'It was the polite thing to say,' Talulla snapped. 'Now really, Mrs Pitt, there is someone I wish to speak to, and I must hurry or they may leave. Excuse me.' And she all but pushed Charlotte out of the way, obliging her to step aside, or seem to be causing a physical unpleasantness.
Charlotte could see Narraway still talking to Barralet at the far end of the room. Talulla was heading directly towards them. Charlotte went after her, but several steps behind. They were halfway down the aisle between the chairs when Talulla stopped so abruptly that Charlotte was forced to also, or bump into her.
Then she saw why Talulla had halted. A little knot of people had gathered around where Narraway had turned from Ardal Barralet and was facing Cormac O'Neil across a short open space of floor. Phelim O'Conor was looking from one to the other of them and Bridget Tyrone was a little to his right.
For seconds they stood frozen, then Cormac drew in his breath. 'I never thought you'd dare show your face in Ireland again,' he said between his teeth, staring at Narraway. 'Who've you come back to betray this time? Mulhare is dead, or didn't you know that?' The hatred trembled in his voice; his whole body shook and his words were slurred.
A ripple of emotion ran through the gathering crowd like the passage of a storm through a field of barley.
'Yes, I know Mulhare is dead,' Narraway replied, not moving backwards in spite of Cormac's closeness to him. 'Someone embezzled the money he should have had so he could go abroad and start a new life.'
'Someone?' Cormac sneered. 'And I suppose you have no idea who?'
'I hadn't,' Narraway answered, still not moving, although Cormac was within two feet of him now. 'I'm beginning to find out.'
Cormac rolled his eyes. 'If I didn't know you, I'd believe that. You stole the money yourself. You betrayed Mulhare just as you betrayed all of us.'
Narraway was white-faced, eyes brilliant. 'It was a war, Cormac. You lost, that's all . . .'
'All!' Cormac's face was now contorted with hate. 'I lost my brother and my sister-in-law, and my country, and you stand here and say "that's all" . . . ?' His voice choked.
There was a mutter from everyone around the group closest to him. Charlotte winced. She knew what Narraway meant, but he was rattled, and being clumsy. He knew they were against him, and he could prove nothing. He had no backing from London now; he was alone, and losing.
'We couldn't both win.' Narraway regained his selfcontrol with an effort. 'That time it was me.You wouldn't have shouted "betrayal" if it had been you.'
'It's my bloody country, you arrogant ape!' Cormac shouted. 'How many more of us have to be robbed, cheated and murdered before you get some shadow of a conscience and get the hell out of Ireland?'
'I'll go as soon as I prove who took Mulhare's money,' Narraway answered. 'Did you sacrifice him to get your revenge on me? Is that how you know all about it?'
'Everybody knows all about it,' Cormac snarled. 'His body was washed up on the steps of Dublin Harbour, God damn you!'
'I didn't betray him!' Narraway's voice was shaking and growing louder in spite of his efforts to keep it down. 'If I'd done it I'd have made a better job. I wouldn't have left the money in my own damn account for others to find it. Whatever you think of me, Cormac, you know I'm not a fool.'
Cormac was stunned into momentary silence.
It was Talulla who stepped forward. Her face was white to the lips, her eyes sunken like holes in her head.
'Yes, you are a fool,' she said between her teeth, facing Narraway, her back to Cormac. 'An arrogant English fool who thinks we can't ever get the better of you. Well, one of us did this time.You say you didn't put the money in your own bank? Apparently someone did, and you got the blame. Your own people think you're a thief, and no one in Ireland will ever give you information again, so you'll be no use to London any more. You have Cormac O'Neil to thank for that.'
She drew in her breath, all but choking on it. 'Don't you have a saying in England "He who laughs last, laughs longest"? Well, we'll be laughing after you are a broken old man with nothing to do and no one who gives a damn about you! Remember it was an O'Neil who did that to you, Narraway!' She laughed, with a brief, jagged sound, like something tearing inside her. Then she turned and pushed her way through the crowd until she disappeared.
Charlotte stared at Cormac, and Phelim O'Conor, and then at Narraway. They stood pale and shaking. It was Ardal Barralet who spoke.
'How unfortunate,' he said drily. 'I think, Victor, it would have been better if you had not come. Old memories die hard. It seems from what has been said as if this is one part of the war that you lost. Accept it with as much grace as you expected of us, and take your leave, while you can.'
Narraway did not even glance at Charlotte, not drawing her into the embarrassment. He bowed very stiffly. 'Excuse me.' He turned and left.
McDaid took Charlotte's arm, holding her surprisingly hard. She had not even known he was near her. Now she had no choice but to leave with him.
'He's a fool,' McDaid said bitterly as soon as they were sufficiently far from the nearest people that he could speak without being overheard. 'Did he think anyone would forget his face?'
She knew he was right, but she was angry with him for saying so. She did not know the details of Narraway's part in the old betrayal, whether he had loved Kate O'Neil, or used her, or even both, but he was the one betrayed this time and by a lie, not by the truth.
She was allowing emotion and instinct to replace reason in her judgement. Or maybe her belief in him was a return for the loyalty Narraway had shown to Pitt. Pitt was not here to help, to offer any support or advice, so it was necessary that she did it for him. It was not something that was even open to question.
Then another thought came to her, a moment of recollection as clear as lightning in a black storm. Talulla had said that Mulhare's money had been returned to Narraway's own bank in London, and now no one in London would trust him. How could she know about the money unless she were intimately involved in having brought that about? She was in her late twenties. At the time of Kate and Sean O'Neil's deaths she would have been no more than a child, perhaps seven or eight years old.
Was that what Narraway had come here for, to provoke her, unrealisingly, into such self-revelation? What a desperate step to take.
She tried to free her arm from McDaid's grip, pulling sharply, but he held on.
'You're not going after him,' he said firmly. 'He did at least do one thing decently: he didn't involve you. As far as Talulla is concerned, you could be total strangers. Don't spoil that.'
His words made it worse. It increased her debt; and to deny Narraway would be pointless and desperately ungracious. She snatched her arm from McDaid and this time he let go.
'I wasn't going to go after him,' she said angrily. 'I'm going home.'
'To London?' he said incredulously.
'To Mrs Hogan's house in Molesworth Street,' she snapped. 'If you would be so kind as to take me . . . I do not wish to have to look for an omnibus. I've no idea where I am, or where I'm going.'
'That I know,' McDaid agreed ruefully.
However, as soon as McDaid had left her at Mrs Hogan's door, she waited until he had got back into the carriage and it was round the corner out of sight, then she walked briskly in the opposite direction and hailed the first carriage for hire that she saw. She knew Cormac O'Neil's town address from Narraway, and she gave it to the driver. She would wait for O'Neil to return, for as long as was necessary.
As it transpired, it was shortly after dusk when she saw Cormac O'Neil climb out of a carriage a hundred yards down the street. He made his way a trifle unsteadily along the footpath towards his front door.
Charlotte moved out of the shadows. 'Mr O'Neil?'
He stopped, blinking momentarily.
'Mr O'Neil,' she repeated. 'I wonder if I may speak with you, please? It is very important.'
'Another time,' he said indistinctly. 'It's late.' He started forward to go past her to the door, but she took a step in front of him.
'No, it's not late, it's barely supper time, and this is urgent. Please?'
He looked at her. 'You're a handsome enough girl,' he said gently, 'but I'm not interested.'
Suddenly she realised that he assumed her to be a prostitute. It was too absurd for her to take offence. But if she laughed she might sound too close to hysteria. She swallowed hard, trying to control the nervous tension all but closing her throat.
'Mr O'Neil . . .' she had prepared the lie. It was the only way she could think of that might make him tell her the truth, '. . . I want to ask you about Victor Narraway.'
O'Neil jerked to a stop and swung round to stare at her.
'I know what he did to your family,' she went on a little desperately. 'At least I think I do. I was at the recital this afternoon. I heard what you said, and what Miss Lawless said too.'
'Why did you come here?' he demanded. 'You're as English as he is. It's in your voice, so don't try to sympathise with me.' Now his tone was stinging with contempt.
She matched his expression just as harshly. 'And you think the Irish are the only people who are ever victims?' she said with amazement. 'My husband suffered too. I might be able to do something about it, if I know the truth.'
'Something?' he said contemptuously. 'What kind of something?'
She knew she must make this passionate, believable; a wound deep enough he would see her as a victim like himself. Mentally she apologised to Narraway. 'Narraway's already been dismissed from Special Branch,' she said, 'because of the money that was supposed to go to Mulhare. But he has everything else: his home, his friends, his life in London. My family has nothing, except a few friends who know him as I do, and perhaps you? But I need to know the truth . . .'
He hesitated a moment, then wearily, as if surrendering to something, he fished in his pocket for a key. Fumbling a little, he inserted it in the lock and opened the door for her.
They were greeted immediately by a large dog a wolfhound of some sort who gave her no more than a cursory glance before going to O'Neil, wagging its tail and pushing against him, demanding attention.
O'Neil patted its head, talking gently. Then he led the way into the parlour and lit the gaslamps, the dog on his heels. The flames burned up to show a clean, comfortable room with a window onto the area way and then the street. He pulled the curtain across, more for privacy than to keep out the cold, and invited Charlotte to sit down.
She did so, soberly thanking him, then waiting for him to compose himself before she began her questions. She was acutely aware that if she made even one ill-judged remark, one clumsy reaction, she could lose him completely, and there would be no opportunity ever to try again.
'It was all over twenty years ago,' he said, looking at her gravely. He sat opposite her, the dog at his feet. In the gaslight it was easy to see that he was labouring to keep some control of his feelings, as if seeing Narraway again had stirred emotions he had struggled hard to bury. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face haggard. His hair stood up on end, crookedly at one side, as though he had run his fingers through it repeatedly. She could not fail to be aware that he had been drinking, but these sorrows were not of the kind that drown easily.
'Yes, I know, Mr O'Neil.' She spoke quietly. There was no need to raise her voice here in this silent house, and the tragedy of the situation demanded respect. 'Do you find time heals? I would like to think so, but I see no evidence of it.' She was inventing her own entire situation, and yet she was bitterly aware that the fate she was creating in her mind for Pitt could be paralleled in the future, if Narraway never regained his power in Special Branch, and whoever had engineered his disgrace were to succeed.
Pitt would fight for Narraway; of course he would. The innate loyalty in him would never allow him to accept that Narraway was guilty, unless it were proved beyond any doubt at all, reasonable or not. And if it were, it would hurt him to depths she would not be able to heal, even with all the tenderness and courage she possessed. Disillusion is an ache that eats into the dreams of goodness, of love, of any value that matters even to the very belief in life. She would have no trouble in lying to O'Neil in any way necessary.
She settled herself a little more comfortably in the chair and waited for his reply.
'Heals?' he said thoughtfully. 'No. Grows a seal over, maybe, but it's still bleeding underneath.' He looked at her curiously. 'What did he do to you?'
She leaped to the future she feared, creating in her mind the worst of it.
'My husband worked in Special Branch too,' she replied. 'Nothing to do with Ireland. Anarchists in England, people who let off bombs that killed ordinary women and children, old people, most of them poor.'
O'Neil winced, but he did not interrupt her.
'Narraway sent him on a dangerous job, and then when it turned ugly, and my husband was far from home, Narraway realised that he had made a mistake, a misjudgement, and he let my husband take the blame for it. My husband was dismissed, of course, but that's not all. He was accused of theft as well, so he can't get any other position at all. He's reduced to labouring, if he can even find that. He's not used to it. He has no skills, and it's hard to learn in your forties. He's not built for it.' She heard the thickening in her own voice, as if she were fighting tears. It was fear, but it sounded like distress, grief, perhaps outrage at injustice.
'How is my story going to help?' O'Neil asked her.
'Narraway denies it, of course,' she replied. 'But if he betrayed you as well, that makes a lot of difference. Please tell me what happened?'
'Narraway came here twenty years ago,' he began slowly. 'He pretended to have sympathy with us, and he fooled some people. He looked Irish, and he used that. He knows our culture and our dreams, our history. But we weren't fooled. You're born Irish, or you're not. But we pretended to go along with it Sean and Kate and I.' He stopped, his eyes misty, as if he were seeing something far from this quiet, sparse room in 1895. The past was alive for him, the dead faces, the unhealed wounds.
Charlotte was uncertain whether to acknowledge that she was listening, or if it would distract him. She ended saying nothing.
'We found out who he was, exactly,' Cormac went on. 'We were planning a big rebellion then. We thought we could use him, give him a lot of false information, turn the tables. We had all sorts of dreams. Sean was the leader, but Kate was the fire. She was beautiful, like sunlight on autumn leaves, wind and shadow, the sort of loveliness you can't hold on to. She was alive the way other women never are.' He stopped again, lost in memory, and the pain of it was naked in his face.
'You loved her,' she said gently.
'Every man did,' he agreed, his eyes meeting hers for an instant, as if he had only just remembered that she was there. 'You remind me of her, a little. Her hair was about the same colour as yours. But you're more natural, like the earth. Steady.'
Charlotte was not sure if she should be insulted. There was no time now, but she would think of it later, and wonder.
'Go on,' she prompted. He had not told her anything yet, except that he had been in love with his brother's wife. Was that really why he hated Narraway?
As if he had seen her thought in her eyes, he continued, 'Of course, Narraway saw the fire in her too. He was fascinated, like any man, so we decided to use that. God knows, we had few enough weapons against him. He was clever. Some people think the English are stupid, and surely some of them are, but not Narraway, never him.'
'So you decided to use his feelings for Kate?'
'Yes. Why not?' he demanded, his eyes angry, defending that decision so many years ago. 'We were fighting for our land, our right to govern ourselves. And Kate agreed. She would have done anything for Ireland.' His voice caught and for a moment he could not go on.
She waited. There was no sound outside, no wind or rain on the glass, no footsteps, no horses in the road. Even the dog at Cormac's feet did not stir. The house could have been anywhere out in the countryside, miles from any other habitation. The present had dissolved and gone away.
'They became lovers, Kate and Narraway,' Cormac said bitterly. 'She told us what he was planning, he and the English. At least that's what she said.' His voice was thick with grief.
'Wasn't it true?' she said when he did not continue.
'He lied to her,' Cormac answered. 'He knew what she was doing, what we all were. Somewhere she made a mistake.' The tears were running down his face and he made no effort to check them. 'He fed us all lies, but we believed him. The uprising was betrayed. Stupid, stupid, stupid! They blamed Kate!' He gulped, staring at the wall as if he could see all the players in that tragedy parading in front of him.
'They saw she had lied to us!' he went on. 'Narraway did that to her, used her against her own people. That's why I'd see him in hell. But I want him to suffer further, here on earth, where I know it for certain. Can you make that happen, Mrs Pitt? For Kate?'
She was appalled by the rage in him. It shook his body like a disease. His skin was blotchy, the flesh of his face wasted. He must once have been handsome.
'What happened to her?' It was cruel to ask, but Charlotte knew it was not the end of the story yet, and she needed to hear it from him, not just from Narraway.
'She was murdered,' he replied. 'Strangled. Beautiful Kate.'
'I'm sorry.' She meant it. She tried to imagine the woman, all passion and dreams, as Cormac had painted her, but that vision was the memory of a man in love with an image. Kate had ceased to be breathing, fallible, able to laugh and be hurt, wake and sleep like anyone else.
'They said it was Sean who killed her,' he went on. 'But it couldn't have been. He knew better than to believe she would have betrayed the cause. That was Narraway again. He killed her, because she would have told them what he had done. He would never have left Ireland alive.' He stared at Charlotte, his eyes brimming with tears, waiting for her to respond.
She forced herself to speak. 'Why would he? Can you prove that?' she asked. 'I mean, can you give me anything I can take back to London that would make them listen to me?' She was cold now too, dreading what he might say. What if he could? What would she do then? Narraway would excuse himself, of course. He would say he had had to kill her, or she would have exposed him and the uprising might have succeeded. Perhaps that was even true? But it was still ugly and terrible. It was still murder.
'He killed her because she wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know. But if I could prove that, do you think he'd be alive?' Cormac asked harshly. 'They'd not have hanged poor Sean, and Talulla be an orphan, God help her.'
Charlotte gasped. 'Talulla?'
'She's Kate's daughter,' he said simply. 'Kate and Sean. Did you not know that? After Sean and Kate died she was cared for by a cousin, so she could be protected as much as possible from the hatred against her mother. Poor child.'
The dreadful, useless tragedy of it overwhelmed Charlotte. She wanted to say something that would redeem any part of the loss, but everything that came to her mind was banal.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm . . .'
He looked up at her. 'So are you going back to London to tell someone?'
'Yes . . . yes I am.'
'Be careful,' he warned. 'Narraway won't go down easily. He'll kill you too, if he thinks he has to, to survive.'
'I will be careful,' she promised him. 'I think I have a little more to learn yet, but I promise I'll be . . . careful.' She stood up, feeling awkward. There was nothing to say to complete their conversation. They moved from the desperate to the mundane as if it were completely natural, but what words were there that could be adequate for what either of them felt? 'Thank you, Mr O'Neil,' she said gravely.
He took her to the door and opened it for her, but he did not offer to find her any transport, as if for him she ceased to be real the moment she stepped out onto the pavement.