A Secret Ambition

XVII

"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people." Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture 

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XVII.

Lily prayed that she appeared sympathetic to Mr McCarthy's face. She was, well and truly, sympathetic, and she felt his pain keenly. But in confessing his history to her, Lily had discovered just where his prejudice against her very kind had originated, and it made her feel violently ill.

He had been terribly mistreated by his grandfather. The only way that she could make sense of it was to imagine her father rejecting his only grandchild in Anna, and she knew that he could never be so cruel.

The way that Mr McCarthy described his life in Ireland, albeit very briefly, was so very foreign to Lily. She knew that her own father was a landlord in Ashwood, but the way that Mr McCarthy's grandfather had conducted his business with his tenants was very far removed from how Adam managed his estate.

If Adam had behaved as Mr McCarthy's grandfather had, Lily would wager that there would be a great deal of Ashwood's population about ready to take their torches and pitchforks to Ashwood House's gates.

Lily understood why Mr McCarthy had such a deep seeded hatred for the aristocracy. It did not begin with people like Sir Richard taking advantage of him. It had begun much earlier than that.

In seeing him now, as he was, on the floor distraught, broken, and beaten by Lily's very kind, she could not foresee him forgiving her for her deceit. She could not foresee him understanding her reasoning.

And really, how could he? Mr McCarthy had fought tooth and nail to do business with the people that she effortlessly could socialise with come April based purely on her connections. Lily would never be cast out of a ballroom. She was a Beresford. Her name commanded respect. She could have whatever she wanted at the snap of her fingers.

Of course, she had been raised better than that ...

Lily's heart sank. She had been raised better. She had been raised better than to take advantage of people, and to use them for her gain. Her ambitions might have been innocent, but deceit was never victimless. How quickly she was becoming aware of this.

In seeing Mr McCarthy's pain laid bare, the care that she felt for him was immense. And yet there was a wall between them, and it was a wall that she had built with her own two hands. She could not care for him properly while he did not know the truth, and yet Lily knew that the truth would hurt him more.

The truth would make him hate her.

And Lily couldn't bear the idea of Mr McCarthy hating her.

She was a coward.

But she wanted to help him, nonetheless. She would leave him, and she would get him the help that he needed if it meant her disappearing. Mr McCarthy deserved to know good people.

Her father was good.

Lily, quite clearly, was not.

"I'm well aware money would fix this. I simply don't have any," Mr McCarthy retorted ashamedly. "Saying this to you is humiliating enough ... I can't –"

"I understand that," Lily interrupted. "But what I am saying is I know someone with a fortune who might be able to help."

Mr McCarthy's eyes narrowed as he looked at her with a quizzical brow. "What sort of person do you know?"