Anne Perry - A Christmas Grace

Maggie blinked and looked away. “I’ve made an apple pie for dinner,” she said as if Emily had asked. “And there’s a good piece of beef in the oven. I’ll save some of it to make beef tea for Mrs. Ross. Sometimes if she’s ill she can hold that down but not much else. Is she awake, do you know?”

“No, she’s not. She didn’t get much sleep last night.” Emily saw that Maggie felt quilty, and she was glad of it. “I’ll get to the washing,” she went on. “Daniel helped me yesterday, but there are more sheets this morning.” She glanced up at the crumpled linen on the airing rack close to the ceiling. “We aren’t as efficient as you are,” she added more gently.

Maggie said nothing, but her hands moved more quickly in the sink, and she banged the dishes together roughly.

Emily put the flatirons on the hob to heat, then wound the airing rack down and took two of the sheets off it. Automatically Maggie turned from the sink to help her fold them neatly. She did not meet Emily’s eyes and there was a tension in her shoulders of a deep unhappiness.

Emily wondered if Daniel had left yesterday afternoon, perhaps when Father Tyndale was here, and gone to tell Maggie how much she was missed. And was Maggie’s tension this morning caused because she and Fergal had quarreled about it? What had Daniel said to her that she had defied her husband?

When the sheets were folded ready to iron, Emily began on the pillowcases, then stopped briefly for a cup of tea and a slice of toast. She was wondering if she should go up to see if Susannah was awake when Daniel came into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mrs. O’Bannion,” he said cheerfully. “I’m more grateful to see you back than you can imagine. We weren’t managing so well without you.”

Maggie shot him a sharp glance, and neither of them looked at Emily.

“Susannah’s awake,” Daniel went on. “Can I take some breakfast up to her, if there’s something like bread and butter, or at least a fresh cup of tea?”

“You have something yourself,” Emily told him. “I’ll take it up to Susannah, and you can do something with those sheets. We’ll need them again soon enough. Maggie, if you could speak softly to the boiler and get it going again, we need to do last night’s sheets for when we need them. Please?”

“Yes, Mrs. Radley, of course,” Maggie agreed a trifle stiffly, and, avoiding Daniel, she began to cut thin bread and butter for Susannah, carefully spreading the softened butter on the cut end of the loaf, and then slicing it so razor-thin it barely held together. Then she buttered and halved a second slice and a third, arranging them daintily on a blue-and-white plate.

Emily thanked her and took the tray. She was extraordinarily pleased when Susannah sat up, a faint touch of color in her cheeks, and ate all of it. Emily decided she must remember how it was done and make it herself another time.

An hour later Susannah was dozing and Emily went downstairs again to catch up on some of the household chores she was behind with, and which took her so much longer than it had Maggie.

She stopped at the kitchen door when she heard voices, and then laughter, a man and a woman. It was a rich sound, a welling-up of a kind of happiness.

“Really?” Maggie said with disbelief.

“I swear,” Daniel replied. “Trouble is, I can’t remember how long ago it was, or why I was there.”

“It sounds marvelous,” Maggie said wistfully. “I sometimes dream about going to places like that, but I don’t suppose I ever will.”

“You could, if you wanted to,” Daniel assured her.

Emily stood motionless, not making a sound. She could see Maggie’s face as she looked at Daniel. She was smiling, but there was a wistfulness in her eyes that betrayed her dreams, and that she believed them beyond her reach.

“Not everything you want can be had for the asking,” she said to him. “It’s wise to know what to grasp for, and what will only hurt you.”

“It’s not wise,” Daniel replied gently. “It’s owning defeat before you’ve even tried. How do you know what you can reach, if you don’t stretch out?”

“You talk like a dreamer,” she said sadly. “One with his feet way off the ground, and no responsibilities.”

“Is that what it is that holds your feet hard to the earth, then? Or is it Fergal’s feet you mean?” he questioned in return.

Maggie hesitated.

In the doorway Emily froze. Had Daniel been telling her stories of travel and adventure, disturbing her contentment with hunger that could never be fed?

“Maybe you could go to Europe?” Daniel suggested. “Find a charm that would feed your heart forever afterwards. There are magic places, Maggie. Places where wonderful things happened, great battles, ideas to set the world alight, love stories to break your heart, and then mend it again all in a new shape. There’s music, and laughter till you can hardly breathe from the ache of it! There’s food you couldn’t imagine, and tales to carry with you to fill the winter nights for every year to come. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Emily came in quickly, intending to interrupt them, then she saw Maggie’s face and changed her mind. There was a vulnerability in it that was startling, but she was not looking at Daniel, rather into some thoughts of her own.

Emily was suddenly chilled. She remembered how gentle Daniel had been with her when they were walking back from church, how soft his questions were, how natural. And yet they had dug more deeply than she wished, exposing weaknesses she had not acknowledged to herself. Now he was doing the same thing to Maggie, uncovering the loneliness in her, the disappointment. Emily had seen Fergal O’Bannion, a good man but without wings of the mind. He was possessive of her. Was that because he had seen her laugh with Connor Riordan, listen to him, join in his tales and his dreams? And now she was listening to Daniel, and so Fergal had commanded Maggie not to be in this house, and she had disobeyed him? To help Susannah, or to listen to Daniel?

Emily recalled odd remarks, very slight, only glancing, but were they the ugly tips of fact? Had Maggie escaped the enclosing bounds of her life for a brief passion with Connor, and Fergal knew it? Was that why Connor had been killed? The oldest of reasons?

Did Maggie know that? Or at least fear it?

And yet Mrs. Flaherty feared it was Brendan who had killed Connor, and Brendan had disappeared.

“Wouldn’t you like to, Maggie?” Daniel repeated, his voice gentle.

Emily stepped forward and saw him. He was smiling and as he folded the sheet over, his slender hand lingered for a moment over Maggie’s.

Emily felt the heat burn up inside her and drew in her breath to speak.

“I have things to fill my winter nights, and dreams in plenty already,” Maggie replied. “There’s nothing I want you to add to them, Daniel. I like your tales of places you’ve been, and I hope by telling them perhaps you’ve recalled a thing or two of who you are. That’s all. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I understand you,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I expected too much help in my own fancies. A dose of reality can do wonders.” He smiled at his own error, gently self-mocking, and Emily saw Maggie ease a little, smiling back. The moment of embarrassment passed.

Daniel moved away, and as he left the kitchen he brushed by Emily, and realized that she must have overheard the conversation. He could not know how long she had been there, but at the very least she had seen Maggie rebuff him. He pulled a slightly rueful face as he caught her eye, and she was at that moment absolutely certain that he knew exactly what she was trying to do to solve the murder of Connor Riordan, and why she was driven to try. Even so, it made no difference. Emily went on into the kitchen as if she had merely passed him in the passage.