Betrayal (15 page)

‘M'am, is that you?'

Had William overheard her? He was standing in the doorway, his silhouette all too clear. ‘Yes. I … I was just putting my bike away. You can tell Mrs. Haney I'll be there in a minute. She can leave now, if she wants.'

‘M'am, it's Caithleen. She be in a terrible state. Mrs. Haney is beside herself with the worries and fearful the girl will come to harm.'

‘All right. I'll come with you.'

Blinking at the unaccustomed light, she saw at a glance that Bridget was the one in trouble and that Mrs. Haney was indeed beside herself with worry. The woman didn't wait.

‘M'am, would you please be going up them stairs to that poor wee girl? Bridget and I have tried everything. 'Tis the flood itself, and she wrung dry yet producing the waters of Babylon.'

Could nothing go right? ‘Isn't Dr. Fraser home?'

‘He is not, m'am. He's been away to Tralane this whole time, he has. Arguing his case, pleading with them to listen to God's good sense. But was you not with him? The doctor did say he'd be picking you up in Ballylurgen or along the road. It is a Thursday, is it not? Market days be library days at the castle. We all thought …'

Had Hamish seen her walking the bike across those fields to the ruins? Had he
stopped
the car and not honked its horn, but stood at the side of the road watching her? Did he
know
with whom she'd met?

‘M'am, was you not with him, then?' asked the woman.

‘No, I wasn't. I was out.'

Out was it? Mary could see the question rise in Mrs. Haney's gullet but would have to ignore it. ‘Bridget didn't tell Caithleen I was to take her to Dublin, did she?'

Ria wrung her hands. ‘She did, m'am, and that's the way of it.'

‘But Dr. Fraser warned you all to say nothing of it.'

‘He did not, m'am. 'Twas yourself what did.'

‘And is
that
why you let Bridget tell her? Mrs. Haney, I really wish you'd …'

‘M'am, let us make a bit of peace between us. The girl was trying to kill herself. Bridget found her in the bathroom with the doctor's razor.'

‘She didn't! That's simply not true!'

The deal table separated them, Bridget looking up from it now to be silenced with a glance.

‘The Lord knows I would wish it wasn't so, m'am, but 'tis. Caithleen being such a good Catholic knows only too well what awaits her if she should ever do such a terrible thing, and she with ground Sheffield ready enough to slash her fair wrists!'

‘But why, Mrs. Haney? Why?'

‘Why indeed, m'am? Because that girl has lost her love, her home, her friends and family—everything that counts for a girl of seventeen. She knows her uncle and her cousin are in prison for what she said, and no amount of caring seems enough. Bridget thought that by telling her she was being sent to England, Caithleen would stop, but 't has only made her worse. Now the girl wants to go home, Mrs. Fraser. She knows she's going to die no matter what.'

‘They'll kill her.'

‘Then go you up and try to talk her out of it before she runs off on us and we find her in Lough Loughie or hanging from a tree.'

The bedroom was in darkness, the girl lying on her side facing the wall. Mary knew she had been secretly avoiding her, that the sight of her brought only panic and remorse. ‘Caithleen, it's me. I'm so sorry this had to happen to you. It wasn't supposed to. Things … things just got out of hand, I think. The colonel's sister will look after you. Hamish … Hamish will see that there's enough money set aside for your clothes and such, and that you'll not want for anything.'

It sounded so damned paternalistic of her, so bloody British, thought Mary.

‘“Not supposed to,” and not meant for me, Mrs. Fraser?'

Hamish came into the room with Robbie and told him to put his muzzle on the edge of the bed. ‘Caithleen, this won't hurt a bit, not if you hang on to my wee dog. You need to sleep, then we'll sort all this out, no fear, you understand?'

Hiking the girl's nightgown, Fraser rubbed a spot on her seat with an alcohol swab, then found his hypodermic syringe and, glancing up at Mary, spread thumb and forefinger over the smooth, soft contours before jabbing the needle in and rubbing the spot again. ‘There, it's done, Caithleen. There'll be no more talk of your killing yourself, do you hear me, lass? As God is your witness, swear you will put the thought right from you.'

He pulled the nightgown down, began then to gently rub the back of Caithleen's neck and shoulders. Perhaps five minutes passed, perhaps a little more.

‘She's asleep. She's gone off, Hamish.'

‘
Och
, I know she has. You look as though you could do with some yourself.'

‘Will the colonel really let me take her to Dublin on Sunday?'

And why Dublin? Why not Belfast or even Derry? ‘He wants another week.'

He's holding out on you—Mary could see it in the look he gave. ‘And when that week's done?'

The truth at last, was it? ‘It could well be another and another. I tried to reason with them, but they wouldn't listen.' Gently he brushed a hand over Caithleen's head. ‘Robbie, stay.'

‘Let me, Hamish, just for a bit.'

‘And when she awakens?'

‘I … I'll try to make her understand.'

‘To salve your conscience?'

‘Yes. Yes, that's it exactly.'

‘Ah sure, and isn't death an Irish pastime, missus? Come like the skirts of mist at morn to sweep in over them lovely hills and stretch out Her fingers to touch and take at will.'

They'd been talking about Caithleen. ‘Parker, you can't mean that.'

‘And why not? Isn't it a self-evident fact that the Irish do be killing each other since long before the time of Christ Himself, not to mention St. Patrick? I do believe 'tis written in them blessed stars above, missus, and in the potatoes and all below. There be no end to it.'

His gumboots were mired in cowpats, the herd was bawling from the pasture, the pipe smoke particularly fragrant—had Hamish been talking to this stooped little man whose eyes were like lumps of anthracite and whose skin really was the colour of oak tannin and like something that had been left in a bog? ‘You saw me on the old tote road to Newtonhamilton.'

And she accusative of it. ‘That I did, missus, and you the picture of heaven itself with your jacket off and folded up and that bunch of Michaelmas daisies in your carrier basket. You was wearin' a smile so lovely it touched me heart, it did.'

‘It didn't, Parker, because I wasn't smiling.'

‘No, missus, you wasn't.'

‘Did you see anyone with me?'

O'Shane drew on his pipe. The two of them, each now with a foot up on the lowest rail, were resting their arms on the gate to the highest of his fields. From where they were standing, the land fell away to the banks of the Loughie in the valley below.

He'd have to tell her something. ‘Well now I did and I didn't, missus, and that's the truth of it.'

‘You told Mrs. Haney you'd seen me—she's the source of that pipe tobacco you're smoking.'

One could seldom get away with a thing. ‘I did, that I did. She asked it of me, missus. That woman has a nose for trouble like a sow after rats.'

‘You hinted at it first, Parker. Ria then pried it out of you. She bribed you. Bribed you with my husband's tobacco—stolen tobacco.'

Mrs. Mary Fraser was so dismayed, O'Shane was afraid he'd lost a friend. ‘It's what I didn't tell her that counts.'

‘Then you
did
see someone with me.'

She had come all the way up here just to ask it of him, she had, was that afraid Ria had not only found out she had met someone at that old bridge but had gone to have a look at it herself.

‘I did, missus, and I didn't. Them bushes was in the way and you the clearer of the two, him keeping to the cover like. But I've kept it to myself, I has. I was hoping you'd tell me yourself, you see. There could be any number of explanations—the world's full of them and me with ears big enough to take in the lot.'

Mary wished she hadn't come. She'd been hoping that what he'd have to say would have cheered her up. ‘Can I ask that you not tell anyone, not for a while? Not even Hamish, Parker. Not until it's … it's over.'

Had it come to that? he wondered, fearing for her. ‘Of course, missus. I be the very soul of discretion. You have my word on it, if I'm to keep you as a friend.'

O'Shane gripped the hand she had thrust out. He wanted to say the O'Bannions were always a bad lot, the Darcys far worse. He wanted to tell her that Liam Nolan was excitable and inclined to do the very thing she'd least expect, but he would have to hold his tongue and merely nod because that was how one kept death from the door.

There were thousands of buttons in the box but none to match the one she'd lost. Alone in her room after lunch, Mary dumped the box on the carpet and began to spread the things.

There were buttons and buttons. They went back through the years from Mrs. Haney's own scavenging to that of her mother and grandmother. All had been avid collectors, the things picked up in streets, shops, churches, shrines and on pilgrimages, at county fairs, too, and cattle auctions, in theatres as well and on trains, even out in the countryside on picnics and no doubt in the most unlikely of places.

Pins had also been a priority—straight ones, bent ones, safety and dress. Needles, too, and bits of thread and gold and silver brocade. She
had
to find a match or replace them all. Jimmy Allanby would have found and kept that button to confront her with it no matter. The more she searched, the more anxious she became. It had been horrid of Parker to have said that of death with such cheerful acceptance, as if there really could be no stop to the killing, as if it had been preordained.

The blouse had cost Hamish a fortune in Edinburgh. He'd remember the day he'd bought it for her, would remember how pleased she'd been. It wasn't often, was it, that a husband intuitively knew not only quality but what suited best? An impromptu gift, an impulse—hadn't
that
been what had pleased her most?

Of course it had, but Jimmy would show the button to him.

Mary lost herself to the hunt. Things were strewn all over the carpet now. Among the pins there were the flags of an independent Ireland, those of the Ulster Orange and King Billy, as if the keeping of the one negated the throwing away of the other. When a pair of bare feet appeared out of the corner of her eye, she looked up to see the ankles and then the hem of the flannel nightgown. The girl had the loveliest sea-green eyes, dark at some hidden thought, light with intent, but widely set under the fine brush of brows that were just a touch darker than the chopped-off hair.

‘Caithleen, it's good to see you up. I've lost a button. Come and help me find a replacement.'

The blouse was spread over a nearby chair and was ever so grand. Caithleen tried several mismatches just to see what would happen, and when she found a perfect one, hid this. Mrs. Fraser was worried, she was, and not inclined to let up, so the blouse was something special and the losing of its button rather important. ‘Did you look where you thought you might have lost it?' she asked.

The girl's accent was soft and melodious. ‘Under the bureau and bed, behind the sofa downstairs in Hamish's study. Just about everywhere, I'm afraid.'

And her not wanting to look up but hiding her eyes away. ‘Buttons are always going missing. Me mam …' Caithleen bit off the sentence. ‘I'm always losing them in the worst of places. Albert, he …' She bit that off too, let Mrs. Fraser hunt some more, noticed the quickness of her fingers, the agitation and felt the fear.

‘Did you mean what you said last night?'

Mary wanted so much to tell her, to say again that it oughtn't to have happened to her at all, but of course she couldn't say that. Not yet, maybe never.

‘I was mistaken, then, was I, Mrs. Fraser? I guess I was just so upset, my mind said crazy things to me.'

The lake was a mirror of darkness over which the first droplets of the coming rain sent their rings of ripples. Mary stood with her bike in the clearing, looking up from the water to the castle beyond the other shore. She had brought two bundles of books this time but didn't think she could go through with it. Hamish had come in late last night, had hardly made a sound, but she'd seen him standing in the doorway to her room, had hoped he'd come in, had waited, knowing that he was struggling with himself and that, at the last, he had turned away.

Caithleen had been awake and he'd gone in there for a moment, the girl whispering, ‘Dr. Fraser, why is this happening to me?'

In the morning, he'd been up and out of the house well before Mrs. Haney and the others had arrived, had hitched the pony to the trap—was good at things like that. Like his gardening or his fishing and the tying of trout and salmon flies, there was much she didn't know about him. No criminal charges had been laid over the abortion. Hamish had done it for humanitarian reasons—she had always felt this even though he had never said and she'd had to find out by going to the hospital in Edinburgh and demanding an answer from one of his former colleagues. The girl had been thirteen years old, the father the girl's own, but the man had drunkenly raised a terrible row that too many others had heard. And then? she asked. Hamish had saved herself and she had saved him, and for a while it had been good.

Above the castle, the Union Jacks hung limply in the rain. Some were folded in on themselves, others wrapped about their flagpoles and not a sign of anyone up on the battlements or in any of the towers. Perhaps the distance was too great. She'd best be going, had best get it over with. ‘Be brave,' she said. ‘Do it because you have to.'