Legacy of Secrets (66 page)

I admit to a little sulk and maybe a bit too much champagne, and was it entirely my fault that later, on her way back down the gangplank, she should “accidentally” slip and fall, plop, into the rather tired waters of the port? We gathered at the rail to watch as her escort dived in to rescue her, though she could have swam perfectly well if she hadn’t been so angry, and I was satisfied to see that she didn’t look nearly so gorgeous with her mascara sliding down her face, spitting old cigarette butts from her pouting little mouth.

But there’s a happy ending to this little saga; a year later I read about her marriage to a racing car driver she had met at a disco, the son of a German tycoon, and she ended up as grand a lady as they’ve ever seen in Munich, complete with Bavarian castles and a yacht of her own. She had four beautiful children and became quite well known for her charity work, especially for underprivileged girls.

Eddie laughed so hard at my little story that he almost fell into the bay himself, but I can be forgiven anything because I am a woman, and old.

There was nothing on our fishing lines, so we lazed about, admiring the scenery and the distant glimpse of Ardnavarna through the trees, and it was odd seeing the strand from the water instead of as we usually did from horseback as we galloped along it.

“If you are bored,” I suggested, “I can tell you what Lily did next.”

Shannon sat up. “I’m not bored,” she said eagerly, “but I can’t wait to hear. I mean, did she see Finn again? And what about Ciel?”

“All in good time,” I said, holding up a restraining hand and admiring my new coral nail polish.

“Well, now,” I said. “Lily adored that son of hers and she nearly smothered him with affection and mothering. He was a nice little boy, if a little subdued, and he was handsome in rather a delicate sort of way. And you have to wonder if he really was that delicate or if that was the way she liked it to be, because it meant she kept him to herself.
She devoted her days to him, always looking to the future, planning his schooling, and of course there was no question but that he would go to Harvard. Even so, one small boy was not enough to fill a woman’s daily life, and especially those long nights, and Lily was lonely. And she was also filled with guilt.

“In an effort to redeem herself, in her own eyes as well as the Lord’s, she took up her charity again. Remember the Porter Adams ten thousand a year for the benefit of poor Irishwomen in the North End? Well, she contributed a lot more, and this time, with memories of her mother taking baskets of food to the sick and needy, she put on a plain simple dress and went to work, visiting hospitals and schools and soup kitchens, deciding for herself how the monies from her charity should be distributed. And the Irish people liked her; she was a grand lady and they knew it, but she gave herself no airs, and she understood them. Education was her priority because she knew without it those ragged ghetto children were as doomed as their parents. And she brought in teachers, endowed scholarships, and she counted it a personal achievement whenever one of ‘her children’ made it through school into college.”

S
TIFLED BY
B
OSTON’S SUMMER HEAT,
Lily bought a country mansion on the northern shores of Long Island in an area near Manhasset known as the “Irish Channel” because so many rich Irishmen maintained estates there. She named it Adams Farm and she moved there with Liam and her staff and began to entertain her neighbors.

Of course it wasn’t a proper “farm”; there was a chicken coop somewhere on the edge of their fifty acres for fresh eggs, and there was a donkey in the paddock to keep Liam’s pony company, and to her joy she finally had stables again and she stocked them with the finest horseflesh the Adams money could buy. She rode across her acres with
six-year-old Liam at her side on his pony, and she felt happy again, and free. But she never allowed herself to forget Finn’s threat.

She was in her early thirties and still beautiful; she was always perfectly turned out, whether it was for a ride through the woods or a grand dinner, and when she entertained she was the perfect hostess.

She read in the
Boston Herald
that Dan had sold his house in Back Bay and had built himself a mansion outside Washington, in Maryland. They said it was a miniature White House, and that Dan was running for the senate. They also said that he was often confined to a wheelchair these days, from the old injury to his back. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered that fateful night, and as always she wished she could turn back the clock. She remembered her exasperated mother telling her again and again: “If only, Lily, if only,” she would say. “Those words are the story of your life. When will you ever learn there is no such thing as ‘If only’? You did what you did and it’s your own fault.” And she thought sadly that when she died, the words “If only” should be carved on her gravestone.

They were back in Boston when she was surprised one evening to hear the doorbell ring. She was in her little sitting room upstairs working on a piece of needlepoint, trying to fill in her time, the way she filled the canvas with colored wools. Liam was getting ready for bed and she would go to kiss him good night, and then she would be alone again in the big silent house until another lonely morning dawned.

The parlormaid came and told her there was a young man to see her. He looked “rough,” she said nervously, so she had left him outside on the steps. “He says his name is John Wesley Sheridan, ma’am,” she added.

“Sheridan?” Lily repeated, shocked.

“He’s a big lad, ma’am, about sixteen years old, I’d say.”

Lily knew her worst nightmare had come true. Her son had come to find her. She ran to the window and peered into the street, but there was no sign of him.

Frightened, she told herself that the boy had nothing to do with her. He had no part in her life. He was in the past. A picture of Dermot Hathaway’s ruthless face swam before her eyes and she remembered his body on hers, his cruel hands and the pain and the humiliation. She wanted to scream. She told herself again that the product of such a union had no right to a mother. “Tell the boy I do not know who he is and I will not see him,” she told the maid.

Her voice trembled and the maid glanced worriedly at her.

“Just tell him what I said,” Lily hissed, “and see that he goes or I shall send for the police and have him arrested.”

The girl scuttled, terrified, from the room, onto the first floor landing.

Liam was leaning over the banister looking down at the hall. “Who is that fellow down there?” he asked curiously.

Boy Sheridan was there, staring up at them. He had let himself in, even though the maid had asked him to wait outside, and she quickly ran down the stairs afraid he meant to steal something. Liam followed her. Boy waited, a strange little smile on his lips.

He stared at Liam. “Who are you?” he asked roughly.

“I’m Liam Porter Adams. And who are you?”

“Porter Adams, eh?” The boy strolled casually through the hall, peeking in the library, noting the rich furnishings and the expensive treasures. “So, all this is yours, is it?”

Liam nodded, puzzled. “I guess so.”

“Madam says she doesn’t know you and you are to leave at once or she will send for the police,” the maid said frantically. He was a big lad and there was a look in his eyes that frightened her. “You shouldn’t be in here,” she added nervously. “I’m going to tell madam to call the police right now.”

He shrugged indifferently, staring at Liam, the son who had it all while he had nothing. “Just tell her she knows me all right. And that I’ll be back,” he said, strolling to the door. He turned and grinned at Liam. “Good-bye, brother,” he called as he left.

Liam ran upstairs to tell his mother. She was standing at the window watching Boy Sheridan walk away down the street. Liam told her what the strange fellow in their hall had said, and she sent him quickly to bed. And then, sick with fear, she telephoned Ned.

She told him what had happened and that she had decided to leave Boston in case he came back. “I’ll take Liam to New York,” she said. “I’ll be at the usual hotel.”

Ned called Nantucket to find out what had happened. His mother told him there had been some new trouble and Boy had been accused of beating up another lad, badly enough for him to be hospitalized. He was always restless and angry and he wanted to get off the island. He had disappeared, taking fifty dollars of Mr. Sheridan’s money with him, and they didn’t know where he was, but somehow they knew he wasn’t coming back.

“All these years they’ve cared for him,” Ned said sadly, “and he repays them like this.”

“We all did our best,” Lily replied angrily. “What he
is
has nothing to do with them, or with me.”

S
HE BOUGHT A SMALL TOWN HOUSE
on Sutton Place with views of the East River, and she enrolled Liam in a good private day school until he was old enough for St. Paul’s. It occurred to her, with a tiny buzz of fear, that she was in the same city as Finn. But she thought that since the new friends she would make through Ned would be in the theater world and the opera, of which she intended to become a patron, it would be unlikely that their paths would cross. But she couldn’t help wondering about him; what he was like now, whether he was married. And if he had forgotten her.

CIEL
M
OLYNEUX’S FRIENDS WERE PUZZLED
as to why she was on the shelf. After all, she was attractive and vital, witty, charming, and full of fun and, despite her father’s lapse into gambling before he died, she was still rich.

Yet the years went by and though she went to all the parties and knew “everyone,” she still had not married.

“It’s her own choosing,” the gossips said, because they knew all her friends adored her and so did the men, who found her less of a challenge and a lot more fun than some of the famous “beauties.”

Ciel was twenty-eight years old; she spent a fortune on clothes, she loved hunting and fishing, she adored the theater and parties, and yet she had not yet met a man who could take the place of the treacherous Finn O’Keeffe. She tried bravely not to think about him, pushing him to the back of her mind along with the memories of her wicked sister. They deserved each other, she told herself, wishing William were alive to share Ardnavarna with her.

She was in Dublin, walking down Molesworth Street heading for tea at Buswell’s Hotel after an energetic afternoon’s shopping, when she bumped into Jack Allerdyce. She had met him years before in London, but their paths had only crossed occasionally since, and on an impulse she asked him to join her for tea.

Jack was really Major John Howard Allerdyce, an ADC at Dublin Castle. He was an Englishman in his middle-thirties
with steady brown eyes, brown hair cut short and brushed neatly back, and a dashing mustache. He was not a handsome man the way Finn was, but with his upright military bearing and his pleasant features, he was attractive. As they sat over hot buttered teacakes and scones in Bus-well’s, Ciel thought he had style, and besides, he made her laugh, and she was pleased when he told her he would also be at the supper dance given by mutual friends that evening.

She arrived deliberately late, searching eagerly for him in the crowd, pleased when she finally spotted him. He looked debonaire in his dress uniform, a short scarlet mess jacket with gold epaulets and gold buttons, and black trousers with a red silk stripe down the side.

He shouldered his way through the throng to her side. “I’m booking all your dances,” he said authoritatively.

“Whatever will people say?” she asked, amused.

“I don’t care.” He wrote his name with a flourish across her entire dance card and said, “I didn’t think you could look any prettier than you did in that little hat with the spotted veil this afternoon, but you do. I like you in pink.”

“Even with my carrot hair?” she demanded.

“Because
of your carrot hair,” he said firmly, and she knew then that she
really
liked him.

They danced every dance and went in to supper together, and she knew everyone was watching them and speculating, but she was having a wonderful time. Still, always wary of scandal, she did not permit him to take her home.

His nice steady brown eyes and his laugh were the last thing she thought about as she fell asleep that night and the first thing she remembered when she woke up. She thought of Finn and all the pain rushed back again. Then she told herself that Jack Allerdyce was a fine-looking man, well-read, cultivated, and from a very good family, and she laughed, thinking rebelliously he was exactly the kind of man her father would have wanted her to marry. But when the first bouquet of flowers from him arrived
with breakfast, she leapt from the bed and packed her bags and fled in a panic back to Ardnavarna.

Jack telephoned her that evening. “Why did you run away?” he asked, sounding so hurt and bewildered that she began to melt.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s just me. I don’t know, I can’t explain. Maybe it’s that you are just too eligible.”