Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [37]
“Then they shouldn’t oughta gone back.”
“Possibly not, but it’s too late now. We can’t go forward from anywhere except where we are at the moment.”
Gracie thought about that for a long time before she conceded it as Charlotte was about to go out of the door.
Charlotte met Pitt at the bottom of the stairs and was caught by surprise at how pleased she was at the start of admiration in his eyes when he saw her. She felt a heat in her cheeks. He offered his arm, and she took it as she sailed into the withdrawing room.
Dinner was again uncomfortable, but eased in some part by the addition of Piers and Justine, which gave everyone something to talk about other than their own interests, or trivia, which were embarrassingly meaningless.
There were too few of them at the table to separate all those between whom there was friction. It was a hostess’s nightmare. There was order of precedence to consider. People might be insulted if one did not. If there was no title or office to dictate, then there was age. And yet one could not sit Fergal either next to or opposite Lorcan McGinley, nor could one sit him close to Iona, for reasons which were excruciatingly clear to some and quite unknown to others. Similarly, one could not sit Kezia near to her brother. The rage still simmered in her only just below the heat of explosion.
Carson O’Day was the savior of the situation. He seemed both able and willing to conduct agreeable conversations with everyone, finding subjects to discuss from areas as diverse and innocuous as designs of Georgian silver and the last eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Padraig Doyle told amusing anecdotes about an Irish tinker and a parish priest and made everyone laugh, except Kezia, a failure which he ignored.
Piers and Justine had real attention only for each other.
Eudora looked a trifle sad, as if she had just realized the loss of something she had thought she possessed, and Ainsley appeared bored. Every now and then Charlotte observed an expression of anxiety in his eyes, a difficulty swallowing, a moment to steady his hand. He would miss something someone had said to him, as if his mind were elsewhere, and have to ask to have it repeated. It must be an appalling responsibility to be in charge of such a conference as this. The burden of succeeding at the impossible had broken both greater and lesser men than he.
And if he was also afraid, he had good reason. There was still the threat of violence which perhaps only he and Pitt really understood.
No one had mentioned the Parnell-O’Shea divorce. If there had been anything of it in the newspapers, it was not referred to.
They were rather more than halfway through the removes—a shoulder of lamb, stuffed beef in pastry, or cold pickled eel with cucumber and onions—when the quarrel began. It was Kezia who started it. All evening she had been barely suppressing her anger. She spoke civilly enough to everyone else, and she ignored Iona as if she had not been there. Her rage was for her brother.
He made a rather sweeping statement about Protestant ethics.
“There is much of it that is personal,” he said, leaning forward a little across the table, speaking to Justine. “It has to do with individual responsibility, direct communication between man and God, rather than always through the intermediary of a priest, who, after all, is only mortal, and fallible like all human beings.”
“Some more fallible than others,” Kezia said bitterly.
Fergal colored very slightly and ignored her.
“The Protestant preacher is merely the leader of his flock,” he went on, fixing his gaze on Justine. “Faith is of the utmost importance, simple and utter faith, but not in miracles and magic, in the redeeming power of Christ to save souls.”
“We believe in hard work, obedience and a chaste and honorable life,” Kezia said, staring at Justine as if no one else had spoken. “At least that’s what they say.” She swung around to Fergal. “Isn’t it, my dear brother? Chastity is next to