The Last Secret of the Deverills

by Santa Montefiore

  Breda took the baby in her arms. ‘If Lord Deverill finds out about this I cannot vouch for his safety. He might come looking for him. He might even kill him.’ A gasp escaped Maggie’s throat and the blood drained from her face. ‘You have to make them believe he died,’ Breda continued. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘The guard already fears me,’ said Maggie. ‘It will not take much to bend him to my will. You must take my son, Breda, and look after him.’

  ‘I promise,’ said Breda. ‘He’s the last of the O’Leary men. What’ll you call him, Maggie?’

  ‘Liam O’Leary,’ she said. ‘After Father.’

  Breda kissed her sister’s cheek. ‘I’ll keep Liam safe until you come home. You will come home, won’t you, Maggie?’ she asked fearfully. She had heard what people were saying: that Maggie was a witch and she would burn at the stake.

  ‘Of course I’ll come home,’ said Maggie.

  But Fate thought otherwise.

  Maggie waited to see Lord Deverill. She waited and she waited and she waited some more. She waited for weeks, but Lord Deverill never came. She wondered whether he was somewhere in the castle above her, oblivious that she was below, locked in a room, waiting for him to receive her.

  Maggie was put on trial for witchcraft and it didn’t take long to sentence her. She had cast a spell on the men of Co. Cork and incited them to rebel. Every surviving man had confirmed it and as a reward for their information they had been spared. As for Maggie, the punishment for witchcraft was death by fire. She smiled grimly as she recalled the spirits she had invoked with fire. What had begun in the flames would end in them, she thought. They asked her if she had anything to say. I want to see Lord Deverill, she said, and they laughed and took her away. She was incarcerated in the village of Ballinakelly and the day of her execution was set.

  When that day dawned the sky was slate-grey and the wind was cold, as if it carried within it blades sharp enough to tear the skin. Crows and rooks cawed from the rooftops as the great pyre was built in the square and the people slowly gathered to watch the spectacle. In her cell Maggie prayed. She didn’t pray to her pagan spirits and she didn’t pray to the Devil, she prayed to God and asked for His forgiveness. She didn’t fear death because she knew it was false and that the soul lived on. Yet she feared the pain of burning in the fire. She feared that more than anything.

  They came to fetch her. They tied her like a pig and lifted her into a cart. She knelt in a white robe a good woman had given her and looked out through the curtain of knotted, dirty hair that hung in front of her face. She swept her eyes over the faces of the people she had known all her life, many of whose broken hearts she had healed by passing on messages from the dead, and many of whom had fought beside her father and brothers against Cromwell’s mighty armies. Maggie saw their fear, raw and unconcealed, as they watched the cart move slowly past them. No one said a word. No one jeered. She wondered whether they were too frightened that she’d wield a final spell or two before dying – or that she’d come back after she had gone and harm them then. They stood back and formed a clear path that led directly to the pyre.

  Still Maggie looked for Lord Deverill. She was certain he would come. She was certain that if he knew of her execution he would come and stop it.

  Just as she was lifted off the cart a young boy bolted out of the crowd and ran at her. He was small and nimble and the soldiers were slow to react. He fell against her and thrust a small leather bag into her hand. Before they could catch him he had scampered away. Maggie squeezed the bag tightly behind her back and wondered what was in it.

  They tied her to the stake and bound her hands behind it and they seemed to be so afraid themselves that they didn’t notice the bag in her grasp, or, if they did, they chose to ignore it.

  Maggie did not resist. There was no point. She was in God’s hands now.

  The priest read out her crime and then said a prayer in Latin, which Maggie did not understand. A soldier came with a flare and lit the pyre. Maggie raised her eyes above the crowd. Then she saw him. She saw him there and her heart gave a leap of hope.

  Lord Deverill was mounted on his horse in his fine clothes and plumed hat. He was accompanied by his men but Maggie saw only him, watching her impassively, one gloved hand on the reins, the other on his thigh. He did not move. He just stared at her and she did not know what he was thinking.

  She thought then of their son, of Liam O’Leary, and hoped that he was safe. She hoped he would grow up strong and have a better life than she’d had. Then the flames began to grow and the smoke began to billow out from the pyre and the heat began to intensify beneath her. She did not withdraw her eyes from the man she loved. From the man she loved and loathed in equal measure.

  She gazed at Lord Deverill and he gazed back, but although he had the power to stop the burning, he did not.

  The flames reached her feet and she gave a low moan. The moan became a scream that pierced the air. Maddened with agony she lost all reason. Then the little bag of gunpowder exploded in her hand and she was released.

  Maggie stood beside the pyre and watched the remains of her body burn. Then she saw Lord Deverill turn away. She knew he had given the boy the gunpowder, but that was little consolation now that her life was over. He led his horse back through the hamlet, back to the castle and back to his wife, leaving her ashes to scatter on the wind.

  Maggie searched for the light but it never came. She listened for God’s calling but it never came. The world was dark and gloomy and her spirit seemed to be stuck in it. She wondered how long she’d have to stay in this limbo. She wondered what she had to do to free herself.

  PART THREE

  Chapter 23

  Connecticut 1945

  It was a typical Sunday in June at the Wallaces’ palatial home in Connecticut. Joan Wallace was lying on the sun lounger in a fashionable red-and-white polka-dot two-piece bathing suit. Her red hair was curled to her shoulders, her manicured nails painted crimson and her pouting lips Max Factor scarlet. She held a smouldering Virginia Slims cigarette between her long white fingers and looked decidedly bored. Dorothy Wallace was on the sun lounger beside her sister-in-law in a more demure one-piece bathing suit, which she felt was more appropriate for her age, while Pam Wallace had deliberately taken the lounger on the other side of the pool. She was wearing a green polka-dot one-piece suit, for although she admired and copied Joan’s style she wasn’t brave enough to show her midriff – and she didn’t think Joan should be either. Their mother-in-law Diana, in a straw hat and floral sundress, was sitting at a small round table at the other end of the pool beneath a large parasol, talking to her granddaughter Martha over large glasses of iced tea. They had been conversing for some time, confidentially and quietly. In the distance the sound of a men’s tennis four could be heard beyond the rose garden as Joan’s husband Charles played with his brothers Larry and Stephen, and his eldest son Joe. A small group of the Wallace grandchildren were playing croquet on the lawn with their spouses, a few were in the pool and one or two were out riding. The youngest great-grandchild was asleep in a pram beneath an apple tree. Ted Wallace, patriarch of the family, was in an armchair beneath the veranda, reading the newspapers and enjoying the peace before guests would descend on the house at 12.30 for lunch in the garden.

  Joan watched Diana and Martha through her dark sunglasses. Pam watched Joan and suspected she was plotting or at least bitching. Ever since she had told Edith that Martha was adopted Pam had mistrusted her and with good reason. Martha had never divulged what happened in Ireland but the trip had altered her irrevocably. She had been quite a different person when she had eventually come home: solemn, ponderous and sad. Even now, six years on, she had yet to fall in love, marry and live the normal life of a girl her age. Most worryingly she had taken to spending hours in her bedroom reading the Bible, or at church. Pam blamed Joan for the massive change in her daughter and would never forgive her. It was only because Larry had begged her to at least tolerate her si
ster-in-law that she had managed to dissemble enough to be civil.

  ‘You know, I’ve often wondered what went on in Ireland,’ Joan said to Dorothy, without taking her eyes off Martha and Diana. ‘Do you think she’s confided in Diana?’

  ‘Most likely,’ said Dorothy without looking up from her magazine. The whole Martha business had been so unpleasant Dorothy didn’t really want to be seen colluding with the person who had started it. Only the formidable presence of Ted Wallace had prevented the family breaking in two.

  ‘Martha should find a nice man to marry,’ said Joan, blowing out a puff of smoke. ‘She’s pretty enough,’ she added reluctantly. She thought of her own children and their highly successful marriages and felt very smug. ‘But no one’s going to marry her if she doesn’t put on some make-up and a nice frock and smile a little. If she continues to go about with a face like a boot she’ll end up an old maid like Aunt Vera.’ No one in the family wanted to end up like Aunt Vera who had died alone aged ninety-six and gone into family legend for being drab, brittle, miserable and lonely. Joan watched Martha and Diana talking with their expressions grave and their heads almost touching, and was more curious than ever.

  But not in Joan’s wildest dreams could she have imagined what they were discussing. Now that the war in Europe was over Martha wanted to leave America and return to Ireland. But what she wanted to do there no one could ever have predicted.

  The previous night Martha had told her grandmother everything. She hadn’t planned to. In fact, she had vowed to herself that she would never tell a living soul about the Deverills and JP. But her grandmother had been unwell, nothing more serious than a cold, and the thought of losing her had propelled Martha to share the burden of her secret. She needed her grandmother’s support for an idea that had been brewing for some time. She knew that no one else in her family, least of all her parents, would understand or indeed favour her plan.

  Diana had listened as Martha had sat on the edge of her bed and, hesitantly at first, then in a torrent of emotional outpouring, confided her sorry tale. Diana had taken her hand, gazed on her with compassion and listened without interrupting once. Only when Martha had finished did Diana speak. ‘My poor child, no wonder you returned as if the stuffing had been kicked out of you. But you have had six years to think this over, Martha dear. What is it that you wish to do?’ And Martha had told her. It wasn’t something that had come to her in a rush of inspiration but something that had insinuated itself into her consciousness over the many days and nights she had searched her soul for an answer and the Bible for reprieve. Diana had been surprised, but she had not tried to dissuade her. Most importantly she had not judged her. ‘If that is what you want to do with your life, my dear,’ she had said a little sadly, ‘then you have my blessing. Who is to say what our purposes on earth are to be? Ultimately we are all searching for meaning.’ She had stroked her granddaughter’s cheek and smiled. ‘I suggest you and I sleep on it tonight and discuss it in the morning. We will need to tread carefully.’ There was no way on earth that Larry and Pam would accept Martha’s proposal. They would do everything in their power to stop her returning to Ireland unless they were sheltered from the truth. Diana was all for telling white lies if the circumstances demanded them.

  Joan’s attention was diverted from Diana and Martha to the four men who now came to the pool to cool off after their tennis. They changed out of their whites in the pool house and dived into the water. A few minutes later the rest of the family were drawn to the scene from every corner of the estate like animals to a watering hole. They all fell into the pool with squeals of pleasure and Martha’s plotting with her grandmother came to a natural close.

  Martha did not want to swim and she did not want to have to make polite conversation with the guests who were coming for lunch. She longed for a quiet life. More than ever she felt dislocated from her home and awkward in the company of those who should have been her most natural companions. She had always had a sense of isolation, but since Ireland that sense had grown stronger. She still yearned for JP Deverill with all her heart. Sometimes she feared that it would never heal and she’d suffer that searing, aching pain forever. Her mother and aunts were constantly trying to set her up with well-connected, wealthy young men, but their meddling got them nowhere; Martha was not interested. None of those young men compared to JP and none of them was enough to distract her from pining. In fact, those disastrous, disappointing dates only left her feeling ever more bereft and desperate to find some way out of her suffering.

  That evening, after the guests had finally departed, when the men were exhausted after further sets of tennis and Pam, Dorothy and Joan pink from too much sunbathing, Diana spoke with Larry. Martha remained in the garden while they sat in the swing chair on the veranda, talking as the sun set over the rose garden, but she knew exactly what her grandmother was going to say to him for they had planned it carefully that morning by the pool. Once they had finished Larry suggested he and Martha take a stroll, just the two of them, and she waited anxiously for him to initiate the conversation.

  As the light bounced off the water in a thousand golden stars and the gentle chirruping of crickets rang out from the undergrowth, Larry spoke. ‘Your grandmother and I have been talking about your future, Martha,’ he said and Martha pretended she knew nothing about it.

  ‘What future?’ she asked. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve arranged for me to marry some rich but chinless son of one of your friends,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘No, of course not. That’s your mother’s department. She and your aunts seem to be making quite a hash of it,’ he replied.

  ‘I have no desire to marry, Daddy.’

  Larry did not believe her. All girls married, except the rare few like his aunt Vera, and he didn’t envisage a pretty girl like Martha ending up like her. ‘You will when the time is right,’ he said. ‘But you’re young. You don’t need to rush into anything. But I want to make a suggestion to you before I suggest it to your mother.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, folding her arms as they slowed their pace.

  ‘Your grandmother and I agree that ever since you came back from Ireland you have been unhappy. The war is over now and people are beginning to travel again so she suggested you go to London and work at the Embassy. It wouldn’t be hard to arrange because I know the Ambassador’s family well. You could go for a year or two, do something constructive and interesting and live an independent life. It would do you good. Who knows, you might even meet someone over there and put your mother and aunts out of business!’

  Martha knew that would never happen. ‘I think I’d like to go to London,’ she said, as if now was the first time she’d thought of it. ‘I would miss you all but Grandma is probably right. It would do me good to throw myself into something constructive. The Embassy would be a fascinating place to work and my secretarial skills are good. I could make myself useful there, serving the country.’ She glanced at her father and hoped that she hadn’t gone too far. She didn’t feel in the least patriotic.

  ‘Your mother won’t be happy, but I’m sure I can persuade her if you really want to go.’

  ‘I do,’ said Martha. More than you can imagine.

  ‘Then leave it with me,’ Larry said, putting his hands in his pockets and gazing out over the water. ‘I know you never told me what happened in Ireland and I’m not asking you to tell me now, but I’ve lived longer than you and I can tell you on good authority that letting heartbreak go is the only way to move forward in life. Hurting is part of living, Martha. It’s part of God’s great purpose, to drive us deeper and to teach us about compassion so that we can better understand ourselves and other people. But healing is also part of the lesson. You mustn’t ignore that.’ He looked at her and smiled kindly. ‘I’ll let you go to London if you promise me you will try and live a little.’

  ‘I will try,’ she replied with a small smile.

  ‘I can’t ask any more of you than that,’ he said and he put
his hand on the small of her back and turned to walk home the way they had come.

  Only Diana and Martha knew the full extent of her plan. Going to London was simply the first step. Diana secretly hoped that time in London would change Martha’s mind before she took the more drastic second step and went to Ireland. Being a traditional woman Diana believed in marriage and procreation and she considered the workplace the domain of men. What Martha planned to do was a leap too far from convention for Diana’s peace of mind. But Martha seemed determined and it was her duty, as her grandmother, to see that she found her way, whatever that way was.

  Martha left for London at the end of the summer. Pam had tried to prevent her leaving but her tears and protestations had not weakened Martha’s resolve. She had set her heart on going and Pam sensed that she would not be coming back. Larry told her that it was her fear speaking, but Pam shook her head. She knew she was right. Martha had grown distant over the past six years and now she was taking herself off and there was nothing Pam could do or say to hold her back. She had lost her and it was all thanks to Joan and her jealous, evil tongue.

  Pam looked back to that precious time when she had first held the small baby in the Convent of Our Lady Queen of Heaven and felt a terrible wrench in the middle of her chest. She could never have imagined then that she would only have her for twenty-three years. If only Martha could understand the depth of Pam’s longing to be a mother. If only she could know how deep and sincere her love was, then maybe she’d stay. But Pam had tried to tell her and her words had fallen short, for there was no adequate way to express something so powerful. She hoped that time abroad would make Martha appreciate what she had left behind. As Larry had told her dozens of times: Life is long. There is time enough for reconciliation. God writes straight on crooked lines. But Pam did not share his faith. Martha was leaving and it felt terribly final.