The Last Secret of the Deverills

by Santa Montefiore

  Kitty dreaded returning to Ballinakelly. She hadn’t spoken to Robert or Florence since she had left and JP had run off to Dublin without a backwards glance. If she had known what devastation her love for Jack would cause she would have nipped it in the bud years ago. She was not proud of herself, but what could she do? She couldn’t hide out with Celia and Boysie forever. She loved her daughter and she loved Robert (although she hadn’t done a very good job in convincing him of that) and she loved JP. It pained her to have hurt them and it pained her more to have lost them. There was only one thing to do and that was to ask for their forgiveness.

  Kitty had spent Christmas at Deverill Rising with Beatrice, Celia, Leona and Vivien and their families. Boysie came too, now divorced from Deirdre, who, as it turned out, had been enjoying an affair of her own and was only too happy to be set free. Beatrice, who had been a virtual recluse since Digby died, was drawn out into the light by Celia and Boysie, whose ebullience was infectious. Even Leona and Vivien joined in the games Boysie made them all play. If it hadn’t been for Kitty’s misery it would have been the very best Christmas.

  Besides Celia, the one person who gave Kitty her total support was Maud. Installed once again in the Hunting Lodge, which had been revived with a good deal of plaster and a fresh coat of paint, Maud, who now lived in blissful harmony with the husband she had once despised, telephoned Kitty every few days. Kitty wasn’t sure whether their relationship was improved because Kitty needed her or because Maud was happy. It was certainly enhanced by the fact that Maud was a voice down the wire rather than a physical presence – that way their friendship was allowed to develop slowly. Kitty shared her feelings with her mother and for the first time in her life her mother listened.

  Now Kitty arrived back in Ballinakelly full of dread. She took a cab from the station to her home, and asked the cabbie to drop her at the gate. She stood a while at the bottom of the hill looking up at the house she had lived in for over twenty years and wondered whether she’d ever live there again. She envisaged JP as a little boy, running towards her with his arms outstretched, and Florence as a small girl making daisy chains on the lawn. Then she imagined Robert, laughing at the window as he watched them frolic on the grass. They had been happy times. Even when she had pined for Jack, her family had always given her joy.

  Kitty remembered her grandmother Adeline telling her that she was a child of the planet Mars on account of having been born on the ninth day of the ninth month and that her life would be full of conflict. Well, she didn’t want to be a child of Mars any longer. She wanted to be a child of peace and she wanted her life to be full of harmony. She unhinged the gate and walked through it. With a heavy tread she made her way up the drive towards the house.

  Kitty was so busy looking at her shoes that she didn’t notice Florence who had seen her from the window and was now hurrying towards her. She heard the footsteps and raised her eyes. Florence was approaching with a serious look on her face. Kitty stopped. She didn’t have the energy or the will to fight. She put down her bag and waited for her daughter to throw accusations at her, knowing that she would accept them whatever they were. But Florence didn’t. She put her arms around her astonished mother with a sob. Neither said a word. They didn’t have to. Florence knew her mother was sorry and Kitty knew she was forgiven.

  It wasn’t as easy with Robert.

  Robert’s heart had hardened towards his wife. Hurt had wrapped itself around it like weeds around a flower and stifled the love inside it. Yet he didn’t ask for a divorce and he didn’t request that she leave. ‘We are man and wife,’ he said. ‘Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,’ he added, quoting from their marriage service. Kitty’s relief was intense. It wasn’t ideal but it was better than what she deserved.

  ‘Give Papa time,’ Florence told her gently. ‘He may yet forgive you.’

  ‘And JP?’ Kitty asked sadly.

  Florence shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I think that all depends on Alana.’

  Yet Alana’s heart had hardened too. She received JP’s letters but she put them unopened into a drawer.

  As the months went by unhappiness became a way of life for Alana. She barely noticed it any longer because it became so much part of her. She forgot how to laugh and she forgot how to love. She went through her days mechanically and as she laid her head down at night she was too tired to ponder on her self-imposed exile from joy and how she might free herself. She thought only of her father’s betrayal and of JP.

  Emer was deeply worried about the change in her daughter. She knew she was pining for JP and she assumed that she still blamed her father for what he had put them through, but she sensed something else besides, an unnecessary stubbornness there, as if Alana had somehow got herself stuck in a rut and didn’t know how to climb out. So one day when they were alone in the kitchen Emer decided she’d reach out and hope that her daughter would take her hand.

  ‘You used to derive such pleasure from summer,’ Emer said, putting a bunch of wild flowers into a vase and placing them on the windowsill. ‘I don’t think even nature’s magic can rouse you from your unhappiness.’ She sighed and looked at her daughter with concern.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Alana replied.

  Emer smiled as her daughter turned her back and began to knead the dough at the table. ‘You can fool most people, Alana, but you can’t fool your mother. Stop doing that for a moment and come and look at me.’

  Alana wiped her hands on her apron and reluctantly joined her mother by the window. Emer held her gaze and Alana’s eyes began to glisten.

  ‘My darling, many things happen in our lives that are beyond our control, but we always have the choice of how we react to those things. We can decide to be unhappy or we can decide to let our unhappiness go and move on. We don’t have to let circumstances control how we feel. Often it takes a great force of will, but most of the time it can be done. I don’t know why you and JP argued and perhaps you will never make up, but you don’t have to let him ruin your life. You are young and you have a long road ahead. You can choose to plod up that road with heavy feet or you can choose to skip up it. It’s your choice to live in the moment or to imprison yourself in the past.’ When Alana didn’t speak, Emer put her hands on her shoulders and continued. ‘As for your father, he did what he had to do to survive. We suffered, and I won’t deny it was horrendous, but it’s over now. You have to let that go too.’

  Alana began to cry. The strain of keeping such a terrible secret from her mother had become intolerable. She couldn’t do it any longer. She had to let it out in order to let it go. ‘I know something I shouldn’t know and it’s eating away at me,’ Alana whispered and her voice was so soft Emer had to lean in to hear it.

  ‘What do you know, my darling?’ Emer watched her daughter’s face contort with pain and felt a rising sense of panic. She tightened her grip on her daughter’s arms. ‘Tell me, what do you know?’

  Alana took a deep breath. She felt as if she were inhaling concrete. She didn’t want to hurt her mother but she knew she couldn’t carry the secret any more. ‘Da had an affair, Mam. I found letters in his bag when I thought he was dead. They were from Kitty Trench.’ Her shoulders shuddered and she began to sob. ‘Forgive me.’

  Emer’s face relaxed as the panic drained away. She pulled Alana into her arms and held her tightly. ‘I know,’ she whispered at Alana’s ear. ‘I know he had an affair.’

  Alana pulled away and stared at her mother in amazement. ‘You know?’ she gasped.

  Emer smiled at her serenely and nodded. ‘I’d have to be deaf not to hear the gossip in this town. Of course I know. I’m only sorry that you had to find out and that you kept it a secret in order to protect my feelings.’

  ‘Aren’t you furious?’ Alana couldn’t believe her mother’s tranquillity. ‘Or did you just choose not to be?’ she said, wiping her eyes with her hand.

  Emer gave a little laugh. ‘What is the point of being furious? I k
now your father loves me. He loved Kitty too, once, and when we came back to Ireland he believed he loved her still. So, I turned a blind eye and hoped that it would burn itself out. Which it did.’

  ‘Does he know you know?’

  ‘Of course not. And we must never tell him. We women have to be cleverer than them.’ She ran a thumb across her daughter’s cheek. ‘Don’t live in the past, Alana. It’s gone. What matters is now. It’s the way you behave in the present that will determine your future.’ Alana gazed into her mother’s gentle eyes and felt her whole body lift, as if it was filling with something warm and effervescent. ‘The three most powerful tools for a happy life are gratitude, forgiveness and love. If you can appreciate the small things, forgive those who wrong you and fill your heart with love you will always be content.’

  Alana began to cry again, but this time with relief. ‘I will try, Mam. I really will.’

  ‘That’s a good girl.’ Emer glanced over at the dough, which was hardening on the table. ‘Now, you’d better start again or we’ll all break our teeth on the pie.’

  ‘Thank you, Mam,’ Alana said and she embraced her fiercely. ‘I love you so much.’

  ‘And I love you, too.’ She kissed her daughter’s temple. ‘Now you be good to your da because he’s been suffering on account of your coldness.’

  ‘I will,’ Alana replied and she resolved to do as her mother did and love him unconditionally.

  Chapter 30

  Dublin, 1947

  JP had been at Trinity College, Dublin for just over eighteen months. He hadn’t spoken to Kitty since he had left Ballinakelly and he’d stopped writing to Alana. He loved her but was done making a fool of himself. If she changed her mind, she knew where to find him.

  His father occasionally came to Dublin and they had lunch together at the Kildare Street Club. It had come as an enormous surprise when Bertie had brought Maud. JP and Maud had never been formally introduced. JP knew who she was by sight, owing to the rare times she had come to Ballinakelly, and Maud probably knew him by sight, he imagined, but they had never spoken. JP knew very well what she thought of him and he didn’t blame her. But she seemed to have forgiven Bertie, for the two of them had behaved like young lovers who had come alive in each other’s company. Indeed Maud had been quite a different woman to the one Kitty talked about. More like the woman Bertie had been so nostalgic about. She’d been gracious and charming and interested in everything JP had to say even though he found her curiosity a little alarming. Under the scrutiny of her intense blue eyes he’d felt like a creature being studied beneath a microscope. He couldn’t help wondering what Kitty would have to say about the three of them getting along so well together.

  JP threw himself into his studies with alacrity. He knew that the only way to get over Alana was to focus on something else. There was plenty to do at College. He made friends easily, attracted many admirers who fought hard for his heart and played sport. He spent weekends in Galway hunting with ‘the Blazers’, as the famous hunt was known, and in the summer he joined house parties in Connemara and Co. Wicklow. JP was never short of invitations; he was one of those charismatic people everyone wants at their table. He hid his heartache well. He was determined not to let Alana dampen his enjoyment of life as Martha had done.

  It was a particularly bright spring morning in Dublin when JP saw Martha. At first he wasn’t sure it was her. Her features were the same, but her air was different. Of course, eight years had passed since he had last seen her; they had both been young then. He followed her as she walked with a female companion up the street in the direction of St Stephen’s Green. She was wearing a simple blue dress with her hair pinned at the back of her head and sensible shoes. He recognized the way she walked and the shape of the body inside the dress, but he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t mistaken. Why would she have come back to Ireland and why Dublin? It seemed unlikely, somehow.

  He followed the two of them into the Green and decided to take a different path and come at her from the opposite direction; that way he’d have the opportunity to take a good look at her face. As he strode beneath the plane trees he recalled the time he had walked with her there. It seemed a lifetime ago now. The war had changed the person he was. If she was indeed Martha, she would have changed too, he thought.

  Now he joined her path a short distance ahead of her. He ambled slowly, hands in pockets, trying not to stare too obviously as the two women walked towards him. She laughed at something her friend said and he recognized that smile. He recognized the sweetness in it. His heart gave a little skip. When she replied he heard her voice with its distinctive American accent. He knew at once that she was Martha, after all. He hadn’t been wrong. As they came closer she glanced at him, in the same way she might perhaps glance at any stranger, before her gaze drifted away. But then her eyes snapped back sharply and she stopped. She recognized him too.

  ‘JP?’ she exclaimed and blushed a deep scarlet. Her friend looked at JP and then looked at Martha.

  ‘Hello, Martha,’ he said and he felt a sudden, overwhelming delight in seeing her. He bent down and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Jane, this is my old friend, JP Deverill,’ Martha said unsteadily. ‘JP, this is my new friend, Jane Keaton.’ The two shook hands.

  ‘What are you doing in Dublin?’ he asked, ignoring Jane Keaton who looked from one to the other in puzzlement.

  ‘Oh, it’s such a long story . . .’ Martha began.

  Jane put her hand on Martha’s arm. ‘I’ll leave you to catch up,’ she said tactfully.

  ‘Really, you don’t have to,’ Martha began, but she was grateful when her friend headed off, leaving her alone with JP.

  JP looked down at Martha and smiled, the old tenderness returning in a rush as he took in her features, which were so pleasingly familiar to him. ‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he suggested. ‘Come, I know a nice bench.’ They sat in the shade of a horse chestnut tree, both astonished how immediately comfortable they felt in each other’s company, in spite of everything that had happened.

  ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you,’ said Martha truthfully.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.

  ‘I arrived in Ireland a year and a half ago but I’ve only been living in Dublin for four months.’

  ‘A year and a half ago?’ JP gazed at her in amazement, aware that it was wrong of him to take offence at her not having got in touch. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She hesitated. ‘I’m joining the convent,’ she said carefully and watched the surprise sweep over his face. ‘I know that must sound odd to you, that I’m going to become a nun, but I made up my mind a long time ago. I’m very happy with my decision, JP.’

  JP didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just a little taken aback. It was the last thing I expected.’

  ‘I’m going to join the convent where we were born,’ she told him. She took his hand then. It didn’t give her the jolt of electricity it once had, but something different; something deeper. ‘When I returned to America, JP, I thought my life had ended. I didn’t think I could live without you. But in my despair I found God. It sounds silly, I know, but I want to thank you for opening that door for me.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound silly,’ he said, sandwiching her hand between his. ‘It doesn’t sound silly at all.’

  She looked into his gentle eyes and felt encouraged. ‘I left the man I loved in Ireland but I feel now, as I sit with you here, that I have returned and found my brother.’

  JP put his arms around her and drew her close. ‘And I’ve found my sister,’ he said softly. ‘Just when I needed her most.’

  ‘Do you need me, JP?’ she asked.

  He let her go and sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know where to begin,’ he said and she noticed a bolt of pain flash across his eyes.

  ‘Why not start at the beginning,’ she suggested with a smile, and JP realized that, out of all the people in his life, Martha was the only person he could share his
story with.

  He told her everything. From his experiences in the war to Harry dying, falling in love with Alana and Kitty’s affair with Jack O’Leary. She listened and she didn’t interrupt, but let him tell it at his own pace. For JP it was cathartic to talk through his troubles and the sympathetic look on Martha’s face made him feel understood. She didn’t flinch when he told her about Alana and he didn’t spare her any details. Life had continued since their parting and they had both found new paths; he sensed that she didn’t resent him for finding Alana along his.

  ‘I have let her go,’ JP told Martha when he came to the end of his story. ‘She doesn’t want to marry me so I have no choice but to move on.’ He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared into his knitted fingers.

  Martha didn’t agree. She silently asked God for guidance so that she could give him the best advice. ‘I don’t think you should give up,’ she said after a moment. ‘Time is a great healer. Perhaps all Alana needed was time.’

  ‘I’ve given her eighteen months.’

  ‘But you haven’t seen her in all that time, have you?’

  ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘And you stopped writing to her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you need to go and see her,’ she said. ‘If you truly love her you won’t give up on her until you have exhausted every avenue.’

  ‘She won’t want to see me,’ he said, dropping his gaze in defeat.

  ‘Then you have to make her. You have to fight for her. You have to stand on her doorstep until she has no choice but to see you. At least, if she tells you then that it’s over, you will know that you did your best. If you give up now there will always be uncertainty. You’ll never be sure and that’s a horrid thing to live with.’

  He pondered on her words. A young couple walked by hand in hand and JP watched them enviously.