Man in the Shadows (15 page)

She walked along Metcalfe Street, on the way to the market to buy the evening meal for the boarders. It had been raining for the past two days; the streets were muddy and she stayed on the boardwalk. She stepped away from a carriage hurling filth as its wheels passed. She pictured Conor’s mother sitting up all night with a dying woman … feeling the fevers slowly boil inside her … trying to stay strong in front of her husband and child. She wondered if she could ever be that brave.

“So if it isn’t Meg Trotter,” someone called from behind her.

Another added, “Are you a Papist now, Meg?”

She knew these people from school, sons of Orangemen who had marched in the parade. Quickly, they surrounded her.

“Leave me alone,” she ordered.

“No, you leave
him
alone,” the largest of the group responded. The others laughed. She recognized the drummer she had waved at during the parade. She had never thought of him as a bully. She searched for his name. Dave? Dan? Doug? Something like that. She
looked at him for some sympathy, and he responded solemnly, “Stick to your own kind, Meg. It’s better that way.” It was as if he were reciting a lesson in church.

Meg was terrified but didn’t want them to see her fear. She shoved one of them. He gave ground. She stared at the drummer. He recoiled.

They left as quickly as they had arrived. And she ran down the boardwalk, clutching her letter from Conor.

“MCMICKEN
, is there no end to your reports?” The prime minister was sitting in the Rideau Club, sipping on a glass of champagne, reading the
Ottawa Citizen
and considering buying a new suit he saw advertised. Cartier buys his suits in London, he mused. I am a true Canadian, buying locally when it’s all I can afford. He didn’t really care about affairs of the state on this gloomy August day.

“I have a brief report from the Mother Country, sir.”

“Derby and Disraeli’s problems. Probably Gladstone’s soon. Not mine, so it sounds good to me, already.” He turned the newspaper’s page and nursed his drink. “Carry on, I’m listening as best I can.” Macdonald loved the Old World pretentions of the Rideau Club. It felt so very British. As the club’s founding president, he enjoyed holding court in his favourite overstuffed chair in the large sitting room. It was strategically placed so he could both watch what was going on and be seen by those who mattered. Occasionally, he would smile at friends or frown at enemies. Gilbert McMicken sat beside him, focusing only on the prime minister.

“As you know, there were Fenian uprisings in Ireland last March,” McMicken declared.

“And as
you
know, the Royal Irish Constabulary quelled them,” Macdonald responded. He loved to have the facts at his fingertips
and didn’t conceal his delight in reporting back to McMicken. “Three men were hanged in Manchester, I do believe.”

“That’s right, sir, but it’s more complicated. The ringleader, a man called Tom Kelly, was being taken from court to Manchester jail when his Fenian colleagues intercepted the van, and in the process, a policeman was killed.”

“‘Fenian colleagues’? You mean murderers.” He held up the advertisement. “Do you like the look of this tie?”

McMicken ignored the diversion. “They were caught, convicted of murder and hanged.”

“As I just told you.” Macdonald went back to the newspaper, muttering, “I may have too many red ties.”

“In retaliation, a bomb has just exploded in London’s Clerkenwell Prison. I don’t know how many are dead yet. We just got the dispatch.” Now he had the prime minister’s attention, although Macdonald was determined not to let him know it. He put the newspaper down, but held on to his champagne glass. “A bomb? In London?”

“They are taking the battle for Irish independence out of Ireland and into Britain.”

Macdonald didn’t know what to say. McMicken filled the void. “Tom Kelly is an American. It seems he developed some of these tactics in the Civil War.”

“Is there any connection to what’s happening here?”

“I don’t know. We will try to find out.”

“I fear the Irish fight can only get worse there,” Macdonald sighed. “But here, it’s just a bunch of hotheads getting us worked up for nothing. I know you disagree, and Mr. McGee goes on and on about it, but that’s my view.”

McMicken sensed that Macdonald did appreciate the dangers in this new world of conspiracy and terrorism; he just wished they would go away.

H
e arrived at two exactly and introduced himself to Mary McGee as Jasper Green. He had a perfect Southern drawl, not a hint of Irish in his voice. She was polite but distant as he made small talk about the weather and took in the downstairs room. Very Irish, he thought, with clichéd shamrocks and sickening green paint. A little womanish. This was her house, clearly. The front door had a cheap lock—he could break it in seconds—but the house was on a busy street and it might be reckless to try to break in. The back windows led to an alley, so there was a means of escape, but it was an active place. McGee’s family littered the house, and there was that ever-present assistant.

“I do hope your husband is feeling better,” he said. Obsequious. Caring. Thoughtful. But she didn’t seem to buy his act.

“You are not to keep him long,” she instructed. “He is still very tired.”

Conor was upstairs in the bedroom, reporting his failure to discover anything about the troublemaker at Jolicoeur’s. He was delighted to be called downstairs to avoid accusations of ineptitude. He led the reporter upstairs.

McGee was propped up in his bed with his bad leg elevated on pillows. He still looked weak, but there was eagerness in his eyes as
he met Jasper Green. He enjoyed talking to reporters. He loved talking about himself.

“I gather it’s Young Ireland that interests you,” McGee said. He felt they had better get right to it because Mary and Dr. O’Brien could interrupt them at any time.

“Yes, I’m doing a piece on the roots of Fenianism, and I’m told you are the man to talk to.” The bedroom had a large window. He couldn’t tell if there was a way down—an escape route.

“I know a thing or two about Irish history. Have you read my book?”

The reporter nodded. He saw that McGee had a sharp letter opener within easy reach on his bedside table. His meddlesome assistant was probably unarmed. “You’ve been a part of some Irish history yourself, I understand.” Flatter the bastard, egg him on and push a bruise. “Could I say you were a Fenian?”

Conor cocked an eye. Interesting. The big question right away. It was well known that D’Arcy McGee had stood against the British in Ireland back in the 1840s. His political foes in Ottawa loved to taunt him about it. He always claimed he was a propagandist, not a warrior. And he was hardly alone in having a rebellious past. George-Étienne Cartier, the very picture of the establishment, had fought the Château Clique in the 1837 rebellion. In fact, he had barely escaped the gallows. William Lyon Mackenzie, the famous leader of the rebellion in Toronto, was later elected to the Legislative Assembly, where his voice was still heard but the roar had gone. But what of McGee? He certainly avoided calling himself a Fenian yesterday.

“I would not put it that way, sir.” McGee clearly disliked the question being put so bluntly—Conor could tell by the way he made the word “sir” sound like a slur. “It was at the height—or the depth—of the famine, and I joined up with a group under the illustrious name of Young Ireland. We were rebels, no question about it. We decried the
famine and hurled abuse at injustice. We were a good lot: idealistic, but not as extreme and certainly not as violent as these dimwits today. We felt Ireland should belong to the Irish, and I think that still.”

Conor did not say a word. He just watched and listened. The reporter took notes, as if he cared.

“Back then, I was angry—no, I was furious—and with good cause. The famine was so terrible, it cannot be exaggerated. The English landlords stayed in their green and pleasant land while hopelessness and despair stared us straight in the face. My heart grew sick at the daily scenes of misery. Nothing green, nothing noble, could grow on our land.”

“But what happened?” Conor asked. It wasn’t his interview, but he had to know. If he learned more about McGee’s days in Ireland, then maybe he could better understand his father—and himself.

“Well, I never fired a gun, if that’s what you want to know, Conor.” McGee thought for a few seconds and chuckled. “But I did cause more than my share of trouble—as always, with my pen and with my mouth. I made speeches, damned good ones, attacking the English for this and blasting them for that. And I wrote articles urging people to send us money and arms.”

The reporter picked up on the last word. “Arms?”

“Have you ever been to Ireland, Mr. Green?”

“No, I’ve never left this continent,” he lied.

“Put yourself back in those times, in that place, if you can. Irish towns had become poorhouses, farms were fever sheds, the country one great graveyard. One-quarter of the population had died of disease or famine. And there was a mass exodus to the New World. A population of eight million cut in half in just a few years. Yes, I admit I was a fool. I remember once writing, ‘Farewell, sickle; welcome, sword,’ and actually thinking it was a noble phrase.” He sat up quickly in bed. “But I would not go along with what some of
the others wanted: an open declaration of war with England. I was inflammatory and imprudent, but I had some common sense.” He lay down again. “We would have been destroyed, anyway. Read your history. It’s in my book. The great Tudor queen, Elizabeth, sent her pirates into Ireland for plunder, the parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell massacred us, and you’ve seen what your fellow citizens think of William of Orange. King Billy’s heirs still march as if they’re on the banks of the River Boyne. Yes, English statesmen and soldiers have had a taste for Irish massacres.”

He abruptly stopped talking. He could feel the fury within him and he wanted to calm it. “But I would never want to be defined by hatred. Learn about the past, remember it, but use that knowledge to prevent hatred from continuing.”

The reporter looked up from his notes. What a pile of shite, he thought. I should kill the bastard right now. “What happened to you next?” he asked politely.

“Ah, the plot thickens. I went to Scotland, raising money for Young Ireland. I had a list of nearly four hundred men ready to take the risk. Yes, those were heady days.” A spasm of pain in his leg reminded McGee that these were different days, a different country, and he a far different man. “One day, I went into a reading room in Paisley. I’ll never forget it. I picked up a government magazine called
Hue and Cry,
and written there in bold letters was a police notice for the arrest of one Thomas D’Arcy McGee. I was twenty-three years old, with a three-hundred-guinea price on my head.”

“My God,” Conor blurted out. “You were a wanted man!”

“Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Well, it scared the devil out of me. I was warned that the English army knew I was in Scotland. I had to get away. I took the guise of a sickly Dublin student on holiday and fled to the north of England. From there, I was secreted by boat to Belfast. The ship was filled with Orangemen cheering the defeat of
the young Irelanders. And defeat it was. My friends either had been rounded up or, like me, were on the run. We were finished before we had even begun.”

Conor wondered if he saw a tear forming in McGee’s eye.

“Poor Mary,” he continued. “She was in Dublin, fretting though all of this. We had been married only a short time, and she was with child. It must have been terrible for her. I saw her for about an hour by the River Foyle in Derry. We had just enough time to say goodbye. The English were, as they say, hot on my trail.”

He could probably slip some poison in his medicine. But that wouldn’t be dramatic enough. That letter opener was certainly inviting. There was a lull in the conversation; he had to fill it. What would a reporter want to know? Facts. Names. Dates. “When exactly was this?” he asked.

“It was September of ‘48,” McGee answered, reciting the day he knew so well. “On September 1, I boarded a ship called the
Shamrock
off the coast of Derry. I sailed alone to America, bursting with hatred for the English and longing for my wife and country.” Then he slowly smiled and said to Conor, “You’re looking at a man who once appeared destined for the priesthood.” Conor looked shocked. Jasper Green stared at McGee blankly. “Yes, I was disguised as a seminary student for the trip across the Atlantic, Lord preserve my soul.”

“There’s something I don’t understand,” the reporter said. “Why did you eventually come to British North America?” He said “British” with a slight sneer.

McGee was prepared for the question. “When I went to America, I quickly got a job writing anti-British articles in newspapers. I started as a reporter—like you, I suppose.” There was no response, so McGee continued. “Then I began publishing newspapers myself. My main concern was the plight of the Irish immigrant. We were pouring into the slums of New York and Boston like rainwater into
a sewer. If we found work, it was for the lowest of wages. If an Irish worker complained, he was replaceable. The next ship would dock any day.

“We were farmers, people from the land, but when we came to America, we settled in cities. It was wrong. I tried to get people to move west, to stay close to the earth, where their values were, but the farthest most got was the Erie Canal. Irish sweat and muscle dug that canal, and Irish graves litter its shore. You’ve heard of the expression ‘low Irish,’ haven’t you?”

Conor nodded. The reporter said simply, “Yes, I’ve heard the phrase.”

“There were signs everywhere in this so-called land of the free forbidding us to work. ‘No Irish Need Apply.’ It was outrageous. Let me ask you a question. What is worse: being evicted from farms in Ireland, or living in an American shantytown, digging a canal? Living and starving in Ireland, or rotting in a New York tenement, dreaming of your homeland?”

Jasper Green from Cincinnati looked up from his notebook. He could hear noise downstairs. Someone was at the door. Was it the special delivery letter? No, too early.