Emily was a trifle taken aback, but she thanked her, paid the postage, and wished them good day. Outside again in the bright air, she started along the path back, and almost immediately saw ahead of her the slender figure of a man with his head turned towards the sea, walking slowly and every now and then stopping. Without hurrying she caught up with him.
At a distance, because of the ease with which he moved, she had thought him young, but now that she could see his face she realized he was probably sixty. His hair flying in the wind was faded and his keen face deeply lined. When he looked at her his eyes were a bright gray.
“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.
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
