"Papel y tinta y poca justicia." ("Paper, ink, and a little justice.")
                                                —OLD SPANISH PROVERB.
 
 
In November, 1890, Parnell was served with a copy of the petition in the divorce case, O'Shea v. O'Shea and Parnell, by Wontner at Messrs. Lewis and Lewis's. I was served with the petition in the same month at 10, Walsingham Terrace, Brighton. Mr. George Lewis and his confidential clerk came down, and took some evidence for the case from me, but Parnell declined to instruct any solicitor from the first to last. He, however, accompanied me when I went to town to consult Sir Frank Lockwood, my counsel, a junior counsel being also present.
 
"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 {281} 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, {282} 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. {283} 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."
 
"No, you have not. I sometimes think that is why you came to me, for I was very ill then and you kept the life in me and the will to go on when I was very weary of it all; you have stood to me for comfort and strength and my very life. I have never been able to feel in the least sorry for having come into your life. It had to be, and the bad times I have caused you and the stones that have been flung and that will be flung at you are all no matter, because to us there is no one else in all the world that matters at all—when you get to the bottom of things."
 
Late next morning I awoke from the deep sleep of exhaustion to find him sitting by me superintending the arrangement of "letters, tea and toast," and to my anxious query as to the time I was answered by his quiet laugh, and "I've done you this time, Queenie; I sent the telegram long ago, and they must be enjoying themselves in Court by now!"
 
That was Saturday, November 15th, and on Monday, the 17th, my Brighton solicitor brought me down a copy of the "decree nisi." We were very happy that evening, and Parnell declared he would have the "decree" framed. We made many plans for the future that evening of where {284} we should go when the six months had passed and the decree made absolute. I even ventured to suggest that he might marry someone else once I was set completely free, but my lover was not amused and scolded me for suggesting such disgusting ideas.
 
Sir Frank Lockwood was terribly distressed about us and his inability to "save Parnell for his country," but he was very kind to me, and did all he could to help me in certain legal matters.
 
On November 26th there was a meeting of the Irish Party, which my King attended. The meeting was adjourned until December 1st. When my lover came home to me that evening I would not let him speak till he had changed his cold boots and socks; then he came over to me, and took me into his arms, saying, "I think we shall have to fight, Queenie. Can you bear it? I'm afraid it is going to be tough work."
 
I said, "Yes, if you can." But I must confess that when I looked at the frail figure and white face that was so painfully delicate, whose only vitality seemed to lie in the deep, burning eyes, my heart misgave me for I very much doubted if his health would stand any prolonged strain.
 
I burst out passionately, "Why does it matter more now? They have all known for years," and his rare, low laugh came out with genuine amusement as he replied, "My sweetheart, they are afraid of shocking Mr. Gladstone."
 
"But Gladstone——" I began, bewildered.
 
"Just so, but we are public reprobates now, it just makes the difference. He is a 'devout Christian,' they tell me."
 
While Parnell sat down at work at his manifesto I {285} deliberated for hours as to whether I ought to let him go on. Should I urge him to come abroad with me? I knew he would come if I said I could not bear the public fight. I looked at him as he sat now absolutely absorbed in what he was writing, and now looking across at me when he had something ready to be pinned together. He did not speak, only the smoulder in his eyes grew deeper as he wrote.
 
I loved him so much, and I did so long to take him away from all the ingratitude and trouble—to some sunny land where we could forget the world and be forgotten. But then I knew that he would not forget; that he would come at my bidding, but that his desertion of Ireland would lie at his heart; that if he was to be happy he must fight to the end. I knew him too well to dare to take him away from the cause he had made his life-work; that even if it killed him I must let him fight—fight to the end—it was himself—the great self that I loved, and that I would not spoil even through my love, though it might bring the end in death.
 
I looked up feeling that he was watching me, and met the burning fire-flame of his eyes steadily, through my tears, as he said, closing his hand over mine, "I am feeling very ill, Queenie, but I think I shall win through. I shall never give in unless you make me, and I want you to promise me that you will never make me less than the man you have known." I promised it.
 
He was feeling very ill. November was always a bad month for his health, and the cold and damp gave him rheumatism. His left arm pained him almost continuously all this winter. I used to rub it and his shoulder with firwood oil, in which he had great belief, and pack his arm in wool, which seemed to be some relief.
 
{286}
On Saturday morning, November 29th, his manifesto appeared in all the papers.[2]
 
War was now declared, and the first battle was fought in Committee Room 15, where all the miserable treachery of Parnell's followers—and others—was exposed. The Grand Old Man had spoken, and his mandate must be obeyed. Ever swift to take advantage of a political opportunity, he struck at the right moment, remorselessly, for he knew that without giving away the whole of his policy Parnell could not point to the hypocrisy of a religious scruple so suddenly afflicting a great statesman at the eleventh hour. For ten years Gladstone had known of the relations between Parnell and myself, and had taken full advantage of the facility this intimacy offered him in keeping in touch with the Irish leader. For ten years. But that was a private knowledge. Now it was a public knowledge, and an English statesman must always appear on the side of the angels.
 
So Mr. Gladstone found his religion could at last be useful to his country. Parnel............