‘Hello, Star,’ the facsimile said.
I stared at her – at her face, at her body – and then I couldn’t see any more because my eyes were blinded by tears. Of anger, fear or love, I didn’t know which.
‘Star,’ said Mouse gently. ‘This is Sylvia Gray. Your mother.’
I don’t remember much of the next few minutes, only that Mouse’s arms shielded me as I cried onto his shoulder.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘I went to Cambridge to listen to her lecture, then introduced myself to her afterwards. She was desperate to come and meet you. Tell me what to do.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, my voice muffled by his Barbour.
Then I felt another pair of arms folding around me. ‘I’m so sorry too,’ she said. ‘Forgive me, Star, forgive me. I’ve never forgotten you for a moment. I swear. I thought of you every day.’
‘NO!’ I shouted and shrugged her off.
I ran through the lobby and outside into the bracing November air, down into the garden, where I paced through the maze of weeds and plants. I didn’t need a past, I didn’t need a mother . . . I just wanted a future – one that was safe, real and clean. And that woman waiting to pounce on me inside High Weald was none of those things.
I made my way blindly to the greenhouse, where Archie had once nurtured his seedlings, which Flora had carefully planted so they’d grown strong and firm out of love. And sank to the floor, shivering with cold.
How dare she come chasing after me! And how dare Mouse bring her here? Does this family really think they can control my life like this?
‘Star? Are you in here?’
I don’t know how much time had passed when I heard Mouse enter the greenhouse.
‘I’m so very sorry, Star. It was badly thought out. I should have warned you, asked your permission . . . When I went to Cambridge that night, and then saw Sylvia afterwards and told her who I was and who Orlando and I thought you were, she begged me to bring her here to High Weald to meet you.’
‘She probably wants to see the house her grandfather owned, not me,’ I spat.
‘Well, maybe she wants to see that as well, but she wanted to see you more, I swear.’
‘She hasn’t wanted to for twenty-seven years, so why now?’
‘Because her mother lied to her and said you had died when you were a baby. She even has a faked death certificate for you that her mother gave her.’
‘What?’ I looked up at him then.
‘It’s true. But . . .’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘I think it’s her job to explain all this to you, not mine. Star, forgive me. This was wrong, the whole thing . . . we should have respected your wishes. But when I saw her, her desperation to meet you overwhelmed me.’
I didn’t reply. I had to think.
‘Well, I’ll leave you be. And again, I apologise.’
‘It’s okay.’ I wiped my nose on my sleeve and stood up. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Garnering every sinew in my body to help me to standing, I did so. I wobbled towards him and he clasped a strong arm around me, taking me back through the walled garden and into the house.
Arriving back in the kitchen, I could see that Sylvia had been crying. Her perfect, subtle make-up had slid underneath her eyes, and she suddenly looked far more fragile than when she had first walked in.
‘How about I put the kettle on?’ Mouse suggested.
‘Good idea,’ said the woman who was apparently my mother.
Mouse duly filled the kettle as I stood shivering with my back to the range, trying to pull myself together.
‘Will you come and sit down?’
‘Why did you give me away?’ I blurted out.
Her face crumpled, and there was a pause as she delved deep for the words. ‘I didn’t, Star. After you were born during the Easter vacation, my mother insisted I should return to Cambridge to take my first-year exams. She was ambitious for me. I was bright, clever . . . In me she saw a future that she’d been denied. She’d had a hard life – my father had died young, leaving her to bring me up alone . . . She was bitter, Star. Very bitter.’
‘So you blame your mother now, do you?’ I shot back, horrified to hear the bitterness in my own voice.
‘You have every right to be angry. But I swear to you, when I left you that May in the care of my mother, you were a healthy, bouncing and very beautiful baby. The plan was that she would look after you until I’d finished university and completed my degree. I hadn’t even thought about giving you away. Not once, I swear. But yes, if you want the truth, I needed to make both of our lives better. Then just a few days after my exams were over, I got a letter saying you had died – from cot death apparently.’ She reached into her slim leather handbag and pulled out an envelope. ‘This is the death certificate she gave me. Take a look at it.’
‘How can something like that be forged?’ I demanded, not taking it from her.
‘Easily, if you happen to be as good as married to the local doctor. After my father died, she was his daily for years. He was probably as eager to assist my mom as she was to deceive me. He was a horrible man – a staunch member of the local Catholic community; he probably felt I should be punished too.’
‘By telling you your baby was dead?’ I shook my head. ‘This is difficult to believe. How did you even know I was alive now, if you thought I . . . wasn’t?’
‘Because my mom passed away a few weeks ago. I didn’t attend the funeral – I hadn’t spoken to her in almost twenty-seven years. But I did receive a letter from her solicitor, to be opened after her death. In it, she confessed what she had done all those years ago. Of course she did,’ my mother said, more to herself than to me. ‘She probably thought she was off to hell, after the terrible lie she had told me.’
‘Did the letter say who had adopted me?’
‘She said the doctor had given you to the priest at the church, who had taken you to an orphanage somewhere in the East End. But when I went there only two days ago, just before I met Mouse, they said they had no record of any baby by the name of “Lucy Charlotte Brown”.’
‘My adoptive father would never have taken me if he’d known the true circumstances,’ I said defensively.
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t have. But my mom always was a pretty efficient liar. Thank God I took after my grandmother, Tessie. What a wonderful lady she was. Worked hard all her life, and never once complained.’
My legs felt weak. I slid down the range to the floor, my arms crossed over my chest. ‘I don’t understand how Pa Salt found me.’
‘Pa Salt is your adoptive father?’
I ignored her. ‘Why couldn’t you find my name at the orphanage?’
‘The priest may well have registered you under a different name, but interestingly, there wasn’t a single baby who came in during the two weeks after she’d told me you were dead. I checked the original records with the secretary while I was there. I truly don’t know, Star. I’m sorry.’
‘And now my father’s dead too, and I can never ask him.’ My head was swimming. I folded my arms across my knees and rested my head on them.
‘Well,’ came Mouse’s voice. ‘Your coordinates point to Mare Street, which is where Patricia Brown – your grandmother – lived until her death. That’s where your coordinates sent you, not to an orphanage. Perhaps some form of private adoption was arranged. It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ he added after a pause. ‘That you both began to search for each other at a similar moment in time?’
‘If she’s telling the truth,’ I muttered.
‘She is, Star. Trust me, no one could have made up a story like this on the hoof, when I confronted her after the lecture,’ he murmured as he put a steaming cup of tea on the floor next to me.
‘And Mouse wouldn’t have let me near you if he hadn’t believed me,’ said Sylvia. ‘He even checked the National Archives to see if your death had been officially registered. It hadn’t. Oh Star, I was so, so happy! I’d tried and failed to trace you, comi
ng over early on this trip to England to try again. I’d all but given up hope when your young man appeared.’
‘He’s not my young man.’
‘Your friend then,’ she corrected herself.
‘Why did you change your name?’
‘After my mom told me about your death, I lost it for a while. Really, I wouldn’t have put it past her to have murdered you with her own bare hands. She even told me she’d arranged your funeral herself so as to spare me the pain. I went home immediately, of course, to make sure she wasn’t lying, which was when she gave me the death certificate. Then I accused her of not caring for you . . .’ My mother bit her lip and I saw genuine pain in her eyes. ‘And she threw me out of the house. I swore I’d never return home again. And I didn’t. I stayed in Cambridge, working during the holidays to support myself. I wanted to disassociate myself from her completely. And I figured if I changed my name, she’d never be able to find me.’
‘Who was my father?’
‘He was my boss at the clothing factory I worked at during the summer before I went to Cambridge to gather some money to support myself through university. Married of course . . . Christ! I’m so ashamed to tell you this . . .’
I watched as my mother put her head in her hands and wept. I did not comfort her. I couldn’t. Eventually, she recovered herself and continued.
‘It’s not me who should be crying. I have no excuses, but he seemed so glamorous to me at the time, took me out to dinner at fancy restaurants, told me I was beautiful . . . Jesus! I was so naive. You have no idea what my mother was like: so overprotective, and all that church stuff she insisted I attend all the way through my childhood. I hadn’t any real idea of how to stop myself from getting pregnant. Take it from me, the Catholic version doesn’t work. You were the inevitable result.’
‘Would you have aborted me if you could have done?’
‘I . . . don’t know. I’m trying to be as truthful as I can here, Star. The point was, after that summer, I got to Cambridge and in November, I finally twigged something wasn’t right. I asked a friend and she bought me a pregnancy test. A doctor confirmed I was already over four months gone.’
As she picked up her cup to take a sip of the tea, I saw her hands were shaking violently. And felt the first stirrings of sympathy for her. She doesn’t have to put herself through this, I thought. She could have denied any knowledge of me to Mouse.
‘I’m sorry if I’m being rude,’ I offered.
‘She isn’t normally,’ Mouse chipped in for good measure. ‘Your daughter has changed us all since she arrived in our lives.’
I looked up at him and saw he was gazing down at me with something akin to affection.
‘Well then, I’ll leave you to it.’ He walked from the kitchen and I had a sudden urge to call him back.
‘Here, I brought you something I had made for you when I arrived back in Cambridge just after you were born. I was going to put it round your wrist when I next went home to see you.’ Sylvia stood up and walked over to kneel down next to me. ‘It was a little keepsake for while I couldn’t be with you myself.’
She handed me a small leather jewellery box. I opened it and saw the name of a Cambridge jeweller printed in gold on the inside. Lying on the blue velvet was a tiny bracelet. I took it out and studied the one heart-shaped charm dangling from it.
Lucy Charlotte
21/04/1980
‘I was going to add a charm to it every year on your birthday, but I never had the chance to give it to you. Until now. Here.’ She took the box back from me, then pulled out the central velvet display and produced a yellowing piece of paper. She handed it to me, and I read it. It was a receipt for the bracelet, dated 20th May 1980. The amount was for £30. ‘That was a lot in those days.’ She smiled at me weakly, and I noticed the enormous diamond engagement ring twinkling on her finger, and smelt her sweet, expensive perfume. I sat silently as I played with the tiny bracelet. And admitted that, if this was all a hoax, it was a pretty good one.
‘Lucy . . . Star, would you please look at me?’ Reaching out, she tipped my chin up towards her. ‘I loved you then, and I love you now. Please, please believe me.’
She smiled at me, her blue eyes still blurred with tears.
And suddenly, I did.
‘Could I . . . can I have a hug? I’ve waited so long,’ she entreated me.
I didn’t say no, and she moved towards me, her arms pulling me into an embrace. After a long hesitation, my arms moved around her of their own accord, and I felt myself hugging her back.
‘It’s a miracle,’ she murmured into my hair, as she stroked it with her gentle hands. ‘My baby . . . my beautiful baby girl . . .’
‘You okay?’ Mouse asked me as he wandered into the kitchen a good hour later to find us both still sitting on the floor with our backs pressed to the warm range.
‘Yes.’ I smiled up at him. ‘We’re fine.’
‘Well,’ he said as he surveyed us, ‘call me if you need me.’ He walked to the door, then turned back. ‘It’s like looking at two peas in a pod.’ Then he left the room.
‘That Mouse is a good guy,’ my mother said as she continued to stroke my fingers, as if imprinting them on her memory. She hadn’t stopped touching me in the past hour, apologising by saying she just had to convince herself that I was real and she wasn’t dreaming. ‘Is he related to us?’
‘No.’
I’d tried to give her a brief history of myself and my childhood growing up with my five sisters at Atlantis. Then we had moved on to High Weald and the complexities of the Forbes/Vaughan family.
‘I hear Mouse has a rather unusual brother. Orlando is his name, I believe?’ she said.
‘Yes, and he’s wonderful.’
‘I think that Mouse has a real soft spot for you, Star. And by the way, I’m so happy that your adoptive father gave you such a beautiful name. It suits you. You know “Lucy” means “light”?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, you are a “star” that shines brightly,’ she smiled.
We continued talking, often veering off track when a question came to mind. I learnt about my three half-siblings – all a lot younger than me, and named ‘James’ after Joyce, ‘Scott’ after Fitzgerald and ‘Anna’ after Tolstoy’s tragic heroine. She told me she was very happily married to Robert, their father. Their life sounded truly idyllic.
‘Robert knows about you, of course. He was very supportive when I got the letter from my mom’s solicitor a few weeks ago. He’s going to be thrilled when I call him to say I’ve actually found you. He’s a good man,’ she added. ‘You’d like him.’
‘I was offered a place at Cambridge,’ I confessed suddenly.
‘You were? Wow! That’s some achievement these days. It was easier to get a place in my time, especially as I came from what was classed as an underprivileged background. The government was very hot on egalitarianism back then. You did far better than me. Why didn’t you take it up?’
‘It would have meant leaving my sister. And we needed each other.’
‘Is that CeCe? The one you live with in London?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you could go back now if you wanted to. It’s never too late to change your destiny, you know.’
‘You sound like Pa Salt.’ I smiled. ‘That’s the kind of thing he’d always say.’
‘I’m liking the sound of your Pa Salt. What a shame I can never meet him.’
‘Yes, he was a wonderful parent to all of us girls.’
I felt her shudder slightly next to me, but recover quickly.
‘So, have you any idea what you want to do with your life now that you’ve settled in England?’
‘Not really, no. I mean, I thought I wanted to write, but it’s harder than it looks and I’m not sure I’m any good.’
‘Maybe it’s not the moment right now, and it’ll happen later, as it does for many writers. It certainly did for me.’
‘I actually like the simple stuff a
lot: keeping house, cooking, gardening . . .’ I turned to her suddenly. ‘I’m not very ambitious. Is that wrong?’
‘Of course it’s not! I mean, we’re all glad that female emancipation has moved on, and let me tell you, in the 1980s we girls really were the pioneers, the first generation of educated women to put a foot – or should I say a stiletto – firmly in the male-dominated workplace. But I think that what we did simply offered choice to the women who followed us. In other words, enabled them to be who they wanted to be.’
‘Then is it okay to say that, just now, I don’t really want a career?’
‘It’s fine, honey,’ she said as she squeezed my hand tightly and kissed the top of my head. ‘That’s the freedom my generation has given you; and there’s nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom, although I know all too well it makes it easier if you can find someone who is prepared to support you while you bring up the kids.’
‘Well, I haven’t got that,’ I chuckled.
‘You will, baby, you will.’
‘Er, hi,’ Mouse said from the kitchen door. ‘Just to say that Orlando called: he, Marguerite and Rory are on their way back from Tenterden.’
‘Then I’d better go.’
As my mother made to stand up, I pulled her back. ‘Is it okay if she stays, Mouse?’
‘Yes, Star,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘It’s absolutely fine.’
43
That evening, I decided as I slipped into bed much later, was one of the best I’d ever had. The Vaughans and Forbes had arrived en masse, and – obviously well primed by Orlando and Mouse – had welcomed Sylvia with open arms.
‘After all, she is family,’ Marguerite had laughed as she lit one of her endless Gitanes and drank countless glasses of red wine, while I cooked a joint of beef that Orlando had brought home with him from the farm shop. At the dinner table, we’d all explained further to Sylvia just how she – and I – fitted into the family jigsaw puzzle. And as the wine flowed, I’d felt some form of ease seep through the ancient, damp walls of High Weald. As though the secrets of the past had finally shaken down like a flurry of snowflakes and were starting to settle calmly on the ground.
The Shadow Sister Page 48