Margot handed him back the flask. He drained it. They both sighed with satisfaction. ‘When you said you lost the will, JP, what did you mean?’ she asked.
‘I lost the will to do anything. To see anyone. To go anywhere. I was overcome with a kind of inertia.’
‘Because you sold the castle?’
‘Because of the breakdown of my marriage.’ He frowned and allowed his gaze to be drawn into the distant horizon. The sense of release he had found here in the hills now inspired him to share his pain. ‘I felt terribly guilty, Margot. I hurt the people closest to me. The people I loved most in the world. Because of me they lost their family and their home. If it wasn’t for me we’d be a family still and our home would still be our home.’
‘Maybe the castle was too much for you? After all, you’d been brought up in a smaller house and without great wealth. Was it, in the end, an unbearable burden?’
He looked at her steadily and smiled. ‘You’re very sharp, Margot, aren’t you? No flies on you.’
‘I’m just curious. Not for my book, JP, but because we’re friends.’ She grinned playfully. ‘We’ve shared a gallop.’
He laughed with her. ‘That does make a difference,’ he agreed. ‘A gallop’s a bond.’
‘Look, the way I see it is this. You grow up without a care in the world. You’re a Deverill, which is synonymous with “special”. You are cherished and indulged and life is uncomplicated. Then you meet your twin sister and your world is turned upside down. All at once, the life you have lived is a falsehood. You discover the truth about your mother. The terrible truth. And the woman you have trusted above all others, Kitty, has lied to you. What’s more, her affair with Alana’s father nearly cheats you of happiness. Then you unexpectedly inherit the castle. The family home that comes at a price: the great weight of responsibility. This is not an ordinary home. It’s the very heart of the Deverill family and it is up to you to keep it beating. If you don’t, your family will not survive. All those Deverill heirs will turn in their graves and you will be damned. Isn’t that right? A Deverill’s castle is his kingdom. But something’s missing. The focus on the castle is blinkered. That’s all one sees: the castle, its legacy, its future, its enormous significance. But it’s just a castle. What’s more important is the people inside it. Were you, perhaps, too absorbed in the castle and what it meant to the Deverills that you neglected your wife and children?’
JP considered her words. Chewing on them as if they were bitter, unpalatable truths. Blowing smoke into the wind. ‘I started drinking,’ he confessed quietly. He took off his hat and scratched his head. The wind caught tufts of hair and blew them about mischievously. He said nothing for a while. The shrill cry of a curlew rose above the drone of the sea and Margot waited, sensing he needed to share his story, but wasn’t sure how to tell it.
JP sighed, letting the air out of his lungs in a loud whoosh, as if it had cost him to admit his drinking habit and yet, at the same time, liberated him from the burden of a dirty secret. ‘We had three children, Alana and I. Three beautiful children. But Alana wanted another one. An after-thought. By then Aisling was fourteen and our youngest ten. I didn’t want any more. I was already struggling to cope with my past, but no one wanted to acknowledge that. No one wanted to know. No one listened.’ His face flashed with fury. He took another gulp of air and shook his head. His lips thinned, his chin trembled. He and Alana had been divorced for fourteen years and still the gash it had made glistened with fresh pain. ‘Alana didn’t care,’ he continued in a flat voice. ‘All she thought about was the children. I may as well not have been there. My father sought relief in the bottle and I suppose I followed him down that road. I won’t deny it. But Alana played me. She agreed that we wouldn’t have any more children, but she only said that in order to get her way. When she told me she was expecting a baby, I didn’t celebrate it as I should have. I reacted badly. I felt betrayed and furious. Hurt, she stopped talking to me. I withdrew. I isolated her, she and her unborn baby, and shut myself out.’ He lowered his chin and his gaze dropped into his hands. ‘I sought comfort in another woman.’
So the rumour was right. ‘And Alana found out?’
‘Only after she miscarried at six months.’
Margot sucked air through her teeth. ‘Ouch!’
‘Her father had an affair with Kitty, which cut her deeply.’
‘Then you did it to her. I understand why she didn’t forgive you. Who was it with?’
JP shook his head. He did not want to elaborate further. ‘No one of any importance.’ He put his hat back on and tossed his cigarette butt onto the grass. ‘It’s been a downward spiral ever since. I made a mistake. A grave mistake. A mistake I’ll regret for the rest of my life, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ He gathered himself. The wind had picked up and a wall of grey clouds was slowly making its way towards them, shutting out the sunlight and dampening the air. He sighed and Margot sensed he wasn’t going to say any more. What more was there to say? ‘We must get back for Mrs B’s lunch,’ he suggested. ‘We don’t want to keep her waiting.’ He spurred his horse on and they headed off down the hill towards home.
‘I’m sorry, JP,’ said Margot.
He acknowledged her sympathy with a nod. ‘I’m sorry too, but I’ve only got myself to blame.’
‘Do you blame Alana for wanting another child?’
‘I blame her for luring me into it under false pretences. I suppose she thought that she could win me over once she’d got pregnant. Once she’d lost the child she rejected my sympathy as disingenuous because I never wanted it in the first place. When I tried to comfort her she rebuffed me. I couldn’t win.’
‘The affair ensured that you lost,’ said Margot.
‘I couldn’t come back from that.’
They rode on in silence.
Any guilt that JP felt at having confided in a woman he barely knew, who was writing a book about his family, was shunted aside with the justification that Alana had only ever considered her side of the story. She had told her family and their children her version of events, and no one had ever listened to him. They had been so quick to blame him, while only knowing half the story. Well, if they refused to hear his words, they could read them on the page, in black and white. If they didn’t like it, they could lump it. He had nothing to lose; he’d lost everything already.
Margot ruminated on what JP had just told her. It was quite a story. Intimate and damning, yet so human. It was the story Colm did not want her to know. As she followed JP back along the path she wondered whether Colm had a point. She shouldn’t know it. It was too personal. It made her cringe to think of it in print. Then she reminded herself that she must remain detached. If JP took it upon himself to tell his story, then it was her job to write it. She had no responsibility to anyone, only to herself. Her focus was to write the best book about the family that she could write, and allow nothing, including emotions and a misplaced sense of loyalty, to get in the way. This was her job. This was what she did. She told herself to keep her eyes on the story and not be distracted by her empathy for the protagonists.
* * *
Mrs B had cooked a delicious lunch, just as she had said she would. She had laid the table with care and lit the fire. JP consumed a whole bottle of red wine. Margot drank nothing. She didn’t like to drink alcohol in the day because it made her sleepy, and it went against the grain to waste time taking siestas unless she found someone attractive to share them with. JP was elated by their ride and the wine and told Margot again how he had lived for riding as a young man. ‘If I was unhappy, I’d head onto the cliffs on my horse. If I was happy, I’d do the same. My life was defined by it. It’s what we Deverills did.’
After lunch they went into the library. JP took the top off the whiskey decanter. He had confessed to turning to the bottle for comfort when he had been unhappy during his marriage. He clearly did not recognize that he had a problem now. He didn’t try to hide it from Margot, or from Mrs B. There w
as no embarrassment as he knocked it back and refilled his glass, no apology. Margot felt a sick feeling building in her stomach. She had seen all this before. She tried to detach, not to feel responsible, but it was becoming impossible because she had grown fond of him. She’d been in Ballinakelly just over two weeks, and yet, she felt she had known JP for ever. It wasn’t just that she felt she knew him, the man, but that she knew their dynamic. She had lived it before, this pattern of alcoholic and saviour.
When JP sat by the fire she excused herself.
‘You’re off, are you?’ he said, without getting up. Margot wasn’t sure he could get up.
‘Yes, I’ve got work to do.’
‘Of course you have,’ he said and he blinked at her sleepily, as if trying hard to stay awake.
‘I’ll be back soon. There’s still lots to go through in those boxes.’
‘Good. You can come whenever you like. Mrs B will look after you. Might be an idea to telephone her so she can light the fire. Don’t want you to get cold. Can get very cold in there. Always did.’
‘Thank you, JP.’ She left him nodding off in the front of the fire.
She found Mrs B in the hall. ‘The two of you had a whale of a time out there, didn’t you?’ she said with a smile. ‘I haven’t seen him this happy in years.’
‘I think he’s been lonely.’
‘Indeed, he has, the poor old creature.’
‘Of course, you’re here to keep him company.’
‘We both know it’s not the same,’ said Mrs B, looking at Margot with her gentle gaze. ‘Blood is thicker than water.’
‘I know. Of course it is.’
Mrs B shook her head. ‘He needs to make up with his family. That’s what needs to be done and I have me knees worn out praying for it.’
‘Do you have family, Mrs B?’ she asked.
The old woman smiled with tenderness. ‘Lord Deverill is all the family I have now,’ she said. ‘Which is why I care, Miss Hart. God keep him safe and protect him from all harm.’ She crossed herself. ‘Though, I’m not sure even God can protect him from himself and the lure of the bottle.’
* * *
Margot left the house and Mrs B closed the door behind her and padded down the corridor to the library. There she found her master slumped in his armchair, snoring loudly. The crystal tumbler lay loosely in his hand, the whiskey decanter on the table beside him. Both were empty. She glanced at her watch. It had only just gone three and he had already passed out. Mrs B sighed. Anxiety squeezed her stomach with its habitual cold grip. It wasn’t healthy to drink so much, but it was Irish. She knew many who had lived to a great old age in spite of consuming vast quantities of alcohol. Still, there were just as many whose lives had been cut short by it. Mrs B hoped Lord Deverill would be inspired to conquer the addiction, but it didn’t seem likely; it had been years and so far inspiration hadn’t come.
Leaving him asleep she took the radio upstairs into the attic where her bedroom was, small and tidy beneath the eaves. She plugged it into the wall and switched it on. Once again classical music filled her heart with its uplifting harmonies. The music was balm to her soul. It made her feel positive. She placed the radio on the chest of drawers then picked up a box of matches and struck one. In front of four black-and-white photographs in simple leather frames were four votive candles. One by one, she lit them, muttering a prayer for each departed soul. ‘Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.’ In turn the faces of her family were illuminated in the glowing candlelight. Her mother and father, her older brother who had lost his life in the civil war when he was only seventeen and her husband who had died of leukaemia some twenty-seven years ago. They had not been blessed with children, she and Alfie. She had done her best but her body had been unable to hold them. Twelve miscarriages. Twelve disappointments. Twelve souls who had tried and failed to come into the world. But God works in mysterious ways and perhaps she wasn’t meant to have them. She was meant to look after other people’s children. Deverill children.
Now she looked after JP.
She slipped off her shoes and lay on the bed. Then she closed her eyes and allowed the music to wash over her, rinsing away the pain, releasing anxiety’s grip, restoring her troubled spirit. She missed her parents and her husband, but she missed her brother most of all. The golden-haired brother she had looked up to and adored who had been taken from her when she was only thirteen. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt a tear trickle down her temple into her hair. It still hurt after all these years. A wound that never healed. If you can hear me, Rafferty, know that I love you. That I’ll always love you, and one day, when I die, I’ll join you in Heaven. Isn’t that what the Bible teaches us? A cross in this life, a crown in the next?
How soothing the music was. How wonderful not to have to endure the silence. She could almost see Rafferty now, in her mind’s eye, standing beside her, taking her hand. She could almost feel it. His skin against hers, warm and soft and deeply reassuring. Just like it used to be when she was a child. The music played on and Bessie Brogan fell asleep.
Chapter 8
That night Margot felt strangely low. She had adored riding out over the hills, but lunch with JP afterwards had been depressing. It wasn’t their conversation and it certainly wasn’t the food. She didn’t mind the lonely atmosphere in the house: there was a tranquillity about it that appealed to her. What had affected her was his slow decline into inebriation. He didn’t behave badly, he just slipped away. At the end of the meal she knew she had lost him. He had shuffled into the library, staggered to his chair and sunk into a drunken stupor. She had been assaulted by a feeling of helplessness so familiar to her that she was left with no option other than to leave as quickly as possible. To run from it. To find someone healthy to hold on to.
Seamus was only too happy to oblige. In his arms she was brought safely into the present moment. The past receded, with all its associated unhappiness, and she felt herself once more the person she was now, the person she wanted to be.
Margot had arranged to meet Countess di Marcantonio the following morning at the hotel. She had telephoned her office a few days before and spoken to her PA. The meeting had been arranged, and the PA, a breathless young woman with a tremulous voice, had told Margot how eager the Countess was to see her husband’s ‘family home’ again. Margot had made all the right noises and the PA had sounded relieved, confirming the meeting for eleven o’clock.
Margot waited in the hall at 10.45. It was a quiet morning. Outside, the fog had settled over the estate, muting the colours and giving the hotel an eerie air. Inside, the fire crackled and the electric lights shone warmly. Mr Dukelow was loitering, his polished black shoes gliding smoothly over the carpet as he pretended to be busy. Róisín was as alert as a watchful rabbit, eyes sliding every few moments to the door to see whether the special guest was arriving. Margot’s gaze was drawn to the portrait of Barton Deverill. She wondered what he would make of his home now. At least Mrs de Lisle had done a good job, she thought. It might not be the home he had intended it to be, but it was still magnificent.
At last a shiny Mercedes drew up in front of the hotel. A porter hurried outside to assist. The chauffeur, dressed in a black suit, cap and gloves, stepped out briskly and held open the rear passenger door. The Countess appeared to be in no hurry. She gathered herself while the porter waited patiently on the gravel and Mr Dukelow and Róisín watched with nervous anticipation from the hall. Margot was curious to see what the Countess looked like. Judging by the letter and the assistant’s reverential tone, she expected her to be very grand.
When the Countess stepped out Margot was surprised to see that she was a lot younger than she had imagined. In her late forties, perhaps. A great deal younger than her husband who must have been in his late sixties. She was wrapped in a mink coat that reached below her knees and a matching pillbox hat. Her face was long and angular with high, chiselled cheekbones and thin scarlet lips. Her black hair, as shiny as a raven�
��s wing, was visible beneath the hat, tied into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck. She carried herself in a stately fashion. The porter opened the front door and she swept in. Mr Dukelow put out his hand and welcomed her in a gushing sequence of superlatives. Margot was certain he bowed. The Countess’s thin mouth smiled graciously, her imperious slate-grey gaze sizing him up like a hawk with its prey. She was obviously used to this kind of reception and didn’t find it in the least theatrical, nor did she feel inclined to be grateful. It was her due. Margot was unimpressed. The Countess had been a secretary at the Austrian Embassy in London before she had married Leopoldo, so had little to be arrogant about.
‘You must be Miss Hart,’ she said, reaching out to shake her hand. She slipped out of her coat and held it out for Mr Dukelow. She lifted her hat off her head and held that out too. Mr Dukelow gave both items to Róisín who had left the reception desk unattended in her eagerness to make herself useful to their distinguished guest. Her face was full of awe at the sight of this striking woman, who had the remote glamour of a Hollywood movie star. She was wearing an elegant black dress printed with white polka dots, a shiny black belt and a large pearl choker at her throat. Its central clasp was made up of three large gold-and-diamond bees. She pressed her hand to her bosom and sighed. ‘I am moved,’ she declared in a brusque Austrian accent, running her eyes around the hall. ‘This was once my husband’s family home. It would have been our home if things had been done in the way they should. But life isn’t always fair, is it?’ She smiled tightly at Margot. ‘Well, where shall we go to talk?’
Mr Dukelow escorted them through the castle to Mrs de Lisle’s private sitting room situated away from the bustle of the hotel. There were armchairs and sofas assembled neatly around a fireplace. A fire burned hospitably.
The Distant Shores Page 12