Secrets of the Lighthouse

by Santa Montefiore

  I fear they are about to remove the greatest prize of all: the portrait of myself that Conor commissioned a little after we were married, by the famous Irish painter, Darragh Kelly. It takes pride of place above the grand fireplace in the hall. I am wearing my favourite emerald-coloured evening dress, to match my eyes, and my red hair falls in shiny waves over my shoulders. I was beautiful, that is true. But beauty counts for nothing when it lies rotting in a casket six feet beneath the ground. I rest my eyes upon it, staring into the face that once belonged to me, but which is now gone forever. I want to weep for the woman I was, but I cannot. And there is no point tearing about the place as I did in the chapel, for no one will hear me but the other ghosts who surely lurk about this shadowy limbo as I do. I’m certain of it although I have not seen them yet. I would be glad of it, I think, because I am alone and lonely.

  Yet they do not take it down. It is the only painting left in the castle. I cannot help but feel a surge of pride when the doors are bolted at last and I am left in peace to contemplate the earthly beauty I once was. It gives me comfort, that painting, as if it is a costume I can slip on to feel myself once more.

  Conor and the children settle into Reedmace House, which is built down by the river, near the stone bridge where the goats and troll of my imagination dwell, and Conor’s mother, Daphne, moves in to look after them. I should be pleased the children have a kind and gentle grandmother, but I cannot help but feel jealous and resentful. She embraces them and kisses them in my place. She bathes them and brushes their teeth as I used to do. She reads them bedtime stories. I used to mimic the voices and bring the stories to life. But she reads plainly, without my flair, and I see the children grow bored and know they wish that she were me. I know they wish that she were me because they cry silently in their beds and stare at my photograph that Conor has hung on the wall in their bedroom. They don’t know that I am beside them all the time. They don’t know that I will be with them always – for as long as their lives may be.

  And time passes. I don’t know how long. Seasons come and go. The children get taller. Conor spends time in Dublin but there are no films to produce because he no longer has the will or the hunger. The empty castle grows cold as the rocks on the hills, and is battered by the winds and rain. I remain constant as the plants and trees, with no one to talk to but the birds. And then one night, in the middle of winter, Finbar sees me.

  He is asleep, dreaming fitfully. I am sitting on the end of his bed as I do every night, watching his breath cause his body to rise and fall in a gentle, rhythmic motion. But tonight he is restless. I know he is dreaming of me. ‘It’s all right, my love,’ I say, as I have said so often, silently, from my other world. ‘I’m here. I’m always here. Right beside you.’ The little boy sits up and stares at me in amazement. He stares right at me. Not through me but at me. I’m certain of it because his eyes take in my hair, my nose, my lips, my body. Wide with astonishment they drink me in and I am as astonished as he.

  ‘Mam?’ he whispers.

  ‘Darling boy,’ I reply.

  ‘Is it you?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘But you’re not dead.’

  I smile the smile of someone with a beautiful secret. ‘No, Finbar. I’m not dead. There is no death. I promise you that.’ And my heart lifts with the joy of seeing his face flush with happiness.

  ‘Will you never leave me?’

  ‘I’ll never leave you, Finbar. You know I won’t. I’ll always be here. Always.’

  The excitement begins to wake him and slowly he loses me. ‘Mam . . . Mam . . . are you still here?’

  ‘I’m still here,’ I say, but he no longer sees me.

  He rubs his eyes. ‘Mam!’ His cry wakes Daphne, who comes hurrying to his side in her nightdress. Finbar is still staring at me, searching me out in the darkness.

  ‘Finbar!’ I exclaim. ‘Finbar. I’m still here!’ But it is no good. He has lost me.

  ‘It’s only a dream, Finbar,’ Daphne soothes, laying him down gently.

  ‘It wasn’t a dream, grandmam. It was real. Mam was on the end of my bed.’

  ‘You go back to sleep now, darling.’

  His voice rises and his glistening eyes blink in bewilderment. ‘She was here. I know she was here.’

  Daphne sighs and strokes his forehead. ‘Perhaps she was. After all, she’s an angel now, isn’t she? I imagine she’s always close, keeping an eye on you.’ But I know she doesn’t believe it. Her words satisfy Finbar, though.

  ‘I think so,’ he mumbles, then closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep. Daphne watches him a while. I can feel her sadness, it is heavy like damp. Then she turns and leaves the room and I am alone again. Only this time, hope has ignited in my heart. If he managed to see me once, he might see me again.

  Chapter 1

  Ellen Trawton arrived at Shannon airport with a single suitcase, fake-fur jacket, skinny jeans and a pair of fine leather boots, which would soon prove highly unsuitable for the wild and rugged countryside of Connemara. She had never been to Ireland before and had no memory of her mother’s sister, Peg, with whom she had arranged to stay, under the pretext of seeking peace and solitude in order to write a novel. As a London girl, Ellen rather dreaded the countryside, considering it muddy and notoriously quiet, but her aunt’s was the only place she knew where her mother would not come looking for her – and the only place she could stay without having to spend a great deal of money. Having quit her job in marketing for a small Chelsea jeweller, she was in no position to be extravagant. She hoped Aunt Peg was rich and lived in a big house in a civilized part of the country, near a thriving town with shops and cafés. She didn’t think she’d last if she lived in the middle of nowhere with only sheep to talk to.

  She stepped out into the Arrivals hall and scanned the eager faces of the crowd for her aunt. Her mother was tall and still beautiful at fifty-eight, with long, mahogany-coloured hair and high cheekbones, so Ellen assumed Aunt Peg would be similar. Her eyes settled at once on an elegant lady in a long camel-hair coat, clutching a shiny designer handbag with well-manicured hands, and her heart swelled with relief, for a woman who lived in the middle of a bog would not be wearing such a stylish pair of court shoes and immaculate tweed trousers. She pulled her case across the floor. ‘Aunt Peg!’ she exclaimed, smiling broadly.

  The woman turned and looked at her blankly. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Aunt Peg?’ But even as she said it, Ellen could tell that she had made a mistake. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I thought you were someone else.’ For a second she felt lost in the unfamiliar airport and her resolve weakened. She rather wished she were back home in Eaton Court, in spite of having gone to such trouble to escape.

  ‘Ellen!’ a voice exclaimed from behind. She swung around to see a keen, shiny face beaming excitedly up at her. ‘Just look at you! Aren’t you a picture of glamour!’ Ellen was surprised her aunt spoke with such a strong Irish accent when her mother spoke like the Queen. ‘I knew it was you the minute I saw you coming through the door. So like your mother!’ Aunt Peg looked like a smiling egg, with short, spiky grey hair and big blue eyes that sparkled irreverently. Ellen was relieved to see her and bent down to kiss her cheek. Peg held her in a firm grip and pressed her face to her niece’s. The woman smelt of lily of the valley and wet dog. ‘I hope you had a good flight, pet,’ she continued breathlessly, releasing her. ‘On time, which is a boon these days. Come, let’s go to the car. Ballymaldoon is a couple of hours’ drive, so if you need to use the lav, you’d better go now. Though of course we can stop at a petrol station on the way. Are you hungry? They probably didn’t give you much to eat on the plane. I always take sandwiches from home. I can’t bear the cheese they put in theirs. It tastes like rubber, don’t you think?’

  Ellen let her aunt drag her suitcase across the hall. She was quick to notice her sturdy lace-up boots and the thick brown trousers she had tucked into shooting socks. Aunt Peg lived in a bog after all, Ellen thought desponden
tly. Judging by her coarse, weathered hands, she no doubt chopped her own firewood and did all her own gardening as well.

  ‘You’re not at all like Mum,’ she blurted before she could stop herself.

  ‘Well, I’m much older for a start and we’ve always been very different,’ her aunt replied, without a hint of displeasure. The two women hadn’t spoken in thirty-three years, but Aunt Peg did not look like the sort of person to hold a grudge. Ellen’s mother, on the other hand, was the sort of woman for whom a grudge was a common complaint.

  Lady Anthony Trawton was not a woman to be crossed. Ellen was well acquainted with the thinning of her lips, the upturning of her nose and the little disapproving sniff that always followed. It didn’t take much to incite her disapproval, but being the ‘wrong sort’ of person was the worst sort of crime. Ellen had been a rebellious teenager, unlike her golden-haired sisters who were paragons of virtue at best and bland at worst. They hadn’t needed moulding, because for some reason they had come out just as their mother had wished: obedient, pretty and gracious, with their father’s weak chin, fair hair and slightly bulging eyes. Ellen, by contrast, had a wild and creative nature, exacerbated by her mother’s unreasonable objection to her independence, as if striking out on her own would somehow turn her into the ‘wrong sort’ of person. With her raven-coloured hair and rebellious disposition, she was the quirk in what might otherwise have been a picture-perfect family. But Ellen was hard to mould; her mother had tried, pushing her every which way through the hole designed for proper aristocratic young ladies, and for a while Ellen had acquiesced and allowed herself to be pushed. It had been easier to surrender and give up the struggle – a relief, almost. But a woman can only go against her nature for a limited time before unhappiness overwhelms her and forces her into her own shape again. Ellen couldn’t determine the exact moment when she had decided she had had enough, but her flight to Ireland was the result of a lifelong struggle for freedom.

  Aunt Peg hadn’t attended either of Ellen’s sisters’ weddings, even though Leonora had married an earl and Lavinia a baronet – anything less would have provoked a substantial snort from their mother – and her name was never mentioned. Ellen had picked up enough snippets of conversation over the years to know that there was some sort of estrangement. The Christmas cards and letters that arrived from Ballymaldoon every year were met with a disdainful sniff and promptly tossed into a bottom drawer in her mother’s study. Unable to restrain her curiosity, Ellen had once or twice leafed through them and learned that her mother had a secret past, but she knew better than to ask her about it. The cards had always aroused her interest, and sometimes, when she caught her mother staring sadly into the half-distance, she wondered whether her wistfulness had anything to do with them. Perhaps, like the nostalgic smell of burning leaves in autumn, the letters gave off a fragrance that seeped through the drawer and pulled her back to her past. Now, when Ellen had needed somewhere to run, the letters had given her all the information she needed to find her aunt, thanks to the little address stickers stuck to the top of the page, which included her telephone number. Excited and a little afraid, she knew she was about to discover what her mother had hidden away all these years. She didn’t dwell on the terrible consequences were she to be found out. She looked down at Peg’s rough hands and thought of her mother’s smooth white fingers and perfectly painted nails. Her mother had married well, Peg had not. Their lives were clearly very different. But why?

  ‘You surprised the devil out of me when you telephoned,’ said Peg. ‘But it was a lovely surprise. It really was. Of all the people to call out of the blue, it was you! I’d never have believed it.’

  ‘I hoped you wouldn’t mind. I just needed to get out of London. It’s far too busy and noisy there to think.’

  ‘Not the right environment for a budding novelist, I agree. I can’t wait to hear all about your writing. What a clever girl you are.’

  Ellen had always loved words. Every time she looked out of the window she felt compelled to describe what she saw. She filled journals with poems and stories, but it wasn’t until very recently that she had decided to change the course of her life, realizing that happiness only comes from doing what one really loves, and that if she didn’t try to write a novel now, she never would. Her mother ridiculed her aspirations of becoming a ‘scribbler’, but Ellen’s desire to express herself was stronger than her mother’s desire to snuff out her creativity. Connemara would be the perfect place to be true to herself.

  ‘I’m not just here to write, Aunt Peg. I’d like to get to know you. After all, you are family,’ Ellen added kindly. The rate at which her aunt was talking gave her the impression that she wasn’t used to company.

  ‘That’s very sweet of you, Ellen. I don’t imagine you’ve told your mother you’re here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought as much. So, where does she think you are, then?’

  Ellen pictured the note she had left on the hall table, beneath the oval mirror where her mother arranged her hair and make-up every morning before going out to her ladies’ lunches and charity meetings. She would have found it by now. No doubt it had aroused a monumental snort. She wondered what would have upset her more: the fact that Ellen had disappeared without telling her, or the fact that she had said she might not marry William Sackville after all. Her mother might have needed to sit down after reading that line in the note. Although William was neither baronet like Lavinia’s husband, nor earl like Leonora’s, his family was very well connected and owned a large grouse moor in Scotland. Her mother insisted that they were very distantly, but quite discernibly, related to the late Queen Mother. ‘I told her I was going to stay with a friend in the country,’ she lied.

  ‘Ah, you’re a bold little devil,’ said Peg. ‘Now let’s see if I can remember where I parked the car.’

  After scouring the rows of shiny vehicles, Peg cheerfully made for the dirtiest car in the building. It was an old Volvo, designed like a sturdy box. ‘Excuse the mess, but it’s usually just me and Mr Badger.’

  ‘Mr Badger?’

  ‘My sheepdog. I left him at home. You’ll have the pleasure of his company later.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ Ellen replied, trying to sound enthusiastic. Her mother had a tiny Papillon called Waffle, which looked more like a toy than an animal, although its neurotic yap was only too real and very irritating. Leonora and Lavinia insisted on buying little dogs at Harrods, which they could carry around in their handbags, not because they liked dogs, Ellen thought, but because they were fashionable accessories like Smythson diaries and Asprey leather key rings. If they could have bought their babies at Harrods, she imagined they probably would have.

  Peg climbed into the car and swept the newspapers off the passenger seat. Ellen noticed the dog hairs clinging to the leather. ‘Where do you live?’ she asked, all hope of a civilized town with elegant shops and restaurants now fading at the sight of the mud on the mat.

  ‘Just outside Ballymaldoon, a delightful town near the sea. You’ll find it very peaceful to write your book.’

  ‘Is it deep countryside?’

  ‘Oh, yes, very deep. I have lots of animals. I hope you like animals, Ellen. You might have noticed my country attire. It gets very cold there on the west coast, and damp. Did you bring any other boots, pet?’

  ‘No, just these.’

  ‘They’re very elegant, Ellen, but you’ll ruin them in a day. Luckily, I have a spare pair you can borrow.’

  Ellen glanced at Peg’s sensible leather ones and baulked. ‘Thank you, but I’m fine. I probably won’t go out that much.’

  Peg frowned at her then laughed heartily. ‘Now that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.’ Ellen wondered whether her mother had fallen out with any other relations who might perhaps live in Dublin.

  ‘So, how is Maddie?’ Peg asked once they were on the road. Her voice was steady but Ellen noticed that she gripped the steering wheel tightly and kept her eyes on the way ahead. />
  ‘Maddie?’

  ‘Your dear mother?’

  Ellen had not heard her called by that name, ever. ‘She’s Madeline to her friends, you know, and Lady Trawton to everyone else . . . ’

  ‘I bet she is. She always was rather grand. I suppose she still speaks like a duchess?’

  Ellen was too impatient to hide her curiosity. ‘Why did you two fall out?’

  Peg squeezed her lips together. ‘You’d better ask your mother,’ she replied tightly.

  Ellen realized she had to tread more carefully. ‘I’m sorry, it must be painful to talk about it.’

  ‘It’s in the past.’ Peg shrugged. ‘Water under the bridge.’

  Ellen thought of the letters and cards tossed thoughtlessly into her mother’s bottom drawer and she felt sorry for her aunt. She had an air of loneliness. ‘It must sadden you not to see your family.’

  Peg flinched. ‘Sadden me not to see my family? Jaysus, child, what’s the woman been telling you? It should sadden her not to see her family, though I don’t suppose it does. We haven’t heard from her in over thirty years.’

  Ellen was stunned. She had taken Peg for a spinster. ‘Oh? I thought . . .’ She hesitated, not wanting to cause offence. ‘Do you have children, Aunt Peg?’