Redemption - Leon Uris [200]
I have agonized over whether or not to share information bound to bring you untold suffering. Neither Gorman not myself nor any wise man I know can come to a sound judgment of the right or wrong of it. I do know our family became prisoners of lies and I’ll hold back nothing from you.
Jeremy, your son is dead. He was stillborn in a workhouse in Glasgow. Apparently Molly was down with fever and the baby came early and poorly.
We were able to find that Molly entered a convent in Belgium and there our search comes to an end for the time being. The war blocks further inquiry.
There are more questions than answers. We cannot find the baby’s grave. The Catholic Church is also very secretive about Molly’s disappearance. We do not know if she joined an order as a novice or merely cloistered herself to work through her grief. There was a wisp of information that she may have gone to work in Belgium or France as an English teacher.
For all their perfidy, Freddie and your father have been devastated by the news. With you and Chris at war and Hester barren, the loss has affected them deeply.
Dear God, hang on, Jeremy. Tell me you are going to make it! No matter how this ultimately ends there is still richness and value to life for you if you dare live it.
If I could only hold you now, I’d give a kingdom. If only Conor Larkin could put his arm about your shoulder and speak his Irish magic to you.
I did not know how crushed I would be on learning of Conor’s death. But, I have survived, as you must survive. Even laughter has returned and loving a new and wonderful man. Keep living, life is just too damned good.
Your loving,
Mother
Rory laid the letter down. “Sometimes I wish the fucking mail boat would sink before it gets here,” he said. “Are you going to be all right?”
“I feel better just having talked about it. Yes, I’m going to tough it out. My days of rolling over and dying are done with.”
The letter in Rory’s breast pocket suddenly burned. He reached up, unbuttoned his pocket and withdrew it. Jeremy took it from his hand.
“From Georgia?”
Rory looked at him quizzically.
“I don’t get any pleasure out of snooping, but I have to censor the outgoing mail. The married lady, heavy with lousy husband?”
“Aye,” Rory grunted.
“After I read what goes out, I often wonder what comes back in,” Jeremy said. “She writes beautifully as well.” When he finished reading, the two letters lay touching, two more of war’s uncounted casualties. The two men sat silent and motionless for a long, long spell.
“I guess this makes us pals to the death,” Jeremy said at last. “I need a girl,” he went on suddenly. “I need to close my eyes and maybe pretend. No, I’ve done enough pretending. I won’t see Molly for five years, if ever, if she’s alive…if…if…if…. Am I being a rotter for needing a woman?”
“We’re soldiers heading for battle. We’ve nothing to come back to. Who’s to pass judgment?”
“Hell, my family is a cascade, a landslide of judgments. Now Christopher, there’s the king of judgments. He can do it because he is sexless. He’s got a wife who is sexless. They can’t procreate. Nothing excites him, nothing puts him into despair. He feels no moral pain or moral joy. Anger is his mother’s milk, as though he were weaned from a pit bull. Well, once he terrified me, and my father terrified me, and the earldom terrified me. That’s why I gave up Molly. No…the thought of poverty terrified me.”
On speaking that truth, a season of hell burst out of him! He was free!
“If Molly is to be found, I’ll find her.”
“Ah, and the moment you do, you get on a ship and come to New Zealand.” Rory saw that green gown of Georgia’s lying in the ship’s cabin. New Zealand green. “When it’s over, I’m going back and start up my own acres.”
“Molly sang for me all the time and the pure unvarnished Irish sentiment of it would bring me to tears. You danced for Georgia. She said so in one of your letters.”
“Bare-butt naked while she was on bended knee.”
“That’s smashing! Molly and I…well…we did a lot of quiet holding.”
“Nothing the matter with that. I’ve had