Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [79]
He looked at her then, attentive to every word.
“My brother it was, told her,” she announced with a degree of satisfaction. “He wanted me gone so he could make way for a new woman in the house. He had no use for me anymore.”
“But you weren’t, damn it!”
She sighed. “To begin with, I thought I was.” Her voice had dropped so that it was barely audible. “I wanted to tell you straight out. You see, I’d missed twice.” She stole a glance at him but he had turned away. “I was terrified.”Her voice collapsed in a deep sob. “Can’t you understand that? Terrified of my own father and brother. My brother knew I’d missed. I don’t know how he knew, but he knew. Goddamn him, he knew everything about me, even that. When I discovered it was a false alarm, twas he urged me not to breathe a word. He wanted me gone, kept tellin’ me that there was no place for me here and that this was my only chance.”
Pitiful eyes turned to the man at her side. He hadn’t moved.
“Jesus, Matt, is it myself I’m talkin’ to?”
“You still haven’t answered me. Did she know?”
“Of course she bloody knew. They fixed it all, didn’t they?” Her cries hit a peak and then collapsed again into a low rattling sob.
“And you agreed.”
She made no reply, just stared into the dying embers of the fire, making no effort to stop the flow of tears that ran down her face and formed a dark patch on the front of her dress.
He opened his book and returned to his reading.
In a flash, her hand came back, and with a single swipe, the book went flying from his hands onto the hot embers of the fire.
A howl, tormented and pitiful, came fromdeep within him and in a single movement he sprang, ripping apart the very space between them. He was on his knees, his bare fingers poking at the glowing coals. The pile of dying embers collapsed, the book sinking farther into the hot ash. His hand touched a red hot coal and he pulled back, bringing his scorched fingers to the cool wetness of his mouth. Then he was back in again, determined. He got hold of the soft leather cover and pulled his beloved Shakespeare from the fire. It was smouldering and coated with hot, white ash. Desperate, he dabbed at the charred pages, spitting on his fingers, touching the glowing edges, brushing the ash, ignoring the agony of his hand.
She watched transfixed as he battled fiercely with the hot coals to save his precious book. “I was wrong,” she said calmly. “You’re no different from them.”
“Mammy?” The child stood in the doorway that led to the back room, his eyes wide with fright. “Mammy,” he said again, louder this time, his petrified gaze fixed on his father’s face. He began to gnaw on his tiny clenched fist.
They looked at each other, father and son, a long, lost look. He could find nothing to say to the boy. There was nothing to say, nothing to do, so he got up and, taking the charred remains of his book, walked past the child and out the door.
Peg took a deep breath. “When I heard that, the chill inside of me was worse than the chill of that October day on the hill. I never did have a child of my own but …”
Even in the gentle light of the lamp Peg looked pale and dazed. “I don’t know if…” Her voice faltered. “It’s too difficult.” She reached for her drink and finished it in one gulp. “How can we know what goes on in someone else’s head?” It was a question that didn’t invite an answer, so she turned away to speak to the night. “He told me that he wrote from New York one time, asking them to come to America. He said he had money saved for their passage. But he never heard back from them, not the word, and he never tried again.”
“That’s true!” Nora was suddenly alert. “That is absolutely true. I have the letter here in my handbag.” She reached down for the bag by her feet. Where was it? The chair by her coat. She got up. “It was amongst my father’s papers,” she said, rummaging in the clutter of her bag. The light was poor and her hands awkward. Finally she produced the two letters. “This one,” she said, holding on to one and dropping