“Sylvia?” Isobel whispered. Was this her sister? She didn’t recognize or remember anything about her. She glanced at the women stood around the bed. Might one of them be able to explain? Not one of them met her gaze.
“Sylvia?” she repeated, a little louder, and the fat face melted into a smile of sweet coyness, and the cheeks bunched up into two rosy orbs, and the huge woman opened her mouth and gurgled like a baby.
“That’s what she keeps doing all the time, m’am,” Mistress Paignton, the Housekeeper, explained. “She wants feeding and we have precious little to give her.”
The other women muttered and nodded in agreement.
“I’ve sent to the village for supplies.” Mistress Paignton folded her arms, and her voice moaned with weary tiredness. “But she’ll have to wait until the cart arrives.”
Isobel said; “I don’t think she recognises me.”
“Hard to say, m’am. She’s not spoken a word since we found her.”
“Sylvia?” Isobel stepped closer to the bed. “I’m Isobel. Do you remember me?” Strange, speaking to her elder sister like a child. “Are you all right? Were you hurt in the fire?”
Sylvia lifted her hand and waved her fingernails to encourage Isobel closer.
“Take care, m’am,” Mistress Paignton warned. “Those nails is lethal. One of my girls got a nasty scratch off of one of them. She thinks you’re coming to feed her.”
“How did she get here?” Isobel asked. “Like that, on the bed?”
“Don’t rightly know, m’am. But my guess is that the floor gave way and she sort of fell here.”
“From the top of the House?”
“As I say, m’am, I don’t rightly know.”
That Sylvia lived was a relief, though she had to admit to being at a loss as to know how to communicate with her.
Sylvia beamed and gurgled and waved her fingernails. Was it a greeting, or excitement at seeing a new face? Decisions concerning her sister’s welfare were now her responsibility. That terrible size must be some sort of illness that required immediate medical attention. She might speak again if she lost weight.
“What plans have been made for her?” she asked Mistress Paignton.
“The men are making some sort of pulley to lift her onto the cart when it arrives.”
“That’s good. I want her taken to London. I will go ahead and make arrangements for her arrival. I would like you and your women to travel with her.”
“Yes, m’am.”
A hint of weary insolence coloured Mistress Paignton’s reply; Isobel overlooked it. Her duty, as head of the family, was to take immediate control of all household matters. “Thank you Mistress Paington. I’m very grateful for all your help.”
“Thank you, m’am.”
Sylvia opened and shut her mouth and made munching noises.
“I’ll see you very soon in London Sylvia,” Isobel explained. “I’m going to help you to get better.”
She waved goodbye, and Sylvia waved back, rattling her fingernails.
The light faded as the clouds rolled in. Isobel wandered along the gravel drive and peered through the broken windows. She glanced back at the marble staircase to realign herself with the layout of the old House, though apart from that one indomitable feature, nothing remained that she recognised. It was all ruined; a jumbled mass that held no meaning.
She didn’t feel sad, or angry, just numb. Maybe in time she might understand the importance of losing this symbol of her wealth and privilege and be able to grieve for it, and for her brother too, for it was remembering him that stopped her from crying. His determination to destroy her without the slightest qualm of conscience chilled her into incomprehension. She felt grateful for the warmth still emanating from the smouldering rubble.
That final meeting in her bedroom, that look of hatred in his eyes as he attempted to poison her, his obsessive desire to have his own way regardless of the consequences, that lack of filial love, to forgive all that would be hard. Perhaps she never would, perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps it was for others to feel sympathy, and for her to concur, knowing that deep inside, her thoughts and feelings would always be different. If it meant living a lie for the rest of her life, well that was the price she paid for being alive.
She crouched over a pile of broken porcelain that had once been an enormous jardinière, and shifted the jagged pieces to approximate the shape it had once displayed so proudly.
She had lied to The Chief last night. She hadn’t told him Gregor’s name. Somehow, somewhere, she thought she might meet the Russian again. She didn’t know why she thought this, and deep down, hoped it wouldn’t happen. He had betrayed her and led her into a trap, and yet it wasn’t entirely his fault. He had looked after her too, and she owed him that for keeping her silence. He didn’t deserve to be caught. Did he still have the diamond? Or did Dunyasha, or Konstantin? Had it perished in the fire? She didn’t think so. She suspected the Russians had it hidden, though of course she would never know; unless by chance she met Gregor again, and was able to ask.
“Excuse me, ma’m.” A boy stood before her, red faced and puffing. “I’ve been sent to tell you that the young man is awake, and that a carriage has been prepared for you.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there directly.”
There was nothing more to be done. She covered the broken porcelain with black ash. Bury it, hide it, cover it as if it never existed. Like the Russian White, hiding in dark places and concealed by lies and deceit. The diamond’s appearance provoked nothing but fear and turmoil. Though its’ possible whereabouts intrigued her, it was no longer her concern. No longer important to her life, she decided. She stood up and walked round to the stables. She had James, and she didn’t wish for anything more.
He was standing by the stable doors, and she embraced him with a strength that made him stagger under its intensity.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered.
She helped him into the carriage, and wrapped a blanket around them both, and they snuggled underneath to keep warm. She closed her eyes and held him.
The carriage swept down the drive and out through the Park gates onto the London Road. And she didn’t look back once.
An hour later the cart arrived from the village, and Mistress Paignton and her women fed Sylvia. She wanted every morsel, large and small, that filled the baskets, but Mistress Paignton kept strict control of the rations.
“You want to save some for later, m’lady.”
Sylvia didn’t understand, and grunted and huffed when the food stopped coming.
The men attached ropes to the bed and hoisted Sylvia onto the cart. Two huge shire horses needed all their strength to move her down the drive. The procession moved slowly; it would be many days before Sylvia reached London.
The few staff left in Parklands hunted for anything that might be salvageable. Without a job, and some of them without a home, they contemplated the need to rely on friends and relatives to take them in and give them shelter. The odd item might fetch a bit, though there was precious little to find. The older staff found it very hard to leave the place they had called “home” for so many years. The last couple left at mid-day, and pulled the iron gates shut at the end of the drive.
The afternoon light faded to dusk and the clouds released their downpour. The remaining pockets of fire hissed in a mist of white smoke, and the rain cascaded down the marble steps, and the charred timbers dripped with black water.
One beam that leant against the Grand Staircase, slipped sideways and crashed onto a pile of broken plaster. A hand emerged and groped for support. Broken bricks clattered and a man, black with burns and soot, staggered out from underneath the stairs.
Terrington leant against the marble steps and breathed in the cold air. The rain stung his burnt skin, and his scorched clothes turned sodden in a moment. He tipped his head back, opened his mouth and let it fill with rainwater, which he swallowed in one long draught. Its coolness soothed his parched throat, and he stood for a long time and drank the rain.