Also by Santa Montefiore
The Affair
The Italian Matchmaker
The French Gardener
Sea of Lost Love
The Gypsy Madonna
Last Voyage of the Valentina
The Swallow and the Hummingbird
The Forget-Me-Not Sonata
The Butterfly Box
Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree
The House by the Sea
The Summer House
Secrets of the Lighthouse
The Beekeeper’s Daughter
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Santa Montefiore, 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Santa Montefiore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47113-584-2
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47113-585-9
Australian Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47114-281-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-47113-587-3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
To my dear friend, Tim Kelly,
without whose guidance and support
I would never have had
the courage to write this book.
Is mise Peig Ni Laoghaire. A Tiarna Deverill, dhein tú éagóir orm agus ar mo shliocht trín ár dtalamh a thógdil agus ár spiorad a bhriseadh. Go dtí go gceartaíonn tú na h-éagóracha siúd, cuirim malacht ort féin agus d-oidhrí, I dtreo is go mbí sibh gan suaimh- neas síoraí I ndomhan na n-anmharbh.
I am Maggie O’Leary. Lord Deverill, you have wronged me and my descendants by taking our land and breaking our spirits. Until you right those wrongs I curse you and your heirs to an eternity of unrest and to the world of the undead.
Maggie O’Leary, 1662
Contents
Prologue
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
PART TWO
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
PART THREE
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Prologue
Co. Cork, Ireland, 1925
The two little boys with grubby faces and scuffed knees reached the rusted iron gate by way of a barely distinguishable track that branched off the main road and cut through the forest in a sleepy curve. On the other side of the gate, forgotten behind trees, were the charred remains of Castle Deverill, once home to one of the grandest Anglo-Irish families in the land before it was consumed in a fire three years before. The drystone wall that encircled the property had collapsed in places due to neglect, the voracious appetite of the forest and harsh winter winds. Moss spread undeterred, weeds seeded themselves indiscriminately, grass grew like tufts of hair along the top of the wall and ivy spread its leafy fingers over the stones, swallowing entire sections completely so that little of it remained to be seen. The boys were unfazed by the large sign that warned trespassers of prosecution or the dark driveway ahead that was littered with mouldy leaves, twigs and mud, swept onto it season after desolate season. The padlock clanked ineffectively against its chain as the boys pushed the gates apart and slipped through.
On the other side, the forest was silent and soggy, for the summer was ended and autumn had blown in with icy gales and cold rain. Once, the drive had been lined on either side with red-rhododendron bushes but now they were partly obscured by dense nettles, ferns and overgrown laurel. The boys ran past them, oblivious of what the shrubs represented, unaware that that very drive had once witnessed carriages bearing the finest in the county to the magnificent castle overlooking the sea. Now the drive was little more than a dirt track and the castle lay in ruins. Only ravens and pigeons ventured there, and intrepid little boys intent on adventure, confident that no one would discover them in this forgotten place.
The children hurried excitedly through the wild grasses to play among the remnants of the once stately rooms. The sweeping staircase had long gone and the centre chimneys had fallen through the roof and formed a mountain of bricks below for the boys to scale. In the west wing the surviving part of the roof remained as sturdy beams that straddled two of the enduring walls, like the exposed ribcage of a giant animal left to decay in the open air.
The boys were too distracted to feel the sorrow that hung over the place or to hear the plaintive echo of the past. They were too young to have an awareness of nostalgia and the melancholic sense of mortality it induces. The ghosts who dwelt there, mourning the loss of their home and their brief lives, were as wind blowing in off the water. The boys heard the moaning of the empty windows and the whistling about the remaining chimney stacks and felt only a frisson of exhilaration, for the eeriness served to enhance their pleasure, not diminish it. The ghosts might as well have been alone for the attention the boys paid them.
Over the front door, one of the boys was able to make out some Latin letters, tarnished by soot, half-concealed in the blackened lintel. ‘Castellum Deverilli est suum regnum 1662,’ he read out.
‘What does that mean?’ asked the smaller boy.
‘Everyone around here knows what that means. A Deverill’s castle is his kingdom.’
The smaller child laughed. ‘Not much of a kingdom now,’ he said.
They went from room to room in the fading light like a pair of urchins, excavating hopefully where the ground was soft. Their gentle chatter mingled with the croaking of ravens and the cooing of pigeons, and the ghosts were appeased as they remembered their own boyhoods and the games they had played in the sumptuous gardens of the castle. For once, the castle had been magnificent.
At the turn of the century there had been a walled garden, abundant with every sort of fruit and vegetable to feed the Deverill family and their servants. There had been a rose garden, an arboretum and a maze where the Deverill children had routinely lost themselves and each other among the yew hedges. There had been elaborate glass houses where tomato
es had grown among orchids and figs, and yellow cowslips had reflected the summer sun in the wild-flower garden where the ladies of the house had enjoyed picnics and afternoons full of laughter and gossip. Those gardens had once been a paradise but now they smelt of decay. A shadow lingered in spite of the sunshine and year after year bindweed slowly choked the gardens to death. Nothing remained of the castle’s former beauty, except a savage splendour of sorts, made all the more arresting by its tragedy.
At the rattling sound of a motor car the boys stopped their digging. The noise grew louder as the car advanced up the drive. They looked at each other in bewilderment and crept hastily through the rooms to the front, where they peered out of a glassless window to see a shiny Ford Model T making its way past the castle before halting at the steps leading up to where the front door had once been.
Consumed with curiosity, they elbowed each other in their effort to get a closer look, while at the same time careful to keep their heads concealed behind the wall. The boys’ jaws fell open at the sight of the car with its soft top and smoothly curved lines. The sun bounced off the sleek green bonnet and the silver headlights shone like frog’s eyes. Then the driver’s door opened and a man stepped out wearing a brown felt hat and smart camel coat. He swept his eyes over the castle, taking a moment to absorb the dramatic vision. He shook his head and pulled a face as if to acknowledge the sheer scale of the misfortune that had destroyed such a beautiful castle. Then he walked round to the passenger door and opened it.
He held out his hand and a small black glove reached out and took it. The boys were so still that, were it not for their pink faces and black hair, they might have been a pair of mischievous cherub statues. With mounting interest they watched the woman step out. She wore an elegant dress of a deep emerald green and a long black coat, with a black cloche hat pulled low over her face. Only her scarlet lips could be seen below it, somehow shocking against her white skin. Glittering beneath her right shoulder was a large diamond star brooch. The boys’ eyes widened for she looked as if she came from another world; the sort of world that had once inhabited this fine castle before it was swept away.
The woman stood at the foot of the darkened walls and lifted her chin. She took the man’s hand and turned to face him. ‘As God is my witness,’ she said, and the boys had to strain their ears to hear her. ‘I will rebuild this castle.’ She paused and the man made no move to hurry her. At length she returned her gaze to the castle and her jaw stiffened. ‘After all, I have as much right as any of the others.’
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Co. Cork, Ireland, 1910
Kitty Deverill was nine years old. For other children, born on other days, turning nine was of no great significance. But for Kitty, born on the ninth day of the ninth month in the year 1900, turning nine had been very significant indeed. It wasn’t her mother, the beautiful and narcissistic Maud, who had put those ideas into the young child’s head; Maud was not interested in Kitty. She had two other daughters who were soon to come of age and a cherished son at Eton who was the light in his mother’s eyes. In the five years between Harry and Kitty’s births Maud had suffered three miscarriages induced by riding hard over the hills around Ballinakelly; Maud did not want her pleasure halted by an inconvenient pregnancy. However, no amount of reckless galloping managed to unburden her of her fourth child, who, contrary to expectation, was a weak and squeaking girl with red hair and transparent skin, more like a scrawny kitten than a human baby. Maud had turned her face away in disgust and refused to acknowledge her. In fact, she had quite rejected her child, declining to allow her friends to visit, donning her riding habit and setting off with the hunt as if the birth had never happened. For a woman so enraptured with her own beauty an ugly baby was an affront. No, Maud would never have put ideas into Kitty’s head that she was in any way special or important.
It was her paternal grandmother, Adeline, Lady Deverill, who told her that the year 1900 was auspicious and that her date of birth was also remarkable, on account of it containing so many nines. Kitty was a child of Mars, Adeline would remind her when they sat together in Adeline’s private sitting room on the first floor, one of the few rooms of the castle that was always warm. This meant that her life would be defined by conflict – a testing hand of cards dealt by a God who surely knew that Kitty would rise to the challenge with courage and wisdom. Adeline told her much else, besides, and Kitty far preferred her stories of angels and demons to the dry tales her Scottish governess read her, and even to the kitchen maids’ tittle-tattle, mostly local gossip Kitty was too young to understand. Adeline Deverill knew about things. Things at which Kitty’s grandfather rolled his eyes and dismissed as ‘blarney’, things her father mocked with affection and things that caused Kitty’s mother great concern. Maud Deverill was less amused by tales of spirits, stone circles and curses and instructed Miss Grieve, Kitty’s Scottish governess, to punish the child if she ever indulged in what she considered to be ‘ghastly peasant superstition’. Miss Grieve, with her tight lips and tight vowels, was only too happy to whack the palms of Kitty’s hands with a riding crop. Therefore the child had learned to be secretive. She had grown as furtive as a fox, indulging her interest only with her grandmother, in the warmth of her little den that smelt of turf fire and lilac.
Kitty didn’t live in the castle: that was where her grandparents lived and what, one day, her father would inherit, along with the title of Lord Deverill, dating back to the seventeenth century. Kitty lived on the estate in the old Hunting Lodge, positioned by the river, within walking distance of the castle. Overlooked by her mother and too cunning for her governess, the child was able to run wild about the gardens and surrounding countryside and to play with the local Catholic children who took to the fields with their Tommy cans. Had her mother known she would have developed a fever and retired to her room for a week to get over the trauma. As it was, Maud was often so distracted that she seemed to forget entirely that she had a fourth child and was irritated when Miss Grieve reminded her.
Kitty’s greatest friend and ally was Bridie, the raven-haired daughter of Lady Deverill’s cook, Mrs Doyle. Born in the same year, only a month apart, Kitty believed them to be ‘spiritual sisters’ due to the proximity of their birth dates and the fact that they had been thrown together at Castle Deverill, where Bridie would help her mother in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and washing up, while Kitty loitered around the big wooden table stealing the odd carrot when Mrs Doyle wasn’t looking. They might have different parents, Kitty told Bridie, but their souls were eternally connected. Beneath their material bodies they were creatures of light and there was very little difference between them. Grateful for Kitty’s friendship, Bridie believed her.
Because of her unconventional view of the world, Adeline was happy to turn a blind eye to the girls playing together. She loved her strange little granddaughter who was so much like herself. In Kitty she found an ally in a family who scoffed at the idea of fairies and trembled at the mention of ghosts while claiming not to believe in them. She was certain that souls inhabited physical bodies in order to live on earth and learn important lessons for their spiritual evolution. Thus, a person’s position and wealth was merely a costume required for the part they were playing and not a reflection of their worth as a soul. In Adeline’s opinion a tramp was as valuable as a king and so she treated everyone with equal respect. What was the harm of Kitty and Bridie enjoying each other’s company? she asked herself. Kitty’s sisters were too old to play with her, and Celia, her English cousin, only came to visit in the summer, so the poor child was friendless and lonely. Were it not for Bridie, Kitty might be in danger of running off with the leprechauns and goblins and be lost to them forever.
One story in particular fascinated Kitty above all others: the Cursing of Barton Deverill. The whole family knew it, but no one besides Kitty’s grandmother, and Kitty herself, believed it. They didn’t just believe, they knew it to be true. It was that knowing that bonded grandmo
ther and granddaughter firmly and irreversibly, because Adeline had a gift she had never shared with anyone, not even her husband, and little Kitty had inherited it.
‘Let me tell you about the Cursing of Barton Deverill,’ said Kitty to Bridie one Saturday afternoon in winter, holding the candle steady in their dark lair beneath the back staircase, which was an old, disused cupboard in the servants’ quarters of the castle. The light illuminated Kitty’s white face so that her big grey eyes looked strangely old, like a witch’s, and Bridie felt a shiver ripple across her skin, something close to fear. She had heard her mother speak of the Banshee and its shriek that pre-warned of death.
‘Who was Barton Deverill?’ Bridie asked, her musical Irish accent in sharp contrast to Kitty’s clipped English vowels.
‘He was the first Lord Deverill and he built this castle,’ Kitty replied, keeping her voice low for dramatic effect. ‘He was a right brute.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He took land that wasn’t his and built on it.’
‘Who did the land belong to?’
‘The O’Learys.’
‘The O’Learys?’ Bridie’s black eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. ‘You don’t mean our Jack O’Leary?’
‘The very same. I can tell you there is no love lost between the Deverills and the O’Learys.’
‘What happened?’
‘Barton Deverill, my ancestor, was a supporter of King Charles I of England. When his armies were defeated by Cromwell, he ran off to France with the King. Later, when King Charles II was crowned, he rewarded Barton for his loyalty with a title and these lands where he built this castle. Hence the family motto: A Deverill’s castle is his kingdom. The trouble was those lands didn’t belong to the King, they belonged to the O’Learys. So, when they were made to leave, old Maggie O’Leary, who was a witch . . .’
Bridie laughed nervously. ‘She wasn’t really a witch!’
Kitty was very serious. ‘She was so. She had a cauldron and a black cat that could turn a person to stone with one look of its big green eyes.’
Songs of Love and War Page 1