Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [58]
‘Then think of other enemies,’ Charlotte urged. ‘Whose circumstances have changed? Is there anyone you were about to expose?’
‘My dear, do you think I haven’t thought of that?’
‘And you still believe it is O’Neil?’
‘Perhaps it is a guilty conscience.’ He gave a smile so brief it reached barely his eyes and was gone again.‘“The wicked flee where no man pursueth”,’ he quoted. ‘But there is knowledge in this that only people familiar with the case could have.’
‘Oh.’ She poured herself more tea. ‘Then we had better learn more about O’Neil. He was mentioned yesterday evening. I told them that my grandmother was Christina O’Neil.’
He swallowed. ‘And who was she really?’
‘Christine Owen,’ she replied.
He started to laugh, and she heard the raw note in it just a little out of control, too close to sadness. She said nothing, but finished her toast and then the rest of her tea.
Charlotte spent the morning and most of the afternoon quietly, reading as much as she could of Irish history, realising the vast gap in her knowledge and a little ashamed of it. Ireland was geographically so close to England, and because the English had occupied it one way or another for so many centuries, in their minds its individuality had been swallowed up in the general tide of British history. The Empire covered a quarter of the world. Englishmen tended to think of Ireland as part of their own small piece of it, linked by a common language – disregarding the existence of the Irish tongue – and of course by the Crown and the government in London.
So many of Ireland’s greatest sons had made their names on the world stage indistinguishably from the English. Everyone knew Oscar Wilde was Irish, even though his plays were absolutely English in their setting. They probably knew Jonathan Swift was Irish, but did they know it of Bram Stoker, the creator of the monstrous Count Dracula? Did they know it of the great Duke of Wellington, victor of Waterloo, and later prime minister? The fact that these men had left Ireland in their youth did not in any way alter their heritage.
Her own family was not Anglo-Irish, but in pretending to have a grandmother who was, perhaps she should be a little more sensitive to people’s feelings and treat the whole subject less casually.
By evening she was again dressed in her one black gown, this time with different jewellery and different gloves, and her hair decorated with an ornament Emily had given her years ago. Then she was worried that she was overdressed for the theatre. Perhaps other people would be far less formal. They were a highly literate culture, educated in words and ideas, but also very familiar with them. They may not consider an evening at the theatre a social affair but an intellectual and emotional one. They might think she was trivialising it by making such an issue of her own appearance, when it was the players who mattered.
She took the ornament out of her hair, and then had to restyle it not to look as if it were incomplete. All of which meant she was late, and flustered, when Narraway knocked on the door to tell her that Fiachra McDaid was here to escort her for the evening again.
‘Thank you,’ she said, putting the comb down quickly and knocking several loose hairpins onto the floor. She ignored them.
He looked at her with anxiety. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes! It is simply an indecision as to what to wear.’ She dismissed it with a slight gesture.
He regarded her carefully. His eyes travelled from her shoes, which were visible beneath the hem of her gown, all the way to the crown of her head. She felt the heat burn up her face at the candid appreciation in his eyes.
‘You made the right decision,’ he pronounced. ‘Diamonds would have been inappropriate here. They take their drama very seriously.’
She drew in a breath to say that she had no diamonds, and realised he was laughing at her. She wondered if he would have given a woman diamonds, if he loved her. She thought not. If he were capable of that sort of love, it would