‘I do.’
‘I was th’ young buck beatin’ men to bloody pulp and livin’ to boast of it. As you might imagine, I found th’ girls numerous as fairies in Mayo. I thought any woman would wait for William Donavan ’til he got his name in lights.’
William bowed his head, examined his palms as if seeing some truth there.
‘And so I married Roisin, Anna’s mum, while I still had feelin’s for Evelyn McGuiness. Roisin was pretty as a speckled pup; worked like a man at th’ turf field, yet gentle as a lamb in her ways. A lovely woman-an’ could play th’ oul’ tunes on th’ fiddle.’
‘Bella gets it from both sides, then.’
‘A double dose, as ye heard th’ other evenin’. When Koife plays, Roisin comes back to me, but I don’t deserve her company.’ William looked up, his blue eyes gray. ‘In th’ end, I was faithless to two women.
‘’t was a hard thing to reckon what my selfish pleasures laid waste. Th’ regret is like a cancer still growin’, an’ no way to cure it.’
The fire smoldered; Pud snored at his feet.
‘I hope this is not considered a confession, Rev’rend, for I can’t take pardon from a Protestant. ’
‘I’m just hearing you,’ he said.
‘I thank ye for that.’ William sat back in the chair, stared at the fire. ‘I made a right hames of it all. An’ now I’m an oul’ man with all my fortunes spent an’ gone, an’ nothin’ left of th’ fled days but regret.’ William withdrew his handkerchief and did what he had to do, which seemed to cheer him in a small way.
‘Regret an’ gratitude, I have to say. Gratitude for my Anna an’ her lovin’ ways; Anna, who’s made us a comfortable livin’ out of this place. Gratitude for Koife, who herself has felt th’ blade twisted deep. Aye, an’ for Liam, who’s put th’ stamp of success on deer farmin’ an’ sheep raisin’ like you never saw. They’re eatin’ our lamb an’ venison all th’ way to Belfast an’ callin’ for more.
‘We always got on famous, Liam an’ me, but th’ last couple of years…’ William shrugged. ‘In th’ end, I regret th’ bit about me livin’ here ’til I’m carried out in a box. It’s made Liam th’ bosun in what was to be his own ship.’
He wanted to ask what happened when William returned to Lough Arrow those years ago-he wanted Liam and Anna to know the truth. But how could even William know it?
Evelyn Conor was the only one truly intimate with such a truth.
‘Ye need to know I dearly loved Anna’s mum, but in a different way. We can’t love every woman as I loved Evelyn McGuiness, or ’t would kill a man, burst open ’is heart, so. Thank Jesus there’s never but one like that in a man’s life.
‘Pray for Evelyn McGuiness, if ye’d be so kind. I’ve seen those as try to give up th’ drink, an’ ’t would make ye weep to witness such persecution. ’
He heard voices-Feeney, Seamus, Liam-coming quickly along the hall. Nothing so bad it couldn’t be worse, he thought, seeing the look on Liam’s face. Feeney and Seamus were nearly running for the door.
‘Paddy called-it’s Mother. Will you go, Rev’rend?’
‘Cynthia,’ he said.
‘I’ll send Anna up, please God.’
At the entrance hall, he turned and looked at William, whose face expressed a plea for them to fix things if they could.
‘The stepstool, of course,’ said Feeney as they crunched across the gravel to the car. “Had to happen. Bloody inevitable.’ Feeney tossed his house call bag onto the backseat. ‘Paddy said she wasn’t drinking; she swears that’s why she fell.’
‘God love ’er,’ said Seamus.
‘They’ll be wanting you home nights, Seamus. But you’ve been expecting that.’
‘Aye.’
‘What do you need me to do?’ he asked Feeney.
‘Be there. Just be there.’
Twenty-six
He waited in the entrance hall, eyes closed, praying.
Voices at the end of the hall.
‘Did you get her off the floor?’
‘Aye.’
‘Who is that person?’
‘The Rev’rend Tim Kav’na,’ said Seamus.
‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Dr. Feeney asked him up.’
‘Why in God’s name would Feeney ask up a Protestant…?’
‘Th’ gravity of the matter at hand, I believe, and ’t was all we had. Dr. Feeney wants him riding with your mother in th’ backseat, no need to get the ambulance out, he says. I’m just after ice to keep th’ swellin’ down.’
‘Have you packed her things?’
‘I’m comin’ to that.’
A door slamming.
He was willing enough to be all they had, to be here, waiting.
He looked at the broad staircase rising to two floors of ruined and vacant rooms and thought how Fintan O’Donnell’s own rooms abovestairs had stood vacant. He wondered whether the O’Donnells had kept a fire on the hearth in this great hall, how they found comfort in the pestering drafts of winter. He thought of the kitchen smells coming out to greet the senses of those who waited here generations ago.
Someone had said a house is a history book, his own former homeplace near Holly Springs being an example from 1853. He had often felt the temper of past occupants in the house and fields, and had, on rare occasion, smelled the cook fires of the slaves who had lived and labored there long before his arrival. Once he had heard laughter-not the ordinary sort of laughter heard from the living, but laughter from a time long vanished. It had seemed as known and familiar as the cooking smells, a palpable link to those gone before.
Feeney came up the hall, charging the air with haste.
‘I need you to ride with her in the rear seat, we’re taking my car. It’s both wrists, and some injury to her left leg, I’m not sure what. It needs the three of us to get this done.’
He followed Feeney along the dark hall to her room. A single lamp burning; a muted television in the corner; the old Lab on a cushion next to a bed with many pillows, and Evelyn Conor sitting in a chair in a nightgown, shocked by pain.
‘What’s to bundle her in, Seamus?’ Feeney had bound her wrists with what appeared to be kitchen towels.
Seamus brought a shawl from a chair, placed it around her shoulders; took an afghan from the foot of the bed and handed it to Feeney, who swaddled her in it, carefully tucking her arms close. She moaned, cried out.
‘God above,’ Seamus whispered.
‘I’ve given her morphine for the pain. Because of the leg, we’ll have to carry her. Slippers? We need slippers.’
Seamus went down on both knees, searched along the side of the bed, brought up slippers, gently placed them on her feet. ‘My God!’ she said, agonized.
‘Tim, go ahead of us to the car, get the rear doors open, clear the seat of my jumble; we’ll bring her down. And ask Paddy to come and speak to his mother, for God’s sake.’
‘Where will I find him?’
‘First door on th’ left as we pass up th’ hall,’ said Seamus.
Seamus and Feeney lifted her; it was a clean maneuver. She did not cry out, but was wrenched and silent, tears shone on her face.
He passed quickly along the hall and through the open front doors and down to the Rover as the Labs came racing up the driveway from Broughadoon. He did as Feeney asked, tossed the jumble behind the rear seats, left the doors open, and headed back to the house at a pace, passing them on the steps.
‘Water,’ said Feeney, ‘bring a bottle of water. And my bag from her bedroom, and her things in the duffel.’
He knocked; there was no answer. An angry blood beat in him and he opened the door. Paddy Conor-standing in the middle of a paneled room lined with empty bookshelves- grim, glass in hand. It was the man in the portrait, in the flesh.
He said what Feeney had said. ‘Come and speak to your mother, for God’s sake.’