Daughters of Castle Deverill (47 page)

Grace narrowed her eyes. ‘Then we need to find out.’

Adeline stood by Stoke Deverill’s bed and watched the old man’s laboured breath slowly enter and exit his body in a low rattle. His skin was gradually losing the
colour of life and turning the dull green colour of death. His moustache, once as majestic as the outstretched wings of a swan, now drooped and purple shadows stagnated in the holes where once his
cheeks had been. Adeline knew his time was very near for his son Digby, his grandson George, and other members of Stoke’s family who had long departed, had come to take him home. Adeline
smiled; if people knew they wouldn’t die alone death would not frighten them so.

Augusta sat in a chair pulled up to the bedside and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. Maud perched on the end of the bed while Leona and Vivien stood by the window, wondering how long it was
going to take because they had things to do. Beatrice was still languishing at Deverill Rising, unaware of the enormity of her late husband’s debts. While she hid beneath the blankets her
sons-in-law were fighting to keep her homes. There was little chance of success.

‘It should be me,’ said Augusta with a sniff. ‘I have defied death at every turn. I’m bound to be waylaid by it sometime.’

‘You’ll outlive us all,’ said Maud.

‘He’d be a cruel God to inflict me with longevity! What’s the fun of being down here if all one’s friends are up there?’ She raised her eyes to Heaven. ‘I
think he’s going now. He’s stopped breathing.’ Leona and Vivien hurried to the bedside, relieved that the vigil was about to end. Then Stoke gave a splutter and inhaled sharply.
‘Oh no, he’s back again!’ Augusta cried. ‘I don’t think he wants to go.’

He would if he knew where he was going,
Adeline thought. But Stoke was clinging on to life as if he were a climber digging his nails into the edge of a precipice, afraid of letting go.
Adeline ran a hand across his brow.
Come now
, she whispered.
We’ll catch you.

Stoke opened his eyes. He stared in wonder at the faces surrounding him. Faces he hadn’t seen for so long. ‘Digby, George,’ he gasped, reaching out his hand. Augusta caught her
breath and stopped crying. Maud’s mouth opened in amazement. Leona looked at Vivien and bit her bottom lip. Vivien’s eyes sparkled with tears. Suddenly neither of Stoke’s
granddaughters wanted to be anywhere else but here.

Lost for words Augusta hiccuped loudly and pressed the handkerchief to her mouth. Stoke’s face expanded into a wide smile, releasing the shadows and reviving his moustache. Adeline watched
as Digby and George took his hands and lifted him from the bed. Surrounded by his loved ones he departed into the light. Adeline watched them go. Just before Digby disappeared he turned to Adeline
and winked.

‘He’s gone,’ said Maud, peering into Stoke’s lifeless face.

‘Do you really think he saw Digby and George?’ Augusta asked, the handkerchief trembling in her hand.

‘I truly think he did, Grandmama,’ said Leona, putting a hand on her grandmother’s shoulder. ‘I’m certain of it.’

‘I do hope they’ll come for me when it’s my turn,’ said Augusta. She looked at Maud and smiled sadly. ‘I haven’t been that bad, have I?’

‘No, you haven’t, Augusta. No worse than the rest of us.’

‘Then I hope Stoke saves a place for me up there, because it won’t be long.’ Leona rolled her eyes at her sister, who suppressed a grin.

‘Augusta, you’ve been rehearsing your death for twenty years,’ said Maud, not unkindly.

‘Then it’s long overdue, wouldn’t you say?’ She pushed herself up from the chair and Vivien handed her her walking stick. ‘In the meantime, life goes on, such as it
is without my beloved Stoke. Let’s go and eat. I’m certainly not going to die of hunger!’

Back at Castle Deverill Adeline recounted Stoke’s death to Hubert. ‘What a privilege it is to die like that,’ he said wistfully. ‘What a curse it is to die like
this
!’ And there was nothing Adeline could say, because she wholly agreed with him. What a curse it was, indeed, for the poor unfortunate Lord Deverills to die like this.

Celia sat on the window seat and stared out into the black night. Clouds obscured the stars and blinded the eye of the moon to her misery. She felt alone and fearful. There was
no one she could confide in. No one she could turn to. No one to advise her how to proceed. She’d sell the castle, buy somewhere modest to live as close to Ballinakelly as possible and settle
Archie’s debts. As for Aurelius Dupree, when she thought of buying his silence something inside her recoiled into a tight, stubborn ball. She couldn’t leave him to publish his
outlandish claim, but allowing herself to be blackmailed went against every instinct. Her father would never have tolerated such an attack.

She pulled her knees to her chest and folded her arms on top, resting her forehead in the crook of her elbow and closing her eyes. She just wished the whole sorry business would go away. As she
drifted off to sleep she found solace in her memories. She remembered so clearly the excitement of rebuilding the castle; the ebullient Mr Leclaire with his plans and his ideas; the grand tour of
Europe she and Archie had enjoyed together, choosing the pieces of furniture and the works of art to adorn their new home. She recalled Archie’s pride, her father’s pleasure, her
mother’s excitement and her sisters’ jealousy, and the tears squeezed through her knitted lashes. It was then that she thought of Kitty, Harry and Bertie. If
she
was suffering
at the prospect of selling the castle, how had
they
felt when she had bought it? It had never occurred to her that it might have caused them pain. She had expected them to share her joy,
but how could they? Only now did she understand how hard it must have been for them and how valiantly they had dissembled, and she felt ashamed. She had been so selfish, so self-absorbed and
arrogant. Maud, Victoria and Elspeth seemed to have no emotional connection to the place, but Kitty – and her heart swelled with compassion and sorrow at the thought of her – Kitty
loved it more than anyone, even
her
. How had she endured it?

With these thoughts Celia fell asleep on the window seat. The clouds thinned and eventually the moon shone brightly through the openings, pouring its silver light through her bedroom window. She
dreamed of her father. He was wrapping his arms around her, reassuring her that she was never alone, because he was with her, always. But when she looked at him he had the face of an ogre and she
woke up with a jolt. She lifted her head off her knee and stared into the dark room in bewilderment. The impenetrable clouds blackened the sky and she felt cold and stiff in her limbs. She wiped
the tears from her face with the back of her hand. She walked over to her bed, pulled back the blankets and climbed inside. She was too tired to think about Aurelius Dupree. Too tired even to think
about her father. She’d think about them tomorrow. Other women would have given up, or paid up, or wept, but now the Deverill spirit began to emerge in Celia for the first time. She knew
there was only one way to find out the truth – and to clear her father’s name – and that was to go to South Africa. Her head fell onto the pillow and she was enveloped once again
in sleep’s embrace.

Ten days later Celia was on the boat to Cape Town. ‘Has she gone mad?’ said Boysie to Harry, as they sat at their usual table in White’s, enjoying lunch.

‘I believe so,’ Harry replied. ‘She’s been very cagey. Wouldn’t tell me what it was all about. Said there was something important that she had to do.’

‘Must be very important if she has to cross half the world to do it!’ Boysie sipped his Sauvignon. ‘What the hell is going on? It’s not like her to keep secrets from
us.’

‘Kitty says some frightfully rich foreigner is buying the castle and everything in it,’ said Harry. ‘I can’t say it’s come as a surprise, but I’m sorry for
her. That place is a curse.’

Boysie shook his head. ‘The place isn’t cursed, old boy, you and your family are.’

‘Nonsense, that’s just a silly story Adeline made up. She believed in all sorts of ridiculous things. You know, she even believed in fairies.’ The two men laughed. ‘I
promise you. She claimed to see garden spirits all the time.’

‘There’s a damned eccentric streak running in your family.’

‘
Grandma’s
family,’ Harry emphasized. ‘Look at the Shrubs.’

‘Yes, I do see. I suppose they see the dead, too, do they?’

‘I think that would terrify them. They can barely cope with the living. That Lord Hunt is leading them a merry dance. Kitty says they’re both going to have their hearts
broken.’

‘I didn’t think it was possible at their grand old age. Aren’t they a bit old for that sort of foolery?’

‘One would have thought.’ Harry wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘Apparently Celia has managed to get the foreigner to pay well over the sum that it’s worth. She declined
his offer and forced him to raise it. I dare say he wants it very much – or his wife does. He’s buying it for her, you see.’

‘Since when is Celia a businesswoman?’ asked Boysie with a chuckle.

‘Maybe she has more of her father in her than we realized.’

‘Good. She deserves to get a lot for that place. She’s selling her heart with it.’

Harry frowned. ‘That’s very sad.’

‘She’s selling
all
your hearts with it,’ Boysie added, putting down his glass.

‘Not mine,’ said Harry quietly. ‘
You
have my heart, Boysie, and you always will.’ They stared at each other across the table, suddenly serious.

‘You have mine too, Harry,’ said Boysie. Then he looked away. There was no point in mentioning that little hotel in Soho. Harry wasn’t going to change his mind. They just had
to accept things as they were.

Celia stood on the deck of
Carnarvon Castle
, the seven hundred-foot motor ship bound for Cape Town, and leaned on the railing and gazed out across the ocean. She had
pawned jewellery to pay for the voyage to South Africa which would take seventeen days. It was a long way indeed, but not very long in comparison to the personal journey Celia had made. She looked
back at the girl she had been a year ago – that girl would never have imagined herself here on this boat, travelling across the world in search of the truth about her father’s past.
That girl would never have imagined even half of the events that had taken place in the last twelve months. She had lost her father, her husband and her home – and was being blackmailed by a
man claiming her father had murdered his brother.
That
was more than most could handle, but Celia wasn’t most, she was a Deverill and she was beginning to learn what that meant.

She looked down at the water, fizzing and foaming as the boat’s grey hull cut through it at the speed of twenty knots, and felt a swell of exhilaration. The wind blew through her hair, and
swept across her face, waking her from despondency. She felt a strength growing inside her, like the inflating of a balloon, filling her with confidence and a fresh sense of optimism. Out of her
desolation there sprouted hope. She was a Deverill and Deverills didn’t let their difficulties crush them. Tragedy could take everything dear to her, but it couldn’t take her spirit. It
couldn’t take that. Hadn’t Kitty said that those we love and lose never really leave us? She lifted her face to the wind and for the first time in months she didn’t feel
alone.

The elegant liner carried two hundred and sixteen first-class passengers and double the amount of second-class passengers. Among the former was the famous Irish tenor, Rafael O’Rourke,
setting off on a world tour. In his mid-forties he had dark, romantic looks with pale eyes the colour of an Irish morning and the heavy, soulful gaze of a matinée idol. Celia was excited to
discover that he was only too happy to sing for the passengers in first class. In the evenings after dinner, he sang to the accompaniment of the pianist of the ship’s show band while the
gentlemen and ladies sipped champagne and cocktails at the small round tables in the bar. Candles glowed soft and warm and the lights were low and Celia drank just enough alcohol to make her forget
her woes. Rafael sang of love and loss and his voice resonated with her deepest longings. She sat in the corner, alone at her table, and allowed his music to smooth down the raw edges of her
grief.

The first-class deck of the boat was large and comfortable with luxurious suites and tastefully decorated public rooms. Celia spent the day in the lounge, reading quietly by herself or playing
cards with the other passengers she was slowly getting to know. She was soon adopted by an elderly couple well acquainted with the name Deverill. ‘Anyone who knows anything about South Africa
will have heard of the name Deverill,’ Sir Leonard Akroyd had explained when they first met. ‘Edwina and I have been living in Cape Town for forty years now and Lucky Deverill is one of
the great characters I remember from my past.’ When Celia told him that Digby Deverill was her father he had invited her to join his table every night of the voyage for dinner. ‘Your
father once did me a great favour so I’m happy to have the opportunity to repay him by keeping an eye on his daughter.’ He had smiled kindly while his wife looked dutifully on.
‘Now let me tell you about it . . .’ And he had launched into a long and rather dull anecdote that involved a stain and the lending of a fresh shirt.

Celia noticed Rafael O’Rourke whenever he came into the room for he lit it up with his quiet charisma and easy smile. He was always surrounded by people Celia assumed to be part of his
entourage. Passengers pushed themselves forward, eager to talk to him, and she imagined the only place he could be private was in his own suite. He sat smoking, reading the papers or talking to men
in suits and every now and then he’d catch her looking at him from the other end of the room and she’d feel her face flush and hastily lower her eyes. She had no desire to throw herself
at him like the other women did, but he did arouse her curiosity.

Soon she began to notice when he
wasn’t
in the room. At those times it would feel less vibrant and strangely empty, in spite of the fact that it was full of people. Her mood would
dip with disappointment until the moment he would saunter in again and inject her with a certain ‘aliveness’ that she found confusing and slightly alarming. Was it right that a man
could affect her in this way so soon after her husband’s death? She felt guilty for her feelings and retreated further into the back of the room, distracting herself with more of Sir
Leonard’s tedious anecdotes or the blessed relief of cards.