The Secret of Eveline House

by Sheila Forsey

  ‘Betsy Kerrigan, watch your tongue,’ Agnes the Cat said. ‘You’ll rue the day you went to work in Eveline. Your mother would turn in her grave to see you stand with that woman. There was a cousin of Kevin Fleming who knew someone who went to see her filthy play. Dirt, pure dirt, making a mockery of the holy priests.’

  ‘You leave my poor mother out of this! She was a good Christian woman, not like you, with your cruelty and your judgements. Go on, go in and pray and remember to go to Confession. The Holy Mother knows the truth of what you lot are up to. Go on. Go!’

  Miss Doheny arrived up with a young girl by her side. Violet noticed that the girl must be barely thirteen or fourteen. She looked awkward and shy and half-terrified. Violet wanted to tell her to run, run as far away from here as possible, before these pious women got their claws into her.

  ‘What on earth is going on here?’ Miss Doheny said. ‘Have you all lost your senses, making a holy show of yourselves outside of the chapel? Mrs Ward, you have created enough distraction for one morning, I suggest you go home. Ladies, Mass is about to begin. Good day to you, Mrs Ward. Betsy, I think you should take Mrs Ward home. She looks like she will be needing some smelling salts soon.’

  Betsy linked Violet’s arm and drew her away.

  ‘Hush now,’ she said as they walked up the street. ‘Ignore those old crones.’

  Violet looked back at the young girl beside Miss Doheny, her sad brown eyes gazing after her silently as if begging for rescue.

  Violet walked on, Betsy holding her arm tightly.

  Violet began to sob heavily. It was all too much. She had gone to the woods for some peace and instead had ended up in a fight outside of the church.

  Back in Eveline’s kitchen, Betsy sat Violet at the table and made some tea and toast for both of them.

  ‘Betsy, I am so sorry to have brought all this trouble into your life. You don’t deserve this.’

  ‘I was only delighted to speak to those women. Who do they think they are? Oh, all holy Joes and not one bit of common decency between them. Did you recognise them from my descriptions?’

  ‘Yes, I definitely recognised Agnes the Cat. I actually thought I was going to throw up. The smell is like something dead.’

  ‘Agnes is pure mad. Her brother Mike Dillinger is mad too. He used to live with Agnes, but he killed one of the cats. Wrung her neck because she got up on the table and ate his dinner. Agnes threw him out. She was afraid of him, I’d say. Anyway, I think he is back living with her now or so Miss Doheny was saying. She banned him from the shop because she said he would frighten the customers. I think she is afraid to ban Agnes. Then there is Nelly Cooke. She is married to that yob of a husband – the Bullock they call him because he is forever in fights. Then you have the two Grey sisters, Kitty and Nora – sure, they are easily led and a bit soft in the head. Molly Walsh is the one with the slitty eyes. She is the biggest gossip in the town. I feel my heart will boil over with anger when I think that one of them may have written the letters. It’s hard to know. But it must be them. It has to be.’

  Violet was crying again.

  Betsy reached across the table and caught her hand. ‘Hush now, it will all be alright. Did you see that poor girl with Miss Doheny? I hope to goodness they don’t get their claws into her. The poor girl has no one and someone thought it was a good idea to send the poor soul to work for Miss Doheny. She would be better anywhere. Even getting the boat to England.’

  ‘She looks so young,’ Violet said.

  ‘I know and very frightened but, look, we have enough to worry about. But I am sure those women have something to do with those letters. I am sure of it, Mrs Ward.’

  ‘We have no proof. Henry was going to the gardaí this morning but . . .’

  ‘Well, let them try and sort it, but they’ll have their work cut out trying to find the culprit. Those women will hide behind the Church. Poor Father Quill has no hope with that lot. They run rings around him. I just hope Mr Ward doesn’t take it on himself to find the culprit.’

  CHAPTER 15

  A week had passed now, and Sylvia remained in hospital under sedation. When she was awake, at times she was back a little to herself and at other times she went into a trance, chanting words in Latin in a voice that sounded nothing like a child’s voice. Violet was terrified to see her like that. Then there were episodes when Sylvia would stare into space for hours. When she came around she would have no recollection of anything and beg for Violet to take her home. But during these trances it was as if she was someone else. She would stare at nothing and smile a strange smile that made the hairs stand on the back of Violet’s neck.

  Then Violet was told that she had another terrible fit where she seemed to have an almighty strength and had pushed the nun who was attending to her wounds so hard that she fell to the floor. The Matron and two other nuns had to hold her down. They had given her extra sedation to calm her. It was as if her eyes turned inside out and blood began to seep from them.

  The priest was fighting with the doctor. The doctor wanted to send her to a hospital in Dublin that would have some experience of the kind of thing that had happened. The doctor had explained yet again to Violet that he had no time for the assumptions of the priest about what was going on with Sylvia. Father Keogh was convinced that some sort of darkness had grabbed hold of her. He wanted to get permission from the bishop to do some sort of cleansing ritual on her but the bishop said he would have to contact the Vatican and let them know and look for approval first. It terrified Violet. But after another episode where Sylvia tried to strike the priest he told Violet that he was certain that she was possessed by a demon. He wanted to try to exorcise it but he would have to gather evidence before the Vatican would give the green light for an official exorcism ritual. A priest that was experienced in such matters would have to come and perform it. The bishop would try to make the arrangements.

  But the doctor told Violet that there were signs that Sylvia was suffering from a disorder called schizophrenia. He also told her of another disorder called multiple personality disorder. However, he also believed that the upset of the letters could have thrown her into an unstable mental state and that all of this could be simply a result of the trauma. A breakdown of her mental state. But he was not a specialist, and he wanted her to see a doctor who was more knowledgeable about such matters. Have her go through some tests. He felt that if it was ignored and the priest kept going with his wild assumptions, she could very well end up in a padded cell in an asylum or worse. He said he also had to be mindful of his staff. They did not have the facilities within the hospital to restrain her if the fits got worse. All they could do was sedate her.

  Violet did not know what to believe and was terrified of either of them being right. She knew that Henry had no belief in what the priest was saying, and he had little confidence in the doctor either. He had told Violet that he wanted to take Sylvia home to Eveline. But the doctor had assured them that the child needed to remain in hospital until they had some signs of stability. The wounds were beginning to heal, but Sylvia was barely eating and, until they knew what the fits were caused by, it seemed far too dangerous to move her. Sedation seemed the only answer.

  ‘They will have her completely mad yet!’ Henry had cried to Violet in pure frustration.

  In the darkest hours Violet wept alone, unheard. She wept for the estrangement she felt towards her own family. The family that had given her life and now wanted no more to do with her. She wept for her mother who had denied her. She knew her father would have no forgiveness in him – he was a hard man and had firmly shut the door on her. She was dead to him. Her mother would never go against him – it was this she wept for the most. How could she allow fear to rule her and allow her to turn her back on her child? She wrote again, but she vowed that if she got no reply she would never write another letter. She begged her mother to come to her. She told her of their troubles and what had happened to Sylvia. If there was some sort of terrible curse on her daughter
, then her mother just might know what to do. She told her it would be the last letter. If she did not come to her in her hour of need, she would never hear from her again. She still had not posted it. It was a final letter. She could not beg anymore.

  If she posted it, it would be delivered by Luke Wilkinson the postman. He would see that the letter was not from England but would recognise the writing of their wayward daughter.

  She wept for the heather-covered hills of her village. She wept for the sheer beauty of a sunrise with the mist rising over Lough Deeravaragh, she wept for the brooks as clear as crystal and the sweetest blackberries in Westmeath. She wept for Henry as she heard him pace the floor and wept at that terrible void that seemed to have opened up between them. How she wanted to feel his arms around her and have him tell her that it would all be alright! She was shocked at the anger that had risen up inside him. When he was not weeping for Sylvia, he was going around like a madman, wondering who was to blame. She hated to admit it but when he was like that he frightened her. She had spoken to Betsy about it. They were afraid to tell the gardaí their suspicions about the women at the church. Goodness knows what Henry would do if he found they had written the letters.

  If only Sylvia would improve enough to go to London. Move away from here and let the gardaí work it all out then.

  She wept for her little girl most of all. With her hair as soft as spun silk and eyes like pools of pale-blue water and a rosebud mouth that could be on one of her dolls. She wept for the raw scars still on her little body. The big black bruises that had appeared and now were a dirty faded yellow. It was hard not to blame herself. Even when reason tried to convince her that it was not her fault, the dark thoughts of blame became overpowering.

  She felt suffocated in the bedroom as if the air was thick. It was thick with guilt and she needed to escape it. The room was cold as she dressed and washed. She would have some tea with Betsy later, before she went to the hospital but, for now, she just wanted to get out into the woods. Her mind could think more clearly there.

  She put the letter in a drawer hidden under her underclothes. She would post it later. Wrapping herself up as warmly as she could she lifted the latch of the back door and slipped outside.

  The street was quiet. As she passed Miss Doheny’s she looked up and saw the curtains twitch. Nothing escaped Miss Doheny’s eyes. Violet wondered did she ever sleep – she was forever on guard. She wrapped her coat more tightly about her and walked swiftly on.

  She began to plan. As soon as Sylvia was well enough, she would book a passage and return to London. She could rent somewhere to live. But deep down she knew it was not as simple as that. Henry could refuse to let Sylvia go.

  She turned into the woods, the early-morning frost like jewels on the decayed leaves. She walked on, taking paths that were new to her, hearing the crackling of the dead twigs and the early-morning chatter of wrens and goldfinches searching for big fat worms, made harder by the frosted ground. It looked so untouched, as if mankind had not found it yet.

  Eventually there was a clearing. She could see the old graveyard, forgotten now with sunken graves and broken stone walls. Suaimhneas Graveyard. Some early snowdrops were peeping out between the cracks. There was a stone wall surrounding it and within the graveyard a small section walled off with tombs inside. She looked at the dates. One was an Inspector General who had died in 1832. It read that he was respected and beloved by his family. Another was dated 1848. It was difficult to read. Sacred to the memory of three daughters. Another was dated 1838 and interred was Mary Jane who died in 1844 aged twenty-six. Outside of this small area were other gravestone slabs with the writing faded. She tried to make it out. Some seemed to date back to the late 1700’s. There was a small wooden sign saying Suaimhneas Graveyard. What was it Suaimhneas meant? Oh, yes . . . peace.

  There was an area with no gravestones. She had heard of it from Father Quill. It was a mass grave from the time of the famine. He had been saddened to see it and hoped that at some stage they could put up a proper memorial. It was a graveyard of typhus and hunger. Broken dreams and stolen lives, a hundred years buried. Names never recorded. There was a stillness emanating from it. A boneyard of the famine, the only remnant of their lives to show they ever existed.

  A few ravens flew up that were nesting in a yew tree, startling her.

  It began to rain and, with no raincoat, she took shelter under the trees. It was good to think, have time to think. She had to protect Sylvia and if that meant leaving Henry and going back to London alone, then that is what she would do. She would not do as her mother had and live in fear of going against her husband. Henry had changed since coming back to Ireland. In London she had never imagined that she would ever fear him but now, when that black anger took him over, it was as if she hardly recognised her loving and charismatic husband.

  As soon as the rain eased, she began to make her way back. The sky was full of inky swollen clouds.

  It had grown darker – the early-morning light had dimmed with the impending rain. She missed the turn back and found herself in another part of the wood near a brook that she had never visited before. She kept walking and ended up back at the brook again. She had walked around in a circle. She walked on again and this time she saw the tree that she had passed earlier – it was a strange tree half dead and half alive with a wren’s nest in the middle of it. Then she saw a path that she was familiar with. There was another clearing at the end of that path. Relieved, she knew that she would soon be back on the path that led to the graveyard. She could start again from there.

  It was then she thought she heard something . . . it was just a whisper, but it was a human whisper not a woodland animal. A whisper and the crackle of twigs breaking. She shouted out hello. If it was someone walking, they would make themselves known. But there was only silence. She began to walk again and then she could hear the whisper again. A fear gripped her. No one knew she was here. Maybe it was a hunter looking for rabbits or deer. She walked on again and then she began to run, her heart beginning to beat fast. She had missed the path again. They all looked the same. She could hear someone else breathe as if out of breath and then another whisper, then more twigs breaking . . .

  She shouted out again but no sound came back. An image of Sylvia flashed in front of her – she had to get back. Sylvia had said they were in danger. The whisper was getting louder.

  ‘Who is it? Who is there?’ But there was no answer, just the haunting cry of a corncrake to answer her.

  There was someone following her, she was sure of it.

  CHAPTER 16

  Betsy arrived, hung up her coat and went into the kitchen. She would get the fire going and then make some fresh bread. She was determined to make something today that might appeal to Mrs Ward. Ever since that first letter she was as bad as Sylvia for barely eating. She would make some sausage rolls with some light pastry and some milk jelly.

  She had needed some supplies and had braved it and gone into Miss Doheny who had put her nose up in the air after the row outside the church yesterday. Betsy asked briskly for the supplies that she wanted, and Miss Doheny almost fired them at her. There was no stopping to examine each item and tell Betsy of its fine quality as she usually did. The shopkeeper didn’t ask after the welfare of the Wards, but Betsy knew she was bursting to know. Eventually Miss Doheny could hold it no longer.

  ‘It will be the bishop next will have to visit with all these goings-on. There is a cloud over Draheen since they first set foot in Eveline House. How is the girl?’

  ‘She is stable and if there is any news of the bishop visiting, I am sure you will be informed, but I have no reason to believe he will.’

  ‘The chaplain Father Keogh said he had never seen the likes of it. Nora Quinn who works in the kitchen of the hospital said that she heard the bedroom of the girl was shocking. Indeed, strange happenings are occurring up in the hospital too. Nora Quinn said that the child had a fit up there and the poor nuns and Father Keogh nearly died
with the fright of it. They had never seen anything like it. Nora Quinn said there was talk that it could be something dark, something terrible had got hold of the girl. I am telling you the day the Wards set foot in Eveline a darkness came with them and now the poor child has it.’

  ‘I have never heard such nonsense. Mr and Mrs Ward are good kind people and their child is unwell and all this town has done is name-call and spread evil gossip.’

  ‘What about her play that brought shame to the Catholic Church? She brought this evil on herself, that woman.’

  ‘I know Mrs Ward and she is one of the kindest souls I have ever met. Her writing is nothing to do with me. You would not want to believe idle gossip or spread it, may I add. The child is very sick – it could be a sickness we know little about.’

  ‘Well, that is far from what I heard. The fear of God was put into the priest when he saw her, that is what I heard from a very reliable source.’

  ‘Aren’t you blessed with your sources, Miss Doheny? I am sure the Draheen Post could do with you if you ever tire of the grocery trade. For your information the girl simply took ill, possibly some strain of food she may have eaten. If I were you, I would take care that your eggs and produce are the freshest as I am sure Mr Ward will want to find out the cause of her illness.’ With that Betsy gathered up the flour, eggs, sugar, tea and packet of jelly and made for the door. ‘I will ask you to put that on the bill for Eveline and Mr Ward will be up soon to sort it out.’ She bid good day to Miss Doheny who looked like she would simply explode at any minute with that last accusation.

  Betsy cycled as fast as she could, not daring to stop in case anyone else decided to pry for information. So, the whole town was talking about the poor little mite and saying terrible things about her. Betsy knew it was something terrible herself, but she couldn’t even begin to believe that it was some sort of evil spirit that had caught hold of her.