THE HOLY WELL

1637

 

FATHER LAWRENCE WALSH loved to be with his brother and sister. He also loved the autumn season, and the golden leaves were falling by the path as the family rode across to Malahide Castle that Sunday morning.

Orlando was accompanied by his wife Mary. Anne and Walter Smith had brought their son Maurice.

When they arrived at the Talbots’ little castle, they found a knot of people gathered outside. Some were household servants, some folk from the village of Malahide, others from farther away; two local gentry families had come over from their estates. Several members of the Talbot family were there to greet them, and when they saw Lawrence, they asked if he wished to assist the priest, who was already inside. But Lawrence indicated that he would be happy to sit with his family unless the priest had need of him. Soon after this, they all went inside.

From the small hallway by the entrance, the little congregation made its way quietly up the big staircase, and from there into the chamber known as the Oak Room, in which they could all just be accommodated, and which served every Sunday as a chapel for the local community. Father Luke, the elderly priest, a little thinner and more bent than when Lawrence had seen him last, was waiting for them and greeted the Jesuit with a smile. A scent of incense pervaded the room. Though there was light from the window, the candles on the side tables made a pleasing glow on the dark wood panelling. But the room’s finest feature, in front of which the little altar had been set up, was the big oak panel over the fire, upon which a magnificent depiction of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin had been carved in low relief. Lawrence looked at it with affection. It had been there as long as he could remember, and he had been coming to the Sunday Mass at Malahide Castle since he was a boy. As soon as they were all gathered in, and had sunk to their knees for a few moments of silent prayer, the old priest began to say the Mass.

What was it, Lawrence wondered, that made these occasions so special? He had so many commitments in the city, and there was no doubt that they were all worthwhile. His faith had never been stronger. But there was something about these gatherings in country houses, an intimacy and warmth in which, he was sure, the pure flame of the faith burned especially bright. The nature of the Mass itself was intimate and intense, of course. And to be welcomed by a family like the Talbots into their home: that also made a difference. But the fact that, like the congregations of the Early Church, they were compelled to meet like this in secret—perhaps, he reflected, this very persecution was a kind of blessing. For here, in the Oak Room at Malahide, he always felt that he was, truly, in a direct communion with those early days of the universal Church.

As he looked at Orlando and his wife, both deep in prayer, and at Anne, her eyes a little dark and haggard nowadays, with her solid, grey-haired husband Walter, he thanked God for their quiet, determined piety. Even young Maurice, an eighteen-year-old youth now—though he did not seem to have experienced the sense of religious urgency that had marked his own life and Orlando’s at the same age—even young Maurice surely felt gratitude for the embracing religious atmosphere in which he had been brought up.

The Mass proceeded. Agnus dei…Ora pro nobis…The kindly Latin of the liturgy flowed seamlessly on, the Latin words that had brought comfort to men all over Western Christendom, and given structure to their lives, for a millennium and more…The host was elevated, the miracle of the Mass was achieved. Yes, Lawrence thought, the Church of Rome was the universal church, its pillars were moral precepts, its arches gave shelter to every Christian family. Once within, there was no valid reason to leave. It was with a profound sense of peace that he rose from his knees at the end of the service.

The congregation did not leave the Oak Room immediately. Father Luke came round to say a few words to each of them. The old priest was delighted to see Anne, who had not been there for some time, and to learn that the last of her daughters had also married that summer. “That leaves only this young man,” he said with a twinkle in his eye to Maurice, “who has no need to think of such things yet.” Orlando and Mary he greeted warmly. It was clear that he had a special feeling for the devout couple.

The couple were still childless. Though Lawrence knew better than to question divine providence, it nonetheless puzzled as well as grieved him that his brother and his wife had never been blessed with a child. At first, he had not been too concerned. He remembered when Anne had raised the issue ten years ago, that afternoon when they had all walked out to the sea at Portmarnock: even then, he had believed that with a little patience, all would be well. But the years had passed, and no child had come. Why, he wondered, should God have witheld His normal blessing in this way? It could not, surely, be that the couple were being punished for some transgression. Both were deeply devout, and devoted to each other. Indeed, their failure to have children, he guessed, had probably caused their religion to be even more intense. Lawrence sincerely loved his sister-in-law. She had one of those faces that, to the superficial eye, do not improve with the years. As a pretty, brown-haired girl, she’d had a button nose and soft cheeks. Those cheeks had become a little coarser and redder now, and her nose seemed somewhat shapeless, like a smudge. Her brown eyes looked out at the world seriously, with a slight bulge. But to the keener, religious gaze, her goodness made her more beautiful than ever. Hers was a quiet soul. She ran her household perfectly and her servants were contented; her husband lacked nothing that a good wife could provide, and he cherished her as a good husband should. But under the calm, unruffled surface that she presented, he could only guess at the pain that she must feel.

For although Orlando had never spoken of it, Lawrence knew very well the intense grief his lack of children caused him. His religious faith might tell him to accept the will of God; and as a devout man he doubtless did—in his head. But in his heart, the desire for a family, for an heir, and above all, to fulfill that vow to their father—in the secret places of his heart these must have eaten at him every day. “He goes out by himself to the holy well at Portmarnock, you know, every week,” Anne had confided to him some years ago. “He doesn’t tell Mary, but he did tell me.” And whatever his own views about such superstitions, Lawrence could hardly blame his brother. “I dare say,” he had remarked charitably, “that a man may pray there as well as any other place.” And no matter how carefully and kindly Orlando concealed it, Mary must have known what he did. She must have known his secret anguish and, with a pain of her own equal and even greater, surely blamed herself. Dear God, the Jesuit thought, if I supposed it would do any good, I’d go on my knees to pray at my father’s old well myself.

When they finally came down and emerged into the open air, the sun was shining and the golden leaves on the trees in the park were gleaming against the bright blue sky. Just before they mounted their horses to return, Orlando indicated to his brother that he would like to speak to him in private on the way.

They rode back in pairs. Anne and Walter led; Mary rode beside young Maurice, who, as he usually did, kept up a pleasant chatter; Orlando and Lawrence followed a little way behind.

For several minutes, they went along in silence. Orlando seemed to be deep in thought, and Lawrence, not wishing to disturb him, waited for him to begin the conversation. He supposed it would concern the political situation.

As far as the Jesuit was concerned, nothing much had changed. There had been some quite striking events. In England, the king’s favourite, Buckingham, had been murdered. Nobody was sorry about that, and English diplomacy, at least, had been more rational since then. In Dublin, they had watched the eclipse of Doctor Pincher. Their cousin Doyle had given them a gleeful account of how he had ruined the preacher’s reputation in his interview with the king. After the return of the delegation from London, the Graces had been promised and the king’s money, with some difficulty, raised. But the promised concessions to Catholics had not been followed through, and for a couple of years the English Protestant party had even begun to persecute the Irish Catholics again. True, things had finally started looking up when, a few years ago, the king’s trusted lieutenant, a blunt and powerful man called Wentworth, had come to rule Ireland for him. Wentworth favoured a formal and ceremonial Church and had made short work of the Puritan nonconformists. “I think we may take it,” Orlando had told him, “that the king is showing that he really is a friend to Catholics, just as he said.”

But Lawrence saw no reason to alter his original assessment. “Wentworth is King Charles’s trusted man. Of that there is no doubt. As such, he has only one interest, which is to increase the royal power. He will support or attack Catholics or Puritans with equal impartiality to further those ends. But that is all.” Recently, plans had been announced for a new, western Protestant plantation, in Connacht. “Nothing has changed,” said Lawrence. “Even so,” Orlando had pointed out, “Catholics are still left to worship in relative peace.”

So Lawrence was surprised when, just after they had left the Talbots’ land, Orlando turned to him and quietly said:

“I am worried about Anne.”

“Anne?” Lawrence was surprised. “I thought she looked a little pale today,” he remarked, “but nothing more. Is she unwell?”

“Not exactly.” Orlando rode on a few paces. “In a way, it’s worse.” He took a deep breath. “I think she’s in love.”

“In love?” Lawrence was so taken aback that he almost gasped the words, and glanced forward quickly to make sure that he had not been heard by the riders in front. “With whom?”

“Brian O’Byrne.”

The Jesuit digested this startling information in silence for a few moments.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“You surely do not mean that she would…”

“Yes,” said Orlando. “I do.”

When Jeremiah Tidy had looked at his son Faithful that morning, he had felt a sense of justifiable pride. The boy was turning into a young man, and he was shaping very well. “He’s taller than me,” he would remark to his wife with pleasure. Faithful’s hair was brown where his father’s was fair; his eyes were broad-set and intelligent. He had studied hard as well. True, he had not always wanted to study. “I could be earning money instead of reading books,” he would complain. And Tidy’s wife was not always helpful, either. “Look at that poor Doctor Pincher, and what all that studying has done for him,” she would sometimes say. “I’m sure he’d have been married if it wasn’t for all that studying.” Privately, Tidy mightn’t have disagreed. But he wasn’t allowing any of this talk to distract his son from what needed to be done. “It’s his future I’m thinking of,” he would tell them. His vision was larger than theirs.

And now, he thought, the boy was ready. The moment he had been waiting for all these years had finally arrived. When the morning service was over, he informed his wife:

“It’s time I took him to see Doctor Pincher. I want you to arrange it today.”

Doctor Pincher was glad to see Mistress Tidy.

He had been feeling rather low of late. Until recently, it had not occurred to him that he was getting old. It was a toothache that had reminded him. In an age when so many men were staining or rotting their teeth with tobacco or molasses from the New World, Doctor Pincher’s austerity had protected him from these vices, and as a result, he had kept all his teeth, which were long and the colour of old ivory. But a month ago he had suffered a raging toothache and had one of them pulled; so that now, on this right, lower jaw, a gap had appeared that his tongue would sadly explore every waking hour, to remind him of his mortality.

But this little memento mori had only added to a more general sense of failure that had pervaded his life for the last ten years.

He had never recovered, really, from his time in jail.

It had been the strangest business. He could never put his finger on what had gone wrong. In those first, heady months after his great sermon, he had enjoyed a degree of fame. Important men—some of the larger plantation landlords, even his patron Boyle, newly made Earl of Cork—had written to him or sought him out to express their unequivocal support. “It needed to be said,” they warmly declared. But then, shortly after the delegation to England had returned, the unspeakable thing had happened.

Soldiers had come marching into Trinity College, when he was in the middle of a lecture. They’d arrested him in front of his students. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself before men in Dublin Castle, men he knew, with grim looks on their faces.

“Sedition, Doctor Pincher,” they declared. “Possibly treason. You have spoken against the queen.”

“How so? When?”

“Your sermon in Christ Church. You called her a harlot and a Jezebel.”

“I did not.”

“The king thinks you did.”

The thing was absurd, monstrous, untrue. But there was nothing he could do. There was no trial, no chance to clear himself. He was taken forthwith to jail, to remain there at the king’s pleasure. It was hinted that there might even be further consequences. Fatal perhaps. In an agony, he passed his days in his small stone cell. And in that time he also discovered one other thing. If he thought he had friends, he had none. Or scarcely any. The Castle men, his admirers from the congregation, his colleagues at Trinity—not one of them came by. No word was spoken for him. He was a man marked by disfavour, dangerous to associate with, to be avoided. Only two people gave him any hope.

The first was Mistress Tidy. She came every day. She brought him broth and cakes, a little ale or wine. Like a ministering angel, she never failed him. Nor did she ask for anything, though of course he paid her. He wondered if Tidy himself might come, but he did not. Never mind: she was enough. Without her, he freely confessed to himself, he might at times have come close to despair.

The other was Boyle. Without the new Earl of Cork, for all he knew, he might have stayed in jail until the end of his days. But by God’s grace, the mighty landowner had, in 1629, become the Lord Chief Justice, and at Christmas that year, Boyle had been able to order his release. By way of consolation, his patron had even found him some land in south Leinster where, Pincher had discovered to his gratification, there was some extensive woodland to cut down.

So he had resumed his life again. His Puritan friends, although they had never come to see him, treated him as something of a hero. Hadn’t he been imprisoned for his faith? His students applauded him when he next came in to lecture. He tasted, as every public man must, the bittersweet fruit of hollow affection, and learned to be grateful for the gift thereof.

Only one thing still puzzled him. How had the charges ever arisen in the first place? He did wonder whether perhaps something might have been said by one of the Catholics in the delegation that had gone to the court in London, and he once even asked Doyle about this.

“If they did,” Doyle answered him truthfully, “I can promise you I’m not aware of it.”

The thing remained a mystery.

Nor had his hopes for the Puritan religious cause been satisfied. At first, at the time of his release, there had been some further clamp-downs on the Catholics. But his hopes for the Protestant Church had been smashed less than three years later when King Charles’s new governor had arrived.

Wentworth. The name came like a curse to his lips. He would never forget that terrible Sunday, not long after the new Lord Deputy’s arrival. He had been delayed and left late for the morning service at Christ Church. By the time he got there, the congregation had gone inside, and Wentworth and his large entourage were already seated in their royal pews. Entering hurriedly, Pincher had unobtrusively found a place at the back of the nave. In his hurry, he had scarcely looked around, but quickly sank to his knees for a moment’s prayer, before slowly raising his eyes to gaze eastwards towards the choir. And then he had started in horror.

The eastern end of the cathedral had been completely rearranged. The communion table, instead of being in its usual place in the centre of the choir where all might easily approach it, had been removed to the eastern end where, raised on a dais, it had been converted to a high altar. Over this altar was spread a magnificent altarcloth, threaded with gold, and upon it, in splendid silver candlesticks, burned six tall candles. Standing before the altar in a surplice so gorgeous that it might have come from some popish church in Spain, or even Rome itself, was the officiating clergyman. Pincher stared, stunned, at the terrible sight. He half rose. Only a residual spirit of self-preservation held him back from crying out: “Popery! Idolatry!”

The cursed Wentworth was responsible. There was no doubt. This was exactly the kind of High Anglican ritual that King Charles and his Catholic queen favoured. The distant high altar, the candles, the priests in their rich vestments—forms and ceremonies over preaching, the power of king and appointed bishop over true teaching and moral authority. It was worldliness and corruption, popery in all but name: it was everything the Puritans despised and hated. Here, before his very eyes, Christ Church—the place where he had preached, the centre of Protestant Dublin, the veritable Calvinist temple in the wilderness of Irish superstition—was now made into a den of papists and idolators. And with Wentworth’s arrival there was not a chance he would ever be asked to preach there again.

And there had been nothing he could do about it. The cathedral that was the centre of English rule had remained the same ever since. He would have liked to avoid the place, but in his position such a refusal would have caused endless difficulties. Humiliated, he went to church now with just as much reluctance as the Catholics had gone in the years before. The changes at Christ Church had gone hand in hand with a toleration of Catholics for which not even the prospect of a new Protestant plantation in Connacht could compensate. It seemed he had to witness the destruction of everything he had worked for.

He’d even thought of leaving Ireland and returning to England in disgust; but that would have meant giving up his position at Trinity, where, despite all these changes, he still remained a person of consequence. And besides, who was there in England to welcome him if he did return? Nobody, it seemed.

His sister had never written to him. Twice more, over the years, he had sent letters to her, but there had been never a word in reply. He had even made discreet enquiries in case she had died or moved away. But he’d learned that she was still living in the same place, and in excellent health. Of Barnaby he heard nothing at all. Indeed, if there had been any other choice, he might by now have considered looking for another heir. He could leave Trinity a handsome endowment: something, perhaps, that would carry his name. But even this idea, it had to be confessed, was an admission of family failure. At the service this morning, it had struck him rather forcibly that he was old and lonely.

So he was secretly rather grateful when Mistress Tidy appeared.

There had been times when he had felt a little aggrieved at Jeremiah Tidy. He knew that this was unreasonable. Tidy had not been disloyal to him. Whenever they met, the sexton and verger would shake his head and tell him: “Things have come to a pretty pass in Christ Church nowadays, Your Honour.” But somehow, fairly or not, Pincher never felt that this expression of disapproval was quite enough. But faithful Mistress Tidy was quite another matter. When he thought of all her goodness to him, he could only marvel that she herself, humble soul that she was, seemed to set no great store on her own good works. “I am not learned, Sir,” she would say. “I cannot even read.” And he would smile. “God values us according to our calling,” he’d assure her. Once, she had come to him in genuine distress. A woman she knew in the city, a simple woman like herself who had never done any harm in her life, had fallen sick and seemed near to death. But the woman was a Catholic. “You have always said, Sir, that God has chosen some to be saved and others to be condemned.” Was it possible, she asked, that unknown to everyone, God might have chosen her poor Catholic friend to be saved, despite her religion? Not wanting to disappoint her kindly soul, he had answered: “It is true, Mistress Tidy, that the mind of God is not known to mortal man.” Then, touched by the relief on her face, he had quite ardently declared: “But I think I may say with certainty, Mistress Tidy, that you yourself will go to Heaven.”

She came to him today with a small plum cake, in the making of which she told him, if it was not a sin, she had added a little brandy.

He received it with gratitude and asked after her family. And when she told him that her husband and Faithful would like to call upon him that day, he answered pleasantly:

“By all means. Let them come at four o’clock.”

It was early that afternoon when, having eaten two slices of the plum cake, Pincher decided to take a brief stroll to wake himself up.

Leaving Trinity, he went through the gate in the old city wall and up Dame Street towards Christ Church. Passing one of the three public clocks that the city now boasted, he heard a bell strike and saw that it was the hour of three. Continuing westward, he passed out through another gateway and turned down the slope towards the ancient bridge across the Liffey. He calculated that he had just time to walk across it and return in good order before the arrival of Tidy and his son at his lodgings. As he reached the water’s edge, he noticed that the breeze was stirring up the surface of the river into a thousand tiny, frowning waves.

Pincher stepped onto the bridge. It was deserted. He began to stride across. His long, thin legs, thank God, were still strong. The breeze over the water felt cold upon one cheek. He relished the bracing tingle it produced. After a few moments he noticed that, on the other side of the river, two gentlemen had also stepped onto the bridge and were coming in his direction. No doubt their purpose was to take some exercise, too. The taller was dressed in dark green; the shorter in russet. He reached the midway point. They were approaching him rapidly. Then he saw that the shorter man was Thomas Wentworth.

There could be no mistaking the Lord Deputy of Ireland. Short of stature, he had a moustache and a neat little triangular beard that did not entirely mask the sensual, petulant mouth. His eyes, which were puffy, glared at you bellicosely when he spoke, and were sulky in repose. His dark, curly brown hair was kept clipped into order, but it seemed that it might spring up aggressively at any time. A surly boy, thought Pincher, made masterful by a king. Wentworth had recognized him and was coming straight towards him. He could not be avoided. He stopped, three paces from Pincher, and stared at him. His companion in green, one of the Dublin Castle officials, stopped also.

“Doctor Pincher.”

Pincher stiffly inclined his head. Wentworth continued to stare at him rudely. He seemed to be thinking of something.

“You have a lease on some lands down in South Leinster?”

“I have.”

“Hmph.”

And with that, the Lord Deputy walked straight past him. The man in green followed after.

Pincher stood speechless. He went on a few paces and then stopped. He wanted to turn round and go home, but that would mean following close behind Wentworth. So instead, he continued across the Liffey and did not turn back until Wentworth was safely off the bridge and out of sight. Then, shaking with fury and vexation, he started home.

He knew what it meant. Wentworth had been insulting, but Pincher did not take that personally. It was all part of the man’s infernal scheme of things. The Lord Deputy was busy enriching himself, of course—what else would a man in public office do? But probably for the first time since Strongbow had come to Ireland four and a half centuries ago, the king’s representative there was actually interested in improving the revenues of his royal master.

Not a month went by when Wentworth didn’t grab land or rents from somewhere. Often as not, it was the new English settlers who suffered. It was certainly true that the plantation men had often taken many times the land they had legally been allotted; now Wentworth was making them pay the price. Some of that extra land was going to be taken back to produce crown revenue, or for resale. And if this rule applied to the lands of the king, then it applied to the lands of the king’s church, too. Church leases were being called in or renegotiated with a new and ruthless efficiency. And now, evidently, the greedy eye of the Lord Deputy had lighted upon the lease of his own little estate down in South Leinster.

In the last years, Pincher had been active upon the land. Ever since he came out of jail, he had made a trip south once every year, when the weather was fine, to pass by the land he leased in South Leinster, and, of course, to visit his living down in Munster, where he would preach a sermon and do the accounts. In both places, he had certainly let in the light. The Munster living had been cleared for a good profit, and was now so productive that he had even been able to give the poor curate a small increase in his little stipend. In Leinster, so far, he had only cut down some of the woodlands, just enough to pay the lease and give him a modest profit.

His lease was perfectly legal. It was signed and sealed, and it had years to run. The rent was outrageously low, of course, but it was legal. Not that he supposed for a moment that this legal nicety would matter to the blunt and brutal mind of Wentworth. He means to attack me, Pincher thought, and he has just told me so. And if Wentworth succeeded and Pincher lost this income, what would be the result? He’ll have more money to spend on his cursed candles, his golden altarcloths, and his popish ceremonies in Christ Church, the doctor thought bitterly. He was so upset that he could not even bring himself to walk back past the cathedral, but returned along Wood Quay instead. One thing at least was certain. Before Wentworth gets it from me, he thought, I’ll strip the place bare.

So he was not in a very good temper when, upon reaching his lodgings, he found Jeremiah Tidy and his son Faithful dutifully waiting for him.

It certainly wasn’t Tidy’s fault if Pincher heard his request without enthusiasm. The sexton could hardly have presented his case better. He began very humbly. The doctor had honoured him with his acquaintance all these years and Pincher knew that he and his wife were only simple people. Though loyal, he added quietly—a fact that Pincher acknowledged with a slight inclination of his head. But thanks to their admiration of the learned doctor, young Faithful had not only been brought up in strict adherence to Calvinist doctrines but had also received an education. In fact, he had excelled at his studies. Pincher had been aware that the boy had gone to one of the little Protestant schools in Dublin, but knew little else of his attainments.

And now, it seemed, Tidy was desirous that his son should make the greatest step of all and go to Trinity College as a young scholar. His father could undertake to meet the costs involved—though naturally for a man like himself it would be a sacrifice. He had thought that Doctor Pincher might think it a lack of courtesy if he did such a thing without consulting him first, and he hoped that perhaps the learned doctor might give young Faithful his support for his candidacy.

It was the sort of request that had been made at Oxford and Cambridge for centuries. Sons of prosperous yeomen and merchants, and even of humble craftsmen and peasants, had gone to those hallowed colleges and risen, through the Church or the law, to great heights. The teaching fellows of the colleges themselves might well have started life as poor scholars. And though Trinity was intended first for the sons of the new Protestant settlers who called themselves gentlemen, there were humble young men there, too. Why, therefore, should Pincher have given the verger and his son a frown of disapproval?

Partly, of course, it was because he was already in a state of fury about Wentworth. But as he gazed at Tidy now, he felt a certain sense of aggrievement. Tidy might bemoan the state of things at Christ Church, but he was still snugly embedded there while he, Doctor Simeon Pincher, was utterly excluded. Tidy no doubt continued to enjoy all the fees and other benefits from the cathedral, which allowed him to send his son to university. And now he wanted him to put in a good word for the boy. Faithful Tidy would go to Trinity under his aegis—the very thing he had failed to accomplish for his own nephew Barnaby. It was decidedly irksome. He turned to the boy.

“You have studied hard?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Hmm.” He had, had he? Pincher suddenly addressed him in Latin, with a question about his reading of Caesar.

To his surprise, the young man replied readily in Latin, gave him quite a full answer, and ended with a quotation from the great man. Pincher tried some more questions. All were well answered in Latin. Pincher gazed at the boy and found himself scrutinised in turn, respectfully but intelligently, by a pair of bright eyes set wide apart. He was impressed but did not show it. Had the boy a recommendation from his school? Tidy produced a letter, which Pincher tossed on the table but did not read. However annoyed he felt, he had already decided to take the young man, for the sake of his kindly mother as much as anything. But he wasn’t going to let these people think he was an easy touch, so he stared at them so sternly that it almost seemed like a scowl. And it was this bleak look that caused Jeremiah Tidy to play his final card.

“I wouldn’t be troubling you, Your Honour, if you hadn’t always been so good to us, a great scholar and a Cambridge man such as yourself.”

A Cambridge man. That strangely obsequious tone. Despite himself, Pincher involuntarily winced.

“We shall see, Tidy, what can be done,” he said with resignation, and waved them away.

The Tidys had gone about a hundred yards when Faithful turned to his father.

“What was that about Cambridge?” he asked.

“Ah.” His father smiled. “What did you notice?”

“As soon as you said Cambridge, he looked as if something had bitten him.”

“It’s my secret weapon, you might say. I noticed it years ago. Must’ve been something he did at Cambridge, I suppose, that he doesn’t want anyone to find out. But he suspects I know it. Makes him nervous. So I let him think that I’ll take care of him if he takes care of me.”

“But what was it?”

“His secret? I’ve no idea.”

“Don’t you want to know?”

“I don’t need to know. Better if I don’t. All that matters to me is that if I say Cambridge, he’ll do what I want.”

Faithful digested this piece of wisdom thoughtfully.

As they came near to Christ Church, his father indicated that Faithful was to follow him into the cathedral. There was no one else in there. They had the place to themselves as Tidy led his son to where the long rope hung down from the bell, hidden far above, which summoned the people to prayer. Tidy stopped beside the bellrope and looked at his son carefully.

Jeremiah Tidy had been saving up this little lecture for many years. Now it was time to deliver it.

“You see this bellrope, Faithful?” Faithful nodded. “What is it?” his father went on. “Just a length of rope. That’s all. Nothing more. A man could hang himself with it, or he could climb up it. For myself, my son, I have made my life by pulling on it.” He paused and shook his head in wonderment at the strange simplicity of the thing. “By pulling this bellrope, Faithful, I earn the right to live in the precincts of this cathedral. And what sort of place is the precinct of Christ Church?”

“It is a Liberty,” answered his son.

“A Liberty,” echoed his father. “Like the Liberty of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral or any of the other great cathedrals of Ireland. And what is so special about a Liberty?”

“We live under the rule of the Dean.”

“Correct. We do not answer to the Lord Mayor of Dublin, nor to the king’s sheriff, nor even hardly to the Lord Deputy. The Liberty is like a little legal kingdom, Faithful, in which the Dean is the only lord. And we enjoy all the privileges of the Liberty. I have lodgings which are almost free. I can trade from my house—which I do—without needing to belong to a city guild or having the freedom of the city, for both of which you have to pay. Nor do I pay any of the profits of my trade to the Dublin corporation.” He smiled. “I enjoy all the privileges of the city, yet I pay no taxes. And all because I pull this bellrope.”

These were by no means all the benefits of being a servant of the cathedral. Like all such ancient foundations, Christ Church took care of its own. All kinds of folk, from the verger and the vicars choral who sang in the choir, to the humblest sweeper and scavenger, found shelter and sustenance in its nooks and crannies. All kinds of perquisites and customary charity were given out, from shoes and gowns to food and fuel. When the great candles on the altar reached a certain low point, for instance, Tidy would replace them and take the remains home. His family enjoyed the finest wax candles, but never had to pay for them. Above all there were the innumerable little fees which the laity paid for every service he performed, the greatest of which, of course, was the ringing of the bell.

“It makes no difference, Faithful, whether they are High Church or Calvinist, papist or Puritan, they will always wish the bell to be rung,” Tidy declared. “And all I have to do is pull this rope. A fool could do it. But it has made my fortune.” Though he was careful never to let anyone guess it, Tidy had by now amassed a fortune that was quite equal to that of Doctor Pincher.

“And now, Faithful,” he concluded, “you are going to climb up this rope to a higher sphere entirely. You could become a lawyer and even a gentleman; and one day you’ll look down upon me as a humble, ignorant sort of fellow. But remember: it was this bellrope that got you there.”

While this homily was in progress in Christ Church, Doctor Pincher, who had not stirred from his seat since the Tidys left, was engaged in some deep thoughts of his own. But these did not concern the Tidy family at all.

If Doctor Pincher had more cause than ever to hate the king’s Lord Deputy, he was not alone. The Puritan party hated him for his High Church; the New English settlers hated him for attacking their land titles. The Earl of Cork himself, meeting Pincher in Trinity College, had confided to him: “We’ll bring this cursed Wentworth down one day, I promise you.”

Over in England, Pincher was aware, the situation was different but even more tense. There, the Puritans were so disgusted with Charles’s Church that they were starting to leave for the new American colonies—not just in a tiny trickle, as in the previous decade, but in regular convoys. A little army of useful craftsmen, small farmers, and even some educated men was removing itself from England’s shores forever. Even more significant politically was the fury of the gentry. With the help of new taxes which he had been able to extract through the law courts, Charles had found that, so long as he stayed out of costly wars, he could get by without calling a Parliament to vote him extra funds. As a result, England had now been ruled by the king alone, without any Parliament, for the last seven years. Parliaments had been called, and listened to, for centuries. They might be collections of country gentlemen and lawyers, but they represented ancient English Liberties, and to many of the solid, landed class who led the community, this was clear evidence that King Charles, who believed he had a divine right to do what he liked, was on his way to imposing a tyranny. Gentlemen in Ireland might be at some remove from all this, but they were well aware that politically this represented a powder keg.

Sooner or later, Pincher mused to himself, Wentworth would fall. The English governors in Ireland always did. But even more important, when finally something forced Charles to summon a Parliament, then there would be a reckoning. The Puritans of England and Ireland would have their revenge. What form that revenge would take, Pincher did not know. But he would work towards that day of reckoning from now on. If he was an enemy of Wentworth, then he must also, henceforth, be an enemy of the king.

Though he was not entirely aware of it, Doctor Pincher had just taken the first step down the path towards treason.

If it hadn’t been for young Maurice, Brian O’Byrne would never have seen them. Anne had told him so. It had been shortly after midsummer. Walter Smith and his wife had been staying two days with a merchant in Wicklow that Walter knew. As well as young Maurice, Orlando had also accompanied them. Returning home early in the morning, they had all decided to go up to Glendalough. They had walked all round the ancient ruins, admired the round tower and the silence of Saint Kevin’s two mountain lakes. By noon, they had started home. The days were long. Even proceeding at an easy pace, they could be back at Dublin before darkness finally set in. They had just passed the track that led to Rathconan, and Orlando had just told them what it was, when Maurice had cried: “Rathconan. I should like to see that.”

“If you ride along the track as far as that tree,” Orlando had pointed to a tree at a short distance, “you can see the old tower house. But don’t go any farther or you might be seen, for I never told Brian that I was coming up here.”

But of course, Maurice rode farther, and O’Byrne himself had caught sight of him and, recognising the youth, had waved for him to come over. And a minute or two later, Brian was out at the main track, reproaching Orlando for riding by his house in such an unfriendly way, and courteously inviting Walter and Anne to come in. It would have been rude to refuse, although Walter said, “We can’t stop long.” Anne had smiled, however, and remarked, “I should like to see your house.” Maurice, meanwhile, was already headed back towards it.

As they had approached the old tower, Brian had given Walter a sideways look and murmured: “Your family home.”

“Ah.” Walter had only allowed himself a half-smile.

“Your son seems to like it, anyway.” Maurice was already riding round the old tower with evident delight. O’Byrne had glanced across at Anne. She was looking around appreciatively.

“You take the cattle up there?” She pointed to the wild mountain slopes above.

“In summer.”

He remembered Orlando’s sister very well; he and Orlando had continued to see each other from time to time, but he hadn’t seen Anne since that day they had gone out to the island together—it had to be more than ten years ago. She had changed remarkably little. A few more lines, some grey hair, but still a very attractive woman. She was a little older than he was, so she must be in her midforties. And still locked, he thought privately, in the same life with her dull husband.

His own life at Rathconan had not been so eventful. He had a brood of children now. The two boys studied with the priest; the girls were taught to read and write, but no more. His wife had died a year ago, giving birth to a seventh child. It had caused him much grief; but a year had passed, and it was time to think of finding a replacement. Handsome Brian O’Byrne of Rathconan would have no difficulty finding a young Wicklow woman happy to share his bed, manage his fine estate, and take over his lively children.

At Anne’s request, he took them round the place. They appreciated the old stone house and admired the magnificent views. Maurice, in particular, was enthusiastic. Every time one of Brian’s children appeared, he inspected them to see if they had their father’s green eyes, but none of them had. He wanted to walk up the hillside with O’Byrne to see the summer pastures, and Brian was perfectly agreeable. Anne also wanted to go. “So we’ll all go up together, then,” Walter agreed with a faint sigh. By the time all this was accomplished, it was past midafternoon. Brian had pressed them to eat with his family and stay the night. And since it was clear to Walter that everyone except himself wanted to do so, he had agreed with good grace.

The big evening meal at Rathconan was a communal affair. The entire household ate together, in the old Irish manner. Neighbours or travellers often joined them. The priest blessed the food. Like as not, someone would strike up a tune on a fiddle, or tell a tale or two when the eating was over. As it happened that evening, there was a lively company. Several tales were told that long summer evening, of Cuchulainn, or Finn, or of local ghosts; there was music and some dancing.

Brian O’Byrne had watched his guests with interest. Orlando was quite at home, of course, tapping his foot contentedly in time to the music. Walter Smith looked less comfortable. He must have been as familiar with the stories and the music as anyone else born in Ireland; yet though the solid, grey-haired Dublin man sat there, smiling politely, you could tell that he wasn’t really happy. You’d never guess, O’Byrne thought, that the man was his own flesh and blood. Young Maurice, on the other hand, the handsome young fellow with the green eyes, might be a son of his own. Those eyes were dancing, his face was flushed; he’d already taken an interest in a pretty young farm girl. Young Maurice belonged at Rathconan without a doubt. It all showed, O’Byrne considered, that whatever a man’s ancestry might be, a man’s character was entirely individual.

As for Anne, he observed her all evening. She was certainly enjoying herself. Like her brother, her foot was tapping to the music. At one point, when people were dancing, he saw her lean across and say something to her husband, and when he gave a slight shake of the head, she shrugged with a trace of irritation. A few moments later, young Maurice was summoned over to lead her to the dance. She moved with grace, and O’Byrne would have liked to join her himself, but he decided it was wiser not to do so. And even though she glanced across in his direction once or twice, he pretended he had not noticed.

It was Maurice who had brought his mother over to him from the dancing, with a request. Her son liked Rathconan so well, she explained, that he wondered whether O’Byrne would let him spend a week or two there. Could the young man come to stay with him?

“By all means, Mwirish,” Brian replied genially. “You’d be welcome here whenever you please. But first you’ll have to ask your father, I should think.”

It had been in the moments that followed, while Maurice had gone to interrupt his father, who was deep in conversation with the priest, that O’Byrne had known that Anne Smith might be his. She had been standing there in front of him, a little flushed from the dance. He had remarked with a smile that all the local girls would be hanging round the place if her handsome son were there, and she had laughed and put her hand on his arm. “I envy him being up here in the mountains with you,” she had added, looking straight into his eyes. And at that moment, all the unspoken intimacy they had felt that afternoon on the island long ago came flooding back. He looked at her and nodded. “I wish you could come here with him,” he replied, quietly and seriously, and she had looked thoughtful.

“I don’t know if that would be possible,” she had responded in the same tone. “Perhaps…”

He could see out of the corner of his eye that the boy was talking to his father. Walter Smith was glancing in his direction with a slight frown. Excusing himself from Anne, he moved across to the Dublin merchant and addressed him politely.

“Your son has just asked me if he might come and visit me for a little while. He’s welcome here at any time at all. But I told him it’s his own father he should be asking first, not me.”

“You’re very kind,” Walter acknowledged at once. “I was afraid he might be troubling you.”

“Not at all. We’ve people coming here all the time. I’d rather have him than most of them.”

“He couldn’t come at the moment,” Walter said, “as I’ve things for him to do in Dublin.”

“I come down to the city myself from time to time. When I’m next there, I’ll call upon you at your house. If you care to send him back with me then, he can accompany me. Or if not, then he can always come another time. Meanwhile,” he turned to the youth with a smile, “you had better give your father no cause for complaint, Mwirish, or I’ll not be wanting you in my house, I can assure you.” He looked at Walter Smith with a grin, as one father to another. “Isn’t that right?”

“It is indeed,” agreed Walter, with evident relief.

Brian O’Byrne was usually up at dawn, and the next morning he awoke to find the sky already a sparkling azure and the sun about to appear. Making his way outside, he went to a gate a short distance from the house, from which there was a fine view down to the coast and the distant sea. He liked to watch the rising sun.

He had been gazing at the eastern horizon so intently that he had not been aware he was being approached until, suddenly, he felt another person at his side. It was Anne.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He pointed, and at that moment, the first gleaming edge of the sun’s golden orb began to break over the horizon. He heard her give a little intake of breath as she watched it part from the waters. They stood together as it began to rise majestically into the sky. Neither spoke. He felt her arm resting lightly against his.

“I saw you from my window,” she said quietly. “Everyone’s asleep. Do you often watch the sun rise?”

“Usually. If it’s clear.”

“Ah. That must be good.”

He nodded, and glanced back towards the house for an instant. The sun’s rays were striking its walls, but the old tower-house seemed impervious to them, as though it, too, was still asleep. He allowed his arm gently to encircle her waist. She did not tense at all. He gave her a sideways glance. She turned her head a fraction towards him and smiled.

“Perhaps I shall come to Dublin soon,” he said.

“I think you should.” It was just then that a sound from somewhere behind caused them both to spring apart. But when they looked, they had seen no one. All the same, Anne had walked back alone and returned to the chamber where her husband was sleeping, while O’Byrne had gone to see the horses in the stable.

Neither, therefore, was ever aware that the sound had been made by Orlando and that he had seen them guiltily moving apart.

O’Byrne had not made a visit to Dublin until late August. As promised, he had made a visit to the Smiths’ house and been sorry to discover that Walter and his son had already been away in Kildare for two days and were due back that afternoon. A pity, he’d thought. A missed opportunity. For several minutes, however, he and Anne had been quite alone in the parlour; and standing together, he had turned to look down into her face, and, as she looked up into his, they had kissed as if it had been the most natural thing in the world. The sound of someone coming to the parlour door had caused them, once again, to move quickly apart, but before he left, he had suggested: “Next time your husband is going away, send me a message.”

And now, the evening before, a messenger had come with a missive from Anne to say that Walter was about to go away again. With some excitement, Brian O’Byrne was setting out for Dublin.

As Anne Smith sat in her house the following morning, she wondered if Brian O’Byrne would come that day. She was also in some agony of mind. What was she going to do?

What had she been thinking? Why had she ever allowed the business to come so far? At times she hardly knew. Had she been aware of O’Byrne’s assessment of her inner motives, she would have agreed that they were broadly true. But even he could not guess at the effect of the long years of self-denial and tension, the frustration followed by a sense of deadness that had enveloped her until, at times, she scarcely remembered what it was to feel alive. Nor how, with his sudden reappearance in her life, she had felt as if a magical light had transfigured the world. Morality, even religion, had seemed to be swept aside by something that had the force of destiny itself.

In the few encounters she’d had with O’Byrne so far, however—on the island long ago, up at Rathconan, or even here in her own house—the two of them had found themselves together, and events had seemed to unfold with a momentum of their own. Whatever was destined to be, she could tell herself, had happened. The thing was—almost—outside her control.

But now she had taken the step herself. She had summoned him. There could be no escaping that fact. And she was having second thoughts.

Was it fear of discovery? She wasn’t sure, but she suspected that Orlando might have guessed. The day she had kissed O’Byrne, the Irishman had only been gone a few minutes when Orlando had appeared, looking strange. He was in Dublin for the day, he told her, and had come round to see if Walter was back. Then, with a slight frown he had asked: “Was that O’Byrne I saw, coming away from the house?” And like a fool, just for a moment, she had hesitated. Then, quickly recovering, she had replied with a laugh that was just a little nervous: “Yes. He was coming to ask about Maurice.” She had seen the look of suspicion that had crossed her brother’s face, the concern in his eyes; and he had seemed about to say something when, thank God, she had been called to the kitchen and been able to avoid any further conversation. Two weeks later, when the whole family had gathered up at the house in Fingal and gone to Mass together at Malahide, he had said nothing; but she wasn’t sure that meant his suspicion had gone away.

Even so, it wasn’t really fear of her brother that held her back. It was her affection for her kindly husband.

Last night had been everything that Walter Smith loved. As well as his wife and son, his daughters and their husbands and children had all been together at the house. They had eaten and drunk, spent a happy evening together, and played foolish family games. Walter had been wreathed in smiles. Several times he had given his irritating chuckle, and in the midst of so much happiness, Anne had hardly minded. And watching him, she had thought: this is a good man who loves me, and who, for his goodness, I love also. That morning, when he had parted from her with great affection, she had watched him out of sight and then turned indoors, thinking: no, I can’t do this to him. Her married lot was not so terrible. She must draw back, stop this business with O’Byrne before it was too late.

She had wondered whether to send O’Byrne another message, telling him not to come after all. But that wouldn’t do. He might be on his way already. And anyway, if she couldn’t go through with it, she should at least tell him so to his face. That, she decided, was the only thing to do.

She was sitting in the parlour in the early afternoon when she heard someone arriving. She rose, and found that her heart was beating wildly. She started towards the door. But it wasn’t O’Byrne.

It was Lawrence. Her elder brother came into the parlour and sat down, indicating that he wished to speak with her alone. For a few minutes, he chatted quietly about the family, and remarked that she might feel lonely while Walter was away. He said all this very kindly; then he paused. Clearly, he had something else on his mind. She waited.

“I wondered, Anne…” his voice was soft, “if there might be anything you feel you’d like to tell me?”

“I’m not sure I understand, Lawrence.” She kept her face expressionless.

“Is there,” he gave her a gently questioning look, “anything that you wish to confess?”

“I have a confessor, Lawrence.”

“I am a priest, Anne. I could hear your confession if you wish.”

“But I don’t wish, Lawrence.”

She saw a shadow of annoyance pass across his face. Just for a moment, the old Lawrence of her childhood seemed to have reappeared—strict, censorious. No one but a sister would have seen it. Then the Jesuit smoothed his face again and resumed.

“As you wish, Anne, of course. But let me, as your brother who loves you, say just this. Years ago, I urged you to marry Walter rather than his brother. You may recall.”

“You told me: ‘Head over heart, the better part.’ I remember very well.”

“Well, now I say something different. I beg you, Anne, to consider the heart: your husband’s heart. You cannot be so cruel as to break it.” He had spoken earnestly and with feeling. Now he paused, and his look became severe. “Whatever the devil has tempted you to do, stop now. Draw back. You are on the path towards eternal hellfire, and if you go down that path, it is hellfire you will deserve. I beg you, therefore, draw back before it is too late.”

She stared at him in silence. She guessed at once that Orlando must be the source of his information. The fact that some of what he said was true didn’t make it any better, nor even that she had already come to that very decision. It was Lawrence’s playing the elder brother which annoyed her.

“Of what are you accusing me, Lawrence? Speak plainly,” she said, dangerously.

“I have not accused—”

“I am glad to hear it,” she cut in icily. “It almost sounded as if you were accusing me of betraying my husband.” There was a cold contempt in her voice. Lawrence was stung.

“Are you prepared to swear,” he demanded with some anger, “that you have committed no impropriety with Brian O’Byrne?”

“O’Byrne has kindly offered to have Maurice to stay with him,” she answered firmly. “That is all. As for your suggestion, it is an outrage and an impertinence.”

“I hope I can believe you.”

“Do you call me a liar now?” She was white with fury. “Leave my house, Lawrence. And do not come back until you have learned some manners.” She stood up and pointed to the door. “Go at once,” she commanded. She was shaking with rage. Equally furiously, her brother rose and turned to leave.

“You use me very ill, sister,” he said as he left the room.

After he had gone, she remained standing, enraged and defiant. Was she the same girl who had been in love all those years ago, for him to be giving her lectures like this. And accusing her, too, of something she had not even yet done. And then to call her a liar.

In that case, she thought in her fury, I might just as well do it.

And she was still in the same mood when, late that afternoon, Brian O’Byrne arrived.

It had been shortly after the Smith family’s visit in September that Orlando had confided to his wife his fears about Anne and O’Byrne. He had shaken his head and confessed: “I can’t believe that my own sister would do such a thing.” Mary too had been shocked, but perhaps less than her husband.

Whether or not her sister-in-law was having an affair with Brian O’Byrne, the business had one other effect upon Mary. It brought to the forefront of her mind another idea which, over the years, had come to her from time to time. And one evening, early in October, as they sat by the fire together, she looked across at her husband and said quietly:

“You should have an heir, Orlando. It’s quite clear that I shall never have a child.”

“I have you, Mary. That is enough good fortune for any man,” he said with quiet affection.

“You’re good to say it. But I should like you to have an heir.” The room was silent apart from the faint hiss of the fire. “You could have a child with another woman, you know. I’d bring it up as my own. He’d be a Walsh and you could leave him the estate. I shouldn’t mind.” She sighed. “I dare say we should have done it long ago.”

He gazed at her.

“You are a remarkable woman,” he said. She shook her head. Then, in his kindness, misunderstanding and supposing she needed reassurance, he declared: “If you imagine that I could ever consider another woman, Mary, you are quite mistaken. There is not a woman in all the wide world for me but you.”

“I was speaking of a child, Orlando.”

“We must bow to the will of God, Mary,” he replied. “If we did not do that, our life would have no meaning.” He came over to her and took her hand in his. Then, overcome with the thought that she had offered such a sacrifice for his sake, he kissed her hand with great emotion.

The next Sunday they went to Mass at Malahide together, and it seemed to her that Orlando went through his devotions with a special intensity. That afternoon, he walked out alone to Portmarnock.

And so, while she was touched by her husband’s kindness, he had not helped her at all.

Anne and O’Byrne were very discreet. O’Byrne had a merchant friend who had a house in which he’d lodged before. Conveniently, it lay near the western market where there was usually a throng of people. Passing through the market and making a few small purchases, Anne could slip in there without attracting any notice. If the highly respectable wife of Walter Smith the merchant was gone for a few hours in the afternoon, and remarked on her return that after the market, she had gone to visit a poor woman, or stopped to pray in a church, no one gave the matter another thought. From October 1637 until the following spring, O’Byrne made numerous visits to Dublin, usually for two or three days at a time, and each time, Anne and he met to make love in the afternoons, without exciting any suspicion at all. Once O’Byrne encountered Orlando in the street, asked after his family, and said, with perfect truth, that he had not had time to go round to the Smiths’ house. Twice he saw Walter, who greeted him and invited him to visit them. On each occasion, he made an excuse but did not fail to add: “I’m still waiting for you to send young Mwirish to me. Send him for a week, a month, a year—whatever you like.”

For O’Byrne, it was an exciting adventure. It pleased him especially because, after some initial shyness, Anne had become an eager and adventurous lover. For Anne, after waiting so long, it was the one passionate affair of her life.

The affair had its limitations. It could only take place in secret, behind closed doors. The lovers could never stroll out in each other’s company, or even spend the night together. But Anne did not greatly care. “The only other place I want to be with you is up in the mountains above Rathconan,” she declared. “I wish we could arrange that.” But unless there was some valid excuse to go into the mountains, she couldn’t see how this could come to pass. The opportunity came unexpectedly, however, in the spring.

At the end of March, after repeated begging from Maurice, Walter finally agreed that his son might go to stay with O’Byrne for a month. Her husband had been somewhat preoccupied with his business of late. Sometimes he had seemed a little depressed, although he assured her that there was no cause for concern. He had also put on weight. When she had remarked upon this, he replied with a sad smile that it was to be expected at his age. “My father was the same,” he said. She had not thought this was a sufficient reason, but forbore to say so. He had also been keeping his son hard at work, so she was pleasantly surprised when he let Maurice go.

She and O’Byrne discussed whether she might accompany Maurice to Rathconan for a few days, but decided it would invite suspicion. “I don’t want Lawrence knocking on my door again,” she declared. So O’Byrne came to collect Maurice and took him up to Rathconan alone. “I shan’t come down to Dublin while he’s with me,” he told her.

A week before Maurice was due to return, however, one of O’Byrne’s cattlemen appeared at Smith’s house with a message that Maurice had broken his leg and that his departure from Rathconan might be delayed.

“I think I ought to go to him, Walter,” Anne declared, and her husband did not disagree. Taking the groom with her, she set off for Rathconan with the cattleman.

On her arrival, she found her son in good spirits. He was confined to a large bench in the hall and his leg was in splints. “Like a fool, I slipped off a rock in a mountain stream,” he told her, “but I’m all right.” O’Byrne was firm, however. “He must keep absolutely still for a week,” he commanded. “I don’t want it setting crooked.” The main problem seemed to be keeping O’Byrne’s younger children from crawling all over Maurice.

Privately O’Byrne told her: “I’m not sure it’s broken at all. It may be just a bad sprain.” He grinned. “But I thought it might bring you up here.”

Anne sent the groom back to Dublin to report the situation to Walter. Remaining at Rathconan, she fell into a simple regime. During the day, she would sit and read to Maurice or otherwise keep him amused. In the evening, O’Byrne would play a game of chess with him. At nights, Maurice slept in the kitchen, where the cook kept an eye on him, while his mother slept upstairs in the guest chamber, to which, when the household was all asleep, O’Byrne would secretly come. Once, when she was afraid that their lovemaking might have made too much sound, he laughed quietly. “No sound carries through these stone walls, I can assure you. A lion could roar.”

During the day, from time to time, she would walk about outside to stretch her legs, but as O’Byrne was busy, she seldom saw him. On the fourth evening, however, he turned to her son and remarked: “We’re taking cattle up the mountain tomorrow, Mwirish. It’s a pity you can’t join us.”

“Couldn’t I come?” Anne asked. “I’ve always wanted to roam up there.”

O’Byrne looked doubtfully at Maurice.

“We need to make sure that Mwirish here doesn’t move.”

Maurice smiled. It was clear that by now he regarded O’Byrne as practically a favourite uncle.

“I’ll answer for my safety if cook will keep your children away,” he laughed.

And so it was agreed that Anne should go up with the cattlemen into the mountains for the day.

The next morning was delightfully warm. It was almost May. The cattle drive was a slow process, with the cattlemen calling out and occasionally prodding the cattle with their sticks as they urged them up the tracks; and although they set out early, it was noon before they reached the high pastures. But as far as Anne was concerned, it was worth it. All around them stretched a huge, high tableland. The sky was blue. The views over the distant coastal plain were magnificent. Just below them, in the passes, the little mountain streams tumbled down towards richly wooded slopes.

After a little rest, some of the cattlemen were returning, and O’Byrne asked Anne if she wanted to go down with them.

“I should like to stay up here,” she answered.

O’Byrne stayed with the cattle for a time, until he was satisfied that everything was in good order; then, turning to Anne in front of the remaining men, he remarked:

“It’s a beautiful walk towards Glendalough. Would you like to see it?”

“What do you think?” Anne asked the men.

“It is. It’s a fine view. Well worth the walk,” they told her.

So telling the men that he’d be back, O’Byrne escorted her politely along the path that led southwards. He strode at a good pace, but she had no trouble keeping up. When they were well out of sight of the men, however, he slowed a little and put his arm around her waist, and they proceeded like that.

As they went across the open spaces and the winding ravines, Anne knew that she had never been so happy in her life. With the wild mountain landscape before her, the warm sun on her face, the delightful sensation of his arm around her waist, she felt so wonderfully free and confident. It was exhilarating. She gave a laugh of sheer happiness. A little farther on, she murmured something without even knowing that she had done so, and was quite surprised when O’Byrne asked her what she meant.

“You said: ‘Heart over head,’” he explained.

“I did?” She laughed again. “It was just something my brother Lawrence once said. He was wrong, though.” She had never been more glad to be alive.

They had gone a couple of miles when they came upon the place. A bend in a ravine had formed a natural little grassy arbour beside a mountain stream, protected and hidden by the surrounding rocks and trees. Without waiting for O’Byrne, Anne climbed down to the water’s edge. After standing there a moment or two, she took off her shoes and stepped barefoot into the stream. It was colder than she expected, and when she stepped out, her feet were tingling. She laughed. She took a few steps towards the shelter of the rocks. She could feel the grass between her toes. O’Byrne was sitting on a rock above, watching her.

She half turned away. It was not difficult to loosen the clasp at her shoulder. A moment later, her clothes were falling to the ground and she was naked. She took a deep breath and felt the faint caress of the breeze on her breasts. She closed her eyes. The soft air was brushing lightly round her back, her legs, every part of her. She gave a tiny shiver. Then she turned to face O’Byrne. He was still sitting quietly on the rock, watching her. She smiled.

“Are you coming down from there?” she enquired.

“I think I may as well.”

She watched him as he came easily down. He was strong, she thought, but lithe as a cat. Then he was standing in front of her. She could smell the light sweat on his chest.

“Do I have to undress you?” she asked playfully, and he smiled.

“Do you want to?”

“I do,” she said.

She had never made love in the open air before. The hard ground under her felt good as the long strands of grass pressed against her harshly, leaving their imprint and little green smears on her skin. The scent of the grass was in her hair, and the tinkling sound of the stream was their accompaniment. Once, as they rolled together over the ground, they almost tumbled into the water, and both burst out laughing. She had never felt so alive before. They remained there, making love and caressing, something over half an hour.

Afterwards, as they walked back, it seemed to her that, here in the great open wildness of the Wicklow Mountains, something special had taken place within her; as if, on that day, the sense of deprivation, the anger that had blighted her life for so many years, had been assuaged and that she was free and whole again.

Two days later, a careful inspection of Maurice’s leg satisfied everyone that although the ankle was badly sprained and the muscle torn, the leg was not broken. And so, after a last night with her lover, Anne set out with her son back to Dublin.

“I shall come to Dublin again,” O’Byrne secretly promised her, “in three weeks.”

“I hardly know how I shall do without you for so long,” Anne told him.

And indeed, all the way down from the Wicklow heights to the Dublin plain, she thanked the fates that she had found O’Byrne, and that her husband knew nothing.

On a hot July day in that summer of 1638, Walter Smith made a discovery.

He had just come out of the Post Office in Castle Street, from which he had despatched a letter to a merchant in London, when he met Orlando. The Post Office was one of the several improvements in Dublin that Wentworth could point to as benefits of his firm English rule. Others included the lanterns that now lit the dark streets of old Dublin at night and, most recently, a playhouse. But the Lord Deputy’s blunt bad manners had offended almost everyone by now, and his attempts to get his hands on more Old English land in Leinster and Galway had left him few friends amongst the Old English Catholics, and so Walter Smith was rather surprised when his brother-in-law, falling into step beside him, remarked cheerfully that the political situation was looking up. How so? Walter enquired.

“Oh, I’m thinking of Scotland,” said Orlando, as if the thing was obvious—which, as far as Walter could see, it wasn’t.

For to most Englishmen, the last year of royal government had been a disaster.

It was typical of King Charles that he failed to understand even the land from which his family came. The people of Scotland had made it plain enough to his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, that they overwhelmingly wanted a Presbyterian church. So it was folly to imagine that the Scots would now accept the sort of High Church services that had been imposed on England and Ireland. Yet this is exactly what King Charles had recently tried to do. If Doctor Pincher had been shocked by the popish ritual in Christ Church, the Scots were outraged when the king ordered such things in their own land. There had been a riot in the cathedral in Edinburgh and resistance all over Scotland. To these heartfelt protests, Charles was deaf. He was the king, so he must be right. By the spring of 1638 the Scots, from the richest aristocrat to the humblest labourer, had formed that great protest movement bound together by the National Covenant, and Scotland was out of control. King Charles was now trying to raise an army to march north against the Covenanters.

“And don’t you see,” Orlando said to Walter, “that this may be good news for us?” In the first place, he explained, it would more than ever make the English government turn away from the Puritans—and that must include the Presbyterians, many of them Scottish, up in Ulster. “The king may come to regret that there were ever Protestant plantations in Ireland at all.” Beyond that, he pointed out, it would make the king more than ever grateful for the solid support of the English Catholics of Ireland. “This is the time, Walter, for the Old English to remind the king, as often as we can, that we are his loyal friends.”

“You believe that he may grant further concessions?”

“You have not seen my meaning, Walter,” Orlando continued. “I mean more than that. I think it possible, if these troubles with the Protestants go on, that the king may even turn the control of Ireland back to us, the Old English. The old gentry families that he can trust.” He smiled. “We Catholics may control Ireland again if we play our cards well.”

It seemed to Walter that his brother-in-law was a shade too optimistic. But you never knew. Political reversals had happened before. Orlando could turn out to be right. They had reached the precincts of Christ Church.

“Won’t you come to the house now?” Walter asked.

“I would. But I’ve an appointment,” said Orlando.

“I’ll give your greetings to your sister, then,” said Walter.

“Ah. Please do,” Orlando said quickly. And then he was gone.

Walter continued slowly towards his house. There was no question, he had to admit, that he had put on weight during the last year. Not that he felt any the worse for it. Indeed, the extra layer of fat he had acquired was comforting. Sometimes, when he was sitting alone, it seemed as though his body had grown, like a friend, to keep him company and, as a good friend should, protect him from the attacks of a cruel world.

He was sorry that Orlando had not accompanied him home, because he loved his brother-in-law. But he was not surprised. He had noticed for a long time now Orlando’s strange reluctance to encounter Anne. If asked to come to the house, he’d make some excuse, as he’d done today, and swear he’d come soon. Or if he came, though he greeted his sister with a kiss, there was always in his manner towards her a faint reserve. With himself, Walter had observed that sometimes, without meaning to, or when he thought he did not see, Orlando had given him a look of pity or concern; and if they were standing together without speaking, Walter could sense in the silence a hint of awkwardness. With Lawrence, too, he had perceived a thin veil of discretion, like a coat of varnish, upon the Jesuit’s courtesy.

It was very understandable. They thought he did not know.

He knew. He had known almost from the first. He could remember the evening—it seemed so long ago—when he had noticed his wife looking at him thoughtfully. Nothing so strange about that, perhaps. Yet something unusual had struck him: her look hadn’t been critical or unfriendly; it was just that she seemed to be contemplating him, as if from a distance. Was she wondering how he would react in some situation or other? Was she considering some aspect of his character? She might have looked at him that way if she were comparing him with someone else, or even trying to decide how she felt about him. Surely such things were not to be thought of. But whatever was in her mind, her look suggested that some hidden separation had occurred; there was a dispassionate distance between them. He saw it, but said nothing. What should he say? In the days and weeks that followed, however, he had watched. And he had seen.

A careful glance at her figure in the looking glass, when there was no need to do that for him. A momentary look of impatience at something he said, which, if she felt, she had never let herself show before. Sometimes she seemed preoccupied, her mind elsewhere. At other times, her body had a wonderful glow. And somewhere in all this, he had noticed the behaviour of Lawrence and Orlando. Even then, he had scarcely been able to credit such a thing. Until one day he had followed her to the western market and saw her enter the lodgings and not come out. By that night, he knew it was O’Byrne that she had seen.

Even then, for a time, he could not quite believe it. His loving, virtuous wife acting in such a way? For several days, he remained stunned, in a state of shock. He must have looked terrible, for as she came in one afternoon, Anne looked at him in surprise and asked with a mixture of alarm and impatience: “Are you ill? You look like a ghost.” He told her he was tired, and that it was nothing, and pretended annoyance over some trifling piece of business. After that, he was careful to conceal his feelings. He was not ready to have a confrontation yet. Instead, he had forced himself to consider the matter as dispassionately as he could.

Did she mean to run away with O’Byrne, or if he forced the issue, might she do so? He did not think so. She was taking pains to be discreet. She could hardly wish to bring disgrace upon herself and scandal to her children—especially Maurice, who was still at home—by such an action. And yet, he reminded himself, he’d never have thought she would do what she had already done in the first place. Could he himself put an end to the matter by confronting one of the lovers? Probably. Whatever this was for his wife, O’Byrne was a younger man who would soon be looking for a new wife. For O’Byrne, he guessed, this was an interlude that could be ended. But what then? He’d have a wife at home who could only resent him. Most men would still opt for that, he supposed. But for him, the thing was not so simple.

He loved her. But he could never forget that it was his brother that she had loved originally, not him. All these years, he had tried to be a good husband to her and make her love him, and he had supposed he had succeeded. She had said that he made her happy. But now it seemed that, after all, he had not. He had failed, and she, out of kindness, must have concealed from him all this time that she did not love him as he did her. What must that have been like for her?

For the fault was surely his. She was not a flighty woman. There was no question of that. She was moral; she was good. She was everything a wife and mother should be. He loved her passionately, but it seemed she did not love him. The pain was almost more than he could bear.

He had no one to talk to. Of his father’s family, there was nobody left. He certainly wouldn’t mention it to any of his children. Dishonour their mother in their eyes? Never. Anne’s family obviously knew. Would he be the husband that comes whining to his wife’s family when she’s unfaithful? He’d too much pride for that. No, he must bear his anguish, and his rage, alone.

For rage he felt. Rage, as a man, at being mocked: mocked by his wife, mocked by O’Byrne. Mocked even in a sense—because they knew—by Lawrence and Orlando. And his rage set limits to his love. The affair was still not public. He was fairly sure of that. Anne’s brothers might know, but they were hardly likely to let their sister’s shameful secret out. Were any of O’Byrne’s people aware? Quite likely not; and if his guess was right, O’Byrne would be discreet. If the matter became public, however, if all Dublin were to know of it, and therefore his children, too, then for all that he loved her, he’d send Anne from his house. Of that he was resolved.

But what if it remained a secret, though? Was there a glimmer of hope? When the affair were to end, as it surely must, and Anne resume her life again—what should he do then? How would he feel? Was it possible that Anne would feel some love for him? Might she not, at least, see some fineness? For he deserved that much. He thought about it. A word even, if she meant it, would be enough.

It was the role of wives to wait for straying husbands to return; but he had known of cases with the roles reversed. For the time being, therefore, for the good of the whole family, he’d pretended he knew nothing. Their marital relations still continued, in a desultory way; but if he fell asleep at night, saying that he was tired, she didn’t seem to mind. Their lives continued quietly as usual. Sometimes, lying in bed beside her, he had fancied that he smelt the scent of another man upon her skin, or in her hair, but closed his eyes and seemed to sleep. Only one thing more had offended him. And that had been that Maurice loved O’Byrne. He understood the boy’s fascination, of course. The handsome Irishman with the same green eyes would have to have been a fascinating figure to the boy. But even my son thinks O’Byrne a finer figure than his father, he thought bitterly. O’Byrne has taken even that from me. It was a final resignation, then, when he had let the boy go away with him. The boy wants to leave me, too, he thought. What can I do? How can I blame him? But when Anne had followed him up into the mountains, upon a somewhat specious pretext, he had almost burst out in vexation, and was held back only by the knowledge that, if he protested too much, he would tell her that he knew the truth. But that had been the final blow. He would keep silent for the family’s sake; but he was not even sure, after her departure for the mountains, that he could ever entirely resume his intimacy with her again.

Then and afterwards, however, he had continued to drag himself through the days. He went about his business and, at close of day, sat in his chair in the parlour and felt his body silently growing its layer to soften the arrows of pain. To his wife he was quiet and mild, watching her sometimes and wondering, did she never guess he knew? But then, that was the misery of it. She did not see because she did not want to. She did not want to since she did not care, and did not care because she loved another. Such was the circularity of his life, as he grew stout.

The house was quiet when he reached it. The servants were busy in the kitchen. Neither Anne nor his son was indoors. Normally, he would have sat down in his chair and, perhaps, taken a short nap; but after his conversation with Orlando, he did not feel sleepy, and casting about in his mind for something to do, he decided to go up to the attic and look through the documents of the Guild that resided in the chest up there. He’d been meaning to sort through them for years, but never got round to it. Grunting a little to himself, he climbed the stairs.

The attic space was quite large. The ceiling had been covered with boards, so it was quite warm and dry, even in winter. He was rather proud that he had the records there at all. Most of the old Guild’s accounts had been taken away by Wentworth and given to a new Protestant guild that had been set up. But he’d managed to keep these ones, and he had no intention of letting them go. The big, brass-banded strongbox stood in the middle of the floor, and he unlocked its three locks carefully with three different keys. It was with a certain sense of medieval mystery that his own father had kept them. And he had always meant to go through them himself one day.

At one end of the attic was an opening covered with shutters. He unfastened them and a stream of sunlight entered. He dragged the chest towards the big rectangle of sunlight and, sitting down on the floor beside it, began to take out papers.

As he had expected, most of the contents were records of minor events and disbursements, contracts with craftsmen for the upkeep of the fraternity’s chantry and tombs. Nothing of great interest. As he delved further, however, he came upon documents that were quite old. He found himself in the reign of Elizabeth, Catholic Mary, the boy king, Edward VI. In that reign, he saw, a chalice and a number of the guild’s candlesticks and other religious objects of value had been removed to a place of safekeeping in case the Protestants should try to seize them. It was as he reached the reign of Henry VIII that he caught sight of a somewhat different document. It was on thick paper, carefully folded and closed up with a red wax seal that had evidently never been broken. He took it out and held it in the light. Judging by the impression in the wax, it looked as if one of the Doyle family had sealed the document. On the outside, in a bold handwriting that he thought he might have seen somewhere before, he saw the following words:

 

DEPOSITION OF MASTER MACGOWAN
CONCERNING THE STAFF

 

He wondered what it meant. What staff? Some implement belonging to the Guild, he supposed. MacGowan would obviously have been one of the Dublin family of merchants and craftsmen. Whatever it was, someone had thought it important enough to seal it. Many letters and documents were sealed, of course. But all the same, the thing might be of interest. He fingered it.

Should he break the seal? There was no reason why not. He was the keeper of the chest, and the thing was probably a century old. He slid his finger along the edge of the wax.

“Walter?”

He turned. It surprised him that he had not heard her come up the narrow stairs, but there his wife stood, staring curiously at him.

“The door to the attic stairs was open,” she remarked. “I wondered why. What are you doing?”

“Just looking through some old papers.” A year ago, he would have shown her the document he had found. Now he just let it fall back into the chest. “Why? Were you looking for me?”

“I was.” She hesitated, gazing at him, and for a moment it seemed to him that he saw the same look he had noticed that first time he had guessed that something was amiss between them. She was considering him now. But then he saw something else. She was trying to conceal it, but she could not quite do so. It was fear.

“And why was that?” he asked mildly.

“Come down to the parlour. We can sit down there.”

He did not move.

“Is this bad news?”

“No. Not bad, I think.” She smiled at him, but in her eyes there was still a trace of fear. “Good news, Walter.”

“Tell it to me now.”

“Let’s go down.”

“No.” He was mild, but firm. “I’ve things to attend to here. I should like you to tell me now.”

She paused.

“We are going to have another child, Walter. I am with child.”

It was a cause of rejoicing when, at the end of January 1639, Anne Smith was successfully delivered of a baby son. All the family visited. Her daughters had been coming in and out almost every day for months; they had taken great delight and amusement in their parents’ unexpected good fortune after so many years, and showed a gentle concern for their mother’s health, as well as teasing their father a little about his continued potency—all of which he accepted with a show of cheerfulness.

The previous August, Walter had gone to see Lawrence and had a long and frank conversation with him. “It’s for the honour of your sister,” he’d concluded, “for the sake of the children, and for my own dignity, too.” And not without admiration, the Jesuit had agreed to all he asked. After that, both Lawrence and Orlando had made regular visits to the house; and presented with this united family front, it had never occurred to anyone, at least in Dublin, that the child in virtuous Anne Smith’s womb could belong to any man but her husband.

For Anne, the months of her pregnancy had been a strange mixture of joy and loneliness. The stage had been set by that first interview with Walter in the attic. She had gone for a walk beforehand to prepare herself, to prepare for the part that she must play.

“It must have been in April, just before Maurice was hurt,” she had said.

“Ah.” He studied the strongbox in front of him. His face had registered neither pleasure nor pain. “That would be it.”

He had not looked up at her at all. Slowly, almost absently, he had replaced the papers one by one in the box. Then, carefully, he had locked the three locks one by one. Only after that did he get up, and as he rose he gazed straight into her eyes and gave her a single, terrible look that told her at once that he knew everything. Before that look, she quaked.

“The children will be glad to know that we are to have another child.” He said it quietly. It was both an act of mercy and an order, and she hardly knew whether she felt relief, or that a knife had been stabbed, deservedly, in her heart. And as he gazed down at her, for he was still by some way the taller, she thought: Dear God, but he is terrible. Terrible, and fair. You had to admire him. She did admire him. But she felt nothing. She saw him, as never before, for the fine and noble man he was. And felt nothing. She could think only of Brian O’Byrne. The child was his. She was sure of it.

All the time the baby was growing, she had longed for O’Byrne. She had imagined him at his house and up in the mountains. How she wanted him to be with her, to put his hands on her and to feel the little life within her, to share it with her. His absence was like a nagging pain. She wanted to write to him, and discovered she could do so through the new Post Office. Making the letter look like a business communication of some kind, she sent him a carefully worded message, indicating that she hoped he would come to call at the house of Smith the merchant soon. And then she waited.

Heart over head, as Lawrence would have said. She had not reckoned with this agony of separation and uncertainty; and yet, she told herself, she’d have done it all again, for the wild release the affair had given her, and for the new joy it had brought into her life. She saw the irony—that her joy was only by courtesy of her husband’s kindness—but she could not be answerable for that. Life was as it was. There was no more to say.

He came at last, with Maurice. He had waited, cleverly, at a place in the town where he knew her son would pass. And with a cry of joy at seeing him, Maurice had brought him to the house. When they were alone for a moment, she had reminded him: “The child is yours. I know it.” And he had smiled.

“I’ve dreamed of running away with you,” she told him. “Running off to the mountains with you in the old Irish way.”

“You would, too.” He laughed softly. “You would if you could. I think you’re even wilder than I am.”

“Perhaps I will,” she said.

He stroked her hair affectionately.

“You’re better off here.”

“Do you love me?” She looked at him in doubt.

“Is your memory so short?” He was still stroking her hair.

“I’m getting very big.”

“You are magnificent.” It was said with real feeling. Then he continued softly: “You are so beautiful, you know. So beautiful.”

They had heard Walter enter the house. O’Byrne had kissed her lightly and left the room. She heard his voice outside in the passage as he encountered Walter, and gave him the usual congratulations. She heard Walter reply quietly but firmly: “She is with her family now.” And she knew that O’Byrne would not visit the house again.

You are so beautiful—those meaningless words had brought her joy and comfort many times in the weeks ahead.

When the baby was born, everyone had made a fuss of it. Maurice in particular had looked again and again to see if the baby had his green eyes. “Babies’ eyes often look blue for a little while,” she had told him. “You can’t be sure of the colour at first.” But the tiny boy’s eyes were not green. They were blue.

It was only a little while after the birth that she realised that something was wrong.

If Lord Deputy Wentworth considered the Ireland under his charge in the spring of 1639, he could feel some satisfaction. True, he had by no means done all that he wanted to do. The plantations were nothing like the ordered Protestant colonies that they were meant to be. The one he’d planned for Galway was not even begun. If he went into the house of any merchant or craftsman in Dublin, or any gentleman in the country, he’d probably find scurrilous pamphlets about himself. But it was an age of pamphleteering; and if he was hated by Catholic and Protestant alike, he did not care. He wasn’t interested in being popular. He was interested in raising money for the king. And in order. “I believe in being thorough,” he liked to say. “Thorough.” And he had certainly proved it. They might hate him in Ireland, but they were still cowed, and the island was quiet—which was more than could be said of the rest of the king’s realm.

King Charles’s attempt to bully the Scots had proved a disaster. Having pledged to their Covenant that they’d have none of Charles’s popish church north of the border, the Scots had stuck to it. Charles had blustered, then tried to negotiate. The Scots had watched him impassively. “He’d like to compel us, but he hasn’t the power,” they correctly concluded. And they sat tight. By the spring of 1639, therefore, King Charles had decided on a show of force. He began to collect troops, and tried to find gentlemen who’d be willing to lead them. It wasn’t proving easy.

On a mild day in April, down on the old Wood Quay, the people watching the boats bringing passengers from a vessel anchored out in the stream saw a curious sight. For clambering with surprising agility from a boat, at the very spot where, over forty years before he had first set foot on Irish soil, came the tall, spindly figure of Doctor Simeon Pincher. He was dressed, as always, in black. But today, instead of the stiff Puritan hat that he normally favoured, Doctor Pincher was wearing a large, floppy cloth hat of the kind that, in a later age, would be called a tam-o’-shanter. And when the boatman, hoping for a tip, asked him, “Are you all right, Sir?” he answered very cheerfully, in a voice that the boatman could have sworn sounded Scottish:

“Aye, man, I’m well enough.”

Doctor Pincher had been to Scotland.

There were many in Trinity College who believed that Doctor Pincher had become a little eccentric. There was no harm in this. Elderly university teachers were supposed to be eccentric. So the sight of the strange hat would only have brought smiles of pleasure to the undergraduates as he strode past the college gates to his lodgings. And if the Calvinist firebrand who had electrified the congregation at Christ Church years before was now seen as harmless and a little mad, this suited Pincher very well.

Before reaching his lodgings, Pincher sent a college servant on two commissions: the first to fetch a pie from Tidy’s wife; the second to find young Faithful Tidy and tell him to come to his lodgings at four o’clock precisely. As soon as he was home, Pincher poured himself a small glass of brandy and then sat down to write.

When Faithful Tidy came to the lodgings, he made sure to be on time. In doing so, he was carefully following his father’s orders.

It had become clear, as soon as he arrived at Trinity, that having personally guaranteed his presence there, Doctor Pincher regarded Faithful as his personal property. The young man, who still referred to the learned doctor as “Old Inky” behind his back, had somewhat objected to being used to run errands, but his father had counselled him to be patient.

“How often does he call upon you, Faithful?”

“Maybe once a week.”

“That’s not so much. You owe him something. Just do it with a willing manner.” His father nodded. “He may be old, Faithful, and not the man he was in Dublin once, but you never can tell how he may be useful to you in good time, if you serve him well.”

More recently, Faithful had come with another complaint.

“He has me take letters to a place down by Saint Patrick’s and leave them in a doorway.”

“No harm in that.”

“The letter’s always sealed. Addressed to Master Clarke.”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“I never see the man. I just leave it there. Once, I asked a neighbour who Master Clarke might be, and he said he never knew such a person. There’s something strange about the business, in my opinion. I’d like to wait one day and see who takes the letter. Or break the seal and read it.”

At this, however, his father had become very agitated.

“Don’t do it, Faithful. This is none of your affair. And if it’s anything it shouldn’t be, the less you know the better.” He looked at his son urgently. “You carry a letter from Doctor Pincher of Trinity College. You know nothing of the contents or who receives it. You’ve done nothing wrong. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father.”

And it was a letter to the possibly fictitious Master Clarke that Pincher put into his hands at four o’clock precisely that afternoon, with instructions to take it to the usual place. Faithful set off at once.

When Faithful had gone, Pincher stood up, stretched, poured a glass of wine, and cut himself a large slice of pie. He felt contented with the world.

His visit to Scotland had been a great success. He had travelled to Edinburgh and met numerous learned preachers and Presbyterian gentlemen. He had liked them, and the place, so well that he had reflected to himself: I should have come here when I was a young man, instead of Dublin. It was soon clear to him that the great National Covenant to which the Scots had sworn was a formidable instrument indeed. King Charles might march northwards with whatever following he could gather, but the Scots weren’t frightened in the least.

“God’s on our side,” one gentleman had told him. “Also the numbers.”

It was also clear that these gentlemen had been in correspondence with some of the Puritan gentlemen in England. The king would not find it easy to get support against the Scottish Covenanters from his English subjects. Pincher had returned more than ever determined to pursue his own secret war.

The document which Faithful Tidy had just taken would be collected by a third party, whose name was not Clarke, and thence delivered anonymously to a printer. Within days it would appear in Dublin, the Ulster plantation, and many other places besides. It was a vigorous little pamphlet. Late in life, Pincher had discovered a talent for journalism. Its object was to attack no less a person than the Lord Deputy himself.

Would Pincher be in danger if he were discovered as the author? Possibly. In England, seditious writers had even been known to have their ears cut off. But having lived so long, having been repressed in his personal life and blighted in his ambition, Pincher hardly cared. His mission in life was to keep the pure flame of the Calvinist faith burning brightly in Ireland, to proclaim God’s word and the Puritan cause, and to attack the evils of popery. He was careful not to attack the king, but he could and did insult the cursed Wentworth.

But of course the thing was deeper and more dangerous than that, and here his visit to Scotland had greatly encouraged him. For in Scotland he thought he saw a potential parallel. What if the Presbyterians of Ulster—many of whom were Scots—were to form a Covenant like their kinsmen across the water? There would be others, from the powerful Earl of Cork to the Puritans in Dublin, who would put pressure on the government. If Wentworth could be removed, the case would be even better. How this might come about, and where it might all lead, he could not yet foresee. But the general direction was clear. The men of God were on the march, and the popish King of England sooner or later would have to give way.

That evening, he wrote a letter to a Presbyterian gentleman in Ulster whose name had been given him when he was in Scotland. When he had finished, he smiled to himself. He would send it through Wentworth’s own Post Office.

She had not known at first. She might have been alerted when Maurice remarked, “His face looks strange,” and Walter had taken him by the arm and said, “The child’s just born.” She might have realised, but in the first flush of her happiness, she had seen what she wanted to. The others had all known, too, but it was Walter who had decided when she should be told, and he had done it himself, very gently, as soon as he judged she was ready.

“Anne, it seems the child is…sickly.” He paused. “Not whole.”

“Not whole? Misshapen? The child is misshapen?”

“It will be a simpleton.”

For a moment she had not wanted to believe it, but she had looked carefully and seen the truth of it: the broad face, the tilted eyes, the flat back of the baby’s head—the mongoloid features left little doubt. She had seen children like that before. In old times, in some countries she had heard, such babies were held to be the off-spring of werewolves and were burned at the stake. In Ireland, more often than not they were treated with kindness. But they grew up slowly, never to full height, clumsy of speech. Often as not, they died before they were adults. Was her lovely child, the baby given her by O’Byrne up in the wild beauty of the Wicklow Mountains, such a one? Was it possible? How could it be?

After he had told her, Walter had kissed the child and placed it in her arms.

“He is God’s creature, and we shall love him all the same,” he remarked quietly. It was typical of his generosity, and she could not but be grateful. But after he had left her alone again, she had held the baby close to her, and after she had quietly cried for a while, she had been overcome with a sense of passionate protectiveness which the thought that she had failed, and that his life would be short, only made the more intense. Sometimes, these children were almost normal. When Walter had come back again, she had looked up at him defensively.

“He’s only a little imperfect,” she said.

In a sense she realised, for Walter, it had been a relief. The presence of a healthy, handsome child of O’Byrne in his home, to mock him into his old age, could not be something he looked forward to very much. Indeed, her husband might secretly have hoped that the baby would be stillborn. In his eyes, at least, this defective child could in some sense be discounted, especially when set beside his own, handsome young Maurice. She had no doubt also that, though he had too much grace ever to say it, Walter must consider the baby’s condition a sign of God’s displeasure at her conduct. Most people would have thought the same. And if her husband was too kind to say it, she certainly expected something of the kind when Lawrence came to see her a week after the discovery. She was greatly surprised when the Jesuit picked up the baby and, having examined it closely, remarked:

“It has been noted by physicians that these children are usually born to older women. It is not known why.” After a short pause, he continued: “If you wish, later, for the child to be looked after with kindness, I can make arrangements. I know of such a place.”

“I should rather care for him myself.”

“That is between you and your husband.” He had given her a searching look. “Your husband, Anne, is beyond all praise. I speak as a simple Christian.”

“I know, Lawrence.”

“I am glad.” Mercifully, he had left it at that.

They called the baby Daniel.

To be fair, it wasn’t often that Maurice Smith gave his father any trouble. But that didn’t prevent Walter from worrying about him. Like any parent, he worried about what might happen as much as what had.

It was a curious feature of Walter’s mind that, despite his awareness that he was, by ancestry, an Irish O’Byrne, he always considered that he was entirely English, and that the Irish strain in his blood was like red hair, green eyes, or madness—that might or might not show up in some family member. His fear, which he never expressed to Anne, was that Maurice might turn out like his brother Patrick: handsome, charming, but weak. This Walter considered the Irish streak. All through the boy’s childhood, therefore, he had kept an eye out: if he thought that Maurice was not attending to his studies, or had not finished a task he’d been set, he would quietly but firmly see that the work was done. As Maurice approached manhood, his father thought that, on the whole, he was sound.

Only one thing worried him. Maurice worked hard. But was there a certain wildness about him? If this was just the high spirits of a young man, well and good. Walter could understand. But if it was something more profound, then there were two possible explanations: it might be the Irish blood in him; or it might be the inheritance of the Walshes. Had the centuries of living cheek by jowl with the O’Byrnes and the O’Tooles down on the borderland of Carrickmines affected the family? Perhaps. They might have been representatives of the Old English order—that was certainly how he had thought of them when he married Anne—but he had realised since that there was a strain of wildness and unreliability in them which their piety had masked. Wasn’t it just this instability that had recently come out in Anne?

Even without his discovery of her affair, therefore, his fear that his son might be attracted to Irish life would have made him discourage his friendship with Brian O’Byrne. Only the boy’s endless pleading, and the fact that he could not tell him the true reasons for his objections, had finally worn Walter down to the point where he had shrugged his shoulders in secret despair and allowed Maurice to go up to Rathconan. And what a catastrophe that had turned out to be.

So when, in the spring of 1639, Maurice had said that he wanted to ride over to Rathconan to see O’Byrne, his father at first tried to dissuade him and had then forbidden it. Maurice had protested: “But he’s our friend, and my uncle Orlando’s, too. I was living in the man’s house.” But Walter was quietly obdurate. Maurice had appealed to his mother. He had sensed that she wasn’t in agreement with his father, but she only told him: “You must obey your father.”

Late in April, just after the return of Doctor Pincher from his travels, Walter announced: “I’m going into Fingal on business in a couple of days. I’ll stay the night at Orlando’s house and be back the following evening.”

Anne didn’t give the matter much thought until, on the morning that her husband left, she came upon her son about to leave also. When she asked him where he was going and when he’d be back, he said he had to see a friend and would return the next day. She thought he looked evasive, and she questioned him further. What friend? “No one you know,” he said, but her instincts told her it was not true. She insisted, and told him that if he didn’t tell her the truth, he should not leave. So finally he admitted that he was going to Rathconan. “I’ll be back before Father returns,” he said. “He needn’t know.”

Anne stared at him. She knew what she ought to say: he must not go. It was her duty to support his father. Yet she had received no word from O’Byrne since his visit. She longed for something, even a word from him. If Maurice were to see him, he could at least bring her word of him, how he was, some covert message from him perhaps. “You should not disobey your father,” she said weakly.

“Are you going to tell him if I go?”

Now he was making her his accomplice. He had no idea what he was doing, of course. If only the circumstances had been different. She could have sent a message with him. But at least she would hear something this way. She hesitated. Then she took the coward’s way out. “You’re to obey your father,” she said. “And if ever you don’t, I have no wish to hear anything about it. I don’t want to know.” Then she turned on her heel and left him. A few minutes later, she heard him ride away.

At dusk that day, Walter returned. His business had finished early, and so he’d had no need to stay at Orlando’s. It wasn’t long before he asked for his son. Anne was sitting in the parlour, the baby Daniel in her lap.

“He rode out this morning. He told me he mightn’t be back tonight,” she answered with perfect truth.

“Where was he going?”

“He didn’t want to say.”

“You let him go?”

“I thought perhaps…I had a feeling it might be some girl…”

Walter was silent. It was obvious what had happened. There was one place he knew the boy wanted to go. So Maurice had waited until he thought he could slip up there without his father knowing. He was furious that his son should have been so deceitful, but he had enough good sense not to be morally outraged. Boys did these things. His wife was another matter. She claimed not to know? He stared at her accusingly. She quailed, and dropped her eyes. He slowly nodded. So that was it. She’d let their son go to see her lover, in open defiance of his wishes. A deep, sullen rage welled up within him. He gazed at the baby for several long, terrible moments. Then he walked out of the room.

The next day when Maurice returned, his father was very calm. He did not even ask where he had been. But he informed Maurice that he was not to disappear for the night at any time without his permission, and he also informed him that he no longer had a horse, and that it would not be restored until the following Christmas. He immediately sent him upon some errands in the town.

Later, Anne learned from Maurice that O’Byrne was as well and as cheerful as ever, and that he would be visiting Dublin in due course.

“Soon?”

“He didn’t say. But he sent his best remembrances to you.”

In the weeks that followed, Walter Smith was very busy. It also seemed to Anne that she detected a change in him. Whether or not he had actually lost a little of his extra weight she wasn’t sure, for they were not physically intimate. But there was a new briskness and hardness about him as he conducted his business each day, as if, in his own mind at least, he no longer needed her.

She waited, meanwhile, for some word from O’Byrne.

When Wentworth’s officials asked Doyle to join an important Commission, he assumed that he must have been remembered with favour after his dealings in London a dozen years ago in the matter of the Graces. “You’re seen as a dependable Church of Ireland Protestant,” one of them told him. “I suppose,” Doyle remarked wryly to his cousin Orlando soon afterwards, “I must take that as a compliment.” And though he had no desire to desert his family to go on the mission, he continued, “I’d be a fool to refuse.” So it was, one summer morning, that he set out with a large party of gentlemen and officials from Dublin Castle on a journey northwards. He would be gone almost a month.

The purpose of the Commission was simple: to ensure there was no trouble in Ulster.

When King Charles and his reluctant army arrived at the Scottish border late that spring, the Covenanters had come out to meet them. There had been a few skirmishes, but King Charles had got nowhere and concluded a truce. The government of his realm was now at a stalemate. Meanwhile, the royal council had been looking at Ulster and asking the obvious question:

“Are the Scots in Ulster going to start trouble, too?”

As Doyle rode northwards, he couldn’t help being impressed. The Commissioners and their entourage were a considerable party, but accompanying them was a military force of mounted men, foot soldiers, and musketeers that was like a little army. These were not like the raw levies that the king had led so uselessly against the Scots. They were trained soldiers. When he confessed his admiration to one of the officials, the fellow smiled. “Even the Presbyterians will find them persuasive,” he replied.

Once in Ulster, the procedure they followed amazed him. The way that Wentworth intended to ensure peace was to force the Ulster Scots to take an oath of loyalty. There was nothing new in this. King Henry VIII of England had done the same when he broke with the Pope in Rome, and some loyal Catholics who refused, like Sir Thomas More, had gone to their deaths. It was their refusal to take this same oath that was keeping Orlando Walsh and the rest of the Old English Catholics out of public office now. In traditional Ireland, the swearing of loyalty oaths was a normal procedure—although, wisely, it had usually been accompanied by the taking of hostages as well. The oath they were to administer now was called the Oath of Abjuration. The swearer had to abjure—to renounce—the mighty Covenant of Scotland and to give their loyalty to King Charles. Doyle had supposed that they would be going to the men of substance and obtaining the oath from the head of each household. He should have known Wentworth better.

“Thorough: that’s my motto.” They went to every house, every farm, every field and barn. “Wherever there is a Scotsman, be he never so mean, even a pauper,” they were told, “if he has attained the age of sixteen he shall take the oath.” And that is what they did. Most of the Scots lived in the eastern, coastal region of Ulster, but the Commissioners went wherever they needed to. Arriving in each area in force, they split into smaller parties, though always accompanied by troops, and went from door to door. Any Scot, resident or visitor, was forced to take the oath. Doyle himself took the oath from hundreds, holding out a small, bruised Bible for them to swear upon. They did not like it. “The Black Oath,” they called it. But they had no choice. After three weeks, Doyle was thanked and allowed to return home. He spent a few days on his own, travelling around the province, before he did so.

On his way home, as he passed through Fingal, he turned aside to stay a night at the house of his cousin Orlando.

He enjoyed an affectionate family supper with Orlando and his wife, then Mary left the two cousins to talk. Orlando was eager to hear about the Commission, and Doyle was equally glad to share his thoughts with the intelligent Catholic lawyer. Were the Ulster Scots minded to form a Covenant, or cross the sea to join their kinsmen across the water? Orlando enquired. “While you’ve been gone, the sending of the Commission north has had the effect of frightening many people in Dublin who were not afraid before,” he explained.

“I do not think there is much danger,” Doyle replied. “There is traffic across the water between Ulster and Scotland, of course. All the time. But the situation in each place is entirely different. The Scots Presbyterians are a minority in Ulster. They have to live quietly, although they’ll no doubt be glad to help the Scots if they can, and they are delighted to see the king’s Church humiliated there.”

“I try to imagine a whole community full of Doctor Pinchers,” Orlando said with a smile.

“I found them upright, proud, hardworking. In some of them, despite the circumstances, I thought I saw a grim humour. To tell the truth, Orlando, I rather liked them—far better than I do Pincher.” He paused to consider. “And yet there is a force in them that Doctor Pincher lacks, and which frightens me more.”

“More frightening than Pincher?”

“Yes. How can I put it? Pincher believes in his religion. I may not like his belief, and as a Catholic you must abhor it. But I do not question his sincerity. He believes passionately. They are not so strident. But they do not just believe. They know.” He shrugged and smiled wryly. “You can’t really argue with a man who knows.”

“But I know also, Cousin Doyle. As a Catholic, I know that my Church is the true and universal voice of Christendom.”

“That is so, yet there is a difference. You have not only the apostolic succession but a millennium and a half of tradition, to fall back upon. Catholic saints have given testimony. Catholic philosophers have argued their case painstakingly, and the Church has reformed itself from within time and again. The Catholic Church is huge and ancient and wise, and it can justify itself upon those grounds. There is a place for all humanity in it, a flexibility in many matters, a spirit of kindness.” He paused and grinned. “At least, it is to be hoped.”

“I look forward to your return to it, then,” Orlando said drily. “Did you find these Scots unkind?”

“No. Though any people will become unkind if they are threatened. I found them not unkind, but certain. They know. That is all I can tell you.”

“We must be grateful that we have peace there, at least.”

Doyle nodded thoughtfully before he went on. For there was another matter in his mind, which was the real reason why he had turned aside to visit his Catholic cousin.

“There is something else, Orlando, I saw in Ulster that worried me more. It does not concern the Scots at all.”

He had caught a glimpse of it a few times in the intervals during his Commission work. But it was the series of visits he had made after finishing and before returning home that had left him so thoughtful. It had not been difficult for him to see anyone he wanted of the important men of Ulster. The English knew of his trusted position; the Irish were aware of his connections to the Catholic families. Some were politely guarded, others more frank. Nothing explicit was said, but he had come away with a clear impression.

“What concerns me,” he went on, “is the effect of all this upon the Irish.” He saw Orlando’s eyebrows slightly raised. “I am speaking of the most well-affected Irish men—of the landowners like Sir Phelim O’Neill, Lord Maguire, and the others. They are heirs of the old Princes of Ireland, men who after the Flight of the Earls saw the English government take most of their lands and the land of their friends, certainly. But they have still more or less made peace with the new regime. They sit in the Irish Parliament. They keep their dignity and some of their old state still. I talked to some of these men, Orlando, and I observed them.”

“And what did you think?”

“I think they are watching. They see that Wentworth is powerful but that King Charles is weak. The Scots with their Covenant have proved it. Equally important, they see the Protestants now quarrelling amongst themselves.”

“And what conclusions might they draw?”

“I can see two. The first, and the less dangerous, is that they will use the king’s weakness to press their case for better treatment. Indeed, they may well be delighted at this Presbyterian rebellion in Scotland, for it will make the king have need of loyal Catholics even more.”

“The other?”

“The other is far more to be feared. They might ask themselves, why should we not make a Covenant of our own, a Catholic one? The king’s so weak, perhaps he cannot stop it.”

“Wentworth could stop it.”

“Probably. But one day…”

“Wentworth will not be here.” Orlando nodded. “And you wonder, perhaps, if I have information.” He smiled. “As a Catholic, that is. A loyal Catholic.”

“Quite.” That was exactly what Doyle was wondering. He watched his cousin. Orlando sighed.

“As to the first—put pressure on the king to recognise his loyal Catholics—it’s what I’ve said all along. There are many Irish gentlemen who, I am sure, for the sake of order, would join such a cause. And we can only rejoice if the Scots force him to it. As to the latter—which would, in effect, be another rising like Tyrone’s—I can tell you with my hand on my heart that I have heard nothing. Such a hope may exist, for some future time, but nothing’s been said. And if it were, you can be sure I should oppose it. The Old English must stay loyal to the king. It’s what we were created for.”

His words comforted Doyle somewhat, and soon after this, he went to bed. But Orlando sat up alone a little longer. And as he thought of all that Doyle had said, his mind travelled back to the days of his childhood and the memory of those ancient Irish chiefs whose names had been like magic. They had fled across the water, to be sure. But their magic had not died. Their heirs lived on—O’Neills, O’Mores…Princes of Ireland. And as he mused, a thought came into his mind.

I wonder if Brian O’Byrne knows anything?

It was Mary Walsh’s idea, in September, to ask Walter Smith and Anne to spend two days with Orlando and herself in Fingal. The baby Daniel came with them, but Maurice did not come. “As he has no horse,” his father said blandly, “he will have to walk, or stay in Dublin.” And to make quite sure that his son was fully occupied, he gave him a mass of work to be completed before his return.

Mary had been wanting to arrange this visit for some time. It was not that she was so close to the Smiths herself. She wasn’t. But however bad Anne’s conduct might have been, it seemed to Mary that it was unhealthy for Orlando and his sister not to be friends, and she hoped that in this way she might also be helping her sister-in-law.

The Smiths arrived in the evening, and the family had supper together. The two men, in particular, were clearly fond of each other. Mary knew that Orlando felt some responsibility himself for having brought O’Byrne into Anne’s life in the first place, although she’d told him: “You can hardly blame yourself for something that she did all by herself.” He’d seen little of O’Byrne either, in the last year, despite the fact that he had always enjoyed the Irishman’s company. But she had been sure that Walter’s affection for Orlando had never faltered; and to see the two men contentedly talking and laughing together, Walter with a little food on his tunic, and Orlando with a large wine stain on his lace cuff, gave her much pleasure.

Anne was another matter. Mary was glad to see Orlando greet his sister warmly, and she observed Anne sitting side by side with her husband, smiling quietly. But she seemed to be somewhat apart from everyone. Before the meal, Mary took her into the parlour, and they sat together while Anne played with the baby. After a little while, Anne had asked if she would like to hold Daniel herself.

How wonderful it had felt to cradle the warm little life in her arms, to feel the baby nestling against her. She had taken his tiny fingers and counted them out, just as she remembered seeing her own mother do. And gazing down at his broad head with its slanted eyes, she felt a longing like an ache, and thought: how glad I’d be if I had only this.

As they sat in bed together that night and discussed the evening, she asked her husband what he thought of his sister and her husband. They seemed, he replied, to be getting along well enough.

“Do you think so? Didn’t you see, when they were sitting together, the way they leaned apart?”

“They were smiling.”

“They were leaning apart. In all the evening, they never touched each other once.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” Orlando sighed. “No doubt you’re right. It must be hard, I should think, to have the child between them, reminding them every day of what has taken place. Do you suppose the child’s condition makes it worse? A child like that grows more slowly, needs more attention—that would make it worse, I’d say.”

“She dotes upon the baby.”

“I was thinking of Walter.” He glanced at her. “Can anything be done, do you think, to bring them back together?”

“Couples can be reconciled.”

“Anne would have to make the first move. It’s she who has wronged him.”

“I agree.”

“Could you talk to her, Mary?”

“I don’t know her so well. And she’s more than a dozen years older than me. It’s you who should speak to her.”

“I cannot.” He shook his head. “Lawrence tried. She lied to Lawrence, you know.”

“Wouldn’t you have? In the circumstances?”

He looked at her in genuine surprise.

“No. I wouldn’t.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she leant over and kissed him on the head.

“I shall pray for her, Orlando.” God knows, she’d prayed often enough on her own account. Perhaps her prayers for another would be accepted.

“We must pray, certainly.” He sighed. “We shall pray, Mary.”

In the morning, the two men paid a call upon the priest at Malahide. The two women remained in the house together. Though some of her time was occupied with the baby, Anne was able to help her and the women in the big kitchen. Mary could see what pleasure it gave Anne to be in her old house, and she was glad of that. The baby seemed to be happy, too. Once or twice during the morning when they found themselves alone, she had almost raised the subject of Walter; but somehow the moment had never seemed right, and she had said nothing.

The midday meal went well. The two men were in cheerful mood, delighted with their visit to the old priest. The joint of pork the women had prepared was judged a great success. During the meal, Mary again observed the interchanges between Anne and her husband, looking for signs of intimacy between them; but though they were as polite and friendly as ever, it still seemed to her that there was an invisible barrier between them, as though they were two people walking on opposite sides of a boundary.

It was Mary, after the meal, who made the suggestion.

“Let us walk over to the well at Portmarnock,” she said. Orlando glanced at her in slight surprise, but Walter was quite agreeable. “You should come with us, Anne,” she continued. “The women in the kitchen can look after Daniel.”

On the way out to Portmarnock, Mary walked beside Walter, while Orlando and Anne went a little way in front. She wondered if Orlando was saying anything to his sister about her marriage, but she guessed that he was not. As for herself, she did not feel she could allude to her brother-in-law’s marriage directly, but she could drop a hint.

“Orlando goes to the holy well to pray, though he does not tell me.” She smiled at Walter sadly. “He prays for the child that God has never yet granted us.” She sighed. “Do you think God sometimes sends us misfortunes to test us?”

“Probably.”

“If we pass the test, however, if we continue to pray, I believe our prayers are always answered. Do you also believe that?”

“In this life? I do not know.”

“I believe it, Walter. Truly. We may not foresee the outcome ourselves, but in some way our prayers are answered.”

“I shall pray for you, then, Mary,” he said with a kindly smile.

“And I shall pray for you, Walter,” she said in a quiet voice. “You have shown such Christian forgiveness, I shall pray that you are given the respect and happiness you deserve.” And she touched him softly on the arm.

He did not reply, and she did not presume to say more, but after a short while he murmured, more to himself than her: “Have I forgiven?”

When they reached the well, it was quite deserted. The afternoon sun was hazy because of some high, feathery cloud, but the faint breeze was quite warm.

“The well of Saint Marnock,” Orlando announced. “Our father used to come here to pray.”

“The place lends itself to prayer,” Walter observed.

They moved about the well for a few moments, inspecting it in silence. After gazing into it for a short while, Orlando quietly knelt down in what was evidently his usual place and bowed his head in prayer. Anne, perhaps less willingly, knelt down at the other side of the well in a stiff, upright posture, like a praying effigy on a church tomb. Walter seemed to hesitate a moment, then placed himself at a short distance and a little behind his wife, as though he did not wish either to be too close or to distract her. Mary knelt a little farther off, from where she could see them all. But though she watched she tried, also, to pray with all her heart that Anne Smith and her husband might be reconciled. They remained like this, each in their different supplications, for several minutes.

Mary was the first to hear the horse’s hoofs. They were pounding along the path from which they had come. She looked up in surprise. So did Anne. Just before the rider reached them, Walter looked up and then, reluctantly, Orlando, his rosary in his hand, raised his head also.

It was Maurice. His face was flushed. He looked excited. He scarcely seemed to notice that he was interrupting their devotions, or to care.

“I came from the house,” he cried. “They told me I’d find you here.”

“I gave you no permission to ride,” said Walter bleakly.

“Forgive me, Father,” Maurice called down. “But I know you will when you hear what I’ve to tell you.” He looked round them all triumphantly. “Wentworth is recalled.”

The effect was certainly what he had wished.

“Wentworth recalled?” Orlando looked stunned, then turned to Walter. “That is news indeed.”

“He’s recalled to England, to save the king in his difficulties. He’s the only man King Charles will trust, it seems. He leaves at once. I heard it at the castle this morning. The news is all over Dublin. There now, Father, was I right to ride out to tell you?”

“You were.” Walter nodded, and young Maurice grinned.

“I’ve another piece of news for you as well. Just before I left, who did I see in the street but Brian O’Byrne?”

Mary saw Anne stiffen. Walter’s face was motionless. Only Orlando responded.

“And what of that, Maurice?”

“Only that he’s to be married again. To a lady from Ulster. One of the O’Neills, no less. A kinswoman of Sir Phelim O’Neill. Isn’t that a fine piece of news?” And he beamed at them all.

Mary watched. Just for an instant, she saw Anne wince and then almost topple forward as if she had been struck by a blow in the stomach. Then she saw her steady herself and recover with an almost stately calm, like a nun smoothing down her habit. But Anne did not speak, and the blood had drained from her face, which suddenly looked white and gaunt as a death’s head.

The two men saw it, too. Orlando was the first to collect his wits.

“A kinswoman of Phelim O’Neill?” One of the most important men in Ulster.

“So he said.”

“A fine marriage, certainly.” Mary realised that her husband was trying to deflect Maurice’s attention from Anne, for he went on quickly. “And Wentworth? Is it known who’s to take his place?”

“I heard nothing as to that,” answered Maurice. “Are you all right, Mother? You look pale.”

“Your mother was tired after her walk,” said Walter firmly. “Indeed, as you’ve brought us a horse, Maurice, you can give it to your mother now, and you can walk back to the house with your uncle and aunt.”

Maurice dismounted at once and gave his father the reins.

“Walk with us, Maurice,” said Mary. “We haven’t seen you in far too long.” And she and Orlando linked arms with the young man and started back along the path at once, leaving Walter and Anne alone.

Anne had risen very slowly. She did not look into her husband’s face, but stared away to one side.

“I’d like to ride on the beach,” she said. “You should go with the others. I’ll catch you up.”

“I’ll wait for you here.”

“I may be gone a little while.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

Anne rode slowly through the dunes and out onto the open strand. There was nobody there. She started to go slowly southward towards the Ben of Howth. Out in the water, lit by the pale sun, the little island with its cleft rock seemed like a ship about to depart. She gazed at it and thought: I shall grow old alone.

She rode farther. A curlew was skimming over the shallows. Several times, she heard the seagulls cry. The sea was still, but tiny waves were breaking on the sand. She could see the tide was going out.

He has left me forever, she thought. He has left me, and he has left our child. He has left me without a word.

And the pain was so great that she could not ride on. She had to get down, and sank on her knees in the sand. And there she remained, hearing the little waves break with their small, repeating, retreating sound, as the sea slowly withdrew, like life itself, withdrawing.

What was it Lawrence had said?

 

Heart over head,

Better dead.

 

Was he right after all? Yes, she thought, he was right. And, sagging, almost doubled over with the pain, she stared at the blank, withdrawing sea, and heard the waves as they said: Better dead. Better dead. Better dead.

A long time passed before she slowly arose and rode back to the well, where Walter was waiting.