The Secret Hours

by Santa Montefiore

  Kitty sends Shane to collect me at ten and I pay the bill and leave for the White House. It is my third day in Ballinakelly but I feel I have been here for much longer. So much has happened. To think I had anticipated spending time on my own, retracing my mother’s footsteps. I never expected to be swept up into her family. If the next two weeks go as fast as the first few days I shall be back in Boston before I’ve had time to catch my breath. I do not want to think of Boston. I do not want to think of Wyatt. Right now he is a blur. I don’t want him to become clear and solid again. I’m not yet ready for that.

  When I arrive at the house Kitty is there to greet me, dressed in her riding clothes. Her cheeks are flushed and some of her hair has come away from the ponytail and is loose about her hairline. I can tell she has already been out with her horse. I can also tell that riding is the thing she loves doing best. Her eyes sparkle and she is exuberant. She is sixty years old and yet she radiates an energy that is much younger than her years. With her I feel younger than my years too, as if her esprit is infectious.

  Robert wanders out of his office to welcome me into his home. He is a quiet, thoughtful man with a serious face. I noticed the other night when I first met him that he has a stiff leg. I assume he had polio, or something similar, and feel sorry for him. Growing up with any disability is difficult. Being married to a woman as feisty and able-bodied as Kitty must have made it even more so. It is hard not to compare them and to conclude that they are as different as two people could possibly be. He is her opposite. As if she deliberately went out of her way to choose a man whose even, muted nature neutralized her passion and fire. As if she wanted a steady hand at the helm of her marriage, leaving her to be the sail in the wind. Of course he is handsome, in a conventional, bland way, but Wyatt is handsome too and one gets used to that after a while and ceases to be impressed by it. It is a person’s character that counts and what ultimately moulds the contours and planes of the face. I look into Robert’s but I can’t seem to find his character. I wonder how he managed to win Kitty’s heart.

  ‘Faye, I’m going to take you riding,’ says Kitty with a grin. ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘I haven’t ridden in years,’ I respond, but the thought of setting off into the hills on a horse thrills me.

  ‘Robert doesn’t ride,’ Kitty adds, and I imagine that’s because of his stiff leg.

  ‘I’m the only member of the family who doesn’t,’ Robert interjects and he gives a dry smile. ‘But as my wife enjoys riding out on her own, it’s probably just as well.’

  ‘Today I’m going to ride out with you,’ she says to me, setting off up the stairs. I follow. Robert calls for Shane and asks him to carry up my case.

  My bedroom is pretty with two large sash windows that look out over the garden. The walls are papered in a faded green-and-white pattern, the curtains bleached down the edges by the sun. The double bed is sumptuous. It is luxurious compared with the little room I occupied at Vickery’s Inn. ‘And tonight I’m going to take you for a taste of Irish culture.’ Kitty opens the window, letting in a cacophony of birdsong and a gust of honeysuckle.

  ‘Oh?’ I’m intrigued.

  ‘It’s Friday night,’ she exclaims, turning to face me. Her eyes gleam with excitement. ‘Folk night at Ma Murphy’s. As you’re new to Ireland, it’s essential I take you.’ I recall Cormac telling me he’d buy me a drink at Ma Murphy’s and find myself wondering if he’ll be there.

  ‘Are you a regular at folk night?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head and averts her gaze. ‘No, Robert won’t come, he likes to stay at home, but now you’re here I’m going to make the most of it. I grew up here, you see. I know the locals. Robert is English. He keeps himself to himself. He doesn’t mix.’ She sighs with resignation and smiles. I notice a touch of sadness in it. ‘But tonight I’m going and you’re coming with me. It’ll be fun. You’ll experience the real Ireland. It’s full-bodied and bold. You’ll love it.’ From the look on her face I can tell that she loves it more than anyone.

  Kitty lends me a pair of jodhpurs, riding boots and a thick beige sweater. I tie my hair into a ponytail like hers and admire myself in the mirror. I enjoy the new me. I look like a Deverill. I feel like a Deverill; I hope I can learn to ride like one.

  We step into the hall and Robert comes out of his study again, drawn by our laughter. We find our resemblance to each other hilarious and can’t stop laughing. We are laughing like sisters, with abandon. I don’t think I have laughed like this in forty years!

  ‘I can’t wait to see people’s faces as they see us ride by,’ says Kitty.

  ‘Most of them are drunk and seeing double already,’ says Robert, and I’m surprised by the wide smile that melts onto his face. Perhaps he’s not so dour, after all.

  I would love Rose to see me like this, light-hearted and merry. I wonder what she would make of Kitty and me setting off into the hills on horseback. Edwina would wave her cigarette in the air and say that she doesn’t see the point in riding; Walter would definitely give it a go, being athletic like his father; Rose, my darling, gentle Rose, would just fear for my safety.

  At the stables there are already two horses saddled up and waiting for us, along with a huddle of grooms in caps and jackets, watching us curiously. Kitty greets them and they doff their caps, their dark eyes sliding from her to me and back again in wonder. I can tell that Kitty is amused, as am I, but she goes straight to the animals and explains that the grey mare, which I am to ride, is called Shimmer. I run my gloved hand down her face and pat her neck and she snorts and sniffs me with her big nostrils. She’s a fine horse. I tell her, in a whisper that only she can hear, to be kind and not to bolt.

  Kitty’s is a dashing chestnut called Jupiter. He’s handsome and alert with shiny black eyes and a bright white blaze. As she deftly mounts him, one of the grooms comes to my aid and I step into his hands and swing my other leg over the saddle. Once I am seated, he gives me the reins. ‘Shimmer’s a grand mare,’ he says, giving her a pat. ‘She’ll take care of you. Just relax and let her guide you. She knows these hills. She won’t need any direction from you.’ He looks up at me and his gaze lingers on my face. I know that he is baffled by my likeness to his boss, although he must have heard that Kitty’s cousin has arrived from America; the whole town must know by now.

  ‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘That’s encouraging.’

  ‘You okay?’ Kitty asks. I nod. ‘Let’s go then.’

  We set off. I realize that riding a horse is much like riding a bicycle. One doesn’t forget how to do it, even after not having ridden since childhood. I relax into the saddle and leave the reins loose so that Shimmer can follow Jupiter without my nervous twitching on her bit.

  The hedgerows are thick with white-flowered elder and hawthorn. Small birds dive in and out in play and I relish the opportunity to watch them. Their dainty song really does have the power to lift the heart. We head down to the beach where long marram grass sways in the briny wind blowing in off the sea. The cliffs are high and rugged, covered with heather and thrift. Their nooks and crannies are home to seabirds who are busy building their nests. Kitty points out plover and shearwater, and the ubiquitous gannet who dive for fish in the choppy waves. Then she points across the ocean and laughs that the next parish is America. She tells me of a Spanish galleon sunk three hundred years ago, and of the odd silver ducat that still washes up from time to time on the sand. We leave the strand and take a snake path into the hills. Tiny cabins nestle among the gorse and bracken and narrow streams trickle through the grasses to the sea like silver ribbons discarded carelessly over the land. Cows and sheep graze on wild flowers and heather, lifting their heads every now and then to watch us as we ride by.

  Ireland is so beautiful, it pulls on the heart. It is as if nature has delicate fairy fingers that reach in and touch me there, where I am most fragile, where my grief is still tender. I feel my eyes watering. My chest expands and the sorrow there is released. Kitty glances at me. I thi
nk she knows, and if she knows it’s because she’s experienced this sense of release too. This wondrous way nature has of connecting us to our deepest selves.

  We reach the summit of the hill. From there we can see the wide expanse of ocean, as far as it goes, until it merges with the sky to become one hazy blue blur. We gaze about us in silence. The wind is blustery. The horses snort and toss their heads. ‘I love it up here,’ says Kitty, without taking her eyes off the horizon. ‘Everything changes, but this always remains the same.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such beauty,’ I tell her. ‘It’s overwhelming.’

  ‘It’s healing,’ says Kitty firmly. ‘I’ve ridden these hills since I was a child. This wind has taken every sorrow, every regret, and the splendour has mended every broken heart.’ I notice her jaw stiffen. She bites her lip. ‘Or at least it has helped,’ she adds softly, almost to herself.

  I wonder whether she’ll mind me bringing up the War of Independence. I decide to take the plunge. She’ll either answer or change the subject. Kitty is not a people-pleaser like me. ‘Cormac O’Farrell told me that you fought with the rebels in the war,’ I say.

  She turns to me and smiles proudly. ‘I did my bit,’ she replies. ‘Cormac did more than his.’ Then she turns back to face the sea. ‘It feels like another life now.’ She sighs heavily. ‘Another life. I feel like another person sometimes. It’s hard to reconcile the woman I am now with the girl I was then. It seems so distant and unreal. But it happened. I have the scars to prove it.’

  I don’t know what to say. I want to know what kind of scars. Does she mean physical ones or emotional ones? I want to know more about what she did and how she did it. I’d love to hear of her adventures. But she just blinks into the wind and says nothing. I watch her profile, the strength in her jaw, the dignity in her cheekbones, the emotion in her eyes, and I sense there is too much experience for her to share in a few words. And perhaps words would fall short anyhow.

  At length, she pulls the band out of her hair, so that it hangs loose in long tangled waves about her shoulders. ‘Take your hair down,’ she tells me. She grins and there is mischief in it. I do as she asks and shake out my hair. ‘Now, let’s gallop.’ She turns her horse and sets off. I have no option but to follow for Shimmer has already decided that a speedy gallop is what she is going to do. I squeeze my knees against the saddle and grip the reins and we race behind Jupiter. I am at once injected with a feeling of elation. It breaks inside me, as if some internal restraint has snapped. I am flooded with joy. Not the constrained sort of joy I am used to but a wild, reckless joy that is new to me. The rhythmic drumming of hooves is in my ears, the movement of the gallop vibrates through my bones. The wind takes my hair and it blows cold upon my face and I hear myself laughing out loud. I feel outrageously happy. Gone is Faye Langton – the gale has taken her – and in her place is Faye Deverill. Well, haven’t I Deverill blood in my veins the same as Kitty? I feel it now. It is hot and passionate and pumping into my heart, which has cracked open like a duck’s egg and is sucking in this joy and this pleasure as if it has been starved of both.

  When at last we stop, Kitty turns her glowing face to me and laughs. We laugh together. She pats Jupiter’s flank and I do the same to Shimmer. ‘How did that feel?’ she asks, but she already knows.

  ‘No wonder you love to ride so much,’ I say, panting. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun. Truly. I’ve never felt so uplifted.’

  ‘That’s because you were living in the moment,’ she says. ‘And when you’re in the moment you have no cares. There’s no room for them.’

  ‘Well, that’s true. I was much too busy holding on for dear life to think of anything else.’

  ‘Happiness comes when you get out of your head, Faye. Living in your head is a very dangerous pastime. Galloping takes me out of mine. It’s the one time I’m really in the moment and it’s magical.’

  ‘Then let’s do it again!’ I say and Kitty needs no encouragement.

  Robert joins us for lunch. We eat at the dining-room table. We don’t talk about Arethusa. I get the feeling that Kitty tries to shield her husband a little from her overwhelming family. She asks him about himself, how his book is going and they talk about Florence, their daughter. It is only when Robert leaves us to have our tea in the drawing room that we discuss my mother. I tell Kitty what Nora’s grandmother told me and what I later discovered in the diary.

  ‘Although she was having a secret fling with Dermot McLoughlin, the blacksmith’s son, she wasn’t pregnant. She left for London on very good terms with her family.’

  ‘So, the falling-out was later,’ says Kitty.

  ‘I could flick through her diary to find out, but I don’t want to miss anything. She wrote in great detail and very regularly and I’m enjoying reading it.’

  ‘Yes, don’t leap ahead. With every page you are learning something else about your mother. You will find out eventually why she left for America.’

  ‘Perhaps her parents found out about her fling with Dermot McLoughlin. I suppose they would have been appalled that she was being romanced by a working-class Catholic, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Our grandfather would have been appalled, but our grandmother less so. You know, when I was a child, I played with the local Catholic children and Adeline turned a blind eye. My mother would have been horrified. She’s a terrific snob. But Adeline always believed that humans are equal. That we are all spiritual beings living earthly lives, and class, race and religion are earthly qualities, present for our learning and growth, and when we die we leave those things behind with our bodies and are all one. She never considered anyone less valuable because of their class and didn’t understand why we all couldn’t get along and tolerate our differences. I’m sure she would have baulked at Arethusa’s lack of modesty, being a woman of her time, but she wouldn’t have minded her mixing with the blacksmith’s son.’

  ‘Is Dermot McLoughlin still alive?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes. He married and had children. He’s in his eighties or early nineties now and still lives in Ballinakelly.’

  ‘What happened to Ronald Rowan-Hampton?’ I’m curious about the characters my mother wrote about. ‘She obviously didn’t marry him.’

  Kitty sips her tea. ‘Ronald married a woman called Grace who was very beautiful and charming – and ruthlessly selfish.’

  ‘Oh, poor man.’

  ‘Yes, she also joined the war and helped fight for independence, but her motives were very different to mine. She didn’t care about Ireland. She thrived on the thrill of adventure and excitement. She lived the sort of life you only read about in novels. Ronald inherited his father’s baronetcy and became Sir Ronald. Lady Rowan-Hampton had an affair with a local man and Ronald divorced her. He later sold their home and moved to London. Grace still lives in Ballinakelly with Michael Doyle, her lover. A pair of old soaks, they are now. Michael always struggled with the bottle and Grace was driven to it when she lost everything. They keep themselves to themselves. They’ve never married. Mama says they live in sin, but that’s just nonsense. They live quietly, in the way they want to, and they don’t give anyone any trouble, which is a change as both of them caused a lot of people a lot of trouble back in the day!’

  I wonder what sort of trouble they caused. Kitty has a way of opening the door a crack, allowing one to glimpse the past, but leaving one wanting more. I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. She changes the subject.

  That evening we go to Ma Murphy’s, which is a pub in the centre of town. Kitty is wearing a teal-coloured skirt with a cream silk blouse and a purple cardigan draped casually over her shoulders. She has put her hair up into a chignon, which looks elegant and sleek, and she is wearing small diamond drops on her earlobes. She is all grace and femininity. I wear the same green dress I wore to dinner the other night. I did not bring evening wear because I never imagined I’d need it.

  Robert does not appear. Kitty drives and we chat all the way into town
. She is excited to be going out. I don’t imagine she goes out much, for Robert is clearly anti-social. I can tell that she is relishing the chance to see and be seen now that I am here to give her the perfect excuse. Her anticipation is infectious and I find myself feeling excited too, although I’m not sure what to expect of folk night at Ma Murphy’s.

  The pub is just what I imagine a typical Irish pub to be like. Low ceilings, dark wooden beams, red walls covered in framed pictures and black-and-white photographs, and a long sturdy bar behind which are shelves crammed with shiny bottles stacked in front of giant, finely distressed mirrors. It is full of people. When we enter, every eye turns to look at us and the conversations dwindle and then die. But I don’t shrink with embarrassment. The fact that I’m with Kitty emboldens me and I put my shoulders back and follow her across the floor to the bar. She walks with her head high as if she is aware of her standing in this place, as if she knows she is admired and respected. She smiles at some of the locals, who smile back, and says the odd word here and there. She is gracious and dignified. Looking around at the clientele I wonder whether it is usual for a woman of her status to frequent this pub. They all look surprised to see her, and even more surprised to see me. I notice people whispering to each other. I know they are remarking on our likeness. I’m thrilled to look like Kitty, even a less beautiful version of her. Some of her magic dust has fallen on me and I feel beautiful in her reflection.

  We take two stools at the bar and Kitty orders brandy and Babycham mixes from the barman, which sounds revolting, but she assures me is delicious. She begins to talk to the barman, but is interrupted by the starting up of music. She swivels round on her stool and nudges me. ‘You’re going to love this,’ she says, beaming a smile. Then I see the group of musicians at the far end of the room. They are sitting in a semicircle, tapping their feet on the floorboards as they play. There is a guitarist, a violinist, a drummer and, to my astonishment, Cormac O’Farrell on the accordion. My interest is suddenly aroused. He’s in a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his greying beard is neatly trimmed, his hair swept off his face. He is handsome and I cannot take my eyes off him. Then he winks at me and I blush. My face is so hot and I imagine so red, that everyone must notice. I am a fifty-eight-year-old woman and I am blushing like a teenager. Yet, no one is looking at me, they are looking at him as he starts to sing. I am smiling with pleasure. His voice is rich and deep and thrilling. I am transfixed, and that wild and reckless feeling I had on the horse that morning returns and I have never felt so alive.