Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [88]
‘Yes, I know, Mr O’Neil.’ She spoke quietly. There was no need to raise her voice here in this silent house, and the tragedy of the situation demanded respect. ‘Do you find time heals? I would like to think so, but I see no evidence of it.’ She was inventing her own entire situation, and yet she was bitterly aware that the fate she was creating in her mind for Pitt could be paralleled in the future, if Narraway never regained his power in Special Branch, and whoever had engineered his disgrace were to succeed.
Pitt would fight for Narraway; of course he would. The innate loyalty in him would never allow him to accept that Narraway was guilty, unless it were proved beyond any doubt at all, reasonable or not. And if it were, it would hurt him to depths she would not be able to heal, even with all the tenderness and courage she possessed. Disillusion is an ache that eats into the dreams of goodness, of love, of any value that matters – even to the very belief in life. She would have no trouble in lying to O’Neil in any way necessary.
She settled herself a little more comfortably in the chair and waited for his reply.
‘Heals?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No. Grows a seal over, maybe, but it’s still bleeding underneath.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘What did he do to you?’
She leaped to the future she feared, creating in her mind the worst of it.
‘My husband worked in Special Branch too,’ she replied. ‘Nothing to do with Ireland. Anarchists in England, people who let off bombs that killed ordinary women and children, old people, most of them poor.’
O’Neil winced, but he did not interrupt her.
‘Narraway sent him on a dangerous job, and then when it turned ugly, and my husband was far from home, Narraway realised that he had made a mistake, a misjudgement, and he let my husband take the blame for it. My husband was dismissed, of course, but that’s not all. He was accused of theft as well, so he can’t get any other position at all. He’s reduced to labouring, if he can even find that. He’s not used to it. He has no skills, and it’s hard to learn in your forties. He’s not built for it.’ She heard the thickening in her own voice, as if she were fighting tears. It was fear, but it sounded like distress, grief, perhaps outrage at injustice.
‘How is my story going to help?’ O’Neil asked her.
‘Narraway denies it, of course,’ she replied. ‘But if he betrayed you as well, that makes a lot of difference. Please – tell me what happened?’
‘Narraway came here twenty years ago,’ he began slowly. ‘He pretended to have sympathy with us, and he fooled some people. He looked Irish, and he used that. He knows our culture and our dreams, our history. But we weren’t fooled. You’re born Irish, or you’re not. But we pretended to go along with it – Sean and Kate and I.’ He stopped, his eyes misty, as if he were seeing something far from this quiet, sparse room in 1895. The past was alive for him, the dead faces, the unhealed wounds.
Charlotte was uncertain whether to acknowledge that she was listening, or if it would distract him. She ended saying nothing.
‘We found out who he was, exactly,’ Cormac went on. ‘We were planning a big rebellion then. We thought we could use him, give him a lot of false information, turn the tables. We had all sorts of dreams. Sean was the leader, but Kate was the fire. She was beautiful, like sunlight on autumn leaves, wind and shadow, the sort of loveliness you can’t hold on to. She was alive the way other women never are.’ He stopped again, lost in memory, and the pain of it was naked in his face.
‘You loved her,’ she said gently.
‘Every man did,’ he agreed, his eyes meeting hers for an instant, as if he had only just remembered that she was there. ‘You remind me of her, a