Steeling a Dream:
Part 3: House of Steele (R)
Part 3: House of Steele (R)
Steeling a Dream:
Part 3: House of Steele
Part 3: House of Steele
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Steele Holting On
Chapter Twenty: Housekeeping
Sunday, 4 December 1988 -- 36 weeks, 3 days
The sorting that day didn’t take long. Siobhán had little need for furniture or cookware. From her
grandmother Colleen’s room, she kept a knitted blanket and a brush and mirror set from her vanity.
She retrieved an album containing pitifully few pictures of Johnny and his mother from an enormous
chest in the drawing room. As she placed it in the box, she looked around. “I know some of these things
must have been important to my grandmother,” Siobhán stated, “but I don’t know what they are. Do
you?”
Remington closed his eyes, drawing on long-ago memories he’d deliberately buried. For years, the
memory of this house hurt him, for it had been the only safe place he’d stayed for any length of time.
Opening his eyes again, he reoriented himself at the main hallway, then walked slowly as he recalled the
various trinkets and furniture that occupied the space so long ago.
O’Malley and Andrews followed, curious as to what he would do.
In the dining room, he paused at a pair of ornate candlesticks. “These, Siobhán, belonged to our great-
grandmother.” At the bookcase in the library, Remington teased a hidden catch under a shelf to reveal a
secret panel. He waved O’Malley forward to take a look. “I don’t know what is in there--only that
Johnny unlocked it one night while I was hiding in the corner back there.” He pointed a thumb to his left.
O’Malley drew out an intricate ring of emeralds set in gold. “It’s not on my list, sir.”
“Give it to Siobhán then, or hold it until we have a chance to ask Johnny about it,” Remington suggested.
The young man looked confused at the idea, then nodded. “Miss Steele hasn’t taken nearly what she’s
entitled to. I’ll mark it down as hers.”
Pleasantly surprised, Remington nodded and continued his search. The portraits in the gallery gave both
him and Siobhán pause. While Johnny hadn’t bothered sitting for a formal portrait, nor had he
commissioned one for Siobhán, his mother Colleen had--both as a young girl with her family and after
her marriage. Siobhán reached up to touch one of them and looked back at Remington for permission to
take them.
“Of course, a stór.” The family portrait fascinated him. Colleen, her sister--who was surely
Remington’s own grandmother--her three brothers and her parents made a lovely picture. “Damn,
Siobhán, one can certainly say we share a certain look, do we not?”
She cracked a smile. Both grandmothers and one of their brothers resembled their dad, the great-
grandfather Siobhán and Remington shared. All were tall, dark-haired, and classically Black Irish--only
with the clear gray eyes she sported rather than Remington's blue.
She ventured to say, “Your mum had blue eyes, did she not?”
“Aye. Daniel says that’s how he knew me. He said I looked like her.”
“Wow!”
Wow, indeed! At the moment, Remington could only stare at the new additions to his family tree.
Catching himself, he asked, “Ah, where did you get your hair color, Siobhán?”
“Johnny told me once it’s the same color as Mum’s.”
“So you’ve your mum’s hair and I’ve mine's eyes. Interesting how genetics work, eh?”
Siobhán shook her head and shrugged. “Da? Is there anything else we should keep?”
He scratched his nose, slid a glance her way, then walked down the hallway past Siobhán’s room. She
followed out of curiosity. Pausing for a moment with his hand on the doorknob of a little room tucked
into the end of the hallway, he wished in vain that Laura would suddenly appear. Somehow, she made
facing his demons easier. He opened the door, flinching at the creak of the hinge.
Oddly enough, no hideous memories resided there. Peeling paint and a light layer of dust indicated the
room hadn’t been occupied for some time--perhaps not since a small, black-haired boy had found a
home. The room contained a small bed on one side, a dresser, a child’s desk and chair on the other, and
a toy chest.
Nothing had changed. Yellowed prints of children playing still graced the walls, and a knotted blue rug,
faded now from years of sunlight, lay on the wooden floor.
He lifted the lid to the toy chest, pursing his lips as he identified the blocks, a little wooden dog on wheels
and a train. Closing it again, he turned and lifted the desk top, finding the drawings in the space
underneath that Siobhán had spoken of months ago.
In someone’s painstakingly neat printing, he found his name on the edge of some of the pages. Ciarán,
age 3. Other drawings, obviously completed later as they demonstrated marked improvement, were
devoid of any moniker.
“This really was your room?”
His shoulders tensed in surprise. He’d been so absorbed in his memories he hadn’t heard her come in.
“Aye. That I remember.”
Siobhán opened the bottom dresser drawer. “This is where I found your picture. The box Johnny
brought you was kept in here too.”
Only a baby blanket and an envelope remained in the cedar-lined drawer. After a brief glance at the
letter, he folded it and slipped it into his jacket. The blanket he handed to Siobhán.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like your permission to take this back to Los Angeles.”
“But it’s yours.”
“Siobhán, I can’t lay claim to anything here except, perhaps, the letter. Everything else is yours or
Johnny’s.”
She wrinkled her nose again and took the blanket from him, along with every single drawing from the
desk, the toys in the chest and the pictures from the wall. The bedding had thinned here and there over
the years, so she left it alone.
“Siobhán, you don’t have to keep those things.”
The teen put her hands on her hips, copying Mildred’s favorite pose. “Mom will want to see it all. If
you don’t want this stuff, it can go into storage or you can throw it in the garbage, but you’ll have to
argue with Mom first.”
He started to dispute her, then decided that if Laura discovered he’d left these things here, he’d be in a
world of trouble. Nodding his agreement, he followed Siobhán out of the room with an armload. O’
Malley checked off the items as they went into the last box.
Siobhán pursed her lips and crossed her arms. Remington concealed a smile, sure that Laura would
recognize the attitude. He wondered what the girl had in mind.
She gathered up the courage to say, “I’d like to see Housekeeper.”
Not particularly surprised by the request, Remington glanced at his watch. “We can have lunch. If
Andrews here will dig up her address and make a phone call, I think we can arrange that.” He shot a
look to the solicitor that clearly said make it happen.
Andrews nodded. “Yes, sir. Give me a moment or two. I may actually have it in my files.” He strode
away to use the telephone in the study.
Not too long after that, Remington glanced in the rearview mirror as the gates to Carlisle Manor closed
behind him for the last time. Siobhán never looked back.
After lunch, where Remington decided that Irish cooking still left a great deal to be desired, he drove
Siobhán to an even older part of Dublin. He irritated himself by hunching his shoulders in anticipation.
Without a word to his daughter, he picked out with his eyes the various places he’d hidden from his
cousins, the doorways he’d slept in out of desperation, and the market off Dominick Street where he’d
snitched food to keep from starving.
He wished he could say the evidence of his upbringing had been eradicated, but his keen eyes stopped on
a child here and there with a hungry, feral look he recognized.
Near the opposite side of the painfully familiar territory, where the flats turned into something reasonably
well-tended with flowers in the window boxes, they found a little house squashed in the middle of a row
of four others just like it. Remington parked the Audi in front.
He put his arm around Siobhán as they climbed the steps. He smiled reassuringly to her as he rapped on
the door.
A small stick of a woman opened it. She resembled a gray bird a little worse for the wear, with a face
that blossomed in joy as she saw Siobhán. For a moment, she ignored him. “Miss O’Callaghan, my dear,
come, come in.” She reached for the girl and drew her inside, kissing her cheeks in welcome.
Then she turned to him. “Thank you for bring--oh, Mother Mary --’tis little Ciarán. My, my, my,
you’ve become a lovely sort. You have the look of your mum, you do. Come, a stór, I’ve tea in the
garden.”
In under a minute, the stunned man had been reduced to a small boy as he toddled along in her wake.
He’d never dreamed he would recognize his daughter’s housekeeper. That she remembered him proved
another kind of shock. Siobhán turned once to see if he followed.
The narrow house bore all the evidence of its exacting owner. Lace curtains without a speck of dust,
polished windows and glossy wood floors all spoke well of the lady he followed.
They each found a white-painted wrought iron chair in the walled garden off the back of the house.
Flowers spilled from the top of the old stone all the way to the ground where they were lost in a
profusion of other blooms. An ancient cat uncurled from the one sunny spot in the corner and eyed them
all with suspicion for invading his space.
Can’t blame you, mate. I’d suspect me too. “Miss Gilpatrick--”
“Ciarán, Siobhán, I no longer work for Mr. Carlisle. Please, call me Dierdre or Miss Dierdre, if you
prefer.” She tilted her head, looking like a nosy wren. “Or you can call me ‘DeeDee’ as you did when
you were young,” she said to him.
Remington rose abruptly. “Excuse me.” He executed a proper bow and ducked into the house before he
lost his composure. He found the small loo off the kitchen, closed the door and leaned into it.
Ten minutes later, he splashed cold water on his red-rimmed eyes and cursed himself under his breath.
Calmer now, he stepped into the garden where Siobhán chattered to DeeDee about her new school and
friends.
DeeDee sipped her tea while Siobhán nibbled on a cookie. “My dear, I’d wondered what became of
you. That Mr. Buchanan said you were safe and happy, but none of that means a thing unless one sees
for herself. Now, what I would like to know is how you and Ciarán ended up together. The angels must
have been keeping their eyes on both of you.” She reached over and patted Siobhán’s hand. “He was
always a clever one. Delightfully puckish as a toddler. Playing tricks and such, and always begging me
to make sweets.”
She turned to him. “Mr. Buchanan told me you’re a fine man in America--a detective he said. I hadn’t
an inkling that you and my little Ciarán were one and the same.”
Remington nodded. “My wife, Laura, and I have a private investigation agency in Los Angeles. Johnny
found me there and asked me to take care of Siobhán.”
“You were always a smart one, a stór. It’s a wonder you didn’t become a criminal or thief with the poor
examples you had growing up.” DeeDee waggled her head.
He flashed a grin at her. “I did, DeeDee, but my wife talked me out of it. Wouldn’t let me stick around
unless I walked the straight and narrow, mostly anyway.”
Siobhán giggled behind her hand.
“Then she’s a smart one too, and I’d love to meet her someday. So,” DeeDee said with authority,
“Siobhán tells me her name is ‘Siobhán Steele’ now. Mr. Andrews gave me your name as ‘Remington
Steele.’ Does this mean you’ve adopted my charge?”
He nodded. “Aye, we wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s going to have a little brother or sister in
another few weeks too.”
Happily, the woman drank her tea, watering eyes dancing from one to the other and back again. “Then I
can rest easy.” She looked between them for a moment, pressed her lips together thoughtfully, and then
spoke. “I’ll not say anything poor about Mr. Carlisle, for he treated me well and paid me nicely. I’ll
want for nothing in my retirement. I served his mother since I was old enough to iron napkins.”
She reached for a lace-edged handkerchief from the pocket of her dress. “My prayers have been
answered that both of you would find happiness. That you found it together is truly a miracle.” She
dabbed her eyes and sipped her tea until she smiled again. “Forgive me. This has been a good day.”
She rose, taking up the empty biscuit tray and tea cups. Siobhan and Remington stood with her. “I think
we’ll keep this short--and happy.” The two cousins followed as she deposited the tray in the kitchen. “If
you would write to me, Siobhán, I’d be delighted.” She leaned up to kiss the girl on both cheeks before
hugging her long and hard.
“Get on with you, Ciarán. And stay out of trouble since you won’t stay out of my kitchen.”
He barked with laughter as the memory of those words bubbled up. Reaching for the woman, he hugged
her as she had Siobhán. “I cook, you know. Make bloody brilliant biscuits,” he said. Siobhán nodded in
agreement beside him.
DeeDee shooed them both toward the front door and opened it. “Then send me some. Ciarán, Mrs.
Carlisle would be proud of you. Take care of Siobhán, a stór. She’d expect it of you.”
He gave her the lopsided smile that so charmed her when he was two. “I haven’t a choice. She’s my
daughter and I love her. Damnedest thing.”
“Da!” Siobhán protested while DeeDee’s eyes shone with happiness.
8 November 2009
Chapter Twenty-One: Relatively Speaking
Sunday, 4 December 1988 -- 36 weeks, 3 days
The sorting that day didn’t take long. Siobhán had little need for furniture or cookware. From her
grandmother Colleen’s room, she kept a knitted blanket and a brush and mirror set from her vanity.
She retrieved an album containing pitifully few pictures of Johnny and his mother from an enormous
chest in the drawing room. As she placed it in the box, she looked around. “I know some of these things
must have been important to my grandmother,” Siobhán stated, “but I don’t know what they are. Do
you?”
Remington closed his eyes, drawing on long-ago memories he’d deliberately buried. For years, the
memory of this house hurt him, for it had been the only safe place he’d stayed for any length of time.
Opening his eyes again, he reoriented himself at the main hallway, then walked slowly as he recalled the
various trinkets and furniture that occupied the space so long ago.
O’Malley and Andrews followed, curious as to what he would do.
In the dining room, he paused at a pair of ornate candlesticks. “These, Siobhán, belonged to our great-
grandmother.” At the bookcase in the library, Remington teased a hidden catch under a shelf to reveal a
secret panel. He waved O’Malley forward to take a look. “I don’t know what is in there--only that
Johnny unlocked it one night while I was hiding in the corner back there.” He pointed a thumb to his left.
O’Malley drew out an intricate ring of emeralds set in gold. “It’s not on my list, sir.”
“Give it to Siobhán then, or hold it until we have a chance to ask Johnny about it,” Remington suggested.
The young man looked confused at the idea, then nodded. “Miss Steele hasn’t taken nearly what she’s
entitled to. I’ll mark it down as hers.”
Pleasantly surprised, Remington nodded and continued his search. The portraits in the gallery gave both
him and Siobhán pause. While Johnny hadn’t bothered sitting for a formal portrait, nor had he
commissioned one for Siobhán, his mother Colleen had--both as a young girl with her family and after
her marriage. Siobhán reached up to touch one of them and looked back at Remington for permission to
take them.
“Of course, a stór.” The family portrait fascinated him. Colleen, her sister--who was surely
Remington’s own grandmother--her three brothers and her parents made a lovely picture. “Damn,
Siobhán, one can certainly say we share a certain look, do we not?”
She cracked a smile. Both grandmothers and one of their brothers resembled their dad, the great-
grandfather Siobhán and Remington shared. All were tall, dark-haired, and classically Black Irish--only
with the clear gray eyes she sported rather than Remington's blue.
She ventured to say, “Your mum had blue eyes, did she not?”
“Aye. Daniel says that’s how he knew me. He said I looked like her.”
“Wow!”
Wow, indeed! At the moment, Remington could only stare at the new additions to his family tree.
Catching himself, he asked, “Ah, where did you get your hair color, Siobhán?”
“Johnny told me once it’s the same color as Mum’s.”
“So you’ve your mum’s hair and I’ve mine's eyes. Interesting how genetics work, eh?”
Siobhán shook her head and shrugged. “Da? Is there anything else we should keep?”
He scratched his nose, slid a glance her way, then walked down the hallway past Siobhán’s room. She
followed out of curiosity. Pausing for a moment with his hand on the doorknob of a little room tucked
into the end of the hallway, he wished in vain that Laura would suddenly appear. Somehow, she made
facing his demons easier. He opened the door, flinching at the creak of the hinge.
Oddly enough, no hideous memories resided there. Peeling paint and a light layer of dust indicated the
room hadn’t been occupied for some time--perhaps not since a small, black-haired boy had found a
home. The room contained a small bed on one side, a dresser, a child’s desk and chair on the other, and
a toy chest.
Nothing had changed. Yellowed prints of children playing still graced the walls, and a knotted blue rug,
faded now from years of sunlight, lay on the wooden floor.
He lifted the lid to the toy chest, pursing his lips as he identified the blocks, a little wooden dog on wheels
and a train. Closing it again, he turned and lifted the desk top, finding the drawings in the space
underneath that Siobhán had spoken of months ago.
In someone’s painstakingly neat printing, he found his name on the edge of some of the pages. Ciarán,
age 3. Other drawings, obviously completed later as they demonstrated marked improvement, were
devoid of any moniker.
“This really was your room?”
His shoulders tensed in surprise. He’d been so absorbed in his memories he hadn’t heard her come in.
“Aye. That I remember.”
Siobhán opened the bottom dresser drawer. “This is where I found your picture. The box Johnny
brought you was kept in here too.”
Only a baby blanket and an envelope remained in the cedar-lined drawer. After a brief glance at the
letter, he folded it and slipped it into his jacket. The blanket he handed to Siobhán.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like your permission to take this back to Los Angeles.”
“But it’s yours.”
“Siobhán, I can’t lay claim to anything here except, perhaps, the letter. Everything else is yours or
Johnny’s.”
She wrinkled her nose again and took the blanket from him, along with every single drawing from the
desk, the toys in the chest and the pictures from the wall. The bedding had thinned here and there over
the years, so she left it alone.
“Siobhán, you don’t have to keep those things.”
The teen put her hands on her hips, copying Mildred’s favorite pose. “Mom will want to see it all. If
you don’t want this stuff, it can go into storage or you can throw it in the garbage, but you’ll have to
argue with Mom first.”
He started to dispute her, then decided that if Laura discovered he’d left these things here, he’d be in a
world of trouble. Nodding his agreement, he followed Siobhán out of the room with an armload. O’
Malley checked off the items as they went into the last box.
Siobhán pursed her lips and crossed her arms. Remington concealed a smile, sure that Laura would
recognize the attitude. He wondered what the girl had in mind.
She gathered up the courage to say, “I’d like to see Housekeeper.”
Not particularly surprised by the request, Remington glanced at his watch. “We can have lunch. If
Andrews here will dig up her address and make a phone call, I think we can arrange that.” He shot a
look to the solicitor that clearly said make it happen.
Andrews nodded. “Yes, sir. Give me a moment or two. I may actually have it in my files.” He strode
away to use the telephone in the study.
Not too long after that, Remington glanced in the rearview mirror as the gates to Carlisle Manor closed
behind him for the last time. Siobhán never looked back.
After lunch, where Remington decided that Irish cooking still left a great deal to be desired, he drove
Siobhán to an even older part of Dublin. He irritated himself by hunching his shoulders in anticipation.
Without a word to his daughter, he picked out with his eyes the various places he’d hidden from his
cousins, the doorways he’d slept in out of desperation, and the market off Dominick Street where he’d
snitched food to keep from starving.
He wished he could say the evidence of his upbringing had been eradicated, but his keen eyes stopped on
a child here and there with a hungry, feral look he recognized.
Near the opposite side of the painfully familiar territory, where the flats turned into something reasonably
well-tended with flowers in the window boxes, they found a little house squashed in the middle of a row
of four others just like it. Remington parked the Audi in front.
He put his arm around Siobhán as they climbed the steps. He smiled reassuringly to her as he rapped on
the door.
A small stick of a woman opened it. She resembled a gray bird a little worse for the wear, with a face
that blossomed in joy as she saw Siobhán. For a moment, she ignored him. “Miss O’Callaghan, my dear,
come, come in.” She reached for the girl and drew her inside, kissing her cheeks in welcome.
Then she turned to him. “Thank you for bring--oh, Mother Mary --’tis little Ciarán. My, my, my,
you’ve become a lovely sort. You have the look of your mum, you do. Come, a stór, I’ve tea in the
garden.”
In under a minute, the stunned man had been reduced to a small boy as he toddled along in her wake.
He’d never dreamed he would recognize his daughter’s housekeeper. That she remembered him proved
another kind of shock. Siobhán turned once to see if he followed.
The narrow house bore all the evidence of its exacting owner. Lace curtains without a speck of dust,
polished windows and glossy wood floors all spoke well of the lady he followed.
They each found a white-painted wrought iron chair in the walled garden off the back of the house.
Flowers spilled from the top of the old stone all the way to the ground where they were lost in a
profusion of other blooms. An ancient cat uncurled from the one sunny spot in the corner and eyed them
all with suspicion for invading his space.
Can’t blame you, mate. I’d suspect me too. “Miss Gilpatrick--”
“Ciarán, Siobhán, I no longer work for Mr. Carlisle. Please, call me Dierdre or Miss Dierdre, if you
prefer.” She tilted her head, looking like a nosy wren. “Or you can call me ‘DeeDee’ as you did when
you were young,” she said to him.
Remington rose abruptly. “Excuse me.” He executed a proper bow and ducked into the house before he
lost his composure. He found the small loo off the kitchen, closed the door and leaned into it.
Ten minutes later, he splashed cold water on his red-rimmed eyes and cursed himself under his breath.
Calmer now, he stepped into the garden where Siobhán chattered to DeeDee about her new school and
friends.
DeeDee sipped her tea while Siobhán nibbled on a cookie. “My dear, I’d wondered what became of
you. That Mr. Buchanan said you were safe and happy, but none of that means a thing unless one sees
for herself. Now, what I would like to know is how you and Ciarán ended up together. The angels must
have been keeping their eyes on both of you.” She reached over and patted Siobhán’s hand. “He was
always a clever one. Delightfully puckish as a toddler. Playing tricks and such, and always begging me
to make sweets.”
She turned to him. “Mr. Buchanan told me you’re a fine man in America--a detective he said. I hadn’t
an inkling that you and my little Ciarán were one and the same.”
Remington nodded. “My wife, Laura, and I have a private investigation agency in Los Angeles. Johnny
found me there and asked me to take care of Siobhán.”
“You were always a smart one, a stór. It’s a wonder you didn’t become a criminal or thief with the poor
examples you had growing up.” DeeDee waggled her head.
He flashed a grin at her. “I did, DeeDee, but my wife talked me out of it. Wouldn’t let me stick around
unless I walked the straight and narrow, mostly anyway.”
Siobhán giggled behind her hand.
“Then she’s a smart one too, and I’d love to meet her someday. So,” DeeDee said with authority,
“Siobhán tells me her name is ‘Siobhán Steele’ now. Mr. Andrews gave me your name as ‘Remington
Steele.’ Does this mean you’ve adopted my charge?”
He nodded. “Aye, we wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s going to have a little brother or sister in
another few weeks too.”
Happily, the woman drank her tea, watering eyes dancing from one to the other and back again. “Then I
can rest easy.” She looked between them for a moment, pressed her lips together thoughtfully, and then
spoke. “I’ll not say anything poor about Mr. Carlisle, for he treated me well and paid me nicely. I’ll
want for nothing in my retirement. I served his mother since I was old enough to iron napkins.”
She reached for a lace-edged handkerchief from the pocket of her dress. “My prayers have been
answered that both of you would find happiness. That you found it together is truly a miracle.” She
dabbed her eyes and sipped her tea until she smiled again. “Forgive me. This has been a good day.”
She rose, taking up the empty biscuit tray and tea cups. Siobhan and Remington stood with her. “I think
we’ll keep this short--and happy.” The two cousins followed as she deposited the tray in the kitchen. “If
you would write to me, Siobhán, I’d be delighted.” She leaned up to kiss the girl on both cheeks before
hugging her long and hard.
“Get on with you, Ciarán. And stay out of trouble since you won’t stay out of my kitchen.”
He barked with laughter as the memory of those words bubbled up. Reaching for the woman, he hugged
her as she had Siobhán. “I cook, you know. Make bloody brilliant biscuits,” he said. Siobhán nodded in
agreement beside him.
DeeDee shooed them both toward the front door and opened it. “Then send me some. Ciarán, Mrs.
Carlisle would be proud of you. Take care of Siobhán, a stór. She’d expect it of you.”
He gave her the lopsided smile that so charmed her when he was two. “I haven’t a choice. She’s my
daughter and I love her. Damnedest thing.”
“Da!” Siobhán protested while DeeDee’s eyes shone with happiness.
8 November 2009
Chapter Twenty-One: Relatively Speaking