"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned anything so personal. But I'm no fool. He's rarely home at night or in the morning. I'm glad you and he have been happy for a time, but I know it can't possibly last."
Muireann would have challenged that statement, but Ciara was already pressing on with her tale of woe.
"I was a fool back then. I would give anything to turn back the clock and undo the damage I caused unwittingly by trusting Christopher. He used me, and even worse, he used me to get to Tara, Lochlainn's fiancée."
"How?"
"He said it was just a bit of innocent sewing for her. The next thing I knew they were having an affair. He even boasted about it, wanted me to watch," Ciara revealed brokenly.
Muireann shook her head. "My God!"
"Tara also thought he would marry her. He lied to her just as he had done to me and all the others. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn't listen.
"Lochlainn never suspected, and I couldn't tell him. I felt so guilty for my part in the whole thing. We began to drift away from each other even further than we already had done. I had neglected my brother sorely when the affair first started, and for that I'm truly ashamed as well.
"Besides, Lochlainn was involved with Tara back then, though she seemed to spend more of her time fobbing him off with excuses, dangling her charms in front of him only to say, ‘Hands off', than being with him."
"I see."
Ciara tried to give her a reassuring smile. "You're nothing like Tara. She wasn't worth your little finger. But it's hard to admit you can make such huge mistakes. That you can be so deceived in the person you love—or lust after.
"Both Lochlainn and I are cut from the same cloth. Proud, not easily given to showing our feelings. I couldn't speak to him, warn him about Tara. He would never have believed me. Or even if he did believe me, he wouldn't have thanked me for the knowledge. I was afraid he would do something desperate or foolish, he seemed so in love with her at the start.
"Anyway, eventually Tara ran off with Christopher, or so it seemed. It was more that Christopher went to the Continent and she followed. He never actually eloped with her.
"Of course it was the perfect chance for Christopher to get even with the bastard cousin he had always loathed and despised. Lochlainn was a hundred times the better man than any of the legitimate Caldwells."
She sighed and shook her head. "It's only a pity our father never chose to acknowledge either of us openly. But he wanted a quiet life, and his wife hated us and everything we stood for. The fact that he had passionately loved another woman besides herself was more than she could bear."
Muireann ventured to put one hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. Neither of you deserved that, no matter what the circumstances of your birth."
Ciara looked surprised at Muireann's lack of concern over the scandal of their birth, and gave a timid smile.
"Thank you. But it wasn't just the woman who might have been our step-mother had she not been so jealous. Augustine hated Lochlainn as well, envied him. At the end, Augustine realized he couldn't run the estate without him. That would no doubt have made him hate Lochlainn even more. If you hadn't come here to Barnakilla, God knows what might have happened. All I can say is, it was a lucky day for us all when Augustine Caldwell blew his brains out."
Muireann barely heard Ciara's last words, so stunned was she as it all started to sink in and make sense. Ciara and Lochlainn were the illegitimate children of Douglas Caldwell? So Augustine had been Lochlainn's half-brother?
But Ciara continued on with her narrative, heedless of Muireann's astonishment. "I think that's really what motivated the affair in the first place, though of course Tara was also a very beautiful woman. She was ambitious too.
"I think she set her cap at Lochlainn at first because he was a force to be reckoned with around here, because of his intelligence and hard work. She never loved him. I'm convinced she truly believed that the old man would leave him something in his will. She would have bided her time, for Douglas Caldwell was quite frail by then, if it hadn't been for Christopher seeming an even more attractive prospect."
"She sounds as though she would have made Lochlainn's life a misery," Muireann remarked quietly, trying to quell her feelings of jealousy and resentment. And this had been the woman Lochlainn had been pining over for nearly four years? He had loved Tara, while he didn't love her, after everything they had shared for almost a year?
"You can congratulate yourself on your brother's lucky escape. After all, what purpose would have been served if he had been told the truth? He would have fought Christopher and been put in prison, or worse," Muireann sighed.
Ciara nodded. "As it was, I lost him anyway, since he went to Australia to try to forget all about us at Barnakilla. He picked up one day and left without a word to anyone. I didn't hear from him for months.
"I was lucky enough to have an address to write to when he did finally contact me. Many of the workers in Australia just wander around from place to place picking up jobs wherever they can find them. Lochlainn got himself a good job on a cattle station, so I knew where to write when things started getting really bad here, and all the creditors were banging on the door demanding payment."
Muireann digested all she had been told so far in silence, staring up at the slate-gray sky overhead. Then she rose from the rock she had been sitting upon as the wintry wind whipped through her, and took Ciara's arm to urge her silently back to the warmth of her office. She met no resistance, so they headed up the path together in step.
As they went, she spoke her confused thoughts aloud. "But Lochlainn told me that you changed from the time he left until the time he came back. Forgive me, I know it sounds as though we were gossiping about you behind your back, but really, Lochlainn has been so worried about you, and he wanted my advice as a woman. I had hoped you would tell him in your own time, but . . ."
Ciara began to shake again. "There are some things you can never speak about," she whispered.
Muireann stared at Ciara for a moment before insisting, "You're going to have to tell me. I need the whole truth. It can't just be what Christopher did to you before, and his affair with Tara. I've seen the way you behave when Christopher or Augustine are mentioned. And you've said some things to me which suggest you knew Augustine very well also.
"You've been very disapproving of me and my relationship with Lochlainn, and you've admitted you know of the nature of that relationship, that the two of us are lovers, and I can see this really upsets you, though I'm not sure why apart from the obvious moral reasons. So please, Ciara, tell me all of it. I need to know if I'm ever to help you."
"It was so awful," Ciara wept, nearly breaking down again in Muireann's arms,
She had to half-carry her back to the stable block, and at last slumped her in a chair. Muireann poured Ciara out a measure of Augustine's vile brandy, and waited.
"People will think I deserved it!" Ciara choked, the tears streaming down her face in rivulets.
Muireann reached over and took her hand firmly. "I can't speak for other people. But surely nothing you could have ever done would make you deserve any of what Christopher did to you, or anything which would make you like this."
She stroked Ciara's disheveled hair back from her face and raised Ciara's hand, palm flat against her own callused one to show Lochlainn's sister that she was trembling like a leaf in the wind.
"I have to tell you, because if you marry Christopher it will be a disaster. You married Augustine. Thank God you didn't have a child by him! And I'm terrified of the danger now that you and Lochlainn are lovers!"
"What danger? What are you saying!" Muireann demanded.
"About six months after Christopher had run off with Tara, he returned to Fermanagh. I was still working as housekeeper here, though with so little money, there was little to do. Then Augustine decided to have a huge gambling party here at the house, and Christopher was invited.
"Christopher dared Augustine to try me out, as he put it,
to see how a woman compared with his usual tastes. They were drunk, but not so drunk they didn't manage to attack me," she revealed in an agonized whisper.
Muireann stared at Ciara's pinched white face in horror. "God, no."
She nodded. "Christopher treated the whole thing as a joke. Told Augustine how well he had trained me in the arts of love. He didn't even care that Augustine was my half-brother. But even worse was to come," Ciara choked, and the tears began to fall again.
"My God! Did they hurt you?"
"Yes, but not in the way you mean. I soon discovered I was with child."
"Oh no."
She nodded miserably. "It was the crushing sense of my own sin as well as the physical illness. It was the natural horror, having committed incest. The fact that I had no idea who the child's could be. The terrible pregnancy. I was dreadfully ill with fear and shock. It was my worst nightmare come true. I was terrified of what people would say.
"I was so desperate, I even went to Christopher to ask for help. The only thing I got was a handful of coins, as though I were some beggar in the street, and a warning to keep my mouth shut about what had taken place that night."
"That's terrible. Christopher let those men—"
She nodded. "And Augustine acted as though I was making up the whole thing. Even if I had tried to go to the authorities, no one would ever have believed me. They got off scot free."
"It's monstrous. I can't believe anyone could be so lost to decency—"
"You knew Augustine," she pointed out.
Muireann nodded, and shivered. "Aye, but I was thinking about Christopher. I know what Augustine was like, I saw something of what you're telling me know with my own eyes, but Christopher…. You loved him. How could he." She shook her head.
Ciara nodded. "I've asked myself that every day since the attack. Even worse than the terrible treatment I received though, was the birth. I suppose I had hoped, foolishly of course, that the child would be Christopher's, that somehow I would be able to prove it. That perhaps once he saw the baby, he would change his mind and come to care for it at least, and acknowledge it as his own. It was the only thing that stopped me from throwing myself in the lake."
"Oh, you poor thing."
Ciara sniffed back her tears. "Lochlainn and I could tell you how hard it is to grow up without a father's love, labelled with an ugly name through a quirk of fate and the narrow views of people who knew nothing about love and compassion. I didn't want that for my child, not if I could help it. But after a dreadful pregnancy, the baby was born, and things were worse than I could ever have imagined."
Muireann frowned. "I don't understand. Do you mean you had a difficult birth?"
Ciara nodded, but suddenly added in a horrified whisper, "The baby was born, and it was a monster, Muireann, a monster! Twisted, deformed."
Muireann's eyes widened. "My God, Ciara, what are you saying?"
She put one hand up to her mouth and swallowed hard. "The infant was like a gargoyle, hideous to behold. Evil begets evil, don't you see! And we're in the family line! We're all related. What if it's something passed on in our family? What if you have a child by Lochlainn and it's the same? Twisted, malevolent. . ." Ciara shuddered, clenching both her fists against her mouth now to choke back her sobs.
Muireann felt the icy grip of fear clench her heart. She put her hand on Ciara's shoulder and sought to reassure her as best she could. "I know it must have been dreadful for you, but let's try to be calm about this, shall we?
"First of all, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, I know you and Lochlainn are not evil people. Perhaps you two Roches are both proud and haughty, but certainly not evil. You haven't told me everything, Ciara. What happened to the child?"
"It's little life slowly slipped away. It never stopped bleeding after they cut the cord, though we tried everything. So much blood for such a tiny baby," she wept, scrubbing her hands against one another in her lap.
Muireann hugged Ciara as she wept as though her heart would break, and tried to think of something comforting to say.
At last, when she was convinced Ciara was ready to listen to her, she remarked softly, "You and Christopher are first cousins, and Augustine your half-brother. It wouldn't be so surprising for a child born of such a union to have had a defect. The reason for the Church's edicts on consanguinity preventing marriage between close relatives is to make sure that those sorts of things never happen.
"I'm sure the baby's problems had nothing to do with evil, more to do with being close family relations. I think that if there's never been anything like this in your family before, there's no need for you to worry about any baby I might ever have. There's no history of children such as you describe in my family either, I swear!"
"I've tried to reason these things out as you have, Muireann, honestly I have, but I'm so afraid. Don't you see, none of us can be sure. That's why you can't marry Christopher, and you can't have a baby with Lochlainn. That's why I can never run the risk of having a child again!" Ciara insisted.
Muireann rose and gazed out the window of the small office for a moment before turning to face Ciara.
"Please, listen to me. I understand that everything you've been through has been terrible, but life is all about taking risks. We can't just give up on living because it's dangerous. We can't stop ourselves from being happy for fear that we might end up unhappy.
"I love Lochlainn, and I'm prepared to take the risk of having a child with him. If I stopped our relationship now because I was afraid of what you've told me, it would be like cutting off my right arm."
"But to have a child like that! It would kill you! It would kill Lochlainn!"
"No, it wouldn't," Muireann said firmly. "Lochlainn would be grief-stricken, true, as would I, but that's no reason to sacrifice our happiness now, or whatever happiness we will have for as long as we love each other."
"Please, won't you reconsider?"
Muireann sat down heavily in her chair. "I suppose I've been taking unnecessary risks all along. Sooner or later I'm bound to become pregnant. Perhaps now isn't the most convenient time to have a baby, with things being as they are at Barnakilla.
"So if it will make you feel better, I'll say that I shall avoid Lochlainn in that way, make excuses, make myself unavailable, maybe even come to your house and share your room, if I may, so he won't get too suspicious. But as soon as I see some light at the end of the tunnel, I want you to tell him the truth," Muireann added firmly.
"What if we lose Barnakilla?" she whispered, her horror at the very thought clear in her tone.
Muireann patted her shoulder again, and rose to pace in front of the hearth. "I know things are bad because of the Famine, but I'm not beaten yet. This is my home now. I'll do anything to keep it, even if it mean swallowing my pride and telling Father everything."
"But Christopher threatened to take it away from you! I heard him through the door. He said if you didn't marry him, he would put himself forward as the rightful heir!"
She folded her arms in front of her chest. "I have no intention of marrying him. Nor am I going to give up and run away. My brother-in-law is a powerful man, and Anthony Lowry is an excellent solicitor. I won't give up without a fight, you can be sure of that.
"And even if Christopher is legally entitled to Barnakilla, it was a bankrupt ruin at the time of Augustine's death, and I have all the ledgers to prove it. Even if they say he has a title, it is clear how much I've invested. That I've acted in good faith, working on the assumption that I was Augustine's lawful wife, and therefore his legal heir.
"I'm fairly confident that in order to get that money back I'll still be allowed to sell the estate to reclaim my share of what I put into it, and we can start again somewhere else."
"What will become of me? I couldn't stay here with Christopher, and you wouldn't want me, not after the way I've treated you. Besides, people think I'm mad!"
Muireann ran over to Ciara's side and put her arm around her. "You're not mad! You'v
e kept this secret inside for so long, it's festered there. Once you tell Lochlainn, you'll be free from the past. I'm know you were abused and mistreated, but please don't think you're destined to have to pay for the rest of your life for your foolish error in trusting Christopher."
"But I loved him, I trusted him, fool that I was! I deserved what happened for having given in to him willingly!" Ciara moaned.
She lost all patience then and shook Ciara by the shoulders until her head snapped back to look up into Muireann's blazing amethyst eyes.
"Get that idea out of your head right now! You might have made love to Christopher in the past, but he and Augustine attacking you is a completely different matter. You were Augustine's half-sister, for God's sake!"
Ciara squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, and then asked, "Augustine never--"
Call Home the Heart Page 31