To distract herself from her worries Celia spent a great deal of time with Kitty. Kitty’s daughter, Florence, played with Celia’s daughter Connie, just as Kitty and Celia had played together as little girls, while JP was too grown-up to be interested in small children. He was now a boisterous nine-year-old, as adept in the saddle as he was in the school room and handsome with it. He seemed to have inherited the finest Deverill qualities—the piercing gray gaze, the intelligent expression, the ready humor and easy charm—so no one seemed to give much thought to the qualities on his mother’s side.
Kitty was careful to keep him away from Ballinakelly for fear of bumping into Michael Doyle, that brutal humbug known to all as “the Pope.” The only time she had seen him had been through the car window on her way to church and she had deliberately turned her head so as not to catch his eye. She was determined he should never have contact with JP. The boy was a Deverill first and foremost—and secondly a Trench. Bridie had made her choice and started a new life in America. Kitty doubted she would ever come back. JP prayed for his mama who he believed to be in Heaven, but his prayers were hasty and careless; Kitty was everything a mother should be and he felt no less for the absence of a biological mother. He had two fathers, Robert, who was a constant presence around the house, and Bertie, whom he sought out in the Hunting Lodge as often as he was able. Indeed, as he grew up he and Bertie had grown close. They both loved the same things: fishing, hunting, tennis and croquet, tinkering in Bertie’s shed and playing word games in front of the fire at teatime. Kitty knew there was nothing a Doyle could give him that he didn’t already have.
Bertie and JP had constructed a large model railway in the attic of the Hunting Lodge. It took up a whole room, which had once been a storage room, and was spread across a quadrant of trestle tables. There were green hills with little model sheep grazing on grass, tunnels, bridges, lakes and tiny cottages and farm buildings. They had built a station complete with signals, moving tracks and a pedestrian crossing. There was even a fishing boat on the lake with a tiny man holding a rod, with a line and a gasping fish on the end of it. The more sophisticated parts that were unavailable in Dublin Bertie bought in London, but the hardware shop in Ballinakelly was well equipped with the essentials such as glue, paint, wood and card. It was on a particularly wet day in January that Bertie and JP, seizing on the idea to build a castle with a greenhouse and a stable block, decided to drive into Ballinakelly to buy what they needed for such an ambitious project.
Thick gray clouds rolled in off the ocean, propelled by a strong easterly wind that blew cold gusts over the water, whipping about the cliffs and whistling around the chimney stacks. Bertie, who drove a blue Model T Ford, sat at the wheel with his son by his side, relishing the project they were enjoying together. He was ashamed of having once rejected JP, of having all but disowned Kitty for insisting on keeping him when she had found the small baby on the doorstep of the Hunting Lodge. How ironic that the very child he had believed would bring about his demise had in fact given him a reason to live.
Father and son chatted excitedly about how they were going to design and build the castle. Bertie suggested various materials, but JP had his own ideas and was confident in voicing them. He wanted it to look exactly like Castle Deverill. “That might be beyond us, JP.” Bertie chuckled.
“Nothing is beyond us, Papa,” said JP cheerfully. “We can do anything, you and I.” Bertie glanced admiringly at his son, for whom anything seemed possible. “We will build Castle Deverill with all its towers and windows and doors. We’ll even make the trees and vegetable garden. I know exactly how to make the dome of the greenhouse using an onion, papier mâché and some green paint.”
“I suppose the Hunting Lodge isn’t enough of a challenge for you?” said Bertie, rather hoping JP would be inspired to build that instead.
JP looked horrified. “But that’s not home, Papa. Castle Deverill is home.” And Bertie shook his head because he knew that could only have come from Kitty.
Ballinakelly high street was busy. People were walking beneath umbrellas or hurrying to find shelter from the rain in the public houses and shops. Men in caps and jackets strode briskly down the sidewalk with their heads down and shoulders hunched and horses pulling carts plodded slowly up the road, too wet to care. Bertie parked the car outside the hardware shop and they dashed inside. Mr. O’Casey greeted them deferentially. An old man who remembered the days when the present Lord Deverill was a little boy, Mr. O’Casey had an innate respect for the aristocracy and counted the night the castle burned as one of the worst in living memory. He listened to JP’s elaborate plan to make a model of the castle and shuffled about behind the counter, even climbing the ladder to reach the highest shelf, in order to find the right materials for the project. He piled them up on the counter. JP touched them excitedly. “We’re going to make a fine castle,” he said as Mr. O’Casey put on his spectacles and began to punch the prices into his cash register. Just as he was finishing the little bell rang above the door and a damp wind swept in with Michael Doyle.
Bertie put the money on the counter and turned to face the man the Royal Irish Constabulary had wanted in connection with the fire but had later set free. If Bertie felt any animosity toward Michael Doyle he was too polite to show it. “Good morning, Mr. Doyle,” he said evenly.
Michael’s eyes fell upon the child and his face softened. “Good morning, Lord Deverill.” He took off his cap, freeing a halo of wild black curls. “And this would be young Master Jack Deverill?” he said with a smile.
JP nodded. “I’m JP,” he said politely. “How do you do?”
Michael hadn’t properly laid eyes on the child since he had carried him down on the train from Dublin. He had been a small baby then. Now he was a handsome boy with a twinkle in his eye. But in spite of his red hair he was a Doyle. That was certain. Michael could see it in the strength of his jaw and in the light sprinkling of freckles that covered his nose. He saw Bridie in his wide forehead and in the sweetness of his curved upper lip, but he recognized himself in the directness of the boy’s gaze. For sure, JP was a bold, fearless child, just as he had been. He felt a surge of pride.
Bertie thanked Mr. O’Casey and lifted the paper bag of supplies from the counter. “Come on, JP,” he said. “You and I have work to do.” He nodded at Michael and Michael took off his cap again as Lord Deverill opened the door, then followed his son into the street. The little bell tinkled once more and the door shut behind them. Michael watched the boy climb into the car. He had already forgotten Michael and was chatting happily to his father. A moment later the car motored off and Michael was left with a strange sense of loss. JP was his nephew, but the boy would never know it.
Michael bought the items he had come for, then left for home in the car they had bought with Bridie’s money. He wondered whether Grace would be sitting in his kitchen, praying with his mother and grandmother. He was quite used to her now. She had come enough times—and ignored him enough times—to convince him of her sincerity. At first he thought it a ruse to entice him back into her bed, but as the months passed and she received regular instruction from Father Quinn, attending Mass in the Catholic Church in Cork, he realized that her conversion to Catholicism had nothing to do with him. She genuinely wanted to find peace with herself and God. He understood that and respected her for it. Once they were together in sin; now they were together in Christ. Yet he could not quite forget her voracious passion and her burning skin.
As he drove off into the hills he thought of Kitty Deverill. Until he had her forgiveness he’d never lie with anyone again.
GRACE SAT ON the sofa in her sitting room while Father Quinn filled the armchair with his black robes, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Grace had stalked her prey like a patient snake with a cunning rat. She had always known it would take time. Father Quinn wasn’t going to betray a secret so readily, but she knew him well enough to know that if it served his interests he would betray his own mother. He had to be coaxed, lured and gently persuaded—he had to believe that he was doing God’s work. First and foremost he had to trust Grace. After all, they had plotted and schemed during the War of Independence so Father Quinn knew better than most that Grace could keep a secret. And he was well aware that she and Michael had been firm allies in the fight against the British in spite of the vast differences in their births. She was confident that she could use guile to wheedle out of Father Quinn the terrible crime Michael had committed in his past of which he was so ashamed.
She pushed the whiskey bottle across the table. “Please, Father Quinn, you need fortification in your job,” she said, and she listened with half an ear as he railed against the young people and their lack of commitment.
“In our day we had a cause to fight. That united us and drove us,” she said. “God knows, I wouldn’t want another war, but the struggle for freedom was a cause I believed in with all my heart and I was willing to risk my life for it.”
“You were a brave lady,” Father Quinn said, refilling his glass.
“But I did terrible things,” she said, lowering her voice in confidence. “I’ll go to Hell for some of the things I did.” She looked at him squarely.
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,” Father Quinn quoted from the Bible.
“I lured Colonel Manley into the farmhouse. If it hadn’t been for me, Jack O’Leary would never have plunged the knife into his heart. I am as guilty of murder as he is,” she said in a soft voice and her eyes welled with tears. “Can God forgive me for that?”
“If you truly repent, my dear Lady Rowan-Hampton, the Lord will forgive you and wipe clean the slate.”
“I truly repent, Father, with all my heart. I regret the things I have done. The things Michael and I did.” She pulled a white cotton handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. “How I admire him, Father. He was the worst kind of sinner—oh, the things he did in the name of freedom—and yet he turned his life around and is as pious as any priest.” And as celibate, she thought bitterly, but she kept that complaint to herself. “If I can be half as devout as he is I shall be happy, Father Quinn.”
“Michael did indeed turn his life around. He gave up the drink, you see. It awakened the Devil in him and drove him to sin.”
“He told me, Father Quinn, he told me about . . .” She began to sob. “Oh, I can’t believe he could have . . .” She hesitated, barely daring to breathe, hoping he would finish the sentence for her.
“But my dear Lady Rowan-Hampton, his sins are not your sins.”
She turned her face away sharply. “I know that, Father, but can God forgive such depravity?”
“Indeed he can. If Michael truly repents, then the Lord will indeed forgive him. Even for that.”
She gazed at him with wide, shiny eyes. “Even for that?” she repeated, desperate to know what that was.
Father Quinn leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He stared into his glass and shook his head. “God will forgive him, but he wants more than that. He will not rest until he receives forgiveness from Kitty Deverill.”
Grace let out a controlled breath and nodded gravely. She did not show her surprise nor did she reveal her delight at having snared the rat and induced him to squeak. She kept her expression steady and unchanging. “I pray that she will find it in her heart to forgive, Father.”
He looked at her and frowned. “If there is anything you can do, I would be very grateful.”
“As you know Kitty is a dear friend,” she said, slipping the handkerchief back up her sleeve. “She took me into her confidence many years ago. Leave it with me. Now I know that Michael is ready to beg forgiveness I will see what I can do to help. I only want the best for both of them. I ask God to give me tact. It will not be an easy task.”
“Indeed not,” Father Quinn agreed. “But if anyone can do it, you can, Lady Rowan-Hampton. I have great faith in your abilities.” So do I, she thought smugly.
When Father Quinn left, weaving his way to his car, which was parked on the gravel outside the house, Grace withdrew to her bedroom. She closed the door and went and stood by the window. There, in the privacy of her room, she let out a low moan and gave in to a sudden shudder that rippled across her entire body. So Kitty Deverill was the reason Michael had rebuffed her. All these years she had imagined countless different reasons, but she had never for a second imagined this. Of course she didn’t believe that Michael had violated her, which Father Quinn had implied. Kitty must have seduced him, for certain, and wracked by guilt he had taken to drink. It was all Kitty’s fault. Michael was a wild and passionate man, Grace reasoned, but he wasn’t a rapist.
It took her a while to quell the jealousy that rose in her like a tide of putrid water, stealing her breath. She had to use all her strength to control her movements because her instinct was to pick something up and throw it against the wall. But Grace was a woman who had spent years practicing the art of self-discipline. She focused on the garden and tried to push away the picture of Michael thrusting into Kitty, which clung to her mind as if her thoughts had got stuck on one image. At length she managed to internalize her fury by hatching a plot. There was nothing like a plan to make one feel less impotent. If Grace could persuade Kitty to forgive Michael, he might return to her bed.
THAT EVENING LAUREL returned from an afternoon hacking across the hills with Ethelred Hunt. Ever since he had suggested that she would cut a dash on a horse, she had flirted with the idea of riding again. Indeed, she had been an accomplished horsewoman in her day, brave even, out hunting, and she wasn’t planning on doing anything reckless. Hazel had thought her ridiculous; after all she was only a few years off eighty. But why should her life taper toward the end? she thought defiantly. Surely, she was as young as she felt. Ethelred Hunt certainly made her feel like a girl again, and today, riding over the cliffs with the sea crashing against the rocks below and the sea gulls circling above, she had relived a moment of her youth.
Laurel was passionately in love. There was no distinguishing it from the breathless, invigorating feelings of longing that she had experienced as a twenty-year-old. She might be an old lady now but her heart was still tender, like a rosebud opening with the first gentle caress of spring. She didn’t believe herself foolish; after all, why should love be the privilege of the young? If Adeline were alive she would say that it is just the physical body that grows old, the soul is eternal and therefore cannot age. Laurel might look like a grandmother, but when Ethelred Hunt had gazed into her eyes and pressed his lips to hers he was seeing a woman.
She inhaled and closed her eyes, reliving for a wonderful moment the feeling of his mouth on hers. She could still smell the spicy scent of his skin and feel the soft hair of his beard on her face. Oh, it had been like a dream, a beautiful dream. She would never forget it for as long as she lived. “We must keep this to ourselves,” he had told her, unwinding his hand from around her waist, or from where her waist had been when she was young. “Or we’ll upset Hazel. I think she’s sweet on me,” he told her. Laurel had glowed with delight. After years fighting her sister for attention from this irresistible silver wolf he had chosen her.
“Oh, I can keep a secret from Hazel,” she had reassured him, and indeed she would.
She walked into the house, closing the door softly behind her. She hadn’t seen her sister since that morning, when they had both departed, Hazel to Bertie’s for a morning at the bridge table and she to the hairdresser. The sound of the gramophone came wafting down the corridor from the sitting room. Laurel was surprised and wondered whether Hazel had company. It wasn’t usual for her to play music just for herself. She found her sister standing by the window, gazing out onto the wintry garden where they put bird food for the hardy little robins. One hand wound around the back of her neck, the other was on her hip and she was humming distractedly and swaying slightly, Laurel thought. “Hello, Hazel,” said Laurel breezily, unpinning her hat.
Hazel turned, startled. “Oh Laurel, you’re back.”
“Yes, I am. It was such fun to be out riding again. I feel rejuvenated.” She looked at her sister and realized that she wasn’t the only one to feel rejuvenated. Hazel’s cheeks were pink and her eyes sparkled.
“At least you didn’t fall off,” she said in a blasé tone, as if she wasn’t very interested one way or the other. Hazel didn’t ask her about Ethelred and Laurel was relieved; she didn’t want to betray his kiss with a schoolgirl blush.
“What have you been up to?” She perched on the arm of the sofa and placed her hat on her knee.
“This and that,” Hazel replied vaguely. “Bridge was entertaining as usual. This afternoon, well . . .” She sighed dismissively. “I haven’t done anything this afternoon except watch the birds. Aren’t they perky?”
“Who was at bridge?”
“Just the usual crowd. Bertie and Kitty and I partnered Ethelred.” She went and rang the bell for the maid. “Let’s have a cup of tea and finish off that porter cake.” She didn’t catch Laurel’s eye as she passed her. “Tell me, what is it like to be in the saddle again? Were you afraid?”
Laurel shrugged off her sister’s shifty behavior and went to sit closer to the fire. “Not afraid, no,” she said, smiling at the memory. “It was the most exciting thing I’ve done in years.” And for once neither tried to outdo the other with florid tales of Ethelred Hunt. In fact, his name was not mentioned again and the cordiality with which they had always treated each other returned in eager chatter and cheerful laughter. But every now and then both women ran their fingers over their lips and smiled secretively into their hands.
AS MUCH AS Celia tried to distract herself from the cold reality of her father’s death and the terrible debts Archie had left her with, she was unable to ignore the fact that she had to find money somewhere, and soon. Her father was no longer around to help her and, if he had been, she now realized that he wouldn’t have had the resources. She put on smiles for her children, for the friends who came calling and for the members of her family who were always popping in to check on her, but her anxiety lay in the pit of her stomach like cement. There were moments when she stood at her bedroom window, gazing up at the stars and remembering the Deverill Castle Summer Balls of her childhood, when she, Kitty and Bridie had watched the carriages arriving, bearing County Cork’s finest, and wished that she could wake up as a little girl again, with no fears or worries. The skies had always been clear on those magical nights, darkening gradually as twilight receded into night with the faint glimmer of the first star.
She dreaded having to sell the castle. This was her home now. She had placed her heart in the heart of Ballinakelly and there it would stay.
It was a particularly windy morning when her butler walked into the drawing room to find her alone at her desk, writing letters. He knocked on the door. “There is a man here to see you, Mrs. Mayberry,” he said. Celia knew who it was. She had been expecting him. The cement grew heavier in the bottom of her belly and she pressed a hand to her heart. She couldn’t avoid him any longer.
“Show him in please, O’Sullivan, and ask Mrs. Connell to brew us some tea.” She positioned herself in the middle of the room, straightened her skirt and cardigan and took a deep breath. A moment later the man Celia had seen at the funeral and at her father’s memorial service was shown into the room.
“Mrs. Mayberry,” he said, and he did not smile.
“Mr. Dupree,” she replied, lifting her chin. “I’ve been expecting you for some time. Tea?”