CHARLOTTE RELAYED IT TO Narraway later that night, after dinner. They were alone in Mrs. Hogan’s sitting room with the doors open onto the garden, which was quite small, and overhung with trees. It was a mild evening, and a moon cast dramatic shadows. In unspoken agreement they stood up and walked outside into the balmy air.
“I didn’t learn anything more,” she admitted finally. “Except that we are still disliked. But how could we imagine anything else? At the theater Mr. McDaid told me something of O’Neil. And O’Neil himself implied that I was here to meddle in Irish affairs—‘like your friend Narraway,’ as he said. It is time you stopped skirting around it and told me what happened. I don’t want to know, but I have to.”
He was silent for a long time. She was acutely aware of him standing perhaps a yard away from her, half in the shadow of one of the trees. He was slender, not much taller than she, but she had an impression of physical strength, as if he were muscle and bone, all softness worn away over the years. She did not want to look at his face, partly to allow him that privacy, but just as much because she did not want to see what was there.
“I can’t tell you all of it, Charlotte,” he said at last. “There was quite a large uprising planned. We had to prevent it.”
“How did you do that?” She was blunt.
Again he did not answer. She wondered how much of the secrecy was to protect her, and how much was simply that he was ashamed of his role in it, necessary or not.
Why was she standing out here shivering? What was she afraid of? Victor Narraway? It had not occurred to her before that he might hurt her. She was afraid that she would hurt him. Perhaps that was ridiculous. If he had loved Kate O’Neil, and still been able to sacrifice her in his loyalty to his country, then he could certainly sacrifice Charlotte. She could be one of the unintended victims that Fiachra McDaid had referred to—just part of the price. She was Pitt’s wife, and Narraway had shown a loyalty to Pitt, in his own way. She was also quite certain now that he was in love with her. But how naïve of her to imagine that it would change anything he had to do in the greater cause.
She thought of Kate O’Neil, wondering what she had looked like, how old she had been, if she had loved Narraway. Had she betrayed her country and her husband to him? How desperately in love she must have been. Charlotte should have despised her for that, and yet all she felt was pity. She could imagine herself in Kate’s place. If she herself hadn’t loved Pitt, she could easily have believed herself in love with Narraway.
“You used Kate O’Neil, didn’t you?” she said.
“Yes.” His voice was so soft she barely heard it.
She turned quietly and walked back the few steps into Mrs. Hogan’s sitting room. There wasn’t anything more to say, not here, in the soft night wind and the scents of the garden.
PITT WAS TROUBLED. HE stood in the sun in St. Malo, leaning against the buttress edge of the towering wall, and stared out over the sea. It was vivid blue, the light so dazzling that he found himself squinting. Out in the bay a sailboat heeled far over.
The town was ancient, beautiful, and at any other time he would have found it interesting. Were he here on holiday with his family, he would have loved to explore the medieval streets and alleys, and learn more of its history, which was peculiarly dramatic.
As it was he had the strong feeling that he and Gower were wasting time. They had watched Frobisher’s house for nearly a week and seen nothing that led them any closer to the truth. Visitors came and went; not only men but women also. Neither Pieter Linsky nor Jacob Meister had come again, but there had been dinner parties where at least a dozen people were present. Deliverymen had come with baskets of the shellfish for which the area was famous. Scores of oysters had come, shrimp and larger crustaceans like lobsters, and bags of mussels. But then the same could be said of any of the houses in the area.
Gower wandered along the path, his face sunburned, his hair flopping forward. He stopped just inside the wall, a yard or two short of Pitt. He too leaned against the ledge as if he were watching the sailing boat.
“Where did he go?” Pitt asked quietly, without looking at him.
“Only to the same café as usual,” Gower answered, referring to Wrexham, whom one or the other of them had followed every day. “I didn’t go in because I was afraid he’d notice me. But I saw the same thin man with the mustache go in, then come back out again in about half an hour.”
There was a slight lift in his voice, a quickening. “I watched them through the window for a few minutes as if I were waiting for someone. They were talking about more people coming, quite a lot of them. They seemed to be ticking them off, as if from a list. They’re definitely planning something.”
Pitt would like to have felt the same stir of excitement, but the whole week seemed too careful, too halfhearted for the passion that inspires great political change. He and Narraway had studied revolutionaries, anarchists, firebrands of all beliefs, and this had a different feel to it. Gower was young. Perhaps he attributed to them some of the vivacity he still felt himself. And he did feel it. Pitt smiled as he thought of Gower laughing with their landlady, complimenting her on the food and letting her explain to him how it was cooked. Then he told her about such English favorites as steak-and-kidney pudding, plum duff, and pickled eels. She had no idea whether to believe him or not.
“They’ve delivered more oysters,” Pitt remarked. “It’s probably another party. Whatever Frobisher’s political beliefs about changing conditions for the poor, he certainly doesn’t believe in starving himself, or his guests.”
“He would hardly go around letting everyone know his plans … sir,” Gower replied quickly. “If everyone thinks he’s a rich man entertaining his friends in harmless idealism he never intends to act on, then nobody will take him seriously. That’s probably the best safety he could have.”
Pitt thought about it for a while. What Gower said was undoubtedly true, and yet he was uneasy about it. The conviction that they were wasting time settled more heavily upon him, yet he could find no argument that was pure reason rather than a niggling instinct born of experience.
“And all the others who keep coming and going?” he asked, at last turning and facing Gower, who was unconsciously smiling as the light warmed his face. Below him in the small square a woman in a fashionable dress, wide-sleeved and full-skirted, walked from one side to the other and disappeared along the narrow alley to the west. Gower watched her all the way, nodding very gently in approval.
Gower turned to Pitt, his fair face puzzled. “Yes, about a dozen of them. Do you think they’re really harmless, sir? Apart from Wrexham, of course?”
“Are they all wild revolutionaries pretending very successfully to be ordinary citizens living satisfied and rather pedestrian lives?” Pitt pressed.
It was a long time before Gower answered, as if he were weighing his words with intense care. He turned and leaned on the wall, staring at the water. “Wrexham killed West for a reason,” he said slowly. “He was in no present danger, except being exposed as an anarchist, or whatever he would call himself. Perhaps he doesn’t want chaos, but a specific order that he considers fairer, more equal to all people. Or it may be a radical reform he’s after. Exactly what it is the socialists want is one of the things we need to learn. There may be dozens of different goals—”
“There are,” Pitt interrupted. “What they have in common is that they are not prepared to wait for reform by consent; they want to force it on people, violently if necessary.”
“And how long will they have to wait for anyone to hand it over voluntarily?” Gower said with an edge of sarcasm. “Who ever gave up power if they weren’t forced to?”