Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life

by Kitty O'Shea

Another of his hobbies was the "assaying" of small pieces of quartz from the stream at Wicklow, and I used to help him for hours at this, keeping his blow-pipe constantly at work, while he, silent and absorbed, manipulated the crucibles. When we went to live at Brighton, after my aunt's death, he had a furnace fitted up in one of the rooms so that he could work on a larger scale. His endeavour to obtain gold from this quartz was rewarded to a certain extent; but the working was, of course, far too laborious and expensive to be profitable otherwise than as a hobby. However, Parnell for five years worked at it in various odd hours till he had extracted sufficient gold to line my wedding ring, even though his hope of getting enough for the whole ring was not fulfilled.

When working at these things Parnell was absolutely oblivious to the passing of time, and it was with difficulty that I prevailed upon him to take sufficient exercise, or even to take his meals before they were spoiled by waiting. He would order his horse, "President," to be taken to a certain place about a half-mile from the house, at the hour he wished to ride, and then become so absorbed in the particular hobby of the moment that even I could get nothing from him but an abstracted smile and a gentle "Is that so?" in answer to the intimation that his horse had been waiting some two hours or more for him.

Many a day I have let him work up to the last possible moment, and then literally pulled off the old "cardigan" jacket he worked in, and forced him into his frock-coat for the House; and it happened more than once that he was due to attend a meeting in Ireland, and when I had packed his things and had the carriage at the door ready for him he would throw himself into a chair and with his slow, grave smile say, "You are in a hurry to get rid of me; I will not go yet. Sit down and let me look at you a bit, my Queen." I would protest that he must go, that he would lose the mail train. "Then I'll be no use at the meeting, for it will be over!" he would mockingly reply; and so, when the last possible chance of his being in time had vanished, he would sit opposite me through the evening talking of politics, Avondale, the assaying—of anything that came into his head always watching me with that intent, considering gaze that was my bewilderment and my joy.

When he failed a meeting like this, where hundreds of people were waiting for him—or other appointments, private or public—I sometimes would want him to telegraph, or write, apologizing or excusing his non-attendance, but this he would never do, saying, "You do not learn the ethics of kingship, Queenie. Never explain, never apologize"; adding, with his rare laugh: "I could never keep my rabble together if I were not above the human weakness of apology."

When Parnell came home from Ireland after these meetings he would sit smoking and watching me as I went through the pockets of the coats he had worn while away. It was a most interesting game, and he enjoyed it as much as I when I brought out a new trophy from the depths of the deepest and most obvious side pocket. It was a point of honour that he should not "feel or look" till he got home to me, and I have a dear little collection of souvenirs now from these pockets—little medals with the images of various saints, scapulars and badges, slipped in by the deft, modest fingers of sweet-faced nuns, in the crowds, whose startled, deprecating blushes when he turned and caught the delinquent in the act always won a courteous bow and smile from the heretic "Chief" whose conversion their patriotic hearts so ardently desired. I found also odds and ends pressed upon him by the hero-worshipping peasants, some gruesome scrap of the rope that had hanged some unknown scamp and hero, so "aising to the bone-pains, an' his riv'rance not looking, a bit of a twisht roun' yer honour's arrm!" or perhaps a flattened old bullet that had gained some fancied power in its evil journey through a man's heart. Then there were the brand-new kerchiefs of most vivid green, most beautifully embroidered by the clever fingers of "herself," and so many four-leaved, and therefore "lucky," shamrocks from the "colleens," who went singing all the year if they thereby earned a smile from the Chief. Even the little children used to make sudden, shy offerings to their hero; a "quare bit ave a stone," a "farden me mither giv me," or some uneasy looking fragment of what might once have been a bird's egg. Of sticks, blackthorns and others, I once had an enormous collection brought back to me at various times by Parnell, but these, together with the two riding-whips I had myself given him, were stolen from me some ten years ago, when I was moving from one house to another. The two riding-whips I prized very highly, for Parnell was so pleased when I gave them to him. One was gold-mounted, the other silver-mounted, and each had "C.S.P." engraved upon it.

Among my stick collection was one made of horn—a curious thing, carved and inlaid with ivory, sent him by some unknown American admirer. He used this stick on his last journey upstairs from the sitting-room to the bed where he died.

In January of 1881, Willie, who had rooms then in Charles Street, Haymarket, came down to Eltham suddenly, very angry indeed with me because he had seen some men watching his lodgings, and imagined that I had engaged a detective to do so. As I had never had an idea of doing anything of the sort I was extremely annoyed, and a violent quarrel was the result. As a matter of fact, the men were watching the upper floor, where a friend of Willie's lived, and this friend's wife afterwards divorced him.

All these months, since my first meeting with Mr. Parnell, Willie knew at least that I frequently met him at the House. He had invited him to Eltham himself, though when the visit was first proposed I said my house was too shabby, the children would worry so nervous a man and we had better not break the routine of our (Willie's and my) life (which by then was tacitly accepted as a formal separation of a friendly sort) giving any and every excuse, because of the danger I knew I was not able to withstand.

But Willie was blind to the existence of the fierce, bewildering force that was rising within me in answer to call of those passion-haunted eyes, that waking or sleeping never left me. Willie then, as always, was content that what was his, was his for good or ill. He knew that men, in our past life together, had admired me, even that some had loved me; but that was to their own undoing, an impertinence that had very properly recoiled upon their own heads. His wife could not love anyone but himself; perhaps unfortunately she did not even do that, but after all "love" was only a relative term—a little vulgar even, after girlhood had passed, and the mild affection of his own feelings towards her were no doubt reciprocated, in spite of the unfortunate temperamental differences that made constant companionship impossible.

So Parnell came, having in his gentle, insistent way urged his invitation, and from Willie. And now Willie and I were quarrelling because he, my lawful husband, had come down without the invitation that was now (for some years) understood as due to the courtesy of friends, and because he had become vaguely suspicious. Flying rumours had perhaps reached his ears; and now it was too late, for he dared not formulate them, they were too vague; too late, for I had been swept into the avalanche of Parnell's love; too late, for I possessed the husband of my heart for all eternity.