Dublin
September 2019
Ellie shivered. She walked in shadow along Duke Street feeling hopelessly confused and a little woozy from the glass of wine she’d dumped on her empty stomach. Sheltering in a doorway from the cold rain, she pulled out her phone to call Jeremy: no answer. Already there were three missed calls from Dylan, the last a minute ago. She sighed, flicked past them. Underneath his name was a record of that morning’s call with Milo. She opened her messages. Sure enough, he’d sent a reminder:
Harriet would love to meet you, she’ll be at the Pickled Oyster until 2 p.m. Xm
Ellie squinted at the last word. Was that a kiss? A mistake? She looked at her watch, then turned on her heel towards St Stephen’s Green.
If the Mulberry Garden was an expensive restaurant, the Pickled Oyster took fine dining to a whole new level. Reservations were near-impossible to come by and the restaurant featured the who’s who of Dublin high society. Even Dylan’s mother was unlikely to have eaten there, and Ellie stepped through its doors with the trepidation of one entering a world in which they surely didn’t belong. She ascended the stairs to a small formal foyer. Fresh-baked bread, and perhaps something a little heartier, infused the air and from the room beyond came the sounds of dining: conversation, cutlery on crockery, a shower of laughter. A lectern sat next to the closed double doors that led from the foyer, and behind it stood a short, neat man in full formal attire.
But if Ellie expected him to speak with a plum in his mouth, she was soon put right.
‘Better in here than out there, sure ’tis.’ He stepped forward to take her coat and umbrella, not giving a second glance to the mutilated state of the latter. ‘A fine day for fine dining.’
Ellie smiled. He was a Kerryman, o’course. And the effect of his easy manner against the formality of his suit was disarming and comforting and altogether pleasant.
‘The forecast was . . . better.’ She handed him her soggy items apologetically.
He disappeared through a door to his left – ‘It’ll be dry as a bone when you’re done’– then stepped back behind the lectern and glanced down at a list. His body language was gently asking, Do you have a reservation? but his mouth was fixed in a warm smile.
‘We’ve not seen you before, Miss . . .?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Fitzgerald. Ellie Fitzgerald.’
‘Are you with the Newman party?’
She felt very out of place. ‘No, no. I’m here to see Harriet Rath . . . Harriet, erm . . .’ She realised, suddenly mortified, that she had no idea if Harriet used the name Rathmore or something else entirely.
‘Hattie Walker?’ His demeanour changed, ever so perceptibly, from friendly and accommodating to very friendly and accommodating.
‘Yes. Her nephew told her I was coming . . .’
The man beamed. ‘Milo?’ He appraised her closely and smiled a little wider. ‘A fine fellow.’
Ellie shifted her weight. ‘We only met quite recently. Back in Ballinn.’
‘North Kerry meself. But I love the south altogether.’ He said this as though he were talking about another country. He paused, then came to his decision. ‘This way.’
She followed him into a dining room rich with wood panelling and the most ornate ceiling she’d ever seen. Booths ran along the walls. They were upholstered with oxblood leather and full of people; the lunchtime sitting was in full swing.
The Kerryman gave her a conspiratorial wink before leaving her alone to shuffle along the bench at the end table. From her position it was almost impossible to see the faces of the other diners – the wall of the booth obscured her view. A large fireplace dominated the far wall; flames licked gently at a newly placed log.
‘Ellie?’
A woman stood at the end of the table. She was striking: rich red hair that hung past her shoulders – a dash of grey at the roots – and a wholly genuine smile. Her age sat well on her. She wore very little make-up, and the green-rimmed glasses framing her face were two tones off the teal shirt that hung loosely from her slim shoulders.
‘Harriet?’
‘Hattie, please,’ she said. ‘Only my nephew and my wife refer to me as Harriet. I wish they wouldn’t.’ She laughed deeply and sat down to face Ellie across the booth.
She was dressed as neither waiter nor chef. Ellie ventured, ‘This must be a great place to work.’
‘Thank you. It’s the fourth restaurant I’ve tried my hand at.’ Ellie tried to hide her surprise. ‘The first three were without Vikki. Disaster.’ A speck on the white tablecloth caught Hattie’s attention; she wiped it away. ‘Always good to have a woman behind the woman.’ She had a Dubliner’s accent with notes of English.
Ellie said, ‘I’ve heard this one’s far from a disaster.’
‘A different concept for me. Vikki’s idea. A set menu, seasonal ingredients. Four courses. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere.’
‘I don’t suppose many do. Go elsewhere?’
‘No one yet.’ A plate of food passed them, leaving a waft of cumin in its wake.
‘I can come back later, after lunch?’ As soon as she’d said the words, Ellie regretted them. The thought of leaving this place and stepping back out into the rain was unappealing to say the least.
‘No, no.’ Hattie waved a hand. ‘But I’ve a hankering for oysters. Do you like them?’
‘I’ve rarely had the opportunity,’ Ellie admitted. She leaned back in the booth, relaxed. A tiny bit of the morning’s tension left her. Her arm brushed the burgundy box that poked from her handbag; she pushed it out of sight.
Hattie caught the eye of a waiter, a man with mahogany skin and a broad smile. ‘Madam?’ His formality was a contrast to the Kerryman who had greeted Ellie in the foyer only moments earlier. A red carnation adorned his top pocket.
‘Two Bloody Marys, Armand. And a dozen oysters, please.’
‘Yes, madam.’ He glided to the end of the room and pushed through a silent swinging door to the left of the fireplace.
‘My best waiter. French. Fantastic. That man never forgets a face. All our regulars request him when they book.’ Hattie clasped her hands and leaned forward. ‘So, Ellie, Milo tells me you’re unravelling a Rathmore family secret?’
It was said in a gentle way, but Ellie briefly saw this meeting from the other woman’s point of view: a stranger delving into a private history, an outsider trying to get in. ‘Yes.’ She took out the letter, placed it on the table.
The older woman slid her thick-rimmed glasses down her nose. ‘Poor Aunt Charlotte,’ she said, reading. ‘Worshipped by my parents, barely talked of by my grandparents. I never met her, of course – she died before I was born – but she was a constant presence at Blackwater Hall.’
‘The date on the letter . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Hattie. ‘How mysterious.’
Armand returned balancing a tray in defiance of gravity. He quickly emptied it: a plate of glistening oysters, Tabasco, lemon. As he set down two Bloody Marys, he said, ‘I haven’t had the pleasure.’
Hattie caught Ellie’s eye.
‘Oh, me?’ She touched her chest and wondered if she was blushing. ‘Eleanor Fitzgerald.’
‘Enchanté, Eleanor Fitzgerald,’ he said, as though verifying her name’s credentials. ‘Je suis Armand.’ He smiled warmly as he left.
Hattie tapped her temple. ‘See? He’s got you now.’ She took a pinch of pepper and added it to her glass, then raised it to meet Ellie’s. Both women took a sip. It was a great combination, the salty, spicy sweetness of it.
‘There’s a certain romance to the letter. But I don’t see how it matters now. Charlotte’s been gone eighty years.’
Ellie leaned forward, the vodka already a fire in her belly. ‘Hattie, she could well be alive.’ It was the first time she’d spoken the thought out loud, and the potential thrilled her.
But Hattie just raised an eyebrow, unmoved. ‘She’d be, what, a hundred years old?’ She washed down an oyster with a sip of her drink. Ellie thought back to Tabby Ryan’s birthday party; one hundred years old didn’t seem such a stretch. ‘I find, Ellie, that reality can turn out to be rather dull when we look beneath the surface. My family are a funny bunch, but dull nonetheless. If it interests you, however, I’m happy to help.’
‘Thank you.’ Ellie eyed the oysters suspiciously.
‘I can’t imagine what I’ve got to add. But ask away.’
Ellie realised she was wholly unprepared for this. It was all so last-minute that meeting Charlotte’s niece felt like an achievement in itself rather than the starting point. She reached for a shell. ‘Can I ask you about a night that Albert remembers from his childhood?’ She slid the oyster into her mouth. It tasted of the ocean, reminded her that she had been on the edge of the Atlantic only hours before.
‘Albert is six years older than me, but I can try.’
Only six? The woman sitting in front of her looked two decades younger than her brother.
‘He told me,’ Ellie embellished, ‘of an incident at Blackwater Hall – at dinner – when your mother became very upset because your grandfather suggested that Charlotte had taken her own life. Do you remember that?’
Hattie frowned, a faraway look in her eye. Several waiters passed, expertly balancing plates, and Ellie’s stomach grumbled. She reached, with an apologetic look, for another oyster.
Beckoning a waitress, Hattie said to Ellie: ‘Venison or pigeon?’
Ellie paused, looked embarrassed.
Hattie smoothed over her awkwardness effortlessly. ‘We’ll have two of the venison. Something already plated, it’s urgent.’ She turned back to Ellie with a wink. Then, ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember much about my time at Blackwater Hall.’
Ellie frowned. ‘How old were you when you moved there?’
‘Eleven.’ She sipped her drink. ‘But I barely spent any time in Kerry before I was sent to boarding school in Dublin.’
‘That must have been hard. I’m sorry.’
‘Please, don’t be. It was fantastic. Life-changing. Honestly? Before boarding school, I’d never had a friend.’ She paused, then added: ‘Not really.’
‘What about before you lived in Ireland?’
Hattie laughed, a bitter scoff. ‘I still have nightmares about primary school. Children can be so cruel. And yet my tormentors have probably turned into perfectly likeable people with children and grandchildren of their own.’
Ellie thought of Dylan. ‘Do you think someone can change that much?’
‘I can guarantee you that people are capable of astounding change. Both good and bad.’ Hattie lifted her elbows and leaned back from the table as the waitress brought their plates. ‘I must say it is wonderful to enjoy a few dishes in my own restaurant.’
Ellie looked at the Michelin-starred food art before her. ‘I don’t mean to pry, but . . . what is the price of the lunch menu?’
‘A lot.’ Hattie picked up her fork and speared a piece of venison. ‘But only a portion of our revenue comes from the main restaurant. Our private rooms are the cash cow.’ She indicated to where a waiter carrying champagne in a cooler was disappearing through a door to the right of the fireplace. ‘We get all sorts: the great and the good. The rich and famous. Even a few politicians.’ She took the celery from her Bloody Mary, placed it on her plate. ‘They pay well for it.’
Returning to the topic of Blackwater Hall, Ellie said, ‘Did you not spend your summers at home?’
‘I only stayed at Blackwater Hall for a few months after we moved there. That place was never my home. No.’ Hattie paused. ‘There have been times when I’ve felt at home. In Ambleside, for example, before we moved to Ireland. Perhaps also with my first husband, though that didn’t end well.’ She sipped her drink. ‘No, after Ambleside, the first real home I had – the type of home where you shut the door and inside is better than outside – was with Milo. When he came to live with me.’ She took off her glasses, laid them on the table. ‘He was only five years old and he completed me.’
‘So young?’
‘His mother had just died – breast cancer. She was young, much younger than Albert. They met here in Dublin. He’d come up for one of his extremely rare visits; he returned with a wife.’ Hattie smiled. ‘I’m exaggerating, of course. But it was a whirlwind romance. Majella was beautiful. She looked a great deal like a girl my brother had left behind in Ambleside.’ She sipped her drink. ‘When she died, I brought Milo to Dublin for the summer. To look after him. Give him somewhere . . . happier to be.’ Ellie didn’t know what to say. She’d thought of Milo as someone in the present, ignoring the fact that he had a past. ‘My mother was already well into her seventies by then, and my father had passed away three years before. I could hardly leave him alone with Albert. It was only supposed to be for that first summer, then he’d return, start school in the village. Perhaps in your class?’
Ellie hadn’t considered this. ‘Yes, I suppose so . . .’
‘Well, we hit it off, Milo and I.’ She looked to the side, something – a cherished memory – making her smile. ‘So he stayed on.’
A lump formed in Ellie’s throat. ‘That was kind.’ She felt ignorant, ashamed that she’d asked Milo nothing about himself. That she’d blundered into his surgery demanding answers that he might not want to give.
‘It wasn’t all selfless. No, it was good for me too. We’re peas in a pod,’ she added, talking almost to herself. ‘We visited Blackwater Hall every few months but Albert preferred us to stay away.’
Ellie put down her drink. Because of the curse. She tested Hattie. ‘But . . . why?’
‘Albert wanted Milo to have opportunities that weren’t available in Kerry.’ Even if Ellie hadn’t known the truth, she would have recognised the lie: the quick flick of the eyes, the refolding of the napkin. Hattie continued: ‘As you know, Albert isn’t well and we’d like him to move into a home. On his less lucid days, he’s suspicious of everyone, even me. And he doesn’t want to leave the house empty, because then it would need to be filled.’ She gave a shrug of nonchalance. ‘But, of course, he’d never want it.’
Ellie frowned. ‘Who’d never want it?’
Hattie looked over her drink, surprised. ‘Milo.’
‘Oh?’ was all Ellie could think to say, but of course it was obvious. Milo was Albert’s only child.
‘He has no interest. The boy’s got something of a dislike for the aristocracy. A rebel at heart.’
‘He won’t claim the title?’
Hattie shook her head. ‘He doesn’t care for it. But that doesn’t make any difference.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not possible to disclaim an Irish title. Heirs male of the body lawfully begotten. Pure blood and all that. If Milo doesn’t want it, the title goes dormant, waiting for his son.’
‘And if he doesn’t have a son?’
‘Then the title will be no more. Plenty of females amongst the distant cousins, but no eligible males.’ She shrugged. ‘Milo’d love nothing better than to dissolve the whole sorry thing.’
‘And the house?’
‘The title and house were entailed until the seventies. Mama spent a quarter of her life in a legal battle to split the estate from the peerage. She won. The house stands alone.’
‘It’s a . . . beautiful setting.’
Hattie laughed. ‘Very diplomatic. It’s a fixer-upper. Or, as my wife would say, a money pit.’
Ellie smiled, shook her head. How the other half lived.
Hattie raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re just his type, you know?’
Ellie drained the last of her Bloody Mary with a cough; she wondered if the colour of the liquid matched the blush growing on her cheeks. Quickly she said, ‘Can I ask . . . or perhaps it’s a bit personal . . .’ Just like your last comment.
‘Ask away.’
‘Why would the house hold such bad memories for you?’
Hattie put down her fork, laid it neatly across her empty plate. ‘Nothing in particular,’ she said, in a way that made Ellie feel that it was something very much in particular.
Resigned, Hattie leaned forward on her elbows, her chin rested on clasped hands. ‘Before we moved to Ireland in 1958, only months after Uncle Hugo died – you probably know the circumstances? – we had a very happy household. My mother was warmth and love. I adored her then.’ The last word hung between them. ‘But moving to Blackwater Hall transformed her. It was as though she was two different people. Before Blackwater, and after.’
‘Do you know why?
Hattie’s answer was a beat too quick. ‘No.’
Sensing she was about to lose the conversation, Ellie changed tack. ‘You said I would know the circumstance of Hugo’s death. How did he die?’
‘God,’ said Hattie, ‘I thought anyone in the village could tell you that. It was supposed to be kept within the family, of course, but you know Kerry . . .’ It wasn’t a question.
‘I do.’
‘Hugo was damaged from the war. So many were. I remember knowing someone who . . .’ She paused for a moment, gone somewhere into the past. Then, as quickly as she’d left, she was back. ‘Hugo was at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, Papa believed that he never got over that. Well, how could you? Still, apparently he wasn’t a pleasant man.’ She smiled sadly. ‘It was believed that Charlotte committed suicide because of an arranged marriage, and it was Hugo who arranged it. In later years, I wondered if he blamed himself for her death.’
‘But what happened to him?’
‘He took his own life. Like Charlotte.’ At this last, Ellie frowned, and Hattie added: ‘So it was assumed.’
Ellie sipped her drink, added a dash of Tabasco. ‘Your mother; she was British?’
‘Yes. If you’d met her in her later years, you’d say she was the quintessential stiff upper lip. But before we moved to Ireland she was . . . full of life. Quite a remarkable rise. From orphan to Lady Rathmore. She and Papa met through their love of writing. They both worked at a paper in Ambleside before we left. I think she always harboured a desire to write fiction, but it wasn’t to be.’
Ellie couldn’t imagine swapping journalism for fiction, fact for fantasy. Even now, the two were becoming muddled in her head. She remembered the photo of Nancy and Charlotte at the garden party, how she’d decided they were leaning together conspiratorially. ‘She and Charlotte got along well?’
Hattie shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say. Charlotte wasn’t a topic that came up much. She was just always . . . there.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘She was everywhere on that estate and nowhere. There was no grave to mourn at – I remember my father bemoaning that. My grandmother was a very harsh woman, uncaring, and yet even she wouldn’t let us play down near the lough where Charlotte drowned herself.’ She corrected herself: ‘Where they thought she drowned herself. She was beautiful, Charlotte – at least in the few photos I saw – she and my mother both. They must have made quite a pair when my parents visited Blackwater Hall in the thirties.’
‘And did Charlotte ever visit your parents in Ambleside, do you think?’ If Charlotte had been abroad previously, it would have given her confidence to travel in 1940.
Hattie frowned. ‘I suppose there’s a possibility she visited them in London.’
‘Your parents lived in London?’
A clock chimed somewhere. Two thirty. ‘Before the war. And during. Parker Street, I think.’
Ellie thought back to the announcement she’d found from 1936 in the Kerry News. ‘Holborn?’
Hattie was surprised. ‘Yes. I understand they saved for the deposit together. My mother was very proud of the fact that Rathmore money hadn’t got them on the ladder. They did get some money a few years after they married – not much, but it would have paid off the flat – but mostly they made their own way before Papa inherited. I gather that my grandparents didn’t see hacking as a very suitable profession. They thought my mother had encouraged my father, that meeting her had spelled the end of their ambitions for his political future. They didn’t get along, her and my grandparents. They thought she was trouble.’ Her forehead crinkled. A memory conjured. ‘In fact, that was her nickname. Trouble. Papa often used it. Silly, really. But sweet.’
Ellie smiled.
‘I, however, think it’s very noble,’ continued Hattie.
‘The nickname?’
Hattie laughed. ‘No, hacking. I think it’s a fine profession.’ She paused. ‘That’s what’s given you the nose for this mystery, surely?’
Ellie considered. ‘Yes.’ And no. ‘It interests me.’ She said it apologetically, as though seeking permission. ‘And at the moment, I’m at a bit of a loss.’
‘Ah . . .’ said Hattie. ‘The little situation with the councillor.’
‘I see you’ve done your homework.’
‘He’s a client of ours.’
Ellie shrank back into the booth.
‘Ha, he’s not here today. Good God, I couldn’t have let you in otherwise.’ It was almost a joke, but not quite. ‘I did enjoy your article, though.’
‘You read it?’
‘Oh yes. The whiff of scandal is always interesting.’ Hattie looked at her watch. ‘Well, Ellie, I must go.’ She paused. ‘But I would be happy to chat again.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Ellie, and meant it.
Hattie stood. ‘Give my love to my nephew when you see him.’
‘Oh, I hadn’t planned . . . I mean . . . we hadn’t made plans . . .’
Giving her a knowing smile, Hattie turned to go, leaving a small white card on the tablecloth. Ellie picked it up. Heavy paper, textured, embossed in black. Just the name, Hattie Walker, and a number. No title, no company. It was the card of someone who was known by everyone. She slipped it into the back of her notebook, side by side with Charlotte.