Songs of Love and War (54 page)

Harry stopped smirking. ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe in ghosts, Grandma.’

‘You can’t see the radio waves that wiggle their way through the ether, but it doesn’t prevent you listening to the wireless. I’m afraid, my dear, your scepticism does
not alter your destiny, nor does it protect you from it. Maggie O’Leary’s curse holds firm and nothing but an O’Leary reclaiming the land will lift it.’

Celia wriggled on the sofa. ‘Ooooh, I do love a ghost story. Tell us another one, Adeline.’

‘You’re doomed, old boy,’ said Boysie. ‘You might end up here, after all.’

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘Well, at least I won’t be alone.’

A few days later Adeline’s spirit left her weary old body and floated into the light as she always knew it would. Bertie returned to the Hunting Lodge after dark to find
his mother wasn’t there. Reluctantly, he climbed the stairs into the west wing of the castle to discover her cold corpse eerily lit by the dying embers of the fire. He carried her down as his
father watched from the gloom of his existence between worlds. Hubert had seen her depart and she had left him with the promise that she would return just as soon as she could. ‘Love will
connect us forever and always,’ she had told him. So he would wait; after all, there was nothing else to do.

Adeline was laid out on her bed in the Hunting Lodge. Bertie lit candles and placed a Bible in her hands. She looked serene, he thought, as if she had just taken an enormous gulp of that
cannabis tea she liked to drink. Her eyes were shut, her skin translucent, a small smile playing about her lips – the smile of a person sure of Heaven and her place in it. He sat on the bed
and put his head in his hands. Both parents were gone now, his brother Rupert also. All he had left was his sister who had long ago emigrated to America in disgrace, his estranged wife, his
estranged daughter, Harry, Victoria and Elspeth . . . and his son, Jack. The boy he refused to acknowledge; the materialization of his greatest shame. What had become of his family, once so united,
now so fragmented?

Adeline was buried in the church of St Patrick in Ballinakelly, alongside Hubert and other members of the Deverill family, right back to Barton himself whose gravestone was barely legible due to
the moss and lichen that had grown there. Stoke and Augusta, Digby and Beatrice, Victoria and Eric, Maud and the twins, Vivien and Leona, had travelled to Co. Cork for the funeral. The family came
together again on this sad occasion and there was a sense of finality in the air. A feeling that it was indeed the end of an era. Adeline’s presence had somehow held them all together, even
though her hold had been tenuous. It was as if the string had broken and, like a flock of birds, the Deverills were about to take to the skies, each headed for a different destination.

The Shrubs wept into their hankies, Maud sat with a face of marble. Bertie had drunk enough of his mother’s cannabis tea to smile on her with indulgence, as he used to do before her
unhappiness had pierced his seemingly impenetrable
joie de vivre.
Kitty cried, remembering the refuge her little sitting room had been when as a child she had fled Miss Grieve’s
hostile companionship in search of her grandmother’s warm and certain affection. Robert took her hand and squeezed it and she was grateful. Victoria sat beside her mother, dry-eyed, thinking
of all the things she was missing in London, while Elspeth’s tears were shed for the grandmother she had never really known. Harry and Boysie sat together, Boysie wondering how soon they
could get away, Harry wondering whether his grandmother was right about the curse of Maggie O’Leary and whether his attempts at leaving Ireland for good would only be thwarted in death.
Eternity locked up in the castle was a very long time. Celia dabbed her eyes and remembered the good old days and in her sorrow they inflated and grew out of all proportion. She wondered whether
she would ever be as happy in the present as she had been in the past, at Castle Deverill.

The family gathered together in the Hunting Lodge for lunch. The Rector came and gave the occasion an air of formality, like the days when Hubert and Adeline had invited Reverend Daunt to dine
with tedious regularity. Bertie sat at the head. He had a cloudy look in his eyes, as if he was in fact far away and only going through the motions with his lips loose, his once beautiful face red
and puffy and glistening with sweat. He had greeted Kitty with affection, surprising them both, and enquired about her comfort in the White House. Then he had asked about little Jack. When Kitty
had told him he was growing into a handsome Deverill, the corners of his flabby lips had twitched and he had nodded. ‘Good, good.’ But then his mind had drifted somewhere else
again.

After lunch Bertie stood up to address the family. He was unsteady on his feet. He swayed a little as if he were on a ship, listing on the waves. ‘Friends and family,’ he began, and
Kitty caught eyes with Harry and pulled a nervous face. She wasn’t sure he was going to make it to the end of his speech. Harry lowered his eyes guiltily. Kitty frowned at him, but he fixed
his gaze on the table and refused to look up. ‘It saddens me that we gather here today on this most cheerless of days, to say a fond farewell to my dear mother, Adeline. Indeed it is the end
of an era. But with every ending there is a new beginning and so it shall be for all of us. Thank you to those who came from England. My grandfather always used to say the English Deverills were
the lucky Deverills, or “lucky devils” as he called you.’ Bertie chuckled. ‘In many ways he was right. But we all fought in the war, united against a common enemy, and we
all suffered for England together. You lost your beloved George and we lost Rupert. Both branches of Deverills suffered greatly. Once again we were united in our grief. While the war ended in
Europe, we over here had to endure the Republicans’ fight for freedom. Because of it we lost our home. Our once great castle; one of the finest in Ireland. In that respect we are not the
fortunate ones. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I wouldn’t have lived anywhere else. There is no place on earth more beautiful to me than the west coast of Co.
Cork.’

He paused and inhaled through his nostrils. The room was silent. Only eyes slid from one to the other as the family began to sense a horrible purpose to this address. ‘So it is, with great
regret, that I announce to you all that we are to do what no landowner in his right mind would do unless in dire circumstances. We are to sell.’ There was a collective gasp. Kitty felt as if
the breath had been knocked out of her. She glanced at her mother. Maud’s thin lips were drawn into a grim line, but Kitty knew that she had persuaded her father to let the castle go.
It’s what she had wanted since the fire. Before the fire it had been worth holding on to, but without a castle to her name there was no point her continuing to live here; Maud had given up on
Ireland long ago.

‘I know this comes as a shock to most of you,’ Bertie continued. ‘I discussed my plans with Harry and he supports me. Maud and I will move permanently to London as soon as we
find a buyer for Castle Deverill. I’m sure Barton Deverill, the first Lord Deverill, will turn in his grave but it can’t be helped.’ He swept his eyes around the room, over the
astonished faces of his relatives. Maud patted his hand as if it were a rather distasteful pet. Bertie grimaced. He stared down at her cold white fingers and curled his lip. ‘And just when
you think things couldn’t get any worse, I have something else to announce.’ Maud’s hand flew up to her throat. ‘I would like to formally and publicly recognize my young
son, Jack Deverill. Kitty is raising him here in Ireland where he belongs. A moment of weakness for which I am not proud, but I
am
proud of my son.’ He smiled at Kitty, his twitching
face full of remorse. ‘Castles, property, land and trinkets come and go but family is forever.’

Maud pushed out her chair with a loud scrape, threw down her napkin and marched out of the room. No one moved. Everyone stared at Bertie, trying to comprehend what he had just announced. The
room was silent. Then a shaky voice spoke from the other end of the table. It was Augusta and as usual she was a little confused.

‘Can somebody tell me what the devil he said?’

After Adeline’s funeral Maud fled to London in a temper. Now everyone would know about Bertie’s bastard son and the shame would throw a dirty stain over their
family name. She’d have to hide out in the country at Victoria’s until the scandal blew over. She cursed her husband, and herself for having married him. She should have run off with
the Duke of Rothmeade when she’d had the chance! At least she had managed to persuade Bertie to sell the castle. Now she could start looking for a house in London.

Kitty was devastated. Her joy at her father’s decision to recognize his son was completely eclipsed by the extraordinary announcement that he was selling their home. Of course, she knew
who was behind it. If it wasn’t for her father’s penchant for whiskey she didn’t think he’d have allowed his wife to manipulate him, but Bertie had grown weak and
disenchanted with his life and alcohol had numbed his heart. As for Harry, he didn’t mind what happened to Castle Deverill; as long as he was close to Boysie he was happy. Kitty felt she was
the only person who cared.

‘I’d buy the castle if I had the money,’ she said to Jack as they lay together in the bed she now knew so well. ‘But I don’t have it. Robert doesn’t have
it.’

Jack grinned. ‘Perhaps he has a rich aunt who might suddenly die.’

Kitty laughed. ‘Really, Jack, you’re wicked.’

‘I’d buy it for you if I could.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘And I’d rebuild it brick by brick.’

‘I know you would.’ She traced her nails over his chest. ‘I’d like to live with you in the castle, Jack. A normal life. No sneaking around. You, me and little
Jack.’

‘Then we’d release all those ghosts of yours.’

‘Yes. They’d all be free. It would be much less crowded.’

‘We’d restore the gardens. Buy lots of horses. Make lots of children.’

Kitty sighed. ‘Oh Jack . . .’

He gently pushed her back onto the pillow and gazed into her eyes. ‘We’d have lots of children to fill up the castle.’

‘If only . . .’ But he was running his hand over her belly.

‘I want more than this, Kitty. I want more than stolen moments with you.’ He pressed his lips to the gentle rise of her stomach. ‘I want you body and soul.’

‘You already have my body and my soul.’

He brought his head up and looked at her steadily. ‘Then I want your hand,’ he said. ‘I want to be your husband and I want to walk down the street in Ballinakelly with you on
my arm, for all the world to see. This isn’t enough any more.’

When Bridie saw the Irish coastline from the first-class deck of the steamship she was overcome by a surge of emotion that rose in her chest like a great tide and broke onto
her cheeks in waves of tears. She wept with joy for what she anticipated and sorrow for all that had passed. A kindly gentleman in a felt hat put his hand into his inside coat pocket and pulled out
a handkerchief. She took it with gratitude and blew her nose. ‘It’s a grand sight, is it not?’ he said, resting his eyes on those familiar cliffs like a gull settling into her
nest.

‘I’ve come home,’ said Bridie. ‘I can’t believe I’ve finally come home.’

‘Indeed and there’s no place like it in all the world.’

‘Have you been away long?’

‘Very long,’ he said, sighing with pleasure. ‘I’ve been away fifty years, no less.’

Bridie stopped crying. ‘That
is
long,’ she said with feeling.

‘The longest road out is the shortest road home,’ he said, and with a smile he left her on the deck to contemplate her future.

Bridie arrived at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. A grand Regency red-brick mansion overlooking St Stephen’s Green, the beautiful gardens where Bridie had often walked during the months
she had worked for Lady Rowan-Hampton. She hadn’t known then that she would leave Dublin a disgraced maid and return three years later a lady of great wealth with cases of fine clothes and a
maid of her own.

She was greeted by a porter who escorted her into the foyer where crimson carpets, elaborate mouldings and a sweeping staircase gave the famous hotel an air of luxury and class. The hotel staff
smiled at her warmly and welcomed her as if she were a duchess, while the porter clicked his fingers and summoned for help with all the expensive luggage she had brought with her. Bridie, dressed
in a sumptuous coat and cloche hat, a long string of pearls hanging down to her waist, returned their hospitality with a gracious nod and a small curling of the lips, as she had seen Kitty’s
mother do, and in Bridie’s opinion Maud Deverill was the most superior lady she had ever seen. She signed with her right hand, making sure that her left hand was placed conspicuously on the
counter so that her diamond engagement ring and gold marriage band shone brightly to show everyone that not only was she wealthy but she was wealthy
and
respectable. She answered questions
politely as the man behind the desk checked her in. ‘Yes, from New York . . . such a long way, but a most comfortable crossing . . . yes, I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable here,
thank you . . . no, I don’t know how long I will be staying. More than a week, certainly.’

As soon as Bridie reached the suite of rooms she flopped onto the bed as Rosetta drew her a bath and waited for the luggage. She gazed at the exquisite furniture, the vase of bright flowers on
the desk, the silk curtains and rich carpet and took a deep and satisfied breath. How she had imagined places like this from her small bed in Ballinakelly. How she had longed for a new life,
perhaps in London as Kitty’s lady’s maid, if she was lucky. But how could she have possibly known that she would be here now, Mrs Lockwood, heiress and widow, an independent,
well-travelled woman, of only twenty-five? She closed her eyes and smiled. She’d find her child and then her world would be complete.

Bridie slept better than she had ever slept. She was home, in Ireland, on the same mass of land as her mother, her nanna and her brothers. She breathed a sigh of relief and allowed pleasant
dreams to wrap their feathered wings around her.