The Forgotten Sister

by Nicola Cornick

  She came very close to me. ‘You lack for nothing but freedom and respect. Aye, I will give you that. And you also lack generosity and love. Your material comfort has been built on the blood of those that Robert has wronged.’

  I turned away, tired of her now. Time was running out. I thought I heard the sound of a latch lifting, a step on the stair below. It was time for me to go. I snapped the trunk closed and swung around, heading to the door.

  ‘Go home, Anna,’ I said, over my shoulder. ‘Go back to Antony and listen to him. He can comfort you. And if you are in material need, write to me and I will ask Robert to provide for you too.’ I knew that was a lie but in that moment, I would have promised anything to be free of her.

  I should not have turned my back on her. I realised it too late. I had walked out of the room without a backward look at her and paused at the top of the stair, expecting to see Richard Varney below. He was not there. No one was there.

  I heard the patter of Anna’s running steps behind me. She grasped my sleeve, tugging on it, spinning me about. Her face was a mask of fury.

  ‘Do not walk away from me,’ she shouted, shaking my arm. ‘Do not turn your back on me and dismiss me like a servant!’

  I was afraid that all the commotion would disturb Mrs Odingsells. I tried to free my sleeve from Anna’s grasping fingers but as I turned, I caught the heel of my slipper in my gown. Such a small thing, but my head spun and I felt myself teeter dangerously on the top step.

  ‘Amy!’ Anna’s voice was loud in my ears. ‘Amy!’

  I lost my footing.

  I seemed to fall so slowly. I had so much time and yet so little.

  I saw horror replace the anger in Anna’s face. She screamed, her mouth wide with fear.

  A man came running. I recognised Richard Varney. Within the jumble of terror and despair that possessed me, I felt one last glimmer of hope.

  Richard could have saved me. It would have been a simple matter for him to step forward and catch me. Instead he stepped aside. I had time to see his face, to see the calculation in his eyes, the satisfaction. And then I knew. Robert had double crossed me. There had never been a plan where I would be free to start a new life. It would have been too much of a risk. Robert needed to make sure he was truly free.

  Richard did nothing to save me. He, like Antony Foster, like William Hyde, like all the others, was Robert’s man, bought and paid for. And Robert, of course, was the Queen’s man. He had never been mine, not even in the beginning in Norfolk when we had been young and in love. Elizabeth had always come first, his sun and stars, the centre of his world, his inspiration and his life.

  Hope died. I felt the rush of air against my face and the lightness of empty space beneath me. I felt fear, screaming inside my head. Then it was over.

  Chapter 25

  Lizzie: Present Day

  ‘I don’t believe it.’ Lizzie sat in the kitchen at The High that evening, a cup of tea ignored at her side, and bit hard into an almond croissant. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she repeated with her mouth full. ‘He can’t just have been visiting the seaside, or seeing a friend, or whatever else he says he’s been doing. It isn’t possible.’

  She remembered the conversation she’d had with Arthur about Johnny being in Peru or Scotland. It seemed that Arthur hadn’t been far off the truth after all.

  ‘I know it’s annoying, Lizzie.’ Jules sounded irritatingly reasonable to Lizzie’s ears, ‘and it’s thoughtless of him and he’s caused you a lot of trouble, but you said yourself that Johnny’s just a boy and he’s been through a lot—’

  ‘I know.’ Lizzie cut her off shortly. ‘Sorry, Jules…’ She saw her cousin’s expression. ‘You’re right, of course, and I am glad he’s safe – of course I am – it’s just…’ She stopped. She couldn’t articulate to Jules that it wasn’t actually about the problems Johnny had caused her, it was simply that Johnny’s reappearance, as sudden as his disappearance, felt incongruent and wrong.

  At first when she had heard the news, she had felt nothing but relief. Johnny was home, he was safe. Arthur, when she had spoken to him, had sounded overjoyed and that had made her even happier. It was only later, when the reality of Johnny’s return had started to sink in, that Lizzie’s feelings had also changed. For a start, she felt an utter fool. At what point had she and Arthur bought into some kind of shared delusion about Johnny’s whereabouts? She was angry, with Johnny, but mostly with herself, for doing exactly what she had accused the police of and building up a case that fitted her version of the facts. It had all been based on no more than conjecture and wild imagination, and it had led her into spinning some kind of supernatural explanation for something that was a great deal simpler. Johnny, grief-stricken and depressed, had wanted some time alone to deal with his feelings. He hadn’t been on any kind of quest. She had imagined the whole thing. Lizzie felt so stupid, so gullible, and in an odd way it felt as though everything that had happened to move her life forward in the intervening two weeks had been cancelled out and she was back where she had started. She’d thought all along that her dependence on psychometry was wrong and something to be ashamed of. Now she saw just how far it had misled her. She’d even started to believe that time travel was possible because Johnny had somehow normalised her gift and encouraged her to believe, and then she had taken it way too far. Perhaps she had seen a vision in the stone when she had touched the stone of Baynard’s Castle, just as she saw visions from other objects. It didn’t mean that she had actually been there and nor had Johnny.

  Jules was still talking. ‘… So, there are gaps in the CCTV record, but there’s no doubt he was seen in Oxford and various other places, just like he said, and one of his friends said they’d met up…’

  So near, Lizzie thought, and yet so far.

  ‘The police have checked it all out as far as they are able,’ Jules said, ‘and Johnny’s agreed to go for some counselling. Physically he’s fine, just a bit hungry.’

  ‘Johnny wants to meet up,’ Lizzie said. ‘He asked me to go over to Oakhangar Hall today but Arthur thought he’d better have a bit of time to settle back in first. He wants to apologise.’

  ‘I should think so,’ Jules said, sounding like a strict teacher. ‘It’s the least he can do for all the trouble he’s caused you.’

  ‘I’ll go over tomorrow,’ Lizzie said. She tried to shake off the sense of uneasiness she was feeling. Two almond croissants and three mugs of sweet tea hadn’t helped. Something felt out of kilter; she didn’t know what. Perhaps it was simply that she didn’t know where she and Arthur went from here. It had all been so intense, so wrapped up with what had happened to Johnny, that now that was all over it felt as though her relationship with Arthur was finished too, before it had properly started. Her night with him, so emotional and right at the time, so much a part of the connection she had thought they had, now seemed almost incomprehensible for someone as guarded as she had always been.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said, getting up and wishing the pastry and the misery together were not weighing so heavy on her stomach.

  ‘Would you like me to come with you tomorrow?’ Jules asked. She looked suddenly anxious, and Lizzie felt a rush of affection for her. She went over and hugged her cousin. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘You’ve done so much already; you’re the best. I’ll come and see all of you soon, and we can get together in London as well and I’ll treat you to the Mayfair Chocolate Tour as a thank you.’

  ‘The kids will love that,’ Jules said.

  ‘Me too,’ Lizzie admitted.

  After Jules had gone, she went upstairs and took a long hot shower. It did nothing to banish the shadows that clung to the edges of her mind like cobwebs. She realised that she would need to hire a car to get to Oakhangar Hall. It felt good to grasp some sort of practical plan rather than let her mind meander through all the puzzles and confusion, so she turned out all of her bags looking for her driving licence, eventually finding it in the pocket of one of her jackets. She
put it on the bedside table so she wouldn’t forget it in the morning, and in doing so she caught a flash of silver illuminated in the lamp’s glow.

  She stooped to pick it up. It was a thin silver chain with a little silver phoenix symbol dangling from it. She remembered seeing it in the Land Rover when Arthur had given her a lift home. It had hung from the driving mirror, sparkling in the light. Turning it over in her hand Lizzie saw the initials JG engraved on the reverse. The chain had snapped. She touched the misshapen links.

  Immediately her mind clouded with images, blurred by sun and water droplets and a sort of dizziness that filled her up and made her feel languid and warm and slow. She could hear loud music and laughter but it was eclipsed by the roaring of water in her ears. Panic and fear edged out the warmth in her mind, like a cloud across the sun, but it was too late, too late to start fighting, too late for the struggle. She burst through the surface and heard the sound of screaming – and Dudley’s name. And then the water closed over her head again and it was easier to let it take her, to sink beneath the surface where it was gentle and dark…

  She came to herself kneeling on the floor, gasping and retching, as though her lungs were full of water. In the palm of her hand it felt as though the phoenix burned against the scar. She dropped it sharply and it clattered against the base of the cabinet.

  When she got her breath back, Lizzie hoisted herself up onto the bed and sat there for a little, waiting for her spinning thoughts to settle. The phoenix charm had belonged to Jenna, Arthur’s fiancée. She had known that, felt it as soon as she had touched the silver links. But if the phoenix had been Jenna’s then the watery plunge and the hideous death by drowning were also hers, and Dudley had been there at the time too…

  She hugged herself close. She was sure that Kat had told her that Jenna had died from anorexia so perhaps the vision had been wrong. Yet it had felt so vivid, exactly like Amelia’s fall had.

  Lizzie remembered the story of Amy Robsart’s spirit being trapped in the waters of the Citrine Pool, that descent into darkness, the binding of her soul. There were so many parallels and so many echoes. Could they really be no more than coincidence, and Johnny’s disappearance had no link to it at all? There had been his notebook, full of the ancestry of the Robsart family and his research into Amy, Robert and Elizabeth. He had even checked out stone tape theory and she was certain that at Baynard’s Castle he had been testing her gift to see if she could connect with the memory of stone.

  She remembered Avery’s words: ‘Truth is so often a matter of perception. It is very easy to be misdirected, especially if we want to be…’

  Supposing Johnny was misdirecting them about where he had been? Arthur in particular would want to accept Johnny’s words at face value because the only thing he cared about was having his brother safely home. Johnny knew that Arthur was not comfortable with the supernatural and would be inclined to believe him when he said he had just wanted time alone to think. Lizzie was not so sure, though. She was also not sure that Johnny had given up his hope of saving Amy and changing Amelia’s fate.

  Her phone rang. To her surprise she saw it was Dudley. She almost let it go to voicemail but in the end, she decided to answer. At the very least she could ask Dudley for the details of what had happened at Oakhangar Hall the day that Johnny and Amelia were playing their disappearing tricks.

  ‘Lizzie!’ He sounded so pleased to speak to her that Lizzie felt slightly sick. ‘Hey, how are you? The police told me Johnny’s turned up. Hopefully they’ll drop the investigation into Millie’s death and then we can unfreeze her and get on with our lives. I can’t wait.’ There were voices in the background and the clink of bottles. Lizzie realised that Dudley was drunk. It sounded like a big party and she was suddenly fiercely glad she was nowhere near it.

  ‘I can imagine,’ Lizzie said. ‘Did you want anything in particular, Dudley?’

  ‘Just to find out when you’re coming back to London,’ Dudley said, a little plaintively. ‘It’s boring here without you.’

  ‘But you’ve got Letty to play with now,’ Lizzie said. ‘I heard she’d moved in with you.’

  ‘Oh, Letty…’ Dudley sounded vague as though he’d already forgotten. ‘Yeah, well she’s no fun to be around. She’s sick all the time.’

  ‘I hear that can happen when you’re pregnant,’ Lizzie said coldly. ‘You should be supporting her, Dudley. Surely it’s the least you can do.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Dudley sounded sulky now. ‘I’d rather see you, Lizzie. You were always more fun.’ His tone lifted. ‘You’re coming back, right?’

  ‘I’ve got a few things to sort out,’ Lizzie said briskly. She knew that even if she did go back to London it would never be to the same world, least of all to hang out again with Dudley. ‘Listen, Dudley,’ she said, wanting to capture him whilst he was still in the good mood phase, ‘can you just remind me of something? We were talking a while ago about the time you were at Oakhangar with Johnny and Amelia—’

  ‘Little shit,’ Dudley said randomly, suddenly vehement.

  ‘And you said something about him being an emo kid, saying weird stuff and always appearing and disappearing like a ghost,’ Lizzie said. She wondered suddenly if the police were tapping Dudley’s phone – or hers, for that matter. Well, they could make of this what they wanted.

  ‘Yeah…’ She could tell Dudley’s attention was slipping away.

  ‘What did you mean?’ Lizzie said. ‘About the appearing and the disappearing?’

  ‘Fuck, Lizzie, how should I know?’ Dudley said. ‘I can’t remember last week never mind something that happened years ago at Oakhangar.’

  Lizzie was used to this. She waited and after a moment Dudley sighed heavily. ‘All I remember,’ he said, ‘was that Johnny came to visit us for a weekend at Oakhangar a few months after Amelia and I were married. School holidays or something. It was fucking awful, if you want the truth – he was about eleven and into stuff like history and religion, and Amelia said I had to spend time with him so I tried, I really did. We played football together but he was useless and there was nothing to talk about, you know, and then I’d turn around and he’d just vanished like I was the most boring person in the world… I was really mad; Amelia and I rowed about it after it happened a second time and I told her he was weird.’

  ‘You mean he walked out whilst you were talking?’ Lizzie said. Her mouth was suddenly dry.

  ‘Nah,’ Dudley said. ‘He literally disappeared. I mean, he must have slipped out when my back was turned but it was like he just vanished. That was why I said he was like a ghost. Fucking weird kid.’

  ‘Right,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘They’re all bad news,’ Dudley said. ‘Anna’s nearly as bad. I’m sure I saw her that day at Oakhangar, when Amelia—’ He stopped.

  ‘When Amelia what?’ Lizzie said.

  ‘Nothing,’ Dudley said. He sounded frightened suddenly. ‘I dunno. I haven’t seen Anna. I’m confused.’

  Lizzie had never been able to read Dudley’s mind in her entire life, but she knew that in that moment he had been about to say ‘when Amelia died’. A whisper of fear crept down her spine. She felt colder than she ever had before. Had Dudley been at Oakhangar that day? Had Anna? Whatever had happened, she knew she’d get no sense from him now. Dudley would admit nothing.

  She could hear the roar of the party behind him and the sound of Dudley’s breathing and the moment hung on a knife’s edge.

  ‘You take care, Dudley,’ Lizzie said carefully. ‘I’ve got to go now.’

  She cut the connection and dropped the phone on the bed. Then she sat down next to it, took the little silver phoenix charm in her hand and tried to work out what she had to do.

  Lizzie drove slowly through Oakhangar village, mindful of both the twistiness of the road and her unfamiliarity with the car. She was glad she hadn’t fallen for the sales girl’s talk and hired herself something flashier. She liked sports cars but they weren’t great on country roads and she hadn�
��t driven for years. It had been scary enough simply getting from the hire company in Witney to Oakhangar, twelve miles away.

  Oakhangar village was pretty but not in the chocolate box way Lizzie had come to expect from further west in the Cotswolds. The stone was greyer here and the buildings looked colder and more austere than the honey gold cottages of Burford. Even though the sun was shining and the day was tranquil and warm, Lizzie felt chilled but that was hardly surprising. The anticipation of what she was about to do was like ice in her blood. She took a left turn by the Barley Mow pub, passing a high wall. Ahead of her the lane opened up to a parking area beside a stone arch in the wall. ALL SAINTS CHURCH was carved at the top of the wooden noticeboard. An uneven flagged path led to the church door.

  On impulse, Lizzie stopped the car and got out to read the plaque by the gate. It was exactly as Avery had told her: the information board stated that both All Saints Church and Oakhangar Hall had been extensively rebuilt by Lord Basing in the early nineteenth century using stone from his ruined manor at Cumnor, a few miles away. The archway to the left of the plaque had come from the chapel at Cumnor Hall. A carved stone angel with luxuriant wings clasping a harp looked down on Lizzie benignly.

  Lizzie got back in the car and turned right, following the lane towards some huge metal gates that were very firmly closed. The name ‘Oakhangar Hall’ was picked out in gold on a black wrought iron nameplate. Lizzie didn’t really remember any of this from the last time she had been there for Dudley and Amelia’s wedding. She’d had a car and a driver that day and she’d spent the journey listening to her latest album on headphones. She smiled a little wryly at the memory.

  She got out and pressed the bell. She’d expected there to be the usual crowd of journalists about but perhaps news of Johnny’s return hadn’t yet got out.

  The intercom on the gate crackled but there was no response. A second later, however, the gates swung open silently and she drove through and they shut behind her. Lizzie had the oddest sensation of a trap closing. She’d always been a bit claustrophobic, wary of being penned in.