"The consultation broke up in peals of laughter," said one of the less important of the evening papers of the time. This was quite true, but it had no bearing on the case at all, for the laughter was caused by the extremely funny stories told us, in his own inimitable way, by Sir Frank Lockwood. The two or three times I saw him stand out in my memory as hours of brilliant wit and nonsense, that cheered and invigorated us far more than the advice we did not ask for could have done. Parnell would not fight the case, and I could not fight it without him. The last time I saw Sir Frank Lockwood, the day before the case came on, he begged me to get Parnell to let him fight it. I was suffering acutely from neuralgic headache at the time, but I did my best to get Parnell to defend the case, though to no purpose.
We left Sir Frank Lockwood with a promise to telegraph to him by eight o'clock the next morning if we would go up and appear in Court at all, as he had to be there by ten o'clock.
We had to return to Brighton in the Pullman car, as we could not get a carriage to ourselves. It was crowded, and Parnell was known; it was therefore very difficult to talk without being overheard. Parnell appeared absolutely unconscious of the eyes furtively watching him from behind every newspaper, or, indeed, openly in the carriage, and he had the power of putting himself absolutely beyond and above self-consciousness. This is what rendered him so completely impervious to criticism. But to me, with a splitting headache, the gleam of so many eyes, seen through a mist of pain, had the most uncanny effect. They seemed like animals watching from their lair. Parnell gave me a cheerful little smile now and then, and directly we got home he insisted upon my going to bed. There he fed me himself with the tiny amount I forced myself to take to please him, and held the glass to my lips while I sipped the sparkling Moselle I had been ordered to take for the bad attacks of neuralgia.
After he had had his own dinner he came up and smoked by my bedside. I tried to persuade him to go up with me in the morning to the Court and make some fight in the case, but he said:
"No, Queenie. What's the use? We want the divorce, and, divorce or not, I shall always come where you are. I shall always come to my home every night whatever happens. Now I'm going to read you to sleep."
He was always the most gentle and tender of nurses, and would sit by my side for hours without moving when I was ill, reading or thinking. After a short sleep I lay awake wondering what it would be best to say to Lockwood in the morning. I had told him that anyhow I would go up; but, as my lover said, what would be the use of it? And whatever I could make of Captain O'Shea's desertion—or practical desertion—of me, I knew absolutely nothing of his private life, and cared less. Our position would be worse if we were not enabled to marry, for we were inseparable while life lasted.
Then, after going over the pros and cons till my brain felt on fire, I said irritably, "I don't believe you are listening to what I say!" He replied, "I am not, beloved; here is the telegram all written out for you while you slept. We have been longing for this freedom all these years, and now you are afraid!"
I broke down and cried, because I feared for him and for his work, and he soothed me as one would a child as he told me that his life-work was Ireland's always, but that his heart and his soul were mine to keep for ever—since first he looked into my eyes that summer morning, ten years before.
"Queenie," he went on, "put away all fear and regret for my public life. I have given, and will give, Ireland what is in me to give. That I have vowed to her, but my private life shall never belong to any country, but to one woman. There will be a howl, but it will be the howl of hypocrites; not altogether, for some of these Irish fools are genuine in their belief that forms and creeds can govern life and men; perhaps they are right so far as they can experience life. But I am not as they, for they are among the world's children. I am a man, and I have told these children what they want, and they clamour for it. If they will let me, I will get it for them. But if they turn from me, my Queen, it matters not at all in the end. What the ultimate government of Ireland will be is settled, and it will be so, and what my share in the work has been and is to be, also. I do wish you would stop fretting about me. We know nothing of how or why, but only that we love one another, and that through all the ages is the one fact that cannot be forgotten nor put aside by us."
He spoke slowly, with many silences between sentence and sentence, and presently I said: "But perhaps I have hurt your work."