Secrets of the Lighthouse

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘Which is true,’ said Ellen excitedly.

  ‘He said his little girl wants you to paint her nails.’

  Ellen smiled. ‘I told her how good I am at bejewelling them.’

  Peg observed quietly from the Stanley, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  ‘He wants you to go and give her a manicure, or whatever you call it,’ said Joe. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I think he’s got the hots for you.’

  Ellen blushed. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m good with children, that’s all.’

  ‘He must have the hots for you if he took the trouble to come into the pub. He must have thought you’d be there.’

  ‘Why didn’t he just call you?’ Peg asked. ‘I might not have Internet or a TV, but I do have a telephone!’

  ‘That would be too obvious. He was being subtle,’ said Joe, winking at Ellen.

  ‘There’s nothing subtle about Mr Macausland walking into the Pot of Gold,’ Johnny retorted. ‘You can say you’re busy writing. I’ll make sure he gets the message.’

  ‘You think I shouldn’t go?’ Ellen asked in surprise.

  ‘Of course you shouldn’t go,’ said Peg from the stove. ‘I won’t have you getting involved in all of that.’

  ‘I’d only go and paint the girl’s nails.’

  Peg narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ll be stepping into the wolf ’s lair, pet. He’ll be gone in a week.’

  Ellen felt a sudden sense of urgency. Her mind scurried like a mouse trying to find a way out of a maze. ‘Why don’t you come with me, Peg?’ she suggested. Peg looked appalled. ‘I think it would be unfair not to paint Ida’s nails. I mean, she doesn’t have a mother to do it for her, does she? Poor little thing. She looked so excited when I told her I could stick jewels on them.’

  ‘But where would you buy such things?’ Peg asked.

  Ellen shrugged. ‘There must be a gift shop in town?’

  ‘Yes, Alanna has a little boutique, but it doesn’t sell jewels for nails, I’m quite sure of that.’

  ‘It’ll sell something I can use. Something I can cut up and stick on with polish.’

  ‘The chemist will have polish.’

  ‘Good, that’s all I need. I’ll go into town tomorrow and have a look.’ She turned to Johnny triumphantly. ‘You can tell Mr Macausland that Aunt Peg and I will come for tea to paint Ida’s nails. You’ll see him tomorrow at the castle, won’t you?’

  Johnny frowned at his sister. ‘Aye, we will. But are you sure you want to go, Peg? What will Desmond say? He won’t like it one little bit.’

  ‘Of course I don’t want to go,’ Peg answered. ‘But I don’t want Ellen to go on her own, so I have no choice.’

  ‘You’re right, she mustn’t go alone, if she has to go at all,’ Johnny agreed gravely.

  Ellen laughed. ‘I feel like I’m straight out of Jane Austen, having to take a chaperone.’

  But Peg didn’t laugh with her. ‘You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. I do, and as you’re staying with me, you’re my responsibility. I think your mother would have a heart attack if she thought you were going anywhere near a man like Conor Macausland. He’s trouble, believe me.’

  ‘Easy now, Peggine,’ said Joe. ‘She’s only going to paint the girl’s nails.’

  Peg threw him a stern look. ‘No, she’s not. She’s going to tea with Mr Macausland. Painting Ida’s nails is just an excuse. Really, Joe, do you think I came down in yesterday’s snowstorm?’ She took the boiling kettle off the stove. ‘Now, seeing as you’re here, we might as well have a cup of tea.’

  Ellen was unable to sleep for excitement. Conor Macausland had braved the pub for her, and they had only met once. But once had been enough to ignite her interest, so why not his? But then in the darkness of her bedroom she began to doubt her appeal. Perhaps he had braved the pub for Ida: after all, the little girl was motherless and he clearly loved her very dearly. Maybe it really was all about the nails and nothing to do with him fancying her.

  She tossed in her bed, unable to find a comfortable position. Her heartbeat galloped, preventing her from sleeping. She wondered about Caitlin and why she had been at the lighthouse that night, and she wondered about the fire and whether Conor had really been responsible for her death. Had the man in the boat, rowing away as the lighthouse burned, been Conor, rowing away from her murder? And why had he left her portrait hanging in the house? Was it so that he could still look upon her? Or because he wanted to lock her away with the rest of his memories in the castle that was now a tomb?

  Was she as mad as a moth fluttering about the flame? If she got too close, would it consume her? Or was Conor unfairly maligned?

  And then she thought of William and how safe he seemed compared with Conor. She wondered whether he was trying to contact her and cringed at the memory of the text she had sent him. He deserved better. But then, wasn’t she just sitting on the fence, hedging her bets, not wanting to burn the bridge in case she got the sudden urge to run back across it, into a secure, albeit dull, future?

  She hadn’t even been away a week and yet these few days in Ireland felt like months. She had travelled extensively in her life. Holidays in South Africa and Switzerland, Thailand and India, shopping trips to New York and Milan, weekends in Italy and France, and yet none of those places had ever given her a sense of belonging. She had always been a tourist, a guest, just passing through. Connemara, on the other hand, had a sense of permanence about it: more than simply a destination, like a wandering tree reunited with its roots. With this comforting thought, she finally drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 10

  The following morning she awoke early, having slept a shallow, fitful sleep. Dawn was breaking behind the house, casting the lighthouse in a soft pink light. She stood at the window and watched the sea swell around it, frothing as the waves hit the rocks. Large white gulls perched on the blackened wood and squabbled over urchins left stranded by the tide. A while later, Peg left the house with Mr Badger and strode across the field to count sheep and talk to the donkey and llama. Ellen watched her in her brown trousers and big coat, a woolly hat pulled over her short grey hair, and felt her heart expand with compassion. There was something very poignant about the slight stoop in her shoulders, as if the weight of her grief had, over the years, crushed her. Was it possible ever to get over the death of one’s child? Ellen watched Peg stroke the llama behind the ears. She looked very solitary out there in the field, against the backdrop of the sea. Of course it wasn’t possible, she knew, her aunt had just learned to live with it.

  After a hearty breakfast of porridge and tea, Ellen took Peg’s car into town to buy polish and sparkly things for Ida’s nails. She parked down by the harbour, which was busy with fishermen attending to their boats and their early catch, and set off in search of Alanna’s gift shop. She wandered up the narrow streets, past pretty pastel-coloured houses and boutiques designed to entice the summer tourists with fishermen’s sweaters, pottery, sheepskin and crystal. Alanna’s was easy to find, nestled between a café and the chemist. She had painted the shopfront a bright fuchsia pink.

  A bell tinkled as she opened the door. Alanna looked up from her desk at the back of the shop and her face registered recognition and delight. ‘Well, look at you, Ellen! You have the bearing of a local now.’

  ‘So this is your shop. It’s lovely.’ She swept her eyes over the cluttered shelves of shiny ornaments, pretty stationery, painted crockery, embroidered linen, old-fashioned-looking soaps and scented candles. It was a fragrant treasure trove of indulgences one didn’t need. The sort of place Ellen loved.

  ‘Business is slow at the moment,’ Alanna lamented. ‘It’ll pick up in the summer when the tourists come, and right now I’m on my own. Mary, who helps me, has had to go to Waterford to visit her sick mother, so I suppose it’s just as well.’

  ‘I’m a customer,’ Ellen announced.

  Alanna raised her eyebrows. ‘So, not just a social call, then?’

  ‘That too, of cour
se. But I need something sparkly like glitter to decorate nails with.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Desmond told me. You’re going to have tea with Conor Macausland.’ Her eyes widened with fascination. ‘Be careful, won’t you, Ellen? He’s a fine-looking man but I fear he’s trouble.’

  ‘I know, but I can’t help being curious. It would be mad not to go, don’t you think? As a writer it’s my compulsion to seek inspiration wherever I can find it.’

  Alanna laughed and pushed herself up from her chair. ‘I suppose it’s hard to resist the allure of a handsome rogue. Now let me see what I can find for you. I have sequins.’ She walked over to a stand at the back hanging with all sorts of packets. ‘These are pretty.’

  ‘Yes, they’ll do. Fantastic. Thank you.’ Ellen continued to browse. ‘It’s such a pretty town.’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s pretty all right and the people are good, hardworking folk. I couldn’t live in a place like London. Too much noise, crime and rushing about. The few times I’ve been there I’ve come home exhausted. I like a quieter life.’

  ‘I didn’t realize how much I needed to be in the countryside until I left the city. What you haven’t had you haven’t missed, I suppose. But now I know what it feels like to be alone on the hills, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do without that space again.’

  ‘I gather you got lost up there?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Very silly of me to lose my way like that but I’m not born to the country.’ Ellen turned away to hide her blushes.

  ‘Be careful,’ Alanna repeated. ‘I’m sure you’re a sensible girl, but don’t forget who he is when you’re painting his little girl’s nails and he’s looking at you with those deep eyes of his. He’s nothing but trouble.’

  ‘He didn’t look like the sort of man who could murder his wife,’ Ellen retorted defensively.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he murdered her, not for a minute. I know Ronan does, but he would, wouldn’t he. In his eyes she was the princess in the tower and Conor was the ogre keeping her prisoner.’ She laughed. ‘Poor Ronan, he took her death very hard.’

  ‘So, what do you think happened?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Her death was suspicious, and people do like their conspiracy theories, but I don’t think Conor’s bad like that. He’s just selfish and spoilt, I imagine, and very arrogant. He never came to the pub or got involved with the community. He just kept himself secluded up there in his castle as if he was too good to mix with the common folk. Caitlin, on the other hand, would come down to the Pot of Gold when he was away in Dublin and lean on the bar for a good chinwag with Craic. She’d knock back her glass of Murphy’s and join in all the singing. I think she loved those times best of all, when she could come down from her gilded tower and be herself. She was very beautiful but desperately unhappy. You could see it in her eyes. I don’t think it was easy being married to him, in spite of all the money. She deserved better, poor girl.’

  ‘Did you get to know her?’

  ‘Not really, she was a man’s woman. But I did get to know Molly, her nanny.’

  Ellen’s interest was roused by this new angle. ‘Really?’

  ‘She was bored, I suppose, and used to come in for a chat when the children were at school. She was a lovely girl, very sweet and gentle. She worshipped her mistress, had stars in her eyes when she spoke about her. I think she was a little frightened of Conor. She saw too much, I imagine. Anyway, after the tragedy, she told me that Caitlin knew Conor was coming back the evening she rowed out to the lighthouse, but she went anyway. Molly thought that was odd, given that he had forbidden her to go there. It was dangerous, you see, and he worried about her in that little boat. But she was headstrong and determined to go. Well, that night, she had an air of intent about her, Molly said, like she wanted him to go and find her. When it emerged that the lighthouse was full of little candles, Molly thought that she had made it all romantic in order to seduce him. Their marriage was really bad; perhaps it was an attempt to win him back.’

  ‘But why the lighthouse, if he hated her to go there?’ Alanna shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but Molly said that all the other times she went, she made sure he was away so she didn’t get caught. This was the only time she had ever gone knowing he would find out. She wanted him to go and find her. Why? I don’t know, and Molly didn’t know either. We couldn’t work it out. She was interviewed by the guarda but they didn’t seem to think that was relevant.’

  Ellen stared at Alanna and her heart began to race. ‘You don’t think that she lured him there to murder him, do you, and it all went wrong?’

  Alanna’s eyes widened. ‘Jaysus, Ellen, I never thought of that!’

  ‘I watch too much crime TV.’ Ellen laughed, dismissing the idea.

  ‘Well, don’t you go giving the boys any more fodder with that suggestion, will you?’

  ‘I think Peg would round on me if she heard me talking like that.’

  ‘She certainly would. You and Ronan with your dark theories.’

  ‘And I’m stepping into the very heart of the mystery,’ Ellen said with relish.

  ‘Well, you take care now,’ Alanna warned. ‘Men like him prey on pretty young girls, then toss them aside when they’ve had their fill. I’d steer well clear of him. If you want a nice Irishman, there are plenty of decent boys on offer.’

  ‘But they’re all related to me!’

  ‘Well, that’s true, of course. Don’t you go falling in love with one of your cousins. That wouldn’t do at all!’

  ‘Joe’s handsome. Why doesn’t he have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Because he’s too busy playing the field. Why settle with one when ten will do?’

  Ellen found pink nail polish in the chemist next door and bought a couple of things that were on her aunt’s list. Just as she was on the point of leaving, Dylan Murphy appeared in the doorway and hooked her with his mad eyes as if he had been doing nothing with his time but fishing for her. ‘Well, hello there, Ellen Olenska,’ he said and grinned. He looked surprisingly dapper in a jacket and tie, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to contend with him on her own.

  ‘Hello, Dylan. How are you?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ he replied, thrusting his hands into his coat pockets. He smelt strongly of tobacco. ‘How’s that book of yours coming along?’

  ‘I haven’t written a word yet.’

  ‘You will. You’re a talented girl, I can tell.’

  His compliment disarmed her, as did the fleeting sweetness in his smile. It was gone as quickly has it had come, as if he were embarrassed to have revealed a softer centre. ‘I hear that you and Peg are going to tea with Macausland.’

  ‘Really, nothing is secret in this town, is it?’

  ‘If you want to keep a secret, you tell only the fish.’

  ‘He asked me to paint his daughter’s nails.’

  ‘I don’t suppose that’s on a father’s list of duties, is it?’

  ‘Nor a grandmother’s,’ Ellen added. ‘Still, I’m happy to do it.’

  ‘You watch out now . . .’

  ‘Not you as well. Everyone’s warning me to take care, as if Conor’s some sort of demon. He was very nice to me.’

  ‘Well, of course he was, you’re a beautiful girl and he’s a red-blooded man like any other.’

  Ellen was embarrassed by the way he emphasized the word beautiful. He almost sang it. ‘Aunt Peg’s coming with me, you know,’ she told him, then wondered why she felt the need to explain.

  ‘Yes, that will be interesting.’

  She didn’t know what he meant by that comment. ‘Well, I’d better be going.’

  His face suddenly darkened with disappointment. ‘Off to do the messages, are you?’

  She pulled Peg’s list out of her coat pocket. ‘I’ve got to go to the butcher’s and then to the grocer’s.’

  ‘Let me show you where they are, then.’

  ‘No, really, I don’t want to trouble you. I’m sure I can find them. It’s a very small town.’

  But Dylan wa
s already opening the door.

  Ellen smiled to herself when, five doors down, they arrived in front of the butcher’s. ‘I’m glad you came with me,’ she quipped. ‘Otherwise, I might not have found it.’

  Dylan grinned bashfully. ‘Sometimes it’s not so easy to notice what’s right under your nose,’ he said, and opened the door for her. She stepped inside. ‘So, how long are you planning to stay?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She walked up to the counter and appraised the meat behind the glass. ‘Right now I’ve got no intention of going back to London.’ She sighed. ‘But I suppose I’ll have to go back sometime.’

  ‘What have you got to get back for?’

  The very thing I’m running from, she thought, but said instead, ‘My life.’

  ‘That’s a load of rubbish, Ellen Olenska. You are your life so your life is wherever you are.’

  Ellen was surprised by the wisdom in his words and pulled her gaze off the counter. ‘I’ve never thought of it like that.’

  ‘Well, it’s true. Your life isn’t something you can leave behind or run away from, because you are it. People, on the other hand, are another matter altogether. You can run away from them, all right.’

  She looked at him steadily. He seemed suddenly smaller and she wanted to put her arms around him because of the callous way her mother had broken his heart. But they were in the shop and the butcher was now ready for her. She pulled out her list.

  A few moments later, they were walking down the pavement towards the grocery shop. The sky was as grey as porridge, but every once in a while the clouds parted and the sun shone through, surprisingly warm for February.

  ‘You look like your mother,’ he said softly, keeping his eyes on the way ahead as if looking at her at that moment would cause him pain.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ she found herself saying. ‘Aunt Peg told me the two of you were engaged once.’

  ‘That we were. A long time ago.’ Ellen read the words that hung between them, unspoken: but yesterday in my heart. They continued a minute or so in silence before Ellen felt the need to fill it.