Daughters of Castle Deverill

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘Of course I’m happy. I’m relieved it’s you and not a stranger, but I admit I’m a little jealous too,’ Kitty replied sheepishly.

  Celia flung her arms around her cousin again. ‘Please don’t hate me. I did it for us. For the family. The castle couldn’t possibly go to a stranger. It would be like giving away one’s own child. I couldn’t bear to think of someone else building over our memories. This way we can all enjoy it. You can continue to live in the White House, Uncle Bertie in the Hunting Lodge if he so wishes and we can all be terribly happy again. After everything we’ve suffered we deserve to find happiness, don’t you think?’

  Kitty laughed affectionately at her cousin’s fondness of the dramatic. ‘You’re so right, Celia. It will be wonderful to see the castle brought back to life and by a Deverill no less. It’s the way it should be. I only wish it were me.’

  Celia put a gloved hand on her stomach. ‘I’m going to have a baby, Kitty,’ she announced, smiling.

  ‘Goodness, Celia, how many more surprises have you in store for me?’

  ‘Just that and the castle. How about you? Do hurry up. I pray we are both blessed with girls so that they can grow up here at Castle Deverill just like we did.’ And Kitty realized then that Celia had rewritten her past, placing herself here within these castle walls for more than merely the annual month of August. She was one of those shallow people who rewrote their own history and believed in the absolute truth of their own version. ‘Come on,’ Celia continued, taking Kitty’s hand and pulling her through the doorframe into the space where once the great hall had been. ‘Let’s explore. I have grand plans, you know. I want it to be just the same as it was when we were girls, but better. Do you remember the last Summer Ball? Wasn’t it marvellous?’

  Kitty and Celia waded through the weeds that grew up to their knees, marvelling at the small trees that had seeded themselves among the thistles and thorns and stretched their spindly branches towards the light. The ground was soft against their boots as they moved from room to room, disturbing the odd rook and magpie that flew indignantly into the air. Celia chattered on, reliving the past in colourful anecdotes and fond reminiscences, while Kitty was unable to stop the desolation of her ruined home falling upon her like a heavy black veil. With a leaden heart she remembered her grandfather Hubert, killed in the fire, and her grandmother Adeline who had died alone in the western tower only a month ago. She thought of Bridie’s brother, Michael Doyle, who had set the castle ablaze, and her own foolish thirst for recrimination, which had only led to her shame in his farmhouse where no one had heard her cries. Her thoughts drifted to her lover Jack O’Leary and their meeting at the wall where he had held her tightly and begged her to flee with him to America, then later, on the station platform, when he had been arrested and dragged away. Her head began to spin. Her heart contracted with fear as the monsters of the past were roused from sleep. She left Celia in the remains of the dining room and fled into the library to seek refuge among the more gentle memories of bridge and whist and porter cake.

  Kitty leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes with a deep sigh. She realized she was ambivalent about this canary, chattering away about a house whose past she barely understood. Celia’s chatter receded, overwhelmed by the autumn wind that moaned about the castle walls. But as Kitty shut off her sight, her sixth sense at once became sensitive to the ghosts now gathering around her. The air, already chilly, grew colder still. There was no surer feeling than this to drag her back to her childhood. Gingerly, she opened her eyes. There, standing before her, was her grandmother, as real as if she were made of flesh and blood, only younger than she had been when she had died and dazzlingly bright as if she were standing in a spotlight. Behind her stood Kitty’s grandfather, Hubert, Barton Deverill, the first Lord Deverill of Ballinakelly, and other unfortunate Deverill heirs who were bound by Maggie O’Leary’s curse to an eternity in limbo, shifting in and out of vision like faces in the prism of a precious stone.

  Kitty blinked as Adeline smiled on her tenderly. ‘You know I’m never far away, my dear,’ she said and Kitty was so moved by her presence that she barely noticed the hot tears spilling down her cheeks.

  ‘I miss you, Grandma,’ she whispered.

  ‘Come now, Kitty. You know better than anyone that we are only separated by the boundaries of perception. Love binds us together for eternity. You’ll understand eternity when it’s your turn. Right now there are more earthly things to discuss.’

  Kitty wiped her cheeks with her leather glove. ‘What things?’

  ‘The past,’ said Adeline, and Kitty knew she meant the prison of the long dead. ‘The curse must be lifted. Perhaps you have the strength to do it; perhaps only you.’

  ‘But Celia’s bought the castle, Grandma.’

  ‘Jack O’Leary is the key which will unlock the gates and let them all fly out.’

  ‘But I can’t have Jack and I don’t have the castle.’ The words gripped her throat like barbed wire. ‘With all the will in the world I can’t make that happen.’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ It was Celia. She swept her eyes over the empty room suspiciously and frowned. ‘You’re not speaking to those ghosts of yours, are you? I hope they all go away before Archie and I move in.’ She laughed nervously. ‘I was just thinking, I might start a literary salon. I do find literary people so attractive, don’t you? Or maybe we’ll hire a fashionable spiritualist from London and hold séances. Gosh, that would be amusing. Oliver Cromwell might show up and scare the living daylights out of us all! I’ve got so many capital ideas. Wouldn’t it be a riot to bring back the Summer Ball?’ She linked her arm through Kitty’s. ‘Come, let’s leave the car here and walk with your horse to the Hunting Lodge. I left Archie to tell Uncle Bertie about us buying the castle. What do you think he’ll say?’

  Kitty took a deep breath to regain her composure. Those who have suffered develop patience and she had always been good at hiding her pain. ‘I think he’ll be as happy as I am,’ she said, making her way back through the hall at her cousin’s side. ‘Blood is thicker than water. That’s something we Deverills all agree on.’

  Bridget Lockwood sat at the wooden table in the farmhouse where she had been raised as Bridie Doyle and felt awkwardly out of place. She was too big for the room, as if she had outgrown the furniture, low ceilings and meagre windows from where she had once gazed upon the stars and dreamed of a better life. Her clothes were too elegant, her kid gloves and fine hat as incongruous in this house as a circus pony in a cowshed. As Mrs Lockwood she had become too refined to derive any pleasure from her old simple way of life. Yet the girl in her who had suffered years of clawing homesickness in America longed to savour the familiar comfort of the home for which she had pined. How often had she dreamed of sitting in this very chair, drinking buttermilk, tasting the smoke from the turf fire and the sweet smell of cows from the barn next door? How many times had she craved her feather bed, her father’s tread on the stair, her mother’s goodnight kiss and her grandmother’s quiet mumbling of the rosary? Too many to count and yet, here she was in the middle of all that she had missed. So why did she feel so sad? Because she was no longer that girl. Not a trace of her remained except Little Jack.

  The farmhouse had filled with locals keen to welcome Bridie back from America and everyone had commented on her pretty blue tea dress with its beads and tassels and her matching blue T-bar shoes, and the women had rubbed the fabric of her skirt between rough fingers, for only in their dreams would they ever possess such luxuries. There had been dancing, laughter and their neighbour Badger Hanratty’s illegal poteen, but Bridie had felt as if she were watching it all from behind a pane of smoked glass, unable to connect with any of the people she had once known and loved so well. She had outgrown them. She had watched Rosetta, her Italian maid and companion whom she had brought back from America, and envied her. The girl had been swung about the room by Bridie’s brother Sean, who had clearly lost his heart to her, and by the look on her fa
ce she had felt more at home than Bridie had. How Bridie had wished she could kick off her shoes and dance as they did, and yet she couldn’t. Her heart was too heavy with grief for her son – and hatred for Kitty Deverill.

  Bridie yearned to slip back into the skin she had shed when she had left as a twenty-one-year-old, pregnant and terrified, to hide her secret in Dublin. But the trauma of childbirth, and the wrench of leaving Ireland and her son, had changed Bridie Doyle forever. She had been expecting one baby, but was astonished when another, a little girl the nuns had later told her, had arrived, tiny and barely alive, in his wake. They had taken her away to try and revive her, but returned soon after to inform Bridie that the baby had not lived. It was better, they had said, that she nurture the living twin and leave the other to God. Bridie hadn’t even been allowed to kiss her daughter’s face and say goodbye. Her baby had vanished as if she had never been. Then Lady Rowan-Hampton had persuaded Bridie to leave her son in the care of the nuns and she had been sent off to start a new life in America.

  No one who has given away a child can know the bitter desolation and burning guilt of that act. She had already lived more lives than most do in their entire lifetime, and yet to Sean, her mother and her grandmother, she was still their Bridie. They knew nothing of the sorrows she had suffered in America or the anguish she suffered now as she realized her son would never know his mother or the wealth she had, by accident and guile, amassed. They believed she was their Bridie still. She didn’t have the heart to tell them that their Bridie was gone.

  She reflected on her attempt to buy Castle Deverill, and wondered, if it had succeeded, would she have been willing to stay? Had she tried to buy it as an act of revenge for the wrongs inflicted on her by Bertie and Kitty Deverill, or because of a purer sense of nostalgia? After all, her mother had been the castle’s cook and she had grown up running up and down its corridors with Kitty. How would they have reacted on discovering that poor, shoeless Bridie Doyle had become Doyenne of Castle Deverill? The smile that crept across her face confirmed that her intention had been born out of resentment and motivated by a desire to wound. If the opportunity ever arose again, she would take it.

  When Sean, Rosetta, Mrs Doyle and her grandmother Old Mrs Nagle appeared in the parlour ready for Mass, Bridie asked them all to sit down. She took a deep breath and knitted her fingers. The faces stared anxiously at her. Bridie looked from her mother to her grandmother, then to Rosetta who sat beside Sean, her face flushed with the blossoming of love. ‘When I was in America I got married,’ she declared.

  Mrs Doyle and Old Mrs Nagle looked at her in astonishment. ‘You’re a married woman, Bridie?’ said Mrs Doyle quietly.

  ‘I’m a widow, Mam,’ Bridie corrected her.

  Her grandmother crossed herself. ‘Married and widowed at twenty-five, God save us! And not chick or child to comfort.’ Bridie winced but her grandmother did not know the hurt her words had caused.

  Mrs Doyle ran her eyes over her daughter’s blue dress and crossed herself as well. ‘Why aren’t you in mourning, Bridie? Any decent widow would wear black to honour her husband.’

  ‘I am done with black,’ Bridie retorted. ‘Believe me, I have mourned my husband enough.’

  ‘Be thankful that your brother Michael isn’t here to witness your shame.’ Mrs Doyle pressed a handkerchief to her mouth to stifle a sob. ‘I have worn black since the day your father was taken from us, God rest him, and I will wear it until I join him, God help me.’

  ‘Bridie is too young to give up on life, Mam,’ said Sean gently. ‘And Michael is in no position to stand in judgement over anybody. I’m sorry, Bridie,’ he said to his sister and his voice was heavy with sympathy. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘A heart attack,’ Bridie replied.

  ‘Surely he was too young for a heart attack?’ said Mrs Doyle.

  Bridie’s eyes flicked to Rosetta. She wasn’t about to reveal that Mr Lockwood had been old enough to be her father. ‘Indeed, it was most unfortunate that he died in his prime. I was planning on bringing him here so that Father Quinn could give us his blessing and you could all meet him . . . but . . .’

  ‘God’s will,’ said Mrs Doyle tightly, affronted that Bridie hadn’t bothered to write and tell them of her marriage. ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Walter Lockwood and he was a fine man.’

  ‘Mrs Lockwood,’ said Old Mrs Nagle thoughtfully. She clearly liked the sound of it.

  ‘We met at Mass,’ Bridie told them with emphasis, feeling the sudden warmth of approval at the mention of the Church. ‘He courted me after Mass every Sunday and we grew fond of each other. We were married only seven months, but in those seven months I can honestly say that I have never been so happy. I have much to be grateful for. Although my grief is deep, I am in a position to share my good fortune with my family. He left me broken-hearted but very rich.’

  ‘Nothing is more important than your faith, Bridie Doyle,’ said Old Mrs Nagle, crossing herself again. ‘But I’m old enough to remember the Great Famine. Money cannot buy happiness but it can surely save us from starvation and hardship and help us to be miserable in comfort, God help us.’ Her wrinkled old eyes, as small as raisins, shone in the gloomy light of the room. ‘The road to sin is paved with gold. But tell me, Bridie, how much are we talking?’

  ‘A cross in this life, a crown in the next,’ said Mrs Doyle gravely. ‘God has seen fit to help us in these hard times, for that our hearts must be full of gratitude,’ she added, suddenly forgetting her daughter’s shameful blue dress and the fact that she never wrote to tell them about her marriage. ‘God bless you, Bridie. I will exchange the washboard for a mangle and thank the Lord for his goodness. Now, to Mass. Let us not forget your brother Michael at Mount Melleray Abbey, Bridie. Let us do another novena to St Jude that he will be saved from the drink and delivered back to us sober and repentant. Sean, hurry up now, let us not be late.’

  Bridie sat in the cart in an elegant green coat with fur trimming, alongside her mother and grandmother, wrapped in heavy woollen shawls, and poor Rosetta who was practically falling out of the back, for it was not made for so many. Sean sat above in his Sunday best, driving the donkey who struggled with the weight, until they reached the hill at which point Bridie and Rosetta walked with Sean to lighten the animal’s load. A cold wind blew in off the sea, playfully seeking to grab Bridie’s hat and carry it away. She held it in place with a firm hand, dismayed to see her fine leather boots sinking into the mud. She resolved to buy her brother a car so that he could drive to Mass, but somehow she knew her grandmother would object to what she considered ‘éirí in airde’ — airs and graces. There would be no ostentatious show of wealth in this family as long as she was alive.

  Father Quinn had heard of Bridie’s triumphant return to Ballinakelly and his greedy eyes settled on her expensive coat and hat and the soft leather gloves on her hands, and knew that she would give generously to the church; after all, there was no family in Ballinakelly more devout than the Doyles. He decided that today’s sermon would be about charity and smiled warmly on Bridie Doyle.

  Bridie walked down the aisle with her chin up and her shoulders back. She could feel every eye upon her and knew what they were thinking. How far she had come from the ragged and barefooted child she had once been, terrified of Father Quinn’s hellfire visions, critical finger-wagging and bullying sermons. She thought of Kitty Deverill with her pretty dresses and silk ribbons in her hair and that fool Celia Deverill who had asked her, ‘How do you survive in winter without any shoes?’ and then the girls at school who had called her a tinker for wearing the dancing shoes Lady Deverill had given her after her father’s death, and the seed of resentment that had rooted itself in her heart sprouted yet another shoot to stifle the sweetness there. Her great wealth gave her a heady sense of power. No one will dare call me a tinker again, she told herself as she took the place beside her brother, for I am a lady now and I command their respect.

  It wasn’t until she was
lighting a candle at the end of Mass that she was struck with a daring yet brilliant idea. If Kitty didn’t allow her to see her child she would simply take him. It wouldn’t be stealing because you couldn’t steal what already belonged to you. She was his mother; it was right and natural that he should be with her. She would take him to America and start a new life. It was so obvious she couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t thought of it before. She smiled, blowing out the little flame at the end of the taper. Of course such inspiration had come directly from God. She had been given it at the very moment she had lit the candle for her son. That was no coincidence; it was divine intervention, for sure. She silently crossed herself and thanked the Lord for his compassion.

  Outside, the locals gathered together on the wet grass as they always did, to greet one another and share the gossip, but today they stood in a semicircle like a herd of timid cows, curious eyes trained on the church door, eagerly awaiting the extravagantly dressed Bridie Doyle to flounce out in her newly acquired finery. In hushed tones they could talk of nothing else: ‘They say she married a rich old man.’ ‘But he died, God rest his soul, and left her a fortune.’ ‘He was eighty.’ ‘He was ninety, for shame.’ ‘She always had ideas above her station, did she not?’ ‘Ah ha, she’ll be after another husband now, God save us.’ ‘But none of our sons will be good enough for her now.’ The old people crossed themselves and saw no virtue in her prosperity, for wasn’t it written in Matthew that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God? But the young were both resentful and admiring in equal measure and longed with all their hearts to sail as Bridie had done to this land of opportunity and plenty and make fortunes for themselves.

  When Bridie stepped out she was startled to find the people of Ballinakelly huddled in a jumble, waiting to see her as if she were royalty. A hush fell about them and no one made a move to meet her. They simply stared and muttered to each other under their breaths. Bridie swept her eyes over the familiar faces of those she had grown up with and found in them a surprising shyness. For a moment she was self-conscious and anxiously looked around for a friend. That was when she saw Jack O’Leary.