Treason at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [57]
“Perhaps I sounded a bit trivial when I spoke of fun,” she said half apologetically. “I like my pleasure spiced with thought, and even a puzzle or two, so the flavor of it will last. A drama is superficial if one can understand everything in it in one evening, don’t you think?”
The hardness in his face softened. “Then you will leave Ireland a happy woman,” he told her. “You will certainly not understand us in a week, or a month, probably not in a year.”
“Because I am English? Or because you are so complex?” she pursued.
“Because we don’t understand ourselves, most of the time,” he replied with the slightest lift of one shoulder.
“No one does,” she returned. Now they were speaking as if there were no one else in the room. “The tedious people are the ones who think they do.”
“We can be tedious by perpetually trying to, aloud.” He smiled, and the light of it utterly changed his face. “But we do it poetically. It is when we begin to repeat ourselves that we try people’s patience.”
“But doesn’t history repeat itself, like variations on a theme?” she said. “Each generation, each artist, adds a different note, but the underlying tune is the same.”
“England’s is in a major key.” His mouth twisted as he spoke. “Lots of brass and percussion. Ireland’s is minor, woodwind, and the dying chord. Perhaps a violin solo now and then.” He was watching her intently, as if it were a game they were playing and one of them would lose. Did he already know who she was, and that she had come with Narraway, and why?
She tried to dismiss the thought as absurd, then remembered that someone had already outwitted Narraway, which was a considerable feat. It required not only passion for revenge, but a high level of intelligence as well. Most frightening of all, it needed connections in Lisson Grove sufficiently well placed to have put the money in Narraway’s bank account.
Suddenly the game seemed a great deal more serious. She was aware that because of her hesitation, Dolina was watching her curiously as well, and Fiachra McDaid was standing at her elbow.
“I always think the violin sounds so much like the human voice,” she said with a smile. “Don’t you, Mr. O’Neil?”
Surprise flickered for a moment in his eyes. He had been expecting her to say something more defensive, no doubt.
“Did you not expect the heroes of Ireland to sound human?” he asked her.
“Not entirely.” She avoided looking at McDaid, or Dolina, in case their perception brought them back to reality. “I had thought of something heroic, even supernatural.”
“Touché,” McDaid said softly. He took Charlotte by the arm, holding her surprisingly hard. She could not have shaken him off even had she wished to. “We must take our seats.” He excused them and led her away after only the briefest farewell. She nearly asked him if she had offended someone, but she did not want to hear the answer. Nor did she intend to apologize.
As soon as she resumed her seat she realized that it offered her as good a view of the rest of the audience as it did of the stage. She glanced at McDaid, and saw in his expression that he had arranged it so intentionally, but she did not comment.
They were only just in time for the curtain going up, and immediately the drama recaptured their attention. Charlotte, lost in the many allusions to history and legends with which she was not familiar, began to look at the audience again, to catch something of their reaction and follow a little more.
John and Bridget Tyrone were in a box almost opposite. With the intimate size of the theater she could see their faces quite clearly. He was watching the stage, leaning a little