Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [63]
‘No one does,’ she returned. Now they were speaking as if there were no one else in the room. ‘The tedious people are the ones who think they do.’
‘We can be tedious by perpetually trying to, aloud.’ He smiled, and the light of it utterly changed his face. ‘But we do it poetically. It is when we begin to repeat ourselves that we try people’s patience.’
‘But doesn’t history repeat itself, like variations on a theme?’ she said. ‘Each generation, each artist, adds a different note, but the underlying tune is the same.’
‘England’s is in a major key.’ His mouth twisted as he spoke. ‘Lots of brass and percussion. Ireland’s is minor, woodwind, and the dying chord. Perhaps a violin solo now and then.’ He was watching her intently, as if it were a game they were playing and one of them would lose. Did he already know who she was, and that she had come with Narraway, and why?
She tried to dismiss the thought as absurd, and then she remembered that someone had already outwitted Narraway, which was a very considerable feat. It required not only passion for revenge, but a high intelligence. Most frightening of all, it needed connections in Lisson Grove sufficiently well-placed, and disloyal, to have put the money in Narraway’s bank account.
Suddenly the game seemed a great deal more serious. Charlotte was aware that, because of her hesitation, Dolina was watching her curiously as well, and Fiachra McDaid was standing at her elbow.
‘I always think the violin sounds so much like the human voice,’ she said with a smile. ‘Don’t you, Mr O’Neil?’
Surprise flickered for a moment in his eyes. He had been expecting her to say something different, perhaps more defensive.
‘Did you not expect the heroes of Ireland to sound human?’ he asked her, but there was a bleak, self-conscious humour in his eyes at his own melodrama.
‘Not entirely.’ She avoided looking at McDaid, or Dolina, in case their perception brought her and O’Neil back to reality. ‘I had thought of something heroic, even supernatural.’
‘Touché,’ McDaid said softly. He took Charlotte by the arm, holding her surprisingly hard. She could not have shaken him off even had she wished to. ‘We must take our seats.’ He excused them and led her away after only the briefest farewell. She nearly asked him if she had offended someone, but she did not want to hear the answer. Nor did she intend to apologise.
As soon as she resumed her seat she realised that it offered her as good a view of the rest of the audience as it did of the stage. She glanced at McDaid, and saw in his expression that he had arranged it so intentionally, but she did not comment.
They were only just in time for the curtain going up and immediately the drama recaptured their attention. She found it difficult to follow because although the emotion in it was intense, there were so many allusions to history, and to legend with which she was not familiar that half the meaning was lost to her. Perhaps because of that, she began to look at the audience again, to catch something of their reaction and follow a little more.
John and Bridget Tyrone were in a box almost opposite. With the intimate size of the theatre she could see their faces quite clearly. He was watching the stage, leaning a little forward as if not to miss a word. Bridget glanced at him, then – seeing his absorption – turned away. Her gaze swept around the audience. Charlotte put up the opera glasses McDaid had lent her, not to see the stage but to hide her own eyes, and keep watching Bridget Tyrone.
Bridget’s searching stopped when she saw a man in the audience below her, to her left. From where she was, she must see his profile. To Charlotte all that was visible was the back of his head, but she was certain she had seen him before. She could not remember where.
Bridget remained staring at him, as if willing him to look back at her.
On the stage the drama heightened. Charlotte was only dimly aware of it; for her the emotional concentration was in the audience. John Tyrone was still watching the players. In the audience at last the man