CHAPTER V 1786-1788 Lord Edward and His Mother-Increasing Interest in F Lord Edward was once more in love, he said less about it than when Lady Catherine had been the heroine of his boyish romance. It does not appear that, even to his mother, his constant confidant, he mentioned, during the next few months, the passion which had taken hold of him. His silence may possibly have been due to the fact that this second affair was a more serious matter than the first; or, again, he may still have been young enough to be shamefaced over his own inconstancy. At any rate, his reticence marks a new stage in his development. One fancies, too, that other changes are perceptible; that his laughter is a trifle less frequent and wholehearted; that he has become a little older, a little wiser, than when "pretty dear Kate" was his constant theme. Perhaps something of the first freshness, so gay and so young as to be almost childish, is gone. And if his passionate love for his mother had lost nothing of its fervour-the devoted affection which, in its clinging tenderness and open expression, was more like that of a daughter than a son-yet even upon this it would seem that a change had passed; that it had become graver and deeper than before—an affection which was shadowed by that foreboding apprehensiveness of possible loss which belongs to the first realisation of the transitoriness of all things human. There had, however, been nothing to mar the gladness of their meeting after the months which, to one at least of the two, had seemed so long. The Duchess had passed through England on her way abroad in the autumn of the year which had witnessed the death of her boy's first fancy; and mother and son had met once more at her brother's house, where Lord Edward had eagerly awaited her. "Do not stay too long at Oxford," he wrote when she was already on her way; "for if you do, I shall die with impatience before you arrive. I can hardly write, I am so happy." It was some months before the two made up their minds to separate again. The Scotch scheme, notwithstanding all it had had to recommend it, had evidently died at birth, for there is no further mention of any such plan; and on the Duchess's departure Lord Edward accompanied her abroad, remaining with her at Nice until recalled to Ireland by the opening of Parliament. Dublin seems to have had no more attraction for him, on his return thither, than formerly; and, especially in the absence of his mother, had little to recommend it. He missed her at every turn, and told her so in language which must have been dear to the Duchess's heart. To visit her own home at Frescati and to find her absent, to go to bed in the familiar house without wishing her good-night, to come down in the morning and not to see her, to look at her flowers without having her to lean upon him-all this was very bad indeed." "You are," he tells her in another letter, with one of those touches of melancholy that are new-"you are, after all, what I love best in the world. I always return to you, and find it is the only love I do not deceive myself in. In thinking over with myself what misfortunes I found there was one I could not ;-but God bless you!" could bear, I There is, alas! no making terms with Fate; and whatever has to be borne can be borne. But the misfortune which Lord Edward felt would have been intolerable was spared him. His mother outlived him, to mourn his loss. Another significant change is apparent about this time. His interest, his personal concern, so to speak, in politics was evidently deepening to a marked degree. Yet here, too, the aspect of affairs was discouraging. In the country at large the Whiteboy disturbances had spread to an alarming extent, carrying with them. every species of crime and outrage; enlisting on the side of Government some of those who had hitherto remained either in opposition or had preserved a neutral attitude, and uniting together all parties in the effort to check the growing disaffection. From this cause and from others the political situation, in contrast to the agrarian, was one of exceptional tranquillity. The Viceroyalty of the young Duke of Rutland-not ten years older than Lord Edward himself had been popular. Although already impoverished by losses at play, his hospitalities were conducted on a scale of magnificence surpassing in brilliancy even that of the court he represented, and after a gayer fashion than was the case at Carlton House, of the "decorous indecorum" of which, to gether with the "dull regularity of its irregularities," the Duc de Chartres, on his first visit to England, is reported to have complained. The young Duke was honourable and generous, his wife beautiful-they were, indeed, said to be the handsomest couple in Ireland—and between them they had worked a revolution in Irish society, not altogether for the better, and which, with the sudden relaxation of manners that accompanied it, was far from pleasing to the stricter censors of morality, "accustomed," says a contemporary historian, "to the almost undeviating decorum of the Irish females." But whatever might be the effect, upon a society hitherto distinguished for its purity, of the absence of dignity and restraint which marked the Viceregal entertainments, the spirit of good fellowship engendered by conviviality is not without its use in smoothing away political rancour and bitterness; and the Duke's splendid hospitalities had drawn within the circle of his influence many who might otherwise have stood apart from it. The success of the system was apparent in Parliament. "It would not have been supposed possible, even three years ago," wrote the Chief Secretary, Orde, "to have attained almost unanimity in the House of Commons to pass a Bill of Coercion upon the groundwork of the English Riot Act." What Lord Edward could do to lessen the unanimity upon which the Chief Secretary's congratulations were based had been done; and throughout the session he steadily adhered to the small minority which opposed the Bill, together with other like measures. His tone, however, with regard to the political outlook was in private one of discouragement, though not of that discouragement which loses heart to continue the fight. "When one has any great object to carry," he wrote, "one must expect disappointments, and not be diverted from one's object by them, or even appear to mind them. I therefore say to everybody that I think we are going on well. The truth is," he adds, however, candidly, "the people one has to do with are a bad set. I mean the whole, for really I believe those we act with are the best." It was in the course of this year that he made a speech, upon a motion of Grattan's dealing with the question of tithes, which helps to define both the extent of his present sympathy with the popular agitation and perhaps its limitations. His attitude was still that of a man not inclined to yield to violence |