Stars in the Sky Read online

  "Can I…go home?" asked Sylvia.

  The doctor glanced at Charity. "It would be better not to move you immediately. If Lord Farron can extend his hospitality – "

  "There is no question but that she must stay," cried Charity.

  The doctor was reassured. He said that she should stay in bed for at least two days. He would check on her tomorrow. Charity thanked him and rang for Hattie to show him out.

  "Now, Sylvia, shall I pour your tea?" she asked when Hattie and the doctor had gone. "You see we have an urn here so the pot is still warm."

  Sylvia nodded. She felt thirsty and even a little hungry suddenly. She drank two cups of tea and ate three slices of toast and marmalade. The food and drink revived her spirits. The doctor had said all she had to do was wait. Well, wait she would. She liked this pale yellow room with the muslin curtains and she liked Charity and her gentle manner. She could not help wondering about Lord Farron, though.

  "When will I meet…your brother?" she asked.

  Charity smiled. "He had to go to London this morning. He will return in a day or two. Then, if you are well enough to come down to supper, you will meet him. If it is not too clear a night, that is!"

  Sylvia was puzzled. "Too clear a night?"

  "Yes. Robert is something of an amateur astronomer. He has a telescope on the roof of the south tower. It is sometimes difficult to tear him away from the stars."

  At the words 'astronomer' and 'stars' a wrinkle crossed Sylvia's brow. Some memory stirred, like a fish in the depths of a murky pool. Try as she might, however, she could not bring it to the surface. She gave up the attempt and lay back.

  "Sleepy?" asked Charity.

  "Y..yes. I suddenly…am."

  Sylvia's eyes closed. She felt Charity draw the sheet up under her chin and then tiptoe softly from the room. After that, she was fast asleep.

  *

  The Duchess arrived in great consternation later that afternoon. She swept in her voluminous skirts up the stairs, Charity following, and into the yellow room where Sylvia lay. Her anxious, booming voice startled Sylvia awake.

  "Sylvia! Darling gel!"

  "Oh. Hello."

  "Hello!" cried the Duchess. "Is that all you can say?

  As if you'd just come in from a picnic! Where have you been, is what I want to know?"

  "I'm afraid there is not much use asking her such questions," said Charity in a low voice. "Doctor Glebe said Sylvia is suffering from amnesia."

  "Amnesia?" The Duchess looked startled. She moved in close to Sylvia and leaned over her. Her shiny face was only inches away from Sylvia.

  "WHO AM I?" she boomed.

  Sylvia shrank from her fierce gaze. "Why, you're…Mama."

  "AND WHERE DO I BUY MY DUCK EGGS?"

  Sylvia blinked. "F..Fortnum and Mason."

  The Duchess, satisfied, drew herself up. "I don't call that amnesia!" she said to Charity.

  Charity's lips twitched. "She remembers some things and not others," she said as simply as she could.

  The Duchess frowned. "Well, does she remember that she has a sick father, who certainly shouldn't be worried in this way?"

  "Father? Sick?" cried Sylvia, sitting up with a frantic air. "What is wrong with him?"

  Charity shot a warning glance at the Duchess, who immediately understood that she was not to alarm the patient.

  "Oh, it's really nothing to worry about," she said airily. "Just a bad chill. He'll feel so much better now he knows you are safe."

  Sylvia lay back, reassured.

  The Duchess drew Charity aside. "How very odd to remember about duck eggs – and not her father."

  "The doctor said memories would come back to Sylvia in a fragmented way," whispered Charity. "At their own pace and in their own good time. Unless there was something she did not wish to remember. Something – traumatic."

  "I'm sure I can't say what that could mean," said the Duchess haughtily. "We're a very normal and respectable family, you know. Nothing – traumatic, as you put it – ever happens to us. Unless you count the odd bill or two – and her father taking ill in the way he did."

  Charity was silent for a moment. Instinctively she felt that she had to tread carefully with the Duchess, whose sense of propriety was obviously immense.

  "Have you any idea at all – where Sylvia might have got to last night?" she asked at last, slowly and carefully.

  "No idea at all!" said the Duchess.

  She was being perfectly frank in her reply. No message had reached Castle Belham the night before to say that Sylvia was safe at Endecott, and this for one simple reason.

  The stable boy entrusted with the message by Count von Brauer had never set out. Oh, he had meant to. He had gone to the stable, albeit reluctantly, and saddled his pony. He had taken his cap from its nail and his sou'wester from its hook. He had led the pony to the stable door and waited with her for a break in the thunder and lightning if not in the wind and rain, whistling a tune to cheer himself all the while. Oh, there was no doubt but that he intended to fulfil his commission. What he had not bargained for was the distraction of Polly.

  Polly was a peach, she was. She had downy hair on her arms and a mole on her upper lip. She was plump as a partridge and oh, how her eyes could flash at a fellow when she wanted.

  When Polly sidled into the stable with her hair all wet against her cheek, young Ben was astonished. He was even more astonished when she pressed her arms around him and asked if he would like to kiss her.

  It was queer how time flew when a female set her cap at you!

  By the time Ben had recovered his senses – and his cap, and his sou'wester – it was far too late to take a message to Castle Belham. Why, no-one at the castle would be up! He'd ride over straightaway at dawn and maybe then the Count would never know he hadn't executed his task at the correct time.

  The Count did know, of course, because it was he who had sent Polly to detain young Ben. That way, the blame for the Duke of Belham not receiving a message to tell him where his daughter was that night would lie at the door of the stable boy and not that of the Count. The Count was anxious that a message not reach Belham too soon. Some intrepid servant might be asked to brave the storm and take a carriage to Endecott. After all, Sylvia was there without a chaperone!

  So the Duchess was genuinely ignorant of Sylvia's whereabouts the night before. It never occurred to her that Sylvia might have visited Endecott unannounced precisely because she was without a chaperone. It was one thing for a young lady to roam the countryside on her own (though if truth were told the Duchess had never been reconciled to this habit of her step-daughter's) but quite another to spend the evening alone in her fiancé's house. Even if there was a storm! The Duchess of course could not guess at the manner in which the Count had tricked Sylvia into accompanying him to Endecott.

  The Duchess had taken supper with her husband, in his rooms. She had sat with the Duke all evening. She usually went to say good-night to Sylvia on her way to her own room, but last night she had decided to remain with the Duke.

  He had felt particularly frail all day and had not even asked to see his daughter. The Duchess had asked Jeannie to make up a bed for her on the large sofa in the Duke's study. She asked Jeannie had Sylvia arrived home and Jeannie answered that she thought so but she hadn't taken supper.

  Lady Sylvia often went straight to her own rooms when she came in and had a supper tray sent up. Before the Duchess could ask any more questions, the Duke had begun to groan in an alarming way. The Duchess hurried over to him to try to make him more comfortable. What with one thing and another she had forgotten all about Sylvia.

  The note that had arrived from Endecott that morning had, therefore, come as a great shock. She felt horribly guilty not to have realised that her step-daughter had not made it home at all last night. As the Duke was sleeping deeply she sent for the carriage immediately and set off to fetch Sylvia. She did not wish to alert the Count until she had a better idea of what had might have befall
en her stepdaughter.

  She was, however, thinking of the Count now as she looked on Sylvia. She was wondering whether or not to mention the Count to her step-daughter. Sylvia had not remembered that her father was ill. Perhaps she would also not remember that she was engaged to be married! Since she had never seemed easy about her impending marriage and had avoided meeting with the Count, it was more than likely that the subject was still rather tender with her. To introduce the subject might agitate her and impede her recovery.

  The Duchess therefore decided she would say nothing for the moment, at least until she had spoken to the Count.

  "Well, I'm sure we'll solve the mystery of where she was soon enough," sighed the Duchess.

  Charity glanced at her quickly. "I do hope so because she was not in a happy state when we – encountered her," she ventured.

  "No? Well, I'm sure the poor creature was soaked through!" said the Duchess. "And terrified. It's no small matter to be out in a storm, you know."

  "Oh, it was more than that," began Charity.

  "But I'm sure it was nothing 'traumatic' as you suggest," said the Duchess, rising magisterially from the chaise. She had no wish to entertain thoughts of anything having happened – anything 'untoward' – that might throw the prospect of marriage to the Count into jeopardy. That would be too, too cruel. No, she was sure there was some innocent explanation for Sylvia's state the night before.

  "Now," she continued. "I cannot allow myself to take up any more of your valuable time. If Sylvia can get dressed, I shall take the poor creature home at once in the carriage."

  "I'm not sure that would be advisable," said Charity quickly. "Doctor Glebe suggested she should not be moved – at least for a while."

  The Duchess put her hand to her breast. "But I couldn't possibly impose further upon your kindness – "

  "I assure you, we are only too happy to look after her here. I shall make myself personally responsible for her well being."

  The Duchess reflected. She had little aptitude for nursing and she knew it. It was quite enough, thank you, that she currently had to take care of the Duke. Charity Farron was a well bred young lady and Farron Towers the perfect place to recuperate. She, the Duchess, could organise the wedding much better without Sylvia's glum face around to discomfit her.

  More importantly, it was perhaps better that Sylvia was not at Castle Belham for the Duke to ask her awkward questions, at least until the mystery of the previous evening was solved and, if necessary, dealt with.

  "Well," she said briskly, "I shall gladly accept your offer. You will of course send for us when she is ready to return home? And you will not object if anyone should care to visit her here over the next few days?"

  "Not at all," replied Charity.

  The Duchess leaned forward and gave Sylvia a perfunctory kiss. Sylvia's eyes fluttered open.

  "I am going, my dear," said the Duchess. "I believe I am leaving you in very capable hands!"

  Sylvia smiled weakly. "You do indeed, Mama."

  Charity accompanied the Duchess as far as the entrance hall, hoping to discover a little more about Sylvia. The Duchess, however, considering herself released from the constraints of duty, was now far too busy on her way out, noting the contents of Farron Towers to divulge anything of her step-daughter's life.

  "Now that is a gem!" she cried, pausing before a porcelain shepherdess. "French, is it?" She turned the shepherdess upside down. "Oh, not French – "

  She handed the statue to Charity to replace on the shelf from whence it had come and carried on. Further along the hallway her voice rose excitedly. "Oh, oh, oh! Forgive me, but that's a Reynolds isn't it? Splendid! We own one or two ourselves, though ours are in gold frames. They're up at our London house. Do you have a London address?"

  "No. We stay with our god-mother, Lady Lambourne, when in town."

  "Lady Lambourne! I know her. We have been to one or two of her balls. Oh my! That must be a portrait of an ancestor? I can see the likeness! She has the same eyes as you. And my goodness!" The Duchess stopped short just before the front door.

  "We have the exact same Chippendale chair. Only we have a full set. Not just one. Ah, here is your maid with my coat. I am delighted that Sylvia finds herself in such charming quarters. Good-bye, good-bye! I shall see you again soon."

  Charity was speechless as she gazed after the Duchess. "Well," she marvelled to herself. "I am absolutely none the wiser about your daughter now than I was before you arrived."

  So little had been divulged that Charity was even unaware that the Duchess was not Sylvia's real mother!

  *

  Over the next two days Charity was as good as her word and took great care of Sylvia. She sat quietly at her bedside, busy with her embroidery but always alert to Sylvia's needs.

  Tempting dishes were sent up to Sylvia from the kitchen. Strong broth, beef consommé, calves' foot jelly, platters of fruit, marzipan. Sylvia laughed and said she was being fattened up, like the children in Hansel and Gretel! Charity brought her interesting books from the library, books full of beautiful illustrations so that Sylvia's mental strength was not too taxed. If Sylvia felt very tired, Charity would read aloud to her.

  Charity was delighted with Sylvia. She was deeply attached to her brother, but this was the first time she had enjoyed the constant companionship of someone her own age.

  Soon the two young women felt as if they had known each other for years.

  Memories returned slowly to Sylvia, seeming to flutter into her consciousness like butterflies. If she tried to seize them the minute they arrived, they vanished. If she waited, barely acknowledging them, they settled and she could examine them at her own leisure. Scene by scene her life returned to her.

  There were some events, however, that still hovered beyond recall, though she was unaware of this. She did not remember the ball at Lady Lambourne's, nor the gentleman she had met in the garden. She did not remember the parlous state of her family's finances and she did not remember the night her father took ill. She remembered absolutely nothing at all about Count von Brauer.

  It was as if he had ceased to exist. She remembered neither her first sight of him in the mist near the estuary, nor her subsequent introduction to him when he called at Castle Belham. She had no idea that she was engaged to be married to him and the terror of that night at Endecott was wiped as clean from her mind as chalk from a slate.

  Sylvia recounted her returning memories to Charity, who was pleased to be able to put together a picture of her new friend's life. They discovered that they shared many interests in common. Charity, like Sylvia, was happier in the country than in the city. She had little interest in fashion or frivolous past-times. She loved nature and poetry and animals.

  The first two nights Charity sat up with Sylvia, dozing in a large chair by her bed. On the third night however, Sylvia insisted that Charity go to her own room and get some proper rest. She felt so much stronger and calmer, she was sure she would be all right alone. Charity hesitated, but at last she admitted that she was very tired and would welcome a night in her own bed.

  Left alone, Sylvia read for a while and then turned down the wick on the oil lamp. Bright moonlight flooded the room as she fell asleep.

  The memory that would not come during her waking hours now seized its chance. Twisting into strange and unfathomable shape, it seeped insidiously into her sleeping mind.

  She was running along a corridor. The walls were blood-red as were the floor and ceiling. She ran as if her life depended on it. Behind her was a shadowy pursuer, a man. She could hear his panting breath, his wheedling tone. 'Stop, stop. There's a good girl! Stop!' She rounded a corner and her heart gave a lurch as she saw before her…a brick wall. She was trapped! Before she could turn she felt cold fingers around her neck and smelled, unaccountably, the odour of stale wine and hair wax…

  Sylvia started up with a shriek. For a moment she could not remember where she was and this intensified her terror. She stared wildly round. The
re was a long window, a very pale light shining through a muslin curtain…shining around a dark, waiting figure.

  With another scream Sylvia leapt from the bed. She raced to the door. Even as she glanced behind her she saw the curtain being drawn aside.

  She was out in the corridor and running. Running as if to save her life. Her bare feet pattered on the deep carpet. Her night-dress fluttered about her. She had no idea where she was running to or from whom. Thus it was that, rushing around a corner, she found herself stumbling straight into the figure of a tall, astonished gentleman. Strong arms caught her as she fell with a sob.

  "You are safe, madam. You are safe!"

  Barely conscious as Sylvia was, the words reached her like balm. She felt herself lifted and carried back along the corridor. Pressing her face into this stranger's breast, she felt as if she could hear his heart beat.

  Her rescuer kicked wide open the door to her room and carried her through.

  She did not open her eyes until she was laid gently upon her bed. Then her eyelids fluttered as she looked up into a finely chiselled face, a lock of dark hair falling over a high, pale forehead, dark, passionate eyes gazing down upon her with a strange look of wonder.

  For a second, his face was so close to hers their lips might have met. Sylvia could feel his breath upon her cheek. Then, slowly, he straightened up from her. He struck a match and lit the wick of the bedside lamp.

  "W..who are you?" murmured Sylvia.

  He blew out the match before answering. "I am Lord Farron, madam. Brother of Charity."

  Her senses no longer blunted by terror, hearing Lord Farron's voice clearly for the first time, Sylvia's heart gave a jolt. She was sure she had heard it somehow and somewhere before. But like so many other memories, the exact details eluded her.

  For now, Lord Farron was part of the uncompleted jigsaw that seemed to be her past.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The crocuses were out and daffodils were bobbing merrily in the breeze. A bright April sun struck sparks off the estuary water.

  Charity and Sylvia were strolling in the garden.