Watch for Me by Twilight

by Kirsty Ferry

  Present Day

  As Cassie stood wondering how she should respond to the scarf comment, a lorry came through the gates with a car following it. Aidan smiled as a slim blonde in a hi-vis jacket, jeans and safety boots got out of the car. ‘Here’s my site manager now.’

  The woman was very attractive and Cassie saw an emerald engagement ring glinting on her finger as she paused, pointed towards the tennis courts and said something to a man twice her size. The man nodded and climbed into the lorry. He started the engine and Cassie covered her ears as it thundered past her.

  The blonde turned and noticed Cassie, a smile breaking over her face. ‘Ah, you must be Lady Cassandra Aldrich? I’m Ms Novak. I’m sure Aidan has explained my role in the project?’ Her accent was lovely and Cassie couldn’t help but smile at her.

  She held her hand out. ‘Please, just call me Cassie. Yes, Aidan’s explained it all.’

  ‘Very well. Cassie. Then you can call me Petra. It’s nicer, don’t you think?’

  Cassie suddenly felt faint. The emerald ring glinted again and she couldn’t think of a sensible thing to say.

  ‘Petra. Lovely to meet you.’ It wasn’t. Not really. ‘Do you need Aidan to stay while the deliveries come? That’s a beautiful ring, by the way.’ She could have bitten her own tongue off. Good grief.

  Petra laughed. ‘Thank you. Iain tells me I shouldn’t wear it for site work, but you know, he bought it for me and I like it, so why not? I tell him it’s insured and I’m not likely to be going close enough to a cement mixer for it to fall in. It’s fine.’ She grinned, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

  ‘Iain?’

  ‘Yes.’ Petra nodded towards Aidan and smiled again. ‘But when one is engaged to the boss’s brother, one has to try and behave oneself at work. So we say nothing, yes? Anyway. Aidan is more of a nuisance at this stage. Please. Take him away. Today is about getting the deliveries in. Tomorrow we start the real work. If that’s okay with you?’

  Cassie felt an incredible surge of joy. Petra was engaged to a guy called Iain. And she was Aidan’s mysterious site manager. The world seemed a lot, lot brighter suddenly. She cast a glance at the Spa and it flickered into life as it had been, so many years ago, then faded back to how it really was. She blinked and smiled. She’d had a glimpse of it in its heyday, and she had no doubt that it would look like that again very soon. ‘Wonderful! Thank you.’

  She looked up at Aidan, who was already fastening his helmet on. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s not waste the day. I told you she wouldn’t mind. Where do you want to go?’

  Cassie could feel the most enormous smile tugging at the corner of her lips. Petra was his brother’s fiancée – there was no need to hold back at all.

  ‘Aldeburgh!’ she said without hesitation. ‘Wait here until I get changed!’

  Aidan laughed, his eyes dancing with mischief. ‘Don’t be too long.’ Then he leaned closer to her and whispered: ‘I might miss you if you take too long.’

  Cassie thought her heart would burst with pleasure, and she ran as fast as she could back to her cottage. She didn’t want to waste one moment more.

  Once they had reached Aldeburgh, Cassie felt her spirits lift immeasurably. The Living History weekend couldn’t be in better hands, she decided, and she was in one of her most favourite places ever. Back at the Hall, when she had returned to Aidan and her bike, clutching her helmet, the blue and white scarf had been tied intricately around the handlebars and she had laughed. ‘Have I got my own bunting, then?’

  ‘I think it adds a rather nice touch, don’t you?’

  It had put her in an even better mood, and she had marvelled that was even possible.

  And now, at Aldeburgh, Cassie stared out at the shingled beach as it sloped down to a hazy blue sea and smiled. ‘I’d like to live nearer the coast,’ she informed Aidan as she took her helmet off and tucked it into the box on the back of the bike. ‘But I’m afraid if I did that, I’d gorge myself so much on fish and chips in the first week I’d hate them for evermore.’

  ‘Impossible. I don’t think that would ever happen to me. I could live on them. In fact, do you want to get some now? We could take them to the Scallop.’ The Scallop was a sculpture on the beach – two massive, interlocking shells, that people could sit on, scramble on or simply view the sea from.

  ‘That sounds great,’ agreed Cassie. ‘Come on. I know just the place to get them.’

  They took the fish and chips to the huge sculpture, as Aidan had suggested. Cassie was licking her fingers clean of salt and vinegar, sitting on the bottom scallop shell and watching the tide ebb and flow.

  ‘I like this sculpture,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I know some people don’t, but it’s a bit like the Louvre pyramid isn’t it? You either love it or you hate it.’

  ‘I like it too.’ Aidan looked up at the punched-out letters in the top shell and read the phrase out. ‘“I hear those voices that will not be drowned”. It’s from a Benjamin Britten opera, isn’t it?’

  Cassie nodded and twisted so she too could see them. ‘Peter Grimes. It’s the one about the fisherman’s apprentice – a bit of a tragedy, as these things usually are. It was first staged just after VE Day. Britten lived here. I’ve never really liked opera, but I had to study a little of it for my degree. Sorry – for the degree I started. I ended up changing to a Business one instead to help Alex out.’ She pulled a face. ‘I quite like that phrase though. It sort of makes you think that certain people and certain voices live on somehow, no matter what happened to them. A bit like Robert Edwards and his poetry. Or Rob. I think I like him being called Rob better.’

  ‘He suits Rob, doesn’t he? It’s almost like he’s more real to me as “Rob”. It’s weird.’

  Cassie smiled. ‘Perhaps he’s the one that makes you feel like that – he won’t be silenced. Some voices just speak to us mysteriously through the years.’

  Aidan shivered a little. She might well be correct. ‘Oh! That reminds me.’ He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. ‘It might be a good time to give you this. Your Apostrophe guy – I’ve been doing some research. I should have been doing the B&B plans, so we have to stay away from that hotel up there …’ He grinned as he pointed with the paper to a pale blue building on the harbour. ‘… but your man’s not so random as you might think.’

  ‘My Apostrophe Guy? I’d almost forgotten about him, with all the excitement of you coming to the Hall. I mean—’ She dipped her head and turned pink. ‘All the excitement of the renovation.’

  Aidan smiled. ‘Yes, it’s been an exciting time. But even so, your Astrophel is not a man who should be forgotten – and not, may I add, someone who has been forgotten. I found this.’ He handed her the paper and Cassie unfolded it.

  Cassie studied the lines Aidan had written down: Astrophel and Stella. A sequence of 108 sonnets and 11 songs relating to love and desire, probably composed in the 1580s by Philip Sidney. The names derive from the Greek words ‘aster’ (star) and ‘phil’ (lover), and the Latin word ‘stella’ meaning star. Astrophil or Astrophel is the star lover, and Stella is his star.

  She looked up at Aidan. ‘This relates to Stella? Really?’

  ‘Looks like it. And just as importantly, it seems to relate to a particular poet who seemed to love her.’

  ‘Robert,’ she whispered. ‘Your Robert. Rob.’

  ‘I’d like to think so. In fact, it’s more than a possibility. Can you remember that I mentioned the quote on the picture? Reach for the star? That seems rather more relevant, does it not?’

  ‘But what was he doing with the picture? Why didn’t she have it?’

  ‘Maybe she did. Maybe she sent it back to him for some reason.’

  ‘The token of affection she returned to him!’ The pieces suddenly started to fit. ’I bet he joined the RAF after they’d had a falling out. He must be the “R” initial – he’s one of the boys she’s so lost without. And I bet he’s the one she’s most lost without.’
r />   ‘You’re betting an awful lot.’ Aidan smiled. ‘Is that the book you told me about, with her friends in?’

  ‘Yes. During the war, the numbers halved and the boys disappeared. When we get back, you can see it for yourself—’ She stopped. It was one thing getting excited about Stella’s book and wanting Aidan to come and see it. It was another assuming he would even want to do that. He’d be busy, he’d have work to attend to. He maybe wouldn’t want to spend any more time on the mysterious relationship. Perhaps he didn’t feel as strongly about it as Cassie was beginning to?

  But it seemed she was wrong. ‘I’d love that.’ Then he coloured, just slightly. ‘I was wondering what excuse I could come up with to spend a little more time with you today.’

  Cassie stared at him. ‘Well,’ she tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Really, you only had to ask me.’

  ‘And would the answer have been “yes”?’ he teased.

  ‘Of course the answer would have been “yes”. Now I know that Petra isn’t actually your girlfriend!’

  ‘You really thought that?’ He looked astonished, then laughed. ‘No. She’s my site manager and my brother’s fiancée. I’ve worked with her for years and known her even longer. Trust me. There’s never been any of that between us.’ He grinned, but then, suddenly, became serious. ‘And on that basis, I honestly thought Tom was your boyfriend. I stayed away because I didn’t want to cause any problems. I didn’t want to see you and know that you were taken. I couldn’t handle that.’

  ‘Truthfully? Aidan, I would have made up fifteen other projects if I thought I could drag you over to the Hall to work on them. It was the thought of Petra that was stopping me.’

  Aidan laughed and shook his head. ‘What are we like? And what if,’ he continued, his voice suddenly softer and warmer – soft enough and warm enough to make her feel as if she was melting and dispersing into tiny pieces, into the shifting sand beneath her feet – ‘now we know better, I asked you for a kiss?’

  Cassie caught her breath on a little ‘Oh’, and then her heart beating wildly, she smiled. ‘Why that would be a “yes” as well. You only have to ask.’

  ‘Then please may I kiss you?’

  ‘You may.’

  He gave her one of his heart-breakingly gorgeous lop-sided smiles, and, without taking his eyes off hers, he leaned in to her and pulled her towards him and she didn’t resist – couldn’t resist. She put her arms around his neck, and pulled him down, surprising herself by the urgency she felt.

  Their lips met, and she caught her breath as the electricity fizzed up and down her spine. His lips were warm and his kiss warmer, and she reached a hand up, tangling her fingers into the too-long hair that lay against his neck. She felt his arms slacken and then his hands were running up her arms, until he took hold of her face, one palm either side of it, and kissed her even more, and she thought she would absolutely die of pleasure, right there on Aldeburgh beach in full view of anyone who cared to watch.

  Chapter Twenty

  September 1941

  The dreadful party had lost its spark after her big announcement – not that it had been a very good party anyway. Even the very sight and smell of the champagne she’d once loved made her gag, which just made things one hundred times worse, really. At least nobody had noticed she had substituted the stuff for ginger ale, and thus she had avoided any awkward questions before she was ready to tell them her news.

  They’d peeled away just after dinner, everybody except Helen, who had stayed with her on the terrace to wave everyone off. Helen, beautiful little Mary-Pickford-lookalike Helen, with her dark hair and her kind dark eyes, turned to Stella and said it, said the very thing Stella had been trying not to think about.

  ‘Have you told anyone else?’

  ‘By that you mean …?’ Stella raised her eyebrows quizzically, although she knew the answer.

  ‘Your brother. Your father. Rob’s family.’

  Stella laughed shortly and shook her head. ‘God, no. I think I’m hoping it’ll disappear. I’m just a little bit pregnant, really. Maybe if I don’t think about it, it won’t happen.’

  Helen shook her head. ‘Sweetheart, there’s no such thing as a little bit pregnant. It’ll happen and your tummy will all sort of pop and then you won’t be able to hide it anymore. How far along are you?’

  Stella dipped her head. It was embarrassing, and she didn’t want to talk about it, but if she had to talk about it, who on earth would be better than Helen?

  Rob. Rob would be better than Helen.

  She quelled the thought.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged, thinking of the silly conversation she’d had with Leo all those years ago about Decca Mitford. Decca’s poor little baby had died and it was all so desperately sad, and Esmond was in the air force too, still flying and still in danger.

  Stella shuddered. She no longer wanted to be like Decca Mitford.

  ‘Rob was here in May.’

  ‘May.’ Helen counted on her fingers. ‘We’re in September now. That’s about four months.’ She cast a glance at Stella’s figure and frowned. ‘Darling, a pencil skirt isn’t very forgiving, really. I can tell.’

  Stella pulled her jersey down as far as it would go and then crossed her arms over her stomach. ‘Please. Helen. Stop it.’

  Helen leaned against the balustrade and folded her own arms. ‘It was nearly me, you know,’ she said quietly. ‘I was pregnant, and it was Anthony’s. And then I lost it.’ She shrugged and stared off over Stella’s shoulder. ‘And then we lost Anthony. I wish I’d had it. I wish I had something left of him. You’re really very lucky.’

  ‘Oh, God, Helen! I’m so sorry. I didn’t know!’

  Helen smiled sadly. ‘Nobody knew except me and Anthony. He told me he’d come back and marry me.’ She dipped her head and picked at a piece of non-existent fluff on her own skirt. ‘But he didn’t. So there you go.’

  ‘He might. He might come back.’ Stella sounded desperate and she knew it. ‘It might have all been a terrible mistake.’

  Helen laughed and shook her head. ‘The boys were with him, darling. He won’t be coming back.’ She pushed herself away from the balustrade and turned, so she was leaning on it, gazing across the estate. Her gaze followed the path of their friends’ cars; they had driven off in a very subdued manner and who could blame them. Stella had really killed that party.

  ‘I thought about becoming a nurse, but now I’m not so sure. I think my talents may lie elsewhere.’ She fixed Stella with her eyes. ‘I can help you. I really think I can help you.’

  ‘How?’ She looked down at her stomach and grimaced. ‘Can you make it all go away?’ She hated it. She hated that burgeoning, unforgiving curve that pushed insidiously out from beneath her waistband.

  ‘No. But I can help you deal with it. I didn’t tell you this, either, but Leo has been writing to me. Ever since Anthony died. His letters were very sweet to start with, asking me how I was managing, expressing how sorry he was. He’s really very lovely.’ She smiled fleetingly. ‘You don’t give him enough credit, you know. He dragged you out of quite a few scrapes, the whole time we were growing up. I can remember a lot of them, actually.’

  ‘Quite possibly more than me,’ replied Stella wryly. ‘I suspect I was fairly lit up for many of them.’

  ‘Fairly lit up? Yes, you could say that. He’s carried you home on more than one occasion.’

  Despite the horror of her situation, Stella couldn’t help but smile quickly at that thought. Dear Leo. Then the tears sprung to her eyes again. She had no right to smile, no right at all.

  ‘Anyway.’ Helen blushed and looked down. ‘The letters changed after a while. He started to tell me how he felt about me – how he’d felt about me for years. It was after you heard about Rob. He said life was too short, and he had to say something. And he felt so guilty for not being able to fight with the rest of them.’

  ‘His weak heart came in handy for something then.’

  ‘I don
’t know if he quite sees it like that.’

  ‘Well, I do! I don’t want my brother killed like everyone else.’ And then the tears began to flow properly, and Helen moved over and hugged Stella.

  Eventually, she smoothed Stella’s hair down and pulled away, and smiled. ‘I don’t want that to happen either. I started to love him, in my own way. What I had with Anthony was different and unique and I could never hope to have that again – but Leo makes me feel safe and I know he’ll look after me. And, selfishly, I know he won’t be killed like Anthony, because he won’t be out there in battle. I need something to cling onto, and he’s it. Leo wants to marry me. Do you mind?’

  Her heart lurched with something a little like joy. ‘Mind? Of course I don’t.’ Stella was astonished, wondering how Helen could even think it any of her business to mind or not mind. ‘But I don’t understand. I’m happy for you.’ She hugged her as if to prove a point. ‘But why are you telling me all this? I’m just a complication in it all and really nothing to do with you or Leo.’

  ‘I disagree. We have to tell him about you, and then ask if he can help us. If the absolute worst happens and he won’t, then I’ll tell him I won’t marry him, and I’ll come away with you. We can pretend you’re a widow and get you a ring. We’ll manage. Then we’ll worry about afterwards when you’ve had the baby. My parents are gone, it hardly matters to me. I have no family who would pry.’

  ‘Helen! You simply can’t jeopardise your future for me. God! It just won’t happen. It can’t happen.’ She shook her head, feeling that the tenuous carpet she had been standing on as a way out of this mess had just been pulled out from under her feet. She was back at the beginning with no hope of redemption. ‘No. I absolutely refuse to let you throw your life away on me and my problems. I’ll have to think of something on my own.’

  She looked down at her stomach and saw again the tell-tale curve that Helen had commented on. Her sweater had ruched up, settling above the tiny bump, as if the baby was already starting to demand that everyone knew about it. Tentatively she forced herself to touch it and felt the firmness beneath her fingertips.