Watch for Me by Twilight

by Kirsty Ferry

  ‘Don’t be silly. It would work.’ Helen was serious. ‘But we have to tell Leo. Gosh – maybe if I marry him, very quietly, and I stay away from the Hall for a while, we can pretend we got married much, much earlier and your baby is ours.’ She was trying to make a joke of it, and Stella loved her for it.

  Stella’s hand was still flat against her stomach, and for the first time, she felt something other than panic or horror. She suddenly felt a tiny surge of excitement and of hope. This was part of Rob. This tiny life they had created was part of him. It was proof of their love, and proof that they had been brought together again, even after that awful letter and everything that had happened afterwards.

  She tried to make a joke back. ‘How do you even think my father would believe that? Or that Leo would fall in with that plan? The baby could have bright red hair and Rob’s attitude and you’d never pass it off as your own.’

  Helen moved towards her and took her hand. ‘Perhaps not. But we need to speak to Leo before we think too far ahead. Can you do that?’

  ‘If you do it with me. But I can’t tell my father.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell him yet,’ said Helen, and Stella was reassured, however briefly.

  ‘Stella! Dear God!’ Leo stared at her in horror and ran his fingers through his hair so it all stood up on end. He shook his head. ‘How? How in God’s name?’

  Stella’s cheeks burned and she swiftly wiped the easy tears from her eyes. ‘How? Well – it’s like this. When a boy and a girl love each other very much, they do something called sex—’

  ‘Stella!’ That was Helen. ‘Being flippant is not going to help.’ Helen’s cheeks were as scarlet as Stella imagined her own were.

  ‘No, it won’t help. Nothing will help. It’s bloody hopeless. I might as well go off and drown myself in the river, or pull the trigger on one of the pistols in the Long Gallery and put a bullet in my brain. I might as well—’

  ‘Estella Aldrich! Shut the hell up!’

  Despite herself, Stella snapped her lips shut and stared at her brother. He hardly ever raised his voice to her. His face was white and pinched, and his lips were pale and compressed. His hand strayed quickly to his jacket pocket, right over his heart. Sitting down, he laid his hands deliberately out on the desk and closed his eyes. Stella flicked an anxious glance to Helen, who was at his side in an instant. She would have made a lovely nurse.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s just the shock.’

  Helen turned and looked at Stella. ‘Stella, we’re trying to help you. Leo just needs to take it in. There’s no need to be silly about it. You’re making things worse.’

  Stella didn’t think she’d ever felt so small in her life. Similarly, she didn’t think she’d ever heard Helen use that tone of voice before, and it brought fresh tears.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ She sat down and covered her face with her hands. ‘I – we – couldn’t help it. It was when he had the twenty-four hours leave, and we hadn’t seen each other for ever so long. He wanted to marry me and I was horrid about it. He didn’t think I wanted to marry him, but I did. I do. I wish I’d … I wish—’

  Leo’s voice was steel. ‘He may yet come back. The main problem for now, though, is, of course, what we can do for you.’ He shook his head in despair. ‘I hoped this wouldn’t happen. I really hoped I would never have to deal with something like this. I hoped you would be careful. It was too much to hope that you would be able to control yourself, I suppose.’

  ‘We were careful, every other time. Even the first time.’ She flushed, remembering the River Hartsford by moonlight that long-ago summer night, and wished she could take the words back. Her brother didn’t need to know any of that.

  ‘Oh, God.’ He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Please don’t tell me any more.’ He opened his eyes and stared at her. ‘The way I see it, we have only one option – it gets adopted.’ His eyes drilled into hers. ‘That’s bearing in mind the fact that you are one hundred percent certain you’re pregnant and beyond any – danger.’

  ‘If by danger you mean losing it, I think it’s pretty much decided to stay. Despite my hurling myself around the bloody Home Farm and digging for sodding victory.’ She flicked a gaze up at Helen, and her cheeks coloured again as the other girl looked away. ‘Sorry.’ Leo would hopefully think she was apologising for being flippant again, but inside she cringed. ‘Yes. Adopted.’ She looked up at Leo and tried a watery smile. ‘Do you want to adopt it?’ Leo just glared at her. ‘Sorry.’ She lowered her eyes again, then rubbed her face with her palms. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying, I really don’t. I just wish Rob was here.’

  ‘He’s not here, at least not at the moment. So we have to be strong and deal with it until he is.’

  ‘Could we not help Stella to keep the baby?’ Helen asked, tentatively. ‘She does have a point. If we took care of it, then it wouldn’t be so bad for her, would it?’

  Leo looked at Helen and his eyes softened, full of love for this girl whom he had won through the most terrible of circumstances. ‘Now, how would that work?’ he asked, half-teasing. ‘We’d have to have been married, oh, four, five months ago at the very latest? Nobody around here is going to believe that we had a baby five months into our marriage and it was a bouncing six or seven pounds odd!’

  ‘No, that’s true. But we maybe have two ways around it – we all move away, and then we pretend Stella is widowed. Then, we move again, where nobody knows us at all and we could have been married five years, never mind five months.’ She cast a glance at Stella, who was quick enough to realise Helen was assessing her treacherous stomach again. She tried to suck it in, as if the bulge was the result of too many puddings, but of course that didn’t work and her cheeks burned again. ‘We then tell everyone in the new place that it’s ours – because nobody will have seen Stella pregnant. Or, because I know how very much Hartsford means to you, Stella moves away on her own.’ Helen looked at her sympathetically. ‘One of our friends is sure to be able to help find you somewhere if we can’t. Stella pretends she’s widowed again, has the baby, then you and I, Leo, go on a trip somewhere. Maybe to London? And we find a poor little abandoned baby whose parents died in the Blitz, and we bring it home and sort of adopt it.’

  ‘The Blitz ended in May. It wouldn’t even be born yet.’ Leo stared out of the window. ‘But who’s to say somebody didn’t find themselves in the same situation as my sister. The country is full of starry-eyed girls and soldiers taking liberties.’

  ‘Rob didn’t take any liberties.’

  ‘I didn’t say he did.’ Leo returned his glance to her. ‘I think Helen’s suggestions make sense. How much longer do you think you can hide it for?’

  He looked uncomfortable and Stella tugged at her sweater again. ‘Not long.’ Her voice was almost a whisper.

  ‘Very well. Helen – would you consider marrying sooner rather than later? Then we can get Stella away from here before the tongues start to wag.’

  Helen smiled and wrapped her arms around Leo. ‘I’m ready whenever you are. I didn’t really want to wait anyway. Life is too short. We all know that now.’

  ‘Sadly, it’s true. I know I’ll never compare to Anthony, but I’ve always loved you, Helen. I don’t want to wait, either, but I certainly don’t want to rush you into anything you’ll regret.’

  ‘Leo, I love you. Don’t be silly. I’m not going to lie. You know Anthony was – is – will always be my first love, but you are different. I love you in a different way. You’re my rock – you’ve kept me from crumbling in ways I can’t even explain. It’s another sort of love, but it’s no less of a love. You’re the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.’

  Leo reached up and covered her hand with his and Stella felt the tears spring back into her eyes. Was it even possible to fall for someone else; to settle for someone else when the love of your life had been ripped away from you? She couldn’t see how really, but it was obviously working for H
elen.

  ‘You don’t need to bring anything forward on my behalf.’ Stella said. ‘I can just go somewhere, and you can meet me whenever you get there.’

  ‘Ezzy, I’m not going to abandon you like that. Not when I can help you.’

  Stella bit her lip. Her brother’s voice was so kind, and she realised, perhaps for the first time, how much she had relied on him without even appreciating him.

  ‘God, Leo, I’m so sorry. I’ve never been the best sister to you. I’ve never really thanked you at all. For anything.’

  Leo coloured and looked down. ‘It’s just part of my job, Ezzy. I do the best I can, under the circumstances.’

  Helen moved over to her and knelt down in front of her. She took Stella’s face in her hands and smiled that beautiful, film-star smile at her. ‘I’ll need a maid of honour. We’ll do it quite quietly, neither of us wants a fuss. Is that all right? We’ll get you a nice dress to wear.’

  Stella couldn’t help but laugh, a little bitterly. ‘I think the days when a new dress was the most important thing in my life – as well as a good, dry champagne – have passed. I don’t think they’ll ever come back. But I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you, Helen. Thank you. And Leo, I do love you. I know I don’t show it, but I do.’

  Leo just smiled. ‘We’ll manage somehow.’ He cast a glance over to the closed library door. ‘We just need to make sure Father never finds out, or we’ll both be in trouble then.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Present Day

  Somehow, Cassie managed to drive back to Hartsford, the memory of Aidan’s lips on hers, on that windswept beach with the waves crashing behind them and the faint, metallic smell of the sculpture clinging to his hair. It had seemingly taken them both by surprise, the shock and wonder in his eyes afterwards reflected, she was sure, in hers.

  When they got back to the Hall, they were informed that the last delivery had come in at around lunchtime. Cassie found herself catapulted back into real life and her massive project as she stood on the poolside, late afternoon, surrounded by aggregate, concrete, pipework and tiles. She stared at it all in awe, the kiss not quite forgotten, but something that seemed secret and special and meant only for those few moments on Aldeburgh beach and not to be considered amongst the rubble. ‘I’m so pleased you know what you’re doing with this lot.’

  ‘Think of it like a giant puzzle.’ Aidan was, once again, professional. It was like they’d compartmentalised Aldeburgh and he was her project manager again. ‘It’ll all fit together somehow. I’ll do some initial planning now, then the work will start tomorrow. I don’t mind staying a bit longer tonight. I’ve got nothing I need to get home for. And talking of puzzles …’ He paused whilst he scanned a list he’d appropriated from Petra and ticked a final box. ‘… what did you mean before about Stella’s book?’

  ‘I’ll go and get it now.’ Cassie nodded towards the changing rooms. ‘I suspect you need access. You can go in the back way or the traditional way – it’s up to you.’

  Aidan laughed. ‘Traditional today I think. I am a consummate professional, after all.’

  ‘You’ll need this then.’ She pulled the key out of her jacket pocket. ‘I’ll see you soon. I know where to find you.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’ The twinkle in his eye was unmistakeable. The kiss hadn’t been compartmentalised that much then, and Cassie giggled.

  It didn’t take her long to run back to her cottage and gather together Stella’s book and Astrophel’s letter. She also picked up the little book that Robert had drawn the picture in. It seemed to belong to the set and she knew Aidan would like to see it again. She hurried back to the changing rooms and saw the door ajar. Aidan was inside, standing in front of the fountain and writing something down.

  He looked up as she approached, and smiled. ‘We need to rebuild the wall and that’ll make the secret room even more secret. Like it should be.’

  ‘Like it was.’ Cassie remembered her assumptions over why that room was secret and could see now how it would have been a delicious thrill for the party guests – or even for any special guests of the host or hostess. In this case, she thought, the very gorgeous Stella. It was strange to think that Stella and Robert might have had their secret liaisons there. More than likely if Astrophel was indeed Robert.

  ‘Here’s her book.’ Cassie opened it up at the page where Stella expressed the fact she was ‘lost’. ‘It’s all very sad.’

  ‘If you analyse his poems, he always suggested that he was driven to join the RAF for some reason he was never clear about, although there was the implication of a failed romance. Believe me, I’ve studied him in depth.’

  Cassie nodded. ‘I suspect you have. So who was supposed to be his muse?’ She looked at the book sadly. ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if was our Stella? It’s sad – there were so many people lost in time, though, pitching up wherever under whatever name they chose just to escape. Another lost generation.’

  ‘My granddad said his mother thought she was called Esther, or Ezzy, or something like that. She was never sure. She did say the story was that he loved her beyond everything, and it was so terribly romantic that he used to write poems for her. He also said she mentioned it was sad they’d lost touch with his cousins, so Rob must have had children at some point, presumably just before the war.’

  Cassie smiled and looked at the sketch of the Spa Area again in Robert’s book. The girl by the pool had long hair, and Cassie really wanted to believe she was her erstwhile relative. She wished desperately that was the case because it would mean she and Aidan had something which would bring them closer still to one another.

  October 1941

  At her brother’s wedding, Stella wore a simple, flattering, aquamarine-coloured crossover style dress that, if she held her bouquet quite strategically, meant her pregnancy was well hidden.

  Nobody really gave her a second glance though. Helen shone the whole day through in a beautiful, close-fitting white satin dress with a cathedral-length lace veil and a train that almost filled the aisle of Hartsford church. It had been made over from an old frock they’d found in the attics, and unless the wedding guests went into the library and looked at the family photographs, nobody would know the dress had first appeared about fifty years ago. The veil was one that had been passed down through the generations in Helen’s own family.

  ‘If my dress is very, very tight,’ Helen had told Stella, ‘then nobody will think that little baby is mine when we bring it home.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel so little now,’ Stella had responded, tentatively running her hand over the hard, unyielding crescent of her stomach. ‘I’m looking less fat and more – pregnant. Oh, God.’

  Helen squeezed her hand. ‘One week to go, then we can all disappear.’

  The plan was to go to Bath, where Helen and Leo would rent a house. Stella would turn up with them, wearing a wedding ring. They’d all stay there a month, then the newlyweds would return to Suffolk. There was, of course, an open invitation to any of their friends to visit at any time. Stella had never been very good at being alone and needed a sort of safety net, just for now.

  They’d give it a couple of weeks after the birth, then Leo would come – after telling his father he was off to London – and Helen and Leo would take the baby back to Hartsford with them. It would be, they decided, a baby that had been abandoned by its mother.

  The story was, as far as anyone was concerned, that Stella had become a nurse and wasn’t in a position to return to Hartsford ‘at present’. Stella dared to hope that the plan would work.

  June, Present Day

  As Aidan had promised, the work began on the estate the day after their trip to Aldeburgh.

  His initial planning had included the promise to return, and Cassie was desperate for that day to come.

  But, wouldn’t you know it, he’d got caught up in some shabby-chic barn project. The client had somehow managed to ‘drive’ her Range Rover into the back of the barn and then decide
d that, with all the carnage, now would be a very good time to consider a tea-room extension she’d been planning.

  ‘I think she does it deliberately,’ Aidan had told Cassie on the phone, clearly exasperated. ‘And I’ve sent Iain to sort it out. She wasn’t happy with that, so she’s hounding the office and I’m screening my calls. It’s meant I’ve had to pull Iain off the Aldeburgh project to go there and deal with her in person, even though the barn is only a couple of miles down the road. So I need to head up to the coast to progress the B&B.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have gone to the barn instead?’ asked Cassie, disappointed. ‘If it was local, that would have been better.’ She stopped herself from adding ‘for me’ at the end of that sentence. She didn’t have a monopoly on Aidan’s time, so she shouldn’t begrudge him time for other clients.

  ‘No.’ She imagined him shaking his head ruefully. ‘It would cause a world of hurt if I did.’

  ‘How come?’

  Aidan laughed. ‘The lady whose barn it is has a bit of a thing for me. That’s kind of embarrassing to admit, and probably a bit egotistical, hearing it out aloud!’

  Cassie smiled into the phone. ‘She sounds like a piece of work.’

  ‘She is. Look, I’ll be back at Hartsford as soon as I can, okay?’

  ‘Okay. I’ll see you then.’

  ‘See you.’

  Cassie was still smiling when she hung up the phone. She very much looked forward to seeing Aidan again.

  Cassie filled the time until Aidan came back with tidying up other aspects of her weekend that didn’t involve Aidan and the Spa, and largely hid from the giant trucks and highly efficient workmen that came and went in a dizzying stream.

  ‘The food products are all sorted – and so is my outfit. Hurrah!’ Cassie was sitting on a shady bench outside the Hall with Elodie, one day at the beginning of July. Elodie was desperately uncomfortable in the hot sun and Cassie felt sorry for her. She’d even given up on the Gypsy Caravan now, as she said she felt too impeded in the tiny area by her ever-increasing tummy.