A fortnight went by and the lad's fascination had not waned.
"Master Harkin," she said one evening late.
"Larkin, ma'am, Conor Larkin."
"You always seem to be the last one to leave."
"I hope you don't mind, ma'am. Mr. Lambe leaves me one of his horses to ride home."
"What is it that you find so awesome in this tangle of iron?"
"It was the masterpiece of Jean Tijou, the greatest man who ever put a hammer on a hot piece of iron."
"You know about this screen? Its history?"
"Aye. It's legend. I mean, the legends are really old schanachie tales. Our schanachie, Daddo Friel, he's near blind now.... Anyhow, he told me about this screen for hours on end."
"That's fascinating. Care to share your secrets?"
"Oh, you know how it is. Most schanachie stories are pretty wild...they shoot them past you like comets. Just old stories."
"I insist."
"No, ma'am."
"I insist."
"Well, it might not be to your liking."
"I insist."
"It is an utter paradox," Conor said, "how the most beautiful work of its kind could be used for the most cruel..."
"Go on. I was born in Belfast. I do know my Irish history."
"During the insurrection of seventeen hundred and fifteen, a local rising, the earl at that time imprisoned three hundred and fifty women and children behind the screen as hostages. The rest is not too important."
"They died?"
"Something like that. Probably a faerie's tale."
"Yes," she said rather harshly, "the schanachies can be frightful liars. Anyhow, Londonderry seems to be filled with tales I'll need catching up on."
Conor's cheeks turned crimson. Daddo Friel does not lie, he thought angrily! And it's not Londonderry...it's Derry.
"Well, perhaps some day in the future, when you are older and have earned your ironmaster certification, you can work on a full restoration of the screen."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied without enthusiasm.
"Anyhow, just make certain it doesn't fall down on Lord Churchill's head."
Oh, if it would only collapse and squish Randolph Churchill like an ugly bug, Conor thought.
"You see," she said backing off a bit, "Lord Churchill is very important...."
"I know who he is. He's no friend of Charles Stewart Parnell."
Conor and Lady Caroline had nothing to say to each other after that. However, once or twice a day, and sometimes even more often, there was a direct look from one to the other and sometimes it lasted for several seconds.
Conor Larkin's dearest friend, Seamus O'Neill, was born as an afterthought, the scrapings of the pot. With a family of more than enough O'Neill men to work their fields, young Seamus had a childhood of exceptional leisure. For an Irish mother, no greater pleasure in life could come than spoiling the youngest son. To his credit, Seamus did not spend his time creating mischief as he might, but rather enriching his everlasting and deep and monumental friendship with Conor-who was also his hero, because Conor was destined to become a great republican fighter like all the Larkin men and particularly Conor's grandfather Kilty, God rest his soul.
When the new national school opened in Ballyutogue for the villages around, Seamus talked his parents into letting him enroll. Being one of three Catholics in a roomful of Protestants and being the runt of the litter had its disadvantages.
Although the teacher, Mr. Andrew Ingram, was a Scottish Presbyterian, he was an enlightened man who would tolerate no bigotry within his eyesight. Mr. Ingram was fast to realize that Seamus was his best student and supplied the boy with books that would otherwise be inaccessible. Moreover, he tutored Seamus to fill the boy's longing to become a writer.
Seamus had protection outside the schoolyard if he could make it to Mr. Lambe's forge close by. When chased, he would scurry to his eternal friend Conor for help.
Finally, the boys made a pact. Seamus would teach Conor to read and write and Conor would teach Seamus to fight. It was difficult going for both of them in the beginning, but when Seamus punched the school bully bloody and Conor conquered the first primer, their battle was won.
Conor now had access to books, and the worlds they told of that he never dreamed he would know. A magic planet burst open. Each school day Seamus ran to the forge and when Conor closed it down the two would go off to their secret place near the old Norman keep to explore their new world beyond Ballyutogue.
It was not only of places and things they read, but great ideas. Mr. Ingram exposed them to Thomas Paine and assured them that all the signers of the American Declaration of Independence were Presbyterians. They were sure as hell different than the Ulster Presbyterians, Seamus thought.
Conor was a wizard, soon caught up to and passing Seamus. Suddenly, something went haywire with Conor. After he and Mr. Lambe had worked at Hubble Manor fixing the screen, Conor seemed suddenly to lose interest in books and just about everything else. His mind drifted away from republican matters, which was very disconcerting to Seamus. After a week of it, Seamus rebelled.
"Your face looks like the potato mush at the bottom of me ma's crock, Conor. What's the matter with you!"
"Nothin'."
"Is your ma pregnant again?"
"Christ, no, praise Mary."
"Then what's wrong with you?"
"Ugh, forget it."
"Ah shyte, Conor, you're a blister, that's wot!"
"If it is that evident then maybe I'd better confide in you, but this is even more sacred a secret than the confessional, understand? If you ever breathe a word about what I am about to tell you, I'll really kill you."
"When," Seamus protested, "have I ever betrayed a confidence? Name me just one time!"
"Then hold up your right hand."
Seamus did, proudly.
"Do you swear on your republican honor that this is our eternal secret?"
"Aye, I do. Have you killed somebody?"
"Christ, no. I'm in love with Caroline Hubble."
"Caroline Hubble! You'll not live to see another harvest harboring thoughts like that! This one time, you'd better go to confession."
"That's the last place I'd tell."
"I mean, really in love with her?"
"Aye, deeply, fiercely, tenderly. I think about her all the time and these wonderful sensations just shoot through me. I think about her before I fall asleep and you know what happens down there."
"Jaysus!"
"I'll tell you something. I see her look at me, too. Now, maybe she's not in love with me or anything but I know that she wants to tell me something. I know that!"
"You ain't got nothing she's looking for."
"Yeah, it's crazy-like," Conor agreed. "I'll just have to get over it."
"And fast-like. Suppose the utterly worst thing happened. In a trance induced by the faeries, she was to fall in love with you, despite the vast difference in your ages. And suppose she took you into a secret room and you and her did it. I mean really did it and while you were doing it, the viscount walked in and caught youse! Oh boy! Protestants would be rioting all over the world! And they'd take her out to the Guildhall Square in Derry and march her up to the chopping block like Anne Boleyn and hoick off her head, or maybe they'd burn her at the stake like Joan of Arc...and as for you, croppy boy, they'd draw and quarter you with four horses and hang your head up on a pike and every Protestant would come for miles just to spit on it...and she'd haunt Hubble Manor walking around whooing with her head tucked under her arm and all the potatoes in the fields would rot again and there'd be another famine because of your foul lust!"
"All right, all right. I've forgotten about her!"
"You swear!"
"Aye, I swear. I've forgotten about her."
Seamus sighed in relief at having waylaid his best friend on a certain path to self-destruction. "I don't believe you," he said at last.
11.
Secret Files of Winston Churchill, Covering 1885 General Recollections Regarding Ireland I recall my introduction to Ireland with utter clarity. I was twelve at the time and one is not apt to forget when he first learns he was almost born out of wedlock. I have often pondered if the lifelong strangeness and standoffishness that existed between my father and myself had anything to do with his adventures with my mother before their marriage. And, his adventures with other women after their marriage until his untimely death due to syphilis.
The trauma of learning of my "premature" arrival and my trip to Ireland came at the same time, near my twelfth birthday. Ireland was England's quasi-bastard, and I had similar status in my own family.
Lord Randolph's journey over the Irish Sea to Ulster fit into his relentless drive to become prime minister. My father had an issue of great urgency and popularity to be exploited; namely, he was out to stop the Irish Home Rule legislation that had been introduced into Commons by Charles Stewart Parnell and his new Irish Party.
I was to accompany him, and I suspect I was a good stage prop because the Ulster Protestant family unit was considered a blessing, in contrast to the popular platitude that "the Catholic family unit was a curse."
If my father could generate enough support in Ulster to turn back the Irish Home Rule Bill, he calculated it might bring about the downfall of the Gladstone government. This would put him in line for a high-ranking cabinet ministry in the new government as well as making him the leader in Commons. Thus he would be first in line to become the next prime minister.
The Orange Order, a fanatical Protestant fraternal lodge, and my father's ally, the Unionist Party of Ulster, were there to greet us at Larne with a banner and band. We were to traverse Ulster in the private train of their leading industrialist, Sir Frederick Weed, a bluff bully of a chap but rather likable.
Onward we clickety-clacked over our loyal province...Portadown...Armagh...Dungannon...speaking to ever growing throngs of men wearing bowler hats and orange sashes, generally in a state of frenzy. It was at Lurgan that Lord Randolph pressed their nerve with the battle cry, "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right."
Our finale was a great hall in a stately home outside Londonderry belonging to the Earl of Foyle and his son Roger Hubble, the Viscount Coleraine. Londonderry was the sacred city of the Protestants, a sort of Rome, Mecca, and Jerusalem rolled into one.
On this occasion at Hubble Manor my father went beyond himself. "You gallant comrades in Western Ulster stand on the forwardmost rampart of our great imperial adventure and you must not falter. I dare you to hold these walls as your ancestors held them three centuries ago. There are two Irelands in spirit, in religion, and in reality. The Ireland which is loyal to the Crown must remain in the Empire." And then it came...Rudyard Kipling's latest..."Sail on, oh ship of state, sail on, oh Union great...Shall Ulster from Britain sever? By the God who made us, never!"
I shall remember this speech for gentler things. Roger Hubble was also the son-in-law of Sir Frederick Weed, having recently married his daughter, Caroline. Even at my young age, standing in short trousers and school cap, I felt my first understanding of male passion. I had never seen so exquisite a woman.
For myself, at the age of twelve, I was privy, for the first time, to the private dialogue and strategies of men of great influence. Hearing my father's words and watching their effect upon the crowd...playing with cadence and key phrases was a lesson long remembered.
This was my introduction to the private and public use of power.
Although I loved my father, we spent little time together. This trip to Ulster, where he played his famous "Orange card" was to be our longest visit. He was a strange and erratic aristocrat, driven to seek power. Most of the other times we shared as father and son were strange, yes bizarre, little tours through the fleshpots of London where he seemed to receive deviant thrills watching freak shows, many of weird sexual content.
On our overnight trip from Belfast back to England he felt a strong desire to come to my cabin and explain to me the meaning of Ireland in the life of England. I was playing with my box of toy soldiers, which always accompanied me, setting up a tactical exercise while Lord Randolph was in his usual posture of finishing up his whiskey.
"The English people has made its mark on mankind as a great people. Through exploration, conquest, the plantation of loyal subjects in our colonies, trade and spreading our cultural benefits and legal superiority have made us the greatest nation in mankind's history."
There was nothing there to disagree with at the age of twelve.
"England is an island," he continued, "and in order to maintain our greatness we are dependent on our seafaring power, both commercially and militarily. Our sea lanes are our blood lines."
He asked me if I understood, and when put the way he stated it, it was quite clear to me.
"Ireland is a mass of destitute rocks. Its only importance is vis--vis England. Well then, we cannot allow a smaller or lesser people to threaten our position in the world.
"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.