A Shooting Star Read online

  Flavia did not argue that she would be nineteen the following month, as she had found, as others had found before her, that her father disliked being contradicted.

  She supposed, when she was thinking it over, that as her father’s daughter, she would be invited to a great number of parties.

  It was rather frightening to think that she had in fact no personal friends she could look forward to meeting.

  Her mother had not been very well for the last two years of her life and so they had entertained very little in the country. She had been very content just to be quietly with her husband and daughter.

  When Flavia thought it all over, she came to the conclusion that she really had no close friends at all.

  Except of course the horses and the dogs!

  She had not been allowed to have a pet dog of her own and her father’s dogs were kept in the stables, but she took them out with her whenever she went riding.

  She thought that now her mother was dead, who had not been very fond of animals, she could persuade her father to allow her have two dogs in the house.

  Yet, when he had come home for a short visit, there had been so many other pressing matters to discuss with him that she had not got round to asking.

  They reached London just before four o’clock.

  Martha had already said that she could do with a nice cup of tea and Flavia had told her it was certain to be waiting for them on their arrival.

  There was one event that the servants never missed and that was teatime.

  At The Priory Mrs. Ruck prided herself on her teas and there was always enough to eat in the drawing room for a great many more than just one slim girl.

  As they turned into Grosvenor Square, Martha sat upright and pulled her hat down firmly over her forehead.

  The horses came to a standstill outside one of the large houses overlooking the Square, and there was a pause before a footman opened the door of the carriage because the red carpet had to be run down over the pavement.

  Flavia stepped out.

  A smart butler she had not seen before, bowed.

  “Welcome to London, Miss Flavia,” he intoned. “His Lordship’s expected back at six o’clock.”

  Flavia walked into the hall where there were four footmen in attendance and she saw, as she expected, there was a housekeeper in rustling black silk with a chatelaine at her waist at the top of the stairs.

  “Mrs. Shepherd’s waiting for you, miss,” the butler said, “and tea’ll be served in the downstairs sitting room.”

  “Thank you,” Flavia managed to say. “I will come down as soon as I have taken off my hat and coat.”

  She remembered Mrs. Shepherd and shook her by the hand and the housekeeper then took her to one of the main bedrooms on the first floor.

  It was an elegantly furnished room and, as Flavia looked around, she laughed and exclaimed,

  “I’m glad I am now old enough to sleep here. I was rather afraid I might still be in the nursery!”

  Mrs. Shepherd did not seem to think her remark particularly amusing and replied in a choked voice,

  “Of course not, Miss Flavia. This is where you should be and his Lordship ordered that you were to be properly looked after. I’ve a lady’s maid for you whose name is Bertha.”

  Flavia was glad when she saw Bertha that she was quite young and, according to Mrs. Shepherd, she had been well trained and was experienced.

  They both assisted Flavia in taking off her hat and coat and poured hot water into the bowl on the washstand.

  “Her Ladyship,” Mrs. Shepherd said, “has ordered you a lot of clothes, Miss Flavia, and we’ve hung them in the wardrobe.”

  Flavia knew it was her Aunt Edith who had sent her the clothes she had been wearing in the country.

  Although they were very attractive, she would have liked to choose for herself what she would wear in London.

  However, when she looked at the clothes after Mrs. Shepherd had opened up the wardrobe, she was pleased to see that they were in the soft colours she liked and she felt sure they came from one of the best shops in Bond Street.

  She remembered her father praising her aunt’s good taste and he had also added,

  “She only likes objects that are very expensive, as I found when she handed me the bill!”

  Flavia sensed her father would not be particularly pleased at the large amount of clothes bought for her.

  It was a matter she could hardly argue about. The clothes were there and she must wear them and what was clearly of little weight was her own opinion.

  When she went downstairs for tea, she was to find that the sitting room was now quite different from how she remembered it. Her father must have rearranged all the furniture and the sofa and chairs were in different colours.

  She had to admit it looked very nice, but even so there was something rather masculine and stiff about it.

  She thought that her mother would have made it softer and in many ways more attractive.

  ‘That is what I will have to do for Papa now,’ she thought. ‘But it will be difficult if he does not wish me to spend money on the house.’

  She drank some tea and enjoyed the small delicious cakes and hot toast in a silver container.

  Then she waited for her father.

  When he came in, she ran to him and he kissed her affectionately.

  “It is delightful to see you, Flavia,” he said. “Now I have a busy programme for you, which I hope will make up for the long time you have had to spend in the country.”

  “It’s so wonderful to be with you, Papa. You are looking well and I am sure having no more trouble with your back as you were at one time.”

  “Fortunately I have a doctor to take care of that and as I have been staying at Windsor Castle these past three or four weeks I have not had a bumpy journey to endure every time I went there. The rest has definitely done me good.”

  “Did you enjoy yourself, Papa?”

  Lord Linwood smiled.

  “One is always kept busy by Her Majesty and quite frankly, my dear, if one is in attendance one does not have time to think about oneself.”

  “I hope the Queen is going to spare you to me for a little while,” said Flavia. “It will not be at all amusing to be in London, if I am not to be with you, Papa.”

  “You will see a great deal of me,” he promised. “Also I have accepted many invitations for you, so that you will soon have little time to worry about me.”

  “I will always worry about you, Papa, because you are the one person I belong to.”

  Her father smiled.

  “It is very sweet of you to say so, but I expect there will be many young men who will want you to spend your time with them. What is more, you will find them far more interesting than your father.”

  Flavia laughed.

  “I will believe that only when it happens, Papa. At the same time, as I know no young men, I am very anxious to be with you.”

  “I promise you that we will be together as much as possible, my dear.”

  He sounded genuine, but she had the feeling that he was thinking of something quite different.

  Flavia recognised that she might be wrong, but she had always been extremely perceptive where other people were concerned.

  Her mother had often said to her,

  “Tell me, my darling, what do you think about the person who has just called on us?”

  Even when she was only twelve, Flavia had been able, her mother had told her later, to describe accurately the character of a stranger.

  “How could you know,” she said once, “that that woman who called on us last week was so extraordinary?”

  The woman had turned out to be a fraud. She had wangled money from charities, which she had then put in her own pocket.

  Flavia had listened to her and felt that the way she spoke was somehow insincere and the woman had in fact no real feelings for the poor people she professed to help. She had therefore saved her dear mother from contributing her mon
ey and her pity to no purpose.

  She had also been helpful when they were engaging new servants or shopping where they were not known.

  Her mother had always been interested in the shops that dealt in antiques, especially pictures that were sold as being painted by old Masters.

  And it was quite remarkable the way Flavia would unerringly point out a fake being sold as a genuine article that had actually been made only a few years earlier and had dishonestly been aged artificially.

  “How can you know these things, darling?” her mother had enquired. “I was completely deceived by that rather pretty ornament he offered us.”

  “He said it was very old, Mama, but I knew he was lying. I cannot tell you why. It just comes into my mind and funnily enough I always seem to be right.”

  “If you had lived a few hundred years earlier, you would have been burnt as a witch!” her father had joked.

  Flavia had been only sixteen at the time and she had deliberately tried out her powers of recognising fraud or hypocrisy when she was sitting near people in Church or walking round at the local Flower Show.

  When she was proved right, she was pleased that she possessed a gift her mother assured her was rare.

  “At the same time, darling,” she added, “you must be careful not to make a mistake. It would be terrible if you said that someone was fraudulent or wicked when they were really good. In fact you might seriously damage his or her life by what you said about them.”

  “I promise you, Mama, I will be very careful, but equally I have to say what I am told.”

  Her mother looked at her questioningly and then Flavia explained,

  “It is just as if someone is telling me. They say something very softly in my ear and when I repeat it aloud, I find it’s the truth.”

  Lady Linwood held up her hands.

  “You frighten me, darling. It is undoubtedly a great gift, but you must be very careful with it.”

  “I will, Mama,” Flavia had promised.

  *

  Now she was back in London, she could not help wondering if she would be able to separate the swans from the geese.

  “Now tonight,” her father was saying, “I have a very interesting man coming to dinner.”

  Before he could say any more, Flavia exclaimed,

  “Oh, Papa, I had so hoped that you and I would be alone. It is something I have been looking forward to, so that I can tell you all about the new foals and all the news from the farms.”

  “We will have plenty of time for that, my dear. The man who has asked himself to dinner and who I may say is very keen to meet you is Lord Carlsby. He is in attendance on Her Majesty, as I am, and so seldom gets away from Windsor Castle that I could not refuse when he asked if he could dine with us tonight.”

  “I suppose not, Papa, but I am disappointed.”

  “I am sorry about that, but I am sure you will enjoy meeting him. He is very distinguished and I am delighted to be his friend.”

  When she was dressing for dinner, Flavia could not help feeling somewhat resentful.

  Tonight at least she had wanted to be alone with her father.

  He had handed her a list before they went upstairs and on it his secretary had written out all the balls, parties and luncheons he had already accepted on her behalf.

  There were quite a number of them and when Lord Linwood gave it to her, he declared,

  “I am sure this is just the beginning, my dear. By the end of this month you will be flooded with invitations, which will fill many pages rather than one or two in your engagement book.”

  “It is all very exciting, Papa, but I do want to see something of you. I have missed you very very much these last months and, whether it is in London or the country, I wish to be with you.”

  “And I want to be with you, my dear, but as you realise, I have to be at Her Majesty’s call. That is why I have arranged for your aunt to take you to most of these parties.”

  Flavia had looked forward to being accompanied by her father and it had never struck her that he would provide her with just another chaperone.

  For a brief moment she wanted to protest against this arrangement and then she knew it would do no good.

  If her father was on call by the Queen, he had to obey her first.

  His daughter certainly came second in line.

  But Flavia could not help feeling that, if her mother had been alive, her father, however much he felt it was his duty, would have managed somehow to be with them both.

  She was determined not to spoil her reunion with her father and if she protested, argued or tried to change what he had arranged, it would only annoy him.

  She could not help but resent that Lord Carlsby was dining with them tonight as she could have had her father to herself if he had not pushed his way in.

  When she had changed, she walked downstairs and found, although it was still a long time before dinner, that Lord Carlsby had already arived.

  As she entered the drawing room the two men were talking earnestly to each other at the far end of the room.

  However, they broke off immediately and rose to their feet as she walked towards them.

  Flavia was in one of the pretty evening gowns her aunt had bought for her. It was certainly very becoming in the soft pink of the roses that grew so prolifically in the garden at The Priory.

  She looked, although she was not aware of it, very lovely, as she moved across the room towards her father and the visitor.

  She had no idea that they were both thinking that she might easily have stepped down from Mount Olympus or directly from Heaven.

  “Oh, here you are, Flavia. I now want you to meet a good and kind friend of mine – Lord Carlsby.”

  Lord Carlsby held out his hand and remarked,

  “You are even more beautiful than I expected, even though I knew that your father and mother must produce an exceptional daughter!”

  Flavia smiled at him and he paid her several more compliments, but she did not feel particularly embarrassed.

  Lord Carlsby was certainly an intelligent man and she listened attentively to the conversation at dinner and found it surprisingly interesting.

  He and her father were discussing the situation in Europe and Her Majesty’s handling of the difficulties they were encountering with the Russians.

  “I can only be thankful,” Lord Carlsby was saying, “that Mr. Disraeli is now Prime Minister. Her Majesty has such a dislike of Gladstone, I felt she might have a stroke!

  Lord Linford chuckled.

  “You are quite right and we should be very grateful that Disraeli is there. He can always put her into a good temper.”

  “Even when he does fail occasionally,” added Lord Carlsby, “then we all want to run for cover!”

  Flavia smiled, as it was so unexpected to hear the Queen, of whom everyone was greatly in awe, being talked about in such an intimate manner.

  As dinner progressed, she sensed that Lord Carlsby was looking her over in what she felt was a strange way.

  He appeared to be appraising her, almost as if she was a horse for sale or a flower exhibited for a prize at a country show.

  ‘I wonder why he should be so interested in me.’ Flavia asked herself.

  Then he was making her laugh at something he had said and again he was paying her extravagant compliments.

  It was when dinner was over and they moved back into the drawing room that her father commented,

  “I would hope, my dear, you will not think it rude, but Lord Carlsby and I have some very important matters to discuss which, being confidential, we cannot speak of in front of you.”

  “Are you telling me to go to bed, Papa?”

  Flavia looked at the clock and the hands showed it was only half-past-nine.

  “No, of course not. Just give us twenty minutes to talk these things over before Lord Carlsby has to leave us. Then you and I have a great deal to discuss.”

  Flavia smiled at him.

  “Yes, indeed we h
ave, Papa, and I will discreetly withdraw until you send for me.”

  She put down her coffee and walked to the door.

  “Don’t be too long,” she urged, “or I will think you have forgotten about me.”

  “I promise not to,” her father replied.

  She went from the drawing room into the sitting room next door which her mother had turned into a library.

  There was a large library in the house and a famous one at The Priory, but her mother had required books in London too as she was an avid reader.

  She had therefore turned what was rather a dull and little used sitting room into an attractive library.

  The books were all enclosed, not in cupboards but in shelves built onto the walls and there was not a bare wall in the whole room.

  Amongst the books, some of which were centuries old, were, to Flavia’s delight, several novels that had been published recently.

  She decided that she would read them all and then wondered where she should start and looked towards the fireplace, which had a narrow bookcase on each side of it.

  ‘I will start at the beginning,’ Flavia told herself.

  She opened the bookcase nearest to the fireplace to find several books that had been published in the last few years and which had not yet reached The Priory library.

  She then pulled out two books by famous authors, deciding that she would take them up to her bedroom and start reading one before she went to sleep tonight.

  As she pulled out another volume, to her surprise she could hear men’s voices.

  She suddenly became aware that it was her father’s voice she was hearing and it was then she realised that the fireplaces in the two rooms must be back to back.

  Thus there was one wall between the two rooms to which the bookshelves in this room had been attached.

  She looked closely at the gap on the shelf left by the books she had removed and saw that there were some small holes in the wall behind them.

  She could now hear quite clearly what her father was saying.

  To her surprise he was talking about her.

  “Do you really think, Carlsby” he was saying, “that Haugton will be attracted by Flavia? I have no wish for my daughter to be unhappy.”