Daughters of Castle Deverill (32 page)

‘Darling?’ said Beatrice.

‘No, that’s all it says:
I’m sorry
,’ said Celia.

‘Well, who’s it from?’ Digby demanded.

Celia turned over the note and then did the same with the envelope. ‘There’s no name anywhere. Is this some kind of joke?’ she looked from face to face crossly. ‘Because
it isn’t at all funny.’

Charlotte burst into tears. ‘It’s Harry,’ she choked. She pushed out her chair and stood with her hands at her throat, gasping for air. ‘It’s Harry. I know it is.
He’s . . . he’s . . .’ She began to sob uncontrollably. Beatrice glanced uneasily at her daughter who was staring at Charlotte in horror. Digby
coughed into his napkin while Victoria looked appalled; this sort of emotional outburst simply wasn’t done.

Maud blanched. ‘What’s going on? What’s happened to Harry? Charlotte, for goodness’ sake, make some sense!’

Charlotte tried to pull herself together. ‘He . . . he wasn’t in bed this morning. I don’t know where he is.’

‘Let’s not panic,’ said Eric, putting his plate of eggs, tomatoes and toast on the table and sitting down. ‘He’s probably gone for a walk. It’s a lovely
morning.’

‘He’s done something stupid. I can feel it,’ said Charlotte. ‘He’s written the note and wandered off. I know he has.’

‘Then we must find him,’ said Digby, throwing his napkin on the table. ‘We must all search the grounds for Harry and no one is to resume breakfast until we find him.’

Eric and Victoria sighed impatiently. ‘If ever there was a storm in a teacup,’ said Victoria, but Maud was already making for the door. Stoke remained in his chair, watching in
bewilderment as everyone left the room. In his late eighties he was hard of hearing and had consequently missed the entire conversation.

There was a terrible sense of urgency as news of Harry’s disappearance and the cryptic note he’d typed spread swiftly round the castle. Digby put on his boots and coat and strode
into the snow. He saw the footprints at once and set off in pursuit, a feeling of foreboding suddenly making him go quite weak in the knees. Beatrice, Maud, Celia and Charlotte ran after him,
shouting for Harry at the top of their voices. The crows watched from the treetops, their black eyes shining with knowing.

‘What on earth is he sorry about?’ Maud asked Charlotte as they hurried after Digby. ‘I wish Digby wouldn’t walk so fast. I’m sure this is nothing more than a false
alarm. Harry’s going to feel very silly when he comes back to find the entire castle looking for him.’

Charlotte couldn’t begin to tell Harry’s mother about the night of Celia’s Summer Ball. What if Harry felt his life wasn’t worth living without Boysie?
Oh, God, what
have I done?
She began to cry again. What if she had driven him to his death? Silently she prayed to any God who would listen to return her beloved Harry to her in one piece:
If he comes
back I shall forgive him,
she promised, trudging through the snow.
He can see Boysie as much as he likes, as long as he’s alive.’

Suddenly Digby spun round and began marching back towards them. His face was as red as a berry, his arms outstretched as if he was hoping to shield them from something he didn’t want them
to see. ‘Ladies, please go back to the castle,’ he said and his voice was fiercely commanding. Celia was suddenly assaulted by a wave of nausea. Behind her father, swinging from a tree,
she could see the body of a man. She put a hand to her mouth and gasped. ‘Please. Beatrice, take the girls back to the castle,’ he repeated, more forcefully. In any other circumstance
they would have done his bidding. But Celia, propelled by a sense of terror and dread, stubbornly strode past him, thrusting him out of the way with such vigour that he nearly fell over. Digby
regained his balance and reached out a desperate hand to restrain her, but she was already running through the snow, her vision blinded by tears, her breathing laboured and rasping. There, hanging
pale and still like a sack of flour, was Archie.

Celia threw her arms around his legs in a vain attempt to lift him. A low moan escaped her throat as she struggled beneath the dead weight of her husband. At once her father was pulling at her,
trying to unpeel her hands. His voice was soothing, encouraging, but all Celia could hear was the blood throbbing in her temples and the groans that rose up from her chest and were expelled in
wild, unnatural sounds that were alien to her.

Beatrice was sobbing, Maud staring in shock at the dreadful scene unfolding before her, while Charlotte collapsed onto her knees in the snow and wept with relief. And then, amidst the turmoil,
Harry strode into view. They all turned to him in astonishment and Harry’s eyes shifted to the limp body hanging from the noose and to Celia who was still clinging on to his legs, unaware
that no amount of lifting could save him. He was long dead. Charlotte scrambled to her feet and fell against his chest. ‘Oh, Harry! I thought it was you!’ she howled. Harry wrapped his
arms around his wife, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Archie’s blue face and broken neck. Slowly the full horror sank in.

At last Digby, with the help of Harry and Eric, who had been drawn to the scene by the commotion, managed to prise Celia off the body and take her back to the castle. Digby telephoned the Garda
and the doctor, then he called the Hunting Lodge to inform Bertie of the dreadful news. ‘Good God!’ Bertie swore. ‘What on earth made him do it?’

Digby sighed. ‘There’s only one reason why a man in Archie’s position would take his own life and that’s money,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling
that Celia is in for a rough ride.’

‘I’m coming right over,’ said Bertie, putting down the receiver.

It wasn’t long before the entire family had assembled once again in the drawing room, muttering in low voices: ‘He had everything, why would he throw it all away?’ Did anyone
notice he was unhappy?’ I don’t think I’d ever seen Archie so content.’ ‘Appearances can be deceptive.’ ‘He must have been hiding something
terrible.’ ‘Poor Celia, what’s she going to do without him?’

Celia sat by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, drinking a glass of sherry. The glass trembled in her hand and her lips were quivering in spite of the warmth of the room. She was a pitiful sight,
sobbing quietly. The woman who only moments before had been commenting on her good fortune was now grieving the loss of it. ‘He’s ruined Christmas,’ she snivelled.
‘He’s ruined my New Year’s Eve party. How
could
he, Mama?’

Beatrice, who had drawn her daughter against her bosom and was stroking her hair as if she were a little girl again, turned to her older daughters and said, ‘She’s in shock. Poor
child.’ Leona and Vivien nodded, feeling guilty now for the animosity they had felt towards their younger sister who had appeared to have it all.

Kitty arrived with Robert. She flew to her cousin where she knelt at her feet and took her hands, squeezing them gently. ‘My darling Celia, I’m so sorry,’ she said.

Celia lifted her swollen eyes and smiled through a blur of tears. ‘We were so happy,’ she said numbly. ‘Archie was so happy. Castle Deverill and his family were his greatest
achievements. He was so proud of it all. Why, when he was celebrating his success, did he feel the desire to run away? I don’t understand. How could he do it to
me
?’

‘He typed a note that said simply
I’m sorry
,’ Beatrice informed her. ‘It wasn’t addressed to anybody. Isn’t that an odd thing to do? Why didn’t
he write it in his hand and why didn’t he explain himself?’

‘He won’t have been in his right mind,’ said Kitty wisely. ‘He won’t have been thinking about you or his children. When people are that unhappy they think only of
themselves.’

‘He didn’t seem unhappy,’ said Leona.

‘He seemed very happy,’ added Vivien.

‘But he’s left me a widow!’ Celia stated sadly. She stopped crying as if the thought had only just then occurred to her. ‘I’m a widow. My children are fatherless. I
am alone.’ And she was overcome by another wave of sobbing.

‘You’re not alone, darling,’ said Beatrice, pulling her deeper into her bosom. ‘You have all of us and we’ll never leave you.’

Kitty pulled a bag of green leaves out of her pocket and thrust them in Beatrice’s hand. ‘This is Adeline’s cannabis,’ she told her. ‘Infuse it in tea. It will calm
her down.’

Augusta filled the doorway in her Victorian black dress and black shawl and stood for a long moment leaning on her stick and gazing around the room imperiously, searching for her granddaughter.
When at last her eyes found her in her mother’s arms by the fire, she waded through the throng that parted for her deferentially and ordered her husband, as she passed him, to bring her a
very large glass of brandy ‘at once’. She approached the sofa where Leona and Vivien were sitting and flicked her bejewelled fingers so that the two women vacated it at her command.
Their grandmother dropped into the cushions and seemed to spread like a chocolate pudding until there was no space for anyone else either side of her. Kitty, who was still at Celia’s feet,
moved herself to the club fender where she duly sat alongside Leona and Vivien like one of a trio of birds on a perch.

‘Well, my dear, this is a tragedy none of us could have foreseen,’ Augusta began gravely. ‘He was much too young to die. One never knows when the Grim Reaper is going to gather
one, but to gather
oneself
is surely an act of the most selfish kind.’

‘Augusta,’ said Beatrice in a warning tone.

‘I cannot hide my feelings, Beatrice. This young man has done a wicked, wicked thing. Celia does not deserve this. She has only ever been a good wife. Believe me, I have had moments in my
life when I would rather not have woken up – but I would never have burdened my family with the shame or the misery. What on earth was he thinking?’

‘We just don’t know,’ said Beatrice, trying to be patient. She wished everyone would leave so that she and Celia could be alone together.

‘Money,’ said Augusta with a snort. ‘A man only goes to such extremes over a woman or money. We can safely assume that it was not on account of a woman.’

Celia sniffed. ‘He had pots of money, Grandma,’ she said.

‘Well, we shall see,’ Augusta sniffed. She ran her eyes over all the expensive things in the room. ‘
This
just might have been his undoing,’ she said tactlessly
as her granddaughter dissolved once again into sobs.

The doctor arrived and Celia was taken upstairs by Kitty and her mother, where she was given valerian drops to calm her and put to bed, as Adeline had been the night Hubert was killed in the
fire. ‘We’re cursed,’ said Celia drowsily.

‘We’re not cursed,’ Kitty reassured her, sitting on the side of her bed and taking her hand. ‘Adeline used to say that I was a child of Mars and that my life would be
full of conflict.’

‘Then I must be a child of Mars too,’ said Celia.

‘You sleep now. Archie is all right where he is. You have to trust me on that. You are the one we need to look after now.’

‘Is he really all right? He’s not still hanging from that tree?’ Celia’s eyes shone with fresh tears.

‘He escaped that body before he even knew what was happening.’

‘But he’s not going to rot in Hell . . .?’

‘God is love, Celia.’ She stroked the hair off her forehead. ‘And souls can’t rot.’ She smiled tenderly at her cousin and remembered the long talks about life after
death that she used to have with Adeline in her little sitting room that smelt of turf fire and lilac. ‘Archie was not a bad man. I suspect he took his life because he couldn’t face the
future. It is not a sin to lack courage. He’ll be embraced by loving souls and shown the way home, I promise you.’ Celia’s eyes grew heavy. She tried to speak but the words were
lost on her tongue as she retreated into slumber.

Kitty returned to the drawing room. Everyone was talking in normal tones now that Celia was no longer in the room. ‘We will have to inform Archie’s family,’ Bertie was saying,
standing in a huddle with the other men.

‘That’s a responsibility I would not wish on my worst enemy,’ said Victoria from the sofa where she was sitting beside her mother. She had lit a cigarette which was placed in
its elegant Bakelite holder and was looking at Augusta, who had subsided on the sofa opposite and fallen asleep, her chins sinking into her bosom like a collapsing soufflé.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the sight,’ said Maud weakly, sipping her second glass of sherry. ‘To think that might have been Harry.’

‘It wasn’t Harry,’ said Victoria reasonably.

‘But Charlotte put the fear of God into me,’ Maud continued. ‘What on earth was that all about, do you think?’

Victoria drew on her cigarette holder. ‘I haven’t a clue. Perhaps they’d had a fight.’

‘Men don’t write suicide notes because of a petty quarrel,’ said Maud. ‘I hope they’re not in trouble. Our family can’t cope with any more scandal.’ She
looked up as Bertie took the place on the sofa beside her.

‘I’m sorry you were frightened,’ he said softly. ‘Charlotte feels very bad for having scared you.’

‘Good,’ said Maud crisply. ‘Because she did. Silly girl, making a fuss about nothing.’

‘I suppose Harry’s been suffering in silence,’ he said.

‘Suffering? About what?’ Maud asked.

‘Losing his home. We’ve all had to put on a good show, but I dare say it hasn’t been easy for any of us.’

Maud dropped her gaze into her sherry. The sharp edges of her face softened a little as she let down her guard. Leona and Vivien had moved to the other end of the room and Augusta was still
asleep, so they were alone, just the three of them. ‘No, I’m sure you’re right,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t been easy for anyone. Not even for me who never really
loved this place like you all do.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ The tenderness in Bertie’s voice took her by surprise.

‘For all my stubbornness I mind dreadfully that Harry won’t ever really be Lord Deverill of Ballinakelly as he ought to be, by right. The title’s meaningless without the
castle.’

‘I mind too, Mama,’ Victoria agreed. She grinned raffishly through the smoke. ‘We’ve all been very brave.’ She didn’t feel it polite to add that, if the
castle had been as comfortable before the fire as it was now, she would never have been so keen to leave it.