Daughters of Castle Deverill (55 page)

As he was about to leave, he saw, on the desk beside a statue of Caesar, a large pile of crisp banknotes.

Jack made his way out of the building by way of the stairs, pulled his hat low over his head, and called Emer from a public telephone. ‘Don’t ask questions and tell no one,’ he
told her firmly and she knew from the tone of his voice what he was going to say. ‘Get Rosaleen, pack a small case and meet me at Penn Station. I’ll find you under the clock. Come as
quickly as you can. We’re leaving New York forever, Emer, and we won’t be coming back.’

As much as Bridie was thrilled about her pregnancy, she couldn’t help but remember the last time and the brutality that she had endured on account of it. Back then Mr
Deverill had had the insensitivity to question whether the child was indeed his, before grudgingly accepting that it was and sending her off to Dublin to get rid of it as quickly and discreetly as
possible. Lady Rowan-Hampton had treated her with equal callousness. She had made it perfectly clear that Bridie couldn’t possibly keep her baby and gave her no choice in the decision to send
her to the other side of the world. The nuns in the Convent of Our Lady Queen of Heaven must surely have had hearts of stone for they had made her feel deeply ashamed and utterly worthless. They
had regarded her as wanton and sinful, and her extended belly an affront to Mary, the Holy Mother of Jesus. Bridie had been robbed of her children without a word of sympathy or understanding, as if
she were no better than a farm animal of little value. In spite of the years that had passed and the emotional distance Bridie had placed between that dark time and now, she still carried the guilt
inside her like an indelible stain on her soul. However much her new situation glossed over the disgrace of her previous one, she still felt rotten in her core.

This time she was a married woman and her pregnancy was something to be celebrated and enjoyed. No one knew of the secrets she guarded or of the pain that came with the joy of this new life
growing inside her, intertwined like threads, inseparable one from the other. Everyone bought her presents and congratulated her and Bridie thought how wrong it was that a life should be worth less
simply because of the lack of a wedding ring.

While Cesare was in Ireland she had a lot of time to think. She looked forward to having a child to love with a yearning born out of loss. She remembered Little Jack with a bitter sorrow and
hoped that her new baby would fill the void in her heart, for not even Cesare, with all his love and devotion, had been able to. She lay on her bed, a hand on her stomach, and remembered her tiny
daughter whom the nuns had spirited away before she had even held her. There was no grave, no headstone, nothing with which to remember her, only the memory of glimpsing her tiny face before the
nuns had wrapped her in a towel and taken her away – and even
that
was faded like a photograph left too long in the sun. No one had considered Bridie and the irreparable tear in her
heart. No one had felt any compassion for her as a human being or as a mother. Those babies had been stolen and yet there was no law to condemn the guilty and no aid to help her get back her son.
She had been cast aside like a piece of refuse, sent off to America so she couldn’t cause any trouble and, only now, as she prepared to become a mother again, did she realize the extent of
the injustice.

At the beginning of summer, Cesare returned from Ireland. Bridie was overjoyed to see him for she had missed him dreadfully and needed distraction from the turmoil in her spirit. She wrapped her
arms around him and was sure that she could smell the salty wind and heather of home in his hair. Her heart lurched and a sudden jealousy arose in her for
he
had touched the green hills of
Ballinakelly which had once belonged to her and she resented him for having breathed the air that she had been so cruelly denied. But it dropped as quickly as it had risen as Cesare reassured her
that everything was ready for her just as soon as she was prepared to leave. Ireland was within her grasp, she only had to say the word and he would take her there.

But was she ready to go back? Was she ready to face Kitty, Celia, Lord Deverill and her son? Had she simply bought the castle so that
they
couldn’t have it? Had she been motivated
purely by spite? The moment Beaumont Williams had told her that his contacts in London had informed him that Castle Deverill was once again available to buy, Bridie had seized her chance and this
time she had been firm. She wanted it whatever the cost, because she knew its value; she knew its value to the Deverills.

Bridie listened with growing rapture as Cesare described the lavishness of the refurbishment and the comfort of the new plumbing and electricity. She clapped her hands with glee and pressed him
for more details, hanging on to his every word like a pirate queen being told of the latest stolen treasure. She wanted to know what all the rooms looked like and how lovely the gardens were and as
he told her she envisaged it as it had been in her childhood days when she, Celia and Kitty had all been friends, playing in the castle grounds, before it had all unravelled – before she and
Kitty had become enemies; before Kitty had stolen her son.

Bridie had told Cesare of her childhood in Ballinakelly and that her mother had cooked for Lady Deverill in the castle, but she hadn’t told him about her son. She couldn’t. She
simply wasn’t able to speak about Little Jack, not even to Cesare.
Especially
not to Cesare. He was so traditional, this Italian count, and so proud, too proud even to take money
without embarrassment. What if he disapproved of her having a child out of wedlock? What if he loved her less because she had given him away? There were so many reasons
not
to tell him.
So, she kept the secret wrapped tightly round her heart and let him revel in the imminent birth of their first child together.

Cesare told her about his meeting with Celia and how he had kept Bridie’s identity secret as she had asked him to. He told her that he had met Kitty at Lady Rowan-Hampton’s dinner
table and he watched his wife’s face harden and her expression turn serious and severe. ‘I don’t wish to hear of those two women,’ she said coldly. ‘We were friends
once but that was long ago in the past.’ After that Cesare downplayed the amount of time he had spent with the Deverills and swiftly changed the subject to their future. He certainly
didn’t hint at the long hours he had enjoyed with Grace, nor at the other young women he had bedded in Cork. He decided he was going to enjoy living in Ireland – for a while at
least.

They agreed that it would be madness to travel all the way to Ireland while she was pregnant, so they planned to move the following summer, by which time Bridie would be strong enough to endure
the journey. Their baby boy was born in the early hours of February in New York. The birth had been quick and relatively easy. Bridie sobbed when she finally held her child in her arms. She sobbed
for the babies she had lost and for this one whom she was permitted to keep. She gazed into his face and fell in love as she had never done before. Nothing in her life compared to this. Nothing
fulfilled her so completely. It was as if God had rewarded her suffering with a double dose of maternal love and she knew then that her heart would surely mend. This tiny baby had come into the
world with enough love to heal all his mother’s pain.

Cesare had waited in the study downstairs, pacing the floor as was tradition, while the doctor tended to Bridie in her bedroom. He was astonished when he was promptly informed that his son had
been delivered for he had expected his wife’s labour to last for days. He climbed the stairs, two steps at a time, his heart racing with excitement. He opened the door to find Bridie sitting
up in bed with their small son in her arms. Her face was glowing with happiness, her eyes soft and tender, a proud smile upon her lips. Cesare came to the bedside and sat down. He peered into the
baby’s face. ‘My son,’ he whispered in awe and Bridie’s heart brimmed with pleasure at the deeply satisfied tone of his voice. ‘You are a clever and beautiful wife to
give me a son,’ he said, kissing her tenderly. ‘You cannot imagine what this means to me.’

‘What shall we call him?’ Bridie asked.

‘What would
you
like to call him?’

She gazed into her son’s face and frowned. ‘I would like to give him a name that has no connection to the past. A name that has no connection to my family. A name that is his
alone.’

‘Very well,’ said Cesare, who had spent the last nine months thinking of names. ‘What about Leopoldo?’

‘Leopoldo,’ said Bridie, smiling as she gazed upon her child.

‘Leopoldo di Marcantonio,’ he said and the words slipped off his tongue as if they were soaked in olive oil. ‘
Count
Leopoldo di Marcantonio.’

‘Indeed it has majesty and grandeur,’ said Bridie.

‘He might only be a count,’ said Cesare. ‘But he’s a prince to me. Here, let me hold him.’

When the summer arrived Bridie found that she was not ready to move to Ireland. She was afraid of returning to her past when her present was so happy. Afraid of seeing Kitty
with her son, of not being able to be a mother to him, of having to carry so heavy a secret. Yet the castle called to her in whispers that woke her in the middle of the night but she resisted its
allure and shut her ears to its insistent call. She dreamed of it, of running down the endless corridors, of chasing after Kitty, whose long red hair to run the length of the castle and was so
thick that Bridie began to drown in it. She thought of the castle often and the shadow it cast across her soul grew dark and heavy and she began to fear it. She would go when she was ready, she
resolved. She
would
be ready, eventually, she told herself, but not right now. Cesare was busy playing polo and enjoying the hectic round of social events; he was in no hurry to start a
new life across the water. So they bought a grand house in Connecticut and delayed their move. Ireland would wait.

Kitty was on her knees in the garden, pulling out bindweed and ground elder from the borders. She dug with her trowel but the roots lay deep and seemed to form a complex
network of wiry tentacles beneath the soil that thwarted her efforts, for every time she thought she had got them all she discovered more. The sun was hot on her back but a cool wind blew in off
the sea and was pleasantly refreshing. Robert was in his study, writing. His books were successful and he was earning good money, which kept the wolf from the door. Florence was now five and JP ten
and both children gave her enormous pleasure. They were a tight, united family and in that respect Kitty felt complete. Yet Jack O’Leary was a constant presence, like her shadow, inseparable
from her however hard she tried to run from him. And like her shadow, there were times, when the sun shone brightly, that his presence was stronger and other times, on cloudy days, when he seemed
barely there at all. But he never left her, nor did the Jack-shaped hole he had left in her heart; no one else could fill it.

She sat back on her knees and wiped her forehead with her gardening glove, smearing her skin with earth. Her mind drifted then as if Jack was demanding her attention from the other side of the
world. She could see his face clearly: the wintry blue eyes, the long brown fringe, his unshaven face, angular jaw, crooked smile and the incomplete set of teeth he revealed when he grinned. She
smiled at the recollection and put a hand to her heart as a wave of nostalgia crashed against it. She wondered, as she so often did, how he was faring in America. Whether he had finally settled
down and started a family with someone else. It wasn’t fair to deny him happiness and yet she didn’t want him to marry or have children – she wanted to think of him as belonging
exclusively to her, even though it had been
her
choice not to run off with him. The image she treasured was of a solitary man, standing in the Fairy Ring, gazing lovingly at her. And in
that gaze he promised to love her always. But she accepted that he would have made a new life for himself. She imagined him now as a simple, wholesome farmer in somewhere like Kansas, with his
scythe in his hands, chewing on an ear of wheat, standing in the sunshine beside his pick-up truck, thinking of her.

She was wrenched out of her reverie by the sound of a car crunching up the gravel. She turned to see Grace’s shiny blue Austin slowly approaching. She stood up and pulled off her gloves.
‘What a lovely day!’ Grace exclaimed, climbing out. She was wearing a floral tea dress with a rose-pink cardigan draped over her shoulders and ivory-coloured T-bar shoes. Her soft brown
hair was swept off her face and falling about her shoulders in extravagant curls, but nothing was more radiant than her smile.

‘Hello, Grace,’ said Kitty, striding across the lawn to meet her.

‘Goodness, you’re gardening!’ Grace exclaimed.

‘After the rain the weeds have gone mad,’ Kitty replied. ‘Do you have time for a cup of tea? I could certainly do with a break.’

‘I’d love to,’ said Grace, linking her arm through Kitty’s and walking with her into the house. ‘I haven’t seen you for a while. I thought it would be nice to
catch up.’

They took their teacups outside and sat on the terrace out of the wind. Grace asked after the children and Kitty asked after Grace’s father. ‘Well, I told you those silly Shrubs
would have their hearts broken and I was right. My father played with them callously like a fox with a pair of hens. The trouble is now he has neither he’s pining like a pathetic dog. Really,
you should see him, he’s pitiful. He doesn’t want to go out. He won’t see anyone. He sits at home, smoking, reading and grumbling. He won’t even play bridge. Bertie’s
four has broken up now that the three of them can’t be in the same room together and he’s begging me to do something about it. I wish Papa would pull himself together and stop behaving
like a love-sick youth!’

‘And the Shrubs? I haven’t seen them in church . . .’

‘That’s because they’re avoiding Papa. It’s all so childish. You’d have thought they were in their twenties, not their seventies!’