Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [154]
“You’re exaggerating …” he protested.
“No, I’m not. In a Catholic state the Church has the last word.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve been talking to Kezia Moynihan. And before you say she is exaggerating too, she told me proof of it. There’s a lot they say which I think is nonsense. They blame the Catholics for all kinds of things, but that much is true. Where the Church of Rome has power, it is absolute. You can’t force religion on other people, Thomas. Mostly I think the Americans have it right. You should keep church and state separate ….”
“What do you know about the Americans?” He was startled. He had never thought of her as having the slightest interest in, let alone knowledge of, such things.
“Emily was telling me. Do you know how many millions of Irish people have emigrated to America since the potato famine?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes … about three million,” she replied unhesitatingly. “That’s about one in three of the whole population, and it’s largely the young and able-bodied. Nearly all of them went to America, where they could find work—and food.”
“What is that to do with Eudora?” He was shaken by the information, and by the fact that Charlotte apparently knew it, but nothing could take the image of Eudora entirely from his mind.
“Only that the situation is desperate,” she answered, still looking at him with the same gentleness. “There are many people who think when issues are so large that the end justifies any means, even murder of those who stand in the way of what they see as a larger justice.”
He said nothing.
She hesitated, seeming on the brink of leaning forward and putting her arms around him, then changed her mind. Instead she climbed out of bed and went for her dressing robe.
“Where are you going?” he said in surprise. “You’re not going to Eudora?”
“No … I’m going to Justine.”
“Why?”
She put her robe on and tied the long sash. She was completely awake now, but she did not bother to wash her face from the ewer of cold water or run the brush over her tangled hair.
“Because I want to tell her she didn’t kill Ainsley Greville. She thinks she did.”
He stood up. “Charlotte, I don’t know that I want Justine to know ….”
“Yes you do,” she said firmly. “If you have to arrest Padraig Doyle tomorrow, you need this dealt with tonight. Don’t come with me. I can speak to her better on my own. We need to know the truth.”
He sat frozen on the bed. She was right in that they needed the truth, but he also dreaded it.
She went quietly along the corridor, across the landing and into the other wing. The whole house was silent. Everyone had long since gone to bed, apart from Pitt and Tellman, and presumably Piers. But he would not go to Justine’s room at this hour, and certainly not after what he had just been involved in. He would not take the smell and the emotional chaos of such a thing to her.
It was dim in the corridor, the gaslamps on very low, only sufficient to guide anyone who might wish to get up for any personal reason. She knocked on Justine’s door once, sharply, then without waiting for a reply, went in.
It was in darkness and complete silence.
“Justine,” she said in a soft voice, but well above a whisper.
There was a faint sound of movement, then a crinkle of bedclothes.
“Who is it?” Justine’s voice was tight, afraid.
“It’s Charlotte. Please turn up the light. I can’t see where it is.”
“Charlotte?” There was a moment’s silence, then more movement and the light came on.
Charlotte could see Justine sitting up in bed, but wide awake, her ink-black hair over her shoulders and a look of anxiety and puzzlement in her face.
“Has something happened?” she said quietly. “Something more?”
Charlotte came over and sat on the end of the bed. She must learn the truth from Justine, but she could think of no subterfuge with which to trick her in any way, nor did she want to trick her.
“Not really,” she said, making herself comfortable. “But we know more than we did at dinnertime, although we knew quite a lot then.”
Justine’s face reflected no emotion except relief that no further