Daughters of Castle Deverill (23 page)

‘Good morning, madam,’ came the voice of Imelda, her maid. The woman walked lightly into the room, clasped her hands against her apron and smiled. Bridie put her hand on her chest
and felt her head spin. She knew then that Jack had gone.

London, 1667

Most of the Court had arrived to attend the opening night of John Dryden’s new play,
The Maiden Queen
, in the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. The richly dressed
aristocrats sat in the boxes in their brightly coloured silks and velvets, powdered wigs and face patches, like exotic birds of paradise, resplendent in the light of hundreds of candles. The ladies
passed on the Court gossip behind their fans while the lords discussed politics, women and the King’s many mistresses. Lord Deverill sat in the box beside his wife, Lady Alice, daughter of
the immensely wealthy Earl of Charnwell, and his friend Sir Toby Beckwyth-Stubbs. He swept his eyes over the pit below where ladies and gentlemen sweltered in the heat and whores and orange girls
squawked and flirted with the fops in the thick, heavily perfumed air, like a pen full of libidinous chickens.

The King arrived with his bastard son, the Duke of Monmouth, and his brother the Duke of York. The fops in the pit clambered onto chairs and women hung over the balconies to watch the royal
party enter, and Lady Alice looked out for the King’s mistress, the buxom and wanton Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, the most fashionable lady in the country.

They muttered and chattered as the royal party settled into their seats with the rustle of taffeta and the swishing of fans. Lord Deverill found the scene distasteful. The Court of Charles II
had turned out to be a sink of licentious frivolity with Catholic undercurrents and he was almost starting to miss the evil Cromwell. Deverill was only here to seek an audience with the King to
procure more men and arms to keep the peace in West Cork. The construction of Castle Deverill was now completed and it stood as a formidable bastion of English supremacy, but the Irish were a
riotous lot and they gnawed on their grievances like wild dogs on bitter bones. While London had staggered from the Plague to the Great Fire the year before, Lord Deverill had taken refuge at his
Irish seat where the clouds that hung over him were of an entirely different kind: the haunting memory of Maggie O’Leary’s curse and the threat of rebellion from the Irish over the
Importation Act that prohibited them from selling their cattle to England.

As he had sworn that day on the hill above Ballinakelly he was good to his tenants. Their rent was reasonable and he was tolerant of their papist church. His wife and her ladies fed the poor and
clothed their children. He was indeed a beneficent landlord. His loyalty to the Crown was unwavering, but he was furious about the Act which the King had signed. Distracted by his own domestic
problems, flirting too closely with the King of France and preparing to fight the Dutch, the King hadn’t wanted to upset Parliament by using his power of veto. Lord Deverill feared there
would be another rebellion like the one in ’41 and was determined to warn the King of danger.

Lord Deverill thought of Maggie O’Leary often. He was a religious man and he did not take curses lightly, indeed Sir Toby had insisted that her threat was an indirect threat to the King
himself and was adamant that she should be burned at the stake. But Lord Deverill did not want to incite further hatred by killing a young woman – a
beautiful
young woman – be
she a witch or otherwise. It was not her curse that followed him like a shadow, but her strange, unsettling beauty and her almost pungent allure.

He had only seen her twice. Once when she had publicly cursed him in the road in Ballinakelly, the second time when he had been out hunting. Accompanied by Sir Toby and a retinue of attendants,
he had been galloping through the forest in pursuit of a deer. Suddenly, as the deer headed off through the thicket to his left he had spotted through the tangle of trees on his right a stag,
standing on the crest of a knoll. Without time to inform his men he swerved his horse to the right and quietly trotted towards it.

Alone in the wood he pulled on the reins and drew his beast to a halt. It was quiet but for the chirruping of birds and the whispering of the wind about the branches. The stag was magnificent.
It stood with the dignity of a monarch, watching him haughtily with shiny black eyes. Slowly, not to frighten the animal away, he pulled out his musket. As he loaded and aimed, the stag suddenly
disappeared and in its place stood a woman. Lord Deverill lifted his eye from the gun and stared in astonishment. She wore a cloak but beneath her hood was the unmistakable face of Maggie
O’Leary. He put his gun down and gazed upon her, not knowing what to say. Her loveliness stole his words and yet he knew, even if he had managed to speak, that she would not have understood
him. Her green eyes were wide and enquiring and her berry-red lips curled up at the corners in a mocking smile. At once he was overcome with lust; quite out of his mind with desire. She lifted her
delicate hands and removed her hood. Her hair fell about her shoulders in thick black waves and her pale face bewitched him like the face of the full moon.

He dismounted and walked towards her. She waited until he was almost upon her and then turned and floated down the hill, moving deeper into the forest. He followed, encouraged by the coy glances
she tossed him over her shoulder. The trees grew closer together. The branches were a mesh of twig and leaf, the light reduced to thin, watery beams that sliced through the dimness. Even the birds
had ceased to sing. The sweet smell of decaying vegetation rose up from the earth. She stopped and turned round. Lord Deverill did not wait to be invited. He pushed her against the trunk of an oak
and pressed his lips to hers. She responded hungrily, winding her arms around his neck, kissing him back. A low moan escaped her throat as he buried his face in her neck and inhaled the scent of
sage that clung to her skin. His fingers tore at the laces of her bodice until her breasts were exposed, white against his brown hands, and his lust was intensified by the warmth of her naked flesh
and by the intoxicating smell of her. Maddened by desire he lifted her skirts. She raised a leg and wrapped it about him so he could more easily enter her. She gasped with satisfaction and her
eyelids fluttered like moth’s wings as he slipped inside with a groan. They moved as one writhing beast, their faces clamped together, their breaths staggered, their heartbeats accelerating
as they took their pleasure greedily.

They reached the pinnacle of their enjoyment simultaneously then fell limp in a tangle of limbs, clothes and sweat onto the soft forest bed. At length Maggie rolled away from him and pulled down
her skirts to cover herself, but she left her laces hanging loose at her waist and her breasts exposed. She fixed him with wide, brazen eyes, as feral as a wolf’s, and held him in her thrall
for a long moment. Then she spoke. Her voice was as silky as a spring breeze but Lord Deverill did not understand her native language. He frowned and she seemed to find his bewilderment amusing for
she burst into peals of mocking laughter. As Lord Deverill’s frown deepened she turned onto her knees and crawled towards him on all fours with the speed of a cat. She climbed astride him,
pinned his wrists to the ground and pressed her mouth once more to his. She took his bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard upon it. Lord Deverill tasted the blood on his tongue and
recoiled. ‘By God you’ve hurt me, woman!’ he exclaimed but Maggie just laughed louder. Her black hair cascaded in thick tendrils over her exposed breasts and her bruised mouth
twisted into a secretive smile, but it was her eyes, her wild green eyes, which looked at him with a sudden coldness that froze the blood in his veins. Suddenly she was pressing a dagger to his
throat. Lord Deverill’s breath caught in his chest and he stared back at her in horror. A gush of bubbling laughter rose up from her belly as she leaped to her feet. She smiled at him again,
this time with playfulness, then she was gone, as quickly as she had come, and he was left alone and bewildered in the middle of the forest.

He was jolted back to the theatre by a sharp jab to the ribs. ‘Barton!’ It was his wife, Alice. ‘The King is waving at you. Wake up!’ Lord Deverill turned towards the
Royal Box. Indeed the King had raised his white glove. Lord Deverill bowed in response and the King beckoned one of his attendants with a flick of his fingers. The attendant bent down and the King
whispered something in his ear. ‘I believe you will get your meeting with the King,’ said Alice, smiling with satisfaction. ‘King Charles will always remember those who were loyal
to his father.’ Lord Deverill turned back to the stage just as the performance was beginning, and passed a finger absent-mindedly across his lips.

Ballinakelly, 1929

Celia and Kitty stood in their finest silk gowns at the top of the castle and gazed out of the window over the sea. The sun had already begun her slow descent. Her face, which
had blazed a bright yellow at midday, had now mellowed into a deeper hue, transforming the sky around her into dusty pinks and rich oranges. Later she would set the horizon aflame and the soft
shades would intensify into royal crimson and gold, but by then the two women would be entertaining the large number of guests who were soon to arrive from all over the county, for tonight was
Celia’s first Summer Ball as mistress of the newly restored and quite splendid Castle Deverill.

The rusted gates at the entrance had been replaced by an elaborate wrought-iron creation, painted black and decorated with the Deverill coat of arms which had been incorporated into the design
in an ostentatious display of family prestige. Flares had been lit on either side of the sweeping drive which had been resurfaced in tar and shingle and covered in gravel – an extravagance
that had aroused the curiosity of the locals because tar and shingle was very new and many of the roads in Co. Cork were still boreens made of earth or brick. The gardens had been resuscitated, the
wild, overgrown areas tamed, the tennis court reinstated and the croquet lawn mown flat and even. A kaleidoscope of colourful flowers flourished in the borders, pink roses and purple clematis
climbed the walls of the herbaceous border, and raised wooden beds in the vegetable garden were home to lettuces, potatoes, carrots, parsnips and radishes and rigorously weeded by the team of men
Celia had employed from Ballinakelly to train under Mr Wilcox, one of the gardeners at Deverill Rising, on loan from her father. Adeline’s greenhouses had been repainted, the broken panes of
glass replaced, the blancmange-shaped roofs polished until they gleamed. Inside, Celia insisted on growing orchids, which required a complicated, not to mention costly, array of humidifiers and
temperature regulation. The only plant that remained from Adeline’s day was the now giant cannabis, which Celia had, for some reason unknown even to herself, decided to keep. Digby had paid
for the old stone Mr Leclaire had recommended and sourced from a ruined castle in Bandon in order for Castle Deverill to retain its antique flavour so only the western tower and the few surviving
walls that remained from the original building hinted at its tragic past. It looked just like it had before the fire, only newer – like a battle-weary soldier whose face has been scrubbed and
shaved and whose uniform has been replaced and sewn with bright gold buttons.

Inside, however, was an entirely different matter. Besides the grand hall, where the stone fireplace still stood as it always had, and the sweeping wooden staircase, which was identical to the
old one, little of Adeline and Hubert’s old home remained. Celia had redesigned and redecorated according to the grandiose nature of her ambition. Gone was the shabby elegance of a home that
had been loved by generations of Deverills – worn thin by their affection like a child’s toy bear whose fur has all but disappeared from hugging, whose ears are ragged from games, whose
nose is frayed from kisses. Celia had recreated the interiors to impress her guests, not to welcome her family home from a hard day out hunting in the rain. The hall floor was chequerboard marble,
the walls papered and painted and hanging with Old Master paintings, the surfaces cluttered with Romanov antiques and Roman antiquities and anything else she could find that was fashionable.
Furniture had been acquired in chateau sales in France, much of it from the First French Empire of Napoleon I and wildly opulent in rich crimsons and gold. She had bought an entire library by the
yard but the cosy atmosphere of Hubert’s den, where he’d once sat smoking cigars in front of the fire, reading the
Irish Times
in a tatty leather armchair while Adeline painted
at the table in the bay window, was gone. Everything gleamed but nothing attracted. The charm had been consumed by the fire and the opportunity to recreate it had been lost on a young woman whose
inspiration was born of her shallow nature. The warm glow of love which cannot be bought had been replaced by things that can only be acquired with money.

‘Do you remember when we stood here as little girls?’ said Celia, her heart fuller than it had ever been.

‘We were three of us then,’ Kitty reminded her.

‘Whatever happened to Bridie?’ Celia asked.

‘I believe she returned to America.’

‘Isn’t life strange,’ said Celia with uncharacteristic reflection. ‘Who would have thought that the three of us, all born in the same year, would have ended up where we
are today? I am mistress of the castle with two little girls. You are married to your old tutor and have Florence and JP. Bridie is living on the other side of the world with Lord knows how many
children by now. None of us had a clue what was in store for us when we stood here as girls the night of the last Summer Ball.’

Kitty was aware that Celia knew little of what
she
and Bridie had been through but she wasn’t about to enlighten her. ‘I often think of those days,’ she said with a
sigh. ‘Before things went wrong.’