Legacy of Secrets (12 page)

“Well, now,” I said approvingly, “don’t you look grand. A bit plain for my taste, girl, but then you are young enough, and beautiful enough to get away with it. I’m like my mother, I always had to layer on the flash to get noticed.”

I saw her staring at my frock and my silver heels, which make my ankles look as fragile as a filly’s, and my pink lipstick that matched, and the diamonds in my freshly fluffed-up curls, so I gave a girlish twirl and said, beaming, “Schiaparelli. 1932. Not bad, is it?”

“Wonderful.” She sounded awed.

“I must have been about your age then. Ah, and hittin’ the high spots I was, in London and Paris. I adored Paris. And clothes. Especially hats. Dearest girl, I would hate even now to tell you how much money I squandered on those frippery bits of net and feathers we wore in the thirties. But they did wonders for a girl’s looks. I have them upstairs still. Remind me to show you later.”

Brigid muttered something under her breath as she stalked past me carrying in a tray of nibbles. “What was that, Brigid?” I called.

“Much good they did you, the hats,” she yelled back scornfully. “Y’should have saved yer money.”

Now, saving money has never been my strong point, and she knew it. I said hastily to Shannon, “Here, girl, make yourself useful, why don’t you. My old arms can still control a fiery hunter, but arthritis is a funny ailment and I find they’re too stiff to shake a proper cocktail anymore.”

She shook the cocktails obediently and I saw her notice there were three glasses—all different because nothing matches anymore—arranged on the tarnished silver tray. “I’m expecting another guest,” I said, just as the stairs creaked. We heard his footsteps in the hall and the drawing room door was thrown open and he walked in.

Shannon stared at him. The cocktail shaker crashed from her hands onto the silver tray, breaking the glasses.

The young man standing in the doorway stared back at her. A tall, handsome young man with silky blond hair.

“Shannon, dear,” I said, ignoring the broken glasses with aristocratic panache, “I would like you to meet Ned Sheridan’s great-grandson Edward Sheridan. Eddie, this is Shannon Keeffe.”

My eyes narrowed as I watched them shake hands, warily sizing each other up. Obviously he knew who she was from all the terrible publicity, and, because he looked so like his ancestor, she thought she was shaking hands with a ghost.

“He’s flesh and blood,” I said with a grin, because I love making mischief. He looked at me puzzled, but I didn’t enlighten him and Shannon glanced accusingly at me.

I tried to look bashful, but I’m no good at it. Instead I laughed. “Isn’t it interesting you should meet here? And for the same reason? You both want to know about Lily.” I poured the amber cocktails into one of the hastily replaced glasses and raised my glass.
“Slàinte,”
I toasted, smiling.

“Slàinte,”
they repeated, sipping cautiously. Shannon coughed as the drink hit the back of her throat, and I quickly admitted, “There’s just a touch of poteen in there, darlin’ girl. To set us up for dinner.”

Eddie Sheridan laughed and I noticed that with every passing minute he was becoming more human and less of a ghost to Shannon.

“Another toast,” I cried, enjoying myself hugely. “Here’s to Lily Molyneux, who has brought us all together.”

Then, with a grand wave of my arm, I shepherded them to the door. “Faithless Brigid’s been tearing around like a tinker’s coat all day in the kitchen, so we’d best go in for dinner before she begins to sulk. And a fine dinner it will be, too, I can promise you that, for whatever else, she’s a marvelous cook.”

I took my place at the head of the magnificent Regency table that had been my great-grandmother’s when she lived here, when it was still the Dower House, long before the Big House was burned, and I thought what a lucky old
trout I was to have two such charming young guests. As I rang the silver bell for Brigid I said mischievously, “I may never let the two of you go. I shall spin you stories of Lily, like Scheherazade, bit by bit so you’ll be condemned to stay at Ardnavarna forever.”

“I can’t imagine a nicer sentence,” Shannon said impulsively.

And of course she was right, because there is nowhere in the world quite like Ardnavarna. I glanced around the dining room. Its shabbiness was softened in the candlelight and a peat fire flickered in the grate, even though the tall windows were still open to the soft night air. And I counted my blessings.

Brigid staggered through the door with a loaded tray. She was wearing her posh “company” uniform: a dark dress and a little white organza apron meant for somebody half her size. She wore short white socks over her black stockings and her tiny feet were encased in little high-heeled lace-up boots. She threw Eddie a scornful glance as he leapt up to help her. “I’ve niver had ter ask anybody to carry a tray fer me yet, let alone a young spalpeen like yerself,” she said, slamming the tray down on the sideboard and trotting back to the kitchen. I sighed. As you may have noticed, Brigid is good at slamming.

I heard Eddie asking Shannon why she wanted to know about Lily and she told him she thought she might be related through her father’s family. “The O’Keeffes.”

“And Eddie thinks he might be related to Lily too,” I said. “Through
his
father’s family.” I beamed at them. I always enjoy making mischief and I was about to drop my second bombshell of the night. “Now, isn’t this going to be interesting? To see which one of you it is, that’s Lily’s heir?”

Their astonished eyes met mine. “Lily’s heir?” they said in chorus.

“Why, yes. Dear me, didn’t I tell you? Lily left a pile of money behind her when she finally went. She didn’t leave it
to my mother, or to me. We had enough then, you see. She left it to her ‘sole and legitimate heir.’”

“And who was that?” Edward asked.

“Well, of course, that was the mystery. No one ever knew who Lily’s ‘sole and legitimate heir’ was. Or even if she had one. No one really knew anything about Lily, you see. She cut people out of her life the way other people cast out old clothes. But now I’m gettin’ ahead of myself again. If I’m to be your Scheherazade, I’d best begin at the beginning. After dinner though, to be sure.” I smiled craftily at the pair of alert young faces turned toward me. “Well, come on now, darlin’s, enjoy your food,” I told them, knowing I had them in my power.

Afterward, we settled ourselves in front of the drawing room fire. I sat on the sofa, the dogs on either side of me, and looked at the two young people gazing expectantly at me. It had been a long time since I had commanded so much attention and I was enjoying myself hugely. I knew it was mean of me to keep them in suspense, but the truth was I liked their young company. It brought back memories of my own youth and of my mother, sitting on this very sofa, telling me the very same story I was about to tell them now.

Mammie and I were so close, more like sisters than mother and daughter. Oh, how I loved her, and how I mourned her when she died. I ran away to Paris right after the funeral and for more than a year I found myself unable to return. The thought of Ardnavarna without her was unbearable. But when I finally came home again it was as though she were still here. Every time I walked in the gardens, I saw the beauty she had created. The vegetables and fruits she had planted still nurtured me, and her beloved hunter was waiting impatiently in the stables to be ridden again.

But life was never the same without her. Even now, so many years later, I miss her.

I sighed as I kicked off my silver sandals, tucked my feet under me, and began.

“B
EFORE
I
TELL YOU
about Lily, you need to know about the Molyneux family. About how grand we were, so you’ll know how we’ve come down in the world.

“Ardnavarna means ‘the high place with the alder trees.’ My ancestors planted hundreds of them on the hills around the house, all those you see today.

“In the old days people could always tell the importance of a big house by the length of the avenue leading up to it, and the castle was so huge and so grand that half a dozen men were employed full-time to rake the miles of gravel driveways so not a single wheel mark ever showed. A bos’n’s chair swung permanently from the battlements to enable the workers to clean the hundreds of windows. There were forty indoor servants, a lamplighter, a candle-snuffer, girls who did nothing but keep the fires burning in the dozens, maybe hundreds of grates, and a tribe of small boys who kept the coal and peat coming up from the cellars.

“In my great-grandfather’s day there were French chefs and English nannies, Irish nursemaids and German governesses, parlormaids, ladies’ maids, valets, and laundresses, and cooks for the servants’ hall. The footmen wore bottle-green tailcoats and striped black trousers, but the butler had a suit designed especially by my great-great-grandfather and made in Paris, in bright shamrock-green
complete with gold braid. I told you, we Molyneuxes always enjoyed a bit of flash.

“The stables were the thing, of course. They always were, in Irish households. They could easily have accommodated five families and were built of the finest materials. There were dozens of horses and each stall was a model of cleanliness and each horse had his name on a brass name-plate, polished as bright as sunshine, on the door. There were hunters and hackers, carriage horses and the children’s ponies, his lordship’s four matched grays for his personal carriage, and a pair of pacers for her ladyship’s special gig. Lord Molyneux was Hunt Master and the hounds were kept in kennels almost as palatial as the stables.

“As well as Ardnavarna, there was a town house in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, and one in London’s Belgravia, and the family divided its time between them according to the season. They went to all the grand parties and receptions in London, and the levees and dinners and balls given by the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle. And they entertained lavishly at Ardnavarna. Everyone came; their guest book must have read like a who’s who of the era: royalty from half a dozen countries, all the nobility, artists, writers, celebrities. The fishing parties at Ardnavarna were famous, and an invitation much prized.

“Life was very grand then. And even by my own grandfather’s day we were still rich. He was the youngest son and he only inherited the title himself by a series of accidents. His father had died, along with his two daughters, of typhoid on a visit to Italy. Then the eldest son, who had inherited the title, drowned in a boating accident two months after. And so my grandfather, Augustus Molyneux, inherited the lot: the title and the family money and Ardnavarna.”

I stopped to catch my breath, glancing at my young guests. “Tell me if I’m boring you, darlings,” I said half apologetically. “I get so carried away by the old stories, sometimes I feel I’m living them.” I lit a cigarette and
waved away the smoke, bracelets jangling. “Now. Where was I?”

“Your grandfather inherited,” Shannon prompted me eagerly. The cat lying on her lap, shedding hairs all over her best black, stretched and purred. Shannon smiled and I thought that for the first time since she came she did not look tense.

I said, “Let me make it clear that I’m not telling the story of Ireland’s Troubles, it’s not about politics or the tragic brutal history. It’s about the Molyneuxes and the O’Keeffes, and what happened to them.

“Now, August Molyneux moved his widowed mother into this dower house—this very one we are sitting in—and she devoted the rest of her days to developing the gardens. He had already met Nora Westmacott, the only child of a family of minor title with a poor little manor house down in Devon. But Nora Westmacott was pretty and she looked good on his arm, and despite the lure of other girls’ titles and fortunes August Molyneux chose her, and they were married three months later.

“Nora had black hair and pale skin and she was delicate. She gave birth to two stillborn children before William was born in 1866. And then, a year later, in 1867, a girl was born.

“The legend is that Nora took one look at her child and she was so overwhelmed by the baby’s innocence and beauty, she named her for the purest of flowers, the lily.

“Then, seven long years after that momentous occasion, in 1874, when they had all but given up hope, another girl child was born. And this time they said she was named for the beautiful blue spring sky Nora saw outside her window as she emerged from two days of crucifying labor—
le Ciel.

“And, of course, it is Ciel’s—my own mother’s—memories I’m telling you now. Just as she told them to me, though with maybe a bit of my own imagination thrown in when it comes to who said what to whom.” I laughed, knowing that my fertile imagination was more than capable of filling any gaps.

“Now, William was a quiet, studious boy. He hated hunting and outdoor pursuits, and it was the tomboy Lily who became her father’s favorite. For seven years, until Ciel came along, she had his love all to herself. Oh, and she was a beauty, a darlin’ little girl, all wind-tossed glossy dark curls and flashing fiery blue eyes—and a temper and sulky tantrums to match. Ciel said nobody could sulk as good as her sister Lily. And her father fell for that pouting lower lip, that stamped little foot in its pretty doeskin button boots, that mutinous shake of the head. And, at just the right moment, the perfect tear trickling down the cheek, the hint of a sob shaking her pretty little shoulders. Lily was expert at twisting her pa around her finger.