So it was true. Kitty had been having an affair with Alana’s father. Robert was devastated, Florence in tears and Kitty herself refused to come out of her bedroom. In despair JP went to see his father, who was the only person he felt he could talk to. He wished he’d died up there in his Spitfire rather than suffering as he was now. Hadn’t Alana promised him he would never suffer in love again? “We are cursed,” he told his father. “The Deverills are cursed.”
“Don’t believe that, JP,” said Bertie from his armchair in the library where he liked to sit after dinner. He had become quite the creature of habit in his old age. He reached for his tea, which he still would have preferred to be whiskey, but he was not going to throw himself into a bottle again, not if he wanted to win back Maud. “We make our own luck, and your sister has done a very good job of making bad luck. One learns, as one gets older, that one simply can’t have everything in life. Some things have to be denied for the greater good. I learned too late and lost my darling Maud. Kitty will learn now, but what is the cost of that lesson, eh? The destruction of not only her own happiness but yours and Alana’s too. It all boils down to selfishness in the end. If we were all less selfish the world would be a kinder place.”
“But Alana won’t marry me, Father. I’ve lost her.”
“No, you haven’t. She’s young and impulsive. Give her time. Go to Dublin and get on with your education. Leave the dust to settle here. It will. It always does in the end.”
JP looked at his father sadly. “Will Robert leave Kitty?”
In this respect Bertie wasn’t so positive. “I suspect he will, I’m afraid. I doubt he’ll be able to carry on, knowing that Kitty’s heart has always been elsewhere. He’s a proud man.”
JP groaned and put his head in his hands. “This is a disaster.”
“I daresay some good will come out of the ashes, but I can’t see what that might be in their case.”
“We are cursed,” JP repeated. “Ever since Barton Deverill built his castle on O’Leary land we’ve been cursed. Can’t you see? The Deverills have reeled from one disaster to the next. When will it all end? When an O’Leary returns to claim the land? Will that ever happen?”
Bertie chuckled cynically. “I don’t believe in curses, nor do I believe in prophecies. We make our own fortune. It’s up to you to make yours, JP.”
ADELINE WATCHED JP leave. It was all very sad, this strange turn of events. She smiled on her son, for he had grown wise with the years. Bertie will be believing in ghosts soon enough, she thought with amusement. But JP had a point. The Deverills did seem to be cursed. Adeline had never thought beyond the part of Maggie’s curse that condemned the Deverill heirs to live in limbo within the castle walls, but her husband’s family did seem to suffer terrible misfortune. She watched Bertie pick up his book and start to read, but she knew he wasn’t seeing the words. He was thinking of Maud and contemplating his own troubles. How much hard luck had he brought upon himself, and how much had been imposed upon him? Had he not seduced Bridie Doyle, Michael Doyle would not have burned the castle to the ground. Had Michael not burned the castle to the ground, Kitty would not have sought him out in the farmhouse and he would not have violated her. Every action has a consequence, she pondered. A small stone thrown into a pond sends out ripples that reach far and wide and every ripple touches something that affects something else and on it goes. Life is all about learning lessons and each adversity is designed to instruct. What will Kitty learn from this?
IT WASN’T LONG before the whole of Ballinakelly had heard about Jack’s sudden reappearance. The Weeping Women of Jerusalem deemed it a miracle and crossed themselves vigorously, but the truth about the Yanks and Jack’s involvement with the Mafia soon dispatched any illusions of divine intervention.
Kitty’s joy at the news was tempered by the realization that she could never go near him again. It was over; this time for good. And her heart buckled beneath the weight of so much sadness. She had lost everything.
Unable to withstand her family’s fury and Robert’s hurt Kitty packed her bag and took the boat to England to seek refuge with Celia. She settled into Deverill House, where Celia was living with her children and Boysie. In the drawing room over a large glass of wine and an openness that was not typical of her more secretive nature, Kitty told her cousin and her old friend about Jack, from the very beginning.
“Gracious, Kitty,” said Boysie, reeling from the drama he had known nothing about. “What happens now?”
“Yes, what happens now?” Celia repeated, curled up into the corner of the sofa, riveted by every detail of Kitty’s extraordinary life, which made her own seem ordinary by comparison.
“JP has gone to Dublin, blaming me for Alana’s refusal to marry him. Florence has taken Robert’s side and is at home comforting him. Robert is devastated. I don’t know whether he’ll leave me. I don’t blame him if he does. I’ve ruined everything.” She looked helplessly at her friends. “As for Jack, what can I say? I love him. Not being able to have him won’t change that. Nothing will. But if I’ve learned anything from this terrible situation it’s that one can’t have everything one wants in life. Some things are out of reach and should remain so. I was only thinking of myself. But no man is an island. When I saw Alana’s distraught face I realized how selfish I’d been. I’ll never forget her unhappiness. It will stay with me forever.” Kitty put her hand to her heart, and her eyes filled with tears. “No precious moment with Jack is worth that. If I could rewind the clock I would save Alana from that moment and I’d save myself from seeing it. I’d let Jack go. I truly believe I would.”
KITTY WASN’T SURPRISED by JP’s reaction to her affair with Alana’s father and she wasn’t surprised by Robert’s fury, but she was surprised by her mother’s understanding. Maud and Kitty had never understood each other, ever. When Kitty had taken it upon herself to raise JP, Maud had all but disowned her. Now she turned up at Deverill House unannounced and full of compassion. What had life taught her for this sudden change of heart to take place? Kitty wondered as she followed her into the garden.
Maud suggested she and Kitty sit on the bench. It was early autumn and still warm, and the pink hydrangeas were only just beginning to turn brown. Since losing Harry Maud had aged considerably. Her skin sagged around the mouth where bitterness had been allowed to fester and her hands betrayed her age with a tangle of blue veins and sprinkling of brown spots. Her eyes, however, were that piercing, icy blue that had won her admirers all through her life, yet they seemed to have softened slightly, as if suffering had instilled some empathy.
“Bertie has told me the whole sorry story,” Maud said once they were sitting down. “I had no idea you were such a dark horse, Kitty.” She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, not because she was cold, but because she felt awkward being a mother to this child who had always made her feel deficient and foolish. “I had an affair, Kitty.”
“You had an affair?” Kitty exclaimed. It shouldn’t have surprised her. After all, she had discovered her father making love to Grace Rowan-Hampton when she was a child, so why should her mother have been any different? Perhaps everyone was at it.
“I loved a man, a friend of your father’s, and I loved him for years.”
“Why did it end?”
“Because I got pregnant with you.” She looked at Kitty and smiled apologetically. “I think I probably blamed you for that, although now, in my dotage, I realize that he probably seized the opportunity to end it. You weren’t to be blamed; how could you be?”
“You were devastated, naturally.”
“I was. Your father was carrying on with any pretty face that presented itself, but while I had Eddie, I was content. When he left me, I had to suffer your father’s affairs without anyone to look after me.”
“Whatever became of him?”
“Eddie? Oh, he married and had children and moved to India. The point is, Kitty, I know what forbidden love feels like and so I understand what you’re going through. I haven’t been a good mother. In fact, I admit that I haven’t been much of a mother to you at all. I regret that.”
“Don’t regret, Mother. I wasn’t an easy child.”
“No, you weren’t easy, but I should have been less selfish.” Kitty was stunned by her mother’s candor. Maud had only ever thought of herself. Kitty wondered what had inspired her to change. “So, what are you going to do now?” Maud asked.
“I’m going to hide here and hope that Robert forgives me. I know that is asking too much. I’ve done a terrible thing, and I regret hurting him. He’s a good man, and he doesn’t deserve a wife like me.”
“I know you’re comfortable here with Celia, you two have always been close, but you’re welcome to come and live with me. The door is open should you wish to step through it.”
“Thank you,” Kitty replied politely, although the idea of living with Maud was not an appealing one.
“Tell me about your father. How is he?”
Kitty told her mother that her father had settled into a comfortable routine and found contentment at last, living in the Hunting Lodge and taking consolation from his memories. “Losing Harry has been unbearable for all of us,” said Maud. “I understand why Beatrice dived beneath the blankets and refused to see anyone after Digby died. That’s how I felt after Harry was killed. Utter despair. Blackness. A void that you know will never be filled because Harry was irreplaceable.” Maud reached out and took Kitty’s hand. Kitty did not resist, although her mother’s touch felt very odd. “I couldn’t bear to lose you or Victoria or Elspeth. I couldn’t bear to lose Bertie, either. I don’t think my heart could take any more loss. What I’m trying to say, and badly at that, is how much I regret the years we have drifted. You’re forty-five now and I’m at an unspeakable age, and I look back and kick myself for the wasted years.”
“Nothing is wasted if you learn from your mistakes,” said Kitty. “And mistakes have been made by all of us. None of us is blameless. You put up with a great deal: Papa’s affair with the maid and the illegitimate child he raised as his own. You had every right to be appalled.”
“What is JP like?” Maud asked. “Is he like Bertie?”
“Very,” Kitty replied. “He’s a Deverill through and through.”
Maud smiled wistfully, and Kitty frowned. If Maud was now smiling at the thought of JP, something cataclysmic was taking place.
And at last Maud revealed what it was.
“Arthur has asked me to marry him,” she said. “He’s asked me to divorce Bertie and to marry him.”
Kitty’s heart sank for her father, who still held a flashlight for Maud and who still harbored a fragile hope that she would one day go back to him. “Have you told Papa?” Kitty asked.
“Not yet.”
“When are you going to tell him?”
“Soon.”
“He’ll be very sad.”
“No he won’t,” said Maud with certainty.
“Oh, he will.”
“Not when I tell him I’m coming home.”
Kitty gasped. She didn’t think she was capable of happiness under the circumstances, but this made her deadbeat heart splutter back to life. “You’re not going to marry Arthur?”
“How can I marry Arthur when I love Bertie?” said Maud, and Kitty was sure that she could see her mother’s eyes glistening with tears. “It’s taken me a very long time to know myself, but now I do, I’m going to ask Bertie if he’ll take me back.”
“He will take you back. I know he will,” said Kitty, laughing. “Oh Mama, that’s the best news I’ve heard in such a long time.”
“And you need some good news,” Maud said, squeezing her daughter’s hand.
“We all do,” Kitty added. “But no one deserves it more than Papa.”
MARTHA HAD BEEN in London for six weeks, working at the American Embassy, when she received a letter from Countess di Marcantonio. It was written on ivory-colored paper with three bees embossed at the top in gold and black. In neat, deliberate handwriting she thanked Martha for her letter and invited her to stay at the castle so that they could discuss her plans in more detail. I’m just the right person to approach about this, she wrote. I’m so pleased that you felt you could write to me. You must come at once so we can start the process. Your job sounds very interesting in London, but I fear it is not conducive to your goal. You must stay with me for as long as you need to.
Martha was elated. She was more determined than ever to change her life radically, and she knew exactly what she wanted to do. The fact that the Countess had invited her to stay in the castle was more than she had hoped. She gave in her notice at the Embassy and bought a passage to Queenstown.
Ireland was as beautiful as it had been when Martha had left it just before the war. A thin mist hung over the coastline as the boat approached the harbor. The sun shone through it, causing the little particles of water to sparkle like glitter. She watched in awe and delight as the boat motored into its midst, and she was at once enveloped in the magic of it.
It had been almost seven years since she had arrived with her heart full of anticipation and excitement at the thought of seeing JP. Seven years since she had left with her heart in pieces. But she had sought comfort in God, and He had delivered. Now Martha felt a serenity she hadn’t felt before, as if the wings of God’s angels were wrapping themselves around her, protecting her from the ghosts of the past. She concentrated on the beauty of the landscape, on the soft green hills and the clean, damp air and let the mysticism that runs through Ireland like deep underground rivulets carry away the memory of her pain. She was returning to Ballinakelly but, with God’s help, she would be impervious to the emotions she had left there.
The Countess had sent her chauffeur to pick Martha up at the port. He waited beside her shiny green car in a pristine uniform complete with gloves and cap. The drive was comfortable, and Martha gazed out of the window with her spirits high on the excitement of being once again in the country that, in spite of the sorrow she had suffered there, had not lost its power to enchant.
As the car motored up the drive, between the lustrous rhododendron bushes, Martha thought of Lord Deverill, her real father, who had once lived in this castle. It seemed strange to think that she had a connection to this place—that her parents had conceived her here. How different might her life have been had her mother raised her in Ballinakelly. She gazed at the formidable stone walls, towers and turrets, chimneys and ramparts of Castle Deverill and marveled at the long history of this once powerful family of which she was part.
When she arrived she found the Countess much changed. She seemed smaller than she had been that morning in the milliner’s, and she wore black from head to toe, which Martha later discovered was due to the recent death of her husband. Bridie embraced her like an old friend, asking her dozens of questions as she led her upstairs to a sumptuous bedroom overlooking a large box garden below. While a maid unpacked her bag Bridie sat with her in her little upstairs sitting room where a fire burned heartily in the grate and tea was served on a silver tray. She introduced Martha to her sister-in-law, Rosetta, who was as fat as lard but as sweet as summer fruit, and the three women talked without pause as if they had known one another forever.
“I have arranged for Father Quinn to come to the castle tomorrow at eleven,” said Bridie. “I have told him about you and he is ready to start.”
“That’s wonderful news,” said Martha. “I’m so grateful to you, Countess, for your kindness.”
“Please, call me Bridie. That title has never suited me.”
“Bridie then,” said Martha. “You are very kind to go to so much trouble.”
“It is no trouble at all, is it, Rosetta?”
“Bridie needs a project,” said Rosetta, as if she were talking about a restless child. “Even before Cesare passed away she was bored.”
“You see, when I lived in America there was so much to do. There were so many parties and life was such fun. Here, it’s so quiet. I tried to entertain Cesare, but Ballinakelly was too small for such a larger-than-life character.” Bridie’s voice faltered then. “I wish you could have met my husband. He was the most wonderful man. A true gem and I was lucky to have found him. I miss him every day, but thank the Lord that I had so many happy years with him. Truly, there is no man alive who can compare to my darling Cesare.”
Rosetta smiled stiffly. “He was unique,” she said tightly.
“But now you are here, Martha, and I am in the fortunate position of being able to help you. My life has been an extraordinary adventure. I started here as a child born into poverty and made my way to America, where I made a fortune. But I have never lost my faith. Indeed, my faith has been the one thing that has supported me through all the difficult times, and there have been many, many, believe me. God has never forsaken me. You said in your letter that God has shone His light into your dark and troubled soul and shown you the way. I have been there, Martha. I have been to very dark and troubled places, and God has always shown me the light. So, I want to help you convert to Catholicism, which, as you told me in your letter, is the religion of your mother’s family, the Tobins. And I want to help you achieve your ultimate goal.”
Martha was close to tears at Bridie’s moving speech. She put her hand on her heart and sighed. “You will really do this for me?” she asked.
“Of course. You see, I know the perfect convent for you.” Bridie couldn’t imagine why she had suddenly decided to mention the convent where she had suffered such unhappiness. But it just felt right to do so.
“You do?” said Martha.
“Yes, it is the Convent of Our Lady Queen of Heaven in Dublin.”
Martha stared at Bridie in wonder, for that was the very convent where she was born and where she had later gone in search of her mother. At that extraordinary coincidence, she began to weep.
“Have I upset you?” Bridie asked, concerned. She looked at Rosetta, who shrugged.
Martha shook her head. “No, I’m just so touched. It feels like Fate. It feels like I’m meant to be here, with you. It feels like God Himself has led me to you.”
Bridie smiled with satisfaction. “He has led you to me, Martha. And I am ready to do His work and help you become a nun.”