Songs of Love and War (4 page)

Kitty knelt down and put her eye to the keyhole. There, sitting on the bed with a letter lying open in her lap, was Miss Grieve. Kitty was astonished to see her with her brown hair falling in
thick curls over her shoulders and down her back. Her face was pale in the lamplight, but her features had softened. She didn’t look wooden as she did when she scraped her hair back and drew
her lips into a thin line until they almost disappeared. She looked like a sensitive young woman and surprisingly pretty.

Kitty longed to know what the letter said. Had someone died, perhaps Miss Grieve’s mother? Her heart swelled with compassion so that she almost turned the knob and let herself in. But Miss
Grieve looked so different Kitty felt it might embarrass her to be caught with her guard down. She remained a while transfixed by the trembling mouth, wet with tears, and the dewy skin that seemed
to relax away from the bones which usually held it so taut and hard. She was fascinated by Miss Grieve’s apparent youth and wondered how old she really was. She had always assumed her to be
ancient, but now she wasn’t so sure. It was quite possible that she was the same age as Kitty’s mother.

After a while Kitty retreated to her bedroom. Nora, one of the housemaids, had lit her small fire and the room smelt pleasantly of smoke. An oil lamp glowed on the chest of drawers against the
wall, beneath a picture of garden fairies her grandmother had painted for her. The curtains had been drawn but Kitty opened them wide and sat on the window seat to stare out at the moon and stars
that shone brightly in a rich velvet sky.

Kitty did not recognize loneliness because it was so much part of her soul as to blend in seamlessly with the rest of her nature. She felt the familiar tug of something deep and stirring at the
bottom of her heart, which always came from gazing out at the beauty of the night, but even though she was aware of a sense of longing she didn’t recognize it for what it was – a
yearning for love. It was so familiar she had mistaken it for something pleasant and those hours staring into the stars had become as habitual to Kitty as howling at the moon to a craving wolf.

At length Miss Grieve appeared in the doorway, stiff and severe with her hair pulled back into a tight bun, as if she had beaten her emotions into submission and restrained them within her
corset. There was no evidence of tears on her rigid cheeks or about her slate-grey eyes and Kitty wondered for a moment whether she had imagined them. What was it that had made Miss Grieve so
bitter? ‘It’s time for your supper, young lady,’ she said to Kitty. ‘Have you washed your hands?’ Kitty dutifully presented her palms to her governess, who sniffed her
disapproval. ‘I didn’t think so. Go and wash them at once. I don’t think it’s right for a young lady to be running about the countryside like a stray dog. I’ll have a
word with your mother. Perhaps piano lessons will be a good discipline for you and keep you out of trouble.’

‘Piano lessons have done little for Elspeth,’ Kitty replied boldly. ‘And when she sings she sounds like a strangled cat.’

‘Don’t be insolent, Kitty.’

‘Victoria sounds even worse when she plays the violin. More like a chorus of strangled cats. I should like to sing.’ Kitty poured cold water from the jug into the water bowl and
washed her hands with carbolic soap. So far there had been no piano or violin lessons for her, because music was her mother’s department and Kitty was invisible to Maud Deverill. The only
reason she had enjoyed riding lessons since the age of two was due to her father’s passion for hunting and racing. As long as he lived no child of his would be incompetent in the saddle.

‘You’re nine now, Kitty, it’s about time you learned to make yourself appealing. I don’t see why music lessons can’t be afforded to you as they are to your sisters.
I will speak to your mother tomorrow and see that it is arranged. The less free time you have, the better. The Devil makes work for idle hands.’

Kitty followed Miss Grieve into the nursery where dinner for two was laid up at the table otherwise used for lessons. They stood behind their chairs to say grace and then Miss Grieve sat down
while Kitty brought the dish of stew and baked potatoes to the table from the dumb waiter which had been sent up from the kitchen. ‘What is it about you that your parents don’t wish to
see you at mealtimes?’ Miss Grieve asked as Kitty sat down. ‘I understand from Miss Gibbons that luncheon was always a family affair when your siblings were small.’ She helped
herself to stew. ‘Perhaps it’s because you don’t yet know how to behave. In my previous position for Lady Billow I always joined the family for luncheon, but I ate my dinner
alone, which was a blessed relief. Are we to share this table until you come of age?’

Kitty was used to Miss Grieve’s mean jibes and tried not to be riled by them. Wit was her only defence. ‘It must be for your pleasure, Miss Grieve, because otherwise you might get
lonely.’

Miss Grieve laughed bitterly. ‘And I suppose you consider yourself good company, do you?’

‘I must be better company than loneliness.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure. For a nine-year-old you have an inappropriate tongue. It’s no wonder your parents don’t wish for the sight of you. Victoria and Elspeth are young
ladies, but you, Kitty, are a young ragamuffin in need of taming. That the task should fall to me is a great trial, but I do the best I can out of the goodness of my heart. We’ve a long way
to go before you’re in any fit state to find a husband.’

‘I don’t want a husband,’ said Kitty, forking a piece of meat into her mouth. It was cold in the centre.

‘Of course you don’t want one now. You’re a child.’

‘Did you ever want a husband, Miss Grieve?’

The governess’s eyes shifted a moment uncertainly, revealing more to the sharp little girl than she meant to. ‘That’s none of your business, Kitty. Sit up straight;
you’re not a sack of potatoes.’

‘Are governesses allowed to marry?’ Kitty continued, knowing the answer but enjoying the pained look in Miss Grieve’s eyes.

The governess pursed her lips. ‘Of course they’re allowed to marry. Whatever gave you the idea that they weren’t?’

‘None of them ever are.’ Kitty chewed valiantly on the stringy piece of beef.

‘Enough of that lip, my girl, or you can go to bed without any supper.’ But Miss Grieve had suddenly gone very pink in the face and Kitty saw a fleeting glimpse of the young woman
who had been crying over a letter in her bedroom. She blinked and the image was gone. Miss Grieve was staring into her plate, as if trying hard to control her emotions. Kitty wished she
hadn’t been so mean but took the opportunity to spit her beef into her napkin and fold it onto her lap without being seen. She tried to think of something nice to say, but nothing came to
mind. They sat awhile in silence.

‘Do you play the piano, Miss Grieve?’ Kitty asked at last.

‘I did, once,’ she replied tightly.

‘Why do you never play?’

The woman glared at Kitty as if she had touched an invisible nerve. ‘I’ve had enough of your questions, young lady. We’ll eat the rest of the meal in silence.’ Kitty was
astonished. She hadn’t expected such a harsh reaction to what she felt had been a simple and kind turn of conversation. ‘One word and I’ll drag you by your red hair and throw you
into your bedroom.’

‘It’s Titian, not red,’ Kitty mumbled recklessly.

‘You can use all the fancy words you can find, my girl, but red is red and if you ask me, it’s very unbecoming.’

Kitty struggled through the rest of dinner in silence. Miss Grieve’s face had hardened to granite. Kitty regretted trying to be nice and resolved that she would never be so foolish as to
give in to compassion again. When they had finished, Kitty obediently loaded the plates onto the dumb waiter and pressed the bell for it to be pulled down to the kitchen.

She washed with cold water because Sean Doyle, Bridie’s brother, who carried hot water upstairs from the kitchen for baths, only did so to the nursery wing every
other
night. Miss
Grieve watched over her as she said her prayers. Kitty prayed dutifully for her mama and papa, her siblings and grandparents. Then she added one for Miss Grieve: ‘Please, God, take her away.
She’s horrid and unkind and I hate her. If I knew how to curse like Maggie O’Leary, I’d put one on her so that unhappiness would follow her all the days of her life and never let
her go.’

Maud Deverill sat in the carriage beside her husband in silence. Her gloved hands were folded in the blanket draped over her lap, a fur coat warmed her chest and back but still
she shivered. The night was clear and cold and yet a perpetual dampness hung in the air, rising up from the soggy ground, brought inland on the salty sea breeze, assertive enough to penetrate
bones. Bertie had returned in the early evening as was his custom, smelling of horse dust and sweat. He had greeted Lady Rowan-Hampton warmly but Maud wasn’t fooled by their veneer of
respectability. She had often smelt Grace’s perfume on his collar and caught the mischievous glances they slipped one another when they thought they weren’t being watched. Why, one
might ask, did she foster such a close relationship with her husband’s mistress? Because she believed, perhaps misguidedly, that it was important to keep one’s friends close and
one’s enemies even closer. So it was with Grace, the most dangerous of all enemies, who she simply couldn’t have brought any closer.

The carriage lurched along the farm track that circled the estate, over puddles and holes, until it reached the castle, its passengers quite shaken up. The footman opened the door and offered
his hand to Mrs Deverill, who accepted it and put out one uncertain foot, feeling in the dark for the top step. She descended at last and took her husband’s arm. Bertie was flaxen-haired and
handsome with a wide, well-proportioned face and grey eyes as pale as duck’s eggs. He had a dry sense of humour and a penchant for pretty women. Indeed, he was celebrated across Co. Cork for
his quiet charm and gentle geniality and was every lady’s favourite gentleman, except for Maud’s, of course, who resented the fact that he had never really belonged exclusively to
her.

Flares had been lit on either side of the castle door to light the way. Bertie and Maud Deverill were the closest neighbours but always the last to arrive on account of Maud’s
procrastination. She subconsciously hoped that if she dithered and dallied and took her time her husband might go without her.

‘If I’m sitting next to the Rector again I shall shoot myself,’ she hissed, her scarlet lips black in the darkness.

‘My dear, you always sit next to the Rector and you never shoot yourself,’ Bertie replied patiently.

‘Your mother does it on purpose to spite me.’

‘Now why would she do that?’

‘Because she despises me.’

‘Nonsense. Mama despises no one. The two of you are simply very different. I don’t see why you can’t get along.’

‘I have a headache. I should not have come at all.’

‘Since you are here, you might as well enjoy yourself.’

‘It’s all right for you, Bertie. You’re always the life and soul of the party. Everyone loves
you.
I’m just here to facilitate your pleasure.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Maud. Come along, you’ll catch your death out here. I need a drink.’ They stepped into the hall and Maud reluctantly peeled off her fur coat and gloves
and handed them to O’Flynn.

Maud was a beautiful, if severe-looking, woman. She was blessed with high cheekbones, a symmetrical heart-shaped face, large pale-blue eyes and a pretty, straight nose. Her mouth was full-lipped
and her blonde hair thick and lustrous, pinned up in the typical Edwardian style with curls and waves in all the right places. Her skin was milky white, her hands and feet dainty. In fact, she was
like a lovely marble statue, carved by a benevolent creator, yet cold and hard and lacking in all sensuality. The only quality that gave her an ounce of character was her inability to see beyond
herself.

Tonight she wore a pale blue dress that reached the floor and showed off her slender figure, a pearl choker about her neck with a diamond clasp glittering at her throat. When she entered the
drawing room there was a collective gasp of admiration, which cheered her up enormously. She glided in, feeling much better about the evening, and found herself accosted at once by Adeline’s
eccentric spinster sisters Hazel and Laurel.

‘My dear Maud, you look lovely,’ gushed Hazel. ‘Don’t you think, Laurel? Maud looks lovely.’

Laurel, who was rarely far from her sister’s side, smiled into her chubby crimson cheeks. ‘She does, Hazel. She truly does. Simply lovely.’ Maud looked down her nose at the two
round faces grinning eagerly up at her and smiled politely, before extricating herself as quickly as possible with the excuse of going to greet the Rector. ‘Poor Mrs Daunt has taken a
turn,’ said Hazel of the Rector’s wife.

‘We shall ask Mary to bake a cake tomorrow and take it round,’ suggested Laurel, referring to their maid.

‘Splendid idea, Hazel. A little brandy in it should restore her to health, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, it will indeed!’ exclaimed the ever-exuberant Laurel, clapping her small hands excitedly.

The Rector was a portly, self-important man with a long prickly moustache and bloated, ruddy cheeks, who enjoyed life’s pleasures as if the obligation to do so was one of God’s
lesser-known Commandments. He hunted with gusto, was a fine shot and a keen fisherman. Often seen waddling among his flock at the races, he never missed the opportunity to preach, as if his
constant moralizing justified his presence there in that den of iniquity. Maud was a religious woman, when it suited her, and she abhorred the Rector for his flamboyance. The vicar in her home town
in England had been an austere, simple man of austere and simple pleasures, which was how she believed all religious men should be. But she held out her hand and greeted him, disguising her true
feelings behind a veneer of cool politeness. ‘Well if it isn’t the lovely Mrs Deverill,’ he said, taking her slender hand in his spongy one and giving it a hearty shake.
‘Did Victoria get the reading for tomorrow’s service?’ he asked.