That night Margot felt strangely low. She had adored riding out over the hills, but lunch with JP afterwards had been depressing. It wasn’t their conversation and it certainly wasn’t the food. She didn’t mind the lonely atmosphere in the house: there was a tranquillity about it that appealed to her. What had affected her was his slow decline into inebriation. He didn’t behave badly, he just slipped away. At the end of the meal she knew she had lost him. He had shuffled into the library, staggered to his chair and sunk into a drunken stupor. She had been assaulted by a feeling of helplessness so familiar to her that she was left with no option other than to leave as quickly as possible. To run from it. To find someone healthy to hold on to.
Seamus was only too happy to oblige. In his arms she was brought safely into the present moment. The past receded, with all its associated unhappiness, and she felt herself once more the person she was now, the person she wanted to be.
Margot had arranged to meet Countess di Marcantonio the following morning at the hotel. She had telephoned her office a few days before and spoken to her PA. The meeting had been arranged, and the PA, a breathless young woman with a tremulous voice, had told Margot how eager the Countess was to see her husband’s ‘family home’ again. Margot had made all the right noises and the PA had sounded relieved, confirming the meeting for eleven o’clock.
Margot waited in the hall at 10.45. It was a quiet morning. Outside, the fog had settled over the estate, muting the colours and giving the hotel an eerie air. Inside, the fire crackled and the electric lights shone warmly. Mr Dukelow was loitering, his polished black shoes gliding smoothly over the carpet as he pretended to be busy. Róisín was as alert as a watchful rabbit, eyes sliding every few moments to the door to see whether the special guest was arriving. Margot’s gaze was drawn to the portrait of Barton Deverill. She wondered what he would make of his home now. At least Mrs de Lisle had done a good job, she thought. It might not be the home he had intended it to be, but it was still magnificent.
At last a shiny Mercedes drew up in front of the hotel. A porter hurried outside to assist. The chauffeur, dressed in a black suit, cap and gloves, stepped out briskly and held open the rear passenger door. The Countess appeared to be in no hurry. She gathered herself while the porter waited patiently on the gravel and Mr Dukelow and Róisín watched with nervous anticipation from the hall. Margot was curious to see what the Countess looked like. Judging by the letter and the assistant’s reverential tone, she expected her to be very grand.
When the Countess stepped out Margot was surprised to see that she was a lot younger than she had imagined. In her late forties, perhaps. A great deal younger than her husband who must have been in his late sixties. She was wrapped in a mink coat that reached below her knees and a matching pillbox hat. Her face was long and angular with high, chiselled cheekbones and thin scarlet lips. Her black hair, as shiny as a raven’s wing, was visible beneath the hat, tied into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck. She carried herself in a stately fashion. The porter opened the front door and she swept in. Mr Dukelow put out his hand and welcomed her in a gushing sequence of superlatives. Margot was certain he bowed. The Countess’s thin mouth smiled graciously, her imperious slate-grey gaze sizing him up like a hawk with its prey. She was obviously used to this kind of reception and didn’t find it in the least theatrical, nor did she feel inclined to be grateful. It was her due. Margot was unimpressed. The Countess had been a secretary at the Austrian Embassy in London before she had married Leopoldo, so had little to be arrogant about.
‘You must be Miss Hart,’ she said, reaching out to shake her hand. She slipped out of her coat and held it out for Mr Dukelow. She lifted her hat off her head and held that out too. Mr Dukelow gave both items to Róisín who had left the reception desk unattended in her eagerness to make herself useful to their distinguished guest. Her face was full of awe at the sight of this striking woman, who had the remote glamour of a Hollywood movie star. She was wearing an elegant black dress printed with white polka dots, a shiny black belt and a large pearl choker at her throat. Its central clasp was made up of three large gold-and-diamond bees. She pressed her hand to her bosom and sighed. ‘I am moved,’ she declared in a brusque Austrian accent, running her eyes around the hall. ‘This was once my husband’s family home. It would have been our home if things had been done in the way they should. But life isn’t always fair, is it?’ She smiled tightly at Margot. ‘Well, where shall we go to talk?’
Mr Dukelow escorted them through the castle to Mrs de Lisle’s private sitting room situated away from the bustle of the hotel. There were armchairs and sofas assembled neatly around a fireplace. A fire burned hospitably.
‘Ghastly weather,’ complained the Countess. ‘Poor Roach had to drive as slowly as a tortoise to get here.’ The two women sat down. The Countess on one of the sofas, Margot on an armchair, closer to the fire. Margot opened her notebook and held her pen poised.
‘So you’re writing a history of the Deverill family,’ she began, fixing Margot with cool, unemotional eyes. ‘When Angela de Lisle told me, I jumped at the opportunity to talk to you. It’s important that you speak to everyone involved. That you don’t just talk to the Deverills.’
So Mrs de Lisle told her, thought Margot suspiciously. She wondered what her motive was for doing so. ‘I agree,’ she replied. ‘I do want to write a balanced account.’
The Countess’s face hardened. ‘My husband was cheated out of his inheritance by his mother, which cut him to the quick. Can you imagine your own mother doing such a thing? I’m sure you cannot.’
Having an inheritance to be cheated out of was something Margot couldn’t imagine at all.
‘JP was her first child, and a Deverill, so I presume she thought she was doing the right thing,’ she said.
The Countess was quick to jump to her husband’s defence. ‘The Count’s father, Count Cesare, worshipped him. Had he lived, he would never have allowed his home to pass into the hands of a Deverill.’
Margot narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t wish to speak out of turn, but is it not true that it was Bridie’s money that bought the castle?’
The Countess stiffened and she lifted her chin. ‘Let me tell you a little about my husband’s family, Miss Hart. Count Leopoldo is descended from Cardinal Maffeo Barberini of Rome who became Pope Urban XIII in 1623. His grandmother was a princess. The Barberini palace in Rome was completed by the famous Bernini in 1633 and is now La Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica. His family were illustrious and fabulously wealthy.’ She placed her long fingers over the bee clasp at her throat. ‘The family coat of arms is three bees. The famous Barberini bees, which are carved into architecture all over Rome, illustrating their power. This choker was one of the Princess’s treasures, handed down the generations to my Leopoldo.’ Margot wanted to point out that it had only been two generations, but she didn’t think the Countess would appreciate her pedantry. ‘Have you been to Rome, Miss Hart?’
‘Yes, I have,’ Margot replied.
‘Then you might have seen the famous Baldacchino di San Pietro, L’Altare di Bernini.’
‘St Peter’s Baldachin,’ Margot translated. She did not have the patience for pretentiousness, even though the Countess clearly spoke fluent Italian.
‘Then you will know that there are four plinths that hold up the pillars of that magnificent canopy. On each of the two outer sides of each plinth are the Barberini bees. You cannot miss them. They are enormous and flamboyant, as is the whole Baldacchino. Those bees are there as symbols of the Barberini family’s supremacy and influence.’
‘Well, three hundred years ago. I’m not sure they have any influence now.’
‘The point is, Miss Hart, and I’m surprised that I have to labour it, my husband’s family is wealthy in its own right. As they say, money marries money. That was the case with the Count’s parents.’ Margot wished she’d just call him Leopoldo. The Countess glanced at Margot’s notebook. ‘Are you writing this down?’ she asked, looking put out.
‘Absolutely,’ said Margot, hastily scribbling onto the page the words Barberini, Urban XIII, bees.
‘Going back to the inheritance and putting one’s emotions to one side,’ she continued, ‘JP is a Deverill, so wasn’t it right that he should inherit the castle? After all, it was built by a Deverill and had been in the family for nearly three hundred years.’
‘Of course not!’ the Countess retorted impatiently. ‘JP is illegitimate. His father behaved atrociously. Bridie was only seventeen years old when he took her for his pleasure! If it wasn’t for Bridie’s brother, Michael, JP would have ended up in America and Ballinakelly and the Deverills would never have heard of him again. But he was spirited out of the convent and placed on Bertie Deverill’s doorstep. You know the history, I’m sure. The point is, Miss Hart, Bridie left him the castle because she felt guilty. That’s all it is, guilt. She was sick. Dying of cancer. At that moment, when her life was ebbing away, she decided to do what she believed to be the right thing. But she was not in her right mind. Goodness knows who turned her. My money is on Kitty Deverill. Why would Bridie disinherit the son she shared with her beloved husband? The son she had brought up from birth? In favour of the son she never knew, or held, or loved. How can you love someone you have never met? You can’t. You love the idea, but that is not love, that is fantasy. You see, it was purely out of guilt that my husband was denied his rightful home, not to mention the fortune that went with it.’ Her nostrils flared and her lips shrunk into a tight little line.
‘Was he completely excluded from the will?’
‘He was given money in a trust,’ the Countess replied, dismissing it as but a trifle. ‘He had to ask his uncle every time he wanted it. Imagine? How humiliating! If you knew the Count you would understand. He is a proud man and his mother humiliated him.’
‘Why would Bridie have given the castle and money to JP with no strings attached, but money in a trust to Leopoldo with many strings attached? Did she not trust him to manage his money?’ Margot suspected she knew the answer but she was curious to hear what the Countess had to say.
‘He was flamboyant. He liked to live the high life.’ The Countess smiled and her eyes shone with a feverish sheen. ‘My husband has more character than all the Deverills put together. They think they’re so bold and fascinating but my husband puts them all in the shade, Miss Hart.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all, leaving JP the castle. He lost it and his fortune.’
‘You’re right,’ the Countess replied vigorously, pleased that Margot understood. ‘The Count would never have let it go. He would never have become an alcoholic and squandered all his money. Shameful! That’s what it is. Shameful!’
‘Your husband has clearly done well for himself. You have houses all over the world. You lead an enviable life. If he didn’t inherit a fortune, he must have made one.’
‘He is an entrepreneur, like his father and grandfather before him. Whatever he touches turns to gold.’
‘Then why didn’t he buy back his home when JP was forced to sell it?’
The Countess squirmed then and Margot sensed she had caught her out. The older woman gave her head a little shake, as if playing for time, or frantically trying to think of a convincing reason. Margot wasn’t sure she was hearing much truth in the Countess’s account. ‘By the time the Count heard about the sale, Mrs de Lisle had already made her offer and JP had accepted it. Too late. Tant pis.’ She shrugged and gave a little sniff. The kind of sniff one does after telling an appalling lie.
‘Do you know JP, Countess?’
Again the woman lifted her chin and stiffened her jaw. ‘I have met him. After all, he is my husband’s half-brother. But I don’t know him. The two men have never been friends. After Bridie left the castle to JP, my husband left Ireland altogether and settled in London.’
‘But he bought a house in Dublin.’
‘I persuaded him to buy it. He spent fourteen years of his life in Ballinakelly. It grieved him to leave it. We have kept one eye on his former home all these years. It has become something of an obsession. Understandable, don’t you think, considering the circumstances?’ She sighed regretfully and swept her eyes over the walls. ‘Now it is a hotel. Angela de Lisle has done a good job, but it should really have remained a home. Our home. Did you notice the Deverill motto carved in stone above the door? The Count’s father, Count Cesare, covered it with the Barberini bees, but when JP moved in, he took them down and displayed the Deverill motto again. Those bees have more prestige than those words in Latin ever could.’ She drained her teacup. ‘I would have been a superb hostess. I would have filled this castle with the highest in the land and made it great again.’
Margot smiled. ‘It’s full of people now and, in a way, it is great again. It’s still relatively new, but I’d say it has the potential to be one of the best hotels in the world.’
‘It will never belong to a Deverill again. That era is over. The Deverills are over.’
Suddenly, the temperature in the room dived and a shiver rippled across Margot’s skin. The Countess frowned irritably and turned towards the windows to see where the draught was coming from. The windows, however, were firmly shut. The two women looked at each other in puzzlement, words caught in their throats, as if sensing something strange was about to happen. A vibration shook the air – an invisible force, but they both felt it, the chill and the movement. The flames in the grate spluttered then flared.
‘The Count has always maintained that this place is haunted,’ she whispered.
‘It’s not haunted,’ said Margot firmly, but she was beginning to doubt her conviction. ‘I don’t believe in the supernatural.’
‘Neither do I, but ghosts are not supernatural. They’re part of life. People who have passed and have not found their way into the next world. Lost people. Sad people.’ The Countess lifted her chin and inhaled through dilated nostrils.
‘I think you’re probably right that the Deverills will never own the castle again, although that family has a talent for rising out of the ashes, doesn’t it,’ Margot continued, trying to regain her composure.
‘There will be no phoenix this time. JP is lost, lost in the bottom of his whiskey bottle. Such a shame. You know he was handsome and dashing in his day. But he’s weak. He lost his wife thanks to his weakness.’
‘Infidelity does seem to run down the male line, doesn’t it.’
‘Indeed, it does,’ the Countess agreed. ‘His father with a maid. He with the governess.’ Margot did not reveal her surprise. She just nodded and gave the Countess space to elaborate. ‘If you’re going to have an affair you don’t do it on your own doorstep. You do it far away and preferably with someone who has as much to lose as you do. The governess, indeed. Those children adored her. What a betrayal. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Colm doesn’t end up an alcoholic as well. You see, they’re toxic. All of them.’ She shook her head and looked at Margot steadily, holding her gaze. ‘You have been making notes, haven’t you, Miss Hart?’
‘I have,’ Margot reassured her. ‘I also have a very good memory. May I ask, is it common knowledge that JP’s affair was with the governess?’
‘Of course not,’ said the Countess, giving Margot a sly, conspiratorial smile. ‘I have my sources, so you can trust me not to mislead you. People suspected an affair. But I know for certain.’
‘This governess, where is she now?’
‘I’m afraid you’ll get nothing out of her. She moved to Canada. I wouldn’t even know where in Canada she is.’
‘I see.’ Margot was disappointed. She’d like to have spoken to her.
‘She was a young Englishwoman from a good family. A country girl. She was not fast. It was not a case of her seducing her boss. Far from it. But a case of him seducing her. Like you said, infidelity runs down the male line in that family.’
Margot imagined JP turning to the governess out of unhappiness and a need to be comforted. ‘There are always two sides to every story,’ she said.
‘But each side does not necessarily carry the same weight. I pity poor Alana, JP’s wife. I’m not surprised she divorced him. What a mess.’
‘It seems to me that the castle hasn’t brought anyone much happiness.’
‘If you’re implying that it’s cursed, you are wrong. It’s the Deverill family that is cursed, not the castle. Or perhaps it is karma. The castle should never have been left to JP and in the end he paid for that wrongdoing.’
‘I don’t think karma works like that. If it was a wrongdoing, it was not his but his mother’s.’
The Countess gave her head an impatient little shake. ‘It was wrong, punto.’ She watched Margot write something down. ‘You must keep me in touch with your research. If you need any further help, do call me. You know where I am.’
‘But you travel so much, between all your various homes,’ said Margot.
‘We will be in Dublin for the foreseeable future. I will be happy to come again. I do so love to spend time in the Count’s ancestral home, even though it gives me pain each time I visit.’
‘And how does the Count feel?’ Margot asked.
The Countess’s face hardened. ‘He will never forgive his mother, or his half-brother. JP should have shared his inheritance. But he didn’t. He kept it all to himself. Shameful! Put that in your book. I hope it’s not going to be full of fluff and puff, Miss Hart. I hope you’re going to write a proper history of the truth.’
‘That is my intention.’
‘Good.’ The Countess stood up. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you. I hope I have been helpful.’
‘You have, very helpful.’
‘I’m so pleased. My husband is much too dignified to speak about the injustice he has suffered, but I am not. That is not to say that I am not dignified, you won’t find a more dignified woman in the whole of Ireland, but the truth means a lot to me and I cannot abide injustice anywhere. I have to speak out. It is in my nature to be honest.’
‘It’s important to have both JP and Leopoldo’s side of the story,’ said Margot.
The Countess flinched as Margot used her husband’s first name without his title. ‘I’m sure the Deverills have erased the Count from their history,’ she said with emphasis on the word ‘Count’. ‘I’m glad I had the opportunity to set the record straight. Now, where is the manager? I need to let Roach know that I am ready to depart. I do hope that fog has lifted.’