Peggy dropped the whole bag of flour on the floor and Agnes stared at her.
And Peggy knew that Agnes realised that she knew something. She didn’t sleep that night.
A week later, on Sunday, Miss Doheny went to see her sister in Dublin. Peggy visited the church. She went in and prayed and prayed for some strength. She knew she should tell somebody what had happened. She felt weak. She had barely eaten since it had happened. She slowly dragged herself from the church to go back to the house. But something compelled her to turn and walk towards the woods. She couldn’t go in – the very thought of the woods terrified her. But she wanted to get closer to where poor Mrs Ward’s soul had left her body. She wanted to pray for her there and maybe work up the courage to go to the Garda Station.
Then someone grabbed her from behind.
‘So, what do you think you know?’
Agnes the Cat was in front of her. Someone had grabbed her arms behind her back and held them so tight it felt like they would break. Without seeing him she knew. She knew that Mike Dillinger was her captor
He dragged her into the woods. She would meet the same fate as Violet Ward. She tried to scream but her throat was frozen with terror and no sound came out. She looked to the sky. Then she could see only the tops of the trees over her head. She felt something hit her back and then her head. She fell. She was hit again, this time in the stomach and then again on the head. Blows from a heavy stick rained down on her. She felt the kick of a boot to her face.
‘You will die here, Peggy McCormick, and nobody will even care,’ Agnes the Cat snarled.
‘Whist, there is someone coming!’ Mike Dillinger hissed.
He knelt down, putting his mouth close to her ear.
‘Say a single word about us and I will wring your neck like a chicken’s. Do you hear?’
Then he was gone.
She felt a final blow to the head. Then there was only darkness.
She did not know how long she was there. He eyes flickered opened. It was blurry but she could see the sky. She just looked at the sky and the clouds moving across leaving patches of blue.
She did not scream. She knew one thing. If she were to survive, she could never speak of what happened in Blythe Wood.
CHAPTER 36
Peggy 2019
She had known this day would come. She could feel it. It was as if that day in Blythe Wood began the end of her own life. Her youth, her innocent belief in what was good vanished, and she knew that pure evil existed within the world that she lived in. Her life had begun and ended for her that day. It was over but, unlike Violet Ward, she must still exist. Exist in this world of darkness and light where the light shifted and unleashed its anger into a terrible darkness.
She was only a child of fourteen but as she stumbled from Blythe Wood that morning, she knew that hour would haunt her for the rest of her time on this earth. The twigs had crackled under her feet, the twigs breaking. Every break reminding her of the dead woman that she could not speak of. Then, as she reached the church the day began to brighten. It was like a lie. Why would the clouds move now and the sun come out? The world was full of darkness. She had borne witness to it.
She had turned into the church, her only sanctuary, and collapsed in front of the little shrine to Saint Therese, the light of candles glimmering and blurring before her eyes.
‘Peggy! Peggy! Do you hear me?’ A man’s voice. A gentle voice. ‘Peggy! Who has done this to you?’
She opened her eyes and saw Father Quill before losing consciousness.
In the convent where she had gone after her beating, she had found some solace. She prayed to the cold statues – they never answered her, but she believed that they heard her. Without the confines of the church in the convent she would have lost her mind. Now she had someone to listen to her. The statues looked down on her as she prayed. She prayed to Saint Therese most of all. To protect her and to protect the little girl now motherless and on the run and, if she was to believe the whispers and the women, a child who might be possessed by the Devil.
Some said that the child could die. The evil would consume her. But one kindly nun told her this was codswallop and totally untrue.
The winter of 1950 robbed so many of so much. All because of the wickedness of these women and the two men involved. But as the years passed Peggy wondered if they suffered too?
The Grey sisters didn’t survive for long. They hardly left their house again. They all but stopped eating and soon after Nora died. Her sister was not long after her.
Nellie Cooke carried on as did Molly Walsh and the Bullock.
Mike Dillinger fell down the stairs drunk and broke his neck. Soon after Agnes the Cat was not seen for weeks. No one ever dared to go to her house. Eventually Molly Walsh went up with Father Quill. They knocked but there was no answer. But the door was not bolted. Molly Walsh reckoned she’d been dead a few weeks. The stench made Father Quill throw up. Agnes was dead in the bed. The cats had turned on her body in the end.
Peggy wondered if any of them ever thought of Mrs Ward. Her body’s whereabouts were only known to the Bullock and Mike Dillinger. Did anyone secretly come and leave flowers for her at the place that she died? Did they pray for her? Did they feel remorse? Did they sleep in their warm beds, knowing that they had played a hand in this terrible deed?
She had played a hand in it by her silence.
She had been a coward and she had lived a lifetime with it. The child with the blonde curls, never knowing where her mother was. If she had died or simply left.
At least she knew where her mother went. She went mad and into a madhouse. There was no comfort in that but at least she never had to question if she had just left her. It was her poor mind that had left her. But that day in Blythe Woods had haunted her for her lifetime. How often she had wondered where the child was and the husband and Betsy? How she would have loved to have told them!
She remembered how kind Father Quill was and how kind the nuns were in the hospital. She had never returned to Miss Doheny’s. The nuns in the convent in Draheen had taken her in.
Miss Doheny had arrived at the convent to see her. It was then she had told her. She was never quite sure if she believed her or not.
‘Don’t say such a terrible thing,’ Miss Doheny had said.
But Peggy had seen a terrible fear cross her face. Maybe she did believe her but was fearful too of being implicated in any way.
But Miss Doheny had warned her not to say any more. No one would believe her, she said, and they would possibly lock her up. Sure, wasn’t her mother mad and in a madhouse.
She stayed with the nuns in their convent. But talked little. She had literally lost the ability to talk. Slowly they had helped her, and she began to speak again.
She never ventured out of the convent. She thought she would become a nun and stay there. It was peaceful there. She loved the prayers – it was the one time her mind felt free. Or when the nuns sang and it reminded her of an ancient time, a time when she was not even born. She told them she wanted to stay. She would stay and pray and work with them. She forgot about America and New York. She was safe here. The nuns would keep her safe.
But Mother Superior told her that fear was not a reason to stay. She cried when they told her she was leaving. One of the nuns gave her a statue of Saint Therese. Another gave her one of Saint Martin.
One day shortly before she left the convent, she was in the nun’s office dusting and she found a cutting from the paper. There was a picture of her. It said she was mad, and someone had beaten her up. It said that her poor mother was in a madhouse. It said she was possibly a simpleton. It said she had no family. It was just a small piece. Not worth a big mention.
Father Quill got her a job in Kerry to help a housekeeper in a parish near Kenmare. Mrs Canaan was a kindly lady and had looked after her. She was kinder to her than anyone. She loved the fresh smell of the water in Kerry, the mountains and the sea, but she knew that no matter how beautiful the day could be
with lemons and oranges in the sky, there was a darkness that could come from the shadows.
Then she met her husband and he was a good man and he brought her to Dunmore East. She was almost thirty and the years had somehow passed. She left Kerry for a little fishing village that at times was too beautiful and pretty. Too hard to watch the perfect sunrise, knowing how imperfect her world was. But she finally felt she had some peace though she was still haunted by what had happened. It was years before she had her children. First came John to be called Jack and then came Emily. There was a nun in the convent, and she was called Sister Emily. She had the sweetest singing voice that Peggy had ever heard. They said she was from France. Sister Emily told her of a country that sounded like a piece of heaven, where the lavender grew and made the air smell so beautiful. Sister Emily sounded like an angel when she sang. Sometimes in the evenings she would bring Peggy in to clean the convent church and then she would sing beautiful French hymns that made Peggy think she was in heaven.
When her husband died, leaving her with two young children to rear, she felt she was being punished for not being brave and telling the truth, but the years passed and she never could tell. She tried to do her best. Jack was a bonny child with looks as good as a film star but then he went down that dark road. Again, she felt she was being punished. When Emily got pregnant, she wished she was closer to her. She wished she had been there for her. But there was no use in crying now. But Sebastian had been the light she had never seen coming. She feared terribly when he said he was going away. She wanted to keep him safe. She could not be punished any more.
She had lived a life of fear and guilt and now the time had come.
Now she knew she would have to tell the truth. Somehow the past had found her and dragged her back to Draheen and Blythe Wood. She had gone there over thirty years ago and left some flowers at the tomb in the graveyard. She begged Violet Ward for forgiveness and wept for all that was lost. She begged her to forgive her for leaving her there alone and for not telling anyone that she knew. She wept as Emily and Jack played in the woods, unaware of her secret.
The nurse came in to take her temperature.
‘How are you today, Peggy? Is there anything that you need?’
‘Actually, could you do something for me?’ There were tears rolling down her face.
‘I certainly will if I can. Peggy, are you alright?’
‘I need you to call my daughter and my son and a garda. I have some information on a missing person, and I need to tell them now. It cannot wait any longer.’
CHAPTER 37
Peggy had told them all she knew. Emily had cried hard through most of the sad tale of her poor mother’s life. If only she had known.
‘Oh, Mam, why did you not confide in us? I cannot believe you’ve been carrying this all your life,’ Emily cried.
‘I couldn’t, Emily.’
‘But if I had never seen that advertisement all this would still remain untold,’ Emily sobbed.
‘It was meant to be that you would find the advertisement and buy the house,’ Peggy said sadly.
Two gardaí had arrived. A young man and a young woman. They wrote everything down.
‘What will happen now?’ Emily asked them.
‘Well, we will report back to Draheen Station with this statement that your mother made,’ the woman garda replied kindly. ‘She is quite sure and sound of mind, so we have no reason to believe any of it is untrue.’
‘If only it had been so simple then,’ Peggy said. ‘But it was a different Ireland. One of many secrets that lay buried for decades. Now at least the secrets are not buried anymore.’
Jack had remained quiet throughout.
‘Jack, are you alright?’ Emily asked quietly.
‘I think I need a fag,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll head out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
‘Do you think they will do a search of the woods and possibly Eveline again?’ Emily asked the gardaí.
‘I am really not sure what the next step is. It will be up to our superiors,’ the male garda replied.
Emily went in search of Jack.
‘Jack, what’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘That night I thought I saw someone? I keep thinking about it. Did I see a fucking ghost that night? Was that this woman? I feel bloody freaked out to be honest!’
Emily could see that his hand was shaking.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe. But that woman meant no one any harm. She was a victim of a terrible incident that robbed a child of her mother. A child that was very ill. But Jack, the letter. Mam never mentioned the letter that we found. Why does she have that?’
‘Oh God, please let it be a simple answer. I cannot take much more!’
‘We will have to ask her.’
‘Wait until the gardaí leave. They have literally taken down everything that she said. I have a feeling Eveline House will be in the news for all the wrong reasons,’ Jack replied wearily.
‘I know and I had hoped to open for Christmas. At this rate I might be opened and shut down all before Christmas!’ Emily said with a sigh.
The next day the woman garda contacted Emily to inform her that a search of Blythe Wood was going to take place and they had also spoken to Sylvia Ward who was going to send someone over here to represent her.
‘Oh, what do you mean?’
‘I am not sure. But I suppose in case we do find remains she would like someone to represent her.’
‘How will you know if it’s her? I suppose you’ll have to do a DNA test but that will take time, won’t it?’
‘There may be some identification. Look, I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Will my mother be in trouble for not reporting this?’ Emily asked.
‘It’s not for me to say now, to be honest.’
That was not reassuring. She was a woman in her eighties. But she had hidden the evidence. Oh God. She wondered if this nightmare would ever end.
CHAPTER 38
The search only took two days to complete, and human remains were found. The search party had noticed that one of the tombs in Suaimhneas Graveyard was tampered with. It was in the walled part of the cemetery and the last person had been interred in 1870. But one of the searchers noticed that the heavy stone tomb cover looked like it was not completely aligned. Had it been removed and then replaced? Any relatives of the interred were now dead. The lid was lifted. Human remains of an obviously later date than the 19th century were discovered. The scene was closed off. There would not be any more information until a forensic examination was carried out.
Three weeks later it was confirmed that the remains found in Blythe Wood were those of Violet Ward. Missing since January 1950. The gardaí made a statement to say that a full investigation was under way.
It was on the national news and in the national newspapers. Reporters arrived into the town and took photographs of Blythe Wood and Eveline House.
There was an interview on the news with the priest who presided over the parish at present. Father Nolan was a sincere man who was known to love to sing and indeed had formed a very respected choir within the parish.
He said that the whole town was extremely saddened and that their thoughts and prayers were with her daughter Sylvia. He announced that they were planning a special service to pray for Violet Ward, and all were welcome. Emily had invited him down to the house. She was not religious but the whole incident with Jack and what he thought he saw had freaked her out. The priest had blessed the house and said some prayers. Even Jack had lowered his head and prayed.
Emily had a number of visits from the gardaí. They did a search of the house and a careful search of the basement. Nothing was found. Emily showed them the letter that she had found in the drawer and now they were in possession of all the evidence.
Well, almost all. Peggy had asked her to get a letter and a locket she had hidden in her wardrobe in Dunmore East. So Emily had to confess that she and Jack had already searched and found the
m. Peggy understood and had told her why she had it. She said she wanted to post it to Sylvia herself. Emily and Jack got a postal address from Gerry Hynes and, although worried that they were withholding evidence again, retrieved the letter and locket and gave them to Peggy to send it to Sylvia.
The last couple of months had been a blur for Emily. It was getting near to Christmas and she had transformed some of the downstairs of Eveline. She had ordered her sign and Emily O’Connor, Eveline House of BridalCouture was opened.
The drawing room was now a showroom, the parlour was her workshop and the study was transformed into a boudoir-style changing room. The downstairs bathroom was retiled and grouted, and all the plumbing, painting and papering was completed downstairs.
She still had to convert the kitchen and the bedrooms upstairs had not been touched but she had moved in and so had Jack for now anyway. They remained in Seb’s room and the guest room for now. There had been no more sightings of ghosts or anything else and Emily had fallen even more in love with the house. Jack was going to continue working on the house and in January would apply to go back to college to study. He was still not sure what course to do. But there was a great change in him. He looked fitter and healthier and was trying to give up the cigarettes. He had joined a running club and had met a girl called Rachel who he had dated a few times. Emily could not wait for Sebastian to see the change in him. She was so looking forward to Seb coming to Eveline for Christmas.
Peggy was better but still needed a lot of care. She was quite comfortable in the nursing home and Emily thought that she was more at peace than she had ever been. There was a lightness to her now and she seemed to have lost some of the melancholy that had ruled her life.
The Secret of Eveline House Page 25