Daughters of Castle Deverill (28 page)

‘God save me, I think I’m in love,’ Bridie hissed back, ignoring her friend’s warning.

‘Just be careful,’ Elaine said. ‘We know nothing about him.’

‘I know everything I want to know,’ said Bridie haughtily. ‘He’s good enough for
me
.’

At the bottom of the steps Beaumont appeared with two plates of dinner. ‘There you are, Elaine,’ he said. ‘Will you join me?’

Elaine was surprised to see her husband but she took the plate and gave Bridie a disappointed look. ‘You’ll be okay?’ she asked.

‘I’m just grand,’ Bridie replied and set off across the lawn with the Count.

‘What’s up?’ Elaine asked her husband as they sat down at one of the small round tables positioned in clusters beneath lines of twinkling lights that encircled the garden.

‘Bridget has found a man at last,’ he said with a grin.

‘But is he suitable? We know nothing about him.’

‘Highly
un
suitable, I suspect,’ said Beaumont. ‘I doubt it will amount to much, but I think a romance is just what she needs to raise her morale.’

‘Is he really a count?’

‘Counts are a dime a dozen in Italy,’ he added dismissively. ‘Still, he’s lit her fire so we must be grateful for that. I doubt we’re looking at the future Countess
Cesare di Marcantonio!’

But Beaumont Williams, who was usually right about everything, was not right about
this.
The kiss that the Count stole beneath the cherry tree in the Reynoldses’ garden was one of
many that she would treasure. ‘May I see you again?’ Cesare asked Bridie, taking her hand and looking into her chocolate-brown eyes as if he had discovered something precious there.

‘I would like that,’ she replied, barely daring to believe that this beautiful man found her to his liking. ‘I would like that very much.’

In the weeks that followed, Cesare took Bridie to watch the polo at the Meadowbrook polo club in Long Island and then to a match of his own where she sat in the stands in her
summer dress and watched with her heart in her mouth as he thundered up and down the field, mallet raised. He was strong and athletic, fearless and bold, and her attraction to him intensified. She
saw him as a foreign prince and her respect and admiration for him was beyond question. He told her tales of growing up in Italian palaces and then moving with his family to Argentina where his
family owned grand houses in the most elegant parts of Buenos Aires. His farm on the pampa was so large that he could travel by pony from sunrise to sunset without leaving his own land. ‘One
day I’ll take you there and show you how beautiful it is at sunset, when the plains turn red and the sky is indigo blue. You will fall in love with it.’

Count Cesare seemed to relish having the infamous Mrs Lockwood on his arm. He showed her off at fundraisers, private parties, in the dance halls of Manhattan and in the jazz clubs and
speakeasies of Harlem. Wherever the fashionable people were the Count was sure to be, dressed in the most dapper suits and silk scarves with elaborate gold bees adorning the buttonholes of his
shirts and jackets, stamped into the leather of his wallet and moulded into the silver of his money clip. The bee emblem was everywhere. Count Cesare looked glossy and shiny with his jet-black hair
as highly polished as his two-tone brogues and his dazzling white teeth matching the bright whites of his eyes. Rumour simmered and then rose in great bubbles of excitement as everyone began to
predict another wedding. Flashbulbs welcomed their arrivals and journalists clamoured to comment on their every move:
The ubiquitous Count Cesare di Marcantonio was once again escorting his new
lady friend the socialite Mrs Lockwood to a fundraising dinner at the Metropolitan Museum . . . She wore a gown by Jean Patou . . .
Those who despised her as an
insatiable social-climber sniffed their disapproval and dismissed the Count as a ‘common adventurer’, but those who enjoyed the colourful maid who had fulfilled the American dream and
risen to be one of the richest women in the city celebrated this new chapter of her story.

Bridie let him kiss her again. And
again
. His kisses were sensual and teasing, ardent and long-lasting. He brushed his lips against hers, murmured to her in Spanish, traced his fingers
beneath her blouse and dipped his tongue into the little well at her throat. He drove her to the point of madness and it was all she could do to restrain herself. And then, only a month after
they’d met, he asked her to marry him.

‘I love you with all my heart,’ he told her, bending onto one knee on the grass in Central Park where he had taken her for a picnic. ‘Will you do me the honour of agreeing to
be my wife?’

Bridie’s eyes filled with tears. She knelt in front of him and threw her arms around his neck. ‘I will,’ she replied and as he placed his lips upon hers she realized that
happiness was perhaps
not
something that could be bought but something that grew out of love.

London, autumn 1929

Beatrice had noticed that Digby had been somewhat subdued since the Castle Deverill Summer Ball. The event itself had been a triumph and Celia had been a radiant and gracious
hostess, charming everyone with her ready smile and obvious enthusiasm for her new position as Doyenne of Ballinakelly. No one could talk of anything else for weeks afterwards. The castle was
awe-inspiring, the gardens the very manifestation of beauty and the guests, including the Shrubs, Bertie, Kitty and Harry, had nothing but praise for Celia and Archie’s efforts. But Digby had
grown morose and taciturn, which was very disconcerting for his family who knew him as flamboyant, spirited and indomitable. Beatrice wondered whether he was sinking into a mild depression on
account of the castle having reached completion and his role in the project drawn to a close. A natural gambler and risk-taker, Digby had relished the undertaking, but now it was over he was back
at his desk in his office speculating on the markets, plotting schemes with his solicitor and his broker and taking a keen interest as usual in his horses, but he was uncharacteristically wary and
ill at ease. Beatrice noticed that he spent a lot of time standing by the window, smoking his cigars and gazing out into the road as if expecting someone or something undesirable to turn into his
driveway.

Beatrice tried to distract him by filling the house with people. Her Tuesday-evening Salons continued to deliver politicians, actresses, writers and socialites to her door, and she made sure
that Deverill Rising was busy with Digby’s racing friends at weekends. But nothing seemed to relieve him of his anxiety and restore his
joie de vivre
. When she asked him about it he
simply patted her hand and smiled reassuringly. ‘Nothing to worry about, my dear. I’ve just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.’

Whether he had anticipated the Wall Street Crash on 24th October or his gambler’s instinct sensed impending doom in the markets, she couldn’t say, but the terrible fall on the London
Stock Exchange a few days after Black Thursday in New York more than fulfilled his gloomy premonition. Digby locked himself in his study and remained for most of the day on the telephone, shouting.
He did not emerge until very late that evening with his face red and sweating, and for the first time in their marriage Beatrice saw real fear in his eyes.

Celia had returned to London to shop for more extravagances with which to adorn her beloved castle. She had read the newspapers and listened to her mother worrying about her father but she
didn’t imagine that the Wall Street Crash had anything to do with
her
. When she asked Archie about the state of their finances he reassured her that they were fine, they had pots of
money and no fall on the Stock Market could induce him to tell her to curb her expenditure. So she continued to shop in the usual way, flouncing up and down Knightsbridge and Bond Street without a
care in the world, while the rest of London society trembled in their finely polished shoes and the city smog lingered in a portentous grey mist.

‘It’s really such a drag,’ she told Harry over lunch at Claridge’s. ‘Papa’s in a foul mood, which is so unlike him, and Mama is fussing around him, which
makes him all the more bad-tempered. Leona and Vivien came round for tea yesterday and only made Mama worry all the more, repeating what their silly husbands have obviously told them, that
we’re all going to be poor and penniless and miserable. Goodness, I do dislike my sisters.’ She took a swig of champagne and grinned mischievously. ‘So, to lift my spirits,
I’ve just bought the most gorgeous painting for the hall, to replace the one of that crusty old general with his dog that hangs at the bottom of the stairs . . .’ As she
rattled on Harry tried to concentrate on her words, but all he could see was her pretty red mouth moving against the roar of his thoughts, which carried in their tumultuous barrage the name Boysie
Bancroft.

Celia hadn’t a clue of the havoc her Summer Ball had caused, although Harry readily admitted that it was all his fault. If he hadn’t taken Boysie to the room he shared with his
wife . . . if he hadn’t been so reckless . . . if he hadn’t, in some deep and unconscious way,
wanted
to get caught. Since he had left
Ballinakelly with Charlotte, he had been in a state of utter despair. Life was not worth living without Boysie. Now that he had promised his wife he wouldn’t see him again the sun no longer
shone, the nights were as thick as tar and his limbs were as heavy as lead. He felt as if he were walking in water and that the current was always against him. His unhappiness had engulfed him and
it seemed that, while Celia was bathed in light, he dwelt in permanent shadow – and that shadow penetrated to the marrow of his bones. His misery was total and complete and yet he
couldn’t even begin to explain it to Celia. He had to be a master of theatre, smiling in the right places, quipping as he always had, laughing in his old carefree way, while inside his heart
was shrivelling like a plum left on the grass at the mercy of the winter frosts.

So focused on her castle, Celia didn’t even ask him about Boysie. If she had taken more notice she might have wondered why Boysie hadn’t joined them for lunch. She would have
questioned why he wasn’t at her mother’s Tuesday Salons and why, when he was such a regular visitor to Deverill House, he hadn’t crossed the threshold since the summer. If she
hadn’t been so staunchly single-minded about herself and embellishing her new home, she might have been concerned by her cousin’s pallor, by the raw pain in his eyes that no amount of
dissembling could hide and by the downward twist to one corner of his mouth when his sorrow caught him off guard; but she wasn’t. Celia was only too happy to tell Harry about her purchases
and the fabulous plans she had for Christmas. The crowds of children they were going to have because ‘in a castle of that size it’s only proper to fill it with family’. Christmas
was going to be ‘a riot’ because they were all going to be there together instead of spending their usual fortnight at Deverill Rising.

At last she stopped motoring on about herself and put down her empty wine glass. ‘Darling, I meant to ask, how is Charlotte? She was a miserable old thing at my ball. Has she cheered
up?’

Harry wiped his mouth with his napkin even though it was clean. ‘She has,’ he lied. ‘She’s had a difficult pregnancy. Spending the rest of the summer in Norfolk really
cheered her up. I think she just needed to be with her family. Ours can be a little overpowering.’

The truth was that Charlotte had
not
forgiven him. She had not invited him into her bedroom since they had returned from Norfolk and she had most definitely not forgotten what she had
seen, nor did she intend to. She was just as unhappy as he was. Combined with the natural fatigue of pregnancy her wretchedness was even more desperate. They existed as if in different dimensions,
only coming together for the sake of the children and at social functions where their efforts went undetected and any irritability was put down to anxiety about the imminent birth on her part and
the dire state of the markets on his. Most of London society felt the same about the declining economy and everyone, except Celia, was worrying about their future.

The only other person who was even more careless with money than Celia was Maud, Harry’s mother. Having found a house to buy in Chester Square she had promptly set about furnishing it with
the help of Mr Kenneth Leclaire, the famous designer who had worked such magic on Castle Deverill, without a thought for her husband who had bought it for her with the proceeds of the sale of his
ancestral home. Maud didn’t want Bertie anywhere near her so he remained in the Hunting Lodge, courtesy of Archie and Celia who charged him a peppercorn rent. Harry had met Maud’s
lover, Arthur Arlington, who was the younger brother of the Earl of Pendrith and a well-known scoundrel, twice divorced with a notorious gambling habit. They had met at the ballet and Harry had
been appalled. For a woman so desperate to be seen to be doing the right thing, Maud was very careless with Arthur, whom everyone knew was escorting her to bed as well as to the Royal Opera House.
Perhaps it was because he was of aristocratic lineage, Harry mused. Nothing excited his mother more than a title.

‘Perhaps you can leave Charlotte in Norfolk for Christmas,’ Celia continued. ‘She will have just had the baby. The last thing she’ll want is to travel the choppy Irish
Sea to Ballinakelly. Much better that she rest at home with her mama to look after her. Do you think we can persuade Boysie to leave Dreary Deirdre behind too? Perhaps he can come for New Year.
Really, why did you two have to marry? You were much more fun on your own.’

‘
You
married, old girl,’ said Harry flatly.

‘That’s different. Archie’s such fun. Your wives are very tiresome.’ Her face lit up as she expressed her admiration for her husband in glowing terms: ‘He’s
denied me nothing for the castle. You should have seen the wonderful things I bought in France. We had to have it all shipped over and it took weeks – you would have thought they were sailing
the Atlantic, not the English Channel! There’s a sale coming up at Christie’s. They’re auctioning the most stunning things from Russia. After the Revolution those beastly
Bolsheviks sold all the treasures. You wouldn’t believe the opulence of those Russian princes. I’ve got my eye on a few things. I’m so excited. Would you like to come with me? I
shall be bidding like crazy, waving my little hand at every opportunity. It’s all so much fun. I get an enormous buzz out of it.’