Ballinakelly was an ancient seaside town of no more than a thousand people. It boasted three churches: the Catholic church of All Saints, St Patrick’s Church of Ireland and the Methodist church. At its heart was a high street of shops and public houses (which were always full) and a small harbour where fishermen kept their boats and mended their nets. On the road just outside Ballinakelly was a statue of the Virgin Mary, which was set up in 1828 to commemorate a young girl’s vision. The locals claimed to have seen the statue sway, all on its own, but Arethusa did not believe it. Pilgrims came from distant places to see it, and many declared that they had been healed simply by looking at it, but, as far as Arethusa knew, none of the locals had been so blessed, and many of them could have done with a miraculous cure.
Once in Ballinakelly she stopped the horse at the bottom of a side street and hurried towards a small white cottage that shivered at the top of a steep incline. She knocked on the wooden door. As she did so, the door gave way and opened on its own with a creak. ‘Mrs Foley?’ she called through the crack. ‘It’s Miss Arethusa Deverill. May I come in?’ Arethusa stepped into the dark room. A turf fire smouldered weakly in the hearth and an old kettle swung miserably above it. On the table was a mug and a cracked teapot. She called again. ‘Mrs Foley, it’s me, Miss Arethusa Deverill. I’ve come to help you.’ She rubbed her hands together to warm them for the cottage was cold and damp.
Arethusa jumped. There in the doorway between the kitchen and the rest of the cottage stood Mrs Foley. Thin and gaunt with purple shadows beneath hollow eyes she was a woman who was little more than rags and bone. In her arms she held a baby wrapped in dirty blankets. Arethusa wasn’t sure whether the infant was alive or dead. It was not moving. ‘Mrs Foley, is the baby sick?’ She peered at the child’s white face and felt an icy claw squeeze her heart.
‘’Tis not sick, miss. Just hungry,’ she said, glancing down at it sorrowfully.
‘Can you not feed it?’
Mrs Foley looked at Arethusa, her black eyes haunted and afraid. ‘The night she was born there was a great storm. Paddy, the soft little man that he is, would not go out and untie the donkey. The baby was coming and I didn’t untie my hair, God help me. I didn’t untie my hair and Paddy didn’t untie the donkey.’ Her lips trembled as she spoke of the birth customs that she had not followed. Suddenly Arethusa understood. She had heard her mother speak of such superstitions. These people believed that if they did not untie the animals, open windows and doors and loosen plaits of hair the new spirit would not be able to enter the body, leaving it open for fairies to slip a changeling into its place. The only way to rid the baby of the changeling was for the baby to smile or sneeze or, as a last resort, to hold the infant by its feet over a fire until it screamed so hard the changeling jumped out.
The claw on Arethusa’s heart tightened its grip.
Mrs Foley continued in a quivering voice, ‘This here is not my baby. It cries all the time. My baby’s soul was out there that night, tryin’ to get in, and I didn’t let it. ’Twas out there in the storm and I didn’t let it in. Now I have this . . . this . . . thing in its place and it must be made to leave.’
‘No, Biddy, no. You’re wrong. This is your baby. The changeling story is just made up. It’s not real. God would never let another soul enter your child’s body. It’s simply not true.’
‘The neighbours do be comin’ askin’ if it’s smiled or sneezed and I tell them no, it just cries and screams and twists and turns and now nothing. Just quiet. They do be comin’ tonight to hold it over the fire to make the changeling come out.’
‘No, Biddy!’ Arethusa exclaimed in horror. ‘You must not let them do that. How can this poor baby smile if it is dying of hunger? You must feed it, Biddy. It is your baby and it’s going to die if you don’t feed it.’ Mrs Foley, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old, blinked at Arethusa and tears welled in her big, sunken eyes. ‘When was the last time you fed it?’
‘Yesterday,’ she replied.
‘Good Lord! Well, you must feed it at once or it will surely die.’ Suddenly the infant squirmed and let out a weak wail. Mrs Foley looked at Arethusa and bit her bottom lip. ‘If you let this child die you will be hanged for murder,’ Arethusa added firmly. ‘And you will have to answer to God.’
At that Mrs Foley sat down and undid her dress. She put the baby to her breast. The wailing stopped as soon as the little mouth began to suck.
Arethusa placed the basket on the table. ‘I have brought you some food. Eggs, milk, cheese, bread, potatoes.’ She began to lay them out. She’d have to return that afternoon with another basket for the Coakley family. ‘You must eat and get strong or you won’t have enough milk for your child.’ After unpacking the food, she put another turf log on the fire and waited until the kettle had boiled to pour the water into the teapot to brew the tea.
Once the baby had finished feeding and fallen asleep on her mother’s breast, Arethusa took it away to wash and put to bed. While she fussed about the house the mother went to tell the neighbours that there would be no ceremony tonight for she had recognized the baby as her own. When she returned, Arethusa watched her drink the tea and eat some of the bread and cheese. While she grew stronger she told Arethusa of her troubles and Arethusa listened and the weight of sorrow on her heart grew heavier. How could she help these people who had nothing? Why did they have nothing when she had everything?
She left the cottage feeling low. Sunshine expelled the shadows and warmed the shivering town. She ambled up the high street, lost in thought. There were too many cases like the Foleys and the Coakleys for her to make a satisfactory difference. The thought of all those sick and hungry children gave her an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Sure, the ladies of the county helped, like her mother – and her grandfather employed hundreds of locals at the castle, in the gardens and on the land – but more needed to be done.
Suddenly, she stopped short. She recognized those boots. She lifted her eyes and her mood lifted with them. ‘Well, hello, Mr McLoughlin,’ she said, giving him a coy smile.
‘Hello, Miss Deverill,’ he replied, looking down at her with brown eyes shining beneath a thick black fringe. ‘What might you be doing in my neck of the woods?’
‘Your neck of the woods?’ she replied, lifting her chin and putting her hands on her hips. ‘Ballinakelly is my neck of the woods, if you don’t mind, or have you forgotten that I’m a Deverill?’
He inhaled through his nostrils as if savouring the smell of her. ‘How could I forget that you’re a Deverill with that arrogant expression on your face?’ He grinned, revealing two pronounced eye teeth that gave him the look of a wolf. She laughed and her limbs grew warm beneath his lascivious gaze. He lowered his voice. ‘Might you have time in your busy day to meet me round the back?’ he asked, arching an eyebrow suggestively.
‘Maybe,’ she replied, tossing her head and stalking off past the foundry where he apprenticed his father, the local blacksmith.
He didn’t shout after her but waited for her to turn left into the alley and disappear. Arethusa trod slowly over the cobbles, hips swaying, knowing that he would be there, in the courtyard behind his father’s foundry, as he always was. Her breath grew short with excitement and she forgot her fears for the poor and her sense of inadequacy.
A hand grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into a dark stable, sending her hat floating to the ground. ‘Dermot!’ she whispered as he pressed her against the brick wall.
‘Tussy my darling,’ he replied. Then his mouth was upon hers and it was wet and warm and eager. She closed her eyes and parted her lips so he could kiss her more deeply. She relished the vigorous, masculine feel of his body and ran her hands over his back and shoulders, feeling the muscles beneath his jacket and shirt, muscles developed and honed by long hours of hard labour. She pulled him closer, wanting to feel the weight of his body against hers, not caring that it was improper – she was way beyond caring about that now. His bristles scratched h
er neck as he kissed her there and traced her skin with his tongue. ‘I want you,’ he whispered as his hand found her breast. Tussy didn’t reply. She wanted him, too. Her whole body ached for him. ‘Marry me!’ he said. He took his face out of her neck and looked at her steadily, his gaze heavy with lust. ‘Marry me, Tussy.’
Arethusa opened her eyes and cupped his face with her hands. ‘You know I can’t marry you,’ she laughed.
‘But you love me?’
Arethusa sighed. Why did the men she kissed always ruin it by wanting to marry her? ‘No, Dermot. I don’t love you.’
He grinned, undeterred, baring his wolf’s teeth. ‘But you love what I do to you.’
She smiled back. ‘Oh yes. I love that.’
‘If you marry me I will do things to you that will make you cry out with pleasure.’
‘Don’t tempt me, Dermot.’
He took his hand off her breast and moved it down to her hip. ‘Let me show you how a man really pleasures a woman . . .’ Arethusa licked her bottom lip. She was curious to know what Dermot could do. He was, after all, a very good kisser. He began to lift her skirt. Arethusa didn’t move. She knew she was now entering dangerous territory. She’d kissed lots of men, but she’d never allowed any of them to lift her skirt. She knew it was deeply wrong. She knew she should stop him, but the danger of it gave her a wicked thrill. It was forbidden, and yet delicious. Now his hand was beneath her skirt, on her thigh, just above her stocking. She felt his fingers on her naked skin and caught her breath. His mouth hovered above hers, their lips almost touching, and on his were words of encouragement, whispered softly, seductively, commanding her to remain still, to not move, to allow him to touch her there, in her most sensitive place; the place that would give her exquisite pleasure.
Arethusa’s eyelashes fluttered. Her lips parted and on her cheeks flowered two crimson poppies. Dermot’s soft caress was now edging slowly higher. Arethusa was sorely tempted to allow it, just to see what it would feel like.
‘No, Dermot!’ she said suddenly, pulling out his hand. ‘Enough.’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t like it.’
‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Dermot. But I’d better be going.’
‘You’re a tease!’ he exclaimed.
‘You like me just the way I am,’ she replied crisply. ‘You’ve told me so.’ She touched his face. ‘And I’ve never promised you anything more than a kiss. I’ll be married off shortly and it won’t be to a smithy’s son. You know that, so don’t look so pathetic.’ She lifted her hat off the floor and slipped past him into the yard, smoothing down her skirt.
‘You drive a man mad,’ he called after her.
She put her hat on her head and laughed. ‘I know,’ she replied gaily. ‘More’s the pity.’
Chapter 6
It was customary at Castle Deverill for evenings to be filled with entertainment in the form of lavish dinners, numerous guests and after-dinner games. Greville and Elizabeth Deverill were hungry for the company of friends and relations because they were exceedingly bored by each other. For that reason, their son Hubert had not moved out after marrying Adeline, but occupied an entire wing of the castle with their children Bertie, Rupert and Arethusa, and their large retinue of servants. The Deverills were never happier than when the castle was full of candlelight and laughter. Greville had an enviable wine cellar stocked with the best vintages and was never slow to share them. Elizabeth, in her younger days, had been a demon at the card table, but since her mind had begun to wander she was more suited to taking up residence in a big armchair by the fire with her knitting. Her clumsily knitted socks and Guernseys were endured by the poor who were not in a position to complain.
On this particular evening Arethusa was happy to see her three aunts, Poppy, Hazel and Laurel Swanton, who were Adeline’s younger sisters, known affectionately, and collectively, as the Shrubs. Regulars at Castle Deverill for bridge, whist and backgammon, they enlivened any gathering with their enthusiasm and charm. The two youngest, Hazel and Laurel, might have been twins for they shared the same round, rosy faces, as flat as plates, sweet smiles and big china-blue eyes that blinked in constant wonder at the world like a pair of kittens. Their hair was mouse brown and pulled off low foreheads, revealing tidy widow’s peaks. Their skin was pale and freckled, their movements nervous like a pair of thrushes. Frightened of men and alarmed by what women were expected to do in the marital bed, neither had married, preferring to live together in a cosy cottage in Ballinakelly, a short carriage ride from the castle. Such was their closeness that they finished each other’s sentences and anticipated each other’s needs. As long as they were together and had Poppy and Adeline nearby, they wanted for nothing.
Poppy, on the other hand, had married young and been widowed a few years later, without having children to comfort her in her grief. Pretty, with thick, dark brown hair, intelligent eyes the colour of moss and a soft, curvaceous body, she, like Adeline, was the complete antithesis of Laurel and Hazel. Wise beyond her years, Poppy was confident, sensual and strong, and, having been born only a few years after Adeline (and a decade before the other two), she was her natural ally. They shared secrets, a love of nature and a sense of fun, but most importantly their belief in God and the paranormal. However hard life might be, and for Poppy it had already been exceedingly hard, they would endure it because of their unwavering faith in their divine purpose.
Besides the Shrubs, Greville and Elizabeth had invited Reverend Mungo Millet and his insipid wife Cynthia, who were an odd-looking couple, he being well over six feet and she barely five feet. They were middle-aged, affable and experts at working a room, for there was barely an evening in the month when they weren’t guests at the grandest houses in the county. However, as often happens with couples, one was liked, the other merely tolerated. Reverend Millet had a wry sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye, which warmed people to him, as well as a belief in God which was reassuring. His wife, on the other hand, was lacking in appeal. If ever a person’s appearance and personality were perfectly in tune they were in Cynthia Millet, who looked like a dried-flower arrangement left to gather dust in the corner of a cold room and had the character to match. People suffered her because they loved him, and she was totally oblivious to that fact and believed herself a very popular and beloved person indeed.
Greville and Elizabeth, at the request of their daughter-in-law Adeline, had also invited an exuberant young man who was no stranger to Castle Deverill or the hunting grounds surrounding it. Ronald Rowan-Hampton was a contemporary of Arethusa’s brother Bertie, and a favourite of her parents on account of his pedigree and because he was a fine horseman and a paragon of Anglo-Irish ideals. He was a stocky young man of twenty-five with red cheeks, flaxen hair and sharp hazel eyes which missed nothing that might be of use to him. One of those things that might be of use to him was Arethusa Deverill. Arethusa, being equally sharp, was in no way blind to his ambition, or the ambitions of her parents who considered Ronald, the son of a baronet, a fine match for her. Arethusa was well aware that there would come a time, probably sooner rather than later, when she would have to accept a marriage proposal and settle down to a conventional life. She accepted that this was her lot and had no intention of rebelling against it. However, she was in no hurry to give up her secret trysts with the likes of Dermot McLoughlin in favour of the duties of the marital bed. She’d succumb when she was good and ready and not a moment before. Judging by her afternoon’s encounter in the blacksmith’s yard she wouldn’t be ready for some time.
There was a commotion at the door as Rupert appeared in the drawing room half an hour after the guests had arrived. He apologized profusely, with his usual self-deprecating charm, and went around the room bowing to the ladies and kissing their hands with such cordiality that it was impossible to be cross with him. ‘Aunt Hazel, you look resplendent tonight,’ he said, his brown eyes looking at her so intensely that she believed she was the only person in the room he wanted to talk to. ‘Is th
at a new hairstyle?’
Hazel’s cheeks flushed at the compliment. ‘My dear Rupert, you are too kind.’ She patted her coiffure. ‘But I’ve worn my hair like this for years.’
‘For years,’ Laurel added, wanting some of Rupert’s light for herself. ‘We’ve both worn our hair like this since we were twenty.’
Rupert settled his beguiling gaze onto Laurel and she seemed to swell beneath it. ‘Then it can’t be the hair, can it,’ he said, watching her blush too. ‘You both look radiant. If it’s not the hair then it must be something else.’ He grinned suggestively and the two women giggled. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, ladies?’
‘Oh Rupert, you are saucy!’ gushed Hazel, smacking him playfully with her fan.
‘Saucy!’ repeated Laurel, putting her fingers to her lips.
‘You’re deliciously mysterious, the both of you!’ He turned to allow Arethusa to enter the conversation.
‘Are you flirting with our aunts, Rupert?’ she asked, giving him a reproachful look.
‘I only told them how radiant they are tonight,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘What can I do? I’m only a man.’
Arethusa pulled a face. Unlike her silly aunts she wasn’t fooled by her brother’s flattery. She wondered why women were so easily taken in. ‘And they are, indeed, radiant,’ she agreed, just to be polite, although ‘red-faced and sweaty’ would have been more accurate.
‘As are you, my dear Tussy,’ said Rupert, his expression now slightly mocking. ‘But then you are being wooed, are you not?’ he added, lowering his voice and shifting his eyes across the room.
The Shrubs looked at Ronald Rowan-Hampton who was standing in front of the fireplace, a glass of sherry in one hand, the other moving expressively through the air as he entertained his host and the Reverend with one of his anecdotes. Ronald always had an endless supply of anecdotes and was especially fond of telling them.
The Secret Hours Page 8
