Margot spent the following morning in the drawing room, which had been renamed the Lady Adeline Suite, although Margot would have liked to point out that Adeline was never a lady in her own right, so Lady Adeline was technically incorrect. However, she sat in there regardless, at a desk that Mr Dukelow had brought in especially for her and placed in front of one of the big windows overlooking the garden. The lawn was white with frost, gleaming like a thousand pearls beneath clear skies and a low winter sun. The trees, naked and shivering, were silhouetted against the blue sky in a latticework of spindly branches, their fine lines marred only by a noisy flock of inky black rooks that had settled upon them.
The drawing room was harmoniously proportioned, with pale green walls and damask green curtains lined with fringes and held back by big, shell-shaped sconces. The fire was lit, the cushions on the sofas were puffed up, the lights glowing richly. Everything about the hotel was luxurious, extravagant and of the very best quality. However, it all paled into insignificance beneath the arresting gaze of the formidable Tarquin Deverill, whose portrait hung above the fireplace on two heavy chains. Margot stood before it and examined it with interest. It was magnificent, as all Deverill portraits seemed to be. Yet, where Barton had a wide and handsome face, Tarquin’s was long and thin and mean. He was posing in front of a faded landscape, in an indigo-blue velvet jacket, draped in crimson silk. His hair was a cascade of brown curls and on his chest he wore an enormous diamond star medal. At his throat was a white cravat that accentuated his lofty chin and scrutinizing gaze. On closer inspection, Margot noticed the nasty twist of his mouth and the flat, impassive look in his eyes which did not seem capable of great depth of feeling, certainly not of compassion or love. He looked every inch the lord of the castle and every inch a man capable of great cruelty. She could see him leaving his disabled son to drown in the ornamental pond and imagine his relief when the stain on his good name was removed for ever. The portrait exuded a dark energy. She stepped away and yet, as she did so, she could almost feel his eyes following her across the room.
Margot turned up at the front door of the Hunting Lodge in the early afternoon. The air was damp, the wind laced with ice. Behind the trees the sun burned like a distant coal. She shivered, looking forward to the games room and its crackling fire. Looking forward, too, to those boxes full of treasures.
Mrs B opened the door a crack. When she saw Margot she opened it wide and her face softened with a shy smile. ‘Come in at once, Miss Hart. The wind has teeth today.’
‘Thank you, Mrs B.’ Margot watched her close the door, shutting winter out. She took off her coat and hat, stuffing the gloves into one of the pockets.
‘You’ll be wanting tea, I suspect. I’ll tell Lord Deverill you’re here.’
‘Oh, please don’t disturb him,’ said Margot, following the housekeeper’s quick footsteps down the corridor.
‘He’ll be happy you’re here. The house has been as quiet as a tomb all morning.’
As they reached the library, JP was already coming out. His face lit up when he saw Margot. ‘Ah, good, you’re back.’
‘Yes, I am,’ she replied, surprised that he didn’t consider her visit an imposition. She had deliberately left it a day so as not to be a bore.
‘Mrs B lit a fire in the games room on the off chance that you would come. It should be nice and warm in there by now. It’s been burning since nine o’clock.’ Margot followed him. ‘Now, I wanted to tell you, I’ve been reading my great-great-grandmother’s diary.’
‘Hermione Deverill?’ said Margot.
‘Yes, Hermione. What interesting lives these people led.’ They entered the games room together. ‘You’ve rather inspired me, Miss Hart,’ he continued. ‘I spent all of yesterday in here, reading.’
There was a vigour to JP today which hadn’t been there on her previous visits. An enthusiasm that replaced the pathetic, hang-dog energy he had exuded. It gave her pleasure to think that delving into his family history might have cheered him up. ‘Would you mind calling me Margot,’ she said, putting her bag on the billiard table. ‘It seems ridiculously formal calling me Miss Hart all the time. It makes me feel like a character out of a Jane Austen novel.’
‘Then you must call me JP,’ he said.
‘I will. Thank you, JP.’ She noticed that another armchair had been placed in front of the fire. Now there were two. One for her and one for JP. There was something touching about it, something that tugged at her heart and made her feel sad. The whole house resonated with loneliness. Those chairs were like a small oasis of companionship in a desert of solitude.
JP opened the diary and read her a few extracts. ‘Charming, don’t you think?’
‘Hermione had a lyrical turn of phrase, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, she loved poetry. She quotes a lot from her favourite writers. Charming,’ he repeated.
Mrs B came in with the tea tray and placed it on the billiard table where there was a space among the boxes. She poured the tea and JP took his cup to one of the armchairs and sat down with a contented sigh. Mrs B cut him a slice of cake and handed it to him. He smiled up at her with gratitude and thanked her. She gazed down at him with affection. Margot observed their relationship with interest. It seemed as if Mrs B was the only person who cared for JP nowadays.
Outside, purple clouds darkened the sky. Inside, the electric lights shone golden. The grate glowed with a hearty fire. The flames licked the logs with crimson tongues and crackled with relish as they found pieces of moss on which to feast. Margot sat down in the armchair opposite JP. Like a pair of old friends they were, settling in for the evening.
‘Where did you live when you were a child, JP?’ she asked.
‘In a big house on the estate with Kitty, my half-sister, and her husband Robert. Not far from here,’ he replied. ‘It was called the White House. It’s still there, but I don’t own it. That went when I sold the castle. The only place I retained was this house and a small bit of land to go with it.’
‘Was Kitty alive when you sold the castle?’
‘She was seventy-six. She died four years later. I’m afraid I broke her heart. She loved it more than anything in the world. Mrs de Lisle let her live on in the White House, paying a peppercorn rent. But we didn’t speak to each other after that. She never forgave me.’
‘That’s very sad.’
He shrugged. ‘We both had a lot to be bitter about.’ Margot said nothing, aware that any question about his relationship with his half-sister might be considered intrusive. But JP wanted to talk. ‘Kitty was a mother to me. As I told you, my real mother was a housemaid who caught my father’s eye. Me and my twin sister…’ He turned back to her. ‘Did I tell you about Martha?’
Margot shook her head, her interest piqued. ‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Martha and I were born in a convent in Dublin. Martha was adopted by an American couple and spirited off to Connecticut. I was stolen by my mother’s brother before the same fate could happen to me, and left on Kitty’s doorstep in a basket.’
‘Like Moses,’ Margot interjected with a grin.
‘Well, that’s where the similarity ends, Margot. My mother, Bridie Doyle, started a new life in America. She worked for a very wealthy woman who left her a fortune in her will when she died. She married the Count di Marcantonio and bought the castle, eventually moving into it in 1940, some twenty-three years after she had worked in it as a maid. I grew up believing my mother had died. Kitty told me it was so and I had no reason to disbelieve her. I only learned the truth after Bridie had died of cancer. She left two letters, one for me and one for Martha, who had come to Ballinakelly in search of her real mother.’
‘Did you meet Martha?’
‘We met by coincidence in a restaurant in Dublin and fell in love. We were both seventeen years old. Children, really.’
‘You fell in love with your sister?’
‘We didn’t know we were siblings. We were not identical. A cruel trick of fate.’ JP’s eyes turned to her and they were glassy and sad. ‘It was a terrible blow when my father told us. We didn’t think there could possibly be any reason why we couldn’t be together. But there was, and that was it.’ He shrugged. ‘That was my first disappointment. Life had been carefree up until that point.’
‘How did you get over it?’
‘By throwing myself into the war. I flew Spitfires and didn’t care if I lived or died. I wasn’t particularly heroic, but I was awarded a medal for bravery.’ He chuckled, then lost his focus in the flames. ‘You know, I have a strange memory from early childhood. Probably one of my first memories. I’m standing in the playroom and a strange woman leans in through the window and gives me a teddy bear. I take it from her, but step away. I don’t know who she is and there’s something about her that frightens me. She tries to grab me and I scream. I scream loudly and don’t stop. She looks horrified and leaves as mysteriously as she came.’
‘Do you think that was Bridie?’
‘Yes, yes I do. I think that was my mother come to claim me.’
‘Did you ever tell Kitty?’
‘I can’t recall whether or not I did at the time, but the memory only came back to me after I read her letter. I didn’t mention it to Kitty at that point. I think I was just trying to understand it myself and didn’t want to share my thoughts with anyone. I needed time.’ He sighed and took a sip of tea.
‘How did you feel when you read your mother’s letter?’
‘I thought little of it, to be honest. I had grown up with two fathers and a mother figure in Kitty. I was loved. In fact, I was adored. I had everything I ever wanted, except Martha, of course. I had married Alana, whom I loved deeply. The fact that Bridie was suddenly revealed as my mother made little impression on me at first.’ He smiled grimly. ‘But then the mind starts working on it, like a beetle in dung, rolling it into a bigger and bigger ball, until it’s pushing this great big weight about, trying to make sense of it. That’s when the feeling of betrayal began to seep in. The feeling of injustice and hurt. Of loss. I never knew my mother, you see. If Kitty had been honest with me… If my father had been honest…’
‘You might have got to know her before she died.’
‘Yes. I regret that. Very deeply.’
‘You have a lot to be bitter about,’ Margot agreed. ‘But every choice that was made was done so with the best intentions.’
‘The path to Hell is paved with good intentions,’ JP added wryly.
‘I don’t suppose any of the secrets were kept to hurt you.’
‘I don’t suppose they were. But secrets have a way of coming out in the end and, like arrows, they wound.’
Margot smiled sympathetically. ‘Your story beats Hermione’s diary, hands down!’
‘And you’ve only heard the beginning.’ He stood up stiffly. ‘Fancy another piece of cake?’
‘I would love one, thank you. It’s very good.’
‘Mrs B’s an expert. She’s not economical with the Guinness, either.’ He cut the cake and brought it to her plate. ‘When I was growing up, there was always a porter cake in the kitchen.’ He cut a slice for himself and returned to his chair. He hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in years. Besides her good company, there was a warm light in Margot’s eyes that lifted him out of the darkness. A compassion that promised understanding – and he wanted so much to be understood.
‘Tell me about Bertie, JP,’ she asked.
JP sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. He took a sip of tea. The fire sizzled, Margot listened. It was nice to have someone to talk to. He thought of his father. ‘He was, in essence, a country man,’ he began. ‘Like all the Deverills, he had a daring streak and an eye for the ladies…’
Colm and Jack headed up the beach towards home. The night was drawing in early and with some haste. Bruised clouds gathered overhead, darkening the sea that roiled in anticipation of an approaching storm. Colm lifted the collar of his coat as he felt the first dollops of rain. His grandfather, bent against the wind, put his hands in his pockets. The dog, wet and sandy, trotted along beside them, sensing a good tea and a warm hearth were not far off.
‘Live like your grandmother, Colm, and you will never be unhappy.’ Jack would not advise his grandson to live like he had, full of uncontrollable passions. Emer had been the stabilizing force in his life. A consistent, unconditional love that put him to shame. ‘She doesn’t allow bitterness and resentment to vex her. Let them go.’
‘While that woman is inveigling her way into Dad’s trust and drawing out our family secrets for all the world to read, I cannot feel anything but fury.’ Colm was speaking of Margot Hart.
‘You asked for my advice. Well, I’d say you have two choices. One, you do nothing and give up your anger. Two, you do something about it. What you don’t do is sit in the middle, doing nothing but stomp about letting your fury eat away at you. That’ll get you nowhere.’
‘So, what is this something I can do about it, then?’
‘Try a different tactic. Appealing to her better nature didn’t work and why would it? What does she owe you, who she doesn’t know from Adam? Wouldn’t it be better to get to know her? That way you can work on her from the inside, rather than from the outside.’
Colm laughed. ‘That’s the old spy talking!’
‘You have to be sly about it, Colm. If you become her friend then, eventually, you may be able to ask her to leave certain things out. Indeed, you’ll have more of an idea of what she knows. You’ll be in a better position to do something about it.’
Colm strode on. The wind was picking up. They were having to shout over the roar of the waves. ‘That’s good advice, Granda. Although, it’s not going to be easy pretending I like her.’
‘You can do anything when you put your mind to it, Colm. If it gets you what you want, you can play any part you choose.’
Colm knew some of his grandfather’s stories of when he had fought in the War of Independence and was aware of the many different parts he had played to get what he wanted. Of course the stakes had been much higher then. Colm felt a little foolish making such a drama out of a book. But then his grandfather didn’t know what he knew. No one did. Only he and his father, and he couldn’t rely on JP to keep that knowledge secret. As long as he was numbing his brain with whiskey there was a strong chance he would divulge the whole story.
‘You’re right, Granda,’ he said as they trudged up to the house that glowed invitingly through the dusk. ‘I’ll make a friend of my enemy.’
‘Kill with kindness, Colm,’ said Jack. ‘That’s the way to get on in the world. Let your enemy think you’re their friend.’ Jack had done that enough in his life to know that it worked.
It was late when Margot returned to the hotel and raining hard. She parked her car as near to the front door as possible and dashed inside. Mr Dukelow was in the lobby. ‘Miss Hart, I have exciting news.’
Margot couldn’t imagine what that could be. Had he rid the hotel of the housekeeper ghosts, perhaps?
He stood before her and lowered his voice, assuming a deferential air as if he was about to speak of royalty or the Pope. ‘The Countess di Marcantonio came in about an hour ago, asking to see you,’ he said.
Margot frowned. She must be Bridie’s daughter-in-law, married to Leopoldo. ‘Did she leave a note?’ she asked.
‘She left an envelope at reception. Róisín will get it for you.’
He nodded at Róisín, who was filing her nails behind the desk. When she didn’t react, he called her name. ‘Róisín, the letter for Miss Hart, please.’
Róisín lifted startled eyes, dropped the file and swung round on her chair to retrieve the white envelope she had put safely in Margot’s pigeonhole. ‘She’s a fine-looking lady,’ she told Margot as she handed it over. ‘Just as you would imagine a countess to be. Do you know her husband once lived here?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Margot replied, distracted now that she was opening the envelope.
Mr Dukelow wandered behind the desk and began to look busy, but he was curious to know what the letter said.
Margo pulled out the letter and unfolded it. Beneath an elaborate gold crest of three large bees, the letter was written by hand, in ink.
Dear Miss Hart
It has come to my notice that you are writing a book about Castle Deverill and the Deverill family. As you know, my husband, the Count, grew up there – until his mother died and chose to leave it in her will to her illegitimate son, JP Deverill. I think I may be able to help you with your research. I’d be very happy to meet you. I leave my telephone number here for you to contact me. We divide our time between our various residences, but at present we are at our townhouse in Dublin. I’d be willing to come to you. I don’t often get an excuse to visit my husband’s family home.
Yours sincerely, the Countess di Marcantonio
Margot put the letter back in the envelope and smiled at Mr Dukelow. ‘Countess di Marcantonio wishes to help me with my research,’ she told him and watched his face beam. ‘She wants to come here. Is there a private room we can use?’
Mr Dukelow rubbed his manicured hands together at the thought of being graced by aristocracy. ‘Absolutely. Mrs de Lisle’s own sitting room will be the perfect place to have a quiet tête-à-tête. Mrs de Lisle would want only the best room in the castle for the Countess. I will let her know at once.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s my pleasure, Miss Hart.’ And he picked up the telephone, puffed out his chest and waited for Mrs de Lisle’s office to answer.
Margot went up to her room in the western tower. She was curious to meet this Countess di Marcantonio. She had a sense of her personality already from the little she had written in her letter. The Countess minded, dreadfully, that her husband had not been left the castle in his mother’s will. Perhaps she would shed some light onto those dark and secret places?