A great friend of Willie's, also in the 18th—Robert Cunninghame Graham—was invited down to keep him amused, and my sister, Mrs. Steele, and I met them in London and went down to Belhus with them. Willie was looking very ill, and was tenderly cared for by his friend Graham. He was too weak to speak, but, while driving to Belhus, he slipped a ring from his finger on to mine and pressed my hand under cover of the rugs.
Robert Cunninghame Graham, uncle of Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, the Socialist writer and traveller, walked straight into our hearts, so gay, so careful of Willie was he, and so utterly bon camarade, that we seemed to have known him for years. In a few days Anna and I left Belhus, and Willie's father came over from Ireland to stay with him till he was completely recovered.
Before Willie left I was back at Belhus on the occasion of a dinner party, and was shyly glad to meet him again and at his desire to talk to me only.
While the others were all occupied singing and talking after dinner we sat on the yellow damask sofa, and he slipped a gold and turquoise locket on a long gold and blue enamel chain round my neck. It was a lovely thing, and I was very happy to know how much Willie cared for me.
[[1]] Captain O'Shea's family, the O'Sheas of Limerick, were a collateral branch of the O'Sheas of County Kerry. William O'Shea had three sons, Henry, John and Thaddeus, of whom the first named was Captain O'Shea's father. John went to Spain (where a branch of the family had been settled since 1641, and become the Duges of Sanlucas), founded a bank and prospered. Henry found the family estate (Rich Hill) heavily mortgaged, entered the law, and by hard work pulled the property out of bankruptcy and made a fortune. He married Catherine Quinlan, daughter of Edward Quinlan, of Tipperary, a Comtesse of Rome, and had two children, Captain O'Shea and Mary, afterwards Lady of the Royal Order of Theresa of Bavaria. The children had a cosmopolitan education, and the son went into the 18th Hussars, a keen sporting regiment, where he spent great sums of money. Finally, a bill for £15,000 coming in, his father told him that his mother and sister would have to suffer if this rate of expenditure continued. Captain O'Shea left the regiment just before his marriage to Miss Wood. The Comtesse O'Shea was a highly educated woman, assiduous in her practice of religion, but valetudinarian and lacking a sense of humour. Mary O'Shea's education had left her French in all her modes of thought and speech. Both ladies disapproved of the engagement between Captain O'Shea and Miss Wood.
CHAPTER III
MY FATHER'S DEATH AND MY MARRIAGE
"Fair shine the day on the house with open door;
Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney,
But I go for ever and come again no more."
—STEVENSON.