‘And out of understandable altruistic reasons,’ Orlando added. ‘In his own way, he was honouring all those who had died around him in the war. Please remember that Mouse only heard the bare bones of the story from our father when he flew to see him in Greece before he died. He came home distraught – if you remember, I told you our father died only two years after Annie. And that was when I removed the relevant journals to the bookshop. The worst thing, I felt, was for Mouse to wallow even further in the past.’
‘He felt he’d been cheated out of everything,’ I murmured. ‘His wife, his father and his rightful inheritance.’
‘Yes. Depression is a terrible thing, Miss Star,’ Orlando sighed. ‘And at least one affliction I don’t seem to have been blighted with.’
‘Perhaps he should read them, Orlando, and discover what really happened. I feel it was Flora herself who lost the most.’
‘Agreed, although it is a crying shame the estate wasn’t passed to Grandmother Louise in trust, waiting on any children she may have had in the future – namely, our father, Laurence. And Rupert, my grandfather, was a smashing fellow.’
‘Maybe love for a child blinds us all.’
‘In many cases, yes,’ Orlando agreed. ‘Flora was a sensible and pragmatic woman. She knew that Archie, and subsequently she herself, had been culpable in the lie concerning Teddy’s birthright. He had been brought up to believe he was the natural heir. Hardly his fault, after all. If she had tried to deny him the inheritance, chances were she would have lost him forever to the fleshpots of London, spending the rest of his life indulging in wine, women and song. Which, from what her journals recount, he did anyway at High Weald. It was his wife Dixie who saved the day. She gave birth to Marguerite’s father, Michael, and kept the estate going while Teddy drank himself to death. It strikes me that High Weald has always been saved by generations of strong females.’
‘And now, Rory will inherit the title and the estate through Marguerite,’ I added as I placed the breakfast on the table and sat down.
Orlando picked up his knife and fork, and began to eat. ‘Ah, the perfect restorative. Personally, I am overjoyed that Lady Flora bequeathed the bookshop to Rupert and Louise. He managed it carefully through the bleak post-war years and I was eventually handed down a wonderful legacy. Mouse tells me the property is almost certainly more valuable than what is left of High Weald.’
‘Flora had no blood children, did she?’ I voiced one of the thoughts that had been nagging at me in the early hours of this morning.
‘No.’ Orlando eyed me. ‘So you have made the connection?’
‘I think so.’
‘Yes, well, it is indeed a shame, Miss Star, for I feel you would have made an extremely elegant British aristocrat. But it seems from the facts at hand that there is not an ounce of royal blood in you.’
‘Then why did my father give me the Fabergé cat as my clue?’
‘Aha! From the moment you told me of your quest, that is the thing that has puzzled me most. From what you have told me of your father – and mark my words, I have listened to everything you have said and, might I add, haven’t said – I have believed it must have been for a reason.’
‘What do you think it was?’ I thought I knew, but I wanted to hear it from Orlando first.
‘He needed something that would definitively link you to the Vaughan line, rather than the Forbes. And Teddy was Lady Flora’s adoptive son. So one must look to his bloodline . . .’
‘You mean the Land Girl’s illegitimate baby?’ I finally voiced my suspicion.
‘There! I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’ Orlando put his two fists under his chin and studied me. ‘You told me that fateful day at the bookshop when you returned to retrieve your precious plastic folder that the coordinates from the armillary sphere had placed you as being born in London.’
‘Yes.’
‘And where did our Land Girl live?’
‘In the East End of London.’
‘Yes. And what address did your coordinates pinpoint when you researched them on the internet?’
‘Mare Street, E8.’
‘Which is . . . ?’
‘In Hackney.’
‘Yes. The East End of London!’ Orlando tipped his head back and thumped the table, overjoyed by his own insight and cleverness. It irritated me, for my heritage wasn’t a laughing matter. ‘Do forgive me, Miss Star, one can’t help finding the irony amusing. You came to me with a Fabergé cat, which linked you to a king of England. And we discover that you are almost certainly no blood relation of either royalty or the Vaughans. But just possibly, the illegitimate great-granddaughter of our much-maligned cuckoo in the nest.’
I felt sudden tears welling up behind my eyes. Even though I understood Orlando’s non-emotional and analytical brain, the fact he found it all so hilarious cut me to the core.
‘I don’t care where I came from,’ I countered angrily. ‘I . . .’ And as a thousand suitable ripostes entered my exhausted brain, I stood up instead. ‘Excuse me, I’m going for a walk.’
Grabbing an ancient Barbour and a pair of wellies from the lobby, I threw on both and marched out into the freezing morning. And as I passed out of the gates, I berated Pa Salt sitting somewhere up there in the heavens, and questioned his reasoning. At best, I was apparently the illegitimate great-granddaughter of a man who had unwittingly stolen High Weald from under the nose of the legitimate heir. At worst, I was nothing. Nothing to do with any of it.
As I turned right along the lane, my feet took me automatically onto the blackberry path, as Rory and I had named it. Tears blurred my vision as Orlando’s laughter rang in my ears. Had he meant to humiliate me? Had he enjoyed the fact that he could prove unequivocally that I had come from nothing? That his so-called aristocratic blood made him superior? Why were the British so obsessed with social position?
‘Just because they stampeded through the world and formed an empire and had a royal family doesn’t mean anything. People are equal, wherever they come from,’ I hissed angrily at a magpie, who cocked its head at me, blinked, and then flew away. ‘It doesn’t matter in Switzerland,’ I told myself. ‘It wouldn’t have mattered to Pa Salt, I know it wouldn’t. So why . . . ?’
Stomping down the path, I hated myself for my desperate need to belong to somewhere or someone that wasn’t CeCe or the surreal fantasy world Pa Salt had created at Atlantis for his disparate flock of doves. To forge a world of my own, that just belonged to me.
Having reached an open field, I sank onto a tree stump, put my head in my hands, and cried my eyes out. Eventually, I pulled myself together and wiped my eyes harshly. Come on, Star, control your emotions. This is getting you nowhere.
‘Hi, Star. You okay?’
I turned and saw Mouse standing a few feet away from me. ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’
‘You don’t look it. Want a cup of tea?’
I gave him the kind of shrug I’d normally credit to a recalcitrant teenager.
‘Well, I’ve just boiled the kettle.’ He indicated behind him, and I realised I’d wandered blindly into the field that backed onto Home Farm.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.
‘Why are you sorry?’
‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’
‘No problem. Do you want that cup of tea or not?’