The Secret of the Irish Castle

by Santa Montefiore

  THE WIND RATTLED the window panes and the rain clattered against the glass and the February skies hung low and heavy and dark. The cows were restless in the cowsheds, their breath rising into the damp air to create a fog as dense inside as it was outside, and the gulls huddled together against the rocks as the winter gales battered the shore. Yet, as Bridie was driven down the valley toward the farmhouse where she had grown up, she felt only nostalgia, which came in waves, sweeping in memories she had so far managed to ignore. She had been in Ballinakelly a week now, and every day, when she came to visit her grandmother, she found she retrieved a little bit more of herself.

  Old Mrs. Nagle turned her head to the door as her youngest grandchild walked in. Her raisin eyes lit up with intent, and her mouth, a black cavern of toothless gums, opened and closed like a fish as she tried, and failed, to speak. She attempted to lift her hand, and Bridie pushed past her brothers and knelt beside her, taking her bony fingers in her hands as if cradling a little bird. Old Mrs. Nagle gazed into her granddaughter’s eyes, and Bridie longed to tell her what she had been through. That she hadn’t left Ballinakelly all those years ago because she’d been offered a better life in America but because she had been seduced by Lord Deverill at the castle, forced to give birth in a convent in Dublin and persuaded to leave forever so that Bertie Deverill could pretend that the tawdry affair had never happened. She wanted her grandmother to know that she had had to endure the agony of losing her son not once but twice, because her brother Michael had stolen the child from the convent and left him on Kitty Deverill’s doorstep in order that she, the baby’s half sister, could raise him as her own. When Bridie had returned some years later to Ballinakelly and discovered that her boy was in Kitty’s care she had been forced to accept that she had lost him all over again.

  Kitty had told JP that his mother was dead. He had no idea that she now lived at the other end of the estate in the castle that used to belong to his father. Bridie would have to endure the sight of him, knowing that she could never tell him the truth. She could never wrap her arms around him, hold him close and tell him that she loved him, because Kitty did that in her stead: Kitty Deverill, once her greatest friend and now her most hated enemy. Bridie wanted her grandmother to see her pain and her animosity and to understand. The secret was gnawing through her insides, and the burden of hiding the hurting was becoming too much to bear. If only she could share it with her beloved grandmother; then her grandmother would take it to her grave.

  No one besides Michael knew the seedy truth behind Bridie’s triumphant return. The rest of the family saw only what she had acquired: a dashing husband who was a count; their young son, Leopoldo; the mighty Castle Deverill; her fine clothes and jewelry; her shiny motor car and the chauffeur who drove it in his gloves and hat. Not even Michael knew how much she had lost. And she could never tell.

  Bridie longed for her grandmother to know her sins, all of them, and for her to love her in spite of them. Suddenly, it mattered to Bridie more than anything else in the world that her grandmother should know the truth. She leaned closer so that she could smell the old lady’s sour odor—the odor of a body already in decay. “I never wanted to leave you,” she whispered softly, releasing a trail of tears. She pressed her grandmother’s hand to her wet cheek. “It was beyond my control. I did some terrible things and I had to leave. But all I wanted was to come home, to you and Mam. All I wanted was to share . . . and for you to love me . . .” Her whispering became a rasp. Her grandmother’s eyes seemed to look past the woman she had become to the scrawny little girl she had once been, with knotted hair, bare feet and a rumbling belly that was never satisfied. And in the reflection of her gaze, Bridie saw her too. How she wished she could be that girl once more and live it all again. How different it could have been.

  “It won’t be long now, God help us. ’Twill be a happy day for her,” said Mrs. Doyle, blessing herself.

  Bridie’s throat tightened, and her vision blurred. Unable to speak, she simply stroked her grandmother’s white hair and tried to smile so as not to alarm the old lady with her fear. As Bridie gazed into her eyes, Old Mrs. Nagle seemed to be saying, Don’t forget who you are, child. Don’t ever forget who you are.

  “Why is she holding on?” asked Rosetta.

  “Because death, when it comes, is a leap into the unknown, however strong your faith,” said Michael, who had so successfully transformed himself into a devout and spiritual man that few remembered the ruthless rebel he had been during the Troubles twenty years before and the atrocities he had committed in the name of freedom.

  “She doesn’t want to leave us,” said Sean. Rosetta leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder and tried not to let her impatience show.

  Mrs. Doyle’s bottom lip gave a sudden tremor before she stiffened her jaw and brought it under control. “God knows you’ve earned your rest. You can go now and rest in peace with the Lord and reap your eternal rewards,” she said. “A cross in this life; a crown in the next.”

  Old Mrs. Nagle stared at Bridie, and her eyes grew dim. Don’t forget who you are.

  At last her spirit departed and her small body expelled a final breath then stilled. Mrs. Doyle gasped and pressed her hand to her mouth. In spite of having prepared herself for this, the finality of death was a shock. Bridie sank onto the floor and dropped her head against the mattress. It was over. Her grandmother was gone, and Bridie had never got the chance to tell her the truth.

  At length Bridie stood up and went to open the window to release her grandmother’s spirit. For a long moment no one said anything. They stood around the bed, bowing their heads in respect, awed by the emptiness of the body before them. Presently Mrs. Doyle turned to Sean. “Go and get Father Quinn,” she said. “And knock on Mrs. O’Donovan’s and get a pound of rashers and a black pudding and two noggins of whiskey. ’Tis the done thing to put something on the table for the laying-out women. Ask her if you can use the telephone to put the death in the Cork Examiner.” She turned to Michael. “You go and get the two Nellies and tell them to bring out the linen and the Child of Mary rig.”

  “I can go up to the castle, Mam, and bring back the food, whiskey and linens,” Bridie suggested, wanting to help.

  “No, Bridie,” her mother retorted sharply. “We are simple, God-fearing people and we don’t want any displays of grandeur in front of the people. Nanna wouldn’t like it. I can hear her now saying that we were full of éirí-in-airde. There’ll be no showing off in this house as long as I’m alive.”

  Bridie was stung. She remembered the day her father was killed by the tinker, when Lady Deverill gifted her a pair of dancing shoes and the girls in Ballinakelly had mocked her for putting on airs. She turned away so her mother would not see her blushing with shame or know how unworthy she had made her feel.

  The room had darkened with the day in spite of the candles that flickered on every surface. Bridie had offered to pay for electricity, but Old Mrs. Nagle had been appalled by the very idea of it. It was enough to have a wireless, which they kept under a lace cloth on the dresser and considered something of a miracle, for where in God’s name did the music come from? What on earth did they need electricity for when they had natural light in the day and candlelight in the night? It would only lead them into temptation, for surely material wealth was the Devil’s ploy for enticing souls away from the simplicity of God.

  But Bridie craved her mother’s admiration. She fought back tears and put her arms around her, hugging her tightly. The years had done much to distance mother from daughter, and Bridie was determined to retrieve the closeness that had been lost. “You must come and live with me,” she said. “I’ll see that you never want for anything again.”

  But Mrs. Doyle stiffened and pulled away. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God,” she said gravely. “I will remain in this house until I die, Bridie. It was good enough for your father therefore it’s good enough for me. Y
ou might be a wealthy lady now, Bridie, with all your airs and graces, but it’s not right that you should be mistress of Castle Deverill. It’s as if you’ve turned the world on its head. I’m only happy that the previous Lord and Lady Deverill, God rest their souls, aren’t alive to see it. I would die of shame. You weren’t born to that kind of life. God knows I didn’t raise you that way. There, I’ve said it now.” She lifted her chin and pursed her lips. “I only hope you haven’t forgotten your faith.”

  “I haven’t forgotten my faith, Mam,” Bridie replied, defeated. “I give thanks to the Lord every day for my blessings. Surely it is God’s will that I have married well. I have a husband I love and a son I love even more. If I am blessed it is because the Lord has blessed me.” And by God, after all that I have suffered, I deserve to be happy, she thought to herself. Mrs. Doyle pressed her handkerchief to her mouth to smother a sob.

  Bridie turned to Rosetta, her old friend whom she had met during her first lonely winter in New York and brought back to Ballinakelly, only to lose her to her brother. “Surely, you’ll come, Rosetta. This place is much too small for five children, and you and Sean can have the east wing of the castle to yourselves.”

  Rosetta was quick to accept. “With Mariah’s blessing we will come,” she said tactfully, knowing that her mother-in-law could not deny them the comforts of the castle. Mrs. Doyle gave a little nod.

  “And Michael?” Bridie asked.

  Michael shook his head. “I will stay and look after Mam,” he said firmly, and Mrs. Doyle’s shoulders shuddered as a wave of gratitude swept through her.

  But the truth was that Michael Doyle could never live in the castle he had set alight that tumultuous Christmas of 1921. He could never reside in a place that carried the Deverill name after everything he had done to destroy it. Most of all he couldn’t bear to walk those corridors that had once belonged to Kitty Deverill, knowing what he did to her in the farmhouse the morning after the fire. He would carry his shame along with his remorse in the sack of corpses that was forever slung over his back, for he could never be free of his guilt. Guilt for the tinker child killed in the fire he had lit in revenge for his father’s murder, guilt for Colonel Manley’s death on the Dunashee Road, when he and a small group of rebels had lured the Englishman to an isolated farmhouse and slayed him for the brutal way he had treated their fellow Irishmen, and guilt for the many others he’d slaughtered in the name of freedom. God had forgiven him of all his sins and washed his soul clean. He had vowed to lead a pious life. But Michael’s guilt ran deep, like an underground river of tar; however beautiful the earth was above it, the water below would always be polluted.

  “Very well,” said Bridie. “I know you’re a proud man, Michael, but now I am back in Ballinakelly, I will make sure that my family never wants for anything. If God has blessed me with great wealth, I will give thanks by looking after my own.”

  Bridie left the farmhouse, hugging her coat about her body for comfort as much as for warmth. Her mother disapproved of her wealth, but how much greater would her disapproval be were she to know the whole truth? Material wealth was the very least of Bridie’s transgressions; no amount of Hail Marys could make up for the gravity of her sins.

  It was almost dark now. The afternoon had receded into evening, and the rain was still heavy on the wind that blew in over the ocean. Bridie gazed out of the car window onto a landscape that never changed, in spite of what human beings did upon its soil. The green hills whose crests were now disappearing into cloud and the valleys where patches of mist were slowly gathering in pools were constant in their beauty, and something caught in Bridie’s chest as she looked upon them. All the while she had lived in America Ireland’s gentle whispering had summoned her home, and she had, for so long, chosen to ignore it. Yet, deep in her heart, she knew that she belonged here and only here and she would never truly be happy until she had chased all the demons she had left here out of the shadows.

  As the car made its way up the drive that swept through rhododendron bushes, already budding through the winter chill, the castle loomed out of the fog. Golden light spilled out of the many windows, giving an enticing illusion to the splendor within, and the imposing walls, extravagantly rebuilt after the fire by Kitty’s cousin Celia, who, for a short time, had sustained the Deverill inheritance, rose magnificent and proud just as they had when Bridie was a child. The car drew up in front of the grand entrance where the Deverill family motto was still carved into the stone: Castellum Deverilli est suum regnum—A Deverill’s castle is his kingdom—and Bridie glanced up at the tall landing window above where she, Kitty and Celia had once stood as little girls to watch the guests arriving for the Summer Ball. They had been as close as sisters then, each born in the year 1900. She remembered the two cousins in their beautiful silk dresses with ribbons in their hair and patent leather shoes in the prettiest pink and blue on their stockinged feet, and she remembered her own grubby apron and scratchy dress, her pitifully naked legs and shoeless, dirty feet, and the thorn of resentment pierced her heart because while they had had everything, she had had nothing. They had skipped blithe and carefree downstairs to the ball while she had returned to the kitchen belowstairs to help her mother, who was the cook.

  As the butler opened the door for Bridie Doyle, now Countess di Marcantonio, mistress of Castle Deverill, she couldn’t help but feel a cruel sense of satisfaction that the Great Depression and Celia’s husband’s suicide had laid to rest the Deverill ambitions once and for all. She belonged here now, and her son Leopoldo would grow up within its walls and one day inherit it. The castle would never again belong to a Deverill.

  Bridie gave the butler her coat, gloves and hat and strode into the hall. There was a boisterous fire in the grate to lift her spirits and all the lights were blazing, giving the place a gratifying air of comfort and opulence, which only a great deal of money can buy. She dragged her mind away from the humble kitchen in the Doyle farmhouse where she had danced as a little girl in her father’s arms, and reminded herself that her life was here now, that as much as it was natural for her to cling to the past, only the present could make her happy.

  She found her husband in the library. Cesare was deep in conversation with a tall, artistic-looking man she had never seen before. When she appeared in the doorway they both stood up. “Mr. O’Malley, let me introduce my wife, Countess di Marcantonio,” Cesare said proudly, for Bridie’s pallor only enhanced her prettiness. Bridie held out her hand so that Mr. O’Malley could shake it. “My darling, this wonderfully talented gentleman is going to make three fantastic bees out of stone to put above the front door. I have been explaining to him that my family is descended from the family of Pope Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini, and that the Barberini family coat of arms is three bees.” Bridie’s fingers went straight to the gold bee brooch pinned to her dress that Cesare had given her on their wedding day. “They are very particular bees so I am trusting into his care one of my precious bee shirt studs so that he can draw his design.” Bridie was a little surprised because Cesare had not discussed this with her first, but her husband was a man who knew his mind and she loved him more for that.

  “I think it’s a grand idea,” she said. After all, why shouldn’t they replace the Deverill family motto? It was their castle now, and how fitting to display the three Barberini bees above the door. If Cesare wanted more bees (since their marriage—and her money—Cesare had commissioned every type of bee to embellish himself and their home), he should have more. Pride was a weakness of his that she found endearing.

  “I’m so pleased you approve, my darling. Family is important, no?” He shrugged. “Not everyone can have a family as illustrious as mine, after all.” He threw his head back and laughed, big white teeth gleaming against olive-brown skin, and Bridie felt a surge of admiration and gratitude that this beautiful man belonged to her.

  Bridie wanted to tell him that her grandmother had died, but Mr. O’Malley didn’t look as if he was going anywhere, so it would
have to wait. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. O’Malley,” she said politely. “I look forward to seeing your designs.” She walked back into the hall as her husband sank into the armchair and continued to boast to Mr. O’Malley about his family of Italian princes. Bridie stood at the bottom of the grand staircase, in the part of the house where as a child she had been forbidden to go, and felt a moment of uncertainty. She could almost hear Adeline Deverill in the drawing room and the tapping of claws on the marble floor as Hubert Deverill’s wolfhounds came trotting in from their walk with their master, who had always looked shabby in threadbare tweed jackets and moth-eaten sweaters. She half expected one of the servants to reprimand her now for straying beyond the green baize door into the family part of the house.

  Bridie couldn’t wait for Rosetta to come and live here with her. She needed Rosetta’s companionship again. As much as she relished her new position as chatelaine of Castle Deverill, it felt strange. It felt lonely, and it felt wrong. But she wasn’t going to sink now that she had risen to the height of her ambitions. She turned her thoughts to Kitty and Celia Deverill and her determination to find a sense of belonging grew strong again.

  A sudden screech echoed in the depths of the castle. Leopoldo! With her heart in her mouth Bridie climbed the stairs at a run. She raced down the hallways, trying to ascertain where the cry had come from. The castle was vast and she had only been there a week so she still wasn’t familiar with its endless corridors and many rooms. Dizzy with panic she passed long walls of paintings she had never seen before, sculptures that meant nothing to her and furniture whose value she couldn’t even guess at, all chosen by Celia Deverill, and she felt even more the empty feeling of alienation. Would she ever know her way around? Would she ever feel she belonged? Would this castle ever be home?