Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

“Oh quite a few Irishmen, believe me,” she said with a smile. “And none of them in the least inadequate.”

He bowed.

“And I accepted your invitation because I was flattered, and irresponsible?” she challenged.

“You are quite right,” he conceded. “We must have mutual friends—some highly respectable aunt, I daresay. Do you have any such relations?”

“My great-aunt Vespasia, by marriage. If she recommended you I would accompany you anywhere on earth,” she responded unhesitatingly.

“She sounds charming.”

“She is. Believe me, if you had met her really, you would not dare to treat me other than with the utmost respect.”

“Where did I meet this formidable lady?”

“Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould. It doesn’t matter. Any surroundings would be instantly forgotten once you had seen her. But London will do.”

“Vespasia Cumming-Gould.” He turned the name over on his tongue. “It seems to find an echo in my mind.”

“It has set bells ringing all over Europe,” she told him. “You had better be aware that she is of an indeterminate age, but her hair is silver and she walks like a queen. She was the most beautiful and most outrageous woman of her generation. If you don’t know that, they will know that you never met her.”

“I am now most disappointed that I did not.” He offered her his arm, and they began to descend the stairway.

Together they walked down to the room where refreshments were already being served, and the audience had gathered to greet friends and exchange views on the performance.

It was several minutes of pleasant exchange before McDaid introduced her to a woman with wildly curling hair named Dolina Pearse and a man of unusual height whom he addressed as Ardal Barralet. Beside them, but apparently not with them, was Cormac O’Neil.

“O’Neil!” McDaid said with surprise. “Haven’t seen you for some time. How are you?”

Barralet turned as if he had not noticed O’Neil standing so close as to brush coattails with him.

“ ’Evening, O’Neil. Enjoying the performance? Excellent, don’t you think?” he said casually.

O’Neil had either to answer or offer an unmistakable rebuff.

“Very polished,” he said, looking straight back at Barralet. His voice was unusually deep and soft, as if he too were an actor, caressing the words. He did not even glance at Charlotte. “Good evening, Mrs. Pearse.” He acknowledged Dolina.

“Good evening, Mr. O’Neil,” she said coldly.

“You know Fiachra McDaid?” Barralet filled in the sudden silence. “But perhaps not Mrs. Pitt? She is newly arrived in Dublin.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” O’Neil said politely, but without interest. McDaid he looked at with a sudden blaze of emotion.

McDaid stared back at him calmly, and the moment passed.

Charlotte wondered if she had seen it, or merely imagined it.

“What brings you to Dublin, Mrs. Pitt?” Dolina inquired, clearly out of a desire to change the subject. There was no interest in either her voice or her face.

“Good report of the city,” Charlotte replied. “I have made a resolution that I will no longer keep on putting off into the future the good things that can be done today.”

“How very English,” Dolina murmured. “And virtuous.” She added the word as if it were insufferably boring.

Charlotte felt her temper flare. She looked straight back at Dolina. “If it is virtuous to come to Dublin, then I have been misled,” she said drily. “I was hoping it was going to be fun.”

McDaid laughed sharply, his face lighting with sudden amusement. “It depends how you take your pleasures, my dear. Oscar Wilde, poor soul, is one of us, of course, and he made the world laugh. For years we have tried to be as like the English as we can. Now at last we are finding ourselves, and we take our theater packed with anguish, poetry, and triple meanings. You can dwell on whichever one suits your mood, but most of them are doom-laden, as if our fate is in blood. If we laugh, it is at ourselves, and as a stranger you might find it impolite to join in.”

“That explains a great deal.” She thanked him with a little nod of her head. She was aware that O’Neil was watching her, possibly because she was the only one in the group he did not already know, but she wanted to engage in some kind of conversation with him. This was the man Narraway believed had contrived his betrayal. What on earth could she say that did not sound forced? She looked directly at him, obliging him either to listen or to deliberately snub her.

“Perhaps I sounded a bit trivial when I spoke of fun,” she said half apologetically. “I like my pleasure spiced with thought, and even a puzzle or two, so the flavor of it will last. A drama is superficial if one can understand everything in it in one evening, don’t you think?”

The hardness in his face softened. “Then you will leave Ireland a happy woman,” he told her. “You will certainly not understand us in a week, or a month, probably not in a year.”

“Because I am English? Or because you are so complex?” she pursued.

“Because we don’t understand ourselves, most of the time,” he replied with the slightest lift of one shoulder.