by Rachel Hore
Jude could hardly bear to listen as Gran continued the story. The girls tried to run, but the men caught them. They’d struggled and Gran had been lucky enough to land a kick that made her captor let go and clutch himself in pain. “Leave her, we’ve got the gypo,” shouted Dicky, and young Jessie had staggered off in the direction of home, horrified at the thuds and screams behind her. She’d reached home whooping for breath, hardly able to get out her story to her startled mother. Her father was called and the farmer, who both ran up to the woods, then somebody got the message up to the Hall and the police were summoned, but it was all too late for Tamsin. Jessie’s mother told her she’d stumbled back to the encampment, bloody and bruised. Mrs. Wickham had fetched the doctor for her and a search was set up for the lads, who were caught as they got off a train. But when the sun rose next morning, Tamsin and her family had gone and for many years no gypsies came to Starbrough Woods.
“And when she didn’t come back I took her necklace,” Gran muttered. “I knew where she kept it and I took it. Jude, do you have it, dear?”
Jude took the box from her handbag and gave it to Gran, who opened it.
“Frank,” she said, “this was your ma’s. I don’t know where she got it from, but when she vanished I left it in the hideaway in the tower for her, thinking she’d come back. Then when she didn’t I took it. I’ve kept it all these years. I’m sorry.”
What Frank made of this confusing account, Jude couldn’t guess, but he took the box from Jessie and looked down at the lovely necklace, complete with the seventh star, which the museum had returned to Jude and the jeweler had, as a temporary measure, quickly cleaned and fitted back into its place. There was an expression of uncertainty and wonder in his face. “Is it real?” he asked.
“It most certainly is,” said Jude, smiling at Gran’s indignant expression. “They think it’s from 1760, or about then. That’s what the jeweler said.”
“What would I do with it?”
“It’s a kind of family heirloom. I suppose you keep it and pass it down the family.”
“There’s just Jon.” Frank looked down at the necklace, then put it down on the table and passed a hand across his face. “All this,” he said. “I can’t take it in. It’s horrifying … what happened to my ma, I mean. Dreadful. No wonder Da never said much about it.”
“I suppose it might have been seen as shameful back then.”
“I don’t know,” Frank said, “I don’t know. I expect he was wanting to protect her. He did that well.”
He sat sunk in thought for some time, then Gran said, “I could never forgive myself, you see. I should have told on Dicky before. And then I ran away and left her.”
“What could you have done, Gran? Maybe the same thing would have happened to you.”
“That’s what I told myself, but I still feel dreadful about it, dreadful.”
While they were speaking, Euan came over from his watch by the window and sat with them, turning the pages of the photograph album. When a silence fell, he said, “Do you know, Frank, I think this caravan of your mother’s might be the one in my garden. I said it was a coincidence, but, well, Jude, look at this pattern. Then there’s the carving here and a chip out of the fretwork just here, can you see?”
“Where did you get your caravan from?” asked Frank.
“It’s not mine, only borrowed,” Euan told him. “My cousin has a farmhouse up near the coast at Sheringham, and he found it in one of the barns. Do you suppose your mother’s whole family settled in the end?”
“I don’t know,” said Frank, “though perhaps I could find out. There are websites, I expect.”
“A whole other story,” Jude said, and Euan smiled, clearly pleased at the thought.
* * *
Robert and Alexia had laid out a big buffet tea in the musty old dining room for the occasion.
“I can’t thank you enough for doing all this,” Jude told them. “It’s so important to Gran.” They watched her holding court at one end of the table, Frank and Chantal asking her about her childhood on the estate here. At one point Jude heard her ask Euan how he’d changed the cottage where she’d been brought up.
“It’s been very jolly having you all,” Alexia said, reaching to remove her son’s leftover pizza from the greedy gaze of one of the dogs. “I think it’s the first proper party we’ve had, isn’t it, Robert? Apart from the twins’ birthdays, of course.”
“Yes, I believe it is. And it’s most appropriate that it’s a celebration of what one might call the Wickham inheritance. Jude, you’ve done a most marvelous job of uncovering such an interesting episode from our past.”
“There are still a few gaps in the story, but I’m doing my best to try to fill them. Then I’ll be able to finish my piece.”
“This is the one for the Beecham’s magazine?” Alexia asked vaguely.
“Yes, it should help a great deal to build interest in the sale.”
Jude was going home the following day; she was due in the office on Monday. Over the last couple of days she’d started drafting Bridget’s article. She’d finish it over the weekend, she hoped. The challenge was to keep to the word count. It was practically writing itself.
Now she looked around the room. It would be awful to leave this place. There were those loose ends to tie up; she was looking forward to finishing her piece and preparing for the sale, but she’d miss being here, part of life at Starbrough, and Claire and Summer and Gran.
She’d uncovered a wonderful story, about a girl who’d found a father and helped him in his endeavors, who’d discovered something of shattering importance—another planet—only to have everything snatched away from her. Jude believed most earnestly now, after Summer’s experiences, that Esther had escaped from the tower, but what had happened to her afterward was a mystery she had to try to solve. No one knew where Esther had come from—or where she went. Like a comet, there was just the brief bright glimpse of her life in her memoir, only for her to disappear once more into shadow.
She went to speak to Frank, who was now standing on his own, sipping a glass of beer. “Frank, I hope it’s not cheeky of me to ask, but could I borrow that necklace for a short while to take back to London? I need to have it photographed properly, you see, for a piece I’m writing about this house.”
“That should be all right, yes, you take it. It’s not my sort of thing really. I only accepted it because it was something of Ma’s. What I’d do with the thing I don’t know. Jon won’t want it, will he? I wish he’d find himself a young lady. About time he started a family, I reckon. Liz and I were married with him running around our feet when I was his age.”
Jude longed to tell him that he did have a grandchild, Summer, and they were watching her now, not running around but looking after the twins, ordering them to finish their drinks and play hide-and-seek with her.
“Nice little girl, that one,” Frank remarked. “I remember meeting your sister once with Jon. She’s changed a lot, hasn’t she?”
“So’s your son,” Jude said feelingly.
“It’s good when they find what they’re meant to do in life,” he said. “But that little girl…” He let his words trail off and Jude wondered if he’d guessed.
As if she’d heard him, Claire appeared at their sides. She said to Frank, “Gran’s so happy that she’s met you. I can’t believe the difference it’s made.”
“She’s a very interesting lady, she is,” Frank said. “We’ve been having a good old gossip, putting the world to rights. And she’s very proud of her granddaughters. You, Claire, she’s particularly proud of you, she says, with your shop and such a lovely little girl.”
“Yes, well,” Claire said, coloring slightly, but Frank had said just the right thing for she looked happier and more confident as she said, “I haven’t always been lucky really. But they say it’s what you make of what happens to you in life, don’t they?”
Jude smiled to herself at hearing Gran’s old saying, and moved on, leavin
g them talking. There was plenty to talk about.
Just at that moment, Alexia walked in holding Jude’s handbag, which she had left in the hall. “I could hear your phone ringing,” she said. “But I just missed it.”
“Oh,” Jude said, searching for the handset.
She stepped out of the room, read the display with some surprise, pressed a button to return the call and when it answered said, “Hello, Mum, how are you?”
“Well, fine, dear, but we wondered where everybody is. Your gran isn’t home, Claire’s phone goes straight onto answer and you left me such an odd message. Is everything all right? Where are you?”
“Norfolk,” she said. “Don’t worry about the message. Panic over. Claire and Gran are with me. How is everything out there?”
“Dear, we’re not in Spain anymore, we came home. I couldn’t cope at all. The heat, water shortages … it was simply dreadful. No, we got a flight back this morning. I did e-mail you about meeting us at the airport but you clearly didn’t get it.”
“No, I’m afraid not.” Jude couldn’t help laughing at her mother’s assumption that the world orbited around herself. “So you’re at home now?”
“Just having a cup of tea then we must pop out and buy something for supper.”
“Hold on a moment,” Jude told her. She searched quickly for Alexia and found her in the kitchen and explained. “I wonder if you’d mind if they came for a short while. Everyone’s together, you see, and it’s a real opportunity. Douglas’s home is only five or six miles north of here.”
“Why not?” Alexia said. “The more the merrier.” But Jude thought for once she looked just a tiny bit weary, and was sorry. But this was too good a chance to miss.
“Mum,” she said down the phone, “finish your cup of tea and bring yourself and Doug over. You know where Starbrough Hall is, don’t you? You’re going to get a bit of a surprise.”
“Starbrough Hall?” her mother said, sounding doubtful, and Jude remembered suddenly what Claire had said once about her mother knowing about the folly. “I suppose so.” Jude heard her confer briefly with Douglas then say, “We’ll pop in quickly, if you think nobody would mind.”
After tea came the tour of the house. Chantal led a party that included Frank, Jon and Claire, Euan and Summer. Gran said she’d rather stay sitting, and Jude wanted to show her the library. “If I was young I’d have a good go round,” she told Jude. “I never saw much but the kitchens before, but once there was a party in the garden and I peeped inside that big living room when no one was looking.”
Later, they all crowded into the library, too. Gran was in the big chair by the fireplace, surveying everyone.
Frank hovered by the orrery, fascinated as Chantal explained how it worked. Claire said she loved the ceiling best, with the personifications of different constellations. Euan pointed out to Summer who they all were and she repeated, “Gemini, Aquarius, Aries,” to herself like a mantra. Max and his sister ran about or crawled over the furniture, Robert crossly nervous that they’d break something.
“Why are there only six planets, then?” Frank was asking, and Chantal explained that these were all that had been discovered at the time it was constructed. “This is why Esther is important. It was she and her father who first discovered a seventh, but they themselves never recognized what they had found, and, anyway, it was never made public.”
“Ah,” said Frank.
“Chantal, when it gets darker, perhaps we could try using a light source in it?” Euan put in.
“What a good idea,” she replied.
Jude in the meantime was showing the journal to Claire, then took the memoir out of the cupboard. “Esther wrote this when she was imprisoned in the tower,” she explained, showing her. “It’s bits out of this that Summer seemed to know.” But Claire regarded it nervously, as though it might convey some horrid curse if she touched it.
“I’m still not sure that can be true,” Claire said, glancing at Summer, who was with Frank, looking at the orrery. “All I know is that, for the last couple of nights, since she … she went missing, she hasn’t had any nightmares. I’m crossing my fingers…”
So whatever it was might have gone, Jude said to herself. She didn’t dare voice this out loud in case it alarmed Claire. The idea that there might have been … well, something. Maybe a psychologist could explain it neatly away. Jude certainly couldn’t.
“When’s Grandma coming?” asked Summer, not in the slightest bit interested in any of the books and papers Jude had spread around her. It was now an hour and a half since Valerie had phoned.
“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” said Claire. “They’ll have lots to do if they’ve just got home.”
“Perhaps they’ve gone shopping first,” Jude said, looking at her watch. “After all, it’s getting a bit late.”
She heard Frank say to Chantal, “Yes, we ought to be getting along home, let you good people have a quiet evening.”
“Oh, we’re enjoying ourselves, aren’t we, Robert?” Alexia broke in. “Do stay a little longer if you can.”
“I think they’re here,” cried Summer, running to the window and lifting the blind. “Yes, Grandma! Grandma!” She banged on the window with her soft little fist, then skipped to the door, where she waited for Alexia to open it. Chantal followed, with Jude and Claire, hurrying out into the hall and down the steps. There a very smart couple were getting out of a polished navy saloon car. Summer hurtled forward.
“Darling,” cried Valerie in her gorgeous husky voice, and opened her arms wide to catch her. “How pretty you are. Let me look at you. Isn’t your hair lovely with those slides like that. Ooh, and I wish I could find shoes like yours. They don’t make them for grown-up ladies, darling.”
She turned to the row of smiling women. “Claire, Judith, darlings, I’m so sorry we’re late. And…” She embraced them in turn. Douglas, affable and correct, shook hands and kissed cheeks, and Jude introduced them to Chantal and Alexia. Chantal immediately admired Valerie’s pretty suit and drew her into the house, Summer hop-skipping ahead. Jude watched them go, noticing, to her surprise, that her mother’s high-heeled sandals were dirty with mud. Definitely odd. She went to help Douglas with some bags of gift-wrapped parcels stowed in the trunk.
“I’m sorry we’re on the late side,” he said gravely. “I expect Valerie will tell you. We had a little stop on the way.”
“Oh,” said Jude, thinking of the mud, “nothing wrong, I hope.”
“No, we had enough of that earlier. The airline lost my golf clubs. A damn nuisance and I’ve filled in endless forms. No, Valerie had a bit of sightseeing to do. Curious, really. Now if you could take these presents … you know Valerie, can’t pass a shop.” He lowered the trunk’s lid and said no more about the mysterious diversion, so Jude asked him about Spain as they went inside and he told her briefly about the stressful time they’d had. “We really should have waited until the villa was finished. I regret taking her there too soon. She really found it quite impossible—hot and confusing—and I don’t blame her. I can hardly forgive myself.”
In the library, Valerie, like a scented bird of paradise alighting amid the dowdy colors of the English country house, moved from kissing her mother to shaking hands with Robert. “Little darlings,” she murmured, on meeting the twins.
“Mum, this is Frank Thetford,” Jude said, and Frank greeted Valerie with a vigorous handshake. “My ma was an old friend of your ma’s, which is why we’re here,” he explained briefly, “and this is my son.”
To say that Valerie was surprised to set eyes on Jon would be an understatement. The blood drained from her face. Claire had the grace to push forward and bail Jon out. “Mum, I know you remember him, don’t you? We met up again recently. Actually, he’s really helped with Summer, and…” She clutched, involuntarily, at Jon’s arm. Jon gently took her hand and enfolded it in his. Valerie, however, was looking from Jon to Summer and back again, her lipsticked mouth an O of disbelief. Jude saw Frank
start to do the same thing. Claire rolled her eyes.
“Does she know?” Valerie said to Claire finally.
“Summer?” Claire said, trying to be nonchalant and merely sounding sulky. “No.”
“What?” asked Summer, sensing the grown-ups were up to something.
“Nothing, darling. I’ll tell you later,” she said sternly.
“Well, I think he’s a very nice young man,” contributed Gran, whose hearing aid was working perfectly today.
“Has everyone guessed?” Claire said, glowering.
“I’m afraid we just assumed,” Robert blurted out, blushing. “The likeness is … undoubted.”
“Well,” Frank said, “I’m delighted, young lady, most delighted.” And he and Claire hugged each other awkwardly.
“What’s everyone talking about?” asked Summer crossly, and was furious when people just laughed.
“I promise, darling, that I will tell you later,” Claire said, bending to hug her daughter.
Jude heard Frank say to Gran, “And now I’ve a little girl to give that necklace to!”
At that moment Alexia and Chantal entered the room with trays of drinks and plates of food from tea for Valerie and Douglas, and everyone regrouped, chatting. The children decided they’d had enough of boring adult conversation and Alexia left the drinks to take them off to watch DVDs.
“There’s someone you haven’t met yet, Mum, Douglas,” Jude said, and stepped over to bring Euan into the circle. He’d been waiting quietly in a corner of the room, watching the proceedings, but apparently perfectly comfortable.
“I expect you’ll have heard of Euan. He’s the naturalist and author.”
“Ah, yes, a neighbor of ours went to hear you do that bookshop talk,” Douglas said as Euan shook hands with Valerie and her husband most charmingly, and they chatted for a while about books and Spain, which Euan seemed to know a little about. Now it was Jude’s turn to roll her eyes, because Valerie beheld him with great interest, and asked him at one point how long he’d known Jude.