The Rebels of Ireland (77 page)

Deirdre gazed at him. A clever face, kindly eyes, a charming manner: a gentleman through and through. And she wasn't fooled for a second.

“What have you done with her?” she demanded.

“Your daughter hasn't been kidnapped, Mrs. Smith,” he replied calmly. “She was employed in the house of my cousin, Lord Mountwalsh, as you know.” If this reference to the importance of his family was designed to put her in her place, it did not succeed. “Now she has agreed to come here,” he gazed at Deirdre steadily, “as a housekeeper.”

“Housekeeper? At her age?”

“This is not a large house. Ah,” he looked up blandly, “here she is.”

As Brigid appeared in the doorway, Deirdre almost gasped. The thin stick of a girl she had left at Mount Walsh had vanished, disappeared like a sapling with tightly closed buds that breaks into flower in the spring. Standing straight, in a rather severe dress, with her black hair pulled back neatly, she looked the very pattern of an efficient young housekeeper. But her mother could see at once that she had filled out; she stood like a proud young woman. She also saw that Brigid's skin had a glow, and her green eyes a sparkle that was entirely new.

“I want to speak to my daughter alone,” she said firmly.

Brigid had a pleasant room on the third floor of the house, below the attic floor where the rest of the servants slept. There was a rug on the floor, a counterpane on the bed, and an easy chair. The girl sat on the bed and motioned her mother to the chair.

“I'm sorry I didn't write.”

“Never mind that,” her mother cut her short. “You're not his housekeeper.”

“I am. I swear it.”

“Is that all you are?”

The girl was silent.

“What are you doing, Brigid?” her mother burst out. “Do you not see what this makes you? You must come away at once.” Brigid was starting to shake her head in reply, but Deirdre did not pause. “What have they done to you? Did they mistreat you at that house? Were you so desperate? You only had to tell me.”

“I was lonely at first, Mother. I missed you all so much. But they were very good to me. And later…” She laughed. “I think I was bored. Until Patrick came along.”

The laugh. The way she called him Patrick.

“Dear heaven, child. You're his mistress.” She stared at the girl. “Do you imagine you'll find a respectable husband when it's known what you are? This fine gentleman isn't going to marry you. He'll use you, Brigid, and when he's done with you, what will become of you then? Have you not thought of that?” She shook her head. “It's my fault. I should have warned you, but I thought you were safe in that house. I never supposed…”

“It isn't your fault at all, Mother.”

“You're to come back to Rathconan at once.”

“And what would I do there? Marry one of the Brennans?” She paused, then added quietly: “He's a good man, you know. I won't find a better.”

“Do you imagine that he loves you?”

“I interest him, I think. He cares for me.”

“He's making use of you. You're just a servant.”

“I was a servant in Wexford.”

“You must come away with us now, Brigid.”

“I'm sorry, Mother, but I will not.”

“Your father will order it.”

“He cannot make me go.” She sat there on the bed, calmly defiant.

Deirdre was too shocked and too angry even to weep. She rose.

“I have nothing more to say to you, Brigid,” she declared. But as they went down the stairs, she continued nonetheless: “We'll stay at your brother's a few days. I hope you'll change your mind.”

She did not wish to speak to Patrick, but signalled to her husband that she wished to leave immediately.

They were no sooner outside than she exploded.

“Do you realise what is happening? She's his mistress.”

“It is what I supposed.” His voice was calm.

“Are you not going to do anything? Would you not save your own daughter?”

“Is she there against her will?”

“She refuses to leave.”

“Then what would you have me do, Deirdre? Am I to shoot him?”

“He is the devil himself.”

“Perhaps.” He did not seem convinced.

“What did he say to you?”

“About Brigid? Not a great deal. She helped him catalogue a library.” He paused while his wife stared at him in disbelief. “He has read your grandfather's verses, you know. And it seems that his father, old Doctor Walsh, knew my own father when he was young. In fact, it turns out that we are distantly related.”

“Do you mean that he would marry Brigid?”

“I don't think,” said Conall thoughtfully, “that he's the marrying sort.”

And so it proved. Though she sent Conall to see his daughter and Patrick once more before they left Dublin, the situation remained unchanged. A year later, Brigid had a child. Again, Conall was sent to see them, and told Deirdre that both mother and baby were well, and that they were living contentedly in Walsh's house, and that neither the gentleman nor Brigid seemed to have any plans for changing the situation.

The years had passed. There were more children. Nobody seemed to mind, and there was nothing Deirdre could do.

But there was one thing she had not foreseen, and this was the friendship between Walsh and her husband.

The first time Patrick had passed through Rathconan, he had been on his way to visit Glendalough. He'd arrived with Brigid and their infant child, intending to leave Brigid with her parents while he visited the old monastic site. Deirdre did not speak to him if she could help it, but when he casually asked if Conall would like to accompany him, Conall had said he would.

“I suppose,” she had said to Conall tartly, “that you are anxious to spend the day with the man who ruined your daughter.”

She never knew what had passed between the two men at Glendalough that day, but when they returned, it was clear that they had been deep in conversation. Patrick had come again every summer after that, and each time the two men would go off together to visit the twin lakes. It became a yearly ritual. Sometimes, if Brigid was not in a state to travel, Patrick would come alone and, little as she liked it, he would join them for their evening meals, sleeping in the cottage on the night of his arrival, and again at the end of his day out, and before departing in the morning. Always, after Patrick had gone, she would ask her husband what they had talked about during their day together, and he would give her some vague, unsatisfactory answer. But if she said anything harsh about Patrick then, like as not, Conall would quietly defend him. “Ah, but he's a man of great intelligence,” he might say, or “His heart's in the right place.” Once he had even remarked, “He's a good Catholic,” and she had cried: “If he were a good Catholic, he'd have married your daughter instead of using her as a concubine.” But he had only looked thoughtful and remarked: “He is a lover of Ireland, anyway.”

She was glad he only came once a year; but as time went by, she had an increasing sense that her husband was, in some subtle and insidious way, being pulled away from her. It was not only his association with Patrick. One other change had come over their life.

At first she had welcomed it when, one evening, he had remarked to her: “You know, it's a pity that nobody is singing your
grandfather's verses anymore. Some have been printed, of course, but I've many more of them written down. There were the stories he told, as well. Wonderful stories.”

“Perhaps you should do it, Conall,” she had said. “I don't know who else would do it better.”

So in the evenings, he had begun to study the old man's work again, and after a while he had called in their neighbours and performed for them—just as the old man had used to do. And they all said it was wonderful. Word had spread. A month later, he had been asked to a place a few miles away. Then to a second, and a third. And before a year had passed, he was making a journey somewhere every month or so; sometimes he was away for several days.

She had hardly known whether to be pleased or not. She was proud of him, of course, and glad to think that her grandfather was honoured again. She was glad, too, for her husband. She knew that if a man has a gift, he must use it, and that his lonely wanderings had always been necessary to him. But he had never wandered so much before, and she couldn't help wondering if it might not have something to do with herself. Could it be that he needed to be away from her now, after all these years? Was it an excuse to avoid her? Once or twice she gently challenged him, and he looked distressed, and even offered not to go anymore. And this offer was enough at least, somewhat, to assure her. Certainly, whenever he was at home, there was nothing in his manner or in their marriage that was lacking in affection. So she'd decided to put a good face on it, and to be glad that, when her neighbours referred to her wandering husband, they seemed to do so with a new respect.

It was an incident just a few years ago that had really disturbed her.

Though the newly independent Parliament had kept itself busy enough, there hadn't been any great excitement in Ireland for some years, when, in 1789, news of the French Revolution had burst like a thunderclap across Europe. If the American Revolution that she remembered from her girlhood had been exciting, this French Revolution seemed to be cataclysmic. Back in 1776, Irishmen had
watched the new world breaking away from the old; but with the revolution in France, it seemed that, in an orgy of violence and bloodshed, the old world was trying to remake itself entirely. In this huge experiment, which Deirdre found sometimes inspiring but sometimes terrifying, men spoke of a new age of reason, an end to the social classes, of religious toleration—even the rule of atheism.

And it was while those astonishing events were unfolding in France that Patrick had come, by himself this time, for his annual visit. As usual, the two men had gone to Glendalough; on their return, they had settled down for their evening meal. Under Walsh's influence, Conall had drunk rather more than usual when the talk turned to France. They had discussed the latest developments in the continuing revolution and what it might mean for Europe as a whole. It was clear that the other monarchies of Europe could not tolerate this overturning of the entire social order in their midst. Then, dropping his voice somewhat, Patrick had remarked:

“You know my views on what this may mean for Ireland.”

And Conall, quietly but with a passion she had never heard in his voice before, gazed at him intensely and answered:

“I shall be ready, I can promise you, when the time is ripe.”

When she had asked him what he meant by that phrase, the following day, he had shaken his head and said it meant nothing. She resented this, since it was obviously untrue; but he had still refused to discuss the matter, except to say, “There are things it's better you shouldn't know.” This patronising answer had infuriated her still more, and it had created a small but definite strangeness between her and her husband.

A few weeks later, he had gone down into Dublin, to see their sons, he said; but she had the uncomfortable feeling that there was some other reason, and that it had something to do with Walsh. And she cursed the day that had brought such a devil into their lives.

Then the nightmare had begun. The nightmare in which she was still living now.

She gazed down the valley.

At first, in the distance, it seemed that the figure coming up the winding mountain track was changing shape. One moment she thought she could make out a single horseman; the next, it looked like a deer with two great antlers. Only gradually did she realise that it was not a single man but two. Patrick came first: it was him right enough. But behind him rode a taller man she did not think she had seen before.

And somehow she knew, infallibly, that whatever they had come for, it would take her husband away from her. Armed only with her instincts, she wanted to run back to Conall, hide him from them, take him away—an idea as useless as it was absurd. For at this moment, she realised that he had come out and was beside her.

“Why are they here?” Her voice betrayed her. It sounded high-pitched, nervous.

He put his arm around her.

“I could not say it before, Deirdre,” he answered quietly, “but now it's time that you should know.” He held her closer. “Because I am going to need your help.”