"When?"

"Early this morning. They sent word to us in Dublin and we came at once. Nobody knew where you were."

"I was doing something for Father."

"He said as much. He said you'd be coming by our cousin Doyle's, so we sent a message there to tell you to come home at once. What in the world were you doing?" And seeing him shake his head: "It doesn't matter anyway. He can still talk, at least. Stay downstairs. I'm going to tell them you're here." And she left him.

He waited alone. The house seemed strangely quiet. Some time passed. Then Lawrence came down the stairs.

His brother was dressed in a black soutane. He was looking grave. When he saw Orlando, he did not smile, but he came to him and took his arm gently, in a kindly gesture.

"You must prepare yourself. Our father has suffered a crisis. It was an apoplexy, and you will find him greatly altered since yesterday. Are you ready for this?" Orlando nodded dumbly. "Good. I have been praying with him. But your presence will bring him great comfort." He paused and glanced at Orlando curiously. "Where were you, by the way?"

"I cannot tell you, Lawrence. I was doing something for Father."

"You can surely give me some account of your absence?" The question was not unkind, but there was the faintest hint of disapproval in it.

"I promised Father."

"I see." A small frown crossed his face, but the Jesuit smoothed it away. He glanced up the stairs to where Anne had now appeared. "He is ready?"

"Yes." Anne gave Orlando an encouraging smile.

"Is he dying?" asked Orlando.

Nobody replied.

He went up the heavy wooden staircase, and went to the door of his father's chamber. It was ajar. He pushed it open.

His father was alone. He was propped up in a half-sitting position on the carved oak bed. His face was strangely sallow, his eyes sunken, but he gazed at Orlando fondly and did his best to smile.

"I am sorry you should see me like this, Orlando."

For a moment, Orlando was unable to speak.

"I am sorry, too." It was not what he wanted to say at all, but he could not think of the right words.

"Come." His father motioned him to approach. "Did you do as I asked?"

"Yes, Father. Everything."

"That is good. I am proud of you. Did he say anything?"

"That he was forever in your debt."

"He burned the letter?"

"Yes. I watched."

"Not that its discovery would matter much now." His father spoke the words more to himself than to Orlando. He sighed. The sigh had a faint rasp. Then he smiled at Orlando. "You did well. Very well."

Orlando wanted so much to say something, to tell his father how much he loved him. But he did not know how. He stood there helplessly. His father was silent for a few moments, his eyes closed. He seemed to be gathering his strength. Then he opened them and looked into Orlando's eyes. It seemed to Orlando that he saw a trace of urgency and fear in his father's gaze.

"Do you remember your promise to me, Orlando? About your marriage?"

"Yes, Father. Of course I do."

"You promise me to have children."

"I did."

"You will?"

"Yes, Father. A dozen at least. I promise."

"That is good. Thank you. Take my hand." Orlando took his father's hand. It felt rather cold. His father gently squeezed his hand. "No father, Orlando, could have a better son." He smiled, then closed his eyes.

A little while passed in silence except for his father's breathing, in which there was faint, wheezing sound. Orlando stood there, still holding his father's cold hand.

Then, without opening his eyes, his father called out quietly: "Anne."

And from outside the door, his sister quickly appeared.

"God be with you, my son," his father said. Then Anne took him out.

She told him to go downstairs. A few moments later, he saw Lawrence going back up. Then he waited, miserably. About half an hour later, Anne came down and told him that his father was gone.

Early the next morning, Orlando walked out alone. The sky was still grey. He walked at a quiet, steady pace along the path past the deserted chapel and was soon on the long slope that led towards the sea. He hadn't encountered a soul when he reached the holy well at Portmarnock.

He knelt down beside the well and started to pray. But though the words came, he could not seem to concentrate as his father had told him he should.

He stood up. He walked three times round the well, saying the paternoster four times. He knew that such little ceremonies could be effective. Then he knelt again. Still he could not find the quietness he sought. He tried to think of the old saint, whose gentle presence blessed the waters of the well. But still nothing came. Then he thought of his father and whispered: "I promise, Father. I promise. A dozen at least." Then he burst into tears.

It was more than an hour before he got back to the house. He found Lawrence, looking for him outside.

"Where were you, Orlando?" he asked.

"At the well at Portmarnock," answered Orlando truthfully.

"Ah." Lawrence looked thoughtful. "I think it is time," he said, not unkindly, "that you went to Salamanca."

1626 At the age of thirty-four, Anne Smith had every reason to be grateful. She had known sadness: she had suffered a couple of miscarriages and lost two children, both boys, in infancy. But most of the mothers she knew had experienced similar misfortunes: these were wounds that healed. She was still blessed with four healthy children, three girls and a boy; and there might be more in the future.

And then there was her brother Orlando. She had half expected him to marry as soon as he returned from Salamanca. She knew about the promise he had made to their father and his intense desire not to let his father down. Once, when she had remarked with a laugh that he might have to be content with less than a dozen children, he had replied: "At least I can try." He had spoken the words with such earnestness that she had hardly liked to say anything more. Certainly, there was no shortage of families glad to marry their daughters to young Orlando Walsh. But he had taken a few years, trained to be a lawyer like his father, and then settled down with a pleasant girl from one of the Catholic gentry families of the old English Pale. He was managing the estate well. Many of his father's clients had come to him. Anne had not heard that his wife Mary was pregnant yet; but they'd only been married a year. On Orlando's account, therefore, it seemed to her that there was every reason to be optimistic.

But in the wider context of the world also, there were reasons why a good Catholic family like the Walshes might feel a modest sense of hope.

England had a new king. If old King James had been the son of that ardent Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, the Presbyterian lords of his native Scotland had seen to it that James himself, though reluctant to persecute Catholics, remained firmly Protestant. But now the old king had died, and a year ago his son King Charles-a serious young man-had shocked his Protestant subjects by marrying the sister of the most Catholic king of France. Where Charles's own religious sympathies might lie was not yet clear. "But it must surely be a cause for rejoicing," Anne had remarked to her brother Lawrence, "that the king has chosen one of the true faith to be his bride." And though Lawrence was always cautious, even he had answered, "It is to be hoped," and given her an encouraging smile.

Ireland was a strange place. The Earls had fled; Munster and Ulster were being planted; Protestants had the upper hand in Parliament. Yet in the almost two decades since her marriage, it seemed to Anne that the everyday life of most ordinary Catholics had changed surprisingly little. The Protestants might pass legislation against them, but the laws were still only fitfully applied. Even here in Dublin, the very centre of English rule, life was full of curious anomalies. Christ Church Cathedral, that great medieval monument to Irish Catholic tradition, was now the home of the so-called Church of Ireland-which of course was Protestant and English. The government men from Dublin Castle and the Protestants of Trinity College went there. But almost every parish church in the city was serving a community of merchants and craftsmen who were still mostly Catholic. By law, Catholic priests were forbidden. "But we don't let that worry us," her kindly husband Walter would cheerfully remark. In their own parish church, Smith and his fellow merchants supported no fewer than six Catholic priests; but if any official should ask who they were, he'd be told: "They are singing men." Of course, everyone knew they were priests. Even Doctor Pincher probably realised. But the men in Dublin Castle had no wish to offend the rich and useful merchants of Dublin, and the six priests were left to go about their business discreetly. "Just so long," Walter drily put it, "as nobody asks them to sing."

Surely, therefore, it was not too much to hope that men like her brother Orlando and her husband Walter-men of substance and good character, loyal to the English crown-might be able to persuade the new king to restore to the Catholic community the rights it deserved.

Nobody could fail to trust her solid, dependable, loving husband. You only had to look at him. Walter had not grown heavy with the years, but his body had thickened. His hair was iron grey. He had attained authority and respect. The important religious Guild of Saint Anne had their chantry in Saint Audoen's church; but all the guild's records were kept in an iron-bound chest which was lodged in Walter Smith's house. He always wore his authority lightly, however. Quiet and cheerful, invariably kind, you would say upon meeting him that he was first and foremost a stout, middle-aged, Catholic family man-and you would be right. He had given Anne a wonderful family. The eldest girl looked like her. Everyone said so. She'd no doubt be marrying soon. The second looked more like Walter; the third reminded her of an aunt she had known as a child. But young Maurice was the one that people remarked upon. He had been named after Walter's grandfather. His physique reminded her of Walter's brother Patrick, and so did his face. That alone would have made him a handsome young fellow. What really struck everyone, however, were his eyes, which were an extraordinary green. He was eight years old now, with a bright intelligence. "It only remains to be seen whether he will turn into a humble merchant like me," his father would say with amusement, "or a clever lawyer like his uncle Orlando. It gives me such pleasure," he would gently add to Anne, "that when I look at my son I also see the face of my dear brother Patrick again."

They did not often speak of Patrick; but it was typical of Walter's kindness and delicacy that he should say such a thing to her, knowing that it was Patrick she had first loved. And she, for her part, would gently touch his arm and reply: "We both miss him, but you do more than I. I was lucky that I married you." God knows, it was the truth.

Head over heart, The better part.

Her brother Lawrence's advice had not been wrong. I am lucky, she thought, and I know it. The whole of Dublin would say so. The whole of Ireland would agree. I am truly blessed. And she scarcely knew why she needed to remind herself of the fact.

The priest who had married them had been a wise man. An old friend of her father's, a man in his fifties, with an ample girth and a comfortable manner. He'd been a parish priest for thirty years, and there wasn't much he hadn't seen. Before the wedding, he had called Walter and her together and given them some simple and sage advice. No matter what they did, he told them, every day of their married life in the future, they should always consider, before they said or did anything, how that would seem to the other. Was it kind and respectful of their feelings? "From a lifetime of observation and experience I can say," he told them, "that if you just do this I can-almost-guarantee that you will have a happy marriage." She had always done so faithfully, and so had Walter. She knew that what the priest said was true. It was nearly ten years now since he had passed on to a better world, but his words still echoed in her mind as if he had spoken them only the day before. "I can guarantee that you will have a happy marriage." A joyful message. With that one little caveat. "Almost."

He knew what he was saying, that kindly priest. But why-why couldn't such things be guaranteed? Why should it be, why would God so ordain it that two good people, who loved each other, might not be happy?

Walter did not often laugh out loud, but sitting at home in the evening, if one of the children amused him, he would give a quiet chuckle. There was nothing wrong with his chuckle, she supposed. Yet for some reason it irritated her. She had often told herself not to be foolish. The thing was trivial and she should ignore it; but somehow she could not. Once or twice, she had gently asked him why he did it, why he didn't just smile, or laugh out loud. "I don't know," he had said amiably. "It's the way I've always been. Why?" And she had almost blurted out, "Because it irritates me." But the fear that this would hurt him, and place a barrier between them, made her hold back. "Nothing. I only wondered," she had said.

In any case, the chuckle itself was not really the issue. The problem was the mind that lay behind it-that and his happy assumption that whatever was in his mind at that moment was something that she equally shared.

Walter Smith was a devout man, but also wise and worldly. He looked after his family. She had no doubt that if he had to, he would gladly lay down his life for them. Above all, he enjoyed domestic order. "Thank you," he would say to her with such feeling, "for my home." And though he was too wise to express the knowledge, because this was her domain, she knew very well that he was aware of the exact location of every pot, pan, and ball of thread in the house. Always calm, always fair, he encouraged his children to lead ordered lives in their turn; and, of course, she supported him in this. You had to admire him. But did he never desire something more?

She always remembered how one day they had been standing together on the old city wall as a great cloud formation, dark and magnificent, had come rolling down from the Wicklow Mountains. She had watched, enraptured, as the grumbles of thunder grew louder and the flashes of lightning drew menacingly towards the city. "Isn't it splendid?" she had cried excitedly. "Oh, Walter, isn't it magnificent?"

"We'd best get home, or we shall get very wet," he remarked.

"I don't care," she laughed. "I shall be soaked, then." And she had turned. "Don't you ever want to let the storm engulf you?"

"Come, Anne," he had said quietly. And though she had not wanted to, she had gone home with him.

Would his brother Patrick have made her go indoors? Surely not. He might have made a terrible husband. Almost certainly, in fact. But he would have stayed with her to enjoy the wild exultation of that thunderstorm.

That night, when Walter had made love to her in his usual, unvarying fashion, she had had to disguise the fact that her body felt heavy, wooden, and unresponsive. It was not the first time she had done so, and not the last. He, of course, had no idea of her small deception, nor did she ever intend that he should.

But whenever her dear husband gave his happy little chuckle, which assumed that all his family shared his contentment at their comfortable, ordered life, she would experience that same, sickening little sinking of the heart. Then, seeing her children look at them both with such trust and happiness in their faces, she would smile and tell them: "Children, you are lucky to have such a good father." And she would kiss him. And no one would ever guess that she wanted to scream.

Jeremiah Tidy did not often make his son come with him when he went about his work in the cathedral. "The boy has other things to do," he told his wife. But today he had ordered the seven-year-old boy to accompany him, and so young Faithful Tidy was standing obediently by his side. There were reasons why Tidy wished this to be so.

Accordingly, as the two men came into the cathedral and moved towards them, the boy watched carefully. When his father made a humble bow to the two men, he waited just a moment and then, when he saw the taller of them glance at him, he too made a low bow.

"Ah, yes." Doctor Pincher's smile was somewhat thin, but it was a smile of recognition nonetheless. "Faithful Tidy. A worthy name." He turned to Doyle. "Shall we conduct our business?"

No one knew when it had first begun, but at some time in the four and a half centuries that the English had been in Ireland, the custom had grown up that bargains should be sealed upon the tomb of Strongbow, the mighty lord who had brought the first great retinue of Anglo-Norman knights into the land. And so it was today that Doyle the merchant and Doctor Pincher of Trinity College stood by the big stone tomb in the cavernous space of the cathedral and struck their bargain on the stone. No pen and ink were necessary. Tidy stood as witness. As far as anyone in Dublin was concerned, the deal was as formalised as if it had been written in the Book of Life itself.

It had been Tidy, hearing that Doyle was making an investment in a new venture, who had spoken privately with the merchant and then suggested to Pincher that he might be interested in taking a share. This was part of Tidy's strategy of making himself useful to the doctor whenever he could, and the reason why he was standing as witness to the bargain. He had known that the business would especially appeal to Pincher, not only for its potential rewards but because it also promoted the Protestant faith.

Ever since the terrible massacre of the Huguenots in France five decades before, a steady stream of these harmless and worthy French Protestants had left their native country for other, more tolerant lands. Merchants and craftsmen mostly, these hardworking tradespeople had already formed small communities in London and Bristol, and recently a few had started appearing in Ireland, too. Their religion was usually a moderate sort of Calvinism; and having suffered persecution themselves in Catholic France, they desired only to live at peace with their neighbours. "Some communities of quiet, hardworking Huguenots might set a good example to the Irish," the English authorities judged. A Huguenot glassworks was already being set up in the southern town of Birr, and men like Doyle were glad to use their skills in other modest ventures. The present business, in which Pincher had just taken a share, was a small ironworks.

Having completed the transaction, Doyle turned to Pincher and remarked that he looked unwell. It was true that Pincher was pale and had sneezed twice during the brief proceedings.

"It is nothing," Pincher said weakly. "Or nothing," he added to Tidy, "that could not be cured by a bowl of your wife's excellent broth."

Mistress Tidy was a kindly woman whose protective instincts caused her to take a motherly interest in everyone with whom she came in contact in the cathedral precincts. She had a great reverence for Doctor Pincher's learning, but considered that he needed a wife to look after him, and would often bring him cakes and sweetmeats, and make sure that his linen was in good order-which ministrations Pincher was grateful to receive.

"I shall send her to you," the sexton assured him as Pincher departed.

Doyle remained, to speak to Tidy.

If there was one thing you could say about Jeremiah Tidy, it was that he was competent. Some years ago when the post of verger had fallen vacant, it had been given to the sexton, so that Tidy now held both positions together, at the combined salary of five pounds eight shillings a year. If the Chapter Clerk kept the records of the cathedral's administrative meetings, its great roll of property and land, its rents and leases, and the precentor took charge of the cathedral's choir and music, it was Jeremiah Tidy who was now the effective guardian of all the other day-to-day arrangements within the precincts.

The matter to be discussed was a solemn one. The merchant's mother-in-law had died the day before and the funeral had to be arranged. Indeed, Doyle had almost postponed his meeting with Pincher on account of it. But this was not a native Irish affair; there was no wake, but only a quiet period of Protestant mourning; and he had needed to come into Christ Church to talk to Tidy anyway.

Doyle had married wisely. His mother-in-law had belonged to the powerful network of Old English families who had joined the Church of Ireland. Ussher, Ball, and a dozen others-these were the names which were constantly to be found holding important positions in the Irish Church and state. The funeral would be a grand affair, therefore, attended by these families, as well as members of Dublin's Catholic community who would come out of friendship and respect.

For some time the two men went over the arrangements for the service. With Tidy in charge, Doyle would know that nothing would be left to chance, no detail overlooked. The verger's five-shilling fee for this service would be well earned. As an extra kindness, Tidy had offered to speak to the precentor himself about the musical arrangements. When he and Doyle were both satisfied that the service itself had been fully covered, Tidy introduced the final subject.

"You'll be wanting the bell to be rung?"

"Of course," Doyle replied.

The great bell of Christ Church not only rang to announce the cathedral services. Every morning at six and every evening at nine, it rang out over Dublin to signal the start and end of the working day. There were numerous other reasons for the bell to be rung. It would toll mournfully to mark the passing into eternity of a gentleman, or ring out gladly to give the happy news of an important birth. Tidy was in charge of the bell, and for each of these bellringings he was paid. His salary covered the regular ringing; the Dublin corporation paid him a further, handsome stipend of twenty pounds a year for the morning and evening bells; and for each special occasion, a further fee was negotiated.

"I could give her the same peal as I did for the lady Loftus," Tidy suggested. This had been the widow of a prominent citizen who had died the year before.

"How much did that cost?" the merchant inquired.

"Twelve shillings and sixpence," said Tidy.

"That seems a lot." Rich though he was, even Doyle was a little taken aback by the amount.

"She was a very pious lady, Sir," the sexton replied.

"Ah." Doyle sighed. "Very well, then." And having set the time for the service the following day, he departed.

During all this conversation, young Faithful Tidy had stood nearby, quietly watching. Now his father called him to his side.

"Well, Faithful," he enquired, "what did you think of that?"

"Is the twelve shillings for the bell in addition to the five shillings verger's fee?" asked the boy.

"It is," said Tidy.