Redemption - Leon Uris [122]
“Shall we go see Jeremy?” she asked.
“I think you’d better do that by yourself. And let him know how distressed I am.”
Caroline knocked, and knocked again, hard.
“Who is it?”
“It’s your mother.”
The door was unbolted and cracked open. Caroline entered Jeremy’s sitting room, shut down by graying darkness. The boy was haggard and bearded and pitifully ashamed.
“Uh…don’t really know where I was or what happened to my…head. But I woke up clear-minded at the end of the week and realized what had taken place. Donaldson had me packed and ready to move back to Hubble Manor. I…uh…escaped and it wasn’t hard to pick up Mal’s trail….”
“What did you find out?”
“What I should have known from the beginning. Mal was lying…he’d run up a gambling debt of over a hundred…his father said he wouldn’t pay it…he was desperate. Brigadier Swan gave him two hundred, and the same to Cliff Coleman. They were paid to lie to me about Molly…. I went to try to find her…she was gone…. I came here.”
“I don’t know how much you love Molly.”
“I do, Mother. I love her. I love her!”
“That helps, then. In any event, you have a responsibility to that girl. We know where she is, Jeremy.”
“Where, Mother, where!”
“She’s with friends in Dublin, but in her situation, she could leave the country at any time.”
“Tell me where she is!”
“Now you hold on, Jeremy, and you listen to me. First of all, in this matter, your grandfather is only guilty of ignorance.”
“But he sent Swan!”
“Freddie was unaware of the true nature of things.”
“He’s lying.”
“He doesn’t lie to me, Jeremy. He’s ready to stand with us. The question is, are you ready to do what needs being done?”
“Tell me, Mother.”
“You are to go to Molly and you are to beg her forgiveness. You are to ask her to make a quiet conversion and the two of you will marry. There is not a damned thing your father can do about it.” Caroline spoke on, extremely slowly and extremely deliberately.
“You are the Viscount Coleraine, the undisputed and undeniable heir to the Earldom of Foyle. Your father cannot disown you. He cannot disinherit you. You and Molly are to return to Hubble Manor. I shall be there with you.”
“Mother, I’m frightened.”
“You should be. But you have everything on your side, including myself and your grandfather.”
Belief and terror clashed inside him.
“Jeremy,” his mother said softly, “if you fail, you will lose Molly and you will lose me. What you will win is a life between your father and your brother in Hubble Manor. That’s your alternative.”
“I’ll do it, Mother,” Jeremy said stoutly.
“I’m not your coach exhorting you at halftime,” she pressed, “this is going to take balls.”
He sucked in a breath to assure himself. “You’ll see,” he said.
47
The arrangement Maxwell Swan had proposed to Molly O’Rafferty called for her to make a quick trip to Switzerland to a clinic that specialized in dealing with illegitimate children of the aristocracy.
Molly could have an abortion performed. Afterward she would receive “comfort” money in the form of three hundred quid a year for five years provided she was not heard from again. This was an enormous sum that would enable her to establish herself somewhere other than the British Isles.
If she insisted on having the child because of religious reasons, she would remain in seclusion at the clinic. A well-situated blind adoption would be arranged and she would surrender the child upon delivery.
The monies plus a steamer ticket to anywhere in the world would then be doled out.
Upon sight of her, Jeremy was overcome with guilt and sorrow and begged forgiveness for believing the ugly lies about her and his mates.
The girl, not yet seventeen, gave Jeremy short shrift. She simply would not enter into a conspiracy with Jeremy to marry in defiance and then stand up to Roger Hubble. The entire scene and way of life of the earldom disgusted her. She would not live under the roof of a man who offered her money to destroy his own grandchild.
She had dishonored her own family and her faith. She