Ruby Flynn (33 page)

Mrs McKinnon sounded almost angry as she squeezed her husband’s hand.

‘I cannot tell Jack about any of this, or even about the bottle I found on the nursery floor. It is another dreadful secret Ballyford has heaped upon me. I keep asking myself, is this all my fault? Is it because of Iona?

‘How can it be? You mustn’t talk lie this. You are just upset.’ Mr McKinnon would have said and done anything to make his wife feel better.

‘I kept back the note and the clothes that Iona arrived in, you didn’t know. I stored them away in a secret place where they could never be found. I thought that maybe one day they would be a clue as to where she came from and even who her mother may have been. I thought that Iona would find her way back here to us, to me, the only mother she had known and when she did, she would know that I had kept her in my heart and always held onto those precious clothes she arrived in.’

‘I loved her too,’ Mr McKinnon whispered. ‘When the old lord banished her I kept strong for your sake, but it killed me inside too.’

‘I knew that, I could tell. Now I’m asking myself, is it me who has brought all this bad luck upon us, having brought Ruby here and keeping Iona’s clothes? Is it my fault, for holding onto that box, is it cursed? They all whisper and talk about a curse on the castle, down in the cottages. God knows, every time one of the little ones died, they all started up again.’

Mr McKinnon shook his head. ‘No, it is not your fault and it never, not in million years, could be. You did what you did out of love and grief and no bad can come from that. Don’t let me hear you say that ever again. You must not look for ways to blame yourself.

‘Lord Charles is a broken man,’ he added. ‘I shall not be telling him any of this. He will return to Liverpool, to his big ship and his smart new company and Ballyford will be forgotten. I have no idea what is to happen to the tenants, the farms, the pigs, or indeed, what is to happen to us all? The shipping company is his life now. It will be his salvation and we must ask ourselves, what will be ours?’

The news broke on the BBC World Service.

The recently launched Liverpool to New York passenger liner, the
Marianna
, today developed an unexplained and severe list at 16.40 local time. The captain, Yannis Theopolis, displayed outstanding seamanship in taking the difficult and brave decision to send out a May Day signal to the
Cotopaxi
, which was sailing close behind. All passengers disembarked safely onto the passing ship. The crew have been commended for their swiftness and skill in coming to the aid of the troubled
Marianna
.

The captain was the last to leave his ship after ensuring that all passengers and crew had safely disembarked. The handling of the crisis has been described as exemplary.

Nicholas Nathan leaned across his desk and switched off the transistor radio. Picking up the receiver from the phone on his desk he made one brief call before leaving his office.

‘Get a message to him, the deed is done.’

Then, lifting his bowler hat from the stand, he picked up his umbrella and brown leather case and headed out of the door to the Carlton Club, for his six o’clock gin and tonic. He wished Rory hadn’t complained so much about attending both funerals. ‘Standards, dear boy,’ he had told him. ‘Everything as normal. Get away as quickly as you can but you must keep up appearances until you hear otherwise.’ Rory had pleaded every excuse under the book not to go. He claimed he was too upset. That his heart was breaking and the effort of keeping up appearances in front of his wife as his heart bled for woman he now claimed to have loved would kill him. That man really had no morals.

‘Business as usual, business as usual,’ he muttered to himself as he strode through St James’s Park.

*

Mr McKinnon sat at the head of the table with Mrs McKinnon, Ruby, Jane, Betsy and Lottie and the remainder of the staff all sat around as he made his announcement. Lottie had wanted to remain at the castle, reluctant to leave Ruby and had been set free from her obligation to the hotel by Tony, who was delighted that she was stepping into Amy’s shoes. Within hours, she had slipped seamlessly into the role.

‘It would appear he has lost everything,’ said Mr McKinnon in a sombre voice. ‘The insurance company will pay the salvage company for the ship, but by the time it has all been accounted for, there will be heavy losses for Lord Charles. I am to collect the solicitor from Dublin in the morning, but apparently the company had been placed under the sole ownership of Rory Doyle. A great deal of money has gone missing. However, it appears that all the paperwork is in order and because there is no record of anyone other than Rory Doyle signing for the new ship, all the salvage money goes to him, one would imagine. He mysteriously handed the salvage company over to his wife and son when he joined Lord Charles. The bank account for the shipping company was even in his name. The police will investigate and I imagine that little thief Doyle will probably get away with it, because he always does. It stinks to high heaven.’

‘Merciful God,’ said Betsy. ‘What will happen to our Lord Charles now? What will happen to Ballyford and all of us?’

‘I have no idea, Betsy and until I do, we shall all carry on as normal. Lord Charles will need us now more than ever. Everyone should move about the castle in silence. Do not disturb him. He is a man who has much to think about.’

At that instruction, Ruby’s heart sank. All she had thought about and wanted to do for days was to take him into her arms and soothe away some of the pain etched on his face. To ease the loneliness in his eyes and to let him know, they were all there for him. He was at the centre of their world and yet, she knew, he had no notion they even existed, so far had he sunk into the depths of his own despair.

The flat-bottomed cumulus clouds were like excited ladies in crinolines, dancing across the freshly washed sky. Slate grey rocks jutted out from the shoreline, strewn in seaweed and kelp, like the discarded silk stockings of invisible bathers, until the tide returned to reclaim what it owned.

He had left Ballyford, walked out of the front door and down the steps and had continued walking until the waves, lapping at his feet, forced him to stop.

This was where he wanted to be and yet he knew that he did not possess the courage to walk into the ocean and disappear.

He looked out across the bay.

‘God in heaven, help me,’ he cried.

He looked up to the sky, as though searching for an answer, for anything, but all he found was a lone white seagull, circling overhead.

The conversation with his solicitor had been worse than any nightmare, worse than anything he could have ever predicted.

‘It would appear there is nothing legally we can do,’ his father’s lawyer in Dublin had told him. ‘Unless Rory Doyle decides to make a gesture as an act of goodwill.’

Charles’s head spun. He had been duped by a man he had known all his life. A man he had regarded as a brother. The insurance company would hold their own investigation but under a threat of legal action from Rory Doyle, they would pay out without too much delay. The captain of the ship had acted in an exemplary manner. The entire rescue had been faultless. No one could have done more to ensure that the lives of the passengers were always put first.

‘No one even wants to consider the liability, if lives had been lost,’ Nathan had said to him. ‘We all remember the
Titanic
. It wasn’t that long ago.’

For Charles it was as if people were speaking in a foreign language and he was unable to comprehend a single word.

The facts were impatiently tapping at his brain, demanding entry, but his mind had entered a state of self-preservation.

Your wife is dead. Your children are dead. Your cook is dead. The man you thought was your friend was your jealous enemy. You have lost your integrity, credibility and all of your money. You are not who you once thought yourself to be. You may even have lost Ballyford. You are a fool. You are not the person anyone believes you to be.

One at a time, his brain allowed the facts to be absorbed as Charles struggled to accept the abuse of his trust. One thought however, consumed him. It was a thought he now allowed some room. It would be better to be dead than to face it all.

A watery grave, a cold dark depth in which to sleep, forever, that would be welcome. Icy water lapped at his bare feet and the shock of it felt like a chilled balm on sun-scorched skin.

He looked out across the silver shimmer of water, fixing his eyes on the frothing white breakers on the horizon. A bird dipped down then soared high with a catch wriggling in its beak. The gull screeched as the fish slipped and returned to the safe depths of the ocean.

‘I can do that,’ whispered Charles. ‘If a fish can do it, so can I.’

Ruby came into his mind. He felt so far away from her. He knew nothing of her life and yet he felt as though he knew everything there was to know. She would be the only person who could understand his loss. The only person who had lost as much as he had.

He thought of Ruby and fell to his knees in the sand. Lost. When the tide came in, he would sit and let it take him too.

*

McKinnon ran into the kitchen.

‘Has anyone seen Lord Charles?’ he asked urgently. ‘He’s not in his study and I have to leave to collect the solicitor from the station at Galway.’

Mrs McKinnon was organizing the girls from the farms to help clear up the fire damage. A reformed and pleasant Jane was helping her, still displaying the gentle and caring side to her nature, never before seen. Lottie was baking and preparing lunch for when the solicitor and his clerk arrived. Mary, who had spoken very little since the night of the fire, was helping her and under Lottie’s tender care was improving a little each day. Betsy was supervising Jimmy as they polished the silver cutlery together.

‘We must keep up appearances,’ Mrs McKinnon had said at least a dozen times. ‘Neither Amy nor Lady Isobel would want things to slip. Could you imagine?’

Ruby couldn’t.

‘No, no one has seen him down here.’ Ruby’s head had shot up. She had made excuse after excuse to wander up to the first floor to find him, to reassure herself that he was not in a bad way. She had known he was in his study, but she had no reason to enter. Only Betsy had access to his rooms and now that she had no need to be in the nursery, she spent her time helping Lottie downstairs in the kitchen.

‘Go and look for him, will you, check that he has remembered the solicitor is coming. There is no saying where his head is these days,’ Mr McKinnon said. ‘I have to leave now, or I will be later than I meant to be.’

Ruby dried her hands on her apron as she untied the bow and threw it over the chair. She replaced it with Mrs McKinnon’s shawl, which she wrapped around her shoulders before she ran out of the back door. Her steps were guided by instinct and her thoughts by despair. She knew exactly where he would be, even though she couldn’t explain why, not even to herself, as she ran down the front lawn as fast as her feet would take her and out onto the road.

*

He didn’t hear her footsteps in the sand, or her voice when she whispered his name. It was only when she put a hand on his shoulder that he looked up in surprise.

‘Ruby, ah Ruby,’ he said and then looked back out towards the ocean, drifting away to some place where she did not exist.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, tucking her skirt in behind her knees and sitting down next to him.

He turned to face her. ‘What am I doing?’ He repeated the question. ‘What am I doing? I don’t know. I don’t think I have ever known, Ruby. Everything I touch becomes a disaster. I have almost nothing left. I am no one. I am not the person I thought I was or who I am supposed to be. I am no one and someone who is no one, doesn’t
do
anything.’

Ruby gazed at his profile. At the skin, stretched tight across his cheekbones, at the stubble, which made him look gaunt. She had no idea what to say and so she listened with patience while he continued.

‘I am not the person anyone thought I was. The staff in Liverpool, they thought I was someone they could depend on, who was smart and careful, who would look after them. The solicitor from Liverpool is arriving today and I know he will tell me that the office has been closed down because I no longer have a company. Rory Doyle has already sold what I had out from under me and not even paid the staff their wages due, and that I find harder to bear than losing my own business, having let others down.’

Ruby watched as a tear slowly trickled down his face. She imagined the salty taste on her lips and she wanted to wipe the tear away and hug him to her.

The moment was surreal. She did not feel deferential. Ruby felt, and indeed had always felt, his equal.

She put her hand to her eyes and squinted. On the horizon, she saw a boat.

‘It’s a trawler, returning to Belmullet,’ Charles said.

Ruby nodded. ‘With the Dublin Bay prawns?’

‘No, they come from Dublin.’

Ruby blushed. ‘I’m an eejit, I am,’ she said.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘There is only one eejit at Ballyford and that’s me.’

The sand beneath her was firm and her heart beat steadily in time to the gentle rhythm of the waves, but she felt the axis of her world shift when without any warning he asked, ‘Would you like me to tell you about Iona, your mother?’

*

It took Charles two hours to tell the story, and he missed nothing out.

He told Ruby about the baby in the stable and the note, which tore his grandfather’s heart in two.

‘My father, you see, his son, he thought the castle was cursed. He had heard himself from the storyteller when he was just a boy, that as soon as a daughter was born in the line of descent from the famine girl, Eilinora, she would arrive in the stables at Ballyford. He also knew about the curse and and he wanted Ballyford purged. It was something to do with my ancestor Lord Owen. I didn’t know this until recently. It was Miss McAndrew who told me the full story. She said that as Iona had been banished, there was nothing she could do to break a curse as old and as powerful as it was and so I decided on that day, there would be no more children born to Ballyford. The castle, it can crumble and die and me with it.