The Distant Shores Read online

  Margot went to pour herself some tea, aware that it would swiftly get cold in that room. ‘It’s opulent, Mrs B,’ she said, picking up the china teapot. ‘I imagine it’s far more luxurious than it was when it was a home.’ As she hoped, Mrs B was quick to enlighten her.

  Mrs B’s blue eyes widened as she relinquished her caution and allowed her memories to surface. ‘It was magical, like a castle in a fairy tale,’ she said quietly, her face softening in the afterglow of her past. ‘I was eleven years old when fire took it, so I only have vague recollections of what it looked like before. But I remember the size of it most of all. To me it was a palace. How warm it was. Oh, I remember the warmth of those great fires. Me mammy was a maid and sometimes I went with her and sat quietly in the corner, winding up balls of wool or helping polish the silver. There was always something useful I could do and I was happy to do it because it was warm there, in the big house.’

  ‘Do you remember the fire that destroyed it?’ Margot asked.

  ‘Remember it, you say? God save us, I do. Most of all I remember Mammy and Daddy’s shock and horror. ’Twas the talk of town and country. Everyone was affected by it one way or another, not just those who worked there – the forge, the butchers, the fishermen and the coopers. It was the life blood of the whole town and beyond. The very heart that kept us all alive. Lord Deverill, the present Lord Deverill’s grandfather, died in the fire and poor old Lady Deverill lost her mind with grief, God rest her soul. Only a very small biteen of the castle survived.’

  ‘The western tower, I’m told.’

  ‘That’s it. The oldest part.’

  ‘Which is where my room is,’ Margot told her. She took a sip of tea. ‘It’s got the most marvellous atmosphere.’

  ‘There were always ghosts in that room,’ said Mrs B casually. She might well have been talking about the furniture for the nonchalant way she mentioned them.

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, Mrs B.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not a question of believing in them or not, Miss Hart. They’re around us all the same. Me mammy used to tell me about the strange noises and goings-on in the tower. Bold, she used to call them. Not afraid of anyone or anything. Daring blackguards. Mammy would never venture there without her Holy Water and rosary beads.’

  ‘What was the castle like after Celia Deverill rebuilt it?’ Margot asked, keen to stick to facts rather than fantasy.

  ‘Well, I was in me teens and we were all curious about the building work going on up at the castle. We’d sneak in over the wall and watch it develop year after year, because it took years, Miss Hart, to complete. The body of money that went into that adventure! People said she must have found Old Séanadh’s purse. Séanadh was an auld fella in folklore whose purse would refill as soon as it was empty.’

  She shook her head in wonder that anyone could be so rich. ‘Indeed, it was an expense Mammy would have disapproved of, God rest her soul and all the poor holy souls, for she always said isn’t it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. But I thought of nothing but going to work there, in that beautiful place. I seized me chance when Mrs Mayberry, Celia Deverill that was, moved in and started hiring servants. I presented myself for employment straight away. I will never forget the first sight of her home. It was like paradise on earth. I’d never seen the like. Even in the days before the fire it was never so beautiful.’

  Her solemn eyes grew lively then and her lips parted into a smile, and Margot realized that she must have been very pretty as a young woman. ‘The marble floors were so shiny you could see your reflection in them. And the beauty of the furniture and the linen and Mrs Mayberry’s fur coats, so soft they were. You’d have to run your fingers over them yourself to believe it. There were so many titled people coming in and out of the place that in the end we took no notice of them.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘Then it all came to an end when Mr Mayberry did away with himself in the garden, God save the mark.’

  ‘That must have been dreadful,’ said Margot.

  ‘What a waste of a life. Nothing should ever be so bad that you have to kill yourself for it. A long-term solution to a short-term problem.’ Mrs B thought then of her own sorrows. Her face fell with sadness and her blue eyes, a moment ago so lively, dimmed suddenly. ‘We all have our own Calvary in this life, Miss Hart. Prince or pauper, we suffer the same, every one of us. But God is always by our side and He only gives us crosses that we are able to carry, doesn’t He?’ She inhaled deeply, letting out a loud sigh, expelling the heaviness of those sad recollections. ‘I saw Mrs Mayberry leave for South Africa and I saw the Countess di Marcantonio move in with her boy, Leopoldo, and her husband the Count, so handsome he was and so charming. You’ve never seen a man with whiter teeth, God rest his soul. He was murdered. Buried up to his neck in the sand and drowned by the sea when the tide came in. Another waste of a life, Miss Hart. Indeed, Ballinakelly has seen its fair share of horror. Some say there is a scamall or a cloud over us and we are cursed and yet we soldier on. Sure, what else can we do?’

  ‘Do you know why he was murdered?’ Margot asked, putting down her teacup.

  Mrs B pursed her lips. ‘There were many stories and auld piseógs, but you can never be sure of gossip, can you, Miss Hart? Poor little Leopoldo was the one who discovered him, dead in the sand, thinking he’d found a ball, God bless us. He was never the same after that. How could he be, poor little boyeen? He was only a young garsún.’ Again she shook her head and lowered her eyes. ‘I left the castle when Celia Deverill sold it to the Countess and came to work for Lord Deverill, Bertie Deverill, here in the Lodge. I’ve worked for that family for over sixty years.’

  ‘That’s a long time.’

  ‘Indeed it is. I’ve been in service all me life.’ She closed her eyes, suppressing the sudden upsurge of grief. It did that to her sometimes, assaulted her when she was least expecting it. ‘This family have seen me through difficult times, Miss Hart. When me head wanted to sink below the water, it was this position, this house, this family that helped me rise above it. I have a lot to be grateful for. As they say, God is good and the devil isn’t too bad either. It does no good to dwell on unhappiness.’

  Margot wondered what unhappiness she was alluding to, but she knew it would be intrusive to ask. ‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘One must always try to be positive.’ Margot knew that. She had had her fair share of unhappiness, after all.

  ‘Now you might find happier memories in those boxes, because for sure there have been good times. I remember when young Master JP moved in with his new wife, after the Countess was buried. I moved with them, you see. I looked after those three children, Aisling, Colm and Cara, from the day they were born. Those were the happiest times. Indeed, they were blessed by God, Mr JP and his wife Mrs Alana. Before the weight of the castle and the title changed things…’

  ‘Why did it go wrong?’ Margot asked, keen to understand how JP got to the point of having to sell the castle.

  Mrs B had said quite enough. She pulled herself up short, appalled suddenly that she had been so loquacious. ‘I’ll bring you a fresh supeen of tea, Miss Hart, and leave you to those boxes full of trumpery. If there’s anything else you need, you will ask me, won’t you? Perhaps another sod of turf or a stick on the fire?’

  ‘I can do that myself, thank you,’ Margot replied.

  ‘Very well.’ Mrs B took the pot and left the room, leaving the door ajar. Margot watched her shuffle off down the corridor. Perhaps in time, and with gentle encouragement, she’d manage to extricate the story she’d never find in a box of old family records.

  Margot set about sorting through the papers, photographs and documents that were carefully stored in the boxes. There was a wealth of information. However, although fascinating to her curious mind, much of it was not relevant to her research. There were birth, marriage and death certificates, theatre tickets, Christmas cards, menus, shooting cards and hunting records. Ledgers of farming accounts
going back to the mid-eighteenth century and lists of tenants and their rent. Then, of course, there were letters. Plenty of letters. It would take weeks to read them all. Presently, Mrs B returned with the pot of freshly brewed tea. She crept in quietly and placed it on the tray. This time she didn’t linger by the door, eager to talk, but slipped out as discreetly as she had entered. Margot tossed another turf log on the fire and listened to the crackling sound it made as the flames licked its earthy surfaces, trying to get purchase. She rubbed her hands together and remained there a moment, warming herself.

  That was where JP found her. ‘I see you’re making your way through those boxes,’ he said, wandering into the room in the same shabby tweeds as he’d worn the day before.

  ‘Thank you for getting them brought up from the cellar,’ she said. ‘It’s a lovely room, this.’

  JP ran his eyes over it. He had never thought of it as lovely. The whole house was an affront. A daily reminder of his failure. ‘My father used to live here,’ he told her. ‘He liked to play billiards. I used to play, but I don’t anymore. As you can see, the table is covered in a dust sheet. It’s been like this for years.’

  ‘I play,’ Margot said with a grin. She arched an eyebrow. ‘I’m quite good, actually, if you fancy a game.’

  JP chuckled. The girl’s enthusiasm was infectious. She was pretty too, he mused, taking in her long blonde hair, tied into a ponytail, vivacious green eyes and pink cheeks. She was wholesome and seemingly untarnished by the stain of life’s vicissitudes. He wanted to linger, to bathe in her innocence, to forget his guilt. ‘I haven’t ever thought to go through these boxes,’ he said. ‘They’ve been here, gathering dust, for decades, yet I’ve never been in the slightest bit curious.’

  Margot could smell alcohol on his breath even though they were more than a few feet apart, and an ugly memory surfaced again, this time more persistently. She did not want to remember her past. She was here to learn about JP’s, and yet his very presence reminded her of things she’d rather forget. It was hard to imagine that JP had ever been the insouciant young man people spoke of. Hard to find lightness in the dark miasma of addiction that seemed to envelop him. She had seen it before, the unbearable change that came over a person when they ceased to be themselves. For a second she recalled that sense of helplessness. That feeling of utter impotence. Of trying so hard to rescue someone when they didn’t want to be saved. She knew now that one can only help a person if they want to help themselves. She knew, because she’d once tried, in her own way, and failed. Why hold someone’s head above water if they’re doing their very best to go under? Perhaps JP did not want to help himself. Perhaps he had no reason to. If his family and friends had abandoned him, for whom did he have to get better?

  ‘Let me show you some interesting things that I’ve found,’ she suggested, lifting a red leather journal off the table.

  ‘What’s that then?’ he asked, leaning forward with curiosity.

  ‘It’s Adeline Deverill’s dinner party book. She wrote down the table plan of every dinner she ever had. Isn’t that fun? You can see who they entertained, where they sat. She’s even included some of the jokes told during dinner.’

  ‘Goodness. She couldn’t have been a very busy lady if she had the time to do all that!’

  Margot laughed. ‘I think you’re right.’ She flicked the pages until she reached the one she wanted to show him. ‘Look at this. 12 July 1903,’ she read. ‘In the presence of His Majesty, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.’ She glanced at him and grinned. ‘Fancy that!’

  ‘Fancy indeed,’ he said, taking the book from her and running his eyes over the list of names.

  ‘I found a photograph of the house party posing in front of the castle in one of the albums. It’s wonderful. The ladies in their long dresses and enormous hats, with their tiny waists and fur stoles, and the men in uniform, puffing their chests out like cockerels.’

  He laughed. ‘I’d love to see that. Where might it be?’

  ‘Let me find it.’ She dug about for the right album and found the page immediately. ‘Here, do you know who these people are?’

  JP looked closely at the black-and-white pictures. ‘Not a clue, besides the family. It was twenty years or so before I was born.’

  ‘Doesn’t the Queen look splendid?’

  ‘She does, but I think my great-grandmother Elizabeth appears more regal. Look at the way she holds her chin. From the little I know, she was away with the fairies, so she probably believed she was the queen.’

  ‘There’s definitely a streak of eccentricity running through your family, as there seems to be in most aristocratic Anglo-Irish families.’

  He glanced at her and a look of self-pity clouded his face. ‘I fear I’m rather boring by comparison, but then my mother was an Irish maid, so only half of my blood is blue.’

  ‘I would say that makes you more interesting and less inbred.’

  He closed the album with a sigh and placed it on the billiard table. ‘I’d like to be able to say what a colourful person Bridie was, that she allowed chickens to wander into the hall like my great-grandmother Elizabeth, but I can’t because I never knew her.’

  Was this at the root of his unhappiness? Margot wondered. Not knowing where he came from challenged his sense of identity and belonging. ‘That must have been hard,’ she said with compassion, hoping he’d elaborate, not for the book, but because she was curious, and because she found she cared. She couldn’t bear to watch someone suffer.

  But JP simply shrugged. ‘Many have fared far worse than me. It would be ungrateful of me to complain when I was lucky, really, having been brought up by Kitty, my half-sister, and her husband Robert, who was like a father to me. I had two fathers, you see, Bertie Deverill and Robert Trench. Two when most children have only one, or none. How many boys can boast of that?’

  ‘Fortunate, indeed,’ Margot agreed, and yet there was a bitterness in his tone that implied something had been lacking, and that he felt resentment for that.

  ‘Have you everything you need, Miss Hart?’ JP asked, straightening up and gathering himself.

  ‘I have more than everything. Thank you so much.’

  ‘Good. You must give a shout if you need anything. It gets frightfully cold in this house, so don’t let the fire go out.’

  ‘I’m used to the cold, having lived in England.’

  ‘Whereabouts are you from?’

  ‘I live in London, but I grew up in Dorset.’

  He nodded. ‘By the sea?’

  ‘Sadly not. Near Sherborne. Pretty countryside though.’

  ‘Very,’ he agreed.

  ‘It pales when compared to here, though. I think Ireland is the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited, and I’ve been to many places. The light on the hills takes my breath away.’

  JP looked at her and a spark of enthusiasm flared in his eyes. ‘Do you ride, Miss Hart?’

  ‘I do,’ she replied. Her father had been an enthusiastic rider.

  ‘Then I’ll show you the real Ireland, if you’ll permit me. Perhaps we can ride out over the hills sometime and you can watch the play of light on a bigger canvas. The views from up there are enormous. We’ll pick a sunny day so you see it at its best.’

  ‘I’d love that,’ she replied.

  ‘Then that’s another deal. I’ll leave you to your research for now. Mrs B is around. Just shout if there’s anything you need.’

  JP left the room slowly, as if determined to hide his unsteady stride. Margot wondered what he was going to do. He had the air of a man who did nothing but sit and brood. The whole house seemed to resonate with his brooding. But he had offered to take her riding. She couldn’t wait. The last time she had been on a horse was trekking across the Andes a few years before with a rather attractive gaucho as her guide. She smiled at the memory of making love with him beneath the stars, then brushed it away and returned to her work.

  * * *

  That night Margot went to soak up the local f
lavour at the pub. O’Donovan’s, where she’d gone for lunch with Dorothy, seemed to be the heart of Ballinakelly. She did not shy from going out alone. She did not shy from much. She’d lived in enough foreign cities to be confident on her own and was perfectly content to be so.

  The pub was as one would expect an Irish pub in the centre of an old town like Ballinakelly to be: low, wonky ceilings, wooden beams, framed photographs of bygone days on the walls, leather bar stools, dark wooden tables, small windows with diamond-shaped panes and stuffy air full of cigarette smoke. Through the fug Margot could see wary faces staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and surprise, for it couldn’t have been common for women to enter such a place unaccompanied. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that women were not allowed in public houses in Ireland at all.

  Margot was not put off. She was used to it. A decade of travelling solo had hardened her to the mistrustful looks of strangers. She shrugged them off and took a stool at the bar. The bartender was a middle-aged man with thick black hair and a few days’ stubble. He grinned crookedly, sizing her up and liking what he saw. ‘You’re a bold girl coming in here on your own,’ he said. ‘What can I get you?’

  Margot smiled. If he only knew how many bars she’d sat at on her own he would not have remarked upon it. ‘Vodka, lime and soda, please. Surely, with the hotel nearby, you should be used to people like me popping in.’

  ‘Oh, no one comes in here from up there,’ he said, taking down the vodka bottle from the shelf behind him. ‘They’re much too grand for our humble pub.’

  ‘What do you think of it, the hotel?’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s good for tourism, though it’s no good for us.’

  ‘Did you know it when it was a home?’

  ‘Aye, everyone in this place will have known it back then. It was only sold nine years ago.’ He poured a shot of vodka into a glass. ‘You from England?’