Page 229 of The Missing Sister
‘They wanted to make sure they kept us peasants out,’ I smiled. ‘The main entrance is just up here on the left.’
Jack slowed down as he approached. Opposite, a field of maize was growing high in the fertile soil that took nourishment from the Argideen River below it.
‘That’s the entrance,’ I said.
Jack slowed down and then parked in front of it. The majestic old iron gates were open and the driveway beyond was covered in weeds. The trees surrounding the border of the property inside the stone wall had turned into a forest. It reminded me of the enormous thorn bushes that had grown up around Sleeping Beauty’s castle.
‘Shall we get out and take a look?’ asked Jack.
‘We can’t! We might be trespassing,’ I replied.
‘I spoke to a local this morning and they said no one’s been living here for years. It’s empty, Mum. Promise.’
‘Well, it’s still owned by someone, Jack.’
‘Fine, you stay here then.’
I watched Jack climb out of the car.
‘I’m coming too,’ said Mary-Kate as she opened the back door.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ I muttered as I got out too. We all circumnavigated the huge nettles that had sprung up along the drive. Ironically, I found it comforting how, without human interference, nature would so quickly start taking back its own.
‘Ouch!’ Mary-Kate winced and hopped as a nettle found its mark between her trainer and jeans.
‘The house should come into view at any minute,’ I said from behind them. And a few minutes later, it did. Like all Protestant houses around here, it was a squarely built, elegant Georgian building. Its frontage was vast – eight windows wide on both the ground and the upper levels and surrounded by what would once have been beautifully manicured parkland. As it was, even if the facade was still standing, I could see the rotting wood around the windowpanes, and the ivy on its constant crawl upwards from the base of the house. The feeling of neglect was palpable.
‘Wow!’ said Mary-Kate as she looked up at the front of it. ‘This must have been amazing in its day. Do you know who lived here, Mum?’
‘I can tell you who it was one hundred years ago, but I know the Fitzgeralds returned to England during the revolution. They were English, you see. And Protestant,’ I added. ‘I’m sure someone else bought it just after the war. The Second World War, that is. One of my sisters, Nora, worked here in the kitchens during the shooting season, but I don’t know what the family was called.’
‘You’re right, Mum, the Fitzgeralds went back to England in 1921, and the house was empty for a while.’
‘How on earth doyouknow that, Jack?’
‘Because Ally, who’s a bit of an expert in researching family histories, suggested I looked up solicitors’ practices locally, as they would probably have handled any sale of the property. The solicitor I found in Timoleague told me it wasn’t him who had dealt with the sale of Argideen House, but he gave me the name of who had. So I visited them in Clonakilty earlier.’ Jack shook his head. ‘This area is amazing, Mum; everyone knows everyone else, or knows someone who does.’
‘And?’
‘The guy I spoke to made a call to his dad, who made a call tohisdad, and apparently the house was sold by the Fitzgerald family in 1948 to a new buyer.’
‘Who was that buyer?’ Mary-Kate butted in.
‘He doesn’t know. Or at least, his grandfather doesn’t. He was asked to send all the title deeds and related documents to London.’
‘Do you have an address for wherever they were sent?’ I asked.
‘Apparently it was a post office box address, and I’ve no idea what that actually is.’
‘We’d have called it a PO box,’ I explained. ‘It basically means envelopes or parcels go to the post office to a locker with a specific number attached to it, and the recipient collects them from there.’
‘So it means that the person wants to remain anonymous?’ said Mary-Kate.
‘Yes, in essence, it does.’
‘Do you have the PO box address?’ I asked Jack.
‘I do, and it’s a place in somewhere called Marylebone. I checked out the post offices there online and called around them all. Basically, the number doesn’t exist anymore.’
