Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [328]
“Are you mad?” he hissed.
For the young aristocrats, it was all too much. For them, at least, the dangerous tension of the moment was broken.
“Adam!” they called out. “Oh Adam! Look to your wife!” And then, catching the idea from each other, all together, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?”
Tidy did not say anything. Taking his wife by one arm while MacGowan took the other, he led her away, while the youths called out, in mock solemnity, “Treason. Off with her head. Treason.” He didn’t pause until they had reached the city gate.
So this was the special day. He had planned it all so carefully. After the plays were over, he’d been going to lead her into the city and, on a pretext, take her to the western gate tower where Alderman Doyle was to meet them and deliver them the keys to their new abode. And then he was going to watch her face as she looked round her spacious and airy new lodgings. How joyful she would be. What a perfect surprise. A perfect day. All planned.
“You cursed the king, Cecily,” he said miserably. “People will say we are traitors. Don’t you see what you’ve done?”
“He denied the Mass,” she said bitterly.
“Oh Cecily.” His eyes were full of reproach.
“You know who they were?” MacGowan spoke now, in a quiet voice. “They were English friends of young Lord Thomas. He was with them.” He paused, and seeing Cecily had not yet understood, “Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, the heir of the Earl of Kildare.”
“Kildare’s son?” Tidy cried in dismay.
“Then they shouldn’t have spoken as they did,” said Cecily defensively.
“That may be so,” MacGowan allowed. “But they are young bloods who’d been drinking. It was all in jest.”
Tidy shook his head.
“Now Kildare and the royal councillors will hear that my wife has cursed the king,” he said miserably. And though he said nothing more, at that moment he was frankly thinking: I wish I had married someone else.
It was with a heavy heart, and without any smile of pleasure, that late in the afternoon, he took Cecily to the tower apartment and, showing her the splendid accommodation asked her, “Do you think that you could be more contented now?”
“I believe I could,” she answered. “Yes, I do.”
But he wondered if it was true.
By the time that the Tidys were inspecting their tower, Margaret had arrived home. She had waited over an hour outside Doyle’s house, seen Joan Doyle finally go out, followed her down towards the Dame’s Gate, and then lost sight of her. In the end she had given up and returned home.
William did not arrive until late in the evening. He looked pleased with himself. He said he had dined in the city, and he seemed to have drunk a good deal. Saying he was tired, he went up to the chamber and fell asleep.
The next day he spent quietly at the house. The day after, he had business in Dublin, but was back by early evening. And so for two weeks life continued in the usual way. Was he having illicit meetings with Joan Doyle in Dublin? She couldn’t be sure. At least once, after spending the day in Dublin, he returned and made love to her in the usual way. So what did it all mean? Had something happened on Corpus Christi day in Dublin? Assuming it had, was it being repeated? Margaret found it hard to believe that it wouldn’t be. Yet what was she to do? Share her husband with Joan Doyle until their affair ended? Confront him with something she couldn’t prove? Wait? Watch? She had not known that uncertainty could bring such pain.
Two weeks later he went into Dublin early and returned very late at night. A week after that he was away in Fingal for a few days. There was nothing unusual in these absences, but now all his movements had taken on a new significance. And Margaret hardly knew what she might have done next if, during the month of August, he hadn’t come in looking concerned one day and told her, “The monastery needs me to go down into