“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.
“No one does,” she returned. Now they were speaking as if there were no one else in the room. “The tedious people are the ones who think they do.”
“We can be tedious by perpetually trying to, aloud.” He smiled, and the light of it utterly changed his face. “But we do it poetically. It is when we begin to repeat ourselves that we try people’s patience.”
“But doesn’t history repeat itself, like variations on a theme?” she said. “Each generation, each artist, adds a different note, but the underlying tune is the same.”
“England’s is in a major key.” His mouth twisted as he spoke. “Lots of brass and percussion. Ireland’s is minor, woodwind, and the dying chord. Perhaps a violin solo now and then.” He was watching her intently, as if it were a game they were playing and one of them would lose. Did he already know who she was, and that she had come with Narraway, and why?
She tried to dismiss the thought as absurd, then remembered that someone had already outwitted Narraway, which was a considerable feat. It required not only passion for revenge, but a high level of intelligence as well. Most frightening of all, it needed connections in Lisson Grove sufficiently well placed to have put the money in Narraway’s bank account.
Suddenly the game seemed a great deal more serious. She was aware that because of her hesitation, Dolina was watching her curiously as well, and Fiachra McDaid was standing at her elbow.
“I always think the violin sounds so much like the human voice,” she said with a smile. “Don’t you, Mr. O’Neil?”
Surprise flickered for a moment in his eyes. He had been expecting her to say something more defensive, no doubt.
“Did you not expect the heroes of Ireland to sound human?” he asked her.
“Not entirely.” She avoided looking at McDaid, or Dolina, in case their perception brought them back to reality. “I had thought of something heroic, even supernatural.”
“Touché,” McDaid said softly. He took Charlotte by the arm, holding her surprisingly hard. She could not have shaken him off even had she wished to. “We must take our seats.” He excused them and led her away after only the briefest farewell. She nearly asked him if she had offended someone, but she did not want to hear the answer. Nor did she intend to apologize.
As soon as she resumed her seat she realized that it offered her as good a view of the rest of the audience as it did of the stage. She glanced at McDaid, and saw in his expression that he had arranged it so intentionally, but she did not comment.
They were only just in time for the curtain going up, and immediately the drama recaptured their attention. Charlotte, lost in the many allusions to history and legends with which she was not familiar, began to look at the audience again, to catch something of their reaction and follow a little more.
John and Bridget Tyrone were in a box almost opposite. With the intimate size of the theater she could see their faces quite clearly. He was watching the stage, leaning a little forward as if not to miss a word. She glanced at him, then—seeing his absorption—turned away. Her gaze swept around the audience. Charlotte put up the opera glasses McDaid had lent her, not to see the stage but to hide her own eyes, and to keep watching Mrs. Tyrone.
Bridget’s searching stopped when she saw a man in the audience below her, to her left. To Charlotte all that was visible was the back of his head, but she was certain she had seen him before. She could not remember where.
Bridget continued staring at him, as if willing him to look back at her.
On the stage the drama heightened. Charlotte was only dimly aware of it, for her emotional concentration was upon the audience. John Tyrone was still watching the players. At last the man Bridget was watching turned and looked back up at the boxes. It was Phelim O’Conor. As soon as she saw his profile Charlotte knew him. He remained with his eyes fixed on Bridget, his face unreadable.
Bridget looked away just as her husband became aware of her again, and switched his attention from the stage. They spoke to each other briefly.
In the audience below, O’Conor turned back to the stage. His neck was stiff, his head unmoving.
During the second intermission, McDaid took Charlotte back outside to the bar where once more refreshments were liberally served. The conversation buzzed about the play. Was it well performed? Was it true to the intention of the author? Had the main actor misinterpreted his role?
Charlotte listened, trying to fix her expression in an attitude of intelligent observation. But really she was watching to see whom else she recognized among those queueing for drinks or talking excitedly to people they knew. All of them were strangers to her, and yet in a way they were familiar. Many were so like those she had known before her marriage that she half expected them to recognize her. It was an odd feeling, pleasant and nostalgic, even though she would have changed nothing of her present life.
“Are you enjoying the play?” McDaid asked her. They drifted toward the bar counter, where Cormac O’Neil had a glass of whiskey in his hand.
“I am enjoying the whole experience,” she replied. “I am most grateful that you brought me. I could not have come alone, nor would I have found it half so pleasant.”
“I am delighted you enjoy it,” McDaid replied with a smile. “I was not sure that you would. The play ends with a superb climax, all very dark and dreadful. You won’t understand much of it at all.”
“Is that the purpose of it?” she asked, looking from McDaid to O’Neil and back again. “To puzzle us all so much that we will be obliged to spend weeks or months trying to work out what it really means? Perhaps we will come up with half a dozen different possibilities?”
For a moment there was surprise and admiration in McDaid’s eyes; then he masked it and the slightly bantering tone returned. “I think perhaps you overrate us, at least this time. I rather believe the playwright himself has no such subtle purpose in mind.”
“What meanings did you suppose?” O’Neil asked softly.
“Oh, ask me in a month’s time, Mr. O’Neil,” she said casually. “There is anger in it, of course. Anyone can see that. There seems to me also to be a sense of predestination, as if we all have little choice, and birth determines our reactions. I dislike that. I don’t wish to feel so … controlled by fate.”
“You are English. You like to imagine you are the masters of history. In Ireland we have learned that history masters us,” he responded. The bitterness in his tone was laced with irony and laughter, but the pain was real.