by Anne Perry
“You must be Susannah’s niece. Don’t be surprised,” he observed with amusement. “It’s a small village. An incomer is news. And we are all fond of Susannah. She wouldn’t have been without friends for Christmas, but that isn’t the same as family.”
Emily felt defensive, as if she and Charlotte had been to blame for Susannah’s situation. “She was the one who moved away,” she replied, then instantly thought how childish that sounded. “Unfortunately, after my father died, we didn’t keep in touch as we should have.”
He smiled back at her. “It happens. Women follow the men they love, and distances can be hard to cross.”
They were standing on the shore, the wind tugging at their hair and clothes, rough but mild, no cruelty in it. She thought the waves were a little steeper than when she had set out, but perhaps she was merely closer to them here on the sand.
“I’m glad she was happy here,” she said impulsively. “Did you know her husband?”
“Of course,” he replied. “We all know each other here, and have done for generations—the Martins, the Rosses, the Conneeleys, the Flahertys. The Rosses and Martins are all one, of course. The Conneeleys and the Flahertys also, but in an entirely different way. But perhaps you know that?”
“No, not at all?” she lifted her voice to make it a question.
He did not need a second invitation. “Years ago, last century, the Flahertys murdered all of the Conneeleys, except Una Conneeley. She escaped alive, with the child she was carrying. When he was born and grew up he starved himself to force her to tell him the truth of his birth.” He glanced at her to make sure she was listening.
“Go on,” Emily prompted. She was in no hurry to be back inside the house again. She watched the seabirds careening up the corridors of the wind. The smell of salt was strong in the air, and the surf pounding now white on the shore gave her a sense of exhilaration, almost of freedom.
“Well, she told him, of course,” he continued, his eyes bright. “And when he was fully grown he came back here and found the Flaherty tyrant of the day living on an island in a lake near Bunowen.” His face was vivid as if he recalled it himself. “Conneeley measured the distance from the shore to the island, and then set two stones apart on the hillside, that exact space, and practiced until he could make the jump.”
“Yes?” she urged.
He was delighted to go on. “Flaherty’s daughter nearly drowned in the lake and young Conneeley rescued her. They fell in love. He jumped the water to the island and stabbed Flaherty’s eyes out.”
Emily winced.
He grinned. “And when the blind man then offered to shake his hand, the girl gave her lover a horse’s leg bone to offer instead of his hand, which shows she knew her father very well. Flaherty crushed it to powder with his grip. Conneeley killed him on the spot, and he and Flaherty’s daughter lived happily ever after—starting the whole new clan, which now peoples the neighborhood.”
“Really?” She had no idea if he was even remotely serious; then she saw the fire of emotion in his face and knew that, for all his lightness of telling, he was speaking of passions that were woven into the very meaning of his life. “I see,” she added, so that he would know she understood its validity.
“Padraic Yorke,” he said, holding out his thin, strong hand.
“Emily Radley,” she replied, taking it warmly.
“Oh, I know,” he nodded. “Indirectly you are part of our history here, because you are Susannah’s niece, and Susannah was Hugo Ross’s wife.” His voice dropped. “It hasn’t been the same since he died.”
She should have felt this was slightly imprisoning, but actually she was happy to be part of this enormous, wind-torn land, just for a season, and of its people who knew each other with such fierce intimacy.
Padraic Yorke started walking again, and she kept pace with him. He pointed out the various plants and grasses, naming them all, and telling her what would flower here in the spring, and what in the summer. He told her where the birds would nest, when their chicks would hatch and when they would fly. She listened not so much to the information, which she would never remember, but to the love of it in his voice.
It was a different world from London, but she began to see that it had a unique beauty, and perhaps if you loved a man deeply enough, and he loved you, then it could be a good land. Perhaps in Susannah’s place she would have come here too. Jack had asked nothing of her, no sacrifice at all, except the forfeit of a little of the social position gained from her first husband. She still had the money she had inherited from him in trust for their son.
Jack had asked for no change in her, no sacrifice, not even an accommodation of awkward relatives. She realized with a chill of dismay that she did not even know his parents, or any of the friends he had had before they met. It was always her family they turned to. The belonging was all hers.
For the first time in their years together, she recognized a loss, and she was not certain how deep it was. With her acknowledgement of it entered a fear she had not known before. There were things she needed to learn, bitter or sweet. The ignorance was no longer acceptable.
When Emily arrived back at the house and went into the drawing room, she found to her surprise that Susannah had visitors. A rather portly older woman, with a handsome face and hair as rich as polished mahogany, was sitting in one of the armchairs, and standing beside her was a man at least twenty years younger, but with a very similar cast of features, only in him they were even more becoming, and his eyes were a finer hazel brown.
Susannah was sitting opposite them, dressed in blue and with her hair coiled up elegantly. She looked very pale, but she appeared attentive and cheerful. Emily could only imagine what the effort must cost her. She introduced the visitors as Mrs. Flaherty and her son Brendan, explaining to them that Emily was her niece.
“Did you have a pleasant walk?” she asked. “Yes, thank you,” Emily replied, sitting in one of the other chairs. “I had not expected to find the shore so very beautiful. It is quite different from anything I know, much …” she searched for the right word. “Wilder,” Brendan Flaherty offered for her. “Like a beautiful animal, not savage intentionally, just doesn’t know its own strength, and if you anger it, it will destroy you, because that is its nature.”
“You must excuse Brendan,” Mrs. Flaherty apologized. “He’s overfanciful. He doesn’t mean to alarm you.”
The color rushed up Brendan’s cheeks, but Emily was certain it was embarrassment for his mother’s intervention, not for his own words.
“I find it a perfect description.” Emily smiled to take the correction out of her words. “I think it was the power of it I found beautiful, and in a way the delicacy. There were still some tiny wildflowers there, even at this time of the year.”
“Glad you saw them today,” Mrs. Flaherty said. “The storm will finish them. No idea how much sand it will put on top of everything. And weed, of course.”
Emily could think of no adequate reply. The look of bleakness in Mrs. Flaherty’s face made it impossible to be light about it.
“I met Mrs. O’Donnell at the shop,” she said instead, “and posted my letters. And then on the way back I walked a little way with a most interesting man, a Mr. Yorke, who told me some stories about the village, and the area in general.”
Brendan smiled. “He would. He’s our local historian, sort of keeper of the collective spirit of the place. And something of a poet.”
Mrs. Flaherty forced a smile as well. “Takes a bit of liberty,” she added. “A good bit of myth thrown in with his history.”
“True enough at heart, if not in every detail,” Brendan said to Emily.
“You’re too generous.” His mother’s voice was sharp. “Some of what is passed around as history is just malicious. Idle tongues with nothing better to do.”
“There was nothing unpleasant,” Emily said quickly, although that was a slight stretch of the truth. “Just old tales.”
“That’s a surpr
ise,” Mrs. Flaherty responded disbelievingly. She glanced at Brendan, then back to Emily. “I’m afraid we are a small village. We all know each other rather too well.” She rose to her feet stiffly. “But I hope you’ll enjoy yourself here. You’re most welcome. We’re all glad that Susannah has family to spend Christmas with her.” She made herself smile, and it lightened her face until one could see an echo of the young woman she had once been, fresh, full of hope, and almost beautiful.
“I’m sure I shall, Mrs. Flaherty, but thank you for your good wishes.”
Brendan bade her good-bye as well, holding her gaze for a moment longer as if he would say something else, but when his mother looked at him urgently, he changed his mind.
Emily had a sharp image of Mrs. Flaherty taking Brendan’s arm, gripping it, not as if she needed his support but as if she dared not let him go.
When the door was closed and they were back inside, Emily looked more closely at Susannah.
“It’s a good day,” Susannah assured her. “I slept well. Did you really like the shore?”
“Yes, I did.” Emily was pleased to be honest. She had a sudden conviction that Hugo had loved it, and it mattered to Susannah that Emily could see its beauty also. “And Mr. Yorke didn’t say anything except a little history of the Flahertys long ago,” she added.
Susannah lifted a hand in dismissal. “Oh, don’t take any notice of Mrs. Flaherty. Her husband was a colorful character, but no real harm in him. At least that’s what I choose to think, but I’m glad I wasn’t married to him all the same. She adored him, but I think her memory must be a little kinder than the facts bear out. He was too handsome for his own good—or for hers.”
“I can believe it,” Emily agreed with a smile, thinking of Brendan walking away down the path with his easy stride.
Susannah understood her instantly. “Oh, yes, Brendan too. Naturally he took advantage of it, and she spoiled him, in his father’s memory, I think.”
“Did she remarry?” Emily asked.
Susannah’s eyebrows shot up. “Colleen Flaherty? Good heavens, no! As far as she’s concerned, no one could fill Seamus’s shoes. Not that I think anyone tried! Too busy guarding Brendan from what she saw as his father’s weaknesses. Mostly women, the drink, and an overdose of imagination, so I gather. She’s terrified Brendan’ll go the same way. I don’t think she’s doing him a kindness, but it wouldn’t help to say so.”
“And will he go the same way?” Emily asked.
Susannah looked at her, for a moment her eyes frank, almost probing, then she turned away. “Maybe, but I hope not. From what Hugo used to say, Seamus Flaherty was a nightmare to live with. People with that kind of charm can jerk you up and down like a puppet on the end of a string. Sooner or later the string will break. Are you ready for lunch? You must be hungry after your walk.”
“Yes, I am. I’ll make lunch, if you like?”
“Maggie was here and it’s all done,” Susannah replied.
“Really?” Emily gestured towards the window. “In spite of the storm?” She smiled.
“It’ll come, Emily.” Susannah shuddered, her whole body closing in on itself as if she had wrapped her arms around it. “Maybe tonight.”
By dusk the wind was very definitely rising again, and with a different sound from before. The keening was higher, a more dangerous edge to it. Darkness came very early and Emily noticed as she put things away after dinner that there were cold places in the house. In spite of all the windows being closed, somehow the air from outside found its way in. There seemed to be no lull between the gusts, as though nothing could rest anymore.
The curtains were drawn closed, but Susannah kept looking towards the windows. There was no rain to hear, just the wind and occasionally the sudden hard bang as a twig hit the glass.
They were both happy to go to bed early. “Perhaps by morning it will have blown itself out,” Emily said hopefully.
Susannah turned a white face towards her, eyes filled with fear. “No, it won’t,” she said quietly, the wind almost drowning her words. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
Emily’s common sense wanted to tell her that that was stupid, but she knew it would not help. Whatever Susannah was talking about, it was something far more than the wind. Perhaps it was whatever she was really afraid of, and the reason she had wanted Emily here.
Emily thought as she undressed that in London Jack would be at the theater, possible enjoying the interval, laughing with their friends at the play, swapping gossip. Or would he not have gone without her? It wouldn’t be the same, would it?
Surprisingly, she went to sleep fairly quickly, but she woke with a jolt. She had no idea what time it was, except that she was in total darkness. She could see nothing whatever. The wind had risen to a high, constant scream.
Then it came—a flare of lightning so vivid that it lit the room even through the drawn curtains. The thunder was all but instantaneous, crashing around and around, as if it came from all directions.
For a moment she lay motionless. The lightning blazed again, a brief, spectral glare, almost shadowless, then it was gone and there was only the roaring of thunder and shrill scream of the wind.
She threw the covers off and, picking up a shawl from the chair, went to the window. She pulled the curtains back but the darkness was impenetrable. The noise was demonic, louder without the muffling of the curtains. This was ridiculous; she would have seen as much if she had stayed in bed with the covers over her head, like a child.
Then the lightning struck again, and showed her a world in torment. The few trees in the garden were thrashing wildly, broken twigs flying. The sky was filled with roiling clouds so low they closed in as if to settle on the earth. But it was the sea that held her eyes. In the glare it seethed white with spume, heaving as if trying to break its bounds and rise to consume the land. The howl of it could be heard even above the wind.
Then the darkness returned as if she had been blinded. She could not see even the glass inches from her face. She was cold. There was nothing to do, nothing to achieve, and yet she stood on the spot as if she were fixed to it.
The lightning flared again, at almost the same moment as the thunder, sheets of colorless light across the sky, then forks like stab wounds from heaven to the sea. And there, quite clearly out in the bay, was a ship struggling from the north, battered and overwhelmed, trying to make its way around the headland to Galway. It was going to fail. Emily knew that as surely as if it had already happened. The sea was going to devour it.
She felt almost obscene, standing here in the safety of the house, watching while people were destroyed in front of her. But neither could she simply turn around and go back to bed, even if what she had seen were a dream and would all have vanished in the morning. They would be dying, choking in the water while she lay there warm and safe.
It was probably pointless to waken Susannah, as if Emily were a child who could not cope with a nightmare alone, and yet she did not hesitate. She tied the shawl more tightly around her and went along the corridor with a candle in her hand. She knocked on Susannah’s bedroom door, prepared to go in if she were not answered.
She knocked again, harder, more urgently. She heard Susannah’s voice and opened the door.
Susannah sat up slowly, her face pale, her long hair tousled. In the yellow light of the flame she looked almost young again, almost well.
“Did the storm disturb you?” she asked quietly. “You don’t need to worry; the house has withstood many like this before.”
“It’s not for me,” Emily closed the bedroom door behind her, a tacit signal she did not mean to leave. “There’s a ship out in the bay, in terrible trouble. I suppose there’s nothing we can do, but I have to be sure.” She sounded ridiculous. Of course there was nothing. She simply did not want to watch its sinking alone.
The horror in Susannah’s eyes was worse than anything Emily could have imagined.
“Susannah! Is there somebody you know on it?” she went forward qui
ckly and grasped Susannah’s hands on the counterpane. They were stiff and cold.
“No,” Susannah replied hoarsely. “I don’t think so. But that hardly makes it different, does it? Don’t we all know each other, when it matters?”
There was no answer. They stood side by side at the window staring into the darkness, then as the lightning came again, a searing flash, it left an imprint on the eyes of a ship floundering in cavernous waves, hurled one way and then another, struggling to keep bow to the wind. As soon as they were tossed sideways they would be rolled over, pummeled to pieces and sucked downwards forever. The sailors must know that, just as Emily did. The two women were watching something inevitable, and yet Emily found her body rigid with the effort of hope that somehow it would not be so.
She stood closer to Susannah, touching her. Susannah took her hand, gripping it. The ship was still afloat, battling south towards the point. Once it was out of sight, would anyone ever know what had happened to them?
As if reading Emily’s thoughts, Susannah said, “They’re probably bound for Galway, but they might take shelter in Cashel, just beyond the headland. It’s a big bay, complicated. There’s plenty of calm water, whichever way the wind’s coming.”
“Is it often like this?” Emily asked, appalled at the thought. Susannah did not answer.
“Is it?”
“Once before …” Susannah began, then drew in her breath in a gasp of pain so fierce that Emily all but felt it herself as Susannah’s fingers clenched around hers, bruising the bones.
Emily stared out into the pitch-darkness, and then the lightning burned again, and the ship was gone. She saw it in a moment of hideous clarity, just the mast above the seething water.
Susannah turned back to the room. “I must go and tell Fergal O’Bannion. He’ll get the rest of the men of the village out. Someone … may be washed ashore. We’ll need to …”