The Rebels of Ireland (74 page)

Georgiana thought of her Law cousins.

“For them,” she remarked, “everything is a question of principle.”

“Probably,” said George, “but they can be contained.”

When they came to the dessert, the conversation turned to a more pleasant topic.

Georgiana had been especially enthusiastic about Patrick's work in the library, and also rather pleased with herself at finding him his assistant.

“Do tell George about Brigid,” she begged.

So Patrick gave an account of the girl's talents.

“Her father is a craftsman, but he can speak Latin, and she even has quite a few words of it herself. Sometimes, when she is waiting for me to give her some more to do, I see her quietly reading the books—and she chooses the better ones, too! I have had a number of conversations with her. And,” he gave them both a serious look, “though she is an unusually intelligent example, she represents more of our Catholic Irish peasantry than many Protestants suppose.”

George nodded.

“It was a point my father, quite rightly, never ceased to make.” He smiled. “And now, Patrick, I have a further favour to ask you, and one which we both hope will cause you to make more visits down here. Your recommendations for the library are so excellent, I wonder if you would consent to make the purchases for us, as you see fit, and install them here. In other words, take over the library and build it up into something fine.”

“Would you, Patrick?” Georgiana added her own plea.

Patrick pursed his lips. He could not help reflecting that his labour would actually be building up a library for Hercules: not an attractive prospect. George seemed to read his thoughts.

“If I do it myself, I know the result will be mediocre. Hercules will never bother at all, for he reads little. But I'd like our generation to leave something of excellence for little William and the generations to come. It would give me—and it would certainly have given Fortunatus—great joy to think that in a hundred years or two, future members of the family would show people a noble library and say, “Our cousin Patrick is to be thanked for this.”

After that, how could he refuse?

Patrick returned at the end of the summer, when George was also there, and the three of them had a very pleasant two weeks together.

Patrick had brought with him a list of the books he had already purchased, and four large, leather-bound volumes that were to become the library's catalogue. He spent an entire day in the library with Brigid, setting up the catalogue, showing her exactly how the entries were to be made, and checking all the entries on the list as she wrote them. At the end of this, he pronounced himself highly satisfied with her work and even took the trouble to talk to her for half an hour after she had finished, announcing to Georgiana afterwards: “You have a treasure there.”

While it would have been an exaggeration to say that Brigid had filled out that summer—for she was still thin and pale—Georgiana considered that she looked very much improved from her former state, and this well-merited praise from Patrick, she was sure, could only give the girl further confidence.

Indeed, a few days later, she came into the kitchen to find that Patrick had gone down there to see his old friend the cook. He was telling her and the other servants an amusing story. They had not observed her by the door, so she watched in silence, and it was a
delight to see from all their faces that they obviously loved him. At the end of the story, there were peals of laughter; even Brigid smilingly joined in, and Georgiana realised that she had never seen the solemn girl laugh before. She quietly left, congratulating herself that, thanks to her own efforts and to dear Patrick, Mount Walsh was a happier place than it had been before.

But what about the Kelly girl? He had gone to the Kelly house the day after he arrived, and again a few days later. She invited Kelly and his sister to visit them for the day, early the following week. George performed his part as Patrick's loyal kinsman, and seemed to get on famously with Kelly, while she discreetly praised Patrick to the girl. In the afternoon, they inspected a garden George had started to lay out, which gave Patrick and Jane a chance to walk alone together. But at the end of the day, when the visitors had gone and she found herself alone with Patrick and asked him what he really thought of the girl, his answer was rather unsatisfactory.

“I like her very well.”

“And how well is that, might I ask?” she enquired.

“I find it hard to say, to tell you the truth. It surprises me that I should find it so, but I do. We agree on many things.”

“She is Catholic.”

“Yes. Her mind, her manners, her person are altogether all that could be desired. My feelings for her are…”

“Tender?”

“Oh yes. Tender.” The thought did not altogether seem to please him.

“You are perhaps not in love.”

“Perhaps not.” He paused. “Not quite, I think.”

“Common interests, respect, and tenderness are the best basis for a marriage, Patrick. I do know that. Love often follows.”

“Indeed. Quite so.”

“Has she feelings for you?”

“I think so. She has indicated…” He hesitated. “The fact is, I find myself confused by my own feelings. I do not know…”

“There is no other?”

“Other? Oh. No.” He shook his head. “No. No other.”

Georgiana sighed. She felt sorry for the girl, but she said no more.

A few days later, they were all due to leave for Dublin. She and George rode in the big carriage, which was followed by a second cart containing two servants and several portmanteaus. Patrick rode beside the carriage with them as far as Wicklow. There he parted from them, as he wished to ride up into the mountains to visit the old monastic site of Glendalough. “I have always heard so much about the beauty of the place,” he told Georgiana, “yet to my shame I have never been there.” He promised to call upon her in Merrion Square the following week.

As they made their way back to Dublin, Georgiana turned to her husband:

“I've been thinking. If Patrick can't make up his mind about the Kelly girl, there may be an even better alternative.” And she told him her idea.

“Good God,” said George.

It was some weeks before she was able to arrange a meeting, since the girl was away. The parliamentary session had started. As promised, the Patriots and their friends were issuing calls for independence, but making little headway. The party she held at Merrion Square, therefore, had a purely social rather than a political character. An elegant company was invited, including even the Leinsters. Her daughter Eliza and her husband came, but Hercules, having been told that Patrick would be there, decided to stay away. And with Eliza came the young lady.

Only a sad accident had put Louisa Fitzgerald back in play. About a year after Hercules had declared that she had too many opinions to become his wife, she had married a neighbouring landowner and they had had a daughter. Then her husband had been killed in a
hunting accident, and for some time she had been inconsolable. But now she had recovered sufficiently to go out in society again; and with the use of her husband's estate, her widow's portion, and the inheritance from her aunt still to come, she might be regarded as one of the finest catches in Dublin.

“You're aiming very high,” George had warned her. This was an understatement. It would have been one thing for Hercules, the rich heir of Lord Mountwalsh, to marry Louisa; but for his poor cousin to do so, decent fellow though he undoubtedly was, would cause general astonishment. And much as Georgiana loved Patrick, she wouldn't have denied that the challenge of the thing was part of its attraction to her. But Louisa was a young widow with a mind of her own. Who knew whom she might choose? “And he is Catholic, to boot,” George had added, “when she is Protestant.”

That, of course, was another huge objection. Yet not insuperable. Georgiana had several aristocratic friends with mixed marriages. As long as they could agree about the children—who were normally brought up Protestant—the rest could all be arranged. She even knew of one man who had married twice, had three Protestant children with the first wife and three Catholics with the second.

The party was a great success. Louisa met Patrick, and Patrick was charming. A few days later, Patrick received an invitation to attend an assembly at Leinster House; and though it might be that the duke and duchess, having met him, had thought to add him to their list, Georgiana thought it more likely that Louisa was behind it. Certainly, Patrick told her afterwards, she had been there, come up to him herself, and invited him to call upon her. “Which I hope you will do,” Georgiana said. “Do you like her?”

“Yes,” he replied, and this time without any hesitation. “I like her very much.”

Still more encouraging, two days later Eliza called round and told her, “Louisa has taken a great fancy to Patrick.”

“His lack of fortune?”

“Could be overlooked.”

“His religion?”

“In itself, not of great concern. Though I'm sure she would not wish her children to suffer the disadvantages that must attend any Catholic, no matter what their birth.”

“Well,” Georgiana remarked, “we shall have to wait and see, now, what Patrick means to do.”

He duly called upon Louisa at her house, not once, but twice, in the next two weeks. Then he announced that he wished to go down to Wexford.

He departed for Mount Walsh in a cart, loaded with books for the library that he had already acquired. “He is going about our business in a most thorough manner,” George said with approval. Patrick spent a week down at the estate, and since his work in the library could hardly have taken up much of his time, Georgiana guessed that he might be spending time with Jane Kelly. Had his encounters with Louisa caused him to turn back to the Catholic girl in Wexford? Was he trying to make up his mind where his heart lay between the two? She heard he had returned, but he did not call round to see her for a while. And she might have become quite impatient for news had it not been for another event which, at that moment, swept aside all other considerations.

“We are beaten in America. Cornwallis has surrendered.” It was Doyle who came round to the door with the news. George and Hercules arrived together from the Parliament an hour later.

What did it mean? Throughout the midwinter season there was scarcely another subject spoken of in Dublin. Was the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown the end of the whole business? Would the government raise fresh troops, or was the entire colony to be lost? From the moment he heard the news, George was certain. “They haven't the will to go on. America's lost.” Hercules in particular was plunged in gloom. “If the American rebels have won, then the Irish rebels will follow close behind,” he decided. Certainly, in Ulster news came that the Volunteers were holding triumphant rallies and issuing demands for independence.

Patrick did not appear at the house until January, when he announced that he was going to London on business. “Also to see some book dealers on your behalf,” he told George. When Georgiana asked him if he had seen either Jane Kelly or Louisa, he answered that he had seen them both, but he was entirely evasive beyond that point. “Whatever he is up to, he doesn't wish you to know,” her husband laughed—which, seeing that she had been so instrumental in promoting both causes, she thought very unfair. All her daughter Eliza could tell her, which she had from Louisa, was that Patrick seemed to be torn in his loyalties. It must surely, Georgiana thought, be over the question of religion.

He remained away for weeks. Was he avoiding them all by staying in London? Perhaps. Meanwhile, the Ulster Volunteers held a huge rally up in the town of Dungannon. “They've issued a manifesto calling for independence, and sworn not to vote for any parliamentary candidate who won't support it,” George told her. “It's the Covenant all over again.”