*
Reggie followed them from the room and along the hallway. Ian held up the
lantern, allowing a ball of light to roll up and down the old stone walls as
the lantern swung back and forth from the handle. He glanced over his shoulder
several times, looking straight at Reggie. “I didn’t realize,” Emily commented,
“How cold it could be here. Reggie never did say.”
“A bit of a chill, maybe,” Ian conceded. “I’ve suffered through worse.”
“I suppose you have.” She paused as the hall took a turn and the
staircase came into view. “I’ve always kind of envied you and Reggie for your
adventures.”
“Oh? I hardly find military life worth envying.”
“It isn’t the military so much, as it is that either of you have traveled
all over the world. Now that I do find enviable.”
“Oh, indeed. We’ve certainly been lucky enough to visit one inferno after
another. I derived great enjoyment at being shot at in places like Calcutta
during the monsoon, or in South Africa when the Boers acted up. And I can’t
tell you how truly enjoyable it was to drive the Jerries out of France.
Enviable work. All of it.”
“No need for sarcasm. I was only commenting that London can be so boorish
at times…”
Reggie pulled up at the staircase and sat, watching as that ball of light
bounced down the stairs with them, and splashed against imported mahogany
railings, and the steps that creaked beneath their weight. Except for the new
coiffure, she really hadn’t changed much at all.
“Ya know something?” Liam O'Brennigan stretched across the upper steps,
using his elbows to brace himself against the landing. Amazing how some senses
dulled or disappeared, and other were suddenly enhanced. He could not smell her
cologne nor feel the warmth of her arms about him, but he could find the light
where it never existed before. He could see in the dark, and he could see into
his soul and hers. Amazing what one could find in darkened places.
“I used to sit inside that cell downstairs day after day and watch
Bridey,” O'Brennigan continued. “Tear m’heart from me chest. I’d see that
bastard downstairs trying to make his bargains with her. I’d see him offer her
food, and I watched her refuse it. I watched her starve to death. Tore m’heart
out, I tell you. I wanted to tell her so much, and I couldn’t. I wanted to wrap
m’arms about her again, and hold her. Feel her hair and her skin. I couldn’t do
it. And I couldn’t make her eat neither.” O'Brennigan paused, pounded on the
top step, and turned aside. “He never did tell her what happened to me. The
bastard,” he said with a crack in his voice.
“Emily is concerned about me. She has no idea where I am.” Reggie’s
Adam’s apple bobbed as if he swallowed, although no saliva wet his throat. “I
can be thankful that she isn’t in danger of starving. I only wish I could tell
her of my fate. Encourage her to go on with her life.”
O'Brennigan slipped off as the ball of light lit the way for Emily and
Ian. Each carried an armload of wood. “There’s definitely a chill up here,”
Emily commented as she passed Reggie. “I felt warmer downstairs.”
Ian lit a twig from the lantern he carried. Emily prattled on and Reggie
hung on every word. Then Ian excused himself. Reggie guessed that the Brigadier
had discovered that bottle of Scotch he hid in the flue of the kitchen stove.
Quietly, as if afraid of her surroundings, Emily eased onto Reggie's old bed and curled up. She wrapped her coat about her and tried to sleep. The first go round coming from the old lighthouse, lit the room and
shone right on her face. She hopped from the bed and the old mattress clanged beneath her weight. She’d cover the
window with her coat, only that once she had it off, she shivered. She slipped
her arms back into the sleeves and crawled softly back into bed. This time she faced
the wall and shut her eyes hard.
Reggie sat beside her. He had no weight and made no impression in the
mattress. In the old days his weight would rattle the mattress springs. After a
time he had become used to the sound and barely noticed it. Now he missed it.
One of those things. He couldn’t touch his wife, feel her softness. He would do
almost anything to run his fingers through what was left of her hair. Could he
make her understand how much he missed her? She tugged at the collar of her
coat without much success. Her movement, though, caused those damnedable springs
to rattle. Her eyes popped open. The meager light of the fire blazed across her
pupils. It must have sounded as deafening to her as it had that first time he
heard it.
He sat quietly, watching, wanting to say so much and not sure what it was
he had to say. She remained still, making only small movements, and not daring
the wrath of the springs. Time passed and the night at last seemed to be
slipping away.
“There was a fish monger, and sure ‘twas no wonder, for so were her
father and mother before. She wheeled a wheel barrow, through the streets broad
and narrow, calling cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O.” Ian banged against
the wall with his fist. “Emily! Emily! Do you really want to be knowing what
happened to your husband?”
Reggie groaned and buried his face in his hands. Why should anything
change with his passing?
Ian made every effort to be heard as he dragged himself up one step after
another, shaking the old house at its foundation. “Emly! Emly!” Damned his bad
attempt at a brogue. And damn his irreverence. Emily deserved better than this.
She sat up slowly, shaking her head. “Not again.” She straightened out
her coat, and curled her legs beside her. “Ian, if you dare think you’re going
to keep me awake all night again with your silliness, you better bring another
glass with you. I’ll not sit through this sober.”
Ian stumbled in, completely in his cups, and hanging onto a bottle of
Scotch and the lantern. “I come prepared,” he commented, pulling glasses from
his coat pockets. He set all three on a dressing table, fumbled a bit, knocked
over the glass, which clinked against the bottle. He chuckled as he righted it.
“The I.R.A. hasn’t drank every bottle of Scotch in the place.” He attempted to
pour, although he splashed as he turned to address her again. “And the thieving
little Micks haven’t stolen every glass neither.” Without returning the bottle
to an upright position, he passed her her drink as he spilled more Scotch on
the carpet.
* * *
Patrick left a half empty skillet for the Brigadier and the Lady. Then he
gathered up young Michelene and returned to Killelea before Canon Hanrahan sent
for him again. Brendan could at least point out the skillet.
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