The Forgotten Sister

by Nicola Cornick

  A short drive led to the house. She sat for a moment looking at it before she put the car into gear. Her main feeling was surprise; she’d forgotten how ugly it was with its pointed window arches, spiral chimneys and quaint little turrets. Amelia had clearly done some more work on it in the years since the wedding; large windows created a wall of glass on the west side of the courtyard and the stables were clearly new but in a style that copied but did not quite pull off the character of the original. It was all a bit too much for Lizzie, a mad mixture that shouted, ‘Look at me!’

  She pulled up in front of the main entrance. Four grotesque carved faces, a lot less friendly than the stone angel at the church, adorned the door embrasure and did nothing to make her feel welcome. She felt spiky and unsettled enough to make her almost turn tail and run.

  ‘Hi.’ Arthur was waiting for her. His smile was warm and it made Lizzie feel a little bit sick in anticipation of what she was about to do. She’d lain awake a long time the previous night trying to decide whether to tell Arthur what she knew, but in the end, had decided against it. It was Johnny she needed to talk to, not Arthur. Johnny held the key to the mystery.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Arthur said. He kissed her and for one long moment Lizzie closed her eyes and blotted out what was to come and let the warmth and the pleasure of it unfurl in her.

  ‘Hey,’ Arthur said softly, when he let her go. ‘It’s good to see you.’ He drew her into the hall. ‘Come and meet Sam. Anna’s here too,’ he added. He saw Lizzie’s quick glance. ‘It’s OK—’ he touched her arm briefly, a fleeting reassurance, ‘she’s just so glad to have Johnny back that I’m sure she won’t cause any trouble.’

  The hall was even more grotesque than the outside of the house. Lizzie remembered the huge stone gothic vaulting and stained glass windows. She glanced towards the staircase.

  ‘Was that where Amelia fell?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ Arthur gave her a faint smile. ‘Amelia’s accident happened on the back stairs.’

  Lizzie was relieved to find that that the kitchen was brand new, light, and much more normal. Anna and an older man whom she assumed must be Sam Appleyard were sitting at the stripped pine table which was littered with newspapers and empty mugs. The air smelled warmly of baked bread and coffee. Sam got to his feet and came around the table to shake Lizzie formally by the hand.

  ‘Hi, I’m Sam. We’re grateful to you for coming over.’ He had short, salt and pepper hair and a deeply tanned and lined face. His accent was US west coast and his grip firm. He gave Lizzie an impression of durability that she thought was probably an essential quality for someone who disappeared off into the wilds for months at a time. His manner was gruff but she liked him.

  Lizzie nodded to Anna, who gave a dip of the head in acknowledgement. She looked younger now and more vulnerable than she had when she had marched into Lizzie’s flat, bristling with suspicion and aggression, but not much friendlier.

  ‘Take a seat.’ Sam waved Lizzie to an empty chair next to Anna, who rather ostentatiously moved further away. ‘Would you care for a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lizzie said.

  Sam placed a mug of coffee in front of her and Arthur pushed the biscuit tin across the table towards her. She cupped her hands about the mug and inhaled the scent.

  ‘Hey, Lizzie.’ The door opened and Johnny ambled in. He looked just the same; lanky, cadaverous, his blue eyes tired. He seemed to vibrate with the same repressed energy Lizzie had sensed in him from the night he’d come to the flat. He kissed her cheek. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘I don’t deserve it but I really appreciate it.’

  ‘You owe her an apology,’ Anna said grudgingly. ‘We all thought she’d pushed you in the river or something.’

  ‘Yeah…’ Johnny’s gaze slid away from Lizzie’s and he blushed. ‘I’m really, really sorry about that.’ He held the door open. ‘Can we talk?’ He looked pointedly at the others. ‘In private?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ Arthur said. ‘Lizzie might not want that after you abandoned her on the Embankment.’

  Johnny’s blush deepened. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry,’ he mumbled.

  Lizzie almost pitied him. She would have done if she hadn’t been expecting this, hadn’t suspected that Johnny would try to get her on her own again so that he could exploit her ability to read the memory of stone like he had at Baynard’s Castle.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fine.’ Her nerves were strung so tightly that she could feel herself shaking. She grabbed her coffee and a couple of biscuits and followed Johnny out.

  ‘This house is a warren,’ she said as they recrossed the hall. ‘I couldn’t live somewhere like this. I’d rattle around like a marble.’ She tried to sound as normal as she could. She didn’t want to confront Johnny until she was absolutely sure of what he had planned.

  ‘It’s so weird that it’s mine now,’ Johnny said. ‘Did Arthur tell you? Millie left it to me. I can’t decide…’ He let the sentence hang.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Lizzie was trying not to spill her coffee on the carpet. She was trembling so much she suspected she was leaving a trail of biscuit crumbs like Hansel and Gretel. Johnny didn’t seem to have noticed, fortunately. He was concentrating only on what he needed to do. Lizzie felt a burst of compassion for him. He was so intense, so driven to save Amelia. There was no room in his mind for anything else.

  ‘I thought we’d go to my room,’ Johnny said. ‘There’s something I want to show you, to try to explain…’ The sentence trailed away as he started to climb the grand stair, slowing his loping stride to match Lizzie’s shorter one. The steps were broad and shallow, and at the top the landing spread out on either side like a huge gallery. The light was multi-coloured, refracted through the panes of the stained glass windows. Lizzie paused, remembering her vision of Johnny standing there as a child on the day of Dudley and Amelia’s wedding, peering through the mahogany bannisters. It felt as though the shadow of Oakhangar Hall hung over everything, including Avery, who had warned her not to go back…

  ‘This way!’ Johnny called, and Lizzie hurried after him, down a side corridor. It felt colder here, even less friendly than in the gallery. Lizzie’s skin prickled a warning. She was so attuned to the house now, to its moods and its memories, that it almost felt as though she could hear it breathing. Its presence wrapped about her, cold and claustrophobic.

  Johnny was waiting for her at the end of the passage. They ducked beneath a low arch that was decorated with another of the Oakhangar stone angels, went down a couple of steps and suddenly they were on a small landing. It was diamond-shaped with mullioned windows and the ubiquitous stone angel over the arch at the top of a narrow flight of stone stairs. She felt the atmosphere as soon as she stepped through the door. It felt close, stifling, a blanket of grief and misery. The sensation was so strong and repellent that she took an instinctive step back, bumping clumsily into Johnny, missing her step and dropping the coffee mug. It smashed on the flagstones, splashing everywhere, but Johnny didn’t seem to notice. He caught her arm and steadied her.

  ‘I like this part of the house,’ he said. ‘It feels very close to the past.’ He smiled at Lizzie. ‘Don’t worry. It can’t hurt you. It’s only the memory in the stone. I think it holds all of Amy Robsart’s grief and regret, and that’s what you are feeling.’ He ran a gentle hand over the smooth plaster of the wall. ‘This part of the house reuses the stone from Cumnor Place. Its very fabric is created from the place where Amy Robsart died.’

  ‘I know,’ Lizzie said. Her voice came out as a whisper. She cleared her throat. ‘Johnny,’ she said. ‘Johnny, this is the flight of stairs where Amelia died.’

  Johnny was staring down into the shadows of the stair well below. ‘Just a little step back in time,’ he said, almost to himself.

  ‘No!’ Lizzie said. Her head was buzzing with dark shapes and patterns. She wanted to run away. ‘Johnny, you can’t bring Amelia back,’ she sa
id. ‘I understand what you’re trying to do, but time doesn’t work like that. It can’t.’

  ‘I’ve got to save Amelia,’ Johnny said, as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘I couldn’t save Amy. She wouldn’t listen. You have to help me.’ He turned to Lizzie and the suddenness, the urgency, made her draw back. He looked heartbreakingly young and hopeful. ‘I knew you would work it all out,’ he said. ‘I knew you were different. I need you to call up the memories in the stone like you did at Baynard’s Castle. Then I can cross time.’

  ‘No,’ Lizzie said. ‘I won’t do it.’ She tried to back away from the top of the steps but the swarm of dark shadows in her mind was clamouring for attention. There was something here that was too powerful for her to contain and it was terrifying. It was so strong that it dominated everything, filling all the spaces in her head. She fought to hold on to her own thoughts so that she would not be completely subsumed. Dizzily she put out a hand to steady herself against the wall only realising when the touch of the cold plaster seemed to burn her palm that it was the last thing she should have done. The memories in the stone had been set free.

  The images were coming thick and fast now, like a jerky silent film, the figures jostling on the screen. Lizzie couldn’t breathe. She was drowning in sorrow. Her lungs were full of it. She could taste it in her mouth. Images spun through her mind, animated with sound as well as movement now.

  ‘It’s not Amy,’ she said. ‘It’s not Amy whose grief we can feel here. Amy had hopes and plans. She was excited, happy. She was going to escape and start anew…’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s someone else here,’ she said. ‘Amy calls her Anna. It’s Anna whose grief we can sense, Anna who is broken with guilt. She never meant for it to happen. She did not want Amy to fall. It was an accident—’

  The images shifted abruptly and Lizzie saw not Amy Robsart but Amelia, in one of her long, flowing dresses, her blonde hair loose about her shoulders, standing at the top of the stone stair, suitcases scattered about her. She was looking back at someone and she was smiling, but it wasn’t a warm smile, it was edged with impatience and spite. Lizzie could feel Amelia’s emotions, the irritation and the exasperation. Amelia wanted to get away and someone was calling her back…

  ‘Anna! No!’

  It was Johnny’s voice and the shout was so loud that it broke Lizzie from the trance. She opened her eyes, saw the dark stairs yawning below her and teetered on the edge for one sickening moment. She waited for the push in the small of the back, the fall, the rush of air and the clutch of terror, everything she had felt in her visions, the fate that had lain in wait for Amy Robsart and for Amelia and now for her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a hand raised and instinctively put up an arm to protect herself. The blow glanced off her shoulder, giving her a momentary excruciating pain and Lizzie stumbled back, jarring her arm again as she fell clumsily. She lay still for a moment with her cheek pressed against the cold stone of the floor whilst the darkness swirled through her mind and started to clear and the pain receded. Far away, as though in a dream, she heard the splintering crash of stone.

  ‘Anna,’ Johnny said again, and there was a whole world of despair in his voice. ‘It was you. You killed Amelia.’

  Pushing herself upright, Lizzie saw Anna Robsart, and behind her Arthur, who was breathing as though he had run a mile. His eyes met Lizzie’s and she saw the moment he realised what had happened. She saw the horror swamp him and felt his despair. Arthur turned away and Lizzie felt the link between them shut down.

  Far below them, on the turn of the stair, the stone angel lay smashed into shards, just as the gazing ball had done so many years before.

  Chapter 26

  Lizzie: Present Day

  ‘Yes, I did it,’ Anna said. ‘I pushed Amelia down the stairs.’

  They were back in the kitchen, amidst the breakfast debris. There was an air of complete unreality about everything. The papers, the cold pot of tea felt like a relic from another time, from before. Arthur had his arm around Johnny. They both looked completely ashen. Lizzie felt like an interloper; she wanted to reach out to Arthur, to try to comfort him, but she knew there was nothing she could say. There was no comfort anyone could give.

  Anna’s blonde hair fell across her face like a curtain, sheltering her expression from view. ‘I killed Millie,’ she repeated. ‘We were arguing about the divorce. I wanted Millie to take Dudley for all he had. It was the least he owed her after the way he had behaved.’ She shot Lizzie a look. ‘But Millie wasn’t interested. She was running away, planning a new life. She was all excited and glowing and happy and I—’ Her voice cracked. ‘I was still so full of anger and resentment and hate. I couldn’t understand why she would let Dudley off the hook like that. I told her I thought she was weak and stupid, and she looked at me with pity.’ She clutched convulsively at the mug, wrapping her hands about it, searching for fading warmth. ‘Pity from Millie, of all people! I couldn’t stand it. She was the one who broke down when Mum died. I was strong – I hid how I was feeling to be there for everyone else! I didn’t deserve to be patronised like that.’ She gulped down a mouthful of cold tea. ‘Well, I told her that if she wouldn’t do it for herself then at least she should make Dudley pay for what he did to Mum.’

  She looked defiantly and deliberately from face to face. ‘Basically, Dudley killed Mum,’ she said. ‘When he refused to pay for her cancer treatment, he condemned her to death. He had so much cash in those days he wouldn’t even have noticed but he wouldn’t do it. And Amelia was complicit in that because she could have made him pay for Mum to go to America for treatment but she just gave up. When he refused, she let him get away with it.’

  ‘Anna…’ Sam shifted in his seat, placing one of his hands over hers. ‘We talked about this at the time,’ he said. He sounded lost, despairing. ‘I thought… We all thought you agreed the treatment would have made no difference. Jessica said so herself. It was too late.’

  ‘You can’t know that.’ Anna was shaking now. Lizzie could see how thin was the veneer of her self-control. ‘How can anyone know? You could at least have tried.’ Her voice splintered on the last word and she started to sob in great gulps and gasps, her whole face contorted and her shoulders heaving with the weight of grief and anger.

  ‘Amelia said she understood why I was still angry but that I had to let it go, that I had to let Mum go…’ Anna said. She raised her chin. ‘She said she had moved on with her life and that I should too. But I couldn’t.’ Her voice shredded into despair. ‘I didn’t want to! Millie was bustling about packing her bags all the time we were talking, like I was just an irritant to be brushed away. I snapped, I suppose. When she carried the first bags over to the top of the stairs, I followed her and said she couldn’t just walk out in the middle of our discussion. She laughed and said the discussion was over, and I grabbed her arm and screamed at her not to turn her back on me… And then…’ She stared. ‘I pushed her. I was so angry I wanted to kill her. She fell down the first flight and hit her head the wall – I heard the crack – and then she sort of rolled over and fell down the second flight too.’

  No one said anything at all. Johnny was slumped against Arthur’s shoulder, eyes closed. Arthur looked ashen. A muscle moved in his cheek.

  After a second Sam got clumsily to his feet, the scrape of his chair shockingly loud in the quiet. He put his arms about Anna. She did not move into his embrace but neither did she push him away.

  ‘It will all be all right,’ Sam said, and he sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. ‘We have to go to the police, Anna, you do understand that? We’ll tell them it was an accident. It’ll be all right.’

  Lizzie was reminded of Anna comforting Johnny that day at her flat, because how did you ever make anything right when it was so wrong, so messed up, so painful? She had no idea.

  ‘I don’t want you to tell them it was an accident.’ Anna pulled herself free of Sam’s grip. She raised her chin, staring him down defiantly. ‘I’ve
told you I did it. I don’t mind admitting why. I want everyone to see what a conniving cow Amelia was and what an utter sleaze Dudley is and always will be.’

  Sam was looking shattered, old and exhausted. ‘What has Dudley got to do with this?’ he said.

  ‘It’s all about Dudley in the end,’ Anna said bitterly. ‘It always was about him, selfish, self-centred, stupid, feckless Dudley. No one could resist him, could they? Not Amelia, not Letty Knollys, not even me.’ She glanced up for a moment, her blue eyes dull. ‘To think that in the beginning I thought Dudley was God’s gift. I practically begged for his attention.’ She shook her head violently. ‘I hate him and I hate myself.’

  Lizzie remembered the wedding, and how both Letty and Anna had been part of the screaming, giggling pack of girls fawning over Dudley in the pool that afternoon. Anna had been so young then – sixteen – younger than Amelia, her sister, Dudley’s bride. But evidently that hadn’t stopped him. She felt sick.

  ‘I saw Dudley when I was leaving that day Amelia fell,’ Anna said. ‘I was in such a horrible state I didn’t stop to speak to him and I don’t think he saw me. I don’t know what he was doing here but later, when he pretended that he’d been miles away and he didn’t know anything about it, I knew he was lying. I think he’d come to talk to Millie about the divorce and got the wind up when he realized she was dead.’

  ‘And what about Lizzie?’ Arthur’s voice was hard. He didn’t look at Lizzie but kept his full attention on Anna. ‘You hit her. You could have killed her too.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Anna said. ‘I thought she was going to pull one of her weird mind tricks and tell Johnny what had happened. I just wanted to stop her.’ Despite the words, the glance she shot Lizzie was laced with malice. ‘You kept causing me problems,’ she said to her. ‘I wanted to keep Johnny away from you but he liked you and so did Arthur.’ She shook her head. ‘You’re as bad as Dudley in your own way. I really wish I could have pinned the whole thing on the two of you. I tried, when I gave Johnny a lift to yours that night in Arthur’s car and he left his phone behind. I planted it in your flat. But it wasn’t enough.’