by Charles Todd
For a wild moment, I thought he meant Simon, but I quickly collected my scattered wits and replied, “Who was staring? I was looking at that very odd parrot.”
Where on earth had Simon found him? Or had he come with the caravan?
I was glad I’d been careful because Terrence snapped, “The man with the violin. He’s dangerous, Bess. Stay clear of him, do you understand me?”
“I think I’ve seen him somewhere before . . .”
“It was the evening we went to the village to fetch our dinner.” We were passing the church when he finally went on. “I don’t trust him. He tried to court Eileen when she was able to walk again, and he was an eager part of the Rising. Only he and others like him wish to carry on, and make it a far bloodier business. In 1916, only those involved in the Rising fought and died, and they did it openly, with a Proclamation and weapons. He and his like want to begin a campaign of attrition, wearing the English down until they’re glad to be rid of us. I want no part of that, and I don’t think those who signed the Proclamation would have wanted it any more than I do.”
That was his public viewpoint, I thought. But there was more to it. There was bad blood between these two men, and it was very personal. Was it Eileen?
“I was told when I was considering whether or not to come over, that the Irish were splintered now into many groups, all of them advocating for different responses to what happened in the Rising.”
“There was great disappointment when it failed. Some are afraid to try again, while most of us want to find a new way. Not everyone wants what the fiddler wants. But we’ll have independence in the end. If we must try all of the ways, one after the other.”
“Was the artist—Fergus Kennedy—pushing for any particular way?”
“I don’t know why he was killed.” We had reached the drive up to the house.
“Go in and change, if you want to find that chemist’s shop.” And he walked on, carrying the things we’d bought, leaving me to follow.
And I would have dearly loved to run back to the village and ask Simon what he was doing here, and if my father was with him.
In the end we found the chemist’s shop in a larger village closer to the mainland. We were met with stares. An Englishwoman in the company of an Irishman was not the usual sight even here, and a handful of young boys followed us as we rode down the high street in search of our goal. I wished I’d brought my mother’s dark blue riding dress, far less conspicuous than my own dark red one.
Terrence stayed with the horses while I went in to place my order for medical supplies. The owner was clearly of a mind not to help me until I said, “I’ve been sent by Mrs. Flynn of Killeighbeg. She won’t be very happy if I’m not served.”
Apparently her name carried weight even here.
“And how is the dear woman?” the owner asked, moving to find the things I needed. “Not under the weather, I hope?”
“Not at all,” I said, as if I were her spokeswoman. “She asked me to see to her medical cabinet and I was shocked at the state it had got into.”
He frowned as he plucked items off the shelves. “There’s requests here that could deal with major wounds.”
Oh, dear, I’ve overplayed my hand, I thought.
“Falling out of a barn can do as much damage as you like,” I said aloud.
“True, true. Mattie Byrnes’s brother broke his neck coming out of the hay door headfirst.”
I had no idea who Mattie Byrnes was, but I commiserated. When we finally had my order tied up in a parcel I could carry, and I had paid for it all with money Terrence Flynn had given me, the shop owner said, “Rumor has it that Mrs. Flynn’s granddaughter’s wedding was quite the shock.”
Rumor had run quite far.
“Mrs. Flynn hasn’t told me,” I said and wished him a good day.
Terrence took my purchases as I came out the shop door, and something in my expression must have told him how things had gone inside. He put the parcel across his saddle and then gave me a leg up. I noticed that our little escort had gone away. As we turned back toward Killeighbeg, I said, “He asked—indirectly—about the wedding. Apparently word has spread.”
“Several of the guests came from here,” he told me. “Old friends of my grandmother’s.”
“Does that put Michael in greater danger? I don’t know if he escaped or was allowed to go. He won’t talk about what happened. I don’t even know who it was who took him.”
“Nor do I,” Terrence replied. “Whether he likes it or not, we have to know. How long before he can travel safely?”
“Several more days. And then it should depend on how he’ll travel.”
“Too bad that aircraft of yours can’t take the lot of you. We’d all be better off.”
I looked across at him. “I need to know more about Fergus Kennedy. Is he in any way connected to Michael’s disappearance?”
He didn’t answer, urging his mount forward, making conversation more difficult. And this wasn’t a topic that ought to be shouted about, for anyone to hear. We’d just passed through another small hamlet, and there was a scattering of other houses just ahead.
I caught him up. “You think it doesn’t matter if I know or not. But it does. I don’t think Eileen is aware of anything at the moment but Michael’s condition. And Major Dawson is all but a prisoner here, now the wedding is over. As am I. The younger Mrs. Flynn isn’t able to fend for herself, much less help me. I don’t trust Niall. And the Constabulary is questioning both the Major and me. I feel surrounded by something I don’t understand, and it’s not a pleasant feeling.”
“Then send for your flyer, and leave.”
“I can’t. Not for a few days. Not until Michael is recovering.”
“Then keep out of it, Bess Crawford. Or you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. It’s a warning, woman. There’s a difference.”
And those were the last words he spoke to me all the rest of the way to the house.
I walked into the house through the door by the kitchen and started up the stairs to change out of my riding dress.
Major Dawson met me on his way down. I took his arm, leading him into the pantry, where we couldn’t be overheard.
“Have you spoken to Michael?” I asked quietly.
“I’ve tried, but Eileen seldom leaves his side. You?”
“Once, briefly. And then it was only to beg me to take Eileen out of the country. I wish we knew more.”
“Did you find the medicines you were after? The sooner he’s well enough to talk the better.”
“Yes—”
I heard someone starting down the staircase and we stepped quickly into the kitchen. I had the presence of mind to hand him the milk pitcher while I caught up the board holding the bread.
But it was just Mrs. Flynn the younger.
“Good morning, Mrs. Flynn—” I began.
She put a hand on my arm. “Will you call me Maeve? I was proud of the name Flynn once, but now I hate it. Because of her.”
Her mother-in-law.
“I—yes, of course—”
She smiled. “Does it seem so awkward to use my name?”
“A little,” I confessed. “But I will become used to it.”
She turned to the Major. “How is Michael this morning? I can barely squeeze a word out of my daughter.”
“Improving slowly.”
“I looked in on them in the middle of the night. He’s been roughly handled.”
Surprised, I said nothing. Had I been that deeply asleep? But then she moved like a wraith, sometimes, although in theory this was her house, not Granny’s.
“He has,” Ellis was replying. “We still don’t know who held him. Or why.”
She drew a deep breath. “I think it has to do with what is being planned. We’re so far from Dublin, you see. What better place to have secret meetings?”
She rarely left her room. How could she know what was happening?
As if she’d heard the thought, she said quietly, “My room is across from hers. And she can be very loud when she’s displeased.”
“Did she know what had become of Michael?” I asked quickly.
“I tried, but there was never anything said about him that I could hear. I did wonder—Father O’Halloran is very much a rebel. He’d have been in Dublin himself if he’d known what was to happen. There are a lot of them who want to make up for not being there. But the leaders of the Rising knew how to choose men who could be trusted.”
That was enlightening. “How do you know?”
“My father knew most of the leaders. Over the years, when I was a child, I saw them come and go.”
“Was he involved in the Rising?” Major Dawson asked.
“He was far too old. He was eighty-five when he died in 1913, but he’d hoped to see the day, I think.” She gestured toward the cooker. “I came down to find a cup of tea . . .”
It was clearly a change in subject, and I set about making tea while the Major looked in on Eileen. The front room had become a sickroom for the moment. It would have been impossible to carry Michael up the narrow stairs, and besides, I was sleeping in Eileen’s room just now.
In her letters, Eileen had talked about leaving after the ceremony and reception, spending their first night in Galway, then traveling on to Dublin before taking a ferry from Dunleavy. I still wasn’t certain Michael would be traveling at all this week.
I could hear the Major speaking to Eileen, and then once, a hoarse response from Michael. Setting the tea on the table and finding some biscuits for Mrs.—Maeve—I went to find where Terrence had put my parcels from the chemist’s.
He had left them in the front room, and with the warm water left in the kettle from making tea, I washed my patient’s wounds, covered them with ointment, then bandaged them. I’d given him aspirin before we left, and it was time for more. All the while he lay there with his eyes closed, but I wasn’t sure whether that was from his weakness or his refusal to answer questions.
Busy as my hands were—riding with Terrence, talking to Ellis and Mrs. F—Maeve—in the kitchen, even working with Michael—I was trying to think of a way to reach Simon.
I was washing up the pan I’d used to bathe Michael’s wounds when there was a knock at the kitchen door.
I hadn’t seen the girl who sometimes worked in the kitchen—she seemed to come and go at will. I thought this might well be her and was just going to answer the knock when Maeve came into the kitchen.
I smiled at her, went into the passage, and opened the door.
There stood Simon. Without the parrot. He’d changed from the flamboyant clothing he’d worn when he first came to the village. Now he was dressed like so many Irishmen, in a dark suit of clothes and a white shirt without a collar. On his head he wore the flat-billed cap that so many men favored here.
He raised his eyebrows, and I gave a slight shake of my head to let him know that we could be overheard.
He asked in an accent that was neither Irish nor English if we had any pots or pans that might need mending.
“Who is it, Bess? Is that Molly?”
Simon brushed past me, stepped into the kitchen, swept off his cap, and gave Mrs. Flynn a bow that Louis XIV would have envied.
She turned pink.
“The lady of the house,” he said in that same accent. “I have come to ask, are there pots and pans to be mended? Yes? I am remarkably good at this.”
Behind him I smothered a laugh with a cough.
Maeve Flynn collected herself. “I have no pots or pans. But there is a chair in my room that has an arm that is loose. Could you repair that?”
“Indeed, Madame. You have only to ask.”
She turned and led him up the stairs. I followed. And as I did, Simon’s hand came back toward me, a slip of paper in it.
The Stile. Midnight.
I dropped it in my pocket and kept going.
There was indeed a chair with an arm that was loose. Simon picked it up, looked it over, and quoted her an outrageous price to repair it.
To my surprise, she said, “When you return with the chair mended, I will pay you.”
He grinned audaciously, gave her another bow, and set out for the door, chair in hand. I just prayed he didn’t run into Terrence or Niall on his way.
Maeve said, “After him, Bess. He’s likely to help himself to the silver if you don’t see him out.”
I did, but there was no chance to speak to him. He marched off with the chair, and I breathed again.
I went back up to Maeve’s rooms, to ask her if it was wise to trust him to mend the chair and not sell it instead of returning it.
“I don’t know. Or care. I only did it to annoy her.”
“But how will she know? I don’t think anyone else saw him.” I hoped not, at any rate.
“That’s the chair she prefers to sit in, whenever she visits. I think she deliberately weakened the arm to annoy me. I shall have the pleasure of telling her how it was repaired.”
I was beginning to see that the younger Mrs. Flynn wasn’t quite the invalid that her daughter feared she was. It was a useful act, in this household.
Major Dawson wasn’t there for tea, nor did he come for supper, and I asked if anyone had seen him since I’d come back from my travels with Terrence.
And no one had.
Eileen said, “I think I saw him walking down to the meadow shortly after we’d settled Michael. He’s restless. The wedding’s over. He wants to leave but feels he can’t until Michael is a little stronger.”
Terrence said, “I’m here. He can leave whenever he likes.”
But I knew that Ellis wouldn’t leave until he was sure I could as well.
I said, “It’s still light. He may come in shortly.”
“It’s not safe to go wandering about alone. An English officer? Fair game, to many people. He should know that by now,” Niall put in.
Still, as soon as the meal was over, I left Eileen and her mother to see to the dishes and quietly went out to look for the Major.
I remembered the place he said he went to, to speak to the frog in the pond. Crossing the meadow, I started through the spinney, scanning among the trees without any sign of him. And so it took me several minutes to reach the far side. I wasn’t sure whether the pond was to my right or my left, and so I had to cast about before I saw it some thirty yards away. It was larger than I’d expected.
Ellis wasn’t there, either.
I was beginning to be glad I’d brought my little revolver with me. There was something about the silence. No birds were calling or moving about, as if there had been trouble here and they were keeping out of sight.
Still, I kept going until I was close enough to notice the bruised grass on the side of the pond nearest me. There was a large stone just to one side, and I thought it might be where Ellis sat while he was here. Ahead, in the water, two black eyes rose as I got nearer, then vanished from sight. The frog.
I turned toward the large stone. It was shaped like a rough U, and I realized that it was actually two stones so close together they appeared to be one. Where they joined was a small plaster shrine, the Virgin Mary’s blue gown faded, the edges of the plaster surrounding her chipped. As if it had been set here a long time ago and forgotten.
And at the far end of the stone, I saw something dark.
I went over to it, put out my fingers, and touched it. Dark there, perhaps, but when I looked at my fingers, the smear was a rusty red.
Blood.
And by the looks of it, whatever had taken place here had happened some hours ago. Four? Five? Longer?
Just like Michael, Major Dawson had gone missing.
I quickly turned, looking all around. Was there someone out there, watching? Or waiting . . . ?
Shoving my left hand in my pocket, I felt for the cool metal of the little weapon. I dipped my other fingers in the pond water to clean away the blood, then I dried them on my handker
chief. I could just see the frog’s long legs pushing itself deeper into the shadows at the bottom. And then it was gone.
Moving as if undisturbed, I went back the way I’d come and counted my steps until I could reach the spinney and some semblance of safety.
I tried to tell myself that no one was out there, and yet the sense of being watched was so strong I dared not ignore it.
I didn’t realize that my teeth were clenched until I stepped into the shelter of the first tree. But there was still some way to go—through the spinney—that little wood that now seemed to stretch on forever—then cross the meadow and over the lawns to the house.
Concentrating on that, I walked deeper into the cool shade of the trees. I’d taken no more than half a dozen steps when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
I stopped short with my back against the nearest tree. I could feel the rough bark through the cloth of my dress.
“Whoever you are,” I called harshly, “I’m armed, and I know how to shoot.”
A shadowy figure stepped out into my line of sight, and I had already brought up my revolver when he said, “Well, I damned well hope you do. I taught you, after all.”
It was Simon.
I felt like shooting him anyway. But I put the revolver back into my pocket and went toward him.
He was dressed the same as he had been earlier, but there was a subtle difference about him now.
The soldier, not the Traveler, I thought. And something else I couldn’t define.
He said, “I’m to alert Arthur to pick you up tonight. Where’s the Major? He and I can make our way home by boat. I only persuaded the owner of that bl—that caravan to lend it to me for a week.”
“I can’t leave yet,” I told him. “For one thing, Michael was badly hurt and he’s still not well enough for me to go.”
“I heard about the wedding. At the pub last night. But Eileen is trained, is she not? She will manage.”
“She’s too shaken to be of any use. Even to Michael. And we can’t move him yet. Besides, there’s another problem. The Major is missing. Just now. He had a place he went to sit, to get away from the house for a bit, but today he was away far longer than usual. I went to look for him. There was a fight, I think, and I found a little blood on one of the stones. I can’t swear that it’s his, but I have a feeling it must be. You didn’t see anything while you were lurking here?”