Dublin, 1947
JP had been at Trinity College, Dublin for just over eighteen months. He hadn’t spoken to Kitty since he had left Ballinakelly, and he’d stopped writing to Alana. He loved her but was done making a fool of himself. If she changed her mind, she knew where to find him.
His father occasionally came to Dublin and they had lunch together at the Kildare Street Club. It had come as an enormous surprise when Bertie had brought Maud. JP and Maud had never been formally introduced. JP knew who she was by sight, owing to the rare times she had come to Ballinakelly, and Maud probably knew him by sight, he imagined, but they had never spoken. JP knew very well what she thought of him, and he didn’t blame her. But she seemed to have forgiven Bertie, for the two of them had behaved like young lovers who had come alive in each other’s company. Indeed Maud had been quite a different woman to the one Kitty talked about. More like the woman Bertie had been so nostalgic about. She’d been gracious and charming and interested in everything JP had to say even though he found her curiosity a little alarming. Under the scrutiny of her intense blue eyes he’d felt like a creature being studied beneath a microscope. He couldn’t help wondering what Kitty would have to say about the three of them getting along so well together.
JP threw himself into his studies with alacrity. He knew that the only way to get over Alana was to focus on something else. There was plenty to do at College. He made friends easily, attracted many admirers who fought hard for his heart and played sport. He spent weekends in Galway hunting with “the Blazers,” as the famous hunt was known, and in the summer he joined house parties in Connemara and county Wicklow. JP was never short of invitations; he was one of those charismatic people everyone wants at their table. He hid his heartache well. He was determined not to let Alana dampen his enjoyment of life as Martha had done.
It was a particularly bright spring morning in Dublin when JP saw Martha. At first he wasn’t sure it was her. Her features were the same, but her air was different. Of course, eight years had passed since he had last seen her; they had both been young then. He followed her as she walked with a female companion up the street in the direction of St. Stephen’s Green. She was wearing a simple blue dress with her hair pinned at the back of her head and sensible shoes. He recognized the way she walked and the shape of the body inside the dress, but he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t mistaken. Why would she have come back to Ireland, and why Dublin? It seemed unlikely, somehow.
He followed the two of them into the Green and decided to take a different path and come at her from the opposite direction; that way he’d have the opportunity to take a good look at her face. As he strode beneath the plane trees he recalled the time he had walked with her there. It seemed a lifetime ago now. The war had changed the person he was. If she was indeed Martha, she would have changed too, he thought.
Now he joined her path a short distance ahead of her. He ambled slowly, hands in pockets, trying not to stare too obviously as the two women walked toward him. She laughed at something her friend said, and he recognized that smile. He recognized the sweetness in it. His heart gave a little skip. When she replied he heard her voice with its distinctive American accent. He knew at once that she was Martha, after all. He hadn’t been wrong. As they came closer she glanced at him, in the same way she might perhaps glance at any stranger, before her gaze drifted away. But then her eyes snapped back sharply, and she stopped. She recognized him too.
“JP?” she exclaimed, and blushed a deep scarlet. Her friend looked at JP and then looked at Martha.
“Hello, Martha,” he said, and he felt a sudden, overwhelming delight in seeing her. He bent down and kissed her cheek.
“Jane, this is my old friend, JP Deverill,” Martha said unsteadily. “JP, this is my new friend, Jane Keaton.” The two shook hands.
“What are you doing in Dublin?” he asked, ignoring Jane Keaton, who looked from one to the other in puzzlement.
“Oh, it’s such a long story . . . ,” Martha began.
Jane put her hand on Martha’s arm. “I’ll leave you to catch up,” she said tactfully.
“Really, you don’t have to,” Martha began, but she was grateful when her friend headed off, leaving her alone with JP.
JP looked down at Martha and smiled, the old tenderness returning in a rush as he took in her features, which were so pleasingly familiar to him. “Let’s go and sit down,” he suggested. “Come, I know a nice bench.” They sat in the shade of a horse chestnut tree, both astonished how immediately comfortable they felt in each other’s company, in spite of everything that had happened.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you,” said Martha truthfully.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“I arrived in Ireland a year and a half ago, but I’ve only been living in Dublin for four months.”
“A year and a half ago?” JP gazed at her in amazement, aware that it was wrong of him to take offense at her not having got in touch. “What are you doing here?”
She hesitated. “I’m joining the convent,” she said carefully, and watched the surprise sweep over his face. “I know that must sound odd to you, that I’m going to become a nun, but I made up my mind a long time ago. I’m very happy with my decision, JP.”
JP didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, I’m just a little taken aback. It was the last thing I expected.”
“I’m going to join the convent where we were born,” she told him. She took his hand then. It didn’t give her the jolt of electricity it once had, but something different; something deeper. “When I returned to America, JP, I thought my life had ended. I didn’t think I could live without you. But in my despair I found God. It sounds silly, I know, but I want to thank you for opening that door for me.”
“It doesn’t sound silly,” he said, sandwiching her hand between his. “It doesn’t sound silly at all.”
She looked into his gentle eyes and felt encouraged. “I left the man I loved in Ireland, but I feel now, as I sit with you here, that I have returned and found my brother.”
JP put his arms around her and drew her close. “And I’ve found my sister,” he said softly. “Just when I needed her most.”
“Do you need me, JP?” she asked.
He let her go and sighed heavily. “I don’t know where to begin,” he said, and she noticed a bolt of pain flash across his eyes.
“Why not start at the beginning?” she suggested with a smile, and JP realized that, out of all the people in his life, Martha was the only person he could share his story with.
He told her everything. From his experiences in the war to Harry dying, falling in love with Alana and Kitty’s affair with Jack O’Leary. She listened and she didn’t interrupt, but let him tell it at his own pace. For JP it was cathartic to talk through his troubles, and the sympathetic look on Martha’s face made him feel understood. She didn’t flinch when he told her about Alana, and he didn’t spare her any details. Life had continued since their parting and they had both found new paths; he sensed that she didn’t resent him for finding Alana along his.
“I have let her go,” JP told Martha when he came to the end of his story. “She doesn’t want to marry me, so I have no choice but to move on.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared into his knitted fingers.
Martha didn’t agree. She silently asked God for guidance so that she could give him the best advice. “I don’t think you should give up,” she said after a moment. “Time is a great healer. Perhaps all Alana needed was time.”
“I’ve given her eighteen months.”
“But you haven’t seen her in all that time, have you?”
“No,” he replied.
“And you stopped writing to her?”
“Yes.”
“Then you need to go and see her,” she said. “If you truly love her you won’t give up on her until you have exhausted every avenue.”
“She won’t want to see me,” he said, dropping his gaze in defeat.
“Then you have to make her. You have to fight for her. You have to stand on her doorstep until she has no choice but to see you. At least, if she tells you then that it’s over, you will know that you did your best. If you give up now there will always be uncertainty. You’ll never be sure, and that’s a horrid thing to live with.”
He pondered on her words. A young couple walked by hand in hand, and JP watched them enviously.
“All right,” he conceded. “I’ll go back home.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s better.”
“Thank you, Martha. You’re like a guardian angel. You appeared just when I needed you.”
“I’m glad,” she said happily, her heart swelling with satisfaction.
“But what about you?” he asked. “Now you’ve found me, will you come and see Papa?”
“I don’t know, JP,” she said. “I already have parents who love me. I’m not sure that trying to build a relationship with your father, our father, is a wise thing to do. I have found my twin, and that’s enough for me.” She smiled resignedly. “If he desperately wanted to know me, I would open my arms to him, but he doesn’t. I don’t want to engineer something that isn’t there. Do you understand?” JP nodded. “Isn’t life complicated?” She laughed at the absurdity of theirs. “It’s hard making sense of it sometimes. I think you should forgive Kitty. She must be hurting so much because you’re like a son to her. Go back and make it up with her. Don’t sit in judgment over her. That’s not your place. That’s God’s place. You must find it in your heart to understand her. Then tell Alana that you love her. I believe it is only with forgiveness and love that you can right those wrongs. In fact, there is no other way.”
JP took her hand again. “And now we have found each other, will you promise me you won’t run away again?”
“I’m not going anywhere, JP. I’m going to be here for the rest of my life.”
KITTY WAS IN the garden on her knees pulling out elder from the border when JP appeared. She put down her trowel and stared at him fearfully. She could tell from his expression that he wasn’t furious with her anymore, and her heart flooded with relief. He didn’t speak. He walked up to her, and once she had scrambled to her feet he almost squeezed the life out of her in an impassioned embrace. Kitty closed her eyes and let his forgiveness wash away her pain.
ALANA WAS IN the kitchen slicing apples for the pie when there came a knock on the door. She wiped her hands on her apron and went to answer it. A scruffy young boy in a jacket and cap presented her with a bouquet of wild flowers. “This is from JP Deverill,” he said importantly.
Alana stared at him in shock. “What did you say?”
“I said, this is from JP Deverill,” he repeated.
Alana ignored the flowers. “Where is he?” she asked eagerly, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Is he here?” The child blinked as he tried to remember what he’d been told to say. “Speak up, boy!” she demanded. “Where is he?”
The child thrust the flowers into her hands. Alana barely looked at them. “He wants to know if you will see him,” he said.
“Of course I’ll see him,” she replied impatiently. “Where is he?”
The boy put his fingers in his mouth and gave a loud wolf whistle. Alana’s hand shot to her heart as JP came around the corner on his horse. The sight was so astonishing. There he was, her knight on horseback, as he had been that day in the hills when she had first lost her heart to him. Suddenly she remembered how to laugh and she remembered how to love and the tears blurred her vision so that JP became a dark smudge that was getting bigger and bigger as he approached. When at last he dismounted, she rushed at him. “I’ve been an idiot!” she said, falling into his arms. “Will you ever forgive me?”
JP remembered Martha’s advice. It is only with forgiveness and love that you can right those wrongs. “Of course, I forgive you,” he said. “Even though there’s nothing to forgive.” He kissed her ardently, and Alana felt as if his kiss was lifting her out of a very dark place and carrying her into the light. “Come ride with me,” he said.
“But I’m in the middle of baking,” she replied.
“Leave the baking. Come into the hills. I want to be alone with you.”
Aileen suddenly appeared in the doorway. She stared at JP as if she’d just seen a ghost. “Oh Aileen,” said Alana. “Here, take these flowers, would you, and put them in water and hook my apron on the back of the door,” she added, untying it and raising it over her head.
“Where are you going?” Aileen asked as JP helped her sister onto his horse.
“I’m going into the hills with my fiancé,” Alana replied proudly, and Aileen grinned.
JP swung into position behind her and took the reins. “My knight in shining armor,” said Alana happily. “I prayed you’d come back,” she told him as the horse walked slowly up the beach.
“You did?” he asked.
“I did,” she replied, then she lifted her chin and grinned. “But what took you so long?”
JP AND ALANA were married in the summer of 1950 after a long engagement. JP had finished his course at Trinity College, Dublin and moved back down to Cork, where he started work as an architect. He had always loved building things with his father as a boy, and he discovered that the pleasure had never left him.
JP was Protestant and Alana Catholic, but they were not going to allow religion or anything else to come between them. JP promised to bring up any children they might have in the Catholic faith, and they were married in the sacristy of the Catholic church of All Saints.
Before the ceremony Alana was sitting at her mother’s dressing table while Aileen threaded flowers into her hair when her father came into the room. He swept his eyes over the ivory dress that his cousin’s wife Loretta had made for her and noticed she was wearing Emer’s veil, which she had brought all the way from America for this very day. “You look beautiful, Alana,” he said, and a lump lodged in his throat, thinning his voice. He coughed to clear it. “The image of your mother.”
“Thank you, Da,” she said, glancing at her reflection. “Don’t make me cry. I’ve already cried twice already, haven’t I, Aileen?”
“She has, Da, and twice I’ve had to repair her makeup.”
“I have something for you,” he said, stepping closer. He held out a velvet pouch.
“What is this?” She untied the string and poured a pretty silver-and-lapis rosary into the palm of her hand. “It’s beautiful,” she said, welling up again.
“I can’t pretend it’s an heirloom, Alana, but it caught my eye in Dublin and I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh Da, I’m going to cry again.”
Aileen shot her father a disapproving look and reached for a tissue. She handed it to her sister and sighed. “We should have left your makeup to the last minute,” she said.
Alana dabbed beneath her eyes. “Thank you, Da. This means the world to me.”
“I hope you’ll have something for me on my wedding day,” said Aileen.
Her father patted her back. “Don’t you worry, Aileen. I’ll find something just as pretty for you too. But today is Alana’s.” He looked at his watch. “Are you nearly ready?”
“It’s tradition for the bride to be late,” said Alana.
“And it’s tradition for the father of the bride to wait at the bottom of the stairs,” Aileen added pointedly.
Jack nodded and grinned. “Very well. I’m proud of both my girls,” he said.
Aileen smiled. “You can be proud at the bottom of the stairs,” she said firmly, and watched him leave the room. “If he carries on like this I’m going to be after ruining my makeup as well!”
Jack found Emer in the kitchen toying with Alana’s bouquet. She was wearing a caramel-colored dress with a discreet hat. When she saw him she looked up and smiled. “Did she like it?” she asked.
He nodded. “Very much.”
“Good.”
He put his arm around her waist and kissed her. “I can’t believe our little girl is getting married,” he said.
“Neither can I. Doesn’t seem very long ago that she was playing truant and running off into the hills.”
He gazed at her steadily. “I don’t know what you said to her, Emer, and I’ve never asked. But your words brought her back to JP—and to me. Yes, they brought her back to me, and I’m grateful to you for that.”
Emer put her hand on his cheek and returned his gaze with her usual serenity. “She chose to come back, Jack,” she said. As you chose to come back to me. “And she chose to be happy,” she added. As did I.
KITTY HAD NOT spoken to Jack since Alana had confronted her about the letters. She had avoided him on purpose, as he had avoided her. The rare times they had found themselves in the same place at the same time they had hastily retreated or simply turned the other way. Kitty had grieved for Jack, but she knew that the only way to survive in her marriage was to give him up completely. And, as hard as it was to accept, she knew that he had given her up too. He had once held the roots of her heart with a fierce and forceful grip. Now he did not.
Kitty sat in the church sandwiched between Florence and Robert as Jack walked down the aisle with Alana. The music began, played on the fine electric organ Bridie had donated, and Kitty kept her eyes on her prayer book. Robert sat stiffly beside her in the front row with his straight leg stretched out. Their marriage wasn’t as warm and intimate as it had once been, but it was cordial enough and she was grateful that they were still together. Perhaps in time he’d come to forgive her. Kitty saw the bride and her father out of the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t look, and she knew Jack wouldn’t be looking in her direction either. Her heart was thumping beneath her dress and her hands were growing damp inside her gloves.
Bertie and Maud also sat in the front row, and Maud almost eclipsed the bride with her glamour and beauty. She had given permission to Bertie to sell her house in Belgravia, and a line had been drawn under their separation. She now sat in a pale blue dress and matching hat, which brought out the exquisite blue of her eyes. Deverill diamonds sparkled on her ears and around her neck, and Bertie took her hand and squeezed it. Had she not been wearing gloves the large engagement ring, which had been absent during her affair with Arthur, would have been on display, glittering on the third finger of her left hand. Bertie and Maud gazed at each other with affection, and Bertie felt an enormous sense of pride at having won her back. He resolved to treat her like his most precious treasure for the rest of his life and so ensure that he never lost her again.
Bridie sat with her mother and Leopoldo, Michael, Sean, Rosetta and their children. She glanced at Kitty and was suddenly seized by a great sorrow. It came from somewhere so deep and was so unexpected that she had to press her handkerchief to her mouth to stifle the sob that came with it. It was all too much. Her son’s wedding was making her emotional, and she was assaulted by wave upon wave of nostalgia and a searing longing for her past when she and Kitty had been as bonded as sisters. Over the years Bridie had made various friends: Rosetta and her attorney’s wife, Elaine Williams, in New York, and later Emer, but none of them shared the history that she and Kitty shared. No one went as far back as they did. And Bridie felt desperately sad that one foolish episode with Lord Deverill all those years ago had set off a chain of events that had driven them apart and turned them into enemies. She wanted so badly to reconcile; she longed for it with all her heart. But she couldn’t imagine how that might be achieved.
Father Quinn performed the marriage ceremony, and JP and Alana vowed to love each other until death parted them. They gazed into each other’s eyes and knew that, after everything that had happened, they would never allow anything to come between them again.
At the end of the service they walked up the aisle hand in hand to the faltering chords of Mrs. Reagan, who was having trouble getting to grips with this swanky new organ. Kitty stepped into the aisle and found herself beside Jack. She caught Emer’s eye, for his wife was right behind him, and panicked. But Jack smiled confidently and held out his hand. Kitty had no option but to give him hers. He slipped it smoothly around his arm and proceeded to lead her onward. Kitty’s breathing was shallow as she walked toward the door. She focused on the light at the end of the aisle and lifted her chin. Behind them Emer walked with her children, Robert walked with Florence, Bertie with Maud and Bridie with Leopoldo. They stepped out into the sunshine, and Jack turned and smiled wistfully down at Kitty. In his eyes she saw his regret and his sorrow, but most of all she saw affection. “We had our time,” he said softly. “And it was special. But Emer is my future and Robert is yours. They both deserve our love and our loyalty.”
Kitty swallowed back her tears. She nodded. I’ll always love you, she said silently, and he nodded, as if he had heard. As if he had heard and had said the same to her: I love you, Kitty Deverill, and I always will. Then he let go of her hand and walked away.