Redemption. - Redemption. Part 82
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Redemption. Part 82

"So, how's it going to play out?"

"Maybe further executions will be suspended. Maybe some of them will be commuted to life in prison or something shorter. Maybe, maybe, can't be sure. The one thing that is certain, Sir Roger Casement is in the Tower of London and they must get him in a show trial, to justify their behavior."

"I've had an interesting visitor," Dary said suddenly.

"Oh?"

"Rory Larkin. Conor's nephew from New Zealand." That engaged Theo's attention.

"He enlisted about a year and a half ago under the name of Landers. He intended to make his way to Ireland and he didn't want to carry the Larkin name in."

"Bright fellow."

"Very bright. He won a field commission, survived Gallipoli, and has won a Victoria Cross. He and Jeremy Hubble became very close. Through Jeremy he learned about Conor and your mother. He wants to meet her."

"That would be lovely. Anything else he wants?"

"The Brotherhood," Dary said bluntly. "He wonders if there's still a Brotherhood?"

"Of course there is. Since the Rising more men about the country have wanted to join than we have room for. It's a case of gaining our senses and forming a new leadership. The Brits have done a pretty fair job in rounding up our top people."

"There is still a central authority, then?"

Theo nodded.

"And you and Atty are in contact with them?"

Theo was about to hedge, but that was nonsense. He was talking to Conor Larkin's brother, the man who engineered a most illegal prison break. He also sensed that Dary had his own sense of outrage over the executions.

"Yes," Theo said. "What is this..."

"Rory Landers."

"What's his story, Dary?"

"He's very young, early twenties. A lot of things remind me of Conor. He feels overwhelmed, obsessed with a need to do something in Ireland, especially now."

"Why?"

"It's the Larkin fate."

"He's in uniform?"

"More than that. General Brodhead wants him on his staff in Dublin Castle."

"Ah Father, it's far too early in the day for you to be drinking."

"As Christ is my savior," Dary said.

Rory, Father Dary, and Theo were at their buoyant best, as were two of the most delightful ladies in Dublin. Dinner was a lark, the first without awful tension since the Rising and killings. Long misplaced laughter covered the coming serious intent of the meeting.

Theo, a man who saw everything, saw Dary and Rachael eagerly volunteer to do the dishes for the lack of wanting further conversation with anyone besides themselves.

As Atty and Theo took Rory up to the library on the top floor she remembered the first time she had taken Conor there. They gathered close to the turf fire.

Theo also saw the unmistakable shock of electricity that blew off the instant his mother and Rory Larkin shook hands. Atty was more than twice the young man's age but had suffered little loss in her regal manner, her great presence, and still had more than her share of beauty. Theo hoped that Mom was merely startled for the moment. Lord Almighty, those Larkin men have a thing about wanting to get into the Fitzpatrick women's knickers. It was hell being the head of this family.

Theo repeated his feeling that sands were shifting in Ireland. "If it keeps running this way," he said, "we're going to vote Sinn Fein in in two years and Sinn Fein will pull out of the British Parliament and declare recognition of the Declaration of Independence."

"And?"

"Ah, the real fun starts when the Irish try to rule themselves. Well, Mom," Theo said with a sigh, "it's time to drop the bomb."

"Rory's a Larkin and he's looking for the Brotherhood," Atty said.

"I am," Rory said.

"What about this British uniform...and your arm?"

"I've been invited, not commanded but invited, to go on General Brodhead's staff in the Castle."

Silence. Atty was looking at a young Conor, was she not? Daring like Conor, who dared to go inside Weed Ship & Iron and doctor Sir Frederick's private train to run guns. Conor at Lettershambo...himself over there with a Victoria Cross for gallantry. She began to shake. Theo held her.

"Now, Mom," he said strongly.

"Are you his ghost, or what? This isn't true."

"I'm not Conor. I never will be Conor. But there is something I can do. I know that. Ireland's really bleeding now. I've got to make my mark."

"Playing the Landers game inside Dublin Castle," she murmured, "is going to get you into the cell next to Roger Casement in the Tower of London. If they don't get you soon, they'll get you, maybe by a slip of the tongue or just being in the wrong place for a moment. No, I'll not have it."

"Here's my thinking," Rory said, ignoring her entreaty. "I can pull out cleanly any time I want. All I have to do is say my eyes are worse and I'm off to England the next day. The minute I go into Dublin Castle, I'm looking to plan something that can be accomplished. Soon as that is in order, I'm out of Ireland."

Atty was unable to make a decision. She groused with herself. It was all the tension, all the nightmares coming back again in this lad's form. Why the hell did he come to Ireland! All that was left of the high council were threads. Any action now would have to be approved by one of the survivors like herself.

She and Rory locked eyes, as they were prone to do for semi-instants, half-seconds. Theo, still not missing a thing, finally spoke up.

"Rory is in a position too important for us to pass over. I agree that he can't stay too long. No matter the risk, he goes in," Theo said.

"Good," Rory said.

"I won't agree," Atty said.

"It's my responsibility. You'll have to come around."

80.

"Rachael, when you touch me like that I think I'm going to melt and die," Dary whispered.

"Then melt and die," she answered. "I'll touch you again and again, here and here and here."

He held her hands, then drew them to his lips. Her arms went about his head, with strength, and drew his head to her breasts. Dary felt bosom against his cheek.

"Nothing is this good," he said.

"It gets better," she whispered, "much, much better."

Dary separated from her abruptly. "How would you be knowing that?"

Well, he had to know and now was the time. "I'm not chaste," she said, in the direct manner of a Fitzpatrick.

Why should that annoy him, indeed! After all, he'd been hearing confessions for over a decade from women he'd never believe would have indulged. Why had he always thought of Rachael and virginity in the same breath? He was going to ask something stupid like "Did you confess?" or "You were forced upon?" Oh, the damnableness of wanting all women pure!

"I want no secrets between us," Rachael said. "I think you ought to know about it."

And then what, he thought. Would he ask her to do penance or chastise her? Wouldn't that be rather hypocritical under the circumstances? He and Rachael were not exactly priest to penitent.

"I don't need to know," he pouted with plain old male pride. "On the other hand, in that we are in a close family friendship and so forth, my understanding of the situation...yes, I want to know."

"I was in my sixth form at school, just ready to graduate. My history teacher, Ned Finch, was a very decent lad from an Anglo family. Despite the disparity in our ages and the fact I was his pupil, we had a strong attraction to each other."

Dary found himself all quivery with a dry lump spreading through his throat to his chest; his hands were a bit shaky. An emotion he had never felt or known of welled up inside him. Jealousy? Is this jealousy? It's a bloody monster, if that's what it is. He got together an outward show to cover himself and demonstrated that it was all in a day's work for a priest.

"Dary, maybe that's enough."

"Indeed, no. Do go on."

"We were like great chums more than anything. Ned was into reading poetry and going to theatre and we liked to ride in Phoenix Park. Being as there were no other lads who caught my fancy, I really looked forward to Sundays with him. We were entirely discreet."

"Entirely?"

"Sort of. If you want to keep seeing a fellow and enjoy his companionship, you fool around a little, you know, a little."

"I don't know." But he did. From confessions. Kisses, kisses with the use of tongues, breasts...breasts were the first very major target. Then rolling about so that parts accidentally rub against each other, entirely innocent...bah!

"I didn't feel sensual toward him, but we were pals and the boys my age were real dullards."

Well, that eased Dary up a bit. The Virgin had been his woman for over thirty years and Mary's virginity was Her gift to all women. He knew that virginity was not a reality, but now that he felt "that way" about a girl, virginity seemed its old awesome self. He wanted Rachael's story to end that way for her sake. What the hell was he thinking about? It didn't make tuppence difference if she was or she wasn't so long as Mary was. And Rachael wasn't Mary. Besides, they'd have to cut out what they were doing, anyhow. It could only be a short-lived dalliance.

"Ned enlisted in the Royal Irish artillery a month after the war started," Rachael went on. "He was going to fight in France and he pleaded with me to do it."

The old demon leapt into Dary's throat again!

"I went to Mom and we talked it over."

"You and your mother?"

"Of course, my mom, who else? I already know what a priest would tell me. I wanted to hear the truth and not a lecture. Dary, I'm sorry."

"What did Atty tell you?"

"She asked if I loved him and I told her I didn't love him in a sexual way but he was my dearest friend and I was terribly emotional about him leaving for war and he did love me desperately. I thought I ought to make him happy.

"Mom said she understood. She told me how to be careful and also said, for God's sake, be joyous, laugh a lot at yourselves and be very, very glad afterward."

"She told you that!"

"Of course. Once Mom had broken down the barriers of pain and sorrow for Conor, it was a wonderment watching the two of them rush toward each other down a path. They could make each other out a mile away and Conor would always whisk her off her feet...and she's no little lamb...and twirl her around. Sometimes they'd throw off all their clothing and leap into the icy lake screaming and howling for joy. It might have been a day when ten Brotherhood men were captured or some other disaster was on their necks...but when they saw each other, oh, did they go for each other. So, when she told me it was all right to be with Ned that way, she said...'Make it be happy.'"

Dary stopped his own pouting and studied her. For the first time he realized a woman's love was not a one-time gift...an ultimate sacrifice to be borne with regret that she would never be the same. Love from a woman like Rachael could be given over and over to a man, with great wonderment.

She took his hands. "Ned was happy. He went away happy. He was killed in the first month. I'm glad he went away happy."

The stranger had been sitting, sitting, sitting in his threshold for a score of years, and him holding in his powerful habitude, and now it was seeking a way out and the stranger was seeking its way in with the rush of feelings of an ordinary man.

"Did you enjoy it?" Dary asked the most pedantic question of all.

"Truth?"

He said, "Of course," but he didn't really mean it.

"It was clumsy and painful. But it was joyous."

"Oh."

He felt her soft fingers touch his face, then her lips. "Dary, Dary," she whispered, "I was waiting for you."

As they held each other she whispered meekly, "I was hoping you'd get jealous."

"Well, you hoped correctly, lass."

"What are we going to do, Dary?"

"I was about to ask the same question."

"Are those tears, Dary?" she asked.

"Only tears of joy," he said.

"Mine as well. I was waiting for you, mon, I was waiting for you...I was waiting for you."