What did really happen to her in Eveline House she never really knew. She felt safe in the house but it was as if something evil was outside of the walls. She remembered going into the garden with her doll but that was all. She had no recollection of what happened after that. She had no recollection of how she came into possession of the letters. Had someone given them to her? Had she somehow been exposed to something evil without her knowledge? She knew some believed she was possessed by a demon. It’s strange how the mind can shut down any memories of something that has the power to terrify them. There was one other similar episode.
Shortly after arriving in London they went into hiding in a flat near Putney. One of those nights she became unwell. She could recall very little about it but she remembered screaming at Betsy that there was something terrible happening to her. Then it was as if her mind went blank. She did recall a priest there. But mostly she remembered Betsy holding her. She could recall a dreadful darkness almost trying to take over her body. Betsy had told her later that she thought they would both die that night but somehow it passed and they had lived through it. She often thought that if it was something evil then it was Betsy who had stopped it from killing both of them. A fight between good and evil. Betsy was her protector. An angel sent to protect her. Or maybe it was her mind that had some terrible breakdown. Betsy had never really told her what had happened that night in London. Had the priest performed some kind of exorcism? Perhaps Betsy knew that she could hardly handle knowing if it had happened. The world was a strange place and there was a lot she still did not understand. But at least now after all these years she finally knew what happened to her beloved mother. She did not leave her, and she knew that Peggy was telling the truth. Her father’s name was clear. Their persecutors were all dead it seemed.
How strange that it was the frightened young girl who held the key to knowing what happened. Strange how Betsy had talked about her over the years. Wondering if she was alright. Did Betsy have some inner sense? Sylvia had often dreamt of Blythe Wood. Now she knew why. She dreamt about it when it was blue with a haze of bluebells and she dreamt about it when the frost left jewels on the trees. She could smell the aroma of rotting twigs mixed with the wildflowers that grew between the cracks. Her mother was buried inside a tomb. Left there. It was too unbearable to think about. The people who had done this were dead. But perhaps in another life they would have to answer for their crimes?
Betsy and she had talked about it so much over the years. Betsy believed that the letters were written by those women, but she could never believe that it was they who had been responsible for her disappearance.
Max had visited the village of Whitewater where her mother grew up. There was nothing left of the house except a ruin of an old farmhouse. He visited the graveyard and found their grave. Her mother had never fully recovered from her own mother closing the door to her. He visited the lough and it looked as beautiful as her mother had described. How she had adored the stories of the lough. The Children of Lir who were turned into swans by some evil curse. The world was full of good and evil. Light and dark. That she was certain of.
Max would wake her early this morning. They had one more thing to complete.
Her father was buried in Boston but somehow she felt that her mother would not wish to be buried. Max had arranged for a cremation and then brought her ashes back to Sylvia.
They were ashes. But they represented so much. So much loss, such lost years. Her beautiful mother gone for so long . . . but, in her mind, she was forever young. She felt she would like Chatham.
Max woke her early. He brought her usual coffee. She dressed and then they took the ashes down to a small boat. He very carefully helped her in.
It was a beautiful crystal-clear morning. An azure-blue sky and the sun just coming up. It could not be more perfect.
He rowed out from the shore until she asked him to stop.
She looked at the sky and opened the urn. She shook the ashes into the soft breeze.
‘Fly free now, my beloved mother! Be free at last!’
She watched as the ashes almost took flight like butterflies on the ocean and it felt as if the soul of her mother was finally free.
Back at the house, Max made some lemon pancakes for breakfast and they ate outside. Mostly in silence.
‘I have a gift for you, my dear,’ Sylvia said. ‘Go into my studio. There is a package behind the door. Would you be a dear and get it for me?’
Max brought it out. It looked like a painting gift-wrapped.
‘Open it, dear, it is for you,’ Sylvia said.
He opened it. She had finished the painting. It was of a vase of Christmas roses and wildflowers in an earthenware jar, the same jar and flowers that Betsy filled the house with that winter of 1950.
She looked back on her own life. She knew she felt pain deeply. Not pain of the physical but of the soul. Poor beloved Betsy, how she missed her! She was so full of goodness. In a strange way, with Henry, they had formed their own little family.
They had moved first to London, then into hiding and then moved on to Boston. Nobody knew who they were. They lived a very quiet life and were lucky that Henry had managed to grab what money and jewellery he had before they went on the run. It gave them a start.
But her father took ill shortly after arriving in Boston. He could never forgive himself for not leaving Ireland when Violet had begged him to. He drank and got into bad health. At times his anger would spill over and at other times he cried like a child and if it weren’t for Betsy being there to calm him, he would not have seen the morning. His heart would have killed him. Sylvia loved her father. But his despair at what had happened did little to help her. He could not help it. It was his own malady of the heart. He never worked again as a jeweller – instead he took odd jobs as a night watchman in places that no one ever cared to know his name. He could not cope with what had happened.
He died in his sleep. The doctor thought it was a massive heart attack. He was forty-eight. Betsy believed it was simply a broken heart. A broken heart for the woman that he had loved and the country that had taken her that he would have given his life for.
Sylvia would have been alone in the world but for Betsy. But somehow they had made a life. A simple one but one of a love as pure as the snow of Mount Leinster. Betsy loved her as much as any parent could.
After Henry died Betsy took some part-time jobs at times to keep the roof over their heads. It was Betsy who encouraged Sylvia to show her art and to their delight her paintings began to sell.
When Betsy took ill it was Sylvia’s turn to take care of her and when she died Sylvia did feel alone in the world. She felt she had lost a second mother.
They were both buried in Boston. Nobody really knowing who they were. Small indiscreet graves with just a name and date of burial. It was after Betsy’s death that she decided to move to Chatham. It amazed her, the strength of the will to live. But the memory that she had of love had kept her going. That and her painting. Betsy had always encouraged her to paint and, thanks to that, she had lived a good life and was independent financially. Her painting was her saviour.
The family was gone now except for her. She held the locket her father had made for her mother, opened it and stroked the precious locks of hair within with the tip of a finger. How beautiful it was. A last gift. She was so glad Peggy had sent it to her. Poor Peggy! Sylvia had a feeling that Peggy had suffered very much too.
She would add the locket to her will. She would send it to Emily O’Connor. How strange that fate played a hand and somehow Emily the daughter of Peggy was drawn to Eveline House. But life was full of the unexplainable. That was something she was certain of. She would keep it for now. She had a feeling from Max that he had fallen for this Irishwoman. Some good had come from all the pain.
She wrote a little note to be added to her will.
To Emily O’Connor, my red-gold locket and its contents. And my Petite Suzanne. Thank you for buying Eveline House and helpi
ng to find the truth. From Sylvia.
Now that you’re hooked why not try
also published by Poolbeg
A STORY OF ENDURING LOVE, SIBLING LOYALTY
AND A SECRET PACT THAT LASTS A LIFETIME
Here’s a sneak preview of the
PROLOGUE AND CHAPTER 1
PROLOGUE
Kilbride Graveyard
1954
An old graveyard. Surrounded by a stone wall, crumbling, in need of repair. Jagged steps lead up to a stile and there is also a rusted iron gate. It creaks on opening. Adjacent is a small Protestant church. In daylight you can see wisteria wrapped around it and in summer a wild rambling rose covers the mottled wall with silken petals and an evocative scent of the past.
Edward Goulding and the local vicar walk silently side by side, dressed in heavy overcoats against the cold. Edward is carrying a small coffin. The vicar lights the way with a torch. They find the spot, big enough to fit, yet small enough to hardly notice. It’s close to the stone wall, sheltered by a willow tree. Slightly away from the rest of the cold grey slabs.
This very church is where Edward attended Sunday service every week of his childhood. As children they had run up and down the stile steps, clip-clopping and chasing each other. If he closes his eyes he can almost hear their laughter – Victoria and Edith, dressed in velvet coats and hats, all pink cheeks and rosy lips. Edith holding Victoria’s hand, just in case she slipped on the withered frosted leaves. Edith, always looking out for Victoria. Victoria who seemed to have no fear, just a wild curiosity. In winter the stone steps would glisten like crystal, cracking under their warm boots as they jumped and hopped, and Edith held Victoria’s hand, just in case.
‘This is the spot,’ the vicar says, dragging Edward back to the present.
Edward is glad his friend is with him – a brother could not have been more loyal. The charcoal night is lit by a thousand ancient stars, like street lamps in the velvet darkness. The call of a nightingale breaks the silence. Something scurries near them. A flash of the torch reveals a mouse. They can see their breath as they breathe. Edward takes out a cigarette and a matchbox. He strikes the match and the little flame flares. He takes a long puff and the tip of the cigarette glows as he inhales.
He walks back and gets two shovels from the car.
The ground is hard, it takes longer and is a more difficult task than they anticipated. The earth smells of rot. They discard their coats and hats. The dawn is almost upon them. Eventually the task is complete, and they lower the coffin in. They throw the earth back, filling in the grave.
There is so much to say, yet they say so little.
‘You did the only thing that you could,’ the vicar whispers.
‘I am broken inside.’
‘Time, Edward, time will help.’ The vicar fixes a simple cross to mark the spot.
They bow their heads and pray for a new day.
They put their coats and hats on and gather up their spades, then walk back towards the stile.
Edward takes one last look. The small cross is barely visible. The smell of the night air fills his nostrils and he knows it will always make him remember. Even when his hair is silver, and the years have passed, the scent of this place will haunt him, remembering all that was lost.
CHAPTER 1
Kilbride, Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry
1954
Canice Meagher loved and hated Ireland in equal measure. Born on the mystical Great Blasket Island, the cliffs, the gulls and the hardship of the ancient landscape was in his very being. He had left before, but it was as if the Dingle Peninsula could claw him back, denying him any chance of a different life.
To escape, he had left the peninsula on different occasions, losing himself in the dark pubs of Cricklewood and Kilburn where the Irish sang and drank and talked of Éire with sentiment – a land of love, song and poetry – not like his rugged island. A piece of land in the wild sea that tore at his soul and dragged him back to it. Over the years, everyone who could leave had left, with their battered suitcases and few quid. They would find a squalid place to live and dream of coming back as The Big Man. Some did. But most got married over there, the long nights eating at them. They married their own or met a Londoner and began a new life, away from the Island, the sea and the shifting fog. But some might never make it either way, caught in some no man’s land off Kilburn Road, eaten up by memories.
And now, of course, there could be no more returns to the Great Blasket. In 1953 the government had removed its people from their harsh lives and increasingly extreme weather, and housed them on the mainland in Dunquin, leaving only their sheep to reign over the island.
It was almost dusk, and the haunting sound of a curlew broke the stillness. Then came the muffled thuds of a galloping horse. It was then that he saw her move across the bog field on a majestic grey mare whose hooves were digging up the wet earth. The gallop softened to a canter and they headed straight for the ditch.
He thought she was a vision summoned up by the Celtic stories that had filled his head since he had first heard them from the island people. This strange beauty of a woman was confidently negotiating the jump. It looked far too risky. She was oblivious to anyone watching. His mind was racing – it was madness to think of jumping it.
He had seldom seen such a display of fearlessness and to make it even more incredible it was a woman, a woman so striking that he wondered had the longing for porter brought him to imagining her. But she was as real as the dirt on his shovel. He thought of trying to stop her, but he knew it was too late – he would only startle the mare and that might lead to something worse. He blessed himself and watched as they made the jump, her body in harmony with the mare’s as if they were one. It had to be six feet wide. The graceful horse jumped like she had been taken up by the wind, landing heavily on the other side as her mistress screamed in pure delight. Canice was caught between fear at what could have happened and admiration for such a daring jump. The horse was now cantering towards him. The woman drew on the reins and slowed the horse down.
They reached him and halted. The girl – she was just a girl – stared down at him.
‘Are you trying to kill yourself?’ he said.
‘Of course not,’ she said haughtily.
‘It was dangerous,’ he pointed out.
‘I am more than capable and who are you to question my jumping skills?’
‘I never questioned your ability, I just questioned your common sense, to jump such a ditch here in the bog. You could have fallen and broken your neck and the horse’s too.’
‘I would never put my horse at risk. You must know very little about horses.’
‘Granted, I know more about work horses than fine thoroughbreds. And she is a fine one – what is she called?’
‘Silver.’
‘Suits her. And what, may I ask, is your name?’
‘You can tell me who you are first and what you are doing on this land.’
‘Canice Meagher.’
‘Where are you from? There are no Meaghers around here that I know of.’
‘An Blascaod Mór – the Great Blasket Island – up to a few years ago.’
‘Ah, I see.’
He wondered what exactly she ‘saw’. He grinned at her and wiped the sweat from his brow.
‘I’m putting up a bit of fencing for the Gouldings.’
He knew who she was, by her clothes, the quality of the leather saddle and bridle, the way she spoke and the horse that she rode. She had to be a daughter of the Gouldings. But he wasn’t going to say that. He had met another daughter briefly, up at the Big House when he was working on a roof. Edith Goulding, striking too but very prim, maybe slightly older. Looking at this girl, he figured she couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen.
‘So, are you working on the farm too or are you just trespassing to use their ditches to jump?’ he teased.
‘I most certainly am not trespassing! I am Victoria Goulding – we own the lan
d,’ she replied with an air of authority.
Canice grinned. ‘So, you are one of the Gouldings. I had no idea any of them were like you.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘I would expect you to be at piano lessons or doing needlework, not out here trying to kill yourself on a wild horse.’
‘I have no interest in needlework or piano.’
He knew straight away she was out of his league and not only his league but his religion. He was a Catholic born and bred and Victoria Goulding was a wealthy Protestant. But in that bog field, for now, religion could be forgotten.
His mother would warn him not to have anything to do with a Goulding. They were gentry, he was an islander. But what harm could there be in a little flirtation?
‘Where do you live now?’ she asked then.
‘Ventry.’
‘Ah, I see,’ she said again.
‘We built a cottage there after we left the island.’
‘You have a family?’
‘Just my mother.’
Neither of them noticed the hare jump from the ditch. The mare startled and reared, but the girl kept her seat.
The mare whinnied loudly as Canice caught the reins. He whispered to her until the fear had left her while the girl also soothed and patted her.
He put his hand on the girl’s in reassurance.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked softly.
‘Fine.’
His hand remained on hers, his eyes didn’t leave hers. Then something happened that almost knocked the use from his legs: she leaned down from her horse and kissed him, full on the lips. It only lasted a second, but he knew he would remember it for a lifetime.
With that, she laughed and rode off, galloping away from him, leaving him wondering if the fairies had taken his brain and tricked him into imagining the whole incident.
The Secret of Eveline House Page 27