As for Harry, Boysie loved Harry more with every year that passed. Neither much liked their wives, they endured them, and they had both done their duty and fathered children, but what they both wanted more than anything in the world was something they could never have: each other. Years ago Harry’s wife Charlotte had discovered them embracing at Celia’s Summer Ball at Castle Deverill, but after an agonizing few months of tears and tantrums they had reached an agreement whereby Harry was allowed to see Boysie again, as a friend. Thus their friendship had resumed, albeit constrained by celibacy, and their affection for each other had been permitted to deepen. They had been well-behaved, very well-behaved, for years, but as Harry’s fondness for his wife had diminished so had his resolve and his good intentions. He and Boysie had found each other again in that little nondescript hotel in Soho where they used to spend their mornings in bed together. Boysie had always told Harry that no one would think to look there, not even Charlotte with her habit of spying, and he was right. It wasn’t ideal, but it was all they were allowed. One had to accept small mercies and that mercy was bigger than most. He watched Harry now as he showed his mother to her seat and the sight made him feel warm inside.
Harry had always been handsome. His blond hair had darkened with age to a wet-sand colour and his face had benefited from the lines that life had drawn into it; he looked less boyish these days and more distinguished. His blue eyes were the same shade as his mother’s, but where hers were cold and hard like ice his were soft and twinkling like snow. Boysie saw Harry laugh at something someone said and his heart gave a little leap.
The Irish Deverills were represented by Bertie, Kitty and Robert, Elspeth and Peter. Bertie had thought very hard about attending because he knew there was a fair chance that his wife would embarrass him by bringing Arthur, and he didn’t want to find himself in the awkward position of having to meet the man, but the desire to lay eyes on Maud again outweighed his reservations. After years of estrangement Bertie’s opinion of his wife had changed because his opinion of himself had changed. No longer casting his eye about for blame, he had come to recognize his faults, and there were, unfortunately, many. Because of these failings an insurmountable gulf had opened up between them and Bertie wondered whether it was futile to hope that she might one day bridge that gulf with forgiveness. If he hadn’t given in to his desire and indulged in numerous affairs, if he hadn’t fallen in love with Grace, if he hadn’t impregnated that housemaid and brought JP and Martha into the world, if he had seen Maud and only Maud and watered her with affection like a fragile orchid, Maud might still love him. But if he never insinuated himself into her presence how would he ever convince her that he had changed?
After the service the reception was held in Deverill House, the magnificent Italianate mansion in Kensington built by Augusta’s deceased son Digby, who had made his great fortune in the diamond and gold mines of South Africa only to lose it in the stock market crash of 1929. As his wife Beatrice was insisting on hiding out at Deverill Rising, their country estate in Wiltshire, it was left to her twin daughters, Leona and Vivien, to host the gathering of family and friends in the house they had so nearly had to sell had it not been for Beatrice’s youngest daughter Celia, who had astonished everyone by travelling out to South Africa and mining an old farm her father had bought at the turn of the century, with surprising results. She had succeeded where everyone who knew her would have expected her to fail. She had established the Free State Deep Reef Mining Company and was fast restoring her father’s fortune. Of course, Augusta claimed she had always seen grit in her youngest grandchild. ‘A chip off the old block,’ she had said not long before she died. ‘But I was the only one who recognized those fine qualities. She was always going to surprise everyone, but of course she didn’t surprise me, and, had her father lived, she wouldn’t have surprised him either.’ If her father had lived she’d never have had to go out to South Africa in the first place. But no one was talking about Digby, or Celia, or even Augusta. They were talking about the threat of war.
‘If war comes,’ said Maud to her daughter-in-law Charlotte, ‘it will be a terrible war. It won’t be like the last one. It will be much worse. The Germans are so technically advanced we shall all be obliterated within the first week.’
‘I’m sure Chamberlain will do everything to avoid it,’ said Charlotte hopefully.
‘I’m afraid it’s inevitable. There is no solution but to go to war and we shall once again sacrifice a generation of young men. Ireland will be neutral, of course. Clever them.’ Maud lifted her eyes to find someone more interesting to talk to, because she found Charlotte very dim, and slid into Bertie’s wistful gaze with a murmur of surprise.
Charlotte followed the line of her mother-in-law’s vision and frowned. ‘Shall we go and talk to Bertie? He’s standing on his own,’ she said.
‘Well, I don’t see why not,’ Maud replied, casting her eye about for Arthur. She found him deep in conversation with the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Duke of Norfolk. Maud and Charlotte threaded their way through the crowd to where Bertie was standing alone with a glass of lime soda.
‘Hello, Maud,’ he said.
‘It’s been a while,’ Maud replied. ‘How are you, Bertie? You look well.’
‘Getting old, Maud,’ he replied with a smile. Maud looked around to see that she had lost Charlotte somewhere along the way, or perhaps Charlotte had lost her on purpose. Not so dim, after all, Maud thought wryly.
‘How’s life treating you in Ireland?’
‘Ticking along,’ said Bertie. He couldn’t very well tell her that he had discovered another illegitimate child and that JP had run off to lodge with a friend in Dublin while he came to terms with the fact that the woman he loved was his long-lost sister. ‘I see Arthur is still present in your life.’
Maud’s jaw stiffened. ‘He’s a dear friend, Bertie,’ she answered, but she knew Bertie was no fool. ‘I need to talk to Victoria,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘If there’s a war, which I’m very sure there will be, we will have to take refuge at Broadmere. We can’t possibly stay in London. It’s a shame we don’t still have that castle of yours. The Germans won’t bother bombing Ireland.’
‘You are always welcome to come home, Maud,’ said Bertie pointedly, hoping to remind her that they were still married. ‘You can come back to the Hunting Lodge. If I recall we did enjoy many good times there.’
‘I don’t recall many,’ she replied tersely.
‘Come now, Maud. It wasn’t all that bad living with me.’
She gave a small smile in response to his hopeful one. ‘But one only remembers the bad.’
‘Or one only chooses to,’ he interjected. He lowered his voice, hoping that no one would come and interrupt them. ‘Look, my dear, I apologize for being a shoddy husband. You deserved better.’ Maud’s expression softened at this unexpected apology. Encouraged by the minute dropping of her defences, he added, ‘I have seen the error of my ways, Maud. The very many foolish errors that I made in the early years of our marriage. I didn’t treasure you as I should have. I realize that now.’ Maud’s lips parted as if she was about to say something, but whatever that something was it never came and she just looked at him in bewilderment. Bertie found that the hardest part about apologizing was apologizing; once sorry had been said it was very easy to say it again, and again. ‘I didn’t realize how unhappy you were because I was only thinking of myself and my own pleasure,’ he continued, warming to his theme. ‘As a young man I was very selfish. Life was good and I had been spoiled. But since those days I have faced great loss and unhappiness, which would have been for nothing had I not learned something from them. I’ve learnt appreciation, Maud, of my home, of my family and of you. Yes, of you most of all.’ Maud was now blushing. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to say because she didn’t know how she felt. She stared at him with her frosty blue eyes and a long time seemed to pass before she blinked.
Bertie felt lighter of spi
rit than he had in a long time. Over the last twenty years he had shed his old self, slowly, layer by layer, like an onion. His cousin Digby had forced him to give up the drink and JP had shown him how to live again. The fire that had consumed his home and his father, his mother’s death and the other terrible deaths that had depleted the Deverill clan had each relieved him of the darker elements of his ego. With every tragedy he felt less powerful and less ambitious to be so. He wanted little in his life now: his children, his grandchildren and Maud. He wanted Maud and the expression that was now breaking through the hardened contours of her face gave him hope. The sight of Arthur Arlington forcing his way clumsily through the crowd snatched that hope away. ‘Think about what I have said to you, Maud,’ he added quickly, touching her hand. ‘War is coming and who knows what will become of us. Ireland is still your home and it would give me great pleasure to welcome you back.’
Maud watched him walk away. She felt weak in her knees. ‘Oh Arthur,’ she said when he reached her. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I need to sit down.’
‘Are you all right? I saw you talking to Bertie. What did he say? Did he upset you?’
‘No, of course not. We were just talking about the children.’
‘Ah,’ said Arthur, relieved. She slipped her hand through his arm and let him lead her into a downstairs sitting room where one or two elderly people were nodding off on sofas. She could see through the windows into the garden where guests were gathered in small clusters on the grass, bathed in sunshine. As she settled into an armchair she saw Bertie walking up to Kitty, Elspeth and Harry and joining in their cheerful repartee. There was no ceremony, no formality or stiffness, in fact the four of them simply continued from where they had last left off and Maud felt a stab of jealousy; they belonged together and she was an outcast. Only Victoria, her eldest daughter, took any trouble with her at all. She turned to Arthur who responded to her need with a well-practised reply:
‘You outshine every other woman in the room, Maud dearest,’ he said and she smiled weakly and allowed his flattery to fill the emptiness inside.
Britain declared war on Germany at the beginning of September and a fever of fear and excitement swept the country. Old people remembered the Great War with horror while young people hurried to enlist, hungry for the thrill of adventure. London was at once transformed. Outside Buckingham Palace the King’s Guard changed from peacetime scarlet to wartime khaki and the steel helmet replaced the bearskin. Hospitals were evacuated and schoolchildren sent to the safety of the countryside, labelled like parcels. Londoners continued their daily commutes to work but along with their briefcases they carried gas masks. They hoped they’d never have to use them.
The first air-raid siren had sounded twenty minutes after war had been declared and everyone had hurried to the bomb shelters, forming orderly queues without the slightest panic. Indeed, there was an air of calm typical of the British character. Maud, who thought it beneath her to cower with strangers in Underground stations and hovels, fled the city to stay with Victoria in her stately home in Kent, taking Harry’s wife Charlotte and their children with her, while Harry insisted on offering his services to the government. Boysie sent his wife to the country to stay with an aunt, and enlisted too. Both men were in their mid-forties. Even though they had fought in the Great War they were now too old to rejoin their regiments, but they were determined to make themselves useful somehow, and determined to remain together.
War was a boon that came at the perfect time for JP. Sick in the heart and his soul tormented with longing, he saw it as a way to lose himself and his pain. He postponed his course at Trinity College, Dublin and wrote to the Air Ministry, telling them that he wanted to fly a plane. Having considered various options he had concluded that what he enjoyed more than anything in the world was galloping over the hills on a horse, which must be much like flying. The RAF sent him forms to fill out and a short while later he was invited to attend a selection board at Adastral House in Kingsway, London. His father, who had fought in the Great War, tried to dissuade him. JP was too young to understand what war meant, said Bertie, and certainly too young to fly a plane. But Robert, whose stiff leg had prevented him from fighting in the previous war, knew all about the desire to play one’s part and although he feared for the boy’s safety he did nothing to stop him going to London to interview. Kitty understood JP’s need to run away from his disappointment. She had heard that he had turned to drink in Dublin, and, considering their father’s habit of reaching for the bottle in times of distress, realized that his joining the Royal Air Force might possibly be the only way to save him from himself.
News spread fast that JP Deverill had enlisted to fight. No one in Ballinakelly was in the least surprised. JP was Anglo-Irish therefore it was normal to want to serve his king and country. However, one person was devastated that his life was going to be put in danger; one young girl who had lost her heart to him that morning out on the hills when he had rescued her on his horse like a knight in shining armour from a fairy tale.
Alana O’Leary was only eleven, too young to understand grown-up love, but she knew what she felt and the place in the centre of her chest where she felt it. She went to bed at night and lay with her eyes open, fantasizing about bumping into him again. She sat in class, gazing out of the window, picturing his smile and the way his grey eyes twinkled. She wandered back home at the end of the day with her gaze lost somewhere in the half-distance, imagining all the possible scenarios that might put her once again in his path. At Mass she prayed for God to keep JP safe. To preserve him from bombs and bullets, to bring him home in one piece. She prayed so hard that her hands turned white as she clamped them together. Knowing what her father thought of the Deverills, she spoke to no one about her infatuation. She guarded it close against her heart like a secret treasure. Knowing she had such a secret gave her pleasure – knowing JP was in the world, even though she had only seen him once, made its beauty more dazzling.
‘Another war,’ said Adeline sadly, folding her arms and staring out of the tower window. The evening shadows crept over the dewy lawn as the sun set over Castle Deverill. ‘Human beings are so very stupid,’ she added.
‘They never learn,’ said Hubert huffily. ‘No doubt the Deverills will suffer more casualties. Death isn’t so bad when viewed from this side.’ He chuckled bitterly. ‘In fact, when I consider our Rupert’s death on the battlefield, I realize it was much worse for us than it was for him.’
‘Death for most people is over very quickly,’ Barton agreed from the armchair. ‘But for us it just goes on and on and on . . .’
‘Will we ever see Rupert again?’ Hubert asked, his face crumpling with misery. ‘I would so dearly love to see our boy again.’
‘We will see Rupert,’ said Adeline firmly.
‘But, my dear, you could move on at any time . . .’ said Hubert. ‘You don’t have to stay here with me.’
‘I remain because I want to,’ Adeline replied. She went and put her arms around him from behind the chair, pressing her face against his. ‘Because I love you.’
Barton growled from the armchair. Egerton got up and left the room. Neither was comfortable with expressions of love even though their parched hearts craved them.
Chapter 16
Connecticut
When Martha returned home to Connecticut she was a very different person to the one who had left a couple of months before. Then her heart had been intact, now it was in pieces and she didn’t know whether those pieces could ever be put back together again.
Pam, who had been devastated by her daughter’s disappearance, embraced her with remorse and regret, searching for forgiveness in Martha’s distant eyes. Edith had been suitably reprimanded, although due to her young age she hadn’t been punished. It was Pam’s sister-in-law Joan who had received the brunt of everyone’s wrath because it had been she who had spilled the secret about Martha’s adoption to Edith in the first place. Edith had exposed her in the first moments of her ques
tioning and Joan had been revealed as manipulative and cruel. There was nothing Joan could say in her defence. She had done wrong and she had to accept the consequences of her actions. Ted Wallace was appalled because he abhorred dishonesty and his wife Diana was distraught that her favourite grandchild should have discovered the truth about her parentage in that blunt, insensitive way. Pam and Larry were anxious to reassure Martha that not only did they love her but also she had never ever been anything other than a Tobin and a Wallace, whatever she had uncovered in Ireland. But Martha was unable to share what she had discovered. She had gone to find her mother only to learn that she was dead. There was no possibility now of ever knowing her. She felt that she had also lost a part of herself along with her mother; the part that was so full of potential, yet to be discovered. She was still licking her wounds – and she wasn’t yet ready to show them to anyone.
As for JP, she couldn’t begin to tell them about him.
Martha’s love for JP ran deep. So deep, in fact, that she didn’t think she would ever recover from his loss. Their love hadn’t been a superficial infatuation, and their strange recognition of each other, which they had interpreted in the way poets do, was now easily explained. It hadn’t been the romantic falling in love of two people who had found each other, but the rekindling of an old love of two people who had lost each other. They had been conceived together, grown in the womb side by side and arrived into the world as a pair. Although they didn’t look alike, there had been so much that was similar about them besides their love of milky tea and cake. The more she thought about him and replayed the scenes from their day in Dublin, the more their likenesses were revealed. They had laughed at the same things and been touched by the same things and both had wondered at these amazing parallels. Martha had thanked God for bringing two such well-suited people together; she didn’t realize He was, in fact, reuniting them. Now she had lost both – the man she loved and her twin brother. The loss was double and it sliced through her heart twice as severely.
The Last Secret of the Deverills Page 19