Page 47 of The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady
She nodded. “What names? What could be so important to you, that you’d toss them into the flames like that?”
“I suppose there’s no use in telling you falsehoods no more.” He bowed his head, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. “Them names were the names of all those that purchased houses and estates from the Irish. I was told where I could find the ledger, and I was told to put them against the names of the guests arriving for that ball.”
Her brow knitted together in confusion. “You were told? Told by who?”
“I don’t rightly know, pet. Letters come, they give me orders, and I carry them out. Same as you, except you don’t get the letters—you just get me, coming to bother you, and slapping you about the face for your troubles.” He buried his face in his hands, clearly sinking deeper into his cups.
“Letters? What letters? I haven’t seen any.” She held her breath, feeling a stone of dread sink into the pit of her stomach. Or maybe that was just the gnawing hunger—she could no longer tell the difference.
“No, you won’t have done. I had strict instructions to burn them, soon as I received them. I were told to burn them names, too, but keep them here.” Her father tapped his skull. “But they came all the same. And now, I’ve to compare the names in my head with the names on that list of guests. See if any are the same.”
“Why?” Alicia had a feeling she already knew the answer, but she needed clarification. After all, through everything that had happened with Elias, she could well believe that her imagination might be running away with her.
Her father shrugged. “I weren’t told, but I know it’s like to have something to do with that ball.”
“Is there a plan of attack?” Alicia asked, her throat tight with anxiety. “Are the Ribbonmen wanting to make an example of those that took their lands? Is that it? That’s it, isn’t it? Da, you have to tell me. Innocent lives are at stake here. I know the English have done wrong to us, and I can see they used some underhand means to claim what was rightfully ours, but what will killing solve? It’ll only bring more men from England, and there’ll only be more bloodshed. Before you know it, there’ll be a war that we can’t stop.”
Her father looked up and met her gaze. “I think there might be an attack, aye. A means of showing the English that we ain’t too pleased they took our lands from us, as you say, and tricked us into selling.”
“On the Woodworths, too?” Her heart was lodged in her throat, for if the Ribbonmen meant to strike at the manor, Jacob would surely find himself in the firing line.
“I don’t know of that. See, I’ve not been asked to take part in no attack. If they meant to strike down the Woodworths, I ought to be leading the charge.”
She frowned. “Because the Duke of Woodworth purchased Ballyroyal from you?”
“Aye… and because his wife and sons still sit in the house what he bought.” Her father lowered his gaze again, as the penny dropped.
“Ravencliff is Ballyroyal?” she gasped.
“I don’t expect you remember much from them days, do you?” He laughed bitterly. “Once upon a time, you were the young lady waltzing down them halls. I was the lord of it, with your sweet ma at my side. Then the Duke comes along, with his lady wife, and visits us there. I expect your ma’s sister-in-law, the old Duke’s wife, liked what she saw and thought to have it for herself.”
Alicia shook her head. “That can’t be right, Da. I would remember it. The place we lived… it was a long way from here.” She paused, doubting the clarity of her own memories. “Wasn’t it?”
“The mind plays tricks on us all, pet. It protects us—lets us see only what we want to see, so we don’t sink into a darkness. I’m not fortunate enough to be able to forget, but you were so young. How could you have remembered? Naturally, the Duchess of Woodworth redecorated, which is likely why things didn’t seem so familiar to you. But aye, Ravencliff was once Ballyroyal. Finest house in all of Northern Ireland.”
Alicia forced herself to concentrate. For once, her father was being forthcoming, and she did not know when he might close himself off again. There was much she needed to discover, for her sake, and for Jacob’s.
And yet, she could not deny the flicker of resentment that had ignited in her chest. The English had not only taken Irish lands away from those it belonged to; they had bought it out from under them, and they had bought her own home out from under her. It burned like a furnace, to think she had wandered those corridors as a mere servant, when she should have been the one barking orders and chastising maids for their slatternly manner when serving at the dinner table.
How could I have forgotten?Her memories of ballrooms and fine gardens had always been so clear in her mind, but now she knew she could not trust a single one of them. Her mind had fabricated a different world, to distract her from the blunt, hard truth—that Ravencliff, or Ballyroyal, as it ought to have been called still, should have been her domain, instead of this squat, filthy cottage in the village.
“But, Da, you must have been paid well? How have we ended up here?” She gestured around herself in confusion.
Her father grimaced. “The money were supposed to come monthly, as an allowance of sorts. He said he’d send all me belongings when I had an address to send it to, but I never saw hide nor hair of that. As for the allowance, it came as it was meant to, in the first year, and then it trickled dry. I went to the old Duke, demanding answers, and he told me the money had been delivered. He said it weren’t his fault if it didn’t reach us. I don’t know if that were true about it being sent, but he swore blind it were. So… I got nothing and gave everything. No more money ever came, I weren’t allowed to take my belongings, and every time I went up to the house, I were turned away.”
“Is that why you had us stay so close?” she said quietly, her temples throbbing.
Her father smiled sadly. “What can I say, I couldn’t bring myself to leave this place, even after all was lost. I needed to be close to it. It’s where your ma is buried, after all. And this cottage were all we could afford, when the money petered out.”
“No… her headstone is in the churchyard at St. Mary’s.”
“Aye, but there ain’t no body beneath. The Duke didn’t like me coming back to visit her, after he took the house and our funds vanished, so I paid for another stone so you and your brother might have a place to remember her. And me, in truth. Your ma’s true grave is in the mausoleum, in the private chapel up yonder.” He pointed toward the door, and she knew he meant the manor.
Alicia felt sick again. “What right did he have, to turn you away from your own land?”
“It weren’t my land no more. That’s the truth of it. I had no say in what went on, and I couldn’t refuse when he told me to get away from his estate.” Her father sighed, his voice catching in his throat. “I appealed to your ma’s brother time and again, catching him in the fields and the like, but he wouldn’t relent, neither. I suppose he never cared for me much. Didn’t think I were the right sort of fella for his sister.”
“That’s… that’s disgusting!” Alicia cried. “Theystolewhat you were owed! And they stopped you seeing your wife’s grave!”
