Death of a Pilgrim (24 page)

In the Auberge they found themselves translating in an animated discussion between the hotel owner, Michael Delaney and Alex Bentley. The hotel proprietor was expounding on the need for more
pilgrims, more visitors, more money to pass through his little village. ‘So many of the towns on the pilgrim route grew rich and ever richer from the proceeds of those pilgrims hundreds of
years ago,’ he said, the bright light of profit in his eye. ‘When the wars of religion and that terrible man Napoleon came along it all got too dangerous for the people. But we have
peace now. Why can’t we do it again? Why can’t the pilgrims come back?’

‘Why not?’ said Michael Delaney, scenting perhaps or playing with a possible business opportunity. ‘Tell me, Alex, how many Catholics are there in France? How many in Spain?
How many in Germany? And how many in America, for God’s sake? Just think of the size of the potential market!’

‘Millions of them,’ said Alex Bentley, ‘probably tens of millions across Europe and the United States. Enormous numbers.’

‘It just needs some proper marketing, that’s all.’ Delaney was warming to his theme now. ‘They say that the art of advertising is to make people buy things they never
knew they wanted. Well, imagine what they could do with the pilgrim route to Compostela! Come save your soul in Spain! Forgiveness of Sins! Salvation of Souls! Pilgrim’s Progress! Redemption
on Route! French food on the road to God! French wines on the Pilgrim Path! Just think what those early Christians did in terms of marketing when all they had were those four little Gospels and
some of them pretty hard to understand. They converted most of the bloody Roman Empire in a couple of hundred years. All done with no proper slogans. No billboards. No newspapers to place
advertisements in, for God’s sake. Surely modern American methods can do better than that.’

‘My little hotel here might be full for most of the summer,’ the owner enthused, doing complicated calculations of potential gains in his head. ‘We might never be poor again.
My Yvonne could have a carriage of her own!’

‘Hotels?’ said Delaney. ‘A man might do very well with hotels. I could buy or build a whole chain right across the routes from France and Spain. All called the St Jacques with
a statue of the saint fellow with his staff and his sandals right above the main entrance. I know a man in stonework up in Westchester County who could knock those off at a reasonable price.
Discount for large numbers, of course. Scallop shells in every bedroom. Pilgrim food, maybe not, now I think about it, that was probably inedible and the Americans wouldn’t eat it. We could
have shops in all the hotels selling staffs and rosary beads and maps and special prayer books for the pilgrims. I’m sure some medieval professor could dig us out a lot of the old prayers the
people said along the way. If not, the Jesuits or some order or another could run off a few for us at a good fee. And once you had the whole system up and running you wouldn’t have to do
another thing. The business would look after itself, it’d be like selling water in the desert. It could be tremendous, simply tremendous. Have to get the Church on side, of course. I’m
sure Father Kennedy could work out how to buy a couple of bishops, maybe even a cardinal or two. God bless the pilgrims. Confession en route. Absolution in the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.
We’d probably have to work out an easier means of transport for the older citizens, mind you. Should appeal to the old, pilgrimage, when they’re so close to the exit themselves. Not
long to go now. Pilgrim’s passport to the next world. Maybe we could get some of those liners to make special cruises from New York, dropping the elderly close to the final destination so
they didn’t have far to walk.’

Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were walking back to their little house in the hills when they heard footsteps behind them. It was Stephen Lewis, the solicitor from Frome. He paused every now and then
to look behind him, as if to make sure he was alone. ‘I had to catch you on your own, Lord Powerscourt, forgive me, Lady Powerscourt, I didn’t want anybody listening in to what I have
to say.’ He paused.

‘You can speak freely in front of Lucy, Mr Lewis,’ said Powerscourt. ‘She’s tougher than she looks.’

‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Lewis, panting slightly as they climbed up the hill out of Espeyrac, ‘but I felt I should tell you all the same. It’s only a fragment
of conversation, but I think you ought to know about it.’

Powerscourt remembered that Lewis was a solicitor by profession. Heaven only knew what secrets he held about the inhabitants of Frome locked up in his office safe.

‘The other evening, in the hotel at Estaing, I felt unwell last thing at night. I thought I’d try a glass of brandy to settle the stomach. That’s often worked for me in the
past. Maybe the local cooking is too rich for me. Mabel, that’s my wife, always likes to put plain food on the table. Anyway, the bar was still serving customers and I took my drink out on to
the terrace. The windows were open and I could hear two men having a heated discussion at the other end of the bar. They were quite drunk, the barman didn’t understand a word of English, they
had no idea I was there. I could only hear fragments of what they said.’

‘And what were they talking about, Mr Lewis?’ Powerscourt too looked back down the road. He could see nobody, only the dark shapes of the buildings and the outlines of the trees.

‘They were having an argument, I think. That’s how it came across anyway. I couldn’t even tell who they were, the voices were so thick. But one of them said something like,
“God, how I hate Michael Delaney.” At least I think that’s what he said and he said it twice. I finished my brandy and crept away. I didn’t think they’d be very happy
if they knew I had overheard them, and they were drunk enough for anything.’

‘Are you absolutely sure you don’t know who they were, Mr Lewis?’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t. Would it be important if I had recognized the voices?’

‘Oh yes, Mr Lewis,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it might have been very important indeed.’

Lord Francis Powerscourt was staring out of the open window of their bedroom in the house above Espeyrac. Lady Lucy was reading a book about French abbeys and cathedrals. The
night air was soft and warm. The moon, three-quarters full, was shining out across the valley. Fields and groups of trees looked ghostly in the white light. Small creatures of the night could be
heard rustling about on their nocturnal business in the woods to his left. The spire of Espeyrac church was crisp in the moonlight. A fox could be seen clearly, padding across the track that led
back to the main road. All it needed, Powerscourt thought, was an owl. He had always been very fond of owls ever since the time he had made friends with one which lived in a barn behind his house
as a small boy. The bird would stare solemnly at him for several minutes at a time before flying disdainfully away.

‘Do you think it’s important, Francis,’ Lady Lucy laid her book aside, ‘what Mr Lewis was saying on the road?’

‘It could be,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It’s a pity they were drunk, though. They might say something completely different in the morning, whoever they were. I think they put
the wind up Stephen Lewis, mind you. He seemed very frightened when he looked back to make sure nobody was following us. And I don’t think he’s a man who would scare easily.’

‘Well, you might well be frightened if you were one of these pilgrims. Two of them dead so far. I don’t think I’d go on if I were them. But tell me, Francis, what do you think
of this house? Isn’t it just perfect with these marvellous views?’

Suddenly Powerscourt suspected what might be about to come. Lady Lucy was always thinking about buying houses in the way he thought about making centuries at cricket or his children being happy
and successful when they grew up. Another onslaught might be imminent. It could start at any moment. He regarded these attacks as a mild form of disease. None of his sisters had ever suffered from
them, although one of them had recently acquired a monstrous house near the sea front at Antibes. He would be told how good it would be for the children. They could learn French. They could ride
with their father in the hills. Lucy herself would be busy making the necessary improvements to the property, new carpets here, a new kitchen there, different curtains. The air would improve all
their health, far from the smoke and grime of London.

‘I think it’s lovely here, so peaceful,’ said Powerscourt, leaning out to inspect a ginger cat that had just captured a small animal with a very long tail and was carrying the
trophy away to some secret lair for a late supper. Then Lady Lucy disappointed him. There was no talk of property in the Aveyron. She merely said that she hoped there would be sunshine the next
day. They were going to one of the most famous places on the pilgrim route, the medieval abbey at Conques.

Johnny Fitzgerald had only been back to Ireland once in more than twenty years, and that had been on Powerscourt’s business the year before with the ancestor paintings
disappearing from the Anglo-Irish houses. He stared out from his boat approaching the Irish coast, trying to forget the time in the 1880s he had looked at that view, the green of the hills to the
south, the lighthouses and the Martello towers, the pall of smoke hanging over the slums of Dublin. Ireland had broken his heart all those years ago. Maybe not Ireland, but a certain Mary Rose
Lennox, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs William Lennox of Delgany, County Wicklow. Johnny had first met her at a tennis party in Greystones and had been enchanted from the moment he saw her serve.
She was of medium height, with light brown hair and blue eyes that shone with mischief or delight. Mary Rose hit the ball with remarkable force and was also possessed of a formidable backhand,
usually, in Johnny’s experience, the weakest point in the female armoury on a tennis court. He played against her in a game of mixed doubles later that afternoon and found he was so bewitched
his game went completely to pieces. It was worse than fighting, he said to himself that evening, for Johnny was home on leave from service with the British Army on the North-West Frontier. He saw
her twice more that week and from then on they were inseparable. They would ride out into the Wicklow hills and Johnny would tell her wild stories about the Indians and their strange customs, and
the way the heat affected the English in such a variety of different ways, some of them becoming parodies of retired colonels in Cheltenham, others learning the native languages and becoming
obsessed with the local history and culture. Looking out over the two rivers at the Meeting of the Waters at Avoca on a hot July afternoon, Johnny told her he loved her. The girl was used to the
flattery of young men and merely laughed a pretty laugh. He told her again after a trip to the theatre in Dublin where Johnny was so bewitched he scarcely noticed the action on stage. All through
those summer days he floated through time in an ecstasy of love, counting the hours until he saw her again. Standing on the beach at Brittas Bay, looking at the waves pounding on to the sand, an
unseasonal wind bowling along the beach, whirling clouds of sand as they went, he asked Mary Rose to marry him. He could remember the scene as vividly as if it had been yesterday. Johnny had
rehearsed his lines often, especially last thing at night.

‘I love you so much, Mary Rose,’ he said, putting his arm round her waist. ‘Will you marry me?’

The girl laughed as she had laughed before. Then she saw that he was serious. ‘Don’t ask me now, Johnny,’ she said, ‘it’s far too soon. We’ve only known each
other a couple of months, if even as long as that. Don’t rush me, please.’

Johnny squeezed her ever tighter and settled in for a long siege. Expensive flowers and exquisite chocolates were his weapons of choice. As summer faded into autumn he grew ever more conscious
of the date of his return to his regiment at the end of September. Surely he must make her his own before then.

On the last evening of his leave they went for a walk by the lake in the garden of her parents’ house nestling in the Wicklow mountains. Johnny asked Mary Rose to marry him once more. Once
more she laughed. ‘I’ve told you before, Johnny, I think it’s too soon. I’ll wait for you, of course I’ll wait for you. It won’t be long until you’re back
again.’

‘You know perfectly well that I have no idea when I’ll be back,’ said Johnny rather sadly. ‘Why can’t you tell me now?’

‘It’s too soon, Johnny.’ That laugh again. ‘Don’t let’s spoil our last evening before you go.’

So they went back to the house. Mary Rose played selections of Irish ballads at the piano. Johnny would always remember her seated there, her back as straight as a guardsman on parade, a slight
frown on her face as she made sure she played the right notes, the occasional brilliant smile in his direction, those blue eyes sparkling with pleasure as he sang the songs of old Ireland in his
finest tenor voice.

The next day Johnny left early for the English boat. He thought of Mary Rose for thousands of miles, down the spine of England in whose armies he served, past the strange waters of the Suez
Canal and the dusty roads of India until he rejoined his regiment. The shock came a couple of months after his return. Johnny had gone for an early evening drink in the Club and noticed that all
the others present shuffled quickly out of the room as he came in. It was as if he had some contagious disease. Even the barman and the waiters had disappeared to their private quarters behind the
drinks counter. Johnny stared around him. Everything seemed to be normal. A copy of
The Times
, arrived that afternoon from London, was lying on the table. Later, Johnny thought his
colleagues had intended to leave him a clue. He noticed one of the announcements in the Marriages column of the newspaper had been underlined.

At first Johnny couldn’t believe it. He picked up the newspaper and carried it back to his quarters. There he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. After the third
reading he found the tears streaming down his cheeks. How could she do this to him? Had she been pretending all those weeks? Had she been seeing this Osborne person all the time she was seeing him?
Had she been secretly engaged to the Osborne all the time he had courted her with his love and his generosity and his innocence? What did he feel about Mary Rose now, for he felt sure he still
loved her. Even an innocent like Johnny in these matters knew that love could not evaporate in an evening, that four lines in a newspaper column could not rearrange his emotional landscape, but
that time and distance and propriety meant there was virtually nothing he could do. He thought about writing an angry letter, pouring out his grief and his distress, then changed his mind. The
terrible deed had been done. With just two words in a church, ‘I will,’ Mary Rose Lennox had chosen a different path and a different future from his own. Over the weeks that followed
Johnny threw himself into soldiering by day and drinking by night. His commanding officer took care to make sure that he was kept very busy. Twice he almost lost his life in skirmishes with enemy
tribesmen. It was as if, he realized later, he had been trying to kill himself. Suicide disguised as death on the battlefield. On the second occasion his life was saved by a fellow Irishman, an
officer in his own regiment. Over time the two men became very close. They fought together and spied together after they were both transferred to the Intelligence Services. The fellow
officer’s name was Lord Francis Powerscourt.