bitter?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t you want to leave me now?”
The tears rushed to her eyes.
“No. Oh, no.”
“You said you didn’t want any scandal for your children.”
“Neither do I, but even that I have to risk.”
He smiled at last.
“Then why are we even speaking of it? Ah Kate! All at once I feel better. You do that for me, you see. You banish nightmares.”
“I hope I will always be able to do that.”
“You will, never fear.” He looked at his watch.
“The devil take it. I must pack.”
“How long will you be away?”
“A week. Perhaps two. May I write to you?”
“Oh, please.”
“And will you promise to answer my letter. Address it to Avondale. Will you wait now and drive to the station with me? Or do you hate railway stations?”
“I hate being left standing on them alone.”
“I told you it would be a bitter road.”
“I know,” she said sadly.
She was alone even before the train had left. His body was beside her, certainly, but his mind was far away, his eyes shadowed with the tragedy of another newly-dug grave in a country with far too many graves already. She wanted to pull him back to her by telling him that she was wretched, too, it wasn’t only in Ireland that people could be unhappy.
Then she was ashamed of her weakness. If she were to deserve his love she must be as strong as he was. She must smile as the train pulled out of the station. His last memory of her must never be one of a lonely woman in tears.
Anyway, tears were an extravagance, for he would soon be back. She knew that he would always come back.
CHAPTER 4
T HE SUMMER WORE ON, and it seemed probable that Mr. Disraeli was glad to be elevated to the House of Lords, to watch Mr. Gladstone battling with the difficult and increasingly insoluble Irish question. The Land League seemed to have got entirely out of hand and not a day passed without some fresh outrage being perpetrated. The toll of arson, terrorisation and even murder rose daily. It was all very well for Mr. Parnell to say he was against violence, the Fenian element in his followers was growing unmanageable, even for him.
But, despite the anger and dismay in England and despite the Queen writing, “Something must be done about these shameless Home Rulers”, there was the occasional English sympathiser. General Gordon, who was by all accounts reliable, and British to the core, wrote, “The state of our fellow-countrymen in Ireland is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe.” He described them as “lying on the verge of starvation in places where we would not keep cattle.”
It was forced upon the Government to think again. Mr. John Morley talked picturesquely of “the wild squalor of Macedonia and Armenia not being less wild than the squalor in Connaught and Munster, in Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Kerry”. Since the House of Lords had contemptuously thrown out the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, there was nothing for the Government to do but fall back on the detested coercion. If anyone cried out with hunger or protested that his children were starving, kick him, beat him, throw him in jail, but silence him for his impudence.
As for Mr. Parnell, who had had grandiose dreams of bringing the English to their knees, if he could not be arrested as the peasants he incited to violence could be, there would be other ways of dealing with him. Lord Cowper, the Lord Lieutenant, and Mr. Forster, the Chief Secretary, put their heads together. But while they were still plotting Mr. Parnell made his triumphant speech at Ennis.
And it was not an incitement to violence. It was a very different affair altogether.
He stood easily on the platform, his hands clasped behind his back, and asked a quiet question.
“What are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted?”
As was to be expected the wild tattered hungry crowd roared, “Kill him! Shoot him!”
Mr. Parnell waited until the
“Yes.”
“Then don’t you want to leave me now?”
The tears rushed to her eyes.
“No. Oh, no.”
“You said you didn’t want any scandal for your children.”
“Neither do I, but even that I have to risk.”
He smiled at last.
“Then why are we even speaking of it? Ah Kate! All at once I feel better. You do that for me, you see. You banish nightmares.”
“I hope I will always be able to do that.”
“You will, never fear.” He looked at his watch.
“The devil take it. I must pack.”
“How long will you be away?”
“A week. Perhaps two. May I write to you?”
“Oh, please.”
“And will you promise to answer my letter. Address it to Avondale. Will you wait now and drive to the station with me? Or do you hate railway stations?”
“I hate being left standing on them alone.”
“I told you it would be a bitter road.”
“I know,” she said sadly.
She was alone even before the train had left. His body was beside her, certainly, but his mind was far away, his eyes shadowed with the tragedy of another newly-dug grave in a country with far too many graves already. She wanted to pull him back to her by telling him that she was wretched, too, it wasn’t only in Ireland that people could be unhappy.
Then she was ashamed of her weakness. If she were to deserve his love she must be as strong as he was. She must smile as the train pulled out of the station. His last memory of her must never be one of a lonely woman in tears.
Anyway, tears were an extravagance, for he would soon be back. She knew that he would always come back.
CHAPTER 4
T HE SUMMER WORE ON, and it seemed probable that Mr. Disraeli was glad to be elevated to the House of Lords, to watch Mr. Gladstone battling with the difficult and increasingly insoluble Irish question. The Land League seemed to have got entirely out of hand and not a day passed without some fresh outrage being perpetrated. The toll of arson, terrorisation and even murder rose daily. It was all very well for Mr. Parnell to say he was against violence, the Fenian element in his followers was growing unmanageable, even for him.
But, despite the anger and dismay in England and despite the Queen writing, “Something must be done about these shameless Home Rulers”, there was the occasional English sympathiser. General Gordon, who was by all accounts reliable, and British to the core, wrote, “The state of our fellow-countrymen in Ireland is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe.” He described them as “lying on the verge of starvation in places where we would not keep cattle.”
It was forced upon the Government to think again. Mr. John Morley talked picturesquely of “the wild squalor of Macedonia and Armenia not being less wild than the squalor in Connaught and Munster, in Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Kerry”. Since the House of Lords had contemptuously thrown out the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, there was nothing for the Government to do but fall back on the detested coercion. If anyone cried out with hunger or protested that his children were starving, kick him, beat him, throw him in jail, but silence him for his impudence.
As for Mr. Parnell, who had had grandiose dreams of bringing the English to their knees, if he could not be arrested as the peasants he incited to violence could be, there would be other ways of dealing with him. Lord Cowper, the Lord Lieutenant, and Mr. Forster, the Chief Secretary, put their heads together. But while they were still plotting Mr. Parnell made his triumphant speech at Ennis.
And it was not an incitement to violence. It was a very different affair altogether.
He stood easily on the platform, his hands clasped behind his back, and asked a quiet question.
“What are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted?”
As was to be expected the wild tattered hungry crowd roared, “Kill him! Shoot him!”
Mr. Parnell waited until the
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