by Taylor, Lulu
‘Father, please. Isn’t it time to forgive me? I know I was wrong and what I did was terrible, but I was very young and things have turned out well, haven’t they?’
‘They could not have been worse,’ he spat out on his next rattle.
‘But I’m married to Nicky, we’re happy—’
‘I gave you a chance,’ he said, fixing her with his strangely distant but penetrating stare. ‘I decided to forget the truth. I shut the Stirlings out of our life and brought you up as well as I could. I found you a husband who would take care of you and keep you away from them. But there wasn’t any way to stop you. Something wicked in you made you seek him out.’
‘Wicked? What do you mean?’
‘Wicked. Disgusting. Sinful.’
‘Because I left my husband for Nicky? Because I was unfaithful?’
‘That was bad enough but it was far worse than that.’
She felt a terrible sense of foreboding. Her next word came out in a whisper. ‘Why?’
He blinked slowly at her, the lids moving across his eyeballs as if there was not quite enough moisture for them to slide easily. ‘You are like your mother, it seems. She was also unable to resist the Stirling family. She was unfaithful to me with Northmoor. They thought I would be too stupid to find out, or else too grateful for the honour done to me to mind. They reckoned without my pride. When I knew for sure, I put a stop to it but it had been going on for years. Years. I believe your deluded mother actually thought he might marry her. That was ridiculous, of course. But what broke everything to pieces was my discovery about you.’
She stared at him, a clammy horror crawling over her skin. ‘Me?’ How could she have been involved? What did she have to do with it all?
‘You’re not my daughter.’ He said it almost with relish, as if this was a last pleasure he would savour before he died. He said it as though he’d tried to do the right thing and keep silent but she had insisted and now he wasn’t going to deny himself this last triumph, although exactly who he was triumphing over was unclear. ‘You’re the child of old Northmoor himself. That’s right. Your husband’s father. You married your half-brother.’
It felt as though a dead weight plummeted through her, taking her breath with it. A nasty sick sensation coursed through her, making her palms tingle and her stomach clench. She replayed his words several times in rapid succession, each time absorbing and then rejecting what she’d heard. ‘No.’
‘Yes. Yes!’ A smile seemed to crack his face, making his deathly pallor even more gruesome. ‘I tried to stop it but you wouldn’t listen. So I let you wallow in your filth and bring those poor children into the world. Why should I care if the Stirling line poisons itself? You’re all tainted now, aren’t you? You’ve got your mother’s blood. You’ve got her madness in you.’
She got to her feet. Her pity for him was gone. Death had not softened him or allowed him to find forgiveness or charity. She thought suddenly of all the many hours they had spent sitting together in church in their pew near the front. All those wasted hours where nothing he had heard about loving kindness had ever meant a thing to him. Instead he’d dealt this blow, this deathly blow to her, destroying her life in an instant and enjoying it too. ‘You must hate me very much,’ she said in a shaky whisper.
‘You can’t help it,’ he said. ‘I never hated you, I simply washed my hands of you. I hated her.’
She knew suddenly that this was her last chance. She would never see this man again. ‘What did you do to her? What happened?’
‘I knew what she intended to do, and I allowed it. I planted the idea of the folly in her mind. I led her to see that it was for the best.’ He smiled a ghastly smile that filled her with such horror it was all she could do not to scream. ‘I knew that eventually she would be unable to resist. And you remind me of her so much.’
Appalled, she turned and ran out, bumping heedlessly past Emily outside on the landing, hurrying down the stairs and out of the house as fast as she could, as though pursued by demons.
She climbed into her seat and felt the hysteria whirling up in her. No! No, she would not believe it. How could she and Nicky be brother and sister? It was too terrible, too awful to contemplate. It could not be true, but if it were . . . violent sickness twisted her stomach and she retched into her shaking hand.
There was a knock on the window. A face was there, a big white moon under a brown hat, staring in, concerned. ‘Lady Northmoor? Are you all right?’
She stared back with frightened eyes. It was one of the local ladies, but she had forgotten her name. ‘Yes, yes!’ she stammered, then turned the key and pulled away into the road, driving at manic speed to get away from her father forever.
She flew the car up the hill towards Fort Stirling, hardly seeing the route. She was shaking, breathless, her head spinning. What would she say to Nicky? How could she tell him? They’d been living in the most terrible sin for years – oh God, she was going to be sick again – and she’d done those things her father had said: poisoned her family, tainted them.
Her breath came in shallow gasps as she thought of the children. What did it mean for them? The shame for them, the horror for them all . . .
The car mounted the brow of the hill, to take the gentle curve downwards to the house. It was a blur at first – a purple coat and a pink bicycle, that had toiled so hard up the long hill and was now preparing to return – but as Alexandra sailed towards it, the small fuzzy shape in front of her resolved: the little bike wobbled, the small face with dark hair whipped up by the wind became clearer, and the big eyes turned towards her, wide and trusting. Down the hill, Nanny was puffing up towards them.
There was no time to think or to move. For an instant, Alexandra was staring straight into her daughter’s eyes before the car, unstoppable, ploughed forward and took the bicycle under its wheels, and its little rider with it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Present day
Janey called Delilah to the phone mid-morning and when she picked up the handset in the hall, she was surprised to hear the vicar on the other end. He hoped he was not disturbing her.
‘No, not at all,’ she said. John was out all day on estate business. He had thawed enough towards her to return to their bed, but he was still remote and closed off. She had been staying inside the house, not wanting to bump into Ben. The encounter by the pool kept replaying through her mind and every time she felt a twist of heat inside her, but she wasn’t sure what it meant. Sometimes it felt like guilt, or shame, and sometimes like something else that she couldn’t yet admit to herself.
‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you,’ the vicar said in his friendly way. ‘You asked me to find out about where Lady Northmoor was buried, didn’t you? I mean, your husband’s mother.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ She sat down on the chair by the telephone table, her attention caught. ‘Have you found her?’
‘No, I’m afraid I’ve drawn a blank there. I can’t find any mention of her being buried. But you said 1974, didn’t you? There is a different death recorded. The name is Elaine Stirling.’
Delilah gasped and went very still.
‘Hello?’ asked the vicar after a moment. ‘Are you there?’
‘Yes.’ She sounded breathy with the strange excitement that now flooded her. So this was the mysterious Elaine, the one that the old viscount had mistaken her for. Who was she? Had she been a mistress of his? But the surname was the same. ‘What does the record say?’
‘Well, these things are very sparse, you know. It’s not a medical certificate – there’s no cause of death or anything like that. But it tells me that she is buried in the churchyard and I wondered if you’d like to come and see the grave.’
‘Yes – I would, thank you. I can come right now, if that suits you.’
The vicar was waiting for her in the churchyard, gazing sombrely at the mouldering, lichened gravestones nearest the church. Hearing her footsteps approaching, he looked up with a smil
e.
‘Ah, there you are. You got here jolly fast.’
‘Yes – I’m keen to take a look.’
‘According to the plan of the graveyard, Elaine Stirling is buried in the far corner, under the large yew tree. Let’s go and take a look.’
She followed him as he led the way through the tilting gravestones. ‘We don’t use this graveyard any more,’ he explained as they went. ‘I’m glad – it’s hard to care for these places: grass to cut, graves to maintain and so on. But there were burials here into the seventies – though most recently it tended to be ashes rather than coffins. There’s a big crematorium and graveyard over at Holly Park – that’s where most people go these days.’
The grass, she noticed, was particularly lush and green, and she wondered if it was anything to do with the rich source of rot that must have seeped into the soil. Just as she was banishing that picture from her mind, she realised that the vicar had stopped and was kneeling down to look in the long grass around the yew tree. He pulled away some growth and, after a moment, said, ‘Hello, I think this might be it.’
Delilah crouched down beside him, aware of the tickling grass on her bare skin, and peered into the cool green gloom beneath the yew tree. There was a small stone set into the ground topped with a tiny marble urn with a sieve-like covering with holes for flower stems. On the gravestone was engraved writing and she leaned closer to read it.
‘Elaine Stirling,’ she read. ‘1969–1974. Oh my goodness, she was only five! Oh no, that’s awful. Look, there’s a line of poetry here. “In one of the stars I shall be living.”’ Her eyes filled with tears and her throat felt tight. Was there anything sadder than the death of a child? ‘What happened to her?’
The vicar looked solemn as he gazed at the tiny grave. ‘Poor child. And poor parents. How odd that she should die in 1974, the same year you thought Lady Northmoor died.’
She lifted her head to him, staring but hardly seeing him. ‘Wait. You’re right. Lady Northmoor died the same year.’
‘You said there was a possibility that she killed herself. Well, here is a likely motive, don’t you think? Her daughter died at only five years old. Who knows what she suffered?’
Delilah half heard him but there were thoughts whirling around her head as well. Suddenly she saw the doll she had tucked away in her drawer at home, the pink ballet-dancing doll hidden in the playroom all this time. The child was born two years after John. She was dead when he was seven. She had to be his sister. There was surely no one else she could be.
Oh my God – Alex lost a child. She lost her daughter. So that’s it. That’s why she did it.
The realisation came over her and she felt absolute certainty. But there was still a puzzle.
How could Alex leave John? How can anyone compound the loss of one by leaving the other? It didn’t make sense, unless she was ill or out of her mind with grief.
She clambered to her feet. ‘Thank you, Vicar, I must go now.’
‘Are you all right? You look rather pale. I’m sorry, I forgot that this little girl must be a family member.’
Something occurred to her. ‘I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but won’t the christenings be recorded? Is it possible to look at the records of those?’
‘Yes . . . it shouldn’t be too difficult. Come and we’ll do it now. I don’t think you look as though you could wait.’
As she drove home Delilah tried to absorb the things she had learned. She knew now that Elaine Stirling was the second child of Nicky and Alexandra – her christening was in the record – and that she had died at the age of five. After that, there was nothing. No record of Alexandra’s burial and no further events in the family until John’s wedding to Vanna in 1997.
John had a sister he’s never mentioned, she thought. There are no photographs in the house. Nothing. It’s as though she never existed. Why would he hide such a thing from me? I don’t understand it.
She had a sudden recollection of John saying that his family did not breed many girls. How could he say that when he knew that there’d been a daughter – his own sister?
But, she reminded herself, there was no saying how childhood trauma might express itself. If the family had gone through the horror of losing the little girl and then the mother in just a few months, perhaps they had coped by wiping out all the memories of the child and never speaking of either her or Alexandra. It was the only explanation she could think of.
‘Alex,’ she whispered out loud. Her mind filled with an image of the other woman, distraught, weeping, wailing, perhaps screaming and tearing her hair. She was running, in hysterical tears, towards the folly. She was in the grip of madness. ‘Why did you do it? But my God, you must have suffered.’
At home she scanned the family photographs again, looking for new clues, trying to seek out the little girl she now knew had existed. Would she see things she had missed before? She walked through the bedrooms upstairs and stood for a long time in the nursery, gazing at the rocking horse and imagining a child riding it happily and playing with her doll on the rug by the fire. She could see nothing. The years must have erased her absolutely. Perhaps the doll had been the only thing left to find. Except there was still the attic, with its mass of jumble. Something in there might prove that there had once been another child here.
She shook her head, frustrated. What proof did she need? She had the proof – it was in the churchyard under the yew tree and it was printed in the church records. What she did not know was why. She was afraid to ask John. She did not even know if she dared to tell him of her discovery. He hated and feared the past, and she was frightened of how he might react.
John returned that evening, calmer after a long day, tired out and less agitated than he had been recently. They chatted a little over dinner and Delilah tried to keep the conversation light, but her mind was so full of what she had discovered, she could hardly think of anything else. She had planned to wait and see how things were between them before she spoke of it all, but now she realised that it would be impossible to keep back what she knew. Besides, she didn’t want there to be more secrets, and she couldn’t start by keeping them herself.
‘John,’ she said tentatively, putting down her fork. She caught his eye, then quailed a little, looking down and stroking the wood of the table. Girding herself mentally, she went on. ‘I found something out today and I really want to ask you about it.’
‘Oh?’ An apprehensive air enveloped him at once. ‘What?’
‘You remember how your father once asked me if I was called Elaine? Well, there’s such an odd coincidence. The vicar mentioned a grave to me and we went to look at it in the churchyard. It’s got the name Elaine carved on it. Elaine Stirling. But she died when she was only five years old. Do you know who she was?’
John stared down at his hands, blinking. Then he looked up at her again, clearing his throat. ‘Yes. That’s my sister. She died in an accident.’
‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. You’ve never mentioned her,’ she said carefully, trying to keep any note of accusation out of her voice. ‘Not even when I told you that your father called me Elaine.’
He took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘You’re right,’ he said. He stared over her shoulder at something on the counter behind. ‘I should have said something. But . . . it’s hard to explain. Elaine has never been talked about. Ever. You can’t understand what her death did to us. I went away to prep school one term and when I got back they were gone: Elaine. And my mother. Just like that. I’d left my family alive and happy and when I returned, there was only my father left. And we were not to talk about the others. It was as though they’d never existed. I had no idea why it had happened – and I missed them so terribly.’
She put a hand out to him, full of pity for what he’d been through. ‘That’s so awful, John. I’m sorry.’
‘I do find it hard to speak about.’ He managed a wry smile as he met her gaze for a moment. ‘I suppose you’ve noticed that.�
��
‘Can you talk to me about it, just a little? I’d like to know what happened.’
He seemed to pull on some inner reserve of strength and took a deep breath. ‘All right. I know you deserve that. I do remember Elaine, but in odd little flashes: a baby in a pram, a child on a swing, us running down the hall together. I remember her crying one day – I think I’d pushed her off the rocking horse. I have a mental picture of her sitting on the hall floor with some dolls around her, and us opening our stockings in the nursery at Christmas. That’s about it. She was sweet, but I suspect most five-year-olds are: angelic, you know, with soft hair and big eyes.’ He paused and his lips tightened, then he went on. ‘She was killed in a car accident – a hit and run, some rogue driver speeding along the country roads – and not long afterwards, in an agony of grief, I suppose . . . my mother . . . she . . .’ He broke off, closing his eyes and biting his lip.
‘She killed herself,’ ventured Delilah quietly.
His eyes opened. ‘You know about that?’
‘A few things fit together, that’s all. It makes sense.’
John twisted his fingers around each other, watching them intently as he did so. He seemed suddenly lost in his own thoughts and murmured in a low, strained voice, ‘I can’t understand how she could leave me. She must have loved Elaine very much. I wasn’t enough to keep her here.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Delilah said, her voice still soft and comforting. ‘I should have guessed there was something strange about that folly when you reacted to it in that way.’
‘The folly . . .’ He closed his eyes again and shook his head. ‘That wretched folly. So that’s how you worked it out.’
She nodded.
He stared back down at the table. ‘I ought to have told you.’
‘It’s all out in the open now, though, isn’t it?’ She felt a sudden surge of hope. They could mend it all now, and start afresh. The old John would come back, the man she’d fallen in love with. ‘I mean – I know about Elaine and about how your mother died. You don’t have to hide anything from me anymore. There’s no need to be afraid.’ She got up and went over to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. ‘You poor boy. You’ve had a terrible time. I want to help you. I can make it better, I promise.’
