Legacy of Secrets (24 page)

Her mother stared anxiously after her, then sent the old nanny up to take care of her. She went to her own little pharmacy where she kept the bottles of patent medicines and pills she gave to her tenants when they fell ill, and she mixed a little potion and took it up to her daughter herself.

Lily was sitting up in bed in a high-necked white cotton nightgown. Her eyes were dark with misery and her face as white as her nightie, and Lady Nora sighed worriedly. “If you are not better tomorrow, I’m sending for Dr. O’Malley,” she said firmly, spooning the medicine into Lily’s mouth like a mother bird feeding her fledgling. “I remember Hathaway Castle from old; when that Atlantic gale blows there’s nothing to stop it from whistling through those ancient walls. I should never have let you go.”

“Oh, if only you hadn’t, Mammie.” Lily moaned, tears flowing again from her already swollen eyes.

“Darling Lily, whatever is it? Tell Mammie how you feel.” She put her arms around her and Lily huddled in their safe embrace. She never wanted to leave her mammie again.

Ciel watched worriedly from the window seat. When her mother left she ran to sit on the edge of the bed. Lily’s eyes met hers and she suddenly collapsed in a torrent of tears. She threw herself about the bed, pounding her pillows, stuffing the sheet in her mouth to stifle her screams. Ciel stared at her, terrified. Tears of sympathy sprang to her own eyes and her mouth was fixed in an O of distress. “Lily. Oh, Lily. Whatever is it? What happened?”

Lily stopped her pounding and screaming. She sat up
and looked at her beloved little sister. Ciel was the only person to whom she had always told everything. Except for Finn, but he was different. And anyway, she certainly couldn’t tell him about this. But Ciel was so young and so innocent—just the way she herself had been only yesterday. Yet if she didn’t tell someone she would just burst with the horror of it.

She clutched her sister’s hands, and in a few brief whispered words she told her what had happened. Ciel’s innocence was tinged with knowledge. She knew what the sexual act was between animals, though she had never related the same thing to people, and the stallion covering the mare in the stable yard could not be compared to what had happened to Lily.

“Oh, I’ll never tell, Lily, never,” she promised, horrified. “But you will be all right, won’t you? It’s all over now, and if neither of us ever says anything, then nobody will ever know. And you’ll just go back to being your old self again. Everybody loves you, Lily. Absolutely everybody. I certainly do.”

She kissed her and the guilt and horror lifted a little as Lily wondered if she might be right. Maybe in a few weeks it would just erase itself from her mind, the way they said everything did with time. And then maybe she could go back to being the popular young debutante again. Only this time she would take those young men who were chasing after her more seriously. She would choose one quickly and make the grand match everyone was predicting for her. Hers would be the wedding of the year and she would live happily ever after. She would give up parties and dancing and flirting and live quietly with her nice young husband in whatever grand houses they owned. They would have children and she would be an exemplary mother just like her own darling mammie.

But somehow, even as she planned it so convincingly, deep inside she knew she would never be the same again. And she wept again, for the simple, innocent girl she had been.

A
MONTH PASSED QUIETLY.
Lily kept to her bed a great deal and rarely ventured downstairs. Pa came worriedly to see her. She managed a wan smile and told him she thought that her hectic social life had caught up with her, and she was suffering from exhaustion.

“Then you must rest, darling girl,” he said affectionately, patting her thin hand and kissing her pale cheek. And he sent away to London for books and games to amuse her; he ordered bouquets of flowers for her room and instructed his wife to make sure she fed Lily any delicacy that might tempt her poor appetite.

When Lily finally came downstairs again she loitered wanly around, lying on the big library sofa in front of the fire, pretending to read while she stared worriedly into the embers. Eventually she was drawn to the stables again, and Finn O’Keeffe’s eyes lit up when he saw her. A huge smile spread across his face. He said, “I’ve been worried about you. They told me you were sick but nobody knew with what. Will you be feelin’ better now?”

He was her friend. He was so simple, so normal and familiar and undemanding, and Lily knew he would never hurt her. She thought of how complicated her life had become and for the first time she wished she were just a peasant girl so she might be with Finn forever.

“Let’s go for a ride,” she said, thinking she could turn back the clock and forget what had happened.

The horse felt like molten velvet beneath her as she galloped bareback along the strand. The wind tugged at her hair and the sun glinted off the waves and the golden sand kicked up with a soft thud from beneath the horse’s hooves. Life felt good after all. Finn kept pace with her and she glanced sideways at him, laughing. They were young and beautiful and carefree as the wind, and deliriously happy in each other’s company.

They reined in their horses at the end of the long strip of beach, and looked breathlessly at each other, laughing with
the sheer joy of the hard gallop and the lovely day, and of being with each other.

“Oh, Lily, I do love ye so,” Finn gasped impetuously. “I love you, and I always will.” He stared boldly at her. “There. Now I’ve said it,” he said with a sigh of relief.

The smile disappeared from Lily’s eyes as quickly as the sun behind a cloud. She had known he loved her but not like this, not the way men “loved” women. “You were supposed to be my friend,” she shouted angrily. “Oh, oh, dammit. Dammit to hell, now you’ve gone and spoiled it all.” And she took off back down the strand, leaving him staring sadly after her.

Back in the stable yard, she flung herself from the horse and ran, sobbing, home to the Big House. Daniel O’Keeffe glanced angrily at his younger brother as he trotted into the yard. “Is it yerself has been upsetting Lady Lily?” he demanded, worried that Finn might have jeopardized his job again. “Will you niver learn, boyo, to keep your place?”

“And where’s that, then?
My place?”
Finn’s gray eyes spat anger at his brother but it was himself he was angry with.

“You know where it is, sure enough. And so do I,” was all Daniel said. And Finn thought bitterly that he was right.

L
ILY’S OLD NANNY
had been with her since she was a newborn infant. Now she acted as lady’s maid and she missed nothing. Another month passed and the vital signs that she was hoping for still did not materialize. She stared worriedly at Lily as she stepped from her bath, glancing shrewdly at her slender body as she wrapped her in a huge fluffy white towel.

“I think we shall have to be seeing the doctor after all, Lady Lily,” she said, rubbing her back briskly. “There’ll be something wrong with you and we’d best find out what it is.”

“No!” Lily grabbed the towel from her. She ran into her dressing room and slammed the door and the old woman looked sadly after her, shaking her head. Lily’s terrified
face had only confirmed her worst fears. There was nothing for it but to tell her mother.

Lady Nora was in her boudoir working on her tapestry. Sometimes she thought she enjoyed these quiet weeks alone with her family more than the great social whirl that took up the rest of her year. Ardnavarna was remote and life here was so predictable and tranquil, there was little to disturb her peace.

She was surprised when Nanny knocked on her door and told her she had better speak to her daughter, “for something’s not as it should be, my lady,” she said. She asked her whatever she meant by that, and when Nanny told her she turned pale with shock.

“She must be ill,” she gasped, because anything else was unthinkable. And worriedly she called in Dr. O’Malley.

Lily lay on her bed like a terrified lamb to the slaughter while kindly old Dr. O’Malley made a brief examination. He asked her a few questions but she turned her head away, refusing to answer, and it was Nanny who furnished him with the replies. He suspected the truth but the patient would tell him nothing and it wasn’t until various tests were made that he was able to confirm their worst fears.

Lady Nora sat alone in her boudoir thinking bewilderedly of her daughter, wondering how this horrifying thing could ever have happened. Had she not been a good mother? Had she not loved her daughter? Worried about her? Protected her enough? She had been certain she was chaperoned everywhere she went, made sure she met only the right people. She could think of no one, no one at all, who would take advantage of her beautiful young daughter in this bestial way.

A thrill of terror struck her heart as she thought of what her husband would say when she told him, for tell him she must. She clasped her hand to the pain in her chest, wincing as it got stronger. White-faced, she rang the bell to summon the maid to bring her a glass of water and then she put her head down on her pretty worktable and she wept.

The young maid stood in the doorway holding the jug of water on a tray, open-mouthed with shock. She dithered on the threshold, uncertain whether to come in or go out.

“Yer ladyship,” she said kindly, “will you not be feelin’ well, ma’am? Shall I be callin’ the doctor again?”

Lady Nora sat up. She dried her eyes on a tiny lace-edged linen handkerchief and straightened her back. Ladies were never supposed to show emotion in front of the servants and she thought wearily that the whole kitchen would hear about it within minutes. Her hand shook as she poured a glass of water and took a sip. “It was just a bad pain in my chest,” she told the worried girl. “I shall be all right now, thank you, Mollie.”

After a few minutes she walked along the corridor to Lily’s room. Her daughter was sitting by the window staring out at the rainswept gardens. She did not turn her head to look, even though she knew her mother was there.

“Lily darling,” Lady Nora said gently. “You know what the doctor said?” Lily hung her head and said nothing. “Are you feeling better?” she asked, but Lily still did not answer. Lady Nora sighed. Sorrow dragged at her heart as she looked at her beloved girl. “You must tell me what happened, Lily,” she said. “I promise I will not be angry with you. But I must know who this boy is so that your father can deal with the situation.”

“Pa?” Lily’s shocked eyes met her mother’s. “You mean you will tell
Pal”
Two bright spots of color stood out on her pale cheeks as she realized that her father was going to know. “How can you say that, Mammie?” she cried despairingly. “How
can
you tell him?”

Her mother shook her head. “In God’s truth, Lily,” she said slowly, “I don’t know how I can tell him. I only know I must, and that in order to help you, I have to know the truth.”

“And what will happen to me then?”

“Why, then you must marry the boy, Lily. A. quiet wedding, a long visit abroad … a premature child. We could keep it a secret somehow.”

Lily’s face would have turned paler if it could. She felt sick as she thought of Dermot Hathaway. Her father would make her marry him, but Dermot had said he would kill her first. And anyway she would rather die than marry that beast.

She stared silently out of the window and Lady Nora sighed. “I’m begging you, child,” she said softly. “Tell your mammie and I promise to do what I can to help you. You know how much I love you.”

Lily shook her head, staring at the rain sweeping relentlessly down the windowpane in a solid sheet, just like her nightly tears. “I can’t, Mammie,” she said wearily. And she would say no more.

L
ORD
M
OLYNEUX WAS IN THE LIBRARY
smoking a cigar and reading his newspaper. His wife sank wearily into the chair opposite him and he glanced at her in surprise. “You look tired, m’dear,” he said with a flicker of concern. “I thought being at Ardnavarna would have been a good rest for you, but I suppose with Lily ill, it’s been a worry.”

The pain tugged at her heart again but she ignored it. There was no way to avoid what she had to tell her husband and she did not flinch in her duty. She was quiet, controlled, and brief.

He said nothing. His eyes, blue as Lily’s, stared at her as though she had gone out of her mind. Augustus Molyneux was a big man, but as he rose to his feet in a colossal rage he seemed to tower over her. Lady Nora put her hand to her chest, wishing she might die before her beloved husband struck her down for breaking his heart and telling him about his errant daughter.

His face turned purple then gray, then his legs seemed to give way and he sank back into his chair. He said, “Dear God, Nora, there must be some mistake. It’s not true, it’s not possible.” His eyes met hers beseechingly and she thought he was going to cry. “Not Lily,” he whispered.

She said, “It is true, Augustus, though I wish with all my heart it were not.”

He got up again and went to stand by the darkening window, staring out, like Lily, at the sodden landscape, while his wife told him hastily of the solution she had already told her daughter: a quick marriage, a long trip abroad, a premature birth … “You will have to speak to the parents. It could all be arranged, Augustus. If only Lily would tell me who he is.”