Kathie nodded unhappily, unable to meet the unhappiness in the older woman’s eyes.
‘You disappoint me, Kathie. It’s well known that the young men of County Wexford have more brawn than brain, but I would have credited you with more sense than to encourage them.’
‘If others in years past had acted instead of talked, it wouldn’t have been necessary for us to do what was done tonight,’ said one of the young men defiantly.
‘Talked, you say? Talked? Take a walk through the graveyards of Wexford with your eyes open and you’ll soon see what talking has been done in years past. You’ll find my grandfather’s name there and many more besides. They were hanged for doing more than talking – and a fat lot of good it did anyone. Don’t you speak to me of things you know nothing about, young man. A little more talking and my son wouldn’t be lying here with a musket-ball inside him. Now you can all get out and leave me to get ready for Bridie O’Keefe. I only hope to God she can do something to right your folly.’
‘I’d like to stay,’ said Kathie in a strangely subdued voice.
‘Then get some water boiling and keep it going while Bridie O’Keefe is here. There will be plenty for her to do up here, and she is not a patient woman.’
As Kathie moved to go downstairs she was obliged to stand back for a short but heavily built old woman with a face as wrinkled as a walnut. Bridie O’Keefe wheezed her way to the bedroom stair by stair, passing Kathie without a sideways glance. The girl wrinkled her nose in distaste. Bridie O’Keefe smelled as though it had been many months since she had last taken off any of her dirty black clothing.
Despite her unprepossessing appearance, Bridie O’Keefe did what needed to be done with speed and great efficiency. Kathie was kept busy running to and fro with boiling water and torn-up linen. Finally, she had to clean a wickedly sharp knife that had been worn to a fine point on a grindstone.
An hour after she arrived, an ugly lead-grey musket-ball lay in a bowl in the kitchen and Dermot slept in less pain than before in his room upstairs. The operation was over.
‘He’ll need plenty of rest,’ declared Bridie O’Keefe, wiping her hands on a blood-stained cloth before the kitchen fire. With a feeling of revulsion, Kathie saw that the old hag’s fingernails were broken and black. ‘But he’s not likely to get it in this house.’
‘Why?’ Norah McCabe was startled by the old lady’s remark.
‘On the way here I heard it being said that the two Feehan boys were missing from tonight’s raid.’
Kathie drew in her breath sharply; she had known nothing about the missing men.
‘I hope for the sake of the young men of Kilmar that they return safely – Eoin Feehan in particular. Like all bullies he is not the bravest of men. The soldiers would only have to threaten him with violence for him to break down and tell them all he knows.’
‘He and his brother might be dead,’ said Kathie.
‘Then Tomas Feehan will claim their bodies and the soldiers will search this village for their friends. Dermot, will be hard to hide with a hole in his side. Dead or alive, the Feehans will bring no good to this house – and none to you, girl. Don’t you forget that.’
Abruptly, Bridie O’Keefe turned to Norah McCabe. ‘I will be back in the morning. I doubt whether anything will happen before then.’
When Bridie O’Keefe had left the house, Kathie asked Norah McCabe, ‘What did she mean about the Feehans bringing no good to this house, or to me?’
‘It’s no use trying to understand Bridie O’Keefe’s sayings, but you’d best heed what she said. Bridie hears voices that speak to few humans – and she is rarely wrong.’
At dawn, Eoin Feehan returned to Kilmar in a state of near-collapse and rendered almost speechless with shock. All he was able to say to those who gathered about him was that the soldiers had killed Sean.
When Tomas Feehan arrived on the scene, Eoin broke down completely and sobbed out a disjointed story of being captured, of a rescue attempt by Sean and escape in the ensuing chaos. He told how he had hidden in some bushes until he had seen the soldiers carry Sean’s body into the firelight at their scattered camp.
‘There was nothing I could do….’ Eoin Feehan sobbed bitterly as, helped by his grieving father, he was led away through the crowd of sympathetic listeners.
There were many questions Kathie would have liked to put to the surviving Feehan, but they would have to wait. For a few days she was kept busy helping to nurse Dermot. Now fully conscious, he was impatient at being confined to bed. He felt that things were about to happen in the world outside Kilmar village and he wanted to be involved in them.
He made Kathie repeat Eoin Feehan’s story to him twice and then lay back on the pillows, his hands clenched as he thought again of the abortive raid.
‘Poor Sean.’ He thought of the eagerness of the seventeen-year-old to be included in the raid. “But his death won’t be forgotten. We’ll avenge it before we’re through.’
Kathie looked at him in alarm. ‘Don’t be stupid, Dermot. You are lucky to be alive yourself. Besides, the soldiers will probably come here to Kilmar looking for Sean’s friends. You try to think of ways to elude them, not of avenging Sean.’
Dermot struggled to sit up, fighting the pain in his side. “The soldiers coming here? Then I can’t stay in this house. I’ve got to talk to the others. We must make plans….’
‘What is all this foolish talk of making plans?’ demanded Norah McCabe, entering the room. ‘I would have thought you and your friends had had quite enough of “plans”. Sean Feehan is dead and you’ve come as near to it as matters. If there are any plans to be made now, then you’d best leave them to someone who has the sense to think them out first. Liam is the only one in this house who is to be trusted to make sensible “plans”.’
‘But Liam isn’t here. He’s a few hundred miles away, in England.’
‘Not for long, he isn’t. I’ve asked Father Clery to send word for him to come home.’
‘You can’t do that. He’s there raising money for Eugene Brennan’s distress fund – for the cottiers.’
‘This family has already done enough for cottiers. With no man about the place I’ll soon need a fund started for me – and I can’t see any of your potato paupers lining up outside my door to help me. They are all up in the hills filling their bellies with the food you and your friends were stupid enough to steal for them.’
‘You don’t have to worry, Ma. I’ll be up and about again in a few days.’
‘I hope so, but not for fishing. You’ll need to have strength enough to run from the soldiers – and they will be here, you mark my words.’
A few minutes later, when both women were downstairs in the kitchen, Kathie asked, ‘Have you really sent for Liam?’
‘Yes.’
Norah McCabe was on her knees, cleaning out the ash from the fire.
‘How long do you think it will be before he arrives?’
Norah McCabe looked up at Kathie but was unable to read her expression.
‘Why? Are you frightened of what he will have to say about this stupid escapade?’
‘No. Well … a little. More than a little…. But it isn’t that. I feel safe when Liam is around. Somehow it doesn’t matter what has gone wrong; Liam always manages to sort things out.’
Norah McCabe snorted. ‘Things have gone beyond the sorting-out stage this time. But I have no doubt that Liam will do his best.’ She brushed as though she would wear the stone away. ‘You think a lot of him, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does he know how you feel?’
‘I don’t know.’ Kathie remembered how Liam had held her after the fight. Each of their bodies had responded to the other in that brief exciting moment, but he had not attempted to repeat the experience before leaving for London. ‘I don’t know,’ she repeated.
‘Liam has had little time to think about girls,’ said Norah McCabe. ‘He has spent far too long thinking about his brother and me. When
he returns from London you make sure he understands your feelings for him. You both have a deal of happiness owed to you.’
Chapter Thirteen
Eugene Brennan was becoming concerned about Liam’s relationship with Lady Caroline Dudley. He had seen the way Liam looked at her when they returned to her house after the disrupted public meeting and it was hardly the look a fisherman should give to an earl’s sister.
Since then there had been other occasions to worry him. At a fund-raising party arranged by Lady Caroline and attended by many of her London society friends, he had watched Liam’s face as the hostess joked with the men present. Once, when she laughed and touched the arm of the man with whom she was talking, Eugene Brennan was afraid Liam was about to stride across the room and strike the other man.
Lady Caroline paid Liam no obvious attention at the party, but his artless devotion to her was not missed by the gossip-hungry women at the gathering.
‘But, darling, it is so terribly touching,’ said one acid-toned dowager, within the MP’s hearing. ‘I had intended buying one of those delightful little Maltese poodles, they become such devoted pets, but now I feel I simply must find myself an Irish fisherman.’
Eugene Brennan told himself it was probably no more than the admiration of an impressionable young man for a beautiful woman; nevertheless, he felt it wise to mention the matter to Liam.
The old politician chose the day when he and Liam left London together to attend a meeting in the university city of Cambridge. Liam was as miserable as a young swain parted from his sweetheart, but when Eugene Brennan brought up the subject of Lady Caroline Dudley he pretended to fall asleep in the swaying carriage and the opportunity passed.
The Cambridge meeting was a huge success and afterwards, much to Liam’s relief, Eugene Brennan stayed on to take part in a political discussion, leaving Liam free to return to London alone.
Liam saw none of the winter beauty of the English countryside. The patchwork of green and brown fields, the woods and gently sloping hills passed by unnoticed, so eager was he to return to Caroline.
He arrived at the house in the early afternoon only to find that his hostess was not at home. In answer to his questions, the servants would only say Lady Caroline was ‘out’, although he felt sure they were keeping something back from him.
He settled down in the drawing-room to await her return and was still there when the marble clock on the mantelshelf chimed the hour of midnight. By now Liam was having great difficulty in staying awake. Feeling thoroughly miserable, he decided to go to bed.
Last night, in the hard bed at the Cambridge inn, he had lain awake wondering whether Caroline was missing him as much as he missed her. He had thought of the words he would say to her when they were together once more in the warm and exciting intimacy of her bedroom. They were loving words. Words he had never spoken to any other woman. He was going to tell her how much he loved her … of the change she had brought to his life. True, she had a title and he was only a fisherman, but he no longer thought of her as Lady Caroline, and he would work hard to better himself. He would read books of the kind kept on the shelves of her own library, would study the social graces. He would learn to dress well – his knowledge in this direction had already improved tremendously since coming to London. Eugene Brennan had told Liam he spoke well and had the gift of holding an audience’s attention. One of his friends had jokingly suggested that Liam should be in Parliament himself. Well, why not? Liam was sure the old Irish MP would give his support. One day Liam could take his place at Caroline’s side, and she would be proud of him.
They had been the dreams of yesterday and now they stuck in Liam’s throat like a herring-bone as he made his way up the elaborate staircase to his room. His dream of a tender reunion with Caroline had no more substance than the romantic notions of an immature boy. The hurt he felt was entirely of his own making.
As he undressed, he was ready to accept what Eugene Brennan had tried to tell him in the carriage on the way to Cambridge. Liam and Caroline came from two irreconcilable backgrounds. Yet they had found a way to each other in the darkness of a bedroom. Liam would never forget their nights together. Could never fully accept that the fire that had burned then might be so utterly extinguished by convention.
As he climbed into his bed and pulled the blankets up about his body, Liam thought he had never been so miserable in his life.
He heard the carriage turn into the square and the steel-shod hoofs of the horse slide to a halt on the stones of the road outside the house. Liam heard Caroline’s voice, and his jealousy flared up anew when he heard the deeper tones of a man’s voice answer her. Liam could not hear what was said. Then the hoofs clattered noisily upon the road and the leather-sprung carriage creaked away into the night.
The door from the street slammed shut and there were running feet on the stairs. They stopped outside his door, and after a brief pause – perhaps a moment of indecision – the door swung open quietly.
‘Liam … are you awake?’
The question came in a hoarse whisper.
‘Um …?’
The answer came reluctantly. Liam had decided he would pretend to be asleep.
Caroline slipped into the room, closing the door behind her, and crossed the room to the bed.
‘Oh, Liam, I am sorry I was not here when you arrived. But I had a long-standing engagement that could not be broken. Darling, please say you forgive me. I have been so unhappy all evening, sitting with dreary people, wanting all the time to be here with you.’
There seemed to be a brittleness in her, a taut nervousness. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Liam was reminded of the deep unhappiness he had seen in her eyes when he had first met her at Inch House. Liam wanted her, needed her desperately, but he was hurt and confused.
‘I heard a man’s voice, when the carriage drew up outside….’
‘A man? That must have been the cabbie. I caught a hansom cab home, to be here as quickly as possible. Oh Liam … darling. Tell me you have missed me. Tell me you want me. Tell me….’
Liam’s chest and throat constricted so much that he was hardly able to speak. When the sound came out he did not recognise it as his own voice.
‘I want you, Caroline. God, but I want you.’
Her mouth came down to cover his as she wriggled out of her clothes. A few moments later she was in bed with him, her body against his, demanding to be taken.
Except for the words that would not now be said, the reunion after their brief parting was all that Liam had hoped for. Much later, Liam lay in the happy half-real world between waking and sleeping, Caroline’s head resting on his shoulder and his arms about her.
Then he felt her tears upon his shoulder and, reaching up a hand, he followed their trail to touch her open eyes.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
The long body-juddering sob that escaped from her belied the word, but when Liam pressed her for an explanation she turned to him fiercely and they made love with an abandonment that left no room for conversation. Afterwards, Liam fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.
He awoke suddenly with the feeling that he was alone and reached out for Caroline. The bed was empty, but he heard a noise in the room.
‘Caroline, is that you?’
‘Yes, Liam.’
He lay back with a contented smile, waiting for her to come to the bed and put her arms about him. There was only the continued rustling of clothing and it was then he remembered the tears of the night.
‘Is something wrong?’
Again there was only silence and Liam threw back the untidy bedclothes, intending to go to her.
‘No, Liam. Stay there. I have something to say to you.’
Liam frowned but made no further move to go to her. He leaned back on the pillows and clasped his fingers behind his head.
‘I won’t be here with you tonight.’
‘Why?’ It came out as a cry of distress. ‘D
o you have to go away somewhere?’
‘No … yes … I really don’t know. It is quite possible I may have to go to a house I own in Oxfordshire.’
Liam smiled and relaxed. ‘Oh, that’s all right. Eugene will be back today. I’ll persuade him to go to Oxford. I’m quite sure your friends there will donate to the cottiers’ fund.’
‘No, Liam!’ Caroline gave an agonised cry of despair. ‘I am trying to tell you everything between us must end. My … my husband has returned to England. He will be coming here today.’
‘Your husband?’ Liam sat upright in the bed, his mouth dropping open with shocked surprise. ‘Your … your husband?’
‘I … I am sorry, Liam.’ She was crying, and the sound distorted her words. ‘I thought you knew. He is leading a Treasury Commission on army expenditure and has been in India for some months. I did not expect him home quite so soon but I had a message yesterday, from Falmouth. His ship arrived there on its way to London.’
In the long silence that followed, Liam thought the thudding of his heart would waken the whole household.
‘I didn’t know…. I never dreamed…. Will he be coming here? Staying here tonight – with you?’
‘Only if his ship is late docking. Otherwise we will leave for Oxfordshire today.’
‘Then I had better leave the house this morning.’
‘That won’t be necessary, Liam.’ Her sudden laugh was shaky. ‘Richard is a civilised man. You are a guest in this house, here to raise money for a charitable cause. There is no question of you leaving.’
Liam sank back on the pillow, his thoughts in utter confusion. He was in another man’s house, a man he had cuckolded, yet was expected to remain as a welcome guest while everyone tried to pretend nothing had happened. He did not believe that such a secret could be kept from Caroline’s husband. It was unthinkable that he should even try.
‘Richard is a lot older than I, Liam.’ Caroline broke in on his thoughts.
‘You must have accepted that when you married him.’
‘It was an arranged marriage, Liam. Richard had money and my father had very little. He thought he would have to give up the estate in Ireland. Then Richard offered to settle my father’s outstanding debts. In return, my father would obtain a title for Richard from his old friend Lord Melbourne, who was Prime Minister at the time. I think marrying me was an afterthought, to ensure that my father did what was required of him. He was well known for forgetting his debts. Well, Richard married me and Lord Melbourne obtained a baronetcy for him.’
The Music Makers Page 12