Redemption - Leon Uris [31]
“Winston,” he said, turning blunt, “the Irish are a backward people with no right to deny England its destiny. It is England’s right and England’s duty to protect England’s vital interests and thus, we must govern Ireland to protect ourselves.”
He went on to say that the planting of a population loyal to the Crown in Ulster protected the Crown’s interests.
Never failing to arouse himself on the subject, even after some fifty speeches over the Province of Ulster, he came to his feet.
“What we are dealing with is the fact that the Irish are hostile people who have rejected all overtures to unite with us, as have the Scots and Welsh. Ireland’s only purpose for self-government is to bring disaster on us, and we cannot permit that to happen.”
The rough sea sent my father back to his couch, emptying his bottle and mumbling a comment about Countess Caroline Hubble’s bosom.
I returned to my toy soldiers, sharing my father’s thoughts.
12
1890
A lesser girl than Atty would have taken Jack Murphy’s emigration as a personal rebuff. Atty refused to be humiliated. She came to her decisions only after great consideration and pondering. Once she made them, they remained fast. Her emotions, shaped by her own truths, were set in concrete.
Atty made two life decisions by the age of sixteen. She hated the injustice of the British rule and she loved Jack Murphy. Both decisions were logical to her and both inseparable.
Jack’s departure was soothed somewhat by kindly letters from rare and exotic surrounding places…Tampico…Bora Bora…Christchurch…Monrovia…Montevideo.
“I do love you, Atty,” Jack Murphy wrote, “but not in the mating way. Even if I had the right to love you with physical passion in mind, it still might not be possible. Too many things we came into the world with have frayed our tapestry from the beginning. We might as well have been born, you in India and me in Argentina, there are so many differences between us.
“To be utterly honest, there is you, Atty, who is the real difference. You are so soft and beautiful to look upon, yet so hard and frightening to know. You are bitter, Atty, determined to throw your life into changing an unchangeable world. The odds you have placed on reaching your goals are insurmountable. While I adore your courage and determination, I don’t adore my own that much. I know I could never be a proper partner for you in such a venture. I seek much less from life. You are too strong for me, Atty, and I dare say you are too strong for almost any man, for he must be willing to subvert himself to your insatiable drive.
“Only myself sees that inner rage in you now, but soon all of Ireland will know about it. Nae, all the world. Do I make any sense to you at all? Now I close as I opened this letter. I love you, but not in that way.”
Was Jack Murphy too weak for her or simply too wise? He knew her truths and said he could not match them. It was an elegant rebuff. He called himself a quitter. Nonetheless, Atty felt anger with her pain. Why couldn’t Jack hold up? Or was it all just his way of saying he didn’t really love her?
After her seventeenth birthday, Atty announced to her parents that she was not returning to London for further schooling but was off to Dublin instead.
“Is this an advisement or a consultation?” her father asked.
“I’ve made my decision, Father. Seek whatever justifications you need.”
There was no call going into all that trash about disinheriting her, Charles Royce-Moore wisely concluded. It was a small miracle he was able to keep her close for seventeen years. “I suppose,” he said, “that you are intent on joining this Gaelic mutiny going on in Dublin.”
“I’m not all that certain.”
“Well, since Parnell,” he said, trying to manage not to make a mock spit, “the clans have been gathering to run the Anglo rascals out with a new birth of ancient Celtic tribalism. Gaelic sports, Gaelic literature, and all those bloody newspaper articles—how in the name of the Almighty did this one little place sprout so many