Chapter 31
Ballinakelly, 1961
‘But the baby is going to be black!’ I gasp and stare at Cormac in horror. ‘What is Daddy going to do when he realizes that she hasn’t told him the whole truth. I can’t bear it!’
Cormac gets off the bed and stretches. We have read the diary together and are both in need of a break. I take the diary and the hand mirror and follow him down to the kitchen and watch him put the kettle on the stove. ‘Your mam was a brave girl, no mistake,’ he says.
‘A gambler,’ I add, thinking of the risks she took time and time again.
‘But the baby could be Dermot McLoughlin’s. Don’t forget that,’ he reminds me.
‘Unlikely, considering she never got pregnant with him before.’
‘Perhaps he was firing blanks,’ says Cormac with a grin.
‘What has become of him, of Dermot McLoughlin?’
‘He’s an old man now. In his eighties. He still lives in Ballinakelly. He married, had children, grandchildren, the usual stuff. Didn’t always fire blanks.’
‘I never knew my father was so exceptional,’ I say, taking a chair at the table and sitting down. ‘I knew him as fiercely traditional, dogmatic and autocratic. He worshipped my mother. They were a team, the two of them. They agreed on everything. They were both ambitious, my father was Governor of Massachusetts, and tirelessly social. They knew everyone. Now I know why they were as thick as thieves, because their marriage was built on a secret.’
Cormac pours the water into the teapot and comes to the table. ‘They appear to be cut from the same cloth,’ he agrees.
‘I suspect my mother pretended she was Catholic. Another lie. And if Daddy knew that her father had disowned her, they must have fabricated her history together. We grew up believing she was from a poor Irish family and left Ireland in search of a better life in America. We never questioned it. On reflection, a man like my father would never have married someone like that. He was as aware of social status as everyone else. And she wouldn’t have been travelling first-class if she had been poor.’ I shake my head and laugh at our naivety. ‘We never thought to ask. Mom didn’t talk about the past, period.’
I open the diary and hold it up to the mirror. Before I begin to read, I am suddenly struck by an extraordinary thought. I put the book down and stare at Cormac. ‘Oh my God!’ I gasp, putting a hand to my mouth.
‘What?’ says Cormac.
‘Oh my God!’ I repeat. ‘I think I’ve worked it out.’
‘Well, come on then. Don’t keep it to yourself.’
‘Temperance!’
Cormac frowns. ‘Who is Temperance?’
‘Our maid. She came to work for us at fourteen. She’s only a couple of years older than Logan.’
We stare at each other.
‘Oh my God!’ I exclaim for the third time and stand up. I cannot remain seated with my blood pumping so fast around my body. ‘It makes perfect sense. That is why Mom has left a third of her wealth to an anonymous person. I had to read the whole story before that person was revealed so that I understood. Mom was never going to give her child away so the only option was to take her in as a maid, as soon as she was able to. God knows what the child did for the first fourteen years of her life. But that would explain it.’ I am short of breath, excited by the drama. ‘That’s why Tempie can play the banjo! Her father is Jonas Madison.’ My head is swimming with memories. Of Temperance and my mother, so close and intimate and affectionate. ‘Tempie is Mom’s child!’
I sit down and hold the diary to the mirror, heart pounding against my bones, blood pulsating in my temples. I can barely contain my thoughts. Cormac sits down too and calmly pours the tea. ‘Well, read on then. What does she say? Are you right, Inspector Langton?’
I ignore his joke and feverishly scan the sentences for the entry where the baby is born. I cannot restrain myself any longer. I don’t have the patience to read the details of their hasty wedding, or how they remained in New York to have the baby in order to avoid my father’s family getting too close. I flick through the pages until I finally arrive at the crucial point. Even though I know what happened I almost can’t read it. I don’t want to be right. It’s not that I fear Temperance is my half-sister; I fear my father’s reaction to her birth. Because I want so very badly for Arethusa and Edward to love one another. They are my parents, after all. I want Jonas to disappear and that means I want his baby to disappear too.
I read aloud:
Labour seems to be eternal. Hour upon hour of unspeakable pain as my baby fights its way into the light. And then he is in my arms. A bonny pink-and-white boy, squealing with fury at the shock of leaving the comfort of my womb for the chaos of this world. And my heart bleeds again for I will have no part of Jonas to accompany me through my life. Nothing to remember him by. It is as if he never existed. I cry with sorrow but also with relief because Edward and I can pass this child off as our own and no one will ever know. God has forgiven me for my sins. I have been given another chance. And what shall we call him? I ask my husband. He looks into the little face and smiles. ‘Logan,’ he says, ‘after my mother’s father. Because we met in the Irish Sea and I want to honour the two most important women in my life. You, my dear wife, and Mother.’
‘Logan,’ I repeat and I feel like a new day is dawning. ‘I like it very much.’ I blink away the tears, and in so doing I put away the past. I look only to my future now. I’m Arethusa Clayton and God knows, I’m going to make the best of it.
I tear my eyes off the page. That is the end. That is all she wrote.
I stare at Cormac and I can feel the blood draining out of my face. ‘Logan is Dermot McLoughlin’s son,’ I say, barely able to take it in. For once Cormac is lost for words. He shakes his head and reaches for my hand. He knows this is a massive shock for me. We sit in silence, staring at each other. It is as if the world has just crashed around us and we are the only two people left alive.
Now I understand why my mother wanted me to read the diary. I am the one who will have to tell Logan the truth about his parentage. I am the one who will have to drop this bomb into his world and shatter it. I understand also why she didn’t include any dates, because I would have done the math and worked it out before she had had time to tell me her story. She wanted me to know her heart before I learned that my brother is really my half-brother.
I squeeze Cormac’s hand and I squeeze it hard. It is a while before I can speak. Shock has stolen my voice. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to tell Logan,’ I choke.
Cormac has no words of advice. ‘I don’t know either, Faye,’ he says, gazing at me with compassion. ‘What are you going to tell Kitty?’
‘I’m going to give her the diary to read for herself.’
‘You see,’ he says, arching an eyebrow. ‘That’s why your mother gave you the diary, because it was impossible for her to tell you the whole story when she was alive. She couldn’t have begun. You had to read it slowly and deliberately to fully understand her. Kitty and Lord Deverill must do the same.’
‘I suspect, even though she is not Mom’s daughter, that the anonymous person is Temperance,’ I say. ‘It is too much of a coincidence that her father played the banjo, don’t you think? I mean, who else could it be?’ And yet, as I try to fit together the pieces of Mom’s life, I see the flaws in my argument. Temperance has already been accounted for in the will. Mom has left her the use of a house and two hundred thousand dollars. Would she also leave her a third of her wealth?
‘I think you’re right,’ Cormac agrees. ‘Your mother was able to keep a part of Jonas, after all.’
‘Mom really loved Tempie.’ I sigh heavily, wondering whether or not I am right. ‘When I return to Boston, I’ll ask Tempie for her story. I’d like to know how she found Mom and why. I’d like to know what happened to Jonas. If they ever met again.’
At the mention of returning to America my heart sinks with dread. I don’t want to leave Ireland; I don’t want to leave Corma
c. I look at him across the table, that gentle face I have come to love. I withdraw my gaze, not wanting him to know what I am thinking. Not wanting him to sense my neediness and to be put off by it. I turn my thoughts once again to Mother. One part of the story still fails to make sense. ‘Even when Mom was married she didn’t come home,’ I say, still unable to fully understand how she couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive. ‘She burned her bridges and turned her back on her family. But did her family turn their back on her?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I can understand her father’s wrath, but I find it hard to understand Adeline’s. I know she had to support her husband and what Arethusa had done was pretty unforgivable in their eyes. Yet, she was her mother. I can’t imagine, in the same circumstances, never seeing my daughter again. It would destroy me.’
‘Yet, Arethusa wants her ashes scattered here,’ says Cormac.
‘She waited until she was dead to come home.’ I shake my head, baffled. ‘That is just so sad.’ Then Eily Barry pops into my head and I feel a tug somewhere just below my ribs. It’s the same feeling that brought me to Ireland in the first place. I dwell on the old woman for a moment and recall her mumbling something about a secret: ‘If I don’t go gaga I’ll take it to my grave.’ I wonder now what that secret was. I sense it is important. ‘I want to go and see Nora Maloney’s grandmother again,’ I tell Cormac. ‘I don’t know why. I’m just listening to my intuition. Something’s telling me I need to speak to her.’
‘Adeline Deverill would approve of that,’ says Cormac with a nod.
‘She would,’ I agree with a smile. ‘Mom would think it a load of nonsense. Do you think it’s okay if I just turn up at her door?’
Cormac grins crookedly. ‘This is Ireland, Faye. You can just turn up all you like.’ He stands up. ‘Let’s take her a bottle of brandy,’ he adds. ‘If you want something from her, it’s best you give her something in return.’
Cormac drives me into Ballinakelly with Kite in her usual place on the back seat. I feel safe and contented in his company, as if we are old, old friends. As if we have been together for a very long time. ‘Thank you, Cormac,’ I say, looking across at him and feeling my heart filling with gratitude and fondness. ‘I couldn’t have read that bit of the diary on my own.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t have to,’ he replies and his lapis eyes smile back at me.
‘You’re very special,’ I add. I’m embarrassed to tell him how I feel, yet I want him to know.
‘You’re special too, Faye,’ he replies. ‘Special to me.’ And then we settle into an intimate and easy silence, content at being special to one another.
Eily Barry is surprised to see me. I give her the brandy and she remembers who I am at once. She does not mistake me for Adeline Deverill this time but looks at me with a clear and curious gaze. ‘You’re Miss Arethusa’s daughter,’ she says and I confirm that I am. ‘What do you want to know?’
Nora’s father is at work, only Nora’s mother is home and she wets the tea while Cormac and I talk to the old woman. ‘Mrs Barry,’ I begin. ‘You are the only person who can shed light on my mother’s departure to America and her family’s violent reaction to it.’ I’m not sure what I’ve come for, but I’m hoping my intuition is right and that she will give me what I need. ‘It is Adeline Deverill’s reaction I’m interested in. As a mother, I find it very hard to understand that she simply let her daughter go.’
The old woman stares at me like a little bird, small blue eyes shiny and unblinking. ‘I am not long for this world and I’m ready to go,’ she says in a voice so quiet I have to lean in to hear her. ‘Mrs Deverill, God rest her, made me swear on the Protestant Bible that I would take their secret to the grave and before God, I haven’t told a Christian, not one living Christian. Jesus and his Blessed Mother are a witness to that.’
‘What did you swear you’d take to the grave, Mrs Barry?’ I hold her gaze. I’m afraid if I let it go, I will lose her, or she will lose herself and forget what she was about to tell me.
‘It was not long after Miss Arethusa had departed for America that I was on the landing outside Mrs Deverill’s sitting room. She was in there with Mrs Shaw, that being her sister Poppy, and they were talking, Lord have mercy on them. We below stairs were addled and consumed by Miss Arethusa’s leaving and Mr Deverill losing his mind in fury, Lord have mercy on him and all the holy souls. Since I was a small girleen, I loved news, so, I cocked my ear at the door, God forgive me. Didn’t I hear Mrs Deverill telling Mrs Shaw that she would support Miss Arethusa and the baby, but that Mrs Shaw had to pretend the money was coming from her, otherwise Mrs Deverill feared Miss Arethusa would not accept it and end up in the gutter or worse.’ She raised her eyes to Heaven. ‘God forgive me for breaking my vow,’ she whispered. ‘Almighty Jesus, didn’t Mrs Deverill open the door of a sudden and I tumbled into the room. She cornered me and made me swear that I would never tell another soul what I had heard. You see . . .’ The old woman leaned towards me and narrowed her eyes, a sly look upon her face. ‘Don’t I know I am right about the childeen. And Jesus himself knows I’m right. Dermot McLoughlin’s baby. But I never told a soul. Not a soul. Until now.’
‘You’re right to have told me,’ I say and watch her relax. ‘A mother’s love is unconditional,’ I add, thinking of Adeline supporting her daughter in secret.
‘’Tis indeed, girleen,’ she agrees. ‘Blood is thicker than water. But what happened to the poor little childeen? I never went to bed any night without saying a prayer for that little childeen and indeed poor old Miss Arethusa too.’
‘He is my brother,’ I whisper, because I know that Eily Barry can keep a secret and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for her sharing it with me.
‘May God bless him and protect him from all harm,’ she says and her hand, like a chicken’s claw, clutches my forearm. ‘His father is a good and decent man,’ she adds. ‘And a God-fearing man at that. Better that he lives out his days in peace and ignorance and they can all come together in the Kingdom of Heaven. Life is hard enough and we should never go halfway to meet trouble. Let the secret stay in the ground with the dead, and never see the light of day.’
I wish Logan could live out his days in peace and ignorance, but I know he cannot.
I spend the day with Cormac. We take Kite for a walk in the hills. We hold hands. It feels natural, as if we have walked like this and held hands like this for years. And yet our love is new and fresh and exciting. The love of young people who feel the blissful expansion in their hearts for the very first time. Birds play about the heather and gorse, sunlight sprinkles the water with glitter, the breeze is soft and warm and scented. I am happy.
We discuss my mother’s life. It feels good to talk about it. The more we process the choices she made and their consequences the better I feel about it all. I know it will take time for me to come to terms with the fact that Logan is not my father’s son. Even though Mother didn’t include dates in her diary I could have worked out for myself the year her illegitimate child was born and come to the conclusion that it was Logan, but I’m glad I didn’t. I never suspected it, not for a moment. I never felt the need to do any math.
We picnic on the beach, a simple basket of soda bread and cheese. We are alone. Only the seabirds witness us lying together on the sand while the noise of the waves drowns out the sweet nothings we whisper to each other. We laugh – no one has ever made me laugh like Cormac does – and we doze. The day is long when one has nothing to do but idle the hours away in the eternal Now.
When Cormac drops me back at the White House in the late afternoon I go in search of Kitty. She is in the garden, on her knees by the border, pulling out ground elder and nettles. ‘I have finished Mother’s diary,’ I tell her.
She looks up and shades her eyes from the sun with her arm. Her hand is full of weeds. ‘And?’
‘You must read it for yourself,’ I tell her. ‘It’s too complicated to tell you.’
‘I’m
intrigued,’ she says.
‘You’re meant to read it as I was. It’s what she wanted.’
‘Then I will. May I give it to Papa after I’ve read it?’
‘Of course. I’ll put it on the hall table.’
She looks at her watch. ‘Wyatt telephoned again this afternoon.’ She registers my lack of enthusiasm. ‘He didn’t sound very pleased to miss you again. I told him you’re out all day, sightseeing. Anyway, he’s going to telephone again this evening at seven.’
‘All right, thank you,’ I say.
Kitty pushes herself up. She is agile for a woman of her age. ‘Did you have a nice day with Cormac?’
Her gaze is penetrating. I know she knows what is going on between us. She’s no fool. I also know she is not judgemental. There’s something in her expression that tells me she understands and I remember Cormac insinuating that Kitty had a secret friendship of her own. I long to know about it. I long to share my love for Cormac. ‘I had a lovely day,’ I reply. ‘We picnicked on the beach. Took Kite for a walk in the hills. I’m falling more in love with Ireland every day that I’m here,’ I gush and I know my face is aglow and giving me away. But I don’t care.
‘You’d better not tell that to Wyatt,’ she says with a smile, linking arms with me and walking towards the house.
‘I don’t want to leave,’ I tell Kitty suddenly. ‘I want to stay here for ever.’
‘I know you do,’ she says.
‘Do you?’ I ask, glancing at her.
‘I do, because there was a time in my life when I had the opportunity to leave Ireland with the man I loved. But I didn’t.’
‘Because you couldn’t tear yourself away?’
‘I love Ireland, Faye. It’s in the marrow of my bones. It runs in the blood of my veins. Nothing, not even the greatest love, could tear me from it.’
‘Is that why you fought for independence?’
‘I fought for independence because I believed in it. Because the man I loved believed in it, and because I craved adventure. Your mother was a Deverill, Faye, like I am. We’re not good at abiding by the rules. Elspeth and my other sister, Victoria, are paragons of virtue. Somehow the Deverill spirit never penetrated their hearts. But it penetrated mine, and Aunt Tussy’s.’ She looks at me searchingly. ‘I think it’s penetrating your heart too.’ When I don’t reply, because I’m embarrassed to admit to my adultery, she smiles. ‘Am I right?’
The Secret Hours Page 37