The Secret Hours

by Santa Montefiore

  My eyes stray to a portrait that hangs over the fireplace. Kitty and Alana look at it too. ‘That’s our grandmother, Adeline,’ Kitty says. I am astonished. It is as if I am staring at myself. She has the same hair, the same grey eyes, the same pale skin. If I thought I looked like Kitty, I was mistaken. I look similar to Kitty, but I look just like Adeline. No wonder my uncle and aunt commented on it last night. The resemblance is extraordinary. I wonder why my mother never mentioned it. Surely, she must have noticed. She must have seen her mother every time she looked at me.

  ‘My grandmother,’ I say when I finally find my voice. ‘How I wish I’d known her.’

  ‘So do I,’ Kitty agrees. ‘You would have adored her. She was like a mother to me. In fact, I was much closer to her than I was to my own mother. Maud was a very difficult woman, but Grandma was soft and sweet and wise. I miss her every day. I truly do.’

  We are served tea and cake, that delicious porter cake that Kitty gave me yesterday. ‘What do the Latin words carved above the front door mean?’ I ask.

  ‘A Deverill’s castle is his kingdom,’ says Kitty proudly. Now I remember my uncle reciting it at dinner last night.

  ‘You cannot imagine what this castle means to your family,’ Alana tells me. ‘It is more than bricks and mortar. It is their family’s very soul and they have suffered terrible things in order to keep it.’

  ‘But here we are,’ says Kitty brightly, taking Alana’s hand. ‘And darling JP is where he should be. After everything that happened, it all turned out for the best in the end.’

  ‘Cormac told me it was burnt down during the Troubles,’ I say. I look at Kitty and wish I hadn’t mentioned it. It is as if I have prodded an old wound.

  ‘Our grandfather died in that fire, Faye,’ she says quietly. ‘And our grandmother, Adeline, never fully recovered.’ She takes her hand off Alana’s and puts it on her heart, and in that moment she looks old and defeated. A little of her sheen is dulled then, but it does not diminish her; it only makes her more fascinating. ‘Everything changed after that.’ She sighs and I long for her to continue. For her to tell me the whole story, but she smiles sadly and says, ‘I don’t know whether your mother ever knew of the fire or that her father died in it. After she left for America Adeline never heard from her again. I can’t imagine what that must have been like, to lose a daughter in that way. Tussy didn’t die, she just decided to cut all ties, and that is worse than dying. I wonder now whether my bond with Adeline was in some way forged out of her losing Tussy. I was the daughter she lost. I was her comfort.’

  ‘There must have been a terrible falling-out,’ I say. ‘Things must have been said that could never be forgiven.’

  Kitty shrugs. ‘Yes, there must have been. But I don’t know why.’

  ‘Perhaps her diary will tell me.’

  ‘You will find out,’ she says with certainty, as if she knows something I don’t. ‘Tussy left you the diary so that you would know her story. Why else would she give it to you? And why to you and not your brother? I think you are about to find out.’

  I think she is right, but I am scared.

  Chapter 8

  Kitty, Alana and I wander around the gardens with JP’s three enormous wolfhounds, who mob on the lawn and disappear into the bushes – in search of rabbits, I’m told. The skies are a bright cornflower blue. Kitty points out a heron as it flies over the castle towards the sea. Its magnificent wings cast a shadow that seems to have a life of its own as it moves swiftly across the lawn and into the shrubbery. There are song thrushes, plovers and swifts, and the ordinary blackbird with its extraordinary song. Kitty is delighted by them, as am I, for like Cormac’s her enthusiasm is infectious – or perhaps it is simply that my deprived spirit is crying out for joy.

  We walk round to the stables, which are part of the original castle for they were spared the fire. The bricks are old and weathered to a pale grey colour, mottled with lichen and softened by moss. There is a clock tower, but I’m told that the clock hasn’t worked for years, and cobbles on the ground, polished smooth in places from centuries of wear. Kitty tells me that the stable yard hasn’t changed at all since her father was a child, so I can imagine my mother here among the racks of saddles and bridles and other paraphernalia that mean nothing to me because I am not a horsewoman. It smells of manure and leather, ancient stone and dust, and I don’t imagine that those have changed much either.

  There is a walled garden with an orchard of fruit trees in blossom. Every now and then gusts of wind blow the petals into the air like confetti. It is very pretty, as if I am in a very pleasant dream. There are immaculately weeded beds of vegetables and two vast greenhouses, as big as small palaces, with pale green roofs shaped like blancmanges. They are spectacular. But Alana tells me they just don’t have the workforce the Deverills had in the old days to fill them with plants and flowers. Now only one is in use and the other is for storage and overgrown with weeds. Kitty recalls that there were at least twenty workers employed to tend the gardens when she was a child. Now they only have four and they are barely able to cope, so they hire men from town to help during the busiest times of the year. It must cost a fortune to keep this place, I muse. I can’t imagine what the costs must be. I know it is vulgar to think of money, but it is hard not to when faced with such splendour.

  As we make our way back to the castle, I gaze up at the windows in the towers and wonder whether one of them looks into the little room in my dream. The one where I find myself, or perhaps it is Adeline who is standing there with her hand on the mantelpiece, gazing into the fire, as if she has been waiting for me for a long, long time. I want to share my dream with Kitty, but I don’t want her to think her newly found cousin is crazy. I long to find that room, but I can’t go roaming about the corridors on my own or they’ll think I’m sly or taking liberties. I must wait until an opportune moment arises.

  ‘Faye, would you like to come and stay with us at the White House?’ Kitty asks as we reach the French doors that lead into the castle from the terrace. ‘I don’t like to think of you staying in a hotel. You’re family, after all, and it doesn’t feel right. It’s a big enough house so you will still feel independent, and we don’t sit on ceremony, Robert and I. It’s for you to decide, but I know it’ll be infinitely more comfortable than Vickery’s Inn.’

  ‘JP and I would also like to invite you to stay with us,’ Alana adds. ‘But we discussed it last night after you’d left and decided that Kitty’s will be more restful. We have small children, you see.’

  ‘My daughter Florence married an Englishman and they live in London,’ says Kitty. ‘Robert is a writer and barely comes out of his study these days. I would welcome the company.’ Her smile is so warm and open-hearted that I am unable to refuse. I am wary of losing my independence, the two weeks of solitude I craved, but I also want to belong in this family of mine that I have just discovered. I think I now crave that more than solitude.

  ‘Thank you so much, Kitty. I would love to,’ I reply and I feel an expansion in my chest as my heart fills with gratitude.

  ‘Then I will send Shane to fetch you. When would be convenient?’

  I remember tea with Nora Maloney’s grandmother, which is at five. ‘Perhaps tomorrow morning,’ I tell her.

  ‘Of course,’ says Kitty. ‘You must be tired after your journey and in need of an early night. I forget you only arrived yesterday and we dragged you out for supper. It’s funny but I feel as if you have been here longer.’

  Kitty drives me back into Ballinakelly. As the castle recedes in the wing mirror I can’t help but wonder again how my mother could have left and not looked back.

  Nora Maloney takes me to visit her mother. We walk through the town. The sun is setting. The whitewashed houses turn orange and the air grows thick with damp. I wrap my coat about me and put my hands in the pockets. Above the buildings the rugged hills sink into shadow. Only the tops catch the light and glow a dazzling gold, rising like flames into a translucent sky.
Nora’s parents’ house, for her grandmother lives with them, is a ten-minute walk up a boreen. Nora herself lives a few streets away with her husband who is a mechanic. She chatters without drawing breath. By the time we reach the door I think she has told me the ins and outs of her marriage, as well as all the scandals in Ballinakelly, of which there are a great many.

  They are expecting us. Nora’s mother sandwiches my hand between her warm, doughy ones and tells me how delighted she is to meet me. ‘May God forgive me for comparing the living with the dead, but you are the stamp of Adeline, Lady Deverill. Lord have mercy on her soul and all the holy souls.’ Her round cheeks flush scarlet. ‘Poor auld Mam is all worked up that Arethusa Deverill’s daughter is coming to visit. She can’t believe it. After all these years. Come into the parlour, girleen, and take the weight off your feet. I’ve wet the sup of tea and I’ve made a cake especially. You’re a Yank, aren’t you, so you must taste a biteen of Irish porter cake!’ Nora’s father, in a jacket and tie, stands up when I enter the small parlour and shakes my hand. He is sturdy and strong with a black beard and black eyes and he doesn’t smile. I think he is shy. He steps aside and I see a little old lady in a black dress and shawl sitting by the hearth where a turf fire smoulders in the grate. She lifts her eyes and stares at me. ‘God save us! Is it the Last Day or what?’ she exclaims. ‘Lady Deverill is out of her grave and back from the dead.’ She has no teeth and her Irish brogue is so strong I find it hard to understand her.

  ‘No, Mam, this is Lady Deverill’s granddaughter. Miss Arethusa’s daughter,’ says Nora’s mother, taking the seat beside her.

  ‘Lovely to meet you,’ I say. No one has told me their names and I know Maloney is Nora’s married name, so I simply take her grandmother’s hand, thin and cold like a chicken’s claw, and smile down at her. She stares up at me wide-eyed as if she has seen a ghost and grips my hand.

  ‘I’ve told no one!’ she says in a whisper. ‘Not a living Christian, God help me. If I don’t go gaga I’ll take it to my grave. Like I promised.’ I am not sure what she’s talking about. It’s a bit unsettling and I wonder if she’s not a little crazy.

  We all sit down and Nora pours the tea and hands around the cake while her mother asks me about my visit and for how long I’ll be staying. I reply, take the china cup I’m offered and taste the cake, which is like the cake I had at Kitty’s and surprisingly good. I know I have to be polite and make small talk but I’m longing to ask about my mother. All the while we chat I’m aware of the little old lady’s beady eyes upon me, devouring me with both fascination and fear. She stares at my face as if trying to make sense of this woman who has turned up out of nowhere, looking like Lady Deverill.

  Then she suddenly wakes from her stupor.

  ‘I worked at the castle as a maid, you know,’ she says, interrupting her daughter who is mid-sentence.

  ‘Mam worked for Lady Deverill, Adeline Deverill, Lord have mercy on her,’ says Nora’s mother. ‘She was a maid when your mother was a young woman and, as you can see, she is very proud of it.’

  ‘Did you know Lady Deverill?’ asks Nora’s grandmother. I think she is confused.

  Nora’s mother puts a hand on the old lady’s. ‘No, Mam. This is Miss Arethusa’s daughter. She’s come all the way from America. She never knew Lady Deverill.’

  The old woman’s eyes widen. ‘You’re the dead stamp of her,’ she says, shaking her head and fiddling with her rosary beads.

  Nora decides to move the conversation along. She knows what I’m after. ‘Nan, do you remember Miss Arethusa?’ she asks, articulating her words clearly so that her grandmother will understand.

  The old lady chews her gums. I can almost hear the cogs in her mind beginning to turn. She nods. ‘I was fourteen when I went to work at the castle,’ she says. I listen carefully. I don’t want to miss a word, but she is very difficult to understand. ‘I was a junior maid. I looked after Miss Arethusa. I used to dress her in the morning and take her clothes to the laundry. I never opened her notes. As God is my witness, I never did. She had no complaint about me. None at all.’

  I am excited with this piece of information and smile at Nora with gratitude.

  Nora is pleased. ‘You see, you do remember the past, don’t you, Nan,’ she says.

  ‘What was she like, Miss Arethusa?’ I ask.

  The grandmother smiles and her gums are pink and shiny. ‘A saint,’ she says, her voice laden with admiration. ‘If she hadn’t been a Protestant she would have been declared a saint or at the very least a Blessed.’

  Nora laughs. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ she says, turning to me. ‘She thinks the world of your mother.’

  ‘Oh, she does,’ Nora’s mother agrees. ‘Mam, tell Mrs Langton how Miss Arethusa used to help the poor.’

  The old lady’s small eyes brighten and I sense she is warming to her subject. ‘She used to steal into the kitchen and fill a basket of food to take to the poor. There was such hunger in those days. People were sick and dying from starvation and disease. We had nothing. Indeed, I got my first pair of shoes when I went to work at the castle. I thought I was on the pig’s back with those shiny shoes on my feet!’ She leans forward and narrows her eyes. ‘I heard the arguments. Mrs Deverill trying to stop her visiting. She didn’t want Miss Arethusa to get sick too, wasn’t the whole country dying of consumption and the pox, and Miss Arethusa accusing her of not understanding and besting her. Miss Arethusa thought they’d all die if she didn’t take them food. The common people had a name for her, Naomheen. That’s Little Saint in Irish. In spite of being Protestant and not afraid of the old priest, Miss Arethusa would pick up old blind Richie Ryan every Sunday in her pony and trap and take him to Mass and stay with him until Mass was over and take him home, God bless her.’

  ‘Was she sent away because Mrs Deverill feared she’d get sick?’ I ask.

  The old lady shakes her head. ‘God save us, no.’ She is very certain about that.

  ‘Why did she leave then?’

  ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  The old lady lowers her voice, as if she is afraid the walls have ears. ‘She was carrying, God between us and all harm!’

  There is a collective gasp in the room. Nora’s parents cross themselves. Nora can see that I don’t understand. ‘She was expecting,’ she says, staring at me with big, anxious eyes, afraid that I am offended.

  I’m not offended. I’m incredulous. I wonder now whether the old lady has lost her marbles. I realize suddenly that I’m a fool to have come. ‘That’s impossible,’ I say. ‘I’m sure you’re mistaken.’

  ‘Oh Mam. You must be mistaken,’ says her daughter, laughing nervously and catching her husband’s eye, who coughs into his beard.

  ‘Nan, you must be thinking of someone else,’ says Nora. She turns to me. ‘I’m sorry. She gets confused these days. She means no disrespect.’

  But the old lady is adamant. ‘Oh, she was, as God is my judge,’ she says. ‘That’s why they sent her to America.’

  ‘If she was pregnant. Who was the father?’ I ask.

  ‘Dermot McLoughlin.’

  Everyone in the room now relaxes. Her suggestion is clearly unbelievable. ‘Mam, that’s just daft. Miss Deverill would never mix with the likes of a McLoughlin.’

  ‘Evil gossip,’ says Nora’s father suddenly. It is the first thing he has said and the women listen to him. I am grateful he has now entered the conversation. Nora’s grandmother chews her gums again and stares into the fire. ‘May God forgive you, Eily Barry,’ he adds in a low voice.

  Nora’s mother puts her hand on the old lady’s again. ‘It’s all right, Mam. You’re just addled. How can you remember so long ago?’

  There is a long, uncomfortable pause. Nora smiles at me apologetically, her mother looks embarrassed, her father stares at the floor as if he wishes it had a mouth to swallow him whole.

  Then the awkward silence is broken. ‘It was November and we had just had the first
frost,’ the old lady says in a slow and deliberate voice, without taking her eyes off the fire. ‘I remember like it was yesterday. I’m not so old that my memory has gone. She was sent to America to have the child. Then she never came back.’

  Of course, this is ridiculous. There was no baby. But she has sown a seed in my mind, a poisonous seed, and I know I will not be able to dig it up and throw it out. It is there, planted deep, and it will fester.

  The old woman’s eyes burn angrily, and a little crazily, the rosary beads passing through her finger and thumb at great speed. ‘Poor auld Miss Arethusa was banished for carrying a child out of wedlock,’ she says in an indignant tone of voice. ‘Well, she wasn’t the only one. Didn’t old Lord Deverill cock his leg for Bridie Doyle and gave her not one child but a brace, God save us.’

  ‘Whisht, Mam, hold your tongue,’ says her daughter firmly, patting her arm.

  The old grandmother sniffs and goes quiet. The conversation resumes, but it is flat and awkward and I soon make my excuses and leave. Nora is mortified, as are her parents. They apologize profusely. I tell them I really don’t mind. That she is old and muddled, and that I am not at all offended. But I leave to walk back to the hotel, grateful to Kitty for inviting me to stay with her. I don’t think I want to be near Nora Maloney anymore and I don’t want to see her family again either. Her grandmother is a mad old crone. I realize in order to learn the truth I must face my mother’s diary. No one knows what really happened but Arethusa herself.

  I walk back to the hotel. Hands in pockets, head down, eyes to the pavement. I can’t get the image of my pregnant mother out of my mind. Of course, the idea is absurd. But still I turn over the possibilities in my head. If she had a baby and gave it away for adoption, that would explain why she never spoke about it. It would explain why she went off to America. On the other hand, why could she not have married Dermot McLoughlin? When the old lady had mentioned his name there had not been a person in the room who believed it, so what was this Dermot McLoughlin like? Why was it unthinkable that Arethusa should be associated with him? I tell myself to stop guessing and to wait until I have read the diary, but I cannot control my thoughts. They are running in all directions, like hounds searching the ground for the scent of fox, exploring every possibility, wanting very much to find a truth that is tolerable.