CHAPTER XII
HOBBIES AND A CHALLENGE
"Admire, exult—despise—laugh, weep—for here
There is much matter for all feeling: Man!
Thou Pendulum betwixt a smile and tear."
—BYRON.
In the early summer of 1881 my aunt had one of her old friends to stay with her, and I seized the opportunity of freedom to take my children to Brighton for a month, after settling the old ladies together. I had gone down before the children to take rooms for them, and was walking across Brighton Station when I was suddenly joined by a tall man whom I did not recognize for a moment until he said quietly, "Don't you know me?" It was Mr. Parnell, who had slipped into the train at Clapham Junction, knowing that I was going to Brighton, and had cut off his beard with his pocket scissors in the train in order to avoid being recognized at Brighton. He had wrapped a white muffler round his throat, and pulled it as high as possible over the lower part of his face, with the result that the manageress of the hotel he stayed at was certain that he had an infectious illness of the throat, and rather demurred at letting him in. It was only by the expedient of complaining loudly at being kept waiting in the draught with his "raging toothache" that "Mr. Stewart" was reluctantly admitted. I could not bear his appearance neither bearded nor shaven—so he went off soon after arrival, was properly shaved, and relieved the hotel staff by discarding the muffler and assuring them that he was free from pain now his "tooth" was out.
He went to Cork soon after this and, to please me, was photographed without his beard and with the ring I had given him on his finger. We had had a little quarrel, and were very unhappy until we had made it up again, and he had this photograph done to remind me that he wore my ring. He also gave sittings to Henry O'Shea (no relation of Captain O'Shea) for a portrait (pencil) at this time, and this was sent to him while he was in Kilmainham. He liked this sketch much, and wrote to the paper for which it was done to this effect. When he left the prison he brought this sketch home to me, and I have it now. It hung in our dining-room till he died, and he always liked it, but I still think it a little hard and expressionless; the eyes are too large and empty. There was a painting done of Parnell years afterwards, and here also the artist failed with the eyes. This latter portrait was not, I think, done from life, but from photographs, so there was reason for the failure in this respect, photographs making unsatisfactory studies. The artist who painted this last picture gave Parnell blue eyes; presumably following the idea that Parnell was an Irishman, and must therefore have blue eyes, whereas the facts were that Parnell was not an Irishman, but the son of an Englishman resident in Ireland and his American wife, and had brown eyes, not large, but with the smouldering fires in them that gave character to his cold, high-bred face.
Parnell had so many hobbies and interests in his home life that it is difficult to enumerate them all. He once said rather wearily that if he had not "taken off his coat" in the Irish cause and for the Irish people he could have been always happy at home working at things so much more congenial to him.
At one time he took up all the intricacies of bookkeeping in order that he might check his Irish agent's accounts, and many weeks he sat immersed in double entry, estate accounts keeping, commercial booking, etc., in the evening, while I sat near him typing replies to his letters ready for his signature. He used to threaten me with lessons in book-keeping, so that I might be ready to help him with the estate management at Avondale when we went to live there; but I felt that my duties as his extra and most private secretary were sufficiently arduous, and declined instruction in account-keeping.
Many hours were also spent in architectural drawings, which interested him greatly. At that time Brighton Station was being rebuilt, and Parnell was intensely interested in getting the "span" of the roof. He spent hours at odd times pacing the station, measuring distances, heights, depth of roof, etc., etc., and in drawing up plans in order that he might build a cattle shed on the same lines at Avondale. These plans he afterwards submitted to a well-known architect for his opinion on them, and they were returned as absolutely correct in every detail. He then reduced the whole thing to scale and had the cattle shed made from these plans at Avondale.
I well remember his look of reproach at me when I laughed while reading him a letter from his agent at Avondale the following winter. The agent said that Mrs. Delia Parnell (Parnell's mother) had arrived unexpectedly at Avondale, and, after seeing the new cattle shed, had at once decided to give an entertainment in it. This she had done, having the cattle shifted from their comfortable quarters, the place boarded in, and a temporary floor laid down.
Parnell did not see that this expensive and troublesome eviction of his cattle for so frivolous a reason was in the least funny, and was very greatly annoyed at the whole proceeding. He was always most chivalrously kind to his mother, however, and his protest on this occasion was very gentle, though coupled with firm insistence, on the instant restoration of the cattle-house to its tenants.