Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [30]
She did not even turn as Charlotte came in, although she must have heard the door opening, even if she did not hear footsteps on the soft carpet.
“Miss Moynihan …”
Kezia turned very slowly. Her face was puffed, her eyes red. She looked at Charlotte with slight surprise and the beginning of resentment.
Charlotte had expected it; after all, she was an intrusion.
“I need to speak to you,” she said with a very slight smile.
Kezia stared at her in disbelief.
Charlotte went on regardless. “I could not simply eat my breakfast as if everything were more or less all right. You must feel dreadful.”
Kezia was breathing very deeply, her breast rising and falling. On her face was a mixture of emotions: anger, and a wild desire to laugh, even an ache for physical violence of some sort to release the helpless fury inside, and a fierce contempt for Charlotte’s impertinence and utter lack of understanding.
“You haven’t the remotest idea,” she said harshly.
“No, of course I haven’t,” Charlotte agreed. She could readily comprehend shock, embarrassment and shame. A certain anger was natural, but not the rage which almost choked Kezia. Even as she stood there in her beautiful white robe with its lace edges, her body was shaking with it.
“How could he do such a thing?” she blazed, her eyes diamond bright and hard. “It is despicable beyond excuse, beyond any kind of pardon.” Her voice choked in her throat. “I thought I knew him. All these years we’ve fought for the same things, shared the same dreams, suffered the same losses. And he does this!” The last word was almost a shriek.
Charlotte could hear her control supping away again. She must talk, say something, anything, to try to soothe away some of the explosive pain inside her. She should feel she had at least one friend.
“When people fall in love they can do so many foolish things,” she began. “Even things which are quite outside their usual character—”
“Fall in love?” Kezia shouted, as if the phrase were meaningless. “People? Fergal is not just ‘people’! He is the son of one of the greatest preachers who ever taught the word of God! A just and righteous man who lived all the Commandments and was a light and a hope to all Ulster. He lived his whole life to keep the faith and the freedom of Ireland from the dominion and corruption of popery.” She waved her arm almost accusingly. “You live in England. You haven’t faced that threat in centuries. Don’t you read your history? Don’t you know how many men Bloody Mary burned at the stake because they wouldn’t forsake the reforms of the Protestant church? Because they wouldn’t get rid of superstition and indulgences and the sin that riddled the whole hierarchy from top to bottom?” She did not stop for breath. Her face was bright and ugly with rage. “From an arrogant Pope who thinks he speaks for God, right down through an Inquisition which tortures to death people who want to read the Holy Scriptures for themselves, even through a licentious and idolatrous clinging onto worship of plaster statues and thinking all their sins can be forgiven if they pay money to the church and mumble a few prayers while they count their beads!”
“Kezia …” Charlotte began, but Kezia was not listening.
“And Fergal was in bed not only with a Catholic whore …” She went on, growing more and more shrill. “Not only an adulteress, but one who tears Ireland apart by writing her poetry full of lies and firing up stupid, ignorant men’s imaginations with sentimental and maudlin songs about heroes who never were and battles that didn’t happen!”
“Kezia …”
“And you want me to understand why he did that, and overlook it? You want me to—” Her voice caught in a sob and she could barely struggle on. “You want me to say that’s all right? It’s only a human weakness, and we should forgive? Never!” She clenched her fists in front of her, her white hands smooth, the knuckles shining. “Never! It is unpardonable!”
“Isn’t anything pardonable, if you repent?” Charlotte said quietly.
“Not betrayal.” Kezia jerked her head up haughtily, her voice catching in her throat.