“Thank you.” It was his job anyway, at least to carry the water for Pitt, but she did not feel like saying so, not this time.
He walked to the door and held it open for her while she went through, then filled the jugs and carried them upstairs for her, not speaking again. He did not know what else to say, and she knew that. It did not matter.
When she got upstairs, far from waiting for her, Charlotte was still sound asleep, as Tellman had said she might be, and looked so tired Gracie did not have the heart even to make a noise, let alone draw the curtains. She left the water and crept away again. If Pitt had to be up, that was another thing. Tellman put his water in the dressing room, and he could do everything he needed without disturbing Charlotte. She could always ring when she woke.
Gracie was downstairs again, passing the conservatory door, when she glanced sideways and saw Mr. Moynihan and Mrs. McGinley standing very close together, talking earnestly. She had no business to, but she stopped and listened.
“… but, Iona, we can’t just walk away from each other like this!” Fergal said wretchedly.
“Then how?” she asked, her face calm and sad, a stark contrast to his, which Gracie could see if she moved forward six inches. He was miserable and confused. There was almost a sulkiness about him, as though he felt not only profoundly unhappy but also aggrieved.
“Don’t you care?” he demanded, the anger coming through in a sharp note. “Is this all it means to you? You can just say good-bye without fighting for what you want or weeping when you lose it? Perhaps I want it far more than you do?” That was said with challenge. He did not want her to agree, but if she did, then he was branding her cold, without fire or dreams, without the reality of love.
“What do you want, Fergal?” she asked. “Do you really know? Is it me you want, or is it a great romance, some desperate cause to suffer for, and perhaps to excuse you from having to fight for a Protestant Ireland you no longer totally believe in?”
“Oh, don’t make that mistake,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes dark and narrow. “Don’t ever deceive yourself I don’t know what I fight for in Ireland. I’ll never change in that cause. I’ll not bend the knee to Rome, whoever I love, or lose. I’ll not sell my soul for a superstition, a set of beads and incantations, instead of the disciplines and virtues of God.”
“That’s what I thought,” she answered wearily. “And I imagine you would know I would never give up the laughter and the love, the heart’s faith of my people, in trade for the dark miseries of the north with all its anger and blame, its hellfire punishments and its vinegar-faced ministers. It is because I love you that I know it’s best we part now, while we can still keep good memories and be sorry we hurt each other, not glad. I want to remember you with a smile.”
He stood there motionless, still confounded. She had made the decision and taken it out of his hands, and that too annoyed him.
Iona looked at him for a moment longer, then turned and walked back towards the doorway to the hall.
Gracie was obliged to scuttle backwards in order to walk away with any kind of dignity, as if she had not seen them, and she heard no more. But she thought of it for the rest of the morning as she went about her duties. It was so easy to fall in love, sometimes, and so hard to give up the magic, the excitement, the color it lent to everything. But that kind of feeling did not always stand the test of honesty, of any kind of affliction except the momentary. Sometimes you stayed loyal for loyalty’s sake, not because it was what you believed. Love of love was so easy to understand. It was what Mr. Moynihan had felt, and now he was angry and hurt because it had not transformed itself into something which would last.
Mrs. McGinley could see that. She was wise enough to leave it before it was broken too far even to remember.
Maybe it was best for Gracie herself to leave Finn Hennessey when she could still think of the cold glasshouse with its chrysanthemums and the smell of his skin and the touch of his lips. Better not to know too much about the rest, and the gulf between them. Some things could not be explained. The more you know, the worse it becomes. Their imaginations had met, and perhaps that was all.
Charlotte woke up with a start. The curtains were still drawn closed, but it was obviously mid-morning. Pitt was gone, and she could hear no servants on the landing. She sat up quickly. Her head was throbbing, her mouth dry. She had slept too heavily and too long. Where on earth was Gracie, and why had nobody called her?
Then she remembered the night, Pitt coming to tell her what they had discussed, and then Justine, and Piers, her own involvement, Pitt’s anger and worry, and then his touch afterwards, the warmth of it.
But it was not only Piers’s world which had crumbled around him; in a smaller way, Gracie’s had also. Charlotte wished there was something she could do to help, but she knew there wasn’t. There was no help for that kind of pain, except not to keep referring to it, or talking around it, trying to convince the person that it did not really hurt and was all for the best. Above all, never tell people you know how they feel. Even if you have had the same experience, you are not the same. Each person’s pain is unique.
She climbed out of bed slowly, feeling as if her head would drop off if she were not careful. She must get dressed. They still did not know who had murdered Ainsley Greville or Lorcan McGinley, at least not officially. She had a sickening feeling there was little doubt left that it was Padraig Doyle, with all the grief that that would bring.
She would have to summon all the strength she had to deal with that. Eudora would be shattered. Pitt would be torn with compassion for her, aching to be able to help, and guilty because he was the one who would have to uncover the truth and prove it.
Charlotte would dearly like to tell Eudora it was her own distress and she would have to live with it. It was not Pitt’s fault she had failed to grow close to her son, or that her husband was a callous user of people, or that her brother was an assassin.
But if she were honest, what she really meant was that Eudora had a grace about the way she suffered, and her need was consuming a part of Pitt that Charlotte thought should be hers. Not a very becoming sentiment.
The water in the jugs had gone almost cold. She could ring for more or use what was there. Cold water might wake her up anyway.
The door opened and Pitt came in. He stopped in surprise.
“You’re awake.” He frowned. “Are you all right?” He closed the door and came over towards her. “You look dreadful.”
