Last Port of Call: The Queenstown Series

by Jean Grainger

  ‘Certainly afterwards,’ Algernon Smythe said with a smile, ‘tea would be most welcome. I drove from the port at Wexford, and the roads, while undoubtedly scenic, are somewhat haphazardly surfaced in the rural areas, are they not?’ He grinned.

  ‘I…I would imagine so…’

  Harp watched as her mother struggled to regain her composure. She was clearly convinced that this was the meeting she’d been dreading for weeks, the day they were going to be told to leave the Cliff House. Harp wasn’t so sure.

  ‘So let me get on now.’ He opened his briefcase and extracted a manila folder tied with a dark-green treasury tag. ‘I explained to Miss Delaney outside that I am here on behalf of my firm, Carling, Ellison and Smythe Solicitors, of Highgate, London, and we are the representatives for Mr Henry Devereaux –’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rose interrupted. ‘Mr Devereaux’s solicitor was a Mr Cotter in Cork. I –’

  ‘Yes, that is, I believe, the case pertaining to some aspects of his legal needs. He appraised us of that fact when we spoke last year. But this legal matter was of a particular kind and he sought advice and legal services with us with regard to this.’ He looked down at the folder again.

  ‘But I don’t understand… I… Mr Cotter dealt with…’

  Algernon Smythe raised a hand gently. ‘Please, Mrs Delaney, all will be made clear very shortly, I promise, if you can just be patient.’

  Harp reached over and took her mother’s hand. The returning grip she got would have made her wince were matters not so critical.

  ‘Now then, I understand this is a little unconventional, but the late Mr Devereaux was nothing if not that.’ He grinned, and Rose nodded, uncertain. He went on. ‘Mr Devereaux came to see me and explained the situation regarding the ownership of this house, how upon his death, it would revert to his brother.’ He smiled. ‘The reason he chose our firm is because my late father acted for the late Mr and Mrs Devereaux.’

  Harp felt her mother stiffen.

  Rose responded, ‘I did know some of the details, yes.’

  ‘Indeed. And to that end he wished to ensure that in the event of his death, matters here would work out favourably for you both within the legal constraints laid down previously.’ He placed the folder on the desk and reached into the briefcase once more, this time extracting two letters. ‘There is one for each of you. He asked that you be given these at the time of his death. As I said, we didn’t hear of his passing until a few days ago, hence the delay. Miss Delaney, you may read yours now, but it was his wish, Mrs Delaney, that you read yours in private.’

  He handed Harp a letter. The envelope was linen paper, cream and heavy, with her name written on the outside in black ink. She instantly recognised the handwriting. He handed her mother an identical one with her name on it.

  ‘Essentially the purpose of my visit is to appraise you of the situation. Mr Henry Devereaux has written an affidavit claiming paternity of Miss Harp Delaney, and though you and he were not married, he bequeaths this house to her as his heir.’

  Rose opened her mouth to speak and closed it again.

  ‘Miss Harp Delaney is Mr Devereaux’s daughter, is she not? And therefore a Devereaux and entitled to claim her birthright?’ he asked.

  Rose cast Harp a glance and swallowed. That look spoke volumes. Harp knew to say nothing.

  ‘Well, yes, yes, of course, but I didn’t know he was going to… I mean…I was not… Open your letter, Harp,’ Rose said, her voice trembling.

  Harp did as she was told. It took several attempts as her hands were shaking, but she extracted the single sheet. At the sight of his handwriting, looped and slanted, she settled and felt calm. Nothing he could write to her would do her harm. ‘Shall I read it aloud?’ she asked, her eyes locking with her mother’s.

  Rose nodded.

  ‘Dear Harp. If you are reading this, I am gone, and that is something that here in this sunny office in London in the summer of 1911 makes me exceedingly sad. Not that my life is over per se, but that I will not get to see you every day. For you are surely the brightest star in the firmament of my life.

  ‘I came to London to visit my doctor, but also to make sure that after my death, you and your mother are cared for in the meagre way I can. My heart is weak and getting weaker, and he fears I may not have long left. I haven’t told you or your mother because, well, what would be the point? But suffice to say, this trip was necessary.

  ‘I do not have much money. There is some, to which you are both most welcome. I have written to Mr Cotter in Cork and he will see you get it, so go to meet him in his office. But I do have the Cliff House. My mother insisted on it staying in the Devereaux family, and so it will. My brother, Ralph, were it not for this letter and the affidavit I have signed claiming paternity of you, would be my heir.

  ‘So I leave the Cliff House to you, my daughter, appointing Mr Smythe and your mother as guardians of your inheritance until you come of age.

  ‘I wish there was more, but death and taxes, as we know from Benjamin Franklin, are the only certainties. But I can give you this house, our home, and know that with the ingenuity and resourcefulness of both you and your mother, you will survive, and live to do all of the things you dream about.’

  Harp swallowed, the tears now flowing freely down her cheeks. She didn’t look up, knowing that if she did, she would not be able to continue. She carried on, her voice trembling.

  ‘Live well, Harp. You are very special and unique. Don’t strive to be like anyone else, because you’re not. You are your own wonderful self, and I am so privileged and proud to call you my daughter. Henry Devereaux.’

  Harp gazed at the man sitting opposite her. ‘Is this true?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘That I own this house?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, it is very much the case. I sent a copy of the sworn affidavit to Mr Ralph Devereaux’s solicitors, and I would, now’ – he turned to her mother – ‘like to offer you, Mrs Delaney, the opportunity to also swear an affidavit that Harp here is the child of Mr Henry Devereaux, which should copper-fasten the claim on the estate against any legal challenges.’

  Rose sat, staring at the letter in her hands. ‘Does this letter contain anything that one doesn’t?’ she asked.

  The young man looked bemused. ‘I have no idea what it contains, Mrs Delaney. It is addressed to you and was sealed by Mr Devereaux before placing it in our care, and as I said, he wished you to read it in private. But I can tell you that essentially the contents of the letter to your daughter are the reason for my visit today. Mr Devereaux has named Harp as his heir, and as such, she is the owner of this house. As to his other matters, taxes and so on, those will be dealt with by his solicitor here in Ireland and any remaining funds transferred to you.’

  ‘And his brother, Ralph, is in agreement with this?’ Rose asked.

  Algernon Smythe gave an enigmatic smile. ‘I have no knowledge, as of yet, of his position on the matter. All I am able to tell you at this point is that my father, Randolf Smythe, made the will for Mr Devereaux’s mother, in which she outlined her wish that the property remain in the hands of someone of the Devereaux family, and that was why Mr Devereaux chose us. If you are willing to sign an affidavit today, corroborating Mr Devereaux’s claim to the paternity of Miss Delaney here, then any challenge Mr Ralph Devereaux could potentially make would be unlikely to be successful.’

  ‘And so if I confirm that Harp is Henry’s daughter, the house is hers?’ Rose was incredulous.

  ‘No,’ Mr Smythe said patiently. ‘The house has been willed to her, regardless of your affidavit. All your statement would do is strengthen the claim in the event of Mr Devereaux’s brother contesting the will. It is a possibility that he could challenge it on the grounds of legitimacy, but we would have to wait and see.’

  ‘And do you think he would, considering that we…we…um…were not lawfully married?’

  Harp saw her mother’s cheeks blush bright pink at the admission.

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Del
aney. He may well do, or he might decide not to – we cannot foretell.’ He was gentle yet forthright. ‘But Mr Devereaux’s will, the affidavit claiming paternity and a similar affidavit from yourself confirming same, while not watertight, would be a considerable legal fight to take on. Especially as the late Mrs Devereaux was most adamant that the house be kept in the family.’

  ‘Would it be easier if I were a boy?’ Harp asked, interested.

  Algernon considered her for a moment, then gave an enigmatic smile. ‘Forgive me, but may I speak frankly?’

  She nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘The issue will be on the legitimacy of your birth, Miss Delaney, rather than your gender. The late Mrs Devereaux only stipulated the house stay within the family. Occasionally an entail will make other demands, such as the estate must remain within the male line, but no such proviso was added here. I suspect she never considered that neither of her sons would produce a son of their own.’

  Harp watched as Rose suppressed the urge to give a mirthless laugh. It was likely Ralph Devereaux had several offspring all over the world, given his proclivities.

  ‘Well, given that it is women who produce children,’ Harp said, ‘the idea that either of the Devereaux men could produce a son or a daughter is nonsense, but of course such prejudice is what we have come to expect.’

  ‘Harp!’ her mother exclaimed, clearly horrified at her impertinence.

  Algernon laughed loudly. ‘Please, Mrs Delaney, do not admonish your daughter. She is quite correct, of course. We are by far the more useless species when it comes to populating the earth, and the fairer sex get none of the credit to which they are entitled.’

  Harp shared a grin with the solicitor.

  ‘Yes, well, she should not be so impudent nonetheless.’ Rose cast a glance at her daughter.

  ‘So to answer her very valid question, the matter of her gender is irrelevant.’

  Harp looked around the drawing room. Old Mr and Mrs Devereaux used to throw parties there for the local Protestant gentry long ago, but that all stopped when he died and she took to the bed.

  This house was hers. Hers. She tried to take it in. Mr Devereaux must have known she was a Devereaux. It all made sense now, him giving her the pen, saying her name was Harp Devereaux, pointing out that he never made mistakes. But how could he have known that Ralph was her real father? Had his mother told him? She couldn’t imagine it. Mrs Devereaux hardly ever spoke to him; Ralph was the only one of her family she spoke about, and she died in disappointment that he never returned, despite several promises that he would.

  But he’d called her Harp Devereaux on that last day, and left the Cliff House to her in his will. She repeated the words over and over in her mind. The house, the walls, the stairs…and the floors and the beds and the furniture – everything was hers because she was a Devereaux. Her birth certificate might not show that, but she had a pen with the letters H and D engraved on it – Harp Devereaux.

  She allowed the name to swirl around in her imagination. Harp Devereaux. That was her real name.

  Chapter 9

  After a lunch of tea and sandwiches, followed by a light-as-air lemon drizzle cake, Harp and her mother stood outside the front door as Algernon Smythe drove away. His fancy car and clothes and fashionable haircut all seemed so out of place at the Cliff House, and his news was even more incongruous. And yet it had all happened.

  He explained before he left that there would be some more papers to sign on Harp’s behalf, though her mother seemed to have signed around ten different documents while he was there. Harp wondered for a moment if it wasn’t some kind of a swindle. Was this Mr Smythe really a solicitor and was he telling the truth? But she had the letter and she recognised Mr Devereaux’s handwriting, so it definitely was from him, and he would never, ever lie to her. Besides swindling her and her mother would be the most stupid idea ever, as they had nothing worth swindling.

  She had become interested in crimes the winter before, having read in the newspaper about a fraudster who had stolen several thousands of pounds from people who should have known better. She spent the months after that reading about various confidence tricksters and fraudsters who had come before the courts, as she wanted details of how they did it. She was intrigued at the ingenuity of some of the perpetrators and the downright stupidity of others. One of her favourites was the true story of John Sadlier, a member of Parliament who created fake balance sheets to swindle thousands from the bank. He ended up drinking poison to end his life but achieved immortality when Charles Dickens based the character of Mr Merdle on him in his novel Little Dorrit. Or the Scotsman Gregor MacGregor who came back to London from his world travels claiming to be the leader of the nation of Poyais, in Central America. He wrote a book detailing the delights of the nation, explaining how marvellous a place it was to live, and he was so convincing that people exchanged their money for Poyais dollars with plans to resettle there. Of course the only trouble was that Poyais didn’t exist, something that only came to light after several efforts on the part of the new settlers to find it failed miserably.

  ‘I can’t believe that just happened.’ Rose sat down at the small white table and chairs they sometimes used for tea outside if the day was fine. Harp sat beside her on a small wrought-iron stool.

  ‘I wonder’ – Harp lowered her voice though there was no possibility of being overheard in the garden – ‘should we have been honest? I know it was for us, but Mr Devereaux told a lie. And we went along with it…’

  Rose was adamant. ‘Old Mrs Devereaux wanted the house to stay in the family, and you are a Devereaux. Mr Devereaux – Henry, I mean – just wanted to make sure you got what you were entitled to.’

  ‘Did he know? About Ralph, I mean?’ Harp asked tentatively. Though her mother had been honest that day that Titanic was in town, they’d never spoken about it since.

  Rose shook her head. ‘I don’t know how he could have. I certainly never told anyone, and old Mrs Devereaux was in the horrors that anyone ever would find out so she hardly went blabbing. I just can’t imagine her telling Henry. She didn’t trust him to tie his own shoelaces – she thought he was an imbecile – so she would hardly ever speak to him, let alone confide something like that.’

  ‘If she’d ever taken the time to speak to him, she’d have known he was very far from an imbecile. He was the cleverest person I ever met in my life,’ Harp said sincerely.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Rose said good-naturedly, pretending to be offended.

  ‘You know what I mean, Mammy. You’re very clever too, of course, but he was different. He just had to read something once and he’d remember it forever. He could list all the prime numbers between one and a thousand.’

  ‘Very handy,’ Rose said with a smile.

  ‘There are 168,’ Harp replied. ‘I could do it, although it would take some time, but Mr Devereaux could just list them off without even thinking. And he could do long division in his head and he knew so many languages and poetry and literature. He read so much and remembered it all.’

  Rose squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘He was remarkable, no doubt about it. And you’re right – Mrs Devereaux was the loser there because if she’d taken time to get to know him, she would have seen for herself what an extraordinary man he was.’

  ‘And Ralph, was he even a little bit like him?’ Harp asked.

  Rose shook her head. ‘No, he wasn’t. He was vain and brash and cared nothing for anyone but himself.’

  Harp tried not to feel hurt at her mother’s description of her father. She wished he was like Mr Devereaux. ‘But what if he comes back, Mammy? I know he doesn’t know that I’m his child, but still he might guess and then we’d be in terrible trouble.’

  ‘If he comes back, we’ll say that Henry Devereaux was your father and that’s all there is to it. I know it’s a lie, but Harp, it is what he wanted and it was his house. Ralph hasn’t been seen for thirteen years. His mother kept saying he was going to come back, that he was
planning a visit, but he never did. He let her down, just like he’s done all of his life. He took what he could from her and never gave her a second thought.’ Harp heard unfamiliar bitterness in her mother’s voice.

  Though it was horrid that it took the death of Mr Devereaux to change it, their relationship had become one more of equals than mother and daughter. Rose spoke plainly to Harp now, sharing her worries and concerns, but instead of making Harp feel anxious, it had the opposite effect. She liked to know what was going on; not telling her, treating her like a child when clearly they were in a tight spot, only made her worry more. Her mother could fix everything, so if she said it was all going to be all right, then it was.

  ‘At least I look like him,’ Harp said, and her mother smiled.

  ‘You really do, and you and he were alike in so many ways, Harp – a pair of peas in a pod.’ Rose reached out and stroked Harp’s face.

  ‘A very odd pod,’ Harp said seriously, and Rose pealed with laughter.

  ‘True enough, but an odd pod I happen to think was absolutely smashing.’

  They sat in contented silence for a while, listening to the seagulls caw-cawing overhead, circling in time to meet the fishing boats and steal their feast of guts as the fish were cleaned on the quayside.

  ‘Imagine, Mammy, just like that we have a home of our very own. And not just an ordinary house, but this one, the best house in the whole of Queenstown,’ Harp said, gazing up at the façade of the house.

  It was originally built in the 1700s but had been extensively renovated in the 1860s in the Victorian style. It had three storeys and an asymmetrical roof that came to four different points along the length. The windows were inset, long and narrow, except for a large bay window that jutted out in front. The façade was constructed in a combination of granite and red sandstone, with marble inlaid in the reveals of the windows. Previous generations of Devereauxes didn’t pass on their skills for entrepreneurship and business to either Henry or Ralph, but at the time of construction and renovation, the Devereauxes were very wealthy and the house reflected their status in society.