Daughters of Castle Deverill (4 page)

He took her arm and walked her across the graveyard to a place far from the crowd where they could speak alone. ‘Well, would you look at you, Bridie Doyle,’ he said, shaking his head
and rubbing the long bristles on his jaw. ‘Don’t you look like a lady now!’

Bridie basked in his admiration. ‘I
am
a lady, I’ll have you know,’ she replied and Jack noticed how her Irish vowels had been worn thin in America. ‘I’m a
widow. My husband died,’ she added and crossed herself. ‘God rest my husband’s soul.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Bridie. You’re too young to mourn a husband.’ He ran his eyes over her coat. ‘I’ve got to say that you look grand,’ he added
and as he grinned Bridie noticed that one of his teeth was missing. He looked older too. The lines were deeper around his eyes and mouth, his skin dark and weathered, his gaze deep and full of
shadows. Even though his smile remained undimmed, Bridie sensed that he had suffered. He was no longer the insouciant young man with the arrogant gaze, a hawk on his arm, a dog at his heel. There
was something touching about him now and she wanted to reach out and run her fingers across his brow.

‘Are you back for good?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, Jack.’ She turned into the gale and placed her hand on top of her hat to stop it blowing away. Fighting her growing sense of alienation she added, ‘I
don’t know where I belong now. I came back expecting everything to be the same, but it is
I
who have changed and that makes everything different.’ Then aware of sounding
vulnerable, she turned back to him and her voice hardened. ‘I can hardly live the way I used to. I’m accustomed to finer things, you see.’ Jack arched an eyebrow and Bridie wished
she hadn’t put on airs in front of him. If there was a man who knew her for what she really was, it was Jack. ‘Did you marry?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he replied. A long silence followed. A silence that resonated with the name Kitty Deverill, as if it came in a whisper on the wind and lingered there between them. ‘Well,
I hope it all turns out well for you, Bridie. It’s good to see you home again,’ he said at last. Bridie was unable to return his smile. Her loathing for her old friend wound around her
heart in a twine of thorns. She watched him walk away with that familiar jaunty gait she knew so well and had loved so deeply. It was obvious that, after all these years, he still held out for
Kitty Deverill.

London

‘Good God!’ Sir Digby Deverill put down the receiver and shook his head. ‘Well I’ll be damned!’ he exclaimed, staring at the telephone as if he
wasn’t quite able to believe the news it had just delivered to him. He pushed himself up from his leather chair and went to the drinks tray to pour himself a whiskey from one of the crystal
decanters. Holding the glass in his manicured, bejewelled fingers, he gazed out of his study window. He could hear the rattling sound of a car motoring over the leaves on Kensington Palace Gardens,
that exclusive, gated street of sumptuous Italianate and Queen Anne mansions built by millionaires, like Digby, who had made their fortunes in the gold mines of Witwatersrand, hence their nickname:
Randlords. There he lived in Deverill House, in stately splendour, alongside a fellow Randlord, Sir Abe Bailey, and financier, Lionel Rothschild.

He took a swig, grimacing as the liquid burned a trail down his throat. Instantly he felt fortified. He put down his glass and pulled his gold pocket watch out of his waistcoat by the chain.
Deftly, he flicked it open. The shiny face gleamed up at him, giving the time as a quarter to eleven. He strode into the hall where he was met by a butler in crimson-and-gold livery talking quietly
to a footman. When they saw him the footman made a discreet exit while the butler stood to attention awaiting Sir Digby’s command. Digby hesitated at the foot of the grand staircase.

He could hear laughter coming from the drawing room upstairs. It sounded like his wife had company. That was not a surprise, she always had company. Beatrice Deverill, exuberant, big-hearted and
extravagant, was the most determined socialite in London. Well, it couldn’t be helped; he was unable to keep the news to himself a moment longer. He hurried up the stairs, two steps at a
time, his white spats revealed beneath his immaculately pressed grey checked trousers with every leap. He hoped to snatch a minute alone with his wife.

When he reached the door he was relieved to find that her guests were only his cousin Bertie’s wife, Maud, who was perched stiffly on the edge of the sofa, her severely cut blonde bob
accentuating the chiselled precision of her cheekbones and the ice-blue of her strikingly beautiful eyes, her eldest daughter Victoria, who had acquired a certain poise as Countess of Elmrod, and
Digby’s own mother Augusta, who presided over the group like a fat queen in a Victorian-style black dress with ruffles that frothed about her chins, and a large feathered hat.

As he entered, the four faces looked up at him in surprise. It wasn’t usual for Digby to put in an appearance during the day. He was most often at his gentlemen’s club,
White’s, or tucked away in his study on the telephone to his bankers from Barings or Rothschild, or to Mr Newcomb, who trained his racehorses in Newmarket, or talking diamonds with his South
African cronies. ‘What is it, Digby?’ Beatrice asked, noticing at once his burning cheeks, twitching moustache and the nervous way he played with the large diamond ring that sparkled on
the little finger of his right hand. Digby was still a handsome man with shiny blond hair swept off a wide forehead and bright, intelligent eyes, which now had a look of bewilderment.

He checked himself, suddenly remembering his manners. ‘Good morning, my dear Maud, Victoria, Mama.’ He forced a tight smile and bowed, but couldn’t hide his impatience to share
his news.

‘Well, don’t stand on ceremony, Digby, what is it?’ Augusta demanded stridently.

‘Yes, Cousin Digby, we’re all frightfully curious,’ said Victoria, glancing at her mother. Maud looked at Digby expectantly; she loved nothing more than other people’s
dramas because they gave her a satisfying sense of superiority.

‘It’s about Castle Deverill,’ he said, looking directly at Maud, who reddened. ‘You see, I’ve just had a telephone call from Bertie.’

‘What did he want?’ Maud asked, putting down her teacup. She hadn’t spoken to her husband Bertie since he had announced to the entire family at his mother Adeline’s
funeral that the supposed ‘foundling’, whom their youngest daughter Kitty was raising as her own, was, in fact, his illegitimate son. Not only was the news shocking, it was downright
humiliating. In fact, she wondered whether she would ever get over the trauma. She had left for London without a word, vowing that she would never speak to him again. She wouldn’t set another
foot in Ireland, either, and in her opinion the castle could rot into the ground for all the good it had done her. She had never liked the place to begin with.

‘Bertie has sold the castle and Celia has bought it,’ Digby announced and the words rang as clear as shots. The four women stared at him aghast. There was a long silence. Victoria
looked nervously at her mother, trying to read her thoughts.

‘You mean
Archie
has bought it for her,’ said Augusta, smiling into the folds of chin that spilled over the ruffles of her dress. ‘What a devoted husband he has turned
out to be.’

‘Is she mad?’ Beatrice gasped. ‘What on earth is Celia going to do with a ruined castle?’

‘Rebuild it?’ Victoria suggested with a smirk. Beatrice glanced at her in irritation.

Maud’s thin fingers flew to her throat where they pulled at the skin there, causing it to redden in patches. It was all well and good selling the castle, there was no prestige to be
enjoyed from a pile of ruins and a diminishing estate, but she hadn’t anticipated a
Deverill
buying it. No, that was much too close for comfort. Better that it had gone to some
arriviste American with more money than sense, she mused, than one of the family. It was most unexpected and extremely vexing that it had gone to a Deverill, and to flighty, frivolous and silly
Celia of all people! Surely, if it was to remain in the family, it was only right that her son Harry, the castle’s rightful heir, should have it. And why the secrecy? Celia had crawled in
like a thief and bought it on the sly. For what? To humiliate
her
and her family no less. Maud narrowed her ice-blue eyes and wondered how she, with her sharp powers of observation, had
never noticed the treachery in that dim-witted girl.

‘They are both unwise,’ said Digby. ‘That place will be the ruin of them. It’s the sort of vanity project that will swallow money with little to show for it. I wish they
had discussed it with me first.’ He strode into the room and positioned himself in front of the fire, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his waistcoat and leaning back on the heels of his
debonair wingtip brogues.

‘At least it’s going to remain in the family,’ said Victoria. Not that
she
cared one way or the other. She had never liked the damp and cold of Ireland and although
her marriage was just as chilly, at least she was Countess of Elmrod living in Broadmere in Kent and a townhouse here in London where the rooms were warm and the plumbing worked to her
satisfaction. She wanted to whisper to her mother that at least Kitty hadn’t managed to buy it –
that
would have finished their mother off for good. It would have upset
Victoria too. In spite of her own wealth and position in society she was still secretly jealous of her youngest sister.

Augusta settled her imperious gaze on Maud and inhaled loudly up her nose, which signalled an imminent barrage of haughty venom. Digby’s mother was not too old to read the unspoken words
behind Maud’s beautiful but bitter mouth. ‘How do
you
feel about that, my dear? I imagine it’s something of a shock to learn that the estate now passes into the hands of
the
London
Deverills. Personally, I congratulate Celia for rescuing the family treasure, because we must all agree that Castle Deverill
is
the jewel in the family
crown.’

‘Oh yes, “A Deverill’s castle is his kingdom,” ’ said Digby, quoting the family motto that was branded deep into his heart.

‘Deverill Rising,’ Augusta added, referring to Digby’s Wiltshire estate, ‘is nothing compared to Castle Deverill. I don’t know why you didn’t buy it yourself,
Digby. That sort of money is nothing to you.’

Digby puffed out his chest importantly and rocked back and forth on his heels. His mother was not wrong; he could have bought it ten times over. But Digby, for all his extravagance and
flamboyance, was a prudent and pragmatic man. ‘It is not through folly that I have built my fortune, Mother,’ he retorted. ‘Your generation remember the days when the British
ruled supreme in Ireland and the Anglo-Irish lived like kings, but those days are long gone, as we’re all very well aware. The castle was disintegrating long before the rebels burnt it to the
ground. I wouldn’t be so foolish as to entertain ideas of resurrecting something which is well and truly dead. The future’s here in England. Ireland is over, as Celia will learn to her
cost. The family motto not only refers to bricks and mortar, but to the Deverill spirit, which I carry in my soul. That’s
my
castle.’

Maud sniffed through dilated nostrils and lifted her delicate chin in a display of self-pitying fortitude. She sighed. ‘I must admit that this is quite a shock.
Another
shock. As
if I haven’t had enough shocks to last me a lifetime.’ She smoothed her silver-blonde bob with a tremulous hand. ‘First, my youngest daughter shames me by insisting on bringing an
illegitimate child to London and then my husband announces to the world that the boy is his. And if
that
isn’t enough to humiliate me he then decides to sell our son’s
inheritance . . .’ Augusta caught Beatrice’s eye. It didn’t suit Maud to remember that it was at
her
insistence that her husband had finally agreed to be
rid of it. ‘And now it will belong to Celia. I don’t know what to say. I should be happy for her. But I can’t be. Poor Harry will be devastated that his home has been snatched
from under his nose by his cousin. As for me, it is another cross that I will have to bear.’

‘Mama, once Papa decided to sell it, it was never going to be Harry’s,’ said Victoria gently. ‘And I really don’t think Harry will mind. He and Celia are
practically inseparable and he made it very clear that he didn’t want to have anything to do with the place.’

Maud shook her head and smiled with studied patience. ‘My darling, you’re missing the point. Had it gone to someone else,
anyone
else, I would not have a problem with it.
The problem is that it’s gone to a
Deverill.
’

Beatrice jumped to her daughter’s defence. ‘Well, it’s done now, isn’t it? Celia will restore it to its former glory and we shall all enjoy long summers there just like
we used to before the war. I’m sure Archie knows what he’s doing, darling,’ she added to Digby. ‘After all, it’s
his
money. Who are we to say how he spends
it.’

Digby raised a quizzical eyebrow, for one could argue that it wasn’t Archie Mayberry’s money, but Digby’s. No one else in the family knew how much Digby had paid Archie to take
Celia back after she had ditched him at their wedding reception and bolted up to Scotland with the best man. In so doing Digby had saved the Mayberry family from financial ruin, and salvaged his
daughter’s future. ‘No good will come of it,’ Digby insisted now with worldly cynicism. ‘Celia’s flighty. She enjoys drama and adventure.’ He didn’t have
to convince the present company of
that.
‘She’ll tire of Ireland when it’s finished. She’ll crave the excitement of London. Ballinakelly will bore her. Mark my
words, once everyone stops talking about her audacity she’ll go off in search of something else to entertain herself with and poor Archie will be left with the castle – and most likely
an empty bank account—’

‘Nonsense,’ Augusta interrupted, her booming voice smashing through her son’s homily like a cannonball. ‘She’ll raise it from the ashes and restore the
family’s reputation. I just hope I live long enough to see it.’ She heaved a laboured breath. ‘Although the way I’m going I don’t hold out much hope.’