Daughters of Castle Deverill Page 7

  ‘It’s better than many alternatives,’ Kitty replied. She watched Grace pour tea into the china cups. ‘The Shrubs are driving her to distraction with their suggestions. They think they’re being helpful but they don’t realize that Celia wants to do it her own way.’ There was a long silence as Kitty wondered how to begin.

  At length Grace smiled knowingly. ‘What is it, Kitty? I’ve seen that look in your eyes before. What are you plotting?’

  Kitty took a deep breath then plunged in. ‘I’m leaving for America with Jack O’Leary,’ she declared. ‘This time I’m really going and Michael Doyle can’t stop me.’

  At the mention of Michael’s name Grace put down the teapot and her smiling eyes turned serious. ‘Michael is at Mount Melleray, Kitty,’ she said in a tone that implied Michael had gone to the abbey for pious reasons rather than to be cured of the drink. ‘I’m sure he regrets many of the things he did during the Troubles, but I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, he’s not guilty of half the things you accuse him of She handed Kitty the teacup. ‘You have to forgive and forget if you ever hope to find happiness.’

  ‘There are one or two things I will never forgive him for, Grace,’ Kitty retorted, but she knew that Grace wouldn’t listen to a word against Michael Doyle. She hadn’t believed her when Kitty had told her that Michael had been responsible for burning the castle – and Kitty hadn’t told her what else Michael had done. She didn’t know why, perhaps because of the close roles they had both played during the War of Independence, but Grace cared for Michael. ‘I’m not here to argue with you,’ said Kitty. ‘I need your help.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Grace, picking up her teacup and settling back into the cushions. ‘You’re sure you want to leave Ballinakelly? You’re sure you want to leave Robert?’

  Kitty didn’t want to think about Robert. The guilt was unbearable. ‘Jack and I belong together, Grace,’ she said, angry that she felt she had to argue her case. ‘Fate has separated us at every turn, but this time nothing can prevent us being together. I need to invent a story so that I can leave with Little Jack without raising suspicion. As you know, Robert writes at home, so he’s always in the house. I need you to give me an alibi.’

  Grace’s smile hovered over her teacup. ‘Considering the alibi you once gave me, it will be my pleasure to repay you in kind.’

  ‘So, will you help me?’

  ‘Kitty, my dear, you saved my life after the murder of Colonel Manley. If you hadn’t claimed to have had supper with me the night I lured him to his death they would have accused me of being an accomplice in his murder and put me away.’

  ‘If they had known half of what you and I got up to during the Troubles they would have put both of us away,’ Kitty added wryly.

  ‘Indeed they would. So, helping you now is the very least I can do. But it would be wrong of me, as a friend, not to advise you honestly. Little Jack has two fathers: Bertie, his biological father, and Robert who is everything a father should be. He has yet to know Bertie, although in time I’m sure he will, but he loves Robert, that’s undeniable. Think of him when you plot your escape. Is your happiness more important than his? By removing him from everything he knows and loves you will be causing him unknown distress. After all you have been through, surely you can appreciate the importance of firm roots and a loving home with both parents.’ Kitty’s face darkened as she was forced to confront the possible consequences of her actions and the shame in building her happiness on the unhappiness of those who loved her. ‘I’m sorry,’ Grace continued. ‘I don’t wish to be awkward, but I’m older and wiser than you, and it will be me who is left to pick up the pieces of your desertion. You may not realize it, but your father loves you dearly. He’s grown very proud of his illegitimate little son. I can see it in his eyes when he speaks of him. I’m sure that if you give their relationship a chance, Bertie and Little Jack could become great friends.’

  ‘Don’t forget that my father originally disowned me for taking in Little Jack. He would have preferred that I left him to die on the doorstep.’

  Grace was shocked. ‘That’s not true,’ she interjected quickly. ‘He was horrified at first, of course, but once he had had time to think about it, he changed heart. He realized that nothing in life is more important than family. Didn’t he recognize him in front of the whole family? Little Jack is his son, Kitty. He’s a Deverill.’

  ‘I won’t be persuaded, Grace. I lost Jack last time because I believed I had a responsibility here, but this time I’ll take Little Jack with me.’

  ‘I don’t condone what you are doing, Kitty, but I know that I owe you my life. You can say you’re bringing Little Jack to London to stay with me. We’ll arrange it after Christmas. I’ll help you organize your passage to America and for someone to vouch for you when you get there. God help those you leave behind.’

  Kitty stood up to go. ‘Robert will get over me and Papa will survive,’ she said, making for the door. ‘After all, he has you.’

  Grace watched her leave. Kitty suspected that Grace’s affair with Bertie Deverill had ended the moment Kitty had saved Grace’s life. Indeed, Grace had used that as an excuse to end a relationship of which she had grown tired. She had explained to Bertie that she owed Kitty a debt of gratitude which couldn’t be paid if she was sleeping with the girl’s father. But that was a lie. Only Grace knew the real moment it had ended. When, high on the excitement of having played her part in the War of Independence and lured Colonel Manley into the abandoned house on the Dunashee Road so that Michael Doyle and the other rebels could murder him, she and Michael had fallen on each other like wild animals. It had all started then, her affair with Michael Doyle. She went and leaned on the fireplace and gazed into the fire. The flames licked the logs of turf and the smoke was thick and earthy. She wound her hand around the back of her neck and closed her eyes. The heat made her feel drowsy and sensual.

  She could see him as clearly as if he were right in front of her, his brooding face close enough to feel his breath on her skin. She could even smell him, that very manly scent which was his alone: sweat, salt, spice and something feral that made her lose control and surrender herself to his every desire. He had taken her then and many times since, and Grace had grown addicted to the pleasure he gave her, for none of her previous lovers could compare to Michael Doyle. He made a mockery of all of them, even Bertie Deverill. There was a vitality about him, an earthiness, a hunger that made her wanton. He handled her roughly, impatiently and when he was done she pleaded for more. He had reduced her to pulp, but she had never felt more of a woman than when he was inside her.

  Now he was at Mount Melleray she longed for the moment he would return. She fantasized about their reunion. His passion would be all the greater for his having been locked up in an abbey. He would be like a stallion let out into the field at last and she would be waiting for him like an eager mare. She would wait as long as it took. In the meantime, no one else would suffice.

  Kitty returned home, weary and disgruntled. Grace had been the voice of her conscience and she didn’t like it. She knew that what she was planning was selfish and yet, after all she had suffered, didn’t she deserve to take something for herself?

  She wanted to ride over to see Jack, but she was careful not to arouse suspicion. The many times she had used her father, her sister Elspeth, who lived close by, and Grace as excuses for her long absences only heightened her chances of getting caught. She had to be discreet. It wouldn’t be long before they’d have the rest of their lives to be together. Until that time she’d have to play the good wife.

  After going to see Little Jack, who was having his tea, she found Robert in his study, writing. Knowing not to disturb him at his desk she went upstairs and changed out of her riding clothes. When she came down, Robert was in the hall. ‘Fancy a drink?’ he asked, smiling at her. ‘I could do with one myself. I’ve been deep in my novel all day. I can barely see the words for the paper.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed the bri
dge of his nose. His brown eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. ‘What have you been up to, my darling?’

  ‘I went to see Grace,’ she replied, stinging with guilt.

  ‘So you did. How is she?’

  ‘Same as always. She’s expecting her entire family to descend on her in a couple of days for Christmas.’ She followed Robert into the drawing room and watched him make for the drinks cabinet.

  ‘What would you like to do for Christmas?’ he asked. ‘I’ve told my parents we’re staying in Ireland this year, considering we’ve just settled here. Elspeth and Peter have asked us to join them—’

  ‘I know,’ she interrupted. ‘But I can’t bear their cold house and the chaos. Why don’t we ask them and Papa to spend it here with us? After all, Mother will be spending it with Victoria at Broadmere and I doubt Harry will come over. It’ll be nice for Little Jack to have his cousins here for a change. We can put up a tree over there,’ she said, pointing to the far corner, ‘and he can help decorate it.’ At the thought of this being Little Jack’s last Christmas at the White House her chest tightened and she put a hand against her breast and sat down. The reality of her decision made her appreciate what she had and suddenly everything seemed much dearer to her than she had previously thought. In fact, the idea of losing her home, perhaps forever, made her dizzy with despair.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ said Robert, handing her a glass of sherry. ‘You look very pale.’

  ‘I’m tired,’ she replied with a sigh. ‘I’ll go to bed early. That’ll put me right.’

  ‘Indeed it will. Let’s not talk about Christmas.’

  Just then Little Jack stood in the doorway in his dressing gown with his red hair glistening wet and brushed off his forehead. He was holding a wooden clown puppet on a string. ‘Look what Robert gave me!’

  Kitty looked at her husband. ‘Did you?’

  ‘I saw it in the window of the toy shop in Ballinakelly and couldn’t resist.’

  ‘Isn’t it fun?’ said Little Jack, making it walk across the rug towards Robert.

  Kitty watched the child concentrate as he laboriously moved the wooden cross in his hand to lift the clown’s big red feet. He reached Robert at last and let him draw him onto his knee, wrapping his arms around his middle and kissing his cheek. ‘You’re so clever, Little Jack. I thought it would take you much longer to make the clown walk.’ Little Jack beamed a smile at Kitty.

  ‘You are clever, darling,’ she agreed. ‘How nice of Robert to buy you a present.’ Little Jack nuzzled against Robert and tears prickled behind Kitty’s eyes. Grace’s words echoed in her conscience and, with all the will in the world, Kitty was unable to silence them.

  Chapter 5

  New York, 1925

  ‘It’s a very great pleasure to see you again, Mrs Lockwood.’ Beaumont L. Williams shook Bridie’s hand vigorously. ‘You look well, considering you have just endured a long and arduous journey across the sea.’ He helped her out of her coat then gestured to the leather chair in front of the fire and Bridie sat down, pulling her gloves off finger by finger. She swept her eyes around Beaumont Williams’ office, taking comfort from the familiar smell of it, for during the three years she had lived in New York, she had been a regular visitor to these premises. The aroma of cigar smoke, old leather, dusty books and Mr Williams’ lime cologne gave her a much longed for sense of home. ‘I’m sorry the purchase of the castle wasn’t a success,’ he said, his shrewd eyes twinkling behind his spectacles.

  ‘It was an impulsive idea, Mr Williams. I saw the article in the newspaper about Lord Deverill selling it and reacted without thinking it through. As it happens, someone else got to it first, but I’m not sorry. I have no desire to live in Ireland.’

  ‘I’m very happy to hear that. Elaine and I are the winners then.’ He settled into the chair opposite and crossed one leg over the other. The shiny buttons on his waistcoat strained over his round belly and he placed his pudgy hands over it, knitting his fingers.

  ‘However,’ she added ponderously. ‘Continue to keep your ear to the ground. If it ever comes up for sale again, please let me know.’

  ‘Of course I will, Mrs Lockwood. As you are well aware, my ear is always to the ground.’

  She laughed. ‘Indeed it is, Mr Williams. Tell me, how is Elaine? I did miss her,’ she said, her heart warming at the thought of her old friend.

  ‘Longing to see you, Mrs Lockwood,’ he replied. ‘We didn’t think you’d be returning.’

  ‘I didn’t think I would,’ she replied truthfully. ‘Those Lockwoods chased me out of Manhattan but I won’t be cowed, Mr Williams. New York is a big enough city for all of us to live together without having to see each other. I considered starting again in a new place, as you once suggested. But New York is all I know outside of Ireland, and I feel at home here. I don’t doubt you will find me a nice place to live and that Elaine and I will take up from where we left off and I will soon find friends.’

  ‘And a new husband,’ said Mr Williams with a smile. ‘You’re young, and if I may say so, Mrs Lockwood, a fine-looking woman too. You will have all the bachelors of Manhattan howling outside your door like a pack of wolves.’

  ‘You make them sound terrifying, Mr Williams,’ she said, but her grin told him his flattery had pleased her.

  ‘So, tell me, what made you change your mind and return?’

  Bridie sighed, her narrow shoulders and chest rising and falling on her breath. For a moment Mr Williams glimpsed the lost child beneath the woman’s fashionable hat and expensive clothes and he felt a surprising sense of pity, for he was not a man to be easily moved by the pathos of a woman. ‘Life is strange,’ she said softly. ‘I came here as a penniless maid from a small town in the south-west of Ireland, worked for the formidable Mrs Grimsby who, by some God-given miracle, chose to leave me her fortune when she died, so that I became a very wealthy woman overnight. Then I married a gentleman, a grand old gentleman he was indeed, who gave me respectability and companionship. His children might have called me many things, but I am no gold-digger, Mr Williams, and never was. I wanted to be looked after, I wanted to feel safe and I wanted to banish the loneliness forever. Nothing more than that. I was a young girl in a foreign country with no one to look out for me. Indeed I have come a long way.’ She dropped her gaze into the fire and the warm glow of the flames illuminated for a second a deep regret in her eyes. ‘I wanted things to return to the way they were, when I was a small, barefooted scarecrow of a girl with a grumbling belly but a home full of love.’ She smiled wistfully, sinking into her memories while the crackling embers in the grate transported her back to a simpler time. ‘There was music and laughter and I was as much part of the place as Mam’s rocking chair or the big black bastible that hung over the turf fire full of parsnip soup. I’m not so naïve to have forgotten the hardship. The cold, the hunger and the sorrow.’ She thought of her father then, murdered in broad daylight in the street by a tinker, and her heart contracted with guilt and pain, for if she hadn’t been with Kitty and Jack that day and discovered the tinkers poaching on Lord Deverill’s land, her father might still be alive, and who knew if she would ever have left Ireland then. ‘But I’d suffer all that again just for a taste of what it feels like to belong.’ She dragged her gaze out of the fire and settled it on Mr Williams who was listening with a grave and compassionate expression on his face. She smiled apologetically. ‘So, I realized I had to come back to the city that made me.’

  He nodded and smiled. ‘This city might have turned you into the fine lady you are today, but you made yourself, Mrs Lockwood, out of sheer strength of character and courage.’

  ‘I’ve certainly come a long way on my own.’

  ‘When you wired to tell me you were on your way I set about finding you somewhere to live. I have an apartment for you to look at, when you feel ready. Elaine will help you put together your household. I understand you returned without Rosetta?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I need a new maid as soon
as possible.’

  ‘Let’s dine tonight. Elaine is longing to see you. We’ll go out, somewhere buzzing. I hope you haven’t put away your dancing shoes?’

  Bridie laughed, her anxieties about her future falling away in Beaumont Williams’ confident and capable hands. ‘Of course I haven’t, Mr Williams. I will dust them off and take them out and see if they remember the Charleston!’

  Bridie spent a fortnight at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel while Beaumont Williams arranged the rental of a spacious apartment on Park Avenue, which was a wide and elegant street a couple of blocks from Central Park, home to New York’s richest and most glamorous people. It felt good to be back in Manhattan. She liked the person she was here, in this far away, vibrant city which seemed to reject the old and embrace the new in a thrilling tide of jazz, bright lights and wild parties. It was the era of Prohibition, all alcohol was banned, and yet you wouldn’t have known it. The drinking was just driven underground and it was in these murky speakeasies where bootlegged alcohol was drunk to the music of George Gershwin and Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington that Bridie could forget her past sorrows and dance until the skyline above New York blushed with the pink light of dawn. She could start afresh in the private parties on the Upper East Side where they would consume Orange Blossoms in crystal glasses and sweet-talk in dark corners, and Bridie could reinvent herself yet again, attracting a new crowd of friends who were as full of hedonistic fun as she was. Here, she was Bridget Lockwood, and the noise of the trucks, buses and automobiles, trolley cars, whistles and sirens, hoists and shovels, the clatter of feet treading the sidewalks, the singing in the music halls and the tap dancing in the theatres was so loud as to drown out the little voice that was Bridie Doyle, deep in her soul, calling her home. In the dazzling lights of Times Square she could forge a new happiness, one that came from champagne and shopping, spending money on fashionable clothes and cosmetics, and nights out at the new movie theatres. She embraced New York with a renewed fervour, determined never again to stumble back into her past.