Redemption - Leon Uris [118]
When only Shelley and Atty were left in the study they sat silently, held hands, and lowered the level of the whiskey bottle.
“I’m leaving for Belfast tomorrow,” Shelley said, breaking the silence.
“Please,” Atty said, “I need you, Shelley.”
“My father needs me more,” she said. “He’s called for me. He wants me. My place is beside him now. We have to make our peace with each other.”
“What’s happening?”
“Robin phoned. Morgan’s back is broken. He’s in excruciating pain…just keeps calling for me.”
“You’ll let us give you protection?”
“Aye, for certain. Robin will be with me a great deal of the time. He’s a very tough lad. Hey now, the MacLeods are not a weak family or strangers to each other.”
“Aren’t you frightened?”
“Of course I am,” Shelley said. “So was Conor. If our lives have any meaning at all, there are some things we can’t back away from. Who am I telling that to anyhow, Atty Fitzpatrick? You told me how terrible your fears were in joining the Brotherhood, but it didn’t delay you for five minutes, did it?”
“Take the later afternoon train, Shelley. I need to spend the morning making some safe arrangements for you.”
“I plan to. I have to be up early and say good-bye to Rachael and Theo before they’re off to school.”
“Theo may die of a broken heart,” Atty said.
“Rachael is your power,” Shelley said.
“You see that, now? She’s been taking care of me for years. Seems like with this avocation of ours, we all come to a hard dead end. What should I do about those kids?”
“No different than you’re doing now. They’ll come to their own decisions. No matter how you try to lead them, they’ll do as they damned please.”
“Like you?”
“Aye. Robin followed his dad. I did as I pleased. Dublin’s a good old place. I like it here. I plan on coming back when I’ve gotten my dad through this.”
“Please come back,” Atty said, breaking again. She got up and rushed from the room.
Shelley took a last look about the grand old study, so warm to know and share with the only truly close friend she had had in her life. As she closed the door behind her she could hear faint sobs from Atty’s room. The door gave way. As she sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Atty’s hair, Atty made no attempt to stifle her tears, but accepted Shelley’s stroking in rhythm with them.
There were unspoken conversations between the two of them. Shelley did not think it fair to tempt Atty by telling her of the depth of her love for Conor or of their moments together. It would have been so unfair, for Atty loved him obviously and profoundly. There were times Shelley had shared little things with Seamus, but that was different.
Now came words unspoken so loudly, they did not have to be said but went from fiber of being to fiber of being.
“Slide over, old girl,” Shelley said, then lay alongside Atty, turned her over and held her in her arms as though she were a little child…. “If I don’t come back,” Shelley didn’t say, “I know you’ll take care of him and that makes me glad.”
45
Jeremy was always called to the opulent manor library to be dressed down by his father. In that vaunted room with thousands of leathered volumes glaring down, the great decisions of the earldom had been made.
It was here that Jeremy’s grandfather, Morris, the “Famine Earl,” signed more eviction notices than any landlord in Ireland. It was a fitting setting for Roger to unload his cynical, biting, understated scorn on his son.
The venue, this time, had deliberately been changed to Dublin, away from Caroline’s eyes and protection. The cast in Jeremy’s parlor had greatly enlarged to include Brigadier Maxwell Swan who always gave the lad the willies. His younger brother, Christopher, had come over from Oxford. One of Swan’s detectives, W. W. Herd, stood sallowly in the shadows.
Jeremy squirmed as Roger paced, lifted the report, and leafed through it for the twentieth time. “Now again,” Roger