Legacy of Secrets (13 page)

“Now, Ciel, on the other hand, was a little redheaded mischief-maker with the face of a charming monkey. She had a grin that made everyone else smile and a laugh as loud as a fishwife’s and joyous as a lark’s. Her eyes were gray like her father’s, she was small and freckled and always in trouble. And she adored her sister Lily.

“William was sent away to school in England, and the family divided its time between London, Dublin, and Ardnavarna. Their pa taught the girls to ride as good as any man. Lily took part in her first hunt when she was five years old—riding sidesaddle naturally, and looking delicious in a custom-tailored habit from Busvine’s and perfect little boots made by Peal & Butley, with her curls drawn back in a net and the best bowler hat from Mr. Locke’s in London.

“Anyhow, her father, Lord Molyneux, was a well-padded, handsome, arrogant man. Orders from him were uttered as commands and beware those who obeyed too slowly or, heaven forbid, disobeyed.

“Ciel said he always seemed fond of their mother, Lady Nora, but he was impatient with her delicacy, and he was also impatient with his son. William was a smallish youth, thin and pale, and he always had his nose in a book. He was completely uninterested in his father’s passions:
horses, dogs, hunting, shooting, and fishing, and, as you can imagine, he was a major disappointment to him.

“But Lady Nora was a kind, compassionate woman; if anyone on the estate was sick or in trouble she was the first to know, and she was always there with a basket of food and medicines. Lord Molyneux was proud of the fact that he knew each of his tenants by name, but it was Lady Nora who knew the names of their wives and children.

“Of course, Ciel was much younger than the other two. She was a funny, energetic child, always bouncing around and knocking things over. She was small and amusing, and always in trouble. She knew her father loved her, but there was no doubt Lily was his favorite.

“He had adored Lily since he first saw her in her mother’s arms. She had a shock of black hair and sapphire eyes and a pretty pouting mouth that he said proudly, even as a babe, seemed to smile at him. Growing up, Lily was a daredevil, a tease and a flirt. She could get anything she wanted from her father just by climbing on his knee, linking her small arms around his neck and saying, ‘Oh, please, Pa,
please, please, please.’
And she could get out of any punishment simply by drooping like the flower that was her namesake and allowing the tears to trickle sadly down her small face. He was always ‘Pa’ to her—never Papa like the other children. And she was always his ‘darlin’ girl.’

“Ciel said that in her whole life, Lily never thought of the consequences of any of her actions, though afterward her remorse could be truly terrible. Buckets of tears and howling like a pack of hounds, promising she would never do it—whatever sin
it
was—again. And at the time she meant it.

“Still, Lily adored her darling pa. She loved her brother, too, though she teased the livin’ daylights out of him. And she truly loved her mother and her innocent companion in crime, her little sister Ciel.

“She would do miserable things—snatching William’s silver-rimmed spectacles from his nose when he was engrossed in a book, knowing he could barely see without
them. She would careen around with them temptingly in her hand, dangling them just out of reach, out the window. Inevitably she would drop them, and there they’d be, smashed to smithereens on the gravel below, with her desperately trying to pick up all the pieces, crying she hadn’t meant it, and she would do anything,
anything
to make amends. Later, he would find her favorite book, or one of her little model horses, or a chocolate stuck to his pillow, with a note saying
Sorry.

“She would urge Ciel on to the daredevil exploits she found so easy, like jumping fences. But she didn’t stop to think that they might be too high for Ciel’s small pony, and Ciel fell off and got a concussion. She lay there like a stone with Lily on her knees at her side, keening and praying, making bargains with God the way Ciel said she always did, Saying that if He only let her beloved little sister live, she would never behave in such a stupid fashion again. That it was all her fault and God should take her instead. Naturally, even though she meant it at the time, she knew God never would.

“There were governesses galore, from every part of Europe, but none of them lasted. Lady Nora spent half her time in London interviewing new ones and she said that her terrible children’s exploits were the talk of every drawing room and the bane of her life. Of course, she only half meant it, because she was a gentle, loving woman who adored her strong-willed offspring.

“Ciel said it was truly awful, the things they did to those governesses, simply because they knew if they were bad enough the poor women would be forced to leave, and then they would be free of lessons and discipline again until their desperate mother could find someone else to take her place. They put hedgehogs in their beds and mice in their milk and spiders on their pillows. They rigged ropes across the gallery to trip them and put roller skates on the polished floors where they would slip on them. And Lily always managed to get Ciel to do the dirty work so she
could say innocently, ‘But Mama, I never knew anything about it. I can’t imagine how it happened.’

“Everyone for miles around knew Lily. The servants carried back tales of her latest exploits and the men laughed over them in the shebeen, and the women gathered around their hearths to gossip about her. To them, Lily was like a movie star would be now. She was beautiful and titled and rich, but she never talked down to them. She had charm, vitality, and an impulsive, reckless nature. She was always game for a dare and even if she was a mite too proud of her name and had the arrogance of her position as Lord Molyneux’s daughter, she was never mean.

“Ciel said Lily was always kind to the village children. She never talked down to them and she would give them rides on her pony, and old sticky toffees covered in bits of fluff from her pocket. They adored her and would boast of her attentions for weeks. And she always went willingly with her mother to distribute medicines, or clothes and food to the poorest and most needy. Once she ran to her pa and told him desperately she wanted to sell her favorite horse and give the money to a poor homeless family she had encountered on her ride: a young man, his wife and baby, and two other small children. The man had lost his job and they had been wandering from place to place searching for work, sleeping rough in the hedgerows, rain and shine. Lily had galloped home and raided the kitchen for food for them. And that night, unable to forget the sad-faced children, she confronted her father. He looked at her proudly and said there was no need for her selfless offer and the next day the poor family had a new cottage and the man had a job as a gardener and the woman as a laundress.

“Naturally, Lily took the difference in her circumstances for granted; that was just the way it was. And giddy and wild though she was, as well as a terrible tease, she was also her mother’s daughter, warm, tenderhearted, and easily touched.

“But, for any governesses that stayed the course, Lily was as elusive as the breeze. She was up and out at dawn,
before they had even opened their eyes. Off to the stables and galloping away to the strand with Finn O’Keeffe.”

I
PAUSED AND GLANCED
at my listeners. Their eyes were bright with interest, but it had been a long day and my age was beginning to tell on me. I decided I must go to bed and continue the next evening. “So now you know the background,” I told my disappointed new friends. “And tomorrow, after dinner, I promise you will get to know Lily. And Finn.”

And, leaving them dangling in suspense, I kissed them good night and drifted, joints creaking like the stairs, up to my bed.

E
DDIE
S
HERIDAN THREW ANOTHER
log on the fire and turned to look at Shannon, curled up in a frayed armchair. One of the dalmatians had left Maudie and sneaked shamefacedly back downstairs to sit at Shannon’s feet.

“Traitor,” he said, grinning.

She smiled. “He just likes company, I guess.”

Her face was pale and there were shadows under her beautiful dark-lashed light gray eyes. The lamplight behind her head made a halo of her red hair and she looked slender and frail in her long black dress. A sorrowful daughter in mourning for her father, he thought, remembering the headlines and the news reports. He said, “The last few months must have been really tough.”

She nodded. “But Dad always said the Keeffes would survive, so I can’t let him down now. Can I?”

They fell silent, gazing at the sparking log in the grate. Then he said, “Why did you think we had met before?”

Simultaneously she asked, “Why are you here?”

They laughed and Shannon said, “I own the cottage next door to the white house on Nantucket.”

He shrugged. “No one has lived there for years. We only visited occasionally when we were kids. I grew up in California and we didn’t come East that often. And later I was just too busy in college, first at Berkeley, then Yale Drama School. I guess I’m following in my great-grandfather, Ned Sheridan’s, footsteps.”

“You are the image of him.” She blushed, embarrassed. “I’ve a confession to make. I took a look around the house. The door was open—and well, I just couldn’t resist. I stole his photograph. I have it now. Maybe I should give it back to you? After all, you are its rightful owner. Anyhow, that’s why I knew you—I thought you were a ghost!”

He laughed. “So we are here for the same reason, to find out about Lily and Ned?”

“And to find out who murdered my father.”

He stared at her, stunned. “I know you mean what you say, but is that possible? That he was murdered?”

“I think he was, but no one believes me. Except maybe Maudie and Brigid. And anyway, why are
you
so curious about Lily?”

“I guess because she’s always been there, lurking in the background of the family conversation, like a skeleton in the closet. Anyway, I’m here to set the old rumors finally to rest.”

“You mean the rumor that Lily ruined him?”

“Among other things.” He leaned back against the sofa cushions, his hands behind his head, thinking. “The reason I always wanted to be an actor was because of the stories my grandfather used to tell me about Ned Sheridan. About how powerful and moving an actor he was. Gramps said he could hold an audience with just a movement or a glance, he could have them in tears one minute and in an uproar of laughter the next. He was a star, with his name up in lights on Broadway. But it had taken him years of playing the circuits in dusty little theaters in every one-horse town across America to get there. He met his wife in one of them. My great-grandmother, Juliet.

“She wasn’t pretty—I’ve seen photographs—but Gramps told me she walked proud and flashed her enormous dark eyes; and onstage, she just transformed herself into a great beauty almost by an act of will. She was an actress in the
grand
tradition of Bernhardt and Ellen Terry, and Ned was the Olivier of the circuits, and both of them
had voices that could mesmerize an audience. ‘They had
music
in their voices,’ Gramps used to say.”

“I saw the posters,” Shannon said guiltily, “hanging on the wall at the white house.”

He laughed. “That’s okay. I’m sure old Ned wouldn’t have minded. Anyhow, the Sheridans were famous for almost two decades around the beginning of the century. I have all Ned’s treasures: the stage clothes and props, the thigh boots and cavalier’s plumed hat and sword from
Monte Cristo,
his doublet and hose from
Romeo,
her uniform from
Major Barbara.
And I pored for hours over those old playbills with their names above the title and twice as big. They played anything and everything. My grandfather said Ned always had a short attention span and when he went on tour he put his players through hell, a different play every three nights, a different theater every week. Travel on Sunday, open Monday night.”

Eddie sighed regretfully, smiling across at Shannon. “Those were the days, at least for theater. Sometimes I think maybe I’ve been born in the wrong era, that I should have been around when great-grandfather Ned was.

“Anyhow, Gramps was their only son and he hated the life. He never wanted to be like them. He said it was all magic onstage, but off it was all traveling and turmoil, and fights with agents and managers and the other actors. He wanted none of it. All
he
wanted was a proper home of their own, one place where they all stayed together. And sure enough, later they got it. Two in fact. A lavish house on Long Island that became an extension of the theater: same people, same turmoil, same fights. And the white house at ’Sconset where Ned and his friends relaxed and had a good time.

“Gramps wanted Ned to have a normal job like the other kids’ fathers. He would have liked him to be a banker or a stockbroker, though I think he could have settled for a plumber, just so long as they had a regular life. I guess he was a boring kid for two such artistic people to have, but those are the breaks. He was happiest when they
sent him off to prep school. He said at last he felt like the other boys. Except his parents were ‘stars,’ of course. Funny, he could never understand why the other kids were so in awe of them. He thought their life was boring: all those trains and waiting around in cold theaters.