Cave of Secrets

I owe a debt of gratitude to Des Ekin, whose book,
The Stolen Village
, first made me aware of the exciting history of Roaringwater Bay. I am also grateful, as always, to Ide ní Laoghaire for her indispensible editorial skills. No book can be created in a vacuum, and the entire staff at The O’Brien Press has my sincere thanks for their good work on this one.

The wind rushes in off the sea like a hag in a billowing cloak. Her streaming hair is made of foam. Her colourless face is a skull. When she shrieks in the night she can freeze the marrow in your bones.

I am not afraid of her. I know she brings treasure.

CHAPTER ONE

Tom

B
oys love caves. A cave is a secret hidden from the rest of the world, smelling of earth and brimming with mystery. Anything might happen in a cave. Something
terrible
or something wonderful.

On the worst day of his life the boy found a cave.

Tom tumbled down the face of the cliff, scraping his body against protruding rocks. Shredding his silk stockings. His freckled cheeks were wet with tears. He grasped at random clumps of sea pink but did not really try to stop his fall. Better to break every bone, he thought. Lie smashed to bits at the bottom. Then they would be sorry. If they even noticed. Dying could not be any worse than living.

His feet struck the ground with a thud. He struggled to regain his balance. As the afternoon drew to a close, a cold wind was blowing in from the bay.

Roaringwater Bay.

‘That evil place deserves its name,’ his father often said. Mr Flynn would not allow any of his family to go near the bay. He was determined to keep them safe in a world of their own. ‘The bay is infested with savages and barbarians who would as soon kill you as look at you,’ Flynn told his son. ‘A few years ago a gang of Barbary pirates attacked the fishing village of Baltimore. They kidnapped the English colonists who had settled there and sold all of them – men, women and children – into slavery. Those unfortunate people
suffered
a fate worse than death. The same thing could happen to you, boy. You could spend the rest of your life in chains in north Africa, with no food in your belly and the lash of the whip on your back every day until you die.’

Mr Flynn’s warning had always been enough to keep Tom well away from Roaringwater Bay – until today, when he was more frightened of his father than he was of pirates.

Now he found himself standing on a shingle beach, a coarse mixture of sand and gravel that sloped down towards blue-green water. Huge tumbled boulders and stony
outcroppings
blocked either end of the beach. Like a pair of sheltering arms, they created a small cove at the foot of the cliff.

The tide was all the way out, but it would return.
Looking
up the steep face of the cliff, Tom realised he could never climb back. He was trapped. There was no one to help him.

He was alone.

Growing up amid family and servants, he had never thought about what it meant to be alone. With night coming.

Tom’s eyes swept frantically around his prison. There was no escape. His heart was hammering so hard he thought it would break his ribs. He struggled not to cry out. If he did, who might come?

Savages. Barbarians.

At last, just above the tide line, he caught sight of what appeared to be a hole in the side of the cliff. It was partially concealed by folds of stony earth. It might be anything, even a shadow. But he ran towards it in desperation.

And found the cave.

The opening was so low he had to creep through on hands and knees like a beaten dog. When he was inside the shadows closed around him. Darkness and silence.
This must be what it’s like to be dead
. Drawing his knees against his chest, Tom turned himself into a sad knot of a boy and waited. Waited in misery for whatever awful thing might happen next.

Everyone called the boy Tom, except his father. William Flynn addressed his son as ‘Boy!’ – if he spoke to him at all.

With his daughters Flynn was different. Elizabeth,
Virginia
and Caroline were their father’s darlings. He praised them constantly. They fluttered around him like butterflies,
competing for his attention. ‘Young ladies must practise pleasing men,’ he often said. ‘That is the way to make a
brilliant
marriage.’

When he went to Dublin on business, as he did several times a year, he brought back expensive presents for the three girls. Silk ribbons for their hair, Flemish lace for their collars, or satin slippers and cut-glass bottles filled with rose water. On one occasion Elizabeth – his oldest, plainest daughter – was given a silver patch-box filled with tiny stars and moons cut from black velvet. ‘Beauty patches are pasted close to eyes or lips to call attention to one’s best features,’ Flynn explained. ‘All the great beauties are using them now.’

After his most recent journey to Dublin, Flynn gave Tom a hobby-horse. It was far too childish for a thirteen-year-old boy. The body was nothing but an ordinary broom handle. The head had been roughly hacked from a block of wood. The eyes were painted on. One eye stared upwards; the other looked sideways.

‘I bought it for you in the capital,’ Flynn said. ‘A man was selling them on a street corner.’

Tom was dismayed. Did his father think he was still a baby? He accepted the hobby-horse with a muttered ‘Thank you,’ and propped it behind the chest in the corner of his
bed-chamber
, as far out of sight as possible.

For his wife the man had a much nicer gift. He proudly presented Catherine Flynn with a highly polished rosewood
box, bound in brass and fastened by a padlock. He made a ceremony of giving her the key. She turned it in the lock and lifted the lid, then looked up in surprise. When she spoke her voice was as soft as a whisper, too soft even for a recognisable accent. Her family were used to straining to hear her words. ‘I fear you have been swindled, William,’ she murmured.

‘What do you mean?’

‘There is nothing in this chest but dry leaves.’

Flynn barked a laugh. ‘Me? Swindled? You should know better than that, Kate. Every step I take is carefully planned. Those dry leaves, as you call them, are valuable. They must be kept under lock and key. Steeping just a few in boiling water produces a most refreshing beverage. In Dublin they call it China ale, or China tea, and predict it may someday replace coffee. The English East India Company has begun bringing tea from the east on their clipper ships. They hope to create a market for it as far afield as the colony of Virginia in the New World. And I hope to buy shares in the East India Company,’ he added smugly.

Mrs Flynn raised her eyebrows, which were as black and as delicate as a butterfly’s antennae. ‘Shares?’

‘Do not bother your head, m’dear, women cannot possibly understand such things,’ Flynn assured her. ‘All you need to know is that East India shares are an excellent investment. They are closely held, but I have a talent for making
important
friends. To such a man anything is possible, eh? Now
lock that tea chest. Keep the key on your girdle with the other household keys, and never entrust it to a servant. You know these locals would steal us blind if we let them.’

‘I know, dear,’ she said. Softly.

The worst day of Tom’s life had begun pleasantly enough. A warm day in early June, with only a few shreds of ragged cloud in the west. As was their custom, the family had
gathered
in their private oratory for morning prayer, led by
Elizabeth
. Mr Flynn rarely visited the tiny chapel – except when he paid a priest to say Mass – but he did put in an appearance at breakfast later. He gobbled down his food and left the table before anyone else had finished.

After breakfast Mrs Flynn had returned to her bed-
chamber
, where she spent much of her time. Tom’s mother was a thin, pale woman who grew thinner and paler each year. Elizabeth went to her own chamber, while her younger
sisters
began trying on their party frocks. Satin bodices tightly laced, taffeta skirts lined with sarsenet. They trotted from one room to another to admire themselves in every looking-glass. A maid was kept busy rearranging their hair.

A gala event was planned for Roaringwater House that evening. William Flynn had often entertained the gentry of West Cork, but never before on such a lavish scale. The event
was to announce the betrothal of his eldest daughter. At age twenty-three, Elizabeth Flynn had been considered a spinster until her father arranged a match for her. The prospective bridegroom was one of his business associates.

Herbert Fox, the son of an English seaman, owned his own shipping business in Cobh. He was twice widowed and three times Elizabeth’s age. But as Flynn had explained to his wife, ‘The influence of landed Catholics like ourselves is fading fast, Kate. We need Protestant friends like Herbert Fox. He is a shrewd businessman and a good catch for our daughter.’

‘Surely we could do better for her, William. Mr Fox is so … coarse.’

Her husband sought to reassure her. ‘Herbert speaks the language of the docks, which is not surprising. But I shall find husbands of more quality for the other girls. It is just a matter of moving in the right circles.’

The servants had been preparing the house for weeks. The rushes had been swept from the floor of the room Mr Flynn called ‘the great hall’, which ran the width of the house. The bare stones had been scoured with sand. A Persian rug with a design of peacocks and horses now lay in the exact centre of the hall, where it glowed like a West Cork sunset.
Tapestries picturing court scenes and hunting scenes hung on the walls. The chairs and benches were fitted with
cushions
embroidered in silk by the ladies of the family. A dark, heavily carved chest in the newly fashionable Jacobean style was prominently displayed.

No effort was spared to provide entertainment for the expected guests. Men and women alike loved to gamble, so special tables had been fitted out for Backgammon and Dice and Five Card. A constant supply of refreshments was on hand. As soon as the guests arrived ruby port would be served to the men, and sweet sherry offered to the women.
Musicians
were travelling by coach from Bantry to provide music.

A level area beyond the house was roped off for wrestling matches. The ground was raked clean of stones and rolled to make it firm. Armloads of spiky furze were stuffed into tubs and set at each corner of the arena, where their golden blooms blazed like fires. Fresh limewash was applied to the stones bordering the carriage drive, and a new gravel path was laid to the front door of the house.

‘Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork, is the special guest,’ William Flynn stressed to his servants. ‘He is the most important man in Munster, maybe in the whole of Ireland. When the earl arrives he must be favourably impressed. My property must bloom for him on the day, even if it wilts on the morrow.’

Early on the morning of the party, mouth-watering aromas
began to waft from the kitchen in the basement. In honour of the occasion a special dinner was being prepared. There would be heaping platters of roasted marrow bones,
apple-fed
pork and stubble-fed goose, game pies and ox tongue and creamed kidneys, boiled beef seasoned with applesauce and horseradish, carrots and cabbages awash with butter. The menu included thrushes baked in pastry nests and roast swan fitted back into its own skin. Cook had outdone herself. To the dismay of the scullery maid, every pan and pot in the house was dirty by noon.

While everyone else was busy, Tom Flynn wandered about the house with his hands in his pockets, idly
watching
the final preparations. He was wearing a fitted coat of dark blue broadcloth, a white cambric shirt with lace on the cuffs, a snug waistcoat with brass buttons, and a pair of fawn-coloured knee breeches buttoned over white silk stockings. Landowners’ children past the age of infancy were always dressed in miniature versions of their parents’ clothes.

Tom’s clothes looked adult, but he was not treated as an adult. Everyone knew his mother still thought of him as her little boy. Her baby.

Late in the afternoon he found his eldest sister huddled at the top of the front staircase. She had been crying. A clumsily applied beauty patch only called attention to her swollen eyes.

Tom sat down beside her. ‘What’s the matter, Lizzie? Why
aren’t you getting ready for your party?’

She broke into fresh sobs.

Tom was alarmed. He put an awkward arm around her shoulders. He had little in common with his sisters and had never tried to hug one before.

Elizabeth angrily shrugged off his embrace. ‘Let go of me.’

Tom’s arm drew back like a snail retreating into its shell. ‘But you’re in tears and I want to help.’

‘I am not in tears,’ she insisted. ‘I never weep. I’m the
happiest
girl in the world. Sixteen months from now I’ll be a married woman. Isn’t that wonderful?’ She interrupted
herself
with a violent hiccup. After a few embarrassed moments she said in a loud voice, ‘Just go away, Tom, and leave me alone!’

‘Boy!’ William Flynn shouted from elsewhere in the house. ‘If you’re upsetting your sister on this day of all days, I’ll stripe your legs with leather until they bleed!’

From her room, Tom’s mother called out anxiously, ‘What’s wrong? Is there trouble?’ The boy knew it would not help to get her involved. Catherine Flynn never stood up to her husband.

Before she could appear, Tom dashed down the stairs – only to find his father waiting for him at the bottom. ‘I curse the hour you were born, boy! This time I am going to kill you, begog I will!’ Flynn swung a massive fist at his son’s head.