Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life

by Kitty O'Shea

I sent him off bright and happy to the last meeting at Creggs. As he drove off to the station and Dictator rounded the corner of the house, he turned, as usual, to wave to me, and raised the white rose in his buttonhole to his lips with an answering smile.

He sent me a telegram from London as he was starting from Euston Station, one from Holyhead, and another from Dublin. For the Creggs meeting he stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Mahoney, and his telegram from their house was cheerful, though he said he was not feeling very well.

In the few lines I had from him here I knew he was in much pain again from the rheumatism in his left arm. He always told me exactly how he was feeling, as he knew that unless he did this I would have suffered untold misery from apprehension while he was away. From Creggs he telegraphed that he was about to speak, and it was "terrible weather." I thought with satisfaction that I had put a special change into a bag for him, and he had promised not to be parted from it, so I knew he would find means of changing his things directly after the meeting. His "good night" telegram did not reassure me; he was in bad pain from the rheumatism, but hoped to get it out with a Turkish bath on the way home.

He stayed in Dublin to see about the new paper which though "going" well, was a perpetual trouble to him owing to the petty jealousies of the staff. He crossed over from Ireland feeling very ill, with violent pains all over him; he was implored to go to bed, and remain there for a few days till he felt better, before starting for England; but he only replied: "No, I want to get home; I must go home!"

He telegraphed to me from Holyhead as usual, and directly he got to London, and before coming on to Brighton he had a Turkish bath in London.

He seemed to me very weak when he got out of the buggy. I had sent a closed fly to meet him, as well as the buggy, but as a forlorn hope, for he would always be met by Dictator in the buggy at the station

I helped him into the house, and he sank into his own chair before the blazing fire I had made, in spite of the warm weather, and said: "Oh, my Wifie, it is good to be back. You may keep me a bit now!"

I was rather worried that he should have travelled immediately after a Turkish bath, but he said it had done him much good. I did not worry him then, but after he had eaten a fairly good dinner I told him that I wanted him to have Sir Henry Thompson down the next day. He laughed at the idea, but I was very much in earnest, and he said he would see how he felt in the morning.

He told me that he had had to have his arm in a sling all the time he was away, but that he thought he had become so much worse because the change of clothes I had packed separately in a small bag (which he had promised not to be parted from) in case he had to speak in the rain, had been taken home in error by his host, and he had had to sit in his wet things for some hours.