Ruby Flynn (31 page)

What was known was that Lady Isobel had been asleep on the chaise longue when Mary popped in and Amy, exhausted from the days of preparation in the kitchen, was fast asleep on the chair near the door, where she had been waiting for Lady Isobel to finish her meal.

‘Where is the young girl who raised the alarm and the one who ran in?’ asked the guard.

‘Betsy? She is downstairs and goodness me, you can’t speak to Mary. She has been beside herself with grief. Betsy was a hero, discovering the fire, raising the alarm and then Mary running into it to save Amy. She nearly lost her own life in the effort. We almost had three deaths, not two. What did you want to ask them? Would you like more tea, maybe another slice of cake?’

The guard had so far written his report with the aid of copious cups of tea. He took so long that Mrs McKinnon’s patience began to shred and she wanted to scream at him, ‘Get out, get out!’ but instead, she smiled sweetly and summoned the various members of staff as requested, everyone except Mary. Her eyes were heavy, but not as heavy as her heart. She had to keep repeating to herself,
Hold on, hold on
.

Mrs McKinnon wanted the guard gone, but she also felt her heart beating like a trapped bird in her chest as she still tried to make sense of her own discovery, earlier that day.

*

Two days later, Mrs McKinnon took a while longer than usual to leave her bed in the morning. The forbidden sun brightened her room, sliding sideways in through a crack in the curtain. Every shutter and blind in the castle was closed tight and would remain so for the entire week, as was the custom.

‘I feel as though we have organized more than our fair share of funerals,’ she said to her husband, as she perched on the side of their bed and drank the cup of tea he had made for her. In all the years they had been married, she had never once told him how much she appreciated that morning cup of tea. She didn’t have to. Some things just didn’t need to be said, with a bond as strong as theirs. They knew each other’s thoughts.

Mr McKinnon had dressed in his morning suit and sat on the bed next to his wife, fastening his cuffs.

‘There is no one who would disagree with you,’ he said. ‘We have to attend to Lady Isobel today and then I think we need to have a little talk. Maybe it’s time for us to return to Scotland and break the chains with this life. The wickedness, along with the flamin’ ghost I refuse to confirm the existence of but, we both know it is here; lurking, waiting.’

Mrs McKinnon gently laid the cup and saucer on the table next to her and took an object out of her dressing gown pocket. Both her hands were tightly cupped around something and she stared down at her lap, deep in thought.

‘What is it? What do you have there?’

McKinnon put out his own hand and lightly unfurled her fingers. Lying in the palms of her hands was a soot-stained, emerald green, ribbed medicine bottle.

‘What is that?’ he asked. ‘Where is that from?’

‘Oh, it’s where I found it that matters, not where it’s from,’ replied Mrs McKinnon, her voice edged with anger and dismay. ‘It has lived in my medicine cabinet in the scullery for years. I replace it each year, in case we need to use it quickly. It is for emergency use only. The doctor and I go through the medicine chest once a year and he replaces it with fresh.’

‘Is it the morphine?’ McKinnon asked.

Mrs McKinnon nodded.

‘Aye, and the last time we used it was when young Liam caught his fingers in the scythe at last year’s harvest, remember?’

‘I do,’ said McKinnon. ‘But why is that bottle in your hands now?’

‘It was on the nursery floor, by the side of Lady Isobel’s chair. I saw it the day before yesterday, when I took the guard up to the room, and I slipped it into my apron pocket before he could see it.’

McKinnon began to pace up and down the room.

‘Why do you think it was in there, who would have used it?’

Mrs McKinnon watched him carefully as the realization slowly dawned.

‘You think Lady Isobel meant to kill herself?’

‘I do. She had the key to the medicine chest in her pocket. I couldn’t believe it when Annie Shevlin handed it to me, after she had laid them both out. Lady Isobel cannot have realized that Amy had fallen asleep on the chair watching over her. She killed them both.’

‘But, why?’ McKinnon asked. ‘Why?’

‘God only knows. All I know is that I have lost two people that I cared for very much and right at this moment, I have no idea how I am going to get through yet another funeral.’

‘What do we do about this? Do we tell the Garda?’

‘God in heaven, no we do not. We shall have no scandal. This is another secret. As big as the last one and as God is my judge, I shall take both with me to my grave when my turn comes.’

Meanwhile, Ruby had thought she would make the McKinnons some tea and take it to their room as a gesture of kindness. She would tell them both that the staff breakfast was well under way and they could take their time. Today was a sad day for them and she wanted to take as much responsibility away from them as she possibly could.

Ruby felt almost faint with relief at the arrival of Lottie. She had travelled with the staff from the inn in Belmullet and half of the residents from the town the previous day for Amy’s funeral and she had slept with Ruby and Betsy and Jane the previous night. Ruby was amazed at the change that had overcome Jane. Her surliness dispatched, she had been helpfulness itself and was clearly struggling with her own grief.

Now Ruby lifted her hand to knock on the McKinnons door but stopped when she heard them both talking. She could just about hear what they said and quietly turned to make her way on tiptoe back to the castle kitchen, with the still fresh tea tray.

She couldn’t understand what she had just heard, but she had grasped the facts. Lady Isobel had taken her own life and accidentally taken Amy with her. Ruby felt cold to her bones, realizing that if she hadn’t been in Galway with Jack, it would very likely have been her funeral that people were attending.

‘Whatever is the matter?’ asked Lottie who was placing the risen loaves in the oven with Mary.

Ruby shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered and nodded towards Mary to let Lottie know that she would tell her later.

Jane was sat at the table with the usually rowdy Danny. Each one quiet and solemn. They had no words as nothing anyone said could express the loss they felt at how awful the once bustling and busy kitchen was without Amy.

I don’t want to be in here, it doesn’t seem right any more,’ said Danny, who wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. ‘I wish Amy were here now, just yelling at me or sending me out with the broom or throwing the tin cup down the yard after me like she used to.’

‘Shh now,’ said Jane. ‘Amy will be going mad in heaven if she sees you crying so she will.’ Ruby was almost open mouthed watching Jane comforting others.

‘’Tis a good way to get by,’ said Betsy. ‘To imagine Amy is watching us, that she can see what we are doing. What would she be saying now if she could see the sorry state of us all?’

*

The previous evening, Betsy and Ruby had chatted to Lottie in the bedroom while they waited for Jane to join them. Jane who had moved in and out of her own room, depending upon her mood of the day. The last thing she wanted now was to be isolated. They were all shadowing each other, even the boys. No one wanted to be alone with their grief.

‘It seems a crisis was all that was needed to bring that Jane down to earth,’ Betsy had confided to Ruby and Lottie.

‘Aye, that’s true,’ said Ruby. I would never have believed the change in Jane if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes. She is a different girl altogether. ’Tis Mary who has done it. Little Mary, she has made everyone think and put us all to shame. She has never had a bad word to say about anyone, Mary, and look at her. I shall never forget what she did.’

‘’Tis such a shock.’ Lottie joined in. ‘What a life you all live here. I had no idea Ruby and here’s me living the life at the hotel in Belmullet having a grand time and you with all these problems and now this.’

‘I know,’ said Ruby. ‘I don’t think I could take another calamity.’ The girls turned down their sheets, entirely unaware that as Ruby spoke, a further catastrophe, as unstoppable as an ocean wave, was heading towards them all.

Mr McKinnon took Charles his breakfast and found him sitting at the study desk, staring out through the window towards the ocean. His heart sank. That was where he had left him the previous evening with the promise that he would take himself to bed shortly.

‘Did you sleep in that chair?’ he asked as he approached the desk.

The answer was so obvious, Lord Charles ignored the question answering instead, ‘When I swore to myself that I would never carry another coffin, it hadn’t occurred to me that I might have to carry my own wife’s so soon.’

Charles’s face was a mask, betraying no emotion. He would survive the day, doing what he knew he had to do.

Lady Isobel would be buried today, three days after the fire and one day after Amy. Even though the lady of the castle was not well known locally, the communities from Belmullet to Bangor and all the villages around filled the chapel. Some villagers had set out from their homes hours before. Some had arrived for Amy’s funeral the previous day and decided to remain for Lady Isobel’s. They found themselves sleeping in the homes of relatives so distant, it was a stretch to even describe them as such.

‘Sorry for your troubles. Sorry for your troubles.’ The whispered condolences from people normally too self-conscious or afraid to address a lord swept Charles into the chapel. He was grateful that the crypt could seat only a hundred visitors and that the tenants and the villagers could not see his face. He knew more than most how to conceal the emotion local people would expect from him. He would not and could not wail. He also knew they would find his composure difficult to understand. It was in his blood, a consequence of breeding, and as a result they would judge him to be cold-hearted.

He said all the right things to anyone who spoke to him.

‘Thank you so much for your concern.’ ‘I am touched by your words.’ ‘My wife would be so terribly grateful.’ ‘Yes, it is utterly devastating, but we shall pull through, with your kind thoughts to sustain us.’ Even as he spoke the words, he knew all too well, there was no ‘we’ or ‘us’. He was truly alone.

He took his seat at the front of the church and looked around him.

He had asked for Jack to be seated next to him. Amy, Jack’s wife-to-be, had died with his own. He owed that to the man. Charles had not attended Amy’s funeral. It was not expected of him and would only have made the tenants uncomfortable.

Charles heard a shuffle at the back of the chapel and saw Ruby, guiding Jack down the aisle by the elbow. His heart constricted. He felt the blood rush to his face, as if saying to him,
You are not dead. You are still alive. Hallelujah
.

‘Thank you, Ruby,’ he whispered, as he took Jack’s arm from her. The sunlight streamed in through the stained glass window and caught her in a pillar of light. Wisps of her often wayward hair crowned her in a halo of chestnut and gold. She glided away, conscious of eyes upon her. As she moved, Charles leaned towards her, as though hooked by an invisible thread. It snapped, and she was gone.

A depressing sense of loss overwhelmed him. Where had it come from? From the wife who had slipped away, slowly but completely, some time ago? Or from Ruby, who refused even to look at him?

‘
Exaudi orationem meam
.’ The priest began swinging the incense thurible from side to side, filling the air with holy smoke. The congregation fell to their knees and with heads bowed, began to pray.

*

Over fifty couples had travelled from London to Ballyford Castle and a similar number from Liverpool. Many had left before the news of the fire had reached them. They had packed their finery, ready to attend the Ballyford Ball. Instead they had to dress for a funeral. Some had to scour the Dublin stores for mourning black. By the time fifty ladies had finished, there was not a black mantilla to be found in all Dublin.

The conversations murmured behind lamps and in corners were very different from those spoken out loud.

‘Awful business. I was very close to her. I shall miss her dreadfully’ lied an old friend of Charles’s aunt, to an even older friend of his mother.

‘They say the castle is haunted,’ whispered a banker friend of Charles’s from London, to a school friend of Isobel’s.

The farm girls circled the room holding out plates of food and taking empty trays back downstairs to the kitchen.

‘I don’t know how we would have managed without Lottie,’ Mrs McKinnon said to Ruby, as she sent two more girls back up the stairs with loaded trays to feed the guests. Ruby could see that Mrs McKinnon was only just about coping. The swarm of girls from the cottages who had arrived at the castle to help were almost as much work as the wake itself.

‘I’m not surprised she’s struggling,’ whispered Lottie to Ruby while Mrs McKinnon issued the girls instructions in a voice that occasionally contained an uncharacteristic wobble. ‘When I asked one of them to carry a fresh platter of prawns, she screamed and ran for the kitchen door. She had never seen anything like it before. Mind you, they are farm girls, so we can’t expect too much from them.’

Ruby grinned. ‘And we are convent girls from the best convent in all of Ireland and therefore we are so much more sophisticated.’ But as both girls started to laugh, Ruby pulled herself up short. Today was not a day for laughter. Yesterday they had buried Amy and today it had been Lady Isobel’s turn.

‘Don’t you worry about laughing, girls,’ said Mrs McKinnon, turning her attention back to Ruby and Lottie. ‘You are standing in Amy’s kitchen and there was no one who enjoyed a laugh more than our Amy, isn’t that right, Betsy?’

Betsy nodded. ‘That’s half of the problem, that’s why we miss her so much.’ Ruby had noticed that Betsy was permanently on the verge of tears. She had found the funeral especially difficult.