by Peter Corris
Gambling still attracted him but he was too busy to indulge much. He played cards occasionally and infrequently attended race meetings and prize fights where he renewed old acquaintanships and made new connections, several among members of the aristocracy and professional classes. He sat for and passed the requisite examinations and was admitted to the bar on 20 December 1863 at the age of twenty-four years. He travelled to Galway to apprise his family of his new status but they were singularly unimpressed. His mother equated lawyer with thief and his father and brothers scoffed at his soft white hands.
'Sow's ear never yet made silk purse,' his father said, but did not refuse the five guineas Daniel gave him as a Christmas box. He dispensed half-crowns and crowns to the large brood of nephews and nieces and got drunk with Sean Bracken.
'I'll not be back here, Uncle Sean,' he confided. 'Me mother still sees me as an unfrocked priest, and the rest of 'em know I couldn't set a net to save m' life.'
'Settin' nets never got anyone anything but bloody fish,' Sean Bracken said. 'So what would your plans be?'
'To practise the law in Dublin until I find my feet and make some money. Then go to London to do the same with knobs on.'
'London's the place for money-makin' to be sure and I've no doubt there's a sweet pile of it to be made in Dublin. May I give ye a word of advice, m'boy?'
'It's thanks to you I'm not going around dressed like a crow listening to women with dried-up parts and twisted minds.'
Sean Bracken's elbow slipped drunkenly on the wet table top and his nephew had to steady him, although his own balance was grievously affected by the beer and whiskey. 'They do say that drink and religion are the curse of Ireland. Ye'd have heard that.'
Daniel nodded solemnly. 'I have.'
'Tis not true. It's politics that's the curse of the place. Run a mile, boy, as soon as ever you get a sniff of the bloody politicking.'
12
To his great chagrin, Daniel Bracken found that as head of Bracken & Partners (the Partners being wholly fictitious), he had more time for reading Dickens than he had had as a law clerk. The small capital he had built up was quickly expended on renting business premises, buying a gown and a wig, furniture and stationery, and on hiring office staff—a rather long-in-the-tooth functionary named Robert Gregson who was glad of a place and would consequently work cheaply. For the standard fee of thirty guineas, sorely needed by this stage, he took on William O'Connell as an articled clerk but had so little work for the eager young man that he was forced to take routine briefs from other firms on a part-fee basis just to keep him busy.
His practice languished through the winter of 1863 to 1864 and showed no signs of picking up with the coming of the better weather. Bracken had trouble paying rent on his office and rooms in May and repaired to the Kettle Club, where his subscription was perilously close to overdue, to repair his fortunes. He settled into a game with several hard-bitten regulars against whom he had often played when the object was entertainment. On those occasions he had usually come away a winner but this time the cards ran steadily and disastrously against him. He drank more than he was accustomed to and felt his grip on the rhythm of the game slip. He wanted to leave the table but an inertia combined with madness seized him. He signed markers, played recklessly on the strength of the credit, and ended the night drunk and several hundred pounds in debt to Sir Peter Butler and the Honourable Hedley Styles, recently elected MP for County Clare in the House of Commons and an ardent representative of the 'Home Rule' party.
Two days later Bracken answered a summons written on the back of one of Sir Peter Butler's cards. He entered a St James Gate public house where he was shown to a private room, well out of sight and earshot of the public bar and the snug. Seated at the table were Butler and Styles and their expressions were nothing like as mild as those they had worn throughout the long night at the Kettle Club.
'You're in trouble, Mr Bracken,' Butler said.
Bracken removed his hat, tucked up his coattails and seated himself carefully. He elected to bluff. After all, gambling debts were not collectable in law and he had no doubt he could recover the ground with a few good briefs or a lucky night. 'How's that?'
'You've placed yourself heavily in our debt.'
Bracken lit a cigar without offering his case. 'A gentleman waits for another gentleman to settle his gambling accounts, surely.'
Butler scowled. 'Damn your eyes, you're no … '
Authoritatively, Styles laid a still-gloved hand on Butler's sleeve. 'Easy, Peter. I think Mr Bracken is unaware of the full ramifications.'
Bracken perceived that the MP was the dominant partner. There was a decanter of brandy on the table and he looked pointedly at it. 'Perhaps you should explain, Mr Styles, speech-making being now your stock-in-trade, as it were.'
Styles poured brandy for all three and distributed the glasses. He was a plump, middle-sized man aged about thirty-five with a high complexion that already owed something to good food and drink. He sipped his brandy and took out his own cigar case. Butler, lean, fair-skinned and with a fanatical glint in his blue eyes, waved the proffered Havanas away. 'Tell him how the wind blows, Hedley, for Christ sake. You enjoy this kind of thing far too much.'
Styles lit his own cigar and held the match out for Bracken. 'I enjoy everything I do, Peter. I make a point of it. How would I not enjoy blackmailing our good Mr Bracken?'
Bracken almost dropped his glass. 'Blackmail?'
Styles took his wallet from a many-caped coat that hung over the back of his chair. He removed a folded sheet of paper, opened it out and slid it across the table to Bracken. Butler got up anxiously from his chair and moved to Bracken's side with his hand ready to seize the paper. Bracken read quickly, tossed off his brandy and flicked the paper back across the highly polished surface.
'I see that I have signed my name to a note of loan, secured on my future earnings. Illegal and unenforceable without a doubt.'
Styles refolded the paper and returned it to his wallet. 'Arguably so, but reprehensible in the extreme. What of the clients who depend on you, Mr Bracken? The army widow striving for her pension, the baker who denies that his bread was more husk than flour? How would the College view your cavalier attitude to their interests and their hard-earned guineas?'
'What do you want?' Daniel Bracken said.
'We want you to do a few little jobs for us, from time to time, as you might say.'
Oh Christ, Bracken thought. Politics.
Over the next four years Bracken was at the beck and call of Butler, Styles and other 'Home Rulers'. He drew up documents, executed wills, performed conveyances and issued letters of demand on behalf of adherents of the Home Rule interest, often for very little recompense and sometimes for none at all. He delivered letters and packets to lawyers, doctors and mysterious personages, travelling in no great comfort and often at considerable inconvenience to his other work. Styles kept promising to destroy the note Bracken had signed but when pressed on the matter he always found an excuse to change the subject and to insist that he had need of the lawyer's services 'for just a little longer'. It was true that Bracken's income crept up to almost manageable levels as a result of this connection, but he found himself working harder than he had ever done and with no joy in the work at all.
Drink became his major comfort and companion. One night, half-drunk and realising he had not had a woman for six months, he threw caution to the winds and allowed himself to be picked up by a whore in a tavern. An hour later, lying impotent on the soiled sheets in her shabby room, he gazed up at the ceiling and let out a whiskey-laden sigh. 'I might as well be the priest my mother wanted me to be.'
Kate Bell prepared herself for a dull conversation, but the man still had a half bottle of whiskey with him and she knew she'd get none of it unless she humoured him. She drew the sheet up, covering his white legs and limp penis, giving the organ a slight squeeze. 'I've know a few very vigorous men of the cloth in my time,' she said. 'But religion and sport
don't mix and you shouldn't let yourself be thinking that way. What about another drink? It might relax you and we can try again when the mood is more upon you.'
Bracken handed Kate the bottle and she drank from it noisily. 'What line of business are you in, dear? This is a good drop and your clothes look smart, although they could do with a wash and a press if you don't mind me saying so. No wife, I take it?'
Bracken drank. 'What's your name?'
She giggled as the solid slug of whiskey hit her. 'Kate Bell. At your service.'
'No wife, no life,' Bracken intoned. 'No pride, no hope, no … '
'Hush, dear. It can't be as bad as all that.'
'I do the bidding of other men. I'm not true to myself at all.'
Kate couldn't help laughing, although she knew it was dangerous to laugh in the presence of a drunk and disappointed man. Still, this one had no weapons, a point she'd checked as they disrobed. 'You've forgotten who you're talking to.When it comes to do the bidding of others, we gay ladies can write the book. Still, I was in a better situation in days gone by and did once turn the tables.'
Bracken examined the woman through slightly unfocused eyes. He'd always liked a bit of conversation before getting down to business and, drunk and all as he was, he could sense a slight flicker of interest. The night and the money spent might not be a total waste after all. 'Did you now, Katey? How?'
Kate reached for the bottle and took a drink. Bracken let her hold it and did not drink himself. One of her big, pale breasts, blue-veined with a nipple like a mushroom, fell free of the drawn-up sheet. He took it in his hand and felt a definite stirring. 'Tell me the tale,' he said.
Kate launched into a long story, interspersed with sips from the bottle, about a time, long before, when she was the mistress of a corn merchant in Killarney. He had set her up in a small house at a considerable distance from his family home and told her that he would marry her as soon as his invalid wife was dead. After a year she discovered that, not only was the merchant's wife hale and hearty but that she herself had a counterpart in another section of the town.
'One of the vigorous types you referred to,' Bracken murmured. His fingers were on the inside of Kate's thigh, stroking up and plucking at her public hair.
'He was that. But a dreadful liar.'
'What did you do?' Bracken moistened two fingers with saliva and slid them into her.
Kate groaned. 'It came to holiday time. He sent his good lady and the children in one direction and he went off somewhere else with his other fancy woman.'
'I love a good story,' Bracken said. He was excited now, stroking her and directing her hand on to his stiffening penis. 'What happened next, darling?'
'I got on to some fellers I knew and we went to his house and her house and cleaned out everything of value, down to the food in the cupboards we went.'
She burst into laughter and gripped him tightly. 'I even took her bloody cat!'
Bracken almost choked as the mirth and sexual pleasure ran through him simultaneously. He was about to throw back the sheet and mount her when the thought struck him. Why not? Why in the sweet name of Jesus not? Open the next few letters and packets and see what a man of courage and resource could make of them. Surely two could play at the blackmailing game. He could not understand why the idea had not occurred to him before this. With his organ as stiff as a poker and his hands full of willing womanhood, he felt like a man of resource and courage.
Kate moaned and rubbed him. 'Don't stop now, darling. Don't stop now, for Christ sake.'
'You've given me an idea.'
She jerked the sheets down, grabbed him by the shoulders and heaved him up. 'You had the idea some time back. Now do something with it if you're any kind of a man at all.
The sulphur treatment for the dose of clap Bracken caught from Kate Bell was expensive and unpleasant, but he convinced himself that the itch and drip were penalties to be paid for stupidity and cowardice. Now, instead of being the lackey, he was potentially the master, not the fox but the huntsman. He began to plan his moves and his medical condition was an asset.
'Damn it, Bracken,' Butler fumed as he produced a heavily sealed packet from his coat pocket and laid it on a bookcase in the lawyer's rooms. 'You've been laid up for weeks. There are things need doing.'
'I'll attend to it, Sir Peter. Be assured I'll attend to it.'
'When, man? When?'
Bracken had been enjoying himself, producing prescriptions and accounts from his medical adviser, lightly powdering his face to induce a pallor and eating and drinking little to reduce his frame. He had kept his tormentors at bay for weeks with the letters and packets accumulating, but he sensed that the stratagem was played out. He got up from his chair and advanced towards Butler with a set jaw and adjusting spectacles on his nose. 'I will go tomorrow, since you urge it. But I will require a quid pro quo.'
'I don't know about that.'
'My health is suffering, as you can see. I can endure this strain no longer. I must request the destruction of my indiscreet note.'
'I will confer with Mr Styles.'
'Please do.' Bracken moved to the bookcase and gazed down at the address on the packet. 'God help me. A cold and damp place indeed. I suppose I must rest content with your word. I have that, I take it?'
'That I will convey your request, yes.'
Bracken bowed stiffly and Butler left the room.
The moment had come: he went to a cupboard and took out several sealed packets and weighty envelopes. He poured a tot of whiskey, took up a knife and began to cut the seals and bindings, deliberately working roughly so that there could be no attempt at re-sealing, no going back. His heart was pounding and he tossed off the whiskey and quickly poured another. Alcohol had been forbidden by his doctor and he had almost given it up since his treatment began. The large measures quickly took effect and he felt light-headed but resolute. He lit a cigar, also forbidden, spread the contents on the desk and examined them carefully.
For an hour he read, noted names, stacked gold sovereigns and made piles of banknotes. What he discovered shook him profoundly. Certain members of the Home Government Association were impatient with the progress of their cause, which was the repeal of the Act of the British Parliament which created the Union between England and Ireland. There was a movement within the ranks to overthrow the present cautious, conservative leaders and replace them with firebrands who would obstruct parliamentary business in Westminster, create civil unrest in Ireland and agitate among Irishmen in the colonies.
Money was being distributed to bribe voters, encourage supporters and finance operations to bring opponents undone. These plans were not clearly spelt out in the letters, but Bracken was lawyer enough to read between the lines. When a sizeable sum of money was advanced to a landowner with an instruction to 'maintain at all costs your tenants' adherence' or a building leased on behalf of a Home Ruler 'in order to frustrate the other interest', the intention was plain. A few of the names mentioned were known to him—prominent men, powerful friends, dangerous enemies. Bracken drew up lists of the names and addresses, indicating those to whom he had previously made deliveries and supplying dates and descriptions of the ways in which the items had been delivered.
He poured more whiskey and leaned back in his chair to survey the results. What he had, he knew, was evidence of disloyalty, disunity and plotting amounting to almost subversion. The material could be used to blackmail the conspirators or sold to those presently holding sway. There were snippets of information on matters such as concealed illegitimacies, illegal transactions and sexual and religious indiscretions which could be traded for cash by anyone with the nerve to do it. Briefly, Bracken considered these options, particularly the prospect of bringing down Sir Peter Butler and Hedley Styles, MP. He had another drink on the strength of the fantasy and took a long pull on his cigar.
The alcohol and tobacco brought him back to reality and he heard his uncle's voice with its thick, Galway brogue, speaking close to his ear
: Run a mile, boy, as soon as ever you get a sniff of the bloody politicking.
'I'll run more than a mile,' Bracken said. He dashed cold water in his face and ordered his house servant to bring him a large pot of coffee. He drank the coffee scalding hot as he worked, burning the papers and notes, cheques, the envelopes and the packets, seals, bindings, labels and all. The money amounted to over £400 and this he distributed about his person, stuffing it into pockets in his trousers, waistcoat, jacket and ulster. He packed a minimum of clothes and possessions, including his pills, ointments and tincture, into a valise and small trunk and left the house. He caught a cab to his bank where he drew out all but a few pounds of his slender balance. Another cab took him to the quay where he caught the 4 p.m. ferry to Liverpool.
13
The Maid of Firth was an iron clipper, which is to say a vessel built along the lines of the old wooden sailing ships but with an iron frame, deck beams and lower masts and yards and a teak timber sheath. She carried a mixed cargo of livestock and manufactured products between Liverpool and Melbourne and briefly held the record for the crossing made under sail of sixty-four days. The ship was fitted up to carry thirty passengers who paid £25 to travel in considerable comfort and eat and drink well on the voyage. Daniel Bracken gained the last available place by bribing a clerk in the Southern & Eastern Line office to overlook a telegram which should have secured the berth. He was on the sea within forty-eight hours of arriving in Liverpool which, in his considered judgment and knowledge of the people he had deceived and stolen from, was not a minute too soon.
Travelling the route known as 'the great circle', the Maid progressed down the coast of Africa through a series of long, hot, dull days. Given a choice, Bracken would have preferred to go to New York, but he was conscious of the difference in distance, and several items in the correspondence he had perused convinced him that connections between Ireland and America were too close for comfort. So Australia it was, and he devoted himself to treating his malady, which had flared up somewhat as a result of excitement and anxiety and his whiskey-drinking on his last night in the land of his birth, and honing his skills with the cards and his tongue.
