by Peter Watt
Deborah laughed lightly at Patrick’s clumsy attempt to divert her question. ‘Major Patrick Duffy, I strongly suspect that the heart of a poet beats in your chest as strongly as the drums of your regiment.’
‘Now who is being melodramatic?’ Patrick asked with a broad smile.
Deborah’s very presence seemed to make the rest of the world and its intrigues grind to a halt. For the moment the colonel’s ominous visit was already forgotten. Patrick knew he was under Deborah’s spell. Her company and conversation felt so natural and yet he was acutely aware of his sworn vow of fidelity. He was a man who lived by a code of honour as binding as the oath of allegiance he had sworn as an officer to the Crown. He had never questioned this even when Catherine had betrayed her oath of loyalty in marriage.
The lilt of Deborah’s voice blended seductively with the fine food and excellent French wine of the evening. Why had he so quickly invited this beautiful woman to share the weekend with him, Patrick wondered, unconsciously turning his glass to reflect the candlelight in the blood red wine of his crystal goblet.
‘You are in a faraway place, Patrick.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Patrick apologised, noticing that Deborah was watching him with a curious smile. ‘I did not mean to be so rude.’
‘A penny for your thoughts,’ Deborah said.
Patrick found that his attention was on the swell of her breasts just above the daring black dress she wore so well. He was also guiltily aware of how darkly red her lips were.
‘I was just wondering why I wanted your company so much, and how I have been like a schoolboy waiting for the report. Kind of nervous but with an anticipation of doing well.’
‘I must confess that I have had little sleep thinking about my visit,’ Deborah said in a husky voice. ‘I don’t know what it is, but all the idle chatter we have indulged ourselves in before dinner has been like marking time.’
‘It is wrong, I know,’ Patrick said with an expression of anguish. ‘But I have wanted you even from the moment I first saw you at the opera, and yet I know it is wrong to just want someone if it is not based on love.’
‘Do you know, Patrick, that is the very quality I admire about you above all other men I have known in my world. You have a beautiful simplicity in your approach to life. I suppose I came here hoping that you might take me to your bed and yet I think I should have known better. You are a man who would rather die than betray all that we women secretly hold most sacred.’
‘And what is that?’ Patrick asked.
‘What we most desire is for a man to put us on a pedestal to the exclusion of every other female. I am no different. I have always tried to convince myself that I am a libertine, but through the years I have rejected offers of marriage from some of the most eligible men in Europe because I fear that they have too ready an access to other women. I want a man who will love me to the total exclusion of any other.’
‘That I cannot do,’ Patrick said softly. ‘I have a wife, and although she may have chosen to disregard her vows of obedience and fidelity, I cannot.’
Deborah glanced away. She hoped that the disappointment in her face would not show. She had also felt the attraction from the moment they had met in the hotel foyer. Admiration for a man’s sense of honour was one thing, she thought bitterly, but wanting to feel him possess her with his body and soul was another.
‘Do you know what I am looking forward to this weekend?’ she said brightly, surprising Patrick with her sudden change in mood. ‘I think I would like to stroll down to the village and buy a big bag of fish and chips. We could find a pretty paddock and sit under one of those English oak trees and eat them.’
Patrick found that he was smiling despite the disappointment he sensed in Deborah. If only she knew just how tough it was for him. Maybe his father would have handled the situation in a different manner, he mused. From what he had heard of his reputation with the ladies, Miss Deborah Cohen would not have made it through the entrée before he had her bedded. But he was not his father.
‘Davies tells me that they have a good fish and chip shop in the village. Weather permitting, tomorrow we shall partake of England’s national dish down by the brook that runs through the estate.’
The weekend was truly memorable, if largely for the fact that when they parted on Sunday afternoon it was with regret for what might have been.
Patrick waved and watched until the little horse-drawn cart was out of sight around a bend in the lane leading from the house, then sighed and walked back to the house. Neither had mentioned ever seeing the other again. Maybe it was for the best, Patrick consoled himself. After all, the army medical board had passed him fit for active service and he had his covert mission to Ireland, a land that did not welcome those wearing the King’s commission.
But as Deborah watched the gentle English countryside pass by her she intuitively knew that one day Patrick Duffy would be hers. For now she would be patient and allow Patrick’s life to run its course. When they would be together, Deborah did not know.
THIRTY-NINE
With his head down and dressed in the garb of an Irish working man, Father Martin Duffy drew no attention as he stood aside to let a platoon of English soldiers march past him along the narrow road leading from the Fitzgerald manor beyond the village. Extra patrols had been mounted on orders from London. There were rumours that the Irish Fenians were planning something and a show of force just might quell any ideas to raise arms against the occupiers of the ancient Celtic lands.
Martin even tipped his hat at the soldiers with their rifles sloped at the shoulder. When they were gone, he continued his walk to the house, passing the strange man-made hill before arriving at the ivy covered mansion. As was his habit in these troubled times, he stopped and scanned the building and could see that the house had fallen into the first stages of disrepair, a sure sign of an absentee landlord.
When Martin knocked on the door he was met by the housekeeper, who asked what his business at Mr Norris’s house was. He asked politely if she would deliver a letter to the mistress of the house and the old woman gave him a curious look.
‘Yer not from around these parts,’ she commented.
Martin only smiled in reply and remained patiently by the door as it was closed to him. Hands in his pockets, he stamped his feet against the cold until a good time later the housekeeper returned to open the door.
‘Yer can come in,’ she said. ‘Mrs Duffy will see you.’
Martin followed the broadly proportioned woman to a room lined with bookcases. It was stuffed in every corner with papers, books and the occasional work of the taxidermist, a swooping owl or falcon with wings outstretched.
‘Father Duffy,’ Catherine said in a tired voice as she clumsily attempted to rise from a wooden swivel chair. ‘We have never met but I have heard of you from my husband.’
Martin motioned for her not to rise. He could clearly see that Patrick’s wife was in the last weeks of her pregnancy, the swelling very obvious under the peasant-style skirt she wore. She appeared tired and pasty-faced, as if the library had been her permanent home during the confinement.
Martin engaged Catherine in small conversation for some minutes, talking about the weather. But Catherine sensed that Patrick’s cousin had not come to merely engage in trivial chitchat and have a cup of tea. She could see it in the tenseness of his body posture and the fact that he was not dressed in the traditional garb of a priest.
‘May I call you Catherine?’ he finally asked politely. ‘I was informed by Eamon that you might be in need of some spiritual solace,’ Martin lied. ‘He has confided in me of his concern for your welfare and I hoped out of my respect for Patrick that I might be of some comfort.’
‘What comfort do I need?’ Catherine flared. ‘As you can see, I am with a bastard child born of the devil, and nature will run its course. Given time, I shall bear more of the devil’s brood when he comes to me from the hill.’
Martin could clearly see that Catherine was
under a strain that was unhinging her mind, a wild look flashing briefly in her eyes then dying, to be replaced by despair. She needed more than he could offer.
‘Catherine, I would like you to allow the doctor to visit.’
‘I don’t need a doctor,’ Catherine spat. ‘I need . . .’
Her words tapered away and she turned to hide the tears rolling down her cheeks.
‘What do you need?’ Martin said as he crossed the room to stand beside her and take her hand.
She did not resist his gesture. Catherine bowed her head, rocking her body as the sobs came in waves. She would not answer Martin’s question. What – or who – she wanted would not want her, now that she carried this thing in her body. In her mind she was convinced that she was forever lost and life no longer had any meaning.
‘Talk to me,’ Martin said gently. ‘I might be a priest but I think I can help.’
Catherine ceased rocking and looked up at the man standing over her. ‘Can you get Patrick to forgive me, and love me again as we did when we met?’
‘I can contact Patrick,’ Martin said quietly. ‘I could tell him that you would like to see him. I know my cousin, he is a compassionate man and, I think, very understanding.’
‘How could any man be understanding of a foolish woman who has left her family in another country to pursue her own selfish dreams? How could any man accept the thing I carry which is not his?’
Martin stared at the bookcase covering one wall, jammed with old volumes. He wished that he could find within them an answer that did not sound condescending. He had long excommunicated himself from the Church by his political activities. The director general of the Jesuit order had sent a summons for him to return to Rome to explain himself and he had broken his priestly vow of obedience in defying that summons. Martin was too immersed in the murky waters of rebellious intrigue to ever explain the actions that were seen as running contrary to his role as a priest.
He had come to the Fitzgerald house with a more sinister intention, but seeing the plight of the wife of the man he most missed from his life had for a moment made him feel more like a priest.
‘Catherine, you are in need of help although you may deny this,’ he said gently, holding her hand. ‘I know that you are acquainted with the landlord, Mr Brett Norris. If I contact him he may be of assistance.’
‘Brett has not visited since I told him of my condition,’ Catherine said. ‘Nor do I ever wish to see him again. I know of the many women in his life.’
‘Where do I contact him?’ Martin persisted.
Catherine wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. ‘He has written to say that he will be returning to the house to settle some business affairs,’ Catherine replied calmly. ‘But I doubt that he will want to see the bastard he has sired with the help of the devil.’
‘Do you know which day he will be in the village?’ Martin asked, trying not to sound too intense.
‘It is here,’ Catherine said with an edge of annoyance in her voice. ‘In the letter.’
She shuffled through the litter of papers on the desk and handed a neatly folded page to the priest. Martin scanned the words couched in a cold and formal prose until he found the date of the absentee landlord’s return. He glanced up at Catherine who was staring ahead at the bookcase and sensed that her mind was no longer in the room.
‘Thank you,’ Martin said placing the folded letter on the desk. ‘I will attempt to make contact with Patrick and –’
Catherine seized his hand with a vice-like grip that startled Martin.
‘Please, do not tell him anything,’ she asked in desperation. ‘I beg you on your word of honour as a priest not to tell Patrick about me. I have plans to . . . ’
She suddenly tapered away again, releasing her strong grip.
‘What plans?’ Martin asked in alarm. ‘I hope you are not planning anything foolish, like taking your life. You should know such an act is a mortal sin in the eyes of God.’
‘I am not a Catholic,’ Catherine said with a bitter laugh. ‘I can’t go to hell for what I do not believe. Swear to me that you will not tell Patrick.’
Martin stared down at Catherine. Her once beautiful eyes spoke her plea. ‘I will not tell Patrick,’ he said gently.
As Martin left the manor to return to his safe house in the village, he trudged the pretty country lane bathed in late afternoon sunlight and wondered bleakly about the salvation of his own soul.
It was an unlikely combination of men for a committee of such importance: a schoolteacher, a publican, two peat diggers and a priest. Martin sat at the head of the table in the upstairs room of O’Riley’s public house with his back to the wall. It was an old habit he had acquired from years of warily watching doors to see who would come through: friend or foe.
The meeting had been convened as a result of Martin’s trip to the old Fitzgerald manor and the men in the smoky room looked to the priest for a report.
‘Norris will be coming at the end of next month,’ Martin said without any preamble. ‘His . . .’ Martin hesitated. What did he call Catherine Duffy? ‘His mistress has confirmed his arrival, with a letter I was able to read.’
‘The bloody British have increased the patrols in the county,’ O’Riley muttered. He was a balding man in the latter part of middle age but no less effective as a rebel in the cause to oust the English. ‘It might be that they have wind of our activities.’
‘Not likely,’ a young and bespectacled man said from the end of the table. He was a schoolteacher, an efficient organiser and a learned man who had the role of intelligence officer in the cadre. ‘My information points to a show of strength, nothing more.’
‘How do we do it?’ one of the peat diggers asked, slouching by the door to guard against a possible raid by the English controlled authorities.
‘We ambush him,’ Martin said. ‘Where and how I will brief you when I have a bit more information from Mrs Duffy.’
‘Catherine Duffy is a relative of sorts to you, Father,’ the schoolteacher stated. ‘Does that cause you any problems in this matter?’
Martin turned to the schoolteacher. ‘Personal matters are a secondary to what must be done to free Ireland,’ he responded. ‘Tonight was the first time I had ever laid eyes on the woman.’
‘But she is the wife of your cousin,’ the schoolteacher persisted. ‘I have heard it said that you and he were pretty close back in the colonies.’
‘I have not seen my cousin Patrick in years,’ Martin answered defensively. ‘I doubt that, considering the way our lives have gone, an officer of the King’s army would be shouting me a drink in Mr O’Riley’s pub these days. No, what has to be done is all that matters right now. Norris is a big wheel in the British armaments industry and the Brits need to see that we can take the war to them when and where we decide. His death should shake up a few others in London.’
The schoolteacher bowed his head in recognition of the priest’s commitment to the cause, although he and the others hardly considered Father Martin Duffy as a priest anymore. Martin may as well have been defrocked as far as they were concerned. His involvement in their cause had been a point of resentment to many who had believed priests might speak out on political matters but not act. Indeed, at first the Australian had simply crusaded with words to enlist the young men of the county to fight against the British in South Africa. Now he was planning an assassination.
‘There is nothing more to discuss for the moment except to commit ourselves to the elimination of Norris when he returns to the county,’ Martin concluded. ‘We will keep in touch.’
The committee members nodded, chairs scraping as they rose to adjourn to the bar. Only Martin remained to reflect on what had occurred. He had sanctioned the killing of a man. Despite everything less than priestly about his life, he took a small black book from his pocket to read the prayers that were compulsory to a priest. He knew of priests who broke the vow of chastity on a regular basis but still performed as men of God. Was fighti
ng for the freedom of a people any less noble?
When he had completed the prayers of his office, Martin slipped the missal back into his pocket and stared at the wallpaper peeling at one edge of the small, airless room. He tried to picture Patrick’s face, remembering him as a young man, and Martin’s lips broke into a brief smile. It had been Patrick who had forced him into the calling of the priest, he thought ruefully, to placate the Jesuits of St Ignatius when they were caught stealing the altar wine. How strange that his choice of vocation had brought him to Ireland and the village of his ancestors.
FORTY
‘What you see?’ Ivan asked from atop his horse. ‘Little ants?’
Saul knelt in the dust and stared at the marks that only his trained eyes could read. ‘Not sure as yet,’ Saul said as he slowly scanned the surrounding plateaux. Ivan scratched at his beard and gazed off into the distant blue sky. A few fluffy white clouds sat on the horizon and somewhere he could hear the distant screech of a falcon searching the desert for prey.
‘I see nothing,’ Ivan frowned as his friend remained dismounted and examined the earth around them. ‘No footprints. I not know how you see these things.’
‘You weren’t trained to track by the world’s best,’ Saul said quietly as the marks began to talk to him. Barely discernible as they were to his trained eye, they still told a story. He felt old Terituba, wherever he was, would be proud of his protégé’s skill.
‘Who teach you?’ Ivan scoffed. ‘There is nothing there.’
‘An old blackfella taught me,’ Saul said. ‘But you wouldn’t need tracking skills in Russia,’ he continued with a cheeky grin. ‘Blokes as big as you leave bloody big footprints in the snow.’
‘Not always snow in Russia,’ Ivan sighed. ‘Sometimes so many flowers in summer that you go blind looking.’
Finally Saul raised his eyes and peered across the arid valley below. ‘We have to be careful,’ he said. ‘There is a party of at least eight Arabs out there around a half day away and from what I can see they have at least three rifles between them.’
