House of Memories (18 page)

Tom, who in the light of day looked far bigger and stronger, began to extol the virtues of the table, but Kate dismissed all his sales talk and demanded a price. When she finally extracted it from him, she haggled for so long that Nora began to feel sorry for the poor man. She whispered to Danny, “I’d come to his rescue, but Kate would throttle me afterwards.”

“She surely would,” he agreed. “Better to keep your head down and your mouth shut.”

Anticipating a purchase, Kate had brought Bill’s red van and they loaded up the table, but she made no comment as to
where she intended to take it.

As Kate drove into Furze Hill, Nora wished that she could see Danny’s face, but he was in the back of the van with the table. Without consultation, Kate directed them into the front hall and told them exactly where to put the table. Danny’s face was inscrutable and he said nothing. The table was perfect. Even in its dusty state it still looked good.

“It blends in with the cobwebs,” Nora smiled.

“That table was made for this house,” Kate declared. Turning to a silent Danny, she told him, “It’s a Phelan gift for Furze Hill. The first step. This house must be furnished slowly and the right pieces picked up carefully over the years. Mary can do the auction rooms along the quays in Dublin. They always have great stuff.”

When Kate got going it was hard to put a stop to her gallop, and Nora looked at her in admiration. But Danny was not going to be swept along by her.

“Kate, I can’t afford furniture, and the house will have to wait,” he told her firmly.

“It costs nothing to be on the lookout,” she informed him.

Danny walked with them to the car and handed Kate a small grubby book.

“What’s that?” she asked curiously.

“Nana Molly’s diary,” he told her.

“Did she keep a diary?” Nora asked in surprise.

“Jack was the only one I ever heard mention the diaries,” Kate told her. “He said that Molly kept one all her life but that when she died Rory burnt the most of them. This must be an earlier one that she had hidden away.”

“God, Jack knew everything,” Nora sighed.

“But why are you giving it to me?” Kate asked Danny.

“You’ll know when you read it,” he said evenly, walking back to the house.

“Let’s go to Jack’s cottage and read it,” Nora said excitedly as they got into the car.

“I suppose we could,” Kate said slowly.

As they drove along, Nora remembered that she had not been into Jack’s since he died, and she did not like the prospect of going in now either.

“Kate,” she began hesitantly, “I haven’t been back to the cottage since, you know …”

“Well, maybe this is as good a time as any,” Kate told her gently.

Toby went mad with delight when he saw them. Nora grabbed him up and hugged him, and then he jumped out of her arms and ran ahead of them in the path.

“He’s welcoming us in,” Kate smiled.

When they opened the door of the cottage, the fire was lighting and everything was just as Jack had left it. If I closed my eyes, Nora thought, I could almost convince myself that he is gone out to close the hens. She had to fight back the tears at the thought that he would never again be here. Toby settled himself by the fire, and when she sat in Jack’s chair, he jumped on to her lap. Kate sat in the rocking chair and they were both silent, looking into the fire.

“He always said that he could think best looking into the fire,” Kate said quietly.

“It’s fierce hard without him,” Nora said grimly, “and the cottage is like a dead place.”

“How would you feel about someone else living here?” Kate asked tentatively.

“Like who?” Nora demanded in alarm, wondering what Kate was up to now.

“Bill Brady.”

It would be hard to get used to someone else in Jack’s cottage, but if there had to be somebody Bill Brady would be the best, and it would put an end to Rosie and Peter using it.

“Well, he’d be fine,” she said in a relieved voice, “and he’d be very good to Toby.”

“That was one of the reasons that I decided on him,” Kate admitted

“Well, Jack would have considered that a good enough reason,” Nora agreed.

As they sat in silence, she became aware that there was something different about the sounds of the cottage: the clock was not ticking.

“Jack never forgot to wind the clock.”

“Jack kept letters in there,” Kate said to her surprise.

“What a strange place to put them.”

“Will we read this now?” Kate said, taking the little book out of her pocket and looking at it nervously. “Let’s go over to the table and look at it together.”

As they sat at the table with the book between them, Kate was reluctant to open it. She stroked it with her hand. Nora felt that she was almost afraid of the diary.

“Kate,” she asked carefully, “what are you so nervous about?”

“I’m not sure,” Kate admitted, “but old Molly Barry once hinted about dark secrets in our past.”

“But what could they be?” Nora asked in alarm.

“We’ll probably find that out now,” Kate told her.

The writing was scrawling and faded but still legible, and the first few pages were full of a young girl’s discontent at the inactivity of her life. Nora could identify with her. Molly Barry, she calculated from the date at the front, must have been the same age as she was now when she wrote this diary. She wanted to confirm that with Kate, but Kate was so completely engrossed that she was reluctant to interrupt. They both read silently, and she knew that Kate was reading ahead of her, but Kate waited wordlessly for her to catch up and then carefully turned the page. Then she heard Kate’s sharp intake of breath. When she came on the name Emily she knew why. This was Jack’s mother. When she read on and discovered the connection with old Edward Phelan, her own interest increased, and as she continued to read her interest turned to excitement. Then came the entry, “Emily is expecting a baby and only herself, myself and Edward know the truth.” Nora’s mouth went dry with the shock. Could it mean what she thought it meant? She felt Kate stiffen beside her. She was trembling with anticipation as Kate flicked forward through the pages looking for another mention of Emily and Edward, but there was no more reference to them.

Then they went back carefully over what they had already read. That last entry could only mean one thing. A tide of excitement spread over Nora, but could it really be true? What if she was wrong? She was almost afraid to break the silence and ask the question, but she just had to.

“Kate,” she asked breathlessly, “was Jack one of us?”

A pale-faced Kate looked at her in disbelief.

“Doesn’t it read that way?” she asked.

“If it is true,” Nora wondered, “could he have known?”

“I’ve no idea,” Kate answered slowly.

“It would be such a pity if it is the case that Jack died without knowing.”

“It would,” Kate agreed, “and now we might never be sure either.”

They went back over the diary, but the diary had no more to tell.

With a thoughtful look on her face, Kate got slowly to her feet and went over to the clock and, to Nora’s amazement, brought out a dusty bundle of letters yellowed with age. She put them on the table, and Nora looked at them in awe. They were ancient.

“In the name of God, Kate,” she demanded, “where did these come from?”

“I found them in Jack’s clock the night of the funeral,” Kate told her, “and there are more in Emily’s linen press.” She went down into the parlour and came back with a little box.

“But whose are they?” Nora asked, feeling her mouth go dry with excitement.

“Edward Phelan’s, your great-grandfather and my grandfather, and I’d say that they were to Emily. Maybe the answer is in these.”

Kate took the letters out of the flat box. Nora looked at them and understood now why Kate had been nervous opening the diary. Kate undid the blue ribbon, and when the letters came loose she gave a gasp of dismay. Behind the old letters was a new clean envelope.

“Oh, my God,” Kate said faintly, “this is Jack’s writing.”

On the plain white envelope was Kate’s name in Jack’s perfectly formed, strong writing. Nora thought that her heart
would stop. She had a strange feeling that Jack had come into the kitchen and was here with them. With trembling fingers, Kate eased the letter out of the envelope and laid it flat on the table. Kate started to read aloud in a strained voice.

The Cottage

Mossgrove

7th May 1961

Dear Kate,

As you know, I have a dodgy heart, so any day I might embark on the great journey. There are certain things that I want you to know if that happens before the time is right to tell you this myself. You may or may not have read the other letters before you read this, but knowing you it will be this one first. These are the love letters between my mother and your grandfather. I discovered them when I knocked down the wall between the two bedrooms last year. They were in a small wall press that had been wallpapered over for years. They were put away carefully in a little box, so I imagine that my mother had intended that one day they would be found. These letters brought me the best news of my life. I am their son. It changed everything, and yet it changed nothing. I had loved the old man like a father, never realising that he was my father. But those letters explained something that had puzzled me for years.

When the old man died, he left me a small legacy in bonds with the specification that the money would never be invested in Mossgrove. We could have done with it there over the years, but my hands were tied. When I read these letters I understood. The legacy was my birthright. He felt that Mossgrove owed me that. I would never have looked at it that way because all of you were dearer to me than myself. I never told anybody about these
letters, but I know Molly Barry knew who I was because she once passed a remark that I did not understand until I read these letters. I never cashed those bonds because I never understood why I got them and never felt entitled them until I found the letters last year.

But now a reason to use them has come up. It haunted the old man all his life that he was the one who introduced Molly Barry to Rory Conway and ruined her life. It was his dearest wish that she would get back into Furze Hill, and that was why he arranged the loan for Rory. When Rory betrayed his trust and bought those other two fields, all hell broke loose. Now that young Danny is restoring Furze Hill, I think that I owe it to my father and your grandfather to put his money into it. When we find the key, which I know we will, I am going to give the money to Danny. If I am gone to join the rest of them, you will be the one to do it. As you know, Kate, all my life I have believed that there was a time for everything. Now the time is here to bring peace to the living and to the dead.

Kate, please know that it was the greatest day of my life to discover that I was bone of your bone and blood of your blood. Please tell Nora and Peter. Danny will need to be told about the money.

God Bless.

Your Uncle Jack.

So it was true. Jack was one of them. They cried quietly for Jack, but as well as sadness there was peace and gratitude.

“It is so good to know that in his last months Jack had been fulfilling his father’s and our grandfather’s wish, and now he is giving us the privilege of finishing what he began,” Kate said thoughtfully. “As he said, the love letters changed everything
and changed nothing. But this letter is going to change everything for Danny and Furze Hill. Both Edward and Rory, in different ways, wronged Molly Barry. Now the two of them are correcting that wrong. The fields that old Rory bought in betrayal of Edward will be used to buy out young Rory. Furze Hill will go back to what Jack called the ‘throwback’ of the Barrys. Edward’s money will restore the house. Jack was right: there is a time for everything, and the time has come.”

They were both startled when the door whipped open suddenly. Sarah Jones breezed in with a welcoming smile on her face, but her expression changed when she saw the book and the letters on the table. She walked over slowly and looked down at the diary.

“This must be Molly Barry’s diary,” she said thoughtfully.

“You knew?” Kate asked, and Nora was not sure if she was referring to the diary or what they had just discovered. But Sarah did not appear to be listening.

“Jack thought that she might have written things down but that Rory could have burned everything,” she said, slowly putting it back on the table, “and, of course, these are the love letters,” she continued, gently touching the faded bundle on the table.

“You knew?” Kate repeated.

“I did,” Sarah told her, drawing up a chair and joining them at the table. Nora held her breath, wondering how much more Sarah could tell them.

“I knew for years. I knew before Jack. He found out last year when the boys knocked down the wall and the hidden press was revealed. I don’t know if he would have told me, but that evening when I came in he was reading the letters. I decided
then that he had a right to know what I knew. As you know, my mother was midwife here before me. She delivered Emily’s baby. That night, in the pangs of childbirth, it was Edward’s name she called out. Her husband was away at sea at the time. The following day Edward called, and my mother said that she knew by his face that it was his baby. She said that Emily and Edward were besotted with each other and were delighted with the baby. As you can imagine, my mother did not approve of the whole situation, but at the same time she told me that she never forgot the scene in the room that day.”

“What a beautiful story,” Nora breathed, looking around in wonder. “It fills this cottage with mystery and intrigue. It makes it a house of memories.”

“Oh to be eighteen and full of romantic ideas,” Sarah told her. “Another thing that you probably do not know was that Emily was a cousin of Molly Barry’s. They had brought her to Furze Hill to keep Molly company.”

“So Jack had connections with both houses,” Kate said in amazement.

“He had indeed,” Sarah said.

Later, after Sarah went home, Kate and Nora sat by the fire and read the love letters. The yellowed bundle from the clock were the letters written to Emily when she was in Furze Hill, and the ones that had come out of the little box were written later, after Jack was born. The earlier ones told of their meetings down by the river and of his life in Mossgrove. Some of them were in answer to letters that Emily had written to him.