“I expect she was upset,” Gracie said, pursing her lips. “It bein’ so nasty for the master, an’ all, an’ for Mr. Radley.”
“Yes, of course she was. She knows quite a lot about Irish politics, and all the things that have happened.”
“I wish she ’ad an answer for it,” Gracie said with feeling. “Some of them things is enough to make the angels weep.” Her face tightened as she spoke, and an overwhelming sadness engulfed her. “When I think o’ that poor girl wot got raped an’ killed ’cos she were beautiful and loved someone on the other side, an’ wot we English done to ’er, I’m fair ashamed.”
“You don’t need to be,” Charlotte said clearly. “We—”
“Oh, I know it weren’t us,” Gracie interrupted, her voice urgent and a little hoarse. “But it were still English, so that’s kind of us.”
“No, that’s what I mean.” Charlotte swiveled on the seat till she was facing Gracie. “Listen to me! We’ve done plenty of things that are wrong in Ireland. There’s no arguing that. But the murder of Neassa Doyle was nothing to do with us. Look!” And she stood up and went to her reticule, from which she pulled the two pieces of newspaper she had stolen in London. “You can read this, most especially you can read the dates. Alexander Chinnery died in Liverpool two days before Neassa Doyle was killed by her own brothers. And thank God, she wasn’t raped at all.”
Gracie looked at the pieces of paper, sounding out the words. She stared at them so long Charlotte was on the verge of offering to read them for her, if perhaps she found the print difficult or some of the words too long.
Then Gracie looked up, her eyes wide and troubled.
“That’s wicked, that is,” she said slowly. “Think of all them people wot believed that lie. All them songs an’ stories, an’ all them people ’atin’ Chinnery, an’ ’e never done it at all. Wot about all them other stories? ’Ow many o’ them is lies?”
“I’ve no idea,” Charlotte answered. “Probably some, not all. The thing is that hatred can become a habit until you do it for its own sake, long after you’ve forgotten the reason. You begin to look for reasons to justify the way you feel, and then you create them. Don’t let them make you feel guilty for something that has nothing to do with you, Gracie. And don’t accept that all the songs and stories are true.”
“Do you think that if they knew the truth, Mr. Doyle and Mr. O’Day would feel better about each other?” Gracie asked with a very faint lift of hope in her voice.
“No,” Charlotte answered without hesitation. “Their families were in the wrong. Nobody ever feels better for knowing that.”
“Even if it’s the truth?”
“Especially if it’s the truth.”
Nevertheless, when she had time, after breakfast, Gracie went up to Charlotte’s room and took the two pieces of newspaper, then went to look for Finn Hennessey. Surely he would want to know the truth? Charlotte might be right about some people hating from habit, but Finn was not like that. He hurt for the real suffering of his people, not the imaginary.
She found him in the boot room, but she waited until Mr. O’Day’s valet had gone and he was alone before she went in. He still looked pale after his concussion, and he was very grave. He had no job anymore, no reason to polish boots or brush coats or see to any of the other tasks of a gentleman’s gentleman, but he did it automatically. It was better than standing around idle. He had a pair of boots now. Perhaps they were somebody else’s and he was merely helping.
“ ’Ow yer feelin’?” she asked, standing in the doorway and looking at him anxiously. “I bet yer got a crackin’ ’eadache.”
He smiled thinly. “Sure I have, Gracie. Like a dozen little men with hammers were shut in there an’ trying to get out. But it’ll pass. That’s a lot more than can be said for some.”
“Yer got anythin’ for it?” she asked sympathetically. “I’ll get yer summink if yer like.”
“No, thank you,” he declined, relaxing rather more. “I took something already.”
“I’m terribly sorry about Mr. McGinley,” she said, looking at him as he leaned against the bench, the light shining on his dark head. There was a grace in him unlike that in anyone else, almost a kind of music. And he cared so much. There was nothing in him that was lukewarm, nothing indifferent or callous to the pain of others. It must be terrible to be part of a people who had suffered so much, being the victim of such deep wrongs. She admired him for his compassion, his anger and his courage. He was a bit like Pitt, really, fighting for justice in his own way. Perhaps she should care for her own people more, be concerned to fight for better things for them? Who were her own people? The poor in London? Those who had grown up cold and hungry and ignorant like herself, fighting for every scrap of food, for a place of shelter and a little warmth, fighting to stay alive without stealing or going into prostitution?
Here she was in Ashworth Hall, living like a lady and trying her best to forget about them. Would Finn despise her if he knew that? She did not want to go back to Clerkenwell or anything like the people she had left behind. How do you fight for change for them, except by changing yourself?
“Mrs. Pitt went up ter town yesterday, ter see ’er great-aunt,” she said aloud. Thinking of Vespasia always gave her a little lift of excitement, like a beam of sunshine.
Finn looked surprised. “Did she? All the way up to London, after what happened yesterday morning?” Perhaps he did not mean there to be, but there was criticism in his voice, as if he thought she had somehow abandoned her duty and she should have remained here with them at Ashworth.
Gracie was immediately defensive.
“Lady Vespasia’s very special indeed! She’s one o’ the greatest ladies in the ’ole country. Wot she don’t know in’t worth bothering wif.”
“Well, if she knows how to get us out of this mess, I wish Mrs. Pitt had brought her back here,” he said grimly.
“In’t nobody can get us out o’ this mess ’ceptin’ Mr. Pitt,” she answered with more conviction than she felt—and was ashamed of herself; of course Pitt would succeed … sooner or later. “ ’E’ll find out ’oo killed Mr. Greville and ’oo put the bomb there wot killed poor Mr. McGinley,” she added forcefully.
He smiled. “You’re loyal, Gracie. I wouldn’t have expected any less from you.”
She took a deep breath. “But ’e can’t sort out the way you all ’ate each other. But Lady Vespasia did some o’ it. She told Mrs. Pitt the truth about that story o’ Neassa Doyle and Drystan O’Day, an’ it in’t wot yer bin told all them years.”
He stood very still.
Outside someone walked along the passage and went on to the knife room. A footman swore under his breath as he lifted a heavy coal bucket.
“And what would an English lady in London know about a murder on an Irish hillside thirty years ago?” he asked carefully, his voice soft, his eyes steady.
She saw the defensiveness in him. But he was not weak enough to prefer a lie to the truth.
“Just wot anybody knows wot can read,” she replied, her eyes not wavering from his.
“And you believe it, Gracie? Written where? By whom?”
“In the newspaper,” she replied without wavering. “It’s writ in the newspaper. I read it meself.”
He almost laughed. “What newspaper? An English newspaper?” There was derision and contempt in his face and his voice. “Would you really expect them to print the truth? That one of their own, a soldier in their army, a lieutenant, raped and murdered an Irish girl and betrayed his own best friend. Of course they wouldn’t say that! I’m sorry the truth is hard, Gracie, but you have to face it!” He came towards her, his eyes gentle. He lowered his voice and it was sad rather than angry, but he did not waver. “Gracie, sometimes our own do things that we’re so ashamed of we can hardly bear to think of it, and it’s like a little bit of us dying to have to admit it’s true. But if it is … then running away or saying it isn’t doesn’t change anything, it just makes us part of whatever it was, because we haven’t the courage to face the truth, however terrible it is. You don’t want to be part of a lie, Gracie. That’s not you. However it hurts, be part of the truth. It’s a cleaner wound, and it heals.”