Caroline came closer to the bed. ‘I have never been a real wife to him, Liam. Richard enjoyed having me as a hostess for his friends and that was all he required of me. It was not what I either expected or wanted from marriage, but there was nothing I could do. When I pleaded with Richard to take me with him on one of his frequent trips abroad, he told me his duties took him to the world of men, where women had no place. I did not know it when we married, but there is no place for a woman in Richard’s personal life. To him they are a social necessity, nothing more.’
She spoke quietly but with more firmness now.
‘On our wedding night Richard told me what was expected of me – as a wife – before he went to his own room. He told me I might do as I wished – but with discretion, of course. There must be no hint of a scandal. That might injure his career.’
Caroline tried to laugh, but it collapsed and became a stifled sob. ‘Can you imagine that, Liam? To be told on your wedding night that you can have affairs with other men, providing you are discreet? No, it was not what I had expected from marriage.’
She stopped speaking and Liam knew she waited for his sympathy, for his understanding, but he could think of no words to say. Eugene Brennan had been right to worry about him; Liam could not comprehend this world of double standards. He was not and never could be a part of it.
‘Liam, I’m sorry.’
Liam believed her, but he could say nothing. A moment later she was gone.
Caroline did not come downstairs for breakfast, and Liam did not see her before he left the house. He wished now that Eugene Brennan was not in Cambridge. He felt utterly dejected and alone bur he could not remain in the house, expecting the arrival of Caroline’s husband at any moment
As Liam walked the streets of London, the day was as gloomy as his thoughts, the sky overhead heavily overcast, a cold drizzle putting a dark coat on the slate rooftops and polishing roads and pavements.
He walked along the Strand, stopping to look in shop windows bright with beribboned merchandise and decorated with branches of evergreen trees. With a sudden sense of shock, Liam remembered that today was Christinas Eve. He had bought a present for Caroline, the figurine of a young girl embracing a swan, created in fine Dresden porcelain. He had been looking forward to giving it to her on Christmas morning and it lay, carefully wrapped, at the back of a drawer in his room.
Liam turned away from the shop windows and made his way aimlessly along the edge of the pavement. The wide road here was busy with every form of transportation: brewers’ drays, farm carts laden with produce, heading for Covent Garden market; high-seated hackney carriages; horse-drawn omnibuses and a myriad carts and barrows threading through the traffic with a skill inherited from generations of costers.
Along the wet pavements, unsmiling men with coat collars turned up against the wind and hands thrust deep in overcoat pockets pushed on their way determinedly, elbowing aside other unsmiling men and long-coated women with umbrellas who endeavoured to keep their long impractical skirts clear of the mud and dirt underfoot.
Here a man could be part of a crowd and yet remain alone. There was not a single word of greeting, or the face of a friend. It was exactly what Liam needed and he lost himself among the citizens of London, isolated from them by his thoughts.
Later in the day he found himself walking by the side of the Thames. It was too far up-river for deep-sea ships, but the surface of the water here was alive with smaller vessels and oared boats. It reminded him of Kilmar and his own boat. It was the first time since he arrived in London that he had given any real thought to the little fishing village and those he had left there. Strangely, he found that he felt more guilty when he remembered Kathie Donaghue than he did when he thought of Caroline’s husband.
He wondered whether Kathie and her father would be spending Christmas with his mother and Dermot. Suddenly, Liam was sick of London and everything here. He wanted to be home in Kilmar.
Liam turned his footsteps toward Caroline’s house as the tide began to move up the river, bringing with it heavier rain and a prolonged early twilight.
The house was the scene of great activity and there were lights on in almost every room. Luggage was being carried indoors from a mud-spattered carriage, and Liam threaded his way through piles of trunks and cases in the hall. He had intended making his way straight to his bedroom, but the door to the drawing-room opened and Caroline came out
Seeing Liam, she exclaimed, ‘Why, there you are, Liam. I have been looking for you everywhere. Richard is dying to meet you.’
She took his hand without a trace of embarrassment and led him to the drawing-room. He would have wished to look his best for this meeting. Instead, he was soaked through, his trousers clinging to his legs, wet and cold, and his dark hair plastered down on his head, water trickling from it inside the collar of his shirt.
Sir Richard Dudley stood with his back to the fire, legs astride, an outsize glass of brandy in his hand. A small man, he was immaculate from his highly polished black boots to the top of his sparse grey hair. He was even older than Liam had expected and was exceedingly ugly. The discovery boosted Liam’s flagging confidence momentarily.
Caroline introduced the two men, and her husband eyed Liam with one eyebrow raised in surprise at the younger man’s appearance.
‘So this is your young fisherman who has taken London by storm. It rather looks as though he has been out pursuing his calling.’
It did not escape Liam’s notice that the baronet addressed his wife and did not speak directly to him.
‘Richard is right, Liam. You are absolutely soaked through. Where have you been? You look as though you have been walking in the rain all day. Here, you must have a glass of brandy to warm you and then go straight upstairs and change, before you take a chill.’
‘I am quite sure he will be all right, my dear. Irish fishermen are a hardy breed, quite used to being out in all weathers. They are not fragile flowers, as you and I are.’
Sir Richard Dudley was smiling with his mouth but there was no humour in his eyes. They were as cold as the London rain outside and suddenly Liam’s guilt fell away from him. He did not care that he had made love to this man’s wife. Perhaps the baronet’s feelings had never been important. Liam realised that his hurt had been at not knowing, coupled with the thought of losing Caroline and the torment of thinking of another man possessing the right to touch and know her body.
That part of it still hurt, but not as much as before. Liam knew instinctively that what Caroline had told him about her relationship with her husband had been true. This man would never know his wife as Liam had.
Liam felt as though he had laid down an intolerable burden. He became a whole man again. There was a pain inside him that would remain for a very long time, but he had survived.
‘Your husband is quite right, Caroline.’ The smile disappeared from Sir Richard Dudley’s face at Liam’s use of his wife’s name. ‘We fishermen are a tough crowd; but, yes, I will have a brandy – a large one, please.’
Liam’s accent had never sounded out of place in this house before, but now, with the immaculate Sir Richard Dudley standing before the pink Adam fireplace, Liam felt his tongue thicken in his mouth and his words came out wrapped in an accent as thick as that of any west-coast bog cottier. It did not worry Liam. When Caroline handed him a half-full brandy-glass, Liam raised it to her husband.
‘Here’s health to fishermen and fragile flowers, Sir Richard. May the sun bring its blessings upon us all.’
He downed his drink quickly and placed the empty glass upon a nearby table. The brandy burned a path down his throat and exploded in his stomach with a satisfying raw heat, and Liam remembered he had not eaten since breakfast.
‘Now I will go and change out of these wet clothes. Eugene will probably be taking me out to dinner tonight. If you’ll excuse me …?’
‘Of course.’
Sir Richard Dudley was icily correct, but he had an angry glint in his e
yes and Liam knew he had made an enemy.
Later, when Liam had changed, he returned downstairs. The bustle in the hall had ended and there was not a servant to be seen. Liam thought Caroline and her newly returned husband had gone to their own rooms, but as he approached the drawing-room the door was open and he could hear them inside. They were talking about him.
‘… the man is a nobody, an ignorant lout. Why you allowed him to have the run of the house and treated him as a guest I will never know. He would have been far happier accommodated in the servants’ quarters.’ Sir Richard Dudley’s voice was high-pitched and peevish.
‘He is in England at the invitation of Eugene Brennan, Richard, and his talks are very well received. He has already raised thousands of pounds for famine relief. Every house in London is open to him. Could I do less than treat him as a guest?’
‘I really do not know why he has to stay in this house at all.’
‘He is here because I invited him to stay after meeting him at Inch House.’
Sir Richard Dudley snorted derisively, ‘The damned Irish are a thorough nuisance. If they were to put in a good day’s work for themselves, they would not have these incessant famines. They are for ever screaming for help from England. I am surprised Peel listens to them. Left to their own devices they would discover a remedy quickly enough.’
‘Richard! We cannot allow women and children to starve. You must come to one of Liam’s talks and hear of the appalling suffering he has seen—’
‘I have no intention of listening to any Irish fairy stories,’ Sir Richard Dudley snapped. ‘You must do whatever amuses you, but do not expect me to waste my money on any of your misguided charities – and I must ask you to arrange for that fisherman to leave this house at the earliest opportunity. Why is he mixed up in such a cause at all? The potato famine does not affect fishing. Is he one of Brennan’s rabblerousers?’
What Caroline’s reply would have been, Liam never knew. As he listened, poised to enter the room, there came a hammering at the front door of the house. As it was only a few paces away, Liam opened the door and Eugene Brennan swept into the house clutching Liam by the arm.
‘Thank heaven you are here. I was afraid you would be out gallivanting this Christmas Eve.’ He waved a letter in the air. ‘You’ll need to go straight back to Ireland. That fool brother of yours and his friends have attacked the English Army and taken grain and beef for the cottiers. One of them got himself killed, and all hell has broken loose.’
Perspiration stood out on the old man’s face as though he had run all the way to the house, although Liam had seen his carriage waiting in the street outside.
‘Well, well, Mr Brennan. It sounds very much as though you have lost control of your followers yet again. After what my wife has been telling me about conditions in Ireland I must admit I am surprised. I hardly thought the poor starving masses would have the strength to cause trouble.’
Sir Richard Dudley spoke from the doorway of the drawing-room.
‘There is always strength in a man’s heart to fight injustice,’ retorted Eugene Brennan. ‘But by the time England has a prime minister who understands that it will be too late.’
‘Oh? For whom, England or Ireland?’
‘For both our countries, Sir Richard. Now, if you will excuse me, I will help Liam to pack. He will need to return to Ireland immediately.’
‘How sad.’
Sir Richard Dudley’s expression belied his words. He looked happier than Liam had yet seen him. But Caroline was genuinely concerned for Liam and a short while afterwards she stopped him in the corridor outside his room.
‘Liam, if there is any way in which I might be of help, please let me know.’
‘Thank you.’
Liam’s curtness was due to concern for his brother. Eugene Brennan’s letter was from Father Clery; it gave details of the raid and told of Dermot’s wound. The MP had told Liam there would be serious repercussions for all of them. Dermot would certainly be arrested, and some of Sir Robert Peel’s party were demanding that the All-Ireland Association be banned.
‘I am sorry to hear the news of your brother … and I am even more sorry for hurting you. That was the last thing I wanted to happen, believe me.’
Liam said nothing; it had all been said.
‘You will come to see me if you return to London?’
He looked at her and saw she was very close to tears. He did not want to hurt her any more.
‘I won’t be returning to London.’
‘Then I will come looking for you in Kilmar.’
Suddenly she rested her hands upon his shoulders and, standing on tiptoe, kissed him quickly on the lips.
‘Goodbye, my dearest, and take care. I will think of you often, and always with great fondness.’
With that she left him, and Liam felt as empty as he had that morning. This had been the worst day he had known since the death of his father.
Chapter Fourteen
Christmas Eve in Kilmar was no happier for the McCabe family than it was in London. It was the day the soldiers came.
The young men of the All-Ireland Association had been maintaining a watch on the Gorey road for them since the day Tomas Feehan brought the body of his youngest son home for burial. Even so, they were almost taken by surprise, for the soldiers came not from Gorey, but from the north. From Dublin.
In company strength, there were more than a hundred men of the 92nd Foot Regiment – the Gordon Highlanders – commanded by a stern and experienced captain. They entered the fishing village as arrogantly as only professional soldiers can, with bayonets fixed to their muskets and a single piper leading them.
With the soldiers, but considerably less arrogant, was the district magistrate. He had been summoned at great haste from his dinner the previous evening and, acting upon the orders of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, had ridden to join the soldiers. He had spent a cold, comfortless and sleepless night in a draughty tent and was a most unhappy man.
With guards posted at every exit from the village, the magistrate stood on the quayside, surrounded by silent Highlanders, and called upon the citizens of Kilmar to come from their houses and hear the proclamation he was about to make.
Kilmar ignored him. A few curious children, a deaf hag, and an old ex-fisherman too crippled by rheumatism to move from the bollard on which he was sitting were all the audience the magistrate could command.
The day was bitterly cold, his teeth were chattering, and the magistrate was in a hurry to return home and join in the Christmas festivities. In consequence, his proclamation was scarcely audible, even to the soldiers about him.
‘Whereas it has been represented to me that divers persons took part in an attack upon Her Majesty’s subjects … inflicting injuries upon forces of the Crown … stealing cattle and corn … I call upon all the true and loyal subjects of the Queen to arrest these men … I declare them to be outside the protection of the law … persons aiding or succouring them shall be guilty of an offence.’
The proclamation ended with the names of seven of the men who had been on the raid. Eoin Feehan was not one of them. This omission did not pass unnoticed in Kilmar, but it was assumed that, before Sean Feehan died, he had been forced to give the names of his fellow-conspirators, and had balked at giving the name of his own brother.
The proclamation was made in the name of Lord Heytesbury, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. His reading completed, the shivering magistrate pinned the document to the locked door of the weighing-shed on the quay and looked about him at the village of Kilmar.
The only sound was the hissing of the tide on the shingle and the mocking cry of a seagull hanging on the wind above him.
The magistrate hurried to the warmth of the Kilmar ale-house, leaving the Captain and his kilted soldiers to search the houses of the fishermen systematically for the men named in the Lord-Lieutenant’s proclamation.
They were a full hour too late.
Nathan Brock had been digging grave
s in a cottier settlement a couple of miles to the north of Kilmar when the soldiers approached along the road from Dublin and he quickly took the news to the villagers.
The initial reaction in Kilmar was one of panic, the Scots had earned a bloody reputation in Wexford, fifty years before. It was agreed that the men who had been on the raid would have to leave Kilmar immediately. The problem was knowing which way they should go. At this very moment more soldiers could be closing in on them from the south and west.
‘There is only one place where you can be sure of being safe,’ declared Nathan Brock. ‘That’s in the Wicklow mountains. You need to go no more than twenty-five miles to be in country where no Englishman dare set foot. There are hills and forests and streams and a mist that would hide Ireland itself.’
‘And there are a hundred soldiers between us and the mountains,’ retorted Eoin Feehan. He knew he had to throw in his lot with the others. If the Army did not find any of the men he had named in Kilmar, they might take him back with them instead – and he had no wish to sample more of Corporal Garrett’s questioning.
‘You will have to travel by the one route the soldiers won’t be guarding,’ said Nathan Brock patiently. ‘You must go by sea. The weather isn’t too bad, and there is nothing more natural than for the Kilmar fishermen to be at sea. When the soldiers search the village without finding anyone they are after they will wait until evening when the boats return. By that time, if you use the Feehan or McCabe boat, you will have landed a few miles up the coast and be well on your way to the mountains.’
Raising her voice above the noisy enthusiasm that greeted Nathan Brock’s idea, Kathie cried, ‘That is all very well for everyone else, but what about Dermot?’
The Music Makers Page 13