Daughters of Castle Deverill (30 page)

The men stood in the hall discussing the dire state of the economy while Celia showed her sisters, Vivien and Leona, around the drawing room and Kitty and Elspeth endured Augusta’s
self-indulgent soliloquy about death. Beatrice chatted to the Shrubs and noticed that there was something different about them. It wasn’t the way they looked, although she had to admit that
they were taking more trouble with their appearance. It was something intangible but distinctly noticeable. Something in the air between them that wasn’t pleasant.

‘I gather Archie is going to host the Boxing Day Meet,’ said Hazel.

‘Indeed he is,’ Beatrice confirmed. ‘I dare say he’ll be dragged off with the hunt. I don’t think he’s a very keen horseman.’

‘Ethelred is a mighty fine horseman.’ Laurel inhaled through her nostrils and pulled a face which could only be described as deeply admiring and reverential. ‘Have you met
him?’

‘Of course I have,’ said Beatrice, noticing the air had grown suddenly chilly between the two sisters.

‘He will be at the Meet, certainly,’ Hazel interjected. ‘He’s a
very
fine horseman.’

Laurel smiled tensely. ‘He tried to persuade
me
to take it up again.’

‘And me,’ added Hazel, not to be outdone. ‘He tried to persuade me, too. But I believe I’m too old.’

‘Well,
I’m not
,’ snapped Laurel. ‘I am considering it.’

‘You’re not!’ said Hazel.

‘Why, do you think me incapable? I was a very competent horsewoman in my day, don’t forget. Lord Hunt even told me that I would cut a dash in a riding habit.’ Laurel blushed
and smiled smugly. ‘He does take liberties.’

Hazel pursed her lips. ‘Ah, there’s Charlotte,’ she said. ‘I’m longing to see Little Rupert. Do excuse me.’ And she stalked over to Charlotte, who was
standing pale and shy in the doorway. Beatrice watched her go with a sense of helplessness. She turned back to Laurel and asked for news of Reverend Maddox – anything to draw the conversation
away from Lord Hunt, who seemed to her like a fox in a hen house.

Digby patted Archie hard on the back. ‘You’re a good man, Archie, to host Christmas for my family. I do believe it’ll be the best Christmas any of us have ever had.’
Archie basked in his father-in-law’s admiration. ‘I must say,’ Digby continued, ‘I couldn’t have asked for a better man for my daughter. You’ve made her very
happy, which is no easy feat. She’s flighty and easily distracted, but she’s kept her eye on the castle all these years without deviation, which surprises no one more than me.
You’re the wind in her sails, Archie. You’ve got the measure of her, I dare say.’

‘Thank you, Digby,’ said Archie.

‘Tell me, man to man. How are your affairs?’

‘Very good,’ Archie replied.

Digby nodded thoughtfully, letting his eyes lose their focus in the middle distance. ‘Nothing I should worry about?’

‘Nothing,’ Archie reassured him.

‘These are trying times. I’m a gambling man, Archie. A speculator. I enjoy taking risks, but even I’ve had my fingers burned.’

‘I won’t say we’ve come out of this unscathed,’ Archie conceded. ‘But I’ve been shrewd in my dealings.’

‘Good.’ Digby patted him on the back again, then he added, ‘If you were ever in financial difficulty, you wouldn’t be too proud to come to me, I hope.’

‘Of course not,’ said Archie. Digby went to refill his glass and hoped he’d never be called upon; he was in no position to help anyone at the moment.

On Christmas Day the family attended church then returned for lunch and the opening of gifts. The children, dressed in their very best velvet and silk, tore open the wrapping
paper and ribbon with squeals of delight before being taken away by their nannies to play with their new toys in the children’s wing of the castle. The grown-ups drank sherry, played charades
and card games and watched the afternoon darken outside the drawing-room windows.

‘Christmas should be a happy time,’ said Kitty to Harry as they stood together, looking out. ‘But it makes me feel nostalgic and a little sad for all that we have lost.’
She glanced at her brother, who was struggling to find the words to express his own sense of desolation. ‘You have done the right thing,’ she told him quietly. ‘Hard though it is.
You have saved your family.’ He nodded, straining to hold back his emotion. His face flushed pink and his eyes sparkled but they remained locked, gazing out onto the slate-grey skies and inky
gardens. ‘It will get better, you know,’ she continued. ‘The hurt never goes away, but the sharp pain you feel now will turn into a dull ache. Most of the time you’ll be
able to ignore it. Life has its many distractions, thankfully. Then, suddenly, when you least expect it, something will trigger it again and you’ll be cut to the quick. But you push through
those moments and they eventually pass. I think of Adeline and what she would say. These things are sent to test us, Harry. Life isn’t meant to be easy.’ She looked at him again and his
profile was so grave she wanted to take his hand and squeeze it, but she knew that, for his sake, she couldn’t; her touch would only make him lose control.

The day after Christmas the Ballinakelly Foxhounds gathered on the lawn outside the castle for the Boxing Day Meet. It was a damp day, warm for December. Soft rain floated on the breeze that
carried with it the scent of pine, wet soil and sea. Crows hopped on the grass, pecking the ground for grubs as the horses snorted smoke into the moist air. Women in their navy riding habits and
hats sat side-saddle, except for Kitty who had made a resolution the morning of the fire never to ride like that again. She sat astride her mare in a pair of breeches and navy jacket, a starched
white stock about her neck, her fire-red hair falling in a thick plait down her back, almost reaching her waist. Beside her JP sat confidently on his pony. Almost eight years old he had the bold
grey gaze of his half-sister, Kitty, and the same red hair, but his face was broad and handsome like his father’s, and, to Bertie’s pride, he had already been blooded with his first
kill. Eager to get going JP fidgeted excitedly in the saddle while Robert looked on with their daughter Florence who was afraid of the horses. Peter had persuaded Archie to join the hunt and he sat
awkwardly on his horse, trying not to show his fear. He pulled his silver flask out of his pocket and took a large swig of sloe gin, which didn’t make him feel any better.

Lord Hunt, dashing in his black jacket and tan-topped boots, raised his hat to the Shrubs, who buzzed about his horse’s head like a pair of flies. ‘It’s a fine day for the
chase,’ Ethelred told them jovially. ‘The air is mild. Those hounds will pick up a good scent. I really must find a way to persuade you both to take to the saddle again, if only to see
you in your riding habits and veils.’ He grinned down at them as they elbowed each other to get closer.

Grace looked elegant in her black habit, her pale face half-hidden behind a diaphanous black veil. Her waist was, however, thinner than normal and her mouth, usually so full of sensuality, was
drawn into a hard line. Ever since Michael Doyle had rebuffed her she had felt more keenly than ever the passing of her youth. She lamented that she was no longer the beauty she had once been, for
surely, if she was, Michael would not have been able to resist her. Try as she might, Michael was rarely out of her thoughts and her body still ached for him with every memory of his touch. Dare
she admit, even to herself, that Michael had stolen her heart as well as her desire? She hadn’t taken a lover since and had to endure her husband strutting about with the smugness of a man
who has a pretty woman in every city. She glanced at Sir Ronald, talking to Bertie, astride a horse that looked as if it was buckling beneath his great weight, and felt her irritation rise as he
tossed back his head and laughed heartily.

Celia, who had thrown herself with zeal into the role of Doyenne of Ballinakelly, sat side-saddle in her riding habit, her shiny blonde hair tied into a neat chignon at the back of her neck and
contained within a hair net, a black hat set at a raffish angle on the side of her head. She walked her horse among the riders, greeting everyone with the graciousness of a queen. Bertie,
distinguished in a pink hunting jacket, asked one of the servants passing around glasses of port to give one to Digby, who, he had noticed, was a little off-colour. Leona and Vivien’s
husbands, Bruce and Tarquin, sat solidly in their saddles for they were both accomplished riders in the Army, while their wives, who did not like horses, looked on.

Peter, as the Master of Foxhounds, blew his horn and the hunt was off. The hounds ran ahead, their noses to the ground, eager for the scent of fox. The lawn was suddenly empty but for the crows.
Hazel and Laurel stood forlornly on the terrace. ‘Well, that’s it then,’ said Hazel.

‘Until tea,’ said Laurel.

‘I’m going to go and sit by the fire in the drawing room.’

‘And suffer Augusta? Not for me.’

‘Then what are you going to do, Laurel?’ Hazel asked, put out.

‘I shall find three friends to play a rubber of bridge. I know Robert will join me at the table and I’m sure, with a little coaxing, Leona and Vivien will be game.’

Hazel looked wounded. They had always played bridge together when Adeline and Hubert were alive. ‘Very well,’ she said, lifting her chin bravely. ‘As you wish. And, by the way,
I
like
Augusta.’ The two women walked into the castle together, stinging from their unusual discord.

Harry enjoyed hunting because it forced him into the moment, just as it had done after the war when he had wanted to flee from the after-effects of the brutality he had
witnessed. Now he wanted to lose himself again. He had never liked hunting as a boy for he had been a coward then, but now he relished the speed and rode without a care for his safety, jumping
hedges and fences and streams. The hounds picked up the scent and followed the trail excitedly. Harry galloped at the front, his veins pumping with adrenalin and his heart pounding against his
chest, drowning out his longing for Boysie. In a moment he was beside Kitty, who rode with the fearlessness of a man, and she smiled at him as they took a hawthorn hedge and cleared it with a
thundering of hooves. Brother and sister rode together relishing the danger that put them firmly in the moment, obliterating for a blessed day their impossible loves.

At length Grace, her face splattered with mud and her hair breaking out of the pins, came across a group of local men and boys in fancy dress, wandering slowly along the track that led from
Ballinakelly to other small towns up the coast. With them was a small band and they were singing. She slowed down to a trot until she saw Michael Doyle among the faces and drew her horse to a halt.
A young boy was holding a long stick covered in ribbons with a small bundle hanging off the end of it. She looked at Michael through her veil and he looked right back at her with his black and
steady gaze. ‘Good morning, Mr Doyle,’ she said. Then, dropping her eyes to the child, she asked him what it was that swung from the end of his stick.

‘It’s St Stephen’s Day, milady,’ said the boy, surprised that she didn’t know. ‘This here’s a wren.’

Grace recoiled. ‘A wren? A
dead
wren?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ volunteered one of the men.

‘Why did you kill it?’ she asked, directing her question at Michael, whose head and shoulders rose above the group with an air of authority and importance.

‘There are three stories about the celebration to bury the wren,’ he said. ‘The first is that the wren drew attention to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, which betrayed him
to the Romans. The second is that a wren betrayed the Fenians when it landed on a drum and alerted Cromwell’s army.’ Then the corners of his lips curled into a smile and he looked at
her with more intensity. ‘But there is another story, a legend that tells of Cliona, a temptress, who lured men to their deaths in the sea with her wiles. A charm was discovered that
protected them from her. Her only escape was to turn herself into a wren, to be hunted forever more for her skulduggery.’ He was staring at Grace with a knowing look on his face.

She lifted her chin. ‘Then you’d better be on your way,’ she said, giving her horse a gentle squeeze. The group wandered on down the track, but she called out to Michael.

He hung back until the other wrenboys were out of earshot. ‘Lady Rowan-Hampton?’

‘I am that wren hanging from the stick,’ she said and bit her lip. ‘Your faith is your charm and I am that poor wren.’

‘Grace . . .’

She strained the muscles in her neck to hold back her emotions. ‘You know it is possible to be so heavenly as to be no earthly good, have you thought of that?’

‘Then let it be thus,’ he said.

‘You will come to your senses. I know you will.’

He shook his head. ‘When one has experienced the light, Grace, there’s no going back to the darkness.’

She gave a furious groan, turned her horse roughly and galloped off to catch up with the hunt.

At dusk, when the weak winter sun smouldered through the latticework of trees like a blacksmith’s furnace, the hunt made its way home. They had caught their fox and everyone was high on
the thrill of the chase and the drama of the kill. Archie walked his horse down the hill towards the castle whose windows glowed with the welcoming lights that promised tea and cake and turf fires.
As he approached, the towers and turrets of his home were silhouetted against a clear indigo sky for the wind had blown the clouds inland and sent the drizzle with it. The sight was arresting. He
wanted to stop awhile to savour it before the sun dipped below the horizon and the outline was lost to the dark, but the others were keen to get home to their baths and their tea so he continued,
his shoulders suddenly heavy with the weight of responsibility. Castle Deverill was more than a castle and he knew it. It was at the heart of the Deverill spirit and it was now up to him to keep
that spirit alive. Celia loved the castle but she didn’t understand
why
she loved it. Archie did. He was well aware that it was more than the memory of good times; it was the
Deverills’ very soul.