Weed grunted to his feet, checked his pocket watch as the five o'clock whistle sounded. Soon his legions marched under his window toward the factory gate, doffing their caps as they passed.
Would that bloody train ever get in!
"Hello, Freddie, you're looking well."
"Hello, Caroline, I look like hell and so do you."
"Should you be smoking and drinking?"
"All I get to do with this cognac is swirl it in an elegant manner and sniff it. As for the cigar, I only feel it."
They were both shaken by his words. One of their life's pleasures was Caroline biting off the end of his cigar and lighting it, just so.
"Jeremy?" she asked.
"He's at Rathweed Hall in his apartment. He's locked himself in. We've scarcely exchanged a dozen words. Yourself?"
"Things between Roger and myself are extremely rocky. There could well be a separation."
"Oh dear."
"Roger has finally succeeded in breaking the boy. God only knows what transpired in Dublin, but Roger has what he wants, an obedient little pissant for a son...."
Weed could not take the disdain in his daughter's eyes. He lowered his own.
"You and I have spoken about Jeremy for hours. We know he has limited capabilities. How in the name of God could you have joined in this barbaric scheme?" she demanded.
"Caroline-"
"How in the name of God did you permit this to happen!"
Weed closed his eyes and held his hands up in a manner of pleading for her to stop and listen to him.
"I am not going to claim virginity in this matter," he began, "but let's put it in its proper context. You know how many ongoing enterprises Roger and I have together. It is not, I repeat, not unusual for him to ask for Brigadier Swan a dozen times a year to check this out, check that out. After Jeremy's behavior in England and the estrangement I've felt from him since that...incident...when I was told he had taken up with a Catholic pub singer-and that's what they told me, a Catholic pub singer-I said fine, keep an eye on him. I swear to you I had no idea of the depth of his involvement nor the true picture of this young lady. I fully thought that Jeremy was on another of his ridiculous escapades. I'm guilty. I lent Roger the brigadier and I didn't follow through with an inquiry."
Caroline hardly seemed mollified. "This is a very, very lovely young lady and she is carrying my grandchild. I am making a stand about this."
"Marriage?"
"Absolutely."
"I see."
"You'd better see, Freddie, indeed you'd better see," she said, coming from her chair and walking away, dabbing her eyes and bringing under control the chills trembling her.
"Well...I...uh...it should be no problem to have her converted to the Anglican church, quietly. But how will Jeremy stand up to Roger if you're contemplating a separation?"
"I'll go back to Hubble Manor with them. It may take a year, it may take longer, but Roger is going to give up his medieval, Reformation mentality. They will have this child in Hubble Manor before he pushes Christopher to the altar to stud an heir."
"Aren't we playing Roger's game?"
"No, goddamnit, we're playing Caroline's game! My son is going to inherit the earldom and he is going to do something about the deplorable conditions out there."
Sir Frederick Weed contained all the winces and groans. If he objected, he'd lose Caroline. She already had a foot out the door. What would then be left? Christopher? Christopher was only slightly less despicable than Roger, and the only reason for that was that he hadn't lived long enough to pick up all of Roger's slime.
Roger, Christopher, and Sir Frederick? It had come down to this. The two of them ready to move in and carve him up at the first sign of another stroke.
"Caroline," he said shakily.
"Aye, Father."
"We've a lot of making up to do, don't we? I'm standing with you. That's a start."
"Do you know where Molly O'Rafferty is?" Caroline asked.
"Yes, she's left her house, she's living in...the Liberties...with friends."
"Shall we go see Jeremy?" she asked.
"I think you'd better do that by yourself. And let him know how distressed I am."
Caroline knocked, and knocked again, hard.
"Who is it?"
"It's your mother."
The door was unbolted and cracked open. Caroline entered Jeremy's sitting room, shut down by graying darkness. The boy was haggard and bearded and pitifully ashamed.
"Uh...don't really know where I was or what happened to my...head. But I woke up clear-minded at the end of the week and realized what had taken place. Donaldson had me packed and ready to move back to Hubble Manor. I...uh...escaped and it wasn't hard to pick up Mal's trail...."
"What did you find out?"
"What I should have known from the beginning. Mal was lying...he'd run up a gambling debt of over a hundred...his father said he wouldn't pay it...he was desperate. Brigadier Swan gave him two hundred, and the same to Cliff Coleman. They were paid to lie to me about Molly.... I went to try to find her...she was gone.... I came here."
"I don't know how much you love Molly."
"I do, Mother. I love her. I love her!"
"That helps, then. In any event, you have a responsibility to that girl. We know where she is, Jeremy."
"Where, Mother, where!"
"She's with friends in Dublin, but in her situation, she could leave the country at any time."
"Tell me where she is!"
"Now you hold on, Jeremy, and you listen to me. First of all, in this matter, your grandfather is only guilty of ignorance."
"But he sent Swan!"
"Freddie was unaware of the true nature of things."
"He's lying."
"He doesn't lie to me, Jeremy. He's ready to stand with us. The question is, are you ready to do what needs being done?"
"Tell me, Mother."
"You are to go to Molly and you are to beg her forgiveness. You are to ask her to make a quiet conversion and the two of you will marry. There is not a damned thing your father can do about it." Caroline spoke on, extremely slowly and extremely deliberately.
"You are the Viscount Coleraine, the undisputed and undeniable heir to the Earldom of Foyle. Your father cannot disown you. He cannot disinherit you. You and Molly are to return to Hubble Manor. I shall be there with you."
"Mother, I'm frightened."
"You should be. But you have everything on your side, including myself and your grandfather."
Belief and terror clashed inside him.
"Jeremy," his mother said softly, "if you fail, you will lose Molly and you will lose me. What you will win is a life between your father and your brother in Hubble Manor. That's your alternative."
"I'll do it, Mother," Jeremy said stoutly.
"I'm not your coach exhorting you at halftime," she pressed, "this is going to take balls."
He sucked in a breath to assure himself. "You'll see," he said.
47.
The arrangement Maxwell Swan had proposed to Molly O'Rafferty called for her to make a quick trip to Switzerland to a clinic that specialized in dealing with illegitimate children of the aristocracy.
Molly could have an abortion performed. Afterward she would receive "comfort" money in the form of three hundred quid a year for five years provided she was not heard from again. This was an enormous sum that would enable her to establish herself somewhere other than the British Isles.
If she insisted on having the child because of religious reasons, she would remain in seclusion at the clinic. A well-situated blind adoption would be arranged and she would surrender the child upon delivery.
The monies plus a steamer ticket to anywhere in the world would then be doled out.
Upon sight of her, Jeremy was overcome with guilt and sorrow and begged forgiveness for believing the ugly lies about her and his mates.
The girl, not yet seventeen, gave Jeremy short shrift. She simply would not enter into a conspiracy with Jeremy to marry in defiance and then stand up to Roger Hubble. The entire scene and way of life of the earldom disgusted her. She would not live under the roof of a man who offered her money to destroy his own grandchild.
She had dishonored her own family and her faith. She would make her departure from Ireland and have her child and raise it by teaching and by singing ballads and would not take a ha'penny from the Hubbles.
But what of Jeremy? He was thrown into confusion. Molly asked the unthinkable. To go off with her he would have to renounce his title and be thrown into a world of working men and women and this terrified him...utterly...completely.
If only Conor were there to give him counsel. If only Conor were there to shake him and impose courage. If only Conor...
Life in a cold water flat with a baby? What could he do? Really...all those things he was used to...Surely Jeremy had played games with his father, letting Roger know he would never measure up to responsibility because he liked life as it was. Life as he had known it could not be taken from him. He was born at the top of the ladder. No way that could be taken from him.
Molly was obstinate. She loathed his family, purely and simply. It was they who were the underclass and not herself.
Molly left Jeremy at the Liffey, a boy trying to be a man but not able to make it. He pumped himself up into believing he had done the proper thing. He was not put on earth to become part of a faceless mass of strugglers. He had a duty of generations, centuries standing, and this was more important!
Caroline and Sir Frederick held their collective breath as Jeremy went down to Dublin on his mission. They knew what had happened the instant he returned to Rathweed Hall, alone.
Jeremy was standing up, all right. He had made a decision and he had made himself believe his decision was based on honor.
"I think I'd like to speak to Mother, alone," he said after he found them in the billiard room.
"I think not," Caroline said. "Your grandfather has doted over you from the moment you were born."
"This is an intimate family matter," Jeremy retorted, swelling up his own sense of righteousness.
"No," his mother snapped quickly.
"I have an enormous stake in you, Jeremy," his grandfather said.
"Very well. I've come to a decision. I'm standing with Father."
"What do you mean?" Sir Frederick said in a voice that Jeremy had never heard before.
Jeremy flushed. There was welling fear to suppress, a dryness to make wet inside his mouth, a trembling to bring under control.
"Molly was cynical and insulting to our family and...our way of life. She refused to live in Hubble Manor. She portrayed us rather harshly."
"Well, bully for her," Caroline said. "It seems that the only people involved in this beloved land with any sense of honor are the croppies."
She looked to her father in a dare. Frederick wanted to jump in, in outrage, but he merely reddened. One false word and Caroline would be gone and his life would end in a disaster.
Mind the temper, he told himself, mind the temper. You're sweating, Freddie. Don't let another bloody stroke do you in, now.
"You let her go?" Caroline questioned.
"She refused, Mother. I had no choice."
"That girl is carrying your child in her belly, conceived in love. Do you love her?"
"I do, Mother, but my duty is greater than my folly."
"God! You sound like Christopher! You damned fool, Jeremy! What kind of a man are you! You should have taken her and gone anywhere...anywhere..."
"Caroline!" her father interceded.