couldn't go to bed. Hours passed. Midnight came. And then she heard the drums, close by. They were beating the Yeomanry to arms in St. Stephen's Green.

And all over the city. It was starting. Soon, there was banging at the door, and she ran down to it herself. There she found one of the old gentlemen of the Merrion Square patrol. He was carrying a lamp. A pair of duelling pistols were stuck into his belt and he was looking pleased as punch. “Close up your shutters,” he cried. “It's begun now. And it'll be the devil of a fight, you may be sure.”

“Where?” she called after him.

“You'll see it from your high windows right enough,” he called back. And having hastened to the top of her house, she saw from the window that fires were breaking out on the foothills to the south.

At dawn, the same old gentleman called by again.

“They've stopped the mail coaches,” he told her. He seemed delighted. “There'll be risings all over Ireland. Not a doubt of it.”

Two hours after the curfew ended, young William appeared. He offered no explanation of where he'd been, and she didn't want to ask. He went to his room to sleep. Half an hour later, she was with Hercules. “You must take him back,” she begged. “I cannot answer for him, and I don't know what harm he may do himself.”

But Hercules was obdurate.

“It's too late,” he answered. “He is dead to me.”

It was only then, in desperation, that she turned to the one person to whom she guessed the boy might listen.

Brigid had hesitated only briefly before deciding: she would go with him, whatever the consequences.

The boy had been a surprise, though.

When Georgiana had come to Patrick for help, Brigid had thought it unnecessary; but Patrick had been understanding. “She is his grandmother, she loves him, and she feels she cannot help him. The responsibility is too much for her. I don't blame her for seeking my help at all. And she may be right. The boy will probably listen to me.” He'd agreed to go round that afternoon.

His plan, which he had not told Georgiana, had been a little harsh and somewhat devious, but necessary. “I'll take him over to our kinsman Doyle,” he told Brigid. “Then we'll throw him in the cellar, which can certainly be locked. Doyle can keep him there until the business is over, one way or the other.” Unfortunately, when Patrick had suggested this plan, old Doyle had refused. “He says it's too much trouble,” Patrick reported. So they would just have to do what Georgiana wanted—which was to take the boy down to Wexford with them.

He had warned Georgiana that there would be risks. He had even confessed to her that he was a United Irishman. But this did not seem to surprise her.

“You will know how to keep him from harm's way,” she had said. “You could take him to Mount Walsh. If you are going to Wexford, that should suit you rather well.”

For Brigid and Patrick, the weeks since she had taken Lord Edward to the Liberties had been hectic as well as dangerous. Meetings had been arranged, instructions delivered. The whole structure—damaged, but still functional—of the United Irishmen had been contacted from that bare room in a squalid alley; and miraculously, she and Patrick had never been discovered. By the middle of May, the decision had been taken: the rising would take place on the twenty-third.

Not that Patrick had been in favour. “It's madness to begin without the French, he'd told her. But though trusted, he was not one of those who made the final decision, and Lord Edward and some of the others were obsessed with the idea. The wheels had been set in
motion. By the time of Lord Edward's capture, it seemed that the rising was destined to go ahead anyway.

The plan was grand—Dublin would be taken, and all Ireland would rise. But the coordination was still weak. The Ulster organisation, after being pulverised in the previous months, was still acting separately. The disruption of the mail coaches the night before had been intended as a signal—when the mail failed to arrive in various towns, the people there would know that the rising had begun. But the Wexford coach had got through. At dawn that morning, it had been agreed that Patrick should go south the following day to do what he could to see that the groups he had set up proceeded in good order.

Taking his kinsman down to Mount Walsh would actually provide him with an excellent excuse to travel, and Georgiana promised to furnish him with a letter that day. “If you stay at Mount Walsh,” she added with a wry look, “you could protect my house from your friends. I'd be sorry if the library you created should be burned down.”

When Georgiana had departed, he turned to Brigid.

“I have to go, you know.”

“I know.” She smiled. “But I'm coming with you.” And although he argued against it, she would not be denied.

That afternoon, Patrick went to see young William. Once he had explained the role that he and Brigid had played with Lord Edward, and told William that he wanted him to accompany him in an important mission to the south, the boy was only too anxious to come. They all set off the following morning.

She didn't have to go with him. She'd hesitated to leave her children: they'd always come first with her before. But she had spent the better part of her lifetime with this kindly, idealistic, and slightly self-centred man. Perhaps it was a deep and primitive instinct that prompted her, as women had done through the ages, to follow her man into war. But whatever the cause, after all they had been
through recently, she knew that, for better or worse, this was the time when she must be at his side. “Shouldn't you look after the children?” he asked her. “No,” she answered simply, “this time I'm looking after you.” She left her children in the care of her richer brother, at his house off Dame Street.

They were all three well-mounted. They were challenged once, at the city's southern outskirts. But upon learning that they were members of Lord Mountwalsh's family going to secure the estate, the Yeomanry officer let them through with only a warning to be careful along the road. There was trouble to the west, he informed them, all the way through Meath and down through Kildare, and the military was already out in force in those counties. “But take care,” he cried, “Wicklow and Wexford will be next.”

They saw some burned buildings along the way, but little evidence of any organised rising. At one village, they were gleefully told the landlord had fled. A few miles farther, a small group of local Yeomanry informed them proudly that the rebels in the vicinity had been crushed. Taking the road up into the mountains, they saw fewer people and less sign of trouble.

They reached Rathconan late that afternoon and went straight to Conall's cottage, where they found Deirdre, Conall, and Finn O'Byrne. Brigid admired the easy way that Patrick asked William to see to the horses while the rest of the party went into the cottage. As soon as they were inside and out of earshot, the men began to confer urgently. Conall quickly confirmed what they'd suspected. There had been confusion. Wexford was still waiting, uncertain what to do. Down on the coastal plain, the rebellion was proceeding southwards piecemeal, parish by parish. “I thank God you're here,” Conall continued. “Old Budge is alone at the big house. Arthur Budge went down to Wicklow and his brother Jonah has been out with his Yeomanry down by the coast. My fellows are all ready. We can take over Rathconan within the hour. If this fellow had his way,” he indicated Finn O'Byrne, “we'd have done it already. But I've been holding them back until I was sure the rising had truly begun.”

“You did right,” Patrick confirmed.

“But it's started now.” Finn's eyes were shining with excitement. “I'll have the men ready in a minute. The weapons are all close by.” He gave a grin in which joy and malice were perfectly conjoined. “We'll have old Budge's head on the end of a pike in time for him to watch the setting of the sun.” He nodded with huge satisfaction. “We'll warm ourselves tonight with the burning of his house.”

It seemed that if Finn still believed that his family were the rightful heirs of Rathconan, they could do without the house.

But Patrick shook his head.

“That's not what is needed. Not yet. If we took it, Finn, we'd not be able to hold it. Even Jonah Budge with his Yeomen would probably overcome you, and God knows what other reinforcements his older brother would bring against you. It would all be to no purpose. You must wait,” he told them “for the general rising. When Wexford has risen, that is the time to take Rathconan and to tell all the other villages to rise. Meanwhile,” he pointed out, “if the Budges think the place is quiet, so much the better. When the time comes, you will take them by surprise. Do not move,” he instructed, “until I send you word.” He looked at Finn firmly. “It would be a pity to be killed for nothing.”

Finn looked disappointed, but he held his peace.

The family and young William ate together quietly that evening, and lay down to sleep at dusk. At dawn they left. Before they departed, Brigid had a brief but earnest conversation with her mother, after which Deirdre kissed her. Their journey was uneventful. They reached Mount Walsh that night.

It was strange to be back in the great house where she had once been a servant. She still knew some of the people working there. When young William had retired to his room, she and Patrick went to the library where they had first met. They lit some candles and perused the collection.

“Not enough plays,” she remarked.

“There's Shakespeare.”

“No Sheridan.”

“You are right. When this business is over,” he hesitated only for an instant, “I'll rectify the omission.”

“Please do.”

“My life began here, Brigid, when I met you.”

“Mine, too.”

It was eleven o'clock when they finally retired. They were only sleeping lightly when they were awoken by the flickering of torches outside and the sound of hammering upon the main door. Still in his nightshirt, Patrick ran downstairs with Brigid behind him. Young William and several servants were also gathering in the hall. From outside came a voice.