David Dickinson - Death of a Pilgrim

‘I have not,’ the young man replied proudly. ‘This is my first time.’

‘Well, that can be wonderful, being in love for the first time. Sometimes it can be painful too, mind you. What makes you so sure – that you’re in love, I mean.’

Christy Delaney thought hard for a moment. ‘It’s quite hard to describe, I think. I feel elated and excited every time I look at her. I think about her all the time. I hardly noticed the time walking back from Conques this afternoon. It’s just – exhilaration, you know, Lady Powerscourt. You must remember what it’s like falling in love with somebody.’

Lady Lucy didn’t say that she was still in love with her husband. ‘I do remember, Christy, it is all very exciting. Sometimes you think you’re going mad. Have you spent a lot of time with young ladies? Do you have any sisters at home?’

‘That’s just it, Lady Powerscourt. There are five boys in our family. And the school I went to was all boys. So I don’t suppose you could say I was experienced in these matters.’

‘And how can I help? It’s very flattering to be taken into your confidence like this, and I’d be delighted to help in some way if you think I could be of service. How good is your French, for a start?’

Christy explained the primitive phonetic system evolved in ordering rounds of drinks. He wondered if it could be adapted to affairs of the heart. He pulled a notebook and pencil out of his pocket.

Lady Lucy laughed. ‘Let’s see what we can do. Does she know your name for a start?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘ Je m’appelle Christy. Vous etes Anne Marie, n’est-ce pas ?’

‘Could you say that again?’

‘ Je m’appelle Christy. Vous etes Anne Marie, n’est-ce pas ?’

Lady Lucy peered over his shoulder as he wrote in his notebook. ‘Je ma pell Christy. Voo zet Anne Marie, ne-sup-pa?’

‘Good, Christy. Perhaps you’d better tell her you’re Irish. I think the French would prefer the Irish to the English. Je suis Irlandais. Je suis Irlandais . But this isn’t going to make for a very long conversation. What else would you like to say?’

‘I thought I might ask her to come for a walk with me. Then we could point at things like trees and roads and say the words in our own languages,’ said Christy seriously. He made a trial run and pointed suddenly at a group of animals in a neighbouring field. ‘Sheep,’ he said firmly. ‘Sheep.’

‘ Mouton ,’ Lady Lucy replied.

‘Moo tong,’ Christy wrote in his book.

‘ Voulez-vous faire une promenade avec moi ? That’s ‘would you like to come for a walk with me?’

They worked their way through How old are you, I am eighteen, Have you always lived here at the hotel, I am going to university, What is your favourite colour, How many brothers and sisters have you. Christy had filled four pages by the end. Suddenly he stopped learning his lines and asked, ‘What if she doesn’t like me, Lady Powerscourt? What shall I do if she is in love with somebody else already? She must have hundreds of admirers.’

‘You’re a very presentable young man, Christy,’ said Lady Lucy, feeling about a hundred years old. ‘The French have a word for it. It was the motto of the Three Musketeers now I come to think about it. They came from somewhere near here originally. Courage, dash, it says, always dash. L’audace, toujours l’audace. ’

‘Low dass,’ Christy scribbled quickly, ‘two dewars low dass.’

Powerscourt was highly amused when Lucy told him of her encounter with Christy back in their house in the hills that evening. ‘Chair,’ he said, pointing. ‘Book. Cup. Bottle. Plate. Wife. You missed the exciting part back there in the hotel, my love. The Inspector has been summoned to a big meeting in Figeac first thing tomorrow morning. Nobody is to leave the hotel until he returns. Maybe they’re going to deport us all.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘Pack. Train. Boat. Long journey. Not come back. Goodbye. Now then, let’s be serious for a moment. I want you to look at this form, Lucy, and see if you think I’ve left anything out. I’m going to get all the pilgrims to fill this in immediately after breakfast. It’s a long shot, a very long shot. See what you think.’

He handed Lucy a single sheet of paper. It was a sort of questionnaire. Name, it said at the top. Date of birth. Brothers’ and sisters’ names and dates of birth. Place of residence. Previous places of residence if appropriate. Parents’ names and dates of birth if known. Brothers and sisters of father. Brother and sisters of mother. Place of birth of parents. Grandparents’ names and dates of birth if known. Grandparents’ place of birth if known. Brothers and sisters of grandparents if known. Great grandparents’ names and date of birth if known. Place of birth if known.

‘My goodness me, Francis, you’re going back a long way. Methuselah, date and place of birth. Parents’ names and dates of birth if known. What do you hope to achieve by this?’

‘I said it was a long shot, Lucy. I think we all agree that the answer to the mystery lies somewhere back in the past. We’ve had conversations with the pilgrims about their history but we didn’t write it down. Johnny Fitzgerald and Alex Bentley’s brother are, we hope, ferreting about in the Delaney past to see if there are any skeletons in the cupboard or maybe how many skeletons there are. We’ve got Alex Bentley’s stab at a family tree, though he says it’s incomplete. When we’ve got this, if the pilgrims can remember as much as I would like, we may be able to make some connections. It’s a fishing expedition, if you like, with a very poor rod in very choppy water.’

‘Could I make a suggestion? Why don’t you leave a blank space at the bottom for them to put in any other details about their family. It doesn’t have to be important. You know how most families have myths about their past, the great auntie who kept pigs in the front room, the uncle who could walk on his hands, that sort of thing. That might be useful.’ Lady Lucy paused and looked carefully at her husband. ‘You realize, Francis, that the murderer is going to fill this in too?’

‘I do.’

‘You don’t suppose the murderer will think you might be on to him?’

‘What if he does?’

‘He might change the batting order, Francis. You might be the next on the list.’

Johnny Fitzgerald found it very strange being back in the ordinary Ireland rather than in the great houses of the Protestant gentry where he had stayed the year before. Macroom was still the same small Irish town as all the other small Irish towns he had known when he was growing up. The main square was there with the tall spire of the Protestant church and the grocer and bookmaker with bars attached. The shops were selling the same stuff they had sold when he was growing up all those years before. There was a drunk lolling against the wall of the pub on South Street. There had always been a drunk somewhere about the town. The children still trooped off to the Christian Brothers and the convent for a proper education in the pieties of Irish life. The wall of the demesne ran along one side of the square. Through the ornamental gate with the one-legged lion, wounded by an inebriated young revolutionary in some earlier uprising, the road snaked its way through the woods past the lake to Macroom Castle, home, he presumed, to one Jonathan Henry Osborne. And to his wife, Mary Rose Osborne, nee Lennox. Johnny knew he would have to ask somebody as casually as he could if they still lived there. He hoped he could keep his voice steady when his hour came. He wondered if there were any children. He realized with a start that any sons and daughters might be almost grown up now, conducting their own love affairs, breaking other people’s hearts. And what did Jonathan Henry Osborne do with his time? Was he a conscientious landlord, improving his estates, looking after his tenants? A hunting, shooting and fishing landlord forever out in pursuit of fox or fish? Perhaps he had died in the saddle or been accidentally shot in his coverts. Maybe the widow Osborne would be waiting for him, a relief after years in black.