Holborn, London
August 1940
Nancy’s birthday came and went with the flicker of a candle. Not the type that sits on a birthday cake, but one that’s lit to remember those loved, and lost. It sat on her table and she stared into it as night stole the day away.
It was a tradition she’d seen practised widely on her two visits to Ireland, the lighting of candles. They shone out of windows, sat by gravesides, blinked in the wind. Tabby had told her that three burned constantly in their family home, one for each sibling lost in childbirth. And at Ballinn’s village church – which Nancy had visited with Teddy – the walls were alive with a golden glow.
It was the very first day in Nancy’s adult life that she’d woken on the sixth of August without a ball of excitement in her tummy. Had Teddy been there to comfort her, she might have made it through the work day, might have avoided feigning sickness and returning home by lunch. Might have put on a brave face. For his benefit. Because amongst her grief, her sorrow, the hollowness that sat where her heart should be, was worry. How would she tell him? What would she say? Could a few scrawled words on wafer-thin paper really explain that his only sister, his beloved sibling, was gone? Drowned in an accident in Lough Atoon, the midnight water that sat always watching at the base of the house.
No one knew the depth of that inky pool. At times, on a dead day, it looked almost swampy, the reeds at its edge languishing lazily in the heavy air. But when a stiff wind blew from the Atlantic, waves jumped from its surface as though driven from a thousand feet below.
But a few feet, a thousand feet, it didn’t matter.
Charlotte was gone.
She fell from the punt, Hugo had written. A few words to answer none of her questions. Who saw her fall? What was she doing out there? Why didn’t she swim to the lake’s rocky southern shore? Drag herself up the muddy furze-rimmed waterline below the house? Or climb onto the pier on the lake’s western extent? The latter was strong enough, but in a state; leaning at odd angles, heaving towards the water. Charlotte had told her that it and the adjacent boathouse had been built when Charles arrived in Ireland as temporary accommodation while the long-abandoned Blackwater Hall came back to life. ‘He might still be living in it,’ she had said, ‘if Mother hadn’t arrived with all her money.’ A moment after that, she’d jumped up and run along the rickety pier, launching herself from its far end with a whoop and a splash.
Nancy felt heat on her face and pushed the candle away. But when it had no effect, she wiped her cheek. Tears coated her palm. She stood and walked through darkness to the kitchen. Felt around a cupboard until she found Teddy’s glass and a half-empty bottle of cooking brandy. She took them back to the table, set them down. Contemplated them in the flickering light.
Then poured a measure.
This time last year, she’d been at Blackwater Hall. Teddy had borrowed the car for the day and invited Charlotte along for the Grand Tour, a trip around the rugged Iveragh Peninsula. On the way, they’d stopped at Derrynane Beach: walked the windswept dunes, paddled in the sea.
From there, they’d tracked north before pausing in Glenbeigh for a picnic. They ate at the base of Wynn’s Castle, a towering ruin on the village boundary. It had been a perfect place for Charlotte to give a treatise on the evils of aristocracy, which Teddy and Nancy had swallowed with polite nods. ‘If there’s ever been an example of abuse of power, then Lord Headley is it,’ she’d finished with a flourish as they’d driven away.
By the time they’d arrived at the gates of Blackwater Hall, the sun was setting over the mouth of Kenmare Bay. They’d paused, got out of the car. And as she was no longer quietly careful of her stomach, Nancy had hopped onto its bonnet, her soft plimsolls making barely a sound, to take in the view that lay beyond.
‘Thank you both,’ she’d said. For despite the darkness within her, there’d also been light.
Now she took a nip of the brandy and swallowed it, scrunched her eyes against the fire that slid down her throat. She shook her head, pushed back the tears. Looked into the candle.
Charlotte might be gone, but she still burned bright.